Enjoy these limited-time deals on must-have Samsung Galaxy S8 accessories

Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, have just started shipping, and there are already a myriad of cases, docks, and other accessories available. We gave Samsung’s new phones an enthusiastic review, so if you’re lucky enough to be the proud owner of an S8 or S8 Plus, or even if you’re just considering buying one, we’ve rounded up some of the best deals going right now on some excellent Galaxy S8 accessories.

iPulse Journal Series Italian leather flip case

The first thing you’re likely to buy for your shiny new device is a case to protect it and keep it looking nice. Leather wallet cases are an attractive way to cover your phone and carry your cards and cash, but many are made from thin, fake, or low-grade leather. The Journal series wallet cases from iPulse, now available for the S8 and S8 Plus, are crafted from thick, full-grain Italian leather that will age beautifully and is built to last.

Along with holding your phone, the iPulse leather flip cases offer three card slots, an ID slot, and a pocket for cash. They are currently priced at $30 on Amazon, giving you a $40 discount off of their retail cost.

Buy it for the S8

Buy it for the S8 Plus

Spigen Slim Armor wallet case

If leather isn’t your style, or if you just want a tough, hard cover, check out the Spigen Slim Armor cases. Its sturdy polycarbonate housing protects the body of your phone from scuffs and scratches, while raised bevels surround the screen to guard it against impacts.

The back panel slides open to reveal space for two cards or a few bills without significantly adding to the overall size, keeping the case at a pocket-friendly thickness of half an inch. These cases normally go for $36 to $40, but are now available for the S8 and S8 Plus for as low as $16 on Amazon.

Buy it for the S8

Buy it for the S8 Plus

Maxboost screen protector two-pack

Along with a good case, a screen protector is a must-have item. While scuffs and even cracks on the phone’s body aren’t necessarily a huge deal, they can be disastrous on the screen, which tends to be the most fragile part of your device.

Maxboost now has screen protector two packs available for the S8 and S8 Plus, so if you want some extra protection, you can score these flexible adhesive covers for $13 on Amazon after a $7 discount. Maxboost even includes a lifetime hassle-free warranty, so if you have any problems applying the screen protector, or if it gets damaged, you will receive a free replacement.

Buy it for the S8

Buy it for the S8 Plus

Encased rapid charging desktop dock

Desktop docks are handy devices that offer a more elegant solution to the standard AC adapter that smartphones typically use. A unit like the Encased rapid charging dock lets you simply attach your Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus to the cradle so you can continue to use the display while it powers up. Set it on your desk and connect the dock to your computer, or put it on your nightstand and let your phone double as a bedside alarm clock as it charges overnight.

The Encased dock normally goes for $40, but a $15 savings brings this attractive charging cradle down to just $25 on Amazon.

$25 on Amazon

Griffin iTrip Bluetooth headphone adapter

Smartphones are great for listening to music on the go, and have all but replaced the old MP3 players we used to know and love. Having to pull your phone out of your pocket to control music playback can be an annoyance, but Griffin’s iTrip Bluetooth headphone adapter solves this little problem.

This convenient miniature clip-on device syncs with your Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus smartphone, and serves as a handy remote for controlling your music, so you can leave your smartphone in your bag or pocket while you listen. Your headphone cable can also plug right into the adapter, so you don’t have to worry about routing the cord. A 15 percent discount lets you snag this iTrip adapter for $17 directly from Griffin.

$17 from Griffin Technology

Encased car mount

Car mounts are often-overlooked phone when it con=mes to accessories, but they can add a lot of versatility to your mobile device. You can mount your phone on your car’s dash or windshield for safer hands-free calling, or even turn your smartphone’s display into a heads-up GPS, effectively replacing the bulky car GPS units of the past.

Encased’s excellent car mount works with your S8 or S8 Plus, even when you’re using a case with your device, and you can easily mount and remove your phone with one hand for safe use when you’re on the road. You can also rotate your Galaxy phone vertically or horizontally to suit your current task. This discounted mount can be yours for just $18 on Amazon.

Buy it for the S8

Buy it for the S8 Plus

Meet the 400-pound robots that will soon patrol parking lots, offices, and malls

Why it matters to you

Instead of seeing human security guards, we’re entering an era where robots patrol for crime.

Chances are you haven’t heard of Knightscope, a security startup founded way back in 2013. But it won’t be long before you come face to face with one of its strange creations: the K5.

The K5 is a 400-pound, 6-foot tall autonomous security robot that roves parking lot aisles, the hallways of office campuses, sports stadium foyers, and shopping malls on the prowl for suspicious activity. Looking something like a mix between a Dalek from Doctor Who and Eve from Wall-E, it packs sensors like a LIDAR (light detection and ranging) array and cameras that help it differentiate between a harmless passerby and potential criminal, and it feeds all that data to the cloud.

Stacy Stephens, a former police officer who co-founded the company in after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, described Knightscope’s robots as a compliment to human law enforcement. Rather than replace human police officers and private security guards, the robots — which Knightscope calls “fully autonomous security data machines” — fill in the blind spots.

Those areas where guards refuse to patrol. Knightscope’s robots have been deployed under dangerous bridges in San Francisco, crime-ridden public parking lots, and homeless encampments. One Knightschope client in southern California managed to bring break-ins to a halt, Stephen told Digital Trends.

The company’s secret sauce is sensors. Lots of them. Knightscope’s robots pack infrared cameras sharp enough to make out license plates, and onboard wireless that identifies smartphones down to the MAC and IP addresses. On the backend, Knightscope can blacklist individual phones, faces, or even cars. When an intruder is detected, the company alerts its clients.

Knightscope stores all that data for posterity, too, for as long as clients wish — in some cases up to 15 years. An individual robot uploads more than 90 terabytes of data a year via Wi-Fi and cellular, Stephen said.

The robots, which come in two models — one for indoor use and one for outdoor use — are available on a subscription basis. Knightscope’s plans start at about $7 an hour for 24/7 surveillance (about $62,000 annually), and include monthly software updates, maintenance, and remote assistance from the company’s 2,000 technicians.

Knightscope sees potential for its robots just about everywhere. It counts Microsoft, Juniper Networks, the Sacramento Kings, and NBC Universal among its current clients. This year, it expects to sign contracts with a mall in New York, an electric utility in Florida, a monitoring and response center in Texas, a pharmaceutical company and mall in Massachusetts, and a corporate campus in California.

In total, Knightscope plans to service 17 clients in 16 cities across five states by the end of 2017.

It’s filed a mini-IPO earlier this year to help achieve that objective. So far, it’s raised $15 million, and aims to raise an additional $20 million in the near future.

Charge your iPad and Apple Pencil at the same time with the ProBack Cover

Why it matters to you

Keeping your Apple Pencil charged is difficult enough, and not losing it is yet another issue. This iPad cover wants to solve both those problems.

The Apple Pencil may be a great piece of hardware when it is in use, but when you have to charge it? That is a whole different story. While the Pencil is meant to be used in conjunction with the iPad, there is not a solution to charge both of them at once — at least not in a particularly effective manner. But the ProBack Cover wants to change that. Heralded as the first and only iPad Pro case that will allow you to charge both your Apple Pencil and iPad Pro at the same time, the ProBack Cover protects your tablet from scratches while storing and charging the Apple Pencil safely and securely from the side.

With just over three weeks left in its Kickstarter campaign, the ProBack Cover has garnered interest from around 200 backers who have pledged nearly $11,000 to bring the product to market. The idea for the Cover originated when iPad enthusiast Michael Pang discovered that there was no portable and convenient solution to both protect his iPad Pro and charge the Apple Pencil he often used to write on the tablet. So he partnered with Studio Tika Innovation, and thus, the ProBack Cover was born.

The iPad case promises seamless charging, juicing both the Pencil and the Pro at the same time. When you’re using the Apple Pencil, keep its cap safe and sound with the Cover’s magnetic holder. The Cover is also compatible with smart keyboards and boasts speakers that will amplify your iPad’s sound.

Currently, you can pre-order a ProBack Cover from Kickstarter for the early bird price of $29 (the retail value stands at $50). Delivery is expected in June and the team says that everything has already been tested and is just in need of final mass production. So if you’ve been looking for a way to keep your Apple Pencil charged and safe, this may be for you.

Apple Pay could soon take on Venmo, Square Cash with money-transfer service

Why it matters to you

Money-transfer apps are extremely popular now, and integrating such a service into Apple Pay could push millions of iPhone users to get on board the company’s payment platform.

Apple is getting serious about expanding its digital wallet service into money transfers, and could announce the new service later this year. The feature would transform Apple Pay into a competitor to apps like PayPal’s Venmo and Square Cash, which allow users to send money to one and another through the use of an attached bank account or credit card, Recode reports.

The article cites sources familiar with the company’s plans, but offers conflicting reports; one source says a formal announcement can be expected later this year, while another says the launch is still up in the air. Either way, Apple was rumored to be considering such a service back in 2015, but nothing materialized after it convened with several large American banks.

If money transfers through Apple Pay are indeed back on again, it could prove to be a massive boon to the company’s platform. While Apple Pay was reported to be the leading digital payment system in the United States back in February, there’s still enormous room for growth as new retailers support the service and make it more ubiquitous.

To that end, another report claims Apple Pay may actually leave the iPhone in the form of a physical prepaid debit card, which could use those funds acquired through money transfers. Of course, those funds would be available on the device as well, but a physical card adds the benefit of a credit card number, which could be used for payments on websites. Recode says the card would run on Visa’s network, and the two companies were recently in talks about the partnership.

Financial institutions, however, are worried such a move would bolster Apple Pay at the expense of their own credit and debit cards, as the company could easily give priority to its payment method within the app while downplaying everything else. It’s rumored that these companies could be pressuring Visa against working with Apple — possibly delaying the related money-transfer service and contributing to Apple’s indecision over when and how to launch the effort.

Synthetic material replicates photosynthesis to generate energy, clean air

Why it matters to you

Scientists have figured out how to use a synthetic material to trigger artificial photosynthesis, generating energy and converting greenhouse gases into clean air.

Scientists at the University of Central Florida have discovered a method for triggering artificial photosynthesis using a synthetic material — opening up a new way to both generate energy and also convert greenhouse gases into clean air.

“The practical applications of this work include the development of future technology that will transform CO2 (carbon dioxide) into useful materials, including what we call ‘solar fuel,’” Dr. Fernando Uribe-Romo, a research professor who worked on the project, told Digital Trends. “This is very important because at the rate we currently emit CO2, plants on earth are not able to fixate this CO2 back into the earth — resulting in accumulation in the atmosphere, which is why we have global warming.”

The work involved the preparation of materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). These materials contain nanometer-sized holes, making them small enough to absorb carbon dioxide into the material. They are then able to capture sunlight and store its energy in chemical bonds, transforming carbon dioxide into an intermediate state between CO2 and sugar.

Previous work by scientists has demonstrated that MOF materials can be used in this way to absorb energy from natural light. However, those earlier materials were both pricey and rare, and scientists have had difficulty in developing alternative materials able to absorb sufficient energy to trigger photosynthesis.

“We made MOFs that contain titanium, a metal that is used commonly in artificial photosynthesis,” Uribe-Romo continued. “We added molecules that we call ‘light harvesting antennae’ that can help capture sun rays to promote the chemical transformations at more efficient rates.”

These light-absorbing materials are called N-alkyl-2-aminoterephthalates, and allowed for the absorption of blue light.

The eventual target, Uribe-Romo said, is to make synthetic materials that are as efficient as plants, or even more so, when it comes to carrying out photosynthesis. That could still be a way off, however. Right now, what the team has demonstrated is that this is a feasible technology. Next up is plenty more R&D to optimize the technique for real world use-cases.

“I foresee these materials being utilized primarily in large scale technologies that produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, for example power plants or in gas flare at oil refineries or oil drill sites,” Uribe-Romo concluded.

The work is described in a new paper published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

AMD Radeon Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.4 adds support for ‘Dawn of War III’

Why it matters to you

Gamers who utilize a Radeon graphics card will want to grab these drivers post-haste — especially if they’re planning on doing battle in Dawn of War III.

AMD released version 17.4.4 of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition drivers, which fixes several known issues and ensure that gamers can be confident they are getting the best possible performance from their hardware setup. The latest iteration of the package should be warmly received by users planning to put their AMD graphics card to work while running Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III.

Version 17.4.4 adds support for the hotly anticipated real-time strategy game. The company claims that the drivers offer improvements to performance as great as seven percent when measured against a Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card utilizing Version 17.4.3 of Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition.

Alongside support for Dawn of War III, which launched on Thursday, the drivers also implement a host of other bug fixes. For one, the issue causing corruption as a result of the use of HDMI scaling on certain monitors has seemingly been taken care of, according to materials released by AMD.

In terms of other recent releases, Battlefield 1 should no longer stutter while in Multi GPU mode at 4K display resolutions with DirectX 11 being employed. Meanwhile, Mass Effect: Andromeda will display HDR colors correctly on systems running the Creators Update for Windows 10, an issue that had plagued gamers since Microsoft released the update earlier this month.

Additionally, graphics cards that are part of the Radeon RX 550 series should no longer suffer a hard hang when the user has not rebooted the system for a long period of time.

A reboot prompt has been reinstated to the Radeon Software installation process, which was apparently liable to disappear as a result of a conflict with AMD XConnect technology system configurations. Finally, some incorrect or unavailable feature descriptions have been addressed in the Radeon Settings menu.

Full release notes, instructions, and installation packages for various operating systems are available from AMD’s support site.

Apple may use Wi-Fi routers for wireless charging, according to patent filing

Why it matters to you

Needing to worry about charging could soon be a thing of the past and Wi-Fi routers could play a big role in that.

Apple may be looking to revolutionize wireless charging. The company has long been rumored to implement a new wireless charging technology into the next flagship iPhone — a wireless charging technology that does away with charging mats.

We don’t yet know exactly how the new technology will work, but Apple Insider uncovered a filed patent that could show us another piece to the puzzle. The filing describes a few ways that Apple experimented with wireless charging, but perhaps the most interesting is that a phone could draw power from a Wi-Fi router.

The router would essentially use dual polarization and dual frequency antennas, which could help offer a longer charging range — so eventually you could be able to walk around your house while your device is charging one day.

Of course, this is just a patent filing — there is no official word from Apple on whether or not the company is pursuing this type of technology, or if it is looking into other wireless charging techniques. It is also possible the rumors have been false all along and the iPhone will not end up with any wireless charging whatsoever.

Another part of the patent filing shows Apple using other cellular nodes and even signals from a satellite for charging — but the Wi-Fi router does seem to make the most sense.

Hopefully, Apple’s implementation will take the form of a little more than just a wireless charging mat. It is expected that we will see a total overhaul of how we handle charging in the next few years. Companies like Energous have demonstrated true wireless charging technologies, in which users can walk around the house while their device charges. Energous’ tech didn’t use a Wi-Fi router, but rather a series of stations that can beam energy from certain distances. For example, there is a short-distance option that’s intended for desktop use, and a long-distance base that can beam energy up to 15 feet.

We will have to wait and see if Apple’s tech is anything like Energous’ but rumors suggest Apple is partnering with Energous for the iPhone.

Smartphones suck at low-light photos, but the right software could fix that

Why it matters to you

Smartphones are notoriously bad at low light, but a Google engineer just shot what could be the most detailed low-light smartphone photos yet.

When the average person accepts a dare, the result may range anywhere from a few stitches to some embarrassing photos. But when a Google software engineer accepts a challenge, the result might just be a solution that solves a common problem.

After Florian Kainz, of Google Research’s Gcam team, showed his co-workers a night landscape he’d shot with a DSLR, he was challenged to take the same photo, but with a smartphone. The result? A peek at a shooting and editing process, which he documented in a Google blog post, could eventually wind up in future Google smartphones, like the Pixel.

Kainz took inspiration from the HDR+ mode that combines multiple smartphone photos for better quality, as well as SeeInTheDark, an experimental app that produces low-light images by merging photos and dropping the resolution to a single megapixel. Using similar multiple-shot techniques, Kainz set out to see if he could shoot a photo in the dark but without the noisy images from SeeInTheDark or the limitations of HDR+.

He decided to use a similar bracketing method of merging multiple photos together to get better – and brighter – results. Unlike the automatic HDR+ feature, he merged long exposures instead of images taken at a tenth of a second, using the smartphone’s longest available shutter speed (four seconds for the Nexus 6P and two seconds for the Pixel). The longer exposures would be brighter and merging multiple brighter photos would produce better results, he theorized.

But first, he had to tackle the challenges all cameras face in the dark: focusing. Cameras need light to focus, which means even DSLR users need to switch to manual focus to shoot at night. Kainz then had to program an app that allows the camera’s focus to be manually set. For landscape photos, setting the camera’s focus at infinity worked for most of the subjects he shot, he wrote. The app also allowed him to control the shutter speed and ISO, as well as shooting in DNG, a type of digital negative with more control over the editing process.

Manual camera apps aren’t anything new, but Kainz’s experimental app also shot up to 64 single photos with one press of the shutter button – over six times the maximum ten frames the HDR+ will capture. To test the app, he shot at a number of locations during the light of a full moon as well as nights with no moon.

Kainz was able to successfully shoot low-light shots with detail not possible before, including capturing the Milky Way.

Those shots, with as many as 64 single photos including some black exposures with tape over the lens, were then taken into a desktop photo editing program and merged to eliminate the grain of high ISO. In scenarios where the ground or sky wasn’t sharp, he combined the images using layer masks to determine which parts of which photo showed in the final image.

The result? While the resolution still isn’t the same as a DSLR, Kainz was able to successfully shoot low-light shots with detail not possible before, including capturing the Milky Way.

While the process still requires a tripod, Kainz says an app that could handle the merging of those 64 photos could make low-light photography from a smartphone more accessible, even for users that have no idea how to merge 64 photos or how to use layer masks. “Trying to find out if phone cameras might be suitable for outdoor nighttime photography was a fun experiment, and clearly the result is yes, they are,” he wrote. “However, arriving at the final images required a lot of careful post-processing on a desktop computer, and the procedure is too cumbersome for all but the most dedicated cellphone photographers. However, with the right software a phone should be able to process the images internally, and if steps such as painting layer masks by hand can be eliminated, it might be possible to do point-and-shoot photography in very low-light conditions.”

Kainz doesn’t say whether Google is working on an app that could do all the heavy processing without a desktop computer, but he says the software might just be possible. To see the rest of the shots from the experiment, check out Kainz’ Google Photos album.

Move over, Lego! Pixio building blocks click together with magnets

Why it matters to you

Legos are great, but they can be a bit limiting. Not so with Pixio, which depends on magnets instead of grooves for connection.

Legos are so yesterday. The building blocks of the future are here. Meet Pixio, a new set of magnetic blocks here to ensure that the only obstacle you have to overcome in your construction process is your own imagination.

Described as an “elegant magnetic construction set in which each cubic block can be attached to either side of another block,” Pixio allows architects, artists, and creatives as a whole to create pieces that look like pixelated art. Trust us, it’s trendy.

Each Pixio block can be connected however you want, thanks to its carefully engineered system of powerful magnets. Without any visible fixing elements, you can create just about any object your heart desires in the style of pure pixel art. Unlike Legos, you won’t have to worry about connecting at specific points. Just place it … well, anywhere.

“Many construction sets are available, but we wanted to have one that looked perfect: Without prominent connecting elements, no complicated parts of any kind, and that could be easily assembled and disassembled,” the Pixio team explains on its Kickstarter page. “For this purpose, we chose the ideal shape — a cube, like a pixel in the digital world.” And as for its connectors, Pixio depends on magnets instead of ridges and dents so that any one of the cubes’ sides can be connected with one another.

Each Pixio block measures 8 millimeters cubed and weighs just over a gram. Inside are six powerful magnets whose polarity has been arranged so that the cube can be connected in any sequence on any side. The Neodymium (Nd-Fe-B) magnets found in Pixio promise to lose no more than 2 percent of their magnetic force in five decades, so you and your children (and maybe even your grandchildren) can play with the same set. Pixio is available in 16 colors, and for $19, you can get 50 blocks in six of these colors. If you want all 16 colors, you can get a set of 800 blocks for $149. Blocks have an estimated delivery date of August 2017.

The Royole Moon Viewer is beautiful, but not very functional

The Royole Moon Viewer looks pretty, but doesn’t always work as well.

The Royole Moon Viewer headset was built to work like a stand alone VR cinema. A place where you can watch movies, listen to music, and view things in both 2D and 3D. You can use it to view .mp4 videos, listen to music, and even browse the internet. Unfortunately while it has a design that looks good, this doesn’t exactly translate well into user experience. We’ve got the details here!

Read more at VRHeads.com