‘Amazon Cash’ Lets Cardless Users Add Funds to Their Accounts With App-Based Cash Transfers

Amazon today announced a new way for its users to add funds to their Amazon accounts, called Amazon Cash. By visiting a participating retailer, Amazon users will be able to show a barcode to a cashier, choose an amount between $15 and $500, and pay the amount in cash to see it transferred digitally and able to be spent on Amazon.com.

As TechCrunch reported, Amazon Cash is aimed at “cash customers” who don’t shop online as consistently as everyone else, including people who are paid in cash, who don’t have a bank account or debit card, and who don’t use credit cards. The entire process doesn’t require any sort of fee to be paid by the user.

This “cash customer” (the unbanked or “underbanked”) accounts for around 27 percent of consumers, said a 2015 report from the FDIC.

While they may have money to spend online at times, there isn’t an easy way to do so. Until today, they would have to buy an Amazon Gift Card in a designated amount or add cash to prepaid payment cards, to be used at checkout.

More broadly, the service could appeal to anyone who just wants to deposit some cash in their Amazon.com account, without hassle.

These customers will be able to use the Amazon iOS and Android app to bring up their unique Amazon Cash barcode, which will be reused any time they want to add more money to their account. After telling the cashier how much they want added and scanning the barcode, the customer pays at the register with cash and the amount instantly appears in their Amazon account. Confirmation of the money’s arrival will be sent to users via email, text, or push notification.

Amazon Cash will even let users print out their unique barcode at home and bring it into the store in lieu of using a smartphone. Those who have a smartphone with a cracked screen are also recommended to print out the barcode instead of using their phone.

Participating U.S. stores at launch include: CVS Pharmacy, Speedway, Kum & Go, D&W Fresh Market, Sheetz, Family Fare Supermarkets, and VG’s Grocery, with more coming soon. The service is launching now across the U.S.

Tag: Amazon
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Next-Generation DDR5 RAM Will Double Speeds of DDR4 RAM as MacBook Pro Remains on DDR3

JEDEC, the organization that develops global standards for computer memory, has announced it will be previewing its next-generation DDR5 standard for RAM in June 2017. The standard is expected to be finalized by 2018, at which point chipmakers like Intel will be able to add support for the technology.

As noted by Ars Technica, DDR5 RAM will double the speed of current DDR4 RAM while offering greater power efficiency.

DDR5 memory will offer improved performance with greater power efficiency as compared to previous generation DRAM technologies. As planned, DDR5 will provide double the bandwidth and density over DDR4, along with delivering improved channel efficiency. These enhancements, combined with a more user-friendly interface for server and client platforms, will enable high performance and improved power management in a wide variety of applications.

It might be quite a while until DDR5 RAM goes mainstream, however, as the first computers with DDR4 RAM did not arrive until two years after that standard was finalized. Apple itself has yet to even adopt DDR4 RAM, with the entire current Mac lineup equipped with older DDR3 RAM.

• MacBook: 8GB of 1866MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• MacBook Air: 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• MacBook Pro: 8/16GB of 1866/2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• iMac: 8/16/32GB of 1867MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• Mac mini: 4/8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 RAM
• Mac Pro: 12/16GB of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RAM

Apple’s latest MacBook Pro models in particular use enhanced, low-power LPDDR3E RAM, which maxes out at 16GB.

Apple said the 2016 MacBook Pro does not support DDR4 RAM because of battery life considerations. DDR4 memory’s low-power variant LPDDR4 is not supported by Intel’s Skylake processors powering the latest MacBook Pro models, and using regular DDR4 RAM would have reduced space for batteries.

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller in November:

The MacBook Pro uses 16GB of very fast LPDDR memory, up to 2133MHz. To support 32GB of memory would require using DDR memory that is not low power and also require a different design of the logic board which might reduce space for batteries. Both factors would reduce battery life.

The often reliable Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said Apple will release a 15-inch MacBook with 32GB of desktop-class RAM later this year, but it is unclear which Intel processor the notebook would use.

Intel’s next-generation Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake processors do not support LPDDR4 RAM beyond ultra-low-power chips, while Cannonlake processors expected by early 2018 are not designed for the MacBook Pro.

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tag: RAM
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Neutral)
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Apple Places Order for 70 Million OLED iPhone Panels From Samsung

Production on the 2017 iPhone is moving along, with Apple recently having placed orders for 70 million OLED panels, reports Nikkei. Samsung, as we already know, will be Apple’s sole OLED supplier, and will provide Apple with the panels.

Demand for the 2017 iPhone, which is expected to feature a major design overhaul with an edge-to-edge display, glass body, and a premium price tag, is expected to be high as it typically is in a year when a new look is unveiled. Apple and Samsung are gearing up to meet demand with the large panel order.

“iPhone X” concept via Gabor Balogh
Nikkei’s info comes from a supply chain source and also matches with estimates provided by IHS Markit analyst David Hsieh.

“Apple has ordered 70 million units of OLED panels from Samsung this year, while Samsung is preparing to churn out as many as 95 million for Apple in 2017, in case demand exceeds expectations,” Hsieh said.

There have already been rumors suggesting the OLED iPhone will be in short supply when it launches in September, with the majority of the stock unavailable until later in the year, and Hsieh also believes that could be the case. “It is also possible that some of these 70 million handsets will not be shipped to customers this year and be carried over to next year depending on demand,” he said.

Nikkei’s industry source, in addition to covering panel orders, also shared some details on the upcoming device that echoes many rumors we’ve heard in the past.

The site believes we will see a premium OLED iPhone with a 5.2-inch screen and no home button, which will be sold alongside standard 4.7 and 5.5-inch devices with LCD screens and home buttons. All three iPhones will include wireless charging functionality (lately said to be inductive) and waterproofing, while at least one model, presumably the OLED iPhone, will include a 3D sensor that supports facial recognition.

Other features rumored for the iPhone 8 not mentioned in Nikkei’s report include camera improvements, a faster and more efficient A11 processor, Touch ID built into the display, True Tone ambient light adjustment, and perhaps augmented reality functionality enabled through the camera.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tag: nikkei.com
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Apple Releases iOS 10.3.1 With Bug Fixes

Just one week after releasing iOS 10.3, a major update that included Apple Filesystem and Find My AirPods, Apple has released iOS 10.3.1, which appears to be a minor update to address bugs and other issues that have popped up since the release of iOS 10.3.

iOS 10.3.1 is available as a free over-the-air update for all iOS 10 users, and it can also be downloaded via iTunes.

According to Apple’s release notes, iOS 10.3.1 includes bug fixes and improves the security of your iPhone or iPad. The notes do not go into more detail about what bug fixes or security improvements might be bundled into this release, so we’ll update this post if and when we learn more about the content of the iOS 10.3.1 update.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
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Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

Division Flashcard Match Game

Building math skills and learning to divide has never been more fun and intuitive. This app adheres to Common Core Standards for third grade math and was designed by parents and teachers.

Available on:

iOS

SaveAgram

Download videos and photos from Instagram with ease. Simply enter the Instagram link, press ‘Download Instagram,’ and the video and/or photo is saved.

Available on:

iOS

Marble Camera

Create charming Marble-style photographs with real-time Marble effects. These effects work great on selfies and other portraits but also for many other subjects.

Available on:

iOS

Fireworks Tap

This app was created for my infant son. Tap the screen and watch the fireworks explode. No extra buttons and no ads to tap on makes this perfect for everyone.

Available on:

iOS

Translate Safari

The app is a Safari extension that translates and speaks aloud the entire web page of Safari app. A must have app to translate and speak aloud foreign language content.

Available on:

iOS

Budget and expense tracking

This app is perfect for tracking expenses quickly and completely. No need to wonder where your money went — see for yourself with this app.

Available on:

iOS

Majority of Steam gamers now use Windows 10

Why it matters to you

If you’re still gaming on Windows 7, you’re quickly becoming a minority as Windows 10 adoption continues to increase.

Closing in on two years since the release of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 10, a majority of Steam gamers have now moved over to it, leaving previous standout Windows 7 in their wake. While it still has a strong showing, Windows 8.1 is seeing far less usage, and Windows Vista has all but disappeared.

Microsoft made a big play for gamer hearts with Windows 10, making the upgrade from 7 and 8.1 free for a year and offering exclusive features like DirectX 12 support. It has still taken some time for it to be adopted by gamers though and ongoing concerns like AMD Ryzen support don’t help the matter. However, gradually, gamers are moving over to the contemporary OS.

At the time of writing, the Steam Survey results tell us that with the standard and 64-bit versions of Windows 10 combined, 51.2 percent of all Steam users are running them. That gives it quite a lead over previous standout Windows 7 64-bit, which currently has 29.97 percent of the audience. Standard Windows 7 editions control just 4.77 percent now, a drop of nearly half a percent in the last month alone.

More: Customers took a stand against Windows 10’s aggressive upgrades – and won

Windows 8.1 64-bit is still holding on with a 7.72 percent share of the market — and it actually saw a 0.03 percent rise in March. Its 32-bit version is almost nonexistent at this point, though, with just 0.22 percent of Steam gamers running it (thanks MSPowerUser).

Apart from that and standard editions of Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest operating system is eating into all of the other shares. It rose 2.44 percent in the last month, showing impressive growth in such a short period. It cannibalized 1.44 percent from Windows 7 64bit during that time, but will have to go further to make it as redundant as the intermediary Windows 8.1.

Elsewhere in the spectrum, OSX saw a minor decline in March, but did see 0.4 percent of Steam gamers move over to the 10.12.3 64bit release, while Linux gamers appear to be moving to Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS 64bit. The combination of that and a couple of other distros saw an overall increase of 0.02 percent in March, giving Linux a 0.77 percent share of the total gaming market.

For those of you still running Windows 7, why haven’t you made the switch to Windows 10 yet?

PicoBrew’s newest beer-making machine is easier to use and costs under $300

Why it matters to you

The PicoBrew Pico Model C is less expensive than its predecessor, without losing any functionality.

Nobody said brewing your own beer is easy, but PicoBrew has tried to automate the process with its beer makers. With each succession, the appliances have gotten smaller and easier to use, and its newest device, the Pico Model C, is the most user-friendly version yet.

Physically, the device isn’t noticeably smaller than the original Pico, but to help lower the cost, it utilizes a black powder-coated body instead of a stainless steel one, and the OLED display is two lines, so it won’t display the same graphics as the Pico. The bigger differences lie in the keg, which loses the ball-locks that some users found confusing.

“We took the opportunity with the keg to target it a little more toward the new brewer,” Bill Mitchell, PicoBrew’s CEO, told Digital Trends. “It lowers the cost of the product, but it also makes it simpler.” Though it will eventually retail for $549, the Kickstarter campaign drops the price to $279 for very early backers.

More: Store your beer and charge your phone with this high-tech coffee table

The new keg also has a new shape. Though it has the same 1.75-gallon capacity as the old brewing keg, this one is more squat and easier to clean.

“The dip tube is similar to the dip tube you have in a smoothie cup,” said Mitchell. PicoBrew actually looked at smoothie cups for inspiration in order to make something intuitive and dishwasher-safe. The Model C works with the same PicoPacks as the original, and it still makes beer in two hours (this of course doesn’t include the week or so it takes to ferment and carbonate).

The machine recognizes exactly what pack you’ve put in, and it will adjust its settings accordingly. When the machine is helping you out, there’s very little guesswork involved, but there are still some mysteries that go into homebrewing that PicoBrew wants to solve.

Follow the fermentation

One of PicoBrew’s goals is to make novices into beer connoisseurs by teaching them about the whole brewing process. While the original Pico’s directions were mostly easy to follow, the company decided to make an app.

“One of the bits of feedback we got was during the brewing experience, everything was nice and managed, and I can watch it from my browser,” said Mitchell. “Then I’m done brewing and then what?”

With the BeerPulse app, brewers will be able to get a clearer understanding of what happens to their beer during the racking, fermentation, and carbonation phases. Mitchell compared it to having a Tamagotchi: “Your beer is a living thing, so take care of it.”

Thanks to the original Pico, the company realized newbie brewers were having issues with fermentation. They’d be using the fast fermentation method, and without a good idea of what was going on inside the keg, they’d decide it was done before it really was. They were following the chart provided by PicoBrew, but sometimes the cold temperatures in their kitchen would slow the process. The beer would come out tasting yeasty.

To combat the problem, the new Pico will have a low-power mode that lets it act as a temperature sensor. If brewers keep the keg nearby, the Pico can keep tabs on the ambient temperature and let them keep better tabs on the fermentation process. Mitchell said he hopes one day to have remote temperature sensors and hydrometers for kegs instead.

Beer-of-the-month club

The other new feature PicoBrew is rolling out with the Kickstarter campaign is its Brew Unlimited program. Aimed at those who have this brewing thing down to a science, the program provides two PicoPacks per month for $59. As soon as the machine’s RFID reader picks up that you’ve brewed one of the packs, the company will send another. If you have several kegs, you could brew several beers in a day, to get your money’s worth. PicoBrew expects to have around 200 beers by the end of the month.

Recently, the company introduced its FreeStyle packs, so users can choose which grains and hops they want to make into beer.

“To me, that’s the pinnacle of what we’re trying to get customers to do,” said Mitchell. He wants to convert wine drinkers who discuss terroir and tannins to opt for beer that’s perfectly suited to their meal.

Speaking of pairing with food, the Model C actually has the advantage over the old Pico when it comes to sous vide. There will be a special program on the new version, and you’ll be able to throw your bag of food right into the keg. The machine will circulate the water in and out to keep it a consistent temperature. Maybe one day the BrewPulse app will be able to recommend a great beer to go with that sous vided salmon.

Aorus details GTX 1060, 1080 with faster memory

Why it matters to you

If Nvidia’s GTX 1060 and 1080 graphics cards don’t quite offer enough performance for you, these factory overclocked versions might be able to sway you.

Following Nvidia’s announcement at the beginning of March that new, faster memory editions of its GTX 10 series graphics cards were coming soon, Aorus has become one of the first manufacturers to debut its version of them. Its new GTX 1060 and GTX 1080 cards have faster memory and should offer a small bump in overall performance.

Aorus’ GTX 1080 Xtreme Edition 11Gbps GDDR5X card is exactly what it says on the box: it’s the company’s Xtreme Edition GTX 1080, but with faster memory. The original version used 8GB of 10Gbps GDDR5X, but this latest version includes the higher-performing memory, giving it a speed bump.

In contrast, the GTX 1060 uses standard GDDR5 memory, but it is also getting a newly overclocked version from Aorus. It still sports 6GB of memory overall, but this time it offers 9Gbps of bandwidth, versus the 8Gbps of the standard version. It has also increased the memory clock speed by 0.3 percent.

More: Power boost: EVGA boosts clocks and cooling on GTX 1080 Ti designs

On top of that increase, Aorus has raised the core clock of the GTX 1060 9Gbps GDDR5 edition, too. It now runs at 1,623Mhz at base, boosting up to 1,860 Mhz (thanks Videocardz).

Although Aorus hasn’t released its edition yet, these cards join the likes of the newly released Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, which currently occupies the top of the single graphics card performance charts. Together they offer increased competition for AMD, which is expected to debut Vega-based graphics cards in the coming months.

AMD may also be preparing to debut some more mainstream graphics cards, in the form of the RX 500 range, though little information is known about that particular lineup at this time. Its performance could well threaten Nvidia’s midrange offerings though, so the landscape of graphics hardware is likely to be quite different in a few months.

Android grasps the crown from Microsoft as world’s most popular OS

Why it matters to you

While Windows has been the world’s most popular operating system for decades, Android is finally emerging from its shadow — and casting one of its own.

Move over, Windows. It’s now Android that has grasped the crown. As per a new report from StatCounter, the independent web analytics company, Android became the most popular operating system in the world when it came to total internet usage across desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile combined in March. This marks the first time that Android has bested Microsoft Windows in this metric.

With a 37.93-percent market share, Android just eked out Windows, which still saw an impressive 37.91 percent of usage. Still, it’s a notable event. “This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter. “It marks the end of Microsoft’s leadership worldwide of the OS market, which it has held since the 1980s. It also represents a major breakthrough for Android which held just 2.4 percent of global internet usage share only five years ago.”

More: Google Pixel vs. Samsung Galaxy S8: Which is the better Android phone?

So what gave? According to Cullen, it seems likely that the influx of smartphones and their internet capabilities helped catapult Android ahead. After all, Android is the undisputed leader in terms of mobile platforms. Moreover, traditional PCs (many of which run Windows) saw a decline in sales, though it’s worth pointing out that Windows is still the obvious leader when it comes to the worldwide operating system desktop market (PC and laptop) — it claimed an 84-percent internet usage share in March.

Certain regions of the world also contributed to Android’s victory last month — for example, while Windows was the most popular OS across all platforms in North America and Europe, the story was very different in Asia, where Android won a 52.2-percent market share, compared to just 29.2 percent for Windows.

“Windows won the desktop war but the battlefield moved on,” concluded Cullen. “It will be difficult for Microsoft to make inroads in mobile but the next paradigm shift might give it the opportunity to regain dominance. That could be in Augmented Reality, AI, Voice, or Continuum (a product that aims to replace a desktop and smartphone with a single Microsoft-powered phone).”

Watch our HTC U Ultra video review!

Five or six years ago, HTC was a titan of the smartphone world. But the past half-decade hasn’t been kind to the Taiwanese company. It’s lost money, market share and several high-profile designers and executives.

Nevertheless, HTC’s still here, and still making pretty good phones, both under its own brand name and for Google under the Pixel contract. The latest high-ender to come out of HTC is this, the U Ultra.

So does HTC still have some of its old magic left? Or, at US$750, is it asking too much for too little? Let’s find out — this is our review of the HTC U Ultra. It’s the first phablet-sized HTC flagship in more than three years, and while it’s a big, bezelly beast, it also packs an impressive glass-backed design, and internals upgraded from last year’s HTC 10. Check out our video to find out if that’s enough to compete with the coming onslaught from Samsung and LG.

• Android Central on YouTube
• HTC U Ultra review
• MrMobile’s take on the HTC U Ultra