Samsung’s latest app could help curb your kid’s screen addiction

Samsung has an idea for how to encourage kids to use their devices responsibly. With its Marshmallow
app (not the outdated version of Android), kids earn points by following their self-set usage plan. With the application installed and running, kids are limited to using eight apps, parents can filter which apps are and aren’t appropriate and they can set a bed time for the phone as well.

Beyond that, there are daily and weekly reports for how good a child has been at keeping with his or her usage plan. Staying within the guidelines nets kids “Marshmallow points” which can then be redeemed for gift cards to Amazon, Best Buy, Google Play and, as Android Police reports, Dunkin’ Donuts. Because hey, youth obesity isn’t a problem, amirite?

Should your children do a poor job at following their plan, they’ll lose Marshmallow points. As you might expect, like other Samsung-developed apps, this is exclusive to its own devices. If you have anything in the recent Galaxy and Note families though, you should be good to go.

Via: Android Police

Source: Google Play

Apple’s Last Plastic MacBook Now Considered Obsolete

Apple today updated its official list of vintage and obsolete products to add the 2010 13-inch MacBook, the final plastic-shelled MacBook it produced before discontinuing the line, and several 2009 MacBook Pro models.

Apple first introduced the unibody polycarbonate MacBook, the third design iteration of the MacBook line, in late 2009, offering it in black and white. The MacBook was sold for only a short time, having been discontinued in mid-2011 after the introduction of the MacBook Air.

The MacBook, along with the MacBook Pro models, have been added to Apple’s list of Mac products that are considered “vintage” in the United States and Turkey and “obsolete” in the rest of the world. A full list of the Mac models that have been obsoleted is below:

– MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010)
– MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
– MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009)
– MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009)

Apple has also added all models of the iPhone 3G to the “iPhone products obsolete worldwide” list, but it also continues to be listed under “iPhone products vintage in the United States and obsolete in the rest of the world” so its official status is unclear.

Under Apple’s classification system, vintage products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 years and less than 7 years ago, while obsolete products are those that are discontinued more than 7 years ago.

The vintage classification means that Apple is no longer offering hardware service for the devices except in Turkey and California, where local statutes require that Apple continue to provide service and parts for a longer period of time. The obsolete classification means Apple has discontinued all hardware service with no exceptions.

Apple retail stores, and the Canadian, European, Latin American, and Asia-Pacific operating regions follow Apple’s United States product list, but do not distinguish between vintage and obsolete.

Tag: vintage and obsolete
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Geometry Dash World: A short but exquisite musical adventure (Review)

I don’t know why, but every day, there’s more and more games popping up on the Play Store with excruciating difficulty. Why do Android users like to torture themselves? Anyways, if you’re among the millions of people who are looking for a game that will test your patience, then I have great news for you. Geometry Dash World joins the family with the same gameplay, but new ways of pulling your hair out.

Developer: RobTop Games
Price: Free

Overview

Geometry Dash has such a simple gameplay that it (rightly) assumes that you will not need a tutorial in order to get the basics of it. The game is fairly simple: you control a block that slides by itself, and your goal is to reach the end of the level in one piece. Of course, throughout the level, you’ll encounter multiple obstacles and enemies that are waiting for you to fail in order to show their deadly claws.

There is one simple control, executed by tapping anywhere on the screen (provided that it’s not the pause button). This will make your token jump in the air. Holding the screen will make you jump repeatedly, while jumping inside specific floating orbs will grant you another jump mid-air. That’s it, tap until you get to the finish line and you’ll be fine.

General Impressions

As we can see, the game is fairly simple, but since it is very fast-paced and obstacles are intelligently placed, the game can get super complicated. However, even though it gets very tricky, you never feel like the game is cheap and kills you for its own amusement. Stages are very well designed, and thus you need to know what you’re doing and not just try stuff at random in order to succeed.

This is why, when clearing a level, you get a huge feeling of accomplishment, just as when you pass that exam you thought it was impossible. Since the game adds components in a very imaginative, but unpredictable way, levels get harder and harder as you progress.

Levels are very imaginative and brilliantly executed.

You end up figuring out a lot of the elements you encounter through trial and error. For example, the first time you see these previously mentioned double-jump orbs, you will have no way of knowing what are they for (well, you will know, because you read this article first).

There’s one level in which your character jumps into some sort of spaceship and flies through the levels. This is very fun, and frankly, not that complicated, but the fact that it comes out of nowhere can put you off and it will be game over for you.

For now, there are only two worlds to choose from.

There are no checkpoints: if you die, you die. The only way back is to repeat the whole level. This is not problematic because levels are probably 30 second each. But don’t let that fool you: you could be stuck in one of these for hours.

If you don’t like how your “character” looks, there’s a myriad of customization options as well. Some of them are free, some are unlockable through game progression, some are paid, but all of them look fine.

Speaking of payments, apart from this shop for customizing your sprite, there are no other microtransactions or pay blocks. However, Geometry Dash World is very, very heavy on ads. I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I managed to activate the ads instead of closing them most of the time. The full game is $1.99, so you may want to pay for it to avoid pesky ads and support the developers.

The full game will also unlock the possibility of creating your own stages, which is a must, since the regular game includes only two worlds from which you can choose. Sure, they’re complicated to clear so you’ll go through these stages in a longer timeframe than you would expect, but it’s a pity nonetheless to see such a small amount of stages.

Graphics

Even though graphics are very simple, they are very polished and a joy to look at.

The game is dominated by vibrant colors against a black background. From the main screen to the gameplay, everything is done in a very bright way, with a lot of emphasis on combining the right colors. Although the background is mostly black, it will change some times depending on the circumstances.

This lack of high-level details and presentation means that the app will fly, even in phones with poor internals. I tried it on my Nomu S10, which has medium-low specs, and I found absolutely no issues with it. This is not a statement against the game, though: graphics are simple but they’re executed in a great way. Geometry Dash World teaches us that there’s no need for fancy graphics, as long as they’re done correctly.

Sound

This is where Geometry Dash shines. It is, without a doubt, the best part of the game. The game’s soundtrack is absolutely superb, with techno/disco songs making up almost all of it. Songs are made specifically for each level, and it is synchronized with it in a beautiful way. You might think sometimes that some sounds are part of the game’s sound effects, but the fact is that all sound effects have been added to the songs.

Graphics and sound work closely to create a marvelous experience.

For example, you will get specific sounds when jumping through orbs, others when going through platforms that make you jump by default, and, when reaching a new section within the stage, music will change dramatically to a whole new style and tempo. These changes are synchronized with graphics as well, and the game shifts backgrounds or gives some kind of visual cue when they occur. Is is a magnificent experience that has been executed in a sublime way.

Conclusion

If you can get over the fact that you will die a lot, Geometry Dash World is a worthy addition to your game arsenal. Thanks to tightly connected graphical and sound elements, the game provides an awesome, integrated experience that is rarely seen in Play Store games.

While there aren’t that many stages right now, more going to be added in the future, and the custom stage generator can quench your thirst for new content, if you pony up for the full version. Download Geometry Dash World, put on a pair of headphones, and sit back to the great experience that is waiting for you.

Download and install Geometry Dash World from the Google Play Store.

Measuring how fast you walk could be an early warning system for health problems

Why it matters to you

MIT researchers have developed smart sensors that can work out how quickly a person is walking, and this data could serve as an early warning system for possible health problems.

Measuring a person’s walking speed using a wearable device is actually a whole lot more difficult than you might think. For example, devices such as FitBits base their estimate of how fast a person is walking solely on the number of steps taken, resulting in numbers that aren’t always accurate.

A new research project carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) claims to have cracked this challenge, however — with a system that can measure the walking speed of multiple people with 95 to 99 percent accuracy. Most impressive of all? It doesn’t require any wearable tech whatsoever.

Instead, it involves a wall-mounted sensor called WiGait that can be placed in a person’s home. By analyzing the wireless signals reflected off a person’s body, the team is able to make its accurate predictions. It is also able to ascertain a person’s stride length with 85 to 99 percent accuracy.

Jason Dorfman

But while this certainly an impressive computer science demo, it’s what the team wants to do with this data that’s really exciting.

“This builds on our earlier work measuring breathing and heart rate by analyzing the surrounding wireless signals, without any wearables,” lead author Chen-Yu Hsu told Digital Trends. “We picture a connected world where we can equip our homes to use ambient wireless signals to monitor our health, from tracking metrics related to chronic diseases to alerting us about health emergencies. WiGait’s ability to monitor walking speed, stride length, and changes in mobility habits is a big leap in that direction.

In this scenario, being able to measure walking speed and stride length could provide useful health insights. This is something already being backed up in independent studies. For instance, features like cognitive decline and possible cardiac disease could be sensed by looking at the speed at which a person moves. In the future, the team also hopes to train it on people suffering from walking impairments such as Parkinson’s disease, which could have its progression tracked by a person’s stride length, since the disease is characterized by small shuffling steps.

“Many of us worry about the health of our parents and grandparents,” Hsu continued. “We see this as filling a need for in-home non-invasive health monitoring that can give us peace of mind about our loved ones’ health. We believe that having a smart device like this that analyzes the wireless signals can address some of the key issues we face in healthcare.”

Project Scorpio vs Xbox One – is the upgrade worth it?

One of the biggest reasons to upgrade to a new console generation is power. Better graphics, better processing capabilities – all of it leads to bigger and better-looking games. With its upcoming new version of the Xbox One, codenamed “Project Scorpio,” Microsoft wants to convince you that adding more technical firepower shouldn’t be reserved for new consoles.

While the Scorpio is a still an Xbox One, it’s heftier, faster, more powerful under the hood. It’s the younger sibling with years worth of extra development and planning behind it and should, in theory, offer substantial performance and feature improvements over its predecessor. But is it worth buying over the affordable original?

While we won’t be able to judge Project Scorpio fully and fairly until we get out hands on the hardware itself and take it for a spin, thanks to a recent report from Digital Foundry, we now have enough specs to help you get a sense of just how big a jump you would make by upgrading from an Xbox One or Xbox One S to Project Scorpio.

Specs

Xbox One

Xbox One S

Project Scorpio

CPU
8 core, AMD custom CPU @ 1.75GHz
8 core, AMD custom CPU @ 1.75GHz
8 core x86 CPU @ 2.3GHz
GPU
AMD GCN GPU @ 853Mhz w/ 12 compute units
AMD GCN GPU @ 914Mhz w/ 12 compute units
AMD custom GPU @ 1,172MHz w/ 40 compute units
Memory
8GB DDR3, 32MB ESRAM
8GB DDR3, 32MB ESRAM
12GB GDDR5
Memory bus
256-bit
256-bit
384-bit
Memory bandwidth
68GB/s, 204GB/s
68GB/s, 219GB/s
326GB/s
Storage
1TB/500GB 2.5 inch HDD
1TB/500GB 2.5 inch HDD
1TB 2.5 inch HDD
Optical drive
Blu-Ray
4K UHD Blu-Ray
4K UHD Blu-Ray
4k Support
No
Yes, limited
Yes, native
HDR support
No
Yes, HDR10
Yes

Samsung’s Siri competitor, Bixby Voice, launches in South Korea

Why it matters to you

It might not be long before state-side Galaxy S8 owners can get their hands on Bixby Voice, Samsung’s take on Siri.

Bixby, Samsung’s artificial intelligence-powered answer to Siri and the Google Assistant, gained a new feature this week in South Korea. On Monday, Samsung launched Bixby Voice, the voice-activated component of its digital helper, on Galaxy S8 devices in the company’s home country.

Bixby launched without Voice in April when the Galaxy S8 began shipping globally. It is rolling out to South Korean users in the form of an app update through Samsung Galaxy Apps, according to ZDNet, Galaxy S8 owners began receiving update notifications around 1 p.m. (KST).

Bixby Voice can respond to basic questions about the weather, upcoming meetings, sport scores, and movie showtimes, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. It works across apps like the Galaxy S8’s dialer, text messenger, settings menus, camera app, contacts list, and gallery, and performs actions like rotating misaligned photos and playing videos.

Bixby Voice is customizable, too. It lowers the volume when you hold the Galaxy S8 to your ear, and can change the gender of its voice on the fly.

That is not to suggest it is perfect. Bixby has to be enabled on an app-by-app basis — it doesn’t work with a lot of third-party apps just yet. And it only supports three languages, including Korean and British English. But Bixby may be about to get better.

In 2016, Samsung acquired Viv Labs, a company formed by the people who created Siri. “We’re bringing Viv Labs to grow that ecosystem in a scalable manner,” Injonh Rhee, head of research and development at Samsung Mobile Communications Business Group, told Digital Trends in an interview earlier in 2017. “Viv Labs is going to help out expanding into a third-party ecosystem — to make it easier to expose functions and perfect the experience for third parties.”

Bixby Voice is one of Bixby’s several prongs. The others include Bixby Reminders, which collates notes in a single place; Bixby Home, which shows contextual information from third-party apps in a card-like interface; and Bixby Vision, which uses machine learning to identify objects and supply relevant shopping and search results.

Galaxy S8 owners in other territories will not have to wait long for Bixby Voice. Samsung said North America and European territories will get Bixby Voice in the “spring,” and at least one report suggests that May is the target.

Here’s where you can stream Microsoft’s #MicrosoftEDU event on Tuesday

Why it matters to you

If you’re involved in education or wonder what Microsoft is up to next, then here’s where you want to be on May 2 at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Microsoft’s next major event is less than 24 hours away, and it’s where the company promises you can “Learn what’s next.” With the hashtag #MicrosoftEDU and plenty of speculation about Microsoft’s plan to take on Google in the educational market, it promises to be a highly focused event.

You can visit this page to live-stream the presentation if you’re not able to make it in person. You can also add the event to your calendar by clicking on the link. Microsoft invites members of the press to live-stream the event on this page instead. The event begins tomorrow, May 2, 2017, at 9:30 a.m. ET / 6:30 am PT.

While many fans of Microsoft’s Surface line have been waiting impatiently for announcements concerning the next generation of its Surface Pro and Surface Book lines, this event might not be where they make their appearance. Microsoft’s Build 2017 event begins on May 10, 2017, or in less than two weeks, and so it’s entirely possible that the Surface line will get its major refresh then.

Rather, Microsoft could focus on its upcoming Windows 10 Cloud Edition, which promises to offer an easy-to-administer and potentially less expensive — or free — version of Windows 10 that will be better positioned to compete with Google’s Chromebook platform. Chromebooks have taken off in education because of their low cost, ease of use, and minimal administrative burden, and Microsoft appears ready to head Chromebook off at the pass.

Therefore, a great deal of speculation suggests that Microsoft will introduce a new “Cloud Book” concept (or perhaps “Cloudbook”), representing very low-cost notebooks running Windows 10 Cloud Edition that would ease the cost and administrative burden for educational institutions. Microsoft could introduce its own Cloud Book device, or it could rely solely on its OEM partners.

Either way, we’ll find out soon enough what Microsoft is planning. The company has demonstrated a real knack lately for keeping things secret and surprising us, and so it’s possible that we’ll see more than just the unveiling of a new education-focused initiative. But if you’re a student, teacher, or school administrator, then you have extra incentive to tune into the live-stream.

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

flashlight

This flashlight app lets you select and play music, all without ever leaving the app. Light up the dark with some light and some music.

Available on:

iOS

Sticky Notes

With Sticky Notes HD you can jot down any note or reminder that matters to you. It’s a new way to interact with your notes.

Available on:

iOS

Device Space

Device Space is a utility app to view used, free, and total storage space for your device’s drive. It also provides battery level and device information including iOS version, device uptime, and more.

Available on:

iOS

PhotoViva

Add effects and a feeling of expressive art to your photos. You can easily apply photo brushes to make your photos into paintings.

Available on:

iOS

Budget and expense tracker

Where did your money go? Try this easy and simple expense tracker — it’s perfect for tracking expenses quickly and completely.

Available on:

iOS

Adrian James Bootcamp

Adrian James Bootcamp has been named the toughest 15-minute bootcamp on the planet. Download the chart-topping app to increase strength, burn fat, and boost your energy levels.

Available on:

iOS

Study suggests gender bias exists in open-source programming

Why it matters to you

That the tech industry suffers from gender inequality is no secret, and this study appears to offers some confirmation.

Evidence that gender bias exists in the field of computer science has emerged in the form of a new study examining acceptance rates of contributions from men and women in an open-source software community. The study’s findings indicated that women’s contributions were rejected more often, but only if their gender is identifiable. If, in fact, it is unclear whether the contributor is a man or a woman, women’s contributions tended to be accepted at a greater rate.

“There are a number of questions and concerns related to gender bias in computer programming, but this project was focused on one specific research question: To what extent does gender bias exist when pull requests are judged on GitHub?” Emerson Murphy-Hill, corresponding author of a paper on the study and an associate professor of computer science at North Carolina State University, told phys.org.

In order to conduct this research, Murphy-Hill and his colleagues analyzed more than three million pull requests (methods to improve code on a project) from around 330,000 GitHub users, about 21,000 of whom were women. Within this group, 78.7 percent of women’s pull requests were accepted, while 74.6 percent of men’s requests were accepted.

But when gender got involved, things got a bit more complicated. Murphy-Hill also looked at pull requests from individuals who were not considered “insiders” on a project, and found that gender appeared to play a role in acceptance. Computer scientists who were easily identifiable as women (as a result of their name or profile picture) ended up with lower pull request acceptance rates at 58 percent than male users at 61 percent. Curiously enough, female programmers with gender neutral profiles had the highest acceptance rates of all in this group (70 percent), even more so than men with gender neutral profiles (65 percent).

“Our results indicate that gender bias does exist in open-source programming,” Murphy-Hill said. “The study also tells us that, in general, women on GitHub are strong programmers. We don’t think that’s because gender affects one’s programming skills, but likely stems from strong self-selection among women who submit pull requests on the site.”

You can check out the full results of the study in the open-access journal PeerJ Computer Science, where the research is published under the title, “Gender Differences and Bias in Open Source: Pull Request Acceptance of Women Versus Men.”

PawBot opens and serves canned pet food so you don’t have to

Why it matters to you

Do you trust a robot to open canned food and feed it to your beloved family pet in your absence? If so, this automated cat and dog wet food dispenser robot could be for you.

Are you one of those people who are alarmed about the forthcoming rise of the robots, or someone who’s happy to kick back in an easy chair and let Short Circuit’s Johnny 5 and friends pick up the slack?

Wherever you sit on this sliding scale, a new Kickstarter robot pet feeder called PawBot may give you pause (paws?) for thought. Described by its creators as the world’s first automated cat and dog wet food dispenser, it’s a gadget that will wait until the moment you choose, then automatically open your specified number of cans of cat or dog food, and dump them into your beloved pet’s bowl.

Do you trust a robot arm to be able to exhibit the kind of fine-grain precision movement needed to not only open a can and pop its lid, but also to place its contents neatly into a bowl and eject it? What better, lower-stakes way to test such cutting-edge innovation than by placing it in control of keeping your beloved pet alive while you’re away on vacation?

PawBot boasts a touchscreen LCD display for selecting the times to feed your furry friend. Inside, there’s a robot arm, storage space for 18 cans and multiple clean bowls, washing section for cleaning its robotic pincers, trash container, and automated can opener.

It certainly looks pretty neat from the demo on the Kickstarter campaign, although as both a pet owner and someone who sees tech screwups on a regular basis, I’m not sure that this is going to replace getting my neighbors to pop in to see how Biggles the cat is doing when I’m away.

If you do fancy getting hold of a robot pet feeder, however, you can pre-order PawBot on Kickstarter — where you’ll have to put a $140 down-payment against an eventual retail cost in the region of $3,000.

It had better work as advertised for that price!