What is Sky Mobile, how much does it cost and what is roll over data?

Like BT and Virgin Media, Sky offers its own mobile network service alongside TV, landline and broadband. 

However, Sky Mobile gives you a few features you might not find anywhere else. That’s why we’ve decided to give you a low down on the network, what it costs and what you get for your money.

What is Sky Mobile?

In addition to its TV, broadband and landline services, Sky offers a 4G mobile network service. Sky Mobile is for existing Sky TV subscribers and new, non-Sky customers. There are benefits to having Sky TV too, but it is not necessary.

It offers simple to understand SIM-only 12-month contracts and handset deals on 24 and 30-month contracts.

Many handsets are available, from Apple, Samsung, Sony and LG, and you can swap your phone every one or two years depending on the contract.

The whole tenet of Sky Mobile is that it keeps things simple, so you don’t get confused as to what you get for your plan. It also offers roll over data for each and every customer, as explained below.

How much does Sky Mobile cost?

Sky mobile has a simple structure. There are four data plans and two options for calls and texts. You pick one of the plans, then choose how you want to pay for your calls and texts.

Data plans

• 500MB of data: £5 per month
• 1GB of data: £10 per month
• 3GB of data: £15 per month
• 5GB of data: £20 per month

You can also buy a 1GB data add-on for £10 if you plan to use extra data in a particular month.

Calls and texts

• Pay as you use: 10p a minute of talk time, 10p a text
• Unlimited calls and texts: £10 per month for non-Sky TV customers, free for Sky TV subscribers

For example, if you want 1GB of data a month and unlimited calls and texts, it’ll cost you £20 per month if you don’t also subscribe to Sky TV.

A Sky TV household can have up to five SIMs so a whole family can make use of free unlimited calls and texts on individual phones.

Roaming

Roaming across 36 countries in Europe is free. You can use your normal data, minutes and texts in any of the following countries:

• Austria
• Azores (Portugal)
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Canary Islands
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Cyprus (Northern)
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Gibraltar
• Greece
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Republic of Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Madeira (Portugal)
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Réunion
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden

Roaming charges vary in countries outside of the EU. Sky Mobile charges include 12p per MB of data in US, Australia and Canada.

Handsets

In addition to the network price plan, you can also get a handset from Apple, Samsung, LG or Sony for an extra monthly fee, on a 24 or 30-month contract. Here are a few options:

• Apple iPhone SE from £15 per month
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017 model) from £15 per month
• Apple iPhone 7 from £23 per month
• LG G6 from £26 per month
• Samsung Galaxy S8 from £26 per month
• Sony Xperia XZ Premium from £26 per month

For example, if you take out a 30-month contract with 1GB of data and a 32GB iPhone 7, you will pay £33 a month as a Sky TV customer, £43 per month without Sky TV.

But even though it is a 30-month deal, you can still swap your handset for a later model after two years. We explain more below.

A handset contract from Sky Mobile is separate to your 12-month price plan.

What network does Sky Mobile use?

As an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) Sky leases mobile spectrum from O2, so anywhere there is an O2 4G signal you will be able to use 4G data on your Sky Mobile service too.

You can check 3G and 4G coverage for your area in the UK here: http://www.o2.co.uk/coveragechecker

What’s different about Sky Mobile?

With so many other network providers, you might wonder why you should consider Sky Mobile over a rival, especially if the prices are similar? Sky has included a few interesting additional incentives to make its service a little different.

Swap

Sky Mobile offers two mobile device schemes. With Swap 12 you can swap your smartphone for any other device after a year, even though the handset contract runs for 24-months. Just send the old one back and your new chosen handset will be sent to your door at no extra charge. You will have to pay the extra monthly cost if the phone is more expensive, however.

Swap 24 is similar but over a two year period, even though the contract is over 30-months. The monthly cost you pay is lower with this option.

The SIM contract is separate and runs for 12-months.

• Sky Mobile Swap: How to change your phone every year with Sky’s new plans

Roll

Unlike most, if not all, other providers Sky Mobile allows you to roll over your data allowance to use at a later date. What’s more, you have up to three years to use it.

At the end of every month, any leftover data is stored in a virtual piggy bank and you can cash in each 1GB you have acquired, which is then added to that month’s allowance. All rolled over data is also cumulative, so you can pile it up for when you need it most.

Mix

Although Sky Mobile SIM contracts are locked to 12-months, you have the option each month to change your plan. You can opt to either go up or down in data allowance and pay for that band from then on. Or you can switch from unlimited calls and texts to pay as you use and vice versa.

You can also pay separately for a 1GB data add-on if you need extra data in a particular month. That costs an additional £10.

Sync

Sky+ customers with Sky Mobile can create playlists of their favourite content and stream or download them to their phones, over Wi-Fi or 4G. It also gives every Sky Mobile customer free Sky Go Extra (which usually costs £5 per month), and they can each use Sync on up to four devices.

The feature will also be coming for Sky Q customers later in 2017.

How do I get Sky Mobile?

Sky Mobile in available now. You can register for your Sky Mobile SIM, whether you are an existing Sky customer or not, at sky.com/getmobile.

Gold PS4 to be available prior to E3 2017?

Sony plans to release a gold-coloured version of its PlayStation 4 console, if a Reddit leak is to be believed.

A user, MeinFewer, claiming to be an employee of Target in the US has posted a picture on Imgur of a shiny, gold version of the slimmer, standard PS4. He also claims that the 1TB console will be available in the States from 9 June. That’s a day before E3 2017 shenanigans start, with EA Play kicking off this years event on Saturday 10 June.

For all intents and purposes, the PS4 is likely to be exactly the same inside as a black or other coloured version, but we have to say we do quite like the idea of the jazzed-up, bling edition.

• PlayStation E3 2017 press conference: When is it and will it be streamed live online?
• E3 2017: Rumours, press conferences and what to expect from the world’s biggest games show

Sony is unlikely to refer to the gold PS4 during its E3 2017 media briefing. The press conference is being held in LA on Monday 12 June, starting at 6pm PST. That means, if you want to watch it in the UK, you’ll have to be awake for a large part of the night as it’ll start at 2am BST Tuesday 13 June thanks to the time zones.

The company isn’t expected to make any major hardware announcements and will focus on games during the presentation. Xbox will be unveiling Project Scorpio the day before.

The Morning After: Thursday, June 1st 2017

Hey, good morning! The biggest aircraft ever is ready for testing. (No it’s not a blimp.) We hacked our very own proper D-pad for the Nintendo Switch and also took a closer look at how AI is changing our world — and doing things better than humans.

Remember Stratolaunch?
The world’s largest aircraft prepares for testing

As we’ve seen with SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and the rest, billionaires love nothing more than funding wild transportation projects. The Paul Allen-backed Stratolaunch is yet another program in that vein, intended as an airborne launch vehicle for future rockets. Now, after a few years of teasing, it appears the “world’s largest aircraft” could be close to taking flight.

Making the Nintendo Switch better with nothing more than plastic and sticky tape.
A 3D printer gave my Nintendo Switch a real D-pad

Nintendo’s most enduring controller innovation is arguably the humble D-Pad: a simple plastic cross that lets players input eight different directions with precision and ease. Strangely, however, this iconic control pad was left out of the Nintendo Switch’s default controller design, and Sean Buckley missed it so much, he did what any reasonable tech blogger would do: 3D-printed his own.

Name a sequel that’s better than the original?
The new Nokia 3310: What’s changed?

Who knew stringing four numbers together and slapping it on a feature phone could evoke such a strong consumer reaction in 2017? The hype is somewhat understandable.For many people, the original Nokia 3310 would’ve been a totem representing their first taste of freedom: an unsupervised connection to friends, a plaything for idle hands. However, many things have changed in 17 years.

That’s one use for gene editing
I bio-engineered glowing beer

The results of Terrence O’Brien’s grand experiment were successful… ish.

Somethings we can do, AI can do better.AI is already beating us at our own game

Although modern AI systems lack the adaptability of humans, they’re already outpacing the intellectual capabilities of their creators in a wide variety of fields. From beating grandmaster Go players to outguessing cardiac surgeons, lipreading to audio transcription, neural networks and machine learning have already surpassed humans — and that list is only going to grow longer. We take a look at how AI is pervading our world. It’s more than just an innocent game of Go.

Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer will help shed light on other mysterious pulsars.
Watch SpaceX carry NASA’s pulsar-observing instrument to the ISS

On June 1st, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry supplies and new instruments to the ISS, including one designed to observe some of the strangest objects in the universe: neutron stars or pulsars. The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) will be installed outside the ISS, where it will look for and study the extremely dense objects. Neutron stars begin their lives as stars around seven to 20 times the mass of our sun. When they collapse and cause a supernova explosion, they turn into a sphere that’s only 12 miles across, with twice the mass of our sun squeezed inside. Scientists still have no idea what happens to atoms in that density, and that’s what they’re hoping to find out with the help of the new instrument. Its observations will help scientists figure out a pulsar’s interior structure and to find out the mass threshold needed for a star to become a black hole instead of a pulsar.

Don’t forget the super slow-mo camera.
Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium puts 4K HDR in your hands on June 19th

In just a few weeks, you can finally handle Sony’s latest high-end, high-performance flagship phone. Pre-order the Xperia XZ Premium through Amazon and Best Buy starting on June 12th, or just purchase it outright when retailers begin selling it on June 19th. We all like to live life dangerously. It’ll become the second commercially available phone to support gigabit LTE after Samsung’s Galaxy S8, which should offer a degree of future-proofing, at least carrier-wise.

But wait, there’s more…

• Silk Road founder loses appeal and will serve life in prison
• Toyota’s 2018 Camry has an infotainment system built on ‘automotive grade’ Linux
• Twitch ‘Stock Stream’ lets viewers manage a $50k fund
• Fight on the moon in new ‘Overwatch’ Lunar Base map
• North Korea’s Myohyang IT has created its own ‘iPad’

Adobe Scan turns documents into editable PDFs

Adobe has launched a new way to turn your physical documents into PDFs with editable text, and it’s completely free. The company has released a new mobile app simply called “Scan” for both iOS and Android, and to create a digital copy of a document, you merely have to point your phone’s camera at it. There are loads of other scanner apps, out there, including Office Lens — even Google Drive has a built-in scanning feature for Android devices. This app, however, is perfect if you use Adobe’s apps extensively. It automatically uploads your scans to Adobe Document Cloud, so you can access them on any computer, phone or tablet.

You can edit your files on Adobe Acrobat, but you’ll have to pay for Acrobat Pro DC to be able to edit digitized text and to generally be able to tweak documents to your heart’s content. If you’re just after a scanner app, you don’t have to worry about that. But if you need the extra features to be able to edit scanned PDFs for work or school, you’ll have to pay $15 per month.

Scan is far from perfect at this point, based on a few trial runs we did: it still has a hard time recognizing documents, and it tends to cut off printed text boxes or tables. It does work, though, and in case the scan isn’t perfect, you can always rotate it and do some other minor alterations before saving it as a PDF.

Source: Adobe

You can get a Sky Mobile price plan with 500MB data for just £5

Sky has announced a new Sky Mobile 4G SIM-only plan that starts as low as just £5 a month for Sky TV customers. For that, you will get 500MB of data, unlimited texts and unlimited calls on a minimum 12-month plan.

Non-Sky TV customers can get the same plan, but will have to pay £10 extra per month for the unlimited calls and texts. Alternatively, they can opt to pay for calls and texts as they go, priced at 10p a minute or text.

If you find you need more data, you can increase the data allowance to 1GB, 3GB or 5GB, at £10, £15 or £20 a month respectively, or buy a one-off 1GB data add-on for the month. The add-on costs £10.

• What is Sky Mobile, how much does it cost and what is roll over data?

As with all Sky Mobile plans, any data you don’t use in a month will be saved for you to use at a later date. When there is 1GB of accumulated unused data in your locker, you can take it to use that month.

Sky Mobile also includes a “Mix” feature where you can scale up or down your price plan to suit your usage on a month-by-month basis.

Sky also offers handset deals with the new SIM plan, with the iPhone 7, Samsung Galaxy S8 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium among the phones available, starting at £26 a month in addition to the tariff.

Like other networks, Sky now offers free roaming across Europe. An EU directive will enforce free roaming across all member states from 15 June but Sky Mobile extends that to 36 European destinations and the feature is available now.

Google’s ‘innovative’ new London HQ features giant moving blinds

They’ve been a long time coming, but Google has finally laid out its plans for its new “innovative” £1 billion London headquarters located in Kings Cross. This week, the company submitted a detailed planning application to Camden Council, outlining its desire to build an slightly sloped 11-storey building that will sit on a “plinth” of shops and offices, and feature a three-lane 25 metre pool, multi-use games area (hosting basketball, five-a-side football or badminton), a gym and a huge landscaped roof garden.

The 80,819 sq/m “Building A” project, designed by architects BIG and Heatherwick Studio (the team behind its new Mountain View campus), will also host a sprawling events centre that will span its lower ground, first and second floors. The search giant intends to use its 210 seat auditorium for product launches, talks and presentations, but it may also be offered to technology startups, community groups and charities.

The roof garden will provide Googlers with “the opportunity to exercise, meet or engage, away from the office floors.” To assist them in their pursuits, the company will build a 200 metre “Trim Track” with regular exercise stations for runners and an amphitheatre in the north-west corner that offers visitors a 270-degree view of the city.

Google wants employees to interact more, so the building will be designed in a way that encourages people to walk and use the stairs (or escalators), rather than jump in a lift. Central areas host meeting rooms, cafes and other facilities, providing a place for staff to gather and organise functions while keeping noise away from workspaces. The main entrance sits directly opposite Kings Cross Tube station and bike ramps lead directly to a storage facility that can host 686 bicycles, promoting healthy travel (there are a grand total of four car parking spaces, after all).

Architects BIG and Heatherwick Studio have also accounted for the environmental impact of the building. In order to preserve views, the building provides a “daylighting cone” of at least 40 degrees, so it won’t block too much sun from people walking along its main boulevard.

Floor-to-ceiling windows will be installed to maximise sunlight, but on its south facade, Google will install timber mullions that are capable of rotating 180 degrees, reducing the glare on staff as the sun moves across the sky. In addition to that, Google will incorporate solar panels with an annual output of 19,800 kWh, harvest rainwater and build facilities to separate waste materials in its basement, either to store or recycle.

Google’s plans to build a new HQ in London have been beset by delays. When Google first spent $1.6 billion on prime land near King’s Cross station, it immediately drew up plans with architect AHMM, which included a rooftop running track, pool and indoor cycling ramps. However, the internet giant scrapped the project because it wanted to “challenge ourselves to do something even better.”

At the end of last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai visited the city to recommit to the London campus, unveiling the first renders for what will be Google’s first “wholly designed” building outside of the US.

Currently, Google’s staff are spread across a number of satellite campuses in Covent Garden, Victoria and in the nearby 6 Pancras Square. The new headquarters will bring all of them (up to 4,500 employees) under the same roof.

Camden Council will now invite comments on the project up until June 21st, after which it will decide whether to let Google and its partners break ground on “Building A.”

Via: The Architect’s Journal

Source: Camden Council

Apple’s ‘Siri speaker’ could be unveiled as early as next week

Why it matters to you

If you’ve a liking for Apple kit and you’re after a smart speaker, you may not have too long to wait.

Seems as if we’re just a few days away from Apple unveiling a Siri-enabled speaker similar to Amazon’s range of Echo devices and Google’s Home offering.

The Cupertino-based company has started manufacturing the device, “people familiar with the matter” told Bloomberg this week, and it could be shown off during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference which kicks off in San Jose, California, on June 5.

However, anyone keen to get their hands on the Siri-controlled smart speaker may have to exercise some patience, as the sources said it won’t be ready to ship until “later in the year.”

This latest news comes just a few weeks after a report from the same media outlet claimed Apple engineers were already testing the speaker out in their own homes, putting it through its paces in a bid to perfect its design, though an “advanced prototype” of the device was apparently ready “late last year.”

Notably, Bloomberg’s sources claim the speaker won’t include a display, setting it apart from Amazon’s recently launched Echo Show speaker that offers extra functionality via its 7-inch color touchscreen.

But apparently it’s under the hood that Apple hopes to really score points, with “more advanced acoustics technology” enabling “virtual surround sound” that’s more powerful and crisper than that offered by rival devices. It may also have built-in sensors that measure a room’s acoustics and adjust the audio accordingly for the best possible sound.

Aiming to weave customers more tightly into the Apple ecosystem, the expected speaker will act as a hub compatible with Apple’s HomeKit platform, enabling users to control home appliances through voice commands. You should also be able to call out questions for Siri to answer, and issue commands such as song requests from your music library or Apple Music to play through the speaker. Further functionality will be possible thanks to Apple’s move last year to finally open Siri to third-party developers.

With talk of an unveil for the speaker at next week’s WWDC, together with rumors of product launches for upgraded MacBooks and a number of new iPads, the event could be the most hardware-focused WWDC in several years. Be sure to check back for all the news from Apple’s much-anticipated event from Monday.

Sweet! Drone delivers donuts to the mayor of Denver in test run

Why it matters to you

It may be a while before donuts can be flown to your door, but the successful trial is another small step toward full-fledged drone delivery services

Donut fans will be drooling with delight at news of one of the first ever donut deliveries by drone.

Drone-delivered pizza is all well and good, but the idea of flying machines carrying donuts on-demand to salivating supporters of the sugary snack is yet another reason why the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to get on with the job of finding further ways to relax rules for commercial drone-based ventures.

The special delivery, received by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock among others, was timed to coincide with Friday’s National Donut Day, ABC News reported. But more importantly (for those involved), it also highlighted the drone services offered by Texas-based Drone Despatch while providing a spot of publicity for the tasty offerings of LaMar’s Donuts, which currently operates 25 stores across five states.

Several donut deliveries were made across a distance of just a single block, begging the question, “Why didn’t the recipients just go and collect them?” Because it’s a lot less fun, that’s why, and Drone Despatch wanted to show how it can safely deliver items to people in urban areas. The company used a DJI Inspire drone for the exercise, carrying the box of donuts on a tether. While the system didn’t look particularly sophisticated, we’re happy to report that it got the job done without any major mishaps occurring.

Of course, the main reason the delivery route was so short can be put down to the aforementioned FAA regulations, which severely limit commercial drone flights in populated areas and insist pilots keep their machine in view at all times.

Mayor Hancock was evidently bowled over by the experience of having a drone deliver his donuts, describing the happening as “exciting stuff” while adding that technology encompassing drones and autonomous vehicles “is our future [and] this is how we’re going to become a more efficient 21st century nation.”

While Amazon is continuing to develop its Prime Air drone that could one day deliver ordered goods to folks living close to its fulfillment centers, it seems to be food and drink that’s getting the most attention when it comes to deliveries by drone. Domino’s, for example, partnered with Nevada-based Flirtey to launch a limited pizza delivery service in New Zealand, and the same company has been working with 7-Eleven in the U.S. to trial deliveries of hot and cold snacks to customers. Google parent company Alphabet, too, teamed up with Chipotle to test out a drone-based service delivering burritos to students at Virginia Tech.

Asus ROG Zephyrus preview: Ultra-slim gaming laptop with Nvidia’s latest architecture

The opening day at this year’s Computex saw some impressive announcements from Nvidia regarding its new Max-Q architecture.

It was also the first to show off Republic of Gamers’ (ROG) exceptionally impressive-looking gaming Laptop: the Zephyrus. Essentially forget everything you think you know about the necessary form factor for a powerful and efficient gaming laptop, because Asus and Nvidia have just rewritten the script. The Zephyrus is packing a vast amount of power in a minuscule package, for instance.

We’re talking a gaming laptop with is just 17.9mm thin at the thickest point and 16.9mm at the thinnest. Of course, any gamer’s immediate thought would be, “How can you run GeForce GTX 1080 on something so slim without some serious overheating?” ROG has come up with an ingenious cooling system it calls Active Aerodynamic System (AAS).

Essentially, there is a flap on the rear of the base that flips out as you open the lid, allowing for a clear airflow. Plus, heat escapes from the large perforated area above the keyboard. Of course, we’d need to see it in action to see if it lives up to the promise.ROG also says that the Max-Q allows the Zephyrus to run at 85-per cent performance for just 50 per cent of the battery use.

• Computex 2017: All the announcements that matter
• Asus Zenbook Flip S preview: A thin convertible jam packed with top kit
• Asus Vivo Book Pro S15 preview: The world’s first laptop with Intel Optane
• Asus Zenbook Pro UX550 preview: Next-level machine with a 4K touchscreen

Again, we’d love to run our own tests when a test model becomes available. The Zephyrus is a sleek, slim device, and despite the slim form, it’s unmistakably got the cool design of other ROG devices. As well as the large perforated vents above the keyboard, we liked the hexagonal power key and the trackpad to the left of the keyboard that transmogrifies into a numeric keypad at the press of a button. 

Alongside the GTX Geforce 1080, it also boasts a 7th-generation Core i7 Kaby Lake processor. It also has the Windows 10 Creator update, which should improve performance via the Games mode.

The lid is made of contoured steel and there’s a lovely diamond cut edge as we have come to expect from the ROG/Asus team. We loved the way that the lid was smooth to open – plus it activates the cooling flap 5 and that it was easy to hold in just one hand at just 1.9 kg or thereabouts.

This really appears to be an innovative device and we are really looking forward to getting our hands on it to put it through its paces.

Control three devices with just one mouse, Logitech Flow software works with two new MX mice

Logitech has announced two new mice, the MX Master 2S and MX Anywhere 2S, and while they are exciting for those looking for wireless functionality and quality at reasonable prices, it is Logitech Flow that is of particular interest.

That’s because it is software that enables a user to use their Logitech MX mouse with up to three separate devices seamlessly.

Logitech Flow is available as a free download as part of Logitech Options software. It works with the MX Master 2S and MX Anywhere 2S and not allows you to switch between computers, controlling each with the one mouse, you can copy and paste content, images and documents between them.

The Logitech MX Master 2S features Darkfield high precision tracking technology, with a resolution of 4,000 DPI for smooth, speedy cursor control. It can track on any surface, including glass, and has a battery of of up to 70 days on a single charge.

• Computex 2017: All the announcements that matter

There is also an adaptive scroll wheel that auto-shifts from click-to-click to fast-scroll. There is also a side wheel for side-to-side scrolling.

The Logitech MX Anywhere 2S has a similar feature set bar the side wheel. It is also design more for travel.

Both mice will be available this month, June, with the MX Master 2S prices at £89.99 and the MX Anywhere 2S £79.99.