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 put paid apps on sale for 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. 

Fitness 365

In just 7 minutes and with just 10 moves, you can impact your health and fitness today and look forward to positive results over the course of the year.

Available on:

iOS

Foresee

Foresee intelligently predicts the ideal times for your favorite activities so the weather doesn’t catch you off guard.

Available on:

iOS

Skiplayer

Skiplayer promises to be a powerful machine-learning algorithm to build an amazing app that helps you discover who you are by exploring your music habits in 31 different ways.

Available on:

iOS

Thunderspace 5k

During the day, Thunderspace won’t let you focus on all the noise around you. And at night, it will make you very sleepy. Do not use while operating a machine, vehicle, or star destroyer.

Available on:

iOS

50mm

This app lets you create charming 50mm photographs with real-time vintage effects. Try them on selfies, landscapes, cityscapes, or other photos.

Available on:

iOS

OneAvenue

Join your favorite celebs’ fan clubs and get all of their social, music, videos, live-streaming, and tickets in one place. With this app, you can follow artists on their various social feeds, discover artists playing nearby, and get festival lineup information.

Available on:

iOS

Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) review

Research Center:
Microsoft Surface Pro (2017)

Microsoft kicked off the detachable tablet segment of the modern 2-in-1 market with its original Surface device, which also heralded the company’s entry into the PC hardware business. Microsoft has continued to improve the lineup since then, while other PC makers jumped into the 2-in-1 market with a vengeance, offering their own variants of ever-increasing quality and performance. The PC market is starting to recover from its years-long slide in sales volume, and the 2-in-1 has been an important part of its resurgence.

Even with all the competition, the Surface Pro 4 remained our favorite Windows 10 detachable tablet and emerged as one of the best-selling Surface products. Now, after more than 18 months on the market, Microsoft has finally introduced the fifth generation in the Surface Pro family. But don’t call it the Surface Pro 5. The number is no more.

The new Surface Pro is in some ways an incremental update to the Surface Pro 4 and doesn’t bring the pizzazz of recent innovations like the Surface Book and Surface Studio. Incrementing on the best product in its class isn’t anything to sneeze at, however – and neither is the hardware in our review unit. It came with a Core i7-7660U CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid state drive, which brought the price tag to $2,200.

Does the Surface Pro maintain Microsoft’s place at the top? Or have the 2-in-1s it has inspired caught up?

World-class engineering

The Surface Pro enjoys the same outstanding attention to detail as every other modern Surface machine, and Microsoft’s ability to produce extremely well-built machines is as apparent as always. Simply put, the Surface Pro is solid as a rock, and exudes a sense of futuristic quality.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

It’s also well-designed, with a look and feel that, while minimally changed from the Surface Pro 4, is still an improvement. The corners are more rounded, and the exhaust vents along the edges are less pronounced. In fact, the vents are absent if you buy the Core m3 or Core i5 models, as they both ditch the cooling fan.

There aren’t many moving parts in the Surface Pro itself. The power and volume buttons along the top are easy to find by feel, and have a crisp action, while the kickstand is smooth and reliably holds the tablet at your chosen angle. It now opens up to 165 degrees, an increase from the Surface Pro 4, which opened 150 degrees. Fully flexed, the kickstand can turn Surface Pro into a nearly-flat slate.

A slightly improved typing experience

The Surface Pro is no longer marketed as “the tablet that can replace your notebook.” Microsoft is simply calling it a laptop, which makes it unfortunate that the $160 Signature Type Cover keyboard (received with our review unit) isn’t included. It’s frankly essential, and we can’t imagine why you’d buy a Surface Pro without it. You can save some money with the standard Type Cover, but it’s still $130, and isn’t covered in Alcantara.

Fortunately, this vital accessory shares the high-quality aspects of the Surface Pro, and adds a splash of color as well. Our review unit came with the Cobalt Blue version, but Burgundy, Platinum, and Black versions are also available. The Alcantara fabric feels great, and remains a unique feature not found on competing 2-in-1s.

The Signature Type Cover’s key travel is more than sufficient at 1.5mm, with just the right amount of pressure required to register key presses. The action is crisp with just a hint of bottoming out, and it’s quite a bit quieter than the previous Type Cover that shipped alongside the Surface Pro 4. It’s backlit with three levels of brightness, and suffers from minimal light bleed.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

If you decide to flip into tablet mode for a moment and fold back the Type Cover, the keyboard will turn off when the cover is tucked back. It can even switch Windows 10 into tablet mode, if desired. It attaches to the tablet with strong magnets and connects via a physical port, meaning there’s zero lag when typing. That’s a nice improvement over the Bluetooth keyboard covers used by the Samsung Galaxy Book and Apple iPad.

The touchpad is a little small, but it works extremely well. It’s a Microsoft Precision touchpad that supports all Windows 10 gestures, and it offers up a smooth surface with just enough resistance to provide feedback for accurate mouse control.

The pen is great, but it’ll cost you

Unlike the Surface Pro 4, the new Surface Pro doesn’t include the Surface Pen — an unfortunate decision on Microsoft’s part. The company cited a few reasons for making the pen an option, including the new multi-color scheme, customer feedback that shows that not everyone uses the pen, and the fact that many people who buy the Surface Pro will be upgrading from previous models. The pens – and the Type Covers, for that matter – are compatible across the Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Pro.

Microsoft no longer refers to the Surface Pro as a tablet, and that makes sense given its laptop-like components.

Microsoft made up for the decision to make the pen optional by significantly improving its specifications, while pricing the new version at $100. Pressure sensitivity has been quadrupled, from 1,024 levels to 4,096, a new tilt feature has been added, and latency has been reduced dramatically to 21ms on the Surface Pro, with the help of the new Surface Pen design and a hardware accelerator.

The new Surface Pen features work on the previous models as well, although latency will only be marginally improved. You’ll want to make sure you pick the right color, given that it will be available in the same colors as the Signature Type Cover.

The improvements are noticeable, with no discernible delay between when the pen tip is placed on the screen to when Windows 10 Ink starts to flow. And the pen keeps up better with fast motions, never falling behind, as sometimes happens with the Surface Pro 4. The combination makes the Surface Pro one of the best inking experiences on the market, and a great tool for digital drawing and handwriting.

The Surface Dial works out of the box, as does Windows Hello

Of course, the Surface Pro also offers a capacitive touchscreen with 10-point multitouch capabilities. It’s as responsive as ever, offering yet another way to interact with the very touch-friendly Windows 10. And the Surface Pro supports the innovative Surface Dial input accessory directly on the screen.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Finally, Windows 10 Hello support is provided by an infrared camera that’s mounted next to the HD webcam. It offers password-less login via facial recognition, and we found it to be very fast in our testing.

A very minimal selection of ports

Microsoft is late to the party when it comes to adopting the increasingly ubiquitous USB Type-C connection. The company has its reasons — few accessories use the connection at this point, and customers can get confused when it comes to charging the machine – but we disagree with the decision.

This is the first Surface Pro model we’ve tested with battery life that’ll last an entire workday.

Instead, the Surface Pro comes equipped with a single USB 3.0 Type-A connection and a mini-DisplayPort. There’s also a microSD card reader located under the kickstand, and the same Surface Connect port that Microsoft has been using since the Surface Pro 3. That port provides power to the machine, or can connect to the optional Surface Dock.

Interestingly, Microsoft will be providing a Surface Connect to USB Type-C adapter at some point in the future. We’re not sure what USB Type-C features will be supported by the dongle, so we’re left disappointed with the Surface Pro’s connectivity overall.

The usual Surface display quality — which is to say, it’s excellent

The Surface Pro (2017) offers essentially the same display as the Surface Pro 4, meaning it’s a 12.3-inch PixelSense display with 2,736 × 1,824 resolution (267 PPI) panel in a 3:2 aspect ratio. More and more machines are adopting the 3:2 format, as it offers a display that’s a little taller, for fitting more of a document or web page on the screen at once. The aspect ratio does cause some letterboxing when watching video, however.

Microsoft uses excellent displays in its Surface line, and the Surface Pro is no exception. According to our colorimeter, our Surface Pro review unit’s display offered up some serious contrast at 1180:1, bested only by Microsoft’s own Surface Book. That promises excellent blacks for a non-OLED display. Color gamut support was average at 71-percent AdobeRGB but much stronger at 96-percent sRGB. Colors were also fairly accurate with a Delta-E of 1.88 (1.00 or lower is considered excellent).

In addition, the display was incredibly bright at 427 nits, promising to help overcome the display’s general glossiness in bright environments. The only real area of weakness was its gamma, which at 2.6 (the ideal is 2.2), likely means some scenes will be brighter than they should.

In use, the Surface Pro’s display is as excellent as it sounds, and getting better all the time as Microsoft improves Windows 10’s support for high resolutions. Text and images are razor sharp, colors are excellent, blacks are deep, and the display is generally a joy to use.

Strong speakers that point in the right direction

The Surface Pro sports two front-firing speakers on each side of the display. There are small cutouts in the glass to let the sound through, and the design provides impressive sound for a tablet. Music is great, with surprising range, and there’s even a hint of bass. The speakers also get surprisingly loud, and can fill a decent sized room without distorting.

Laptop-like performance

We can see why Microsoft is moving away from referring to the Surface Pro as a tablet, given that it’s packed with very laptop-like components. Our review model was equipped with a fast dual-core Intel i7-7660U CPU and 16GB of RAM, and it provided some impressive performance for a machine that’s punching in a lightweight class.

In fact, looking at our benchmark tests, the Surface Pro is competitive with larger 360-degree 2-in-1s that one might expect to be faster. Its GeekBench 4 single-core and multi-core results were solid, beating out many of our comparison machines. Only the similarly equipped HP EliteBook x360 G2 scored higher.

More impressively, the Surface Pro churned through our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video to H.265, in just 822 seconds. That’s significantly faster than each of our comparison systems, and in fact is the fastest result we’ve seen from a dual-core notebook processor.

Perhaps most impressive is that the Surface Pro managed to keep heat under control even while working so hard. Though the back of the tablet got a bit warm during the Handbrake test, the machine managed to maintain nearly full speed throughout with only minimal CPU throttling. And fan noise was significantly reduced from the Surface Pro 4, never rising to more than a loud whisper that wasn’t nearly as obtrusive in our quiet test environment.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Microsoft touted the improved thermals in the new Surface Pro during its introduction, and it’s obvious that the company made some real gains this time around. Note that the Core m3 and i5 models are fanless, and will run completely silently, although we can’t attest to how well they’ll maintain speed before needing to throttle things down.

Storage speeds are good but not great

Our review Surface Pro came equipped with a Samsung PM971 solid-state disk (SSD). Though it performed well, it’s not quite as fast as some other recent SSDs.

As you can see from the Surface Pro’s CrystalDiskMark results, the machine’s SSD falls behind the Lenovo Yoga 720 13, which was equipped with Samsung’s faster PM961 M.2 SSD. While the PM971 used in the Surface Pro is rated for read speeds up to 1,500 megabytes per second, our review units barely broke 1,000 MB/s. Write performance was a bit more competitive, at 971 MB/s.

While the Surface Pro’s synthetic benchmark scores were a bit less than our comparison systems, real-world performance was more than fast enough.

It’s still not a gaming machine (of course)

Microsoft added the option of somewhat faster integrated graphics to the Surface Pro, with the Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 GPU that was included in our review unit. That choice promises improved performance in typical productivity work, but doesn’t turn the Surface Pro into a highly-portable gaming machine.

3DMark demonstrates that the Surface Pro with Intel’s Iris Plus graphics performs better than our comparison machines with Intel’s more pedestrian integrated graphics. Nevertheless, these aren’t impressive scores if you’re looking to run modern games at 1080p or above.

We ran Civilization VI at 1080p and medium settings just to double check the Surface Pro’s performance, and it scored around 16 frames per second (FPS). Even the Nvidia GeForce 940MX used in the HP Spectre x360 15, which is itself a low-end discrete chip, managed to score 34 FPS in Civilization VI at the same settings. Clearly, the Surface Pro isn’t fast enough to provide a legitimate gaming experience, and more demanding modern games are likely to perform even worse.

Microsoft Surface Pro (2017) Compared To

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2017)

Xiaomi Mi Pad 3

Microsoft Surface Pro 4

Apple iPad 9.7

Apple iPad Pro 12.7

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

Samsung TabPro S

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5

Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Dell Venue 11 Pro

Microsoft Surface 2

Samsung ATIV Smart PC 700T

Sony Vaio Duo 11

Microsoft Surface Pro

Acer Iconia Tab W700

The Surface Pro is therefore equipped with graphics that will churn through its intended productivity applications, and will help speed up tasks like video encoding and image editing. If you’re looking for a gaming system, you’ll need to step up to a bigger machine.

Enhanced portability via improved battery life

Microsoft is using a 45 watt-hour battery in the Surface Pro, which is an increase from the 38 watt-hour battery that was packed into the Surface Pro 4. The Surface Pro also uses more efficient seventh-generation Intel Core processors. Taken together, the new model should offer improved battery life over its predecessor.

And it did. In our tests, the Surface Pro scored a solid five hours and 21 minutes in our most processor-intensive Peacekeeper test, which isn’t the longest we’ve seen, but is quite solid for a detachable tablet with a fast Core i7-7660U processor. Results in our moderate browsing test, which cycles through a set of live web sites, was a little less competitive at 5 hours and 37 minutes. We’re accustomed to seeing machines last longer. Finally, the Surface Pro scored a surprisingly strong 10 hours and 16 minutes in our video looping test.

Microsoft promised improved battery life over the Surface Pro 4, and our tests bear out their assertions. We reran our battery tests on a Surface Pro 4, given earlier battery life issues that have since been resolved with firmware updates. Even with the latest drivers, the Surface Pro 4 suffers from disappointing battery life, and the Surface Pro is significantly better.

Of course, the Surface Pro is eminently portable, at 0.33 inches thick and 1.73 pounds as our review unit was configured. Even with the Signature Type Cover attached, the machine is easy to carry around and slip into a bag. It might not be quite as thin and light as the iPad Pro, but it’s also a much more powerful machine that can run real PC applications.

Software

The Surface Pro is refreshingly light on bloatware. While it’s stocked with the usual Microsoft Windows 10 apps and a handful of casual games, it’s otherwise unencumbered with junk software. The Surface utility is also a nice app that offers the ability to configure the Surface Pen and get some useful information about your machine.

Warranty information

The Surface Pro comes with a standard one-year hardware warranty, which is commonplace for consumer-level laptops. Microsoft does offer its Complete extended warranty, which extends the warranty to two years, and adds in two incidents of accident protection with a $50 deductible. Microsoft Complete was $150 for the Surface Pro 4, but we haven’t yet confirmed pricing for the Surface Pro.

Our Take

The Surface Pro (2017) is technically an incremental update over its predecessor, the Surface Pro 4. That’s not a bad thing, as the Surface Pro 4 was already our favorite detachable tablet. Microsoft simply took what was great about the previous model and made it better, with improved performance, a better thermal design, longer battery life, and an enhanced — albeit somewhat more costly — typing and inking experience.

The Surface Pro isn’t the least expensive option around, however, starting at $800 for a seventh-generation Intel Core m3, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB. Pricing runs all the way up to $2,700 for a machine with a seventh-generation Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, and our high-end review unit with a 512GB SSD is priced at $2,200. And then you’ll want to add $160 for the Signature Type Cover and $100 for the Surface Pen.

The bottom line is that the Surface Pro retains Microsoft’s place at the top of the detachable tablet market, and the machine carries a price to match.

Is there a better alternative?

Microsoft still has the Surface Pro 4 available for sale at $649 with a sixth-generation Intel Core m3, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD. That represents a savings over the new Surface Pro, and if your budget is tight the Surface Pro 4 remains a solid option — although you’ll give up some serious performance and battery life improvements in the bargain.

Other manufacturers offer detachable tablet Windows 10 2-in-1s, as well. The Asus Transformer Pro 3 is a near clone of the Surface Pro, but still awaits an update to seventh-generation Intel Core processors.

HP has its second-generation Spectre x2 coming soon, and starting at $1,000, it will inject some serious competition into the segment. Finally, we just reviewed the Samsung’s Galaxy Book 12 and found that it offers a stellar display, but poor battery life.

How long will it last?

The Surface Pro offers a cutting-edge CPU, solid RAM and SSD options, and full support for all of Microsoft’s most innovative Windows 10 technologies. All of that will keep the machine relevant for years to come. Its connectivity is very old-school, however, and if you anticipate needing full USB Type-C support going forward, then you’re going to find the Surface Pro a bit limited.

Should you buy it?

Yes. The Surface Pro is simply the best 2-in-1 around. It’s expensive, but worth it for its excellent design, build quality, and components.

Set goals and limits for your kid’s Fire tablet with Amazon’s parental controls

Tablets can be great devices for kids. They can play games, watch movies, read books, and a whole lot more, but you need to be able to protect them from questionable content. The best kids’ tablet you can buy right now is the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition. One of the reasons that it’s our top pick is Amazon boasts one of the most comprehensive sets of parental controls available.

Amazon’s parental controls work on any Amazon Fire tablet, so whether you have one of the Kids Edition tablets, a Fire HD 10, or an older Fire tablet, you can still use these controls. In this guide, we’re going to run through how to set up parental controls on your Fire tablet and highlight some of the key features you’ll want to take advantage of.

How to set up parental controls on a Fire tablet

We’ll assume that you’ve created your own profile and signed into your Amazon account on the Fire tablet in question. If you haven’t then go to Settings > My Account and do so. Now, there are two ways to restrict access on your tablet. This first method is easier and quicker, but we recommend you skip ahead to the second, because it’s a lot more versatile.

Using simple parental controls

• You can go to Settings > Parental Controls and toggle it on.
• You’ll have to enter a password. Make sure it’s not something your child could guess.
• By default, this will block Alexa, the web browser, email, contact, calendars, and the camera.
• It will also password protect purchases and videos, and block social sharing.
• You can also toggle on Set Restricted Access and choose hours when the tablet should be inaccessible without your password.

Using Amazon’s FreeTime and multiple profiles

Instead of using the simple parental controls, we recommend creating Child Profiles. You can create multiple profiles to be used across devices and get some help from Amazon restricting content. If you didn’t choose a lock screen PIN or password when you first set your Fire tablet up, then you must start there. This will block your child from accessing your profile or the parental controls menu.

• Go to Settings > Security > Lock-Screen Passcode and toggle it on.
• Choose a password or PIN that you’ll remember, but make sure that it’s not something your child could easily guess.
• Now it’s time to set up a profile for your child. Go to Settings > Profiles & Family Library and tap Add a Child Profile.
• You’ll have to enter a name, gender, and birthdate.
• For children under nine, it’s best to select Use Amazon FreeTime (it’s called Fire for Kids in the U.K.) There is also a Teen Profiles option, recommended for kids aged nine and older.
• Once the profile has been created, you’ll get to choose the apps, games, books, and videos from your content library, that you want to allow them to access. As a shortcut, Amazon provides an option to Add all kids’ titles. These are chosen based on the age you entered during the profile creation.
• Repeat the process to add as many other child profiles as you need.

When you want to select a profile, you simply swipe down from the top of the screen and tap the profile icon at the top right. When you choose a child’s profile, you’ll see that the interface changes, and there’s a carousel containing the content you allowed on a blue background. If you choose an adult profile, you’ll be prompted to enter a PIN or password.

You have now restricted access to certain apps, and chosen the content you want your kids to be able to use. Amazon FreeTime blocks content purchases and in-app purchases by default. It also disables location-based services and social sharing, and it locks the tablet to landscape orientation. But there’s a lot more that you can do.

Managing your child’s profile

There are lots of options in each child profile to give you fine control over precisely what they can and can’t do. Let’s run through the main things quickly:

Go to Settings > Profiles & Family Library and choose the child profile you want to manage.

Tap Set Daily Goals & Time Limits and you’ll find that you can prevent your child from being able to use the tablet during the night, set Total Screen Time limits, or break down your restrictions by content type. For example, some parents might be happy to allow unlimited reading, but want to restrict apps and games to half an hour per day. When the time limit is reached, a message pops up onscreen to tell your child that they’ve reached the limit for the day. You can also set different schedules and limits for the weekend than for weekdays. You can even set Educational Goals, stipulating, for example, that your child must read a book for half an hour before they can access entertainment content.

If you want to add or remove access to any specific content, then you can do so under Manage Your Child’s Content. To download a new app or game for them, you’ll need to log into your profile, download and install the app, and then go to Settings > Profiles & Family Library, choose their profile, then tap Add Content > Add Books, Videos and Apps, tap the app or game you want to add, and then tap Done. You can override the age-appropriate suggestions and grant access to whatever content you want in here.

Under Web Settings in your child’s profile, you can choose whether to allow access to the web browser. You can also limit web content to Amazon Curated Content, which has been pre-approved based on your child’s age.

You also have the option to restrict camera and gallery access in your child’s profile. They won’t be able to send any photos they take via email, or upload them to social media, but you can choose to automatically back them up to Amazon Drive if you want to.

Now that you’ve set up your profiles and configured them, you can relax, safe in the knowledge that your kids can’t overdose on games or access anything you don’t want them to see. However, they will still have to come and pester you when they want a new game or book. If you want to grant them access to new content that has been filtered and is age-appropriate, then you need to consider Amazon FreeTime Unlimited.

Email marketers are tracking your every move, and you might not even know it

Why it matters to you

Think twice before you open your next email — it might contain tracking technologies that let marketers see your location, browsing history, and more.

In this day and age, no one’s a stranger to email. The world’s most popular form of peer-to-peer messaging reached new heights in 2015, when users sent and received a collective 205 billion emails. Its growth isn’t slowing down anytime soon — analysts at the Radicati Group project that email users will exchange as many as 246 billion messages in 2019.

But there’s a downside to email’s ubiquity, and it has to do with privacy. Increasingly, senders use web beacons — tracking objects in a web page or email — to collect information about the people who receive them.

Invasive tracking

One common tactic involves embedding one-by-one pixel images, called “clear GIFs,” in the footer, header, or attachments of a message, which forces web browsers to download the image from a web server. The server collects gobs of information in the process, including the date, the physical location of the device that opened it, the length of time the message was open, the number of times it was subsequently opened, the pages that were opened when the message was displayed, and even the people who’d been forwarded the message beforehand.

Folks who click on the links embedded in a marketer’s email — including (but not limited to) the “Unsubscribe” link in newsletters and mailing lists — are subject to much more invasive forms of tracking. One technique, canvas fingerprinting, uses a web script to instruct the browser to draw a unique, invisible image that can be used to track a person’s web history. Another called cookie syncing lets marketers share information they’ve discovered about people, and link together IDs they’ve created to identify their devices. And a third method — “super cookies” — uses persistent local files to build a picture of a person’s preferences.

As creepily voyeuristic as that sounds, online tracking, and mail tracking in particular, is a well-established practice that’s perfectly legal. Marketers aren’t required to disclose the use of tracking technologies, and email providers like Google even has a support page dedicated to guiding advertisers through the process. Email managers like Constant Contact, HubSpot, Yesware, Bananatag, Streak, and MailChimp compile tracking reports for paying customers. In recent years, employers, sales people, nonprofit organizations, bill collectors, and even publishers like The New York Times have adopted tracking to figure out the efficacy of mailing campaigns.

In a recent study, One More Company, an email technology startup, found that more than 40.6 percent of its client’s emails in 2017 were tracked, and that “conversational” emails — emails that fall outside the category of newsletters, marketing materials, and other ad campaigns — tripled in tracking from 5 percent in 2015 to 16 percent in 2017.

Marketers argue that email trackers actually help recipients because senders use the data to craft more relevant messages, but not everyone feels that way. A 2012 survey by researchers at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology found a majority of Americans — 60 percent — do not want information collected about the websites they visit.

“[Marketers] are very creative,” Florian Seroussi, CEO of One More Company, told Digital Trends. “They fetch the data in a variety of ways. It’s very invasive.”

Protective measures

It’s not all that surprising, then, that the growth in email tracking has corresponded with a proliferation of new services to combat it. Some email providers have built-in settings that disable trackers. Gmail asks permission before displaying images in an email — clicking “no” prevents images, including invisible tracking pixels, from loading. Within the default Mail app on Apple’s iPhone and iPad, users can disable tracking images by toggling the “load remote images” option in the settings menu.

Desktop users have more tools at their disposal. PixelBlock, an extension for Google’s Chrome web browser, shows the number of tracking attempts and the source of the tracking widget for each message. Ugly Email, meanwhile, detects and highlight which messages in Gmail inboxes have tracking software embedded in them.

Others are more holistic. Senders, a service from One More Company, acts as a middleman between mail services and recipients. It intercepts emails as they arrive and uses algorithms to scan them for tracking code. After automatically scrubbing them of embeds, it forwards the “clean” message to the intended recipient’s inbox.

Anti-tracking tools like Senders have proven popular. The early success of Senders (formerly known as Trackbusters), which doesn’t require special software or a browser plugin, surprised even its creators.

“We expected 100 to 200 outside users at first,” Seroussi said. “Instead, we had 10,000 to 12,000. It’s a growing concern — people want minimal tracking. Tracking make them uncomfortable, and they think companies shouldn’t be doing it without a disclaimer.”

There isn’t much appetite at the federal level, unfortunately. A proposed federal “do not track” bill in 2015 failed to gain steam, and earlier this year, Republicans voted to repeal Federal Communications Commission (FCC) protections that prevented Internet providers from collecting, storing, and sharing customers’ behavioral information. For now, built-in settings and third-party tools are email users’ only recourse.

“All those email services aren’t going anywhere,” Seroussi said. “Email, unlike instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, is an open environment — if I send email to anyone in the world, they don’t need specific software to download it or see it. The volume of emails we get is only going to increase.”

A better night’s sleep isn’t a far-off dream with this sci-fi wearable

Why it matters to you

A good night’s sleep is essential to our health and well-being, and we should turn to technology if we can’t achieve it naturally.

Because modern life often gets in the way of a relaxed, deep, refreshing sleep, more of us are turning to technology to rectify this problem. This may of course sound ironic since technology is often a cause of disturbed sleep. The latest sleep-promoting product, however, is completely sleep-friendly and doesn’t have a screen. It’s called the Dreem and it’s a sci-fi-esque headband with a built-in EEG system and bone-conducting audio, ready to send you to the land of Nod in just a few moments. We love the look, and the tech is equally as enticing.

The Dreem has been in development by startup Rythm (sic) for three years. It has recently completed its beta test program, and is ready to be put on sale. We spoke to creator Hugo Mercier in March about the technology inside, and what the device is like to use, so it’s great news the device is now almost ready for the public. It’s not a cheap piece of equipment though, and you’re going to have to splash out $500 on it, and then be prepared to wait until the fall for it to ship.

If it delivers on the benefits it promises, though, it may justify the high price. The dry polymer EEG electrodes monitor your brain activity, and the bone-conducting audio pipes specially produced audio directly to your inner ear. There’s no need to wear headphones with the Dreem, and only you can hear the audio, so you won’t disturb anyone sharing the bed. A touch sensitive bar runs along the top, so you don’t have to reach for your phone to control it. In the morning, data on your night’s sleep is presented in the app.

Audio plays a major role in the Dreem’s operation. Various settings play meditative tracks, those which guide you through breathing exercises, and others that help sync breathing and heart rate together. Once you’re asleep, the EEG watches over your brain, and uses sound to increase the quality of your sleep. There are many benefits to this apparently, including waking up properly refreshed in the morning, and promoting better overall health. The headband also has a smart alarm, waking you up gently at the optimal time.

It’s impossible to say how comfortable the headband is to sleep with on without trying it, but Rythm says it soon becomes unnoticeable. The soft fabric reminds us of the Google Daydream VR headset, the bands are lined with foam, and the whole device flexes and bends to conform to your head and movements. In beta tests, the Dreem has helped cut the time it takes to fall asleep by 31 percent.

You can pre-order the Dreem directly from the company, and expect delivery toward the end of the year.

A better night’s sleep isn’t a far-off dream with this sci-fi wearable

Why it matters to you

A good night’s sleep is essential to our health and well-being, and we should turn to technology if we can’t achieve it naturally.

Because modern life often gets in the way of a relaxed, deep, refreshing sleep, more of us are turning to technology to rectify this problem. This may of course sound ironic since technology is often a cause of disturbed sleep. The latest sleep-promoting product, however, is completely sleep-friendly and doesn’t have a screen. It’s called the Dreem and it’s a sci-fi-esque headband with a built-in EEG system and bone-conducting audio, ready to send you to the land of Nod in just a few moments. We love the look, and the tech is equally as enticing.

The Dreem has been in development by startup Rythm (sic) for three years. It has recently completed its beta test program, and is ready to be put on sale. We spoke to creator Hugo Mercier in March about the technology inside, and what the device is like to use, so it’s great news the device is now almost ready for the public. It’s not a cheap piece of equipment though, and you’re going to have to splash out $500 on it, and then be prepared to wait until the fall for it to ship.

If it delivers on the benefits it promises, though, it may justify the high price. The dry polymer EEG electrodes monitor your brain activity, and the bone-conducting audio pipes specially produced audio directly to your inner ear. There’s no need to wear headphones with the Dreem, and only you can hear the audio, so you won’t disturb anyone sharing the bed. A touch sensitive bar runs along the top, so you don’t have to reach for your phone to control it. In the morning, data on your night’s sleep is presented in the app.

Audio plays a major role in the Dreem’s operation. Various settings play meditative tracks, those which guide you through breathing exercises, and others that help sync breathing and heart rate together. Once you’re asleep, the EEG watches over your brain, and uses sound to increase the quality of your sleep. There are many benefits to this apparently, including waking up properly refreshed in the morning, and promoting better overall health. The headband also has a smart alarm, waking you up gently at the optimal time.

It’s impossible to say how comfortable the headband is to sleep with on without trying it, but Rythm says it soon becomes unnoticeable. The soft fabric reminds us of the Google Daydream VR headset, the bands are lined with foam, and the whole device flexes and bends to conform to your head and movements. In beta tests, the Dreem has helped cut the time it takes to fall asleep by 31 percent.

You can pre-order the Dreem directly from the company, and expect delivery toward the end of the year.

You can now shout Alexa commands at Amazon’s upgraded Dash Wand

Why it matters to you

If you’re searching for an easier way to reorder paper towels from Amazon, look no further than the new Dash Wand.

Amazon’s Dash Wand is sort of like a television remote that queues up deliveries instead of channels. At least, that was the intention — when the Dash Wand launched in early 2014, the bar code-scanning, voice-recognizing dongle was criticized for its many limitations. Starting Thursday, though, Amazon’s releasing a new model that supports Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.

To the untrained eye, the new Alexa Dash Wand doesn’t look all that different from the previous generation of Dash Wand. It sports a large, circular keychain loop, a strong magnet (meant for affixing the thing to metallic refrigerators), and a circular button that illuminates blue when pushed. But unlike the outgoing Amazon Dash, which only let you add items to a shopping card via limited voice controls, the new model supports Alexa natively. You can buy items directly instead of having to check out manually, like you can with Amazon’s pricier Echo speakers.

That’s not the only thing the new Dash Wand can do. Amazon says the remote-shaped dongle can find recipes, convert cups to ounces, reorder past items, find nearby restaurants, show movie showtimes, save reminders, set timers, and more. And it supports the full range of the more than 12,000 third-party apps — or “skills” — in Alexa’s library, including ride-sharing apps like Lyft and Uber, food-ordering apps like Dominos and Grubhub, and smart home appliance apps like Hue and SmartThings.

One feature it won’t support is Alexa Calling, Amazon’s new messaging platform — the upcoming Echo Show and existing devices can make and receive calls and dictate messages, which the companion Alexa app saves for posterity. And it won’t support Prime Music, Amazon’s internet music service. But given the Dash Wand’s diminutive size, it’s hard to call either omission a dealbreaker.

The new Dash Wand starts at $20, but Amazon’s gifting Prime subscribers who pick one up to $20, making the Dash Wand essentially a free purchase. Customers can sign up for a 90-day trial of Amazon’s AmazonFresh home grocery service.

Amazon’s Alexa-equipped Dash Wand is only the newest frontier for its voice assistant. Last month, the company unveiled the Echo Show, a touchscreen- and camera-equipped Echo that boasts video chat, Amazon’s Prime Music service, visual weather forecasts, and video content from CNN and YouTube. And earlier this year, it launched the first smart TV-equipped with Alexa, Element’s Amazon Fire TV Edition.

That rapid expansion might be seen as an effort to combat evolving voice platforms like Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri. At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, the company announced the HomePod, an AI-powered smart speaker that works with home appliances and boasts many of the same features as Amazon’s Echo speakers, including reminders and alarms. And in May, Google announced forthcoming features for its Google Home speaker, including proactive notifications, free calling to phones in the United States and Canada, calendar management, new music streaming services, and Chromecast integration.

Amazon, it’s safe to say, has its work cut out for it.

iPhone reigns in U.S. as Samsung S8 and S8 Plus sales disappoint

Why it matters to you

While Samsung had high hopes for its newest flagship phones, initial reports aren’t so promising.

Despite the hype, it doesn’t look as though the Samsung S8 and S8 Plus are doing all that well. The South Korean company had high hopes for its newest flagship handsets, and for a while, pre-order numbers seemed promising. But according to the latest Kantar data, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are still the top dog when it comes to popularity in the United States — at least in the first quarter of 2017. The two iPhones claimed a combined market share of 20.1 percent, according to the research firm’s data, whereas total iPhone share increased 5.8 points to reach 36.5 percent.

Samsung, on the other hand, saw its hyped S8 and S8 Plus reach a lower market share than last year’s S7 and S7 Plus. Whereas the former received just 8.1 percent market share, the older version saw 8.8 percent market share. In fact, Android as a whole didn’t perform all too well in the U.S.

“Android partner brands Samsung, LG, and Moto experienced year-on-year declines in the U.S.,” reported Lauren Guenveur, global consumer insight director for Kantar Worldpanel. “The Samsung Galaxy S8, released in the last two weeks of the April period, did not show a significant impact on Samsung’s sales in the period ending in April, nor did LG’s G6. Neither of those made the list of Top 10 best-selling phones.”

That said, Apple didn’t fare quite so well overseas, especially in burgeoning market China. According to Kantar, iOS share in urban China dropped 16.2 percent year over year. The research company noted that this represented “another period of decline in China that began during the three months ending February 2016.”

Europeans, though, remain Apple loyalists, with the brand posting 1.1 point gains in sales across the five major markets of Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. That said, moving forward, India will be a more important market to corner than any of these five nations, so it seems as though both Apple and its competitors have their work cut out for them.

Sphero made a Spider-Man your kids can talk to like an Amazon Echo

Sphero’s contract with Disney now includes Marvel, which is great for all of us nerds. I guess kids will like it, too.

We’ve seen Sphero bring BB-8 and Lightning McQueen to life over the last year, but now is the time of superheroes. A little Spider-Man can now stand on a pedestal and interact with anyone who taps the logo on his chest, in a way that is not terribly unlike an Amazon Echo speaker without the wake command. What makes this little Spidey worth adding t your house? It’s aimed at being a best friend for your kid.

Spider-Man by Sphero is a Wi-Fi enabled snark machine with eyes that animate with the audio from the speaker and lots of ways to play with kids. He will “guard” a bedroom, tell stores, and with the two hour battery inside can roam around the house with your kids to go on adventures. You know, standard friendly neighborhood hero stuff.

You can grab one of these little heroes starting today for $149. Will you be picking one up?

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How to shop on Amazon with Alexa

As an Amazon product, naturally you can buy things with Alexa. Here’s how.

Everything Amazon ever does has some form of hook into buying things from its retail store. On its tablets, that extends to adverts on your lock screen, but on the Amazon Echo, it’s pretty much the opposite.

You can use it to buy things from Amazon, but only if you want to. There’re no ads, no up-sell. But instead of reaching for your phone or going on the computer, just ask Alexa to order things for you. Here’s how.

How to enable purchase by voice

The first thing you need to do is turn on the feature in the Alexa app on your phone, tablet, or in a web browser.

Open the Amazon Alexa application.
Tap the menu button. It’s the three-line icon in the top left corner.

Select settings from the menu.

Scroll almost to the bottom and select voice purchasing.

Turn the purchase by voice button to on.

Below this, add a four-digit confirmation code to stop unauthorized purchases.

Hit save changes.

That’s all you need to do in the app for now. Before you can buy things from Amazon with your Echo, you need to follow the below criteria with regards your Amazon account. You need to have:

• An annual or 30-day free trial Amazon Prime membership.
• A U.S. shipping address (50 United States and the District of Columbia).
• A payment method issued by a U.S. bank with a U.S. billing address in your 1-Click settings.
• Voice purchasing enabled in the Alexa app.
• A device with access to the Alexa Voice Service (such as Echo).

The same applies outside of the U.S., where you’ll need to have the necessary payment, address and Prime subscription for your location.

To order a product through the Echo simply say:

Alexa, order a [insert product name here]

You then get the option to respond yes or no when Alexa asks you to confirm your order. You can also use a few other voice commands while shopping on the Echo such as re-ordering a previously purchased product.

Alexa, re-order [insert product name here]

In both cases, when ordering a product, you’ll be asked for your four-digit code if you set it up as part of the confirmation process. It’s worth making sure this is on and you keep it secret from anyone you don’t want placing orders on your Amazon account.

You can also use Alexa to put items in your shopping cart for purchasing later online or in the Amazon app on your phone or tablet. To do this simply say:

Alexa, add [item] to my cart.

Your chosen items will then be waiting for you in your cart to checkout at a later date.

But what about cancellations? If you have a sudden change of heart, you can also cancel your order by asking Alexa to do it for you:

Alexa, cancel my order.

Your last order will now be canceled for you. If for any reason it can’t, you’ll have to go into the Amazon app or your account on the Amazon website to try and put the cancellation through.

And that’s all there is to it. If you shop a lot on Amazon, which if you’re an Echo owner is pretty likely, Alexa can help you order things with ease throughout the course of your day.

Download Amazon Alexa from the Google Play Store

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Questions?

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