Best Android Phone Under $100

• Best inexpensive
• Best without ads
• Best on Verizon
• Best on Cricket Wireless
• Best on MetroPCS
• Best on Sprint

Best overall

Moto E4 (with ads)

See at Amazon

The Amazon-exclusive Moto E4 is a $130 phone reduced to $100. The catch? You’ll get ads and offers from the retail giant on your lock screen, which may or may not be a deal-breaker depending on how you like to use your phone. (We’ve got a good breakdown of what those ads look like).

Otherwise, you’re getting a decent entry-level Android phone for not a lot of money at all. The Moto E4 looks a lot like the Moto G5, but tones down some of the specs, offering a quad-core Snapdragon 425, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and an 8MP camera powering the 5-inch 720p display. It all runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat with some great Moto adds-ons.

Bottom line: Putting up with lock screen ads allows you to get a $130 phone for $100. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than you’d otherwise get for the cash.

One more thing: It’s unlocked, so you can use it on any carrier of your choice. And if you know where to look, there are some places on the Internet that’ll help you take care of those pesky ads.

Why the Moto E4 is best

Amazon plugs the price gap with offers on your lock screen.

With ads from Amazon, or without ads from Verizon, the Moto E4 gets you a great core Android experience — fast software, thanks to Motorola’s hands-off approach towards customization — and decent specs all-round.

It’s not the flashiest or showiest smartphone, with a relatively generic design, but you don’t expect pizzaz when you’re paying a Benjamin for a full-featured smartphone. The phone also retains the impressive features of its more-expensive Moto G5 counterpart, including a great autofocus camera and a front fingerprint sensor.

Best ad-free

Moto E LTE

See at Amazon

The unlocked Moto E LTE can be used on any supported network, and doesn’t come with any of the bloatware you’d expect from the U.S. carriers. And better still, it’s only $70. It’s powered by an aging but still-capable Snapdragon 410 processor, and you get a 4.5-inch qHD (960×540) display. And there’s only 8GB of storage, so an SD card will be an essential purchase.

Bottom line: A great, small phone that may be older than the Moto E4 but doesn’t come with any ads for under $100.

One more thing: You’ll definitely want to snap up a microSD card.

Best on Verizon

Moto E4

See at Verizon

If you’re on Verizon prepaid, you can snag our best overall pick, the Moto E4, for even less than the ad-filled one from Amazon. While this version will be locked to Verizon, it’s also just $70.

Bottom line: Trading ads for bloatware gets you Moto’s best super-cheap phone for less — if you’re on Verizon.

One more thing: Don’t expect software updates to be as quick as the unlocked version.

Best on Cricket Wireless (AT&T)

LG Harmony

See at Cricket Wireless

If you want to get a prepaid phone from one of the big four carriers, your choices are limited, but AT&T’s Cricket sub-brand has a great selection, including the LG Harmony for $100. It’s got a big 5.3-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, 2800mAh battery, and Android 7.0 Nougat.

Bottom line: LG’s got a strong prepaid game these days, and the Harmony is no exception.

One more thing: Don’t expect many updates with this phone. That’s the price of prepaid.

Best on MetroPCS (T-Mobile)

Samsung Galaxy J3 Prime

See at MetroPCS

MetroPCS’s Galaxy J3 Prime packs in the essentials for a good deal less than $100. You’re dealing with an entry-level quad-core processor, at 1.4GHz, 1.5GB of RAM, and a familiar Samsung-style chassis.

The biggest difference is the network — if you’re in a great location for T-Mobile coverage, you’ll be able to take advantage of this decent phone at MetroPCS.

Bottom line: You’ll get Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, which is rare for a phone this cheap.

One more thing: The phone is also available on T-Mobile, but it’s over double the cost for some reason.

Best on Sprint

Samsung Galaxy J3 Emerge

See at Sprint

Deja vu? Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy J3 Emerge is basically the same phone that’s sold on T-Mobile, only in a slightly different color, and running older software. You get the same core experience and feature set, only with a less up-to-date operating system and on a network that may be more convenient for you.

Bottom line: Unlike its Tmo-toting counterpart, the Galaxy J3 on Sprint ships with Marshmallow not Nougat.

One more thing: Virgin Mobile stopped selling Android phones, so your only bet is to get this phone on Sprint.

Conclusion

You’ll need to put up with the occasional ad, but Amazon’s offer of a Moto E4 for under $100 is really hard to beat.

Best overall

Moto E4 (with ads)

See at Amazon

The Amazon-exclusive Moto E4 is a $130 phone reduced to $100. The catch? You’ll get ads and offers from the retail giant on your lock screen, which may or may not be a deal-breaker depending on how you like to use your phone. (We’ve got a good breakdown of what those ads look like).

Otherwise, you’re getting a decent entry-level Android phone for not a lot of money at all. The Moto E4 looks a lot like the Moto G5, but tones down some of the specs, offering a quad-core Snapdragon 425, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and an 8MP camera powering the 5-inch 720p display. It all runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat with some great Moto adds-ons.

Bottom line: Putting up with lock screen ads allows you to get a $130 phone for $100. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than you’d otherwise get for the cash.

One more thing: It’s unlocked, so you can use it on any carrier of your choice. And if you know where to look, there are some places on the Internet that’ll help you take care of those pesky ads.

Update June 2017: We’ve replaced the previous top choice, the Moto G Play, with the newer and better Moto E4, and have revamped some of the carrier choices because they were either no longer available, or no longer the best options.

Deal: You can still get the HTC U11 for $599 with these codes

Deals are deals, and getting the HTC U11 for $50 off its $649 price counts as a pretty good one!

If you’ve been on the fence about picking up an HTC U11, HTC’s still trying to make the decision a bit easier. HTC’s early bird pre-order codes to knock $50 off the price of an unlocked U11 are still running, even though the phone has been on sale for a few weeks now. With a code applied, the U11 is a smooth $599, which is a completely reasonable price considering what the phone offers.

You don’t really have to do much to get this $50 discount. Just head to HTC’s website, add an unlocked phone to your cart, then click the “Have a Promotion Code? Enter it here.” button and enter AMAZINGU11 to get $50 off your order, no strings attached. There are several other promo codes floating around, and many of them may still work, but the one we can validate for sure is listed here.

The U11 ships for free, or you can use some of that $50 savings for 2-day shipping for $20 if you’re impatient (we wouldn’t blame you one bit).

So, have you decided on picking up a U11? Let us know in the comments below!

HTC U11

• HTC U11 review
• HTC U11 specs
• Manufacturing the U11: Behind the scenes
• Join our U11 forums
• HTC U11 vs Galaxy S8
• HTC U11 vs LG G6

Amazon
Sprint
HTC

YouTube rolling out fresh interface for Android TV

After over a year, we have a nice big YouTube update.

YouTube’s new Android TV interface is now rolling out, hopefully solving some of the issues people have reported that have led to a pretty horrid rating for the app in the Play Store. The new interface makes it a bit easier to browse on a big screen with some larger interface elements and new tabs running across the main home screen. That’s all roughly the same, though, with the core of big tiles showing off videos sitting on top of a grey background remaining intact.

The video player interface is probably the biggest change that everyone will experience. Bringing up the UI over the top of a video is far less intrusive, letting you see more of the video when you bring up the scrubber and previous/play+pause/next buttons.

YouTube surely hasn’t addressed every complaint, but there are lots of improvements here.

The seek bar is activated with a press up on your remote, where you’ll now see a sequence of thumbnails from the video as you scrub through. When you highlight the previous or next buttons instead, you get a lineup of videos below the scrubber that will be coming up next when you press the button — far better than a list of suggestions. At the end of a video, you get a few second buffer to see what’s coming up next (if you have auto play turned on) rather than immediately jumping to the next video in the lineup.

The update obviously can’t address everything people were asking for with YouTube on Android TV, but getting our first major update in a year shows Google isn’t completely forgetting about the platform. Grab the update on your Android TV box and enjoy the latest interface.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV

• Read our Shield Android TV review
• The latest Shield Android TV news
• Shield vs. Shield Pro: Which should I buy?
• Join the forum discussion
• Complete Shield Android TV specs

Amazon

Put some Canadian pride on your home screen with these Canada Day themes!

“Canada… big, wide, and very, very cold!” “WHAT?!”

That’s the beginning of the Canada movie at Epcot, and that’s the first thing that pops into my head whenever I think of our northern neighbors. Safe to say, I am not an expert on the country. Until I started to work for Android Central, my Canadian experiences consisted of Epcot and Hetalia. That said, there’s a lot to be envious of looking at Canada. You’ve got good healthcare, you’ve got Justin Trudeau, you’ve got all that maple syrup, and the biggest chance of a riot in Canada seems to be a hockey match. If it weren’t for those winters and how much more expensive technological gadgetry seems to be up there, I’d be all over it!

No matter where you call your Canadian home, you can display some home screen pride this Canada Day with this pair of themes.

Wallpapers

This landscape wallpaper features one of Canada’s most photogenic (and famous) locals: Moraine Lake. This idyllic scene has been a wallpaper many, many times before, as it is one of the original Android wallpapers back during its preview days. This scene was so famous it used to be on the Canadian $20 bill, though I can’t for the life of me think of why they’d want to replace it. This wallpaper is relatively simple, but it plays well with a wide variety of layouts, and theming widgets and icons to match that red Maple Leaf heart brings the whole ensemble together nicely.

Canada Heart

Okay, this is gonna feel a little cliché, but this wallpaper really does exemplify a lot of Canadian culture in a flat, monochromatic spread. If you can keep your icons and widgets off the Maple Leaf, this wallpaper can produce a beautifully clean theme thanks to minimal white widgets and icons.

Explore Canada

How to apply your wallpaper

Note: These instructions were written for an Android phone using Nova Launcher, but setting a wallpaper on most devices follows much of the same process.

Long-press an open space on your home screen.
Tap Wallpapers.

Tap Pick image.

Select your downloaded wallpaper.
The wallpaper should be centered automatically, so tap Set wallpaper.

Tap home and lock screen.

Icon Packs

For both themes, arrange your home screen icons around the main emblem of the wallpaper. I used subgrid positioning on Nova Launcher to arrange my home screen icons in a gently slanted grid.

Glim is a wonderfully Material pack with both a free and paid version, and it’s a pack with a rainbow of colored variants for most popular apps, from system apps and Google apps to third-party apps like Facebook and Netflix. It also has hundreds upon hundreds of alternate icons. I’ve employed Glim’s color-variant icons for holiday themes, an adorable BB-8 theme, and several others over the years.

For the Canada Heart theme, we’ll use the red variant icons in this pack, so you’ll also need a home screen launcher that supports individual custom icons, such as our favorite theming launchers.

For Explore Canada, we’re coming back to another of my favorite icon packs. There are a lot of white icon packs out there, but few have the style and the sheer number of supported icons as Whicons by Randle. This pack will make your app icons blend into the wallpaper expertly, but if you need some icons that overlap the white in the wallpaper, consider having Zwart, Whicon’s dark doppelganger, on hand to set a custom icon or two black for contrast.

How to set an icon pack

Open Whicons (or Glim for Canada Heart).
Tap the three-line menu in the top left corner.

Tap Apply.

Tap your launcher.

Tap OK of Apply, depending on your launcher.

If your launcher isn’t listed in step 4, your launcher might not be supported. Check the icon pack settings in your specific launcher, and if your launcher isn’t supported, consider using another launcher.

How to apply custom individual icons

Long-press an icon you wish to change.
Tap Edit.

Tap the icon window to change the icon.

Select Glim.
Tap the open app icon in the top right corner of the screen to enter Glim’s icon picker.

Search for the app icon you wish to use using the search bar at the top of the screen.

Tap your desired red icon.
Tap Done.

Repeat Steps 1-8 with each of your dock icons.

Widgets

Widgets can add extra functionality to your home screen while keeping things beautiful. We’ve got a variety of widgets that can work alongside our wallpapers and icons.

Google Search bar widget

Theming the Google search bar to match your wallpaper can add a lovely pop of color to your theme while also giving you another shortcut to Google Search, or a reminder of that spiffy new Google Now page Nova Launcher Beta added recently.

Long-press a blank space on the home screen.
Tap Widgets.

Under Nova Launcher, press and drag Quick Search Bar the desired location on your home screen.

Long-press your new search widget until a menu appears.
Tap Resize.

Drag the left edge of the widget to the left edge of the screen. If you want the date and time displayed, drag the right edge of the widget to the right edge of the screen.

Long-press your new search widget until a menu appears.
Tap Edit.

Under Bar Style, tap pill (the last option).

Tap Bar Color.
11a. For Explore Canada, tap white.
11b. For Canada Heart, tap more colors (the circle with the three dots in it).

For the Canada Heart, type in #cc303b.
Tap OK.

Once you’re satisfied with your color choice, tap the check mark in the top left corner of the screen.

If you’re using Explore Canada, I’m happy to tell you that Action Launcher’s Quicktheme will easily let you set your Quickbar to White for your theme. Quicktheme consistently missed the red in Canada Heart, but you could still set another color to your Quickbar, or use another launcher.

Open Action Settings.
Tap Quicktheme.

Tap Search box.

Tap Material Light.

Tap OK.

1Weather widget

1Weather’s is a beautiful, Material, modern weather app with a wonderful layout and the best damn weather widgets in Android. They scale beautifully across a variety of home screens, they can blend in or stand out with practiced ease, and they come in half a dozen formats for your weather-aware priorities. We’ll use a Tabbed widget here to give us a look ahead at the forecast without having to open the main app.

Long-press an open space on your home screen.
Tap Widgets.

Press and drag the 1Weather Tabbed Widget to the desired location on your home screen.

In the widget settings window that appears, tap Background color.

Tap Transparent.

Tap Icon Set.
Tap White.

Tap Accent.

9a. Tap white for Explore Canada.
9b. Tap dark red for Canada Heart.

Tap Done.

Long-press your new weather widget until a menu pops up.
Tap Resize.

Drag the edges of your widget to size the widget to your liking.

Music widgets

For Explore Canada, Ubiquity Music Widget provides a clean transparent widget that’s easy to set and easy to enjoy.

Open Ubiquity Music Widget.
Tap Open Notification Access Settings.

Slide the toggle next to Ubiquity Music Widget to On.

In Ubiquity Music Widget, under 4×1 Widget Style, tap Clear.
Long-press an open space on your home screen.

Tap Widgets.

Under Ubiquity Music Widget, press and hold Ubiquity Music Widget 4×1 widget.
Drag Ubiquity Music Widget 4×1 widget widget to the desired location on your home screen.

Release the widget to let it load.

Long-press your new music widget until a menu appears.
Tap Resize.

Drag the edges of the widget to resize to your liking.

For Canada Heart, the Ubiquity widget would work, but we can turn things up to 11 with a custom-hued Material Music Komponent for KWGT. Before we begin, download our Canada Heart Music Widget Preset and copy it into the Kustom/widgets folder.

Long-press an open space on your home screen.
Tap widgets.

Under KWGT, press and drag KWGT 4×2 to the top of your home screen.

Long press your new widget until a menu appears.
Tap Resize.

Drag the edges of the widget to the edges of the screen.

Tap your new widget to configure it.
Tap Exported.

Tap Canada Heart Music Widget.

Tap Layer.
Tap the + and – icons to adjust the scale of the music komponent until the album art is flush with the left edge of the box.

Tap Save, the floppy disc icon on the top right bar of the screen.

That’s it! It’s Canada’s 150th birthday this year, so celebrate it loud and proud with this theme!

🇨🇦

MacOS High Sierra: 29 new changes you can actually see

We’ll admit it: MacOS High Sierra is kind of boring compared to previous updates to the Mac operating system.

Sure, it has a new file system underneath, and it will eventually include support for virtual reality experiences. But in terms of obvious visual changes for the average consumers to get excited about, there weren’t many announced by Apple at WWDC 2017 in June. That said, the public beta just released yesterday, and we’ve been combing through it, trying to discover several the new tweaks.

Some of the changes were boldly announced on stage, while others were only briefly mentioned. There were even a few that we didn’t know were included. The Photos app, as well as Mail, Safari, Notes, Spotlight, and Siri have all been greatly improved in High Sierra. In fact, here are all the forward-facing changes we’ve noticed so far in Apple’s latest refinement-focused macOS release.

• How to get MacOS High Sierra right now and get it working on your Mac
• Apple announces major MacOS Sierra update called… High Sierra
• Will my Mac run MacOS High Sierra?

High Sierra: The new changes you can see

Photos: Side bar

While the Photos app originated as a tool you could use to manage your photo library and sync your pictures across devices via the cloud, it’s now a powerful editing software. There’s now a persistent sidebar that shows your library, Memories, Live Photos, and albums. You can also view photos based on type – whether that be burst shots, panoramas, selfies, etc.

There’s a new Imports section in the sidebar that also lets you quickly view recently imported photos and videos. Furthermore, there’s now an easy way in the side bar to get to your hidden photos, rather than just going through the menu bar.

Photos: Support for GIFs

Just like iOS 11, you can save and play GIFs in the Photos app.

Photos: Improved organisation

There’s a new filtering drop-down in the list view, so you can easily drag-and-drop photos into an album or even to the desktop to export it.

Photos: New editing tools

The Photos app even now supports GIFs. But the biggest change is the edit view, which has been revamped to include new tools, like curves and selective color. We noticed a new “Compare” button in the corner, too, so you can quickly see the before and after of your adjustments.

Photos: Move to another editor

You can also now move from Photos to whatever editor you prefer and then save edits without being left with multiple copies. So, you can go move into Photoshop, saves any edits, and those edits will sync across your devices as if you were still in Photos. Just right click on a photo in Photos, and then you can share it to another editing app.

Photos: Live Photos features

Furthermore, High Sierra has the new Live Photos features available in iOS 11, such as loop, bounce, and long exposure effects. You can trim and mute a Live Photo, too, as well as choose a new keyframe.

Photos: New Memories categories

The Memories feature is more intelligent now, too. It can create memories for birthdays, sporting events, weddings, anniversaries, etc.

Photos: Publish to third parties

Lastly, you can now publish books and websites using third-party companies like Shutterfly and Wix.

Safari: Block auto-playing videos

Tire of annoying auto-playing videos on Facebook and elsewhere? In High Sierra, Safari protects you against them. You can set preferences for individual websites or a block all autoplay altogether. You can also just stops content with sound or play everything play.

Safari: Blocks adverts that track you

Safari now offers smart tracking prevention. It uses machine learning to detect the advertisers that track you around the web, and then it remove the data. That means you won’t see that product you looked up on Amazon shown to you for days and weeks on end when you visit other sites.

Safari: Automatic Reader mode

You can also set Safari to the Reader mode in order to blank-out the page to show nothing but article content. The new option basically lets you automatically open any web article directly in Reader mode, as long as the website supports it.

Safari: More granular controls

Safari has added added more privacy controls for your Mac’s camera, microphone, and notifications. You’ll be able to specify display settings on a per-site basis, too. You can pick the zoom level, location services content blockers, and more.

Mail: Top Hits

Now, when you search through your Mail inbox, Top Hits will make your search much more accurate. It looks at how often and how recently you’ve read a message. It determines if the sender is a favourite contact or person marked as a VIP i preferences. It also sees how often someone emails you and how often you reply. Top Hits will get more relevant and helpful the more you search in Mail, too.

Mail: Split screen

Now, with Split View in Mail, you’ll be able to reply to an email while combing through your inbox, or whatever.

Notes: Pin a note

You can now pin notes, keeping the most urgent or important ones at the top of the list.

Notes: Create a tables

Tables can be created and added in Notes now, too. Who knows when you’d need to make a table in notes, but we’re sure someone will use it.

Notes: Highlighted search words

Notes made it difficult to search for a word and see it highlighted, but now, it’ll do just that, so you can easily locate a word in the results.

Siri: Natural voices

Siri is getting more natural voices – the same ones coming to iOS 11.

Siri: Improved music playback

Siri is better at handling music-related requests. You could always ask it to play a specific song, but now you can ask Siri to “play some music”. You’ll then get a personalised playlist. You can also ask her to play something based on a mood, like said, as well as something genre-specific.

Spotlight: Track flight status

Spotlight will track your flight status, so you can see if a flight is on time. You can also see its path, duration, and departure/arrival terminal info.

Spotlight: Ask longer questions

You can now type longer questions and ask it to recommend you stuff. Also, Spotlight now shows multiple results from Wikipedia when you search.

iCloud: Improved family sharing

Apple now lets you set up different preferences in family sharing – whether that be for Apple Music, shared purchases, etc. Also, now everyone can use up storage from the same storage plan. And 200GB of iCloud storage costs $2.99 per month going forward, while 2TB is $9.99 a month.

iCloud: Improved file sharing

Files saved to iCloud Drive can be shared with others, enabling collaboration. That means everyone can access and work on the document in real-time. Compatible third-party apps can also work on iCloud Drive files, and you can share directly from the share sheet.

Messages: Messages in iCloud

High Sierra can store your iMessage history in the cloud, just like iOS 11 will do, which should make it easier to access your conversations when you set up a new device. Apple said the feature is end-to-end encrypted as well.

FaceTime: Capture a Live Photo

Next time you’re on a FaceTime call, you can capture a Live Photo using the other person’s camera and mic on their Mac or iOS device. The person will be notified whenever a Live Photo is taken, of course. Just look for the new shutter button and click it.

Universal Clipboard: Copy and paste between Macs

Finally! You can copy on one Mac and paste it onto a another Mac that’s nearby and signed into your account, thanks to Universal Clipboard, which was first introduced as a feature between macOS and iOS. Now, it works between Macs too.

Touch Bar: New features

Apple said you can double tap the volume button on the touch bar to mute your Mac’s audio. And you swipe to adjust the volume and display brightness. There are also new touch bar buttons for Night Shift and AirPlay.

Font: New system font

There’s a new system font in High Sierra. It’s called San Franciso Arabic.

Wallpaper: High Sierra

This may be obvious, but there’s a new wallpaper in High Sierra. It’s from the mountains in High Sierra.

Want to know more?

Check out Pocket-lint’s High Sierra guide to learn about the bigger changes you can’t see. 

Toyota’s cute support robot completes its first US in-home test

Toyota’s been working on a few great projects aimed at helping people with limited mobility, and they’ve made a big announcement today. They have completed their first North American in-home trial of HSR, the Human Support Robot.

The company worked with Romulo Camargo, a veteran who sustained serious injuries in Afghanistan. He’s now paralyzed from the waist down. HSR’s mission was to make Camargo’s life easier and improve his quality of life; it helped him open doors and brought him water and snacks.

The HSR is lightweight and is equipped with a telescoping, articulated arm with a soft, flexible hand. It can receive inputs and commands through a GUI on your smartphone or tablet, as well as interpret voice commands. Its three basic modes can pick up (using a gripper for larger objects or an onboard vacuum for smaller, more difficult ones), fetch (utilizing its object recognition features), and hand over manual control (which allows the user to take control of the robot). Caregivers can also use the HSR for monitoring while on the same network. Toyota plans to expand this to offsite locations in the future.

When Camargo first opened the box containing his HSR, he said, “When they opened the box, and I saw the robot, I figured we would unfold the next chapter in human support robots helping people with disabilities – like this research is going to change the world.” It’s encouraging how far robotic technology has come in just a few years; putting HSRs in the homes of people with mobility issues will do a lot to improving their quality of life.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Human Support Robot, Toyota

India wants a discount on Windows to reduce its cyberattack risk

In light of the recent WannaCry and “NotPetya” global ransomware attacks, India is looking to strike a deal with Microsoft that would reduce the cost of its Windows 10 operating system by more than 75 percent. The country’s cyber security coordinator, Gulshan Rai, told Reuters that the company has “in principle agreed.”

Around 96 percent of the computers used in India run on Windows, but because of the costs of software upgrades, many users stick with older versions or use pirated software that doesn’t receive security patches. This opens the country up to widespread damage with ransomware like WannaCry that take advantage of security weaknesses in older and non-updated Windows systems.

Rai began pushing for the discount after the WannaCry attack in May. His team also worked with banks to make sure that ATMs running on Windows software were upgraded with Microsoft’s security patch. That along with concerted efforts to switch to newer Microsoft software reduced NotPetya’s impact in the country this week.

With 57 million computers in India, the country could save billions of dollars in costs if Microsoft agrees to the steep discount. But the deal could also open Microsoft up to similar requests from other countries.

Rai says they’re expecting details from Microsoft about the price cut in a couple of days.

Source: Reuters

Fitbit is reportedly still struggling to make a smartwatch

When Fitbit launched the Blaze fitness watch in 2016, it made sense that the company might also be working on a more full-featured smartwatch, too. When Fitbit bought Pebble, Fitbit’s CEO confirmed that fact. Unfortunately, the product was reported by Yahoo! to have a ton of issues that pushed the planned launch from this past spring to the fall. Bloomberg is now reporting that the project has lost several people who were working on the smartwatch. The sources also say that Fitbit was unable to close a deal with Spotify and that technical challenges have delayed the completion of an app store, an essential component of any smartwatch ecosystem.

Fitbit denies any problems. “We can confirm that development of our smartwatch and our 3rd party apps are on track,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement to Engadget. “Any claims that the developer program is struggling are false. We look forward to working with the developer community to offer users the opportunity to curate their own Fitbit experience and, with our broad cross-platform compatibility and expertise in health and fitness, are well positioned to succeed. “

We know what the new smartwatch could look like, thanks to some leaked photos obtained by Yahoo Finance last May. With a traditional square watch face and a unibody case, “Project Higgs” looks a little like the Blaze. Yahoo sources noted that the smartwatch will have built-in GPS, heart-rate monitoring and a set of wireless headphones code-named “Parkside.”

As Bloomberg notes, it’s going to be tough to compete with the two big smartwatch brands out there from Apple and Android. Developers aren’t going to go all in on a product that’s been delayed and may not come with a complete app store on launch. While Fitbit may be looking to the smartwatch category to boost its own flagging wearables sales, the choice to make a completely independent watch, operating system and app store may have been a bit too optimistic.

Source: Bloomberg

Facebook needs to be more open about its hate speech policy

On Wednesday, ProPublica published a report that outlines some pretty bizarre reasoning behind Facebook’s approach to hate speech and censorship. Evidence shows that Facebook has a moderation policy that could favor “white men” over “black children,” based on a guideline that protects broad categories of people, but not subsets.

Obviously it can be quite difficult for Facebook to oversee the content of over 2 billion users, and it’s liable to make mistakes doing so. But with so much reach and influence, this kind of incredible tone deafness is upsetting. And what’s even more upsetting is that the policy is secret at all.

According to internal training documents that ProPublica obtained, Facebook defines hate speech as an attack against a protected category. Examples of that protected category include race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability or disease.

That all sounds well and good, except that “subsets” of these categories are considered fair game. So when US Representative Clay Higgins called for the murder of “radicalized Muslims,” that was OK (since “radicalized” is a modifier) but when activist Didi Delgado said “All White people are racist,” that was not, since it’s a statement that targeted an entire race.

This ignores the fact that calling for the deaths of people is quite a bit more violent than saying a group of people is racist. It is, however, in line with an earlier report from The Guardian that claims Facebook’s policies allow certain violent speech if it doesn’t pose a “credible threat.”

Here’s the quiz Facebook has given to its “content reviewers” pic.twitter.com/zv8hS27H0A

— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) June 28, 2017

And if that seems unfair to you, ProPublica uncovered an internal presentation slide that made the distinction all the more disturbing. In it was a quiz with a question: “Which of the below subsets do we protect?” The provided options were “Female drivers,” “Black children,” and “White men.” The correct answer, according to Facebook, is “White men,” because race and gender are protected categories, but “drivers” and “children” are not.

It’s a bizarre answer, not only because it doesn’t make sense, but because it is so very culturally tone deaf. As ProPublica points out, this logic assumes that all races and genders are equal, and ignores the reason why hate speech laws exist: to protect those who are marginalized in society.

At the same time, Facebook is, of course, not a country; it’s a private company. It doesn’t create laws and it can’t throw people in actual jail for shouting slurs. It’s a corporation with a global platform and it needs to apply its rules universally, which is difficult when different countries have different customs. Germany, for example, has recently instituted a law whereby it can sue Facebook for up to $57 million for hate speech, whereas countries like the US has no such law.

It can’t be denied that moderating speech for so many people is a hard and complicated task, which is why Facebook has hired over 3,000 extra moderators to help police its site. Richard Allan, Facebook’s VP of Public Policy in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, does acknowledge, however, that it can still make mistakes: “We’re not perfect when it comes to enforcing our policy. Often there are close calls — and too often we get it wrong.”

Which is why the recent ProPublica report is so alarming. While it’s encouraging to hear that Facebook is taking hate speech seriously, the way it’s going about it seems pretty terrible. It’s not enough to know that it’s going to ban hate speech. We need to know the exact guidelines for how it defines them too.

Facebook says high-frequency posters often share fake news

Facebook has taken another small step in its very mild battle with fake news. The website will now begin to deprioritize the links posted by users who share large amounts of posts each day.

In an announcement, Adam Mosseri, the Facebook VP in charge of News Feed, said that the company’s research shows that people who post more than 50 times per day are often sharing low quality content. Their posts frequently include clickbait, sensationalism and misinformation. The connection between fake news and high-frequency posters is strong enough that Facebook has just tweaked its algorithm to make those posts show up less often in others’ feeds. The change should curtail the reach such links have throughout Facebook.

Facebook’s fake news problem became an issue during the presidential election and fake news activity spiked around election day. Other attempts at reigning in false content include other algorithm tweaks and fact-checkers as well as rather empty additions like an educational tool and fake news flags.

The new change is limited to individuals, not Pages and will only focus on links to articles.

Source: Facebook