Android users more likely than iPhone users to use fertility app for — fertility

Why it matters to you

This difference between iPhone and Android owners poses larger questions concerning the devices people use and why they choose them.

Every now and then, a study comes along trying to tell us that iPhone and Android users are different kinds of people, with different personalities and different goals. And while some of those findings are hard to quantify — like measures of extroversion or humility, for example — the data can be interesting, and the stereotypes persist. Now, the developer of a cross-platform fertility app has just reported some new data highlighting a key difference between iPhone and Android users — and the results raise many questions.

Cycle Technologies, the company responsible for fertility and menstrual tracker Dot, has shared some research comparing the users of the competing operating systems. When users open Dot for the first time, they’re asked whether they want to use the app to facilitate pregnancy, prevent it, or simply track their periods. It’s presumably through this interface that Dot has compiled figures of what iPhone and Android users each want from the app, though Cycle Technologies doesn’t elaborate on the specific methodology.

According to Dot, 35 percent of users on iPhone use Dot to prevent pregnancy, compared to 29 percent of their Android counterparts. Meanwhile, 25 percent of those on Android use the app to plan a pregnancy, compared to 19 percent of iPhone users. Across both platforms, 32 percent of people use Dot to prevent pregnancy, 22 percent use the app to plan it, and 46 percent simply track their cycles with it.

In short, at least among users of this app, more Android users are apparently interested in having kids, while more iPhone users are steering clear of parenthood. While there are surely an abundance of theories that might explain the data, Cycle Technologies points to education as a major factor. The company’s press release cites a study that claims iPhone use correlates with higher levels of education, and paired that with another study illustrating that those seeking higher education end up marrying later, and delaying childbirth longer, than those with only a high school diploma, or no diploma at all.

Indeed, the Center for Disease Control reported in 2015 that the average age of the American woman having her first child rose to 26 in 2013, a record high at the time. Meanwhile, birth rates to women over 35 have increased over the past two decades, per Business Insider. The consensus is that as more women opt to attend college and ultimately embark on a career path, they put off starting families until their late twenties and thirties.

However, income disparity may play a role, too. If iPhone users can afford higher education, or higher education has provided them with a better paying job than they’d otherwise have, those users can also afford to shell out more for a smartphone — and Apple’s devices are some of the most expensive on the market.

The cheapest iPhone Apple will sell you at the moment is the iPhone SE, at $400. When it comes to Android, on the other hand, some, like the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8, equal the most expensive iPhones in cost, while others, like Lenovo’s just-released Moto E4, can be had for as little as $100. And that’s just if you want a newly released phone — you can find older models for less than half that.

Ultimately, Cycle’s findings will surely add fuel to the iPhone vs. Android conversation — though it’s important not to overlook correlating external factors like economic status and age. After all, the kinds of phones people choose are often dependent on much bigger issues than simply the logo on the back.

Facebook Live now lets you broadcast in VR using the Oculus Rift ‘Spaces’ app

Why it matters to you

If you’ve been wanting to broadcast your Oculus Spaces experience to your Facebook friends, a new feature lets you do just that.

When Facebook acquired virtual reality headset maker Oculus and gained access to its main product, the Oculus Rift, the assumption was that VR experiences would increasingly make their way to the social media giant. So far, the VR headset has been successful in its own right, and the Oculus Spaces app has served as the main point of entry for using Facebook in a somewhat limited VR environment.

Now, Oculus Spaces is getting a brand-new feature that should significantly enhance the social sharing aspect of the experience. Spaces will now allow users to share Facebook Live video sessions that are generated from within the app, as Road to VR reports.

The new Live support means that users can now set up a virtual camera in Oculus Spaces that can be positioned anywhere in the VR environment and broadcast to other Facebook users — just like with a 2D Live session. This builds on Spaces‘ current ability to share selfies and add them to the Facebook Timeline, as well as the Facebook Messenger call feature that lets users engage in “VR-to-reality” videoconferences.

The Spaces version of Facebook Live will work just like it does on other platforms. Facebook friends can comment and ask questions during Live sessions, and the VR user who’s doing the broadcasting will be able to see the usual emoji reactions, and will have the option of picking comments and highlighting them to the audience.

Facebook is highlighting the educational and business value of the new Live feature, showing off in its promotional video how teachers could enact “VR office hours” to meet with students who are also equipped with their own Oculus Rifts in more natural simulated environments. Other students without VR headsets could view the sessions, just like any other Facebook Live broadcast.

The new feature is live (no pun intended) in Spaces as of today. You can download it or install the latest update, and you should be ready to go Live on your Oculus Rift. Check out our Oculus Rift review to see if this is the right VR platform for you.

MIT Media Lab uses machine learning to quantify neighborhood change

Why it matters to you

If machine learning can figure out what causes cities to improve, urban planning can benefit. MIT’s Media Lab may have the solution.

In 2013, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab created a computer vision system that could read photos of urban areas and gauge how safe people would find them. Now, using the same system, the team is working with colleagues at Harvard University to identify what causes urban change. Tested with five American cities, this system quantifies the physical improvement or deterioration of neighborhoods.

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences, researchers used the system to analyze over a million pairs of photos taken seven years apart. These results were then used to test popular theories about the causes of urban revitalization.

Contrary to popular belief, raw income levels and housing prices do not predict change in a neighborhood. Instead, it had more to do with other factors. The researchers found that the density of highly educated residents, proximity to central business districts or other physically attractive neighborhoods, and the initial safety score assigned by the computer vision system all lead to improvements in the physical condition.

Courtesy of the MIT researchers.

Another theory that was tested is that neighborhoods are mostly revitalized when their buildings have deteriorated enough for replacement. The researchers at MIT and Harvard found little correlation between the age of a neighborhood’s buildings and the degree of physical improvement.

In order to properly train the machine-learning system used, human volunteers had to rate the relative safety of urban areas shown in hundreds of thousands of image pairs. Then, for the new study, the same system compared images associated with the same geographic coordinates seven years apart in Google’s Street View. However, images had to be preprocessed to ensure the system’s decisions were reliable. For example. green spaces are one of the ways people assess safety. If one image was captured in summer, and the other in winter, the machine-learning system might incorrectly think the neighborhood has lost green space.

To test the system’s outcome, researchers then presented 15,000 random pairs of images from the data set to human reviewers. When asked to assess the relative safety of the areas shown, the reviewers matched the computer 72 percent of the time. Additionally, in the remaining percentage, most of the disagreements were of pairs with little change in safety scores.

MIT’s Media Lab is always innovating, From reading a book without opening it to a living shirt that reacts to sweat, its researchers are finding new ways to solve old problems.

NATO communication protocol could bring on Internet of Underwater Things

Why it matters to you

The world’s first digital underwater communications standard will allow underwater devices to talk with one another.

Many in the tech world are crazy excited about the Internet of Things, a hyperconnected world of internet-enabled devices, in which everyday objects are able to both send and receive data among one another. And what could be even more exciting than the regular IoT? The obvious answer is an underwater Internet of Things, of course!

That’s what the NATO Science and Technology Organization’s [Center] for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) has developed with newly sponsored research designed to establish the world’s first-ever acoustic digital underwater communications standard. Called Janus, the new digital alternative has been used by all NATO allies since earlier this year — and represents the first time a digital underwater communication protocol has been established at a global level. Considering that more than 70 percent of the globe is covered by water, it’s about time.

On the surface, the idea of an underwater communication standard might sound a bit unnecessary. After all, we’re still getting used to smart devices on dry land, so do we really need them in the ocean, too? The short answer is “yes.” For instance, underwater communications will allow for the creation of underwater networks that will let undersea robots work together autonomously and report findings back home. This could be used for everything from detecting underwater leaks in oil rigs and harbor protection to mine detection and underwater archaeology. Such applications will only become more important.

“Robots can behave intelligently and act as a team,” said Joao Alves, Principal Scientist and Project Leader at CMRE, in a statement. “For example, one of the robots could find some interesting feature and call the rest of the team.”

Janus — named after the Roman god of openings and gateways, if you’re interested — operates by defining the common frequency of 11.5 kilohertz, through which underwater devices can communicate. Once they have connected, they then have the option of switching to another frequency or protocol to maximize their underwater comms abilities.

Given that we can only dream of every land-based IoT device speaking the same language, Janus is actually pretty ahead of its time.

We just hope the researchers have put enough work into the security side of things. Because the idea of NATO’s entire underwater fleet getting hacked totally sounds like the premise of a new James Bond movie.

Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe (UX490UA) review

Research Center:
Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe UX490UA-XS74-BL 

Clad in midnight blue and chased in gold, the original Asus Zenbook 3 was lauded for its bold, unconventional style. It was a gorgeous laptop, but it had a few critical flaws. Its successor, the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe aims to set things right. During our Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe review, we found that this little thing was just full of surprises.

Our review unit shipped with an Intel Core i7-7500U processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid state drive, and a 14-inch 1080p display panel, with a retail price of $1,700. Despite that, the internals aren’t that different from the original Zenbook, and the overall silhouette is very similar — just stretched out to 14-inches instead of the original’s 12-inches.

If it’s only a minor revision, did Asus change enough to make the Zenbook 3 Deluxe worth your time and money? Well, this laptop is full of pleasant surprises, so let’s dig into it.

Gilded elegance

Asus decided to stick with its winning design for the Zenbook 3 Deluxe, with a few small refinements. It’s still that deep Royal Blue, and the lid still features that opulent gold finish around its edge.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

The Deluxe model is a bit larger, with a 14-inch display to the original’s 13-inch. It’s almost as thin, at .51 inches to the original’s .47 inches. It’s also a little heavier at 2.42 pounds to the original’s weight of 2 pounds flat.

The build quality here is excellent, as the Zenbook’s chassis doesn’t flex, creak, or crack the way cheaper all-plastic laptops do. The hinge is a little looser than other laptops tend to be right out of the box, but its construction is great, and solidly attached to the body without any give at the edges.

When the lid is closed, the whole thing feels solid, like it’s just a single plate of aluminum. It doesn’t feel hollow, or flimsy despite its incredibly lightweight build. On top of that, the signature concentric ring design unique to the Zenbook lineup adds an eye-catching sheen to the lid. Like a luxury watch, it feels substantial, and has an effortlessly premium look to it.

The build quality here is excellent. It feels solid, like a single plate of aluminum.

The premium ultrabook market is defined by products with that kind of weighted quality. These notebooks differentiate themselves from business, consumer, and gaming laptops by bringing an extra level of craftsmanship to the table.

Just look at Microsoft’s Surface Laptop, or HP’s Spectre x360, both are exceptionally well-crafted machines that feature remarkably similar internal components. These notebooks are defined more by their design, their aesthetics, than by their hardware.

Even if they do sometimes borrow design elements from one another. For instance, the display bezels on the Zenbook are very similar to those on the MacBook Pro 13 — but that’s not a bad thing. It’s the 21st century, it’s about time we shrug off the oppressive yoke of overly thick bezels.

A dongle in every port

The original Asus Zenbook 3 featured a single Thunderbolt 3 port, which had a certain elegance to it, but was impractical. The Zenbook 3 Deluxe aims to remedy that issue by including not one, but two Thunderbolt 3 / USB Type-C ports, and one standard USB Type-C port.

Okay, that’s still not a lot. However, Asus went one step further and set an example the rest of the industry should follow immediately. The Zenbook 3 Deluxe ships with a set of Thunderbolt 3 dongles to help replace those old ports. In the box, buyers will find a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI dongle, alongside a standard Thunderbolt 3 to USB Type-A dongle.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

The system is still $1,700 so they’re not free, they’re just included, but it’s the kind of small gesture that makes you feel good about a purchase. Pick up a MacBook Pro 13 and you’ll be out $10 to $20 per dongle, if you get the cheap ones on Amazon — double that if you go for the Apple-branded options. That can feel like a manufacturer reaching back into your wallet after you just handed them nearly two thousand dollars.

There’s no such issue here. The Asus branded dongles are simple, high quality, and they do an excellent job of bridging the gap between old standards and new ones. Still, if you end up needing other ports, like Ethernet, or DisplayPort, there are plenty of dongles for that.

The Thunderbolt 3 ports themselves are conveniently located, two on the right side, one on the left, so you can charge the Zenbook 3 Deluxe from either side with enough room to plug in a mouse or other accessory.

0.4 millimeters makes all the difference

One if the major issues the original Zenbook 3 had was its keyboard. Its short key travel made each keystroke feel like it ended abruptly, as if typing on wood. Thankfully the new Zenbook 3 Deluxe remedies that issue by offering deeper key travel, 1.2mm to the original’s .8mm, and better tactile feel overall.

Each keystroke is deep, ending in a satisfying click — even if it is softer than you’d get out of a typical mechanical keyboard. The keyboard also features a gold backlight which shines through the key caps without much light leakage, even in a completely dark room.

The touchpad is the perfect size for this form factor – big enough without being overwhelming, small enough to conserve space without feeling limiting. Plus, its Windows Precision Touchpad multi-touch gestures are quick, responsive, and accurate.

Unfortunately though, the fingerprint sensor takes us the top right corner of the touchpad, and its immediate area is a dead zone on the touchpad. Despite that, it works with Windows Hello and works well, even if you tap it at an odd angle.

A case for 1080p?

At 14 inches, the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe is the right size for a 1080p display panel. It’s small enough that everything looks bright and crisp without getting too stretched out. A higher resolution display would’ve been nice to see, and 1080p does put it a bit behind the curve — most of its competitors, like the HP Spectre x360, offer optional 4K panels.

In our display benchmarks, the Zenbook held its own against a few high-profile competitors in the premium laptop space. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon topped our list with its contrast ratio of 990:1, while the HP Spectre x360 managed 910:1, and the Acer Spin 7 hit 860:1. The Zenbook is right in the middle there, tied with the HP Spectre, and just ahead of the Acer Spin.

Moving on to color gamut, the Zenbook edged out the Acer Spin 7’s decent-if-below-average AdobeRGB percentage of 69 percent, with its own score of 72 percent. Both fell behind the HP Spectre x360’s score of 75 percent. All four achieved very typical results here, reproducing acceptable percentages of the finicky AdobeRGB color space.

When it comes to color accuracy though, the Zenbook 3 did fall a bit short of our expectations. Its average color error of 2.19 isn’t terrible, it’s small enough that most users wouldn’t even notice unless they fired up Photoshop and found their custom palettes slightly askew. But the HP Spectre x360 and Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon both come much closer to pitch-perfect accuracy. Again, for most users it won’t be a big deal, but it’s the kind of small detail that could end up being a problem down the road — if you plan on using the Zenbook 3 Deluxe for professional photo or video editing, for instance.

On its own, the glossy screen looks great in most environments. It’s bright enough to maintain its color fidelity even under fluorescent office lights. Despite the glossy screen, we never had any issues with glare, unless the Zenbook was in direct sunlight but most laptops have trouble competing with the sun.

The Asus Boombox 3 Deluxe

The original Asus Zenbook 3 featured an impressive set of speakers which were capable of filling a room with rich, lifelike sound. The Zenbook 3 Deluxe follows suit, and includes what are very likely the same speakers — because they sound as good as they did on the original.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

With two speakers right above the keyboard, and two on the underside of the chassis, the Zenbook sounds best when sitting on a flat surface. Sitting on a desk or table, its speakers reproduce music remarkably well. On a lap, it’s a little less impressive, but still sounds better than most laptops. This is the kind of detail that can set a premium ultrabook apart from the rest. The Acer Spin 7, and Thinkpad X1 Carbon are portable and stylish, but their speakers were less than impressive.

At this price, there’s no excuse not to have decent speakers in a laptop anymore, so it’s always nice to see a company like Asus go the extra mile to include a feature most manufacturers overlook.

Intel vs Intel vs Intel

The Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe features an Intel Core i7-7500U processor. It’s a workhorse, but it’s still a dual-core processor. It’s the same one in the non-Deluxe version of the Zenbook 3, which is fine, but including the same processor doesn’t feel Deluxe.

As we mentioned, it’s an admirable performer. It’s not going to slow you down during day-to-day productivity tasks, it has enough headroom to run the entire Microsoft Office suite simultaneously — with several massive spreadsheets and Word documents open at the same time. It does start to chug when running a bunch of applications alongside a normal load of browser tabs, however. Yes, all those Reddit tabs are essential and work related.

On single-core performance, the Zenbook’s Intel Core i7-7500U fared a bit better than Acer Spin 7 and fell just behind the HP Spectre x360. The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon, with its slightly faster Intel Core i7-7600U, pulled ahead of the pack with an impressive single-core score of 4,598. Moving on to multi-core performance, the Zenbook managed to push into second place past the HP Spectre x360. It still fell behind the Thinkpad X1 Carbon, which led the pack by a comfortable margin.

Our Handbrake tests were a bit more positive for the Zenbook, which performed a 4K video encode in about 17 minutes. The Acer Spin 7 took 29 minutes to perform the same encode, while the HP Spectre x360 managed it in about 18 minutes. The Lenovo X1 Carbon took the lead again, finishing the encode in a bit over 16 minutes. None of these are particularly dazzling results. All of these notebooks feature dual-core processors which are perfectly suitable for everyday productivity tools, but tend to drop the ball when it comes to heavy lifting like 4K video encodes.

Fleet-footed

Hard drive performance isn’t exactly a marquee feature, but it’s critical, especially for a laptop like the Zenbook 3 Deluxe. This thing is designed to be carried everywhere, which means it’ll end up doing a little bit of everything. The Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe ships with a 512GB SSD, and it’s quick on its feet. Hitting a read speed of 1,349 megabytes per second, and a write speed of 1,285 MB/s, the Zenbook’s SSD is more than capable of taking on with almost about anything you throw at it.

The Zenbook’s SSD is second only to the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon, which hit a read speed of 1,879 MB/s and a write speed of 1,508 MB/s. There’s a fair bit of space between them on read/write speed, but there’s an even bigger gulf between the Zenbook and the Acer Spin 7, with its lowly SATA drive — which is much slower than a PCIe drive, like the ones in the Zenbook and Thinkpad.

Intel HD vs Intel Iris

The little Intel HD Graphics 620 chip that resides on the Zenbook’s processor provides enough horsepower for games like Hearthstone and League of Legends, but little else. For the most part, it’s powerful enough for everyday applications, but games thrash this poor little graphics chip.

This isn’t a Zenbook specific issue, it’s a fact of life for ultrabooks without discrete graphics cards. On our benchmarks, none of the Zenbook’s nearest competitors did particularly well. In 3DMark’s Sky Diver benchmark, the Zenbook scored 3,914 to the Spectre x360’s 3,299, while the Thinkpad X1 Carbon pulled ahead with a score of 4,416.

The Microsoft Surface Pro is another machine with Intel integrated graphics, but its processor, the Core i7-7660U, features the more powerful Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640. It’s still not quite powerful enough for most games, but the extra horsepower does make the Surface Pro a better choice for low-intensity games like Civilization VI. On medium settings, the Surface Pro managed 16 FPS in Civlization VI, while the Zenbook managed about 12 FPS. That’s not exactly jaw-dropping performance, but there’s a noticeable difference between Intel HD and Intel Iris graphics. Even if it’s a small one.

A good compromise

At half-an-inch thick, and weighing just 2.42 pounds, the Zenbook 3 Deluxe is surprisingly thin and light. It’s even thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro 13 — which weighs 3.02 pounds and is .59 inches thick. Neither one is going to weigh you down during a daily commute, but you might end up feeling that extra half-pound on the MacBook Pro 13 at the end of a long day. The Zenbook, on the other hand, fits into very small messenger bags with ease. It even fits into an internal messenger bag compartment designed for a 13-inch laptop with room to spare. However, there is more to portability than size alone, so let’s look at how long the Zenbook lasts on a single charge.

During everyday use, we were able to get around six hours of battery life out of the Zenbook, which fits nicely between the two results from our formal benchmarks. Using the Peacekeeper browser test, which constantly renders objects and effects in HTML5, the Zenbook managed a little over three and a half hours before going completely flat. On our video loop test, which is a bit more forgiving, the Zenbook managed about seven hours. That’s not bad, but it’s not great overall.

Looking at how its nearest competitors performed, it’s clear the Zenbook could benefit from a larger battery. It came in dead last on both tests, falling behind the Acer Spin 7, the HP Spectre x360 by a small margin, and lagging far behind the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Overall, the Zenbook 3 Deluxe is light enough to carry around all day without any issues, but most users would probably overlook a little extra weight if it meant the Zenbook would last long enough to make it past lunch.

Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe UX490UA-XS74-BL  Compared To

Huawei Matebook X WT-W09

Toshiba Portege Z30-C1310

Razer Blade Stealth

Toshiba Portege Z20t

LG Ultra PC 14Z950

Dell XPS 13 (2014)

Lenovo ThinkPad X240

HP Spectre 13t

Acer Aspire M5 Touch

HP Envy 4

Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5

Acer Aspire S5

Lenovo IdeaPad U310

HP Folio 13

Asus Zenbook UX31

Bloatware-lite, the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe ships with a delightfully clean install of Windows 10. There are a few manufacturer utilities in there, but none of them bug you for registration information, or otherwise compromise the system. Thankfully, the only unwelcome houseguests come courtesy of Windows 10. The Zenbook does come with a few pre-installed Windows Store apps you’ll have to pluck out of your start menu, but that’s it.

Warranty

The Zenbook 3 ships with a standard one year warranty covering parts and labor to repair any manufacturer defects. It’s pretty much the same warranty you’d get elsewhere, and the same one you’d see on similar products. Still, for $1,700 it would’ve been nice to see a longer warranty, or an included care program.

Our Take

With the Zenbook 3 Deluxe, Asus aims to beat Apple at its own game, and it comes perilously close to doing so. The Zenbook is every bit as stylish and high-quality as the iconic MacBook Pro, but is it more than just a copycat?

Is there a better alternative?

Oddly enough, there aren’t many alternatives that are better than the Asus Zenbook 3, depending on what you’re looking for. If you’re in the market for a premium laptop and build quality is of paramount importance, then the Zenbook 3 Deluxe is an excellent choice without many peers.

If you’d be willing to carry a little extra weight, the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon has demonstrated that it’s a good alternative. It’s not as stylish, or slick as the Zenbook, but with powerful hardware and killer battery life, it’s an excellent business-class notebook.

Also, if you’re open to a less traditional laptop experience, the Surface Pro is an excellent choice. It’s lighter than the Zenbook 3, it’s more powerful, and you get nearly identical internals for about $100 less — though you’ll probably end up spending more than that on essential accessories.

If you’re not quite sold on the whole tablet-as-laptop thing, Microsoft has two other Surface options available, both of which make worthy competition for the Zenbook 3. The Surface Book is a less thin-and-light version of the Surface Pro, but what you lose in portability you gain in performance. Then there’s the Surface Laptop, which combines the elegant design of the Surface Pro — and its super-soft Alcantara keyboard — with the Spartan workaday performance of the Surface Book.

Speaking of accessories, the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe is one of the only laptops we’ve reviewed that came with a few helpful and common-sense accessories. They’re useful, thoughtful, and every bit as high-quality as the laptop they’re designed to accompany. It’s refreshing to see a company throw in extras without any added cost.

How long will it last?

Well, chances are the Zenbook 3 Deluxe will last long enough to become outdated — and that’s a good thing. The aluminum chassis will undoubtedly outlast the internal hardware, though its stylish design might not be as timeless as a simple black or silver laptop would. Make sure you really like that blue-and-gold design, this thing’s going to be around a while. Or pick up the grey version.

Should you buy it?

Yep. Intuitive design and stellar build quality make the Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe a killer laptop. By building on the success of the earlier version and improving on its shortcomings, Asus has gone above and beyond with the Zenbook 3 Deluxe. At $1,700, it’s not cheap, but you get what you paid for: a high-quality laptop that goes the extra mile to deliver an excellent mobile computing experience.

Motorola’s #hellomotoworld invite all-but-confirms shatterproof Moto Z2 Force announcement

Get ready for the latest in Motorola’s shatterproof technology.

Motorola already sent out a “save the date” for its #hellomotoworld event on July 25, but now proper invites are coming out and they give us a great indication of what we can expect to see announced. The tagline “get ready to shatter your expectations” is breaking through all sorts of glass and the silhouette of two shattered phone screens.

That’s about as good an indication as you’ll get that the Moto Z2 Force will be announced on July 25 as a follow-up to the shatterproof Moto Z Force Droid Edition launched in mid-summer 2016.

Motorola’s Shatterproof screens are no longer filled with compromises.

Expectations are that the Moto Z Force will once again be the top-of-the-line flagship for Motorola, but unlike last year it won’t have a “standard” Moto Z2 anchored underneath it. Because of this, we can expect the Moto Z2 Force (if that is its name) to have more generalized appeal rather than simply being the bigger, more expensive phone with a shatterproof display.

To its credit Motorola has greatly improved its “ShatterShield” screen technology in recent iterations, dramatically cutting down on the compromises typically associated with the screen tech. It no longer requires a funky plastic layer on the screen that makes it feel horrible, nor does it include an inordinate amount of glare or separation between the screen and glass covering. Presumably the 2017 version will be even better, and that’s one of the reasons why Motorola sees it appropriate to simply have the Moto Z2 Force and no standard flagship below it.

There’s also a rumor that Motorola may take this opportunity to introduce the mid-range Moto X4, though the invite doesn’t give us any additional clues there.

Whatever the combination of announcements ends up being, we’ll all find out on July 25 — the event is at 11:00 a.m. ET in New York City, and we’ll be there to cover it live.

Google introduces new desktop app to back up all your photos

Never lose a photo again with this new desktop app from Google.

Google Photos is one of the best online services any company has built. You can save any and every photo or video from your phone to Google’s online servers and access them from anywhere else with an internet connection. It’s a perfect way for keeping those pics somewhere they won’t be lost or deleted. Today, it just got easier for people with a Windows PC or Mac.

A new desktop app from Google will back up your pictures with Photos and Drive without any fuss. Install the app, sign in with your Google account and tell it where the find photos, and it’s done. This is an awesome replacement for folks who only use the Google Drive app for photo backup, and expanding it to Google Photos is icing on the cake.

You can also use the app for full two-way sync with Google Drive, so it’s a complete replacement for the existing Drive desktop app. This is also great, as the Drive app was getting long in the tooth and offered less that stellar performance on macOS — something I’m not seeing (yet) with the new version.

Download: Backup and Sync for Google Photos and Google Drive

AT&T offering 2 months of prepaid phone service for free starting July 14

GoPhone is now AT&T PREPAID and you can get two months of service for free.

We like prepaid service because of the flexibility and freedom it offers, usually for a lower price than you will find for a postpaid plan. When a company throws in freebies, we really love it.

AT&T has a new promo starting July 14 where you can get two months of prepaid service if you keep using it.

Starting July 14, simply activate and keep a new line of service on select plans, and you’ll receive an account credit for the 3rd and 12th months.

This promo applies to the $60 unlimited and $45 6GB plan that used to be GoPhone service. You don’t even have a lot of fine print to sift through — read the full press release below.

Prepaid is becoming the most competitive category in wireless. And AT&T1 is stepping up with an exciting offer of 2 months of FREE wireless service on AT&T PREPAID, formerly AT&T GoPhone. Starting July 14, simply activate and keep a new line of service on select plans, and you’ll receive an account credit for the 3rd and 12th months.2

With AT&T PREPAID we’re offering the same great service, network and value with no annual contract.

“AT&T PREPAID is our branded prepaid product for customers looking for ease of use, no contract and convenience,” said Bob Bickerstaff, vice president, Wireless Voice and Prepaid Products. “This two months free offer is our best promotion to date.”

Monthly prices eligible under this promotion are:

• $60/month ($65 before AutoPay3)– Unlimited talk, text and data4
• $40/month ($45 before AutoPay)– Unlimited talk and text with 6GB of high-speed data5

Both plans also allow you to use your service in Mexico and Canada, making it easy to travel and stay connected.6

AT&T PREPAID provides customers with the flexibility and convenience of wireless service on their terms with no annual contract, no credit check and no activation fees. With easy activation and account management right from your phone or online, AT&T PREPAID customers can make changes to their service at any time.

Entertainment is everywhere these days and with AT&T PREPAID’s Unlimited Data plan3, you can stream, watch and listen all you want on one of our affordable premium smartphones, like LG and Samsung. We even offer smartphones for under $50.

After all, it’s summer – save your cash for new pool toys, ice cream for the kids, or a weekend road trip. To learn more about AT&T PREPAID, visit http://www.att.com/prepaid.

LG V30 to debut on August 31 at IFA

The LG V30 is happening.

LG has all but confirmed the debut of the V30, its next flagship phone, at an event during the IFA conference in Berlin on August 31.

The company issued a vague but telling press invite earlier today indicating that something would be happening at 9am CST on Thursday, August 31 — it’s a “save the date,” after all — with a silhouette of a phone making a reflection of a “V”. Not very subtle.

The invitation itself also has rounded corners and a resolution of 2880×1440, which would indicate that, yes, the V30 would share the same 2:1 aspect ratio as its G6 counterpart, along with its now-famous rounded edges.

While we don’t know exactly what to expect from the announcement, recent leaks point to a device that shares many characteristics with the G6, including an enclosed battery, a tall, narrow screen, and dual cameras. LG is also expected to begin its transition to OLED technology, something that it has been resisting in recent years as it tries to eke out as much as it can from its mature LCD manufacturing facilities.

Also expected is a Snapdragon 835 platform and 4GB of RAM and, perhaps, Android 8.0 out of the box. Whether LG also does away with its strange regional differences, or tones up its software, remains to be seen.

More will be revealed shortly, so stay tuned.

The internet needs us to save net neutrality

Today, thousands of websites and organizations are showing their support for net neutrality in hopes of preserving the open internet. Consider Engadget among them. The Federal Communication Commission, as chaired by former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, is exploring ways to repeal the open internet rules put into effect by former chairman Tom Wheeler, and that’s just not OK.

I’m not just saying this as person whose livelihood directly depends on the internet. I’m saying this as someone who has loved and relied on the internet for almost as long I’ve been capable of love and reliance. The world we live in now is… strange, to be sure, but it’s more closely knit and more prosperous because we’ve found meaningful new ways to connect with each other.

For me, maintaining the quality of those connections means upholding the fairness of the network those connections happen on. That requires regulation, but Pai is in favor of undoing the internet’s classification as a public utility under Title II, a move that would exempt the internet from stricter rules. Unsurprisingly, telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon (which came to own Engadget through a bizarre twist of capitalist fate) claim support for the open internet but disapprove of the Title II classification.

I also don’t think ISPs shouldn’t be able prioritize, block, or slow down legal data as it flows to users. I pay to access the content of my choosing, not to have Verizon or any other company decide what I should read or watch and at what speed. That doesn’t sound terribly outrageous or radical to me.

But Pai is pushing to review the so-called “bright line” rules that prevent ISPs from throttling data or creating “fast lanes”. Will they actually be struck down? Who knows, but Pai’s public statements make it sound possible, if not probable. If it were up to me, that belief in the equality of legal data would be the first line in Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution of the Internet.

The FCC is officially taking comments from the public, but this doesn’t come down to a public vote. The three remaining FCC commissioners will chew on their data and make their cases, and the Chairman Pai’s agenda will almost certainly take effect. That’s just how the process and the partisan math works. Moreover, FCC spokespeople have said that the process isn’t concerned with the amount of support a viewpoint gets so much as the quality of legal arguments lodged in the official record. You don’t need me to tell you that industry lobbyists probably have lots of strong legal arguments. And know that AT&T has spent just over $4.5 million on lobbying this year, while Verizon has shelled out just under $3 million.

So yeah, the odds of the FCC coming out in favor of the existing net neutrality rules are slim. But that’s no reason to give up.

Remember: This isn’t just about politics anymore. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed for the creation of the Federal Communications Commission in the ’30s, he had no idea that a global network for sharing vast amounts of data over wires and through the air would exist, or that it would evolve and become irrevocably woven into the fabric of our lives.

If you care about smartphones, if you care about gaming, if you care about streaming services and apps and software and the economic opportunities they have made possible, this is your problem too. This is a fight to preserve the internet as we know it, to avoid a future where the companies who control the pipes get to play favorites, deciding who sees what and when. This affects all of us.

If we don’t win this particular battle, legal action could potentially derail Pai’s plans before they officially take effect. And if that doesn’t happen, some future administration may still look favorably on the issue and shuffle the FCC’s composition to make sure net neutrality is revived. The important things to keep in mind is that the fight for net neutrality might not ever end, and that we need to stay vigilant. If you agree, even only partially, please do something about it. Write your representatives, get your friends fired up and, yes, file a comment with the FCC. You have five — five — days to do so.