EE tempts students with a free 500MB ‘data safety net’

Most students are currently enjoying their summer away from the rigours of university life, and EE has decided to give them one more thing to feel happy about. The provider has introduced a new perk for those in higher education it calls a “data safety net.” Any student on a two-year handset plan or 12-month SIM-only contract can now claim 500MB of free data each month, which kicks in once they’ve exhausted their regular monthly allowance.

There’s just one catch, in that you need to be registered with student network UNiDAYS to be eligible, and submit your unique UNiDAYS code to activate the offer. Still, that small hurdle will get you 500MB of emergency data each month to tide you over until your allowance resets. If you chew through your monthly cap watching Netflix on the bus to lectures, though, remember Three will soon introduce a new range of plans that ignores data used for several streaming services.

Via: Mobile News

Source: EE

Jawbone’s demise heralds the end of the wearables industry

Sometimes deaths are sudden, but most company deaths are the opposite, with Jawbone’s protracted terminus taking upwards of a year. The company was an early pioneer in the consumer wearables market, and had raised close to a billion dollars in investment, but that wasn’t enough to save it. Its end doesn’t just mean the demise for one company, but signals the end of the great generation of wearables.

A report by The Information claims that the company has begun the process of liquidating itself, at least in part. It’s also believed that co-founder and CEO Hosain Rahman is launching a new company — Jawbone Health Hub — to continue part of his mission. Health Hub will apparently produce health-related wearable hardware and software, as well as servicing the existing Jawbone devices in the wild.

Whatever form the remains of Jawbone will take, the company will never again scale the heights as it once did. The wearables market, and the world, has moved on to the point where new entrants have a nigh-impossible journey to success. A variety of factors killed Jawbone the first time out, but there’s no indication that Rahman knows how to get past those obstacles.

One lesson that many startups learn the hard way is that developing consumer hardware is far harder than it may seem. Even Jawbone, which had experience building Bluetooth audio gear, couldn’t easily apply its knowledge to wearable technology. 2011’s Jawbone Up promised the world a stylish fitness tracker that made the Nike+ Fuelband and Fitbit’s belt-worn pedometers look outdated by comparison.

In reality, however, the first version of the Up was a disaster, with individual models randomly bricking and components liable to failure. The promised 10-day battery life never materialized, and vibration motors were prone to breaking at inopportune moments. Engadget’s review unit broke after two weeks, and while the company began offering free replacements to buyers, its reputation was already damaged.

Unlike software, which can be fixed months, or even years, after it was originally released, hardware is a much trickier proposition. Whatever advantage Jawbone had in getting the first Up through the door was lost when the company had to claw back those devices and start again. If some of the richest companies in the world, can ship hardware with massive defects, what hope does a tiny startup have?

Jawbone’s hardware chops didn’t improve, however, and my own Up 3 review unit broke after just three weeks of use. I charged it to full before going to bed, but the low battery alarm went off five times in a single night. Given that the company had talked up the prowess of its smart wake features, the failure was extraordinarily grating.

Jawbone might have been smart to prioritize durability and looks over function, but the follow-up device was hamstrung by what it couldn’t do. A lack of wireless connectivity meant you had to plug the band into your smartphone’s headphone jack to sync data, a bugbear rival wearables quickly eliminated. Its high cost also began to alienate users who were looking for cheaper devices — a market that Fitbit was quick to embrace.

Then there’s the fact that the watch industry itself is never going to be as big as that for other technology products, like Bluetooth speakers or smartphones. The advent of the mobile phone helped reduce people’s need for a dedicated timepiece on their wrist, and not everyone wears one on a daily basis anyway. Those who do may want a device that can actually tell the time — a feature that Jawbone’s devices notably lacked.

Economics played its part in Jawbone’s demise, since the job its devices professed to do could be done by much cheaper hardware. It’s hard to justify buying the Up 3, a $180 fitness band that can’t tell the time, if your smartphone can track your activity just as well. It was also released after the first Apple Watch, making Jawbone’s newest device a relic from a simpler time.

For those people who don’t want a smartwatch, it’s possible to buy a fitness tracker for the same as a bucket of fried chicken. Chinese behemoth Xiaomi has become the biggest name in the wearables market with its MiBand, which is priced at around $22. For that little cash, you get a device that will monitor your activity and sleep that packs both an optical heart rate monitor and an OLED display.

Jawbone isn’t the only wearables outfit to face tougher competition, and gloomy clouds are beginning to linger over Fitbit. The company has spent big to control the middle tier of the wearables market with its $70-ish devices like the Flex. But it’s hard to justify such a purchase if you can get a similarly-workable piece of kit for half, or even a third of that price. Meanwhile, at the top end, it’s hard to justify spending almost as much as a true smartwatch for a premium fitness tracker like the Blaze.

The Blaze is a good case study, since it retails for $199.95 — just $50 less than LG’s Watch Style and $70 less than the cheapest Apple Watch model. It explains why Fitbit is so desperate to build its own smartwatch platform that can stand toe-to-toe with the offerings from both Apple and Google. But even Fitbit, which has spent big to acquire smartwatch companies like Pebble and Vector, is struggling. Although it may, once again, attempt to buy Jawbone in the hope of bolstering its own ambitions — something we’ve talked about before.

The wearables market is looking an awful lot like main street after the advent of big box retail on the outskirts of town. Jawbone, Basis, Pebble, Vector, and the rest, look like mom and pop stores compared to the behemoths of Apple and Google. Fitbit is holding on, and using its cash to buy up whatever talent it can in the hope of staying afloat, but that’s no guarantee of success.

It’s hard to see how the wearables market, at least concerning devices that go on your wrist, can continue from here on out. Earlier this year, iMore’s Rene Ritchie commented that there is no longer a “smartwatch market, just an Apple Watch market.” Looking at the IDC figures for the first part of 2017, it’s hard not to see his point, especially when the only company coming close to Apple is Xiaomi.

It’s easy to predict that the wearables market will soon crunch down, with Apple dominating the high end and Google living off its scraps. Fitness trackers, the stock in trade of companies like Fitbit and Jawbone, will become the province of cheap, mass-market brands like Misfit in the US and Xiaomi in China. The rest will be divided up between niche players like Garmin and Polar, the traditional watch industry, Withi… Nokia Health and Fitbit, for however long the latter can survive.

US Army is building a versatile, flying squirrel-like drone

The military is constantly working on new drone technology. That includes new types of drones like autonomous boats and small swarming UAVs as well as ways to combat drones, like frying them with microwaves, guided bullets and hacking. Right now, the US Army is working on a small, lightweight drone that can take on a number of tasks depending on what’s needed in a given situation.

The drone, which you can see in action in the video below, looks a little bit like a flying squirrel. It’s small, weighing just over half a pound, and its rotors can tilt themselves, giving the UAV plenty of flexibility in how it moves around. The design goal is to create a drone that can easily integrate with soldiers in the field and have multiple uses. “You’re not going to know ahead of time what you need that vehicle to do. It might need to go over the next hill, see what’s there. It might just need to follow above you to kind of give you some scouting,” Steve Nogar, a researcher working on the project, says in the video.

Next up for the small drone is the ability to perch. The developers want to give the UAV the ability to land on various objects in its surroundings, which will require it to sense the environment and do so very quickly. That level of design will need to integrate things like AI and fast perception, challenging given the stripped down design of the lightweight drone, which has just one camera.

Nogar and others are continuing to hone the drone’s abilities at the US Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: Army Research Laboratory

Still Waiting for Apple’s 2017 Back to School Promotion? Here’s When It’s Launched in Recent Years

For over a decade, Apple has offered an annual Back to School promotion, offering K-12 and college or university students, parents of students, and educators incentives, such as a free pair of Beats headphones or an Apple Store gift card valued up to $100, with the purchase of a qualifying Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

We’ve been receiving questions about the Back to School promotion for a few weeks now, but there’s still no sign of an imminent launch. Some have wondered whether Apple is canceling the program entirely, but it’s too early to say, as there are still several weeks remaining before students begin returning to classrooms.

Since 2006, Apple has launched its Back to School promotion in the United States and Canada as early as May 25, and as late as July 23. The promotion is usually extended to several European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy on either the same day, or no more than a few days later.

These have been the exact kickoff dates each year for North America:

• 2016: June 2
• 2015: July 23
• 2014: July 1
• 2013: July 2
• 2012: June 11
• 2011: June 16
• 2010: May 25
• 2009: May 27
• 2008: June 3
• 2007: June 5
• 2006: June 4

Apple’s Back to School promotion is highly anticipated because it’s one of the few times a year that Apple offers deals to customers, and many hold off on summer purchases until the event begins. Apple offered free Beats headphones in 2016 and 2015, free Apple Store gift cards in 2014, and free iTunes gift cards in 2013.

Apple launched a Back to Uni promotion in Australia and New Zealand in February, offering a free Apple Store gift card valued between $70 and $100 with the purchase of a qualifying new Mac or iPad Pro.

The Back to Uni promotion in Australia and New Zealand can sometimes foreshadow what Apple plans to offer in other countries, but not always. In 2015, for example, Apple offered an Apple Store gift card worth up to $100 in Australia and New Zealand, but the deal was free Beats headphones in the United States.

Tag: Back to School promotion
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Best iOS 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 iOS app deals available from 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. 

Knots 3D

Used by arborists, fishermen, firefighters, climbers, military, and boy scouts the world over, Knots 3D will quickly teach you how to tie even the most difficult knot. With more than 120 knots, Knots 3D will be your go-to reference.

Available on:

iOS

Videos in Video

Videos in Video is an easy video editor with fast editing features that allow you to place multiples videos, photos, and music within an existing video. The app promises to turn your videos into professional-looking edited movies.

Available on:

iOS

Therapy Buddy

Get the most out of your counseling or life-coaching sessions with Therapy Buddy. Developed by Thriveworks, this app provides users with tools they need to have a productive therapy session.

Available on:

iOS

iSchool

i-School is a study organizer and timetable schedule planner, both for schools and universities. Convenient class and study-schedule, textbooks, homework, and notes are attached to classes.

Available on:

iOS

Breathing Zone

Breathing Zone is a mindful breathing exercise that slows your breathing rate to calm you down and help you feel more relaxed even on your most stressful days.

Available on:

iOS

Top 26 Hip Hop Radio

Hip Hop Radio is for all hip hop music fans. Now you can listen to today’s greatest hits all day all in one place. The app is simple — just tap to play and tap again to stop the music.

Available on:

iOS

Xiaomi will unveil MIUI 9 in China on August 16

Next major version of MIUI will be showcased on August 16.

Xiaomi will unveil the next version of MIUI on August 16 in China. The company recently published a list of devices that will receive the Nougat update, but as of now, there’s no mention if the update will bring MIUI 9 or if Xiaomi will roll out a Nougat-based verison of MIUI 8, like what we’ve seen with the Mi 6.

A post on the MIUI forum mentions the August 16 launch date, and while the information is correct, the source doesn’t work for Xiaomi. We’ve learned that the company is planning to unveil MIUI 9 in China on August 16, but as of now, there’s no information on when the global ROM will be available.

If previous launches are any indication, the global ROM will roll out a few months after the launch of the China version. MIUI has over 200 million users globally, and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun noted earlier this year that MIUI 9 will be much more fluid and powerful.

Xiaomi kicked off a public beta of MIUI 8 to give eager customers an early look at the skin, and it’s likely the company will do the same this time around. We’ll let you know once we know more.

Galaxy S8+ with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage is getting a much-needed price cut in India

Samsung is rolling out its first price cut to the Galaxy S8+ variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage.

Samsung introduced the Galaxy S8+ variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage last month in India, and the company is now offering a 5% discount to those looking to pick up the phone. The device launched at ₹74,900 ($1,155), and is now available for ₹70,900 ($1,090).

The standard Galaxy S8+ is available in four color options, but if you’re eyeing the 6GB model, you’re limited to the Midnight Black color variant. The Galaxy S8+ is our pick for the best phone in India thanks to its bezel-less Infinity Display, 10nm exynos 8895 chipset, and class-leading QHD Super AMOLED display.

The standard model is still priced at ₹64,900, making the 6GB variant that much more enticing. Interested? Head on down to Samsung India ‘s e-store to get your hands on the Galaxy S8+.

See at Samsung India

Amazon Echo Look: Can it help the fashion hopeless?

Can this sausage-like Amazon Echo make me a better (OK — decent) dresser? It really depends on what you give it to work with.

Fun fact: Everyone cares what they look like. Even those of us who don’t admit it at least take a passing interest in the clothes we wear. Maybe it’s just a couple seconds of “OK, I think this looks good.” Or maybe it’s a couple minutes standing in front of the closet in the morning.

But do I really care enough to let the likes of Amazon help me dress a little better?

Enter the Amazon Echo Look. It’s the fourth member of the Echo line (including the not-actually-named-Echo Tap) and is the first (but not only) one to sport a camera. In fact, the camera really is the star of the show.

But let’s back up a bit. This sausage-shaped plastic doodad is, first and foremost, an Alexa device. It’s got four microphones and a rear-facing speaker and does all the stuff we’ve come to love from Alexa. It answers questions. (To varying degrees of effect.) It controls any of your connected devices. This isn’t as robust a device as the other Echoes. Don’t bother trying to play music through it — your smartphone might well do it better.

No, the Echo Look is all about going through your closet.

If you really care about what you wear and want to keep track of when you wore it, Echo Look can help.

Pair up the Echo Look app (it’s separate from the regular Alexa app) and you’re quickly walked through things. Stand in front of the Echo Look after dressing (or before — your call) and say “Alexa, take a picture.” It snaps the snap and logs your outfit. From there you can leave yourself notes about what you were wearing, if you wish. So you’ve got a good record of what you wore, when you wore it, and how you looked. You can shoot video, too, to see what the backside looks like.

The real fun starts to come in when you compare one outfit to another. Amazon says it’s using algorithms (middle-out, no doubt) and even human expertise to figure out what looks best on you. It also asks you to weigh in on what you think looks best, the better to learn your own personal style.

How well it works really depends on what you give it to work with. Color and style matters, of course. But I got the feeling the pose did as well. (It’s also smart enough to figure out when you’ve swapped in someone else.) I didn’t always agree with the conclusion, but I kinda dug the idea, at least.

More impressive was just how easy this all was. The four LEDs that ring the camera lens are ridiculously bright (seriously, don’t look right at them) and do a really good job of lighting the scene, even in my dark bedroom. (In fact, the camera struggled when I had things more properly lit while filming this video.) The app is nicely set up — it works exactly the same on iOS as it does on Android — and shows just how well Amazon has made its products for anyone to use. Not just nerds.

I didn’t always agree with the conclusion, but I kinda dug the idea, at least.

What it hasn’t done is made me want to care about fashion anymore. It’s just not my thing. And so Echo Look definitely isn’t the Alexa device for me.

And even if you are someone who cares about clothes as much as some of us care about computers, you’re still going to have to commit to using the Echo Look every day in order for its $199 price tag to make sense. It’s definitely a niche product, with a more limited use case than the newer (and only slightly more expensive) Echo Show.

But on the other hand, maybe that’s just the price we pay for fashion.

Enter to win this Echo Look

OK, so the Echo Look definitely isn’t for me. But that isn’t to say that it won’t serve one of you out there quite nicely. So let’s give it away!

Use the widget below to enter to win. Full details are at ModernDad.com/contest.

Win an Amazon Echo Look from Modern Dad!

Modern Dad

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Slip this thin 10000mAh power bank into your pocket for just $15

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with a slim portable battery that puts 10000mAh of power into your pocket for less!

We continue to demand more and more out of our phones these days, and that means battery life sometimes takes a hit. No one wants to sit attached to a wall all day to keep their phone charged, and luckily you don’t have to. Aukey has recently released a new 10000mAh dual-USB portable power bank that is super slim, and right now you can pick one up for just $14.99 with coupon code AUKEYPB8, a savings of $5. This power bank is 14mm thick, which is less than twice the thickness of a Google Pixel.

You can charge two devices at the same time using the cables of your choice, and at 10000mAh of capacity, you’ll be able to charge most phones and tablets anywhere from 2 to 4 times per charge of the power bank. The side of it has four LEDs to show you how much power is left at a glance.

See at Amazon

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

Top 8 things to love about the BlackBerry KEYone

The BlackBerry KEYone is a workhorse, and it’s proving more popular than even we thought it would be. Here’s why.

Listen, I know you’re tired of hearing this over and over again, but there’s a reason so many people are excited about BlackBerry Mobile’s new phone, the KEYone. Yes, the keyboard is obviously the main selling feature, but it’s just part of what makes the phone so interesting. And after years of mediocre BlackBerry hardware, I’m truly excited about the future of the brand, even if it is under the supervision of another company entirely.

Here’s why.

The software is as clean as it gets

OnePlus and BlackBerry are the two companies developing Android software that mainly gets out of its own way and just lets Google’s vision for the operating system shine through. Better yet, the changes they do decide to make are thoughtful and congruent with their phones’ particular advantages.

The KEYone’s excellent Nougat software wouldn’t have been possible without the excellent work BlackBerry did with the Priv and the DTEK series, and BlackBerry proper — the Canadian company — is still in charge of building and maintaining the software for the KEYone. That’s good news for a bunch of reasons, especially when you think about the other parts of the software experience that the company contributes.

The included apps are actually great

BlackBerry Hub. Calendar. Contacts. Tasks. Boring apps done well. The truth is that BlackBerry needed to build out its own suite of productivity apps because it wanted compatibility and continuity with many of its existing backend services, and while these are very much Android apps, they’ll be familiar to anyone who’s used a BlackBerry device in the past.

I’ve said it many times before: BlackBerry is one of the few companies that puts care into the Android software it builds, and even though you may no longer use BBM, you’ll find yourself happy to spend some time in the company’s other apps.

The launcher is thoughtful

Icon packs and swipe-up widgets may be taken directly from one of our favorite third-party launchers, but I have to give BlackBerry credit where it’s due: it’s appealing to its core enthusiast user base over here. Not only that, but the launcher is extremely smooth, and it’s actually available through the Play Store, making it, like Hub, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and others, upgradeable over time. And BlackBerry has improved the launcher since its inception.

The BlackBerry Launcher also supports one of the most BlackBerry things of all: the classic red star symbol on an icon to indicate when there’s a waiting notification. It’s a subtle change and one that Google is implementing more cohesively in Android O, but BlackBerry’s version is robust and works really well.

The camera is better than I expected

I didn’t really think the KEYone would, for its price, have a flagship-level camera, but that’s exactly what you get. While it lacks the HDR+ mode of the Google Pixel, it shares the same Sony sensor, and it performs extremely well in almost every lighting condition. For a phone with a keyboard, you may think the camera would play second fiddle in importance, but even if you get the KEYone for its most notable feature, the excellent camera is a wonderful bonus.

The keyboard really is amazing

I had an opportunity to type on a large number of older BlackBerry devices for a TV segment recently and found the KEYone’s hardware keyboard to stand up pretty well. It’s not quite as perfectly sized and shaped as the Bold 9900 or the Classic, but it’s close, and easily the best on Android.

In fact, I thought I wouldn’t even want to type on a hardware keyboard again, but after a few days of using the KEYone as my primary device, touch typing became, once again, second nature.

More than that, though, the keyboard is smart, and even if you’re not really into the idea of typing on a physical keyboard, its other features, like flick typing for autocorrect and home screen shortcuts accessed by holding down one of the keys to launch an app or a shortcut. The whole system works really well, especially when you combine it with the flexible launcher. I didn’t think I’d use the shortcuts on a daily basis, but here we are months later and I have all of my favorites memorized and ready to go.

Battery life is ridiculous

This has come up again and again with this phone: the KEYone lasts seemingly forever. It’s not just get-you-through-the-day battery life either; it’s “I don’t have to think about my battery”, which is pretty astounding on a device that you use all day, every day.

Part of that is owed to the Snapdragon 625 in the phone, but other areas, like the seemingly well-optimized software (the stability and performance of which has improved immensely through a series of software updates) and the relatively low-resolution LCD screen, contribute to the lengthy uptime. And yes, the Snapdragon 625 may not be the most powerful chip on the market, but it has proven, at least on the devices on which I’ve used it — the KEYone, the Moto Z Play, the Huawei Nova Plus — to be more than capable of running your life.

It’s built like a tank

Yes, Zach from JerryRigEverything was able to dislodge the display from the casing pretty easily, but from what I’ve seen, that issue doesn’t affect the overall durability of this metal-clad workhorse. I’ve dropped this thing many times, by accident and on purpose, and it’s come through the abuse relatively unscathed. More than that, the soft-touch rubberized back has worn extremely well compared to many of the metal- or glass-backed phones I’ve used in recent memory, and I think BlackBerry Mobile made the right decision bucking the trend in this case. The phone may be a bit thick, but thanks to its relative narrowness, it’s still quite usable in one hand.

It’s just… different

Here’s, I think, one of the more divisive parts of the KEYone: it’s just different from anything else you’ll use in the smartphone space right now. If you’re tired of the same ol’ rectangle, moving to a more unconventional design will get you noticed — for better or worse — when you’re using this thing. And based on how difficult it is to find a KEYone right now, on either Amazon or Best Buy, where the company sells the phone unlocked for $549.99 USD, I’d say that the “distinctly different” tagline is working.

See at Amazon

BlackBerry KEYone

• BlackBerry KEYone review
• KEYone vs. Priv: Battle of the BlackBerry keyboards
• BlackBerry KEYone specs
• The latest KEYone news
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