Microsoft and Intel unite to bring blockchain to businesses with Coco Framework

Why it matters to you

Blockchain technology may seem a bit foreign to most, but Microsoft and Intel are hoping to bring it to businesses around the world.

You still may not know what bitcoin is, but soon, you could be working with the technology that powers the cryptocurrency. Intel and Microsoft are working together to bring blockchain into the workplace, and it’s all contingent on a new framework they’re calling Coco. Heralded as a first-of-its-kind innovation, the goal is to jumpstart widespread adoption, particularly among businesses, of blockchain technology. After all, blockchain allows for secure and speedy transactions, which are key to many modern businesses.

As Microsoft noted in a news release, the Coco Framework is meant to reduce the complexity currently associated with blockchain protocol technology. As such, the company notes, the framework could pave the way for “more complex, real-world blockchain scenarios across industries — like financial services, supply chain and logistics, healthcare and retail — further proving blockchain’s potential to digitally transform business.”

Once integrated with a blockchain network, the Coco Framework could allow for transaction speeds of more than 1,600 transactions per second as well as seamless and confidential data management.

“Blockchain is a transformational technology with the ability to significantly reduce the friction of doing business,” Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer of Azure at Microsoft, said. “We have listened to the needs of our customers and the blockchain community and are bringing foundational functionality with the Coco Framework.”

While this won’t necessarily mean that every company everywhere will suddenly implement blockchain solutions, it does mean that large corporations that have trouble reaching privacy and security at scale could begin to more easily take advantage of a technology that really does lend itself quite well to business.

“We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to bring blockchain to the enterprise,” Rick Echevarria, vice president, Software and Services Group and General Manager, Platforms Security Division at Intel, said. “Our mutual customers are excited by the potential of blockchain. Intel is committed to accelerating the value of blockchains powered by Azure on Intel hardware, by improving the scalability, privacy and security of the solutions based on our technologies.”

So start reading up on your bitcoin and blockchain news, friends. It could soon affect your daily life sooner than you think.

Close-mindedness and the open internet

Thoughts from a pretty weird, disturbing Saturday.

I was supposed to be watching tennis. Instead, I had my neck bent at an uncomfortable angle, my fingers scrolling through a Twitter timeline that would prove to engulf my day and imbue it with a frenetic energy that, sitting on a couch hundreds of miles away, I had trouble controlling.

What happened in Charlottesville unfolded in real time, on Twitter and elsewhere, similar to other events that we now, months or years later, refer to primarily by their location — Ferguson, Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino — or the name of the victim. There are so many victims.

Yesterday, though, I had a sober thought amidst the chaos: that despite the divisive and horrific nature of the images being captured and conveyed across myriad channels, they were being captured by everyone, all at once, and disseminated through an open internet that does not discriminate of the type or origin of the content itself. Whether it was Twitter, Facebook, Periscope, Livestream or any number of platforms, no one was being prevented — no company or government stood in the way — from seeing the turmoil and judging for him or herself the verisimilitude of the claims therein.

The networks stayed up and performed their function without bias — they were dumb pipes.

On the other side of the argument — and this isn’t sexy, but it’s business — the recent ramp-up of competition in the wireless space in the U.S., led by T-Mobile, allowed people in Charlottesville to continue streaming without fear of enormous overage charges or punitive throttling. And that despite the concentration of people, we didn’t hear about any one network struggling to keep up with the strain of people hammering its core with a stream of video-intensive activities. The carriers performed as they were meant to: as dumb pipes, not distinguishing between perceived right or wrong, good or bad. That judgment isn’t for the networks to make, but for the people — and it was made, forcefully and with no ambiguity.

Other countries are not quite as lucky. Many protests, and the media covering them, are kept from the public because of repressive internet laws and governments that oversee, or even own, the providers themselves. They control the networks and the frontiers for debate and exchange of ideas, the social networks and the video platforms. The U.S., as divided and chaotic and, well, frustrating as it can often be, still protects the right to free speech and doesn’t impose restrictions or block the exchange of those ideas through the internet, which has become the primary source of such traffic — for the left and the right.

I abhor much of the imagery I saw yesterday. There is no place for Nazis, nor white supremacy, in the U.S. or anywhere in the world. Here in Canada, which is believed to be largely above the hate and division, the defiling of mosques and synagogues is a common occurrence. People of color and religious minorities are taunted and beaten, and, though less prominent, there is an intense, growing empowerment of white supremacists. No country is beyond what happened in Charlottesville, but an open and free internet allows regular people to see it and judge it for themselves.

If, a month ago, you sat by passively and did nothing during the Net Neutrality Day of Action, or criticized the movement as anti-consumer, think about how different things would be if your provider decided to side with one particular viewpoint or another, or if a carrier that also owned a media outlet decided that its message was the right one at the expense of, well, neutrality. This could happen if and when Title II is stripped away.

A few more thoughts this week:

• Back in the day, Phil was criticized for making this Editor’s Desk column too political. I understand the need to remove oneself from the fray every now and then and just read about Android, but that’s not the world we live in, especially not when the maker of Android needed to fire someone for a memo he wrote that contravened the company’s code of conduct.
• Google’s culture of openness and inclusiveness was systematic in making Android into the biggest operating system on the planet. Its willingness to work with people of all cultures, and engage with both men and women, is largely why Android has been so successful. To agree with James Damore’s ideas about women is to tacitly support a culture within Google that could not build Android, or Chrome, or any number of services that empower girls and women in countries around the world that are a hell of a lot less inclusive than we are in North America.
• On a lighter note, this is the beginning of Crazy Season, with a number of device launches in the cards for the next couple of weeks. The Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30 are certainly the most exciting of the two, but we also have the Essential Phone, more details of which are expected this week, and new flagships from Sony, Huawei and others in the coming months.
• Perhaps most interesting of all is Google’s strategy around Android O and the Pixel. We’re expecting Android O — the final, finished, ready-for-consumer version on August 21. That will probably be Android 8.0, or 8.0.1. When the Pixel 2 line is unveiled, likely in late October, they will ship with Android 8.1, bringing some device-specific enhancements that may or may not trickle down to the older Nexus and Pixel models.
• I am also incredibly intrigued by the rumors that Apple, with its Phone 8, will do away with fingerprint biometrics and move straight to face and retinal authentication, mainly because of how tough that transition has been for Samsung. The eye is always going to be more secure than the finger, but it’s also a lot more difficult to do properly, as we’ve seen.

It’s been an emotional few days, and I am looking forward to some nice work-related distractions in the weeks ahead. I hope you’ll join us on that ride — it’s going to be good.

-Daniel

Amazon offers refunds for dodgy solar eclipse glasses

Did you buy a low-cost pair of eclipse glasses hoping to watch the August 21st solar eclipse without spending a fortune? Amazon might be reaching out to you. The company has confirmed a recent Verge report that it’s “proactively” refunding purchases of eclipse glasses that might not meet the ISO 12312-2 safety standards needed to protect your eyes. It also appears to be pulling product listings for those glasses to be on the safe side.

It won’t shock you to hear the reason why Amazon is taking the initiative: as with its reaction to unsafe hoverboards, it’s exhibiting an “abundance of caution.” The last thing Amazon wants is thousands of customers damaging their eyesight with sub-par glasses bought from its store, especially if the manufacturers falsely claim to meet safety standards.

As before, you’ll want to be sure that any pair of glasses meets those ISO standards before making a purchase. That’s not always easy, but the American Astronomical Society has a list of solar viewer brands and vendors if there’s any doubt. Amazon notably isn’t on that list yet — however, this new crackdown supports the AAS’ claims that the internet giant is making a “good-faith effort” to clean up its act.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: The Verge

Amazon is refunding customers who bought unsafe glasses for the solar eclipse

Why it matters to you

Keeping your eyes safe during the solar eclipse is of the highest importance, but some Amazon sunglasses won’t do the trick.

As one of the decade’s most exciting natural phenomena fast approaches, it would appear that some ne’er-do-wellers are attempting to take advantage of the solar eclipse to turn a profit — but at the expense of their customers’ health. As initially reported by the Verge, Amazon is now having to issue refunds for potentially fallacious solar eclipse glasses, because yes, people are awful.

On August 21, a large swath of the American population will be able to watch as the sun disappears behind the moon. The “Great American Eclipse” marks the first time in 38 years that the nation (or at least, parts of it), will be able to watch a total eclipse. But of course, watching such an event will require a lot of protective eyewear. And while many people turn to Amazon to buy just about everything they need in their lives, it would appear that the online retail giant can’t verify the safety of all the glasses on its site, and that some glasses are either counterfeit or unsafe.

“Safety is among our highest priorities,” an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively reached out to customers and provided refunds for eclipse glasses that may not comply with industry standards. We want customers to buy with confidence anytime they make a purchase on Amazon.com and eclipse glasses sold on Amazon.com are required to comply with the relevant ISO standard.”

In addition to providing refunds, Amazon is also reportedly removing sellers that are attempting to peddle unverified eclipse eyewear. If you recently bought a pair of sunglasses from Amazon for the purposes of watching the eclipse, and haven’t received a safety warning from the company, then you can rest assured that the supplier confirmed the product to the ISO compliant. If you think, however, that you have been duped, you can always reach out to Amazon’s customer service for a refund, as promised by the A-to-z Guarantee.

If you haven’t bought proper eye protection yet but plan on watching the event, Amazon does have a legitimate inventory of safe glasses available to choose from. Just be sure that any pair you purchase has the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard mark.

HP Enterprise and SpaceX are sending a supercomputer into space this week

Why it matters to you

If SpaceX and HP manage to get this supercomputer up and running for a year in space, it could pave the way for missions to Mars.

A supercomputer is about to make its way into space. On August 14, the Dragon Spacecraft from Elon Musk’s high-flying SpaceX will be carrying some very precious cargo. It’s a Hewlett Packard Enterprise supercomputer called the Spaceborne Computer that just may pave the way for further technology in space.

Historically, the harsh conditions of outer space have been tough on computers. Laptops have to be replaced every few months, and off-the-shelf computers have historically fared not so well once leaving Earth’s surface. But the hope is that the supercomputer will do a bit better. After all, if scientists can’t figure out how to get this tech to work beyond Earth’s orbit, it would be difficult for us to actually move beyond our planet in any permanent capacity.

The HPE Spaceborne Computer could be something of a solution. It was built with NASA’s help, and is based upon HPE’s high-density Apollo 40 servers. The hardware runs an unspecified version of Linux, and also employs a custom water-cooled enclosure that ought to keep the computer safe from the tough conditions of space, like radiation, solar flares, subatomic particles, and more.

Scientists hope that the Spaceborn Computer will manage to make it a full year — at least, that’s the amount of time that the machine will be left in orbit. If HPE and NASA manage to prove that the supercomputer can operate smoothly for an extended timeframe in space, it could pave the way for missions to Mars, where having dependable tech is of the utmost importance.

“A mission to Mars will require sophisticated on-board computing resources that are capable of extended periods of uptime,” wrote Alain Andreoli, senior vice president and General Manager at Hewlett Packard’s Data Center Infrastructure Group, in a blog post. “To meet these requirements, we need to improve technology’s viability in space in order to better ensure mission success,” Andreoli said. “By sending a supercomputer to space, HPE is taking the first step in that direction.”

The SpaceX Dragon will launch at 12:31 EST from Cape Canaveral, and you might even be able to watch the takeoff in person should you be in the area. Of course, if you’re unable to make the live viewing, you can check out SpaceX’s YouTube channel instead.

Best new songs to stream: Queens of the Stone Age, Moses Sumney, and more

Every week, there are thousands of new songs hitting the airwaves — and it’s just too much for your two ears to handle. With all those options, you can’t be wasting your time on tracks that deserve a thumbs-down click — you want the best new songs to stream now.

But don’t worry, we’re going to save you the hassle. We listen to some of the most-hyped and interesting songs each week, and tell you which are worthy of your precious listening time.

Here are our five best new songs to stream this week. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Spotify page for a playlist of our weekly picks, which can also be found at the bottom of this post. Not sure which streaming service is best for you? Check out our post about the best music streaming services, or go in depth and learn the differences between Apple Music and Spotify to better weigh your options.

Queens of the Stone Age — The Evil Has Landed

The Queens of the Stone Age employ tight guitar riffs and clean vocal harmonies to quickly grab your ears on The Evil Has Landed, the second single off of their upcoming seventh studio album, Villains. Though the rock band had already performed the new tune live, there’s something much cooler going on in the studio version, which showcases the same clean rock production that won fans over when the band first hit the scene.

Moses Sumney — Quarrel

Though Moses Sumney borrows the fingers and voices of powerhouse artists like Thundercat, KING’s Paris Strother, and Cam O’bi on his latest single, Quarrel manages to remain light and airy, with subtle instrumentation that floats atop a heartbeat-like drum groove. The seven-minute song floats between arranged instrumental sections with harp and acoustic guitar below soft vocal harmonies, culminating in an elegant outro on the grand piano.

Peter Oren — Anthropocene

There’s a smoky, earnest quality to the baritone of Indiana-born artist Peter Oren that recalls the classic wayward voices of Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen. Oren pushes poignant lyrics into your brain over simple melodic structures with a buttery ease. On Anthropocene, the first song off of Oren’s upcoming sophomore album, that voice is joined by strings, acoustic guitar, and reverb-laden drums, an assortment of sounds that fits together into a catchy single with a considerable amount of sonic depth.

Bunny — Let Me Be Your Dog

The second-ever song from Chicago’s Bunny floats lazily between layers of electric guitar and the simple vocals of lead singer Jessica Viscius, creating a hazy musical atmosphere that seems to perfectly hang in the late-summer air. A gentle and introspective single with a clear Velvet Underground influence, Let Me Be Your Dog is highlighted by warm horn backgrounds and a punchy bass line.

Beachtape — Slow

This week’s best song to drive to comes from Brighton in the United Kingdom via up-and-coming indie band Beachtape. Bright drum and guitar tones highlight the vocal melody, forming a rough-and-tumble pop tune that blurs the musical lines between early Real Estate and mid-’90s Pavement.

That’s it for now, but tune in next week for more songs to stream, and check out the playlist loaded with our recent selections below:

Get two powerful military-grade flashlights for $18

What do you do when the lights go out? Sure, you could use the light on your phone, but if you can’t charge your phone, then you’ll want to conserve power. Maybe you’re out camping or hiking, night falls, and you don’t even have your phone on you. Then what?

If you’re going to do things, do them up right. Don’t bother with some dollar store flashlight that you’ll have to toss because the plastic’s dried out. Get yourself a flashlight with a metal casing that can stand up to the rough life so that you can take it with you wherever you go: camping, hunting, in the car, whatever.

The UltraBright 500-lumen Tactical Military Flashlight is made of an aircraft aluminum alloy and has a range of about a mile in ideal conditions with adjustable zoom. Right now, a two-pack of these flashlights is only $17.99 at Android Central Digital Offers. They regularly retail for $100 together, so you save 82%.

The UltraBright flashlights feature three modes to fit every situation: bright, lower bright, and SOS mode. They come with a convenient storage case, so you can toss them in the trunk of your card and never lose them. The handy and sturdy clip lets you slap one on your belt and have it stay put until you need it. UltraBrights are light and only take one AA battery.

If you’re looking for a handy little flashlight that’s perfect in any situation, check out the UltraBright 500-lumen Tactical Military Flashlight two-pack at Android Central Digital Offers and pay only $17.99.

See at Android Central Digital Offers

How to find your lost Android phone

How do I track my Android phone? There are quite a few tools at your disposal.

Worried about misplacing your phone or (worse yet) having it stolen? Ease your fears and set up a tracking system before your worst case scenario strikes. For best locating results, your phone should be connected to a Wi-Fi signal, but GPS and mobile networks will still manage to pinpoint a fairly accurate location. You must also have a Google account for virtually all of the tracking services available, whether they are built in or downloaded.

• How to locate your phone using Google
• Find your phone with third-party apps
• The best solution

How to locate your phone using Google

Most Android phones now come with Find My Device (formerly Android Device Manager) built in. This service will automatically track your phone’s location, so if it ever goes missing you can hop on your laptop or a friend’s phone and find it’s last known location, ring your phone if it’s near by and you need a hint, or lock and/or erase your phone if you fear it has been stolen.

The most important thing you can do is make sure your phone is set up to be found before it goes missing. Otherwise, you’re basically on your own.

How to enable Find My Device on your phone

In newer Android phones, the Find My Device service is already located conveniently in your Settings app, but if you can’t find it you can always download Find My Device from the Google Play Store. This locating service has essentially amalgamated with Google to make finding your phone easier. There are just a couple of things you’ll need to activate.

Launch Settings.
Tap Security.

Tap Device Administration.

Tap Find My Device so that a checkmark appears in the checkbox.
Tap the back button in the top left corner of your screen.

Tap the back button again in the top left corner to return to the main Settings menu.

Tap Location in the main Settings menu.
Tap the switch beside Location at the top of the screen so that it turns on.

Tap Mode.

Tap High accuracy so the circle is filled in.
Tap the back button in the top left corner.

Tap Google Location History.

Tap the switch beneath Location History so that it turns on.

Tap the switch beside your device so that it turns on.

How to locate your phone with Google

Should you happen to lose your phone, you can locate its whereabouts by logging into your Google account from any computer or even from another phone.

Launch a web browser from a phone, tablet, or computer.
Navigate to Google if it is not your default search engine or home page.

Type find my phone android in the Google search bar.

Tap on Find My Device (usually the first option in the search).

Enter your email address and password just as though you were checking your email. If you have 2-step verification set up on your Google account (and you most certainly should), you’ll need to complete that process as well.

When your phone is located, you have three options to choose from:

• You can Ring your phone so that it makes noise (even if you had it on silent). This feature is helpful if the map indicates that the phone is within earshot and you simply can’t see it.
• You can Lock your phone so that the finder can’t access your home screen. This feature is most helpful if your phone wasn’t previously secured with a passcode or a fingerprint sensor.

• You can Erase your phone. This is the best option if you know for certain that you aren’t likely to retrieve your phone.

  

If you are trying to locate your phone with Find My Device and it doesn’t seem to be working, the most likely cause is that your phone is not currently connected to Wi-Fi or an available network. In this case, it’s important to keep trying; the moment your phone does make that connection, it will appear on the map.

If you want to download a tracking app for fear of a missing phone crisis, there are a number of options to choose from, and we’re highlighting some choice picks for you.

Find your phone with third-party apps

While Google’s built-in option is definitely your best bet, there are some third-party options you might want to consider. We’ve broken down the best third-party apps for finding your phone below.

Family Locator

The Family Locator app by Life360 is essentially a GPS tracker for phones but is especially useful for families with multiple phones in use. Your family members become a “Circle”, the app’s name for a closed group of people who consent to having their phones tracked in real time. Your family members will appear on live maps within the app as little icons so that you can see where everyone is at any given moment.

The app also allows you to chat with people in your Circle or broadcast a meeting time and location. And, of course, if a phone from within your Circle is ever lost or stolen, the app will track it on the map.

Download: Family Locator (Free with in-app purchases)

Cerberus anti theft

This locator app from Cerberus offers an impressive array of remote control features if you find your phone has been lost or stolen. You’ll still be able to lock, ring, or erase your phone, but you’ll also be able to remotely access your camera or sound a loud alarm from your phone, even if it was on silent mode when you lost it.

The advanced features allow you to hide Cerberus in your app drawer so that it can’t be detected if and when your phone is found or stolen. Your missing phone will transmit data to you via the Cerberus website or via SMS text from another phone with the Cerberus app installed.

Download: Cerberus anti theft (Free with in-app purchases)

Prey Anti Theft

The Prey Anti Theft app is impressive in that three different devices can be protected through one download. You’ll have the ability to sound an alarm from your missing phone, take screenshots if it’s in use, and lock down the device the moment you realize it’s missing.

Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will walk you through a series of tutorials to show you how to use your Prey Account to track your phone. The app itself is free and doesn’t require additional purchases in order to access the high-end features.

Download: Prey Anti Theft (Free)

Lost Android

Lost Android will allow you to have remote access to your missing phone via their website. Here, you’ll be able to erase sensitive information if you fear that your phone may never be returned, or send messages to your phone in the hopes of someone finding and returning it.

Additionally, you can choose to remotely forward any calls you may be missing to another number and record a running list of any calls or messages made or photos taken with your phone.

Download: Lost Android (Free with in-app purchases)

Where’s My Droid

The basic features of the Where’s My Droid app allow you to ring your phone if you misplace it, locate it via GPS on Google Maps, and use a passcode to prevent unauthorized changes to apps on your Android phone. Stealth Mode also prevents anyone who finds your phone from seeing your incoming text messages; instead, they’ll see a customizable attention word that alerts them of the phone’s lost or stolen status.

The Pro version of the app, which you pay to use, lets you remotely wipe data from your phone, use a landline to access your phone, and remotely lock the device.

Download: Where’s My Droid (Free with in-app purchases)

The best solution

Google’s phone location tools are your best bet — as long as you’ve gone through the process of setting things up ahead of time. Really, this should be something you set up on any device you care about or that will have sensitive data stored on it, especially with how easy Google has made it to locate your device should you lose it.

Of course, one of the benefits of Android is having the freedom to customize your experience as you see fit. If for whatever reason Google’s offering just doesn’t cut it for you, you should consider the third-party options we’ve highlighted above, as they include some clever features that might give you some added peace of mind if your device goes missing.

If your phone is stolen or found and it’s then factory reset, you will not be able to rely on any apps or services to find it; a factory reset will wipe out any of the original data, accounts, or passwords that are needed to remotely find your Android phone.

As always, exercise caution when retrieving a lost or stolen phone. If you have any concerns about it being lost or stolen, it’s best to set up and test your preferred tracking system as soon as you buy it, and contact the police. It can be a bit of extra front-end work to register some apps, but it will be more work trying to locate a missing phone if no safety nets are in place at all.

How do you track?

What app do you use to track your Android phone, if any at all? Let us know in the comments section below!

Chrome Buyer’s Guide

You’ve decided on Chrome computer. Now you just have to choose which one fits your needs best.

Plenty of people have started to consider Chrome computers — whether that’s for a primary, secondary or travel machine — for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being price and simplicity. Chrome enables you to have a simple yet powerful computer that can be handed to anyone and used right away, without all of the headaches of maintenance or management. And while we’re mostly all familiar with Chromebooks, Chrome comes in other form factors as well.

To help you choose between the available options out there today, we’re going to break things down into each Chrome computer category — Chromebooks, Chromeboxes and the Chromebit — to tell you which works best for which tasks and needs, and then offer up recommendations for the best product in each category.

Ready to buy a Chrome computer? Read on with us.

Chromebooks

For most people looking for a Chrome computer, a Chromebook will be the best choice. Computing is moving further away from desktop-style machines every day, and if you’re looking for a second computer to have around the house or perhaps to travel with, there are tons of great options.

Display

Your average Chromebook will have either an 11-inch or 13-inch display, though if you really need a big screen there are a couple of options with 15-inch displays. There are three things to look for in a display when shopping — resolution, display type, and touch screen capabilities. Many cheaper Chromebooks will have a 1366×768 resolution, but if you can do it go for one with a higher 1920×1080 resolution instead. When it comes to display type, try to find one with an IPS panel, rather than a cheaper TFT or TN panel — you may have to dig into the specs for that info — to get the best colors and viewing angles.

Lastly, you may want to opt for a touch screen. The addition of Android apps to Chrome and changes to make Chrome itself more touch-friendly mean it’s a wise idea to be ready in case you might want to tap and swipe things.

Specs

On the inside, most Chromebooks follow the same recipe. You’ll have either an ARM or Intel processor — the ARM models are more power efficient and don’t need fans, but aren’t as powerful, while the Intel models offer a bit more speed but can hit battery life and often have fans associated with them. The performance gap gets smaller every refresh, though. As for memory, we always recommend getting as much as you can afford — many models top out at 4GB, and that’s usually enough. In the storage department, you’ll be choosing between 16 and 32GB, and the former is probably OK for you — Chromebooks also include SD card slots if you need more.

It’s worth noting that Android apps can’t use SD card space for storage. If you think you’ll be using a lot of Android apps on your Chromebook keep this in mind.

More: Best SD Cards For Chromebooks

Style

Last but not least, it’s about the style and durability. When you look for a Chromebook, know that the price directly influences the quality of the hardware. A $249 machine just isn’t going to be built as well as the $499 one, and the corners will usually be cut in durability and feel. A lower-end Chromebook may feel cheap, flexible or hollow, while a higher-end model will feel like any other expensive laptop. You can often opt for an education-focused model if you want better durability (likely along with some weight), or if you don’t think you’ll need that you can always stick with a consumer-level version.

Think a Chromebook is right for you? We keep an updated list going of all of the best Chromebooks available, which you can read at the link below.

Read now: The best Chromebooks

Chromebox

Fewer people have likely heard of Chromeboxes before, especially outside of education and business circles. These compact desktop computers run the same Chrome available on Chromebooks, and often have many of the same internal components — they’re just targeted at a different set of users.

Features

Compared to other “desktop” computers, Chromeboxes are surprisingly compact little machines. The standard size of a Chromebox is about 5-inches square and less than 2-inches high, meaning it won’t command much desk space and can easily be stowed in an entertainment center or even mounted on the back of a monitor.

Specs

Because the Chromebox isn’t really constrained by power or size like a laptop is, you’ll find higher specs, more ports and better capabilities in these little desktops. Most Chromeboxes will run a capable Intel processor in their base models with options to spec Intel Core M CPUs. And while they still often start at 2GB of RAM you can find them with as much as 8GB — some are even easily user-upgradeable after purchase. Chromeboxes are more than capable of running a high-resolution monitor and handling all of your needs, so long as you again stick to our recommendation of at least 4GB of RAM (more if you can handle it).

The one big area where Chromeboxes set themselves apart from Chromebooks is in ports and expandability. While your average Chromebook will have just two USB ports (only one of which is USB 3.0), most Chromeboxes will have four to six USB ports, plus two video outputs and sometimes SD card slots. The expandability makes it easy to plug in a keyboard and mouse, thumb drives, external hard drives, webcams, microphones, and more all at once, and chances are you’ll be less worried about the internal storage of a Chromebox because of this.

Peripherals and bundles

The downside of a Chromebox is that they aren’t a complete package. When you buy a Chromebox you’re just getting the desktop and a power cable — you’ll have to provide a monitor to plug it into, and a keyboard and mouse to manipulate it. If you have these already it makes things easy, but if you have to buy them at the same time the setup can get a little more expensive.

Many Chromebox manufacturers offer bundle deals for an extra $25 to $50 that include a Chrome keyboard and basic mouse — often Bluetooth ones — that are set up to work with the machine right away, but chances are if you’re willing to shop around you can find better deals buying them separately. Chromeboxes will work just fine with any standard USB or Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Pricing on Chromeboxes varies a bit more than Chromebooks because of their wider range of configurations, but for the most part, you’re going to start your search at around $149, ranging up to about $599 for a fully-loaded system that comes with peripherals. Companies whose name you’re familiar with also make Chromeboxes, and models from ASUS, HP, Lenovo and more are available.

Read now: The best Chromebox

Chromebit

The Chromebit is an interesting computer because it really takes the main benefits of a Chromebox but drops them down in scale, capabilities, and price. Rather than taking up the space of a desktop-like machine, the Chromebit is a 5-inch long stick with an HDMI plug on the end that can go straight into a monitor or TV to turn it into a functional Chrome computer.

Features

Because of its small size, the Chromebit doesn’t offer much in terms of features. The stick has a single USB port on it for connecting peripherals to it, and because of its power constraints you can’t plug in anything that needs to draw more than 500mA of power — you’ll have to step up to a powered USB hub if you want more peripherals or power. And aside from a short HDMI extension cable included in the box, there isn’t much flexibility in terms of placement or configuration of the Chromebit.

More: Read our ASUS Chromebit review

The main draw of such a small complete computer such as this is is how easily it can be packed up and moved between monitors, turning any screen with an HDMI port into a computer. Whether that’s a TV in your entertainment center, a display in a conference room or a monitor at a friend’s house, you carry the exact same Chrome experience to each screen.

Just like a Chromebox, you’ll need to supply your own keyboard and mouse. Chances are you’ll be plugging a Chromebit into the back of a TV or monitor, so Bluetooth is your best bet.

Specs

At this point, ASUS is the only manufacturer making a Chromebit. You get a low-power but capable Rockchip ARM-based processor, along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space.

More: Chromebox vs Chromebit — Which should you buy?

Update August 2017: This page was updated to refelct the latest Chrome news, products and features.

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• Join our Chromebook forums

You can use your PSVR without a TV, and it’s actually awesome

It can be inconvenient to find the perfect spot to play VR games, but it doesn’t need to be.

At first, it can seem daunting to meet the needs for a VR setup, especially if you want to play online. You need to have a nice-sized space free of obstacles and breakables, reliable internet access, a television, and lighting that doesn’t interfere with your system’s camera tracking ability. But fortunately, at least in the case of the PlayStation VR, you can easily eliminate one of those variables.

Outside of mobile gaming, when we think of gaming systems we tend to associate them as something tethered to a television, and when I explain my TV-less PlayStation VR setup to people I often hear, “Wow, I never thought of that!” Fortunately, you to can ditch the TV, and set your PlayStation free!

Read more at VRHeads!