Remastered ‘Secret of Mana’ coming to PS4, Vita, and PC in February 2018

Why it matters to you

Classic 16-bit RPGs are finally getting the recognition they deserve with next-generation remakes.

Square-Enix has announced some details and a release date for the 3-D remastered Secret of Mana, one of the most popular role-playing games ever made. The new version, with improved visuals, online multiplayer, upgraded gameplay, and an enhanced musical score, will be available soon for PlayStation 4, Vita, and Steam users.

The original Secret of Mana is included as one of the games in the Super NES Classic, but the new version will launch in February 2018, just in time for the game’s 25th anniversary.

Any dedicated gamer’s list of best Super NES games will undoubtedly include Secret of Mana among the top ten. The beloved 16-bit role-playing game, released in 1993, was a huge hit for Nintendo and spawned a raft of sequels. It followed the adventures of Randi, Primm, and Popoi (although the characters didn’t have names in the original SNES release) in a quest to defeat the evil Thantos in the flying Mana fortress.

Fitting somewhere in the fractured Final Fantasy family tree, Secret of Mana was actually a follow-up to a spinoff named Final Fantasy Adventure for the original Game Boy. A 3-D remake, Adventures of Mana, made a surprise appearance on PS Vita last year.

The Secret of Mana sequel was never released in the U.S., although the recent Japanese launch of the Mana trilogy collection for the Nintendo Switch has fans hopeful for a localized version.

The game was originally developed as a launch title for the SNES-CD peripheral, but after the deal between Nintendo and Sony fell apart, parts of the storyline and graphics were cut out due to space limitations on the SNES cartridge. Many of the featured introduces in Mana, such as real-time battles, were later expanded and used in landmark RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Secret of Evermore.

If you’re a dedicated Square-Enix fan, there will also be a Collector’s Edition available in Japan for the PlayStation version. In addition to the game, the Secret of Mana Collector’s Edition includes a pop-up storybook, three figures, and the soundtrack.

Littlstar VR might be the best app you can add to your PlayStation VR

Having access to your favorite content is now as simple as using a USB stick.

Littlstar VR isn’t a new app to enter the PlayStation VR sphere. It’s been here for months already, delivering some awesome videos. Now the developers have gone above and beyond to bring you the type of features that are pretty exciting. They’ve increased their versatility in which videos can be played from within the app, along with adding USB support. You read that right, you can now load up your favorite VR movies on a USB stick, and then open and watch them from inside Littlstar VR.

Read more at VRHeads.com

Apple Watch will soon support a huge variety of workouts

Apple already mentioned that watchOS 4 will do more to accommodate fitness fans, but it’s now clear that there’s more coming for the exercise crowd… a lot more. Thanks to some sleuthing in the latest iOS 11 beta’s code, iHelp BR has found assets hinting that the Apple Watch will support virtually every workout under the Sun. Some of them are common sports or fitness activities, such as boxing, football, core training and pilates, but others aren’t what you’d normally expect in a fitness-savvy watch. Ever wanted to monitor your bowling or sailing? Your Apple Watch will help.

The question is just who’ll get to use these activities. Some of the workouts are available right now to watchOS 4 beta users, but others aren’t. There’s a chance that Apple might save some of these for the next Apple Watch, which could launch alongside watchOS 4 in September. However, we wouldn’t assume that this is the case — you likely don’t need a sensor upgrade to track a fishing trip or a round of golf. There’s a good chance that Apple just isn’t ready to make these workouts available, and is holding off until the official launch of watchOS 4 (or possibly later) before revealing them to the world.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: iHelp BR (translated)

Demand for Mayweather-McGregor fight crashed pay-per-view servers

Did you pay for an expensive pay-per-view or streaming pass to watch the hyped-up boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, only to boil with rage as your access went down? You’re far from alone. Numerous reports have revealed that servers across the US crashed or buckled under demand for the fight, creating outages serious enough that organizers delayed the fight to make sure people could tune in. Mayweather himself said that pay-per-view servers in California and Florida crashed, while Showtime and UFC failed to load, ran into login trouble and otherwise couldn’t keep up with interest.

The pay-per-view issues at a minimum are known to have affected TV providers like Comcast, Atlantic Broadband and Frontier, although it’s not clear how large the scope of the failures was at this stage.

Problems like this aren’t completely unprecedented — Mayweather’s fight against Manny Pacquiao created hiccups of its own. However, the sheer range of failures suggests that networks still haven’t created infrastructures that can keep up with huge viewership spikes. At the same time, it also says something about how much sports viewing has changed in just a few years. You’re now quite likely to hear people griping en masse about access to legal online streams where they might have resorted to bootleg streams or (gasp) conventional TV just a few years ago. And with networks like ESPN rushing to stream boxing to everyone, not just cable diehards, the importance of online access is only going to increase in the near future.

Source: ESPN, SB Nation, UFC (Twitter)

That’s ‘Professor Bot,’ to you! How AI is changing education

There didn’t seem to be anything strange about the new teaching assistant, Jill Watson, who messaged students about assignments and due dates in professor Ashok Goel’s artificial intelligence class at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her responses were brief but informative, and it wasn’t until the semester ended that the students learned Jill wasn’t actually a “she” at all, let alone a human being. Jill was a chatbot, built by Goel to help lighten the load on his eight other human TAs.

“We thought that if an AI TA would automatically answer routine questions that typically have crisp answers, then the (human) teaching staff could engage the students on the more open-ended questions,” Goel told Digital Trends. “It is only later that we became motivated by the goal of building human-like AI TAs so that the students cannot easily tell the difference between human and AI TAs. Now we are interested in building AI TAs that enhance student engagement, retention, performance, and learning.”

AI will alter both the face and function of education.

AI is quickly integrating into every aspect of our lives and, like the students in Goel’s class, we’re not always aware when we’re engaging with it. But AI’s influence on education will be clear in the coming years as these systems ease into classrooms everywhere.

Like computers and the internet, AI will alter both the face and function — the what, why, and how — of education. Many students will be taught by bots instead of teachers. Intelligent systems will advise, tutor, and grade assignments. Meanwhile, courses themselves will fundamentally change, as educators prepare students for a job market in which millions of roles have been automated by machines.

AI in education — or AIEd — sounds like something from a far-off future, but it’s already a topic of interest for academics and businesses alike. AI-powered educational toys have flooded the market over the past few years, many of them via crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where they often exceed their financial goals.

BSIP/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Professor Einstein, for example, teaches kids about science via goofy facial expressions and a robotic German lilt. Developed by Hanson Robotics and supported by IBM Watson and Microsoft’s Xiaobing chatbot, the company’s Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $113,000. Meanwhile, the startup Elemental Path offers CogniToys, an array of educational smart dinosaurs designed to play games, hold conversations, and help kids learn to spell. Their Kickstarter campaign raked in a whopping $275,000 from backers in 2015.

“Big things are in store for AI-powered educational toys,” Danny Friedman, director of curriculum and experience at Elemental Path, told Digital Trends. “I foresee them in every classroom, as a supplemental learning tool that is not only integrated in a teacher’s curriculum but connected to a student’s personalized data, such as preferred learning methods and areas of interest. I also foresee them in every home, not only to help answer questions, but to help instill pro-social interactions. AI-powered toys will be as ubiquitous households as the cell phone.”

“Big things are in store for AI-powered educational toys.”

A student’s engagement with AI will only increase as he/she graduates through the school system. Educational AI toys will be replaced by tutors whose job it will be to identify subjects of weakness and facilitate additional training.

Teachers will be freed from the humdrum task of grading papers, in subjects from science to social studies. Systems like Wolfram Alpha can already answer complex math equation and queries in language that’s informative and accessible. Integrating an engine like this into an automated grading system – particularly for quantitative problems — would be a breeze. Educators will rejoice as they’re empowered to focus on the more personal aspects of education.

“When it comes to AI in teaching and learning, many of the more routine academic tasks (and least rewarding for lecturers), such as grading assignments, can be automated,” write researchers Mark Dodgson, director of the Technology and Innovation Management Centre, University of Queensland Business School, and David Gann, Imperial College’s vice president, in a recent report on AI and higher education for the World Economic Forum.

Pepper, a multipurpose human-shaped robot design by Softbank, is the first humanoid robot to be adopted in Japanese homes.

Once a student reaches high school, she may well enter freshmen year alongside what AIEd experts of a Pearson report call a “lifelong learning companion.” For the past nine-plus years, this digital companion would have accompanied her in class, helped her with homework, and learned along with her.

The learning partner — which might manifest as a robotic T. rex or, more likely, something subtler, like a smartphone application — would even occasionally act as a pupil itself, allowing the human student to teach it what she’s learned and help reinforce her knowledge.

“This companion would be accessible to the student throughout [his or her education],” Wayne Holmes, co-author of the Pearson report and lecturer at The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology, told Digital Trends. “At any one time, it might suggest work they can be doing or support them with work they’re finding difficult. It will also be providing information to the teacher so the teacher can engage … The idea is that over time the learning companion can build this profile of the individual that can be used to support them moving forward.”

These digital learning partners are meant to support teachers rather than replace them, Holmes insisted. Indeed, he expects educators will have AI assistants of their own to make their jobs easier and more effective.

These digital learning partners are meant to support teachers rather than replace them.

“Teachers would have their own companion, they’re own AI teaching assistant,” he said, adding that a student’s companion and a teacher’s AI assistant “would be communicating so the teaching assistant would know what’s going on with the individual student’s profile and would be able to interact with that.”

By the time a student enrolls at a university, she’ll be the product of two “minds,” if you will: the one contained in her brain, and the AI that she’s developed as a learning partner. And at the university itself AI will be everywhere — as TAs in the classroom, support in the enrollment office, and even as academic counselors. This year, the Technical University of Berlin employed a chatbot named Alex to help students plan their course calendar.

“I think the advantages of the chatbot system are the completeness and availability of the information,” said Thilo Michael, currently a PhD student at TU Berlin who designed the system as a part of his master’s studies. “The chatbot tries to translate the questions of students into searchable queries, just like a human counselor would, but it has all the information available at once. Human counselors would need to search in different online systems and would maybe even provide an incomplete set of information.”

Michael emphasized that the system is not designed to replace humans. “The system is able to answer pragmatic questions about the courses and majors available, but is not able to answer questions on a broader level,” he said. “I think the system could very well be used in combination with counseling to have the best of both worlds.”

Outside of conventional learning institutions, AI has the potential to make education accessible for more people. In developing regions, where teachers are few and far between, a robust AI system may be used to teach students with minimal or no engagement from a human educator.

The XPrize Foundation, which designs moonshot competitions to encourage “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity,” is currently offering $10 million to the team that develops the best basic learning application capable of replacing a teacher for children with access to a tablet but no human educator. In June, XPrize chose eleven semi-finalists from almost 200 teams that entered the Global Learning competition. It’s likely that the winning system will be supported by AI in order to provide more personalized and dynamic lessons.

Still, there is no shortage of ethical issues to address before fully implementing AI in education, something Holmes and his colleagues are quick to recognize. For one, educators will have to consider the privacy and confidentiality of the data collected, especially when this data pertains to children. Who will own the information, for example? And who will have access to it?

“There isn’t an obvious answer to this problem but it’s a problem that must be taken into account,” Holmes said.

And, before raising a generation with AIEd companions, psychologists should have some understanding of their implications on development. Will students become dependent on the technology? And what happens if the system malfunctions or fails? Similarly difficult questions but ones that are worth the challenge to answer for the future of our greatest resource — the minds of the next generation of humanity.

That’s ‘Professor Bot,’ to you! How AI is changing education

There didn’t seem to be anything strange about the new teaching assistant, Jill Watson, who messaged students about assignments and due dates in professor Ashok Goel’s artificial intelligence class at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her responses were brief but informative, and it wasn’t until the semester ended that the students learned Jill wasn’t actually a “she” at all, let alone a human being. Jill was a chatbot, built by Goel to help lighten the load on his eight other human TAs.

“We thought that if an AI TA would automatically answer routine questions that typically have crisp answers, then the (human) teaching staff could engage the students on the more open-ended questions,” Goel told Digital Trends. “It is only later that we became motivated by the goal of building human-like AI TAs so that the students cannot easily tell the difference between human and AI TAs. Now we are interested in building AI TAs that enhance student engagement, retention, performance, and learning.”

AI will alter both the face and function of education.

AI is quickly integrating into every aspect of our lives and, like the students in Goel’s class, we’re not always aware when we’re engaging with it. But AI’s influence on education will be clear in the coming years as these systems ease into classrooms everywhere.

Like computers and the internet, AI will alter both the face and function — the what, why, and how — of education. Many students will be taught by bots instead of teachers. Intelligent systems will advise, tutor, and grade assignments. Meanwhile, courses themselves will fundamentally change, as educators prepare students for a job market in which millions of roles have been automated by machines.

AI in education — or AIEd — sounds like something from a far-off future, but it’s already a topic of interest for academics and businesses alike. AI-powered educational toys have flooded the market over the past few years, many of them via crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where they often exceed their financial goals.

BSIP/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Professor Einstein, for example, teaches kids about science via goofy facial expressions and a robotic German lilt. Developed by Hanson Robotics and supported by IBM Watson and Microsoft’s Xiaobing chatbot, the company’s Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $113,000. Meanwhile, the startup Elemental Path offers CogniToys, an array of educational smart dinosaurs designed to play games, hold conversations, and help kids learn to spell. Their Kickstarter campaign raked in a whopping $275,000 from backers in 2015.

“Big things are in store for AI-powered educational toys,” Danny Friedman, director of curriculum and experience at Elemental Path, told Digital Trends. “I foresee them in every classroom, as a supplemental learning tool that is not only integrated in a teacher’s curriculum but connected to a student’s personalized data, such as preferred learning methods and areas of interest. I also foresee them in every home, not only to help answer questions, but to help instill pro-social interactions. AI-powered toys will be as ubiquitous households as the cell phone.”

“Big things are in store for AI-powered educational toys.”

A student’s engagement with AI will only increase as he/she graduates through the school system. Educational AI toys will be replaced by tutors whose job it will be to identify subjects of weakness and facilitate additional training.

Teachers will be freed from the humdrum task of grading papers, in subjects from science to social studies. Systems like Wolfram Alpha can already answer complex math equation and queries in language that’s informative and accessible. Integrating an engine like this into an automated grading system – particularly for quantitative problems — would be a breeze. Educators will rejoice as they’re empowered to focus on the more personal aspects of education.

“When it comes to AI in teaching and learning, many of the more routine academic tasks (and least rewarding for lecturers), such as grading assignments, can be automated,” write researchers Mark Dodgson, director of the Technology and Innovation Management Centre, University of Queensland Business School, and David Gann, Imperial College’s vice president, in a recent report on AI and higher education for the World Economic Forum.

Pepper, a multipurpose human-shaped robot design by Softbank, is the first humanoid robot to be adopted in Japanese homes.

Once a student reaches high school, she may well enter freshmen year alongside what AIEd experts of a Pearson report call a “lifelong learning companion.” For the past nine-plus years, this digital companion would have accompanied her in class, helped her with homework, and learned along with her.

The learning partner — which might manifest as a robotic T. rex or, more likely, something subtler, like a smartphone application — would even occasionally act as a pupil itself, allowing the human student to teach it what she’s learned and help reinforce her knowledge.

“This companion would be accessible to the student throughout [his or her education],” Wayne Holmes, co-author of the Pearson report and lecturer at The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology, told Digital Trends. “At any one time, it might suggest work they can be doing or support them with work they’re finding difficult. It will also be providing information to the teacher so the teacher can engage … The idea is that over time the learning companion can build this profile of the individual that can be used to support them moving forward.”

These digital learning partners are meant to support teachers rather than replace them, Holmes insisted. Indeed, he expects educators will have AI assistants of their own to make their jobs easier and more effective.

These digital learning partners are meant to support teachers rather than replace them.

“Teachers would have their own companion, they’re own AI teaching assistant,” he said, adding that a student’s companion and a teacher’s AI assistant “would be communicating so the teaching assistant would know what’s going on with the individual student’s profile and would be able to interact with that.”

By the time a student enrolls at a university, she’ll be the product of two “minds,” if you will: the one contained in her brain, and the AI that she’s developed as a learning partner. And at the university itself AI will be everywhere — as TAs in the classroom, support in the enrollment office, and even as academic counselors. This year, the Technical University of Berlin employed a chatbot named Alex to help students plan their course calendar.

“I think the advantages of the chatbot system are the completeness and availability of the information,” said Thilo Michael, currently a PhD student at TU Berlin who designed the system as a part of his master’s studies. “The chatbot tries to translate the questions of students into searchable queries, just like a human counselor would, but it has all the information available at once. Human counselors would need to search in different online systems and would maybe even provide an incomplete set of information.”

Michael emphasized that the system is not designed to replace humans. “The system is able to answer pragmatic questions about the courses and majors available, but is not able to answer questions on a broader level,” he said. “I think the system could very well be used in combination with counseling to have the best of both worlds.”

Outside of conventional learning institutions, AI has the potential to make education accessible for more people. In developing regions, where teachers are few and far between, a robust AI system may be used to teach students with minimal or no engagement from a human educator.

The XPrize Foundation, which designs moonshot competitions to encourage “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity,” is currently offering $10 million to the team that develops the best basic learning application capable of replacing a teacher for children with access to a tablet but no human educator. In June, XPrize chose eleven semi-finalists from almost 200 teams that entered the Global Learning competition. It’s likely that the winning system will be supported by AI in order to provide more personalized and dynamic lessons.

Still, there is no shortage of ethical issues to address before fully implementing AI in education, something Holmes and his colleagues are quick to recognize. For one, educators will have to consider the privacy and confidentiality of the data collected, especially when this data pertains to children. Who will own the information, for example? And who will have access to it?

“There isn’t an obvious answer to this problem but it’s a problem that must be taken into account,” Holmes said.

And, before raising a generation with AIEd companions, psychologists should have some understanding of their implications on development. Will students become dependent on the technology? And what happens if the system malfunctions or fails? Similarly difficult questions but ones that are worth the challenge to answer for the future of our greatest resource — the minds of the next generation of humanity.

Yankee outfielder sports cool Destiny 2 gear during Players Weekend

Why it matters to you

Video games are entering the world of sports and entertainment with tie-ins to upcoming releases.

For the first “Players Weekend,” Major League Baseball encouraged everyone to have a little fun with alternate jerseys, creative nicknames, and even flashy colored bats to express themselves on the field. Video game fan Aaron Judge took it to a new level, sporting cleats and batting gloves promoting Destiny 2, the upcoming blockbuster game developed by Bungie.

Here’s a closer look at the #Destiny2-themed cleats that will be worn by @TheJudge44 this weekend. First up: Warlock cleats and gloves. pic.twitter.com/9TgBCsKJ8l

— Destiny The Game (@DestinyTheGame) August 25, 2017

Judge is not only a first-time All-Star, he also won the Home Run Derby in July at the annual event in Miami. “I just think of myself as a little kid from Linden, Calif., getting to live a dream right now,” Judge told MLB.com. “This was awesome. It’s my first time coming to Miami, and the goal is to have some fun and compete.” He is also a dedicated gamer who visited Bungie in July for some behind-the-scenes previews of Destiny 2.

Judge is a big guy at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, and he wears #99 for the Yankees. His custom jersey name for Players Weekend? “ALL RISE,” of course. Judge said he had planned to just go with his last name, until one of his teammates convinced him otherwise.

“Man, are you kidding me? Get your brand out there. Everybody loves you,” Todd Frazier told him. “You put ‘All Rise’ on there, you know how many people are going to buy that jersey?”

While it’s nice to see the notoriously buttoned-up MLB relax a bit for one weekend, not everyone is a fan of the Players Weekend and they wish those dang kids would just get off their lawn. On the other hand, if you want to browse through them all, here’s a complete list of the jersey nicknames.

If you’re looking for the latest news and rumors for Bungie’s upcoming blockbuster, you’ve come to the right place. After a successful beta, Destiny 2 will arrive for consoles on September 6, but PC gamers have a longer wait with a release date of October 24, 2017.

Best new songs to stream: Taylor Swift, DJ Premier, 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 right 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.

Taylor Swift — Look What You Made Me Do

An ’80s dance groove lays the foundation for pop star Taylor Swift’s bizarre new single, punctuated by speech-song vocals and strings. There’s a dystopian feeling to the singer/songwriter’s new song that isn’t altogether convincing for those who remember Swift as a leader of the pop country movement, but recent super fans who have been waiting since 2014 for new material will surely help make the tune a megahit. Swift’s upcoming album Reputation is out in November.

DJ Premier & The Badder Band — KRS-One Attacks (and more)

Legendary hip-hop producer DJ Premier appeared with his Badder Band at NPR’s Tiny Desk this week, performing with turntables while the live ensemble layered in tasteful melodic accompaniment. If you haven’t begun your journey into hip-hop history, this live concert is a perfect one to watch with the iconic beatsmith showcasing the skills and the genre he’s helped develop over the past several decades.

MF Doom — Doomsayer (Explicit)

Underground rap king MF Doom has been releasing new tracks this summer in partnership with Adult Swim, the latest being this short, classic-style hip-hop track produced by Alchemist. A head-bobbing cut filled with Doom’s signature tongue-in-cheek lyricism, Doomsayer is a potent combination of tasteful samples and lyricism that will keep you coming back for more.

Beach Fossils — Be Nothing

Too often, a band’s live performance isn’t as clean as it is on the record, but there’s an impressively clean quality to this live take of Be Nothing by Beach Fossils from the band’s recent KEXP performance that actually mirrors the depth of the production on their recent full studio album. Layers of guitars, bass, and percussion coalesce in a wall of sound that could easily be mistaken for a studio take.

Phoebe Bridgers — Motion Sickness

A four-on-the-floor drumbeat propels pop songwriter Phoebe Bridgers’ Motion Sickness throughout its four-minute runtime. Bridgers rides a scooter around Los Angeles in the music video for this latest single, taking you with her on a journey that culminates in a passionate chorus onstage at a karaoke bar.

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:

Lend researchers computing power and they’ll use it to study your microbiome

Why it matters to you

Conducting millions of experiments in the name of science takes a lot of processing power, but little old you can actually contribute.

Who better to study what lives inside you than, well, you? IBM certainly agrees, and now, the company has teamed up with the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of California San Diego, and the Flatiron Institute to form the Microbiome Immunity Project. It’s described as an IBM-facilitated citizen science project that will take advantage of the “surplus processing power on volunteers’ computers to conduct millions of virtual experiments on behalf of the researchers.” The goal? To map the three million bacterial genes found in your microbiome — which is to say, the bacteria that lives in and on you.

The hope is that this collective science experiment will help scientists gain a deeper understanding of the microbiome’s interaction with our own biochemistry, and thereby examine how these interactions could affect certain diseases, including Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis. These afflictions already plague hundreds of millions of individuals around the world, but a microbiome study holds out the hope of improved treatment and possibly prevention, of these diseases.

So why haven’t these studies been done before? The problem with conducting this experiment on your own (or on anyone’s own), is that it would require massive supercomputing processing power. And while a single supercomputer might have trouble dealing with so much data, a whole lot of normal computers could do the trick. As such, IBM is actually crowdsourcing computing power by way of IBM’s World Community Grid.

“This type of research on the human microbiome, on this scale, has not been done before,” said Dr. Ramnik Xavier, Institute member and co-director of the infectious disease and microbiome program. “It’s only possible with massive computational power.”

To participate, you need only to download a secure software program that will automatically sense when your computer can offer spare processing power. In those times, IBM will tap your machine to run virtual experiments on behalf of the scientists. The data that comes out of these millions of experiments from across the country will ultimately be analyzed by the project’s team. And in keeping with the crowdsourcing theme, this data will be made publicly available to other scientists, hopefully improving our capacity to treat autoimmune diseases.

As Dr. Rob Knight, Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego noted, “By harnessing the efforts of volunteers, we can do something that exceeds the scale of what we have access to by a factor of thousands. For the first time, we’re bringing a comprehensive structural biology picture to the whole microbiome, rather than solving structures one at a time in a piecemeal fashion.”

Best Ultra Thin Cases for Google Pixel

What are the best ultra-thin cases for the Google Pixel?

The Google Pixel is a brand new, sleek and stylish phone, so having a big bulky case on it might not be the most ideal thing for those who want to keep the minimalist beauty of the device while still showing it off (and keeping it protected!)

There are plenty of cases to pick from when it come to customizing your Pixel, but with so many options available, which one should you go with? Here are our choices we think you should consider while picking out the best ultra-thin case for your Google Pixel!

• Peel Super Thin Pixel Case
• Dbrand Skins
• Diztronic Pixlee Slim-Fit Case
• Maxboost mSnap Thin case
• Pixel Case by Google
• DGtle Anti-Scratch case
• Spigen Liquid Crystal case
• Bear Motion Ultra Slim case

Peel Super Thin Pixel Case

If you’re searching for the absolute thinnest case, it’s hard to beat the ultra thin offerings from Peel. Its goal seems to be to keep your phone protected without anyone ever really noticing that you’ve got a case on your phone.

For the Pixel and Pixel XL, that means offering cases that match the color of your phone (even that gorgeous Really Blue) without any brand markings on the case. It really lets the Pixel’s design come through and at only .35mm of thickness, even you might forget you’ve got a case on your phone over time. You can get a peel case in Very Silver, Quite Black, or Really Blue for either the Pixel or Pixel XL for just $25.

See at Peel

Dbrand Skins

I don’t know exactly where Dbrand skins fall in terms of being an actual case — typically I would define a case as something you can pop on and off as needed. But if you’re looking to customize your Pixel with a thin layer of protection and have the patience for a precise, one-time installation, you really need to check out Dbrand

They offer a wide variety of skins for the Pixel and Pixel XL that can be as subtle or flashy as you want. It’s all about customization here so choose the color and texture style you want. These vinyl skins are less than .25mm thick so you’re adding basically no bulk at all to your phone while protecting the body from any scuffs and scratches from drops. If you decide to remove the skin, Dbrand guarantees that their skins will leave no residue on your phone. So keep it protected and thin with a Dbrand skin.

See at Dbrand

Diztronic Pixlee Slim-Fit Case

If you enjoy a good pun, you’ll enjoy the Diztronic Pixlee Slim-Fit Case. It’s a minimalist case made of TPU with a matte finish and a pixelated texture on the back… For your Pixel.

It’s a really slim case that adds barely any bulk to your phone, but will keep it protected even when you put it face down on a table with a slight lip around the front edge. All the coverings and cutouts for the buttons and ports are precisely designed so you’ll have no issues fitting this case on your phone. It’s available for just $10 on Amazon, so get yours today!

See at Amazon

Maxboost mSnap Thin case

If you’re looking for a Google Pixel case that’s thin and out of the way, but that still adds a little bit of protection and security to your phone, then take a peek at the highly-rated and recommended Maxboost mSnap Thin case!

Designed to precisely snap to fit your Google Pixel and built with durable 4-side protection that covers your phone’s corners, along with a raised bezel to protect your Pixel’s screen, the Maxboost mSnap Thin case may be thin, but it will also protect your phone from day-to-day wear and tear.

You won’t have to worry about pulling your Pixel in and out of the case to charge it, either: the Maxboost mSnap Thin case comes with cutouts for your speakers, charging ports, and buttons. You can pick up the mSnap in vibrant colors like turquoise or rose gold, or in a standard color like black.

The best part? The case is less that $15, so you won’t have to break the bank to find a case that works for you!

See at Amazon

Pixel Case by Google

Keep your Pixel protected and secure without the weight and inconvenience with the Pixel Case by Google.

Designed and built with a silicone exterior to provide extra shock absorption from high falls, the Pixel Case by Google comes finished with a high-quality microfibre interior for additional protection. Simply slide on the flexible, yet perfectly-fitting case, and your Pixel is ready to go!

Unlike some minimalist cases that only come clear or in basic colors, Google’s case comes in a number of bright, fun shades to match your sense of style, including grey, blue, green, coral, and peach.

See at the Google Store

DGtle Anti-Scratch case

With an anti-scratch guarantee and a sleek, ultra-thin design, the DGtle case is another ideal partner for your Pixel if you’re looking for a case that isn’t bulky or cumbersome!

Made from a durable TPU material to protect your Pixel against any outside trauma or force, and designed to be firm, yet flexible, this non-slip DGtle case is a smart minimalist option to consider as you hunt for the perfect case.

The case fits snugly to your Pixel to protect it, and comes in a clear style, or you can also pick and choose from frosted purple, pink, mint, blue, gray, and so many others!

See at Amazon

Spigen Liquid Crystal case

Protect your Pixel in true minimalist style with the Liquid Crystal case from Spigen.

If you’re looking for a truly ultra-thin case, Spigen has you covered with the Liquid Crystal. The case is made from a clear TPU material and is extremely flexible and lightweight. With some clear cases, smudges and dirt can easily gather on the back of your phone, but Spigen’s inner-dot pattern prevents any grime from muddying up the look of your Pixel.

While the Liquid Crystal only comes in one color (clear), and might look like a bit of a flimsy case, it’s actually voted one of the best Pixel ultra-thin cases out there, so check it out for just $12 if you’re looking for a reliable clear case option!

See at Amazon

Bear Motion Ultra Slim case

Snap, secure, and go with the Bear Motion Ultra Slim case for your Pixel!

With full-access to all ports and buttons, the Bear Motion case is a great accessory to partner with your Pixel. While it’s not as protective as other cases on this list, it’s super-slim design is perfect for minimalists who are looking for a simple, stylish look and feel.

This lightweight case will protect your Pixel from small scratches and bumps and comes in five different color choices, including bright red, black, navy blue, gray, and forest green. Get yours today for just $8!

See at Amazon

What’s your pick?

Is there a minimalist, ultra-thin Pixel case that you simply cannot get enough of? Have you found the perfect combination of simplicity and protection? Style and functionality?

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Updated August 2017: Added Peel, Dbrand, and Diztronic options to our list!