No, it’s not cuddly, but the Pup scanner makes document scanning painless
Why it matters to you
If you do a lot of document scanning and hate how time-consuming it is, then the portable Pup scanner is for you.
Whether you’re scanning a big pile of receipts for your expense report, digitizing an old book, or capturing your child’s latest artwork to share, the Pup scanner makes the process quick and painless. Compared to something like the Epson DS-320, this device takes portability to a whole new level. It’s a stand-alone scanner that’s just 5.3 inches long, 1.26 inches wide, and weighs 7 ounces (200g). All you have to do to scan is hold it over the document you want to capture, line up the red laser frame with the edges, and press the button on top.
The document is automatically uploaded to the cloud via Wi-Fi and stored or shared based on your preferences. Use the smartphone companion app and you can configure precisely what you want the Pup scanner to do with your scans. There is also a small touchscreen for quickly changing settings directly on the Pup scanner. Although it works via Wi-Fi, the Pup does have storage onboard, giving it enough space to record 10,000 pages if you’re offline.
You can send documents to one or more email addresses, store them on a server somewhere, or print them out. The Pup scanner also supports optional character recognition, or OCR, so you can export text directly into Word or Excel if you want. By mapping the document in 3D, the Pup scanner can remove curvature or deformation, and it has a built-in LED light to ensure your target is perfectly illuminated. You can also choose to automatically crop, rotate, and compress documents, set your preferred sharpness, and decide between color or black and white.
We tried the Pup scanner out for ourselves at IFA in Berlin and found it really fast and easy to use. You can scan multiple pages in seconds, and it has a comfortable, rounded design, so you can scan with one hand and change pages with the other. The built-in battery gives you 12 hours of scanning time, and there’s a USB-C port for recharging. Just make sure you have a good USB-C cable.
The Pup scanner comes from the most successful French startup ever to run an Indiegogo campaign — they raised $620,000, more than triple the original goal. It’s set to ship in December and if you want one, it will cost you $199. Check out the website for more information.
Long Live Lexar — acquisition saves popular SD card brand from the ax
Why it matters to you
Lexar’s SD cards and flash drives will be sticking around, despite the parent company’s decision to focus on other areas.
After parent company Michron announced the end of the Lexar brand earlier this year, the fate of the popular storage device maker was up in the air. But the Lexar brand will continue to remain on shelves — Longsys, a flash storage company, announced the acquisition of the Lexar brand on Thursday, August 31.
Longsys says that Lexar products will continue to be available, while existing Lexar owners will also still have access to tech support. The company plans to continue expanding the Lexar lineup, which includes SD cards, Compact Flash, USB drives, and card readers.
“We are very honored to acquire the Lexar brand,” Huabo Cai, CEO of Longsys Electronics Limited, said in a press release. “Lexar has built a great brand name and our vision is to make it even greater. Existing customers can rest assured that the innovative solutions and excellent support that they have experienced from Lexar will continue. The mission to make Lexar the go-to brand for high-performance removable storage continues, and we will expand upon it to offer even more compelling solutions as the age of wireless and big-data impact the consumer storage markets.”
Longsys has been in the flash storage business for over 18 years — Foresee, the company’s embedded storage brand, leads the market in China. According to the company, Longsys sells over 100 million flash products every year. Longsys says the company strategy and culture, including a focus on products for emerging technology like 8K video and virtual reality, will help the Lexar line to continue.
Michron announced plans to discontinue the Lexar brand in June, saying that the decision was made in order to ensure the company was well-positioned for the future. At the time, Michron said that it was looking for a buyer for the Lexar brand.
As a brand that has been around for over 20 years, Lexar is well known for its camera cards, USB drives and card readers alongside other well-known brands such as SanDisk. A shift in the camera market as smartphones replace point-and-shoots and manufacturers focus on advanced cameras could be partially to blame for its current woes, though the latest data suggests that decline is over. As the file sizes from those images and video grow with more megapixels and 4K video, choosing a fast memory card becomes even more important.
Weekly Rewind: Driverless pizza delivery, defusing volcanos, a 707hp Jeep
A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top tech stories, from what to expect at IFA 2017 to Domino’s driverless pizza car — it’s all here.
What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) is a consumer tech show in Germany that’s widely considered the CES of Europe. This year, we’ll almost certainly be treated to great products including new smartphones, smart home and Internet of Things devices, laptops, and more.
The show runs from September 1 to September 6, but press conferences from major manufacturers, like Samsung, begin on August 30. Here’s everything we expect from the show.
Read: What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
LG V30 hands-on review
LG may have been one of the first smartphone manufacturers to release an edge-to-edge “bezel-less” phone in 2017, but the G6’s early release forced the company to use an older Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. Nearly all other flagship phones utilize the superior Snapdragon 835 chip. Sales of the G6 haven’t been stellar, but the latest LG V30 smartphone may finally put the company on the right track. It features hardware specifications that match other high-end 2017 phones, and it continues the design trend of minimizing edges around the screen. In our LG V30 hands-on review, we found it to be a great phone all-around, with plenty of nifty features to love.
Read: LG V30 hands-on review
An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
When it comes to information processing, computers tend to be way faster than we are. The same thing may be true when it comes to generating new plotlines for A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of novels better known to TV fans as Game of Thrones. After all, with six years having elapsed since his last book, 2011’s A Dance With Dragons, was published, author George R.R. Martin certainly appears to be in no rush to publish its follow-up. So it’s no surprise that the producers of the TV show are currently coming up with their own storylines.
That’s where the work of one computer science-savvy fantasy fan enters the picture. Colorado-based software engineer Zack Thoutt has trained a recurrent neural network (RNN) to predict events for the as-yet-unfinished sixth novel in the series, The Winds of Winter. As with the real-life writers on the TV show, the data set the RNN is gleaned from the roughly 5,000 pages of existing novels in the series. It was then set to generate chapters, with Thoutt kicking each one off by giving the AI a “prime word” to riff on, before letting it go off in its own direction.
Read: An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
It seems like every time we attempt to take a step toward better understanding our cosmos we are left with more questions than answers — a regular Bonini’s Paradox. Just a few years ago we didn’t even know that the cosmic phenomena known as fast radio bursts (FRB) — rare, bright, and inexplicable signals from beyond our galaxy — existed. And until recently, only one of these FRBs had been recorded on more than one occasion. However, last week, a team has recorded yet another repeating FRB.
The scientific community has been perplexed by these enigmatic signals for the past 10 years. Currently, the explanation behind these FRBs range from outbursts of neutron stars to some sort of propulsion system used by an alien civilization on the opposite side of the universe. Some have even suggested these signals are the result of dark matter — another space phenomenon we know very little about — smacking into black holes.
Read: Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Did you know you can trade-in products like smartphones and tablets to Amazon and get store credit? The Amazon Trade-in program has been around for some time, but if you haven’t heard about it before, here’s how to use it.
Through the program, you can trade in a slew of different items — but perhaps the most important these days is the smartphone. If you’re in the market for a new phone, Amazon will buy your old phone from you to help offset the cost. Interested in the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8? Amazon could pay you up to $170 for a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, which could go straight to helping you buy your new phone.
Read: How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Soon, you may not have to tip your pizza delivery driver anymore but not because the fast food industry is going tipless — rather, because it’s going driverless. That is right, your pies could soon be coming your way in autonomous delivery vehicles. That is, if you are ordering from Domino’s. According to The Verge, the pizza franchise partnered with Ford to test self-driving pizza delivery cars, hoping to gauge how well (or poorly) pizza enthusiasts respond to and engage with this newfangled technology.
Over the course of the next few weeks, some Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will have the option of getting their pizzas delivered in a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle. Alas, the car won’t be entirely without a driver (so you should probably still tip). All cars will be operated by a Ford safety engineer, and will actually have quite a few other passengers in the form of additional researchers who will be tasked with examining the last 50 feet of the drive and the customer experience.
Read: Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
What would the world be like if Amazon owned actual retail stores? We’re on the cusp of the answer to that question. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market has been finalized. Amazon now owns 431 Whole Foods supermarkets. But don’t worry — Whole Foods will still operate under its own brand, and remain headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company also assures loyal shoppers that it will continue to grow its team and create jobs by opening new stores and expanding support of local farmers and artisans.
The deal between Amazon and Whole Foods Market was announced in June. Deciding that competitors won’t be harmed and people will still have plenty of places to buy food, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blessed the merger in late August, according to Bloomberg. On the same day, Whole Foods Market shareholders approved the deal, Reuters reported.
Read: Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
2018 Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
A 707-horsepower sport utility vehicle seems a bit out of step with a car industry that’s currently fixated on electrifying everything and even taking the driver out of the equation whenever possible. And to gas-mileage-be-damned enthusiasts, the concept of a high-riding SUV with super car-like capability is a bit of a curiosity. As we discovered in our 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk review, it’s a sentiment that hasn’t been lost on Jeep’s brass.
“You might be asking yourself the question, ‘Why make this vehicle?’” Jeep brand director Scott Tallon confessed to a room full of journalists before our test drive. With a 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 under the hood, along with hardware from the likes of Brembo, Bilstein, and other racing name plates — this track-focused machine seems out of step for a company that built its reputation on crawling over rocks. But Tallon assured us that the Trackhawk’s actions would speak louder than words.
Read: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Life on this little space rock of ours is delicate to say the least. Be it an asteroid impact, pandemic, or casual nuclear launch, there are dozens of unique ways in which we could easily too go the way of the Dodo. While we’ve spent boatloads of money preparing for a cataclysmic extinction-level asteroid impact event, there’s a much more imminent threat lurking just beneath our feet. The Yellowstone supervolcano is due for an eruption and could send us back to the Stone Ages in just a few fiery moments — but don’t worry, NASA has a plan.
A study by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory concluded that the Yellowstone supervolcano, a massive pool of magma beneath the national park, is a much graver existential threat to life on this planet than any potential large-scale asteroid impact event. There are 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth with a major eruption occurring every 100,000 years or so. Here’s the bad news: An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano could bury the bulk of the United States under tons of ash and lava, change the climate of the Earth for centuries, and potentially kill millions in the process.
Read: NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Weekly Rewind: Driverless pizza delivery, defusing volcanos, a 707hp Jeep
A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top tech stories, from what to expect at IFA 2017 to Domino’s driverless pizza car — it’s all here.
What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) is a consumer tech show in Germany that’s widely considered the CES of Europe. This year, we’ll almost certainly be treated to great products including new smartphones, smart home and Internet of Things devices, laptops, and more.
The show runs from September 1 to September 6, but press conferences from major manufacturers, like Samsung, begin on August 30. Here’s everything we expect from the show.
Read: What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
LG V30 hands-on review
LG may have been one of the first smartphone manufacturers to release an edge-to-edge “bezel-less” phone in 2017, but the G6’s early release forced the company to use an older Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. Nearly all other flagship phones utilize the superior Snapdragon 835 chip. Sales of the G6 haven’t been stellar, but the latest LG V30 smartphone may finally put the company on the right track. It features hardware specifications that match other high-end 2017 phones, and it continues the design trend of minimizing edges around the screen. In our LG V30 hands-on review, we found it to be a great phone all-around, with plenty of nifty features to love.
Read: LG V30 hands-on review
An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
When it comes to information processing, computers tend to be way faster than we are. The same thing may be true when it comes to generating new plotlines for A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of novels better known to TV fans as Game of Thrones. After all, with six years having elapsed since his last book, 2011’s A Dance With Dragons, was published, author George R.R. Martin certainly appears to be in no rush to publish its follow-up. So it’s no surprise that the producers of the TV show are currently coming up with their own storylines.
That’s where the work of one computer science-savvy fantasy fan enters the picture. Colorado-based software engineer Zack Thoutt has trained a recurrent neural network (RNN) to predict events for the as-yet-unfinished sixth novel in the series, The Winds of Winter. As with the real-life writers on the TV show, the data set the RNN is gleaned from the roughly 5,000 pages of existing novels in the series. It was then set to generate chapters, with Thoutt kicking each one off by giving the AI a “prime word” to riff on, before letting it go off in its own direction.
Read: An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
It seems like every time we attempt to take a step toward better understanding our cosmos we are left with more questions than answers — a regular Bonini’s Paradox. Just a few years ago we didn’t even know that the cosmic phenomena known as fast radio bursts (FRB) — rare, bright, and inexplicable signals from beyond our galaxy — existed. And until recently, only one of these FRBs had been recorded on more than one occasion. However, last week, a team has recorded yet another repeating FRB.
The scientific community has been perplexed by these enigmatic signals for the past 10 years. Currently, the explanation behind these FRBs range from outbursts of neutron stars to some sort of propulsion system used by an alien civilization on the opposite side of the universe. Some have even suggested these signals are the result of dark matter — another space phenomenon we know very little about — smacking into black holes.
Read: Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Did you know you can trade-in products like smartphones and tablets to Amazon and get store credit? The Amazon Trade-in program has been around for some time, but if you haven’t heard about it before, here’s how to use it.
Through the program, you can trade in a slew of different items — but perhaps the most important these days is the smartphone. If you’re in the market for a new phone, Amazon will buy your old phone from you to help offset the cost. Interested in the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8? Amazon could pay you up to $170 for a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, which could go straight to helping you buy your new phone.
Read: How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Soon, you may not have to tip your pizza delivery driver anymore but not because the fast food industry is going tipless — rather, because it’s going driverless. That is right, your pies could soon be coming your way in autonomous delivery vehicles. That is, if you are ordering from Domino’s. According to The Verge, the pizza franchise partnered with Ford to test self-driving pizza delivery cars, hoping to gauge how well (or poorly) pizza enthusiasts respond to and engage with this newfangled technology.
Over the course of the next few weeks, some Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will have the option of getting their pizzas delivered in a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle. Alas, the car won’t be entirely without a driver (so you should probably still tip). All cars will be operated by a Ford safety engineer, and will actually have quite a few other passengers in the form of additional researchers who will be tasked with examining the last 50 feet of the drive and the customer experience.
Read: Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
What would the world be like if Amazon owned actual retail stores? We’re on the cusp of the answer to that question. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market has been finalized. Amazon now owns 431 Whole Foods supermarkets. But don’t worry — Whole Foods will still operate under its own brand, and remain headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company also assures loyal shoppers that it will continue to grow its team and create jobs by opening new stores and expanding support of local farmers and artisans.
The deal between Amazon and Whole Foods Market was announced in June. Deciding that competitors won’t be harmed and people will still have plenty of places to buy food, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blessed the merger in late August, according to Bloomberg. On the same day, Whole Foods Market shareholders approved the deal, Reuters reported.
Read: Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
2018 Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
A 707-horsepower sport utility vehicle seems a bit out of step with a car industry that’s currently fixated on electrifying everything and even taking the driver out of the equation whenever possible. And to gas-mileage-be-damned enthusiasts, the concept of a high-riding SUV with super car-like capability is a bit of a curiosity. As we discovered in our 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk review, it’s a sentiment that hasn’t been lost on Jeep’s brass.
“You might be asking yourself the question, ‘Why make this vehicle?’” Jeep brand director Scott Tallon confessed to a room full of journalists before our test drive. With a 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 under the hood, along with hardware from the likes of Brembo, Bilstein, and other racing name plates — this track-focused machine seems out of step for a company that built its reputation on crawling over rocks. But Tallon assured us that the Trackhawk’s actions would speak louder than words.
Read: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Life on this little space rock of ours is delicate to say the least. Be it an asteroid impact, pandemic, or casual nuclear launch, there are dozens of unique ways in which we could easily too go the way of the Dodo. While we’ve spent boatloads of money preparing for a cataclysmic extinction-level asteroid impact event, there’s a much more imminent threat lurking just beneath our feet. The Yellowstone supervolcano is due for an eruption and could send us back to the Stone Ages in just a few fiery moments — but don’t worry, NASA has a plan.
A study by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory concluded that the Yellowstone supervolcano, a massive pool of magma beneath the national park, is a much graver existential threat to life on this planet than any potential large-scale asteroid impact event. There are 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth with a major eruption occurring every 100,000 years or so. Here’s the bad news: An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano could bury the bulk of the United States under tons of ash and lava, change the climate of the Earth for centuries, and potentially kill millions in the process.
Read: NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Weekly Rewind: Driverless pizza delivery, defusing volcanos, a 707hp Jeep
A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top tech stories, from what to expect at IFA 2017 to Domino’s driverless pizza car — it’s all here.
What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) is a consumer tech show in Germany that’s widely considered the CES of Europe. This year, we’ll almost certainly be treated to great products including new smartphones, smart home and Internet of Things devices, laptops, and more.
The show runs from September 1 to September 6, but press conferences from major manufacturers, like Samsung, begin on August 30. Here’s everything we expect from the show.
Read: What to expect from IFA 2017, and how to watch major live-streamed announcements
LG V30 hands-on review
LG may have been one of the first smartphone manufacturers to release an edge-to-edge “bezel-less” phone in 2017, but the G6’s early release forced the company to use an older Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. Nearly all other flagship phones utilize the superior Snapdragon 835 chip. Sales of the G6 haven’t been stellar, but the latest LG V30 smartphone may finally put the company on the right track. It features hardware specifications that match other high-end 2017 phones, and it continues the design trend of minimizing edges around the screen. In our LG V30 hands-on review, we found it to be a great phone all-around, with plenty of nifty features to love.
Read: LG V30 hands-on review
An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
When it comes to information processing, computers tend to be way faster than we are. The same thing may be true when it comes to generating new plotlines for A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of novels better known to TV fans as Game of Thrones. After all, with six years having elapsed since his last book, 2011’s A Dance With Dragons, was published, author George R.R. Martin certainly appears to be in no rush to publish its follow-up. So it’s no surprise that the producers of the TV show are currently coming up with their own storylines.
That’s where the work of one computer science-savvy fantasy fan enters the picture. Colorado-based software engineer Zack Thoutt has trained a recurrent neural network (RNN) to predict events for the as-yet-unfinished sixth novel in the series, The Winds of Winter. As with the real-life writers on the TV show, the data set the RNN is gleaned from the roughly 5,000 pages of existing novels in the series. It was then set to generate chapters, with Thoutt kicking each one off by giving the AI a “prime word” to riff on, before letting it go off in its own direction.
Read: An AI just beat George R.R. Martin to writing the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ novel
Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
It seems like every time we attempt to take a step toward better understanding our cosmos we are left with more questions than answers — a regular Bonini’s Paradox. Just a few years ago we didn’t even know that the cosmic phenomena known as fast radio bursts (FRB) — rare, bright, and inexplicable signals from beyond our galaxy — existed. And until recently, only one of these FRBs had been recorded on more than one occasion. However, last week, a team has recorded yet another repeating FRB.
The scientific community has been perplexed by these enigmatic signals for the past 10 years. Currently, the explanation behind these FRBs range from outbursts of neutron stars to some sort of propulsion system used by an alien civilization on the opposite side of the universe. Some have even suggested these signals are the result of dark matter — another space phenomenon we know very little about — smacking into black holes.
Read: Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos
How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Did you know you can trade-in products like smartphones and tablets to Amazon and get store credit? The Amazon Trade-in program has been around for some time, but if you haven’t heard about it before, here’s how to use it.
Through the program, you can trade in a slew of different items — but perhaps the most important these days is the smartphone. If you’re in the market for a new phone, Amazon will buy your old phone from you to help offset the cost. Interested in the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8? Amazon could pay you up to $170 for a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, which could go straight to helping you buy your new phone.
Read: How to use the Amazon trade-in program
Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Soon, you may not have to tip your pizza delivery driver anymore but not because the fast food industry is going tipless — rather, because it’s going driverless. That is right, your pies could soon be coming your way in autonomous delivery vehicles. That is, if you are ordering from Domino’s. According to The Verge, the pizza franchise partnered with Ford to test self-driving pizza delivery cars, hoping to gauge how well (or poorly) pizza enthusiasts respond to and engage with this newfangled technology.
Over the course of the next few weeks, some Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will have the option of getting their pizzas delivered in a Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle. Alas, the car won’t be entirely without a driver (so you should probably still tip). All cars will be operated by a Ford safety engineer, and will actually have quite a few other passengers in the form of additional researchers who will be tasked with examining the last 50 feet of the drive and the customer experience.
Read: Domino’s and Ford are working together on driverless pizza delivery
Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
What would the world be like if Amazon owned actual retail stores? We’re on the cusp of the answer to that question. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market has been finalized. Amazon now owns 431 Whole Foods supermarkets. But don’t worry — Whole Foods will still operate under its own brand, and remain headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company also assures loyal shoppers that it will continue to grow its team and create jobs by opening new stores and expanding support of local farmers and artisans.
The deal between Amazon and Whole Foods Market was announced in June. Deciding that competitors won’t be harmed and people will still have plenty of places to buy food, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) blessed the merger in late August, according to Bloomberg. On the same day, Whole Foods Market shareholders approved the deal, Reuters reported.
Read: Here’s how Amazon could change Whole Foods (and grocery shopping)
2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
2018 Jeep® Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
A 707-horsepower sport utility vehicle seems a bit out of step with a car industry that’s currently fixated on electrifying everything and even taking the driver out of the equation whenever possible. And to gas-mileage-be-damned enthusiasts, the concept of a high-riding SUV with super car-like capability is a bit of a curiosity. As we discovered in our 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk review, it’s a sentiment that hasn’t been lost on Jeep’s brass.
“You might be asking yourself the question, ‘Why make this vehicle?’” Jeep brand director Scott Tallon confessed to a room full of journalists before our test drive. With a 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 under the hood, along with hardware from the likes of Brembo, Bilstein, and other racing name plates — this track-focused machine seems out of step for a company that built its reputation on crawling over rocks. But Tallon assured us that the Trackhawk’s actions would speak louder than words.
Read: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Trackhawk first drive review
NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Life on this little space rock of ours is delicate to say the least. Be it an asteroid impact, pandemic, or casual nuclear launch, there are dozens of unique ways in which we could easily too go the way of the Dodo. While we’ve spent boatloads of money preparing for a cataclysmic extinction-level asteroid impact event, there’s a much more imminent threat lurking just beneath our feet. The Yellowstone supervolcano is due for an eruption and could send us back to the Stone Ages in just a few fiery moments — but don’t worry, NASA has a plan.
A study by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory concluded that the Yellowstone supervolcano, a massive pool of magma beneath the national park, is a much graver existential threat to life on this planet than any potential large-scale asteroid impact event. There are 20 known supervolcanoes on Earth with a major eruption occurring every 100,000 years or so. Here’s the bad news: An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano could bury the bulk of the United States under tons of ash and lava, change the climate of the Earth for centuries, and potentially kill millions in the process.
Read: NASA has a crazy plan to prevent the Yellowstone supervolcano from exploding
Don’t miss out on these awesome Anker Bluetooth headphones for $20
Don’t worry about the lack of headphone jack on your next phone thanks to this great deal from our friends at Thrifter!
Right now you can pick up Anker’s popular SoundBuds Slim Bluetooth headphones for just $19.99, a savings of $6 from the regular list price. Bluetooth headphones continue to become more of a necessity as manufacturers remove headphone jacks from more and more phones, but not everyone has hundreds of dollars laying around to spend on a pair.
While they may not sound like a pair of JayBird or Bose headphones, the quality and performance of these is actually quite impressive. With over 2,000 Amazon reviews, the headphones maintain a 4-star rating.
- Listen Up: Precision engineered 6mm drivers, fed via Bluetooth 4.1, offer powerful and skip-free audio.
- Find Your Fit: Lightweight design with customizable EarTips and InEar-Hooks give anyone a strong and comfortable fit.
- Leading Playtime: Listen for up to 7 hours on a single charge. Enough juice to soundtrack your day.
- Water-Resistant: Run in the rain or sweat it out in the gym. IPX4 water-resistant shell and internal nano-coating provide a double layer of water protection.
- What’s In The Box: SoundBuds Slim, XS/S/M/L EarTips, S/M/L InEar-Hooks, FitClip, Shirt Clip, Micro USB Cable, Travel Pouch, welcome guide, our worry-free 18-month warranty and friendly customer service.
This is the lowest price these headphones have sold for since being released earlier this year. If you want to see what all the rage is about with Bluetooth headphones, be sure to get your order in before the price jumps back up.
See at Amazon
More from Thrifter:
- What does Amazon’s takeover of Whole Foods mean for you?
- Five free travel apps to help you save big on hotel stays
For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!
Get your own 360-degree Android camera attachment for just $80!
Get your own 360-degree Android camera attachment for just $80!
360-degree cameras are still a bit of a niche product, with the best cameras still priced at a couple hundred dollars. Sure, that’s a cool product to have, it might not be something you’re willing to drop a few hundred dollars on just for the novelty. And yet…
image
If you want to check out a 360-degree camera sooner than later, Android Central Digital Offers has the deal for you! For just $80, you can get a 360-degree camera that simply plugs into your Android smartphone and lets you snap complete roundabout photos in up to 8MP resolution. You also have the option to shoot 2048 x 1024 video at 30fps. There’s also a built in micro SD card slot that can support a card up to 128GB (not included), so you don’t need to use up your phone internal storage.
Photos are shot in .jpg and video are recorded as .mp4, which makes it real easy to share it all with your friends and family on social media. The camera attachment has a USB-C connector, but we’ve graciously included a microUSB adapter if needed.
Regularly, this 360-degree camera would be sold for $149.99, but you’ll save 46% with this deal. Get yours and record the world around you like never before!
See at Android Central Digital Offers
Action Launcher beta now works with Android Oreo’s Adaptive Icons
Our favorite third-party launcher is getting a nice, delicious Oreo boost with its new beta.
Action Launcher v28, which is currently on its second beta as I write this, now officially supports Android Oreo’s Adaptive Icons feature, which has eluded third-party launchers until now.
Adaptive Icons are a new feature in Android 8.0 that allow app developers to create home screen icons of various shapes to suit manufacturer preferences and, in the case of themers, icon packs. From developer Chris Lacy’s blog:
Pick from 5 Adaptive Icon styles: circle, square, rounded square, teardrop and squircle.
This update also sees big enhancements to Quickedit, Action Launcher’s powerful icon editing system which offers suggestions for icon replacements based on icon packs on your device. Adaptive Icon support is now integrated into Quickedit, so you can quickly pick the icon shape that best suits your mood.
Prior to installing, you’ll need to opt into the Action Launcher beta, which can be found at this link. Once you’ve opted into the beta program, the update will download as normal from the Play Store.
The best Android launchers
Our favorite books, movies, TV shows, and music this week
Here’s what we’re doing when the whistle blows and we stop typing all the words!
We all have pretty busy lives here at AC, but when it comes to downtime some of us like to chill and spend it watching a movie or show, reading a book, relaxing with the headphones on or just enjoying all the media artists have created no matter the format.
It might be old or it might be new, but you’ll find what we’re listening to, reading or watching right now below.
Russell Holly
This week has been a little intense for me, so I’m going to shut my brain off to some good ol’ fashioned brand new movies. Wonder Woman just hit Google Play, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 just hit the For Rent option, and Death Note is now available on Netflix.
That should be enough to power down for a while, just in time to get my kids ready for the first day of school.
Tom Westrick
I found out last week that the first two seasons of Static Shock have been released on DVD after the DVDs for the series had been in legal hell forever. I went ahead and ordered those, ripped them to my computer, and I’m now watching them through Plex on either my Chromebook or projector. Either way, it’s great to rewatch a series I loved as a child. Beyond that, I also bought Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Alien: Covenant, both of which I’ll probably watch this weekend.
I’ve also been trying really hard to get into the Netflix Marvel series now that The Defenders is out, but I just can’t care about any of them. Sorry, everyone.
Daniel Bader
This has been a pop culture-light week for me from a visual perspective — no new shows or books — but I’ve been spending lots of time listening to great music.
Last week brought a bunch of exciting new releases, including The War on Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding, which has gotten me through several nights of late night writing. It’s a very textured, emotional album that’s perfect for pairing with good headphones, a dark room, and some blank pages.
Oh, I did watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 last weekend and … meh? It was fine but came nowhere close to the pure mind-bending enjoyment of the original.
Jen Karner
I’ve slowed my page flipping frenzy of reading for a week since I finally caved and picked up a Hulu subscription.
I’m wickedly late to the game, but I’ve spent the week bingeing Rick and Morty for the first time which has been, shall we say…an experience. I can’t decide if it’s satire or absurdism, or what, only that it’s pointed, hilarious and relevant, and I’m only halfway through Season 1 so far.
Marc Lagace
A few weeks ago Father John Misty came through town as part of a music festival. I was already a fan of his before the show, but man have I been doubly obsessed with his music since.
His latest album is Pure Comedy and it’s one of my favorite albums of 2017. The themes on the album are pretty dark and cynical at times, but then again we are living in somewhat dark times now, aren’t we? I don’t think there’s a more relevant lyricist in music today than Father John (a.k.a. Josh Tillman), and this album has been on heavy repeat all summer long. Check out the surreal music video for Total Entertainment Forever above.
Ara Wagoner
The summer anime season is well underway, and I’ve been indulging a show that called out to me as an Android lover: In Another World With My Smartphone. After God accidentally kills a teenager, he offers to reincarnate him in a fantasy world and give him increased abilities as an apology. God asks him if there’s anything he wishes for, and, being a teenage boy, Toya asks if he can keep using his smartphone in this new world. In his new world, his almost OP penchant for magic combined with his smartphone make him quite popular.
It’s interesting to see how he takes advantage of his new situation, and the shenanigans he and his adventurers get into are hilarious. As a campy fantasy harem show, In Another World With My Smartphone has been a great way to unwind and forget all the chaos at the TV station and with Harvey, even if only for a little while. It’s not quite to Konasuba levels of ridiculousness, but it’s a fun ride. I wanna mix magic and Android now.
Jerry Hildenbrand
I’m splitting my time between some fun reading, jamming out and trying not to die.
I’ve finally gotten around to starting the Dayworld series from Philip Jose Farmer. I’ve had a paperback copy of the first book laying around here (somewhere) for a few years, but noticed it at Google play the other day and snagged the set. I still like “real” books, but I never have the one I want with me when I want it, so Google Play Books to the rescue. If you’re a fan of that weird Sci-Fi genre where the finds awful ways to enslave humanity, you’ll probably dig the Dayworld trilogy.
I can’t tell if I love or hate the new Queens of the Stone Age album Villans. Every time I start listening to it I hate how so many of the songs start slowly with long drawn-out intros, then gems like The Way You Used To Do get my fingers drumming and my foot tapping. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of QOTSA (and I’m not) check it out on YouTube or your favorite music streaming service before you plunk down the cash for it.
I also “rediscovered” a game on Steam that I bought ages ago when it was an early release. Planetbase from Madruga Works is a colony building survival game, and now that all the kinks are worked out I’m trying not to kill off all my colonists and build the biggest base unknowns worlds have ever seen. I just love finding jewels like this on Steam where I can have some good old-fashioned single-player fun. If you’re a fan of city builders, it’s well worth the $20.
Your turn
Got a movie or album or anything really you think everyone should check out? We’d all love to hear your recommendations in the comments!
Where to buy the LG V30
Here’s what we know about the LG V30’s availability.
When LG announces a phone it does things a little differently than, say, Samsung. Instead of offering pricing and availability details on day one, it prefers to put its product out into the world and wait for the carriers themselves to hammer down the details.
So when the V30 was announced earlier in the week, we learned that carriers in LG’s home country of South Korea would begin selling the phone on September 21, and that a number of carriers in the U.S. would be offering the phone sometime this fall. Similar promises were made from European and Canadian carriers, but the details are sparse right now.
Signs point to an approximate retail price of $749, as first seen in a Terms & Conditions document for a V30 Twitter contest, which seems likely given the G6’s $649 price when it first came out. (The G6 quickly dropped in price, and you can find it for around $500 right now.)
Let’s break it down individually by country and carrier.
Note: This article is not complete and will be updated often once we learn more.
U.S. carriers
T-Mobile
Starting with T-Mobile, the instigator carrier will offer the V30 sometime this fall, and it will work with the company’s newly-launched 600MHz network, offering better coverage and indoor penetration in big cities, and excellent reception in rural parts of the U.S.
See at T-Mobile
AT&T
AT&T says it will offer the LG V30 sometime this fall as well. It will work on the company’s so-called 5G Evolution network, which is equivalent to the fastest 4G LTE speeds today. That’s because the V30 takes advantage of new technologies like 4x carrier aggregation, 256QAM modulation, and 4×4 MIMO antenna placements, as well as unlicensed spectrum standards like LTE-U and LAA.
See at AT&T
Verizon
Verizon plans to offer the V30 in “early fall,” which gives us the clearest indication of when the phone will be available in the U.S. — probably early October.
See at Verizon
Sprint
Sprint didn’t put out a press release, but CEO Marcelo Claure tweeted that it would be available this fall and that Sprint has the lowest prices for the high-end phone.
1/2 Yes, it’s true, @Sprint will carry the new #LGV30+ from @LGUSAMobile! Amazing display + great speakers = win! pic.twitter.com/kX7ZMtqfot
— MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) August 31, 2017
U.S unlocked
LG didn’t promise a U.S. unlocked version, but all indicators point to its existence. For starters, the review unit I’m using has a model number of US998, which follows the naming trend of LG unlocked phones — the unlocked G6 is US997.
there will also be a carrier-free variant, US998 USA, which will most likely get official bootloader unlock from LG Developer page.
— autoprime (@utoprime) August 31, 2017
We’ve also seen tweets (h/t r/Android) indicating that LG would offer an unlocked model.
If that model starts selling in early October for $749 as some documents claim, it would be a very competitive price compared to the $900+ Samsung is asking for the Note 8.
Other countries
Right now, besides South Korea, all we know is that the V30 will be available “this fall in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.” That’s good news given that the V20 didn’t get a wide release outside the U.S., so it’s nice to know that LG’s best phone ever will get its widest possible release — and a chance for success.
Stay tuned for more purchase details for the V30 in the coming weeks!
LG V30
- LG V30 hands-on!
- Full LG V30 specs
- LG V30 vs. G6 vs. GS8
- The V30 is the first phone to support 600MHz spectrum
- Join our LG V30 forums
AIVAnet 