jetAudio HD Player : Ideal choice for Audiophiles (Review)

Long gone are the days when people used their phones just to make and receive calls. People these days use their phones to do all kinds of things except making calls and one such thing is listening to music. It is a great way to spend your time in peace.

Unfortunately, the default music player in your phone lacks a lot of features and most of us still use it without even attempting to explore alternate options. Fortunately, the Android market is filled with hundreds of music player apps and some of them are really good with a lot of interesting features.

jetAudio HD Player is one among the plethora of music player apps in the Play Store and below is the review of it. Read on to know where it excels and how it stands out from the competition. It is a very small app sized at just 12 megabytes but it comes with plenty of useful features.

Setup

The initial setup of the jetAudio HD Player is rather simple. Just download the app from the Google Play Store and then open it. The app will now automatically scan your phone for supported media files which include mp3, wav, flac, .m4a, wma and much more. Once the scanning is completed, you can proceed to play the music of your choice.

There is no further setup required as the app has a pretty simple interface which is similar to most popular music player apps out there. The default screen is the Artists menu, but you can switch between other menus like Albums, songs and folders based on your preference.

Impressions

The app is the mobile version of the popular JetAudio player for PC and its design looks somewhat dated and simple just like the PC version. With a lot of app developers implementing material design to their apps, it is quite disappointing to see the app still based on the design language from the KitKat days.

But, since it is a music app and its primary purpose is to play songs, the design can be overlooked. However, there is one thing which is quite annoying about the app UI. Unlike the notification from most music player apps, the notification of jetAudio does not get dismissed when swiped away. Instead, you have to tap it, open the app, click on the options button and then select exit, making it a tedious and a time consuming process.

Other than this, the app UI is fairly basic with all the controls placed under the settings menu and the most important ones like the Equalizer and the timer, placed on the main player screen. The free version of jetAudio HD player comes with a lot of ads, some constantly staying at the bottom and some intrusive. While you are not going to spend a lot of time on the foreground of the app, the ads can get in your way when you do.

Features

The most important and the most useful feature of the jetAudio HD Player is the highly customizable 20 band equalizer. It could be a real treat for you if you own a pair of high quality headphones and are able to find the perfect preset equalizer settings. It also comes with options to tweak your sound effects based on your surroundings and also set various levels of Bass and Treble.

If you are an audiophile, then you might be able to identify the peculiar differences between multiple sound profiles and preset settings. You can tweak the effects individually or as a batch, till you get that perfect effect and then save it as a preset to easily apply it the next time. The app even warns you if you try to increase or decrease the sound effects a little too much.

But most of the time the presets present in the app is good enough and provides a perfect listening experience so, you might not even have to mess around with the settings. Apart from the 20 band equalizer, jetAudio HD Player also comes with a AM3D Audio Enhancer and Bongiovi DPS. However, they are limited to use and you have to purchase the Plus version of the music player to get your hands on these features.

My favourite feature in jetAudio HD Player is the Find on YouTube option. When you are listening to a song, you can select this option from the menu button at the top of the player, and then the app will automatically search on YouTube for the song and 90% of the time, it returned accurate results. There is also a timer which could be used to automatically stop your music from playing after a certain amount of time.

Conclusion

To sum it up, jetAudio HD Player is a fairly decent music player app in terms of design and interface but it is a whole new story when it comes to the features it has to offer. The app has predefined settings for all kinds of music and it has the potential to enhance your listening experience with effects like Bass and Treble if you use the right kind of device.

Download jetAudio HD Player From Google Play Store

Hard-earned tips you’ll need to take back Earth in ‘XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’

XCOM is a notoriously punishing series of strategy games, from the 90s originals up through Firaxis’ fantastic reboot, and XCOM 2 is no different. In many ways it’s significantly harder than its predecessor, Enemy Unknown. While the in-game tutorials do a good job of laying out the basics of how it works, there is an immense amount of second-order knowledge that has to be earned in the field. Veterans have now had over a year to master its intricacies, including its very own Long War mod, but Advent has thrown a wrench into our hard-earned strategies with the eponymous elites in the War of the Chosen expansion. Fortunately some powerful new rebel factions have joined the fight on our side to even the scales. Alongside our general guide for the base game, we’ve added some pointers to help you get the most out of these new additions, and take on the Chosen. These should be useful to both series veterans and fresh-faced recruits alike. If you just want the WotC-specific tips, skip to last page.

General tactics

Look at all of your options before making a move

Since XCOM is a turn-based game, you have the luxury of unlimited time to make each move. Every turn, you should start off by cycling through your whole team to assess their options, rather than just taking actions in the automatic order. With a finite number of actions, you want to make sure that every move is as efficient and effective as possible. War of the Chosen has added a clutch feature that many players had already modded in, which is the ability to preview available targets when deciding where to move your units. Holding left alt will bring up all of the targets your soldier will be able to shoot from the tile you’re highlighting, taking out all the guesswork and making it much easier to plan your turns precisely.

If you have time, take it

XCOM 2 does a great job of mixing up mission parameters so you are forced to vary your tactics as the situation demands. Many missions have time constraints forcing you to plow ahead. For missions that do not, though, you should take as much time as you need to scope out the scene and set up to engage the enemy on your terms.

Concealment is a new mechanic that allows your squad to get the drop on unaware enemies. Until concealment is broken, the enemies have a smaller radius of awareness, which is clearly telegraphed so you can maneuver freely around them. Take the time to position your troops with cover and high ground to do the most damage, then set all but one member of your squad to overwatch. Attack the unsuspecting aliens with the last soldier and enjoy the ensuing slaughter.

Watch out for Sectoids

The cute, little, bobble-headed grunts of the first game have grown up. In addition to being larger and generally more intimidating, the infusion of human DNA into the sectoids has greatly enhanced their psionic capabilities and made them a far greater threat in the field. sectoids can now attack your soldiers psionically, causing negative effects that range from disorienting or incapacitating your troops for a turn to outright taking control over them, which can be a brutal swing in the alien’s favor depending on your positioning when it happens. They can also revive fallen foes as zombie puppets.

Although scarier than their predecessors, the sectoids’ AI can be gamed to your favor once you’ve figured out how they work. Sectoids are frequently deployed with a few Advent soldiers. If you can kill at least one of these before the sectoid has a chance to act, it will almost certainly spend its turn reviving it as a zombie. Because zombies and mind-controlled soldiers don’t act on their first turn, this can buy you time to kill the sectoid itself, which will in turn free anyone under its control.

Lead with explosives

Armor works a bit differently in XCOM 2 than its predecessor. The yellow lozenge at the end of a character’s health bar acts as a constant reduction on all damage taken. However, armor can be “shredded” by explosives (or normal grenadier attacks with certain upgrades), which permanently removes it for all subsequent attacks. Furthermore, many of the cover-providing environmental elements can be destroyed by grenades. Accordingly, it is often best to lead a round of attacks with explosives, which will shred armor, destroy cover, and generally make enemies more vulnerable to attacks from the rest of your squad, ensuring the most value for your actions. This is especially pertinent for ambushes from concealment, when unwitting enemies are more closely clustered than they will be once engaged.

Grow the resistance early and often

While the geoscape strategic metagame is certainly much more interesting in XCOM 2 than building satellites in Enemy Unknown, there are certain similarities to how your should approach it. The game will present you with lots of tempting options for ways to spend your time in the Avenger, picking up valuable resources or recruits. Focus on expanding the resistance early in the game, contacting new regions, and building radio towers in regions you own, once you have researched them. Both of these will increase your monthly supply income, which is critical to your long term success.

Radio towers also have the added bonus of reducing the intel cost of contacting new regions, which is based on the distance to the nearest tower. Global access becomes increasingly important as the game goes on and you are prompted to investigate alien facilities around the world. Having to spend weeks contacting multiple new regions in order to access a critical story mission or Avatar Project facility on the other side of the world can completely kill your momentum.

Don’t stress too hard about the Avatar Project

The Avatar Project–Advent’s menacing master plan–looms over the strategic layer and sets the overall tempo for the game as it ticks down towards your loss. Seeing that ominous red bar fill steadily up can apply a lot of pressure, and especially for new players can make the situation seem more dire than it actually is. In reality you can be a little more lax about letting the Avatar project fill up than the game wants you to think. There are no scaling consequences as the clock advances, so all that matters is that you hold off total defeat. Even when the meter runs to completion, that still gives you a generous 20 days to respond. It’s often better to let the Avatar meter tick up quite a bit early on, spending that time building out your team and developing a strong, economic foundation for the rest of the game. Once you’re in a good position, it’s not too hard to push it back by hitting a few Avatar facilities in quick succession, which should be easier to do than if you tried while earlier and less well equipped. Covert actions from the resistance ring in War of the Chosen also sometimes let you knock the Avatar Project back a few notches, letting you avoid dangerous raids even longer.

Squeeze for actions in your apps with HTC’s Edge Sense update

Why it matters to you

If you have an HTC U11, the new Edge Sense functions allow you to squeeze to trigger actions in any app or game.

The idea of a squeezable smartphone has been around in concept form for a few years, so we were excited to try it out when HTC made it a reality in the form of Edge Sense for its flagship U11. Though some have written it off as a gimmick, in our HTC U11 review we found Edge Sense refreshingly different and quite useful at times. By squeezing the sides of the phone, you can quick launch the camera and snap a shot, bring Google Assistant to life, or turn on the flashlight. But HTC has just opened up a new world of possibilities with an Edge Sense update that allows you to trigger different actions within any app or game with short and long squeezes.

It’s easy to set up. Simply head into Settings > Edge Sense and, if you have the update, you’ll get a pop-up message informing you. There are a few new possibilities listed that you can tick to try, such as short squeeze to zoom in Google Maps or take a photo in Facebook. Scroll to the bottom and you can tap Add more in-app options. This creates a wee floating button on screen and you can pick the app you want to set a trigger for from the list. Choose Short squeeze or Squeeze & hold, then the app or game will load up and you can tap the finger icon, then tap on screen to add the action.

Before you get too excited, there are some limitations here. Your basic choice of triggers is tap or double-tap anywhere on screen. Our initial thought of using squeeze to scroll down in Twitter was quickly shot down, but we were able to map a short squeeze to home, making it easy to get back to the top and see new tweets after scrolling. It also works very well as a zoom function. Instead of double tap in Photos or Google Maps, you can squeeze and zoom in without having to touch the screen and cover what you’re looking at.

We’re in the habit of turning off Edge Sense when playing games like Super Mario Run, because we quickly found out that any tricky sections were prompting us to squeeze the sides of our phone and, since we had Edge Sense set to launch the camera, that proved to be a problem. Could this update overcome the issue? Sadly, the answer is no. We set the Edge Sense to trigger Mario to jump with a squeeze, but there’s a slight delay and it doesn’t allow for the variation in lengths of tap which dictate how high you jump in the game. The result was several quick deaths for our favorite Italian plumber.

The idea is solid, though. If you have a game where a simple tap or double tap performs a consistent action, then you can use the squeeze to trigger it — a simpler endless runner, like Canabalt, for example. Although, we must point out that there is a slight delay, which means you’ll need to tweak your timing.

Overall, the new Edge Sense functionality is a welcome addition to an innovative feature and it introduces lots of new possibilities to make better use of those squeezable sides. It’s only available on the HTC U11 right now, and the Edge Sense update will start rolling out for free from midnight ET on Friday. Check out our HTC U11 tips and tricks to find out what else you can do with HTC’s flagship phone.

Your Instagram Stories could soon be posted on Facebook as well

Why it matters to you

Stories fans could soon hit two social media networks with one stone — err, click.

With both Facebook and Instagram sharing the same ownership, posting to both platforms simultaneously is pretty simple — but that same cross-platform use could soon cross over to Stories. The company recently confirmed that the ability to post Instagram Stories to Facebook is being tested after one user recently spotted the feature.

The new feature appears to work much like cross-posting an Instagram photo — when adding to a Story, the option to also post to Facebook appears before posting. When the option is selected, those Stories will also show up on Facebook. Like when posting an Instagram photo to Facebook, the shared Stories will have a small “Instagram” label telling viewers that the post originated on Instagram.

Stories, a series of short video clips about your day that disappears to start fresh the next day, is a feature available across several platforms, including Facebook and Instagram as well as the originator of the feature, Snapchat. Instagram, however, boasts the largest number of users using the feature. Facebook has not shared recent user data on the feature but the general consensus is that fewer users are participating on Facebook.

Facebook has been beefing up the Stories option in several recent updates, including the ability to post to Stories directly from Facebook Camera. The company began testing the option to view Stories on desktop browsers last month, with Instagram announcing expanded mobile browser features including Stories last week. An update to the privacy settings allowed the feature to be accessible by fans as well as friends. Messenger even has its own Stories-like option called Messenger Day.

While the general concept is the same, Instagram Stories also have location-based options, allowing users to find other Stories from nearby users inside the Explore tab. Instagram also allows users to reply to Stories and reports that more than half of the businesses on the platform use the feature. The instant, photo-centric nature of Instagram might also be a better place for sharing visual snippets of your day.

The cross-posting feature is currently only in testing, though a number of users have spotted the option. While Instagram confirmed that the cross-posting functionality is being tested, it is unclear if or when the option will roll out globally.

T-Mobile is the fastest U.S. carrier, according to Ookla Speedtest

Why it matters to you

T-Mobile’s first-place finish in Ookla Speedtest cement the carrier’s reputation for high-speed downloads.

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all lag behind T-Mobile when it comes to 4G LTE speeds. That is according to the newest Ookla Speedtest report, which analyzed crowdsourced test results taken during the first and second fiscal quarter of 2017.

T-Mobile is the fastest carrier in 40 of the U.S.’s 100 most populous cities, according to Ookla. Subscribers speeds regularly exceeded Ookla’s Acceptable Speed Ratio — a download rate of at least 5 Mbps —  78.1 percent of the time, ahead of Verizon Wireless (77.8 percent), AT&T (75.9 percent), and Sprint (64.9 percent). T-Mobile scored the highest in Ookla’s Speed Score rankings, an average of low-end, median, and top-end speeds.

It’s the 14th quarter in a row in which T-Mobile came in first.

Ookla attributes T-Mobile’s achievements to its infrastructural investment, which saw the rollout of the 700MHz spectrum and 4G LTE in new markets. And it pegged competitors’ declining speeds on unlimited data plans. In the fourth quarter of 2016 before the launch of the unlimited plans, Verizon and AT&T’s lowest-end download speeds (those under 5 Mbps) shot up compared to the period before unlimited data plans were widely available, according to Ookla. T-Mobile and Sprint saw the opposite effect.

“[Not] all carriers are responding equally to the performance demands of unlimited data plans,” Ookla said.

T-Mobile did not lead every category. Its coverage fell short of AT&T and Verizon’s, which made up 27.3 and 51.6 percent of Ookla’s test samples in rural areas.

Ookla spotlighted Verizon in particular, highlighting the network’s “network densification” and deployment of small cells in urban, suburban, and commercial areas. “Verizon’s rural coverage is laudable,” Ookla said. “Verizon has been able to maintain solid performance in areas of high traffic [despite] a drop in performance […] since Verizon launched Unlimited.”

And in terms of U.S. as a whole, carriers have a long way to go.

Despite a 19 percent improvement in average mobile download speeds in the U.S., the country fell to 44th in the world for download speed, behind Fiji and Germany, and customers in rural areas saw an average download speeds 20.9 percent slower than the nation as a whole. Average mobile upload speeds improved just four percent to 8.51 Mbps, Ookla said, putting the U.S. 65th in the world for upload speed (behind Mongolia).

“Mobile performance in the U.S. is improving, but not uniformly,” Ookla said. “Mobile data consumption is expected to continue to grow over the next year, and carriers will need to find creative ways to increase the […] efficiency of their networks.”

Ookla said it looked at data from 100 most populated Cell Market Areas (CMAs), a geographic determination used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to identify broadband markets in the U.S., to compile its report, including 3 million unique mobile devices.

T-Mobile is the fastest U.S. carrier, according to Ookla Speedtest

Why it matters to you

T-Mobile’s first-place finish in Ookla Speedtest cement the carrier’s reputation for high-speed downloads.

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all lag behind T-Mobile when it comes to 4G LTE speeds. That is according to the newest Ookla Speedtest report, which analyzed crowdsourced test results taken during the first and second fiscal quarter of 2017.

T-Mobile is the fastest carrier in 40 of the U.S.’s 100 most populous cities, according to Ookla. Subscribers speeds regularly exceeded Ookla’s Acceptable Speed Ratio — a download rate of at least 5 Mbps —  78.1 percent of the time, ahead of Verizon Wireless (77.8 percent), AT&T (75.9 percent), and Sprint (64.9 percent). T-Mobile scored the highest in Ookla’s Speed Score rankings, an average of low-end, median, and top-end speeds.

It’s the 14th quarter in a row in which T-Mobile came in first.

Ookla attributes T-Mobile’s achievements to its infrastructural investment, which saw the rollout of the 700MHz spectrum and 4G LTE in new markets. And it pegged competitors’ declining speeds on unlimited data plans. In the fourth quarter of 2016 before the launch of the unlimited plans, Verizon and AT&T’s lowest-end download speeds (those under 5 Mbps) shot up compared to the period before unlimited data plans were widely available, according to Ookla. T-Mobile and Sprint saw the opposite effect.

“[Not] all carriers are responding equally to the performance demands of unlimited data plans,” Ookla said.

T-Mobile did not lead every category. Its coverage fell short of AT&T and Verizon’s, which made up 27.3 and 51.6 percent of Ookla’s test samples in rural areas.

Ookla spotlighted Verizon in particular, highlighting the network’s “network densification” and deployment of small cells in urban, suburban, and commercial areas. “Verizon’s rural coverage is laudable,” Ookla said. “Verizon has been able to maintain solid performance in areas of high traffic [despite] a drop in performance […] since Verizon launched Unlimited.”

And in terms of U.S. as a whole, carriers have a long way to go.

Despite a 19 percent improvement in average mobile download speeds in the U.S., the country fell to 44th in the world for download speed, behind Fiji and Germany, and customers in rural areas saw an average download speeds 20.9 percent slower than the nation as a whole. Average mobile upload speeds improved just four percent to 8.51 Mbps, Ookla said, putting the U.S. 65th in the world for upload speed (behind Mongolia).

“Mobile performance in the U.S. is improving, but not uniformly,” Ookla said. “Mobile data consumption is expected to continue to grow over the next year, and carriers will need to find creative ways to increase the […] efficiency of their networks.”

Ookla said it looked at data from 100 most populated Cell Market Areas (CMAs), a geographic determination used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to identify broadband markets in the U.S., to compile its report, including 3 million unique mobile devices.

Google reportedly in final stages of buying HTC’s smartphone business

Why it matters to you

If Google buys HTC’s smartphone business, we could see a whole lot more Pixel phones, and a whole lot less HTC ones.

The Google Pixel was one of the best-loved phones of 2016, and according to recent reports, it looks like the company could be set to seriously bolster its smartphone business. How? By buying someone else’s smartphone business. According to a recent report, from Commercial Times, Google and HTC have entered the final stages of discussions that could ultimately lead to Google buying out HTC’s smartphone business.

It’s important to note that Google won’t buy HTC as a whole — just its smartphone business. The HTC brand will still live on, and the report noted that the company may refocus its attention on virtual reality after selling off its mobile arm.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Google has made such a purchase. The company bought out Motorola back in 2012 for a whopping $12.5 billion, and at the time it was suspected that the company could end up merging the Android and Motorola teams. In the end, that didn’t happen — and instead, a few years later, Google sold the Motorola brand to Lenovo at a pretty huge loss.

This time around, however, things could be different. Google has been shifting its focus of late, and could now accurately be considered a consumer electronics brand. That’s thanks to the launch of the Pixel phones, Google Home smart speaker, Google Wi-Fi router, and other products.

So what will happen if Google does end up buying HTC? Well, we don’t know. It’s possible that the HTC mobile team will end up simply developing more Pixel phones, and the HTC name as a smartphone brand will die out. If that happens, we should expect more than one Pixel-branded phone each year. It’s also possible that at least in the short-term, HTC-branded smartphones will continue to be released.

It does make sense that HTC is selling its smartphone business. According to reports from DigiTimes, HTC’s August revenue hit a 13-year low. That’s pretty major — 13 years ago, Android didn’t exist and the iPhone was in very early development. In other words, if Google doesn’t end up buying the HTC smartphone business, it’s very possible that someone else will.

It may take a few months before we hear any official news. Having said that, a final decision could be made before the end of the year.

How far can I drive this thing? Mercedes’ Concept EQ app battles range anxiety

Range anxiety is the number one reason motorists cite for not considering an electric model as their next car. We live in a world where a laptop running out of battery can ruin a business meeting for good, and a cell phone with zero-percent charge can leave us stranded five miles away from the precise middle of nowhere. Why complicate our lives and add our car to the equation?

The new Mercedes-Benz EQ Ready app puts range anxiety to the test by monitoring a user’s trips, providing information such as how much electricity they’d actually use, and whether they’d really run out of power before reaching their final destination. We tried it out for a week.

The basics

The app is free to download from the Play Store or the App Store. Install it, set it up, and you’re ready to go for a spin.

The EQ Ready app makes dull statistics more meaningful by showing users exactly where an electric car’s kilowatts can take them.

There are two ways to record a trip. The software can record trips automatically by detecting when you’re in a moving car, or users can choose to manually start and stop the recording process. We selected the first option for the sake of simplicity, and noted it records trips with almost perfect accuracy. It runs discreetly in the background without interfering with other applications such as Google Maps, and it didn’t drain our Sony Xperia Z3’s battery. Imagine how monumentally ironic that would be.

Users are asked to set the outside temperature and choose a car they want to take for a virtual test drive. The highlight of the app is the Concept EQ, an all-electric crossover unveiled last year at the Paris Auto Show. It’s advertised as having up to 310 miles of range, and its lithium-ion battery can take 62 miles’ worth of electricity in just 10 minutes when it’s plugged into a DC fast charger.

The Concept EQ is not in production yet, though we’re told it’s more or less right around the corner along with other EQ-badged electric and hydrogen-powered cars. We’ll cut Mercedes some slack; not having anything to show except a design study and theoretical performance figures never stopped Tesla from selling thousands of cars.

Other cars available in the app include the hardtop and convertible variants of the smart fortwo electric drive, the smart forfour electric drive (a model not sold in the United States), as well as a handful of the brand’s plug-in hybrid models like the C350e and the E350e. We selected the Concept EQ, set our phone down in the center console, and went for a drive.

To charge or not to charge?

Driving to the local airport had virtually no effect on our car’s range. The 5.4-mile trip required just 1.23 kWh of electricity, which lowered the battery pack’s charge from 89 to 88 percent. That’s a rounding error at best.

We could keep the car plugged in at the airport and come back to a full charge, so we would be able to run errands with our electric car for hours on end before heading home and not run out of juice.

An underpowered Italian moped would have admittedly been capable of getting us to the airport. We tested the EQ Ready app again from London’s Heathrow airport to the English capital. It was an 18.6-mile trip that took us nearly an hour. That means we drove at an average speed of just under 20 mph, and it wasn’t even rush hour yet.

The Mercedes Concept EQ has up to 310 miles of range, and its battery can take 62 miles’ worth of electricity in just 10 minutes.

We left the airport with a full charge, and got to our destination near the King’s Cross train station with a 93-percent charge. The battery dispensed about 4.5 kWh of electricity.

After a few days of using the app, the huge battery pack made range anxiety seem like a bad hangover from a different era where electric cars boasted a double-digit driving range at best, but a longer trip to a relatively rural part of France to pick up furniture made it seem all too real again.

Charging stations are few and far between outside of urban and semi-urban areas, and the few scattered across the countryside are typically located in exceptionally random places like right outside of a small pharmacy. Checking out cough drops for 20 minutes doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

Lessons learned

“310 miles of range” is a vague, generic figure for most motorists. The EQ Ready app makes dull statistics more meaningful by showing users exactly where an electric car’s kilowatts can take them. It’s important to note the information provided is a ballpark estimate at best.

The software didn’t take into account the extra weight we had in the trunk when we went to pick up our furniture, for example. Adding 350 pounds to a car would certainly reduce range in real-life driving conditions.

In addition to putting range anxiety to the test, Mercedes’ EQ Ready app highlights the importance of establishing a comprehensive network of charging stations. Automakers are going to great lengths to bring convenient, long-range electric cars to the masses, and the infrastructure – be it privately- or publicly-funded – needs to catch up.

That’s because your mileage may vary, just like it does when you drive a gasoline- or diesel-powered car and the EQ Ready app reflects that. You’re not going to get anywhere near the gas mileage listed by the United States government if you drive full-throttle up a hill in a hot, sweaty part of Nevada with the A/C on. The same logic applies to electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

The difference is that you can stop almost on a whim and refuel in about five minutes at any of the thousands of gas stations scattered across the planet. Driving an electric car requires more careful planning because refueling takes much longer, and the network of charging stations is evidently still in its infancy in many parts of the world; including the one we tested the app in.

Spotify and Hulu join forces to offer an amazing bundle to students

Today Spotify teamed up with Hulu to unveil a streaming bundle that will allow users to stream music and television shows under a single subscription plan. Best of all? It’s insanely cheap.

In a press release on Hulu’s website, the companies announced that Spotify Premium for Students, now with Hulu, will launch today nationwide – just in time for the school year.

The first-of-its-kind entertainment bundle will offer students immediate access to ad-free Spotify Premium as well as Hulu’s Limited Commercials plan for only $4.99 per month. This means students will be able to stream Hulu originals like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Mindy Project” in addition to wildly popular fan-favorites like NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation” and gripping horror-drama “The Walking Dead.”

What’s more, the bundle is available to all qualifying new and existing Spotify premium subscribers, so if you’re already using Spotify Premium for Students, you won’t be left out. All you have to do is activate Hulu by verifying your student status. However, if you are a student but you’re part of a Spotify Premium for Family plan, you’ll have to cancel your subscription and sign up for the new package. If you’re afraid of losing your account’s content by doing this, don’t worry – Spotify says that switching plans won’t cost you your playlists.

The same rule applies if you’re a student with an existing Hulu Limited Commercials plan. As long as you don’t have any premium network add-ons and you can verify your student status, your account can be merged into Spotify Premium for Students + Hulu.

Alex Norstrom, Chief Business Premium Business Officer at Spotify, seemed to say it best:

In bringing Spotify and Hulu together, we’re now able to offer students – both the millions already on Spotify Premium, and those who are new to Spotify – access to the world’s best music, TV and movie content in the simplest possible way.

Now all the rest of us non-students have to do is hope and pray that Spotify and Hulu expand this beautiful partnership to a wider market. Sign me up!

Thoughts?

What do you think of Spotify and Hulu teaming up? What do you hope to see in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Google Drive returns after outage [Update]

It’s not just you: Google Drive is down for everyone.

Update, 12:30pm ET: Google Drive appears to be up again. Continue uploading those “documents”.

We rely on a lot of Google services here at Android Central, and Google Drive is among them. So when we found out it’s down this morning (Thursday, September 7 around 11:00am ET), we decided to pack up for the day and head to the beach.

According to Google’s G Suites Status Dashboard, Google Drive is the only service to be affected, and it’s not clear for how long the outage will last. The good news is that even though Drive is tangentially connected to other services like Google Docs and Sheets, those aren’t affected at all, so continue with your documents and spreadsheets, world!

Google Drive: Everything you need to know!