The POWERUP Dart lets you create and control the ultimate paper airplane

Take to the skies with the POWERUP Dart, a paper airplane you can control with your smartphone.

Phones and drones are by far my favorite pieces of tech — they go together perfectly like peanut butter and jelly. So it was pretty easy to get excited about the POWERUP Dart. It combines the simplicity of a paper airplane with a sophisticated Bluetooth-enabled motor and rudder that lets you take control using a smartphone app.

It’s that perfect mix of cutting-edge technology and elegant design that created a super cool little flying machine that’s capable of pulling off epic aerial maneuvers but also durable enough to survive a nasty crash landing. The Dart is compatible with multiple plane designs and can be flown indoors or outdoors safely. It’s lighter than the minimum weight required for FAA registration, too, so you’re ready to fly right out of the box.

The POWERUP Dart has already well-surpassed its $25,000 funding goal, but there’s still a couple weeks remaining to back the project and save 45% off the retail price. They also intend to ship by early December, which makes the POWERUP Dart a great Christmas gift option for anyone on your list, young or old, who loves cool technology.

You can get your own Dart with a $29 pledge to unlock the Barebone Dart package, which includes the Dart module and two blue paper plane templates. For a pledge of just $32 or more, you get the Standard Dart kit which includes landing gear and cool customization options. As with other Kickstarters, the perks continue to scale up as you pledge more money. For best value, consider the Family pack perk starting at $89 which includes four basic Dart kits — allowing you to give three away to friends or family as gifts while keeping one Dart for yourself!

This is the third Kickstarter campaign by creator Shai Goitein since 2013, and the team has previously delivered on time so you can back this project will not only be completed on time but also deliver a great product. The POWERUP Dart is the most advanced design and since you’re backing a team of Kickstarter veterans you get the benefit of their past experience and their existing supply chains. That also means that the smartphone app has been developed and tested by previous backers, with a new big update scheduled for 2018.

We know it can be risky to back Kickstarter projects, but the POWERUP Dart is one that we’re confident to share with our readers. We’ll be periodically sharing more awesome Kickstarters in the future that are as awesome as this one.

See POWERUP Dart on Kickstarter

HTC U11 Life rumored to have Android Oreo, Edge Sense, IP67 rating around $400

Another step in the process of moving Android One toward higher-end phones.

Google’s Android One program has hit a couple of high points over the past few weeks with entries like the Xiaomi Mi A1 and upcoming Moto X4 on Project Fi. Both the Mi A1 and Moto X4 are two of the most complete handsets we’ve seen under the Android One moniker to-date, but leaked specs for the HTC U11 Life reveal that it might be Android One’s third home run this year.

Murmurings of an HTC Android One phone have been circulating for over three weeks now, but thanks to leaker LlabTooFeR on Twitter, we now have a full list of specifications that the U11 Life should come equipped with.

The front of the U11 Life will feature a 5.2-inch 1080p display, and a 16MP front-facing camera will reside above it. Powering the phone is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 630 processor, 2600 mAh battery, and either 3 or 4GB of RAM (which come with 32 and 64GB of storage, respectively). Round this off with a 16MP rear camera and a front-facing fingerprint sensor, and the U11 Life is already shaping up to be a pretty decent handset.

However, there’s still more that this little guy is bringing to the table.

U11 Life (AndroidOne program)SD630 RAM/ROM 3/32gb or 4/64gb5.2′ 1080pCameras 16/16mpBattery 2600mah Edge Sense, USonicIP67Android O

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) October 3, 2017

In addition to all of the specifications mentioned above, the U11 Life will also ship out of the box with Android 8.0 Oreo, have an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance, feature Edge Sense functionality that first debuted on the regular U11, and come bundled with HTC’s USonic earbuds.

There’s still no word on pricing or availability, but compared to devices like the Moto X4 and Mi A1, the HTC U11 Life should be either at or below the $400 marker.

Android One in the U.S. gives it a new lease on life, and that’s a big deal

Verizon Prepaid Family Account offers individual data buckets, savings on multiple lines

Flexible data tiers and multiple line discounts make this an enticing offer for families that rely on Verizon’s coverage.

With smartphones creeping closer and closer to the $1000 range this year, many of you will likely be looking to cut costs elsewhere so you can still pick up the latest and greatest that 2017 has to offer. Prepaid service plans typically provide cheaper month-to-month rates than what you’ll find with most major carriers, and Verizon’s new Prepaid Family Account aims to bring monthly savings to those with multiple lines.

Before we get into the money-saving side of things, one big change for the Verizon Prepaid Family Account is that each line will have access to its own allowance of data each month. This gives each family member more data for themselves rather than having to share a single amount with everyone else, and it allows for even more tweaking of your plan based on each person’s own data usage habits.

All prepaid lines come with unlimited talk and text, and data tiers include 3GB, 7GB, 10GB, and Unlimited. Each data tier will have a base price for the first line that’s added, but you’ll be able to get a discounted rate on your second to fifth lines to help cut down on costs.

The exact breakdown of the pricing is as follows:

• 3GB Plan – $40/month for the first line | $30/month for the second-fifth lines
• 7GB Plan – $50/month for the first line | $35/month for the second-fifth lines
• 10GB Plan – $60/month for the first line | $40/month for the second-fifth lines
• Unlimited Plan – $80/month for the first line | $60/month for the second-fifth lines

Per Verizon Prepaid’s Executive Director, Ron Zanders:

Now you and four members of your family can get onto one prepaid plan and say goodbye to create separate accounts for everyone. Combine that with the flexibility of mixing different prepaid plans to fit each member of your family and Verizon Prepaid Family Account is a really great value.

See at Verizon

Join us for the Google Pixel 2 event livestream — Oct 4 at 9:00 a.m. PT!

Google’s big fall hardware event is shaping up to be exciting.

We’re expecting a whole bundle of announcements all in a single event, with Google refreshing hardware lineups and introducing altogether new products as well. Google Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Google Home Mini, Google Pixelbook, and a fresh Daydream VR headset are practically a lock at this point. And then there’s the software and services component — Android 8.1, Google Lens, and maybe even more we haven’t heard about.

This is going to be a seriously exciting event, and Google is streaming it live for everyone to see — and you can watch it all unfold right here.

It’s all going down on October 4 at 9:00 a.m. PT — that’s 12:00 p.m. in New York and 5 p.m. in London. After the livestream stops, keep your eyes on Android Central — we’ll be on the ground covering everything Google has to show!

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 + Pixel 2 XL: Everything we know so far
• Our 2016 Pixel reviews
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

More photos of Google Home Mini and Pixel 2 XL revealed in Walmart listing

Thanks to a slipup at Walmart, we’ve got a heap of new Google Home Mini photos and a new angle on the Pixel 2 XL.

With just about 24 hours to go before Google’s Pixel 2 event, you’d think that not much would be left to leak following the past few weeks of rumored specs, devices renders, and more. However, seeing as Walmart decided to jump the gun with a listing of the Google Home Mini on its website, we now have a ton of new photos for it and a new view on the Pixel 2 XL.

The Walmart listing didn’t last long at all before being pulled down, but when it was active, a couple new tidbits for the Google Home Mini were revealed. The device will weigh under a pound, and its exact dimensions measure in at 4.53 x 4.53 x 4.72 inches. That puts it at just a tad lighter than the regular Google Home’s weight of 1.05 pounds, but it’s still considerably shorter than the original Home’s height of 5.62 inches.

Pre-orders for the Google Home Mini will start at $49 (as expected), with shipments to start arriving either on or around October 19. Based on what we’ve seen from past device launches, this is also likely the date when the Home Mini will be available for purchase on the Google Store and other retail outlets.

We already had a pretty good idea of what the Google Home Mini would look like thanks to a leak from last month, but the images grabbed from Walmart are the clearest ones we’ve seen yet. Take a look.

As you can see from the photos above, the back of the Google Home Mini has a physical button for toggling the microphone on and off, and next to this is the port for the power cable. It’s difficult to say with absolute certainty due to the angle of the photo, but it looks like the Home Mini might be using a Micro-USB port over USB Type-C. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, but it will be somewhat annoying if that turns out to be the case.

The last photo in the gallery above also reveals a new angle of the Pixel 2 XL that we haven’t seen until now, revealing its USB Type-C port on the bottom, rounded white back/sides, and what appears to be a SIM tray on the left-hand side. None of this is earth-shattering, but it is nice to get a new view on what will likely be many of our readers’ new phone going throughout the rest of 2017 and beyond.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 + Pixel 2 XL: Everything we know so far
• Our 2016 Pixel reviews
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

Unearth the secrets of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy on PS4 for $30

Continue your Uncharted adventure from a new perspective.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is now on sale at Amazon for $29.99, a discount of $7 off its average selling price. This game is only available for PlayStation 4.

The Lost Legacy was originally announced as DLC for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, but was eventually released as a stand-alone game due to the length of its main story which lasts around seven hours. Instead of running around as the series’ main character, Nathan, this time you’ll play as his former associate and lover Chloe as she ventures through India’s Western Ghats mountain range to locate a fabled artifact, the Tusk of Ganesh.

This game also includes access to Uncharted 4’s Multiplayer and Survival modes. However, online multiplayer does require a PlayStation Plus membership.

See at Amazon

More from Thrifter:

• How to add a DVR to your OTA antenna setup
• How to get free hotel room upgrades

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

How to Browse the Web on Daydream

Here’s what we can do with Web on Daydream so far.

For those of us who use the Daydream a lot, we know it has a major downside, the lack of a web browser to use Google. Given that Google is still, primarily, an advertising platform it seems silly not to have an app to use in Daydream to show those advertisements. Enter Chrome 61, which brings web surfing to Daydream.

We’ve got all the details for you here!

Read more at VRHeads!

aptX vs. aptX HD: What’s the difference?

In a world where a 3.5mm headphone jack is on the verge of extinction, aptX HD can make a difference.

Whenever you read anything about Bluetooth, you’ll come across plenty of letters and numbers and other cryptic specs. One of the latest on these is aptX HD, which takes a previously cryptic specification and adds HD on the end. We all know HD means “High Definition”, but what about the aptX part? And what makes aptX (which is also a high-definition specification) different from aptX HD?

Don’t worry if you aren’t quite sure of the answer because you’re not alone. And we’re about to go through the details so we can figure it out together.

What is aptX?

aptX is a Bluetooth audio codec that can transmit 16-bit/44.1kHz audio with a compression ratio of 4:1 at 352kpbs.

That’s not very helpful, but it’s what you would find if you dug up the specifications for aptX. What it means is that a device — your phone, your computer, your A/V receiver or just about anything else that can send Bluetooth audio — transmits audio with “CD-like” quality. It sounds better as long as the source of the audio is CD quality or higher.

The original aptX codec promised CD-like quality, and it mostly delivered on it.

Notice the claim of “CD-like” quality versus CD quality. It’s stated this way because of compression. aptX, like every other Bluetooth audio codec, uses compression on the audio before sending, and the receiving device — your headphones or any other speaker — decompresses it while it’s playing. Compressing the data and sending it is necessary because Bluetooth can’t stream stereo audio fast enough to send raw data that would still sound good. The aptX codec also was designed to reduce latency, which is the amount of time that passes between sending the audio and hearing it.

If you’re listening to music, latency doesn’t matter. There could be a fairly big delay between your phone and your headphones and you wouldn’t notice it. But if you were watching a video you most certainly would! We’ve all seen streams get a little funky and the words just don’t sync with the actor’s lips!

Latency is bad news when you’re watching Netflix.

There’s even an aptX LL (Low Latency) codec for cases where latency is super important. The aptX LL codec cuts latency down to 32 milliseconds which is fast enough that our brains can’t detect it. You’ll find aptX LL in things like gaming headsets where latency is more important than quality, though aptX LL can transmit 16-bit/44.1kHz, too.

When it’s all said and done, aptX makes audio sound better than most other Bluetooth audio codecs. Since we all want our audio to sound good, aptX is a feature of almost every device that can send or receive audio over Bluetooth.

What is aptX HD?

AptX HD is a Bluetooth audio codec that can transmit 24-bit/48kHz audio with a “gentle” compression ratio of 4:1 at 576kpbs.

Again with the numbers, but this time we can make more use of them. For starters, higher quality audio can be sent using aptX HD without increasing the latency or pausing the data stream. 24-bit 48kHz files are true HD files that people with expensive wired headphones appreciate, where you hear very little background noise and can hear each individual thing making sounds clearly. Phones like the LG V series can send higher quality audio through the 3.5mm headphone jack, but these numbers have almost reached the point of diminishing return once you get to 24-bit 48kHz.

aptX HD ups the ante and can transmit a true hi-res audio stream.

The difference between a 24-bit 48kHz audio stream over a wired connection and one over Bluetooth is the compression. aptX HD has a better compression algorithm than standard aptX (note the “gentle” 4:1 compression) but any compression introduces fuzz and hiss. You’ve heard this at play even if you didn’t know it — rock guitarists use compression taken to the extreme in order to make their guitar sound more “chunky” and “fuzzy” and it works. The compression used in the aptX HD codec was specially developed to not make things sound chunky and fuzzy, but it still injects some noise.

A bigger bandwidth pipe means less compression is required, and that means better sound quality.

The final difference is the most important. Apt X transmits audio at 352kpbs and aptX HD transmits at 576kbps. The kbps stands for kilobits per second, and this is the same way we measure our internet connection speed. One Mbps (megabit per second) is equal to 1,000 kilobits per second. We all know that more bits per second with your internet connection is better, and that’s true with Bluetooth audio as well. The higher bandwidth means more data can be streamed which means it doesn’t need as much compression, or as we see with aptX HD, a looser compression algorithm can be used.

Note that this measurement is in bits (lower-case b) and not bytes (upper-case B as in kBps) and is talking about the data transmission rate and not the file sizes that can be sent.

After we cut through all the numbers and tech talk, aptX HD can send higher quality audio than standard aptX, without introducing any extra latency. That means it sounds even better and approaches the quality you can get over a wire.

Where to find aptX HD

aptX HD isn’t something that any equipment can deliver. It’s something Qualcomm developed (as was the original aptX and all variants of it) and you need their hardware as well as their software. Their current high-end solution, the CSR8675 Bluetooth Audio SoC delivers aptX HD, Bluetooth 5, active noise cancellation over Bluetooth and Qualcomm TrueWireless stereo on a single chip. Like all hardware that supports aptX HD, it’s 100% backward compatible with standard aptX, too.

LG first brought aptX HD to the smartphone world with the G5 and continues the trend with current models.

The first phone with aptX HD to be sold was the LG G5. LG has spearheaded the aptX HD movement and you’ll also find the codec present in the LG V20, the LG G6, and the LG V30. Sony delivers aptX HD in the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 compact, OnePlus has the feature in the OnePlus 3, 3T and 5, and a handful of lesser-known (in the smartphone space at least) companies like Sharp and Luna also make aptX HD capable Android phones.

On the listening end, you’ll find aptX HD headphones from Sony, Audio Technica, and LG as well as other lesser-known brands. The list of aptX HD products will likely keep growing as the codec delivers better sounding audio without any extra work needed from the companies who use it.

As far as the sound versus wired audio, that’s something each of us will have to evaluate on our own.

Google’s updated list showcases the best Android apps right now

Google’s Android Excellence picks for Fall 2017 include Robinhood, Bring!, Mint, Asphalt 8, Castle Creeps, and many others.

Earlier this summer, Google added an Android Excellence section to the Play Store to highlight the best apps and games that Android has to offer. Replacing the old Editor’s Choice, Android Excellence is updated four times throughout the year to highlight new content that deserves a place on your phone, and the picks for Fall 2017 are here.

There’s a solid quite a bit of variety throughout the list, including 12 apps and 13 games. The full list is as follows:

Apps

• Agoda
• AlarmMon
• Bring!
• CastBox
• Email by Edison
• Eve
• Fotor
• Mint
• Money Lover
• Onefootball
• Robinhood
• Viki

Games

• Asphalt 8
• Bubble Witch 3 Saga
• Castle Creeps
• Crab War
• Crash of Cars
• Dan the Man
• Dawn of Titans
• Dream Defense
• Iron Marines
• Karma. Incarnation 1.
• Postknight
• Sky Force Reloaded
• Zombie Age 3

I’m not much of a gamer myself, but I have used quite a few of the apps listed here. Bring! is an incredible tool for planning out your grocery list for the week, Robinhood is easily one of the best stock trading apps around, and Mint and Money Lover are great solutions for better managing your money.

All of the Android Excellence apps for Fall 2017 can be downloaded from the Play Store now.

Tesla’s electric big rig spotted in the wild

Who said you had to wait until October 26th to see Tesla’s electric big rig? A succession of Reddit users have posted and reposted a photo that appears to show Tesla’s semi truck sitting on a flatbed. And to no one’s surprise, this isn’t the Smokey and the Bandit-style truck of yore — it’s all swooping curves, complete with an expansive cockpit window. You can also see the vehicle’s detached fairing off to the left.

The exact feature set of the truck is still somewhat mysterious, but there have been clues. It’s expected to have a range of between 200 to 300 miles, so it’ll be focused more on short hops than across-country hauls. And it’s no surprise that Elon Musk likes the idea of autonomous trucks, so it’s reasonable to see a more truck-oriented take on Autopilot that might include platooning when there’s a multi-truck convoy.

The one thing for certain is that Tesla will have competition: more established brands like Cummins have already unveiled their own electric semis. Musk and company will have to show how their design stands out, and it’s safe to say that it can’t remain a prototype for long if Tesla wants to beat its challengers to market.

Via: The Verge

Source: Reddit