Comcast’s nationwide outage was caused by a configuration error

Yesterday, folks across the country reported that Comcast internet was down — an unusually large outage that lasted around 90 minutes. It turns out that the problem was caused by Level 3, an enterprise ISP that provides the backbone for other internet providers like Verizon, Comcast and RCN. “Our network experienced a service disruption affecting some of our customers,” the firm said in a statement. “The disruption was caused by a configuration error.”

The outage shows yet again just how vulnerable the internet is in the US. Last year around this time, a DDoS attack shut down Spotify, Twitter, the New York Times and other sites, prompting some soul-searching from ISPs and internet security experts. This time it was a case of simple human error, but the results were similar: The internet, which many individuals and businesses now depend on for their livelihoods, went down.

Level 3 internet backbone currently has disruptions affecting U.S. RCN immediately rerouted to alternate backbone. RCN service normal.

— RCN (@RCNconnects) November 6, 2017

The problem, according to an expert contact by Wired, was a “route leak.” ISPs use something called the Border Gateway Protocol to find networks they can route data packets through. To figure out which routes are the most efficient, so-called Autonomous Systems (ASes) track data packets that are moving through various networks.

A route leak is caused when these ASes relay bad information about their IP addresses. That can cause internet providers to make bad or inefficient routing decisions, causing packets to be delayed or stopped altogether.

A good example of this is an error Level 3 made back in 2015. In that case, a telecom in Malaysia accidentally told Level 3 that it could relay internet data from anywhere around the world. Level 3 accepted the routes, even thought it shouldn’t have, causing worldwide data to be shunted through the Malaysian telecom, which had no way of handling all the traffic.

Something similar could have happened yesterday if Level 3 was, say, tweaking its routing settings and made a mistake. ISPs use filters to guard against such errors, but the scale of the internet makes it difficult to catch them all. After last year’s large DDoS attack, security experts pointed out that internet infrastructure providers like Dyn and Level 3 are particularly vulnerable to attacks. Yesterday’s outage shows how vulnerable they are to human error, too.

Via: Wired

Source: Comcast

Microsoft will create game studios to ensure more Xbox One exclusives

Microsoft’s Xbox One X is launching this week. It’s the most powerful video game console ever made, but we don’t know who will end up buying the $500 mid-generation system, or any Xbox over a PlayStation 4 (or PS4 Pro). Microsoft has been chasing Sony in console sales for years, and subsequently entered a pattern of shuttering internal studios and cancelling games. Now, according to an interview Xbox chief Phil Spencer gave to Bloomberg, the Washington-based company is going to do the opposite: Start or acquire studios to develop more games and software in-house.

“Our ability to go create content has to be one of our strengths,” Spencer told Bloomberg. “We haven’t always invested at the same level. We’ve gone through ups and downs in the investment.”

Spencer is referring to one of the Xbox One family’s greatest weaknesses: Microsoft’s consoles only has a handful of exclusive franchises, mostly amounting to Halo, Forza and Gears of War.

Years of both critics and fans hammering the Xbox for being underpowered led the team to refine the hardware and software of their console, along with a new souped-up one to outpower the mid-generation PS4 Pro Sony released last year.

However, in some ways Microsoft seems to have conceded the unit sales war to Sony. Bloomberg noted that the the console maker has changed the way it defines success company-wide, shying away from shipment and device sales numbers to focus on revenue from software and subscription services. For its gaming divisions, that potentially means further expanding Xbox Live features, eSports and streaming games.

But signature content is still a problem. As The Verge pointed out back in March, only four Xbox One exclusives sit in the Metacritic list of the console’s top 50 games (and three of those are Forza titles). Worse, only one exclusive — Forza Horizon 3 — has a score above 90. PlayStation 4 has three (five if you count The Last of Us Remastered and Journey, both of which first appeared on the PS3). Anticipated exclusives ReCore and Quantum Break weren’t critical or commercial hits. Microsoft also canceled high-profile projects like Scalebound, and has shut down both its Lionhead (Fable Legends) and Press Play (Knoxville) studios.

The new Microsoft games Spencer is hinting at are unlikely to be extensive single-player experiences like the PlayStation’s Uncharted series. Those types of games “don’t have the same impact they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience,” Spencer told The Guardian back in April. Instead, it’s likely to focus on online multiplayer games like Rare’s Sea of Thieves, an Xbox One and Windows exclusive title set to release in 2018. Of course, with the sudden shift back to making games, we can’t rule out Microsoft reconsidering its stance on AAA single-player experiences.

Source: Bloomberg

Walmart Pay ‘Close to Surpassing’ Apple Pay in U.S. Mobile Payments Usage

Walmart announced “Walmart Pay” in December of 2015, bundling its mobile payment solution directly into the Walmart app for iOS and Android devices and entering the market one year after Apple’s own Apple Pay launched in 2014. Now available nationwide in 4,774 Walmart stores, Walmart Pay is “close to surpassing” Apple Pay in terms of mobile payments usage in the United States (via Bloomberg).

According to Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of Walmart services and digital acceleration, Walmart Pay is enrolling “tens of thousands of new users a day,” and has seen a steady growth over the past few months. Two-thirds of those who try it use it again within twenty-one days. These statistics give Eckert confidence that Walmart Pay will soon beat Apple Pay in the U.S., “in terms of use by shoppers in stores where they’re accepted.”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s app is close to surpassing Apple Pay in usage for mobile payments in the U.S., giving the world’s largest retailer even more clout as a growing number of people shop with their smartphones.

“If daily enrollments don’t slow down, I think that’s pretty well in the cards shortly,” said Eckert, senior vice president for services and digital acceleration. “I would have to imagine we are getting pretty close.”

Market researcher Richard Crone predicted that Walmart Pay will grow bigger than Apple Pay in active U.S. users (who use the mobile wallets for at least two transactions per month) by the end of 2018. Walmart and Apple reportedly held discussions in early 2016 that centered upon incorporating Apple Pay into the Walmart iOS app, but fell through because of the “difficulty of blending the technology underpinning each company’s approach.”

Walmart is said to have begun gaining ground on Apple earlier in 2017, when 5.1 percent of Walmart shoppers said they used Walmart Pay this past June, just below the 5.5 percent of iPhone users who said the same at locations that accept Apple Pay. In terms of other competitors, Walmart Pay’s adoption rate is “higher than Samsung Pay and Android Pay combined.” One analyst pointed out this is likely because Walmart owns and controls the mobile wallet software and “can make quick changes.”

Chart via Bloomberg

“Apple Pay’s road is much more difficult than Wal-Mart’s is,” Brendan Miller, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in a phone interview. “It means that Wal-Mart can make quicker changes, they can move faster in many respects than Apple Pay.” Forrester’s survey of 58,000 online consumers in the first half of 2017 found that 7 percent of them used Apple Pay in the past three months, while 6 percent used Walmart Pay.

Although the services are similar in their payment goals, there are a few differences between Walmart Pay and Apple Pay. Walmart’s mobile wallet presents users with a barcode that has to be scanned to complete a transaction, unlike Apple Pay’s NFC tap-based system. Walmart Pay also incorporates all of a user’s in-store offers, promotions, rewards, and gift card balances in one place, which Apple Pay is still inconsistent in supporting for many stores.

Despite their close rivalry in the mobile wallet space, Walmart is reportedly “more interested” in directly competing with Amazon than Apple. Over the past year, Amazon has been expanding quickly in the grocery space with its various test projects like Amazon Go and its acquisition of Whole Foods. Walmart said it will continue focusing on expanding the features of Walmart Pay as more competition emerges, and according to Crone the debut of the software has provided a solid launchpad for the company’s future: “They flawlessly deployed the system, and it works.”

Related Roundup: Apple PayTags: Walmart Pay, Walmart
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Opening New Store at Domain Northside in Austin This Weekend

Apple today announced it will be opening a new store at Domain Northside in Austin, Texas on Saturday, November 11 at 10:00 a.m. local time.

Apple’s current store at The Domain shopping center in Austin, Texas
Apple’s nearby store at The Domain should permanently close after business hours on Friday, over 10 years after it originally opened in March 2007. Most employees will presumably transition to the new store.

Domain Northside is a new shopping and dining district of The Domain, an upscale outdoor shopping center in northern Austin. The first of more than 70 stores and restaurants at Domain Northside opened in 2016.

Ab 11.11. in neuem Glanz am neuen Ort: Apple The Domain (2007) im US-Bundesstaat Texas expandiert. — https://t.co/KBT732IehP #AppleStore pic.twitter.com/t1pPnroGPp

— Storeteller (@storetellee) November 7, 2017

The new store will feature Apple’s latest retail design, which typically includes large glass doors, sequoia wood tables and shelves, a large video screen for Today at Apple sessions, and light boxes spanning the length of the ceiling.

All of Apple’s stores opened since September 2015 have been based on the updated aesthetic. Apple has also renovated or relocated nearly 50 existing stores around the world as part of the modernization of its retail chain.

Related Roundup: Apple Stores
Discuss this article in our forums

iPhone X Launches in 13 More Countries on November 24

Apple today announced that the iPhone X will be available to customers in Albania, Bosnia, Cambodia, Kosovo, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Montenegro, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, and Turkey beginning Friday, November 24.

Apple also said the iPhone X will be available to customers in Israel beginning Thursday, November 23, one day earlier.

In all of the countries and territories, the iPhone X will be sold by authorized third-party resellers and carriers. Apple also operates two retail stores in Turkey, at Zorlu Center and Akasya Acıbadem, and one in Macau at Galaxy Macau.

iPhone X will also be available through Apple’s online store in some of the countries, with prices varying based on local currencies.

• Malaysia — starting at RM 5,149
• South Korea — starting at ₩1,420,000
• Thailand — starting at ฿40,500
• Turkey — starting at 6.099 TL

Given that online orders are estimated to ship in 3-4 weeks in countries where the iPhone X has already launched, coupled with limited in-store availability, supplies will likely be low in the second wave of launch countries as well.

Related Roundup: iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone X (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

Meet the Brits who promised the world a $25 PC, and delivered a revolution

In 2015, Raspberry Pi became the bestselling British computer of all time.

Earlier this year, it passed the 12.5 million mark in sales, taking its place as the third highest selling general purpose computer ever built.

When the project got underway, though, its primary objective wasn’t to sell millions of units. The Raspberry Pi was conceived as an educational device. Its enormous popularity is proof of how well it executed upon that vision.

In just five year’s time, the hardware went from a promising idea to a globally recognized brand – and we’re only going to see the full effect of how it makes computing more accessible as the next generation of programmers mature and flourish.

To see how the project came to fruition, Digital Trends spoke to a few of the people who played key roles in its early history.

Raspberry Seeds

Eben Upton considers his trusty, second-hand BBC Micro one of the most important purchases he’s ever made.  He used this system to learn the ropes of computing, programming in assembly language through his teenage years. When he finished his degree in physics and engineering at Cambridge University, it was this passion that prompted him to pursue further education in computer science.

Towards the end of his PhD course, Upton became increasingly interested in computer hardware. Looking back fondly on his own youth tinkering with his BBC Micro, he wondered what could be achieved if a similar computer was designed for the 21st century.

“There were kind of two strands for a long time; there was a strand of me trying to build cheap hardware, and then there was a strand of panicking a bit about admissions numbers at the university,” remembered Upton when he spoke to Digital Trends via Skype last month – his ‘panic’ was due to the fact that at that time, he was the director of studies for the computer science program at University of Cambridge’s St. John’s College, giving him chance to see how student admissions were failing to meet goals. “Raspberry Pi was those two strands coming together.”

It took several years for the device we know today to take shape. Starting in 2006, Upton worked on various ideas in his spare time, alongside his studies and later, his day job. He created several generations of “bodged together” hardware. They’re still in his possession, and fully functional, to this day.

One early iteration was based around an Atmel chip, boasted a whopping half a megabyte of RAM, and was only capable of driving a low-resolution display. “As far as it goes, it’s kind of fun. It doesn’t have a fully developed software stack on it, but you can imagine that it would be somewhat like a BBC Micro or an Amiga – the sort of software you could write for it would be the same kind of software that you would write on […] an Amiga.”

Upton managed to develop this version of the hardware to the point where it could display a proof-of-life animation on a monitor. Then, he was sidetracked by other responsibilities – primarily, a job he took with chipmaker Broadcom. His decision to join the company would end up playing a pivotal role in the success of Raspberry Pi, but first, it stopped development in its tracks.

“One of the first things I saw there were a series of chips that were quite cheap, and could do properly what I had been doing in an ad-hoc way; they could drive a display, they had SRAM, they had a processor,” explained Upton. “When you’ve been bashing together something by abusing the chips it was using – finding ways to do things that the chip designers had never imagined – when you’re confronted with the proper version, it’s sort of demoralizing, I guess. It makes you not want to keep hammering away, hacking at the stuff.”

Upton began to wonder if Broadcom’s chips could be used to realize his idea for an educational computer. And hardware wasn’t all the company would offer the project, as some of the workplace friendships that Eben struck up would form the backbone of the Raspberry Pi team.

Fertile Ground

“I started at Broadcom, I think the week before Eben started at Broadcom,” recalled Gordon Hollingworth, Raspberry Pi’s director of engineering, when he spoke to Digital Trends over the phone. “We were sat pretty close to each other from the beginning, and we got on really well.”

Hollingworth was a software engineering manager at Broadcom, while Upton developed architectural systems for the company’s chips. “It was always fun watching Eben grow and become a different person,” he said of their time at the company. A MBA he attained at Cambridge Judge Business School contributed to this growth.

It was during these studies that Upton decided to revisit the idea of an educational computer. He remembers it as a period of “quiet work” while juggling his responsibilities at Broadcom and his degree.

“He came up with a number of different, random things which either he’d built by hand, or by taking some of the hardware we had at Broadcom and altering it to try and make it into this theoretical system that could be used to teach kids programming,” said Hollingworth.

One such project used one of Broadcom’s development boards as a foundation for a Python shell. Upton ported the MicroPython libraries onto the experimental platform, allowing the device to boot straight into an environment where the user could write code using the language.

Because it’s pretty much completely open-source, it enables anyone to do pretty much anything.

“The issue really is that with something like that, it becomes very closed – all the software is very closed, it’s very limited,” said Hollingworth. Raspberry Pi as we know it is a fully fledged computer, but sticking with MicroPython would have made it more of a microcontroller, along the lines of an Arduino. “One of the more important things about Raspberry Pi is because it’s pretty much completely open-source, it enables anyone to do pretty much anything.”

This experiment didn’t run Linux, which meant that everything from its keyboard and SD card drivers, to its text editor, had to be written from scratch. It was never going to be able to be produced in large quantities. Still, it did contribute to a couple of the decisions that made Raspberry Pi what it is today.

It confirmed that using Broadcom chips offered up some major advantages, not least because Upton and Hollingworth were very familiar with the hardware. It also highlighted the need for a chip with an ARM core, which would allow the device to run Linux. The ‘Pi’ in Raspberry Pi is a holdover from when the computer was based around a Python environment, but Upton looks back on introducing Linux support as the watershed moment for the project.

“The decision to build a Linux computer, rather than some ‘special’ thing was an early one, and very valuable,” said Upton. By 2011, the hardware that would underpin Raspberry Pi was taking shape, at least conceptually – but there were lingering questions about what the audience for such a device would be. It was intended as a platform to help young people take their first steps into the world of programming, but a viral video was about to grow its audience exponentially.

Bearing Fruit

Because the BBC Micro was an inspiration for the Raspberry Pi project, Upton initially hoped it could be an official successor. He even booked a meeting with the BBC’s technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, about a potential partnership.

The BBC ultimately decided not to put its name on the product. Instead, Cellan-Jones published a video of his meeting with David Braben — Raspberry Pi Foundation co-founder and legendary British game developer –to YouTube. The response was enormous.

“That was the point when it crossed over from something that we were working on among ourselves – maybe a few people in Cambridge knew, but it wasn’t widely known – to being kind of a mass phenomenon,” said Upton. “It became that mass phenomenon over the course of two days in 2011”

Liz Upton, the director of communications for Raspberry Pi — and Eben’s wife — described her reaction to this response as one of “absolute shock.” Then working as a journalist, she was brought on board as a volunteer, helping to manage the community that sprung up around the project.

“It was a kick up the arse,” said Eben. “It was an ‘oh shit’ moment. You’ve been thinking about this as an educational thing, and then all of a sudden, 600,000 people have looked at Rory’s blog in two days.”

We suddenly realized that we had promised tens and tens of thousands of people that we were going to make them a computer — for $25.

“Eben and I were watching as tens and tens of thousands of people watched the video, sort of congratulating ourselves,” said Liz. “Then we suddenly realized that we had promised tens and tens of thousands of people that we were going to make them a computer for $25.”

It would be no small feat. Even with an army of potential customers – the beta version of the Raspberry Pi operating system was downloaded 100,000 times before any hardware was made available – manufacturing the first devices wouldn’t be cheap.

“Eben and the other trustees of the Raspberry Pi Foundation put together some money to create the first 10,000 units,” remembered Hollingworth. Liz Upton recalls some long nights sat with her husband at their kitchen table, stuffing stickers into envelopes that would be sent out to supporters at £1 a pop. An initial run of 10,000 seemed more than sufficient. Upton even had half-joking concerns that he would end up with 9,000 unsold Raspberry Pis lingering in his shed.

Instead, a total of 100,000 pre-orders were submitted. It became clear that satisfying demand beyond the initial run would be a problem, so Upton devised a plan that would take the financial burden off the Raspberry Pi Foundation. “The decision to be a licensing company, to license our technology to RS and Farnell, was very important because it reduced those capital constraints for us,” explained Upton.

“Eben got in touch with the guys at RS and Farnell,” said Hollingworth. “These are big distributors and they have loads and loads of money, because that’s all they do: they buy products and they sell them on. The one thing they deal in quite heavily is basically capitalizing these products.”

Upton proposed that the Raspberry Pi Foundation would show RS and Farnell how to manufacture the Raspberry Pi, and set up production at the factory. The Raspberry Pi Foundation would then receive a license fee for every unit sold. Effectively, the manufacturers would be paying the set-up costs, but the Foundation could expect income that grew in line with the success of the product.

“The great thing about this is, we don’t need to raise money, we don’t need to raise capital,” said Hollingworth. “And as we are, at the time, just a charity, we can’t really raise capital. That was one of the big changes that made Raspberry Pi a real thing.”

With this manufacturing model in place, the Raspberry Pi Foundation was well-placed to serve the masses of individuals who had already expressed an interest in the project. “It felt like before Raspberry Pi, there were people out there that wanted Raspberry Pi,” said Upton. “Sometimes you launch a product and you don’t have to educate people about why they want it. You just have to tell them it exists.”

The Raspberry Pi Foundation could have thrived for several years selling the first iteration of the hardware, as single-board computers were still something of a novelty. Yet the continued success of the computer hinged on what would come next.

Cultivated Growth

After a successful launch, Upton and the rest of the Raspberry Pi Foundation set about adjusting everything from the way the hardware was manufactured, to the design of the device itself.

While the licensing agreement that had been established was a major boon for the project, there were soon plans to improve the manufacturing situation further. The first wave of hardware was made in China, a decision that was made purely to attain the all-important $35 price point. However, the Foundation aspired to bring production closer to home.

A manufacturing plant in Pencoed, Wales sat almost unused. It had been constructed using funds from Sony and the Welsh government, and briefly served as a hub for the creation of LG television sets. By 2012, it only served a small number of contracts on top of its primary, niche function of building high-end cameras used by television broadcasters.

“Eben talked to those guys and said, ‘well, wouldn’t it be awesome if we made Raspberry Pis in the U.K.?’” said Hollingworth. “Because that would be the dream, right? To make them here rather than make them in China – not because it’s a terrible thing, making them in China, but because we love the idea of making things in the U.K. There was a time when engineering in the U.K. was something to be proud of, and we got left behind somewhat, in that respect.”

The Foundation also brought on James Adams, a colleague from Broadcom, to redesign the original model of the Raspberry Pi. The follow-up would become known as the Model B+. “There were some obvious issues with the Pi 1,” said Adams when he spoke to Digital Trends. “Nothing that was a particularly big problem, but it was obvious that there were things that needed fixing.”

Adams executed what amounted to a complete redesign, in his words a ‘reimagining.’ The form factor had to be similar, and certain design features like extra USB ports were mandated by the team, but he was given leeway to make decisions like adjusting the position of mounting holes, and reworking where the connectors are placed.

“The big challenge there is that I had to be true to the original design,” Adams reflected. “But also, this one, we were going to make hundreds of thousands before we’d ever launched it. One bug that wasn’t found could have cost the company. If they were returned, that wasn’t something we could ever support. It really was, ‘you have to design this thing right, first time.’”

The Sweeter the Berry

Redesigning the original Raspberry Pi board is one thing. Pushing the hardware forward with every new iteration is another. The device has such a broad range of applications that a new version that’s dramatically different could throw a spanner in the works for many owners.

“We’ve got that form factor now, and it works quite well, we don’t really want to change it – we’re more about evolution rather than revolution,” said Adams. Each generation is similar to the last, so you’re not going to have a problem getting hold of something that will fit in the Raspberry Pi-shaped hole in your product.”

It’s encouraging  […] that we can rebuild the computer industry in a way that’s more representative of society.

The team told me about various implementations of the hardware over the course of our conversations, ranging from custom tech for factories, to cattle-counting devices. If the product’s design suddenly changed dramatically, many owners would be left in the lurch.

That isn’t to say that the Raspberry Pi has grown stale, or that it will never change. Many owners are pushing for new features and functionality, and have been since the very beginning.

“There’s a very simple calculation,” explained Upton. He gave the example of an analogue-to-digital converter, which is frequently raised as the biggest missing feature of the hardware. Arduino, the Pi’s biggest rival, does feature the component. It costs less than 20 cents, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation is reluctant to include it.

“It’s a $35 product that doesn’t have this 10-20 cent component, why not?” said Upton. “The answer is, we don’t believe that many of our customers want them. We have this rule of thumb: suppose you have a 20-cent device that you can add to the build materials, and 10 percent of your customers will use it. You think of it as being a $2 device.”

The Raspberry Pi is manufactured under very small margins, so even a seemingly trivial addition to the build needs to be scrutinized. “We have that golden figure of $35,” said Hollingworth. “The question really is, what can you fit into $35, and what’s useful? People have said, can’t you have SATA? And can’t you have gigabit Ethernet? Why can’t I have analog inputs? The answer is always, always, always, because you can’t afford it.”

That said, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is always using economies of scale to push down pricing in various areas as its products have become more popular. The result is extra funds that can be used to make each new version compelling.

“There are usually obvious, standout features that people want,” shared Adams. “It’s always nice to have more memory, it’s always nice to have a faster processor, it’s always nice to have better Wi-Fi. A lot of these things are obvious, you know what you’re going to add, you’re just waiting for the tech to enable it at the right price.”

His example was the addition of Wi-Fi between Pi 2 and Pi 3, something that added a huge amount of utility to the device. In a perfect world it would have been there from the outset, but the price of the technology had to be right before it was introduced.

“B+ to Pi 2 was, I think, nine months, and then there was a year until Pi 3, and now we’re having a bigger gap,” said Adams. “It’s largely driven by the technology, what we can do, and what we can get in at the price point. Which is kind of good, right? We don’t want to give out the expectation that we’re gonna have a Pi every year, that forces you into a cycle that you shouldn’t be in, in this kind of world.”

“This is something that Raspberry Pi are quite proud of doing,” Hollingworth agreed. “We’re not like Apple, where your new phone is going to be like three hundred quid more expensive than your old phone. We’re trying to hold our price as much as we possibly can. We think that’s a cool thing.”

Money Tree

Pricing has been an important consideration for the Raspberry Pi project since the very beginning. Eben paid £220 for his BBC Micro, which he described as being “very second-hand.” Adjusted for inflation, that’s around £869 ($1,147) — a ton of money for a young person to invest in a computer, and far out of the reach of most families.

“I was lucky that I came from a family where I had a savings account with a few hundred quid in it,” said Upton. “The barriers were substantial. That probably means that there were people of my generation who would have been amazing computer programmers, who never had the chance to discover that.”

Upton likens it to entire classrooms being given a recorder to see if they have any affinity for playing music. Some might go on to be a concert pianist, or a virtuoso guitar player. The majority might never play a clean note, and never pick up an instrument again. Yet the availability of a cheap and accessible option can find talent that’d otherwise remain undiscovered.

“It’s no coincidence that our cheapest machine is $5, right?” Upton continued. “It’s really important. It would have been easy for us to get cocky or complacent, once we’ve done a $35 computer. But you’ve got to remember that a lot of people don’t have $35 of discretionary money – but most people in the developed world do have $5 of discretionary money.”

The low price point doesn’t just lower the cost of entry; it lowers the cost of screwing up. People that might want to tinker with hardware, rather than concentrate on coding, can experiment without the fear of destroying expensive equipment. It’s difficult to fry a Raspberry Pi, but it’s not impossible. If it happens, the penalty is low, especially if the system in question is a $5 Zero model.

Next Year’s Crop

“It’s not realistic to say, ‘everyone should be a computer programmer,’” said Upton. “I think everyone should have a chance to find out whether they want to be a computer programmer, and that isn’t where we’ve been in the past.”

Even back in the ‘glory days’ of the 1980s computing boom, Eben remembers it being a primarily male pursuit. It wasn’t a matter of young women not being interested, or not having the necessary skills. The activity was simply pigeonholed as soon as it became mainstream. Liz experienced this firsthand.

“I went to an all-girls boarding school, and there really wasn’t much of a science education there at all,” she said. “They tended to diagnose you as being artistic rather than engineering-oriented.”

Liz was fascinated by computers, but she wasn’t given the opportunities to pursue this interest. Her computing lessons were all about typing, so she learned about coding from computer magazines at home. When she was at university, studying law, she spent free time indulging her enthusiasm for engineering – but she had to chase down this experience, rather than being exposed to it by her education.

“There are an awful lot of things that can exclude people from this stuff,” she said. For as long as computing has been a viable career, it’s been easier for men from a privileged background to get involved than anyone else. As of 2017, everyone uses the software and services that programmers build – so for the most effective product, it would follow that the industry itself should be as diverse as its user base.

Liz and Eben had a daughter earlier this year – Liz was still on maternity leave when we spoke over the phone. “We just had our first kid, so this has got more important, rather than less important, over time,” Eben told me.

Eben made it clear that becoming a father has reinforced his belief in the importance of giving young people access to computers. Today, 40 percent of the attendees of the Code Club events supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation are female. That’s good news for everyone involved with the organization.

“I think there are some really encouraging signs – and as the father of a daughter, it’s become particularly, personally important to me over the last few months – that we can rebuild the computer industry in a way that’s much more representative of society,” said Upton. “That’s not just gender. That’s race, and class.”

Eben conceived the Raspberry Pi as a means of stimulating admissions to a computer science course at one university. Within five years, it’s given hundreds of thousands of people around the world a way to experiment with computers and programming. The parameters of the project have grown with its audience, and there’s no sign that will end.

“When I started this, if you told me that we would get back to where we were in the 1980s, I would have been over the moon,” Upton reflected. “I think in a lot of ways we’re past where we were in the 1980s, in terms of levels of participation. Now it becomes about, what can we do internationally? Can we do this in developing countries? Can we make sure that we get enough girls? Can we make sure that we go past the 1980s? It evolves. We get more ambitious as time goes on.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• Long live the black box! How ThinkPads have thrived for 25 years
• What is Linux? It’s a free operating system you may already use without knowing
• This is how to create a scatter plot in Excel using the latest version
• Tired of Twitch? Here’s how to stream on Microsoft’s Mixer
• In its Oregon skunkworks, Intel is plotting to turn your laptop into a VR rig

Music junkie? Here are the 25 best music apps for consuming and creating tunes

If you lump them all together, there are probably no fewer than a zillion different music apps between Google Play and the App Store. Those aren’t exact figures, but based on Digital Trends‘ own independent research, we estimate that the number is somewhere between a zillion and a jillion. So as a smartphone user, you have access to just about any type of music program imaginable, from internet radio and streaming apps to guitar tuners and portable DJ stations. Unfortunately, though, your smartphone has a limited amount of space. You can’t download the entire zillion apps — as of yet, anyway — so we’ve dug up the best music apps available for Android and iOS.

It should be noted, however, that the number of music apps available varies greatly from store to store. Apple’s App Store easily has the most, followed closely by Google Play. Most are available free of charge, though, many also feature in-app purchases and monthly subscription fees. Nonetheless, below are our picks for the best music apps, whether you’re looking to simply listen to music, learn music, or create it.

Are you looking for some awesome headphones to listen to your music? Check out our picks for the best headphones you can buy and also the best noise-canceling headphones.

The best apps for listening to music

Google Play Music (free)

As expected, Google Play Music grants you full access to your cloud-based music collection on the go. The app is clean, lined with handpicked playlists and custom radio stations, and even presents smart recommendations based on your individual taste and prior listening habits.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Apple Music (free)

Apple Music is Apple’s first music streaming service, and it offers you complete access to any song in the Apple Music library — no matter where you are. The well-designed app is also available for both Android and iOS, and though the service’s massive music catalog is clearly its biggest draw, it also includes a host of custom playlists, radio shows, and the like.

Download now for:

Android iOS

YouTube Music (free)

YouTube Music is perhaps better aimed at the music video-lover, but if you have a premium Red account, you can also listen to the music whether your phone’s display is on or off. Also, keep in mind that you must have a YouTube Red account, you also have a Google Play Music account (and vice versa).

Download now for:

Android iOS

Shazam (free)

Ever heard a song and wished you knew the title and who recorded it? Shazam detects songs and television shows in a matter of seconds, providing purchasing options, lyrics, and a convenient means of streaming the tracks once recognized. The real-time chart is just a plus.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Spotify (free)

Spotify remains a force to be reckoned with (even at $10 a month). The mobile app boasts the same functionality as its desktop counterpart, allowing you to stream single tracks or entire albums with the option to create custom playlists and download the tracks for offline listening.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Amazon Music (free)

Amazon may have been late to the game, but its streaming app is one of the best. It allows you to access your entire Cloud Player library, including uploaded songs and those you purchases on the site, and provides additional options for creating and editing playlists on the fly. It’s included in the Amazon Prime subscription bundle.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Vevo (free)

MTV may be dead, but Vevo still offers a remarkable selection of premiere music videos within its app. You can also create genre-spanning playlists and steam live musical performances, or simply browse Vevo’s handpicked selection of HD videos and recommendations.

Download now for:

Android iOS

TuneIn Radio (free)

TuneIn Radio grants you access to more than 100,000 live radio stations from around the globe. The app offers a bevy of local content as well, providing on-demand streams encompassing sports, news, talk shows, music, and current events among a host of other stellar offerings.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Soundcloud (free)

Soundcloud is a rabid community of musicians, bands, and the like. The app retains all the hallmarks of the full site, allowing you to search for new artists to follow, listen to songs in your feed, and even record and post your own audio. The “Explore” section is only the beginning.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Pandora (free)

Pandora is a mainstay of the streaming realm, despite its dwindling user base. The service curates custom radio stations utilizing advanced algorithms based on a specific track or artist, delivering songs catered toward you that only get better with feedback. The interface is a nice, too.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Tidal (free)

Tidal is designed for the audio aficionado. The streaming service boasts more than 25 million lossless tracks, not to mention an offline mode, quick access to music videos, tailor-made suggestions, and in-depth interviews covering everyone from Jack White to Jay-Z.

Download now for:

Android iOS

iHeartRadio (free)

Covering everything from country and hip-hop to pop and news, iHeartRadio makes streaming live AM/FM stations simple. Additionally, it lets you select music fit for your mood and build your own custom station from a catalog pushing more than 450,000 different artists.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Quello Concerts (free)

Sometimes hearing isn’t enough. Quello Concerts lets you see it in action, granting you on-demand access to full-length concerts and riveting documentaries from the likes of Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Lady Gaga, and countless others. Trust us, 1,500 performance is plenty.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Musixmatch (free)

Musixmatch boasts the world’s largest catalog of lyrics, and as such, the service’s dedicated app lets you listen to song in your library with synced lyrics. It also lets you search for song lyrics, whether by title or lyric, and helps you identify music playing around you with a simple tap.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Slacker Radio (free)

Slacker Radio brings you curated music that you can customize to suit your own tastes. You can create and share your music stations, but the app also gives you access to news and sports. Some features are only accessible through a subscription. A Plus subscription costs $4 per month, and includes maximum audio quality at 320kbps, offline listening, and no ads. A Premium subscription at $10 per month gives you the ability to create playlists, download those playlists, and jump to favorite parts of a song.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Deezer (free)

Deezer offers a truly massive library of tracks. The app learns about your favorite types of music and then creates a mix of music and artists just for you. With Deezer Premium, at $13 per month, you get unlimited access, offline playback, and no ads. Deezer is also compatible with iMessage and the Apple Watch.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Jango Radio (free)

A lot of music streaming apps are free for a while, and then charge a fee, but Jango is completely free with no hidden costs. You can browse music, explore by category, or create your own station by searching for an artist. There are ads, but they are small ads that appear just under the album art and are not intrusive at all. You can also share stations with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Editors’ Recommendations

• 20 Android and iOS apps for kids to keep them entertained (and quiet)
• The 20 best news apps that are fast and fluid on your iPhone or Android
• The 100 best iPad apps for your Apple tablet (October)
• Get smart: The 25 best educational apps for iPhone and Android
• The best Apple Watch apps to download

Not interested in the iPhone X? You’ve got plenty of other smartphone options

While the iPhone X has garnered a lot of attention — and sales — it’s not the phone for everyone. Whether it’s the new design or the high price tag, the iPhone X might not be as appealing to you as it is to others. But if you’re looking to upgrade your current device, it’s not the only phone you have to choose from.

Regardless of if you want to stay loyal to Apple or even make the switch to Android, there plenty of options out there. Here we break down alternative options to purchasing the iPhone X.

Choose another iPhone

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Alongside the release of the iPhone X, Apple also unveiled the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Starting at $700 and $800, respectively, the iPhone 8 lineup comes with almost all of the same features — for a cheaper price. You’ll still have Apple’s new 64-bit, A11 Bionic chip, along with wireless charging and an improved 12-megapixel camera. But with the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus also comes Touch ID, which was removed from the X. If you’ve used iPhones before, then it won’t require getting used to since it takes on the same design as its predecessors.

Other options from Apple include the iPhone 6S lineup — which will cost you $450 for the iPhone 6S and $550 for the iPhone 6S Plus. There’s also the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, which will cost you $100 more for both models. Even though these devices don’t have the fancier features — like wireless charging — the differences aren’t vastly different, and you’ll also be able to save money. Your phone is capable of running iOS 11, so you won’t be missing out on any software features, and with the iPhone 7 Plus you’ll have portrait mode as well.

Lastly, Apple still offers its smallest iPhone on the market — the iPhone SE ranging from $350 to $450 depending on the model. Back in May, the device took first place in the Annual Customer Satisfaction Index due to its size and price. While the 4-inch Retina display is significantly smaller than the others, you’ll still have the 12-megapixel camera and Touch ID.

Buy a used model

Aside from purchasing a device from Apple, you can save even more cash if you buy a used device. You’ll have to be careful with this option because even though you’re paying less, the phone could also come with a series of issues and no refund option. It’s important to check the seller’s description, look through any photos listed, and ask questions before buying. Some services may also list a return policy or payment protection in case something goes wrong.

A few of the best places to purchase a smartphone are eBay, Glyde, or Swappa — each of which include current iPhone models carried by Apple, along with older versions the company no longer sells. While the prices vary depending on the site and who you’re purchasing from, you’ll still be saving a large chunk of cash by opting for a used device regardless of how recent the launch date. Depending on your preference, you can shop for either unlocked iPhones or ones exclusive to particular carriers as well.

Switch to Android

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

If none of the iPhones out there sound appealing, you can always make the switch to an Android device. While it might seem like a big task in the beginning, switching all of your media over to an Android phone isn’t impossible. If you haven’t used an Android before, the transition could take a bit to get used to but you’ll still be able to have most of your content available to you.

Whether it’s transferring your contacts, syncing your calendar, as well as moving your photos and videos, you can move over information through backups and third-party apps. You’ll have to become more accustomed to using Google Services, which offer a wide range of uses and include cross-platform synchronization. When it comes to your text messages, you can transfer those over to your Android device as well via iSMS2Droid or Samsung Kies software — which might require a bit extra work. Also, don’t forget to turn iMessage off before making the switch. Otherwise, your SMS and MMS messages could still go to your old iPhone.

There are plenty of specific alternatives out there if you want to venture into the world of Android devices. You can learn more over in our roundup of best cheap phones and the best smartphones you can buy.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple iPhone X review
• The all-screen Apple iPhone X is here, and it’s the new iPhone you’ll want
• Opinion: iPhone X? Nah. Here’s why I’m recommending the iPhone 6S
• How to navigate iOS 11 with Apple’s iPhone X
• iPhone 8 Plus review

Never clean the toilet again — self-cleaning toilet robot SpinX has it covered

Why it matters to you

No one likes cleaning the toilet, and now, no one has to do it. It’s all thanks to SpinX.

If there’s one chore truly deserving of your loathing, it’s toilet cleaning. Unfortunately, the only thing grosser than doing that particular chore is not doing that particular chore, so you grimace and bear it. But take heart, friends — your days of scrubbing that bowl may soon be coming to a close. It’s all thanks to SpinX, heralded as the toilet-cleaning robot. Promising to self-sanitize both your toilet bowl and seat in just 90 seconds, the SpinX claims to be the only automatic, toilet-cleaning robot on the market.

“When I was pregnant with twins, taking care of two toddlers, it occurred to me while I was cleaning the communal toilet one evening that nobody has invented a self-cleaning toilet product before,” said co-founder and CEO Hila Ben-Amram.

“We live in the age of new technology, and to still be performing a trivial task that hasn’t evolved in over 100 years confused me. I created SpinX to save people the effort and inconvenience of carrying out a job they hate to do, while striving to reach new levels of cleaning and hygiene that benefits all who are tired of getting their hands dirty.”

SpinX boasts a robotic brush inside the toilet itself, which means that you no longer have to take a scrubber to the can. Simply replace your existing toilet lid with the SpinX, and bid adieu to those dirty days of yore. The actual brush is installed within the toilet lid cover — when it’s time for the machine to start cleaning, it’ll send a soap-sudded jet stream of water into your toilet bowl, and set the brush in motion. Once it’s done, the brush washes itself with some more soap and water, then tucks itself back into its little compartment.

You don’t even have to tell the SpinX when you want it to clean. Thanks to the smart sensor flushing feature, anytime you send your waste down the tube, the brush comes out — the smart sensor scans the toilet’s shape, and tells the brush where to scrub.

The SpinX also self-sanitizes its seat. Water jets spray water and soap to clean your throne, and then two dryers send compressed air onto the seat to dry the whole thing.

Promising to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria found on toilet bowls and seats, the SpinX is quite a powerful little bot. Capable of holding up to 330 pounds and promising to fit on 98 percent of toilet bowls, this may just be the household helper you’ve been looking for. You can pre-order a SpinX now for $199, with an estimated shipment date of July 2018.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Protect your toothbrush from your toilet with the Puretta Toothbrush Station
• Clean with the power of ultrasound by using the Sonic Soak
• This little machine can clean your clothes with 10 liters of water and no power
• Dirty display? Here’s how to clean a laptop screen without risk of damage
• Our robo overlords are here to clean our living rooms: The 6 best robot vacuums

Leaked documents reveal Apple has found a new shelter for its profits — Jersey

Apple has had a rough few years in the tax department. In 2013, after a massive crackdown on how the company handles taxes, a government subcommittee determined that the company had avoided paying tens of billions of dollars in taxes by pushing profit into Irish subsidiaries. Now, leaked document reveal the company has found a new international tax residency — the island of Jersey, according to a report from the New York Times.

Why? Well, Jersey normally doesn’t tax companies.

The news was leaked in a trove of documents called the Paradise Papers, but after the leak of the papers, Apple was quick to publish a blog post arguing, once again, that it has paid all the taxes it should.

“The debate over Apple’s taxes is not about how much we owe but where we owe it,” said the company in its blog post. “We believe every company has a responsibility to pay the taxes they owe and we’re proud of the economic contributions we make to the countries and communities where we do business.”

The revelation concerning Apple’s taxes is among the biggest in the Paradise Papers — it previously wasn’t known that Apple’s search for a new tax haven resulted in the company using Jersey as a way to shelter its profits. According to the documents, companies like Apple, Google, Starbucks, and more, have been hiring big law firms to help them transfer trademarks, patents, and more into offshore shell companies — helping them avoid billions in taxes.

You’d be forgiven for not having heard of Jersey — it’s a small island located between France and the United Kingdom that’s a “British Crown Dependency.” That technically means that it’s represented by the United Kingdom when it comes to international affairs, but the island isn’t really British. In fact, it’s pretty much self-governing, and even has its own legal systems and court of law.

The subsidiaries that made the island of Jersey their tax home were originally headquartered in Ireland, and Apple says it switched to Jersey to ensure that its “payments to the U.S. were not reduced.” At the time, Apple said that it didn’t move any operations from Ireland, but the leak of the Paradise Papers suggests otherwise.

We’ll continue to update this article as the story develops.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Legal online gambling is returning to the U.S., if Monster plays its cards right
• If data is the new oil, are tech companies robbing us blind?
• Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know
• Check out our list of the absolute best shows on Netflix right now
• How to buy the new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X in the U.K.