Your therapist will text you now

The smartphone in our pockets has redefined how we interact with people, engage with the world and get ourselves around. A constant connection to the world may be making some of us miserable, however, with a recent South Korean study suggesting that more than 10 percent of internet-using teens are at risk for depression. This may explain the explosion in the number of services, like Talkspace, that enable people to seek help with a mental-health professional online.

Rather than trek to a lavishly-appointed therapist’s office uptown, users can simply reach into their pocket and get help. These e-therapy platforms offer a variety of options, from a Skype-esque video and phone calls through to a more instantaneous, text-based chat protocol. Talkspace claims to have around 500,000 users engaging with more than 1,000 professionals.

In fact, you can expect to hear more from Talkspace in the very near future, as it recently signed a deal with medical giant Magellan Health. At some point soon, Magellan’s clients will be able to access on-demand psychotherapy, provided by Talkspace, through its own assistance program. That means if Magellan runs your employer’s health-care provision, you’ll have the option of contacting a therapist online as part of your package.

Talkspace emphasizes the benefits of online therapy, including the pros of having an on-demand, asynchronous relationship with their caregiver. Time-poor folks who struggle to carve out a couple of hours each week to journey to a clinic can still get the help they need. Plus, it’s cheaper: An hourlong session in the real world could cost hundreds of dollars and may require wrangling with your insurance provider.

By comparison, Talkspace’s plans begin from $32 a week, for which you can talk to a therapist once per day via text. For $39 a week, you’re entitled to two check-ins per day, while for $49 a week, you can get that, plus an additional half-hour “live session” with your therapist each month. Other services charge similar prices, with rivals 7Cups charging $150 a month and Betterhelp asking $280 monthly.

Talkspace’s Scott Christnelly believes that this push online has been beneficial. As well as overseeing therapist performance for the service, he is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist. Before joining Talkspace, Christnelly worked at a community organization offering therapy to individuals with chronic physical and mental illness. “The job became more about paper and chart compliance and less about the healing relationships I formed with clients,” he said. Talkspace enabled him to quit his job and build up an independent practice by going directly to individuals.

The challenges are different when offering therapeutic services online, especially when compared to the real world. Face-to-face, therapists are able to read a person’s nonverbal cues in order to understand the subtext of what they’re saying. “It’s definitely a unique experience,” says Christnelly, adding that “there is a learning curve in figuring out how to bridge that gap.” For his part, he says that experts also need to “learn how to communicate warmth and empathy and understanding through the written word.”

Another issue is the belief that, because it’s online, the client’s journey toward gratification or success is shorter. Christnelly says clients make more progress when they drop their need for an instant response or an ostensible cure. “It takes time for some clients to adjust to asynchronous communication,” although he believes that the delay is actually “beneficial.” The extra time between missives “gives the therapist and client time and space to explore their actions.”

Technical issues aside, Christnelly doesn’t believe that there’s a big difference between therapy online and in the real world. “The issues are the same that I saw when working with clients face-to-face,” he explained, and the clients are the same, too. “Everyone has different life circumstances,” says Christnelly, “but share the same internal struggles as everyone else.”

One of the benefits of online therapy is that the interactions can be instant, but also asynchronous, and you ultimately have the ability to choose how engaged you are. But when your motivation flags, or life gets in the way, it’s easier to walk away from the project than a real-world therapist. Much like that gym subscription you bought January 3rd, a Talkspace account may be left fallow for long periods of time. Neglect could, over a year, amount to the better part of $2,000-worth of wasted money. Talkspace will only unsubscribe you if a therapist marks you as absent — unless it’s related to a complaint.

Then there are the risks and dangers inherent with switching from a direct doctor-patient model to an Uberized marketplace. In 2016, former Talkspace therapists blew the whistle, telling The Verge about the company’s apparent failure to properly safeguard those who may be at risk. Whereas traditional mental-health professionals have a duty of care to notify law enforcement when individuals could be in danger, Talkspace users are anonymous to their therapists.

Other controversies have also hurt the service somewhat, including cutting off a therapist from clients when the therapist filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services. Todd Essig, a prominent critic of TalkSpace, wrote in Forbes that the company behaved in a “hasty, ill-advised and hurtful,” way. Essig has also said that online therapy platforms are no substitute for the real thing, creating “momentary feelings of being understood, which should never be confused with actually being understood.”

Talkspace CEO and co-founder Oren Frank says that the platform has remedied a lot of these issues, revising and updating its approach as it goes. He told Engadget that it has been a process to “learn and improve our understanding of how remote delivery of therapy is different.” Frank, a former advertising creative, founded the site with his wife in 2012 with the aim of making therapy cheaper and accessible “to all.” The CEO says that the service has received “overwhelmingly good feedback,”

For all of Talkspace’s potential pitfalls — of which some therapists may believe there is many — the company’s success may not be tied entirely to its business. In fact, online therapy platforms more generally may be helping to make mental health care more accessible to more people. Talkspace even cites an extensive study concerning almost 99,000 veterans with mental-health issues before and after exposure to long-distance psychiatric help. It claims that online therapy managed to reduce instances of hospitalization by around 25 percent.

There are still, however, caveats, like the sort found by Gabrielle Moss when she tried Talkspace out for Bustle back in 2015. Moss, who has lots of experience using real-world therapy, found it far too easy just to ignore the app’s requests for contact. “I hadn’t realized that much of what I was paying for,” she wrote, “was the accountability.” “Since there was no appointment,” she added, “and since I could erase those push notifications without even reading them […] I fell off the web-therapy wagon almost as quickly as I started.”

Talking to Engadget two years later, Moss said that, on reflection, “in-person therapy is the gold standard for a lot of reasons — not least of all because you can easily ignore an email from an online therapist.” “The fact that it’s hard to cut and run on an in-person therapist is positive,” because, she added, “when you feel the urge to flee, it’s tied to the fact that it’s bringing up scary feelings or memories that you don’t want to deal with.”

The distance created by online therapy, as Moss says, makes it “just too easy to end things because I was being pushed even slightly out of my comfort zone.” That’s not to say that online therapy has no value, however, and she believes that it can be a “great tool” for people who “can’t physically access a therapist.” Be it because of cost, geography, mental health or any other barrier, online therapy “can bring therapy to people who would not have been able to access any other form.” Although, in her mind, it remains a useful but not entirely satisfying substitute for the real thing.

In the future, the service’s sheer availability could well help reduce the stigma around mental health and encourage more folks who need help to seek it. Not to mention that having ubiquitous access to a calm, helpful voice on the other end of your smartphone or computer should reduce potential crises.

Online therapy cannot replace more direct interventions that are required in serious cases. If a person is in direct risk as a consequence of their own feelings or those of others, then the platforms discussed in this article are not a suitable place to seek help. In those instances, people are advised to reach out to agencies like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or the emergency services.

Image Credit: Wavebreakmedia via Getty Images

Source: Talkspace

Apple Clips has better controls and loads of new ‘Star Wars’ effects

Apple’s Clips video creation app is less than a year old, but it’s already getting a big update. Thanks to lots of user feedback and the proliferation of new, more powerful iOS devices, Clips is now more polished than ever, and that’s very good news for people looking to craft their next viral video masterpiece.

The philosophy behind the app hasn’t changed — it’s still all about making fun, short videos without much technical know-how — but Apple worked to make the app even easier to use. Consider the app’s interface: it was never particularly hard to wrap your head around, but Apple’s zeal for simplicity sometimes made the original layout feel a little too basic. While you’ll still use a big, bright record button to add clips to your timeline, a handful of new shortcuts beneath the viewfinder window make it easier to gussy up your work.

Apple also moved its controls for Live Titles (a feature that automatically turns what you’re saying into subtitles) and style transfer filters (which add fun, Prisma-style art effects to your photos and videos) to the left and right of that big record button. These were two of the most popular (not to mention most useful) features in Clips, so I’m glad they’re getting a little more prominence this time.

This time, Clips also packs support for iCloud Drive, so you can start a new video project on an iPhone and pick up where you left off on an iPad without issue. The same project reflects updates made on multiple devices, so there’s no need to worry about version control — something that most average Clips users would probably loathe having to think about.

Interface revamps aside, the biggest new addition is what Apple calls Selfie Scenes. It’s unfortunately exclusive to the iPhone X, and one look at the feature in action confirms why — it uses the X’s TrueDepth camera to isolate your face, paint over it with some sweet artsy filters and replace your current background with something more scenic. Right now, the current batch of scenes includes a neon-soaked city in Asia, a hand-drawn rendition of Paris, an 8-bit city that looks like something out of Rampage and, uh, the Millennium Falcon. Seriously. Apple’s cozy partnership with Disney now means that you can virtually insert yourself into a corridor on the Falcon or the bridge of Supreme Leader Snoke’s Mega-class Star Destroyer from The Last Jedi. Naturally, the view of your face takes on the hazy blue of a Star Wars-style hologram.

Yes, Clips’s use of the iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera is a gimmick, but it’s a damned cool one. More importantly, it works well almost all the time — the iPhone X did a mostly great job isolating me and my extremities from my virtual background. There’s also something just a little wild about seamlessly inserting myself into a sci-fi universe I’ve yearned to be a part of since I was 8. It’s just too bad older iPhones don’t have the hardware necessary to make this work for more people. (There’s a small consolation prize for Star War buffs with older iPhones: loads of animated stickers depicting Chewie, Princess Leia, TIE Fighters and more.)

While not every iPhone will get all these new features, Apple’s thoughtful changes to the interface and workflow mean the Clips update is well worth installing — you can find it in the App Store now.

Researchers find hundreds of easily-breached messaging apps

The security of our personal data is top of mind right now, so the news that nearly 700 apps for iOS and Android were easily exploited to show private messages and calls is troubling, to say the least. Security company Appthority discovered the exploit, dubbed “Eavesdropper,” and published its findings this morning. According to the company’s research, up to 180 million Android devices could be affected, as well as an unknown number of iOS devices.

At a high level, Appthority discovered 685 apps that used the Twilio Rest API or SDK for communication services, including calling and messaging. Twilio basically lets developers build those features into their apps without having to write their own communications protocols. Unfortunately, some developers using these APIs left hard-coded user credentials in the app’s code, making it a simple matter for a motivated hacker to expose a user’s private communications. “The vulnerability is called Eavesdropper ,” writes Appthority’s Michael Bentley, “because the developers have effectively given global access to the text/SMS messages, call metadata, and voice recordings from every app they’ve developed with the exposed credentials.”

Bentley also notes that Eavesdropper poses a major threat to enterprise communications, as Twilio is typically used in business environments. As such, the vulnerability could make a company’s private information easily accessible by those with nefarious schemes in mind, though Appthority’s research showed that only about 33 percent of the apps in question were business-focused.

The research firm first discovered the vulnerability back in April and notified Twilio in July, noting that 85 developers were responsible for the unprotected apps. By the end of August, the number of affected apps had dropped to 102 in the iOS App Store and 85 in Google Play. That’s still a pretty large number, but unfortunately Appthority didn’t publish a full list of apps that are still live.

Via: Reuters

Source: Appthority

Apple is $100 Billion Away From Becoming World’s Only Trillion Dollar Company

Apple shares are currently trading for around $175, giving the iPhone maker a market cap of roughly $900 billion. The valuation puts Apple within $100 billion of becoming the world’s only trillion dollar company.

Apple shares will have to rise to around the $195 mark for the company to reach a trillion dollar valuation, depending on the rate of its share buybacks, and an increasing number of Wall Street analysts think that will happen.

Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White, who is extremely bullish about Apple, has a lofty 12-month price target of $235 for the company’s stock. In other words, he forecasts that Apple could be a $1.2 trillion company within a year.

With a market cap of over $900 billion, we believe Apple is on its way to becoming a “trillion dollar baby” as reflected in our price target. We were the first on Wall Street to project that Apple would reach a $1 trillion market cap as reflected by a price target; our current price target of $235.00 equates to approximately a $1.2 trillion market cap.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani has also said Apple has the potential to achieve a trillion dollar market cap, and even surpass that valuation, by the end of 2018. His current price target for Apple shares is $190.

Apple could be the world’s only trillion dollar company, but it wouldn’t be the first. The spice trading Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, was the first to go public and at one point was valued at over $7 trillion when adjusted for inflation.

Wall Street analysts, including White, have been prognosticating Apple becoming a trillion dollar company since as early as 2012.

Tags: Brian White, AAPL
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Apple Releases iOS 11.1.1 Update With Fix for ‘A[?]’ Autocorrect Bug

Apple today released iOS 11.1.1, the sixth official update to the iOS 11 operating system. iOS 11.1.1 comes a week and a half after Apple released iOS 11.1, the first major update to iOS 11. iOS 11.1 introduced new emoji and included several important bug fixes.

The iOS 11.1.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the update, go to Settings –> General –> Software Update.

Today’s update addresses bugs and issues that have been discovered since the release of iOS 11.1. The update fixes an irritating autocorrect bug that has been plaguing a growing number of users. The bug causes “i” to autocorrect to A[?], and is a problem that has been affecting users since the beginning of November.

Apple addressed the autocorrect bug in the iOS 11.2 beta, but it has been spreading to more and more users and is not an issue that the company could wait to fix with iOS 11.2. Today’s update also fixes a bug that could cause “Hey Siri” not to work.

iOS 11.1.1 includes bug fixes for your iPhone or iPad. This update:

-Fixes an issue with keyboard auto-correct
-Fixes an issue where Hey Siri stops working

Apple’s iOS 11 update, first introduced in September, brings a redesigned Lock screen experience, a customizable Control Center, a more natural Siri voice, a redesigned App Store, new HEVC and HEIF codecs for better photo and video efficiency, and an entirely overhauled interface for the iPad. For more info on all the new features in iOS 11, check out our iOS 11 roundup.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
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Apple Launches New Version of Clips With 360-Degree Selfie Scenes

Apple today updated its Clips video app with a promised “Selfie Scenes” feature that’s designed to use the front-facing TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X to immerse users in 360-degree animated landscapes.

Available Selfie Scenes transport users to “bustling cities, serene landscapes, abstract paintings” and, through a Disney partnership, the Millennium Falcon and Mega-Destroyer from the upcoming film “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” There are a total of 10 Apple-designed scenes along with two Star Wars scenes, all of which offer an immersive 360-degree experience.

“Clips users love how quick and easy it is to create amazing videos on iPhone or iPad,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Apps Product Marketing. “And we’re making it even more fun with Selfie Scenes. By harnessing the incredible new TrueDepth camera system on iPhone X, users can now record selfies against a variety of fun and whimsical backdrops with just a tap.”

Clips now features a redesigned interface that Apple says puts frequently used controls “easily within reach.” There’s a new Effects browser for choosing filters, labels, stickers, and emoji, and labeled buttons make it easier to add Live Titles, change filters, and edit clips. All Clips are also now stored in iCloud and can be accessed across multiple devices.

Along with new Selfie Scenes and a redesigned interface, the updated version of the app adds new effects for turning a photo or a video into an oil painting, a watercolor, or a pencil sketch, all effects that can be applied in real time while recording.

There’s also more Disney content in the form of full-screen posters featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse and an array of animated Star Wars stickers. There are additional Apple-designed stickers and 21 new soundtracks from indie artists that can be applied to videos created with the app.

For those unfamiliar with Clips, it’s a video editing app that was released earlier this year. It’s designed to let users combine several video clips, images, and photos with voice-based titles, music, filters, and graphics to create enhanced videos that can be shared on social media sites.

Clips can be downloaded from the App Store for free. Selfie Scenes are limited to the iPhone X, and style transfer effects are available on the iPhone 7 and later and the 2017 iPad Pro models. [Direct Link]

Tag: Clips
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Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes Apple apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers put paid apps on sale for free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest iOS app deals available from the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

Easy Spelling

Easy Spelling Aid gives children and adults alike a quick and easy way to find out the spelling of a word, translate words to and from English, or other languages, and help dyslexic learners with specific cognitive difficulties.

Available on:

iOS

99 Skills to Soccer

If you’re looking to better master the sport of soccer, this may just be the app for you. With 30 years of experience, the makers of this app promise to help beginners and experts alike on the field.

Available on:

iOS

Pilsy

Keep your 21 precious pills under control! Track your cycles and mood changes. Customizable, powerful, and intuitive design, will help you to control your cycles and be able to predict your mood.

Available on:

iOS

Focus

Focus is the best way to organize your work, stay motivated throughout the day, and have a more productive work life. Focus for 25 minutes, then take a short break to relax your mind.

Available on:

iOS

Timebox Photo Journal

Your personal photo journal now features iCloud shared journals, so you can collaborate and exchange full-fidelity photo and video stories with your family and friends.

Available on:

iOS

Anchor Pointer

Welcome to location manager, an app that helps you find your way in the out-of-doors. Hiking enthusiasts and outdoor lovers, car owners and travelers,and  hunters and fishermen use Anchor Pointer to save great locations and find their way back to them.

Available on:

iOS

Editors’ Recommendations

• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time
• Best iOS app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

All-terrain Track 1 eboard is built to go literally anywhere you do

Why it matters to you

Most eboards are brilliant on pavement, but struggle on other terrain. Not so with the Track 1.

Once you’ve shredded the pavement, it only stands to reason that you’ll want to shred just about every other sort of terrain as well. Alas, that’s often not possible — at least not with today’s skateboards and eboards. But here to right that wrong is Flux Design Co., with its newly launched Track 1. Heralded as the first eboard with an all-season track, this particular board is meant for outdoor enthusiasts with not only a need for speed, but a need for variety. The Track 1 is said to be able to ride on the streets, in the sand, snow, and dirt.

Whether you’re simply looking for a board for your commute or a board to help you explore the great outdoors, Track 1 wants to go along for the ride (or rather, be your ride). Promising to easily transition between a hands-free electric board to a utility vehicle, the Track 1 hopes to satisfy both adrenaline junkies and those who simply need a more efficient way to get around in rough terrain.

“We’re proud to have created the world’s first all-season tracked eboard — Track 1 — which was built to do what no other board could do: Ride serious terrain,” Flux Design Co. founder Michael Menendez said. “We wanted to create the most versatile and compact all-terrain board to simplify experiences such as having fun in fresh snow, trails, and dirt.”

Differentiated by its lightweight and durable track, the Track 1 boasts a utility handlebar, carbon fiber deck, foot bindings, patented flux track, and two ATV-grade wheels, all of which promise to equip riders with both the maneuverability and the flexibility they need for a decent riding experience. The track claims to have the traction equivalent to a 30-inch wheel, but without any of the added bulk or weight. Flux Design attributes the portability of the Track 1 to its proprietary mixture of polymers and aerospace composites.

Capable of reaching speeds over 20 miles per hour, the Track 1’s battery is capable of supporting around 12 miles of travel. The interchangeable battery can quickly be swapped out with an additional battery for folks looking to go just a bit farther. And thanks to LED lights for night riding and its water resistant design, you can take the Track 1 just about anywhere at any time.

Track 1 can now be pre-ordered from Indiegogo for the rather hefty price of $2,800. The boards are slated to ship in November 2018.

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Take your PC back to the ’90s with the coolest screensavers, like, ever

Screensavers, like other ’90s fads, have swerved around and become popular again — especially with the high-tech additions available today (even if they don’t affect screens the same way anymore). If you’d rather not be the fourth person in the office to download a Game of Thrones screensaver, or you’re just on the lookout for something a little more special, we’ve got you covered with these awesome downloads. Check out the coolest screensavers around!

BOINC/SETI

BOINC is a very different sort of screensaver courtesy of the labs at Berkeley. Instead of just showing fancy pictures, it actually utilizes a server connection to take a little RAM from your computer and use it. Don’t worry, there’s no ill effects — but your computer could help work on projects in universities that are trying to cure cancer or unravel the mysteries of the universe. Cool! Plus, you also get a visual representation of the SETI signals (albeit without much resolution), which is a good way to show your geek cred.

Helios

Helios is a basic particle effect screensaver, but it’s also an astoundingly beautiful one. It features carefully rendered organic bubbles and patterns that move and interact as the screensaver goes on. Perhaps even cooler, you can set the number of ions, the emitters, the animation speed, and more, to get the display exactly how you want it.

IMAX Hubble 3D

This was technically a movie in 2010 (Leo Dicaprio narrated, and no one really remembers it), but the visuals were so great that it was made into a slideshow, so people can take a closer look at the cosmos. It features the incredibly famous photos of space that the Hubble telescope made so popular. If you are a big fan of high-res space images, this is the one for you.

Living Marine Aquarium 2

The aquarium screensaver has been around forever, of course — but this version takes it to a whole other level, and helps make it look like you really do have an aquarium on your desk. You can choose how many of each fish species are present across three different tank options, and ramp up the graphics to make it look like you are really there.

Dog Licking Screen

Yep. That’s exactly what you are getting. Perhaps it was fate, but the time has clearly come for a screensaver that’s just a pug (other species optional) happily licking the screen. Delight coworkers and impress friends! Try to pet your screen! The only downside here is that the screensaver doesn’t come with sound, so you won’t get the full intensity of those pug licks.

3D Zombies

3D Zombies raises a horde of the undead to wander around your desktop and attack. You can either set their hunting rounds as your most recent screen, or as the image/background of your choice for greater hijinks. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and certainly one of the most unique screensavers out there. Note, however, that it costs $4 to buy the full version.

Briblo

Briblo combines aspects from many boredom-defying activities. It’s part Lego, part Tetris, and all mesmerizing as you watch the blocks slowly fall into place. You can even take on a more active role, to dictate where the next block will land.

Don’t Touch My Computer Ep. 2

In its normal passive state, this screen shows a friendly animated dog that ambles about an office and amuses himself with tricks. But if someone touches your mouse or tries to do anything at your computer, he suddenly turns into a protective guardian.

YoWindow

YoWindow provides you with a pastoral scene — but there’s a catch. It taps into local weather reports and then shows the area with whatever weather your region is experiencing, including clouds and the position of the sun. Sure, you could just go look out a window, but this is more fun.

Electric Sheep

Electric Sheep is a fascinating crowdsourced project that taps into online designs and shows them in a psychedelic screensaver. The images and permutations that are the most attractive are voted on, and so become more common, “mating” with other popular designs and mutating into new creations.

UberNES

UberNES is an emulator-like program with two different modes. The first is a watch mode, where it will emulate various games (you can download 150 files, so there’s a lot of different games that can show up) split into “checkpoints.” The second option, however, lets you take over the game and play it yourself with your keyboard. Which is great, if you don’t have anything to do.

Twingly

Set Twingly as your screensaver, and you will get a global map that shows all the blogging activity going on in the world, in real time. It also provides minute little details about what’s being blogged, making the whole thing seem a bit more believable.

Screenstagram

Do you use Instagram for work or fun and end up following a lot of the latest trends? This screensaver collects random popular Instagram photos and displays them in a grid across your screen. You can also make the screensaver pick from various categories and tags, to really narrow the search down to what you are interested in.

Cities of Earth 3D

This screensaver providers a 3D rotating image of the earth. As it passes by a city of note, it will provide information about that city, including population, local time, and more. The graphics aren’t going to blow anyone anyway, but it’s simple and informative, and a good addition for geography fans.

Wikipedia

Knowledge fans may love this one: It takes random first pages off of Wikipedia and displays them on the screen at the rate of around one per minute. While that page is displayed, you can still scroll through it and even click on links while in screensaver mode.

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You can cut the cord by pre-ordering TPCast’s wireless adapter for HTC Vive

Although we love the HTC Vive, there’s nothing more annoying than having the tethered connection wrap around our ankles and calves when we’re deep in VR action. It’s one remaining drawback to high-resolution, PC-based virtual reality, but those immersive experiences are about to get a lot “safer” thanks to TPCast. The company said on Wednesday, November 8 that its $299 TPCast adapter for the HTC Vive is now available to pre-purchase in the United States and Canada.

TPCast cuts the cord by establishing a wireless connection between the HTC Vive and the parent PC. If you’re not familiar with the Vive’s hardware, it depends on an included Link Box that serves as a hub between the headset and the parent PC. The Link Box plugs directly into an electrical outlet to send power to the Vive headset. It also links the PC’s video output to the headset, and links the headset’s USB output to the PC. TPCast eliminates the need for the Link Box and all the associated trip-inducing wiring.

The kit includes an HMD Receiver that mounts on the HTC’s top strap, and plugs into the HDMI and USB ports on the back of the headset. The Vive is powered by a separate Power Box that fits into your pocket, and connects to the power input on the headset. On the computing end, the kit provides a PC Transmitter that must be plugged into an electrical outlet along with the HDMI port on the parent PC.

But that’s not all. The kit also includes a wireless router pre-configured and optimized for the over-the-air PC-to-HTC connection. Simply connect an Ethernet cable from a LAN port on your current router to the WAN port on TPCast’s router, and then connect the parent PC via Ethernet to a LAN port on the TPCast router. The PC must then be configured to automatically obtain an IP address and DNS server address from the TPCast router.

According to the company, the kit is capable of transmitting a 2K resolution with a delay of less than two milliseconds. That’s important given all the heavy data that is tossed between the HTC Vive and the parent PC, including audio, scene rendering for each eye, positional tracking, motion tracking, and so on. A higher latency can break the illusion, and possibly cause nausea due to sudden visual movements and/or frame drops.

“Gone are the days when VR users must settle for the tethered experience,” says founder and CEO Michael Liu. “North American users can now experience true freedom – the freedom to explore a beautiful scene, to turn 360 degrees, jump, and even flip without impediment. We believe this industry milestone changes the game for VR unleashing it into a wireless world.”

The instructions show that the stand-alone Power Box consists of a removable battery that can be recharged using a smartphone charger. The battery takes around 9 to 12 hours to fully recharge.

To pre-purchase the $299 TPCast kit, head to the official website, Amazon, Newegg, or other online retailers. The device will start shipping on November 24, 2017.

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