Discover who you really are with AncestryDNA’s $55 genetic testing kit

Find out where you come from.

This AncestryDNA genetic testing kit is down to $54.99 on Amazon. Normally, this is a $100 kit. AncestryDNA is slashing the price for Cyber Monday. It was this price for Black Friday, too, but the kit was only available from the AncestryDNA site and less accessible that way. With this deal, you can get Prime shipping and get your results back that much faster.

Features include:

• Over 1 billion family connections.
• Uncover your ethnic mix across 165 regions worldwide, including 9 unique regions of Africa.
• Ancestry has the world’s largest consumer DNA network—over 6 million people and counting.
• The only consumer DNA test with six million chances to find new relatives.
• AncestryDNA helps you discover the people and places that made you who you are.

The AncestryDNA kit has 3.8 stars based on 1,847 user reviews.

See at Amazon

Microsoft Office is now available for all Chromebooks

It took its sweet time, but Microsoft Office for Android is now available on all Play Store-compatible Chromebooks, according to Chrome Unboxed. The software’s convoluted journey en route to Google’s laptops is well documented. As a recap, when Android app support arrived on Chrome OS over a year ago, Microsoft’s Office Suite apps were (naturally) among the first reviewers — including Computerworld — downloaded on compatible devices, such as the latest Pixelbook and the Asus Chromebook Flip C302CA. And, everybody just (incorrectly) assumed they’d also be available on other Play Store-supported Chromebooks too. Boy, was everyone wrong.

Instead, Office Suite wound up on select devices, while leaving others in the cold. The situation went on (and on) that way for an age. But, the wait is finally over, with Office downloadable for all Chromebooks. Of course, that’s great news for those who use the laptops for work or school, which likely amounts to a lot of people.

Source: Chrome Unboxed

Snapchat’s latest filters recognize pets and food

Ahead of its imminent redesign, Snapchat is rolling out new filters that recognize what’s in your snaps to provide contextually-aware graphics. Snap quietly began doling out the new feature (which lives inside its filter carousel) to users last week, the company confirmed to Mashable. You can trigger the filters by capturing images and video of select items — including food, pets, and sports equipment — and objects at locations, such as concerts and beaches.

Although the update sounds similar to the app’s existing, location-based geofilters, it instead relies on the object-recognition patent Snap was granted in July. Like Snapchat’s regular filters, you can bet brands will use the new graphics to crank out ads for their products. If Snap has its way, a pic of a cup of coffee could serve up a coupon for the store it was taken at (as detailed in its patent filing). And, a visit to a restaurant could unlock graphics of its menu. Of course, that would mean more money in Snap’s coffers, which it needs a lot more of if it wants to see a profit.

Source: Mashable

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 review: Giving users what they want

The Redmi Y1 offers excellent value for money, and the new selfie camera is the icing on the cake.

Xiaomi is no longer the plucky underdog of the Indian handset segment. The manufacturer is jointly tied with Samsung for the first place in the smartphone segment, a remarkable feat considering the brand opened its operations in India just three years ago.

Xiaomi introduced a lot of firsts in the country: it catalyzed the e-commerce segment and pioneered flash sales, and its focus on MIUI allowed the company to roll out a steady stream of new features. And in spite of its swift climb up the ranks, the brand largely stayed away from aggressive marketing tactics (looking at you, OPPO and Vivo), instead relying on word-of-mouth advertising to drum up interest in its phones.

That’s all changing with the Redmi Y1. The phone is a rebranded variant of the Redmi Note 5A Prime, but Xiaomi is rolling it out an all-new category in the country, one aimed at a younger audience. One way to get people in India talking about a new device is to get a celebrity endorsement, and Xiaomi is taking that route with the Y1.

That said, one thing that hasn’t changed is the company’s focus on value: the Redmi Y1 costs the same as the Redmi 4, which made its debut earlier this year. While both devices are selling at the same price point, there are a few areas where they differ. Read on to find out if the Redmi Y1 is the device for you.

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 What you’ll like

The Redmi Y1 carries a similar design aesthetic to the rest of the products in Xiaomi’s budget series. The phone features a polycarbonate chassis with chrome accents running across the back, intersecting the camera module. The plastic chassis means the device isn’t too heavy at 153g.

You get a 5.5-inch 720p display, which is fine considering the Snapdragon 435 doesn’t fare well with 1080p panels. The screen itself is perfectly serviceable, offering vibrant colors and a maximum brightness of 450 nits (I didn’t have any issues reading text under harsh sunlight). The screen has 2.5D curved glass, making it easier to use, and there’s Gorilla Glass for added resilience to tumbles.

Like all Xiaomi phones, you get the ability to tweak the color temperature to your liking. There’s also a blue light filter that you can set to kick in automatically from sunset to sunrise. Again, you’ll be able to adjust the intensity of the filter, and set custom activation times.

The fingerprint sensor is located at the top third of the phone, making it easy to access with your index finger. The sensor itself is quick to authenticate and didn’t pose any problems. The power and volume buttons are located on the right, and while they’re made out of plastic, they have a decent amount of feedback.

There’s a 3.5mm jack up top next to the IR blaster, and the speaker grille and Micro-USB charging port are located at the bottom. Oh, and the SIM card tray now accommodates a microSD card in addition to two SIM cards🙏.

The Redmi Y1 offers a familiar design with great build quality and a new selfie camera.

The Redmi Y1’s raison d’être is its front camera. There’s clearly a market for phones with high-res front cameras, and Xiaomi is now catering to that audience with the Y1. The phone features a 16MP front camera with an f/2.0 lens, 76.4-degree field of view, and a LED flash module.

The front camera does a great job when it comes to taking selfies, but you do see a lot of noise in low-light conditions. The flash automatically kicks in when there’s less ambient lighting, and you can manually toggle it in daylight to create a halo lighting effect.

The camera interface is unchanged from previous Xiaomi devices, and you get options to toggle between the front and rear cameras, enable flash and HDR, and switch shooting modes. The phone has a manual mode that lets you select the ISO and white balance, and you also get beautify, panorama, and tilt-shift modes, along with HHT for low-light scenarios.

The front camera on the Redmi Y1 is one of the better options available in this segment, so if you’re one to take a lot of selfies, then the phone should be right up your alley. As for the rear camera, you’re looking at a 13MP imaging sensor with f/2.2 lens. For all intents, this is the same sensor as the one used in the Redmi 4, and the resulting images highlight that.

Xiaomi stated during the launch of the Redmi Y1 that MIUI has over 280 million users globally, and that number is only set to grow over the coming years as the manufacturer makes inroads into new markets. My Redmi Y1 unit came with a beta build of MIUI 9, but retail devices will run MIUI 8 out of the box. Xiaomi is making the MIUI 9 update available to more and more devices, and the OTA should roll out to the Redmi Y1 imminently.

There’s a lot to like in MIUI 9. The notification panel has been reworked, there’s a new image editor, and overall the interface feels much less bloated. The latest version of the custom skin doesn’t offer a visual overhaul, so if you’re coming from older versions of MIUI, there’s no learning curve involved. You still get a ton of customization options, and Xiaomi has introduced a new Limitless theme as well as sticker packs that are exclusive to the Indian market.

The Redmi Y1 is powered by a Snapdragon 435, and like the Redmi 4, you’re not going to notice any lag in day-to-day usage. Running visually-intensive games will slow the device down (and drain the battery), but overall there’s not a lot wrong when talking about the performance side of things. The variant I’m using features 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, but you can also get a model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for ₹10,999.

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 What you won’t like

The Redmi Y1 has a 3080mAh battery, and while the phone manages to last a day without any issues, battery life isn’t as great as other Xiaomi devices in this segment. The Redmi 4, for instance, has a huge 4100mAh battery that easily delivers two days of battery life, and the Redmi Note 4 is similarly a battery champion.

Xiaomi’s emphasis on battery life has made it a fan favorite this year, and in that context, the Redmi Y1 isn’t the manufacturer’s best showing. You’ll still get around five hours of screen-on-time consistently, but the lack of fast charging means the device takes over two hours to fully charge up.

You’re not going to get two days’ worth of battery life out of the Redmi Y1.

One area where the device does lag behind is in terms of software updates. The retail units are slated to pick up the update to MIUI 9 shortly, but that is still based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat. As of now, there’s no mention of an Oreo update schedule.

Then we come to the subject of bezels. The Redmi Y1 has sizeable bezels at the front, which when combined with the 5.5-inch screen size makes the device particularly ill-suited for one-handed usage. That said, MIUI lets you artificially shrink the size of the screen down to 4.5, 4.0, or 3.5 inches.

Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Bottom line

Overall, there’s a lot to like in the Redmi Y1: you get a reliable phone with sturdy build quality, decent internals, and a great front camera. Xiaomi’s biggest competitor in this segment is itself, as the Redmi 4 and Redmi Note 4 are both available in the same price bracket as the Redmi Y1.

The base variant of the Redmi Y1 with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage will set you back ₹8,999, and the version with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage will cost you ₹10,999. That’s dangerously close to Redmi Note 4 territory, as similarly-configured versions of that particular device are now available for just ₹1,000 more than the Redmi Y1.

For ₹11,999, the Redmi Note 4 offers a Snapdragon 625, 1080p display, a much better rear camera, and a 4100mAh battery that is guaranteed to deliver two days’ worth of battery life. Then there’s the Redmi 4, which costs the same as the Redmi Y1 and offers a compact 5.0-inch display and 4100mAh battery.

Xiaomi is targeting the offline market with the Redmi Y1, and in that setting, it should be able to convince buyers to spring for the device (the celebrity endorsement doesn’t hurt either). After all, this is the same tactic that OPPO and Vivo relied on to catapult up the ranks over the last two years.

At its core, the Redmi Y1 is a Redmi 4 with a better selfie camera, larger screen, and smaller battery. It caters to a specific section of the market, albeit one that is poised to grow. Phones with high-resolution front cameras now account for just over 25% of all handset sales in the country, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find customers for the device. And for those that don’t care about the front camera, the brand has two great devices in the Redmi 4 and the Redmi Note 4.

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Munich ends its long-running love affair with Linux

When Munich decided to ditch many of its Windows installations in favor of Linux in 2003, it was considered a groundbreaking moment for open source software — it was proof that Linux could be used for large-scale government work. However, it looks like that dream didn’t quite pan out as expected. The German city has cleared a plan to put Windows 10 on roughly 29,000 city council PCs starting in 2020. There will also be a pilot where Munich runs Office 2016 in virtual machines. The plan was prompted by gripes about both the complexity of the current setup and compatibility headaches.

According to Mayor Dieter Reiter, having two operating systems on municipal PCs is “completely uneconomic” — it’d make more financial sense to simplify. And unfortunately for Linux advocates, Windows was more likely to win out in this case. Munich’s council has had to keep a minority of Windows PCs around for apps and hardware that absolutely needed Microsoft’s platform to run, and those were destined to stay.

Reiter also pointed to complaints about IT performance, although there are disputes as to whether or not reverting to Windows is the solution. Only a minority of staffers have argued that returning to Windows would fix the problems, and even the city’s IT lead claimed that compatibility issues had been solved.

Whether or not the decision is wise, it’ll be expensive. Munich estimates that the rollout will cost about €49.3 million ($58.8 million), which isn’t a trivial expense for one metropolis. In other words, the city is willing to pay a high price to streamline local government tech, even if it means giving up some of the software independence that prompted the Linux switch 14 years ago. This isn’t as much of a blow to the Linux community as it would have been in the past (Android and Chrome OS have spread the platform far and wide, including in government), but it’ll hurt for those who hoped that conventional Linux had a strong foothold.

Via: ZDNet, TechRepublic

Source: Munich (PDF, German)

Here’s how NASA transformed Voyager 1 data into a beautiful (and super geeky) song

Outer space may be silent, but within the void lie symphonies waiting to be heard.

For years, scientists have tracked charged particles as they zoom through the cosmos, using deep space probes to measure the particles’ paths and mapping algorithms to translate the data into musical scores. Now a team of space-music buffs have premiered a new composition to celebrate one of NASA’s most ambitious missions using measurements from mankind’s most distance creation — the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

The composition was created by Domenico Vicinanza, a researcher at GÉANT, and Genevieve Williams of the University of Exeter. Together they turned forty-years of cosmic data into a three-minute score, featuring instruments like a violin, flute, French horn, and glockenspiel. It was recently premiered at the SC17 Supercomputing Conference in Denver, Colorado.

“As scientists we are intrigued and fascinated by the universe around us,” Williams told Digital Trends. “And we have a passion for space and space exploration in particular.”

“Space data arrives at NASA’s Space Physics Data Facility as numbers, not orchestral notes.”

Launched by NASA a little over four decades ago, Voyager 1 now throttles away from Earth at 17 m/s, carrying equipment that still manages to relay information to Earth despite being past its prime. After completing its primary mission in in 1980, the spacecraft embarked on an extended journey through the Solar System that would see it enter interstellar space and become to first probe to beam back data on from the medium beyond.

But this information arrives at NASA’s Space Physics Data Facility as numbers, not orchestral notes. To turn the data to music, the researchers use a process called data sonification.

“Sonification is the translation of information like numbers and scientific measurements into audible signals, like sounds, music notes, or melodies,” Williams said. “It is based on mapping certain characteristics of the initial information to audible parameters, for example the larger the number, the higher the pitch of the note.”

NASA

In the case of the Voyager 1 data, Vicinanza and Williams used an algorithm to map the time between measurements made by the spacecraft’s Low Energy Charged Particle (LECP) detector to intervals between notes on a scale. Increasing data became increasing pitch. Decreasing data became decreasing pitch.

“In this way the music inherited the structural characteristics of the data, its regularities, its character, its behavior,” Vicinanza said.

The idea that space holds music dates back at least to medieval Europe, and was explored by Johannes Kepler in Harmonices Mundi, in which the astronomer mapped the velocity of planets to pitches in order to express their elliptical orbits.

“What we did with Voyager 1 data is really similar to what Kepler did,”  Vicinanza said. “Our sonification is based on the measurements coming from the LECP, mapping the number of particles that reached the detector to sound. The higher the count, the higher the pitch. Every number from the detector becomes then a music note, creating a melody that follows the entire journey of the spacecraft.”

As a result, the score depicts Voyager 1’s journey, including its dramatic approaches to Jupiter and Saturn, and entrance into interstellar space. Like Kepler, Vicinanza and Williams hope their composition helps colleagues — and laypeople – appreciate and better understand the workings of the cosmos.

This isn’t the first time Vicinanza has turned science data into sound. In 2012, he transformed data about the Higgs Boson particle discovery into a musical motif, and a few years ago he created a separate composition from Voyager 1’s 37 years of data.

But the spacecraft won’t be able to beam back information forever. At some 140 astronomical units from the Sun, Voyager 1 can no longer rely on solar power, and its generators are only expected to last until about 2025. At that point, the probe will truly go silent.

Drones and smartphones help fight malaria in Tanzania

The fight against malaria has been improving, but there’s still lots more work to do. For one thing, anti-larval sprays are both expensive and time-consuming — you can’t always afford to spray an entire area. Thankfully, a mix of technology is making that mosquito battle more practical. Wales’ Aberystwyth University and Tanzania’s Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Programme have partnered on an initiative that uses drones to survey malaria hot zones and identify the water-laden areas where malaria-carrying mosquitoes are likely to breed.

An off-the-shelf drone (in this case, DJI’s Phantom 3) can cover a large rice paddy in 20 minutes, and the data can be processed in the space of an afternoon. You can discover and spray trouble zones within hours, preventing outbreaks from getting started. And there are expansion plans, too. The next step is to bring the drone imagery to smartphones to both guide the spraying teams and track their progress. Instead of having only a general idea of where to go, sprayers can make a beeline for affected areas and report back when they’re done.

It could be a while before drone-assisted spraying finds widespread use. There are concerns that drones may interfere with local wildlife and spark privacy concerns. The creators hope that familiarizing residents will make them more comfortable with the technology, though, and mindfulness could prevent clashes with the ecosystem. So long as that happens, it might be possible to virtually wipe out malaria in entire neighborhoods without having to spend a fortune or waste valuable hours.

Via: Quartz

Source: The Conversation

When cheap phones can do everything, what happens to flagships?

We’re getting to the point where Android, and the phones that run it, can all do the same thing. Where does that leave the flagships?

Have you heard? There are no more bad phones. The change happened slowly, almost invisibly, over the past couple of years, but the cycle is now complete.

How did it happen? The replacement of components with clear technological bottlenecks — thermally inefficient processors, terrible cameras, lifeless displays — with ones largely free of issues has catalyzed an industry. The proliferation of good cheap phones is the best thing to happen to the internet ever, in my opinion. We spend a good chunk of our time talking about the expensive and the beautiful, but what about the practical? The reliable? The good?

The problem is that good doesn’t garner the interest, and generate the clicks, that we need to run a media business. There is nothing salacious about fine, nor disruptive about usable.

The proliferation of power users is a direct result of the democratization of good, cheap Android phones.

But that belies the true size of the iceberg that lurks underneath, the hundreds of millions and billions of Android phones that will be sold in the years to come, almost all of which will be cheaper and better than we think, be it in the $50 range all the way to what we consider the mid-range, $500 or so. You can quibble over camera quality and app performance, but the reality is that as long as they’re running a recent version of Android, with a turnkey set of Qualcomm or MediaTek (or perhaps Samsung or Rockchip or any number of companies producing SoCs based on ARM’s architecture) chips, they’ll be fine.

Chances are, if you’re reading this on a phone — if you visit Android Central regularly — it’s not your first device. But there are millions of people across the world that have yet to gain access to the mobile internet, and there’s a good probability their first phone will run Android. We take for granted the tasks phones have replaced or made easier — I know I do — from simply browsing the internet to transferring money to keeping in touch. When the experience of such mundane tasks comes with almost no friction, the things that need to get done get done. It’s as simple as that. The software gets to do its job, and content gets consumed or created as the owner sees fit.

As phones become more capable of replacing other tools in our lives for mundane tasks, it becomes more difficult to justify spending all that money on the most popular and expensive phones. Those that choose to do so often call themselves “power users,” and our frenemy Android Authority has a great summary of what exactly that means in 2017.

But the central thesis assumes that there are devices out there, usually expensive, large, and with a focus on a particular demographic, that can do things other phones can’t. The ZTE Axon M, for example, can fold out to reveal two displays; the Razer Phone can fill a room with sound; the LG V30 can intelligently zoom to a subject when shooting video. These are great features, but they’re extensions of existing ones, not entirely new paradigms (though one can argue that the Razer Phone’s 120Hz display is disruptive in a whole new way).

I’m reminded of a blog post I read by analyst and investor, Ben Evans, about what we do on our phones.

Conversely, what is being done on ‘phones’ – or rather, on these small touch-screen computers that we all carry around with us? We write – people have been writing more on phones than on PCs since the days of SMS – and we share, take pictures, create videos, play games and talk to our friends. That is, we do most of things that those 90% of PCs are used for, but we also do everything that you can do with a touch screen and internet-connected image sensor, and GPS, and all the other things a PC doesn’t have, plus everything you can do with all of the billions of app downloads.

Every Android phone with access to the Play Store has roughly the same access to these billion-plus apps. Some may not work as well on older hardware, and certain games may not run at all, but the true mobile revolution is that most people can perform most important tasks on phones today, be it creating or consuming. There will always be a subset of users that need something more powerful, or larger, or more specialized, but just as fewer and fewer people need dedicated computers to get through a day, soon only a few people will need powerful expensive phones.

I think of a device like the BlackBerry Motion. It costs around $400. It doesn’t do anything better than anything else. It’s merely a good phone that represents the current ethos of what makes a great Android phone; decent hardware and a commitment to plugging holes in the software. Android is in a place right now where, without major feature updates, most people would be pretty happy with the experience for a few years. With hardware powerful enough to prevent “bit rot,” and a commitment to security, the proliferation of good, cheap Android phones is the best thing to happen to mobile in years.

That’s why you’re going to see us do a better job in the coming months and years covering these products in a way that elevates these devices to a place that, without sensationalizing them, acknowledges their importance in the industry. We already have a full set of rich buyer’s guide content in the under-$100 to under-$400 scale, but you’ll be seeing a lot more smart, level-headed commentary on why the category is so important.

And now, this:

• Black Friday was a big deal around these parts. If you didn’t have a chance to check out Thrifter’s live blog and overall coverage, Cyber Monday is going to be just as big a deal.
• Nice to see some older devices like the Sony Xperia XZ, OnePlus 5 and Nokia 8 getting Oreo.
• If you’ve been holding off getting a password manager because it’s too hard to use or doesn’t work with your platform of choice, may I ask you to reconsider?
• The fight for Net Neutrality is coming down to the wire. Let’s win this one.
• Remember Android Wear?
• I hope you Americans had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving!

See you in a few weeks,

-Daniel

Cyber Monday Stream: All of the best deals in real-time

Cyber Monday 2017 is here with all of its deals, and the Thrifter team will be covering all of it right here!

That’s right. Team Thrifter will be bringing you complete coverage of all things Cyber Monday right here, and we hope you’ll join us. Our live coverage of the fun will begin on November 26 at 10 p.m. EST. There will be deals from just about every retailer you can think of, and some will definitely be better than others. Cyber Monday deals have been known to sell out quickly, so this is the quickest way to be alerted to these deals as they are happening!

Join the Thrifter Deals Stream

Time’s struggle to adapt to digital brings it near a sale (update: official)

Time Inc. hasn’t had the easiest time adapting to an online world: although its brands have been pushing boundaries in digital storytelling, it has made some questionable decisions (MySpace, anyone?) and is in the midst of an overhaul that could see it selling print publications as it focuses on the internet. And now, it appears ready to receive a lifeline in a bid to stay afloat. Reuters sources claim that Meredith, the publisher of Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle, is close to a deal to buy Time for roughly $2 billion. The move would let Meredith boost its publishing chops while spinning out its broadcasting wing.

The insiders believe a deal could be announced sometime this week if it goes forward. Meredith has already tried to buy Time twice, first in 2013 and again earlier in 2017.

While an acquisition would keep one of the US’ best-known magazine publishers afloat (it’s responsible for Fortune and Sports Illustrated in addition to its namesake mag), there are worries about what this would mean in a country where media consolidation is becoming an increasing concern. An affiliate of the Koch brothers is reportedly backing Meredith’s bid, raising concerns that Time may lose its editorial voice if the conservative billionaire duo asks the publisher to mirror its political agenda. You may get more streaming video and VR productions, but at the expense of a diversity of opinions.

Update: And it’s already official. The deal will be worth about $2.8 billion and should wrap up in the first quarter of 2018 if it goes smoothly. Also, Meredith states that the Koch brothers won’t have board seats or have editorial control. While that may be reassuring to some, this could still lead to reduced competition in the media realm.

Source: Reuters