Sports Illustrated TV streams movies, shows and more for $5 a month

With Disney kicking off its own competitively-priced streaming content service in 2019, many media brands are jumping on the bandwagon. Tomorrow, Time Inc will launch one of its own: Sports Illustrated TV, which will initially be available only on Amazon Channels. The $5-per-month network will start with 130 hours of content, including studio shows, sports films and Sports Illustrated’s lauded documentary series.

“It gives us a way to optimize what people most value about Sports Illustrated: deep storytelling and journalism that matters,” Sports Illustrated Group editor in chief Chris Stone told The Wall Street Journal. “Our stories will translate very well to a streaming platform, and we’re approaching stories from both perspectives.”

But the new service also reflects the media group’s move away from print. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out, the magazine cut down its projected issue count down to 27 in 2018, down from 38 in 2017.

Sports Illustrated TV will get some competition next spring ESPN’s on-demand streaming service goes live. But it’s important to note that the latter will provide a different, gameday-focused slate of content than SI’s in-depth journalism. Whether fans want to pay for a streaming service that won’t give access to their favorite team’s games is another story.

Kids can build their own Star Wars video game with Bloxels

There are a whole host of apps and games that are aimed at teaching kids to code, but not all of them come with stellar IP partnerships. But that’s just what Bloxels, Pixel Press’s video game building system aimed at teaching kids how to be content creators, has. Today, Pixel Press and the toy company Mattel announced that the companies were partnering to release a Star Wars edition of Bloxels. You can buy it today for $50 at retailers nationwide.

Bloxels aim to help kids learn about the mechanics of video game design and storytelling by putting them in control of creating a game. The build-and-play platform allows kids to put their games together using colored blocks on a game board. They can then set their game in one of many different popular Star Wars environments, such as Hoth, Mos Eisley or the Death Star.

It’s a big get for Bloxels, for sure. Star Wars is one of the biggest franchises out there, and it’s great to see its immense popularity used for something good. After all, kids are more likely to be interested in something educational when it’s tied to a property they love.

Amazon Echo and Google Home were vulnerable to Bluetooth exploit

Back in September, Bluetooth-connected device owners got a little scare when security firm Armis disclosed a new hack exploit known as BlueBorne. In theory, bad actors could target smartphones, tablets and such using specific vectors in Bluetooth connectivity. Armis had informed Apple, Microsoft and Google months before and they patched up the vulnerabilities ahead of the news release. But today the firm disclosed that it wasn’t just handheld devices that might have been affected — Amazon’s Echo and Google Home were vulnerable, too.

Once again, Armis notified the companies in question long enough for them to patch out the vulnerabilities, so updated devices should be safe. (Echo owners can verify for themselves by making sure their devices are using version v591448720 or newer.) But the firm noted in its release that each of the 15 million Amazon Echoes and 5 million Google Homes sold were potentially at risk from BlueBorne.

The former used Linux code that could have been targeted by a remote code execution vulnerability in the Linux kernal, while the latter had an information leak vulnerability in Android’s Bluetooth stack. That means Amazon Echoes could have been taken over and Google Homes shut down via denial-of-service. Below, Armis simulated how an Echo would be taken over.

Just like the other BlueBorne vulnerabilities, users wouldn’t have known if their Echoes or Homes had been affected. But those devices posed additional risk given that they’re constantly listening to Bluetooth communications and, thanks to their limited UI, there’s no way to turn it off.

Via: Mashable

Source: Armis

Google Home can send third-party apps to your phone

Google Assistant already has its share of third-party apps, but that experience doesn’t usually leave the device where it starts. You can’t make a request on your Home speaker that needs an answer on your phone. Thankfully, Google is about to fix that. It’s introducing a slew of developer upgrades that include a new framework for passing third-party app experiences from Assistant-equipped speakers like Home to your phone. If you’re ordering food, you can start the request by asking your speaker and review the details on your handset.

Other additions aren’t quite so dramatic, but they’ll be noticeable. Apps will have a more personal touch: they can remember a handful of details, and give you a polite goodbye message. You can soon ask for daily updates (say, for medicine reminders) and get Assistant-based push notifications on your mobile devices.

Google is promising to make Assistant app discovery easier, too. The on-phone Assistant app directory includes “what’s new” and trending sections, more subcategories to reflect the tasks you want to accomplish, family-friendly app labels and support for apps in Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portugese and Indian English.

Don’t expect to use speaker-to-phone handoffs or other Assistant features right away. Developers will have to roll these features into their apps. When they do, though, third-party Assistant apps will be that much more useful — they should feel more like integral experiences that rise up to the level of Google’s own AI-driven commands.

Source: Google Developers

LinkedIn’s Career Advice is ready to find you a mentor

Finding someone to help you advance your career can be tricky. After a limited trial in August, LinkedIn is rolling out its Career Advice feature to all its members in the US, UK, India and Australia. According to the company, more than 80 percent of professionals on the site have indicated a willingness to be a mentor or have one.

To start, you’ll just enter information on the type of person you’re looking for career advice from, then swipe your way through potential advisors (or advisees), like Tinder for business help. The company says the new feature is mostly for “lightweight mentorship opportunities,” with advice on your own career path, best practices on a specific project you’re working on or even switching to a new industry. LinkedIn also says that its looking at ways to help mentors find mentees in certain communities, “like people facing unique barriers to economic opportunity.” Like a dating app, though, LinkedIn is simply providing the connections; the rest is up to you. Still, with a claimed 530 million people on LinkedIn, the chances are good that you’ll find something (or someone) worthwhile.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: LinkedIn

Postmates’ first food deliveries outside the US start in Mexico City

Lyft isn’t the only major American online service dipping its toes in foreign waters this week: Postmates is starting its first food deliveries outside of the US with a launch in Mexico City. Hungry people in several districts of Mexico’s capital can order from 1,000-plus restaurants with a 35-peso ($1.80) delivery fee and typical delivery times around 35 minutes. To make itself part of the community, it’s both donating 10 percent of sales to earthquake recovery through the rest of 2017 and is giving customers 1,000 pesos (about $52) in delivery credit until December 15th.

The move is an acknowledgment that there are limits to how much a US-only service can grow. If Postmates is going to achieve the same scale as rivals like UberEats (which already operates in Mexico City), it has to serve similar areas. After all, those courier robots won’t pay for themselves.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Postmates (Medium)

Marco Arment Argues the 2012—2015 MacBook Pro is ‘Best Laptop That Has Ever Existed’

Marco Arment, a developer best known for co-founding Tumblr and creating apps Instapaper and Overcast, believes the 2012 to 2015 era 15-inch MacBook Pro is “the best laptop that has ever existed.”

2015 15-inch MacBook Pro
“Introduced in 2012, less than a year after Steve Jobs died, I see it as the peak of Jobs’ vision for the Mac,” said Arment in a blog post this week.

The 2012 model was the first MacBook Pro with a Retina display, and had a much slimmer design compared to previous models after Apple removed the built-in Ethernet port and optical disc drive for CDs/DVDs.

Apple refreshed the 2012 model in each of the following three years, but kept the external design largely the same.

Arment sees value in the 2012 to 2015 model’s array of connectivity options, including a pair of Thunderbolt and USB-A ports, an HDMI port, a SD card slot, and a MagSafe power adapter that breaks away safely if it’s tripped over.

2015 15-inch MacBook Pro
By comparison, the 2016 and later MacBook Pro has two or four Thunderbolt 3 ports that handle power, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA, resulting in Apple removing dedicated USB-A, HDMI, SD card, and MagSafe connectivity from the notebook.

He added that the 2012-2015 keyboard has a “crowd-pleasing design” and that the trackpad strikes a “great balance between size and usability.”

2016 and later MacBook Pro models have a slimmer keyboard with a second-generation butterfly mechanism that has less key travel than 2012-2015 models, and a larger trackpad that is closer to the keyboard.

Apple packed a smaller 76 watt-hour battery pack into the latest MacBook Pro models, and while the notebooks are rated for up to 10 hours of battery life between charges, there were several early complaints in real-world usage.

All of these changes generated some controversy within the Apple community, particularly among professionals, so Arment’s opinion is sure to resonate with some users, including among customers who refuse to upgrade.

Despite some early complaints, however, the MacBook Pro appears to be selling very well for Apple. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Mac set a new all-time revenue record of $25.8 billion in the 2017 fiscal year, with sales fueled primarily by “great demand” for the MacBook Pro in particular.

We sold 5.4 million Macs during the September quarter, up 10 percent over last year, and gained significant market share as the global market contracted by one percent, according to IDC’s latest estimate. This performance was fueled primarily by great demand for MacBook Pro, and Mac revenue grew 25 percent to a new September quarter record.

For now, Apple continues to sell the 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro in a single configuration with a 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD storage, and integrated Intel Iris Pro graphics for $1,999 in the United States.

Full Article: “The best laptop ever made” by Marco Arment

Related Roundup: MacBook ProTag: Marco ArmentBuyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Neutral)
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Mandagon: A short but captivating Tibetan adventure (Review)

After some really dark times in the Play Store, we are starting to see a big crop of games that focus on providing an unparalleled experience rather than being a platform built around microtransactions. As consumers, this means high-quality games with experiences that are enjoyable and not frustrating. As developers, this means recognition, customer loyalty, and, hopefully, more money. The latest game to embrace this philosophy is Mandagon, a platformer that does a splendid job in immersing you into a mysterious world thanks to superb visual design and audio effects.

Developer: Blind Sky Studios
Price: $1.99

Overview

Notice how there is no setup section? That’s because this game has no setup. Mandagon throws you right into the action without any kind of tutorial, introduction, or any other artifact that might slow you down.

You have a virtual joystick and the whole screen serves as your jump button. In case that’s not enough, when you get close to specific objects, such as stairs or doors, the game will show a popup on top of your character so that you can enter buildings or activate elevators. Since there is no combat or anything close to it, then there’s no other combinations to memorize.

Because of this simplistic approach, the game doesn’t show you any backstory either, which means that, from the moment the game starts, you might have questions that will go unanswered at first. Where are you? What is your purpose? What are you? There’s no dialogue, no NPCs, no narrator. You are on your own controlling what seems to be a square Pacman made of stone.

In order to tell you more about what are you doing and what is your purpose, there are totems around that will give you some very cryptic messages. However, after reading more and more of these seemingly useless snippets, you get to infer the backstory behind it. I won’t spoil it, but it’s a bit tragic.

General Impressions

Mandagon is, at its core, a platformer. As I told you before, at first you are limited to jumping from one platform to another. However, as you progress through the game, there are multiple external elements that will help you on your journey.

For example, there are a lot of wooden elevators that help you through big vertical distances. There is some kind of underwater geysers that help you reach highers distances that would be impossible with your regular jump. There’s even a weird machine that lets you “fly” through a finite distance. They are all effective in breaking the monotony that would come from jumping on your own through this mysterious world.

Your goal is to get several stone tablets and then place them in shrines. Both elements are scattered throughout the world so you will have to walk through all of it in order to fulfill your mission.

There are no enemies, nor there is a way of dying. This is not meant to be a competitive game, but a relaxing one. You are supposed to sit back, admire your surroundings, enjoy the soundtrack, and have a good time.

Unfortunately, that “good time” doesn’t last long. I’ve seen people completing the game in as little as 30 minutes. I am not that skilled, so it took me a little less than one hour and a half to see the credits. Still, that is rather short, which is a shame. The game creates this intriguing, captivating mood to then end so suddenly.

Graphics and Sound

Normally, pixel graphics and detail don’t go hand in hand, but this is not the case for Mandagon.

This is especially true for your surroundings, which have very subtle details that make them look better than what you would normally find in a regular pixel-style game. Small stuff like vines under platforms, irregularities in the roof of buildings, and very detailed portals make up for an impressive graphical experience.

Even though pixel graphics means that the GPU and processor are being less used, the game still manages to heat my mobile device a little bit more than other games I’ve played. This never became such an issue to become uncomfortable during my sessions, but it was a strange thing to experience nonetheless.

Regarding sound, Mandagon uses eerie, mysterious music so that you really get into the mood of the game. The background track is almost completely devoid of regular instruments at first, just playing to some kind of piano-meets-bell sound every couple of seconds that, frankly, sounds really eerie. Wind blows at all times to remind you of your loneliness in this world. Also, the game reacts to actions like jumping, landing into platforms, and diving into water.

As you progress through the game, the music starts to change and add more elements to it. It’s such a great thing because it coincides with the game giving you more clues about what is going on. Both the visual and music part converge to create a little less uncertainty as you move forward.

It seems like a lot of effort was put into creating a top-notch audiovisual experience, and the result has paid off. Mandagon is truly a superb work in both departments, and they make you enjoy the game more by immersing you into this mysterious world.

Conclusion

Mandagon has one goal in mind: to capture you and immerse you into this world that provides more questions than answers. It manages to create a mystic and enigmatic environment which provides hints as you roam its passages. The only problem? It is too short. You can easily complete it in one sitting, and there’s nothing to be done after it. However, the experience it provides in this small time is truly astounding and worthy of checking out if you are looking for some short but sweet entertainment.

Download and install Mandagon from the Google Play Store.

The Monster Firecracker packs a big punch in a small package

If you do a simple search for “Bluetooth speakers” on Amazon, you’re going to get an endless list of options that may make your head spin. Part of our responsibility here at AndroidGuys is to help you figure out which options are the best, and that brings us to our latest review.

Today, we’re taking a look at the Monster Firecracker to see if it stands up to the overwhelming love that Matt gave the $450 Monster Superstar Ravebox.

Starting off with the basics, let’s get this out of the way. The Monster Firecracker is priced at either $130 from Monster or $100 from Amazon, far less than the $450 price tag of its much bigger brother.

Overall Design

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s take a look at what you get in the box and the overall design. There is a simple micro-USB to USB Type-A cable which will allow you to recharge the Firecracker. There is also a lanyard and a carabiner which will let you carry it with you on a backpack or even a belt loop (although it is a bit hefty). Then there’s just the boring paperwork and warranty information which will end up in your trash can or in the back of a drawer.

Once the Firecracker is out of the packaging, you’ll see the iconic Monster logo facing you, indented into the speaker grille. Moving to the right-end of the Firecracker, there are four buttons – Power, Volume Up, Volume Down, and Flashlight. Speaking of the flashlight, the left-end of the Firecracker comes equipped with a rather large LED light to help you navigate around.

On the rear of the Firecracker, you’ll see a small rubber flap, which is home to both the 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as the micro-USB charging port. You’ll also find a little hook where you can place either the lanyard, carabiner, or both. On the bottom of the pyramid speaker, you’ll find two rubber feet, which will help the Firecracker stay in place while the music is pumping.

Sound Quality

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I am by no means an audiophile. I am, however, someone who loves headphones and speakers and looks to find the best option available for me.

As for where the Monster Firecracker sounds, you may be pleasantly surprised by what’s offered here. Monster is known for providing great sounding speakers, but the Firecracker seemingly offers a good balance of punch and treble, making this speaker wonderful for parties.

If you aren’t one who is all about the bass, then the Firecracker may be a bit too much, but even when listening at lower volumes, you’ll still have a great experience. All-in-all, the Monster Fircracker offers a good balance of bass and treble to keep the party rocking, even if it ends up annoying the neighbors.

Conclusion

Would the Monster Firecracker be my first choice for a new Bluetooth speaker? Probably not. Is it one that I would recommend to those who don’t want something cheap? Absolutely.

Monster is a trusted brand that has been around for years, and the Firecracker is the latest showcase of what “big sound in a small package” looks like. As for me? I’ll be taking this speaker with me on some upcoming trips that I have to make sure that the party keeps going.

If you want to snag a Firecracker for yourself, you can either get one from Monster directly for $129.99 or you can head over to Amazon, save a few bucks, and get one for $99.

Buy the Monster Firecracker!

Make the most out of Google with this list of ‘OK, Google’ commands

One of the most useful things about using Google is the voice commands. Using just your voice you can command your device to do many things on your behalf. It’s fast, convenient, and still feels a bit like the future. The complete list of “OK, Google” commands and compatible apps has grown considerably over time, meaning there are likely things you can do with Google that you’re not even aware of. To find out more, check out how to get the most out of Google Now and everything you need to know about Google Assistant.

If you own an Android device, you might want to turn on “OK, Google” so that you can start using this feature without having to tap the microphone icon. The first thing we need to do is make sure this feature is turned on, so let’s see if it is.

Turning on ‘OK, Google’

Open your App Drawer, and open the Google app.
Tap the Hamburger menu () in the upper-left corner, and go to Settings.
Go to Voice > OK, Google detection, and turn on From any screen.
Follow the instructions to train your phone to respond to your voice.
If you’re having trouble when you say “OK, Google,” and it doesn’t seem to be working for you, then you can turn off Trusted Voice in the ‘OK, Google’ detection settings. The software may be having a hard time recognizing your voice.

Now that it is turned on, we can start using “OK, Google.” Let’s take a look at all the different commands you can use with your device. All you have to do is say “OK, Google,” and Google will start listening to your commands. You can always tap the microphone icon and issue a voice command, if you prefer not to use the “OK, Google” feature.

Searching and asking questions

Asking Google about anything

• “How old is [name]?”
• “Where was [name] born?’
• “Who invented [anything you want to find].”

Searching the internet

• “Browse [nameofwebsite.com],” when you want to go directly to the website.
• “Go to [name of website],” when you want it to appear in a Google search.

Sports

• “How is [say the name of the team] doing?”
• “Results from [say the name of the team] last game.”
• “When is [say the name of the team] next game?”
• “Did [say the name of the team] win the last game?”

Stocks

• “What is [name] stock price?”
• “What is [name] trending at?”

Defining words

• “What is the definition of [say the word].”
• “Define [say the word].”

Google account and privacy settings

You can always get to your Google account settings, but there is a difference between using the word “Open,” “Show,” and “Adjust.” For example, saying “Open my Google security settings” will open a card for you to select your security settings, but using the word “Adjust” instead of “Open” will actually get you to the security settings page directly.

You can say:

• “Open Google account settings.”
• “Show my Google search history.”
• “Adjust my Google privacy settings.”
• “Adjust my Google security settings.”

Messaging, notes, and music

• “Show me my messages.”
• “Text [name of contact] [say the message].”
• “Send an email to [say the contact name] [say what you want to write in the email].”
• “Call [say the name of the contact].”
• “Call [say the name of the contact] on speakerphone.”

Other messaging, music, and social apps that work with “OK, Google”

If you want to send a message with Viber, and not your default text messaging app, then you would say, “OK, Google, send a message with Viber.” You can also try commands such as “take a note with Evernote,” or “search for car videos on YouTube.”

These are the apps that are compatible with “OK, Google”:

• Google Hangouts — “Send a hangouts message to [say name].”
• Evernote — “Make a note with Evernote.”
• Whatsapp — “Send a Whatsapp message to [say contact name].”
• Viber — “Send a message with Viber.”
• Telegram — “Send a Telegram message to [say contact name].”
• YouTube — “Search [say what you want to search for] on YouTube.”
• Pandora — “Play [name of song] on Pandora.”
• Google Music — “Listen to [name of song].”
• Facebook — “Post [say your message] on Facebook.”
• Twitter — “Post [say your message] on Twitter.”

Other to-do and notes apps that work with “OK, Google”

These note apps all work by saying “Make a note with [name of app]”

• Wunderlist
• Trello
• OneNote
• Catch
• Google Keep

Editors’ Recommendations

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