Fullscreen’s young adult streaming service is shutting down

Fullscreen, the social-first streaming service for teens and young adults, is going kaput. Deadline is reporting that the VOD platform will close shop next year to focus on original productions and branded video content. At least all those social media stars won’t be completely out of a job then.

If you didn’t bother to fork out $6 per month to watch docuseries My Selfie Life and relive Dawson’s Creek, you may need a Fullscreen refresher. Established in 2011 by former YouTube exec George Strompolos, the company is owned by Otter Media (a joint venture of AT&T and The Chernin Group). Last November, the streaming service was assimilated into AT&T’s internet TV plans, courtesy of a free trial for mobile customers.

After the demise of NBC’s Seeso comedy platform in August, Fullscreen’s death is more proof that niche online services are struggling to co-exist alongside wide-ranging rivals like Netflix and Amazon. Leveraging AT&T’s vast mobile subscriber base no doubt helped Fullscreen nab “hundreds of thousands” of paying customers and “millions” of app downloads. But, it simply wasn’t enough.

Yet, the company isn’t limited to its VOD service. After starting life as a talent network for online creators, Fullscreen Media snapped up YouTube behemoth Rooster Teeth in 2014, which it will continue to invest in, along with its branded content.

Via: Deadline

Here’s how to clean a Keurig in just a few simple steps

The Keurig has become a common device in homes and offices because of its convenience: There’s nothing like popping a K-Cup in and getting an instant cup of hot, fresh coffee. The machine’s invention has even sparked similar products for different food and drink. However, there are times when a Keurig isn’t so convenient — specifically, when it starts getting clogged up with grime and scale, then refuses to work properly.

Scale in particular can be frustrating: Water, primarily hard water, has a certain amount of trace minerals floating around in it. These mineral particles tend to react to high temperatures, which force them out of their harmless state and make them bond to nearby surfaces. As this happens over and over, a limestone-like layer, called scale, builds up. It means trouble for your Keurig, because it decreases water flow, makes it impossible to properly measure a cup, and can eventually block up your Keurig completely.

To get rid of scale, avoid nasty odors and mold, and make sure that your Keurig is functioning as flawlessly as possible, it’s important to clean it out. That’s why we made a quick guide that will walk you through how to clean your Keurig. We’ll show you the best way to clean out this coffee maker, where to start, and what materials to use. This is how to clean a Keurig.

1. Wash and wipe the reservoir and other removable parts

Start by unplugging the Keurig; you don’t want to damage the electronics or risk electrocution. Then remove all the components that you can, including the water reservoir, the mug stand/drip tray, and the K-Cup holder inside the coffee maker. Carry them all over to the kitchen sink and give them a thorough wash with soapy water, just like they were ordinary dishes. Set them aside to dry while you work on other components.

This is also a great time to take a washcloth or a wet paper towel and give the whole Keurig a good wipe down. The coffee maker, especially in busy settings, can collect a lot of dust over time. You don’t want any of that dust mixing with your fresh water or coffee when you’re finished here, so it’s a good idea to give the surface a general cleaning.

2. Clean all the crevices

Acquire a small cleaning brush (a toothbrush works well here), and a pin or paperclip. It’s time to give your Keurig a more detailed cleaning for the remaining components. While this may seem like an unnecessary step, it’s very important to ensuring the purity of your water and the quality of coffee you get from your machine. Over time, grit and grime can build up in the crevices of your Keurig, causing clogs and affecting taste. Get rid of this detritus to improve durability and performance.

Start by cleaning all around the K-Cup location, where the K-Cup holder is placed. Different Keurig models have slightly different insert methods, but the basics are the same. Use the brush to clean around the pod holder and the deep nooks in this part of the Keurig. Grit and lost coffee grounds tend to collect here. (A flashlight or good overhead lighting is helpful here.) A nearby bowl of water or cloth can help, but try to avoid using soapy water for this stage — that soap may prove difficult to get out, and you don’t want it tainting your coffee.

When that is finished, get out your pin/paperclip and examine those toothy components that poke into the K-Cups. There should be a small hole in each “tooth” for the hot water/coffee to pass through. Poke your pin through that hole and wiggle it around to loosen any caked-on debris and help remove any blockages. If your Keurig has been running slowly, it could be a clog in one of these holes that is causing it.

3. Run through with vinegar

Many Keurig components are inside the coffeemaker, well out of your reach. Fortunately, there’s an easier way to conduct an internal cleaning than dismantling the whole machine: Common kitchen vinegar is acidic enough to remove scale build-up but harmless to the rest of the Keurig. Take the water reservoir and fill it with half white vinegar and half fresh water. Lock it back into the Keurig base, put all the other components back in place, and get a mug handy: It’s time to make some hot vinegar.

Run the Keurig on normal settings and keep filling mugs with the vinegar mixture until it is completely gone. This is going to stink a little, but as we said, it’s not harmful for your Keurig and it will help remove that scale. It’s possible that a clog will form during this descaling process. If it does, open up the top and use your pin again to poke the holes and see if you can dislodge any particles that may have become trapped.

For a full cleaning, it’s a good idea to run two full reservoirs of half vinegar, half water. If your Keurig is still in good shape or you don’t have much time, a single full reservoir can work just fine.

Note: Keurig does sell a descaling solution of its own, if you really want a brand-name product to work with. White vinegar, however, is cheaper and easier to find. Also, the Keurig solution uses citric acid as its active ingredient and there are some complaints that the smell and taste linger past their welcome.

4. Wash out the vinegar with water

You don’t want that vinegar to stay in the Keurig, so fill the reservoir back up with fresh water and run through a full container again to flush it all out. Make sure it passes the smell test when it’s done. Once this is finished, your Keurig performance should be much improved, and scale problems should have literally dissipated.

It’s a good idea to repeat this type of cleaning on a consistent basis, especially if your Keurig sees a lot of action. Depending on your water source, Keurig recommends descaling your machine at least once every three to six months. Remember that hard water is more likely to cause problems than soft water. If you have scale issues, you may want to stay away from tap water and use filtered water or bottled water instead.

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Keep tabs on how the air affects your sleep with Awair

Want to know more about the air you’re breathing? Awair wants to help. When this smart home product first launched back in 2015, it simply collected information on the quality of the air around you. But now, Awair is growing up, and providing users not only information, but actionable insights as well. The company has just launched a Sleep Report feature in the companion app for both Await and Glow air quality monitors.

Promising to leverage algorithms to analyze air quality data, Sleep Report gives customers an overview of their sleep environment, and advice on how to improve sleep quality. Key data points tracked include temperature and CO2 levels, said to be the two factors that impact your repose the most. In addition, Awair and Glow track levels of dust, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and humidity. All of this is taken into consideration before giving users a Sleep Score, and tips on how to improve that score.

“Many people don’t realize that air quality can impact the quality of their sleep,” said Ronald Ro, Awair’s co-founder. “In fact, our data shows that over a third of our users are sleeping in less than ideal conditions in regards to their air quality. With the new Sleep Score feature, we’re now able to provide a benefit to even more people.”

This latest feature comes many months after Bitfinder, the company behind the air-monitoring device, partnered with Nest, the Amazon Echo, and IFTTT to help users of those services and products interact with Awair’s data — temperature, humidity, CO2, VOCs, and dust — and actually make actionable changes, when necessary, based on that information.

Awair’s integration with Nest will allow users to ventilate a room if CO2 levels are too high, or turn on a dehumidifier if it’s starting to get humid inside. Amazon Echo will allow users to actually ask questions about their air quality and have them answered quickly and accurately — Alexa will simply fetch the data from Awair and relay that information. Alexa can subsequently advise on how to improve air quality and otherwise use Awair’s technology to help make your breathing environment as safe and comfortable as possible.

Even if you don’t own a Nest or an Echo, you can still take advantage of Awair’s new partnership with IFTTT. That means that you can work with WeMo switches to control your air quality, or receive notifications on Slack and monitor air quality factors by way of a Google document. You can even create charts to keep tabs on trends in your air quality, should you be so inclined.

Ultimately, this new suite of integrations allows for Awair to become a more useful tool. Rather than simply telling users about their air quality, the device now helps users actually do something about it as well. Moving forward, it looks like Awair will be exploring how to make any and all air-quality devices smart by way of an attachment.

You can purchase the Awair for $199.

Buy on Awair Buy on Amazon

Update: Awair will now help you improve your sleep

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Scientists use a supercomputer to simulate one of history’s biggest quakes

The December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake is the third strongest recorded earthquake in history. Triggering a series of enormous tsunamis, the deadly quake ultimately caused the deaths of more than to 200,000 people in 15 countries — making it one of the most devastating natural disasters of all time. To try and learn lessons from it, German researchers from the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich recently used a SuperMUC supercomputer to reproduce the event, in what they claim is the biggest ever multiphysics simulation of an earthquake and tsunami.

This immensely challenging task was the result of five years of preparations in order to optimize the earthquake simulation software.

“Reality is complex — and earthquakes are a multi-scale and multi-physics problem,” Dr. Alice-Agnes Gabriel, the lead researcher from the LMU side of the team, told Digital Trends. “To gain insight into the geophysical processes of the earthquake, we [needed] to simultaneously calculate the complicated fracture of several fault segments and the subsurface propagation of seismic waves, and we [needed] to consider modeling domains, spanning hundreds of kilometers, as well as the tip of earthquake fronts which is releasing tectonic stresses on, at most, meter scale.”

C. Uphoff, S.Rettenberger, M. Bader, Technical University of Munich. E. Madden, T. Ulrich, S. Wollherr, A. Gabriel, Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität

The simulation took around 14 hours to complete, using all 86,016 cores of the SuperMUC, which performed nearly 50 trillion operations in the process. To perform the seismic wave propagation calculations alone, more than 3 million time steps had to be computed. According to the researchers, the work is so cutting edge that — just two years earlier — the computing time for the simulation would have taken 15 times longer.

As desirable as it would be to do so, Gabriel said that there is “no realistic hope” of researchers being able to predict earthquakes like this anytime soon. Instead, simulations such as this one are crucial because they can hopefully be used to help mitigate earthquake-related damage to infrastructure, societies, and economies.

“Our analysis will help with the development of more reliable early warning systems,” she said. The work may also help researchers to understand why some earthquakes and the resulting tsunamis are so much bigger than others.

In recognition of the researchers’ achievement, a paper describing this work was nominated for the “best paper” award at SC17, one of the world’s premier supercomputing conferences, currently taking place in Denver.

Editors’ Recommendations

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• Fiber optic lines could soon deliver earthquake detection, too
• Amazing new spray-on cement could help old buildings survive earthquakes
• Surf’s up! New information reveals the science behind Kelly Slater’s wave pool

Scientists use a supercomputer to simulate one of history’s biggest quakes

The December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake is the third strongest recorded earthquake in history. Triggering a series of enormous tsunamis, the deadly quake ultimately caused the deaths of more than to 200,000 people in 15 countries — making it one of the most devastating natural disasters of all time. To try and learn lessons from it, German researchers from the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich recently used a SuperMUC supercomputer to reproduce the event, in what they claim is the biggest ever multiphysics simulation of an earthquake and tsunami.

This immensely challenging task was the result of five years of preparations in order to optimize the earthquake simulation software.

“Reality is complex — and earthquakes are a multi-scale and multi-physics problem,” Dr. Alice-Agnes Gabriel, the lead researcher from the LMU side of the team, told Digital Trends. “To gain insight into the geophysical processes of the earthquake, we [needed] to simultaneously calculate the complicated fracture of several fault segments and the subsurface propagation of seismic waves, and we [needed] to consider modeling domains, spanning hundreds of kilometers, as well as the tip of earthquake fronts which is releasing tectonic stresses on, at most, meter scale.”

C. Uphoff, S.Rettenberger, M. Bader, Technical University of Munich. E. Madden, T. Ulrich, S. Wollherr, A. Gabriel, Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität

The simulation took around 14 hours to complete, using all 86,016 cores of the SuperMUC, which performed nearly 50 trillion operations in the process. To perform the seismic wave propagation calculations alone, more than 3 million time steps had to be computed. According to the researchers, the work is so cutting edge that — just two years earlier — the computing time for the simulation would have taken 15 times longer.

As desirable as it would be to do so, Gabriel said that there is “no realistic hope” of researchers being able to predict earthquakes like this anytime soon. Instead, simulations such as this one are crucial because they can hopefully be used to help mitigate earthquake-related damage to infrastructure, societies, and economies.

“Our analysis will help with the development of more reliable early warning systems,” she said. The work may also help researchers to understand why some earthquakes and the resulting tsunamis are so much bigger than others.

In recognition of the researchers’ achievement, a paper describing this work was nominated for the “best paper” award at SC17, one of the world’s premier supercomputing conferences, currently taking place in Denver.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Machine learning can predict simulated earthquakes by listening to fault lines
• Artificial intelligence could help us see farther into space than ever before
• Fiber optic lines could soon deliver earthquake detection, too
• Amazing new spray-on cement could help old buildings survive earthquakes
• Surf’s up! New information reveals the science behind Kelly Slater’s wave pool

Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact review

Research Center:
Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact

Sony has failed to keep up with the smartphone crowd over the last few years, but it’s one of few still making small phones that can pack a punch. The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact has the same cutting-edge processor, camera, and battery in as the flagship XZ1 . It’s fast, slick, and can be comfortably used one-handed. It stands out in a sea of large-screen phones, but it’s not an unqualified success. At $600, we wish Sony could have found a way to shrink the price tag as well as it did the hardware. There are things we like very much, but there are also some serious issues here.

Dull as ditchwater design

Sony still shows no interest in jumping on the bezel-less bandwagon, but it’s not just the large borders above and below the 4.6-inch display that bother us here. The XZ1 Compact is seriously chunky at 9.3mm thick.

The glass fiber plastic body feels and looks a bit cheap. We don’t like the seam where it meets the Gorilla Glass 5 on the front. Flat, angular, metal panels on the top and bottom accentuate the bulky look. It reminds us of a portable battery charger, which is not a pleasing aesthetic for a phone.

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

You’ll find a standard 3.5mm headphone jack at the top and a USB Type-C charging port on the bottom. On the left spine there’s a fiddly flap that houses incredibly thin plastic trays for the MicroSD card and the SIM card. Our SIM card tray proved a little tricky to open. The only advantage of these silly flaps is that you don’t need a SIM tray tool to open them.

The right edge has a lozenge-shaped power button in the middle with a volume rocker above and a camera shutter button at the bottom, perfectly placed for capturing shots when you hold your XZ1 Compact in landscape orientation.

We’re reviewing the U.S. version of the XZ1 Compact here, so the power button is just a power button. It’s worth noting that if you buy it anywhere else in the world the power button will also work as a fingerprint sensor. Sony has never adequately explained why it does this in the U.S., citing “business reasons,” but it is extremely annoying to have to use a PIN or pattern again.

The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact is a fast, slick device that can be comfortably used one-handed.

On the back there’s the camera lens at the top left, ringed with a shiny metal highlight, and a flash module in the middle. Flipping back over to the front, Sony has made some use of the big edges flanking the screen to include dual front-facing speakers, alongside the front-facing camera and other sensors.

Switching to the XZ1 Compact from the iPhone 8 was jarring in terms of design. These are similarly sized phones, but Apple’s all-glass sandwich is much more stylish and a full 2mm thinner than the XZ1 Compact.

We don’t even have to compare Sony’s latest with Apple’s to find fault. Casting our minds back to the Xperia Z1 Compact, which we loved, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Sony is going backwards on design. We should note, Sony said its phones will get a redesign, and expect to see this next year.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact comes in White Silver, Black, Twilight Pink, or Horizon Blue. Our review unit was blue, and the plastic body has a kind of metallic sheen to it.

You’ll find a dinky 4.6-inch display in the Xperia XZ1 Compact with a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels, which is adequate for a screen this size. The iPhone 8 is a hair sharper. The Compact’s colors are vibrant and it’s gets bright enough to see the screen outdoors.

We did not find ourselves missing the higher resolutions of other phones, but we did miss the size. It’s a lot easier to read on a phone like the HTC U11 or the Samsung Galaxy S8, but they’re obviously pack much larger screens.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact looks like quite a tough device and indeed it has an IP65/68 rating, but you must be very careful to shut the flap tightly before exposing it to water. Rain is nothing to worry about and it should survive a dunk in the bath.

Small, but speedy

If we had to highlight one good thing about the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact beyond its small stature, then we’d pick performance. With a Snapdragon 835 and 4GB of RAM inside, this phone is fast.

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

We had no issues playing games. From Asphalt 8 to Star Wars: Commander, everything loaded and ran smoothly. We also streamed some Netflix and tried out some music to test the front-facing speakers and they performed admirably.

General navigation is silky smooth, and the pleasing performance was confirmed when we ran the usual batch of benchmarks. Here’s how the Xperia XZ1 Compact scored:

• AnTuTu: 155, 583
• Geekbench 4 CPU: 1,834 single-core, 6,508 multi-core
• 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 3,501

Those are great scores that put the XZ1 Compact in the same performance category as Android flagships like the LG V30, the HTC U11 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they’re almost identical to the scores its bigger sibling, the Sony Xperia XZ1 got. Only Apple’s iPhones can best that – the iPhone 8 scored a massive 214,492 on AnTuTu.

Camera is a mixed bag

Sony makes excellent camera hardware, as evidenced by the fact that you’ll find Sony image sensors inside everything from Google’s Pixel 2 to the latest trio of iPhones. What it seems to struggle with is the software side and image processing, so hardware that sounds great on paper often under delivers in the real world.

With a Snapdragon 835 and 4GB of RAM inside, this phone is fast.

The XZ1 Compact boasts a 19-megapixel main camera with an f/2.0 aperture. That’s the same camera you’ll find in the XZ1 and the XZ Premium. Shooting with the default Superior Auto mode, most photos turned out very detailed with accurate colors, but we ran into two issues that bothered us.

Firstly, the autofocus jumped around a lot and we often struggled to get it to focus where we wanted. This resulted in several shots with blurry subjects. Secondly, and more problematically, we found that low light photos were filled with noise and distinctly fuzzy around the edges of objects like buildings or tree branches. We’re not talking about dark conditions here, just your average overcast day in Scotland.

Comparing the Xperia XZ1 Compact’s camera with a few phones we’ve used recently – the HTC U11 and iPhone 8 – we can unequivocally say it’s a disappointment. Too many of our photos looked smeared. There’s no optical image stabilization (OIS) — instead the Xperia XZ1 Compact relies on electronic image stabilization (EIS) and we wonder if that’s a part of the problem.

We do like the inclusion of the dedicated camera button, and while we though there’s a chance it could be introducing some movement that’s causing the blurring, switching to the onscreen shutter button didn’t make much difference. It’s a good camera overall, but it doesn’t match the latest flagships from competitors.

At $600, Sony is asking too much for the Xperia XZ1 Compact.

Most people won’t use it, but there is also an in-depth manual mode if you want to tweak your settings and explore the camera’s capabilities.

The front-facing camera is rated at 8 megapixels with an f/2.4 aperture and a wide 120-degree field of view that’s perfect for group selfies.

When it comes to video, the Xperia XZ1 Compact has a nifty trick up its sleeve – slow motion 960 frames per second at 720p. It can also record 4K at 30fps, and 1080p at up to 60fps. The slow motion feature is fun, but you really need good lighting or the resulting footage will be extremely noisy.

Android 8.0 Oreo with a Sony touch

We’re pleased to find that the Xperia XZ1 Compact runs the latest Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, because too many manufacturers lag on Google’s latest Android releases. But Sony has applied its own user interface over the top. It’s not as elegant as stock Android, but it looks and works just fine.

Sony does, unfortunately, feel the need to preload lots of useless apps, which is disappointing because this phone only comes with 32GB of storage and only around 20GB free out of the box. Thankfully, there is a MicroSD card slot for storage expansion.

The Xperia Lounge and Sony’s What’s New app are the worst offenders, but we quite liked the 3D Creator, which allows you to scan people or objects and create 3D models of them.

Serious stamina

Sony has packed the same 2,700mAh battery into the Xperia XZ1 Compact as you’ll find in the XZ1. The Compact has a much smaller, lower resolution display to power, so we’re not surprised to find the battery lasts much longer.

With medium use we always had plenty of battery life remaining at bedtime. The Xperia XZ1 Compact can even go two days before needing to be plugged in, if you’re careful.

Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact Compared To

Lenovo Moto G5S Plus

HTC U11 Life

Google Pixel 2

LG V30

Sony Xperia XZ1

Moto Z2 Force

Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom

Moto Z2 Play

Motorola Moto E4

Huawei Nova 2 Plus

Huawei Honor 8 Pro

Lenovo Moto G5 Plus

Meizu Pro 6 Plus

Fairphone 2

LG V10

It’s also quick to charge, with support for Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 via the USB-C charging port. When we tried it out, it went from 19 percent up to 79 percent in just under an hour. You can expect it to take about 2 hours to fully charge from near zero.

Price, availability, and warranty information

The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact has a standard one-year warranty that covers defects in design, materials, or workmanship. You’re not covered for accidental or water damage, so be careful.

You can buy the Xperia XZ1 Compact from online retailers like Amazon and it will cost you $600. It’s not available from carriers, but it supports GSM networks, so it will work just fine on networks like AT&T and T-Mobile. If you’re on Verizon or Sprint and don’t want to switch, then the Xperia XZ1 Compact is not for you.

Our Take

The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact is a decent phone with good battery life, great performance, and the latest version of Android. It’s a shame it’s too expensive, looks dull, the lack of a fingerprint sensor is irritating, and the camera simply isn’t as good as it should be.

Is there a better alternative?

At $600, Sony is asking too much for the Xperia XZ1 Compact. Just $50 more nets you the far superior HTC U11 or you could snag the OnePlus 5 for just $480. Both are much bigger, though.

If you prefer something smaller, check out the Essential Phone ($500) or the Google Pixel 2 ($650). They have their flaws, but they’re both better prospects than the Xperia XZ1 Compact and feel a little more contemporary.

If you don’t care about sticking with Android, then Apple’s iPhone 8 is worth a look. It’s a very similar size and it’s a better phone, but it does cost an extra $100.

How long will it last?

If you do buy a Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, then you can expect to get a couple of years out of it. There’s enough power there to future-proof it for the foreseeable. Our Xperia Z1 Compact lasted three years before the power button began to fail. We think you’ll get sick of the XZ1 Compact and want to switch it long before it actually gives out.

Should you buy it?

No. We think there are too many better options for most people. If you’re a die-hard Sony fan, or you have your heart set on a small form factor, and you live outside the States so the fingerprint sensor works, then the Xperia XZ1 Compact is worth considering. Everyone else can do better.

Editors’ Recommendations

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• The best cheap phones you can buy

Arrivo plans to have Colorado drivers in 200-mph Hyperloop-esque tubes by 2021

In the very near future, the fastest way to drive may be in a tube. On Monday, November 13, Colorado transportation officials in Denver announced a partnership with Arrivo to create a network of Hyperloop-esque high-speed tubes that will transport cars at up to 200 mph, USA Today reports.

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) will participate and projects Arrivo’s roadside tubes will mitigate driving congestion by dramatically reducing travel time. Colorado DOT estimates a 70-minute drive from downtown Denver to Denver International Airport will only be a nine-minute ride on Arrivo. The same is true for the usual hour-long drive from Boulder to Denver that would be reduced to just eight minutes.

Arrivo would install above-ground tubes next to existing highway right of ways where drivers can enter with their cars and be whisked away to their destination at super fast 200 mph speeds. The system uses magnetic levitation to float the vehicles at high speed, and electric power to propel them forward. This is similar to the system being tested by Arrivo’s rival company, Hyperloop One.

Even though Arrivo and Hyperloop One share similar technology, Arrivo wants to make it clear they are not the same. “We’re calling it the High Speed Super Urban Network, which isn’t as good as (the term) hyperloop. But we’re a pack of engineers,” Arrivo founder Brogan BamBrogan told The Denver Post. “Really, our focus is on ending traffic. That should be catchy enough for anybody, especially in Denver.”

Hyperloop One has also promised to cover hundreds of miles zipping cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Arrivo is focused on “regional and super-regional solutions,” according to BamBrogan. As far as the CDOT is concerned, that narrower focus makes Arrivo a better option than Hyperloop One. “It is futuristic. But just like Hyperloop One that has a test track in Nevada, they’re hitting their milestones with technology development. Arrivo believes in nearer to the future, not 30 years from now but the next few years,” CDOT executive director Shailen Bhatt told the Denver Post.

Arrivo plans to break ground on its test site near the 75-mile E-470 toll road in 2018. BamBrogan predicts Arrival’s first commercial system will be ready to use by 2021.

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Squeeze the most out of your phone with these handy HTC U11 Life tips and tricks

The HTC U11 Life is an excellent budget phone that offers many features from the flagship U11 at about half the cost. From its Alexa integration to Edge Sense, wade through our HTC U11 Life tips and tricks to squeeze the most out of your new smartphone. If you haven’t had a chance, check out our full review of the HTC U11 Life.

How to set up Edge Sense

First introduced with the HTC U11 earlier this year, Edge Sense lets you to squeeze the sides of the U11 Life to trigger certain functions. With either a short squeeze or long squeeze, you can open up a range of different apps including Alexa, Google Assistant, or the camera. In the initial setup, you’ll be prompted to activate Edge Sense. Simply squeeze the phone a few times, and select the sensitivity setting you prefer. If you’re prone to squeezing your phone now and then, you may want to choose the hardest squeeze option, so you don’t randomly activate apps. By default, you will only have one squeeze mode and it will open the camera, but you can head to Settings > Edge Sense to change it.

Tap on the box next to Enable Advanced Mode Enable, and you can now use Edge Sense in two ways — a short squeeze and a long squeeze. Tap on Customize short squeeze action, and Customize squeeze and hold action to pick the action you want for both modes. If you choose to open the camera with a squeeze, you can also do things like squeeze to capture a photo.

How to use the HTC Alexa app

Les Shu / Digital Trends

HTC and Amazon worked together to offer Alexa on the HTC U11 earlier this year, and the assistant is now available in the U11 Life as well. On the U11, the superior processor is capable of working with two trigger words — one for Google Assistant and one for Alexa. On the U11 Life, the processor isn’t as powerful and can only handle one trigger word. So, HTC went with the Google Assistant, and you can’t activate Alexa by saying its name. You will either need to open the HTC Alexa app or map it to Edge Sense to use it. Alexa works best when you’re invested in the Amazon ecosystem. If you have an Echo device or use a use a Kindle, Alexa integration is handy to have. You can use Alexa to turn on lights, adjust your thermostat, ask for the weather, or even turn on music.

How to use HTC Sense Companion

The HTC U11 Life has three different assistants. Alexa is great for people who love Amazon, Google Assistant is available like on most Android phones, and then there’s HTC Sense Companion. HTC Sense Companion works in the background, and it requires use of your phone for a few weeks before it can be helpful. It learns your patterns, and it can do things like recommend restaurants when it detects you’re in a new city; remind you of upcoming events; suggest when you may want to put your phone on the charger; and warn you about weather conditions. Open the HTC Sense Companion app in the app drawer to toggle on these settings. If you don’t like the floating Companion icon, you can simply swipe it to the top of the phone to get rid of it.

How to make the most of HTC’s USonic earbuds

Steven Winkelman/Digital Trends

HTC’s USonic are a pair of USB Type-C earbuds that come in the box of the U11 Life. They feature active noise canceling, which can help drown out external sound so you can focus on your music. It’s not great, and the sound quality is largely mediocre, but to make the most of the USonic, you can make sure the music is tuned to your hearing and preferences. Head to Settings > HTC USonic with Active Noise Cancelling. Put the earbuds in and follow the prompts on the screen. Once you complete the setup process, the USonic will create a sound profile based on the shape of your ears, so music will sound a little better and louder. If you want to make tweaks to your profile, simply go through the setup process again.

How to use Motion Launch gestures

Motion Launch gestures offer useful ways to interact with the U11 Life, but they’re hidden deep in the Settings menu. You can double tap the screen to wake it up or to turn it off, swipe to the left of the lock screen to go to the home screen, or swipe to the right to launch HTC’s news aggregating tool BlinkFeed. To set these up, go to Settings > Display, Gestures & buttons. Scroll to the very bottom of the screen and select Motion Launch gestures. Once you’ve opened the setting, you can select from the five different gestures that are currently available.

How to change themes

Not liking the look of the U11 Life? The HTC Themes app can help you choose from a number of free and paid themes, or even create your own custom one. Themes are incredibly easy to download. You can either open the HTC Themes app or just hold your finger on the home screen and tap on the Theme icon that appears. Before you can download or save a custom theme, you’ll have to create or sign into your HTC account. Once you’re signed-in, you can either select install on any theme or press the + sign to create your own. It’s not necessarily just changing your wallpaper, but app icons can get a makeover too.

How to turn BlinkFeed on or off

BlinkFeed sits on the left of the home screen, bringing social media updates, news content, and sometimes advertisements, to your phone. If you want to give BlinkFeed a shot, make sure you’re signed into all of your social media accounts and have an HTC account; HTC pulls information from these to update your feed. To access BlinkFeed, simply swipe right from your home screen. Grown tired of BlinkFeed? Luckily, it’s really easy to remove. Hold your finger on the home screen until the Edit Page icon appears. Once you’re in the edit screen, simply swipe right to select the BlinkFeed page and click the Remove button.

How to lock apps with Boost+

Boost+ is HTC’s utility app. Here, you can delete junk, optimize apps, and extend your battery life. While it’s pretty standard fare for an optimization app, one feature definitely stands out — you can lock any app. Open the Boost+ app and select the Lock button. On your first use, you’ll be prompted to set up a pattern to unlock your apps. Then, you just need to select the apps you want to lock. Now if you hand over your phone to a friend, they’ll have to ask you your pattern or pin (or for your fingerprint) to use select apps. Once the app is unlocked it will stay unlocked until your phone is locked or goes to sleep.

How to use the camera

Even though the camera on the HTC U11 Life is not as good as an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy smartphone, it’s still pretty great for a budget phone. To get the best photos, you’ll need to be in good light and be patient — the U11 Life doesn’t have image stabilization, so photos tend to get a little blurry if there’s any movement. There are several ways to open the camera. If you’ve left it as the default on Edge Sense, you simply need to squeeze your phone, otherwise just push the power button twice to get to the camera. Once you’re in the camera, pull down the menu at the top of the screen and you’ll see a list of options including Selfie Video, Selfie Panorama, Slow Motion, Hyperlapse, Panorama and Video. For more control, the U11 Life also offers a Pro mode. The Pro screen lets you control white balance, ISO, and exposure, while also saving your photos in RAW format.

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New 3D-printing technique uses UV light to print working electronic circuits

If you’re an electrical engineer, 3D printing has long been a valuable tool for carrying out tasks like printing prototype housings or cases for your projects. But the 3D printing of electronic components themselves is also a growing field. This is something researchers from the U.K.’s University of Nottingham are helping with — courtesy of a newly invented “breakthrough” approach to printing fully functional electronic circuits that could help transform the way we create components.

“Here at the Center for Additive Manufacturing, we’re exploring ways of developing additive manufacturing beyond single material deposition to the ability to manufacture a working system straight out of the machine,” Professor Chris Tuck, professor of materials engineering and lead investigator of the study, told Digital Trends.

The researchers’ new approach involves printing circuits made of electrically conductive metallic inks and insulating polymeric inks. These can be produced in a single inkjet printing process, using an ultraviolet light to solidify the inks. This solidification process takes less than one minute per layer, which is far quicker than other approaches that made it impractical to consider printing objects with hundreds of different layers.

The approach also allows for the printing of multiple materials in one object. The researchers hope that this will make it possible to print more ambitious electronic items in the future — for example, a wristband with both pressure sensor and wireless communication circuitry.

“This means we can begin to explore producing three-dimensional circuits and structures in a single manufacturing step,” Tuck continued. As with 3D printing as a whole, what makes this work exciting is that engineers would be able to more easily customize each item to a certain use case.

Tuck’s colleague, engineering research fellow Ehab Saleh, told us that the team has already been approached to use the technique to work on some “exciting applications,” although the researchers are not able to reveal specifics as of yet. “The outcome of the work could enable many real-world applications in electronics where a complete device with a complex geometry could be 3D printed with a press of a button,” Saleh said.

A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.

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Google estimates 1.9 billion usernames are available on the black market

Research carried out by Google in association with the University of California, Berkeley has established that there are 1.9 billion usernames and passwords being traded on the black market. What’s more, as many of 25 percent of these stolen credentials could actually be used to access a legitimate Google account.

The report used Google’s proprietary data to investigate whether or not the pilfered passwords would unlock the door to working accounts, according to Business Insider. Unfortunately, it confirmed that this is definitely the case, reaffirming the importance of proper online security.

“Through a combination of password re-use across thousands of online services and targeted collection,” reads the study. “We estimated seven to 25 percent of stolen passwords in our dataset would enable an attacker to log in to a victim’s Google account and thus take over their online identity due to transitive trust.”

This is the danger of using the same password across multiple sites and services — if it’s exposed in one data breach, attackers might be able to combine it with known usernames or email accounts to access various different accounts.

We’ve seen plenty of breaches that left user passwords out in the open in recent years. In 2012, millions of encrypted LinkedIn passwords were leaked to the web, while we’re only just starting to understand the scope of an attack on Yahoo that took place in 2013 — in October, reports circulated that some 3 billion accounts were affected.

The researchers offer up a few different methods that people can use to protect their accounts from unauthorized access. For example, they might use a password manager that creates bespoke entry key for each individual site or service they visit, without them having to remember each one for themselves.

It’s also considered a best practice to employ two-factor authentication, especially for important accounts. This means that anyone gaining access from a new device also needs to provide a code that is typically sent to a smartphone, or an approved email account.

Of course, choosing a secure password is a good start. The top three passwords from plaintext leaks analyzed in this study were ‘123456,’ ‘password,’ and ‘123456789,’ none of which are particularly strong.

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