China’s censors have taken down 13,000 websites in 3 years

It’s no secret that China is fond of censorship. Now, however, the country has divulged numbers that give a sense of that crackdown’s scale. A report from the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has revealed that China has either shut down or revoked licenses for more than 13,000 websites since the start of 2015, or just under 3 years ago. It had also prompted the closure of nearly 10 million internet accounts (most likely social network accounts). To no one’s surprise, there’s a heavy amount of spin on the reasons these sites and accounts were taken down.

The state-backed media outlet Xinhua said these closures were meant to protect the “party’s long-term hold on power, the country’s long-term peace and stability, socio-economic development and the people’s personal interests.” Of course, it’s that first part that China’s officials are really concerned about. While the country has fought against porn, rumors and terrorism, a large amount of its energy has been spent on preventing residents from seeing uncensored news and communicating privately online.

Accordingly, officials added that over 10 million accounts had been suspended due to people refusing to use their real names. China had ostensibly implemented the measure to curb rumors and salty language, but it’s widely believed to be an effort to silence dissent by making it easy to identify political opponents.

Like it or not, these takedowns aren’t likely to relent any time soon. China has been implementing ever-stricter digital laws in recent months, and not just to suppress opposition during its National Congress this October. The government has grown increasingly nervous about the ability to elude its filters and monitoring tools, and it’s not about to let a site stay up if it makes that evasion any easier.

Via: Reuters

Source: Xinhuanet

Getting to Know Your New iPhone X – What’s Different

Rumors originally suggested the iPhone X would be tough to get through the holidays, but Apple significantly ramped up supply, so it’s been relatively easy to get a new iPhone X ahead of Christmas.

That means lots of new iPhone X devices are getting unboxed today, and if you’re coming from an iPhone 8 or later, it’s a big adjustment. Those of us who have been using an iPhone X since November can confirm that it takes a bit of time to get used to all of the changes in the device, but within a week or two, you won’t even miss that Home button.

We’ve shared a lot of details on the iPhone X over the course of the last month, and this post resurfaces some of that content along with a few new tidbits and tricks that will help you get used to your iPhone X more quickly.

The iPhone X Interface

Not having a Home button is on the iPhone X is the most immediately jarring change, because there are new and unfamiliar gestures to learn.

Instead of pressing on the Home button to get to the Home screen of the iPhone X, you swipe up from the bottom of the display. This minimizes any app that’s open.

On earlier iPhones, a double tap on the Home button brought up the App Switcher, but on iPhone X, you swipe up from the bottom and then pause for a moment to get to the App Switcher. Closing apps is no longer done with a single swipe — you’ll need to hold again on an app in the App Switcher until the red “-” appears, and then tap it or swipe up on the app.

To activate the display of the iPhone X to see your notifications, you can use a new “Tap to Wake” gesture, which, as the name suggests, means you just tap a finger on the inactive display. Pressing the side button also works.

Getting to the Control Center is going to be one of the most difficult gestures to learn. Instead of swiping up from the bottom like you’re used to, you swipe down from the top of the status bar that displays battery life and cellular signal.

A swipe down from the top of the iPhone X anywhere else on the display brings down the Cover Sheet of the Lock screen so you can see all of your notifications. Accessing Siri is now done by pressing twice on the side button instead of holding down on the Home button.

Additional Reading:

• 6 Interface Tricks for iPhone X
• Top 10 iPhone X Tricks
• iPhone X First Look

The Notch

The iPhone X has an edge-to-edge display that does away with all bezels, except for a “notch” at the top of the device. Many criticized this design decision ahead of the release of the iPhone X, but in practical use, it’s something you acclimatize to after a week or two of using the iPhone X, and it fades into the background instead of being a focal point whenever you’re using the phone.

Apple needed the notch to hold all of the sensors for the TrueDepth camera, but it was implemented in a way that takes up as little space as possible, with two ears at the sides that house status information.

Apple, in developer materials, encourages developers to embrace the notch rather than to hide it away, and that’s the path most apps and games have taken. In portrait mode, the notch is easy to ignore, but it will be a bit harder to get used to in landscape mode.

Additional Reading:

• Embracing the Notch
• iPhone X Notch: Everything You Need to Know
• Apple Approves Notch Remover App for iPhone X
• Prime Real Estate: The Fight for Space in the iPhone X

The Display

The iPhone X is the first iPhone from Apple to feature OLED technology for true-to-life colors, deep blacks, and an improved contrast ratio. At a resolution of 2436 x 1125 with 458 pixels per inch, it has the highest resolution and pixel density ever introduced in an iPhone.

It is the best display we’ve seen in an iPhone, and it’s one of the features you’re likely to fall in love with immediately after unboxing the iPhone. It supports HDR, wide color, 3D Touch, and True Tone for adjusting the white balance of the display to match the ambient lighting.

Additional Reading:

• Apple Says Minor Screen Burn-In and Shifts in Color When Looking at iPhone X Off-Angle Are Normal

Face ID

Face ID, like the removal of the Home button, is a major change in the iPhone X. A fingerprint is no longer required to unlock your iPhone because it’s using a 3D facial scan instead. Face ID works through a TrueDepth Camera system that projects thousands of tiny dots onto your face, which are read through an infrared camera.

For most people, Face ID is as secure as Touch ID, but it can sometimes be fooled by masks, twins, and children.

Face ID is identical to Touch ID in terms of what it’s used for (Apple Pay, device unlocking, password replacement in apps), it just uses your face instead of your finger. Developers have no access to Face ID data, nor does Apple, so it’s just as secure as Touch ID.

Built-in machine learning features allow Face ID to adjust to facial changes. It can recognize you with sunglasses on, when you grow a beard, when you cut your hair, when you wear a scarf, and in other similar situations.

Additional Reading:

• Apple Shares In-Depth Face ID Security Info
• Face ID Unlocked With Mask
• Face ID Twin Tests
• 10-Year Old Unlocks Face ID on Mother’s iPhone
• Face ID is Faster than Touch ID in Day-to-Day Usage
• Face ID Works With Sunglasses
• Face ID Works in the Dark, With Hats, and With Beards

Animoji and Third-Party Apps

The TrueDepth Camera isn’t just used for Face ID — it powers a new feature called Animoji, which are animated characters that mimic your facial expressions. Animoji live in the Messages app, so you can send friends and family messages featuring animated characters with your voice and facial expression.

Animoji were popular just after the release thanks to “Animoji Karaoke,” designed to make it look like the Animoji characters were singing hit songs, but that has died out over the last few weeks.

The TrueDepth Camera can send a rough facial map of your face to developers for ARKit apps. Snapchat, for example, can use this additional data from the TrueDepth camera to make its built-in facial filters more realistic than ever before.

Additional Reading:

• Privacy Advocates and Devs Raise Concerns About Third-Party App Access to TrueDepth Camera
• Animoji Karaoke Takes Over Social Media Following iPhone X Launch

Apple Pay

Apple Pay on iPhone X is as simple to use as Apple Pay with devices that have Touch ID, but the checkout process is different.

Instead of confirming a payment with a finger on the Touch ID Home button, you’ll need to unlock your iPhone X with Face ID, hold it down towards the payment terminal, and then press twice on the side button. The video below walks through the steps required:

Wireless Charging

You can still charge the iPhone X via Lightning port like any other iPhone, but it also supports wireless charging functionality. It will work with any Qi-certified wireless charger, with or without a case (with the exception of cases with a very thick back, aluminum cases, or cases with built-in magnets).

Wireless charging is about as fast as charging with the standard 5W wired charger from Apple, but it’s slower than other wired charging methods and charging speeds can vary based on factors like ambient temperature and the amount of power being delivered by the charger.

Aditional Reading:

• iPhone X Charging Speeds Compared
• iOS 11.2 Supports Faster 7.5W Wireless Charging on iPhone X
• Comparison: Belkin and Mophie’s Wireless Chargers
• Discounted and Upcoming Qi Charging Pads

Cameras

Compared to older iPhones, the iPhone X cameras operate in much the same way, but there are some improvements and tweaks to be aware of. The iPhone X’s rear-facing cameras are vertical rather than horizontal, but in practice, they work the same way.

Portrait mode, limited to the rear-facing camera in older Plus iPhone models, is available on both the front and rear facing cameras on the iPhone X. With the front camera, Portrait Mode is enabled through the TrueDepth camera system.

The rear facing camera is much improved, with an improved 12-megapixel sensor, new color filter, and a new image signal processor for better automatic adjustments and faster autofocus. Also new is optical image stabilization for the telephoto camera, meaning better portraits and an overall improvement to both lenses in the device.

For both the front and rear cameras in the iPhone X, there’s a new Portrait Lighting effect that works alongside Portrait Mode to let you adjust the lighting in your image to introduce studio-quality effects.

For video, iPhone X supports 4K video at up to 60 frames per second and slo-mo video at up to 240 frames per second, and all of the aforementioned new hardware brings better stabilization for reduced blur and shakiness.

Additional Reading:

• iPhone X Camera Overview: Portrait Lighting, Video Improvements, Front-Facing Portraits and More
• iPhone X Low Light Photography Test Demonstrates Improved Telephoto Lens

Other Features

There are a ton of other new features in the iPhone X, including a new battery design for more battery life and an A11 Bionic processor that’s incredibly fast and powers all of the iPhone X’s camera functionality, but these are under-the-hood inclusions that won’t be an immediate change from former iPhones.

For more information on all of the new features included iPhone X, make sure to check out our dedicated iPhone X roundup.

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

Sorry iPhone X fans, Face ID won’t work for approving family purchases

Apple touted its new Face ID feature as a revolutionary authentication method when it debuted the tool with the iPhone X. But now, it would appear that Apple itself isn’t totally confident as to the effectiveness of Face ID as a security measure. As originally reported by Ars Technica, a number of iPhone X users have discovered that Face ID isn’t a viable authentication method for Apple’s “Ask to Buy” feature, which lets parents give their kids and other family members the green light for iOS and downloads.

Rather, anytime one of these requests comes through, the account holder (or “family organizer”) must input his or her Apple account password, approving each purchase attempt one by one.

This is particularly frustrating because users previously were able to approve purchases with the touch of a button with Touch ID devices. But because the iPhone X doesn’t have this same functionality, that option no longer exists. And while you can use Face ID to authenticate other purchases, oddly enough, you can’t use it to authenticate purchases made … in the App Store (unless you make them yourself).

Although this may not seem like that significant of a nuisance, it could prove to be rather cumbersome for folks with big families, or around the holidays. After all, if members of your family receive App Store gift cards and try to use them, you’ll have to approve each of these transactions individually. It’s also a rather odd holdup given the otherwise easy transition from Face ID to Touch ID. Many third-party apps that previously used Touch ID automatically moved over to Face ID for iPhone X owners, making Apple’s own oversight here even more jarring.

That said, Face ID hasn’t been without its hiccups, which may be why Apple is attempting to be super cautious in this case. Apple has admitted that Face ID can be duped by one family member bearing a strong resemblance to another, and there’s even been a case of a child unlocking a parent’s phone using the authentication method.

In any case, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that biometric security measures, while convenient, aren’t always altogether effective. And Apple is just one of many companies still looking to get it right.

Editors’ Recommendations

• iPhone X users can now use Face ID to make purchases on eBay
• Apple adds more indoor maps for select airports and malls to iOS 11
• The all-screen Apple iPhone X is here, and it’s the new iPhone you’ll want
• Can facial recognition really replace fingerprints? We asked the experts
• Parents can safeguard their preteens’s Facebook usage with Messenger Kids

The best bitcoin wallets

With cryptocurrency technologies, trends and values changing on a near daily basis, it can often be hard to keep track of the latest best practices. One of the most important considerations to make as a bitcoin (or alt-coin) investor or owner is where to store them. For that, you need to know the best bitcoin wallets.

Do you use a wallet linked to an exchange? Do you use a software wallet that’s local to your machine? A hardware wallet specifically designed for keeping your coins safe? Or even put it on a piece of paper and lock it in a fire-proof safe? There are various approaches to the cryptocurrency wallet, and all of them have their benefits and drawbacks.

Online wallets

The best option for those just getting started with bitcoin, online wallets let you store your cryptocurrency in a place that’s easily accessible from anywhere in the world, on any device you choose. Often linked to an exchange, they make trading for fiat currencies (like the US dollar), or other cryptocurrencies, quick and easy, and are straightforward to set up and get started with. Many also feature smartphone apps to give you easier access to your bitcoin.

Most offer decent security in terms of two-factor authentication, or better, and some will require forms of photo I.D. to sign up to confirm your identity. That does mean there’s less anonymity with these wallets than some of the other options on this list.

These wallets do make you more reliant on a third party for support. If the exchange is hacked and it loses all its funds, that money is likely gone. If the exchange is hit with heavy traffic or a DDOS attack, you may not be able to access your currencies. Since your bitcoin is stored remotely, hackers and social engineers may be able to steal your identity from you and access your account without your permission to make off with your coin collection.

For those reasons, these wallets are recommended for those just starting out with bitcoin trading, for those only trading small amounts, or only holding on to their coins for a short period of time.

Our pick

Blockchain – Blockchain.info’s wallet system features an easy to understand interface, two-factor authentication, and various other security options. It comes with built in ShapeShift trading for easy conversion of bitcoin, Ether and Bitcoin Cash. Unlike some of the alternatives, it doesn’t require identification, though it’s encouraged to ease account recovery if necessary.

Other options

Coinbase – Quick and easy access to Coinbase’s various markets, including its GDAX trading platform where you can buy, sell and trade bitcoin, Litecoin and Ether. It was recently embroiled in a bit of a scandal involving Bitcoin Cash, so its reputation has taken a hit as of late, but it’s one of the better used and respected exchange platforms otherwise.

Offline software wallets

Offline software wallets, sometimes called “desktop wallets,” still retain some of the ease of use and access. Some are aimed specifically at use on desktop and laptop PCs, while others have a more mobile focus, and are app exclusive.

The big advantage of this approach is independence. Every exchange in the world can go down, yet and you still have technical ownership and access to your cryptocurrencies. It also means that you would have to be specifically hacked or attacked to lose access to them. Your identity is protected, with no need to sign up anywhere or provide some form of identification to set up, or access your wallet.

If it has a companion mobile application, you can transfer bitcoins easily between you and other owners, and even use them to pay for certain items in real-world stores.

That’s not to say these types of wallets are perfect, though. They are still software-based, so are susceptible to hackers and malware attacks. Those with an online component for ease of trading are also more public than the truly-offline hardware (cold storage) alternatives. If you’re storing a lot of bitcoin in one, that can draw unwanted attention.

Our pick

Exodus – An all in one application that combines support for a variety of cryptocurrencies — bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and more — with strong privacy and security features — Exodus is entirely free to use. It features built-in ShapeShift functionality for easy inter-trading of various cryptocurrencies, live charts and trackers, and is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux. It does however, currently lack two-factor authentication.

Other options

Electrum – A fast and private offline software wallet, Electrum has been one of the most popular choices among cryptocurrency owners for years for good reason. It’s private and secure, with a fast interface and full ability to export your private key to use with another bitcoin client. It’s also compatible with hardware wallets through the use of third-party plugins.

Mycelium – A mobile-exclusive software wallet, Mycelium is an open-source wallet platform with full support for bitcoin. While it cannot be used with other cryptocurrencies at this time, it’s constantly being developed and expanded upon. It’s fast, easily accessible and though a little complicated for new users, offers a wealth of advanced options for the more confident bitcoin owners.

Bread Wallet – One of the most popular bitcoin wallet solutions on iOS, this wallet is now supported on Android devices too. With a straightforward interface and a setup process that takes seconds, this is one of the easiest mobile wallets to get up and going with quickly and without hassle. Paper key support means you can recover your wallet, even if you lose your phone.

Hardware wallets

For those who want to have the utmost security for their bitcoin investment, or plan to deal with a lot of high-value cryptocurrency in general, a hardware wallet is a must. By storing your bitcoin on a specific piece of hardware that is “cold,” I.E., not connected to the internet, you can be sure that no one will be able to steal your cryptocurrency. Hackers and malware will find it very difficult to infiltrate your wallet, and barring someone physically stealing the device from you, it’s almost impossible to lose access to it.

A hardware wallet can be as simple as an external hard drive with one of the above software wallets installed, or a specifically crafted device used only for storing your cryptocurrency. In either case, you do need to be secure in its physical location — some suggest putting them in a real-world safe to be doubly sure — and understand that although safe from digital threats, your wallet is not as protected from the elements as some of the other solutions on this list.

These cold wallets can be connected to any computer in the world, so you can easily transfer funds from it to a “hot” wallet, in order to make trades or transactions, before unplugging it again.

Although not expensive, some hardware wallets can cost upwards of $100, so shopping around is a must if specific features are important.

Our Pick

Ledger Nano – With support for bitcoin, Litecoin Ethereum and Ethereum-based alt-coins, the Ledger Nano is a small-form-factor USB device with an OLED display to double check transactions on. It has a pin-code unlock system and support for two-factor authentication through FIDO UTF and tamper-proof internal hardware. It’s as secure and private a bitcoin wallet as you can get. You can get one now for around $80.

Other options

Trezor – The oldest hardware wallet on the market, Trezor might lack some of the most modern features of the Ledger Nano, but it’s still much more secure than almost any other wallet out there. With a simple input interface and a number of prominent security features, it’s certainly a viable choice of hardware wallet. The price tag is currently just north of $100.

External hard drive – This option is a more secure version of some of the offline software wallets. Although not as secure against tampering as some of the other hardware wallet solutions, this option gives you the ability to use a wider variety of software platforms, which may be preferable. You can re-use the drive if you ever decide you’re done with cryptocurrencies too. These are our favorites.

Paper wallets

Although less secure than hardware wallets in terms of physical durability, a paper wallet is a very inconspicuous way to store your bitcoin. They do allow you to ‘send’ bitcoin using neat homemade gift-cards, and store your bitcoin in an entirely non-electronic medium, but if you decide to utilize this option we would seriously recommend a waterproof, airtight bag, and fire-proof safe as a secondary measure. A piece of paper is far too fragile a thing to store lots of ‘money’ on.

Paper wallets are also definitely an advanced-user system, as they can be complicated to set up. There isn’t much recourse if you get it wrong and certainly none if you lose the paper, so take this final step in securing your cryptocurrency with care.

Our Pick

BitcoinPaperWallet – Free to use, or with an optional charge if you want to incorporate holograms and tamper checks, BitcoinPaperWallet.com will get you set up with a paper wallet in no time. It even has a built-in support service with the site’s founder, who can help you through any problems you run into.

Other options

BitAddress – Consider this the do-it-yourself option. There’s not much hand-holding with this one at all, so make sure you do some more reading before diving in. Coindesk’s detailed guide on creating paper wallets can walk you through the process.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Go ahead, pass laws. Governments can’t kill bitcoin, even if they try
• How to buy Ethereum
• How to buy bitcoin
• As bitcoin takes its biggest tumble this quarter, other coins follow suit
• Bitcoin Cash surpassed Ethereum as world’s second most popular cryptocurrency

Back up your stuff! How to make sure you never lose your important data again

This holiday season, make sure your phone — and those of your loved ones — is adequately backed up.

When your phone is your life, the potential of losing essential photos, documents, music and other important things can be devastating. On your computer or laptop, even more so. That’s why we’re starting out our 12 days of tech tips with an obvious one: back up your stuff.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12

And even if your stuff is backed up, either to a physical disk or somewhere in the cloud, use the time you’re spending with friends and family to help them back up their most precious digital data — or you’ll inevitably be getting that 3 a.m. call you’ve been dreading for years.

Send it to the cloud

The best way to make sure your stuff is backed up is to send it to the cloud. If you use an Android phone, you may already have an account with Google Drive, and just by signing up for a Google account you get 15GB of storage to play around with. If you use collaboration services like Google Docs or Sheets, those files are already saved to Drive. Google makes things (scarily) simple in that regard.

But if you want to avoid Google, there are plenty of other places to store your stuff. We really like the speed and ease of Dropbox, and it’s available everywhere, from Android to Mac to your favorite browser.

If you’ve got a lot of stuff and don’t necessarily need constant access to it — say a huge movie, music, or archival document collection — we love Backblaze, and think it’s the best option for most people. Best of all, it’s really cheap for the amount of storage you get.

And finally, if you want to avoid the cloud altogether, we’d recommend getting a NAS and buying a couple of 2TB hard drives. Synology makes a great, easy-to-set-up solution that can automatically back up your computer on a regular basis and make the files available through the cloud — even outside your home network — on your Android phone.

Photos and music

We’ve got documents taken care of, but music and movies are incredibly important, too. Of course, you can store both in any of the above solutions, but I’d recommend moving to the cloud for both. In particular, Spotify and Google Photos are my picks for the best places to store and access music.

Let’s start with Spotify. You can go with a number of its competitors, including the Google-owned Play Music, but Spotify doesn’t limit the number of device authorizations per year, and it allows you to download songs, albums, and playlists for offline playback when you don’t have a signal. You don’t need to own music to hear it because Spotify has over 30 million songs, and anything you’d want to listen to is on there.

And then there’s Google Photos. You have to be using Google Photos — it’s so good. Not only does it come preloaded on practically every Android phone — only a problem when the app is bad, which in this case it isn’t — but Google offers free high-quality uploads for life. Yeah, yeah, Google gets your photos but Photos is amazing: it sorts photos by person and location; it performs magical optimizations to make them look better; and when you want to go for the manual touch, the editing features are incredible. Finally, if you want to store the full-sized version of a photo or video you can, too: you just need to pay for Google’s extra storage, which isn’t particularly expensive.

Passwords

You are using a password manager, right? These days, with the number of online services for which we have to remember login information, there’s no excuse not to be using a great password manager. Personally, I love 1Password, but you can’t go wrong with Enpass, Dashlane or LastPass — they all have awesome Android apps and are multi-platform for when you need to connect remotely.

Backing up passwords is probably the most important thing you’ll do for your mental health. While some of the services offer local or manually-controlled cloud backups, 1Password takes all the hassle out of the procedure by doubling down on security and storing them in the cloud. It’s a lot safer than it sounds, and it’s a hell of a lot more convenient, too.

The best password managers for Android

Launchers and themes

If you use an Android phone or tablet, chances are you’re using a third-party launcher, or at least some app that requires a bit of customization. If you want to bring everything over to a new phone when you upgrade, try Action Launcher or Nova Launcher; both have excellent remote backup solutions that allow you to restore any and all settings to a new phone. You’ll need Google Drive or Dropbox to store the backup file, but you’ve already done that, right? RIGHT?!

How to back up your Android launcher (and why you should)

Do the right thing this year

Take advantage of the downtime this holiday season to make sure that, if you were to lose your phone or laptop (heaven forbid) you won’t lose the important documents, photos, videos, music files and anything else you value. These days, there’s no excuse not to have a full-spectrum backup solution!

How to enable Google Home ‘Guest mode’

Some parties are best handled by a single DJ, but it doesn’t hurt to let guests get in on the fun sometimes.

The Google Home, Home Mini and Home Max can be great party companions, filling the room with music or podcasts and taking occasional breaks to answer questions. But what if your guests want to play something from their own collection rather than talking to it directly? Well that’s what “Guest mode” is for. Once you set it up, anyone in the same room as your Google Home can connect to it and send data from any app on their phone that supports Google Cast. Here’s how you get it done.

How to set up Guest mode on your Google Home

Setting up Guest mode takes just a minute.

Open the Google Home app and make sure you’re signed in with the Google account you used to set up your Google Home.
Tap on the “Devices” button in the top-right corner of the app.
Scroll down to the Google Home you want to enable Guest mode on.
Tap the menu button (three vertical dots) and tap Guest Mode.
Tap the toggle to on. It will turn blue.
Make note of the four-digit PIN listed under “Guest mode.”

Once Guest mode is enabled, it remains enabled until you choose to turn it off.

How to use Guest mode

With Guest mode enabled, people in the same room as your Google Home will be able to access it and play content just as if they were on your Wi-Fi network without actually being connected to it.

Make sure your Google Home is plugged in and its microphone is unmuted.
Have your guests open an app that supports Google Cast, and tap the Cast button.
Because they’re not on a Wi-Fi network, the phone will automatically start searching for “nearby devices.”
If the phone is able to, it will automatically connect to the Google Home that has Guest mode enabled.
If the auto-pair doesn’t work, there will be an on-screen prompt to *enter the four-digit PIN generated earlier.

• The Guest mode PIN is available in your Google Home app.
• Enter the PIN and tap Connect.

Once connected, guests can send commands to the Google Home just as if they were on the Wi-Fi network.

• This includes managing content queues, switching apps and even pausing and playing remotely from the phone.

For some people it will be easier to just give out their home Wi-Fi network password and let people play directly to the Google Home, but if that’s not possible the Guest mode does work as a nice backup option. Just follow the steps closely and you’ll be rockin’ out to everyone’s tunes in no time.

Google Home

• Google Home review
• Google Home Max review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

Google Store Best Buy Target

Julian Assange’s Twitter account goes quiet (Update: It’s back)

Late on Christmas Eve Julian Assange’s official Twitter account appears to have been deleted. It’s initially unclear if the disappearance was a ban or if Assange simply deleted his own account. But it does not appear to simply be a glitch. According to The Daily Beast, a second account popped up shortly after claiming to be a back up alternate to the official @JulianAssange. It accused Twitter of deleting Assange’s account to silence him ahead of a major story. But that account has also now been removed.

You can see a cached version of the original account here, but there are no obvious clues as to why the account went quiet.

We’ve reached out to both Wikileaks and Twitter for more information. We’ll update the story if and when we hear back.

Update: Assange’s account is back up, but there’s still no explanation from him, Wikileaks or Twitter.

Source: Gizmodo

The worst gadgets of 2017

2017 was not a great year, to say the least. And it wasn’t just the weekly political dramas, sexual harassment scandals or a massive security breach that affected nearly half the population that had us down. There was also a slew of terrible consumer devices that sullied our mood this year. Before we say goodbye to them, though, let’s relive the horror one last time. Here’s hoping that 2018 brings us better gadgets than this sorry lot.

Juicero

Even though Juicero technically debuted in 2016, it wasn’t until 2017 that it met its epic end, and it’s for that reason we’re naming it one of the worst gadgets of the year. Not only did it a cost a whopping $400 — which was actually a drop from its original $700 asking price — but you couldn’t use it to juice fruit and vegetables you bought from the store. Instead, the over-priced gadget only worked with proprietary packets of blended-up produce (priced at $4 to $10 each) that were only available through a subscription. Yes, it was basically an overpriced bag-squeezer.

It sounds dumb and, well, a lot of other people thought so, too. Adding to the embarrassment, a Bloomberg report revealed earlier this year that you could simply squeeze those packets with your hands to get at the juice, no machine required. And, despite Juicero’s claim that its machine delivered better results, and that its WiFi connectivity made subscriptions easier, the company ended up refunding unsatisfied customers anyway. In the end, no amount of hype could salvage this bad idea.

LG Watch Style smartwatch

If the past few months are any indication, the future isn’t bright for wrist-worn wearables. Brands like Pebble and Jawbone fell by the wayside, Tom Tom left the market altogether, and even category leader Fitbit struggled to bring its first smartwatch to market. Instead, the industry seems to be shifting toward lifestyle brands that emphasize style over substance. Which is what makes the LG Watch Style such a mistake.

With a name like the LG Watch Style, you’d expect this Android Wear watch from LG to be fetching. According to Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low, however, it’s anything but. Its basic lackluster design left a lot to be desired, and, what’s more, its battery life turned out to be terrible; it couldn’t make it through a full workday, much less 24 hours. By comparison, the Apple Watch 3 lasts well into the next day on a single charge. Sure, the Style’s $249 list price is relatively affordable as far as smartwatches go, but that’s not good enough for us to recommend it. In the end, Engadget gave the LG Watch Style a review score of 65, making it one of the lowest-rated devices of the year.

Bodega

An app-powered vending machine whose name was derived from the mom-and-pop corner shops it’s trying to replace? What could possibly go wrong? That is, unfortunately, the tone-deaf marketing mistake made by Bodega, a Silicon Valley startup named after the local groceries that have become staples of many New York City neighborhoods. Its idea was to sell non-perishable items like toothpaste and snacks in a large cabinet in places like gyms and lobbies of apartments buildings. Enter in a code on the app, grab your desired item and, voila, you’ve gotten the goods without having to brave the outside world.

That sounds like decent idea in theory, but it’s ultimately solving a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s not that hard to walk into a drugstore to get the things you want, and with services like Amazon Prime, you don’t have to leave your house to get them either. There’s also, you know, good old-fashioned vending machines that work just fine without an app. The bigger problem, really, is that name. Bodegas are an important part of the social fabric of living in a city, and even if Bodega’s founders claim they don’t want to actually get rid of mom-and-pop stores, the start-up would essentially be taking away some of their business. Plus, there’s no way a vending machine can serve you up a warm breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee on the way to work.

Atari

Atari Speakerhat

Every once in a while, there’s a product that just makes you go “Why?” And Atari’s new line of Speakerhats is definitely that. As its name suggests, the Speakerhat is essentially a baseball cap with a Bluetooth speaker embedded right in the brim. Atari is apparently marketing this at fitness enthusiasts who don’t mind blasting their musical tastes to the world as they run laps. There’s also a microphone, giving you the option of having loud conversations in the middle of the park and looking crazier than you would if you were wearing a pair of headphones.

What’s more, Atari says the Speakerhat has a Multiplayer mode that allows multiple users to listen to a single audio stream, as if that’s somehow better than normal pair of speakers. On top of all of that?, these caps retail for at least $130. If you’re that much of an Atari fanboy, we’d recommend saving that cash for the upcoming Ataribox instead.

Nissin’s ramen fork

In Japan, slurping your ramen is a sign of respect for the cook. Plus, the noodles supposedly taste better that way. In most Western cultures, however, that wet sloppy sound is more rude than appetizing. So Nissin, the makers of Cup Noodle and Top Ramen, developed the Otohiko, a noise-cancelling ramen fork. No, this isn’t a joke. It’s real. And it costs an eye-watering $130.

Nissin

The fork connects to an app on your phone, which emits sounds at a certain wavelength to help cover up the offending slurp. That’s about it. It has a battery that lasts an hour between charges, and the handle isn’t waterproof, so the prongs need to be hand-washed. To be fair, the Otohiko is only available on pre-order right now, and if Nissin doesn’t sell at least 5,000 units, it won’t make them. Which is probably a good thing, because we’d rather spend that $130 on more ramen.

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant

One of the most exciting announcements at Samsung’s Galaxy S8 launch event was Bixby, the company’s AI-powered personal assistant. Instead of just telling it what to do, Bixby could supposedly learn your daily habits and patterns and tailor itself to your life. It also promised a visual search feature that uses the phone’s camera to shop, identify objects and translate signs. Samsung even boasted that as complex as Bixby was, it would be as easy to use as your phone’s touchscreen. Unfortunately, however, it just never lived up to its promise.

For one thing, Bixby wasn’t even available for a good three months after the S8 and the S8 Plus came out, which is not a good look for what is supposedly the next driving force behind Samsung’s consumer products. And when it did arrive, it simply wasn’t very reliable. In our “Life with AI” series, senior editor Devindra Hardawar said it took forever to answer simple commands; sometimes repeating the same command would result in wildly different replies.

Bixby still has a lot of potential, but we’ll have to wait for 2018 for any improvements. In the meantime, why bother with something unfinished when the S8 has another personal assistant (the well-established Google Assistant) already baked in?

Google Pixel Buds

We were initially excited about Google’s Pixel Buds. A pair of earbuds that could translate languages on the fly? That sounded like Douglas Adams’ Babel fish come to life. Ultimately, though, it didn’t live up to the hype. They don’t block out noise at all; fitting them into the case is a hassle (plus it has a tendency to pop open); and the touchpads on the sides of the buds activate way too easily. Even using Google Assistant is a hit-or-miss experience. In his review, senior mobile editor Chris Velazco mentioned how he would sometimes make a request, and it would just hang without any response.

As for that much-hyped translation feature, it works, but only sort of. For one thing, you have to hand your phone over to the person you’re speaking to so they can respond to you. It’s also dependent on a reliable internet connection; anything less will result in a slow response, if any. Plus, the translation relies on Google Translate, which can be overly literal, especially when it comes to idioms and colloquialisms. Translations from non-Roman languages like Chinese and Japanese are especially error-prone. In short, the Pixel Buds aren’t very good headphones, with or without the feature that makes them special.

Hushme voice mask for smartphones

Want to look like Bane while making an important business call? You might want to get the Hushme, one of the most ridiculous gadgets we’ve seen this year. That said, the idea behind it isn’t completely terrible. This mouth-wrapping contraption aims to muffle your voice so as to not bother people around you when you’re on a call — and it prevents them from listening in on your private conversations, too. It even comes with a couple of earbuds, so you can make those calls hands-free.

But Hushme then thought, hey, let’s drown out your voice even further by emitting a series of sounds through external speakers, like R2-D2-style beeping or the more natural sound of rain. That seems to defeat the whole purpose of not disturbing others. Since we last saw it at CES, Hushme underwent a redesign. (It’s now white instead of black, which doesn’t make it any less creepy.) Our jokes aside, it seems quite a few people out there thought this was a good idea: The device has raised over $71,880 on Kickstarter and is now available through Indiegogo for $189.

Check out all of Engadget’s year-in-review coverage right here.

How to Set Up Your New iPhone or iPad Using Automatic Setup

If you got a new iPhone or iPad for Christmas and you already have at least one iOS device that’s running iOS 11, setting up the new device is simple and quick with Automatic Setup.

Introduced in iOS 11, Automatic Setup streamlines the setup process for new iPhones and iPads, transferring over Apple ID info, your WiFi network credentials, your preferred settings, and your iCloud Keychain.

Automatic Setup is meant to be used in tandem with a restore from an iCloud backup, because while it transfers many settings, it does not offer full device-to-device content transfer. When you buy a new device, Automatic Setup will pop up automatically, but there are some steps to follow to get everything transferred over:

Power on your new device, which will open up to a menu asking you to pick a language.
After choosing a language, you’ll see a “Set Up Your iPhone (or iPad)” prompt.
When this appears, place your existing iOS device near the new device to initiate Automatic Setup.
Your existing device will show a pop up letting you know you can use Automatic Setup. Tap “Continue” to start.
An Apple Watch-style pairing image will appear on the new device, and you’ll be instructed to scan it with the camera on your existing device.
In an area with decent lighting, hold the existing device’s camera over the image on the new device to pair the two together.
Enter the passcode from your existing device on the new device.
From there, all of your data will start transferring from the old device to the new device.
When the first few Automatic Setup steps are complete, your iPhone or iPad will walk you through setting up Touch ID/Face ID, Siri, and Apple Pay, which are separate steps.

An additional “Express Settings” feature following Automatic Setup is designed to speed up new device activation even further. Express Setup automatically enables Find My iPhone, location services, and analytics, so if you don’t want these features on, make sure to tap “Customize Settings” to change them.

Once you’ve transferred all of your settings with Automatic Setup, you can restore from an iCloud backup to get all of your apps transferred over. If you want to set up a device as new without downloading all of your old content, though, you’re finished once Automatic Setup is completed.

If you don’t have an iOS device running iOS 11, you’ll need to go through a more traditional setup process. The steps are a lot like Automatic Setup, but instead of choosing an existing device after setting a language, you’ll need to manually enter data like your Apple ID and your WiFi password.
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How to Set Up Your New AirPods

AirPods, introduced last December, are Apple’s completely wire-free earphones that have a W1 chip inside for simple pairing between devices.

AirPods work like magic, and while they’re easy to set up, the process may not be intuitive to all users who received AirPods this Christmas, so we thought we’d share some quick, easy to digest instructions.

Remove the AirPods from the packaging.
Leave the AirPods in AirPods case.
Power on your iPhone or iPad, unlock it, and go to the Home screen (aka the main app screen).
Open up the lid to your AirPods case.
Hold the AirPods case with open lid next to your iPhone or iPad.
Your iOS device will recognize the AirPods and you’ll see a popup to connect your AirPods.
Tap “Connect.”
You’ll be instructed to press and hold on the back button of the AirPods case.
Press it for a few seconds, and the popup on your iPhone will change to “Connecting.”
When the connection is complete, the popup will display the battery life for both the AirPods and the case.

That’s all there is to it. Once this setup process has been completed, your AirPods will re-pair to your iOS device whenever you open up the case lid. This re-pairing process takes just a few seconds, so your AirPods are essentially ready to go whenever you pull them out.

Your AirPods are linked to your iCloud account, so once you pair them with one device, your other devices know they exist. You can switch connections between your devices through the standard Bluetooth settings options, where AirPods will be listed on any device that you’re signed into with your iCloud account.

On iOS devices, go to Settings –> Bluetooth and tap “AirPods.” On a Mac, click on the Bluetooth icon in the status bar, choose AirPods, and then select “Connect.” On Apple TV, open up the Settings app, choose “Video and Audio,” scroll down to “Audio,” select “Audio Output” and choose AirPods.

On iOS devices, you can also use the Now Playing widget in Control Center to select AirPods, and on Apple TV, you can hold down the Home button on the main Apple TV screen to bring up a shortcut to audio options.

Tag: AirPods
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