What to Buy With the iTunes Gift Card You Unwrapped Today

If you show an interest in Apple or technology in general, chances are good that you received at least one iTunes gift card today from a friend or family member today.

Given the card can be used to purchase apps, games, music, movies, TV shows, books, and more, it can be difficult to decide what to buy with your newly acquired funds.

We’re here to help with a roundup of ongoing iTunes and App Store sales as well as some other hand-picked recommendations.

Holiday Movies on Sale

In addition to an iTunes sale on select 4K HDR movie bundles, Apple has also discounted a handful of popular holiday movies.

– Bad Santa 2 – $2.99, down from $12.99
– Die Hard (4K) – $7.99, down from $14.99
– Elf – $9.99, down from $14.99
– Home Alone (4K) – $9.99, down from $14.99
– Love Actually – $9.99, down from $14.99
– The Holiday (4K) – $9.99, down from $12.99
– How The Grinch Stole Christmas (4K) – $9.99, down from $14.99

Games on Sale

– Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Classic – Free, down from $2.99
– Streets of Rage Classic – Free, down from $0.99
– Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice – Free, down from $0.99
– Layton’s Mystery Journey – $7.99, down from $15.99
– The Room Three – $1.99, down from $3.99
– Mini Metro – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Jade Empire: Special Edition – $0.99, down from $9.99
– Euclidean Lands – $0.99, down from $3.99
– After the End: Forsaken Destiny – $0.99, down from $3.99
– Old Man’s Journey – $1.99, down from $4.99
– Cat Quest – $1.99, down from $4.99
– Abi: A Robot’s Tale – $0.99, down from $2.99
– Jaipur: the board game – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Flower – $2.99, down from $4.99
– Vignettes – $0.99, down from $2.99
– Smash Up – The Card Game – $2.99, down from $4.99
– Oceanhorn – $3.99, down from $7.99
– Transistor – $1.99, down from $4.99
– Full Throttle Remastered – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Day of the Tentacle Remastered – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Grim Fandango Remastered – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Invisible, Inc. – $0.99, down from $4.99
– Minecraft Story Mode – S2 Episode 1 – Free, down from $4.99

Apps on Sale

– Tweetbot 4 for Twitter – $4.99, down from $9.99
– Picfx – Free, down from $1.99
– TapMeasure – AR utility – Free, down from $1.99
– Focus – Productivity Timer – Free, down from $7.99
– Vectorscope – Free, down from $1.99
– Fuelly – MPG, Mileage, Service – Free, down from $5.99
– BeatMaker – Free, down from $4.99
– Timepage – Free, down from $4.99
– My Wonderful Days – Free, down from $2.99
– Halide – RAW Manual Camera – $2.99, down from $4.99
– Duet Display – $9.99, down from $19.99
– Deliveries: a package tracker – $2.99, down from $4.99
– Castro 2 – $1.99, down from $4.99
– Superimpose – Free, down from $1.99
– Meditation Studio – Free, down from $3.99

Apple Music Subscription

iTunes gift cards can be used to pay for an Apple Music subscription, which costs $9.99 per month for individuals, $14.99 per month for families with up to six people, and $4.99 per month for students in the United States and Canada. Prices and student plan availability vary by country.

Those looking for a slightly better deal on an annual Apple Music subscription should consider a 12-month Apple Music gift card, which Apple sells for $99. A 12-month subscription to Apple Music normally costs $120 when paying for the service directly with iTunes credit or another form of payment, so you can save $20.

Apple Music provides on-demand access to over 40 million songs from the iTunes catalog across iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple Watch, PC, and Android.

Other Subscriptions

iTunes gift cards can be used to pay for many subscriptions available as in-app purchases, although prices can be higher in the App Store as some companies charge extra to make up for Apple’s 30 percent cut of sales.

– Netflix
– Hulu
– Spotify
– Tidal

iBooks and Magazines

iTunes gift cards are also valid for purchases on the iBooks Store across iOS and Mac, providing an opportunity to do some reading over the holidays.

– Ready Player One
– A Wrinkle in Time
– Annihilation
– Station Eleven
– It

For magazines, iPhone and iPad users can download the Texture app and subscribe to unlimited access to over 200 of the world’s most popular magazines for $6.99 per month as part of an ongoing sale. Magazines can be read on up to five devices per subscription, with the ability to download issues for offline reading.

Some of the magazines available include People, Vogue, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Maxim, Men’s Health, GQ, Bloomberg Businessweek, ESPN The Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly. New issues are available alongside a searchable archive of thousands of past issues.

Numbered Coloring Books

The latest App Store craze is numbered coloring books in which children colorize pixel art by following a numeric guide. Many of the apps have in-app purchases available to unlock additional pixel art, remove watermarks, and/or remove ads.

– Color by Number
– UNICORN
– Pixel Art – Color by Number
– Sandbox Coloring

Mitchel Broussard contributed to this report.
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Unwrap a New Apple Device? Stock Up on Extra Certified Lightning Cables for as Little as $6

If you unwrapped an Apple product today it likely came with one of the company’s first-party Lightning cables, but having an extra on hand is always a good idea, so you can place it in other rooms in your house, in your car, or in a bag when you travel.

For that reason, now’s a good time to shop for third-party Lightning cables that are cheaper than Apple’s own accessory, but still Made For iPhone certified to guarantee their quality.

One of the best examples of this is well-known and reliable third-party accessory maker Anker, which has a 3ft / 0.9m Lightning Cable for just $5.99 on Amazon. Apple’s comparable product, the Lightning to USB Cable, sells for $19.00 on Apple.com.

Additionally, this holiday Anker has a combo promotion with the Lightning Cable. If you purchase the $5.99 cable (or other qualifying products), you can save 10 percent on either the Anker Elite Dual Port 24W USB Travel Wall Charger ($9.53, down from $10.59) or the Anker PowerCore 26800 Portable Charger ($55.79, down from $61.99). Anker has other cables, chargers, and power banks on its Amazon storefront.

Many of Anker’s accessories have been certified under Apple’s MFi program, which helps consumers identify products that are assured to work well with iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Shoppers should keep an eye out for MFi certifications when shopping for products like Lightning cables, and be wary of counterfeit accessories that are somewhat common on Amazon and could potentially harm their devices.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
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Edward Snowden’s Haven app turns an Android device into a laptop security guard

Edward Snowden may be most (in)famous for his whistleblowing ways, but he’s set to prove that he’s capable of much more than leaking NSA secrets. The former CIA employee is keeping up his fight against digital surveillance, and this time, it’s in the form of an app. Meet Haven, Snowden’s new app that is meant to turn any Android phone into “a motion, sound, vibration and light detector, watching for unexpected guests and unwanted intruders.” Created with investigative journalists, human rights activists, and others “at risk of forced disappearance” in mind, Haven is said to leverage the existing sensors in a smartphone to prevent folks from “silencing citizens without getting caught in the act.”

The newly debuted app, created in partnership between the Freedom of the Press Association (of which Snowden is president) and the Guardian Project, can be installed on any old Android device, and will send notifications to your real smartphone should anyone attempt to tamper with your laptop.

Say you’re leaving your computer unattended in a hotel room or at home — simply place your Haven phone atop the device, and anytime the Android detects motion, light, or movement, it makes a note of this potential intrusion. It will take photos, record noises, and monitor variations in the environment, and then send notifications to you. Better yet, none of this information will be stored in the cloud — all communication you receive from Haven is end-to-end encrypted over Signal.

“Imagine if you had a guard dog you could take with you to any hotel room and leave it in your room when you’re not there. And it’s actually smart, and it witnesses everything that happens and creates a record of it,” Snowden told Wired via an encrypted phone call. “The real idea is to establish that the physical spaces around you can be trusted.”

Haven could also double as a baby monitor — after all, in the same way that it can detect someone tampering with your computer, it can detect someone walking in on your child. As Guardian Project founder Nate Freitas noted, “By tapping into the sensors and processing power on these devices with custom software, a system could feel the vibrations of someone walking, detect the shine of a flashlight, hear the sound of a door opening (or a child crying), or see someone entering into the view of a camera.” Every one of these potential “intruder alerts” is recorded on the Haven device, and users can receive real-time and, most importantly, secure notifications complete with image and sound to determine if they need to take action.

Currently available as a public beta, the open-sourced Haven project can be downloaded from Google Play today.

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How to set up a new Google account

Google Play, Chromebooks, Gmail … all these wonderful services start with (and require) a Google Account. And whether you’re setting up a professional account to help field headhunters and job offers, or finally offloading one of your tweens to their own account, setting up a Google account is simple and quick, but there are a few tricks to it.

Let’s open the door to the wonderful world of Google.

While you can set up a new account on a computer using this link, if you’re on an Android device, Google has baked the Google account setup right into the Settings menu, making things much easier. Here’s how to set it up.

Open Settings.
Scroll down to Accounts.

Tap Add Account, the plus icon in the top right corner of your screen.

Tap Google.
Tap Or create a new account.

Type in the name associated with the account. While you do not have to use your real name, if this is going to be your main account, using your real name is recommended.

Tap Next
Enter the birthdate associated with the account. Note: Google requires all account users to be at least 13 years old and some countries have even high age requirement, but in order to have an account that can use Google Wallet (or use a credit card in Google Play), the account holder must be 18 years old.

Pick a gender. If you do not wish to be identified by your gender, you can decline to state. There is also a custom gender option for those who identify outside the cisgender binary.

Tap Next.
Type in your username. This username will become your Gmail address as well as how you log into Google.

Tap Next.

If your desired username is taken, you’ll be told to pick another and given suggestions. Either select one of the suggested usernames or type in a new one.
Tap Next.

Type in a new password for your account. The password has to be at least 8 characters, but thankfully is not required to have a number or special character, if you want to stick to plain old letters.

Re-type your new pasword in the Confirm password box. You’ll be told how strong or weak the password you’ve selected is.
You’ll be prompted to Add a phone number. This phone number can be used to verify your identity, help log into your account and help people find you if they have your phone number. If you want to add a phone number, type it in.

Tap Next to verify your number or Skip to skip putting a number in.

Google will present their terms of use. After scrolling through and reading the sections that interest you, tap I agree.
Your core Google Account is now set up, and your username and the length of your password will be shown.

If the birthdate associated with your account is over 18, you can add a credit or debit card to your account to use for buying apps or paying for subscription services like YouTube Red, but you’re not required to set one up this moment.

Your turn

What are your stories about opening a new Google account? Problems? Good experiences? Let us know in the comments below!

Comcast accused of enrolling customers in programs without consent

Subscribe to cable service for long enough and you’ll probably run into lousy customer service at some point, whether it’s technicians who don’t show up on time or phone reps that won’t let you cancel. However, Comcast’s behavior in Washington might take the cake. The state’s Attorney General has filed an amended complaint alleging that Comcast subscribed more than half of its Service Protection Plan customers without consent since the option was first available in 2011. It frequently enrolled customers without even mentioning the plan, according to the lawsuit, but the worst was when it did — employees reportedly claimed the $6 monthly service was free, and would even sign people up after they’d explicitly refused it.

To make matters worse, the Attorney General’s office added that the plan in question did… well, nothing. It was supposed to reduce the cost of repairs, but it excluded in-wall wiring and outdoor wiring — you know, a large portion of the service. As the Attorney General explained, all it really did was cover the technician coming to tell you that your equipment was broken.

Comcast denied doing anything wrong in a statement to Ars Technica, and said that it “strongly disagree[s]” with the Washington AG’s assertions. It maintained that the plan covered “virtually all charges over 99 percent of the time,” and that the lawsuit is based on a “flawed methodology and assumptions.”

However, the company hasn’t exactly gone to great lengths to provide evidence. The Attorney General’s Office said that Comcast has repeatedly refused to provide call recordings, and later admitted that it had deleted 90 percent of calls after it had been told to preserve them. Washington’s lawsuit is based in part on samples that supported accusations of deceptive practices.

Whoever’s telling the truth, this practice wouldn’t come out of the blue. Telecoms are notorious for including below-the-line fees that mask the true cost of service. However, it’s rare that they’re so audacious in those attempts that they charge you for services you didn’t want. If the lawsuit is successful, it could serve as a warning shot that deters other telcos.

Via: Ars Technica, Gizmodo

Source: Washington Attorney General

Getting a drone for Christmas? Be sure to register it before you fly sky high

The popularity of drones shows no sign of cooling, indeed, 2017 looks set to be the best year yet for sales of the remotely controlled flying machine. In the U.S. alone they’re expected to ship 3.4 million units this year, representing a sizable 40 percent increase on 2016, according to the Consumer Technology Association.

If you have a hunch that one of those boxes under the Christmas tree is a drone and you turn out to be right, you’ll be wanting to get out of the house pretty darn quick to get that bird flying high in the sky.

One thing to remember, however, is that you’ll need to register your drone with the authorities before you push the launch lever for the very first time. It doesn’t take long to do, only costs five bucks, and can be done online.

Mandatory registration, which started at the end of 2015, was put on hold earlier this year over a legal issue. But it was reinstated on December 12 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Trump.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it welcomed the reinstatement of drone registration as it should help encourage safe and responsible drone flights.

Anyone with a drone weighing between 0.55 pounds (250 grams) and 55 pounds (25 kg) needs to register their name, home address, and email address with the FAA. You’ll then receive a Certificate of Aircraft Registration/Proof of Ownership and a unique ID number on a sticker to affix to your aircraft. This helps the authorities to quickly identify you should your drone end up somewhere it shouldn’t.

The weight guidelines encompass pretty much all the popular drones on the market today, from DJI’s tiny Spark to the larger Phantom 4 Pro.

According to the FAA’s website, those who fail to register their drone “will be subject to civil and criminal penalties.”

Besides registration, newbie drone pilots should also avoid flying their machine higher than 400 feet, and always keep it within the line of sight. Also, keep it away from crowds and busy places and be sure to respect the privacy of others — in other words, don’t go buzzing over people’s yards or dropping low over people you don’t know.

It hardly needs to be said (though we’ll mention it anyway), but you should keep your quadcopter well away from places like airports and stadiums. In fact, the best way to find out about any permanent or temporary flying restrictions is by checking the FAA’s B4UFLY app (for iOS and Android), which also offers plenty of tips for newbie drone owners.

Follow these safety tips and you’re all set to have plenty of fun with your new drone. Enjoy!

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What’s the true value of bitcoin? A Morgan Stanley analyst says it might be zero

According to Coindesk, bitcoin is currently worth about $13,000, but Business Insider reports that Morgan Stanley’s James Faucette suggest the true value of bitcoin might be zero.

Though Faucette’s report, entitled “Bitcoin Decrypted,” did not give an actual value for bitcoin, a section called “Attempts to Value Bitcoin” gave some insight into his thoughts on the currency and why it can be so difficult to determine bitcoin’s value.

The first point that he considered was whether or not bitcoin could be considered a true currency. He concluded that due to the fact that there is no interest rate attached to bitcoin, it could not be considered a true currency the way the dollar or the euro are considered currencies.

He did concede that bitcoin shared some similarities with precious materials such as gold, but noted that, unlike gold, bitcoin has no real-world applications. Gold is used in jewelry and electronics, whereas bitcoin exists only as data. That being said, he admitted that the cryptocurrency held some value due to the fact that investors were willing to give it value.

He discussed the value of bitcoin as a payment network and conceded that it did hold some value in that regard. However, he also noted there were some limitations to its usefulness. The two issues Faucette cited were the fact that it is a difficult payment network to scale and does not charge a transaction fee.

Bitcoin is accepted by a small number of companies, but, as Faucette points out with his chart, that number is small and getting smaller over time.

“If nobody accepts the technology for payment then the value would be 0,” Faucette said.

Of course, bitcoin currently does hold some value solely due to the fact that it can be exchanged for currency. However, the question that Faucette seems to be trying to address is whether or not bitcoin has intrinsic value. Is it truly worth anything or is its value constructed? To an extent, one could argue that fiat currencies such as the dollar hold no intrinsic value, but the faith and full credit of the United States government is still a very real thing, and there is no such institution supporting bitcoin.

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Martti is a self-driving car from Finland designed for icy snow-covered roads

Driving in winter conditions can be slow and hazardous, even for skilled drivers. The self-driving cars in development today are generally designed and tested on city streets, with curbs and lane markings and GPS maps to rely on. But what happens when you live in a country like Finland, where roads covered with several inches of snow are a fact of life every year?

Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre are tackling that problem head-on with Martti, an autonomous vehicle specifically programmed to safely navigate public roads blanketed in snow. Built on a Volkswagen Touareg, it’s equipped with a variety of antennas, sensors, cameras, and laser scanners.

The vehicle set a speed record for traveling in snowy conditions, according to a press release from the RobotCar Crew. “It probably also made a new world record in fully automated driving, making 40 km/h [25 mph] in a snowfall on snow-covered terrain without lane markings,” said project manager Matti Kutila. It could have gone faster, he added, if it weren’t for the speed limiter on the vehicle.

The testing and training sessions took place on the Aurora E8 intelligent road in Muonio with Martti and his “spouse” Marilyn. She’s equipped with a different array of sensors, and the two cars communicate continuously. “Martti has been designed for demanding weather conditions and Marilyn shines as the queen of urban areas,” said Kutila.

Most autonomous vehicles rely on Lidar, or Light Detection and Ranging, which doesn’t work very well in snowy or whiteout conditions. Kutila told Bloomberg that Mattti is designed to work even “when turbulent snow degrades 3D-sensor performance.” The car’s systems include radar and three forward-facing lasers.

VTT is hardly the first self-driving company to experiment with snowy conditions, but it certainly has a head start on their competition, as Waymo and Yandex just began their adverse weather tests a couple months ago.

The team is planning to upgrade the optical components and increase the resolution of the radar. Early next year, Martti will also be able to communicate with existing transport infrastructure via communication modules.

Even with all the high-tech additions, Kutila says it’s not always the smoothest ride. “It’s a prototype and not as comfortable as driving manually,” he admits. “However, when the car starts doing decisions himself, it feels a bit like a human — and you even start talking to the car, ‘What are you doing?’”

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A robot arm is Prague’s latest star DJ

Never mind the debate over whether digital or vinyl is better for DJs — the real question is whether or not a human should be there in the first place. Prague’s Karlovy Lazne club has started employing an automotive robot arm as one of its DJs after its management challenged a robotics company to make it happen. The bot uses custom software to pick songs, and grabs CDs with its pincers to queue up tracks. It can dance and even scratch records. That’d make it more involved in the mix than some DJs we’ve seen.

The arm isn’t an open-to-close DJ. Ever since it started 3 weeks ago, it’s been on an hourly rotation with its programmer.

At least some clubbers seem to like the arm. However, Reuters points out the not-so-shocking objections from some on the dance floor: the robot can’t get a feel for what the crowd wants to hear, tell you to put your hands in the air or otherwise react like a flesh-and-blood jockey. We’d add that it’s not going to be very creative and isn’t about to cut up tracks like some of the most experienced DJs. For now, at least, your favorite laptop guru or turntablist will remain gainfully employed.

Via: Reuters

Source: Karlovy Lazne

Lapland reindeer go hi-tech with tracking sensors to protect them from wolves

As Rudolph and his buddies assist Santa Claus on his travels around the world this evening, the reindeers back in Lapland continue to deal with all manner of hazards that threaten to ruin their Christmas.

Thousands of reindeer die every year in Finland’s most northern region, with most succumbing to attacks by wolves and other predators, or straying into traffic on remote roads.

But now the nation’s reindeer herders are turning to tech in a bid to reduce those numbers and better protect the country’s reindeer population, according to a BBC report.

The Finnish Reindeer Herders’ Association has started placing tracking sensors around the necks of some of the reindeer, allowing a herder to quickly identify their position via an accompanying smartphone app.

Besides enabling the herders to track hundreds of thousands of reindeer through Lapland’s forests and learn more about their movement behavior, the technology also helps them to spot injured animals, increasing the chances of a successful rescue. It allows them to reach dead reindeer more quickly, too, so they can gather more accurate data on cause of death that could later be used to develop additional protection systems.

To develop the system, the association teamed up with a number of startups, namely Paris-based Actility for the tracking sensors, Finnish firm Digita for the long-range communications network, and another local company, Mapitare, for the mapping and visualization software.

Current issues regard the size of the sensor, which is somewhat bulky. Matti Sarkela, head of the Finnish Reindeer Herders’ Association, told the BBC they need smaller sensors that last at least a year and incorporate improved location technology. “It can be hard to get good GPS signals in the high Arctic,” Sarkela said. “We’re working now on finding the best technology mix and getting the best sensor.”

Sarkela and his team are also considering attaching trackers to predators so that herders can be alerted when they get close to a reindeer herd.

The reindeer herding industry revolves around meat, fur, and antler products and generates around $25 million annually for the Finnish economy, prompting the herders to look for more effective ways to protect the animal.

Besides predators, the reindeer also die in accidents involving trains and motor vehicles. In a bid to cut the 4,000 or so reindeer road deaths that occur each year, the association launched an app in 2014 that let drivers who spotted wandering reindeer alert nearby motorists of their presence. Other efforts have included painting the animal’s antlers in fluorescent colors and hanging reflectors around their neck, but many of the deer tore the reflectors off and scraped the paint away.

U.S. research

On U.S. roads, more than a million animal-related collisions take place every year, some of which lead to human deaths. Researchers at Virginia Tech are working on a system that uses technology embedded in the roadside to detect an animal’s presence so it can alert an approaching driver. Self-driving technology can also help tackle the issue.

Andrew Alden of Virginia Tech said that real advances will be made when “vehicles talk to other vehicles and then talk to infrastructure.”

He added: “When we have that ability, we will be able to have that equipment at the roadside connect to the network and then the system turns around and issues an alert to any vehicles that are approaching that area. They would receive an in-vehicle warning saying that there are animals on the roadside ahead.” It’s another example of how developments in technology can help to protect not only animals, but also humans that pass through their habitat.

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