An essential guide to simplifying your living room setup

What’s the best tech for simplifying my living room setup?

There is so much great tech for entertaining these days that it can almost get overwhelming. If you’re not careful, your living room table can become overrun with remotes for your TV, cable box, surround sound system and streaming boxes. Stop the madness!

It’s time to simplify that setup by incorporating the latest technology to either replace those remotes with voice control, or scale everything down to one remote or device.

Chromecast and Google Home

Google offers one of the best ways to simplify your living room using a combination of Chromecast and Google Home smart speakers. Chromecast Ultra is an essential TV accessory — it’s small and plugs into the HDMI port of any TV, and is fairly future-proof with support for 4K Ultra HD and HDR. With it, you’re able to use your phone to cast content from Netflix, Youtube, and content from a bunch of other great apps.

But that’s just the beginning. If you pair a Chromecast with a Google Home smart speaker you can not only control your Chromecast with your voice, but you’ll also get a pretty decent speaker for throwing on tunes for any occasion.

It’s a system that can extend well beyond the living room, too. If you have a Chromecast plugged into every TV in your home along with a few Google Home speakers strategically placed throughout your house you can basically live in the future with endless entertainment options available to you, and all voice-controlled.

Best of all: there’s a good variety of Google Home speakers to choose from now. You can get the standard Google Home speaker that features a swappable base for complementing your home decor, the discreet Google Home Mini which trades a bigger speaker for a compact footprint, and then beefy Google Home Max which looks to compete with Sonos as a top-end wireless speaker.

See Chromecast Ultra at Google

See Google Home at Google

Amazon Echo and Amazon Fire TV

We couldn’t mention Google Home and Chromecast without also talking about the Alexa-powered equivalent. Amazon was the company that ushered in the A.I.-powered smart speaker, and perhaps you’ve already started building out your home with Amazon Echo products. Well, if you feel like you’ve already comfortable with Alexa over Google Assistant, it’s time to go all-in in the living room.

Amazon recently revamped its Echo speaker line up, with the second-generation Echo speaker looking like a natural pick for any living room, with its stylish fabric case options and respectable sound quality. Amazon also updated its Amazon Fire TV dongle for 2017, which includes Alexa voice controls built into the remote control.

Since both the Amazon Fire TV and Echo speakers are all controlled by the Alexa app on your phone, you’re able to control your Fire TV using just your Echo speakers. If your TV includes HDMI CEC, you’ll be able to walk into the room, ask Alexa to “Watch Fire TV”, and your TV and Fire TV will both turn on instantaneously. From there, you can use the remote to control things or use the built-in microphone to keep using voice controls.

The Echo speakers also work well for music and podcasts and can be linked together as rooms from within the Alexa app to fill your whole house with music — perfect for entertaining and parties.

See Amazon Echo at Amazon

See Amazon Fire TV at Amazon

Logitech Harmony Elite Universal Remote

Ok, so maybe you already have a pretty epic entertainment center setup in your living room and you don’t really need much else except for one remote to control it all. The Logitech Harmony Elite is the remote control of your dreams. Logitech says it’s compatible with an incredible 270,000 different devices that go well beyond entertainment and include home automation devices like smart lights, locks, and thermostats.

It also works with both Alexa and Google Assistant, so it won’t matter if you’ve got one or the other in your home the remote will work just fine with either. This remote is what happens when smartphone technology mixes with a remote control. You can program countless activities or scenes (based on the existing smart home tech in your house) and then easily select what you want using the full-color touch screen to at the top of the remote.

Now all these smarts don’t come cheap, and it might seem a tad ludicrous to spend $250 on a TV remote, but this thing goes so beyond just controlling your TV that it might just be worth it to be able to control everything — quite literally everything — with just one remote.

See at Best Buy

NVIDIA Shield

The NVIDIA Shield is the device that anchors my home entertainment system, and it’s probably the piece of tech that I use most beyond my smartphone. It’s a shame that Android TV isn’t a more popular platform because NVIDIA is really the only company out there that’s pushing it to the max.

The latest NVIDIA Shield supports 4K Ultra HD and HDR playback and now comes with Google Assistant built right into the operating system and controllable via the microphones built into the media remote and gaming controllers. There’s great app support for all your favorite streaming services, and there’s even an accessory from Tablo Tuner that lets you attach a digital antenna to the Shield and then watch and record live television for free.

The NVIDIA Shield is the cord cutter’s dream, and if you’re considering replacing your cable TV package with a streaming box in 2018, you should certainly consider the NVIDIA Shield. Oh, it also handles video games pretty well, and can also let you stream PC games to your living room. It’s the most versatile streaming box you can buy for just $169.

See at Amazon

Samsung Galaxy S9 shows up in mysterious hands-on photo (Update)

The photo’s admittedly sketchy, but it lines up with previous leaks/rumors.

Updated 10:00 – Since posting this, it was discovered that the image is a slightly modified version of a render that Concepts-Creator made up in late December. Sorry for the confusion on this one!

Original Post

2018 is officially underway, and one of the first big flagships we’re expecting to see is the Samsung Galaxy S9. A recent FCC certification suggests that the phone could be announced as soon as February, and leading up to that, the first hands-on photo of the phone has just been leaked.

The image comes from Chinese social network Weibo, and as such, we recommend approaching this with some restraint. We’ve seen legitimate leaks come from Weibo in the past, but there’s also been a fair share of garbage shared on there as well.

In any case, the photo shows both the Galaxy S9 and S9+ next to each other. The S9 on the left has a single rear camera, whereas the larger S9+ has dual rear cameras (something we were already expecting). We can also see that the fingerprint sensor has in-fact been moved below the camera housing, and the back is once again made out of glass.

What we’re seeing here lines up nicely with a CAD render that was discovered in mid-December, and while the S9 and S9+ will likely end up looking very similar to what’s being shown off here, it’s too early to say for sure whether or not this is actually the real thing.

In addition to the similar design compared to the S8, we’re also expecting the S9 to keep the 3.5mm headphone jack, slim down its bezels even more, have an improved iris scanning system, and possibly ship with a whopping 512GB of internal storage.

Do you plan on buying a Galaxy S9 this year?

Samsung Galaxy S9: Rumors, Specs, Release Date, and More!

How to unsubscribe from a YouTube channel

A tidy Subscription list is good for you.

A healthy YouTube feed is awesome. It keeps your constantly entertained and informed with regular videos from your favorite personalities, and if you tune it just right can feel like a DVR of everything you love with you at all times. Not every YouTube channel is a winner, though, which means sometimes you need to remove a few channels from your list to keep that feed just the way you like it.

Good news: YouTube lets you unsubscribe from any channel no matter where you are. Even better news: it’s really easy to do.

Want to learn how to subscribe to a channel? We have a guide for that!

Unsubscribing from your phone

If you’re on the YouTube app on your phone and want to unsubscribe from a channel, all you need to do is find the home page of that channel in the app an tap the same button you tap to subscribe. The easiest way to get there is:

Open the YouTube app.
Tap the Search icon in the top right and type in the name of the channel or personality.
Tap the grey button labeled “Subscribed” on the channel home page.
Answer the YouTube prompt confirming you want to unsubscribe from this channel.

Once that channel has been unsubscribed, you will see the grey bar turn to red. All of the videos from that YouTube personality will now be removed from your feed.

Unsubscribing from the web

If you’re at your computer instead of on your phone, you can also unsubscribe from YouTube videos with relative ease.

Head to YouTube in your browser.
Click the search bar at the top of the page and enter the name of the channel you want to find.
Click on the grey button labeled “Subscribed” on the right-hand side of the channel home page.
Answer the YouTube prompt confirming you want to unsubscribe from this channel

Once you have confirmed you want to unsubscribe, you will see that button change from grey to red. After this, you will no longer see that channel in your feed.

This is a quick and easy process that everyone can do no matter where they are, which is great. There’s also nothing stopping you from re-subscribing to a channel in the future, so be sure to keep this guide in mind for any channels you may want to remove!

Check out more tips in our Ultimate Guide to YouTube!

The Pixelbook is now a test device for Google’s Fuchsia OS

Fuchsia makes its way to Google’s best laptop to-date.

Back in 2016, it was discovered that Google was working on a brand new operating system by the name of “Fuchsia.” Knowing that Google has a new OS in the works is admittedly quite exciting, but just like it was in 2016, it’s still unclear what exactly Google plans on doing with it.

There haven’t been many developments on this front lately, but seemingly out of nowhere, Google has added the Pixelbook as an officially supported device for testing Fuchsia. The other two “target” devices that the Pixelbook is joining includes the Acer Switch Alpha 12 (a convertible Windows PC) and the Intel NUC (a mini PC), and while this doesn’t mean much for most of our readers, there are now instructions for installing Fuchsia on your Pixelbook if you want to test the OS in its very early stages.

One of the most distinct characteristics of Fuchsia is that it’s based on the Zircon kernel rather than Linux like Android and Chrome OS. We know that a big part of Fuchsia’s future will lie with internet-of-things devices, but seeing as how it’s being tested on the Pixelbook and other Windows machines, it appears that desktops/laptops might one day launch with it as well.

We aren’t expecting any sort of announcement of Fuchsia from Google anytime soon, but the addition of the Pixelbook as a test device does show that the company is still actively working on it and that it hasn’t faded away just yet.

Based on what we know about Fuchsia so far, how would you like to see the OS used in the future?

Google’s ‘Andromeda’ looks to be hiding in plain sight

Best Android games for Chromebooks as of January 2018

These are the best Android games to play on your Chromebook!

When Google announced that Android apps would come to Chrome OS, the biggest focus was on productivity. With Play Store access, any Chromebook would be able to use Photoshop, Microsoft Word and other key services that people need to earn a living. But a less spoken-about benefit: it gives powerful Chromebooks the ability to play Android’s best games.

Playing games on a Chromebook has some advantages and disadvantages compared to trying to play them on a smartphone or even a tablet. No Chromebook yet has an accelerometer, so certain titles just won’t work. Not every Chromebook has a touch screen, and very few games work with a mouse and keyboard. On the flip side, every Chromebook supports Bluetooth controllers and video output, so many will work when attached to a television.

I tested all these games on the Pixelbook, but they should all work just fine on less powerful Chromebooks. I used 8Bitdo’s excellent SF30 Pro gamepad, but any controller that works with Android phones will also work with a Chromebook. With that said, let’s get into the games!

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

For those that don’t know, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is an open-world game that takes place in a fictional version of California in 1992. The game fully supports controllers and plays wonderfully on Android phones, as well as on Chromebooks. The story itself takes a long time to complete, with plenty of side objectives to keep you entertained. The earlier installments — Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are also available.

Download: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas ($6)

Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2

These games are for those with a convertible laptop, since they don’t support controllers and rely entirely on touch controls. Still, the M.C. Escher-inspired level design is gorgeous and the puzzles themselves are a fun challenge. The base games have hours worth of puzzles, but there are expansions for the first Monument Valley for those that want to solve even more puzzles.

Download Monument Valley ($3.99)

Download Monument Valley 2 ($4.99)

Asphalt 8: Airborne

The Asphalt series is one of the most popular racing series for Android, and that continues with Asphalt 8: Airborne. This game supports Google Play Games for synchronizing your progress, and supports Bluetooth controllers. There are over 190 cars and motorcycles in the game to race, and plenty of racetracks to keep things exciting. Asphalt 8: Airborne is available for free with in-app purchases.

Download Asphalt 8: Airborne (free w/ IAP)

Overkill 3

We featured this game on our roundup of the best shooter games for Android, and for good reason: the game is fast paced, features different loadouts to face different bosses, and includes a co-op mode to play online with your best friend. Overkill 3 is available for free with in-app purchases.

Download Overkill 3 (free w/ IAP)

Your emulator of choice

Emulators are nothing new in the Android world, and they work just as well on Chromebooks as they do on smartphones. Which emulator you use will depend on which games you’d like to play. I’m using John GBA for Game Boy Advance games, and while this emulator doesn’t support controllers, the controls are laid out well on screen so it shouldn’t be tiring to play. As always, make sure you get your game ROMs through legal methods.

Download John GBA($2.99)

What say you?

Do you play many Android games on your Chromebook? Let us know down below!

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
• Acer Chromebook 14 review
• Join our Chromebook forums

OnePlus teases Sandstone 5T announcement for January 5

The Sandstone OnePlus 5T is almost here.

Right at the tail-end of 2017, OnePlus uploaded a video to its YouTube channel called “What’s in the Box?”. In the clip, a handful of people are feeling a mystery item in a box with numerous hints that they’re touching a OnePlus 5T with the company’s signature Sandstone material on the back.

OnePlus says in the video that this mystery product will be announced in January, but the company’s since shared a teaser image on its Weibo account that says there are “three days left” until “the classic returns.” There’s a date of January 5 on the image, and behind the text is what looks to be the Sandstone texture with a white paint job. In addition to this, many of OnePlus’s Twitter accounts have had their profile and header images changed to feature the same white Sandstone background.

Although it hasn’t officially been said, it’s quite obvious that January 5 will see the announcement of a white OnePlus 5T with a Sandstone finish. The Star Wars version of the 5T that was released alongside The Last Jedi featured this very same getup, and it looks like OnePlus is ready to expand it to more markets sans the Star Wars logo on the back.

We aren’t sure if the red alert slider will remain intact, but either way, we won’t have to wait too much longer before Sandstone makes the return that we’re sure many of you have been waiting for.

OnePlus 5T and OnePlus 5

• OnePlus 5T review: Come for the value, not the excitement
• OnePlus 5T specs
• Should you upgrade from the OnePlus 3T?
• OnePlus 5T vs. Galaxy S8: Beast mode
• All of the latest OnePlus 5T news
• Join the discussion in the forums

OnePlus
Amazon

The Movado Connect is the most striking smartwatch I’ve ever worn

The Movado Connect is hands-down the most beautiful smartwatch I’ve ever worn. It’s the kind of perfectly proportioned, well-balanced wristwatch you expect from a 136-year-old company, with a stock watchface modeled on a design that first saw the light of day in 1946. Even the band, made of a humble, soft silicone, manages to come off as somehow fancier than it really is. 

Yes, everything about the Movado Connect oozes sleek sophistication … which is why it’s going to break my heart to return it, as I’ll probably end up doing. Find out why in my Movado Connect First Impressions above – and let me know whether you’d keep it or toss it back in the comments on YouTube!

Stay social, my friends

• YouTube 
• The Web
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Snapchat
• Instagram

Samsung Galaxy A8 now available for pre-order in South Korea

You can now pre-order Samsung’s exciting mid-ranger.

The past couple years have seen a lot of excellent mid-range Android handsets, but one that caught our attention for 2018 when it was announced in late December is the Samsung Galaxy A8. Samsung previously announced that the A8 would be launching in Vietnam on January 6, and now the phone is officially available for pre-order in South Korea.

KT Corp will be the official carrier for the A8 in South Korea, and it’s selling the phone for 599,500 won (or about $561 USD). Customers will be able to lower the cost of the A8 through subscription plans that are being offered, and available colors include blue, gold, and black.

Samsung will officially launch the A8 on Friday, January 5, and that’s when we’ll likely start to see it expand to additional countries.

The Galaxy A8’s price isn’t the lowest we’ve ever seen in the mid-range market, but it manages to offer a lot of the S8’s main attractions while still costing less. There’s an 18:9 Super AMOLED Infinity Display, support for Gear VR, IP86 dust/water resistance, and even the ability to use Samsung Pay for NFC and MST payments.

Seeing as how the S9 is shaping up to be a glorified spec bump of the S8, the A8 might not be a bad way to go if you’d like to save a few bucks on your next phone purchase while still keeping a lot of Samsung’s flagship features.

Galaxy A8/A8+ are official with dual front cameras and Infinity Display

Best Magnetic Car Mounts for Samsung Galaxy Phones 2018

Yeah! Magnets!

It’s pretty much illegal anywhere you go to hold onto your phone while you drive, so your best bet is to get a great car mount. But certain mounts can be pretty tedious, and a great magnetic mount makes life so much easier when you’re getting in and out of the car. These are the best magnetic car mounts for your phone!

If your phone supports wireless charging, you’ll have to be careful where you place the metal disc so as not to interfere with the coils. Figure out where the charging coils are and stick the metal where they’re not. Or better yet, put the metal between your phone and a case. Then you can take it out whenever you want to charge up wirelessly.

• Nite Ize Steelie
• Anker universal mount
• WizGear universal air vent mount
• Maxboost 2-pack
• TechMatte MagGrip CD slot mount
• Mpow suction pad mount

Nite Ize Steelie

This neat little mount takes up maybe half an inch of your dash or console as it’s just a little metal ball. The other half, a little concave circle, sticks to the back of your phone. It looks like your phone would be rolling around on the ball, but the ball is stationary, and the magnet is strong enough to hold it in place.

This mount is especially great if you have to stick it somewhere awkward since it really allows for any orientation when it comes to mounting. You can snag it on Amazon for about $18. While there are several configurations of the Steelie, I like the original the best.

See at Amazon

Anker universal mount

Anker’s mount adheres to your dash on a flat surface and features a fully adjustable pad, making it great for awkward mounting spots. Its larger magnetic pad is easy to slap your phone onto, and it doesn’t take up nearly as much space as mounts with brackets and arms.

The best part about this one is that it keeps your vents free, so you can adjust them to your heart’s content and never have to worry about the heater messing with your phone. Check this one out for $16.

See at Amazon

WizGear universal air vent mount

Yes, this appears first on Amazon when you search up magnetic car mount, but that’s for a good reason (not just that manufacturers pay to have it there). For one, it’s well-reviewed: out of nearly 20,000 reviews, 66% are 5-star and 14% are 4-star. For another, I’ve been using this mount for three years and it hasn’t let me down once. It’s relatively compact, fits great onto just about any air vent, and it hasn’t loosened up or anything.

Basically, if you want an inexpensive, reliable magnetic mount with no fuss, check this one out. It’s $7.

See at Amazon

Maxboost 2-pack

At this point, mounts are basically the same with a different brand attached to them. Maxboost’s mounts attach to your air vent and have a sizable magnetic pad, making it super easy to find in the dark. If there’s two of you in the car, why should one of your still have to hold onto your phone? This two-pack solves that problem. At $9, you really can’t go wrong. Maxboost’s mounts come with a circular metal plate and rectangular plate each.

See at Amazon

TechMatte MagGrip CD slot mount

If you don’t want to stick anything to your dash and don’t want to bother with your air vents, then consider putting that old CD slot to use! The TechMatte MagGrip simply slides into your CD slot with its semicircle support, you tighten it up, and Bob’s your uncle. The magnetic pad is on an adjustable arm to allow for whichever orientation you choose, and the MagGrip comes with a circular and rectangular plate, depending on which you prefer to use. It’s $11 on Amazon.

See at Amazon

Mpow suction pad mount

OK, you don’t wanna mount on your dash, your air vents, or in your CD slot: What do you do?

Grab the Mpow suction mount and stick it on your windshield (if that’s legal where you are). I know, on the windshield is precarious, but Mpow’s mount has a very small footprint, and its arm is adjustable, so you can move it around to where it’s not blocking your field of view. At $11, Mpow’s mount comes with smaller and larger metal plates and is easily detachable from your windscreen, thanks to the suction switch.

See at Amazon

Got a favorite of your own?

Did we miss an excellent magnetic car mount? Sound off in the comments below!

Fans make 80 new levels for ‘New Super Mario Bros.’

If you’re pining for some classic Mario and don’t have a copy of Super Mario Maker to hand, there’s always Newer Super Mario Bros. DS. As the name implies, it’s a fan-made successor to the portable title from 2006. The 80-level campaign was created with the free and legally dubious New Super Mario Bros. Editor, and requires a ROM of the original DS game to run. If you can find one and a compatible emulator (the team says it works “pretty much perfectly” with DeSmuME) you can play the game for free.

The stages stretch across eight world maps, with “new and updated game mechanics,” a fresh soundtrack and “the return of a classic power-up.” Nintendo is a stickler for copyright infringement, so there’s a good chance the game will disappear in a week or so. The creators of the project, however, also made Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, which is still available to download. So who knows, maybe this one will escape the big N’s legal clutches? For more fan-made Mario goodness, we recommend this head-spinning hack that turns Super Mario 64 into a first-person adventure.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Newer Super Mario Bros. DS