Google’s $249 AI-powered Clips camera is finally on sale

At its Pixel 2 launch event last year, Google also revealed its tiny Clips camera, that uses AI to figure out when it should take a picture or video. Now the $249 device has quietly become available for purchase on its website, however as Android Police notes, it could take a while to arrive. Depending on the address used, I saw potential delivery dates between range between February 27th and March 5th.

So should you order one? While most cameras rely on your best guess about when to take a picture, Google Clips has had its AI trained by pro photographers. The 2-inch square has a shutter button 12MP sensor, 130-degree field of view and 16GB of storage to save up to 3 hours of selected video. Chris Velazco was impressed by the results during our hands-on test in October, but we’ll need more time to find out how good it is at sorting through daily life for the highlights, and if we feel secure with its strategy of sending the results to a paired phone.

Via: Android Police

Source: Google Store

Epic is shuttering ‘Paragon’ following success of ‘Fortnite’

Last week, an Epic Games representative explained Paragon’s uncertain future on the game’s subreddit, which worried fans — especially as it confirmed that developers had been siphoned off to assist with the massively successful Fortnite. It turns out those apocalyptic concerns were correct: Paragon is getting shut down on April 26th. To make up for it, every player, on all platforms, can apply for a refund.

Paragon will close down on April 26, 2018. For more information, click here. https://t.co/sd5L7xy33c pic.twitter.com/1JTDAmyifB

— Paragon (@Paragon) January 26, 2018

“After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable,” Epic Games’ statement read. “We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you — despite the team’s incredibly hard work — and we’re sorry.”

Paragon was a surer bet two years ago when the studio, known for the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, announced they were making a third-person MOBA. The game arrived in March 2016 and got a dedicated but small playerbase, which it tried to expand by going free-to-play in early 2017. Despite those efforts, the game never became a big player in the eSports circuit.

Epic launched Fortnite shortly thereafter in July 2017, long after introducing the cartoony tower defense game in 2011 — but the studio shrewdly released a PUBG-like F2P Battle Royale mode months later that became wildly successful. Like, 45 million registered players and over 2 million on at the same time-level of successful. Sadly, Epic decided Paragon wasn’t worth keeping alive compared to those numbers — and yesterday’s bet on a MOBA best-seller fell to the unexpected whirlwind success of the Battle Royale subgenre.

Players who want to apply for a refund can do so here.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Epic Games

Venmo’s 25-cent instant transfers are now available for everyone

Payment sharing services from Paypal, Square and Venmo are great, but it can take some time to move funds from those accounts to your bank so you can use them in real life. Last year, Paypal introduced $0.25 instant transfer fees to make it much faster to move money to your real-life bank. Now Paypal-owned Venmo is doing the same, offering transfers of funds in less than 30 minutes.

Beginning this week, you can transfer your Venmo balance to your Visa or Mastercard debit cards for a flat 25 cent fee. You can still move the funds the old way for free; it will just take longer. The new instant transfer option will roll out to Venmo users over the next few days. Just update your Venmo app to see if you have access, yet.

Source: Venmo

HTC Vive Pro cameras can be used to track hands, controllers

Beyond the uprated screen resolution over its predecessor, the HTC Vive Pro’s most obvious change is in the form of a secondary external camera on the front. Although speculation suggested that the stereoscopic array could enable augmented reality, it turns out that the cameras are used for depth sensing, which can improve the safety-orientated chaperone feature and enable basic controller and hand tracking.

One of the major difficulties faced by virtual reality companies in headset and controller development is occlusion. If something gets in the way of the sensors, suddenly the system powering the headset doesn’t know where it is and that could get uncomfortable for the wearer. The HTC Vive’s Valve-developed Lighthouse trackers had less trouble with that than the Oculus Rift’s cameras, but it still wasn’t perfect.

HTC/Valve’s Lighthouse 2.0 tracking solution, due to release later in 2018, will improve this with support for four tracking stations, but the Vive Pro’s cameras could provide a secondary layer of anti-occlusion technology too. In an interview with HTC Vice President of VR technology Raymond Pao, Engadget learned that the stereoscopic cameras can track hands independently of controllers or Vive trackers.

That wasn’t its original intention, however. HTC’s initial plan was to use them to augment its chaperone feature which provides a digital wall to prevent VR users from hurting themselves and damaging hardware. The cameras would be able to provide a more nuanced chaperone tracking system, thereby showing objects which could be knocked over, or potentially pets or children getting in the way.

That is because the cameras are only capable of “low VGA” resolution (640 x 480), so wouldn’t be fun to look through for augmented reality purposes. However, because of their depth-sensing capabilities, early developers playing around with the Vive Pro found that they could provide basic hand-tracking. Although simple, it was enough to provide precise tracking for fingers, making it possible to play VR games without motion controllers.

That form of “inside-out” tracking does have its limitations — putting your hands outside of the view of the camera would break tracking — but it shows interesting potential. Even then it could be used as a backup tracking solution for controllers should the wearer’s body or another object block the line of sight to the mounted Lighthouse sensors.

Editors’ Recommendations

• HTC Vive vs. Vive Pro
• Oculus Rift vs. Vive Pro
• The best VR headset you can buy
• HTC Vive Tracker Review
• Windows Mixed Reality news: Here’s everything you need to know

Microsoft is secretly building a slimmer, more modern version of Windows

Microsoft’s latest internal project is reportedly a new pared-down version of Windows code-named ‘Polaris.’ This new version of Windows isn’t a successor to Windows 10, not in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s an alternative operating system more like iOS or Chrome OS — a lightweight OS designed for devices like ultra-mobile laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets. According to Windows Central, it could be the future of Windows.

All right so what is it? At this point, it looks like Polaris could takeover for Windows 10 S, the pared-down student version of Windows 10 that Microsoft is using to test the lightweight OS waters.

Windows 10 S could be seen as something of a trial balloon here, with Microsoft angling toward the education market to see how a pared-down Windows experience would go over with the average Windows-user.

Reportedly, Polaris aims to strip out all the legacy components that make Windows 10 a fully featured operating system in favor of a system designed around the basics — like Chrome OS. An operating system designed for people who typically work out of a web browser. The new Polaris-based Windows would be quicker, more nimble, and carry a lot less baggage.

Polaris would, according to Window Central, be built entirely on Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform, or UWP, making it a much more hospitable environment to existing UWP apps and potentially offer battery life and performance gains.

“The current Windows Shell is one of the major legacy components that Microsoft is replacing in Polaris; along with stripping out legacy, unneeded Win32 components and apps like Notepad or Paint, in favor of a UWP experience, just like Windows 10 Mobile,” Windows Central reports.

It’s an interesting move and it certainly makes sense with Microsoft’s recent shift toward unifying its Windows experience across all of its platforms, but it’s unclear whether or not Polaris would end up seeing widespread adoption. Currently, Chromebooks offer a unique niche for lightweight on-the-go computing, and Windows 10 exists in its full version on laptops and mobile devices up and down the price spectrum without any issues. Pulling out functionality in favor of marginal gains in performance and battery life might not appeal to the average laptop, tablet, or 2-in-1 user.

Editors’ Recommendations

• How to uninstall Windows 10
• Like Chrome OS, but miss Windows? Here’s how to install it on your Chromebook
• Microsoft selling a commercial version of its Surface Laptop with Windows 10 Pro
• Future versions of Chrome OS won’t pause Android apps when switching windows
• How to speed up Windows in a few easy steps

Intel’s 9th-generation ‘Ice Lake’ CPUs will have fixes for Meltdown, Spectre

At the beginning of Intel’s fourth quarter 2017 earnings conference call, CEO Brian Krzanich immediately jumped into an update about patching the Meltdown and Spectre security issues found with the company’s processors. He confirmed that Intel is currently working on silicon-based changes for upcoming products that will address the problems on a hardware level. These products are expected to hit the market later in 2018. 

Krzanich also hinted at the current problems Intel faces with the first software-based patch addressing Meltdown.  

“While we made progress, I’m acutely aware that we have more to do, we’ve committed to being transparent keeping our customers and owners appraised of our progress and through our actions, building trust,” he said. “Our near-term focus is on delivering high-quality mitigations to protect our customers’ infrastructure from these exploits.” 

Speculation points to knowledge of the Meltdown and Spectre issues long before acknowledging them in public. That is because processor designs remain locked for at least a year before they become products sold on the market. Intel’s ninth-generation “Ice Lake” family of processors is expected to launch by the end of 2018 or in early 2019 based on 10nm process technology. Thus, the fixes needed to be in place prior to December 2017.  

Google’s Project Zero team went public with its Meltdown and Spectre findings at the beginning of January. But Intel already knew about the problems and admits it began distributing firmware updates to hardware partners in early December. It addressed five generations of Intel processors, only customers began reporting an unusually high number of system reboots after applying the update. As Krzanich said in his opening statement, Intel still has “more to do.” 

That said, how long Intel knew about the issues prior to the public exposure is unknown at this point. The next processor family slated to hit the market is Intel’s eighth-generation “Cannon Lake” chips in early 2018, the company’s first processors based on 10nm process technology. It’s essentially a smaller version of Intel’s seventh-generation processor design, aka Kaby Lake, so hardware-based fixes for Meltdown and Spectre likely won’t be present. 

Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) and Spectre (CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715) are three exploits presented by Google Project Zero, Cybrus Technology, and Graz University of Technology. They take advantage of how modern processors “think ahead” while computing multiple instructions using a technique called speculative execution. Processors “predict” the outcome of their tasks based on information stored in memory, thus speeding up the overall computing process. The exploits manage to access all that unsecured data. 

The problem exists in all processors dating back to at least 2011 from Intel and AMD (x86), and those manufactured by Samsung, Qualcomm, and others based on ARM’s mobile processor architecture. Hardware companies are scrambling to patch what they can through software-based updates, and directly to the hardware in future processor releases as indicated by Intel.  

“Security has always been a priority for us and these events reinforce our continuous mission to develop the world’s most secured products,” Krzanich said. “This will be an ongoing journey.” 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Nvidia’s latest software update helps protect your system from ‘Spectre’
• Apple protects MacOS Sierra, El Capitan from Meltdown, lists Google bugs
• AMD’s Mark Papermaster on why its collab with Intel is good for Radeon fans
• Updates addressing Meltdown security issue are causing a number of PC reboots
• Intel’s Cannonlake processor is still scheduled to fire off by the end of 2017

Is your browser mining bitcoin? ‘Malvertisements’ are hijacking Google Ads

As if invasive ads weren’t bad enough, Trend Micro uncovered a particularly sinister batch of ‘malvertisements’ that aim to exploit Google’s DoubleClick ad service to serve you ads containing hidden cryptocurrency mining software.

“Attackers abused Google’s DoubleClick, which develops and provides internet ad serving services, for traffic distribution. Data from the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network shows affected countries include Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy, and Spain. We have already disclosed our findings to Google,” Trend Micro reports.

As malware goes, it’s actually pretty clever — if also sinister and awful. It operates two separate scripts, one a coinhive cryptocurrency miner, the other a private web miner. Which one it will use is determined by a random number generator. When either one kicks in, it would use 80 percent of the affected computer’s CPU resources for the purposes of mining cryptocurrency.

“The affected webpage will show the legitimate advertisement while the two web miners covertly perform their task. We speculate that the attackers’ use of these advertisements on legitimate websites is a ploy to target a larger number of users, in comparison to only that of compromised devices,” Trend Micro reports.

Trend Micro goes on to report that the number of incidents of these malvertisements has gone down since January 24, so we might be in the clear. Still, it might be a good idea to make sure your security apps are all up to date — and make sure your browser has its latest security patches. Chances are Google will get the exploit under control quickly, but there are some countermeasures you can implement in the meantime.

“Blocking JavaScript-based applications from running on browsers can prevent coinhive miners from using CPU resources. Regularly patching and updating software — especially web browsers –can mitigate the impact of cryptocurrency malware and other threats that exploit system vulnerabilities,” Trend Micro recommends.

All right, so how can you protect yourselves from this exploit while Google gets it sorted out? Turns out there are a couple things you can do. First, make sure your browser is up to date. You can do that by heading to your preferences and checking for updates in most modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Second, run an adblocker on any site that you feel a little uncomfortable about. Lastly, you can always disable JavaScript entirely, but doing so will break a lot of websites and it’s only a good idea if you’re very worried about your security.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best ad blockers for Chrome
• You can now mute more annoying ads with Google’s new ad controls
• Did you download this fake ad-infected WhatsApp from the Google Play Store?
• Google now allows users to mute those annoying reminder ads
• Picture-in-picture mode comes to Hulu with Live TV’s beta web interface

Fossil Q Venture review

Research Center:
Fossil Q Venture

Fossil’s latest smartwatch for women is the Q Venture, and it brings a few aesthetic changes from its predecessor, the Q Wander. Running Google’s latest version of Android Wear, the Q Venture has a smaller case and thinner watch straps, making it ideal for women who want a more compact smartwatch.

The Fossil Q Venture is a necessary step forward. It’s stylish, more subtle in size, has a better software experience Android Wear 2.0, and not too pricey. Let’s take a closer look.

Lightweight, even with all the bling

The Fossil Q Venture packs a lot of bling into a fairly compact body. Similar to the Michael Kors Access Sofie – where a silver watch face is surrounded by pavé setting stones – the Q Venture adds a bit more glitz. Gemstones surround both the watch face and the first four links of the wristband; calling this watch sparkly is an understatement. With a rose-gold tone, it’s a statement piece we think looks more appropriate for evening wear than a casual outfit.

Brenda Stolyar

The 2016 Q Wander has a 45mm casing and a thickness of 13.5mm. This time around, the Q Venture is both smaller and thinner with a 42mm case size and 11.5mm thickness. But even with all the extra décor, we were pleasantly surprised the watch didn’t feel as heavy on the wrist as it looks. Even after an entire day followed by a night of events, it feels so light we almost forgot we were wearing it. Since it’s not too bulky, you can also pair it with other jewelry without feeling like there’s too much arm candy.

Unfortunately, as is the case with most watches with link straps, the watch doesn’t fit perfectly out of the box. Our stainless steel link strap was too large, and we had to get quite a number of links taken off. Sadly, it was then a little too snug, which is what we had to settle for if we didn’t want the watch to be too loose.

We were pleasantly surprised the watch didn’t feel as heavy on the wrist as it looks.

The good thing is you can take the watch to any Fossil store to get the links taken out for free, or any watch repair shop can easily do the job as well. We also have a guide if you want to remove the links yourself.

The Q Venture does allow you to switch things up with any 18mm straps thanks to a quick-release mechanism. Even better, if you’re not a fan of the gemstones surrounding the watch face, Fossil offers several other models without any gemstones — including a black, gold, and rose gold tone, and these are paired with silicone, metal link, or leather straps. The company makes it easy to choose the look right for you.

There’s only one button on the right side of the watch, unlike the men’s Fossil Q Explorist, which has three buttons to trigger shortcuts. You won’t have the same convenience with the women’s Q Venture.

Solid performance, small display

Almost all Android Wear smartwatches released in the past two years are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, and pack 4GB of internal storage for music playback. We didn’t have any issues with performance, as the user interface runs smoothly and is fast to react — important when the watch is reliant on a touchscreen.

Brenda Stolyar/Digital Trends

The display, however, is slightly above standard. The Q Venture has a high 454 x 454-pixel resolution on its 1.2-inch AMOLED screen. It’s only slightly bigger in comparison to the 1.19-inch display on the Michael Kors Access Sofie, but it’s hard to ignore the gems on the bezel because they make the screen feel smaller. The AMOLED screen gets bright, making it easy to read in direct sunlight; it’s also vibrant and colorful, making the watch faces pop more and visually pleasing.

Regardless of the gemstones, we’re happy to see a slightly larger display here. It’s essential, especially since you’re using the smartwatch to always look at all sorts of notifications.

Android Wear works best with Android

The Q Venture runs on the revamped Android Wear 2.0 platform, which Google launched early in 2017. Even if you aren’t familiar with Android, it’s extremely simple to use. Swipe down for your settings, swipe up to see your notifications, and swipe to the left or right on your watch face to change it.

The pre-installed watch faces on the Q Venture are more quirky than subtle.

The sole button lets you open the app drawer to access apps such as contacts, weather, the Google Play Store, Google Fit, and more. There’s also no rotating crown or bezel, so you’ll have to manually scroll through the menu using the touchscreen. There’s also the Fossil Q microapp that allows you to customize and save some of the pre-set watch faces.

The pre-installed watch faces on the Q Venture are more quirky than subtle, which can make it tough to find a suitable one for a watch that’s quite bold. For the models without the gemstones, the quirky watch faces could work well on days you’re looking to add pops of color to your outfit.

We specifically enjoyed the watch face called ‘Original Boyfriend,’ where you can set multiple dials on the watch face to showcase different information. For example, we set it to show what’s on our agenda for the day, one favorite contact, and the amount of steps we’ve taken. Adding these “Complications,” is easy, and available on a few other watch faces. With the Google Play Store available on the watch itself, you can browse and install a variety of third-party watch faces as well.

Fossil Q Venture Compared To

Apple Watch Series 3

Michael Kors Access Grayson

Motorola Moto 360 (2015)

LG Watch Sport

Martian Alpha T10

Huawei Fit

Nixon Mission

Apple Watch Series 2

Asus ZenWatch 2

Martian Passport MP100WSB

Garmin fenix 2

LG G Watch R

Martian Notifier Watch

Phosphor Touch Time

Magellan Echo

Google Fit is the built-in fitness tracking app, and it tracks your steps, calories burned, and distance traveled. There’s also Google Fit Workout, which tracks how long you’ve exercised for, and the number of calories burned based on a variety of different workouts, strength training, and challenges. It can also automatically start tracking a number of different workouts.

Other fun features include pre-installed games like Bold Bot and Maze, which are time-killing apps that are weirdly addicting if you’re bored on a train. You can check out our guide to the best Android Wear apps to find a few good alternatives to install.

If you have an iPhone, the experience is limiting.

With Android Wear, you can also access the Google Assistant by simply holding down the button on the side of the Q Venture. It’s almost similar to the Google Assistant on your phone: You can ask it to send messages, set reminders, provide weather updates. Sadly, you can’t use it to control your smart home devices.

Android Wear works best with Android phones. If you have an iPhone, the experience is far more limiting. You can’t respond to iMessage and SMS messages, and the Android Wear app needs to constantly be available in the background. If you’re looking for a smartwatch that you can rely on for full-functional use with your iPhone, go with the Apple Watch Series 3.

One-day battery life

The Q Venture comes with a wireless charging puck that connects to the smartwatch magnetically. Fossil claims the 300 mAh battery can last for 24-hours, which we found to be somewhat accurate. Using the watch to its fullest extent, the Q Venture hit about 10 percent by midnight after taking it off a full charge at 8:30 a.m. That’s about average with most Android Wear smartwatches, which means you will have to charge this device every night.

Price, availability, and warranty

The Fossil Q Venture will cost you $275 for the stainless steel straps – including the rose gold gemstone-laden variant we tested out. It will set you back $255 for the leather or silicone options. You can purchase it from Fossil’s website.

Fossil offers a limited two-year warranty that covers any manufacturing defects. The warranty doesn’t cover accidental damage to the case or watch strap.

Our Take

The Fossil Q Venture is a great compact women’s smartwatch for an affordable price. While we don’t particularly enjoy the rose-gold bedazzled option, we think the more subtle color variants look flattering on the wrist.

Are there better alternatives?

Yes. If you want a more upscale smartwatch of higher-quality, the Michael Kors Sofie is a great option for women. While the display is a bit smaller, it includes the same Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip and 4GB of storage. It’s also a lot pricier ranging from $350 to $495, but there’s a variety of pavé set stone designs to choose from.

Another option is the Misfit Vapor which also has the same specifications, but with a larger AMOLED display coming in at 1.39-inches. For those with smaller wrists, the buckle watch strap means you don’t have to go through the trouble of taking links off. It’s also cheaper than the Fossil Q Venture, has a heart-rate sensor, and a $200 price tag.

Fashion brand smartwatches aren’t the most feature-rich wearables, as they usually focus on design first. We recommend taking a look at the Huawei Watch 2, which has GPS, a heart-rate sensor, and NFC, so you can make contact-less payments with Android Pay.

For iOS users, we recommend the Apple Watch Series 3. You’re able to take advantage of all its features, and it will work seamlessly with your iPhone.

How long will it last?

The Q Venture is going to last you about 2 to 3 years. The battery won’t last as long, and it’s unclear for how long the watch will get updates. The good thing is the watch is IP67 water-and-dust-resistant, which means you can take it underwater up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.

Should you buy it?

Yes, if you like the look of the watch and don’t want to spend too much, the Fossil Q Venture is a great choice.

Pulse adds effects to your acoustic guitar — without amps or electricity

Imagine being able to add real-time effects like delay, distortion or reverb to your acoustic guitar, while still enjoying the flexibility that the instrument offers over its electric counterpart — meaning no amps, wires, or electricity. That is what a new device called the Pulse promises to bring to your strumming experience.

The battery-powered Pulse attaches to your acoustic guitar and modifies the vibrations within the instrument, adding and subtracting vibrations where necessary to create the effects. It attaches to the front end of the guitar, with one end on the bridge pins and the other looped over the strap peg. You don’t need to modify your guitar in order to use it, so there’s no expectation of you drilling into its body to attach it. Nor will it leave any marks once you take it off. The sound modifications are made using four sliders and an LED strip makes clear which effects are being implemented at any one time.

“One of my specialties while working as a product designer was to help large companies analyze their industries, and develop innovative products to help them disrupt that space,” Mike Coyle, founder of U.K.-based startup Tonik Sound, which developed Pulse, told Digital Trends. “I’ve been a musician all of my life and was amazed at how much the music instruments industry resembled some of the industries I had shaken up. I decided to start Tonik as a way to breathe new life into the way in which musicians interact with their music. The Pulse was developed in collaboration with many guitarists, most of them electric guitarists who used their acoustic guitar for its ease of use and flexibility, but still wanted the effects from their electric guitar. We decided to tackle this problem, and the Pulse is what we came up with.”

The Pulse made its debut this month at the National Association of Music Merchant (NAMM) Show, an annual trade event for the music products industry. Starting March 12, it will be available via a crowdfunding campaign. If you want to keep track of what is going on with the product, you can head to Tonik’s website to sign up for Pulse-related alerts.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Miles of music: The 55 best songs about cars, driving, and road trips
• A.I.-powered guitar gadget ‘hears’ what you play, backs you up in real time
• The 50 best albums of 2017
• Fret Zealot hands-on review
• Fender’s American Original Series marries classic guitars with modern tech

Internet services are selling water to Cape Town residents facing Day Zero

The city of Cape Town, South Africa, expects to run out of water by April 12, better known as Day Zero. Cape Town is the second largest city in South Africa and one of the top destinations for tourists. But the days of having free-flowing water are numbered, and instead of supplying residents with water out of the goodness of their hearts, many individuals jumped online to deliver water to anyone who can pay.  

“Water is our precious natural resource, we have all come into contact with the reality of receding dam water levels and the risk of not having precious water,” reads one advertisement. “We desire to help people become independent environmentally friendly, we are a turnkey solution provider and will take care of all the aspects of your needs.” 

What led Cape Town to the point where internet companies are circling above? It’s facing the worst drought in over a century, forcing the city to install water management devices, hunt down possible leaks, recycle water, and enforce a strict usage policy on all citizens to the point where having unwashed hair is a sign of responsible water consumption. 

“The people who are still wasting water seem to believe that Day Zero just can’t happen or that the city’s seven augmentation projects — set to produce around 200 million liters per day (52.8 million gallons) — will be enough to save us,” the mayor’s office states. “We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water. We must force them.” 

Adding to the drought is the city’s growing population, which hit the 4 million mark, and continues to rise. Even more, the overall change in the Earth’s climate is to blame. Cape Town recently served as the perfect example at the World Economic Forum, which focused on the need to change the way humans affect the environment. According to several speakers, other parts of the world are facing similar problems. 

Part of the city’s method of controlling water consumption includes positioning local law enforcement to monitor public water-gathering points and escorting water containers across the city. Meanwhile, water is limited to 13.20 gallons per person per day for at least 150 days. For households that use 1,585 gallons or more per month, the city will charge nearly three times the normal rate. 

What can you do with 13 gallons? Flush the toilet once, wash your hands once, fill the dog’s drinking bowl, take a 90-second shower, wash your hands, wash dishes, drink just over 60 ounces of water, and use the same amount while cooking food. But once Day Zero arrives, water won’t be available for any of these daily tasks. 

And that is where these online services come into play. For a fee, Cape Town residents can have water shipped to their house for at least $75 per 264 gallons. Still, many residents are leaving Cape Town to escape the drought, but there are those who simply can’t afford to uproot their families. Purchasing water online may be their only solution.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best water purifiers
• Ingenious new sewage treatment system generates electricity and clean water
• Phyn Plus promises to be the smartest water-monitoring system on the market
• Debt financing gives blood-testing startup Theranos a needed infusion
• Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro review