British Airways is finally offering onboard WiFi

British Airways is meant to be a premium airline, however in one department it’s woefully archaic: WiFi. If you choose one of its planes for a long-haul trip, you’re typically stuck with its in-flight entertainment or whatever you remembered to download beforehand. Not anymore. At long last, BA is offering “high-speed” WiFi on a grand total of three aircraft. That’s right, three. The company promises that the number will rise to 118 planes over the next two years, however. That means you can finally stream Netflix and post photos to Instagram while you’re 35,000 feet up.

BA is, unsurprisingly, behind schedule with the roll out. Last April, it said customers in all cabins would “shortly” have access to WiFi on long-haul flights. Onboard connectivity would then be added to short-haul flights later that year, the company promised. (The latter will now commence “later this year,” a BA spokesperson told Engadget today.) Admittedly, this is Europe’s “first ever 4G high-speed inflight network,” which presumably comes with some technical challenges. It’s hard not to feel frustrated, though, when so many of BA’s competitors offer WiFi around the world.

BA will offer two WiFi tiers: Browse and Stream. Browse starts at £4.99 and limits your usage to basic webpages, messaging apps and social media. Stream, as the name implies, is suitable for Netflix and other video streaming services, and will start at £7.99. Both services will be available 10 minutes after take-off, once the aircraft has reached a height of roughly 10,000 feet. The first hour is free but after that you’ll need to sign up for one of the aforementioned packages. Browse nets you a minimum speed of 250Kbps, while Stream offers “no less than approximately 1Mbps.”

Source: British Airways (Press Release)

Chrome OS update comes with Spectre fix and new screenshot shortcut

Chrome OS version 64 has made its way to stable channel, which means it’s hitting your device very, very soon if it hasn’t yet. It’ll add a handful of new features and improvements, including a screenshot shortcut if you have a Chromebook with a 360-degree hinge like the Acer Spin. You only have to press the power and the volume down buttons at the same time, like what you’d do on an Android phone. It also adds a flag to make Split View easier to activate and gives Android apps the ability to run in the background. In addition, the update improves your lockscreen’s performance, presumably making it faster, and finally enables the use of VPN for apps downloaded from Google Play.

While Google is keeping the list of bug fixes under wraps until most people have installed the update, it has revealed that the version includes “additional browser mitigations” to protect your device against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. Chrome OS version 64, of course, comes with version 64 of the Chrome browser. That you’re also getting improved pop-up blockers, as well as another feature that can protect you against malicious auto-redirects.

Via: 9to5google

Source: Chrome releases

Spotify now shows songwriter and producer credits

Spotify announced today that when listening through the desktop platform, users will now be able to view song credits. Starting now, right-clicking on a track and selecting “Show Credits” from the menu will bring up its performer, writer and producer credits as well as the source from which that info was provided. Spotify says that currently, those details have been compiled from record label-provided metadata and they may be incomplete in some cases, but going forward, the feature will become more functional and will use information from other sources.

Spotify hasn’t had a very smooth relationship with songwriters and artists in the past. It has agreed to multi-million dollar settlements in lawsuits that alleged it didn’t properly pay publishers and songwriters and in attempts to build more trust, it has limited its free streaming option and purchased a company that streamlines information on proprietary rights. Last year, Spotify also launched Secret Genius — a songwriter-focused initiative that includes an ambassador program, playlists, podcasts and an award show.

It’s a little surprising something as simple as credits took this long, and it’s probably not as good as higher royalties, but it’s a good move — one that Tidal also made in November — since everyone involved in creating a song deserves to have their work acknowledged. In a statement, Annika Goldman, Spotify’s director of music publishing operations, said, “The more we share information, the more opportunities we can help create for songwriters. This is just the beginning of making songwriter and producer credits more easily available to Spotify listeners, and we look forward to continually improving that information, in close collaboration with our music industry partners.”

Via: Pitchfork

Source: Spotify

Catch every touchdown, ad, and trailer: How to watch the 2018 Super Bowl

The Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots will meet Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to compete for the Lombardi Trophy in the 52nd Super Bowl game, in one of the biggest live sporting events of the year. In fact, in the U.S. it’s one of the largest live TV events, period. 

Whether you watch for the football, for the halftime show (which is being performed by Justin Timberlake this year), or for the commercials and movie trailers, there’s something for everyone. Let’s be honest — between the viewing parties, the packed bars and restaurants, and the general excuse to eat, drink, and be around friends and family, the Super Bowl is practically a national holiday.

To make sure you can tune in on game day, we’ve put together this guide featuring the best ways to watch online or otherwise, regardless of which device, service, or platform you’re using.

NBC app/website

Date: Sunday, Feb. 4
Time: 3:30 p.m. PT/6:30 p.m. ET
Where: U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis
Teams: Philadelphia Eagles vs. New England Patriots

NBC is showing the Super Bowl this year, and it’s providing some simple options for everyone to watch the game for free. At noon PT on Sunday, February 4, NBC will begin airing its 11 hours of Super Bowl coverage — including the pregame show, the game itself, the halftime show, all the commercials, and even an episode of the TV show This is Us — on its NBC app, as well as through browsers on NBC.com. 

Normally, you’d have to authenticate your TV subscription by logging in with your provider’s credentials to watch on these platforms, but those restrictions will be lifted for a limited time on game day. Below are the easiest options to access the app. And continue on below if you’re looking for an alternative — we have you covered there as well.

Smartphones and tablets

For smartphones and tablets, downloading the NBC app for Android or iOS is easy as pie. However, you could also download either the Yahoo Sports or NFL Mobile apps to watch the game, both of which are available on iOS and Android as well.

Web browsers

As we mentioned above, the free game-day stream on NBC.com or NBCSports.com will be your best bet. If your laptop or desktop computer has an HDMI output, this is a free and easy way to connect to your TV using your browser of choice. If you happen to have a Chromecast, you can also cast the game from Google Chrome directly to your TV. Easy peasy.

Streaming devices and game consoles

The aforementioned NBC app is currently available on several streaming devices, including Android TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku devices, and Xbox One consoles. Simply download the app to your preferred streaming device and you’re good to go. PlayStation 4 users, however, will need to be subscribed to PlayStation Vue (or use a free trial account) in order to watch the game. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered there as well.

Live TV streaming services

Cable cutters who have subscribed to one of the numerous live TV streaming services out there — PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, Hulu Live TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV, etc. — can watch the game, provided (and this is key) that NBC is offered in their market and/or as part of their channel package. Luckily, each of these services includes a free trial period which usually lasts seven days or more, which is plenty of time to get your game on. Just be aware that you will be charged for a month’s subscription if you don’t cancel before the trial period ends, so go ahead and set that reminder now.

Another streaming service to consider is FuboTV, an up-and-coming live-streaming service that focuses almost exclusively on sports programming. Subscribers will be able to watch the Super Bowl on their local NBC affiliate, again provided local channels are currently available in your market. While the service normally costs $20 for your first month and $45 per month after that, a seven-day trial does exist for those who haven’t used the service yet. You’ll be able to sign up for the trial and watch the Super Bowl, and provided you cancel before your complimentary seven days are up, it’ll all be for free.

Antenna TV

If you’ve got an HD antenna, you can have your cake and eat it too, as it were — as long as you get NBC in your area, of course. Here’s a handy-dandy guide to find out if you can get NBC at your home base, just type your information into the boxes provided. If you don’t already have one, here are some great options for antennas to get you hooked up ahead of the game. If it’s coming at you fast, your local Best Buy or other electronics store should carry at least one of our favorite options, if not more.

Cable or satellite

Alright, we know you already know this but we had to add it just to be thorough. If you subscribe to a TV provider, the absolute easiest way to watch is on your local NBC Sports affiliate, and the same goes if you have a satellite hooked up. This is obviously going to be the most reliable option overall, as you won’t have to worry about internet connection speeds or dropouts, nor will you have to fiddle with app downloads or browser windows.

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• Gentlemen, start your engines: Here’s how to watch Formula 1 online
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• Cutting the cord? Let us help you find the best streaming TV service
• Watch the big game and save some cash with these digital TV antenna deals
• Verizon will help you watch the NFL … even if you’re not a Verizon customer

Garmin vívofit 4 review: two steps forward, one step back

There are plenty of cheap fitness trackers on the market, but often the lower price tag means getting fewer features. That’s still the case with Garmin’s new vívofit 4, but this device aims to bridge the gap between lower end wearables and the other $100-plus devices out there.

The vívofit 3 was one of our favorite fitness trackers in 2017. Is the vívofit 4 a worthy successor? Let’s find out.

Garmin vívofit 4 review notes: Our first vívofit 4 review unit had a bug that would stop the device from counting steps. Our second review unit has had no such issues.

I’ve been using the Garmin vívofit 4 as my main fitness tracker for roughly two weeks. The Google Pixel 2 XL has been my smartphone companion of choice for the duration of this review.

Show More

Design

Related reading

Garmin vívosport review

What happens when you take one of the best fitness trackers on the market and add a new color display, all-day stress tracking, strength training, and more in a thinner form factor? You get the vívosport, …

Garmin has done a pretty good job at making the vívofit 4 look like the company’s pricier fitness trackers, like the vívosmart 3 or vívosport. The vívofit 4 is slim, measuring just 11 mm thick and 23 mm wide — slightly wider than its predecessor. It’s light, too, at just 25 grams. I often went through the day without realizing it’s still on my wrist, which is important for a fitness tracker.

One of the big differences in design between the vívofit 3 and 4 is the bump up to a larger, color screen. The vívofit 4 has a slightly larger 11 x 11 mm display (the 3’s was 10 x 10 mm). The vívofit 4’s screen has a backlight too, which can be turned on by pressing and holding the physical button for about a second.

The display is easy to read outdoors, though it can be difficult to read in average-low light when you’re inside if the backlight isn’t turned on. It feels a little odd the backlight doesn’t turn on when you click the button, but that’s probably to keep that battery going for a full year.

The included strap is comfortable enough to keep on your wrist all day, though it feels more plasticky than the vívosport’s strap. It also comes with a standard watch-style clasp this time — likely a welcome change for those upgrading from any other vívofit model.

You can buy the vívofit 4 in three different color options — black, white, or black/lime green speckle. All three of those bands can be purchased separately for $19.99 a piece, or you can spring for the two pack of merlot and navy speckle bands for $29.99.

Features and performance

The vívofit 4 costs $80 — $60 less than the vívosmart 3 and $120 less than the vívosport. The lack of a GPS and a heart rate monitor means it isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely an attractive device for those who just need the basics.

It’ll track your steps taken, calories burned, sleep, and distance traveled, though the lack of a GPS means you won’t get hyper-accurate distance data.

See also

The best heart rate monitors and watches (January 2018)

Keeping track of your heart rate is one of the most essential metrics when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle and improving your fitness training and finding a good heart rate monitor is part …

Normally lacking a heart rate sensor would be okay. Previous vívofit models allowed you to connect to an external heart rate sensor thanks to ANT+ connectivity. For some reason Garmin didn’t find it necessary to include ANT+ support with the vívofit 4, which is quite frankly a shame. Heart rate sensor connectivity made the vívofit line stand out from other similarly priced trackers, and now it’s gone. This alone makes it difficult to recommend over the competition.

The removal of ANT+ connectivity is a shame.

Garmin says moving to a color display and including more features built into the software made the company concerned about the amount of code space available to support ANT+ connectivity. A Garmin representative told Android Authority it could be added back “in the future.” We sure hope this feature returns with the vívofit 5.

The vívofit 4 supports Garmin’s wonderful automatic activity recognition feature, Move IQ. That means you won’t need to manually start an activity before your workout. It auto-detects activities like walking, running, biking, using an elliptical, and swimming, though it won’t track your swims — you’ll need to spring for a more expensive device if you want lap/speed data.

The vívofit 4 comes with a 5 ATM water resistance rating, which means you can take it in the pool or shower.

Even though it has a rating of 5 ATM, the vívofit 4 won’t track your swims — you’ll need to spring for a more expensive device if you want lap/speed data.

If you’re just interested in the vívofit 4 as a pedometer, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s great a tracking steps. After we received our second review unit, the vívofit 4 was able to keep up with the vívosport and Fitbit Charge 2 in terms of step count accuracy.

One other useful feature is the move bar. Throughout the day, the vívofit 4’s colored move bar fills up and notifies you when you’re stationary for too long. Walking around for a few minutes will clear the move bar, or you can turn these notifications off if you don’t want to be bugged throughout the day.

During exercise, the vívofit 4 keeps track of your steps taken, total exercise time, and calories burned. It will also show you distance, pace, and speed information but these metrics are based on accelerometer data, so they’re not going to be as accurate as you might like. Still, the fact that the device attempts to provide these metrics will help give users a general idea on their performance level.

The vívofit 4’s accelerometer was hit and miss throughout our testing period, but it was mostly a miss. It often overshot distance and speed by a lot. I took a three-mile run on the treadmill and kept a steady pace of 7.8 mph. In the screenshots below, you’ll see the vívofit 4 recorded my distance as 2.57 miles, my best pace as 2:30 minute/mile, and my max speed as 23.9 mph!

Sleep tracking ranges from mostly accurate to wildly inaccurate, depending on what you’re doing before you go to bed. There are times when the vívofit 4 recognized I was reading in the living room before bed, and did not record that I was sleeping. Other times I wasn’t so lucky. Watching Netflix before bed resulted in the vívofit 4 entering sleep mode, which means it looked like I slept 12 hours multiple nights in a row. Even worse, during the time that I was watching Netflix, the device recorded that I was in deep sleep mode — not even light sleep.

You can alter mis-recorded sleep and activity data right from the Garmin Connect app, but we wish the device would record the data correctly in the first place.

Garmin Connect records your sleep levels and movement throughout the night, as well as how much of your sleep was deep, light, and if you were awake. The app also offers weekly sleep trend graphs, though they’re not displayed in a very helpful fashion. We much prefer the line graphs Fitbit’s app offers.

Luckily you can alter mis-recorded sleep and activity data right from the Garmin Connect app, though we wish the device would record the data correctly in the first place.

Related

Fitbit Ionic review

Fitbit is probably the most well-known company in the fitness tracker world, but smartwatches are new territory. The closest they’ve come to making a smartwatch was 2015’s Fitbit Blaze, but even that wasn’t all that …

Despite having a screen (albeit a small one), the device has very few smart features. You can set alarms, but there’s still no way for the vívofit 4 to send you smartphone notifications. It’s not like we want to read full emails on that tiny screen, but at least some vibration alerts would be nice. It’d be extremely useful for the device to vibrate and show an email icon when a new email is received or display a phone icon when someone’s calling your phone. It’s a missed opportunity for a device with a display to not offer any type of smart notification, especially when most other wearables on the market offer these features.

It’s a missed opportunity for a device with a display to not offer any type of smart notification, especially when most other wearables on the market offer these features.

We understand the argument that smartphone notifications would kill the battery faster, but even if that were the case it’d still last way longer than most other fitness trackers. We’re sure many users would be happier with eight-month battery life and vibration alerts than with no alerts and year-long battery life.

Admittedly “year-long battery life” sounds way sexier than “eight-month battery life,” and Garmin feels that way too. That’s right — the vívofit 4 takes two SR43 coin cell batteries, which Garmin says will power the device for up to a full year. This is hugely beneficial for those who never want to take their fitness tracker off to charge it up. There’s also no proprietary charging cable to worry about losing.

Okay — Garmin included some smart features here. The vívofit 4 has a stopwatch, a countdown timer, a weather widget, and a find my phone feature which will ring your phone if it’s connected with Bluetooth. There are also a handful of different watch faces to choose from, which can be customized with the color of your choosing.

Display	11 x 11 mm color, transflective eight-color memory-in-pixel (MIP) display 88 x 88 pixels
Battery	Up to one year 2 x SR43 user-replaceable
Memory	Four weeks of activity data
Materials	Silicone or TPU
Water resistance	5 ATM
Connectivity	Bluetooth Smart
Notifications	Move reminders, alarms
Compatibility	Android, iOS
Dimensions and weight	Small/Medium: 19 x 9.4 x 122-188 mm, 25 g Large: 19 x 9.4 x 148-215 mm, 25.5 g
Colors	Small/Medium: white, black, lime green speckled Large: black Interchangeable bands: speckled merlot, speckled navy pack

The Garmin app

Garmin Connect seems to improve every time we review a new Garmin device. It’s not the most approachable fitness app out there, but it works.

The newest improvement to Connect is the My Day screen, which is where you’ll  spend most of your time in the app. This is the main screen, which displays your daily steps, intensity minutes, calories burned, sleep, and even an activity summary from the last seven days. Tapping on any one of these sections will allow you to dive deeper into that activity.

The navigation tab at the bottom of the app hasn’t changed. From there, you can get quick access to the Challenges, Calendar, News Feed, and Notifications sections. Challenges lets you connect with and challenge other Garmin users. The News Feed section shows your recent activities from the previous 30 days.

The Calendar section lets you go back in time and see all the activities recorded for a particular day. This is a novel idea — it can be quite useful — but it’s not implemented as well as it could be. Once you open up the Calendar, all you see are a bunch of differently colored bars on each day of the week. There’s no indication whatsoever about which colored bar correlates to which activity, so unless you memorize what each bar stands for you’re going to play a guessing game every time you look up previous stats. It’s a minor annoyance, and certainly won’t bug everybody.

Garmin, your app is finally good. Now focus on adding more third-party app support.

If you use any other applications like MyFitnessPal, Strava, or Office 365, you can easily sync your activity data from Garmin Connect. Unfortunately those are the only third-party apps that work with Connect, which is still far behind Fitbit’s extensive list.

Gallery

Should you buy it?

The Garmin vívofit 4 is available now on Garmin.com and Amazon for $79.99, which is $20 cheaper than the vívofit 3 at launch. That cheaper price tag doesn’t come without consequences, though.

If you use your vívofit 3 with a heart rate monitor, the vívofit 4 should be an obvious pass unless you’re okay with logging HR data in another app. As for the competition, the Fitbit Alta (non HR) offers similar features for a slightly higher price tag, but that also means you’re getting into vívosmart 3 pricing territory. The Huawei Band 2 Pro is also a viable option for $10 less, and it comes with built-in GPS and heart rate sensors.

In a lot of ways, the vívofit 4 is a worthy successor to the vívofit 3. It’s more comfortable, with a better strap, a new color display, and plenty of useful extras like a weather widget and stopwatch. The lack of heart rate monitor connectivity is unfortunate. Hopefully it returns with the next model.

The vívofit 4 is an inexpensive fitness tracker that you basically never have to take off, and it keeps track of the basics. We just wish it tracked the basics a little better.

Throughout our two weeks of testing, the vívofit 4 was so close to delivering accurate results but ultimately fell short more often than we’d like. It offers users a more general idea of their performance levels, which is why most people will buy the vívofit 4. It’s an inexpensive fitness tracker that you basically never have to take off, and it keeps track of the basics. We just wish it tracked the basics a little better.

Next: How to get into great shape with a fitness tracker in just 7 minutes… a day

Niantic buys Escher to power shared world AR experiences

While Pokémon Go was a big step forward for AR in gaming, it appears that Niantic, the studio behind the game, has grander ambitions. This week, the company announced the acquisition of Escher Reality, which focuses on “persistent, cross platform, multi-user experiences,” according to the release.

Escher has been working on AR for a long time, before Pokémon Go was a bona fide hit. “Everyone thought we were crazy at that time,” Escher’s CEO Ross Finman told TechCrunch. But Escher has been committed to creating a toolkit for AR developers working on mobile. While Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore offer toolkits as well, Escher specifically focuses on multiplatform and multiuser experiences, which neither of those products do.

This has big implications for Niantic’s plans for Pokémon Go and its future AR games (including one that will reportedly include audio cues). The kind of tech that Escher worked on could be use to create the MMO version of an AR game: a shared world where people can interact with other players within the game.

Via: Rolling Stone

Source: Escher Reality, Niantic Labs

HBO outbids Apple for J.J. Abrams’ latest sci-fi thriller TV series

J.J. Abrams’ newest TV show, a sci-fi thriller called Demimonde has landed at HBO with a straight-to-series order. While Apple was very interested in the project, Abrams ultimately went with the network because he was impressed with its work on Westworld, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The drama focuses on the daughter of a scientist who is in a coma. The daughter ends up digging through her mother’s files and experiments, and as a result, she finds herself on another world, where a dark force threatens to consume everything. Eventually her father follows her there. HBO described the series as “an epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama.”

Abrams currently is an executive producer on the HBO sci-fi drama Westworld and will co-write and direct the final installment of the current Star Wars trilogy, Episode IX. He is currently working with Hulu on a TV adaptation of Stephen King’s stories, Castle Rock.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Technology can’t save football players’ brains

Tregg Duerson was 25 years old when his father committed suicide in 2011. A former defensive back for the Chicago Bears, New York Giants and Phoenix Cardinals, David “Dave” Duerson made a career out of being one of the most feared tacklers during his 11-year stint in the National Football League. His skill set helped him win two Super Bowl championship rings, one with the Bears in 1985 and another with the Giants in 1990, cementing his legacy as one of the NFL’s all-time greats. Along the way, he was also selected to the Pro Bowl, a postseason game that rewards the league’s best players, four consecutive times from 1985 to 1988. Duerson had the NFL career most players can only dream of, but it ultimately cost him his life.

At age 50, more than 15 years after his NFL retirement, Duerson was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest at his home in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. After years of battling with symptoms that he suspected were a sign of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), he decided he couldn’t cope with the effects any longer and chose to take his own life. Prior to his death, however, Duerson told friends and family he wanted his brain to be studied. By donating his remains to science, his hope was that doctors would learn more about a disease that we now know has plagued hundreds of deceased NFL players — including a handful who also committed suicide once their football careers were over.

In May 2011, two months after Duerson’s death, doctors at Boston University officially diagnosed what he seemingly knew and feared for years: He suffered from CTE, a progressive neurodegenerative brain disease often found in people with a history of repetitive head trauma. Symptoms include blurred vision, dementia, depression, headaches, memory loss and mood swings, and these only get worse over time. There’s no cure for CTE, making the disease unbearable for anyone who suffers from it.

Doctor Ann McKee, the neuropathologist who examined Duerson’s brain, said there was indisputable evidence of CTE in the tissue samples she tested, adding that there was “no evidence of any other disorder” in him. “It’s tragic that Dave Duerson took his own life,” she said at the time, “but it’s very meaningful that he recognized the symptoms of the disorder. It validates this condition.”

“This bill honors my family’s hopes and my father’s legacy to protect future athletes and the future of football.”

Tregg’s story is an unimaginably tough one for him to tell, but he’s now using it as the basis to promote a safer way to play the game of football. That game gave so much to him and his family growing up in Chicago, leading up to his days as a player at one of the most prestigious college-football programs in the world: Notre Dame. And that game ultimately played a major role in taking his father away. But Tregg’s focus isn’t to spread that message by advocating the use of custom-made helmets with better padding or smart mouth guards that can monitor head impacts in real time. Because as helpful as technology innovations can be to mitigate the issue, Tregg believes the best way to reduce the risk of brain injuries is to eliminate physical contact altogether. At least for players who are just starting off.

With the Duerson Act, which he wrote alongside Democratic State Representative Carol Sente, Tregg is proposing to ban tackle football for kids under the age of 12 in Illinois. “Thanks to increased attention and research on brain trauma, we know that part of the solution is to guard young children’s developing brains from the risks of tackle football,” he said in a statement introducing the Duerson Act. “This bill honors my family’s hopes and my father’s legacy to protect future athletes and the future of football.”

Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Dak Prescott wearing Riddell’s Precision-Fit helmet

While there’s no scientific proof that setting an age threshold for tackle football can reduce the risk of long-term brain injuries in players, the idea that limiting physical contact could be a solution to the problem doesn’t seem farfetched. The challenge ahead for Tregg is to make parents and coaches understand that their kids can fully develop skills without tackling, which has historically been a core element of the game. Tregg said in an interview that the key is to educate young people on what can happen when they play a contact sport and the effects that this can have on them being able to live a normal life beyond football.

Tregg added that although the Duerson Act is solely about protecting players from physical hits, technology can be key to keeping better track of when someone’s been hit and accurately measuring impact levels, particularly around the head. Companies like Prevent Biometrics are already working on products designed to address these issues. With the Head Impact Monitor System (HIMS), for example, Prevent has created a sensor-laden mouth guard that can detect collisions immediately, the idea being that this would prompt players and coaches to seek medical treatment on the sidelines.

If the HIMS works as advertised, it has the potential to substitute methods such as observational tests, which have proved time and time again to be ineffective. Those traditional diagnostic methods often fail because it’s tough to convince a player to get off the field and at times, team doctors don’t do their due diligence, as their priorities lie with the club rather than the individual.

The NFL has tried to address this by implementing a concussion protocol that employs independent doctors on the field, but the system isn’t perfect. Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, called the protocol a “fraud” last November after an incident in which Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jacoby Brissett took a helmet-to-helmet hit during a game. Brissett was allowed to continue playing, despite going limp and showing what Nowinski called one of the “clearest concussions signs of the season.”

Helmet makers like Riddell, meanwhile, have been working on solutions of their own. The company’s Precision-Fit tech is used to make customized helmets for each player. To do so, Riddell scans the surface of a player’s head and uses that image and exact surface to create a helmet that fits him exclusively. That can in turn create better protection, since literally every curve is covered.

In addition, Riddell has also developed its InSite training tool, a helmet-based sensor system that can measure impact data and upload it to a server where coaches and athletic trainers can view the results. Riddell emphasizes that the idea behind InSite isn’t to be a diagnostic tool or a medical device but rather to simply act as a monitoring system that can help staff proactively reduce the head-impact exposure of players. It could, for instance, show if a player’s hitting technique is poor or if his playing style needs to be adjusted.

InSite isn’t being used in the NFL right now, but there’s a chance we’ll see it make its way to the league in the near future. For now, Riddell says 20 players from the Philadelphia Eagles will be wearing Precision-Fit helmets when they face the New England Patriots this weekend during Super Bowl LII. You may also see players using the VICIS Zero1 that night, a helmet designed by engineers and neurosurgeons that garnered investment from the NFL for being one of the most impact-reducing products for its players. The Zero1 features multiple layers of foam that are meant to slow down impact forces and mitigate collisions by offering players the widest possible field of view.

The NFL has made more than 50 league changes that are intended to reduce the amount of contact players have to deal with.

Innovation in protective gear is one of the areas the NFL has been heavily investing in since 2016, when it launched Play Smart, Play Safe, an initiative intended to drive progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of head injuries. As part of that, the league has pledged $100 million to the cause, promising to support independent medical research and engineering advancements that help protect players and make the sport generally safer.

Of the $100 million the league has committed, $60 million will go to the league’s Engineering Roadmap. It first plans to borrow successful injury-prevention techniques from the auto industry to create a robust head-protection program for players. It then plans to develop accurate impact sensors and work on helmet tech that can make hits less excruciating. Last but not least, it will create incentives for companies to use this research to create a new breed of protective equipment.

Most importantly, perhaps, the NFL has made more than 50 league changes that are intended to reduce the amount of contact players have to deal with, especially when they’re not playing actual games.

For starters, the off-season program was reduced from 14 to 9 weeks, during which teams are only allowed to make players wear helmets for four of those. Then, in the preseason, the NFL eliminated two-a-day practices, forcing teams to only conduct one padded practice per day. As for the actual season, one of the biggest changes was limiting permissible padded practices to 14 for the entire 17-week season, compared to the unlimited number prior to 2011. Players can now also only have two padded practices per week during the season, and every team is required to film all practices, which helps the NFL health officials review tape in case there are any concussions recorded.

Why did it take the NFL this long to take action, considering that the issue surrounding brain injuries caused by the sport is decades old? Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of health and safety initiatives, told Engadget that as the league learns more about the topic from researchers, clinicians, coaches and, of course, players, it can do its part to try to solve the issue as best as it can.

Miller pointed to the NFL’s ongoing medical and engineering research efforts as proof that the league is instituting changes to how the game is taught as well as the way it is helping “take the head out of the game.” He said the NFL is fully committed to understanding diseases like CTE and traumatic brain injury, noting that the league is constantly working with innovators across the world to come up with the best diagnosis, treatment and injury prevention for players. “Awareness of and interest in this issue only continue to increase,” he said. “We think that is critical to continuing to advance progress, and we intend to remain at the center of the effort and the discussion.”

Tregg said that people should take the NFL’s word with a grain of salt. After all, he said, the league has its own agenda and public image to protect. “The NFL is an entertainment business,” he said. “They make billions of dollars and pay people a lot of money, and a lot of [the] decisions that they’re going to make along these lines are tied to entertainment.” He added that at the end of the day, the NFL is going to do what’s best for its bottom line, even if it comes at the expense of players’ health. “Some players,” said Tregg, “are willing to take the health risks to be compensated.”

“They make billions of dollars and pay people a lot of money, and a lot of [the] decisions that they’re going to make along these lines are tied to entertainment.”

Still, even with improvements in technology, science and rule changes, the main issue continues to be the lack of players’ self-care. A high school player who may have a concussion, for example, may not want to come out of a game because his time on the field could mean a college scholarship. The same goes for someone who plays in college, with the only difference being that what’s at stake is an NFL contract. And for players in the NFL, being out with a concussion could end up affecting time on the field in the next game or, at worst, losing out on a contract extension.

“I would say that where technology can be very helpful is in finding those individuals that are concussed,” said Tregg. “Because quite frankly, there’s not going to be many players who are going to raise their hand and say, ‘I’m willing to leave the field because I have a concussion.’”

That’s a cultural problem that Tregg said involves a lot of social factors, too, like players not wanting to let themselves or their teammates down. “They are so competitive, and they’re driven by that competitiveness to win the game or even to sustain their starting position,” he said. “The likelihood that we think the average [player] is going to say, ‘Yes, I’m concussed, can you take me out of the game?’ is probably pretty low. And I think with the help of technology, we can find objective ways to identify those individuals.”

Doctor Robert C. Cantu, co-founder and medical director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Boston University School of Medicine, said the other main problem is the common misconception that concussions are the primary cause of CTE. Cantu and other researchers believe that even mild head injuries can pose a major risk for developing the disease.

Riddell uses 3D-scanning tech to design helmets based on the shape of a player’s head. This makes it possible to have a more protective helmet, because each one is built differently.

The challenge with CTE is that it can only be diagnosed through a posthumous study of a patient’s brain tissue. That said, a study from Evanston’s NorthShore University HealthSystem in 2017 claimed to have found CTE in a living ex-NFL player for the first time ever, though the doctors behind it said further research is needed to corroborate these results. To make matters worse, there’s no proven treatment for CTE, making the disease basically impossible to control.

Cantu said that even the most protective, tech-forward helmets may not be enough to help save a player from the long-term effects of CTE. “Think of an egg that hasn’t been cooked. Now wrap it in Bubble Wrap and drop it on the floor. The shell of the egg will not break because it’s been protected by the Bubble Wrap, but the yolk will be scrambled when you open it,” he said. “That’s the problem you have with helmets. You can build bigger and better helmets, and you can get mouth guards that are somewhat helpful, because it gives something to bite down on and tense your neck muscles without breaking your teeth. But the forces are too great. It’s like that Bubble Wrap. You’re going to prevent the skull fracture, but you’re not going to prevent a shaking of the brain inside the skull from the head. That’s what we’re up against.”

For Cantu, technology is still important, especially if it can actually make a difference in players’ lives. But he said the real difference will have to come from outlawing hits to the head and practicing differently, whether it’s at the youth, college or professional levels. “What’s going to save football,” he said, “is when that type of reduction is put in place and there will be far fewer head blows administered.”

That’s hard to ask of a sport whose charms, for better or worse, are its aggressiveness and physicality. But this change in behavior and the belief of players, schools and leagues that there needs to be a cultural shift will, ultimately, be crucial for the future of the sport. And teaching that mindset of self-awareness and self-care starts from the bottom, with young kids playing at the youth or high school levels, as Tregg Duerson hopes to accomplish with his efforts.

It may not be easy and it may not happen overnight, but everyone involved seems to have figured out what’s at stake: lives. Even if it took longer than it should have.

Image credits: USA Today Sports/Reuters (Dak Prescott helmet shot); Getty Images (all other photography)

Apple Recently Began Selling Refurbished Second-Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Starting at $679

Apple began selling refurbished second-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro models last month, just a few days after adding refurbished 10.5-inch iPad Pro models. This was brought to our attention today by Reddit user Chaseism, and we decided to share the news since it went unnoticed at the time.

Apple has steadily added various Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + Cellular configurations with 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB of storage since mid January, with prices reduced by around 15 percent compared to what Apple charges for brand new models. All three colors are available, including Space Gray, Silver, and Gold.

In the United States, for example, there are Wi-Fi models with 64GB of storage available for $679, a discount of $120. Wi-Fi models with 256GB and 512GB of storage are also in stock for $809 and $979, down from $949 and $1,149, respectively. Various other configurations are available, including in Canada.

Apple says its refurbished products are thoroughly inspected, tested, cleaned, and repackaged with a new white box and all manuals and accessories. Apple also installs a new battery and replaces the outer shell, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between a refurbished and brand new iPad Pro.

All refurbished iPad Pro models come with Apple’s standard one-year warranty effective on the date the tablet is delivered. The warranty can be extended to up to two years from the original purchase date with AppleCare+ for iPad, at a cost of $99 in the United States and Canada for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

All in all, these deals provide customers with an opportunity to save between $120 and $170 off the second-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, originally released in June 2017. Keep in mind better deals are often available from resellers, so keep an eye on our Apple Deals roundup for the latest sales.

Apple also began selling refurbished iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models in the United States for the first time yesterday.

Related Roundup: iPad ProTag: refurbishedBuyer’s Guide: 12.9″ iPad Pro (Neutral)
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Sony CEO completes quest to make the company successful again

If the news that Sony CEO Kaz Hirai will be stepping down in a few months came as a bit of a surprise this morning, then the latest peek at the company’s books is a return to something more predictable. In the third quarter of Sony’s fiscal year — covering October through December 2017 — its Playstation division continued to pull in the most money. Sales of home entertainment and audio gear, as well as camera components, were particularly strong over those three months; and unlike last quarter, smartphone income was in the positive, too.

All in all, Sony recorded $23.65 billion in revenue over the quarter, which translates into $2.62 billion in profit. The firm’s gaming arm was the primary money-spinner, as usual, generating $777 million in income. To put that into perspective, that’s almost as much as Sony made from Playstation and complementary services through the entire 2015 fiscal year, and by far the best quarter it’s had for some time — and that’s despite the PS4 Pro being on sale for over a year now. People jumping at holiday deals and the success of its relatively cheap and accessible PSVR headset, which has sold over 2 million units, has obviously has the desired effect.

Elsewhere, income was up across the board compared to last quarter. Sony’s semiconductor and financial services businesses performed strongly, while the box office success of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle kept Sony Pictures in the black. Income within its music and imaging divisions remained fairly stable, but there was significant growth in home entertainment and audio, which was responsible for a record income of $421 million. Sony announced a ton of new products in this category at CES in January, signaling a sensible and continued commitment there.

Sony’s smartphones lost the company money last quarter, but there was some signs of life in the following three months. In total, Sony recorded $144 million in income in mobile, but in its predictions for next quarter, it said it expects sales to slow. The money lost there will be “offset by a reduction in operating costs,” however.

The most notable number on Sony’s books, though, is a total operating income of more than $3 billion for the quarter. That’s more than Sony can say for either the whole of its 2015 or 2016 fiscal years. In fact, this financial year Sony has completely eclipsed the equivalent numbers on last year’s quarterly balance sheets.

Perhaps it isn’t that strange that CEO Kaz Hirai, who took the helm in 2012, will leave at the end of this fiscal year, then. When he came to power, he announced his “One Sony” plan to create a leaner organization with fewer staff and a focus on gaming, imaging and mobile. Making Playstation one of Sony’s core businesses has obviously paid off, even if mobile market share continues to struggle. The new mid-range phones Sony announced at CES probably won’t reverse its fortunes, but perhaps the more premium models expected to be announced at MWC later this month will fare better.

Kaz Hirai’s job is done, it seems — or it will be when he steps down as CEO at the end of this fiscal year and lets current CFO Kenichiro Yoshida take his place. Hirai will continue to be a part of Sony, assuming the role of Chairman, but now he’s delivered on his turnaround plan, it’s time to relax a little and spend more time with his pack of Aibo robodogs.

Source: Sony