Google hints at a rebranding for Android Wear

Android Wear might be on the cusp of a Google Pay-style rebranding. Users exploring the latest Android P Developer Preview have noticed that Google is not only referring to Android Wear as “Wear OS,” but has replaced the usual watch-like logo with a distinctive “W.” This doesn’t necessarily indicate that a formal name change is imminent (9to5Google noted that Play Services betas alluded to Google Pay for months), but it does suggest it could happen by the time Android P is released, if not by the Google I/O conference in May.

There’s no formal explanation for the new badging at this point, but it’s not hard to imagine why Google might use the Wear OS label. As with Google Pay, the company may want to avoid using the Android label on a product that isn’t strictly limited to Android devices. You can use Android Wear watches with iPhones, after all.

And that declaration may be particularly important given the current state of the smartwatch market. IDC estimated that Android Wear was virtually non-existent among the top five wearable manufacturers in the fourth quarter of 2017 — even Huawei got to fifth place primarily through its fitness trackers, not its Android wristwear. While new watches and updated software are ultimately the keys to growth, a name swap could reel in some of those buyers who previously thought they needed an Android phone.

Via: Android Police, 9to5Google

Source: Reddit

Tennis legend Andre Agassi is building tech to help with dyslexia

Andre Agassi, the legendary American tennis player, made an appearance at SXSW 2018 to announce a partnership with Square Panda, a startup that makes educational apps for kids. Through his Early Childhood Neuroscience Foundation, Agassi and Square Panda are creating Readvolution, an initiative that aims to develop the “first-ever” free dyslexia-assessment game. To make this happen, the plan is to get help from scientists in a number of universities in the US, such as the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and the Weill Institute of for Neurosciences.

The goal, according to Agassi and Square Panda, is to bring all these minds together to find a way to build a “scientifically validated technology” that can be used for universal screening of dyslexia. Andy Butler, CEO of Square Panda, said that his company’s role in this venture is to rely on its artificial-intelligence-learning platform to ensure that kids with dyslexia can acquire all language skills, not just specific literacy ones. He said Square Panda is able to do this by offering a robust set of tools that teach vocabulary and alphabetic awareness. The key is that Square Panda does this in a fun, interactive way. Its $100 multisensor phonics learning playset (pictured above), for instance, turns an iOS or Android device into an instrument that encourages kids to read.

Andre Agassi during the launch of Readvolution.

In an interview with Engadget, Agassi said he’s been testing Square Panda’s work in his charter school in Las Vegas, and he immediately saw the difference it can make for kids. With this partnership, he added, he wants to make sure that these tools can reach as many children as possible. “I’m very interested in this space,” Agassi said, “because I’ve seen first-hand what a challenge it can be to guide an entire classroom full of kids at the pace that each kid individually deserves.” He said that, if he and Square Panda can build an efficient dyslexia-assessment game, he believes they can make a major breakthrough in the educational sector and set a path to build more Readvolution projects in the future.

Agassi said he’s aware that many athletes, current and former, are investing in technology and he hopes they continue to do so to make a greater social impact. Investing in it for the sake of a portfolio is everybody’s prerogative, and I think that you can’t stop technology, so being aware of its growth and its trajectory is only a healthy thing,” he said. “But figuring out how to best invest in it to accomplish societal change, as well, is where I like to live.”

Catch up on the latest news from SXSW 2018 right here.

Twitter will livestream Major League Soccer games

Twitter hasn’t scored a major sports livestreaming deal in a long while, but that drought is over. Variety has learned that the social network has struck a 3-year deal with Major League Soccer that will give it a selection of weekly video, including “at least” 24 live matches. The arrangement will turn Univision’s normally Spanish-language broadcasts into English-language streams for Twitter users in the US. The first livestream has already taken place, in fact — Twitter broadcast a match between Los Angeles FC and Real Salt Lake on March 10th.

The agreement also provides highlight clips worldwide through MLS’ Twitter accounts, and should include other videos tied to the season’s “big events.”

This is a blow to Facebook (which had MLS live games in 2017) although it won’t feel too devastated when it just secured the rights to 25 MLB games. MLS will certainly be happy, as the Twitter deal comes shortly after YouTube TV reached streaming deals with Los Angeles FC and the Seattle Sounders. And for Twitter, this is really just one part of a long-term strategy to become a hub for as many sports as it can. The more live games it has, the more likely it is to keep you engrossed. That, in turn, lures in more advertisers and could help grow Twitter’s relatively stagnant user base.

Source: Variety

How to mine Bitcoin

A BitMain AntMiner S9 ASIC miner

When Bitcoin was first introduced in 2009, mining the world’s first and premier cryptocurrency needed little more than a home PC — and not even a fast one at that. Today the barrier for entry is far higher if you want to make any kind of profit doing it. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s not the homebrew industry it once was.

Still, if you want to know how to mine Bitcoin, there are a few steps you can take. One involves much more risk and monetary investment than the other, but the potential rewards are greater. So just as when it comes to buying Bitcoin or altcoins, you need to be aware that nothing in the world of cryptocurrencies is guaranteed. Any investment could be lost, so make sure you do your reading before pulling out your credit card.

Mining vs. investment

Before we discuss how to mine Bitcoins yourself, it’s important to note that although there is uncertainty in everything cryptocurrency related, mining is arguably the most volatile. Hardware price fluctuations, changes in Bitcoin difficulty and even the lack of a guarantee of a payout at the end of all your hard work, make it a riskier investment than even buying Bitcoins directly.

Nobody can say whether Bitcoins will be worth more tomorrow than they are today, nor can they give you any concrete answer as to whether you’ll receive a return on your investment, but buying Bitcoin directly at least gives you something for your money immediately. It’s certainly worth considering before you go down the mining route.

Method 1: Cloud mining

Hashflare

Cloud mining is the practice of renting mining hardware (or a portion of their hashing power) and having someone else do the mining for you. You are typically ‘paid’ for your investment with Bitcoin. Sometimes even if the hardware isn’t used for mining Bitcoin.

Although there are many detractors of cloud mining, it requires a much smaller investment than personal mining. As with general investing, it’s important to do your research, because there are a lot of companies out there which purport to be the best and even the largest have their detractors.

Step 1: Pick your mining company

Genesis Mining is arguably the largest and most reputable of the bunch. HashFlare recently told Digital Trends in an interview that every one of its customers has turned a profit using its service. It did say though, that if many of them had invested in Bitcoin at the right time they may have made more money.

If neither of those companies strikes your fancy, CryptoCompare maintains a list of mining companies with user reviews and ratings, though be aware there are a lot of reviewers looking to shill their referral codes in the comment section.

Step 2: Choose a mining package

Once you have picked a cloud mining provider, you need to pick a mining package. That will typically involve choosing a certain amount of hashing power and cross-referencing that with how much you can afford to pay. Typically paying more will give you a better return, or you’ll turn a profit quicker, but that’s not always the case.

Most cloud mining companies will help you decide by giving you a calculation based on the current market value of Bitcoin, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining and cross-referencing that with the hashing power you’re renting. However, it’s important to note that those numbers can and do change, so it is important to look at market trends and estimate where Bitcoin may be going before choosing your contract. What may be profitable now, may not be if Bitcoin’s value crashes.

Step 3: Pick a mining pool

After choosing your contract, most cloud mining companies will ask you to pick a mining pool. That’s where you choose a global mining team to join. It’s a method of increasing the chance of earning Bitcoin through mining and it’s a standard practice in cloud and personal mining. There are pros and cons of different pools that go beyond the scope of this article, but joining an established and proven pool is likely to be your best bet.

Once you’ve completed that step your cloud mining can begin and within a few days or weeks you should start to see your cloud mining account begin to fill with Bitcoin. Withdrawing it and putting it into a secure wallet of your own is a good plan as soon as you have a small holding, though some cloud miners will allow you to reinvest your earnings for greater hashing power.

Beware of “pre-sale”

Some cloud mining companies will sell you a contract on a “pre-sale” basis. That is effectively asking you to pay upfront for a contract that won’t begin for weeks or months when new hardware becomes available. In most circumstances, it is not advisable because there is no way to guarantee those contracts will be profitable when they start and not even a concrete indication of when that will happen.

Method 2: Personal mining

Personal mining for Bitcoin is rare today because of the high cost involved. Although you can mine alternative cryptocurrencies with consumer hardware, mining Bitcoins in 2018 requires specialized hardware built using application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips designed specifically for mining. They are not cheap to buy or run.

Because of the high costs involved, mining Bitcoin yourself is only recommendable if you have ready access to plentiful and more importantly, cheap, electricity and a powerful network connection. Before investing in any hardware or mining set ups, it is imperative you use a Bitcoin mining calculator to see if you can actually turn a profit with all costs considered.

Step 1: Choose your hardware

If you are dead set on mining, you need to buy yourself a powerful ASIC miner. Most of the modern options are built using the same chips, but they all use different power supplies and some are more efficient than others. The most praised at the time of writing is Bitmain’s AntMiner S9, which is currently priced at $2,320, but new orders aren’t slated to ship out for a few weeks. Other, more immediate sellers charge a huge markup and are unlikely to be cost-efficient.

Second-hand hardware is also an option, but bear in mind that mining hardware can burn out very quickly, so there is no guarantee that your newly acquired bargain will last long enough to turn a profit for you. You can also opt for older hardware or the GPU you have on your gaming rig, but again, there’s no guarantee how long it will last and as Bitcoin mining difficulty increases, they may no longer be able to work fast enough to earn Bitcoin for you.

Step 2: Choose a mining pool

Once you have your hardware and it’s setup, ready to go, you need to decide whether you want to mine Bitcoin alone or as part of a pool of collective miners. Doing it by yourself could mean greater rewards (mining rewards are 12.5 Bitcoin at the current difficulty level) but if you get unlucky or don’t have much hashing power, you could mine for months or even years without earning a single Bitcoin. Being part of a pool means more regular, smaller rewards based on how much you contribute. You’ll also have to pay a fee of your earnings to be a part of the collective.

Choosing a mining pool goes beyond the scope of this article, but suffice to say there are guides to the best ones out there. In a nutshell, joining an established, low-fee pool is likely to be your best bet, but you may have specific needs which only some will cater to.

Step 3: Download the right software

The final steps to starting to mine Bitcoins involve downloading the right software and linking up your hardware with a secure wallet. There are bunch of different options, but they all essentially the same thing. The actual setup process of your chosen hardware and software will be dependent on your choices thus far, but if you’ve done everything correctly, you should be ready to mine. Connect your miner up to your PC, login to your pool, start the software and you’re mining.

Step 4: Check the numbers

From here, the most important thing you can do is stay abreast of the numbers involved. As Bitcoin difficulty goes up, you need to make sure your set up is staying profitable. Are you earning enough Bitcoins to cover your electricity costs? Are your Bitcoin miner’s temperatures staying low enough that they aren’t going to burn out? Is your system staying quiet enough to not annoy your neighbors?

If you answered yes to all of those, then sit back and watch your Bitcoins pile up. Or sell them. Or convert them into something else. It’s totally up to you.

Editors’ Recommendations

• What is Bitcoin mining?
• ‘Bitcoin Tycoon’ lets anyone experience the joyless grind of crypto mining
• Samsung confirms it’s working on chips for cryptocurrency mining
• The best bitcoin alternatives
• One way to cool your massive bitcoin mining rig? Submerge it in oil

Apple has patented technology to stop your keys from sticking

If you’re a MacBook owner, then it is more than likely that you’ve experienced the horror that is a stuck key on your keyboard. And truly, what is worse than being incapable of typing coherent sentences because you have lost access to your space bar, or to a key vowel or any of the uniquely important keys on your computer? Luckily, Apple may finally be looking to address this great scourge on MacBook ownership. The iEmpire has filed a patent that was made public this weekend for a keyboard that is resistant to crumbs, dust, and dirt. Really, it’s shocking that it’s taken so long for such a patent to emerge.

The patent details two different methodologies by which a keyboard would be able to keep out dirt, which is generally the culprit when dealing with sticky keys. The new keyboards would either seal gaps altogether, or feature a membrane underneath each key that would “blow out air every time a key is pressed,” as per a report from The Verge. This blowing action would help expel any dust, and hopefully, keep your keyboard working as it was meant to be.

Initially filed in September 8, 2016, the patent has certainly been around for quite some time, though it clearly has yet to be implemented. Folks with the latest MacBook Pro models have noted that their keys regularly get stuck, and while older models were easier to clean, these newer computers are a bit more difficult to address without the help of an expert. The problem, of course, is that in an attempt to make the new MacBooks thinner than ever, there are just a few millimeters of space between the pressed and unpressed state of the new keys. Indeed, Apple has taken to replacing quite a few of these computers that are under warranty, so pervasive is the issue.

In any case, the patent suggests that Apple is looking into several options when it comes to creating a keyboard that doesn’t stick quite as often. The company admits in the patent that the keys are susceptible to damage by both liquid and solid particles, and notes specifically that “residues from such liquids, such as sugar, may corrode or block electrical contacts [and] prevent key movement by bonding moving parts.”

But don’t get too excited by the existence of the patent — just because there’s an idea for technology doesn’t mean that it’ll ever come to fruition.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple files patent for a crumb-resistant MacBook keyboard
• What if Apple replaced the MacBook keyboard with a giant screen?
• Apple’s latest patents hint at sleep tracker and continued work on AR
• A future Microsoft laptop could have a foldable touch screen
• Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know

More than selfies: Google’s apps bring the world of art to your phone

Google’s “art selfie” app, which helps you find a classic portrait that you most resemble, took social media by storm a few weeks back. Even celebrities got in on the fun. But Google’s commitment to bringing the world of art to a wider audience goes beyond just selfies, as shown by some new apps from its Arts & Culture Experiments division.

First up is Art Palette, which is all about color. It’s a search engine that finds and categorizes artworks based on the colors you choose. You can either upload a picture, or just play around with the different color combinations at the top of the screen. The algorithm uses machine learning to sift through thousands of images that match the color palette you uploaded.

It’s a great way to see how different colors look together and will likely give you some inspiration for adding some art to your own house or apartment.

Next is Life Tags, a collection of more than 40 million images from the iconic magazine. Life was like the Pinterest of the 20th century, a glossy full-sized magazine that ran from 1936 to 1972. The images captured in the pages of Life are a fascinating digital encyclopedia, and Google’s neural network uses a specialized photo search to categorize and tag the photos for browsing.

Each image has multiple labels associated with it, depending on what the Google annotation algorithm “sees” in the picture, and those associations can be viewed as dotted lines on the picture. This one’s a real rabbit hole — be prepared to spend several hours exploring a fascinating photographic history of the 20th century as you jump from astronauts to roller derbies to suspension bridges, and everything in between.

Both of these new apps can be found in the Arts & Culture Experiments section of Google’s site. Making art more accessible is the aim of the project, Amit Sood told the Telegraph. The Google Art project began with 17 museums and now includes 1,600.

“In the West we are so used to having these masterpieces and this cultural heritage on our doorstep,” he said. “But not every country will be able to build hundreds of physical structures and acquire hundreds of millions of artworks. It’s just not practical.”

“Museums have a role to make their spaces different,” he added. “I think this is not a problem, this is an opportunity, because you are changing the definition of the word ‘museum’ from it being a building.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• Even celebrities are having a fun time with the Google Arts and Culture app
• Find your doppelgänger from art history with Google’s Arts and Culture app
• Google Arts app goes viral with new match-me-to-a-classic-painting feature
• Bring out your inner Michelangelo with the best drawing apps for the iPad Pro
• 3D-printed optical illusion tricks your eyeballs into perceiving a cube

Stay on top of your goals with business Kindle books from $1

Today only, Amazon is offering a selection of top business Kindle books at great prices. Titles start at only $0.99. If you don’t have a Kindle, fear not; you can read these on your smartphone or computer using any one of Amazon’s free Kindle reading apps.

It never hurts to brush up on your business skills or gain a new perspective on things you think you already know. “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” promises to show you how to tackle what you most love, and how to face down what you most fear. It’s only $2.99 and normally sells for around $15.

Another fascinating read, “Algorithms to Live By”, is an exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives. Today you’ll pay $3.99 instead of the normal $18 price.

Make sure to check out this entire sale before the deals expire at the end of the day.

See at Amazon

Galaxy S8 in Canada getting Oreo on March 19, Note 8 to follow on March 28

The Galaxy S7/S7 Edge will be updated in the spring/summer.

Samsung’s global rollout of Android 8.0 Oreo for the Galaxy S8 resumed on February 22 after a bug was found with the initial release, and now we have an exact date as to when that update will hit handsets in Canada.

First spotted by MobileSyrup, the Samsung Members app in Canada was recently updated with a message indicating when its existing hardware would be updated to Oreo. The highlights are the Galaxy S8 and Note 8, with the phones expected to get Oreo on March 19 and 28, respectively.

Following this, Samsung notes that the Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, Galaxy A5, and Tab S3 will get the Oreo treatment in the “spring/summer.”

Lastly, “later in 2018” will see Samsung push Oreo to the Galaxy Xcover4, Galaxy A8, Galaxy J3 Prime, Tab A8, Tab Active 2, and the Tab A 10.1.

This is the first time we’ve heard Samsung comment on Oreo for the Galaxy Note 8, so hopefully its March 22 rollout in Canada is representative of when the rest of the world will see similar treatment.

Android Oreo

• Android Oreo review!
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• Oreo will make you love notifications again
• Will my phone get Android Oreo?
• Join the Discussion

Today’s best deals you won’t want to miss

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

Sure it’s the weekend, but that doesn’t mean the deals aren’t flowing. We’ve got great discounts on Amazon’s Echo hardware, Fire TV sticks, Anker Bluetooth headphones and more! Don’t pass these up.

View the rest of the deals

If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you’ll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter, because missing out on a great deal stinks!

Twitter purges accounts behind artificially viral tweets

If you’ve used Twitter for long enough, you’ve probably seen someone retweet a truism or obviously plagiarized quote from accounts that are clearly trying to force their tweets to go viral. You won’t have to put up with some of those accounts from now on, though. Twitter has suspended a horde of accounts notorious for mass-retweeting each other’s posts (some of which were stolen), including Common White Girl, Dory and Finah. The purge came weeks after Twitter removed the ability to retweet posts across multiple accounts in Tweetdeck, neutering the ability of these faux viral peddlers (known as “tweetdeckers”) to spread each others’ messages without resorting to third-party clients or asking for retweets.

It’s not certain if the suspensions are permanent. Twitter has so far declined to comment on individual suspensions, but Engadget has learned that the accounts were suspended for violating spam policies that forbid mass duplication and impersonation. Even if their accounts are restored, then, they couldn’t resume their behavior without facing a tougher penalty.

The move won’t completely eliminate this sort of behavior, which (as always) is fueled by money: customers pay for retweets knowing that legions of people will see them. The accounts targeted in this new crackdown have millions of followers, mind you, and their absences will be felt. That’s likely no coincidence. Twitter is under pressure to eliminate coordinated spamming of all kinds, whether it comes from Russian bots or tweetdeckers, and not just for political reasons. The social network is still struggling to add users despite turning its first profit, and junk accounts are part of the problem. You might be more likely to stick around if you see more genuine interactions instead of the same few accounts cluttering your timeline.

Source: BuzzFeed News