Tacklife’s $10 USB-rechargeable arc lighter never runs out of gas

Never go digging for matches again!

We haven’t shared a deal on Tacklife’s USB-rechargeable arc lighter in more than a month. This deal is better than any of the previous prices, if only by 30 cents or so. Use coupon code C2E85A9F to bring Tacklife’s USB-rechargeable electric arc lighter down to $9.73.

This might be the last lighter you ever buy! It takes no gas, causes no sparks, and can easily be recharged via USB. It has a built-in 220mAh Li-ion battery and can be used more than 400 times per charge. You won’t have to worry about wind or small splashes when trying to use this either. It will automatically shut down after 10 seconds to both save the battery and as a safety feature. There’s also an extra safety switch for when you’re not using it. It comes with a two-year warranty.

Users give it 4.2 stars based on 65 reviews.

See on Amazon

Oculus Go vs Samsung Gear VR

Take your VR experience with your everywhere, but do you really need your phone to do it?

Oculus and Samsung have been working together for years on a portable, powerful VR solution using some of the most popular phones on the planet. In doing so, the Gear VR has become one of the most vibrant and active VR headsets available today. For all of its strengths, it still requires you use your phone and drain your battery to get the best experience. With everything it has learned about mobile computing and VR experiences, Oculus is prepared to offer an alternative to the phone-powered portable VR headset. It’s called Oculus Go, and it’s coming later this year at a price aimed to make people question using the Gear VR or using this new headset.

This isn’t an easy decision to make, especially if you are already a part of the Gear VR ecosystem, but here’s what you can expect when looking at these headsets side-by-side.

Hardware Compared

Oculus Go is made to be a “standalone” VR headset. That means, instead of sticking a phone into a slot to act as the brain, the computer and display and motion hardware is baked right into the headset. The only thing that computer ever has to do is show you VR experiences, but it has to do so very well. With that in mind, here’s how these headsets compare on paper.

A couple of things stick out right away. First, it’s very unlikely a Gear VR will ever be able to offer the kind of long-term VR experience you can get from an Oculus Go with its dedicated battery. Even if you were interested in totally draining a Galaxy S9+, it’s not going to last as long as this headset will. The built-in speakers in the Oculus Go are going to sound much nicer than your phone speakers as well, both because the Oculus Go speakers are designed for spatial audio and because the Samsung phone in the Gear VR is farther from your ears. That having been said, if you plan to use headphones most of the time the audio experiences will likely be very similar.

Check out our hands on with Oculus Go for more!

But the big difference here is going to be the display. Oculus has managed to increase the Eye Buffer on the Go display so more pixels can be used to deliver visuals to your eyes. On a Gear VR, the display isn’t really built for this experience and so only 1024×1024 pixels can be used to create the visuals that you see. An Oculus Go will be able to use 1280×1280, which makes a considerable difference inside the headset. Coupled with Fixed Foveated Rendering, a new technique Oculus is using to make the parts of the fringes of your vision cost the GPU less to draw, and this headset that seems less powerful on paper will actually meet or outperform the Gear VR in a lot of visual areas.

“The next-generation lenses are our best ever—offering a wide field of view with significantly reduced glare.”

The other particularly important detail when comparing these two headsets is the Field of View (FoV) of the lenses. Samsung has been slowly increasing the FoV on the Gear VR until it has reached the current 101-degree measurement, which is close to what you get with a lot of desktop-quality VR experiences. Meanwhile, the Oculus Go developer blog isn’t giving us too much information on the FoV.

It’s not surprising these headsets look and feel so similar on the outside given how closely Samsung and Oculus have worked together, but it’s clear these experiences will not be at all the same when you go to actually use the headsets.

Similar Software

Oculus maintains all of the software for the Gear VR. When you install the Gear VR software on your phone, it’s the Oculus Store and Oculus Runtime you are installing. You can’t even use your Samsung payment tools to buy VR apps, it all goes through the Oculus services. Samsung makes a couple of great apps for the Gear VR, but this experience is largely made and maintained by Oculus. With Oculus Go, the company is moving from controlling all of the software on an OS made by another company to control the entire experience from top to bottom. There shouldn’t be a ton of differences between the Oculus Go and the Gear VR when it comes to software, but it turns out there will be some important initial limitations.

At launch, Samsung’s Gear VR will continue to have significantly more apps than Oculus Go. Oculus says it should be trivially easy for Gear VR developers to port apps to the Oculus Go, but that doesn’t mean every developer is going to want to. From the retail packaging, we’ve already seen a number of popular VR experiences will be available on Oculus Go at launch, but very little so far indicates the total number of apps will be anywhere near what the Gear VR currently has available. The biggest difference for developers moving to Go from the Gear VR is being able to optimize with the new features being made available. Oculus says some Gear VR games will be able to accomplish 72FPS on Go with some optimization, where on the Gear VR all experiences are limited to 72FPS. This may seem like a small bump, but it brings these “mobile” headsets that much closer to the 90FPS standard seen on “desktop” VR headsets and that’s a big deal.

Considering how similar these headsets are, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this change quickly. We know developers are eager to port games to Go, and many we’ve spoken to have found the process very easy. With the same basic head tracking and motion control systems in both headsets, as long as Oculus can demonstrate people are actually buying this headset there’s little reason for developers to only support the one platform.

Which should you buy?

As similar as these headsets are, there’s some clear strengths and weaknesses here. Oculus Go is made to be portable without killing your phone battery, and from our experiences so far does this very well. You can take a Gear VR with you anywhere you can take an Oculus Go, but unless you also carry around a portable battery it’s not usually great to use the Gear VR when not at home. Oculus Go, on the other hand, will be just as great at home as it would be in a plane or on a train, and as long as the same quality apps and games from the Gear VR store make it to the Oculus Go quickly you’ll be able to really have some fun here.

Naturally, the cost is an issue. Many Gear VR owners got their headset for free when they upgraded to their Samsung phone, and even those who bought the headset typically didn’t spend more than $100 for the current kits. Oculus Go is going to be priced at $199 at launch, and while that is super cheap compared to every other VR headset out there it’s still $199 more than most folks paid for a Gear VR. Whether that upgrade ends up being worth it will be entirely up to Oculus.

Keep your browsing private and secure for as low as $23!

There are so many reasons why you’d want to securely browse the internet anonymously in 2018; whether you don’t like how advertisers and marketers track your every search and click online, you hate dealing with geo-locked content, or you’re bothered by the idea of your ISP or government snooping on you.

The obvious solution is to get yourself a VPN subscription, but those can be a hassle to set up and can end up costing you hundreds of dollars over time. Plus, there’s typically limitations on the number of devices you can use it for.

That’s what makes this deal from Android Central Digital Offers so amazing. You can get a three-year subscription to Windscribe VPN for just $22.40! Featuring a desktop application and a browser extension that work in conjunction with one another, Windscribe VPN not only protects your online privacy and unblocks geo-locked websites but it also removes ads and trackers from your browsing experience.

Windscribe helps you stay private online by blocking ads and trackers and changing your IP address to one that is shared by thousands of people, so your Internet activity cannot be tracked by your Internet Service Provider and other parties. It also features a top-notch firewall and can be used on all your devices simultaneously (compatible with PCs running Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, Macs running OS X 10.8 or later, and Linux as well).

If you’re looking for a more long-term VPN solution, Winscribe also has a 5-year subscription available for $59.99, or you can get a lifetime subscription to Windscribe VPN for just one payment of $69.

A lifetime subscription to Windscribe would typically run you upwards of $900. That’s why you should act now and save 94% with this amazing deal. Keep your browsing private and safe with Windscribe VPN.

See at Android Central Offers

The best way to improve your Google Home experience is to stop talking to it like a computer

Talking to computers just doesn’t feel natural.

In case you haven’t heard, voice control interfaces are the future. Whether it’s Google Assistant on your phone, an Amazon Echo in your kitchen, a microphone-filled remote for your TV or whatever, more and more of technology nowadays expects you to talk to it. And in the cases of some of these tools, talking is the only way to interact with the system. The problem is, it doesn’t always feel natural to talk to a computer, especially after we’ve experienced failed attempts to get these internet-connected “assistants” to listen to us through their array of finely-tuned microphones.

So even though Google Assistant is getting better and better at recognizing “natural” speech, as its end goal is to understand and converse just like a human would, we end up talking to it like it’s a computer — because it is! We speak loudly at a consistent and slow pace. We take unnecessarily large pauses between phrases. We talk to these assistants like they’re babies who don’t yet have a deep grasp of our language.

But I’m here to give you a tip for talking to the Google Assistant on your phone or to Google Home: just speak to it like you would a person.

Put aside all of your preconceived notions about how bad Google Assistant is at recognizing your voice. Forget those times when it misheard you or didn’t hear you at all. Those things happen, and no failed attempt influences whether the microphone will hear you the next time. Talk to the Google Assistant the way it’s expecting to be spoken to: like a human querying another human.

When you say “OK Google” you don’t have to pause before giving your command. If your phone or Home heard “OK Google,” then it’s ready to listen to everything else — even if you don’t see the lights on the Home or your phone’s screen light up right away. Yes sometimes the Home or phone doesn’t hear your wakeup phrase — but that doesn’t change whether you wait to find out or just give it your command and find out later. The voice recognition is improving all the time — both for the wakeup phrase and for subsequent commands. There’s no reason to waste your time pausing for every wakeup just for the off chance that it won’t hear you.

Also, talk at a normal volume. Google is designing the Assistant to listen for and respond to natural language commands, not a special-coded message string said slowly at a near-shouting voice. Likewise, the microphone hardware in devices like the Home and modern phones are designed to hear you at a normal volume level in real-world ambient noise situations. These are finely-tuned devices with software to match, and these companies are on the right track when it comes to designing these products to work with the way we talk, not the other way around.

This is going to feel weird at first. And some of us will never get used to talking to a speaker or our phone as if it’s a person. But in the long run, it’s the best bet to have these systems work the way we expect. This generation of Google Home or Amazon Echo may not catch your wake phrase every time — or may trigger accidentally sometimes — and won’t understand every command you give, but it’s far better than we’re giving it credit for. And shouting at these devices or speaking to them like they’re children doesn’t help the products improve — but adds to our frustration in the meantime.

If we change our side of the interaction, we’re all one step closer to making these virtual assistants the science fiction future we fantasize about.

Google Home

• Google Home review
• Google Home Mini: Everything you need to know!
• Google Home Max review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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Keep the party going with these AmazonBasics weatherproof string lights

We spend lots of time making the interior of our home look great, but what about the outside? These $31 AmazonBasics String Lights are here to save the day. These normally sell for about $10 more, and today’s price is as low as it’s ever been. They also have great customer reviews.

This 48-foot string of lights has 15 clear incandescent bulbs. They’re easy to connect with multiple strings, and they’re capable of handling year-round weather. One replacement bulb is included, and the lights are spaced three feet apart. Your purchase is backed by a one-year warranty.

Some good friends of mine got these lights last year, and I love the way they look. They’re strung along a fence in the backyard, where there isn’t much light to be had at night. They cast a soft glow, so you can see where you’re walking without rolling an ankle, and they generally make the space feel more inviting. It’s easier to sit around a patio table and drink copious amounts of beer when you can see what you’re doing. The lights aren’t bright enough to disturb the neighbors, but they do set the mood and make it easy to enjoy a warm summer night outside.

If you prefer the look of globe bulbs, those are also on sale for just a few bucks more.

See at Amazon

Best Small Android Phone of 2018

• Best overall
• Best for features
• Best on a budget
• Best tiny

Best Overall

Google Pixel 2

See at Verizon
See at Google Store

For two years, the Pixel has been the quintessential Google phone, and the HTC-made Pixel 2 is our top recommendation for shoppers in need of a small phone.

The Pixel 2 wields the same Snapdragon 835 processor as almost every other 2017 flagship, but sits in a class of its own when it comes to performance. It’s comfortable to hold thanks to a relatively small 5″ 1080p display, and features front-facing speakers, water resistance, and one of the best cameras on the market. Despite a seemingly small 2700 mAh battery, it even manages impressive battery life.

Bottom line: For the Google purist in search of a small phone, the Pixel 2 is the pretty much the complete package.

One more thing: The Pixel 2 lacks a headphone jack and wireless charging, though it does include a USB-C audio dongle in the box.

Why the Google Pixel 2 is the best

It’s Kinda Just Clearly the best Android phone money can buy.

There’s no better way to experience Android the way Google intends it than with a Pixel phone. The Pixel 2 dispells the notion that small phones can’t offer a flagship experience, with the same specsheet and performance as the larger Pixel 2 XL — without its various known issues.

The Pixel 2 is the first Google-branded phone with IP67 water resistance, and the first to offer front-facing speakers since the Nexus 6P. It also takes some of the best photos we’ve ever seen from a phone with its 12.2 MP primary camera, and the front-facing camera can capture great-looking selfies, even offering Portrait Mode by making use of machine learning. Google also sweetens the deal by including free unlimited backups on Google Photos for Pixel 2 owners.

You can buy the Pixel 2 in one of three attractive colors (Kinda Blue, Just Black, and Clearly White), and two storage options (64GB or 128GB), though there’s no microSD expandability so choose wisely.

Best for features

Samsung Galaxy S9

See at Amazon

The Galaxy S9 is one of the most powerful compact phones on the market, and even though it features a 5.8-inch display, it’s in a body barely larger than the Pixel 2. The Galaxy S9 takes all of the great design qualities of the GS8 and improves them, reworking the fingerprint sensor so it’s in a logical place, and improving the camera dramatically. And thanks to stronger glass and thicker metal, it’s less scratch-prone.

Bottom-line: The Galaxy S9 is a one-handed marvel, even though it’s got a large 5.8-inch display.

One more thing: The Galaxy S9+ is the phone’s larger sidekick, and it comes with a bigger screen, larger battery, and dual cameras.

Best affordable phone

Moto G5 Plus

See at Amazon

The Moto G5 Plus is one of the best smartphone deals today. It’s compact but not tiny, with a 5.2-inch Full HD display, and it packs a lot for that metal chassis, including a Snapdragon 625 processor and an excellent 12MP rear camera. The 3000mAh battery lasts a while, and the ultra-simple Nougat-based software is about as good as you’ll get for the price.

Bottom-line: The Moto G5 Plus is an excellent choice if you’re looking for an affordable unlocked phone in a compact size.

One more thing: If you want to save a bit of money, you can go with the Amazon Prime Exclusive version.

Best “really tiny” phone

Xperia XZ2 Compact

See at Sony

Sony’s Xperia XZ2 Compact brings all of the features one expects of a flagship down to the palm-able size. The line is one of the few that balances features, performance, and dimensions, and the XZ2 Compact is no exception, with a Snapdragon 845 and all the camera improvements of its Xperia XZ2 counterpart. Even though it has a 5-inch display, it’s still much smaller than the Pixel 2.

Bottom-line: You won’t find another 5″ phone with such high-end specs and small bezels, and it’s made even better with Android 8.0 Oreo on board.

One more thing: There’s now a fingerprint sensor on the back, and it works in the U.S.

Conclusion

The Pixel 2 is simply the best compact Android experience around. You get pure Google software, a best-in-class camera, water resistance, front-facing speakers, and top-end specs, all in a small form factor that can easily fit in your hand or pocket. As always, it can be a bit difficult to find certain configurations in stock, but once you get your hands on one, the Pixel 2 leaves little to be desired — except maybe a headphone jack and wireless charging.

Best Overall

Google Pixel 2

See at Verizon
See at Google Store

For two years, the Pixel has been the quintessential Google phone, and the HTC-made Pixel 2 is our top recommendation for shoppers in need of a small phone.

The Pixel 2 wields the same Snapdragon 835 processor as almost every other 2017 flagship, but sits in a class of its own when it comes to performance. It’s comfortable to hold thanks to a relatively small 5″ 1080p display, and features front-facing speakers, water resistance, and one of the best cameras on the market. Despite a seemingly small 2700 mAh battery, it even manages impressive battery life.

Bottom line: For the Google purist in search of a small phone, the Pixel 2 is the pretty much the complete package.

One more thing: The Pixel 2 lacks a headphone jack and wireless charging, though it does include a USB-C audio dongle in the box.

Update, March 2018: We’ve consolidated our small and medium phone lists into a single list to simplify your buyer’s guide experience.

This $7 precision toolkit comes with 48 pieces to help you complete electronics repairs at home

Complete your own repairs at home!

It happens to the best of us. We try so hard to care for our devices, but it’s inevitable that something will go wrong and they’ll need to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean you need to take it somewhere and pay a ton to get the job done. Thanks to the internet and YouTube, you can find information on how to repair just about anything these days, so why not try the job at home?

You’ll need some tools to do it, which is where this $6.92 48-piece toolset sold by JackyLED Direct comes in handy. Use the coupon code L3DH64VC to get it for the discounted price, which saves you $4 on the purchase.

This toolkit improves on an older version we’ve shared deals on in the past. It adds several new tools to go along with the 44 screwdriver bits. Now you get the handle, tweezers, an extension bar, and a suction cup. The multitude of bits are so varied they even come with some to fit the screws on the iPhone and other phones. You can repair anything from a wristwatch to your laptop to a DSLR if you want.

See at Amazon

Riot revamps EU ‘League of Legends’ circuit to retain pro players

Riot overhauled its North American League of Legends eSports championship to give pros a better reason to stick around, and now it’s mounting a similar effort for Europe. The EU division of the League Championship Series has instituted a slew of reforms that should ensure more sustainable careers, most notably an end to relegation and promotion. There was a lot of turnover when teams knew they could fall from grace — this lets them spend more time and money on players to create “lasting connections” with fans. In other words, a rookie with promise won’t get cut just because their team had a rough first season.

The reforms also increase the base salary to €60,000 (about $74,000), and pros are now included in the revenue sharing system to reward them when the LCS does well. There’s also a player development platform due for 2019 that should help players refine their skills and become “well-rounded individuals.” Given the Overwatch League’s troubles with players both in and outside of matches, it’s not surprising that Riot would like to avoid its own share of drama.

As in North America, the aim remains the same: Riot wants to create stability, even if it risks dropping major teams. Leagues like LCS are now major businesses, and that means creating a more predictable structure where viewers have good reasons to keep watching.

Source: League of Legends eSports

Apple CEO Tim Cook criticizes Facebook privacy standards

In a conversation with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Recode’s Kara Swisher, Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized Facebook and the way it manages its users’ data, Recode reports. During the interview — which will air on MSNBC next month — Cook commented on Facebook’s data privacy standards as well as the ongoing Cambridge Analytica scandal. “We’ve never believed that these detailed profiles of people, that have incredibly deep personal information that is patched together from several sources, should exist,” he said, adding that these sort of profiles “can be abused against our democracy. It can be abused by advertisers as well.”

Apple’s Tim Cook on how to protect privacy:
– I would make sure I understood the privacy policy of every app and every website you frequent.
– I would go into private browsing mode. Think about blocking cookies.
– The only way to protect your data, is to encrypt.#RevolutionCHI pic.twitter.com/ZpTsRxn4KN

— Recode (@Recode) March 28, 2018

On the topic of regulation, Cook said that no regulation is best in his opinion since it can come with unexpected consequences. “However, I think we’re beyond that,” Cook said. “I do think it’s time that a set of people think deeply about what can be done.” When asked what he would do if he were Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cook replied, “I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Cook called for regulation earlier this month in light of the Cambridge Analytica situation, saying at the China Development Forum that “well-crafted” regulation is now “necessary.” And he’s been critical of Facebook and Google before in regards to their privacy standards. “The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer — if our customer was our product,” Cook said during the interview. “We’ve elected not to do that.”

The interview will air at 8PM Eastern on April 6th.

Source: Recode, The Verge