Samsung thinks an iPhone X-like design will turn China on to the Galaxy S9

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

Samsung may launch a revised Galaxy S9 specifically for China, where it doesn’t enjoy the same level of success it does elsewhere in the world. How will it win over Chinese smartphone fans spoiled for choice? By taking away some of the key Galaxy S9 design traits we know and love, and replacing them with at least one taken from the Apple iPhone X.

The phone is currently known by its model number, the SM-G8850, one which shares more with the old Galaxy Alpha than it does the current Galaxy S9, which could mean it won’t take on the flagship Galaxy S name when it launches. The phone has passed through the hands of TENAA, the regulatory body in China where new smartphones are cleared for use, and also been spotted revving its engine on the AnTuTu benchmarking site.

Initially speculated to be a Galaxy S9 Mini, the phone has since been viewed as a more powerful version of the Galaxy S9, with an octa-core processor running at up to 2.8GHz, with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM inside. The Galaxy S9’s Exynos chip operates at 2.7GHz, and the phone has 4GB of RAM. To get 6GB of RAM, you’d have to buy the Galaxy S9 Plus. The AnTuTu benchmark says the phone has a Snapdragon 660 processor with 4GB of RAM, considerably less powerful than the Galaxy S9.

Samsung SM-G8850 seen on the TENAA website in China.

Like the Galaxy S9 Plus, the SM-G8850 may also have a dual-lens rear camera. Instead of centrally mounting the lenses, though, the TENAA image shows Samsung has offset them to the left and placed them inside an oval camera bump, just like a trend started by Apple with the iPhone X. The fingerprint sensor sits top center on the back panel. Another change comes with the screen, which does away with the familiar curved edges seen on Samsung’s Galaxy S series for several generations, and opts for a flat screen instead. The TENAA listing indicated it was a Super AMOLED panel with a 2960 x 1440 pixel resolution. Opinion varies on the size of the display, with the latest claiming it’s a massive 6.3-inches, rather than the 5.8-inch size — the same as the Galaxy S9 — first rumored, and mentioned by TENAA.

The SM-G8850 is a mystery. On one side it’s a more powerful version of the Galaxy S9 Plus with a different design, and on the other a less exciting big-screen phone that has received more attention than it expected. But while we don’t know what the phone will turn out to be, we do know Samsung is having a hard time in China. A recent report said it has less than 1 percent market share there, and is willing to try different things to improve on this. Could a redesigned, more powerful Galaxy S9 Plus be one of them?

We’ll keep you updated with all the SM-G8850 rumors here.

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Bitcoin put him on the street. Then it made him a fortune

Much of the wealth created by cryptocurrency has been siphoned off by established tech entrepreneurs. The Winklevoss twins and Chris Larsen’s of the world, who saw the upswing coming and had money to invest in it, have gained the most. Ray Youssef, the co-founder of Bitcoin direct-trade platform, Paxful, is a little different. While he still exudes the self-driven, cavalier attitude of many tech entrepreneurs, he sees himself as Robin Hood, not a slick Silicon Valley yuppie.

Maybe that’s because he has eaten out of dumpsters and slept on park benches.  Before he founded one of the biggest cryptocurrency peer to peer exchanges in the world, Youssef was driven to homelessness by cryptocurrency.

Today, Youssef is a self-made Bitcoin success story. Yet he claims that Paxful was never about making money. To him, it’s all about helping the little guy and giving back from his success, specifically in the developing world. He’s a man who isn’t afraid to disregard the rules if he sees them as unjust. And his story is a microcosm of the broader conflict between success and responsibility that plagues Silicon Valley.

Beggared by Bitcoin

Born Ryam Azab Youssef, the eventual Paxful founder began launching startups and unconventional ventures in the early ’00s. He headed up a successful polyphonic ringtone business called MatrixM, then founded a less successful social network and dating platform called FunHi. He also joined a movement to bring back Victorian era technology inspired by Nikolai Tesla, had a stint as an actor, became an MMA fighter, and changed his name first to Ray Savant, then to Mohammed Youssef, along the way. He now goes by Ray Youssef.

“A lot of people may be ashamed of [being homeless] digging through trash, but I’m not.”

Clearly, Youssef’s not afraid to dive head first into new ideas and push them forward with his own brand of tenacity and personal belief. His attention turned towards cryptocurrency in 2012, when he posted his motorcycle for sale on an internet forum. One poster suggested he take payment in Bitcoin.

“I thought ‘Bitcoin […] that’s nerd money,” Youssef told Digital Trends with a chuckle. “But I kept looking into it over a few months, and I really started to fall in love with the whole thing. The technology was amazing, but it was the passion of the community that really caught my eye.”

That infatuation with the community’s drive is what lead Youssef to launch EasyBitz two years later with Artur Schaback, a friend he met at a Bitcoin conference. The two would later go on to found Paxful, but EasyBitz was their first joint project. It served as a payment provider for small businesses, street vendors, and independent artists, and was designed to make it easy for them to accept Bitcoin payments from customers. The company immediately ran into a small problem, however.

No one wanted to use it.

Ryam Youssef, Founder of Paxful

“At the time, nobody really had any Bitcoin [to spend],” he admitted. “As easy as we tried to make it, it was still too complex to use, and New York retailers were really not into that kind of thing.”

Not perturbed by these early difficulties, Youssef pushed forward even harder, using the aggressive strategy of giving Bitcoin away in pre-made wallets. Even that didn’t work.

“I remember being in Washington Square Park, going to the musicians there, saying “Hey, you should accept Bitcoin donations,” and I gave them this card with a barcode on it with instructions on how they could [accept it],” he said. “It even came with $100 worth of Bitcoin, which now would be worth about $5,000 or something like that. They refused it! No one would take it!”

Both Youssef and Schaback pushed EasyBitz for a full year, and soon found themselves up against a brick wall. Money became scarce. Eventually, the pair couldn’t make rent.

“There were days at a time where I just decided to ‘stay outside’ and would crash in the park.”

“Artur crashed with my best friend George, and then a month later I had to leave my place because my mother needed help, so I rented it out,” Youssef explained. “For three months I was homeless and going from crash pad to crash pad, usually with girls from my past, and couch surfing. There were days at a time where I just decided to ‘stay outside’ and would crash in the park.”

The resourcefulness that kept him moving from startup to startup kept him well fed during that time in his life, despite his poverty. “I quickly figured out that being homeless in NYC meant you didn’t ever have to go hungry at night,” he said. “I ate very well once I figured out where the best restaurants threw their trash. Huge chunks of sashimi could be found in Tribeca. In Sutton Place, I discovered a never-ending supply of pizza dough at the Domino’s Pizza, and two Greek places in Murray Hill became weekly favorites, with feta cheese salad and some amazing fish leftovers.”

Although at the lowest point in his life financially, Youssef says he turned down any financial donations while on the street. He had daytime work at cafes and continued to work on EasyBitz when possible. Then his business partner, Schabeck, ran into a friend with an idea that would quickly put him back on his feet.

Bitcoin at a premium

2015 was still two years before Bitcoin reached its financial peak, but interest was growing. Many people were willing to pay a premium to own Bitcoin.

“A friend of ours, Max, came to us and said ‘hey, you guys can actually sell $250 worth of Bitcoin and get a $500 Paypal MyCash gift card in exchange and just spend the profit with your Paypal Visa card,’” Youssef said. “We looked at him and thought, why would anyone do that?”

You would be forgiven for assuming that anyone willing to pay twice something’s value using a digital service could be leveraging a stolen credit card or hacked account to do so, but Youssef insists that was not the case.

There was risk involved, he explains. People were willing to effectively pay double the going rate for a Bitcoin purchase through Paypal because using a payment processor was notoriously dangerous for cryptocurrency sellers. Paypal’s chargeback system allowed Bitcoin buyers to effectively scam the seller by sending a payment, receiving the Bitcoin they bought, and then claiming they were scammed, prompting Paypal to return the funds used to purchase it. Due to Bitcoins’ decentralized nature, there’s no remediation process, leaving sellers out of pocket.

Youssef quickly began to turn a healthy profit by selling Bitcoin to Paypal purchasers, and soon he and Schabeck had turned their fortunes around. They even roped their friends in to effectively set up a business facilitating Paypal purchases of the cryptocurrency.

There were limits to what the business could accomplish at that scale, however. Selling Bitcoin through BitcoinTalk and LocalBitcoins gave them a good start, but the sites weren’t designed for volume trades, which made the process of buying and selling complicated. Youssef saw the potential to launch his own cryptocurrency trading platform. That became Paxful.

Helping the “unbanked”

Paxful differed from its competitors by focusing on gift cards. They had been Youssef’s salvation, and much like cryptocurrencies themselves, they can operate outside the existing structure of financial institutions. This makes them extremely valuable to people who don’t have a bank account for depositing or sending money – the “unbanked,” as finance wonks call them.

Three months into Paxful’s operation, he received a call from someone in dire straits. “Artur and I were working in Soho, 2 a.m. or so, it was really late,” Youssef said. “We had put our number on the website and no one ever called. But all of a sudden, I got a call and it was this woman. She said ‘I need some Bitcoin. I need it, I’m down to my last $13.’ She was frantic, telling me how her kids were going to be homeless the next day if she doesn’t get this Bitcoin.”

This might seem like hyperbole – indeed, the fanaticism over people’s desire to buy Bitcoin at its 2017 peak was certainly overblown – but it turned out that the woman had a very real reason, a real need, to buy some Bitcoin.

“She was frantic, telling me how her kids were going to be homeless the next day if she doesn’t get this Bitcoin.”

“She needed it to post an advert on Backpage,” Youssef explained — a site notorious for facilitating prostitution. The classified site’s shady reputation caused Mastercard and Visa to pull out of processing transactions for it, but the site still accepted Bitcoin. The problem, however, was that getting hold of Bitcoin wasn’t easy, particularly if you didn’t have a bank account.

“I had to walk her through it. She was so angry, she’d spent eight hours going around the internet every Bitcoin site trying to get one and she couldn’t do it because all of the Bitcoin sites you had to have a bank account,” Youssef told Digital Trends. “This was a completely unbanked person in the United States. So, I asked her, how were you buying these ads before? She said she bought gift cards in the drug store.”

“For the next three months, every single day we would get [calls], mostly women, who were looking for [Bitcoin],” Youssef said. “They were all in a desperate situation, but the beauty of that entire episode is that it helped us get our product market fit. If someone has a bank account they can easily use Coinbase, but if you don’t have a bank account or are underbanked, Paxful is the place you go to.”

Youssef remains unapologetically proud of Paxful’s start, despite the hot water Backpage eventually ended up in. Backpage came under fire in 2017 for its anything-goes attitude, and the posting of classified adverts for sex work ultimately resulted in the site’s seizure by multiple U.S. federal agencies. Seven people associated with Backpage, including its founders, have been indicted on charges that include money laundering and facilitating prostitution.

“…the free market will win in the end, and we do believe there are many lawmakers looking for a better way.”

H.R. 1865, better known as the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act,” allows authorities to hold sites liable for misuse of their classifieds, and forced Craigslist to shutter its personals when it passed Congress earlier this year. Youssef said he supports the new law’s ideas, but worried it could do more damage than good. “Sex trafficking is indeed a problem that should be handled with all the resources of the state,” he stated, “yet the ramifications of this bill have clearly thrown an entire community into disarray, putting single mothers in serious jeopardy […]”

As Youssef sees it, the best thing anyone can do, whether business owner, government or individual, is to try and improve the day to day lives of everyday people. He remains adamant that Paxful has accomplished that, and seems confident that, even after the passage of H.R. 1865, lawmakers will ultimately reconsider. “This isn’t the kind of day-to-day difference we wanted to see,” Youssef told Digital Trends, “but the free market will win in the end, and we do believe there are many lawmakers looking for a better way.”

Bitcoin beyond borders

Today, Paxful is a direct trade platform with a claimed user base of 1.5 million customers. It trades thousands of Bitcoin a month, moving millions of dollars through the site on a regular basis. Many of those users do so from all over the world, and it’s those international markets that have Youssef so excited. He sees those markets as in even greater need of the financial fluidity that cryptocurrencies offer. Often, transactions still rely on the gift cards that kickstarted this whole venture.

“iTunes is a very special case,” Youssef said. “It’s how most of Nigeria and Africa get their Bitcoins. Right now on Paxful, $11 million of iTunes gift cards go from Nigeria to China every week.” While this remains a convoluted way to exchange cash, Youssef thinks it’s a better solution than financial institutions for those in vulnerable situations.

“In Nigeria, for example […] these folks prefer to keep their money in crypto,” Youssef explained. “So even in the fall of cryptocurrencies [in December 2017] some of them who bought it at the beginning of the year are still up [several hundred percent]. In Nigeria, […] their local currency has fallen by 90 percent in the past two years [so] their neighbours would be down 40 percent for the year.”

Youssef explained that where Western markets often see Bitcoin as purely a store of value, as a way of investing and growing wealth, elsewhere in the world it’s more commonly used as a means of payment. Independent businesses in Africa are some of its biggest proponents, leveraging Paxful and Bitcoin to improve their fortunes, much as Youssef himself had.

“[When] I went to Nigeria I met this very charming, beautiful woman, who was making amazing women’s clothing and she had an Instagram site,” he said. “She didn’t have a shopping cart. [Customers] sent the money to her friend in America who also has a Nigerian bank account and he transferred the money to her.”

“Right now on Paxful, $11 million of iTunes gift cards go from Nigeria to China every week.”

Youssef ultimately set her up on Paxful, so she could accept Bitcoin for clothes and then sell the Bitcoin herself. “We made that whole process peer to peer, so that anyone could help her do this without needing trust because of escrow,” he said.

Youssef’s also hopes to focus his company on philanthropic endeavours. Although he’s excited about the potential for Paxful to accept more cryptocurrencies in the future, he spends a lot of time working with charities. He wants to help them accept Bitcoin donations to give easier access to the money in a local currency through Paxful trading.

“We’re calling the initiative #BuiltWithBitcoin,” he said. “We’ve built one school so far, with three more planned in Africa. We’re just getting plans for one in Venezuela, one in Nigeria that is planned too.”

The scheme was launched with a $50,000 donation by Paxful to Zam Zam Water, a volunteer-driven charitable organization that builds wells and schools in middle-Eastern and African countries like Afghanistan and Rwanda. It’s one of the charities that Youssef has focused on. It takes Bitcoin and Ethereum donations already, and Youssef wants more charities to get on board with the idea.

“I encourage people to get behind #BuiltWithBitcoin,” he said. “Because once you educate these charities about Bitcoin they are in awe, because they can get the funds immediately, cash out to their bank account anywhere in the world, immediately, using a service like Paxful. It’s never been so easy to give back.”

A mirror

Bitcoin dragged Youssef to his lowest financial depths, and boosted him back to financial freedom, giving him a first-hand taste of its capacity for good and evil. He doesn’t shy away from that moral ambiguity in his business, which can be used to stabilize the life savings for farmers in Rwanda or simply used to buy hacked Paypal accounts.

Despite the extremes, Youssef is guided by an underlying optimism about humanity. He doesn’t ask how his business might be used for ill, but instead tries to use it for good. Some might call it honorable. Others might call it naïve. But like Bitcoin itself, Paxful seems destined to become whatever society makes of it.

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This plugin makes Prisma-like painted videos possible on a PC

Mobile apps like Prisma use artificial intelligence to redraw images in the style of famous artists — but now the same painting-inspired styles are available on desktop computers. On Tuesday, April 24, CyberLink launched the CyberLink AI Style Plugin. The company says the tool, designed to work with PowerDirector 16, is the first time that live painting is available from a PC.

The AI Style Plugin uses AI and deep learning to add a specific artist-inspired style to a video. Unlike many AI-based solutions, the plugin doesn’t need a connection to a cloud-based server because the tool runs locally on the PC. The plugin requires nVidia graphics cards that are rated to support CUDA 3.0 or newer, but the tool can still handle full length videos and can export in a resolution up to 4K.

CyberLink was inspired by Loving Vincent, a film that became the first to use paintings in each frame of a full-length movie. That film, however, was made from 125 oil painters over the course of six years to create 65,000 paintings. The plugin creates a similar painting-like style, but uses AI — rather a team of human artists — to reduce the time and investment in achieving that style.

“Through the power of artificial intelligence and deep learning, we have been able to train our AI engine to possess an almost human-like understanding of the artistic process,” Dr. Jau Huang, CEO of CyberLink, said in a press release. “With the CyberLink AI Style Plugin we’ve leveraged this research to deliver a quality, cutting-edge product for our PowerDirector users, helping them expand their creative horizons to places that were once unimaginable.”

The company says the AI behind the plugin isn’t just a style overlay — the software’s deep learning program is designed to mimic the strokes and colors used by actual artists. Again, this is similar to how apps like Prisma work.

The plugin comes with the purchase of a Styles Pack, with each pack including 10 different style transfers. The plugin is launching with the Van Gogh AI Style Pack and Impressionist AI Style Pack, offering two different style sets to choose from. Both are available from CyberLink’s online store and require the latest version of PowerDirector 16.

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Windows-powered medical scanners are being hit by healthcare hackers

Liz West / Flickr (Creative Commons)

Hackers have been targeting medical scanning equipment like X-ray and MRI machines for the past few years and some of them have been very successful. While the attacks raise the potential of the theft of personal patient medical data, they appear to be centered around learning how certain medical software operates, possibly as part of an industrial espionage campaign.

While much of the world’s PCs have today moved on to more modern and secure operating systems like Windows 10, old equipment like medical scanners can still be found using ancient legacy platforms like Windows 95. That’s been the case with a number of X-ray and MRI machines which have been targeted by a group known as Orangeworm, who over the past few years have infected more than 100 different healthcare organizations with malware.

A Symantec report on this problem shows that healthcare providers have been the biggest target for this kind of malware, with some 39 percent of the group’s attacks in recent years targeting that industry. Other common targets are IT and manufacturing, along with agriculture and logistics to a lesser extent. However, each of those targets has been part of the medical supply chain, suggesting a coordinated effort to understand the entire healthcare industry’s IT infrastructure.

What’s confusing the security professionals, however, is that the attacks don’t appear to have a clear purpose. While they seem to use phishing emails as an attack vector — a common method for many malware types — they don’t seem to share many characteristics with more traditional digital assaults. No data appears to have been stolen, no ransoms are being demanded, and the systems aren’t left running cryptominers.

That leaves security researchers like those at Symantec unsure about who is truly responsible. As PCMag points out, the lack of a clear goal may suggest state-sponsored hackers, but the fact that the attacks are relatively unsophisticated suggests otherwise.

Regardless though, Symantec and its contemporaries see this as a wake-up call for the healthcare industry to overhaul its digital security. While these attacks have so far been rather benign, there’s little stopping those responsible from returning with much more dangerous plans in mind. Malicious software could wipe patient records, steal information, or shut down much needed medical equipment, potentially putting lives at risk.

The general advice given, for now, is for institutions to update their systems where possible and, where not, to isolate them on smaller, localized networks so that they aren’t so easily accessed.

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A major exploit leaves every Nintendo Switch susceptible to hacking

Nate Barrett/Digital Trends

If you have a Nintendo Switch gaming console, you’re going to want to listen up. As initially reported by Ars Technica, it would appear that a new “exploit chain” for Nvidia Tegra X1-based systems outlines an unpatchable process to run random code on all — that’s right, all — Nintendo Switches. Hacker Katherine Temkin and her team at ReSwitched published an outline of the Fusée Gelée coldboot vulnerability, as well as a proof-of-concept payload that works on the Switch.

The exploit takes advantage of a vulnerability found in the Tegra X1’s USB recovery mode, and somehow manages to avoid the lock-out operations that normally guard the chip’s bootROM. By forcing a bad “length” argument, a hacker could effectively force the system to “request up to 65,535 bytes per control request.” That amount of data overflows the direct memory access buffer in the bootROM, which in turn opens the data up for attack and allows a hacker to run arbitrary code.

“By carefully constructing a USB control request, an attacker can leverage this vulnerability to copy the contents of an attacker-controlled buffer over the active execution stack, gaining control of the Boot and Power Management processor (BPMP) before any lock-outs or privilege reductions occur,” Temkin wrote of her discovery. And of course, the worst part of all of this seems to be that it cannot be fixed.

“Since this bug is in the Boot ROM, it cannot be patched without a hardware revision, meaning all Switch units in existence today are vulnerable, forever,” wrote fail0verflow. “Nintendo can only patch Boot ROM bugs during the manufacturing process.”

While actually executing the exploit would take quite a bit of skill, the steps to do so have now been fully outlined, which means that theoretically, anyone who wanted to take advantage of the serious bug could do so. So why are white-hat hackers posting all of this information online? As Temkin noted, the exploit is “notable due to the significant number and variety of devices affected, the severity of the issue, and the immutability of the relevant code on devices already delivered to end users. This vulnerability report is provided as a courtesy to help aid remediation efforts, guide communication, and minimize impact to users.”

As it stands, there are about 15 million Nintendo Switch consoles out and about in the world, so it is, in fact, a serious problem. We will keep you updated as the situation continues to develop.

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Is Fitbit Coach worth the annual subscription?

Tag me in, Coach!

My primary fitness activity is running, but as a guy who played football and rugby in college, and for many years as an adult, I also understand the importance of other types of exercise in order to support a healthy lifestyle.

At this time in my life, it is not a priority to pack up my gear, head to a gym, and dedicate an hour or more of my time to workouts at a facility since it is already tough to carve out an hour to hit the road for a good run. I am also a very competitive person and tend to do more than planned when I have people around that I can compete with — so working out alone suits me just fine.

I’ve been focusing on bodyweight exercises as a mechanism to add some crosstraining to my life and have found that you can achieve results with nothing more than your own body, shoes, and shorts.

The Fitbit Versa comes preloaded with Fitbit Coach and three free bodyweight exercise options. Short videos on your phone, or animations on your Versa, will show you the proper form of each exercise. These free exercises include the 7-minute workout, 10-minute Abs, and Treasure Chest. These are great options for basic workouts and may satisfy some people.

However, I want more workout options, so I decided to take a closer look at the $40 annual Fitbit Coach service. You may also want to check out Sean Endicott’s take on Fitbit Coach at Windows Central. Disclaimer: Fitbit provided a promo code in order to test out Fitbit Coach.

Premium Membership Costs

I live in a town of about 50,000 people where gym costs run from $10 to $30 per month, but know that those of you living in a major city see even higher monthly fees. While these facilities may offer equipment, pools, saunas, and other amenities, Fitbit Coach Premium offers an alternative for those who don’t want to travel to a gym.

The cost for Fitbit Coach Premium is $7.99 monthly or $39.99 for a year (works out to just $3.33 per month). If you pay for the yearly plan, you essentially get seven months for free over what you would pay on a monthly basis.

Initial Setup

After subscribing to a monthly or yearly plan, the next step is to establish your profile and specify your initial preferences on Fitbit Coach. Enter your name, date of birth, unit of measure, height, weight (this can be synced automatically if you have a Fitbit Aria scale, and gender.

You have two options available for a trainer, Lea or Adrian. There are introductory videos and bios for each of these two trainers. I currently am training with Lea, but you can also switch as you desire while using Fitbit Coach.

Privacy options are present asking if you wish to share your weight data or session history with friends.

The beauty of these exercise programs is that you don’t need much equipment, if any. Just you, a chair, and some serious motivation.

Session preferences include subtitle toggle, text tips displayed during a session, audio cue toggle for reps, audio mixing toggle between tips and Fitbit Radio, and default video quality of SD or HD.

You can also select text and email settings for notifications. Notifications are present for the ideal time for upcoming sessions, activity progress updates, bonus content, and promotional content.

While you should connect your Fitbit account by default to make sure your Fitbit Versa is set up to work with the Fitbit Coach app, you can also connect your Facebook account to share your status with family and friends. On an iPhone, you can also have your data synced to Apple Health and on an Android phone your data can sync to Google Fit.

After all of your preferences are set up, it’s time to get started with some exercise. The first thing Fitbit Coach will prompt you to complete is a fit test. This is a seven-minute test consisting of six exercises with a survey after to help Fitbit Coach establish your baseline and make recommendations for the next exercises you may perform. The six exercises include high knees, pushups, bodyweight squats, back plank, pike presses, and bicycle kicks.

Equipment for Participation

The majority of the workouts in Fitbit Coach are bodyweight workouts so all you need is yourself, comfortable clothes to exercise in, and some available space to move. You may need a chair or stairs to use as props, but there is no equipment needed to complete these bodyweight workouts.

If you want to participate in stair or running workouts, then you will need to find place with lots of stairs or a treadmill.

Workout Options

‘Workouts’ appears as the second tab, or screen, on the Fitbit Coach website, and on the smartphone app. The website has dropdown options for muscle focus, difficulty level, and length. Muscle focus includes arms & shoulders, core, chest, legs, back, cardio, and total body. Difficulty level options include easy, medium, and hard. Length options include 10 minutes or less, 11 to 15 minutes, 16 to 20 minutes, 21 to 30 minutes, and 31 minutes and up. In total, 58 total workouts are shown on the website.

We are focused on the Fitbit Versa here, so what is present on the smartphone app that then syncs as favorites to the watch app are more relevant to this discussion. In the smartphone app, workouts are organized in five categories; bodyweight, outdoor walks, stair workouts, outdoor runs, and treadmill. There are 58 bodyweight workouts available, seven outdoor walks, 15 stair workouts, 12 outdoor runs, and 20 treadmill workouts.

I despise treadmills and will never personally use these workouts while I also have limited access to a stadium or other long sets of stairs for stair workouts. I am primarily interested in using Fitbit Coach for bodyweight workouts, and as you can see the overwhelming majority of workouts are focused on bodyweight routines.

The bodyweight workouts are each given unique names and an image associated with that workout. The thumbnail shows the time needed to complete the workout and an estimated calorie burn value. This calorie value will vary by your actual measured heart rate and other data associated with your performance.

Tap on a workout to view a statement about its intent and a list of the exercises and time for each exercise. Tap on an exercise to view a short video, with audio, showing you the proper form for completing the exercise. I encourage you to tap the star icon on workouts you like as that will save them to your favorites list for easy access in the future.

There are a vast number of exercises contained within all of these workouts, including jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, inchworms, squats, lunges, planks, dead bugs, Superman swimmers, and much more. The workouts are a great way to add variety to your fitness program while also being able to focus on areas of your body that need work.

Program Options

The other option for using Fitbit Coach is to choose programs. The four programs are set up to mix in workouts in order to help you find a program that matches your goals and available time to work out. The exercises are the same as present in the workouts, but with workouts, you have to try them and manage your own mix and match of workouts.

The programs include Get Moving (one session a week for 10-20 minutes each), Get Strong (three sessions a week for 20-40 minutes each), Get Lean (four sessions a week for 30-50 minutes each), and Daily Dose (six sessions a week for 10-15 minutes each). Since I am in half marathon training mode while also trying to lose weight I am currently enrolled in the Daily Dose program since it requires less time than the Get Strong or Get Lean programs and running three to four times a week is already pushing the limits of my available time.

Dashboard

The first screen on the smartphone app and on the website contains your dashboard. As you complete various workouts and programs, Fitbit will adapt and then start providing you with suggested workouts, workouts if you need to take a break, workouts to increase your cardio, and more. These suggestions appear on the Dashboard, below your most recent workout that appears at the top of the page.

In the Fitbit Versa watch app, personalized workouts are synced to the watch as you continue to use Fitbit Coach for your training.

Given all of the bodyweight exercises that are provided by Fitbit Coach, I personally think it is easily worth the $39.99 yearly fee. After a year of regular use, you may have selected workouts memorized and no longer need the coach, but it is highly likely that Fitbit will continue to improve the service so stay tuned for next year.

Fitbit Coach Alternatives

One aspect that makes Fitbit Coach a compelling product compared to selecting individual coaching apps from app stores is the workouts and programs that vary the exercises over a period of time. Also Fitbit Coach is closely tied in with Fitbit wearables so that your activity is synced with the workout program. Many other apps are only available on smartphones or have limited wearable options.

There are competitors to Fitbit Coach with most available on iOS and Android. Some popular options include Pear, Skimble Workout Trainer, Nike Training Club, and Aaptiv.

There are hundreds of workouts in Pear and the Pear+ membership is available for $5.99 per month or $39.99 per year. If you do not subscribe, then three workouts will be selected for you to access and use for free.

Skimble Workout Trainer contains thousands of workouts with 2,000+ exercises. More than 100 training programs from certified personal trainers are available with a Pro+ membership. Membership is $6.99 per month or $59.99 per year. Similar to Pear, free users get access to three workouts.

Nike Training Club is a smartphone app that has more than 160 workouts. Nike has options ranging from bodyweight to full machine workouts with both professional trainers and celebrity athletes providing workout assistance. NTC is free so before you jump into purchasing any coaching program you should at least investigate this option.

Aaptiv is a smartphone only fitness program that offers access to classes in outdoor walking and running, indoor cycling, elliptical, treadmill, stair climber, rowing, strength training, stretching, meditation and yoga. There are more than 150 classes each month. Programs for various levels of running races, 5K to full marathon, are also provided. Aaptiv is available for $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year with a free 30-day trial option.

Other wearables, such as those from Garmin and Polar, have smart coaching options that are focused primarily on improving your performance in running. Apple does not have any official coaching solutions for the Apple Watch. Samsung Health functions like Apple Health and tracks the exercises and activity you perform, but does not have a native coaching aspect. Samsung Health does have a better system than Apple for directing you to partners for specific workouts and exercises.

Do you Coach?

If you’re a regular Fitbit user, have you signed up for Coach? What’s your experience been like? Let us know in the comments below!

See at Fitbit

Fitbit

• Fitbit Versa vs. Fitbit Ionic: Which should you buy?
• Fitbit Versa hands-on: Fitbit’s finally getting serious about smartwatches
• Fitbit Versa and fitness: Everything you need to know
• Best Fitbit fitness tracker

Fitbit Ionic
Fitbit Versa
Fitbit Charge 2 HR

Do you want a notch on your next smartphone?

Welcome to the future.

Ever since the Essential Phone was announced last May, there’s been a heated debate over the notch. Later introduced on phones like the iPhone X, Huawei P20 Pro, and upcoming LG G7, the notch has become a heated point of debate for smartphone users everywhere.

The notch does technically allow for more screen area at the top of a phone compared to having a full strip of bezel, but at the same time, can be an unsightly eyesore when watching videos or playing full-screen games.

Witch the notch becoming more and more popular, we decided to see what our forum users had to say on the matter. Here are just a few of the responses.

nomzamo999
04-23-2018 10:08 AM

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Hell no. I think the notch is a horrible idea that needs to be stamped out now. What’s so wrong with having the screen 4 or 5 millimetres shorter?

Reply

RaRa85
04-23-2018 10:12 AM

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I’d prefer not to have it but if they got the really important things right like screen quality and camera performance I really wouldn’t care as much. Still prefer a seamless screen experience though.

Reply

Ry
04-23-2018 12:57 PM

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The notch would give me extra screen. The area below the notch would be the screen if the notch didn’t exist. Glass half-empty vs. glass half-full, IMO. Bring on the notches.

Reply

Mooncatt
04-23-2018 02:58 PM

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I prefer things symmetrical, so no notch for me. Unless it’s something like the V20’s secondary display that gives me additional functions without taking away from main screen real estate. I know info could be displayed on either side of the notch, but you’re losing a lot of space for that area, limiting visibly of notifications.

IMHO this is just the manufacturers bowing to the, “The bezels…

Reply

There’s plenty more to say on this subject, so we’d now like to hand the microphone over to you – Do you want a notch on your next phone?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Your apps’ default settings don’t put your privacy first, so make sure to check them

Default settings never have your bests interests in mind, so check them out!

When you get something new, the first thing you’ll want to do is start using and enjoying it and seeing the things it can do. That’s why we want those new things in the first place, whether we’re talking about a physical thing like a phone or a toaster oven, or a digital thing like an app or a new album. But if your new thing uses the internet, you should take a look at what else it might be doing before you dive in.

The recent (and ongoing) Facebook shenanigans really highlight what I’m talking about here, so I’m going to use it as an example. But know that applies to more than just Facebook, it’s just the low-hanging fruit that makes it so easy to talk about. Facebook did a lot of ugly things but it only did the things you said it could do. I’m not here to say it’s our fault — you’ll never hear me come at you with that lame excuse because this was all Facebook relying on us not knowing what it was doing and trusting that the company wasn’t willing to screw over every single user to make a few more pennies. But we could have prevented it from happening and hopefully we’ll be more skeptical and untrusting in the future because of it all.

Predators like Facebook will always exist, so we need to do whatever we can to make things more difficult for them.

If you were to buy a new phone with Facebook installed or install the app as new, you might think that understanding the apps permissions would be enough to keep tabs on your privacy. We don’t care about all of the details of our lives or who knows them; if we did businesses like Facebook wouldn’t exist in the first place because we would never talk about what we’re doing, who we’re doing it with or where we did it. But all of that needs to be on our terms and shared with the people we decide to share it with, and no extra details need to be given. But a look at the default privacy settings for Facebook — and again, this goes for any app — will let you see that this isn’t the case at all.

You’re sharing details you had no idea you were sharing, had no idea could be shared, and had no idea that they were important enough for anyone to care in the first place. Your location, a history of your location, your internet history, details about your contacts, things you’ve purchased (and how you purchased them), and more are scalped from your phone or computer and shared with Facebook and its advertisers by default. Facebook is in the news because of how fast and loose it uses this information, but plenty of companies through plenty of services want the same kinds of data. That’s why default settings usually have you opted into sharing it all — you are a cash cow to be milked as often as possible.

You might be OK with sharing some things to get better services.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What you get in return can be worth what you’re giving away, especially when it comes to companies who offer services you love. Amazon, Microsoft and Google come to mind here. You can share private information and have a better online experience or a better personal assistant or a better way to shop. These three companies are also straightforward about what they take from you and how they treat it once its in their hands, too. But you should still take a look and see what you tell them be default, because like Facebook, the default settings are what’s best for the company not what’s best for you.

Those seemingly unimportant details of your life are worth millions of dollars.

The same goes for the phone or tablet or computer that’s used to run these apps and services, too. An end-user licensing agreement will tell you part of the story so you really should read through them before you tap OK, but the settings need to be checked, too. That’s where you can fine-tune things and say no to any of the things you’re not required to give away to use the product. You’d be surprised at what you’re sharing with Samsung or any other phone maker on top of what you’re sharing with Google when you sign in to a new phone, so make sure you understand what you have to share and how to opt out of the things you don’t.

These seemingly minor details are worth millions of dollars. You should make sure you’re treating them the same way you treat your money.

Netflix: Everything you need to know

Educate yourself on the world’s biggest video streaming service 📺

When it comes to video streaming companies, few are as iconic as Netflix. What started out as a DVD rental service quickly turned into the world’s largest platform for binging old movies, classic TV shows, and a heap of original programming.

No matter if you’re looking to cut your cable cord or simply want some extra content to supplement it, Netflix can be a great addition to any household’s entertainment needs.

To ensure it has exactly what you’re looking for in a video service, here’s everything you need to know!

April 19, 2018: Mobile Previews are Netflix’s take on Snapchat Stories

Ever since Snapchat popularized the Stories format, we’ve seen it expand to Instagram, Facebook, and even Google search. On April 19, Netflix announced it was launching its own take on stories with its Mobile Previews feature.

Launching first on iOS and coming soon to Android, Mobile Previews will show up as circles at the top of the Netflix app and showcase a 30-second vertical preview of recommended shows. According to Netflix –

The previews are shown like a slideshow, so if you see something you like, you can tap to play or add to your list. If not, you can swipe or tap the screen to advance to the next preview.

Plans start at just $7.99/month

Netflix has three main plans to choose from, including Basic, Standard, and Premium.

Basic is the cheapest plan with a subscription fee of just $7.99/month, but since it’s limited to Standard Definition and only allows you to have one stream going at a time, you’ll likely want to upgrade to the Standard tier for $10.99/month. With Standard, you’ll get access to HD streams and can watch Netflix on up to 2 screens at once.

If you’ve got a 4K television and/or have a big family that wants to use one account, Netflix’s Premium plan will likely be the best fit. For $13.99/month, you’ll get access to Ultra HD video content and can watch any shows you’d like on 4 different screens at once.

New members can sign up for a 1-month free trial of whatever plan you’d like, and you can cancel at any time as there’s no commitment required.

T-Mobile customers get the Standard plan for free!

Netflix’s current pricing is more than reasonable, but if you happen to be a T-Mobile customer, you’ll get it for free!

T-Mobile subscribers get Netflix’s Standard plan bundled with their cell service at no extra charge, and if you want to upgrade to the Premium tier, you’ll pay just $3/month extra.

It’s available on pretty much everything

In addition to its excellent library of content, one of Netflix’s strong suits is its wide availability across pretty much any gadget you can think of.

For watching Netflix on the big screen, you can download its official app on Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, cast it from your phone using Chromecast, and access built-in apps across a variety of smart TVs and Blu-Ray players.

You’ll also find the Netflix app on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and from your desktop/laptop at netflix.com.

Netflix’s official list of all supported devices

The Android app recently got a big overhaul

Netflix’s Android app is one of the best ways to access the service, and it recently got a big update that makes everything look much more polished.

The old navigation menu on the left-hand side has been replaced for a simple navigation row at the bottom for Home, Search, Downloads, and More. Home is where you’ll be taken upon opening the app and tapping the TV Shows, Movies, and Originals tabs near the top will allow you to quickly filter the content that’s presented to you.

The Search and Downloads sections are pretty self-explanatory, and More is where you’ll be able to switch profiles, customize notifications, and adjust all of your other account/app settings.

Everything works about the same as it did before, but the new layout is still greatly appreciated and considerably easier to understand.

New content’s being added (and removed) all the time

Every month, Netflix changes its content library by adding and removing titles from its lineup. The company’s taken a big bet on original movies and TV shows over the last few years, but you can still find a wide array of third-party content, too.

The Netflix app does a pretty good job at highlighting new/trending content as it’s released, and Joseph Keller at iMore does a regular roundup of the best shows you should be watching at any given time.

Best TV shows and movies on Netflix right now

You can still rent physical DVDs

Although renting physical DVDs to customers may not be its primary focus anymore, this is something that Netflix does still offer.

The DVD business has since been moved to DVD.com, but it’s just a full-featured as ever before. Plans start at $4.99/month to rent one disc at a time with a cap of two discs per month, or you can step all the way up to $11.99/month to have two discs out at once and rent as many movies as you want each month (prices are increased to $5.99/month and $14.99/month respectively for HD Blu-Ray).

Netflix finally brought its DVD app to Android in October of 2017, and while the service may not be nearly as popular as the on-demand streaming platform, it’s still alive and kicking for anyone that wants to see that iconic red envelope in their mailbox.

What are you waiting for?

If you somehow still haven’t checked out Netflix, you owe it to yourself to at least sign up for a free trial. My fiance and I use Netflix just about every day, and whether you’re using it to re-watch The Office for the eighth time or catch up on the latest Marvel movies, it’s well worth every penny.

See at Netflix

Roku OS 8.1 adds free live news and private listening for multiple people

The Streaming Stick+ is also coming to Canada in May.

Roku, one of the biggest players in the home streaming market, is getting a significant upgrade this May with its Roku OS 8.1 update. The new software was announced on April 24, and while everything looks the same, there are two big things you’ll want to keep an eye out for.

First up, live news streams are being added to the Roku Channel. The Roku Channel launched in September 2017 as a way for users to quickly find free, curated content, and Roku OS 8.1 will add 24/7 access to Cheddar News, People TV, and act as the exclusive platform for ABC News Live. In addition to live streams, you’ll also be able to view on-demand/linear news content.

Along with news, Roku Channel is also getting Continue Watching and Collections pages to help you more easily find exactly what you’re looking for.

Also included with Roku OS 8.1 is an upgrade for private listening. Roku’s allowed folks to pump audio from their Roku player to a pair of headphones for a few years at this point as to not disturb those around you, but the 8.1 update will allow you to send your Roku’s audio to multiple headphones/earbuds.

Private listening for more than one person will be handled via the Roku mobile app, and it’ll allow up to four people to privately listen to a show at once.

Last but not least, May will also see the Roku Streaming Stick+ makes its way to Canada. The Streaming Stick+ supports 4K and HDR streams thanks to its quad-core processor, allows you to control your TV’s audio using the remote’s volume buttons, and has an “advanced wireless receiver” for improved Wi-Fi performance.

The Streaming Stick+ will be available for CAD 89.99 at Walmart and other retailers across the country.

Android TV vs. Roku: Which smart TV platform is right for you?