FCC puts a date on net neutrality’s tombstone ahead of Senate vote

Net neutrality finally has an official expiration date. Announced Thursday morning, May 10, the Obama-era regulations that ensured an open internet are now set to end on June 11, 2018. This will mark the first date that internet service providers in the United States will be legally allowed to obstruct or alter internet traffic according to their whims, but the fight’s not over yet.

“The agency failed to listen to the American public and gave short shrift to their deeply held belief that internet openness should remain the law of the land,” FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told Reuters. “The FCC is on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American people.”

The announcement of net neutrality’s expiration date comes right after a bipartisan group of Senators introduced a discharge petition, officially challenging the FCC’s rollback of the Obama-era net neutrality rules. The petition will require a majority vote in the Senate and House of Representatives, along with the signature of President Donald Trump, so it has a long way to go, but the vote could take place as early as next week.

Supporters of the petition have no illusions about the uphill battle they face, however. An important component of the discharge petition fight, which could overturn the FCC’s decision to end the Obama-era net neutrality regulations, is simply making sure the American public knows where their representatives stand on the issue.

“We don’t know how this is going to end, but this is part of an effort to get every member of Congress on the record either supporting or opposing Net Neutrality,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told The Verge. “With this piece of legislation there is nowhere to hide and there are no excuses.”

The discharge petition currently has the support of 47 Senate Democrats, along with senator Angus King (I-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). That means they need at least one more Republican vote for the petition to pass the Senate and be sent to the House of Representatives.

After Thursday’s announcement, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and congressional supporters took to Twitter to call for the Senate and the public to support his discharge petition.

BREAKING: The Trump FCC has announced that #NetNeutrality protections will officially end on June 11th. The Senate must act NOW and pass my resolution to save the internet as we know it. #RedAlerthttps://t.co/RMjJPU88ee

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) May 10, 2018

The @FCC just announced it will officially revoke #NetNeutrality rules on June 11! The Senate needs just #OneMoreVote to pass @SenMarkey’s resolution (SJRes 52), and then the House must pass my companion bill (HJRes 129) to #SaveTheInternet. #RedAlert

— Mike Doyle (@USRepMikeDoyle) May 10, 2018

Editors’ Recommendations

• U.S. Senate forces a vote that could restore net neutrality
• Net Neutrality remains on life support as senators rally to save it
• States are waging guerrilla warfare to save net neutrality. Here’s how
• Vermont becomes fifth state to sign order supporting net neutrality
• Oregon is the latest state to jump on the net neutrality bandwagon

IBM clamps down on leaks, bans workers from using external storage

IBM is banning all employees from using removable storage devices in all facilities spanning the globe. The news arrives by way of a leaked advisory written by Chief Information Security Officer Shamla Naidoo, who cites “possible financial and reputational damage from misplaced, lost or misused removable portable storage devices” as the reason for the ban. 

The move is understandable given IBM doesn’t want company trade secrets and financial data leaked to the press or competitors. In fact, IBM already had a removable storage ban in place within specific parts of the overall corporation, but now the company is expanding this policy to all employees and facilities on a global scale over the next several weeks. 

For employees, banning external storage devices like SD cards, flash drives, and USB-based hard drives and solid-state drives could be problematic. For example, USB-based boot drives are reportedly a part of delivering patches and updates to internal client PCs. Data can’t be physically shared between employees and offices either, forcing them to rely on IBM’s Connections Desktop plug-ins to synchronize and share files. 

“Using the desktop plug-ins, you can easily share content between your Windows or Mac desktop and IBM Connections and Connections Cloud,” IBM explains. “You can also use sync so that you always have the latest copy of a file, whether you are opening it from your desktop, from a Connections server, or from Connections Cloud.” 

Naidoo admits the ban of using external storage devices to move data will be “disruptive for some.” But the company’s new globally enforced policy should help prevent massive file leaks like the one seen in 2013 where a former employee leaked hundreds of pages regarding IBM’s cloud computing technology. In January, someone leaked a presentation slide revealing that IBM would cut around 10,000 staff roles. 

Of course, data leaks aren’t specifically tied to physical storage devices. Data residing on the local network and in the cloud can slip between IBM’s fingers as well, but by banning the use of flash drives and SD cards, the company has a better hold on how that data can escape its clutches. IBM can also prevent the transference of malware from PC to PC that is typically associated with external storage devices. 

IBM definitely has good reason to ban the use of physical storage devices: Trade secrets in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and more. The company inked a $240 million deal with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in September 2017 to develop hardware, software, and algorithms dedicated to artificial intelligence. In March, the company revealed the world’s smallest computer built for blockchain technology, and on Thursday, May 10, IBM teamed up with North Carolina State University to accelerate quantum computing. 

Editors’ Recommendations

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Google wants to let you vote from your Android phone

Our smartphones are our constant companions and we use them for so much. But that is not enough for Google, which wants to make it so that Android can do much more. Specifically, Google wants Android to be secure enough to handle our most important data — our passports, medical details, and even let us vote from our Android phones.

Android has not always been seen as the most secure operating system in the world, but recent results show that Google is working hard to change that perception. The “What’s new in Android security” session at Google I/O revealed Google has its eyes set on making Android the sort of operating system that is secure enough for you to cast your vote for the next U.S. president.

But how is Google looking to make that happen? Specifically, it’s all about making sure that the right stuff is running in the right place. Android P may still be nameless, but it looks as if the next major Android iteration will be packing some major security upgrades, at least where transactions are concerned. Called “Android Protection Confirmation,” this is supposedly the first time that a major operating system API will be able to send a “high assurance transaction”, running on secure hardware, in a trusted execution environment (TEE).

I/O is a developer conference, so the use of obscure buzzwords is fairly common — but, in essence, Google is creating is a system that runs separately from the main operating system, and is harder for attackers to gain control as a result of being independent. When required, the TEE will take control of the display and ask the user to confirm the action they are about to take and then take final confirmation by pressing a hardware key. We suspect the exact procedure will change depending on the phone used since the power key is rarely in the same place on different phones — but the key seems to be that it be a secure hardware confirmation, rather than being software-based.

Of course, it’s not just about your civic duty — possible uses for this extremely secure technology obviously includes voting, but it also includes financial transactions, regulating insulin pumps, and two-factor authentication. Google was excited to reveal a small list of partners it was working with, and partners included Bigfoot Medical, the Royal Bank of Canada, and Duo Security.

Does this mean we can all expect to vote on our phones once Android P rolls around? Unlikely — but it is a step in the right direction for that, and even if an “Android Vote” app never surfaces, more security on your smartphone isn’t a bad thing.

Editors’ Recommendations

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• The best security apps and antivirus protection for Android

Chromebooks will start to feel more like Windows, but in a good way

Launching Android app support on Chrome OS was just the first step of Google’s attack on traditional desktop operating systems like Windows 10 and MacOS. At I/O this year, Google announced support for desktop-native features, turning Chromebooks into more powerful productivity machines. These features allow Chrome OS to feel just as natural as a traditional laptop or in newer touch-centric tablet form factors.

Google announced an improved tablet mode, where apps can launch in full-screen mode. Google also announced a new split-screen view, which places two apps side-by-side, a feature similar to Windows 10’s snap feature or the new side-by-side multitasking on Android. Apps can also be dynamically resized to display more data without a restart. If an app launches in a standard portrait-oriented smartphone window, you can see more information displayed as you stretch the app’s window, Google demonstrated in a talk at I/O.

For those who multitask, there’s a new picture-in-picture mode. On the touchscreen, copying and pasting has been reimagined, allowing you to drag text, images, and rich content from one app and drop it into another. This makes Chrome OS feel more like a tablet-first device, similar to how Apple implemented drag-and-drop sharing on the iPad Pro.

Google is also supporting the Android keyboard in Chrome, making it easy to use emoji. App shortcuts will also come to Chrome OS. Rick-clicking or long-pressing an app will show app actions. This allows you to launch a specific command within an app without having to first launch the app, similar to how long-pressing the Gmail app on Android gives you the option to jump directly into the compose window.

Chrome OS will also support pro audio, which means that you could soon see your favorite DJ use a Pixelbook to spin the hottest mixes. MIDI support is present today, and Google announced support for multi-channel USB audio, AAudio, and AAudio MMAP is coming this fall with the M69 release.

Support for multiple displays has also been improved, and more capable hardware like the Pixelbook can connect to a maximum of seven displays simultaneously, Google said. For users who prefer to write or draw, Google has reworked the software to significantly reduce latency. By removing the compositing time and adding a prediction logic, Google claims that the traditional 100ms delay has been reduced to nearly zero.

Chromebooks already outsell all other devices combined in the education space and accounts for 17 percent of all notebooks sold in the US, Google said. The addition of these powerful features to Chrome OS will likely help Google take market share from its rivals.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best Chromebooks
• Google’s new ‘tablet mode’ further blurs the line between Chrome OS and Android
• Google Pixelbook review
• Can a Chromebook replace a laptop in a photographer’s workflow?
• What’s weirder: A Chrome OS tablet or an Android laptop?

Apple and Goldman Sachs reportedly developing a credit card together

Apple could be looking to expand Apple Pay beyond phone-based NFC payments. The company is reportedly working on an Apple Pay-branded credit card, which is being developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

The report comes from The Wall Street Journal and notes that the partnership between the two will extend to other services. For example, Goldman Sachs will reportedly offer in-store loans to Apple customers who are buying new products. According to the report, the two are still deciding on the specific terms of the deal, but Apple is aiming to release the card to customers as soon as early 2019.

Of course, Apple does already offer an Apple Rewards credit card with Barclays, but the deal with Goldman Sachs is reportedly aimed at offering customers a cheaper financing deal. The new card will replace the old card as the official Apple Rewards credit card.

Apple is said to be shifting its focus toward growing businesses, and Apple Pay is one of those businesses. It’s believed that the deal with Goldman Sachs could help Apple expand awareness about Apple Pay. According to recent reports, only around 16 percent of iPhone users around the world use Apple Pay — though researchers expect widespread adoption of mobile payments in the next three to five years. Apple Pay first launched in 2014, though at the time it was only available for a few banks, and only in the U.S. Since then it has grown to dozens of countries around the world, with support for even more banks and financial institutions.

Still, the service received pushback from the likes of Target and Walmart, which are attempting to develop their own mobile payment systems. There are also other mobile payment services, from companies like Google, PayPal, and so on. Apple, however, says it’s not too worried about slow adoption — last spring the company noted that it thought mobile payments were on track to become users’ primary payment system.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly what the Apple Pay-branded card ends up looking like and whether it’s linked to Apple Pay in more than just branding. As mentioned, we may not have to wait long — early 2019 seems to be the current target release date.

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• Vizio’s 2018 TV lineup includes models as low as $350, and a quantum surprise

Google’s ARCore 1.2 brings social AR experiences to your phone

ARCore is no longer tied to just Android. Google announced a few new features expanding the capabilities of its augmented reality platform at its annual Google I/O developer conference. ARCore version 1.2 makes AR social, and we played a collaborative game demonstrating how it all works.

The main attraction is what Google calls “Cloud Anchors,” which allow developers to create more collaborative AR experiences through the cloud — whether you’re on Android or iOS. Google made a demo app called Lightboard, which is a game where two people can shoot paintballs at each other to cover an area with as much color as possible.

A representative using a Pixel 2 hosted the game, and an iPhone with Lightboard installed (which we used) joined. We had to move the phone in a circular motion so it could identify the table, and then it placed a virtual platform in front of us. The game was simple, and worked liked Angry Birds. Just click and drag your gun to shoot the paintballs at the opponent’s platform to cover it in color. It all worked without a hitch, the visuals were static, and we successfully were able to play an AR game between an Android phone and an iPhone in mere seconds.

Only certain iPhones are supported, including the iPhone SE, iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, and iPhone X.

Another major update is that ARCore now offers what Google calls “Vertical Plane Detection,” which means you can place virtual objects on more surfaces. In a demo, Google placed a virtual object on a painting that we could only see through an app called Augmented Images. The painting popped right out, and we were able to walk around it to see all sides of it. It’s a great addition to ARCore that makes the whole experience feel more immersive.

Other improvements to ARCore should make for a much easier development process for developers. Google released Sceneform, a new software development kit that helps Java developers implement AR scenes without needing to learn OpenGL. Sceneform is optimized for mobile, and should help developers create more, and better, ARCore apps.

There are already a ton of ARCore-based apps available. Some of the coolest apps include the likes of My Tamagotchi Forever, which allows you to care for and grow your Tamagotchi in Tamatown in an augmented reality setting. There is also Pottery Barn 3D Room View, which lets you see how furniture would look in your room without having to buy that furniture.

All these new tools are available for developers to utilize, so expect them to be major highlight for the next wave of ARCore apps, or as updated features to existing ones.

Updated on May 10: We’ve added videos demonstrating these updates, as well as hands-on impressions.

Can Google really save us from wasting time, or are we on our own?

Google’s annual I/O conference brought no shortage of the futuristic, whiz-bang ideas that we’ve come to expect from the company. We saw artificial intelligence that can call your salon for you, self-driving cars that can navigate in a snowstorm, and augmented-reality directions for Google Maps.

But Google also pitched a curveball in the form of Digital Wellbeing, a suite of features designed to help you use your phone less. A new dashboard will show you how much time you’re burning in different apps, and let you set limits on the biggest time wasters. Setting your phone face down will now activate a “shush” mode that turns off all notifications. At night, your phone can enter a “wind down” mode where everything appears black and white, coaxing you to set it down and sleep.

So is Google really interesting in liberating us from the digital shackles wrapped around our ankles, or is this a feel-good sham from the same company that wants to put notifications and cameras on our faces? Our staff was split, so we settled in for a good old-fashioned DT Debate.

Simon Hill, Associate Mobile Editor

Smartphones have enhanced our lives in many ways: They keep us in touch with people, they help us find places and things to do, and they enable us to capture special moments.

But you can have too much of a good thing, and there’s a growing realization that our smartphones can also detract from our lives.

It’s only by actively interacting with people that we boost our well-being.

We have been conditioned to answer to our phones. Every new ping or alert grabs our attention, because we think it might be something pleasing or important, even though it often isn’t. If you’ve ever had someone take out their phone and check an incoming alert mid-conversation with you at the dinner table, then you know how annoying it can be … but you’ve probably done it yourself.

Our smartphones hold such a treasure trove of potential interest that we can easily spend an hour idly browsing in and out of apps, many of which have been specifically designed to be addictive. When we use apps like Facebook the research suggests that passive consumption makes us feel worse, it’s only by actively interacting with people that we boost our well-being.

Some people even allow their phones to interrupt their sleep, checking them in the night or reading work emails just before bed when they can’t do anything about them anyway. There’s no doubt this is bad for your health. Apart from the increase in stress this creates, there’s also the potential impact of blue light from the screen. Few us of have jobs so important that we need to be instantly contactable 24/7, but that’s the situation smartphones have created.

Google’s Vice President of Product Management, Sameer Samat Google

Google’s new Digital Wellbeing features aren’t going to solve this issue in one fell swoop, because it also requires some awareness and willpower on our part. But what they will make it easier for us to reduce wasted time on our phones. As Google’s Vice President of Product Management, Sameer Samat, said, “People tell us a lot of the time they spend on their phones is really useful. But some of it they wish they’d spent on other things.”

When we looked into whether smartphone addiction exists, we found that awareness was one of the most important first steps in recognizing a problem. When people used the Moment app, which tracks time spent in apps and the number of unlocks you do every day, just like Google’s new Dashboard, it turned out that most were underestimating how long they spent on their phones and how many times they checked them. Being aware helped them reduce that wasted time.

The new App Timer enables you to make sure that 20 minutes of Twitter doesn’t turn into an hour.

Wind Down, which goes a step beyond blue-light filtering to turn your screen from color to grayscale, is a nice reminder that it’s bedtime. It will help many of us resist the powerful addictive pull of our phones, and get some shuteye instead of five more minutes of Reddit.

Shush is perfect for social situations: Just place your phone face down when you’re having dinner with friends, playing a game with your family, or working on something important, and the distraction is gone. We can decide when we want to check our phones, instead of answering to them all the time.

As the research mounts about the potential negative impact of smartphone use or overuse, it’s refreshing to see a big tech company address it directly like this. Making small changes to the way we use our smartphones allows us to ensure that they enhance rather than detract from our lives and these new tools will help.

Andy Boxall, Senior Writer

When Sameer Samat, Google’s VP of product management, said Android Dashboard’s Digital Wellbeing features will help us, “be fully present,” because it will silence those annoying, distracting notifications and ensure we’re not so beholden to the digital devil in our hand, that was the last straw for me. This had to be an elaborate gag, and Samat was actually a new member of the Impractical Jokers team, on stage to prank us all. This is Google, a company that has made, and continues to make, its fortune based on us staring at a screen with its ads and content on it. And it wants us to spend less time doing that? Yeah, right.

Here’s a secret: You can already turn your phone off, which will — newsflash — stop it from disturbing you entirely.

But wait, it’s OK, Google’s in on the joke. It knows that these features won’t make much of a difference to its bottom line, because they don’t work. Wait, say the well-intentioned but misguided souls who can’t see through Google’s ruse, it’ll help hopelessly addicted. No, it won’t. Because using and benefitting from any of these things requires self-control, and being unable to stop scrolling through Facebook when you should be sleeping, shows this is currently in short supply for many.

Why such cynicism? The vast majority of the features are already available in third-party apps such as Moment, which clearly haven’t had much of an effect on the hypnotized masses so far. Shush, which silences the phone when you flip it over, has been seen on phones like the HTC Droid Incredible since at least 2010. Sure, not all phones could do it then, and soon it will be preinstalled. But here’s a secret: You can already turn your phone off, which will — newsflash — stop it disturbing you entirely. Or if that’s too jarring, use Airplane Mode. It’s the same, but without the same degree of Band-Aid-ripping finality.

When was the last time you did that? If you’re not sure, then how will a notification saying you’ve been using Snapchat for an hour make any difference to your daily phone use? The passing of time isn’t a mystery. We’re all aware of how much time we spend procrastinating on our phones, yet we don’t do anything much about it, despite the tools already available.

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

I was told, when I first scoffed at the digital wellbeing farce, that I was out of step with common consensus, and it has been widely well received. Of course it has. Everyone will agree it’s a good thing, and it truly has the potential to help tackle what (if I’m serious for a moment) is a genuine, growing issue, particularly among young people.

Except it won’t, because we don’t really want it to. Using a phone too much is the same as any other activity that affects our health and wellbeing. We all-too-often choose to worry about it another day.

Using and benefitting from any of these things requires self-control.

Google’s concern for your digital wellbeing is a cursory nod in the direction of those who enjoy telling others what they’re doing wrong. The don’t-eat-red-meat, cut-down-on-booze, careful-with-that-chocolate-cake crowd. The inclusion of Dashboard in Android P is a pacifier for those same people who moan about big companies not helping us break free of our phones to suck on. “We’re doing all we can,” Google will say, and in fact, it is. It’s us that’s the problem. We won’t take ownership of any possible addiction, because if we were genuinely concerned and motivated, we’d have done so already.

Samat’s wife had a third, and very effective method of curbing phone use. She locked it in a safe at the beginning of a holiday, and didn’t give it back until the end. How about trying that after work?

Simon Hill

Just because these features are already in third-party apps and other phones doesn’t mean they’re useless or don’t work. It’s an Android tradition to pick the best functions from manufacturer UIs and popular apps and bake them into the platform.

It’s not like they’re aiming to stop people using their phones, it’s about cutting down when you’re overdoing it, and the evidence suggests that awareness does make a difference. More than half of people who used Moment to track their activity for at least 30 days reduced their screen time by an average of 24 minutes.

Contrary to your belief, people don’t realize how much time they’re spending on their phones. Most of us lack your impeccable internal clock and it’s very easy to get lost in a game or app and not notice the time passing. There’s a difference between a general feeling that you’re using your phone too much and setting eyes on the cold, hard statistics.

Yes, it requires willpower and self-control to reduce your smartphone use, and not everyone will, but that’s not the point. The point is to help people who are concerned and do want to cut down.

If you’re going to reduce things to the old self-control argument, you may as well tell smokers to just quit, alcoholics to stop buying booze, fat people to stop eating, junkies to stop shooting up, or gamblers to stop betting. There’s no point in helping them is there? Because by your logic if they wanted to stop, they’d have done it by now.

The chance that these tools might help some people makes them a good thing, and it’s encouraging people to stop and think about it when they might not have done that before. It’s also not being enforced nanny-style – it’s optional. Decide for yourself.

Andy Boxall

I understand that realization of a problem is one of the first stages of recovery from addiction, and this kind of feature can prompt that. I also agree that people are oblivious to how long they are using their phones. However, as you said, Dashboard and all its tools are optional. All of those addictions you mention aren’t cured by half-measures, are they? They require major lifestyle changes.

If Google, and all the hand-wringers concerned for the future of society, were serious about this and really wanted lives to change, then make Dashboard and its warnings on by default. Force us to go in and turn all those alerts, vibrations, greyscale screens, and app shutouts off. That would get everyone’s attention, even those without my atomic internal clock.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Never happen, right? Uproar would ensue, and that’s because while we say it’s a good thing to cut down, actually doing so would be a pain. It’s much more comforting to know the features are simply there, and that if the mood took us, we could activate them and suddenly rejoice as we gain the time to smell the flowers, feel the sunshine, and listen to children laughing again.

On the whole, society has already decided about this, and that decision is one filled with apathy.

Opinion pieces represent the views of their individual authors, and not Digital Trends.

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• Google Home review

Can Google really save us from wasting time, or are we on our own?

Google’s annual I/O conference brought no shortage of the futuristic, whiz-bang ideas that we’ve come to expect from the company. We saw artificial intelligence that can call your salon for you, self-driving cars that can navigate in a snowstorm, and augmented-reality directions for Google Maps.

But Google also pitched a curveball in the form of Digital Wellbeing, a suite of features designed to help you use your phone less. A new dashboard will show you how much time you’re burning in different apps, and let you set limits on the biggest time wasters. Setting your phone face down will now activate a “shush” mode that turns off all notifications. At night, your phone can enter a “wind down” mode where everything appears black and white, coaxing you to set it down and sleep.

So is Google really interesting in liberating us from the digital shackles wrapped around our ankles, or is this a feel-good sham from the same company that wants to put notifications and cameras on our faces? Our staff was split, so we settled in for a good old-fashioned DT Debate.

Simon Hill, Associate Mobile Editor

Smartphones have enhanced our lives in many ways: They keep us in touch with people, they help us find places and things to do, and they enable us to capture special moments.

But you can have too much of a good thing, and there’s a growing realization that our smartphones can also detract from our lives.

It’s only by actively interacting with people that we boost our well-being.

We have been conditioned to answer to our phones. Every new ping or alert grabs our attention, because we think it might be something pleasing or important, even though it often isn’t. If you’ve ever had someone take out their phone and check an incoming alert mid-conversation with you at the dinner table, then you know how annoying it can be … but you’ve probably done it yourself.

Our smartphones hold such a treasure trove of potential interest that we can easily spend an hour idly browsing in and out of apps, many of which have been specifically designed to be addictive. When we use apps like Facebook the research suggests that passive consumption makes us feel worse, it’s only by actively interacting with people that we boost our well-being.

Some people even allow their phones to interrupt their sleep, checking them in the night or reading work emails just before bed when they can’t do anything about them anyway. There’s no doubt this is bad for your health. Apart from the increase in stress this creates, there’s also the potential impact of blue light from the screen. Few us of have jobs so important that we need to be instantly contactable 24/7, but that’s the situation smartphones have created.

Google’s Vice President of Product Management, Sameer Samat Google

Google’s new Digital Wellbeing features aren’t going to solve this issue in one fell swoop, because it also requires some awareness and willpower on our part. But what they will make it easier for us to reduce wasted time on our phones. As Google’s Vice President of Product Management, Sameer Samat, said, “People tell us a lot of the time they spend on their phones is really useful. But some of it they wish they’d spent on other things.”

When we looked into whether smartphone addiction exists, we found that awareness was one of the most important first steps in recognizing a problem. When people used the Moment app, which tracks time spent in apps and the number of unlocks you do every day, just like Google’s new Dashboard, it turned out that most were underestimating how long they spent on their phones and how many times they checked them. Being aware helped them reduce that wasted time.

The new App Timer enables you to make sure that 20 minutes of Twitter doesn’t turn into an hour.

Wind Down, which goes a step beyond blue-light filtering to turn your screen from color to grayscale, is a nice reminder that it’s bedtime. It will help many of us resist the powerful addictive pull of our phones, and get some shuteye instead of five more minutes of Reddit.

Shush is perfect for social situations: Just place your phone face down when you’re having dinner with friends, playing a game with your family, or working on something important, and the distraction is gone. We can decide when we want to check our phones, instead of answering to them all the time.

As the research mounts about the potential negative impact of smartphone use or overuse, it’s refreshing to see a big tech company address it directly like this. Making small changes to the way we use our smartphones allows us to ensure that they enhance rather than detract from our lives and these new tools will help.

Andy Boxall, Senior Writer

When Sameer Samat, Google’s VP of product management, said Android Dashboard’s Digital Wellbeing features will help us, “be fully present,” because it will silence those annoying, distracting notifications and ensure we’re not so beholden to the digital devil in our hand, that was the last straw for me. This had to be an elaborate gag, and Samat was actually a new member of the Impractical Jokers team, on stage to prank us all. This is Google, a company that has made, and continues to make, its fortune based on us staring at a screen with its ads and content on it. And it wants us to spend less time doing that? Yeah, right.

Here’s a secret: You can already turn your phone off, which will — newsflash — stop it from disturbing you entirely.

But wait, it’s OK, Google’s in on the joke. It knows that these features won’t make much of a difference to its bottom line, because they don’t work. Wait, say the well-intentioned but misguided souls who can’t see through Google’s ruse, it’ll help hopelessly addicted. No, it won’t. Because using and benefitting from any of these things requires self-control, and being unable to stop scrolling through Facebook when you should be sleeping, shows this is currently in short supply for many.

Why such cynicism? The vast majority of the features are already available in third-party apps such as Moment, which clearly haven’t had much of an effect on the hypnotized masses so far. Shush, which silences the phone when you flip it over, has been seen on phones like the HTC Droid Incredible since at least 2010. Sure, not all phones could do it then, and soon it will be preinstalled. But here’s a secret: You can already turn your phone off, which will — newsflash — stop it disturbing you entirely. Or if that’s too jarring, use Airplane Mode. It’s the same, but without the same degree of Band-Aid-ripping finality.

When was the last time you did that? If you’re not sure, then how will a notification saying you’ve been using Snapchat for an hour make any difference to your daily phone use? The passing of time isn’t a mystery. We’re all aware of how much time we spend procrastinating on our phones, yet we don’t do anything much about it, despite the tools already available.

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

I was told, when I first scoffed at the digital wellbeing farce, that I was out of step with common consensus, and it has been widely well received. Of course it has. Everyone will agree it’s a good thing, and it truly has the potential to help tackle what (if I’m serious for a moment) is a genuine, growing issue, particularly among young people.

Except it won’t, because we don’t really want it to. Using a phone too much is the same as any other activity that affects our health and wellbeing. We all-too-often choose to worry about it another day.

Using and benefitting from any of these things requires self-control.

Google’s concern for your digital wellbeing is a cursory nod in the direction of those who enjoy telling others what they’re doing wrong. The don’t-eat-red-meat, cut-down-on-booze, careful-with-that-chocolate-cake crowd. The inclusion of Dashboard in Android P is a pacifier for those same people who moan about big companies not helping us break free of our phones to suck on. “We’re doing all we can,” Google will say, and in fact, it is. It’s us that’s the problem. We won’t take ownership of any possible addiction, because if we were genuinely concerned and motivated, we’d have done so already.

Samat’s wife had a third, and very effective method of curbing phone use. She locked it in a safe at the beginning of a holiday, and didn’t give it back until the end. How about trying that after work?

Simon Hill

Just because these features are already in third-party apps and other phones doesn’t mean they’re useless or don’t work. It’s an Android tradition to pick the best functions from manufacturer UIs and popular apps and bake them into the platform.

It’s not like they’re aiming to stop people using their phones, it’s about cutting down when you’re overdoing it, and the evidence suggests that awareness does make a difference. More than half of people who used Moment to track their activity for at least 30 days reduced their screen time by an average of 24 minutes.

Contrary to your belief, people don’t realize how much time they’re spending on their phones. Most of us lack your impeccable internal clock and it’s very easy to get lost in a game or app and not notice the time passing. There’s a difference between a general feeling that you’re using your phone too much and setting eyes on the cold, hard statistics.

Yes, it requires willpower and self-control to reduce your smartphone use, and not everyone will, but that’s not the point. The point is to help people who are concerned and do want to cut down.

If you’re going to reduce things to the old self-control argument, you may as well tell smokers to just quit, alcoholics to stop buying booze, fat people to stop eating, junkies to stop shooting up, or gamblers to stop betting. There’s no point in helping them is there? Because by your logic if they wanted to stop, they’d have done it by now.

The chance that these tools might help some people makes them a good thing, and it’s encouraging people to stop and think about it when they might not have done that before. It’s also not being enforced nanny-style – it’s optional. Decide for yourself.

Andy Boxall

I understand that realization of a problem is one of the first stages of recovery from addiction, and this kind of feature can prompt that. I also agree that people are oblivious to how long they are using their phones. However, as you said, Dashboard and all its tools are optional. All of those addictions you mention aren’t cured by half-measures, are they? They require major lifestyle changes.

If Google, and all the hand-wringers concerned for the future of society, were serious about this and really wanted lives to change, then make Dashboard and its warnings on by default. Force us to go in and turn all those alerts, vibrations, greyscale screens, and app shutouts off. That would get everyone’s attention, even those without my atomic internal clock.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Never happen, right? Uproar would ensue, and that’s because while we say it’s a good thing to cut down, actually doing so would be a pain. It’s much more comforting to know the features are simply there, and that if the mood took us, we could activate them and suddenly rejoice as we gain the time to smell the flowers, feel the sunshine, and listen to children laughing again.

On the whole, society has already decided about this, and that decision is one filled with apathy.

Opinion pieces represent the views of their individual authors, and not Digital Trends.

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Everything you need to know about Discord, the chat app for gamers

When playing video games on PC, players often need to solve two problems: Talking to each other, and organizing people long enough to actually get a game going.

Discord is the latest in a long line of apps that solve that problem. The free platform, which blends the approachable chat UI found in apps like Slack with video and voice chat, a la Skype, has quickly become one of the most popular, reporting 90 million users, with 14 million people logging on every day. Discord is great to use to talk to your friends while playing games, but it’s also useful for creating places where people can congregate, meet up to find other players, and socialize.

Here’s everything you need to know about Discord, including where to get it, what it costs, and why you might want to check it out — especially before firing up your next multiplayer game.

So, what is Discord?

Discord is a chat app, similar to programs such as Skype or TeamSpeak, or professional communications platforms like Slack. It’s geared specifically toward video game players, providing them with ways to find each other, coordinate play, and talk while playing. It supports video calls, voice chat, and text, allowing users to get in touch however they please.

Discord is especially useful if you’re trying to play PC games. The app makes chatting pretty easy, and offers search functions that can help you find other people and add them to a friends list for quick communication. Lots of people use it not just for talking to each other while playing games, but as an organizational and social tool.

Thanks to this breadth of functionality, users have also embraced Discord as a semipublic, forum-style community platform: Groups of players with common interests, such as fans of a particular game or studio, can create or join “servers,” both public and private, where lots of people can meet and hang out, chatting via text, video, or voice.

While most of the servers are related to gaming, you can also find public Discord servers that focus on a variety of topics, including things like anime, cryptocurrency, self-improvement, and just making friends and hanging out. There’s also nothing requiring servers be created for gaming, so if you want a place in Discord to discuss a topic, you can always make one. Handy places to find and search for public servers include Discord.me, Disboard.org and Discordservers.com.

Oh, and finally, Discord is free.

What separates Discord from other platforms?

Though there are a lot of free communication programs online, Discord stands out thanks to its wide array of chat options. It combines all the best features of more commonly used programs, such as Skype and Slack, with an easy-to-use interface. A voice chat program wouldn’t be much use if it slowed down your games while you’re using it, so the team making Discord is dedicated to making it as efficient as possible.

That versatility has led large groups of users to embrace Discord as a place to meet and chat with people who have similar interest, not just friends. It’s part communications app, part social media portal. While the chat room side of the app, in which users can join public or private “servers,” is probably its most popular, it also provides a social forum that’s great for organizing people to play games as well. Essentially, you don’t need video games to make Discord useful: It’s extremely handy for joining with groups of friends in a private server, or meeting like-minded folks in public ones.

Discord is also accessible through a number of means, which makes it easy to use even if you’re not sitting in front of a gaming PC. The app has a downloadable PC program you can run on your computer — which is the handy, lightweight version best for running in the background while you play games — as well as a web-based version and a mobile version. That means you can interact with people in your Discord chat servers from basically anywhere, extending the social capabilities of the app.

Find a server (or make one)

So how does Discord work? In a word: “Servers.” As with other chat apps, such as Slack, Discord lets you set up a chat room it refers to as a server, to which you can invite people. When you invite someone to the server, they get a link that lets them join it, where they can either text or voice chat with other people using that server. Each server can be broken down further into “channels,” small spaces for discussions on specific topics, as opposed to one giant live forum. Channels come in text and voice versions, to further make them easier to use. You can also make individual channels on your server private, so only people who are invited into those rooms can use them. On top of that, the whole server can be either public, which anyone can join, or private, which makes it invite-only.

You can be a part of multiple servers at a time, making Discord a hub for social interaction. You might have one private server for you and your friends specifically, so you can coordinate before playing a game, while also being a part of several public servers (we joined the local Pokémon Go Discord server to try to find people to raid with, for example). There’s no limit on how many servers you can be a part of. You can easily switch from server to server at will: The list of your servers is always displayed on the left side of the app, and choosing your destination is simply a matter of clicking one or another.

Joining a server is as easy as clicking a link, though, generally speaking, you need to be invited first. Many servers are public and available through Discord’s search function — for instance, Pokémon Go players in Los Angeles have a public “PoGo LA” server to coordinate playing the game in their city, and anybody can join it. Discord also recently added “verified servers” — official servers created by game studios and other notable entities that serve as official community forums for fans to chat with each other, and with game developers.

Creating a server of your own is also a snap. A vertical list along the left side of the app shows the servers you’re already in, so you can switch between them easily. A “Plus” icon is the spot where you can make a server of your own. Give it a name (and a photo to define it, if you like) and that’s it — the server exists and Discord generates a link that lets you invite other people to use it.

Once inside, your server will have lists for voice and text channels on the left side of the screen. You can quickly add and name new channels using the “Plus” icons near the top of each list. Each channel has various control settings, as well, including the ability to make them private and invite-only, and choose who can create invite links.

Make friends

Like most other chat apps, Discord also supports the ability for you to create a list of “friends” who use the app that you can contact directly outside of any servers.

The easiest way to add friends to your list is by finding their names in servers you’ve already joined. You can right-click on a user name to find an “Add Friend” button at the bottom of the screen, which will send a friend request to that user. You can also click a user name and pull up that person’s User Profile, where another button is located for you to add the person as a friend.

It’s also possible to search for users and add them as friends. If you know their user name and they’ve set their privacy settings to allow for search, you can find them using the search field at the top-left of the screen. You can then add those public people as friends just by clicking on the photos of any user on the list.

You can also send friend requests directly from your friend list, without doing a search. From your friend list in the Discord client program, you can click the blue “Add Friend” button near the top-left side of the screen. That’ll bring up a field that lets you add the person’s complete user name and their four-digit “DiscordTag.” The user name you’re looking for should come out like this: HelpyHelpnotbot#8877. You’ll need to get that info from your friend to add them on Discord, though.

Once you’ve got some friends, clicking their names on your friends list allows you to quickly open up a direct message feed with them, or request video and voice calls. You can add set up a group video or voice chat with multiple friends, even without a server.

Connect accounts and build a profile

Discord lets you connect other social media accounts to the app to make it easier to track down people you know and flesh out your user profile. Since the app combines private communications with public chat rooms, connecting accounts goes beyond the usual use of finding people you’re already friends with to connect to on Discord. It also makes it easier for people to know who you are in the real world, should you so choose.

Connecting accounts is easy and works the same as with other chat or social media apps — mostly by just allowing you to connect by prompting you for your password for other accounts. The additional functionality of being able to find people you meet on Discord on other media portals has the added function of making Discord into more of a social network itself. If you’re using it to access public servers to find like-minded players in various games, it can be a handy way to meet people.

Texting it up

As you start navigating servers and channels, you can write text messages to anyone quickly and easily using the text field at the bottom of the Discord screen. There’s a lot more going on here than just knocking out quick messages, though. You can drag GIFs and images into chat by dragging them into the text field, or using the “upload” button on the left side of the text window. If you want to edit or delete one of your messages, right-click it to get a drop-down menu with those options.

Text on Discord also supports “Markdown,” giving you quick and easy ways to alter the text in your Discord chats without having to learn actual coding. Markdown is especially useful for doing things like adding bold, italics, and other formatting to your text messages. Its tricks are easy to learn, and Discord has a blog post explaining how it all works, so you can elevate your text game.

Be heard

Voice chat on Discord is pretty easy. Entering a voice channel on a server automatically kicks on your microphone, provided you have a working one attached to your computer. You can also access voice chat by creating voice calls or group calls to friends by clicking the phone icon on your Friends List.

Once you’re in voice chat, Discord offers some handy quick controls at the bottom of the voice chat window or channel window. Clicking the microphone icon mutes your own mic instantly, while clicking the headphones icon activates “deafen.” That kills all incoming sound from Discord, as well as mutes your microphone. You can also adjust your audio settings for voice chat and video in the Settings menu, which is accessed by clicking the gear icon. Getting out of a voice call or voice channel on a server requires you to hit the “hang-up” icon, which is a phone with an arrow pointing down.

Control who you see and hear

Just because you share a server with someone doesn’t mean you have to listen to them. Discord includes all the social media-style features that let you determine how you interact with people. Right-clicking a person’s name on the server list prompts a drop-down with a number of options, such as sending a private message, adding the person to your friend list, initiating a voice call, and muting or blocking them. Muting a user means you don’t see their texts or hear their voice, but they can still see and hear you. Blocking someone prevents them from seeing and hearing you as well.

When you’re an admin on a server — either because you created it or because the admin of a server you’re on gave you that power — you have even more control over undesirable people hanging around. Right-clicking names includes the ability to deafen users so they can’t hear anything from other users, or to ban them from a server outright.

Going mobile

All of Discord’s desktop and web functionality is also made available in its mobile app. You don’t need to be at your computer to stay connected with other people in your servers, or to your friends. Like the other versions, you can use the mobile Discord app to find servers, locate other users, and chat in general. There’s effectively no difference between the versions, which makes Discord even more useful — you can be always connected to other players, and potential games, no matter where you are.

Where do you get Discord?

You can find the web and PC versions of Discord on the program’s website, discordapp.com. You can also use Discord on Android and iOS mobile devices, by downloading its apps from the Google Play Store and the iTunes App Store.

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Everything you need to know about Discord, the chat app for gamers

When playing video games on PC, players often need to solve two problems: Talking to each other, and organizing people long enough to actually get a game going.

Discord is the latest in a long line of apps that solve that problem. The free platform, which blends the approachable chat UI found in apps like Slack with video and voice chat, a la Skype, has quickly become one of the most popular, reporting 90 million users, with 14 million people logging on every day. Discord is great to use to talk to your friends while playing games, but it’s also useful for creating places where people can congregate, meet up to find other players, and socialize.

Here’s everything you need to know about Discord, including where to get it, what it costs, and why you might want to check it out — especially before firing up your next multiplayer game.

So, what is Discord?

Discord is a chat app, similar to programs such as Skype or TeamSpeak, or professional communications platforms like Slack. It’s geared specifically toward video game players, providing them with ways to find each other, coordinate play, and talk while playing. It supports video calls, voice chat, and text, allowing users to get in touch however they please.

Discord is especially useful if you’re trying to play PC games. The app makes chatting pretty easy, and offers search functions that can help you find other people and add them to a friends list for quick communication. Lots of people use it not just for talking to each other while playing games, but as an organizational and social tool.

Thanks to this breadth of functionality, users have also embraced Discord as a semipublic, forum-style community platform: Groups of players with common interests, such as fans of a particular game or studio, can create or join “servers,” both public and private, where lots of people can meet and hang out, chatting via text, video, or voice.

While most of the servers are related to gaming, you can also find public Discord servers that focus on a variety of topics, including things like anime, cryptocurrency, self-improvement, and just making friends and hanging out. There’s also nothing requiring servers be created for gaming, so if you want a place in Discord to discuss a topic, you can always make one. Handy places to find and search for public servers include Discord.me, Disboard.org and Discordservers.com.

Oh, and finally, Discord is free.

What separates Discord from other platforms?

Though there are a lot of free communication programs online, Discord stands out thanks to its wide array of chat options. It combines all the best features of more commonly used programs, such as Skype and Slack, with an easy-to-use interface. A voice chat program wouldn’t be much use if it slowed down your games while you’re using it, so the team making Discord is dedicated to making it as efficient as possible.

That versatility has led large groups of users to embrace Discord as a place to meet and chat with people who have similar interest, not just friends. It’s part communications app, part social media portal. While the chat room side of the app, in which users can join public or private “servers,” is probably its most popular, it also provides a social forum that’s great for organizing people to play games as well. Essentially, you don’t need video games to make Discord useful: It’s extremely handy for joining with groups of friends in a private server, or meeting like-minded folks in public ones.

Discord is also accessible through a number of means, which makes it easy to use even if you’re not sitting in front of a gaming PC. The app has a downloadable PC program you can run on your computer — which is the handy, lightweight version best for running in the background while you play games — as well as a web-based version and a mobile version. That means you can interact with people in your Discord chat servers from basically anywhere, extending the social capabilities of the app.

Find a server (or make one)

So how does Discord work? In a word: “Servers.” As with other chat apps, such as Slack, Discord lets you set up a chat room it refers to as a server, to which you can invite people. When you invite someone to the server, they get a link that lets them join it, where they can either text or voice chat with other people using that server. Each server can be broken down further into “channels,” small spaces for discussions on specific topics, as opposed to one giant live forum. Channels come in text and voice versions, to further make them easier to use. You can also make individual channels on your server private, so only people who are invited into those rooms can use them. On top of that, the whole server can be either public, which anyone can join, or private, which makes it invite-only.

You can be a part of multiple servers at a time, making Discord a hub for social interaction. You might have one private server for you and your friends specifically, so you can coordinate before playing a game, while also being a part of several public servers (we joined the local Pokémon Go Discord server to try to find people to raid with, for example). There’s no limit on how many servers you can be a part of. You can easily switch from server to server at will: The list of your servers is always displayed on the left side of the app, and choosing your destination is simply a matter of clicking one or another.

Joining a server is as easy as clicking a link, though, generally speaking, you need to be invited first. Many servers are public and available through Discord’s search function — for instance, Pokémon Go players in Los Angeles have a public “PoGo LA” server to coordinate playing the game in their city, and anybody can join it. Discord also recently added “verified servers” — official servers created by game studios and other notable entities that serve as official community forums for fans to chat with each other, and with game developers.

Creating a server of your own is also a snap. A vertical list along the left side of the app shows the servers you’re already in, so you can switch between them easily. A “Plus” icon is the spot where you can make a server of your own. Give it a name (and a photo to define it, if you like) and that’s it — the server exists and Discord generates a link that lets you invite other people to use it.

Once inside, your server will have lists for voice and text channels on the left side of the screen. You can quickly add and name new channels using the “Plus” icons near the top of each list. Each channel has various control settings, as well, including the ability to make them private and invite-only, and choose who can create invite links.

Make friends

Like most other chat apps, Discord also supports the ability for you to create a list of “friends” who use the app that you can contact directly outside of any servers.

The easiest way to add friends to your list is by finding their names in servers you’ve already joined. You can right-click on a user name to find an “Add Friend” button at the bottom of the screen, which will send a friend request to that user. You can also click a user name and pull up that person’s User Profile, where another button is located for you to add the person as a friend.

It’s also possible to search for users and add them as friends. If you know their user name and they’ve set their privacy settings to allow for search, you can find them using the search field at the top-left of the screen. You can then add those public people as friends just by clicking on the photos of any user on the list.

You can also send friend requests directly from your friend list, without doing a search. From your friend list in the Discord client program, you can click the blue “Add Friend” button near the top-left side of the screen. That’ll bring up a field that lets you add the person’s complete user name and their four-digit “DiscordTag.” The user name you’re looking for should come out like this: HelpyHelpnotbot#8877. You’ll need to get that info from your friend to add them on Discord, though.

Once you’ve got some friends, clicking their names on your friends list allows you to quickly open up a direct message feed with them, or request video and voice calls. You can add set up a group video or voice chat with multiple friends, even without a server.

Connect accounts and build a profile

Discord lets you connect other social media accounts to the app to make it easier to track down people you know and flesh out your user profile. Since the app combines private communications with public chat rooms, connecting accounts goes beyond the usual use of finding people you’re already friends with to connect to on Discord. It also makes it easier for people to know who you are in the real world, should you so choose.

Connecting accounts is easy and works the same as with other chat or social media apps — mostly by just allowing you to connect by prompting you for your password for other accounts. The additional functionality of being able to find people you meet on Discord on other media portals has the added function of making Discord into more of a social network itself. If you’re using it to access public servers to find like-minded players in various games, it can be a handy way to meet people.

Texting it up

As you start navigating servers and channels, you can write text messages to anyone quickly and easily using the text field at the bottom of the Discord screen. There’s a lot more going on here than just knocking out quick messages, though. You can drag GIFs and images into chat by dragging them into the text field, or using the “upload” button on the left side of the text window. If you want to edit or delete one of your messages, right-click it to get a drop-down menu with those options.

Text on Discord also supports “Markdown,” giving you quick and easy ways to alter the text in your Discord chats without having to learn actual coding. Markdown is especially useful for doing things like adding bold, italics, and other formatting to your text messages. Its tricks are easy to learn, and Discord has a blog post explaining how it all works, so you can elevate your text game.

Be heard

Voice chat on Discord is pretty easy. Entering a voice channel on a server automatically kicks on your microphone, provided you have a working one attached to your computer. You can also access voice chat by creating voice calls or group calls to friends by clicking the phone icon on your Friends List.

Once you’re in voice chat, Discord offers some handy quick controls at the bottom of the voice chat window or channel window. Clicking the microphone icon mutes your own mic instantly, while clicking the headphones icon activates “deafen.” That kills all incoming sound from Discord, as well as mutes your microphone. You can also adjust your audio settings for voice chat and video in the Settings menu, which is accessed by clicking the gear icon. Getting out of a voice call or voice channel on a server requires you to hit the “hang-up” icon, which is a phone with an arrow pointing down.

Control who you see and hear

Just because you share a server with someone doesn’t mean you have to listen to them. Discord includes all the social media-style features that let you determine how you interact with people. Right-clicking a person’s name on the server list prompts a drop-down with a number of options, such as sending a private message, adding the person to your friend list, initiating a voice call, and muting or blocking them. Muting a user means you don’t see their texts or hear their voice, but they can still see and hear you. Blocking someone prevents them from seeing and hearing you as well.

When you’re an admin on a server — either because you created it or because the admin of a server you’re on gave you that power — you have even more control over undesirable people hanging around. Right-clicking names includes the ability to deafen users so they can’t hear anything from other users, or to ban them from a server outright.

Going mobile

All of Discord’s desktop and web functionality is also made available in its mobile app. You don’t need to be at your computer to stay connected with other people in your servers, or to your friends. Like the other versions, you can use the mobile Discord app to find servers, locate other users, and chat in general. There’s effectively no difference between the versions, which makes Discord even more useful — you can be always connected to other players, and potential games, no matter where you are.

Where do you get Discord?

You can find the web and PC versions of Discord on the program’s website, discordapp.com. You can also use Discord on Android and iOS mobile devices, by downloading its apps from the Google Play Store and the iTunes App Store.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Free Pluto VR chat and messaging app for gamers enters Early Access on Steam
• How to use Skype
• Hang out via video chat, then tag friends in Stories with Snapchat’s new tools
• Have a big group chat? Messenger adds admin tools and links for groups
• Mozilla’s ‘Hubs’ builds a chatroom in VR for any browser and headset