Vacation and chill: The best virtual destinations to ‘visit’ this Memorial Day

Memorial Day is quickly approaching, which means an obscene amount of people will be leaving their homes to go on vacation. Though it may seem like a good idea to go on a road trip or stay in a luxurious Airbnb, the fact is traveling is expensive, plus there is no guarantee that you’ll have a good time. You might miss your flight, lose your passport, forget to pack underwear — really, anything could go wrong. But, what if you could see the world without changing out of your sweats?

Virtual reality lets you explore places you’ve never even dreamed of right from your bedroom. No costs or long lines, just a pure, uninterrupted experience. The world is your virtual oyster, but where do you even start? Well, we’ve put together some of the most exotic and otherworldly locales to visit in VR. Pop some popcorn, put on your favorite VR headset — or one of ours — and start exploring.

Cut the lines at Disneyland Park

Skip the long lines, screaming children, and overpriced Mickey ears for a quiet evening exploring Disneyland in the comfort of your own home. Google Earth VR navigates you pass the hordes of people, allowing you to get the full experience of the Magic Kingdom in less time than it would take to wait in line for tickets.

Available via:

Oculus Steam

Take a dive into the Caribbean Sea

Captain Salty / Dronestagram

Don’t waste your time getting “swimsuit ready” when you can just take a dip in the virtual ocean. Ascape VR can instantly transport you to the Cayman Islands, where you can dive with sharks or wade in the water amid stunning beach views.

Available via:

Google Apple

Hike to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu receives more than a million visitors annually — and now you can explore the mystical ruins too, with Jaunt VR. You don’t have to camp or hike and, more importantly, you won’t be spit on by an alpaca when you’re ascending the Salkantay trail.

Available via:

Google Apple Steam

Forage the final frontier

Nix the space suits and the freeze-dried strawberries for a virtual tour of the International Space Station (ISS). With Google Earth VR, you can see our planet from within the Cupola Observational Module, a six-window observatory that towers above the stratosphere and houses the robotic workstation that controls the space station’s remote manipulator arm. Google Street View also lets you further explore the ISS, including the Columbus Research Laboratory. It’s mostly filled with white wires and computers, sure, but you’re in space, so it’s somehow cooler.

Available via:

Steam

Ride a gondola through Venice

There is no better way to see Venice then riding through on a gondola, or for our sake, a virtual gondola. Explor VR lets you float along the Canal Grande and pass under the oldest bridge in Venice, the Rialto. With a city that is slowly sinking, seeing its historical monuments and bright colored buildings, even from afar, is well worth it.

Available via:

Apple

Swim with elephants in South Africa

Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Getty Images

While your friends are getting sunburned in Cancún, you will be virtually swimming with elephants. With Discovery VR, you can get up close and personal with one of the smartest species of the animal kingdom. Not only will this app land you front-row seats to exotic animal behavior, but the company has recently partnered with Racing Extinction, allowing you to get a closer look at various endangered species and those on the brink of extinction.

Available via:

Discovery

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Fussy, hungry, or in pain? This app accurately translates your baby’s cries

Speech recognition and machine translation tools are two of the most useful everyday applications of artificial intelligence as it exists today. Both of them allow our words to be understood by a machine and turned into actionable commands, used either to control devices like the Google Home smart speaker or to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language to us. Could similar machine learning A.I. technology also be used to help decipher a baby’s cries, and in the process shed some light on exactly what it is that they are attempting to communicate?

The makers of a new free Android and iOS app called Chatterbaby certainly believe that it can. Developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, the app is based on an algorithm that’s able to work out exactly what each baby cry means and relay this information to parents. According to its creators, it can do this with astonishing accuracy; far more, in fact, than the guesswork with which most first-time parents react to their baby’s crying.

“I have four children; this project came about after I realized that number three had cries that sounded remarkably similar to my first two babies,” Ariana Anderson, assistant professor and lead in the UCLA research, told Digital Trends. “Since I am a statistician, I see patterns everywhere. I wanted to test whether the vocal patterns I could hear in my own children were present in other children as well. We decided to put this algorithm into our free Chatterbaby app not just to help parents of babies now, but to help them later as well when their children are older.”

To create the Chatterbaby app, Anderson and fellow researchers started by uploading 2,000 audio samples of infant cries. They then used A.I. algorithms to try and discover (and therefore explain) the difference between pain-induced cries, hunger-induced cries, and fussiness-induced cries.

“The training was done by extracting many acoustic features from our database of pre-labeled cries,” Anderson continued. “Pain cries were taken during vaccinations and ear-piercings. We labeled other cries using the parent-nomination and a ‘mom-panel’ consisting of veteran mothers who had at least two children. Only cries that had three unanimous ratings were used to train our algorithm, which changes and improves regularly. We used the acoustic features to train a machine learning algorithm to predict the most likely cry reason. Within our sample, the algorithm was about 90 percent accurate to flag pain, and over 70 percent accurate overall.”

Anderson does, however, note that parents should still use their best judgement, “and remember that their brain and their instincts are far more powerful than any artificial intelligence algorithm.”

While the Chatterbaby app could be useful for many parents — especially the aforementioned first-time parents — Chatterbaby could prove particularly helpful in certain scenarios. For example, it could be handy in situations in which one or both parents are deaf or hard of hearing, providing notification when their eyes are otherwise occupied.

It may also turn out to be a powerful tool in diagnosing autism at a younger age. At present, autism is diagnosed later in childhood, often around the age of three. Finding ways of predicting autism as soon as possible is something a number of researchers have been working toward, since this could allow for earlier intervention to take place. Anderson suggested that one way of picking up an early cue regarding autism may be found in listening for unusual vocal patterns in infants.

Previous studies have shown promising results in detecting abnormal vocal patterns with at-risk children, but these sample sizes are small. In an attempt to add more data to the pile, Chatterbaby offers a voluntary study which parents can enter into. Right now, it’s still at an early stage, but long term it could provide valuable insights that allow an earlier diagnosis.

“By inviting people into our research study with the Chatterbaby cry translator, we can them follow them for six years and provide free screenings for autism which they can do from their own home,” Anderson continued. “If their children are higher risk, they can then go to their doctor for a full evaluation. We want to bring the lab to the participant, instead of the participant to the lab. By offering a free service in our app that is of high-value to new parents, we believe we can connect with parents and improve our ability to identify risk factors for autism. We believe that a baby’s voice can be one of many risk factors to improve our understanding of autism.”

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Fussy, hungry, or in pain? This app accurately translates your baby’s cries

Speech recognition and machine translation tools are two of the most useful everyday applications of artificial intelligence as it exists today. Both of them allow our words to be understood by a machine and turned into actionable commands, used either to control devices like the Google Home smart speaker or to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language to us. Could similar machine learning A.I. technology also be used to help decipher a baby’s cries, and in the process shed some light on exactly what it is that they are attempting to communicate?

The makers of a new free Android and iOS app called Chatterbaby certainly believe that it can. Developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, the app is based on an algorithm that’s able to work out exactly what each baby cry means and relay this information to parents. According to its creators, it can do this with astonishing accuracy; far more, in fact, than the guesswork with which most first-time parents react to their baby’s crying.

“I have four children; this project came about after I realized that number three had cries that sounded remarkably similar to my first two babies,” Ariana Anderson, assistant professor and lead in the UCLA research, told Digital Trends. “Since I am a statistician, I see patterns everywhere. I wanted to test whether the vocal patterns I could hear in my own children were present in other children as well. We decided to put this algorithm into our free Chatterbaby app not just to help parents of babies now, but to help them later as well when their children are older.”

To create the Chatterbaby app, Anderson and fellow researchers started by uploading 2,000 audio samples of infant cries. They then used A.I. algorithms to try and discover (and therefore explain) the difference between pain-induced cries, hunger-induced cries, and fussiness-induced cries.

“The training was done by extracting many acoustic features from our database of pre-labeled cries,” Anderson continued. “Pain cries were taken during vaccinations and ear-piercings. We labeled other cries using the parent-nomination and a ‘mom-panel’ consisting of veteran mothers who had at least two children. Only cries that had three unanimous ratings were used to train our algorithm, which changes and improves regularly. We used the acoustic features to train a machine learning algorithm to predict the most likely cry reason. Within our sample, the algorithm was about 90 percent accurate to flag pain, and over 70 percent accurate overall.”

Anderson does, however, note that parents should still use their best judgement, “and remember that their brain and their instincts are far more powerful than any artificial intelligence algorithm.”

While the Chatterbaby app could be useful for many parents — especially the aforementioned first-time parents — Chatterbaby could prove particularly helpful in certain scenarios. For example, it could be handy in situations in which one or both parents are deaf or hard of hearing, providing notification when their eyes are otherwise occupied.

It may also turn out to be a powerful tool in diagnosing autism at a younger age. At present, autism is diagnosed later in childhood, often around the age of three. Finding ways of predicting autism as soon as possible is something a number of researchers have been working toward, since this could allow for earlier intervention to take place. Anderson suggested that one way of picking up an early cue regarding autism may be found in listening for unusual vocal patterns in infants.

Previous studies have shown promising results in detecting abnormal vocal patterns with at-risk children, but these sample sizes are small. In an attempt to add more data to the pile, Chatterbaby offers a voluntary study which parents can enter into. Right now, it’s still at an early stage, but long term it could provide valuable insights that allow an earlier diagnosis.

“By inviting people into our research study with the Chatterbaby cry translator, we can them follow them for six years and provide free screenings for autism which they can do from their own home,” Anderson continued. “If their children are higher risk, they can then go to their doctor for a full evaluation. We want to bring the lab to the participant, instead of the participant to the lab. By offering a free service in our app that is of high-value to new parents, we believe we can connect with parents and improve our ability to identify risk factors for autism. We believe that a baby’s voice can be one of many risk factors to improve our understanding of autism.”

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T-Mobile website bug reportedly exposed private customer account details

Due to a bug in T-Mobile’s website back in April, customers’ account information was left accessible for anyone to see, ZDnet reports. While the security flaw has since been fixed, personal information could have potentially been misused by anyone who knew where to look.

The subdomain — promotool.t-mobile.com — is a customer care portal for employees to access internal tools. But the bug allowed for it to be easily found through search engines and didn’t require a password to access the tools.

The flaw was due to a hidden API — it provided T-Mobile customer data by adding the customer’s cell phone number to the end of the web address. This data included a customer’s billing account number, postal address, and account information, such as the status of their bills, including if service for an account was suspended or a bill is past due. For some, customer account PINs and tax ID numbers were also accessible.

The API was pulled by T-Mobile a day after it was reported by security researcher Ryan Stevenson, who was also awarded a $1,000 bug bounty later. While it’s not clear how long the API was exposed, a spokesperson for T-Mobile told ZDnet that there’s no evidence any customer information was accessed.

This is isn’t the first time an issue like this has happened to T-Mobile. In October, a security flaw allowed hackers to gain access to similar information through a T-Mobile website. Hackers were able to obtain email addresses, account numbers, and more, simply by using the customer’s phone number.

The flaw was discovered by security researcher Karan Saini, and it allowed hackers to gain information that could then be used in a social engineering attack, as well as provided access to other personal information online. T-Mobile claimed the bug only affected a small amount of customers and that it was fixed within 24 hours of being discovered.

News of the most recent flaw comes a little less than a month after the merger with T-Mobile and Sprint was announced — which was also in April. While both carriers agreed on combining companies, we have yet to see whether the U.S. Justice Department will approve it.

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Qualcomm expected to reveal Snapdragon chip dedicated to VR, AR next month

Qualcomm is expected to reveal a new processor dedicated to stand-alone VR headsets next week during the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California. Called the Snapdragon XR1, the all-in-one chip will consist of CPU cores, a graphics processor, one component dedicated to security, and another dedicated to artificial intelligence. It will also support voice control and head-tracking interaction, sources claim. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard the term “XR” from Qualcomm. The company mentioned XR when it revealed its new Snapdragon 845-based VR headset reference design earlier this year, and covered the XR topic at great length during the North American Augmented World Expo convention in 2017. XR is short for “extended reality,” an “umbrella term” that covers augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. 

“XR is an emerging umbrella term that is already being used to encapsulate AR, VR, and everything in between,” Qualcomm said in January. “XR is a mobile market that’s gaining momentum as VR and AR markets may combine to create a $108 billion market by 2021.” 

Qualcomm’s latest headset reference design supports room-scale six degrees of freedom, meaning you can move left, right, up, down, forward, and backward without any wires or external sensors. It also includes a “slam” component — simultaneous localization and mapping — that not only keeps track of your physical environment, but tracks where you’re located within that environment. 

That said, the Snapdragon 845 isn’t really an XR-first chip but it certainly supports “immersive XR experiences.” The chip packs eight Kyro processor cores, the Adreno GPU supporting XR, components for audio and cameras, built-in Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity, and a processing unit dedicated to security. It also contains a co-processor, the Hexagon 685 DSP, tuned for artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

So why the XR1 chip? It could be a custom version of the Snapdragon 845 without all the phone-centric necessities and fine-tuned for augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. Qualcomm also likely tweaked the architecture to pull better battery life out of an XR headset. We expect to see a new reference design along with the new chip during the show next week. 

Sources close to Qualcomm’s upcoming XR1 launch claim that the company is currently working with HTC, Vuzix, and several other headset manufacturers to incorporate the chip into future headsets. HTC’s current stand-alone VR headset, the Vive Focus, will hit North American shores later this year based on Qualcomm’s first VR headset reference design. Facebook’s just-released Oculus Go, manufactured by smartphone maker Xiaomi, relies on Qualcomm’s older Snapdragon 821 chip. 

Stand-alone headsets are a new trend in the VR market, as they don’t require an expensive tethered PC like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, nor do they rely on a smartphone like Samsung’s Gear VR. Google and Qualcomm first revealed their stand-alone VR initiative last year with HTC and Lenovo serving as showrunners. But Lenovo is thus far the only stand-alone Daydream headset provider while HTC abandoned ship and did its own Google-free thing in China. 

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Qualcomm expected to reveal Snapdragon chip dedicated to VR, AR next month

Qualcomm is expected to reveal a new processor dedicated to stand-alone VR headsets next week during the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California. Called the Snapdragon XR1, the all-in-one chip will consist of CPU cores, a graphics processor, one component dedicated to security, and another dedicated to artificial intelligence. It will also support voice control and head-tracking interaction, sources claim. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard the term “XR” from Qualcomm. The company mentioned XR when it revealed its new Snapdragon 845-based VR headset reference design earlier this year, and covered the XR topic at great length during the North American Augmented World Expo convention in 2017. XR is short for “extended reality,” an “umbrella term” that covers augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. 

“XR is an emerging umbrella term that is already being used to encapsulate AR, VR, and everything in between,” Qualcomm said in January. “XR is a mobile market that’s gaining momentum as VR and AR markets may combine to create a $108 billion market by 2021.” 

Qualcomm’s latest headset reference design supports room-scale six degrees of freedom, meaning you can move left, right, up, down, forward, and backward without any wires or external sensors. It also includes a “slam” component — simultaneous localization and mapping — that not only keeps track of your physical environment, but tracks where you’re located within that environment. 

That said, the Snapdragon 845 isn’t really an XR-first chip but it certainly supports “immersive XR experiences.” The chip packs eight Kyro processor cores, the Adreno GPU supporting XR, components for audio and cameras, built-in Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity, and a processing unit dedicated to security. It also contains a co-processor, the Hexagon 685 DSP, tuned for artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

So why the XR1 chip? It could be a custom version of the Snapdragon 845 without all the phone-centric necessities and fine-tuned for augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. Qualcomm also likely tweaked the architecture to pull better battery life out of an XR headset. We expect to see a new reference design along with the new chip during the show next week. 

Sources close to Qualcomm’s upcoming XR1 launch claim that the company is currently working with HTC, Vuzix, and several other headset manufacturers to incorporate the chip into future headsets. HTC’s current stand-alone VR headset, the Vive Focus, will hit North American shores later this year based on Qualcomm’s first VR headset reference design. Facebook’s just-released Oculus Go, manufactured by smartphone maker Xiaomi, relies on Qualcomm’s older Snapdragon 821 chip. 

Stand-alone headsets are a new trend in the VR market, as they don’t require an expensive tethered PC like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, nor do they rely on a smartphone like Samsung’s Gear VR. Google and Qualcomm first revealed their stand-alone VR initiative last year with HTC and Lenovo serving as showrunners. But Lenovo is thus far the only stand-alone Daydream headset provider while HTC abandoned ship and did its own Google-free thing in China. 

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Do you use Samsung DeX with the Galaxy S9?

It’s a fun accessory, but how useful is DeX in the real world?

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is the Jack of all Trades when it comes to Android phones, offering every feature under the sun and then some.

One trick brought over to the S9 from the S8 series is support for Samsung DeX. DeX allows you to dock your Galaxy S9/S9+ into a hub, connect it to a monitor, and use it like a traditional desktop computer with your own keyboard and mouse.

The idea is that this allows the S9 to be your one-stop computing system, and while it’s a great idea in theory, is it something that people are actually using?

Here’s what the AC community had to say.

waveuk
05-19-2018 02:29 AM

“

I wanted to try it and I have to say I am vey well surprised with it.

DEX desktop opens in a few seconds once docked and you just have all your phone data there.

It really works like a desktop and is supper smooth.

While you cannot replace a PC with it due to what app runs it is having a Chromebook.

Most important apps run a DEX version, being full screen, and then you have the…

Reply

afh3
05-20-2018 08:32 AM

“

It is pretty nice, isn’t it.

I paired mine to a compact bluetooth keyboard with a built-in track-pad, from Logitech. Works well in combination.

I’d be curious to know if anyone has run a DeX Pad vs DeX Station to confirm that the alleged higher resolutions on a compatible TV screen are available with the new 2018 DeX Pad.

Reply

Thomasrope
05-21-2018 10:31 AM

“

I received a free Dex Oad with my S9+ and I finally got a chance to try it out. it’s a cool gadget (I love my gadgets) but I can’t see a real practical use for it that I couldn’t accomplish with Screen Mirroring. Can someone give me some ideas on productive uses for this thing?

Reply

JREwing
05-24-2018 12:11 PM

“

I have to be honest: I bought this with $99 to blow. I am amazed at what this DexPad does. My Note 8 is just so so as a trackpad, so I use a wireless mouse. I have a wired keyboard to a monitor. Many apps are not polished to work with Dex, but the main one’s like Office 365 products work great.
One problem is that when varifying passwords with my LastPass, I can’t use the fingerprint reader, so…

Reply

How about you? Do you use Samsung DeX?

Join the conversation in the forums!

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

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HTC U12+ vs. Samsung Galaxy S9+: Which should you buy?

Two plus-sized phones, only one option available to most consumers.

Samsung has been enjoying the limelight for a few years now as the leading Android brand, but it wasn’t too long ago that HTC was a major competitor, stealing customers away with its far superior build quality and audio delivery. These days though, neither of those features are unique to HTC anymore. Ever since Samsung shifted from plastic to glass and metal in its flagships, its build quality has been top-notch, and the more recent dual speaker system has made its newer phones formidable in the audio realm as well.

Recent years haven’t been terribly kind to HTC, with the company gradually fading into obscurity. That’s more the fault of availability than the quality of its products, as HTC has still been putting out great devices each year and even building the last two generations of Google’s Pixel devices. The company’s most recent announcement, the U12+, is a perfect example — an excellent flagship-tier phone that won’t be available in any physical locations in North America.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still order one online, though, and if you’re buying unlocked to use in the States, it’ll work on just about every network but Sprint. So should you buy the fancy new U12+, or stick with the tried and true Galaxy S9+?

Specifications

While it’s by no means the only way to compare phones (or even the best way to), it’s good to know where the U12+ and the Galaxy S9+ differ in terms of hardware specs. Like most flagship phones these days though, they’re pretty much the same across the board.

What the HTC U12+ does better

The U12+ is HTC’s most modern-looking phone yet, with all the necessary stylings to fit in with other 2018 flagships — a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor with face unlock as a fallback, a tall 18:9 display, IP68 water resistance, and so on. Unfortunately, it also follows the recent trend of bucking the headphone jack (as did last year’s U11), but you don’t have to worry about a notch taking up part of your display up top.

Edge Sense is the U12+’s big differentiator.

The real advantages of the U12+ come in the form of its software. Though little has changed about HTC’s Sense interface in years, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the company continues its effort of leaving stock Android mostly alone with a few minor tweaks here and there. Those tweaks include the new Edge Sense 2, which improves upon last year’s ability to detect launch certain actions by squeezing the sides of the phone. Now, in addition to squeezing, you can double-tap either side of the phone to trigger a separate action — by default, the screen shrinks down to one-handed mode and moves to the side you tapped, but you can reprogram this action to do just about anything you’d like.

Edge Sense is also now able to detect when you’re holding the phone vertically by feeling how your fingers are gripping the sides, and automatically lock the orientation accordingly. This means that you can you can use the U12+ while lying in bed without having to toggle auto-rotation or fumble with trying to keep the phone mostly vertical.

Read more: HTC U12+ hands-on preview

Like the Galaxy S9+, the U12+ has dual cameras, with the same combination of wide angle and telephoto lenses, but while we haven’t yet spent any quality time with the cameras, the U12+ got a DxOMark score of 103, beating out the S9+’s score of 99. While benchmarks certainly aren’t everything, this at least instills some early confidence that the U12+ may be formidable for stills. While both phones offer portrait mode photography, the U12+ also allows you to adjust your point of focus and amount of background blur after the shot is taken.

The U12+ looks great for video, as well. While it can’t match the S9+ is slow-motion video (HTC maxes out at 240fps at 1080p, versus Samsung’s insane 960fps in 720p), it’s the only one of the two able to shoot 4K in 60fps, and it’s backed by both OIS and EIS for stability. In addition, HTC uses what it calls Sonic Zoom to allow you to directionally amplify audio on a distant subject, quieting down the surrounding noise when you zoom into a subject while filming.

See at Amazon

What the Samsung Galaxy S9+ does better

HTC may be one of the original champions of premium design, but Samsung has stepped up its game considerably in recent years. While the curved glass may not be in everyone’s favor, it’s hard to argue with the striking aesthetic and in-hand feel of the Galaxy S9+. The rounded sides make the S9+ feel smaller than it actually is, and unlike the U12+ it still retains a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired audio. The S9+ is also the only one of the two phones to support wireless charging, though in HTC’s defense, many will find Quick Charge 4 much more useful — the S9+ only supports the slower Quick Charge 2.

Samsung’s software has always had a reputation of being bloated and overcrowded with too many Samsung and carrier apps, and while that’s still true to some extent, the software on the S9+ is cleaner than ever. More importantly, the additional software is finally actually useful. While not perfect, Bixby is able to pull off quite a few actions Google Assistant can’t do just yet, particularly with system-level commands. Samsung Pay is the most widely supported mobile payment service around, thanks to the MST technology that emulates a physical card swipe. Apps Edge makes the curved glass functional with quick access to favorite contacts and frequently used apps.

Read more: Samsung Galaxy S9 review

Photography is an area where Samsung has always excelled, and the S9+ features the company’s best camera experience yet. Just like the U12+, the S9+ makes use of a wide-angle and a telephoto lens, but the primary sensor features dual apertures — with the tap of a button, you can switch between f/1.5 and f/2.4, adding nearly 1.3 stops of light for night shots. The results are really fantastic; photos from the S9+ look great in nearly any circumstance, but particularly in low light, this is one of the best options money can buy. Add to that the ability to shoot slow-motion video at 960fps, and the Galaxy S9+ has plenty of room for creative shots of all kinds.

Perhaps the S9+’s biggest advantage, though, is simply its availability. While the U12+ looks like a fantastic phone, you won’t find it on any store shelves; HTC is only selling the phone directly from its own site and through Amazon. On the other hand, Samsung is absolutely everywhere; nearly every carrier store worldwide is plastered with ads and banners for the S9+, and you can buy one directly in-store. If you live in the U.S. and like to try before you buy, the S9+ is your only viable option between the two phones.

See at Amazon

Which one is right for you?

There are plenty of reasons to go for either phone over the other, but for consumers in North America, the choice is practically already made for you; the Galaxy S9+ is the only phone of the two that you can actually pick up and handle before buying it, and it’s the only option for customers on Sprint’s network. HTC allows for financing and trade-ins on its site to make the U12+ more affordable upfront, but you’ll have nowhere to turn if something goes wrong with the phone later on down the line — you’ll just have to ship it off under a warranty claim.

If you live somewhere that will actually carry the U12+ in stores, it becomes a much more compelling option. While a bit pricey at $799, it’s still cheaper than the Galaxy S9+, and offers a cleaner software experience and a flat display that should be less prone to damage. In addition, some will find Edge Sense 2 much more convenient than the Bixby button on the S9+ — especially because HTC actually lets you customize your actions. However, if you like to leave your wallet at home and depend on mobile payments instead, there’s a very compelling argument to be made for Samsung Pay on the Galaxy S9+.

Which phone would you buy, given the two options? What, if anything, would you bring over from the other phone? Would you like to see Edge Sense on the Galaxy S9+? Or maybe dual apertures or MST payments on the U12+? Let us know in the comments below!

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These refurbished Amazon Fire tablets are down to their lowest prices yet

Might as well get two!

Amazon’s most affordable tablet, the Fire 7, is down to $34.99 refurbished compared to $50 new. If 7 inches isn’t quite enough for you, you can step up to the Fire HD 8 version refurbished for $49.99. That is $30 off the price of a new one. The Fire 7 is only available in black. The Fire HD 8 has several colors at this price, but the non-black versions are in limited supply.

Both of these tablets come with a 90-day warranty. You get access to everything Amazon has to offer, which even means talking to Alexa hands-free as long as the device is connected to power or the screen is on. You also get Amazon’s X-Ray, which is a nifty feature that gives you background information about the show and actors you are watching, and FreeTime parental controls, which have recently been expanded with even more features.

You can’t go wrong with any of these models, but keep in mind that the internal storage in them fills rather quickly. You do get unlimited Amazon cloud storage, but you’ll still want to take some of the money you save to invest in a microSD card for it so you can store more files, media, and apps.

See on Amazon

Create chaos as the grim reaper in Death Coming! [Game of the Week]

Update May 25, 2018: Become Death in the new puzzle game Death Coming! Then, we recommend checking back into Guns of Boom ahead of its first competitive esports season!

Death Coming

Death Coming manages to straddle the line between being cute and sardonic.

In the game you play a recently deceased kid who’s been given an opportunity at a second chance by Death himself — but only if you help him with his bidding. To do that, you’ll need to coordinate certain “accidents” to fulfill Death’s quota. This requires triggering death traps to catch as many people as you can, with each level having three specific targets for you to get.

It’s right in line with Peace, Death! in terms of being pretty dark in its subject manner, but it offers a puzzle experience that may remind you of those times playing The Sims where you’re trying to get them to murder themselves.

You can download and try out Death Coming for free, and then unlock the full game for just $2 if you find yourself really enjoying it.

Download: Death Coming (Free, $1.99 to unlock full game)

Guns of Boom

“Guns of Boom?” you ask yourself. “That game’s over a year old! Why is it on this list?”

Well, to celebrate its one-year anniversary, Guns of Boom have announced that it’s finally “going pro” with its first esports season!

That’s right, the developers at Game Insight have teamed up with ESL to launch the inaugural esports season for the cartoony mobile shooter. The first season is open to players who are level 22 or higher and is set to kick off on June 9th. This follows on the heels of the new partnership with Danny Trejo (the next “Trejo’s Fight event” set to start on June 4), and follows up on the December announcement of the more competitive “Pro mode”.

Basically what I’m saying here is if you’re one of the millions of people who’ve played Guns of Boom in the past year, now’s a good time to revisit the game. The devs have done a good job of keeping it from being a purely pay-to-win format and have continually tweaked to make it more competitive.

If you get good enough, you might just be able to go pro!

Download: Guns of Boom (Free w/IAPs)

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