How to stop Oculus Go light bleed

Clever hacks to minimize the amount of light coming in.

The Oculus go was designed with spacial awareness in mind. Oculus made sure its device had just enough of a gap near your nose to be able to check a phone or crane your neck to see your surroundings. But what about those of us who have pretty good spacial awareness, or we know the area around us is safe and we’d rather have the immersion? I just wind up sitting there, trying to get my scare on with some good horror games and instead I can’t fully immerse myself because I can still see my cat trying to bite my toes.

I hate the large gap on the Oculus Go. So I spent a decent amount of time coming up with a few options to get rid of that gap — and I’m still looking for better ones. If you try any of these out and they work for you, or you think of something better, let me know in the comment section below.

Let’s use our brains together to come up with a solution!

Using the Fitted Interface

If you’re experiencing a whole lot of light bleed the issue might be less on design and more on the headset not fitting your face. That’s OK though, there is a different fitted interface on the Oculus Store that is available for your purchase. Thankfully, this accessory is pretty affordable at only $20, and its crafted with the same foam that comes standard on the Oculus Go. This interface is made differently to accommodate lower nose bridges and higher cheekbones.

So, before jumping into any DYIs or giving up on your headset, try getting yourself a different interface and see if it helps.

See on Oculus Store

MacGyver it

Feel free to harness your inner Macgyver. I actually got most of the materials for this project from the bottom of my closet. Repurposing old items is definitely a solid option if they’re sanitary, but of course all of these options are available for you to buy brand new as well. This option won’t eliminate the bleeding light entirely, but it will dwindle it down to such a small sliver it’s downright unnoticeable when your brain’s distracted playing games.

I’m going to break these steps down into sections with pictures to help out. It may seem like a lot of steps, but I promise this whole process took me 20 minutes to complete.

For everything you will need

• A thin belt
• A regular needle and a leather needle
• A pair of pliers
• Thread
• Scissors
• Two thin fabric or an old t-shirt (that’s clean). The first one will need to be 6×3 inches, the second will need to be 6×6 inches

First thing’s first, the belt is going to be too long. You’ll need to fit it to go around your Oculus Go headset and safely use your scissors to create new puncture holes for the buckle. This process can be made easier if you have a nail and a hammer.

To create holes this way, lay the belt down on a safe surface (like concrete or a crafting table). Place the nail over the spot you want the new puncture hole to be and hammer down on the nail until it creates a new hole. Feel free to make two to three of these holes just in case.

Creating the protection for your device from the metal of the belt buckle

The first thing I was concerned about when I came up with this idea was the metal of the belt buckle scratching my headset. Whenever I thought about taking the belt off or putting it on, I got a bit of anxiety thinking about it dragging across the plastic. So I found a good solution to this. For this part of the project, you will need your scissors, the 6×3 piece of fabric, both of your needles, a pair of pliers, your thread and your belt buckle.

If you’re concerned about appearance, you can always trade out the regular hand stitching with any kind of sewing machine. I personally didn’t care about the organization of my lines since this solution was for me and, hey, I was never going to see it when I have the headset on!

Take your 6×3 piece of fabric and fold it in half. It should now be 1.5×6 inches.
Stitch the three edges that aren’t a fold. Cut the excess string.
Fold the fabric in half the other way. It should now be 1.5×3 inches.
Stitch the three edges that aren’t a fold again. Cut the excess string.
Line the fabric up under the belt buckle so that the center of it is directly covering the buckle.
Stitch a horizontal line on the strap that has the buckle attached. (You will need your leather needle and pliers for this part!)

Prepare the light blocker now

Looking at the bottom of your Oculus Go headset you can see just how deep the nose ridge goes. The next part of this craft is to create a piece of fabric to hold the belt in place while you play. The fabric dimensions I selected are big enough to cover down to the line of the eye lenses (where my finger is pointing to in the picture). If you find you need more or less fabric, you want to cut your next piece smaller in the vertical dimension but not both. Regardless of length, you need for the shape of your face the width will always need to start at 6 inches to match the width of the Oculus Go.

Here’s a finished image of the fabric that will cover your nose area and serve as a light blocker. This way you have a visual of what we’re going to be finishing with before we start.

You will need

• Regular needle
• Thread
• 6×6 thin fabric
• Scissors

Fold your 6×6 fabric in half to create a 3×6 inch fabric.
Sew all edges that aren’t the fold. Cut the excess string.

That’s it! You’ve created your light blocking fabric. Now onto how to get this baby on your headset. Do not stitch the fabric blocking the light to the belt. You want this fabric to only be held in place by the belt.

If you stitch it on the process of cleaning it will become that much harder. By not attaching it you can remove the fabric and either clean it by hand or make a new one entirely when it comes time for a change.

Attaching your new light blocker

As you can see from the image, using a thin belt will not inhibit your ability to plug in your device’s charger or headphones. Not just that, but from the pictures shown above it will only slightly cover the buttons on the top. But, the only part that should be covering the buttons on the top is the fabric not the belt. This means you shouldn’t be at any risk of your buttons being pressed during gameplay.

Regardless, make sure you don’t buckle in too tight!

Turn your Oculus Go upside down
Place the 3×6 inch fabric over the nose area.
Flip the Oculus Go over and buckle up
Flip it back to the other side once more and raise the flap of the fabric (pictured above).
Put your headset on and start it as normal.
Adjust as needed.

Like I mentioned earlier, this trick won’t get rid of your lightbar entirely. This is largely due to the fact that if you covered your nose entirely with the fabric you’d then be dealing with a massive amount of fog on your lenses. Instead, you want to minimalize the light bar as much as possible while still giving yourself breathing room while you play.

Thoughts?

Did you try out any of these methods? Have you tried something else that worked better for you? Stay tuned for this article, next I’m working on ideas for a potential 3D-printed piece to solve the problem and not look janky. If it works out I’ll post the how-to here as well. Tell me your thoughts in the comment section below, thanks!

Oculus Go

• A parent’s guide to Oculus Go
• Oculus Go vs. Lenovo Mirage Solo
• Best Gamepad for Oculus Go
• Best Battery Backup for Oculus Go

Oculus Go 32GB
Oculus Go 64GB

Android Enterprise Recommended: Everything you need to know

Google’s collection of the most secure, up-to-date Android phones around.

Android’s open source nature means that just about any OEM can use the operating system to power its hardware, and while this is great for a large amount of consumer choice, it also results in the market feeling a bit flooded and overwhelming at times.

If you’re buying a phone for work/business purposes, you want to make sure you get something that’s going to stay up-to-date with the latest software, have the most recent security patches, and isn’t tied down by a heap of carrier bloatware.

To aid you in your quest for finding these phones, Google created Android Enterprise Recommended. Here’s everything you need to know about it!

What is Android Enterprise Recommended?

Android Enterprise Recommended was first announced on February 21, 2018, and as the name of the program suggests, it was created with enterprise buyers in mind — not the average, everyday consumer

Buying smartphones for your business/organization is a critical task to ensure that everyone can stay connected with safe, up-to-date hardware, and unless you regularly keep your finger on the pulse of all things Android, knowing which phones/OEMs are generally good about following these guidelines is no easy task.

Android Enterprise Recommended was created with the main goal of curating the best Android phones from manufacturers that are committed to keeping them secure and easy to deploy to a large workforce.

To hear an explanation about the program from the horse’s mouth, check out the short video above.

Google has a list of strict requirements each phone must follow

Not any phone can get into Android Enterprise Recommended, and that’s a good thing. Before a device can enter the program, it needs to check off a list of requirements created by Google so businesses are 100% sure that it’ll work exactly the way they need it to.

Those requirements are as follows:

• Minimum hardware specifications for Android 7.0+ devices.
• Support for bulk deployment of Android devices including zero-touch enrollment.
• Delivery of Android security updates within 90 days of release from Google, for a minimum of three years.
• Availability of unlocked devices, direct from manufacturer or reseller.
• Consistent application experience in managed profiles and on managed devices.

For more specifics on the requirements, such as the minimum specifications for 7.0+ devices, check the link below.

Android Enterprise Recommended requirements

Speaking of phones, which ones are included?

Once a phone meets all of the above criteria, it’s officially added to the list of Android Enterprise Recommended products. Google initially launched the program with just 22 devices, but it’s steadily growing all the time as new hardware is released.

As it stands right now, here are the 39 phones/tablets supported by Android Enterprise Recommended.

• BlackBerry KEYone
• BlackBerry KEY2
• BlackBerry Motion
• Google Pixel
• Google Pixel XL
• Google Pixel 2
• Google Pixel 2 XL
• Huawei Mate 10
• Huawei Mate 10 Pro
• Huawei MediaPad M5 8.4
• Huawei MediaPad M5 10.8
• Huawei P Smart
• Huawei P10
• Huawei P10 Plus
• Huawei P10 Lite
• Huawei P20
• Huawei P20 Pro
• LG G6
• LG V30
• Moto X4
• Moto Z2 Force Edition
• Moto Z3 Play
• Moto G6
• Moto G6 Plus
• Nokia 3.1
• Nokia 5.1
• Nokia 6.1
• Nokia 7 Plus
• Nokia 8
• Nokia 8 Sirocco
• Sharp Aquos SH 10-K
• Sonim XP8
• Sony Xperia XA2
• Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
• Sony Xperia XZ Premium
• Sony Xperia XZ1
• Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact
• Sony Xperia XZ2
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact

Android P: Everything you need to know

Best Chromebook apps in 2018

Make the most of your Chromebook with these apps.

Your Chromebook is a safe, inexpensive, and simple portal to the internet but it can do so much more. Whether you want to get productive, have a little fun, or keep in touch you’ll find an app to help do it in the Chrome Web Store. Here’s the short — and ever-changing — list of ones we think you have to try.

• Polarr Photo Editor
• Skype
• Any.do
• One Tab
• Nimbus
• Mighty Text

Polarr Photo Editor

One area where Chromebooks have traditionally been lacking is media creation tools. Photoshop for Chrome is a real thing, but it requires you to have an Adobe education license for Creative Cloud and live in North America. If you meet these qualifications you should definitely have a look, but for the rest of us, there is Polarr Photo Editor.

Polarr is beautifully done, filled with features and is extremely lightweight. It’s an offline app so you can work without an internet connection and it’s the best way to edit photographs on your Chromebook. Whether you need to turn RAW files into great photos or just touch up something before you share it on Facebook, Polarr Photo Editor can handle the job.

See at the Chrome Web Store

Skype

We’re cheating a little bit here, but access to Skype is important enough to allow it.

Skype on the web now supports text chat and phones calls using standard internet communication protocols — that means it works on your Chromebook.

There are many different communication apps available — including Google’s own Hangouts — but for many Skype is the de facto standard. Using your Skype account and Microsoft’s official website, all you need to do is log and start Skyping.

For those who want it, there are also several launchers at the Chrome Web Store that let you launch the Skype site in its own window through an icon, but we think a bookmark is just as good.

Skype Online

Any.do

Any.do is one of the best ways to stay organized. It’s a task manager, reminder list, calendar, and organizer all in one and it syncs across all your devices. It’s also quite the looker!

Using the Any.do app for Chrome gives you the same tools and features as the client for your phone (Android and iOS) does plus the ability to drag and drop attachments, notes, and tasks using your Chromebook’s trackpad. Any.do is scalable and great for keeping track of a few reminders or as a complete organization tool for your entire team.

See at the Chrome Web Store

One Tab

The browser on your Chromebook is really great. One of the best features is opening windows in a separate and sandboxed tab. But too many tabs make finding one tough, and enough of them can slow things down. One Tab has your back!

One Tab puts a live link to every tab, or some tabs that you choose and puts them into one tab. You can go back and click any of the links to return and the tab survives when you close the browser or reboot your Chromebook.

If you always end up with a slew of tabs open and can’t find the one you need, give One Tab a try.

See at the Chrome Web Store

Nimbus

You can take a screenshot on your Chromebook without any extra apps, but you might want to have a look at Nimbus if you need to do it more than once in a blue moon.

Nimbus lets you capture all or part of your screen, but it’s also able to capture full web pages. You know how difficult that can be without the right software if you’ve never tried. On top of that you can create and edit screencast videos with Nimbus right on your Chromebook and while offline.

Nimbus is free and great at what it does.

See at the Chrome Web Store

Mighty Text

If you’re still waiting for Android apps on your Chromebook, or you just don’t want to install everything from Google Play, Mighty Text is a great way to get all your notifications.

Don’t let the name fool you. Might Text is awesome and lets you read, reply and send SMS messages using your regular phone number. But it can also forward any notification from your phone right to your Chromebook screen. Folks who use an app like this will tell you how cool this is, and once you try it you’ll be doing the same. It’s one of those apps you’ll wish you had tried earlier.

See at the Chrome Web Store

Your favorite apps?

What are your favorite Chrome apps? Let us know in the comments below!

Updated June, 2018: Added a few new apps to our list and made sure everything was in working order.

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Chromebooks in education: Everything you need to know
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Chromebook Buyers Guide
• Google Pixelbook review
• Join our Chromebook forums

Best Verizon Wireless Deals of June 2018

No matter what T-Mobile says, you can actually find some pretty great deals on Verizon.

Verizon Wireless has some of the largest coverage for customers in the United States, and although T-Mobile likes to continually poke fun at the carrier for having high monthly rates, there are actually some really solid deals to be found if you know where to look.

You can typically find quite a few deals being run by Verizon at any given time, but if you only want to look at the best of the best and don’t have time to sift through the garbage, that’s where we come in.

These are best deals on Verizon Wireless right now.

Buy one top Android phone, get another for free!

As awesome as flagship smartphones are, their high prices are a pain in the butt — especially when buying more than one at the same time. Thankfully, Verizon’s got you covered no matter what you’ve got your eye on.

Right now, you can buy one flagship phone and get another one for free or with a heavy discount — no trade-in required. This promotion is available for the Google Pixel 2/2 XL, Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+, LG G7 ThinQ, Galaxy Note 8, and more.

The one caveat to this deal is that you’ll need to add one new line of service in order to be eligible, but assuming you need to add another line to your account or are looking to switch to Verizon, this is a great offer.

See at Verizon

Save up to $100 on popular smartwatches and fitness trackers

After you buy a couple new phones, you’ll probably want to pair them with some new wearables. Believe it or not, Verizon’s offering up savings here, too.

Some of the discounted wearables include:

• 16% off Fitbit Ionic (final price $250)
• 20% off Fitbit Charge 2 HR (final price $120)
• 83% off Fitbit Alta leather band ($final price $5)
• Save $100 on Gear S3 w/ purchase of any new Android phone

See at Verizon

Take $200 off the Galaxy Tab S3 w/ purchase of an Android phone

Android tablets may not be all that popular these days, but if you’re in the market for one, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S3 is one of the best you can buy.

The Tab S3 is still pretty expensive on Verizon with a price of $599 on a two-year contract, but you can take $200 off when purchased with any Android phone.

That brings the tablet down to just $399, and while still not cheap, is a heck of a lot more affordable.

See at Verizon

Buy the Moto Z2 Play for only $5/month

Motorola’s Moto Z2 Play isn’t the best Android phone ever made, but it is a reliable, mid-range handset that comes with a lot of possibilities thanks to its accompanying Moto Mod system.

Verizon usually sells the phone for $17/month with 24 monthly payments, but right now you can pick it up for just $5/month. There’s no trade-in required to get this deal, but you will need to add a new line of service.

See at Verizon

Updated June 2018: Added new deals for June!

Carriers

• Which unlimited plan should you buy?
• Verizon’s Unlimited plans: Everything you need to know
• Everything you need to know about the T-Mobile ONE unlimited plan
• Everything you need to know about the AT&T Unlimited plan
• Everything you need to know about Sprint’s Unlimited Freedom plan
• Join the Discussion

Tim Cook Reflects on Steve Jobs, Apple Watch Saving Lives, and Politics on The David Rubenstein Show

Bloomberg Television today published an interview between Apple CEO Tim Cook and David Rubenstein, one of three billionaire founders of private equity firm Carlyle Group. The conversation took place at Cook’s alma mater Duke University.

Cook reflected on a wide range of topics, including his education and career path, relationship with the late Steve Jobs, the Apple Watch’s life-saving capabilities, politics, and social issues such as privacy, immigration, and equality.

On the subject of Apple’s earnings:

Rubenstein: You’ve now been the CEO of Apple since about July of 2011. The earnings are up about 80 percent. So, have you ever thought you can’t do better than this, and maybe you should just say, “well, I’ve done a great job, and now I’m going to do something else with my life?”

Cook: We view the stock price and revenue and profits as a result of doing things right on the innovation side, on the creativity side, focusing on the right products, treating customers like they’re jewels, and focusing on the user experience. I didn’t even know the numbers that you just quoted. It’s not even in my orbit, to be honest with you.”Rubenstein: When you announce your quarterly earnings, analysts always say, “well they didn’t sell as much of this product as we thought they would,” and so does that bother you?

Cook: It did at one time. It doesn’t anymore. We run Apple for the long term. It’s always struck me as bizarre that there’s a fixation on how many units are sold in a 90-day period. We’re making decisions that are multi-year kinds of decisions. We make it very clear that we don’t want to run the company for people who want to make a quick back. We run the company for the long term.

Cook’s view on billionaire investor Warren Buffett recently purchasing an additional 75 million shares in Apple:

Rubenstein: One of the shareholders who recently surfaced as having bought an additional 75 million shares is Warren Buffett. Are you pleased to have him as your shareholder?

Cook: I’m overjoyed. I’m thrilled. Warren is focused on the long term, so we’re in sync. It’s the way we run the company. It’s the way he invests. So, yeah, I could not be happier.

On the subject of Apple Park:

Cook: Steve had the vision that the workplace should facilitate people working together… having these common areas that people could work together and run into each other without planning on doing it… and that the level of ideas and creativity and innovation that would come out of that would be phenomenal. And we’re seeing that.

Rubenstein: You’re convinced standing up working is better than sitting down?

Cook: We have given all of our employees, 100 percent, standing desks. If you can stand for a while and then sit, and so on and so forth, this is much better for your lifestyle.

Cook reflecting on leaving Compaq to work at Apple:

Rubenstein: You were at Compaq, which at the time I think was one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers… you’re there for about six months, and you get a call from Steve Jobs, or somebody working for him, asking you to come join Apple. Apple was modest compared to Compaq, so why did you take the interview, and why did you join Apple?

Cook: It’s a good question. Steve had come back to the company and was essentially replacing the executive team that was there at the time. I thought, you know, this is an opportunity to talk to the guy who started the whole industry. Steve met me on Saturday. It was just minutes into talking to him… I want to do it. I totally shocked myself. There was a sparkle in his eyes that I’ve never seen in a CEO before. He was sort of turning left when everyone was turning right. On almost everything he talked about, he was doing something extraordinarily different than conventional wisdom. Many people were abandoning the consumer market because it was a blood bath. Steve was doing the exact opposite. He was doubling down on the consumer at the time everyone else, the conventional wisdom said “go put your money in storage and servers.” Talking with him, and the type of questions he asked, were also different. I did, literally before I left, was thinking “I hope he offers me a job, because I really want to do this.”

On the subject of succeeding Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple:

Rubenstein: Steve’s health was such that he couldn’t continue to be CEO. He told the board that. And you were announced as the new CEO, I think around July of 2011. When you became the CEO, do you feel that Steve would say, here’s what I was interested in doing, and you fulfill my goals, or do you feel you had your own view on what you should do, and how did you balance the two? You’re succeeding a legendary figure…

Cook: It’s not so sequential as that. We have a really open company, so most of us could finish the other person’s sentences, even when we might disagree with them. So, it wasn’t a matter of Steve having a secret file or anything. He was always sharing his ideas — all the time. So, it was very different than that. Honestly, my view at that time was that he would be Chairman and would do that forever, and we would sort of figure out the relationship change there. That’s what I thought. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

On the iPhone:

Rubenstein: You have a product that is the most successful consumer product in the history of mankind — which is the iPhone.

Cook: There was a sense that it was a profound product… that it was a game changer. If you go back and watch the keynote that Steve announced it, you can feel his passion in it, and the way he described it. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

On the Apple Watch and its life-saving capabilities:

Rubenstein: So, how are they doing?

Cook: They’re doing fantastic. Cellular is now on the watch. You don’t have to travel with your iPhone… you can just use your watch. One of my best moments of the day is to go through my emails that are from users. I get so many each week from people that found out they have a heart problem from their watch. It’s alerting you if you’ve been sitting and your heart rate has climbed to a level that doesn’t make sense relative to the activity you’ve been doing.

Rubenstein: I suppose you don’t want to know if you have a heart problem.

Cook: Well, we think most people do, because then you can go get help. Seriously though, David, so many people have written and said, “the watch alerted me to the problem, I took action and went to the cardiologist, and he told me, if I had not gone there, I wouldn’t be alive.”

On the topics of privacy and equality:

Rubenstein: Let’s talk about some of the values that you’ve been espousing. One is privacy.

Cook: We see privacy a fundamental human right. So, to us, it’s right up there with some of the other civil liberties that make Americans what they are… defines us as Americans. We see that this is becoming a larger and larger issue for people. Our tact on this is we take a minimum amount of data from customers… only that which we need to provide a great service. Then, we work really hard to protect it with encryption and so forth.

Rubenstein: You’ve also talked about the importance of equality. Why is that so important to you?

Cook: Many of the problems of the world come down to the lack of equality. It’s the fact that it’s the kid who is born in one ZIP code doesn’t have a good education because he happens to be born in that ZIP code. It’s someone who is maybe in the LGBT community who is fired because of that. It’s someone who has a different religion than the majority and are therefore ostracized in some way. If one day you could wave a wand and everybody would treat each other with dignity and respect, there are many, many problems that would go away with that.

Cook on why he publicly revealed he is gay:

Rubenstein: You exposed your own personal life a bit. The privacy that you said other people should have. You kind of gave up some of your privacy. Why did you do that?

Cook: I did it for a greater purpose. I realized there were a lot of kids out there that were not being treated very well—including in their own families. Kids need someone to say “oh, they did okay in life, and they’re gay, so it must not be a life sentence in some kind of way.” We’re getting these notes… it would tug on my heart even more, and it got to the point, and it got to the point where I thought, I’m making the wrong call, by trying to do something that is comfortable for me, which is to stay private. I needed to do something for the greater good.

Cook’s recent meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump:

Rubenstein: Now, you’re obviously in the public eye. Recently you had a meeting with President Trump. What was that like?

Cook: I talked about trade, and the importance of trade, and how I felt that two countries trading together make the pie larger. It’s true, I think undoubtedly true, that not everyone has been advantaged from that in either country, and we’ve got to work on that. I felt that tariffs were not the right approach there, and I showed him some more analytical kind of things to demonstrate why. We also talked about immigration, and the importance of fixing the Dreamer issue now. We’re only one court ruling away from a catastrophic case there.

On the subject of how Apple plans to use its cash holdings:

Rubenstein: Apple has roughly $260 billion in cash, more or less. What do you plan to do with that cash?

Cook: We’re going to create a new site, a new campus within the United States. We’re going to hire 20,000 people. We’re going to spend $30 billion in capital expenditure over the next several years. Number one, we’re investing, and investing a ton, in this country. We’re also going to buy some of our stock, as we view our stock as a good value.

Cook’s response to ever considering running for President of the United States:

Rubenstein: You’re obviously a public figure. You weren’t before. Have you ever thought that maybe you could run for President of the United States?

Cook: I’m not political. I love focusing on the policy stuff, but in the dysfunction kind of in Washington, between the legislative branch and so forth, I think I can make a bigger difference in the world doing what I’m doing. I appreciate the comment. You know, it’s something that you’d love to be President, but not ever run. That should never happen in our country, so that kind of eliminates me.

The full interview will air on The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations, which explores successful leadership.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Tim Cook, Bloomberg TV
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Ring’s New $199 ‘Ring Alarm’ Security System Now Available for Pre-Order

Ring, the Amazon-owned company known for its camera-equipped doorbells, today announced that its new Ring Alarm security system is now available for pre-order and will begin shipping out on July 3.

First announced in the fall of 2017, the Ring Alarm is marketed as a “do-it-yourself” home security system that does not require professional installation, nor are its users required to sign up for a long-term contract.

For $199, the Ring Alarm system includes a Base Station, a Keypad, a Contact Sensor that can be situated on a window or a door, a Motion Detector, and a Range Extender.

It is designed to be paired with existing Ring Cameras (including doorbells, the Floodlight Cam and the Spotlight Cam) to create what Ring calls a “Ring of Security” for the home. Ring is charging $10 per month for the Ring Protect Plus Plan for the Ring Alarm, with 24/7 “professional monitoring,” video recording, and backup LTE connectivity included at that price.

As the Ring Alarm is a “DIY” system, setup consists of connecting the Base Station and the Keypad to the home’s Wi-Fi and installing one or more Contact Sensors to doors and windows. The Motion Sensor is designed to be placed in an area where you want to monitor for movement while away from home or sleeping, such as a front entryway.

Once set up, the Ring Alarm can be set to an “armed” mode, where it will monitor the home and send alerts if doors or windows are accessed or motion is detected. An included Base Station siren will sound when one of the sensors is triggered while the system is armed.

According to Ring, the Ring Alarm system is equipped with a battery and an LTE cellular backup option so that it continues to function in the event of a power or Wi-Fi outage. Ring Alarm, in addition to integrating with existing Ring products, will work with the First Alert smoke and carbon monoxide detector, which can set off the Base Station in the event of an emergency.

Ring says that in the future, it will release additional products that are designed to integrate with the Ring Alarm, including a $30 Smoke and CO Listener, a $30 Flood and Freeze Sensor, and a $30 Dome Siren which offers customizable alarm tones and volume levels.

Ring Alarm can be pre-ordered from Ring.com, Amazon.com, Best Buy, or Home Depot for $199 starting today. Orders will start shipping out on July 3, with the first orders arriving on the Fourth of July.

Tag: Ring
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SleepScore app aims to take your slumber to new depths

SleepScore

There are smart mattresses, wearables, even robots — these days it’s easy to spend a lot of money on gadgets designed to improve the quality of your slumber, and some of you may be losing sleep over trying to find the one that works best for you.

This week a free app landed that claims it can improve your sleep simply by listening to your breathing and detecting your body movements when you’re zonked out. Created by SleepScore Labs, the iOS app (Android coming in the next few weeks) uses sleep-detecting sonar algorithms developed by ResMed, a specialist in sleep medical devices.

So how do you use it? Well, fire up the app as you climb into bed (obviously) and place your smartphone on your bedside table. SleepScore then uses your handset’s speakers to send out inaudible sound waves that detect your body movements and breathing throughout the night. These sound waves return via the microphone, prompting the app’s algorithms to spring into action.

According to SleepScore, the app’s algorithms are clever enough to “interpret the shape and movement of the reflected sound waves to sense full breathing wave form and body movements.”

It goes on: “The combination of these signals is used to accurately decipher which sleep stage the user is in (wake, light sleep, deep sleep, or REM), as well as the number of times users wake up through the night and the time it takes to fall asleep.”

Each morning, you’ll receive a score of between 1 and 100 as an indicator of how well you slept, including a breakdown of what affected the score, such as sleep length, time to fall asleep, or interruptions. So a score in the high 90s indicates a full night of restful sleep, while a single-digit score suggests a dismal night where you might ask yourself if it was even worth going to bed.

Sleep goals

If you’re facing challenges with your sleep, the app lets you select various goals and offers advice on how you can achieve them. Like some other sleep apps, SleepScore’s includes a smart alarm that claims to wake you up “at the ideal moment” in your sleep cycle, though let’s face it, there’s never an ideal moment to be awoken by a machine-generated noise.

The app will also give you “personalized product recommendations” based on your data that may include anything from “innovative pillows to sound machines and snoring solutions.” That means it might give a shout-out to its Max sleep aid, a bedside gadget priced at $150.

In-app purchases

Cough up for in-app purchases and you’ll receive your complete sleep history, trend and correlations analytics, exportable data, and a sleep report for your doctor if your nighttime issues are something of a nightmare.

“We’re excited that for the first time, virtually everyone can get a truer picture of their sleep health for free and make smarter decisions about how to get a more restful night’s sleep,” said Colin Lawlor, CEO of SleepScore Labs.

The company says that at least 1.2 billion people around the world suffer from a variety of sleep issues, while almost 60 percent of the global population “misunderstand their own sleep problems due to a lack of measurable insights.”

If you suspect your current sleep tracker or wearable device is pushing out inaccurate data about your time in Slumberland, then SleepScore’s free sleep-tracking app may be worth a shot.

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OxygenOS + OnePlus 6: Top 10 features you need to know

OxygenOS stays true to Google’s vision of Android while offering plenty of customization options.

OxygenOS is one of the best implementations of Android currently available. Instead of offering a heavily customized interface like its Chinese rivals, OnePlus has kept things simple, adding a few differentiating features on top of a vanilla user interface. There are enough tweaks and gestures that let you customize your experience, but the focus is on performance.

OnePlus baked new functionality into OxygenOS for the OnePlus 6, and made a few tweaks to existing features that increase their usefulness. Let’s take a look at what sets the custom skin apart.

Navigation gestures

OxygenOS comes with a set of nifty gestures that let you perform certain actions with ease. The three-finger swipe down gesture to take a screenshot is an elegant solution to the default way of taking a screenshot, and you can also control music playback and launch apps with gestures.

One of my favorites is the gesture that lets you take a photo by long pressing on the camera sensor. It comes in handy if you tend to take self-portraits with the rear camera.

Starting this year, OxygenOS picked up navigation gestures that are akin to what you’d find on the iPhone X. The gestures allow you to get rid of the navigation bar — freeing up screen real estate — and offer a more intuitive way of navigating the interface.

How to enable navigation gestures on the OnePlus 6

Reading Mode

Reading Mode made its debut last year with the OnePlus 5, and is one of my favorite features on OxygenOS. Like Night Mode, the feature automatically calibrates the color temperature of the display, making it conducive to reading.

Instead of switching to warmer colors, Reading Mode creates a monochrome effect that’s great for reading text. You can activate the mode manually or set it to automatically launch for specific apps. For instance, if you have the Kindle app installed on your OnePlus 6, you can enable Reading Mode to launch automatically whenever you open the app, leaving the rest of the user interface unchanged.

How to activate Reading Mode on the OnePlus 6

Gaming Mode

OnePlus rolled out a Gaming DND mode last year, and with the OnePlus 6 the mode is getting an overhaul and a new name — Gaming Mode.

Activating Gaming Mode silences all incoming notifications with the exception of calls and alarms. The feature also prioritizes network traffic for games, limiting how much bandwidth background apps can use. There’s also an option to lock in screen brightness so it doesn’t change during a gaming session.

Gaming Mode also offers a battery saver option that’s designed to maximize battery life by reducing the screen resolution while gaming.

Schedule Do Not Disturb

The Alert Slider has been a mainstay on OnePlus devices since the OnePlus 2, and this year the feature is getting an update that makes it easier to use. With the OnePlus 6, you can use the Alert Slider to toggle between ring, vibrate, and silent modes, with DND getting its own set of options.

During the OnePlus 6 launch, the company announced that it would add the ability to schedule Do Not Disturb mode, and OxygenOS 5.1.6 adds an option to do just that.

You’ll finally be able to set up custom rules for Do Not Disturb, and configure a preset time so it kicks in automatically — no more toggling the Alert Slider every night.

Face Unlock

OnePlus introduced Face Unlock late last year, and it’s safe to say that the manufacturer’s implementation is one of the fastest around.

The face unlock feature relies on over 100 data points to verify your facial features, and while the feature isn’t as secure as the fingerprint sensor — OnePlus says as such while you’re setting it up — it is a convenient way to unlock your phone.

Selfie portrait mode and Light Bokeh

The OnePlus 6 has a dedicated camera sensor at the back that facilitates portrait mode, but if you’re one to take a lot of selfies, the feature is now available on the front camera as well.

Starting with OxygenOS 5.1.6, you’ll be able to use portrait mode with the front camera. Edge detection for the front camera isn’t as fine-tuned as there’s a single sensor up front, but the feature offers an easy way to get a blur effect with your selfies.

The 5.1.6 build also introduces a Light Bokeh mode that creates light patterns when you use portrait mode with the rear camera. You’ll be able to choose from various patterns — stars and hearts — and the feature adds those patterns in the background of your portraits.

Shelf

Shelf is located to the left of the home screen, and gives you a quick overview of the date, time, and weather information for your current location, along with a list of your frequent contacts and recently-used apps.

There’s also the option to add widgets to the Shelf, and you can add or remove modules as needed.

How to customize the Shelf on the OnePlus 6

App locker

OxygenOS comes with a built-in app locker that provides an added layer of safety to your private data, whether it’s photos stored in the gallery, or social networking apps. You’ll be able to add any app to the locker, and select whether their notification content is visible.

Apps secured using the locker will need a PIN or fingerprint authentication.

Ambient display

The Lift-up display gives you easy access to the clock and time widgets, as well as incoming notifications. You’ll be able to choose from several clock faces, and set a display message on the screen.

There’s also the option to wake the screen for new notifications, and you can invoke the “Ok Google” hotword to launch Assistant even when the screen is off.

LED notifications

OxygenOS allows you to customize the LED notification light for various actions. There’s the option to select from eight colors for default notifications, battery full indicator, battery charging, and battery low. You can also select which apps trigger the LED notification light.

As we’re on the subject of notifications, OxygenOS lets you choose from five custom vibration patterns for incoming calls.

Bonus: Quick Pay for India

India is OnePlus’ largest market, and the company built a feature that’s exclusive to local customers. Dubbed Quick Pay, it allows customers to launch directly into Paytm’s payment window easily. You’ll be able to access Paytm by long pressing the fingerprint sensor, and it works even when the screen is off.

Paytm is the largest digital wallet service in India by some margin, and with digital transactions on the rise, giving customers the ability to quickly access Paytm’s payments page is a nifty addition.

What OxygenOS features do you like the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Updated June 2018: This article was rewritten to reflect changes to OxygenOS on the OnePlus 6.

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Google Translate uses A.I. to improve accuracy for offline use

Google Translate is a great tool when you don’t have the language skills to take care of things, but its offline performance can be a bit ropey at times.

That’s gradually changing, however, as the web giant this week announced an update that’ll enable the app to offer more accurate translations even when you’re without an internet connection.

Two years ago, the company introduced neural machine translation (NMT) to the app, a system that processes entire sentences in one go, and which uses artificial intelligence to improve translations over time. Developers at Google have now worked out a way to package this technology for offline use, too, and that’s why you should start to see better translations if you use the app without a connection.

The neural system “translates whole sentences at a time, rather than piece by piece,” Google’s Julie Cattiau wrote in a blog post announcing the update. “It uses broader context to help determine the most relevant translation, which it then rearranges and adjusts to sound more like a real person speaking with proper grammar — this makes translated paragraphs and articles a lot smoother and easier to read.

Cattiau points out how offline translations can come in useful if you’re traveling to other countries without a local data plan, or if you don’t have access to internet, or indeed if you simply don’t want to use cellular data. Another bonus is that each language set is no bigger than 45MB, so they won’t take up much space on your smartphone.

Available for both iOS and Android devices, you can make use of the new feature by opening the app, tapping on Settings and then Offline translation. It’s then just a case of tapping the plus sign and selecting the languages you want to download.

The neural system update is coming for nearly 60 languages this week and will be rolled out over several days, Google said.

Oh, go on then … here’s the full list of languages receiving the update: Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Marathi, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Welsh.

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Uber eyes millions of new riders with the launch of Uber Lite

Lots of other popular online services have done it, and now Uber has joined the club.

We’re talking about lightweight apps for those with unreliable connectivity, limited data plans, or mobile devices with a small amount of storage. Such apps are usually targeted at emerging markets where internet infrastructure is continuing to be developed.

Uber Lite was “built in India” but “designed for the world,” the company said in a blog post announcing the new app. But India’s population of 1.3 billion people is the initial target for Uber’s new app.

Currently Android only, Uber Lite uses just 5MB of storage — that compares to more than 280MB for the full iOS version (storage for its regular Android app “varies with device”).

Uber’s Shirish Andhare, who takes care of the company’s products for emerging markets, says the new app features a “300-millisecond response time (literally the blink of the eye),” promising that “the booking process is fast even in low connectivity.”

The team has managed to retain many of the core features of the regular Uber app, including in-app support and the ability to share a trip with friends and family.

A new way of doing things

But as you’d expect, there are some differences.

With Uber Lite, you’ll only be offered a map when you ask for one, a process that requires just a single tap. When you choose not to use maps, the app will provide a progress bar showing how close your driver is getting to your pick-up point.

A “guided pickups” feature determines your current location, though if GPS or network issues make this difficult, the app will automatically surface popular pick-up points nearby, one of which you can select with a tap.

In fact, Uber Lite works to prioritize tap over type in an effort to speed up the ride-request experience. It does this using its A.I. smarts to work out how you use the app, such as which routes you take most often. It’ll then offer these as one-tap selections when you open the app, saving you from having to type anything in.

Andhare says the launch of Uber Lite is “just the start” as it plans to add further updates “like the ability for riders to choose their preferred language for the app during sign up, and request a ride even when they are offline.”

Following India, Uber Lite will launch in additional countries later this year. India is now Uber’s most important Asian market after the company exited China and south-east Asia in the last couple of years. The ridesharing service launched there five years ago and has around 450,000 drivers in more than 30 cities across the country.

Other popular online services have launched lite versions in recent years, among them Facebook, Messenger, Google, Twitter, Skype, and LinkedIn.

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