Micro SD cards, computer processors, DNA kits, and more are all discounted today

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts on the Samsung Evo Select micro SD card, the MyHeritage DNA test kit, Ryzen computer processors, and more! Time’s running out to take advantage of these prices, so hurry!

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Deal: Get a Galaxy S9 for as little as $584 with Gazelle’s 10% off sale

You’ll also find savings on the Note 8 and S8 series.

Buying a new smartphone outright is an expense a lot of people just can’t afford these days with prices easily ranging from $700 up to $1000+. Sites like Gazelle that let you buy gently-used phones help to save a lot of cash, and between July 24 and 30, you’ll be able to save even more.

During that time, Gazelle is running its Christmas in July promotion in which you’ll be able to take 10% off of the following gadgets:

• Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+
• Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8
• Apple iPhone 8/8 Plus
• Apple iPads

To get a better idea of how much you’ll be saving, Gazelle usually sells an unlocked 64GB Galaxy S9 in “Good” condition for $669. However, with that 10%, you’ll be able to pick it up for $602.10. Considering that the GS9 has a retail price of $720, that’s not too shabby.

Alternatively, you could pick up a “Fair” GS9 for even cheaper at just $584.10.

Once again, the 10% discount is available from July 24 – July 30 or until supplies last.

See at Gazelle

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How to watch Shark Week if you’ve cut the cord

It’s Shark Week on Discovery!

We’re gonna need a bigger boat. And a good streaming device.

Word on the street — and in the water — is that it’s Shark Week. That is, it’s the one week in the summer in which we all go crazy for sharks.

But given that it’s 2018 and more and more of us are eschewing cable and satellite TV for streaming, it bears asking the question: How can you watch Shark Week if you’ve cut the cord?

The answer is, it’s easy. Unless it’s not. Here’s what you need to know:

Watch Shark Week on Discovery on a streaming service

We’ve got good news and bad news for cord-cutters. Shark Week is on Discovery. And Discovery is on some of the biggest streaming services.

Discovery also is not on some of the biggest streaming services.

If you’re subscribed to PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now or Philo, you’re good to go. You can watch Discovery, and therefore also watch Shark Week.

If you’re not a subscriber of one of those three networks, read on.

Watch Shark Week on the Discovery Go app

Shark Week is a Discovery Channel phenomenon. And that means you can watch it on the Discovery Go app, which is available for Android as well as on iOS.

There’s also a Discovery Go channel on Roku. If you’ve got an Xbox, you’re covered as well.

You’ll find a Discovery Go app on Apple TV as well, but there’s no corresponding app for Android TV. (For that, you’ll need to use Chromecast from a phone or tablet.)

There’s one major catch here: To get into the content on the Discovery Go app — particularly during Shark Week — you’ll need a current subscription login, whether that’s cable or a streaming service.

That’s just the way it is.

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AppleInsider shockingly doesn’t understand Pixels and Nexuses as products or how they affected Android manufacturers

The history of Nexus and Pixel partnerships is long, but it isn’t too complicated to understand.

HTC’s struggles over the last four years are well documented. The business has declined sharply, the cadence of product releases has slowed, and while the phones themselves have continued to be pretty good they haven’t garnered the public’s attention on the scale necessary to run a massive international smartphone business. For some reason, this article on AppleInsider seems to think that Google’s Nexus and Pixel phones are to blame for HTC’s demise. Oh, and they also “gutted” Motorola. And by the way, they’re bad products that nobody wants and are ruining the Android ecosystem one company at a time.

Okay, none of that is actually true. Take a deep breath and let me explain.

The primary assertion of the article is that a) HTC is failing as a business and b) it’s been a partner with Google multiple times so c) HTC’s failures are the cause of Google’s partnerships for Nexuses and Pixels. It’s the time-honored tradition of confusing correlation with causation. Yes, HTC is failing as a business. And yes again, it has partnered with Google many times to launch products. But that in no way means that the two are linked.

The article’s primary evidence for this assertion that Google killed HTC is that Google purchased Motorola, released two Moto X phones that didn’t do too well, and then sold it. This is, quite clearly, a completely different situation. Partnerships for individual phone releases is far and away different from purchasing a company outright — not to mention that one of the core reasons for purchasing Motorola in the first place was its staff and patent portfolio. And since selling the company, Motorola has done surprisingly well in the low- and mid-range segments across the world. Yes it’s not the Motorola of old, but times change — and you simply can’t argue that Motorola died (well, because it didn’t) because of this “what if” thought process of the acquisition. This isn’t relevant to the Google-HTC situation at all, actually.

Now let’s cover the HTC situation. When it comes to Android, HTC was there from the very beginning. Google’s first Android phone, the Sooner, was made by HTC. The second Android phone (though it was the first commercially-available one) was the Dream, also known as the G1, made by HTC. Google’s first self-branded phone, the Nexus One, was made by … you guessed it, HTC. In 2010 when the Nexus One came out, HTC’s business was built on the back of Windows Phone — an OS that was well on its way to being a dead end. HTC’s life ring was moving to making Android phones — its business would never have reached the heights that it did if it hadn’t partnered with Google to get in on the ground floor of making Android phones.

From 2010 to 2014, HTC was synonymous with Android — and it was because of Google, not in spite of it. After the Nexus One, HTC launched a strong set of Desire phones, partnered with Verizon for successful Droid-branded phones and was a major influence in the Android world with the One line of flagships. HTC hadn’t partnered with Google for a phone since 2010 (the Nexus 9 tablet was forgettable no matter who made it), yet it was able to build its business to its highest peak over the next four years.

HTC both rose to its highest peak and also started its downturn between its 2010 and 2016 Google partnerships.

But it didn’t last. We remarked back in February 2016, some 8 months before the first HTC-made Google Pixel was announced, that HTC was having a tough time standing out from the competition. At that point, we were “almost two years removed from the last great HTC phone, the One M8” — indeed, HTC had started its downward trend in 2014. Well before the Pixel partnership was even put in place, and once again well after HTC and Google had last partnered for a phone. HTC had both risen to its highest level and also started its downturn in the time between the two Google phone partnerships.

Google seemed to be well aware that HTC was not doing well. But for some reason this article seems to make that case that Google is under some sort of obligation to make sure HTC doesn’t go out of business. Despite the fact that Google is indeed under no such obligation, it has over the last couple of years invested heavily in HTC — first by contracting the company build the Pixel, Pixel XL and Pixel 2, then by investing over $1 billion in HTC directly by acquiring much of its engineering staff. It’s easily arguable that without the massive influx of cash from Google for manufacturing these three Pixel phones that HTC would already be dead — the company’s position was that bad in 2016 when it started making Pixels.

So what about the other Nexus and Pixel partners? By this flawed logic that Google kills its partners, Samsung and LG should be dead as well. Google partnered with Samsung for the Nexus S in 2010 and the Galaxy Nexus in 2011 — which subsequently kicked off Samsung’s dominance of the Android market from the Galaxy S II onward, forming the iPhone’s biggest competitor worldwide. Google partnered with LG for four different devices: the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 5X and Pixel 2 XL. The Nexus 4 kicked off a six-year partnership between the companies that still stands today — and LG itself isn’t doing particularly bad. Sure it isn’t Samsung, but it’s also a massive leap above where HTC is right now.

Interestingly, the whole point of the article seems to be to simply spike the ball and point to the fact that the Pixel phones aren’t as wildly popular or big as the iPhone. What it fails to recognize is that there’s a very large middle ground between “unsuccessful product line” and “Apple iPhone” — in fact, it’s the entire smartphone market, because no single smartphone has been as popular as the iPhone. The two generations of Pixels have yet to be massive retail successes, that’s pretty clear. But they, and the Nexuses that came before them, have not been complete failures — particularly if you understand that the goal of Nexus phones was to lend a hand to Android manufacturers, not sell in large numbers. Their lack of retail success has in no way contributed to the death or misfortune of any of the companies that made them. Shockingly, this nuance has been lost on AppleInsider.

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Curiosity Stream, AMC Premiere are now options on YouTube TV

Documentaries and AMC’s best can now be had for just a few bucks a month.

YouTube TV today added a couple more options to its premium add-on choices.

The first is Curiosity Stream — more than 1,700 documentaries on science, history, tech and nature.

Here’s the party line:

Launched by Discovery Communications founder and media visionary John Hendricks, CuriosityStream is the award-winning streaming and on-demand destination where viewers can journey through our world and beyond. Our immersive experiences feature experts from Stephen Hawking and David Attenborough to Veritasium’s Derek Muller, stunning visuals, and unrivaled storytelling to demystify science, history, technology, nature, health and more.

All of the videos are commercial-free, of course.

Curiosity Stream runs just $3 a month, after a free seven-day trial.

YouTube TV also has added AMC Premiere as an option, with full seasons of AMC original shows, ad-free, with bonus content as well.

AMC Premiere is $7 a month, after a free seven-day trial.

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Alphabet Q2 2018 earnings: $32.7 billion revenue, $2.8 billion income despite massive EU fine

Strong growth continues for this already-massive company.

Alphabet has just released its Q2 2018 earnings report, showing another quarter of strong growth. The company had revenues of $32.7 billion for the quarter, which is up 26% year-over-year — extremely impressive for a company of this size. Operating income was just $2.8 billion, which is due in large part to the recent $5 billion fine from the European Union.

Google will be able to effectively shrug off a $5 billion fine and still make close to $3 billion in a single quarter.

Even still, the fact that Google will be able to effectively shrug off a $5 billion fine in just one quarter is quite impressive. If you were to look at Alphabet’s core operations, without taking into account the $5 billion fine, we’d be looking at a quarter with $7.88 billion in operating income — a full $1 billion higher than the same quarter last year.

Alphabet’s overall revenues continue to be largely derived from advertising on Google’s own properties and its network members’ properties, to the tune of $28 billion for the quarter. That leaves the infamously opaque “other revenues” segment — including the hardware business, Play Store, etc. — to bring in $4.4 billion in revenue. The “Other Bets” segment of various startup and moonshot endeavors had higher revenue this quarter, $145 million, but grew its operating loss to $732 million at the same time.

Advertising is still the core business, and it’s still strong.

The trend of increasing traffic acquisition costs (what Google spends to acquire advertising traffic) continued in Q2 2018, though just marginally. Paid clicks were up 15% year-over-year, though that’s a deceleration from an increase of 58% from Q2 2016 to 2017. Cost-per-click is still on the same negative trend from previous years, though it too has reduced its fall — down to negative 10% from negative 22% the year prior. In all, it’s the same trend: it costs more to drive traffic to Google’s advertising, and the cost per click is going down.

Google added over 13,000 employees since Q2 2017, now putting the total headcount for the company at over 89,000 — Google says this was primarily in the cloud portion of the business. That’s absolutely massive, and at this rate it means we’ll be seeing that number breach six figures by early 2019. If you’re interested in the deep nitty-gritty details of the earnings release, Google’s investor relations call is available below.

Netgear’s Arlo Brand Gains New Wire-Free Smart Audio Doorbell

Netgear’s Arlo brand today announced the launch of the new Arlo Audio Doorbell and Arlo Chime, a new smart doorbell solution that’s designed to pair with wire-free cameras in the Arlo lineup.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell doesn’t include its own camera, as it’s meant to be used with existing Arlo home security camera options. It pairs up with an Arlo camera installed in a home’s entryway and adds doorbell functionality, but it can also be used on a standalone audio-only basis.

Able to work via batteries or as a replacement for a home’s existing doorbell setup, when the Arlo Audio Doorbell is pressed, it activates your iPhone with an incoming VoIP call interface so you can speak with whoever is at your door. If you’re not home, the person can leave an audio message.

“When a guest rings the Arlo Audio Doorbell, users immediately receive a phone call on their smartphone via the Arlo app, prompting them to either answer the call or send a prerecorded message for a quick reply. Couple this standout feature with the simple, wire-free setup and users have a seamless way to modernize the traditional doorstep greeting.”

A connected camera provides an image of the entryway so you can see who is at the door through the accompanying Arlo app, and with the addition of the Arlo Smart Chime speaker, you can hear the doorbell ring anywhere in the house if you’ve replaced your existing chime.

When paired with a camera that includes the Arlo Smart subscription service, intelligent people detection is included and there’s an option to call emergency services closest to the camera’s location.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell is resistant to weather conditions that include snow, rain, and heat, and your incoming audio calls are recorded and can be played back for 7 days with included 7-day rolling audio cloud storage.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell and Chime are an interesting alternative to other smart doorbell setups for those who are already in the Arlo ecosystem. As Arlo home security cameras don’t include HomeKit, the new doorbell also will not be HomeKit-compatible.

Arlo plans to share more information on the Arlo Audio Doorbell and Chime, including pricing, later this year.

Tag: NETGEAR
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Archive Offers Up All Past Mac and iOS Wallpapers

Over the weekend, Reddit user Nucleam shared photo albums containing archives of all of the different wallpapers that Apple has offered for iOS and macOS, providing an interesting trip down memory lane.

There are two separate Google Photos albums for iOS and macOS, with images dating back multiple years.

The iOS album, for example, contains wallpapers from iOS 3 and beyond, along with promotional images Apple has used for advertising purposes, images from WWDC and special events, and more.

The macOS album features wallpapers dating back to System 7, with images from Mac OS 9, all the versions of OS X, and more modern wallpapers from the newer versions of the Mac operating system. Event wallpapers, such as those used for the 2017 iMac and the 2017 MacBook Pro, are also available.

As The Loop pointed out this morning, this is an excellent collection of wallpapers that’s worth checking out if you want to revisit (and use) some of Apple’s past wallpaper options.
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Highest resolution smartphone camera yet is designed not to suck at low light

Sony’s new sensor (on the right) compared to a 12-megapixel traditional sensor (on the left). Sony

Smartphones could soon boast cameras with a resolution as high as 48 megapixels, without having disastrous results on low-light images. On Monday, July 23, Sony announced a new stacked smartphone camera sensor with the highest-yet megapixel count, 48 megapixels, and a unique Quad Bayer array design. The move will allow smartphones integrating the upcoming sensor, the IMX586, to boost image quality with a unique design that Sony claims also produces good results in low light.

While larger sensor cameras have hovered around the 50-megapixel mark for a while, Sony managed to cram those 48 megapixels onto a 1/2-inch sensor. That means that Sony’s also claiming the smallest pixel size yet with the pixels on the sensor measuring .8 μm, a size that Sony says is the smallest it has found among all image sensors.

The trade-off for high resolution images on a small sensor is typically grainy, unclear images in low light, but Sony aims to deliver both requirements on a single sensor with a unique design on the color filter. Just as a smaller solar panel will gather less light, smaller pixels aren’t great at taking pictures in limited light, and Sony’s pixels on the new sensor are the smallest yet. Left unadjusted, the sensor would likely take pretty poor images at night and indoors.

But in a low-light shot, the stacked sensor actually becomes the equivalent of a 12-megapixel camera with much larger pixels. The camera’s flexibility comes from the design on the Bayer color filter. On a traditional camera sensor, the Bayer filter array uses a pattern of red, green and blue filters over each pixel to allow the camera to capture color images. In Sony’s new sensor, that color filter instead is grouped where a square of four neighboring pixels all has the same color filter instead of the traditional pattern. In low light images, those four pixels with the same color filter are combined, creating a larger pixel that’s capable of gathering more light.

The ability to merge pixels allows the new sensor to shoot as a 48-megapixel sensor for greater detail in low light, while creating larger pixels and acting as a 12-megapixel camera when the lighting is poor. The design tackles a common flaw in high-resolution cameras, but it isn’t the first time smartphone cameras have tried to balance high resolution and low light — the Huawei P20 Pro uses Pixel Fusion which also improves low light gathering capabilities but is used in part with the smartphone’s three lenses.

Sony says the new sensor will also deliver four times better dynamic range than a conventional smartphone, which means the camera is less likely to lose details in the lightest and darkest areas of the image when shooting high-contrast scenes. The sensor’s tech specs also lists 4K video at up to 90 fps and the ability to shoot in RAW. The sensor is also stacked like earlier Sony sensors, which helps increase the camera’s speed processing those images.

For now, Sony has only announced the upcoming release, so it’s unclear what future phones will adapt the technology and whether the design may have some quirks affecting the color in the final images because of the different filter design.

If you own a 2018 MacBook Pro, you will want to maintain data backups

If you recently purchased one of Apple’s refreshed 2018 MacBook Pro models, you’ll want to maintain backups of your files. Unlike previous models, if the logic board fails on your laptop, there is no way for Apple and its service technicians to access the solid-state drive and recover the contents stored on the system.

On older 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar, Apple had a special tool that could be used to transfer data in the event of a logic board failure. The tool connects to a special data recovery port on the MacBook Pro with a failed logic board to extract the data stored on the system’s solid-state drive. It can also plug into the USB-C port on a new MacBook Pro with a functional logic board to restore the extracted data.

Unfortunately, however, the 2018 MacBook Pro models lack the data recovery port on the logic board, so repair technicians won’t be able to plug in the data recovery tool if the logic board goes out. The missing port was initially uncovered by repair site iFixIt, which also discovered that Apple used a silicone membrane on the third-generation keyboard that debuted on the 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which helps dampen noise and keeps the keys free of debris.

While Apple’s move to remove the data recovery port could lead to frustrated users if the logic board on their laptops fail, the notebook’s stronger hardware security may have prompted the change on the 2018 model. “The data recovery port was likely removed because 2018 MacBook Pro models feature Apple’s custom T2 chip, which provides hardware encryption for the SSD storage, like the iMac Pro, our sources said,” MacRumors reported.

This latest data quirk affecting the 2018 MacBook Pro follows a recent data issue affecting Apple’s 2017 models. It was discovered that both the logic board and the solid-state drive need replacement when there is a logic board failure. Like this new quirk, it was advised that owners of the 2017 MacBook Pro maintain up-t0-date backups of their files.

If users need data extracted from a 2018 MacBook Pro with a failed logic board, Apple recommends taking the notebook to a data recovery specialist. However, given the hardware-based encryption provided by the laptop’s internal T2 chipset, it’s unclear how successful recovery efforts would be even if a specialist was able to transfer the contents from the affected SSD to an external drive. For now, owners of the 2018 MacBook Pro worried about lost data should maintain up-to-date backups of their systems, use a Time Machine, or utilize cloud-based services when possible.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple’s MacBook Pro problem will make you want to backup your files ASAP
• Here’s everything new with the 2018 MacBook Pro
• The best MacBook Pro you can buy is on sale for $1,000 at Best Buy
• Apple’s newest MacBook Pro is now $150 off if you’re a student
• Apple MacBook 12-inch review