Meet the Australian ‘techno-artist’ growing a web-connected ear on his arm

There’s a body in Perth, Australia, one of the most remote cities on Earth, transmitting signals about how other bodies will behave in the future. It’s an unassuming body, bald-headed and fit, complete with organs and limbs in all their preordained places. Plus one.

On the fleshy side of the left forearm there’s an impression of an ear, emerging from the skin as if punching through from the netherworld. It’s bulbous, life-sized, firm to the touch. Pockets of biomaterial and porous Polyethylene form divots and contours around its edges. Living cells, blood vessels, and tissue have moved in, permeated the pores of the surgical implant, and made the extra ear an inarguable part of this man’s body. Today it’s a replica, a relief, rather than a functioning organ. But if all goes as planned, by year’s end it will be connected to the internet, equipped with electronic circuits and a microphone so anyone, anywhere can tune in to the sounds around it.

Ear on Arm is an ongoing endeavor by the artist known as Stelarc, whose eccentric performances put his mortal form in the indifferent grip of technology. Stelarc sees the modern body as a “chimera of meat, metal, and code,” and uses it as the map, the vessel, and the uncharted territory to be explored. Each ensuing experiment pushes the boundaries of his physicality and gives us a glimpse at the ways we’ll engage with the hyperconnected world.

“I’ve always been interested in comparative anatomies,” Stelarc told Digital Trends at the BodyHacking Conference in Austin earlier this year. “Not only the human body but also insects and other animals. All living things interact very differently with the world. We all have different capabilities. We all manipulate and operate in more or less subtle ways. That always fascinated me, and so the body became a convenient location of experimentation.”

“The body is a convenient location of experimentation.”

Over more than forty years, Stelarc’s art has put his body into precarious positions — both physically and conceptually — with visceral performances that probe the many tensions between man and machine.

In 1985, he was tethered to a construction crane by steel wires and body hooks, 100 feet above Copenhagen, Denmark. The crowd below seemed silent. Hanging in suspension, Stelarc heard only the whistle of the wind and the creaking of his stretched skin.

Thirty years later, in a performance called Propel, Stelarc was strapped onto an industrial robot arm in a factory in a suburb of Perth, then flipped and twirled like a human pinwheel for over half-an-hour. An anxious engineer stood near a control box, poised to smash the “kill switch” lest a glitch caused the robot to revert to its nesting position with artist still in tow.

Polixeni Papapetrou

During a marathon performance that same year, the artist donned a video headset, noise-canceling headphones, and a partial exoskeleton in an act of abandoning his “eyes,” “ears,” and “arm” to the Other. The artist toured London through a video feed sent to his headset, as impromptu videographers carried a camera are town. Audio from New York City filled his headphones with sounds of traffic, chatter, and shuffling feet. His right arm contorted involuntarily, controlled over the internet by digital puppeteers. The performance, Re-wired/Re-mixed, spanned five consecutive days, six hours a day. Stelarc took one break to urinate.

The artist is often hooked up to contact mics that amplify the internal audio of his body. But noisy as his art may be, he isn’t necessarily trying to say anything through his performances. Instead he says he’s making “gestures” towards strange possibilities of the human body, dragging technology down an unpaved path to augmented, alternative anatomies.

Which highlights the two most common threads that run through his work: exploitations of the body and apparent apathy towards technology. To the average viewer, his performances are fraught with uncertainty. They’re the sort of thing you’d spend weeks preparing for. And yet Stelarc says he rarely prepares. His performative face is almost always that of a man at a bus stop with no particular place to go — unconcerned even if his ride will arrive. The rare wince you might catch is more likely the result of an electrode zapping his body into motion than some existential distress. When sic-fi author William Gibson met Stelarc, he said the artist “struck me as one of the calmest people I’d ever met.”

“I approach these performances with a posture of indifference,” Stelarc said. “Indifference as in being open to possibilities of minimizing expectations and allowing the performance to unfold in its own time, with its own rhythm.”

Apathy is arguably the most authentic mindset in which to survey the meeting of man and machine. Today’s consumers are groomed to purchase the latest device, but little within our DNA prepares us to take on each next technological leap and we aren’t especially discrete about how we adopt tech into our lives. Negligent indifference could be the tag line of our digital age.

Ad agencies roll out algorithmic targeting, apparently unconcerned about its potential impact on the psyche. Consumers adopt new products without caution or conceit, like infants given a grenades to play with. Apple has been accused of failing to protect the Chinese workers who manufacture their products, and yet consumers continue to buy their products. Plenty of Facebook users were well aware of the company’s complicity and shoddy privacy policies, even before the wake of the Cambridge Analytical scandal, and yet most have stayed logged in.

Stelarc’s performances are caricatures of our relationship with technology.

Stelarc’s performances are like caricatures of our relationship with technology, carnival mirrors that reflect distorted forms of the human-machine intimacy.

In Re-wired/Re-mixed, the 2015 performance that saw Stelarc decked out like a Gibsonian cyborg, the artist offered himself to strangers, allowing them to command his senses. Throughout the 1990’s Stelarc engaged in similar internet acts, such as 1995’s Ping Body, during which his muscles were stimulated in accordance with ping response times from 40 global locations, effectively turning his body into a “barometer of internet activity.”

In 2000, Stelarc wore an upper-body exoskeleton controlled by a genetic algorithm in a performance called Movatar. Through random mutations, the genetic code forced the artist and the metal apparatus into an involuntary choreography. A panel of control pedals on the floor gave Stelarc some degree of moderation over his movements, enabling him to modulate but not fully neutralize the system when things got too hectic. In a more recent performance, 2017’s StickMan, the artist wore a full-body, algorithmically controlled exoskeleton, fitted with microphones that amplified the sound of the moving limbs.

Today, algorithms pull the strings on our everyday lives, curating what we buy on Amazon, watch on Youtube, and read on Facebook. The social media giant’s infamous social experiment highlighted the interplay between our news feed and our emotions.

Evan Selinger, a philosopher at the Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of the book Re-Engineering Humanity,  thinks these technologies have the power to corrupt our very identities.

“Technology affects our humanity because it impacts of senses…our thoughts…and how we think,” he said. “It impacts our decisions, including our judgement, attention, and desires. It impacts our ability to be citizens, what were informed about and how we stay informed. It impacts our relationships… It even impacts our fundamental understanding of what it means to be human, who we are, and what we should strive to become.”

Where many people see our dystopian future play out as a robotic revolt, Selinger said his concern “is that we are going to be programmed to want to be placed in environments that are so diminishing of our agency and deliberation that we outsource our emotions and capacities for connection.”

In an inversion of a gamer playing a video game character, Stelarc has turned himself into a real-life avatar played by an algorithm. Through compounded feedback loops, classical conceptions of the self are broken down, raising questions about agency and control that are ever more poignant in today’s hyperconnected society.

“With all of these performances [I was] blurring the distinction between the biological, technical, and virtual,” Stelarc said. “And increasingly now we’re expected to perform in these mixed realities. So how do we seamlessly slide between these operational modes? I mean, we’re all doing it in some way or another.”

Stelarc ReWired ReMixed RWRM @ STRP 2017

In Stelarc’s view, we’re building up a certain “thickness,” a melding between the physical and virtual worlds. Our embrace of technology is “not merely happening at a thin screen level,” he said. “The experience is deeper and much more profound.

“Our faces have become flattened onto screens, and so in one sense our experience is at screen level. But because these experiences are becoming more high-fidelity, immediate, and haptic, this flat-screen interface becomes a much more optically ‘thick’ and haptically ‘thick’ experience. We’re blending our biological bodies with technological and virtual systems. It’s not that the screen is interfacing this body and that body. We’re kind of blending into one thickened system of experience.”

Stelarc’s performances embrace a fairly unsafe relationship with technology that in many ways mirrors our own dependence on it. His posture may be indifferent but the artist is almost worryingly committed to his craft. The devotion runs deep enough to put his life at risk.

In one such event, called Stomach Sculpture, the artist swallowed a small robot — two inches long and half an inch wide — tethered to an external control box, which, when activated, caused the capsule to unfurl like a tulip, flash a light, and emit a beeping sound from within his stomach cavity. An endoscope followed closely behind, filming the gastric performance.

Anthony Figallo

“Obviously if it malfunctioned and it couldn’t close again, there would have been a problem extracting it,” Stelarc said. “I mean, a serious problem. In fact, [the performance] was done within five minutes of a major hospital,” just in case.

Stelarc has a tendency to preface technological progress in unexpected ways. The capsule used in Stomach Sculpture was coated in biocompatible materials like silver, gold, and stainless steel, but at the time, he had an idea to use copper, which would react with his stomach acid and potentially create a sort of crude battery, powering the robot and freeing it from its tether to the outside world. That proved unfeasible in 1993, but in 2017 engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed it wasn’t such a ridiculous idea.

And in an announcement earlier this year, surgeons said they’d successfully transplanted an ear that they’d “grown” through cartilage cultured in a soldier’s forearm.

“People are becoming portals of internet experience.”

The artist’s own ear is still a work in progress — his longest performance to date. When he first conceived of the idea in 1996, Stelarc wanted to clone an ear on the side of his head. When that proved too dangerous and technically challenging, he settled on a medical scaffold that would be implanted into his forearm. It’s took another decade to find doctors willing to perform the operation, but he finally linked up with some plastic surgeons who coordinated the surgery in Los Angeles.

The fact that Stelarc convinced certified surgeons to slice open his arm and slip in a prosthesis for no medical purpose, is a provocative performance in its own right. For Chris Hables Gray, author of the Cyborg Handbook and lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, it’s a significant act of dominion over one’s own body.

“Stelarc got doctors to overcome their own medical guidelines to do this surgery. They violated the Hippocratic Oath,” he said. There’s since been a big debate about this among doctors. “Some say this is a violation of the Oath and others say that fundamentally patients should have a right to control their own bodies, especially if they’re an artist exploring what it means to have control of your body with technology.”

Stelarc is now coordinating with members of the biohacking community to fit Ear on Arm with electrical components that would connect the organ to the internet, allowing anyone with web service to tune in to the artist’s surroundings.

“The ear is not for me,” he said. “I’ve got two good ears to hear with.”

Ear on Arm Stelarc wants to engineer a kind of “internet organ” to literally, physically integrate with the digital world. It’s more than just a remote listening device. It’s the artist’s most earnest attempt to explore the human body of tomorrow — an alternative anatomy that can jack in and even be hacked.

“People are becoming portals of internet experience,” Stelarc said. “In my Re-wired/Re-mixed performance I effectively outsourced my senses to people in other places. It was a gesture towards future bodies, where you would be able to incorporate vision, hearing, and haptic experiences of people in other places. Your body is not this locally operating, locally perceiving body, but rather a body that’s distributed and can form beyond the boundaries of its skin, beyond the local space that it inhabits.

“That’s what’s sort of significant about what’s happening today [with Ear on Arm]. On the one hand it’s hacking a body to locally insert some chip circuitry, but the implications of that are once we’ve got chip circuitry, it can wirelessly connect online. Then it’s performing globally, not only locally. Of course, the other implication is that the body can be literally hacked, all the technology in the body can be hacked. This will generate some other interesting possibilities of interaction.”

Steven Aaron Hughes

If that sounds like Stelarc is inviting people to hack his artificial organ, that’s because he is. Or, at least, he’s not taking steps to prevent it. The artist has been letting people remotely control his limbs for years. Why stop now?

“I don’t really think in either dystopian or utopian terms into it in the sense of what technology is or does,” Stelarc said. “Having said that, yes, there are there are ethical concerns. There are physical dangers. There are going to be increasingly complex accidental situations, or situations that generate accidents. And on the one hand, you have a kind of a gung-ho cowboy approach to new technologies. Every new gadget seemingly enables the human body. You become part of this sort of capitalist consumer society of new technologies.

“I can only evaluate through my own actions,” he added. “And I typically see the possibilities rather than the negative connotations.”

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Awesome Tech You Can’t Buy Yet: AR globes, laser cutters, autonomous luggage

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the fidget spinners and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

June 3rd

Earth — Interactive AR globe

Spherical scale models of our planet have existed for centuries. Ever since we discovered the Earth is a sphere (which it most definitely is) back in the 3rd century B.C., humans have been building globes and using them to make sense of this pale blue dot we call home. But despite the fact that globes have existed for so long, they haven’t received a significant design update for quite a long time. This Kickstarter project aims to change that.

Earth, as it’s called, is essentially a high-detail physical globe with augmented reality superpowers. Fire up the accompanying smartphone app and you can access information about the planet — in real time — as you hold it in your hands.

“Beyond the physical globe of EARTH, the AstroReality App contains a wealth of scientific knowledge selected to show our planet as a dynamic and interconnected system,” the creators explain on Kickstarter. “This knowledge was developed by researchers from around the world and made public for us to share with you. AstroReality’s developers are working with our science advisor, J.R. Skok, PhD, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, to put the stories of EARTH into your hands.”

RaceYa — STEM-teaching RC cars

Robots that teach kids STEM skills are a dime a dozen these days. Most are just a slightly different take on the same exact idea, but RaceYa is special. Of all the coding/STEM skillbuilding toys we’ve ever seen, it’s arguably one of the best. Why? Well, in addition to being a fully functional RC car, RaceYa is also designed to teach kids STEM principles in a very hands-on and interactive way — a function that doesn’t require them to gaze unblinkingly into a screen for hours on end.

“Tons of studies have shown kids get excited about STEM when they get to do science, not just look at science,” creator Abigail Edgecliffe-Johnson explains on her Kickstarter campaign page. “RaceYa is all about hands-on learning through play. Our activities were designed with Next-Gen Science Standards in mind and have been tested by incredible teachers at science camps, schools and hack days.”

Zen Float — inflatable float tank

Sensory deprivation float tanks are awesome. If you’ve never used one before, or haven’t heard some new-age hippie talking about them, here’s a quick rundown. Essentially, the idea is that you lie down in reservoir of very salty water inside a small pod that’s sealed shut so that no light or sound can enter. As you float there in complete darkness, suspended in the salty water, you’re essentially weightless — which means that your muscles don’t need to stabilize you, and suddenly your body has all these extra resources it can direct back to your brain. With all that extra energy, and no external stimuli to analyze and process from your eyes and ears, your brain gets a chance to relax.

After about 40 minutes into a float, your brain stops producing its normal Alpha waves, and begins to pump out Theta waves — lower-frequency waves that generally only occur during deep meditation or just before you fall asleep. This state is where your mind’s most deep-seated programs are — the state where people often experience vivid visualizations, great inspiration, and profound creativity.

The only problem? Float tanks are notoriously expensive, and generally take a ton of effort to set up and maintain. Zen Float aims to change that. It’s a fully-capable float tank that also happens to be inflatable, making it a breeze to set up.

“Since this is for the home, we wanted to make sure it looks great in any room.” the creators explain on Kickstarter. “Our new inflatable design is a breeze to set up and looks fantastic right out of the box. We’ve used the same tried and true inflatable technology that can be found in popular stand up paddle boards. When inflated, the tent is completely rigid like solid walls. The barrier of air in the walls also acts as a natural insulator, making the tent extremely efficient.”

Beambox — desktop laser cutter

Laser cutters/engravers are arguably one of the most versatile tools you can have in your workshop. With the right laser diode, they can do everything from etching patterns into leather to cutting super-precise shapes in wood. They can handle a massive range of materials and can be used in a wide variety of different ways. Unfortunately, there aren’t many on the market that are designed for the casual tinkerers and novice DIY types among us. If you want to fiddle with laser cutters, you typically need to know your way around all kinds of complex software and calibration procedures.

Not so with the Beambox. This beast has been designed from the ground up to be ridiculously simple to use. Simply connect your PC, Mac or tablet via Wi-Fi, choose the design you’d like to cut/etch, and hit go. The software makes it nearly foolproof and the machine has presets for just about every material under the sun. Wood, leather, fabric, and even mirrors or anodized aluminum are no problem for Beambox. The integrated software allows for pictures to be engraved directly onto your material, no matter what picture or material you choose.

ForwardX Ovis — auto-follow suitcase

Here’s DT’s Brandon Widder with the scoop: “CES 2018 brought with it a deluge of smart appliances, larger-than-life screens, and a bevy of notable tech that will begin rolling out throughout the course of the year. (Suit)case in point? The recently unveiled ForwardX CX-1, an autonomous piece of luggage that’s designed to follow you around as you make your way from point A to B, and everywhere in between.  Now, four months after its Las Vegas debut, this autonomous suitcase has launched on Indiegogo, with early bird pricing beginning at $399.

Ovis has been branded as the ‘world’s first self-driving carry-on,’ and features an array of advanced tech, including a 170-degree wide-angle lens and built-in facial recognition software, which allow the device to follow you at up to 7 miles per hour throughout the terminal. Other nifty features — namely those tailored toward obstacle avoidance — work in tandem with the suitcase’s tracking algorithms, while a smart wristband works to keep would-be thieves at bay. If the suitcase happens to wander out of range, the bracelet will let you know. When production is complete, the suitcase will allegedly weigh in at just under 10 pounds, and be made of polypropylene and carbon fiber. It’ll also be waterproof and carry an IP56 rating.”

Awesome Tech You Can’t Buy Yet: AR globes, laser cutters, autonomous luggage

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there — alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the fidget spinners and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.

June 3rd

Earth — Interactive AR globe

Spherical scale models of our planet have existed for centuries. Ever since we discovered the Earth is a sphere (which it most definitely is) back in the 3rd century B.C., humans have been building globes and using them to make sense of this pale blue dot we call home. But despite the fact that globes have existed for so long, they haven’t received a significant design update for quite a long time. This Kickstarter project aims to change that.

Earth, as it’s called, is essentially a high-detail physical globe with augmented reality superpowers. Fire up the accompanying smartphone app and you can access information about the planet — in real time — as you hold it in your hands.

“Beyond the physical globe of EARTH, the AstroReality App contains a wealth of scientific knowledge selected to show our planet as a dynamic and interconnected system,” the creators explain on Kickstarter. “This knowledge was developed by researchers from around the world and made public for us to share with you. AstroReality’s developers are working with our science advisor, J.R. Skok, PhD, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, to put the stories of EARTH into your hands.”

RaceYa — STEM-teaching RC cars

Robots that teach kids STEM skills are a dime a dozen these days. Most are just a slightly different take on the same exact idea, but RaceYa is special. Of all the coding/STEM skillbuilding toys we’ve ever seen, it’s arguably one of the best. Why? Well, in addition to being a fully functional RC car, RaceYa is also designed to teach kids STEM principles in a very hands-on and interactive way — a function that doesn’t require them to gaze unblinkingly into a screen for hours on end.

“Tons of studies have shown kids get excited about STEM when they get to do science, not just look at science,” creator Abigail Edgecliffe-Johnson explains on her Kickstarter campaign page. “RaceYa is all about hands-on learning through play. Our activities were designed with Next-Gen Science Standards in mind and have been tested by incredible teachers at science camps, schools and hack days.”

Zen Float — inflatable float tank

Sensory deprivation float tanks are awesome. If you’ve never used one before, or haven’t heard some new-age hippie talking about them, here’s a quick rundown. Essentially, the idea is that you lie down in reservoir of very salty water inside a small pod that’s sealed shut so that no light or sound can enter. As you float there in complete darkness, suspended in the salty water, you’re essentially weightless — which means that your muscles don’t need to stabilize you, and suddenly your body has all these extra resources it can direct back to your brain. With all that extra energy, and no external stimuli to analyze and process from your eyes and ears, your brain gets a chance to relax.

After about 40 minutes into a float, your brain stops producing its normal Alpha waves, and begins to pump out Theta waves — lower-frequency waves that generally only occur during deep meditation or just before you fall asleep. This state is where your mind’s most deep-seated programs are — the state where people often experience vivid visualizations, great inspiration, and profound creativity.

The only problem? Float tanks are notoriously expensive, and generally take a ton of effort to set up and maintain. Zen Float aims to change that. It’s a fully-capable float tank that also happens to be inflatable, making it a breeze to set up.

“Since this is for the home, we wanted to make sure it looks great in any room.” the creators explain on Kickstarter. “Our new inflatable design is a breeze to set up and looks fantastic right out of the box. We’ve used the same tried and true inflatable technology that can be found in popular stand up paddle boards. When inflated, the tent is completely rigid like solid walls. The barrier of air in the walls also acts as a natural insulator, making the tent extremely efficient.”

Beambox — desktop laser cutter

Laser cutters/engravers are arguably one of the most versatile tools you can have in your workshop. With the right laser diode, they can do everything from etching patterns into leather to cutting super-precise shapes in wood. They can handle a massive range of materials and can be used in a wide variety of different ways. Unfortunately, there aren’t many on the market that are designed for the casual tinkerers and novice DIY types among us. If you want to fiddle with laser cutters, you typically need to know your way around all kinds of complex software and calibration procedures.

Not so with the Beambox. This beast has been designed from the ground up to be ridiculously simple to use. Simply connect your PC, Mac or tablet via Wi-Fi, choose the design you’d like to cut/etch, and hit go. The software makes it nearly foolproof and the machine has presets for just about every material under the sun. Wood, leather, fabric, and even mirrors or anodized aluminum are no problem for Beambox. The integrated software allows for pictures to be engraved directly onto your material, no matter what picture or material you choose.

ForwardX Ovis — auto-follow suitcase

Here’s DT’s Brandon Widder with the scoop: “CES 2018 brought with it a deluge of smart appliances, larger-than-life screens, and a bevy of notable tech that will begin rolling out throughout the course of the year. (Suit)case in point? The recently unveiled ForwardX CX-1, an autonomous piece of luggage that’s designed to follow you around as you make your way from point A to B, and everywhere in between.  Now, four months after its Las Vegas debut, this autonomous suitcase has launched on Indiegogo, with early bird pricing beginning at $399.

Ovis has been branded as the ‘world’s first self-driving carry-on,’ and features an array of advanced tech, including a 170-degree wide-angle lens and built-in facial recognition software, which allow the device to follow you at up to 7 miles per hour throughout the terminal. Other nifty features — namely those tailored toward obstacle avoidance — work in tandem with the suitcase’s tracking algorithms, while a smart wristband works to keep would-be thieves at bay. If the suitcase happens to wander out of range, the bracelet will let you know. When production is complete, the suitcase will allegedly weigh in at just under 10 pounds, and be made of polypropylene and carbon fiber. It’ll also be waterproof and carry an IP56 rating.”

Automate your life with Apple Workflow, the most powerful app you’re not using

Few things in life are as convenient as automation — IFTTT, anyone? — which allows us to blaze through life’s more monotonous tasks with the utmost ease. Apple knows this, which is why the Cupertino-based company has developed Workflow, a powerful automation tool that’s designed to expedite your everyday tasks.

The concept is clever: The app has a bunch of triggers and actions you can set from within the app, which you can then execute from top to bottom with the mere press of a button. Moreover, because the app was made by Apple, it can access a host of system-related utilities that third-party apps wouldn’t be able to access. Using Workflow, you can quickly grab the top stories from Apple News, for instance, or create a collage using some of your most recent photos.

Apple’s suggested uses for the app, however, are only the tip of the iceberg. To make the most of the app, you should use it to automate the tasks you perform on a daily basis. If you save a little bit of time here or there on things you do all the time, it’s going to have a far greater impact than if you were to set it up to automate something you do once a month. The app is really only limited to your own imagination.

To begin automating a task, download the Workflow app from the App Store. Then, launch the app and tap the My Workflows tab — or the Gallery tab, if you want to use a pre-made action — in the upper-right corner. Once there, select Create Workflow and choose one of the four workflows outlined below.

Type of workflow
Accessible from:

Normal
The Workflow app (iOS)

Today Widget
The Today View (iOS)

Apple Watch
Your Apple Watch (WatchOS)

Action Extension
The Share Menu (iOS)

Once you’ve chosen a workflow, swipe right, which will bring up the Actions menu. From here, you can search for your desired action or select an action from the list of available suggestions. Once you’ve settled on an action, drag it to the right to add it to your current workflow. If you want to include an additional action, one that will take place after the first, swipe right and repeat the process.

To edit your workflow, tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner. The resulting menu will contain a slew of different settings, allowing you change the workflow type and name it, among other things. When satisfied, tap Done in the upper-right corner to leave your workflow within the app, or select Add to Home Screen to launch the workflow within Safari. From there, you’ll want to tap Share and Add to Home Screen.

That’s it! Again, the app is only limited by your imagination, so experiment with different workflows. Makng your life easier has never been, well, easier.

David Cogen — a regular contributor here at Digital Trends — runs TheUnlockr, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him on Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.

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Mark your calendars — more than 150 new emojis are coming on June 5

Your vocabulary is about to expand. And you won’t even need to pick up a dictionary. Come Tuesday, June 5, we’ll be blessed with the arrival of more than 150 new emojis, which will come as part of Unicode Version 11.0. These new emojis will help you express yourself via text in new ways, and will feature a wide range of new faces, as well as animals, objects, and symbols.

In total, there will be 157 new emojis. Folks with red or grey  hair will be pleased to know that they are now represented by these little images, and no longer will you only have the option of sending a straight-haired emoji. That’s right, friends — curly hair is finally here, as are emojis with no hair at all. So if you want to send a bald man to your dad, have at it.

There are also cold and hot faces to express your displeasure at the weather, as well as superheroes and villains depending on how you’re feeling on any given day, and a new leg, foot, and party face.

It’s not just humans that are newly represented in Unicode Version 11.0. There are also 10 new animals, like a peacock, a hippopotamus, and just in time for summer, a mosquito. As for non-living objects, there is the addition of a bar of  soap, a lab coat, and a particularly science-forward strand of DNA. If you’re looking for something a bit less academic, you might also find a skateboard, chess pawn, and a pirate flag.

And of course, no emoji update would be complete without a few new food items. In the latest version, we’re granted access to a cupcake and  a mango.

Before you get too excited about sending these emojis to your friends and family members, keep in mind that companies will have to add Unicode 11 support before you’re able to access the new images. We can expect Apple and Google to update their operating systems, and companies like Twitter to provide support as well. After all, when there’s a new crop of emojis on the horizon, we’re only too eager to begin using them.

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Amazon is not liable for an exploding hoverboard that burned down a house

A judge in Tennessee has ruled that Amazon is not liable for the damage and injuries caused when a hoverboard exploded and burned down a family’s home, CNBC reports. The plaintiff, Megan Fox, argued that Amazon did not properly warn her family about the dangers of the product, but the judge did not agree with her.

In 2015, the Nashville mother bought her 13-year-old son a hoverboard for Christmas. The devices were very popular at the time, with Amazon selling a quarter of a million in a month’s time. Back then, there were no standards or safety regulations governing hoverboards. On January 9th, the hoverboard caught fire and exploded. Fox’s home was lost in the fire and her husband suffered two broken bones.

In her lawsuit, Fox argued that because the hoverboard was purchased from Amazon, the online retail giant was partially responsible for the product’s safety issues. Judge William Campbell dismissed the case before it went to trial, saying that Amazon was merely acting as a middleman.

The plaintiff’s lawyer, Stephen Anderson, said that they are currently considering appealing the judge’s ruling.

Internal documents reveal that Amazon was aware that that the hoverboards could have had problems. Amazon did reach out to customers offering them a refund before eventually removing the potential rolling bombs from the storefront altogether. Amazon points out that it was the first retailer to do so.

“As a customer obsessed [sic] company, we closely monitored potential risks with hoverboards since they were first offered for sale, regardless of whether sold directly by Amazon or by sellers on our stores. As the Consumer Product Safety Commission noted at the time, when we learned of safety concerns about this toy, we were the first retailer to proactively stop sales, issue an alert, and refund customers. We continue to invest in our teams and technologies so we can improve our early detection systems and protect customers.” an Amazon spokesperson told Digital Trends.

Campbell’s decision is not the first time that the courts have agreed with Amazon’s middleman argument. In 2015, Heather Oberdorf was partially blinded after a retractable dog leash hit her in the face. The leash was purchased on the Amazon marketplace, but Oberdorf could not locate any representatives of the leash’s manufacturer.

The judge overseeing the case said that Amazon was not liable to Oberdorf because the Amazon Marketplace acts as a “sort of newspaper classified ad section, connecting potential consumers with eager sellers in an efficient, modern, streamlined manner.”

Oberdorf’s attorney David Wilks disagrees and told CNBC that he believes Amazon should be held to the same standards as brick and mortar retailers. For now, however, Amazon does not have to play by those rules.

“Amazon is prolific and dominant and only getting bigger and throwing brick-and-mortar stores out of business left and right,” Wilks said. “But they don’t have to play by the same rules.”

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‘Wingman’ matchmaking app makes dating less dreadful for you and your friends

App Attack is a weekly series where we search the App Store and Google Play Store for the best apps of the week. Check out App Attack every other Sunday for the latest.

Dating in 2018 is an interesting concept — it’s more likely a couple has met online first, and in real-life second. But for those who are still too hesitant to jump on the dating app train, we have an app that might give you the nudge you need — with the help of a friend.

Wingman, available for iOS and Android, isn’t your typical dating app. Rather than signing up on your own, you get to recruit a friend to sign up and create your profile for you. Based on the concept of an actual “wingman,” the app allows your friends to take control over who you match with and helps make swiping left and right feel like less of a chore.

Upon first discovering the app, I immediately had to text one of my closest friends, who also happens to be my roommate. Having been friends for over two years now, we’re both very well aware of one another’s dating history. But now that we live together, there’s no avoiding either hearing about or even meeting the guys we’re each dating. The routine always remains the same too: we discuss our opinions of how we felt about each other’s guy because at times, we trust one another’s instincts more than our own.

That’s why when Wingman‘s founder, Tina Wilson, told me the story of how she thought of the idea, I found comfort in the fact that both my roommate and I aren’t any different from others trying to navigate the dating scene.

“I was never comfortable dating online. Most of my single friends were in relationships … they were unable to come out on the single circuit with me, yet they were always very interested in my dating life and wanted to support my journey” Wilson told Digital Trends, “When I finally got online, they were my champions — sitting alongside me helping me write my profile, choosing who I should go out with. I remember thinking it’d be really cool if we were able to do this remotely.”

Wilson’s experience heavily reminds me of my friends in long-term relationships, who find it entertaining to take my phone and swipe through for my dating apps for me simply because they miss how fun it was. With Wingman, you’re able to do the same but actually make some progress rather than absentmindedly go through the motions.

That’s why when my roommate actually downloaded the app and invited me to be her Wingman, I was excited to help. Once you accept the invite, you’re able to start filling out all the information about your single friend. This might’ve been the part I was most nervous about — after all, writing about how you actually feel about your friend can either make or break the friendship.

But it had to be done — so we both sat on my bed as I started nervously crafting a short bio. Of course she wanted to approve of it, so when I felt confident in what I wrote, I handed over my phone. She was excited about it and I’m almost positive I heard the words “this is spot on.” To add to the bio, you’re provided with a short questionnaire of about three questions where you can choose between what your friend likes most.

Aside from adding a bio, the only other information you get to choose from is whether your friend is into men, women, or both, along with your relationship to the person and how long you’ve known them. As for filters, there aren’t many in comparison to other dating apps like Hinge, which allow you to pick from a plethora of things you like and dislike. With Wingman, all you can filter are the distance settings and age settings — which Wilson expressed was done on purpose.

“In the first iteration of [Wingman], there were so many options, so many things you could do. When we actually put that out and started testing it, I think people were confused … I think because it’s different, it doesn’t have anything that is comparable to it … we had to really make sure it was clear what people were doing,” Wilson said. Essentially, she expressed that she wanted “to keep it really simple [and] to create a platform that enables us to introduce our friends to great people, and have some fun along the way.”

Simplifying the process made the setup far more enjoyable — since we signed up through Facebook we didn’t have to upload additional photos. Once everything was complete, the swiping began. The experience was definitely an interesting one — after all, her fate basically lies in my hands. I found myself having to thoroughly think through each and every swipe knowing that I now had her trust to pick a good one. She’s also able to swipe through potential matches as well, but can’t actually pick “like” or “dislike.” It will instead send the potential candidate to me and then I’m able to make the final call on whether I swipe right or left.

Since Wingman has only been around in the U.S. since January, there weren’t too many guys to swipe through. I often found myself having to increase the distance or the age range in order to find more options. Hopefully, the user base will increase over time and provide far more choices without me having to constantly switch up my settings (after all, I remember having the same experience with Hinge and even Bumble when both apps first came out). It also didn’t keep me from swiping before I went to bed or even while on the subway.

When you do swipe right on someone, your friend’s profile is immediately sent to that person. If they’re also interested and it’s a match, then your friend automatically connects to them and can start a conversation. Unfortunately, you can’t insert yourself into whatever it is they’re talking about (although I wish you could). You’ll probably instead receive screenshots of the conversation from your friend and can help from there. Or, if you’re me, you’re lucky enough to the live with the person and can watch the conversation happen in real time!

As of now, I have yet to fulfill my duty as a Wingman by finding “the one right now,” but the search continues. We’ll definitely update this article if we experience any Wingman success stories.

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The best portable chargers for quickly juicing your devices

We’ve all suffered the sudden, all-encompassing horror of a dead phone. The accusing looks and hushed criticism of family and friends. That blank screen on the commute home that leaves you at the mercy of your chatty fellow traveler. The sudden loss of Google Maps as you turn into an unfamiliar neighborhood. The sinking feeling as you realize your phone alarm didn’t go off because you forgot to plug it in last night. Why, oh, why must our smartphones die?

We feel your pain and that is why we’ve been checking out some of the best portable chargers on the market. Until there is a real breakthrough in battery technology, a portable charger might be the best solution. We have something here for you, whatever your needs may be, from a bucketload of power for a camping trip to a pocket-friendly solution for your daily commute. These are 21 of the best portable chargers that money can buy. If you’re looking for charging cables, be sure to check out our picks for the best lightning cables and USB Type-C cables.

Anker PowerCore II 20,000

Simon Hill / Digital Trends

• Capacity: 20,000mAh
• Outputs: 2 ports (18W and 12W)
• Weight: 369g (13oz)
• Price: $54
• Time to fully charge: Around 5 hours

We’re big fans of Anker’s understated and practical designs. The PowerCore II packs in a huge 20,000mAh capacity without being ridiculously big, though it is something you’ll want to sling in a bag rather than your pocket. It features two USB outputs. PowerIQ 2.0 can put out up to 18W, which breaks down to 3A at 5V, 2A at 9V, and 1.5A at 12V. PowerIQ 1.0 can put out 12W up to 2.4A at 5V. Regardless of your device, you should be able to get decent charging speeds from this portable battery. The only thing it lacks is a USB-C port.

Compared to previous Anker offerings, there are a couple of new features here. The power button is now round and it houses a ring of white LEDs, which are designed show you how much power remains. There’s also a textured surface on the outside, so it’s less likely to slip out of your hand or slide away from the back of your phone while you’re charging your device.

This battery’s robust capacity should also provide you with more than enough power to fully charge a Galaxy S9 four times, and it will charge an iPhone 8 more than six times. It’s also quick to charge, at just five hours, provided you have a decent wall charger (not included). All in all, this portable battery charger represents great value for the money.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

RAVPower HyperAir Wireless Portable Charger

Simon Hill/Digital Trends

• Capacity: 10,400mAh
• Outputs: 1 port and Qi wireless charging (2.4A and 10W)
• Weight: 325g (11.4oz)
• Price: $66
• Time to fully charge: Around 5 to 6 hours

This won’t be for everyone, but if you’ve gotten used to your wireless charger at home and you don’t want to plug cables in anymore, then it might be the ideal accessory for you. This portable wireless charger has a capacity of 10,400mAh, which means it can charge up a Galaxy S9 twice or an iPhone 8 four times via the USB port with a cable. However, the top also has a soft touch circle where you can place any Qi compatible phone for wireless charging. It supports Apple’s fast wireless charging at 7.5W and Samsung’s fast wireless charging at 10W. You won’t get quite as much power out of it with wireless charging, but it’s a lot easier than plugging in and it means you don’t need to carry a cable at all.

We’re not blown away by the design — it resembles a rounded brick with the USB-A, MicroUSB for recharging the unit, and power button at one end. There’s the standard four LED display on top with the helipad-style, rubbery, enhanced grip circle in the middle. Land your phone there and it will start charging wirelessly at top speed straight away — we tested it with an iPhone 8 and a Galaxy S7 Edge and fast charging worked for both. There’s also a green LED on the side that comes to life to show you when wireless charging is working (though your phone already does that, so it seems superfluous to us).

If you’re after as much power as you can get in as small a form factor as possible, then this one is not for you. There are other portable chargers that offer more for less — including one from RAVPower further down our list. But if you want to wave goodbye to cables and enjoy that wireless charging convenience wherever you go then this could be the one.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Saber Romeo Power Bank

• Capacity: 24,000mAh
• Outputs: 4 ports (90W, 60W, 12.5W, and 5W)
• Weight: 1kg (35.3oz)
• Price: $300
• Time to fully charge: Around 2 hours

Want something tough, powerful, and capable of charging all your devices on the go? The Romeo Saber Power Bank is unlike anything we’ve seen before. This squared tube is 10.5 inches long and 2.36 by 2.28 inches across. It comes in black, blue, or eye-catching red and it’s bursting with charging possibilities. Open one end and you will find a universal AC outlet capable of delivering up to 90W for a laptop. Open the other end and you have a USB-C port and two standard USB ports, as well as a round DC port for charging up the Saber itself.

The flaps at either end aren’t just for show, this is dust and water resistant. It’s also shockproof, so you shouldn’t have any issues if it gets tossed around in a bag or dropped. There’s a power button on the side with a standard four LED display to show off the remaining power, but it also supports Bluetooth so you can see precisely how much juice the Saber has left on your phone. You can even set it to notify you when power is getting low.

Despite the huge capacity, this is still TSA and FAA approved, so you can take it on a flight with you. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that you can charge it up in just two hours, though you’ll need to use the dedicated power supply provided. There is no doubt it’s expensive, but if you’re a frequent flyer or you like to go camping, it seems like a perfect way to ensure your devices never run out of power.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Flux Portable Charger

Simon Hill / Digital Trends
Simon Hill/Digital Trends

• Capacity: 4,000mAh
• Output: 2 built-in cables (1A and 2.1A)
• Weight: 92g (3.2oz)
• Price: $26
• Time to fully charge: 3 to 4 hours

This is one of the slimmest portable chargers we’ve ever come across. If you’re really looking for something pocket-sized, the Flux Charger is worth more than just a glance. It’s a mere 7.8-millimeters thick and measures 108 x 62.8 millimeters. It’s also incredibly light, but holds enough power to fully recharge your phone at least once, possibly twice. It’s finished with a durable black or white aluminum, and features two built-in cables, a Micro USB cable, and a MFi-certified Lightning cable. There’s also a Micro-USB port for charging, which comes with a short Micro USB to USB cable.

Tap the small button on the side, and the four tiny LEDs light up to show remaining power. It doesn’t support fast charging, though, and we found that it took a couple of hours to charge the large battery in the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Fortunately, it should fully charge an iPhone in around an hour. The input for charging it is 1.5A, so it takes a while to fully charge, but it does support pass-through charging, so you can plug it into the wall and your phone at the same time. If you like the design, but you need more power then check out the 10,000mAh Flux Charger Plus for $52.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Flux

EasyAcc MegaCharge D20

Simon Hill / Digital Trends
Simon Hill/Digital Trends

• Capacity: 20,000mAh
• Outputs: 4 ports (3A each)
• Weight: 370g (13oz)
• Price: $50
• Time to fully charge: Around 4 hours

This chunky battery pack in black plastic has a distinctive orange stripe around it. We’re not in love with the look, but it contains a whopping 20,000mAh of power and an unusual array of input and output ports. The green USB port supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0, and also Huawei’s fast charging standard, FCP. There are two black USB ports capable of up to 3A and there’s also a USB-C port that can deliver the same. Move round to the side and you’ll find a Micro USB port and another USB-C port for charging the battery up. Interestingly these inputs can be plugged in simultaneously to enable you to charge the battery up faster — bringing charging time down to around four hours, which is pretty impressive for this capacity.

You’ll find the standard four LED array on the top to show you remaining power in 25 percent chunks. There’s a power button on the side and you can double press it to fire up the LED flashlight, which is a handy extra that makes this a good choice for camping. EasyAcc includes a short, 24-inch USB to USB-C cable and a USB-to-Micro USB cable that’s the same length in the box. It does support pass-through charging, so you can plug it in to charge and plug your phone into it to charge at the same time.

We think you can expect at least four full charges for the majority of smartphones out there and probably more than that for phones with smaller batteries, like the iPhone 8. Weighing up the complete package we think this is good value for money and worth considering if you need a lot of power and want to be able recharge it in a hurry.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Tronsmart Presto Power Bank

• Capacity: 10,000mAh
• Outputs: 2 ports (3A/18W and 2.4A/15W)
• Weight: 210g (7.4oz)
• Price: $23
• Time to fully charge: Around 4 hours

This compact portable charger is slim and light, but packs a big capacity of 10,000mAh. It has two USB ports for charging up your devices. The green one can put out 18W and supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 standard, as well as Huawei’s FCP, so it can juice up certain phones very quickly. You can expect two or three charges from this battery for most smartphones.

The design is an unobtrusive black and the outer shell is finished in soft-touch plastic, so it’s comfortable to handle. There’s a button on the side to turn it on, and you’ll find a typical four LED battery level indicator on the top. It can be charged up via the MicroUSB port and should juice up quickly, provided you use a decent cable and wall charger with it.

It comes with a USB-A to MicroUSB cable in the box and a travel pouch. Tronsmart also offers an 18-month warranty.

Buy one now from:

Amazon

Belkin Pocket Power Charger

• Capacity: 5,000mAh
• Outputs: 1 port (2.4A)
• Weight: 131g (4.6oz)
• Price: $25-plus
• Time to fully charge: Around 5 hours

Here’s a fairly small, lightweight option from Belkin that will charge up an iPhone around one-and-a-half times, and should provide at least one full charge for most other smartphones. There’s a single USB port that puts out up to 2.4A, and a MicroUSB port for charging it up that’s rated at 2A.

It’s durable, with a plastic casing that comes in your choice of pink, black, or silver. It’s small enough to slip into a pocket or handbag. There’s a power button on the side with four LEDs that light up green to show remaining power in 25 percent chunks. You get a 6-inch MicroUSB to USB cable in the box with it.

If you need more capacity, then Belkin does offer 10,000mAh ($40) and 15,000mAh ($50) models that sport two USB ports for charging. Belkin offers a special $2,500 Connected Equipment Warranty that guarantees a repair or replacement if your device is damaged by an electrical charge while properly connected to the charger.

Buy one now from:

Amazon Belkin

Simon Cowell says no longer using a smartphone is a ‘very strange experience’

For many people, smartphone separation anxiety is a thing. Misplacing your device or having to put it way for a period of time can, in some cases, result in a faster heart rate, clammy hands, and even a few beads of sweat forming on your furrowed brow.

But with smartphones these days used for just about every task known to man — and even, occasionally, for making calls — it’s little wonder that many of us feel the jitters if we can’t use ours precisely when we want.

So its all the more surprising to learn that Simon Cowell hasn’t used his handset in almost a year. Even more startling, he says he feels great for it.

The 58-year-old creator of popular TV talent shows in the U.S. and U.K. told the Mail recently that he ditched his smartphone because he started to find it annoying.

‘I literally have not been on my phone for 10 months,” Cowell said over the weekend.

“The difference it made was that I became more aware of the people around me and way more focused. The thing I get irritated with is when you have a meeting everyone’s on their phone, and I was probably in that place, too. You can’t concentrate.”

Far from causing him stress, Cowell claims life without a phone has actually been “good for my mental health. It’s a very strange experience but it really is good for you and it has absolutely made me happier.”

A quick look at Cowell’s Twitter feed appears to confirm his self-imposed smartphone separation, with his 12.5 million followers having received no new tweets since June 2017.

The media mogul is already known to be a bit of technophobe, confessing years ago that he doesn’t even know how to operate a computer.

Of course, a busy fella like Cowell is likely to have a personal assistant helping him with what must be a hectic schedule, and it’s a safe bet they’re not operating sans smartphone. As for Cowell himself, he looks all set to stay smartphone-free for the foreseeable future.

Time management

While many regular folks will be willing to admit they use their handset a little more than they should, the idea of ditching it entirely will seem like a drastic — and wholly impossible — measure to take.

But now tech companies, it seems, are taking the lead. While certainly not encouraging anyone to discard their handset for good, a growing number of tech firms are trying to encourage people to look more closely at how they engage with their device. Google, for example, is rolling out tools to help users better manage the amount of time they spend on their phone, while YouTube recently added a feature that prompts people to take a break from the video-streaming app after a specified amount of time.

Instagram is also believed to be prepping a time-management tool, while Apple, too, may introduce a similar feature aimed at children after shareholders called on the tech company to look at adding more parental controls.

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EU’s new data protection law being used as bedtime story by meditation app

The European Union’s (EU) new data protection and digital privacy rules landed recently in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), forcing online firms to take greater care in how they gather and use people’s data.

Clearly not one to miss a trick, meditation app Calm has added a reading of the 57,509-word document to its collection of Sleep Stories, confident in the belief that a brief listen to it will be enough to cure even the most wide-eyed of insomniacs.

“New laws aren’t meant to be exciting, but this one could sedate a buffalo,” Calm wrote in a recent blog post about GDPR.

Current Sleep Stories offered by Calm include Blue Gold, The Seventeenth Princess, and The Secret Lagoon narrated by a range of actors, among them Stephen Fry. For the GDPR document, it turned to Peter Jefferson, a former announcer who made a name for himself as the reader of the BBC’s Shipping Forecast, a long-running nightly broadcast detailing sea conditions around the British Isles which is famed for its relaxing theme tune and the soothing tones of those who read it.

“Jefferson’s voice and skill helped the Shipping Forecast to become known … as Britain’s unofficial national lullaby and an accidental natural sleep aid of rare potency,” Calm noted in its blog post.

The company has called the latest addition to its Sleep Stories collection Once Upon a GDPR, and invites listeners to simply “lie back, wind down, and drift off to … the sound of the new legal regulation.”

For reasons unknown — perhaps Jefferson couldn’t make it to the end without dozing off — Calm has declined to include the entirety of the 209-page document in Once Upon a GDPR. Instead, the announcer says he hopes to offer “a taste of it by reading a lengthy extract from the 107-page introduction, and then, if you’re still awake, one or two of the more relaxing articles that make up the real heart of the document.” The entire recording lasts 40 minutes, by which time you should be well and truly conked.

Calm is available for iOS and Android, and offers in-app purchases.

“Insomnia is a modern epidemic,” says Alex Tew, co-founder of Calm. “The search for a cure is a modern Holy Grail. GDPR may be our new best hope.”

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