AirPods User Creates Charging Cradle With 3D Printer

The launch of a new Apple product usually comes along with the debut of many third-party accessories, but the only viable option for AirPods currently being sold are cables that attach to each headphone to prevent drops. One alternative that might see fruition down the road by a few companies is a charging dock that cradles the AirPods case in one convenient place.

This week, Reddit user jimbojsb shared a project on Thingiverse that was created with a Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2 3D printer, resulting in a desktop charging cradle for the AirPods and their charging case. The dock has a hole underneath to pass a Lightning cable through, so when the charging case is placed into it, the AirPods begin charging up again.

If you have the requisite 3D printer, Thingiverse provides all of the files you’ll need to download and print the AirPods Charge Dock for yourself. You can also simply order one that’s already been printed through the site’s “Order This Printed” button.

Check out more pictures of the dock on Thingiverse.

Tag: AirPods
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AirPods Shipping Sooner Than Expected to Many Customers

AirPods became available for purchase on Apple’s website on December 13, and customers who ordered quickly began receiving their shipments as early as December 19. Orders quickly became backlogged, however, and Apple’s shipping estimate slipped to four weeks in less than two hours, and to six weeks by the following day.

For customers that ordered within the past nine days, the six-week wait potentially meant waiting until late January or early February to get the all-new wireless earphones. Fortunately, as is often the case, Apple is now shipping many of those orders sooner than expected, with some deliveries now slated for late December.

AirPods delivered to MacRumors forum member iPhenom
“Just received my shipping notice for my AirPod order,” said MacRumors reader York in an email. “The original delivery date was January 12, but it should arrive on December 28th.” Likewise, another reader with an original December 29 delivery estimate has now seen his AirPods ship with an estimated delivery date of December 23.

In the AirPods order tracking topic in the MacRumors discussion forums, a handful of other customers with estimated delivery dates ranging from December 29 to January 12 claim their AirPods have now shipped for delivery as early as this week. For some of those customers, AirPods will arrive just in time for Christmas.

“Awesome, mine were scheduled for delivery on the 29th, but suddenly they are supposed to get here tomorrow, the 22nd,” said one person. “Order scheduled for delivery on January 12th has shipped with a delivery date of December 28th,” said another, noting his shipment was still in China.

With only three days remaining until Christmas, customers may now be pushing their luck to find AirPods in time for the holidays, but a lucky few have managed to find a pair at an Apple Store or place an order through resellers such as Best Buy and the United Kingdom’s Carphone Warehouse over the past few days.

Other resellers such as Sprint and Verizon have unfortunately been less reliable, as some customers were able to purchase AirPods from these vendors only to later receive an email saying the order could not be fulfilled at this time. AT&T also has AirPods on sale, but it is unclear when orders will ship.

AirPods are Apple’s all-new $159 wireless earphones. The cord-free earphones instantly turn on and connect to your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or Mac when taken out of their charging case thanks to Apple’s custom W1 chip. Likewise, audio automatically plays as soon as you put them in your ears and pauses when you take them out.

AirPods are controlled mainly by Siri. Doubling tapping an earpiece invokes Siri, and voice commands can be used to adjust the volume, change the song, make a call, and so forth. AirPods deliver up to 5 hours of listening time on one charge, and a 15-minute fast charge provides up to 3 hours of listening time.

Tag: AirPods
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Tesla’s UK prices are about to go up by 5 percent

Tesla has sent out an email informing customers and anyone else that’s registered interest in the company’s EVs of an impending 5 percent price in the UK. From January 1st 2017, any custom order will become costlier, while second-hand and showroom vehicles are safe from the hike. It’s not an insignificant jump when you consider it will up the price of the base Model S by almost £3,000 — from £58,900 to £61,845.

It’s actually the second time Tesla has increased UK prices in the past few months, after a roughly 3 percent bump in early October. In the email concerning the 5 percent increase next year, Tesla attributed the decision to “currency fluctuations,” which almost certainly refers to significant drops in the value of the pound following the Brexit vote in June.

Many, many companies have taken to protecting their bottom lines by increasing prices, of course. OnePlus added £20 to the cost of its flagship OnePlus 3 just a couple of weeks after the referendum vote, and recently, Apple quietly hiked the prices of its desktops at the same time it announced the new MacBook Pros.

The 5 percent price hike isn’t the only thing that’s due to impact the cost of Tesla ownership, as any newly purchased vehicle won’t include free, unlimited access to the firm’s Supercharger network from next year (we don’t know what Tesla intends to charge at this point). You can bet the company is thinking long and hard about local pricing for the Model 3, which it intends to announce next year.

With a starting price of $35,000 in the US (roughly £28,000 at the current exchange rate), the Model 3 will be Tesla’s attempt to break out of the luxury niche with a mass-market EV. The more prices increase across the board, though, the more your potential customer base shrinks by default.

Canada sets aggressive targets for minimum broadband speeds

Canadian regulators have declared that all citizens should have access to high-speed internet, even in remote areas. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ruled that minimum broadband speeds of 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds are now a “basic telecommunications service.” Furthermore, it said all customers should have unlimited data options and not be capped, as they often are in rural areas.

The Canadian definition is now double that of the US, and that’s not an accident, as the CRTC carefully considered targeted speeds in other nations. “They are ambitious targets but I think they’re realistic,” CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais told the Globe and Mail. “The U.S. is at 25 [Mbps], Australia’s at 25, Europe generally is targeting 30 and Germany is at 50. So we didn’t want to be in the middle of the pack.”

They are ambitious targets but I think they’re realistic. The U.S. is at 25 Mbps, Australia’s at 25, Europe generally is targeting 30 and Germany is at 50. So we didn’t want to be in the middle of the pack.

While Canadian cities already meet those targets, many rural areas of the vast country have poor speeds and capped data. To help bring them up to par, the CRTC launched a $750 million fund for projects in areas that don’t meet its speed targets. That will go in hand with a $500 million federal fund aimed at beefing up backbone connections going into small communities. All of that will be “complementary to existing and future private investment and public funding,” the regulator said.

The CRTC added that “broadband internet access services are necessary to the quality of life for Canadians and empowers them as citizens, creators and consumers,” adding it’s also necessary for businesses to compete, particularly in smaller communities. The FCC, under Tom Wheeler, used similar arguments in the US to rule that the internet is a utility, not a luxury, giving it more control over what ISPs can and can’t do. Under a Trump administration, however, all of that is now in doubt.

Via: Globe and Mail

Source: CRTC

Prepare for even more volatile weather in 2017

Ice isn’t just great for keeping your drinks cool at parties, it also helps keep our planet cool by reflecting some of the sun’s heat away. But thanks to our steadfast refusal to address climate change, there’s going to be a lot less ice in the Arctic next year. Scientists are observing record high temperatures in the Arctic circle that’s likely to lead to record low levels of ice coverage in 2017. Long story short, we’re currently melting the wall that’s helped stop the seas boiling for all of these years.

Normally, by November, the global temperature has dropped sufficiently that ice can form again in the Arctic ready for the following summer. This year, however, climate scientists saw a spike to -7 celsius (19f) — 15 degrees celsius (27f) warmer than usual. While the readings have fluctuated since November 11, they’re expected to rocket up again in the next few days.

In the same way you’ll flunk your exam if you only start revising for it the week before its due, the planet has had less time to prepare for 2017 than it needed. The knock-on is that when summer rolls around next, there’ll be less ice to reflect back, further warming the planet beyond its capacity to cope. The cause of all of this is, as usual, anthropogenic climate change, which is making random, freak events like this more common with each passing day.

Via: New York Times

Source: Climate Central

Redesigned Photos Web App on iCloud.com Now Available for Everyone

After first testing out a new update to the Photos web app on the iCloud beta website earlier this month, Apple has now rolled out the update to all users (via Mac Generation). The overhaul to the app on iCloud.com introduces a macOS-like Photos experience with a sidebar that can be toggled on and off, and a scrollable thumbnail view of every photo in an album at the bottom of the site when looking at individual pictures.

Previously, Photos on iCloud.com placed albums in a tab bar at the top of the site, so the update makes it easier to navigate multiple albums at once. To top off the navigation tweaks, there are also four action buttons in the top right corner of the web app for uploading, adding, downloading, sharing, and deleting albums and photos.

The Photos web app on iCloud.com is still lacking macOS and iOS features like editing, shared albums, memories, and people, which uses facial recognition to organize your photos on Mac and iPhone. Users can head over to iCloud.com to check out the new Photos update on the site.

Tag: iCloud
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Honda in talks with Alphabet’s Waymo over self-driving car tech

Honda cars will be retrofitted with Waymo’s self-driving tech.

Alphabet’s self-driving car project is in formal talks with Honda over a possible collaboration between the two companies. The partnership will see Waymo integrate its self-driving platform and sensors into Honda cars, with engineers from both companies working closely together.

In the official announcement, Honda mentioned that it will retorfit a few vehicles to accommodate Waymo’s self-driving tech:

As part of the discussion on technical collaboration, Honda could initially provide Waymo with vehicles modified to accommodate Waymo’s self-driving technology. These vehicles would join Waymo’s existing fleet, which are currently being tested across four U.S. cities.

Honda previously announced its intention to put production vehicles with automated driving capabilities on highways sometime around 2020 related to its goal of a collision-free society. In addition to these on-going efforts, this technical collaboration with Waymo could allow Honda R&D to explore a different technological approach to bring fully self-driving technology to market. These discussions are an initial step that will allow Waymo and Honda R&D to further explore the potential of a broad range of automated driving technologies.

If the deal goes through, Honda will be the second automaker to tie up with Waymo. The company has already partnered with Fiat Chrysler to produce 100 self-driving minivans.

How to take a screenshot in MIUI 8

MIUI 8 offers plenty of ways to take a screenshot.

There are three different ways to take a screenshot in MIUI 8, and Xiaomi rolled out a new scrolling screenshot feature that lets you capture an entire page. The operating system is slowly rolling out to more phones, and handsets like the Redmi Note 3 that picked up the update earlier this year are now receiving the Marshmallow-based builds of MIUI 8.

If you’re new to MIUI 8 or are looking for easier ways to take a screenshot, here’s what you need to know.

How to take a screenshot in MIUI 8

Use the power and volume button combination

The fastest way to take a screenshot in MIUI 8 is through the tried and tested combination of pressing down on the power and volume down buttons.

Get to the screen you want to capture.
Press and hold the power and volume down buttons at the same time.
Hold for a few seconds, and you’ll hear the camera shutter accompanied by a short visual indicating the screenshot was captured.
Once the screenshot is taken, it will be accessible for a few seconds from the top right corner of the UI. You’ll be able to share, annotate, or edit the screenshot by selecting it.

Alternatively, you can also press the volume down and menu keys simultaneously to take a screenshot.

Select the screenshot toggle from the notification panel

With MIUI 8, Xiaomi introduced quick toggles in the notification panel. The default pane offers a toggle through which you can quickly take a screenshot. While it’s a convenient way of taking a screenshot, you won’t be able to use this method to take a screenshot of the notification pane itself.

Get to the screen you want to capture.
Swipe down from the top of the screen to access the notification panel.
Select the Screenshot toggle to take a screenshot.

Use Quick Ball to take a screenshot

Quick Ball in MIUI 8 is similar to Assistive Touch in iOS. When enabled, you’ll see a floating circle that lives on top of other apps, giving you quick access to five shortcuts: Home, back, recents, power off, and screenshot.

Go to Settings.
Navigate to Additional settings.
Go to Quick ball.
Toggle Turn on Quick ball.
Once it’s enabled, tap Quick ball to access its shortcuts.
Select the Screenshot shortcut.

Extended screenshot

MIUI 8 offers a scrolling screenshot option that lets you capture a whole page in a single screenshot. To access the feature, you’ll have to take a screenshot first using any of the aforementioned methods. Once the screenshot is taken, you’ll see an animation in the top right corner that shows a preview of the screenshot. Select it, and you’ll see options to edit, share, or delete the screenshot, as well as a scroll feature that lets you extend the screenshot.

Hit Scroll, and MIUI will continue scrolling down to the bottom of the page where it left off. The feature doesn’t work in Chrome, but you will be able to save entire webpages when using the default MIUI browser.

Your turn

That’s a quick look at all the options currently available to take a screenshot in MIUI 8. Select MIUI 8 beta builds also have a nifty option that lets you quickly take a screenshot with a three-finger swipe motion anywhere on the screen.

I wasn’t able to access the option on any of the Xiaomi phones I currently have, but if it shows up in a stable build, I’ll add it to the list.

What’s your preferred way to take a screenshot in MIUI 8?

Google’s free public Wi-Fi is now available at 100 railway stations across India

Free Wi-Fi is now available at 100 railway stations in India.

Back when Google announced that it would offer free Wi-Fi across railway stations in India, it said that it would roll out the service at 100 stations before the end of 2016. With just over a week to go, Google has announced that the free Wi-Fi service is now live in 100 train stations, with Ooty’s Udhagamandalam being the latest addition.

Google revealed that its free Wi-Fi service — offered in collaboration with RailTel — has over 5 million monthly users, with 15,000 daily new additions. Commenting on the occasion, Google India’s head of connectivity Gulzar Azad talked about the service’s impact in the country:

We’re really excited about reaching this milestone and it is an incredible feeling to look back and see how far we’ve come since we announced that we were partnering with Indian Railways and RailTel to provide Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations throughout the country. But what has really inspired us are the stories of how people are using this high-speed access to the full and open Internet. They’re using Railwire Wi-Fi to be more productive with their time and to get things done more efficiently.

Google also shared stories from consumers availing free Wi-Fi and how it has made a difference in their lives. From Bhagwan Sahay, a user from Jaipur:

I visit [Jaipur station] every 3 to 4 days to get fast access to the Internet. I stop there for a few minutes, download apps, update them and get things my daughter wants. She is in 10th grade and uses my smartphone in the evenings to fulfill her educational needs. She also teaches my wife, her mother, to read and write using my smartphone.

Then there’s the story of Bholu, a migrant worker from Bihar:

Traveling usually means I won’t have a good connection. I got so excited when I saw free Wi-Fi here at the station. I just called my wife, and the voice and picture clarity were so good. I haven’t seen her face this clear in so long, whenever I talk the image is blurred because the network isn’t great. She also got so excited to see my call, she was very surprised to see me. I feel so good after speaking to her. I can’t stop smiling.

With cellular connectivity still out of reach for a majority of the population,Google’s Wi-Fi initiative is certainly helping million of people interact with their friends and family, catch up on news, learn new skills, and even look for job opportunities. For its part, Google has said that it is committed to bringing the service to 400 railway stations across the country.