Today’s massive Fitbit Charge 2 update is a good reason to make fitness a New Year’s resolution
A fitness-centric firmware update just in time for the new year.
If you’ve been holding out on that Fitbit Charge 2, today’s news might finally entice you to try one out — especially if you’re like the rest of humanity and you’re attempting to make 2017 your “year of fitness.” I know I am for the tenth time!
Fitbit launched a massive update to the Charge 2’s firmware that enables six new major feature additions. They include (in handy list form):
- Workout pause function
- Guided breathing vibration cues
- Do Not Disturb option
- Improved Heart-rate zone display
- On-device battery life
- New clock face
Let’s be honest, you’ll keep the fitness regimen up for about two weeks until you give up and realize that old habits die hard. After all, there’s nothing more comforting than eating a bucket of fried chicken while snuggling on the couch with the latest reality television. We work too hard to do anything else.
Fitbit has also bundled in five more features on top of the aforementioned list that require just a little more explaining. They include intuitive intervals, which vibrates the band when it’s time to transition to your next set of weights, for instance; workout recaps that last an hour after you’ve finished, so you can study your progress after the fact; smarter, simpler notifications; caller identification, so that you can ignore any unknown callers interrupting your workout; and message prioritization — because you want to hear from the kids, but not from your husband.
This update is also particularly good news for those of you who may have already purchased a Fitbit Charge 2 for a pal or family member. Be sure to include an enthusiastic “update before using!” message in the Christmas card, so that the gift receiver knows they can do more than just track their steps with this Very Thoughtful Gift.
See Fitbit Charge 2 at Amazon
Encrypted chat app Signal circumvents government censorship
Just days after Open Whisper Systems concluded the Egyptian government had blocked access to its encrypted messaging service, Signal, the company rolled out an update that circumvents large-scale censorship systems across Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The update also adds the ability to apply stickers, text and doodles to images, but that’s just icing on the censorship-evading cake.
“Over the weekend, we heard reports that Signal was not functioning reliably in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates,” Open Whisper Systems writes. “We investigated with the help of Signal users in those areas, and found that several ISPs were blocking communication with the Signal service and our website. It turns out that when some states can’t snoop, they censor.”
Open Whisper Systems circumvents filtering systems with domain fronting, a technique that routes all messages through a popular domain name — in this case, Google. All Signal messages sent from an Egypt or UAE country code will look like a normal HTTPS request to the Google homepage.
In order to block Signal in these countries, the governments would have to disable Google.
“The goal for an app like Signal is to make disabling internet access the only way a government can disable Signal,” the company says. The blog post continues, “With enough large-scale services acting as domain fronts, disabling Signal starts to look like disabling the internet.”
Source: Signal
FCC Republicans promise to limit net neutrality when ‘possible’
If you’re worried that the US government will stomp on net neutrality the moment Trump becomes President, your concerns are well-founded. The FCC’s two Republican Commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, have sent a letter to carrier lobbying groups promising to “revisit” net neutrality rules “as soon as possible” — that is, once Chairman Tom Wheeler leaves and the right wing gets majority control of the agency. They write that the requirements for traffic fairness and transparency create “unjustified burdens” for providers, and previously said that they intended to “undo” net neutrality and other policies opposed by their party.
The letter is ostensibly about extending an exemption to transparency rules for small internet and wireless providers. The net neutrality order exempted providers with 100,000 or fewer customers until December 15th of this year, but Pai and O’Rielly pushed for a compromise measure that would keep the exemption going for networks with 250,000 or fewer users.
This doesn’t mean that net neutrality will die as soon as Trump is sworn in. As Ars Technica observes, a proposed rule change like this would require months of procedure and public comment before it can take effect. However, it’s safe to say that net neutrality will eventually lose a lot of its thunder under the new administration, assuming it survives at all. At the least, it’s doubtful that the FCC will grill telecoms over zero-rating and other policies that effectively dodge neutrality regulations.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: FCC (PDF)
Russia successfully tested a missile that could cripple US satellites
According to Pentagon officials, Russia has successfully completed tests of an anti-satellite missile that could be capable of crippling the US military communications and navigation network. The test, which went off on December 16th, was actually the third successful launch of the PL-19 Nudol missile, and according to a new report from Business Insider, those same top-ranking Pentagon officials believe that the US’s reliance on satellite networks — and our lack of similar anti-satellite weapons — makes the United States essentially an easy target in space.
Although Russia claims the Nudol missiles are meant to be used defensively against incoming enemy weapons, the Pentagon classifies them as “direct ascent” anti-satellite weapons. And US intelligence officials estimate that it would only take “two dozen or so anti-satellite attacks” to wreak havoc with US military operations, which rely on the network for everything from navigation and communications to targeting and intelligence purposes.
“Potentially, it could result in our defeat in a high intensity conflict,” former Pentagon strategic arms policymaker Mark Schneider said. “The complete loss of the GPS network, or its serious degradation, would eliminate the effectiveness of all existing long-range conventional strike cruise missiles and would degrade the functioning of many of our precision guided weapons.”
While the US has been taking steps to move away from its reliance on GPS, the Russian military also has plans for a terrestrial missile jamming systems. On the offensive front, the Pentagon likely won’t divulge what sort of anti-satellite capabilities the US has, but an Air Force proposal for anti-satellite lasers was shot down years ago and other anti-satellite programs have apparently been halted since the late eighties, although the Navy did shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite in 2008.
Meanwhile, beyond the Nudol test, Russia and China are both reportedly developing other orbital weapons like anti-satellite lasers and smaller satellites capable of physically attacking America’s space infrastructure. As Heritage Foundation defense analyst Michaela Dodge explained, the successful tests should be a wake-up call to the US to “treat space as an increasingly contested environment where access might not be guaranteed as it has been in the past.”
Source: Washington Free Beacon, Business Insider
Hoaxy visualizes how fake news spreads across social media
We’re at the point where the proliferation of fake news online has had extreme offline consequences. While Google has poured funds into battling misinformation and Facebook has asked its users to rate headlines for truthfulness, Indiana University is going about things a different way. Hoaxy, a project from IU’s Center for Complex Networks and System Research, is a search engine that tracks the spread of fake news stories, visually.
As CNET explains, the tool, currently in beta, indexes 132 sites responsible for writing fake news stories and illustrates how the links travel across social media. Beyond that, it will also keep an eye on sites that serve to further conspiracy theories, like Info Wars does, or those that twist real news stories into wholesale falsehoods.
The “Picklegate” clips start around 70 seconds in.
For example, searching for “pickle jar” brings back 20 results claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton opened a pre-opened jar of pickles to prove how healthy she was on late-night TV. Many come from Alex Jones (above) of Info Wars.
Selecting one, and then hitting “visualize” brings back a graph showing tweets and a timeline of when the story was most active. On the right side of the page is a network map illustrating the source of the link, who’s retweeted it and where it’s picked up the most traction.
The web app can be a bit kludgy at times (it’s a beta after all) but it offers a unique way to look at how propaganda can take over the internet and where it originates from.
Via: CNET
Source: Hoaxy
Shortage of OLED Making Machines Could Potentially Impact Production of 2017 iPhone
Amid rumors suggesting Apple is planning on introducing at least one iPhone model with a flexible OLED display in 2017, Bloomberg has taken a closer look at Japanese company Canon Tokki, the corporation responsible for making the machines that will likely be used to create OLED displays for the iPhone.
Canon Tokki is said to produce nearly all of the machines that make OLED Displays. Each ELVESS OLED machine is actually a vacuum production system that’s 328 feet in length and is used to deposit red, blue, and green pixels on a glass surface using evaporating organic materials.
Canon Tokki has developed key technologies for the production process that have significantly reduced the margin of error, leading to much higher yields that other companies can’t compete with.
According to Bloomberg, Canon Tokki reportedly makes less than 10 machines per year and has two-year backlog due to high-demand, but it is not clear if this will have an impact on Apple. Apple is rumored to be using OLED displays produced by Samsung, and much of the equipment may already be on hand.
Samsung’s own line of smartphones have used OLED displays for several years, but Blooomberg does warn that Samsung may not be able to make enough OLED displays to meet Apple’s demand due to low yield rates.
The potential production bottleneck is raising questions over Apple’s ability to feature OLED displays in next year’s iPhones, and whether the Cupertino, California-based company will be able to line up additional suppliers. The current wait for a machine, which can cost more than 10 billion yen ($85 million) each, is about two years.
“We are doing all we can to increase output and make that wait shorter,” said Chief Executive Officer Teruhisa Tsugami, adding that demand from display makers, including Samsung Display Co., LG Display Co. and Sharp Corp., will remain strong for the next three years.
OLED displays offer superior contrast and better power efficiency for improved battery life compared to traditional LCDs. OLED displays can also be made from flexible plastic and can be made much thinner.
According to rumors, Apple will release at least one iPhone model that uses an OLED display in 2017, but rumors have disagreed on what the display will look like. While some rumors suggest the iPhone 8 will use a curved OLED display that wraps around the edges of the device (similar to the Galaxy S7 Edge), others point towards less dramatic curves, suggesting a flat OLED display that eliminates all bezels for an edge-to-edge design.
Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
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Disney is making mini TV series for Snapchat
As Snapchat (or, if you want to be technical, Snap Inc) gets ready for its upcoming IPO, the company has been expanding its scope. No longer just an ephemeral messaging app, Snapchat has grown into a content platform with articles and videos. It’s lately been taking on original TV-like content as well, with an NBC deal to air a The Voice-like show within the app. That library of media is growing, and now a new partner has joined the fray. According to Reuters, Disney’s television arm will create shows for Snapchat, starting with a The Bachelor recap series.
The Snapchat series, titled Watch Party: The Bachelor, will kick off on Jan. 3rd, 2017, a day after the new season airs, according to Reuters. Each episode will be between three to five minutes long, and will be available to view for 24 hours after going live, according to Variety.
This isn’t the first collaboration between the two companies. Disney’s subsidiary ABC had previously teamed up with the app to curate Live Stories around its broadcast of the Academy Awards this February. But the deal to come up with original content for Snapchat could give the app more ways to engage its users and therefore generate more advertising revenue.
In addition to broadening its software offerings, Snap Inc also unveiled its first hardware product this year in the form of $130 video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles. It’s clear the millennial-friendly company has pretty big plans for expansion in the future, and its multi-billion-dollar valuation shows that industry analysts have high hopes for it, too.
Source: Reuters
6 awesome tech gifts Amazon can still deliver before Christmas
Time is running out! Good thing Amazon delivers quickly.
We’ve all been there. You waited a little too long and now you don’t have a gift for someone, right? Don’t panic, don’t stress, there is still a way out of this. Amazon carries some of the best gifts out there and offers some pretty quick shipping methods. If you’re still shopping for people on your list, and need some fresh ideas, here are six great tech gifts you can still have delivered in time for Christmas.
Amazon Prime offers free two-day shipping on all eligible orders, and cheap upgrades on some to get it the next day. If you aren’t already an Amazon Prime member, you should really sign up for a 30-day trial to get the benefits and help save the holiday!
Aukey 30000mAh Quick Charge 3.0 power bank
You can never have too much battery power to make it through the day. Phone batteries have become much better over the years, but there are likely still times that people could use some more power, and this is a perfect solution to that. Avoid having your friends and family stuck sitting next to a wall, and let them charge from anywhere.
This particular one has a 30,000mAh capacity and offers a Quick Charge 3.0 output so you can charge quickly while on the go. Thanks to its huge capacity you should be able to charge your phones and tablets up to 10 times per charge of the pack. It has two USB outputs and charges through Micro-USB or Lightning.
See at Amazon
Nextbit Robin
If you’ve got a friend still holding on to an old smartphone and you want to get them an upgrade, there is still time. You don’t need to know their account information or anything (as long as they aren’t on Verizon or Sprint), because you can just grab them an unlocked phone. Want to be one gift that stands out above the rest? The Nextbit Robin may be just the perfect one.
The unlocked phone has a 5.2-inch 1080p display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of local storage and 100GB of cloud storage. It is available in both midnight and mint color options, and if you act quick you can score a really sweet deal on one. Don’t let them continue thinking that their current phone is “good enough” and let them see what owning something better feels like!
See at Amazon
Choetech Quick Charge 3.0 car charger
Whether just a few minutes or a few hours are spent in the car, having a charger in there is a great idea. These days we rely on our phones for just about everything, so you don’t want to get in the car with a low battery and no way to charge it. Whether you want to use it to listen to music, find a place to eat, or have it navigate you to a new place, all of it uses battery heavily.
Quick Charge 3.0 allows phones to charge up to four times faster than traditional chargers, so this is the one you’ll want to have in your car. The distance or time of your commute won’t matter when every minute that you are plugged in you are getting the fastest charge for your phone.
See at Amazon
Sonos Play:3
Bluetooth speakers are convenient in some ways and annoying in others. They are great for playing music louder than your phone can, but as soon as you walk away with your phone the music stops. With Sonos speakers that isn’t the case, making them a bit more useful for many people. With Sonos, Pandora, Google Play Music and other streaming services, you can set music to play and have it keep going for the whole day, whether you keep the phone there or not.
The speakers are connected to the internet, meaning they can be updated and they won’t be left behind next year. Sonos does a great job of continuing to support its whole line, even when it releases something newer. You’ll pony up some extra cash to get these, but in the long run it is likely well worth it.
See at Amazon
Fitbit Alta
After Christmas comes New Years, which means people are trying to get back on track with new resolutions. Often times people set new fitness foals for themselves, and here’s a great way to support their goals. With Fitbit’s Alta you can not only track how many steps you’ve taken but how you are sleeping, the number of calories that are burned and much more.
Unlike many other fitness trackers, the Alta is actually pretty nice looking, so odds are most people wouldn’t mind wearing it every day. It comes in a few different colors, and three different sizes to pick between.
See at Amazon
Mpow Cheetah Bluetooth headphones
We’ve started seeing some phones released without headphone jacks, so now may be a great time to get the people around you moving over to Bluetooth options. Mpow’s Cheetah headphones are great for running, working out, and sweating at the gym without getting ruined. The behind the ear design ensures that they will remain in place, even when you don’t, and they offer no-lag when listening to music or making a call with the built-in microphone.
Sure, they may not be Jaybird or Bose headphones, but they also don’t carry the same type of price tag. With nearly 4,000 reviews on Amazon, these headphones hold strong at 4 stars with lots of positive remarks.
See at Amazon
Your favorites?
Do you have a favorite tech gift that isn’t listed here but can still arrive before Christmas? If so, be sure to drop a brief description along with the link so that others can check it out!
Google Drive offering discount when you prepay for bulk storage
Bulk discounts available for 100GB and 1TB only.
If you’re an Android user — which you are, because you’re at Android Central, duh — you should consider using Google Drive to sync your files and folders. It’s extremely easy to use, it’s cross-platform, and Google is constantly offering deals on storage plans.
This time, it’s offering discounts if you prepay for storage for the year ahead. The ability isn’t technically live in the mobile app just yet, but as discovered by Android Police, there is an option in the Drive storage settings that lets you prepay for the year ahead.
The bulk discount applies for 100GB and 1TB purchases only. If you’re going higher, you’ll have to pay full price, which rounds out to about US$10 per terabyte per month.
See Google Drive storage plans
Samsung may not update all Galaxy S7 models to the latest Nougat software
Is Samsung sending two different updates for phones with identical hardware?
A report originating from a Vodafone Australia representative says that Samsung will be sending different platform versions of Android to different markets when updating the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 egde.
I’ve checked in with the right people for you @chri5tin3 and @shauno100, and they’ve confirmed the references to Samsung skipping 7.0 refer to other markets and not to Australia. We’re definitely testing 7.0 for both devices.
Samsung has stated the official Android N update for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge will be based on Android 7.1.1. This is the latest version and includes improvements and fixes that aren’t addressed in the 7.0 update. That’s the place where any custom versions of Android should start and we were all happy to hear that news. Today’s news is puzzling if correct.
More: Galaxy S7 Nougat update: Top 10 features to know
Samsung can incorporate their own improvements and fixes to the 7.0 version the same way they can with the latest code. They have to do it because Android is generic before companies like Samsung tailor it to work on their hardware. But having two separate update paths for one device model means more work for Samsung and longer wait times for any updates on at least one model. And maybe both. No reason for the deviation for Vodafone Galaxy S7 models is given.
Of course, any representative can have incorrect information. This may be another case where something was lost when details are given from department to department. But if this is correct, seeing a phone with identical hardware as any being sold in England or Canada with a separate software track isn’t a good thing.
Android Nougat
- Android 7.0 Nougat: Everything you need to know
- Will my phone get Android Nougat?
- Google Pixel + Pixel XL review
- All Android Nougat news
- How to manually update your Nexus or Pixel
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