Samsung’s Print Service app now supports 88 million different printers

Printing from your Samsung Galaxy phone just got a whole lot easier.

Samsung’s Print Services app — you can find it here in Google Play if it didn’t come installed on your phone — has been updated to support the Mopria Print library. That means your Samsung phone can now connect to any of over 88 million printers, regardless of the brand or requirements for speciality apps.

“Samsung continues to develop easier ways for today’s on-the-go consumer or business professional to print from their mobile devices that surpass the “File>Print” experience from their PCs and laptops,” said Matt Smith, Vice President, Printing Solutions, Samsung Electronics America. “Adding the Mopria Print Library to Samsung Print Service is just the latest effort in our continued leadership within the Mopria Alliance to remove the barriers users face when trying to print to multiple printer brands.”

We know that most of us aren’t printing things from our phones, but if you’ve ever had to do it you know pairing a wireless printer to any phone can be a pain. This update takes all the guesswork and multiple app installs out of the picture and should provide a much better experience.

Samsung says the update is now pushing out for folks using a Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6, or Galaxy S7. You can read the full press release.

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Google Home’s interchangeable bases now available at the Google Store

One of the things that separates Google Home from its competition is the ability to swap out the base for another color or material. Google told us about them during the unveiling at Google I/O 2016, but we haven’t seen them available until today.

For $20, you can get fabric bases in mango, marine or violet (orange, blue or purple if you’re not up on the latest). For $40, you can get a metal base in carbon, copper or snow. Shipping is free on all orders.

While this won’t change the way Google Home works, it might make it fit in better with your living room decor.

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Catalyze your next tech career with the CompTIA-IT Certification Career Advancement Bundle (98 per cent)

Certifications are essential for breaking into the tech world, and while there are many to choose from, few carry as much weight as a CompTIA certification.

Whether you’re looking to get into online security or network administration, the CompTIA-IT Certification Career Advancement Bundle can help you land the certifications you need to get your foot in the door.For a limited time, the CompTIA-IT Certification Career Advancement Bundle is on sale for just £48.40 ($59 USD).

Featuring a whopping 420 hours of IT training, this course collection will help you ace the following certification exams:

• CompTIA A+ 220-901 And 220-902
• CompTIA Cloud Essentials
• CompTIA Cloud+
• CompTIA Network+
• CompTIA Security+ SYO-401

Starting with the A+ certifications, you’ll learn the basic skills needed to start working in IT. From there, you can steer your career in a specific direction with the cloud and network security certifications. These certifications will validate your skills and make you eligible for careers in ethical hacking, network administration, and much more.

What’s more, since CompTIA’s certifications are vendor-neutral, you can take them to any employer. Make your way through the entire collection, and you’ll emerge with a broad skillset perfect for making your entrance into a new industry.

The CompTIA-IT Certification Career Advancement Bundle usually retails for £3,362, but you can get it on sale for just £48.40 ($59 USD)–that’s 420 hours of training for over 90 per cent off.

Get a cutting-edge phone for free by entering the Google Pixel XL Phone Giveaway

Google has finally entered the smartphone game, and its Pixel smartphone is shaping up to be a real contender.

Boasting a fast-charging battery and the market’s highest-rated smartphone camera, the Pixel makes for a tempting upgrade. But before you shell out the money for one, try your hand at winning a Pixel XL for free in The Google Pixel XL Phone Giveaway.

Featuring the top-rated 89 DxOMark Mobile score, the Pixel is adept at taking photos in any environment. It shoots at 12.3mp for extra sharp images and uses an f/2.0 aperture to make even the darkest shots look bright.

However, the camera isn’t the only thing about the Pixel that’s turning heads. The Pixel’s battery can last for about a day of moderate usage, but that’s nothing special. What is special, however, is the fact that it can charge up to seven hours of battery life in only 15 minutes. Combine that with its cinematic display, and you’ll be watching videos for hours on end with absolutely no problem.

What’s more, the Pixel is the first phone to come with the Google Assistant built in—Google’s answer to Apple’s siri. This voice-controlled virtual assistant answers all your questions, manages your tasks and schedule, and much more.

Google’s Pixel XL usually retails for £712, but you can save your money and win it for free by entering the Google Pixel XL Phone Giveaway.

Hydroponic gardens could end Arctic food shortages

You don’t have a wide variety of food choices if you live in remote parts of the Arctic. Some consumables can take so long to arrive that they’re already past their “best before” dates, and that’s assuming they arrive in the first place — shortages are considerably more common. However, Alaskan companies Native Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corp and Vertical Harvest Hydroponics could make fresh greens a mainstay even in more inaccessible regions. They’ve developed indoor hydroponic gardens that grow vegetables like kale and lettuce in shipping containers filled with LED lights. As you don’t need soil or a warm climate, you can provide tasty veggies just about anywhere you have reliable power.

There are plenty of challenges. First and foremost is price: an initial container cost $200,000 to deploy. That’s not a huge sum for most cities, but it’s a big deal in small towns and villages where that could be a large chunk of the budget. There’s also the matter of electricity. Arctic towns frequently depend on generators instead of power plants, and a constantly running hydroponic garden could be a significant drain on the local grid. They may require solar power and other renewable sources to run in areas where every kilowatt matters.

However, early results are promising. People are buying food from prototype gardens right now through the Arctic Greens brand, and an expansion of sales to more locations might just happen if it’s cost-effective. Should that go ahead, residents in the Arctic (or any hard-to-cross territory) wouldn’t have to make hard choices about what they eat, or make do without certain vegetables for significant stretches of time.

Source: AP (Popular Mechanics)

Expect more vote suppressing misinformation on Election Day

While the internet is filled with sources providing accurate and unbiased information aimed at getting informed voters to the polls on Tuesday, some corners of it are taking an alternate approach. A Buzzfeed report cites 4chan posters cooking up various memes and campaign-lookalike graphics intended to confuse and mislead potential Hillary Clinton voters. We’ve seen a preview of this with Twitter ads that promoted a “vote by text message” hoax and it appears there could be similar efforts in store for tomorrow.

Of course, this band of message board trolls and their illegal activity is just one drop in the bucket of Macedonian teenagers, polling place intimidators and usual last-minute political advertising. If any of these images (or others like them) actually do get pushed in ad campaigns via social media, those of us who have been on the internet for more than five minutes will probably easily recognize them. Still, you’ll probably want to implement the usual April Fool’s Day protocols and verify the source of any information before believing it.

Source: Buzzfeed

Apple Acquired Talent and Technology From Cloud-Based Music Provider Omnifone in August

Apple recently acquired technology from cloud-based music platform Omnifone and has hired more than a dozen former Omnifone employees, reports TechCrunch. Apple’s interest in Omnifone was first shared by MacRumors back in July, but could not be confirmed at the time.

At least 16 Omnifone employees now work for Apple according to various LinkedIn profiles, and a source that spoke to TechCrunch says Apple bought “select technology” from Omnifone. The purchase is not considered a full acquisition, however, and according to our original source, it did not involve Omnifone’s patent portfolio.

There was actually speculation that Apple “bought out” or “likely acquired” key assets from Omnifone in July of this year, after a report from Omnifone’s bankruptcy administrators noted that it had found a buyer for parts of the company for $10 million. The rumor at the time was that buyer was Apple. Those acquisition reports, however, were discredited fairly swiftly.

But fast forward just one month later, and it looks like at least parts of it was true.

Omnifone operated a cloud platform powering its own MusicStation service and serving as the backbone for several music services launched through partnerships with mobile carriers like LG, Samsung, Vodafone, BlackBerry, Sony, and more.

Omnifone, for example, powered Samsung’s now-defunct Milk music service in certain locations and it was licensed by PonoMusic to power the PonoMusic Store.

Many of the former Omnifone employees are now working as software engineers at Apple, presumably focusing on areas like iTunes and Apple Music. It isn’t clear what technology Apple purchased from Omnifone, but TechCrunch’s source believes some of what was purchased has already been incorporated into Apple Music and iTunes.

Tags: Apple acquisition, Omnifone
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