Kello trains your sleeping habits without using sensors

While there are already a handful of devices that claim to improve our sleep quality, one little startup from Hong Kong’s Brinc IoT accelerator thinks that it can do a better job. Kello is a sleep trainer that comes in the form of an internet radio alarm slash Bluetooth speaker slash home automation hub, and unlike some of the competition, it doesn’t use any bed sensor, clip-on device nor wearable to track the user’s sleep activity. Instead, it’s all about leveraging “simple, effective and scientifically proven techniques” from specialists to help us sleep faster, wake up better and ultimately change our lifestyle.

Admittedly, I was skeptical at first, because surely the more tracking data the better? Antoine Markarian, Kello’s CEO and Deezer’s former Head of Devices, disagrees. “You have this connected mattress, you know that you woke up six times, but what are you going to do with [this data]?”

Maybe he has a point. What’s more important is to actually tackle the root of the problem: It could have something to do with one’s irregular bed times or bad habit of staring at the smartphone while in bed (which suppresses the release of melatonin, the hormone that makes us sleepy). Similarly, it turns out that hitting the snooze button in the morning only makes us sleepier: You’re effectively confusing your brain just as it’s switching between the wake-up phase and sleeping phase, therefore it’s actually harder to wake up the second time you hit the button, plus the super short periods of sleep serve no purpose to your well-being. So basically, we also need to rely less on the snooze button.

To solve these issues plus other sleep-related pain points, Kello Labs surveyed over 10,000 people and ended up with six default (and rather self-explanatory) programs for its device: “Bedtime Alert,” “Fall Asleep Fast,” “Fight Jet Lag,” “Power Naps,” “Wake Up Earlier” and “Snooze Less.” These work alongside each other, and more will be added at a later date.

The most important feature here is perhaps the “Fall Asleep Fast” program, which can be toggled with a long press on the Kello’s shell. This is basically a breathing exercise that uses both the LED display and soothing music — be it from the preloaded library, Deezer, Spotify, Soundcloud, Tidal or even just muted — to slow you down to the ideal six breaths per minute. The startup claims that this will make you fall asleep 2.5 times faster than usual (provided that you leave your phone to a side, of course). “Power Naps,” on the other hand, simply “plays the right music for the right amount of sleep” for a quick charge during the day.

As mentioned earlier, regular bed times also contribute to high quality sleep. To help us achieve this, “Bedtime Alert” tells you via both the app and the device’s LED screen — in the form of a starry sky — when it’s time for bed. When you’re ready, just tap Kello to check in, so that it logs your bed time for future adjustment.

As a jet-setter, I’m a fan of the “Fight Jet Lag” program. A week before your trip, simply tell the companion app where you are, where you’re going, when you’re going and how long you’re staying there, and it’ll set reminders for sleeping plus daylight exposure to help you adjust to the new time zone, in order to minimize jet lag. It’s worth noting here that you’re not expected to bring Kello with you on your trip, as these reminders will be served by the app alone, but personally I think I would like to bring the device with me — I’ll just have to throw the power adapter into the suitcase as well.

This leaves us with “Wake Up Earlier” and “Snooze Less” for the mornings. The former lets you set a personal wake-up goal, so that Kello can shave off a few minutes from the previous alarm time every day to let you slowly adjust. This is apparently more effective than trying to jump directly to your new desired wake-up time, as you may just end up snoozing your way back to your current one.

Speaking of which, “Snooze Less” is a gamification program that limits the number of time you can hit the snooze button (which is just the shell on Kello) each week, so if you want, you can save up snoozes as a reward for the weekend. For those who are up for a challenge, you can even set it to play bizarre music or even motivational speeches after the first snooze, but this might not go down well for those who share a bedroom with someone else.

As a bonus, Kello comes with a USB port (5V/1.5A) on the back to let you charge up your phone over night. For those who want to dabble with home automation, Kello also supports IFTTT, SmartThings and Philips Hue, meaning you can set it to automatically turn on the lights and even brew coffee when the alarm goes off, or assign the shell’s double-tap input to toggle other actions — be it for locating your phone, toggling the air conditioner, adjusting the thermostat, turning on the TV and more.

As with all fitness products, Kello ultimately requires self-discipline from the user. After all, its goal is to change your lifestyle for better sleep. If you think this is something that will suit you, it’s currently available on Kickstarter for $109 per unit, with the color options being “Mint Green,” “Cerulean Blue” and “Pearl Grey.” Expect it to deliver in March next year.

Source: Kickstarter

Apple’s Thailand Website Honors King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s Death

Apple has made its Thai website black and white to honor the death of Thailand’s king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who passed away last week at the age of 88. Bhumibol Adulyadej had served as the ninth monarch of Thailand since 1946, making him the world’s longest-serving head of state at the time of his death ahead of Queen Elizabeth II.

The monochrome website reflects Thai citizens who have dressed in pure black or black and white to mourn the loss of Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was a highly revered figure in the country. Thai TV stations have also provided footage of the king in black and white, colors that represent grief and purity respectively in the country.

Tag: Thailand
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‘Ecobee3 Lite’ HomeKit Thermostat Launching for $170 on October 31

Smart thermostat company Ecobee today announced the launch of a cheaper “Ecobee3 Lite” device that will deliver Ecobee’s expected “superior comfort, control and energy savings” at $80 less than similar products from competitors, according to the company.

Similar to the flagship Ecobee 3 model, the Ecobee3 Lite has the same touchscreen controls and black aesthetic, and can be controlled from a smartphone through a connected Ecobee app. The cheaper model will also continue to support Apple’s HomeKit platform, as well as Amazon Echo, Samsung SmartThings, Wink and IFTTT.

“The new ecobee3 lite delivers the many features of a premium smart thermostat – beautiful design, superior comfort and an intuitive customer experience – but it’s kinder to our customers’ wallets than leading competitors,” said Stuart Lombard, President and CEO of ecobee. “ecobee3 lite upholds our continued promise to make customer’s lives simpler and better.”

To offset the entry-level cost, the Ecobee3 Lite loses a few features included with its $250 counterpart. Namely, the Lite isn’t compatible with the company’s room sensors, which Ecobee says help the system become smarter with additional sensors placed in multiple rooms so that the thermostat can accumulate a total view of a home’s temperature level. Ecobee3 Lite also lacks smart occupancy detection, and doesn’t support accessories like humidifiers, dehumidifiers, and ventilators.

In the United States, users will be able to purchase the Ecobee3 Lite beginning on October 31 for $169. The smart thermostat will be available at retail exclusively at Home Depot locations, and online at Amazon.com, HomeDepot.com, BestBuy.com and Ecobee.com. Canadian users will be able to buy the device for $219 (CAD) on Ecobee’s website. To make sure your system is compatible with Ecobee, the company has created a compatibility checker.

Tag: Ecobee
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Apple Music Beats 1 Radio Host Zane Lowe Announced as Keynote Speaker at SXSW

Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio host and creative director Zane Lowe has been announced as a keynote speaker for 2017’s South by Southwest music and film festival (via Billboard). Lowe has been tapped to give a presentation for the music portion of SXSW, which runs March 10-19 next year and also includes areas that branch into interactive media technologies.

Other than Lowe, speakers at next year’s SXSW include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards, Mount Everest photographer and climber Cory Richards, author Adam Grant, and many more. The festival has also announced more than 750 panels that will be at SXSW in 2017, including ones focused on topics like “Does Spotify Help More Than It Hurts?”

“The programming announced today reflects a lot of the bigger-picture trends we think will be getting the most buzz in March 2017,” said Hugh Forrest, Chief Programming Officer. “These trends include innovation in the transportation space, the rise of artificial intelligence, more emphasis on innovation within healthcare, and an increase in creative industry inclusion.

Of course, the biggest trend for SXSW is always the convergence of the technology, music, and film industries, as different people from different sectors gain incredible value by sharing new ideas and new approaches to common challenges.”

As Apple Music continues to grow, Apple executive Jimmy Iovine recently stated that the company is “building the right hybrid” that carefully balances technology with culturally aware paradigm shifts. Lowe was a host for BBC Radio before moving to Beats 1 and Apple Music, and has since helped Apple launch a number of new shows and programming blocks for the service.

Tags: Zane Lowe, Apple Music
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‘Unprecedented’ Warrant Request Sought to Compel Individuals to Open Fingerprint-Locked Devices

In a new case that echoes Apple’s past struggle with the FBI, the Department of Justice has been granted a warrant to search a home in Lancaster, California — and all the smartphones inside of it — for all “passwords, encryption keys, and other access devices that may be necessary to access” the various handsets and tablets discovered inside the location. Notably, this includes requiring every person inside the home to provide their fingerprints to the cops to bypass the biometric scanners of each device (via Forbes).

Filed May 9, 2016, a section of the warrant reads:

“authorization to depress the fingerprints and thumbprints of every person who is located at the SUBJECT PREMISES during the execution of the search and who is reasonably believed by law enforcement to be the user of a fingerprint sensor-enabled device that is located at the SUBJECT PREMISES and falls within the scope of the warrant.”

An anonymous person located at the home in question avoided providing details of the crime in question, but they did indicate that the warrant has been served. The person claimed that they did not know about the specifics of the warrant’s parameters until it was served to them, and they are “trying to let this pass over” in the meantime.

The case has been said to “shock” legal experts because of the legalese workaround used in the warrant. According to one expert, the government filed the warrant “on the assumption that they will learn more after they have a warrant,” without providing any particulars as to what they plan to find at the home in question. This practice goes against the confines and scopes of usual warrants, and was seemingly an attempt to quietly include fingerprint data in the seizure of information.

Jennifer Lynch, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), added: “It’s not enough for a government to just say we have a warrant to search this house and therefore this person should unlock their phone. The government needs to say specifically what information they expect to find on the phone, how that relates to criminal activity and I would argue they need to set up a way to access only the information that is relevant to the investigation.

“The warrant has to be particular in how it describes the place to be searched and the thing to be seized and limited in scope. That’s why if a government suspects criminal activity to be happening on a property and there are 50 apartments in that property they have to specify which apartment and why and what they expect to find there.”

Lynch noted that “we’ve never seen anything like this,” with the government’s court filing revealing the first known attempt by the Department of Justice to acquire fingerprints of individuals in a certain location to unlock their smartphones. Lynch said that the filing cites “outdated cases” as the justification for bypassing self-incrimination laws to ultimately use a person’s “body as evidence when it may be material.”

“The reason I’m so concerned about this … is that it’s so broad in scope and the government is relying on these outdated cases to give it access to this amazing amount of information… The part the government is ignoring here is the vast amount of data that’s on the phone,” Lynch added.

“If this kind of thing became law then there would be nothing to prevent… a search of every phone at a certain location.”

Most recently, it was reported that the FBI was looking into “legal and technical options” for entering another iPhone, this one belonging to the culprit behind the Minnesota mall stabbings in September. The iOS version running on the iPhone is known only to the FBI, so if it’s an older model (iOS 8 or prior) the government could potentially access it without the same drama that emerged following its request for Apple to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone earlier in the year.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: Touch ID
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Apple Set to Battle Class Action Lawsuit Over Labor Code Violations Starting Tomorrow

A class action lawsuit filed by four former Apple retail employees over alleged California Labor Code violations commences tomorrow in San Diego Superior Court.

A civil jury trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. local time in a courtroom presided over by the Honorable Eddie C. Sturgeon, nearly two years after Apple’s appeal and motion for dismissal was denied in the case. The lawsuit, titled Felczer vs. Apple Inc., falls under the court’s Department 67.

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2011 and elevated to class action status in 2014, accuses Apple of failing to provide timely meal and rest breaks, failing to pay all wages due upon ending employment within the required time, and failing to provide accurate wage statements, according to court documents filed electronically.

The proposed class would involve all current, former, or prospective employees in California who have worked for Apple between December 16, 2007 and the time of trial, which totaled approximately 18,000 employees as of 2014. Any settlement awarded would be divided evenly between class members.

California Labor Code dictates that employees must be provided with at least a 30-minute meal break when the work period is more than five hours, and at least a 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked. The defendants claim Apple failed to always provide these breaks for at least four years prior to the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the complaint notes Apple took several weeks to send out a final paycheck to multiple employees. As a result of these unlawful business practices, the lawsuit asks for compensatory damages and repayment of all wages owed, along with interest and legal fees, but it does not specify a damages amount.

Tags: lawsuit, Apple retail
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Lenovo Yoga Book review: Almost amazing

The Lenovo Yoga Book is the closest thing to the greatest Android convertible ever made, for whatever that’s worth.

Lenovo’s clever hardware is a great deal more functional than you’d think it could be, but have Android apps grown up enough to handle tablets and convertibles?

Pros

• Unique design
• Highly functional pen interface
• Quality stereo speakers

Cons

• Mediocre battery life
• Lenovo’s additional software is of inconsistent quality

The best Android tablet there is

Lenovo Yoga Book Full Review

Android tablets suck. Sorry, that’s not quite right. Using an Android tablet in 2016 sucks. The vast majority of apps in the Google Play Store never grew to support larger screens, and Google hasn’t done nearly enough to encourage that development over the years. Instead of dealing with the problem three years ago when Apple was revving up the iPad, we got a pair of Nexus 7 tablets that were cheap enough people would buy them and small enough that you weren’t constantly frustrated by the way apps were stretched to fill the screen.

See at Lenovo

Android tablets became permanent content consumption machines that year, and now here we are in 2016 with several examples of great hardware ruined by an app ecosystem entirely disinterested in supporting the experience. And again, instead of dealing with this by approaching developers, Google added features in Android 7.0 Nougat so apps can be run side by side and avoid being quite as visually offensive on large displays. The demo device for this experience, Google’s Pixel C, continues to float in this weird in-between space that isn’t quite comfortable enough to use as a laptop and just a hair too heavy to enjoy using as a tablet. Outside of this, you have Dell’s repeated attempts to Make Android Tablets Great Again from last year, and now a truly unique take on the tablet convertible world from Lenovo.

If there’s one thing the most profitable laptop manufacturer on the planet knows, it’s how to make something thin and light and beautifully mechanical. Following the long and successful like of Yoga laptops running Windows, we now have the Android-powered Yoga Book. Put simply, it’s what happens when you take an ultra-thin laptop design and say “you think we can put Android on this thing?” in a room full of engineers. Yoga Book stretches the definition of Android tablet in the most delightful of ways, and it couldn’t be more clear that nearly everything wrong with this machine comes from using immature Android apps.

About This Review

I (Russell Holly) have been using the Lenovo Yoga Book (YB1-X90F) for six days all around Maryland. This review, as well as several thousand other words across Mobile Nations, was written with this Android convertible. It’s running Android 6.0.1 with July 1, 2016 security patches.

Thin, sturdy, and damn pretty.

Lenovo Yoga Book Hardware

Nothing about this machine is ordinary. From the moment you slide Yoga Book out of its long white box it’s clear you’re using something special. The metal casing is cool to the touch, and it’s not immediately clear which side is up. Digging your thumbs into the seam and pulling doesn’t make this any clearer at first, since both halves of the inside are flat black glass. Sunlight pouring in from my office window hits the faint outline of the Holo Keyboard, and it finally clicks that this side lays on the table.

Curiously, the side of the keyboard is also where the power and volume keys are. The Micro-USB and Mini-HDMI ports on the other side of the keyboard edge make a little more sense, and as this laptop powers up everything comes to life. The faint lines on the glass nearest my fingertips lights up and reveals a full keyboard and trackpad just under the glass. The spacing on the keys looks to be just a bit wider than your average 3/4 keyboard, but it’s still a flat piece of glass. For someone who types all day every day on a CODE mechanical keyboard, who has also used every virtual keyboard on just about every tablet ever, it’s difficult to imagine typing on this will be enjoyable.

The star of this tablet, on the outside anyway, is the hinge. Lenovo’s watchband hinge is without equal, allowing the display to not only flex around from one side to the other without any issue but almost lock in place when you stop applying force. This hinge should be an industry standard. It’s beautiful, functional, and allows this tablet to fully transform from laptop to tablet and function in spaces few other devices can function. Because the weight on this tablet is balanced between the two halves of the hinge, Yoga Book comfortably sits in your lap at any angle.

At 1920×1200 resolution with 400 nits of brightness, the display is just shy of great. If you’re using this machine like a laptop, the resolution is more than enough to get things done and look nice. If you’re using this like a tablet, maybe flipped over in “A” position in your hands on an airplane, the resolution is noticeably lower than some other out there. Lenovo also doesn’t do much with auto-brightness on the Yoga Book, so that 400 nits will catch you in the eye real quick in a dark room.

All told, there’s very little about the design of this Yoga Book that doesn’t scream premium.

Almost as important as the existence of a keyboard is the existence of a trackpad. Not needing to reach up and touch the screen for anything is a big deal. This pad is a little unusual, making you press and hold to scroll instead of two finger swipe like you’d see in a traditional desktop environment. That’s cool though, because this isn’t a traditional desktop environment. The rules are different, which is why there are special buttons on the keyboard for Home and Menu and Launcher. This is a keyboard between worlds, and a trackpad that has to follow along. The only real issue with this design is how close the edge of the trackpad is to the space bar, which causes frequent misfires.

This keyboard has the ability to completely disappear, turning the entire surface into a digitizer for the included pressure-sensitive stylus. Lenovo’s stylus tech easily matches your average $200 zero-point stylus from Wacom, and it’s baked right into the tablet. You can hold the Yoga Book however you feel comfortable and draw. The stylus is fine as far as comfort goes, and the metal clip on the cap magnetizes to the back of the display should you decide to bring it with you everywhere. If you lose the stylus or would prefer to write with your favorite pen, you can enable that feature and write or draw on a piece of paper against the glass. This mode is slightly less accurate and not at all pressure sensitive, but amazing for combining real pen and paper feel with digital interaction.

All told, there’s very little about the design of this Yoga Book that doesn’t scream premium. The 1.52-pound body is incredibly light when you consider what you’re getting, and it’s noticeably thinner than the Pixel C or Dell’s 10-inch Android tablet when their keyboards are attached. Speakers that fire from the left and right sides of the body are loud, crisp, and clearer than you get from most tablets in this class. Lenovo has delivered something that is a genuine pleasure to hold and use for creators and consumers alike.

Skinned Marshmallow

Lenovo Yoga Book Software

Since Yoga Book clearly isn’t getting any help from Google when it comes to reasonable software for 10-inch tablets, Lenovo had to jump in and create some tricks of their own. What you get is Android Marshmallow with some clever add-ons. There’s a dock system that feels like it cam straight out of a desktop OS design class, a floating window system designed so you can use apps side by side, and some included apps that play nice with Lenovo’s stylus system. There’s also a special software keyboard system for auto-correcting words coming from the Holo Keyboard. These aren’t huge changes to the Android UI, which in some cases turn out to be a bad thing for Lenovo’s overall goal.

Android apps in floating windows sounds like exactly what everyone wants, right? You can get the smaller UI experience, multitask, and come dangerously close to feeling like you’re being productive if everything worked the way Lenovo intended. You get a window you can pin wherever you want, click or tap anywhere in that window to interact, and enjoy the multi-app experience. Unfortunately, none of Google’s included apps play by these rules and many other apps break shortly after you try to actually use them in this windowed mode. Netflix, for example, freaks out as soon as you start playing a video in this windowed mode. Few apps work from beginning to end, which is a shame. The forced perspective in Android 7.0 Nougat really is the only way to consistently enjoy multi-window in Android.

What are you even doing, Netflix?

Typing on Lenovo’s Holo Keyboard is greatly enhanced by its virtual component. You can tap on numbers corresponding to auto-correct options that float on the screen, and in many cases the text will correct for you as you type. It’s a great system, as long as the app behaves. Several messaging clients for Android, including Slack and Hangouts, don’t respect the existence of a return key. Tapping return doesn’t send the message like you’d expect, it drops down a line instead (yes I know this is the actual purpose of a return key). This means you have to tap or use the touchpad to click the send button each time, and when you start typing the next line the auto-correct software applies the last word to the new line, which is frustrating. The easiest answer is to disable this keyboard mode, which removes a feature that works well nearly every other time you use it.

We still have apps that force portrait orientation to log in, apps that only send messages when you hit the send key, and no shortage of apps that just plain look bad when not on a phone.

Lenovo’s best idea is the dock. When you open an app, it gets a spot on the bottom bar, between the navigation keys and the clock. You can quickly switch between open apps by tapping these icons, and can dismiss apps when you’re done using them. It’s a fairly simple UI change that makes a huge difference in how quickly you jump between tasks, something that becomes an even bigger deal when you’re trying to use this computer like a full laptop.

This is usually the point in which I hold Lenovo accountable for not having the latest version of Android on this tablet. Honestly, though, I don’t think it matters in this situation. While split screen would be more functional than what Lenovo currently has, the current custom dock is more useful for switching between multiple apps. Most of the problems here have little to do with functional multi-window, and everything to do with Android apps being entirely inconsistent in how they function on large screens. We still have apps that force portrait orientation to log in, apps that only send messages when you hit the send key, and no shortage of apps that just plain look bad when not on a phone. Sure, Lenovo should get Nougat on Yoga Book as quickly as they can, but only once all of their own ideas work well and continue to create this great unique experience.

I’m not mad at you

Lenovo Yoga Book Experience

Historically, deciding to leave the house with only an Android tablet to work in a library or coffee shop has not gone well. Google’s Pixel C got close, especially after Nougat, but the mobile-first UI of Android is a challenge in many situations and those carry onto the Yoga Book. Chrome, for example, fills the top inch of the screen with quick-swap tabs and the top bar of the app instead of using the whole screen to give me as much space to browse as possible. Chrome for Android is absolutely powerful enough to act as my only browser throughout the day, but it’s still not particularly well optimized for this screen size.

The real question, the thing all of the Android Central editors have discussed and doubted and marveled at, is whether you can actually type at length on this Holo Keyboard. The answer is yes, mostly. On the fancy mechanical keyboard at my desk, I average 57 words per minute. Not bad for a guy who can only use eight of his fingers, but not super amazing either. On the 3/4 keyboard you get for the Pixel C, I average 42 words per minute. That’s reasonable for a smaller keyboard, even one that nice. Lenovo’s Holo Keyboard has me typing an average of 45 words per minute, with a mistype rate about 10% higher than either other keyboard. That means I type just slightly slower on this keyboard than I do either of the other keyboards since I have to stop to make corrections more frequently, but it’s still damned impressive for glass.

It’s hard to not feel like Google has given up on tablets.

Typing on this keyboard isn’t uncomfortable, either. It’s certainly not as comfortable as using a mechanical keyboard, but it works. My most frequent mistake is hitting the M just above the space bar when trying to space, which used to happen to me a lot on netbooks when those were all the rage. After about an hour of typing on this keyboard my fingers are a little more tired than they would be on a mechanical keyboard, but it feels like I’m getting plenty done in the mean time.

It didn’t take me long to wish I was using the Windows version of this computer, or one made with Chrome OS like Jerry suggested back when Yoga Book was announced. It’s hard to not feel like Google has given up on tablets, and it’s also not hard to see why that is. Android tablets have never sold well, and apps just plain don’t support the tablet experience. There will never be a situation in which every app I install plays nice with Lenovo’s ideas here, and that’s a shame.

I’m not an artist, and type faster than I write, but I love watching people who can actually draw use the stylus on Yoga Book. Everyone I handed this tablet to loved the drawing experience, and were shocked by the $500 price point for this experience. Knowing the hardware works well with more than what Lenovo has included is just as awesome, and being able to use Yoga Book in portrait with the display right next to the drawing surface is incredible.

Yoga Book averages eight hours of consistent use for me, split between watching movies and typing and playing games. That’s great for a laptop, but mediocre for a tablet. Granted, there’s a lot more going on with this machine when using it like a real computer, but overall it’d be nice if that battery could be stretched to 10 hours on a single charge. Fortunately, the quick charging power adapter in the box makes it easy for you to get that extra couple of hours with a few minutes connected to power.

Did you hear this comes in Windows?

Lenovo Yoga Book the bottom line

It’s not hard to say this is the best Android tablet you can buy today, but recognizing what a low bar that is and how many things are still not ideal with this experience is frustrating. Our friends at Windows Central recently reviewed the Windows 10 variant of the Yoga Book, and I found myself regularly wondering how much better this already great piece of hardware would be if it weren’t running Android.

Lenovo might be able to force a few more apps to behave with software updates, and Android Nougat may be able to extend battery life a little, but at the end of the day most Android apps are just plain not great for tablets and frankly I’m tired of creating excuses for why that is. Android is awesome for phones, and Yoga Book makes it painfully clear the same can’t be said for tablets.

Should you buy it? Probably not.

Make no mistake, this is an amazing piece of hardware. Lenovo has clearly outdone themselves in design. If you really want Android to run on your laptop and don’t care that apps are going to misbehave left and right, this is without a doubt the machine for you. If you’re in love with this hardware and want an OS that actually makes sense in this form, the Windows Yoga Book is available right now and is a lot easier to recommend.

See at Lenovo

Digital Offer: Get lifetime access to 1TB of cloud storage for only $39!

Our current, tech-obsessed world demands a storage solution for your multimedia data, the most convenient being cloud-based storage which you can access from anywhere. Most cloud-based storage services charge a monthly fee, which, over time, adds up to quite a fee.

Those of you sick of subscription fees need a storage solution that requires a single payment for a lifetime of access. More importantly, you need cloud storage that is encrypted and can be accessed from all your devices.

Right now, Android Central Digital Offers has a deal on 1TB of cloud storage from Zoolz — a single payment of $39 gives you lifetime access. Does this seem cheap? It is! This is 98% off the regular price of $3600.

You will never be charged any extra fees, and you can access your cloud storage from multiple devices. Your data is protected with 256-AES encryption to better safeguard your stuff, and you can schedule backups and throttle bandwidth during uploads. Place files you know you won’t soon need in cold storage — takes three to five hours to access — or place files you frequently need in standard storage that can be accessed instantly.

Considering 1TB of storage from other popular services costs about $10 per month, this deal will pay for itself in four months, and you can keep using it forever. Even if you don’t think you need it now, you probably will need it in the future. Don’t miss this great opportunity to snag 1TB of cloud storage for only $39!

See at Android Central Digital Offers

SanDisk’s 200GB microSD card is down to just $59 again!

Right now you can pick up a 200GB SanDisk microSD card for just $59 at Amazon, a savings of $20 from its regular price. Whether you need some extra storage for your phone, tablet, camera or other devices, you won’t want to miss out on this deal. Having 200GB of storage may seem a bit excessive to some and just right for others, but at the price you really can’t go wrong with having the extra storage available to you. It will allow you to save music, videos, movies and more locally so you don’t have to rely on your mobile data in order to access it all.

If you want something smaller, or need a full sized SD card, you can save up to 40% on a variety of SanDisk storage accessories at Amazon right now. This deal is only good for today, October 17, so don’t wait too long to place your order.

See at Amazon