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Sunday's Best Deals: Fitbits, Sound Bars, Garden Boxes and More 

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Dig up discounts on a whole bunch of Fitbits, a $45 sound bar, garden boxes from Home Depot, and more.

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BEST TECH DEALS

It lacks an integrated subwoofer, let alone a dedicated one, so this AmazonBasics sound bar wouldn’t be ideal for your main home theater, but it would be a solid upgrade over, say, your bedroom TV’s built-in speakers.

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Update: The color bulbs have gone up by a dollar, to $41, but now the white ambiance bulbs are on sale for an all-time low $22. These can’t display the full RGB spectrum, but they can do a full range of white light temperatures, including daylight.

If you already have a Philips Hue Hub (or an Echo Plus, which works as a Hue Hub), it’s time to stock up on bulbs. The full-color, 60W equivalents are down to $40 today, which is about as cheap as they ever get outside of Black Friday. Hue works best when all of the bulbs in your home, or at least in a given room, are compatible, so buy a bunch!

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Heading out of town and want to deter thieves, or just want to wake up to a well-lit house? This programmable light and fan switch turns any built-in light into a smart light for $11, the best price we’ve ever seen on something like this.

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USB-C Power Delivery chargers are finally starting to become more ubiquitous and affordable, and this $49, 21,000mAh model from iClever is one of the best deals we’ve seen to date.

That gets you two regular USB ports (one of which has Quick Charge 3.0), a microUSB input, and a USB-C port that works as both an input and an output. The USB-C port also supports Power Delivery up to 30W, which is enough to charge a MacBook or a Nintendo Switch in portable mode, meaning you can play Zelda nonstop on even the longest flights. Just use promo code PDCHARGE at checkout to get the deal.

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You don’t think you need a portable jump starter until you really, really need one. This iClever 600A jump starter has enough oomph to jump start basically any passenger vehicle, and of course, it also has USB ports to charge your phone.

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If you still have rooms in your home where Alexa can’t hear your commands, you can fix that today with a slate of certified refurbished deals. The entire audio-only line of Echo speakers is on sale, from the tiny Echo Dot, to the portable Tap, to the standby Echo, to the smart home-friendly Echo Plus.

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Whether your current mouse is giving you chronic wrist pain, or you just want to try something different, this 4.1 star rated wireless ergonomic vertical mouse from Anker is only $14 today (with promo code ANKER780), or $4 less than usual. In addition to the clever design, it even comes with three DPI settings and forward/back buttons, which are pretty rare at this price level.

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Wi-Fi range extenders can’t work miracles, but if there’s one spot in your house with spotty coverage, they can be a much cheaper solution than buying a new router. So at $30, why not give this one a try? Just be sure to clip the $5 coupon to save at checkout.

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Our readers voted Anker’s SoundBuds Slims as their favorite affordable Bluetooth headphones, but we may need a recount, as Anker recently released the upgraded SoundBuds Slim+, on sale for just $22 today with promo code ANKER411.

The biggest change from the original model is the inclusion of AptX encoding, which should improve sound quality with compatible devices. Anker also claims that waterproofing has been improved, though they’re both still rated as IPX5, so any change on that front is likely modest. One thing that hasn’t changed: the seven hour battery, which is excellent for earbuds of this size.

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DirecTV Now is one of the better over-the-top cable replacements out there, and with this deal, there’s very little reason not to give it a try.

For a limited time, if you prepay for three months of the service at $35 per month, you’ll get a 4K Apple TV included for free. That Apple TV costs $179 normally, so you’re basically getting a $74 discount on the box, plus three months of live TV. No brainer.

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VPNs have been in the news, and whether you want to get around video geoblocks, circumvent proxy filters, or just keep prying eyes out of your browsing data while using sketchy public Wi-Fi, reader-favorite Private Internet Access has a deal to fit your needs.

Last month, they offered our readers $10 off two year memberships, but this time around, you get a few more choices, ranging from a quick taste of the service to an extended commitment with additional savings:

• One month for $6 | Usually $7
• One year for $35 | Usually $40
• Three years for $90 | Not offered to the general public at all

These deals are only for our readers, but we aren’t sure how long they’ll be available, so go ahead and sign up while you can.

BEST HOME DEALS

Unless you have absolutely perfect knife skills and a lot of time, mandolines put precise, uniform cuts in the realm of possibility. This mandoline slicer is just $49 today, which is shaved down about $11 from its usual price and the best we’ve seen since December.

This OXO model has dial to set thickness and three cut styles: straight, crinkle, and waffle. If you think it’s only useful for french fries, you’re wrong. It significantly cut down your stir fry veggie prep, allow you to slice an onion in about a minute, and more.

Although it has a protective cover to keep your fingers away from the blade, if you want to be extra careful, pick up a pair of these cut-resistant gloves, which are just $11.

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This very nifty mixing bowl and measuring tool set all nests together to free up some of your cabinet space. It would normally cost you about $100, but today you can get two mixing bowls, a colander, a sieve, and five measuring cups, all for $80.

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It’s not too late in the season to start your own backyard garden. Reap up to 40% off these wooden garden boxes from Home Depot today. They have a bunch of sizes and two color options to pick from.

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This Shark Tank-featured product is a bean bag chair and queen size mattress in one. The mattress balls up into the bean bag chair cover, and then can be taken out and laid out flat when you need the extra sleeping space. Select colors and sizes are $196 today, down from the usual $320.

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Treat yourself to 18 packages of Skittles and Starburst for the all-time-low price of just $9.

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We sell a whole bunch of $30 Victorinix knives, but if you’re into something a little more upscale, this Shun chef’s knife might be what you’re looking for. It’s made with layered Damascus steel and features a hand-hammered finish. Today’s price is the best we’ve seen in almost a year, and $40 less than the normal price, so grab while it’s still in stock.

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The Cabeau Evolution was your favorite travel pillow (by a long shot), and you can save 20% on yours today.

Unlike cheaper travel pillows that you have to inflate with air, the Evolution is made of memory foam, and wraps all the way around your neck to provide support no matter what direction your head falls when you nod off. You won’t win any fashion awards while you’re using it, but you won’t care, because you’ll be asleep.

Or, upgrade even further with the cool version, which has a big vent in the middle to prevent neck sweat. At $48, it’s also 20% off today.

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This weekend only, Sur La Table’s running a pair of great deals to help you upgrade your kitchen.

First off, they’re taking 20% off all* full priced items with promo code MOM18. There are a lot of excluded brands, but you can find eligible items here. Obviously, the rarely discounted All-Clad pans are a highlight, and there are some good Nespresso deals to be had as well, but with hundreds of eligible items available, you should definitely check out the site, and drop any suggestions in the comments.

Breville is one of the brands excluded from the sitewide sale, but that’s okay, because the site’s running a separate Breville sale as well. Obviously, we recommend the reader-favorite Smart Ovens (the Smart Oven Air for $320 is a steal), and those espresso machines could be a nice splurge if you just got a tax refund check.

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Today you can add homebrewing to your repertoire for just $250.

The PicoBrew PICO Model C lets you brew your favorite name brand beers right on your countertop. Our deal researcher Corey has actually used one, and he wrote all about it here, if you want to learn more.

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Snickers makes a special 1-pound candy bar that’s designed for slicing and sharing, but we won’t tell anyone if you eat the entire thing yourself. Amazon even ships it with reusable cool-packs to keep it from melting en route.

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With this set of five OXO Good Grips Pop Containers, the days of snacks going stale are no more. $35 is the best price this set has ever been, and it’ll pay for itself by keeping your food from going stale. Fill it with anything and store it much more easily than that half-open bag of chips you’re using a binder clip to hold closed.

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This 3-pack of best-selling Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Storage containers is not at its lowest price, but it is a good $5 - $7 less than usual.

For $21, you get one 6.3-cup and two larger 17.3-cup containers. These containers can keep food fresh for about 80% longer than store packaging, but, if history is any indication, this deal will spoil quickly.

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Millennials can’t afford homes because they spend all their money on avocado slicers.

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In less than a year, Anker’s first foray into the dash cam market has spawned an entire line of products, and one of the newer models just got its best discount ever.

The Roav DashCam A1 is mostly a spec-for-spec match for the original C1, though it operates in a slightly wider temperature range, and is designed more like a traditional action cam than a purpose-built dash cam. That makes it a little less sleek on your windshield, but allows you to tilt it left and right, rather than just up and down. It’s really a matter of personal preference, but any dash cam with Wi-Fi and Anker’s level of customer service for around $40 is worth checking out, if you ask me.

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One of the big trendy foods of the year, matcha green tea is a super food full of antioxidants, and is thought to help improve metabolism and energy levels. This is in powder form, so you can add it into pretty anything - baked goods, smoothies, lattes, and desserts, just for starters.

It’s not the best deal we’ve seen, but Amazon’s $1 coupon is a decent little discount, if you need to restock.

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OxyLED added a set of hooks to its smallest motion-sensing stick-anywhere light, which makes a ton of sense. That means you can easily hang your keys by the door when you get home at night, or hang up belts in a dimly-lit closet. Use promo code E7VL88AS to get it for $10.

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For a limited time, Amazon will sell you three pouches of Tide HE-compatible Free & Gentle laundry detergent (totaling 144 ounces or 93 loads) for just $14. These pouches are designed basically as refills for plastic Tide bottles, but as long as that doesn’t bother you, this is a fantastic price-per-ounce for any detergent, let alone name brand. Just be sure to clip the $3 coupon on the page and use Amazon Subscribe & Save.

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It’s 2018, and your lighter doesn’t need fuel anymore; it just has to charge over USB. This discounted arc lighter isn’t really pocket-friendly, but its long, flexible neck makes it ideal for lighting candles, camp fires and other awkwardly-placed flammable things. Just charge the built-in battery, and you’ll be good to go for up to 1,000 uses before you have to plug it in again.

Get it for $12 today with promo code DDL9LEJG, matching the best price we’ve ever seen.

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If you want to get one of our readers’ favorite meat thermometers, but are little turned off by the $75+ price tag, consider the Thermapen’s little brother, the ThermoPop. They’re on sale today for $20 a piece when you buy 2 or more.

The ThermoPop displays the temperature slightly slower than the larger Thermapen (we’re talking the difference of a second here), and is accurate within 2°F. So, go ahead and pick one up for yourself and gift one to your foodie friends, this sale might not last long.

BEST LIFESTYLE DEALS

The Fitbit Charge 2 is one of the best fitness trackers you can buy, and it’s down to $120 right now on Amazon, about $30 less than usual. That’s not quite as enticing as its $99 Black Friday discount, but by any other measure, it’s a deal worth running for.

Prefer something nearly as smart in a more fashionable package? The Alta HR is down to the same price. Or get it without the heart rate sensor for $20 less.

And if you’re looking for a full smart watch experience, the Ionic is down to $250 as well, the best price we’ve ever seen.

There are a few other special edition designs available on sale here, where you can find all of the Fitbit deals.

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Summer is basically here. Throw shade over your campsite, sporting event, outdoor party, or wherever else you might need it with this E-Z Up 10'x 10' canopy . It’s only $80 today, down from the usual $108, and the folding steel frame will only take a minute to set up and break down.

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The hundreds of items in Target’s spring apparel clearance section are already really affordable, but for a limited time, promo code SAVE20 will take an extra 20% off at checkout. Plus, if you have a Target REDCard, you’ll save an extra 5%, and get free two day shipping.

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If the dryer has eaten too many of your athletic socks, you can get six pairs from Under Armour today for under $16, courtesy of Amazon. Hilariously, they’re also available with Subscribe & Save if you want to save a little more. Just remember to cancel your subscription after your first order ships.

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It’s officially beach season, and if you aren’t happy with your current cooler collection, Arctic Zone’s well-reviewed soft side models are all 20% off on Amazon this week.

You get to choose from 16, 30, and 48 can sizes in multiple colors, starting at just $24. Even without zippers on the lids, Arctic Zone claims that these will keep ice for 2-3 days, and the 4.1 star review average seems to back that up. I recommend spending the money you saved on beer to fill it up.

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Keep your phone, keys, wallet, and all those other important items safe and dry in these waterproof bags. All colors and sizes are discounted by 40% today when you use code QYDDWEZN. If you have any outdoorsy people in your life, these would make great gifts.

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Our readers bought a ton of FOCX’s first Kickstarter-funded wallet, and now the company is back with a whole new line.

While they look similar at a glance, there are subtle differences between the three wallets included in the campaign. The Minimalist and the Accountant are nearly identical, except that The Accountant has an extra elastic strap, and leaves one side of the front leather facade open, rather than stitching it completely shut. Focx markets this as a coin holder, but I found that it works great for cash as well. The Purist adds an extra strip of leather that closes around the wallet, adding a dedicated cash holder and protecting your cards, at the expense of some added bulk.

All three wallets are very small, look great, and are primarily constructed from elastic, meaning you can stuff a ton of cards in there. The main compartment has a two-sided pull tab that gives you easy access to your most-used cards, but cards you store on the back of the wallet are still easy enough to access.

As is typical on Kickstarter, early backers get the biggest discounts, so pledging early is good for your, uh, wallet.

We sort through the noise of Kickstarter to find you preorder discounts worth taking advantage of. Someone on our team has tested a prototype (or final version) of every Kickstarter we cover.

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Privé Revaux turned the sunglass industry on its head last year with a wide variety of attractive frames for just $30 each, but you can get them for even less today with 20% promo code PRSPRING.

Everything they sell on Amazon is eligible, so be sure to look beyond the main page. The Men’s and Women’s sections have a lot more styles, and some frames, like the new Madelaine Collection are only available from the New Arrivals dropdown menu. The unisex Commando aviators are Privé’s most popular though, so feel free to start with those.

Privé now sells a couple of blue light-blocking computer glasses as well that you could grab with this sale. They aren’t sunglasses, and they obviously aren’t prescription, but they could be just what you need if suffer from eyestrain at work.

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May the Fourth isn’t actually here for another week and a half, but ThinkGeek is cashing in on the impending Star Wars frenzy. They’re taking up to 80% off four pages worth of merchandise. Everything from t-shirts and socks to animatronic Porgs. There’s even a freakin’ R2-D2 french press.

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BEST MEDIA DEALS

Try not to panic, but Amazon is raising the price of Prime for the first time in four years, from $99 per year to $119. The change goes into effect on May 11 for new members, and June 16 for renewing members. This is obviously disappointing, if not surprising given all the benefits Amazon’s added since 2014. But if your renewal date is after June 16, there is (probably) a way to get another year at the old price.

The trick is to buy an Amazon Prime gift subscription now, and then redeem it on your account once it comes time to renew. The fine print on gift memberships says that redeeming them with an existing Prime account will net a gift card for the amount you paid, rather than an additional year of Prime, so you’ll need to remember to cancel your membership before you redeem the gift. Luckily, if you go into your account settings, there’s an option to receive a reminder three days before your account is set to auto-renew.

Let me be clear, while this trick worked the last time Amazon raised the price of Prime, it’s entirely possible it won’t this time. Amazon would be in its rights to not allow people to redeem $99 Prime gift memberships after the price goes up. But I feel pretty confident that, in the worst case scenario, they’d at least give you a gift card for whatever you paid, so you wouldn’t really be out any money. It’s a small risk, but could be worth it to save $20.

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With exclusive shows like Westworld and access tons of movies, including several recent hits, $15 per month is honestly not a lot to ask for HBO, which is what you normally pay when subscribing to HBO Now. But for a limited time, you can add the same library of HBO content to your Hulu membership for just $5 per month for the first six months.

Note: To find the deal, just click the Add-Ons button on the top of the page once you sign into your account.

To get the deal, you’ll need to be a paid Hulu subscriber (plans start at just $8 per month), and it’s not valid for anyone that added HBO to their membership in the past. It’ll also automatically renew at the standard $15 rate after six months, so keep that in mind. But otherwise, there really aren’t a ton of strings attached here: six months of HBO for $30 is a crazy-good deal.

BEST GAMING DEALS

ThinkGeek’s celebrating International Tabletop Day with a huge sale on board games and tabletop gaming accessories, for a limited time. Inside, you’ll find light-up D20 dice, levitating construction sets, a bunch of puzzles, and a whole slew of board games. If you have any particular recommendations, be sure to drop them in the comments.

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The vast majority of Humble’s game bundles focus on PC games, but their latest collaboration with Capcom and SEGA is just for PlayStation owners.

The bundle includes a dozen titles (seven for PS4, three for PS3, and two for the Vita), including hits like Alien Isolation, Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, and Mega Man Legacy Collection. As always, you can name your own price, but you’ll need to pay at least $15 to get all of the games.

As an added bonus, Humble Monthly members (you are a Humble Monthly member, right?) who unlock the highest tier will also get $2 added to their Humble Wallets.

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If you have Amazon Prime, congrats, you also have Twitch Prime. And if you have Twitch Prime, you get some free PC games every month, no strings attached.

Starting on May 1, you’ll get access to six new games, including Gone Home and Psychonauts, just for starters. All you have to do is connect your Prime and Twitch accounts here, then check back on May 1 to download your games. There’s also still time to download April’s games, which include Steamworld Dig 2 and Tales From the Borderlands. Just click the loot icon on the top of your Twitch homepage to find all of the freebies. Once you add them to your library, they’re yours to keep, even if you cancel your Prime membership further down the road.

TECH

• AmazonBasics 2.0 Channel Sound Bar | $45 | Amazon
• AUKEY Suction Cup Apple Watch Stand | $7 | Amazon | Use code AUKEYH37
• Insignia 6-1/2" Powered Wireless 2-Way Speaker | $70 | Best Buy
• Philips Hue White and Color Bulb | $40 | Amazon
  
• Century 7 Day Programmable In-Wall Timer Switch for Lights, fans and Motors | $11 | Amazon
• iClever 21000mAh USB-C Power Delivery Power Bank | $49 | Amazon | Use code PDCHARGE
  
• iClever 600A Peak 18000mAh Portable Jump Starter | $57 | Amazon | Use code ICLEVER778

HOME

• Shun Premier Chef’s Knife, 8-Inch | $140 | Amazon
• Skittles and Starburst Candy Variety Pack | $9 | Amazon
• Simdevanma heat-resistant oven gloves | $8 | Amazon | Use code DR5MYTKE
• Thornton’s ErgoExec High Back Mesh Executive Swivel Office Chair | $230 | eBay
• Roundup Pump-N-Go 170-oz Weed and Grass Killer | $17 | Lowes
• Cabeau Evolution Memory Foam Travel Neck Pillow | $32 | Amazon
• Cabeau Evolution Cool Travel Pillow | $48 | Amazon
• SNICKERS Slice n’ Share Giant Chocolate Candy 1-Pound Bar | $8 | Amazon
• OXO Good Grips 5-Piece Airtight Food Storage POP Container Value Set | $35 | Amazon
• PicoBrew PICO Model C Beer Brewing Appliance | $250 | Amazon
• Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Saver Food Storage Containers, Set of 3 | $21 | Amazon
• OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Avocado Slicer, Green | $7 | Amazon
  
• Bella Single Serve Coffeemaker | $30 | Best Buy
  

LIFESTYLE

• Naipo Shiatsu Back and Neck Massager Foot Massager | $40 | Amazon | Amazon | Use code 87BT5OAI
• Under Armour Adult Resistor 3.0 Crew Socks (6-Pack) | $16 | Amazon
• Extra 20% Off Clearance Clothing | Target
• Ray Ban RB3478 Polarized Original Gunmetal Rectangle Sunglasses, Choice of Color | $69 | eBay

MEDIA

• Ex Machina [Blu-ray] | $7 | Amazon
  

GAMING

• FREE F1 2015 | Steam
• ThinkGeek Tabletop Gaming Sale | ThinkGeek
• School Smart Playground Ball - 10 inch - Red | $4 | Amazon

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April 29, 2018 at 09:06AM

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Ford patented a car with an integrated autonomous electric motorcycle

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You’re not going to believe this one, but it’s true. The U.S. Patent Office just awarded Ford a patent for a car with an integrated, deployable, anonymous electric motorcycle.

This is the same Ford that last week announced future vehicle development will be limited to trucks, SUVs, and crossovers, plus the Mustang sports coupe and convertible.

So why does Ford want to patent a “multimodal  passenger transportation apparatus?” Most likely, the blue oval wants to protect a novel concept one of its design engineers cooked up.

Patents take a while from application to publication, which only occurs when a patent is accepted. In this case, Ford engineers filed the application for the Motorcycle in Car design in October 2017.

According to the application, the multimodal passenger transportation apparatus combines a car with a combustion engine and an electric motorcycle. The vehicle’s inspiration and justification stem from “limited available and affordable parking spaces in urban areas” and spaces where internal combustion engines may be restricted.

After outlining alternative solutions, which include hanging a bicycle off a bike rack, an autonomous unicycle, and finally the tried-and-true motorcycle in a pickup truck bed, Ford’s engineers got down to business.

The “multimodal transportation apparatus,” the patent application reads, “comprises a passenger car with a driver’s seat, a passenger seat, and a center console.” The vehicle also includes an electric-powered autonomous motorcycle and a mechanism to secure the bike to and release it from the passenger car. The motorcycle’s seat would also serve as the car’s center console.

On reaching the driver’s theoretical parking spot, the driver would release the motorcycle from inside the car by opening a hatch in the car’s front end, not unlike an Alien baby bursting from a host’s chest or the Batpod ejection scene in The Dark Knight.

The motorcycle-integrated-ina-car may be just an engineer’s fancy. Notably, however, when Ford released the corporation’s first-quarter 2018 financial results last week, the company also updated its strategic framework for the future. Two of the elements in the framework, “autonomous technology” and “scaling a mobility platform,” were described in flowery but vague terms.

Perhaps the now patent-protected multimodal passenger transportation apparatus is what Ford had in mind all along.

• Mustang, Focus will be only Ford cars sold in U.S. in 2020
• The best trucks you can buy
• Camaro vs. Mustang: Differences and similarities between two premier pony cars

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April 29, 2018 at 09:03AM

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The best camera bag under $70

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April 29, 2018 at 09:03AM

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From SUVs to sedans, every electric Volkswagen starts with the same guts

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April 29, 2018 at 09:03AM

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Russia’s attempt to block Telegram crashes the country’s internet

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Earlier this month, a Russian court gave regulators the authority to block Telegram, a popular encrypted messaging app that’s used not only by an estimated 13 million Russian users but Kremlin officials as well.

It was like releasing a bull in a china shop — or a bear in the Russian Tea Room.

As government officials tried to pull the plug on Telegram, the company responded by repeatedly switching IP addresses, encouraging users to rely on VPNs, and moving to American hosts Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. After playing what the New York Times called “whack-a-mole” with thousands of individual IP addresses, the regulatory agency Roskomnadzor ham-handedly began blacking out entire subnets.

The entire Russian internet quickly spiraled into chaos, with hundreds of unrelated businesses unable to access the web. Among those affected was Viber, a Kremlin-approved messaging service, as well as museums, car dealerships, and schools.

Tanya Lokot, an expert on Russian digital media, explained in an interview with Slate that the clumsy nature of enforcement by Roskomnadzor is not unusual. “There have been a lot of complaints against Roskomnadzor because they do a lot of arbitrary blocking,” she said. “In Russia, I don’t think anybody is terrified of Roskomnadzor in terms of the power it has. People are more terrified of its incompetence.”

Telegram is quite popular in Russia because of its encryption. Legislation introduced in 2016 mandated that all messaging services needed to provide back-door access to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Maria V. Alyokhina, a member of the band Pussy Riot, which has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for several years, spearheaded a public protest against the ban. Demonstrators littered the sidewalk in front of the FSB with paper airplanes, the corporate symbol of Telegram.

The country has previously attempted to make all internet communication companies store their information on Russian servers, and even suggested that Russia might disconnect from the rest of the world and create its own internet.

Some experts fear this could be a warm-up act for blocking even high-profile companies. “The Kremlin could safely move on to block Facebook or Twitter,” Russian intelligence expert Andrei Soldatov wrote in a tweet. “Political costs cannot be higher than now. I hope it was not the plan all along.”

A week like today, and the Kremlin could safely move on to block Facebook or Twitter. Political costs cannot be higher than now. I hope it was not the plan all along.

— Andrei Soldatov (@AndreiSoldatov) April 17, 2018

Lokot agreed. “They’re willing to go this far to basically shut down half of the Russian internet and disrupt the work of so many other companies, including Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and a bunch of Russian companies,” she said.

• Russia bans Popular messenger app Telegram, Kremlin must use new service
• Telegram app is a favorite of Kremlin officials, but Russia wants to block it
• How to block text messages on iOS and Android

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April 29, 2018 at 09:03AM

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Set Your Heart Racing With a Whole Slate of Fitbit Discounts

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April 29, 2018 at 09:00AM

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Peace Talks Between North and South Korea Top This Week's Internet News

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April 29, 2018 at 08:15AM

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I Spent a Weekend With Cyborgs, and Now I Have an RFID Implant I Have No Idea What to Do With

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Jeffrey Tibbetts prepped for implantation and scrubbed in, methodically sudsing up to his elbows, scraping the dirt from under his fingernails and scouring his hands with a rough brush to render his body sterile before donning a pair of beige latex surgical gloves.

Behind him, a twentysomething tea barista in a black baseball cap waited pensively, his left ring finger exposed from under a surgical drape, a tourniquet wrapped tightly around it. For months, an implanted magnet had been uncomfortably bulging out of the side of Zac Shannon’s finger. Tibbetts picked up a scalpel and began cutting, gently scraping away at the flesh until the incision was deep enough to expose the magnet. With the very steady hands of a practiced surgeon, he pulled out the tiny hunk of metal.

Tibbetts plopped another magnet into the finger, sutured it shut, and removed the tourniquet. The small wound began to gush blood.

“How do you feel?” Tibbetts asked Shannon.

“The removal was easier than I expected,” Shannon replied.

“Yeah,” said Tibbetts. “I purposefully upsold you on the pain.”

He exited the room, and took a long, deep drag from a vape.

Tibbetts is an ER nurse, but this was not a hospital. It was a procedure room in his home garage.

Every year, the bold and the brave make a pilgrimage here to California’s remote Tehachapi Mountains for Grindfest, a weekend dedicated to the merger of man and machine.

Grinders are hackers, but the hardware they aim to hack is the human body. They are transhumanist in the most literal sense. Grinders want to transcend human form. For many grinders, that means augmenting their bodies with cybernetic components—becoming cyborgs.

I came to Grindfest curious about how those on the extreme fringes of body hacking were incorporating technology into their lives and bodies. By the time the weekend was over, I had my own RFID chip implant—a small, potentially powerful electronic lump under the skin of my right hand.

Like any clandestine subculture, the internet is the grinder movement’s true home, but Tibbetts’ house is where it occasionally manifests. Fellow grinders gather together here to break bread, exchange ideas, workshop implants, and in some cases get an implant or two themselves. As you might expect, there is also a rather copious amount of alcohol. Not to mention an annual electrified knife fight, in which rubber training knives are rigged give off an electrical charge upon contact with human flesh.

“It’s kind of like a mad scientist conference meets a family reunion,” Amanda Plimpton, who co-hosts Grindfest with Tibbetts, told me.

As a career nurse, Tibbetts is the community’s unofficial chief medic. Here, most people know him by his biohack.me forum handle, Cassox. Four years ago, he left Los Angeles and bought an 1980s-era prefab and four acres of land up a windy private road in the mountainous terrain that sits between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. His neighbors keep goats and grow apples. Tibbetts keeps a wet lab, an electronics workshop and a sterile room where he implants magnets and RFID chips and other cybernetic devices into people’s bodies.

Tibbetts doesn’t view an RFID implant as all that much different from a tattoo or a nose ring.

“People have been doing piercings for so long,” he said. “But the fact that we’re using technology when we’re doing this, people think of it as something different. It seems like, oh, this is probably some dangerous thing and, you know, these schmoes in a garage are cutting themselves or whatever. We actually do a lot of research and put a lot more effort into it than, you know, the body modification community would.”

To the grinder, it seems obvious that instead of carrying wallets and keys and IDs and cellphones, we’ll one day interface with the world via microchips implanted under our skin.

Such ideas are not always welcomed warmly. For many of us, our smartphones may as well be attached to our bodies, but there is something about moving technology past the barrier of the skin that just gives people the heebie-jeebies. Once, when news of Grindfest made its way into local Facebook circles, Tehatchapi residents expressed mild outrage. Some have suggested that microchips could even be the Mark of the Beast, a sign described in Revelations to identify those who side with the Devil during apocalyptic times.

“People don’t like change,” Tibbetts told me. “This is obviously something that could change the world. And people fear that.”

For most, British scientist Kevin Warwick was probably their first encounter with a non-fiction cyborg. Back in 1998, Warwick, then a professor of cybernetics at Reading University, became the world’s first bonafide “cyborg” when he had a radio transmitter chip implanted in his arm that allowed him to, among other things, turn on lights in his office by snapping his fingers. The implant only lasted nine days, but Warwick became a media fixture, dubbed “Captain Cyborg” by the press. He also mobilized a small group of do-it-yourself tech enthusiasts who, like Warwick, were interested in implanting electronics into their bodies. The term grinder came later, lifted from the comic book Doktor Sleepless, set in a near-future dystopia in which young people called “grinders” use extreme body modification to incorporate computers into their own bodies.

For decades, we’ve been implanting into the human body medical devices like pacemakers and IUDs. Warwick, though, pictured a future in which such implants might also be for fun and convenience.

That idea seems a lot less far-fetched than it did in 1998.

Last summer, a Wisconsin company called Three Square Market became the first US company to offer employees implantable NFC chips that let them open doors, buy snacks, log in to computers, and use office equipment like copy machines. Several companies in Europe had already tested similar programs. Several companies have sprung up out of the grinder scene, including Livestock Labs, which has translated some of the know-how gained hacking implants for humans into an implantable health tracker for cattle. And at the fifth annual Grindfest this year, the usual group of a few dozen grinders had expanded to 49. Among them: A U.C. Santa Cruz couple who had read about Grindfest and thought it sounded like a fun weekend getaway; a curious neighbor; and a 16-year-old science whiz from Phoenix, Arizona, Louis Anderson Jr., who came looking for human subjects for his high school science fair project. Anderson Jr. was supervised for the weekend by his dad.

Louis Anderson Sr., a lawyer, spent most of the weekend watching sports on his laptop while his son was busy in Tibbetts’ wet lab, concocting a coating for implants that he theorized could improve on the biocompatible coatings for implants available today. Anderson Jr. had already tested his idea in mice at his school’s microbiology lab.

Anderson Sr. said that when his son had pitched him on flying to California and spending the weekend in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of adults interesting in cybernetic body modification, he said yes, knowing it was an audience that would appreciate his son’s science obsession. He decided to go into it with an open mind. Still, he found himself a bit surprised when the carpool driver from the airport turned out to be Russ Foxx, a body modification artist with horns implanted in his forehead.

Some grinders expressed slight nervousness at having a lawyer in their midst. It’s unclear how agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments might view activities like implanting an untested biomedical coating into someone else.

But, Anderson Sr. said, it didn’t take him long to warm up to the grinder scene—though he wouldn’t allow his son get an implant that weekend.

“I like the hearts of people here. I really do,” he said. “They like my son, and I’m so appreciative that they are going to push his dreams.”

Ryan O’Shea, the spokesperson for Grindhouse Wetware, which makes implants, said that he first heard about grinders four years ago, when he was working for a congressman on Capitol Hill. He read a story about Grindhouse, quit his job, and moved back home to Pittsburgh to convince Grindhouse founder and cyborg icon Tim Cannon to give him a job.

It was Friday evening, the first night of Grindfest, and people were still filtering in. O’Shea gestured to the crowd, which, while predominately white men, also many women, non-binary people, and an African-American father and son.

“Look at the wide spectrum of people here who have come to the conclusion that this is the future,” he said.

Lexi Linnell, a trans woman and the CTO at Livestock Labs, piped in.

“If you’re transgender, grinding actually has practical uses,” she said. For example, Linnell said, some people in the community had been exploring how to alter a gene involved in sex-regulation called DMTR1 that could theoretically turn testicles into something akin to external ovaries.

Over the weekend, one infamous biohacker, Rich Lee, would give a talk on his own sci-fi attempts to engineer his muscles by injecting them with myostatin, a gene to promote muscle growth. (It seems unlikely to work, but Lee is optimistic.)

Other grinders have implanted devices that emulate bioluminescence, that allow them to swipe on to public transit using only their hand, and that continuously measure body temperature. As the grinder community has grown and matured, there has recently been talk of reaching out to regulators and starting an academic journal dedicated to the topic—to make the community seem less fringe, and more accessible to outsiders.

“We have been using technology to transcend the human form for thousands of years,” said O’Shea. “It’s a feedback loop, where we create technology and then the technology recreates us. That cycle is accelerating. We can guide it.”

Still, we’re probably a long ways from being able to get an RFID implant at your local Claire’s.

Most implants simply aren’t that useful. Magnets are a popular implant, but all they do is allow the body to sense magnetic fields, a neat party trick without much practical use. (One grinder said she was able to diagnose a problem with her grandmother’s electric stove with the help of her magnet implant. Another incorporates the implants into her day job as a Vegas magician. In one trick, a magnet in her hand powers a lightbulb.) Plus, implanted magnets encounter problems so often that having one removed is practically a grinder right of passage. Using your hand to start your car or unlock your front door with an RFID is cool and perhaps even practical if you’re someone whose always losing their keys. But those chips have limited memory, and many systems are incompatible with one another, making it a guessing game what will work and what won’t.

James Newman, a salesman from Oregon, wanted to implant a chip from the key fob for his apartment complex into his hand. He hadn’t been able to successfully copy the code from the key fob onto one of the RFIDs he already had implanted, so his plan was to take the key fob apart and see whether the chip inside was something implantable. He spent the better part of Saturday trying to remove the chip from the fob’s plastic coating without ruining it. He had no idea whether, once implanted, the chip would work. (Newman reported back once home in Oregon: It did.)

“I lose things a lot,” Newman said. “But really there’s not a whole lot of added convenience here. The main reason I want to do this is just to see if I can really do it.”

O’Shea, despite being a spokesperson of sorts for the grinder community, doesn’t actually have any implants himself.

“I am purely interested in functional implants things that can extend my ability to do things,” he said.

So far, no implant that exists is quite functional enough for him.

“But look at the Wright brothers,” he said. “When they did the first Kittyhawk flights, they flew couple of hundred feet, a couple dozen feet off the ground in a few seconds. They put their lives on the line to travel for 15 seconds. Six decades later we were landing on the moon. What you’re seeing here is Kittyhawk.”

A moonshot, though, will require overcoming significant barriers. A major one is funding; at the moment, all this experimenting is paid for mostly out of the pockets of body-hacking enthusiasts. But there are technical obstacles, too. Much of the weekend programing was devoted to talks on things like safety and wound care and figuring out how to make better biocompatible coatings for implants.

And, of course, there is also the problem of public perception.

A lack of obvious usefulness, though, is probably the movement’s greatest hurdle. I’m no stranger to subjecting myself to experimentation in the name of journalism, but for years, when grinders have asked me whether I’d consider getting an implant myself, I’ve balked at the idea. It just seemed silly. Unlocking my apartment door with my hand sounds cool, but setting up an NFC-compatible lock honestly seems like more of a hassle than just remembering my keys.

Over the weekend, I quizzed every grinder I spoke to about what sort of killer implant they thought would bring cybernetics into the mainstream. Answers generally fell into two camps: health or payments.

It was roughly the argument of the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch didn’t exactly blow up like the iPod or the iPhone. Most people just don’t need that much power on their wrist. But with healthcare applications, like the ability to monitor heart conditions, the Watch may have finally found its niche.

“It’s going to be a slow process,” said O’Shea. “But when there are stories of lives being saved by some kind of health implant, people will get onboard.”

Still, infected by the enthusiasm of all the grinders I’d met, I decided to give it a try. On the last day of Grindfest, I slipped into Tibbetts’ old repurposed dental chair and gritted my teeth as he prepared to plant a tiny RFID chip into the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. Tibbetts pinched my skin and plunged the needle in, moving it around under my skin until he had placed it in an ideal location, an inch or so down my hand toward my wrist. It hurt less than any one of my tattoos. Becoming a cyborg was downright anticlimactic.

A few weeks later, I still haven’t thought of a great way to use my newfound cybernetic body part. I’m not sure something useful will come anytime soon.

Digital Trends

via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com

April 29, 2018 at 08:06AM

Giving up on ‘diversity and inclusion’

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I went to see Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital speak this week. Her remarkable story is pretty well known by now — she “built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless,” to quote Backstage’s site. She said several interesting things, but let’s start with this one: as of 2019, she will no longer be giving talks on diversity and inclusion.

That may raise eyebrows, given that her fund focuses on funding underrepresented minorities. Her reason, and I’m paraphrasing here but I feel I’ve captured the gist, is that Diversity & Inclusion have become to the tech industry as Human Resources is to a big company; a fig leaf there to protect the status quo, not to improve it.

It’s hard not to agree with her. Companies host D&I events and speakers; hire vice presidents of D&I; organize “diversity training” (which, according to copious evidence, doesn’t work and in fact often backfires.) They talk about diversity. They add diversity slides to their PowerPoint decks. But what do they actually do? I am reminded of Nassim Taleb’s famous dictum: “Don’t tell me what you think, just show me your portfolio.”

Well, here’s that portfolio. According to PitchBook, as reported by Fortune, all-women teams received 2.2% of total VC funding in 2017 — which is on par with 2013 and substantially lower than 2014 — while all-male teams got 79%. This while the industry paid unprecedented amounts of lip service to “diversity and inclusion.”

There is a slight upward trend for VC investment in woman-led teams when considered as number of deals, rather than number of dollars: that has increased from 2.42% in 2007 to 4.44% in 2017. Why, at this rate that number just might break the 10% mark … in the year 2045. Party time! It’s harder to find data on other underrepresented cohorts, but there seem to be zero indications that their representation is improving any faster.

We do, however, have big-company diversity statistics. Let’s compare 2014 to 2017 again, that same period of unprecedented lip service. Google went from “2% Black, 3% Hispanic, 4% Two or more races” to … “2% Black, 4% Hispanic, 4% Two or more races.” Is that progress or what? How about Facebook? In 2014, tech workers there were “3% Hispanic, 2% Two+ races, and 1% Black”, whereas in in 2017, those numbers were — well, this is awkward. They were unchanged.

Cue the usual complaints about how it’s a pipeline problem not a cultural problem (the MeToo movement should have made it painfully obvious that the pipeline is all too often poisonous, from the tip of its funnel to its big-company CEOs); how identifying people or cohorts by gender or ethnicity violates tech’s alleged utopian meritocracy (guess what, the so-called meritocracy started it, by systematically, if often unconsciously, selecting against those groups); and how companies that want to excel can’t afford to lower the bar (this is the stupidest complaint of all, as, to quote Cindy Gallop, “diversity raises the fucking bar!” The tech industry, like every industry, is overfull of complacent mediocre white men.)

Now that that’s out of the way: looking at their portfolio, it’s possible that venture capitalists are, consciously or not, maliciously or not, actually making a deeply cold and cynical bet: sometimes — often — betting on (relatively) mediocre white men on the grounds that their systemic advantages outweigh any/all greater talent and ability of underrepresented counterparts in whom VCs could invest.

It’s a bit like betting on monarchy over democracy, which actually used to be a thing. Individual monarchs may be mediocre, goes the theory, but they’ve been trained from birth to rule and to understand the wielding of power, so they’re more likely to thrive then someone, however talented, suddenly thrust into the position by the will of the unwashed masses.

Similarly, maybe VCs figure — on some level, perhaps unconsciously — that since white men benefit from the cultural systemization of their primacy, their socialized confidence / arrogance, their better networking prospects, and the various other advantages they’ve accumulated since birth, then they’re better bets than underrepresented outsiders who, however tough and driven and brilliant, don’t boast the same advantages.

You may have noticed this didn’t work out so well for monarchy. I predict a similar fate for the “pattern recognition” of e.g. white men who graduated from Stanford or dropped out of Harvard. (And don’t even get me started on the many inequities of America’s top-tier universities, starting with their “legacy admissions.” Attempts to preserve systemic social hierarchies do not get much more blatant than that.)

For a while that approach worked out fine for VCs, because a) the entire tech industry was rising on the twin tides of the Internet revolution and the smartphone revolution, so someone was going to be enormously successful creating e.g. the dominant photo sharing app, probably whoever got the biggest push from the industry powers-that-be, and b) those white men who founded new tech companies were still outsiders, in their way.

It’s good to be an outsider, if you’re trying to do something new. It makes you think originally. It makes you more resilient. Most people are herd beasts; exceptional people usually are, or have been, cut off from the mainstream society around them in some way. Once, long ago, believe it or not, being a tech nerd actually made you an outsider, or at least enough of one that you got many of the advantages of outsiderdom.

That is, to understate, no longer the case. Nowadays hordes of conformist mainstream business-school graduates call themselves geeks and want to launch tech startups, just like everyone else they know. Almost all follow the same formula: lean startup, MVP, seed funding, accelerator, and so forth. Ironically they are doing this at the very same time that — as I’ve argued before — the lean startup era is ending, because that rich vein of worldwide hardware revolutions which fed venture capital for the last two decades is now almost entirely mined out.

When everyone is seeking the same diminishing prize by following the same formula in the same way, the real rewards are inevitably elsewhere. There are other, ancillary veins yet to be mined; but they require a different approach. Different markets. Different values. Different networks. Different mindsets, informed by different life experiences. As a wise friend of mine puts it, “different isn’t always better, but better is always different.” That’s a lesson that VCs will learn soon enough, one way or another.

Digital Trends

via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

April 29, 2018 at 08:01AM

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Keep cool and comfortable in the Showers Pass Summer Riding Collection

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As spring transitions to summer, it’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to wear to stay cool beneath the sweltering sun — in town and out on the trail. An increasing number of companies are blending merino wool with manmade fibers in order to harness the best of both worlds. While merino wool serves as an excellent temperature regulator and odor reducer, synthetic fibers provide softness, durability, and stretch. Showers Pass introduces its Summer Riding Collection for everyone from urban cyclists to the most adventurous backcountry mountain bikers.

The Showers Pass Summer Riding Collection was designed with an active lifestyle in mind. Merino wool’s natural microbial protection keeps you smelling fresh even after a long day on the trail. The company utilized a proprietary blend of nylon and polyester in select areas for the ultimate fusion of natural and synthetic fabrics, designed to withstand everyday abuse and routine upkeep. The collection includes a full line of products from head to toe in both men’s and women’s versions. This new line of technical apparel is designed to perform, but it also makes you look great.

The Apex Merino Tech Tee is ready for the rigors of summer riding, featuring 18.5-micron merino wool ringspun around a nylon core, ensuring durability through endless wash cycles. Enjoy plenty of breathability and stretch during your summer activities. The raglan sleeves are flatlock stitched for added comfort and flatlock stitching on the side panels reduces chafe points, so you can ride worry-free for hours on end. The shirt features a relaxed fit, reflective back label, and UPF 40 protection.

The H-Line Merino Short Sleeve Shirt is a complement to the Tech Tee — the same fabric construction, but a different style and a slightly altered fabric blend. This shirt features modern Henley styling with a snap front and chest pocket. The Ridgeline Half Zip LS Shirt is designed for those slightly cooler days, featuring long sleeves and a relaxed fit with longer back length for on-the-bike coverage.

Two different styles of mountain bike shorts round out this comprehensive line. The IMBA shorts are touted “the most comfortable mountain bike shorts the world has ever seen,” with a breathable nylon-spandex 4-way stretch fabric, thigh vents, reflective accents, and zippered products. With every purchase, you give back to the community you love — 5 percent of net proceeds benefit the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

The Apex Merino Tech Tee retails for $70, the H-Line Merino Short Sleeve Shirt for $90, the Ridgeline Half-Zip LS Shirt for $95, the IMBA Shorts for $98, and the Cross Country Shorts for $90. Everything can be purchased on the Showers Pass website.

• NASA’s upcoming Parker Solar Probe might as well be walkin’ on the sun
• Nissan begins field tests of its Easy Ride driverless robo-taxi in Japan
• Say goodbye to cold, wet hands and feet with the Showers Pass Crosspoint line

Digital Trends

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April 29, 2018 at 07:59AM