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There's Something For Everyone in this Networking and Storage Gold Box https://ift.tt/2SLabg9 Right now, there’s a big networking and storage sale going on at Amazon. Highlights of this Gold Box include big discounts on wireless routers, mesh networking systems, like the Netgear Orbi and the D-Link Covr, modems, and Powerline adapters. Gadget News via Lifehacker https://lifehacker.com February 20, 2019 at 12:20PM
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Anker’s PowerWave+ Pad is the latest AirPower knock-off you probably shouldn’t get https://ift.tt/2IuacjQ It’s been close to a year and a half since Apple first announced AirPower, its supposedly revolutionary wireless charger that still has yet to materialize. Now, yet another knock-off version of the still-missing powermat has appeared — this time in the form of Anker’s new PowerWave+ Pad, via 9to5Toys. As knock-off AirPower pads go, this one is pretty lame. Anker is asking for $54 for the ability to charge a single device, plus an Apple Watch (assuming you thread a not-included $29 Apple Watch charging cable into the charging pad). Power is supplied by a Micro USB cable, despite the fact that this was released in 2019. The pad itself appears to just be a hunk of plastic. There are cheaper and better-looking options out there. The fact that the Anker PowerWave+ Pad exists is notable because it’s just one of the numerous products that have appeared in the last few months to try to fill the vacuum that the missing AirPower has left in the market. Anker is trying, Griffin has a version, Nomad has a similar style pad, and that’s to say nothing of the plethora of crowdfunded knock-offs and sketchy replicas that are practically a dime a dozen on Amazon. Sure, most of these chargers won’t be as good as AirPower. They won’t have Apple’s special software integrations or the company’s special, multicoil system that Apple says should help avoid the flaky positioning issues that can plague other wireless chargers. But none of that will likely matter to most consumers. Right now, you can go on Amazon and actually buy an Anker PowerWave+, and despite its flaws, it’ll still charge your phone just as fast as Apple’s will. More importantly, every customer who buys one of these means it’s another AirPower that Apple probably won’t sell. That’s the real cost of Apple’s inability to ship. Gadget News via The Verge https://ift.tt/1jLudMg February 20, 2019 at 12:15PM 10 Smart Alexa speakers you need to see (best Alexa gadgets 2019) - Gadget Flow https://ift.tt/2E13a0o 10 Smart Alexa speakers you need to see (best Alexa gadgets 2019) Gadget Flow Do you have a love-hate relationship with Alexa speakers? These 10 smart Alexa speakers are here to blow you away with their audio quality. Gadget News via "gadgets" - Google News https://ift.tt/2SapIRK February 20, 2019 at 12:13PM Nokia 6 (2017) Android 9.0 Pie Rollout Begins: HMD Global - NDTV https://ift.tt/2IAkoqS Nokia 6 (2017) Android 9.0 Pie Rollout Begins: HMD Global NDTV The Nokia 6 is getting the update to Android Pie sticking to HMD Global's promise of two year software support on the smartphone. Gadget News via "gadgets" - Google News https://ift.tt/2SapIRK February 20, 2019 at 12:13PM
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Mark Zuckerberg is ‘potentially interested’ in putting Facebook login on the blockchain https://ift.tt/2twQBoS Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “potentially interested” in putting the Facebook login on the blockchain as part of a public interview with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain. In particular, Zuckerberg said the blockchain could give users unique powers when granting data access to third-party apps. Facebook has been investing in its blockchain team that was formed last May, led by David Marcus, who was formerly the VP of Messenger. The aim of the team has been to figure out the best ways to leverage blockchain with Facebook. Earlier this month, the company acquired blockchain firm Chainspace, which works on research and development of smart contracts. In May, Cheddar reported that Facebook also exploring the possibility of making its own cryptocurrency for payments. But this is the first indication that Facebook could integrate blockchain technology as part of its login and data-sharing system.
In the interview, Zuckerberg said authentication was “a use of blockchain that I’m potentially interested in,” although “I haven’t found a way for this to work.” In general, the proposed system would replace Facebook Connect with “something that’s fully distributed.” That system could let individuals pick and choose which apps to allow access to and limit the amount of data shared. Some third-party services have already developed similar systems to protect users’ personal data, but Facebook taking the approach would be a significant change in the landscape. Zuckerberg explained in more detail:
The move would mean Facebook couldn’t cut off access to the third-party apps, which would be a boon for app developers. But, at the same time, Zuckerberg admits that making Facebook access decentralized would also mean that in the event of a massive data breach like Cambridge Analytica, third-party apps that violated privacy could still run freely. Facebook has had serious problems with apps and data-sharing in recent years. In October, Facebook explained that hackers accessed the basic data of 14 million user accounts from July 2017 to September 2018 as a result of an unexpected behavior in the Chrome browser. As recently as December, reports surfaced that Facebook had allowed companies like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon access to private data years after it should have stopped. The risk of further data-sharing scandals is one of the main reasons why Facebook is wary of implementing the change. “In a fully distributed system, there’d be nobody who could cut off their access. A fully distributed system empowers individuals on the one hand but it really raises the stakes,” says Zuckerberg, noting that “it’s a lot easier to hold accountable large companies like Facebook or Google” than a series of third-party apps. “You’d also have more cases of abuse and the recourse would be much harder.” Gadget News via The Verge https://ift.tt/1jLudMg February 20, 2019 at 12:07PM
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Neptune’s newly discovered moon may be the survivor of an ancient collision https://ift.tt/2ty1G8Y A newly discovered small moon of Neptune is coming into clearer focus as astronomers have now pinpointed this tiny rock’s orbit and where it might have come from. The moon’s existence heightens the possibility that there are even more tiny worlds around Neptune that we just haven’t seen yet. Astronomers first spotted this moon in 2013 by combing through images of Neptune that were taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The discoverers have now dubbed the world Hippocamp, the name of a horse-like sea monster from Greek mythology. The title fits in nicely with the theme of Neptune’s 13 other moons, all of which are named after Greek gods of bodies of water. Hippocamp is incredibly tiny for a moon: it’s just 21 miles across, or about the size of a major metropolitan city. Its minuscule size made this rock super difficult to study from Earth. But with the help of further observations from Hubble, astronomers were able to track this little moon over the last few years, detailing their work in a new paper in Nature. That allowed them to distinguish just how big it is as well as the exact path it takes around Neptune. “We’ve done a full analysis so we know precisely how this object moves,” Mark Showalter, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute and lead author of the Nature paper who discovered Hippocamp, tells The Verge. Before this discovery, many of Neptune’s inner moons had been found by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew by the cold, gassy planet on its tour of the outer Solar System. Voyager snapped images of five new moons that were never before seen at the Neptune system. But the spacecraft ultimately missed Hippocamp, and now Showalter knows why. “We know the orbit now well enough to predict where it was in any of the Voyager images,” he says. “And it turns out there were a few close ones, but it was just never quite in the right place at right time for the Voyager cameras.” Finding Hippocamp was an unexpected discovery, too. Back in 2013, Showalter was poring over pictures from Hubble in order to study the weird features around Neptune known as arcs. The arcs are thin rings, like those around Saturn, that don’t connect all the way around Neptune. The problem with studying these rings is that they’re very faint and they move very quickly, which makes them hard to capture with cameras from Earth. Fixed, long-exposure images that bring in extra light ultimately blur the arcs out. So Showalter came up with a neat trick where he basically combined multiple images from Hubble together and tweaked them to compensate for the movement. As a result, it was as if Hubble had been following the arcs during their motion. When he did this, he noticed a tiny dot kept popping up in all the images. After looking at it more closely, he realized it was a moon. Since then, the goal has been to get a much better understanding of this little rock. Based on its orbit, Showalter and his team now have a pretty good idea of where this moon came from. Hippocamp’s orbit brings the moon very close to a much bigger moon of Neptune called Proteus, which is 130 miles across. And based on their analysis, Showalter believes that Hippocamp is probably a piece of Proteus that was broken off billions of years ago by a passing comet. “Now we see a very real example of what happens when a comet hits a moon,” he says. “In the case of Proteus, it doesn’t quite break it apart but breaks off a piece and there’s the Hippocamp we see today.” It’s suspected that the early Solar System was a very volatile place, with lots of comets zipping around the giant outer planets. It seems plausible that a comet collided with Proteus, chipping off Hippocamp. This version of Hippocamp’s origin story is backed up by the moons’ positions relative to each other and Neptune. Hippocamp and Proteus aren’t in the same spot now because Proteus is very slowly spiraling away from Neptune. Proteus creates tides on Neptune, just like our Moon does on Earth, and this interaction causes the moon to move outward. So 4 billion years ago, after the birth of the Solar System, Proteus was probably about 10,000 kilometers closer to Neptune than it is now. “If you look at the system today and play it back 4 billion years, suddenly Hippocamp and Proteus are practically on top of each other,” says Showalter. Based on this discovery, it seems possible that there are maybe even more tiny moons like Hippocamp. It’s possible that rocks have broken off of larger moons or pieces of debris from elsewhere in the Solar System. Showalter is hopeful that we may be able to find more someday, possibly with NASA’s future observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope. That telescope will be the most powerful one humanity has ever sent into space, and it may be able to do some great observations of both Neptune and Uranus. But to really know just how many moons Neptune has, Showalter says we need to send another spacecraft there — one that sticks around longer than Voyager did. “I suspect when the day comes that NASA and the European Space Agency send a spacecraft out to Neptune and study the system much more closely, there will be quite a few more moons to discover,” says Showalter. “But this is probably the limit of what we can do from Earth.” Gadget News via The Verge https://ift.tt/1jLudMg February 20, 2019 at 12:07PM
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Live blog: Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Unpacked event https://ift.tt/2GVrvYv Will we finally see more of the folding phone, too? Samsung is gearing up to hold a huge keynote where we’re expecting quite a lot of phones. The Galaxy S10, S10 Plus, and S10E have all been leaked so much that it feels like we know all there is to know. But Samsung still manages to surprise us sometimes. These are the flagship smartphones, and we’ve seen hints of multiple cameras, in-screen fingerprint sensors, and more. The Galaxy S10E is maybe more intriguing; it’s a lower-cost version of the phone that hopefully won’t compromise in places where it counts. But beyond those flagships, there’s the big one: the folding phone. Samsung has already teased it onstage, but we would very much like to know more details. Hopefully, it will have software that’s better than the folding phones we’ve seen in the past. And while we’re hoping, we also hope Samsung won’t be too coy about price and release date. What else could there be? We’ll find out at 11AM PT / 2PM ET on February 20th. Live from the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, let’s see if Samsung decides to get weird once again. Live from Samsung Galaxy S10 Unpacked 2019You can follow the latest news on our Samsung hub, stream the event on Samsung’s YouTube channel, and get more updates from The Verge on Twitter and Instagram. Note: you may have noticed we’re trying a new live blog tool. Need to report a bug or problem? Leave a comment or email support@theverge.com. Gadget News via The Verge https://ift.tt/1jLudMg February 20, 2019 at 12:07PM
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Facebook now lets you block background location tracking on Android https://ift.tt/2T5y69q Facebook is adding a new privacy control to its Android app today that allows users to prevent the social network from accessing their location when the app isn’t open. The update comes just days after CNBC reported that Facebook’s security team had used location information to track missing interns and users deemed to be threats. Until now, granting Facebook your location data on Android was an all-or-nothing deal: you either had to prevent Facebook from seeing your location at all, or you had to grant it full use of your location. That comes down to how Android works. Google requires that apps get permission to use your location, but it doesn’t offer options for when your location data can be used. Today’s announcement seems to imply that Facebook used that access to keep checking in on users’ locations, even when the app wasn’t open. Now, Facebook is allowing users to opt out of sharing their location while the app is closed, with a toggle that will limit Facebook to checking in only when you’re using the app. On iOS, Apple already presents the option to block an app from using your location in the background, so an update there isn’t needed. Facebook says it’s going to be sending out alerts anyway to both iOS and Android users, asking them to review their location settings. Last week, CNBC reported on how Facebook’s security team once used the service’s access to location data in an attempt to track interns who hadn’t shown up for work. The company is also reported to have tracked the location of users deemed to be threats. Gadget News via The Verge https://ift.tt/1jLudMg February 20, 2019 at 12:07PM
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'LittleBigPlanet' follow-up 'Dreams' comes to creators this spring https://ift.tt/2SRaeHe Media Molecule's Dreams has generated a lot of buzz for its creative potential during its beta phase, and soon it'll be available to everyone. The LittleBigPlanet studio has announced that its PS4 crafting tool will be available in Early Access form this spring. This version won't have everything you'll find in the polished release, but it'll include the same implements Media Molecule uses, a range of pre-made arcade games and tutorials to help with your own projects. The rough release will help "prioritize" what the company works on, the developer's Siobhan Reddy said. The in-progress version will be available for $30 through the PlayStation Store. If you were part of the beta, your existing work will carry over. Dreams has been in development for a long time -- it first surfaced in 2015, and the wait has left some wondering whether it could live up to its far-reaching ambitions. However, beta testers have produced surprising results in a relatively short space of time. There have been remakes of Konami's horror demo PT and EA's Dead Space, while others have created platformers, movies and other projects that you wouldn't think would be possible with a gamepad. Early Access could both expand the number of creators as well as give existing artistes more opportunities to refine their ideas. Source: PlayStation Blog Gadget News via Engadget http://www.engadget.com February 20, 2019 at 12:00PM
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Find your lost keys easier with 50% off the Tile Sport Bluetooth Tracker https://ift.tt/2IAVKq6 Your keys are just a ring away with a Tile tracker. The Tile Sport Bluetooth Tracker is on sale at Verizon Wireless for only $12.49 when you enter promo code FIVEOFF during checkout. That saves you around 50% off its average price at Amazon where it's currently selling for $22. In the past, it's been priced at up to $35. Shipping is free. On the other hand, you can grab the Tile Sport two-pack for $24.99 using the code above. Either option is a great choice. Do you wish you weren't constantly losing track of your phone, wallet or keys? Tile was created to bring a solution to the age-old problem of "where did I leave that thing?" It can connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth to help you keep track of your belongings. With this item being so tiny, you might even forget it's there 'til you need it. Just clip it on your keyring, slip it into your wallet, or secure it in your backpack, and you're good to go. Tile Sport has the capability to be used in different ways, too. If you've lost your keys and a Tile Sport is attached, simply press a button on your phone and the Tile Sport will begin ringing to help you locate it. If you've lost your phone, press the button on the Tile Sport and your phone will begin ringing. The free-to-use app can even show you the last known location of your Tile Sport. There's also a huge lost-and-found aspect to this tracker. If you straight-up lose something, you can anonymously ask for help and the Tile network can help to pinpoint the location. This model of Tile's bluetooth tracker offers a range of up to 200 feet, which is double that of the popular Tile Mate and Tile Slim options. Plus, it's rugged and waterproof unlike the others as well. Gadget News via iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog https://www.imore.com/ February 20, 2019 at 11:59AM |
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