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Facebook has been coming under fire recently due to controversies ranging from Russian interference in the 2016 elections to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The role Facebook plays in influencing public opinion is undeniable, and it is easy for someone to use that influence for nefarious purposes with little or no accountability. Because of this, Facebook is making significant changes to the way it treats political ads, specifically in who can run them and how they are shown to users.
The video clip for John Legend's newest song, A Good Night, takes place at a nightclub and follows two individuals as they meet and eventually end up getting married. The song itself is quite catchy, but what's most interesting is the fact that the whole music video was actually shot entirely on the Pixel 2, even despite the less-than-ideal lighting conditions you'd find in a dimly lit room with strobe lights.
Amazon announced its Amazon Key home delivery service late last year, allowing Amazon Prime members to remotely unlock and monitor their front door using a kit consisting of an Amazon Cloud Cam security camera and a compatible smart lock. Aside from being able to detect when someone is entering your home, Amazon Key can also let you grant access to an Amazon delivery personnel so they can leave your package in your home, instead of at your doorstep where anyone could grab it.Today, Amazon is discounting its Amazon Key Home Kit to the lowest price it has ever been, dropping from the original price of $289.98 down to a starting price of $169.99 — a $120 saving. The kit includes a selection of smart locks you can pick from, ranging from the 9.99 Kwikset Convert smart lock to the more expensive Yale Assure Smart Lock Touchscreen, which retails for $249.99. Depending on which smart lock you end up picking, your savings will be between $110 and $140 compared to buying the lock and Cloud Cam separately (which sells for 9.99).Amazon also just updated their Amazon Key Android app yesterday, which lets members monitor their Cloud Cam and control their smart lock remotely, allowing users to now get a motion clip for every entry and exit, as well as providing the option to opt in to in-home delivery during kit setup. Today also comes with more news from Amazon, as it announced the expansion of Amazon Key's smart entry features nationwide (which include keyless entry, remote lock and unlock, and guest access). For now, in-home delivery continues to be available exclusively to Prime members in 37 cities across the United States.
Wireless earbuds are all the rage, especially since manufacturers began making the unfortunate trend of removing the headphone jack from smartphones. Now, it appears that OnePlus is also working on a pair of wireless earbuds, dubbed the 'OnePlus Bullets Wireless,' which could potentially launch alongside the upcoming OnePlus 6, according to a Bluetooth Certification listing spotted by Nashville Chatter.
Right now, Amazon has a few products on sale that might interest you if you're the kind of person who is thinking of upgrading their smart home. There are two robot vacuums — one from Eufy and another from Ecovacs — that are going for $200 and $180, respectively, as well as a Genie smart speaker and a smart plug from Eufy that are also 33% and 18% off, respectively. The Ecovacs vacuum in particular is a pretty good deal, since it's the upgraded version of the Wirecutter's pick for "best robot vacuum" and yet comes out cheaper than the older model by $15 with a coupon code. (Amazon had a great deal on the older model a couple of weeks ago for the same price as the current deal on the new model.)Here's the full list of products:
These days, many — if not most — of the electronics we charge or plug in use USB. Sure, your lamp and your fridge probably don't have a USB plug, but your phone, tablet, bluetooth speaker, portable battery pack, and maybe even laptop likely do. It's sort of an overkill to use a whole outlet just to plug in a single USB cable, which is why there are now several places where you can buy USB wall outlets that you can install directly on a wall.Today, Amazon has a Gold Box Deal on a few Top Greener USB outlets that are selling for 25% or more off their sticker price and which are very well reviewed (one of them is actually 'Amazon's Choice' for the search term "usb wall outlet"). Here's the full list of USB outlets on sale:
Google has announced today that it's rolling out changes to Search which will make it easier for users to find and buy tickets to a movie they want to see. Now, when searching for a good movie to go watch with some friends, users will be able to quickly filter and compare a whole bunch of factors, including ratings, showtimes, theater locations, and more.
Anyone who's traveled to another country knows how frustrating it is to be geoblocked from streaming content that's available back at home. Due to licensing restrictions, content providers like Netflix aren't always able to provide the same viewing experience across different countries, and so some countries get access to a worse content library than others. Hypothetically, this shouldn't happen within the European Common Market (to which the European Union belongs), which seeks to "guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour," but in reality there's always some gap between theory and practice. However, that begins to change with the EU's Cross-border portability of online content services policy, which went into effect yesterday.
One of the things that most annoyed me when switching from Gmail to Inbox as my main email client was how you could no longer mark emails as read. My email workflow had always consisted of manually marking emails as read before archiving them, and I didn't appreciate the change. It might just be my unhealthy obsession with being unreasonably neat and organized — it probably is — but it really irks me to think that there might be an unread email hiding somewhere in my archive.
Audiobooks have only been available on Google Play for barely two months, but Google is already working hard on improving the experience. In a blog post today, Google revealed a few of the new features and improvements it has been adding to make it even more enjoyable to listen to an audiobook with Google Play, whether on the app or through Google Assistant.
If you've ever used Chrome's casting functionality, you've likely come across one of its more frustrating shortcomings. While it works great for casting an online video, a tab, or even your entire screen, Chrome simply cannot cast a local audio or video file natively, forcing you to resort to using a third-party extension or standalone app. Fortunately, the Chrome team is currently experimenting with adding the ability to cast local files directly from within the browser, according to the well-known Googler and 'Chromium evangelist,' François Beaufort.
They say the future is wireless, but unfortunately we still live in the present. Phones, tablets, and laptops are all charged using cables, and it seems that you can never have too many USB Type-C cables lying around. Luckily, Slickdeals has spotted a great deal for three Aukey USB A to USB C cables with a coupon code that'll save you 42% off the already discounted sticker price of $11.99.The Aukey cables are specified as USB 3.1 Gen 1 (formerly known as USB 3.0), meaning they can handle data transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps. They are 3.3 feet long and can charge at up to 3A, and support both Samsung Adaptive Fast Charging and Qualcomm Quick Charge (when used with a compatible battery pack or charger). They don't support quick charging on devices such as the Nexus 6P or Google Pixel 2, so you may want to bear that in mind.
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- AT&T has just posted the update notes for the Note8 Oreo update on their website. The details are copied below.
Yesterday, Samsung promised to roll out Android 8.0 Oreo to every Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 within the next 3 weeks, and it's off to a good start. The update for the Note8 started hitting some devices in France just a few days ago, and now it looks like it has crossed the Atlantic and begun popping up on devices in the US, starting with those on AT&T.
Google Search's migration to mobile-first indexing will soon expand to more websites across the web, Google stated in a blog post today. A limited experiment first began in late 2016, pushed by Google's goal to make search results more useful on mobile. Satisfied with the preliminary results, Google has now begun by migrating those websites that currently "follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing."
Players of the original Pokémon Red and Blue series will no doubt recall hearing and sharing countless stories on how to obtain the mythical Pokémon, Mew. The creature was only available on the Game Boy through official Nintendo events (or with a glitch discovered in 2003), but that never stopped anyone from spreading rumors about how there was a Mew hiding underneath the truck near the S. S. Anne. This was a time when the internet as we know it was still in its infancy, and it wasn't as easy back then to look up and refute a hoax — though to be fair, things aren't much different now that it is.
Snapchat's Snap Map, the heatmap overview of Snaps shared around the world, was introduced last summer, letting users get a better sense of where their friends were sharing from. However, unless you zoomed out and looked around for Snaps and Stories outside your area, you would likely miss out on content that hadn't been shared nearby. Today, Snap has introduced a feature called 'Explore' that will bring more prominence to content on the Snap Map, regardless of where it's shared from.
There are plenty of options for Bluetooth speakers around, including some from popular brands like JBL and UE. Sony also makes a few speakers that are perhaps slightly less well-known, but they are no slouches either. One of Sony's more popular speakers, the XB30, which has an impressive 24-hour battery life, is currently on sale on Amazon for just .99 ( less than what Sony usually sells them for).In addition to the incredibly long battery life (for comparison, the similarly-priced JBL Flip 4 lasts for half as long, and the more expensive JBL Charge 3 lasts only 20 hours), the Sony XB30 supports pairing via NFC, is water resistant, and can be wirelessly connected to up to 10 other speakers for stereo sound. The XB30 also has a flashing strobe light and a multi-color line light around its perimeter, so it's basically a portable nightclub.Sony's XB30 is slightly on the heavy side, weighing in at 2.86 pounds (about a full pound more than either the UE MEGABOOM or the JBL Charge 3), and unfortunately uses Sony's proprietary charger instead of something more common like micro USB or USB Type-C. Despite that, it is rated 4.4 stars on Amazon, with many favorable reviews. If you're interested, head over to Amazon to check it out.Source: Amazon
To celebrate having been voted number 1 in Harris Poll's annual corporate reputation survey for its third year straight, Amazon is discounting several Alexa-enabled devices and bundles by 20% or more off their original price. The number of items that are on discount is pretty significant, so we've copied them all below.
HTC Vive's venture into standalone VR headsets, the Vive Focus, was unveiled late last year, but the launch was unfortunately confined to the Chinese market. Unlike existing VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift or the standard HTC Vive, the Focus doesn't require being tethered to a powerful computer to work, making it a truly standalone experience. On the other hand, existing standalone virtual reality goggles like the Gear VR, Daydream View, or upcoming Oculus Go don't have spatial tracking, meaning that users aren't able to move around in 3D space.
Google rebranded Android Wear as Wear OS last week, but the change didn't bring any new features with it. The reason behind the rebranding wasn't stated explicitly, but it may be that Google wants to make the wearable operating system seem more platform agnostic — last year, one in every three new Android Wear watch owners also used an iPhone, so dropping the 'Android' from the name of the platform might help even more people realize that Wear works with iOS devices, too. However, development on Wear OS continues regardless of changes in name, and Google has announced today that it's improving the Google Play Music experience on Wear watches.