In retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming. Since the iPhone X (and the Essential PH-1 before it), notches have taken over the world. In fact, I have even written before about the forthcoming "Era of Notches". However, as Google-centric Android person, I loved the fact that my Pixel 2 XL was notchless; I even find the beauty in the Galaxy lineup for its symmetrical bezels. Alas, it appears that Google is fully embracing the notch with the Pixel 3 XL. Possible Pixel 3 screen protectors After the "leak" of what appeared to be screen protectors for the upcoming Pixel 3 (due to be released in October), the Android world was sent in to a frenzy. As shown below, while the Pixel 3 appears to resemble the 2 XL, the Pixel 3 XL will featuring a very prominent notch as well as quite a large chin. The phone will undoubtedly feature the greatest features available as every new flagship does (Snapdragon 845, OLED, plenty of RAM) as well as the signatu...
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IMAGE: Android Police I, Robot has finally come true...Robots are alive and now shooting guns; it is time to fear the rise of artificial intelligence. Or not. IMAGE: FanPop As detailed in an article on Engadget today , a video was posted to YouTube demonstrating Google Assistant shooting a gun. The point to be made: it is time to stop thinking about what artificial intelligence could do and start thinking about what it should do. On the surface, the thought of robots powered by artificial intelligence both handling and utilizing firearms is cause for alarm. However, there is much more to this story that makes the story much less fascinating, but it still keeps the mind questioning any practical and moral issues arising from artificial intelligence. The actual process that led to the phrase, "OK Google, activate gun," actually shooting a gun is quite impressive. As explained, the actual trigger was pulled by a string connected to a coin-dispensing machine l...
IMAGE: Getty Images (Composite from PageSix) A while back, I wrote a piece encouraging people to be mindful of their digital footprint and the things they say and do on social media. As someone who has seen some very questionable things posted online, I thought it was important to encourage others to take caution with what they share. As for those who are forced to see and hear another's ridiculous thoughts, I wrote a piece just days ago about the ability to unfollow and avoid others so that you are not forced to suffer through their farcical thoughts. Now, imagine my delight this morning, when I happen to stumble upon article after article detailing the nonsensical and inflammatory remarks on Twitter made by this country's most obnoxious T.V. mom. For those who may not have caught up on the news this morning, Roseanne Barr decided to enjoy her Memorial Day weekend by tweeting every ridiculous thought to come through her narrow mind ranging from accusations against Geo...
An avid fitness fan as well as tech enthusiast, I love fitness apps and trackers. They manage to combine my love of staying healthy and tech obsession perfectly. Throughout my day, my Huawei Watch linked with Google Fit pretty perfectly tracks my steps and movement, and then come exercise time, my Fitbit Charge 2 is a perfectly capable helper. I have noticed that as I talk to people, I find myself immediately checking their wrists for fitness trackers because I find myself genuinely curious how much people truly utilize them. While I make no judgements on a person's appearance or lifestyle, I have noticed people that where them daily seem to make little progress on their fitness goals. Again, everyone is different and weight is not the overall indicator of health, it does make me wonder whether fitness trackers have become, like other electronics, more about appearance than health. While I have not delved entirely in to all of the settings of either Google Fit or Fitbit, I...
IMAGE: Softpedia Admittedly, when I first thought about this post, I was operating under the assumption that the majority of people owned a windows PC so it would be just that operating system I would be referring to, but with Chromebooks now utilizing Android apps, this same question can be asked: Browser or App? IMAGE: ExtremeTech For starters, let me clarify. Many of our most commonly used programs started on the web; Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, and many others have fully-functioning and well-operating websites that are perfectly suited for personal computer web-browsing. Meanwhile, on our phones and tablets, we use native applications that are custom-built for the best possible experience on those devices; we would never think to use Netflix in the browser on a phone. With the introduction of Windows 10 and the Microsoft store, as well as the incorporation of Android apps on Chromebooks, the lines in the sand are washing away. Big names such as Facebook and T...
IMAGE: PCmag Let's start with the elephant in the room: regardless of what they do or how they do it, Facebook has a hold on its customer base. I know they have scandal after scandal and even a nationwide "delete Facebook" campaign, but they continue to have over a billion users. Like it or not, most people use it, and most people spend a good bit of time on it. Fact. Now, why do we spend so much time on Facebook? Well, it gives us information and updates on those we love and allows us to stay connected to those we do not see regularly. Do I get to see my sister and niece every day? No, but I can keep up with her accomplishments and stay connected. On the other hand, the bad thing about Facebook is it gives us information and allows us to stay connected with those we love. IMAGE: Gadgets.NDTV Wait what? Yes, as much as we love our family and friends, we often do not see eye-to-eye on things such as politics, religion, sports, child-raising, et cetera. Tha...
IMAGE: The Daily Beast What happens when something becomes much more than it is? More importantly, has it always been that everything we own means much more than just what is was meant to me? Have we reached the point where we buy things not by practicality, but more by image? Are phones just the next link in the chain? I am sure long before television commercials, social media, and worldwide recognition things were known just for usability. For instance, if you bought a hammer, shoes, or even something as advanced as a refrigerator, you bought it for its practicality. You wanted something that did the job it was asked to do for as long as it possibly could. If someone asked what brand of fridge you had, you may reply, "Not a clue, but it keeps shit cold". To an extent, even cars were purchased for the life expectancy, not the flash it seemed to have. Even when cell phones first came out, the idea of image based on cell phone was non-existent. The only idea of im...
IMAGE: IMDB Let's start with a little background for those that are not familiar. 13 Reasons Why is a Netflix show that follows the story of Hannah Baker, or rather, the story after Hannah Baker. After intense bullying, harassment, and ultimately sexual assault, Hannah takes her own life leaving behind a set of tapes detailing the reasons she committed suicide. In the newly released season two, 13 Reason follows the trial in the lawsuit between Hannah's parents and the school district. An incredibly graphic show, 13 Reasons leaves little to the imagination. Hannah's suicide is shown fully on screen as are the various depictions of sexual assault including the now controversial scene featuring character Tyler in the season two finale. Designed to instigate discussion about some of the darker sides of society, 13 Reasons Why remains polarizing for how it depicts certain topics; however, one topic that is rarely discussed or mentioned is the affect that technology has on...
IMAGE: TechAdviser.co When The Verge first released its exclusive analysis on the future of Google messaging including the seeming death of Allo, the branding of Chat, and the push toward RCS, I did not think too much of it. After all, I had been reading about Rich Communication Services as the successor to Short Message Service for years; the popularity of apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and iMessage showed that people loved the feeling of more personalized messages. Uncompressed pictures and stickers were just the beginning of what RCS was capable as in-thread boarding passes started to become a reality. Unfortunately, as is always the case, carriers and companies could not agree on a profile for universal RCS leading to no direction and no adoption; Apple sitting comfortably on the outside with the exclusivity of iMessage did not help the matter either. However, Google with Chat seems to have put RCS back on track. As noted in the article, many carriers and manufacturers h...
Sometimes, you just want to grow up or make a change right? Surely, I am not the only one has dreamt of this so what do you do? Easy right? You decide what or who you want to be, make the change, and do your best to make sure others are aware of the new you. It should be an easy process, but of course, Google has to make it difficult. Oh, you didn't know I was talking about email? When we are younger and make our first email address, it is often something we will regret later. I mean the vast majority of email addresses for younger kids (if it wasn't set up by a parent) includes "420", "69", or some phrasing like "ladiesman". As a kid, these seem hilarious, and we often use these email addresses for years until we realize that it makes us look like jackasses. My first email address used "kid" in the address which obviously was not a great idea when I was no longer a kid so I needed to change it. However, that was not so diffi...
IMAGE: The Australian It would be insane for me to try avoiding talking about the royal wedding considering it took over the world today; I will admit that I did indeed watch it. So in the spirit of the royal wedding, I think it is important to talk about how large of an impact technology and the media had on this day throughout the world. Let's take a look at how the marriage of the Queen and Prince Phillip would have been covered. Newspapers would have covered the event a little before, and there would have been a headline the day after. Of course there would have been some black and white grainy photos of the occasion throughout the day as well as during the ceremony, and it was broadcast live on BBC radio. But for the most part, people throughout the world would have to wait to read the papers or listen through word-of-mouth to hear about it; there was definitely not a feeling of inclusiveness. IMAGE: Hulton Deutsch Now, let's fast forward to the weddin...
IMAGE: Avast Admittedly, I have not always been the most secure person on the web; in fact, I was pretty horrible when it came to security. For someone that loves technology and interaction of connected services, my passwords and security protocols were absolutely horrible. Thankfully, I have grown up a little bit (in terms of security), and I would love to pass that wisdom on. First of all, do NOT do what I used to do which is use the same password for almost everything including having the same password for email, social media, and financial services. Does anyone else see a problem with this? Considering how many data breaches we hear about every day, why would you want someone like Twitter or Snap having your PayPal and banking password? For the love all things, do yourself a favor and use unique, complicated passwords for every service; do NOT use pet names, kids names, birthdays, et cetera. The more complicated each password is and the more unique they are, obviously the mo...
IMAGE: Google One of the worst kept secrets in the tech world has finally been announced: YouTube and Google Play Music are finally going to start converging. The new YouTube Music app will start rolling out next week with the long term plan to phase out Google Play Music. The new app will compete with Spotify with a $9.99 per month plan that will let you have unlimited skips, ad-free listening, and background playing; there will also be a free version that allows listening with ads. The current YouTube Red will become YouTube Premium for just an additional $2.00 per month on top of the YouTube Music subscription. Because the point of this article is about music playing, I will not talk much about that. IMAGE: Google At first glance, this seems great right? There was no need for both YouTube Music and Google Play Music as they are competing streaming platforms owned by the same company (Google) so it makes sense to actually consolidate apps as opposed to offer competing one...
For the most part, today was a fairly slow day as far as tech news is concerned; last night was also a pretty uneventful night. Because of this, I found myself continually looking through every tech site I could find for content as well as scanning social media constantly hoping it would spark some motivation. After awhile, it occurred to me that I had done nothing all night except surf what I could; that is when the topic struck me: The Dashboard. If you didn't know about anything to come out of I/O this year, other than what I told you previously, you may not have heard of Dashboard. Included in the upcoming Android P, Dashboard is an app that tracks how long you spend on each app during the day, and more importantly, it allows you to set timers for how long you can spend on the app. Let's say you get the feeling that you spend too much time on Pinterest during the day. You could check Dashboard, and it will tell you exactly how long you spent on the app. If it is ...
As a writer, as well as a believer in the power of good journalism, I would never attempt to tear apart someone else's material nor I would knowingly attempt to discredit anyone's credentials. However, in the interest of fairness and honesty, I will at times offer a rebuttal to someone's op-ed piece that simply seems to fall flat while attempting to be persuasive. In all honesty, I would expect someone to do the same for me. In the interest of respect, I will not link the article nor name the author or publication, but the summary of the article is that ESPN+ is an essential and worthwhile investment for those who love sports and are cutting the cord on cable. The problem is that the author did not make an argument even close to sufficient to make the point that it is essential for sports enthusiasts; the entirety of their argument centered around the fact that more soccer would be available for everyone. While this is great for soccer fans (which I consider myself a...
Reported by multiple sites, including Engadget and The Verge , we may be on the verge of a truly all-screen phone. Lenovo (owner of Motorola mobile) has announced the Z5 with a 95% screen-to-body ratio; the only non-screen aspect on the front of the device is a thin, metal bezel. Could the future be here? While details are scarce so far about the phone, the concept art of the phone provides a pretty good at what to expect which is just...screen. As shown, there is no discernible camera, speakers...or notch! The design seems to resemble the outer shell of an iPhone 7-8 with nothing glass on the top. While the idea of an all-screen phone may seem unrealistic, the technology exists to possibly manufacture the phone (obviously at a cost). For most, the first question will be, "where is the camera?" Of course, Lenovo did not disclose this information, but there are several possibilities. Firstly, they could feature a pop-up selfie camera similar to the Vivo concept phone (...
In a special post today, I just want to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original iMac; the actual date was just a few days ago. Now, I am certainly not an Apple fanboy anymore, and in fact, I think many of their products have a tendency to be overrated. Having said that, whether you love or hate Apple, you can certainly appreciate and admire the revolutionary product that was the iMac. Just over 20 years ago, personal computing was still in its infancy; my family had just gotten a computer only a few years prior to 1998. At the time, many computers (like today's phones) were incredibly similar. They all featured standard features such a few MB of RAM, a few MB of storage, standard floppy disc drive, a thousand wires protruding from the back, and the same basic beige color. Around this same time, Apple was essentially just hanging on to relevancy and profitability. Founder Steve Jobs had just returned after his founding of Next (after being kicked out of Apple), and the comp...