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Geek Trivia: What Was The First Rover To Land On A Celestial Body?

How-To Geek - Wed, 01/30/2019 - 09:02

What Was The First Rover To Land On A Celestial Body?
  1. Apollo 15's Lunar Rover
  2. Prop-M
  3. Sojourner
  4. Lunokhod 1

Think you know the answer?

Categories: IT General, Technology

Gmail’s New Material Makeover on Mobile is Ultra-Heavy on the White

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 22:27
Google

Google has been making quite a few changes to Gmail over the last several weeks in terms of functionality, but today Gmail for mobile is getting a visual makeover. And it’s…quite bright. Like, so bright.

In a world where so many people are clamoring for dark themes, the new Material Design makeover for Gmail is literally the opposite. It’s white everywhere. Ev-er-y-where.

Look at all that white Google

While the look is definitely polarizing, this update isn’t just about aesthetics—there’s some function in here too! For example, you’ll be able to see attachments without clicking into an email. That’s pretty neat.

You’ll be able to switch between work and personal accounts more seamlessly with the new update. Big-ass red warnings will also alert you when something seems amiss—just like on the web. It’s a wild world.

Google

So really, Google just made the Gmail apps for Android and iOS look and function more like Gmail on the web. Almost like a unified experience. Makes sense to me.

via Google

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Find and Use All Your Siri Shortcut Suggestions

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 22:00

Siri Shortcuts arrived alongside iOS 12 in September 2018, along with the Shortcuts app and all that it entailed. The two features upped the iOS automation game considerably, but not without causing confusion. Here’s what Siri Shortcuts are, and how to use them.

If you’re unclear on the differences between Siri Shortcuts and Shortcuts, you’re not alone. Apple hasn’t done the best of jobs explaining the two features and how they differ, nor has the iPhone community as a whole. The two features are linked in many ways, and the similarity in the name doesn’t make it easier to differentiate between them, either.

It is, however, important to remember that Siri Shortcuts and Shortcuts are indeed different, and the former is the most user-friendly of the two.

What’s the Difference between Shortcuts and Siri Shortcuts?

In a nutshell, Shortcuts is the app that Apple built based on the Workflow app that it bought in 2017. Similar to Automator on a Mac, Shortcuts lets you create often-complex automation by using the building blocks on offer. Shortcuts can dip into compatible apps, too, allowing custom shortcuts that can drastically reduce the time it takes to complete a repetitive task.

Siri Shortcuts, however, are different. When developers build their apps, they can present features for use by Siri Shortcuts. These are predefined things like playing a playlist in a podcast app or opening a particular file in a note-taking app. In some cases, iOS will also notice some of the things you’ve done previously and recommend a Siri Shortcut for use. You can then set a custom voice command for invoking a Siri Shortcut via, you guessed it, Siri.

Where are Siri Shortcuts and How Do I Use Them?

You’ll find the Siri Shortcuts that your apps provide in a couple of different places. Good apps will make them visible within the app, perhaps beneath a menu option. If not, one great place to find Siri Shortcuts that you might not know to exist is to head into the Settings app.

Once inside Settings, tap “Siri & Search.”

Read the remaining 9 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

The Best Travel Accessories for Your Camera

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 21:00

Songdech Kothmongkol/Shutterstock

Photography and travel go hand in hand—in fact, the best gift you can get a photographer is probably a trip somewhere. The problem is, cameras are often big and heavy: here’s the best gear that makes travelling with your camera safer and easier.

Travelling with a camera is risky. Even the best built cameras and lenses are inherently fragile. They’re also a common target for thieves. The best thing you can bring with you when you travel with your camera is a bit of cop-on. Keep an eye on your camera, don’t leave it sitting unattended on a table, don’t just toss it into any old bag, and don’t take it out and wave it around like a tourist when you’re wandering through dark streets at night—even in your safe, home town that’s a stupid move. With that said, there’s gear that can help.

For this article, I’m assuming you shoot with a DSLR or mirrorless camera (if you don’t have one, here’s are guide to the best cameras to start off with). Point and shoots are just so pocketable that you don’t need to worry about them as much.

Here’s the gear I use, love, and recommend. I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.

A Good Bag: Peak Design Travel Bag 40L ($300) or f-stop Guru ($270) Peak Design

The most dangerous time for your camera is in transit. When you’re on a plane your camera can get banged, bumped, dropped, damaged—or, even stolen. A good camera bag will go a long way towards protecting it.

How you travel will determine what kind of bag you need but, unless you’re bringing a full professional setup, it really should qualify as carryon luggage. There are two bags I love that should cover most people’s needs.

The Peak Design Travel Bag ($299.95) is my go-to camera travel bag. I reviewed it in full before so check out that article if you want a rundown of every feature. At $300, it’s a little pricey—and that’s before you buy an essential camera cube ($49.96-$89.95)—but it’s the best travel bag I’ve ever used. Not only does it hold my camera, it carries my laptop, Kindle, three days worth of clothes, toiletries, tripod, and everything else I need to live—and still fits in a carry-on bin. If you’re traveling for an extended period of time, heading off on a city break, or just want one bag, it’s the best there is.

Buy on Amazon F-Stop

The Peak Design bag is, however, really a travel focussed bag. It’s not set up for what’s often a big part of photography trips: hiking for hours to get the shot. If you want something with a better harness system, that’ll stay on while you ski or rock climb, and that’s designed for adventures, then the f-stop Guru 25L is your bag. This bundle ($269) comes with an Internal Camera Unit and some extra storage straps. I use the Guru’s—now, discontinued—big brother, the Anja for all my adventure photography.

Buy on Amazon A Tripod You Can Bring on Planes: MeFOTO Classic Carbon Fiber Roadtrip ($350) MeFOTO

A tripod is an essential bit of kit for travel photography: if you want to take good landscapes, night shots, and most importantly of all, selfies, then you need one. Tripods are totally legal as carry-on luggage but you still have to fall within whatever size or weight restrictions the airline imposes. A big clunky steel tripod is not going to get on the plane with you.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Razer Makes Everything Pink Now, Including the Blade Stealth Laptop

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 18:51

Razer’s Blade Stealth was originally placed as a tiny laptop that could dock with an eGPU for serious gaming, but it’s become a dark horse ultraportable in its own right. Now it’s a pink horse.

The gaming brand has been offering pink versions of many of its products for the last couple of years, slowly expanding the “quartz” color option throughout its lineup. Now that option extends to most of its accessories, and for the first time, a Blade laptop. Specifically the newest revision of the Blade 13 Stealth, packing 8th-gen Core i7 processors and an option for a light-duty GeForce MX150 GPU upgrade.

Razer

The redesigned laptop has those oh-so-stylish ultrathin screen bezels and a more blocky aluminum look, very much in line with the more powerful Blade laptops. You can still connect it to the Razer Core X GPU enclosure for a desktop-class graphics boost, and it lasts for 13 hours on a charge. Screens start at 1080p, though a 4K touchscreen is available too. And don’t worry, you can also get it in black.

The Quartz Pink edition is listed by Razer as “limited quantity”—though review units seem to have made the rounds, it’s actually not showing up on Razer’s online store at the time of writing. Other new members of the pink procession include the Basilisk mouse, Hunstman mechanical keyboard, Seiren X microphone, and Goliathus Extended Chroma RGB mousepad. Those who buy the pink Kraken headset can even add on some Quartz Pink cat ears to really nail the cutesy aesthetic.

The new Blade Stealth 13 starts at $1400 with an i7 processor, 256GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and an integrated GPU. The highest configuration, which adds a 4K touchscreen, a GeForce MX150 GPU, and doubles storage and RAM, is a surprisingly reasonable $1900.

Source: Razer via The Verge

Categories: IT General, Technology

Where to Find the Requests Folder After Facebook Messenger’s v4 Update

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 18:28

When you get messages from non-friends on Facebook Messenger, they go to a “requests” folder. The thing is, this folder isn’t really easy to find, especially after Messenger’s recent update to version 4.

The recent Messenger update is, in fact, supposed to “simplify” the experience, and truth be told, it has for the most part. But the requests folder? Nah. It’s practically hidden now in a place that makes no sense to anyone at any time.

The good news is that once you know, you know. Here’s how to find it.

So, with Messenger open and on the main page, tap the little people-looking icon at the bottom.

From there, tap the other person-looking icon in the upper right corner.

And there it is in the top row: Requests.

Read the remaining 4 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

The Best Accessories For Your Oculus Go Headset

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 18:00

The Oculus Go is one of the most affordable routes into the world of VR. But if you’re trying to get the most out of your Go headset, then you’ll need the help of some accessories.

While the Oculus Go is a powerful little headset, it does have some limitations. It’s fragile, it has a poor battery life, it doesn’t have a lot of storage space, and it doesn’t work with Bluetooth headphones. These limitations can be frustrating, and they can curb some of the enjoyment that you get from VR.

But these problems are easy to remedy, you just need the right accessories. That’s why we’ve taken the time to find some great accessories that can make up for the Go’s shortcomings and enhance your VR experience.

Dinly VR Display Stand ($20)

You’re gentle with your Go when it’s on your head, but where do you keep it when it’s not in use? Do you shove it in a drawer with a bunch of miscellaneous office supplies? Does it float around the edges of your desk?  You could put your Oculus Go on a display stand, to keep it safe and to show off your passion.

The Dinly VR display stand is a neat, 10″ display stand for VR headsets. You can securely strap your Oculus Go to the Dinly stand, so that it doesn’t tilt or fall to the floor. And if you happen to own a couple different VR headsets, then you could use two or three of these stands to make a neat display for all of your VR tech.

Buy on Amazon RAVpower Filehub ($25)

The Oculus Go comes with 32 GB or 64 GB of memory. That isn’t a lot of storage space, and a handful of videos or movies will fully max out your Oculus Go. And since you can’t plug an external hard drive into the Go, its file limitations can become frustrating very quickly.

Thankfully, you can use a wireless file-sharing device to add remote storage to your Go. The RAVpower Filehub can turn any SD card or external hard drive into a wireless storage device. Think of it like a cloud storage device or a streaming service that fits in your pocket. Your Oculus Go can stream videos and open files from the RAVpower Filehub, so long as your Filehub and your Go are on the same internet connection.

Buy on Amazon RAVpower 22,000mAh Portable Battery ($42)

The Oculus Go has a terrible battery life. It’s not a big deal when you’re at home next to an outlet, but what if you need to charge the Go away from home? Well, you could always use a portable battery.

The RAVpower 22,000 mAh portable battery is small and inexpensive, but it can hold a lot of power. A 22,000 mAh battery could fully charge your Oculus Go a couple of times, and you could even use it for your phone or laptop in a pinch. Honestly, a portable battery is a great investment, even if you don’t use it for your Go.

Buy on Amazon ZRSE Magnetic Breakaway Micro USB Cable 2-Pack ($17)

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Categories: IT General, Technology

You Can Use Bluetooth Gaming Controllers in Fortnite Mobile Now

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 17:54

The v7.30 patch is bringing a lot of new features to Fortnite Mobile, including support for Bluetooth controllers. Goodbye, touch controls.

Since the launch of Fortnite Mobile, fans have been begging Epic Games to include gamepad support. As you can imagine, it’s hard to play a fast-paced shooter game without a proper gamepad. Now Fortnite fans have a good reason to play their favorite game at work, at school, in the bathroom, or wherever there’s a chance to be distracted by a mobile video game.

In a press release, Epic Games says that the Android version of Fortnite will support most Bluetooth controllers, including the SteelSeries Stratus XL, the Gamevice, the Xbox One controller, the Razer Raiju, and the Moto Gamepad. The company says that most MFi controllers will work on the iOS version of the game, including the Steelseries Nimbus and the Gamevice.

Other features included in this patch are the Chiller Grenade, a Solid Gold game mode, and an early version of a tournament mode. Epic Games has also added 60Hz support for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, the Huawei Honor View 20, and the Huawei Mate 20 X, so you can enjoy Fortnite in a higher quality display setting.

via Epic Games

Categories: IT General, Technology

This Casper-Made Light Helps You Fall Asleep in Your Casper-Made Bed Under Your Casper-Made Sheets

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 17:49

While Casper is mostly known for its memory foam mattresses and other bed-related goods, the company has come out with its first smart gadget: a bedside light that helps you wind down for the evening.

For $89 (or $179 for a pair), the Glow, as it’s called, is a HomePod-shaped glowing bedside lamp of sorts that slowly dims down in the evenings to tell your brain and body that it’s time for bed. Then in the mornings, it slowly picks up the brightness and simulates a sunrise in order to wake you up more naturally.

You can control it from your phone, or do it manually on the lamp itself. What’s cool is that all you have to do is flip over the lamp to begin the 45-minute dim down sequence. You can also twist the lamp to brighten or dim the light whenever you need to, thanks to an internal gyroscope. If you have more than one Glow lamp, you can even sync them up.

The Glow is also battery powered, so you can take it with you on your late-night bathroom trips. And since it’s battery powered, it comes with a base station that you simply set the lamp on to begin charging it. So good.

Buy Now

Categories: IT General, Technology

Deal Alert: Grab an Anker Powerline+ Lightning Cable for a Ten Spot

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 17:44

The importance of having a high-quality charging/data cable for your phone can’t be overstated—cheap cables can ruin devices. If you’re in the market for a good deal on an excellent cable, Anker’s Powerline+ cables are cheap today.

We’ve talked about Anker’s Powerline+ Lightning cables before, thanks to their durability. This comes from the nylon braiding, which reinforces the structural integrity of the cable. Plus it looks really good. Fancy, even.

Normally, this cable runs $15 for a three-foot version and $18 for the six-foot length, but for a limited time, you can grab them for $10 and $12 respectively by using the coupon code below. That’s a pretty solid deal. Here are the details:

The deal works for any color, too, which is a nice bonus if black isn’t your thing. If you’re looking to grab a new cable, this is a good opportunity to do it. Unfortunately, however, you can’t stack them in the same order.

Buy on Amazon

Categories: IT General, Technology

Looking for a Microsoft Signature Edition PC? Here’s What to Do Instead

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 17:24

Microsoft/Internet Archive

Microsoft’s Signature Edition PCs were one of the Microsoft Store’s best offerings since Microsoft used a clean copy of Windows with no bloatware on these PCs. Microsoft no longer makes Signature Edition PCs, but you can turn any PC into one.

Buying a PC Often Comes with More Than You Paid For

Booting up a new store-bought PC usually starts with joy, followed quickly by disappointment. At first blush, Windows seems to be clean and whole, and then suddenly a trial antivirus opens up. It wants you to pay for it, install other programs, and just as you dismiss those notifications, a game you didn’t ask for makes its presence known. Your computer may be new and fast, but it somehow feels gross.

Microsoft used to offer the perfect solution: Buy a Signature PC, and you wouldn’t get a machine loaded with bloatware. Microsoft boasted at one point that their PCs would start 104% faster and shut down 35% faster than non-Signature PCs. You can only see these numbers courtesy of the Wayback Machine because Microsoft isn’t pushing Signature PCs anymore.

So you’re left with four choices if you want a clean Windows PC:

  • Use Microsoft’s Fresh Start Tool to remove junk
  • Buy a Surface device
  • Build a PC
  • Clean install Windows with the Media Creation Tool

Let’s take a look.

Use Microsoft’s Fresh Start Tool on Any PC

Starting with Windows 8, Microsoft introduced a “Reset Your PC” option to uninstall all your programs and get your rig back to a “first-launch-like” state. The problem was that this fresh launch included all the bloatware that came with your system in the first place.

Thankfully Microsoft later introduced Fresh Start, a tool that would uninstall all desktop programs that aren’t standard to Windows. Whether it’s an antivirus app or Office, this tool will remove it. There are some downsides to using this tool, though. You might lose drivers specific to your machine, for example. And while the tool might remove traditional desktop programs, it won’t uninstall any Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps from on your computer.

That means if your bloatware came in the form of UWP Apps—as opposed to traditional Windows desktop apps—this option wouldn’t help you. Considering that even Microsoft is installing apps we don’t want now, the Fresh Start tool simply isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Still, it’s a viable option for removing a lot of the garbage that manufacturers install (and that you might have installed yourself) and it does its job without disturbing your personal files.

Read the remaining 15 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Lock Your Windows 10 PC Remotely

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 16:00

Android and Apple have long given people a way to track and disable your gadgets remotely. Microsoft has also joined the club by letting you track and lock your Windows PC using the “Find My Device” on Windows 10.

Find My Device uses your device’s location data to help you find it when it’s lost or stolen. You can use the same service to make sure that the device is locked so that no one can use it, and also to display information about how people can return it to you.

The device needs to meet a couple of requirements to use the feature:

  • It must be connected to the Internet.
  • You must have already enabled Find My Device on the PC.
  • You must have an account on the device that has administrator privileges and is a Microsoft account. You can’t do this with a local user account

 

Assuming your device meets those criteria, let’s take a look at how to use Find My Device.

How to Lock Your Windows 10 PC Remotely

 

Open a web browser to the Microsoft account page, enter your password, and then click “Sign In.”

Read the remaining 13 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

Lenovo Yoga C630 Review: Can Windows On ARM Handle A CES Roadtrip?

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 15:00

The Yoga C630 is a portentous little laptop: not because it’s loaded with overpowered technology, but because it isn’t. It’s the new flagship of the WOS (Windows on Snapdragon) platform—full, Windows-powered laptops running on the ARM Snapdragon chips primarily seen in smartphones.

This Lenovo ultraportable isn’t the first WOS laptop, but it is the first one with the Snapdragon 850 system-on-a-chip. Qualcomm says it’s designed this chipset specifically for full laptops. With looser space and thermal requirements, it should have better performance and longevity than the initial WOS designs.

Which is all well and good. But if you’re looking for a low-power Windows laptop over, say, a more expensive Chromebook or iPad, what you want to know is this: can it do all of the things a regular Windows laptop can? Can it, in a nutshell, just work? I thought this was a question worth answering, and with the Consumer Electronics Show fast approaching, I had an ideal place to find out.

CES: Snapdragon’s Trial By Fire

For the uninitiated, CES is one of the largest yearly trade shows in the world, and the biggest gathering of technology industrialists, investors, salespeople, and media like me. It’s a week-long slog through the casinos and convention halls of Las Vegas, meeting hundreds of people a day, snooping through floor booths, hot-footing it from one presentation or press gathering to another.

Most of my time at CES was spent alone or with a small team with no easy place to recharge, and more or less the same needs for daily writing, research, Photoshop, and image uploading as my normal job. It was a great place to see if the Yoga C630 (and by extension, the WOS platform) could handle my fairly typical mobile computing needs as well as my trusty, rusty ThinkPad.

The Review Geek team at CES 2019.

For five days I used the C630 as my primary work tool, writing posts, researching specifications, firing off replies in Gmail, editing and uploading photos, and just generally doing the usual shuffle around the web that occupies too much of my time. Here’s how it went.

Sayonara, S Mode

I checked out the C630 in a less strenuous environment at home for a couple of weeks first, getting the hang of its quirks before the big show. And since Lenovo quotes its nigh-unbelievable 22-hour battery life with the laptop running in Windows S mode, I tried to get my job done with those restrictions in place.

Read the remaining 33 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

What Camera Settings Should I Use for Sports Photos?

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 15:00

A lot of people buy DSLRs and other cameras because they want to take good sports photographs; it’s one of the areas where your smartphone just can’t cut it. Here are the camera settings that will generally give you the best results.

The Gear You Need for Sports Photos

The biggest challenge with sports photography is distance: for most sports, you’re stuck on the sidelines while the action’s happening up to a few hundred feet away from you. Unless you want to sprint up and down the pitch, a telephoto zoom lens is the best tool for getting good shots.

RELATED: What Is a Telephoto Lens?

For crop sensor cameras, a lens with a focal length longer than around 70mm should work quite well for most sports. I’ve shot a lot of sports photos with a Canon 18-135mm. For specific lens recommendations, check out our guides to the best lenses for your Canon or Nikon camera.

Now, with that said, it’s possible to take sports photos without a telephoto lens; you just have to be a lot more deliberate with your staging, and you will miss more shots.

Shutter Speed for Sports Photos

For sports photography, shutter speed is normally the most important setting. It’s what will freeze the action. What shutter speed you use depends on the sport you’re shooting.

RELATED: What Shutter Speed Should I Use With My Camera?

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Categories: IT General, Technology

How Do Foldable Phones Work, And When Will I Get One?

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 13:40

LetsGoDigital

Foldable phones might be the strangest and most revolutionary tech of 2019. But how do these things work, and when will we get the chance to buy them?

What Makes These Phones Foldable?

Sure, we had flip phones that were folding back in the ’90s and 2000s. But we’re in the age of smartphones now, and if you tried to fold your smartphone in half, you’d end up with a broken phone. That is unless your smartphone has a flexible OLED display, a polymer screen, specialized components, and a jointed case. Foldable phones are filled with a ton of revolutionary tech, but the most ground-breaking component that you’ll see is the famous, flexible OLED display.

Organic light emitting diode displays (aka OLED displays) work by pulsing electricity through a mesh of organic compounds. They are extremely thin, flexible, and vivid. They don’t require a backlight, and they can produce bolder colors than thick LED displays.

These beautiful, flexible displays are primarily manufactured by Samsung, and they’re already in a host of products with which you may be familiar. The Galaxy S7 Edge has a curved OLED display. The iPhone X contains a Samsung OLED display. Sony has put out some OLED TV’s, and LG produces a line of Signature OLED TV’s that are paper-thin and slightly flexible.

Manufacturers like Samsung and Royole have been developing OLED displays since about 2011, and these displays have already found their way into a lot of consumer-grade products. Why has it taken so long for foldable phones to become a thing? Well, businesses have had to figure out how to make all of the other components in a phone flexible, too.

Glass isn’t very flexible, in case you were wondering. As a result, manufacturers have had to develop bendy polymer screens for flexible phones. Powered circuitry and lithium-ion batteries can catch on fire if you flex them back and forth, so manufacturers have had to find a solution for that. Aluminum and plastic phone cases are technically bendable, but they’ll snap after a couple of folds. See where this is going? Everything that you’d expect to find in a cellphone has to be revolutionized for use in a foldable phone.

Manufacturers like Samsung and Royole have figured out how to make the components in a phone more flexible. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be releasing foldable phones. But the technology is still in its early stages. That being said, it’s going to take a few years for these devices to become affordable and commonplace.

In the meantime, we can only hope that manufacturers come up with a better name for foldable phones. People will inevitably start calling them “phondables” or “flexiphones,” and that’s just no good.

Foldable Phones Offer Endless Possibilities

So, what are we going to do with foldable phones? It’s kind of hard to figure out where this trend is going because manufacturers have already taken the tech down a variety of unique paths.

Read the remaining 14 paragraphs

Categories: IT General, Technology

Geek Trivia: Skimmers Are Used To Capture What Kind Of Data?

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 09:02

Skimmers Are Used To Capture What Kind Of Data?
  1. Credit Card Numbers
  2. BitTorrent User IDs
  3. Social Security Numbers
  4. Email Headers

Think you know the answer?

Categories: IT General, Technology

There’s a Huge Bug in FaceTime. Disable It Now

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/29/2019 - 03:45

MichaelJayBerlin/Shutterstock.com.

Anyone can call you on FaceTime and hear audio or see video from your phone before you answer. This bug is going viral on social media, and the only protection is disabling FaceTime.

Update: Apple has now disabled group FaceTime server-side. However, this may not have fixed the problem. We still recommend disabling FaceTime until the problem is fixed.

We learned of this via 9to5Mac. In summary, all you have to do is start a FaceTime call. While the call is dialing, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, tap “Add Person,” and add your own phone number. A group FaceTime call will begin and include the other person, even if they haven’t answered yet. It looks like they’ve answered, but the call will still be ringing on their lock screen.

All you can do is disable FaceTime to prevent people from snooping on you. If you see a FaceTime request on your phone, someone could be listening to you. There’s no way to limit FaceTime only to your friends, from what we know.

Apple told BuzzFeed News that is “aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week.”

That’s completely insane. A bug this big needs to be fixed immediately. Apple should shut down FaceTime for everyone if that’s what it takes.

Now you can answer for yourself on FaceTime even if they don’t answer

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to Set Your Default Texting App on Android

How-To Geek - Mon, 01/28/2019 - 22:00

Noyna/Shutterstock

Unlike iOS, Android allows you to use third-party apps to perform essential functions, like texting. Here is how you can set a new default texting app on your Android phone.

First, you’ll need to install the replacement texting app you want to use. There are plenty of SMS Apps on the Play Store. Textra SMS is a popular one and what we’ll be using as our example here.

After you install your texting app, there are two ways to set it as the default. You can do it from the app itself when you launch the app for the first time or you can do it later on through your device’s Settings app.

Set the Texting App as the Default the First Time You Launch It

Open the app and click past the initial startup stuff (here, we have to click “Start Using Textra” and agree to the necessary permissions).

Once the app launches, you’ll see a button at the bottom asking if you want to make it your default app. Tap the button, and then tap “Yes” to confirm.

And it’s now your default texting app. Almost all apps will prompt you to set them as the default app when you use them for the first time. For ones that don’t (or if you’ve used the app for a while and now want to set it as the default), use the technique in the next section.

Set a Texting App as the Default in Settings

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Categories: IT General, Technology

What to Look For When Buying a New TV

How-To Geek - Mon, 01/28/2019 - 21:00

So you’re ready to buy a new TV, and you want it to be a good one. If this is your first time buying a TV where the consideration goes beyond price, you might want to brush up on some terms.

Below are ten factors that should affect your buying decisions, arranged roughly from most to least important. Naturally, not everything will be the same for every buyer: you might be willing to spend a little more for an OLED TV with fantastic contrast versus a larger LED-LCD TV at the same price. But if you factor in all of the following for your buying decision, you’ll be happy with the result.

Panel Size and Type

Obviously, the most immediate factor you’ll notice for any TV is its size, expressed in inches. That’s a diagonal measurement, from one corner to its opposite. These tend to come in a few general sizes, from 32 inches on the small end through 40/42, 46, 55, 65, 75, and sometimes even higher, with little variation in between.

Samsung

But size isn’t everything. If you see a 55-inch TV that costs twice as much as the 65-inch TV next to it, it’s probably using a superior image panel. Most televisions use an LCD (liquid crystal display panel) with an LED backlight. That backlight affects the image quality: better LED lights, spaced closer together and with more fine illumination control, can more subtly illuminate the LCD panel for a superior picture. You’ll pay extra for smaller, more thinly-spaced LED lighting. Different brands have different names for their LED approaches: Samsung’s best TVs use “QLED” arrangements, while Vizio calls its top line P-Series “Quantum,” even though they’re using very similar tech.

LG

Rarer and more expensive televisions use OLED, Organic Light-Emitting Diode screens. This design, which you might be familiar with in your phone, incorporates a color-changing RGB cell and a backlight into each and every pixel. The result means that when a pixel is displaying black, it’s entirely off, creating a nearly perfect black contrast effect. OLEDs are also (usually) more vibrant and saturated with colors. At the moment, only LG and Sony sell OLED TVs, and they’re among the most expensive in both company’s catalogs.

4K Resolution

In 2019, it’s hard to find even a small television that doesn’t feature 4K resolution. That’s “4K” as in “four times 1080p,” the previous standard for high definition video, with a total resolution of 3840 by 2160.

It’s still hard to find some 4K content, but the availability is growing, thanks to services like Vudu, physical media like 4K Blu-ray movies, and upgraded game consoles like the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro. At this point, if you’re looking at a new TV it’s almost certainly 4K unless you go smaller than 40 inches or so. You won’t save any money hunting for a cheaper low-resolution panel, so you might as well go for the upgrade, even if you don’t have any movies or games that work with it yet.

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Categories: IT General, Technology

Samsung’s Latest Budget Phones for India Boast High-End Looks and Bargain Bin Prices

How-To Geek - Mon, 01/28/2019 - 19:16
Samsung

As mobile tech gets ever more sophisticated, cheaper and cheaper phones get the features that were previously restricted to flagship designs. Samsung’s latest phones for the Indian market, the Galaxy M10 and M20, illustrate this principle perfectly.

Let’s start with the M20. For just 11000 INR (about $155 USD), users get a huge 6.3-inch 1080p display with curved corners and a “teardrop” camera notch, as seen on the OnePlus 6T. That big body lets the phone hold an incredible 5000mAh battery, which should be good for multi-day charges. The phone features both a rear fingerprint reader and face unlock via the front camera, dual rear cameras with 13MP primary and 5MP ultra-wide secondary. A USB Type-C port, still not a given on budget designs, hangs out on the bottom with a 15-watt fast charger in the box.

The M20 comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage on the base model, plus whatever you can fit in the MicroSD card slot. A more expansive model, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, will be 13000 INR (a bit over $180).

Outside your budget? Then consider the Galaxy M10. It shrinks the screen just a tad to 6.2 inches, busted down to “HD+” (read: 720p) resolution, but with the same teardrop rounded corners and teardrop notch. Samsung doesn’t mention a USB Type-C port or fast charging on the M10, but it foregoes the fingerprint scanner (face unlock is still available) and massive battery, with a slower octa-core processor. 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage runs 9000 INR ($125), while the cheapest model with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage is just 8000 INR ($115). Even if the specs don’t wow you, it’s a fantastic deal for a phone that looks like a flagship from a couple of years ago. Tellingly, Samsung doesn’t mention Android in its press release, so there’s no telling whether the phones are running 8.0 Oreo or 9.0 Pie.

Samsung says the Galaxy M10 and M20 will launch in India first, on February 5th. They’ll be sold on the Indian Amazon storefront in blue and black variants. Given the company’s history and vast phone lineup, expect to see these models—or ones practically identical to them—available in other markets before too long.

Source: Samsung via Android Police

Categories: IT General, Technology
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