16 February 2018

7 Ways Open-Source Software Changed the World


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Whether you’re aware of it or not, open-source software has had an impact on the way you live your life. You may know of open source programs that are free to download and available for anyone to edit. But do you know how the term “open source” began? The phrase comes from a movement in the late 90s to rebrand free software in a more ethically neutral way. Two men involved in this movement, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens, founded the Open Source Initiative in 1998. This organization maintains an official definition of open source software and works to expand...

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Essential Phone’s new ‘Halo Gray’ color goes on sale exclusively at Amazon


 The Essential Phone is currently in the midst of being rolled out in a range of new colors, including three that will be released excessively on Essential’s own website, with a staged release schedule that began Thursday. On Friday, however, Essential revealed a surprise fourth new color, “Halo Gray,” which will be exclusive to Amazon and which is now available to… Read More

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Essential Phone’s new ‘Halo Gray’ color goes on sale exclusively at Amazon


 The Essential Phone is currently in the midst of being rolled out in a range of new colors, including three that will be released excessively on Essential’s own website, with a staged release schedule that began Thursday. On Friday, however, Essential revealed a surprise fourth new color, “Halo Gray,” which will be exclusive to Amazon and which is now available to… Read More

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Administrator vs. Standard: Which User Account Should You Use in Windows?


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Are you the network administrator for your household or family? At some point, one of your nearest and dearest will install something nefarious or break something without meaning to, and that’s why the type of Windows User Account used makes the difference. If everyone on your network is using an Administrator account, you’re going to have a bad time. That said, there’s a lot of confusing information regarding what Standard accounts can and cannot do. Here’s what you need to know. What Are Windows User Accounts? Every time you use your Windows 10 computer, you log in to a User...

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Did You Know Your Amazon Fire Tablet Could Do This?


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The Amazon Fire tablet range continues to rise in popularity, gaining ground in what is described as a “declining market”. Is it all about the price? Are you missing out on important features found on Samsung and Apple tablets if you opt for Amazon? Probably not. At worst, you’re missing the Google Store. Even if you have the $50 budget version, you probably don’t expect that much from it. But your Amazon Fire tablet is far more versatile than you think. Here are some nifty tips you should try. 1. Install Google Play Store and Get Android Apps In fact,...

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7 Music Genres All Gamers Should Love


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Video game music has evolved from sets of simple bleeps into full-scale orchestral soundtracks. It has become so diverse, in fact, that many people enjoy listening to game music for studying. While listening to original game soundtracks is great, there are entire genres of music that have inspired, or been inspired by, video games. Today, we want to highlight several music genres that all true gamers should love. 1. Synthwave Synthwave, also known as retrowave or outrun, is a type of electronic music that sounds straight out of the 1980s. Think music to set the scene of a tough guy in...

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This Underused Technology Can Help You With Paperwork


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Pulling text out of images has never been easier than it is today thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology. OCR allows us to do all kinds of useful things, like searching for images using text queries, reproducing documents without typing them out by hand, and even converting handwritten text to digital text. But what is optical character recognition? How does it actually work? It may seem like black magic to you, but by the end of this article, you’ll have a solid understanding of how computers can recognize letters and words. How Optical Character Recognition Works To understand how...

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Google Quietly Launches Gmail Go for Android


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Google has launched Gmail Go for Android. But, unlike other Go apps, Gmail Go has rolled out without a formal announcement, so we don’t yet know all of the details. Gmail Go is the latest in a growing line of lightweight versions of popular apps designed for low-end Android phones. Since 2016, Google has released a series of Go-branded apps. Such as YouTube Go, which is now available in 130 countries, and Files Go. And in December 2017 Google launched Android Go: a pared-down version of Android itself. And now we have Gmail Go. Gmail Go Lands on Google Play...

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How to Create a Marathon Training Plan With Excel


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Gearing up for a big race? This can often take months of training, and the best way to make the most of it is to keep a close eye on your performance. You can use Excel to create a spreadsheet where you can log all your runs for future reference. What’s more, if you set it up correctly, it will create graphs and other readouts that are useful for planning out your runs, plotting your journey toward race day, and looking back on your performance over the entire training period. Here’s how to use Excel to supercharge your marathon training....

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Nanoleaf Rhythm: Smart Lighting Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This


Our verdict of the Nanoleaf Rhythm:The coolest smart lighting kit, ever: customizable, modular, expandable, and visible in the daytime. The music reactive Rhythm mode is incredible, and it doesn't need a smartphone to work. Compatible with all the major voice assistants. 1010Philips Hue, LiFX, and all those other smart lighting companies should just give up, right now. The Nanoleaf Rhythm is the coolest smart lighting kit I’ve ever seen. It’s modular, customizable, expandable, and just looks stunning wherever it’s placed. The newest edition to the Nanoleaf family is the Rhythm module, which adds an instant music reactive party mode. With...

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Watch Virtual Reality Movies for Free on This Awesome Site


Soon we’ll all be using virtual reality to tell and experience stories. The proof is in the growing number of virtual reality sites dotting the web. But are there any that already offer wow-worthy experiences? Yes! WITHIN is one of the most recommended sites for high-quality virtual reality movies. Don’t miss it, even if you don’t have a Google Cardboard or an Oculus Rift lying around. WITHIN Is Virtual Reality Storytelling at Its Best The “normal” virtual reality films on WITHIN can be watched in a web browser, but the 360-degree virtual reality films can only be experienced using the WITHIN...

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3 Microsoft Word Formatting Tricks You Should Really Know


Microsoft Word can do so much more than just type up papers and reports. From changing the orientation of individual pages, to adding diagonal lines in your tables, to embedding fonts, there’s plenty you can do to tailor your documents to your exact needs. Trick 1: Embed Fonts in Documents If you want to share a Word document with a friend or colleague for editing, you want them to see the document exactly as you created it. One major element to that might be the font. But if your friend or colleague doesn’t have that font installed on their computer, they...

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How to Take Screenshots on Roku


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We recently covered how to take screenshots on Android TV. But there are lots of different set-top boxes out there, and few of them make it as easy to take a screenshot as Android TV does. One of the most laborious devices to take a screenshot on? Roku. Almost any Roku article on any site uses photos of a television rather than screenshots. That’s how bad it is. Alas, just because it’s hard to take a screenshot on Roku doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just comes with one huge caveat. Let’s take a closer look. How to Take Screenshots on Roku...

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This autonomous 3D scanner figures out where it needs to look


 If you need to make a 3D model of an object, there are plenty of ways to do so, but most are only automated to the extent that they know how to spin in circles around that object and put together a mesh. This new system from Fraunhofer does it more intelligently, getting a basic idea of the object to be scanned and planning out what motions will let it do so efficiently and comprehensively. Read More

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Under Russian pressure to remove content, Instagram complies but YouTube holds off


 Instagram has taken down content posted by Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny under pressure from a government agency, while YouTube has yet to do so. Navalny and others have criticized Instagram for complying to what they call a politically-motivated move to silence him. Read More
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YouTube TV Adds More Channels for More Money


Google is adding new channels to YouTube TV. Unfortunately, new subscribers will be paying the price through higher subscription fees. Still, the new price really just brings YouTube TV in line with its competitors such as PlayStation Vue and Hulu with Live TV. YouTube TV launched in March 2017, offering live TV across 40 networks, a limitless cloud DVR, and YouTube Red, all for $35/month. YouTube TV was initially only available in a select few places, but has now rolled out to cover 85 percent of U.S. households. News, Sports, and Rick and Morty Almost one year on from launch...

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As tech automates, Blinkist keeps its book summary service very human


 When I first heard of Blinkist, a service that breaks down recent nonfiction books to easily digestible snippets, I was afraid it would turn out to be some machine-learning-driven auto-summary thing. But in talking to co-founder Niklas Jansen, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the company is still very much people-powered — and in fact, that may be the root of its continuing success. Read More

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Twitch launches always-on chat rooms for channels


 Game streaming site Twitch today is debuting an always-on chat room feature it’s simply calling “Rooms.” The addition was first announced at its developer event TwitchCon back in October, and was expected to launch before year-end. That timing shifted a bit, but the feature is going live today across both web and mobile for Twitch users worldwide. Rooms are custom chat… Read More
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Why I Use FreeTaxUSA Instead of TurboTax or H&R Block to File Taxes


The right tax software can make filing a breeze. Let's see why the lesser-known FreeTaxUSA ticks all the right checkboxes and helps you save on your tax returns.

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Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the Snapchat redesign is here to stay


 Despite a lot of backlash over a big redesign for the Snapchat app — which to be sure is a very big deal for a product-centric company like Snap — Snap CEO Evan Spiegel basically said the redesign is here to stay and people need to get used to it. Spiegel said at the Goldman Sachs Internet & Technology Conference that even people complaining about the app was a sort of… Read More

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How to Use IF Statements in Microsoft Excel


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Everyone knows how versatile the IF statement is in a scripted program, but did you know you can use much of the same logic inside of a cell in Excel? A basic definition of an IF statement in a program is that it lets you output something specific based on the results of several inputs. You could perform entirely different calculations based on the output of some other calculation. You could perform conditional formatting. You can even base your output on string searches of input cells. If this sounds complicated, don’t worry. Let’s take a look at a few creative...

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The Apple HomePod Can Stain Your Furniture


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If you own an Apple HomePod you need to be careful where you place it. Because it turns out that Apple’s smart speaker can stain wooden furniture. This can happen quickly, and be permanent, so we may have to add this to our list of reasons not to buy an Apple HomePod. The HomePod, Apple’s answer to the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Sonos speakers, has had mixed reviews. By all accounts it sounds incredible, but other limitations mean it’s only really suitable for Apple loyalists. And now we have staingate to consider… Be Careful Where You Put Your HomePod...

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How to Rotate Videos for Free on Any Platform


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You didn’t mean to shoot the video sideways… but you held the phone wrong and now you need to know how to rotate a video and save it. Don’t worry. It happens. Fortunately, the solution is easier than you think, and you can fix it for free whether you’re on mobile, desktop, or the web. How to Rotate a Video on Android, iPhone, or iPad This one is so easy you’ll think there isn’t a need for a tutorial. The only app you need to rotate videos on an iPhone, iPad, or an Android phone or tablet is the best...

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Looking To Do Some Shopping? Check Out These Killer Deals


Today, you can get a pair of Bluetooth headphones for less than $20, a dashcam for around $50, and plenty of other great deals. Klipsch R-14M Bookshelf Speakers and Powergate Amplifier Bundle Klipsch R-14M Bookshelf Speakers and Powergate Amplifier Bundle, Black Klipsch R-14M Bookshelf Speakers and Powergate Amplifier Bundle, Black Buy Now At Amazon $359.99 If you’re looking for some home speakers that’ll offer absolutely incredible sound and you don’t want to spend too much, this deal is for you. They’re not cheap by any means, but compared to the normal price, these are a steal! Panasonic Cordless Phone with...

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France’s telecom regulator thinks net neutrality should also apply to devices


 The ARCEP just published a thorough 65-page report (embedded below) about the devices we use every day. The report says that devices give you a portion of the internet and prevent an open internet. “With net neutrality, we spend all our time cleaning pipes, but nobody is looking at faucets,” ARCEP president Sébastien Soriano told me. “Everybody assumes that the devices that… Read More

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