Fantasmo is a decentralized map for robots and augmented reality

“Whether for AR or robots, anytime you have software interacting with the world, it needs a 3D model of the globe. We think that map will look a lot more like the decentralized internet than a version of Apple Maps or Google Maps.” That’s the idea behind new startup Fantasmo, according to co-founder Jameson Detweiler. Coming out of stealth today, Fantasmo wants to let any developer contribute to and draw from a sub-centimeter accuracy map for robot navigation or anchoring AR experiences.

Fantasmo plans to launch a free Camera Positioning Standard (CPS) that developers can use to collect and organize 3D mapping data. The startup will charge for commercial access and premium features in its TerraOS, an open-sourced operating system that helps property owners keep their maps up to date and supply them for use by robots, AR and other software equipped with Fantasmo’s SDK.

With $2 million in funding led by TenOneTen Ventures, Fantasmo is now accepting developers and property owners to its private beta.

Directly competing with Google’s own Visual Positioning System is an audacious move. Fantasmo is betting that private property owners won’t want big corporations snooping around to map their indoor spaces, and instead will want to retain control of this data so they can dictate how it’s used. With Fantasmo, they’ll be able to map spaces themselves and choose where robots can roam or if the next Pokémon GO can be played there.

“Only Apple, Google, and HERE Maps want this centralized. If this data sits on one of the big tech company’s servers, they could basically spy on anyone at any time,” says Detweiler. The prospect gets scarier when you imagine everyone wearing camera-equipped AR glasses in the future. “The AR cloud on a central server is Big Brother. It’s the end of privacy.”

Detweiler and his co-founder Dr. Ryan Measel first had the spark for Fantasmo as best friends at Drexel University. “We need to build Pokémon in real life! That was the genesis of the company,” says Detweiler. In the meantime he founded and sold LaunchRock, a 500 Startups company for creating “Coming Soon” sign-up pages for internet services.

After Measel finished his PhD, the pair started Fantasmo Studios to build augmented reality games like Trash Collectors From Space, which they took through the Techstars accelerator in 2015. “Trash Collectors was the first time we actually created a spatial map and used that to sync multiple people’s precise position up,” says Detweiler. But while building the infrastructure tools to power the game, they realized there was a much bigger opportunity to build the underlying maps for everyone’s games. Now the Santa Monica-based Fantasmo has 11 employees.

“It’s the internet of the real world,” says Detweiler. Fantasmo now collects geo-referenced photos, scans them for identifying features like walls and objects, and imports them into its point cloud model. Apps and robots equipped with the Fantasmo SDK can then pull in the spatial map for a specific location that’s more accurate than federally run GPS. That lets them peg AR objects to precise spots in your environment while making sure robots don’t run into things.

Fantasmo identifies objects in geo-referenced photos to build a 3D model of the world

“I think this is the most important piece of infrastructure to be built during the next decade,” Detweiler declares. That potential attracted funding from TenOneTen, Freestyle Capital, LDV, NoName Ventures, Locke Mountain Ventures and some angel investors. But it’s also attracted competitors like Escher Reality, which was acquired by Pokémon GO parent company Niantic, and Ubiquity6, which has investment from top-tier VCs like Kleiner Perkins and First Round.

Google is the biggest threat, though. With its industry-leading traditional Google Maps, experience with indoor mapping through Tango, new VPS initiative and near limitless resources. Just yesterday, Google showed off using an AR fox in Google Maps that you can follow for walking directions.

Fantasmo is hoping that Google’s size works against it. The startup sees a path to victory through interoperability and privacy. The big corporations want to control and preference their own platforms’ access to maps while owning the data about private property. Fantasmo wants to empower property owners to oversee that data and decide what happens to it. Measel concludes, “The world would be worse off if GPS was proprietary. The next evolution shouldn’t be any different.”

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Google is banning Irish abortion referendum ads ahead of vote

Google is suspending adverts related to a referendum in Ireland on whether or not to overturn a constitutional clause banning abortion. The vote is due to take place in a little over two weeks time.

“Following our update around election integrity efforts globally, we have decided to pause all ads related to the Irish referendum on the eighth amendment,” a Google spokesperson told us.

The spokesperson said enforcement of the policy — which will cover referendum adverts that appear alongside Google search results and on its video sharing platform YouTube — will begin in the next 24 hours, with the pause remaining in effect through the referendum, with the vote due to take place on May 25.

The move follows an announcement by Facebook yesterday saying it had stopped accepting referendum related ads paid for by foreign entities. However Google is going further and pausing all ads targeting the vote.

Given the sensitivity of the issue a blanket ban is likely the least controversial option for the company, as well as also the simplest to implement — whereas Facebook has said it has been liaising with local groups for some time, and has created a dedicated channel where ads that might be breaking its ban on foreign buyers can be reported by the groups, generating reports that Facebook will need to review and act on quickly.

Given how close the vote now is both tech giants have been accused of acting too late to prevent foreign interests from using their platforms to exploit a loophole in Irish law to get around a ban on foreign donations to political campaigns by pouring money into unregulated digital advertising instead.

Speaking to the Guardian, a technology spokesperson for Ireland’s opposition party Fianna Fáil, described Google’s decision to ban the adverts as “too late in the day”.

“Fake news has already had a corrosive impact on the referendum debate on social media,” James Lawless TD told it, adding that the referendum campaign had made it clear Ireland needs legislation to restrict the activities of Internet companies’ ad products “in the same way that steps were taken in the past to regulate political advertising on traditional forms of print and broadcast media”.

We’ve asked Google why it’s only taken the decision to suspend referendum ad buys now, and why it did not act months earlier — given the Irish government announced its intention to hold a 2018 referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment in mid 2017 — and will update this post with any response.

In a public policy blog post earlier this month, the company’s policy SVP Kent Walker talked up the steps the company is taking to (as he put it) “support… election integrity through greater advertising transparency”, saying it’s rolling out new policies for U.S. election ads across its platforms, including requiring additional verification for election ad buyers, such as confirmation that an advertiser is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

However this U.S.-first focus leaves other regions vulnerable to election fiddlers — hence Google deciding to suspend ad buys around the Irish vote, albeit tardily.

The company has also previously said it will implement a system of disclosures for ad buyers to make it clear to users who paid for the ad, and that it will be publishing a Transparency Report this summer breaking out election ad purchases. It also says it’s building a searchable library for election ads.

Although it’s not clear when any of these features will be rolled out across all regions where Google ads are served.

Facebook has also announced a raft of similar transparency steps related to political ads in recent years — responding to political pressure and scrutiny following revelations about the extent of Kremlin-backed online disinformation campaigns that had targeted the 2016 US presidential election.

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Google’s new Tour Creator lets students make their own VR tours

Google today launched a new tool for teachers and their students called Tour Creator, which allows anyone to create their own VR tour using imagery from Google’s Street View or their own 360-degree photos. The new app is designed to work with Google Cardboard and Google’s existing VR “field trips” app Expeditions.

The goal with Expeditions is to let people virtually travel the world to see far off places they may never have the chance to visit in person – like Antarctica or Machu Picchu, for example. Google says that since Expeditions’ arrival in 2015, over three million students have virtually visited places around the globe.

Now, the idea is to let students and teachers themselves build their own VR experiences and stories without needing technical knowledge.

Instead, using Tour Creator, anyone can build an immersive 360-degree tour from their computer.

To use the service, you click to get started, give the tour a name and upload a cover photo. You can then search through Google Maps for a place or point of interest, or upload your own 360 photos to design your tour’s ‘scenes.’ These scenes can also contain buttons you click to learn more about the place in your photo.

When the tour is finished, you can choose to publish it publicly to Google’s library of 3D content, Poly, so others can experience the tour as well.

For instance, Google published a tour called the “7 New Wonders of the World” to Poly, featuring places like The Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, the Colosseum in Rome, and others. And another user published a tour of Google’s I/O developer conference, so people can see what it’s like during Google’s big event this week.

On the tour’s page on Poly, visitors can like and share the tour to social media, or grab an embed code to put it on their own website – such as the school’s or classroom’s own website.

You can view the tours in either the web browser, as immersive photos, or you can view them in Google’s simple VR viewer, Cardboard.

Google says that, later this year, it allow users to import the tours right into the Expeditions application.

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Fantasmo is a decentralized map for robots and augmented reality

“Whether for AR or robots, anytime you have software interacting with the world, it needs a 3D model of the globe. We think that map will look a lot more like the decentralized internet than a version of Apple Maps or Google Maps.” That’s the idea behind new startup Fantasmo, according to co-founder Jameson Detweiler. Coming out of stealth today, Fantasmo wants to let any developer contribute to and draw from a sub-centimeter accuracy map for robot navigation or anchoring AR experiences.

Fantasmo plans to launch a free Camera Positioning Standard (CPS) that developers can use to collect and organize 3D mapping data. The startup will charge for commercial access and premium features in its TerraOS, an open-sourced operating system that helps property owners keep their maps up to date and supply them for use by robots, AR and other software equipped with Fantasmo’s SDK.

With $2 million in funding led by TenOneTen Ventures, Fantasmo is now accepting developers and property owners to its private beta.

Directly competing with Google’s own Visual Positioning System is an audacious move. Fantasmo is betting that private property owners won’t want big corporations snooping around to map their indoor spaces, and instead will want to retain control of this data so they can dictate how it’s used. With Fantasmo, they’ll be able to map spaces themselves and choose where robots can roam or if the next Pokémon GO can be played there.

“Only Apple, Google, and HERE Maps want this centralized. If this data sits on one of the big tech company’s servers, they could basically spy on anyone at any time,” says Detweiler. The prospect gets scarier when you imagine everyone wearing camera-equipped AR glasses in the future. “The AR cloud on a central server is Big Brother. It’s the end of privacy.”

Detweiler and his co-founder Dr. Ryan Measel first had the spark for Fantasmo as best friends at Drexel University. “We need to build Pokémon in real life! That was the genesis of the company,” says Detweiler. In the meantime he founded and sold LaunchRock, a 500 Startups company for creating “Coming Soon” sign-up pages for internet services.

After Measel finished his PhD, the pair started Fantasmo Studios to build augmented reality games like Trash Collectors From Space, which they took through the Techstars accelerator in 2015. “Trash Collectors was the first time we actually created a spatial map and used that to sync multiple people’s precise position up,” says Detweiler. But while building the infrastructure tools to power the game, they realized there was a much bigger opportunity to build the underlying maps for everyone’s games. Now the Santa Monica-based Fantasmo has 11 employees.

“It’s the internet of the real world,” says Detweiler. Fantasmo now collects geo-referenced photos, scans them for identifying features like walls and objects, and imports them into its point cloud model. Apps and robots equipped with the Fantasmo SDK can then pull in the spatial map for a specific location that’s more accurate than federally run GPS. That lets them peg AR objects to precise spots in your environment while making sure robots don’t run into things.

Fantasmo identifies objects in geo-referenced photos to build a 3D model of the world

“I think this is the most important piece of infrastructure to be built during the next decade,” Detweiler declares. That potential attracted funding from TenOneTen, Freestyle Capital, LDV, NoName Ventures, Locke Mountain Ventures and some angel investors. But it’s also attracted competitors like Escher Reality, which was acquired by Pokémon GO parent company Niantic, and Ubiquity6, which has investment from top-tier VCs like Kleiner Perkins and First Round.

Google is the biggest threat, though. With its industry-leading traditional Google Maps, experience with indoor mapping through Tango, new VPS initiative and near limitless resources. Just yesterday, Google showed off using an AR fox in Google Maps that you can follow for walking directions.

Fantasmo is hoping that Google’s size works against it. The startup sees a path to victory through interoperability and privacy. The big corporations want to control and preference their own platforms’ access to maps while owning the data about private property. Fantasmo wants to empower property owners to oversee that data and decide what happens to it. Measel concludes, “The world would be worse off if GPS was proprietary. The next evolution shouldn’t be any different.”

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6 Great New Features to Love in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

The arrival of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS means anyone installing it can enjoy five years of long term support (LTS) from Canonical.

We’ve already given you reasons to upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Now here’s a look at some of the better new features you can enjoy with the latest release of the ultimate Linux distribution.

1. The New Desktop Layout

A whole bunch of new features are available on the GNOME 3.0-based Ubuntu desktop, which are explained in the new welcome screen.

“What’s new in Ubuntu” demonstrates how “Ubuntu 18.04 works differently from older versions.” Here’s how:

• Activities: This is the window switcher, which has a few hidden options, which we look at below.
• Application menu: The menu for the currently open window or app.
• Clock and calendar: Displays the current day and time. Click to view a more detailed calendar.
• System menu: Here you’ll find connectivity status, volume control, battery indicator, etc.
• Launcher: By default on the left of the display, this can be moved to different positions around the desktop. Preferred apps can be pinned and launched from here.
• Apps button: Click this to view a list of installed apps. Two views are available; one displays all installed apps, while the other only shows the ones you use regularly.

Depending on what version of Ubuntu you’re upgrading from, these developments may seem a little disconcerting. Fortunately, they make total sense, and you’ll soon be using these new features without a second thought.

2. Middle Click Your Mouse!

On a mouse with a scroll wheel, you’ll usually find that this can be pressed down, giving you a “middle click”. Sometimes clicking the left mouse button and right mouse button together gives the same effect.

Most touchpads nowadays also have a middle button, and modern touchpads can even accept gestures like the three-finger tap, which equates to a middle click.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS features middle click support, offering a number of shortcuts through the user interface. These include:

• Opening a new application window by clicking on the app icon.
• Open a link in a new browser tab.
• View the contents of a folder in a new tab. You can also launch a program with a single middle button click.

Individual applications can have (and do support) other options for the middle mouse button.

3. Easier App Installation With PPAs

Installing PPAs has always required the use of three sets of commands:

sudo apt-get-repository ppa:[ppa url]
sudo apt update
sudo apt install [app]

The first command adds the new repository, the second updates the repositories list, and the third installs the app. Streamlining the process, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS automatically runs the update command, so now all you need to enter is:

sudo apt-get-repository ppa:[ppa url]
sudo apt install [app]

While it was never the slowest process to begin with, losing that update command will conveniently save you a bit of time.

4. Faster and Minimal Install Option

When you’re installing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, you have the option of a Minimal Install.

This option is first in the list, and is distinct from installing third party software for graphics, Wi-Fi hardware, etc. It’s also distinct from the option to download updates while installing (although it can be combined with this option).

Minimal install, as you might have guessed, installs the bare minimum of options for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Free of bloatware, it lets you install just the applications you want to use. This has several benefits, the main one being that installing Ubuntu is far quicker without also installing the extra software.

5. Use the Activities Overview

The Activities overview can be opened by clicking the Activities link, by moving the mouse to the top-left “hot” corner area, or by pressing the Super key (on a Windows-originating device, this is the Windows key).

You can do several things with Activities, from seeing open tasks to viewing system information.

For instance, although the whole Ubuntu family has been upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, the default desktop is based on GNOME 3.0. In order to check which version of GNOME your system is running, click Activities (in the top-left corner) and type “about”.

Click on the About option to open, which displays information about your system, including the distribution’s name and GNOME version.

6. Easier Screenshots and Screen Recordings

GNOME screenshot has been upgraded, which means that Ubuntu 18.04 LTS features the easiest screenshot and screen recording options on any operating system!

To take a screenshot, simply press the Print Screen button for a complete capture of the desktop. To grab the active app window, however, hold Alt + Print Screen. You can also screenshot a selected area with Shift + Print Screen.

Screenshot options can be found in the Activities overview. Here you can find the above options, which you should select before clicking Take Screenshot. The Save Screenshot screen will appear, letting you choose where to save the image. By default, this is the Pictures folder (this is where screenshots made with the keyboard shortcuts will be saved).

In addition, it’s far easier to record your desktop. All you need to do is hold Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Print Screen to start recording. A small red circle will appear in the top-right corner of the screen as recording takes place. Once you’ve captured the activity you want, press the keyboard combination again to stop recording.

Video captures are saved to the Videos folder, with filenames in the format screencast [date] [time]. They’re saved as WEBM files for easy sharing, but can easily be converted to MP4 or some other format with a conversion tool.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS: New Version, New Features!

It’s always worth upgrading to an LTS release of Ubuntu. In 18.04, you get the benefit of these new features. To recap, they are:

1. Revised GNOME desktop interface.
2. Middle click the mouse.
3. Easier way to install PPA applications.
4. Use minimal install for speed.
5. Check your GNOME version.
6. Easily record screencasts and screenshots.

If you haven’t already upgraded, now is the time. And if you can’t, you may need to upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10 first. Otherwise, simply back up your files and folders and perform a full install of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

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The Internet of (Medical) Things: Dangers, Risks, and Security Problems

You may have heard the phrase “your health is your wealth.” It’s one of the reasons the US spent over $3.2 trillion on healthcare in 2015 alone.

With so much money floating around, it’s only natural that a lot of businesses have entered the healthcare market—including technology companies.

Medical technology sometimes feels dated, but companies are intent on dragging those devices into the 21st century. And while internet connectivity might seem like a great feature to have, there are some real dangers and issues that could surprise you.

What Are Medical Devices?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a medical device as “any instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, appliance, implant, reagent for in vitro use, software, material […] intended by the manufacturer to be used […] for human beings, for one or more […] specific medical purpose”.

Although that sounds quite complicated, it just means any device or software that may be used for medical purposes.

The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for regulatory oversight of medical devices and splits them into three categories: Class I, Class II, and Class III. Class 1 devices are lightly regulated, with most controls only placed on how they are manufactured and marketed. Class II adds more specific regulation, and Class III is reserved for devices which support or sustain human life.

However, as is typical around the world, the FDA has struggled to keep up with the pace of innovation. There are few references to how modern, internet-connected devices should be regulated.

What steps should manufacturers be putting in place to ensure the security of such devices? In December 2016, the FDA did release guidance on medical device security, but they aren’t legally enforceable. This left manufacturers to decide whether to follow the advice or not.

The Internet of (Medical) Things

This puts internet-connected medical devices in the same boat as those in the broader Internet of Things (IoT) category. There are many benefits to IoT medical devices, but the lack of enforceable regulation means that manufacturers aren’t likely to put many resources into securing them.

That’s just one of the many reasons why the Internet of Things is a security nightmare. Additionally, we literally place our lives in the hands of medical IoT devices. As such, the stakes are even higher than with regular IoT devices.

Healthcare is an expensive business, not just for patients, but for the providers themselves. Companies charge vast sums of money for new devices and technical support. This means hospitals and other medical practices are a jumble of tools—some new, some old with a range of different operating requirements. Old hardware, legacy software, and proprietary interfaces all come together to make appropriately securing the system a nightmare for the provider’s IT department.

Example: Eavesdropping on a Medical Pump

The interface between software and hardware often exposes exploitable vulnerabilities, as Saurabh Harit showed at Black Hat Europe 2017. He obtained an IV infusion pump, which injects medications into a patient’s blood, which could be programmed and operated remotely.

After accessing the pump’s admin mode with a default password found online, he was able to use the unit’s infrared and an old PDA purchased from eBay to import their Wi-Fi credentials to the pump’s network settings.

Using Wireshark (one of many open source network security tools) to inspect the packets, Harit viewed patient data like medication dose, caregiver, name, location, and route. Amazingly he was even able to access the Master Drugs List which sets and maintains the prescribed dosage.

The List of Examples Goes On…

If such vulnerabilities were limited to this one pump, it would be shocking enough, but researchers regularly uncover new ones. One team was able to gain access to a CT scanner, a device which gives you a small dose of radiation to create 3D models of inside your body.

In August 2017, the FDA recalled 465,000 pacemakers made by Abbott over hacking concerns. Instead of forcing almost half a million people to undergo invasive surgery, Abbott issued a firmware patch, which medical staff were able to apply to the pacemaker.

Back in 2014, the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) began investigating 24 devices over suspected critical flaws. Devices included an infusion pump from Hospira Inc and implantable heart devices from Medtronic and St Jude Medical.

Legacy Medical Devices and Poor Security

If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll know that many businesses rely on legacy software. This invariably requires older operating systems, drivers, and peripherals, making them very insecure. Cost is usually a deciding factor in whether to update, and many decide they can’t justify the expense. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Businesses often struggle to prioritize cybersecurity, with a prevailing attitude that if an attack hasn’t happened yet, then it won’t. Unfortunately, healthcare providers aren’t immune to this line of thinking either. In May 2017 a ransomware attack, dubbed WannaCry, almost simultaneously infected 300,000 computers, many belonging to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

The ransomware affected over 40 NHS Trusts around the country, reducing patient care, closing surgeries, and even close hospitals. The effects of the attack put patients at risk and potentially undermined the security of their data too. Sadly, Microsoft released a patch one month before the attack, which would have prevented WannaCry from taking hold. Not only was the update not rolled out, but as it turned out many computers were still running Windows XP.

This is despite extended support for the 15-year-old operating system having ended two years before the attack.

The Future of Medical Devices Freaks Me Out

Technology continues to deliver significant advancements in medical treatment, but it isn’t the medical sector’s saving grace as the UK’s NHS discovered. According to the Government’s Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, up to 270 women may have died after a “computer algorithm error” failed to invite 450,000 women to regular breast cancer screening.

Unlike many other areas affected by the advancement of technology, medical devices can be a matter of life or death. As Moore’s law enables more devices to come online in the coming years, manufacturers must prioritize security. After all, it’s no good designing a “killer feature” if that turns out to be a devastatingly accurate description.

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Review: Huawei’s P20 Pro is a shiny phone with a strong personality

It’s been a month since Huawei unveiled its latest flagship device. I’ve played with this phone for a few weeks and it’s one of the most interesting Android phones currently available.

The P20 Pro is a solid successor to the P10 and a good alternative to other flagship phones, such as the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9.

But it isn’t the perfect phone either. Some features are missing for no apparent reason. Some of Huawei’s choices are also questionable.

Looking for the perfect Android phone

A few years ago, many Android phones paled in comparison with the latest iPhone. Most of them were made out of plastic. And Android was simply too clunky back then.

2018 is a completely different story as you have a lot of options. Maybe you like Samsung devices or the pure Android experience of the Pixel 2. And maybe you’ve been looking at Huawei devices from afar. But if you live in the U.S., you won’t be able to buy the P20 Pro any time soon.

Let’s start with the overall design of the phone. It features a gigantic 6.1-inch OLED display with a now familiar notch at the top. It’s not as prominent as the one in the iPhone X, but it’s clear that Apple has started the next trend in smartphone design.

The frame of the design is made out of polished aluminium. It’s shiny and looks like stainless steel — but it’s lighter than steel. It feels good in your hand and is a great indication of what an iPhone X Plus could be.

The glass back comes in multiple colors. My review device had the twilight back. It’s a nice gradient from purple to blue that makes the P20 Pro stand out from the crowd. It’s much more distinctive than unified (boring) colors.

You can also use the P20 Pro as a portable mirror to fix your makeup or your hair when you’re on the subway. But the back of the device is so shiny that it was covered in fingerprints most of the time. That’s increasingly the case when you have a smartphone with a glass back.

Below the display, you’ll find a good old fingerprint sensor. In my experience it works well and I like having it on the front of the device when my phone is resting on a table. Unfortunately, it makes the phone quite tall overall.

[gallery ids="1612520,1612524,1612525,1612527"]

Why stop at two when you can have three cameras

Everybody laughed when smartphone manufacturers started putting two camera sensors at the back of their devices. And yet, many people upgrade their phone to get a better camera. Some people even choose their next phone based on the camera exclusively.

And Huawei went a bit crazy on this front as the company integrated three cameras at the back of the device. There’s a 40 megapixels lens combined with a 20 megapixels monochrome lens and an 8 megapixels telephoto lens. And the phone supports super slow-motion videos at 960 frames per second.

On paper, it sounds like a bit too much. But it’s true that those three cameras are the most important and remarkable feature of the P20 Pro.

I used both an iPhone X and the P20 Pro on my last vacation to Cambodia. And here’s a gallery of some sample photos:

[gallery ids="1636444,1636438,1636443,1636442,1636436"]

Let’s be honest, I’m not a great photographer. So I wanted to use the P20 Pro in the most normal use case. The P20 Pro has so many options and manual triggers that it feels a bit overwhelming for a normal user. But Huawei keeps saying that the P20 Pro is smart and can automatically capture the best shot for you.

If you use the normal photo mode, the camera tries to detect the content of the photo and adjust the settings automatically. For instance, if you’re shooting a portrait of a person, the P20 Pro automatically switches to Portrait mode. If you’re shooting at night, the phone will take a night mode photo by capturing multiple under- and overexposed photos and recompositioning the scene.

In my experience, the camera performed extremely well. It was quite hard to get a blurry, unfocused shot. But it was also something completely different from the iPhone X camera.

Colors are oversaturated in most cases. It looks too bright, too shiny and quite far from reality. And that wasn’t just the case on the smartphone itself (by default, the color profile of the display is quite saturated too). It was particularly true with nature shots. And I prefer the more natural tone of iPhone X photos.

When it comes to night photos, the P20 Pro is the best performing smartphone I’ve used. It performed incredibly well and it’s quite impressive that you can shoot these photos with a smartphone.

You can feel the strong personality of the P20 Pro when you’re taking selfies too. The camera app has a built-in beautifying effect that makes you look better. It is enabled by default, and you can’t disable it completely. Even when you set it to 0, it’ll make your skin smoother.

Overall, I’m impressed with the P20 Pro camera. But that doesn’t mean I like it better than the iPhone X. In some ways, it feels too complicated to get the perfect shot. In other ways, it corrects photos with software features that make them look a bit fake.

Many people will love the P20 Pro camera. It just depends on what you’re looking for.

Fine prints

Let’s go through some miscellaneous items. The P20 Pro doesn’t feature wireless charging. While it’s not a dealbreaker, it’s hard to go back to plugging a cable if you were already using wireless charging.

The system-on-a-chip is a Kirin 970 made by Huawei. Instead of boring you with benchmarks, let’s just say that it was perfectly fine and I didn’t feel limited at any moment. The P20 Pro is on par with other flagship Android devices. But it was particularly well optimized for power consumption. Battery life on the P20 Pro was very good.

The P20 Pro doesn’t have a microSD slot, but comes with 128GB of internal storage by default. There’s a single USB Type-C port (no headphone jack) and you’ll find both USB Type-C earbuds and a USB Type-C to headphone jack adapter.

My device had two SIM slots, but be careful if you plan on buying the P20 Pro. Huawei said that some versions of the device will only have one SIM slot.

When it comes to software, the P20 Pro runs Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI custom skin. I’m not a fan of EMUI as the company regularly pushes you to create a Huawei account. The company has also developed its own version of many of Google’s apps.

It can be confusing if you’re just looking for Google’s own apps. But this is understandable as all Google services are still blocked in China. Chinese users need Huawei’s alternatives.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the P20 Pro. It ticks all the right boxes to become a strong Samsung Galaxy S9 contender.

But more importantly, Huawei didn’t just build a safe phone. The P20 Pro has a strong personality and the company made some polarizing choices. You can see it across the board, from the back of the device to the beautifying effect when you’re taking selfies.

Huawei has been using the camera as the main element of its advertising campaign for the P20 Pro. The company is right to brag about its camera as it performs incredibly well. But software correction and saturated colors sometimes go too far, depending on your taste.

For years, most people looked at the new Samsung Galaxy S phone and the new iPhone to see what’s next in the smartphone world. But Huawei is now also pushing the needle forward with this phone.

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Review: Huawei’s P20 Pro is a shiny phone with a strong personality

It’s been a month since Huawei unveiled its latest flagship device. I’ve played with this phone for a few weeks and it’s one of the most interesting Android phones currently available.

The P20 Pro is a solid successor to the P10 and a good alternative to other flagship phones, such as the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9.

But it isn’t the perfect phone either. Some features are missing for no apparent reason. Some of Huawei’s choices are also questionable.

Looking for the perfect Android phone

A few years ago, many Android phones paled in comparison with the latest iPhone. Most of them were made out of plastic. And Android was simply too clunky back then.

2018 is a completely different story as you have a lot of options. Maybe you like Samsung devices or the pure Android experience of the Pixel 2. And maybe you’ve been looking at Huawei devices from afar. But if you live in the U.S., you won’t be able to buy the P20 Pro any time soon.

Let’s start with the overall design of the phone. It features a gigantic 6.1-inch OLED display with a now familiar notch at the top. It’s not as prominent as the one in the iPhone X, but it’s clear that Apple has started the next trend in smartphone design.

The frame of the design is made out of polished aluminium. It’s shiny and looks like stainless steel — but it’s lighter than steel. It feels good in your hand and is a great indication of what an iPhone X Plus could be.

The glass back comes in multiple colors. My review device had the twilight back. It’s a nice gradient from purple to blue that makes the P20 Pro stand out from the crowd. It’s much more distinctive than unified (boring) colors.

You can also use the P20 Pro as a portable mirror to fix your makeup or your hair when you’re on the subway. But the back of the device is so shiny that it was covered in fingerprints most of the time. That’s increasingly the case when you have a smartphone with a glass back.

Below the display, you’ll find a good old fingerprint sensor. In my experience it works well and I like having it on the front of the device when my phone is resting on a table. Unfortunately, it makes the phone quite tall overall.

[gallery ids="1612520,1612524,1612525,1612527"]

Why stop at two when you can have three cameras

Everybody laughed when smartphone manufacturers started putting two camera sensors at the back of their devices. And yet, many people upgrade their phone to get a better camera. Some people even choose their next phone based on the camera exclusively.

And Huawei went a bit crazy on this front as the company integrated three cameras at the back of the device. There’s a 40 megapixels lens combined with a 20 megapixels monochrome lens and an 8 megapixels telephoto lens. And the phone supports super slow-motion videos at 960 frames per second.

On paper, it sounds like a bit too much. But it’s true that those three cameras are the most important and remarkable feature of the P20 Pro.

I used both an iPhone X and the P20 Pro on my last vacation to Cambodia. And here’s a gallery of some sample photos:

[gallery ids="1636444,1636438,1636443,1636442,1636436"]

Let’s be honest, I’m not a great photographer. So I wanted to use the P20 Pro in the most normal use case. The P20 Pro has so many options and manual triggers that it feels a bit overwhelming for a normal user. But Huawei keeps saying that the P20 Pro is smart and can automatically capture the best shot for you.

If you use the normal photo mode, the camera tries to detect the content of the photo and adjust the settings automatically. For instance, if you’re shooting a portrait of a person, the P20 Pro automatically switches to Portrait mode. If you’re shooting at night, the phone will take a night mode photo by capturing multiple under- and overexposed photos and recompositioning the scene.

In my experience, the camera performed extremely well. It was quite hard to get a blurry, unfocused shot. But it was also something completely different from the iPhone X camera.

Colors are oversaturated in most cases. It looks too bright, too shiny and quite far from reality. And that wasn’t just the case on the smartphone itself (by default, the color profile of the display is quite saturated too). It was particularly true with nature shots. And I prefer the more natural tone of iPhone X photos.

When it comes to night photos, the P20 Pro is the best performing smartphone I’ve used. It performed incredibly well and it’s quite impressive that you can shoot these photos with a smartphone.

You can feel the strong personality of the P20 Pro when you’re taking selfies too. The camera app has a built-in beautifying effect that makes you look better. It is enabled by default, and you can’t disable it completely. Even when you set it to 0, it’ll make your skin smoother.

Overall, I’m impressed with the P20 Pro camera. But that doesn’t mean I like it better than the iPhone X. In some ways, it feels too complicated to get the perfect shot. In other ways, it corrects photos with software features that make them look a bit fake.

Many people will love the P20 Pro camera. It just depends on what you’re looking for.

Fine prints

Let’s go through some miscellaneous items. The P20 Pro doesn’t feature wireless charging. While it’s not a dealbreaker, it’s hard to go back to plugging a cable if you were already using wireless charging.

The system-on-a-chip is a Kirin 970 made by Huawei. Instead of boring you with benchmarks, let’s just say that it was perfectly fine and I didn’t feel limited at any moment. The P20 Pro is on par with other flagship Android devices. But it was particularly well optimized for power consumption. Battery life on the P20 Pro was very good.

The P20 Pro doesn’t have a microSD slot, but comes with 128GB of internal storage by default. There’s a single USB Type-C port (no headphone jack) and you’ll find both USB Type-C earbuds and a USB Type-C to headphone jack adapter.

My device had two SIM slots, but be careful if you plan on buying the P20 Pro. Huawei said that some versions of the device will only have one SIM slot.

When it comes to software, the P20 Pro runs Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI custom skin. I’m not a fan of EMUI as the company regularly pushes you to create a Huawei account. The company has also developed its own version of many of Google’s apps.

It can be confusing if you’re just looking for Google’s own apps. But this is understandable as all Google services are still blocked in China. Chinese users need Huawei’s alternatives.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the P20 Pro. It ticks all the right boxes to become a strong Samsung Galaxy S9 contender.

But more importantly, Huawei didn’t just build a safe phone. The P20 Pro has a strong personality and the company made some polarizing choices. You can see it across the board, from the back of the device to the beautifying effect when you’re taking selfies.

Huawei has been using the camera as the main element of its advertising campaign for the P20 Pro. The company is right to brag about its camera as it performs incredibly well. But software correction and saturated colors sometimes go too far, depending on your taste.

For years, most people looked at the new Samsung Galaxy S phone and the new iPhone to see what’s next in the smartphone world. But Huawei is now also pushing the needle forward with this phone.

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On Fridays, HQ Trivia will let you see your friends’ answers during the game

HQ, the live trivia game that is now seeing up to 2 million players per game, is introducing some new social features, including answer sharing with friends.

The company has been testing this feature across a small group of users already, but on Friday the feature will roll out to all HQ users.

Here’s how it works: Users can connect their address book to HQ and add their friends. Once they have added friends, they can see which of their friends are playing the game alongside them. Users can put their own avatar on the answer to a question to share their choice, which is viewable by friends.

The idea is that answer sharing mimics what many people do while playing HQ IRL, yelling out answers to their coworkers in the office or sharing with their friends and family in a bar or at home.

“We understand the power of the crowd and playing together,” said HQ head of product James Ruben. “That doesn’t necessarily exist everywhere. Our goal is to spread that power to people who maybe aren’t playing in the office together.”

This comes on the heels of HQ’s introduction of “Friends on HQ” from April, which let users see friends playing in the same quiz and see their progress through the game. Answer sharing simply takes that a step further.

Interestingly, answer sharing won’t be available on each HQ Trivia quiz. Instead, the feature will debut on Friday of this week, and continue to be available on Friday games.

“We understand that it’s a change to the game play,” said Ruben. “Friday is an interesting time to experiment and try out answer sharing because Fridays tend to be a bit more social than other days.”

Alongside answer sharing, HQ is also adding yet another social layer to the game with Nearby Friends. The feature will allow HQ players to see other people (not in their address book) who are in the same quiz as them and physically nearby, perhaps in the same office building or in the same bar or restaurant.

Finally, HQ is making it easier to upload the address book and connect with friends on the app.

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HQ is an interesting business in that it’s taking an almost old-school approach to advertising/sponsorship. As opposed to social networks like Facebook, which collect as much data as possible about users to sell advertisements against that data, HQ is focused more on getting as many engaged eyeballs in the same place as possible, a bit like television advertising.

HQ doesn’t have that much information on users beyond their phone number, device type, username, and other basic information commonly gleaned by app developers. With the introduction of Friends on HQ, the company gets a bit more insight into users. But that’s not necessarily the reason for the update.

Instead, HQ wants to make these games as engaging as possible, and what’s more engaging than competing with or cheering along your friends and family.

The company is also taking a measured approach to advertising and sponsorship, working with partners that make sense for the HQ community and making those sponsorships as native as possible.

For example, HQ recently ran a $250,000 game with Warner Brothers as a sponsor, plugging the film Ready Player One within the graphics and even in some of the questions. The company also had Duane “The Rock” Johnson host a $300,000 game as part of the actor’s promotion of his upcoming movie Rampage.

Answer sharing will be available to everyone on Friday, but easier address book upload and Nearby Friends are soon to come for Android users.

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How to Change Your Login Name on Windows 10

As anyone who uses Windows 10 will know, your name is visible on the sign-in screen. For some people, that creates a privacy concern, especially if you frequently use your computer in a public environment. Sadly, it’s one of many privacy issues on the operating system.

Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t let you set a username or alias while retaining your real name on your Microsoft Account, so you’re forced to use a workaround.

How to Change Your Login Name on Windows 10

The approach you need to take depends on whether you use a Windows account or a local account to sign into your machine.

Using a Microsoft Account

The only way to change the name you see on the login screen if you use a Microsoft Account is to change the name on the account itself.

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Click on Accounts.
3. Choose Your info.
4. Click on Manage my Microsoft Account.
5. Wait for the account page to load in your browser.
6. Below your name, click on More Actions.
7. Choose Edit profile.
8. Once the page loads, click on Edit name.

Ideally, you want to choose something that resembles your current name without giving away your full identity. Remember, changing your name here affects your profile across all Microsoft services.

Using a Local Account

If you have a local account, the process is much easier.

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Go to User Accounts.
3. Click on the local account you want to edit.
4. Click on Change account name.
5. Enter your desired alias
6. Hit Change Name.

And finally, remember if you just want to hide your email address on the sign-in screen, you can do so by going to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in Options > Privacy and sliding the toggle next to Show account details into the Off position.

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3 Apps That’ll Keep You Safe When Ridesharing With Uber or Lyft

Ridesharing companies like Uber have changed the way we commute, but they have also taken the “public” out of public transportation. It has brought in its share of personal safety risks. To their credit, Uber has improved its own app with a host of safety features over the years…

…but why not have a second line of defense? Carry these three personal safety apps and stay safe on any kind of trip. Each of them takes a different approach to keeping you safe.

1. SafeTrek: Hold Until Safe

The single button on the app acts as a trigger. Press and hold it down when you feel that you are in danger. It acts as a silent alarm and police will rush to your location. Release it when you feel that the danger has passed. You also have to enter a 4-digit PIN to verify that you are really safe.

Key Features:

• Uses GPS to track your location.
• Works like a 911 call to notify other emergency responders.
• Supported by 24/7 call centers.

Download: SafeTrek for Android | iOS (Free, premium for $30/year)

2. bSafe: Stay Protected With Guardians

bSafe uses location tracking to keep a group of your favored contacts (your Guardians) updated about your whereabouts. They can track you via a map at their end. Press the large red SOS button in case of a danger and they will be notified immediately.

Key Features:

• Video and audio information can be sent to your guardians.
• A Timer Alarm can be set off automatically if you have not checked in within a certain time.
• A message alerts your guardians that you have arrived safely.

Download: bSafe for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Kitestring: When You Don’t Have a Smartphone

A simple text message is still powerful. If it is delivered on time. Kitestring relies on good old SMS to check up on you at set intervals. If you don’t respond to the SMS, it will send your emergency contacts a personalized alert message.

Key Features:

• Can be used on any phone with text messaging.
• Kitestring has a free plan and a low-cost paid plan.

Download: Kitestring for Android | iOS (Free, premium for $3/mo)

When you are in an emergency, there should be the least amount of delay between the event and the call. Most apps work with call centers and not 911. Also, get to know the features of these personal safety apps beforehand.

Remember that many mobile phones have their own in-built emergency response features. For instance, you can easily turn an iPhone into a personal security device.

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Google Assistant Learns New Conversational Skills

Google is making several significant changes to the way Assistant works. The aim being to allow Google Assistant to converse more naturally with users. Google is also adding a number of new voices and positive reinforcement for politeness.

Google is pushing hard to make Assistant the one AI to rule them all. And at Google I/O 2018, the company has announced a number of new features coming to Google Assistant in the near future. The main one of which is called Continued Conversations.

Assistant Learns to Converse

Continued Conversations means Google Assistant can carry on a conversation without you having to say “Hey Google” before every request. Instead, once enabled, you’ll be able to have a natural back-and-forth conversation with Google Assistant.

"One of the biggest areas we're tackling with AI is the #GoogleAssistant…Our vision for the perfect assistant is that it would be natural and comfortable to talk to, and there at the right moment in the right way when you need it." –@sundarpichai #io18

— Google (@Google) May 8, 2018

In addition to this, Google Assistant can now understand and respond to more complex queries. The example Google gives is, “What’s the weather like in New York and in Austin?”. This obviously requires two answers, which Assistant will now be able to provide.

New Voices and Pretty Please

Google is also adding new voices to the mix. This means you can now choose from six new voices, adding a touch of customization to the overall Assistant experience. And for some strange reason John Legend will be lending his voice to Assistant later this year.

To personalize your #GoogleAssistant even further, we've used AI to create six new voices that will start rolling out today—with familiar voices coming later this year ? https://t.co/SXa4jo5Rw0 #io18 pic.twitter.com/ouDDoyZuSW

— Google (@Google) May 8, 2018

Google is also enabling Assistant to provide positive reinforcement. A feature called Pretty Please (coming later this year) means Assistant will acknowledge when children engage in polite conversation. Which is as simple as saying “Please” and “Thank You”.

Google Assistant vs. Alexa

Google is currently battling hard against Amazon for control of the personal assistant space. And it’s surely no coincidence that Amazon recently gave Alexa the ability to listen for longer through her new Follow-Up mode. Google has just gone one better.

If you haven’t yet tried Google’s smart personal assistant we have an article explaining what Google Assistant is and how to use it. And if you’re already a fan we have found the best IFTTT applets to supercharge Google Assistant.

Image Credit: Aaron Yoo/Flickr

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Gmail’s Smart Compose Autocompletes Your Emails

If you have an inbox constantly requiring attention, you’ll know how time-consuming it can be to reply to endless emails. Google wants to help, and its big new idea is Smart Compose for Gmail. Which should cut down the amount of time you spend writing emails.

Google recently rolled out the new and improved Gmail. The new Gmail boasts several new features, all designed to keep your inbox organized. And now, at Google I/O 2018, Google has unveiled another new feature for Gmail. This one is called Smart Compose.

Autocomplete for Emails

Smart Compose is basically Autocomplete for your emails. All you need to do is start composing an email, and Smart Compose will pop up with suggestions for finishing your sentences. You can then either carry on writing, or hit Tab to accept the suggestion.

In theory you could write a whole email tapping nothing other than Tab. There’s no guarantee your email will say what you want it to, but it should be free of typos. And Google is confident its machine learning algorithms will produce stellar results.

A new feature powered by AI, we're launching Smart Compose in @gmail to help you draft emails more quickly by providing interactive suggestions as you type ? https://t.co/nJIWG29M0T #io18 pic.twitter.com/DKjqDdl5ts

— Google (@Google) May 8, 2018

Smart Compose will recognize the subject of the email, and use other information to offer suggestions. It can take care of addresses and other mundane-but-necessary information, letting you focus on the other, more important things you want to say.

Smart Compose is due to rolling out to all Gmail users over the next few weeks. And G Suite customers will be able to access the feature within the next few months. Unfortunately for holdouts, you need to enable the new Gmail to use Smart Compose.

Just Keep Hitting Tab

Most people aren’t going to just keep hitting Tab to write a full email without thinking. The end result is likely to be too generic and impersonal. However, Smart Compose should help take care of the essentials, saving you time and effort when managing your inbox.

If you use Gmail but would like to know how to use it more efficiently, why not read our beginner’s guide to Gmail or our power user’s guide to Gmail. Or perhaps you would rather learn how to achieve inbox zero or master your inbox anxiety.

Image Credit: Chris Schrier/Flickr

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External Hard Drive Missing on Your Mac: 8 Possible Fixes You Should Try

Most of us use external hard drives and USB flash drives from time to time. You can use iCloud or buy a bigger MacBook to reduce your reliance on external drives, but they’re still a necessary evil.

It can be a frustrating experience when your external hard drive doesn’t show up (or misbehaves in another way). Fortunately there’s a long list of fixes you can try to isolate and hopefully fix your issue fairly quickly.

In some instances you might find that it’s impossible to recover your drive. This is why the 3-2-1- backup rule is so important.

Before We Begin: Read-Only Volumes and NTFS

If your external hard drive is showing up but you can’t write to it, it’s likely using a file system that your Mac cannot write to. Many Windows external drives are formatted to NTFS by default, and macOS doesn’t include an NTFS driver. In order to write to your drive, you’ll need to install a driver with support for that file system.

You can get your hands dirty and fix read-only problems for free with an open source solution, or by enabling macOS experimental NTFS support. Alternatively, paid options like Paragon NTFS ($20 per Mac) or TuxeraNTFS ($31 for all home computers) will quickly restore access to your NTFS volumes.

1. Connect Your Drive and Check /Volumes/

All connected and mounted volumes will show up in your /Volumes/ folder. Launch Finder and in the menu bar, click Go > Go to Folder. Then type /Volumes/ and hit Enter. You’ll be taken to a folder that shows you all mounted drives and disk images.

If you find your drive here, try accessing it. If you’re used to seeing (or would rather see) your drive appear on your desktop, launch Finder and in the menu bar head to Finder > Preferences > General. Check the boxes to determine which drives show up on your desktop.

2. Check Disk Utility

Launch Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility (or just search Spotlight for it). This system utility lists all connected drives, with mounted or unmounted partitions listed below. If your drive shows up but the partition isn’t mounted (shown grayed out), try right-clicking the partition and choosing Mount.

If your drive still isn’t accessible, you might want to try selecting the drive or affected partition then clicking First Aid. Disk Utility will check the volume for problems, and if it detects any you’ll be given the option to Repair Disk. If the drive isn’t writeable or supported by macOS, First Aid can’t do anything.

If your drive appears in Disk Utility but you are unable to mount any partitions, you may still be able to recover data from that drive. There are plenty of good Mac data recovery tools, with TestDisk and PhotoRec being two of the best.

If you’re not concerned with your data and simply want the use of your drive back, feel free to use the Erase tool in Disk Utility to create a new partition.

3. Rebuild the Launch Services Database

Some users have reported success in getting their previously missing drives to show up by rebuilding the macOS launch services database. Apple describes this as “an API that enables a running application to open other applications or their document files in a way similar to the Finder or the Dock.”

You can rebuild the database by downloading and installing free maintenance app OnyX. Launch it and input your administrator password so that OnyX can make changes. The app may ask to verify the structure of your desk; click Continue and wait if so. OnyX will appear unresponsive while the process completes.

Once OnyX comes back to life, click on the Maintenance tab followed by Rebuilding. Make sure that LaunchServices is checked (you can uncheck the rest) then click Run Tasks at the bottom of the window. While this happens, Finder may become unresponsive.

Once the process is complete, restart your Mac. Try reconnecting your missing drive once it reboots.

4. Cycle USB Ports and Cables

Ports and cables are physical connections, and they’re prone to wear that can lead to total failure. If your external HDD isn’t showing up, try using another USB port to see if that makes a difference. If the drive shows up, it indicates there’s a problem with that particular USB port (you may be able to fix this in section seven, below).

And if that doesn’t work, turn your attention to the cable. If you haven’t used the drive in a long time, check you’ve got the right type of cable. Some older drives require USB leads with separate power connectors. Even older drives require dedicated DC power adapters, so make sure you’re not missing one of them.

You can try switching out the cable for another and seeing if that makes a difference. If you’re troubleshooting a USB flash drive, check the connector for signs of damage.

5. Try Another Computer

You can confirm whether or not the drive is faulty by trying to connect it to another computer, if you have one. Ideally you’ll want to try another Mac, but a Windows PC is worth a shot too. If you have access to both and your drive refuses to show up on any Apple hardware, it’s worth considering the possibility that it’s simply not compatible.

Though it’s rare to encounter this issue with modern hardware, some USB devices need to install drivers before they will work on certain operating systems. This is especially true for many “secure” USB drives that use some sort of software encryption to prevent unwanted access.

One potential solution is searching online for your particular brand and model. Manufacturers may have included Mac drivers as a separate download.

6. Update macOS

It’s basic advice, but sometimes it helps when your external hard drive isn’t showing up. If you have outstanding updates to apply, try applying them and trying again. In particular, some firmware updates relate specifically to peripherals and devices that connect via USB. Launch the Mac App Store app and head to the Updates tab.

It’s always a good idea to back up your Mac with Time Machine before installing major updates or upgrading macOS to the next major version.

7. Reset SMC and PRAM

If the signs point to your Mac as the source of the problem (or you’re completely out of ideas) you might want to try resetting your system management controller (SMC) and parameter random access memory (PRAM).

Tried resetting the PRAM and SMC on the MAC ? Even disk first aid or whatever the hell they call it now on the external drives ?

— Heartwood Institute (@Heartwood9) April 27, 2018

For issues relating to USB devices, resetting the SMC will provide the best chance of a fix. If that didn’t help, you might want to try resetting PRAM anyway since it can’t really cause your machine any long-term problems.

Instructions differ depending on your particular Mac, so check out our guide to resetting SMC and PRAM for details relevant to your machine.

8. Run Mac Diagnostics to Detect Hardware Issues

Convinced it’s your Mac to blame and want to know more? You can run Apple’s consumer-friendly hardware tests at home, but they likely won’t tell you much. If you really want to dig deep into the issue, you’ll need to find the Apple Service Diagnostic for your machine and test it extensively.

Apple Service Diagnostic is a set of diagnostic tools used by technicians to find faults. Getting your hands on relevant disk images shouldn’t be too difficult, after which you can create a bootable Apple Service Diagnostic drive for testing purposes.

This isn’t going to fix your machine, but it will confirm or deny your suspicions. If you have a problem with a particular USB port, you might want to invest in a hub to make the most of your remaining connectivity. It might also be time to start thinking about upgrading to another machine, since this could be indicative of bigger problems.

Remember to Safely Eject Your Drives

Not everyone safely ejects their drives, especially small USB flash drives used primarily for data transfer. Larger external hard drives that store a lot of precious data are more worthy of your patience, however. You can eject a drive in several ways:

• Right-clicking it and choosing Eject.
• Using the Eject icon below the Devices section of Finder’s sidebar.
• By clicking and dragging the drive from your desktop or Finder to the Trash in the Dock.
• Using a free menu bar app like Ejector.

By taking the time to make sure nothing is writing to the volume and ejecting it safely, you’ll reduce the odds of ever needing to consult an article like this again. And to decrease your reliance on external drives, check out all the ways to add storage to your MacBook.

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10 Essential Vivaldi Browser Tips & Tricks for Speed and Productivity

If you’re a web power user, you need to be using Vivaldi.

Chrome is designed for the everyman, Firefox is for the security and privacy conscious, and Safari is only available to use on Apple platforms. They’re all relatively simple, and while you can add more functionality using extensions, too many extensions can make things bloated and slow down performance.

On the other hand, Vivaldi comes with advanced built-in features that are constantly updated and optimized. Some of its best features aren’t even available as extensions in other browsers! Here’s why Vivaldi is a dream for power users.

1. Save Tabs for Later Using Tab Sessions

For power users, browser tab management can be more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why tab overload has always been an issue for me: I constantly open up new tabs and tell myself I’ll “read them later”—but I open them faster than I read them, and before long I’m lost in a sea of 50+ tabs. Maybe you can relate.

Vivaldi’s Tab Sessions can help. Just go to File > Save Open Tabs as Session, name the session, and click OK. That’s it! If you only want to save a handful of tabs, just drag them into a separate window, then save the tabs only for that window. If you’re using Vivaldi Sync, you can even open your sessions on another device.

To restore a saved session, go to File > Open Saved Sessions.

2. Organize Tabs Into Tab Stacks

Another way to deal with tab overload is to combine multiple tabs into a single tab using Vivaldi’s Tab Stacks feature. Once combined, the Stack acts like a tab with its own internal tabs, and you can still switch between those internal tabs like normal. This is incredible for organization, basically allowing you to categorize your tabs.

To create a Stack, drag a tab over another tab, wait until it turns dark, then drop it. To dissolve a Stack, you can right-click on it and select Ungroup Tab Stack. Or you can just drag-and-drop individual tabs from within a Stack to outside the Stack.

3. Split View Tabs With Tab Tiling

In most browsers, if you want to view several pages side by side, you have to open up multiple windows. Vivaldi makes things a lot easier with Tab Tiling.

Once you’ve created a Tab Stack, right-click the Stack and select Tile Tab Stack. Now whenever you select the Stack, you’ll see all of the pages in that Stack shown side by side. You can navigate away to another tab then come back to the Stack and it’ll still be tiled. Using the tile settings icon in the Status Bar, you can change between options for displaying horizontally, vertically, or as a grid.

If you’ve rather tile individual tabs, select multiple tabs by holding Ctrl and then clicking on the tabs you want to tile, then right-click on any of the selected tabs and click Tile Tabs. Revert to normal by right-clicking on a tab and clicking Untile Selection.

4. Better Browsing With Sidebar Tabs

When you first installed Vivaldi, you probably chose to have the tab bar at the top during setup. This is, after all, how every other browser and application does it, so it makes the most sense to do it in Vivaldi too, right?

Maybe not!

If you go to Vivaldi’s Settings, navigate to the Tabs page and you’ll be able to change the Tab Bar Position. I highly recommend using either Left or Right, which causes tabs to appear vertically stacked. This is more productive because it lets you fit many more tabs on screen at once, so navigating is much easier.

But you’ll also want to go down to the Tab Display settings and uncheck the box labeled Show Tab Thumbnails. When thumbnails are enabled, the tabs are just way too big and take up too much space.

5. Dock Always-Open Pages

Do you have certain tabs that are ALWAYS open? Examples might include Gmail, Slack, Discord, Trello, TickTick, etc. Most users opt to Pin Tab so they can’t be closed, but the downside is that you still have to click on a pinned tab to see that page.

If you turn those always-open pages into Web Panels instead, you can keep them open while browsing tabs normally. One neat use is to have a search engine Web Panel so you can simultaneously search while working on whatever you’re working on. Web Panels are also good for reference pages, such as Wikipedia or API documentation.

To add a Web Panel, make sure the Panel Bar is open by clicking Show Panel at the bottom left of Vivaldi. In the Panel Bar, click the Add Web Panel button to add the current tab/page as the Web Panel, or type in the specific URL you want.

6. Fast Search With Search Engine Nicknames

Let’s say you’ve set Bing as your default search engine so you can reap daily Microsoft Rewards points, but sometimes you don’t get the best results. Instead of wasting time navigating to google.com, you can use a search engine nickname.

For example, while typing “allergy symptoms” in the Address Bar searches Bing, you can instead type “g allergy symptoms” to specifically search Google.

Vivaldi comes with several default search engine nicknames, including Wikipedia and Ecosia, but you can create your own too. In fact, it works with any page that takes URL parameters, not just search engines. For example, you could create a Twitter nickname for visiting Twitter users (e.g. “t makeuseof”).

7. Take Notes While You Browse the Web

The Notes feature in Vivaldi is a bit unusual so it might take getting used to, but once you’re comfortable with it, you’ll wonder how you lived without it. It’s as revolutionary as web bookmarks and browser tabs were when they first debuted.

In the Panel Bar (click Show Panel at the bottom left if you don’t see it), select the Notes Panel to see your notes. Here you can create and delete Notes as well as create folders for organizing your Notes.

Notes are formatted using Markdown. You can associate individual Notes with a particular URL, attach screenshots or other images, and search all your Notes at any time.

8. Read Articles Without Ads

Suppose you’re an upstanding, lovable person who doesn’t use ad-blockers because you know how damaging they can be to content creators. But every so often, you come across an article laden with ads. Frustrating, isn’t it?

That’s when you should use Vivaldi’s Reader View feature, which takes the article content, strips away everything else, and presents it in an easy-to-read manner. Just click the Reader icon next to the Address Bar to toggle Reader View.

9. Use Quick Commands, Not Keyboard Shortcuts

There’s nothing wrong with using keyboard shortcuts, but Vivaldi offers a much more productive solution in its Quick Commands feature. Instead of having to memorize a thousand different shortcut combination, Quick Commands lets you type out the action you want to do. It doesn’t get easier than that.

Just press F2 to open the Quick Commands prompt, then starting typing. For example, “Task Manager” to launch the Vivaldi Task Manager. Use the arrow keys to select between multiple results. You can also use the Quick Commands prompt to run a web search, which is faster than using the mouse to first click on the Address Bar.

10. Create Custom Mouse Gestures

For frequently used actions—we’re talking about things you do dozens of times every day—you should get in the habit of using Mouse Gestures. It works like this: hold down right-click, draw the gesture associated with an action, then let go.

Vivaldi comes with a bunch of default mouse gestures, but you can create your own and associate them with any of Vivaldi’s actions. Custom Mouse Gestures make it possible to effectively browse the web one-handed using nothing but a mouse.

What Do You Like Most About Vivaldi?

In addition to all of the above, note that Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser so you’ll benefit from a lot of the underlying security and usability features that are found in other Chromium-based browsers like Chrome, Opera, and Brave.

Download: Vivaldi (Free)

While Vivaldi is mostly used on Windows desktops and laptops, it’s also a strong browser option for Raspberry Pis and one of the best browsers for Linux power users. If you aren’t using Vivaldi yet, now’s the best time to start. It’s really good!

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