If you want to learn how to build flying cars, then your options in terms of getting an education are kind of limited. Enter Udacity, the online education platform founded by Google self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun. It’s now accepting applications for its Flying Car Nanodegree program, which it announced last year along with a new Introduction to Self-Driving engineering course.… Read More
First, don’t call it “Vine Two”. Details are starting to emerge about v2, the forthcoming video app built to replace Vine by its former co-founder Dom Hofmann. TechCrunch has learned that v2 has begun reaching out to former Viners and social media star managers in hopes of establishing ties with some top content creators to get feedback and fuel the app’s eventual… Read More
Do you ever find yourself asking, “Why does Google suck?” I’m a Google fanboy, but man, sometimes I get frustrated with some of their design choices. I can’t help but think that maybe, in a lot of ways, Google does suck. Between their search engine, Gmail, Drive apps, and everything else, Google has more users than any company in history. So why aren’t they focusing more on aesthetic and more functional apps? Maybe because they don’t have to. Maybe we all just put up with it when we shouldn’t. Well, today we’re going to explore two things: We will go...
Read the full article: Why Does Google Suck? Annoying Product Issues They Never Fix
Google’s Play store now features audiobooks. There is a good chance that you only think of the Play store as Google’s app store for Android, but it has long features support for movies, TV shows, magazines and ebooks, too. The new audiobooks feature is launching in 45 countries and nine languages. The addition of audiobooks feels like a natural progression, but I was actually… Read More
First, don’t call it “Vine Two”. Details are starting to emerge about v2, the forthcoming video app built to replace Vine by its former co-founder Dom Hofmann. TechCrunch has learned that v2 has begun reaching out to former Viners and social media star managers in hopes of establishing ties with some top content creators to get feedback and fuel the app’s eventual… Read More
Have you decided that you want to use Linux? Great! You’re joining a community of people who value sharing software and empowering others to get the most out of their computers. But as with any transition, some parts of your experience will require making an adjustment. I don’t believe Linux is any harder to use than Windows, but you do have to unlearn some behaviors in order to embrace new ones. Here are some things I’ve learned from years of using Linux that would have been great to know from the beginning. 1. Don’t Install Linux on a Brand New...
Read the full article: 5 Things You Should Know When Switching to Linux
Your Raspberry Pi makes a superb media center. It can go to into orbit. You might even have used it to develop some music based projects in the past. After all, it’s the perfect size, and has ideal connectivity, to stream music to, and output through a loudspeaker. But have you considered using it to actually create new music? After all, the device is a computer. It has a GPIO and USB for adding original and custom hardware. Using Python (or another language), you can get to grips with outputting sound. Why wouldn’t you attempt to make music with the...
Read the full article: 5 Musical Instruments You Can Build With a Raspberry Pi
The war between iOS and Android holds strong even to today. Obviously there are valid reasons to fall on either side of the fence, but that doesn’t stop people (including us) from endlessly comparing the two to see which one is better for our needs. We’ve already explored questions like which mobile operating system is more secure and why iOS apps are generally better than Android apps. But here’s something you may not have noticed: iOS devices often have half the RAM (or less) of Android devices. Why is this? Comparing RAM on iPhone vs. Android For this article, we’ll look at...
Read the full article: This Is Why iOS Devices Use Less RAM Than Android Devices
Twitter COO Anthony Noto has left the company, Twitter announced Tuesday. Noto’s leaving because he accepted a CEO role elsewhere, according to the release. Just last week, the WSJ reported that Noto was mulling the top executive job at finance startup SoFi, and indeed SoFi confirmed today that he’s joining effective March 1. Regarding Noto’s Twitter departure, CEO Jack… Read More
There’s no getting around the fact that Snapchat has a user growth problem, so it’s smart that the company is making it easier for people who like and use Snapchat to share content they find within beyond the app itself. Today, Snap is launching the ability to share some public Stories via links that then display the Story selected on Snapchat.com. Stories eligible for sharing… Read More
Whether you’re looking to secure your home, or want to catch your cleaner stealing, hidden cameras are a novel way to boost your home security. We’ve previously discussed wireless home security cameras, along with a DIY security camera network from old smartphones, so today I’ll be showing you how to secure your home with hidden security cameras. Why Choose Hidden Surveillance Cameras? With systems such as the Reolink DIY CCTV system costing less than $400, many people believe hidden surveillance cameras are not always necessary. While traditional CCTV systems offer excellent value for money, they do have two distinct disadvantages:...
Read the full article: Secure Your Home With Hidden Cameras, It’s Easier Than You Think!
When you need to do some work on the hard drive in your PC, or want to protect your files, you’ll probably see a few terms flying around. If you haven’t used any hard disk tools before, it’s confusing to distinguish them. Let’s take a look at three of the most popular hard drive operations: partitioning, cloning, and backing up. We’ll define and explain each of them, then discuss which one is best for what situations. Disk Partition We start with the most complicated of the three operations, though it isn’t hard to grasp. Partitioning a disk allows you to...
Read the full article: Disk Partition vs. Clone vs. Backup: What Should You Use?
Our verdict of the Xiaomi Amazfit Pace:For the price, we can wholeheartedly recommend the Amazfit. It's certainly not without flaws, but it delivers on most of its features while looking great.810If there’s one thing there isn’t a shortage of, it’s smartwatches and fitness trackers. You can get ultra high-end devices that cost over $500. You can get entry-level options for less than $100. There are watches and trackers at every price in the middle, too. Today, we’re going to look at a very affordable smartwatch with a very fitness-focused feature set in the Amazfit Pace. It retails for around $140 from...
Read the full article: Xiaomi Amazfit Pace Review: Solid Smartwatch at a Budget Price
Some major product news from veteran anti-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo: Today it’s launched revamped mobile apps and browser extensions that bake in a tracker blocker for third party sites, and include a suite of other privacy features intended to help users keep surfing privately as they navigate around the web. Read More
One of the first image editing feats you’ll want to master is putting two images together and creating a composite image. So, you will have to learn how to select an image, remove it from its background, and also smooth the hard edges of that selection so that it doesn’t look like a cutout. Photoshop CC 2018 helps a lot here with its improved Select and Mask feature. Here’s how it can help you make quick selections and smooth edges in double time. How to Extract a Photo With Select and Mask The new Select and Mask option in the menu will take you to...
Read the full article: How to Smooth Edges in Photoshop
Posting GIFs to Instagram is the same process as posting videos, because posting a GIF to Instagram actually involves converting to a video file first. You can’t upload the GIF file format directly to Instagram. But if you can’t convert to a video for some reason, you still have one other method, which is to use the Instagram app Boomerang. How to Convert and Upload GIFs to Instagram If you have already have the GIF you want to share, you can convert it online: There are plenty of services you can use to convert GIF files you’ve saved. We opted for Cloud Convert’s GIF to MP4 converter....
Read the full article: How to Post GIFs and Videos on Instagram
Though you’re probably used to typing on a physical keyboard, Windows offers a few software keyboards too. One is the touch keyboard, which is great for laptops or two-in-ones. When you fold your screen down, it lets you use your tablet PC without having to unfold it to use the keyboard. The other is the on-screen keyboard. It’s an accessibility tool for users who can’t use a normal keyboard, but you can also take advantage of it if your keyboard suddenly stops working. If you use either one of these, you might be unhappy with its default size, especially if...
Read the full article: How to Resize the On-Screen Keyboard in Windows 10
Microsoft has unveiled a new range of laptops aimed at schools and students. With prices starting at just $189, these new Windows 10 devices are designed to crush the Chromebook rebellion currently threatening to topple the Microsoft empire. Or whatever analogy works for you. The Chromebook has become a common sight in classrooms around the world, but especially in the U.S. These cheap and cheerful Chrome OS devices offer an alternative to Windows, and students are embracing this change. However, Microsoft isn’t going to give up without a fight… Microsoft Makes Plans for 2018 Microsoft has announced its plans for...
Read the full article: Microsoft Unveils New Low-Cost Chromebook Killers
After selling his social virtual reality startup to Microsoft in October, Eric Romo, the co-founder of AltspaceVR, is joining the competing social VR team at Facebook as its product director, where he will be “exploring how VR can help communities connect.” Romo is joining the team that has built Facebook Spaces, a social virtual reality app for chatting and collaborating. Read More
Oreo was a bit of a lackluster update on first launch, but the mobile operating system is getting some nice new tricks as with 8.1’s updates. The new Speed Labels feature is one of the more compelling of the bunch, offering estimated network signals prior to logging on. Starting this week, users with 8.1 installed will see one of four qualifiers next to open WiFi networks: Very Fast,… Read More
Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corporation, today issued a statement calling for Facebook and Google to subsidize the news traveling through their platforms. In the statement, Murdoch calls on Facebook to pay a carriage fee, as cable companies do with pay TV, to trusted publishers that are posting their content on the social media platform: I have yet to see a proposal that… Read More
Netflix crossed a fun milestone today, crossing the $100 billion mark for its market cap as it once again surprised industry observers with better-than-expected growth in its subscribers. We’ll get to the financial numbers in a minute but, as usual, the big story here is that it continues to wow Wall Street with impressive growth in its subscriber numbers. The company said it added… Read More
Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corporation, today issued a statement calling for Facebook and Google to subsidize the news traveling through their platforms. In the statement, Murdoch calls on Facebook to pay a carriage fee, as cable companies do with pay TV, to trusted publishers that are posting their content on the social media platform: I have yet to see a proposal that… Read More
GIMP’s photo editing capabilities make it the best free alternative to Photoshop. If you’re new to the app, it’s easy and intuitive to pick up; you can get excellent results in no time at all. If you’ve used Photoshop before, you’ll find GIMP familiar. There are some different features, and the tools often have different names, but the basic principles are the same. Before You Begin Before we look at how to use GIMP for photo editing, there are a few things you need to know: The default setup for the app is for every part of the interface —...
Read the full article: An Introduction to GIMP Photo Editing
The always outspoken Linus Torvalds, best known for his continuing work on the innermost code of Linux systems, has harsh words to say and accusations to level against Intel. His evaluation of Intel’s latest proposed fix for the Meltdown/Spectre issue: “the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE.” Read More
We have written before about valid reasons to avoid Netflix, and many of them still hold true today — Netflix isn’t for everybody. But the Netflix of today isn’t the same Netflix of five years ago, in good ways and bad, so if you aren’t a current subscriber, it may be time to reconsider. At the risk of sounding like a shill, Netflix is the only bill I’m happy to pay. And no, before you ask in the comments, Netflix did not sponsor this article. I watch it for an hour or so every night and I still haven’t managed...
Read the full article: 7 Reasons to Subscribe to Netflix This Year
Brian McClendon, a notable engineering executive at startups and large tech companies including Google and Uber, has announced his candidacy to run for the open seat of Secretary of State of Kansas. He will compete in the Democratic primary scheduled for August 7th. McClendon has been a lifelong engineer, growing up in the state and receiving his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering… Read More