Bring on the mobile weirdness

CES 2019 was a dud. It happens. Some years are more exciting than other. The world of technology ebbs and flows. Time is a flat circle. All that glitters is gold. Only shooting stars break the mold.

MWC, on the other hand — I’ve actually been pretty excited about this show for while now. The mobile industry is a crossroads. Smartphone sales have begun to stagnate and recede for the first time since analysts began tracking the things. Heck, this was the year the conference name officially changed from Mobile World Congress to MWC Barcelona.

That sort of sly rebranding takes some of the heavy lifting off the “mobile” bit for what has come to be regarded as the world’s premier smartphone launching pad. Don’t be too surprised to see the show attempt a shift into the broader world of consumer electronics, a la CES or IFA.

Meantime, smartphones are very much still the thing. The devices are still a ubiquitous part of our lives and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. There are a number of reasons for the slowdown in sales, but the primary factors are slowed upgrade cycles and phones have gotten better and new features have become less compelling, coupled with rough economic trends in places like China, which were anticipated to be the primary driver for the category going forward.

The upshot of all of this is a newfound sense of experimentation. Keeping shareholders happy requires constant upward growth, and kickstarting sales will take some compelling reasons to upgrade. This year was the first time, perhaps since the original iPhone, that we’ve seen a radical shift in form factors, with Samsung, Huawei, TCL and Oppo all announcing foldable phones in the last couple of weeks.

Making sure they’re ready for primetime is another question altogether, but I’m definitely on-board for the manner of differentiation they bring. While it’s true that a number of major players all got on the foldable train at roughly the same time, we’ve seen some unique approaches as the industry scrambles to figure out the best way to utilize flexible technology.

The fact is that none of these are going to be big sellers out of the gate — the average price point, which is currently hovering around $2,000 will see to that. Huawei, for one, seems to have tempered its expectations around the category. Mobile chief Richard Yu quite nearly apologized for the price of the Mate X on stage the other day.

But the inability to pay double the price of a flagship smartphone shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of interest, nor should it be used as justification for pulling back on experimentation. In a recent conversation, the CEO of Light discussed how the maturation of the smartphone category could afford smartphone makers the opportunity to better target different user needs.

He was speaking specifically about different camera arrays on the backs of phones, but I don’t see why that can’t apply to the space in broader terms. Plenty of smartphone makers have gotten burned trying to compete with similar products on the same field as Apple or Samsung.

For years, smartphones have constituted one of the very few consistent trends in an others fragmented media landscape. It’s not too hard to imagine smartphones undergoing a similar transformation, in which smartphones are less uniform, but better suited to users’ individual needs.

Of course, it seems just as — if not more likely — that handset makers will ultimately pull the plug on any devices that fail to catch the world on fire. Just look at the recent rumors that Razer has abandoned plans for a third gaming phone.

Here’s hoping, however, that this year’s MWC marks the first step for a mobile space long overdue for a radical shakeup.

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We’re ready for foldable phones, but are they ready for us?

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. After years of prototypes, the age of foldables has finally arrived. They’re here. I’ve seen them, and even, briefly, touched one.

And that’s about as far as it goes, to be honest. A week after Samsung kicked off its S10 event with an in-depth look at the Galaxy Fold, the device made its IRL debut at MWC, this week. We got to the show an hour early on the first day, only to find four devices trapped behind glass cases.

The weren’t doing much of anything at all. Two were splayed to show the backs of the devices and two showed off the screens. We were able to get within a few inches of the things, before security swooped in and put up the ropes. The Fold has a release date that’s just under two months away, and yet here were are, stuck admiring the thing from afar.

Huawei was a bit better. Another morning session yesterday found us backstage at the company’s booth, getting up close and personal with the Mate X. But things got a little weird. I’m used to being baby sat with pricey new devices, but Huawei went out of its way to several limit interactivity with the product, as noted in the story.

TCL’s product got a similar behind-glass treatment as the Fold. Though there’s one key difference: the company gave a 2020 timeframe for its more affordable (more affordable than $2,600, that is) take on the category. That, hopefully, is enough time to work out all of the kinks ahead of product launch.

That neither Huawei nor Samsung feel confident enough to let us go a bit more in-depth with their soon to be released devices isn’t the kind of thing that really instills one with confidence in an emerging space. Royole, to its credit, has let the press go fully hands on with products back at CES, though, by nearly all accounts, the product feels more like a developer device than anything.

And that, really, is the fear. Samsung’s charging an arm and a leg for the device, at $1,980. Huawei’s tossed in another limb, bringing the total up to $2,600. That’s not beta tester levels. That’s double the cost of already exorbitant flagship smartphone pricing for products that appear to still have a lot of bugs to work out.

It’s true that there’s a lot that needs to be redesigned after generations of coalescing around the same basic form factor, both from a hardware and software perspective. But it’s one thing to announce a concept and another entirely to bring it to market. If these initial devices ultimately prove buggy or are otherwise a let down from a user perspective, it’s going to a fairly inauspicious start for a long promised form factor.

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SIM Card Swapping Risks, Is Your Phone Spying on You, Sleep Monitoring, and More

In this week’s podcast, Christian Cawley and James Frew take a look at the phenomenon of SIM card swapping, ask if your phone is spying on you, and chat about sleep monitoring and its benefits.

They also take a look at the ways you can download Facebook videos, and how to abandon Google Chrome with the Firefox browser’s new sync tool.

Really Useful Podcast Season 2 Episode 4 Shownotes

Want to learn more about this week’s topics? Everything we cover in the latest podcast can be found elsewhere on MakeUseOf.

• SIM card swapping
• Download videos from Facebook
• Is your smartphone listening to you?
• Eversleep review and giveaway
• Escape from Google and use Firefox to sync your browsing data

Your hosts this week are Christian Cawley and James Frew. You can follow them both on Twitter:

@thegadgetmonkey
@jimjamfroo

If you know anyone who would benefit from having some tech topics broken down into simplified language, send them this way, or ask them to subscribe to The Really Useful Podcast. You’ll find us on:

• iTunes
• Spotify
• Player.FM
• Google Podcasts
• Stitcher.com
• YouTube

The tech podcast for technophobes will be back next week.

Read the full article: SIM Card Swapping Risks, Is Your Phone Spying on You, Sleep Monitoring, and More

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Pandora Stories Lets You Create Musical Podcasts

Pandora has launched Pandora Stories, which allows artists, labels, and creative types to turn playlists into podcasts. Pandora Stories are playlists of songs with added commentary in-between. Which means you can use the platform to create musical podcasts.

Combining Podcasting With Playlists

While podcasts have been around for years, we’re arguably entering the golden age of podcasting. It’s also a good time to be a music fan, with so many streaming music services to choose from that you may need help choosing the right music streaming service.

With that in mind, Pandora has launched Pandora Stories. This offers a combination of playlists and podcasting, creating a new form of entertainment. And this new form of entertainment is perfect for those who like listening to both music and podcasts.

What Are Pandora Stories?

In a nutshell, Pandora Stories are playlists of songs with added commentary. So, an artist can pick their favorite songs and talk about the inspiration behind them. Or a label can create a playlist covering their artists and talk each up in turn.

However, Podcast Stories gets more interesting when other people join in. Anyone can create Pandora Stories, compiling a playlist of songs and using them to tell a story. Which could make for some interesting music-themed podcasts.

Introducing Pandora Stories, a unique new marketing tool that allows creators to combine the narrative possibilities of podcasts with the emotional power of playlists! Learn more about Pandora Stories below: https://t.co/9z2WFJ8u3b

— Pandora AMP (@pandoraAMP) February 26, 2019

Shamal Ranasinghe, VP of Creators Product, said, “Creators—including artists, songwriters, celebrities, and podcasters—can now use Pandora AMP to voice their Stories, giving more meaning, heart, and insight into their fans’ favorite music.”

The first Pandora Stories available include John Legend’s Glorious Journey, Lauren Alaina Is Doin’ Just Fine, The Music of Wes Anderson with Randall Poster, and Love Songs That Aren’t Really Love Songs. You can find out everything you need to know here.

Pandora Stories Are Available to All

Pandora Stories are now available to all. Pandora Premium subscribers can listen for free, while Pandora Plus and Ad-Supported users can access them after watching a 30-second ad. Artists and creators can apply to access the tools needed to create Pandora Stories.

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Lenovo Reveals 14-Inch USB-C Monitor Called ThinkVision M14

While most companies are focused on mobile phones and tablets for MWC, Lenovo has just announced the ThinkVision M14—a 14-inch portable USB-C monitor that looks quite awesome.

Of course, this isn’t the first USB-C monitor to hit store shelves, but this particular one does come with a reasonable price tag and a pretty serious looking set of features that could make it an extremely appealing option for any on-the-go remote worker.

ThinkVision M14 Features and Specs

The main idea behind the ThinkVision M14 is that you can get the multiple-display experience while moving around with your laptop. Traditionally, a monitor is a more cumbersome device that requires a dedicated power outlet and quite a bit of space. The M14 is portable and works with just a USB-C connection to a laptop, so it can be set up and used just about anywhere.

Sporting a 1920×1080 resolution, the IPS display on the M14 is 14-inches. A 1080p resolution is sufficient for such a modest screen size, so images should look sharp and crisp. However, the company didn’t reveal the full specs as far as monitor performance goes.

Because it’s USB-C, you can actually power the monitor directly from your laptop, so you don’t need to be near an outlet to enjoy multiple displays. For road warriors, this could be a big deal, as certain jobs are much easier to accomplish with two displays.

The monitor actually has two additional USB-C ports on it for passthrough, but in order to use this feature, it will need to be plugged into an AC adapter, as passthrough uses too much power.

As far as carrying the M14 goes, it sounds like it’s quite small. Lenovo says it weighs in at just 1.3 pounds. It’s also only 4.6mm thick, so you shouldn’t have an issue throwing this in your backpack alongside your laptop.

ThinkVision M14 Price and Release Date

Lenovo is set to release the ThinkVision M14 in May of this year. Its price is actually pretty reasonable, coming in at $249.

If you need a more traditional monitor with high performance, check out our list of the best cheap gaming monitors.

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Prototype prosthesis proffers proper proprioceptive properties

Researchers have created a prosthetic hand that offers its users the ability to feel where it is and how the fingers are positioned — a sense known as proprioception. The headline may be in jest, but the advance is real and may help amputees more effectively and naturally use their prostheses.

Prosthesis rejection is a real problem for amputees, and many choose to simply live without these devices, electronic or mechanical, since they can complicate as much as they simplify. Part of that is the simple fact that, unlike their natural limbs, artificial ones have no real sensation — or if there is any, it’s nowhere near the level someone had before.

Touch and temperature detection are important, of course, but what’s even more critical to ordinary use is simply knowing where your limb is and what it’s doing. If you close your eyes, you can tell where each digit is, how many you’re holding up, whether they’re gripping a small or large object, and so on. That’s currently impossible with a prosthesis, even one that’s been integrated with the nervous system to provide feedback — meaning users have to watch what they’re doing at all times. (That is, if the arm isn’t watching for you.)

SmartArm’s AI-powered prosthesis takes the prize at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup

This prosthesis, built by Swiss, Italian, and German neurologists and engineers, is described in a recent issue of Science Robotics. It takes the existing concept of sending touch information to the brain through electrodes patched into the nerves of the arm, and adapts it to provide real-time proprioceptive feedback.

“Our study shows that sensory substitution based on intraneural stimulation can deliver both position feedback and tactile feedback simultaneously and in real time. The brain has no problem combining this information, and patients can process both types in real time with excellent results,” explained Silvestro Micera, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in a news release.

It’s been the work of a decade to engineer and demonstrate this possibility, which could be of enormous benefit. Having a natural, intuitive understanding of the position of your hand, arm, or leg would likely make prostheses much more useful and comfortable for their users.

Essentially the robotic hand relays its telemetry to the brain through the nerve pathways that would normally be bringing touch to that area. Unfortunately it’s rather difficult to actually recreate the proprioceptive pathways, so the team used what’s called sensory substitution instead. This uses other pathways, like ordinary touch, as ways to present different sense modalities.

(Diagram modified from original to better fit, and to remove some rather bloody imagery.)

A simple example would be a machine that touched your arm in a different location depending on where your hand is. In the case of this research it’s much finer, but still essentially presenting position data as touch data. It sounds weird, but our brains are actually really good at adapting to this kind of thing.

As evidence witness that after some training two amputees using the system were able to tell the difference between four differently shaped objects being grasped, with their eyes closed, with 75 percent accuracy. Chance would be 25 percent, of course, meaning the sensation of holding objects of different sizes came through loud and clear — clear enough for a prototype, anyway. Amazingly, the team was able to add actual touch feedback to the existing pathways and the users were not overly confused by it. So there’s precedent now for multi-modal sensory feedback from an artificial limb.

The study has well-defined limitations, such as the number and type of fingers it was able to relay information from, and the granularity and type of that data. And the “installation” process is still very invasive. But it’s pioneering work nevertheless: this type of research is very iterative and global, progressing by small steps until, all of a sudden, prosthetics as a science has made huge strides. And the people who use prosthetic limbs will be making strides as well.

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Energizer Shows Off Phone With Ridiculous 18,000mAh Battery

In the world of smartphones, it’s difficult to stand out. There are so many new phones released all the time that any device not put out by one of the big companies gets lost in the shuffle.

Energizer knows this, and it’s launching a phone with a feature that’ll make everyone stand up and take notice—a giant 18,000 mAh battery that’ll run for days without needing a charge.

According to the company, this is the most powerful battery on any phone. Yes, more powerful than the best phones for long battery life.

Energizer Power Max P18K Pop

Obviously, the key thing about the P18K is the battery. The 18,000 mAh battery really makes it stand out from the crowd. According to Energizer, the battery found in its upcoming phone is about five times bigger than the batteries that come in traditional smartphones. That means that you could continuously watch videos for two straight days before the phone dies. For standby, the Power Max P18K Pop will last for 50 days.

Of course, battery technology hasn’t advanced to the point where you can pack that much power into a small form factor, so this phone is big. In fact, it is a hulking 18mm thick, which is about the size of three iPhones stacked on top of each other. You’re going to want to wear a belt if you put this beast in your pocket!

Because of the massive battery, the phone can also double as a power bank, so it’ll charge your other devices.

As for the other specs of the phone, it features a MediaTek 2GHz CPU, 6GB RAM, a large 6.2-inch LCD screen, a camera with three lenses featuring 12-megapixels and a depth sensor, and USB Type-C. For the OS, it comes equipped with Android 9.

Energizer Power Max P18K Pop Release Date and Price

Energizer plans to release its upcoming Power Max P18K this June, so anyone interested in a giant phone with a massive battery won’t need to wait too long to get their hands on one.

As far as price goes, the company has said that it will sell for €600 (around US$680). That seems about right for the specs offered, as this is definitely not a high-end phone in spite of the massive battery.

If you don’t want a phone with an 18000 mAh battery, that’s okay, because you can get a giant battery without the phone right now.

Read the full article: Energizer Shows Off Phone With Ridiculous 18,000mAh Battery

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15 Hilariously Random Websites to Help You Procrastinate

The internet is a great place to get work done. There are so many resources and tools you can use to make the best out of your time. But what if you don’t want to get work done?

Procrastination is the ultimate 21st century hobby, and what better way to do it than on the internet? Here is our list of the best and most hilarious random websites to help you procrastinate!

1. Hacker Typer

Do those hacker scenes in movies and TV series fascinate you? Then Hacker Typer is for you. All you have to do is type any random letters and Hacker Typer will show some code which makes you look and feel like a hacker. This can also be a perfect companion for someone trying to come off as busy while wasting time.

2. Koalas to the Max

Images and videos aren’t always needed to make hilarious jokes, but in this case, they certainly help. In fact, this website is entirely images. It doesn’t make sense at first. Visit the website and you’ll just see a circle. But mouse over the circle, and it will break up into smaller circles. Keep breaking up the circles, and eventually, you get rewarded with a cute picture of a koala.

Why? That is the question, isn’t it.

3. OMFG Dogs

OMFG Dogs is just a bunch of cute little pixel art dogs running across a very psychedelic seeming background, complete with 8-bit music. If you’re easily amused and like dogs, you’ll find yourself waste hours on this site. Beware, however, as the flashing images might be troublesome for some. In that case, you can take a look at some other hilarious text-only websites.

4. Eel Slap

Eel Slap will let you control a moving image of a person being slapped across the face with an eel. Move your cursor across the screen to move the eel slap. If you do it for slowly, you can see the exact moment the eel hits the face, which is very satisfying. Repeat for hours until you’re done procrastinating.

5. Staggering Beauty

Ever wanted to play with one of those giant air dancer balloons? Here’s your chance. Staggering Beauty lets you wiggle around a virtual air dancer balloon, and if you shake it well, things go a little too crazy. Once you release it, it goes back to being normal and upright. Beware of flashing images!

6. Falling Falling

Falling Falling is an infinite loop of colorful rectangles crumbling down and falling into nothingness, accompanied with equally progressive music. It’s satisfying to watch and never gets old, making it a perfect website to procrastinate on.

7. Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator

Benedict Cumberbatch and his long and often misread name have become sort of an internet meme. This website will let you make your own Benedict Cumberbatch name through a randomizer that picks similar sounding words. Funnier if you know the meme already, but a great website to procrastinate on, nonetheless.

If you want more of such endless fun, you might want to take a look at some more websites to kill time.

8. Find the Invisible Cow

Find the Invisible Cow is a great little game, which can be described as the audio equivalent of “Where’s Waldo”. The audio says the word cow repeatedly, and it acts as the clue by getting louder and faster when you move your cursor towards the invisible cow.

9. Weird or Confusing

Online shopping is always a joy, especially when you run into things that make no sense as purchases. Weird or Confusing has a giant list of such products, serving you randomized links of such beautifully weird products from eBay. The selection of items will make you question a lot of things, including whether you should get one of the items. We would recommend against actually buying any of the items, though.

10. Pointer Pointer

Do you keep losing your cursor? Then Pointer Pointer might be a great training exercise for you. All you have to do is move your pointer on the screen, and this website will display an image with a person pointing in the direction of your pointer. Procrastinate by playing the game, or wondering where the developers got all those images from.

11. Don’t Even Reply

Don’t even reply is similar to those subreddits with anecdotes about awful people, except that this website has emails instead. A large collection of emails sent by the creator of the website to unsuspecting people with classifieds listings, Don’t Even Reply will keep you engaged for hours.

12. The Wiki Game

The Wiki Game is a fun little game that requires all that Wikipedia practice you have from your school reports. You’re given a Wikipedia article as a starting point, and you have to navigate to an entirely unrelated Wikipedia article. The challenge is to do it within a given time frame using the lowest possible number of clicks. One of the smartest websites to procrastinate on, for sure.

13. Do Nothing For 2 Minutes

The toughest challenge of them all: doing absolutely nothing. This website throws a two-minute timer on the screen, and you have to try and do nothing for that duration. If you move your mouse or press a key, you fail. Great way to procrastinate, and also gives you some time to think about why you’re wasting away your time.

14. Random Things To Do

Sometimes you don’t want to just sit in front of your computer to procrastinate. Do you like a challenge? Random Things To Do will offer you an idea fetched from its large database. Do a thing, and then return back to do another. Repeat until you’re done procrastinating.

15. The Useless Web

The Useless Web is truly at the end of the internet. If you went through all the sites in this list and still want more websites to procrastinate on, The Useless Web is your window to exactly that. It will take you to one of the random websites designed to help you waste your time. We suggest you save this for a rainy day!

Time to Stop Procrastinating?

While these websites are bound to keep you busy for hours, and even days, we hope you do not let your habit of procrastination spiral out. Now, if you’re still not done procrastinating, you might want to check out these completely pointless websites.

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Better Than Dropbox: The 6 Quickest Ways to Share Any File With Anyone

Want to share files with someone who doesn’t use Dropbox or isn’t tech savvy enough to set it up? Wouldn’t you rather share a link to the file and be done with it? That’s possible, because there are simpler ways to share files than Dropbox. We’ll explore six of them below.

With these services, there are no mandatory accounts, no clients to install (unless you want to), and no interfaces to learn. All you have to do is upload your file, get a unique link to it, and share the link. That’s as easy as it gets!

1. WeTransfer

WeTransfer lets you send files of up to 2GB at a time. You won’t find any limits on the number of times you use the service, so that’s a big plus.

You can send the files in an email message—that’s the default workflow—or grab the links of uploaded files to share them via chat or elsewhere. WeTransfer lets you include a custom message with the shared files.

If you want to protect the uploaded files with a password or if you want control over when they get deleted, you’ll need to pay for a subscription. That gives you file encryption and the option to store files for longer than the default duration of seven days.

Visit: WeTransfer (Free, premium subscription available)

2. SendTransfer

SendTransfer lets you share files in seconds via email, and is completely free of charge. To get started, drag your file into the file uploader box provided. You can also click on the Add Files to Transfer button to browse through your files and add them.

Next, type in email addresses of the people you want to send the file to, a message (if you wish to add one), and your own email address of course. Now, hit the Send button to send the uploaded file on its way.

With SendTransfer, you can send files up to 10GB, and there are no bandwidth restrictions on either side. While uploading files, you can also set the duration for which you want the files to be store on SendTranfer’s servers—the default is seven days.

Visit: SendTransfer (Free)

3. Snaggy

If all you want to do is share screenshots once in a while, Snaggy is the perfect solution. Grab the screen or a part of it with the default shortcuts assigned by your operating system to copy screenshots to the clipboard.

From there, uploading to Snaggy is one keyboard shortcut away. Visit the Snaggy home page to paste the screenshot from the clipboard. To do this, on Windows, you can use the shortcut Ctrl + V.

On macOS, since the default paste shortcut (Command + V) works with the Paste and Match Style command and not the Paste command, you can either:

• Click on Edit > Paste, or
• Configure a custom shortcut for the Paste command (from Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts) and use that.

Once you paste, the image gets uploaded to Snaggy’s servers and you receive a unique link you can share.

Snaggy also works with marquee selections in image editing and other screenshot apps. It even lets you edit your picture before sharing it—you can crop, rotate, write or draw on your image.

Keep in mind that Snaggy only works with one image at a time. Also, it doesn’t seem to work in Safari.

Visit: Snaggy (Free)

4. Droplr

Droplr is popular is as screenshot sharing and collaboration service, but you can use it to send all types of files. For easy file sharing, open the lite version of the app. This brings up the file uploader, where you can drag and drop a file from your computer to receive a shareable link to it. Any files you share are automatically previewable across all platforms and apps.

The service also offers macOS, Windows, and iPhone apps as well as a Chrome extension. These clients make it easy to grab bits and pieces of the web for quick and painless sharing from your desktop and mobile.

Plus, since Droplr integrates with popular services like Gmail, Slack, and Trello, file sharing within these services is a snap.

If you like what Droplr does, consider getting a free account with the service. It gives you 4GB worth of cloud storage and file uploads of up to 2GB. For password protection, custom file validity options, and so on, you’ll need one of Droplr’s premium subscriptions.

Visit: Droplr (Free, premium subscription available)

5. Ge.tt

Ge.tt is another simple uploader service that has been around for quite some time. It’s an excellent way to share photo albums in an instant.

To use Ge.tt, drag and drop one or more files into the uploader box to get a shareable link. You’ll also find options to share your files directly to an email address, Facebook, or Twitter.

If you want to use Ge.tt without registration, you’ll have to work with a storage limit of 250MB and your files will get deleted after 30 days. If you create a free account, you get a storage upgrade to 2GB and can keep the uploaded files much longer. Both anonymous and free users can send files of sizes up to 250MB only.

Visit: Ge.tt (Free, premium subscription available)

6. Smash

With file previews, zero file size limits, link customization, and password protection, the free version of Smash sounds too good to be true. The service is easy to use and its interface is pretty much like that of the other uploaders on this list. It sends files via email and Slack and also as a link.

Among other features, you get a file storage time of 14 days and options to customize the look of your download page. (You can also hide file previews if you want to.) To top it all, Smash has chosen to replace ads with fun creative projects to view while waiting for files to download.

Smash is quite generous with the features in the free version. But, if you want even more options, you can get them with a well-priced premium subscription.

Visit: Smash (Free, premium subscription available)

Get a No-Signup File Transfer Tool for Everyday Use

Dropbox and similar services have made sharing big files and multiple files as easy as saving them on your own computer. But they usually need you to sign up for an account.

If you’d rather not do that or if you prefer a quicker solution to share one-off files, the apps we have listed above are just what you need. And there are more where those came from! Take a peek at the best ways to share files with anyone over the web anonymously.

Read the full article: Better Than Dropbox: The 6 Quickest Ways to Share Any File With Anyone

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The 6 Best Tools to Analyze Laptop Battery Health

The laptop battery is an essential piece of hardware, yet we’re often less informed about its health. Your Windows laptop will not give you enough information either. On the surface, it displays just a tiny battery indicator with the remaining time and percentage.

Over time, you’ll notice a few battery errors creep in. The battery stops holding its charge. The charge level indicator shows fluctuating readings. A flawed discharge estimation is also common. But there are workarounds and solutions.

Let’s guide you through some third-party battery diagnostic tools that allow you to check battery health in Windows.

Why You Should Monitor Battery Health

A battery is a portable chemical device with limited resources. Because of its nature, it has a complicated voltage response to the load, temperature, and its own age. The health of the battery affects both device performance and run time. You should monitor the battery health for these reasons:

• Get a starting point for a power management workflow under different workloads and environment.
• The maximum capacity of a battery changes over time. As a result, the charging indicator might show you inconsistent readings. When this happens, you’ll know when to calibrate the battery.
• Incorrect use of the battery can cut short its lifespan. Monitoring battery health enables you to take corrective steps to increase longevity.

1. Powercfg Battery Report

The powercfg command is a hidden tool on Windows. You can use it to generate a precise report of your battery history.

It includes information about your battery performance and lets you observe the decline in battery capacity that inevitably occurs over time.

To generate a battery report, open Command Prompt and type in powercfg /batteryreport. This command saves a battery report in HTML format to

C:\Users\Your_Username\battery-report.html

Double-click the file to open it in your browser. Check out the following details:

• The difference between Design Capacity and Full Charge Capacity. You’ll expect a reduced full charge capacity. As batteries wear over time, the full charge capacity will be less than the design capacity.
• See how much battery capacity has drained over the last few days in different power states. Also, check out the battery usage graph.
• Observe how Full Charge Capacity gradually decreases in comparison with Design Capacity. Notice any discrepancies.
• Compare the battery life at Full Charge versus Design Capacity from the time when you purchased the laptop.
• Check the battery’s usage and duration. And the time your computer ran on battery or plugged into the power outlet.

With this kind of laptop battery life test, you can identify problems that affect your battery life. If the report shows drastic differences, you may want to get a new battery.

2. BatteryInfoView

BatteryInfoView is a free app that is filled with information about your laptop’s battery. The tool has two primary components.

The first screen gives you complete battery information on Designed Capacity, Full Charged Capacity, Battery Health, Number of charge/discharge cycles, and more.

The second screen provides you with detailed log analysis of power state, event time, charge/discharge values, and more. A new log line gets added whenever you suspend or resume the computer.

In this way, you can find out the rate at which the battery gets discharged. You can also export the battery information to a TXT or CSV file for reference.

Pros

• View detailed battery information in a single place.
• You can check the log to observe changes in the battery capacity.
• It lets you put the window on top over other apps to monitor the battery.

Cons

• It cannot filter the battery log with a date range.
• It does not show you any graph to predict the battery wear level over time.

Download: BatteryInfoView (Free)

3. BatteryMon

BatteryMon is an easy to use app that monitor’s laptop battery charge level by presenting a graph of its findings in real time.

The vertical Y-axis displays the percentage charge level (0-100%) and sampling time on the horizontal X-axis. You can change the sampling time interval in the configuration screen.

The black line shows the current charge level. The blue line shows the trend line based on the extrapolated samples of data.

And the red line shows you a comparison against its life span. For a short duration comparison, the red line will deviate more than the normal. You also get minute details on the discharging rate.

As you keep using the app, the discharge rate will become more accurate, and you’ll understand how battery health is deteriorating with different workloads.

Pros

• It analyzes the battery health with a real-time graph.
• You can set notifications for battery level, voltage, and temperature.
• Data on charging/discharging rate, time remaining on the battery, total time, and more.
• Log the battery’s performance for later reference.
• Compare and measure the current capacity with data collected in the past.

Cons

• The app is complicated for newbies.
• The graph can be overwhelming (Tweak the sample time in the configuration screen to make it simpler).

Download: BatteryMon (Free)

4. BatteryCat

BatteryCat is a simple utility to check battery charge, capacity, and charge cycles. The main window has three sections—the present charge state in relation to the current capacity, information about the power state, charge cycles, and full charge capacity versus the original design capacity.

When you click on the File menu, the History window opens next to the main window. You can save the recent capacity values along with the date. The history data lives in

C:\User\Your_Username\batterycat\batterycat.csv

With this log of data, copy the data to a spreadsheet app and monitor the battery’s health. By default, BatteryCat reads data from battery every 10 seconds. You can change this interval in the Options screen.

Pros

• The app gives you all battery information in a single place.
• It’s simple to use and extrapolates data without any knowledge.

Cons

• There is no filter option to segregate data in different time range or workloads.
• The app uses GTK runtime on Windows. As a result, you might experience tiny and blurry fonts.

Download: BatteryCat (Free)

5. Smarter Battery

Smarter Battery is the only app that offers you a complete suite of tools to monitor battery health, perform calibration operations, and save the battery performance data for reference.

It shows you the history of battery capacity during the charge/discharge cycles, computes wear level and discharge cycle count.

The Battery Information page gives you the information on Full Battery Capacity vis-a-vis the Design Capacity, discharging time, cycle count, wear level, and power state during battery or AC power mode.

The Capacity page helps you understand the evolution of battery capacity. The Y-axis displays the capacity percentage and X-axis shows the data drawn at that time interval.

The Calibration page displays the complete picture of your battery life such as wear level, usage time, discharge cycles and more.

The app also offers you to save the battery data depending on the page you’ve opened. You can save battery information, capacity, calibration data, and more.

Pros

• At a time, you can monitor up to four batteries including battery packs.
• You can zoom in/out to modify the time interval and use arrow buttons to move forth/back in time.
• It can simulate the discharge mechanism to speed up the calibration process.
• There’s a green mode function to save battery power when in need.
• You can set alarms for low/critical battery and force standby/hibernate when battery power gets low.

Cons

• It has too many options scattered everywhere on the page.
• Can get confusing at times and can clash with the built-in power management settings.

Download: Smarter Battery (Free trial, $14)

6. BatteryCare

BatteryCare is a simple tool to optimize the performance and usage of your laptop battery. With its built-in algorithm, you can track the charge/discharge cycles.

When your battery completes a definite number of discharge cycles, it recommends you calibrate the battery.

And when you complete the process, it remembers the last calibration date, number of calibration operations you did, and more.

The main window of the app shows all the detailed battery information like Designed Capacity, Full Charge Capacity, Tension, Wear Level, and Total Discharge Cycles.

It also monitors your CPU, hard drive temperature, and alerts you when it reaches a specific temperature.

Pros

• Low and Critical battery notification.
• It can switch to a power plan depending upon the state of your power.
• The power plan perfectly synchronizes with the power events of Windows.

Cons

• It only shows a summary of battery information and optimizes the usage of your battery.
• There is no other information—event data, logs, a record of charge/discharge cycles, and more.
• The installer is bundled with junk apps.

Download: BatteryCare (Free)

How to Prolong Your Battery’s Lifespan

Monitoring the battery health of your device is not a simple task. There are too many variables and factors to consider. With these tools, you can at least monitor its health and take corrective measures to prolong battery life.

At the same time, you must also expand your knowledge by understanding the technology that goes into a battery. To know more, read this piece on how the battery works and steps you can take to prolong their lifespan.

Read the full article: The 6 Best Tools to Analyze Laptop Battery Health

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The 10 Most Common Audio Formats: Which One Should You Use?

Audio files come in all types and sizes. And while we may all be familiar with MP3, what about AAC, FLAC, OGG, or WMA? Why do so many audio standards exist? Which ones are important and which ones can you ignore?

It’s actually quite simple once you realize that all audio formats fall into three major categories. Once you know what the categories mean, you can just pick a format within the category that best suits your needs.

Uncompressed Audio Formats

Uncompressed audio consists of real sound waves that have been captured and converted to digital format without any further processing. As a result, uncompressed audio files tend to be the most accurate but take up a LOT of disk space—about 34 MB per minute for 24-bit 96KHz stereo.

Audio File Format: PCM

PCM stands for Pulse-Code Modulation, a digital representation of raw analog audio signals. Analog sounds exist as waveforms, and in order to convert a waveform into digital bits, the sound must be sampled and recorded at certain intervals (or pulses).

This digital audio format has a “sampling rate” (how often a sample is made) and a “bit depth” (how many bits are used to represent each sample). There is no compression involved. The digital recording is a close-to-exact representation of analog sound.

PCM is the most common audio format used in CDs and DVDs. There is a subtype of PCM called Linear Pulse-Code Modulation, where samples are taken at linear intervals. LPCM is the most common form of PCM, which is why the two terms are almost interchangeable at this point.

Audio File Format: WAV

WAV stands for Waveform Audio File Format (also called Audio for Windows at some point but not anymore). It’s a standard that was developed by Microsoft and IBM back in 1991.

A lot of people assume that all WAV files are uncompressed audio files, but that’s not exactly true. WAV is actually a Windows container for different audio formats. This means that a WAV file could potentially contain compressed audio, but it’s rarely used for that.

Most WAV files contain uncompressed audio in PCM format. The WAV file is just a wrapper for the PCM encoding, making it more suitable for use on Windows systems. However, Mac systems can usually open WAV files without any issues.

Audio File Format: AIFF

AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format. Similar to how Microsoft and IBM developed WAV for Windows, AIFF is a format that was developed by Apple for Mac systems back in 1988.

Also similar to WAV files, AIFF files can contain multiple kinds of audio formats. For example, there is a compressed version called AIFF-C and another version called Apple Loops which is used by GarageBand and Logic Audio. They both use the same AIFF extension.

Most AIFF files contain uncompressed audio in PCM format. The AIFF file is just a wrapper for the PCM encoding, making it more suitable for use on Mac systems. However, Windows systems can usually open AIFF files without any issues.

Audio Formats With Lossy Compression

Lossy compression is when some data is lost during the compression process—and compression is important because uncompressed audio takes up lots of disk space.

In other words, lossy compression means sacrificing sound quality and audio fidelity for smaller file sizes. When it’s done poorly, you’ll hear artifacts and other weirdnesses in the audio. But when it’s done well, you won’t be able to hear the difference.

Audio File Format: MP3

MP3 stands for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. It was released back in 1993 and exploded in popularity, eventually becoming the most popular audio format in the world for music files. There’s a reason why we had “MP3 players” but not “OGG players”!

The main goal of MP3 is three-fold: 1) to drop all the sound data that exists beyond the hearing range of normal people, and 2) to reduce the quality of sounds that aren’t easy to hear, then 3) to compress all other audio data as efficiently as possible.

Nearly every digital device in the world with audio playback can read and play MP3 files, whether we’re talking PCs, Macs, Androids, iPhones, Smart TVs, or whatever else. When you need universal, MP3 will never let you down.

Note: MP3 is not the same as MP4!

Audio File Format: AAC

AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding. It was developed in 1997 as the successor to MP3, and while it did catch on as a popular format to use, it never really overtook MP3 as the most popular.

The compression algorithm used by AAC is much more advanced and technical than MP3, so when you compare the same recording in MP3 and AAC formats at the same bitrates, the AAC one will generally have better sound quality.

Even though MP3 is more of a household format, AAC is still widely used today. In fact, it’s the standard audio compression method used by YouTube, Android, iOS, iTunes, later Nintendo portables, and later PlayStations.

Audio File Format: OGG (Vorbis)

OGG doesn’t stand for anything. Actually, it’s not even a compression format. OGG is a multimedia container that can hold all kinds of compression formats, but is most commonly used to hold Vorbis files—hence why these audio files are called Ogg Vorbis files.

Vorbis was first released in 2000 and grew in popularity due to two reasons: 1) it adheres to the principles of open source software, and 2) it performs significantly better than most other lossy compression formats (meaning it produces a smaller file size for equivalent audio quality).

MP3 and AAC have such strong footholds that OGG has had a hard time breaking into the spotlight—not many devices support it natively—but it’s getting better with time. For now, it’s mostly used by hardcore proponents of open-source software.

Audio File Format: WMA (Lossy)

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. It was first released in 1999 and has gone through several evolutions since then, all while keeping the same WMA name and extension. It’s a proprietary format created by Microsoft.

Not unlike AAC and OGG, WMA was meant to address some of the flaws in the MP3 compression method—and it turns out that WMA’s approach to compression is pretty similar to AAC and OGG. Yes, in terms of objective compression quality, WMA is actually better than MP3.

But since WMA is proprietary, not many devices and platforms support it. It also doesn’t offer any real benefits over AAC or OGG, so when MP3 isn’t good enough, it’s simply more practical to go with one of those two instead of WMA.

Audio Formats With Lossless Compression

Opposite lossy compression is lossless compression, which is a method that reduces an audio file’s size without ANY loss of data between the source audio file and the compressed audio file.

The downside is that lossless compressed audio files are bigger than lossy compressed audio files—up to 2x to 5x larger for the same source file.

Audio File Format: FLAC

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. A bit on the nose maybe, but it has quickly become one of the most popular lossless formats available since its introduction in 2001.

What’s nice is that FLAC can compress an original source file by up to 60 percent without losing a single bit of data. What’s even nicer is that FLAC is an open-source and royalty-free audio file format, so it doesn’t impose any intellectual property constraints.

FLAC is supported by most major programs and devices and is the main alternative to MP3 for music. With it, you basically get the full quality of raw uncompressed audio at half the file size. That’s why many see FLAC as the best audio format.

Audio File Format: ALAC

ALAC stands for Apple Lossless Audio Codec. It was developed and launched in 2004 as a proprietary format but eventually became open-source and royalty-free in 2011. ALAC is sometimes referred to as Apple Lossless.

While ALAC is good, it’s slightly less efficient than FLAC when it comes to compression. However, Apple users don’t really have a choice between the two because iTunes and iOS both provide native support for ALAC and no support at all for FLAC.

Audio File Format: WMA (Lossless)

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. We covered this above in the lossy compression section, but we mention it here because there’s a lossless alternative called WMA Lossless that uses the same extension. Confusing, I know.

Compared to FLAC and ALAC, WMA Lossless is the worst in terms of compression efficiency—but not by much. It’s a proprietary format so it’s no good for fans of open-source software, but it’s supported natively on both Windows and Mac systems.

The biggest issue with WMA Lossless is the limited hardware support. If you want to play lossless compressed audio across multiple devices and platforms, you should stick with FLAC.

Which Audio File Format Is Right for You?

For most people, the decision is pretty easy:

• If you’re capturing and editing raw audio, use an uncompressed format. This way you’re working with the truest quality of audio possible. When you’re done, you can export to a compressed format.
• If you’re listening to music and want faithful audio representation, use lossless audio compression. This is why audiophiles always scramble for FLAC albums over MP3 albums. Note that you’ll need a lot of storage space for these.
• If you’re okay with “good enough” music quality, if your audio file doesn’t have any music, or if you need to conserve disk space, use lossy audio compression. Most people actually can’t hear the difference between lossy and lossless compression.

For those who want utmost quality in their music playback, note that high-quality audio files won’t matter if your playback device can’t faithfully recreate those sounds. Meaning, you need to have good quality headphones or good quality speakers!

Image Credits: gonin/Shutterstock

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