The Polaroid Snap allows you to take and print photos right in the moment using just your camera, no ink cartridges required!
Snap moments, print memories!
Your phone has a great camera on it, but when was the last time you put up one of those photos on your fridge, your desk, or sent a real picture to someone? Polaroid is going back to its roots with an instant developing camera for the Instagram generation.
Your memories filtered
The Polaroid Snap fits your pocket and your budget. It's worthwhile to buy a dedicated camera when it works this slick. Simply snap a photo, add some filters or borders to your image right on the camera, then hit print. The Snap doesn't require any ink cartridges thanks to its special paper, so you just have to worry about taking a great photo not running out of ink!
Polaroid Snap
$99.99
The Polaroid Snap allows you to take and print photos right in the moment using just your camera, no ink cartridges required!
The Polaroid Snap shoots through a 10 megapixel lens. An SD card slot allows you to store additional images so you choose only your favourite shots to print. A timer makes taking selfies easy and the Polaroid Snap comes in four awesome colors.
It took Uber nearly six years to complete a billion trips, but only six months to finish another billion. Today, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced his company hit its two-billionth trip on June 18th — with the added caveat that the two billionth car ride was actually 147 trips that began simultaneously in 16 countries.
“These trips happened in 16 countries on five continents, from Costa Rica to Russia and from China to Australia,” Kalanick writes in a blog post Monday. “The longest of the bunch lasted more than an hour as the rider and driver worked their way across Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. The shortest, a POOL trip in Changsha, China, lasted just three minutes.”
To celebrate, Uber is giving $450 to each driver and $450 of free...
Star Trek fans around the world clamoring for CBS' new take on the universe have an unexpected party to thank for the show's international availability: Netflix. The streaming giant announced today that it's obtained the international rights to the new Star Trek in 188 countries (excluding the US and Canada), a deal that'll see new episodes premiering on Netflix less than 24 hours after they make their domestic debut on CBS All Access, the network's own paid streaming platform. Netflix has also secured the rights to all 727 episodes of Star Trek already made, including episodes from the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. Those shows will be available for streaming around the world on Netflix...
If you’re in the market for a Chromebook (and why shouldn’t you be?) the sheer number of models and types can be a little daunting. The folks at Starry Hope have put together a tool that’ll help you quickly compare and get details on the specs that matter to you.
After all, Chromebooks are great for portable, web-focused workers, but they’re also useful for students who may want an affordable, powerful laptop for class. The comparison tool itself (over at the link below) is simple enough—you can filter for manufacturer or brand if you prefer, move a slider to only see Chromebooks with more than 2, 4, or 8+ GB of RAM or 16/32GB of onboard storage, click to only see models with full HD displays, select between Intel and ARM Chromebooks, and more.
If you want a touchscreen Chromebook, you can toggle that condition on or off as well, choose only USB-C models, or even drill down to something as specific as models with backlit keyboards. All in all, it’s a pretty robust tool, and takes into account virtually every spec that’ll matter when you’re shopping for one. Once you find a few models you like, click them one at a time to build out the comparison chart at the bottom of the page, and then you can look over an apples-to-apples chart that runs down the features of each one, including the price.
I'm using Amazon's $60 BLU R1 HD Prime Exclusive smartphone for a month - my next post on it should go live this week. But using the phone got me wondering: how many Android enthusiasts would be willing to deal with lockscreen ads in exchange for a [steeply] discount smartphone?
Let's put aside the possibility of removing those ads. For the purpose of this poll, imagine the phone you are buying at a discount will have lockscreen ads that are impossible to remove.
Is the threat of malware on Android overblown? Yep. But there's more to it than that.
Malware on Android phones is a pretty sensational subject. If you write about it or talk about it, you'll get plenty of attention from people that are concerned or interested in learning more as well as people who just want to do a little bit of internet trolling in any comments section they can find. That means you'll find plenty of "news" that's playing funny with numbers, only telling part of the story or just confused about the whole thing in an attempt to sensationalize it even more. Scary headlines get clicks, and clicks get money. That's how this business works.
Let's talk about the situation and you can better decide how much you need to worry about your privacy and your phone's security.
There are big numbers, and then there are huge numbers
Some of the scariest things you'll see written about Android malware are the numbers of devices supposedly affected. Even when you get past any type of squirrelly math that was used to get them (and that happens when you're estimating — things like numbers can easily be inflated) some of the totals you see when a new threat is uncovered can be crazy high. While any number higher than one isn't good, you have to remember a couple of things.
There are well over 1,600,000,000 Androids in the wild.
Most threats are found in apps from places other than Google Play.
Google says there are about 1.6 billion Android devices. That number isn't right — the real number is even bigger. The way Google counts Android activations is through Google Play. The first time anyone visits Google Play with a new Android, it gets counted as an activation. If you wipe your phone or sell it to someone else, it's not counted again. It's a one-shot deal based on an identifying number embedded in the device.
That means phones that didn't come with Google Play installed aren't accounted for in that 1.6 billion number. And there are a lot of them. Worldwide, there are millions and millions of Android phones and tablets and computers that never get counted as an activation. These two things can help put those malware numbers in perspective.
10 million Android phones are less that 1% of the total.
Using a big scary number like "10,000,000 Android devices at risk" can help visualize things a bit. 10,000,000 devices out of 1,600,000,000 is 0.625%. That means 10 million devices is still less than one percent of the 1.6 billion total. That number is still way too high for my taste, but it's less sensational to say "Less than 1% of Android phones" instead of "10,000,000 Android Phones." You need to remember that both those things are the same.
Back to the activation numbers. The vast majority of malware issues come from people who are getting apps somewhere other than Google Play. You can download and install apps from anywhere on your phone — even if you have access to Google Play — but most people aren't and just use the easy way to get the latest and greatest app or game. What this all means is that the 1.6 billion number is not really the total number of Androids, and the percentage of devices infected with any malware instance is even lower. We don't know exactly how much lower, so we aren't going to guess at a number.
I just want to make sure everyone has an idea of how this all works when you scale the number of activated devices past the billion mark. There is a shit-ton of phones and tablets running Android. More than we know. Malware infections have to have huge numbers to hit anyone's radar.
What is malware, exactly?
Malware is any software on your phone that does something you didn't allow it to do. A lot of people get loose with the term and apply it to crappy apps that do crappy things like spam your notifications or put ads and pop-ups in your browser after you gave them permission to do it. Those apps suck and the people developing them need a swift kick in the groin, but they aren't malware.
The fault lies in the permissions model. Google is too vague when it comes to the wording of what you're agreeing to, and developers who are scumbags will exploit a normal permission and do crummy things with it. When you say it's OK to display ads when you get a free game or app, you didn't mean it's OK to put ads in the notifications or the web browser. Some of the folks writing the Android code know this is an issue, but Google hasn't said anything publicly that they are working on changing it. Let's hope they do.
In the meantime, take a few minutes and read the latest reviews. Mixed in with the obvious shilling and ludicrous nonsense you'll quickly see if an app does anything silly. Nobody who downloaded ES File Explorer before they backed away from their horrible tactics read the comments. Don't be that guy or gal — listen to what other folks are saying and skip that app. And when you read about "malware" that turns out to be nothing more than really shitty ads from a free app, know that this isn't malware at all. It's an unfortunate side-effect of a more open policy in Google Play.
But malware is real
I'm not going to try and paint a rosy picture of anything here. Malware for Android exists, and in much higher numbers than many folks are comfortable with. Using the numbers from our example, 0.625% is 0.625% too much. That's why I'm always complaining about big companies who make Android phones and aren't spending enough of their billions in profits to bother updating the software on the phones they sell. Google has programs and entire teams dedicated to finding and fixing exploitable holes in Android. They make the necessary fixes for both the phones they sell as well as for phones from others in Android and deliver them to the companies who build and sell them. Not taking advantage of this is silly, and most companies who make Android phones should be ashamed of their track record. Software support is hard, but it's also pretty important — and well worth spending some money on.
Remember, if they made 1.6 billion in profit they could spend 10 million to get out security updates faster and it would only cut into their profit by .625%.
While you're reading about a report from a company who makes money trying to sell you on the idea that you're at risk and has huge numbers of affected devices, remember to put the numbers in scale, then get a little frustrated because the numbers are still too high. Or let me be frustrated for you — I probably feel enough to cover for a few you.
What should you do about it?
Here's the real meat of the issue. While you can be concerned about malware on devices in China (or wherever) when it comes to the phone in your hands you can actually do something.
Don't be stupid. No sugar-coating here. If you're going to install apps from outside of Google Play, find places that everyone agrees are trustworthy. And if you're trying to save $2 by pirating a paid app from somewhere else, you deserve whatever you get. It sounds cliche, but you really can skip a Starbucks or drink one less beer Friday evening to get the $2. The people who worked hard enough to make an app you want to download deserve to get paid.
Look at a company's track record on security updates before you give them money. Samsung, for example, will probably support a phone for two years — but only if you bought one of their high-end models. If you need a budget-friendly phone, buy one from someone else. The only way companies will get better at software support is if it's good for their bottom line.
Virus scanners and assorted security apps aren't necessary, but they don't hurt anything. Look for ones that don't do a bunch of extra stuff like fiddle with things to try and free your memory. People ask me which is the best anti-virus app for Android all the time. I have no idea which is the best, but I always recommend Lookout. I know people who worked with the company, and I like the things I hear about the way Lookout handles your data. Past that, I just don't have an answer.
Stay informed. Read the comments and reviews for anything you download and install. Read system notifications from the people who made your phone or Google or your carrier. Check the support pages for your phone's software once in a while to make sure you're current. Read Android Central as well as other online publications whenever you see headlines about malware — get several opinions then pick the one that makes the most sense to you.
What you don't need to do is get sucked into the idea that Android as a platform is riddled with malware. It's not true — it just makes money to talk about it.
SpaceX has successfully landed another Falcon 9 rocket after launching the vehicle into space this evening from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Shortly after takeoff, the vehicle touched down at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 — a ground-based landing site that the company leases at the Cape. It marks the second time SpaceX has pulled off this type of ground landing, and the fifth time SpaceX has recovered one of its rockets post-launch.
Towns in Mississippi and other Tea Party-ruled states with large (often private) prison industries are totally reliant on state/fed funding transfers to local prisons for cash and jobs, forced prison labor to provide local services for free, and War on Drugs arrests and minimum sentencing to fill those jails. The first tiny steps toward criminal justice reform have eroded the underpinnings of the whole system, leaving the towns facing collapse.
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Amazon has updated its Video app for Android, making it easier for customers to take their favorite movies and TV shows with them wherever they go. Customers can now download videos to their SD cards, giving them more flexibility for offline viewing.
This new capability is available for both purchased video and Prime Video. Videos can be downloads to an SD card on a per-item basis, or the card can also be selected as a default destination for downloads.
You can currently take advantage of this capability in the U.S., UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan.
Industrial Light & Magic's virtual reality arm xLab is looking to some major Hollywood talent to create its next virtual reality experience, and the subject is as big as it gets. Writer David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Man of Steel) took the stage at Star Wars Celebration today, after it was announced that he is working on the next major initiative the company is working on. Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo broke the news, describing it as an original Star Wars narrative experience that will let viewers experience and be part of the story — and it will be all about Darth Vader.
Goyer is been a major creative force in genre films and TV shows, working on everything from Nolan's Batman films to the television show FlashForward,...
Apple has put together a proposal to set fixed songwriting royalty rates for music streaming services. The government filing, obtained by The New York Timesand not made public by Apple, was crafted in collaboration with the Copyright Royalty Board and it would set songwriting royalty rate at 9.1 cents per 100 streams. Although the change would simplify what has long been a mystifying and complex royalty system, it would also significantly hike costs for competing streaming services, namely Spotify. It’s important to note that because Apple struck its own deals with record labels for its Apple Music service, the company may be able to avoid following the rules of its own proposal.
The new rates, if adopted, would drastically alter how...
The Turkish military has deployed in Istanbul and Ankara, and the government has apparently blocked social media in response to what is being reported as an attempted coup. Read More
In an attempt to better understand the nature of the expansion of our universe, scientists have created a 3D map plotting the locations of 1.2 million galaxies. This map may help give astronomers new details about how the universe has been expanding, which will help us learn more about the mysterious force that scientists believe has been driving the expansion. This map may help give astronomers new details about how the universe has been expanding, which will help us learn more about the mysterious force that scientists believe has been driving the expansion.
Published in a new study, the 3D map shows 650 cubic billion light years, which is just a quarter of the known universe. Each point in this map isn’t a star: it’s an entire...
In 1924, representatives of the world's leading lightbulb manufacturers formed Phoebus, a cartel that fixed the average life of an incandescent bulb at 1,000 hours, ensuring that people would have to regularly buy bulbs and keep the manufacturers in business.
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Congress today publicly released 28 previously secret pages of its 9/11 inquiry that detail possible connections between officials in the Saudi government, and the hijackers who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
by Kristin Wong on Two Cents, shared by Andy Orin to Lifehacker
By now, you’ve probably used your new chip credit card. If you’re not sure exactly how it works and what it does, though, this infographic illustrates the basics.
We’ve told you how the new chip cards work in detail, but Lending Tree’s graphic breaks it all down. They compare the new technology with the old magnetic stripe method and walk you through the process of how it works with a transaction. Check it out for yourself at the link below.
Hank the Cat always had promise. Born in a refrigerator box, his family didn’t have money but they had morals and respect. His mother was a house cat. His father, he was also a house cat.
They led an ordinary life structured by rules, and Hank found a passion for the law. On his fifth birthday, he joined the force. From the top of his cadet class he climbed quickly, earning detective within the year.
Still, Sergeant was reluctant to put him undercover. He was young and untested, but Hank’s credentials and motivation were hard to refute. That’s how he got assigned to the Chicken Coup Gang, a band of adorable mobsters with their hands in a racketeering arrangement spanning most of downtown.
You know how Netflix is always suggesting you watch a Psycho-Thriller Comedy With A Strong Female Lead And Vague Romantic Subplot Plus Conspiracy Theory Twist? And you're like, What dark algorithm hath created this chaos? Well Netflix has just announced a new platform that lets you sidestep that algorithm (at least momentarily) by creating your own Netflix playlists. It's called Flixtape.
The UK government has explicitly confirmed that a surveillance bill now making its way through the second chamber could be used to require a company to remove encryption. And even, in some circumstances, to force a comms service provider not to use end-to-end encryption to secure a future service they are developing. Read More
One of Theresa May's first act as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was to shutter the Department for Energy and Climate Change, moving the climate change to a new entity called the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, with Andrea Leadsom -- who, as Energy Minister, celebrated her first day on the job in 2015 by asking the civil service "Is climate change real?" and giving the UK coal industry a role in answering the question -- as Environment Secretary.
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Everything at work has gone nuts. Your boss is barking orders, your coworkers are panicked, and you’re pretty sure the front desk is on fire. When everything around you is falling apart, focus on the small tasks you can achieve.
As business site Inc. points out, chaotic situations are made worse when you try to solve everything at once. Rather than trying to focus on the big picture, find the small things that you can deal with quickly and get them done. Then, you can move on to the next. Before you even notice, the chaos will be a bit more manageable:
Identify small wins that the team can achieve quickly and easily.
These quick wins need to be meaningful and celebrated, as that will help to boost confidence, increase morale and create momentum.
In my own life, I use the mantra “One thing at a time.” When I’m planning a project or taking a trip, there are always fifteen things that need to be done in a very short amount of time. When someone tells me three things that need to be done, I’ll break out that phrase, “One thing at a time,” and pick the first one I can accomplish. Once that’s done, I’ll move on to the next. Repeating the phrase over and over helps me focus on the individual tasks I need to accomplish to manage the chaos, rather than being overwhelmed by all the things I need to do at once.
With Deliveroo and Uber currently battling it out on London’s streets to deliver food from local restaurants, a third player with deep pockets may be about to enter the fight. According to multiple sources within the tech and food industry, Amazon is eyeing up a launch for its Amazon Restaurants service in the U.K. capital city. Read More
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the internet, is calling on regulators in Europe to protect net neutrality and "save the open internet." In a letter released this week, Berners-Lee, Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, and Harvard law professor Larry Lessig urged European regulators to implement guidelines that would close loopholes in net neutrality legislation that the European Parliament approved in October 2015. They also called on internet users to voice their opposition online, before the public consultation period on the guidelines ends on July 18th.
"Network neutrality for hundreds of millions of Europeans is within our grasp," the letter reads. "Securing this is essential to preserve the open Internet as a...
Our spines secretly hate us. One-third of people in the US suffer from some form of back pain. That number is expected to greatly increase over the next few years, thanks to a combination of the desk-bound life and our generally inactive society. Night should seemingly bring relief, but the discomfort doesn’t lessen when we lie down.
“People have more pain at night and in the morning because their joints aren’t moving,” says Joseph McNamara, a chiropractic neurologist in Cumming, Georgia. “The brain doesn’t send extra blood flow to the area.”
In addition to strain and lack of movement, back pain is caused by such conditions as scoliosis (a curvature of the spine), arthritis, spondylitis (inflammation of the joints along the spine), bulging or ruptured discs and osteoporosis.
Due to the variety of back issues, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for how to sleep better if you suffer from back pain. There are, however, techniques that will relieve pressure on your spine by keeping it in a neutral alignment–which will help you sleep easier and wake up with less pain and stiffness. Here’s what the experts say.
If You’re a Stomach Sleeper
Sleeping on your stomach is generally regarded as the worst sleep position if you suffer from back and neck pain.
“It’s like you’re looking over your shoulder for 8 hours,” because your head needs to be twisted to one side or the other to enable you to breathe, says Dr. Ariel Blackburn, a chiropractor on Johns Island in South Carolina,
It also hyperextends the spine, which can exacerbate low back pain.
Those tight muscles then make the low back arch more, says Dr. Joseph Horrigan director of the Soft Tissue Center at DISC Sports & Spine Center
“As the arch increases, the joints of the spine (facet joints) become compressed. If these joints are already irritated or inflamed, the person can wake up with a dull, low backache,” he says.
Stomach sleeping can be so detrimental, in fact, that many doctors recommend that patients try getting used to sleeping on their sides instead.
But if you find it too difficult to fall asleep in any other position than your stomach, rotating slightly to the side and using a thin pillow could alleviate the discomfort, says Dr. Kamshad Raiszadeh, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and co-founder of SpineZone in California.
If You’re a Back Sleeper
When you lay flat on your back, the position can put too much stress on the lower discs because you’re flattening out the lumbar lordosis (the natural forward curve of your low back), explains Matt Tanneberg a sports chiropractor and certified strength and conditioning Specialist in Phoenix.
Propping a pillow under you knees, however, promotes the normal curve of the lumbar spine and allows the low back to relax.
As for your head, don’t be afraid to be primadonna-particular about the pillow you sleep on. The wrong type can cause headaches, neck and shoulder pain and arm numbness, Raiszadeh says.
The pillow shouldn’t be fatter than the distance from your neck to your shoulder, advises Blackburn. Back-sleepers can exacerbate their pain if their heads are propped up too far forward, which creates increased neck flexion.
“If you sleep on your back, you may need a thinner pillow,” Raiszadeh says.
And that thinner pillow doesn’t necessarily have to be pricey to be therapeutic. “A small rolled-up towel or half-moon pillow under the neck can also be helpful in maintaining normal neck posture,” Raiszadeh adds.
If you want to try a special therapy pillow, McNamara recommends the cervical variety, as it “helps support the lordotic curve of the neck when you’re lying on your back and keeps the spine straight when lying on your side.”
A foam wedge under your knees might also be good idea to prevent excessive lumbar lordosis.
“Foam wedges are often preferable to pillows since pillows flatten and shift,” Raiszadeh says.
A pillow under the knees is also the best way to sleep if you have stenosis, a rare condition in which the spaces along the spine narrow, putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerves. Sleeping with a pillow under the knees flexes the back and opens the canal to relieve pressure on the cord, says Glynn Hunt, a physical therapist and certified orthopedic specialist.
The pillow-propped position is also great if you have an anteriorly rotated pelvis, adds Raiszadeh.
If You’re a Side-Sleeper
Every pregnant woman learns to sleep on their side with a pillow between the knees. But it works whether you’re with child or not: “It keeps the legs in a good neutral position and keeps the top leg from dropping to the mattress and putting the pelvis into a strong twisting (torsion) position,” says Dr. Jason Hare, a chiropractor in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Pillow choice and placement are crucial though. The pillow should be small enough to not feel awkward between your legs, yet big enough to keep you from rolling onto your back or stomach.
If you sleep on your side, you need a pillow that’s firm and thicker—thick enough to take up the distance from your ear to the bed to keep your neck in a neutral position. Also, a pillow between your legs will help prevent the spinal rotation, Raiszadeh says.
It should be noted, however, that some of the pillow products meant to help people with back pain sleep better are unhelpful for side-sleepers.
“A person who’s mostly a side-sleeper may not do well with a contoured pillow because the contoured portion could actually cause his or her neck to be pushed out of its natural alignment,” Blackburn says. “And memory pillows are very dense and can take a patient a while to get used to. Or they might be too large, which can force their necks into flexion when they’re on their backs.”
To increase your chances of a good night’s sleep no matter what sleep position you prefer, warm baths or “sleepy” tea before bed might help.
“If you’re a chronic back pain sufferer, use heat. It will relax the low back muscles and take away some of the tension,” says Tanneberg (If you have an acute back injury, however, use ice. Heat will increase the inflammation and make your pain worse.)
Peter Chadwick -- he runs the @brutalhouse stream of loving photos of imposing brutalist monuments -- has teamed up with Phaedon to publish a coffee-table book of the biggest, most uncompromising hulking monsters of the bygone age of concrete futurism: This Brutal World.
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The Turkish military has deployed in Istanbul and Ankara, and the government has apparently blocked social media in response to what is being reported as an attempted coup. Read More
The UK government has explicitly confirmed that a surveillance bill now making its way through the second chamber could be used to require a company to remove encryption. And even, in some circumstances, to force a comms service provider not to use end-to-end encryption to secure a future service they are developing. Read More
With Deliveroo and Uber currently battling it out on London’s streets to deliver food from local restaurants, a third player with deep pockets may be about to enter the fight. According to multiple sources within the tech and food industry, Amazon is eyeing up a launch for its Amazon Restaurants service in the U.K. capital city. Read More
