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MutiNet's ResetPlug sounds like a serious gadget device you can buy with American dollars and plug into a wall, but it might as well be commentary on modern life. The smart plug connects to your Wi-Fi, and if it detects an outage in your internet service, it power cycles your Wi-Fi router or broadband modem every five minutes until the internet starts working again.

It automates a well-known, infuriating customer service platitude: "Have you tried turning it on and off again?" At this point I typically don't even bother calling Time Warner until I've unplugged and plugged anew everything a few times. I'm always a little disappointed when that "fixes" the internet, because now I can't blame Time Warner with confidence, and instead have...

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 Now that SoundCloud has inked licensing deals with all the big music rights holders, the startup is wasting no time rolling out subscription services and advertising to a wider number of markets to better monetize its 175 million users and compete better against the likes of Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and the rest. The music-streaming company — sometimes referred to as the YouTube… Read More

Dwayne Johnson, AKA The Rock, may be the most likeable man in the universe. And now he has an alarm clock app that, above all else, perpetuates this, because he's The Rock. You may say, "David, what makes this so much better than my amazing alarm clock app that I already have?" To which I would answer: this one contains nearly infinitely more Dwayne Johnson. And Dwayne Johnson does not do "snooze" buttons.

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Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Rock Clock App Has The Objectively Best Alarm Tones Ever, No IAPs was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

https://youtu.be/zZA5G2Z06uE

This vehicle picks up and stores traffic cones at nearly half the speed, 10 times the noise, and 20 times the expense of a human crew. But it looks cool.

[ GIF is faster than actual speed ]

Dangerous Golf, at its most base level, is about destruction. You are placed in an area filled with lots of breakable objects — a fancy dining room full of expensive silverware, or a gas station storeroom stocked with food — and asked to hit a golf ball in a way that demolishes as much as possible. You can bounce the ball off of walls, crash it through windows, or later on, light it on fire and ignite the stage like a powder keg.

The game is ridiculous and messy in a way that’s reminiscent of the PlayStation 2 era, before high-definition games were the norm, when crazy ideas for 3D games didn’t need a ridiculous budget, thousand-person teams, and risk-averse management.

That’s not to say Dangerous Golf is cheaper or ugly. It’s...

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Google Keyboard for Android has received a significant update today, including a one-handed mode, some design tweaks, and the ability to resize the keyboard's height to your own preference. First off, there's now an option to display borders around the keys so can be more certain of which one you're tapping. The one-handed feature lets users pick whether they want the keyboard tailored for the right or left hand, while also offering a quick way to toggle back to the full-sized version, as the below image from Android Police shows.

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Most British motorists still hold some animosity towards the onset of autonomous cars and want to maintain control of the vehicle.

In a survey conducted by IAM RoadSmart, 65 percent said that a human should always be in charge of the vehicle and 34 percent believe autonomous cars are a bad idea.

See Also: Will lasers allow driverless cars to run in the dark?

Interestingly, 55 percent said that autonomous cars will not be the norm on UK roads in the next few years, despite overwhelming support for autonomous functionality in cars by most major manufacturers.

“Technological advances that make driving and riding safer for all road users have to be embraced wholeheartedly — but British motorists and our members do want the right to drive,” said IAM RoadSmart CEO Sarah Sillars to The Express. “Intelligent cars will deliver a step change in road safety by targeting the human errors we make from time-to-time. We believe a well-trained driver and an ever-vigilant car is a win-win scenario for the future.”

British drivers aren’t the only ones

It appears motorists still have a fear of a computer-controlled car, meaning manufacturers and tech companies designing programs for self-driving need to be vocal on the security and safety benefits. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company suggests the adoption of self-driving could reduce accidents by 90 percent.

When that stat was brought up in the survey, the majority of respondents said they want to “wait and see” rather than restrict human control of vehicles. 15 percent disagreed with the proposition of removing human control entirely after reading the stat — 38 percent also said that they would not use an autonomous car.

Automated systems that stop tailgating were heavily favored by respondents, showing that British motorists do want limited automation of cars to increase safety on the road.

Autonomous cars are still an unknown to millions of drivers that question the effectiveness of a computer system on the road. In the next few years, as we start to see automatic parking and lane switching features added into cars, we might start to see a change in perception towards autonomous.

The post Self-driving? Sorry, most British drivers insist on taking the wheel appeared first on ReadWrite.

Something strange is happening with Radiohead. You could probably write that sentence at almost any time and it would be true, but, as Pitchfork points out, today the band has started erasing everything from their website, Facebook, and Twitter. No tweets, no cover images, no profile pictures, an empty Facebook page. Thom Yorke has also deleted all of his tweets. Their web presence hasn't entirely evaporated though — their music can still be found on YouTube.

This fade to white seems carefully calculated and intentional. Reddit user norrsson noticed earlier today that the band's website was slowly decreasing in opacity until the page was entirely white. The band's profile image and cover images on Facebook and Twitter are also both a...

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Scientists have discovered a comet without a tail, making it the first of its kind. The discovery of the comet could give astronomers clues regarding the formation of the solar system, Reuters reports. Perhaps this doesn't sound quite as much fun as the booze-spewing comet scientists found last year, but here's a fact for you: the tailless comet is named after a breed of cats without tails. Cute? Sure!

The "Manx" comet is composed of rocky materials, which means it was likely formed in a region of the solar system close to Earth, according to Reuters. Most comets, which form far away from Earth, are made up of ice and other "frozen compounds." Usually, as these comets move toward the sun, the ice vaporizes off their bodies, creating a...

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This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we've written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now rectifying this oversight.

What is in a name? In my opinion, everything. Things are only as amazing as the words you use to describe them. That's why the pink fairy armadillo is the best animal there is, and Scissorhands Salon is the only place I get my hair cut. The pink fairy armadillo is also known as "pichiciego," which is one of the best words I've ever heard. Two great names, one beyond great animal.

The pink fairy armadillo is the world's smallest armadillo — they're usually about 4-inches long and weigh a quarter of a pound. Because of...

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If you've been on the internet recently, you've probably come across the Lush bath bomb meme. It's the one where people throw random objects into a tub and say "I LOVE my Lush bath bomb!!" even though the thing going into the tub is definitely not a Lush bath bomb. (For newcomers to the world of homemade cosmetics, a bath bomb is a ball of something-or-other that you throw into a tub so the water smells nice (or gets fizzy?)). The popularity of this meme can be traced to three very human characteristics: the thrill of suspense, the joy of seeing unusual things in water, and a good old game of What does this word really mean?.

First, suspense: Now that the meme has solidified itself in meme consciousness, anyone hitting play on a bath...

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https://youtu.be/WzbHi7Lbz00

I'm ashamed to admit that I never learned much about the International Space Station. But after seeing the IMAX 3D documentary A Beautiful Planet, I feel like I spent 45 minutes in it, and it was emotional and thrilling. I'm normally not a big fan of 3D movies, but the quality was so high that it didn't bother me and instead made the experience of learning about life inside the ISS that much better.

I was enthralled the entire time I watched the movie. I felt like I was floating in the ISS, observing the astronauts right in front of me as they ate, cut their hair, made espresso, helped each other get into their spacesuits, and played the bagpipes. I remember reading somewhere that one of the requirements of being an astronaut is that you can't be arrogant or have a big ego because those aren't good traits to have when you live in close quarters for months on end with other people. The astronauts on the ISS all seemed very smart, good natured, and kind. I wanted to hug them all.

The movie, which is narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, is called A Beautiful Planet because the main star of the show is our planet as filmed by crew of the ISS. We've all seen images of the Earth from space, but to see them in 3D on giant screen in crystal clarity is another experience altogether. My 13-year-old daughter was shocked by the nighttime footage of South and North Korea. South Korea is brightly lit and North Korea is in total blackness, except for a faint spot of light from Pyongyang. After we got home, she began reading about North Korea and its cultlike dictatorship.

I left this powerful movie with a feeling very humbled and with a great respect for the people and countries who worked together to design, construct, and maintain the ISS.

Every few weeks a new homespun smart mirror pops up on Reddit. The formula is pretty staid by now: put an LCD and a Raspberry Pi behind a one-way mirror, and now you have a weather widget to look at while you brush your teeth. There are even GitHub repos to do the software work for you. And yet I always click on each new project. It's always worth an upvote.

Engineer Ryan Nelwan went his own way. His project involves a rather large touchscreen mirror (smudges ahoy!), and some bespoke UI design. Swipe with two fingers to change the volume, rotate with two fingers to change the temperature, and drag a YouTube video to the right side of the screen to dismiss it. It's not a whole operating system, or, like, Minority Report. But it's still...

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U.S. forces bombed a Doctors Without Borders-run hospital in Afghanistan last year, destroying it and killing and injuring scores of medical personnel and patients. But the air strike didn't amount to a war crime because it was caused by "unintentional human errors, process errors, and equipment failures," and “other factors,” U.S. military authorities said today.

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At an estimated $35bn lifetime cost, the new Hinkley C nuclear power station will be more expensive than any other civil engineering project on planet Earth, reports the BBC. The astronomical costs are disputed, but even the government's own figures put it at $25bn.

For that sum you could build a small forest of Burj Khalifas - the world's tallest building, in Dubai, cost a piffling £1bn ($1.5bn). You could also knock up more than 70 miles of particle accelerator. The 17-mile-long Large Hadron Collider, built under the border between France and Switzerland to unlock the secrets of the universe, cost a mere £4bn ($5.8bn). The most expensive bridge ever constructed is the eastern replacement span of the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco, designed to withstand the strongest earthquake seismologists would expect within the next 1,500 years. That cost about £4.5bn ($6.5bn).

Even the Great Pyramid would cost less than a billion to make, now, and require only a few hundred workers. But there is one man-made object pricier than a new nuclear power station in a western democracy: the international space station, alleged to have cost more than $100bn.

The deal seems strangely shady for something so obviously controversial: driven by political wrangling, with building costs offset to France and the project financed by China in return for a promise that the UK will pay twice the going rate for the electricity -- so expensive that onshore wind farms are cheaper. Even environmentalists OK with nuclear think the idea of a single vast plant powering an entire region is an outdated nightmare in the making.

Meanwhile, much smaller plants in France and Finland will apparently be completed at a fraction of the cost -- but at direct taxpayer expense. Whatever you might say about the project or nuclear power, it's a reminder of how comically bad the British are at planning anything that takes more than few years to complete.

Kids are impatient little buggers who don’t realize they’re being rude when they interrupt you when you’re having a conversation. Here’s an easy technique that will teach children a better way to get your attention.

Mom coach Kirsten explains the four steps in the video above.

1. Teach your child to place his or her hand on you when they want to speak to you while you’re talking to someone else.
2. Put your hand on top of theirs to acknowledge they want your attention.
3. Politely excuse yourself from the conversation.
4. Thank your kid for waiting and give him or her your full attention.

You might need to practice this a few times to establish it as a new good habit, but if you’re tired of always saying “wait a minute” or “I’m talking over here,” it’s definitely worth a try.

Teaching Your Child to Stop Interrupting: M #1 | YouTube via Kids Safety Network

When a government agency produces a report urging major changes to intellectual property laws, one often expects something heavily weighted in favor of rightsholders

Documents published today by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission contain a more balanced set of recommendations, several of which are likely to provoke an adverse reaction from both local and international rightsholders.

The Intellectual Property Arrangements draft report is a 600 page epic covering everything from copyright and patent issues through to pharmaceuticals and plant breeders’ rights. Of most interest to readers will be the agency’s comments on infringement, fair use and copyright terms.

Bring on the VPNs

For years Australians have felt that when it comes to entertainment content they’re treated as second class citizens. Aussies believe that not only do they pay over the top for content, but they also have to wait longer for it to arrive.

As a result many access overseas services by using a VPN, something which is frowned upon by rightsholders and actively blocked by companies such as Netflix. Nevertheless, the Productivity Commission wants to do everything it can to open up options for consumers.

“Geoblocking results in Australians paying higher prices (often for a lesser or later service) than consumers overseas,” the report reads.

“The Australian Government should implement the recommendation made in the House of Representatives Committee report At What Cost? to make clear that it is not an infringement for consumers to circumvent geoblocking technology.”

But the Commission doesn’t stop there. In case any foreign country wants to pressure Australia into acting otherwise, the agency advises the following.

“The Australian Government should seek to avoid any international agreements that would prevent or ban consumers from circumventing geoblocking technology,” it adds.

Dealing with piracy

The Productivity Commission notes that enforcement is a key factor in the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian IP system. It also acknowledges that copyright infringement is an ongoing issue. That being said, rightsholders probably aren’t going to like the draft’s conclusions.

“Online copyright infringement remains problematic for rights holders. Evidence suggests many people infringe copyright because of the ongoing difficulty and cost in accessing content,” the report notes.

“Evidence suggests infringement declines with better content availability and most consumers prefer paid, legal consumption. As such, an effective approach to reducing infringement is the timely release of content to Australian consumers. This requires action by rights holders and their intermediaries.”

It’s not difficult to see how these statements dovetail with the recommendation on VPN use and the pressure could eventually see Aussies getting a better deal. But for rightsholders hoping for more enforcement options in the meantime, only disappointment awaits.

“Changes to the law to encourage Internet service providers to cooperate with rights holders, as well as litigation, have only had a modest impact in reducing infringement. Further legislative change is unlikely to improve compliance with the law,” the report states.

Fair Use and Copyright Terms

In keeping with the positive response to increased consumer choice, proponents of expanded fair use provisions and diminished copyright terms also have something to celebrate.

“Australia’s copyright system has expanded over time, often with no transparent, evidence-based policy analysis demonstrating the need for, or quantum of, new rights. A new system of user rights, including the introduction of a broad, principles-based fair use exception, is needed to help address this imbalance,” the report notes.

“The Australian Government should amend the Copyright Act 1968 to replace the current fair dealing exceptions with a broad exception for fair use. The new exception should contain a clause outlining that the objective of the exception is to ensure Australia’s copyright system targets only those circumstances where infringement would undermine the ordinary exploitation of a work at the time of the infringement.”

And on copyright terms, yet more consumer-friendly advice.

“The term of protection for most works is now more than 70 years and considerably longer than necessary to incentivize creation of most works (with a commercial life less than 5 years). The current duration of copyright imposes costs on the community and access to works is restricted, particularly for works not commercially available but still subject to copyright protection,” the draft reads.

“While hard to pinpoint an optimal copyright term, a more reasonable estimate would be closer to 15 to 25 years after creation; considerably less than 70 years after death. Perpetual copyright protection of unpublished works should also be removed.”

Consultation period

The report is currently in draft and written submissions are invited up until Friday 3 June 2016. The final report will be handed to the government in August and published shortly after.

The full 603-page report can be found here (pdf)

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Slowly but surely, Apple Music is starting to treat Android like a first-class platform. The most recent update to the app adds support for music videos and family plan signups. Yes, it's odd that both of those were exclusive to Apple's platform until now.

The last update in February added SD card download support, but the addition of music videos is arguably more important. This is an entire category of content that wasn't supported on Android, even though Android users were paying the same $9.99 per month as Apple users.

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Apple Music Updated With Music Videos And Family Plan Signup On Android was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

After months of rumors, Netflix has officially given the green light for a The Punisher series. Entertainment Weekly reports that Marvel has just ordered a new series starring the gun-toting vigilante first introduced in Daredevil season 2. Jon Bernthal is set to reprise the role of Frank Castle, army veteran turned anti-hero, for the show. Writer and producer Steven Lightfoot will serve as showrunner.

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There are really only a handful of things I look for in wireless Bluetooth headphones: comfort, sound quality, and wireless reliability. Skullcandy's new Grind Wireless, a set of Bluetooth headphones that hit stores earlier this month, do well in all of those areas and only cost $89.99. They aren't perfect, but for less than a Benjamin, they get the job done and look pretty good while doing it.

The Grind Wireless look just like the wired version of the Grind, which means they have a minimal design, round, on-ear cups, a metal headband, and a padded top. A metal headband is rare to see in this price range; generally, inexpensive headphones are entirely plastic. I don't like that the Grind Wireless don't fold up in any way — jamming them...

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Mother. Flipping. Smart. Contact lenses. Every time I see a patent for these, I get slightly less freaked  outby the idea of putting electronics in my eye, and slightly more excited for my soon-to-be laser vision. The latest company to join in the hypothetical race for a technology that barely exists is Sony, with the Japanese tech company applying for its own smart contacts patent.

The patent, which doesn't appear to have been approved yet, describes a "contact lens and storage medium" capable of controlling an "image pickup unit" (aka a camera). The patent describes a lens that can take images when it detects the "conscious" blink of an eye, storing them locally, or sending them to an external device. A "tilt sensor" is used to...

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Flour isn’t just made from wheat. Not only are there “alternative” grain flours, some are made with nuts, legumes, and even spuds. They may seem reserved for the gluten-free, health-conscious set, but when used well wheatless flours can be amazing. We’ve rounded up a few, and some delicious ways to use them.

Go Nuts With Almond and Hazelnut Flour

If you feel like getting a little nutty, try almond or hazelnut flour. They’re all highly prized by health nuts for their fiber content and low glycemic index, but what I care most about are all the tasty treats you can make with nut flours. They can contribute textures and flavors you can’t get with the All Purpose stuff.

For everyday baking, almond flour adds a sweet, nutty (duh) flavor and creates a tender, delicate crumb. It also gets some good-for-you fiber and fats in there, which is nice because I need all the nutritional help I can get. If you prefer the flavor of hazelnuts to almonds, rejoice, because everything I am about to tell you about almond flour and meal also applies to hazelnut flour and meal. Nut flours aren’t great fits for everything. You wouldn’t want to try and make a crispy, airy baguette, because the dense, oily, gluten-free nature just won’t play well there. Instead pick a pastry that would benefit from a denser, richer crumb, like any of the following:

• Brownies: Nuts and chocolate are a natural match. Besides contributing a great flavor boost, both hazelnut and almond flour contribute extra moisture and body, making for an extra fudgy, extra tasty brownie. If you need a recipe, try this one from King Arthur Flour.
• Breading: If you’re looking for a gluten-free way to crisp up some chicken strips, or just want to coat them in a little extra flavor, give them a quick toss in almond or hazelnut flour. The procedure for breading is the same as it ever was; just dip your meat of choice in an egg wash, then roll it around in some nut flour or meal. If you want extra tastiness, mix some cajun seasoning or garlic salt in there.
• Macarons: If you do nothing else with almond flour, you should make macarons. King Arthur Flour has a great, though slightly involved, recipe for the tasty little sandwich cookies. Besides the almond flour, the ingredients are pretty common (sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt) but there’s a lot of whipping, resting, and gentle folding involved, so be sure to thoroughly read the instructions.
• Quick Breads and Muffins: There is nothing sadder than a dry loaf of banana bread or muffin, which is why adding nut flour to your batter is such a good idea. The extra fat and moisture makes for a nice and tender crumb, keeping your quick breads of muffins from drying out. Also, almond and hazelnut banana bread sound downright decadent. If you need inspiration, start with these lemon poppyseed muffins from King Arthur Flour or these mini almond pound cakes from Bob’s Red Mill.

If you want to try your hand at incorporating nut flours to some of your favorite recipes, understand that their lack of gluten and oily nature means you have to make some minor tweaks. Bob’s Red Mill recommends replacing around 25-30% or your “regular” flour with nut flour and King Arthur Flour suggests swapping out ¼ cup “regular” flour for a ¼ cup almond, and also decreasing the oil in the recipe by a tablespoon. Throwing an extra egg in there also helps with the structure, so give that a go as well. Finally, make sure you keep your nut flours and meals in the fridge or freezer, as all of that delicious, good-for-you oil can go rancid if not properly stored.

Get Hearty with Garbanzo Flour

Chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) are a creamy, hearty gift that keeps on giving. I’m sure you are all familiar with the wonder that is hummus, but have you heard the good news about chickpea flour? Also known as gram flour, you’ve probably encountered this tasty ingredient in Middle Eastern and Indian cooking. This relatively high-protein flour has a slightly nutty flavor, and crisps up like whoa when fried in a bit of oil. This means flatbreads (and pizza crusts, and crackers) are perfect candidates for this particular flour.

If you want to get your cast iron skillet in on the action (and why wouldn’t you?) make socca, a large chickpea pancake that Mark Bittman describes as “totally foolproof.” Head over to the New York Times for the full recipe, but it couldn’t be easier. Preheat your skillet in an oven heated to 450 F. Mix a cup of chickpea flour with a cup of warm water. Stir in some salt and pepper and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Remove your heated skillet and (carefully) swirl some olive oil around in there. Fry onions and rosemary in your hot pan, and pour the batter directly on top. Bake it all together until set and then broil for gorgeous crispy spots.

http://skillet.lifehacker.com/five-delicious...

If you could only make socca with chickpea flour, that would be enough, but it has more gifts to give. It can be used to thicken soups, sauces, and stews, and makes a great binder for veggie burgers (a couple tablespoons should do the trick), and can even be used to make a delicious, decadent fudge (which you can learn how to make by watching the video above).

Rice (Flour) Is Nice

Rice flour is simply ground-up, raw rice, and can be made from either white or brown varieties. If you’ve ever perused an Asian market you may have seen two types of rice flour: glutinous and non-glutinous. Neither contain any gluten; “glutinous” just means that stuff is sticky. Perhaps the most fun application for glutinous rice flour (also called “sweet rice flour”) is mochi.

Mochi is deceptively easy to make, and only requires four ingredients: rice flour, water, sugar, and cornstarch. Just mix the rice flour and water in a bowl and steam for twenty minutes. After that, stir in the sugar over heat, letting it melt and incorporate completely. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet that is liberally coated in cornstarch (coat your hands too) and roll it out, cut it into pieces, or wrap it around ice cream and freeze. If you don’t have a steamer, you can also use the microwave, as explained in the video below.

Moving on to savory applications, rice flour makes excellent noodles. Though it’s a slightly involved process (you’ll need two people to make the dough) the ingredient list is short enough (rice flour, water, oil, and tapioca starch). If you want to try your hand at it, check out his recipe from Vietnamese Home Cooking, via Epicurious. Rice flour also makes for a light, crispy batter, and this one from ChefSteps is out-of-this world.

This tempura-style batter is infused with carbon dioxide for the laciest, lightest, crispiest coating you’ve ever crunched down on. You’ll need a whipping siphon, but these perfect, golden-brown veggies are a pretty good payoff if you ask me.

Perfect Your Bread with Potato Flour

Potatoes are a pretty perfect food, and potato flour continues the tradition of potato awesomeness by being pretty helpful in the kitchen. Made from dehydrated potatoes, this flour is particularly good at attracting water, making it great for tender breads, waffles, and pancakes. It also tastes like potatoes, which is a good thing.

To use potato flour to make tender tasty breads, follow these guidelines from Barry Farm:

• For general baking: Replace up to 1/4 of any wheat flour in a recipe or substitute 5/8 cup potato flour for 1 cup all-purpose flour.
  
• For yeast breads: Replace up to 1/6 of the wheat flour in a bread recipe or substitute 5/8 cup potato flour for each cup of all-purpose flour.
  

For a super soft hamburger bun, try this recipe from King Arthur Flour, which uses ¼ cup potato flour for 3 cups all-purpose. The potato flour makes the dough thicker and easier to handle, letting you craft a bun that holds its shape. One tip: when adding potato flour to bread recipes, be sure to mix it with your “regular” flour first; adding water directly to it turns everything into a gloppy, lumpy mess.

Potato flour is also an excellent thickening agent. To thicken soups (try potato soup for soup inception), stews, and sauces, just add a tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired viscosity.

So there you have it: a whole bunch of uses for some of the weirder flours out there. Use them well, and you’ll get great results, and they’ll be worth their (often higher) price tag. Experiment, and enjoy the delicious results.

Photos by Francois Schnell and I Nneska.

If This Then That (IFTTT) is an incredibly popular tool that enables features for web services like Twitter to generate an email through automation and lots more. Microsoft appears to be working on a similar tool for businesses to create automated workflows. Twitter user h0x0d discovered Microsoft Flow, a preview service that connects a number of cloud services together.

Microsoft's Flow is designed to connect services like Twitter, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Office 365. Microsoft lists a number of example "flows" (recipes), including the ability to generate SMS alerts from emails, pull tweets into Excel, or get Slack notifications when a file is uploaded to a Dropbox folder. You can even create flows to copy files from OneDrive...

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Will.i.am's standalone smartwatch, the Dial, is now available to preorder in the UK. The device is an updated version of the Puls — a smartwatch we described as the "worst product we've touched all year" — and works without a tethered smartphone. This means you need to buy your own contract for it, though, and UK mobile operator Three is offering the Dial on a two-year contract from £24 a month with a £49 upfront payment. That's a total cost £625 or $911, which includes 500MB of data and 100 minutes of talk time each month.

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Phone manufacturer Fairphone is all about making smartphones that are as accessible and ethical as possible. This includes trying to find conflict-free minerals for use in their phones' construction, but also the software that lives on these devices. Yesterday, the company released its own open source Fairphone OS — an Android-based operating system that doesn't include Google services. This means users will have to find their own apps for email, maps, and a browser, but in exchange they get more control over their software.

Read more: Fairphone 2 review

This certainly won't be something than many users will want. For most of us on Android, Google's services are just too integral to give up, and the benefits of an open source mobile OS...

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In February, YouTube came under heavy criticism from some of its most popular creators for denying them revenue whenever a copyright claim was made against one of their videos. In many cases those videos were found to have made fair use of copyrighted material, but only after weeks of back-and-forth discussions. As a result, popular creators including Channel Awesome, Eli the Computer Guy, and Alternate History Hub stopped earning money while their videos garnered thousands of views. Today YouTube relented, announcing it would let videos under dispute earn revenue until the conflicts are resolved.

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