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Noble millennials Mollie and Sean Busby wanted to pioneer a more sustainable lifestyle, so they decided to go off-the-grid and live in a yurt. The couple's Whitefish, Montana abode boasts 700 square feet of space on the ground floor, 300 additional square feet in a loft, and features a lovely half-moon shaped kitchen countertop and homey-looking hearth. The Busbies are convinced, nay determined, that they will be able to raise a family in their current living situation.

Contrast that, if you will, with this 265-square-foot condo in San Francisco that just sold for $415,000 (39 percent over its asking price) because it contained a kitchenette and a Murphy bed.

The Busby family yurt seems kind of like a regular house, but circle-shaped...

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 About six months after it initially crossed the pond, Coinbase is finally landing in the United Kingdom. Coinbase is the bitcoin wallet and platform backed with more than $100 million from DFJ, NYSE and Andreessen Horowitz and that has attracted north of 2.7 million consumer accounts. Read More

LucasArts has slowly been releasing some of its classic Star Wars games on GOG.com, and today it's expanded to the biggest PC store around: Steam. Starting today, you can grab beloved games like X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and more on Valve's ubiquitous digital shop. Meanwhile, GOG.com has added a few more games from a galaxy far, far away as well, including Star Wars: Rebel Assault I & II and Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy. That should be enough to hold you over until the impending release of Star Wars: Battlefront in November.

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This post first appeared on the Ferenstein Wire, a syndicated news service; it has been edited. For inquires, please email author and publisher Gregory Ferenstein.

Google’s entire multi-billion dollar software utopia is designed to find the perfect search result. Back in 2005, before U.S. and EU government regulators painted Google as a monopoly, now-Chairman Eric Schmidt was quite open about the search giant’s end game. He said that Google should ultimately only give one search result for each inquiry—the right one for you at that moment.

“When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do,” he told public television host Charlie Rose at the time. Schmidt continued:

Well, that’s a bug. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. You should look for information. We should get it exactly right.

This complicates the EU's current antitrust case against Google. Among other objections, European regulators charge that when Google prioritizes its own services and partners in search results, it’s snuffing out the competition. 

Google routinely does this, placing certain items above the search results, such as when consumers are looking for flights or hotels. In the screen shot below, flight search engine Kayak loses out to Google’s own suggestions.

One of Google’s leads on artificial intelligence, futurist Ray Kurzweil, told me that the company should eventually predict answers before users even know to ask them. He calls this Google’s “cybernetic friend” — software that knows you better than you know yourself.

This could be fantastic for consumers. If we’re searching for headache treatments, Google could alert us to a flu epidemic in town. If we’re concerned about housing policy, Google could tell us about an upcoming county board meeting. It could make us healthier, more productive and civically engaged.

But by design, Google search is on a path designed to exclude, or at least shoulder aside, search results it considers suboptimal to its own. Whether or not that technically puts Google in violation of antitrust law is a matter for the lawyers; things could get murky when it uses its search-engine dominance to favor sponsored results—also known as ads—over results from, say, competing travel services.

Either way, it suggests there may be a fundamental collision looming, with new anticipatory-computing business models like the one Google is moving toward on one side, and traditional antitrust law on the other.

Lead image by Duncan Hull

Embattled gaming company Ouya might be in even more trouble: according to a leaked memo, it's putting itself up for sale in order to cut back its debt. Fortune reports that Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman sent a memo to investors and advisers earlier this month, saying that the company had failed to satisfy one of its investors' conditions and that renegotiation over the debt had been unsuccessful. In order to make up the shortfall, Ouya would have to find a buyer quickly. "We are looking for expressions of interest by the end of this month," she reportedly wrote.

In 2012, Ouya ran a phenomenally successful crowdfunding campaign for its tiny Android gaming console, raising $8.5 million. The Ouya's sleek design, low price, and promised...

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http://www.gamesradar.com/avengers-age-ultron-uk-locations-guide/

Location manager Jamie Lengyel chatted to SFX about where certain scenes were filmed. There's some behind-the-scenes pics as well.

Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, UK Internet providers Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin, BT and EE are currently required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.

More than 100 websites have been blocked in recent years and today the court issued the first injunction against domains that offer no direct links, but only software.

The order, obtained today by Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association, targets five popular Popcorn Time forks: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to.

In his order Judge Birss notes that the Popcorm Time software has little to no legal use. Instead, he mentions that it’s mostly used to download and stream pirated movies and TV-shows.

“It is manifest that the Popcorn Time application is used in order to watch pirated content on the internet and indeed it is also manifest that that is its purpose. No-one really uses Popcorn Time in order to watch lawfully available content,” Judge Birss writes.

“The point of Popcorn Time is to infringe copyright. The Popcorn Time application has no legitimate purpose,” he adds.

Over the past year Popcorn Time has become a major threat to Hollywood so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise that the applications are now being targeted. Previously the movie studios took down code repositories on Github, for example.

In addition to the five Popcorn Time domains the order also lists the torrent and streaming sites watchonlineseries.eu, axxomovies.org, afdah.com and g2g.fm. All sites will be blocked under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

After the ISPs gave up on defending their position in court, it is now a mere formality for copyright holders to have a pirate site banned. However, the blocking efforts are not without cost.

Leaked information previously revealed that even an unopposed application for a blocking order costs copyright holders around £14,000 per website. This brings the total costs of the blocking efforts to well over a million pounds.

All of the sites listed in today’s order are still accessible at the time of writing. It’s expected that the Internet providers will add them to their respective blocklists during the coming weeks.

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The full list of sites to be blocked in the UK is now as follows:

—

New: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to, watchonlineseries.eu, axxomovies.org, afdah.com and g2g.fm.

Previously blocked: Bursalagu, Fullsongs, Mega-Search, Mp3 Monkey, Mp3.li, Mp3Bear, MP3Boo, Mp3Clan, Mp3Olimp, MP3s.pl, Mp3soup, Mp3Truck, Musicaddict, My Free MP3, Plixid, RnBXclusive, STAFA Band, watchseries.lt, Stream TV, Watchseries-online, Cucirca, Movie25, watchseries.to, Iwannawatch, Warez BB, Ice Films, Tehparadox, Heroturko, Scene Source,, Rapid Moviez, Iwatchonline, Los Movies, Isohunt, Torrentz.pro, Torrentbutler, IP Torrents, Sumotorrent, Torrent Day, Torrenting, BitSoup, TorrentBytes, Seventorrents, Torrents.fm, Yourbittorrent, Tor Movies , Demonoid, torrent.cd, Vertor, Rar BG, bittorrent.am, btdigg.org, btloft.com, bts.to, limetorrents.com, nowtorrents.com, picktorrent.com, seedpeer.me, torlock.com, torrentbit.net, torrentdb.li, torrentdownload.ws, torrentexpress.net, torrentfunk.com, torrentproject.com, torrentroom.com, torrents.net, torrentus.eu, torrentz.cd, torrentzap.com, vitorrent.org.Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

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

 SoundCloud has been beta testing its podcasting features with a private group since 2011, but today it’s finally letting everyone in. The SoundCloud podcasting features come in multiple tiers, including one free and two paid options, and challenge existing industry leaders including Libsyn, as well as providing the RSS hooks necessary to also publish to iTunes, and get picked up by… Read More

LG's new flagship smartphone, the G4, is official. If you've been following this space, none of that should come as a surprise: virtually everything about the phone has either leaked or has already been announced by LG over the past few weeks. But the lack of surprise doesn't take away from the fact that the G4 is LG's new flagship, the phone that will go head to head with the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 when it hits shelves in a few weeks.

Visually, the G4 isn't a stark departure from last year's G3. It has a 5.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel (that's QHD) display, volume buttons and power key on the back, and has roughly the same dimensions as last year's phone (which means it's compact, but just slightly too big for me to use in one hand). The...

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Microsoft stripped out Aero Glass — a transparent and blurry glass effect — from Windows 8, but it looks like it’s making a slight return in Windows 10. Leaked screenshots from Chinese site IT Home reveal that the latest internal builds of Windows 10 include a new blurred transparency effect on the Start Menu. While this doesn’t extend to app windows themselves, the glass effect looks identical to the Aero Glass used in Windows Vista and Windows 7. It’s only applied to the Start Menu, and the transparency effect is removed when the Start Menu transforms into a fullscreen Start Screen.

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Chris Evans prepares for back-to-back Cap

It isn't easy being Captain America. Out on the Avengers: Age Of Ultron press circuit, Chris Evans has been talking about his gruelling schedule, currently almost exclusively for Marvel, taking him well into 2017. And as part of that he's revealed something that we might have suspected but didn't actually know: both halves of the two part mega-epic Avengers: Infinity War will shoot together next year.

"You plan around the Marvel responsibilities; you have to," Evans tells Esquire. "We start [Captain America: Civil War] in a couple of weeks, and then that shoots until August or something like that. August or September. Then I've got some downtime and I can do with it as I please. I don't know if I want to take time off or go pursue another directing job or find a movie to act in or, you know, do whatever I'm creatively inclined to pursue or wait, relax, enjoy my life. And then we start the Infinity War, I think, some time in the third quarter. Fall or winter of 2016. That's going to be like nine months to shoot both movies back to back."

Elsewhere in the interview he also talks about the "pressure and anxiety" of the standalone Captain America movies. But it's not all stress. There's his close friendship with Chris Hemsworth as consolation, along with the confidence that Marvel's batting average is so astonishingly high.

"The first [Captain America] was the most intense," he says, "because you just don't know how the character's going to be received, you don't know how you're going to be received portraying the character. With the second one, there's a little less pressure, but again, you still don't want to be the weak link in the chain. Marvel's got such a track record for making quality work, you don't want to be a dud. But even their worst movies are better than what any other studio could hope to be making. It can only get so bad at Marvel."

Avengers: Age Of Ultron, you may have noticed, is out now. Captain America: Civil War is out in the UK on April 29 next year. Avengers: Infinity War Part I lands two years later on April 27, 2018, with Part II following a year after that on April 26, 2019. Joe and Anthony Russo, who brought us Captain America: The Winter Soldier, are directing all three.

High winds blew train cars and shipping containers off an Elmwood, Louisiana bridge yesterday. (more…)

In the wake of John Deere's claims that the software in its engines means that its farm equipment is "licensed," not "sold," I talked to the Globe and Mail about what digital locks mean for the idea of property in the 21st century. Read the rest

Super cute or kind of creepy? You decide!

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The world of technology patents is in bad shape. When John Oliver decides that he needs to spend 15 minutes explaining exactly how bad patent trolling has become, you know something rots in the USPTO. Google is trying to stem the tide of patent trolling and litigation via the simple expedient of throwing a ton of cash at the problem. They want to buy your patents.

Well, maybe not your patent in particular - odds are pretty good that they're only interested in technology and software patents, and even then, only so that some fly-by-night LLC with a dozen lawyers and no physical address won't sue them in the future.

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Google Wants To Buy Your Patents To Keep Them Away From Patent Trolls was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Featured App

Expense IQ - Expense Manager

This week's roundup is brought to you by Expense IQ - Expense Manager from Handy Apps.

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31 New And Notable (And 1 WTF) Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (4/14/15 - 4/27/15) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

There's a new reason to think Google might be prepping a new Nexus smartphone—possibly one that might fill the gap left by its just-discontinued Nexus 5.

The latest speculation centers on a Google informational video for its new wireless service, Project Fi (h/t Android Pit). It’s meant to show users how to check their data usage on the new service, which at the moment is only compatible with Nexus 6 smartphones. Despite that, the Nexus 6 is conspicuously absent from the video:

As evidence goes, this is relatively thin: The video only shows an animated rendering of a smartphone, not an actual device. Still, it's odd that Google wouldn’t use the Nexus 6 design. Take a look at the Nexus 6 in this side-by-side comparison:

The Nexus 6 on the left has rounded corners and a microphone grill on the bottom that mimics the speaker grill on the top. By contrast, the rendered device on the right is much more angular at the corners and seems to lack a microphone on the front face of the device.

Now, the device on the right isn't anything more than a rendering of a Project Fi-compatible Android device. But its design seems to consciously differ enough from the Nexus 6 to raise some serious questions.

Google's response doesn't exactly settle the question. A company spokesperson told me by email: "These renderings are based on a generic phone modeled off the Nexus 5."

So let's ponder not only whether Google has plans for a new pure Android device, but what a revamped Nexus 5 should bring to the table.

Walk This Huawei

In early March, rumors started to circulate that the Chinese manufacturer Huawei might be at work on a new Nexus smartphone. The company made waves with its announcement of its Android Wear-running Huawei Watch at MWC, so a deeper collaboration with Google doesn’t seem out of the question. The smartphone in the video could be evidence of that collaboration.

Moreover, 9to5Google reported on Thursday that Nexus 6 sales have been disappointing relative to previous Nexii. Given that the Motorola-made phablet is integral to the launch of Project Fi, a paucity of Nexus 6 devices out in the wild would limit the actual impact of Google’s wireless service.

It’s entirely possible that Project Fi could spur new Nexus 6 sales, but the device’s big size (and equally big price tag, which starts at $650) makes that a dicey proposition.

By contrast, a new Nexus device that works with Project Fi could solve many of those problems at once. If Google’s plan is to make wireless service more affordable and fair, it would do well to offer a Project Fi compatible, less-expensive device to update its late, lamented Nexus 5.

Google's non-denial denial leaves open the question of whether the device in this video could be a new Nexus phone—or even if there are plans to expand Project Fi to non-Nexus 6 smartphones. I’m dying to jump onto Google’s service, so I sincerely hope the answer to both questions is “yes.”

Lead screenshot via Google video; side-by-side comparison rendered by Brian Rubin for ReadWrite; Huawei Watch image courtesy of Huawei; Nexus 6 image via Google

Avengers: Age of Ultron is flying high in the UK, with the superhero flick taking $27.3 million in box office revenue to become Marvel's biggest opening in Britain. The film took $9.4 million on the Saturday alone — the best single day for Disney or any superhero film in the country, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It was also the UK's biggest opening weekend of the year — beating Fifty Shades of Grey's previous record.

the boycott has hit 686 screens in 193 towns

However, while the film's European success is good news for distributor Disney, not everyone is welcoming Ultron with open arms. In Germany, smaller movie theaters are boycotting the film in protest of Disney's decision to raise rental fees from 47.7 to 53 percent of...

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This week, there have been stories about farmers who can’t legally repair their John Deere tractors, as copyright monopoly legislation prohibits tampering with computer code in something you own. This has been described as an “unexpected side effect” of the copyright monopoly legislation in general and the DMCA/EUCD in particular.

That’s wrong. It’s not a side effect and it’s not unexpected. That is exactly what those laws intended to accomplish. Being locked out of your own possessions is not a side effect – it was the central point of the legislation and its core purpose.

As usual, the geeks who understood the deeper repercussions of this cried murder over the legislation at the time, and were summarily ignored by policymakers. Perhaps only now, when it becomes clear that it’s not just geek toys that are affected but everything in our everyday life, will more people become aware of how the copyright monopoly limits property rights.

This development, eroding property rights of everything, has been driven by the cartoon industry – by which I mean the copyright industry in general and Disney Corporation in particular.

It started with DRM, Digital Restriction Measures. Somebody thought it was both possible and a good idea to control how playback of video and audio could take place at people’s homes after they bought music and movies. (Imagine that translated to books, by the way, that publishers thought it possible to control how a book would be read – where, when and how.)

Digital Restriction Measures (DRM) were never about preventing copying, even though they were frequently presented as “copy protection”, mostly for PR purposes. They did absolutely nothing to prevent copying. They prevented playback. They controlled playback. They permitted or didn’t permit playback.

However, the technology didn’t work. The technology couldn’t work. It wasn’t broken at the technical level, or needed a little bit of improvement: it was broken at the conceptual level. It relied on the cartoon industry’s ability to prevent the owner of an object to tinker with their own property. (This is where tractors and cars come in.)

Obviously, if a computer is able to decode and decrypt a cartoon, then the owner of that computer is also able to instruct their own computer computer to decode and decrypt it (presumably a copy they bought and therefore also own), even against the cartoon industry’s desire for that possibility.

This is why DRM is broken at the conceptual level.

In this respect, there is no difference between a copy of a car or tractor – one of many identical sold objects off a production line – and a CD or DVD. You hold the receipt, you own it. The manufacturer doesn’t get to say what you do with your own property.

Or didn’t, at least.

The cartoon industry – copyright industry – realized that they needed to attack the core concept of the ability to hold property in order to prop up their crumbling copyright monopoly, and pushed for legislation that turned out as something called the DMCA in the US and the EUCD/InfoSoc in Europe. It “fixes” the conceptual problem with DRM by simply making it illegal to tinker with your own property when the original manufacturer, who sold the object to you, doesn’t want it tinkered with even after it’s been sold to you.

Yes, that’s a blatant intrusion into the very core concept of property rights. It also illustrates how the copyright monopoly, a governmentally-granted private monopoly, was always firmly in opposition to property rights (despite the copyright industry’s insistent attempts to reframe it as “property” for PR purposes, which is one of many lies from that cartoon industry).

As computers are spreading through society, into every aspect of our lives, so are the effects of the law that the copyright industry rammed through legislative corridors fifteen years ago.

John Deere claiming that farmers aren’t allowed to tinker with their tractors and other farming equipment is not an “unfortunate side effect” of copyright monopoly legislation. It was the core idea, all the time, to prevent owners of property to exercise their normal property rights. That was the only possible way the copyright monopoly was even slightly maintainable into a digital environment.

One has to ask whether it was, and continue to be, worth that price.

In any case, now that it’s not just geeks and nerds being affected by the cartoon industry’s wholesale slaughter of civil liberties but car owners and farmers and most ordinary people, one can hope that understanding of the fundamental idiocy of these laws can start to surface a little wider.

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

LA Times: Songwriter Sid Tepper, who co-wrote more than 40 songs specifically for Elvis Presley plus hundreds of others performed by Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Dean Martin, Eartha Kitt, Perry Como, Jeff Beck and many more, died Friday at his home in Miami Beach. He was 96.

Vintage Torch Songs: Today marks the birthday of the “Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald. Famous for her silky voice and successful jazz standards, Fitzgerald knew how to bring tears to audiences’ eyes with her achingly beautiful renditions of popular torch songs. In honor of the Queen of Jazz, we’ve rounded up other weep-worthy, sentimental ballads from the 1920s that sing of lost love and other romantic dilemmas we can all relate to.

It was only a matter of time, but now it's official: the Nexus 7 has left us for greener pastures. Google's affordable and functional 7-inch tablet has disappeared from the Google Store, where a note in red type simply states that the device is "no longer available for purchase."

The Asus-made tablet was certainly long in the tooth — it first launched in July 2013 — but it remained attractive because Google has consistently kept it up-to-date with the latest versions of Android. Nevertheless, its time has come and gone, and the tablet has been officially replaced by the newer Nexus 9. If you're still looking for a Nexus 7, though, you should be able to grab one from third-parties like Amazon until supplies dry up.

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The 11-year-old son of medical marijuana advocate Shona Banda spoke out in his Kansas classroom to correct his teacher's misinformation about pot; then the state of Kansas raided his house and took him away from his mother. Read the rest

EZTV, the go-to place for many torrenting TV fans, has suffered its fair share of troubles in recent months.

In January the group lost its .it domain name, which was then taken over by impostors in March.

The torrent distribution group meanwhile continued to operate from the new EZTV.ch domain name, but during the past few hours this new home went through some changes as well.

Instead of hosting official EZTV torrents the .CH domain now links to the same content as the ‘unofficial’ EZTV.it site. While there are plenty of TV-torrents available, these are sourced externally from RARBG.

And there are more signs pointing to a takeover. Users are not able to login for example, and the scam warning that was previously listed on the .ch domain in gone as well. In addition the site now serves various ads including popunders.

Upon close inspection it appears that the domain name was taken over at the registrar level. The WHOIS information was updated and now lists the UK-based “EZCLOUD LIMITED” as owner, which is the same company that registered the .it domain.

TF reached out to ETZV’s Novaking to find out more about the apparent takeover, but we have yet to receive a reply. EZCLOUD director Hernandez Dominguez Emmanuel hasn’t responded to our inquiries either.

Breaking news, more updates may follow.

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

• Update 1: 2015/04/24 5:07pm PDT
  Since publishing this story, we've learned that Google apparently plans to release Collections in early May.

According to a tipster (and a report over at DroidLife), Google is testing a new feature for Google+ that could be big news for the platform. For now, it's called "Collections," and it's being tested for an unspecified release target.

The basic idea behind Collections is curated content sets - like Pinterest boards or Dribbble buckets, users could curate pieces of content into their collection, with others viewing, sharing, and following those collections as they please.

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Google Apparently Testing 'Collections' For Followable, Curated Content Sets On Google+ was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Tablets are great entertainment devices, but they aren’t always as useful for getting things done. If you want your tablet to be more than just a fun little toy, it’s really just a matter of the right apps, attitude, and configuration. Here’s how you can turn your tablet into a handy, productivity-boosting tool.

Blast from the past is a weekly feature at Lifehacker in which we revive old, but still relevant, posts for your reading and hacking pleasure. This week, we’re revisiting some ways to make that tablet more productive.

We’ve argued why tablets are actually great productivity tools and how they’re great for offloading distractions, but never how you can actually optimize your iPad or Android tablet to boost your productivity. Your tablet is really great for grabbing quick, commonly used information whether it’s pre-defined in your calendar or dynamically updating online. In this guide we’re going to look at how you can use a few apps to offload simple tasks to your tablet to clear out the clutter on your desktop and free it up to handle your bigger daily tasks.

Step One: Download Some Work-Friendly Apps

For the most part, you already have a lot of the apps you’re going to need for keep you productive. Your calendar, email, address book, clock/timer, and calculator are all useful utilities you may want to have at the ready. These are all great apps for quickly checking information, setting an alarm, or whatever, but those apps are only so helpful. There is much more you can do. Here are a few suggestions.

Simplenote (iOS) or FlickNote (Android) are must-have apps if you keep a lot of plain text notes. While you’re probably typing them on your computer, when you’re doing work it can be helpful to have a particular note by your side for reference purposes. While you could look at a separate window on desktop, this eats up screen real estate. Bringing up the note on your tablet can keep your screen focused while still providing the reference information you need. If you’re handling lots of spreadsheets and other office-type documents, you may want to pick up an office suite for iOS or Android as well.

Dropbox (iOS / Android) is very helpful if you use the service to sync your files across computers (or just store them in the cloud). If you use a different service, just get their app instead. Many apps have Dropbox integration nowadays, however, so it’s become a great way to get your files on your device. The Dropbox app itself is handy, but apps that support Dropbox natively can grab files a lot faster. Either way, some sort of easy access to your files is vital if you need to bring anything up on your tablet quickly so you can look at it for reference as you work.

Skype (iOS / Android), or any VOIP application, can essentially turn your tablet into a phone. When you need to make quick calls it’s often a lot easier to just tap a name on your screen. You also have the advantage of Wi-Fi, which is a bit more stable than a cellular connection. While I use my phone to make calls on the go, Skype has been immensely helpful in keeping me connected when I’m working. Calls don’t drop and the connection is always significantly more clear. It’s also really easy to respond to incoming calls quickly when my tablet’s big screen is propped up and easy to access.

Step Two: Create Useful Bookmarks and Shortcuts

A lot of the work we do nowadays is online, and even if not there are plenty of sites that offer useful information and tools to aid us in our work. Whether it’s your company wiki, a project management tool, or just a helpful web site you can add them as bookmarks for super-quick access. If you don’t know how to do this on your iPad, just read these instructions (or watch the video to the left). Android can add bookmarks and other shortcuts for things like quick driving directions, by simply tapping and holding on an empty part of the home screen. This will provide you with options to add the shortcut you want.

The shortcuts you’ll need will depend on you, but chances are you’ll have a few and things will start getting cluttered along with all the apps. To solve that problem, just move on to step three.

Step Three: Create a Productivity Page on Your Home Screen

Tablets were designed to be consumption devices, for the most part, so it’s easy to get distracted when you have a bunch of games staring back at you from a beautiful, glossy screen. Additionally, if you mix your productivity apps in with everything else you’ll have a hard time locating the app that you need. For these reasons, it’s helpful to have an entire page on your home screen dedicated to getting things done. This way you can flick over to that page during the work day and flick back when you’re done.

You can organize the page however you want, but the idea is to keep it nice and clean. You’ll want to choose an organization scheme that suits you best, but here’s what I’ve found works well:

• Create a top row of apps you use most often so they’re in the first place you look.
• Create a second row of commonly-used apps if you need to. You may not have that many apps to launch so don’t worry if you don’t.
• Create a third row of bookmarks to sites you visit frequently for quicker access. If you have a lot, sort them with folders. Android users who are utilizing a home screen replacement app like ADWLauncher EX can also create shortcuts to Gmail labels, notes, and other items for quicker access.

Obviously iPad users are a little more limited in the kind of organization they can do, so sometimes a multi-folder structure will work best. Only you’re going to know what’s best for you, but an organization scheme that prioritizes usage frequency should work well for most people.

Step Four: Get Your Computer and Tablet Connected

While most of this guide concentrates on using apps and bookmarks/shortcuts to quickly grab useful information as you need it, sometimes you’re going to need to quickly pull up a web site, an image, or some other information that isn’t already bookmarked. There are lots of ways to do this, but Pushbullet is our favorite solution, allowing you to easily send links and files between your devices, plus a lot more.

Of course, when the time calls for it, you can just use your tablet as a true second display for your computer, too. We like Air Display best for this, and it works on Windows, OS X, Android, and iOS. You can also turn your iPad into a keyboard shortcut machine or use it as a remote control for your computer, which can come in pretty handy.

At the end of the day, productivity is all about how you use the tools at your disposal to make your work easier. Even if you use your tablet primarily for Netflix and comic books, it’s a great place to offload certain tasks so you can focus and get through your work in a breeze.