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Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Email her.

Well, hey, thanks so much for taking my little poll the other day! It was … not actually as bad as it might have been. A plurality of you, 37 percent, are changing your sheets every week or every other week, which is joymaking news. Once-a-month changers make up 29 percent of respondents, and the group that's going at least a month without putting clean sheets on the bed constitutes a slightly larger share of you, at a combined 34 percent.

If I'm being really honest, I had faith in you. I read your letters, so I know that you're not actually as gross as people insist you are. And to the extent that this means anything to you, I do spend a lot of time defending men, and Deadspin readers in particular, against accusations of slovenliness.

SPEAKING OF WHICH. I've been doing this job for a while now, and I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that cleanliness isn't really a gendered construct, so let's get something important out of the way first: Yeah, sure, dudes are gross. But so are ladies. There's really not a huge need, from my perspective at least, to get into a shit-slinging contest over which gender is filthier. Plus, as you might imagine, shit-slinging contests fill me with dread.

Why Wash Your Sheets?

Instead of slinging shit at each other, fun though that may be for you, let's just get those filthy sheets off your bed, shall we? Oh, you would like to know why? I will tell you.

Um, well for one, they smell.

Then there's also the fact that they're covered in sweat, drool, dead skin, the oil that your body excretes constantly, and your/other people's sexual fluids. Also you know how sometimes you sneak a cookie into bed while you're watching Coach reruns? That cookie left crumbs behind, oh yes it did. And critters tend to take the presence of those crumbs as an open invitation to join you in your bedspace.

We should also address the existence of dust mites in your bedding. They exist! And they feed off of your dead skin cells. Changing your sheets on the regular will help keep them under control, which is a good thing to know, especially if you've got allergies. Since we're on the topic of controlling things, if you're prone to acne you'll definitely want to be vigilant about putting fresh sheets on your bed at regular intervals. Sheets with oily buildup will contribute to breakouts. If you can't manage to change the entire set of sheets, changing only the pillowcases will still help on that front (unless your acne crops up on your chest or back).

And finally, the most compelling reason I can give you for changing the bedclothes is just that slipping in between a fresh set of sheets feels pretty great. As I'm fond of saying, two of the most important things that we do in life take place between the sheets: Watching The Sopranos and eating Totino's Pizza Rolls sleep and sex. If you value those things, it's a nice practice to treat the space in which they happen with a bit of reverence. Having good, clean sheets is a pretty easy way to do something nice for yourself.

How—and How Often—to Wash?

I'm truly not here to tell you to wash your sheets at designated intervals. You know why? Because it's not my business how often you wash them. Do I sleep in them? No.

What I will do, however, is give you some generally accepted guidelines for how often to change/wash your bedclothes. Because people like that, I find? And also because some of us got that kind of information from our parents or guardians while we were growing up and some didn't. And then even some of us unto whom those lessons were imparted went ahead and forgot things.

You will, of course, want to weigh any personal considerations. Such as: Do you sleep at home every night? Do you have easy access to laundry facilities? Do you have more than one set of sheets? Do you shower before you get into bed at night? Do you sleep naked? Do you sleep alone or with a partner? Do you sleep with more than one partner? Do you not want Partner #1 to know about Partner #2 (and #3 and #4 and #5, I suppose. Hey, good for you!) Do you give a fig about any of this? Do you have a friend? (Does he have a big coat, too?)

What I'm saying here is that these are not tablets brought down from Sinai and you can and should do what's right for you.

Jolie Cleanperson's Sheet-Washing Scale

Once a Week: Ideal

Once Every Two Weeks: Totally Acceptable

Once a Month: That's Fine. Not Good. Just Fine.

Once Every Six Weeks: Dicey

More Than Two Months: [CLUTCHES PEARLS]

Best Practices

Sheets & Pillowcases

Generally speaking, sheets can be laundered in hot or warm water with regular detergent. A laundry booster like OxiClean or Borax, used in addition to detergent, will help cut through the oils and skins and other such things that constitute buildup on sheets. Sheets should be dried thoroughly before they're put back on the bed, on either a medium or high heat setting. Line drying is also perfectly fine, and actually the sunshine will help keep white sheets bright, bright white. Which is a handy thing to know if you've got white linens and a line-drying facility.

Other Bedding

You should definitely wash pillows and comforters, for many of the same reasons you'll want to wash your sheets. They definitely smell musty. They definitely are full of dust mites. And you know how there are all those weird brown stains on your pillows? That's from your drool, killer. Wash those pillows! Twice a year? Sure.

You should check the care tag on the pillows because there are all manner of fillings that require different modes of handling, but more often than not you'll be able to toss them in the washing machine on a cold water setting and dry them on a low heat setting. The same goes for comforters and duvets—you may need to hit a laundromat for the use of a large capacity machine if you have a machine at home that's not big enough to fit oversized items.

If you've got throw blankets on your bed, those should also be washed a few times a year according to the care tag directions. If you've been sick, curled up, and moaning under your blankie you'll also want to be sure to launder it once you've recovered.

Common Stains & Treatment

• Sweat: The yellowing that's so commonly found in the center of white or lighter-colored sheets is caused by a bunch of things, but sweat is the main culprit. Borax, OxiClean, bluing … those are all great options for getting the unsightly yellowing out of those sheets. For even more on the topic of yellowed sheets, check out one of my recent Jezebel columns on the matter.
• Urine and/or fecal matter: Remember when we talked about your skidmarks? Borax is the ticket if you OR A FRIEND YEAH I KNOW IT'S ALWAYS THE FRIEND has a little accident in the bed. Pee stains can also be easily treated with products designed for pet messes, so if you've got one of those around the house bear in mind that it can multitask.
• Sexual Fluids: Any enzymatic cleaner—OxiClean is my go-to, as I do believe you know by now—will take out staining left behind from sexyfuntimes. One reader specifically asked about treating female ejaculate; I told him the answer is the same, regardless of the part that created the fluid, and then we high-fived because YEAH BUDDY!
• Blood: Blood on the sheets happens, whether due to a bloody nose, cracked skin, a scratched-off scab, or the presence of a lady with wildly fluctuating emotions. The good news is that blood stains can be treated in a number of different ways that have been extensively detailed in this column. A brief recap: Hydrogen peroxide, salt, saline solution, meat tenderizer, OxiClean—all things that will take a blood stain out. Also spit. Yes, you read that right. The Clean Person just told you to go ahead and gleek on your sheets.

Making Your Bed: A Plea

Maybe this should be our next poll? This is actually one I think I'm scared to ask but … do you make your bed in the morning? I think you should. It's a nice thing to come home to a made bed! It is also a good thing to do if you experience any kind of sleep disorder—the ritual of turning down a bed in the evening signals to your body that it's time to prepare for sleep. I mean, it won't cure insomnia, because that would be too easy and oh God I have that middle-of-the-night insomnia and it's crazy-making, but bedtime rituals do help. Additionally, if you find yourself frequently overwhelmed by clutter in your bedroom or just overwhelmed by life in general, making your bed will provide you with an easy way to bring a small amount of order into your world.

You don't have to do this! But as I've mentioned, I've been at this job for quite some time now and I have emails and comments and tweets from a no-joke-huge number of people who started making their beds at my suggestion telling me what a difference it's made in their lives. Almost to a man they mention how they were skeptical, but tried it because I asked nicely and WOW JOLIE YOU WERE RIGHT!

I love it when you tell me how I'm right.

So there's my plea to just try it out. You don't have to! But I'd love it if you would give it a whirl. And if you're real nice and give the bed-making thing a shot for a week or two just to see how it makes you feel, I'll show you how to fold a fitted sheet. Deal? Deal!

Jolie Kerr is the author of the upcoming book My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha (Plume, February 25, 2014); more cleaning-obsessed natterings can be found on Twitter, Kinja, and Tumblr.

Squalor appears on Jezebel and Deadspin on alternating weeks.

After months of waiting, Apple device owners with compatible iPhone, iPad and iPod touch models will finally get access to iOS 7 on September 18th, Apple announced on Tuesday. Apple says that iOS 7 will be available for devices made in the past three years, so it sounds as though you'll need an iPhone 4 or higher to take advantage of it.

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We had a few requests for an IFA 2013 video playlist, so here it is — every video we shot last week from the show in Berlin. From Sony's Xperia Z1 and QX lenses to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear to ASUS tablets and Lenovo smartphones.

Yes, it was quite the week. Enjoy, everyone!

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.

This is the app roundup. The game roundup from last week can be found here.

• [New App] Microsoft Xbox SmartGlass Released: Cross-Platform Goodness For Console Gamers
• Microsoft Bringing Xbox Music To Android – Unlimited Streaming For Subscribers, No Offline Mode [Update: The App Is Live]
• [Update: Winner!] Win A Samsung Galaxy Note II (N7100) From Handy Apps And Android Police
• Android Gets Its Very Own Official Xbox LIVE App From Microsoft- In Other News, Pigs Now Fly

18 Best New Android Apps From The Last 2 Weeks (8/27/13 - 9/9/13) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Since Samsung announced the Exynos 5 Octa at CES 2013, one major criticism has been leveled at its implementation of big.Little technology time and again: for some reason, it has only ever been able to run 4 of its 8 cores at a time. Not only that, but it has never been able to mix-and-match the higher performance A15 cores with power efficient A7 cores to get the best possible configuration for performance and power usage.

• Samsung Makes New Exynos 5 Octa 5420 Official With Double The GPU Performance
• [CES 2013] Samsung Announces The Exynos 5 Octa, A Screaming 28nm 8-Core Processor
• Samsung Announces 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad: A Quad-Core Processor Destined To Power The "Next Galaxy Smartphone"
• ARM Announces Cortex-A50 Series – 64-Bit Processors 'Set To Drive The Next Era In Mobile And Enterprise'

Samsung Announces Improved Multi-Processing Technology For Exynos 5 Octa, Can Run Up To 8 Cores Like A Boss was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum has announced the discovery of a new painting by Vincent van Gogh — the first full-size example since 1928. Sunset at Montmajour, a 1888 landscape, was painted during the time van Gogh spent in the south of France, which "many see as the high point of his artistic achievement," according to museum director Axel Rüger. Van Gogh painted works such as Bedroom in Arles and his Sunflowers series at around the same time.

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Mosquitos are undoubtably one of nature's most annoying lifeforms — annoying at the best of times, and disease-carriers at the worst. Humanity has made many efforts at repelling the troublesome insects, with the chemical DEET being perhaps the most well known example, but a group of scientists from the US Department of Agriculture has developed a new tactic to make us invisible to the blood-sucking pests. Traditional repellants like DEET make our scent unappealing to mosquitos, but Ulrich Bernier today announced his team has developed an approach that actually disrupts the mosquito's sense of smell entirely — thus making us invisible to the insects. "If a mosquito can't sense that dinner is ready, there will be no buzzing, no...

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I remember one evening, when my life was pretty different—I was overweight and deeply in debt and a smoker and had such a hard time changing things. I felt horrible about myself, and wondered why I was stuck. I felt hopeless and helpless, and generally depressed about the state of things around me.

Then I looked up at the sky, and saw the stars set in a deep blue-black canvas. And I thought, what a miracle life is. And I resolved to mentally list the things I had in my life that were good.

My list of good things was something like this:

• I had a wonderful wife
• I had five amazing children (now six)
• I had loving parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins
• I wasn’t sick
• I had a job
• I had decent shelter and food
• My family was healthy
• I could see, and appreciate the beauty of the world around me
• I could taste delicious food
• I had great books to read

The list went on, but you get the idea. Even when things seemed horrible for me, actually I was OK. And more than that, I had some amazing blessings in my life. That night I resolved to count my blessings more often. I resolved to be grateful for what I had, and for the people in my life. I started the habit of gratitude.

How My Life Changed

Now, this seems like a trivial and maybe trite and hokey thing to many people. I’m here to tell you that it’s not trivial, and as trite/hokey as it may seem, it changes lives. Here’s what happened to me, as I changed my thinking from one of negativity to one of gratitude:

• I appreciated my wife Eva more, and told her so. I felt good about having her in my life, and we deepened our relationship.
• I also appreciated my kids more, and instead of getting mad at them so much, I would notice their lovingness, their curiosity, their humor and playfulness.
• I appreciated my other loved ones more, and while I don’t always tell them how grateful I am for them, I do think it a lot, and do tell them much more often now.
• I was kinder to others around me, at work and everywhere else, because instead of seeing the faults in everyone, I saw the good, and was grateful for them.
• I needed less, because instead of thinking about what I don’t have, I was grateful for what I did have.
• Little things bothered me less, because instead of complaining about every little thing, I would find things to be thankful for.
• I appreciated nature all around me, smaller things that I might have missed before, beauty in everything.
• Habit change became easier, because instead of focusing on how hard the change was, I found the joy in the changes, and joy in seeing myself overcome challenges.
• Each and every moment became cause for gratitude, and living in the present became easier.

The list goes on and on, but each of these things is incredibly powerful. Not trite. Not hokey. Pure wonder.

Start with a Small Session

So how do you pick up this habit? It’s interesting, because so much of our lives is spent in unconscious mental habits. Without knowing it, we complain, we nitpick, we stress about little faults, we see the bad in people and situations. Changing that doesn’t happen immediately. But you can change a little at a time. Start with a small gratitude session, and really be thankful. Really feel the happiness that something or someone is in your life.

Take a moment to make a list, right now, of the things in your life you’re thankful for. You just might be looking back on this moment years later, as the moment your entire life changed.

The Thinking Habit That Changed My Life | Zen Habits

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Since launch, Google+ has been slowly integrating into the rest of the company's products — but today, it's taking another small step in that direction. At today's TechCrunch Disrupt presentation, Google has announced two new features designed to integrate the social network further into Google Search and the rest of the web. The first change is an embedding feature that would allow Google+ posts to be transplanted into outside pages like tweets or Facebook posts. Google+ will require users to embed more code than those other services, though, making for a slightly more complex process than usual.

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We've seen this lament on more than a few reviews: 16 gigabytes isn't enough storage for a mobile device anymore. Prolific hard drive vendor Seagate would like to offer an alternative to the sometimes stingy flash storage standard. Even 2.5-inch laptop drives are generally too big and power-hungry for tablets, but Seagate's new Ultra Mobile HDD crams up to 500GB of storage into a module just 5mm thin.

 

In addition to the thin design that could potentially fit in almost any tablet casing, the hard drive weighs only 3.3 ounces and uses as little as .14 watts of power.

• Archos Announces 80 G9 and 101 G9: 250GB Of Storage And 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor In A Honeycomb Shell
• Dual-Core 1.5GHz Tablets With 250GB Of Space Are Almost Here - ARCHOS 80 G9 Arriving September 20th, 101 G9 In October
• Jury Foreman Vel Hogan On Samsung Vs. Apple Case Failed To Disclose He'd Been Sued By Seagate, Partially Owned By Samsung
• Toshiba Excite Is Official: 7.7mm, 1.2Ghz OMAP, And Up To 64GB Of Storage

Seagate Shows Off 5mm Thin 500GB Hard Drive Developed Specifically For Tablets was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

It’s hardly a secret that Apple will unveil an upgraded iPhone at its Cupertino event on Tuesday. But that one phone could just scratch the surface of what shows up. Here’s what you should — and shouldn’t — expect from Apple’s announcements tomorrow at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.

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Responding to an earlier post on reporter Jessica Lessin's website, Amazon is now telling Lessin's team that it won't be selling its own smartphone in 2013 — and if it does decide to eventually launch one, it won't be free.

The statement goes against Lessin's earlier report, which had claimed that the retail giant was considering offering its phones at no cost. At that time, no details were offered on how Amazon might achieve the goal, but it's safe to assume that it would involve subscriptions to some combination of the company's services like Prime — which includes a video streaming component — or Kindle.

Even without offering a phone to consumers at no charge, it's possible that Amazon could still bundle its services in such...

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The Today Show and CNN frequently cite tweets when it comes to gauging public sentiment about current events like an election or natural disaster, and Facebook hopes to change that. The company today announced two tools that will give TV networks and news sites access to its data, so they can measure the amount of statuses mentioning Kim Kardashian, or find out if women, for example, are more interested in a specific news story than men. The two tools, called the "Public Feed API" and "Keyword Insights API," are being granted first to CNN, NBC, Sky TV, BuzzFeed, The Guardian, Slate, and social media analytics firm Mass Relevance.

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Clove Technology now taking pre-orders for all six colors, £282 to make one yours

We've literally just landed back home after IFA 2013 in Berlin, and one of the headline acts is starting to see retail information in the UK. The Samsung Galaxy Gear is now up for pre-order at online retailer Clove Technology, but it's going to cost you to get one. £282 plus delivery to be precise. 

Honestly we're not too surprised the Galaxy Gear is commanding a high asking price, but even so, that does feel like too much of a high asking price. Especially since to use one initially you'll also be handing over for a new Galaxy Note 3 as well. 

It's just one retailer, but it's an indicator of something we feared last week when we first saw Samsung's first smartwatch. If you're interested, head on over to the source link below to get your pre-order on.

More: Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Gear

Source: Clove

Earlier this year we reported on the unusually heavy-handed approach taken by the police who were acting on a tipoff from FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

Five unmarked police vehicles were sent to arrest a man in the UK following allegations that he ‘cammed’ the movie Fast and Furious 6 and put it online. After being banned from every cinema in the country the 24-year-old was released on bail.

But now, three weeks in advance of his bail date, things have started moving again with yet another surprising turn of events.

Earlier this week police and FACT turned up at the man’s home in the West Midlands armed with a new search warrant issued by a magistrate, this time in relation to the camming of the movie ‘Epic’.

After being taken to a police station at 8am the man was questioned and held for more than eight hours. Interestingly and despite significant resources invested in the original raid, the police informed the man that charges against him in respect of Fast and Furious 6 had been dropped. There would, however, be new charges.

“When I was eventually interviewed at 4pm I was questioned again by FACT in relation to the Fast and Furious 6 cam, which I ‘politely’ declined to answer any questions about,” he told TorrentFreak.

“UK law states that to be questioned in relation to another offense they would have to re-read my rights and arrest me for the offense first, something they didn’t do, so I refused to co-operate with them on that subject.”

FACT then proceeded to question the man in relation to the filming of the movie Epic, informing him that he’d been seen by a member of the public with “recording equipment.”

The man told us he did go and watch Epic on the day of release but had to leave the cinema 25 minutes in due to a family emergency.

“I never returned to watch Epic at the cinema so there is no way I could have possibly recorded the full film, and any leaks found online would have been incomplete,” he explained.

With no response, FACT switched their questioning back to Fast and Furious 6. Having already refused to answer questions on that subject as detailed above, the man told us he lost patience and began throwing some insults FACT’s way which appeared to amuse the police officer present. But with the interview over, things again took a turn for the unexpected.

“After the interview I was sent to the custody desk to be released and bailed where I saw my solicitor, whom I did not ask for during my detention. I approached her and asked her what was going on only to find out she did not know I had been arrested,” the man explained. It soon became apparent that the solicitor had other related business in hand.

“She was there to support my brother, sister and one of my sister’s ex-boyfriends, all of whom had been arrested for the same offense. So not only did FACT perform raids on my property, but also on my family members’ homes which dragged my family into the case.”

“Speaking with my family afterwards I learned that they had been arrested for the same offenses. During their interview FACT attempted to trip my brother up stating I had admitted my guilt and he may as well come forward. He did not fall for the tactic and didn’t say anything in the interview. My sister’s ex-boyfriend was also questioned,” he added.

“After my release I drove to my older sister’s house to find that FACT had taken numerous items from my sister belonging to her, her partner and her children. My sister’s ex-boyfriend was the one found there as they had raided his parents house who had given information regarding his whereabouts, yet the police did not arrest anyone else from the property.

“That begs the question as to why the police seized property not relating to any offense. The items taken included a laptop, three Xbox 360s, an Internet router and much more. The police shouldn’t have any grounds to take these items due to them being my sister’s property not the male who was arrested there but lives elsewhere,” the man concludes.

So for now things are on hold again. All people arrested are bailed until February 2014 at which point the police will either have to come up with some evidence, extend bail again, or drop the case.

Source: Police Arrest Alleged Movie Pirate Again, Along With His Brother & Sister

Many of us use a lot of Google services like search, Gmail, Drive and Calendar. However, the company has a host of other products that may surprise you with what they can do.

Have Spoken Conversations with Google Translate

If you've seen any text on the internet that's not in your native language, chances are you've encountered Google Translate. It's built into Chrome and the web-based form is pretty handy for everyone else. However, the mobile app has quite a few other features that are worth keeping around.

For starters, the mobile app includes "Conversation mode." This allows two people to tap on their respective language, speak aloud, and have their words translated into their partner's language and read back. It's as close to a Star Trek universal translator as you can get right now. The app also allows you to translate written text by taking a photo, and even save translated sentences to your personal phrasebook. While it may not be perfect, the Translate app should probably be installed on every phone.

Track Stocks Over Time with Google Finance

Google Now does a pretty good job if you only want to get information on how a stock is doing for today. However, if you're looking into the health of a company to determine which ones to invest in, Google Finance does a great job of collecting as much of the information you need as possible.

On a basic level, Google Finance will show you how a stock has performed over time, the company's market cap, EPS, P/E, and a whole bunch of other important figures you don't understand as much as you pretend to. If you really want to drill down, you can also check a company's financials—that is, all of the public financial documents the company is required by law to publish—to get a more detailed look at how they make money. If you do any investing on the stock market, the web app should be a primary research tool.

Learn About Your World with Google Earth

Google Earth plays second-fiddle to Maps quite a bit, as they have a lot of overlapping features. When it comes to practical day-to-day tasks like finding food or getting directions, Maps has you covered. For everything else, though, Earth is truly the superior product. One of the more useful functions is the ability to measure distances with a higher degree of accuracy than Maps.

If taking account of tedious trivia isn't your schtick, Earth offers a variety of other features that can reveal the nature of the world around you. In many areas, Earth has over two decades of map data. By using the time slider, you can view what a particular area looked like in the past. Alternatively, if the terrestrial world doesn't interest you, Google Sky (which is part of the Earth software), allows you to view all of the images of the universe Google has collected on its servers.

Create Advanced Notifications with Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a long-time staple of power users, yet it's still relatively obscure among Google services. To put it simple, Google Alerts allow you to get email updates whenever something new happens to a particular search term. Want to find out when the internet has something new to say about Miley Cyrus or Syria (hey, I don't judge)? Google Alerts can let you know as soon as something happens, or on a daily basis for just a summary.

By themselves, Google Alerts are a nifty novelty. However, combined with IFTTT, you can do some pretty potent thing. For example, say you want to be notified every time that your name shows up online in some fashion. You can set up an alert to send you an as-it-happens email when your name comes up. Create a filter for that particular Google alert, and use IFTTT to send it along to Pushover to help get your attention. Or use any number of other IFTTT recipes.

Educate Yourself with Google Scholar

Perhaps the least known and used service on this list, Google Scholar serves a great function any researcher should know about. This sub-division of Google's search allows you find scientific articles, academic papers, and legal documents. In a sense, it's what the internet was originally meant to be.

Scholar also allows you to drill down into local legal documents, as well. If you have a need to find information about decisions your local courts have made, you can specify which courts you want to hear from. While you won't be able to get down to city municipals, each state's court of appeals and supreme court are present, as well as circuit courts. Most of us won't have a ton of use, but when you have that one legal issue (or if you're a lawyer), you'll be glad you have it.

According to a new report from The Washington Post, President Obama's administration sought to relax restrictions on National Security Agency surveillance in 2011, winning permission from a surveillance court to deliberately search for the intercepted phone calls and emails of citizens without a warrant. The court also reportedly extended the length of time that the NSA is permitted to store intercepted US communications to 6 years, up from 5, and even longer under "special circumstances."

The 2011 decision overturns a 2008 ban on warrantless searches of the NSA's databases containing email and phone call records of American citizens and legal residents.

The Post's report comes as the Obama administration and the US intelligence...

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Speaker cables are so 1980, and if you're looking for an upgrade Bluetooth speakers are the logical next step. That said, the quality of Bluetooth speakers isn't always predictable, so we're going to look at five of the best speakers currently available, based on your recommendations.

Earlier this week, we asked you which Bluetooth speakers you preferred. You responded with a bunch of great nominations, but we only have room for the top five. Here's what you said, in no particular order.

Logitech UE Mobile Boombox

The Logitech UE Mobile Boombox is designed to be very small and easy to use. It has a built-in rechargeable battery, speakerphone capability for those random phone calls, and sounds about as good as you'd expect a tiny speaker to sound.

The Mobile Boombox also comes with the ability to let multiple people take turns selecting the music that goes to the speaker and offers up a 50 foot distance for wireless playback. At around $90, it's also one of the cheaper options on this list and is Wirecutter's pick for best portable Bluetooth speaker.

Bose Soundlink Series

The Bose Soundlink series comes in two flavors: the Mini and the Mobile speaker II. The former is extremely light at just 1.5 pounds, while the latter gives you even better quality sound at the sacrifice of its larger size.

Either way, at $200 and $300 respectively, neither are cheap options, but you'll get the sound quality you'd expect from Bose. The Mini doesn't charge via USB, and it doesn't have a mic so you can't make speakerphone calls through it.

Jawbone Jambox Series

The Jawbone Jambox series got a new addition this week, and the original Bluetooth speaker is still going strong. Most striking about the speaker is it's unique design, but it comes packed with everything you'd expect from a Bluetooth speaker, including a rechargeable battery and compatibility with most Bluetooth devices.

Coming it at around $160-$200, it's certainly not a cheap option, but the Jambox features firmware updates, apps, and a surprisingly powerful speaker driver to justify the cost.

Braven Series

Braven's line of Bluetooth speakers range from around $100 all the way up to $300 and you get the quality you pay for. Most of the speakers come with battery backups, the ability to charge external devices, and the ability to make hands free calls.

Braven's real claim to fame is their design. They're built for portability, so they're lightweight but still rugged enough to throw in your bag for a day trip. Many models also come packed with waterproof bags to keep the speakers safe no matter where you are.

JBL Flip

The JBL Flip is made to work in any situation you might need it in. The speaker design is set up so it can lay both horizontally or vertically, and sounds good either way. It's lightweight enough that you can pack it with you pretty much anywhere you go, and the fact it works in two directions means it's easy to find a place to put it.

At around $100, the JBL Flip is one of the cheaper options on this list, although it's a bit larger than the comparably priced Logitech UE Mobile Boombox. The JBL Flip charges with a charger as opposed to USB, so you'll always need access to a wall outlet if you want to charge on the go.

Photo by abhisawa.

In many countries across Europe users visiting many of the world’s leading torrent sites are greeted with messages informing them that the domain is no longer available.

These court-ordered blockades requested by the music and movie industries are becoming widespread, but even more common are tools to circumvent them.

One of the most straightforward and popular ways to unblock a site is by using a reverse proxy. There are dozens of them online and they are as easy to use as a regular website. So what makes these sites tick and what motivates their operators to keep them online?

TorrentFreak caught up with dhxr, an operator of PirateReverse.info, one of the largest torrent site proxies.

Censorship – necessary evil or something to be fought against?

“Personally I am against censorship at all levels bar extremities. Essentially there should be no censorship of the internet except for content such as child pornography. These views extend to mediums such as books and other publications,” dhxr explains.

“In the UK the IWF maintains a list of such content that has been blocked for a number of years – but as with every other instance this can be abused and used to block content on political or copyright grounds.”

Dhxr notes that in some cases censorship is acceptable, at work for example when you’re there to a job and not sit around on Facebook all day. But when we get home and are paying for what is now becoming a limited service, things change.

“One might say the definition of being able to access the internet is having the ability to at least connect to all 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses and 3.4*10^38 IPv6 addresses if your ISP provides IPv6,” he says.

As each week goes on, however, it’s clear that’s not what we’re getting.

What motivates to create and keep anti-circumvention tools online?

“For me, it was the realization that censorship of this level is wrong and cannot be tolerated. Why should we have some corporate interests govern what we can and cannot see?

“Unfortunately that is the way it is going – because fundamentally it is all about money, despite the many studies that claim blocking sites has little to no effect on record label and film company profits.

“I think most people who run proxy sites also share this realization and wish to help the effort. There can never be too many proxy sites,” dhxr observes.

Why are proxies and reverse proxies so important?

“Proxy sites are important because they are the easiest to use. There is no setting anything up for the user, just type in a URL and see the site you’re used to seeing. Their place in online society has only been formed out of necessity. If no torrent sites were blocked, then little to no torrent site proxies would exist. As it happens, with censorship rife in many countries, the need for accessible proxy sites is ever increasing, and with the more sites being blocked around the world, demand will continue to increase,” dhxr predicts.

Reverse proxies – how do they work?

“The term ‘reverse proxy’ relates to how the servers are configured. Typically a ‘forward proxy’ takes requests from clients (such as a web browser), fetches the content, and sends it back,” dhxr explains.

“An example of this is Immunicity. By requesting and relaying the content from an unblocked server, it allows unrestricted access to specific resources. On the other hand, a ‘reverse proxy’ does the same but rather than being setup in a web browser as a proxy, it is setup as a website, so all the user needs to do is type in a URL and the server requests content from the original site, then sends it back to the user.”

Maintaining a reverse proxy

“Daily maintenance is slim, it consists of checking everything is working as intended. Most other system admin tasks are automated. We don’t log so this removes a large maintenance hurdle of rotating the logs and managing disk space. We cache responses in memory because it’s faster than writing to disk, which is an important part of the process because without it, the proxies would be slow,” dhxr reveals.

Overcoming challenges

“As part of our almost daily routine, I check TorrentFreak and see if blocks against any new sites have been announced. Typically I like to get the domains sorted as soon as the sites are mentioned as candidates to be blocked, then I can get to work proxying them and ensuring they work fine, well ahead of when the blocks are due to be implemented. This can sometimes be challenging because from a technical level every site is different,” dhxr notes.

Interestingly there is one particular site that causes more problems than most.

“We don’t really know why, but Kickass’ servers compress all their content and you can’t ask for it uncompressed like most sites. This makes it very difficult, as many other proxy operators have experienced, to rewrite Kickass’ URLs so images and CSS load from an unblocked domain,” dhxr explains.

“At first we wrote a script that would manually ungzip content but it was slow and inefficient. Now, after much research and testing, we use Apache inbetween our web-facing servers and Kickass, which is configured to decompress content ready for the URLs to be rewritten so the site loads as the user would expect.”

Hardware – the thirst for more power

Initially PirateReverse used a small VPS server located inside the UK but that was soon moved to Sweden where it operated for several months. But due to an increase in demand, an upgrade was in order. Dhxr told us that two additional servers were obtained in Spain and the Isle of Man but a 16Gbps DDoS attack caused the site’s host to lose patience with the service.

“We took this opportunity to move onto our own dedicated hardware, which is what we’re still using today as it provides more than enough capacity which helps ensure our proxies are always fast regardless of how many people are using them. We currently have two web servers, each configured in parallel. There are other servers behind the scenes too that help keep everything running smoothly,” we were told.

PirateReverse are connected with the Immunicity unblocking service, so even more hardware is needed there.

“We have a few servers running the Immunicity website, the load balancer and configuration broker. Then we have two gateway servers, currently running in parallel.

“We have hardware pending installation, which when configured will replace the existing gateways. These new servers are more powerful and will keep Immunicity running for the foreseeable future at least, with 16GB RAM, 2TB HDD and 3.4GHz Intel Xeon E3 processors each,” dxhr reveals.

Looking to the future

Finally, what happens next month and next year? Dxhr says he’s not optimistic and fears for the health of the Internet.

“What was once thought to be open, has slowly started to become compromised by corporate interests. It is hard to predict specifically what will happen, but I think encryption will become a key element in what we do online in future,” he predicts.

“As for proxy sites, they can easily be blocked, and they are. Many of our domains for example are now blocked by UK ISPs. Whatever happens though, there will always be technical ways to circumvent censorship – success of these methods can often be down to the complexity, and the laws surrounding their use,” dxhr concludes.

Source: Censorship Busters: The Challenges of Running a Pirate Bay Proxy

One million of the worst-paid people in Britain will have to attend welfare caseworker assessments, and if they are deemed to be "not working enough," they face having their benefits cut -- even if no additional shifts are available to them. Of course, once their benefits are cut, they'll be homeless and then (shortly) jobless, and they can get back on the rolls. So it's not completely daft.

DWP internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal that people earning between £330 and around £950 a month – just under the rate of the national minimum wage for a 35-hour week – could be mandated to attend jobcentre meetings where their working habits will be examined as part of the universal credit programme.

...However the department did confirm that docking social security payments for those who are categorised as "not working enough" formed part of their plans.

UK's lowest-paid employees to be classed as 'not working enough'

Chrome: Wikipedia and YouTube are both bursting with helpful information, and Wikitube brings them both together to make your research more efficient.

The extension is about as simple as they come. Once you install it, every Wikipedia article will have a handful of embedded YouTube videos lined up at the top of the article. I visited about twenty different Wikipedia entries with the extension installed, and the videos were consistently relevant and useful. If you'd like to see more, a big red plus sign to the right of the video bar will load up more recommendations. You probably won't watch them every time you visit Wikipedia, but you might occasionally learn something that you wouldn't have read.

WikiTube (Free) | Chrome Web Store via Ghacks

December 2011, a month before the criminal proceeding against Megaupload became public, Kim Dotcom first revealed his plans to launch a new service to transform the music business.

At the time the project was called Megabox and the similarly named .com domain was seized by the U.S. Government. However, despite all the legal troubles, Dotcom continued development on the music platform.

It’s currently being prepared for a public launch, albeit under a different brand. Dotcom had decided initially decided to keep the new name a secret for a while, but after he resigned from Mega earlier this week there were several signs suggesting that it could be “Baboom.”

TorrentFreak presented the Internet entrepeneur with these findings, and Dotcom confirmed that the new service will indeed launch at Baboom.com.

Dotcom has already secured several millions in funding for the project and there are currently 22 developers working on it. Unlike Mega, Baboom will be operated by a company owned by the Internet entrepreneur himself.

With Baboom, Dotcom strongly believes that he can revolutionize the music industry and give artists full control over their music again.

“I am really excited about Baboom. I can’t wait for artists to see what i have created for them. Their entire career can be managed on Baboom. Artists never had more freedom, transparency and control,” he tells TorrentFreak.

The teaser below shows what Baboom will look like, although not all design elements are final yet. The completed project will be much more advanced than how the Megabox idea initially started, and Dotcom doesn’t plan to release it before it’s perfect.

Baboom teaser

Dotcom previously said that there are several “top artists” lined up for the launch, but those featured in the teaser above are just internal design placeholders, for now.

When it’s released Baboom will give the public access to free music, while compensating artists through advertising revenue. With this “free music” business model Dotcom believes he can decrease music piracy while giving artists proper compensation for their work.

In addition, Baboom is expected to have a paid version where music fans can pay for music and not be bothered by ads.

It is no secret that Dotcom has several prominent connections in the music industry and it will be interesting to see which artists join the project. In any case, there will definitely be plenty of attention for Baboom’s launch.

Whether Baboom will be able to challenge the mighty influence of the major labels will become clear in a few months’ time.

Source: Kim Dotcom Teases New Music Service… BABOOM

Building your own computer is the best way to get the perfect PC for your needs. Want to take your custom build even further? Beef it up with these 10 projects.

10. Get Your Money's Worth

Most of this list assumes you've already built your PC, but if you haven't, make sure you get the best bang for your buck. The most important thing you can do is get the right parts for your needs: that means not going overboard with parts you won't use to their full potential. Check out our recommended builds for a good starting point, and know when brand does and doesn't make a difference. Lastly, put those deal-hunting skills to good use and shop at the right stores for a killer PC that costs less. Image remixed from Tele52 (Shutterstock) and Logan Ingalls.

9. Turn It Into a Hackintosh (or Triple-Boot for the Best of All Worlds)

Whether you're a diehard Apple fan or you begrudgingly use their software for work, it's easy to get OS X without shelling out for an expensive Mac. As long as you have compatible hardware, you can turn your custom-built PC into a hackintosh that runs OS X, or even triple boot it with Windows and Linux for the best of all worlds. Be sure to check out our guide to updating your hackintosh in case you ever want to upgrade your hardware—it's a bit more work than it is on Windows PCs.

8. Clean It Regularly

Over time, the insides of your PC gather up dust and debris from the air, which can cause overheating, noise, and other problems. To keep your PC running in tip-top shape, give it a thorough cleaning once in awhile. All it takes is a can of compressed air to blow out most of the dust. If you have any hard-to-reach spots, you can usually get to them with a cotton swap or some dryer sheets. If you want to avoid dust buildup in the future, invest in a few air filters for your intake fans, and read up on positive air pressure.

7. Upgrade Your Peripherals

You probably put a lot of thought into the guts of your computer, but what about the peripherals? If you're still using the same mouse and keyboard you used in 1995, it's time to check out what else is out there. We've done guides on choosing the best peripherals, but a good starting point would be our Hive Five series. See what people consider the best speakers, keyboards, mice, and , and you'll be well on your way to a better computing experience. Photo by Barney Livingston.

6. Fill Those Unused Drive Bays

When you first build your computer, chances are you didn't put a lot into those drive bays at the front—maybe a CD drive, and an SD card slot if you need it. But you can do a lot more with those slots, like control your fans or add a hot swap bay for extra hard drives. Of course, if you end up going overboard and don't have room for the CD drive, that's okay—you can easily get by without one. Photo credit.

5. Overclock It for More Power

If you really want to get the most bang for your buck, you can push your hardware past its sanctioned limits for a bit of an extra boost. This is called overclocking, and it's a great way to eke more power out of your CPU for those processor-intensive tasks, or boost your GPU's gaming performance. Our guides should help you get started, but every family of CPU and GPU is different, so you may need to look up a guide specific to your processor and video card elsewhere on the net for the nitty-gritty. Photo credit.

4. Keep Your Fans Quiet

Your computer needs to stay cool, but that often means lots of fan noise. With a bit of work, you can keep it quiet as a mouse and cool as a cucumber. That means having a quality heatsink and set of fans, setting them up for optimal airflow (as we mentioned in #7 above), and controlling your fan speeds to keep them quiet when you don't need them. Of course if it's just one fan being really loud, there are ways to troubleshoot that too. Photo remixed from Jon Ross.

3. Cool It With Water

Of course, if you want the ultimate balance between cool and quiet, water cooling is the way to go. You'll still want to reference the above—since water cooling still requires quality fans and airflow—but it'll take your cooling to a whole new level, and be quieter than you ever imagined. Check out our beginner's guide to water cooling, or if you want something a little lower-maintenance, check out an all-in-one unit like the Corsair Hydro series.

2. Repurpose Its Parts When You're Done

When it comes time to upgrade your computer (See #1 below), you're probably wondering what you can do with all those old parts. Obviously you could recycle them, but that's no fun, right? If you have enough parts for an entire PC you could build a low-powered home server, or repurpose individual parts for other PCs around your house. Of course, selling them might be ideal, but it isn't quite as easy as selling an old cellphone. You'll have to do a little work to fetch a good price. Photo credit.

1. Know When (and What) to Upgrade

No matter how much of a beast your custom PC is, nothing lasts forever. Eventaully, it'll be time to upgrade one or all of the parts inside. But how do you know when upgrading is really necessary, and what parts will give you the biggest boost? Be sure to take into account bottlenecks: If your computer isn't playing the latest games, buying a new graphics card can help, but it can also be a waste of money. If you're just looking for general computing speed, an SSD is by far the best upgrade you can make (and you can migrate your data without too much trouble). Lastly, be careful not to fall into the futureproofing trap: more money spent doesn't always mean a longer-lasting computer. Learn where you need upgrades the most, and spend your money there—you'll be much happier if you do.

Erik sez, "Three years ago, Musopen raised nearly $70,000 to create public domain recordings of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and others. Now they're running a new campaign with a simple but ambitious objective: 'To preserve indefinitely and without question everything Chopin created. To release his music for free, both in 1080p video and 24 bit 192kHz audio. This is roughly 245 pieces.'"

They need $75K. $75 gets you a letterpress listening guide. As with all crowdfunding projects, be aware that they may not deliver, though this team has a good track record on similar projects that speaks well of their chances this time. Caveat donor.

We are asking for your help to free the life's work of Frédéric Chopin.

Why now?
It is 164 years after Chopin's death. His music is well into the public domain, yet most people consume it as if it were still copyrighted: from CDs, iTunes, or Youtube videos (many of which are copyrighted). We think Chopin deserves better.

Why Chopin?
Most public domain music is limited to the classical genre (1920's and before), but the goals of Musopen are not limited to one genre, so we want an artist that has broad appeal. Among the most enduringly popular composers, Chopin stands out. He also composed an amount of music which is manageable for us to record. If we had chosen Mozart, our funding goal would have to have another zero at the end.

We also wanted an artist that would be versatile, enabling many projects to make use of his music.

It doesn't hurt that he just celebrated his 200th birthday three years ago. This is a belated gift but one we think he would appreciate.

Set Chopin Free (Thanks, Erik!)

6-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 800 and 4K video recording all part of Acer's newest high-end offering

Acer recently announced its latest Android smartphone, the Liquid S2, with a monstrous 6-inch display. The device has made the trip to IFA 2013 in Berlin, so we took a quick look at what it's all about.

First that display. Yes, it's 6-inches and therefore it's pretty huge. But at the same time the whole device didn't feel as large in the hand as some other supersized devices. Make no mistake; you won't be one handing this thing properly unless you're a giant. But it's pretty light considering the size, and has a nice matt finish on the rear so its actually pretty good to hold.

read more

Here is a post I wrote for the Guardian:

It has been said that privacy is dead. Not so. It’s secrecy that is dying. Openness will kill it.

American and British spies undermined the secrecy and security of everyone using the internet with their efforts to foil encryption. Then Edward Snowden foiled them by revealing what is perhaps (though we’ll never know) their greatest secret.

When I worried on Twitter that we could not trust encryption now, technologist Lauren Weinstein responded with assurances that it would be difficult to hide back doors in commonly used PGP encryption — because it is open source.

Openness is the more powerful weapon. Openness is the principle that guides Guardian journalism. Openness is all that can restore trust in government and technology companies. And openness — in standards, governance, and ethics — must be the basis of technologists’ efforts to take back the the net.

Secrecy is under dire threat but don’t confuse that with privacy. “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret,” Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez tells his biographer. “Secrecy is what is known, but not to everyone. Privacy is what allows us to keep what we know to ourselves,” Jill Lepore explains in The New Yorker. “Privacy is consensual where secrecy is not,” write Carol Warren and Barbara Laslett in the Journal of Social Issues. Think of it this way: Privacy is what we keep to ourselves. Secrecy is what is kept from us. Privacy is a right claimed by citizens. Secrecy is a privilege claimed by government.

It’s often said that the internet is a threat to privacy, but on the whole I argue it is not much more of a threat than a gossipy friend or a nosy neighbor, a slip of the tongue or of the email “send” button. Privacy is certainly put at risk when we can no longer trust that our communication, even encrypted, are safe from government’s spying eyes. But privacy has many protectors. And we all have one sure vault for privacy: our own thoughts. Even if the government were capable of mind-reading, ProPublica argues in an essay explaining its reason to join the Snowden story, the fact of it “would have to be known.”

The agglomeration of data that makes us fear for our privacy is also what makes it possible for one doubting soul, one weak link — one Manning or Snowden — to learn secrets. The speed of data that makes us fret over the the devaluation of facts is also what makes it possible for journalists’ facts to spread before government can stop them. The essence of the Snowden story, then, isn’t government’s threat to privacy so much as government’s loss of secrecy.

Oh, it will take a great deal for government to learn that lesson. Its first response is to try to match a loss of secrecy with greater secrecy, with a war on the agents of openness: whistleblowers and journalists and news organizations. President Obama had the opportunity to meet Snowden’s revelations — redacted responsibly by the Guardian — with embarrassment, apology, and a vow to make good on his promise of transparency. He failed.

But the agents of openness will continue to wage their war on secrecy.

In a powerful charge to fellow engineers, security expert Bruce Schneier urged them to fix the net that “some of us have helped to subvert.” Individuals must make a moral choice, whether they will side with secrecy or openness.

So must their companies. Google and Microsoft are suing government to be released from their secret restrictions but there is still more they can say. I would like Google to explain what British agents could mean when they talk of “new access opportunities being developed” at the company. Google’s response — “we have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring” — would be more reassuring if it were more specific.

This latest story demonstrates that the Guardian — now in league with The New York Times and ProPublica as well as publications in Germany and Brazil — will continue to report openly in spite of government acts of intimidation.

I am disappointed that more news organizations, especially in London, are not helping support the work of openness by adding reporting of their own and editorializing against government overreach. I am also saddened that my American colleagues in news industry organizations as well as journalism education groups are not protesting loudly.

But even without them, what this story teaches is that it takes only one technologist, one reporter, one news organization to defeat secrecy. At the length openness will out.

Google is stepping up efforts to encrypt information flowing between its own data centers as a response to surveillance programs waged by the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world. "It's an arms race," Eric Grosse, Google's vice president for security engineering, tells The Washington Post. "We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game." The disclosure of the security effort, which has been going on for about a year, comes amid reports that the NSA can get around most common encryption methods.

Continue reading…

Amazon's smartphone has been in the works for quite some time, but very little information has appeared so far other than a string of rumors and reported acquisitions of Windows Phone executives. Now, on the eve of the latest iPhone, Jessica Lessin reports that the Amazon phone might be free. There is no word yet on what Amazon would require from consumers in order to make their free phone a reality, but Lessin suggests the online retailer might require Amazon smartphone owners to subscribe to Amazon Prime. Lessin's source also stated that "Amazon wants the device to be free whether or not people sign up for a new wireless plan at the same time." Amazon might be in talks with wireless carriers that would have an interest in offering the phone, although Amazon will likely make the device available on its website. This is still completely up in the air, but it could be a huge boost for the "Kindle Phone" if Amazon can pull it off.

NASA is nearly everywhere on social media — Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google+, YouTube, and even Foursquare. But it wasn't until today that NASA, as an agency, officially joined on Instagram. If you use the photo sharing service and are a fan of space, science, or generally beautiful images, NASA will end up being a must-follow. So far the agency has uploaded four historic images of the moon in a nod to the scheduled launch of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), which is set to take place tonight.

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You don't have to rely on a tailor or keep letting your pants drag on the floor. This step-by-step guide from a professional tailor and alteration specialist teaches you how to hem your own dress pants for the perfect length.

You might not even need a sewing machine, Danni Trester writes on the ManMade blog, although you should have tailor's chalk. The tutorial doesn't mention it, but first you should know how your pants should fit.

Then, proceed with the seventeen steps in the instructions, which are very detailed with helpful photos.

The DIY Tailor: How to Hem Dress Pants Like a Pro | ManMade