Listen to the critics, and Amazon's Echo Show represents be a honeypot of privacy intrusion and creepy surveillance. Though Alexa, the retailer's virtual assistant, isn't new, the addition of a camera to the Echo Show smart speaker gives her eyes in your home for the first time. It's the circumstances around when those eyes are open - and who can turn on that camera remotely - that is triggering privacy fears.
If you have a top-tier flagship smartphone, there's a good chance you paid somewhere between $600 and $800 for it...or more. That's a fairly substantial sum, and the reason why many find it hard to turn down their carrier's monthly phone insurance. That insurance, though, adds up on its own, typically being $11.99/month -- that's just under $144/year, not including the 'deductible' many charge when you need to use it. The good news is that you don't have to pay this; there are much cheaper options on the market with arguably better coverage.
The OnePlus 5 has finally broken cover and, with that, we are almost through this year's expected roster of flagship smartphones. While still waiting for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, the LG V30, the Moto Z2, and, of course, the iPhone 8, we can take stock of what we have so far and see how they measure against the smartphone that's promised to "Never Settle". Does OnePlus still have that special sauce that helped its meteoric rise to international fame, or in some cases, infamy? Or has it already fizzled out and has become yet another "also ran" phone? Let's see how it compares with the other runners in this race.
There's no shortage of phone assistants for Android, some more popular than others. If you've never bothered to set one up, long-pressing your smartphone's home button will result in Google Assistant popping up, and that's fine if that is what you want to use. If you're more fond of Microsoft's alternative, though, you can replace Google Assistant with Cortana as your default Android phone assistant.
The two premium tablets of the year have been revealed and all gloves are off in the fight between Microsoft's latest Surface Pro and the new iPad Pros, especially when they get the iOS 11 update later this year. Both have pit themselves against the other and the two are neck in neck in the battle for mobile computing supremacy, as well as consumers' wallets. Compared to mere media consumption, and usually cheaper, tablets, these two are often billed as productivity machines, your office on the go. So which of the two is really the ultimate productivity master? We take a closer look to find out
If you recently purchased a new high-end TV, only to turn it on and feel disappointment and confusion about the weird video motion, you're not alone. Some call it the 'BBC effect,' referring to the similarity between motion on new televisions and the motion effect on older BBC shows that used to bother so many American viewers. In recent times, though, this strange new video experience has become known as the 'soap opera effect,' and you can get rid of it if you'd like.
Depending on how much you like Wolfenstein, Bethesda's E3 2017 press conference last night may have been somewhat underwhelming. However, despite the generally unimpressed reaction the conference garnered from internet denizens, there was one announcement that has received a lot of talk in the hours since Bethesda went live: Creation Club. On the surface, it seems like this is another attempt by Bethesda to get us to pay for user-created mods, which have traditionally been offered free by their creators.
Facebook Messenger is no longer the mere secondary app you have to use to send your friends messages on mobile. The company has grown its messaging app into a standalone product, one that doesn't even require a Facebook account, and it is slowly expanding it with a wide array of features not limited to just chatting. You can do all sorts of neat things with Messenger, perhaps more than you realize, and we've selected five of the best.
As someone who has uncharacteristically fallen in love with his 9.7-inch iPad Pro, the revelation of iOS 11’s features was like an answer to long-held wishes. An expanded dock, a file manager, drag and drop. These do make the iPad Pro an even more convincing PC, or at least laptop, replacement. But as someone who also owns a well-aged Surface Pro 3, the iPad Pro is still a few leagues away from toppling the Surface Pro and its kin. Because unless Apple makes very drastic changes, the iPad, even with iOS 11, is still pretty much a gigantic iPhone.
Apple’s WWDC’s keynote was filled with unusual stuff. Contrary to previous practices, Apple announced new devices at WWDC this year. Not only that, it revealed an unexpected iMac Pro. And to top it all off, it is making it available in an unprecedented Space Gray color. That, however, comes at a very high-price of $4,999. That’s a price not many professionals will be able to afford or even be willing to pay, especially for a Pro computing device that still doesn’t give what they’ve been begging Apple for: flexibility.
Android prides itself for being an open platform. On a technical and legal level, that might be true. But when it comes to the day to day use of smartphones, Android doesn't stray too far from iOS' walled garden. Although not completely locked down, users are still locked out of functionality and hardware that may be rightfully theirs. There exists a class of Android users that constantly work to subvert this status quo. Some might see them as revolutionaries. Others look at them like they're insane. They are the root users, and they are on the verge of becoming an endangered specie.
YouTube has been around a long while, so long, in fact, that you've probably developed an impression of it that's a bit obsolete. Once the bastion of cat videos and fail compilations, YouTube has developed into a platform with some seriously great content -- including series and shows with production and writing quality that'll rival anything you see on TV. Still, finding this content is not a simple task, and so we're here with a list of the 30 best channels you've (probably) never heard of.
