IDC’s smartwatch sales estimates for the second quarter of 2016 are in, and the news isn’t great, particularly for Apple. According to Overall, smartwatch makers shipped a total of 3.5 million devices in the April-to-June quarter, IDC says. That compares to a total of 5.1 million in the year-ago quarter.
You can tell we’re getting close to the fall, because each week this news roundup includes more and more trailers. But that’s just the fluff. I know you’re really here this week because someone replaced all the textures in Also this week: I said last week that it’d been a while since a Humble Bundle impressed me. Well, now we’ve gotten pretty crazy bundles two weeks in a row, so I might have to revise that statement. This week it’s a 2K bundle, and the notable bit:
Stock up on new Android apps and games for the weekend.
As the U.S. heads toward an especially contentious national election in November, 15 states are still clinging to outdated electronic voting machines that don't support paper printouts used to audit their internal vote counts. E-voting machines without attached printers are still being used in a handful of presidential swing states, leading some voting security advocates to worry about the potential of a hacked election. Some makers of e-voting machines, often called direct-recording electronic machines or DREs, are now focusing on other sorts of voting technology, including optical scanners. They seem reluctant to talk about DREs; three major DRE vendors didn't respond to questions about security.
Verizon's continuing its ongoing mission to pare down the number of customers on unlimited data plans by migrating them to ones with hard limits. Recently, the company came up with a way to get rid of its biggest data hogs. Verizon is notifying customers using an “extraordinary” amount of data per month that they must move off their unlimited data plan by August 31. If they don’t switch, the carrier will disconnect their accounts, though they’ll have 50 days to reactivate them on a limited plan, as first reported by Verizon
This week,
Famed DVD rental kiosk distributor Redbox is moving ahead with its second attempt at a
Security researchers have released tools this week that could help users recover files encrypted by two relatively new ransomware threats: Bart and PowerWare. PowerWare, also known as PoshCoder, Researchers from security firm Palo Alto Networks
10,000 steps is not a real workout.
Ditching your cable- or satellite-TV subscription and going to a setup combining a streaming device along with an antenna to pick up over-the-air digital broadcasts is a smart move that will save you some serious cash every month. There’s plenty of free TV to be had—well, you’ll passively pay by being exposed to commercials—but you’ll need an antenna to pull those signals in. An outdoor model mounted to a tall mast (elevating the antenna at least 30 feet off the ground) will yield the best results, but that’s not the most attractive accessory for your home, and it’s a total no-go if you’re a renter or live in an apartment. Indoor antennas can do the job if you don’t live
Another year, another Razer Blade. Just swap out a few of the internals, tweak the design, and presto—you’ve got yourself a new-ish computer. Don’t expect huge surprises or massive leaps in power. This here is what we call an “incremental upgrade.” Most people won’t notice or won’t care about the kind of visible (and tangible) changes Razer has made to the 2016 Blade. At the very most, they’re adjustments that might elicit a muttered “Ah, cool” as you read this. They include:
In a market where looking good in the living room doesn’t seem to be on the list of design priorities, Terk looks to start a new trend with its Horizon indoor amplified antenna Instead of lying flat on your TV stand, or finding itself pinned to a wall or taped in a window, Terk’s Horizon looks more like a sound bar that rests on top of or in front of your TV—it barely looks like an antenna at all. Open the box and you’ll find a customizable stand, a nine-foot coax cable, a power adapter, and a USB power cable in addition to the antenna itself.
RCA’s amplified antenna (
True to its name, Winegard’s FlatWave Amped antenna is paper thin. It’s also extremely light, weighing just 0.6 pounds. Despite its diminutive proportions, Winegard says the multi-directional antenna is capable of pulling in signals from broadcast towers as far away as 50 miles. You can lay the antenna flat on a surface, mount it on a wall, or do as I did and install it inside in a window casing using the provided 3M Command strips. This is an amplified model, so keep in mind when you place it that you’ll need to plug either its AC power adapter into a nearby outlet or its three-foot USB power cable into one of your TV’s vacant USB ports. I tested using both power sources and found no obvious signs of change in reception quality or clarity.