Posts by Daniel Howley

OnePlus 3 Review: A premium smartphone at a not-so premium price

If you’re going to buy a new smartphone like the iPhone 6s off-contract, you’re going to have to shell out at least $650, $750 if you go for the larger 6s Plus. Want Samsung's Galaxy S7? That’ll set you back $670. But that’s the price you pay when you want a high-end smartphone, right? Not exactly.

The OnePlus 3, developed by Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, is designed to be every bit as powerful and capable as Apple and Samsung’s offerings for hundreds less. And at $400, the handset is a steal as far as high-end phones go. And OnePlus knows it.

The company calls its phones “flagship killers” because they include everything that makes Apple’s and Samsung’s phones great without the price tag. And you know what? It’s true.

Wrapped in an aluminum unibody, the OnePlus 3 looks and feels just as premium as Apple’s iPhone 6s and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 are. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to build a new smartphone that doesn’t look at least a little similar to its competitors. After all, there are only so many ways you can make a rectangular slab with a home button.

But if you’re interested in the OnePlus 3 and are an AT&T or T-Mobile customer, you really can’t go wrong.

C-SPAN turns to Facebook Live to broadcast Democrats' sit-in for gun control

If you need further proof that live social media streaming services like Facebook Live or Periscope can impact real-world events, then you might want to tune into C-SPAN.   That’s because the network is currently using Facebook Live to broadcast a sit-in being held by Democrats in the US House of Representatives to demonstrate for gun-control legislation. C-SPAN has to rely on Facebook Live rather than its official House camera feed because the House is in recess right now. And since the House controls the cameras, C-SPAN can’t turn them on.   As the protest got underway, C-SPAN was quick to point out that it didn’t have the power to control the cameras in the House. A live Periscope feed quickly popped up hosted by California Democrat Scott Peters and then switched over to a Facebook Live feed from Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke.   The sit-in began when Georgia Democrat John Lewis called on his fellow Democrats to hunker down on the floor of the House. Republicans quickly called a recess, which shut off the C-SPAN feed. The protest is being held as a means to force a vote on gun control legislation following the failure of four such measures last week.

The ‘Netflix of China’ is coming to the US, and it could be huge

Chances are you’ve never heard of LeEco. But that’s likely to change this fall when the Chinese conglomerate — often called the Netflix of China — launches in the US. And if the breadth of services and devices the company offers in its homeland is any indication, LeEco could prove to be a worthy challenger to Silicon Valley heavyweights ranging from Apple to Tesla.

LeEco, formerly known as LeTV, began as a streaming media service in 2004. That’s a full three years before Netflix was streaming content here in the US. Since then, LeEco has expanded well beyond streaming video to markets as diverse as smartphones and self-driving cars.

The company, which has a market cap of $14 billion, has three content verticals: content, sports and portfolio business. Each has its own subsections. Content, for example, includes Le Vision Pictures, LeEco’s own production studio, and LeTV.com, its video streaming service.

Netflix, however, is a different story. Not only is the company’s name ubiquitous with video streaming in the US, its market cap is nearly three times that of all of LeEco.

We’ll find out come fall.

There’s a quick and easy way to be more secure online

You probably think your social media, email and online banking accounts are pretty secure. After all, you use different complex passwords for each and never log into them from public computers. Yeah, your online accounts are locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

Except they’re not.

With a little bit of social engineering, an experienced hacker could get the passwords for your online accounts in no time. And let’s face it, if SplashData’s annual list of most popular passwords is any indication, your “complex” passwords are probably nothing better than “123456” and “qwerty.”

Read more: What to do if hackers hold your computer hostage and demand cash

But there’s a quick and easy way to significantly increase your online security: two-factor authentication. Two-factor, sometimes called two-step, authentication is basically the deadbolt for your online accounts.

And if you’re not at least considering two-factor authentication after reading this, you should probably just delete your online accounts and start communicating via handwritten letter or morse code.

Here’s what to expect from Apple’s big developer conference

I’ll be on the ground live blogging WWDC from San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium beginning at 10 a.m. ET. Until then, let's take a look at some of the best predictions and leaks about what Apple is expected to unveil.

The next version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 10 is rumored to bring improvements to the OS’s interface, give Siri a bit more control and feature a big update for Apple Music.

iOS 10 will get a refreshed design with new notifications, according to 9to5Mac. Likewise, CNET says Apple Music will receive a much-needed facelift. Those Apple Music updates will include an easier to navigate interface and tighter integration between streaming and music downloads, according to a Bloomberg report.

Oh, and expect to see some form of hub for HealthKit apps and devices.

Read more:

Samsung Gear Fit2 review: Fitness tracker meets smartwatch

Part fitness tracker, part smartwatch, the Android-only Fit2 offers 24/7 activity tracking, as well as the ability to reply to smartphone notifications from your wrist. And at $180, the Gear Fit2 crams those features into a relatively inexpensive package.

I spent a week using the Fit2 at the gym, at work and while eating a ton of junk food at 3 a.m. and found its split personality equal parts helpful and overwhelming.

The Gear Fit2 largely hews closely to your typical fitness tracker's design thanks to its sporty, rubberized band. But what sets the Fit2 apart from the likes of Jawbone, Fitbit, and Garmin’s offerings is its curved, 1.5-inch Super AMOLED display. Thanks to the curved screen, the Fit2 sat comfortably on my wrist and didn’t rub against the back of my hand when I curled my wrist while lifting weights.

The Fit2’s band comes in large and small sizes and three colors: black, blue and pink. The tracker certainly isn’t ugly as far as fitness trackers go, but it’s not attractive enough to pull off with a suit or formal dress.

Read more:

The great smartphone boom is about to bust

 

 

 

Game of Throne’s heartthrob Kit Harington could be in the next Call of Duty

Update: A previous version of this post indicated that Kevin Spacey was in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. He was in Advanced Warfare .

Of course, Harington is still sporting his trademark locks, though he’s very much sans beard. As Mashable points out, Activision, Call of Duty’s publisher worked out a similar arrangement with former Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch for an ESPN the Magazine spread in the lead up to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

Heck, even the motion capture setup used in the Harington video is similar to the one Lynch was shown sitting inside in the ESPN piece.

This isn’t exactly some disastrous leak to be sure. It seems more like a public relations plant seeing as how two completely different outlets received the same video from unnamed sources.

Harington wouldn’t be the first big-name Hollywood type to make the transition to games through Call of Duty. In fact, House of Cards’ Kevin Spacey played a rather large role in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare .

We’ve reached out to Jon Snow for comment, but as usual he knows nothing.

The great smartphone boom is about to bust

The smartphone boom is about to go bust, with sales growth expected to fall to single digits in 2016. That’s a far cry from the 73% growth the industry saw just six years ago.

According to market research group Gartner Inc., worldwide smartphone sales will increase by just 7% in 2016. IDC Research, meanwhile, predicts growth will slow to just 3.1%.

Why such a precipitous drop? Simply put, because consumers already have too many smartphones in their hands. Smartphone markets in North America, Europe, Japan and more mature Asia and Pacific markets have already reached 90% penetration, according to Gartner. That’s a lot of smartphones.

China was supposed to be the next big smartphone hotbed to keep sales on their upward trajectory, but Gartner reports that overall sales were flat in the region in 2015 with little growth expected over the next five years. Gartner research director Annette Zimmermann says companies should instead look to India, which she says has the highest growth potential.

 

First-time VR user: ‘I freaked out and lost all control’

Ah virtual reality: a technology that holds the promise of transporting us to a never-before-seen world only to immediately horrify us into a full-body seizure by throwing hordes of zombies at us.   At least that’s how graphic designer Carrie Glaser’s first VR experience went down. Glaser, who stars in the above video, was trying the survival-horror game “The Brookhaven Experiment” at her job at Zooka Creative since as she put it, “My coworkers are evil and knew that would be a good one to put me through.”   “The Brookhaven Experiment” isn’t for the faint of heart. Available for the HTC Vive, the game sticks you in a small circle in the dark of night with nothing but a slowly dying flashlight and little ammunition against waves of creepy, pink fleshy zombies.

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.

HP wants to beam you to a different reality with its new VR backpack

HP, on the other hand, wants to cut the cord to give you a truly untethered VR experience, and it aims to do this by getting your PC off the floor and putting it on your back. Think Master Blaster from “Mad Max,” but nerdier.

Built by HP’s gaming-focused Omen Innovation Team, the HP VR PC Pack Hardware Development Kit is a test platform aimed to immerse you in virtual reality by eliminating the possibility that you trip over any cords.

Read more: Virtual reality gets real: Sony PSVR vs Oculus Rift vs HTC Vive

It’s impossible to simply make the entire setup wireless: There’s too much information going from your PC to your headset to effectively transfer data without running into any latency issues.

Available to select developers who apply to via HP’s website, the pack is a fully functional, lightweight PC that you wear on your back like a backpack. Your VR headset then plugs into the pack, meaning you’ll never trip on any wires.

As for heat management, HP says it has a dual-fan system that blows heat generated by the pack away from the wearer’s back.

I’m pumped.

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