Solution-Max: 2019-10-06

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Geek Trivia: Carl Sagan Hailed Which Time Travel Movie As The Most Accurate?

Carl Sagan Hailed Which Time Travel Movie As The Most Accurate?

The Terminator
Back to the Future II
Donnie Darko
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Think you know the answer?

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What to expect from Google on Oct. 15: Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, a faster Google Assistant, a more affordable Pixelbook, new Pixel Buds, and additional devices (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge:
What to expect from Google on Oct. 15: Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, a faster Google Assistant, a more affordable Pixelbook, new Pixel Buds, and additional devices — Pixel 4, a new Pixelbook, new Nest devices, and more — Google's annual fall hardware showcase is happening on Tuesday, October 15th, and we expect it to be a big one.

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Study: Xuexi Qiangguo, a propaganda app developed by China's Communist Party, enables authorities to retrieve messages, photos, contacts, and even record audio (Anna Fifield/Washington Post)

Anna Fifield / Washington Post:
Study: Xuexi Qiangguo, a propaganda app developed by China's Communist Party, enables authorities to retrieve messages, photos, contacts, and even record audio — BEIJING — The Chinese Communist Party appears to have “superuser” access to all the data on more than 100 million cellphones …

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AI-based firefighter safety startup Prometeo wins IBM Call for Code Challenge

During an event at the United Nations Delegates Dining Room in New York City, IBM unveiled the winners to its annual Call for Code Global Challenge. The competition, which is targeted at computing solutions for global problems, crowned five winners, ranging from first responders to health care info.

Prometeo took the top price for its Watson-based AI solution targeted at firefighters. The team, which is lead by a 33-year firefighting veteran, has developed a tool designed to monitor health and safety in the industry, both long term and in real-time. The Spanish startup developed a smartphone-sized device that straps onto the wearer’s arm to gauge things like temperature, smoke and humidity.

“If the color signal is green, the health of the firefighter is okay,” cofounder Salomé Valero explains on IBM’s site. “But if the color signal is yellow or red, the command center must do something. They must take immediate action in order to rescue or remove the firefighter from the fire.”

The team is working to roll out the device for testing in Spain, but is currently seeking funding for the project. The $200,000 prize from IBM ought to help out a bit.

The second place price went to India/China/US-based Sparrow, which has developed a platform for addressing physical and psychological health during natural disasters. U.C.L.A. team, Rove scored third place with a similar concept.

Call for Code is a five year program that aims to hand out $30 million for teams addressing widespread societal issues.

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Tencent-owned Riot says its broadcasters shouldn't discuss politics and religion on air; Epic, in which Tencent has a 40% stake, says political speech is OK (Makena Kelly/The Verge)

Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Tencent-owned Riot says its broadcasters shouldn't discuss politics and religion on air; Epic, in which Tencent has a 40% stake, says political speech is OK — Epic Games is cool with political speech though — On Friday, Riot Games said that League of Legends broadcasters should “refrain” …

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Google bans payday loan apps with an APR of 36% or higher from the Play Store, with praise from an African-American advocacy group that pressed it for the ban (Yuka Hayashi/Wall Street Journal)

Yuka Hayashi / Wall Street Journal:
Google bans payday loan apps with an APR of 36% or higher from the Play Store, with praise from an African-American advocacy group that pressed it for the ban — Google said it made the change ‘to protect people from deceptive and exploitative personal loan terms’

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Marketing docs for Pixel 4 and 4 XL confirm 5.7" and 6.3" displays, with 90Hz "Smooth Display", 12MP and 16MP rear cameras, and Snapdragon 855 with 6GB of RAM (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Marketing docs for Pixel 4 and 4 XL confirm 5.7" and 6.3" displays, with 90Hz “Smooth Display”, 12MP and 16MP rear cameras, and Snapdragon 855 with 6GB of RAM — Despite the official announcement being on Tuesday, Best Buy in Canada has already listed the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL for pre-order.

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Profile of PewDiePie covering his relationships with YouTube and mainstream media, as he tries to shed his reputation as a far-right sympathizer (Kevin Roose/New York Times)

Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Profile of PewDiePie covering his relationships with YouTube and mainstream media, as he tries to shed his reputation as a far-right sympathizer — The biggest YouTuber in the world has been accused of being a closet white nationalist and even inspiring mass shootings. He says it's all a misunderstanding.

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Alexa Can Now Speak Spanish in the US

You can now speak Spanish to your Alexa-enabled devices in the US. While Alexa would have previously replied with, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she will now be able to respond to your Spanish voice commands and reply in Español.

Amazon Teaches Alexa to Speak Spanish in the US

Given its proximity to Mexico, the United States has a high number of Spanish speakers. However, Google Home learned to speak Spanish in 2018, it has taken longer for Amazon to teach Alexa how to speak Spanish. But it has finally now happened.

In April 2019, Amazon announced that Alexa would soon be able to speak Spanish. In effect, the company had asked developers to “start building skills for Spanish-speaking customers in the US […] with the new Spanish for US voice model.”

How to Start Speaking Spanish to Alexa

With those skills having been certified, Alexa can now speak Spanish in the United States. According to The Amazon Blog, support for Spanish speakers runs deep, so there’s a “brand new Spanish voice, local knowledge, hundreds of skills, and more.”

There’s also a new Multi-lingual mode which allows users to switch seamlessly between Spanish and English. Once enabled, if you ask Alexa a question in Spanish she’ll respond in Spanish, but if you ask Alexa a question in English she’ll respond in English.

"Alexa, ¡Hola!" @alexa99 customers in the U.S. can now access Spanish language and Multi-lingual mode on supported Echo and Alexa built-in devices. https://t.co/BhmiJY8A1G

— Amazon News (@amazonnews) October 11, 2019

If you want to start speaking Spanish to Alexa and have her respond in kind, switch to “Español (Estados Unidos)” in the Alexa app. Or, alternatively, enable the Multi-lingual mode, which will be especially useful for multilingual households.

As a bonus for Spanish speakers in the US, Amazon has added a host of Latin music playlists to Amazon Music. These include a playlist full of urban artists and a playlist packed with dance songs. All of which you can ask Alexa to play in Spanish.

Is It Time to Learn to Start Speaking Spanish?

With 50 million Spanish speakers in the United States, this is long overdue. It has taken Amazon a while to catch up to the competition, but it’s better late than never. And if you’re not yet able to speak Spanish, here are the best apps to learn to speak Spanish.

Read the full article: Alexa Can Now Speak Spanish in the US

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6 Best Soundboard Apps to Create or Discover Free Sound Collections

A soundboard can spice up your podcast, or even add some pizzazz to personal conversations. Here are some great readymade soundboards, as well as apps to create your own custom soundboard for free.

Apart from the best apps and software to record podcasts, it’s a good idea to have a soundboard app. You can use it for things like your theme song or background music, or add zing to conversations by playing sound effects, movie one-liners, and so on. It’s all up to how creative you want to be.

1. Soundboard (Web): Huge Database of Sounds and Soundboards

Soundboard.com has a huge collection of sounds

If you’re looking to create your own Soundboard or browse those made by others, visit Soundboard.com as your first destination. This website has one of the largest collections of audio clips and soundboards you’ll find on the internet.

Soundboard claims its database holds over 500,000 sounds in several different categories like comedians, movies, animals/nature, politicians, prank calls, sports, etc. Choose a category to browse available sounds or search the website.

It also hosts several publicly available soundboards created by other users. Most of these are free for anyone to use by opening it in a browser or in the Soundboard apps. You can also download each audio file individually to save it to your hard drive.

With Soundboard, you can also create your own customized soundboard. It’s completely free, and you can upload as many audio files as you want. Create it, add a logo and a description, and upload the tracks you want. Each track can be given a name too. If you’re creating a professional soundboard, you can even charge for it per track or to download them.

The only place where Soundboard is lacking is an easy way to add a sound you find on the site to your own custom soundboard. Instead, you’ll need to download that audio file, and then re-upload it to your own board.

Download: Soundboard for Android | iOS (Free)

2. 101 Soundboards (Web): Large Collection of Soundboards

101 Soundboards has several readymade soundboards

101 Soundboards has one of the largest collections of free soundboards you will find on the internet. The best part is that this is among the few websites where you can control a sound’s playback, stopping it midway.

When you play any sound, especially a quote, you will see the full clip’s sound graph at the bottom of the screen, as well as the full quote. That way, you can decide if you want to stop the clip early or let it play out fully. It’s a tremendously useful feature, and I wish more apps had it.

The website is already populated with soundboards of all types, and you can check out the most popular ones, recently updated boards, or search through the collection. Chances are, you will find multiple soundboards for your favorite TV shows or movies.

And yes, you can register and upload your own sounds too. But there isn’t a handy mobile app, so I wouldn’t suggest this over Soundboard to create your own collection.

3. Myinstants (Web): Find and Add Sound Buttons to Your Board

Myinstants is the easiest way to find and add sounds to your own custom soundboard

The design is a bit garish for my taste, but Myinstants is such a good app that you can overlook it. This website has a large collection of small sound clips, ready to be turned into a soundboard of your choice.

It’s best to register for the website, as this will let you save sounds to your own Favorites board, and upload audio too. The website works well on mobiles, and a shortcut lets you turn it into a browser-based mobile app.

Find sounds by browsing categories like games, movies, television, viral, memes, music, politics, etc. Each button is a different color and describes the sound. There’s also a handy search button. If you like a sound, add it to your favorites with one click.

You can also upload custom sounds, give it a desired color and title, and add a short description. Myinstants is a quick and easy way to build a soundboard of buttons for any project, including your own clips.

4. Meme Soundboard (Web): Readymade Soundboard of Popular Memes and More

Meme Soundboard is a readymade soundboard of popular memes and audio files

If you’re looking for a readymade soundboard to use on a computer, tablet, or phone, Meme Soundboard has you covered. As the name suggests, it is populated with sounds from some of the popular memes, but look beneath the surface and it has a few tricks.

The main interface is a delight to use, especially on phones. Meme Soundboard presents the collection as a grid of tiles, which are easy to tap or click. Whether you want to rick-roll someone or get Simon and Garfunkel crooning Sound of Silence, you can perform a super-fast search or just browse to find it.

While the quick search is the best feature, you will also like the Loop button to repeat any sound infinitely. If you like something, click the star to add it to your Favorites. The only issue seems to be that there isn’t a pause or stop button to quickly end the audio.

Apart from memes, the website also has readymade soundboards for other common audio in the Non-Meme Sounds board. And if you don’t mind the foul language, check out the NSFW soundboard.

Psst, do yourself a favor and click the Harlem Shake button. It’s wild!

5. Soundboard Studio (iOS): The Best Soundboard App Ever

Soundboard Studio is, without a doubt, the best soundboard app for iPhones and iPads. In fact, it’s the best mobile soundboard app, and it’s a pity there isn’t an Android version.

The free version called Soundboard Studio Lite gives you all the features of the full-fledged app but restricts you to 24 tracks. It’s a good way to test the app before paying the hefty price for the full version.

What does it let you do? Well, the question should be, what doesn’t it let you do? Soundboard Studio supports a wide variety of audio file formats, can import from cloud storage, and record audio too. Plus, you can play two tracks simultaneously.

There are advanced settings for each track too. You can trim any track, adjust its volume, set it to loop, play it solo always and hush all other tracks, give it a fade in and fade out, and even set up automated actions. It’s just packed with features and looks great while doing it.

Download: Soundboard Studio Lite for iOS (Free)

Download: Soundboard Studio 2 for iOS ($59.99)

6. Custom Soundboard (Android): Best Free Soundboard Creator for Android

There is no Soundboard Studio for Android. The next best app is Custom Soundboard by Johannes Maagk. It’s completely free but ad-supported and lets you create unlimited soundboards with unlimited tracks.

You can add audio from a file on your Android phone, add multiple tracks at the same time, or record live audio. Each track can fade in or out, have its own thumbnail image or color, be looped a set number of times, and even trimmed.

The app also lets you create a backup of all your soundboards, which is a helpful feature that most others don’t have. If you take the time and effort to customize this app, it will serve you well, and you’ll never lose your data.

Download: Custom Soundboard for Android (Free)

Compress, Then Upload

The trick to creating a good soundboard is to use good quality audio clips for your collection. But often, the file size can become a bit much, especially if you use WAV files. It’s a good idea to compress your audio files and then add them to the soundboard.

Check out our quick guide on how to compress large audio files while retaining their quality. It can make a big difference for the listener, and you can store more files easily.

Read the full article: 6 Best Soundboard Apps to Create or Discover Free Sound Collections

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Apple's insistence on unnecessarily tying software releases to yearly hardware upgrades is a broken cycle for a services company; it needs to be more agile (Tyler Hall/tyler.io)

Tyler Hall / tyler.io:
Apple's insistence on unnecessarily tying software releases to yearly hardware upgrades is a broken cycle for a services company; it needs to be more agile — This isn't the blog post intended to write. In fact, last night I drafted up one about my problems sending background push notifications with Amazon SNS (coming soon!).

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From Cornbread to Candy Corn: The History of Your Favorite Fall Treats

A bowl of candy corn on a turquoise wooden table. — 5 Second Studio/Shutterstock

There are so many things to love about fall, but for a lot of people, the seasonal dishes top the list. Ever wonder how some of these foods became famously linked to this time of year?

Whether you’re curious who discovered cornbread, or why green bean casserole ever became a classic Thanksgiving dish, the past has the story for you.

Apple Pie

We’ll start things off with the classic fall dish, apple pie. But before we delve too deep, we’ve got a disclaimer for you. Neither apples nor pie crust is native to the U.S. So, how did this sweet treat become a symbol of American pride?

The only apple native to the U.S. is the crabapple, which isn’t the best in pie due to its incredibly sour taste. Hundreds of years ago, a fellow by the name of John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) planted crabapple seeds across thousands of miles. People then harvested the crabapples and made hard cider, but more on that later.

It wasn’t until the early 1600s that the apple seeds that grow into the apples we eat today were shipped overseas.

Wondering where pie dough came from? In Medieval England, crusts were called “coffyns” or “coffins” due to their thick durability and use for cooking savory foods for long periods. That’s not very appealing.

According to Emily Upton from Today I Found Out, the first recorded apple pie recipe dates back to 1300s England. That recipe, however, doesn’t resemble the apple pie we all love today. A version of the dessert we eat didn’t become available until hundreds of years after all the ingredients, like wheat, lard, sugar, and spices, made their way to the U.S.

In the early 1900s, the phrase “As American as apple pie” appeared in print, and by World War II, soldiers often told journalists they were fighting “for mom and apple pie.”

So, there you have it: a quick history lesson on the components of the sweet dessert that eventually became an American favorite.

Corn Bread

A mortar and pestle containing ground corn meal on a counter. — Jules1601/Shutterstock

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4 Leaf Blowers That’ll Blow Your Mind (and Leaves)

Man operating a heavy duty leaf blower: the leaves are being swirled up and glow in the pleasant sunlight — Smileus/Shutterstock.com

I’ve seen somewhere around 35 autumns so far, and let me tell you: raking leaves by hand doesn’t build that much character. So screw all that noise and make some louder noise with one of these leaf blowers.

I love autumn sounds: the gusty winds, the crush of dead leaves, the constant, mechanical howl of leaf blowers. I like to think of them as robot wolves. I also used to pretend the highway I lived next to was a machine river. I’m a weird dude.

The point is: fall looks pretty amazing, as the summer greenery turns from yellow to orange to shocks of red. Then all of those colors hit the ground and become brown, noisome trash. It’s nature’s garbage salad—sent to whet our appetites for the oncoming dirty-snow entree.

Anyway, you could spend a lot of your time with rake in hand, like one of our dumb ancestors, or you could be a wild future human with a Ghost Busters backpack who banishes leaf ghosts to your neighbor’s yard by harnessing the power of mechanical wind. That choice is yours.

My aim is to make that choice at least a bit easier by suggesting four leaf blowers, each of which does the job differently, for different people, for different amounts of money.

What to Look for in a Leaf Blower

As with loads of other motorized gear, you’re going to be looking either at electric or gas-powered blowers, and each has its pros and cons. Gas-powered blowers give you more power paired with portability, but you, like, also have to buy gas and generally perform more regular maintenance on the motor. Also, the blower’s going to smell like gas, which isn’t a big deal if you’re keeping it in the garage, but if it’s something you’re keeping inside a truck, or tucked away in the house somewhere, that’s going to make some smells, or possibly leak onto upholstery. Gas blowers also require you to fight a pull cord to get it started, meaning you might get pissed off before you even begin your leaf blowing in earnest.

Electric blowers, on the other hand, are lower maintenance, easier to start, and don’t smell like gas. The downside is, if you want them to have comparable power, then they generally need to be plugged into a power source. Portable electric blowers are going to be more limited in terms of power output, and you’ll get diminishing returns as the battery loses its charge.

As for output, two main factors determine how much it can blow: airspeed and volume (in cubic feet per minute, or CPM). Some blowers blow a huge volume of air, but at a relatively lower airspeed, and that’s still pretty good. Others blow at high speeds, but with a lesser volume, and that can be the result of a smaller tube diameter. Think of it like a garden hose: put your finger in it, and less water will come out at a faster speed. Take your finger out, and a higher volume of water comes out, albeit at a lower speed. If you’re covering a vast area, you might want a blower with decent airspeed, but a ton of volume output. If you’re blasting out the corners of your garage, that volume might be less critical than airspeed.

Best Overall: Hitachi RB24EAP

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Is Your Old Router Still Getting Security Updates?

An old wireless router on a table in a home. — Casezy idea/Shutterstock.com

Security researchers from Fortinet recently discovered security holes in some D-Link routers. Many of these routers are still sold online, but D-Link no longer manufactures them and won’t patch them. So how do you tell if your router is still supported?

Why Router Firmware Updates Are Important

Router updates are especially important. Your wireless router is generally the one device you connect directly to the internet. It functions as a firewall and protects all your other devices from incoming traffic thanks to network address translation (NAT.)

Security holes in routers can lead to them becoming infected by malware and joining a botnet. Disabling remote access to your router is a critical security tip, as it shields your router’s administration interface from the internet. However, installing the latest security updates is vital.

Unfortunately, many routers don’t automatically install security updates and require manual security update installation. You can install them from the router’s web interface—or mobile app if the router offers an app.

Why Are Manufacturers So Bad With Updates?

A D-Link DIR-655 wireless router. — D-Link’s DIR-655 wireless router, which is no longer receiving security updates. D-Link

When a security hole is found—whether by security researchers or by criminals who want to infect your router and make it part of a botnet—you want your router to have security updates. But they aren’t always available.

Manufacturers aren’t forced to update routers forever—or for any particular amount of time. Many router manufacturers manufacture a large number of different router models. When a hole is found, it may take quite some effort to patch it in all the different routers, which run different firmware (software.)

Worse, many router manufacturers compete on price quite a bit. If people are buying the cheapest possible routers, the router manufacturer will have to cut corners somewhere to compete in the market. Long-term support is an easy place to cut—after all, how many people will buy a router because the manufacturer promises extended security updates, or avoid a router because the manufacturer has no established policy on it?

How to Check If Your Router Is Still Supported

Is your router still supported? The only way to tell for sure is to check your router manufacturer’s website. First, take a look at your router and note its manufacturer and model number so you can check if it appears on an end-of-life list.

Apple: Apple’s AirPort base stations still appear to be supported with firmware updates, although the company is no longer manufacturing them.
Asus: Review the end-of-life product list on Asus’s website. As the official websites put it, the router’s firmware “will not be updated” after it reaches end of life.
Cisco: Cisco lists a variety of end-of-life and end-of-sale products on its website.
D-Link: Consult the official list of legacy products on D-Link’s website. Routers on this list won’t receive security updates.
Netgear: Netgear doesn’t appear to have an end-of-life product list—yes, that’s pretty absurd. Here’s a third-party list that’s probably incomplete.
Linksys: Linksys offers a list of obsolete products. That’s just the first page—be sure to consult page 2 and page 3 of the list, too.
Google: Google’s WiFi routers are recent, and all appear supported with updates. However, Google seems to have given up on keeping an up-to-date list of firmware updates on its website.
Synology: Synology offers a product support status website listing its devices and what support they’re receiving.