Decades after ozone-depleting substances were banned, we’re finally seeing the results. According to a joint press release from NASA and NOAA, the hole in the ozone layer is now the smallest it’s ever been since we began measuring it. There is now a long-term trend towards an overall recovery. The existence of a hole in the ozone layer is probably one of the first world events I consciously remember. The ozone layer above us is a critical protective layer around our planet. It blocks damaging UV radiation, including UV-C and UV-B. While some UV-B still makes it to the Earth’s surface (it’s the wavelength associated with sunburn and skin cancer), concentrations of UV-B are 350 million times higher at the top of Earth’s atmosphere than they are at the surface.
The launch of Google’s new Pixel 4 smartphone is just two days away, but those that pre-order the phone today from Amazon can get it with a $100 discount. Google’s Pixel 4 comes equipped with Qualcomm’s SnapDragon 855 SoC and 6GB of RAM. This hardware gives it a healthy performance boost over the Pixel 3 and also makes it competitive with other flagship smartphones from Apple and Samsung. If you pre-order one of these phones now from Amazon, you can get it discounted from $799.00 to $699.99. You can also find more information about other pre-order deals on Google’s .
The era of mobile gaming started off great with cute little time-wasters like Angry Birds, but then in-app purchases happened. Today’s top mobile games are mostly “free-to-play,” which is a nice way of saying everything you do seems to cost money. Some players are willing to pay, and one publisher has that can identify the so-called “whales” who will spend the most. And you thought Oblivion Horse Armor was bad. Developer and publisher Yodo1 is behind some highly popular mobile games like Crossy Road and Rodeo Stampede. It’s not uncommon for top players in these games to spend a few hundred dollars on power-ups, cosmetic items, and in-game currency.
Journalists write stories for different reasons. Some stories concern major developments from the corporations we cover on an ongoing basis. Some stories get written because they’re viewed as important, even if we know they won’t pull many readers. And some stories — some stories, Dear Reader, are more-or-less written because of the author’s visceral sense of disgust. This is one of those stories. A group of researchers working for a company named “Skin-On” have developed a novel and horrifying method for controlling a device: . As Marc Teyssier, the apparent project lead, says: “Human skin is the best interface for interaction.
All the major US carriers have some sort of , but phones that support the service are still few and far between. Maybe that’s not so bad because 5G isn’t the best experience even if you have one of those expensive new phones. Verizon just announced indoor 5G for several arenas in cooperation with the NBA, but it . Carriers like Verizon tout the theoretical multi-gigabit speeds of 5G service, but good luck finding a good 5G signal. Those super-fast data speeds are only attainable with millimeter-wave 5G, which operates in the tens of gigahertz. These signals can carry a lot of data, but they don’t pass through obstacles like walls.
Android has supported various flavors of face unlock over the years, but the new Pixel 4 is the first one to have a secure 3D version backed by Google. In fact, Google is so gungho on face unlock that it didn’t even bother to include a fingerprint scanner. Early testing showed Google’s “Face Match” was effective, but it didn’t check to make sure your eyes were open. Google now says it , but it won’t happen right away. Like the iPhone, the Pixel 4 uses infrared illumination and cameras to scan the user’s face in 3D. This is vastly superior to 2D solutions that simply use the front-facing selfie camera.
It becomes increasingly clear every day how difficult it can be to maintain some semblance of privacy on the internet. An increasing number of people have started using VPN services to keep their activities private, but a compromised VPN can be even worse for your anonymity. The popular and widely recommended NordVPN pushes its ability to protect your privacy online, but it has just admitted that unknown attackers year. A VPN acts as a “tunnel” for all your web traffic, so anyone attempting to observe what you’re doing will just see data going to and from the VPN’s servers.
Beef up your home security with one Ring. Today you can get Ring’s Video DoorBell Pro and Video DoorBell 2 devices with a free Echo Dot and with a sizable discount. If you want even more security, then you’re in luck, as Ring’s 8-piece home security kit is also available with a large discount. This helpful device is more than just a doorbell. It sends notifications to your Echo devices whenever the doorbell is rung, and it will allow you to see who is at your door and talk to them. This helps to keep you safe by making it easy to check who’s there.
One of the most profound problems with the idea of a “smart home” is the fundamental disconnect between how hardware manufacturers think about these products and how homeowners and homebuilders consider them. There have been multiple instances of companies going out of business or canceling older product lines with little-to-no concern for what would happen to the user base they left behind. Hardware manufacturers, it’s clear, want to treat home automation the way we treat cell phones, where you buy one, use it for a few years, and then swiftly upgrade to the latest model. Vendors want ecosystem lock-in and often relatively short replacement cycles.
