As for the app itself, it works by analyzing your heart rate, as well as other factors like your location, and the current weather and time, to generate “personalized soundscapes” that Endel claims can help you relax, focus and fall asleep. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how different frequencies affect the human brian during sleep, but there is some evidence that suggests relaxing sounds can reduce anxiety. The app also has a 4.4-star rating on 771 ratings on the App Store. Whatever the case, if you’re feeling anxious and own an Apple Watch, it can’t hurt to try it out.
You can try Endel by downloading it from the App Store. Besides the Apple Watch, it’s also available on iPhone and iPad, in addition to Android smartphones. You can also check out the company’s recently launched Twitch channel if you need to unwind and fall asleep after a string of stressful late-night games of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
There are some treats in store if you’re a Google One subscriber, too. People on “select” plans can get as much as 10 percent in Google Store credit when they buy a device or accessory from the shop. And if you were only thinking about One, buying a Pixel 4 will give you a three-month trial for the entry-level plan with 100GB of storage, upgraded support and Pro Sessions to make the most of your phone. This won’t make up for the end to free full-quality photo storage, but it will help you decide if it’s worth paying for that perk.
The ridesharing company is aiming to help people from a range of backgrounds. They include veterans, people with disabilities, refugees, formerly incarcerated individuals, those in low-income areas and 18- to 24-year-olds perhaps trying to land their first job.
The program will initially be available in more than 35 cities across the US and Canada, and the nonprofits will connect people who could use some help with Lyft rides. Other partners include United Way and 211, Year Up, Generation, #cut50 (Dream Corps), The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and Upwardly Global.
Along with trips to and from interviews and job training programs, Lyft aims to help people get to work and home again for their first three weeks of employment. That could ease the burden for them of getting to their jobs until they can pick up a paycheck and pay for transit themselves.
Earlier this year, Lyft committed to spending at least $50 million (up to one percent of profits) annually on measures such as transportation infrastructure, sustainability and donated rides. The Jobs Access Program is part of those efforts.
“We are excited to be working with HBO Max to bring the complete collection of Studio Ghibli films to streaming audiences in the U.S. As a premium content brand, HBO Max is an ideal home for our films,” Koji Hoshino, chairman of Studio Ghibli, told Varietyin a statement. “Upon launch of the service this spring, existing Ghibli fans will be able enjoy their favorites and delve deeper into the library, while whole new audiences will be able to discover our films for the first time.”
It might seem surprising that Disney didn’t grab the Studio Ghibli movies for its own upcoming streaming service. The company was responsible for dubbing many of the films into English, and held theatrical and home video distribution rights for them until 2017 when GKids took over.
In fact, it’s surprising that the Ghibli movies will be available to stream at all. Polygon reported on Wednesday about the reluctance of the studio and Hayao Miyazaki (its co-founder and the creative force behind many of the films) to distribute their movies other than via theatres, DVD and Blu-ray.
However, Ghibli has relented on that stance. You’ll be able to watch almost all of the studio’s movies on HBO Max when the service launches in the spring (The Wind Rises will be available to stream next fall).
It’ll surely be a welcome update for Google Voice users who have an iPhone or iPad, particularly since Siri can learn your calling and messaging preferences, but it leaves the service in a strange place on the voice assistant front. Sure, it works with Siri, but you still can’t send messages or start Google Voice calls with Google Assistant. Perhaps the Siri support is a bellwether for Google enabling Assistant control for the service in the near future, but for now, Voice has a curious dichotomy going on.
Once I worked through the software issues, the Vive Cosmos managed to deliver a solid high-end VR experience. In the shooter Raw Data, the high-res displays made the environments look crisper and more detailed than on the Vive. It was also a great test for the Cosmos’s tracking and motion controllers, since it involves a lot of fast-paced shooting with a variety of weapons. The headset didn’t have any trouble keeping up, even when I was desperately trying to avoid getting killed by evil robots.
Superhot, which is still my favorite VR game, runs like a dream on the Cosmos. It’s slower paced, but it also involves plenty of movement and precise combat. Clearly, HTC didn’t lose much accuracy by moving to inside out tracking. The only major issue I had was its need for a ton of light. I would occasionally get error messages in-game saying my environment needs to be brighter. HTC is aware of that issue, but so far, the company has just reduced the amount of error notifications that pop up. Hopefully it figures out some way to optimize its sensors for low light soon, though.
The Vive Cosmos’s controllers, meanwhile, feel serviceable yet unremarkable. You’ll notice they look a lot like Oculus’s touch controllers, with contoured handles, analog sticks and gamepad-like buttons. There are two trigger buttons at the top, as well as a grip button.
At this point, Oculus is on its second generation controllers, and Valve is exploring completely new VR interaction methods with its finger tracking controllers. HTC just seems to be playing catch up, with a design that clearly bites from what Oculus did four years ago, and no major innovations. The controllers work fine, but everything about them just feels cheap and a step behind the competition. It was also annoying to hold them for long, since they’re so big. That’s another area where the Index beats out the Cosmos. Since its controllers are physically strapped to your hands, holding them is literally effortless.
Valve’s headset also offers superior audio with its near-field speakers. The Cosmos’s headphones sound fine, but I had a lot of trouble getting them to sit close to my ears. Thankfully, you can easily remove them if you’d rather use your own headphones.
So sure, the Vive Cosmos isn’t perfect, but on the whole I think it’s a solid high-end headset. That $699 price, however, makes it incredibly hard to recommend. While it’s a better experience than the Rift S, but it’s not $300 better. And the Cosmos is even harder to swallow when the $400 Oculus Quest offers great standalone VR, and soon it’ll even run PC virtual reality over a cable. And if you’ve got the money to burn, the $1,000 Valve Index is a far better play at next-level VR, even though it requires setting up sensors.
If HTC released the Cosmos a year ago, I would have sang its praises. But today, now that inexpensive VR is getting better and high-end VR is more innovative, I’m not sure who the Cosmos is actually for.
As The Verge reports, the bill would allow the FTC to set minimum privacy and cybersecurity standards for tech companies, issue fines up to four percent of a company’s annual revenue and make it a crime for senior execs to lie to the agency regarding privacy issues. It would empower state attorneys general to enforce the regulations and let users opt out of data tracking for targeted ads. It would require some platforms to offer paid “privacy-protecting” versions, and it would use the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Lifeline program to make sure low-income people had access to those versions.
“Mark Zuckerberg won’t take Americans’ privacy seriously unless he feels personal consequences,” Wyden said in a statement. “A slap on the wrist from the FTC won’t do the job.”
Wyden has taken a strong stance against big tech. He’s questioned the FCC, asked carriers who they’re selling customer data to, put pressure on Facebook and more. So it’s not surprising that he’s the driving force behind this bill. Other lawmakers in both the House and Senate have introduced similar data privacy legislation, but so far, none of them have been put to a vote.
Curious Creations starred a menagerie of creepy-cute Jim Henson puppets, including an undead raccoon named Rose, who helped McConnell create intricate, spooky sweets and complete impressive home-improvement projects. It catered to viewers desperate for a show blending the sensibilities of Martha Stewart with the morals of Morticia Addams. It was witty, clever, informative and visually delicious. And then, with one phone call, it was over.
“It was a bummer,” McConnell said. “I’ve never actually spoken with anyone at Netflix. They didn’t email me, and I never heard what the reasoning was, so I’m in the dark about what that was about.”
McConnell said the folks at Netflix were always kind, when they actually interacted with her, and she’d jump at the chance to work with the company again. But, for now, she doesn’t need Netflix.
On July 17th, McConnell launched her own monthly YouTube series called From the Mind of Christine McConnell, alongside a Patreon account where fans can donate to fuel her twisted ambitions. In each episode, McConnell walks viewers through a ridiculously detailed goth-tinged project, all with the patience and chicness of a 1950s homecoming queen. So far, she’s transformed a $100 pull-out sofa into an expensive Victorian masterpiece, baked a 500-pound gingerbread version of the Winchester Mystery House, and created light-up fall decorations that would likely cost hundreds of dollars at any Spirit store.
On-screen, McConnell is soothing and stunning as she rips apart fabric, drills into wood and solders wires. She’s 38, though she appears ageless and wise, even when making jokes about keeping her cameraman — who happens to be her real-life husband — locked in a cage under the floorboards. This dichotomy between femininity and force is an important part of McConnell’s brand.
“I usually like looking terrible while I work,” she said. “Getting made up is such a chore, and I literally look like a corpse when I’m not made up. Having to paint on a human face every day that you want to work on something is not very fun.”
“I usually like looking terrible while I work.”
But, it’s worthwhile. Working with power tools and creating terrifying tableaus while embodying an idealized version of feminine beauty, McConnell is a living (undead, even) example of woman-driven strength. Think Rosie the Riveter, but in a hand-stitched floral sweater and high-rise skinny jeans. This message of empowerment is an unspoken, visual thread running through all of her work, and it comes completely naturally to McConnell.
“That all just comes from my mom,” she said. “She was a general contractor, and she was always doing really insane grunt-work type stuff but had blush on and lipstick and lacy blouses on…. I don’t mean to say anything not nice about men, but my mom told me from a very early age, ‘Just because they’re men doesn’t mean they know everything. You can know everything they know too.'”
McConnell is a self-described sponge, soaking up knowledge and mechanical skills at every stage of her life. On the Netflix show, for instance, she learned a lot about puppet-making and creature design simply by watching folks from the Jim Henson Company, who provided her furry, decomposing co-stars. All of this knowledge is piped into From the Mind of Christine McConnell, where McConnell herself is a one-woman construction crew, patisserie and host. She’s used to creating art on her own, photographing herself with her projects, editing the shots and sharing them online. She’s done a lot of branded work this way, baking a cake in the shape of a Xenomorph head for the launch of Alien: Covenant, and one for Mortal Kombat 11 that looked like an arcade cabinet with Raiden busting through the glass.
It’s simply not possible to do everything on her own for From the Mind of Christine McConnell. She already stars in, writes and edits the program, alongside fulfilling Patreon promises, a step that takes up a ton of time. Still, the show requires music and a cameraman, and that’s where her husband comes in. He helps with filming and editing, and he composes all of the music from scratch.
As McConnell has built up an online presence over the years, she’s kept her marriage on the down-low. The YouTube series is the first time many fans are learning about her relationship status.
“People like mystery, which I could maintain for a while,” she said. “But then I realized like, OK, he’s actually going to be contributing to this. It wouldn’t really be fair if I kept him completely shackled to the basement at all times.”
McConnell is unshackled, too. Without the demands of a studio like Netflix influencing her creativity, she’s free to tackle any project she wants to, in any way she wishes. And with Patreon, she has a stream of reliable income for the first time in her artistic career. Every month, more than 3,000 fans contribute to her page in $3 to $100 increments.
McConnell said she’s never had this kind of financial security before, even with the Netflix deal.
“I’m sure there are so many people that are successful social media stars, YouTube people, and they think having a show on Netflix is the answer to everything,” McConnell said. “They don’t know that they’re actually in such a better position to completely own their brands and have this totally new kind of income that didn’t exist 10 years ago. It’s just so much better.”
On top of Patreon support, the YouTube channel for From the Mind of Christine McConnell already has nearly 90,000 subscribers. With financial security and creative freedom at her fingertips, McConnell has big plans for her YouTube show. She’s going to make shoes from scratch and even jewelry — and we’re not talking about hobbyist bangles and necklaces. McConnell plans on melting metal to craft high-quality, bespoke pieces, most likely with a deliciously spooky twist.
That’s part of McConnell’s charm. She’ll start with an idea, like reupholstering a couch, and push its details to their absolute limits, ending up with a completely rebuilt, shaved down, re-covered and lovingly embellished piece of art that happens to double as furniture. She’ll soothingly talk you through the steps and make it seem easy. She’ll look fantastic while she does it. Just don’t pay attention to the quiet screaming emanating from under the stairwell — that’s only the cameraman.
It might also be easier to talk to a visitor. Arlo’s model pushes a live video call to your phone the moment someone presses the doorbell, so your guest is less likely to leave while you’re fumbling around with an app. You’ll have other modern creature comforts, including HDR video (to spot details in bright or dark scenes), night vision and personalized alerts for everything from people to pets.
The Video Doorbell is available to pre-order now for $150 ahead of a release before the end of 2019. As is often the case with connected security devices, though, you might need to pay more. If you want access to your last 30 days of clips through cloud storage, you’ll need to shell out at least $3 per month for an Arlo Smart subscription once your three-month trial is up. If you don’t mind that, Arlo’s doorbell could be a viable option if you’re uncomfortable with the alternatives.
When the model is used to process previously unseen low-quality images with blurred elements, it analyzes them to figure out what in the video could’ve produced the blur. It then synthesizes new images that combine data from both the clearer and blurry parts of a video. Say, you have footage of your yard with something moving on screen — the technology can create a version of that video that clearly shows the movement’s sources.
During the team’s tests, the model was able to recreate 24 frames of a video showing a particular person’s gait, their size and the position of their legs. Before you get excited and think that it could one day make CSI’s zoom and enhance a reality, the researchers are more focused on refining the technology for medical use. They believe it could be used to convert 2D images like X-rays into 3D images with more information like CT scans at no additional cost — 3D scans are a lot more expensive — making it especially valuable for developing nations.
MIT CSAIL’s Guha Balakrishna, who’s also the research paper’s lead author, said:
“If we can convert X-rays to CT scans, that would be somewhat game-changing. You could just take an X-ray and push it through our algorithm and see all the lost information.”
