bloggerjoedoe

[bloggerjoedoe]

Apple has packed an interesting new accessibility feature into the latest beta of iOS: a system that detects the presence of and distance to people in the view of the iPhone’s camera, so blind users can social distance effectively, among many other things.

The feature emerged from Apple’s ARKit, for which the company developed “people occlusion,” which detects people’s shapes and lets virtual items pass in front of and behind them. The accessibility team realized that this, combined with the accurate distance measurements provided by the lidar units on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, could be an extremely useful tool for anyone with a visual impairment.

Of course during the pandemic one immediately thinks of the idea of keeping six feet away from other people. But knowing where others are and how far away is a basic visual task that we use all the time to plan where we walk, which line we get in at the store, whether to cross the street, and so on.

The new feature, which will be part of the Magnifier app, uses the lidar and wide-angle camera of the Pro and Pro Max, giving feedback to the user in a variety of ways.

The lidar in the iPhone 12 Pro shows up in this infrared video. Each dot reports back the precise distance of what it reflects off of.

First, it tells the user whether there are people in view at all. If someone is there, it will then say how far away the closest person is in feet or meters, updating regularly as they approach or move further away. The sound corresponds in stereo to the direction the person is in the camera’s view.

Second, it allows the user to set tones corresponding to certain distances. For example, if they set the distance at six feet, they’ll hear one tone if a person is more than six feet away, another if they’re inside that range. After all, not everyone wants a constant feed of exact distances if all they care about is staying two paces away.

The third feature, perhaps extra useful for folks who have both visual and hearing impairments, is a haptic pulse that goes faster as a person gets closer.

Last is a visual feature for people who need a little help discerning the world around them, an arrow that points to the detected person on the screen. Blindness is a spectrum, after all, and any number of vision problems could make a person want a bit of help in that regard.

As ADA turns 30, tech is just getting started helping people with disabilities

The system requires a decent image on the wide-angle camera, so it won’t work in pitch darkness. And while the restriction of the feature to the high end of the iPhone line reduces the reach somewhat, the constantly increasing utility of such a device as a sort of vision prosthetic likely makes the investment in the hardware more palatable to people who need it.

This is far from the first tool like this — many phones and dedicated devices have features for finding objects and people, but it’s not often that it comes baked in as a standard feature.

People detection should be available to iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max running the iOS 14.2 release candidate that was just made available today. Details will presumably appear soon on Apple’s dedicated iPhone accessibility site.

Microsoft Soundscape helps the visually impaired navigate cities

Source: Tech Crunch

[bloggerjoedoe]

Today, Apple launched its previously-announced Apple One subscription bundles, which offer the following three combinations of services:

Individual – Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud storage for $14.95

Family – Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of shared iCloud storage for $19.95 for up to six family members

Premier – Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Fitness+, Apple News+, and 2TB of shared iCloud storage for $29.95 for up to six family members

Compared to paying for each service separately, the Individual plan saves users $6, the Family plan saves $8, and the Premier plan has the greatest savings at $25 but is only available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia because News+ is limited to those countries. Apple is also offering a 30-day free trial and 3% cash back if you use the Apple Card.

The Apple One bundle signup flow.

You can currently sign up for an Apple One bundle by going to the App Store on an iOS or iPadOS device and tapping your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen. Tap on your profile at the top of the next screen and then Subscriptions, where you should find a banner promoting Apple One.

Moving iCloud Storage from one Apple ID to the another.

If like me, you have separate Apple IDs for iCloud and media purchases, you will be asked to move your storage plan to the Apple ID you use for iCloud, which cancels the old iCloud Storage subscription.

Signing up for the Premier tier was a no-brainer as someone who already paid for 2TB of storage, a Family Apple Music subscription, and Apple Arcade. News+ isn’t something I was willing to pay for separately, but it’s nice to have, and I’m very interested in trying Fitness+ as the weather gets colder here in Chicago, making outdoor walks and runs more difficult.

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Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

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[bloggerjoedoe]

“5G is a once-in-a-decade kind of opportunity,” Tim Cook told the media during the Q&A portion of Apple’s Q3 earnings call. “And we could not be more excited to hit the market exactly when we did.”

The truth of the matter is its timing was a mixed bag. Apple was, by some accounts, late to 5G. By the time the company finally announced that it was adding the technology across its lineup of iPhone 12 variants, much of its competition had already beat the company to the punch. Of course, that’s not a huge surprise. Apple’s strategy is rarely a rush to be first.

5G networks are only really starting to come into their own now. Even today, there are still wide swaths of users who will have to default to an LTE connection the majority of the time they use their handsets. The arrival of 5G on the iPhone was really as much about future-proofing this year’s models as anything. Consumers are holding onto phones longer, and in the three or four years before it’s time for another upgrade, the 5G maps will look very different.

Clearly, the new iPhone didn’t hit the market exactly when Apple had hoped; the pandemic saw to that. Manufacturing bottlenecks in Asia delayed the iPhone 12’s launch by a month. That’s going to have an impact on the bottom line of your quarterly earnings. The company saw a 20% drop for the quarter, year-over-year. That’s hugely significant, causing the company’s stock to drop more than 4% in extended trading.

Why Apple’s Q4 earnings look different this year

Apple’s diverse portfolio helped curb some of those revenue slides. While the pandemic has generally had a profound impact on consumer spending on “non-essentials,” changing where and how we work has helped bolster Mac and iPad sales, which were up 28 and 46% respectively, year-over-year. It wasn’t enough to completely stop the iPhone stumble, but it certainly brings the importance of a diverse hardware portfolio into sharp relief.

China was a big issue for the company this time around — and the lack of a new, 5G-enabled iPhone was a big contributor. In greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), the company saw a 28% drop in sales. There are a number of reasons to be hopeful about iPhone sales in Q4, however.

As I noted this morning, smartphone shipments were down almost across the board in China for Q3, per new figures from Canalys. Much of that can be chalked up to Huawei’s ongoing issues with the U.S. government. Long the dominant manufacturer in mainland China, the company has been hamstrung by, among other things, a ban on access to Android and other U.S.-made technologies. Apple’s numbers remained relatively steady compared to the competition and Huawei’s issues could present a big hole in the market. With 5G on its side, this next quarter could prove a banner year for the company.

Source: Tech Crunch

[bloggerjoedoe]

0:00 22:39

Sponsored by: Sketch – The Design Platform Trusted by Over One Million People

This week on MacStories Unwind:

MacStories

Using Soor’s Widgets and Magic Mixes

Managing the Internet Access of HomeKit Devices with the Linksys Velop Mesh WiFi Router System

Apple Signs Jon Stewart to Expansive Deal for TV+ Series and More

Clips 3.0 Brings New Video Aspect Ratios and an Upgraded iPad Experience

Shortcuts Corner: Apple Frames for iPhone 12 and SE, Get Image Resolution, Encode Images to Base64, and Search Articles in Reeder

Microsoft Is Rolling Out iPad Pointer Support to Its Office Suite

Club MacStories

MacStories Weekly

MacStories Favorite: Pixelmator Pro

A new Reeder shortcut

Ryan debates purchasing an iPhone 12 mini or Pro

MacStories Unplugged

This week on Unplugged, our Club podcast, we discuss the upcoming release of Big Sur, Federico makes John nervous by poking around in Disk Utility and ejecting drives while he records, John gets fiber Internet and tests HomeKit mesh WiFi routers, and Federico unwinds post-iOS review.

AppStories

Episode 191 – New Apps Enabled by Apple Hardware and OS Advances

Unwind

Federico’s Pick:

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

John’s Pick:

The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix

Support MacStories Directly

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Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

Join Now Source: Mac Stories

[bloggerjoedoe]

Bright Memory

PLAYISM

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$7.99

Pre-order

Bright Memory is a lightning-fast fusion of the FPS and action genres, created by one-man development studio FYQD using Unreal Engine. Combine a wide variety of skills and abilities to unleash dazzling combo attacks. SRO (Supernatural Science Research Organization) agent Shelia's adventure is about to begin. This game depicts the maiden adventure of a woman named Shelia in the year 2020. The 1000-year-old relic swords known as "Kanshou and Bakuya", discovered through SRO research, have been found to comprise a unique multilayered structure, containing a mysterious substance in their cores. This substance, known as the "Soul of Jiu Xuan", possesses the ability to reanimate the dead. In an attempt to take possession of the substance, the "SAI" - a massive terrorist organization controlling its own army - has used a cutting-edge piece of technology known as a "Quantum Transporter" to infiltrate the SRO research facility and steal top-secret and incredibly dangerous data. To make matters worse, while attempting to calibrate coordinates on the Quantum Transporter, Shelia mistakenly activates the device, immediately transporting everyone in the vicinity to the Floating Island - an airborne continent near the North Pole, undisturbed in its slumber for over 1000 years. It is soon discovered that the various beasts and corpses of those who once populated the island have been reanimated by the "Soul of Jiu Xuan", and they're coming for Shelia... Shelia: Hannah Grace The female main character. 21 years old. Her parents were in the military. After losing both parents in a sudden tragic accident at the age of six, she was raised by Professor Richard Carter, founder of the SRO. Having spent years undergoing various types of military training and shining among her peers in virtually every field, her near-superhuman abilities landed her a spot as a member of the ultra-elite "SRO Emergency Inspection Team". Carter: Jack Merluzzi Founder of the SAI. Male, 35 years old. Taking advantage of his influential status, he struck it rich by buying and selling vast numbers of ancient artifacts on the black market. After learning of the existence of the "Soul of Jiu Xuan", he immediately infiltrated the SRO in an attempt to steal top-secret data.

NOTE: You may pre-download this game, but it will not be playable until the release date/time: 11/09/2020 – 9:00 PM (check the product page for release date/time in your region).

  Product Info:

Developer: FYQD Studio

Publisher: FYQD Studio

Website: Bright Memory

Twitter: @FYQD_Studio

Related: Memoranda Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One Dead Dungeon Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One YesterMorrow Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

Cube Raiders

JanduSoft

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$12.99 $10.39

Get it now

Cube Raiders is a fun puzzle game for one or two players where you have to combine groups of dice using the energy of MagnetoGloves to solve puzzles. Join Rose and Kirk in this head-breaking Cube Adventure and prove that you are a true Cube Raider. Cube Raiders offers gamers four different game modes for one or two players. -Face the dangers and surprises in each temple and solve more than 99 puzzles for just one player. -Have fun together and play a joint adventure with more than 59 puzzles created for two players. -Get the highest score in "Endless" mode before time runs out or the entire floor gets filled with dice! -Put companionship aside and show who the best Cube Raider is in the "Duel" mode.

  Product Info:

Developer: Void Games

Publisher: JanduSoft

Website: Cube Raiders

Twitter: @JanduSoft

Related: Street Racer Underground Is Now Available For Xbox One EMMA: Lost In Memories Is Now Available For Xbox One Freakout: Calamity TV Show Is Now Available For Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

The Shortcuts Corner is a regular section of our MacStories Weekly newsletter, exclusive to Club MacStories members, where I share advanced shortcuts and respond to readers’ requests for automation.

In this comeback installment of the Shortcuts Corner (I took a break last spring to focus on my Modular Computer story, then WWDC happened, then…you get the idea), I’ve prepared an assortment of image-related shortcuts available for free on the MacStories Shortcuts Archive. Ever since I installed the first betas of iOS and iPadOS 14 on my iPhone and iPad months ago, I’ve been reorganizing my shortcut library with folders. Thanks to this feature, I’ve assembled a collection of simple “utility” shortcuts that I use on a daily basis, but which I never shared on MacStories. This week, I’m sharing three of these shortcuts: one to quickly get the resolution of any image; one to convert any image to JPEG while stripping metadata from it; and the last one to encode any image previously copied to the clipboard in Base64. Following the requests of several readers over the past week, I’ve also updated our popular Apple Frames shortcut with support for the iPhone SE, iPhone 12, and iPhone 12 Pro.

In the Club MacStories edition of the Shortcuts Corner this week, I’ve also created an advanced Reeder shortcut that lets you browse articles in your Read Later account by tag, title, and more. Let’s dig in.

Apple Frames for iPhone SE, iPhone 12, and iPhone 12 Pro

Apple Frames, the shortcut that lets you put physical device frames around screenshots taken on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and other Apple devices, has consistently been the most downloaded shortcut from the Archive, as well as one of my most used shortcuts on a daily basis. All the “framed” screenshots you see on MacStories are generated with Apple Frames, which has also helped designers and developers prepare good-looking product images for their apps’ websites and App Store pages. Apple Frames is made possible by Shortcuts’ support for Base64 image encoding and the ‘Overlay Image’ action, as well as Silvia’s excellent work in adapting Apple’s official frames to work with screenshots taken on iOS and iPadOS.

As is tradition every year, I’ve updated Apple Frames to support the latest iPhone models released by Apple in 2020. With the latest version of Apple Frames, which you can download below, you’ll be able to frame screenshots for the iPhone SE (in portrait), iPhone 12 (portrait and landscape), and iPhone 12 Pro (portrait and landscape); as always, you can select multiple images at once to create a composite image of multiple devices; at the end of the shortcut, you’ll be presented with various actions to preview the framed image, copy it, or save it.

Using Apple Frames.

There are some technical considerations worth sharing about the new iPhone models supported by Apple Frames. When I created Apple Frames years ago, I made the decision of never showing any menus or interruptions after the user has selected screenshots they want to frame. My goal was to make Apple Frames easy to use for everyone with as little friction as possible. For this reason, Apple Frames doesn’t let you choose which version of an iPhone you want to use if more devices share the same resolution; I have to decide which iPhone frame to use if the shortcut detects a screenshot that could belong to multiple iPhone models. In this case, the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro share the same resolution (because they have the same display), but Apple Frames defaults to using the iPhone 12 Pro model, which made more sense to me given the typical MacStories audience. For a similar reason, in adding support for the 2020 iPhone SE, I chose to drop support for the iPhone 8 (which shared the same resolution) since I’m assuming more Apple Frames users are now using the iPhone SE.

Unfortunately, at the moment of writing this, Apple hasn’t released official product images for the 10.9” iPad Air, so I couldn’t add support for that device to the shortcut. As soon as the company releases images for the iPad Air, iPhone 12 mini, and iPhone 12 Pro Max, I will update Apple Frames again and write about it here. In the meantime, you can download the latest version of Apple Frames below.

Apple Frames

Add device frames to screenshots for iPhones (6, 7, 8, X, XS, 11, SE, and 12 generations in standard/Plus/Max sizes), iPad Pro (11” and 12.9”, 2018/2020 models), and Apple Watch S4/5 (40 and 44mm). The shortcut supports portrait and landscape orientations, but does not support Display Zoom. If multiple screenshots are passed as input, they will be combined in a single image.

Get the shortcut here.

Convert Image to JPEG and Copy

A few months ago, I noticed something I didn’t like: when copying an image from a MacStories article and pasting it in a new tweet in the official Twitter client, the app would initially display it with alpha transparency (without a background); when viewed in the timeline, however, the image gained a garish maroon background color, which I wasn’t a fan of. The easiest solution to the problem was to convert any PNG to JPEG before pasting it in Twitter’s composer; to make the process easier, I built a shortcut for it.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about the ‘Convert Image to JPEG and Copy’ shortcut: it reads any image previously copied to the clipboard, converts it to JPEG1, and copies it back to the clipboard, so you can paste it somewhere else. As you can see, the shortcut features a ‘Continue in Shortcuts App’ action at the beginning; I did this because in my tests with this shortcut as a widget, reading images from the clipboard would often fail when run from the Home Screen.

Converting images to JPEG.

At the end of the shortcut, you’ll also be asked if you want to save the converted JPEG to the Photos app. The converted JPEG is copied to the clipboard by default, so if you just need to paste it in another app, you can ignore this step.

Convert to JPEG and Copy

Convert any image previously copied to the clipboard to JPEG, stripping metadata from it. The converted image is copied to the clipboard, and you can optionally save it in the Photos app.

Get the shortcut here.

Get Image Resolution

This is another simple, but effective shortcut: if you’ve ever found yourself wanting to quickly check the resolution (in pixels) of an image on your iPhone and iPad, this shortcut lets you do it with just a few taps.

You can use this shortcut either from the share sheet or from the Shortcuts app and widget. When running in the share sheet, the shortcut accepts images as input, which means you can share images from Photos, Files, or any other app and check the resolution of the passed item. Alternatively, you can run the shortcut manually and either pick an image from the Photos app or use an image you’ve already copied to the clipboard.

Getting the resolution of an image shared from Files.

In any case, at the end of the shortcut, you’ll be presented with an alert displaying the width and height of the selected image. In a nice touch, reading these bits of metadata from an image doesn’t require using a standalone action in Shortcuts: the magic variable that is automatically created for image objects in Shortcuts can be inspected to access various properties, including image size. Keep this in mind to avoid using unnecessary ‘Get Details of Images’ actions in your shortcuts when you can just read properties from magic variables.

Image properties contained in magic variables.

Get Image Resolution

Get the resolution of any image passed from the share sheet, picked from Photos, or previously copied to the clipboard.

Get the shortcut here.

Encode Image to Base64

This is another shortcut I’ve been using for over a year now, and which I somehow never shared on MacStories. Every once in a while, I find myself having to encode an image copied to the clipboard in Base64 – a text representation of an image file that allows me to “embed” images in shortcuts via regular ‘Text’ actions. This technique – which is often derided by my co-hosts on Connected – is how the Apple Frames shortcut can put device frames around screenshots without accessing any external resources on the Internet, for instance.

Every time I need to turn an image into a Base64 string of text, I use the Encode Image shortcut, which takes an image from the clipboard, previews it in Quick Look, and converts it to Base64 using Shortcuts’ native ‘Base64 Encode’ action. To make the final text string as compact as possible (images encoded in Base64 can span hundreds of thousands of characters depending on the size of the original file), I disabled the ‘Line Breaks’ toggle in the ‘Encode Image’ action; furthermore, to prevent any potential sync lockups with Universal Clipboard across Apple devices, I turned on the ‘Local Only’ setting in the ‘Copy to Clipboard’ action at the end. This way, your device will not attempt to sync a super-long string of text over local WiFi across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, which caused me issues several times in the past.

Encode Image

Encode any image previously copied to the clipboard in Base64. The resulting string of plain text is copied to the clipboard.

Get the shortcut here.

Club MacStories Exclusive: Search Read Later

Exclusively for Club MacStories members this week, I’ve built a shortcut that lets you search articles saved in Reeder’s Read Later account – one of my favorite features of the app – with a variety of options. The shortcut, available in today’s issue of the MacStories Weekly newsletter for Club members, is called Reeder Search, and it lets you search saved articles by tag, title, or domain name; it also lets you open a random article previously saved in Reeder’s Read Later account, which can be a fun way to catch up on your read-later queue.

Here’s a video of the shortcut in action:

Using the Reeder Search shortcut.

The shortcut takes advantage of Reeder 5’s support for tagging (which we covered here) and its deep integration with Shortcuts: thanks to native (parameter-based) actions, we can retrieve a list of tags from Reeder’s Read Later account, search the contents of the app, and even reopen specific articles directly in Reeder. I wish more RSS and read-later apps offered this kind of support for Shortcuts, which is part of the reason I’m using Reeder again as my go-to app for RSS feeds and saved articles.

To download this shortcut and read my explanation, subscribe to Club MacStories and check out Issue 246 of MacStories Weekly, either in your email inbox or the Newsletter Archive.

While also stripping metadata from it, so if you’re converting photos, rest assured EXIF metadata will not be included in the final version. ↩︎

Support MacStories Directly

Club MacStories offers exclusive access to extra MacStories content, delivered every week; it’s also a way to support us directly.

Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

Join Now Source: Mac Stories

[bloggerjoedoe]

Here we go…the latest episode of This Week On Xbox.

Remember, you can watch This Week On Xbox from the Community section of the Xbox One dashboard in Canada, the UK and the US or watch it on the Xbox YouTube channel (This Week on Xbox Playlist).

Leave a comment below or hit me up on Twitter and let me know what you think of the show.

Related: This Week On Xbox: October 23, 2020 This Week On Xbox: October 16, 2020 This Week On Xbox: October 09, 2020

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

Legends of Ethernal

Natsume Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$19.99

Get it now

Xbox One X Enhanced

Welcome to the World of Arkanys On a day like any other, a young boy returns home to find it in ruins and his parents, gone. Armed with courage and driven by the pain of his loss, he sets out on a journey to uncover the truth behind his family's disappearance... But what he discovers will forever change the World of Arkanys... Legends of Ethernal is a 2D single-player action adventure game where you need to explore beautiful hand-crafted environments, solve clever puzzles and battle challenging creatures to uncover the truth about your parents’ disappearance. Game Features Evolving Gameplay Enjoy mechanics that are unlocking with weapons and items that you find Challenging Dungeons Solve puzzles and unleash your strategies against boss battles in multiple dungeons Crafting System Gather ethers and craft items during the course of your journey to help you progress through the game Unique and Gorgeous Art Admire beautiful 2D hand-drawn art covering multiple environments, scaling up to a resolution of 4K on supported platforms Enigmatic Events Experience a compelling and linear storyline with great characters Melodic Musical Score Listen to the wonderfully crafted score, produced and recorded by veteran musician William Gough Multiple Difficulty Levels Try the hardcore mode for an intense experience or enable Relaxed Mode to help you complete the game

  Product Info:

Developer: Lucid Dreams Studio

Publisher: Natsume

Website: Legends Of Ethernal

Twitter: @ldstudiomtl / @Natsume_Inc

Related: Watch Dogs: Legion Is Now Available For Xbox One YesterMorrow Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One New Super Lucky’s Tale Demo Is Now Available For Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

At WWDC 2019, Apple announced that HomeKit support would be coming to WiFi routers. Not a lot was known about what that would entail, until recently, when new and updated routers with HomeKit functionality began to hit store shelves. A few weeks ago, Linksys sent me its Velop Tri-Band Mesh WiFi Router System that added HomeKit support late last month. I’ve been using the system for a few weeks now and want to share the setup process and explain what HomeKit-enabled routers offer that other routers don’t.

Source: Linksys.

Linksys’ Velop system was one of the easiest WiFi Routers I’ve ever set up. Like many WiFi routers, Linksys relies on an iOS app to walk you through the setup process, providing clear, easy-to-follow instructions. Within about 15 minutes, I had set up a Velop node in my basement where my Internet service enters the house, another in my kitchen, and a third on the second floor. Overall, the simplicity of setup is comparable to setting up an Eero WiFi system with its app, which is well-known for making what can sometimes be a complex process easy.

Once I was satisfied that everything was working properly, I added the Velop routers to the Home app. The button in the upper left corner of the Linksys app reveals a long list of options when tapped. Near the bottom is ‘Apple Home Integration.’ When tapped, the Linksys app kicks off the Home integration process with an alert confirming that you want to begin setup. A second alert from the Linksys app requests access to your HomeKit accessories.

Beginning the HomeKit setup process.

With those confirmations out of the way, you’re prompted to add each of the routers. The default names of the routers are Linksys followed by a series of numbers, but you can change them to something that makes more sense for your setup, like ‘Kitchen WiFi.’ If you lose track of which of the identical routers is which, there’s a button in the setup UI to identify it, which blinks the light on the top of the router. You are also asked to designate a room in your home for the router. Next, you’re prompted to turn on HomeKit Accessory Security, which I’ll explain in a moment.

Adding your routers to the Home app.

When you’re finished, the Home setup UI confirms the number of routers you’ve set up and offers to open the Home app. If you tap ‘Done’ instead, you remain in the Linksys app, which also confirms that the setup is complete.

What you gain by adding your Velop system to the Home app is finer-grained control over how your HomeKit devices connect to the Internet, if at all. Internet access is managed from Apple’s Home app by tapping the Home button in the top left corner of the app and selecting ‘Home Settings,’ where you’ll find an entry for ‘Wi-Fi Network & Routers,’ which appears beneath the entry for managing any hubs or bridges in your Home setup. Tapping on the entry lists the routers you added, a toggle for HomeKit Accessory Security, which should be enabled if you turned it on during setup, and finally, a list of HomeKit accessories that are connected to your network.

For each accessory, you can choose among ‘Restrict to Home,’ ‘Automatic,’ and ‘No Restriction’ settings. As the names suggest, ‘Restrict to Home’ provides the tightest control over devices, denying them access to the web or other devices on your network. Devices set to ‘Restrict to Home’ can still connect to your HomeKit hub on your local network, but because they cannot communicate outside your network, it’s worth noting that they won’t be able to do things like update their firmware.

Managing your Velop routers from the Home app.

Automatic, which is the default setting, strikes a middle ground, allowing Internet connections and connections to other devices that are recommended by the device manufacturer. Those connections are described in the Home app beneath the setting, providing additional transparency about what your devices can do. Finally, ‘No Restriction’ allows any connection to the Internet or a local device.

The reason to restrict HomeKit device access to the Internet is both to ensure that the devices aren’t sharing information to destinations outside your network without your knowledge, and to reduce the risk that a HomeKit device becomes an entry point for unauthorized access to your devices or local network from the outside. In most instances, I expect Automatic will be the setting most users should stick with if they’re comfortable with the connections recommended by the maker of a device. However, it’s nice to have the option of restricting access to the Internet further, especially if a vulnerability is reported for a device you own.

In my testing, I kept most of my devices in Automatic mode and moved a few to ‘Restrict to Home.’ During the time I’ve been testing the Velop system, I didn’t run into any issues with updating those devices. They continued to operate as expected. However, none of those devices needed to access the Internet for their core functionality. Also, firmware updates are infrequent enough that none of the devices appear to have been blocked from updating during my testing.

Having spent a few weeks testing HomeKit router support, probably the greatest compliment I can pay it is that it didn’t complicate my setup or cause any network issues that I noticed while providing an extra layer of network security. HomeKit support is currently available in the Velop Tri-Band line of mesh routers. Updates to existing Velop systems began rolling out to customers in late September to owners of the following router models: A03, WHW0301, WHW0301B, WHW0302, WHW0302B, WHW0303, and WHW0303B. Currently, HomeKit support is not available in Linksys’ latest WiFi 6 mesh routers, something I hope will change in the future.

With the addition of lights, thermostats, cameras, door sensors, and other HomeKit devices to my home, I now have dozens of devices connected to my WiFi network at any time, which makes keeping track of what each is doing difficult. The benefit of a HomeKit router is that you can hand that task off to the router and Home app by simply making a few security choices up front. I’ve been impressed with just how easy HomeKit support was to enable and manage with Linksys’ Velop WiFi routers, and hope it’s a feature that Linksys and other router makers continue to implement in their products.

Support MacStories Directly

Club MacStories offers exclusive access to extra MacStories content, delivered every week; it’s also a way to support us directly.

Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

Join Now Source: Mac Stories

[bloggerjoedoe]

China was the first major global smartphone markets to rebound from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stringent lockdown measures were able to help the country recover from the virus relatively quickly during the first wave, as sales started to return well ahead of other areas.

In Q3, however, things have taken begun to decline again. New numbers from Canalys point to an 8% drop between quarters — and a 15% drop, year-over-year. The firm chalks much of the slow down to longtime market leader Huawei’s on-going issues with the U.S. government. The problems had a kind of cascading effect that served to impact the number two companies, Vivo and Oppo.

Image Credits: Canalys

“Huawei was forced to restrict its smartphone shipments following the August 17 US sanctions which caused a void in channels in Q3 that its peers were not equipped to fill. Huawei is facing its most serious challenge since taking the lead in 2016,” analyst Mo Jia said in a release. “If the position of the US administration does not change, Huawei will attempt to pivot its business strategy, to focus on building the [Harmony] OS and software ecosystem, as the Chinese government is eager to nurture home-grown alternatives to global platforms.”

Smartphone shipments dropped 18% in China, thanks to COVID-19

Huawei dropped 18% in Mainland China, year-over-year. Vivo and Oppo posted similar declines at 13 and 18%, respectively. Xiaomi was able to make up ground at third place, gaining 19% y-o-y per the figures. Apple, meanwhile, remained relatively stead, in spite of the delated launch of the iPhone 12. Huawei’s continued struggles could provide a vacuum for the competition to fill.

Analyst Nicole Peng notes that the arrival of the 5G handset put the U.S. company in a strong position, looking forward, “iPhone 12 series will be a game changer for Apple in Mainland China. As most smartphones in China are now 5G-capable, Apple is closing a critical gap, and pent-up demand for its new 5G-enabled family will be strong.”

A closer look at China’s smartphone market

Source: Tech Crunch

[bloggerjoedoe]

Posted by Paddy_Moogan

Link building campaigns shouldn't have a start-and-stop date — they should be ongoing, continuing to earn you links over time. In this informative and enduringly relevant 2018 edition of Whiteboard Friday, guest host Paddy Moogan shares strategies to achieve sustainable link building, the kind that makes your content efforts lucrative far beyond your initial campaigns for them.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. Welcome to Whiteboard Friday. I'm not Rand. I'm Paddy Moogan. I'm the cofounder of Aira. We're an agency in the UK, focusing on SEO, link building, and content marketing. You may have seen me write on the Moz Blog before, usually about link building. You may have read my link building book. If you have, thank you. Today, I'm going to talk about link building again. It's a topic I love, and I want to share some ideas around what I'm calling "sustainable link building."

Problems

Now, there are a few problems with link building that make it quite risky, and I want to talk about some problems first before giving you some potential solutions that help make your link building less risky. So a few problems first:

I. Content-driven link building is risky.

The problem with content-driven link building is that you're producing some content and you don't really know if it's going to work or not. It's quite risky, and you don't actually know for sure that you're going to get links.

II. A great content idea may not be a great content idea that gets links.

There's a massive difference between a great idea for content and a great idea that will get links. Knowing that difference is really, really important. So we're going to talk a little bit about how we can work that out.

III. It's a big investment of time and budget.

Producing content, particularly visual content, doing design and development takes time. It can take freelancers. It can take designers and developers. So it's a big investment of time and budget. If you're going to put time and budget into a marketing campaign, you want to know it's probably going to work and not be too risky.

IV. Think of link building as campaign-led: it starts & stops.

So you do a link building campaign, and then you stop and start a new one. I want to get away from that idea. I want to talk about the idea of treating link building as the ongoing activity and not treating it as a campaign that has a start date and a finish date and you forget about it and move on to the next one. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that as well.

Solutions

So those are some of the problems that we've got with content-driven link-building. I want to talk about some solutions of how to offset the risk of content-driven link building and how to increase the chances that you're actually going to get links and your campaign isn't going to fail and not work out for you.

I. Don't tie content to specific dates or events

So the first one, now, when you coming up with content ideas, it's really easy to tie content ideas into events or days of the year. If there are things going on in your client's industry that are quite important, current festivals and things like that, it's a great way of hooking a piece of content into an event. Now, the problem with that is if you produce a piece of content around a certain date and then that date passes and the content hasn't worked, then you're kind of stuck with a piece of content that is no longer relevant.

So an example here of what we've done at Aira, there's a client where they launch a piece of content around the Internet of Things Day. It turns out there's a day celebrating the Internet of Things, which is actually April 9th this year. Now, we produced a piece of content for them around the Internet of Things and its growth in the world and the impact it's having on the world. But importantly, we didn't tie it exactly to that date. So the piece itself didn't mention the date, but we launched it around that time and that outreach talked about Internet of Things Day. So the outreach focused on the date and the event, but the content piece itself didn't. What that meant was, after July 9th, we could still promote that piece of content because it was still relevant. It wasn't tied in with that exact date.

So it means that we're not gambling on a specific event or a specific date. If we get to July 9th and we've got no links, it obviously matters, but we can keep going. We can keep pushing that piece of content. So, by all means, produce content tied into dates and events, but try not to include that too much in the content piece itself and tie yourself to it.

II. Look for datasets which give you multiple angles for outreach

Number two, lots of content ideas can lead from data. So you can get a dataset and produce content ideas off the back of the data, but produce angles and stories using data. Now, that can be quite risky because you don't always know if data is going to give you a story or an angle until you've gone into it. So something we try and do at Aira when trying to produce content around data is from actually different angles you can use from that data.

So, for example:

Locations. Can you pitch a piece of content into different locations throughout the US or the UK so you can go after the local newspapers, local magazines for different areas of the country using different data points?

Demographics. Can you target different demographics? Can you target females, males, young people, old people? Can you slice the data in different ways to approach different demographics, which will give you multiple ways of actually outreaching that content?

Years. Is it updated every year? So it's 2018 at the moment. Is there a piece of data that will be updated in 2019? If there is and it's like a recurring annual thing where the data is updated, you can redo the content next year. So you can launch a piece of content now. When the data gets updated next year, plug the new data into it and relaunch it. So you're not having to rebuild a piece of a content every single time. You can use old content and then update the data afterwards.

III. Build up a bank of link-worthy content

Number three, now this is something which is working really, really well for us at the moment, something I wanted to share with you. This comes back to the idea of not treating link building as a start and stop campaign. You need to build up a bank of link-worthy content on your client websites or on your own websites. Try and build up content that's link worthy and not just have content as a one-off piece of work. What you can do with that is outreach over and over and over again.

We tend to think of the content process as something like this. You come up with your ideas. You do the design, then you do the outreach, and then you stop. In reality, what you should be doing is actually going back to the start and redoing this over and over again for the same piece of content.

What you end up with is multiple pieces of content on your client's website that are all getting links consistently. You're not just focusing on one, then moving past it, and then working on the next one. You can have this nice big bank of content there getting links for you all the time, rather than forgetting about it and moving on to the next one.

IV. Learn what content formats work for you

Number four, again, this is something that's worked really well for us recently. Because we're an agency, we work with lots of different clients, different industries and produce lots and lots of content, what we've done recently is try to work out what content formats are working the best for us. Which formats get the best results for our clients? The way we did this was a very, very simple chart showing how easy something was versus how hard it was, and then wherever it was a fail in terms of the links and the coverage, or wherever it was a really big win in terms of links and coverage and traffic for the client.

Now, what you may find when you do this is certain content formats fit within this grid. So, for example, you may find that doing data viz is actually really, really hard, but it gets you lots and lots of links, whereas you might find that producing maps and visuals around that kind of data is actually really hard but isn't very successful.

Identifying these content formats and knowing what works and doesn't work can then feed into your future content campaign. So when you're working for a client, you can confidently say, "Well, actually, we know that interactives aren't too difficult for us to build because we've got a good dev team, and they really likely to get links because we've done loads of them before and actually seen lots of successes from them." Whereas if you come up with an idea for a map that you know is actually really, really hard to do and actually might lead to a big fail, then that's not going to be so good, but you can say to a client, "Look, from our experience, we can see maps don't work very well. So let's try and do something else."

That's it in terms of tips and solutions for trying to make your link building more sustainable. I'd love to hear your comments and your feedback below. So if you've got any questions, anything you're not sure about, let me know. If you see it's working for your clients or not working, I'd love to hear that as well. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Source: Moz Blog

[bloggerjoedoe]

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope & Man of Medan Bundle

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$49.99

Get it now

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of intense, branching cinematic horror games featuring two multiplayer modes. Each story is standalone and can be played independently. This Bundle gives you access to Man of Medan and Little Hope. In Man of Medan, five friends set sail on a holiday diving trip. As a storm rolls in, and the day unfolds their trip soon changes into something much more sinister. In Little Hope, 4 college students and their professor are trapped and isolated in an abandoned town and must escape the nightmarish apparitions that relentlessly pursue them through an impenetrable fog.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$29.99

Get it now

Free Trial

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of intense, standalone, branching cinematic horror games featuring single and multiplayer modes. 4 college students and their professor become stranded in the abandoned town of Little Hope. Trapped by an impenetrable fog they try desperately to escape whilst witnessing terrifying visions from the past. They must figure out the motivation of these apparitions before the evil forces at work drags each of their souls to hell. Witness terrifying visions of the past, haunted by the events of the XVIIth century Andover Witch Trials Escape the hideous apparitions that relentlessly pursue them through the fog! Play online with a friend or up to 5 friends offline, Abandon Hope...all who enter here!

  Product Info:

Developer: Supermassive Games

Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment

Website: The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

Twitter: @SuperMGames / @BandaiNamcoUS / @TheDarkPictures

Related: Project CARS 3 Is Now Available For Xbox One The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One Project CARS 3 Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

Jeopardy! PlayShow

Sony Pictures Games

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$24.99

Get it now

Become a Jeopardy! Champion Now entering the studio is YOU. Compete against your friends —and past contestants— to test your knowledge using actual TV episodes hosted by Alex Trebek. Jeopardy! PlayShow combines your Xbox (or PC), your mobile device, and your very own voice for the most realistic gameshow experience you'll ever have. Win in Prime Time Simply buzz in and say your answer from your couch to be a part of the game like never before. And with Party Mode, you can host head-to-head, multiplayer competitions in your living room. It's everything you love about the show: Categories, Clues, Wagers, Daily Doubles and even signing your name to the podium. Play From Over 35 years of Historical Episodes Want more? With over 35 years of downloadable Jeopardy! content, play episodes thematically by season, tournament type, and even against famous champions. If Teen Tournament is your speed, we've got it. Want to travel back in time and match wits with legendary contestants? No problem! The true Jeopardy! gameshow has never been easier to experience. Features • Go head-to-head with memorable Jeopardy! contestants. • Choose from a variety of episodes and themes from over three decades of Jeopardy! • Your living room is the iconic game show set. Challenge friends and family to see who's the ultimate Jeopardy! fan. • Use innovative speech recognition! Buzz in and speak your answer. • Full immersive gameshow experience like never before!

  Product Info:

Developer: Sony Pictures Games

Publisher: Sony Pictures Games

Website: Jeopardy! PlayShow 

Twitter: @SonyPictures

      NOTE: This title supports Xbox Play Anywhere: yours to play on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC at no additional cost. For more information on Xbox Play Anywhere, check out this article at Xbox Wire.

Related: Day of the Tentacle Remastered Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Also Included With Xbox Game Pass) Full Throttle Remastered Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Also Included With Xbox Game Pass) New Super Lucky’s Tale Demo Is Now Available For Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

AXES

Victory Road

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$4.99

Get it now

Ready to take down all your enemies? Prepare your weapons and join AXES.io — an epic battle royale! It's an action-packed game where you prove that you can really rumble on the battlefield! Enter the arena and try to be the last one standing. Battle to survive using different weapons: axes, swords, shurikens and many more. Let the great scuffle begin! AXES is a fantasy world where mighty well-armed enemies clash in quick battles on the battlefield. Every game session has a limited time span. Choose a perfect combination of armor and melee weapons to pass all arenas and survive. Master your skills to enter the League Mode and combat with the strongest players. Remember about the main battle royale feature — the red circle. Once it appears, the battle will be over soon! Try to stay inside the circle, otherwise you'll lose your points.

  Product Info:

Developer: AZUR INTERACTIVE GAMES LIMITED

Publisher: Victory Road

Website: AXES

Twitter: N/A

Related: Dark Sauce Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One AXES Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One Lanternium Is Now Available For Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

Family Mysteries 2: Echoes of Tomorrow (Xbox One Version)

Artifex Mundi

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$14.99

Get it now

Xbox One X Enhanced

Free Trial

Get ready for thrilling sci-fi adventure in the big city, which offers riveting and refreshing approach to the hidden object puzzle adventure genre. "Family Mysteries 2: Echoes of Tomorrow" is an emotional cyberpunkish ride with a hint of romance that takes you straight into not-too-distant future. When the cybernetically-enhanced time traveler kidnaps your wife, and someone tries to frame you for the crime you didn't commit, the world suddenly turns upside down. It's time to take things into your own hands and prove your mettle. As a resourceful scientist you still have a few aces up your sleeve! Second part of the Family Mysteries series introduces a post-apocalyptic vision of dystopian future where human race is at the brink of extinction. You'll be dealing with high-tech, mutinous software as well as bunch of challenging riddles and - as usual - exigent hidden object scenes. Exonerate yourself, discover the secret of the mysterious fugitive from the future, and save your marriage. The future and the past are in your hands!

Mastermind Bundle

Artifex Mundi

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$35.99

Get it now

Feel the true power of knowledge and meet the brightest minds mankind has ever seen. Explore the worlds of the greatest inventions, travel through time, experience the steampunk revolution and survive in the fierce cyberpunk world! Prove your brilliance and save the world once again in our Mastermind Bundle, which includes: - Family Mysteries 2: Echoes of Tomorrow - Modern Tales: Age of Invention - Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink

Product Info: Developer: Artifex Mundi Publisher: Artifex Mundi Website: Games from Artifex Mundi Twitter: @ArtifexMundi

Related: The Secret Order: Return To The Buried Kingdom Is Now Available For Xbox One Endless Fables: Dark Moor Is Now Available For Xbox One Ghost Files: Memory Of A Crime Is Now Available For Xbox One

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson

[bloggerjoedoe]

Visage

SadSquare Studio

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$34.99

Get it now

IMPORTANT NOTE: The game focuses on exploration and builds tension slowly to create a deeper and more meaningful experience. Its story is unveiled through surreal imaging and subtle environment details. Be mindful that it is a difficult game in unconventional ways. Visage is a first-person psychological horror game. Explore a mysterious ever-changing house in a slow-paced, atmospheric world that combines both uncannily comforting and horrifyingly realistic environments, and enjoy a genuinely terrifying experience. Environment The game is set inside a huge house in which terrible things have happened. You’ll wander through the gloomy corridors, explore every dead room, and get lost in endless mazes, your head filling with memories of the dead families that once lived in this very home. This twisted environment, void of any life other than yours, takes you to places you couldn't even bear imagining. Storyline This house is stained with a terrible past. Families were brutally murdered by their own family members, people went insane, many committed suicide, and other grisly events occurred. Each and every room has its story painted on an invisible canvas. As a player, you will relive parts of this dark past, and each of its fragments will leave you restless and terrified. You’ll soon wish you could join the dead's ranks in their abyss, but death won't help you leave this place. Will you run from it, or will you try to uncover the truth behind the shadows? Dark entities The families that died in the house will haunt you and leave you restless. They’ll follow your every move, watch you from every corner, play tricks with your mind, and try to attack you. Why do they haunt you? What have you done? This you have to find out on your own. Gameplay In Visage, you are defenseless; no weapons could save you from the dreadful entities stalking you from the next corner, the next door, or underneath your feet. You’ll be able to pick up key elements, interact with the environment, and search for things that may help you escape this nightmare or pull you deeper into it. Dying is part of the game. You need to avoid terror at all costs, as dark entities are attracted to it. Maintaining your mind as sane as possible will keep you from joining the ranks of the dead. Doing so will not be easy, and you'll have to figure out ways, like staying in the light, to avoid going insane.

  Product Info:

Developer: SadSquare Studio

Publisher: SadSquare Studio

Website: Visage

Twitter: @SadsquareStudio

Related:

Source: Xbox Live Major Nelson