Picking a new TV can be a challenge for many it does not only come down to budget it comes down to ones personal requirements. For sure I could recommend one and have done many times and there are some really good deals out there right now but Netflix have done some research of their own in this department so check out what they have to offer.
When you see the “Netflix Recommended TV” logo, it means that device has passed rigorous testing to ensure great performance and easy access to Netflix and other services. This means the TV:
Starts up instantly and gets to Netflix (or other internet TV services) within just a few seconds.
Allows users to move quickly and easily between apps
Comes with the latest version of Netflix
Can support newer, more immersive Netflix browsing experiences, like video previews
In order to receive the designation, the TV must meet 5 out of 7 criteria (listed here).
What’s more, all of the models designated include a Netflix button on the remote control which means viewers can start watching instantly with the press of a single button. Magic. And our stopwatches come in handy, because we make sure you can power on your TV and start watching in just a matter of seconds.
Here is the first wave of 2018 Netflix Recommended TVs:
LG 4K UHD TVs with webOS 4.0
Sony W800F / WF800 series Android TVs
We test all TVs that carry Netflix and will continue to report new designations throughout the year as new devices become available or get updated. Timing of availability for Netflix Recommended TVs will vary by market, and not all models will be available in all regions. For more information, you can go to our Netflix Recommended TV website.
With emerging smartphone addiction people are glued to their smartphone devices like never before. While smartphones are considered to be one of the best inventions of all time it is not immune to common problems usually associated with largely used technologies. Here, it has not only given a medium to people to communicate and stay connected with their near and dear ones but it is also full of other apps & services. In fact, you unbox your smartphone bundled with a lot of apps & services that come pre-installed on your device. While some of these apps you use rest remain idle on your device.
Time to Intervene: Well, the time has come when we should stay vigilant to issues arising due to addiction to smartphones & social media accounts. Here, we should limit phone usage to save our time and to reduce smartphone dependence. To do this, Systweak Software offers you one effective tool in the form of Social Fever.
Features of the App
Track Goals: Under Track Goals option, the app helps you set individual goals for yourself and further track them. Using this option, you can reduce your smartphone dependency considerably. In this option, you need to go to individual app to set maximum time you want to spend on it. You can set your goals under tracking module and further track them when needed. You can use this effective feature to track time spent on phone efficiently.
App Usage: You can use this one of the best apps that track phone usage to monitor and limit phone usage significantly. Under app usage option, you can instantly view the information related to app usage. Further, it displays the total time spent on the specific app from tracking module.
History: It displays information related to the total time you have spent on different apps in last 7 days. Here, you will find history in a geographical format for easy understanding.
Interest: App not only allows you to track and limit your smartphone usage but it also helps you know how much time you have saved to spend your favorite activity. Under Interest, you need to set interest for yourself.
Ear Health: Under this feature, app will send you alerts when you spend long hours using earphones on your device. This feature is meant to reduce over usage of ear/headphones to keep your ear health intact. Using this app, that track phone usage also helps you keep your health well.
Eye Health: Like ear health, the app also helps you keep your eyes in good condition in addition to limit phone usage. Here, the app will send you warnings when you spend a long time on your smartphone starring at the device screen. You can use this feature to relax your eyes and mind.
Other features
To view app usage in real-time use Show App Tracking feature. Here, it will display a time tracker with selected app to help you know the time you have spent on any app.
You can change daily delivery report time by heading to app settings. Here, default time you get reports is 22:00 hours.
To view and manage daily goals click on “Show daily report” option. It will help you track time spent on phone effortlessly.
To clear tracking, history click on “Clear History” option.
To change interest, you have set click on “Show Interest” option.
The Verdict of the App: Social Fever offers an intuitive solution to deal with smartphone addiction. Using this smart solution, you not only manage to track and limit phone usage but you also save lot of your valuable time. This powerful tool offers lot of useful features to offer improved user experience. We can recommend you try this app to get best results in no time.
Another day a new pair of cans have arrived,this time from FOCAL. These come in several colours and are quite nice and its good to see a step away from the industry norm with nice fresh colours, Given ours are Black check out the colours on offer which really look nice. If you have any questions in the meantime feel free to ask while we test these out over the coming week or so and stay tuned for a full review soon.
Listen Wireless are Focal’s closed-back wireless headphones, equipped with Bluetooth® 4.1 wireless technology aptX compatible. Listen Wireless and its Chic edition guarantee superior sound performance, close to CD quality. Focal engineers have been very careful to keep our DNA in these headphones. Innovative 3/4″ (40mm) Titanium/Mylar drivers guarantee superior sound performance. Excellent isolation is created by the closed design and broad ear cushions.
The heat-sensitive memory foam ear cushions offer optimum comfort. Listen Wireless integrate a double microphone system: ‘Clear Voice Capture’, which offer superior voice rendering during phone calls. With 20 hours of battery life and just 3 hours of charge, Listen Wireless really takes your music everywhere, in total freedom.
Telcos embracing automation as the only way to stay relevant, says GlobalData
Telecommunications operators and suppliers (telcos) are embracing automation in a big way, in order to compete with cloud service providers like Amazon and Google, which operate on much shorter cycles and serve more clients with fewer people, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData.
Ron Westfall, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, says: “Telco network production is limited only by two things – the speed of light and the humans operating the network. Telcos that want to keep up with the pace of change have learned quickly that sending out human engineers to provision broadband services to business customers is what makes the service provisioning long, error-prone, and costly.
“The outcome of the currently ongoing process should leave operators with much more flexible networks and users with the capability to pick and choose from many more services. Most of the services will be provided through self-service portals, or even offered proactively, with networks sensing customer needs, such as the need for more bandwidth when streaming multiple HD video feeds at home or using a VR headset. Service parameters will change to accommodate user needs.”
The idea of self-driving, automated networks is not new to the likes of Google and Amazon. Now, network automation is coming of age and moving into telecoms, which operate in much more complex environments than cloud service providers.
Westfall concludes: “The challenge of automating complex telco networks is considerable and in a lot of cases needs bleeding edge technology. Today’s network automation therefore teems with buzzwords like AI, big data, analytics, and machine learning.
“However, the ambitions of large telcos that need to deploy new technologies quickly – and keep up the pace of change to stay relevant – leave only one logical way out: remove the complexity out of sight, and make networks work faster and more efficiently with less human intrusion.”
Bringing back old school design with the latest technology the R1850DB from Edifier is an active 2.0 bookshelf speaker system.
Every aspect of the R1850DB has been designed with purpose, the base has been angled at 10 degrees to accurately direct sound to you, and the wooden housing reduces distortion and minimizes acoustic resonance. The subwoofer produces a quality atmosphere, and the 4.5-inch midrange/woofer speaker driver creates rich lows. The treble units produce clear highs, meaning the R1850DB is a perfectly tuned and balanced bookshelf speaker.
The Bluetooth 4.0 technology allows you to pair the R1850DB with any Bluetooth powered device. Once synced, the R1850DB can be used for playback from multiple devices. The speakers are also fitted with digital, analog and RCA inputs for PCs, turntables and more.
The R1850DB comes with a fully featured remote so you can adjust the volume, switch inputs, mute the speakers and control the Bluetooth playback from your fingertips. The remote has been designed so that it fits neatly in your hand for ultimate comfort. A wireless remote control is also provided which allows you to remotely control the input selection, make volume adjustments or track control.
The R1850DB is available from Amazon at RRP £159.99.
I have used several headsets from Skullycandy now and they keep on delivering which is a good thing to see. The Hesh 3 have a similar appearance to the Crusher Wireless but on a cheaper pricepoint and when it comes to comfort and sound they are probably just as good though and to take away those looks of the Crusher Wireless grey and tan version which you can see a comparison of those in both flavours right HERE
UNBOXING
Presentation – As seen above they come well presented with one thing missing that should have been there which was a carry case but its not something to make you look elsewhere because everything after that is good. Nice packaging, detailed information and all the usual cables required inside.
Build Quality – Well build light and robust one could say and easy enough to keep clean,the joints seem lasting too and from past experience with similar they do hold up once you look after them and don’t throw them around. One thing as pointed out there is no carry case with them so just take it easy,they will take a few knocks but for how long is another story.
Design – They are minimalistic if you will and look quite the standard but that’s the trend and for the price point its fine, they fold up for transport purposes and should be safe,I would advise a carry case if you have on spare in the house just to be safe.
Controls – Simple and effective all on one side but no autoplay or pause here,buttons are raised aplenty so you will easily navigate blindly here after some time using them,they are clicky so you will know you have actually hit something.
Battery level – None as such but your android phone which is what we use will give you a level or juice left,there is an indicator level on the cup above the controls which will give you a connectivity status showing Blue or Red.
Sound – They sound quite good overall and the average user will be pleased here but the real audiophiles might find bass being the prominent feature here but then many of us like bass, Of course you can adjust tunes to your own taste via your phone for the pricepoint though you cant go wrong, The headphones have no active ANC but the cups really do a good job sealing the ears quite well and at the same time not feeling clamped either.
With 22hrs of battery life and 4 hours of play with just 10 minutes of charging these offer plenty for your first pair of decent headphones and also very comfortable for long term use.
Taking inspiration from groundbreaking technologies like IoT and Big Data, Artificial Intelligence is profoundly shifting the insurance industry, and investments are at a peak for insurtech companies around the globe. In a recent report by Willis Towers Watson, since 2016, 36 percent more investment, or the equivalent of 2.3 Billion Dollars has been invested across 450 start-ups during the course of last year alone.
AI solutions in the insurance sector are becoming increasingly popular – and as a start-up or developer, it’s one of the most dynamic and promising business-areas to be active in right now.Insurers are dealing with snowballing amounts of highly variable documents, including forms, emails and invoices, claims and policy comparisons that are all processed manually.
Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, CEO and founder of omni:us
With predictions for 2018 showing that insurance data will grow by 94%, 84% of which will be in unstructured documentation, new technology from insurtech startups is digitally transforming the process of the management and administration of large amounts of documentation. For example, technology brought to market by omni:us allows insurers to extract, review and analyse data from arbitrary documents featuring structured and unstructured data to a much higher and accurate level.
For insurers, there continues to be a prerequisite for people power for analysis and decision making. A number of insurers are seeing massive benefits from working with AI to reduce the time and cost spent on administrative tasks considerably and diminishing the countable risk of human error. Our solutions can read vast variations in document formats (emails, incident reports, invoices, etc.) even down to low quality scanned documents, faxes, and handwritten forms.
Game-changing AI technology in the market is ‘trained’ using millions of pages and constantly increases its intelligence through an ongoing feedback loop, making it a fully scalable solution. Like the solutions we offer at omni:us, digitizing and automating these tasks frees up resources in the workforce, improving allocation of staff resources through automation, giving companies the chance to create new added value role in areas not previously considered and ultimately save money.
As the competition in AI innovation continues to grow fiercer, it all about boils down to the technology. We’re seeing a steady stream of successful AI companies beginning to make their mark in the European market. For us at omni:us, we’re continuing to have a number of open conversations with insurers about how AI solutions can alter processes, portfolios and workforces. We’ve also closed promising deals with several key players in the insurance and banking sectors over the last year, and finance is another industry that is ripe for change and disruption with this technology.
Consumer needs have also dramatically changed in recent times. To better connect with their customers and discover the products and services that are required, financial services firms are having to design and develop fresh new strategies. In times to come, there’s no doubt that AI will empower more workforces, providing banks with a next-level insight into consumer trends and allow them to react and deliver appropriately with precise intelligence.
So, what should we expect when considering the future of AI? Inherently, there’s a continuing trend of investment in services from a number of global players. Countries like China are investing in a governmental capacity and we’re also seeing overwhelming demand from corporates, like Google and Facebook.
Europe on the whole, including Germany, is financially a little behind the overall global development, however the market is a hot bed of development and it won’t be long before we see European and German initiatives beginning to shift focus more. Looking at the wider picture across Europe, funding, people, infrastructure and ecosystems are key factors that all play a vital role too. The region is a breeding ground for some incredible talent, and it’s vital to highlight these critical resources in numerous leading research and educational institutions for future generations.
We’re entering an age where insurance and innovation go hand in hand, one size certainly will not fit all with AI, and that will be the case for the foreseeable. Although, there is of course a question mark above the thought that jobs and humans could be succeeded by machines, and the digital revolution might not create enough new vacancies to compensate for the diminished ones.
Transformation provides opportunity, including the creation of undiscovered roles in various sectors and redeploying people to higher value work. New innovations also expose the potential to improve people’s quality of work/life balance, reducing the number of hours spent at our desks and making working hours much more flexible. Concepts like working remotely or working on a freelance basis are constantly increasing, and by many of us also preferred. Retail, marketing and education are also sectors that are ripe for change with new AI technology, some of which is being developed faster than it can be implemented.
To explore the potential of this ground-breaking technology, omni:us and some of the most brilliant minds in tech are hosting the annual Machine Intelligence Summit on the 21 June 2018 in Berlin. The agenda includes speakers from companies like Google, Microsoft and Dropbox, as well as leading thinkers and academics.
Dublin-based Solar AdTek, the leading developer and supplier of innovative solar powered lighting for outdoor advertising has completed an upgrade of 1,800 bus shelter units across Ireland and significantly decreased their carbon emissions. SolarAdTek is responsible for the delivery of the bus shelter lighting project which is being funded by the ESB in a partnership arrangement with JCDecaux, on behalf of the National Transport Authority (NTA).
The newly installed lighting reduces operating costs, provides enhanced illumination and most significantly reduces carbon emissions. John Bouchier, Co-Founder, of Solar AdTek said ”As a result of the upgrade, energy usage by the NTA bus shelters has reduced by 88%, saving over 1,000 tonnes in carbon emissions annually. This is the equivalent to the average energy consumption for 461 homes.”
The work has greatly improved the quality of the bus shelters with the removal of all fluorescent tubes and the introduction by Solar AdTek of more environmentally friendly and better-quality roof and ad panel LED lighting.
The bus shelters are now using smart technology to regulate the flow of electrical current, which ensures the shelter lights only come on between the hours of dusk and dawn, thus further reducing energy consumption.
The ESB has funded the project in a partnership arrangement with outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, who have the contract for advertising rights and maintenance of NTA bus shelters in Dublin and around the country.
“We were delighted to have had the opportunity to bring this solution to JCDecaux and the National Transport Authority in partnership with ESB and that the first national co-funded roll-out has now been completed,” said Eoin O’Broin, CEO, Solar AdTek. “We have developed our solar and lighting systems specifically for the outdoor advertising market and have no doubt our model can be both replicated and significantly scaled for international markets.”
Solar AdTek provides solar powered LED lighting systems to illuminate outdoor advertising displays such as bus shelters and billboards. These systems combine a proprietary Solar Control Unit and customised LED lighting modules with best-in-class solar panels and batteries to deliver autonomous, reliable and cost effective off-grid lighting solutions.
The company can replace existing fluorescent tubes with bespoke LED lighting, which provides an energy saving of up to 88%. Solar AdTek’s in-built mobile communications network allows for real time passenger Information signs, remote system diagnostics, advertisement viewers, passing traffic counters and environmental sensors.
Better late than never but Amazon Echo Spot Now Available in Ireland. If you’ve not tried out any such products as yet you are missing out on how they can make life that bit easier for you. Check out our review of the Echo
Amazon today announced that Echo Spot, the newest addition to the Echo family, is now available in Ireland. Echo Spot delivers everything you love about Alexa with a smaller design and the added convenience of a circular screen so that Alexa can show you things. Customers can order from www.amazon.co.uk/echospot and pay in Euro at checkout.
“Echo Spot combines the popular small design of Echo Dot with the added benefit of a display, and all the things you love about Alexa into a stylish, compact device,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, Amazon Devices International. “See the weather, watch video news briefings, glance at your alarm clock, make video calls, and more. We think customers in Ireland will find lots of places for Echo Spot in their homes.”
Designed for any room, with the added convenience of a screen
Echo Spot fits easily into any room of your home. The size and viewing angle of the screen make Echo Spot ideal for use on a desk or nightstand so you can turn your lights on and off,watch a video flash briefing from RTÉ News, get the weather, check the time, wake up to music alarms, or view your calendar. You can also use Echo Spot in the kitchen to easily set and view timers, watch videos, call friends and family, see shopping and to-do lists, and more.
New microphone array with second-generation far-field technology
Echo Spot features second-generation far-field technology with four microphones, acoustic beam-forming technology, and enhanced noise cancellation so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. If you have more than one Echo, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you’re closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception).
Front-facing camera and Alexa calling help you stay connected—call anyone hands free
Put an Echo Spot in each room and use the Drop In feature to connect, hands-free, with other devices in your home. Drop in on the kitchen to ask when dinner will be ready, or drop in on the living room to see how homework is going. You can also use Echo Spot to start a voice or video call, or send a message—simply say, “Alexa, call dad,” or “Alexa, send a message to Mary.”
Built-in speaker, plus Bluetooth and audio-out to connect to your existing speaker systems
Alexa can talk to you and play music on Echo Spot through the built-in 2W speaker. Echo Spot can also directly connect to speakers through Bluetooth or using a 3.5mm stereo cable, enabling you to add Alexa to your home entertainment system. Then, use just your voice to control Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn, and more. Plus, with the multi-room music feature, you can play your favourites throughout your home, with synchronised music across all of your Echo devices.
Easily control your smart home
With compatible smart home devices, Echo Spot can integrate all of the smart home capabilities that customers love about Alexa—turn on the lights, view your live camera feed from the nursery, set up Routines, control the temperature, lock your doors with your voice when you’re heading to bed, and more.
Pricing and Availability
Echo Spot is available in black and white for £119.99, with the option to pay in Euro at checkout, with Irish credit cards, and ship directly to addresses in Ireland. Customers can order starting today at www.amazon.co.uk/echospot.
