Hasta La Gadget!

It goes without saying how connected we are to our mobile devices these days. Not only do they do things that phones would normally do before they got “smart”, but they can now do a lot more like post to social media, read the news, watch videos, play games, use it for virtual reality, cook our food, control our homes, and so on.

If you’re finding it hard to put your phone down, it’s not hard to see why. However it seems that over in the US, it’s becoming such a problem especially for kids that in a report from The Independent, kids as young as 13 years old are being sent for what is known as “smartphone rehab”. One rehab center in Seattle has recently begun offering an “intensive recovery program” for teenagers who have trouble controlling themselves.

Speaking to Sky News, Hilarie Cash who is the founder of the Restart Life Centre, the reason why kids especially might be so addicted to their mobile device is because those device can “override all those natural instincts that children actually have for movement and exploration and social interaction.”

Cash also encourages parents to “talk about tech and how much is good, how much is ok and when does it start to interfere with family relationships, with responsibilities, with sleep, and many other things.” Just like our food intake, sometimes a little moderation goes a long way.

Kids As Young As 13 Are Going For ‘Smartphone Rehab’ , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

By Sue-Lin Wong and Damir Sagolj

PYONGYANG (Reuters) – North Korea warned the United States on Saturday to end its “military hysteria” or face retaliation as a U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed towards the region and the reclusive state marked the “Day of the Sun”, the 105th birth anniversary of its founding father.

Concern has grown since the U.S. Navy fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. That raised questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. and unilateral sanctions.

The North’s warning came as leader Kim Jong Un, looking relaxed in a dark suit and laughing with aides, oversaw a military parade at Pyongyang’s main Kim Il Sung square, named after his grandfather, on his birth anniversary.

Goose-stepping soldiers and marching bands filled the square, next to the Taedonggang River that flows through Pyongyang, in the hazy spring sunshine, followed by tanks, multiple launch rocket systems and other weapons.

Single-engine propeller-powered planes flew in a 105 formation overhead.

North Korea, still technically at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce but not a treaty, has on occasion conducted missile or nuclear tests to coincide with big political events and often threatens the United States, South Korea and Japan.

“All the brigandish provocative moves of the U.S. in the political, economic and military fields pursuant to its hostile policy toward the DPRK will thoroughly be foiled through the toughest counteraction of the army and people of the DPRK,” the KCNA state news agency said, citing a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army.

DPRK stands for the official name of North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Our toughest counteraction against the U.S. and its vassal forces will be taken in such a merciless manner as not to allow the aggressors to survive.”

“COMMITMENT TO MISSILES”

KCNA said the Trump administration’s “serious military hysteria” had reached a “dangerous phase which can no longer be overlooked”.

The United States has warned that a policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea is over. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence travels to South Korea on Sunday on a long-planned 10-day trip to Asia.

State TV showed North Korea’s Pukkuksong submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) on parade with tanks and other heavy machinery in front of Kim Jong Un. It was the first time North Korea had shown the missiles, which have a range of over 1,000 km (600 miles), at a military parade.

Displaying more than one of the missiles indicates North Korea is progressing with its plan to base a missile on a submarine, which are hard to detect, said Joshua Pollack, editor of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Review.

“It suggests a commitment to this program,” said Pollack. “Multiple SLBMs seems like a declaration of intent to advance the program”.

Choe Ryong Hae, a close aide to Kim, addressed the packed square and reiterated the warning to the United States.

“If the United States wages reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary power will instantly counter with annihilating strike, and we will respond to full-out war with full-out war and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike warfare,” he said.

China, North Korea’s sole major ally and neighbor which nevertheless opposes its weapons programme, on Friday again called for talks to defuse the crisis.

North Korea on Friday denounced the United States for bringing “huge nuclear strategic assets” to the region as the USS Carl Vinson strike group with a flag-ship nuclear-powered aircraft carrier steamed closer.

(Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jack Kim and Minwoo Park in SEOUL; Writing by Nick Macfie)

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Smartwatches are pretty straightforward in terms of functionality, where they can record down information about the wearer and present it either on its screen or on an accompanying app. This is ideal for those who are curious about their fitness and want to track their progress while they’re on their run, or at the gym, cycling, and so on.

However Alphabet’s Verily has decided to go in a different direction with the announcement of the Study Watch. This is a wearable that has been designed for medical research purposes and will be a tool used in “unobtrusive biosensing”. Basically instead of features like displaying notifications from your phone, or controlling music playback, or playing games, the Study Watch will be more of a healthcare sort of device.

According to Verily, one of the features includes, multiple physiological and environmental sensors which are “designed to measure relevant signals for studies spanning cardiovascular, movement disorders, and other areas. Examples include electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate, electrodermal activity, and inertial movements.”

One of the proposed uses for the watch is in the Personalized Parkinson’s Project where it will be used to identify patterns in the progression of Parkinson’s disease, which could ultimately lead to more personalized treatments. It will also be used in Verily’s “Baseline” study which aims to track 10,000 participants over a five year period and better understand the link between ageing and disease.

Alphabet’s Verily Introduces The Study Watch Wearable , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

In theory each person on Facebook should have one account, which is one for themselves and themselves only. However there are some who have multiple accounts, one for public, and one private, or one for business, and one that’s personal. Then there are also some who create new accounts for nefarious purposes, such as cyberbullying or impersonation.

However it seems that creating fake accounts will become harder because Facebook has announced that they’ve made changes that makes it easier to detect fake accounts on their network.

In a post on Facebook by the social network’s Protect and Care Team manager Shabnam Shaik, “We’ve made improvements to recognize these inauthentic accounts more easily by identifying patterns of activity — without assessing the content itself. For example, our systems may detect repeated posting of the same content, or an increase in messages sent. With these changes, we expect we will also reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts.”

However as Shaik notes, this is only the beginning and that they will keep working on improving their services. “These are just some of the early results that we expect our new advances to deliver and that will serve as a stepping stone as we continue to iterate and improve.”

Facebook Is Now Better At Detecting Fake Accounts , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Here we have another newly released 4G LTE-enabled Android 6.0 smartphone ‘Evok Power’ from Micromax. Specs-wise, this mid-range smartphone packs a 5.0-inch 1280 x 720 HD 2.5D Curved Glass display, a 1.3GHz Quad-Core MediaTek MT6737 processor, a Mali-T720 GPU, a 2GB RAM and a 16GB of expandable internal storage (up to 32GB).

Featuring Hybrid dual SIM card slots, the handset has a 5MP front-facing camera, an 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, a fingerprint sensor on the back, an FM radio, a 3.5mm audio jack and a 4000mAh battery.

Running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS, the Evok Power provides 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS for connectivity. The Micromax Evok Power is available now for just Rs. 6,999 (about $108). [Product Page]

The post Micromax Evok Power 4G LTE-Enabled Android 6.0 Smartphone appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.