How to save your smartphone from the brink of watery death

By Philip Michaels published 29 October 17

Should your phone get wet, there are steps you can take to minimize the damage water can cause.

Water may be the source of all life, but it’s the death of many smartphones. That has forum user cheungcy0808 wondering if some devices are better than others at avoiding water damage, even if they’re not billed as water resistant.

“Why are there some [phones that] can survive water damage while they are not designed to be waterproof? They automatically turn off when being put in water, and then dramatically survive after they are dried!”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it basically boils down to luck. Should your smartphone lack water resistance and take an unscheduled detour into the drink, if you find it still works after it’s had a chance to dry out, then go buy yourself a lottery ticket. Because luck is clearly on your side.

That said, should your phone get wet, there are steps you can take to minimize the damage water can cause.

Cut the Power

If your phone falls into a sink, a pool or — shudder — a toilet, fish it out as soon as you can. Then power it down completely to stop any electricity from making contact with water that’s seeped into the phone.

If your phone landed in salt water, after you’ve powered it down, give it a rinse in a stream of fresh water. You don’t want any salt lingering on your phone.

Remove What You Can

Pop out your phone’s SIM card. Even if your device turns out to be a goner, maybe the info stored on the SIM can be salvaged. Do the same with any microSD card you happen to have inserted into your phone, and if the phone’s battery is removable, take that out, too.

Dry Off the Phone

Get a towel and dab away any moisture you can. Wipe off the SIM card, microSD card and battery, too. Then set all those different parts on another absorbent towel and leave your phone be. You’re going to be tempted to try turning it back on to see if it works, but really, give it at least a day, preferably two, to air out.

You absolutely should avoid using a hair dryer or any other heating device on your phone, as that could fry the electronics inside. Some people recommend a vacuum for sucking out any moisture, but get the vacuum too close to your phone and you risk damaging it with static electricity. Doing nothing is probably the safest course of action.

Think Twice About Rice

Doubtlessly, you’ve heard that you can stash your moist phone in a bag of uncooked rice for a day or two, with the rice sucking any remaining moisture out of your phone. Opinion is actually mixed on the effectiveness of this approach — some people swear by it, while others warn that the rice can actually leave behind sediment inside the phone.

What’s not disputed is that a desiccant is better-suited for the job. Take those packs of silica gel that are packed inside dry goods, clothes and other boxes. (You know, the ones helpfully labeled “Do Not Eat.”) They’re designed to handle moisture, which makes them ideal for helping dry out a smartphone. The trouble is, you’ll need a lot of them — enough to fill a bowl or a Ziploc bag. So either start hoarding those packets or order some from Amazon.

Turn to an Outside Service

In recent years, a number of services have sprung up that offer to dry out your smartphone for a fee using vacuum technology. (The best services waive that fee or at least reduce it if they can’t revive your phone.) The challenge here is one of time and distance: You’ve got to get your phone to one of these services right away, and that can be a challenge if the company doesn’t have a location near you.

TekDry seems to have the widest reach, thanks to a partnership with the Staples retail chain, though a glance at the company’s map of locations indicates that it’s mostly found on the east and west coasts. Companies offering other options, including DryBox and Redux, aren’t nearly as far flung.

Consider a Waterproof Phone

Water resistance is becoming a more common feature on smartphones, though at this point, you’re more likely to find it on more expensive flagship models. You’re going to want a phone that promises either IP67 or IP68 water resistance. The former can survive dunks in up to 3 feet of water for 30 minutes, while the latter can go 5 feet deep.

Apple added IP67 water resistance with last year’s iPhone 7 models, and the new iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X devices feature it, too. (Alas, Apple’s most affordable phone, the iPhone SE, doesn’t have any water resistance.) The leading Android flagships from Samsung, LG and Google offer water resistance, too, with the Galaxy S8 and S8+ boasting an IP68 rating.

Water resistance is starting to find its way to midrange phones. The LG X venture is a $330 AT&T exclusive with an IP68 rating. The $399 Moto X4 has an IP68 rating, too: It’s available both as an unlocked device and through Google’s Project Fi wireless service.

Philip Michaels is a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide. He’s been covering personal technology since 1999 and was in the building when Steve Jobs showed off the iPhone for the first time. He’s been evaluating smartphones since that first iPhone debuted in 2007, and he’s been following phone carriers and smartphone plans since 2015. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics, old movies and proper butchery techniques. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.

• LinuxInsider
• Mobile

The Death of the Smartphone

Smartphones and tablets might be the current hot technology, but history says it’s all just another fad. Twenty years from now, almost nobody will own either device. Seems unbelievable, but the same technology that makes them hot today will make them not tomorrow. If this sounds ridiculous, consider what happened to another “must-have” technology that almost nobody uses any more: the fax machine.

Back in 1991, the Baby Bells were predicting an explosion of landlines and a corresponding shortage of phone numbers because “everyone will need a fax machine.” Phone companies offered to lease fax machines for “only (US)$60 a month on a three-year contract.” (Sound familiar?) Newspapers were offering early faxes of their main stories to subscribers for a buck a day. Every office supply store had shelf after shelf of fax machines for home and office use.

All those dreams got trashed by the Internet and cheap computers. Email attachments killed the fax machine boom. Today a fax “machine” is a $1 chip in a laptop, and like the modem chip, nobody even bothers to configure it. Faxing the newspaper? Newspapers are dropping like old news, and paywalls are mostly money-losers. Even those cries of “mom, we need a second line for the Internet” are just a dim memory. Instead of two, three or four landlines, many homes now have none. Indeed, many existing “landlines” are actually VoIP phones.

Holding On for Dear Life

The problem facing the telcos is that they’re in the phone business, not the “find the best way for people to communicate and give it to them at a competitive price” business. Their product is access to the telephone network. Worse, their entire business model hinges on an archaism — the 10-digit phone number monopoly. People increasingly don’t use phone numbers to contact each other, and the telcos are at risk of becoming just another data pipe for when you’re not near a WiFi connection.

Fax machines are just one of many examples of the future not turning out the way the telcos envisioned it. “Sure-thing” premium services like video calling never saw beyond limited use — too expensive, and people were not willing to shell out $600 for a videophone, plus the extra monthly charges — not when there was almost nobody to talk to on the phone network. Now it’s too late. You can have your “videophone of the future” experience via Skype, Google Talk or Google+ Hangouts at no extra charge.

Also dying is the business model of locking customers into long-term contracts by financing expensive mobile phones. Unlocked Android smartphones are going for less than $200 with no contract, and LG makes a nice $60 flip-phone.

Rise of the Smart Network

Today the same technology that lets phone companies move voice calls cheaply over the Internet also directly competes with them. What keeps phone subscribers on the hook are inertia (the “phone number” habit), lower prices, and increasing services — all of which explain why I’m paying less for a phone with unlimited calling across the country today than I was for local service 20 years ago.

The clock is ticking … and IPv6 will be the second-to-last step in our journey to a phone-free future, where every device has its own unique “phone number” and the network has enough smarts to locate you wherever you are, routing all communications to the nearest device, whether it’s a TV, car, public security camera, or the active display on the shopping cart at the mall.

Smartphones and Tablets in 2031?

Let’s go 20 years in the future. Pretty much every electronic device can interact with your video SPEKZ, which can be anything from a pair of plain-jane NokiaSofts to the latest cool shades from Apple. Cars, streetlight surveillance cams, water meters, televisions, and even your clock radio are all talking to each other — and your SPEKZ are piggybacking on their data streams. There’s not a single laptop, desktop, smartphone or tablet computer in sight.

It’s an amazingly seamless experience. The tiny twin cams on your SPEKZ let you share what you see with your friends and stream a copy to your home server. Your watch and charm bracelet contain sensors to detect your wrist movements and the muscles and tendons of your fingers flexing, all descended from Nintendo WiiMote technology.

Of course, since most men would be about as likely to wear a charm bracelet as they would a pink shirt (some things haven’t changed), they can also sub-vocalize emails and use eye-tracking technology to make selections “just like a fighter pilot!” You type on your SPEKZ virtual keypad and pick from menus and icons floating in 3D before your eyes.

Passwords? “What’s a password, mom?” Instead, your watchface contains a small camera that does both facial and fingerprint identification as well as other biometrics, and your SPEKZ do retinal, iris and voice ID.

It’s a safer, more polite world. The latest Amber Alert system allows people to opt in to automatically search the last few minutes of their SPEKZ data stream against a possible match. Road rage is also much less frequent, and not only because most cars are driving themselves. People even stoop and scoop because other fed-up dog owners forward SPEKZ videos of the culprits caught in the act to the city and post them on the Net.

SPEKZ systems are also saving lives. Before SPEKZ, 20 percent of all heart attacks went undetected. Now, biometric watchbands and ubiquitous WiFi detect heart attacks, heat strokes and hypothermia earlier, and your SPEKZ alert medical services even when you can’t.

How Do We Get From Here to There?

The telcos and ISPs will continue to try to oppose ubiquitous free WiFi mesh networks, just like they’re dragging their feet on implementing IPv6, but competition and public safety concerns will trump their increasingly weakened lobby.

With both phones and their phone network monopolies long gone, carriers will have to settle for being sellers of wireless bandwidth in areas without regular WiFi coverage, and operators of commodity infrastructure.

Barbara Hudson’s daughters and her dogs are a large part of who she is. As for computers, she’s been writing code for longer than she really wants to admit. Now that she’s returned to independent development, her current focus is on creating simpler and more secure code libraries. Her dream project? Creating the ultimate chess program.

By Robert Preidt
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 25, 2019 (HealthDay News) — While you’re watching your calories to avoid packing on extra pounds, you might also want to cut down on your smartphone usage, new research suggests.

Spending too much time on your smartphone is linked to a higher risk of obesity, investigators report.

Their study included 1,060 students at Simon Bolivar University in Colombia and was conducted from June to December 2018. There were 700 women, average age 19, and 360 men, average age 20.

Those who used their smartphone five or more hours a day increased their risk of obesity by 43%. Meanwhile, 26% of those who were overweight and 4.6% of those who were obese spent more than five hours a day on their smartphone.

The study also found that those who used their smartphone five or more hours a day were twice as likely to be less physically active and to consume more sugary drinks, fast food, sweets and snacks. However, only an association rather than a cause-and-effect link was observed.

The findings were to be presented Thursday at the annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) Latin America Conference, in Cartagena, Colombia. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“Spending too much time in front of the smartphone facilitates sedentary behaviors, reduces the time of physical activity, which increases the risk of premature death, diabetes, heart disease, different types of cancer, osteoarticular discomfort and musculoskeletal symptoms,” warned study author Mirary Mantilla-Morron. She’s a cardiac pulmonary and vascular rehabilitation specialist at Simon Bolivar.

“The results of this study allow us to highlight one of the main causes of physical obesity, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease,” Mantilla-Morron added in an ACC news release.

“We have also determined that the amount of time in which a person is exposed to the use of technologies — specifically prolonged cellphone use — is associated with the development of obesity,” she concluded.

Mobile phones are basically just mini portable computers these days. The best devices on the market can give you many of the features you can get with a regular laptop. Programming with a smartphone is therefore very possible. All a developer needs to know is the right tools to get.

Unfortunately, information on how to use a phone as an environment for developing applications and websites is somewhat hard to find. Unless you’re very specific, searching the internet will often lead you to a page about how to code and debug apps that run on mobile phones.

That is why we decided to dig deep and uncover what you’ll need to turn your phone into a desktop-like programming device.

1. A Text Editor

To develop on your smartphone, the first thing you’ll need is a source-code editor. Essentially, an editor will allow you to create and edit text files written in various programming languages. In other words, this is where you write your code.

Similar to a desktop editor, your Android tool should be easy to navigate, customizable by modifying font size, color schemes, etc., and offer simple cut, copy and paste features. The abilities to handle UTF-8 encoded text and highlight syntax are also elements you may want in your editor.

The Play Store is well-populated with text editors, but if you’re new to programming on your phone, go for the most popular app you can get, preferably for free. If you’re familiar with Vim Touch for PC, an Android version exists, and its handy features are well laid out to make touchscreen editing a lot more bearable.

I would also recommend a more code-writing oriented keyboard than the one that ships with your device. One of the best is Hacker’s Keyboard, which makes special characters like brackets or colons easier to type by laying them out as they typically appear on a computer keyboard.

2. A File Manager

If you ask an Android enthusiast why they prefer the platform to iOS, they’ll likely say it’s because Android comes with a file manager application that offers the ability to create folders and move files around. However, these apps are usually very limited for a programmer, primarily because they don’t show all the data on your phone.

Because every program you write or app you build will be represented as a file in your Android device, you’ll need an explorer that gives the flexibility to find and manipulate files as you please. I recommend OI File Manager, a free, open-source replacement for Android’s file explorer, which will let you copy, move, rename and share files easily.

3. A View-Source Handler

If you’re developing a web-based application, a View Source handler is a necessity. What it does is let you open your source code by typing the URL address on a browser.

View Source Mobile is available as an add-on for browsers like Opera Mobile, Dolphin, and Firefox. Alternatively, you could get an app called VT View Source, a stand-alone browser that offers the same capabilities as the add-on, along with a few extra features specific to developers.

4. A Web Server for Testing Web Applications

Developers of websites and web-based applications need web servers to store files which can be accessed by the target user via the internet. When someone visits your site or uses your app online, their browser communicates with your web server and exchanges information to determine what will be shown on the visitor’s screen. Popular online website hosts such as HostGator and Godaddy provide cheap servers for hosting online applications.

Local web servers for testing and staging purposes can also be easily built with XAMPP and WAMP which are among the most popular web server packages for PC, but you can also get the same features on Android. The best app for the job is Palapa Web Server, which gives you MySQL, PHP and Lighttpd all pre-configured into a single, free stack-package, although beware trying to run a local server on a more budget Android device that may not have the specs to handle it. Palapa even lets you edit the server config files directly in the app itself.

5. Extras

Although the above are the core tools you’ll need to do web development on your Android device; there are other apps you can get to expand your exploits, especially if you’ve rooted your device.

For instance, if you’re going to be an active smartphone programmer, you may want to be able to manually grant and revoke permissions to apps that can access root privileges. For that purpose, SuperSU is an excellent tool for controlling a rooted smartphone.

Moreover, your Android smartphone isn’t really a computer without a command line. And while Android Terminal Emulator offers some utilities on its own, install BusyBox Free, which will add more GNU/Linux features to your Terminal Emulator.

Lastly, if privacy and security are a priority, Orbot and ChatSecure are among the apps you wouldn’t want to miss. Orbot is basically Tor for Android, while ChatSecure offers an encrypted channel for off-the-record (OTR) chatting.

So that’s a start on how to get your Android smartphone ready for coding. Tell us your own favorite tools for programming your smartphone in the comments… And be sure to subscribe to get more articles like this in your inbox!

As the financial hub has become a failed metropolis

Karachi, Pakistan’s “jewel in the crown”, the financial hub and its most diversified city has become a failed metropolis because of serious issues pertaining to governance, rule of law, infrastructure and lack of civic amenities. With a population of more than 20 million and crumbling institutions Karachi is fast turning into a huge garbage dump. The outbreak of lethal diseases like dengue and Congo fever due to unhygienic conditions is threatening millions.

The monsoon rains further exposed Karachi’s multiple disorders namely broken roads, electricity failure, choking of drainage system and a disease epidemic. The absence of a viable sewage and waste disposal system further hampered citizens. All three major stakeholders of Karachi i.e. the Sindh government led by the PPP, the city government controlled by the Mayor belonging to the MQM, and the PTI which won the majority of national and provincial assembly seats from Karachi, have failed to address these issues.

The recent debate about invoking Article 149 of the Constitution, where the federal government can direct the provincial administration regarding these issues, deepened the polarisation between the PPP, the MQM and the PTI. While the last two mentioned rendered their support for Article 149 as the only viable option to prevent a complete breakdown in the city’s system, the PPP-led Sindh government vehemently rejected any interference from the Centre and blamed PTI’s federal government and MQM’s city government for messing with Karachi’s issues.

No other mega city in the world is facing such a predicament as Karachi. The city which was the federal capital till 1959 suffered from neglect and injustice by those wielding power. Karachi is the only Pakistani city which has large segments of ethnic communities, including Urdu speaking migrants from India, Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) and Azad Kashmir. The city also hosts millions of Bengalis, Afghans, and Burmese. Likewise, Karachi is notorious for crimes such as drug trafficking and target killings. Yet, it is home to all the social and economic classes. Contributing more than 50% of the federal revenue, Karachi is a hub of economic and business activities.

Why has then, despite being a lifeline of the country, Karachi in the past four decades succumbed to poor public transport and infrastructure, water crisis, land-grabbing mafias and a deteriorating law and order situation? Why have those with Karachi’s mandate failed to deliver? Why are its citizens cursing the city, provincial and federal governments for leaving them vulnerable to diseases emanating from heaps of garbage and filth which across the city? Karachi was never so neglected and helpless as it is today because those who represent the city miserably failed to deliver. They are, however, neither held accountable nor do they feel the responsibility to save the city from the brink.

Karachi has not degenerated in a day, week, month or a year. It has been a victim of criminal neglect, exploitation and corruption since the last several decades. One can figure out three major reasons regarding why and how Karachi should be pulled from the brink before it is too late and the city is exposed to large-scale violence and a total breakdown.

First, despite shifting the interim federal capital to Rawalpindi in 1959 and then to Islamabad in 1960, Karachi has not lost its importance. It remained a land of opportunities for people from across Pakistan to seek employment, education and a better way of life. But, when the city faces a threat of civic breakdown millions of lives are at stake. When citizens pay Rs20 billion annually to purchase water from the tanker mafia, one can understand the level of corruption and neglect of state authorities to provide water which is their duty. The only way such dangerous issues can be resolved is by introducing large-scale reforms in the city government and empowering the Mayor along with councillors to urgently resolve matters which are a threat to the peace and survival of local people. Availability of financial resources in order to better the city’s infrastructure should be subject to their judicious use, strict transparency and accountability. Both city and provincial governments are blamed for large-scale corruption, nepotism and looting billions of rupees for the development of the city to the extent that people don’t trust those who are supposed to deliver. So-called elected representatives have hurt more than those who are not elected. In all localities neither the councillors, nor district or city nazims are fulfilling their responsibilities.

Secondly, Karachi is the soft underbelly of Pakistan because of serious ethnic, lingual and sectarian divides. If civic and other trivial issues are not urgently resolved, mafias and anti-state elements will take advantage of the situation and try to destabilise the financial and economic hub of the country. In its essence, it is the prime responsibility of the federal government to resolve the issues which have transformed Karachi into a failed city. The President of Pakistan hails from Karachi and during his election campaign last year he used to go from pillar to post asking for votes. Unfortunately, after becoming President, he has forsaken his city and has not even bothered to console the people of Karachi when they were in a crisis following the monsoon rains. Likewise, the Prime Minister was also elected from Karachi. Yet, he did not have the courtesy to visit the city to personally review the deteriorating situation, despite Karachi providing 14 members of the National Assembly and around 30 to the Provincial Assembly to his party. Imran Khan and his party’s abandonment of Karachi will be counterproductive because in the next general elections, his party will face retaliation from voters who voted for his party in the past but got nothing in return. Compared to the President and the Prime Minister, Sindh’s Chief Minister bore more responsibility in handling the situation following the rains. He not only toured different affected parts of Karachi but also activated the provincial government to provide relief to people. Despite the fact that the PPP never got sufficient seats from Karachi in the general elections, the Sindh Chief Minister tried his best to support the citizens in their time of need. However, the provincial government should clarify the perception that it only cares for ethnic Sindhis as its vote bank is located in interior Sindh.

Thirdly, the city government and its PTI allies must not take Karachi for granted. PTI MNA and Federal Minister Faisal Vawda openly accused Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar of being corrupt. Ali Zaidi, another PTI MNA from Karachi and a federal minister, blamed the MQM-run District Central for re-dumping garbage, thus terming it a conspiracy to sabotage the cleanliness drive by him after the monsoon spell.

Bringing back the federal capital to Karachi is perceived to be the only viable option to save the lifeline of Pakistan from further degeneration. Karachi may get its lost glory back when the seat of power will revert back to Karachi after six decades and the city will be at least be owned by the Federation of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20 th , 2019.

How deep would you go to save your smartphone? Smartphones certainly have evolved in the last years. If in the beginning they’ve been used for quick messages and calls, nowadays we carry portable computers wherever we go. Nowadays, for some users, the smartphone can be considered an extension of life. They wake up and check their smartphone, pass countless hours navigating on the web and through social media and etc. Apart from non-essential usage, smartphones also can carry and support vital information nowadays. We can carry important apps with ID, bank accounts, and even precious data. Sometimes, it’s just because they’ve become crazily expensive. Anyway, How deep would you go to save your smartphone from imminent death? Well, a woman has gone through the deeps of a toilet tank in a bid to save her smartphone.

The Fire department in Washington was notified. They’ve received an emergency call to help a woman who fell into a vault toilet while trying to retrieve the dropped smartphone. The Brinnon Fire Department, to be more specific, said crews responded to the vault toilet near a Mount Walker parking lot. A woman was reportedly trapped in the commode’s tank. Through a Facebook post, the department said that the woman, who is close to her 40s, left his phone slip. The device fall into the toilet, in a bid to rescue its device, the woman fell deeper while trying to retrieve it. After a few minutes of failed attempts, she found she was unable to get out on her own. She was still able to get the device and promptly called 911.

The Firefighters used the environment to rescue the woman and her smartphone

The Firefighters had to compose a smart plan to recover the woman and his, probably stinking smartphone. They send a couple of pieces of wood to the woman, thus allowing her to build a platform to stand on. As a result, the rescuers were able to reach her and pull her to safety. The dirty situation was solved with a good wash at the scene. The woman received replacement clothes. As per the Firefighters, she was not injured. However, they’ve recommended she seek medical attention. After all, she went into contact with human waste.

Anyway, after this very embarrassing situation, the woman “only wanted to leave”. Despite the recommendation, the Firefighters allowed the woman to keep her travels. After giving good thanks to the Firefighters, the woman went on a journey to California. She will certainly have a funny story to tell future generations.

Updated on June 22, 2018

It won’t take a minute before the water reaches in the internal assembly and cause water damage to your smartphone. Read along to know how to fix Huawei Water damaged smartphone which is applicable to all other smartphones as well. Smartphones are highly sophisticated but at the end of the day, these are electronic devices and these are highly sensitive. Without proper protection, it won’t take a minute for the water to seep into the internet assembly and destroy the motherboard or other components of your phone.

If you are looking for a guide on how to fix a water damaged smartphone or just want to brush up your skills with the knowledge so that in case if your phone is water damage, you can take necessary actions to prevent it from getting totally damaged. There are some don’ts and do’s that you must know when you accidentally drop the phone in a pool or any water body, etc.

How to Fix Huawei Water Damaged Smartphone?

• Don’t panic

If the phone is submerged under water or say you spilled water on it, don’t panic and keep the phone on a dry surface.

• Don’t turn it ON

If the phone is still turned ON, keep the phone on a dry surface and press the power button to turn it OFF. However, if the phone is turned OFF, do not attempt to turn it ON.

• Don’t shake or press any keys

Shaking the phone or pressing any keys, both have an adverse effect on water needs a tiny place to pass. This means that even if the water hasn’t reached the internal assembly, it could reach if you shake it or press any buttons or so.

• Don’t blow or heat up the phone

Water evaporates when heated up. But since there is no way out, the water will still remain inside the phone and might cause damage if you keep on heating it. Similarly, do not blow air using your mouth or blower as it can force the water deep into the internal components and that will surely burn a hole in your pockets.

What do you need to do?

• Disassemble the phone

It is the first thing you need to do. When the phone is water damaged, every second count. Take the phone and remove the SIMs, memory card, back cover and the battery out and keep it on a dry surface and let it dry. You can take a clean and dry cloth to soak the water off the disassembled components. Keep the phone aside until you go through the next step.

• Dry out the exterior

Use a paper towel, tissue, or alcohol to dry off the exterior of the phone. Ensure that you don’t shake the phone much or else the water could cause further damage to your smartphone. You need to soak any water from the audio jack, SIM and memory slots, and then from the battery compartment if the phone has a removable battery. Be gentle and do not shake the phone.

• Use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the water

Next step is to take a vacuum cleaner and suck out excess water from the audio jack, SIM and memory card slots, buttons, bezel, around the battery and other parts of the phone using a lighter setting on the vacuum cleaner.

• Ziplock the phone in rice & let it dry

Rice is one of the best moisture absorbents that you can utilize to curb the Huawei water damaged smartphone. What you need to do is take the phone and put it in a ziplock bag. Now, fill the ziplock bag completely with rice and zip the bag. Keep the ziplock bag in a safe and secure place for 2 to 3 days. Note that many of the users who use this technique usually check if the phone has dried up or not but it is not the right method.

You need to understand that when you put the phone into a bag of rice, keep it inside the bag for few days without interfering with it. After 3 days, take the phone out of the ziplock bag and voila, all the moisture and water in the smartphone has dried up completely.

• The final countdown

After taking out the phone from the ziplock bag, plug the battery (if it was removable), and then, try to turn ON the phone. If the phone vibrates without any display, there is a possibility that the battery has completely drained. Plug the phone with a charger and keep it idle for 10 to 15 seconds. Now, try to boot up the phone again. Note that the chances of reviving a water damaged smartphone which didn’t have any water resistant coating or cover, only a handful of such devices are left undamaged by water.

If you are lucky enough, the phone might turn ON with little or no damage. Check the screen for any blurred spot or insensitive region on the touchscreen as it can reveal if there is any potential damage to the touchscreen or not. There is another possibility that even after your phone dipped into the pool, only the battery got damaged. If it is so, check the battery with any other smartphone and check if is it working or not.

What to do to prevent water damage in the future?

If you are one of the millions of skeptics about water damage to your smartphone, there are several things you can do to prevent any potential damage. Water resistant smartphone with IP67 or IP68 coating or with a third-party coating can help prevent water damage to your smartphone. Another way to protect the phone from potential water damage is to use water resistant phone covers can help you avert potential water damage. Note that it is highly unlikely that all the users utilizing this guide can fix their water damaged smartphone since water has a long-lasting effect on electronic devices and phones are highly sensitive and prone to water damage.

Battery life anxiety plagues anyone with a smartphone – here’s how to extend your battery life

• 16:14, 7 Apr 2015
• Updated 09:30, 8 Apr 2015

These days you’ll be pushed to get a full day’s battery life from your smartphone.

The bright screens and powerful processors of leading devices like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S6 mean you have an incredibly impressive pocket computer, with an equally impressive appetite for energy.

Unless you are willing to go back to the digital dark ages of a dumb phone – or wait for the battery that will recharge within a minute – then you’ll have to try these tricks and tips.

Dim your display

One of the biggest energy suckers is the smartphone’s colourful display. Most smartphones will automatically adapt the brightness according to ambient light levels. To save even more energy it’s worth popping into the settings to manually change the brightness to the lowest level.

Reduce the screen timeout time

While you’re at it you can also change the settings so the screen turns off more quickly after you put the phone down. Look for an option called “screen timeout” in an Android phone or auto-lock in an iPhone and you can then tweak how long the screen stays on – set it to the shortest possible time.

Close apps you aren’t using

Most modern smartphones now let you multi-task with apps – so you can be composing a Facebook post but then quickly pop into your internet browser to find a link – and you won’t lose the original post. The problem is, this means you can easily leave many apps running in the background, consuming precious battery life.

To combat this, close down any apps you aren’t using. On an iPhone this means double tapping the home button and swiping icons upwards. On an Android phone you just need to press the multi-tasking button and then swipe apps away.

Turn off your wi-fi

When you’re out and about your phone will constantly be searching for wi-fi networks to connect to, which can zap the battery life. It’s worth switching the wi-fi off when you’re on the move and only turning it back on when you reach your destination.

Don’t use vibrate mode

The power needed to run the vibration motor of your phone is far greater than the power needed for a ringtone. So if you’re trying to make your battery last longer it’s best to turn off the vibrate mode. If you’re trying to be discreet in a meeting or at work, then it’s worth just switching to silent.

Even if you do all of the above, you’re still not going to get the battery life you were accustomed to in the 1990s. If you can’t handle that, it might be worth taking the extreme nostalgia option:

Go back to the Nokia 3210

The Nokia 3210 is the greatest phone ever made. It might not have done any of the snazzy non-phone things that modern devices do – fitness tracking, altitude sensing, eye-testing fandangery – but it was great at sending texts, making calls, having a long battery life and not smashing even when you threw it across a room in a supermodel-esque rage.

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A lot of people have suggested that we rely too much on our smartphones to do our thinking for us. I can’t really make an argument against them, can you?

Considering how many people rely on their phones, instead of their brains… I’m not surprised. People who are less analytic (but have a strong intuition) use their smartphones to “think” for them, reports this study.

Just how smartphones are making us mental couch potatoes… is something I’d like to find out. Let’s find out together!

1. GPS Degrades Memory

Neuroscientist Veronique Bohbot did a study with her colleagues. Her team found that global positioning systems (GPS) reduces the hippocampus. Remember what the hippocampus is?

It’s the part of your brain that… well… remembers stuff.

Which makes sense, right? If you always have a machine telling you where to go, you’ll rarely get the chance to develop a “feel” for where you’re going. Mesmerizing signs and stop lights, what turns you took and where. Which landmarks to watch out for. That type of useful stuff that is crucial for remembering directions.

2. Ruin Our Multitasking

According to Today, a Stanford researcher Clifford Nass did a study; what he found was shocking:

Heavy multitaskers (people who watch TV, surf the web, and find the cure for cancer while gabbing away on their phones all at once) were less able than the average person to focus on a task.

Author Nicholas Carr went on to say this in his book, “The Glass Cage: Automation And Us.” He dives deep into our relationship with factory robots doing the work of humans, self-driving cars, computer glasses, and more.

3. What To Do Next?

Let’s say, for example, that you accidentally drop your smartphone into the toilet. Whoops! Quick, what’s your first reaction?

…Take it out of course. But then what? Try to use it again?

Wrong! This is pure laziness. Chances are unless this has happened before, you never had the curiosity to look it up.

A “just in case” scenario. No fear – the smart thing to do first, to save your smartphone from a watery grave, would be to turn it off.

What you should do next is a tricky process, but it is doable.

4. They Do Things For Us

We’ve invented apps… That do this for us. An app like TaskRabbit can connect anyone with money to people who will clean your house, shop for you… even assemble new furniture.

A local help app Zaarly helps you find someone to bake a cake for you.

An app called FastCustomer will actually connect you with people… who will wait on customer service’s hold for you. Then get back in touch with you when waiting times are done.

I mean, really? Really? People in the world actually get paid to wait on hold? I can understand these services for executives or people who are busy developing apps that (gasp!) help the world. But, personally, for the life of me… I can’t understand how people can be so lazy.

Such is the craze of the digital age.

5. Too Much Search Engine-ing

Let me ask you a question (and you can’t Google the answer! Respect the honor system). A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. So how much does the bat cost?

As CTVnews reports, the answer is 5 cents. At least, that’s what analytical thinkers would think.

The researchers who held this study then asked those same people about whether or not they owned a smartphone. The researchers then looked at the number of people who did own one and found something interesting.

People who use smartphones extensively scored lower on several tests.

6. Reduce Our Instinct

It’s our natural instinct to look up something – from regular questions and directions; even those we know already, buried somewhere deeply in our minds.

And, sadly, smartphones are ruining our instincts, as Real Simple points out.

They even acknowledge our addiction (or slavery?) to the devices and provide helpful tips on curbing the “need” for checking smartphones every ten minutes. There’s no messages, no emails, nothing – but still, you keep checking your smartphones.

Maybe it’s time for you to sell your smartphone and just be without it for some time. Or, hand-it-over to someone, rent it out (if someone is willing to take it) but just don’t throw it out with anger. It’s your buddy that comes handy when needed but it can become an addiction if used when unneeded.

7. Children Are Prey

Smartphones aren’t all about you, are they? Sadly, children are prey, too. As it’s quite a common site (during an average day) to see at least one or two toddlers and preteens sporting smartphones. What’s the harm, right? It can’t be all that bad, can it? I mean, they’re going to get into the things sooner or later, aren’t they? Why not start them while they’re young! So they can become proficient “masters” when they’re teenagers and young adults.

96% of small children have used mobile devices and in two years (from ’11 to ’13) the number of children using smart devices leaped from 50% to more than 75%.

A 25% increase in two years. What’s worse than that? Real Simple broke the news that children (between 8 and 10 years old) spent more than seven hours on social media. (When they weren’t in school, that is.)

Seven. Hours. A. Day. On social media.

The study goes on to say that this “devotion” to social media stunts a lot of children’s emotional growth. How? Because they limit our face-to-face interactions. (Obviously, this is a no-brainer.)

“But what’s so bad about that,” some might say. “I sat in front of a screen all the time and I turned out just fine.”

While, yes, it’s true most 20-somethings (myself included) spend most of our days and adolescence in front of screens… We also had friends, and knew how to talk to each other, and spent most nights not just curled up in front of our devices… but we were out in the world – being stupid, causing mayhem, disrupting sleeping neighbors, and teasing dogs. We basked in (though we didn’t know it at the time) the good ol’ days.

Children today, by way of screens, are being robbed of that experience. They’re spoiled, just like teens. My own nephew LOVES video games. If he doesn’t have a video game in his hand, he gets restless and starts acting like a caffeine-sensitive person gulping two cups of black coffee in a row.

Was I like that? Sure! But not to that extent – and I definitely had other things to do. But that was then. I don’t want to become one of those “Why, back in my day…” old geezers, but it’s true! We didn’t have a lot of the stuff they do now.

And it’s slowly depriving children of… well… childhood.

So the biggest way smartphones make us mentally lazy, as parents and on-lookers and uncles and aunts, is by how we handle children: sitting them in front of a screen, and letting technology raise them.

Conclusion

For as much good that smartphones provide in the world… which in no way can be overestimated… there is a serious drawback that we, as thinkers of society, need to think twice about.

We don’t want to lose our superpower use of cognitive functions, do we? Otherwise… The next generation of kids won’t stand an intellectual chance, to help the human race evolve as a species. Our posterity as a collective humanity might just be at risk.

The problem with the pressure of keeping up with the latest trends is that we often spend money on those things we can’t afford. It’s so easy to put everything on a credit card with the notion that we’ll pay it all off next month. But when next month comes around and you receive your credit card statement and realise that you spent way too much money (perhaps you shouldn’t have bought those designer shoes or that new toy) and find yourself stuck in lots of debt.

Our lives and the world around us are constantly changing, making it increasingly more difficult to ignore the latest trends in fashion, technology and the dining scene. New smartphones and tablets are being updated with the latest apps and functions. Designers are releasing the latest seasonal clothing trends. New, trendy cafes and restaurants are popping up all over big cities with healthy and wholesome recipes that stimulate our palate.

Yet, one of our biggest fears in today’s society is being unable to “keep up with the Joneses.” We splurge on those new smartphones and tablets or purchase those expensive designer shoes because we want to be part of the ‘in’ crowd. Everyone else is doing it so it must be cool, right?

So, how do you eliminate the pressure of keeping up with those trends? Here are some tips to help you:

Define Your Means

Regardless of how much you earn, it’s important to spend less so you can keep yourself out of debt. Start tracking your spending so you can learn exactly how much you’re spending and where your money is going. You might even surprise yourself on where your money is going!

When you spend within your means, you keep yourself out of debt. Of course, it is okay to splurge every once in a while, but when you make a habit of it, that’s when you risk putting yourself in debt.

Avoid Acting on Impulse

We are all guilty of it – purchasing the latest and greatest item on impulse because we just have to have it. The truth is, impulse using gets us into trouble because we don’t take the time to think; we just act. When we make impulse purchases, chances are we are digging ourselves deeper into the debt trenches because we buy things we can’t afford – the latest smartphone, the must have iWatch, the Mimco handbag, and the list goes on. We pay for it with our credit card and think that we’ll just pay it off later, but when ‘later’ rolls around, we realise that we simply don’t have the funds to pay it all off.

When you feel that urge to purchase something, stop for a minute and think to yourself, “Do I really need that?” Another great tip is to walk out of the store (without purchasing!) and think about it overnight. Many people resist the impulse urge when they leave the store and don’t return.

Less Is More

While it’s very tempting to keep up with the latest trends and be part of the ‘in’ crowd, it can also be quite expensive, especially when it comes to fashion. Designers are releasing the latest trends every season – florals, pastels, prints, etc. – but the new releases are always quite expensive.

One great way to eliminate the pressure of keeping up with the fashion trends is to keep a few staple and versatile items in your wardrobe. For women this can include a black dress, a pair of denim jeans and a black/dark grey blazer. For men this could be a white button-up shirt, black blazer and a dark pair of denim jeans or chinos. Then you can purchase those trendy pieces to accessorise your outfits.

This is a great and budget-friendly way to be part of the ‘in’ crowd without spending more than you can afford and putting yourself in debt. Adding animal prints, florals or pastels to your wardrobe can really make it ‘pop’ and stand out among the crowd at an affordable price.

Social Media Pressures

Nearly everyone is connected by social media in some way, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. People are updating and posting, often showing off or bragging about the latest gadget they got or expensive handbag someone bought them. We look at what our family and friends are doing (and buying) and we often get jealous and start comparing ourselves to them because we feel like we are missing out.

But what you don’t know is what happens behind closed doors. Sure, someone just updated their Facebook status from their new iPhone 7 Plus they just bought (perhaps because they feel like they’re missing out on the latest and greatest of iPhones), but how much did that phone set them back? Were they really able to afford it?

It’s easy to compare ourselves to others on social media because we are surrounded by it. We get jealous when someone upgrades their gadget or buys that new handbag or car we have been admiring but it’s important to step back and think about whether the satisfaction is really worth the price.

Social media can be a valuable resource but it can also hinder us if we let it. It’s important not to succumb to the peer pressure and jealousy of ‘everyone’s doing/buying/getting it’ – feeling like we need to do the same – because it can be more of a detriment to our finances than we realise.

Dealing with the pressure of keeping up

It’s so easy to get caught up in the latest trends, but if you aren’t careful, it can put you in some serious financial debt. Yes, it is hard to resist the urges and pressure of keeping up, but it’s more important to take a step back and think about whether you can really afford to buy that big-ticket item without going broke. Those materialistic items shouldn’t define the boundaries of ‘in crowd’. Learning how to manage your money and stay out of debt is worth more in the long-term than being cool.

For more help on eliminating the pressure of keeping up, check out our article on how to budget like a pro and follow our 6 easy steps in creating and maintaining your own budget. If you’re after some professional assistance with your debts, we’re here to help! Call us today on 1300 368 322 or contact us below to arrange a suitable time to reach you.

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Tui | Avatar Wiki | Fandom

They lived within this spiritual center of the North Pole and took the form of two koi fish. Thereafter, the Spirit Oasis became the city’s most treasured landmark. When Princess Yue was born, she was gravely ill and on the brink of death, so her father, Chief Arnook , and mother brought her to the Spirit Oasis and prayed for the spirits to save her life.

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La | Avatar Wiki | Fandom

Making eye contact with La, Aang entered the Avatar State and walked into the water of the Spirit Oasis, where the Ocean Spirit started swimming around him. The two fused to form Koizilla, a colossal fish-like figure, and quickly annihilated the Fire Nation land forces and navy fleet with their superior waterbending.

Koi fish (disambiguation) – Fandom – Avatar Wiki

Koi fish may refer to: Elephant koi, a fish native to the waters surrounding Kyoshi Island. La, the Ocean Spirit, assuming the form of a koi fish.

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The elephant koi is a somewhat calm creature that doesn’t show any aggression. They seem to swim in groups (as a group of three elephant koi seen swimming together) due to their habitat range. They can get very distress and frantic, usually around the large predator Unagi .They are capable to jumping in extreme heights due to their size and strength.

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Avatar takes place in a world home to humans, hybrid animals, and spirits. Inspired by Avatar the Last Airbender, the names of the two koi fish are Tui representing the moon and La the ocean, they balance each other in an eternal dance. Avatar Yin Yang Koi Fish is a 1280×1024 HD wallpaper picture for your desktop, tablet or smartphone.

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Make no mistake: We’re still probably at least a decade away from any kind of meaningful shift away from the smartphone. (And if we’re all cyborgs by 2027, I’ll happily eat my words. Assuming we’re still eating at all, I guess.)

Yet, piece by piece, the groundwork for the eventual demise of the smartphone is being laid by Elon Musk, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and a countless number of startups that still have a part to play.

And, let me tell you: If and when the smartphone does die, that’s when things are going to get really weird for everybody. Not just in terms of individual products but in terms of how we actually live our everyday lives and maybe our humanity itself.

Here’s a brief look at the slow, ceaseless march toward the death of the smartphone — and what the post-smartphone world is shaping up to look like.

The short term

People think of the iPhone and the smartphones it inspired as revolutionary devices — small enough to carry everywhere, hefty enough to handle an increasingly large number of daily tasks, and packed full of the right mix of cameras and GPS sensors to make apps like Snapchat and Uber uniquely possible.

But consider the smartphone from another perspective. The desktop PC and the laptop are made up of some combination of a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. The smartphone just took that model, shrank it, and made the input virtual and touch-based.

So take, for example, the Samsung Galaxy S8, unveiled this week. It’s gorgeous with an amazing bezel-less screen and some real power under the hood. It’s impressive, but it’s more refinement than revolution.

Tellingly, though, the Galaxy S8 ships with Bixby, a new virtual assistant that Samsung promises will one day let you control every single feature and app with just your voice. It will also ship with a new version of the Gear VR virtual reality headset, developed in conjunction with Facebook’s Oculus.

The next iPhone, too, is said to be shipping with upgrades to the Siri assistant, along with features aimed at bringing augmented reality into the mainstream.

And as devices like the Amazon Echo, the Sony PlayStation VR, and the Apple Watch continue to enjoy limited but substantial success, expect to see a lot more tech companies large and small taking more gambles and making more experiments on the next big wave in computing interfaces.

The medium term

In the medium term, all of these various experimental and first-stage technologies will start to congeal into something familiar but bizarre.

Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and the Google-backed Magic Leap are all working to build standalone augmented-reality headsets, which project detailed 3D images straight into your eyes. Even Apple is rumored to be working on this.

Microsoft’s Alex Kipman recently told Business Insider that augmented reality could flat-out replace the smartphone, the TV, and anything else with a screen. There’s not much use for a separate device sitting in your pocket or on your entertainment center if all your calls, chats, movies, and games are beamed into your eyes and overlaid on the world around you.

At the same time, gadgetry like the Amazon Echo or Apple’s own AirPods become more and more important in this world. As artificial-intelligence systems like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung’s Bixby, and Microsoft’s Cortana get smarter, there will be a rise not just in talking to computers but in having them talk back.

In other words, computers will hijack your senses, more so than they already do, with your sight and your hearing intermediated by technology. It’s a little scary. Think of what Facebook glitches could mean in a world where it doesn’t just control what you read on your phone but in what you see in the world around you.

The promise, though, is a world where real life and technology blend more seamlessly. The major tech companies promise that this future means a world of fewer technological distractions and more balance, as the physical and digital world become the same thing. You decide how you feel about that.

The really crazy future

Still, all those decade-plus investments in the future still rely on gadgetry that you have to wear, even if it’s only a pair of glasses. Some of the craziest, most forward-looking, most unpredictable advancements go even further — provided you’re willing to wait a few extra decades, that is.

This week, we got our first look at Neuralink, a new company cofounded by Musk with a goal of building computers into our brains by way of “neural lace,” a very early-stage technology that lays on your brain and bridges it to a computer. It’s the next step beyond even that blending of the digital and physical worlds, as human and machine become one.

Assuming the science works — and lots of smart people believe that it will — this is the logical endpoint of the road that smartphones started us on. If smartphones gave us access to information and augmented reality puts that information in front of us when we need it, then putting neural lace in our brains just closes the gap.

Musk has said this is because the rise of artificial intelligence — which underpins a lot of the other technologies, including voice assistants and virtual reality — means humans will have to augment themselves just to keep up with the machines. If you’re really curious about this idea, futurist Ray Kurzweil is the leading voice on the topic.

The idea of human/machine fusion is a terrifying one, with science-fiction writers, technologists, and philosophers alike having very good cause to ask what even makes us human in the first place. At the same time, the idea is so new that nobody really knows what this world would look like in practice.

So if and when the smartphone dies, it’ll actually be the end of an era in more ways than one. It’ll be the end of machines that we carry with us passively and the beginning of something that bridges our bodies straight into the ebb and flow of digital information. It’s going to get weird.

And yet, lots of technologists already say that smartphones give us superpowers with access to knowledge, wisdom, and abilities beyond anything nature gave us. In some ways, augmenting the human mind would be the ultimate superpower. Then again, maybe I’m just an optimist.

For more tech news, cool gadgets and innovations, follow us on Instagram .

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• The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity

CAIRO : Anti-poverty organisation Oxfam said that 11 people die of hunger each minute and that the number facing famine-like conditions around the globe has increased six times over the last year.

In a report titled “The Hunger Virus Multiplies,” Oxfam Thursday said that the death toll from famine outpaces that of COVID-19, which kills around seven people per minute.

“The statistics are staggering, but we must remember that these figures are made up of individual people facing unimaginable suffering. Even one person is too many,” said Oxfam America’s President and CEO Abby Maxman.

The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse — some 20 million more than last year. Around two thirds of them face hunger because their country is in military conflict.

“Today, unrelenting conflict on top of the COVID-19 economic fallout, and a worsening climate crisis, has pushed more than 520,000 people to the brink of starvation,” added Maxman.

“Instead of battling the pandemic, warring parties fought each other, too often landing the last blow to millions already battered by weather disasters and economic shocks.”

Despite the pandemic, Oxfam said that global military spending increased by $51 billion during the pandemic — an amount that exceeds by at least six times what the U.N. needs to stop hunger.

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The report listed a number of countries as “the worst hunger hotspots” including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — all embroiled in conflict.

“Starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war, depriving civilians of food and water and impeding humanitarian relief. People can’t live safely or find food when their markets are being bombed and crops and livestock are destroyed,” said Maxman.

The organisation urged governments to stop conflicts from continuing to spawn “catastrophic hunger” and to ensure that relief agencies could operate in conflict zones and reach those in need. It also called on donor countries to “immediately and fully” fund the U.N.’s efforts to alleviate hunger.

“We work together with more than 694 partners across 68 countries. Oxfam aims to reach millions of people over the coming months and is urgently seeking funding to support its programs across the world,” the report’s press release said.

Meanwhile, global warming and the economic repercussions of the pandemic have caused a 40% increase in global food prices, the highest in over a decade. This surge has contributed significantly to pushing tens of millions more people into hunger, said the report.

Dr. Warren Ball knows it as soon as he answers the phone. This call to the Cath Lab is urgent. A man has just arrived at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) without a pulse. There’s no doubt he’s suffered a heart attack.

Dr. Ball, an Interventional Cardiologist and Director of the Cardiac Cath Lab at PRHC, quickly makes his way to the Emergency Department where the man has just been resuscitated. Right away, he knows he may need to insert a stent to remove the blockage that’s stopping his patient’s heart. There’s no time to lose. One of the man’s coronary arteries is 100% blocked and heart muscle is dying every minute.

Thankfully, because of the past generosity of donors, on that day Dr. Ball and his team had the tools and technology they needed to stop his patient’s heart attack in its tracks, saving his life.

It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last. Every year, Dr. Ball and his colleagues diagnose and treat thousands of patients from across the central east region. Last year alone they performed 2,918 cardiac procedures, including 885 stenting procedures – 213 of them while a heart attack was actually taking place.

In fact, up to 600,000 people in Peterborough and the surrounding central eastern region rely on the Cath Lab for lifesaving urgent and non-emergency cardiac services, with patients coming from as far away as Durham, North Hastings, Northumberland and the City of Kawartha Lakes.

It’s community support, however, that makes their lifesaving work not only possible, but sustainable.

“Donors made cardiac stenting possible in our region and the Cath Lab team and I are very grateful for their support,” says Dr. Ball. “Without them, we’d have to transfer patients to another hospital hours away, at a time when every minute can mean the difference between life and death.”

“Many people are aware that the government provides the budget to run our hospital, but don’t know that it doesn’t provide money for the vast majority of PRHC’s equipment and technology needs,” he adds. “For that, we depend on the support of donors from Peterborough and our surrounding region.

Today, Dr. Ball and his colleagues need your help to keep their patients’ hearts here, close to home. After more than a decade of stopping heart attacks in their tracks – of saving lives – PRHC’s two Cath Lab suites must be replaced.

“Like all technology, medical equipment reaches the end of its lifespan,” says Dr. Ball. “But just like when you upgrade your laptop or smartphone, the newer tools are smarter and more advanced.”

“Reinvesting in Cath Lab technology will give us an even better picture of what’s happening while we’re inserting a stent and unblocking a patient’s artery,” he adds. “And we’ll be able to do it faster, with less radiation, and without our patients having to travel far away from home.”

Dr. Ball says that donor support also helps PRHC attract and retain the best and the brightest healthcare professionals.

“Talented physicians want to join a hospital where they have access to leading-edge technology, so they can take the best possible care of their patients,” Dr. Ball says. “Reinvestment in world-class cardiac care is key to our ability to position PRHC as a top choice for experts.”

“Fortunately, we were able to save our patient’s life that day,” says Dr. Ball. “But imagine if we didn’t have a world-class Cath Lab at PRHC. He would have had to be transported to another hospital, far from his family and friends. It’s impossible to know if he’d still be here with us today.”

Dr. Ball says he sees the difference state-of-the-art equipment makes in the lives of his patients, and knows it ensures doctors and nurses like him can do their jobs to the best of their ability for their patients.

“This holiday season, I hope people will think of their loved ones, friends and neighbours – anyone who might need the Cath Lab one day,” says Dr. Ball. “They might be the people you see at the grocery store, wave to on the sidewalk, or sit across from at the dinner table. And when you do, I hope you’ll make the most generous gift you can to the PRHC Foundation.

“Together, we’ll keep your caring heart, and so many others, right here.”

Give today. Help us keep your heart here tomorrow. Call (705) 876-5000 or visit prhcfoundation.ca.

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WE’VE all heard the urban myth that putting a drenched smartphone into a bag of rice is the sure-fire way to bring it back from the brink. But a new test has shown that there is a much, much better alternative.

Rice might not be the miracle cure for a water-logged handset

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Unless you own the supremely-impressive Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, your smartphone or tablet probably won’t be too happy when you drop it into a glass of water or (God forbid) a toilet.

If you do accidentally slip by the pool, or knock a pint over your shiny new smartphone – what should you do next?

You’ve probably heard that turning the phone off, and sealing it in a bag of rice is the miracle cure for a water-logged handset.

The theory is that the absorbent rice will suck the water from the delicate circuitry inside your smartphone. And it does.

Samsung’s new flagship smartphone carries an impressive IP68 rating

But there is an alternative that is much, much better.

According to tests by hugely-successful second-hand electronic buyer and reseller Gazelle, there is a wet-phone hack that is much more effective than rice.

The trick is cat litter.

Tests show that a bag of crystal cat litter is a safer bet than rice

As soon as your precious phone gets wet, you should immediately switch it off, shake the liquid out as quickly as possible – then let it air dry.

Or you can drop the handset (still switched off) into a bag of (unused) crystal cat litter.

Three days of inactivity in the cat litter will reportedly give your smartphone the best possible chance of recovering from its dip.

Vets have issued a warning to pet owners about the danger of lilies after a cat used up another of his nine lives.

Coco, who lives with owners Wilma and Jim Kelly in Wishaw, had a brush with death two years ago after eating the stamen from the centre of a lily.

Despite his recovery, the effects of consuming the toxic plant left him with permanent kidney damage, which recently flared up again.

On both occasions, the nine-year-old Ragdoll cat’s life was saved by vets and nurses at Clyde Vets in Lanark, who are urging cat owners to never have lilies in their home.

While Coco will never recover from the toxic effects of ingesting the lilies, vets are managing to keep his kidney problems in check with a special diet.

But they are warning that lilies are so toxic to cats that even just licking their leaves or drinking water contaminated with their pollen could have potentially fatal consequences.

When Coco was first rushed to the practice two years ago, he was lethargic, dehydrated and unable to eat or drink and blood tests revealed acute kidney failure.

He returns to the practice last month and potassium levels in his kidneys were so high, vet Hans Lambert feared the cat would suffer a heart attack.

Thankfully, Coco has now come through his latest ordeal and is back home.

Coco with owner Wilma

Wilma had been given a bouquet of lilies for her birthday two years ago and was completely unaware they were highly poisonous to cats.

She said: “The day after I received the lilies, Coco became extremely ill and, if we hadn’t taken him to the vets straightaway, he probably wouldn’t have survived.

“It turned out he had eaten the stamen in the centre of a lily and was a very sick wee cat.

“Clyde Vets did all they could to save him, but the effects of the lily poisoning means his kidneys no longer function properly.”

She added: “His most recent illness is linked to the kidney problems and, again, but for the care and quick actions of the team at Clyde Vets, he may not have survived.

“There was a possibility he would have a heart attack because he was so poorly and I asked them to do all they could for him. Luckily, he has come through it again and he is doing well at the moment.

“I never have flowers in the house now and I would urge cat owners to never have lilies because it has left Coco with these problems.”

Clyde Vets veterinary nurse Lisa Ferraioli said: “Coco is extremely lucky to still be here as it has been touch-and-go for him.

“Lilies are so dangerous, we would urge cat owners never to have them in their house.

“They can cause severe diarrhoea, convulsions, acute kidney failure and even death. Even very small amounts of pollen can be extremely dangerous.

“Cats can swallow a toxic amount just by grooming after brushing against the flowers.”

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This method I am going to show you here is for those who want to know how to flash stock firmware on MediaTek (MTK) smartphone.

Malfunctions are normal things in electronic devices and android is no exception.

Every day, we experience different and similar problems but most times, we can fix it.

Smartphones like MediaTek or MTK phones experience software issues some times.

Some of the issues on MediaTek smartphones are frequent bootloops, hanging, lock screen, and some others.

Most times, resetting your phone can fix those problems and also not fix those problems.

You will not have any choice but to flash a stock rom to the phone in order to restore it.

Today, I am going to show you how to flash stock firmware on MediaTek (MTK) smartphone.

Before we begin, what do you need to flash stock firmware on MediaTek (MTK) smartphone?

The requirements:

• Smartphone Flash Tools (SP flash tools).
• MTK USB Drivers.
• VCOM Drivers.
• A Windows PC.
• A USB cord that can connect a phone to PC.
• Good battery backup for your devices (PC and phone).

After getting things above, then, you are good to go.

Let us move to installation.

Please take instructions one after the other.

Flash stock firmware on MediaTek (MTK) smartphone

Download MTK USB Drivers, VCOM drivers and install them properly.

Download the SP Flash tool and extract it to a folder you can locate easily.

Locate the firmware file you wish to flash and then, extract it to a folder you can locate easily.

Launch SP Flash Tools in order to begin.

Once you launch SP Flash Tools, you will get this screen below.

Smartphone Flash Tools (SP flash tools).

Inside SP flash tools, click on scatter file.

Every Mediatek stock firmware flash file comes with a scatter text file.

The scatter file organizes the firmware file inside SP flash tools.

Click on the scatter file that looks like this MT6571_Android_scatter and load it.

It will load all firmware files.

Click on download to begin the flashing.

Now power off your phone and connect it with the USB cord.

If your PC does not recognize the phone, press volume down or up button, do not switch the phone on.

The flashing will begin.

It will be wise to put the phone to avoid interrupting the flashing and bricking your phone to death.

Once the flashing is done, reboot your phone and enjoy it.

If the firmware you are flashing is Qualcomm or Spreadrum or does not have scatter files, head over there for other smartphones.

If you experience issues on how to flash stock firmware on MediaTek (MTK) smartphone, please tell us.

How do you keep track of load shedding? Here are a couple of ways to keep track of Eskom’s ever-changing load shedding schedules:

While Eskom is continuously escalating power cuts to different stages, it has become imperative to plan your schedule around Eskom’s power grid. Luckily, there are various smartphone apps and websites that can help you keep track of your load shedding schedule.

How to keep track of load shedding schedules

South Africa’s electricity utility is very active on Twitter and regularly shares updates on the country’s power grid – which includes advanced warnings of load shedding schedules. You can simply follow Eskom on Twitter and click on the “notify” icon to receive push notifications as soon as there is an update or change to the load shedding schedule.

While Eskom also has a website that you can access to see the load shedding schedule, media statements and more, the power utility also has a free app that you can download on the Google Play Store or the App Store. There are various services available.

Eskom schedules can be accessed from:

Municipal customers, please contact your local municipality for schedules

EskomSePush

If you’d rather receive load shedding updates from another source, EskomSePush is quite popular amongst South Africans. With this app, you can choose over 50 000 areas so that you do not get stuck in the dark. What’s more, the app has some rave reviews from South Africans who say that it is very accurate.

Load Shedding Notifier

Load Shedding Notifier is another app that is popular among citizens. Some of its key features include real-time Eskom status monitoring, offset status for City of Cape Town customers, power grid status monitoring, early warnings of scheduled load shedding with multiple areas that can be configured.

Municipal Twitter accounts

Some municipalities also take to Twitter to share load shedding schedules and updates:

How do you keep track of load shedding schedules? If you have any suggestions that are not listed here, make sure to let us know in the comment section!

Dr. Rhoda Au is on a mission to put predictive healthcare in the hands of every person on the planet.

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Dr. Rhoda Au, a neuropsychologist at Boston University, can assess your brain health and if you have early signs of Alzheimer’s; all she needs is your smartphone. The future of healthcare, she says, is literally in our hands.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, in the US alone, 5 million people currently suffer from Alzheimer’s, the degenerative brain disease that causes dementia. As the sixth-leading cause of death, Alzheimer’s kills more people than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined, making Dr. Rhoda Au’s effort to better understand the disease more important than ever.

With more than 83% of the US population owning a smartphone, Rhoda sees its potential in personal, predictive healthcare. Imagine each of us having our own health monitoring system quietly running in the background, alerting us when our behaviors point to possible health risks.

Ding! You’re not sleeping as much as you used to.

Buzz! You’re exercising less frequently.

Chirp! You seem to be taking longer to accomplish simple tasks.

It’s the automated equivalent of, “Maybe you should get that checked out,” a vision of a new era for healthcare where we as individuals have more control.

Early detection of diseases like Alzheimer’s can result in higher quality of life, less stress for the family and an opportunity to plan for the future. Some symptoms may even be reversible or treatable. Early detection can also qualify you for clinical trials that advance research and help the world learn more about the disease.

Through a combination of what she calls active testing and passive engagement monitoring tools installed on a smartphone, Rhoda bypasses and improves upon the old—and often biased—methods of testing patients in a lab.

Your smartphone is the new laboratory

Historically, for doctors to gather meaningful information about an individual’s brain health—such as symptoms of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease—patients would need to visit a lab and undergo numerous in-person tests over a series of months.

“We used to have people sit for hours at a time with paper and pencil,” says Rhoda. “We’d have you look at a picture and describe it. ‘What do you see?’ And then we’d take that voice information and we’d analyze it. We’d look at the words you chose, how many words you chose, how redundant those words were, how many pauses, hesitations, fragments. Doing this took a long time and we were missing a lot of information, like what about the pitch change in your voice?”

Neuroscientists have long known that these active engagement tests are flawed. “They’re not an accurate way of measuring people’s cognitive capabilities,” says Rhoda, “because our cognitive capabilities change all the time. If you’re tired that day, if you’re aggravated, if you’re sick, if someone walks in the door during the test, you don’t do as well.”

Personal bias comes into play in these tests, as well. “With the elderly, for instance,” she says, “did they hear you, can they see you, do they have physical limitations for writing? It can all affect how well someone does on that particular test at that particular time. I’m trying to get away from that. I want to go from this active engagement testing to passive engagement monitoring.”

This is where your smartphone comes in. Instead of inviting you into the lab, Rhoda’s going to ask that you download one or more apps on your phone, and give her permission to track your behaviors in the background. Then, she’s going to leave you alone for a while.

After last week’s rumor that LG would announce its exit from the phone-making business on April 5th, we now have confirmation from the company itself that it’s closing down its loss-making mobile division. The move comes after LG’s mobile business posted losses for 23 consecutive quarters and innumerable changes in mobile strategy, with perhaps the only thing that the company didn’t attempt being regular software updates for the phones it had already made.

LG’s statement says that the closure of the mobile business will allow it to concentrate its resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence, and business-to-business solutions.

What does this mean for the new LG phone you’ve just bought?

Well, LG states that it will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region. Being slightly cynical, I’m reading that as a euphemism for saying as short a period as possible, but hopefully, this isn’t the case and LG does the right thing, after all, it would be a waste of the Software Update Center that the brand invested in a few years back.

LG expects the wind-down of its mobile phone business to be completed by July 31st although there may be some inventory still on the shelves after that time. It probably goes without saying that the value of LG handsets has likely sunk to new levels, especially with the prospect of limited software support, although some might argue that they won’t notice the difference given the company’s lackadaisical attitude to providing software updates to its handsets before this announcement.

If you’ve just bought a new LG handset, it may be worth checking to see if you can return it, especially if you were hoping it would get a software update at some point.

On a personal note, business closures always affect the livelihoods of employees, so here’s hoping that LG workers affected by the closure of the mobile business manage to land on their feet.

It’s a huge shame that LG didn’t manage to save its mobile phone business, especially after the weird but innovative dual-screened Wing from 2020 and the promise of the Rollable handset sometime this year. You could always count on LG having a slightly different take on handset design, but perhaps that was part of the problem. It’s pretty much a given that LG’s slipshod approach to software updates is one of the main reasons that consumers bought other brands, sadly it’s probably the one strategy that LG never explored.

Finally, while it’s sad that LG will no longer make smartphones we should remember that it has produced some of the most iconic Android handsets over the years. Who can forget the Optimus 2X that was the world’s first phone to sport a dual-core processor? And the G-Series boasted the incredible G2 with its ground-breaking double-tap to wake feature that every other brand copied, the leather-clad G4, the polarizing G5 with its modular design, G6 with its 18:9 aspect ratio, or V-Series phones such as the V10 and V20 with their secondary displays?

LG knew how to have fun with its smartphones, producing weird and sometimes wacky models that were always talking points and conversation starters in a way that other brands simply couldn’t match. The Android world will miss you LG, farewell and good luck, we’ll cherish the memories.

Full Press Release:

“SEOUL, April 5, 2021 — LG Electronics Inc. (LG) announced that it is closing its mobile business unit. The decision was approved by its board of directors earlier today.

LG’s strategic decision to exit the incredibly competitive mobile phone sector will enable the company to focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence, and business-to-business solutions, as well as platforms and services.

LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region. LG will work collaboratively with suppliers and business partners throughout the closure of the mobile phone business. Details related to employment will be determined at the local level.

Moving forward, LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G to help further strengthen competitiveness in other business areas. Core technologies developed during the two decades of LG’s mobile business operations will also be retained and applied to existing and future products.

The wind-down of the mobile phone business is expected to be completed by July 31 although the inventory of some existing models may still be available after that.”

Related

He’s been an Android fan ever since owning an HTC Hero, with the Dell Streak being his first phablet. He currently carries a Realme GT Neo 2 in his pockets, a Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 in his backpack, and thinks nothing of lugging a 17-inch laptop around the world. When not immersed in the world of Android and gadgets, he’s an avid sports fan, and like all South Africans, he loves a good Braai (BBQ).

Smartphone users — casual and enthusiasts alike — are forever searching for longer battery life. While fast charging keeps us topped up every day, the absence of replaceable batteries means eventually, the lithium-ion cells enclosed in our phones are going to age and deteriorate, making it harder to maximize battery life.

If you’ve held onto a phone a couple of years, you’ve probably noticed the battery doesn’t seem to last as long as it did when your handset was brand new. Three years down the line, many phones struggle to make it through the day on a single charge. Holding onto a phone even longer can even spell trouble for system stability.

Unfortunately, battery capacity inevitably declines with age. However, there are things you can do to prolong the life of your battery and smartphone. If you’ve ever wondered what the best way to charge your battery is, here are some scientifically proven tips to maximize battery life.

Partial charging is a healthy habit

One particularly persistent battery myth is that you need to occasionally fully discharge and recharge to erase “battery memory.” This couldn’t be more wrong for lithium-ion batteries. It’s a leftover myth from lead-acid cells, and it’s pretty undesirable to charge your modern smartphone in this way.

Partial charging is just fine for lithium-ion batteries and can have some positive benefits for cell longevity. To understand why it’s important to appreciate how a battery charges. Li-ion batteries draw constant current and operate at a lower voltage when closer to empty. This voltage gradually increases as the cell charges up, leveling off at around a 70% charge before the current begins to fall until the capacity is full.

Notably, operating at a low voltage is good for a battery’s lifespan, increasing the number of available charging cycles before you’ll start to see a significant reduction in capacity. Roughly speaking, every 0.1V decrease in cell voltage doubles the cycle life, according to Battery University. Therefore, charging up your phone in that 30% to 80% range keeps the voltage lower and might slightly prolong the battery’s lifespan.

As we become inseparable from our mobile devices, the risk of identity theft is growing

Breach of privacy? There’s an app for that. Identity theft? There’s one for that, too. In fact, viruses, spyware and worms are proliferating on smartphones. On Android phones alone, the number of known malicious programs jumped from 400 to more than 13,000 over the space of six months in 2011. These nasty bits of code can do anything from monitor and report on your web browsing habits, to allow complete remote control of your phone.

“Smartphones are vulnerable to the same security risks as a laptop,” says David Lie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, whose lab is studying smartphone security and working to find improvements. “But you always take your mobile phone with you. It knows all the people you talk to, all the places you go.” It has far more information about you than a laptop, which raises the stakes of a security breach.

Yet, while most people would never buy a computer without virus protection, they are much less likely to protect their smartphones – in part because existing virus protection programs are less effective or often don’t work on smartphones.

Many mobile operating systems address security issues by allowing users to set “permissions” that determine whether apps can do things such as connect to the Internet, identify a phone’s location, or access certain files. Lie says that’s a good start, but far from foolproof.

“A lot of smartphone privacy has been about restricting access to information. But current tools don’t look at what is done with information,” he says. “It tells you, for example ‘This app can access your contacts and access the Internet,’ but what you really want to know is whether it is going to send your contacts to some stranger online.”

Smartphone apps seem safer because they usually come from a single source – an app store. But these online stores are not invulnerable. A powerful “remote monitoring solution” known as FinFisher, for example, has been found to worm its way into phones through a bogus upgrade to an otherwise benign app. (Repressive governments have been using the program to spy on dissidents, according to recent news reports.)

Because smartphones are becoming more central to commerce, social interaction and health services, Lie’s lab is working on smartphone security systems that provide more complete control over what apps can do with your information. “Banking and health data are sensitive things you don’t want to inadvertently share,” he notes.

While Lie acknowledges that user education can address some privacy issues, he also believes that software can help mitigate the risks. The challenge for his lab, though, is to create a security system that’s simple enough for inexperienced users, but flexible enough to suit those with very different privacy thresholds.

One simple-yet-flexible solution he is investigating would allow a prompt such as: “Don’t let any app share photos of my children with any computer other than my own laptop.” The phone would use facial recognition software and other smart tools to intelligently identify any attempts to breach this rule.

While all software solutions necessarily rely on user-awareness of security issues, Lie believes that a new generation of flexible, intelligent, plain-language security software can go a long way toward enabling smartphone users to protect themselves.

Every week, Apple sends a shame-inducing “digital wellness” report to iPhone users detailing exactly how many hours they’ve spent hooked on their smartphones.

It’s designed, Apple claims, to curb our growing addiction to technology. Each notification, phone “pick-up”, call and message is recorded, as is the exact number of minutes spent on different apps. For those of us who rely on our phones, or want to track our child’s technology use, it can make for alarming reading.

The problem with Apple’s digital wellness report is that there is no pop-up warning label on the iPhone telling users that perhaps 18 hours on Twitter a day is at least five too many, or that unlocking their phone every three minutes is ruining their life.

It also doesn’t let anyone see how they compare to anyone else. No one is privy to the global trends that Apple engineers collect. Users are measured on their own prior behaviour, with pithy messages such as “you spent 26pc less time on your phone this week”.

Is that good, bad or average? And how much screen-time is too much?

The research here isn’t clear. A study published in September by the University of Ottawa found children who spend more than two hours a day looking at a screen have worse memory, language skills and attention span. For adults, too much screen time has been linked to depression and anxiety.

Yet a wave of new studies are challenging the long-held orthodoxy that screen-time should be avoided: some, it claims, might even be of benefit.

According to Parenting for a Digital Future, a report from the London School of Economics published in March, children who consume digital media heavily aren’t necessarily doomed to feeling isolated and depressed. In fact, smartphones can help to bring families together, by allowing, for instance, parents to use messaging apps with their children.

“We found that parental concern about placing limits on ‘screen-time’ was far higher than concern about the nature of the content their kids were engaging with,” explains Dr Alicia Blum-Ross, the paper’s co-author. “Instead of worrying about a set time-limit, I’d encourage parents to think: are they learning? Is it helping them engage with their world?”

In the UK, guidelines set out by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) suggest there should be no more than two hours’ leisure screen time per day for children of any age. In the US, it is recommended that under-twos should have no screen time at all. Thereafter, the maximum amount of leisure screen time should be two hours per day.

There is no adult equivalent for screen-time recommendation given to children. But experts say there are still ways to tell whether your smartphone use has soured.

A red flag should appear when people think screens get in the way of their lives, according to Dr Bob Patton, lecturer of clinical psychology at the University of Surrey. Apple’s digital wellness reports could provide a “wake-up call” for someone that idly uses their phone all the time for no reason.

“The physical act of looking at a screen for long periods of time can have longer term implications, but what you are doing on those screens is equally as important,” Patton explains. “We need to be mindful that just because we have tech doesn’t mean we have to use it all of the time.”

The lack of “mindful” use of technology, particularly among teenagers, is one of the most worrying aspects of smartphone addiction. A recent study found teenagers are spending up to 12 hours online a day mindlessly swiping through social media without looking at any single piece of content for more than a few seconds. Adults, too, could fall into the same trap.

“The big difference is whether you are using it [your smartphone] for what you want to, or whether you are unconsciously using it all the time,” says Professor Andrew Przybylski, experimental psychologist and director of research at Oxford Internet Institute.

Professor Przybylski warns against buying into the “moral panic” against technology. “In 10 years from now we are going to talk about if AI toys are going to be the death of friendship,” he says. What we really need to be concerned about is not how much time we spend on our smartphones, but what we’re using our smartphones to do. So shut off your phone when you sleep. Make sure your phone isn’t stopping you from doing your job, or the things that you love. And more importantly, don’t think too much about the fact that Apple has managed to create the perfect addiction ouroboros: prompting users to check their iPhones to find out just how much they constantly check it anyway.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it is retiring Internet Explorer 11’s desktop application on June 15, 2022. It also detailed a timeline so organizations and end users can gradually transition to Microsoft’s recommended alternative, that is Microsoft Edge.

The firm has posted a detailed FAQ page as well so you can understand what kind of impact this move will have on organizations, IT admins, developers, and end users, and what they need to do to prepare.

Starting with the obvious, what you need to know is that IE11 desktop applications delivered through the Semi-Annual (SAC) channel will be retired. These include Windows 10 client SKUs and Windows 10 IoT, version 20H2 and later for both. Meanwhile, the following versions remain unaffected for now:

• Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge
• Internet Explorer platform (MSHTML/Trident), including WebOC
• Internet Explorer 11 desktop application on:
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU)
  • Windows 10 Server SAC (all versions)
  • Windows 10 IoT Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) (all versions)
  • Windows 10 Server LTSC (all versions)
  • Windows 10 client LTSC (all versions)

The company has also highlighted how to plan for this change if you are affected. Organizations and developers with legacy sites that depend on IE11 are recommended to configure IE mode in Microsoft Edge. Meanwhile, developers who are working on modern websites that currently support IE11 as well are encouraged to develop a plan to phase out that support. Similarly, end users are requested to migrate to Edge and utilize IE mode if a website appears to be broken on the browser. After June 15, 2022, the IE11 desktop application will be disabled and anyone who tries to open it will be redirected to Microsoft Edge.

Since Edge supports IE mode, the company will not allow exceptions or extended support for IE11 desktop beyond the retirement date. If you’re interested in what features IE mode supports and those it doesn’t, you can head over the dedicated webpage here. IE mode in Edge is powered by the MSHTML (Trident) engine also utilized by IE11, so it is unaffected by the end-of-life announcement as can be seen in the bulleted list above.

While IE mode on Edge does not have a formal end-of-life date as of yet, it goes hand in hand with the support lifecycle of Windows SKU releases, and currently, it is supported until at least 2029 if you’re on Windows 10 2019 LTSC. Additionally, the firm says that it will provide a one-year notice before the retirement of IE mode should that time come.

Get your own personal plant care assistant to identify your plants, any disease they might have, recommendations for treatment and maintenance, and even reminders for feeding and watering.

StackCommerce offers deals on training, certifications, and a variety of products and services.

National Plant Day is March 12, so it’s one of the best times to add some greenery to your home. And while plants won’t replace essential decor such as lamps anytime soon, they can still add some much-needed life into a dull living space. But keep in mind that plants are living organisms, and they require nourishment and care to lead long healthy lives.

Whether you’re an experienced green thumb or picking up a shrub for the first time, a NatureID Plan Identification Premium Plan can take all the worries out of caring for your plants, and it’s on sale right now for $19.99.

The NatureID app is basically a personal assistant for plant care. Powered by artificial intelligence, it can identify more than 14,000 plant species in three seconds with over 95% accuracy and then provide you with the information you need to care for them.

NatureID includes valuable resources to help your plants thrive. With the collaboration of expert botanists, the app offers articles and videos with recommendations for soil, fertilizer, water, temperatures and much more. The app even has a light meter to measure sunlight levels so you can choose the most suitable spaces to place your plants.

Using the app is easy. Simply open it, then tap the Camera icon. You can either take a photo of a plant or choose an existing one from Photos. Once the plant is recognized, tap “Learn more” for additional information. NatureID can also identify diseases and their severity and inform you how to accelerate your plants’ recovery. Plus, the app features a plant journal that allows you to create reminders for feeding, misting, watering and even rotating schedules.

NatureID Plan Identification Premium Plan: Lifetime Subscription

NatureID’s easy-to-use interface and wealth of information earned the app over eight million downloads and an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 on the App Store. Plus, Well+Good listed it in its article, “5 Apps That Identify Your Plants and Help You Save Them From the Brink of Death.”

If you want to give your flora the long life they deserve, it doesn’t hurt to have an entire plant encyclopedia on your phone. Right now, you can get a NatureID Plan Identification Premium Plan: Lifetime Subscription today for only $19.99, over 65% off.

Thanks to the squirrel suit, AKA wingsuit, man can move from land to air effortlessly. Matchstick’s jumpers reach terminal velocity within 15 seconds, flying at 120 mph.

Matchstick Films had one objective when they shot this film. Ski off cliffs without thinking about the landing.

Exercising an exorbitant amount of control, jumpers fly within feet of the mountainside. And within feet of an immediate and catastrophic death.

Thanks to the squirrel suit, AKA wingsuit, man can move from land to air effortlessly. Matchstick’s jumpers reach terminal velocity within 15 seconds, flying at 120 mph.

Matchstick Films had one objective when they shot this film. Ski off cliffs without thinking about the landing.

Exercising an exorbitant amount of control, jumpers fly within feet of the mountainside. And within feet of an immediate and catastrophic death.

The wingsuit creates a human airfoil by stitching fabric wings between the legs and arms of a standard issue jumpsuit. This extreme form of BASE jumping allows man to soar.

In actuality, it is not flying, but controlled falling. Our in-house wizard Thomas argues hang gliding is more akin to flight than wingsuiting because it involves the use of thermals.

These guys may not be flying, but they are certainly laughing in the face of gravity.

I hope this superb instructional video from Fly Like Brick will bring us all one step closer to soaring.

Joseph Kittinger holds the current world record speed with a 614 mph jump. Want to break it? Check out the last chapter on ‘Forward Speed’ here for tips on dropping faster.

Want to master Microsoft Excel and take your work-from-home job prospects to the next level? Jump-start your career with our Premium A-to-Z Microsoft Excel Training Bundle from the new Gadget Hacks Shop and get lifetime access to more than 40 hours of Basic to Advanced instruction on functions, formula, tools, and more.