The Week's Funniest and Most Intriguing News (week starting June 20)
As the weekend gets closer and closer, your productivity goes out the window. You don’t feel like working and you’re not really willing to go over serious news about serious topics.
So, just like the weeks before, I invite you to check out 10 news that will put a smile on your face, make you laugh, and probably even make you say wow or what the f...
1. Use Care Bears to unlock your Android smartphone
Some people have a pattern lock on their phone, some have a PIN or password, and some have… Care Bears? That's what you can expect from the Care Bears Lock Screen app – the option to unlock your Android by using a keypad made up of Care Bears images.
Get the Care Bears Lock Screen app from Google Play.
2. Don’t like left turns? Waze has you covered!
Waze recently introduced a new feature meant to help you manage "difficult intersections" – as in intersections where you have to make a left turn but there’s no traffic light, a constant flow of traffic, limited visibility, or some combination of all three.
"This new feature, rolling out first today in Los Angeles, bypasses difficult intersections when possible, to promote a safer, less stressful drive," said Waze.
3. Proof that the Nokia 3310 is not indestructible
The internet likes to joke about the fact that Nokia phones are so durable they’re indestructible. Let’s see if that’s true or not.
"The reason this worked is because the press was made out of recycled Nokia," says the most upvoted comment.
4. After lengthy legal battles, No Man’s Sky gets to keep its name
No Man’s Sky, the sci-fi adventure survival video game that’s set in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy, won’t have to change its name, even though Sky TV really wanted that to happen.
Sky TV, the UK television broadcaster owned by 21st Century Fox, sued No Man’s Sky over the use of the word "Sky." After some 3 years of "stupid legal nonsense," Hello Games and Sky TV settled the case, meaning No Man’s Sky gets to keep its name.
This isn’t the first time that Sky TV does something like this. It also took Microsoft to court, forcing it to change the name SkyDrive to OneDrive.
5. Boston Dynamics has a smaller version of its creepy robot
Boston Dynamics, the engineering and robotics design company that is owned by Google (for now), recently unveiled SpotMini, a smaller version of the company’s Spot robot. While the robot itself very cool, I find it quite creepy. Still, I laughed like a madman when SpotMini slipped on a banana peel.
"SpotMini is all-electric (no hydraulics) and runs for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what it is doing,” says Boston Dymanics. "SpotMini is one of the quietest robots we have ever built. It has a variety of sensors, including depth cameras, a solid state gyro (IMU) and proprioception sensors in the limbs."
6. KFC’s Watt A Box can recharge your phone
A take-out box is meant to do just one thing: hold your food, right? KFC says wrong and presents Watt A Box, a take-out box that can hold your food and recharge your phone.
Created by Indian ad agency Blink Digital, KFC's Watt a Box is available at select locations in Delhi and Mumbai. Don’t expect KFC to start offering Watt a Boxes in the US.
7. Kill’em with kindness… or Game of Thrones spoilers
I don’t have any enemies (I hope). But if I did, I would make their lives miserable by paying Spoiled.io one dollar to spam their phone number with Game of Throne spoilers.
"Spoiled will anonymously and ruthlessly text spoilers to your unsuspecting friends after each new episode airs. Afterwards, sit back, relax, and follow Spoiled on Twitter to see how your friends react," explains the Spoiled.io website.
8. Dropbox intros new productivity tools (and an annoying change to photo backups)
With the aim of making life easier for its customers, Dropbox introduced several new productivity tools meant to "simplify, unify and secure your work."
Alongside all those productivity tools, Dropbox introduced a rather annoying change to how camera upload works. If you’re a free Dropbox Basic user and you want to automatically back up the photos you take with your phone, you also have to install the Dropbox app on your desktop. If you don’t want to install Dropbox on your desktop, you’ll have to manually upload your photos to the cloud; the app won’t automatically do that for you.
9. Kaspersky Lab presents Yoga for IT People
Tuesday, June 21st, was International Yoga Day. Security company Kaspersky Lab celebrated by presenting some special yoga moves it designed specifically for IT specialists.
The images above is just a teaser; all the moves are available in this PDF document.
10. Opera and Microsoft Edge argue over who is a bigger battery hog
I don’t want to bore you with a long story, so here’s the gist of it.
Opera has a Battery Saver feature that graduated out of preview with the release of Opera 38. Here’s a video that shows it in action.
At the start of the week, Microsoft announced that its working on making Edge a more power efficient browser, touting the fact that Edge offers more battery life than the competition. "You can simply browse longer with Microsoft Edge than with Chrome, Firefox, or Opera on Windows 10 devices," said Microsoft’s Jason Weber.
Opera responded with a "no way," saying that its browser is less power hungry than Edge.
Who is right, Opera or Microsoft? I don't really care. If you want my two cents, here it is: Microsoft's Edge is less power hungry on Windows 10, the operating system that isn't above tricking you into upgrading. Opera on the other hand is readily available for any Windows edition, for Mac, and for Linux. I'll choose Opera over Edge any day – but my browser of choice is Firefox.
So, just like the weeks before, I invite you to check out 10 news that will put a smile on your face, make you laugh, and probably even make you say wow or what the f...
1. Use Care Bears to unlock your Android smartphone
Some people have a pattern lock on their phone, some have a PIN or password, and some have… Care Bears? That's what you can expect from the Care Bears Lock Screen app – the option to unlock your Android by using a keypad made up of Care Bears images.
Get the Care Bears Lock Screen app from Google Play.
2. Don’t like left turns? Waze has you covered!
Waze recently introduced a new feature meant to help you manage "difficult intersections" – as in intersections where you have to make a left turn but there’s no traffic light, a constant flow of traffic, limited visibility, or some combination of all three.
"This new feature, rolling out first today in Los Angeles, bypasses difficult intersections when possible, to promote a safer, less stressful drive," said Waze.
3. Proof that the Nokia 3310 is not indestructible
The internet likes to joke about the fact that Nokia phones are so durable they’re indestructible. Let’s see if that’s true or not.
"The reason this worked is because the press was made out of recycled Nokia," says the most upvoted comment.
4. After lengthy legal battles, No Man’s Sky gets to keep its name
No Man’s Sky, the sci-fi adventure survival video game that’s set in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy, won’t have to change its name, even though Sky TV really wanted that to happen.
Sky TV, the UK television broadcaster owned by 21st Century Fox, sued No Man’s Sky over the use of the word "Sky." After some 3 years of "stupid legal nonsense," Hello Games and Sky TV settled the case, meaning No Man’s Sky gets to keep its name.
This isn’t the first time that Sky TV does something like this. It also took Microsoft to court, forcing it to change the name SkyDrive to OneDrive.
5. Boston Dynamics has a smaller version of its creepy robot
Boston Dynamics, the engineering and robotics design company that is owned by Google (for now), recently unveiled SpotMini, a smaller version of the company’s Spot robot. While the robot itself very cool, I find it quite creepy. Still, I laughed like a madman when SpotMini slipped on a banana peel.
"SpotMini is all-electric (no hydraulics) and runs for about 90 minutes on a charge, depending on what it is doing,” says Boston Dymanics. "SpotMini is one of the quietest robots we have ever built. It has a variety of sensors, including depth cameras, a solid state gyro (IMU) and proprioception sensors in the limbs."
6. KFC’s Watt A Box can recharge your phone
A take-out box is meant to do just one thing: hold your food, right? KFC says wrong and presents Watt A Box, a take-out box that can hold your food and recharge your phone.
Created by Indian ad agency Blink Digital, KFC's Watt a Box is available at select locations in Delhi and Mumbai. Don’t expect KFC to start offering Watt a Boxes in the US.
7. Kill’em with kindness… or Game of Thrones spoilers
I don’t have any enemies (I hope). But if I did, I would make their lives miserable by paying Spoiled.io one dollar to spam their phone number with Game of Throne spoilers.
"Spoiled will anonymously and ruthlessly text spoilers to your unsuspecting friends after each new episode airs. Afterwards, sit back, relax, and follow Spoiled on Twitter to see how your friends react," explains the Spoiled.io website.
8. Dropbox intros new productivity tools (and an annoying change to photo backups)
With the aim of making life easier for its customers, Dropbox introduced several new productivity tools meant to "simplify, unify and secure your work."
Alongside all those productivity tools, Dropbox introduced a rather annoying change to how camera upload works. If you’re a free Dropbox Basic user and you want to automatically back up the photos you take with your phone, you also have to install the Dropbox app on your desktop. If you don’t want to install Dropbox on your desktop, you’ll have to manually upload your photos to the cloud; the app won’t automatically do that for you.
9. Kaspersky Lab presents Yoga for IT People
Tuesday, June 21st, was International Yoga Day. Security company Kaspersky Lab celebrated by presenting some special yoga moves it designed specifically for IT specialists.
The images above is just a teaser; all the moves are available in this PDF document.
10. Opera and Microsoft Edge argue over who is a bigger battery hog
I don’t want to bore you with a long story, so here’s the gist of it.
Opera has a Battery Saver feature that graduated out of preview with the release of Opera 38. Here’s a video that shows it in action.
At the start of the week, Microsoft announced that its working on making Edge a more power efficient browser, touting the fact that Edge offers more battery life than the competition. "You can simply browse longer with Microsoft Edge than with Chrome, Firefox, or Opera on Windows 10 devices," said Microsoft’s Jason Weber.
Opera responded with a "no way," saying that its browser is less power hungry than Edge.
Who is right, Opera or Microsoft? I don't really care. If you want my two cents, here it is: Microsoft's Edge is less power hungry on Windows 10, the operating system that isn't above tricking you into upgrading. Opera on the other hand is readily available for any Windows edition, for Mac, and for Linux. I'll choose Opera over Edge any day – but my browser of choice is Firefox.
