sincity

If you’re anything like me, Christmas shopping is a chaotic affair that basically involves putting it off until the very last minute, and then blunderbussing my thought, energy and money down the nearest high street, getting increasingly frantic with each shop I enter. I stand, staring deep into the eyes of some kitten emblazoned mug, wondering if it’s a good gift for, for, well, anybody frankly at this point. I’ve not idea who I’ve bought for, what I’ve bought and how far I am from emptying out my bank account. The tug-of-war of ‘good gift’ versus ‘no money’ pulls my brain apart at the seams. It’s only once the dust has settled, and my brother is actually opening his My Little Pony themed juggling-knife set that I realise I’ve not done well. Ho ho hopefully this will helpThis year I decided I was going to finally be a grown-up and create a list. I thought about the old fashioned pen-and-paper approach, but I hate writing by hand, and I figured there is an app for literally everything these days so went hunting in the Google Play store. I ended up going with the imaginatively named Gift List. It’s free, and totally changed the way I did my Christmas shop. You can add people to buy for, attribute a photo, set a budget per person, and then add gifts that you’ve already decided that you want for them (or just vague ideas). The app then automatically populates a ‘shop’ section that shows you what gifts you still need to buy, and a ‘stats’ section that shows you a (terrifying) countdown to Christmas, total spent (which is even worse), your total budget, and gifts left to buy and wrap. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/j4FZ6gEhc3gjfrpu4CPDj.jpg Some presents may have been changed to protect surprises That’s right, in each person’s section, you can tick off the purchases and even mark when they’re wrapped. What’s even better is that the gifts get auto-generated Amazon suggestions, so you could end up doing all your shopping without ever leaving your house. It comes with dollars and US Amazon as standard, and I totally thought I would just use the power of imagination to change the dollars to pounds, but it can be changed to a whole host of alternative currencies and Amazon stores. It’s still utterly horrendous seeing the amount of money going out of your account, but this is the first Christmas ever where I’ve actually felt in control of my shopping. Now I just have to hope everyone likes the gifts. Andrew London is a laughable excuse for a human being, barely held together with string and sticky tape. In Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself he will be sharing with you the different technology that he uses to try and pass for a proper functioning person.Logo design courtesy of FreePik http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/QqoaYyo6P9o

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Peek behind door number 17 on our free downloads advent calendar to discover Ashampoo Office Free – a complete suite of office software for creating and editing text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Download Ashampoo Office FreeAshampoo Office Free includes three programs: Ashampoo TextMaker for all kinds of word processing tasks – whether you're writing reports, composing letters, creating flyers or writing a novel. It's fully compatible with Microsoft's DOC format. Ashampoo PlanMaker for creating and working with spreadsheets. PlanMaker includes over 330 built-in calculation functions, and can create great looking charts for presenting data visually. Ashampoo Presentations for creating stunning slideshows that will captivate your audience. It's packed with great templates, and includes a great set of animations and transitions. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/4BVCcpfpai7Nngy97s4Sej.jpg You can even install and run Ashampoo Office Free 2017 directly from a USB stick. Download it free today – we think you'll be impressed. Download provided by AshampooGet your PC in shape with the best free optimization softwarehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/Z0CwPxLd0NI

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Behind door 16 on our free downloads advent calendar you'll find Ashampoo Zip 2017 – a brilliant file compression tool that creates and extracts compressed file archives in over 60 formats. Download Ashampoo Zip 2017Ashampoo Zip 2017's integrated ZIP engine is the fastest on the market, with multi-core support for processing huge archives in seconds. It can create self-extracting files – ideal for sharing – and includes a cloud browser that makes uploading archives a piece of cake. You also get immediate access to files hosted on cloud storage services including Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and more. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XtiCWVioCSRN3nffQvJnZD.jpg Download Ashampoo ZIP 2017 free today – it's the only file compression software you need. Download provided by AshampooGet your PC in shape with the best free optimization softwarehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/WXLUIH70dGA

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Peek behind door 15 on our free downloads advent calendar to discover Ashampoo Slideshow Studio 2017 – a brilliant alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint, and a great way to share photos with friends and family. Download Ashampoo Slideshow Studio 2017Ashampoo Slideshow Studio 2017 makes creating stunning slideshows as easy as clicking and dragging. Bring your presentations to life with voiceovers and sounds, apply fun transitions and other effects, and add overlays and subtitles. Everything is presented in an intuitive interface that guides you through every step, and there are wizards and templates on hand to make the whole process as simple as possible. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/oVsdPoSc5C4wdPyJEi8nBR.jpg Once you're done, you can export your creation in WMV or WebM format, ready to play on the device of your choice, or share online. Grab Ashampoo Slideshow Studio 2017 today and transform your photos into an amazing presentation. Download provided by AshampooGet your images ready with the best free photo editor for Windowshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/VaNxywoC2j8

2018 could be the year that Samsung enthusiasts - particularly those who bought into Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem - will finally get their comeuppance. In a report from Bloomberg, sources told the publication that 2018 will be the year Samsung’s smart speaker should be announced and be available to buy - pointing to a release date in the first half of the new year. While the sources couldn’t provide too many details on the shape, size or feature-set of the speaker, they did corroborate earlier reports that it would utilize Bixby, Samsung’s proprietary smart assistant that works like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. The most interesting detail revealed in the new report was that Samsung plans on actually undercutting Apple’s smart home speaker, the Apple HomePod, by around $150 (about £100/AU$200). The Apple HomePod, which was delayed earlier this month, is targeting a price point of around $349 while Samsung’s Bixby-equipped challenger could be looking at a price tag of just $200. That $200 price point would make it a bit more expensive than the Amazon Echo, which currently sits at $79, but that price could be justified by its feature set ... when that information finally becomes available to the public. Shedding some light on Project AmbienceIf this all sounds somewhat familiar, remember that back at Samsung’s Developer Conference the company showed off a Google Home Mini competitor that went by the name Project Ambience. The speaker referenced by the Bloomberg story sounds different than the one we saw on stage in San Francisco, but the inclusion of Bixby as the speaker’s smart assistant is consistent in both cases. If Samsung does target early 2018 as the release date for the speaker just like Bloomberg’s sources suggest, our money’s good that the speaker will make its debut at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018) that takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada in early January. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/WM46ajqKsvk

When was the last time you took a look at the Mac App Store for its utilitarian selection of niceties? Probably a while back, right? The truth is that there isn’t much in the way of personalized curation in Apple’s own catalog, which is why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to find the best Mac apps around. That said, not all of the best Mac apps derive from the App Store. Others come from external sources on the web. In fact, you can download and install applications from anywhere on your Mac by simply tweaking your privacy settings in macOS. From note-taking apps to image editors, windows managers and music production suites, read onto the next slide for a quick look at our picks of the best Mac apps. Gabe Carey has also contributed to this article Get it from: App StorePrice: FreeNo brand of computer is without its annoyances. For so long now, it’s been impossible to use our MacBooks – unbound by the chains of a power adapter – while video outputs to an external monitor. As we all know here at TechRadar, Apple’s laptops automatically enter sleep mode whenever the lid is closed. For the lot of us, this can be a huge inconvenience should you prefer the sheer magnitude of a monitor as opposed to a 12- or 13- or 15-inch laptop screen. Luckily, Amphetamine makes it possible to continue using your MacBook while closed. Previously you could accomplish this using a similar application called Caffeine, but we prefer the UI features you get with this freebie. In addition to fitting in naturally with the rest of your Menu Bar items, Amphetamine also supports hotkey commands as well as deactivation reminders, not to mention there are no pesky advertisements in sight. Get it from: App StorePrice: $9.99 (£7.99 or around AUS$14)While Windows has been able to snap programs to the edge of the screen since version 7, Apple’s solution didn’t arrive until OS X El Capitan. What’s more, even then it lacked some of the comprehensiveness of Microsoft’s alternative. Fortunately, HyperDock gives us that full-fledged functionality we so desperately crave, allowing anyone with a Mac to administer to the app Dock and windows all the same. For windows, you can drag an app to the left or right edges of the screen (or the corners) and it'll automatically fill that space. This makes it much easier to be productive on the desktop without wasting time dragging windows from the corners. For the Dock, hovering over apps activates something similar to Windows 7's thumbnail previews, providing overviews of windows that can be accessed by a click or closed directly from the preview. Handy. Get it from: ParallelsPrice: $79.99/year (Home & Student) Around £60 or AUS$100)If you've bought a Mac and miss some of your old Windows programs, don't worry - Parallels Desktop 12 can make it happen. Instead of having to dual-boot your Mac into a Windows partition, Parallels Desktop 12 allows Windows and macOS Sierra to co-exist side-by-side, and you can even run Microsoft-only programs such as Visual Studio 2015, or the Windows versions of the company's Office 365 apps, alongside your native macOS ones. All you need is a Windows 10 license - so prepare to buy one if you haven't already. Or, alternatively, you can use Parallels to try a handful of free operating systems including Chromium (a free distribution of Chrome OS) or Linux Debian. This year's version of Parallels is the most useful yet thanks to a new addition called the Parallels Toolbox, which allows you to easily carry out common tasks — from taking a screenshot to downloading YouTube and Facebook videos, and password-protecting all of your files. Get it from: App StorePrice: £14.99 (around $20 or AUS$25)If you're anything like us, you'll hate working with one monitor or screen. Portable monitors are still fairly expensive (and not to mention bulky), and luckily you can use an iPad instead using a nifty app called Duet. Developed by ex-Apple engineers, it works by tethering your iPad to your Mac using one of Apple's Lightning cables and firing up the app on both devices. You can then drag windows and apps onto your iPad's display just like you can a second monitor, and if you have a more recent iPad with a Retina display then you'll get the full benefit of all those pixels. Just know that the bandwidth isn't quite what you would get with a proper monitor, so it can be a bit laggy when you notch the quality up. But it's still more than usable for reading websites, typing up documents and watching videos. Get it from: AtomPrice: FreeAtom is a text editor that's primarily designed for coders, but its flexibility and customization options make it a viable option for many different types of users. That's because of two reasons: first, you can download a number of different Packages - effectively plug-ins - to make it bend to your will. It can be transformed into a Markdown editor for writing blog posts, for example, or you can hook it up to Evernote for storing notes in the cloud. There's at least 10 different word counters out there, and you can even add typewriter sound effects as you hammer out your delicious prose. Atom is also infinitely customizable on the visual side thanks to an editable back-end, allowing you to do anything from changing the font size, line height and colors to giving the caret Word 2016-like elasticity. Get it from: App StorePrice: £149.99 (around $195 or AUS$255)Whether you're an aspiring rockstar or superstar DJ, Logic Pro X is one of the best music creation apps on the Mac. Developed by Apple itself,76 its accessible interface hides a ton of advanced functionality. The latest version comes with a slick new design, 64-bit architecture and new session drummer that will save you having to shell out for a drum machine. It also works in natural harmony with iPads, providing a touch-based alternative method of creating song structures to dragging and dropping blocks in the main visual editor. Whether you're a seasoned producer already (Sia used the app to record her hit song 'Chandelier') or are looking to upgrade from Garageband, Logic Pro X likely has what you need. Get it from: App StorePrice: FreeA simple app but an important one, to-do app Wunderlist's strength lies in its cross-device functionality. It's available on Mac, PC and Android and iOS, allowing you to pick up where you left off wherever you are using macOS's Handoff feature. Once you've created a list you can schedule reminders, add notes and embed it into the macOS Notification Centre using a widget. Team-based features are unlocked by signing up to Wunderlist's Pro option for a yearly fee, and you can add files of any size without running into limits. Get it from: App StorePrice: FreeEvernote has morphed into a mighty note-taking app over the years. While some people will say that it's too bloated, the sheer number of things that you can do with it still makes it best-in-class. You can type up notes, obviously, organizing them using a combination of folders and tags. You can even embed Google Drive documents, which are accessible in a click. There's also the ability to set reminders, share notes with friends, find information related to notes using Evernote's 'Context' feature, create lists, and favorite notes that you frequently return to. Better yet, all of your notes are synchronized using the company's servers, making them accessible on nearly any PC (through a browser or the native Evernote app) or mobile device in the world. The paid version lets you use Evernote with more than two devices while upping the amount of data you can sync each month. Get it from: WebsitePrice: FreeGIMP (standing for GNU Image Manipulation) is one of the best free image editing apps out there. It's a great alternative to Adobe Photoshop and comes with a massive array of professional-quality functions that let you tweak existing images saved in a range of formats or create fresh ones from scratch. Features include layers, highly customizable brushes, automatic image-enhancing tools and filters. You can do even more with it using plug-ins, which are available to download from the GIMP Plugin Registry. Get it from: App StorePrice: £34.99 (around $45/AUS$60)Ulysses is one of the best "distraction-free" markdown editors out there today, balancing features with simplicity and beautiful design. Unlike Word 2016, or even Apple's own Pages, Ulysses hardly features an interface at all. This allows you to get on with writing without being distracted by superfluous buttons and menus. The app uses its own brand of Markdown — a type of text formatting engine — that lets you highlight your writing in a way that makes organizing it simpler, and a vast number of export styles formats it in an attractive way once you're finished. There's a handy attachments bar on the right-hand side that features an attractive word counter and lets you write notes to assist you in your writing. Notes can be accessed anywhere thanks to iCloud support, so you can pick up your iPad and carry on where you left off using macOS's Handoff feature. Get it from: WebsitePrice: FreeIf you’re a gamer who takes pride in the fact that you use a Mac, whether for work, school or leisure, Nvidia GeForce Now will silence your biggest critics. Since the dawn of time itself, it’s seemed as though PC gamers have shut down the prospect of using a Mac to play triple-A video games. The graphics weren’t there, and neither was the library. Nowadays, we live in the era of streaming. You don’t have to download your TVs and movies – you can stream them on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Why should games be any different? Well, with GeForce Now, they’re not. You can stream PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Overwatch and more at the highest settings from the comfort of your MacBook or Mac computer. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/Bqs0zK9sP-s

Security researchers have found that some major UK and US banks had vulnerabilities in their mobile apps which potentially allowed malicious parties to steal login credentials, although these holes have apparently now been patched. Researchers from the computer science department of the University of Birmingham in the UK found that banks including HSBC – and also a VPN provider, TunnelBear – had flaws in their iOS and Android apps which allowed for so-called ‘man in the middle’ attacks to take place. We’ve picked out all the best free VPN servicesThe issue pertained to the way that the apps conduct ‘certificate pinning’, which allows the software to specify a certain certificate that is trusted for a given server. The vulnerability was in the implementation of certificate pinning and verification used when creating a TLS connection, Threatpost explains. The result being that it was possible to spoof said certificate and therefore pull off a ‘man in the middle’ attack, in which the malicious party can then obtain the victim’s login details. Critical compromisesThis is obviously particularly critical when it comes to online banking, and the affected apps included a whole range of HSBC apps (including the basic HSBC app, and HSBC Business app), along with Bank of America Health, Meezan Bank, and Smile Bank. It’s also worrying that a VPN provider could have a hole in its software, too, considering Virtual Private Networks are all about making the internet a more secure and private place for users. According to the report, all the banks have fixed the relevant vulnerabilities in their apps, but it just goes to show you that even software which really should be ultra-secure can still have holes in it. While TunnelBear isn’t mentioned, presumably the provider has implemented a fix as well, you would hope. The researchers concluded: “Clearly, the abundance of pinning implementation options available to developers has played a role in causing these flaws to be made. Platform providers can make this less of an issue by providing standardised implementations with clear documentation. To this end, Google have introduced Network Security Configuration in the Android 7.0 SDK. “If app developers make use of these standard implementations, instead of rolling out their own or using 3rd party libraries, these errors will be much less likely to occur.” Check out the best VPN services to get the best VPN deals and offers goinghttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/tZtsWdnd_dc

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Behind the 11th door on our free downloads advent calendar you'll discover the full version of Ashampoo Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 – a fantastically useful tool that gives you a total overview of file distribution and disk space consumption. Download Ashampoo Disk-Space-Explorer 2018Unlike Windows Explorer, Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 lists results based on file types, making it easy to spot those using more than their fair share of resources. There are customizable filters to let you sort by certain file types (images or game files, for example), and the results are presented in bar and pie charts so you can see at a glance the proportion of disk space used by each file type. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/EZSLkPxo8ys34qtd3Rw5Qi.jpg You can also drill down through your file system for more detailed results. Grab Ashampoo-Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 free today and get a full picture of what's happening on your drives. Download provided by AshampooProtect your files with the best free backup software for Windowshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/FO7I0yN4A1E

iTranslate has long been the best way to communicate with foreign speakers using a smartphone, and the company's newest app enables you to translate conversations in real time. iTranslate Converse prompts you to hold your iPhone upside-down so you’re speaking directly into the microphone for more accurate results. After selecting a pair of languages from 38 available options, the first person taps and holds on the screen, speaks in their own language, then lifts their finger to view and listen to the results. The results aren’t always perfect – and can occasionally be comical – but this is the closest we’ve come to translating a bilingual conversation in real time. You have to speak clearly and in short sentences, but the app is otherwise super-easy to use, with a clean, minimalist interface that doesn’t get in the way of conversations. The app also retains transcripts of your translated conversations for reference or sharing. Naturally, there’s a price to be paid for software this intuitive and clever. Though the app is free to use, that’s only good for up to 300 translations per month — after that you’ll have to subscribe for $4.99 per month, or $39.99 annually. The good news is that if you already pay for a subscription on the iTranslate app, you aren’t double-taxed – you only have to sign in and start conversing. Having chats with speakers of other languages just got a whole lot easier. Subscribe to Mac Life magazine with an extra 10% offhttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/FxObuIVCiTA

In June, I sat down in front of a blank text document with an idea and a sense of panic. Almost six months later, thanks to tech, coffee and sheer stubbornness, I’m on course to finish my first draft this week. I know, I’m surprised too. I wouldn’t say it’s been painless – strangely, the hardest parts to write were those I’d spent longest planning – but by putting in a bit of work every day and sticking (more or less) to my rough outline, it’s almost there. That’s not to say it’s nearly finished – far from it. If I was building a house, I’d have fired some bricks and stacked them into something box-like with windows in the floor, a door in the chimney and a basement full of rats. I’m planning to let things settle over Christmas, then use an angle grinder and a sledgehammer to give it a ruthless re-modelling in the new year. Hopefully the rats will take the hint. It’s been an interesting experience, and as the year draws to a close I thought I’d share some of the most important lessons I’ve picked up along the way. Go easy on your laptopThe bottom row of keys on my poor little Lenovo Ideapad 100S are starting to fail – probably due to excessive hammering of the space bar. Be kind to your keys, and beware wobbly tables in cafes. Coffee only works if ingested by you, not your computer. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8BgTWDvwuZhTuFQMaDehZN.jpg Zoe should consider investing in a wipeable laptop and finding a less aggressive barista Shuffling paragraphs around, skipping up and down a document is much easier on a larger screen, so I'm hoping to do much of the editing at my desktop PC. I've asked Santa for a mechanical keyboard to make this process more pleasantly clicky, which will be a huge relief after battling the board on my little laptop for six months. The noise will also let my other half know that I'm doing serious work, and should only be interrupted for tea and biscuits. The cloud is your friendEarly in the writing process, Windows 'helpfully' restarted my Ideapad to install an update with FocusWriter still running. I only lost a few hundred words, which were still swilling around in my brain and easily re-typed, but the unplanned shutdown was a wake-up call. Since then I’ve had the software's auto-save function active at all times, syncing to Dropbox. It’s something simple and obvious, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me at the beginning. I'm thinking about upgrading to a paid Dropbox subscription so I can recover a previous versions of the document if I do something utterly foolish like delete half a dozen chapters. Twitter, less soAbandoning Twitter was one of the best decisions I’ve made over the last six months. The world seems a less angry place, and I'm less desperate need to share every half-baked thought that crosses my mind. If it's not worth taking the time to compose a Facebook post for something, is it worth sharing at all? Probably not. I even deleted my account at one point, then chickened out and resurrected it (you have 30 days to do this if you change your mind). Maybe one day I'll go back to sharing photos of amusing food wrappers. There's more to Pinterest than cupcakesEvernote is brilliant, letting you clip interesting bits and pieces from the web for reference later, but Pinterest is surprisingly handy too. I’ve used it for wedding planning and working out how to decorate a room around a bright green sofa, but searching for something non-visual often leads to interesting articles from various sources. The ‘More like this’ feature then leads you on a merry journey through similar features. This being Pinterest, your trip will eventually reach a dead-end of quinoa salad recipes and complicated hairstyles, but it’s well worth trying. Leave the editing for laterHere's the problem: editing is fun. Wading into a chunk of text, hacking away anything that doesn't work and transforming the lean leftovers into something that sings. Hopefully. It's so rewarding, in fact, I've found it terribly tempting to double back and start editing chapters the moment I've written them. In the words of Ernest Hemingway, the first draft of anything is, er, not good. It's important to accept that and move on, knowing that there's plenty of time to improve things once you've got the whole story down. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/GN4JPXJzptdnv4XiixaUgD.jpg Editing with extreme prejudice Thankfully, that time is nearly here, and I've got my angle grinder ready to lay into 90,000 words of near-future sci-fi. Hold my mulled wine... Cat Ellis has turned to technology to help write her first novel. Follow her progress in her Sculpt Fiction column. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/3LUn7RENdTQ

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Behind the ninth door on our free downloads advent calendar we've hidden Ashampoo HDD Control 2017 – an early warning system that lets you know in advance if one of your hard drives is about to fail, giving you time to back up your valuable data. Download Ashampoo HDD Control 2017SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) checks the temperature of your disks and provides information on run time, potential errors and performance. Ashampoo HDD Control 2017 takes this data and analyzes it to give you a full picture of your drives' health. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/3rZwDyoxJxHhCSLxCfDoHe.jpg Ashampoo HDD Control 2017 can also boost the performance of your hard disks and visualize the amount of memory used by your files, helping you find and remove large or duplicated ones. There's even a built-in secure file eraser, plus a recovery tool that gives you a second chance to restore data you've deleted accidentally. It's an amazing package, so download it free today. Download provided by AshampooUse a free cloud storage service to back up your most important fileshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/CYj39PRusYg

Back in the old days, you used to be able to touch the top of the Google Home Mini to speak out your commands or questions to it, and to start and stop music and handle other features, but the functionality was pulled after some of the devices were found to be locked in a persistent spying mode. You've always been able to activate the speaker with an "OK Google" command but the touch feature got disabled in October. Two months later, Google apparently thinks it's safe to bring the physical controls back to the Google Home Mini, as the functionality is included in the latest preview for the firmware of the device. However, there are some changes, as Android Police reports - number one, you now long-press the side of the device rather than tapping the top, and number two only the quick functions are coming back for now (pausing music, stopping alarms, ending a call, and so on). No touch-to-talkThat means you'll still need to use your voice if you want to put the Google Home Mini into listening mode, but you can now at least stop an alarm from whirring with a physical touch on the speaker. There's no word yet on whether the touch-to-talk option is going to come back at a later stage. You can update your Google Home Mini speaker through the Home app for Android or iOS, but it will take some time to move through from the preview channel to the channel used by default on consumer devices. Meanwhile, it looks like another speaker might be about to join the Google Home family: a job listing suggests Google wants to build one of its smart speakers with an integrated screen, to directly challenge the Amazon Echo Show. Get all the latest Google Home tips and trickshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/WtZsDXzHd0Y

Future Google Home smart speakers could feature multi-touch support with a touchscreen device, or at least that's how it looks based on a new job listing Google posted this week, Variety reports. The position is specifically for a "Touch Sensor Hardware Engineer, Google Home," and it calls for someone who will "work on the next generation of Google Hardware to enable the best multi-touch user experience." In addition, whoever gets the job "will lead the touch module development and integration for Google Hardware from concept to mass production." The news lends credence to rumors from September that Google is creating a touchscreen device that would be similar to the Amazon Echo Show. The timing is also a little interesting, particularly since Google's YouTube content is currently disabled on the Echo Show due to an ongoing spat with Amazon over how YouTube's content should be displayed. Releasing a Show-like device would allow Google to ignore the Show entirely. A touchy technologyPast Google Home devices have featured touch-support, but only in a limited role and not always with success. Not long after October's launch of the Google Home Mini, for instance, Google had to disable the touch interface on top of the unit because it sometimes started recording conversations ceaselessly. Oddly enough, Google just today began reactivating the play and pause buttons on the miniature Home speaker. The new job listing, though, shows that Google has plans that extend far beyond the simple controls the Home or the Home Mini offer, although it's currently not clear what those plans may be. Whatever they are, the increasing frequency of the rumors suggests we may learn sooner than later. And if this job hunt proves successful, perhaps they'll be able to avoid another debacle like the one that affected the Home Mini. Find the best speaker for your homehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/oHNN2AnIfdU

Today Amazon announced that it's bringing the Amazon Echo device family to 28 more countries today, along with its Amazon Music Unlimited music streaming service. Most of the new countries are in Europe and South America, including Iceland, Greece, Sweden, Colombia, Bolivia, Poland and Peru. You can see the full list of countries in the official statement. Releasing both at once allows people in these countries to get something of a "complete" experience out of their Echo device immediately. Amazon's music service may lag behind Spotify and Apple in terms of subscribers, but one of its best perks is that it offers a relatively inexpensive "Echo Plan" that grants full access to Amazon Music Unlimited's roughly 40 million songs from a single Echo, Echo Plus or Echo Dot device. Provided you're enrolled in the plan, all you need to do to access the service is say, "Alexa, play music" or something more specific like "Alexa, play Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up." Alternatively, subscribers can access Amazon's music service across Amazon Fire TV, iOS, Android devices and PCs through two more expensive plans that compare with those of competitors. With the individual plan, you can listen to songs across 10 different devices, while the family plan lets up to six people access music from the same account. The latter is especially appealing in terms of an Echo-focused plan, as Alexa now has the power to recognize different voices and so cater to different musical preferences. Globally speakingMuch as with Amazon's wide rollout of Amazon Prime Video a year ago, it's a significant move as it allows customers in these countries to access Amazon's streaming media without the need for direct Amazon Prime membership. Instead, they can sign up for supported media plans individually. "Music is such an incredible global connector, and with Amazon Music Unlimited we’ve been able to give listeners access to an extensive catalog with the added experience of using their own voice to hear music in so many ways with Alexa," said Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music, in a prepared statement. The best cheap Amazon Echo deals for Christmashttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/lVJC5zxhfO8

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Take a look behind the eighth door on our free downloads advent calendar to find Ashampoo UnInstaller 2017 – an incredibly convenient way to remove several programs at once, including the bits their own uninstallers would usually leave behind. Download Ashampoo UnInstaller 2017When you install a new program, Ashampoo Uninstaller 2017 logs all the changes it makes to your system, making it easy to remove any additional software that's installed without your knowledge. It also enables you to remove several applications in a row, which is a fantastic time-saver. Ashampoo UnInstaller can remove programs it hasn't logged too, sweeping away all temporary files and registry entries. Another of Ashampoo UnInstaller's great features is the ability to take snapshots, which allow you to compare the state of your system at different points in time. You'll get a detailed report of every change made to your system and files, plus registry changes, so you can see exactly what's happened. It's enormously useful, particularly if you've fallen victim to a malware attack. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nMojQESvobbiU6KiRsgY97.jpg Despite all this, Ashampoo UnInstaller is light on system resources, and won't have a noticeable impact on system performance. Download it free today and forget about messy software uninstallers. Download provided by Ashampoo Get your PC in shape with the best free optimization softwarehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/InVAN3DGVhI

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. “Alexa, stop” said Winston Smith and the clock fell silent. From George Orwell's 1984, to the panopticon, the idea of being watched by an unseen 'other' is an idea that has come up time and time again. While the comparisons with 1984 may seem a little unfair to anyone who has ever actually spent any time with a smart speaker, there is an obvious parallel; we are filling our homes with devices that have the potential to monitor us. Potential versus reality‘Potential’ is an important distinction to make, because they don’t currently monitor us. At least that’s the official line from the likes of Amazon and Google, the two biggest manufacturers of smart speakers currently filling people’s homes. And they aren’t the only ones. Facebook has a digital assistant (M) that sits in our messages, ‘listening’ to everything that we type, ready to suggest a feature of the app that we might like to make use of. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/CoecvbwVuzZBT2dCGAfvbZ.jpg The ever-present M, making handy suggestions based on your chatWhile we’re assured that our digital assistants are only listening to everything so that they are able to respond to a ‘wake’ word or phrase that calls them to action, there is something uncomfortable about the idea that everything you’re saying is being listened to, even if it is by a bot, not a person. What makes it particularly uncomfortable is that the companies that we are allowing this intimate exposure to are all companies that essentially make money off us. With Amazon, it makes money from selling us stuff, with Google and Facebook, they make money from selling our data. It seems obvious that they would be using the content of our conversations in order to generate revenue. When we asked David Marcus, head of Messenger at Facebook about this, he was as definitive as it’s possible to be: “Let me be clear. We are not ever using [the] contents of conversations for ad purposes, to target ads to you, or do that kind of thing...Any of the companies that do [monitor users] are not actively recording every bit of conversation that is happening. The mic is on to be woken up when you say the trigger word. If you know the tech, and if you know what’s happening, there’s nothing spooky happening.” Listening is the first stage of understandingHe’s not wrong; the code for digital assistants works like a search query on a website. Nothing that you type into the search field gets sent to the website until you press send. In the same way, nothing gets sent to the database of your digital assistant until the ‘wake’ word, letting it know you are inputting a query. Of course, there are times that smart speakers hear something that they think is a wake word, that isn't, causing the very unsettling sudden unprompted interruption from Alexa at your dinner party. The funny thing is, even with companies being insistent that they aren’t listening, we still seem not to believe them. Maybe part of it is because the idea of Big Brother is so ingrained in us, the fear of being watched so primal, that it will never leave. But maybe part of it is that in other areas we are being watched. ‘If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product’ goes the adage, and while there are obvious flaws with the saying, there is some truth in it. Google is free because it leverages the value of your data. All the things you type into Google can be sold on to advertisers to sell you stuff. What may be personal to you becomes professional to someone else. Searching Google using Google Home is presumably very similar, and so it’s therefore a very small leap from that to the smart speaker using the things that you say at other times too. Is anybody listening?The question we’re asking (in an admittedly roundabout way) is why aren’t these companies listening in? It’s certainly not that the concept hasn’t come up. As far back as 2012 there were patents coming to light from companies (including Google) that would monitor people in their homes. One in particular stands out; American TV provider Verizon filed for a patent that would be able to listen to your conversations, identify your pets, even look at the art on your walls to better target ads to you. Now artificial intelligence has got to the point that vast amounts of data can be processed swiftly and at low cost, it’s becoming less and less likely that the reason would be the workload. Which leaves the possibility that the reason it isn’t happening is that digital assistants are still in their infancy and the companies that are creating them need people to be comfortable with them being in our living rooms and bedrooms, that we’re happy to carry them around with us all day. Whether that means one day, after they have become ubiquitous, that they’ll start monitoring us is yet to be seen, but it’s a possibility that obviously strikes a chord in the collective consciousness, and one that we’ll be keeping a close eye on. Want to fear your digital assistant a little more? Check out: What happens when our assistants are smarter than us?http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/rAz1AMSk4eM

Image credit: Ikea Smart speaker maker Sonos and Swedish retailer Ikea have just announced a partnership, and no one really knows what the pairing could lead to. Brief though it is, the press release for the announcement is full of language that suggests this collaborative effort goes beyond merely selling Sonos products in Ikea stores, which would be the most obvious reason for such a partnership. “Together with Sonos we want to democratize music and sound in the home, and we want to create products designed for how people listen together at home,” said Björn Block, the head of Ikea’s Home Smart initiative, in a prepared statement. Block's position, in fact, suggests that Ikea likely intends to integrate Sonos devices with its furniture, much as it did with Qi wireless charging pads two years ago and with smart lighting devices last year. Possible ideas include speakers hidden in desks and cabinets, or furniture you could speak to much as you might speak to a standalone smart speaker. The Sonos One suggests that Amazon's Alexa could even be a part of this effort. Unfortunately, we won't see what either company has planned until sometime in 2019. House warmingIt's also possible that Sonos and Ikea are simply working together to create ideal settings for showing how Sonos devices might fit into homes by using Ikea displays. Sonos already does this with the little houses it made for its retail store in New York's SoHo neighborhood, but a partnership with Ikea would allow that concept to reach a much larger audience. In fact, Ikea's official page for the announcement seems to hint at this: "Ikea is taking on sound in the home together with Sonos, and will explore how to make it even easier for people to play any song, anywhere in the home, without interrupting the flow of daily life," the statement read. The best speakers for your homehttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/cQgc8u5C6Lc

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Look behind the sixth door on our downloads advent calendar to find Ashampoo WinOptimizer 2017, ready and waiting to give your PC a thorough clean and tune-up. Download Ashampoo WinOptimizer 2017With a single click, Ashampoo WinOptimizer scans your PC for temporary and history files, memory dumps, log files, error reports and other files that can be deleted safely to free up valuable hard drive space. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/oKJ8ZL4XPYkuRhpoJSfXRV.jpg Ashampoo WinOptimizer also identifies ways to improve your system's performance, including invalid registry entries and browser settings, plus files that can be deleted to protect your privacy online. Download WinOptimizer today and give your PC a thorough cleanup in time for the new year. Download provided by Ashampoohttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/CKRGLlGpvHg

Mere days after the little tussle between Google and Amazon seemed to be clearing up, the two companies are apparently at it once again. Two weeks ago Google allowed YouTube to return to the Amazon Echo Show after pulling the service in September, when the company cited a "broken user experience" compared to what you find online and in Google-made apps. Amazon's solution was largely a case of having the Show display YouTube as if it were on a desktop browser, which was far from ideal, but it seemed to make everyone happy until a better solution could be developed. That's no longer the case. Google today announced that it's yanking YouTube off the Echo Show again. To make matters worse, it's also yanking YouTube app support from the Amazon Fire TV. From Google's point of view, Amazon didn't respond to the situation with the same degree of goodwill. "We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to TechRadar. "But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon." Your YouTube app on the Fire TV won't be cut off until January 1, but unfortunately YouTube access on the Echo Show will be pulled again sometime this afternoon. Prime problemsLosing YouTube on the Echo Show was always arguably just an inconvenience, but the move will hurt far more on the Fire TV, which is specifically made for streaming visual media. It's a bold play on Google's part, and one that will likely get some kind of response from Amazon. As Google stated, Amazon responded to YouTube connectivity being pulled from the Show by taking some of Google's (or rather, parent company Alphabet's) remaining branded devices off its retail site. Amazon already doesn't offer many of Google's devices that compete with its own products (nor Apple's, for that matter), so pulling a comparatively non-mainstream device like Nest Thermostat E was just salt in the wound. Maybe this could have been avoided if Amazon had simply relisted the Nest devices, but it's not clear. Battle of the mini speakers: Google Home Mini or Amazon Echo Dot?http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/eGKVo4xqumw

When setting up a wireless network for your small business, it can be all too tempting to leave any security functions switched off. It may seem at the time that getting work done is much more important than worrying about a threat that probably won't ever materialise. But small businesses, like all others, need to make sure their networks are secure. After all, your customers are counting on you to keep their confidential data safe. The thing to realise is that your wireless network doesn't only extend within your premises. Wireless technologies provide long-range connectivity that cannot be restricted to the office, which means that anyone within range of an unsecured network can gain access. Check out our best Business Router roundupThis threatens more than just allowing others to use the internet for free. It could make you vulnerable to a breach of privacy, as hackers could monitor and intercept the open packets of data whizzing between devices and the router. Passwords, financial records, customer information and private data are all fair game to the criminal. In addition, others may use your open wireless to access the internet for illegal activity. Should this happen you could find yourself involved in legal action, so it's well worth taking the necessary steps to ensure your network is reasonably secure. So here's what you can do. Use encryptionPossibly the most important measure you can take to protect your network is to use encryption. Virtually all routers and wireless devices offer some form of encryption, which scrambles the data transmitted to and from your router, making your network's information unreadable to outsiders. Encrypting a network involves creating a password or passphrase that is difficult to guess. But note here that, while there are different forms of encryption available to wireless networks, not all of them are secure. WEP The most basic and oldest form of wireless encryption to be commonly used is WEP (Wired Equivalency Privacy), which utilises passwords using 10 to 58 digits using 0 to 9 and A to Z. It is no longer considered secure and can be cracked in minutes by hackers using off-the-shelf hardware and software, but some older systems still only support WEP. If you have such a device, you may need to consider ditching it in favour of something else or lowering the level of security on the network. While WEP should not be used to secure a network, it's still worth remembering that any encryption will provide more protection than none at all. WPA and WPA2 Developed to overcome the weaknesses in WEP, WPA and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) are the encryption modes now most widely used in wireless networks. They use both passwords and passphrases to secure networks. A password is one group of letters, numbers and characters without spaces; a passphrase is a string of grouped characters that includes spaces, such as "Th1S 1S a p@ssphr4s£". A passphrase is much harder to guess and break than a simple password. Use a firewallHardware firewalls provide the first line of defence against attacks coming from outside of the network, and most routers have firewalls built into them, which check data coming into and going out and block any suspicious activity. The devices are usually set with reasonable defaults that ensure they do a decent job. Most firewalls use packet filtering, which looks at the header of a packet to figure out its source and destination addresses. This information is compared to a set of predefined and/or user-created rules that govern whether the packet is legitimate or not, and thus whether it's to be allowed in or discarded. Software firewalls usually run on the endpoint desktop or laptop, with the advantage of providing a better idea what network traffic is passing through the device. More than just which ports are being used and where data is going, it will know which applications are being used and can allow or block that program's ability to send and receive data. If the software firewall isn't sure about a particular program it can ask the user what it should do before it blocks or allows traffic. Router settingsChange the router's access name and password It is all too easy to set up any equipment with its default settings, especially as the default admin name and password are often printed on the router itself to allow quick access and setup. This means that hackers will try these to access your network. Changing both access name and password will make it more difficult for a criminal to gain access. Change the default network ID Virtually all routers come with a default network ID supplied by the manufacturer. This can provide hackers with a little clue to the identity of the router and so helps them find weak spots more easily. Changing this usually means going to the router's security settings and amending the name there. Always keep a note of what the network ID is, and put that somewhere safe. Stop your router broadcasting its network ID When switched on, the wireless router will broadcast its network ID (or SSID). While this is useful in enabling connections between devices, once they are connected you can turn off the broadcast so the router operates in more of a stealth mode. Enable MAC authentication for your users You can limit who accesses your wireless network even further by only allowing certain devices to connect to it and barring the rest. Each wireless device will have a unique serial number known as a MAC address, and MAC authentication only allows access to the network from a set of addresses defined by the administrator. This prevents unauthorised devices from accessing network resources. Create a separate wireless network for your customers. The wireless network used by your employees should be used by them alone. If you have customers or contractors that need wireless access as well, you should consider creating a guest network. Most business-class routers allow you to do this, and it prevents outsiders from accessing your internal network assets while still allowing them connect to the internet. This virtual local area network enables employees and guests to have access while protecting your network from snoopers. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/CHHFyV_rG54

Facebook has announced that it’s launching a messaging app just for kids, confirming that the days of walkie talkies and tin cans with strings are far behind us. Called Messenger Kids, the app is designed to allow users from the ages of 6 to 12 to communicate with friends and family on mobile devices without the need for any kind of phone number or Facebook account. For example, kids who have a tablet or iPod without any kind of SIM card will be able to use Messenger Kids with a WiFi connection. As it's illegal for children under the age of 13 in the US to have a Facebook account, the Messenger Kids app won’t require children to set up any kind of Facebook account. Instead, it’ll be tied to an adult’s Facebook account and it’ll have parental controls included. User pipelineUpon downloading the Messenger Kids app (yes, it is yet another standalone Messaging app for your device’s storage to content with) parents will be asked to authenticate it with their own Facebook account. After this they’ll be able to set up a user within the Messenger Kids app that uses their child’s full name. None of the details entered into the app will be publicly searchable and Facebook has confirmed that it’s entirely ad-free, making us only slightly envious. The parental gatekeeping doesn’t stop here, though - it’ll be up to the responsible adult to decide who their child is able to connect with on Messenger Kids as contacts are added through Facebook itself. If, for example, a child wants to message a friend from school it’ll be up to the parents to befriend one another on Facebook and link their children’s Messenger accounts. Connections have to be mutually agreed before the kids can start talking to one another. If you or any of your family members you’re connected with on Facebook want to message your child, it’s possible to do so through the ordinary Messenger app. Kids will have some controls over their Messenger account - they’ll be able to report and block other users (though parents will get a notification when they do so) and Facebook has said it has a dedicated Messenger Kids team who’ll look into these reports. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7QuP89F8s2aiE5HykpYArc.jpg The Messenger Kids app is fairly similar to the adult Messenger app in terms of overall interface, although it's much brighter. It seems likely that Facebook is using the fact that children are accessing technology at much younger ages to familiarise them with Facebook applications and create something of a user pipeline. It will, after all, be natural for a child that's been using the Messenger Kids app from the ages of 6 to 12 to create a Facebook account of their own at the age of 13 and continue to communicate with the messaging app they're familiar with. Rather than encouraging text chat, Messenger Kids places heavy emphasis on real-time video calls which allow them to use emoji, selfie frames and stickers. Rather than taking these stickers from the main Messenger app, Facebook has created art that’s age-appropriate and in some cases intended to educate. The app is still in the early stages of its release and is currently in a preview-only state in the US for iOS users. Later this month it’ll be rolled out to Android users though there's no word on any plans to extend the app to any more countries at the moment. Not keen on an app? These are the best smart toys for kids of all ageshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/hoFOQZVjcco

Windows 7’s market share has been dropping faster than previously thought, according to one analyst firm, and for the first time since it's launch, the operating system is now being run by less than half of all Windows users. According to NetMarketShare, in November the overall desktop market share of Windows 7 dropped by a hefty 3.5% down to 43.12%. Microsoft will doubtless be pleased to see that Windows 10 now isn’t that far behind on 31.95%. And as mentioned, looking at the statistics which track only versions of Windows (i.e. without Mac or Linux installations), Windows 7 is now on a 48.8% market share, which represents a drop of 2.6% since the previous month. There’s more to this story than initially meets the eye, though. NetMarketShare tracks the installed user base of desktop operating systems via web analytics – in other words, tracking the OS used by site visitors across a large sample slice of the web. And some of those web users aren’t real people, but bots. These are fake users: automated pieces of software pretending to be human web traffic, and artificially inflating figures. Rise of the botsNetMarketShare observed that the rise of bot traffic on the web has accelerated dramatically in recent times, to the extent that it has felt the need to rejig its statistics to better ignore this false traffic. The analyst firm noted: “Bots can cause significant skewing of data. In particular, we have seen situations where traffic from certain large countries is almost completely bot traffic. In other countries, ad fraudsters generate traffic that spoofs certain technologies in order to generate high-value clicks.” Hence the overhaul of the method of collecting statistics, and the new results, complete with a major drop for Windows 7, because this OS is the most-used platform in terms of bot traffic (because it’s the most prevalent operating system out there, and it makes sense to hide the false traffic among the masses, where it will be less conspicuous). Of course, folks may well be tempted to put Windows 7’s drop purely down to this new methodology of putting together the stats, but NetMarketShare has actually rejigged all its previous results for past months, showing that Windows 7’s share has been overestimated all along. In October, for example, Windows 7 actually held a 43% share going by the refreshed data, which was 3.6% less than the analyst company estimated at the time using the bot-skewed data. The long and short of it is: Windows 7’s figures have been overblown for some time, and Windows 10 has been catching the older OS faster than we thought. And Microsoft will certainly be happy to hear that. As mentioned, Windows 10 is now only just over 10% behind Windows 7 according to NetMarketShare, and it might not be too long before that gap is fully closed. Another recent major statistical shift (on the Steam platform) showed that, on the face of things, gamers are abandoning Windows 10 – but there was a good explanation for that, as we discuss here. Via: Computerworld Windows 10 powers some of our best laptopshttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/VwZ9TkOWsQA

The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free Windows program to download every day until Christmas. Peel back the fourth door on our free downloads advent calendar to reveal Steganos Password-Manager 18 – a feature-packed too to protect all your account logins and generate super-secure passwords. Download and install Steganos Password-Manager 18 then request your free serial number to unlock the full softwareSteganos Password-Manager 18 not only protects your email, social media and other everyday accounts, it also includes secure storage for bank account and credit card details, plus space for your own notes. It includes a password generator, plus support for PicPass picture passwords and an on-screen keyboard to stop keyloggers intercepting your keystrokes as you type. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/233KXtnJhKJoffgLQGeU8W.jpg You can also carry your passwords safely with you on your iPhone, iPad or Android smartphone. Download and install Steganos Password-Manager 18, then request your free serial number and start protecting your accounts today. Download provided by SteganosImprove your online experience even more with a free download managerhttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/gNyBOV2dJFk

If you've got a Google Home Mini smart speaker that doesn't seem to cope well with the volume getting ramped right up, you're not alone - it appears that some of the dinky little units will reboot if they get asked to start cranking out the tunes at maximum volume. The problem doesn't appear to affect every Google Home Mini out there, fortunately, but a thread describing the issue on the Google support forums has attracted quite a few posts, so there's definitely something going on that shouldn't be happening. Now TechCrunch reports that Google has confirmed the problem is a genuine one, and a fix is in the works. If your unit is affected, you'll just have to turn down the volume a little until the patched firmware gets rolled out, most likely through the Google Home app. Patch it upGiven the size of the speaker, it's not really built for pumping out the tunes anyway, which might explain why relatively few people have reported crashes on their Google Home Minis. Still, Google will be keen to stamp out the bug as quickly as it can. Google's continued push into making its own hardware devices hasn't all been smooth sailing over the last few months, with screen and audio issues affecting some Pixel 2 handsets, and the company will be hoping 2018 is a quieter year in terms of software patching. Back in October it was discovered that the Home Mini also had a sneaky habit of recording audio when it wasn't supposed to, something Google dealt with by disabling the press-to-talk feature altogether. The bigger version of the speaker, the Google Home Max, is expected to go on sale this month. Google may merge with Nest (again) to better take on Amazonhttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/digital-home/~4/59Xe8t6To4A

Mindfulness is big business at the moment, and I thought it was about time I tried the meditation movement of the moment for myself. And where better to start than with the household name in mindfulness; Headspace. The app itself is beautifully designed, with a cartoonish style, avatars to guide you through the different sections, and animations that are just on the right side of childish. I’m sure this is a pretty common experience, but there’s something about someone trying to do ‘calm’ that makes me want to be the opposite. And this was definitely how I was when I first sat down with Headspace. Resisting the restThere’s something about Andy Puddicombe’s soothing, geographically nonchalant voice that made we want to scream: ‘pronounce ‘t’ properly!’ at my headphones. The performer in me was there thinking ‘he must have been sitting really close to the mic for this’ and the tech-pedant was frustrated that the audio was a little fuzzy. That said, I managed to commit myself to the breathing, and thinking about breathing, and breathing, and thinking about breathing, and before I knew it, I was actually feeling more relaxed. I realised that I was way too tense about the lovely Mr Puddcombe’s accent. He can pronounce ‘t’ however he wants. And I wasn’t only mentally tense. My right shoulder seemed to descend by about 12 feet, my ribs noticeably loosened, and I noticed that I was clenching my buttocks as if I was trying to crack a nut. It’s pretty staggering how much you don’t notice about your body unless you actually focus on it. I’d just kind of assumed because of my physical theatre background that I was very ‘in’ my body, but apparently not. Forming the habitHeadspace does a very clever thing that it’s free to download, and there’s a full week that you can do before you actually have to pay for anything. Anyone who knows about habit forming will know that you only need to do something five times for it to become a habit, which means that Headspace is forming a habit, then asking you for money. From an app that has clearly put a lot of work into psychology, the cynic in me thinks there’s an element of manipulation at hand here, but frankly I can’t blame Headspace for the manipulation. Mental health is still a massively under-discussed element of health and it’s a little sad that I’ll think nothing of spending money every month on my gym membership or on Netflix, but when asked to pay a monthly subscription for my mental health I baulk. http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/WUiXVjpVWpH2PggnmfreNE.jpg The beautifully designed Headspace app right at the start of my 'journey' I suppose there’s something in the fact that it’s more difficult to quantify results. I know when I’ve gained muscle mass. I know when I’ve binge watched an entire series of Punisher. But my mental health? It’s a weird one, because since starting Headspace, I’ve noticed an improvement in my mood; I’m less anxious, less angry, less prone to negative thoughts. It’s just not a concrete thing I can pin down, so it’s easy to dismiss it as correlation rather than causation. Ummmm, Ommmmmm?One thing that keeps occurring to me is that Headpace feels a little like religion for atheists. There is something about the silent contemplation that feels a little like prayer. The daily meditations that feel like sermons. It’s interesting that Puddicombe is himself an ordained Buddhist Monk, but there isn’t a religious aspect to the app. My wording above mirroring the title of Alain De Botton’s book Religion for Atheists, was no accident. It feels like in creating Headspace, Puddicombe has implemented an element of that book; taking the positives of the practice of religion without the religious aspect. Perhaps I’m over thinking it. It turns out I have a habit of doing that. Whatever the case, I’ll definitely be continuing with mindfulness. Headspace is available to download from the App Store and Google Play Store, and is free to download, with access to the full app available for a monthly ($12.99, £9.99), yearly ($96, £72), or lifetime ($399.99, £299.99) subscription. Andrew London is a laughable excuse for a human being, barely held together with string and sticky tape. In Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself he will be sharing with you the different technology that he uses to try and pass for a proper functioning person.Logo design courtesy of FreePik http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techradar/software-news/~4/rkoT-4kkbUA