Original Xiaomi Mi Band 2 Connected Bracelet for Android iOS - Black

Specialist in techno products at very low prices, the Chinese firm Xiaomi launches its Mi Band 2. After the Mi Band and Mi Band Pulse, sets up a new activity tracker with built-in heart rate monitor that has allowed us to extensively test .

The world of sensors of activity had experienced a thunderclap with the Mi Band. Launched for less than € 20, this high-quality tracker - still on sale - proved that in a universe where connected bracelets remained expensive, it was possible to offer reliable low-cost devices. Re-belote with the Mi Band Pulse (or Mi Band 1S): carried by the same philosophy, the Chinese brand Xiaomi continued its journey with an integrated cardio tracker billed twenty euros. And since we do not change a team that wins, the new Mi Band 2 goes further today. It is this time proposed for about 50 €. Is the 30 € surcharge justified? Only a complete test could tell ...

Mi Band 2 is a bracelet connected for you, especially for sports fans!
Do you know how many steps you take, how many calories you consume, and how far do you travel? Do not worry, when you wear the bracelet for exercise, such as running, climbing, all this data can be synchronized and analyzed on your mobile phone, which helps you plan your exercise time and your most reasonable amount. It comes with an optional TPU bracelet, offering you a nice touch of skin and a breathable feel. When you sleep, it will monitor your sleep. It can also wake you up by gently vibrating.
Mi Band 2 records every moment with you. Just to live a healthy life with it!
Main Features:
- Bluetooth synchronization
With Bluetooth 4.0, this smart watch is available for smartphones with Bluetooth capabilities.
- Touch Screen OLED
Simply touch the circular button gently, the OLED display will display the current time, steps, heart rate, distances, calories, etc.
- Heart Rate Monitor
It can dynamically monitor your heart rate, provide you with data at any time.
- Incoming calls / APA message alerts
When someone calls or sends messages to your phone, the watch will remind you by vibration, so you will never miss it!
- Sleep Monitoring
Monitor accurately the total effective sleep time and movement time each night, as well as the APP will give you a periodic assessment, will help you develop good lifestyle habits.
- Sports Surveillance
This intelligent watch can record steps, calories and distance. Make your sporting information known, adjust your exercise program and get a healthier life!
- Intelligent alarm function
 Wake up every morning, will not be late for work; Inactive alert to remind you by vibration, stretch your legs after working for a long time.
- No code required
Each Mi Band 2 has an exclusive ID, when your smartphone closes with the bracelet, your phone will be unlocked, simply sign in with Mi Band 2.
- IP67 waterproof
The waterproof IP67 keeps the bracelet in water for up to 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter. (Do not wear the bracelet when diving)
- Full compatibility
Support Android 4.4 or higher and iOS 8.0 or higher with Bluetooth 4.0.


                                   see the offer in gearbest 

Microsoft Edge: Small, but Quality Extensions

A little more than a year after the arrival of the extensions on the Edge browser, Microsoft takes stock and explains why they are still present in such a small number.

In the summer of 2016, users of Windows 10 discovered the birthday update to upgrade to version 1607. Among other innovations it introduced a novelty of size for Edge: the ability to install extensions. Microsoft makes the point.

On his blog the publisher lists the main extensions that have been set up partnership with developers. These include Adblock and Adblock plus, AdWords and Evernote note-taking tools, or the Lastpass password management extension, or to accompany users of the Office Online suite.

The feedback from users is good but they also hope that this list of extension will grow rapidly, some wishing to find what they use with Firefox or Chrome in Edge. Microsoft knows it but explains its choice to gradually expand its extensions to privilege quality and security. They should not interfere with the speed of the browser or compromise the security of the user.

In this framework Microsoft carefully observes the feedback from testers members of the Windows Insider program and says it carefully examines each submission of new extension. The goal is to offer high-quality extensions that users can use with confidence.

To date the Windows Store offers just over 70 extensions to download for free for the Edge browser. Microsoft does not intend to stop there and continues to gradually open up the possibilities offered by APIs to allow developers to create new extensions. The latest one, Grammarly, offers help to correct the writings of the Net surfers but only supports English.

Machines and robots take our jobs, but they improve our lives

Measures such as the inclusion of a universal basic income, the collection of taxes 'by robot' and the payment of unpaid activities can restore the technological impact on employment.

In 1948, Norbert Wiener, considered the father of the cybernetics, already warned of the conflict between technology and employment, suggesting to indemnify the citizens. Recently, Paul Mason said that in 30 years "between 40 and 50% of the work will disappear and will be automated, especially in commerce and office work." Other reports reflect similar figures. Throughout the world today the work is being automated and much of which can not be automated leads to countries with less demanding labor or environmental regulation or where labor and taxes are cheaper.

Machines in general increase productivity in all sectors, and inevitably, jobs are lost. If we continue like this, we will live in a society in which we have to work little, but in which misery and unemployment will undermine the quality of life and peaceful coexistence. Will we be able to adapt to achieve the advantages and avoid the inconveniences of automation?

Computing applies to everything, but it destroys more jobs than it creates

The agricultural mechanization ended many jobs in the field, but created many others in the cities. However, currently it is assumed that only robots will destroy 3.5 jobs for each that they create.

Hundreds of professionals see every day how their work is done by robots or Internet companies with very few computers and employees. Examples of this are travel agencies or publishers replaced by simple webs or apps, bank employees or machine operators replaced by programs (bots), or industrial workers replaced in all sectors, such as masonry robots (which put more than twice the number of bricks for Hour than the best mason). Jobs are also lost due to programmed obsolescence and lower prices, due in part to automation (such as watchmakers, shoemakers or appliance repairers).


Another example: if teachers publish videos of their classes on the Internet, students can take the subjects from their homes, repeating the video as many times as they want. Thus, they could go to the study center only for practical classes (or just to socialize and play, in the case of the smallest). Until the doubts could be solved by chat or videoconference. In addition to a simple video, other computer devices can be used to better capture student's attention (programs with animations, documentaries, exercises or games). On the other hand, these changes would mean that with fewer teachers a larger number of students could be served.

The most extreme advance is not in the machines (hardware), but in the software, using techniques of artificial intelligence: expert systems, facial or voice recognition, or self-driven cars


The most extreme advance, in fact, is not in the machines (hardware), but in the software, using artificial intelligence techniques: expert systems, facial or voice recognition, auto-driven cars ... The "Artificial Intelligence" oxymoron includes a Set of techniques that mimic human behavior. It is not properly intelligence, but it seems so and in many cases works better than human intelligence. This is due, among other factors, to the great memory and speed of calculation of electronic processors and also to an objectivity that humans sometimes lack. There are even techniques in which the goal is not to tell the machine what to do, but to let it find out and learn by itself (machine learning). Although there is much to be done, the advances in this matter are spectacular (decision making in medicine or economics, understanding of texts ... and many more).

Options to avoid the worst

If we do nothing, automation can benefit society, but even so, many will lose their jobs, with all that implies. If we agree that an unequal society does not benefit the majority and is a source of injustice, then something has to be done. Authors like Keynes, McAfee or Meyer have made proposals in this sense:

1. Encourage part-time work to better allocate existing employment.

2. Reduce the working day, for example, to four days a week to compensate for the reduction in available work.

3. Establish a Universal Basic Income (even very basic) that complements the wages (low for working few hours or null). Soon it will be tried in Barcelona and other European cities.

4. Treating computers and robots as employees of companies and paying taxes (ie, it is not so profitable to use machines at the cost of laying off employees).

5. Make the State "employer of last resort" to avoid long-term unemployed.

6. Give value to now unpaid tasks, such as volunteering, childcare or elder care, etc. These activities could be paid with some kind of benefit.

7. Avoid relocation and abuse of multinationals in rich countries by demanding the same legal and ethical behavior in all the countries in which they act (respecting environmental and occupational safety laws as if they were in their own country).


8. Evaluate the impact of each technology, because it is clear that we will not give up all technological advances, but we should not assume all, since some have very considerable impacts.

The value of the human being

That technology destroys jobs, he remembered even Pope Francisco. Perhaps, if we reduce the number of hours that a human can work, then human labor would be more valuable, as Bertrand De Jouvenel suggested.

No one should complain that machines work, if they do better, cheaper, without tiring and available at any time, but we have to establish mechanisms for these benefits to generate benefits for all and allow us a more equitable society.


Technology puts a lot of power in our hands, and that means a lot of responsibility, but ... are we being responsible enough? Are we even responsible for ethically getting the materials with which we build our machines? (Think of the coltan, for example).

Hyperloop One: the first test of the "complete system" is conclusive

Hyperloop One goes ahead, and well. The company passed its first "complete" test on a 500 meter long track. A first milestone for the project.

Hyperloop One began building its first tube last October in the Nevada Desert, the work went well, and in May the firm completed its first test of the complete system used for the means of transport. She only communicated recently on the subject, through a video - which is a bit in the pathos - published yesterday on her YouTube channel.

We are talking here only of the system, that is to say that the train used is not definitive, it was in fact to turn all the technologies together: start, braking, magnetic levitation, but also And especially the evacuation of the tube. This is the sine qua non condition for the proper functioning of Hyperloop since the vacuum makes it possible to limit the frictions in order ultimately to reach about 1000 km / h.

The teams made a no-fault by creating their own "sky in a tube" in the words of the team. They simulate in the tube an atmosphere similar to that found at more than 60 km of altitude (by convention, it is considered that the space is 100 km). In other words, there is not much air left. Everything went well, but we are still far from the expected performances.

People, especially merchandise

The train, which is in fact only a kind of sled levitating above the rails, has traveled 500 meters at a speed of about 110 km / h, for a journey of a little less than 5 seconds. Congratulations to the mathematicians who deducted the duration of the journey. The next step is to gain speed, the firm will try to propel the machine at about 400 km / h, which would make it go faster than a TGV in normal operation. The French train was able to reach 574.8 km / h, it is the world record on rail.


At the same time, the company presented a first concept of the Hyperloop One train (image of "one"). The latter could be suitable for both passengers and freight, an aspect that is so important to society. It is this last activity that should be launched by the company before opening the trains for the transport of persons. If people can communicate via the Internet, goods can not yet teleport and bear much better accelerations than human beings.

Technological giants unite against US government to avoid net neutrality

Google, Netflix and Facebook, among dozens of companies, protest against the limitations to the online world

Dozens of technology companies allied Wednesday to protest against the proposal of the government of Donald Trump aimed at limiting net neutrality. Through their respective websites, Facebook, Google, Netflix or Twitter - among others - advocated in defense of a Network open and free, and regulation to Internet providers in the United States, principles with which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to end.

More than 80,000 online spaces participated in the initiative, dubbed the "Day of Action to Save the Net Neutrality", displaying ads, alerts and information on the importance of an Open Network. The reaction comes almost two months after the FCC began the process of reviewing the rules governing the activities of companies providing Internet access, such as Verizon, Comcast or AT & T.

These rules, imposed by the Obama administration in 2015, prevent such companies from prioritizing, increasing access or blocking websites against others depending on their contracts. They maintain a level playing field for everyone, from the smallest websites to the most crowded virtual spaces without the suppliers being able to discriminate according to their interests.

Prior to these standards, some suppliers blocked competitors' products on the Internet. In a specific case, in 2013, Verizon, AT & T and T-Mobile blocked Google Wallet by competing for its online money-sending services.

Since Ajit Pai, the president of the FCC appointed by Trump, announced the review process in late May, citizens have three months to make comments and suggestions on the entity's website. The FCC will vote if it changes these standards by mid-August. Meanwhile, with initiatives like today, large technology companies as well as Democratic Party figures try to prevent large supplier corporations from having more control over Internet content.

Twitter, in addition to promoting the hashtag #NetNeutrality, defended in his blog: "Net neutrality is fundamental for a competitive, free and enterprising market that can reach global users. It is not required to be a great company to compete. Anyone with a great idea, a unique perspective to share and a compelling vision can get into the game. " The Internet Association, a group that includes Google and Facebook, said that the current rules work and that eliminating them "would result in a worse Internet for consumers and online innovation."

Senator and presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders, said on Twitter that "Net neutrality means that everyone has access to the same information - that the Internet remains free of any corporate control." On the contrary the Republicans applaud the elimination of the regulations.

Space Robot

The first to lose their job because of robotics have been the astronauts

The first humans to suffer the competition of the automatons have not been the taxi drivers nor the stevedores, but the astronauts. The first space robot was sent to the Moon just 50 years ago, in the North American Surveyor 3 mission, and was dedicated to take samples of our satellite. The Soviets soon launched the missions Luna 16 and Moon 17, which used the first robotic arm and the first lunar rover. Since then, space robots have grown in autonomy and importance until, in many cases, expensive and risky manned missions become unnecessary. In fact, most of what we know about the Moon and Mars is the result of robot exploration. So you see, the first to lose their jobs because of robotics have been the astronauts, perhaps the most skilled workers that exist on the planet, and off the planet.

An extended criticism of space science argues that we should be concerned before the problems of the Earth, and particularly those afflicting their human inhabitants, than to embark on high-tech missions to obtain a useless knowledge of our suburb of the cosmos. This is a very respectable opinion, but unfair and misleading in the case of space robotics. The amazing advances of these technologies in the last years are of direct application to the most diverse earthly problems.

For example, robots initially designed for planetary exploration will be extremely useful whenever a nuclear power plant needs to be shut down, cleaned of its waste and demolished, and this will happen many times over the next few years, starting with France. Another example are robot surgeons and artificial intelligence applied to diagnosis and therapy, who are also benefiting from advances in space robotics. And emergency services, where there are now people who play life, as in the deactivation of explosives and the extinction of fires.

Engineers Yang Gao and Steve Chien cite more applications in an exhaustive review for Science Robotics. One is deep-sea mining, where robots will be crucial for exploration, excavation, inspection and maintenance; This will not only save lives, but also greatly improve the efficiency of the process. Another increasingly important industrial activity is the exploration of the ocean floor, from which an increasing amount of natural gas and mineral resources are extracted. And also inspection and maintenance of water distribution networks and aid for agriculture.

An exciting program will make you proficient in speaking any other language quickly

Thanks to the technological development of a wide range of devices as well as the availability of the Internet, the issue of learning has become very easy. It is enough to have either a smart phone or a computer with an Internet connection so you can access millions of information in all fields, even in your country. There is no doubt that learning languages is among the things we all seek, so in this post another program suggested an excellent idea It will make you learn a language very differently.

Caterpillar is a program that will teach you how to speak and understand any foreign language by ear. The program depends on the way we all love it, learning through your favorite movies. The program has the advantage of offering you a way of learning that you love. By watching movies, it does not use a boring way of keeping rules and reading boring long texts.

The program is available for Windows as well as Mac, and the way it works is reflected in your favorite movie or lecture from "TED", music or other video, provided that the translation is available online. By the way, if you find a problem with it, the program has great and adequate content where you can choose whatever you like according to your taste.

For the selection of the movie or video, I have to listen to it, rewrite the sentence in the place in the interface of the program, you can re-record and utter the sentence and the program will compare your pronunciation with the actor's voice. Of course the program will verify that you have mastered not only the skill of audio simulation, So write the words correctly.

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Now you can get free Wi-Fi through the Facebook application !!

If you are away from home and in need of Wi-Fi, Facebook wants to help you in the issue! The new social media giant has introduced a neat feature that allows you to search for places that have a free or public Internet based on your location.

The company initially made it available to selected countries, announced on June 30 that this feature has been introduced to Facebook users worldwide.


Today we begin to search for Wi-Fi everywhere in the world on the iPhone and Android. We have launched a search for Wi-Fi in a handful of countries last year and found it not only useful for people who travel, but particularly useful in areas where cellular data is rare
To use the feature, you need to access the data first to view the Wi-Fi connection points available in your area, click the More tab in the Facebook app, and then scroll down to "Find Wi-Fi."

You will need to allow Facebook to access your site in order to use this feature.
When activated, you will be shown a map with some good features in the roof feature. Nearby locations will offer you free Wi-Fi along with those sites as well as business hours and network names.

The feature works with the information that businesses have added to their business pages, so you will not pull out every business near you that may have a wireless connection to the Internet, just those available on Facebook.

  Check out the video below for a closer look at how this feature works

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Samsung Develops Intelligent Voice Amplifier

South Korea's Samsung seems to be following in the footsteps of Google, Amazon and others by developing a smart speaker that integrates its personal assistant, "Bixby." Google recently unveiled Google Home and Amazon is known as Amazon Echo.

A new report by The Wall Street Journal indicated that Samsung is developing a home-based smart home microphone that integrates smart personal assistant for Psycopecy (which still has difficulties preventing its full release to date) That the path of development of this device was launched almost a year ago and Samsung chose for its speaker amplifier the symbolic name "Vega".

Samsung is seeking to compete with other companies already launched in this field, such as Amazon with Amazon Echo and Google with Google Home and Apple in turn plans to launch "HomePod" in the coming months, in addition to Microsoft and its expected device "Microsoft Invoke."





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BlackBerry Enter the new area away from smartphones

After that the Canadian company's famous "BlackBerry" decided to take an historic decision to stop direct manufacturing of smart phones and the trend towards granting companies the right to a second manufacturing license them and then focus in particular on the development of BlackBerry software, today announced its entry into a new field in the same frame.

BlackBerry unveiled yesterday a new agreement with the well-known "Ford / Ford" the American carmaker will enable the US company to take advantage of the private car and directed to systems and smart self-driving cars BlackBerry QNX system in an effort from the Ford Motor Company to develop its cars.

BlackBerry and want to better positioning in the smart automotive software market through this agreement with Ford Motor Co. at a time when the two companies refused to disclose all the details of the terms of this contract, especially with regard to the financial aspect as well as a way to recruit QNX system in automotive systems.

The BlackBerry has been revealed through the end of last September on the sidelines of presenting its financial results for this new approach, which focuses on the software side and regulations.

London is next in line for Google-backed gigabit Wi-Fi

After New York, Intersection is bringing its gigabit Wi-Fi street furniture to London

London is next in line to receive the Link high-speed Wi-Fi service that briefly brought high-speed porn to the streets of New York.

Intersection, the company behind LinkNYC, is partnering with British telecommunications operator BT and outdoor advertising company Primesight to deliver the service in London. Intersection is partly funded by Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google's parent Alphabet.

Next year, BT will replace 100 of its phone booths with the LinkUK pillars, delivering gigabit Wi-Fi, free phone calls, and local information services on built-in Android tablets. The companies aim to install up to 750 of the hotspots across the UK in the coming years.

The pillars will also offer free power, via USB charging sockets. There's no risk of them slurping your phone's contents, or infecting them via the BadUSB vulnerabilities, as the sockets contain no data lines.

"It’s just power and ground," said BT spokesman Yusuf King.

Free web browsing will not be allowed on the London Link pillars.

When the service was introduced in New York in January, some people began using the embedded tablets to watch porn in public. LinkNYC put a stop to that last month when it shut down the web-browsing option on the pillars.

ISPs in the U.K., including BT, are required to block adult content by default, so using the tablet to watch porn ought not to be possible there.

Limiting the tablet to providing local information has other benefits, though, said King. "Another reason to remove the tablet web browser is to prevent people monopolising kiosks for long periods."

LinkUK, like LinkNYC, will be funded by advertising. Instead of the posters or wrap-around ad spots that Primesight will sell on 17,500 other BT phone booths around the U.K., the new pillars will each carry two 55-inch HD displays running non-stop commercials and public service announcements.

London's traditional red phone boxes won't disappear from London's streets with the introduction of the new pillars: Many of the 602 remaining in the London area are legally protected as historic architectural features. Instead, the pillars' brushed stainless steel and glass panels will replace a more recent generation of phone booths, made of the same materials.

Why Did Yahoo Take So Long to Disclose Security Breach?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In late September, Yahoo announced that at least 500 million user accounts had been compromised. The data stolen included users’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and encrypted passwords, but not credit card data. Large data breaches have become increasingly common: Just in 2016 we have found out about Yahoo’s breach as well as the LinkedIn hack (compromising 167 million accounts) and the MySpace breach (360 million accounts).

The Yahoo breach affected more users than the other two, but all of them share a crucial element: They were announced to the public years after the fact. The LinkedIn hack happened in 2012, MySpace was breached in 2013 and Yahoo was hacked in 2014. Not until 2016 did users of the three sites found out their information had been stolen.

When personal information is stolen, rapid response is important. Customers need to change their passwords, and take other steps to protect their identity, including securing bank accounts and credit records. If people don’t know a breach has occurred and that they need to take these protective steps, they remain vulnerable.

So why does it take such a long time for companies to disclose that they have been hacked? It’s not as simple as you might think – or hope.

Time is a key factor

It’s not yet clear when Yahoo learned about its attack, though in this case the timing is questionable. A news article published on August 1 quoted a company spokesperson saying Yahoo was “aware” a hacker was sellinglogin details for 200 million Yahoo accounts in an online black market.

But more than a month later, the company filed a document with U.S. financial regulators saying it didn’t know of any claims of “unauthorized access” that might have an effect on its pending sale to Verizon. And Verizon said publicly that it had heard about the breach only two days before Yahoo announced it to the world.

All those events, of course, were years after the breach had actually happened. This is an uncommonly long delay. According to a recent report from network security firm FireEye, in 2015 the median amount of time an organization’s network was compromised before the breach was discovered was 146 days.

That includes all sizes of companies in all types of business. As a major internet company with an extremely large user base, it’s reasonable to expect Yahoo might detect – and disclose – breaches much sooner than other firms.

Detecting, and confirming, the hack

The company has said it believes the attack was conducted by a national government, though it hasn’t said from what country. That may suggest the attack was more sophisticated, and therefore harder to detect – butit’s impossible to know if that’s true, because the company has declined to offer details of how the breach was achieved.

In addition, anyone on the internet can claim anything they want –companies have to investigate their systems to find out whether someone who is advertising they have login information for sale actually took anything, or is just making it up to cause trouble.

Nontechnical reasons that Yahoo took so long to discover the hack could include frequent changes in leadership of its security team and the companywide stress of finding a buyer.

Notifying the public

Once a company has learned it has been hacked, it’s important to tell customers – and the public – so that people can take proper measures to protect their information, privacy and identities.

At present there is no federal law regarding when companies must tell the public about information security breaches. In 2015, Democrats proposed giving firms 30 days from discovering a hack to announcing it had happened. That effort failed because many states, which have varying requirements, have stricter standards that the federal law would have overruled.

Recovering a corporate reputation

Tech companies can typically recover quickly from data breaches – if they respond fast and take the necessary steps to notify their users. That’s true even for corporations whose data breaches resulted in the compromise of customers’ credit card information, such as Target in 2013 and Home Depot in 2014.

Lawsuits filed after the breaches have cost companies millions in settlement costs, not to mention legal fees and lost business. The lesson is clear: Early disclosure of a data breach is better. If Yahoo knew about its hack as early as August – or even years ago – and took this long to announce it to the public, the company has manifestly betrayed its users’ trust.

Though Yahoo urged users to change their passwords and security questions after the public disclosure of the security breach, thousands of users took to social media to express anger that it had taken the company two years to uncover the data breach. The lawsuits filed against Yahoo are mounting.

It can be extremely difficult for companies, even tech-focused ones like Yahoo, to protect themselves from skilled and determined hackers. But not reporting the attack as soon as it’s suspected can be almost as damaging as the hack itself.

Are Virtual Reality Headsets Safe for Kids?

Virtual-reality headsets are likely to be at the top of many kids' wish lists this holiday season, but with many VR devices coming with age restrictions, is the technology safe for youngsters?

The Oculus Rift and Samsung's Gear VR headsets are recommended for ages 13+, while Sony's recommendation for its PlayStation VR is ages 12 and up. HTC's Vive is not designed for children, according to the company, and HTC said young children shouldn't be allowed to use the headset at all. And Google said its relatively low-tech Cardboard headset should be used by kids only under adult supervision.

Companies have offered little explanation for these age recommendations. So what does the science say? According to Marientina Gotsis, director of the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, not a lot. 

"We do not have enough data on the safety of current VR technology for children," she told Live Science. "So, the sparsity of research data and what we know about neuroplasticity [the brain's ability to reorganize itself] and children does not make me comfortable to recommend what is available now as is."

Brain development

In a 2014 study in rats, researchers at the University of California found that the neurons in a brain region associated with spatial learningbehaved completely differently in virtual environments compared to in real ones, with more than half of the neurons shutting down while in VR. What this means for humans is unclear, but the scientists said it highlighted the need for more research on the long-term effects of VR.

Gotsis said VR could have an even bigger impact on the developing brains of children. Her center uses entertainment technology, including VR, for mental and behavioral health research. She has worked on VR applications for children, but only in highly controlled situations.

"The brain is very plastic in young ages, and prolonged exposure with improperly fitted devices could incur damage," she said. "Children also may not understand how to communicate eyestrain and may lack reflexes to remove the devices if they find them uncomfortable."

Still, this does not necessarily mean that VR is unsafe for children and never can be, she said, adding that VR's safety varies according to the device, type of content and time spent using it, as well as on the individual child using it. 

VR and vision

One of the biggest concerns is the impact VR tech could have on kids' eyes. Parents have long told children that staring at a screen will make their eyes go square, but the American Academy of Ophthalmology says there is no evidence that long exposure to screens can cause permanent damage.

But another issue with VR is the so-called vergence-accommodation conflict. When you view the world normally, your eye first points the eyeballs — vergence — and then focuses the lenses — accommodation — on an object, and then these two processes are coupled to create a coherent picture.

Modern VR headsets achieve the illusion of depth by presenting each eye with a slightly different image on a flat screen. This means that, no matter how far away an object appears, the eyes remain focused on a fixed point, but they converge on something in the virtual distance.

"Some scientists believe this is the reason some people experience symptoms when viewing 3D stimuli — TV and cinema, as well as headsets," said Peter Howarth, an optometrist and senior lecturer in visual ergonomics at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.

However, Howarth said there is good evidence to suggest that only those with already weak eye movement and control are likely to experience adverse effects such as headaches and eyestrain. For children, these symptoms are good indicators that these kids need to get their eyes checked, so VR headsets may actually help catch existing problems, he added.

Howarth said that, as far as he knows, no academic studies have been done to investigate the effects of VR on children's eyes, though it's possible that VR headset manufacturers have done research in this area. "My guess is that they're simply covering their backs so that if a child develops a squint, they will not be held responsible," he told Live Science.

Lack of research

Michael Madary, a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Mainz in Germany, who in February co-authored the first code of ethics on the use of VR, said the dearth of research on VR's effects on children is unlikely to improve.

"For obvious ethical reasons, it's very difficult to do research using children as subjects," he told Live Science. Madary studies the ethics of emerging technologies, incorporating results from psychology and neuroscience, and he thinks the biggest concern with VR is its effect onchildren's psychological development.

"Children, at a young age, have difficulty distinguishing reality from fiction or fantasy," Madary said. "You could imagine putting them in VR — that inability to distinguish could be exaggerated."

For instance, content that could be traumatic when seen in the cinema is likely to have an even bigger impact in VR. And the negative effects of advertising and unsavory role models on TV could be exacerbated considerably by VR, Madary added.

"In VR, you have an entire environment designed by someone who may want to manipulate you, whether it's for advertising, for political reasons, for religious reasons," he said. "If you have a child spending a long time immersed in a VR environment where manipulation is going on, it could be seen as a threat to their autonomy and what kind of adult they become."

And though VR holds great potential, including for educational and therapeutic uses, Madary said manufacturers need to team up with scientists to investigate the long-term implications of the technology. Until then, he recommends erring on the side of caution.

"I suspect that if parents are doing a good job as parents, that's pretty much the most important factor," he said. "It's just exercising extreme caution and knowing that the experiments have not been done, so you're experimenting on your kids."

Facebook tests Snapchat Stories clone for Messenger

Quickly share what you're up to

Facebook is mimicking one of Snapchat's most popular features, Snapchat Stories, in its Messenger chat app. The new feature, called Messenger Day, launched exclusively in Poland today.

Snapchat Stories, for the unfamiliar, is a feature that lets users share photos, videos and drawings in a timeline that disappears after 24 hours. Messenger Day works almost exactly like Snapchat Stories, according to TechCrunch.

Where Messenger Day differs from Snapchat Stories and, for that matter, Instagram Stories, is how it prompts users to use the feature. At the top of the chat list are options to quickly share how you're feeling, what you're doing and more. This makes it easier to share something quickly with all of your friends instead of managing a curated friends list.

"We know that people come to Messenger to share everyday moments with friends and family," said a Facebook spokesperson speaking with TechCrunch. "In Poland we are running a small test of new ways for people to share those updates visually."

It's unclear whether Messenger Day will be available in other countries, though success in Poland may mean the feature could be released more widely.

This isn't the first time Facebook has copied Snapchat. The social network's photo sharing app, Instagram, aped Snapchat Stories by releasing Instagram Stories in August.

A smart strategy

According to TechCrunch, Facebook may have introduced Messenger Day to get users hooked on its Messenger app in hopes of preventing them from leaving to use Snapchat Stories. Facebook also has another chat app with 1 billion active users: WhatsApp. In order to keep people using its apps, Facebook has to bring popular features from competing platforms into its own.

It's also smart of Facebook to put a story feature in Messenger because its chat app is more intimate than its social network. By having Messenger Day inside a chat app, users don't have to worry about sharing the highest quality photos or videos on their Facebook wall.

Over the years, the social network has evolved into a place where users only share curated highlights about their lives instead of casually sharing thoughts and activities, something Snapchat excels at.

Facebook Messenger currently has over 1 billion active users, compared to Snapchat's 150 million. Using Messenger's immense reach, Messenger Day could prove to be a popular feature.

our Mac simply wouldn't be the same without the iPhone – here's why

The iPhone's influence on the Mac is palpable

When the iPhone first launched nearly a decade ago, it and Apple's well-revived Mac computers were clearly delineated as different devices. One had just started its journey to ubiquity, whereas the other had already been on that road for decades.

But, perhaps even under your nose, Apple's phone has all but morphed the form and function of its computers over that same nine years. You might be surprised to see just how much of what's in your iPhone has been brought to the Mac.

Today, it'd be impossible to imagine what the Mac would look like without the iPhone, so here's how the Mac and iPhone became best buds over the past nine years.

This story starts with a Store

Not long after release, the iPhone's popularity absolutely exploded, it became the next major device of Apple's ecosystem for millions since the iPod. Once the App Store launched on iPhone in 2008, that snowball turned into an avalanche.

Naturally, Apple realized the insane revenue potential in its creation. Regardless, it took three years for the firm to bring its software-selling strategy to the Mac in early 2011, in the middle of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard's life span.

While the Mac App Store hasn't necessarily panned out in the same, meteoric way the iPhone version has, it clearly inspired Apple to see what else about the iPhone could improve OS X.

The literal and figurative Launchpad

In the summer of 2011, Apple launched OS X 10.7 Lion, and with it the first spate of iPhone-inspired features that would truly transform how the operating system looks and works in relation to the iPhone. The most notable of which was the Launchpad, a new means of accessing all your installed apps.

Either pressing the function key on MacBooks released post-Lion or pinching four fingers together on the touchpad summons a very familiar arrangement of apps for anyone that's used an iPad in landscape mode. From there, simply clicking on any app will launch it, and you can even rearrange your apps here and create folders – just like you can on iOS.

While this editor in particular hasn't used the feature much, being a purist, it's easy to see folks coming into the Apple world via the iPhone using the feature heavily. That probably explains why it hasn't gone anywhere in five years.

FaceTime forever fuses the iPhone and Mac

For years prior to OS X Lion, Mac users communicated with one another both via text and video over a tool known as iChat. Naturally, seeing the vast adoption of FaceTime video chat on the iPhone and iPad, Apple brought the feature to the Mac, so that all three devices could video chat natively together.

However, FaceTime didn't outright replace iChat just yet – it wasn't until OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in the summer of 2012 that the tool was swapped out for an app simply called Messages. Now, users could chat via instant message, video and even with their iPhone-toting friends via iMessage in a single app.

This release of OS X also saw a slew of iOS-inspired changes and updates. A Mac version of the iPhone's Notification Center appeared with this upgrade, as did versions of Reminders, Notes and Game Center – all of which started on iPhone and now synced with those versions via your Apple ID.

At this point, Apple's Mac interface strategy was clear: give the Mac the same basic functions and tools as the iPhone, but in such a way that's useful to Mac users and connects them back to their smartphones wherever possible. But, that ethos would too evolve in due time.

Mavericks begins to morph the UI

For a long time, the Mac interface was both adored and abhorred for its skeuomorphic approach to design, i.e. icons and design elements that look like their real-world counterparts. For instance, the Calendar app looked like an actual calendar on your Mac screen, complete with stitching and leather textures.

This editor in particular had always been quite fond of it, but it was with 2013's OS X Mavericks that Apple decided it was time to bring the Mac interface's design identity closer to that of its iOS products. The Calendar app lost its stitching and the Notes app lost its paper-like texture – and that's just for starters.

Apple's very own, iPhone-born Maps app made it over to the Mac with this release as well as iBooks, with all of the syncing and iOS-style trappings (with widened Mac functionality) that users had come to expect by that point.

And today, the two are inseparable

Releases following Mavericks, namely OS X 10.10 Yosemite of 2014, saw these design identity tweaks turn into a full-blown overhaul coinciding with a similar shift on iOS. The charming if divisive skeuomorphs were no more, and Apple bolstered that visual continuity with functional continuity in an eponymous suite of tools.

Continuity made the union of iPhone and Mac even stronger, allowing users to answer calls coming in from their iPhone on their Mac device, more readily use the iPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspot as well as take content from Apple's iWork apps on iOS and finish working on it in their OS X counterparts.

This release also marked the merging of yet another iPhone app with an OS X version in iOS's Photos app replacing the Mac's storied iPhoto app, and marrying the two together with a shared library of photos over iCloud.

By the time OS X 10.11 El Capitan arrived just last year in 2015, if you owned both an iPhone and a Mac, you were working in both iOS and OS X simultaneously without even knowing it.

And today, with a (truncated) return in name to macOS Sierra, Apple has finally forges the last missing link between the iPhone and the Mac: Siri. But, in the spirit of all of the Mac's iPhone-inspired upgrades, Siri behaves in ways on Mac that it doesn't on iPhone.

For instance, Siri on Mac can retrieve your system's files based on natural search queries – it can't do that on iPhone. Another example is its ability to store your results in the Mac's version of the Notification Center for later retrieval or click and drag results into other documents.

For Pete's sake, you can now even copy a piece of text or a photo on your iPhone and paste it on a nearby Mac with the Universal Clipboard feature. See what we mean about working on two operating systems without even knowing it?

Since the iPhone launched back in 2007, it has influenced the development of the Mac in almost every way – to the point where it's impossible to imagine what the Mac would be like had the iPhone never been released.

How else will the iPhone continue to inspire the Mac? That's a question only Apple knows the answer to in truth, but if we could suggest something: blow that Universal Clipboard wide open.

This article is part of TechRadar's Mac Week. This year marks not only the 10th anniversary of Apple's MacBook, but the triumphant return of macOS. So, TechRadar looks to celebrate with a week's worth of original features delving back into the Mac's past, predicting the Mac's future and exploring the Mac as it is today.