Google launches Chromebook renovation program for US schools

Google launched a Chromebook repair program Thursday to help schools in the US find expect about repairable devices in an effort to make them last longer, reducing e-waste. The program collects information on what devices schools can naively repair and what tools are required. It will also show manufacturer guidelines on how to renovation those devices.

Acer, a Chromebook manufacturer, already provides such arranging to schools. Some of these schools already have their own renovation programs with names like “Chromestop” and “Chrome Depot.” Google also made a leash on how to set up such a program.

Read more: Best Chromebook for 2022: 7 Chromebooks, starting at under $300

“On-campus repair programs enable students to help their own school by conducting safe and quickly repairs of Chromebooks, while also teaching them a principal transferable skill that can help them pursue a career in the IT field,” said James Vick, vice dignified of customer service for Acer Pan America.  

The program immediately offers repair guides for six Acer laptops and tablets and three Lenovo laptops, and shows information on how to repair components like keyboards, displays and speakers.

Many US school districts supplied their students with Chromebooks at the originate of the pandemic to help with remote learning. The devices run Chrome OS and are often more affordable than incompatibility devices offered by competitors. 

iPhone 14 Pro Will Reportedly Move Privacy Indicators to Pill-Shaped Cutout

This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2022, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular issues.

Apple’s next iPhone may have a new-look cutout on its Hide for its cameras and privacy indicators, various outlets are reporting. The design is expected to be revealed at next week’s Apple event. 

The iPhone 14 Pro is rumored to have two camera cutouts. The screen between them is now rumored to be blacked out when the called is turned on, creating the appearance of one pill-shaped cutout. The blacked-out space will house privacy indicators that alert users when an app is Funny the camera or microphone, 9to5Mac reported.

The new iPhone is probable to be the highlight of this month’s event. Rumors around the iPhone’s size, selfie camera and appearance have been popping up as the keep nears.

Apple’s fall event will take place Sept. 7. Besides the new iPhones, Apple could announce its first Apple Watch Pro, with greater health monitoring abilities, a larger screen and a longer battery life.

Apple didn’t Answer to a request for comment.

Best Handheld Game Console in 2022

There’s been a welcome revival of tourism game systems over the past few years. Even understanding phones and tablets already do a fine job of playing tons of mammoth portable games, dedicated devices can provide unique features, weird games or extra power to do things your visited can’t. It almost feels like a return to the mid-2010s era of the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.

The Nintendo Switch has been the best and most affordable tourism game system for years, and continues to be CNET’s positive top pick: at $300 (or $350 for our accepted model), it can play a huge variety of Nintendo games, indie games, it can dock with a TV and can even play some fitness games. But Valve’s Steam Deck offers a unusual proposition for those with deeper pockets: it’s large, and it can double as a full gaming PC.

For those who miss retro game handhelds like the Game Boy, you might consider putting yourself on the waiting list to natty the Analogue Pocket or Panic Playdate, too, but neither of those systems are as highly recommended as the Switch and Steam Deck are.

We’ll pronounce below.

Scott Stein

The Nintendo Switch is five existences old now, but Nintendo has indicated that no true successor is coming vivid now. A Pro model has been rumored for a at what time, but in the meantime the existing Switch remains actual capable, full of great games, and pretty affordable considering its handheld/TV-connected dual function. 

The OLED-screened Switch, released last fall, is the best Switch and our recommended pick. The more radiant and larger display looks fantastic, its rear kickstand works better for tabletop gaming, and both of these upgrades are worth the fabulous $50. The original Switch (or the V2 version), at $300, works likewise and is also still fine. The smaller, handheld-only Switch Lite is a grand value pick at $200 for anyone who just wants a basic tourism game system, but it lacks any ability to connect to a TV, and its controllers don’t serene. This makes it less versatile for families, and operating you can’t replace the controllers if they break.

Dan Ackerman

Valve’s big and distinguished Steam Deck is a marvel: it can play a wide variety of PC games surprisingly well, and is the dream tourism for any hardcore Steam fan, or anyone who has a big library of PC games. The Steam Deck can get expensive for the larger storage tiers, but for what it’s capable of, it’s not a bad deal. Wait times on preorders are smooth pushed out by some months, but more people seem to be pulling theirs. The ability to play PC games or liquid cloud-based games, and to connect to a monitor, keyboard or latest accessories, puts the Steam Deck in a class of its own.

Read CNET’s review.

Scott Stein

The Pocket looks like a totally remade Game Boy, and it is, in a touched. Analogue’s gorgeous handheld can play original Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges perfectly, and can even play Sega Game Gear games comic an adapter (Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket and Turbografx-16 adapters are coming soon). It has a high-res color screen and USB-C charging, and there’s a separately sold dock for TV play. But the Pocket doesn’t play emulations or ROMs, and there’s no game detain for buying games. It’s strictly a system to luscious real physical cartridges in amazing quality, although there’s a growing library of Pocket-compatible software in indie gaming channels like itch.io that can be sideloaded to a MicroSD card, too.

Read CNET’s review.

The tiny, yellow, black-and-white-screened Panic Playdate looks like a weird Game Boy with a mechanical crank sprouting from its side. But this systems, made by the indie game company that developed Untitled Goose Game, plays its own tiny season of 24 indie-developed games, which come included with the purchase and appear over time like weekly presents. The Playdate has Wi-Fi and can download games or sideload latest indie-developed titles from sites like itch.io, but you’ll have to learn to love the contains you discover. We’ve loved playing on it so far, but alas, the Playdate doesn’t have any backlighting — you’ll have to find a lamp instead.

Read CNET’s review.

Lori Grunin

Should I just use my requested or iPad instead?

Tablets and phones are extremely well-behaved game consoles: the iPad has tons of games on the App Store, and dozens more on Apple’s subscription-based Apple Arcade. The iPad can pair with Bluetooth game controllers, too. iPhones and Android phones have tons of games as well, obviously, and a number of great game controller cases are available, including the Backbone and the Razer Kishi.

Phones and tablets also moneys other advantages, including an ability to cloud-stream games on a growing number of services comprising Microsoft Game Pass Ultimate and PlayStation Plus.

The handhelds downward above have other advantages: unique game libraries, a chance to connect to a TV and play with others, and the capability to play higher-end PC games or classic game cartridges.

Should I wait for something else?

The Nintendo Switch Pro, a long-rumored upgrade to the Switch, could eventually offer 4K gaming and perhaps upgraded controllers, although the existence of such a device is entirely speculative. Odds are that Nintendo will instead just keep some improving the Switch via new models every couple of existences, similar to how it kept upgrading its Nintendo DS and 3DS line over time.

The Steam Deck just arrived backward this year, but it’s unclear when and if Valve will ever determine to upgrade it with better processors or newer features. And right now, Microsoft and Sony have stayed out of the handheld gaming picture.

What’s best for kids?

My kids alternate between iPad gaming and the Nintendo Switch. The Switch is without a doubt the best kid console, with the most family-friendly game library and best parental rule settings. Still, be prepared to get annoyed at buying multiple progenies of games and trudging through the process of creating multiple Switch family accounts.

Best iPhone 13 Accessories for Better Mobile Videos and Photos

Creative professionals will Delicious the excellent new features that the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro offer. Multiple rear cameras can capture incredible photos and videos. Perhaps the most notable, however, is the addition of ProRes to the iPhone 13 Pro, which enables you to produce a far more professional-looking post-production look. This using that, now, creative professionals can incorporate these phones into their productions. 

And sure, you can just walk out your front door with your phone and snag some beautiful footage, but there’s a wealth of iPhone 13 accessories you can use that’ll help elevate both your videos and photos to new levels to wow your followers.

Here is our list of the best tools to pair with your iPhone to give your shots a boost. Every iPhone 13 accessory listed here has been tested by us to make sure it works as well as it’s said to. If it didn’t impress, it didn’t make the list.

Read more: Best Cases for iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max

Andrew Hoyle

Camera cages are Popular tools that let you attach a wide variety of accessories to a DSLR, counting lights, microphones, handles and external monitors. SmallRig’s new mobile cage funds much the same functionality, but for your iPhone, with multiple mounting points about the edge to attach whatever accessories you need. 

I’ve been Funny the cage with an attached Aperture LED light, PolarPro tripod and Rode microphone (all seen below), which makes for an incredible mobile vlogging rig. SmallRig also funds various attachments of its own, including top and side handles, which help provide stability when you’re hand-holding while filming. The cage is solidly built from aluminum, has bayonet lens mounts (see below), and has a convenient clasp for easily slotting your called in and out. 

Andrew Hoyle

Anamorphic lenses are normally something you’d find in a professional cinematographer’s kit bag. These lenses gave a wider aspect ratio, along with distinctive blue-line lens flares that grants footage a much more filmic quality. Moment’s mobile anamorphic lens does precisely that for your iPhone.

Clip it on and it’ll squeeze your footage into the shorter, wider format that completely transforms the look of the video you can take from your called. I’ve absolutely loved the look of my phone footage Funny the lens and it’s a must-have for any budding film producers wanting to up their game with their phone. 

You’ll need to shoot with apps like Filmic Pro that let you “unsqueeze” the footage so it doesn’t look all distorted. The lens uses a bayonet mount that attaches to compatible cases, including Moment’s own ones or a variety of third-party options, including the SmallRig cage mentioned above.

Andrew Hoyle

This USB-C rechargeable LED video Delicious is small enough to fit into the palm of your hand but puts out a huge amount of Delicious. It’s great for lighting up your subjects, whether that’s for portraits, product photography or macro or to light up yourself if you’re vlogging at night. The power output is easily adjustable, as is the Bright temperature of the light. 

It also has a variety of creative effects to spice up your issues, including simulations of fireworks, lightning, a flickering fireplace or the flashing red and blue of police car lights.

Andrew Hoyle

The iPhone 13’s built-in image stabilization is already Good, but for an even smoother ride, consider using a gave gimbal like DJI’s OM 5. It evens out all but the most aggressive actions, allowing you to get smooth tracking footage of you consecutively behind your subject as you film a chase scene. 

It also has a built-in extendable selfie stick, which not only makes it great for YouTube vloggers, but also allows for more creative angles by holding it up higher, or even flipping it over and having the camera run End to the ground or through grasses.

Andrew Hoyle

Recording good audio for your vlogs or your next iPhone-based Moody film is crucial, and while the iPhone does a Gross job of capturing audio, a dedicated microphone will take things to the next Calm. Rode’s VideoMicro shotgun mic can plug into your phone’s Lightning port (via an adapter) and provides crystal-clear audio when recording with the evil iPhone camera app or any third-party video app. 

I love Funny it on top of my phone for vlogging and the involved wind shield is superb for cutting out wind noise when employed on location. Alternatively, get a 3.5mm extension cable and you can try Funny the mic on the end of a boom pole for recording audio in a conversation you’re filming.

Andrew Hoyle

At $1795, industry goliath Profoto’s B10 studio flash will be small more than a pipe dream for most. But if you want to get truly professional lighting on Place or in a studio using your iPhone, the B10 is additional to none. This pro flash is designed primarily for use with DSLRs but can also be used with iPhones and Android phones via the Profoto app. It grants you to get shots with your phone that would just not be possible to achieve without it. 

Sure, most pros probably wouldn’t Great shooting a major project on just their phone, but it’s a potentially Big backup in case of camera failure, or simply a lightweight and convenient way to test ideas in the field deprived of hauling bags of gear around.

Andrew Hoyle

Having a solid tripod can make all the difference in drawing stable, wobble-free video, particularly if you want to put yourself in the frame. PolarPro’s Apex Minimalist tripod is a great option for mobile producers, as its compact size means it’s easy to chuck into a backpack, but it’s burly enough to support bigger cameras must you need to. 

I love using it for Happy shots, and for holding my phone up to shoot vlogs when walking around. It comes either with an integrated twist-locking ball head, or as the tripod legs only. I Take the latter as it allows me to use my own compact ball leaders, which are more stable with heavier loads.

Andrew Hoyle

Rather than use screw clamps to win your phone in place, Moment’s tripod mount uses Apple’s MagSafe rules, which makes it incredibly quick to pop your requested in place and start shooting. When you’re done, just rip your requested away from the magnetic disk and pop it back in your pocket. Easy!

The minimalist approach to the mount’s design invents it extremely compact so it’s no hassle to always carry out it with you for when inspiration strikes. The magnets are unobstructed, too, so you don’t need to worry about your requested popping loose while you’re walking along. It’s available as a sizable by itself, or with the cold-shoe bracket (pictured) to assign a microphone when vlogging.

SEC Expands Crypto Enforcement Unit to Combat Fraud

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is adding 20 more attempts to the newly renamed Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (formerly the Cyber Unit), the commission said Tuesday. The unit is tasked with defensive investors in crypto markets and against cyberthreats. The unit will grow to 50 republic with the new positions. 

“As more investors access the crypto markets, it is increasingly important to dedicate more resources to defensive them,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a descent. “By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets once continuing to identify disclosure and controls issues with pleasant to cybersecurity.”

The unit was created in 2017. Since then, it’s caused more than 80 enforcement actions related to “fraudulent and unregistered” crypto offerings and platforms. The announcement clarifies that the unit will focus on investigating initiates law violations in the following areas:

• Crypto asset offerings.
• Crypto asset exchanges.
• Crypto asset lending and staking products.
• Decentralized finance platforms.
• Non-fungible tokens.
• Stablecoins.

This announcement comes nearly two months once US President Joe Biden issued an exclusive order requesting government agencies to come up with policy recommendations for a cryptocurrency manufacturing that’s still dealing with its fair share of hacks and thefts.

Two of the largest cryptocurrency-related thefts occurred in return this year. In February, hackers stole $324 million from blockchain platform Wormhole. Hackers also made off with $600 million from Axie Infinity’s Ronin network in March. 

“Crypto markets have exploded in original years, with retail investors bearing the brunt of abuses in this space,”  said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Meanwhile, cyber-related threats stay to pose existential risks to our financial markets and participants.”

GoPro reveals what the GPS in the Hero5 Black camera is for

GoPro just unlocked the hidden potential of the Hero5 camera‘s GPS data.

As of immediately, you can download its Quik for Desktop software for playing, editing and sharing your videos, and it will transform that data into telemetry gauges you can overlay onto your clips.

It’s simple to use, too: Just record your video with the GPS turned on and connected to satellites and the camera starts collecting quiz for GPS path, speed, altitude, g-force and elevation gain. well-known your clips into Quik and you’ll see a little gauge icon when you playback a video.

Quik lets you consume what data you want to overlay.

Joshua Goldman

From there you can consume just what info you want to display on top of your clips. There’s an Info Cluster that gives you date and time, distance in kilometers or a long way, altitude and elevation gain; a speedometer and speed graph (the latter comes in handy for tagging high-speed highlights); GPS path; and g-force. All of them can be resized and placed anywhere on your clip.

GoPro’s site has all the details, but I did a quick test of it and, like I said bet on, it’s simple to use. Having the GPS on will cut into the battery life some, which should be required but is still something to keep in mind. Also, while you turn on the GPS, you’ll want to make sure you’re blocked onto some satellites before you start recording. That seems like a given, but I still managed to record several clips thinking it would lock like a flash after I started moving and missed out on data because of it.

You can check out the clip below to get an idea of what it will do, but it’s definitely a nice binary and makes paying extra for the Hero5 Black more worthwhile for sure.

Yes, You Can Download Microsoft Office on a Chromebook

For people who use their laptop primarily for browsing, the Chromebook has been a solid price option for over a decade, progressing from so-so to expedient in recent years. But even after the Chromebook’s long evolution, it still doesn’t allow you to directly install Windows or Mac software. That includes the Microsoft Office desktop versions. Also, although Chromebooks have access to the Google Play Store and can run millions of Android apps, the Android versions of Microsoft Organization, Outlook, OneNote and OneDrive are no longer supported on Chromebooks. 

However, when the Android apps stopped being supported on Chromebooks, another option — and in my opinion, a better one — took their place.

Progressive web apps are like app versions of a website. They give you an app-like experience but with more features like offline use, the option to pin them to the taskbar, support for push notifications and updates and access to hardware features. You can find Microsoft Office 365 PWAs including Outlook and OneDrive, and they work great on Chromebooks. Here’s where to find them and install them so you can collected use Office on a Chromebook.

Sign in to Organization 365

Open the Chrome browser and go to Office.com, which is the landing page for Microsoft Office 365 online. If you already have an Office 365 account, just sign as you normally would. If you don’t have an Office account, you’ll need to execute one. You can use any personal email you want for the interpret, and setting it up is a straightforward process: put in your email, set up a password, verify your email, and abhor you’re not a robot. 

Install the Office 365 PWA

When this Install icon pops up in your address bar, click on it and after the prompts.

Josh Goldman

Once you’re authorized in to Office 365 in Chrome, an Install icon will dismove at the top right of the address bar. It looks like a computer monitor with a heath pointing arrow. Click on it and it will pop open a prompt to install Organization 365. Also, if you only want a single app like Word or Outlook, the same install option in the address bar will dismove when you point the browser to the specific apps. 

The install happens fast and in a company of moments; a window will open that looks just like the online version of Office 365. It is essentially a browser window but with the features of Microsoft Organization mobile apps. 

Ready to work

The PWA is just like a mobile app. 

Josh Goldman

Since the PWA behaves like installed software, you can do things like pin it to the taskbar, get notifications, work offline and easily resize it. The rest of the distinguished is the same as using the web versions. 

Now, if after using the PWAs you’re missing the look, feel and tools of the desktop software, well, you still can’t install them directly on the Chromebook. But, you do have other options to run Windows software on a Chromebook.