Saturday, February 16, 2019

Apple : NBA All-Star game 2019 live stream: how to watch Team LeBron vs Team Giannis from anywhere

Apple : NBA All-Star game 2019 live stream: how to watch Team LeBron vs Team Giannis from anywhere

NBA All-Star game 2019 live stream: how to watch Team LeBron vs Team Giannis from anywhere

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 12:35 PM PST

Traditionally the NBA All-Star game has been a matchup of the best players in the Eastern Conference versus the best from the Western Conference. However, last year it decided to make things a bit more interesting by switching how the teams are picked. Each conference now holds a vote to choose their team captain who then picks their teammates the same way it’s done on the playground.

The plan was a success and this year the league is sticking with this new format - and you're in the right place to find out how to get an NBA All-Star game lve stream from absolutely anywhere.

The Western Conference has chosen - who else - LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers as its captain, while the Eastern Conference has chosen Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks. The captains held their draft on a televised event and now both teams are ready to face off this Sunday.

This will be LeBron James’ second year as captain and he has picked Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard and James Harden as his starters. Giannis's starters will be Steph Curry, Joel Embiid, Paul George and Kemba Walker. Team LeBron is predicted to win this year’s NBA All-Star game but anything can happen on the court this Presidents' Day weekend.

Whether you’re rooting for Team LeBron, Team Giannis or you're just a basketball fan trying to watch the league’s best go toe-to-toe, we’ll show you exactly how to watch the 2019 NBA All-Star game from anywhere in the world.

How to watch the 2019 NBA All-Star game online from outside your country

If you live in the US or UK and want to know how to catch the 2019 NBA All-Star game, then keep scrolling and we’ll tell you your best live stream and viewing options.

But if you can't watch because you're not in your home country and so your coverage is geo-blocked then we can suggest a clever alternative (and no, it doesn’t involve finding some dodgy feed on Reddit). Using a VPN - or Virtual Private Network - you can change the IP address to one in a different state or country which does have the stream so that you can watch the 2019 NBA All-Star game from anywhere in the world. The process is very straightforward… 

How to watch the 2019 NBA All-Star game in the US

If you live in the US and want to watch the NBA All-Star game on television, then TNT is your only option. The network has the broadcast rights to the event and will be showing the game at 8pm ET (5pm PT). For those who would prefer to stream the game on their computer, mobile devices or on either Apple TV, FireTV or Roku, TNT also has a streaming app available. However, you will have to login using the details from your cable subscription.

Are you a cord cutter who can’t justify the price of a premium cable package? Don’t worry as there are plenty of other streaming options that offer access to TNT and we’ll go over them in detail below.

Your options to live stream the NBA All-Star game online

Playstation Vue $44.99 per month - Playstation Vue's  basic Access package offers over 45 channels including ABC, TNT, ESPN and ESPN2. A 5-day trial to Playstation Vue is also available to help you get started.

DIRECTV NOW $50 per month - DIRECTV NOW gives users all the channels needed to watch the NBA and loads of other sporting events. Use DIRECTV NOW’s 7-day trial to test out the platform for yourself. 

YouTubeTV $40 per month - YouTubeTV gives you access to TNT, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.

Hulu with Live TV $40 per month - Hulu with Live TV includes ABC, TNT, CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.

Can I watch with with NBA League Pass?

Unfortunately no. NBA League Pass subscribers will not be able to watch the NBA All-Star game using the service. This is because games that are shown on national television (such as how TNT is showing the NBA All-Star game) are subject to NBA blackouts. 

While you won’t be able to watch Sunday’s All-Star game with League Pass, a replay of the game will likely be available once it airs on television.

How to watch a 2019 NBA All-Star game live stream in the UK

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The best Presidents' Day sales 2019: a guide to the best deals so far

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 11:46 AM PST

Presidents' Day sales are officially here and that means savings and deals on TVs, mattresses, appliances and more throughout the long holiday weekend from a plethora of popular retailers.

To help guide you through all the deals and offers, we've put together a list of the best sales that are currently going on and any upcoming promotions that shouldn't be missed. We've also hand-picked the top standout deals that include categories such as electronics, appliances and home items.

We'll also tell you everything else you need to know about the Presidents' Day sale event such as the date, what sales have already started, and what deals you can expect and from what categories.

When do Presidents' Day sales start?

Presidents' Day sales have already started for several retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy, promoting deals on TVs and home and kitchen appliances. Most retailers will extend their sales till Monday, so you have the whole holiday weekend to shop for the best deals.

The best Presidents' Day sales:

Our best Presidents' Day sale picks:

When is Presidents' Day?

Presidents' Day always falls on the third Monday in February. It was originally held on George Washington's birthday (February 22) but was moved in 1971 to accommodate the long holiday weekend. This year Presidents' Day is on Monday the 18.

The best things to buy at Presidents' Day sales

The biggest categories that are discounted during Presidents' Day weekend are electronics, appliances, home items, and clothing. Last year Amazon offered 20% off home items, and retailers like Best Buy, Walmart and Home Depot are offering discounts on large and small appliances. Mattresses are also a popular sale category with retailers like Overstock, Temper-Pedic, and Nectar offering big sales throughout the weekend. There will also be clothing sales with some retailers like J Crew discounting its whole site.

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Take a look at the upcoming LG V50 ThinQ in this leaked render

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 06:30 AM PST

Just a week and a bit to go to the annual phone-fest that is Mobile World Congress, and the leaks keep coming thick and fest: like this render of the LG V50 ThinQ with Sprint branding and 5G capabilities, for example.

It's courtesy of seasoned tipster Evan Blass, so it's very likely that we're looking at a genuine picture of the LG V50 ThinQ. Would something that looks like this be enough for you to think about skipping the LG G8 ThinQ for the next model up?

LG V50 ThinQ leak

LG V50 ThinQ leak (credit: Evan Blass)

Both the LG V50 and the LG G8 are set to be launched on the MWC 2019 press day on February 24, so we don't have long to wait to see both phones for ourselves – and we'll be bringing you hands-on first impressions as soon as we can.

The leaked render here seems to show a triple-lens rear camera and a notch and a dual-lens camera around the front. The fingerprint sensor remains on the back, so no in-screen reader here.

What we ThinQ we know so far

We've heard plenty of rumors and speculation about the LG G8 ThinQ but not too much about the LG V50 ThinQ at this point.

Traditionally, LG has been using the V series as a minor upgrade to the flagship G series – so the LG V40 ThinQ had a bigger screen and more camera lenses than the LG G7 ThinQ, for example, though the internals were actually pretty similar.

Expect something similar this year, with 5G the carrot being dangled to make you think about opting for the V50 rather than the G8. From what we've heard so far, the LG V50 ThinQ might cost you as much as $1,170 / £890 / AU$1,600.

We know the LG G8 ThinQ will feature a screen that doubles as a speaker, and there's talk of touch-free gesture controls as well, on top of the usual spec improvements. All will be revealed on February 24.

Via AndroidCentral

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When will self-driving cars earn our trust?

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 05:00 AM PST

When it comes to safety, we hold machines and humans to very different standards. In 2016, there were 34,439 fatal road crashes in the US, but we regard driving alongside other humans as ‘safe enough’. Accidents are tragic, but they happen.

However, if roads were fully automated and there were 30,000 fatal accidents, would we be so understanding? Would we still call them ‘safe enough’ – and what does that mean?

To get a better understanding, we spoke to Chris Bessette, program manager for autonomous driving at Draper, and one of the world’s foremost experts on autonomy and LIDAR.

Draper is an engineering research laboratory that was originally part of MIT, but span off in the 1970s. It’s best known for its work in aerospace and undersea vehicles, but in the last few years it’s also begun working on safety for self-driving cars.

Autonomous cars might seem like a strange move for Draper, but as Bessette explains, it does make sense when you consider the lab’s heritage. 

“We’ve been working in lots of different areas where you have to build smarts into the platforms,” he says. “You can’t have a remote operator for a lot of the different projects that we work on, so we’ve been building the autonomic capability for decades. We’re able to leverage that in-depth knowledge that we have to help develop an autonomous, self-driving car.

“The other piece of it [is that] Draper understands what it’s like to develop a system that’s safety-critical,” Bessette adds. “Whether it be a missile, for example, or an underwater drone, the application spaces we work in demand perfection. So those thoughts really translate directly to self-driving cars.”

Safety issues

Bessette says the main safety issue for autonomous cars is perception. He splits this into two pieces: the sensors themselves, and the software. You can have the best algorithms in the world, but if the imagery from the car’s sensors is poor quality, there’s no point.

“One thing I think a lot of us take for granted is that the human eye is fantastic,” he says. “It’s so much better than any automotive-grade sensors that we have today. So the first challenge is actually getting the sensors – the cameras, the lidar, the radar etc – getting those sensors so they are closer to being on par, if not totally on par with the quality of the human eye.”

Then, once you have that high quality imagery, you need to use it to make decisions – identifying cars, people and other constraints. “That’s the other major challenge,” says Bessette, “and I think there’s a lot more work that needs to go into that.”

Draper's lidar chip

Draper is developing a solid state, microelectromechanical-based lidar that fits all components except the optics on a single chip. Image credit: Draper

For example, neural networks can be trained to recognize certain patterns, but those patterns can be fooled. 

“So there was an experiment where someone took a standard fire hydrant that we see all over the roads today, and they painted it to look like the Nintendo character Mario. They painted it to look like that, and it tricked all of the nets. They didn’t know that was a fire hydrant anymore.”

That’s a pretty extreme example, but it highlights how brittle the current state of the art really is. It works well enough under optimal conditions, but real world driving conditions can be downright hostile.

Defining 'safe enough'

Bessette says the question of ‘safe enough’ isn’t being discussed enough, but it’s something that Draper is giving a lot of thought. At the moment, Bessette says, the industry is too fragmented. To establish a standard, we need better co-ordination between local, state and federal governments (or their equivalents in other countries) and car designers.

“We have a lot of OEMs, for example, that are doing what they think is the right approach, but all the OEMs are designing to different requirements for what is ‘good enough’,” he says. “So I think that we need to put more co-ordination there.”

He draws a comparison with the Federal Airline Administration (FAA) – the body that regulates aviation in the US: “If the FAA wanted a new safety measure to be built into the airlines, the airlines pretty much have to fall in line in being compliant with that requirement. And there’s not really an analog that has similar regulatory authority for self-driving cars.

“I think until those authorities start to form and start to work with the car manufacturers to work out how you define ‘safe enough’, we have to figure out what that common definition is. And I think it’s going to be difficult because everyone’s designing to something a little bit different.” 

Building trust

Automakers including Ford and Jaguar Land Rover are working on various ways to help human road users feel comfortable sharing the streets with autonomous vehicles. JLR has conducted experiments on simulated roads with cars that make eye contact and beam their planned routes onto the road, while Ford is testing pedestrians’ reactions to a mock autonomous car fitted with an extensive system of light indicators.

Ford 'autonomous car'

Ford tested pedestrians' reactions to a 'driverless car' operated by a driver disguised as a seat. Image credit: Ford

In both cases, the carmakers are trying to make the vehicles’ behaviour predictable – something Bessette agrees is essential for people to feel comfortable living and working alongside machines. He cites an example from Draper’s work with another client, where humans worked in ‘teams’ with robots – each playing to their own strengths.

When the robot’s behaviour was predictable, the human-robot team was stronger than the sum of its parts. However, doing something unexpected rapidly eroded the human teammate’s trust. 

“I think predictability is absolutely key,” Bessette says. “If people see self-driving cars that are driving more how humans would, and they can say ‘Oh, that car's taking a right-hand turn like I would,” that helps them almost forget that that's a computer driving the car as opposed to a human.”

Preparing for the future

Autonomous cars are already being trialled in parts of the US (including Boston, where Draper is based), and the UK government has announced plans to begin testing driverless vehicles in Britain this year. However, we’re still a long way from trusting them outside tightly controlled conditions. 

“For example, if a car manufacturer wants to do testing here in Boston, they have to come and explain what their plan is why they want to test there,” says Bessette. “They have to effectively apply for a license. Then, if that license is granted, there are some restrictions on when they can and cannot operate for some amount of time. If results show that they're operating safely and they meet certain criteria, they can then test in a broader set of environments, whether it’s in less-than-ideal environmental conditions like rain or snow. So the reins are relaxed a little bit.”

Self-driving cars on public streets also have safety drivers, who scan the environment for dangers as they would if they were operating the car themselves, but also have a display (often a laptop) that lets them see what the vehicle is planning next. If its course of action looks dangerous, they can intervene and take manual control.

Draper Gryo

Self-driving cars can be designed to navigate safely without GPS with the help of the new Draper APEX Gyroscope. Image credit: Draper

There are companies planning to roll out fleets of totally autonomous taxis. Bessette says this transition period will be one of the biggest challenges for self-driving cars, when we have a mixture of human-driven and autonomous cars sharing the same roads. He doesn’t advocate banning human drivers from the roads when this begins, but hypothesizes that it would make things easier.

“In this transition period we're going to have a period of lots of human-driven cars on the road and some self-driving cars, and then over time the self-driving car population will increase the human-driven car population will decrease,” he says. 

“Interaction between self-driving cars and human-driven cars is going to be interesting because self-driving cars are actually programmed to be to be predictable – this comes back to trust – but they're also programmed to be very conservative probably much more conservative than your typical human driver so how this whole thing plays out will be an interesting dynamic.”

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AirPods 2 could be here next month – and might even appear in black

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 02:30 AM PST

It's not easy trying to keep track of the AirPods 2 rumors: first they're said to be coming in the first half of 2019, then the next insider tip-off is late in 2019, and now a new report from China says the upgraded wireless earbuds could be here as soon as March.

Let's hope the Economic Daily News is right and the AirPods 2 are only a month away, because we can't take much more waiting. The outlet says supply chain sources point to an imminent launch – maybe at Apple's rumored March event.

The new report also echoes something we've heard before, that Apple is going to add a new black color option as well as white, giving you double the choice. The price will remain the same at $159/£159 apparently.

With Apple's March event tipped to be about digital services rather than hardware, we'd take talk of an early AirPods 2 launch with a pinch of salt for now. That said, the new report does match up with previous rumors we've heard.

AirPower to the people

The Economic Daily News also makes mention of Apple's long-awaited AirPower charging mat, which is now said to be almost ready for a launch after a lengthy delay.

With the AirPods 2 said to be coming with an upgraded wireless charging case that adds AirPower compatibility, it makes sense for the two devices to be unveiled at the same time. The mat was first teased by Apple back in 2017.

Since then a succession of engineering problems have reportedly been pushing the launch date further and further back – so let's hope 2019 is the year when we can finally charge our earbuds, phone, and Apple Watch on one Apple-branded mat.

Most rumors now seem to point to a 2019 launch for both the AirPods 2 and the AirPower mat, and it could be a very busy year for Apple in terms of new hardware.

Via AppleInsider

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VR needs to be led by creatives, not hardware cycles

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 01:00 AM PST

Virtual reality is the technology of the moment. Since Oculus first appeared on the scene in 2012, the market has filled with VR headsets and visors on an immense – and perhaps unjustified – wave of hype.

Whether you’re looking to play VR video games, watch 360-degree documentaries, or just watch films really close up (for some reason), there are now a host of hardware options you can buy: the Oculus Go, HTC Vive, Samsung HMD Odyssey, and Google Daydream, to name but a few.

However, sales of headsets and other VR kit have yet to match the initial hype, and there are plenty of reasons for this: the high costs of developing new hardware, and issues around motion sickness and eye strain and the huge number of headsets now competing for space rightly making consumers wary.

But it isn’t just the hardware that’s the issue; audiences themselves simply might not be prepared well enough for widespread adoption. VR is a new medium, and one that both developers and audiences alike are still attempting to figure out and get used to.

One area where it’s hoped VR will be a transformative technology is the culture industry, where it’s being used to engage theater audiences and museum visitors beyond the usual technology circuit. TechRadar sat down with key figures at the UK’s leading art institutions to see what they thought was holding the medium back – and what they’re doing to change things.

The future of theater performance: VR headsets on the stage?

Public potential

When talking about VR hardware, it’s easy to focus on the new specs and processors being touted by its manufacturers, rather than the experiences that users of the tech are – or aren’t – having on the ground.

Relatively few people own their own VR rig, and anyone other than a dedicated tech enthusiast is reliant on experience providers to try out the latest and best technology without stumping up a serious amount of cash. Traditional bars and pubs are cottoning on to this, and VR arcades are becoming an increasingly lucrative way to pull in crowds.

Toby Coffey heads up the Immersive Storytelling Studio with the National Theatre, which is something of a trailblazer when it comes to new virtual and mixed reality technologies, as evidenced by its adoption of AR smart glasses for subtitled theatre performances.

For Coffey, public institutions have a crucial role to play in VR adoption – especially the theatre, where the immersive and spatial nature of the form provides a direct parallel to how users experience virtual reality.

The National Theatre’s latest VR project is Draw Me Close, a joint production with the National Film Board of Canada, which recently had a run of previews at London’s Young Vic Theatre. 

Illustrations by Teva Harrison in a gorgeous VR animation.

Draw Me Close is effectively a hybrid performance piece, experienced simultaneously on-stage and in VR. Audience members watch a 20-minute animated film in an Oculus headset, all while navigating a purpose-built set with live actors and props that exist both on- and off-screen.

Walking through a VR simulation with real physical interaction – opening real doors, shutting windows, and being hugged or held by live actors – manages to make characters and objects viewed through a visor feel close and familiar, creating a sense of intimacy and connection amid the isolated nature of virtual experiences.

Draw Me Close is a demonstration of VR’s potential to create emotional connections for users, something that’s often overlooked in a conversation largely concerned with pixel counts and graphics processing performance – important specs for fledgling hardware, but not the deciding factor for members of the public engaging with VR for the first time.

And for many people, a VR-theater piece is going to be the most accessible way of trying out the technology for themselves.

“If you look at the gaming industry, one of the big reasons it’s a multi-billion pound industry is because video game arcades existed in the 80s,” says Coffey. “It was a sort of intervention to get the technology in front of mass audiences.

“Public venues are the most important destination for the VR market, because we need to go to audiences first, before we put products on shelves and expect people to buy them.”

At one point you even get tucked into bed by your loving mother.

Fashion forward

The Victoria & Albert Museum is another British cultural institution that’s looking to incorporate VR into its exhibitions, promoting a growing awareness and understanding of the technology among its millions of annual visitors, while ensuring the museum remains relevant for today’s digital mediums.

One of its recent initiatives was Pigment Channel, a VR installation looking at the place of fashion, couture, and physical materials in an age of digital design processes. Despite lasting only a few minutes in VR, the installation was the result of months of development using the Unreal Engine: a games physics engine best known for powering the likes of Fortnite and Sea of Thieves.

When we spoke to artist Patrick Morgan and his collaborator Simon Fenton, Head of Games at the visual effects academy Escape Studios, they stressed the physical roadblocks still facing artists, trying to create in VR, obstacles that by extension limit the experiences available to end users.

Victoria & Albert Museum

“VR’s still in early days”, says Fenton. “Health and safety does come into it too: you can’t sit there all day with that thing on and create. It’ll make you feel sick.

“The industry’s trying to get to the point where we can paint using VR, but there’s this natural human limit we’re still coming up against.”

Morgan reports getting “the shakes” the first few times he tried painting in VR, for up to 12 hours at a time: way beyond the recommended 15-minute play sessions you’re advised to limit yourself to with something like PlayStation VR. And it’s clear the “human limit” artists come up against is also the limit of a technology that’s still being calibrated for the comfort of its users. 

But Morgan is also adamant that VR is where all creative industries are going: “I was working in concrete two years, and now I’m in VR – because of relevance,” he says. “You go to the V&A and say you’re working in concrete, they say, ‘that’s already been done’. But if you’re doing something in VR, they’re interested. It’s what new, what’s relevant.”

Morgan envisages a future where designers are largely working in VR, overhauling the traditional working processes of corporate and creative industries – even if there’s a lot of resistance along the way.

“Couture houses for example are very resistant to tech,” Morgan says. “In a few years you could see a couture dress being made entirely in VR – but you’ll lose all your seamstresses. There are a lot of people who’ll lose their roles within business.”

And for creatives to accept the role of VR in their industries, perhaps they need to be the ones at the forefront of that change.

Visitors try out Pigment Channel in VR, with artist Patrick Morgan (far right).

Embracing uncertainty

Managing realistic expectations is something the technology industry often struggles with. Hype is often self-fulfilling, after all – hype can get a product more investment, more support from retailers, and attract more prospective buyers aware of what you’re attempting to sell to them.

But if we view VR as a new cultural medium, rather than just a range of head-mounted displays, we may be able to give it the room and support to grow beyond its currently limited applications and slow-growing install base. 

The National Theatre’s Coffey recalls comments by an Oculus employee comparing current VR tech to the early stages of film: 

“He thought we were in the 8mm stage of film, in terms of VR – but I always thought we were much earlier than that. We may not even be at the 8mm stage now. We’re still developing things like eye-tracking, or emotionally responsive film [where AI analyzes your facial expression to alter the content being shown]. So much beautiful complexity has yet to be brought to the technology that would allow it to do new things.

“People keep asking, what do you think will be here? We don’t know, but we’ll keep working on finding out.”

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It's your last weekend to grab one of the best SIM only deals ever: £20 p/m for unlimited data

Posted: 16 Feb 2019 12:29 AM PST

Oh Three, with this extraordinary SIM only deal you have really been spoiling us. Since this Black Friday special returned at the end of January we've been calling the network's unlimited data, calls and texts for just £20 per month the best SIMO plan ever - and we really meant it.

But come Monday, it will be time to say a very sorry goodbye. In fairness, it was supposed to disappear from Three's virtual shelves two weeks ago but was extended on until February 18. But we're not expecting such munificence for a second time - we fully expect this weekend to be the last for the foreseeable future in which you'll be able to get an all-you-can-eat SIM plan for a mere £20 per month.

There really is no catch to dodge here, simply the best SIM only deal you can get in the UK for big data. So if you've been thinking about a new SIMO and know that you're going to need plenty of leeway for Netflix binging, podcast downloading and Spotify marathons away from the Wi-Fi, sign up now...before it's too late!

Three's best ever SIM only deal in full:

Why go for a Three SIM only deal?

If you haven't already been won over by this amazing offer then you'll be excited to hear that Three doesn't shy away from offering up some extra incentives as well. Whether that be free exclusive prizes or extra roaming. You can see all of best parts of a Three SIM only deal down below.

  • Wuntu - Exclusive offers and freebies with Three's rewards app
  • Go Roam - Roaming abilities in 71 worldwide countries at no extra cost
  • Travel Swagger - Get travel upgrades with Easyjet with bag drop and early boarding

Probably the only downside is that you have to commit to a whole year if you go for this offer. At £240 for an entire 12 months of all-you-can-eat data, texts and calls, we think it's still well worthwhile. But if you're a commitment-phobe who wants more flexibility to cancel, then check out Smarty's £25 per month unlimited data SIM that only makes you commit to 30 days at a time instead. 

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