Samsung Gear Fit 2

How to set up your Samsung Gear Fit 2

The process is a bit different depending on the manufacturer of your Android device. Here's what you need to know.

You just got your hands on the shiny new Samsung Gear Fit 2. You've unboxed it, charged it up, and drooled over the screen -- it sure is pretty. Now what? Set it up and start exercising, of course.

Or if you're on the fence about buying the Gear Fit 2, be sure to read through CNET's review for the ins and outs of Samsung's latest wearable.

The setup process for the Gear Fit 2 will vary depending on whether you're using a Samsung device, or an Android device made by a competing manufacture.

Setup on any ol' Android phone

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

The Gear Fit 2 will work with any Android device running Android 4.4 and above. The first thing you'll need to do is install the Samsung Gear app from the Play store.

With the app installed, follow the prompts to connect your phone and the Fit 2 via Bluetooth. During the process you'll see a few different prompts asking you to install three total apps in addition to the Samsung Gear app: S Health, Samsung Accessory Service and Gear Fit 2 Plugin. You can install the apps ahead of time to speed up the setup process.

These apps are required for the Fit 2 to interact and work properly with your device. It's annoying having to bounce between the Play store and the Gear app to finish the setup process, but there's not much we can do about it.

Setup on a Galaxy phone

The process for setting up a Samsung product on a Samsung device is a bit more streamlined than a competing Android phone. To begin, you'll need to open the Galaxy Apps app on your phone and install the Samsung Gear app if it's not already installed. Even if the Gear app is installed, odds are there will be a pending update.

With the Gear app installed or updated, launch it and follow the prompts. Once gain, you'll need to install additional apps and services but instead of having to manually install each one your phone will handle the process on its own.

You're not quite done yet

Just before you finish the setup process, you'll need to go through the list of installed apps on your phone and check the box next to each one you want the Gear app to push alerts to your wrist. One thing to watch for is the lack of the Gear app automatically activating the default SMS application on your device; find it in the list and check its box.
Now that you have the Fit 2 and your phone talking to one another and playing nice, take a second and update the apps that are currently installed on the Gear.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

To update the included Gear Fit 2 apps:

Launch Samsung Gear app.
Under "Get new apps" tap on Samsung Galaxy Apps.
You can tall which apps have an update waiting thanks to the two arrows forming a circle (for lack of a better name) to the right of each app's icon. Open each app, and update.
That wasn't too bad, now was it? Now it's time to figure out just how to use it.


source: www.cnet.com

Google Eyes Gigabit Wi-Fi

Google Eyes Gigabit Wi-Fi

The company is looking for a cheaper, easier way to bring gigabit speeds to homes across the nation.

Alphabet is exploring a low-cost alternative to Google Fiber: gigabit Wi-Fi.

During the company's annual shareholder meeting, Chairman Eric Schmidt this week tipped a wireless technology that could match the speed provided by fiber-optic cables.

According to Schmidt, improvements to computer chips and wireless signal targeting have made "point-to-point" wireless Internet connections "cheaper than digging up your garden," The Wall Street Journal reported.

While wired connections are faster than wireless ones, delivering 1 gigabit-per-second speeds to Fiber users requires Google to lay underground cable—an expensive and time-consuming project.

Google, however, is already testing wireless technology in Kansas City, the first Fiber market, and hopes to have a demonstration network operating there by next year, according to the Journal. Other programs under consideration could require users to set up a special device in their home to receive signals.

Schmidt said he met with Alphabet CEO Larry Page, CFO Ruth Porat, and other executives early this week to discuss the company's options.

Google did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.

Google in July 2012 officially became a service provider with the launch of Google Fiber. Nearly two years later, the Web giant was rumored to be adding a Wi-Fi network to its super-fast in-home Internet.

Fiber is currently operating in Atlanta, Austin, Kansas City, (Missouri and Kansas), Nashville, and Provo, Utah; it will roll out soon to Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Huntsville, Ala.; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Tex.; and San Francisco, Calif.

A number of potential cities are also on the map, including Chicago, Irvine, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland (Oreg.), San Diego, San Jose, and Tampa.

source: www.pcmag.com

Is Your Child Coding Yet?

Is Your Child Coding Yet? New Building Blocks Teach Programming Basics

Children can use plastic Osmo Coding blocks to command a cute character on an iPad screen

A mirror attaches to your iPad so that its camera can see the Osmo coding blocks your child arranges.

When parents these days hear the old saying “The jobs of tomorrow haven’t been invented yet,” they tend to add, “so my child had better learn to code.” As software has redefined a range of industries and professions, many parents are rushing to make sure their children learn the building blocks of computer programming.

Toy and game developers have responded. One recent entry—and, for young children, one of the best—is Osmo Coding, by Tangible Play Inc. Using plastic bricks that represent computer commands, children arrange “scripts” that the iPad’s camera interprets as instructions for a cute on-screen character to act upon.

When the first Osmo kits appeared in 2015, they made a splash because they gave children a way to interact with the iPad using physical objects. One reason for the runaway success of products like Lego is that children physically manipulate the toys, a trait that early childhood education experts smile upon. Parents who feel guilty that their children stare too idly at glowing pixels can use Osmo to turn screentime into physical playtime.

From the start, Osmo’s lineup included sets of numbers, letters and the colorful Chinese geometric tiles known as tangrams. The iPad sits upright in Osmo’s base, with a red mirror attached to the iPad camera that lets the tablet look down on a play area where children manipulate pieces. (This is an iPad-exclusive product.)

In a math game, players position numbers to win exotic fish. With letters, they play a Hangman-like word-guessing game. Using tangrams, they create increasingly complicated animals and other objects.

But all along, the developers of Osmo also had envisioned a coding game based on the same principles. The kit (with base and mirror for $75, sold separately for $49) includes blocks needed for basic gaming: move, jump and grab, for starters. Children string them together, add variables such as numbers and loops, then push the play button on a green brick to execute their script. On the iPad, a creature named Awbie follows these mini computer programs, navigating increasingly complicated mazes and obstacles.


Awbie started out as a robot, but the developers realized that robots tend to skew a bit masculine, so they morphed Awbie into a delightfully gender-neutral character. “Girls think it’s a girl and boys think it’s a boy,” says Pramod Sharma, co-founder and CEO of Tangible Play.

As children build out their scripts, tiles light up on screen, showing a preview of Awbie’s movements. Tweak the code, and the preview changes with it. While most pieces are straightforward, there’s a more advanced piece meant for conditional situations. For instance, if, while walking forward six squares, Awbie hits a bush before finishing, it can be instructed to jump over the obstacle.

Once children begin moving up levels, they collect rainbow-colored strawberries, beaver-guarded tree stumps and other commodities to build up their campsite. They end up with bigger tents, crazier campfires and a corral where, eventually, their prize pets can live.

So that’s it: Buy your child this game and they’ll soon get a job at Google or Facebook. It’s that simple. Except it isn’t, of course. The purpose of Osmo Coding is to teach the basic concepts of programming, but it doesn’t go deep enough to teach programming itself. “It’s about how you put your thoughts together in a way that computers understand,” Mr. Sharma says. “It’s similar to learning a language.”

Mr. Sharma, 35, would know: Having grown up in a rural part of India a three-hour drive from New Delhi, he learned both coding and English only when he got to college. Now in the U.S. and an eight-year veteran of Google, Mr. Sharma is providing his children with a different kind of upbringing. His 6-year-old daughter is chief product tester for the company. (His 2-year-old son isn’t quite ready for Osmo.)

Mr. Sharma left Google to cofound Tangible Play partly in response to the pressure that parents feel. He says he understands the reason for paranoia among parents—“If every kid in India and China is learning coding, it’s natural that parents would feel that.” Still, he says, Osmo’s goal is to provide educational toys that help children build confidence, regardless of the skill.

There’s another reason products like Lego are so well-respected: They’re open-ended. Children may follow instructions to build a spaceship or shopping mall, but they also use the pieces to design their own vehicles and buildings.

Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab’s professor of learning research and a co-creator of the grade-school-level programming tool Scratch, says that open-endedness is key. “Tangible approaches to coding are only useful for the simplest of activities,” he wrote in an email. “If we want children to become truly fluent with coding (and to fall in love with coding), we need to give them opportunities to tell stories.”

Scratch—which starts with a blank backdrop, a main character and an abundance of code commands to string together—takes a lot more time to get oriented, and is recommended for ages 8 and up, rather than Osmo’s 6-and-up age group. Nevertheless, with over 15 million shared projects, Scratch is a proven way for students to program wildly imaginative games and videos.

To Mr. Sharma, coding “is a journey, and we want to focus on the early journey.” He does plan to add features that give children more creative input with the game. There’s already a purple “magic” block that players can use to grow flowers all over Awbie’s world. The flowers stay in place when children return to each spot. In the future, children could edit the game scenes even more.

It would be hard for a parent to mistake Osmo Coding for a one-way ticket to Silicon Valley riches. But there’s joy to be had in seeing a child like my 5-year-old son take to it, carefully stringing together the six or seven commands that will steer Awbie past trees, around a slimy slug and straight to the treasure chest. Time to count up some rainbow strawberries and move on to the next level! Those Silicon Valley riches can wait.



source: www.wsj.com