Categories
Health & Home Media Recreation & Leisure Tech & Media

7 Netflix Features We Can’t Wait to Watch

Netflix is coming with tons of new series and movies this season. Whether you love fantasy dramas, crime, sci-fi thrillers, nature docs, or reality shows, Netflix has you covered. While there is a long list of arrivals, we are eagerly looking forward to these 7 series on this largest streaming service. Just make sure to be strategic with your queue and enjoy quality time.

1. Jupiter’s Legacy Season 1

This series is based on the popular novels of Frank Quietly and Mark Millar. It will have eight episodes that promise to give you a lot of action and drama. You can watch its first episode on May 7 to know how one generation of superheroes or Earth’s protectors will pass on their legacy to new warriors.

2. A Boy Called Christmas

As the name suggests, this is a Christmas film that tells the story of a young boy called Nikolas. What’s special about the boy is that he was born on Christmas Day. He sets out on a journey to find his father, who is a woodcutter. You can watch Nikolas’s extraordinary adventure in November 2021.

3. Oxygen

It is a sci-fi adventure that will keep you curious throughout the season. This survival thriller is the story of a woman who wakes up in a cryogenic chamber and does not remember how she got there. Will she be able to escape before suffocating? This Netflix series begins streaming on May 12.

4. The Woman in the Window

Your wait is over! The Woman in the Window is finally coming to your screens after many delays due to pandemic-related and other problems. But now you don’t have to wait at all. You can watch this series on May 14 that revolves around the story of an agoraphobic woman. She believes that she has seen the murder of her neighbor, but she will have a hard time proving it.

5. Tall Girl 2

This is one series that girls will love to watch. You might know that Tall Girl was first released in 2019 but faced a lot of criticism because of height discrimination. The directors have worked hard to eliminate the concerns of the viewers in the coming series, which will be on Netflix in September 2021.

6. Don’t Look Up

If you want to watch the best film in 2021, then you should go for Don’t Look Up. You can see many popular celebrities, like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, and others, in this movie. We must say, Leonardo DiCaprio’s presence is enough to force you to watch this movie.

7. Too Hot To Handle Season 2

This is a ridiculously amazing Netflix dating game series. The new episodes of Too Hot to Handle will begin streaming in June. It’s a Love Island-style experiment in romance.

Bottom Line

These are only a few of many new series, shows, and movies you can enjoy this Spring. If you can’t wait, you can binge-watch Outlander, Concrete Cowboy, and Thunder force on Netflix right now.

Categories
Health & Home Media Recreation & Leisure Tech & Media

15 Books to Read if You Loved “Bridgerton”

If you loved Bridgerton, a story focusing on the romantic entanglements of eight close-knit siblings, and want to read more novels like it, you need to read the books we have listed below.

1. The Duke and I

This is an amazing series, and each book in this series is about one of the eight Bridgerton siblings. Not to mention, each book ends with the idea of happily ever after and covers their journey in an attempt to find love. 

2. The Countess Conspiracy

You can read more about Bridgerton brothers Benedict, Anthony, and Colin in this book. The best part of this book is that it reveals some shocking and mysterious actions of the Bridgerton family that you may not have heard before.

3. Bridgerton Collection Volume 3: The Last Two Books in the Bridgerton Series and the First Bridgerton Prequel

It is a collection of several books, including “In His Kiss” and “On the Way to the Wedding.” You can also read one of the most popular novels, “Because of Miss Bridgerton,” the primary reason for this series’ fame.

4. My Beautiful Enemy

As of its name, it brings the thrill, romance, and much more to the reader. You will also find about many scandals, the reunion of Catherine and a Chinese courtesan.

5. Hello Stranger: The Ravenels, Book 4

This book contains some amazing, descriptive, and mind-blowing phrases that will keep you captivated from start to the end of the novel. It is a combination of the historical and modern way of writing.

6. The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics: Feminine Pursuits

If you are looking for a book that is free of patriarchal ideology, then this is best for you. This is a different novel, like Bridgeton, that is the story of two incredibly intellectual women.

7. Rebel: Women Who Dare

Rebel is a novel set in the period after the Civil War in New Orleans. It revolves around a strong female character that is amazing and badass at the same time. She is determined to teach the children in the community despite facing resistance.

8. My Fake Rake

This novel tells the story of Lafe Grace Wyatt, who wants to grab the attention of a handsome gentleman. For this reason, she uses several tactics to make this naturalist fall for her.

9. A Gentleman Never Keeps Score

You can find everything in this book, including romance, thrill, drama, and much more. We must say this is a series that shows you the meaning of happily ever after.

10. The Luckiest Lady in London

It is a book of historical romance that shows both the negative and positive sides of society. This book reveals how society can make or break one’s perception. You will also read about a surprising wedding that helps a man to rise in his career.

11. Brazen and the Beast

The heroine of this novel decides to live her life to the fullest. She is ready to welcome all the pleasure and happiness in her life, which she was neglecting since she received spinster status.

12. While the Duke Was Sleeping

In this book, Poppy Fairchurch dreams of romancing the Duke of Auntenberry. This book is rich in fantasy, romance, and thrill, which makes it best for you to read.

13. The Marriage Game

As the name suggests, this novel revolves around marriages. If you love the character of Mrs. Bridgerton, then you will also love Layla Patel’s aunties. 

14. My Lady’s Choosing

If you are looking for the easiest way to love without dressing up, society drama, and encountering matchmaking mamas, then this book is ideal for you. This book contains great romance and adventure that will keep you curious till the end.

15. The Bromance Book Club

It is the story of the strapping alpha males who try to learn about the methods to attract women. They use tactics and strategies to make women fall for them.

Bottom Line

Bridgerton is a story that has all the elements, from interesting characters, romance, and thrill, you will find all in the same book. And if you are a fan of this series set in the Regency era in England, you will enjoy reading the books we have mentioned above.

Categories
Tech & Media Technology

iOS 14.5 Is Here – Here is Everything We Know

Finally, iOS 14.5 is here, and it has brought a bunch of exciting features for iPhone users. From Face ID unlock while you’re wearing a mask to choosing different Siri voices and stopping apps from following you for marketing reasons, this new update has brought forward some new and useful features with bug fixes. You can download it right now.

Let’s explore some highlighting features of this latest update that’ll enhance your user experience immediately.

Phone Unlock Using Apple Watch While You Are Wearing a Mask

As wearing masks has become a norm, Apple has realized this and made it easier for us to unlock iPhone while we are wearing a mask. By downloading the iOS 14.5 update, you can find an ‘Unlock with Apple Watch’ option. This enables your iPhone to use Apple Watch as a secondary method for authentication when your iPhone’s Face ID is not able to view your entire face due to a mask.

When you enable this feature, you don’t need to enter a passcode or take off a mask for unlocking your iPhone. To use this feature, you need a running iOS 14.5 with Apple Watch having OS 7.4. You should enable it by going into the app settings.

Accidents, Speed Checks and Hazards Crowd Sourcing with Apple Maps

The latest iOS 14.5 update includes a unique crowdsourcing feature similar to Waze. It reports speeding checks, hazards, and accidents when getting directions along a route in Apple Maps.

You can get the reports by clicking the ‘report’ button in Apple Maps. This feature is similar to the Waze mapping app and available directly for use on your iPhone. By using this feature, you can avoid hazards and accidents.

Transparency in App Tracking

This is the most prominent addition to this update. Apple has enhanced the transparency of its policies by providing this feature. With the iOS 14.5 updated installed on your iPhone, you get a pop-up message asking if you want an app to track you when you download it. You can also select the app tracking settings by going into ‘Settings’ and managing which apps cannot and can track your phone usage.

Enjoy Siri’s New Voices

One of the significant changes to speaking changes in Siri is the addition of voices in Siri’s American English setting. The concept behind this change is a promotion of inclusivity and provides users better options to select a voice of their choice that resonates more with them. To choose the sound, go to the Settings app, select Siri and simply start a search. It’ll show different options. 2 and 3 are the new Siri voices.

Calibration of Battery Health

This new capability of iOS 14.5 aims to make it easy for you to see whether your iPhone battery is optimally performing or underperforming. The new tool fixes any inaccuracies in battery health reporting estimates. For now, this feature is available for iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max.

Some other feature updates include:

  • Teach your most loved music app to Siri
  • Support for PS controllers
  • Support for Apple AirPlay and Apple Fitness
  • Dual-Sim 5G support
  • Find My App feature
  • Features for Apple Card Family
Categories
Financial Tech & Media Technology

Best Stock Trading Apps for 2021

2021 has been an incredible year for retail investors. With the historic surge in Gamestop stock thanks to ongoing short selling and Reddit-fueled investment research, millions upon millions of everyday people are hopping on the rocketship.

There are a lot of stock trading apps out there, and they can all blur together if you don’t know the ups and downs of each one. We’re going to go over some of the more popular ones, and give you an idea of which might be right for you and your needs, depending on what those are. Let’s take a look.

Robinhood

This app was already doing well when it went viral during the first part of the year in connection with Gamestop. Robinhood boasts an app that allows anyone to invest. They allow investment in stocks, ETFs, as well as options trading, and they require no minimum to invest. Their app is extremely simple, and they offer very little in the way of research tools or in-depth functionality.

E-Trade

One of the zero-commission trade model pioneers, E-Trade is a very popular stock trading platform with zero fees on most trades, and no account minimums to begin. The app is super easy to use and offers a huge array of features. One of the many brokers that support fractional shares, they make it easy to invest a few dollars at a time, so that anyone can start building wealth.

Fidelity

Fidelity has been around for a long time. They offer a huge array of research and tools that are made available to their investors. Additionally, account approval can take a little while. However, the ability to trade regular stocks, as well as many penny stocks, makes this a very appealing platform to many new investors. One downside of the app is that it is basically a tiny version of the website. It does not offer much in the way of streamlining compared to the web version.

Schwab

Schwab is a great platform for new investors and offers zero fees on most trades. They have provided a consistent trade experience for a long time, and are highly trusted brokers. Schwab offers a highly enjoyable trade experience since their interfaces are always intuitive, regardless of the device, it’s viewed on. They do lack the ability to set various alerts on stock movements in their app, however.

TD Ameritrade

One of the most loved apps comes from TD Ameritrade, called Thinkorswim. It provides an amazing amount of functionality for doing market research. They have a legendary trading platform and offer a huge amount of financial education resources for thier customers. They offer zero-cost trades like many others, and also support fractional shares with no account minimum required to invest.

Webull

Another extremely simple to use mobile app like Robinhood, Webull offers a much more extensive feature set than Robinhood, but still struggles to compete with research giants like Schwab and Fidelity. They offer zero-cost trades for stocks, options, and even crypto.

Categories
Tech & Media Technology

The 8 Best Apps You’ve Never Heard Of

You probably have all the most popular apps already installed, sure. But now and then you find an app that is just perfect for what it does, even if it is incredibly specialized. Sometimes you find one that just helps you enjoy your life activities a little more.  We’ve rifled through the depths of the app stores, and have found 8 apps that are surprisingly amazing, let’s take a look!

1.   Zombies, Run!

Running can be boring, even when you love it. You can let your playlist run on random sure, or, you can spice up your run with some wandering undead! Zombies, Run! is a great running app that not only tracks your runs but offers timed scenarios and objectives to gamify your run. You can even have your tunes in the background.

2.   iNaturalist

Machine learning is incredible. Now it’s been harnessed to help you identify plants and animals while out and about in nature. Simply enable GPS, take a picture, and upload it. The app will attempt to use your location and native species lists with photo recognition to determine what you’re looking at.

3.   What The Forecast?!!

This app is perfect in its simplicity. It takes the weather, the most boring, small talk abyss of a subject, sautes it with some sarcasm, spices it with some profanity, and serves you up a delicious helping of…well…sarcastic and profane weather. We swear it’s awesome. You can even set the intensity level to ease yourself into it if you like.

4.   Drunk Locker

If you, or someone you know (wink, wink), needs a little help controlling their communication when out having some liquid recreation, Drunk Locker is clutch. It locks out all social media, messaging, and so on, to help you, we mean your “friend”, keep their feelings from running amok while under the influence.

5.   RunPee

RunPee is a gem of an app. It tells you the best part of a movie to make a run to the facilities and can set an alert to give you advance notice. Simple, but useful.

6.   Flush

Frequently looking for a public bathroom at the most inconvenient of times? Flush give you access to the locations of nearly 200,000 public bathrooms, so that no matter where you are, you can stop in for a pit stop if you need to.

7.   Way Of Life

This is the perfect app for making positive changes in your life. Whether it’s quitting smoking, walking more, or just remembering to take lunch at work, Way Of Life will help you build or change those behaviors. Set milestones and celebrate them to bolster your progress.

8.   Wakie

I won’t sugar coat it. If you are a snooze button addict, and it’s gotten you in trouble, get this app. Now. Do it. A stranger will give you a wake-up call, without having to share your number with a stranger. Someone you don’t know, telling you it’s time to get up, is incredibly effective, and only a little bit weird, promise.

Categories
Tech & Media Technology

Venmo vs. PayPal, which one should you use?

In our largely digital culture, we often need to send someone money or pay for something in person, when we don’t have cash on hand. Luckily, there is no shortage of digital or app-based payment options, but even with all the competition in that particular market, there are two heavyweights that most people use, Venmo and PayPal. This has evolved to the point that both brands have become a common meme verb. “Just Venmo me.”

If you are thinking about picking a new digital payment app, you might be wondering whether PayPal or Venmo is going to be right for you. You will need to consider who you will most often be exchanging funds with. Mostly friends and family? Business use? Splitting the occasional dinner tab? Some of these are certainly more suited to one app over the other, let’s take a look.

Accessibility

Both apps are available for Android and iOS, and both also feature full-featured desktop sites. While PayPal can initiate payments either via app or web, Venmo can only initiate payments on the mobile app. PayPal can also be used by a huge variety of merchants and vendors.

Sending Money

The process for sending money in both apps is more or less the same. You sync your contacts, find the username for the friend you want to pay, set the amount, and off it goes. Both apps also have functionality for sending money to those for who you only have an e,mail address for, or a mobile number, for example.

Requesting Money

Both apps allow anyone to request money from others. In most cases this is done as a reminder, since it will generate a notification and essentially, an invoice. Once the recipient receives the request, they can either act on it and pay, or deny it. In both cases, the balance hits your account nearly instantly.

Fees

Both offer free payments from bank accounts that you’ve already linked and verified, but they also allow credit or debit card payments, with a fee of about 3%. Venmo extends the no-fees to debit cards, whereas PayPal only allows free payments from linked accounts.

Limits

PayPal is a much stronger choice if you need to send larger amounts. PayPal will allow sends of up to $10k in a single payment, with daily caps around $60k, or more with further verification. Venmo’s limits are around $7k per 7-day period, with max of $5k in a day.

Business Features

PayPal is a much better bet for small busiess, or not so small business users. They have a robust array of merchant-oriented tools that can be used to sell online, and accept global payments.

Bells & Whistles

In many ways, PayPal and Venmo have a lot of similarities. There are some places where they vary a bit more. With Venmo, the focus is very much on the social side; you can check out your social feed and who is paying whom and notes sent with the payment, just not the dollar amount.

Categories
Tech & Media Technology

How to Make Your iPhone “Aesthetic” With Shortcuts

If you are looking to aestheticize your life, then your iPhone is a perfect place to start.

Phones are miniature portraits of modern life. You carry it around in your pocket and take it out to see what sort of day you are having or are about to have. So it is only natural that you would want your phone to be an aesthetically pleasing bearer of this message.

In March of 2021, Apple released iOS update 14, which finally, finally allows users to modify their interface. The biggest change included in this update is the ability to use different icons for apps than the ones provided.

Replacing icons is just the first step, however. Your creativity can go further than that.

These icons can also change in size. Try this for a fun experiment:

  1. Find a quote that inspires you or makes you smile.
  1. Change your apps’ icons to be the words of this quote.
  1. Organize and resize the icons to make the quote visible.

Suddenly your iPhone is inspiring you every time you open it up! Changing icons means you can make them say whatever you want, and changing their size means you can make them as visible as you want.

There are also things you can do that take a bit more precision.

Imagine you have a group photo with all your friends. You want to use it as your phone background, but you do not want it hidden behind your app icons.

The icons of iPhone apps are usually sized at 180 by 180 pixels. Knowing this, you can divide your picture into a grid, where the squares are 180 by 180 pixels big.

Then, save each square of the grid as its own image. Once you replace your apps’ icons with the squares that they are covering up, it will appear as though there is no app icon at all.

But sometimes, you don’t want a seamless image. After all, not every aesthetic is seamless. Seamlessness hides the effort that goes into creating an aesthetic. It creates the illusion that the aesthetic is natural, that all the component parts fit together.

But what if you don’t want to hide your effort? What if part of your aesthetic is showing that you made it out of disparate parts?

Here is a fun thing to do if mosaics are more your aesthetic:

  1. Get the AutoDesk Sketchbook app from the app store.
  1. Just doodle. Draw curves, loops, and whorls that appeal to you.
  1. Cut that image up into 180 by 180-pixel pieces, but don’t pay too much mind to making it a perfect grid.
  1. Replace your app icons with the images you made

The best part about this is that rather than just using your app icons to remake the same image, you can make an entirely different image out of the components you created out of the doodles.

These are just a few experiments. Hopefully, this will help you express yourself and find a way to show off your aesthetic using your shortcuts.

Categories
Tech & Media Technology

Social Distancing? 11 Tech Tools to Stay Connected

It seems as if social distancing is here to stay for a while, considering how the COVID-19 positive numbers are increasing daily. Since protecting the wellbeing and health of your loved ones and yourself too is the priority right now, limiting physical interaction is the best for now.

But you don’t need to feel isolated at all while you are social distancing. Thankfully, technology has equipped us with some great apps that make connecting with family and friends so easy and hassle-free. Let’s look at them below:

1.    FaceTime

If you’re an Apple device user, then you have FaceTime to make social-distancing easier for you. With this app, you can call people around the world and can hold conversations with one to thirty-two people at a time.

You can either use a cellular connection or an internet connection to work this app. Both video and audio calls work incredibly on this app.

2.    Google Duo

Google Duo is an excellent video conferencing platform. You make live video calls or send video messages to one or eight contacts at a time.

3.    Snapchat

Make your social-distancing more fun with Snapchat’s augmented images and app features. With this app, you can make both video phone calls and send standard texts too.

4.    WhatsApp

With WhatsApp, you can make unlimited video and audio calls and send text messages and audio messages. What’s more, you have the option of shipping documents and files over the app too.

5.    Zoom

Since the spread of Coronavirus, Zoom, which was once a solely business conferencing tool, emerged as a popular video chat option. This app has a forty-minute limit for your sessions and particular privacy concerns too.

6.    Skype

Once you have a Skype account, you can send messages, videos, documents messages to your Skype contacts. This app also allows you to have video and phone calls, even on landline numbers.

7.    Netflix Party

Cant hangout at the cinema with your friends and family anymore? No problem!

With a Netflix party, you can watch movies with your friends together. This app synchronizes playback with group chat, but you can only use it in chrome browsers on laptops and desktops.

8.    Marco Polo

Many of your loved ones may be living far away, in time zones vastly different from yours. If live chatting is not possible for you, Marco Polo gives you the option of leaving video voicemails. Since your messages go in-store on the cloud, users can view them as many times as they wish to.

9.    Quarantine Chat

Quarantine Chat helps you make new friends even if social distancing does not allow you to step out. This app is a pen pal, in which you receive calls randomly from strangers. Strike up a conversation with a stranger if you please and see if he/she is good enough for friendship.

10.  Steam

This is an online gaming service with more than thirty thousand video games, social features, and ninety-million active users. You can send in-game messages with this app or have a voice chat too. You can play together with four friends at a time here.

11.   TikTok

You can continue to entertain family and friends all through social distancing with TikTok. This app allows you to send 15-seconds long fun videos with hilarious effects.

Categories
Financial Tech & Media Technology

10 Best Online Stock Brokers of 2021

One can only feel comfortable investing when they know they’re dealing with authentic and trustworthy stock brokers. In the age of technology, it is all too easy to trust fraudulent brokers and lose your precious capital.

In order to avoid falling victim to scams, we have shortlisted the 10 best online stock brokers to help you start with the right people and with any fear.

1.    SoFi

SoFi is an excellent trading platform that gives long-term and beginner investors an incredible modern experience. As a result, you will find fair value from Cryptocurrencies, stocks, fractional shares, and ETF’s here.

2.    Fidelity

This online stock broker is value-driven and offers $0 trades, user-friendly mobile apps, qualitative trading tools, industry-oriented research, and holistic retirement services. So with a clientele of over thirty-million people, you can trust Fidelity for your everyday investment.

3.    E*TRADE

This online stock trader is one of the best trading platforms. You can trade your ETFs and mutual funds for free on this platform, and it is an excellent option for long-term investment.

4.    Interactive Brokers

If you’re a professional, you will surely benefit from Interactive Brokers. This trading platform is an institutional-grade desktop one with margin rates hitting rock bottom.

5.    Merrill Edge

At Merrill Edge, you will find ETF trades and $0 stock trades; with excellent customer support and robust research offerings, you will find this an incredible investment platform, most especially if you a customer of Bank America.

6.    Ameritrade

This online broker has outstanding products and tools for you. It is an all-rounder brokerage with comprehensive and detailed research and zero account minimums.

7.    Ally

You will find this a viable investment platform with its zero account minimum and zero commissions features. If you’re looking for cheap trade options, Ally would be a worthy consideration for you.

8.    Robinhood

If you’re looking for a straightforward trading platform, then you might find Robinhood a good option. It is a no-frills place, allowing you access to cryptocurrency and trade fractional shares. In general, the uncomplicated policies might suit your needs along with the efficiency of the trading platform.

9.    Charles Schwab

This is one of the least expensive online brokers currently. The platform has eased up its policies by bringing down its base commissions to $0 every trade, eliminating its standard account fees, and slashing its ETF and mutual funds charges.

10.  Trade Station

If you’re a cost-sensitive investor or an active trader, then Trade Station might be a feasible option for you. This is a discounted trading platform, but you have to be willing to go the extra way and price the two commission schedules here.

If you’re ready to put in the extra efforts, you might find this an agreeable platform but mind you; this platform is more for the casual-traders rather than long-term investors.

Categories
Health & Home Media Recreation & Leisure Tech & Media

10 Movies of 2021 to Look Forward to

Have you been desperately waiting for cinemas to spring into action and your screens to come back to life? 2021 is looking like an excellent year for movies, and we’re excited at the promising projects that are lining up backstage.

Here are the top ten movies you can look forward to this year:

1. Coming 2 America

This is a sequel to the American Classic ‘Coming to America.’ Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy will be starring in it, while the movie promises to be a worthwhile hilarious ride.

2. Raya and The Last Dragon

An animated original since Moana, Disney is all set to light your screens with a dramatic-looking adventure movie. Get ready for a thrilling ride with warriors and monsters this summer.

3. Justice League

Zack Synder will be releasing his new version this summer, with a completely new take on his superhero story.

4. Cherry

Cherry promises a much more intimate feel with Tom Holland as the young lead. Set in Iraq, this story is all about the army medic’s experiences and his opioid addiction.

5. Spiral

Chris Rock brings a glossy sheen to Saw horror’s relaunch titled ‘Delayed.’ You will get to see elaborate torture traps and Rock playing detective in this movie. Ultimately action and suspense-packed, this movie promises to be a captivating one.

6. Godzilla vs. Kong

This movie’s title is all the attention it needs. Yet if you want some more incentive, Godzilla, the King of Monsters from 2019, is returning for the crown. This one promises to be a jaw-dropping monster-mash, and you better now miss it.

7. Cruella

Disney will be lining up another of its animated classics, and Cruella promises to be as dramatic as Maleficent. We’ll be seeing Emma Stone’s obsession with the Dalmations in this one.

8. Mortal Kombat

This video-game series will release in a movie form this year. Producer James Wan is preparing to impress the audience with a couple of screen tricks this year, and who knows, we might just like the fighting saga this time around.

9. Fast & Furious

We can surely expect this one to be another blockbuster, with actor Sung Kang and Justin Lin’s return.

10. In The Heights

This is a Tony-winning adaptation that will be releasing somewhere in the summer of 2021. If you’re fascinated with outstanding choreography and high-energy dance numbers, then this film might live up to your expectations.