Category: Technology

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Tech & Media Technology

The 8 Best Apps You’ve Never Heard Of

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.

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Tech & Media Technology

Venmo vs. PayPal, which one should you use?

Venmo vs. PayPal

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.

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Tech & Media Technology

How to Make Your iPhone “Aesthetic” With Shortcuts

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.

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Tech & Media Technology

Social Distancing? 11 Tech Tools to Stay Connected

11 Tech Tools to Stay Connected with Loved Ones while Social Distancing

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.

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Financial Tech & Media Technology

10 Best Online Stock Brokers of 2021

online stock brokers

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.

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Tech & Media Technology

5 Best Sportsbooks Online in the USA

Best Sportsbook Sites

Finding genuine and reliable sportsbooks online, especially those with fast payouts, can be pretty challenging. Here are the top five sportsbooks to choose from in the USA.


1. MyBookie

This sportsbook has the best lines and odds. Since 2014 it has maintained an unparalleled reputation as one of the most authentic, genuine, and customer-focused sportsbooks. You can trust your money with this betting site, and what’s more, you will also find the outstanding design and excellent optimization for both desktops and mobiles quite helpful.

2. Bovada

You can consider this as one of the best sports betting sites too. Here you will find the best offers for several sports, including the NCAA odds, the NFL, the NBA, NHL, and UFC. You can trust your money unhesitatingly with this sportsbook, and also rely on its decade’s worth of experience to give you the best sports pleasure ever.

The best features of Bovada include:

  • BTC acceptance and fast payout
  • Excellent selection of secure, reliable, and fast payments.
  • An unbeatable and unique variety of competitive odds of betting
  • A fascinating array of gaming options, including sportsbook, racebook, poker room, and casino.

3. Betway

This online sportsbook is the best signup bonus. Established in 2006, you will find this Malta-based game operator quite industry-knowledgeable and competitive. Its firsthand experience and remarkable features guarantee the best experience for you, regardless of whichever jurisdiction you avail.

The highlights of this online sportsbook include:

  • Prioritizes cross-platform compatibility and lays strict emphasis on polished design
  • You will find tons of odds on both international and local sports markets here.
  • An endless range of betting options. You will find options such as future bets, parleys, and live-game wagering, etc., here.

4. Bet365

This is a new entrant in the USA’s sports betting market, but it is competitive alright. This gambling operating has set its foot firmly as one of the best betting sites in the global industry and is already on its way to becoming one of the favorite brands in the USA.

You will find the affordability factor and outstanding features quite appealing. So whether you are a casual sports bettor or a high roller, this betting site is your one-stop destination.

The best benefits you will find at this site include:

  • Swift withdrawal and deposit options, reliability, and safety.
  • Remarkable customer support
  • A vast array of sports betting markets and options.

5. DraftKings

This one is the best online betting for fantasy sports. It has unparalleled live betting options for you. The promotions and bonuses are good enough to daze even the highest rollers here. If you’re in search of one of the most highly reputable and genuine sports betting brands in the U.S, then Draftkings is just the one for you.

It has a tremendous designing experience, too, so you can recommend it unhesitatingly to other betting enthusiasts.

The best features of this betting book include:

  • Loyalty scheme
  • Aggressive promotions and bonuses offerings
  • Competitive odds with a vast range of betting markets
  • Intuitive platform design
  • Well designed
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Health & Home Recreation & Leisure Tech & Media Technology

The 8 Best Massage Chairs, According to Reviews

best massage chairs

After spending a long and tiring day at work, all you need is a relaxing massage. Advanced massage chairs include numerous features that provide you with proper comfort and complete relief from pain and distress. However, it is difficult to find the perfect massage chair when there are so many options in the market.

1. Reclining Heated Massage Chair with Ottoman

This reclining massage chair is highly favorable by customers with the most positive reviews. This is an affordable option. You can either pinpoint random body parts such as the lumbar, back, calf, and thighs. As this is an inclined chair, you can easily adjust it to be far away or close.

2. Osaki OS-40 Escape Massage Chair

After purchasing this comfortable chair, you will sink into your dreams and leave all your troubles behind. This chair takes relaxation to a different level with the help of chromotherapy lighting. You can choose from two different zero gravity settings. Furthermore, it includes powerful heating settings.

3. Kyota M888 Kokoro

This J-track design massage chair also includes S-track and L-track technology. Therefore, it is perfect for glute massage spinal decompression. You can choose from various intensities for your different body parts, such as the lower back, legs, feet, and arms.

4. Daiwa Supreme Hybrid

This supreme hybrid massage chair by Daiwa includes stretch capabilities with L-track technology. Thus, it is a perfect model for deep stretching. This chair is more than just a massage chair and has the ability to improve your quality of life.

5. Infinity IT-8500 Inversion Massage Chair

This big boy has numerous functions and is available in three different colors. The main feature is the 2-stage zero gravity. It will keep your legs above the heart level and make you feel like you are in space, floating. Furthermore, it distributes your bodyweight evenly.

6. Cozzia Qi SE

Cozzia QI SE has amazing 4D technology features that give you a human-like massage. The model includes heated airbags and an adjustable footrest. This chair offers different massage techniques such as ultra-kneading, tapping, kneading, and shiatsu. The touch-enabled screen is user-friendly and includes quick access buttons.

7. Ogawa Master Drive AI

This smart sensing chair focuses on body parts that require more relief. The smart functions of this chair will target 36 muscle groups around your spine. This machine includes AI technology that adapts and learns speed, motions, and pressure depending on the user’s body.

8. Infinity IT-8500 X3

IT-8500 X3 is a common chair that you will find in almost every doctor’s clinic in the country. This chair helps with spinal decompression stretches. For customized massage, you can adjust the heights to various levels and enjoy moments of relaxation.

Conclusion

All the above-mentioned massage chair options have high ratings because of numerous customer reviews. Even though your choice and preference are essential while purchasing the chair, these options are perfect for all types of bodies. You can visit any of the nearest furniture showrooms and order your first massage chair to relax and unwind.

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Health & Home Recreation & Leisure Tech & Media Technology

The 7 Best Relaxation Apps You Need To Wind Down

best relaxation apps

Sometimes, being able to fall asleep is a luxury that many people don’t have. Whether your anxieties are keeping you awake or you’re on a new sleep schedule, it can be hard to sleep. Then you might wonder how you can relax with a single tap. However, it is possible with modern and advanced tools and applications. Numerous techniques and methods are available on your smartphone to help you sleep. They can help reduce thoughts of social pressure, oppressive deadlines, and destructive politics running through your head. Hence, that is why students cannot sleep during the night while they should be relaxing.

1.     Pacifica

Stress can affect your quality of life in every way. Therefore, Pacifica offers you different tools to reduce your anxiety with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, relaxation, health, and Mindfulness. This application is user-friendly and helps you track your daily routine. You can generate valuable insights into your feelings and thoughts using this application.

2.     Calm

Calm is different than other relaxation mobile apps. It offers well-being with its impressive meditation catalog. They include a section, “Calm Body,” which includes 10 minutes video tutorials for gentle stretching to relax. Sleep stories are another amazing feature of bedtime stories. The best part about this section is that it includes soothing celebrities’ voices.

3.     Desertopia

Using this application for five to ten minutes a day will keep you relax and focus. This is a therapeutic game and involves creating a lively space out of a Desert Island. You need to keep the environment clean by taking away the floating trash, make decisions, and build amazing resorts, etc.

4.     Happify

The developers of Happify designed this game to make you feel happy. It reduces your feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression. Even if you are having negative thoughts consistently, you can control your emotions using this application. Numerous relaxing tools are available, perfect for treating your condition.

5.     Mindfulness Daily

Becoming mindful is out of reach when you are looking for it. Therefore, you can use a few minutes from your busy day and practice mindfulness daily. Play the game early in the morning and enjoy the short lessons. You can take a break from stress and distress for some conscious reflection.

6.     Adult Coloring

Kids aren’t the only ones who need coloring books. You can use coloring as therapy for relaxation. The best part about this application is that it offers you relaxing drawings on your mobile. You can spend hours of coloring by turning on the ambiance. There are hundreds of designs available for you to color.

7.     Yoga Studio

If you cannot afford yoga classes, then you can download this application for HD video classes. You will find these tutorials easy to follow with 65 meditation and yoga classes. Other than that, they offer detailed advice and instructions for each pose from 280. Download this application for your iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV, and enjoy the relaxation classes at home.

Conclusion

These relaxation applications are at the top of the market. But before downloading the application, check if the application is free or paid. After all, meditation is an amazing investment in your body. Ten minutes of meditation every day will lead you to a healthy and active lifestyle.

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Financial Savings Tech & Media Technology

Saving Money With These Top Apps

Saving Money Apps

Truth is, if saving money were easy, then half of us wouldn’t make financial resolutions each year. However, we’ve got some money saving suggestions that you can pick-up on at anytime. Consider what we deem to be the 4 best money saving and money making apps to date!

Ready, Set, Save Money!

Many mobile applications boast about their ability to help you save money, but which ones are actually worth it? If you’re busy like the rest of society, then you’re probably also looking for something that’s not super time-consuming. Consider these options below:

Trim

A financial assistant in your pocket, Trim has the power to help you automate your financial life. After securely connecting your accounts, Trim will analyze your connected accounts to determine where you can save more money. It’ll specifically look for those recurring subscriptions you have and cancel them upon your request. Maybe you no longer need those weekly newspapers or monthly clothing boxes, huh?

Trim also has a Bill Negotiator, where it helps users save $5-$50/month with Comcast and more! With Trim, you can really make the most of your money without investing a lot of your time.

ShopTracker

Do you often shop at Amazon and want to get paid for it? Then you might want to check out ShopTracker. Sign-up for an account by simply completing an application. You’ll need to provide the following information:

  • Your name
  • Birthday
  • Street Address
  • Zip code
  • Gender

After that, you’ll be asked how often you make purchases on Amazon, the type of account you have on Amazon, and the number of accounts in your household. If you qualify, you’ll need to install the application and sync it with your Amazon account. Following successful installation, ShopTracker will automatically pull data monthly from your account and you’ll get paid for it.

Chime

Looking for a bank with no monthly fees, overdraft fees, or foreign transaction fees? If yes, then meet Chime! Chime comes with a Visa debit card, savings account, and checking accounting; it’s very ideal for those who like to bank on-the-go. By opting in to their ‘Save When You Spend’ feature, every time you spend money, it automatically rounds up transactions to the nearest dollar and transfers it to your savings account. They also automatically transfer 10% of every paycheck directly into your savings account, so you can’t help but save!

You Need A Budget

An application that can be used on your computer, phone, tablet, Apple Watch, and Alexa is ‘You Need A Budget’. After connecting your bank accounts, you can set-up some goals and start easily tracking them. Individuals who love visuals will love seeing their progress in graph and pie chart form. Need some extra assistance setting up a budget? Check out their live workshops or send them an email!

Digit

Want to save money without thinking about it? Then download ‘Digit’! Once you’ve securely added your bank accounts, Digit will calculate how much you can comfortably save everyday and automatically set it aside for you. The money is added to your Digit savings account and can be retrieved by simply sending Digit a text message. You’ll be able to access the money in your checking account on the next business day free of charge. Guess what else? There’s no account minimums!