Turning stone free play

Is your Android Home screen getting a bit crowded? You’ve probably installed a ton of useful apps and are running out of room. However, there are probably apps you use more often than others. There is an elegant way of curing a crowded Home screen. A free app, called Bar Launcher, allows you to add app shortcuts to the notification tray on the status bar on you Android device. To install Bar Launcher, touch the Play Store icon on your Home screen. Search for “Bar Launcher” in the Play Store and touch “Install” on the page for the app. Once installed, touch “Open” to open the app. NOTE: You can also open the app from the Home screen, if you have chosen within the Play Store settings to add the shortcut to your Home screen , or from the App Drawer. To add an app shortcut, touch the plus button in the lower-right corner of the screen. Advertisement Scroll through the list of apps and touch an app you want to add to the notification bar. Once you … [Read more...] about How to Add App Shortcuts to Your Status Bar in Android

The galaxy in Star Wars is vast, and with its streaming series, Disney seems intent on exploring every single corner of it. So far, that has seen mixed success. The Mandalorian is the best new Star Wars character in years, but it turns out I really don’t need to know much more about what Boba Fett gets up to . Now we have Obi-Wan Kenobi , starring Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), which aims to fill in the gap between the original two trilogies. And for the first two episodes, at least, it works — Obi-Wan is playing the hits, reminding me why I actually care about Star Wars to begin with. This review contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is set a decade after the events of Revenge of the Sith and starts with a very helpful recap that boils down the most important parts of the prequel trilogy to just a few minutes. You don’t have to worry about midi-chlorians or Watto. All that matters is the tumultuous and tragic relationship between … [Read more...] about Obi-Wan Kenobi’s early episodes lean on the best of classic Star Wars

The big picture: Windows is no longer what motivates Microsoft's vision for the software-driven world. Instead, it's become a simple vehicle for selling subscriptions to the company's services, including a subscription for running Windows itself in the cloud. As the PC market's continued growth is not guaranteed, the focus is now on extracting the most out of the existing user base. Over the past several years, Windows has faded into the background at Microsoft, with cash cows like Office 365 , Azure , and Xbox rising to the top of the priority list. With the PC becoming a mature market with little room for growth, the Redmond giant gradually turned its focus to making its software and services available on as many platforms as possible to overcome this limitation. When the pandemic forced many to work and study from home, Microsoft scrapped its plans for a cloud-first, lightweight Windows 10X operating system. Instead, the company baked it into the full-fat Windows and … [Read more...] about Satya Nadella: Windows is the “socket” for subscriptions like Microsoft 365 and Xbox Game Pass

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the fate of the planet’s coastlines is dangling from its underbelly. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has long been a relatively minor factor in the steady ascent of high-water marks, responsible for about an eighth of the 3 millimeters of annual sea-level rise. But when it comes to climate change, Antarctica is the elephantine ice sculpture in the boiler room. The ice sheet is so massive that its decline is, according to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment , “the largest potential source” of future sea level rise. Accurately forecasting how much of it will be unleashed as seawater, and when that will happen, could help coastal communities plan for surging flood risks. A study published Aug. 14 in Earth System Dynamics — one that took more than 2 years and 50,000 computer simulations to complete, combining information from 26 atmospheric, oceanic, and ice sheet models from four polar regions — … [Read more...] about Antarctic Riddle: How Much Will the South Pole Melt?

For nearly as long as smartphones have existed, people have been putting them in rice after dropping them in water. This often-repeated “trick” to save a water-logged phone has gone too far. Allow us to explain. Where Did It Come From? The rice trick has been around forever and there’s probably a good chance you’ve done it before—I know I have. Where did this common advice originate from? That’s an interesting question. One of the first high-profile examples of the rice “trick” being recommended dates back to a Lifehacker post from June 2007. The claim was that dry rice “sucks up the surrounding moisture.” That same line of reasoning has been repeated ever since. The trick certainly predated smartphones, but it really caught on as more people began carrying around expensive, fragile devices that don’t play nice with water . People want to know what to do when they drop their phone in water and the rice trick filled that need. RELATED: Water Resistant Gadgets … [Read more...] about Stop Putting Your Phone in Rice