Month: May 2019

Adult Asthma: What You Should Know

Asthma is often misconstrued as a children’s disease, the type of thing you grow out of. However, this is not the truth. Many adults actively struggle with asthma symptoms, and some adults don’t even realize what they are dealing with.

Adult Asthma

What is Asthma?

Asthma is a respiratory condition caused by a sudden constriction of air passages in the lungs called bronchi. When these bronchi constrict, it makes it difficult to draw air into one’s lungs, resulting in coughing, chest pain and wheezing. Adults often notice these side effects when they’re exercising or otherwise respirating heavily.

Many people who aren’t often active may even be unaware of their own asthma. These symptoms, to them, simply feel as though they are out of shape or short on breath. These people are often too embarrassed by their physical state to seek out help.

Could You Have Asthma?

Here’s the thing: asthma is a serious issue. If you feel like something isn’t right with your breathing, you need to seek help from your doctor. If you had asthma as a child, you’re at a much higher risk of having the condition as an adult. Some women are at higher risks of developing asthma after becoming pregnant or experiencing menopause.

People with acid reflux are also at an increased risk of developing asthma. Additionally, if you experience seasonal allergies, you could be at a higher risk of developing the breathing condition. When you feel like something isn’t right with your breathing, it isn’t something you should ignore. See your doctor about any abnormalities with your respiration.

Seeking Treatment

Your doctor can diagnose what your breathing issues are. When you feel as though something isn’t right, don’t hesitate to see a medical professional. If you’re diagnosed with asthma, you may be prescribed an inhaler. Inhalers contain medication that is to be inhaled in order to relief the bronchial spasms that constrict breathing.

Asthma attacks can be deadly if they lead to unconsciousness. Essentially, sufficiently serious asthma attacks cause the victim to suffocate. If you have an inhaler with you, however, you can simply administer the medicine to allow your lungs to return to a normal breathing pattern. This could be potentially life-saving!

May 13, 2019
Do You Need a Video Doorbell? The Facts

Video doorbells are a relatively new trend among home security suites. If you’re often away from home, or worried about people coming up to your door, maybe you should consider a video doorbell. They allow you to see who’s at your door, offer you the option to speak to people through an app when they’re at your door, and even interface with your smart home system.

Video Doorbell

Which One is Right for You?

There are a number of options when it comes to the top video doorbells. If you’re looking to get a video doorbell to secure your home, consider some of these options. Factors like budget, range, and which smart home hubs work with them are the biggest considerations.

Nest Hello

The Nest Hello is a solid all-around video doorbell. It has connectivity through both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and can connect to Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. It sports a very standard 160-degree angle for its camera, and allow for both two-way audio and night vision, making it a great option for the average home. It falls right in the middle of pricing, coming in at $230.

RemoBell S

The best budget video doorbell on the market is the RemoBell S. If you’re looking for a great video doorbell that won’t break the bank, look no further. For a low price of $100, you can get set up with a video doorbell that offers Google Assistant and Alexa connectivity, two-way audio and night vision. It even sports a full 180-degree image! That’s a lot of band for your buck!

Ring Video Doorbell Pro

Our favorite high-end video doorbell is the Ring Video Doorbell Pro. This excellent option offers a full 1080p resolution camera, all the two-way audio and night vision support you’d expect, and a great app interface. Ring can be configured to work with Amazon Alexa, and can even be worked into greater home security ecosystems.

May 13, 2019
Coolest Things Seen at Google I/O 2019

Google I/O 2019 has come and gone, and we’ve learned a lot about Google’s upcoming slate of products. Today we’re taking a look at some of the coolest headlines from that massive event, from gaming infrastructure to new Android operating system updates!

Google I/O 2019

Android Q

The newest version of Google’s own Android infrastructure, Android Q, is coming up later this year. Aside from questions regarding what desert name starts with Q, Google’s answering some interesting questions with their new OS. For instance, the OS will offer support for foldable smartphones, out-of-app functionality through “bubbles” and further system privacy settings.

Google Stadia

Google’s upcoming cloud gaming infrastructure, Stadia, got name-checked at the event, as well. The system will allow high-end gaming on any screen that you can stream an internet signal to. While Google didn’t get into specifics, like release date or pricing, they spoke at length about the technical details of the system.

Without getting too in-depth, Stadia will use a “streamer,” a program that helps to keep even a higher latency signal from appearing too stuttering or choppy. This is good news for people who were concerned about poor performance of the service on lower-end internet connections.

Pixel 3a Line

As everyone anticipated, Google launched the Pixel 3a line of affordable Pixel smartphones the day I/O started. The phones are some of the best budget Android phones on the market, making them a wonderful addition to Google’s lineup.

The 3a sports the awesome cameras found on the Pixel 3, along with a huge screen and a great intro price of $400. If you’re looking for a low-price, entry-level Android phone, you can’t go wrong with the Pixel 3a.

Google Duplex Updates

Google Duplex will be receiving new functionality that will allow it to interface with websites as well as its existing phone applications. If you want to shop for something online, you can instruct Google Duplex to do so for you via your voice and it’ll simply get what you want without you having to take the hassle of the extra clicks.

May 13, 2019
So Long, Beef: Meet the Impossible Burger

While everyone loves a hamburger, there are some issues with eating animal meat. For one thing, some say its unethical to take the life of a living animal for food. Even if you don’t agree with that point, the science is clear that red meat is hardly good for you.

But burgers are so good! Why can’t we have a burger that isn’t bad for you and doesn’t require cows to be slaughtered? Good news, compassionate burger-lovers: the Impossible Burger provides just that. A delicious, beef-like patty made entirely from plant matter.

Impossible Burger

What It’s Made From

The Impossible Burger isn’t a soy or lentil or bean patty that’s just shaped like a burger. No, instead, it’s made in a lab setting, from potato and soy proteins, and made to look and taste just like animal meat. Included in the patty are coconut and sunflower oils, which act as the burger’s fat and let it sizzle on the grill.

Meanwhile, the whole thing is held together by methylcellulose, a binding agent that also acts as a source of fiber. The burger then uses a type of heme, the oxygen-carrying molecule found in all living things, as a source of flavor. The lab uses soy heme, injected into yeast cultures and then harvested en masse, to give the burger a meat-like flavor.

What it Tastes Like

It tastes like beef, full stop. If you’re a vegetarian who misses burgers, or a meat-eater who wants to cut back on eating animals, this burger hits the spot. That’s a hard trick to pull off! In fact, we’ve seen people who are vegetarians actually find the Impossible Burger “gross,” and “hard to eat” due to its greatly meat-like consistency and flavor.

The Cost

Generally speaking, the Impossible Burger is a bit more expensive than a normal meat patty. For instance, many restaurants sell the Impossible Burger for $13, where the normal burger tends to be around $9. However, we feel its worth it to be kinder to your body and the environment. After all, every little bit helps.

May 10, 2019
Real HomePod Killer? Sony’s Smart Home Speaker Now Just $50

Sony’s LF-S50G smart home speaker has recently received a price cut down to $50. The speaker started at $200, putting it at a comparable price point to Apple’s HomePod. With its new, reduced price, though, it’s a much sweeter deal than Apple’s expensive, ecosystem locked HomePod.

Sony LF-S50G Speaker Now $50

The Speaker

The LF-S50G itself has stellar sound quality. Music, podcasts and audiobooks all sound great coming from this small, sleek speaker. Included in the device is Google Assistant, ready to help organize all of your smart home needs. In short, for only $20 than the Google Home Mini or Amazon Echo Dot, you get a speaker that’s far more powerful in sound quality.

Google Assistant

Google Assistant is helpful in a number of ways. You can ask the system basic questions, like for weather and traffic reports. If you have other smart home devices, like smart lights, locks, thermostats or the like, you can control them from your Google Assistant-enabled speaker. Most commonly, you can call out for the speaker to play your music for you.

The Right Price

If you’ve been looking to break into the smart home ecosystem, this is the speaker to do it with. The smart speaker is a small $20 more than the best budget smart speakers, and it packs way bigger, better sound into its small frame. It helps that this is all wrapped into a sleek, attractive package.

The black finish and elegant styling makes this just as appealing as a piece of eye candy as it does a piece of tech. Did we mention this speaker sports 360-degree sound, like the HomePod? Nothing makes a room feel more alive when you have guests over than huge, room-filling sound coming from all directions.

In short, this is a hard deal to pass up. For the low price of $50, it’s hard to beat the value of this smart speaker. The huge sound, small size and low price add up to make this the best deal on the smart speaker market right now.

May 10, 2019
2019 Infiniti Q60: A Worthy Affordable Luxury Car?

Infiniti is known for making luxury cars of exemplary quality with reasonable price tags for the average person. The 2019 Infinity Q60 is upon us, and it’s time to ask: is this a worthy affordable luxury car? Let’s look under the hood, inside the cab and at the specs and find out what makes this Infiniti stand out from the crowd.

2019 Infiniti Q60

Performance

The most important thing about any luxury car is performance. If you’re starting a vehicle at $40,850, then it’s important the car is actually fun to drive. In the case of the Q60, it is satisfying, responsive and quick. The engine is a bit quieter than you might expect, but the acceleration and power on display here are certainly impressive.

This goes double for the Red Sport 400 spec, which will run you an extra $15,000, bringing the starting price to $55,000. This trim level nets you a bump from 300 horsepower to 400, as well as a few minor aesthetic cues to differentiate the vehicle from its base trim.

The Cab

The ride is smooth and enjoyable, though the steering is a bit lacking in excitement. However, the notably lacking part of this luxury Infiniti is the infotainment system. For whatever reason, Infiniti’s outdated InTouch system is still in play here, sporting graphics from 2008 and features from 2012. The underpowered tech on display in the cab leaves us scratching our heads.

Surprisingly, despite how quiet the engine is, the ride on the highway catches a ton of road noise. Crank up the tunes to drown this out, but it’s a bit of a drag to hear the road instead of the purr of the engine.

Bottom Line

Compared to some of the competition, like the Audi S5 and the Lexus RC, this Infiniti is a solid contender. If you don’t mind the underpowered tech or the quiet engine, there’s a lot to love here. However, unless you don’t get a lot of opportunities to gun it, we highly suggest you get the Red Sport 400 upgrade, as it makes the car a blast to drive.

Noting that, bumping from $40,000 to $55,000 might take the vehicle out of the “affordable” price category. However, even the base trim offers a fun experience, if you’re looking for an affordable and stylish luxury vehicle.

May 10, 2019
Trouble Sleeping? Simple Tips for Getting Better Sleep

It’s hard to get good sleep these days. There are a million little distractions all tugging at your attention. How is one to get some decent rest? Today we’re going to break down some of our simple tips for getting better sleep at night. Remember, the better the sleep you get, the healthier you’ll be.

Getting Better Sleep

Caffeine

Try to avoid caffeine later in the day. While there are lots of benefits of caffeine, you still don’t want to drink it within six hours of going to bed. Caffeine amps up your body’s nervous system, making you much less likely to get good sleep.

Stop Napping

Nothing throws your body off more than taking long naps in the middle of the day. These long naps can seriously confuse your internal clock, making it harder for you to get to sleep or stay asleep. This results in a negative spiral, where you’re napping longer to make up for all the sleep you’re missing at night. Your best bet? Stop napping altogether.

Get Out More

Try to get out more during the daylight hours. Spend time out walking, in the sun, burning calories and wearing yourself out. When your body is exposed to more sunlight and activity, it makes your circadian rhythms react accordingly.

Your circadian rhythms are the natural functions your body goes through to help you sleep well and wake up on time. Modern life, especially if you don’t get out enough, can lead to disruptions in your rhythms. So, try to get out more to encourage your normal body’s day/night rhythms.

Less Blue Light

You should also try to take in less blue light during the evening. Blue light makes your body wake up more, as it looks like light from the sun’s own rays. This makes your circadian rhythms work against you and keep you up later!

Consider turning on Night Mode on your phone, installing a blue-light filter on your laptop, or even buying blue-light filtering glasses.

May 9, 2019
Foldable Phone Support Coming to Android Q

Google’s newest update for the Android OS will include support for foldable phones like the Galaxy Fold, according to new reports. Despite the Fold’s early stumbling blocks, Google is pushing ahead with full OS support for the new type of smartphone. It seems Google has faith that the foldable phone style will be more than a short-lived fad.

Android Q and Foldable Phones

Samsung Galaxy Fold

The only current example of a folding smartphone is the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which has hit a number of stumbling blocks out of the gate. Early review models experienced some serious issues, including flickering or dying screens, bulges beneath the screen and creases in the center of the inner screen. In light of these issues, Samsung delayed the Fold’s launch, making many question the entire folding phone experiment.

Potential for Folding Phones

Clearly, Google believes there’s some potential for folding phones. Android Q will ship with support for the new, dual-screen, folding style of phone that Samsung is previewing. Reviewers have noted that, while expensive, the Galaxy Fold is a great phone.

Notably, a folding phone bridges the gap between phones and tablets. You can fold them up small enough to go in your pocket, and they’re easy to use for making phone calls in their folded configuration. However, when you want to watch videos or play games, unfold the phone and enjoy the massive inner screen.

Issues to Overcome

Of course, folding phones offer issues for developers as well as consumers. App developers need to account for the potentially massive screen sizes when developing their products. Likewise, apps need to support the ability to be displayed on a smaller outer screen and then be transferred to the larger inner screen. This makes for a complex problem for designers.

At time of writing, the Galaxy Fold has been delayed with no release date from Samsung yet known. The company is currently looking into the issues reviewers had with their handsets to ensure the phone launches without issues. This is wise for Samsung, as they have been burned on hasty releases of untested new phones before, like when the Galaxy Note 7 had issues with the battery literally exploding.

May 9, 2019
The Best Budget Android? Google Pixel 3a Review

The only drawback to Google’s stellar Pixel 3 smartphone is the high price tag. That means that the budget-friendly Pixel 3a was high on our radar. Does the handset stack up to the pedigree of its namesake, or has Google cut too much from this budget handset? Let’s get into it.

Google Pixel 3a

Overview

The Pixel 3a is a $400 smartphone with a $1,000 camera. The camera that the Pixel series is so well-known for is here and it looks great. Google wisely cut only the most expensive features and left a pared-down, lean and powerful smartphone with the features all users can enjoy.

Features

Essentially, the Pixel 3a and 3a XL function as throwbacks to about three years ago. There’s no in-display fingerprint scanner, no Face ID unlocking, no wireless charging. Instead, this is a bare-bones smartphone that sticks with traditional bezels, a normal fingerprint scanner and even a 3.5mm headphone jack.

If these features all sound like welcome returns to you, then you’re probably the right person for the 3a. While the features that the 3a lacks are certainly cool on top-of-the-line phones, they’re largely unnecessary. And what new features it brings, it brings well.

What You Get

Picture quality on the 3a is incredible, easily matching the earlier phones in this line for capturing beautiful images. The screen is also wonderful, sporting an HD+ OLED panel that’s big and vibrant. While you might not have the most elaborate housing for the screen, it’s still a wonderful smartphone screen.

You do, however, have some trade-offs. The Snapdragon 670 under the hood is a notably wimpier chip than the Snapdragon 845 found in the normal Pixel 3. However, most users won’t even notice the decrease in power. Also, the phone has a plastic casing, which feels cheap and slippery compared to the glass-and-steel construction of modern flagship phones.

Bottom Line

If you’re in the market for a new phone and don’t want to spend $1,000, but still want the best you can get, the Pixel 3a is a very good deal. It’s hard to knock the budget smartphone, as it brings a ton of value for its low price. This is truly the best budget Android device on the market.

May 9, 2019
What to Expect at Google’s 2019 I/O Conference

Google’s annual developer summit, the I/O conference, is here Every Spring, Google summons a host of developers to Mountain View, where the company shows off the newest upcoming stuff coming in the next year. What can we expect to see the company show off this year?

Google’s 2019 I/O Developer Conference

Stadia News

Google’s banking big on their Stadia game-streaming service. The game-changing game-delivery service still has a number of question marks circling around it. Will it be subscription based, or will you buy games as normal? How will Google make sure the games on their platform stay stable over weaker internet connections? Will the service allow for cross-platform play with PC and console gamers?

We expect all these questions and more will be at least touched on, if not answered, during the conference. The biggest question still surrounding the service, of course, is when it will release. Given that we’ve heard it will be available before the end of the year, we’re guessing a Q4 2019 release.

Google Pixel 3a

The more budget-friendly Google Pixel, the Pixel 3a, is more than likely the best phone in is $400 price range. The camera is stellar and the build quality is solid for a phone of its price. Expect to see lots of hype and support for the Pixel 3a during Google’s developers conference.

Android Q

There are a few big questions looming over Android Q, none the least of which being what dessert food that starts with Q can Google use for the OS. The newest Android OS has been in beta-test mode since mid-March, so we can expect more thorough details on the system and what new features it brings during the conference.

Namely, features like “bubbles,” an upcoming feature that will allow you to interact with other apps without leaving the app you’re currently in. Other new features are rumored to include share-sheets to allow for easier information sharing, as well as settings panels accessible from within apps. In general, expect lots of small quality of life tweaks.

Most importantly, Google has promised Android Q will have an updated focus on privacy. The OS will limit what kind of things apps can do in the background, what information apps can transfer about the phone they’re on and more.

May 8, 2019