One of the niftiest small features that Google announced it was stuffing into Android 8.1 Oreo is the ability to see the speed of a public Wi-Fi signal before you join it. After updating, Android’s Wi-Fi Assistant will tell you if a signal is Very Fast, Fast, OK or Slow the next time you try to join a public Wi-Fi channel. Keep in mind that Wi-Fi Assistant only works for public, open Wi-Fi networks as Android needs to access the signal in order to check it out. If you’re a business owner who doe

Offering robust, powerful and clear playback in all areas of the audio spectrum, the Creative Aurvana Trio is one of the best pairs of in-ear headphones on the market. In simplest terms, the words ‘triple-driver’ refer to the triple driver array inside each earbud. instead of one driver that’s forced to produce all areas of sound simultaneously, triple driver headphones divide and conquer the audio spectrum, often with spectacular results. With crystal clear mids, rollicking warm highs and heart

If you’ve been holding out on purchasing one of the Windows 10 mixed reality headsets because the price was a tad high, today is your lucky day. Amazon has several models of the Windows-backed virtual reality headsets on sale at huge discounts, including one visor that’s nearly half off. The specific models on sale are the Acer Windows Mixed Reality Headset with Controllers, the Lenovo Explorer with Controllers, the Dell Visor with Controllers, and the HP Mixed Reality Headset with Controllers.

Image credit: WaymoWaymo, the division of Google’s parent company Alphabet that’s dedicated to automated cars, recently announced that it’ll soon start testing its self-driving minivans in Atlanta, Georgia. Unfortunately, we know little else about the Atlanta tests aside from the location, but the rollout should be soon. Last week Waymo started building 3D maps of the downtown Atlanta area in preparation for the launch, ensuring that the cars have an up-to-date reference before Waymo starts invi

DJI, maker of some of the most popular and impressive consumer drones on the market, including the DJI Mavic Pro, will launch a new drone at an event on Tuesday, January 23. Credit: DroneDJ (Image: © DroneDJ)The leaks show a new drone, called the DJI Mavic Air, that has its rotors on foldable arms, like those of the DJI Mavic Pro, making it extra portable. The DJI Mavic Air price is also believed to be somewhere between the DJI Mavic Pro’s $999 (about £725 / AU$1,250) and DJI Spark’s standard $4

Did you buy Nokia’s (formerly Withings’) most expensive smart scale, the Body Cardio? But in the case of Nokia, those who paid good money ($80 more than the next cheapest scale) have found themselves in an unfortunate situation. And because it’s a Wi-Fi connected smart gadget, you can’t avoid the automatic update. Nokia points out that all other features are unaffected, and thankfully, the company’s offering a plan to make it up to customers. If you’ve purchased a Body Cardio smart scale, you ca

You can find the 1,800 square-foot store in Amazon’s home turf of downtown Seattle, but what you won’t find are any check-out lines or human cashiers. Instead, aside from a few humans who hang around to keep the place stocked, it’s all fully automated. Amazon says it currently has no plans to implement the system in Whole Foods, which Amazon bought to much fanfare last year. As the Times notes, the US Department of Labor reported in 2016 that 3.5 million Americans held cashier jobs in May of 201

If you own a PC or Mac using an Intel processor and have been patiently waiting for Spectre and Meltdown patches appear on Windows Update or Mac App Store updates, you shouldn’t download it. That’s the latest directive from Intel, who cited spontaneous reboot and system instability problems – first reported January 11 – following its latest firmware patch aimed to defend against the Spectre and Meltdown exploit vulnerabilities. For the latest on how to protect yourself from Spectre and Meltdown,

Microsoft’s odd-but-interesting Xbox Watch unreleased prototype is no stranger to popping up in a leak online, but today, we’ve caught a glimpse of its user interface. The leak is thanks to a Twitter user who appears to have acquired not one, but several, units. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Band, then you’ll recognise the tile-based interface that was popularized by Windows 8. Obviously, the Band used a horizontally-oriented display when it was available, differing from the Xbox Watch’s squ

This essential toolkit of free software will help students work smarter, stay secure and avoid procrastinating (none of us really do our best work at 3am, despite what we might tell ourselves). Office software: LibreOfficeDon’t pay through the nose for office software – LibreOffice is a great free option for students, and has all the tools you could possibly needStudents get a discount on Microsoft Office, but it’s still not cheap. Backup software: EaseUS Todo Backup FreeProtect work from accide

If you understand the sport or activity you’re shooting, things will be much easier for you. Some cameras offer a High and Low continuous burst mode, so think about the subject you’re shooting. Do you need to be shooting at 9-10fps, when 5fps is more than fast enough to capture the subject you’re shooting? Instead of half-pressing the shutter button to acquire focus, you use the rear AF-On button to do so. Set a slower shutter speed than normal – for the shot of the cyclist above a shutter speed

The BBC micro:bit is an awesome mini PC that can help teach kids (and adults) how to code. Now, it’s getting a cool new add-on, known as the :GAME Zip 64, which turns it into a handheld games console that allows you to code – and then play – retro games. It is powered by three AA batteries, with the cages used as grips for the handheld console. Build and playCoders can build their own games, or get inspiration from example games written in MakeCode Blocks and MicroPython languages, which can be

Nokia wants its fitness eco-system to one day become as useful as your friends or a personal trainer when you’re working out. Head of Nokia Digital Health Rob Le Bras-Brown told TechRadar exclusively for our Fitness Week, “Our app is called Mate… it should be your mate. One day, this may become a possibility, but it’s not something the company is going to be able to offer in its next update. He continued, “I think with machine learning and some of the AI capabilities Nokia has, that’s not an unr

The first Windows 10 laptops with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant embedded in the operating system – debuted at CES 2018 – are apparently just the beginning. This will be made possible by an Alexa app for Windows 10 that will be available for download in the near future, with those four aforementioned vendors being the first to receive it. Today, Amazon revealed that the ZenBook UX331 – otherwise known as the 2018 edition ZenBook 13 – will offer Alexa upon release. About 98% of the Alexa experien

Are the 100-player battle royale showdowns seen in the likes of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) or Fortnite not a grand enough conflict for you? Well, a new game which is going to be featured at the upcoming PC Gamer Weekender 2018 next month boasts a 400-player battle royale mode. The 400-player battle royale will effectively be the game’s PVP (player versus player) arena mode. The developer has previously said that Project X will be released at some point in 2018, although as ever with re

Watch our full beginner’s guide video to fitness tech:TechRadar’s Fitness Week diariesThinking about getting off the sofa to start your first ever workout or just got home from a marathon? We’ve got three fitness diaries going on this week from a beginner, one from an intermediate and another from a self confessed fitness obsessed fan. The Utter Novice Fitness Week diary How did our fitness newbie get on with his first jog in months? The Dedicated Improver Fitness Week diary A self-confessed oka

The good news: With a few clever tricks you can transform your Apple Watch from a passive ‘fitness tracker’ into a genuine game changer. All of these will not only break the sedentary cycle, but by moving more, you’ll also close the Apple Watch Move and Exercise rings more easily. In the Activity and Workout apps, the Apple Watch also displays your active calories along with the total calorie burn, which includes those calories you burn by basically being alive. Beyond this there are two stats w

Update: There are more heart rate monitors to choose from than ever, so we’ve added six new affordable entries to this list. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to show that general good health is associated with a low resting heart rate (HR), which is why HR tracking is fast becoming the gold standard for fitness wearables. The advantage of HR-based activity monitors is that they help you incorporate regular exercise into your daily routine, which has the knock-on effect of lowering your restin

In excess of a million email addresses and hacked credentials taken from some of the UK’s foremost legal firms are floating around on the dark web, according to a new report. To be precise, security outfit RepKnight reckons that it found almost 1,160,000 email addresses drawn from the top 500 UK legal firms, with the largest company having over 30,000 email addresses exposed on the dark web. More worrying was the fact that 80% of those email addresses had been exposed via third-party security br

While digging around in the image assets accompanying iOS 11.2.5, Espósito found a number of icons that point towards different “scenes” the alter the functionality of the HomePod, including mute functions. At the moment the exact meaning behind these images is a matter of speculation, but since mute icon is a fairly universal symbol it’s a safe bet that this is what it does. Obviously it could mean a mute of the speakers rather than the mic, but Espósito does mention the ability to disable Siri