Twitter Muting

Twitter has shook a trolls life up!

This week Twitter has introduced a way to block/filter certain words or phrases from appearing on your timeline! It’s a brand new way from the social company to tackle trolls and abusive content on their site.

Muting a conversation that you are apart of is also a feature that muting allows. For example if you have engaged in a conversation for a while and have since dropped out of said conversation, by muting the thread you will no longer receive notifications regarding that thread (they will still be on the notifications tab on your Twitter profile, you just won’t have your phone constantly bleeping all day) Or if you have had a tweet go viral you can mute that also and stop getting notifications for that one tweet.

Another way that muting helps Twitter’s customers is the ability to avoid spoilers from sports events or film/tv shows from showing up in your notifications, however, they will still appear in your timeline – sorry!

Yet Twitter said in a post on their blog:

“This is a feature we’ve heard many of you ask for, and we’re going to keep listening to make it better and more comprehensive over time,”

So there may be some hope for you Walking Dead fans at least!

The main reason for the ability to mute certain words or phrases appearing in your notifications is a fight by the company against harrasment, racism and bullying on their platform. So alongside this muting feature Twitter have improved the way their users can report hate speech, with internal tools and training of staff to allow them to effectively and quickly deal with the content that’s reported to them.

While this feature goes along way to battle the bullies, Twitter said in a statement regarding the update

“We don’t expect these announcements to suddenly remove abusive conduct from Twitter. No single action by us would do that. Instead we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn”

To listen to the guys discussing this feature please click here! 

Fleetlights

Fleetlights is a new initiative from Direct Line aimed at giving light to some of the darkest and most dangerous places in England.

What Fleetlights basically is, is a fleet of drones with lights attached to them which follow you around via an app on your phone. The best use for this would be in places like Petworth which is home to one of the
most dangerous roads in the UK. Due to the lack of streetlights people cannot see where they are going or walking so with the use of Fleetlights they are able to get home safely.

Direct Line are preparing for a future version of insurance companies where they’re becoming much more preventative of accidents rather than dealing with accidents after they have happened and Fleetlights looks like an incredible way to start! A user can even set a group of drone’s to light their path rather than just illuminating above them via a way pointed path set by the user.

To listen to the guys discussing ‘Fleetlights’ please click here!

Please see the video below for more information regarding the Fleetlights technology!

 

To listen to the guys discussing Fleetlights please click here!

Kenu Stance

We love our gadgets here at How To Kill An Hour and the Kenu Stance is no different, in fact we love it! It’s basically a really small and simple tripod, that is the first tripod that utilizes your phones charging port to safely mount the phone, it’s designed to go on to small surfaces, like a wall, a table or a window sill. The tri-pod can be designed to either stand a phone upright or fold up the legs and stabilize the phone to watch a film in landscape mode, it can also be used to shoot incredible timelapses like this as well!

There’s a bunch of functions that the two differing tripod options can do such as:

  • Streaming live video.
  • Creating time-lapse videos.
  • Watching films.
  • Chat using FaceTime and Skype.
  • Take use of the timer option on your phone’s camera better with self-timer shots.

It even has a built in key ring and bottle opener so this little device is more than just handy for photography, it can even get the party started!

To listen to the guys discussing the Kenu Stance please click here!

Please see the video below for more information!

 

Prices start at £13 for Android Phones and £20 for iPhones with lightning connectors.

To buy your own Kenu Stance please click here!

To listen to the guys discussing Kenu Stance please click here!

 

Amazon Fire Tv Stick

We love our streaming here at How To Kill An Hour and HDMI Dongles are increasingly becoming more and more popular than a standard set top box, due to their ease of use and portability.

Producer Bill got to check out the Amazon Fire Tv Stick recently as he is interested in the brand new exclusive show ‘The Grand Tour” at £33 he couldn’t let this great offer slide and picked one up!

It was incredibly easy to set up and use and within minutes you are able to start enjoying your content on the big screen. You plug it into a Free HDMI slot, plug it into the wall if your tele doesn’t put out enough power for it to work, watch a short instruction video and you’re free to binge to your hearts desires.

Plus what makes it even better is that if you have a Prime Video subscription you’re already signed in (As it is an Amazon product) and ready to go with that so no need to labour around and remember passwords to things all your content is right there to watch! All in glorious HD too (4K if you decide to go the set top box route) there’s no 5.1 available unfortunately but you can plug it into a receiver to work around this. With 8gb of storage and 1GB of memory the stick is incredibly fast for such a small device and no LAG which is great for gaming too! (Crossy Road is available and for FREE too!)

 

Click here to buy Amazon Fire Tv Stick

Click here to listen to the guys talking about the Amazon Fire Tv Stick on the show!

Mighty Mugs!

Always knocking over your drink or spilling it everywhere?

Having tech ruined by glasses of water that have accidentally fallen over?

Well we have JUST the tech to combat all of those problems with absolute EASE!

It’s a mug that sticks to your desk when it is bumped into but will lift incredibly naturally!

Introducing the MIGHTY MUG! View the video below to see the mug in action!

Prices start from £12

 

Click here to buy your own Mighty Mug!

Click here to listen to the guys talking about Mighty Mugs on the show!

WhatsApp Video!

WhatsApp has hit iMessage with a massive punch and added video calling to their app for FREE.

First they started with regular old instant message, then group message, most recently they added voice calling to their ranks and now they’ve probably put the nail in iMessage’s coffin with Video Calling.

No more green messages! Yay!

 

Click here to download WhatsApp Apple / Android

Click here to listen to the guys talking about WhatsApp Video on the show!

Snapchat Glasses!

Snapchat has been causing quite the fuss on social media lately and it’s all down to their first piece of physical hardware. Snapchat Glasses. They cost $130 Dollars (Selling for 1000 dollars on ebay) and are only available in pop up ‘stores’ or vending machines which are called ‘Snap Bots’.

There have even been reports of people waiting in line for up to 4 hours in line for these glasses! They are available all around the US however, they aren’t advertised and you have got to scourer your Twitter feed or around the cities or your local area to find them.

The glasses feature a camera with a 115-degree lens, which apparently mimics how we as human’s actually see. When you record footage (connect the glasses via bluetooth to your android or iOS device) the video is shot in circular video. However when you view the footage in the Snapchat app and not on your video/photos app the video then fills the screen, if you rotate the device too you get a super clean and smooth transition, thus allowing you to see more of the image.

The battery lasts about a day or 100 video snaps so it depends on how much you shoot really. You’ll want to keep a hold of the case which holds 4 charges itself, so you can get theoretically around 400 snaps per charge cycle (4 charges)

Click here to download Snapchat! Apple / Android

Click here to listen to the guys talk about Snapchat glasses!

Amazon’s Luxurious 1 Hour Delivery!

Wines from Spirited wines and health and beauty products from John Bell and Croyden will be available to you within an hour (in selected London Postcodes) from Amazon! By joining forces with these companies Amazon will be expanding it’s product offering by approximately 47 percent. 

If you are a Prime Now customer you can browse Amazon like normal or you can visit special John Bell & Croyden or Spirited Wines stores which will add the things you wish to buy to a separate shopping basket. You do however have to spend a minimum of £20 before the 1hr delivery becomes available. If you cannot wait and have to have your goods super quick 1 hour delivery slots will cost you £6.99 but if you can wait a little longer 2 hour delivery slots will not cost a single penny!

That’s not all either! Amazin are now going to offer one hour delivery (priced at the same as luxury goods) from Morrisons to selected London or Hertfordshire postcodes! Amazons link with Morrisons began back in June however this latest agreement between the retail giants expands the ranges that are available to customers.

Click here to listen to the guys talking about Amazon’s super quick delivery!

Pax 2 vaporizer review

The future of smoking (?)

Basic Universal Income

Firstly what is a Basic Universal Income?

BASIC UNIVERSAL INCOME: Basically everyone in a country will receive state funded “wages” with everyone receiving the same amount of money each month in addition to any other form of income received from other avenues.

Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and the hyperloop amongst other really cool things, thinks we’ll eventually need a basic universal income because of “automation.” Automation being the theory that eventually all of our jobs will be taken up by Robots, leading to a loss of jobs for humans. How would human’s live without jobs? This is where Elon’s theory of Basic Universal Income (by way of Robots and job loss) comes into play.

There are a lot of benefits to a basic universal income. Speaking to CNBC Elon states that we will have a lot more time to do more “complex things and more interesting things” One of the most notable benefits being a lot more leisure time! (Plus it allows us to show you more ways to kill time!) But Elon did send out a small warning to anyone thinking that we are about to lose our jobs to those pesky robots, he states that we have got to “Figure out how we integrate with a world and a future with vast A.I….. there has to be some improved symbiosis with digital super intelligence,” He’s not wrong! We’ve seen Terminator! 

However on the flip side there is an incredible amount of benefits to the idea of basic universal income, everyone would essentially receive enough income to survive without working and we’d all live happier lives due to the less stress that we would be under. Plus the threat of homelessness and poverty levels would decrease causing an increase in the health of a countries economy.

So maybe robots taking our jobs aren’t such a bad thing after all……..

Click here to here the guys talking about basic universal income on the show!