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20 great uses for an old Android device

We all love getting new gadgets, but what to do with the old ones? Here are 20 clever ways to put your old Android phone or tablet to good use. Got extra smartphones sitting around your office? How about tablets? As we move multiple generations into mobile technology, more and more of us are building up collections of old, dated devices from both our work and our personal lives. And more often than not, those devices do little more than take up space and gather dust. Here's a little secret, though: Your abandoned Android gadgets are actually virtual gold mines. You just have to find the right way to tap into their potential and give them new life. So grab the nearest DustBuster and get ready: Here are 20 ways to make your old phone or tablet useful again. 1. Use it as a wireless trackpad and controller for your computer With the right software and a couple minutes of configuration, your old Android device can act as an on-demand controller for your Windows, Mac, or Linux comp
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The Top 10 Tech Trends In 2022 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now

#1: Computing Power Computing power will continue to explode in 2022. We now have considerably better cloud infrastructure, and many businesses are re-platforming to the cloud. We are also seeing a push towards better networks – 5G is being rolled out, and 6G is on the horizon. That means even more power in our phones, in our cars, and in our wearable devices. #2: Smarter Devices Growing computer power is enabling us to create smarter devices. We now have intelligent televisions, autonomous cars, and more intelligent robots that can work alongside humans to complete more tasks. In 2022, we’ll see continued momentum for this smart device explosion, including the introduction of intelligent home robots. #3 Quantum Computing The trend of quantum computing — the processing of information that is represented by special quantum states – enables machines to handle information in a fundamentally different way from traditional computers. Quantum computing will potentially give us computing powe

What Are the Drivers and Disruptors Behind Tech Innovations

  The 2022 Report team surveyed several thousand IEEE members about the forces behind the technology changes. Desire for sustainable energy, the availability of wireless/broadband connectivity, and use of technology for medical procedures ranked highest as drivers, while 3D printing, the use of robots for labor, and cloud computing were ranked most highly as major disruptors. Drivers Increases in average life expectancy Increasing ratio if retirees to workers Public concern over control over access/amount of personal information Desire for sustainable energy sources Reduction in availability of grants and philanthropic resources Widening economic inequality worldwide Reduced job security in a global market economy Climate change Global terrorism Use of big data and analytics Reduction in cost of data collection and retention (for use in analytics) Quickening pace of knowledge transfer Long-term availability of certain energy sources Alternative distribution chains (such as manufacturer

What Is the Future of Tech: 23 Technologies by 2022

  Security Cross-Cutting Issues The growth of large data repositories and emergence of data analytics have combined with intrusions by bad actors, governments, and corporations to open a Pandora’s box of issues. How can we balance security and privacy in this environment? Open Intellectual Property Movement From open source software and standards to open-access publishing, the open IP movement is upon us. What are the implications? Sustainability Can electronic cars, LED lighting, new types of batteries and chips, and increasing use of renewables combat rising energy use and an explosion in the uptake of computing? Massively Online Open Courses MOOCs have the potential to transform the higher-education landscape, siphoning students from traditional universities and altering faculty and student roles. How significant will their impact be? Quantum Computing Constrained only by the laws of physics, quantum computing will potential extend Moore’s Law into the next decade. As commercial qua

What Will Be The Biggest Innovations by 2023

P redicting the future is hard and risky. Predicting the future in the computing industry is even harder and riskier due to dramatic changes in technology and limitless challenges to innovation. Only a small fraction of innovations truly disrupt the state of the art. Some are not practical or cost-effective, some are ahead of their time, and some simply do not have a market. There are numerous examples of superior technologies that were never adopted because others arrived on time or fared better in the market. Therefore this document is only an attempt to better understand where technologies are going. The book  The Innovator’s Dilemma  and its sequels best describe the process of innovation and disruption. In 2014, a team of technical leaders from the IEEE Computer Society joined forces to write a technical report, entitled  IEEE CS 2022 , surveying 23 technologies that could potentially change the landscape of computer science and industry by the year 2022. In particular, this repor

The Android clipboard enhancement you didn't know you needed

Hey, Android owners: You're copying and pasting like a caveman. This 60-second upgrade will make your life immeasurably easier. Unless you're an exceptionally quirky creature, your phone's clipboard probably isn't something you spend a ton of time contemplating. And really, why would you? It's just an invisible layer that works quietly in the background and supports a relatively mundane system function. Keep a pinch of your contemplation energy available, though, 'cause my goodness: A teensy bit of attention to your phone's clipboard now can enhance your Android-using experience in some pretty powerful ways. And you'll enjoy those enhancements for months or maybe even  years  to come. Fittingly enough, Google itself is turning its focus to the Android clipboard in the upcoming Android 13 release. As we discussed in my newsletter on Friday, Android 13 will introduce a slew of genuinely useful clipboard-centric enhancements, all revolving around a new clip

Chaos on the Internet as Google Search was apparently down for users globally, now restored

If you tried to search something on Google this morning, you very likely failed in perhaps the most simplest of those internet endeavours. Fret not, since you are not walking alone. Thousands of fellow users across the globe ran into similar problems as several Google services experienced a massive outage on Tuesday morning. This is a surprising development, given that Google is not one to usually suffer outages. This follows the global outage suffered by several Microsoft 365 apps, including MS Teams and Outlook, a few weeks ago because of a recent deployment that contained a “broken connection to an internal storage service.” The current (and major) outage was responsible for taking down not just Google Search, but related Google services such as Photos, YouTube, Maps, Drive, and others. Downdetector, the popular outage detecting platform, informed that users have been encountering problems with Google since 6:42 PM IST. If you tried to use Google Search today, you have likely seen t