Month: December 2018

You’re going on vacation in the next few days, and of course, you’ll take your trusted smartphone with you. Until then, no problem. Except you won’t get away with it because you’re so addicted to your phone! Discover our tips on how to intelligently disconnect from your little handheld computer!

Between Facebook, emails and SMS, you are spending a lot of time on your smartphone. In the morning you consult social networks, in the afternoon you discuss WhatsApp, and in the evening you do all kinds of addictive activities.

Smartphones are addictive. You use as a camera, a notebook, a walkman, a game console and much more. Except now you’re going on vacation, so it’s time to take a break from the screen. How are you going to avoid temptation?

Deactivate notifications on your smartphone

Just like looking at your friends’ holiday photos on social networks won’t do you any good because you’re on holiday yourself! So please disconnect from all this and enjoy your trip! The fewer notifications you see on the screen, the less likely you are to click on them.

Disconnect your company’s mailbox

To avoid being bothered by emails from your colleagues, bosses or clients, don’t hesitate to disconnect your inbox before leaving. This way, you won’t be tempted to check your latest emails regularly. More generally, you will no longer have any awareness of what is happening at work while you are away! And that’s the purpose of the holidays.

Dare to use the airplane mode

If you want to disconnect completely, there’s a much more radical solution. Not everyone will dare to do it, but it’s very efficient. And it will also increase the autonomy of your smartphone: put it in airplane mode, you still can take pictures and listen to music (even in Spotify if you have a paid subscription), on the other hand, you cut all your connections, and the battery stops running out for nothing.

Enable automatic replies for emails

It is so easy to avoid clients sending emails while making the recipient of the message want to call you. Activate an automated response. All email clients let you do this whether you’re using Gmail or Outlook. To do this, define your message and a start and end date.

Don’t take your smartphone with you everywhere

You’re on vacation, so there are many places where your smartphone won’t do you any good. You weren’t planning on swimming with him, were you? No matter how waterproof your smartphone is, vacations are sacred. And even if it’s waterproof, you could damage it on the beach because of the sand or even worse if it’s stolen.

However, Bitcoin is down by nearly 75% from its highest level in history last year. Cryptocurrencies have dropped considerably in recent weeks, as traders worry about increased regulatory surveillance and volatility.

Cryptocurrencies were on the rise overall, with a total market capitalization of $112 billion at the time of writing, up from $108 billion on Monday. Seems that people are back on the market for bitcoin!

Ethereum, or Ether, increased by 5% to $94.66 and Litecoin is at $29.20, up 3.9%, while XRP jumped from 12% to $0.33607.

Despite the long-term decline in crypto prices, the blockchain seems to be thriving. Employment opportunities in the sector are booming, with 33% more jobs in 2018 than in the previous year, according to LinkedIn’s 2018 Emerging Jobs Report.

“It is not surprising that we are witnessing an explosion of auto-learning roles and a continuous growth of data science roles… It may not shock you that Blockchain Developer is at the top of the list after this year’s renewed interest in blockchain and crypto-currency,” the report says.

In other news, China is creating its own cryptocurrency. The People’s Bank of China has registered 78 crypto-currency patents since 2016, Bloomberg said. The central bank has also recruited developers and economists for its Cryptocurrency Institute, created to issue a blockchain-based coin.

The government also wants not only to track its citizens’ transactions, but also to require banks to share borrower data before authorizing any transaction, according to Bloomberg. The central bank could also prohibit any financial company from dealing with blacklisted companies, according to patents examined by Bloomberg.

Well, we have to admit that we like the sun. On the other hand, our smartphones don’t. Especially if you think you’re going to forget it in the sun. Who hasn’t ever left his phone lying on a terrace table in the sun?
Therefore, it’s better to be cautious and not leave your mobile companion lying around, as the consequences can lead you to repair it or to have to buy another smartphone. Here are two risks your phone incurs.

Battery failure

Batteries hate heat. And the risk is obviously to ruin it completely. Batteries can’t withstand extreme heat. Above 60 °C, the failure of the battery is for sure.

60 °C is fortunately unimaginable in most areas. That’s true, but we didn’t specify that you had to reach 60 °C for the battery to start suffering — the cells contained in the lithium-ion work better in a comfortable environment with temperatures between 20 and 25 °C maximum. Apple, for its part, makes sure that its iPhones are resistant to temperatures ranging from 0 to 35 °C.

Unstable screen

Generally, users (though not all) leave their smartphone somewhere with the screen facing up. Therefore, in case of intense heat, it is this component that will be affected in the first place. Even the best smartphone screens, whether AMOLED or LCD, cannot withstand a good heat wave without blinking.
Then you may see instabilities in the animations or even areas that would not have been able to withstand the high temperatures that would reveal small dots. And of course, the most visible will be an incorrect response to your actions on the touchscreen. It may seem obvious to everyone, but it’s not uncommon for us to put our smartphones in the heat: in the office by a window, in the car, on a table on the terrace, and so on.

Deterioration of the internal components

Again, this is quite logical, but the downside of overheating components is that the damage is not necessarily immediately visible.

If your display shows signs of weakness quickly enough in the event of overexposure to the sun, this may not necessarily be the case for the other components.
Whether it’s the processor, photocells, antenna, or any other internal component, overexposure can significantly weaken them. At extremely high temperatures, some parts of the printed circuit board may even melt (well, you still have to go very hard or live in the middle of the desert). Before you get there, you’ll also notice a general slowdown of your device.
However, micro-welding can suffer a blow and failures can occur several days or weeks later. You should be very careful and avoid wanting to tan smartphone.