Author Archives: Carol Edwards

SAVE $40: Ready to learn more about what makes you, you? As of Aug. 9, grab an AncestryDNA Genetic Ethnicity Test for only $59.

Learning about your culture is a great way to connect with your family members, but if you’re not exactly sure which cultures you should be learning about, a DNA test kit can help. Whether you’re biracial, adopted, or your family just came to the United States a really long time ago, AncestryDNA’s genetic tests break down where in the world your DNA came from — literally.

With DNA testing across over 1,000 global regions, you’ll be able to find out a lot about your ethnicity, even if it comes from a bunch of different countries. You’ll be able to connect with living relatives if they’ve also taken an AncestryDNA test, so you just might find your long-lost cousin. With your results, you’ll get historical insights from the countries and regions you’re from, which will give you a head start on your cultural education journey.

The test is simple to take — it only requires a saliva sample — and you’ll receive your results in six to eight weeks. After that, you’ll be able to build your family tree online and access thousands of records that are linked to your relatives. Look through artifacts like passport photos, marriage certificates, birth certificates, and more to get a full look at how your ancestors moved around the world through the years.

While it’s not quite at the all-time-low price, this AncestryDNA deal is a solid one if you don’t want to wait until this year’s shopping holidays. Grab one for an upcoming birthday, anniversary, or treat yourself to a little self-discovery for only $59.

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For the first time in Olympic and Paralympic history, the podiums are made out of recycled plastic.

Save $20.99: The Cricut Joy DIY machine is on sale for $139, down from $159.99 for a limited time.

A Cricut machine is a fun addition to any school supplies list, whether you’re a teacher, parent, or student. With it, you can personalize masks, lunch boxes, bulletin boards, backpacks, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

And, through Aug. 14, the Cricut Joy is on sale for $139, saving you $20.99.

The Cricut Joy is compact and portable compared to some of the larger Cricut machines, making it nice for classrooms and dorm rooms. To start customizing, create or select a design from the mobile app and the Cricut will do all the hard work for you. Then just stick or iron the design where you want it and you’re done personalizing.

Head back to school this year with fun, customized supplies, and make sure to snag the Cricut Joy while it’s on sale for $139.

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Whether you’re taking a picture of a dazzling beach sunset or documenting your weekend brunch, capturing it with HDR on can ensure that you get the best photos possible.

HDR, which stands for “High Dynamic Range,” is a photography technique that combines multiple exposures of a scene for one high contrast, saturated photo. By taking photos on different exposures depending on the brightness of each part of the scene, photographers can ensure that no part of the photo is too dark or blown out. It’s especially ideal for backlit photos.

Traditional HDR techniques require a photo editing software to combine the multiple exposures into one photo. Luckily, iPhone users can skip that with a nifty iOS feature.

Here’s how to turn your iPhone’s HDR feature on and off.

First, check if your phone is automatically set for HDR already. Go to your phone’s General Settings and scroll or search for “Camera.” Make sure not to tap the option listed under “Privacy.”

Under Camera settings, scroll all the way to the bottom. If the slider next to “Smart HDR” is green, it means your camera has already been set to automatically take HDR photos depending on the lighting. You can tap that slider to turn the feature on (green) or off (grey) — leave it off here if you’d rather decide when you do and don’t use HDR.

If Smart HDR is on, it means you’ve been already taking HDR photos.
Credit: iphone screenshot

Then, open the Camera app. “HDR” should appear in the top right corner. You can control whether or not to use the feature by tapping “HDR.”

Control whether or not to use HDR settings.

Credit: iphone screenshot

Tapping it will turn the feature off.

Credit: iphone screenshot

Now you can toggle HDR on and off!

Britney Spears posted about buying her first iPad on Instagram, and her fans are thrilled for her.

“Okay guys, great news. I got my first iPad today,” Spears said in an ecstatic Instagram video posted Friday. “So, I’ve got my hair up, I’m in my yard, and I’ve been working. But, I came into the kitchen and saw something I ordered, and it is a freaking new iPad.”

She added that her sons Sean and Jayden, who are 15 and 14 years old, have iPads of their own but this is her first.

“This is just a groundbreaking day. I’ve always had a little phone, but now this iPad is in my hands and I feel like my life is changing as we speak and I am so excited,” Spears gushed. “Upward bound! Yes!”

The first iPad was released in 2010. Spears, however, has been under legal guardianship since 2008.

The 39-year-old pop star treated herself to the tablet amid a public fight to end her father’s conservatorship over her finances, career, and medical care. Despite continuing to perform and release music, Spears has been legally dependent on a conservator for the past 13 years.

After her father Jamie Spears stepped down as personal conservator in Sept. 2019, Spears’ medical care fell under the charge of temporary guardian Jodi Montgomery. Her father remains in control of her finances as conservator of her estate. Fans are convinced that she asks for help in coded social media posts, and the tag #FreeBritney is now a rallying cry of support for her independence.

Spears’ iPad purchase, while heartwarming, also alarmed fans.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

One fan compared Spears to a “modern day princess being set free after years of being locked up in her castle” in a comment on her Reel.

“I’m so happy that finally she can buy her own things,” another commented. “And…start doing things she always wanted to do.”

Though the video is still public on the Reels section of Spears’ account, it no longer appears on her main Instagram grid. The video’s absence from Spears’ Instagram grid stoked further speculation of her conservator team’s control over her image. Another video of Spears in her garden is no longer public, either.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

The case against her father is making progress. Britney’s new lawyer Mathew Rosengart filed a motion on Thursday requesting the expedited removal of Jamie Spears as the conservator of her estate. The motion would accelerate the process before the next hearing, which is scheduled for September.

A court filing obtained by People called for the “immediate suspension” of Jamie Spears as conservator, and asked for CPA Jason Rubin to be appointed as temporary conservator. Rubin specializes in handling elder financial abuse cases and managing complex trust portfolios, Vanity Fair reports.

“Although a two-month wait for a hearing on the Petition may not seem significant in the context of 13 years, Ms. Spears should not be forced to continue to feel traumatized, lose sleep, and suffer further,” the motion continues. “Every day matters.”

In the meantime, Britney continues to post delightful content from her iPad.

On Tuesday, Facebook stopped a team of researchers from New York University from studying political ads and COVID-19 misinformation by blocking their personal accounts, pages, apps, and access to its platform. The move was meant to stop NYU’s Ad Observatory from using a browser add-on it launched in 2020 to collect data about the political ads users see on Facebook.

Facebook says it blocked the Ad Observatory because NYU researchers violated the social media platform’s terms of service by scraping user data without permission. But the academics behind the Ad Observatory say they got permission from everyone who uses their browser add-on, and Facebook’s attempt to stop their research has more sinister roots in the platform trying to stop the academics from exposing problems.

“By suspending our accounts, Facebook has effectively ended all this work,” Laura Edelson, an NYU researcher involved in the project who had her personal account banned, tweeted on August 3.

“Facebook has also effectively cut off access to more than two dozen other researchers and journalists who get access to Facebook data through our project, including our work measuring vaccine misinformation with the Virality Project and many other partners who rely on our data. The work our team does to make data about disinformation on Facebook transparent is vital to a healthy internet and a healthy democracy.”

In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it’s reasonable that Facebook might be nervous about third-parties collecting data from its platform. But Facebook insinuated, initially, that it blocked the Ad Observatory because of a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is, simply, untrue.

Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne later told Wired that the consent decree itself wasn’t the reason for the actions taken against the NYU researchers. Instead, Osborne noted the decree required that Facebook create rules for a privacy program that the researchers violated, according to Reuters. The FTC acknowledged Facebook’s response in a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but acting director Samuel Levine also pointedly noted that the revised explanation doesn’t change much.

“Had you honored your commitment to contact us in advance, we would have pointed out that the consent decree does not bar Facebook from creating exceptions for good-faith research in the public interest,” Levine wrote. “Indeed, the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising. While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims.”

Facebook appears to be hiding behind a consent decree that doesn’t actually work in this case. And still, there are few paths forward for Facebook or the NYU Ad Observatory at this time, since neither has any real reason to move to the other side.

This whole situation is basically daring U.S. authorities to actually — finally — pursue regulation. As The Verge’s Casey Newton pointed out, the best way to force big tech companies and researchers to work with each other is for congress to pass some kind of privacy legislation with a dedicated space for academic researchers, and an agency that would do oversight of that research and the online platforms.

Some politicians appear to agree. Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who represents Virginia, called on Congress “to act to bring greater transparency to the shadowy world of online advertising,” according to NPR. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, tweeted that Facebook’s claim that the NYU tool potentially violated privacy law was a “bogus” excuse.

But public statements aren’t the same thing as laws or legislation. Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, told NPR that this entire situation — Facebook cutting off NYU researchers, and the academics having no real recourse — is proof enough that lawmakers need to do something.

“The company functions as a gatekeeper to journalism and research about how the company’s platform works and the impact of its platform on society. And we think that that is untenable,” she said. “The public urgently needs to know and needs to understand the implications of Facebook’s platform for public discourse and democracy.”

In the past year and a half college meme pages that once flourished and defined campus life have suffered from a lack of content due to remote learning.

Because students missed out on community-building experiences at school, such as attending football games, studying in the library, and seeing the same eccentric characters on campus everyday, meme pages suffered a content drought.

Come mid-August students will head back to their universities after extended time away, but can the campus meme pages be revived?

A brief history of campus meme pages

For those who aren’t familiar with campus meme pages and Facebook groups, before the pandemic they were popular at big schools like UC Berkeley and University of Boston, as well as smaller schools like Tuffs and Yale. Students use campus meme pages to bond over the oddities of shared campus life and events. The meme pages also help students distinguish themselves and their universities from other schools.

College meme Facebook groups all follow roughly the same naming pattern, and they also poke fun at school reputations. Some examples include UC Berkeley Memes for Edgy Teens, Yale Memes for Special Snowflake Teens, UCLA Memes for Sick af Tweens, and Harvard Memes for Elitist 1% Tweens.

These pages take advantage of any trending meme format and make it campus specific by referencing a detail about their college and sometimes adding their school’s logo, hat, or insignia.

College meme pages have become hugely popular not only with current students, but also alumni and prospective students. UC Berkeley Memes for Edgy Teens, created in late 2016, was the first prominent college meme page. It now has over 200,000 members. Currently, Harvard Memes for Elitist 1% Teens and UCLA Memes for Sick af Tweens both have around 60,000 members.

This meme intentionally confuses two aspects of UC Berkeley campus life, the dance troupes that practice on campus and protests.
Credit: screenshot: Matt Jereza / Facebook

While Facebook college meme pages still exist and are still active they did not have the wealth of campus related content to draw on for the last year and a half. This is further complicated by younger student’s preference for apps like TikTok and Instagram over Facebook.

I attended UC Berkeley from 2017 to 2021 and our meme page was a point of campus pride. At such a big campus with many splintering identities, the meme page had a sense of community. It was wonderful to be in on the jokes and feel like we were all in it together.

At such a big campus with many splintering identities, the meme page had a sense of community.

UC Berkeley Memes for Edgy Teens relied on a lot of campus tropes like the pain of walking across Sproul (our plaza where hundreds of clubs would flyer daily) and the confusing layout of certain buildings. The meme pages also provided comedic relief for students. Content on the page was often related to campus-wide current events, like the time protesters burned down an Amazon store in 2017 when Milo Yinnopoulos spoke on campus, or when our annual football game against Stanford was postponed because of wildfire smoke in 2018, and again during power cuts due to high wildfire risk in 2019.

Without those universal experiences to draw from in the 2020-2021 school year, there were fewer campus-wide inside jokes and therefore fewer memes.

The rise of Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens

During the pandemic, a meme page for all college students named Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens blew up in place of campus-specific meme pages. The description of the page reads, “Socially isolated college youth stuck doing online courses in closed universities.”

Rachel Wang, a 22-year-old recent UC Berkeley grad and moderator of Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens, noticed a decline in UC Berkeley Memes for Edgy Teens. “Our meme page was the original, right and I feel like their peak was a while back already. I haven’t seen many posts from them on my feed. I think having a page just for college students and because of the novelty of lockdown college students were propelled to Zoom Memes,” said Wang.

Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens was created March 11, 2020, by two Carnegie Mellon students, MeMehul Agrawal and Shreyan Bakshi. Within the first few days it gained over 100,000 members and now has over 910,000 members. Posts often get up to 50,000 likes.

During the pandemic the college experience became more universal. It didn’t matter what college town you were in or what the most confusing building on your campus was because we were all attending classes in our bedrooms and mourning the loss of our college experience. There was a sense of solidarity across campuses in Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens.

An example of the kind of memes posted in Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens.
Credit: screenshot: zeke sanchez / facebook

Zoom Memes provided David Nheui, a 20-year-old rising sophomore at University of Pennsylvania, with a community during COVID-19. The weekend after Nheui was sent home, the meme page hosted a Zoom call. “We were just playing games, talking, it was really fun. I stayed and got to talk to people and I stayed in contact with the people I met in that call and became friends with them,” said Nheui.

“The meme page helped me find and build community during the pandemic. It felt great still being able to connect with other students virtually,” added Nheui.

When the admin of Zoom Memes were looking for more moderators, they reached out to Nheui and he happily accepted.

As more people get vaccinated and college campuses plan to open, Wang has seen a drop in content and engagement in the page. “At its peak there would always be like 10K pending posts and now we have nothing or we have like ten really shitty posts,” said Wang.

“People still submit memes about college that do really well, but I don’t think it will ever be as popular as when it was first formed,” added Wang.

The future of campus meme pages

Returning to campus seems like an opportune time for the resurgence of college meme pages, but will they survive?

Isabella Schlaft, a 20-year-old rising junior at the University of Pennsylvania and moderator of their campus meme page, Official Unofficial Penn Squirrel Catching Club, is hopeful and found that even when campus was closed that the meme page created a community at Penn. “It’s been enjoyable to see when people unite around something that they find funny or entertaining it makes you feel more connected to other people from campus even if you can’t be together in person,” said Schlaft.

It may be challenging to sustain college meme pages on Facebook though as younger students are using Instagram for things that were once done in Facebook groups, like finding freshman year roommates. Some campuses, like Penn, have adapted by creating Instagram meme pages. The Instagram account @pennmemes has over 4,000 followers, @upenn.memes has racked up nearly 10,000. But compare that with Official Unofficial Penn Squirell Catching Club Facebook group which has nearly 30,000 members.

However, Instagram accounts don’t lend themselves to community building the way Facebook groups do. In a Facebook group anyone can post a meme and you can see who is posting it, while on Instagram meme pages, the account posts every meme and credits the meme creator in the caption.

Between the decline in campus meme pages due to COVID and younger students preference for Instagram, it will be interesting to see if Facebook college meme pages make a comeback this fall. But maybe when students arrive back on campus inspiration will hit and the memes will flow freely.

Finally, a map of the U.S. that shows you exactly where you can expect to have mobile broadband coverage.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its brand new mobile broadband coverage map, which shows where people receive 4G LTE service from the nation’s four largest mobile wireless carriers: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, UScellular, and Verizon. The map includes eight different layers for each carrier’s broadband and voice coverage, which are all accurate as of May 15, 2021, Endgadget reported. You can enter a specific address to see what’s covered in your area, or zoom into locations on the map.

“This map provides a preview of how the mobile data the FCC will collect under the standards set by the Broadband DATA Act will look when mapped,” the FCC said on Twitter. “Never before have maps been created using these new, standardized mobile data specifications, which will improve the uniformity and consistency of broadband availability data collected by the FCC.”

The four mobile carriers willingly gave data to the FCC using standardized parameters that were established as part of the Broadband Data Collection program, which gives the FCC, industry, state, local and Tribal government entities, and consumers “the tools they need to improve the accuracy of broadband maps.”

This map is just the latest to come out of 2020’s Broadband DATA Act — and it is not perfect. It doesn’t address home internet availability and it’s missing is data about 5G coverage. But as the editor-in-chief of The Verge, Nilay Patel, pointed out on Twitter, it is long overdue. For any shortcomings, this is still a vastly more accurate and valuable tool in comparison to any map the FCC previously had.

TL;DR: Keep track of your passwords with the JEMPass Password Manager Plan, on sale for 12% off. As of Aug. 8, get one for just $109 and get a free year of the encrypted JEMPass service .

The world is not going to stop demanding that you enter your email address, create accounts, and log new passwords each time you shop, read something, or simply skim the internet. So you might as well make it easier on yourself and round up your passwords and key info together in one place, so you can easily access it when needed.

With the JEMPass Password Manager Plan, you can not only gather all of your important passwords in one place, but you’ll be able to add an authenticator to all of your accounts. So, there’s absolutely no way anyone can ever break into your accounts and take hold of your most precious information. This plan includes both access to the JEM Biometric Authenticator Device and the JEMPass Password Manager for a full year of service.

The JEM authenticator lets you use your saved passwords effortlessly on all of your devices, even if they’re associated with different iCloud or Google accounts. It even works on laptops, iPads, and smartphones, so everything is seamless and you never have to switch between devices just to pull out a password. It features frictionless syncing across devices and ensures automatic password entry for your accounts.

Since the JEMPass plan has an encrypted data vault that uses locally generated cryptographic keys and up-to-date peer-reviewed encryption libraries, you will have complete control of all of your data. Nothing can ever be decrypted on the internet without your JEM and unique fingerprint ID. After the first year of enjoying the JEMPass service, you will only have to pay $39 per year after the free period.

Normally the JEM Biometric Authenticator with JEMPass Password Manager bundle with year-long service retails for $129. But, for a limited time, you can save 15% and get both for just $109.

TL;DR: Help keep your home secure with this $750 ADT-monitored home security voucher. As of Aug. 8, grab it for only $29.99 — a 96% discount.

According to research, a home burglary happens every 15 seconds in the U.S. And according to the same research, homes without a security system are 300% more likely to be broken into and burglarized. Three hundred. In other words, if you haven’t invested in your home security yet, you’re overdue.

Lucky for you, you don’t have to break the bank to stay safe. For a limited time, you can get an ADT-monitored home security voucher that grants you $750 worth of equipment for only $29.88.

The $750 equipment voucher allows you to choose from a wide range of popular devices to fit your individual home security needs. That includes outdoor cameras, glass break sensors, video doorbells, and more, all professionally installed and monitored by ADT. You’ll also get a seven-inch touchscreen panel valued at $600, as well as standard ADT monitoring equipment, including sensors for all exterior doors and a motion detector. You’ll even get a Certificate of Monitoring, which could actually save you even more money on your homeowner’s insurance.

ADT monitoring gives you some peace of mind by allowing you to keep an eye on your home, kids, pets, and more in real-time, or play back recorded clips using your smartphone or tablet from anywhere.

When it comes to protecting your home and your family, you shouldn’t cut corners. ADT is one of the most trusted names in the home security industry, with a 4-star rating on SafeWise and a 9.1 out of 10 on This Old House. We even included it as one of our top security systems a couple of years back.

Invest in a top-notch security system customized for your home for just $29.88. Upon purchase, you’ll receive a digital voucher code for $750 worth of home security equipment and within the next 30 days, you can schedule your installation.