Find out how you can safely get rid of your old electronics, whether they still work or they’re beyond repair.

If Your Electronics Are Broken:

The reason why you can’t toss your broken phones and chewed up extension cords into the trash is that they’re hazardous. Electronic waste often contains materials that can be harmful to the environment and to people that come in close contact with them:

• Lead
• Cadmium
• Beryllium
• Phosphors
• Chromium

Those materials will contaminate the surrounding waste in a landfill or recycling facility, and they will seep into the nearby soil or groundwater. Governments try to prevent this contamination by banning e-waste from garbage cans and blue bins. Even with the warnings, too many people still toss their old and broken electronics in with their trash.

So, how can you get rid of it properly? The easiest thing that you can do is go to Canada Iron because they have years of experience recycling e-waste. The scrap metal facility is a member of the Ontario Electronic Stewardship Program (OES), so they have the credentials to back up their promise to keep electronic waste out of landfills and recycle the materials as safely and effectively as possible.

A perk that comes with bringing your items to this facility is that you can get rewarded. Since the materials are still valuable, the facility pays its customers for what they bring in. So, you could help the environment and make a profit.

If Your Electronics Are in Good Condition:

If your electronics are still in good condition, but you don’t need them anymore, you should try your best to sell them. You never know who could make good use of a second-hand computer, smartphone or tablet.

Before you put a device up for sale on Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace, you should do some preparations. First, you’re going to want to wipe your personal data so that the new owner can’t scroll through your old documents, photos or private information. You don’t want to give anyone access to your account passwords or online banking. It should be a blank slate for the next user.

The next thing that you should do is give it a thorough clean. You don’t want to post pictures of a device that’s covered in smudges and scuff marks. A rough appearance will make it much harder to sell. Small actions like wiping down the screen, dusting off the keyboard and replacing the screen protector will make a big difference.

If you’re feeling generous, look for charities that want electronic donations like computers, smartphones and household appliances. That way, you can get rid of your devices and take part in a good cause at the same time.

Now, you don’t have to wonder what to do with that box of electronics sitting in the corner. Recycling, selling or donating your old devices are all much better options than ignoring the rules and tossing them into the garbage.

Now with most smartphones having the appearance of flat, rectangular pieces of glass with rounded corners and a few buttons, phone manufacturers are looking to shake up the market with a little change. And that change was to take from the rich culture of the past and incorporate into the technology that exists today. Thus, brings in the era of the foldable phone.

Perfecting the Fold

 
In 2019, the new and improved Motorla Razr and the Samsung Galaxy Fold were released. That makes 2020 the year of the foldable phone, after the world and the economy recovers hopefully. But foldable phone technology still needs some time to prepare for their debut as the last few wrinkles are ironed out such as perfecting foldable phone software as well as foldable glass.

Future foldables won’t have the same satisfying “snap” as their ancestors. Instead, foldable glass will give the new smartphones their novelty. Foldable glass is a type of ultra-thin glass that can be bent hundreds of thousands of times over, instead of folding and leaves a gap between the two screens. It’s not a totally new phenomenon, but perfecting it to survive daily use will take time.

Folding into the Future

 
Whether we want them or not, foldable phones are on their way to become the new “it” thing. But the new design doesn’t bring much else other than its bendability at this point. The fact that it can fold makes it more compact and easier to carry unlike current rectangular smartphones that easily slip out of shallow pockets. However, there is still much work to be done as engineers play with the laws of physics to find the right balance between bendability and damage resistance.

There are several foldables currently on the market like the Huawei Mate X, Microsoft Surface Duo with models from LG, TCL, and Apple under wraps. Companies are holding back their foldables until they’re ready but will be releasing them as an alternative choice for classic smartphones. Over a decade since the original iPhone, smartphones have essentially become powerful handheld computers.

Due to the high price tags on smartphones, more people are holding onto their older models longer rather than spending another thousand dollars for the newest model that comes within a year of the last. The high quality of every model plays a factor for people to hang on to their smartphone a little tighter leading to fewer smartphone sales every year.

Will the Market Fold?

 
The age of foldable phones is on the horizon to shake up the monotonous smartphone market and as another device for technological companies to perfect. At the moment, the cons outweigh the pros, but we’ll just have to wait and see what comes out.

With health consciousness growing as a priority, wearable tech offers an immediate report of changes to your body and provides more information to improve. As expected, tech giants like Apple and Samsung both have their own wearable tech and continue to innovate for even more uses.
 

Wearable Tech Isn’t Going Anywhere

 
Ever since Fitbit opened the door for wearable technology that tracked fitness levels with its $4 billion IPO in 2015, the industry has boomed. As the only one of its kind, Fitbit’s success only increased over time and became the number one seller of wearables.

Seeing Fitbit’s success, other tech giants decided to release their own versions of wearables. Apple came out with the Apple Watch and Samsung soon followed with their own. Now, 5 years since, the increase in popularity of wearable technology has resulted in a whole market of improved fitness trackers that are capable of much more.

The Apple Watch dominates the market as the best smartwatch you can buy. And in order to compete, a Google subsidiary purchased Fitbit. This partnership has the potential to shake the wearable tech market with Google’s many resources and Fitbit’s original innovations.
 

Apple Watch

 
The current king of smartwatches, the Apple Watch Series 5 continues to outshine the others. This version has a few upgrades from the previous, but runs pretty much in the same way. The Series 5 offers a new Always-On-Display so, when at rest, users don’t have to wave their hands around to check the time.

It also has a new compass feature and an international emergency calling system for LTE versions that works internationally with or without a cellular plan and contacts local emergency services regardless of where the watch was originally purchased. Its fall detection feature will automatically contact emergency services when it detects a hard fall without any movement afterwards.

Like with many other Apple products, it has a pretty big price tag with a starting price at $399 USD and only works with Apple products – keeping out a rather large part of the market. Other areas of improvement users are voicing is its lack of “all day” battery life.
 

Android Watches

 
Android smartwatches, on the other hand, are compatible with a wide range of smartwatches including Fossil and Garmen. Currently the best Android smartwatch on the market is the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2. Sticking to its original purpose to track exercise and fitness levels, the Active 2 automatically tracks workouts and tracks sleep, water and food consumption. It even provides a rundown of what to expect for your next workout. For those who use their smartwatch as an extension of their phone for notifications, it does that well too. And one of its best features is that it can last up to 2-3 days and be charged via Samsung’s S10!

1.    STREAKS, $4.99

 
The idea is simple: every time you complete a task, you build a streak. STREAKS is a to-do list that helps you form better habits and eliminate bad habits through live data tracking. The data and streak length work to motivate you to complete small actions consistently and achieve your goal.
 

2.    Pennies, $5.49

 
A popular iPhone app, Pennies is a budget app that’s also available for the Apple Watch. After setting up a budget on the iPhone, the Apple Watch app shows you a glance of the status of your spending allowances for the day.
 

3.    Dark Sky, $3.99

 
Dark Sky is the ultimate weather app that gives you highly-accurate forecasts – down to the minute. It’s “like magic” with a slick design and animations that with a flick of the wrist, you can know the minute it will start raining.
 

4.    Shazam, Free

 
Technology has finally solved the problem of finding the title of a good song as soon as you hear it and now it’s even faster. There’s no more googling partial lyrics hoping for the best, just tap your Apple Watch.
 

5.    Citymapper, Free

 
We’ve come a long way since the days of printing out MapQuest directions to get to where we need to be. Citymapper on the Apple Watch gives you live updates and real time directions that tell you exactly how long and when to walk, wait, and go. It’s available for many major cities dependent on public transit.
 

6.    Trivia Crack, Free

 
Spin Willy the Wheel without taking your phone out and use all your turns on Trivia Crack. Prove you’re smarter than all of your friends and learn even more new information playing Trivia Crack on your Apple Watch
 

7.    Noted., Free

 
Noted. is the godsend note taking app that records audio that uses Machine Learning features to cut out periods of silence, background noise, and applause. The best part is that with just a tap, you can use a TimeTag for key moments that you can conveniently access across all platforms. Now the Apple Watch gives you the convenience of recording as soon as you need. The free version only allows up to 5 notes, so for people who will be using it often would be better off with the monthly subscription at $2.49 or a yearly subscription at $23.99.
 

8.    Carrot Fit, $4.99

 
If a rude awakening is what you need to get fit, then the Carrot Fit app is the health and fitness app for you. CARROT uses a deprecating attitude to motivate you the “tubby human” to meet your fitness goals. Get kicked into shape and monitor your progress with a fun, sassy app like Carrot Fit.

The New Apple Mac Pro Computer is Repairable

 
iFixit is a wiki-based site where individuals with technical knowledge can share what they know with people who need to find out how to fix things.

iFixit rated Apple Mac Pro as a nine out of ten for repairability.
 

What Makes it Easier to Fix

 
What makes the Mac Pro easier to fix is it is easy to open, and components can be replaced without having to use tools.

The components themselves have step numbers and diagrams printed on them, so you know you have the right component, and you’re guided step by step.
 

Replacements and Upgrade Parts

 
A big part of being repairable is availability of replacement parts and upgrades for its parts. For example, if instead of using Apple name-brand upgrades you are able to upgrade the machine’s RAM with parts that are third-party and off-the-shelf you will save a lot of money!
 

Apple Has Designed Products Specifically to be Unrepairable

 
All the tech companies make their products unrepairable, but Apple is one of the most outstanding because of its influence on a larger consuming population.

It’s all about sales. It is in their best interest to make it so that it is easier to toss a device than it is to deal with something like the battery life of a device getting worse.

Or they come out with a shiny new advanced model with a feature we somehow can’t do without that makes a device we were perfectly happy with seem tossable.

In addition, advocacy groups accuse Apple of keeping neutral standards groups from carrying out environmentally friendly actions that would prevent more new units to be manufactured by increasing device longevity.
 

This is How They Make It More Difficult to Repair Their Products

 
Some of the ways they make their product more difficult to repair is using screws specific to Apple, unibody enclosures, and other manufacturing and design tricks so that only Apple or experts can repair their devices.

Batteries are a significant problem. Apple glues them to other components or hides them among complex parts.

This results in consumers trading in or discarding models that are only 18-24 months old.
 

There is a Whole Right to Repair Movement

 
In the past, Apple has vigorously fought right to repair legislation in New York, and has even been known to ask lawmakers privately to kill legislation.

There is a push for right to repair legislation in the state of California, where a lawmaker has pointed out that the onus is on Apple to give legitimate reasons why people can’t repair their own devices, and what damage or danger it causes them.

Apple may have made the Mac Pro repairable because they see that the tide is turning and people are demanding the right to repair their own devices.

The decision to purchase a new iPhone takes some serious consideration as it can be a steep investment for some people. However, the new iPhone 11 models come at a relatively fair price for their capabilities, according to phone and tech enthusiasts who’ve performed tests to determine its overall quality. The general conclusion seems to be that the iPhone 11 is better, faster, and worth its price if you’re looking for a new iPhone model.
 

Here’s a quick look at the iPhone 11’s pros and cons:

 
The Good:

• Faster processing
• Longer battery life
• Improved video camera
• Camera mode optimizes photos with Night Mode and Deep Fusion

The Bad:

• No USB C port
• No fast charger included
• No OLED display (but still has a decent display, nevertheless)
• Optimal camera updates only work for rear photo camera

The Bottom Line:

The iPhone 11 is more durable and stronger than the its predecessors and has survived 8 feet and below drop tests. The optimized battery allows for a full day use and Apple also offers smart battery cases for all iPhone 11 models. The updated cameras will satisfy most day-to-day users with the new Ultra-Wide mode, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion optimization. It’s also one of the better smartphone cameras on the market.

The qualities it lacks are mostly available with the Pro models, but its performance isn’t hindered for what it doesn’t have. The Pros come with a 18W fast charger block, but the iPhone 11 doesn’t and you’d need to buy a third-party product for faster charging.
 

The iPhone 11 Overall

 
As the mid-tier model, the iPhone 11 is meant to meet the budget for most iPhone buyers. just because it has a more affordable price tag, it doesn’t mean it’s a “cheap” model because its upgrades proved to be of great value in comparison to older models. It also comes in a colorful assortment: black, white, (Product)RED, purple, green, and yellow.

Non-photographers won’t notice any “flaws” that professional photographers and nit-picky users will see. So, if you don’t use the camera for professional or other work reasons, you should be satisfied with it. Actual photographers would be more interested in the Pro models if they expect to use their phone for professional photos.

If you’re looking to buy a new iPhone, the iPhone 11 would definitely satisfy day-to-day uses and comes with all the cool updates from the most recent iOS. But if you’re thinking of upgrading your current model, you would still get a good product with the iPhone 11, but you can also wait longer to see what will come out next year!

Phones

Google Pixel 3a

For durable, performance, battery life, OLED display and amazing camera, the Google Pixel 3a is the best Android phone you can get. Add in a couple years’-worth of guarantee and security updates and there’s no reason to get any other phone this year.

Apple iPhone XR

Available in a variety of colours from black to coral, this phone will have you heading back to school in style. A much more affordable version of the iPhone XS, the XR still offers the best performance, hardware and software in the smartphone game, as well as a great camera and battery life.

Laptops

ASUS Chromebook Flip C434

For a more affordable laptop without losing out on features, go for the Chromebook Flip. This slim laptop comes with a 360-degree hinge touchscreen, and with an Intel Core m3 processor, it’s capable of handling any tasks needed of it. It also lasts 10 hours between charges.

Apple MacBook Air

Weighing less than 3 pounds, this laptop will be able to accommodate all of your schoolwork needs without weighing down your bag. With the standard amazing Apple hardware and processing, 12 hours of battery life and 1.5TB of storage, you can’t do better than the MacBook Air for a school computer.

Tablets

Apple iPad

The iPad is the best tablet you can get in this incredibly affordable price range—and really, it gives you no reason to go higher. Get the best apps Apple has to offer and pair it with a first-generation Apple Pencil for easy notetaking.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4

The Galaxy S4 is a high-performing tablet with 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display and an S Pen stylus for notetaking freedom. A keyboard cover is also available for the slate if you are more of a typing note taker.

Read on to see how you can help keep your restaurant’s kitchen organized with employee scheduling software.
 

Staffing Schedules Made Easy, Quickly

 
Employee scheduling software is designed to fix your scheduling issues for your entire staff, from the kitchen to the waiters and everybody else. This new software can reduce the time it takes to create a responsive schedule everyone loves by as much as 80%, which keeps your staff working where they’re most effective. The amount of time colleagues spend outside work making phone calls and text messages with each other to help create the work schedule gets reduced by 70%.

This eases what can be a frustrating and time-consuming process, but it also leads to direct gains for your budget — your restaurant will save between 1-3% in labor costs as a result. Your cooks will love how much smoother the process of schedule creation is, and how much freer they feel to focus on food.
 

Streamlined Communications

 
One of the ironies about modern technology is that there are so many devices and methods of communication that sometimes the wires get crossed, and staying connected actually becomes more complicated. Employee scheduling software is designed to cut through this, and it provides powerful modern tools that keep everybody in the know, quickly.

Chat groups can be customized to include only those who need to stay in touch — a manager can contact the entire team if they need to be informed about a new lunch special, for example, but the groups can be limited to certain departments or teams as needed. The kitchen staff will only receive messages that they need to be briefed on, and are otherwise free to do their job undisturbed.
 

Manager-Facing Dashboards

 
One of the essential aspects of running an efficient kitchen is having an informed sense of everything going on it, both in terms of hard data related to costs and expenses and consulting the eyes and ears of your front-line staff. Employee scheduling software gives you powerful tools to gain both types of understanding.

The manager-facing dashboards clearly presents vital stats like total sales, labor costs, and labor as a percentage of costs in real time, so you always have the latest data. It’s also easy to compare it against past weeks, so your restaurant’s economic health is easy to track.

But there’s also a special section for employees to leave feedback, as well as rate the shift. When what’s going on in the kitchen isn’t reflected in the hard data, this software still gives you the full picture.

The restaurant industry is notoriously challenging, so modern tools like employee scheduling software that keep the kitchen organized cannot be overlooked — get yours today, so all your cooks have to focus on is cooking.

Where Are ID Cards Used?

 
The range of professional uses for ID cards is astounding – even people working in the most dangerous and important professions – like military, police and emergency services units – trust their lives and others to the reliability of their identity badges every day.
 

The Many Uses of PVC Security Cards

Due to the fact that PVC ID cards offer a resilient security device, are capable of containing a number of useful technologies and are inexpensive to make, they are used for a variety of purposes by a number of different industries. Some of these include:

• Personnel Management
• Equipment Tracking
• Company Branding
• Visitor Passes
• Digitally Enhanced Business Cards

If you didn’t realize it before, it should be clear by now how abundant this security technology is and that it can be used in many ways.

What is PVC and How is It Made?

 
You may already be aware that security ID cards are used in a wide array of industries, but did you know this technology is made from a kind of plastic that makes it affordable while also versatile. Due to the fact that it is so versatile, PVC, or Polyvinyl Chloride, is used in a vast number of everyday products as well.
 

Security Technology Used in ID Cards

 
Because PVC is so versatile, it can also carry a number of different security technologies for the purpose of personnel management and controlling access to sensitive areas. One of the oldest card reading technologies still in use today is magnetic strip reading capabilities. Although magnetic strips have been in use since they were invented during World War II for data storage, this technology is still widely used today and can provide an effective layer of security.

Some of the newer security technologies that can be included in ID cards includes:

• High-resolution colour photos
• Digital proximity card reading
• Holographic lamination
• Smart chip with data encoding
• Overlay protection

Used separately, or in conjunction, depending on the security requirements of the user, these various levels of security technology provide an excellent defence against counterfeiting attempts.

Other Uses of Similar Technology

 
Besides the industries that use security ID card printing systems, some of the most sensitive businesses employ similar security technology to prevent criminals from access. For example, banking cards use smart chips, magnetic strips, and proximity reading to allow millions of quick and secure financial transactions to occur every day.

No business should risk operating without some kind of security system in place. Now that you have gained a better understanding of how PVC cards are made and how they work, contact a complete security ID card printing solutions provider to learn more about how you can bring this reliable technology to service at your company.

However, while it seems like the FaceApp Challenge is just a fun way to speculate on how ruthless father time might be to us, or what we would look like with a fabulous beard, or even how attractive we might be as the opposite gender, experts are warning it could be a far more sinister way to mine our private data.

According to experts, FaceApp includes a clause in their terms and services—you know, that long list of things no one ever reads—that stipulates by accepting their terms, you give them permission to share your photos and other data with third parties.

Privacy Invasion

Ann Cavoukian, Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre’s executive director warns that your face is one of the most sensitive forms of information you have. “You don’t want this compromised and used in ways that you never intended,” she says.

In addition to granting permission for FaceApp to share their facial images with third parties, users also grant permission for the company to use images of their face for commercial purposes; the terms of service indicate the company might sell assets, including user data, to third-party companies, as well as sharing said data with affiliated companies.

Associate Editor of Surveillance & Society and Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo, Jennifer Whitson, says the reason Apps include clauses like this in their terms and service isn’t necessarily because they plan on using your data right away, but rather, they believe it will become useful and therefore valuable in the future.

“What they do is they collect it all, as much as they can gather and store it, because storage is cheap, and hope that they can figure out some way in the future of how they can use it to make them rich,” Whitson says.

She also cautions users to be mindful of the fact that free apps have to make money in some capacity.

App’s Response

According to Yaroslav Goncharov, the Russian developer of the app, the company doesn’t sell user’s data to third parties.

Goncharov claims the company only uploads pictures that users choose to edit to the cloud, but they never upload separate photos.

Goncharov also claims the majority of photos saved to the cloud are deleted after two days. Additionally, the app can be used anonymously without requiring users to login in order to avoid giving them personal information.

According to Goncharov, none of the data is sent to Russia, and users can request that all of their data be deleted (however, he said the support team is currently overloaded, which could cause a delay).