Google Cardboard Lets You Preview Virtual Reality, But It's Not All That Great

Did You Know? Human tears differ in chemical composition based on the cause of the tears (such as laughter/joy, sadness, or reaction to outside stimulus like onion fumes). Geek Trivia Which Fruit Contains The Most Fat Per Unit Of Fruit? Avocados → Olives → Rowal → Durian → Advertisement WinX DVD Copy Pro - Make DVD Backup without Any Quality Loss WinX DVD Copy Pro is built with 9 DVD Backup Modes. It perfectly clones DVD to DVD Disc with intact video audio quality; copies DVD to ISO image, MPEG2 file, DVD folder for playing, ripping or burning; mounts ISO to a virtual drive and burns DVD to DVD, etc. Holiday giveaway remains in force: download it for free while you still can Want to Change Your Email Preferences? At some point in the past you subscribed to the How-To Geek newsletter, but if you'd like to change the frequency or unsubscribe, you can do so by clicking the button. Change my Subscription (or unsubscribe) Today's How-To Geek Articles By popular request, we're including a quick list of the daily articles at the top of the daily email as well as the regular format near the bottom. How to Prevent iOS Apps from Reinstalling When You Sync With iTunes Google Cardboard Lets You Preview Virtual Reality, But It’s Not All That Great How to Make OS X Beta Updates Stop Showing Up in the App Store How Your PC Could Replace the Gaming Console in Your Living Room How to Secure Your Google, Dropbox, and GitHub Accounts With a U2F Key How to Play Gwent in the Witcher III: Wild Hunt How to Create a Numbered List in Word Using the Keyboard [Sponsored] Time-limited Giveaway! Get WinX DVD Copy Pro for Free and Enjoy 9 Refined Backup Modes How to Use Your Smart Watch or Fitness Tracker as a Silent Alarm Clock U2F Explained: How Google and Other Huge Companies Are Creating a Universal Security Token Thoughts from the Geek This is a daily column written by Lowell Heddings, the founder and owner of How-To Geek. If you prefer, you can read this column in a web browser instead. The Best Upgrade for Your Surface Pro 3 is the SP4 Keyboard If you have a Surface Pro 3, there’s no reason to upgrade to the Surface Pro 4. The tablet itself is too expensive to warrant upgrading for slightly better specs — but the new Type keyboard… that’s a whole different thing. You need to do yourself the favor of upgrading your SP3’s sad keyboard to the great new SP4 keyboard. Yes, it’s backwards compatible. I’ve never really understood the point of the Surface Pro line — despite the marketing, it can’t replace your laptop because the kickstand just doesn’t give you the balance you need, and the keyboard case isn’t sturdy enough for serious typing. And then there’s the keyboard, which isn’t that great, but is made enough worse by the terrible touchpad. Where I live in Northern Virginia, anywhere you go you’ll see people using a Surface tablet — coffee shops, sandwich shops, lounges, or anywhere else that people like to sit and conduct business. They are everywhere, all the time… and never once have I seen anybody using a Surface tablet in… tablet mode. Or in laptop mode. Every single time I have seen somebody using one, they are always using it at a desk or table… the Surface Pro is the tablet that can replace your desktop. Just not your laptop. The Surface Pro is an amazingly well constructed device, it’s a high quality tablet, for sure. And it deserves a better keyboard to go along with it. Why the Surface Pro 4 Type Keyboard is So Much Better Just take a look at the new SP4 keyboard and you’ll immediately see the difference — the keys are actually separated and look like any great chiclet-style keyboard does. It’s actually enjoyable to type on, assuming you are sitting at a desk or table. And then there’s the trackpad, which is easily as good as any regular PC laptop trackpad. It’s smooth, wider than the SP3 version, and works well. Surface Pro 4’s keyboard has great keys, and a very decent trackpad Contrast that with the Surface Pro 3’s keyboard, which has keys so close together that it’s really hard to hit  them accurately, and a weird trackpad that just does not feel good to the touch. You might notice that this keyboard has a lot of dust on it. And that’s because it’s awful and I never feel like using it. The Surface Pro 3 keyboard’s keys are way too close together And the SP4 keyboard also has the option of getting the model with a built-in fingerprint reader, which is pretty useful for logging into your computer. We’ll have some more on that in a future update. The Surface Pro 4 Type Keyboard even has a fingerprint reader So there you have it. The best upgrade for your SP3 is an SP4 keyboard. Previous Thoughts You Might Have Missed: Saturday: First Impressions of the Apple TV: Lots of Entering Passwords Using the Remote Friday: Soon, Windows 10 Will Be Automatically Pushed Through Windows Update Monday: The Emperor Has No Clothes and Nobody Cares Friday: No, The Surface Book is Not Twice as Fast as a MacBook Pro Saturday: Facebook is the Single Biggest Reason Your Battery is Dead Geek Comic Today's Tech Term TCO In the context of IT, TCO (short for Total Cost Of Ownership) refers to the estimated total cost (direct and indirect) of owning the computers acquired by an organization. TCO includes: the original cost of the computers and the software installed on them, upgrades for the original hardware and/or software, maintenance, technical support, training, etc. What We're Reading This section contains what we're reading from around the web, along with commentary from our editors. Think of it like your daily digest of the most interesting things online. How wireless "X-ray vision" could power virtual reality, smart homes, and Hollywood Researchers used Wi-Fi to see people through walls and doors. That's... creepy. [MIT] Sprint's new T-Mobile-style "unlimited" data plan throttles you after 1GB This is a terrible, terrible plan that throttles you to 2G speeds after you use 1GB of data. Plus, they have terrible coverage almost everywhere. This is like offering unlimited dial-up after you use 1GB of data. [ArsTechnica] This is What the History of Camera Sales Looks Like with Smartphones Included Smartphones have destroyed digital cameras for the average person. I was at a birthday party the other day and a grandmother there was embarrassed that she still used a point-and-shoot camera. Professionals still require a DSLR, but for how long? Smartphone cameras are catching up quickly. [Petapixel] Video: Skype founders invent self-driving robot that can deliver groceries for £1 This seems like a much more likely future than drone delivery. By the time the roads are filled with self-driving cars, they will be full of tiny little self-driving robots delivering anything we want from anywhere. [Telegraph] Anonymous #OpKKK: Hacktivists publish first batch of alleged Ku Klux Klan contact details It's interesting to see how certain hacker groups are using their power to fight for things they believe in. You can agree or disagree with their motives, but one thing is for sure: you can't have privacy online. [International Business Times] What using North Korea computers and internet is like Fascinating screenshot tour of the custom operating system used on computers in North Korea. [Business Insider] How to Prevent iOS Apps from Reinstalling When You Sync With iTunes When you delete an app on your iPhone or iPad, you may notice that it gets installed again when you sync with iTunes on your PC. However, there's a way to prevent apps from reinstalling on your iPhone or iPad after you delete them. Read This Article → Google Cardboard Lets You Preview Virtual Reality, But It’s Not All That Great Google Cardboard is cool. It’s a way to try virtual reality with a cheap headset made of cardboard and your current Android phone or iPhone. But, compared to devices like the Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard is just a parlor trick. Read This Article → How to Make OS X Beta Updates Stop Showing Up in the App Store If you signed up for the OS X beta program at some point to test the latest release before it was publicly available, you might be wondering how to get out of installing every single beta update. Or not. Either way, here’s how to get out of it easily. Read This Article → How Your PC Could Replace the Gaming Console in Your Living Room For years, pundits and publicist alike were chanting that PC gaming had finally met its match. That after years on top of the gaming world as the technologically superior option, consoles had finally caught up to the aging platform, and asserted their dominance as the go-to option for anyone who took their top score seriously. Read This Article → How to Secure Your Google, Dropbox, and GitHub Accounts With a U2F Key U2F is an emerging standard for physical authentication tokens. Current U2F keys are all small USB devices. To log in, you won’t need to enter an authentication code provided from an app or SMS — just insert the USB security key and press a button. Here’s how they work. Read This Article → How to Play Gwent in the Witcher III: Wild Hunt It's the game within a game that some people argue might actually be more fun than the actual game itself. The tabletop deckbuilding simulator Gwent, found inside CD ProjektRED’s The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, has proven to be an unexpected runaway hit since it released with its parent title back in May of this year, as players from every corner of the globe continue to pore through decklists, strategy guides, and card location maps long after the single player campaign has already been explored to completion. Read This Article → How to Create a Numbered List in Word Using the Keyboard Creating and removing numbered lists in Word is easy using the "Numbering" command on the ribbon. However, if you prefer using the keyboard, there is a way to quickly create a numbered list using a keyboard shortcut. Read This Article → [Sponsored] Time-limited Giveaway! Get WinX DVD Copy Pro for Free and Enjoy 9 Refined Backup Modes With Halloween creeping closer Digiarty Software is doing its bit, particularly through various forms of promotions and sales, to help you dispel Halloween thrills and chills. At the time of writing, a giveaway promo centering on one of Digiarty's most successful products, WinX DVD Copy Pro, is going well underway. This DVD copy software is specially designed to meet users’ up-to-date DVD backup demand in Windows (10), surprisingly offering up to 9 modes to back up your DVDs. Read This Article → How to Use Your Smart Watch or Fitness Tracker as a Silent Alarm Clock When you need to wake up without disturbing everyone around you a silent vibration-based alarm clock is just the ticket. Many smart watches and fitness trackers have just such a feature built in and you can easily take advantage of it with just a few settings tweaks. Read This Article → U2F Explained: How Google and Other Huge Companies Are Creating a Universal Security Token U2F is a new standard for universal two-factor authentication tokens. These tokens can use USB, NFC, or Bluetooth to provide two-factor authentication across a variety of services. It’s already supported in Chrome for Google, Dropbox, and GitHub accounts. Microsoft is working on implementing it in Edge. Read This Article → Advertisement Download Mobile Security: How to Secure, Privatize, and Recover Your Devices (A $26.99 Value!) Free eBook for a limited time Mobile phones and tablets enhance our lives, but they also make you and your family vulnerable to cyber-attacks or theft. This clever eBook will help you secure your devices and know what to do if the worst happens. Click here to download