This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.

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In my feminist utopia, sanitary pads and tampons are provided free of charge by the United States government.

In my current reality, they’re offered at $4 bucks a pack at CVS — and that’s with the savings from my CVS card.

We’re a long way from menstruation equality, which makes Nevada’s recent elimination of the “tampon tax” a critical step forward.

On Tuesday, Nevada voted to do away with their 6.85% sales tax imposed on sanitary pads and tampons. 

Hygiene products are typically taxed at this rate. However, Nevada decided to drop the tax given that tampons — unlike, say, luxury soap — are considered medical necessities.

The state is now among 10 that have eliminated the tax, including New York, Minnesota, Illinois, and Florida. 

Advocates have argued that the cost of pads and tampons is too high, especially for low-income residents. Women who don’t have access to these products may miss work or school, they explain.

We’re shattering the glass ceiling, folks, one tampon at a time.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is facing its worst Ebola outbreak in the country’s recorded history, health officials have said.

The announcement late on Friday came amid increasing warnings that the situation could deteriorate because of attacks by armed groups and community resistance in the affected areas in eastern DRC.

Oly Ilunga Kalenga, the DRC’s health minister, said a total of 319 confirmed and probable cases have been reported in North Kivu and Ituri provinces since the outbreak was declared in August.

The figure exceeds the 318 cases documented in 1976, when the deadly Ebola virus was first identified in Yambuku, in the Equateur province.

Kalenga said 198 deaths have been recorded so far in the current outbreak, the country’s 10th, including 165 confirmed cases, with 35 probable deaths. Of the 284 confirmed cases, 97 have survived. 

“This epidemic remains dangerous and unpredictable, and we must not let our guard down,” Kalenga said in a statement.

“We must continue to pursue a very dynamic response that requires permanent readjustments and real ownership at the community level.”

‘World’s most complex epidemic’

But the medical response has been complicated by regular attacks by armed groups battling for control in the mineral-rich eastern parts of the country.

Heath officials have also reported cases of community resistance. 

“No other epidemic in the world has been as complex as the one we are currently experiencing,” said Kalenga. 

According to the minister, the teams responding to the outbreak are attacked on average three or four times a week, in an unprecedented level of violence compared to the country’s nine previous outbreaks. 

“Since their arrival in the region, the response teams have faced threats, physical assaults, repeated destruction of their equipment and kidnapping,” said Kalenga.

“Two of our colleagues in the Rapid Response Medical Unit even lost their lives in an attack,” he added.

Still, officials say they have been able to vaccinate more than 27,000 high-risk contacts, of which at least half could have developed Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids such as sweat, saliva and blood.

Separately, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week that the main challenges in the current epidemic are insecurity and community mistrust. 

“When there is an attack, the operation [vaccinations] actually freezes. And when the operation stops, the virus gets advantage and it affects us in two ways,” he told reporters in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, on Thursday

“One is catching up on the backload. And the other, the second problem, is that more cases are generated because we can’t vaccinate them,” he said.

The confirmation of new cases has accelerated in the last month and an emergency committee of WHO experts said in October that the outbreak was likely to worsen significantly unless the response was stepped up.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Wales v Australia at Principality Stadium – live BBC Two & BBC radio coverage – BBC Sport

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Image: lili sams/mashable

We now have proof that apps drain less of your phone’s battery life when they use darker colors, like black and gray.

At a recent Android Dev Summit session (via SlashGear), Google revealed what we’ve long suspected: the colors used within apps have a direct impact on smartphone battery life, and white or brighter colors are a bigger drain.

Using an original Pixel phone, Google tested various ways the phone was draining battery life. Brightness was of course one of the most obvious factors; everyone knows that the brighter you set the screen to, the faster your battery depletes.

However, the most informative news from the session concerns the use of color. As many of us tech geeks who are already well-versed in the technicalities of a phone’s display already know, switching on a phone’s night mode (if it has one) helps conserve battery life.

While not as noticeable on phones with LCD screens where the entire display is backlit, the power savings from phones with OLED displays (i.e. Samsung phones, Pixels, iPhone X, XS, XS Max, etc.) is considerably greater.

This is because OLED screens aren’t backlit like LCDs, with a uniform level of brightness lighting up all the pixels. Instead, each pixel in an OLED display has an on and off state. As such, the pixel only turns on and uses power when it’s any color other than black. A black pixel is “off” and that’s why blacks are so deep on OLEDs compared to LCDs — because they’re not even lit up.

So it really shouldn’t be surprising that apps toggled to night/dark mode, which often use more black or dark gray, will reduce the speed at which your phone’s battery drains.

I encourage you to switch to night mode (where available) not just because your phone will last longer, but because it’s easier on the eyes. Twitter with a dark theme is less blinding than a day theme that’s mostly white, especially when you’re looking at it in the dark or in places that aren’t bright (like bars, restaurants, etc.).

Google, for its part, hasn’t exactly helped conserve battery life on Android with the Material Design-ification of all of its apps, though. In its attempt to create a consistent and modern flat UI for across all of its apps and services, Android app creators went overboard with the white “negative space.” As a result, their apps suck up more power than they need to.

The takeaway for Google and Android app developers is simple: Use more black and darker colors. It’s good for saving power and dark mode looks so much better in my opinion.

Image: lili sams/mashable

But it’s not just Android phones that can benefit from embracing black in apps. iOS developers should do this as well. With the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max all using OLED screens, there’s an opportunity to make good-looking apps that are also good for battery life.

As someone who’s been using dark mode wherever possible in apps like Twitter and Apollo, and using a black wallpaper on my homescreen, I constantly wish more apps embraced the aesthetic. Now that there’s proof it actually prolongs battery, there’s even more reason to make dark mode an option.

If Apple steps up and takes the lead with dark mode in its default iOS apps, it’ll incentivize other app developers to follow suit. Apple’s already taken baby steps with dark mode on macOS Mojave and it’s glorious. 

It’s time the company did the same with iOS. It’s always seemed strange to me that some iOS apps are dark (i.e. Clock, Watch, Compass, Activity, Calculator) but others aren’t. Maybe in iOS 13 Apple can finally dark mode all the apps. If there’s one thing iOS 13 should have, it’s this.

Premier League live – Newcastle, West Ham, Leicester and Southampton in action – Live – BBC Sport

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As a “smart display” speaker, the Google Home Hub is essentially a Google Home Mini mashed together with a 7-inch touchscreen.

It does all of the smart speaker stuff you expect from a Google Assistant-powered connected home device with voice (play music, control your smart home devices, tell you the news and weather, etc.) with the added bonus of having a screen to display information like maps and lyrics just like Lenovo’s Smart Display.

The Home Hub is a fine smart speaker, but it really shines most as a digital photo frame. Yes, as a digital photo frame. It’s 2018 and Google has not only revived one of the worst-conceived product categories ever with the $149 Home Hub, but made it so darn good, you’ll want one badly.

The ever-escalating game of cat and mouse between Google and Amazon for domination of your home continues to intensify. Google was late to the party, but it’s all but caught up in many ways.

Amazon launched the Echo in 2015 and then Google followed up two years later with the Home. Amazon then released the Echo Show, the first smart speaker with a display, in 2017. Google Home has supported smart displays before, but the Home Hub is the first one to come directly from Google itself.

The Google Assistant is the superior digital assistant when it comes to knowing more things and understanding and anticipating your needs through the more robust Google services you’ve plugged into it. 

However, Amazon’s Alexa is undoubtedly more open with more connectable “skills” from third-party services.

Just as there’s no definitive answer to the age-old question of Android or iOS, there will likely never be one winner that gains full control of the smart home. The connected smart home hub you should get depends entirely on which company’s ecosystem you’ve already invested in or want to build around. 

Made for the home

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

My least favorite thing about the original Echo is its cold and generic design. Amazon’s improved the industrial design for its Echo products over the years, using more fabric and more earthy materials like wood to make them less gadgety and blend better into homes.

But Google still has Amazon beat. The Home Hub is another slick example of Google nailing a product’s identity with a discrete design that uses materials that are inviting.

My review unit came in a charcoal (dark gray), but the Home Hub also comes in chalk (lighter gray), aqua (greenish blue), and sand (pinkish).

The Home Hub is a cute little device and much smaller than it appears in online photos. It has a 7-inch display with 1,024 x 600 resolution. I’ve heard from many a tech nerd and reporter complain about the display not even being 720p resolution, and I’m here to tell it doesn’t matter.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

The Home Hub isn’t a phone, and it isn’t a tablet. It’s not a device you hold inches from your face. Your 16-megapixel photos from Google Photos (the max resolution for free pics) look great on the Home Hub’s screen. The 12-megapixel photos uploaded from my iPhone look crispy — I could easily see the individual hairs on a deer’s fur and the bricks in a building from my Japan 2017 vacation album.

Anyone who says the screen is not bright enough, not sharp enough, or not big enough is using the Home Hub all wrong. This is not a TV.

For sure, you can ask the Google Assistant to play a YouTube video from, like, your favorite website such as Mashable. YouTube support is especially useful for watching tutorials, but think short videos, not feature-length movies.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Google has paid extra attention to the screen as a picture frame. Even with the screen positioned at an angle, reflections aren’t an issue. Reflections from windows and overhead lights both at home under my kitchen’s direct fluorescent light and at work were not as problematic as they are on my MacBook Air. But more on the Home Hub as a picture frame in a minute.

Even more important might be what the what Home Hub doesn’t have. On the rear is switch for muting the microphone and a volume rocker, but absent is any kind of camera. A front-facing camera is useful for making video calls, but the privacy concerns of putting a camera that could be be nefariously accessed by a hacker to remotely spy on you is real (however unlikely as that is).

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Lenovo gets around this privacy fear with a physical shutter that slides over to block the camera on its Smart Displays, but Google’s gone one further: There just isn’t one. And you know what? I don’t miss it. I rarely video called anyone with the Echo Show, and I barely know anyone who uses Google Duo for video calling. If I really must do a video call, FaceTime or Google Duo (or Instagram video calling) on my iPhone’s always a tap away and so too is Skype on my computer.

For once, Google got the privacy equation right. 

In the spot where you’d expect to find a camera, however, is a light sensor that adjusts the screen to match the lighting in your room. Google calls this Ambient EQ. It works just like the TrueTone feature on all of the latest iPhones, iPads, and MacBook Pros. So instead of the harsher blue light you’d be blasting your eyes with at night, the Home Hub’s screen brightens and dims to a warmer and softer hue that’s both better for waking up and going to sleep to.

And it really works. Groggily waking up and glancing over at the Home Hub to check the time and weather forecast first thing in the morning was less of an assault on my eyes. Same for going to bedtime — the glow from the screen’s clock didn’t inhibit my ability to fall asleep.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Enclosed in the back and firing through the front just below the screen is the “full-range speaker.” Make whatever you want of that marketing jargon, but the speaker sounds decent. I’d peg the audio quality as better than a Google Home Mini, but not as clear as a Google Home. 

A couple of friends felt the speaker was a little weak, but I disagree. For its size, I think the sound quality is adequate. A Google Home Max or Apple HomePod, the Home Hub is not. If you think about where you’re gonna be putting it — on a kitchen counter, on a bedside table, on your desk, or on a bookshelf — then pumping it loud isn’t something you’ll want to do often. 

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

As a speaker, the Home Hub does the trick, and the far-field microphones picked up my voice without any issues whether I was a foot or 15 feet away. If sound quality is high on your checklist, consider another speaker or pair the Home Hub to a better one using Bluetooth 5.0.

Picture perfect digital frame

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

There’s no doubt Google’s made a good smart speaker/display here, but I wasn’t expecting the feature that I’d enjoy the most would be the one that required no action beyond selecting an album from which to display photos from.

If there’s any product that reinforces how truly great Google Photos is, it’s Google’s Home Hub.

At setup, the Home Hub asks you to choose an album from your Google Photos. I chose my Japan 2017 vacation, which has over 1,500 photos.

Using machine learning, the Home Hub finds only the best photos from the album to show. Photos where you’ve, perhaps, got your eyes closed are smartly not shown. Vertical photos that are normally displayed with black bars on the left and right on other photo frames aren’t displayed on their own. Instead, Google again uses machine learning to find two related vertical photos from the album and display them side by side — something I’ve never seen on any other digital photo frames.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

It’s not just about slideshows. You can also ask the Assistant to show you specific photos of people that it’s organized for your using facial recognition, like your mom, dad, or girlfriend (to a scarily and wonderfully accurate degree). It works on animals, objects, places, and other things Google’s trained the Assistant on.

The bottom line is: Crappy digital photo frames like the ones you find at places like the Sharper Image or Walmart’s discount bins suck because they’re usually not connected to the cloud. Most read photos from a memory card so they’re limited by storage and don’t have access to any AI. And even the photo frames that are connected to cloud services — well, they suck because they’re also limited by storage or the software interfaces are terrible.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

The Home Hub as a digital photo frame is everything these old and poorly designed frames aren’t. I’ve been reminded of so many memories from my Japan trip in the three weeks I’ve had the Home Hub in my apartment than in a whole year I’d told myself I’d get around to looking at some 1,500 shots.

I’d forgotten I’d taken some great snapshots at the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. The Home Hub teleported me back to the view at the top of Osaka Castle. It reminded me how cramped the Airbnb we stayed at in Ginza was. Or how magical Tokyo at night looked from way up on the Tokyo Skytree. Or how chaotic it was at the Tsukiji Fish Market.

These are memories that (although safely stored in the cloud) would have sat in the cloud collecting digital dust just like prints would in a photo album stored away in a cabinet. With the Home Hub, Google has made a digital photo frame that finally works and reminds you of them daily. It’s even more personal if you choose to select a “Live Albums,” a feature that displays the photos of people and pets you’ve selected to automatically be added to the album whenever the AI identifies shots they’re in. The Home Hub is such a great digital photo frame, the smart speaker and voice control stuff feels more like a bonus. 

$150 seems hefty at first, but considering it’s only $20 more than the Google Home, which doesn’t have a display, I’d say it’s a good value. Black Friday is right around the corner and it’s already being knocked down to $100 at many retailers. Unless you’ve already locked yourself into the Amazon camp and Alexa, the Google Home Hub is a winner.

England v New Zealand live text & radio – BBC Sport

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Image: lili sams/mashable

Attention iPhone X users: Does your phone’s touchscreen not work properly? Yeah? Because you might be eligible for a free screen replacement from Apple.

Apple’s launched a replacement program for any iPhone X with touch-related issues, including the touchscreen not responding to touch, responding intermittently, and operating when it’s not touched.  

The replacement program is only for the iPhone X and doesn’t include the new iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR.

If you believe your phone suffers from any touchscreen problems, you may bring it to Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for a free “display module”.

There’s one caveat: If your screen’s damaged, it’s likely your device won’t qualify for a free display replacement even it has touchscreen issues. This isn’t your chance to get both a free pristine display replacement and a fix for your touchscreen in one go.

If your iPhone X’s screen is, say, cracked, and it prevents the repair from being performed without further damage, it’s highly likely you will need to get that fixed first. In other words, you will have to pay for a new screen separately, which might cancel out the need for a free display module replacement.

MacBook Pro SSD replacement, too

Separately, Apple’s also announced an SSD storage replacement affecting the non-Touch Bar version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro sold between June 2017 and June 2018.

Apple says it’s found a “limited number of 128GB and 256GB solid-state drives (SSD) used in 13-inch MacBook Pro (non Touch Bar) units have an issue that may result in data loss and failure of the drive.”

Same as with the iPhone X, Apple or an Authorized Service Provider will replace the SSD for free.

If you’re unsure whether or not your MacBook Pro is covered, you can enter its serial number on Apple’s website to see if it is or isn’t.

Don’t forget to do a backup

As always, we recommend performing a backup of any devices before bringing them in for any repair or replacement. Any data loss as a result of a repair will be your own responsibility and the last thing you want is to hear bad news after a successful repair.

So whether you back up your data through iCloud or locally to external storage, just make sure you do.

Watch Scotland v Fiji – live coverage of the autumn international at Murrayfield – BBC Sport

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England coach Trevor Bayliss says Moeen Ali could be moved down the batting order in the second Test against Sri Lanka, and that all three wicketkeeper-batsmen – Jos Buttler, Ben Foakes and Jonny Bairstow – could play.

Batting at three, Ali scored 0 and three as England won the first Test.

Bayliss said Ali has “had a few chances” at number three and “hasn’t been able to take advantage of that”.

Bairstow is expected to return from injury for the Kandy Test.

The 29-year-old had played every Test since replacing Gary Ballance midway through the 2015 Ashes before missing out in Galle because of an ankle injury picked up playing football.

His replacement, Foakes, produced a man-of-the-match display, scoring a century on debut.

“Foakesy obviously showed what a class keeper he is,” Bayliss told BBC Sport. “On the other hand I don’t think Jonny has done a lot wrong over the last couple of years.

“How we fit everyone in is the big question? Perhaps we can get them all in, three wicket-keepers who are among our best fielders, so that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Bayliss described the selection dilemma as a “fantastic position to be in”.

England’s victory in the first Test ended their 13-match winless streak away from home.

Asked if the tour is a chance to experiment, Bayliss said: “To come here and win we can’t keep doing the same things that England teams have done in the past.

“We’ve got to do something different. That might be team selection, that might be how we go about it. So anything’s possible.”