Downloadable Amazon Prime Videos Great For Harried Parents Who Work At Amazon

Now you can download shows like Transparent to watch offline.

A scene from Transparent, an Amazon original series.

Amazon

Good news for Amazon Prime subscribers: The company is making Prime Instant Videos available for offline viewing — everything from TV shows and movies to Amazon original series like Transparent.

What this means practically is that people who've paid the $99 annual for Amazon's Prime membership program can download streaming video to view in places where there's no internet connection. Or, if you're an Amazon employee reportedly slugging through a 100 hour workweek, you can sneak a few episodes of Entourage before that meeting where you ritualistically wrestle your colleagues until blood is drawn — without logging into company Wifi and possibly tipping off management.

In addition to the hilarious and Emmy-winning HBO show Entourage, Amazon is also making a bunch of children's shows available for offline viewing (although most pediatricians say it's never too early to introduce your kids to the wild antics of E, Turtle, Ari, and Johnny Drama). This is especially great if you're an Amazon employee who doesn't see your children as much as you'd like thanks to your reportedly grueling work schedule at the company. While you might have a tough time appeasing Madison and Avery after missing their ballet recital AGAIN, you can take solace in the fact that they will just LOVE watching the live-action kids series Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street whenever they want after downloading it to their Kindle Fires (slightly discounted at the company store when you pay with scrip*).

As Ari Gold, the hilariously high strung agent played by Jeremy Piven (Pivster, to his friends) would say on Entourage, “hey, that's a-ok!”

HBO

*I have no knowledge that Amazon employees actually get discounts on Kindles or that there is company scrip. But did not having first hand knowledge of how to produce a movie stop Vinnie Chase when he wanted to make Medellin? No, no it didn't.

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This New Nest Thermostat Is Uncomfortably Beautiful

Talking to your house just got 40 percent sexier.

Nest

Who cares about thermostats, right? I mean, it's quite arguably the least sexy of all household appliances, save for your toilet (is your toilet an appliance? Probably not? I'm no Bob Vila, here). But that all ends today. Starting this morning, Nest has introduced this new sleek TILF and it's gonna change the way you and your spouse fight over the temperature of your house (forget everything you know about climate control!). But first, just take a look at this beautiful bastard:

Nest

*Dumps bucket of ice cold water over quivering body* Ok! So: This 3rd generation thermostat has a high definition screen that is 40 percent larger, brighter and high-resolution and new graphics so you can see it easier from far away. It also has a “thinner profile” so it fits flush against the wall for a closer fit *tugs at collar as face grows red*.

Like previous iterations, the new thermostat will work with all other Nest products like Nest Protect and Nest Cam (formerly Dropcam!) it will offer a new feature called Furnace Heads-Up, which monitors your furnace for shutoff patterns and sends you a handy alert. This is good news if you have a furnace that you desire to monitor.

But the real money feature here is how splendid this little guy looks. I mean, hoo boy! And it's what Nest is really selling here with the 3rd generation of its trademark thermostat. With a new feature called Farsight, the sexy display recognizes your figure from across a room so you can read the thermostat from far away and bend it to your will (rawr) to set target temperatures or display a digital or analog clock.

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Android Wear Smartwatches Are Coming To iPhone

Thanks to a new iOS app from Google.

Google Android Wear director David Singleton announces updates during the Google I/O conference on May 28.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Until now, the line was clearly drawn: Owning an Android Wear watch meant using a smartphone running Google's Android operating system. Owning an iPhone meant using an Apple Watch or another wearable device designed for Apple's iOS operating system.

But as of Monday, Google will offer a new iOS app for Android Wear. So if you have an iPhone running iOS 8.2 and up, you'll soon be able to pair it with newer Android Wear smartwatches for the first time. That means that if you have an iPhone, you have quite a few more smartwatch options than you did previously.

Google says the iOS experience will be very similar to Android. Notifications, voice-enabled searches, and Google apps will all work. There are two notable drawbacks. The first: Third-party Google Play apps won't run on the Android Wear devices paired with iPhones. The second: Google apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Now won't be accessible on Android Wear devices over Wi-Fi — to use them, the wearable must be tethered to the associated iPhone.

Today, Android Wear for iOS works only with the LG Watch Urbane, but forthcoming devices from Huawei, Asus, and Motorola have been designed to support iOS as well.

This integration, which The Verge predicted in April, is a noteworthy shift in the fast-developing wearables landscape. Google is now competing directly against the Apple Watch on Apple's own platform — and Apple, by allowing Google's app into the App Store, is permitting it to do so.

One possible explanation: Apple thinks the two sets of devices are different enough so that Google's app isn't a significant threat. Unlike the Apple Watch, Android Wear devices are open to customization by manufacturers, with different styles, faces, bands, features, and prices. Another, perhaps more likely: Purposefully excluding a broad swath of Android wearables from its wildly popular iOS platform could be viewed as anti-competitive and might have opened Apple up to regulatory scrutiny.

“Since the first Android Wear watches launched just over a year ago, it has been our goal to make Android Wear work for as many users as possible,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Now, for most people with iOS or Android phones, there will be a broad range of watches that can work for them.”

Google

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These Are The Vine Stars Taking Over MTV’s Account For The VMAs

A quick primer on the most famous people you may never have heard of.

MTV's Video Music Awards are tonight, and the network is trying something new. In addition to the Miley Cyrus-curated show, MTV is making a play for a young audience on another platform — Vine. MTV is using the six-second video network for a second screen experience, and Vine's biggest stars are being enlisted to make it happen. Among a certain set, Vine stars are the new Beatles. Or at least, One Direction. Yet for most people, they're completely famous and totally unknown. Here's who you'll see tonight.

Lizzza

http://ift.tt/1LMzQuI

vine.co

A college student and Vine star — Lizzza, or Liza Koshy, has more than 2 million followers. Lizzza has already been taking over the MTV Vine account for the last few days with a bunch of pre-show stunts.

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These Are The Vine Stars Taking Over MTV’s Account For The VMAs

A quick primer on the most famous people you may never have heard of.

MTV's Video Music Awards are tonight, and the network is trying something new. In addition to the Miley Cyrus-curated show, MTV is making a play for a young audience on another platform — Vine. MTV is using the six-second video network for a second screen experience, and Vine's biggest stars are being enlisted to make it happen. Among a certain set, Vine stars are the new Beatles. Or at least, One Direction. Yet for most people, they're completely famous and totally unknown. Here's who you'll see tonight.

Lizzza

http://ift.tt/1LMzQuI

vine.co

A college student and Vine star — Lizzza, or Liza Koshy, has more than 2 million followers. Lizzza has already been taking over the MTV Vine account for the last few days with a bunch of pre-show stunts.

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These Are The Vine Stars Taking Over MTV’s Account For The VMAs

A quick primer on the most famous people you may never have heard of.

MTV's Video Music Awards are tonight, and the network is trying something new. In addition to the Miley Cyrus-curated show, MTV is making a play for a young audience on another platform — Vine. MTV is using the six-second video network for a second screen experience, and Vine's biggest stars are being enlisted to make it happen. Among a certain set, Vine stars are the new Beatles. Or at least, One Direction. Yet for most people, they're completely famous and totally unknown. Here's who you'll see tonight.

Lizzza

http://ift.tt/1LMzQuI

vine.co

A college student and Vine star — Lizzza, or Liza Koshy, has more than 2 million followers. Lizzza has already been taking over the MTV Vine account for the last few days with a bunch of pre-show stunts.

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Reading The Apple Event Tea Leaves With Actual Witches

We asked soothsayers to predict what’s coming from Apple on Sept. 9. (We also put a spell on Eddy Cue.)

When Apple sends out invitations to its events, like the one coming up on Sept. 9, the tech press loves to try to “read the tea leaves” in a search for clues as to what will be announced. But what the hell do a bunch of tech bloggers know about divination? In order to find out what's really going to happen at the Sept. 9 Apple event, you need someone who can actually read tea leaves. Professional journalists are useless at this. So I asked professional psychics.

Could occult practices help me get a leg up on well-sourced Apple futurists like 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman, or BuzzFeed News' own Apple seer John Paczkowski? And moreover, could they help me ~influence~ the future? Could they, for example, make Eddy Cue dance again? This wasn't just idle curiosity. With the right incantations, I could become one of the most powerful tech bloggers in all of New York. So I set out on a voyage of discovery.

Enchantments is a narrow shop in the East Village that specializes in making custom candles for customers. It came highly recommended — several trustworthy friends have told me about the special mystical candles made there. Plus BuzzFeed's resident witch Arianna Rebolini said that's where they go for all sorts of mystical advice when doing the Witches' Counsel series. She warned that although they probably wouldn't give any concrete predictions about Apple's event invitation, they could look it over and analyze it from a spiritual level. “Witches are very intuitive,” Arianna explained. “And it has a lot of colors — they could analyze the meaning of the colors.”

Over the phone, I explained to the friendly sorceress at Enchantments that I had a sort of unusual request. I explained that I wanted an analysis of the invitation — could I come by and show it to them? The witch said that they were VERY BUSY in the store, but she could do a 45-minute reading for $60, but only after 6:30 p.m. I explained that I didn't need a whole 45-minute reading, just a quick glance — could I pop by? The witch told me it was fine, but she'd charge me $30 for a 10-minute lookover. “I'm the one with blonde dreadlocks,” the witch Amo told me.

When I arrived, I didn't see anyone with blonde dreadlocks, just three other very thin women with varying confusing haircuts. I browsed the candles as they helped another customer. They had penis-shaped candles AND vagina candles. I asked a woman covered in tattoos with long pink pigtail braids if Amo was around. She told me I was too late, Amo was in the back doing a reading (apparently she does midday readings for other people). Pink hair reiterated that they were really busy. Apparently there were a lot of penis candles to be made; I assured her I'd be quick.

I pulled out the invitation and explained that it was for an event where Apple unveils its new top secret products, and that some people believe there are clues about what those products might be hidden within the invitation. She seemed annoyed. “This is about Apple?” She rolled her eyes.

“Is there anything about this image that you think could mean anything?” I asked. “Like any spiritual intuition?”

“No. This is just…we're really busy here. This doesn't mean anything,” she answered.

“What about the colors, do the colors mean anything?”

“I mean, colors mean what they mean. But on this, it's just an invitation. It doesn't mean anything. We're busy. I dunno, it kind of looks like a cat eye.”

“Oh, yeah, it's supposed to be the top of the Apple logo. Do you think there's any significance in how it's cropped at the top?”

The witch finally blew her cool. “This isn't a magical symbol,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Well,” I countered, “It's kinda magical…to some people.”

This was more than the witch could handle. She raised her voice: “THIS ISN'T A MAGICAL SYMBOL. THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME. YOU'RE WASTING OUR TIME. WE'RE VERY BUSY.” The witch walked away from me without saying goodbye.

Dejected and somewhat frightened at having angered a witch, I skulked out of the shop without buying a penis candle. I'd planned to light one in hopes it might inspire Eddy Cue to dance again at the Sept. 9 event, like he did at the Apple Music announcement. Now I was worried I'd never see Eddy dance again.

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Appeals Court Allows NSA Data Collection Program To Continue Unimpeded

The three-judge panel, each writing a separate opinion, all agree that the 2013 trial court decision finding the post-9/11 program likely to be unconstitutional went too far.

Christof Stache / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday reversed a trial court decision that would have barred the government from continuing its post-9/11 bulk data collection program implemented by the National Security Agency.

The decision means that, for now, the NSA program implemented under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act can continue unimpeded.

All three judges from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the appeal agreed that the 2013 trial court decision finding the program likely violated the Constitution went too far.

The case will now go back to the trial court, as agreed upon by two of the judges hearing the appeal, Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Stephen Williams. Judge David Sentelle, the court announced, “would order the case dismissed.”

A key question at the appeals court was whether the plaintiffs, Verizon customers, had shown that the NSA collected their data — evidence that would show they had standing to bring the case, which is a requirement to bring a case in federal court. The government, however, has only acknowledged collection of data from Verizon Business accounts, the court noted.

Brown was the most sympathetic to the claims brought by the plaintiffs challenging the program. Although she disagreed that the plaintiffs had, as U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon decided in 2013, shown a “substantial likelihood” that they would succeed in their case, Brown wrote that “one could reasonably infer from the evidence presented the government collected plaintiffs' own metadata.”

Brown noted that, back at the trial court, Leon will need to determine what exchange of evidence is appropriate so that the plaintiffs can show whether the NSA actually collected their data.

In noting that, however, she added, “It is entirely possible that, even if plaintiffs are granted discovery, the government may refuse to provide information (if any exists) that would further plaintiffs' case. Plaintiffs' claims may well founder in that event. But such is the nature of the government's privileged control over certain classes of information.”

Williams, while allowing the matter to return to the trial court, was less sympathetic to the plaintiffs' claims, stating outright, “[P]laintiffs lack direct evidence that records involving their calls have actually been collected.” Nonetheless, she supported sending the case back to the trial court because of “the possibility that plaintiffs' efforts” to show that their data was collected “may be fruitful.”

Finally, Sentelle, the least sympathetic to the plaintiffs' claims, declared that, since the plaintiffs cannot show that they have standing, “we do not have jurisdiction to make any determination in the cause.” As such, he wrote, the case should be dismissed.

Sentelle and Williams were appointed to the court by President Reagan, and Brown was appointed by President George W. Bush.

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Apple Music Exec Ian Rogers Quits

The former Beats CEO is leaving Apple just two months after the launch of Beats 1 radio.

Ian Rogers with Beats co-founder Dr. Dre.

Getty Images

Ian Rogers, the Apple executive often credited with the creation of Beats 1, has left the company. His departure was first reported by the Financial Times.

Formerly the CEO of Beats Music, Rogers oversaw the development of Beats 1, Apple Music's flagship “worldwide, always on” radio service. His resignation comes just two months after its first broadcast.

Apple confirmed Rogers' departure to BuzzFeed News, but declined comment.

Rogers is reportedly leaving Apple to take a new job in Europe in an “unrelated industry,” though it's difficult to imagine what that might be. Rogers has been in the music industry since the early '90s, when he built one of the first music sites on the internet — a Beastie Boys fan site. He joined Beats as CEO in 2013.

Rogers departure comes as Apple Music enters the home stretch of its free 90-day trial period. Beats 1 has, so far, been the only uniformly praised feature of the service, and its key differentiator from rivals like Spotify and Rdio. It's a bright spot in Apple Music for its throwback, connective appeal and eclectic sensibilities. According to some, it could be how Apple plans grooms new talent for its own ecosystem.

One month ago, Apple announced that 11 million listeners had signed for to Apple Music. If the company can convert a significant number of them into paying subscribers, it will have become a major player in the online streaming landscape in a very short period of time. Spotify, the current leader in paid subscribers, has around 20 million, although it has 75 million users overall because it includes a free, ad-supported tier that Apple Music does not. Apple currently claims that its retention rate for subscribers is at 79%.

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Google’s Home Services Product Finally, Officially Launches Today

You can find a plumber on Yelp, book a cleaning person on Amazon, hire a handyman on TaskRabbit — or, as of today, do all of the above through Google.

Clogged toilet? No problem — Google's got a solution for that.

Today, after much anticipation, Google is finally launching (the beta version of) its local home services product, which will allow some San Francisco Bay Area residents to request the services of handymen, home cleaners, locksmiths, and other service professionals who have been prescreened and approved by Google. The product is an extension to Google's AdWords Express, a paid app for small business owners, and it is two-pronged. People living in the Bay Area who search for a plumber will see a sponsored widget in their search results, through which they can evaluate and contact said plumber without ever leaving the search results page. For the service providers, who pay for the placement, the product is an extension of the existing Google AdWords app and will allow them to receive service requests, book jobs, and contact clients.

BuzzFeed first reported that Google was working on such a product in April. As Re/code reported in July, some queries that implied the need for a service professional — e.g., “clogged toilet” — were already returning service provider info embedded in the search results. According to the blog post announcing home services, there are millions of such searches every day.

Flickr

The product does more than provide a name and number. By choosing a given service provider and clicking “Send Request,” users can actually directly contact a plumber, who can then come deal with the situation. (Or, if they prefer, they can just call them on the phone.) The customer and service provider can then arrange a deal outside of Google (unlike with Amazon, where the financial transaction actually happens on the website, making it harder to negotiate). Providing direct communication between the customer and “Magic Plumbing” or whoever else definitely makes AdWords Express home services more than the typical ad product.

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