He may be in his thirties, but the bushy be-’stached Italian plumber shows no sign of slowing up or settling down. In fact, he and brother Luigi are more in demand than ever.
The new games keep coming, and moving onto new platforms, with Mario Kart Tour is scheduled to hit smartphones in just over a year.
Meanwhile, the great news for younger fans is that legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is co-producing a Super Mario Bros. movie with the same team that brought Despicable Me and Minions to the big screen.
The film doesn’t have a set release date yet, but we do know that it’s being produced by Universal – which should mean a theme-park tie in, too.
Valentine’s Day is coming, so how about you surprise your partner with a good gift? You don’t need to suffer when buying gifts for your other half, and you don’t need to spend a fortune. Today we bring you 12 great gift ideas for much less than $30. Choose well and you will surely succeed!
Best gifts for Valentine’s Day
For romantics
The most romantic couples want to spend as much time together as possible. With these gifts for two, success is assured.
These cups are the perfect gift for those who cannot have breakfast without each other (and who cannot start the day without a good coffee or tea).
If your partner spends the day stuck to their phone, this Bluetooth headset will be well appreciated. Compatible with any device, it is the ideal complement for business calls and friendly chats.
Is your partner a fan of running, playing football or going to the gym? With these accessories, you will not only be getting in your partner’s good books, but you will be giving something useful and beneficial.
The essential activity tracker for all sports fans. It follows you 24 hours a day and helps you control your physical activity, sleep well, and create training plans via the synchronized app.
A basic but very stylish sports bag with plenty of space for sports equipment. Its size also makes it perfect for weekend getaways. A 2×1 at a scandalously low price.
Videos are everywhere these days. Everything, from ads to articles, contains videos because we just love them. The only problem with videos is the size of them. Due to large file sizes, people who live with limited mobile internet access or who don’t have much data bundled in with their cell phone plan don’t have much access to videos when they’re out of the house. For these people, Google has some good news because it is rolling out globally a YouTube feature that debuted in India back in 2016.
YouTube Go, which is now available in 130 countries around the world, gives users more control over their data usage by giving them some options each time they play a video and even the facility to download videos to watch later. Users of YouTube Go will be shown a preview of each video they select before having to commit to watching the whole thing, and they’ll also be able to choose how much data they want to use at certain times of the day.
YouTube Go is a free, official app from Google that provides a variety of features that make the YouTube more bandwidth-conscious and help avoid buffering while on the go.
In a further step to help people share their favorite videos without incurring charges from their cell provider, YouTube Go allows people to wirelessly send videos they’ve downloaded people in their close vicinity. If you have a favorite episode or funny clip you’ll merely be able to beam it to your friends when you’re with them without having to use your cellular network or even a Wi-Fi connection.
YouTube Go shows that the video-sharing network should be seen on a par with major networks and online streaming services like Netflix. Having the ability to download episodes from your favorite YouTuber officially puts these episodes on the same footing as episodes from your favorite TV shows.
What do you think of YouTube Go? Will you be taking advantage of the extra control the app gives you?
YouTube Go is a free, official app from Google that provides a variety of features that make the YouTube more bandwidth-conscious and help avoid buffering while on the go.
The launch of WhatsApp Business has given the messaging service a completely new dimension. WA Business gives companies and customers an official and secure way to communicate with each other and in the coming months and years; we’ll see all sorts of entrepreneurs using this new facility to sell us their wares. WA Business also brings with it an interesting new function; it allows you to hook up your WhatsApp account using a landline number instead of your mobile number.
Although WhatsApp Business is designed for use by businesses, anybody can download the app. You will still need a mobile phone to run the app but you’ll be able to register your landline number instead of the number associated with your SIM card.
Once you’ve downloaded WhatsApp Business all you have to do is tell the app that you won’t be registering your mobile number but rather your landline. Normally WhatsApp sends an SMS to verify your number but for landlines, you’ll have to select the Call Me option.
After you receive the call and verify your number, you’ll be able to use WhatsApp Business with your landline number the same you use WhatsApp with your mobile number.
It’s undeniable: digital books just keep climbing. At every turn, more electronic devices are sold for consuming ebooks, though it’s true that the skyrocketing growth of previous years has slowed down. However, there’s a problem. Or rather, there’s a lack of awareness: many users don’t know how to make the most of their ebook, in this case Kindle, the most famous ereader of all.
Here at Softonic, we’re going to take the chance to teach you how to read your favorite newspapers and websites on your Kindle. It’s easier than it seems at first and only takes a few minutes. Here we go!
Keendly. Take note of this name, since it will be the ringmaster for accomplishing our mission. What is Keendly? It’s a service responsible for aggregating the best websites with RSS services to put them on your Kindle. It’s that easy and simple (for us, of course).
Currently, the service is available in beta and has a few things to improve. For example, it’s not compatible with Feedly, which may be the most famous RSS manager in the world (and the most widely used). However, it’s all good: if you have all the feeds from your favorite newspapers and websites on Feedly, you just have to export a saved list to any of the available platforms.
Regarding this last point, here’s where one of Keendly’s perks comes into play: it allows the use of other well-known services on the current market, i.e. Inoreader, The Old Reader and Newsblur.
How it works
To activate Keendly, you only need access to one of the three previously mentioned services. Once you enter the dashboard, Keendly will ask you what feeds you want to put on your Kindle, i.e. you can choose all your associated accounts or simply those that interest you most. For example, you can turn the device into a portable digital newspaper, something that will help you stay constantly informed without needing to take out your cell phone.
Likewise, the service lets you configure a wide number of features. Among other things, you can choose whether to download images or not, which will speed up your reading of articles. In the same way, it also lets you adjust the dimensions to the device frame, or read them in the original format that they were published (this isn’t recommend for a quick glance, but when you use the browser, the entire media website does become available.)
It’s important to note that all articles sent via RSS will be available in a folder called “Keendly Feeds.” If you want to read any of these, just go into the folder and the device will do the rest.
Currently, Keendly already has a great deal of features. For example, its last update introduced QR codes at the end of every article. This way, you only need to pick up your cell phone, read the code and the news piece will jump to your smartphone.
That urgent need you’re having right now to curl up in the fetal position on the couch with a whole bag of chips and 10 hours of TV? The struggle is real. When it’s the dead of winter and you don’t want to leave the house, Netflix is your friend. Here are some of our favorites to stream or download right now and chase those gloomies away.
Easy is a racy comedy that can be classified as a collection of stories based in Chicago. You can never get too attached to anything in this series, as there is a constantly shifting theme, a constantly shifting list of characters, and a completely new situation to be resolved in each episode. If you are the type of person who likes to take a small nibble into each chocolate in a box of truffles just to find out what’s inside, then you will love this series that tackles sex, domestication, suburbia, and social interaction.
This western takes place in the late 1880s, somewhere and everywhere in Colorado and throughout the four corners area. Godless will hook you from the beginning by dumping you in the middle of chaos right away. A stray man shows up in the middle of the night with a gunshot wound. Another needs to have his arm amputated in the middle of the night. Characters are slowly introduced as the storyline doesn’t reveal much at the outset…it’s slow to unfold but worth the wait!
3. Freaks and Geeks
Oh, the clothes! The hair! The bad behavior that we tolerated way back in the late 20th century! Freaks and Geeks is a great throwback for those who remember the ‘80s or want to know what it was like. This binge-worthy series tells the story of Lindsey, a high-school girl who’s trying to find her place in the world while dealing with issues like death, bullying, cliques, crushes, and cutting class. The series, which originally aired in 1999-2000, features many actors who went on to big comedy careers.
4. Limitless
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to use 100% of your brain? Struggling 28-year-old Brian Finch finds out when a chance meeting with an old friend introduces him to a cognitive enhancer drug, NZT-48. This drug enables him to access more of his brain, and thus exhibit superhuman abilities like stellar memory and heightened awareness of his physical surroundings. Where can we go and what can we do with 100% access to our brain? The possibilities are Limitless.
5. Peaky Blinders
This British crime drama starts off with a BANG and doesn’t let up. Set in 1919 Birmingham, England, the series accurately portrays everything from depressed streets of mud to gambling in the back alleys. There are four seasons available, the latter of which are rumored to be the best.
6. The Crown
When it’s dark and stormy outside, who wouldn’t want to curl up with Elizabeth II? The Crown is a historical drama that starts in mid-century England during the reign of Elizabeth II. A powerful story of political rivalries, power and, yes, romance, the series had us hooked from the opening scene. This show has been rated among the most popular on Netflix right now, and it won a Golden Globe for Best Drama. So far two seasons have been released.
7. Wormwood
This fascinating true-crime documentary from filmmaker Errol Morris revolves around a government conspiracy and the death of a scientist in 1953. Wormwood is a great brain-food series for those who like to ruminate.
8. TURN: Washington’s Spies
This AMC original series is about the British and the Loyalists in 1778, following the independence movement in New England’s emancipated states. If you think you already know the story, you might be surprised by some twists in the narrative. Four seasons of this timeless revolutionary war period drama are available on Netflix right now.
9. Black Mirror
This series of vignettes takes place in the fictitious world of tomorrow, and it is best described as a creepy and dystopian world. It’s a series about humankind’s innovations, and about the darkness of the human condition. Each episode features a different dark facet of technology, and how it can go terribly, terribly wrong. Best for dark nights and strong constitutions.
10. Ultimate Beastmaster
On a lighter note, Ultimate Beastmaster is based upon an obstacle course and the real-life humans that try to master it. Unlike American Gladiator, this series features teams from different countries, sometimes speaking in different languages with subtitles. And these competitors are unstoppable! It’s a great show for the whole family, and it’s great inspiration for you to stay on track with your own fitness goals.
11. Mad Men
Mad Men chronicles the descent of a white, male-dominated society in the United States in the 1960s through the story of an adman in Manhattan. The setting is at once gorgeous and disturbing: Men dress in long coats and top hats like gentlemen, but exercise the power and ego to denigrate and criticize women. This is an eye-opening series that is a must-see to understand mid-20th-century workplace social dynamics to see how we’ve grown into today’s workplace norms.
12. Portlandia
Originally on IFC, Portlandia is an offbeat sketch comedy that skewers the Oregon city of Portland and its quirky inhabitants, painting some rich and hilarious portraits of feminist bookstore owners, aggressive cyclists, and–perhaps most hilariously–restaurant patrons who go to visit the farm where their meal (a chicken) lived before they decide whether to order it. This is a must-see.
