Why your phone is keeping you up at night, and how to stop it

Ever find yourself mindlessly flipping through apps on your phone when you really should be sleeping? It’s not just a bad habit — research has shown that the blue light wavelength emitted by various gadgets, including your smartphone and tablet, actually suppresses melatonin, which is the hormone that keeps you in a normal sleep cycle. That bright shining screen is actually messing with your body’s built-in clock, keeping your brain alert when it should be resting and recovering.
To fix it, your best bet is to put your phone down entirely, but if you just can’t ditch your iPhone or Android device when the sun sets, you should at least be using these built-in features to keep your sleep cycle in che

Night Shift is a feature built right into iOS on iPhone and iPad that automatically shifts the hue of your screen to warmer colors at night. By minimizing the blue light from the screen, Night Shift can dramatically preserve your sleep cycle by allowing your brain to tell you when it’s time to hit the hay. Here’s how to turn it on.

Go to your Settings menu and select “Display & Brightness” and then “Night Shift.” Here you can schedule the times when Night Shift will turn on, or just enable it by making sure the “Scheduled” tab is switched on and allow your phone’s own built-in sunrise and sunset data to control when Night Shift starts and stops.

Android – Twilight

The latest version of Android — 7.0, or “Nougat” — has disabled the operating system’s Night Mode for some odd reason. There’s a long, complicated trick to turning it back on, but if you want the features of iOS’ Night Shift on your Android phone without the hassle, you can install a free app called Twilight.

Twilight works exactly the same way as Night Shift, by muting the blue light emitted by your smartphone screen based on the time of day. It uses your GPS and time data to sync the screen brightness and color shift with the sunrise and sunset, and it’s totally free. Just download and install it on your Android device, open the app and approve the permissions. It will automatically be set to a reasonable color and dimming setting, but you can tweak those options with handy sliders on the app’s settings screen, too.

Use Night Mode

Many apps, including Twitter, WhatsApp, and even Google Maps have their own “night mode” that you can enable in their individual app settings menus. These modes replace the bright white colors with darker grays and blacks, making your screen much easier on the eyes in a dark environment. Not every app has a night mode, but be sure to check the settings menu of your favorite ones to see, because it can be a real eye saver.

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How to beat robocallers and telemarketers on your landline

A few weeks ago, I did a story on how to stop annoying, endless robocalls to your smartphone. Boy, did it strike a nerve. Hundreds of people emailed with complaints, comments, and the same question asked over and over: How can I end those infuriating calls on my home phone, too?

I interviewed a half dozen of the nation’s top experts, getting advice from everyone from the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau — to a former robo-caller himself. As rudimentary as it seems, one the most effective deterrents is to screen your calls.

“If no one ever picked up the phone when it rang, robocalls would stop,” says Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, a visual voicemail and robocall blocking service. “If I’m going to scam you to buy a fake cruise or install fake virus software, I need you to answer the phone so that I can pitch you.”

Quilici said he turned his landline ringer off altogether, and all calls go through an answering machine with caller ID. If the caller doesn’t leave a message, he doesn’t worry about it. If they do, he can still grab the phone while the caller is talking, or call him or her back. “These aren’t perfect solutions, it’s like bringing back the 80’s and 90’s, but it goes a long way to solve the problem.” He also told me that he convinced his mom to do this, too (and it’s working).

Call Blocking Boxes

Then there are "robocall blocker" boxes. I have a friend who swears by the $100 CPR V5000 Call Blocker he picked up for his aging father, who suffers from dementia. He said his parent's phone went from ringing more than 10 times a day with political polls, solar panel and security system sales, to remaining blissfully quiet unless a “whitelisted” number comes throug

One concern: One of the biggest reasons people keep landlines is for emergencies. The boxes “could present problems in emergency situations or when it comes to "legitimate" robocalls (school snow days, product recalls, etc.),” says Tim Prugar, who sits on the Communication Fraud Control Association’s consumer education committee and is an executive at Next Caller, which provides caller ID services to businesses.

Free Solutions

An app called Nomorobo was one of my top recommendations for stopping robocalls on your smartphone and it's just as great for blocking bad callers on your home phone. On mobile it’s a paid subscription, but it's free for landlines. It automatically blocks nearly 500,000 confirmed robocallers and doesn't use annoying ads or any other goofy tricks to get money out of you — it's just plain free.

The catch is that it only works with VoIP phone service, so if you get your phone through an internet or cable provider like Charter, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon Fios, Comcast Xfinity, Vonage, or several others, you're good to go. It does not work however, on traditional "analog copper" phone lines. If you’re not sure what you have, call your phone company

Another freebie helper for ridding robocalls is anonymous call rejection. To enable it, just pick up your phone and press "*77.” You should hear three short beeps to let you know it's activated, and then you can hang up. After that, all calls that come in as Anonymous, Private (a favorite of robocallers), or Blocked won’t get through. You can turn the feature off whenever you want by pressing "*87.” Virtually every phone company has this feature built right into your service, and it’s just sitting there waiting for you.

None of these solutions are perfect, because it turns out, blocking robocalls on home phones is much more complicated than blocking them on smartphones.

“Blocking robocalls on a home landline is like trying to stop a star athlete,” says Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services and adjunct of communication at the University of Denver. “Most coaches will say they are just trying to control the superstar, because they know they can't truly stop him or her completely. There is no sure-fire way to completely stop unwanted calls, so the best thing to do is simply try to limit them.”The best way to limit all these unwanted calls is to follow a few simple guidelines:

• Never ever interact with a robocall.
• Don’t press a button, wait for an agent, or even speak.
• Anything you do that shows your number is real and active will just make you an even bigger target for promotions, real or fake, in the future. Seriously, just hang up! (Or better yet, don’t answer at all.)

When I spoke with the Better Business Bureau and the FTC, both had the same message: The scammers will only keep using scummy tactics as long as people keep falling for them. Because robocalling is now so incredibly cheap and easy to do, every time someone willing hands over their credit card number for a sketchy time-share or signs up for a potentially fraudulent “low interest rate” program, they’re funding hundreds of thousands of more robocalls. All it takes is one out of every 100,000 robocalls “to work” to remain profitable.

Is there really no justice in the world? Well, there is, but it’s pretty slow-moving. Remember the Do Not Call list? It’s still there, and if you haven’t already, you should definitely put your number down and report calls that violate the rules. “Legitimate telemarketers will respect your request,” says Katherine Hutt with the Better Business Bureau.

How Did They Get My Number?

Auto-dialers  blow through millions of numbers until they land on one that gets a human on the other end. But the bigger problem is that most of us are giving up our phone numbers and not even realizing it.

We are living in the day of big data,” telecom guru Bob Bentz told me. “Your phone number is available so many places. Ever buy anything online? You probably gave your phone number. Loyalty card at the grocery store? It's likely tied to your phone number.” And don’t forget what I pointed out in the last story. It’s also available via public records online too.

Changes Coming

Robocalls won’t be around forever, and if there’s one thing that’s great about the boom in spam marketing, it’s the fact that it’s gotten so bad that telephone carriers are partnering with private tech companies to solve the problem faster than ever before.

“Carriers across North America are actively working together to stop this problem,” Next Caller's Prugar said. “Carriers are just as serious about eliminating robocalls as consumers are, and have been attacking the problem through inter-carrier partnerships, internal and third-party R&D, consumer education, and government partnerships.”

It’s a super complicated problem, and right now there’s just no one solution. But with the right tools and a bit of common sense, you can avoid scams and hurt the annoying callers right where it hurts the most: Their ability to rob us blind.

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Don't hand your kid an iPhone without these controls

How's this for irony: while it's the parent's job to protect their children, kids tend to know more about tech than mom and dad – including how to navigate online.  Understandably, many parents feel helpless because of this “digital divide.” But common sense, smart software and parental controls can help protect the ones you love.It’s important for parents to be aware of what types of programs — for example, apps, social media, and games — their kids use, how much time kids are spending on devices, and who they're interacting with,” says Caroline Knorr, Senior Parenting Editor at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids thrive in a world of media and technology. “Parents should also know how kids safeguard their privacy and conduct themselves online, and perhaps most importantly how kids feel about what they're doing online,” adds Knorr.

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Along with teaching our kids how to look out for red flags – such as predatory behavior, cyberbullying, and age-inappropriate content – parental controls can be set for some extra peace of mind. “Of course, when kids are younger parents should be in a more supervisory role, but as they get older we must move into a supportive role,” Knorr adds.

The following are a few ways to set parental controls – even if you’re not very tech-savvy.

Note: In this article, we aren’t covering third-party software like Net Nanny, nor are we discussing hardware-related tools (like special routers or Disney’s Circle device). Instead, we’re focusing on setting parental controls built into each of these platforms.

On A PC

With Windows 10, you can add younger users as part of the Family Features option, to help keep your kids safe online by filtering out some websites, allowing certain apps and games, setting time limits, and seeing where your kids are on a map based on where they signed into Windows (though it doesn’t work on all devices).

To set it up, go to account.microsoft.com/family, click “Add a Child,” and type in (or create) a Microsoft account or email address for each child in your home. You’ll now be able to set up appropriate website and app and game restrictions for their age, allow for shopping (or not), and review their recent activity.

If you have young children, you can also set up a picture password, where they can draw shapes instead off typing in a password.

On A Mac

It’s just as easy to set parental controls on a Mac, whether you share the same computer or not.

Using Parental Controls options, you can manage, monitor, and control the time your kids spend online, the websites they visit, and the people they chat with

To turn on parental controls, click on Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Parental Controls. (If you see the message “There are no user accounts to manage,” you can add a managed user by clicking the Add button.)  Click the lock icon to unlock it, enter your name and password as administrator, and then select a user. Click Enable Parental Controls.

Now you’ve got some choices, such as preventing the child from using the built-in web camera, joining multiplayer games (in Game Center), or restricting a child’s contact with other people through Mail. You can choose what matters to you. Specify which apps the child can access, or disable the store altogether. You can allow only age-appropriate music, TV shows, movies and books. Set time limits for weekdays, weekends, and bedtime.

There are built-in tools to manage content and screen time.

On an iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, you can access Restrictions to block or limit specific apps and features on your child’s device. To turn on Restrictions, tap Settings > General > Restrictions. Scroll down and tap Enable Restrictions. Create a Restrictions passcode. You will need this passcode any time you want to change your settings or to turn off Restrictions.

With Restrictions enabled, you might not see specific apps, features, or services.

Note: iOS devices do not support multiple users on a single device, therefore you’ll need to enable and disable Restrictions whenever you hand a device to a child, and get it back, respectively.

Android Devices

With Android, you can set up multiple users on a smartphone or tablet (running Android 5.0 or above) and then restrict a user account to block access to apps, games and features that might be inappropriate for your kids. From the top of any Home screen and most app screens, swipe down with two fingers, tap User (top right), and then Add user.

It can be tricky to set up multiple accounts on a Samsung Galaxy device, for some reason, so I’d opt for an app in this situation (such as SecureTeen Parental Control).  You can also go to the Google Play Store, tap the three horizontal lines in the top left corner), then Settings, followed by Parental Controls. Now you can set content restrictions for apps and games, movies and TV shows, books, and music.

GAME CONSOLE 

All major video game consoles let parents control what their kids are accessing, such as blocking inappropriate content based on the recommended age rating for each game. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) will place a recommended age rating for all titles, such as “E” for “Everyone,” “E10+” for kids 10 and older, “T” for “Teen” (age 13+) and “M” for “Mature” (age 17+).

Whether your family has a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Wii U, it’s quite easy to restrict access to games based on ESRB ratings, along with other things you might want to manage, such as time limits, online access, and more.

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Yik Yak, the once popular and controversial college messaging app, shuts down

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Yik Yak, the once-popular and ultra controversial app favored by college and high school students, prepared to shut down Friday, a victim of management miscues, fickle users and school bans

We’ll begin winding down the Yik Yak app over the coming week as we start tinkering around with what’s ahead for our brand, our technology, and ourselves," co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington wrote in a blog post.

The Atlanta-based company had been for sale, but apparently had few takers. It was able to move some of its engineers to Square, the online-payments app, for what Bloomberg says was $3 million

"Local communities have always been central to how we think about Yik Yak, so for us, Square — which has become a valuable partner for local businesses — feels like a great fit," the founders said in the blog post.

Yik Yak, which started in 2013 as a way to connect students on campus and quickly rode its way to one of the top 10 most-downloaded app charts, grew to $400 million in market value.

But the feature of being anonymous, an initial selling point, created issues — namely complaints about bullying, harassment and threats. Yik Yak was banned at several schools, while others were forced to shut down for days because of anonymous threats made against  students on Yik Yak.

By 2016, Yik Yak had dropped out of the top-1,000 apps downloaded in the App Store. The company tried several steps to get studentsback in love with Yik Yak, but they failed. By the end of 2016, big job cuts were announced

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An Uber engineer kills himself. His widow says the workplace is to blame.

SAN FRANCISCO — Last April, Joseph Thomas, a 33-year-old self-taught African-American computer engineer, turned down a job at Apple in order to work for Uber. Five months later, he had killed himself, leaving a trail of questions about whether the company's fierce work culture was to blame
Thomas had left his previous employer LinkedIn, lured by a great salary, Uber's reputation for smart engineers, and the potential for future wealth. The $170,000-a-year job already allowed for the purchase of a “dream house” for his childhood sweetheart and wife, Zecole, and the couple’s two young boys.

In August, Zecole found Thomas dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The tragic outcome, first reported in the San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, has led to a lawsuit: His widow contends Uber's intense work culture was at fault.

“Uber’s culture was different,” Zecole Thomas told USA TODAY. “Here was a man who was very good at what he did, who took care of his family. But within months, he started to tell me that he ruined our life. That he was broken.”

When her husband Joe started to grow despondent, Zecole joined him in a visit to a therapist. Leaving Uber was suggested, but Thomas replied, “’I cannot do it, I cannot think,’ she says. “Joe was shutting down.”

That beaten-down feeling has echoes in the February blog post of ex-Uber engineer Susan Fowler, whose detailed account of her year at the company described the ride-hailing start-up run by CEO Travis Kalanick as a toxic and sexist workplace.

Fowler's claims, compounded by a video of Kalanick berating a driver and reports of questionable business practices designed to deceive regulators, rivals and drivers, have plunged Uber into a full-blown leadership crisis. Kalanick is now searching for a chief operating officer, and the company says that next month it will release the results of an internal investigation led by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder.

In a statement, Uber said, “no family should go through the unspeakable heartbreak the Thomas family has experienced.” It has referred the matter over whether Thomas had filed any complaints to Uber human resources to Holder and his team.

Zecole Thomas says she is suing in part because she wants courts to grant an exception to her husband’s case that would allow her family access to $720,000 in total workman’s compensation that would have automatically been granted had Thomas been in his job six months.

But she also hopes her suit will call attention to “the fact that engineers and IT workers deserve a better work-life balance,” she says.

“The way many of these companies work is they want you to love your job more than your families, with breakfast, lunch and dinner and places to sleep at work,” Thomas says. “But people in IT want to have families, too.”

More specifically, Thomas describes a working environment at Uber that was drastically different from her husband’s previous job at professional networking site LinkedIn, where she and her boys would visit him for lunch a few times a week.

At Uber, when I asked to do that, Joe said, ‘No, don’t come, it’s not that kind of environment,” she says. What’s more, she says her husband felt his engineering skills were constantly called into question by superiors to the point where his self-esteem cratered.

“He would say, ‘I feel stupid, they’re all laughing at me,’ and yet this was a guy who was as hardworking, driven and focused as there ever was,” she says. “He only had one year of college, but if there was a coding language he didn’t know, he’d study hard and three months later get certificates saying he knew them. It’s all very heartbreaking.”

Richard Richardson, whose employment-law firm Siegal and Richardson represents the family, says it has been a battle to get Uber to turn over documents that would help his firm establish the special circumstances necessary for workman’s compensation to kick in.

Richardson’s firm has been trying to get information about Thomas’ terms of employment (which include a typical non-disclosure agreement that limited what he could say to others about his job), work hours and offer package. Uber refused to allow Richardson to depose Thomas’ supervisor, but a judge has mandated that to go forward

Anything we have gotten from Uber has been so heavily redacted (edited), we could barely make out the basic information,” says Richardson. “There may be an expression of public sympathy in the media, but there’s a big gap in turns of how the information has been turned over to us.”

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What is net neutrality and what would its reversal mean

Q: What is net neutrality?
A: Net neutrality, or open Internet, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should give consumers access to all legal content and applications on an equal basis, without favoring some sources or blocking others. It prohibits ISPs from charging content providers for speedier delivery of their content on "fast lanes" and deliberately slowing the content from content providers that may compete with ISPs.

Q: Are there net neutrality rules now? Why should I care?

A: Yes. In February 2015, the FCC, then chaired by Democrat Tom Wheeler, passed regulations giving the agency the ability to protect the principles of net neutrality. In the 3-2 vote, Democratic commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voted yes, along with Wheeler, who was appointed by President Obama, while then-commissioner Pai and commissioner Michael O'Rielly, both Republicans, voted no

The regulations aim to ensure that all the Internet content you want to access — be it streaming video, audio or other material — will be treated equally by ISPs. Another goal: to give start-ups and entrepreneurs access to broadband networks without undue influence from the ISPs

Q: So how did this change things when I'm, say, streaming Netflix?

A: In theory, the only thing that changed is that there are actual regulations on the books that prohibit ISPs' discriminating against content. An ISP will be prohibited from slowing the delivery of a TV show simply because it's streamed by a video company that competes with a subsidiary of the ISP. That doesn't mean everyone gets the same level of Internet service — remember, customers already pay for different speeds.

Q: What's the difference between an ISP and a content provider?

A: An ISP is a company that provides you with access to the Internet, like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox and Charter. Content providers include companies like Netflix and Amazon that create and/or distribute videos and programs. Sometimes an ISP is also a content provider — and that's one of the big points of contention. Traditional content companies, which include Google and Facebook, are worried that telecom and cable companies that increasingly own news sites and streaming entertainment services will give preferential benefit to their own subsidiaries.

Q: What is the FCC trying to do now?

A: Pai, who was named chairman by President Trump three months ago, voted against the rules in 2015 and has publicly said he wants to replace those regulations. Pai has called the rules, which were supported by President Obama, an intrusive example of government overreach. He especially dislikes how the FCC based the 2015 rules on authority from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. That allows the agency to oversees ISPs as if they are utilities or "common carriers" like the traditional landline phone system.

Q: What happens next?

A: The FCC will vote next month to begin a public comment period, which would lead to a new set of regulations. Those will then require a vote. Meanwhile, opponents have challenged the current rules in court, but a federal court affirmed them in the first challenge last summer. Some Republicans in Congress have supported open-Internet legislation that would supersede the FCC rules. Democrats say they will oppose the overturning of the current rules

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