Google Calendar update makes it easier to track fitness goals

Just when you were ready to ditch that New Year's resolution to go running every morning, Google is here to help. Well, it's here to help people who use the Goals feature in Google Calendar.

Google on Thursday said you can now connect Google Fit and Apple Health to your fitness goals in Calendar. "When you do, activity in your favorite fitness apps will be recorded and used to mark your goals in Google Calendar as 'done' automatically," reads a post about the update.

 

Google's AI continues to crush humans at ancient game Go

The AI program developed by DeepMind, a Google-owned artificial intelligence company based in the UK, has been secretly playing and beating some of the world's best Go players online. DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis revealed in a tweet Wednesday that AlphaGo has been playing under the usernames "Magister" and "Master" on online Go sites Tygem and FoxGo.

Master, aka AlphaGo, has been crushing other players over the last few days and managed to beat Ke Jie, the world's reigning Go champion, twice, reported New Scientist. In total, AlphaGo won 50 out of the 51 online games it played, with one game being a draw due to an internet connection time out.

 

8 tech tips I learned while traveling abroad

During the week between Christmas and New Years, I was lucky enough to visit the City of Light. It was breathtaking from start to finish, and if you heard reports of a man being dragged kicking and screaming onto a flight leaving Paris, well...

The last time I'd been abroad, there were no smartphones. Meaning no Google Maps, no Uber, no Yelp, etc. How I managed to get anywhere, I can't imagine. Thankfully, modern technology makes modern global travel infinitely easier, especially if you plan ahead. Here's what I learned on my holiday vacation.

SIM in advance

Traveling abroad? Slap a KnowRoaming sticker on your SIM card and it'll automatically connect to a local network once you arrive.

Photo by KnowRoaming

Conventional wisdom says that once you reach a foreign country, you should just buy a SIM card and switch over to it while you're there.

Conventional wisdom is wrong. For starters, you need service the moment you land, whether it's to call the hotel, summon an Uber or just text family that you've arrived safely. You may be able to find a SIM vendor at the airport, but do you really want to rely on that? And what if there's a language barrier and you need tech help?

My advice: Get your SIM card in advance. You may pay slightly higher rates overall, but you'll also be good to roam as soon as the plane touches down.

I recommend KnowRoaming, which comes in two flavors: a straight-up replacement for your existing SIM card and a sticker that permanently affixes to your existing card -- effectively putting two SIMs in your phone at once.

I had the opportunity to test both in France, and for the most part they worked very well. The big challenge -- as with virtually any SIM swap -- is that you inherit a new phone number, which can cause text-messaging complications. More on that below.

2017: The year digital assistants for kids began to flourish at CES

I've spent days now, walking the show floors at CES, listening to pitches from baby- and kid-tech developers, and writing up analyses on all of it. I'm a smart-home reporter, so I knew coming into CES how ubiquitous Alexa and her retinue would be. But I wasn't prepared for how fundamentally it would affect kid-tech. If CES 2017 is any indicator, Alexa's biggest skill in five years will be nannying.

Here are three things I've discovered at CES about voice assistants for kids.

 

T-Mobile CEO, fortune teller, offers 8 predictions for 2017

T-Mobile's bombastic CEO, John Legere, brought out his crystal ball to offer some bold predictions for the wireless industry in 2017.

Speaking at the company's CES press conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Legere rattled off eight possibilities for 2017. These predictions include everything from big cable companies entering and quickly exiting the wireless market to the unseating of three of the nation's four major wireless carrier CEOs.

Here's a full list of what Legere sees for the coming year.