Are you eager to improve your home? If so, then you might want to explore the different types of technology available to invest in. There are lots of examples here worth exploring. The trick is to find the right option for you which will provide the greatest value. Here are some ideas to consider right now. 

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Smart Home Systems 

First, you should think about adding a smart home system to your property. These are budget friendly and easy to install. However, for a completely seamless level of interaction, you may need the support of a contractor for the initial setup. 

Smart home systems are available from a range of different brands including Samsung. As such, it’s worth exploring the different options that are available on the market today. For instance, some systems provide you with the opportunity to set smart routines. This essentially means that the tech will respond seamlessly to perform connected results at certain times of day. In the morning, this could include bringing your lights on slowly or raising the blinds in your bedroom. In the winter, it might mean turning on a heated floor system. It all depends on your personal needs and what you require. 

Security Tech 

You might also want to think about upgrading your home with the right security technology. Believe it or not, crime rates are on the rise right now. So, it does make sense to ensure that your family is protected with the right systems in place. In terms of the different types of systems that you can explore, you might want to store with a CCTV setup. 

CCTV systems act as useful deterrents and may prevent criminals from considering breaking into your home. Systems like this are also useful because they can provide peace of mind. You just need to set up your system the right way. For instance, it’s important to ensure that they are not recording anyone else’s property without their permission. This can result in a legal headache that you will definitely want to avoid. 

Other security options worth exploring include smart locking systems. Smart locking systems provide homeowners with more control over entry points. You can even use systems like this to check when someone has arrived home. This is useful if you have independent children and you want to make sure that they get back home from school at the right time. Research also suggests that these smart locking systems provide greater benefits compared to other similar alternatives. 

Entertainment Choices 

In terms of entertainment choices, there are countless tech options that could be worth exploring. For instance, you might want to set up a home entertainment system in your property. This can be the perfect space for watching movies and enjoying shows on the best screen possible. If you are interested in this option, then you will need to choose between a TV and a projector system. Both options provide significant benefits. However, the latter is a lot more expensive. This is due to the fact that you need to purchase everything separately. The good news is that you can get the tech that you need for less than you might imagine with solutions such as Net Voucher Codes. This will allow you to save a fortune when you are upgrading your home entertainment technology. 

Remember, the best image is just one piece of the puzzle. There are other choices that are important here too. For instance, you need the right sound set up. In some cases, this could include a complete surround sound speaker system so that the sound hits you from every angle. This can provide an incredibly immersive experience.

Kitchen Tech 

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The kitchen is by far one of the most important rooms in your house. The right kitchen choices could add as much as 25% onto the real value of your property. This is great news, but what do buyers want from a modern kitchen? The majority of buyers will be keen to ensure that they have a kitchen filled with the latest tech.

For instance, you might want to invest in a smart fridge. A smart fridge will guarantee that you can check what you have in your fridge while you are out. It can also remind you to put certain items on the shopping list each week. You can also use a smart fridge to come up with recipes based on the ingredients you have available or the type of dishes that you might want to try. 

Another great tech choice for the kitchen would be a heat induction hob. Also known as a smart hob, a system like this will only heat the surface of the pan you are using. This can stop you from wasting a fortune on energy that you don’t need. 

Bath Tech 

Alternatively, you could think about exploring technology for your bathroom. Bathroom tech comes in all different styles. For instance, you could think about adding a smart shower to your home. As well as making your bathroom just a little more luxurious, a smart shower can give you everything you need for a great morning routine. A smart shower is even more eco-friendly. This is just one more way that you can keep your energy costs and specifically your water bill under control. A smart shower will alert you when it reaches the optimum temperature. It can also reduce the flow of water depending on your preferences. This tech can even play music for you while you shower, providing the perfect, peaceful way to wake up after a long sleep. 

Another great tech choice for the bathroom would be heated floors. These will be useful during the winter months when the floors can feel ice cold after you step out of the shower. It’s just a matter of ensuring that you hire a contractor to complete the work the right way. Low quality standards of work can impact the enjoyment and comfort that an addition like this will bring to your home. Ultimately, you can spend a little improving your bathroom and ensure that it’s a dream come true. 

Maintenance Tech 

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Finally, you might want to think about investing in maintenance technology for your home. A great example would be a smart vacuum. As the name suggests, a smart vacuum incorporates smart technology. Essentially, it will clean your home without you ever needing to lift the finger. Say goodbye to spending hours on the vacuuming. A smart vacuum will do all the work for you. The only issue you’ll need to bother yourself is with the stairs. This tech isn’t quite advanced enough to handle that job just yet. But upgrades are being designed every day. 

In terms of other maintenance choices, you could also think about options such as self-cleaning equipment. One example would be a self-cleaning oven. This does exactly what it says on the tin and will stop you needing to worry about cleaning your oven regularly. You can get similar systems including the dishwasher too. It’s just a case of finding the right choice for your needs and your budget. Ultimately, this type of maintenance technology will save you time and ensure that you have more to spend on your family, social life, or even your business goals. It can even help reduce stress levels too. 

We hope this helps you understand that there are countless types of technology which can dramatically improve your home and ensure that you are living the tech dream. These are just some of the options that we think are worth your time and consideration when upgrading your property. 

Hello – okay – new teeth, that’s weird. So, where was I? Oh, that’s right… Barcelona!

Well, we did it. After a couple of years of pandemic-induced isolation, we managed to get most of the team together in early April for the first time in forever. We successfully brought people in from as far afield as western Canada and Australia, from Europe and from India, for a few days of brainstorming, hacking, direction-setting, updates and, yes, beer. Without straying into politics, we had notable absences, of course, from our Russian and Ukrainian team members. Stay safe, guys: you were genuinely missed.

As a break from our normal day-by-day account, this year we’re writing this as a retrospective of the whole conference, so you get the flavour of everything all in one go. Think of it as a badly-consumed tapas, then… so, off we go.

As usual, topics were many and varied over the days, including:

• SAKE: Simple ASCII Kodi emulator – an emulator for Kodi add-ons that can run and debug all the basic Python stuff
• PVR multi-instancing – so you can have multiple copies of the same PVR addon (e.g. for different backends)
• v20 and release management – a general conversation about how we do releases, when, communications to the community, etc.
• Generalised timeshift – extending the existing PVR timeshift mechanism to a broader capability, perhaps to be rolled back into core Kodi code (instead of duplicating in every PVR addon)
• TheDataDB – a special guest slot from a former Team member, talking about more generalised metadata storage – lyrics, logo artwork, etc. – separate from e.g. episode listings
• Smart home – ideas and existing developments to integrate home automation into Kodi in various ways
• LibreELEC update – a broad update on developments around one of the major platforms for Kodi
• V4L2 status update – HDR, DRM, ffmpeg patches, and everything to do with core video display on Linux platforms
• Binary addon sandboxing – ideas around improving security and resilience by improving compartmentalisation of binary addons
• C++ 20 – options and plans to modernise our code to current standards
• Jenkins deep dive – an overview plus challenges and opportunities around the open source automation server we use to test/build
• Board stuff – internal governance and oversight of all things Kodi
• Android maintenance and Play Store – our ongoing issues with a lack of Android devs, and implications (e.g. our current inability to update in the Play Store because of API versions)
• Flatpak – how we maintain an support our Flatpak, general Flathub changes and how to improve the user experience in the future
• GSoC 2021+2022 – Google Summer of Code – updates on students’ work, plans, mentoring, and so on

There were also things we can’t really talk about – top secret plans, and bar bills, for example – but this gives a flavour of what we discussed. There’s enough here to keep us all busy for many years yet, and that’s before new stuff inevitably gets added.

In the meantime, please delight in a picture of your favourite open-source devs, relaxing in the sunshine after a hard day huddled around laptops and projector screens.

Onwards!

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Planned the most amazing trip that you couldn’t be more excited about? Don’t forget that you need to take an organized approach to your getaway. 

The truth is that when it comes to heading off abroad, there are lots that you need to do and prepare before you jet off. This means that it’s extremely easy to forget to deal with one of the most important things because there’s just so much to do and think about. 

The good news is that if you’re properly prepared for your trip, you can ensure that nothing gets forgotten, it’s simply a case of being a smart planner, that’s all. Once you’ve nailed the planning part of the process, you can head off on your trip without a care in the world. 

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Wondering what it takes to be smart about the approach you take to your next trip abroad? Below is a guide to all of the ins and outs of planning a trip abroad and making sure that you are as properly prepared as possible for it. 

Start with getting your itinerary right 

An important place to start, when it comes to planning your trip, is with your itinerary. If you fail to get this organized and in proper order before your trip begins, it will lead to absolute chaos. So, it pays to take the time to get your itinerary all planned and sorted out beforehand, so that you don’t need to worry about it while you’re away. 

A great way to plan your itinerary is using a travel app, so that you have easy access to it while you’re away. Instead of having to worry about carrying a piece of paper with you, you can simply refer to your phone and check on your schedule as and when you need to. 

If you want to send your itinerary to family members or friends in case they need to contact you while you’re away, there are various apps that you can use to do this. Alternatively, you can opt to email your itinerary to yourself and anyone else who needs a copy of it. 

Make insurance a priority 

When you’re heading off abroad, it’s important that you’re smart when it comes to your approach, which is where taking the time to put adequate insurance in place becomes so important. 

Not only do you need to put insurance in place for yourself and the people you’re traveling with, it’s also important to ensure the items that you’re taking with you, just in case your bags get lost in transport or you fall victim to burglary while you’re away. If you are traveling with the help of a motorcycle, you might want to think about knowing who the best motorcycle accident lawyer is so that you have their details ready. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get into an accident but it does mean you need to prepare yourself.

For instance, say you’re taking your rather expensive watch on holiday with you to wear when you go out for dinner, you might want to put insurance in place to make sure it’s covered should anything happen to it while you’re away. If you’re going to do that, it’s important to understand the value of your watch, which you can learn more about here. 

Pack smart 

If there’s one mistake that you don’t want to make when you head off abroad, it’s failing to be a smart packer. This means thinking about what you actually need to take with you (and what you could leave behind), and how to make sure that you’re able to take all of that with you. 

If you’re worried that your cases might weigh more than the allowable limit, look at purchasing an extra allowance beforehand. It’s usually far cheaper to buy this before you travel, rather than when you arrive at the airport. If you think that you might end up buying lots of souvenirs while you’re away, buy an extra case to take with you (and pay for extra baggage) so that you can bring them back more easily. 

Ideally, you want to pack everything that you think you might need while you’re away, from clothes and accessories to essentials like chargers and devices – and anything else that you think will be useful while you’re exploring. It’s always helpful to write a checklist for your suitcase so that you’re able to tick everything off as you pack it and make sure that nothing important is forgotten. 

There you have it, a guide to how you can make sure that you’re properly prepared for your next trip. Take note of the tips and advice above, and you can ensure that your next break away goes without a hitch – and that whatever happens while you’re away, you’re covered for. 

Is it too late to say “Happy New Year”? Probably, but this is still the first release of 2022, so let’s go with that anyway.

It’s point release o’clock once more, so, without further fanfare, I give you Kodi “Matrix” 19.4: more bug fixes, some backports, no real new features. Full changelog since 19.3 on Github, as usual.

Estuary

• Fix: Home screen context menu fix for when there are more than 10 items in menu.
• Fix: Seekbar wouldn’t disappear after 5 sec when using remote app e.g. Kore or JSON to pause Kodi.

Input

• Fix: English keyboard missing semi-colon.
• Fix: Chinese keyboard character now displaying correctly.

Music

• Fix: Artist discography export to NFO.

PVR

• New: Sort method for recordings based on season and episode.
• Fix: Crash when navigating an empty guide.
• Fix: Hiding/deleting channel group now working correctly.

UI

• Fix: Any Favourites for a restricted/locked media source are now hidden.
• Fix: Blu-ray ISO title and watched status now displayed correctly.
• Fix: Wrong language identified from subtitle name corrected.

Video

• Fix: EDL mute now working.
• Fix: ASS subtitles display now working correctly.

Android specifics

• Fix: Audio buffers adjusted.
• Fix: Various TrueHD stutter/dropout issues corrected.

Linux specifics

• Fix: Automatic play of DVDs.

MacOS specifics

• Fix: Mouse cursor positioning in full-screen.

Windows specifics

• Fix: Flickering with interlaced H.264 SD on AMD GPUs.
• Fix: Crash on unexpected network configuration (e.g. no MAC address obtained).

Xbox specifics

• New: Passthrough audio via WASAPI.
• Fix: Permission error preventing installation of Python add-ons.

Thanks, as always, to everyone who has helped us track down and fix any issues.

As this is a point release, there are no major changes since the previous version, and you should be fine to install this straight over the top of any existing Kodi 19.x installation – indeed, this will happen automatically on many platforms. However, as for all software installations, back up your userdata beforehand if you’ve any doubts or have anything you can’t afford to lose (and definitely do this if you’re going for a major version upgrade).

If you’re interested, you can read the merged PRs here. If you want to read back on the full history of v19 itself, or of previous versions, you can find the corresponding articles in the relevant blog posts.

Application deployment on different platforms (notably the Microsoft Store) can vary considerably due to circumstances outside of our control, so just be patient, and the update will inevitably find its way through.

Android Deployment

Please note that we are currently unable to provide this update via the Google Play Store. An updated Google requirement demands that apps now target API level 30 (Android 11) as a minimum, while Kodi targets API level 29 (Android 10).

As such, we’re unable to upload 19.4 to the Play Store, although 19.3 will remain available. However, for those who want the new release, 19.4 can be downloaded from our servers and installed manually:

• 32-bit download: http://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/android/arm/kodi-19.4-Matrix-armeabi-v7a.apk

• 64-bit download: http://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/android/arm64-v8a/kodi-19.4-Matrix-arm64-v8a.apk

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