David Cogen

Amazon Just Launched a Way to Make Custom Alexa Skills (& It’s Super Easy to Use)

This morning, Amazon made Alexa Blueprints available. Alexa Blueprints is a website-based way of creating your own custom Alexa skills with custom questions and responses. From simple things like asking a specific question and having a pre-programmed answer repeated back to you, to templates (aka blueprints, get it?) that allow you to tell bedtime stories, play trivia games, help a houseguest find the remote or other items, etc. Each of these are super easy to make and are fill-in-the-blank templates for the most part. Now, because of this, they’re obviously not that advanced, but I could see how they could […]

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Boosted Board Just Launched 4 New Electric Skateboards & They’re Better and Cheaper

Okay so today you might have seen the news already, but Boosted Board–who makes boosted boards the super popular, quite expensive, electric skateboards that people like Casey Neistat and other YouTubers ride–finally came out with an entirely new line of not one, but four boards. They sent one to Mr. Neistat, and he did a quick hands-on video with the help of another YouTuber named Marques Brownlee (MKBHD). Spoiler alert: he loves the new cheaper and smaller board that Boosted Board sent him. The thing is, he only talks about the lowest end model of Boosted Board’s lineup that was

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How to Automate Tasks in iOS Using This Simple App (Video)

This has to be the most useful app ever on iOS. It’s called Workflow and it’s made by Apple (even though they don’t promote it very much). The concept is rather clever. The app has tons of triggers and actions that you can string together and then run by simply tapping on the widget button. It starts at the top and then works its way down to the bottom and outputs whatever it is you need. And, because it is made by Apple, it actually has access to system things that any other third-party app wouldn’t have, making it far

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Camera Comparison Galaxy S9 Plus vs Note8 vs S8 Plus vs S8

Camera Comparison: Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus vs S8 vs S8 Plus vs Note8 (Video)

Continuing with the camera tests, here we have the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus compared to its own brethren: the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus, Galaxy Note8. I was curious if the S9 Plus has that much better of a camera to justify an upgrade, or if you should keep your S8 Plus, etc. To do this test, I took the same photo on each of the devices and then lined them up and zoomed in to be able to compare them. Here’s how it went. If you want to check the photos yourself, you can download them from below and

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Huawei MediaPad M5 Complete Walkthrough (Video)

Alongside the new Matebook X Pro that was launched during MWC this year, Huawei also launched two new tablets called the MediaPad M5 8.4″, the MediaPad M5 10.8″ that they were kind enough to send me. So, as is usual on the channel, I figured I’d try and do a complete walkthrough on them. Now, if you aren’t familiar with my complete walkthroughs, I try and go through every feature I can think of on the device for you guys just in case you were thinking of buying one. Also, since these two devices are very similar, I’m going to

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Battery Test: Razer Phone vs Mate 10 Pro vs OnePlus 5T vs Essential vs Note8 vs Pixel 2XL vs iPhone X (Video)

Another experiment today, this time I wanted to see how the Razer Phone held up to the other top flagships in terms of battery life. So to test this, I filmed a time-lapse of the Razer phone playing the same Nyan cat video on YouTube and on the same wifi network as all the other device I had in my previous flagship battery test video, cropped it into the video (replacing the worst performer from that video, the V30), and timed it so it was lined up with the rest of them and let them all run with timers. Here’s

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How to Disable Apple’s CPU Throttling on Your iPhone (Video)

I’m sure we all remember the fiasco that was Apple being called out for intentionally limiting older iPhone performance based on how the battery was functioning (and the bigger problem of not telling anyone). If you aren’t familiar though, iPhone CPU throttling is when the device’s operating system intentionally limits, or throttles, the CPU performance (and thereby the speed at which the device can function). Following the discovery that Apple was doing this to devices without users knowing, they said they would release a way to turn off this CPU throttling in a future update. Turns out that that update is

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Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Hands-On, Specs, Price, & Availability (Video)

Finally! Blackmagic Design released the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K that every Blackmagic user has been asking them for at every NAB Show since the original Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera was released back in 2013. If you’re not familiar with Blackmagic Design, you should be. Who is Blackmagic Design? I started using their Blackmagic Ursa Mini 4.6K (long name, even larger camera) when it came out in March of 2016 and was in love with it. Even to the point where I was bringing this giant camera with me to trade shows to use it to film all of my footage

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Huawei P20 Complete Walkthrough (Video)

Now, for me, the P20 Pro with its 3 Leica camera setup is more interesting but Huawei also launched a smaller, baby brother version called the Huawei P20. And, honestly, because it’s very similar and loses a few features but also a chunk of the price, it is probably still worth a look for some people. So, because Huawei was kind enough to send me a P20, I figured I’d do a complete walkthrough for you guys. If you aren’t familiar, a complete walkthrough on this channel is when I try and go through as many features as I can

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Honor View10 Complete Walkthrough (Video)

Honor was kind enough to let me check out their new Honor View10 flagship device and as is usual on this channel I figured that I would try and do a complete walkthrough with it for you guys. If you’re not familiar, my complete walkthroughs are where I try and got through every feature of a device to help anyone out there who might be interesting in buying one in the future. Hardware So let’s start with the hardware. The device has a super minimalist look to it and it comes in either Blue, which I have here, or Black.

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Battery Test: Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus vs S8 vs S8 Plus vs Note8 (Video)

Another experiment with the Galaxy S9 Plus. This time I wanted to see how the battery held up against its brethren. Namely, the Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S8 Plus, and Galaxy S8. So I had them all run the same YouTube video at the same resolution from the same gigabit Wifi network with the same social media accounts/notifications and time-lapsed them to see which battery died first. Here’s what happened. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to follow my Instagram for photos from the latest phones as well as more comparisons.

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How to Easily Run Your Android Phone From Your Computer (Video)

So I’m not actually sure why you’d want to do this, as in I can’t think of any terribly important use cases, besides maybe using it to text from the computer, but it was still so cool and easy to do that I figured someone out there might want to use it for something and was worth me taking the time to make a video of it. So for this Tips and Tricks Tuesday, I’m going to show you how to easily run your Android phone on your computer (complete with mouse and keyboard input, etc.). So this is all thanks

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Speed Test: Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus vs S8 vs S8 Plus vs Note8 (Video)

One more Galaxy S9 Plus experiment. This time I’m wanted to see how the Galaxy S9 Plus would hold up in a speed test versus its brethren. Namely, the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus, and the Galaxy Note8. For this speed test, I chose a few popular apps and games to represent real-world use and checked to see how long it took each device to load each program. Here’s what happened. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to follow me on social for more tips tricks and other fun tech stuff.

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How to Display Comment Notifications Only in Instagram & Facebook

Managing social networks can be a pain so here’s a quick tip to allow you to sort your Instagram and Facebook comments from the other notifications so you can see what needs a reply and what doesn’t quickly and easily. So this works because of Pages Manager from Facebook. So first, download that to your phone from either the Play Store or App Store and log in with the Facebook page you want to use. Once that’s setup, you’ll be able to tap the Inbox icon in the middle of the menu bar at the bottom. Here you’ll already see any

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Battery Test: Galaxy S9 Plus vs iPhone X vs Pixel 2 XL vs Mate 10 Pro vs OnePlus 5T vs S8 Plus

Another day, another experiment. Today, I wanted to check how well the new Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus’s battery holds up against the other top flagships out at the moment. So to test this, I filmed a time-lapse of the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus playing the same Nyan cat video on YouTube and on the same wifi network as all the other device I had in my previous flagship battery test video, cropped it into the video (replacing the worst performer from that video, the V30), and timed it so it was lined up with the rest of them and let

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