Find where the tourist traps are with new site Hoodmaps

Guidebooks can only tell us so much about the places we visit. Moving to a new city? Well, that gets trickier. If you want to find out what sort of neighbourhood your Airbnb rental is in or what place you’re moving into, a new site called Hoodmaps hopes to give you some idea. It features a crowdsourced map of 2,000 major cities to show which areas attract tourists, rich people, students, and “normies,” among many others. The site’s founder Pieter Levels got the idea from his own travels saying that it might be hard for people to figure out which parts of a city to check out and whether they are getting an authentic experience of the place. Levels even chronicled online how he built the site, so it might be a good thing to check out if you’re into web/app development.

The maps are color-coded and you can toggle overlays that appear on the map like tags, rent, home prices, and cafes. As pointed out though, this user-contributed aspect might perpetuate negative stereotypes about a place that may or may not be true. But if you are looking for a quick way to check what you can expect from a place, here’s one tool to help you. But, of course, exploring is still the best way to find out what a place has to offer.

Source: Lifehacker

Expect the ASUS ZenFone 5 to drop in March

With the ASUS ZenFone 4 line barely out of ASUS’s stable, the company is already looking forward to the next generation, as told by its CEO Jerry Shen. The company just officially launched its ZenFone 4 line in Europe and the ZenFone 5 might cut into the time the current generation spends on the market. However, March seems to be the target for the company. Now whether this will make its way here, we can’t say. But with the company expanding to other markets, like it’s doing in Europe, we won’t be surprised if they bring the next generation device here.

Shen says their company has supposedly been gaining momentum with their ZenFone 3 devices in France, Italy, Spain, and Russia, and they expect this to continue with the ZenFone 4. Shen is confident that they could return to profitability in the fourth quarter. Turnover of flagships by tech companies these days have always been at a really fast pace and this is just a reminder of that.

Source: PocketNow

Review: Nomad leather case for iPhone 8 Plus

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

One of the best things about the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus is that they can use cases from last year's model. This means that unlike newer models with entirely new designs, consumers don't have to wait around for the new cases to come in.

I've actually been using the Nomad leather case with my iPhone 7 Plus and while I dound the fit wasn't as good as the Apple leather case, it did grow on me for a number of reasons. I like the unusual dark blue colour and love the feel of the Horween leather, which is seasoned leather that's used for leather straps and wallets and wears nicely through time.

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‘Star Trek: Discovery’ gets its own live after-show called ‘After Trek’

Following in the tradition of after-shows for popular series, the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery is getting its own after-show aptly called After Trek. It’ll be hosted by one of the founding members of Nerdist, Matt Mira. The show will debut at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT Sunday in the US following the CBS Access launch of the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery. After that, following episodes will be streaming live at 9:30 p.m. ET and will be available on demand for CBS All Access subscribers (which we know is coming here next year).

The inaugural after-show will feature Star Trek: Discovery stars Sonequa Martin-Green (First Officer Michael Burnham), James Frain (Ambassador Sarek), and the series’ executive producer and co-showrunner Aaron Harberts.

Source: Deadline