With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic having halted foreign travel for a large chunk of 2020, the global tourism industry is in freefall. In Australia alone, more than 65% of jobs have been lost, and many of these won’t be replaced until international tourism can resume normally. The Australian tourism sector would usually employ around 660 000 people per year; however, current numbers put the labour force at a miserly 230 000 right now. With such uncertainty, is there any hope that you’ll be able to plan your next overseas trip? Well, let’s briefly run through some things you can do so you can start planning your trip now and get in first when the barriers are opened again.

Settle on a location first

Your first step should be to pinpoint a location you want to travel to and experience. Once you have a place in mind, check out their current international travel restrictions and coronavirus numbers. Some nations are more ahead in terms of overcoming or suppressing the spread of the virus (like New Zealand and Australia), whereas others, like India and Brazil, appear to be in for a second wave. Pick a country that is more likely to open its borders soon.

Stay up to date

The next best thing you can do is stay up to date. It’s forecasted that travel bubbles will soon open, allowing for both domestic and international travel. So, keep your eye open for any news in that area.

Start planning as you usually would but don’t specify dates

Once you have a location in mind, start planning the outline of your trip (like length, specific locations, accommodation) without putting a strict timeline or date to your trip. Things could change very rapidly, and having a contingency plan is essential!

Home improvement doesn’t always need to be complicated. There’s a lot of information out there that can help you improve your DIY skills, which will save you a lot of money in the long-term. If your home needs a serious makeover, but you don’t exactly have the budget to pay for a professional, here are some easy-to-follow tips on the art of home improvement.

Have a plan

You must know what needs to be done before you start madly doing anything. Keep it simple – jot down everything you need to do on a piece of paper and then rank these tasks based on how important they are. For example, fixing the leaky faucet in your shower head is probably more critical than repainting the chipped windowsill in your living room. Know what the most important things are and then get to work.

Do your research

Once you have a plan, it’s now time to do your research. There are plenty of books, YouTube videos and online seminars that can help you navigate the tricky world of home improvement. By watching these videos, you’ll know exactly what you need to do and exactly what you need in terms of tools.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If you’re unsure of what to do, ask a close friend or mate for help. If you need help moving something or need a second pair of hands, then it’s essential that you have someone there assisting you. The last thing you need is an unnecessary injury!

Since the popularity of real-world games like the Pokemon GO, Google launched its Google Maps Platform for some limited game developers. These limited developers were to create real-world games using the Unity Software Development Kit (SDK). This was over two years ago. Since that time ten games that use the Google Maps Platform garner more than 11 million players monthly. So now, Google has created a “scalable infrastructure” that extends access to the Google Maps Platform to anyone looking to develop their own real-world games.

The announcement came from the Mountain View-based tech giant via an official blog post. According to Google, this move will allow game developers “to sign up and quickly get started online” to develop some epic real-world mobile games.

So, if you are a developer, you can now get access to Google’s Semantic Tile API and Playable Locations API to develop your own location-based mobile game. Now, to start off your project, go to this link to first create a billing account and get started with Google Cloud Project. Then you have to download the Google Maps SDK. Once you download the Maps SDK, both of the APIs will be enabled automatically. Then you can follow this quick-start guide to start building your game.

Now, following the launch of this new Maps SDK, Google added two new features to help developers enhance their games. These two features include Mixed Zoom and Pathfinding.

The Mixed Zoom feature essentially helps developers to generate bigger playable maps while using less processing power. This is possible because the feature renders a high level of detail for areas that are close to the players. While the locations that are far away from the players renders in progressively lower quality. And the Pathfinding feature lets the developers create much more advanced in-game characters.

So, this move by Google could lead to more location-based games in the market. And this means Pokemon GO will soon have a lot of competitors to beat.

Although 2020 has been a wreck of a year till now, July will probably be a good month for video game lovers as several interesting games are to hit the market in the next month. So, in this piece, we are going to list 5 interesting video games that are releasing during the month of July 2020.

5 Interesting Games Coming Next Month

So, here is our list of 5 interesting games coming next month.

Iron Man VR (for PSVR)

Take the role of the billionaire-turned-superhero, Ironman, to battle a mysterious hacker named Ghost who is trying to crush Tony Stark’s empire. Now, this game uses the PSVR set as it takes you to the virtual world of the superhero for an unbelievable real-life experience. The game was to launch in May 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 crisis, developers had to push its date to July 3.

F1 2020 (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Stadia)

Get your racing car and speed through the Formula-1 race tracks with the new F1 2020. Releasing on July 10 for most of the platforms, the game will bring all the official F1 drivers, teams, and circuit races to your home. It will also feature two new races — Hanoi Circuit and Circuit Zandvoort and will support split-screen racing for an awesome multi-player experience.

Death Stranding (PC)

Death Stranding was launched on November 8, 2019, for the PS4 and now the developer, Kojima Productions, is coming with the PC version on July 16. The action-packed game follows Sam Bridges, a sole survivor of an apocalypse, through a deadly land with unknown creatures. It was one of the biggest games of last year and even won several awards, including the BAFTA Award for technical achievement. You can pre-purchase the game on Steam from here.

Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

The long-awaited video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions takes players through the island of Tsushima as Jin Sakai, a samurai warrior who can turn himself into a ghost. The game pays a tribute Samurai classic samurai movies with several in-game recording features to record the cinematic samurai fights and capture the beauty of the island. It is coming to the market on July 17.

Grounded (PC, Xbox One)

Grounded is a unique game by RPG-makers, Obsidian, that takes you to an adventure in the backyard of a house. You will be shrunk to a tiny self and your enemies will be giant ants and various insects that we find in our backyards. The uses Pixar-style animations and a lot of colors. It is coming for the Xbox One and Windows 10 on July 28.

So, these are our picks for 5 interesting games that are hitting the market in July. And we are pretty excited to try out each game from this list. Personally speaking, I loved the gameplay video of “Ghost of Tsushima” and cannot wait to play it on my friend’s PS4 (because I don’t own one, lol).

While there were reports that the iPhone 12 lineup could get delayed due to disruptions in supply chain and travel bans to China, a new report from 9to5Mac hints that the company might be back on track.

According to the report, Apple may launch 2020 iPhones in the usual September timeframe. Before this development, Digitimes had reported that Apple would start mass production of iPhone 12 in July.

The information comes from financial services and investment firm Wedbush. “The supply chain getting back to normalization ahead of expectations has been impressive and now ultimately puts Cook & Co. back in the drivers seat to launch this 5G cycle in its typical mid-late September timeframe,” says analyst Daniel Ives.

Wedbush analysts claim that upgrades to new iPhones will be noticeable in China. “China remains a key ingredient in Apple’s recipe for success as we estimate roughly 20% of iPhone upgrades will be coming from this region over the coming year.”

Apart from this, the analysts believe that Apple would limit mmWave 5G support to iPhones in the U.S. Notably, the firm had predicted this earlier in April this year. However, we can’t confirm the veracity of the claim just yet.

The firm has also reiterated TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s claims of Apple skipping EarPods with the iPhone 12 series. In other words, potential iPhone 12 customers will have to separately purchase AirPods or any earbuds they prefer.

With all that said, do keep in mind that none of this information is from official sources and hence, we would recommend you take this with a grain of salt.

watchOS 7 is here and it comes with a bunch of impressive new features and changes that really make the Apple Watch one of the best smartwatches out there. We’ve been playing around with the watchOS 7 developer beta, and we have discovered some cool new hidden watchOS features. So, here are all the watchOS 7 features you should know.

watchOS 7 Features

1. Native Sleep Tracking

This is the flagship feature of watchOS 7. Your Apple Watch can now track your sleep. What’s more, it can help you wind down before your bedtime so you can fall asleep easily. Sleep tracking is one of those features that most people really wanted the Apple Watch to get. I had my reservations, and I still do. However, there’s no denying the feature works really well.

You will have to enable this feature manually, so you can check out our guide on how to enable sleep tracking in watchOS 7.

2. Handwashing Detection

Another cool feature in watchOS 7 is handwashing detection. While a good feature nonetheless, it makes even more sense in today’s scenario. Once you enable handwash detection on your Apple Watch, your watch will detect when you’re washing your hands. It then starts a 20 second timer complete with haptics and sounds to notify you when you’ve washed your hands for at least 20 seconds.

You can also view your handwash data in the Health app on your iPhone to get a bird’s eye view of your handwashing habits.

3. Private MAC Addresses

watchOS 7 also brings one of the cool privacy features we also saw in iOS 14. Private MAC addresses are meant to help prevent your network provider from tracking your Apple Watch. The feature is enabled by default in watchOS 7, but if you want, you can easily enable (or disable) private MAC address on your compatible Apple Watch manually as well.

4. Check Apple Watch Battery Health

watchOS 7 lets you check the battery health of your Apple Watch with just a few taps. Technically, you can also see a better, more detailed breakdown of your Apple Watch’s battery usage, similar to how iOS does it. However, keeping a check on your watch’s battery health is a pretty useful feature. It can help you figure out if your watch needs a battery replacement, and ensure that performance doesn’t take a hit because of battery issues.

5. Share Watch Faces

Up until watchOS 6, if you saw a super cool watch face, the best you could do is try to set it up for yourself by asking people which complications they are using and what not. With watchOS 7 though, you can finally share Apple Watch faces with your friends and family. You can even share them on social media websites and share your watch faces with the world if you like.

6. Optimised Battery Charging

Apple brought optimised battery charging to iPhones with iOS 13. Now, watchOS 7 brings optimised battery charging to the Apple Watch as well. If you’re unaware, optimised battery charging learns your usage and charging patterns over time and charges your Apple Watch such that it reaches 100% at the optimal time. This way, watchOS tries to protect your battery from continuously charging even after it’s already at 100%.

The feature is enabled by default in watchOS 7. However if you want, you can always manually enable or disable optimised battery charging on your Apple Watch from within the battery settings in your watch.

7. Multiple Complications

You can now also put multiple complications from the same app on a single watchface. This is new, and pretty useful for people who use apps that provide multiple complications with different types of data feeds. Personally, I don’t use any such apps on my Apple Watch. However, for the sake of an example, here’s a watch face with complications from just the Things 3 app.

8. Charging Reminders

If you use the Sleep feature in watchOS 7, this is an option that you can enable or disable. With this, your Apple Watch will give you a reminder to charge your Apple Watch before you wear it to bed if the battery is low. This is a handy feature, because a lot of my friends have told me that they often forget to charge their Apple Watches and only remember it when they are going off to sleep, which is a pain in the neck.

9. New Workout Modes

watchOS 7 also brings improvements for fitness enthusiasts. If you’re working out more while staying at home, you’ll be glad to know that watchOS 7 brings three new workout modes to the Apple Watch. There are now dedicated workouts for dance, core training, and functional strength training. Plus, there’s a dedicated mode for cooldowns.

10. Hearing Health Improvements

watchOS 7 also comes with a new feature to help you maintain good hearing health. This is a feature that will take a few days to actually show up in action for me, because it is based on weekly listening habits. However, watchOS 7 will now give you weekly listening reports to let you know if you’re listening to music too loud. And if you are, it will automatically set a lower volume for your headphones. That’s great pre-emptive action from the Apple Watch to protect your hearing.

11. Siri Shortcuts

With watchOS 7, the Apple Watch now supports Siri Shortcuts. If you have any Siri Shortcuts built on your iPhone, you can add them as complications on your watch face to quickly use them with just a tap. No iPhone needed. Moreover, you can go to the Shortcuts app on your Apple Watch to access all your Siri Shortcuts. This is something I will definitely be using once offices open again, and I restart using my shortcuts for meetings and ETA sharing.

12. Force Touch Removed

This isn’t so much a hidden feature, as it is a change you might not notice until you need to use it. watchOS 7 has removed the force touch interaction from the Apple Watch. These interactions are now replaced with long touches or dedicated buttons. Also, if you want to switch between a grid or list layout for your apps, you will have to do that from within Settings now.

13. New Siri Interface and Improvements

iOS 14 brings a new, compact Siri interface to the iPhone. However, watchOS 7 brings the same interface to the Apple Watch. It’s not compact by any means, but it looks a lot better than it did in watchOS 6. Plus, Siri feels faster in watchOS 7 so that’s great.

Did you know you can now also translate directly on your Apple Watch? Yeah, just ask Siri to translate something into another language and it will oblige. It’s also pretty good at it and can translate long sentences as well.

14. New Chronograph Pro Watch Face

With every update, the Apple Watch gets new watch faces, and watchOS 7 is no different. There’s a new Chronograph Pro watch face here now, and it can serve multiple functions. You can set it to be a tachymeter or a timer for 60 seconds, 30 seconds, or even 6 seconds if you like. I don’t like the look of this watch face much, but it’s there for anyone who wanted a tachymeter on the Apple Watch.

15. Cycling in Maps

The Apple Watch is now even better for cycling directions. The watch can now show turn by turn directions straight on the watch face for cycling. It also shows more information such as traffic, and if there are any bus and bike lanes in your route. Moreover, you can search for places along the way, if you want to stop at a coffee shop and grab a cup of your favourite coffee.

Get Ready for watchOS 7 on Your Apple Watch

We are still a ways out before watchOS 7 is released in its stable form. Before that, we will get a bunch of developer betas, and a public beta in July. So unless you’re installing the betas as they come out, get ready for all these new Apple Watch features in watchOS 7 for later this year. Meanwhile, we will keep updating this list with all the new and hidden features we find in watchOS 7, so check back often for updates.