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“Another day, another dollar” is a motto I live by, especially when it comes to my reselling hobby. I’m content if I get one sale every day or two, as this enables me to purchase new pieces for my wardrobe—then eventually sell those, too. But the motto could also apply to my approach, as I not only earn money every day, but reroute it back into the resale process by using third-party apps to bolster my sales. What’s that other motto? You have to spend money to make money?

Well, it’s not entirely true. The three apps below have helped me boost my sales quite a bit, but they have free trials and one of them is completely free. So, really, if you’re trying to make a buck on Poshmark, there’s no harm in using these apps to get the money flowing.

Vendoo: a cross-lister

Credit: Vendoo/Lindsey Ellefson

The first app I love here is Vendoo, a cross-lister that helps me splash my listings out across multiple marketplaces. It helps me list quickly not only to my beloved Poshmark (where I sell and buy the most, by far), but my second-favorite Depop, as well as Mercari, Vestiaire Collective, eBay, and more.

Instead of creating your listing in one of those apps as normal, you create it in Vendoo, where you can then set it to appear across all the other marketplaces where you manage a storefront. When an item sells on one platform, Vendoo will even delist it on the others so you don’t run into any trouble with a buyer trying to purchase something that’s already sold elsewhere.

It functions as an inventory manager, showing you which platforms you’re performing better on, exactly how much you have for sale, and more. A lot of the individual apps, like Poshmark, also produce analytics for you, but Vendoo is helpful in that it allows you to see a fuller picture across all your marketplaces.

If you’re already established on one platform and want to move your listings over to others, you can import them into Vendoo, then export them out across the others. Obviously, this is an app designed for more serious sellers, like those who make a real income through reselling, own a physical boutique and also happen to sell online, or have hundreds of listings. I consider myself a casual seller, but I do have hundreds of listings up (not counting the hundreds I’ve sold), so it works for me.

If none of those describe you, it may not be worth it. It’s pricey. For free, you can create and cross-list five new items per month and remove the backgrounds from three product images. For $9 per month, you can create and cross-list 25 new items and remove 25 backgrounds. $20 per month will let you create and cross list 125 new items that month, $30 per month will get you 250 that month, and $50 per month will get you 600 that month. For unlimited creations/cross listings, you need to pay $70 per month. You’ll also pay additional fees, like $5 per month to include the ability to import listings or the ability to list on up to 10 marketplaces, depending on your needs.

Primelister: an automator

Credit: PrimeLister/Lindsey Ellefson

PrimeLister is an automator specifically for Poshmark and eBay, but I only use it for Posh. Essentially, for a fee, it does all the tedious little tasks that get more eyeballs on your listings: It shares items to designated landing pages that correspond to their brand or type, shares other users’ listings to earn you good will and return shares that broaden your audience exposure, and automatically follows back new followers, if you want it to.

After downloading it and forking over about $30 per month, I definitely saw an increase in sales. The most useful task it performed for me was the sending of automatic discount offers any time someone “liked” a listing of mine. I was impressed I could even dictate how long it waited to send those offers so likers aren’t immediately spammed with notifications and it doesn’t look like I had a robot doing my bidding (although I do).

Granted, many of these functions can be handled directly through Poshmark. You can share your listings to their appropriate landing pages (known as Posh Parties), send bulk discount offers, and mass-share your own listings to your followers, but you can’t share other people’s listings or send automatic discounts. Plus, if you do it through Poshmark, you do still have to be active about it. Every hour, you have to log in, check for a Posh Party, manually select all the listings you want to share to it, and share them, for instance. It’s not a huge deal, but if you have a lot to sell, the $30 per month may be quite worth the investment. If not, check here for how to do a lot of these actions on your own.

AI Measure: a measuring tool

Credit: AI Measure/Lindsey Ellefson

The final app that’s been helping me out quite a bit is AI Measure. Any good reseller on any platform knows that you should include measurement photos with any listing, not only to answer buyer questions before they’re asked, but to avoid having something sent back to you for not being as described in the listing. Taking the time to lay a measuring tape across a piece of clothing, photograph it, and upload the pictures can save you a lot of headaches down the road, but that certainly doesn’t mean I do it. I’m lazy and I take my chances—or at least I did, until I discovered AI Measure.

This bare-bones measuring app automatically marks up your images with the measurements of the clothes within them. That’s really all it does, but it’s kind of a lifesaver. Using the native Measure app on the iPhone doesn’t work the same—it doesn’t allow you to show two or more measurements at a time. So, if you want to show the waist, inseam, and thigh width of a pair of pants, you’ll need to take three pics. On top of that, the native Measure app doesn’t have a shutter button, so you’re relying on a blurry screenshot. AI Measure puts all the measurements on the image at once, has a shutter button so you can snap a pic, and, in my testing, gets the measurements right consistently. Using it is the same as taking a regular photo and you don’t need to haul out a measuring tape, so there’s no downside.

It’s free, too. The background removal tool that comes with it didn’t work for me, but I don’t mind that because the other advertised function works just fine. Be advised that unlike the other two on this list, though, this one is only for iOS.

Fans of reMarkable’s series of notepad-like note-taking E-Ink tablets have something new to get excited about today: a new version of the devices called the reMarkable Paper Pro Move, which takes the features of a typical reMarkable tablet and puts them in a smaller 7.3-inch device that can be carried one-handed and easily slid into a pocket or bag.

The Paper Pro Move is available to order now and starts at $449 for a version with reMarkable’s standard Marker accessory and no case. Adding a Marker Pro accessory, which includes a built-in eraser and a nicer-to-hold texture, adds another $50. Folio cases for the device range from $69 to $139, or you can order the tablet without one.

Like the full-size reMarkable Paper Pro we reviewed a year ago, the Move uses a Canvas Color E-Ink display to support note-taking and highlighting in multiple colors—according to the spec sheet, it can render 20,000 distinct shades. Both the Paper Pro and the Paper Pro move advertise up to two weeks of battery life, similar 12 ms writing latency, 64GB of storage, a USB-C port for data and charging, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and 2GB of RAM. The Pro Move is somewhat thicker (0.26 inches, up from 0.2 inches for the Paper Pro) and uses a dual-core Arm processor instead of a quad-core model. But the Pro Move also weighs less than half as much as the Paper Pro, making it much more portable.

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Critics are denouncing Tuesday’s antitrust remedies ruling against Google, calling them inadequate to restore search market competition. DuckDuckGo said the court’s decision allows Google to continue using its monopoly to hold back competitors in AI search.

The Open Markets Institute called it “pure judicial cowardice” that leaves Google’s power “almost fully intact.” Senator Amy Klobuchar said the limited remedies demonstrate why Congress needs to pass legislation stopping dominant platforms from preferencing their own products. The News/Media Alliance criticized Judge Amit Mehta for failing to address Google forcing publishers to provide content for AI offerings to remain in search results.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If the Tesla Model S prodded the legacy car companies to get on top of battery production and introduce iPad-like screens in cars, Chinese car companies are bringing the heat for what’s left of the 2020s in all segments. Much of the media coverage has rightly been on how this trend will affect mass-market vehicles. But what does it mean at the high end of the market?

“Well, the first question would be ‘Are the Chinese manufacturers really competitive?'” said Bentley Chairman and CEO Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser in an interview during Monterey Car Week. In the bucolic coastal setting, surrounded by the rarest of rare cars, the competition from the other side of the world appeared far off.

“I don’t want to be arrogant, but having what is considered a car in the luxury segment needs more than just technology. It’s honestly only Germany, Italy, and the UK. You need heritage, you need the craftsmanship behind, you need the storytelling and everything with it. That builds up an actual brand.”

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Google is set to reveal more information about its “Gemini for Home” plans, including new Nest devices designed for the AI assistant, the company announced on X. “Gemini is coming to Google Home,” the teaser states, while showing what could be a new Nest camera. That follows the company’s Made By Google announcement last month revealing Gemini for Home and its capabilities.

Gemini for Home will replace Google Assistant and enable natural language commands plus easier-to use controls. For instance, you could ask it to come up with recipes based on ingredients in your fridge, provide information on general topics like buying a car and help you troubleshoot home appliance issues. It will be available both in free and subscription versions — much like Amazon is doing with Alexa and Alexa+. 

Back at CES, Google said that Nest Aware subscribers who pay $10 per month would get early access to Gemini in Google Home, but it hasn’t confirmed that recently. In any case, the teaser implies we will likely see a new Nest camera (the image strongly resembles the company’s wired Nest security camera) and hopefully the unknown Nest speaker that caught everyone’s eye during Google’s recent live stream. If you’re interested, you can sign up for updates. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/google-will-reveal-more-gemini-smart-home-plans-and-devices-on-october-1-133601777.html?src=rss

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If you receive an unsolicited email that appears to come from Docusign, don’t trust it without verifying its origin first. Scammers are once again impersonating the e-signature provider in a phishing campaign that leads recipients to believe there is a problem with their Apple Pay accounts.

Docusign is no stranger to scams: Threat actors often use the company’s trusted reputation to impersonate real people and organizations, sending links to (fake) invoices, refund notices, employment contracts, and even legal documents in hopes of collecting sensitive information.

How the Docusign Apple Pay scam works

The latest Docusign scam, identified by staff at both AppleInsider and CyberGuy, starts with an email that, at first glance, looks like a receipt for a subscription purchased through Apple Pay. There’s branding from Apple and Docusign as well as an order ID, and the message directs you to call the included Apple support line if you don’t recognize the charge.

The phone number obviously isn’t Apple’s—instead, you’ll reach the scammers, who will try to extract information like your Apple ID and bank account number, convince you to download remote access software, or demand payment to protect your account. Phishing emails also often include malicious links or attachments.

Docusign scam red flags

Like all scams, this one plays on emotions like fear and a sense of urgency to fix an apparent problem with your account. It also relies on user trust in the brands being impersonated so you’re more likely to engage.

There are a few other ways to identify this campaign as a fraud. For one, the message doesn’t originate from an official Apple or Docusign domain—those sent to AppleInsider came from a Gmail address. (Note that sender names may include lookalike characters that are harder to spot and can evade spam filters.) For another, major companies don’t use Docusign to send receipts or invoices. If you cross-check against your App Store or Wallet transactions, you won’t find this fake one listed.

In general, you shouldn’t engage with anything from Docusign that you weren’t aware of prior to receipt. And always go directly to a company’s website or app to log into your account or find contact information to verify any suspicious claims. You can report spoofed Docusign emails to spam[at]docusign[dot]com.

More than 85 climate scientists declared the Department of Energy’s new climate report unfit for policymaking in a comprehensive review released Tuesday. The DOE’s report cherry-picked evidence, lacked peer-reviewed studies to support its questioning of the detrimental effects of climate change in the US and is “fundamentally incorrect,” the authors concluded.

Scientists have accurately modeled and predicted the volume and impact of excess CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere since the 1970s, when Exxon workers first began measuring the impacts of their product on the planet’s atmosphere. Since then, climate science has matured into a crucial tool to help humans gauge how a warming planet may affect everything from weather and crops to the economy and mental health.

“This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias,” said Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, in a statement accompanying the review.

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This is a video featuring the late great astronomer Carl Sagan reading the popular excerpt from his 1994 book ‘Pale Blue Dot’, set to the classical music piece ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ by Arvo Pärt for extra poignancy. The original photo, which features earth as seen from a distance of some 3.7-billion miles, was taken by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990 in part thanks to Sagan, who was the one to sugggest the probe’s cameras be turned around for one last shot of earth as Voyager left the solar system. I’m always moved every time I see and listen to this. It really gets me thinking. Just not about anything good, unfortunately, and it’s a shame the photo didn’t capture a giant asteroid speeding towards that pale blue dot.

I’m sure you’ve seen displays of “male enhancement” products at your local gas station, liquor store, or head shop. With brand names like “Rhino Power 4000,” “Black Mamba,” or “X Rated Honey,” these “herbal” or “all natural” supplements boast that they will “increase stamina,” give you “rock hard power,” and “add inches.” The packaging may not state it directly, but the overall message is extremely clear: These pills treat erectile dysfunction.

If you’re like me, you’ve seen these pills and thought, “These would never work.” Well, my skeptical friend, this week we are the ones who are wrong. Gas station boner pills often work exactly as expected—but this isn’t because herbal ingredients like ginseng and Yohimbe bark are miracle cures for ED. It’s because many of these pills are basically mislabeled Viagra or Cialis. It’s true: The Food and Drug Administration has found all kinds of prescription medication in hundreds of different shady “supplements,” but you can still buy them. You shouldn’t, but you can.

How a rack full of unlicensed prescription pills came to be easily available at your local 7-11 is a twisty story. Most of these “supplements” originate in foreign factories, especially in China and India, where pharmaceutical manufacturing is cheaper and less tightly regulated. From there, they are distributed as “dietary supplements.”

Unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements don’t have to be tested by the Food and Drug Administration before they’re sold, so anyone who wants to make a quick buck can fill some capsules with dried grass, call it a supplement, and start selling it.

The FDA and supplement whack-a-mole

Of course, hiding the active ingredients in Viagra and Cialis in what you call a supplement is against the law, but the FDA doesn’t have enforcement power until after the sale. If people get sick or someone complains, the Feds can step in, but not before.

To its credit, the FDA steps in frequently. The agency maintains an ever-updated database of problematic “Sexual Enhancement and Energy Products,” where you can read all about the illicit ingredients in supplements like Green Lumber (contains tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis), HimGo (contains sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, and diclofenac, an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drug), and “Versace Real Honey” (sildenafil, tadalafil, and acetaminophen). The FDA even prosecutes people occasionally for selling this stuff, like Jacksonville “business executive” Jae Hong Kim who recently pled guilty to selling prescription drugs marketed as “Rhino 69” and “MegaZen Power 5000.”

But Kim’s story is the exception, not the rule. The FDA may pull Mega-Mamba Mojo pills from the market, but in a few weeks, your local gas station will be selling Lightning Lad Libido pills instead, maybe from the same shell company, but now with a different name. These pills can be produced for pennies and sold for up to $20 per, so the risk/reward ratio is solid for people who sell the stuff.

Why you should not take male “enhancement” products from gas stations

You shouldn’t take erection pills from a gas station; first, because you don’t need to be enhanced; you’re beautiful how you are, King. But if you’re treating erectile dysfunction, you can do better than a shady supplement. Taking strange pills from a gas station is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, including:

• Unknown dosage: Even if you know it’s sildenafil, you have no idea how much you’re taking, but it’s usually “a crap-ton.” FDA tests of these products have found amounts of prescription drugs well above what a doctor would order, and that often leads to severe headaches, low blood pressure, dizziness, vision changes, or even heart problems.

• Dangerous interactions: If you’re on heart meds, blood pressure drugs, or nitrates, ED drugs are generally not safe. For that matter, if you’re on any drug they’re generally not safe, because literally any drug could be in them.

• Randomness: Lack of honest labeling means that you might get Ginkgo Biloba when you’re hoping for Viagra, and vice-versa.

Instead of confiding in the guy behind the counter at your local head shop, talk to your doctor. They have heard it before, and the prices of real-deal E.D. are usually better than the gas station equivalent. It’s $2 to $10 per pill for generic sildenafil (Viagra) and about $6 to $18 per pill for generic tadalafil (Cialis), where gas station drugs can cost as much as $20 per dose.

Why they still sell

So these pills are dangerous, expensive, and shady, and the FDA constantly warns us not to take them. Why are they still everywhere? First because the minimal oversight of dietary supplements has been baked into law since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) passed in 1994. But also because these pills offer both an easy solution and an illicit thrill. The combination of curiosity, desperation, and sheepishness makes those shiny packages by the slushie machine an irresistible impulse purchase to some, especially people who are too shy to discuss medical issues with their doctors. So they keep selling because impulse, embarrassment, and weak regulation all collide, and the result is a product that’s as easy to get as it is risky to take.

Autumn is Apple season, and the tech company will once again host its annual unveiling of the season’s new smartphone generation. The fall event has been dubbed “Awe dropping,” and so we’re hoping for some surprising announcements that will earn the name. “Awe dropping” all begins on September 9 at 1PM ET/ 10 AM PT.

If you want to tune in to hear what Tim Cook and crew have to say about the iPhone 17, you can stream the whole show on Apple’s website or on its YouTube channel. We’ve also got the livestream embedded below so you can follow along with our liveblog while you watch.

With just a week to go until the “Awe dropping” event, it seems like we’ve already gotten a lot of advanced insights about what the new iPhone 17 lineup has in store. Apple introduced the software side of the equation with the iOS 26 unveil at WWDC this summer, and since then we’ve gotten some pretty reliable insights on the hardware.

The big reveal is expected to be an ultralight smartphone, potentially called the iPhone 17 Air. This would be Apple’s first application of its Air nomenclature for mobile, and when we had Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman on the Engadget Podcast at the end of August, he suggested that the first iteration of the smartphone might come with some growing pains. We also anticipate seeing a base iPhone 17, an iPhone 17 Pro, and an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Beyond the smartphones, “Awe dropping” will likely showcase some refreshes for the Apple Watch and possibly for some new smart home tech. Tune in on September 9 to hear all the new product launches.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/how-to-watch-apples-awe-dropping-event-on-september-9-130040484.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon.com must face a class action on behalf of hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers over claims that the online retail giant overcharged for products sold by third-party sellers, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled. U.S. District Judge John Chun in an order (PDF) unsealed on Friday certified a nationwide class involving 288 million customers and billions of transactions, marking one of the largest-ever in the United States.

The class includes buyers in the United States who purchased five or more new goods from third-party sellers on Amazon since May 26, 2017. The consumers’ 2021 lawsuit said Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on rival platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. Amazon’s policies have allowed the company to impose inflated fees on sellers, causing shoppers to pay higher prices for purchases, the lawsuit said. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing. It has already appealed Chun’s class certification order, which was first issued under seal on Aug. 6.

Amazon argued that the class was too large to be manageable and that the plaintiffs failed to show its alleged conduct had a widespread effect. Amazon also said that since 2019 it has not used a pricing program that the plaintiffs challenged. Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.