Sommaire pour April 2018 de Stuff UK

Can you keep a secret? I didn’t actually know that much about robot vacuums, HDR formats or how to fly a drone without crashing it before starting this job. And as my battle-scarred DJI Spark will attest, those piloting skills could still use some work. But the one thing I did have down from day one is a love for vinyl. When you grow up idolising every scrawny gang of misfits to grace the NME, an addiction to the black stuff is pretty much par for the course. Even though it’s a faff to play and more delicate than your average Points of View correspondent – and demands the constitution of an ox to move between flats – there’s something special about sticking on a record and tuning out of…

1 Cake Browser £free / Android, iOS Disappointingly not an app for gawping at cakes, this free download wants to speed up web-searching. Input a term, and quickly swipe between search results. Spend time saved eating cakes. 2 Letterboxd £free / Android, iOS You probably don’t need another social network on your phone. But ignore that part of Letterboxd and it’s fab for tracking/rating films. Never again will you accidentally watch Transformers 3. 3 Mapapers 99p / Android The idea of maps as art is nothing new, but there’s no denying meandering roads and city grid patterns can make for arresting visuals. Mapapers turns them into wallpapers with a couple of taps. 4 Matt Hancock MP £free / Android, iOS In this real-life episode of The Thick of It, the…

These buds don’t look so special. Oh, they are. You know how your parents used to warn you to turn down that racket coming out of your headphones, else you’ll go deaf? Now, the reverse is true! Kind of. Nuheara’s IQbuds Boost can actually enhance the wearer’s hearing. Appropriately, I’m listening. Go on… Some tweaking of US legislation last year made it easier for companies to integrate ‘assistive audio’ into their products, and what was once prohibitively expensive technology is suddenly a viable option for people who could really benefit from it. Aimed at those who experience mild to moderate hearing difficulties, the IQbuds Boost employ AI wizardry to analyse your hearing threshold, amplifying what you want to hear more of. Give us a real-world example. It’s Thursday night, you’ve…

What if I don’t want Sonos speakers? Samsung R-Series The five speakers of the R-Series roster provide an affordable alternative with both Spotify and TuneIn Radio support. Bose SoundTouch Dependable if uninspired, Bose’s multiroom line-up mirrors Sonos’s big, little and mediumsized speakers. Bluesound Unlike Sonos, Bluesound speakers take hi-res audio seriously – so you’ll get the most out of that Tidal subscription. Naim If you’ve room in your home for the huge Muso or smaller Qb, they’re both fine speakers with a multitude of smart leanings. AUDIO-TECHNICA AT-LP3 £249 / audio-technica.com Vinyl can be a scary business at times. No, not Friday The 13th scary. More like ‘constant sense of dread and anxiety’ scary. Even if you think you’ve got your turntable set up properly, how can you really be…

BEST FOR VALUE Amazon Music Unlimited £7.99/month / amazon.co.uk What’s the story? Never one to be beaten on price, Amazon offers one of the few streaming services that won’t charge you a tenner per month – as long as you’ve already stumped up for Prime. It also doubles up with Echo speakers for smarter voice controls, if you’re the kind of eccentric who prefers to search for songs via lyrics or trivia. Is it any good? It’s not half bad for the money, you know. What you miss out on in catalogue quality and curation is made up for in pounds in your pocket – especially if you tend to get your groove on mostly at home and plump for the Echo-only subscription, which is just £4 a month. But…

£ 179 / stuff.tv/Doorbell2 ■ Smart doorbells let you see and talk to visitors on your smartphone, whether you’re in the shed… or in Papua New Guinea. The Ring Video Doorbell 2 has one big claim over most of its rivals, though: it has a rechargeable battery, so there’s no need to hardwire it into your wall. ■ Once the battery is charged (it’s good for six months), you just screw your Ring into the wall and connect it to the Wi-Fi. Hooking it up with your existing doorbell wires is a more complex option, but the app has walkthrough videos to help you out. ■ The Video Doorbell 2 will call you up when someone presses the buzzer, giving you the option of talking to your visitors (“I’m sure…

Amazon Echo Plus Where once was a mediocre speaker, now there’s the soul of your smart home. Amazon’s Echo could well be the best-selling Bluetooth speaker ever, but its audio prowess was average at best. That isn’t the case with the new Echo Plus. Redesigned with a 2.5in woofer and 0.8in tweeter inside, the biggest Echo to date is also Amazon’s best-sounding. Better yet, where previous Echo devices hooked up to existing smart systems, the Plus acts as its own centre for your connected home – so you can ditch the proprietary hubs in favour of a single shiny tower. That’s as long as your devices use the ZigBee standard – which basically means Hue Lights, Hive and Samsung SmartThings plugs – and not a lot else. For the rest…

FIRST ADD THESE… ONE EARSKINZ ES3 Adding a cover can make your AirPods sound bassier while also improving their fit. These silicone tips have handy holes that ensure the proximity sensor still works, and come in a range of fancy colours. You could also just buy standard foam covers, though you might need to burn holes in them to get ear-detection working. £8.95 / amazon.co.uk TWO MISTYAUDIO AIRPODS KEYCHAIN Always losing your AirPods’ Charging Case? Clip it to a keychain – this one has a Lightning-to-microUSB adaptor for plugging it into a battery pack for a power boost. You could also attach a Bluetooth tracker like Tile (from £17) to the keyring to warn you when you’ve left it at the coffee shop again. £8.73 / etsy.com THREE ELAGO AIRPODS…

NETFLIX Love (S3) Most Hollywood producers seem to believe that people in relationships are forever happy. Have they never tried to pick a restaurant with their other half? Love takes a more down-to-earth approach to the subject. Jessica Jones (S2) Good news, everyone! David Tennant reprises his role as Kilgrave in this Marvel show, despite the minor issue of Jessica Jones snapping his neck last season. Let’s hope he’s not just reserved for flashbacks. A Series of Unfortunate Events (S2) Think the Baudelaire family is now safe from Count Olaf? Well aren’t you an innocent flower. Nope, there are still many schemes, mysteries and murders awaiting those unfortunate children. AMAZON VIDEO The Red Turtle Give Castaway a sprinkle of Studio Ghibli magic and you’re not too far off the premise…

COLT EXPRESS Robbing a train is the perfect crime. Problem is, everybody’s at it in this digital version of the popular family game. £4.99 / Steam CATAN UNIVERSE The resource-hoarding board game has taken digital form, so you can play people from across the globe online. £free / Steam TWILIGHT STRUGGLE Control the USA or USSR during the Cold War in a two-player contest for world domination. £10.99 / Steam SAVE UP TO 62% BY SUBSCRIBING AND GET STUFF DELIVERED FOR FREE: THEMAGAZINESHOP.COM/STUFF…

I DISCOVERED I’M A CLOSET HERBIVORE Growing vegetables outdoors is so last year. There are acres of hydroponic fruit and veg farms stacked vertically under London’s streets, and I wanted to bring the same tech to the space under my stairs. So I installed a Click & Grow Smart Garden 9, which uses LED lights to photosynthesise its specially designed lettuce, basil and tomato plants. The lettuce grew to an ample size within a month, and I’m just waiting for my tomatoes to ripen. Who needs Waitrose now? Guy Cocker, Global Brand Director I… HAVE A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT PRECISION DRIVING Tennis balls balanced on traffic cones might sound innocuous, but they’re my new arch enemy. Driving Jaguar’s new E-Pace around an off-road circuit sounded simple enough – but…

Ubtech Jimu Robot AstroBot Kit With this kit you can build three robots – AstroBot, Rover and Astron – or design your own using the free Jimu app. Each bot is kitted with IR sensors, flashing LED lights and a speaker that can spit out programmable quirky sound effects. £190 / apple.com Tech Will Save Us Synth Kit Designed to help youngsters discover their inner Gary Numan, this DIY synthesizer is easy to put together and can switch between three electronic styles. It’s a great way to introduce kids to music, circuitry and bleepy-bloops. £25 / techwillsaveus.com Raspberry Pi Zero W A computer for the same price as a few pints; there aren’t many better bargains out there than the Raspberry Pi Zero W. And the addition of Bluetooth and…

1 Anker PowerCore 10000 You don’t want a rucksack-filling power bank, but you can’t risk your phone dying as you’re about to snap a particularly lovely cow. Cue Anker’s huge/tiny charger. £20 / anker.com 2 Fujifilm FinePix XP130 Waterproof to 20m, shockproof from a height of 1.75m and freezeproof to -10°C, the XP130 will surely survive anything the Lake District throws at it. £199 / fujifilm.eu 3 Thermos ThermoCafé Stainless Steel Flask (1L) This one-litre flask will keep cold drinks cold and the black stuff piping hot all day long, making it your best pal pre- and post-hike. £13 / amazon.co.uk 4 Columbia Daska Pass III OutDry Eco These lightweight waterproof boots are made with eco-friendly materials, so you can keep fickle Mother Nature on your side. £170 / columbiasportswear.co.uk…

Ryan Jones #30 XBOX GAME PASS Since Microsoft stopped releasing sales figures for the Xbox One, we can only assume the PlayStation 4 is virtually uncatchable. But, like a plucky boxer who gets back on his feet after a seemingly bout-ending uppercut, Microsoft won’t just hand the title over. On the hardware side, it released the stonkingly powerful Xbox One X, and now it’s turning its attention towards software – not the games themselves, but how we consume them. Xbox Game Pass is essentially a Netflix-style buffet, offering unlimited access to over 100 games in the Xbox catalogue for a monthly fee of £7.99. If you’re not playing online, you don’t even need an Xbox Live membership. Since launch, Xbox Game Pass has already built up a solid line-up. But here…

Things move quickly in the world of tech. You’re probably still getting used to using your grimacing mush to unlock your phone, but that’s old news. Brave as Apple undoubtedly was to bin its Touch ID-enabled home button on the iPhone X to accommodate that bezel-crushing display, some people just prefer having the option. The edge-to-edge craze has seen various phone-makers place scanners on the back or side of their handsets, but it was inevitable that someone would eventually figure out how to build them into the screen. The most interesting thing to come out of the giant Las Vegas tech-fest of CES this year was Synaptics’ optical in-display fingerprint sensor. It only works with OLED panels, as it essentially has to peek through the pixels to pick out your…

2nd MOVIE NIGHTS AT THE MUSEUM So you like Star Trek? And you no doubt enjoy film screenings in places grander than a multiplex? Then you’ll love a double bill of 2009’s Star Trek and its sequel under the Natural History Museum’s blue whale skeleton. THEN 16 years ago The Royal Tenenbaums is released in the UK NOW Watch Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs 5th THE FLORIDA PROJECT (BLU-RAY) Set in a motel in Orlando, The Florida Project is a story told through the eyes of six-year-old Moonee. It’s brilliantly performed and incredibly emotional – the Oscars were wrong to snub it. 23rd A WAY OUT The next title from the guy who headed up indie adventure Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is shaping up to be just as…

Best places to buy vinyl online Banquet Records Arguably the greatest thing ever to come out of Kingston, Banquet does a good trade in classic indie fare. Rough Trade The independent record store to rule them all can’t be beaten for catalogue. Its prices, on the other hand, can usually be trumped. Piccadilly Records Manchester, so much to answer for… but none of those sins are record stores, and Piccadilly is the best of them. Bandcamp Want to cut out the middleman and make sure your cash goes straight to your new faves? Bandcamp is the place to buy for emerging talent. PRO-JECT THE CLASSIC £899 / henleyaudio.co.uk More than anything, listening to a record is about taking your time to appreciate the finer things in life. Whether that means…

Should I rip all my vinyl to mp3? It makes sense, right? Vinyl is expensive and hardly portable, so digitising the stuff is an easy way to get more use out of it. Unless you’ve already got a Spotify or Apple Music subscription; then the hard work is already done for you. For properly lossless audio, it’s worth the hassle. You’ll need a turntable or phono stage with a built-in USB output, compatible software such as VinylStudio, and time to spare; but in some cases getting the job done is as simple as dropping the needle and pressing record. It’s a good excuse to listen to your entire collection again at the very least… although we won’t blame you for leaving that Shed Seven 7-inch well alone. • SONY PS-HX500…

• Fragment We’re very much in modern art territory with Fragment. This app shatters your photo, making it look like it’s behind a glass sculpture covered in mirrors. Any chosen effect can be manipulated in real time, to adjust angles, foreground and background blur, and outlines. It’s mesmerising – and a long way from digital watercolours. Stuff says £1.79 / Android • £1.99 / iOS • Storyboard More a proof of concept than a finished app, this experimental offering from Google takes a video and transforms it into a comic strip. The stills it selects can turn even the most mundane clips into something entertaining or terrifying. And if you don’t like what the app comes up with, drag downwards to refresh and it’ll have another go. Stuff says £free…

WHY I LOVE... ROBOT SUCKERS NATALYA PAUL SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR No one likes vacuuming, apart from maybe Freddie Mercury in drag queen mode. So having a robot dust-eater makes perfect sense. It’s far more efficient and thorough than me, plus there’s zero whingeing. Dyson 360 Eye With Dyson’s robot carpet crawler, you only need to ask one question: is it worth £800 to avoid doing cleaning duty? And there’s an asterisk. The 360 Eye isn’t infallible, so you’ll still need to follow it around with a normal vacuum every so often. Accept its limitations, though, and this mothersucker will rapidly prove its worth. Wearing a 360o camera on its noggin and riding on tank tracks, there’s little that’ll stand between this dirt-muncher and its mission. And with a motor twice…

£20 (pair) / stuff.tv/EchoButtons ■ Admit it, you’ve always wanted your own personal quiz host. Until they make a pocket Paxman, Amazon’s Alexa has decided to step up to the task via the Echo Buttons. A creation from the Ronseal school of gadgets, these two trinkets do exactly what you’d expect of them. Almost. ■ The Echo Buttons hook up to your Amazon Echo via Bluetooth and act like quiz-show buzzers in line with a number of special Alexa Skills. Connection should happen automatically given a few button presses; we had to manually hook them up one by one, though. ■ These chunky Buttons aren’t much to look at but they’ve been made for a good old-fashioned bashing. Built out of plastic with a huge light-up surface for you to…

1 HGTV One of the most popular US channels on cable is also on YouTube. Not only does it showcase lots of breathtaking designs, but it also dishes up home improvement tips such as how to make a room look bigger. 2 Simple Home Art Decor Ideas It may have the world’s least imaginative name, but you can’t say the same about the content of this smart and simple YouTube channel, delivering creative decorating ideas in listicle form. 3 DIY Creators The internet keeps showering us with ideas for swanky DIY designs, but what’s the point if you don’t know how to achieve those effects? This YouTube channel guides you through home projects.…

PlayStation 4 Pro £300 / playstation.com As a gaming platform, PlayStation 4 is the best around – which makes the PS4 Pro the best of the best. Games optimised for the new console look stunning on a 4K HDR TV, and are substantially improved by the extra grunt inside this slightly bigger machine. Sure, it can’t match the Xbox One X for sheer power or resolution, but it makes up for that with an impressive line-up of games – including Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn and Bloodborne – and virtual reality support. Stuff says The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best catalogue of games on offer Nintendo Switch £280 / nintendo.co.uk Nintendo’s console has earned a promotion in our list after it impressed…

1 HOT BUY Tado Smart Thermostat from £199 + installation / tado.com It might not be as pretty as the Nest 3.0, but Tado has quietly evolved into the best all-round smart heating system around. Like autopilot for your boiler, it senses when you’re leaving home or coming back thanks to the app’s geolocation. And Tado’s gadgety goodness is second to none, with the option of zonal control for individual rooms and voice smarts from the likes Alexa and Google Assistant. Stuff says Tado roasts the competition with its combination of simplicity and smarts • NOW ADD THIS Tado Smart Radiator Thermostats Once you’ve tasted the joys of zonal smart heating, you and your wallet will never go back. £59 each / tado.com • TIPS & TRICKS • Check out…

Sky Q from £20 + £20/month / sky.com Sky Q works flawlessly and could change the way you watch TV – especially now 4K’s arrived. With Sky Movies’ huge range of films and Sky Sports’ frequent doses of football and F1 now all in stunning Ultra HD, there’s something for everyone to treat their eyes with. And 2TB of storage means you can record 350 hours’ worth of entertainment, so you’re unlikely to be sweating over which show needs deleting. Factor in its multiroom skills, and Sky Q is undoubtedly the best TV experience you can get. Stuff says You’ll have to cough up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watching both live and recorded shows Q Acoustics Media 4 £350 / qacoustics.co.uk This soundbar has…

• TIPS & TRICKS • Chickens killed you in Zelda again? You can rewind up to five minutes and pretend it never happened. • For full-fat nostalgia you can read the instruction manual for each of the SNES ames online. • Stop trying to raid Bowser’s castle in one sitting, and use one of the four save slots to take a break. SNES Classic Mini £80 / nintendo.co.uk Why bother splashing out over £200 on a games console when you can get the SNES Classic Mini for a fraction of that? Especially when you get 21 classic titles pre-installed on this nostalgia-inducing machine, including the likes of Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and the never-before-released Star Fox 2. And with two controllers bundled in the…

NIKE’S FOAM TECH ABSORBS ENERGY AND THEN RETURNS IT TO YOU £130 / nike.com A pair of very colourful running shoes. What’s the big deal? You’re not looking at just any pair of very colourful running shoes. Meet the Epic React Flyknit, Nike’s genuinely innovative new trainers. We all like to think that deep within us lie the baffling stamina levels of Forrest Gump, but the fact is, running is flippin’ hard. With a pair of Reacts on your feet, though… well, let’s just say Wile E Coyote wouldn’t stand a chance. Oh yeah? Well, this is the first running shoe to incorporate Nike’s proprietary foam tech, which is designed to cushion the impact of every stride better than ever before. This fancy slab of foam, which makes up the…

Hatch (beta) £free / Android There are loads of great Android games, even if you’re a massive cheapskate. But Hatch tries something new: games on demand, entirely free (at least for now), and without you having to download them before you play. Inevitably being dubbed ‘the Netflix of mobile gaming’, the service includes gems like Monument Valley, Leo’s Fortune and Mini Metro. Just install the app, sign up for an account, select a game and start streaming. It’s that simple. There’s a social component too. You can keep it all to yourself, but should you jammily manage to complete Threes! you’re free to share the happy moment with other users. Loading times are lengthy and it will munch through your data, but this is a great way to try games…

FIRST PLAY SEA OF THIEVES PC, Xbox One Shiver me timbers! The folks behind GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong Country and, erm, Kinect Sports have made another Xbox exclusive that’s worth getting excited about. At least that’s what we reckon after sailing about, looting treasure and shooting Stuff team members out of a cannon in Sea of Thieves’ closed beta this month. A pirate-themed take on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Destiny, this shared-world adventure game asks you to gang together with three mates and make a name for yourselves as ocean-bound scoundrels of the most dastardly calibre. Well, that’s the idea anyway. We ended up spending most of our time getting wasted on virtual grog, crashing our ship onto rocks and locking ‘teammates’ in the brig just for the hell of it.…

Stick your neck out FITT360 Depending on your view of technology, the ability to share a first-person 360o view of your every waking moment will either be an exciting breakthrough or an episode of Black Mirror. Well, that future is now here with the FITT360. Sure, this neckband looks a little bit sci-fi prop, but you could lay that charge against a lot of wearables. Hands-free, mount-free and water-resistant, the FITT360 provides an immersive, image-stabilised view of your surroundings for up to 90 minutes, whether sightseeing, hiking, running, or blazing through choppy water in a kayak. Just don’t fire the thing up when you’re on the toilet. from US$396 / fitt360.co Super soaker LIVIN SHOWER Is the search for that elusive temperature between ‘too hot’ and ‘effing freezing’ wrecking your…

How do I set up a record player? Aside from the rise of CDs, there’s another reason why vinyl sales declined to the point where only record store staff and krautrock obsessives were interested in the stuff: a new player isn’t enough to get going with. You also need an amp and speakers. Just dipping your toes into etched plastic waters? Then you’ll either need to follow our advice and buy smart, or use a rudimentary workaround. So long as your budget player comes with a built-in phono amp you’ll be able to run a 3.5mm line out of it to any powered speaker you already have – then you can bide your time until you have the cash for a proper amp/speaker set. REGA PLANAR 3 £625 / rega.co.uk…

• ASTELL & KERN AK70 MKII £599 / astellnkern.com The iPod might be dead and buried, but its memory lives on in Astell & Kern’s latest AK70 – a purist’s player that’s made for your music and not much else. What you miss out on in the ability to play Angry Birds 2 and fret over your bank balance while on the move is made up for by unrivalled sound quality. Seriously, there’s a reason why this thing is quite so pricey: it was built for hi-res audio. Given the right raw materials, it elevates old classics and new favourites into a realm of superlatives with astounding detail and incredible precision. Such is its finesse, you can even hear the difference on budget headphones – not that you should be…

THE BASICS ■ Find your favourites Facebook shows what it thinks you should see in your feed. It’s often wrong. Bring back sanity by switching posts to reverse chronological order (click Most Recent under News Feed on desktop or in the hamburger menu on mobile). Fine-tune what you get by using News Feed > Edit Preferences on desktop, or News Feed Preferences on mobile. ■ Get some peace You have various ways to deal with annoying people. From a post, use the down-facing arrow (it’s an ellipsis on iOS) and snooze that person for 30 days – or unfollow them. Beyond that, you can head to their profile and unfriend them or go nuclear by choosing Block from the ‘…’ menu. ■ Save stories for later If a post appears…

Nest Cam IQ Why would you buy a security camera with a 4K sensor that doesn’t actually record in 4K? Because Supersight. This isn’t a wall-defying X-ray mode: Nest’s Cam IQ uses the extra pixels to crop in on suspicious faces from across the room without going grainy – so you can reach peak CSI when the plumber comes to fix the drippy tap. Thing is, while the quality is excellent, it’s a little bit wasted unless you have massive rooms. For your average house, Nest’s cheaper Indoor Cam is plenty good enough. The good news is that the IQ has another trick: Nest Aware. This is only available with an £80 annual subscription, but hand over your readies and, besides 10-day video history, you’ll unlock familiar face alerts and…

Fujifilm Instax Mini 90 £120 / stuff.tv/Mini90 An infinitely simpler beast than its mirrorless cousins, Fujifilm’s Instax Mini 90 takes seconds to get up and running: just slot in its film and battery and you’re good to go. Although you can use this chunky charmer purely for point-and-shoot fare, learning how to take a snap that’s deserving of your fridge door takes a bit of familiarity with its controls and about a pack of film’s worth of trial and error: the photo quality really ramps up with a bit of TLC. While it lacks the extra trimmings of the other cameras here, the Instax Mini 90 is solid enough to outlast its initial novelty and wriggle its way into your travel rucksack. STUFF SAYS A camera that’s as good as…

£15 / stuff.tv/NowTVStick ■ Not fussed about 4K, but have a sporty itch that Freeview just won’t scratch? Sky and hardware partner Roku have combined forces for a diminutive £15 dongle: the cheapest streaming stick in the UK right now, and an excellent alternative to a satellite dish. ■ The stick is no bigger than a USB drive, so it should have no trouble squeezing into your TV’s HDMI socket. There’s a microUSB port on the end for power; this needs connecting to your TV, or to the wall via the bundled adaptor. You’ll also need Wi-Fi to get connected. ■ Finding a particular TV show or film is so much easier when you have voice search. Hold down a button on the Smart Stick’s remote, speak into it, and…

• A SOUNDBAR Some TV speakers are better than others, but it’s always worth investing in a proper soundbar. The Q Acoustics Media 4 is our favourite under £350, while the Dali Kubik One (left) is a high-end alternative. • AN XBOX ONE X Not only does Microsoft’s latest Xbox offer the best 4K visuals for a console, but it also has an Ultra HD Blu-ray player so you can watch dumb superhero movies in gloriously crisp resolution. SAVE UP TO 62% BY SUBSCRIBING AND GET STUFF DELIVERED FOR FREE: THEMAGAZINESHOP.COM/STUFF…

Should I upgrade? AMAZON ECHO SPOT Ryan Jones Staff Writer Some things should be heard and not seen. Shane MacGowan, for example. You might think an AI assistant would fall into this category, since there’s no need to show its face when its job involves setting alarms, playing music and running your smart home… yet Amazon decided the next big career move for Alexa would be to get a screen. This undoubtedly has its uses, but are they enough to demand an upgrade? If the face fits… So what can Alexa do with a screen? She can show flash news briefings, cooking instructions, music lyrics, and even your friends’ faces via a video call. That’s about it, though – Amazon planned to give it YouTube powers too, but a squabble…

My finances are a mess, Stuff. Won’t you fix them up for me? Firstly, you still owe us 20 quid from way back before Christmas, so don’t think we’ve forgotten about that. Secondly, you’re better off asking Curve for help. It won’t do anything to sort out your overdraft, but it might stop you getting in such a pickle again. How? By using a single card to manage your sprawling network of debit and credit cards, so you needn’t flit between several apps just to find out how much you actually spent this month. Just one will do the job. So you’re telling me that I should go and get another card? No, not really. The Curve Mastercard acts as a cipher for every other card that you’ve connected to…