Google Now’s latest trick is finding you a cheaper flight
Google Now has been showing off alternate info for when your flight’s been delayed for a bit, and as of late the app’s looking to take another bite out of air transit frustrations: keeping an eye on ticket prices. Poking around on Google Flights for a trip will drop a card into the search giant’s digital assistant now and will alert you when prices change based on your recent destination or itinerary searches. It’s sort of like what Airfare Watchdog does, but is possibly more convenient. As pointed out by by Android Police, however, it doesn’t look like searching for a flight on the likes of Kayak or Travelocity will trigger the same activity.
From the looks of it, Mountain View’s aiming to provide end-to-end help for your trip, from sidestepping traffic jams en route to the airport to finding diversions at your destination. It’s worth noting, though, that it’s still entirely on you to roll out of bed to make that red-eye to wherever you’re going — not even Google can guarantee that’ll happen. Should you need proof that the new functionality exists, we’ve embedded Android Police‘s screengrabs below.
[Image credit: Greg Adams Photography]
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Transportation, Mobile, Google
Source: Android Police
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Android M Already Talked About?! Android L Spotted on Build in Chromium! – ManDroid Daily
Happy Monday my Android friends. Okay, that statement doesn’t make sense. There is no such thing as a “happy” Monday, but the ManDroid Daily is here. Android M is already being talked about on the developer side, which makes sense given they are ahead of what is out there. Android L on the other hand was spotted on a Nexus 4 owned by a Googler who posted the build in Chromium. It’s almost here guys. Enjoy the Daily!
Android News
Android M
Android L on a Nexus 4
Why Google chose HTC for Nexus 9
LG sets record
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The fun and weird moments of Tokyo Game Show 2014
The annual Tokyo Game Show has just wrapped up, and while there weren’t any major console announcements, we still had our fair share of memorable moments on the show floor. On top of trying several different virtual reality demos, we also watched Japanese girls giggle away at a romance simulation booth, and we even bumped into Japanese porn stars without realizing who they were at the time. Check out our list of TGS highlights in the gallery below.
Filed under: Gaming, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
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UPS now lets you use 3D printers in nearly 100 US stores
UPS’ experiment with in-store 3D printers apparently went off without a hitch — the shipping service has expanded the availability of 3D printing services from six test markets to nearly 100 locations across the US. While the hardware is still concentrated in a relatively small batch of cities, such as New York and Chicago, there’s now a much better chance that a shop near you has the gear for printing everything from prototypes to a one-of-a-kind phone cases. There’s no word of any additional rollouts at this stage. However, it’s reasonable to presume that more stores will get on-the-spot object making if it proves popular with crafters nationwide.
Filed under: Peripherals
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Ray Ozzie’s ‘Talko’ app is not the right productivity tool for the Atlanta Hawks
New team collaboration / messaging apps are seemingly everywhere, from Trello to Slack to (now Microsoft-owned) Yammer. A new entrant Talko is interesting not only for its pedigree — the team is led by Lotus Notes co-creator and former Microsoft Chief Technical Officer / Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie — but because it marks a return to the days when our phone was a tool for voice communication, instead of primarily text or pictures. In an introductory blog post, the Talko team describes an app that lets users talk, share and do. The idea is that communicating by voice while everyone is online is easier and others can catch up with the conversation at any time, since the data is cached on Talko’s servers. Right now the app is iPhone only, while Talko says Android and web apps are on the way.
http://www.engadget.com/embed-5min/?sid=577&playList=518428078&responsive=false
Dropping in photos and sorting ideas with various forms of tags is nothing new, but Talko is focusing on the first element, voice communication, whether it’s through real-time live chatting or shared messages left for the team. The “social productivity” tool is free to try and the team tells TechCrunch that it plans a business model where users pay a fee to have access to older archives of their calls or data. A price isn’t set yet either, but it’s “likely” to cost less than $10 per month to look back further than a week or so. As-is, it’s probably worth downloading and poking around a bit before that guy at the office (you know which one) brings it up on a conference call tomorrow before you go back to using Google Docs.
Today’s our grand opening. Welcome to Talko! http://t.co/4LGzy7rc7a https://t.co/iG9imhzrL6
– Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) September 23, 2014
The journey begins… @rozzie: Today’s our grand opening. Welcome to Talko! http://t.co/EV69blhmaS
– Matt Pope (@spacklr) September 23, 2014
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Source: Talko Blog (Medium), Talko (iTunes)
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Already?!: Googlers are already dropping the Android M name even before Android L is released
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
I’m sure many of us in the Android community are waiting with bated breath for the day that Android L – whether it be called Lemon Meringue Pie, Lion, or Lollipop – is finally released into the wild after it was announced at Google I/O earlier this year. That still hasn’t stopped some people talking about the next version of Android, though, provisionally called Android M. This all seems a bit ridiculous given that Android L isn’t even out, but Google developers have been spotted referring to a future build of Android called “M”.
Now, we don’t really need Google developers to tell us that the next version is going to go by a name starting with the letter M – since the very beginning, Android builds have sequentially progressed through the alphabet and M would be a logical successor to L. However it is interesting to get a bit more of an idea how Google operates, developing things effectively in parallel – this way, releases get more than just one year of development. Android M isn’t expected for at least another year, or longer, though rumours are already suggesting that it’s going to be called “Milkshake”.
What do you think about Android M already having its named dropped? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: myce.com
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MakerBot’s Bre Pettis opens a workshop for 3D printing innovation
When MakerBot announced that Bre Pettis would be stepping down as CEO earlier this month, we knew he wasn’t going far. Today, the 3D printing guru’s new project was revealed. The Pettis-led Innovation Workshop at Stratasys is called Bold Machines, and it looks to push “the frontier of 3D printing technology.” Leveraging Solidscape 3D printers and devices both of the aforementioned outfits, the studio will work alongside “innovators” to flex its muscle. So, what’s on tap to start? A movie made entirely with 3D-printed characters. The film focuses on Margo, a detective whose parents have gone missing during a space exploring expedition, and a businessman’s evil schemes. In fact, you can go ahead and print your own Margot figure now, and production files for other characters, including the sinister Mr. Walthersnap (pictured with Pettis above), will be made available for at-home printing in the future.
Filed under: Peripherals
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Bold Machines (1), (2), (3)
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Dartmouth’s StudentLife app can tell you if your mental health is hurting your grades
Not sure if you’re depressed? Your smartphone may be able to clue you in. Researchers at Dartmouth have developed an Android app that keep stabs on student behavior — silently logging how long they sleep, the number of conversations they have, how much time they spend in class, at social events or at the gym and even stress levels and eating habits. Using well-known mental health surveys as a benchmark, researchers were able to use the data to determine if students in its test group were depressed, stressed out or lonely, and eventually found correlations between mental health and academic performance.
Researchers discovered, for instance, that students with high levels of social activity tend to have higher grades, but also may be less physically active. Students who were found to be more physically active and socially engaged tended to be less depressed, too. A more fleshed out version of the app could potentially warn students if their mental state is worsening, and could additionally use that data to predict their GPA. Still, such an app could be awhile off: the app’s creators admit that there are some security concerns that need to be worked out. The test program, at least, is secure – researchers anonymize all of the data taken in my the smartphones, and at this point participants aren’t even given feedback from the app, as it could effect student behaviors and contaminate the research. Either way, the functionality is compelling: in the future, your phone might be able to give you mental health diagnosis on the fly.
[Image credit: Alamy]
Filed under: Cellphones
Via: Technology Review
Source: Dartmouth, Science Daily
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Mobile Chrome apps get improved notifications and sign-ins
Google’s Chrome Apps for Mobile project has been handy for developers who want to repackage their websites as native apps for your phone, but the resulting projects have been limited in what they can do — it’s pretty obvious that they’re recycled. As of now, though, they’ll behave much more like apps built from the ground up for your Android and iOS devices. A new version of the project lets you provide your identity to these apps by signing in, and they can send you rich notifications with content previews, much like what you’re used to on Android. There’s also much better support for messaging and other services that need to talk to servers. Developers will have to build these features into their software before you’ll notice the difference, but don’t be surprised if the lines between native and web apps suddenly get very blurry.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Google
Via: The Next Web
Source: Chromium Blog
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Cosmic dust definitely clouded Big Bang researchers’ findings
Earlier this year, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the BICEP2 telescope in Antarctica were thought to have found evidence of gravitational waves produced during the first moments of the big bang. The discovery was heralded as one of the most important discoveries of our era — unfortunately, the results were contaminated. While going through peer-review, astronomers began to wonder if cosmic dust may have skewed the results. Now the verdict is in: it did, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the theory is false.
A report sourcing data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite explains that there was too much dust in the original researcher’s view of the sky to guarantee that what they saw was really gravitational waves, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t measure any waves. The theory still makes sense in its own right, but now that researchers are aware of the effects of the cosmic dust on observing evince of it, it’s just harder to verify. Basically, more time and research is needed. That’s a little frustrating, sure, but hey — that’s science.
Filed under: Science
Source: New York Times, Arvix
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AIVAnet 