Diving into M: Launcher lets you uninstall from homescreen, lockscreen gets minor change too
In our very first ‘episode’ of Diving into M we took a look at the revised app drawer found in Android M’s launcher. Now that we’ve had a bit more time, let’s talk about two other minor but potentially useful changes found in the latest version of Google’s launcher.
Want to dive even deeper? Check out our full “Diving into M” series by clicking here.
The most useful of the two changes has to do with the way you remove apps. In the past, removing apps only happened through the app drawer, but no longer. Now dragging on icons on the home screen gives you the option of simply removing them or uninstalling them completely. As you can see, dragging to uninstall makes the icon turn red, while dragging to remove grays out the icon.
Next up, the lockscreen is also getting a minor change. Previously there were two shortcuts at the bottom corners of the Android lockscreen: camera and phone. While the camera icon can still be found on the right side, the left has been replaced with a mic icon that launches Google voice search. That means to make a call you either need to use your voice to initiate it, or you need to unlock your device and launch the phone dialer app from the homescreen. Of course if you have a PIN/password, you can still access emergency calling by pulling up the password screen and clicking on the “emergency call” button found at the bottom.
Neither of these changes are massive ones, but it’s the little things that help polish up the Android experience and that’s what Google says Android M is all about.
NVIDIA posts system requirements for GRID
Earlier today, NVIDIA took to its website and published the system requirements for its GRID game streaming service. The platform calls for a broadband connection with a speed of 5-10 Mbps for 720p streaming and 30-50 Mbps for 1080p.
For those who haven’t heard of GRID, it’s essentially Netflix for games. The service allows you to stream the latest and greatest PC titles to your NVIDIA Shield console or tablet in Full HD via Wi-Fi.
To find out more, hit the source link below.
Source: NVIDIA
Come comment on this article: NVIDIA posts system requirements for GRID
Google publishes a list of the 18 best Material Design apps
To celebrate its Material Design’s first birthday, the folks over at Google have compiled a list of eighteen of the best apps that take full advantage of the new design specification, including Evernote, Instacart, Tumblr and Weather Timeline.
Hit the break for the full list of apps showcased in the Best-In-Class Android Design section of the Play Store.
- B&H Photo Video Pro Audio
- New York Times
- Pocket Casts
- Tumblr
- Weather Timeline
- BuzzFeed
- Circle for Bitcoin
- Evernote
- GroupMe
- Indiegogo
- Lyft
- Runtastic Running Pro
- SeriesGuide
- Telegram
- The Hunt
- wiMAN Free Wi-Fi Unlocker
Come comment on this article: Google publishes a list of the 18 best Material Design apps
A fight is brewing over ads in the ‘open-source Photoshop’
Far from just being that character in Pulp Fiction, GIMP is also an open-source alternative to Photoshop that’s given away freely for all to use. Unfortunately, there’s been a kerfuffle between the project’s creators and SourceForge, one of the places that the software is available to download. The latter stands accused of adding for-profit adware to its version of GIMP, which is a big no-no amongst the free and open-source software community. In a posting to Google+, SourceForce is alleged to have frozen out GIMP for Windows rep Jernej Simončič and subsequently injecting malicious code into the build to trap unwitting users.
It’s an accusation that SourceForge quickly refuted, with its public response titled “GIMP-Win project wasn’t hijacked, just abandoned.” As far as it’s concerned, the project was dumped more than 18 months ago, and SourceForge charitably “stepped-in to keep this project current.” The rebuttal also claims that previous concerns over misleading third-party ads were discussed and addressed well before this controversy began.
The piece goes on to say that while GIMP for Windows was no longer being maintained, SourceForge opted to establish a mirror of releases that are “hosted elsewhere.” These mirrored releases, however, are “sometimes used” to push “easy-to-decline” adverts, adding that the untainted versions are also available to download, if you can find them. Which, roughly translated, sounds like if you’re upset over downloading a version of GIMP seeded with adware, it ain’t SourceForge’s fault. For its part, GIMP is advising users to point their browsers only toward its official downloads page, and we can expect plenty of passive-aggressive broadsides on this topic in the near future.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Source: GIMP (Google+), SourceForge
Facebook supports GIFs, so go knock yourself out
It’s hard to believe, but that bastion of instant gratification, Facebook, has never supported GIFs (except via a kludge). But that appears to be fixed and you can now express your joy or add some comedy to posts on the social network. You just need to add a GIF link from Giphy, Imgur and other sites to your status updates, and it’ll play inline like magic (uploads won’t work, however, as TNW spotted). We’re not sure when Zuckerberg and Co. turned the feature on, though it doesn’t seem to work yet on mobile apps and may take some time to roll out to your neck of the woods. Meanwhile, here’s a little inspiration.
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Via: TNW
Source: Animated GIFs (Facebook)
iOS Text Bug Begins to Affect Twitter and Snapchat Apps [iOS Blog]
The iOS bug that was discovered earlier in the week and causes an iPhone to crash after receiving a specific string of symbols and characters, today expanded to both the Twitter and Snapchat iOS apps (via The Guardian). The bug not only crashes an iPhone, but causes the Messages app to repeatedly crash after being opened to anything other than the conversation in which the string of characters was located in.
Although the issue was known to be routed in banner notifications when it was discovered, thus opening a wide range of apps that could be hit by the malicious text, today’s news confirms that third-party apps can successfully transfer the bug. In Twitter, any direct message or public mention that includes the string of characters will cause a recipient’s phone, with notifications turned on for Twitter, to crash immediately. A similar situation occurs when sending text chat via the Snapchat app, permanently crashing an iPhone when the user goes to read the message.
As noted in the original story, and just last night confirmed by Apple, a temporary fix for the bug remains in place in which a user can use Siri to reply to the malicious message thread in order to prevent Messages from crashing every time it is opened. The company promises that they “will make a fix available in a software update,” but a time frame for any such fix wasn’t given. Given that third-party apps are now becoming affected without as clear of an easy fix, Apple will probably try to put that update out as soon as possible before more permanent damage befalls any users.
Diving into M: Multi-window option can be enabled with some work!
Back in March we first reported on how multi-window functionality had been discovered in an Android code commit. While many custom ROMs and OEM skins have had multi-window capabilities for a while, stock Android fans have been long been waiting for such a feature. The good news is that Android M does in fact carry such a function!
Before you get too excited, there’s some bad news, too. First, this is an EXTREMELY early, experimental function. It’s so experimental that you can’t just turn it on in developer options, you first have to edit your build.prop to change user type to “userdebug” before the feature even shows up in dev options.
Want to dive even deeper? Check out our full “Diving into M” series by clicking here.
As you can see in the screenshots at the top of the page, the multi-window mode gives you the power to show two windows side-by-side. You control this functionality through the recent menu by clicking on a new icon that shows up to the left of the (X). Once you do that, you’ll be asked to select the task’s layout. Although the feature seems a bit clunky, it works just fine as far as I can tell and I’ve had no problems with crashing or other issues while playing around with it. I’m currently testing this on a Nexus 5 though, and so it’s a bit cramped, but obviously such a feature is a much better fit for tablets or big-screen phones.
Multi-window is certainly one of the things we’ve long been asking for, but considering the hoops that must be crossed to turn this on, we wouldn’t bet on this coming to Android M as a stable (non-dev) feature. Then again, you never know. What do you think of Android M’s new multi-window function? Let us know in the comments.
‘Amnesiac’ mice made to remember what they forgot with blue light
Mice with amnesia were able to recover training memories with assistance from blue light, in research that suggests that memories lost in brain trauma could still exist (and perhaps even be recalled) from the human brain. It marks the first time scientists were able to suppress a memory and then bring it back. The research focused on retrograde amnesia, which affects the ability to form memories after a brain injury, or recall what happened before the accident. The group trained two mice teams to remember that one room would deliver a mild electric shock when entered into. Afterwards, placing the mice in the room would cause this reaction without even delivering the shock. Researchers then identified which neurons were active in mice brains when they froze at being in the shock room. labelling those cells with a protein sensitive to blue light, and using a virus to get it where they wanted it. When blue light hit these “memory engram cells” the mouses experienced the same shock – and froze up.
The technique, called optigenics, involved splitting the mice into two groups: one got a drug that inhibits memory making, while the others got a saline solution. The mice that had been drugged no longer froze by being in the room that had previously shocked them, but once blue light was applied, the mice froze once again. Next, researchers then went to those engram cells, and saw that cells in the hippocampus and been strengthened due to the training and labelling, making them easier to be retrieved once the blue light reacted with them. The researchers still couldn’t quite put their finger on where these memories were stored in the meantime.
However, they then noticed that it was a degree of connectivity between these engram cells within the hippocampus, the memory part of the brain, and it was this connectivity that remained even after the drug had apparently knocked out the memories. Tomas Ryan, MIT neuroscientist at MIT and co-author of the study said:
“We have strong reason now to believe that memory storage – that is, the storage of the memory information itself – is encoded through connectivity patterns of engram cells throughout the brain.”
Moving towards helping humans with memory issues, like Alzheimer’s, remains distant: “It’s very difficult to be doing this in humans, partly for the ethical reasons – the work is invasive – but also because we tag the memories in the brain before they’re learned,” Ryan says. Like the experiment, memories would have to be tagged ahead of time in order to be recovered.
Filed under: Science
Via: The Verge
Source: Science
Hyperloop might be ‘free to play’
We’re all expecting to pay through the nose to travel between LA and SF in just 30 minutes, but the minds behind Hyperloop may have a surprise up their sleeve. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies’ Dirk Ahlborn has told CNBC that he’s considering a business model that apes what we see in free-to-play mobile games. The CEO is kicking around the idea that the travel itself would either be free or dirt cheap, with passengers charged for a series of as-yet undisclosed upgrades. Of course, since we’re still a decade or more away from a commercial version of the system, there’s plenty of time for him to change his mind.
At the same time, the project also moved a step closer to reality after the company signed a deal to acquire the land for five miles of test track in California’s Quay Valley. Construction is expected to begin next year, with the first excursions being lined up for 2019. Ahlborn also revealed that he’s not too fussed about improving Hyperloop’s 750mph speed, but instead will use the facility to work out the best way to get passengers on and off the system. The CEO also wanted to assure worried future users that the sensation of being fired along a tube of compressed air by magnets at close to the speed of sound won’t feel “weird.”
Filed under: Transportation
Source: CNBC
IRS blames Russia for ‘$50 million’ hack
Remember when the IRS website was hacked and around 100,000 people had their tax data stolen? Officials are now pointing accusatory fingers in the direction of Russia, at least according to CNN. The revelation was made by Illinois Representative Peter Roskam, who is believed to have gotten the information straight from IRS chief John Koskinen. Roskam added that criminal gangs used the information to file around $50 million worth of fraudulent tax refund requests, although it’s not clear if any money was handed over. It’s the latest in a series of high-profile digital encounters between the US and Russia, after the latter was found to have hacked the White House and accessed the President’s unclassified emails. That metallic clanking sound you can hear in the background, by the way, is that of sabers being rattled.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Slashgear
Source: CNN
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