Google showcases the 18 best apps with Material Design in the Play Store
Even though Google showcased Material Design back at Google I/O 2014, the entire concept is still largely being developed. Not only did the company roll out aesthetic changes, but Android 5.0 Lollipop was completely filled with functional changes as well. Eliminating menus, adding in multi-functional buttons, and focusing on the user experience was a huge focus in last year’s update, and today, Google reminds us that it’s still being mastered.
To give us a good example of Material Design, Google has just updated its Google Design webpage, which adds a slew of new Material enhancements. There’s also a lot of new functionality on the website, too.
A new video has been created by the Google Design team that tries to outline what exactly Material Design is. A number of lead designers are featured in the video, along with none other than the man himself, Google’s VP of Design, Matias Duarte. He talks about the fact that Material Design isn’t just a visual overhaul; it’s also a stepping stone to create all-around better design. Duarte explains:
I don’t want to be looking four years down the road or ten years down the road and saying, “Well with Material Design, all of those ideas all of those frameworks, they’re over.” The principles behind them, I think, should be timeless. Maybe we don’t have them right yet, but I believe we’ll get there.
In addition to the updated Google Design webpage, Google has also revealed a list of the best applications available right now with great Material Design implementation. A total of 18 apps are on the list, including well-known apps like Tumblr, Pocket Casts, Weather Timeline, and lesser-known apps like Telegram, SeriesGuide and wiMAN Free WiFi Unlocker. If you’d like to see the full list, be sure to head to the Play Store link below!
Missed something at Google I/O 2015? Re-watch the full keynote here!
While the first day of Google I/O 2015 is just coming to an end, there’s still another full day ahead of us. Google went through a lot of announcements today, and it can be really easy to miss out on some of the most important info. If you’d like to re-live the experience, the full keynote from I/O 2015 has just been posted on YouTube. The video is attached below, so be sure to take a look if you missed out on something!
Of course, you don’t need to watch the entire presentation again, because we’re here. Our very own Bogdan Petrovan created a wonderfully informative I/O keynote roundup, and our own Joshua Vergara made a great video on the Google I/O 2015 keynote, that explains the whole thing in just over eight minutes. A lot has been covered over the past few hours, so be sure to check out our keynote roundup, or watch the video below for more information.
What’s been your favorite announcement so far? Android M? Google Photos? Let us know your thoughts!
Enjoy your first taste of the new version of Android with this Android M wallpaper
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In case you didn’t know, Google I/O 2015 has kicked off today and there have been a whole number of announcements, not least of which has been the announcement of Android M, the next version of Android to be made available later this year. As part of their plan to give their loyal followers a taste of what’s to come, the Android M Developer Preview has been made available to a select number of Nexus devices (Nexus 5, 6 and 9 in particular). If you don’t currently own one of these devices, and still want to have your taste of Android M, you’re in luck because the very first Android M wallpaper has been dug up from the Developer Preview – you can check it out below (don’t forget to click through to the full resolution image):
As you can probably tell, it’s a spruced up satellite photo that Google has no doubt captured while gathering Google Maps data, and we have to say it looks breathtaking. The resolution of the image is 2334×1920, which is kind of weird, but should still make it perfect for 1080p devices. Hopefully the rest of the Android M wallpapers are more of the same – we’ll let you know if and when more are made available.
What do you think about the first Android M wallpaper? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Droid-life
The post Enjoy your first taste of the new version of Android with this Android M wallpaper appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Google’s Now on Tap makes Android M smartphones so much smarter
In no particular order, Google’s invading our living rooms, our extremities, our skies, and – curiously – our Android phones. No, really! By announcing Google Now on Tap during today’s I/O keynote, the company’s going all-in on the idea that a Google smartphone isn’t complete without the full power of the Knowledge Graph baked into it. And you know what? I think they’re right. Even after just a few moments messing around with it, I don’t ever want to use an Android device that can’t do what Now on Tap can.
Before we go any further, know this: You’re not going to be able to use this feature just yet. Holding down the home button on a device running the Android M preview yields a sad little pop-up proclaiming these go-anywhere Now information cards aren’t in this software build. At first I thought it was because there weren’t any updated apps that knew to pass along data to Now when I asked for it, but Google product manager Paige Dunn-Rankin kindly set me straight. App developers don’t have to do anything at all; Now parses the information on-screen and tries to surface relevant information like locations, reviews and definitions all on its lonesome. And you know what the crazy part is? Even now, in its nascent, not-even-closed to finish state, it’s amazing.
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Yes, you can the bet the demos on stage — asking what Skrillex’s real name was without actually saying his nom de gibberish — were rehearsed like crazy. Dunn-Rankin’s examples were a little more off the cuff, though. While looking up a Miles Davis record on Ebay, she invoked Now with a long press to reveal biographical information and links to his jaunty tunes on Spotify. Pressing and holding the home button while looking at an Instagram photo brought up its Yelp and Foursquare listings, not to mention a read on how far away we were from it. It works great with voice inputs, too, and the ability to infer the context of a situation is seriously impressive — you can finally speak naturally to Now, and it’ll respond naturally with (almost) exactly what you were looking for. Google’s been blurring the line between regular Android phones and ones that sort of double as helpful assistants since the days of the 2014 Moto X, which would rouse itself from slumber when you called for it, so today’s news is a step we all probably could’ve foretold.
Naturally, not everyone’s as thrilled as I am. Earlier in the day, my colleague Nicole Lee mentioned that the feature would “creep you out even more than before.” I completely disagree. Fine, there might be something initially unnerving about a system that tries to anticipate what you want, but mechanically, it’s not even close to weird. Google Now just looks at the context of a given situation faster than you can, and provides some very logical jumping off points. It’s not scary, it’s just scary efficient… though some would agree only a fine line divides the two.trydocument.getElementById(“fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-238943″).style.display=”none”;catch(e)
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Filed under: Mobile
Google Photos cuts out Plus to make the app we really wanted
The most striking part of the just released (on the web, iOS and Android) Google Photos is how familiar it feels if you’ve already been using Photos in Google+, or before that, Picasa. The biggest change I noticed early on is that by separating Photos from its attempt to launch yet another social network, Google is starting focus on stuff that both benefits its users, and that it does well: cloud storage and using information to narrow down searches. Now, it’s a perfect fit for how most people use cameras everyday, from the ones in their phones to point-and-shoots (but maybe not your DSLR). With unlimited storage and machine learning that can link photos by the people in them or where they were taken it’s ready to make sense of your massive image library.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ydBjsZnHrwM?rel=0
The tagline is “organized by what matters” and it refers to Photos ability to pull together geotagging information (if available) or just look at your pictures and figure out where they were taken by the landmarks in them. Most importantly, this information is private — Photos is a private library where you can curate and edit your pictures, and then share as needed. That said, it is creepily good at identifying people (you can turn that off in the settings), even if it doesn’t know who they really are. With my photos, it tracked pictures of my nieces as they grew over several years and still identified them accurately. According to the FAQ, it uses “face models” to group similar photos together. Its ability to ID objects wasn’t quite as good — apparently many of my shoes register as cars or buildings, but it was mostly on point.
One element I liked was its ability to create a sharable link to a picture, which you can then go back and kill later without deleting the photo, or just track which links have been created. Of course, it’s also ready to share pictures directly to services like Twitter and Facebook (or Google+) without a problem. A Google Now-like “Assistant” feature tips you off when the app is ready to build out a new collection or collage, and even has the familiar cards setup.
Many of the features that were introduced on Google+ are here too, like Auto Awesome that quickly tweaks images to look their best and highlight faces, create animations from a series of successive shots or automatically create Stories from a place or event. By pulling these features out of Google+, it makes them more logical to use even if the friends you’ll be sharing them to are on a different service. The usual light photo editing tools are also included, like cropping or adjusting levels.
Upon loading the new Photos app, users have an option to stick with using their Google Drive storage, or moving over to the new service and its promise of unlimited backups. By choosing the bottomless option, you’ll be limited to pictures at a maximum size of 16MP, and videos at 1080p, but that should be fine for most. It also implements some compression on your stored pictures, and while I didn’t notice any differences, it’s worth considering for those more serious about their pictures. If you want full-res backups that stay as RAW or TIFF files, you can use the Google Drive options for more space, like a 1TB service that costs $10 per month. On the other hand, if you’re just running out of space on your phone, the app can identify which photos you have backed up to the cloud and offer to delete them locally.
This is hardly the only way to back up your pictures. Apple has its revamped iCloud Photos setup for iOS and Mac, and Flickr recently added machine recognition to its unlimited storage picture service. Others like VSCO Cam are also options for photo editing and organizing. From what I’ve seen so far, Google has a better mix of tools that’s easy to use even for people who are casual about their pictures and works cross platform — I tried the app on an iPad and it was almost identical to the version on my Android phone. That’s not much help if your platform of choice is something else like Windows Phone, but hopefully Google fixes that — this gets better if it’s available in more places.
Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing says the point is to make its abilities so transparent they sink into the background, and on that front it has succeeded. The new Google Photos isn’t just easy to use, it’s unobtrusive and most importantly private by default. In our (overly) public, complicated and multifaceted digital lives, that’s refreshing.
Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Google
Source: Google Blog, Google Photos
Apple’s latest purchase is an augmented reality company
Out of all the major technology companies, Apple is yet to reveal its plans for augmented or virtual reality. But still, chances are the Cupertino firm’s working on a project (or two) behind closed doors, as signaled by multiple patents that have surfaced over the past few years. To make matters more interesting, Apple has bought Metaio, a startup from Germany that’s been focusing on AR since it launched in 2003. “Pioneers in Augmented Reality and Computer Vision,” reads a message displayed in large font on Metaio’s website.
And if you look at its YouTube channel, you’ll also find hundreds of videos about AR, such as demos, tutorials, presentations and more — including one titled “The Industrial Augmented Reality Revolution,” which covers how the technology turns real-world info into virtual objects. We reached out to Apple for confirmation and it said this in an email: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” While vague, that is the company’s usual response to any inquiry about its rumored acquisitions
It’s official now: #Apple has bought #Metaio. pic.twitter.com/FGrvm8jbY6
– Magdalena Rogl (@LenaRogl) May 28, 2015
Source: TechCrunch
Google show’s off Android Pay in new Pay Your Way video
Google is very keen on showing off just how versatile Android Pay is, so they’ve released a new video demonstrating just a handful of things you can use to pay for with your phone. Everything from tuxedos to sodas out of a vending machine to general items at a convenience store are covered, and while we’re still going to have to wait to see retailers bake in support for Android Pay, the video makes it look pretty awesome.
Google announced Android Pay as a replacement for Google Wallet, and the service should be available at hundreds of thousands of stores. They service is paired with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express for easily adding in bank cards and credit cards. It should also make paying for things within applications a tiny bit easier, too.
For everything else that’s happened at Google I/O, be sure to check out our full coverage. You can check out the Pay Your Way video below.
Click here to view the embedded video.
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Check out the Android Choir from Google I/O
Back in February, Google linked together 300 different smartphones and tablets to create an “Android Choir.” Each device had its own specific Androidify character singing a certain note, and when everything was played together it formed a song. It was a pretty cool display that really highlighted the variety of different hardware in Google’s mobile ecosystem.
At Google I/O, Google recreated the scene with 220 smartphones and 80 tablets, so anyone that missed the event in Japan originally had a chance to see it again. We’ve caught demonstration on video, so if you’re interested in seeing 300 Android devices make belt out some harmonies, check out the video below.
For everything else that’s happened at I/O 2015, check out our full coverage.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Come comment on this article: Check out the Android Choir from Google I/O
Google wants more Chromecast multiplayer games and autoplaying apps
Google has sold 17 million Chromecasts thus far, but it obviously wants to sell more and make the media player more valuable to current users at the same time. The company is releasing a bunch of new APIs that will allow developers to create even better apps, games and experiences. To start with, Mountain View is making it easier for them to tailor second-screen experiences for both iOS and Android. That could lead to more games that use phones as controllers (see above), as well as other types of apps like photo editors that place editing tools on smartphone displays.
Add that to the fact that the company’s also simplifying the process of creating multiplayer games, and you can expect more titles that can be navigated using iPhones and Android devices. Finally, Google is providing devs with the API to allow users to queue videos, the same feature already available for YouTube and Netflix on Chromecast. Even better, the second video in line will begin buffering even before the first ends for nonstop, no-downtime video binges.
Don’t miss out on all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2015. Follow along at our events page.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Google
Source: Google Developers
This foldable drone origamis itself and dissolves when done
MIT recently unveiled — or rather, unfurled — an unusual drone specimen. The tiny robot weighs a third of a gram and is just 1.7 cm long. It starts its existence as a flat, paper or polystyrene wafer. When activated with a small heat source, the drone folds itself up into the complex shape you see above and can begin moving (or swimming!) at a rate of 3 cm/sec.
The drone’s movement is “powered” by two sets of magnets: a neodymium magnet integrated into the robot itself and another four electromagnetic coils located under the operating surface that attract and repel the onboard magnet as needed. Technically, the magnets cycle on and off at 15 Hz, causing the onboard magnet to rattle in time, driving the asymmetrical feet and moving the robot. When you’re done using the drone, simply drop it into an acetone bath and the external structure will completely dissolve, leaving just the magnet behind. The MIT team, led by Shuhei Miyashita, debuted the robot at ICRA 2015 in Seattle yesterday. They hope that future iterations will dissolve entirely as well as be able to fold itself within your body, operate autonomously (doing lord knows what to your gut), then melt away without a trace.
[Image Credit: Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum]
Filed under: Science
Source: Spectrum IEEE
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