Aviate’s ‘Smart Stream’ is Yahoo’s version of Google Now
Yahoo has given Aviate its first major makeover since acquiring it in 2014, completely replacing its contextual panel called “Spaces” with a new feature called “Smart Stream.” This “stream” surfaces different cards throughout the day, depending on your location and activity. Sound familiar? Yep, the company might not admit it, but it’s obviously Mayer and team’s answer to Google Now. According to its official announcement, a card can pop up with nearby restos once you walk into a different city or town. It can also show live scores of games you’ve been waiting for and can put music apps to the top of the app list when you plug in a pair of headphones. Unfortunately, a quick peek at the reviews on Google Play shows that a lot of users aren’t happy with the drastic change — one reviewer even exclaimed “We don’t need another Google Now!” After all, people who do like Google Now will use it instead of something that looks like it.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Yahoo, Google Play
3D plant scans will help build lighter, stronger cars
Don’t look now, but the plants in your backyard might just shape the next generation of cars. University of Freiburg researchers have found a way to study the junctions between living plants’ branches and stems using MRI scans, giving insight into how they cope under strain. The 3D images should show how you can build a lightweight, fiber-based structure that can still take some punishment — particularly helpful for cars and bikes, where fiber already helps shed a lot of unnecessary pounds. They could help produce sturdier buildings, too. While there’s still plenty of work left before plant scanning is practical, it’s possible that a tree or flower could make your future ride a lot nimbler and speedier.
Filed under: Transportation, Science
Source: EurekAlert
List of Countries Where Apple Music and Beats 1 Radio Are Now Available
Apple has posted a list of over 115 countries where some combination of Apple Music, Apple Music Radio, Beats 1 Radio and iTunes Match are available per iPhone in Canada. Apple Music and Apple Music Radio are available in 110 countries as of today’s launch, while Angola, Puerto Rico, Israel, Taiwan, and Turkey are five countries where the streaming music service has yet to launch.
Apple Music’s “For You” section for curated playlists and music recommendations
Beats 1 Radio is currently unavailable in select countries, including the Bahamas, Bahrain, Burkina-Faso, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Mozambique, Namibia, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. iTunes Match, technically available through Apple Music and as a standalone service, is available in all countries listed except for Romania.
To check the availability of Apple Music, Apple Music Radio, Beats 1 Radio, and iTunes Match in your region, be sure to look at the full list of countries on Apple’s website. Apple has also posted a similar list of regions where Apple Music will be available across the U.S. and Canada, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Not all features of Apple Music will be available in each country.
Mac OS X 10.10.4 Supports TRIM for Third-Party SSD Hard Drives
Earlier today Apple released OS X 10.10.4, an under-the-hood update to OS X that introduced several bug fixes and improvements. One improvement, according to Ars Technica, is support for TRIM for third-party SSD hard drives. We previously covered TRIM likely coming natively to the next version of OS X El Capitan but it appears support has already arrived.
Photo via ArsTechnica
With today’s OS X 10.10.4 update, however, Apple has added a command line utility that can be used to enable TRIM on third-party SSDs without having to download and install anything. Called
trimforce, the utility can be executed from the OS X terminal, and it requires a reboot to start working.
TRIM is a system-level command that allows the operating system and the drive to communicate about which areas of the drive are considered unused and thus ready to be erased and rewritten to. In the absence of TRIM, users can see significantly slower drive writes as the drive begins to fill up. Most modern operating systems support TRIM but for Apple’s OS X, it has only included support for its OEM SSDs. This means that Mac users looking to install an after-market SSD in a machine originally intended for spinning disc hard drives would run into trouble without the help of other third-party tools.
To enable TRIM, a user just has to type “sudo trimforce enable” into the Terminal window. Ars Technica points out that running TRIM prompts a “scary” message from the system, but notes it’s largely because each SSD implements TRIM in a different way, with older disks sometimes acting in a way OS X would not expect.
MacRumors forum readers have been testing and discussing the update in our forums and sharing their experiences.
Moto X 2nd Gen on AT&T getting Android 5.1 update today
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Looks like my coverage of Lollipop updates gets to continue this evening. AT&T started pushing out an Android 5.0 update for the HTC Desire Eye earlier this morning and now they are following it up with an Android 5.1 update for the Moto X 2nd Gen. The update is pushing out to devices right now, carriers version number 23.16.2.en.US and weighs in at 507.7MB’s. The changelog lists the following:
Software Update Includes
- Upgrade to Android 5.1 Lollipop OS (additional details available from Motorola)
- Factory Reset Protection
- Added Ready to Go
- Updated NameID
- Updated Moto Connect
- Updated Moto Migrate
- Updated Gestures
- Updated Active Display
- Updated Voice Defined Triggers and Commands
- Updated Highlight Reel
- Updated Authentication
- Other planned fixes, updates, and enhancements
That is the short list provided by AT&T, and as Droid-Life points out, it is updated on the 1st gen Moto X, not the 2nd Gen. If you look at the wrong device update info, you will see they copy and pasted in the details for the update to the wrong page. It is pretty funny really. However, I can confirm that the update is indeed for the 2nd Gen variance. Motorola lists out a number of other things like bug fixes such as the clock not updating in the status bar, no ringer audio while making an outgoing call, Chrome crashes and more.
If you are sporting a Moto X 2nd Gen on AT&T, be sure to head into your devices settings and check for the software update. Be sure you have well over 50% battery life, a solid Wi-Fi connection and some time to kill for the OTA to download and update. As you can see in the screens above, it will take about 20 minutes to install after it is downloaded. Plus or minus depending on the number of apps you have installed.
Source: AT&T (Moto X 1st Gen page) | Actual Moto X 2nd Gen support page
The post Moto X 2nd Gen on AT&T getting Android 5.1 update today appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Huawei unveils its latest smartwatch, the Huawei Honor Band Zero
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Huawei‘s first Android Wear device, the Huawei Watch, was a breathtaking device, and although we’ve yet to see more of it, we’ve been interested to see if Huawei was going to use those design cues in its other devices. After Huawei unveiled its new smartwatch, the Huawei Honor Band Zero, today, it would appear the answer is no. Unlike the Watch which featured excesses in metal and a very traditional appearance for watches, the Honor Band Zero looks most similar to a Misfit wearable, except with a screen. That’s certainly not a bad thing, but it is a surprising direction for Huawei to take its latest wearable.
#Honor‘s smart wearable device that embodies a minamalistic design, that’s #HonorBandZero. #HuaweiFacts pic.twitter.com/94oStPXMnP
— Huawei Device (@HuaweiDevice) June 30, 2015
Because Huawei announced the device on its Twitter account, there’s not much we can say about the device right now, not even what operating system it’s going to run – Android Wear would be the logical answer, but it’s hard to tell at this point. We assume more details are going to trickle out in the near future, hopefully including its price and availability.
What do you think about the Huawei Honor Band Zero? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Twitter via Phone Arena
The post Huawei unveils its latest smartwatch, the Huawei Honor Band Zero appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Google apologizes for tagging black people as gorillas in Photos app
Google’s recently released Photos app proved to be a convenient addition to the Search Giant’s application portfolio. Google Photos offers automatic photo syncing, Assistant (Auto Awesome) and even a feature for automatic tagging, which can recognize and group food, things, places, animals and more. This automatic tagging feature is definitely among the most popular additions to the new service, but we now have proof that their recognition technology still needs some work.
It must have been the most embarrassing day in a long time for the Google+ team when they discovered their app was tagging people as animals. Things get worse when you consider this can be linked to popular racial slurs. Computer programmer Jacky Alciné shared his tagging results via Twitter when he discovered the Google Photos app was tagging dark-skinned people as gorillas. Something Google responded to rather quickly.
And it’s only photos I have with her it’s doing this with (results truncated b/c personal): pic.twitter.com/h7MTXd3wgo
— diri noir avec banan (@jackyalcine) June 29, 2015
Google’s own Chief Social Architect, Yonathan Zunger, reacted the best way possible. He took blame for the mistake, apologized and started working on a fix right away.
@jackyalcine Holy fuck. G+ CA here. No, this is not how you determine someone’s target market. This is 100% Not OK.
— Yonatan Zunger (@yonatanzunger) June 29, 2015
Soon afterwards, Zunger announced the label for gorillas had been removed from the app’s database. This is at least a temporary solution until they can work out the kinks of recognizing a human face. He goes on to mention there’s definitely “lots to be done” in terms of facial recognition, and that this is not the first time something like this has happened. Apparently there a was previous occurrence in which people (of all races) were being labeled as dogs.
We are definitely glad to see how Google handled this. It just goes to show all the work facial recognition really needs. It’s not simple to scan an image and recognize exactly what everything is. Have you guys encountered any similar issues? I keep looking to see if Google Photos will recognize my hairy face as Sasquatch! No luck there.
Motorola starts Android 5.1 update for a grouping of devices
In 2013, Motorola showed customers they were serious about system updates when the company updated its Moto X flagship to KitKat faster than some Nexus devices. However, Motorola has been slower in getting the latest version of Lollipop to its devices this year. Thankfully, Motorola’s David Schuster took to Google Plus today to update users about current Android 5.1 update statuses for several Motorola phones.
For the Motorola Moto X (2014), US Cellular users are seeing full deployment. Users on AT&T will be happy to know that a full soak test has just begun. Assuming all goes well, that means an OTA is just around the corner. There is an ongoing soak test for Verizon users that is being expanded. Motorola is also allowing an open pull for Verizon and AT&T users meaning they can manually pull the update from the Settings menu on their phones.
For the Motorola Moto G with LTE (1st generation), Motorola has started a full soak in Brazil Retail. And for the Motorola Moto E with LTE (2nd generation), Cricket Wireless users are getting a full Android 5.1 deployment starting today.
That is all the news we have so far, but it seems to be a pretty big day for Motorola updates. Hopefully, the ongoing soak tests will be promptly followed by full OTAs.
Have you received Android 5.1 on your Motorola device? Tell us in the comments!
The post Motorola starts Android 5.1 update for a grouping of devices appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Smart software fixes bugs by ‘borrowing’ from other apps
The days of waiting anxiously for bug fixes (assuming they come at all) might soon be over. MIT developers have built a system, CodePhage, that automatically patches flaws by borrowing features from other apps. The tool scans apps to see how they perform security checks, and imports any superior techniques it finds — whether or not they’re written in the same programming language. It doesn’t need access to the source code to see what makes something tick, and it’ll even check that any fixes are working the way you’d expect. While this is still early and likely wouldn’t address every glitch, the hope is that you’ll get software which perpetually improves itself. You wouldn’t have to worry about security exploits so long as they’ve been fixed in at least one other program.
[Image credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT]
Filed under: Science, Internet, Software
Source: MIT News
Sprint (almost) fixed the low video cap on its new ‘All-in’ plan
This morning Sprint announced it planned to “end consumer confusion and frustration” with an “All-in” pricing plan that combined unlimited data with a two-year phone lease for $80 total. The only problem? An absurd limit capping video streams at 600Kbps. Tonight, CEO Marcelo Claure announced that he has heard consumer frustration with the cap, and Sprint will not place any limits on streaming video with the plan. The press release reveals a bit more detail about the revised plan, saying that “we might have to manage the network in order to reduce congestion” for other customers, so it’s still not all good news for the plan. Still, if you don’t mind a second-tier experience during busy times, it might be a cheap way to get service and keep re-upping on new phones every couple of years.
[Image credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]
We heard you loud and clear and we are removing the 600 kbps on streaming video. #Allin and we won’t stop
– MarceloClaure (@marceloclaure) July 1, 2015
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Marcelo Claure (Twitter), Sprint
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