SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sticks the landing on its return
SpaceX’s last flight in June ended with its Falcon 9 rocket breaking up shortly after launch. When the rocket is meant to be recoverable after launch, you can see why this would be an… issue. CEO Elon Musk tried to improve his odds, this time around, pushing back the launch of its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket to Monday night. Better weather this evening offered a 10 percent better chance of the rocket booster landing on solid ground in a recoverable state, and for those that watched the stream, it looked like a surprisingly stable landing: a bright flare of light followed by the appearance of a fully vertical rocket — this was the stage one landing. SpaceX is checking the rocket and satellite payloads now (update: all the 11 satellites were deployed successfully) and we’ll update when we hear more.
Just reviewed mission params w SpaceX team. Monte Carlo runs show tmrw night has a 10 higher chance of a good landing. Punting 24 hrs.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2015
SpaceX had also tried recovering its rockets with drone ships, but that unsuccessful too. If the company is able to reclaim rockets after they’ve launched once, it would help decrease the cost of launching, well, anything into space, which is probably why it’s so difficult to do. The full live broadcast is now live:
Source: SpaceX
Gionee Marathon M5 Plus comes with a 5,020 mAh battery and a fingerprint sensor for just $385
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Gionee launched the Marathon M5 earlier this year with a mammoth 6,020 mAh battery, and it has unveiled a larger screen variant at an event today. The Marathon M5 Plus is targeted towards consumers who want a mid-range phablet with two-day battery life. Of course, the star of the show is its 5,020 mAh battery, but the Chinese smartphone brand has thrown in some extra goodies, making it an even better package.
The Gionee Marathon M5 Plus features a sharper 6-inch 1080p AMOLED display, a 13-megapixel primary camera with phase-detection autofocus, and a 5-megapixel secondary camera. A MediaTek MT6753 SoC with a 64-bit octa-core CPU and Mali-T720 GPU runs the show combined with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage space. You can further expand the storage using a microSD card. It runs the company’s home-baked Amigo 3.1 interface that’s based on Android 5.1 Lollipop.
Now, let’s talk about those extra goodies. The Marathon M5 Plus comes equipped with a fingerprint sensor that’s built right into its home button and USB Type-C connectivity. The all-metal smartphone will also be able to safeguard personal information like call logs and files such as images and videos using the fingerprint sensor. The device comes with dual-SIM card slot with an ability to carry out voice calls over the VoLTE standard.
Sure, it’s ‘smaller’ 5,020 mAh battery may not be as large as the 6,020 mAh battery that’s used in the Marathon M5, but it can be charged within two hours, thanks to two power input management chips and faster charging ability. Priced at 2,499 Chinese Yuan ($385 USD), the device is available for purchase right away in China. The company also launched the slightly smaller Marathon M5 Enjoy at the event, which comes with 5.5-inch HD LCD display, a 5,000 mAh battery, an 8-megapixel primary camera, 16GB internal storage, and a price tag of CNY 1,999 ($308 USD).
Source: Gionee (1), (2)
The post Gionee Marathon M5 Plus comes with a 5,020 mAh battery and a fingerprint sensor for just $385 appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Easily keep your contact list updated with Veecards (App Review)
It’s a pain to try and keep track of all of your friends and their contact info. It’s even more of a pain to keep track of business associates that you come across while traveling for work. Veecards is here to help with those pains, and alleviate some of the headache attached with keeping your contact list clean and updated.
Veecards aims to re-invent the wheel for your contact list through a couple of ways. First and foremost, forget the days of needing to manually enter your friends information yourself, or remembering their new phone number if they’ve switched providers. Veecards does all that for you, with a catch that we’ll touch on a bit later.
Diving right into the interface of Veecards, you are presented with a beautiful UI, and easy to navigate controls, making it as easy as possible to get started and get your friends on board. The Overflow menu button on the right hand side, opens a few different options for you to toggle through and explore.
The Home page, is where you can find all of your primary Veecard contacts. If you want to get your friends in on the fun, or if you’re meeting a contact for the first time, you can send them an invite directly from the side-menu bar. The Wallet section allows for you to create NFC cards that can easily be shared between contacts while you’re on the go. You can learn more about the NFC cards here at the Veecards website.
The Activity Log shows when you shared or received various contacts information, allowing for you to easily track when you sent that information over. Tutorials allows for you to have easy access on how to use Veecards, and to create a veecard for yourself. This will also help if you need to assist others with getting started with Veecards.
Finally, the settings panel shows your basic account information, as well as the synchronization information for your account. If you want to delete all local data, and start fresh from what’s saved on the server, there’s an easy button to use that for as well. You can also enable all of the NFC technology capabilities from the Settings panel, which would be necessary if you want to easily share contact information via Veecards.
Now all this talk about Veecards, but how do you actually create one. You could head over to the Veecards site and check out the tutorial, and that’s probably you’re best bet. However, the process is pretty straight-forward and self-explanatory, meaning that it is incredibly easy to get your Veecards created and ready to be shared with the necessary people.
You can create as many Veecards as you need to, and there are all different pieces of information that can be added to your individual Veecards. For example, I’ve taken a screenshot of what my AndroidGuys Veecard looks like, and you can see all the different pieces of information that I have added to this specific Veecard. However, there’s also another Veecard that I’ve created which is my personal Veecard, but for obvious reasons, I won’t be sharing that information.
Each Veecard is completely customizable from top to bottom, and everywhere in between. When creating a Veecard, you start out by choosing the style and label for the veecard. As stated above, you can create as many Veecards as you need to, so feel free to get a little wild and try out the various options that can be found within the set up process.
Within each Veecard, you can add the following information to be shared with your various contacts:
- Event
- Instant Messaging
- Nickname
- Note
- Organization
- Phone
- Postal
- Social
- Website
You can add multiples of each field, and there are also multiple “types” that each piece of information can be categorized. For example, when adding an Email, you can choose between “Personal”, “Work”, “Education”, or “Other”. Once you’ve filled in the fields depending upon which Type you used, that information will populate in a subcategory within your Veecard.
After you’ve gone through and tweaked your Veecard to your liking, then your information is ready to be shared with whomever is asking for it.
What we like…
- Easy to create Veecards
- Simple interface
- Beautiful UI
- Good to use if you meet a lot of contacts
And not so much…
- Getting everyone on board with Veecards can be difficult
Overall, I see where Veecards can be useful, especially when you’re going to business meeting or an event like CES. Transferring contact information via NFC is a great concept that has been made possible in the past few years, and there are a lot of benefits to taking advantage of this technology.
Google Play Store: Veecards
The post Easily keep your contact list updated with Veecards (App Review) appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Microsoft’s AI no longer listens to ‘Hey Cortana’ on Android
Less than two weeks after Microsoft introduced its hands-free AI helper, Cortana, to Android mobile devices, the company has yanked the feature from the US market. Users used to be able to say “Hey, Cortana” and then issue a command, just like “OK, Google” natively does for Google Now. However, the feature appears to be incompatible with Google’s voice recognition system and, in some cases, could make the phone unusable for commons tasks — like making phone calls.
As such, Microsoft updated the app on Sunday to disable Cortana’s voice activation. The company could well reinstate it once the interference issues are resolved but until then, the only way to talk to Microsoft’s robo-helper in the states for the time being is on a Windows Phone. The feature is, however, still active for non-US customers.
[Image Credit: FLickr]
Via: Win Beta
Source: Google Play
Former employee claims Theranos’ FDA-approved test is faulty
Startup medical testing company Theranos came under fire in October as the accuracy of its tests were called into question. The FDA has been investigating since then, and today more fuel was thrown on the fire by some former employees. According to The Wall Street Journal, both the FDA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) each received a complaint from a different former employee. The FDA received notice that the study Theranos submitted to win the agency’s approval for its herpes test was “tainted by breaches in research protocol.” That’s notable because so far that herpes test is the only one of Theranos’ tests that has actually been approved by the FDA. Founder Elizabeth Holmes (above) has continued to deny any accusations claiming that Theranos’ data is inaccurate.
The CMS received a more general complaint in regards to Theranos’ custom-built “Edison” testing machine — the employee said the equipment had “major stability, precision and accuracy” issues. This backs up the WSJ‘s original report from October that claimed the Edison devices were only running a handful of the tests Theranos performed, with most being done on standard lab equipment. The anonymous employee also said that Edison machines would often produce radically different test results on the same sample and also claimed that Theranos was made aware of accuracy issues in 2013 and 2014. Management however supposedly pressured lab employees to keep using the machines anyway.
A spokesperson for Theranos told the WSJ that it hadn’t yet been provided with any copies of these latest complaints, so it can’t comment on them or even know if they’ve truly been filed yet. However, the WSJ claims it has reviewed copies of both reports and that the FDA has already interviewed the former employee who sent in a complaint to the agency. While it remains unclear what exactly will happen to Theranos at this point, the fact that the company’s only FDA-approved test as well as its flagship testing device are both under scrutiny doesn’t bode well. It wouldn’t surprise us to see the FDA pull its support for the test before long.
[Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
Via: TechCrunch
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Apple Criticizes Proposed UK ‘Investigatory Powers’ Surveillance Bill
Apple today spoke out against the UK’s proposed Investigatory Powers bill, expressing concern that it would “weaken security” for millions of law-abiding customers, reports The Guardian. Apple added that in a “rapidly-evolving cyber-threat environment,” technology companies should be allowed to “implement strong encryption to protect customers.
Introduced last month by UK home secretary Theresa May, the Investigatory Powers bill allows for the bulk collection of website records by law enforcement agencies. It requires web and phone companies to store records of websites visited by every UK citizen for 12 months, and it has provisions that would require technology companies to build in backdoors or help bypass encryption on devices to allow access to information.
Apple and other technology companies believe the implementation of such a bill could inspire other countries to adopt similar measures. In a letter written to the parliamentary committee looking over the bill, Apple expressed concern about the scope of the bill and asked for changes to be made before it’s passed. In its current incarnation, Apple worries the bill could give the UK government enough power to demand changes to the way iMessage works, ending the encryption that makes it inaccessible even to Apple.
“The creation of backdoors and intercept capabilities would weaken the protections built into Apple products and endanger all our customers. A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too.”
Apple went on to say the legislation could cause businesses to have to deal with a set of “overlapping foreign and domestic laws” that will “inevitably conflict” and lead to the risk of sanctions. UK agencies could, for example, ask for information stored in data centers in other countries, infringing on that country’s data protection laws. “That is an unreasonable position to be placed in,” Apple wrote.
Other technology companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo, also plan to submit evidence to the parliamentary committee in the hope of getting the proposed bill changed.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Tesla brings Spotify Premium to non-US customers
Tesla announced on Monday that it is partnering with Spotify to integrate its Premium net-radio offerings into the Model S. But don’t get too excited, the new service is only going to be available to customers in Europe, Australia and Hong Kong for the time being. It’s reportedly coming to the US, however a release date has not yet been set. The integration will not require customers install the Spotify app on their phones or even have a Premium account of their own — the account comes with the car and will only work with that specific vehicle. If you’ve already got a Spotify Premium account, you will be able to link that instead.
[Image Credit: Getty]
Source: Telegraph
How to boot your Android device into safe mode
Android is a great mobile operating system, and it’s getting better with every new version. Android 6.0 has been the best yet as far as performance enhancements go, and as a result, devices running Marshmallow have been insanely slick. Android isn’t able to stop third-party applications from bringing your handset to a crawl, though. However, Android does have a handy tool called Safe Mode to deal with those issues.
This tool will let users boot their device into Safe Mode, where only the applications that came with the smartphone are running. In other words, any application you downloaded after getting your device aren’t able to run. This helps you get a good indication if you’re smartphone is chugging because of something you downloaded or of it might be time to turn in the smartphone for a new device.
With that in mind, we’re going to show you how to boot the most popular Android devices into Safe Mode to deal with those nasty software problems.
Booting into Safe Mode
A surefire way to boot into safe mode on most devices is to hold the power button down for a few seconds, just as you normally would to shut off the phone or restart it.
Next, hold the Power Off button down until your device prompts you to reboot into safe mode. Press OK, and your smartphone or tablet will restart in safe mode.
Once you’re in safe mode, a watermark will appear at the bottom left of the device that says “Safe Mode.” In this mode, you won’t be able to access any extra applications you downloaded. The only apps that are running are the ones that came with the device. Just as I mentioned earlier, this will help you get a good indication if it’s some third-party app that’s making your device take a performance hit.
Unfortunately, it won’t show you which app that’s making your device chug, but it’ll give you a good footing to start searching for the problem.
While in safe mode, it’s worth using staying it for a day and seeing if any of your problems persist. If any lagging, freezing, performance issues, or battery issues are resolved, it could very well be a rogue application chugging down your device. That said, it might be time to start deleting applications that you think might be causing the problem. You can easily do this in your device’s application manager while all of the third-party apps are disabled.
If problems persist, it’s worth skipping all of this troubleshooting and going straight for a factory data reset. This will completely reset your device to factory settings, eliminating all applications and any malware, viruses or Trojans you might have on your gadget.
To get out of safe mode, just power off the device as your normally would. Hold the power button for a few seconds. Next, when the menu appears, just tap Power Off. Finally, hold the power button down again to turn on your device.
Closing
If problems persist even after doing a factory data reset, it might be time to get a new smartphone. Android isn’t meant to be bogged down, and for the most part, it’s a very smooth and fast mobile operating system. With that in mind, there are tons of great devices out there. And while many might seem expensive, many manufacturers are making leaps to construct cheap, yet powerful off-contract devices. Whether you need a new smartphone or tablet, Android has a variety of powerful options that won’t break the bank.
If this guide helped you at all or you need some additional troubleshooting help, be sure to leave a comment below. We’d love to help you get your Android device in working order!
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Action Launcher’s December update adds Quickedit icon tool
Action Launcher, one of the most flexible launchers on Android, just got even better thanks to a new Quickedit tool.
The December update, which is free to download on the Play Store, also adds a host of other features including Smartsize icons, Bundled Google Calendar icons for each day of the month and a built-in Marshmallow icon pack. A ‘completely overhauled’ icon picker gives users something new to play with.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Action Launcher’s Chris Lacy admits the star of the show is Quickedit, a ‘bottom sheet panel that is used for quickly editing a shortcut’s label, uninstalling, etc’.
Quickedit can offer suggestions for icon alternatives based on which icon packs a user has installed on their Android smartphone or tablet, which makes it handy for folk that love customising the look of their tech.
Speaking on Google Plus, Lacy adds: “Obviously not everyone has icon packs installed, so there’s handy shortcuts to use Google Photos, Dropbox, etc, or jump to the store. By using the double-tap to apply, you can change icons on a bunch of apps in a few seconds”.
Action Launcher’s makers promise a ‘boatload of bug fixes’ too, so it looks like this December update could spell the best version of Action Launcher yet.
Source: Chris Lacy (Google+)
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Google’s VP of Material Design talks about working on an iPad, reveals favorite mobile devices
Matias Duarte, the former Director of Android User Experience and current Vice President of Material Design at Google, has been shaping and molding the aesthetics of our favorite operating system ever since Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Duarte’s guiding hand is evident in Google’s Material Design, which he describes as “a sufficiently advanced form of paper as to be indistinguishable from magic.”
This Sunday, Beautiful Pixels hosted an interview with Google’s design champion to ask him some questions about his work life and the tools he uses most frequently. In the interview, Duarte speaks highly of Apple’s design and doesn’t hesitate to reveal that he regularly works with an iPad.
It’s kind of amazing actually, that I’m using a Surface Book and Google Docs, my Android phone has Apple Music, and that my iPad Pro has Microsoft OneNote – maybe there is hope for peace on Earth this holiday!
See also: Listen to Matias Duarte talk design on Joshua Topolsky’s Tomorrow podcast
Duarte comes across as someone who is genuinely thrilled that our technologies are converging on devices across brands saying “iOS users are very important to Google!” However, when asked what software he prefers to use, Duarte reveals that he’s got something of an old school streak in him:
Still the tools I use the most on a day to day basis to explore and articulate design ideas are whiteboards, notebooks, and Google Docs. Like I said, I’m excited about OneNote because I think it could become my personal digital portable whiteboard, but for nuanced sketching, I still haven’t found something I’m as comfortable and proficient with as paper and ink.
The Material Design VP’s preference for the tactile and physical shows not only in Material Design, but also in his preference of mobile devices. When asked, Duarte revealed that aesthetics and durability rank right up there with hardware specs for him.
For work I have a Nexus 6P, but I also have a Moto X with the teak wooden back that I love. It’s long in the tooth though, so I need to find something to replace it…I also absolutely love my Sony tablet, the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact. It’s an amazing small tablet, super thin and light, and best of all, waterproof! On vacation, I’d see everyone else sitting in their deck chairs reading their tablets anxiously, and I’d just slip into the pool with mine and order a MaiTai. I know that seems super indulgent and niche, but actually I feel like that’s an important unsung part of the future — making technology robust enough that it’s not precious but just part of everyday life the way we want to live it.
For more info, be sure to check out the full interview at Beautiful Pixels. What do you think of Matias Duarte’s hardware and software picks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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