Google Search updated with compatibility for 2016 US elections

Google has just started rolling out a fantastic little server-side update for its official Search application for Android. The purpose of this upgrade is to keep you on top of the latest 2016 US elections news by providing you with card-based information on the positions of each candidate, live tallies of the results and voting reminders for you own primary.

If you open up Google on your smartphone and search for a candidate, you will notice that the results page has had a complete overhaul. A brief rundown of the candidate, together with a summary of their policies and their stance on particular issues, are now present in a simple, easy on the eye Google Now-like card.

Searching for “primary results” will pull the most recent delegate count for each candidate in a tradtional bar chart. You can also turn on push-notifications to recieve alerts when  a entrant wins a primary.

Pretty neat, huh?

Source: Google

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Pay what you want to become a bona fide coding expert

Let’s face it, there’s a little bit of hacker in all of us. Android is one of the most open platforms in the world today, and the reason why we love it so much is your ability tweak and customize. When it comes to web hacking and development, that’s a bit different, but after going through today’s deal, you’ll be able to turn your very own website into something you can be proud of.

The Web Hacker Bundle is a set of seven courses comprised of over 70 hours of content designed to teach you how to “become a bona fide coder”. The tools that you need to become an expert are apart of this great deal, and although the 73 hours of content may seem daunting, it’s well worth it.

• Learn Web Programming in Django & Python

  • Study Python & Django w/ over 28 lectures & 6.5 hours of content
  • Ease into programming by studying one of easier languages, Python
  • Compliment your knowledge of Python w/ knowledge of the popular framework, Django
  • Utilize your knowledge to build smart web apps quickly & easily
  • Work on diverse practice projects like ecommerce sites, message boards, image gallery sites & a blogging app

• Learn Bootstrap Development by Building 10 Projects

  • Learn to build impressive mobile-ready websites w/ 74 lectures & 13.5 hours of content
  • Understand the uses of Bootstrap Components
  • Master the best practices for HTML, CSS & JavaScript development
  • Use SASS & Bootstrap to learn about grid systems, list styling, and progress bar componenets
  • Explore Nested grids, buttons groups, a gallery plugin & responsive queries
  • Develop a landing page using LESS, a CSS preprocessor
  • Implement an image carousel & more

• Projects in JavaScript & JQuery

  • Learn these essential, widely-used technologies w/ over 50 lectures & 9 hours of content
  • Add JavaScript projects to your resume
  • Look at the event handlers, variables, loops & arrays by building a JavaScript quiz
  • Study image galleries, sliders, scrollers, etc. w/ jQuery
  • Create a YouTube Data API & content accordion
  • Connect to MySQL database via PHP
  • Explore using Git & Github
  • Utilize jQuery Mobile to make a mobile-based app
  • Build a simple game

• Projects in PHP & MySQL

  • Build practical projects to round out your programming knowledge w/ over 88 lectures & 23 hours of content
  • Study programming technologies such as PHP, MYSQL, JavaScript & JQuery
  • Work on the projects in any order you want
  • Utilize the royalty-free code on any future project
  • Use the MySQL API w/ PHP to power a Shoutbox
  • Create a MySQL/PHP-based quiz engine
  • Make a WordPress plug-in & much more!

  
  

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• Learn Ruby on Rails by Building Projects

  • Upgrade your Ruby on Rails skills w/ over 47 lectures & 13 hours of content
  • Install Ruby on Rails & MySQL to build a simple web app
  • Create a complete blog management system like WordPress while mastering Ruby technique
  • Explore professional Ruby techniques while creating a Ruby image gallery
  • Extend your code to make a shopping cart
  • Learn to use Ruby code effectively in commercial projects
  • Study best software development practices

• Learn Docker from Scratch

  • Watch over 22 lectures & 4 hours of content
  • Master one of the fastest growing virtualization technologies on the market (used by many large-scale companies)
  • Learn to easily get more apps running on the same hardware
  • Seamlessly manage & deploy applications
  • Understand the basics behind the container technology
  • Install & set up Docker successfully
  • Get comfortable w/ the Docker workflow
  • Follow an in-depth training on Docker security

• Learn Apache Cassandra from Scratch

  • Dive into over 24 lectures & 4 hours of content
  • Build your next application using Cassandra DB, the high-performing database management system
  • Seamlessly install Cassandra to get started
  • Understand CQL
  • Use Cassandra in conjunction w/ NodeJS
  • Learn NoSQL DB concepts while building a Twitter clone application
  • Study tables & queries in Cassandra

The way this deal works is that you pay what you want for the first eight of courses. When purchasing the Web Hacker Bundle, if you beat the average price, you’ll get all seven courses unlocked. At the time of this writing, the average price is only $9.45, with a top price of $181.

You don’t need to pay $181 to get all seven courses. Just pay the ten dollars, and with the Web Hacker Bundle, you’ll have every tool you’ll need to become a cross-platform coding expert. If you need extra incentive, think about the fact that these courses would run you over $1000 if purchased separately. To get all seven courses and over 73 hours of course content for only $10 is insane. So head over and jump on this deal before it’s gone.

You can find this, and many other great tech bargains through our Deals page. Backed by StackCommerce, there are daily promos, giveaways, freebies, and much more!

AndroidGuys Deals: Pay What You Want: Web Hacker Bundle

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Marshmallow update rolling out to the NVIDIA SHIELD tablet

Those of you with an NVIDIA SHIELD will be happy to hear it is receiving a Marshmallow update. Upgrade 4.0 contains some new improvements and some key features you will need to pay attention to regarding storage.

The new update will improve the NVIDIA SHIELD Camera app by overhauling the looks with Material Design and bringing real-time HD Image Effects. Other improvements are WiFi connectivity and overall better looking UI. However, the main new feature is called Adoptable Storage. With this new feature you will now be able to use a microSD card combined with your internal storage as if they were one.

However, be careful you don’t wipe all your data. Before you do the update make sure to backup all your data to a microSD card. After you do the update there are two ways of setting it up. Portable Storage, which does not delete any data off your SD card, or Internal Storage, which will wipe all your SD card data. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to accidentally do that, which is why backing up before is so important.

Also, there is a new update to the NVIDIA SHIELD K1, which includes many fixes and a few new features such as adding back controller touch pad functionality and support for Stylus Lasso Capture functionality.

Source: NVIDIA

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US and Europe struggle to agree on data sharing

How tech companies share your data overseas is a thorny issue, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any easier. The US and European Union failed to reach a deal over data sharing before an end-of-January deadline, leaving important questions of privacy and legal responsibility up in the air. According to the New York Times, the two sides aren’t even close. The EU wants promises that data is protected against bulk US spying, for instance, but it’s not thrilled by a proposed US State Department “data ombudsman” who’d help Europeans concerned about American misuse of their info.

There’s still the chance of a deal before Europe takes matters into its own hands on February 3rd. However, it may be watered down — NYT sources hear the focus is on a “broad” agreement. Whether or not things come together, you won’t have many guarantees about your internet data for quite a while.

Source: New York Times

Farewell to the Ziegfeld, one of the last movie palaces

Last Thursday, New York City’s majestic Ziegfeld Theater took its final bow with a screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was, in many ways, a tragic end for Manhattan’s last single-screen theater. After 47 years in business, we learned with little warning on January 20th that it would be shut down by the end of the month. The building will undergo a two-year renovation and be turned into the Ziegfeld Ballroom, a gala event space. The Ziegfeld’s final screening was booked without much fanfare, but that didn’t stop hundreds of New Yorkers from braving the cold for one last show. Engadget’s Kris Naudus and Devindra Hardawar were there to reflect on the loss of yet another old-school theater.

Kris

The first time I ever visited the Ziegfeld, I didn’t recognize it as an anomaly or a relic. But why would I? I’m a Brooklyn kid: It was the first theater I had ever visited in Manhattan. It was big. It was grand. But I guess I thought that was just the way everything in the city was. I was so naïve.

But, in a bigger context, I’m talking about 1997 here: The multiplex explosion was still a rather recent thing. In fact, at the time the only one I’d ever been to was the UA Sheepshead Bay, which opened ten years prior. Movie theaters in New York were still pretty easy to find, period — even with so many shutting (or turning into porn theaters) down during the hard times of the ’70s and ’80s. But my friends had picked the Ziegfeld as the place to see the Star Wars special editions, so I joined them.

Devindra

I didn’t realize it at the time, but watching Coraline at the Ziegfeld in early 2009 pretty much convinced me that I had to live in New York City. Between its ornate decor (chandeliers! red velvet curtains!), enormous screen and tremendous sense of community, it was unlike any cinema I’d visited before. The Ziegfeld wasn’t just a movie theater; it was a full-fledged movie palace, the sort of thing I could only dream about growing up in Hartford. Sure, you had to wait out in the cold for your screening, and the seats weren’t exactly comfortable, but it was a singular experience.

Kris

Ha, I saw Coraline there too!

It’s funny how we think about the Ziegfeld as a “classic movie theater,” mostly because of its association with the original Ziegfeld Theatre — a Broadway venue that’s probably best known for its eponymous Follies. The current Ziegfeld replaced that theater. Looking back, that was an odd decision. A lot of old theaters shut down starting in the late ’60s, and here they are, opening a classic-style movie palace in the heart of Manhattan! However, the Ziegfeld ultimately didn’t need that borrowed history because over the past few decades it’s accumulated its own set of stories and, as you mentioned, community.

Some of the people we saw at the final screening last week are people I first met waiting outside to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace back in 1999. Some of these people have fallen in love and had kids and taken those kids to see movies there. (I once dated a guy I met at the Ziegfeld — it didn’t work out. He was there on Thursday too.) And, oh yeah, the infamous Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Star Wars sketch was filmed outside.

Devindra

While I was waiting in line, I met a guy who saw Jaws at the Ziegfeld as a kid. Its closure breaks my heart, but I can’t imagine the sense of loss that he — or you, Kris — are feeling.

In many ways, cinemas like the Ziegfeld are exactly what we need today: a premium experience that’s worth leaving your couch and whatever the heck is streaming on Netflix. But I guess the convenience of multiplexes is a bigger draw to New Yorkers, rather than trekking out to 54th street.

I can’t help but think of the ways Comcast (which owns the Ziegfeld) and Bow Tie Cinemas (which operated it) could have saved the cinema. It was able to survive so far by hosting gala premiere events for films and TV shows, but perhaps there were other specialized screenings they could have pursued. Or maybe there could have been a concerted effort to run it as a non-profit, like the Film Forum and Brooklyn Academy of Music. (People in the know say it would have been too expensive to operate, even if that change were made.) What the Ziegfeld really needed was more butts in its seats, and perhaps it could have managed that with a more diverse screening schedule, more screening times and some facility updates (the flat seats in the orchestra level really make you miss stadium seating).

Kris

I love the Ziegfeld, but in some ways I was complicit in its death. How often did I really go there over the years? I saw six out of seven Star Wars films there and many other things since my first visit to the theater almost 19 years ago, but the last time I was there was in October to see The Martian. Before that? I can’t remember offhand; it was the first time I’d visited in 2015, that’s for sure.

Like many, I found it easier to hit up other theaters because they had better schedules, a more convenient location and, yeah, a better variety of movies. Do you know what was playing there right before Star Wars: Episode I premiered? Pushing Tin. I hardly saw anyone walking into the theater before May 19th in 1999.

We lament the passing of old-guard institutions, but sometimes our nostalgia blinds us to their faults. Multiplexes were a revelation when they started to spread across the country. On the consumer end it meant more choices, which in turn benefits the industry by allowing a more diverse slate of films to be released. I’d call the AMC Empire on 42nd Street a great example of this: It screens plenty of big studio releases, but also plenty of indie fare. Right now the Empire is playing Star Wars and The Revenant, but I could also catch Lazer Team and Ip Man 3 there if I wanted to.

So though it breaks my heart to see the Ziegfeld close, it’s been in the cards a long, long time. But what galls me is that while the building will remain, it will no longer be used as a theater of any sort. Instead we’re getting another events hall, which I’m sure will host plenty of parties and corporate events and other things where the public isn’t necessarily welcome. At least the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, an old “Loew’s Wonder Theater” from 1929 which reopened early last year, is used as a performance venue. Same with the Astor Plaza in Times Square, which currently operates as the PlayStation Theater.

I can’t help but feel the conversion of the Ziegfeld into a private events space is part of an increasing trend in New York toward transitory space usage: unoccupied pieds-à-terre and Airbnb units. No one wants to put down roots anymore, because more money can be made in a rental economy. But for a city to thrive it needs the continuity that long-term residents and businesses bring. And it needs public spaces for culture to thrive. That’s what ultimately destroys me about losing our last great movie palace.

Devindra

I’m also guilty of not visiting the Ziegfeld nearly enough — even though I end up seeing dozens of theatrical releases every year for my film podcast, the /Filmcast. But as I sat in a tight seat with a tall dude obscuring my view of The Force Awakens, I was quickly reminded of why I end up going elsewhere most of the time.

Still, it was moving to see the Ziegfeld’s community come together for one last show. The theater ended up giving everyone free popcorn, soda and water (because what else are they going to do with all that stuff?). The audience cheered throughout the film; it was, after all, the second or third viewing for most of us. Not a soul left their seats when the credits rolled on The Force Awakens. And when the lights came up, everyone rushed to take photos, as if they were trying to capture the essence of the Ziegfeld on Instagram.