This tool will uncover anyone’s email on LinkedIn – CNET

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

A while back we told you about Charlie, a free app that monitors your calendar and researches contacts you’re meeting with. An hour before the scheduled time, it sends you notable information about the person you’re meeting and the company he or she works for.

Now, Charlie has released a Chrome extension designed to make it easier to connect with LinkedIn users. The extension will reveal a LinkedIn user’s email address and provide the option to copy the email address, compose an email or request Charlie to research and send you information about that person. The research information is similar to what the app sends before a meeting, containing professional achievements and news.

You can install the extension from the Chrome Web Store. After installing and connecting the extension to your Google account, visit a random LinkedIn profile. You’ll find a new button labeled “Charlie Email Finder.”

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

Click on the button, and a few seconds later Charlie will present you with the email address and buttons for the follow-up actions.

Update: Shortly after publishing this article, the CEO of Charlie, Aaron Frazin, reached out to clarify how the extension worked. According to Frazin, Charlie does not somehow bypass any security protocols put in place to protect a user’s LinkedIn account email address. The service simply takes a guess using its own algorithms at what the person’s email address is.

Randomly browsing through my contact’s LinkedIn profiles, I encountered only one profile where the app was unable to provide an email address (and it was my own profile, which was odd). All other profiles returned the proper email address for the contact.

According to the company’s email announcing the new feature, the extension will remain free while it’s in beta, but no further information about pricing or beta length was available.

There’s another emoticon keyboard hiding in your iPhone – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

At some point, you’ve probably seen the infamous shrug emoticon: ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Emoticons (not to be confused with emoji) are a series of characters put together to make a face, animal or some other funny character. Think of emoticons as the traditional smiley face — with a lot more personality.

Crafting an emoticon like the shrug-face takes a lot more work than an emoji, though. Have you ever looked at some of the emoticons shared on Facebook or Twitter and wonder how much free time someone used in order to create a funny emoticon? Me too.

But there’s good news! You no longer have to try and figure out the digital equivalent of a Rubik’s cube. On Thursday Mashable uncovered a hidden emoticon keyboard on your iPhone.

Follow the process below to activate and use the hidden feature:

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

• Launch the Settings app.
• Tap on General, followed by Keyboard.
• Select Keyboards, then Add New Keyboard.
• Scroll down and select Japanese from the list of available keyboard languages.
• Last, select Kana.

After exiting the settings app, launch Messages (or any other app where you can enter text). With the keyboard visible, tap on the globe icon to switch between keyboards.

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

A split-second after activating the Kana keyboard, an emoticon face will show up on the bottom row. Select it, followed by the up arrow (as pointed out in the screenshot above).

A list of emoticons will then be displayed, available for you to select with a tap. I’m not sure about the meaning of most of them, but I’d be lying if I didn’t think they were fun.

*(^o^)/*

I think that’s a celebration emoticon. If not, it is now!

Here’s a list of emoticons and their meaning – CNET

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What do these emoticons mean?

Jason Cipriani/CNET

If you unlocked the emoticon keyboard on your iOS device, then bookmark this page.

As noted in the guide that detailed how to activate the hidden keyboard on your iOS device, it’s not easy to figure out just what each of the emoticons actually mean.

Thankfully, the website linked to above lists various Asian emoticons and their respective meanings.

For example, (^3^) translates into kiss. I can kind of see it.

(^^^) is a shark (I don’t see it).

Perhaps my favorite on the list, however, is d-_-b, which stands for “listening to music.” And if you’re going to send an emoticon about listening to music, you should follow it up with one that shows off your dance moves:

♪┏(・o･)┛♪┗ ( ･o･) ┓♪┏ ( ) ┛♪┗ (･o･ ) ┓♪┏(･o･)┛♪

If you can’t find the emoticon you want to use on that list, Wikipedia has another list of common Western and Eastern emoticons. The former are the more traditional smiley faces, with the latter looking similar to those found in the hidden keyboard.

Do you have any recommended resources for emoticons? If so, share them in the comments below.

Apple Music: Like button vs. add button – CNET

When listening to a particularly enjoyable song on Apple Music, two buttons vie for your attention: the heart and the plus sign. Should you tap the heart to like the song, or should you tap the “+” to add it somewhere? And while we’re on the topic, what’s the story with the star button that shows up in place of the heart button when listening to some but not all radio stations?

First, let’s define what the heart button does and what the “+” button does.

The heart button lets Apple get to know you better, specifically so it can make better suggestions for the For You tab. Tap the heart button for a song or an album — or a playlist you find on the For You tab — and you are telling Apple that you like that song or collection of songs and want to see more music like that in your For You feed.

The “+” button does not affect the For You feed but adds a song, album, or For You playlist to the My Music tab of Apple Music. The My Music section is your personal library of songs that you added from Apple Music or purchased or imported from iTunes. You’ll see your three most recently added items at the top of My Music. Below, you can browse your My Music library by Artists, Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers and Compilations.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

My Music makes it easier to find specific favorites; instead of browsing or searching Apple Music’s entire library, you can peruse a smaller collection of your favorites on the My Music tab. And if you want to download a song, album or playlist to your phone so you can listen to it when you are offline, you will need to add it to My Music first. Only items that have been added to My Music feature the download button (the cloud with the down arrow). You’ll also need to add a song to My Music if you want to wake up to it with your iPhone’s alarm.

Now you know how the heart button and “+” differ from one another, there’s another button that shows up occasionally that may confuse you: the star button. It’s confusing because it shows up on some — but not all — radio stations in place of the heart button.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

If you are listening to a radio station that Apple Music created, you’ll see the heart button for each song, which you now know helps you fine tune the For You tab by letting Apple Music know you like the song that’s playing. If you are listening to a radio station that you created based on a song or album, then the heart button is replaced by a star button. Tap the star button to fine tune your radio station by choosing Play More Like This or Play Less Like This. (There is also a third option to Add to iTunes Wish List for songs you don’t already own.)

Lastly, there is a somewhat hidden way to fine tune your For You feed by telling Apple Music that you don’t like one of its For You suggestions. Tap and hold on an album or playlist on your For You feed (without pressing so hard that you 3D Touch it) and a menu will spring forth with a line reading I Don’t Like This Suggestion. Tapping on this line is frustrating because there is no feedback from the app that it registered your tap or immediate removal of the offending album or playlist.

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Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET

Even after pulling down to refresh the For You feed or even restarting the app, the suggestions I told Apple I didn’t like still remained. I can only assume my dislikes will help shape future suggestions.

For more Apple Music tips, learn how to juggle tracks with Up Next, shuffle all songs or a genre, view the album of a song you encounter and replay Beats 1 radio shows you missed.

Here’s how to tune in to tonight’s Republican debate online – CNET

Dennis Van Tine/MediaPunch/Corbis

Republican presidential candidates will take the stage tonight for the ninth presidential debate. This will be the first debate without either Chris Christie or Carly Fiorina, both of whom suspended their campaigns after performing poorly in the New Hampshire primary.

Participants include Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The debate is scheduled to take place in Greenville, South Carolina, and will be hosted by CBS. It will be moderated by “Face the Nation” anchor John Dickerson, CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett, and The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel. Coverage is slated to begin at 12 p.m. ET (9 a.m. PT) on CBSN, with the actual debate set to start at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT).

Here are all the different ways to tune in:

• Your local CBS station will broadcast the event live. That’s channel 2 in New York City and channel 5 in San Francisco.
• The network will be providing a live stream of the debate for free on its website.
• It will also be streamed live on the CBSN app for Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, Xbox One and Amazon Fire TV.

Want to follow along or contribute to the conversation on social media? Use the hashtag #GOPDebate.

Also, you can visit our sister site, CBSNews.com, for ongoing coverage of the 2016 election.

How to make sure your food never gets freezer burn again – CNET

Meat patties with freezer burn.

Alina Bradford/CNET

It’s so disappointing when you pull a steak out of the freezer and it’s covered with a solid inch of ice, the meat is all discolored and it looks something like a dog toy. Don’t let this happen ever again. You can protect your meats and other frozen food items with proper storage.

Lock it up tight

Freezer burn happens when water molecules in food migrate to the coldest place in the freezer. Typically, the coldest areas are the walls of the freezer, according to the Library of Congress. If your food isn’t wrapped up properly, the water molecules leave your food and go elsewhere, leaving the food dry. Oxygen can also turn your food funny colors and change the taste.

So, to keep your food moist and air-free you need to seal it inside a container as tightly as possible. A vacuum sealing storage system is ideal, but if you don’t have one you can get similar results with a zipping freezer bag.

First, put your food item in the bottom of the bag. Next, close the bag until there is an opening at the top that’s only around ¼ inch wide. Press all of the air out of the bag and then quickly zip it shut the rest of the way.

If you decide to store food in a container, make sure that the container is filled to the top or as closely to the top as possible. If your freezable container has a plastic lid, hold one edge of the lid up slightly and press down on the rest of the lid to release any air that may be trapped in the container. Quickly seal the lid while pressing down to prevent air from reentering the container.

Don’t leave it in too long

You can’t leave food in the freezer indefinitely. No matter how well you package your foods, it will get freezer burn after extended periods of time in the freezer. The US Department of Health and Human Services offers a chart that can be printed and posted on your freezer door to help you keep track of freezing times. Don’t know when you stuck something in the freezer? Next time, write the day’s date on the storage bag with a permanent marker.

15 foods you should never put in the freezer

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LG G5 always on display teaser does the rounds

For the longest time, LG‘s flagship smartphones have played second (or third, or fourth) fiddle to Samsung’s Galaxy S devices, but have always been very impressive in their own right. In particular, LG always tries to incorporate little features that might differentiate it from its competitors. For its next device, this is manifesting as the LG G5 always on display, and a teaser gif was posted from LG’s official Facebook account earlier today:

As you might imagine, an “Always ON” feature would allow the device to keep notification and time information on the screen with minimal battery power which is possible thanks to OLED technology (lighting up part of the screen while keeping the rest off). We’ve seen iterations of this like the Active Display on Motorola devices, which lights up the display when the device is picked up, but none have tried to keep the display on constantly due to battery concerns.

Whether this means LG has a sufficiently large battery in its LG G5 remains to be seen, but the Korean outfit presumably thinks they’re on to something with this latest gimmick. Thankfully we’ll only have to wait till the 21st to find out all about their new device.

What do you think about the LG G5 always on display? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Facebook via The Verge

The post LG G5 always on display teaser does the rounds appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

Final Fantasy IX for Android is out now, 20% off for its first week on sale

We knew Final Fantasy IX for Android would be releasing soon based on the state it was in for a livestream we saw last month, but we didn’t expect it this soon. Not two months after announcing that it was coming soon, Square Enix has released what is widely accepted to be one of the best games in the Final Fantasy – and it’s carrying a predictably hefty price tag. While the game is 20% between February 10th and 21st, making it $16.99 USD, it will nominally sit around $21 USD – so you should probably make use of this discounted period if you’re a fan of the game.

Although, given how beloved the game is, Final Fantasy IX for Android probably won’t have any issues selling. And for those of you thinking that this is just another port of a previously loved game, you may be surprised to hear that the game appears to have been lovingly restored and improved with better rendering and higher definition models. Note though that if you are going to bite the bullet and purchase, be sure to have a lot of storage space available as the game takes up to 4GB – those new textures have to go somewhere!FINAL FANTASY IX for Android (Playboard) | FINAL FANTASY IX for Android (Play Store)

What do you think about Final Fantasy IX for Android? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Droid-life

The post Final Fantasy IX for Android is out now, 20% off for its first week on sale appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge press render leaks out thanks to @evleaks

At some point, you get the sense that Android smartphone manufacturers just accept that leaks are just a fact of life. That must be the case at Samsung right now as details of its flagship smartphones are being leaked out left, right and centre. A few days ago we got a look at the wallpapers that are going to come with the Samsung Galaxy S7 devices, and today (thanks to leaker @evleaks) we’re getting a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge press render that again confirms the design that Samsung is going with this year.

In case you haven’t seen anything about the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge yet, just imagine the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 edge, and round off the edges just a bit – and you’re pretty much all the way there. There are very little differences in the overall design for this year’s iteration, but you can bet that all the major changes are in the software – and it’s rumoured that Samsung has had some help making its software more efficient. Whatever these changes are, we’ll have to wait till Feb 21st when Samsung will be making their announcement at MWC 2016 – or you know, if we wait another day, we’ll probably get a few more details.

What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge press render? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Twitter via Android Authority

The post Samsung Galaxy S7 edge press render leaks out thanks to @evleaks appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

Alto’s Adventure for Android is out now for free

Alto’s Adventure is a name that has circulated the Internet for a year now, but unfortunately the hugely popular mobile game has only been available on iOS. Thankfully, today that exclusivity disappears as Alto’s Adventure for Android is delivered from one of our favourites, Noodlecake Studios. If you haven’t heard of Alto’s Adventures, you adopt the persona of Alto as you snowboard through and endless 2D landscapes filled with pristine villages, ruins and all-round beautiful nature. You’ll be assigned tasks, like chasing llamas and leaping over canyons as you try to get the best score for each stage, though while the game has lots to offer in terms of gameplay, it’s undoubtedly the minimal graphics that are the star of the show.

For better or worse, the game is also completely free to download and play, but that of course means that the game contains in-app purchases – whether that ruins the experience for you depends what side of the fence you sit on, but the large number of reviews both on iOS and Android seem to suggest you should at least try this one. If you’re convinced, we’ve got the Play Store link to Alto’s Adventure for Android down below:Alto’s Adventure (Playboard) | Alto’s Adventure (Play Store)

What do you think about Alto’s Adventure? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Droid-life

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