Foursquare wants you to order food from its phone app
Foursquare doesn’t just want to help you find nearby restaurants these days… it wants to bring the food to you. It’s partnering with Delivery.com to let you order food, groceries and even alcohol through its mobile app. It’s technically kicking you over to Delivery.com’s app to finish the order, but that’s almost beside the point — you can have that new Indian restaurant deliver some food rather than remind yourself to check it out later.
Is this going to help Foursquare turn a corner? It’s hard to say. There certainly isn’t a shortage of food delivery services, some of which have a big head start. Foursquare might not be the first place you turn to when you’re feeling peckish and want to stay home. However, the company’s many business customers are going to like it a lot. Foursquare’s delivery option is that much more likely to turn their location info into paying customers.
Source: Delivery.com (PR Newswire)
GravityBox, the Xposed module to rule your rooted device – Android customization
Continuing our efforts learning some basic root tools to better control your device, this week’s Android customization finishes off our initial set of Xposed modules, let’s take GravityBox for a spin. As one of the most robust Xposed modules around, GravityBox does a lot more than just a task or two like the modules we’ve previously explored.
Before we begin
As always, you will need a fairly modern Android device running a stock version of Android, it will need to have been rooted, custom recovery and Xposed flashed to it and the Xposed Installer installed and ready to roll. I’ll put a link to instructions on these tasks below.
Once inside Xposed on your device, search for and install the appropriate GravityBox for your device. Please take careful note of which version of Android you have installed, as you can see, my Nexus 7 is running Lollipop, there is a specific version of GravityBox for Android 6.x Marshmallow – I don’t want to explain it here, but it matters which you choose.
Rooting your device, a few things to think about
Xposed module and installer basics
GravityBox for Marshmallow now available
GravityBox, an overview
So, what’s the big deal with this GravityBox I keep talking about? Truth is, there are smaller apps and modules to perform almost every feature found in GravityBox, but you’ll be hard pressed to find one that does it all the way GravityBox can.
As a brief overview, GravityBox can control most aspects of your notification bar, the notification drawer, quick settings, navigation bar, power options and controls, audio options and controls, add extra navigation bars and functions, add physical keyboard hotkeys for specific apps, tweak phone settings, tweak display settings and a few more cool features. Bottom line, if you want to play around with the visual layout of the operating system pieces, GravityBox is your one-stop-shop of fun.
GravityBox is free, but there is an option to support the developer in exchange for some extra functionality. Primarily, you’ll be able to backup and restore your GravityBox settings, which can be hugely useful if you often reset your device.
We will likely play with GravityBox more than once in this customization series, but for today, let’s look at a couple easy examples.
Relocate your clock and add a network utilization indicator to your notification bar
It will be easy to tackle both of these settings in very short order, but let’s start with the clock before moving to the network usage indicator.
With GravityBox installed, head on in and tap on Statusbar tweaks.
Half way down the page is the option for Clock settings, tap on it.
The third option in the list is a toggle called Center clock. You’ll never believe what it does! Go ahead, turn it on.
Look at that, there are a ton of other settings you can play with, but we’ve accomplished our goal for today.
Now it’s time to add that network utilization indicator to the notification bar. This is almost as easy as the clock to manage. If you’ve just finished tweaking the clock, you can back up one screen to get to the Data traffic monitor, but let’s start from the beginning again, it’s easy enough.
In GravityBox, tap on Statusbar tweaks.
Choose Data traffic monitor.
Tap on Data traffic monitor style and choose either Simple Style or Omni style.
Simple style adds a single data usage metric, I’ve opted for Omni style, which shows independently the values for incoming and outgoing data – that is, your current download and upload speeds.
Once again, there are a handful of cool extras you can play with, but we have accomplished our goal for now.
What’s next
As you likely noticed, we explored only two small tools of one small aspect of GravityBox. Making simple changes to the clock and adding a network utilization indicator are great examples of the power of this root tool, we look forward to exploring more in the future.
Before you back out completely, did you notice that you can change the Statusbar colors? That’s right, one of the other Xposed modules we’ve played with, called Clockhex, allowed us to change the color of the clock, Simply tap into Statusbar colors and change all of the system status icons and text to a new color. A small thing, sure, but this is a level of customization that inspires me to continue this series, these things are why I Android.
Next week
If you are not brave, rest assured we will revisit GravityBox again in the future, there is so much it can do, we may not even install Tasker on this device. Next week on our Android customization series is again up in the air, I am still working on a few cool Android wear ideas, but if I can’t get them together, we’ll look at a few more fun and useful GravityBox tweaks.
What do you say, is there any one small thing on your Android device that you’d like to see changed? If so, let’s see if GravityBox can do it for you.
More Android customization projects:
‘Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories’ makes its way to Android
Rockstar has added another Grand Theft Auto entry to their mobile portfolio, this time adding Liberty City Stories to the Play Store. This is a port of the original PSP game, which was designed with a mobile-first mentality before smartphone gaming exploded. The missions are focused more around being quick and accessible, as opposed to the longer, more meaty style that you’d find on the console versions of GTA.
That’s not to say Rockstar has simply released a straight port of the older game, however. The resolution textures have been improved, there’s a new real-time lighting effect system in place, and there’s a much bigger draw distance to take advantage of the better hardware available now. The controls are obviously mobile-friendly, but it does support physical controllers and Android TV, so if you don’t want to sit down and play this on your touch screen, you’ve got options.
The game is currently 40% and only $3.99, so if you want to pick it up, now’s the time to do it.
Click here to view the embedded video.
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[Deal] Gamer gifts from NVIDIA Shield
Still looking for a Valentine’s Day gift for someone special? NVIDIA has you covered.
NVIDIA is offering six games for the Shield at a discount of up to 67 percent through Feb. 14.
Is your significant other a fan of adventure games? Pick up The Park in the GeForce NOW store for 33 percent off the regular $12.99 price. That’s a savings of about $4.29. You can also get Submerged in the GeForce NOW store for 25 percent off the regular price of $19.99. That means you save about $5.
NVIDIA is also offering four native Android games at big discounts. Juju is now available for 50 percent off the regular price of $9.99, while Dustoff Heli Rescue can be had for $1.50, down from the regular $2.99.
If you’re into role-playing simulations, you can grab This War of Mine for just under $5, a 66 percent savings off the regular price of $14.49. You could also grab Windward for 66 percent off the regular price of $9.99.
The savings are only good through the weekend, so get moving.
Source: NVIDIA
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Instagram bringing view counts to videos in the next few weeks
Instagram has been on a roll adding new features lately, and they’re not slowing down. The app is working on adding view counts to videos on the social media site, which means you’ll be able to take a look at anyone that’s viewed your videos and how many times they’ve been viewed, similar to Vine and Snapchat.
After launching Hyperlapse and Boomerang to make some unique videos, it makes sense for Instagram to add a way to track how well those videos are doing, especially against the pretty stiff competition from the wildly popular, Twitter-owned Vine.
Video is only going to keep growing, and social media sites have to stay ahead of the curve. Expect to see this feature roll out over the next few weeks.
source: Instagram
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Twitter not attracting new users
Although Twitter made $710 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, it still isn’t profitable.
Twitter reports that the $710 million in revenue is a 48 percent year-over-year increase. But it still posted a loss of $90 million, though that is better than 2014’s loss of $125 million.
Twitter also reported that the number of monthly active users remained stagnant at 320 million. But if you exclude SMS users that don’t see ads, it looks even worse for Twitter. Worldwide, active users were down by about 2 million between the third and fourth quarters. In the third quarter, Twitter reported 307 million active users, compared with 305 million in the fourth. In the U.S., again excluding SMS users, there were about 66 million active users in the third quarter, while there were only about 65 million in the fourth.
Source: Twitter
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Apple Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over ‘Error 53’ iPhone 6 Bricking
Seattle-based law firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala (PCVA) today followed through with plans to bring a class action lawsuit against Apple over the “Error 53” controversy that made headlines last week.
“Error 53” is the error code that some iPhone 6 owners have received after third-party repairs that affect Touch ID were made to their iPhones, rendering the devices unusable. As explained by iFixit, repairs made by third-party services using non-original components cause the iPhone to fail a Touch ID validation check because the mismatched parts are unable to properly sync. Parts that can impact Touch ID include the screen, flex cable, and Home button.
When this Touch ID validation check fails during an iOS update or restore, Apple disables the iPhone, effectively “bricking” it in an effort to protect Touch ID and the related Secure Enclave that stores customer fingerprint information. Apple says that without the validation check, a malicious Touch ID sensor could be used to gain access to the Secure Enclave.
PCVA attorney Darrell Cochran, who is leading the Error 53 lawsuit, claims that Apple’s security argument is invalid because affected iPhones often work fine for several months following repairs as the validation check only occurs when downloading a new version of iOS. He also cites Apple’s failure to give a warning about the consequence of an update as an issue that will be featured in the lawsuit.
“No materials we’ve seen from Apple ever show a disclosure that your phone would self-destruct if you download new software onto a phone,” Cochran said. “If Apple wants to kill your phone under any set of circumstances and for any reason, it has to make it crystal clear to its customers before the damage is done.”
Compounding the problem, according to Cochran, is how disagreeable Apple’s reaction to the problem has been. “The error code 53 signals the death of the phone, and Apple’s response has been to say ‘you have no options; it’s not covered under warranty, and you have to buy a new phone.’”
PCVA is aiming to get affected iPhone customers new, working devices to “provide immediate relief” to consumers. It is also seeking upwards of $5 million in damages and an update to eliminate the repair restrictions. PCVA is asking customers who have been impacted by Error 53 to get in touch.
Aside from explaining the reasoning behind the Error 53 message and its consequences, Apple has remained quiet about the controversy. MacRumors has, however, heard from a retail source that certain Apple Stores have received the go ahead from Apple to replace third-party screens and other components to resolve the issue. It is not yet clear if this replacement policy will be extended to all Apple Stores or if Apple will make an official comment on the situation.
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Sneezing is even more disgusting with high-speed cameras
New, super-gross research out of MIT is shedding new insights into what happens when we sneeze. Researchers from the university used high-speed photography to record 100 healthy volunteers right at the moment they sneezed. Turns out, the sticky fluid flies out of our mouths, not as a spray, but as a sheet. Ew. Then it pops, like a balloon, and the snotty filaments remaining then in turn break up into the fine mist we’re familiar with. Double ew.
This is actually really important research as it can help researchers better understand how airborne diseases spread. “It’s important to understand how the process of fluid breakup, or fluid fragmentation, happens,” Lydia Bourouiba, head of MIT’s Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory said in a statement. “What is the physics of the breakup telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, and the resulting prediction of the downstream range of contamination?”
This isn’t Bourouiba’s first infectious rodeo, however. This research builds off of her earlier tests that show coughs and sneezes travel up to 200 times farther as these mucus balloons than if they were straight droplets. “What we saw was surprising in many ways,” Bourouiba continued. “We expected to see droplets coming out fully formed from the respiratory tract. It turns out that’s not the case at all. And this gives us a good baseline to expand our mechanistic understanding of violent expirations.” That’s all well and good, just be sure to cover your mouth first.
[Image: From the paper, “Visualization of sneeze ejecta: steps of fluid fragmentation leading to respiratory droplets,” by B. E. Scharfman, A. H. Techet, J. W. M. Bush, L. Bourouiba.]
Source: MIT News
Sneezing is even more disgusting with high-speed cameras
New, super-gross research out of MIT is shedding new insights into what happens when we sneeze. Researchers from the university used high-speed photography to record 100 healthy volunteers right at the moment they sneezed. Turns out, the sticky fluid flies out of our mouths, not as a spray, but as a sheet. Ew. Then it pops, like a balloon, and the snotty filaments remaining then in turn break up into the fine mist we’re familiar with. Double ew.
This is actually really important research as it can help researchers better understand how airborne diseases spread. “It’s important to understand how the process of fluid breakup, or fluid fragmentation, happens,” Lydia Bourouiba, head of MIT’s Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory said in a statement. “What is the physics of the breakup telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, and the resulting prediction of the downstream range of contamination?”
This isn’t Bourouiba’s first infectious rodeo, however. This research builds off of her earlier tests that show coughs and sneezes travel up to 200 times farther as these mucus balloons than if they were straight droplets. “What we saw was surprising in many ways,” Bourouiba continued. “We expected to see droplets coming out fully formed from the respiratory tract. It turns out that’s not the case at all. And this gives us a good baseline to expand our mechanistic understanding of violent expirations.” That’s all well and good, just be sure to cover your mouth first.
[Image: From the paper, “Visualization of sneeze ejecta: steps of fluid fragmentation leading to respiratory droplets,” by B. E. Scharfman, A. H. Techet, J. W. M. Bush, L. Bourouiba.]
Source: MIT News
Sneezing is even more disgusting with high-speed cameras
New, super-gross research out of MIT is shedding new insights into what happens when we sneeze. Researchers from the university used high-speed photography to record 100 healthy volunteers right at the moment they sneezed. Turns out, the sticky fluid flies out of our mouths, not as a spray, but as a sheet. Ew. Then it pops, like a balloon, and the snotty filaments remaining then in turn break up into the fine mist we’re familiar with. Double ew.
This is actually really important research as it can help researchers better understand how airborne diseases spread. “It’s important to understand how the process of fluid breakup, or fluid fragmentation, happens,” Lydia Bourouiba, head of MIT’s Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory said in a statement. “What is the physics of the breakup telling us in terms of droplet size distribution, and the resulting prediction of the downstream range of contamination?”
This isn’t Bourouiba’s first infectious rodeo, however. This research builds off of her earlier tests that show coughs and sneezes travel up to 200 times farther as these mucus balloons than if they were straight droplets. “What we saw was surprising in many ways,” Bourouiba continued. “We expected to see droplets coming out fully formed from the respiratory tract. It turns out that’s not the case at all. And this gives us a good baseline to expand our mechanistic understanding of violent expirations.” That’s all well and good, just be sure to cover your mouth first.
[Image: From the paper, “Visualization of sneeze ejecta: steps of fluid fragmentation leading to respiratory droplets,” by B. E. Scharfman, A. H. Techet, J. W. M. Bush, L. Bourouiba.]
Source: MIT News
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