Android Central 279: Pre-production blues …

It’s one of those weird times in which we’re completely excited to be playing with things that aren’t quite ready for prime time (OK, aren’t at ALL ready for prime time), but have to remember that pre-production is still pre-production. So this week we catch up on where things stand with the Android N Developer Preview, we’ve got an early LG G5 in house, and we’ll answer more of your questions live on air. 

• Find everything on the Android N Developer Preview here.
• And all things LG G5 here.
• And for good measure, even MORE on the Galaxy S7!

Thanks to this week’s sponsors!

• Harry’s: Start shaving better today and save $5 off your first purchase with coupon code AC.
• Mailroute: Get 10 percent off spam-free email from a company that keeps its focus on what matters — stopping the spam!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral279.mp3

Google’s Janice Wong explains Android for Work in latest ‘Coffee with a Googler’

If you’ve ever been curious about how Android is having an impact in the enterprise, a new entry in Google’s “Coffee with a Googler” interview series is worth a look. In the interview above, Android for Work Product Manager Janice Wong explains what Android for Work is and ways developers can target their apps for the workplace.

For those unfamiliar with the initiative, Android for Work brings management and security tools to Android so IT administrators can more easily deploy and manage a fleet of devices. Android for Work also introduces the ability for separate work and personal profiles on devices, enabling workers to use their own Android handset while keeping work data secure.

For a quick overview of Android for Work, be sure to check out the interview with Wong in the video above.

Top 20 GIFs on Tinder: Use these to woo and you’ll likely get a response

Why ask someone in person to go on a pizza date when you could save face and just send them a GIF of pizza instead?

Tinder in January released a major update that allows people to send GIFs to their matches, thanks to integration with GIF repository Giphy. So, if you can’t quite muster the right words, you can send an animation to your next potential hookup. If you still lack creativity, Tinder surfaced which GIFs are currently trending. You can find GIFs on Tinder next to the text input box.

The dating app, which claims to have made 10 billion matches to date, said its GIFs feature is proving to be well popular, as more than 20 million GIFs have been sent around the world since launch. Tinder has also been playing close attention to how we’re using them; it’s now highlighting a list of the top 20 GIFs used. More interestingly, these are ranked based by highest response rates.

GIFs have taken over the internet, so it makes since they’d be a successful thing on dating apps too. They are reshaping how we communicate in the 21st century, and providing us with new, fun, and more expressive ways to let someone now we’re interested in an era of online dating.

“When using GIFs on Tinder, it’s been found that conversations are an estimated 2x longer and GIF messages are 30 per cent more likely to receive a response than standard text-only messages,” announced the service, while also singling out key findings, like that a Jimmy Fallon GIF is the No. 1 of all time on Tinder, followed by a GIF with Tiffani Thiessen from Saved By The Bell.

Amy Schumer also made the list twice with two GIFs. Other celebrities seen throughout the GIFs include Beyoncé, Emma Stone, Zooey Deschanel, Ryan Gosling, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Brad Pitt, Justin Bieber, Rachel McAdams, Mike Meyers, and Chrissy Teigen.

Check them all out in the gallery above, and be sure to bookmark this page should you find yourself Tindering soon and in need of inspiration. 

Uber apparently wants to buy a fleet of autonomous cars in Germany

Uber is looking for a way to cut one of its biggest costs: drivers.

According to Reuters, the ride-hailing app is shopping around Germany for a fleet of autonomous vehicles. We don’t know how many cars it wants to purchase, but it seems to be doing a lot of shopping in Germany lately; earlier today, Germany’s Manager Magazin – citing unnamed sources – claimed Uber had placed an order for 100,000 Mercedes S-Class series with Daimler.

Those cars do not yet have fully autonomous driving functionality, so it looks like Uber is in the country buying up traditional cars with some autonomous features as well as ones that are completely self-driving. The location makes sense considering several German automakers, including Volkswagen’s Audi and BMW, are all developing driverless technologies.

Uber is no stranger to autonomous vehicles. It partnered with Carnegie Mellon to create the Uber Advanced Technologies Center, with the purpose of researching and designing autonomous vehicles. Also, Uber’s CEO hasn’t been shy about admitting self-driving taxis were likely a part of his company’s future, but today’s news seems to be one of the best indicators of that yet.

The company currently relies on drivers who have their own personal vehicles. If Uber buys a fleet of cars, it’ll be able to lease drivers to them, and if it were to buy autonomous cars, it could replace drivers altogether.

Mercedes has said its S-Class series won’t be autonomous-ready until 2020.

New PS4 known as ‘PS4.5’ might be coming to support 4K games

A new PlayStation 4 is supposedly in the works, with the purpose of supporting 4K resolutions for games.

Kotaku has claimed – citing unnamed developer sources – that Sony is developing a PS4 with more graphical power so that games can run at 4K resolution. It might not be an entirely new console but a new device/add-on that’ll bring this power boost. Whatever it ends up being, it is currently going by the name PS4.5, and it’ll include an updated GPU to support 4K resolution for games and more processing power for VR games.

Sony’s PlayStation VR will launch this autumn, and the PS4 could use the added benefit of better processing power. The console, which first released in late 2013, is already considered to be aging as well as outpaced by modern gaming PCs. Also, with a higher-end GPU, the PS4 would be able to match the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive virtual reality headsets, both of which require powerful PCs.

And by supporting 4K resolution – four times the pixel size of 1080p – the PS4 could round out its high-res capabilities. It currently outputs 4K photos and videos, but not for games. There’s no word yet on when we can expect this machine to be available. The PS4 recently went from $400 to $350, and if the PS4.5 were to be an entire console, Sony could go back to that $400 price.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Gamers will want to know if they can trade up. Developers might need to release games that work with multiple types of hardware. There’s also the question of whether only some games will run on the PS4.5.

No, Twitter isn’t ditching the 140-character limit

Contrary to rumours, Twitter wants you to continue tweeting in the moment.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, confirmed on The Today Show today once for all that the 140-character limit is going nowhere: “It’s staying. It’s a good constraint for us,” Dorsey said. “It allows for of-the-moment brevity.”

Re/Code claimed at the beginning of the year that Twitter was considering ditching its 140-character cap and instead imposing a whopping 10,000-character limit, and the whole idea was being dubbed the “Beyond 140” project. Apparently, tweets would still only show 140 characters on your timeline, but then you could expand the them to see the rest of the text. Twitter was testing this feature with no word on when it would debut it.

Shortly after that report made the rounds, Dorsey took to Twitter to share a message that itself was well over the limit. The tweet, which was a ironically a screenshot, noted tweets with character limitations are a beautiful constraint that inspire creativity, but Dorsey also admitted that Twitter observed its users and notice they often tweet screenshots of text when they have more to say.

Dorsey made it seem like Twitter was interested in or at least exploring lifting the cap, but in hindsight, he might’ve just been talking about how it would be cool if Twitter could somehow read texts in tweeted screenshots.

pic.twitter.com/bc5RwqPcAX

— Jack (@jack) January 5, 2016

Uber reportedly bought at least 100,000 Mercedes Benz S-Classes

Quick recap: ride-sharing behemoth Uber is famous for connecting passengers with people who have their own cars. (Well, among other things.) Uber doesn’t own a fleet of cars for would-be drivers to use, which makes the fact that the company seems to have purchased least 100,000 Mercedes Benz S-Classes from Daimler all the more fascinating. What gives? Germany’s Manager Magazin, which broke the story earlier today, was quick to point out one crucial similarity between the two companies: they’re both investing heavily in making autonomous cars a reality.

After all, Uber more-or-less raided Carnegie Mellon University last year in search of its brightest software engineers. A well-respected school in Pittsburgh might seem an odd target, but CMU’s National Robotics Engineering Center had a stunning concentration of technical know-how — just the sort of talent to help make cars that can “see” and steer him or herself. When all was said and done, Uber wound up with roughly 40 researchers that were once part of an oft-trumpeted partnership with the company and the school.

Mercedes, on the other hand, has been working for a few years now to build autonomous driving technology into its street-ready vehicles. The premium S-Class has been able to park, maintain safe distances from other cars in tight, stop-and-go traffic without the aid of a driver. It’s possible we could see Uber’s technical talent build more intelligent systems on top of Mercedes’ foundation, but that requires a level of access that a prestigious carmaker would easily shy away from.

That’s what makes the number of cars Uber bought so important. Selling 100,000 S-Classes in one go is pretty crazy — that’s about the number of S-Classes Mercedes managed to sell in a single year. Prepare for just a little math: if we assume Uber worked out a sweet volume deal and got each car for $80,000 (suggested price in the US is about $95,000), that works out to an $8 billion price tag. That’s about €7.1 billion, or put another way, a full 8 percent of all the money Daimler made off of Mercedes-Benz cars in 2015. Point is, Uber might not just be buying sweet cars — it’s probably trying to buy some influence and openness.

Via: Reuters

Source: Manager Magazin

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer apologizes for sexist GDC party

The technology and video game industries have been unwelcoming to women in a variety of ways for years now, with the “booth babe” at big events being a prime example. Despite an ongoing backlash against such exclusionary tactics, Microsoft seemed to think it was appropriate to have a party last night at GDC featuring scantily-clad women as some form of entertainment, and the backlash has been swift — so much so that head of Xbox Phil Spencer just released a statement apologizing for the event.

This is how the games industry excludes women: By pretending we don’t exist and having dev parties with strippers. pic.twitter.com/9GsYyEAQOo

— Jennifer Scheurle (@Gaohmee) March 18, 2016

Spencer said the party “represented Xbox and Microsoft in a way that was not consistent or aligned to our values” and went on to call it “unequivocally wrong.” Head of Xbox marketing Aaron Greenberg had earlier chimed in about the incident on Twitter, saying he was “very disappointed” and looking into the matter.

Spencer’s full statement is below.

At Xbox-hosted events at GDC this past week, we represented Xbox and Microsoft in a way that was not consistent or aligned to our values. It was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated. I know we disappointed many people and I’m personally committed to holding ourselves to higher standards. We must ensure that diversity and inclusion are central to our everyday business and core values. We will do better in the future.

The Xbox event was particularly questionable considering that the company hosted a women in games lunch event at GDC — clearly an example of one part of the company not knowing what the other was doing. We’d expect not to see another incident like this associated with Microsoft or Xbox any time soon, but it’s still rather mind-boggling that someone gave the green light to it in the first place.

Update: 4:00PM ET: Microsoft posted a letter that Phil Spencer has sent to the entire Xbox staff in which he expands on the comments made in today’s public statement. Read it below:

How we show up as an organization is incredibly important to me. We want to build and reflect the culture of team Xbox — internally and externally — a culture that each one of us can represent with pride. An inclusive culture has a direct impact on the products and services we deliver and the perception consumers have of the Xbox brand and our company, as a whole.

It has come to my attention that at Xbox-hosted events at GDC this past week, we represented Xbox and Microsoft in a way that was absolutely not consistent or aligned to our values. That was unequivocally wrong and will not be tolerated. This matter is being handled internally, but let me be very clear – how we represent ourselves as individuals, who we hire and partner with and how we engage with others is a direct reflection of our brand and what we stand for. When we do the opposite, and create an environment that alienates or offends any group, we justly deserve the criticism.

It’s unfortunate that such events could take place in a week where we worked so hard to engage the many different gaming communities in the exact opposite way. I am personally committed to ensuring that diversity and inclusion is central to our everyday business and our core values as a team – inside and outside the company. We need to hold ourselves to higher standards and we will do better in the future.

Via: The Verge, Crave

Source: Xbox News Wire

NPR won’t push its podcasts or app on the radio

NPR is far from oblivious to the growth in podcasting. The organisation puts out a bevy of shows that people can subscribe to, download and stream, like From the Top and Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! So it’s all the stranger that upper management has advised local stations against promoting them. In a note titled Guidance on Podcast ‘Back Announces’, Chris Turpin, VP for news programming and operations, says DJs can mention a podcast “but not in a way that explicitly endorses it.”

In practice, a station could say “that was Linda Holmes of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast,” but that’s about it. Broadcasters have been told not to promote the content of a podcast — in other words, what a particular show or episode covers — or how to access them, like through Stitcher or the company’s own NPR One app. “Just to repeat: Be creative in how you back announce podcasts, but please avoid outright promotion.”

The move seems like a backward step for NPR. It’s understandable that some local stations would be fearful of podcasts, given that they potentially eat into their own listenership. But if the organisation has devoted resources to podcasting, it makes sense to cross-promote the two.

“We won’t tell people to actively download a podcast or where to find them. No mentions of npr.org, iTunes, Stitcher, NPR One, etc.”

In a statement to the Washingtonian, NPR spun the move a little differently: “People know how to find podcasts. It’s like when we talk of books on air: we mention the title and author, not the bookstore.” That might be true, but the analogy is a little off in this instance because NPR owns a so-called “bookstore.” It’s called NPR One — a novel mobile app that gives listeners a continuous stream of curated and personalised radio. As Turpin writes: “For now, NPR One will not be promoted on the air.”

It’s a strange stance. Many people know how to access a podcast, but a large portion of NPR’s readership — especially older listeners — might be unaware that NPR One exists. To increase the app’s user base, wouldn’t it make sense to promote the service to NPR listeners? After all, those are the people that are most likely to appreciate and recommend its efforts.

Via: NiemenLab

Source: NPR

LG agrees to build Bang & Olufsen’s pricey TVs

Even if you really love Danish design, $8,000 is insane for a 55-inch Bang & Olufsen 4K TV, since a superior OLED model from LG costs about three grand. B&O may have though the same thing, because it decided to outsource its television manufacturing to LG Electronics. While it’s still responsible for the design and acoustics, LG will take take over development and production, saving B&O 150 million kroner ($23 million) over three years. “We’ve been losing significant amounts of money on developing and building the TVs because we’re sub-scale.” CEO Tue Mantoni tells Bloomberg. “We make about 30,000 TVs a year and LG produces about 40 million.”

Bang & Olufsen is rumored to be mulling a sale to an unknown party, but hasn’t announced a deal yet. Despite that, the company announced a variety of products last year, including the A6 WiFi speaker, BeoLink Multiroom audio system and even a Bluetooth speaker. There are no details on what kind of TVs LG will build for the company, but we’d be disappointed if it was anything less than a motorized OLED 4K model oozing minimalist style.

Source: Reuters