Emoji search comes to Google Photos in time for April Fools’ Day

If you’ve ever been eager to search your photo collection with nothing but emojis, Google Photos will now let you do just that. Okay, so maybe this is just an April Fools’ Day joke from the folks at Mountain View … but it actually works.

As you can see in the video above, there’s no longer any need to mess around with pesky words. You can simply drop an emoji of what you’re looking for and Google will do the work. For example, dropping a dog emoji in the search box will bring up any picture of dogs you have in your Google Photos library.

We’re unsure if this will stick around past April Fools’ Day, but you can try it out for yourself in the Google Photos app now.

Google Photos

• Getting to know the new Google Photos
• Get your Google Photos library started
• Manage Google Photos backup settings
• What happens when you delete pictures in Google Photos?
• Managing your shared photo links
• Where did Auto Awesome go?
• Discuss Google Photos in the forums!

Google Play

It’s not just you: Snapchat is down for some

If you’re experiencing some hiccups using Snapchat this evening, it’s not just you. Snapchat’s support account confirmed on Twitter that some users are running into issues with the app, and the company is on the case:

Some Snapchatters are having issues using the app. We are aware of this, and looking into it!

— Snapchat Support (@snapchatsupport) March 31, 2016

A quick look at Twitter shows that a number of users can’t send or receive snaps, and Stories don’t seem to be loading for others. According to Down Detector, reports of issues started spiking around 5:30 p.m. ET and have continued to rise since.

We’ll update this post once things look to be in the clear.

April Fools’ Day 2016: The best stories from around the web

Today is the day to be cautious when sharing exciting new stories from your social media feeds, if you don’t want to be labelled the fool this April.

April Fools’ Day has well and truly taken the internet by storm with big companies like Samsung, Sony, Barclays and Ford all getting involved. Expect plenty of pranks for the 2016 April Fools’ Day too as it’s fast becoming an annual online tradition for tech companies.

So if you want a laugh, or want to separate the real from the ridiculous, check below. We’ve compiled all the tech related April Fool’s Day stories that have been unleashed on the world today so you don’t have to look elsewhere.

Get ready for a good laugh, with plenty of pranks to share and fool others with. Check below for all the best pranks of the day and be sure to keep coming back as we’ll be updating throughout the day as more get unleashed.

Samsung smart trousers

Imagine a pair of trousers with Wi-Fly that can intelligently alert you to a low fly via your smartphone. Or pressure sensors that get you moving after detecting you’ve been sitting too long. How about a system that detects when your waist tension is too tight and locking the fridge? The Samsung Internet of Trousers can do all that and will even track heart rate and blood pressure to remind you to keep your trousers on when things get hot and heavy but you’ve set them to help you stay in control.

Honda

Emoji number plates

Honda has chosen today to show off a world first, the emoji number plate. This is aimed at its younger buyers who want to express more than just numbers and letters on the front of their car can offer.

The Honda Civic Type-R is shown with the new plates. Honda is in talks with the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency with plans to have these motive plates on the roads by 2017. Perhaps in time for next April Fools’ day?

Sony

The Proton Pack

Remember the Proton Pack from The Ghostbusters films? Sony has made one.

Sony says: “Superconducting temperatures are maintained by a liquid helium reservoir, and an active cryocooler ensures that operational time vastly exceeds that available from a cryogen dewar alone”. On top of all that fancy ghost capturing tech it’ll even pack in a Sony Cyber-Shot RX camera, Short Throw 4K projector and Stamina battery mode – ideal for winding down after a day of ghost hunting.

Houzz

Houzz Smartz

The company behind home furniture shopping of the future has come up with its own line of smart furniture. Not only are the items spacially aware, to offer placement advice, but they track changes too. The furniture will be able to alert the home owner to dirt build up, smudges and even wrinkles.

The furniture is interactive so, Houzz says, “spending time with your furniture is like being with friends”.

Firebox

Star Trek White Noise sleep aid

Sometimes the one thing you need to send you off to the land of nod at night is the sound of an intergalactic space vessel. Search no further.

ThinkGeek has come up with a device that will replicate (heh) up to eight sounds from five different spacecraft. It will even project a moving star field onto your ceiling to really lull you off to sleep.

First Direct

First Direct 

Save Zap is a new wearable from First Direct capable of recognising a wearer’s location and zapping them when they get too close to a shop they’ve set as a no go area. Simple, yet painfully effective.

WaterPik Shower Belt

Never slip up in the shower again with the Shower Belt. Not only will the belt suction-attach to the shower at three anchor points, to avoid falling, but it’ll double as a tool belt too. Load up with your shower gel, razor, shampoo and anything else you can cram into the Shower Belt and, even with all that weight, you don’t need to worry about falling. Good luck cleaning your waist area though.

Firebox

i-Dodge

Walking and staying connected are not friends. Pesky pedestrians, roads and cars can all get in the way of a nice stroll with your head down in your phone – or they did until now. The i-Dodge from Firebox is a slimline case designed to alert the user to pedestrians. The unit has a built-in flashing light which will illuminate to make sure you don’t walk into a potential collision. Safety and multi-tasking functionality all for £50? Worth it.

Sealy

Sealy Snore Blocker

Worry about a noisy bed partner no more, thanks to Sealy’s new Snore Blocker. Specifically tuned to activate when it detects snoring this devices “uses technology” to create a sound barrier that blocks up to 90 per cent of snore noises.

Virgin

Virgin Active Personal Trainers

What better way to keep motivated when at the gym than have a personal trainer built into your kicks? That’s what these trainers do thanks to built-in speakers that shout tips as you train. But there’s more.

The laces can’t be removed until 2000 calories have been burned, plus there’s a projector to display over 100 workouts for you to follow. Watch out personal trainers, you’ve got some serious competition… or you would if it were actually serious.

The Wirecutter’s best deals: Canon EOS 70D kit and more!

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals at TheWirecutter.com.

You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.

Refurbished Canon 70D EF-S DSLR + 18-55mm IS STM Lens

Street price: $1,100; MSRP: $1,100; deal price: $680

Canon’s refurbished sales tend to have a $50-$100 discount off of their already solid refurbished prices and this deal is just that, with $50 off of the usual pricing for this kit. We’ve seen previous 70D deals around $800 with the 18-135 lens, which is a little more useful for video, but this deal is significantly cheaper and may be a better value for someone that doesn’t need the longer part of that range. Canon refurbished deals come with a full warranty.

The Canon 70D is our runner-up and video pick for the best midrange SLR. Amadou Diallo said, “What really sets the 70D apart from most of the competition, however, are its benefits for video shooters. Powered by Canon’s Dual Pixel AF system (Amateur Photographer offers a good technical explanation), the 70D offers fast, precise autofocus in live view and video modes, traditional areas of weakness for DSLRs. Imaging Resource called this feature “a rare, groundbreaking innovation” when the 70D was launched in 2013, noting, “this technology finally puts true camcorder-like performance into an HD-DSLR. And when using live view for still shooting, the advanced autofocusing felt nearly as fast as traditional viewfinder shooting under most scenarios.”

JLab Epic Bluetooth Headphones

Street price: $100; MSRP: $100; deal price: $56

This new Office Depot sale drops these headphones a huge $30 under the best price we’ve seen to date. They tend to fluctuate between $90 and $100 on Amazon, with the occasional drop to $88, so this is a significant discount. They’re also offering free overnight shipping.

The JLab Epic Bluetooth Headphones are our pick for the best wireless exercise headphones. Lauren Dragan wrote, “The JLab Epic Bluetooth gets our overall recommendation thanks to a design that was very comfortable for nearly all of our reviewers, with a lightweight, effortless feel on your head whether out on a run or doing burpees and sound quality that everyone enjoyed. We recognize that most people don’t like or want a cord when they work out, so for many, Bluetooth is a must, which confirmed the Epic as our overall recommendation over less-expensive wired and sealed options.”

Jabra Revo Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

Street price: $140; MSRP: $200; deal price: $80 with code DNWSREVO80

This sale from DealNews is the first we’ve seen on the Jabra Revo headphones since December 2014 when they were still a top pick. They’ve been supplanted by the Jabra Move since then, but they’re still a good pair of headphones, and this is a price lower than any deal we’ve seen, even back then. Shipping is free, but don’t forget to add the code DNWSREVO80 in your shopping cart to knock the price down to $80. The only available color is Black.

These headphones are more of a step-up pick with a heavier bass in our guide on the best Bluetooth headphones. Lauren Dragan said these headphones “sound great as Bluetooth headphones, as well as with a cord. They fit everyone well, are light and comfortable, and have intuitive touch-based controls that were actually useful.”

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB Internal SSD

Street price: $300; MSRP: $500; deal price: $260

A new low on this fantastic SSD. We’ve been watching this drive drop from $300, $10 at a time, in a slow price war between Newegg and Adorama. Typically, they’d match each other for a few weeks but we only saw them post $270 deals twice before this drop to $260.

The Samsung 850 EVO is the top pick in our guide on the best SSDs. Nathan Edwards said, “It’s fast, cheap, and consistent, and it comes from a company that makes its own SSD controllers, firmware and NAND, which means it gets first dibs on the good stuff. (The company is able to design the entire SSD to work together from the start.) Samsung has made some of the best SSDs on the market for the past four hardware generations; this is no exception.”

Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.

FCC expands Lifeline to help low-income Americans afford internet

Today the FCC voted 3-2 to approve expanding its Lifeline program that has subsidized phone and prepaid wireless access for low-income Americans since the 80s, so that now it covers internet access too. The $9.25 household subsidy is paid directly to service providers, and now it can be applied to standalone internet access, or bundled voice/data service. There are requirements for the services provided, like a minimum 150GB monthly usage cap, as well as minimums for mobile broadband usage and cellphone voice minutes.

The point here is to shrink the “digital divide” between households that can and cannot afford internet access, as necessary elements for education, job-hunting, health care and more increasingly move online. The vote was not without political drama however, as it was held up for several hours before eventually the commissioners voted along party lines.

Deliberative process did work. At 10:30 we had bipartisan agreement. Chairman Wheeler delayed meeting to work to blow it up!

— Matthew Berry (@matthewberryfcc) March 31, 2016

A proposed compromise to get a unanimous vote including Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly would’ve put a hard $2 billion per year cap on spending (funding for the program comes from a fee placed on consumer’s phone bills). That did not come to fruition, as Pai’s chief of staff Matthew Berry told reporters that the chairman Tom Wheeler pressured fellow commissioner Mignon Clyburn to back off of the compromise deal — which both Wheeler and Clyburn denied. The plan adopted has a soft cap of $2.25 billion per year, which could be adjusted as necessary. According to the LA Times, the program spent $1.5 billion last year, after peaking at $2.2 billion in 2012.

Source: FCC

Microsoft Office for Mac now supports add-in extensions

Microsoft Office didn’t get a ton of stage time at Build this year, but the company announced a handful of improvements for both users and developers. Probably the most notable was the news that “add-ins” for Office (which work similar to browser extensions) would be coming to Office for Mac for the first time. It’s a smart move to get those add-ins out to the Mac, because they’re already available on Windows, the iPad and the online Office interface. Making them work with Office on the Mac goes helps unify the platform, something Microsoft has made a major focus in recent years.
Microsoft also launched new tools to help build more advanced Excel add-ins, deploy Office add-ins (if you’re a system administrator) and find add-ins for Outlook. But arguably the most life-changing addition to Office has to be the new Starbucks add-in the company showed off during the Build day two keynote this morning. The Outlook add-in lets you send gift cards to your contacts directly through the email app and also lets you schedule coffee meetings that include links to let you place your orders ahead of time. Caffeine and productivity lovers, rejoice!

Now there’s a $700 smart cold-pressed juice maker

The world needs a “magical” $700, subscription-based juicer apparently. At least that’s what the folks behind Juicero seem to think. The 31.5-pound countertop device ticks a few buzzword boxes (farm to table, smart, organic, has a companion app) while catering to our inherent laziness. The apparent draw, according to Business Insider, is that there’s no mess or work involved: put an IV-bag-sized pouch in the machine and it spits out a cup of cold-pressed juice while telling you its nutritional content.

After that, it can order you another $4 to $10 pouch if you liked one of the three currently available flavors. Because the company is so focused on freshness and delivering the packets within days of harvest, though, the Juicero is only available in California at the moment. Everyone else itching to drop seven Benjamins — plus tax — will have to sign up for the company’s mailing list and wait.

Via: Business Insider

Source: Juicero

Google is depreciating the Wallet card at the end of April

Google announced on Thursday that it will no longer support the physical debit cards tied to users’ Wallet accounts beginning July 1. Instead, Google plans to press forward with development on its mobile app.

The cards are officially retiring at the end of April, meaning that users will not be able to load any additional money on them but they’ll still work for purchases. The cards will deactivate completely at the end of June. Any remaining balance on the card at that point will remain in your Wallet account and be accessible through the mobile app. And if you’re looking for a replacement debit card, Google is recommending similar services from American Express and Simple.

Source: Google Wallet

Orbital survival simulator ‘Adr1ft’ floats to Vive in May

Folks who (digitally) lined up to buy the HTC Vive have another game to add to their wishlist: Adr1ft. Publisher 505 Games announced today that the game inspired by its creator’s Twitter freakout will hit HTC and Valve’s room-scale VR platform this May for $20. It’s already available for Oculus Rift and has been confirmed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, albeit in non-VR form.

When I spoke with creator Adam Orth at E3 last year he said that making the game was a form of therapy for him, following his exit as creative director for Microsoft’s gaming division.

“The destroyed space station is a metaphor for my life at the time,” he said. “This isolation is that I felt entirely alone. Instead of talking about it, I just made a game about it.”

Some Sprint Users Unable to Connect to LTE After iOS 9.3 Update, Fix in the Works

Since the launch of iOS 9.3 last week, some Sprint users have been unable to connect to LTE networks, according to reports on Twitter and reddit. After updating, affected users say their iPhones will only connect 3G, and there appears to be no clear fix with resets and reinstalls not solving the problem for most people.

According to one reddit user in California, he’s having issues when his iPhone attempts to connect to a specific LTE band. Affected users are frustrated with the connectivity problems, with some reporting an inability to receive any messages or updates when not on Wi-Fi. Most users seeing problems appear to be using Apple’s latest devices.

I’m having data issues as well on my 6s Plus in the LA/OC market. Over the past three days I’ve been troubleshooting on my 80 mile round trip commute via Field Test and Speedtest. I’ve figured out that data transfer is broken when connected to Clear B41. No problems on Sprint B41, B25 or EVDO. I’ve created a ticket with Sprint Care, and supposedly they have notified their network team. I’m awaiting a response.

I’ve talked to Apple as well, they did a diagnostic test that came up normal…of course it did, because I was not connected to Clear B41 at the time. At this point, the only course of action is to either disable LTE or revert back to 9.2.1 before Apple stops signing it. I’m not sure if this has to do with the WiMAX shutdown in my market, but I have noticed that the TAC went from 9xxx to 3xxxx after the shutdown. I’ve restored three times via iTunes to no avail.

As of this afternoon, Sprint has begun sending out text messages to its subscriber base, acknowledging the data connection problem. Sprint says that it is aware of the issue and “working quickly” on a fix.

Apple this morning released an iOS 9.3.1 update with a fix for an unrelated web linking bug, and while it’s not clear if the new update fixes the Sprint issue, it’s unlikely as Sprint’s text messages were sent out after the update was released.

(Thanks, Kyle!)

Tags: Sprint, iOS 9.3
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