Here’s how to add Snapchat’s moving emoji stickers to videos

Snapchat has pushed an update to its iOS app that lets you attach emoji to objects in video snaps.

With this new functionality, you can do things like add a smirking kitty emoji to an actual cat’s face in a video. It’ll stick to the cat and follow it around within the video – as if you did a face-swap with the two. But you can do this with any emoji in Snapchat and any object in your Snapchat video. This update, which first arrived for Android users last week, is not only incredibly fun and creative but also easy to figure out.

Snapchat: What are moving emoji?

Unless you live under a rock, you should know what emoji are and how to use them. They’re basically little icons you can use in place of words to express an emotion or message or whatever. Emoji are most commonly sent and received using texting apps or messaging apps. Snapchat has long allowed users to overlay them in picture and video messages (though they would remain stationary when overlaid).

Snapchat’s moving emoji work in the same way but can now be attached to objects in videos so they appear to move with that object instead of remaining stationary. Because they require a moving object in order to move, you obviously can’t use them on picture snaps.

Snapchat: How do you add moving emoji?

Open Snapchat
Press and hold the Record button to shoot your video
Tap the Emoji button next to the “T” button in the top right
Browse the emoji available and tap one to add it to your video
Press and hold on the emoji in the video and move it to an object or spot
When you release it, it will stick to that object or spot in your video
Use pinching and swivel gestures to respectively scale and rotate the emoji
Repeat steps 3-7 to add more moving emoji to your video
That’s it! Now tap the arrow button in the corner to send your video

Snapchat: Is there an example of moving emoji?

Yep. Check this out. And this:

Let’s talk about the potential horror that is 3D Stickers. Thanks @Snapchat pic.twitter.com/yAKTWXXlzp

— Phil Buckley (@Pbuck) April 19, 2016

Pinterest rebuilt its app to speed up your board browsing

Pinterest regularly adds new features that make using its digital scrapbook of sorts a more pleasant experience. Features like shopping pins, location pins and a search tool that can identify items in a photo all lend a hand compiling your boards. After redesigning profiles to make saving and sorting pins a bit easier, the company has completely retooled its iOS app to tidy up and offer quicker performance. The “new modern look” puts the focus on the pins themselves instead of icons, descriptions and profile images. Pinterest says the app is now “universally readable” as well, supporting 31 different languages.

In addition to the language support, the app also works much better on older devices. Which means that in places where handsets like the Moto G are a popular choice, Pinterest’s app will still perform well. The company says that home feed that appears when you first fire up the app now loads two to three times faster than the previous version. As you can see in the GIF down below, you should spend less time waiting for images to load.

Pinterest also says that the rebuilt app will allow it to add new features and release updates at a faster pace, so those regular additions are likely to remain a staple. The new version of the app is only available for iPhone and iPad right now, but it’ll arrive for Android and the web “in the coming months.”

Source: Pinterest

Play the complete ‘Walking Dead: Michonne’ series in April

Following the success of The Walking Dead game, Telltale launched a new miniseries starring everyone’s favorite katana-wielding heroine, Michonne. The studio will release the third and final episode on April 26th for pretty much every platform but Linux.

Fans of the AMC shows, take note: the game inhabits the world of The Walking Dead comics, so don’t expect any crossover from the TV series. You won’t need to play The Walking Dead main game to understand what’s going on in the miniseries, but you’d be doing yourself a favor if you did. The high-stakes drama, lush cel animation, and great voicework has earned The Walking Dead serious accolades.

Michonne’s miniseries explores her seafaring self-exile from the main cast during a recent time-jump in the comics. Without spoiling the plot of the first two episodes, Michonne kicks ass, deals with haunting flashbacks, and brutally decides who lives and dies. Y’know, standard Telltale fare.

All three episodes are sold as a $15 bundle.

Source: Telltale Games

Postmates is set to launch 15-minute food deliveries in NYC

Even as Uber kills off its own rapid lunchtime delivery service in New York City, Postmates announced on Tuesday that it will launch its own version tomorrow starting at 11am EST. NYC deliveries will rely on Postmate’s existing Pop program, which launched last October in San Francisco and last week in LA. A similar hour-long service should be launching in London later this year as well. With Pop, anyone on Manhattan between 34th street and the Bowery will get their orders in a quarter hour, at no additional delivery fee. Now you’ll be able to get your 4/20 munchies tomorrow in record time without having to get off the couch.

Source: Techcrunch

‘Warcraft’ among Universal Pictures’ first 4K offerings

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment detailed its list of 4k Blu-ray releases scheduled this summer, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg for 4K Blu-ray collectors.

Beginning with Warcraft, Jason Bourne, and The Huntsman: Winter’s War, more than 100 titles will be available by the end of the year for 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and digital formats. Each title will be mastered in Dolby Vision as well, with HDR and brighter colors across digital and physical releases.

The releases aren’t relegated to current box-office bids, however, with recent films such as Lucy, Lone Survivor, and Everest rounding things out. If you missed them in theaters you’ll be able to check them out at home in style later this year — that is, if you didn’t already stream them by then.

While this opens up a wide breadth of content for consumers looking to grow their home entertainment collection, the 4K Blu-ray could still be dead on arrival. Some cinephiles are opting for 4K video streaming over expensive discs and 4K Blu-ray devices, with digital content winning out by far. With so many services out there to choose from, it’s hard to compete.

Unofficial Apple Watch battery band put on hold

There’s a good reason why you don’t want to base a business around unsupported solutions to other companies’ problems: those companies can break compatibility at any given moment. And unfortunately, Reserve Strap is discovering this first-hand. The company has stopped shipping its namesake Apple Watch battery band to most customers after learning that WatchOS 2.0.1 and later breaks the strap’s charging functionality… you know, its reason for being. Reportedly, Apple doesn’t want anyone using the Watch’s hidden port (tucked just inside one of the band slots) until there’s an MFi accessory program in place.

This doesn’t mean that it’s game over just yet. Reserve Strap will ship your band if you haven’t updated to 2.0.1, and it’s pushing for that MFi program to happen sooner than later. Whatever happens, the startup is in limbo unless Apple offers an olive branch and lets this smart strap work for everyone.

Via: Mashable

Source: Reserve Strap

Uber shuts down its Instant Delivery food service in NYC

Uber has pulled the plug on Instant Delivery in New York City. The UberEats feature, which offers pre-set lunch items to be delivered in 10 minutes or less, had been available to people in The Big Apple since last year. But, as of today, that’s no longer the case. “In order to bring you the most exciting selection, the highest quality food, and the fastest delivery time, we’ve decided to narrow our focus,” Uber said in an email to users, explaining its decision to move away from that service.

According to New York Daily News, a spokesperson for the company said it didn’t have any plans to phase out Instant Delivery anywhere else. As such, those of you outside of NYC have nothing to worry about — assuming UberEats Instant Delivery is something you love or desperately need.

Source: Quartz, New York Daily News

iPhone Hack Answered Questions About San Bernardino Attack But Generated No New Leads

Breaking into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook yielded no new leads in the FBI’s investigation, but it did help answer remaining questions about the attack, reports CNN.

According to anonymous U.S. law enforcement officials, the iPhone did not contain encrypted messages or evidence of communications with other unknown ISIS supporters, but it did confirm the shooters did not have outside help as there was no evidence Farook made contact with a third-party during an 18-minute timeline gap.

The FBI has also concluded there was data on the phone it did not have access to previously, an unsurprising find because the iPhone was in use for several weeks after the last iCloud backup. Apple was able to provide data from iCloud backups to the FBI, but the FBI pursued the iPhone unlocking because there was no way to know if there was additional information on the phone without breaching it.

Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn’t make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers’ whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said.

The phone didn’t contain evidence of contacts with other ISIS supporters or the use of encrypted communications during the period the FBI was concerned about. The FBI views that information as valuable to the probe, possibilities it couldn’t discount without getting into the phone, the officials said.

CNN’s report is in line with information shared last week by CBS News, which said “nothing of real significance” had been discovered on the device. As The Verge points out, the lack of useful contacts or messages on the phone has brought an anticlimactic end to the vicious public encryption battle Apple and the FBI fought over the San Bernardino iPhone.

Apple and the FBI are continuing their encryption dispute over a case in New York. The FBI has asked that a judge order Apple to unlock the iPhone 5s pertinent to a Brooklyn drug case, which Apple has refused to do. While the order was initially denied, the FBI has filed an appeal and the case has yet to be decided.

Apple legal chief Bruce Sewell and Amy Hess, executive assistant director for science and technology at the FBI, are also testifying before congress this afternoon over encryption matters.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: Apple-FBI
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Apple Shells Out $25 Million to Settle Siri Lawsuit

Apple today settled a long-running lawsuit with Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute over accusations Apple’s Siri voice-based personal assistant violated a 2007 patent owned by Rensselaer and licensed exclusively to Dallas company Dynamic Advances, reports the Albany Business Review.

Apple will pay a total of $24.9 million to Dynamic Advances’ parent company Marathon Patent Group. $5 million will be paid after the lawsuit is dropped with the rest of the money to follow later. Apple will be granted a patent license to use the technology and under the terms of the settlement, will not be sued again for a three-year period.

Dynamic Advances will pay approximately 50 percent of the money received from Apple to Rensselaer, but Rensselaer has not agreed to the royalty rate proposed in the settlement.

Dynamic Advances expects to pay 50 percent of that money to Rensselaer, legal counsel and the predecessor exclusive licensee of the patents in suit, according to regulatory filings.

Rensselaer has not, however, agreed to the royalty rate proposed in the settlement, according to a document filed by Marathon Patent Group

Had the case not been settled out of court, it would have gone to trial next month. The lawsuit dates back to 2012 and covers U.S. patent No. 7177798 B2, “Natural language interface using constrained intermediate dictionary of results.”

Tag: Siri
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Apple TV Apps Can Now Be Previewed on the Web

Apple has begun rolling out iTunes web previews for Apple TV apps, allowing Apple TV users and developers alike to easily share links to Apple TV apps on the web. The change was first spotted by Slide to Play’s Jeff Scott (via MacStories).

Previously, Apple only had iTunes web previews enabled for iOS and Mac OS X apps, making it very difficult for users of the fourth-generation Apple TV to share their favorite apps on the web as well as for developers to promote their apps on their websites and social media accounts.

Although the feature is still rolling out, it appears it’s limited to tvOS-only apps thus far. Kevin MacLeod of AfterPad told MacStories “that while the iTunes API is now returning screenshot metadata for tvOS-only apps, that metadata is absent for iOS apps with tvOS support.”

Two of the first apps to feature web previews are currently Disney Infinity 3.0 and Beergeek.com TV. While these previews offer users and developers a way to see what an Apple TV app looks like or what features it has, they do not include any way for users to take any action.

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