You will soon be able to add stickers to liven up your Twitter photos
Twitter will soon begin rolling out a new feature to its iOS and Android apps, along with Twitter.com, that will allow for adding stickers to any uploaded photos in a post.
Coming soon! Unleash your creativity by adding fun #Stickers to your photos on Twitter: https://t.co/Ph92Oivyhy pic.twitter.com/NZoM6nHenD
— Twitter (@twitter) June 27, 2016
In a blog post, Twitter stated:
Soon, you can browse our rotating sets of stickers to join in on real-time conversations, and select from the library of hundreds of accessories, emoji, and props to make your photos more fun. Use them to share what you’re doing or how you’re feeling, to show support for a cause, or to just add some flair. You can use multiple stickers on a photo, resize and rotate them, and place them anywhere on your picture.
The new feature will also allow Twitter members to tap on a sticker to create a timeline that shows how it is being used by different Twitter accounts in different ways. The stickers addition will be available sometime in the next few weeks.
T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 now receiving Marshmallow
T-Mobile is finally pushing out Marshmallow for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Weighing in at 1.5GB, the update brings a number of big new features to the phone. Right now, T-Mobile’s support site doesn’t show that the update is available, but there are a number of reports floating around that people are receiving the update over the air.
Marshmallow brings Doze, enhanced permission controls, some new design elements and more. If you have a Galaxy Note 4 on T-Mobile be sure to check for the update and let us know how it works out for you.
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Samsung Galaxy Note 7 name appears alongside specs: Iris scanner and branding virtually confirmed
A Samsung Galaxy Note 7 label leak has been published online by the usually-reliable Evan Blass. It virtually confirms rumours we’ve been hearing for weeks: Samsung is skipping the Note 6 name.
Although it doesn’t make sense sequentially, the reasoning behind this name is that it fits the next Galaxy Note into this year’s “7” family, alongside the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
Blass, who tweets under the name @evleaks, followed up the tweet with another saying that the rumoured iris scanner is also confirmed. Given the source and his previous track record, we don’t find any reason to doubt the information, especially not the branding, which looks very official.
Confirmed. pic.twitter.com/jo1EF3Mp3J
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) June 25, 2016
As previously mentioned, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard speculation about an iris scanner, or the move away from sequential naming. Evan’s tweets are just the final, unofficial stamp of approval we needed to be anything close to convinced that both moves are in Samsung’s plans.
With the iris scanner, we’d expect it to work in a similar manner to the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL’s, and be built in to the front of the device, near the front-facing camera. Along with the fingerprint scanner – which we’re expecting to be built in to the home button – it will add an extra layer of security to the device.
As for the name change, bringing it alongside the S7 and S7 Edge suggests that rumours about sharing a similar design to the S7 Edge are accurate. The most recent speculation suggests that the Note 7 will essentially just be a larger version of the S7 Edge with an S-Pen, and that there won’t be a regular non dual-screen variant.
Samsung is expected to launch the new device on 2 August, around a month before IFA in Berlin. In yet another tweet, responding to the previous two, Blass also listed a few specifications we should expect to see:
- 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display
- 64GB Storage (plus microSD card slot)
- 12MP dual-pixel
- 5MP front-facing camera
- IP68 certification (water/dust resistant)
- Black, silver and blue colour options
Of course, we don’t know for sure if any of these rumours are true, but thankfully we only have just over a month until we found out how many of them are accurate.
Twitter Stickers are the hashtags for your photos, only sillier
Twitter has recently announced a whole raft of tweaks and changes that are coming to the platform soon, but the first to arrive will be #Stickers, the fun photo-changing feature that was trialled with a select few accounts a few months ago.
Twitter Stickers are being rolled out to everyone’s account soon, and they will be available to use through the iOS and Android apps initially.
They give you a wide range of images to place over your photo posts, including pictoral accessories, emoji and props. They serve two purposes; they make your photos look wacky and also work like hashtags. By clicking on a #Sticker on someone’s photo, the search engine will pull up every tweeted photo using the same decal.
You can use multiple stickers on a photo, resize and rotate them.
In addition to the mobile apps, users will be able to view and click stickers on Twitter.com, although you won’t be able to place them as yet.
Twitter now has a wide range of photo editing tools, including filters, cropping and accessibility. What’s more, the social network will soon remove images, video and other media from the overall tweet character length. That means you will be able to tweet a photo, for example, but still use 140 characters to describe it.
READ: Twitter will give you more characters if you add a media file
Anki’s tiny Cozmo robot is a Pixar character made real
Best known for its sleek and intelligent remote controlled cars, Anki is stepping into new territory with its latest product, a small robot toy named Cozmo. If you’ve seen Wall-E, you’ve already got a good sense of its personality. Thanks to a combination of artificial intelligence, robotic movement designed by former Pixar animators and computer vision technology, Cozmo is curious and incredibly expressive, with the ability to interact with the world around it. It’s smart enough to recognize your face and remember you over time, and it can explore its environment and play games with its very own toys. But it’s most interesting feature? It’s not a perfect robot, and that’s just how Anki want’s it.
“Perfect is boring,” Anki CEO and co-founder Boris Sofman said in an interview. “With the [Anki Drive] cars, the first version was boring because it was too good. With Cozmo, we wanted him to be imperfect. When he goes and fails to do something, that’s not a bad thing… As long as you can detect what happens, it’s a good opportunity to show off the emotions it generates.”
While we’ve seen plenty of toys claiming AI and robotic capabilities in the past, Cozmo feels unique. I’ll admit, I fell for it pretty quickly during a brief demo. As it was charging, it “slept” in a tiny dock, complete with a snoring sound effect and sleeping animation that can only be described as adorable. When it woke up, it looked around the table and came up right to the edge, quickly realizing it couldn’t go any further. Upon recognizing my face, it wandered up to me with a suspicious look. Like a child, it will recognize people it’s already met and be a bit more hesitant around strangers.
Cozmo also comes with a bunch of smart blocks, which basically serve as its very own toys. It stacks them when it’s bored — and trust me, Cozmo gets really annoyed if you mess up its work. We also used the blocks to play a competitive game, which involved tapping down on them when they displayed like colors. In the first few games I easily trounced Cozmo, much to his adorable dismay. Eventually, he learned to hit the blocks faster, and he had no problem letting me know it.
Sofman says the company was inspired by how toddler and pets interact with the world. They can’t speak, but they can clearly explore and interact with you. Like a child, Cozmo slowly learns to recognize people and explore its world, and over time it learns to play games. But also like a child, it gets frustrated when things don’t work out. Instead of being annoying, though, those little personality quirks — like gloating when it wins a game, and getting angry when you beat it — make it more endearing.
Cozmo is a tiny thing, which adds to its vulnerability. It’s light, has a small display up front for its eyes, a single articulating arm to pick up objects, and uses two tiny treads to get around. Eventually, you’ll be able to replace its arm mechanism with other types of appendages. Cozmo communicates through a combination of Star Wars-like bot noises (yes, in many ways this is the Droid you’ve been looking for), and expressive movements. It relies on an iPhone and Android app to have your phone do much of the processing, which also plays a soundtrack perfectly suited to Cozmo’s mood. Its battery lasts for around two hours, but it charges up in 10 minutes.
Anki paid particular attention to Cozmo’s emotional smarts. It has an “emotion engine” that lets it respond to situations realistically, which should help you bond with it pretty quickly. (Again, it took me all of five seconds.) Its animation team is led by former Pixar animator Carlos Baena, so they know how to toy with your feelings with simple robotic movements and noises. Anki also developed a customized version of the Maya 3D software to have it directly command how Cozmo moves, allowing the animators to quickly get up and running.
Looking ahead, Anki plans to release an software development kid (SDK) for Cozmo, which will let anyone program it. It could also end up being used in STEM programs in schools — it wouldn’t be hard to convince kids to learn programming so they can control Cozmo. The company is also sending Cozmo units to Carnegie Mellon, where Anki’s founders got their start.
You can pre-order Cozmo today from Anki’s website for $180, and it’ll be widely available in October. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s only slightly more than Sphero’s $150 BB-8 toy, which every geek coveted last year (and wasn’t nearly as smart as Cozmo).
Twitter’s searchable stickers can add pizzazz to your photos
Post a lot of photos to Twitter but feel like they’re lacking something? Twitter’s changing that with today’s announcement of #Stickers, which will let you spice up your pictures with props, emoji and more.
Soon, you’ll be able to pick and choose various “stickers” you can place on photos you upload to the service. Whether you’re showing your support for a cause or need to dress up your family pet, you’ll likely want more engagements with each tweet, and stickers look like an interesting way to do it.
Coming soon! Unleash your creativity by adding fun #Stickers to your photos on Twitter: https://t.co/Ph92Oivyhy pic.twitter.com/NZoM6nHenD
— Twitter (@twitter) June 27, 2016
When you tweet out a photo that utilizes stickers, your photo will become searchable via hashtag. This will allow users to search specific sticker hashtags to see how other Twitter denizens used certain stickers for effect on their own timelines.
Connect your photos to the world with a visual spin on hashtags: tap #Stickers to peel back a fun new way to search. pic.twitter.com/YVy7r53Nja
— Twitter (@twitter) June 27, 2016
Twitter spent some time testing these photo augments some time ago, but the company has officially adopted the feature and will be rolling it out over the next few weeks for anyone using Twitter on iOS and Android.
Source: Twitter
Amazon helps teachers share free digital education tools
Part of the promise of digital education is the ability to share knowledge between schools, but that’s not easy when there isn’t a central hub for making that happen. Amazon, however, thinks it can help. It’s launching Inspire, a free service that helps American educators find and share resources. If a teacher creates useful material for a grade 8 science course, it’s just a matter of uploading it and giving it the right tags — classrooms around the country can then find it when they need to bolster their curriculum.
The service is only in beta testing right now, but it’s already getting support from numerous school districts, publishers and contributors. The Folger Shakespeare Library is offering material to help teach Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, while the Department of Education is giving prospective college students a leg up by providing its scorecards. While it may be odd to see Amazon serving as an educational gateway, it’s clearly not messing around — this could be a go-to hub for teachers who’d rather not search the web (or whip up their own content) to get digital material.
Source: Amazon Inspire, Amazon PR
Google’s Project Bloks tinker toys teaches coding to kids
There has been a big push in computer science education in the last few years. The UK has made it part of its national curriculum, the President has pledged $4 billion toward a national computer science initiative, and a plethora of toys and games designed to teach kids how to code has come to market. Even Apple got into the spirit with the introduction of Swift Playgrounds, an iPad app that instructs kids on the basics of the company’s Swift programming language. Today, Google is unveiling its own big investment in computer science education. It’s called Project Bloks, an open hardware platform that anyone can use to create physical coding experiences for kids.
Project Bloks made out of three basic components: The “Brain Board,” “Base Boards” and “Pucks.” The “Brain Board” is, well, the brains of the operation. It houses the main processing unit and is built on top of a Raspberry Pi Zero. It provides power and connectivity to the whole system, and can communicate with any device that has an API through WiFi and Bluetooth. The Base Boards, on the other hand, are modular pieces that can be connected via the Brain Board to create grids or different programming flows. Each Base Board has a capacitive sensor, which it uses to receive instructions from the Pucks.
The Pucks are really the heart and soul of Project Bloks. They’re basically code instructions in physical form. Some examples of Pucks include dials, switches, arrows and buttons, which can then be programmed with instructions like “turn on and off” or “go up.” They also have no active electronic components and are therefore very inexpensive to make — they can be anything from high-end plastics to a piece of paper with conductive ink. As long as they have some kind of capacitive ID that the system can use to identify them, they can be used as Pucks. Therefore a very basic Project Bloks system will have one Brain Board connected to one or more Base Boards that are outfitted with a Puck each.
Project Bloks is a collaboration between Google’s Creative Lab division and Paulo Blikstein, the Director of Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at Stanford University. The idea is based on a concept called tangible programming, a long-held theory that kids naturally play and learn better by using their hands and by playing with each other. That’s why making the code be akin to physical blocks is pretty important.
Unfortunately, until now, tangible programming isn’t something that’s very accessible to most people. Sure there are companies that have made coding toys for kids, but they’re often quite expensive. What’s more, their functionality is often quite limited.
“You really need a lot of expertise,” explains Jayme Goldstein, the leader of the project. “You need to know electrical engineering, you need to know hardware engineering. You’ve got to spend a lot of time developing the infrastructure before you can even get to the educational design.” Goldstein says the researchers he’s spoken to often spend a couple of years just on the technical back-end. “Next is the money. There’s a lot of research and development associated with hardware, along with opportunity costs.”
But since Google has already done all of that work, all designers and developers need to do is to take that Project Bloks platform and create something from it. “What we bring to the table, is the hardware underpinnings,” says Goldstein. “It’s a system that designers, developers and researchers can use to make all kinds of physical programming experiences for kids.”
“Imagine what could happen if we had ten times more people developing ways for children to learn coding and computational thinking,” said Blikstein in a statement. “Not just the traditional way, but kits that would teach programming in different ways such as making music or controlling the physical world. That is what this platform will enable: make it easy to think outside of the box, without all the technical obstacles.”
One of the example systems that the team came up with was to have Pucks represent different musical instruments, so you could create music patterns. You could then press a Record button to get all of those patterns into a single Puck, which you could then put back into the system as an instrument. “All of a sudden, you’re learning abstraction,” says Joao Wilbert, the Tech Lead of the project. “It’s usually incredibly hard to grasp.”
“What we’ve got here is a general technology,” says Goldstein, thus setting it apart from more task-specific toys like Osmo’s Coding or Little Bits. “This system can be customized to talk to different toys. It can do far more than just moving in different directions.” It’s also very accessible and can be used even by kids who don’t have literacy skills yet. Because Project Bloks is so open-ended, you can use it with the Internet of Things — you could have it work with a Nest, for example — or anything with an Arduino. “This is a coding toy that grows up with the child,” Goldstein says.
Google worked with IDEO, an international design consultancy, to create a reference design for Project Bloks. Simply called Coding Kit, it has a Brain Board and a bunch of different Base Boards and Pucks that kids can put together to control anything from a tablet to a robot like one from Lego’s WeDo. But lest you get excited, the Coding Kit is not for sale. Instead, Google is going to use it for testing with kids and select schools. It’ll also be available for public testing at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco.
“We’ll be doing an academic paper and a research study to gather data,” says Goldstein. “The dataset is going to be made open to everyone.” He explains that developing out in the open is how Google operates. “This is a field where there is an ecosystem already. We just want to get feedback. This is just the first step.”
Rumored ‘Deep Blue’ iPhone 7 Said to Actually Be Very Dark Space Gray
Following a sketchy rumor last week that said Apple is planning to introduce a “Deep Blue” color option for the upcoming iPhone 7, Japanese blog Mac Otakara has clarified to AppleInsider that the new color will actually be a “much darker” variant of space gray that is “close to black, though not quite black.”
Black and slate iPhone 5 on left vs. space gray iPhone 5s (Mike Cronin via YouTube)
Monday’s indications from Macotakara sources appear to be a clarification from earlier reports that suggested Apple would ditch space gray for a “deep blue” color option. Sources who claim to have seen the next-generation iPhone coloring apparently mistook the darker space gray for a blue shade.
The so-called “new, darker shade” could more closely resemble the look of the “space black” stainless steel Apple Watch, pictured below, which is darker than the “space gray” aluminum Apple Watch Sport. Meanwhile, Apple will reportedly continue to offer the iPhone 7 series in silver, gold, and rose gold color options.
Apple has used different shades of “space gray” and “black and slate” across its iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch lineups over the years. The iPhone 6s and iPad Pro, for example, each have a lighter shade of “space gray” compared to the iPhone 5s and original iPad Air respectively.
Apple’s vision of “space gray” has changed over the years (MrHarryT via Reddit)
Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus/Pro in September. The 4.7″ and 5.5″ smartphones are rumored to feature a thinner iPhone 6s-like design, sans a 3.5mm headphone jack, while each may have a faster Apple A10 processor, improved waterproofing, repositioned antenna bands, and faster LTE and Wi-Fi. A dual-lens camera and 3GB of RAM may be exclusive to the 5.5-inch model.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: macotakara.jp
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Jay Blahnik Discusses Apple’s Delve Into Mindfulness With ‘Breathe’
One of Apple’s newest apps revealed at WWDC this month was a meditation-enabling Apple Watch app called Breathe that will encourage users to take a break every day to focus on the rhythm of their breathing patterns. In a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies, Jay Blahnik, discussed the benefits of “mindfulness” apps like Breathe, and the research done by Apple to find the timing sweet spot that a user should spend on meditation each day.
Structured like the stand goals, and upcoming roll goals, on Apple Watch, Breathe will tap users using haptic feedback with a notification to step back from what they’re doing and take a few deep breaths. Blahnik said that both beginner and experienced meditators will benefit from the app’s coaching, thanks to the ease with which the Apple Watch integrates into a daily schedule.
“Just doing some deep breathing can have some great benefits for a lot of people,” whether they’re taking a break from a busy work day or winding down for the day, Jay Blahnik, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies, told BuzzFeed News. And with an app like Breathe, “it wouldn’t be hard for them to do it, regardless if they were a beginner or were very experienced with having more mindfulness in their day.”
Meditation has become a popular outlet for many people within Silicon Valley, with companies like Google even offering internal courses, like “Search Inside Yourself,” to teach workers how to handle stressful emotions, hopefully resulting in more efficient workflow. Apple’s new app is poised to provide a simpler version of these mindfulness-focused trends for any Apple Watch wearer.
Like most Apple products and services, Breathe went through a period of thorough testing before it was revealed at WWDC. Blahnik confirmed that the company tested the app with “hundreds” of employees, along with a council of psychology and mindfulness experts, before nailing down what will be arriving in watchOS 3 this fall.
The app can be set for sessions of 1 to 5 minutes, with the company’s tests revealing that 7 breaths in the fastest session of 1 minute hit the sweet spot of “the most comfortable rate for most people.” This rate can be raised up to 10 breaths or lowered down to 4 breaths for more customizability.
The easy-to-access, low-commitment nature of the feature also turned out to be key. At work, especially, Blahnik said, the prospect of taking “a minute between meetings, to push away from their desks, quiet their mind, relax their bodies, [and] just take deep breaths, seemed to be appealing to a lot of people.”
However, according to a few studies of similar apps that promote tranquility through breathing prompts, there is “little evidence” on the efficacy and reliability of these apps at developing a habit of mindfulness. Because of the potential for Breathe to fail at its goal for some people, psychiatrist Dr. John Torous believes that Apple’s biggest hurdle might be those individuals who become frustrated with the app and think they’re “not going to benefit from behavioral treatment,” and give up on finding other solutions beyond Breathe that might be more effective for them.
You can read the rest of BuzzFeed’s report on Breathe, and its potential for impact in the mindfulness app market, right here.
Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 2, watchOS 3
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)
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