Microsoft puts your company intranet on your iPhone
Look, we know: accessing your company’s intranet is about as exciting as watching paint dry. However, wouldn’t you rather have the option of using it from your phone, instead of having to sit at a computer? Microsoft thinks so. It just launched SharePoint for iOS, its first mobile SharePoint app. The tool gives you access to the files, portals, sites and teams that you’re used to on the desktop. It’s also smart enough to hop between apps depending on what you’re accessing. It’ll jump to OneDrive if you’re peeking at the company’s document library, for instance, or switch to one of the Office apps if you’re opening a recent file.
Microsoft is quick to admit that this is a “first step,” and that there may well be features you’ll miss (such as company-wide announcements) that are coming later this year. You should also see Android and universal Windows apps in a similar time frame. So long as those aren’t showstoppers, though, the app should be worth grabbing — if just because it can keep you away from your desk for a little bit longer.
Source: Office Blogs, App Store
Dropbox’s iOS app will scan the scraps of paper cluttering your office
Dropbox makes no bones about the shift the company has undergone in the last few years. Rather than focusing on end-user products (like the now-defunct Carousel photo app and Mailbox email app), Dropbox now wants to be the glue that allows people to collaborate and work together across various file formats, devices and operating systems. That’s not to say that millions of people aren’t using it to store and sync their files, but the company’s real mission is to develop a platform that helps businesses and teams seamlessly get work done. (That’s where the money is, after all.)
To that end, Dropbox is releasing one of the biggest updates to its core product in quite some time. Most of those changes are designed to make it easier to work collaboratively, but the first and perhaps most important update should be useful to just about anyone: The iOS Dropbox app now has an intelligent document scanner built right in. It’s not the sexiest feature, but if you’ve ever taken a photo of various hand-drawn notes, ideas or any scrap of paper you wanted to save digitally, it’ll be quite useful.
When you tap the shiny new “plus” button inside the app, you’ll be presented with the option to scan a document. From there, you’ll find yourself in the familiar camera viewfinder mode, except now, when the app detects the outline of a piece of paper, it will highlight it. When you shoot the picture, the extraneous background details are cropped out and the image is presented in a zoomable, high-resolution file that gets saved as a PDF.
The Dropbox app is smart enough to include some features to make those files more readable as well. There’s a black-and-white theme, contrast adjustments and a “whiteboard” mode that makes pictures you shoot of marker boards easier to read. The app also lets you combine multiple snapshots into a single, multi-page PDF file. This all worked great in a demo Dropbox gave, but we’ll have to try it out ourselves and see how well it actually recognizes various hand-written notes — and how these scans look when you’re viewing them back on your computer.
Scanning will be available to anyone using the Dropbox iOS app (the feature will come to Android later), but Dropbox Business users are getting a pretty major addition on top of that. Using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, any image with text you upload will be searchable. So if you’re trying to find a file with specific words inside it, you’ll be able to find what you want among your scanned images. Dropbox noted that it only is looking for letters and numbers, so there’s no way to search your other photos based on their various characteristics. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available if you’re a free or “pro” Dropbox user.
Some notable changes are in store for desktop users as well. When you share files or folders from the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer, you used to get booted to the web to add collaborators, set file permissions and so forth. Now, there’s a new native interface for sharing files from the desktop. In the demo I saw, it definitely looks like a native extension of the OS and makes it easier to work with shared Dropbox files without having to ever visit the service’s web client.
In another improvement to sharing, you can now share individual files privately with specific people. Previously, if you shared a file with someone, the link that Dropbox generated could then be passed on to anyone else. But now, people will need to log in to see files specifically shared with them. Those who use Dropbox’s free tier will also have the option to designate view-only access for shared folders rather than have all the files totally open and able to be edited.
Commenting is also getting a meaningful update. Comments can now be attached to specific parts of a file — just drag to highlight a particular area of a document and then your comment will show up next to it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work on videos. Comments are attached to the file, but you can’t have them refer to specific points or timestamps. Dropbox also previewed another commenting feature that will arrive in a future update. If you’re working in a Microsoft Office file, you’ll be able to see and make comments from the Dropbox “badge” that appears when you’re working on a file shared with other users. It’s another way the company is expanding its products to other apps rather than just keeping it on the web.
There’s also an update to version history, which has been in the Dropbox product for some time now. Now, when searching back through older versions of files, you can quickly pull up a preview to make sure it’s the right version that you want to restore. Lastly, another feature that is in preview (and thus not part of today’s rollout) is called “presence.” It lets you see who is viewing a particular file at any given time, who’s viewed it in the past and how many times it has been viewed overall.
As is often the case with Dropbox updates, none of these are terribly exciting features on their own. But if it works as well as promised, the scanning utility is something that should be useful to just about everyone who uses the service. And all of these additions help make Dropbox more than just a simple file locker. As the company now likes to say, it’s moving from being a product to keep your files and sync to a product that keeps teams and businesses in sync. Again, it’s not the most exciting mission out there. But given how continually difficult it is to manage our digital lives (particularly when it involves sharing documents with others), the company’s evolution as a collaboration platform makes a lot of sense.
BET gets its own mobile streaming service
Viacom is making good on its promise to parcel out its channels as individual services for cord cutters. It’s launching a BET Play app that lets you watch the network’s black culture programming for $4 per month on your Android and iOS devices. You’ll largely end up watching like Chasing Destiny or Real Husbands of Hollywood on demand, but there is a smattering of live content. It has a live feed of BET Soul’s music, and it’ll be the only official way to livestream the BET Awards (conveniently, taking place on June 26th).
The service is available in 100 countries around the globe, so you don’t have to be American to give it a whirl. However, support for it on TVs is pretty limited. You can use AirPlay to send videos to your TV if you have iOS gear, but you won’t find native Apple TV or Android TV apps, and there’s no Chromecast support. It’s not a perfect substitute for your cable or satellite subscription right now, then — you’ll probably have to be content with watching on your phone.
Via: The Verge
Source: Viacom
Charge your phone with KFC’s new take-out box
Suppose you’ve just fired up Yelp to hunt down the nearest KFC, texted your friends to get their order and then posted a sweet victory Snapchat of your crispy haul. That probably just took a chunk from your smartphone battery — but don’t worry dudes, KFC’s got your back with a device charger in your take-out box. Just don’t try to plug it in while you’re fingers-deep in greasy chicken.
Sadly, the promotion is currently only available in Delhi and Mumbai, India. But reports say that the charger is pretty terrible, netting BGR’s writer 17 percent phone life over half an hour until the box’s battery was fully drained. When they plugged it in to refresh it, they only got 7 percent. It’s safe to say we’re not missing much.
The “Watt A Box” charger came out of a partnership with the Mumbai-based digital agency Blink Digital, so we’re unlikely to see it come to American shores anyway. Add it to the list of weird regionally-released promotional items, like Pizza Hut’s movie projector box in Hong Kong or KFC’s paper-thin bluetooth keyboard in Germany. Or KFC’s chicken-flavored nail polish, also in Hong Kong. Or its fried chicken “accessories” in Japan. Y’know what? Maybe it’s a good thing that we’ve kept our fried chicken experience pure.
Via: Eater
Source: BGR
Google will teach you to write Android apps
Learning to make your own Android apps isn’t easy, especially if it’s your first time programming anything. Do you find a tutorial and hope for the best? Sign up for classes at the local college? Google might have a better way. It’s introducing a free Android Basics nanodegree at Udacity that has Google experts teaching you how to write simple Android apps, even if you don’t know a lick of code. The online course guides you far enough through Android Studio that you’ll have an “entire portfolio” of programs by the time you’re done — you may not write the next Instagram, but you should be comfortable.
You can pay for coaching, career counseling and other help if you like, and Google is encouraging you to to move on to the Career-track Android nanodegree if you see development as your calling in life. It’ll even give you a scholarship for that mini-degree if you’re one of the first 50 people to complete the Basics course. No, Google isn’t giving things away out of sheer generosity (it wants to foster the next big Android hit). However, this is still an important gesture. While many operating system creators will gladly give you the tools to get started, it’s rare that they show you how to use those tools when you’re an absolute rookie.
Source: Udacity
The marvel of microchips
Half a century ago, Westinghouse buried a time capsule at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In it were “Molecular Blocks,” a company invention that squeezed “the functions usually performed by an entire assembly of electronic components” into “small solid blocks of material.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because it describes what we now know today as an integrated circuit (IC) or microchip.
Westinghouse was one of several entities pursuing IC development at the time, including Texas Instruments, Fairchild, and many Japanese companies. Despite early cooperation, by 1964 most were embroiled in patent litigation.
The image above shows one those early ICs, held by an unnamed person for scale. The chip comes from Westinghouse’s WM-1000 series, and is either an oscillator or video amplifier. Sadly we’re unable to verify which — what’s left of Westinghouse is now a licensing arm of CBS. It was included in the time capsule among other scientific developments of the era, including antibiotics, a computer memory unit, a plastic heart valve and birth control pills.
The Big Picture is a recurring feature highlighting beautiful images that tell big stories. We explore topics as large as our planet, or as small as a single life, as affected by or seen through the lens of technology.
Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 7 With Bug Fixes and Feature Tweaks
Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced on March 30, 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into the release version of Safari.
Safari Technology Preview release 7 includes bug fixes and updates for JavaScript, CSS, Web APIs, Web Inspector, Media, and Rendering.
The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.
Apple’s goal with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can be run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while aimed at developers, it does not require a developer account to download.
Tag: Safari Technology Preview
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Mondevices MonBaby Smart Button review – CNET
The Good MonBaby is easy to use, and its design cleverly makes clipping it to baby’s clothing easier than comparable devices. The Android app’s ability to track sleep patterns over time is a cool addition.
The Bad Its reliance on motion detection means MonBaby’s performance isn’t perfect. Plus, you can’t use it with a sleeper or rocker that would register movement even if the child has stopped breathing.
The Bottom Line MonBaby is a useful gadget, but like other devices of its type, its features can’t replace traditional monitors or quite justify its $170 price tag.
There are two types of baby monitors: traditional ones that let you listen while your child is sleeping in the other room, and newer connected ones that monitor your child’s vitals and send mobile alerts if something goes wrong. I love that technology has increased safety for kids and peace of mind for new parents. But here’s a question for these high-tech monitors: Can the new features justify the raised price?
MonBaby makes sure your baby’s sleeping well
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Developer Mondevices makes one of these connected gadgets called the MonBaby Smart Button, a wearable for your infant. MonBaby pairs simple motion-sensing hardware with algorithms to track children’s breathing, overall activity and physical orientation. The app notifies parents if the device detects any concerning change (like halted respiration or a child lying on their belly).
Mondevices’ product is well designed. It snaps onto your kid’s clothing and connects to your phone via Bluetooth. MonBaby’s measurements are pretty reliable, but because they all depend on motion-sensing, they can be inaccurate if used with certain sleepers or rockers.
Accessing the information on the app is quick and easy. You can personalize when you receive notifications and also track your child’s activity levels over time on the Android app (this feature is coming for the iOS version within a few months, according to Mondevices).
At $170, MonBaby is a little more affordable than some of its competitors, but it certainly isn’t cheap. And it falls into the same trap as other devices like it: It can’t replace traditional monitors, and its added smarts won’t justify the price for many parents. MonBaby is nice to have around, but not necessary for most kids.
Pros
- Cheaper than some competitors
- Tracks data over time
- Sends alerts if your child flips onto their belly
Cons
- Bluetooth reliance means limited range
- iOS app is less developed than Android version
- Motion sensing isn’t reliable when used with certain sleepers
Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) review – CNET
The Good The inexpensive Samsung Galaxy J3 runs the current version of Android and takes nice daylight photos. It has a long-lasting, removable battery and the camera app launches with a double-click of the home button.
The Bad Its underpowered processor makes the photo-capture slow enough to miss action shots.
The Bottom Line Light users will do fine with Samsung’s entry-level Galaxy J3, but you’ll want a higher-powered phone if you plan to keep it around for two years or more.
There aren’t many new phones you can compare to the 5-inch Samsung Galaxy J3. An extremely inexpensive device with parts to match, the phone nevertheless performed better than I expected, but never stellar. Battery life was strong, it ships with the current version of Android (6.0.1) and its daylight photography is good enough to post online despite the camera’s low 5-megapixel resolution (selfies, low-light shots, and indoor photos aren’t quite as good).
At $110 to $180 in the US (pricing varies by carrier), £140 in the UK (for the 8GB version, from Carphone Warehouse) and AU$329 in Australia, the J3 also earns points for its immediate global availability. In the notoriously carrier-controlled US, for example, it sells on five networks (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile).
The J3 is likable enough in its looks and feel, and its battery kept going long after I expected the phone to conk out — it lasted 15 hours in CNET’s looping video drain test. Phone calls were also problem-free on the AT&T model I tested in San Francisco on medium-high volume. There’s plenty of room to expand storage (up to 128GB with a microSD card) and you can replace the battery if that’s your jam. Where the J3 falters is mainly in its quad-core processor, which makes gaming slightly less smooth and the camera a half-beat late to capture and process photos.
The sub-$200 Samsung Galaxy J3 handles well
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In the short term, the J3 will serve wallet-watchers well enough, especially if you plan to use the phone lightly. But if you have the cash to spare, jumping up to the next price bracket will get you a phone that will wear better with time, as we expect the Motorola Moto G4 to. This J3, by contrast, leaves you with a slower processor, photos that suffer in larger formats and less on-board storage for photos. (See the specs comparison chart below.)
Roost Smart Water and Freeze Detector Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Roost
If something goes wrong in your home, Roost wants you to know about it wherever you are. Place the Roost Water and Freeze Detector in vulnerable spots in your house, and you’ll get a push notification if it senses water, or if the temperature goes below a warning threshold.
Roost announced the $50 sensor today. You can head to the Roost site to preorder the US-only device. The Smart Water and Freeze Detector should ship out this fall.
Other leak detectors
- Fibaro Flood Sensor
- FortrezZ Water Sensor
- SmartThings Water Leak Sensor
The California-based startup’s previous product, the Roost Smart Battery, fits inside your smoke detector and sends you an alert when the alarm sounds. The company also has a standalone smoke detector on the way.
With the Smart Water and Freeze Detector, Roost wants to help your smart home be ready for any potential disaster. With three years of battery life and a humidity sensor built-in with the temperature and water sensor, you’ll be able to place Roost under your sink or toilet, or in the laundry room.
The Smart Water and Freeze Detector has built-in Wi-Fi, so it’ll talk directly to your router and that should help keep setup time to a minimum. And it has an IFTTT channel, letting you create recipes to trigger other smart devices when something goes wrong. So if Roost senses water, your Philips Hue bulbs can flash red, for instance.
For now, the $60 Fibaro Flood Sensor is our leak detector of choice, but we’ve been impressed with Roost’s take on smart home safety, too. If the new sensor is responsive and reliable enough to warn you before pipes freeze, before mold builds up, or before a leak has time to do serious damage, then it might make for a worthwhile addition to a connected home setup.
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