Instagram’s ‘Stories’ feature looks a lot like Snapchat’s
How do you fight an immensely popular social app like Snapchat? For Instagram, it’s by copying one of Snapchat’s most popular features: stories. “Instagram Stories” lets you post as many photos and videos as you’d like in a slideshow format. And you won’t have to worry about them hurting your meticulously curated Instagram feed, as the stories will disappear in 24 hours (that sure does sound familiar!).
You’ll find stories from friends and popular accounts in a navigation bar at the top of your Instagram feed. Once you tap into one, you can move back and forth through the slideshow at your own pace. You won’t be able to leave public comments or like anything you see in a story, but you can still send a private message to the author. The latter change is a sign that this endeavor doesn’t quite fit into Instagram’s existing feature set.
Naturally, stories will follow whatever privacy settings you’ve chosen for Instagram. You’ll also be able to hide them from specific followers. I haven’t had a chance to test out the feature yet, but judging from the screenshots and videos, it also looks like there are plenty of editing options for making your stories “fun.”
While a bit shameless, it makes sense for Instagram to adopt one of Snapchat’s defining features. Since its inception, Instagram has been focused on curated feeds. Those still have a place today, but the company also needs a more relaxed form of posting to compete with Snapchat’s breezier style, where you don’t have to worry about framing the perfect shot for posterity. Instagram will be rolling out the stories feature on iOS and Android over the next few weeks.
Source: Instagram
Telltale’s ‘Batman’ game does Bruce Wayne justice
Batman comics excel when they dive into the psyche of Bruce Wayne. The moody billionaire is conflicted by his desire to be a good person while protecting Gotham by any means necessary. How much force is excessive? Where do you draw the line? It’s easy for the Caped Crusader to lose sight. Bruce is also a genius, capable of unraveling the most complex mysteries. Watching him scour the city and piece together a supervillain’s plot is as rewarding for the reader as seeing the Dark Knight foil it with fists.
It’s these aspects of Batman that Telltale is trying to infuse into its next point-and-click adventure game. BATMAN, a five-episode series that premieres today, looks and plays like a comic book. Unlike previous games featuring the Dark Knight — which have prioritized action and weaving in every supervillain imaginable — this new title puts story above everything else. The result is an experience that feels closer to the comics, balancing the measured Bruce Wayne and his often brutal alter ego Batman.
The episode starts with a group of thugs flooding into city hall. Gotham City Police Department quickly arrive on the scene, led by Commissioner Gordon, but are thwarted by an explosion that erupts out of an elevator shaft. Batman, meanwhile, is hiding in a nearby building and swoops in using his grapple gun. A series of quicktime events follow — linear, scripted sequences that required carefully timed button presses — with Wayne dashing between desks and using his assortment of gadgets to gain an advantage. He sticks to the shadows, picking off heavies one by one.
Later that night, Bruce walks into a room packed with guests in Wayne Manor. You’ll be asked to explain your late arrival (crack a joke? Make an excuse?) and a cut that’s visible on your left cheek. These conversations add another dimension to your life as a superhero; you have to live through the fallout, covering your tracks and listening to what people think about your actions. One individual, who respects the Wayne family, describes Batman as a vigilante dealing out justice “like the Wild West.” You can choose how to respond and a pop-up will appear in the corner of the screen, reminding you that the guest will remember what you say.
The message here is simple: What you do as Bruce Wayne is just as important, if not more so, than your crimefighting as Batman.
Bruce’s morals are later tested by a mobster, Carmine Falcone. He controls a large part of the city and Harvey Dent, pre-Two Face transformation, wants him to support his campaign for mayor. Here’s the conundrum: As Batman, Bruce would like to destroy the crime lord and his operations. As Dent’s ally, however, he faces a larger dilemma — should he work with the slimeball to get Dent into power, believing the District Attorney will follow through and help Gotham? Or does he stand firm and reject Faclone’s support, jeopardizing Dent’s campaign and the city’s future?
Interactions like this one are littered throughout the episode. You’re forced to make decisions that will shape Bruce’s relationships with other characters, such as Selina Kyle and Oswald Cobblepot. They all have motivations and allegiances, as well as the ability to help Batman. Like many Telltale video games, however, it’s impossible to please everyone. You have to choose a path you think will serve Gotham best.
“You’re not brawling for the sake of beating a boss or racking up combos; it’s to uncover a truth that propels the story forward.”
Bruce’s intellect and detective skills are presented through some surprisingly elaborate puzzles. Midway through the episode, Batman stumbles upon a crime scene inside a warehouse. The game gives you the freedom to walk around, investigate objects and analyze chemicals with the Batsuit. Based on Batman’s musings, you have to link up the various clues in order to build a sound theory. It’s trickier than you might think, with plenty of combinations that ultimately lead nowhere.
The game is constantly flipping between Batman and Bruce. The two characters are distinct but intertwined, providing new insights into the hero and opening up different avenues of investigation. Few games have portrayed the Dark Knight this way, instead focusing on his prowess as a crime fighter. That’s a shame, because Batman is more than a vigilante beating up crooks in the dead of night. He’s also Bruce, a broken man struggling with his past and inner demons. That complexity is why the comics have been so successful, and it’s a part of the character that deserves to be explored in video games too.
We’re live from Samsung’s 2016 Unpacked event in New York!
Samsung is holding its annual Unpacked event in New York City today, and we’re here ready to bring you all the news as it happens. As is often the case with its summer Unpacked events, we’re highly likely to see the new Galaxy Note7 this morning (yup, Samsung is skipping right over “6” in its naming scheme). There have also been rumors of refreshed VR hardware, and the company may have other surprises up its sleeve today. For all the news as it happens, stay tuned in right here — we’ll keep you updated on everything Samsung has to show us today.
Samsung’s big, beautiful Galaxy Note 7 lands on August 19th
Another year, another Galaxy Note. Samsung just unveiled its new Galaxy Note 7 in New York this morning, and you’ll be able to get one for yourself in the US starting on August 19th. We got the chance to take one for a test drive prior to the show, and one thing quickly became clear: Samsung might not have revamped the Note formula, but the Note 7 is a testament to the quality that can come from years of gradual change.
The broad strokes
The US version of the Note 7 packs a quad-core, Snapdragon 820 chipset, an Adreno 530 GPU and 4GB of RAM. Good on you if that sounds familiar: The Note 7 actually has the same internals as this year’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. I spent about 45 minutes playing with the Note 7 and it’s an incredibly fast, responsive little machine. We’re just about to get the first batch of games that lean on the high-performance Vulkan API too, so it won’t be long until we see what the Note 7 and its ilk can really do.
The similarities don’t end there either. The Note 7 has the same 12-megapixel, DualPixel camera as the S7 family, so it should join them as one of the top cameraphones, especially in low-light conditions. Samsung also made the Note 7 IP68 water resistant like its smaller cousins, a feature that should really be standard on flagship phones by now. The Note 7’s gorgeous 5.7-inch, Super AMOLED is curved on the left and right sides too, and makes use of the same Edge interface we know and tolerate for quick access to contacts and apps. Oh, and there’s a spot to fit up to a 256GB microSD card if the 64GB of built-in storage isn’t enough.
Those similarities aren’t all that surprising, but the overall package is nonetheless first rate. I’m calling it now: the Galaxy Note 7 is the most comfortable Note ever made and is even nicer to hold than either of the S7’s. Samsung went with a symmetrical build this year, so the front and back of the Note 7 have the same amount of curviness — that helps the phone fit into your palm more easily and gives your fingers more of a place to rest. Samsung’s improved design might have given us one drawback, though: The Note 7 has a 3,500mAh battery, which is actually a bit smaller than the one inside the S7 Edge.
We’ll see how long that battery actually lasts once we get a device in to really review, but there’s one more design decision worth appreciating in the meantime. While the industry seems to have it out for the standard headphone jack, Samsung didn’t pull a Motorola here. Though the Note 7 ditches micro-USB in favor of USB Type-C, you can still plug in a regular pair of headphones when the mood strikes.
So, what else is new?
For starters, you can now get a blue Note 7 with vaguely copper-looking metal trim. It’s a sort of robin’s egg blue and looks pretty charming (though I’d argue the black Note 7 is the best-looking of the bunch.)
Beyond that, the rumors were true: That iris sensor is here, sitting just about the Note 7’s screen. You can use it to unlock the phone or access content you’ve secured (more on that in a bit). The sensor takes a minute to set up, and works pretty well even with big glasses like mine. (Samsung admits that glasses with certain coatings might make things tricky.) As neat as the technology is, it doesn’t actually seem that useful right at first blush. When I was trying to unlock a Note 7 with my gaze, getting my eyes lined up correctly took more time than a fingerprint scan normally would. This will probably get easier with time, but be sure to keep your expectations in check all the same. More importantly, there’s simply not much to do with that iris sensor right now. Samsung says we’ll eventually be able to use our eyes to log into accounts and authenticate Samsung Pay transactions, but neither of those features are ready just yet.
Now, about that secured content. In a nod to the business customers that seem to have flocked to the Note line, Samsung added a “secure folder” where you can store files and even app instances to which you want to restrict access. Samsung also took effort to clean up its TouchWiz interface a bit (yes!), bringing it ever-so-slightly more in line with Google’s “Material Design” language. This cleaning-up approach goes beyond just looks too: The camera interface has stripped of its rows of shooting modes and settings. Swiping back and forth on the camera display brings those familiar shooting modes in case you need them. Oh, and the Note 7 now supports streaming HDR video too. So, you know, have at it.
Additionally, Samsung combined four of its S Pen-friendly apps into a one-stop shop called “Samsung Notes” where you can capture your handwritten notes and drawings, not to mention edit photos. Speaking of the S Pen…
S Pen, take 7
The updated S Pen doesn’t look much different from the one we got last year, but this year it’s water resistant, just like the phone itself. Since the handset and pen can now withstand liquid, you can actually write things on the Note 7’s screen while underwater, though I’m not sure when anyone would ever actually need to. Writing and sketching with the S Pen feels a little more natural this time too, partially because Samsung dropped the size of its nib to 0.7mm — the same size as a standard ballpoint pen or mechanical pencil.
New commands are also available when you pull the S Pen from its hidey-hole — you can use it to magnify anything you see on the screen up to 3X and translate words on-screen from one language to another. (Pretty helpful if you want to try reading Engadget Spanish, for instance.) That translation isn’t as elegant as I’d hoped, though. The feature uses Google Translate and is therefore as smart as Google’s own technology. Unfortunately, you’re stuck translating one word at a time — I was hoping to highlight entire sentences and paragraphs for Google to interpret, but a Samsung spokesperson was quick to break the bad news.
The best (or at least most viral) new feature is the ability to select parts of the screen with the pen, record them and turn them into GIFs. This part of the process is dead-simple, but you can customize those GIFs further by tweaking how they loop and drawing all over them. One of the Note 5’s best features has been updated for the Note 7 too: You can still draw pictures or jot things down while the Note’s screen is off, but you can pin them to the always-on display in case you need to refer to them later.
At the end of the day, though, is it worth ditching a Note 5 for a Note 7? Unclear. Innovation comes in fits and starts, and I’m left wondering what else can be done to make the long-standing Galaxy Note formula indispensable. Anyone looking for dramatic change here might be disappointed, but at this early stage, the Note 7’s overall package is still impressive. Stay tuned for our full review to see how Samsung’s new phablet really stacks up.
Samsung’s Gear VR headset gets a more comfortable design
Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 7 is neat and all, but its USB Type-C port means it’s incompatible with the Gear VR headset you might have lying around. Never fear, though: The company built a new, more comfortable version of its VR face-screen that you’ll be able to pick up on August 19th, the same day the phone itself goes on sale. I strapped on the updated rig for a bit of face time and, I’ll tell you right now, it’s pretty fantastic.
At first glance, it’s clear there’s something new going on here. The new Gear VR comes decked out in a handsome, bluish-black finish that looks remarkably different from earlier models. As it turns out, the change wasn’t just driven by style concerns. Some users complained about images from the phone’s display reflecting off the white plastic interior of older Gear VRs, so Samsung went for a darker body to help mitigate the issue.
The controls have changed a bit too. There’s now a dedicated Home button to take you back out of menus, so you no longer need to hold down that Back button. Meanwhile, the touchpad on the Gear VR’s right side has received some significant updates. The etched D-pad design is totally gone, leaving more room for your finger to move around. It’ll take a little getting used to if you’re coming from the third-generation Gear VR, but it’s very similar to the touchpad setup we saw way back when on the older Innovator Edition.
Speaking of older hardware, you can use this improved version of the Gear VR with all compatible Samsung phones too. The USB Type-C connector that latches onto the Note 7 can be swapped out for an included micro-USB connector. Just unlock the adapter, slide it off, pop on the other one and you’re all set.
And did I mention the Gear VR is more comfortable than ever? The padding that presses into your face is thicker and more supple than before, and Samsung made the head strap longer to better accommodate large noggins like mine. Combined, these two changes make for a headset that stayed put and irritated my face less.
Since the Gear VR doesn’t seem to move around as much, it’s only fitting that Samsung widened its field of view too: The company’s engineers bumped it from 96 degrees to 101 degrees to help make video and games feel a little more immersive. In my demo I didn’t wear the Gear VR for very long, but the change seemed pretty modest, from where I was sitting. That said, I’ll take just about any optical improvement I can get. All told, the Gear VR is still the best way to get started with virtual reality on the cheap — it’s just more likely now to be a comfortable fit.
Samsung will finally sell its cutesy 360-degree camera in the US
It’s been half a year since we first met Samsung’s charming 360-degree camera, and they’re still a little tough to come by. They’ve available in Korea and Singapore and Samsung sold them briefly at this year’s VidCon to web video fanatics, but that’s it… for a little longer, anyway. As with all the other new Samsung gear announced today, the Gear 360 will go on sale (online at least) starting on August 19th.
Need a quick refresher? The Gear 360 features F/2.0 fish-eye lenses, with a 15-megapixel sensor nestled behind each of them. Each of those cameras can capture of 195 degrees worth of stuff in front of them, which can then be stitched together into a single, immersive video (at up to 3,840 x 1,920 at 30 frames per second) and shared to the furthest corners of the internet. This adorable little ball-cam can also shoot roughly 30-megapixel stills, if that’s more your speed.
The caveat (you knew there had to be one) is that video editing and sharing only work well with recent Samsung smartphones. Unless you own a Galaxy Note 5, Note 7 or any of the GS6 or GS7 models, you’re sort of out of luck. Though the camera comes with an activation code for a Windows editing app, it’s a decidedly less elegant way of doing things. Oh, and be sure to keep a microSD card handy: There’s no internal storage here at all.
Apple Pay Now Supports Tangerine and PC Financial in Canada
Canadian bank Tangerine has updated its Mobile Banking app today to enable Apple Pay support for its Tangerine Money-Back MasterCard credit card.
Tangerine, a direct banking subsidiary of Scotiabank, is the seventh-largest bank in Canada with approximately 2 million customers as of last month.
Tangerine credit cards — no debit yet — can be added to Apple Pay by tapping the “Add Credit or Debit Card” option in the Wallet app on iPhone 5 and later running iOS 8.1 or newer. Verification can be completed with the updated Tangerine Mobile Banking app, available now on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
Apple Pay can be used virtually anywhere contactless payments are already accepted in Canada, including at Aldo, Apple Stores, Canadian Tire, Chapters, Coles, Giant Tiger, Indigo, London Drugs, Mark’s, McDonald’s, On The Go, Petro-Canada, Pizza Hut, Rona, Staples, Tim Hortons, and hundreds of other merchants nationwide.
Apple Pay expanded to Canada’s five largest banks in May and June, including BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust. The iPhone-based tap-to-pay service is also available to ATB Financial, Canadian Tire Bank, and non-bank-issued American Express cardholders.
Update: PC Financial MasterCards can also be added to Apple Pay starting today.
Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tags: Canada, MasterCard
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Twitter Extends Functionality of ‘Moments’ for Users to Easily Follow Olympics
Twitter today revealed a change in how its “Moments” feature will work during the weeks of the Summer Olympic Games being held in Rio de Janeiro beginning August 5. A new tab for the Rio Olympics will be added to Moments — and every platform the Twitter feature is available for — but now users will be able to pipe news from the tab and into their own timeline for the entirety of the Olympic Games, which run until August 21.
Previously, Moments would only fill up a user’s timeline with news from any particular channel for a couple of hours, sometimes as long as a few days, but the Rio Olympics mark the first time the feature has been extended to nearly a month (via TechCrunch). Like with traditional Moments, when the event is over, the tweets and news disappear from your timeline completely.
Twitter hopes that this will allow those interested in the Olympics to follow along with news and updates coming out of the ceremony with minimal hassle, since they won’t need to go in and specifically follow individual news personalities, media companies, and olympians — whom they might just end up unfollowing when it’s all over anyway.
You’ll see the option to follow country specific Moments, which will last throughout the Games, so the best of what’s happening with your team will appear in your timeline for the entirety of the Olympics. You can also just opt to follow your favorite sports and events to see these Tweets in your timeline, or catch up on what you missed every day with recap Moments that will highlight results, medal counts and more. Of course, when a Moment that you follow ends, so do the Tweets, leaving your timeline the way it was before.
The following mechanic in Moments isn’t restricted to blanketed “Olympics” coverage either, since users will be able to temporarily subscribe to “their favorite sports and events,” like coverage of a specific country’s results or news out of the Gymnastics finals. In addition, when users visit Moments during the Olympic Games, each day it will be updated to include recaps of event results, medal wins, “and other notable newsworthy items.”
The Moments tab is currently available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and the United States. These countries, in addition to Germany, France, and Japan, will also get “country specific Moments” during the Rio Olympics this year. The bolstered Olympics tab in Moments will begin rolling out “in the coming days,” but users can already prepare for the Olympics by reading its dedicated tab in Twitter’s lightning bolt Moments menu right now.
In order to take advantage of the massive influx of tweets and users during the Olympics, and battle some recent negative growth statistics, Twitter is also preparing 207 team emojis for the social network, activated when users tweet with the appropriate hashtag of their favorite country. Of course, the company’s own Periscope and Vine apps will have featured Rio-related channels and content to keep fans engaged throughout the month of August.
Twitter can be downloaded from the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tag: Twitter
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Instagram Just Became Snapchat With ‘Stories’ That Disappear After 24 Hours
Instagram today announced the launch of a new feature called “Instagram Stories,” which lets its users post customized images and videos onto their profile, abiding by the ephemeral rule of rival service Snapchat: every post disappears completely within 24 hours. The company said that this lets users not have to “worry about overposting” and clogging up their profile in the process.
Stories will appear in a bar at the top of each user’s normal Instagram feed, updating with new posts of all the same friends, family members, and popular accounts they follow. Each time someone posts a new picture or video within their Story, a colorful ring circles their profile picture. Jumping into Stories is as easy as tapping on one of those profile photos, and swiping to move back and forward through each user slideshow.
Today, we’re introducing Instagram Stories, a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story.
With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about overposting. Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed.
Comments are allowed on Stories, but are only able to be sent through Instagram’s direct message feature, because “unlike regular posts, there are no likes or public comments.” Keeping in the vein of Snapchat, you can swipe up on your own story to see every Instagram member who has viewed the post so far. To add a bit of flair to a profile, users can also post specific Stories to their page if they decide they want to keep the photo or video longer than 24 hours.
Some users are reporting that the Instagram Stories update has already been added to their device via an update that describes only “Bug fixes and performance improvements,” but the company itself mentioned that the update should begin rolling out to iOS and Android devices “over the next few weeks.” You can download the Instagram app for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]
Tag: Instagram
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Windows 10 Anniversary Update: How does Action Center work?
The Action Center is a much more important area with the Anniversary Update. You can now edit the way you receive rich notifications, and so you will find yourself checking it more often and not just clearing your notifications.
Thanks to upgrades in other apps and features, the Action Center’s notifications are much more useful. The new Skype app gives rich notifications, showing you the message you received. Facebook and many other apps do this as well. Visiting a website on Microsoft Edge allows this, too, as long as you have it open, though it doesn’t need to be in view.
Notifications are not the only reason to use the Action Center. You can also find the Quick actions area here, giving you multiple options for fast and easy computer use. Here’s what the Action Center can do now.
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Notifications
You can edit the notifications you receive by prioritizing the level of importance of each app and website. For example, Facebook messages may be more important than Skype notifications, so you you can raise the priority of notifications for Facebook. You can choose from: Normal, which each is already set to; high, which shows above normal priority; and top, which automatically moves the notifications to the top of the Action Center.
You can also change the number of notifications for a certain app, the default being three, but options range from one all the way to 20. To change your notification options, go to Settings > System > Notifications and Actions, and then choose which app you would like to edit.
Due to Cortana’s upgrades, you can also receive updates from your mobile device – whether it is Microsoft or not. This feature allows for text message notifications to be sent and displayed in your Action Center, with the ability to also answer those messages. You also receive notifications if the battery on your cell phone is running low. To allow this, you need to download the Cortana app on your mobile device and sign in with the same Microsoft account. As a sports fan, you can also receive your choice of updates on your favourite teams, along with weather, travel, shopping, and numerous other options to choose from.
To edit what notifications you want to receive from Cortana, which by default appear at the top of the Action Center, click on the Cortana button next to the Windows button, and then just under the home button is the notebook, which has options of what you like. To select your favourite sports teams, scroll down to sports. Once in this window, there will be an option at the bottom to add teams to your favourites list. Typing in a city, such as Denver, will instantly serve up teams like the Denver Broncos, NFL and Denver Nuggets, NBA.
Developers can create rich notifications for their apps now. Like we said, the new Skype’s notifications are an example of rich ones, and so aren’t Cortana’s/Reminders. Also, Microsoft made it so Windows Store notifications will now appear in the Action Center to alert you of app updates.
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Quick actions
The expanded Quick actions area gives you an easier way to take notes, turn certain features on and off, change brightness, and more.
Windows 8 introduced the metro-style, which most users didn’t like. Windows 10 removed this for the most part, only leaving a small aspect of metro in the Start menu. The Quick actions menu gives the users who liked that feature the chance to bring it back by turning on tablet mode. By opening the Action Center, tablet mode will be one of the selections to choose from at the bottom. By clicking on the button, it will change your layout, though it will be tough to notice until you exit the menu. To turn it off, go back and click the button again.
Click the expand button at bottom of Action Center to access Quick actions area, which is now customisable. The Anniversary Update gives you the option to change the position of each of the tiles in the Quick action area, including the ability remove and add them. To edit how they are ordered and which ones you see, go to Settings > System > and Notifications and Actions.
Some of the other Quick action options include OneNote for notes (which will gives you reminders in the Action Center), as well as the ability to change the brightness on your screen, toggle airplane mode and quiet hours, open the menus for VPN, project viewer, and connect (so you can connect to other devices).
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