Pokemon Go: Sightings and nearby will super-charge maps and help you find Pokemon
The nearby system in Pokemon Go hasn’t really worked properly since launch, but everything could be about to change as Niantic Labs looks to super-charge Pokemon Go’s maps.
In a recent app update, some changes came to the Pokemon Go nearby system. For the majority of players, this is as simple as adding some grass to the backgrounds of those nearby Pokemon. Except now it’s called Sightings instead.
However, the more exciting side of this update is that it’s reported that some players are getting a tracking system with a revamped Nearby system, as seen in a set of shared screenshots.
Now it seems that location tracking in Pokemon Go is going offer a Nearby system that’s based around Poke Stops and a Sightings system for general Pokemon in the area. It’s the former part that’s newly refurbished.
Jackson Palmer @ummjackson
As revealed by Jackson Palmer on Twitter, it seems that some players have this new mapping system and some don’t. We’ve tested a number of apps and not found this feature, so we suspect it’s a limited roll-out test.
The new system ties into Poke Stops to reveal the Pokemon that have been spotted nearby, allowing to you see where you actually have to go, rather than it being fairly random as it has been up till now.
Jackson Palmer @ummjackson
This also introduces a top-down view, accessed via the Nearby tab, that will show you where you’d have to go on a 2D map. The new system also adds more detail to the 3D map so you can walk in the right direction.
There’s no telling when this might become more universal, but it certainly looks like it’s going to make it much easier to head out and find the Pokemon you’re looking for.
We’ve heard nothing about this through official channels yet, but Palmer has also shared a video of it in action. Whether it’s official or not, it certainly looks like an update we’d all like to get.
.@PokemonGoApp / @PokeVisionGo / @YangCLiu HERE IS A VIDEO FOR THOSE ASKING. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/wivcskufdV
— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) August 9, 2016
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Google will power Stanford’s genomics service
Stanford aims to make genetic testing a normal part of patient care, and it’s teaming up with Google to make that happen. The university’s School of Medicine will launch Clinical Genomics Service this fall, which is powered by Google Genomics that stores DNA data in the cloud. DNA sequencing is built into the system — doctors that request for it will get a large amount of data back. They can then use Google Cloud to analyze the data they get and compare it against other information in the system to find any anomaly that might be responsible for a patient’s condition. It could improve how doctors treat different cancers and help decipher illnesses that are especially hard to diagnose and treat correctly.
Lloyd Minor, Stanford’s School of Medicine dean, said:
“In the past few years, the amount of available data about health care has exploded. While researchers are learning to integrate this big data, putting it to work for individual patients, in real time, is a huge challenge. Our collaboration with Google will help us to meet this challenge.”
While Stanford is storing all the DNA data it gets on the Google Cloud Platform, only the university will have access to it. Further, the system will encrypt patient information and keep it within servers in the United States for extra security.
Via: Fast Company
Vodafone scraps line rental charges for fibre broadband
Let’s face it: signing up for an internet connection is a lot harder than it needs to be. Things like installation fees and additional monthly charges can often push the cost higher than originally advertised. That’s unless you’re Vodafone, which has today announced it’s abolishing line rental charges for its fibre broadband altogether in what it calls an “industry first.”
The change means that Vodafone’s cheapest fibre broadband package, Vodafone Unlimited Fibre 38, is now just £25 a month (£22 if you’re an existing customer) or £28 a month for 76Mbps. While line rental charges are definitely going away, subscribers will still be expected to pay a £49 one-off installation fee.
Vodafone fully returned to the broadband market almost a year ago to the day. It’s allowed the provider to compete with its quad-play rivals — including TalkTalk, which started bundling line rental and broadband costs into one earlier this year — but its delayed re-entry has left the company with a lot of catching up to do. Scrapping line rental will give it an edge, but it will likely only be a matter of time until the competition begins employing the same tactic.
Via: Vodafone Blog
Source: Vodafone
One man is cycling the length of Britain in VR
Exercise bikes can be a little boring. Even with some music or mindless TV in the background, it’s a mind-numbing workout. Pedalling, pedalling, pedalling. Not for Aaron Puzey. The Brit has developed an app for Samsung’s Gear VR headset which shows a variety of Street View panoramas while he rides. Using a Bluetooth cadence sensor, which tracks how fast he’s cycling, the app is able to warp and switch out the photographs to give the feeling that he’s actually travelling. His goal? To ride the length of Britain, from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland.
Puzey started his journey in May and is currently just North of Manchester. He films each ride, commenting on the scenery and explaining the next place on his pre-planned route. The frame is cut into three parts — a shot of his living room, the view inside the VR headset, and a basic map of Britain. Sure, the concept is a little silly — and the Street View transitions are jarring — but the project is a novel way of blending exercise, geography and exploration. It’s given Puzey a goal to strive for, and along the way he’s been able to soak up the UK’s natural splendour, albeit in a crude form.
Of course, it’s no substitute for riding outdoors. Battling up a steep hill, then descending through a brisk breeze — those sensations are hard to beat. Still, it’s an impressive achievement, and one that’s probably cheaper than the commercial VR cycling experiences we’ve seen so far.
Source: Upload VR
NASA publishes a thousand photos of Mars
NASA releasing high-res photos of the Martian surface is nothing unusual: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRise camera has been capturing the planet on cam since 2005. This latest image dump, however, is particularly huge: it consists of over a thousand images that can familiarize you with the red planet’s many craters, impact sites, dunes, mountains, ice caps and other features. Alfred McEwen, director of the Planetary Image Research Laboratory, told Popular Science that the satellite was able to take tons of pictures and send them back quickly thanks to a couple of factors.
See, every 26 months, Mars and the sun are on the opposites sides of the Earth, giving MRO a strong, unobstructed connection to its ground team for a few weeks. That allows the satellite to beam a hefty amount of data back home. It just so happened that this event, which occurred in May this year, coincided with the period wherein the sun shines directly on the Martian equator. Since that lights the planet up from north to south pole, it gives HiRise a better view of our neighbor than usual. NASA will use all the photos MRO takes to find the best landing sites for future missions, such as the InSight lander.
The rather haunting image above features the steep slopes of the Hebes Chasma, while the one below shows a dune field in the North Pole called the Kolhar. These are but two of the many, many images HiRise sent back, though. If you want to look through every single one of them, check them out on HiRise’s official website.
[Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona]
Via: PopSci
Source: HiRise
Netflix explains how and why it’s switching to HTTPS streaming
Netflix has always used DRM to keep studios happy and make an effort to stop people from copying its video streams, but now it’s added a new layer of protection. Last year the video streaming giant announced it would roll out HTTPS encryption for streams, and a new post on its tech blog explains how you do that for 80+ million customers at once. It developed a scheme to add encryption on its Open Connect servers — the boxes hosted by or near ISPs to bring Netflix’s library closer to the homes of viewers — without impacting efficiency.
We won’t spoil the magic here, but according to a paper written by Netflix (PDF), it expects that by the end of 2016, most streams will be using TLS encryption. The company uses it for the same reason many sites (including Engadget) have switched to HTTPS by default: so that prying eyes on insecure connections might not be able to see what content you’re viewing. Still, your workplace IT department may have its own MitM method so it’s not necessarily foolproof, but it’s a start, especially as governments and others may have interest in the data. The move also benefits Netflix, as it tries to keep third-party analytics from easily collecting detailed viewer data.
Source: Netflix Tech Blog
Alleged iPhone 7 Plus Geekbench Results Reveal 2.37 GHz Dual-Core A10 Chip, 3GB of RAM
An image claiming to show Geekbench test results for an iPhone 7 Plus reveal a 2.37GHz dual-core ARM processor and 3GB of RAM for the device.
The picture, originally posted to Chinese microblogging site Weibo and picked up by Dutch site Techtastic.nl, depicts single- and multi-core results for an iPhone model with the identifying hardware string “iPhone9,2”. For comparison’s sake, an iPhone 6s Plus has a 1.84GHz dual-core A9 chip, 2GB of memory and the hardware string “iPhone8,2”.
If the results are legitimate, a single-core score of 3548 and multi-core score of 6430 show that Apple’s 16-nanometer A10 processor easily beats the performance of the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus, which scores 2490 and 4341, respectively.
On these results, the A10 also outperforms the 2.2GHz A9X chip powering the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which returns Geekbench scores of 3224 and 5466, respectively.
Last week, a DigiTimes report claimed the iPhone 7 Plus will carry 3GB of RAM, supporting two previous claims by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying the same thing.
The DigiTimes report stopped short of specifying whether the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 model would also get 3GB of RAM, but it’s worth noting that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus both had 2GB of RAM, although Apple could restrict the 3GB to the larger device this time around to differentiate them more.
The image is just the latest in an increasing number of leaks coming out of Chinese websites in recent weeks, suggesting users with links to Apple’s supply chain. On Monday, a user of microblogging site Weibo posted images allegedly depicting iPhone 7 logic boards before the device chips had been added.
Apple is expected to reveal both the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 7 at a media event next month.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: A10 chip
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No Man’s Sky Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
When an open-universe game offers more than 18.4 quintillion planets to explore , it’s a safe bet that expectations are high. And that’s why the gaming world has been waiting with bated breath for more than two years for No Man’s Sky, which finally hits the PlayStation 4 today. (The PC version is slated to hit next week; it’s not available for Xbox One.)
The game has had plenty of prerelease drama surrounding it, with early copies hitting the street (and Reddit) before the official release date, and a giant day one patch that rewrites quite a few rules of the game — and effectively resets all those early players back to zero.
Let’s get beyond all that and jump right to the part that matters: what’s it’s like playing for the first few hours. (And, to be clear, I had less than a day with the final code.)
After the shock of having the game crash on me the first time it booted, I finally arrived on my starting planet.
No Man’s Sky doesn’t do much in terms of hand-holding.
A lot of NMS has you exploring, mining and crafting. The resources you collect serve as the currency fueling your journey, allowing you to travel farther away from your origin planet. First, you’ll leave your spawn planet, then the solar system and beyond. Before long, you’re able to access warp speed and can quickly jump from one star system to another.
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An unseen hand vaguely guides you along, but there’s really nothing resembling any sort of a tutorial. Because of the procedural design of the game — everything is effectively generated on the fly — the planet attributes that I saw at the start of my game will be different than what you experience.
There’s a lot to unpack in No Man’s Sky, but I’m having a good time scanning new creatures and plant life, crafting tools, upgrading my ship, and battling robots. The menu system is laid out in a familiar fashion that mostly resembles the one in Destiny. You’ll spend a good chunk of time there crafting items and moving them back and forth from your ship to your exosuit. Everything you discover and scan can be uploaded and cashed in for units, so I’m making sure to do that often.
A marketplace resides in the gameworld where you’ll need to buy and sell specific elements and items to progress.
The game runs well for the most part, but you’re guaranteed to see a ton of on-the-fly texture rendering as you make your way around new worlds or when flying over them.
The feeling of leaving a planet for the first time is extraordinary, but there’s so much left to do and uncover. I’ll have a more experienced judgment after I spend time exploring and wrapping my head around everything No Man’s Sky has to offer.
“Barely scratched the surface” doesn’t even begin to cover my initial experience with this vast game. But I hope developer Hello Games keeps the patches coming in at a steady clip: I didn’t play No Man’s Sky before the Day 1 patch (1.03) hit, but unfortunately the game has crashed out on me five times in the six hours I’ve played.
Google Maps gets Wi-Fi only mode; ability to save offline areas to SD card
Google is rolling out a sizeable update to Google Maps that brings a new Wi-Fi only offline mode. Once enabled, Maps will go offline when there’s no Wi-Fi signal, with navigation limited to your areas you’ve downloaded to your device. As soon as you connect to a Wi-Fi network, the app regains full functionality.
Wi-Fi comes in handy when you’re traveling abroad and don’t want to incur exorbitant data charges, or in situations where you can’t get a reliable cellular signal in your area. Google is also rolling out the ability to download offline areas to an SD card, freeing up the internal storage of your phone.
To enable Wi-Fi only mode, you’ll need to head into the Settings in Google Maps. As soon as you activate the feature, you’ll see a notification to save areas offline, and that a small amount of data may still be used while in Wi-Fi mode. The update is now live, but if you’re not seeing the offline mode just yet, try again in a few hours.
Google confirms ‘Verify Apps’ can block apps with QuadRooter exploits
Latest exploit is roadblocked on 90% of Android devices, thanks to security feature enabled in Android 4.2.
QuadRooter is the latest big Android security scare — a collection of 4 vulnerabilities in Qualcomm-based Android gadgets that could allow a malicious app to gain root access, allowing it to do basically anything on an affected device.
Unlike last year’s Stagefright exploits, QuadRooter needs to be delivered in the form of an app, meaning you’d have to enable “Unknown Sources” and manually install an app from somewhere nefarious in order to become infected. However Android’s “Verify Apps” feature, included in Google Play Services and enabled by default almost four years ago in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, is designed to protect against exactly this sort of thing.
And now we have confirmation from Google that, as expected, Verify Apps can identify and block apps using QuadRooter. A Google spokesperson gave Android Central the following statement. (Emphasis ours.)
“We appreciate Check Point’s research as it helps improve the safety of the broader mobile ecosystem. Android devices with our most recent security patch level are already protected against three of these four vulnerabilities. The fourth vulnerability, CVE-2016-5340, will be addressed in an upcoming Android security bulletin, though Android partners can take action sooner by referencing the public patch Qualcomm has provided. Exploitation of these issues depends on users also downloading and installing a malicious application. Our Verify Apps and SafetyNet protections help identify, block, and remove applications that exploit vulnerabilities like these.“
Verify Apps is on by default in Android 4.2 and up, which accounts for 90% of active Android devices.
While devices are technically still “vulnerable” even with Verify Apps, users would have to manually disable yet another security feature to be affected. Apps using an exploit as serious as QuadRooter would likely be roadblocked completely by Verify Apps — Android would display an “Installation has been blocked” message with no option to ignore and install anyway. (As opposed to the less serious “Installing this app may harm your device” message, which allows a click-through.)
This should happen on all Android devices running 4.2 and up with Google Play Services. It’s worth underscoring several times and in glowing neon text that as of the latest data available, this accounts for more than 90% of active Android devices. And on older versions of Android going back to 2010’s Gingerbread release, you can enable Verify Apps under “Security” in the Google Settings app.
QuadRooter is exactly the kind of threat Google had in mind when it created this extra layer of security.
So of the oft-quoted “900 million” vulnerable devices, 90 percent should automatically block any app using QuadRooter. And the remaining 10 percent can be protected if they enable this security feature manually. Again, QuadRooter is exactly the kind of threat Google was thinking of when it created Verify Apps and enabled it by default back in 2012.
While you could argue that it’s a last line of defense, and doesn’t excuse the generally woeful state of security updates among many Android manufacturers, it is an effective way to protect the many devices Google can’t reach with its monthly security patches. As we reiterate every time there’s a big Android security scare: issues like this are important and serious, but often overblown when they hit the media echo chamber. Context is important. More importantly, Google’s built-in security safeguards should stop QuadRooter getting anywhere near those 900 million devices.
MORE: Top 5 things to know about the ‘QuadRooter’ Android security scare
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