Facebook Events is an app now: Here’s how it works
More than 100 million people use Facebook’s Events feature to share hundreds of millions of events.
That’s a lot of events – and so, naturally, Facebook thinks the feature deserves its own app. On 7 October, Facebook introduced a new app called Events from Facebook. Here’s everything you need to know, including how it works.
What is Facebook Events?
Events is a new app from Facebook. It’s described as an app “designed for event seekers who are passionate about keeping up with nearby events and finding things to do with their friends”.
How does Facebook Events work?
All events stream
When you open Events, you’ll be brought to the Home screen, where you will see new events your friends are interested in, new events by the Pages you like, and any updates from events. On the bottom of this Home screen there is a stationary menu bar that houses four tabs (home, search, calendar, profile).
Search for events
If you’re looking for something to do, you can go to the Search screen to browse event recommendations based on time, location, and your interests. You can also search for events in any city if you’re planning a trip.
Keep track of events
Use the Calendar screen to keep track of all of your upcoming events in your calendar. It’ll show you which days you’re already attending an event and when you’re free. You can even choose to add calendars from your phone.
Note: Any actions you take on events in the app will be visible on Facebook.
Is Facebook Events iPhone-only?
Yes. Facebook Events has initially launched just for iPhone users in the US. It is coming soon to Android, Facebook said.
When will Facebook Events be available?
You can download Facebook Events now from Apple’s App Store in the US.
Want to know more?
Check out Pocket-lint’s Facebook hub for related news.
Three must-have DIY hardware deals for tech enthusiasts
It’s important to stay productive, but there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun while you do it.
That’s why we’re showcasing three top deals on DIY hardware resources. Whether you’re designing a smart home or building a mini computer, these resources are guaranteed to boost your STEM knowledge while you build some fun creations.
Pay What You Want: DIY Hardware & Internet of Things eBook Bundle
Sale: Pay What You Want ($339 USD value)
From 3D printers to Arduino wearables, this ebook bundle boasts a trove of resources on building your own DIY electronics. Sharpen your coding skills while you create a Raspberry Pi computer or dive into robotics by building your own i3 Berlin 3D Printer. Simply pay what you want, and you can kickstart your next DIY project.
The Complete Raspberry Pi 3 Starter Kit
Sale: £92.51 ($119.99 USD) | Savings: 55 per cent
Designed by computer science educators, the Raspberry Pi 3 is a compact computer that lets you build a myriad of projects. This starter kit will provide you with the hardware and know-how to get your hands dirty hacking, programming, and even robot building with your very own Raspberry Pi machine.
Piper Computer Kit
Sale: £215.10 ($279 USD) | Savings: 6 per cent
Make computer engineering fun for the whole family with this build-your-own computer kit. Follow a real engineering blueprint and get your own self-contained computer up and running with Raspberry Pi technology. From there, you’ll learn all about computer engineering through the Minecraft-powered PiperUniverse. You’ll also experiment with included gadgets like LED lights, motion sensors, and more.
Building a WordPress site is as easy as drag and drop with a lifetime subscription to CloudPress Professional (95 per cent off)
WordPress is a fairly intuitive content management system, but you need to know some code to get the most out of it.
That is, unless you have CloudPress Professional in your corner. With a lifetime subscription to CloudPress Professional, you can build complete WordPress sites without touching a single line of code.
For a limited time, Pocket-lint readers can sign up for a lifetime of CloudPress Professional service for just £34.69 ($44.99 USD).
CloudPress Professional lets you build polished WordPress sites in minutes. Using its browser-based drag and drop tool, you can easily put together a website with the components you desire. CloudPress Professional lets you choose from over 80 predefined content blocks and more than 50 elements and widgets, as well as sliders, image carousels, and more.
You can build up to ten sites on CloudPress Professional and enjoy 10GB of work space. Plus, you can use staging versions of your sites to tweak them at any time and without risking damage to the live product.
What’s more, CloudPress Professional lets you publish your finished sites to your hosting account with just a single click. This works even after you’ve already created the site, too.
A lifetime subscription to CloudPress Professional normally retails for £693, but Pocket-lint readers can sign up for over 90 per cent off, taking the final price down to just £34.69 ($44.99 USD).
Oculus Avatars turned me into a creepy VR mannequin
While yesterday’s Oculus announcement centered mostly around VR hardware and games, the company also rolled out a few new features that’ll let you socialize with the rest of your Rift-owning pals. Central to this concept is the Oculus Avatar, which is essentially a representations of your virtual self. Think of it as a VR version of Xbox Avatars or the Nintendo Mii. I had a chance to create my very own Oculus Avatar at the event and it’s unlike any other video game character I’ve created before.
For one thing, the avatars are more like floating busts with hands. They’re monochrome, but you can choose to deck them out in a variety of colors, from a mellow blue to a glistening pink. Using the Rift and the Touch controllers, I could pick out my choice of face, along with hairstyle, eyewear and clothing. Just grab onto your selection with your hands and throw them on your face to try it on. Oh, and eyewear isn’t optional with Avatars. A spokesperson told me that otherwise, the eyes would just be empty sockets.
On the whole, the avatar creation process was pretty basic. I didn’t have to pick out the exact shape of my nose or adjust the positioning of my mouth or anything fiddly like that. I just scrolled through the different face and head options and went with what I thought was best. I also found it interesting that there was no need to choose a gender; just pick with what fits you best and go.
The Avatar system will go live in December, and it looks like you’ll be able to use the Avatar in a few different games and apps. One of those apps is Oculus Rooms, which is essentially a virtual hangout space for you and your friends.
Right now, the Avatars are fairly basic with no facial expression, so I looked a little like a creepy mannequin, or the bad guy from Terminator 2. But I imagine as Oculus perfects its avatar software, you’ll soon be able to gesture emotions and actions the same way Facebook is doing with its own social VR effort.
Snapchat ends our long nightmare by killing Story Auto Advance
Before Instagram copied it, Snapchat’s rolling 24-hour Story feature was a quick way to keep up with anyone you follow on the app. There was just one problem: Viewing a new Story would play not only that person’s post, but any other new posts in the queue. That means a (completely theoretical) viewing session could jump between a random celebrity selfie, video from a concert, something X-rated and then a video of someone’s kids playing with their pets, and there was no way to know for sure what would be next. Now, Snapchat is pulling back on the Auto Advance feature in favor of Story Playlist.
https://snapchat.tumblr.com/post/151484999099/story-playlist
With the Playlist, you can choose which videos to watch together, just hit the thumbnail to the left of a friend’s name to add them to the list, then hit play. Otherwise, when you view a Story, it will just play that Story and then stop. The new feature is rolling out today to “select” Snapchatters on Android, and will soon be available for everyone on Android and iOS.
Source: Snapchat (Tumblr)
Watch ads to tip your favorite Twitch streamers
Just when it looked like Twitch was looking to reduce the amount of ads on its site, the live-streaming service has introduced a new way for users to tip their favourite casters that relies heavily on them. It comes as an extension to the “Cheering” emotes announced in June and lets viewers accumulate Bits — a Twitch currency where emoticons translate into donations — by simply sitting through a 30-second interactive ad.
Currently, Twitch is in the process of rolling out this new way to “Get Bits.” Users can still choose to purchase 100 Bits for $1.40 (up to a limit of $140) but can now earn Bits by viewing a sponsored video or completing a short survey. Twitch says the cashless route will typically reward users 5 Bits but some offers will be worth up to 100.
To stop people gaming the system, the company is putting a limit on the number of ads users can watch. Currently, the program is available in the US but Twitch says Bits can be placed in any chat channel that has Cheering enabled, regardless of where the streamer is located. Should it prove to be a success, the company hopes to expand its updated Cheering platform “to more users in the future.”
Source: Twitch Blog
Internet dumpster fire 4chan is going broke
The polarizing poster child for the wonders and woes of free speech on the Internet, 4chan, is enduring tough times. With ad revenue drying up, it faces an existential dilemma to change or die. Last Sunday, the site’s owner Hiroyuki Nishimura broke the news to his congregation in a post that it can’t afford all the infrastructure, network and server expenses needed to keep it running. Whether or not they take action, 4chan as we know it may be done.
That’s because the three survival options Nishimura suggested would change the minimalist site’s look and operations. The first method would halve traffic cost by limiting image upload sizes, using slower servers and shrinking the site. The second would flood the site with pop up and self-described “malicious” ads, while the third would push more users to sign up for paid 4chan passes.
Since its inception in 2002, 4chan’s anonymous, no-limits conversations gained it a notorious reputation that definitely scared away advertising revenue. In 2007, it was banned from Google’s ad network AdSense for violating its appropriate content policy. It had kept afloat during its early years thanks to ads from anime purveyor J-List, according to Mashable, but that agreement ceased in 2012. It doesn’t help that its community uses adblockers far above the normal rate.
But even before internet advertising got as bad as it is today, 4chan’s founder Christopher “moot” Poole was charging server fees to his credit card to keep the site alive. Then he stepped down as site-wide moderator in January 2015 and sold it to Nishimura, who created its Japanese inspiration 2chan. By March 2016, Poole was a Google employee, and his site continued its struggle to stay alive with lone banner ads.
For all the depraved conversations occurring on its more feral boards like /b/ and /pol/, 4chan has maintained a sense of visual decorum, if that’s what you call refusing the more obnoxious and ubiquitous ads other media sites allow. It has notably limped on with only lone banner ads at the top.
While Poole prohibited anything but non-invasive ads that wouldn’t ruin the user experience, as he described in a 2009 Washington Post profile, today’s 4chan runs few ads so they won’t tax what little server bandwidth the site, well, can’t afford anyway. If more ad revenue doesn’t materialize and nobody steps up to bail it out, 4chan could force itself into a cash-saving compromise that changes everything that makes it…whatever it is.
Via: Mashable
Source: 4chan
New York’s busiest railways now accept Apple Pay
New York has been in the process of rolling out a mobile solution for the Metropolitan Transit Agency’s super-busy Long Island Railroad and Metro North Railroad lines over the summer, and this week the app was updated with support for both Apple Pay and Mastercard’s Masterpass payment systems. With that addition, the app appears to be feature complete: you can use it to basically any flavor of ticket for those MTA lines, including one-way, round trip and monthly passes.
Surprisingly, New York is a bit ahead of schedule here. Originally, the MTA eTix app wasn’t going to be fully ready to go until the end of 2016. But earlier this summer, the MTA said that it was accelerating its mobile ticketing rollout, with “full system-wide implementation” scheduled for the end of August.
That should certainly make things easier for customers of the LIRR and Metro North — they’re the two busiest commuter railway systems in the country. Of course, we’re still waiting for mobile payment and ticket options for most subway systems, but we’ll take what we can get in this traditionally slow-moving industry. While these updates only apply to the iOS app, Android users can also use the MTA eTix app on their phones — they’ll just have to put in their credit card details the old-fashioned way.
Via: 9to5mac
Source: Mastercard
Roku Express review – CNET
The Good The Roku Express is cheap, easy to use and loaded with streaming apps.
The Bad It’s slower, especially with Netflix, than alternatives that cost just a few bucks more.
The Bottom Line The Express delivers everything good about Roku for a rock-bottom price, but it’s worth spending a bit extra on a faster streamer.
Visit manufacturer site for details.
Last year’s best-selling TV streaming device was the $35 Google Chromecast. This year, Roku really wants to take back that crown with the Roku Express, an entry-level streamer with an asking price that’s $5 less.
And in many ways Roku Express is a better product than Chromecast. It has an actual remote and on-screen display, which I find much easier to use than Chromecast’s phone-based system. And along with all the other major apps like Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Sling TV and thousands more, it has an app for Amazon video, which Chromecast does not.
On the other hand, the Roku Express is simply not as good as Roku’s own $50 Streaming Stick, our favorite streamer ever. It’s slower to respond, especially with Netflix, its remote has to be aimed at the TV, and the box itself isn’t as slick as the minimalist, no-cable-required Stick.
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The $30 Roku Express (top) and the $50 Roku Streaming Stick.
Sarah Tew/CNET
For those who just want to spend as little as possible on a streamer, the Roku Express will get the job done. But $20 isn’t a lot to ask for an appreciably better experience, especially in a device you’ll use every day. Unless you’re really, really strapped for cash, skip the Express and spend the extra $20 to get the Roku Streaming Stick. And if you already have a recent Roku 2 or Roku 3, you already have a speedier box than the Express, too.
Just the basics
The Express isn’t quite as minimalist as the Roku Stick or the Chromecast, but it’s almost as small. It’s smaller than the remote, in fact, and can be easily placed just about anywhere in your AV system that allows the remote’s infrared beams can strike its front surface.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
In an ingenious move, Roku includes a sticker so you can affix the Express to the bottom of your TV (see above), the cabinet, or wherever. Doing so allows it to blend in almost invisibly, and keeps the required cables from dragging it around. Of course, double-sided tape or velcro could do the trick too.
Also included in the box is one of the shortest HDMI cables I’ve ever seen. Its 2-foot length seems pitifully inadequate at first glance, but if you stick the little box close enough to the TV’s input, it’ll probably get the job done. Either way, credit to Roku for including it in a $30 device.
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Clockwise from the top: the Express, the power supply, sticker, HDMI cable and remote.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Other specs:
- HDMI output (analog video available on the $40 Express+)
- 1080p or 720p resolution
- Stereo, Dolby Digital+ and DTS audio support
- 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
As usual video quality was just as good as on any other non-4K streamer. Unlike the Stick and Chromecast, the Express can only connect to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks, not the faster (and often less crowded and therefore more reliable) 5GHz band. That said, I had no issues using the Express on my network in the crowded Wi-Fi environment at CNET’s test lab.
Roku’s remote is simple and well-designed to use entirely by feel, with everything you need including basic transport (play/pause and fast-forward/rewind) keys. The version I got has shortcuts for Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and Google Play Movies and TV, but yours may vary depending on where it was purchased.
Cambridge Sound Management Nightingale Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET
Nightingale is supposed to mask annoying sounds so you can sleep better at night.
Cambridge Sound Management
Most people can relate to the frustration of a bad night’s sleep — waking up groggy, wishing you could stay in bed for another hour…or three. Sadly, busy schedules often keep us from hitting the snooze button for too long.
Related Links:
- New Sleep Number bed wants to take the weary out of your rest (hands-on)
- Reinvent your sleep cycle with Hello’s Sense
- Samsung introduces SleepSense, a tracker for better, smarter sleep
Massachusetts-based company Cambridge Sound Management (CSM) wants to end this cycle with Nightingale.
A $149 sleep system for folks living in the United States, Nightingale promises to cancel out irritating ambient noises with its apparently pleasant, sleep-inducing ambient noises.
Nightingale is a plug-in device that connects to existing power outlets in your bedroom. It has two pass-though outlets so you can still use them to power lamps and other electrical devices. Why not just buy a regular white noise machine, you ask?
CSM says its solution is more immersive, as each box includes two Nightingale units. The idea is that you’ll install them on opposite walls for improved noise canceling.
Get the best sleep with all this clever tech
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Designed by acoustics experts, this Wi-Fi- and app-enabled device is also outfitted with a speaker that’s supposed to project any one of CSM’s 15 “ambient sound blankets.” Use the Android or iOS app to adjust the volume and type of sound.
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Smarten up your sleep routine with Sleep Number’s connected mattress
The new it mattress from Sleep Number is packed with sensors that track your patterns in hopes of giving you a better night’s sleep.
by Megan Wollerton
From the Hello Sense adaptive sleep alarm to Sleep Number’s latest connected mattress, we’ve written about a variety of sleep-related smart-home products. But we haven’t seen anything quite like Nightingale before. In addition to its basic features, CSM’s sleep device is also outfitted with a color-changing LED nightlight and it’s supposed to work with IFTTT. With a Nightingale IFTTT channel, you should be able to connect it to your Ring Video Doorbell, Philips Hue LEDs, Amazon Alexa products, Nest products and more.
Nightingale is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign right now. With 30 days to go, the team had raised just about $14,000 of its $100,000 funding goal. You have to pledge at least $149 to snag a Nightingale two-pack and units are expected to ship to backers in February 2017 (this product is US-only).
AIVAnet 