Reddit iOS Update Brings Support for iPad
Reddit today updated its official iOS app to version 2.0, fixing a few bugs for Reddit Live as well as introducing full support for the iPad. The first-party app, which launched in April of this year, has been available only for the iPhone and iPod touch until today.
On the iPad, Reddit keeps essentially all of the same features and tabs that users can expect: timeline, subscriptions, inbox, and profile. Each area of the app allows users to browse their subreddits, search for new ones, comment on posts, reply to messages, and more.
Many users have stuck to popular third-party Reddit apps like Narwhal, iAlien, Baconreader, Eggplant, Antenna, and Alien Blue in place of Reddit’s official app. Alien Blue, which was acquired by Reddit in 2014, has since been deleted from the App Store so as to not conflict with the company’s new first-party app.
Reddit: The Official App can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
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Watch Dogs 2 contains sexually explicit full frontal nudity, Ubisoft promises patch
Watch Dogs 2 has received great review scores, including our own, and from our own experience gets better and better as you play more. However, it has courted a spot of controversy of late.
Not only has its promised seamless online multiplayer functionality been troublesome, causing crashes and prompting Ubisoft to can it while a fix is found, one player found a rather unsavoury character model in the game. One of the female non-player characters has a graphic representation of lady parts showing for all to see.
Watch Dogs 2 is a PEGI 18 game, but even an adult would be surprised to see this kind of full-frontal nudity in a game. They might even be so shocked that they post the resulting image on their Twitter feed.
@Swizzasaur
That’s exactly what @Swizzasaur did, using the PS4 Share functionality of his console. We’ve posted a censored version above, but you can see the full NSFW version on his Twitter account.
Sadly for him, even though it was posted more in a “what the?” style than anything salubrious, Sony then subsequently suspended him from the PlayStation Network for sharing adult content.
Thankfully, the company eventually saw sense and reinstated his account.
Ubisoft, publisher of Watch Dogs 2, has also responded, admitting that the NPC model is indeed inappropriate and vowing to release a patch to get rid of the nudity. It hasn’t said how the pornographic content got in there in the first place though. Our bet is on late nights and (very) lonely graphics artists.
No, Samsung probably isn’t going to sell refurbished Note 7s in 2017
Resurfaced report claiming Samsung will sell refurbed versions of exploding handset actually dates back to September.
Are you ready for a bizarre footnote in the Galaxy Note 7 saga? First picked up by SamMobile and attributed to Korean outlet The Investor (which has made its name in recent weeks with some questionable Galaxy S8 rumors), the story goes that notoriously fire-prone handset might go on sale again in 2017 — at least in emerging markets like India and Vietnam.
[Samsung] is expected to sell the refurbished products of its handset from next year, according to sources. “Samsung has not made a final decision yet, but it will likely sell the refurbished Note 7 units next year,” an industry source said. The source anticipated the refurbished handsets will be mostly sold in emerging markets such as India and Vietnam where low-end and mid-range smartphones are popular.
Except that probably won’t happen. The story has been picked up by multiple outlets in recent days, however the original source is a report dated September 26, a few weeks before the Note 7 was killed off for good. Back when the original story was published — with supposedly “safe” Note 7s being sent out to consumers under the recall program — it was absolutely realistic that Samsung might want to replace the internals of the old “unsafe” models and sell them on as refurbs. Right now, after a second recall and subsequent cancellation? No way.
As it stands, there’s no such thing as a “safe” Note 7, and a full-page ad run in U.S. newspapers last week suggested the company was still investigating what was making the phones go boom.
So the Note 7 is still dead, and probably isn’t ever going back on sale. All the standard arguments against a return for the product still apply. The Note 7 is a joke, and its brand is terminally damaged. Samsung is surely hoping to just sweep the whole thing under some kind of giant, fire-retardant rug at this point, and instead focus on the Galaxy S8.
Update: Samsung declined to comment on the report, saying it doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation. We’ve also updated this article to clarify that the original source dates back to late September.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7
- Galaxy Note 7 fires, recall and cancellation: Everything you need to know
- Survey results: Samsung users stay loyal after Note 7 recall
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
- The latest Galaxy Note 7 news
- Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!
OnePlus 3T is coming to O2 UK — just weeks after its predecessor
UK carrier partnership to continue with new, upgraded OnePlus 3T model.
OnePlus and O2 made waves with their partnership to bring the OnePlus 3 to British store shelves, including the option to buy on contract. And it looks like the partnership will continue with the OnePlus 3T, as the carrier has confirmed that it’ll range the mid-cycle refresh from OnePlus.
Pre-orders begin November 17 ahead of the November 28 street date.
The OnePlus 3T will be available to pre-order from O2 this Thursday, 17th November – in-store, online or over the phone. We’ll be announcing our tariffs and pricing details soon and I’ll update this thread with more info once pre-orders are live
O2’s pricing has always tracked slightly higher than OnePlus’s, so we can expect a similar pricing pattern when pre-orders go live.
It’s unclear whether the OnePlus 3T will completely replace the OnePlus 3 on O2 store shelves — the timing of the 3T launch has it coming to O2 stores less than two months after its predecessor first went on sale through the network.
The OnePlus 3T brings a few important spec bumps to the table, including a Snapdragon 821 processor, a bigger 3,400mAh battery and a 16-megapixel selfie camera. Bought direct from OnePlus, it sells for £70 more than the regular OnePlus 3, at £399.
OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T
- OnePlus 3 review: Finally, all grown up
- The OnePlus 3T is official
- OnePlus 3 specs
- OnePlus 3T vs. OnePlus 3: What’s the difference?
- Latest OnePlus 3 news
- Discuss OnePlus 3 in the forums
OnePlus
Want the OnePlus 3T? You’ll have to go to O2
OnePlus has just revealed the much anticipated OnePlus 3T smartphone, with more power and a longer battery life than its OnePlus 3 predecessor. The 3T will go on sale in the UK from Monday 28 November and O2 has signed up to be the exclusive stockist of the device.
- OnePlus 3T is official, complete with beefier battery and processor
You’ll be able to pre-order one from 17 November or head to a pop up event at O2’s 134 Oxford Street London store to pick one up from 3.02pm on Thursday 24 November.
The OnePlus 3T is available in 64GB and 128GB storage options, with the former being available on an O2 Refresh tariff with 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data for £31/month, or £42/month for unlimited minutes and texts and 5GB of data. You’ll need to pay £9.99 upfront for both tariffs.
Alternatively you can buy a SIM-free 64GB OnePlus 3T from O2 for £417.99.
Tariffs for the 128GB model start at £33/month for 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data or £44/month for unlimited minutes and texts and 5GB of data, both with no upfront payment. You can also buy the 128GB model SIM-free for £456.
For a full range of tariffs you can head to the dedicated OnePlus 3T page on O2’s website from tomorrow.
Magnus McDonald, head of devices at O2 said: “As the only operator in the UK to sell the OnePlus 3, we’re proud to be continuing our relationship with OnePlus and to bring our customers the OnePlus 3T.”
“Demand for the OnePlus 3 has exceeded all our expectations and we’re excited tos ee how successful our partnership with OnePlus can be”.
- OnePlus 3T: Release date, price and everything you need to know
The OnePlus 3T features a new 2.35GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and a larger 3400mAh battery. It also packs a new 16-megapixel camera with sapphire glass covering as well as electronic and optical image stabilisation.
Wells Fargo will use ‘robo-advisers’ to dish out investment help
You won’t have to go to a dedicated, tech-focused firm to get investment help from machines instead of humans. Wells Fargo has revealed that it’s using SigFig’s “robo-advisers” to offer guidance to investors. The sometimes troubled bank will launch a pilot program for the AI helpers sometime in the first half of 2017. It’s not certain when you could see it widely available, but that will likely depend on the test’s success.
The concept isn’t completely new. UBS is using SigFig’s service to help its human advisers, and both Bank of America as well as Morgan Stanley are developing rough equivalents. Wells Fargo may be one of the first to take this automated advice into the mainstream, however. It has over 70 million customers worldwide, so courting even a fraction of its base would put robo-advisers in front of many, many eyeballs.
Source: Reuters
Amazon Prime Now delivers Morrisons products in an hour
To help expand its grocery delivery service quickly, Amazon teamed up with Morrisons, the UK’s fourth biggest supermarket chain. It’s allowed the online retail giant to add lots of fresh and frozen products to Amazon Pantry and Amazon Fresh, as well as open hundreds of in-store lockers in select Morrisons locations. Today, though, the two companies are expanding that agreement with the announcement that Prime customers can now choose from thousands of additional products to be delivered in under an hour.
Amazon has added the supermarket to its Prime Now app with a dedicated “Morrisons at Amazon” section. It joins John Bell & Croyden — pharmacists to Her Majesty The Queen — and wine seller Spirited Wines. At launch, Morrisons products are only available to customers in select London and Hertfordshire postcodes, who will pay £6.99 for a one-hour delivery or choose a free two-hour slot between 8am and 10pm every day.
As brick and mortar stores upgrade their online experiences to better fight Amazon, the company has quickly moved to partner with specialist retailers in order to increase the quality and quantity of products that can be delivered in under 60 minutes. Speed of delivery is something that its competition have yet to come close to, bar Argos, but Amazon’s product offering continues to get more diverse by the day.
Source: Amazon UK
Disney Research’s AI system knows what a car sounds like
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sound is just as important to how we experience the world as how we see it — that’s why a team at Disney Research is working on a computer vision system that can not only recognize what an image is, but how it sounds, too. In an initial study presented at the European Conference on Computer Vision, the group’s system successfully managed to pair appropriate audio with images of doors closing, glasses clinking and vehicles driving down the road.
Audio association might be easy for humans, but teaching a computer to do it is actually pretty challenging. Disney researchers trained AI to recognize the sound of images by feeding it a collection of videos demonstrating an object making a specific sound, but background noise, narration or sound made from other objects could easily confuse the system. If the system was fed samples with most of the uncorrelated sounds filtered out, however, it did a pretty good job of suggesting the right sound for each image. Still, the system isn’t perfect: the team reports that it occasional had trouble differentiating the image of a car or a tram, causing it to sometimes suggest the wrong sound for a particular vehicle.
Audio image recognition probably isn’t useful to most of the population, but the team hopes it can be used to create an automatic Foley processing system for video production — making it easier for editors to add-in sound-effects during the production process. The technology may also be able to help the visually impaired by creating an image personification system, enabling them to ‘hear’ objects on a computer screen. Still, Disney Research has a lot of work to do before it gets close to making either of those futures a reality.
Source: Eureka Alert, Disney Research
Twitter bans multiple ‘alt-right’ accounts
In the wake of releasing more tools to combat abuse on its service, Twitter has banned the accounts of a number of “alt-right” users. That includes the head of the National Policy Institute (NPI), Richard Spencer. The think tank describes itself as “dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world.” USA Today reports that the purge started with Spencer’s verified status being revoked before removing his account (@RichardBSPencer), the NPI’s (@npiamerica) and his publication The Radix Journal’s (@radixjournal).
Speaking to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a conservative news publication, Spencer said that this amounts to “corporate Stalinism.”
“Twitter is trying to airbrush the alt-right out of existence,” he said. “They’re clearly afraid. They will fail!” Other affected accounts include those of prominent alt-right members Paul Town, Pax Dickinson, Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers.
In a YouTube video entitled “Knight of Long Knives,” (a reference to a purging of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler), Spencer says that he’s “alive physically, but digitally speaking, there has been execution squads across the alt-right.”
As USA Today points out, the alt-right has been using Twitter to spread white supremacist messages, imagery and abuse, all of which violates the service’s usage terms. This summer, Twitter banned alt-right member and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from the service following what Spencer described as “something that could be called harassment.”
Part of Twitter’s new counter-abuse tools include the ability to report tweets that “target people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or disease.” Twitter typically does not comment on the banning of individual accounts, but we’ve reached out for more information and will update this post should it arrive.
Source: USA Today
Tired of getting telemarketing or spam calls to your cell number? Give the Truecaller Dialer app a try (app review)
Getting an unsolicited cell phone call is one of the most annoying habits human beings have invented. If you own a phone line that goes to your house (landline), I am sure you’re used to getting dozens of spam calls a week. Even with the government with the National Do Not Call Registry, run by the FTC, telemarketers break the law daily by calling your registered number. Your cell phone is personal though. It almost feels as if you’re being violated when you get a spam caller.
At least there is a way to identify the person on the other end with caller ID. Some people avoid answering any unknown numbers, but for people like me, who use their personal cell as a business line too, we take all calls. The sad part about caller ID is some phone companies charge a fee to identify who is on the other end of the line. Like they don’t charge us enough to begin with.
That’s where Truecaller ID & Dialer comes in. It’s an app available at the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store and is free to download and use.
About the App
This app isn’t rocket science. It’s a phone dialer app that replaces your stock app once installed. If you want to go Pro it will cost $1.99 a month. Going Pro removes ads within the app, but they aren’t intrusive. Everyone has to monetize their products somehow.
I’d love to show screenshots of the app, but it contains personal information that I’d like to keep private. I’m sure my friends, business associates, and family appreciate that too.
Just like other phone dialer apps, it keeps track of who you call, and missed calls. The dialer itself is very clean and basic.
There’s nothing confusing about it. There’s a contacts folder, a dialer and a search option to look up specific numbers from a database of 2 billion contacts. The contacts folder reminds me of the Google Dialer where it shows a picture of your contact, if you have it associated to your account, next to their name.
How to make it your default dialer
The beauty of Android is you’re free to change out any apps you want. That includes the app that makes phone calls.
Once downloaded and installed, go to your Settings:
Enable “Allow notification access” within Truecaller > menu > settings > general.
You can then drag your stock dialer icon off the screen to delete it and then replace it with the Truecaller Dialer.
How did it perform?
I admit, I wasn’t in the know about the app even though over 100M users have downloaded the app. After three solid weeks of using the Truecaller ID and Dialer app as my default dialer, I fell in love with it. I cancelled the $2.99 fee that AT&T was charging me for caller identification.
The app uses a network of over 200M users to identify fraudulent or spam numbers, and I got over a dozen calls in three weeks that it picked up. There were a few instances where it didn’t identify the caller when my phone was ringing and I let the number go to voicemail. Within about a minute, the app did identify the number though and it helped me decide if I needed to call back.
In more important cases though it did help identify SPAM callers.
After testing the caller ID functionality, I then enabled the Auto Block feature which doesn’t allow for calls to come through that are identified as Spam.
The app wasn’t perfect but in more cases than not, it performed admirably. While there are in app purchases to go Pro, you really don’t need to pay for the fee. The ads are minimal, and understandable for a company that needs to support its developers. I highly recommend the True Caller ID & Dialer app.
Get the Truecaller ID & Dialer App at the Google Play Store.
AIVAnet 