The Daydream part of the Play Store is about to get much bigger

The Daydream walled garden is changing for the better.

As promised when the hardware was made official, Google delivered well over 50 Daydream VR apps by the end of 2016. Each of these apps were from quality, hand-picked developers, quickly creating an environment of much higher quality than you’d experience shopping for Google Cardboard apps. Volume is still an important thing to achieve, especially when there are developers out there with VR ideas the people at Google haven’t even considered yet.

With more people scooping up Daydream View headsets at the discounted price, Google has shifted focus from quality to quantity by publicly guiding developers on how to publish Daydream apps.

Until recently, the only way to get an app into the Daydream part of the Play Store was to work directly with Google. You could still publish a Daydream app to the Play Store, in fact several have, but in order for that app to be seen by people browsing for apps while wearing the headset that partnership was necessary. That arrangement has now changed, replaced with opt-in instructions for getting your app published where Daydreamers can see it.

What does this opt-in mean for developers? For starters, it means the app must meet all of Google’s quality criteria for head tracking and the ability to read text without squinting.

Developers also need to ensure their app icon is properly formatted, and a photosphere from inside the game people are about to play needs to be provided so it looks nice everywhere. As long as developers follow these relatively simple rules, their app is added to the Daydream app as an option for download.

This is an exciting change for several reasons. First, it allows Cardboard developers to more easily port their apps to Daydream and include Daydream Controller support. Second, app categories Google hasn’t been supporting will quickly become filled with more compelling options that better compete with what you’ll find on Samsung’s Gear VR.

Finally, and perhaps most important, this change means Google is ready to see Daydream grow at a pace it can’t maintain by individually vetting each app before it is published.

Google Daydream

• Daydream View review
• The ultimate guide to Daydream
• These phones support Daydream VR
• Every Daydream app you can download
• Catch up with Daydream in the forums!

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How to connect Google Home to your Nest thermostat

How do I hook my Google Home up to a Nest thermostat?

The big thing Google’s connected speaker does well, when you aren’t using it for music, is communicate with other apps and services. Google Home hasn’t been around long enough to develop a massive ecosystem of partners that all have separate voice commands for interaction, but the current list works really well. The long-term goal is to make it so your phone isn’t used to control these smart home gadgets at all, and Google seems well on its way to making that a reality.

A good first step for anyone interested in adding smart home hardware to the Google Home experience is connecting a smart thermostat. Here’s a quick tutorial on adding Nest to your Home to get you started!

Head to your Home app and take a look at the side menu. You’ll see a Home Control section just for things like this. Tap the big plus button in the bottom right corner of this page, and choose Nest from the list of available things to add to your Home.

Google will show you exactly what you can do with this skill, and prompt you to tap continue. Now all you need to do is log in to your Nest account from the window that popped up, and once you’re connected you’ll see a success message. You’ll also want to tell Google which room your Nest is in so it can better organize your hardware in the app. That’s it, you’re connected!

The only thing left to do is speak. Google Home will respond to “Set the temperature to X” as well as “Raise/Lower the temperate” as long as the thermostat is on and ready.

If you do this right, you can raise the temperature in your house before any part of your body leaves the covers on those cold mornings. Enjoy!

Google Home

• Google Home review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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Facebook upgrades Privacy Basics with more guides

Facebook isn’t exactly a stellar example of a company that values your privacy, but it just made its features’ privacy settings much easier to understand. The social network has debuted a redesigned Privacy Basics section, which now works better on mobile and contains more interactive guides to help make sure your account is safe and stalker-proof. When you visit the Basics page by clicking on the padlock icon on the top right corner of the website, you’ll see the Top Topics sections that links out to interactive FAQs.

If you click on “How do I choose who can see photos and other things I post on Facebook?” in the section, for instance, it’ll show you step-by-step instructions — complete with screenshots. Other entries will show you how to secure your account, block and unfriend unsavory elements, so on and so forth. In all, the feature now has 32 guides available in 44 languages.

A spokesperson told VentureBeat that the company made the feature more mobile friendly “so people can access it whenever they need.” He added that users will now see prompts pop up, as well, depending on what they’re doing. “For example, if you make a post to a ‘public’ audience, you may receive a prompt to visit Privacy Basics so that you know what your audience options are.”

Facebook says it made these improvements as part of Data Privacy Day, which is held every year on January 28th. In addition to giving Basics a makeover, the social network also wants you to take a Privacy Checkup, check your post settings and switch on log-in approvals.

Source: Facebook

Verizon is reportedly exploring combination with Charter

AT&T bought DirecTV for $48.5 billion in 2014 and now it looks like another wireless carrier is interested in getting into the television business. The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon is exploring a combination with Charter Communications that would bring together millions of customers from the two companies. Charter and Time Warner Cable merged in 2016, a year after the two sides announced a $55 billion deal.

WSJ explains that talks between Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam and Charter officials are preliminary and that a deal might not happen. It’s also unknown if Charter is even open to a combination agreement. If something does materialize between the two companies, it would bring together Verizon’s 114 million wireless customers with Charter’s television audience of 17 million subscribers and a broadband business that counts 21 million. We reached out to Verizon for a comment on the matter and we will update this post when we hear back.

MIT finds actual wisdom in the wisdom of crowds

To paraphrase Men In Black’s Agent K, a person is smart, but people are dumb, panicky and dangerous animals. Researchers at MIT and Princeton wanted to see if, despite this, they were able to extract better information from crowds. They appear to have succeeded after developing an algorithm that looks at what people answer, but also what they believe other people will answer too.

As the paper’s authors explain, the democratic method of asking people to choose between two (or more) options isn’t perfect. The system often skews heavily in favor of “shallow, lowest common denominator information at the expense of novel or specialized knowledge.” Hence the idea, so espoused in the UK’s recent referendum to leave the European Union, that the people had grown tired of experts.

In order to combat this, the pair developed a system that essentially gives extra weight to the answers of better-informed people. In the example, a group was given two questions: “Is Philadelphia the capital of Pennsylvania?” and “Will other people think that Philadelphia is the capital of Pennsylvania?”

Now, Philadelphia isn’t the capital city of Pennsylvania, that honor goes to Harrisburg, but Philadelphia is bigger, more populous and better known. But those people who answered no to the first question said yes to the second, showing that they anticipated being in the minority.

The researchers’ solution to polling data is to only select the answer that is more popular than people predict it to be. As MIT News explains, it’s this smaller group that helps give you the proper weight of the overall answers. Put simply, it’s worth looking at those folks who answer against what they believe everyone else will say, since they may be smarter than everyone else.

There’s a sting in this tale, however, because this newfangled algorithm may not be enough to overcome human biases in some fields. At the same time that news of the research was published, the Washington Post carried out a similar experiment with unfortunate results.

The paper asked people to compare images of the National Mall on Jan 20th, 2009 and Jan 20th, 2017 — inauguration day. They were asked, simply, to choose which image displayed more people, and those with a political slant toward the current administration chose the clearly less populous picture. So, while scientists are still trying to make surveys and voting patterns better, they’re still going to have to contend with people being people.

Source: MIT News, Nature

Apple Support App Now Available in 22 Countries

The official Apple Support app for iPhone and iPad launched in additional countries this week, including but not limited to Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The app first launched in the Netherlands in November and expanded to the United States last month.

The app mirrors Apple’s support website, providing users with a list of their Apple devices, options to receive support by phone, chat, or email, and the ability to schedule a Genius Bar appointment or repair with an Apple Authorized Service Provider. The app also features how-to articles and other helpful information.

The app is now available in 22 countries around the world as planned:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Liechtenstein
• Macau
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United States

Apple Support is a free download on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone and iPad.

Tags: App Store, Apple Support
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Google Translate Updates Mobile App With Live ‘Word Lens’ Japanese Translations

Google Translate recently updated its iOS and Android applications, bringing Japanese-to-English and English-to-Japanese translation support to its augmented reality “Word Lens” feature. Thanks to the added support, English-speaking users can point their smartphone camera at Japanese text and instantly get an English translation on screen. The same can be done for Japanese tourists visiting predominantly English-speaking countries.

Before the update, Google mentioned that users could snap a picture of Japanese text and get an English translation, but thanks to the AR in Word Lens, “it’s a whole lot more convenient” to figure out where you are in a foreign city with the live translation feature. Notably, users don’t have to worry about having an Internet or data connection when using Word Lens during travel, as the translation software works offline.

The Google Translate app already lets you snap a photo of Japanese text and get a translation for it in English. But it’s a whole lot more convenient if you can just point your camera and instantly translate text on the go. With Word Lens, you just need to fire up the Translate app, point your camera at the Japanese text, and the English translations will appear overlaid on your screen—even if you don’t have an Internet or data connection. It’s every savvy traveller’s dream!

Back in November Google announced an update to Google Translate that made longer articles and paragraphs “a lot smoother and easier to read.” Using new AI learning software called Neural Machine Translation, Google Translate can now learn over time “to create better, more natural translations.”

Google Translate is available to download for free from the App Store [Direct Link].

Tag: Google Translate
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Scientists are making genetically modified cyborg dragonflies

A biomedical solutions company called Draper is developing a technology that can turn a dragonfly into a living drone. They call it the DragonflEye project, and the technology’s main component is a tiny backpack equipped with solar panels to harvest energy. It also has integrated guidance and navigation system composed of optogenetic tools that Draper made with the help of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at Janelia Farm. The idea is to use those tools to send commands from the backpack to the “steering” neurons that control the insect’s flight inside the dragonfly’s nerve cord. It’s a totally different approach to hijacking an insect’s muscles.

To be able to control those steering neurons, the HHMI researchers found a way to make them sensitive to light by incorporating genes naturally found in eyes. With those genes in place, the tools or the “optrodes” in the backpack will be able to guide the insects using pulses of light. In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, the program’s lead researcher, Jesse J. Wheeler, said his team already created the first-generation version of the system, though it sounds like they haven’t been able to test it yet. He said:

“In the first year of the project, we focused on developing core enabling technologies like the backpack, optrode, and synthetic biology toolkit for the dragonfly. As we begin our second year, we are preparing to equip dragonflies with our first-generation backpacks in a motion capture room that can monitor their precise flight movements as data is captured from navigation system. This will allow us to develop precise onboard tracking algorithms for autonomous navigation.”

If the technique ends up viable for practical use, it could turn dragonflies into tiny surveillance systems or pollination machines. Since the key to the technology is the backpack, though, Draper believes it could also be used with honeybees and other insects of the same size.

Source: Draper, IEEE Spectrum

Fender brings its guitar tuner app to Android devices

Fender kicked off its digital push back in August with the release of the Tune app for iOS. Now the guitar maker is bringing that piece of mobile software to Android devices. Fender Tune is now available from Google Play, delivering a convenient option for tuning your guitar or bass without having to back an extra piece of tech. Sure, there are already a number of apps that do this, but the company takes tuning one step further.

Fender Tune also helps beginners get the hang of things with tips for tone, how to strum and suggestions for setting up an amp. There are both automatic and manual tuner settings as well. That automatic option will employ your phone to “listen” as you pluck a string to guide you to the correct note. What’s more, Fender is working on other apps that will wrangle settings, emulate the signature tone of famous guitarists and more. Those upcoming options will also sync wirelessly with the company’s amps via Bluetooth.

Source: Google Play, Fender

Facebook offers extra security with USB key support

None of us want strangers accessing our accounts online. You might use a password manager, or two-factor authentication via SMS, but there’s another way you can stay protected — physical security keys. Following Google, Dropbox and others, Facebook has added support for these privacy-centric dongles today. When you log into your account, that means you can choose to prove your identity with a special USB stick, rather than a code sent to your phone. Yes, it’s another object to keep on your keychain, but in return you’ll be getting a superior level of protection.

Physical keys are supposed to be more effective than mobile apps and SMS verification, because there’s no chance of phishing or man-in-the-middle attacks. They’re also potentially faster — just a tap on the physical key and you should have access to your Facebook account. It’s a welcome move from the company, which is also announcing a redesigned Privacy Basics page today. Neither service is mandatory, but it’s good to know they exist for Facebook’s more privacy conscious users. Cyberattacks and identity theft are on the rise — it’s never a bad time to strengthen your defences.

Source: Facebook