Chrome for Android adds WebVR support for the Daydream headset

If you have a Daydream VR headset, you may want to update your Android phone’s Chrome browser ASAP. Chrome’s stable version now supports WebVR, a JavaScript API necessary for experiences loaded on browsers to work on a VR device. Google introduced WebVR support in Chrome beta for Android last year, but now you don’t have to stick with the browser’s experimental channel anymore.

Megan Lindsay, Chrome’s product manager, listed a number of VR content you can load on your phone and view on Daydream right now. They include the 300,000+ celeb homes and tourist attractions on Matterport, as well as the Bear71 nature documentary. Within gives you access to award-winning virtual reality films, while Sketchfab features VR scenes from various videos games, anime and other sources. You can also pick up and play with objects using your Daydream controller on PlayCanvas’ WebVR Lab. This list is bound to expand, since Google is encouraging developers to sign up and make their creations viewable on Daydream.

You’ll of course have to use a Daydream-ready phone like the Pixel to access all those on the headset. But when Google launches WebVR support for other headsets like the Cardboard — and it plans to do so in the future — you can use other smartphones’ Chrome browser. The company is also working to add WebVR support to Chrome on computers for the sake of desktop VR headsets like the Oculus Rift.

Source: Google Daydream, Chrome

All Three New 2017 iPhones to Feature Wireless Charging This Year

Apple is widely rumored to launch three new iPhones this year, and KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo now claims that all of them will feature wireless charging.

iPhone 8 concept by UI/UX designer Moe Slah
Kuo said wireless charging increases the internal temperature of smartphones, so he expects the rumored iPhone 8 with an OLED display and glass casing to have a new 3D Touch module with “additional graphite sheet lamination” in order to prevent the device from malfunctioning due to overheating.

An excerpt from Kuo’s research note obtained by MacRumors:

While we don’t expect general users to notice any difference, lamination of an additional graphite sheet is needed for better thermal control and, thus, steady operation; this is because FPCB is replaced with film, which is more sensitive to temperature change of the 3D touch sensor in OLED iPhone.

The new 3D Touch module could be up to $5 more expensive for Apple to procure per phone. While that is a minimal increase, it lends further credence to a report claiming the high-end iPhone 8 could cost upwards of $1,000 in the United States due to a significant redesign and the use of premium parts.

Kuo previously said Apple will switch to all-glass casing for next year’s entire iPhone lineup, including the more iterative 4.7-inch iPhone 7s and 5.5-inch iPhone 7s Plus, in order to support wireless charging. It remains unclear if the wireless charging will be based on long-range or inductive technologies.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: wireless charging, KGI Securities, Ming-Chi Kuo
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BeatsX Earphones Come With Three Free Months of Apple Music

One day away from their official launch, new information is beginning to come out about the BeatsX Earphones thanks to a couple of hands-on videos and reviews that have been posted online. In Jonathan Morrison’s newest video, titled BeatsX Wireless vs Apple AirPods, the YouTuber has discovered that all purchases of BeatsX come with a code for three free months of Apple Music, akin to users getting another free trial period of Apple’s streaming music service.

To get the three months of free Apple Music, all users will have to do is register their new BeatsX Earphones on the official Beats By Dre website and enter the code that comes in the box.

In the video, Morrison also discusses what he likes about the time he’s spent with BeatsX, including the ease of connectivity with the W1 chip and iCloud connectivity. The biggest advantage over the AirPods, according to Morrison, is the in-line remote control on BeatsX, which provide tangible buttons for volume and playback. On AirPods, users have to invoke Siri or use an iPhone or Apple Watch for these controls.

A few other unboxing and impressions videos were posted today, including one with a closer look at the traveling case included in the box posted by YouTube channel UrAvgConsumer. The video also takes a look at comparing BeatsX to other earphones with similar neck straps, as well as putting the new earphones to the test in terms of audio quality by listening to a variety of different genres.

With a launch tomorrow, interested users don’t have to wait much longer to get their hands on BeatsX. The earphones will launch for $149.95 on Apple.com, in Apple retail stores, as well as at other retailers.

Tag: BeatsX
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The best Valentine’s Day apps for a truly special day

Valentine’s Day is the perfect day to do something special for your significant other. Maybe an unexpected trip, flowers, or a fancy dinner reservation is what you need to make this a perfect day. If you’re looking for a little inspiration to help you sweep your partner off their feet, you need to check out the best Valentine’s Day apps for iOS and Android.

More: Forgot it was Valentine’s Day? Relax, here’s how you can still rock it

These Valentine’s Day apps cover everything from flowers to romantic getaways, so they should help you make it a truly memorable one this year.

Send flowers with: 1-800-Flowers

The most traditional thing to do on Valentine’s Day is to buy flowers for your loved one, but it can be even more special if they’re unexpected. 1-800-flowers is one of the most renowned services for sending flowers, plants, and gifts, to anyone, anywhere, anytime. If you want to send flowers, cookies, fruit, or chocolates, you can do it through this service. One of the greatest things about 1-800-flowers is that it not only works in the United States, but also around the world in 195 countries.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Book a last minute getaway with: Airbnb

This is the perfect app for a last minute getaway. You can book a home anywhere in the world. Options are divided into categories so you can search by price, neighborhood, amenities, and so on. It’s a great way to discover new and exciting places, and you’ll often get insider information from your host about where to visit.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Book a romantic dinner with: OpenTable

This is a great app to use not only on Valentine’s Day, but throughout the year. Nothing says “I love you” like a nice romantic dinner at a great restaurant. You can search restaurants and book reservations, even if they’re last minute. There are special offers from some restaurants, and a feature called Dining Rewards Program, which is like a frequent-flyer program, but for eating out. You earn points when you make a reservation using the app, and you can redeem them for a Dining Rewards Gift, or an Amazon Gift Card.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Send sweets with: Shari’s Berries: Dipped Strawberries & Desserts

Does your significant other have a sweet tooth? With this app you can send sweet strawberry treats that are beautiful and delicious, right from your smartphone. You open the app, choose your gift, then you can type a nice message for the person you’re sending it to. Once you get through the secure checkout, your strawberries will be hand picked, your gift will be hand wrapped, and it will be sent express, packed in ice, so that it arrives quickly and fresh.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Book a hotel with: Hotel Tonight

If you want to find a hotel to get away, but you didn’t book months in advance, then Hotel Tonight is a great option. You have access to 15,000 hotels in 35 different countries around the world, so it’s very likely that you’ll find what you’re looking for here. You can book hotels up to a week in advance, for the next day, or if it’s a spur of the moment decision, you can book for the same night.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Make a custom card with: justWink

Cards are often a great way to express the way you feel about someone you love. The advantage of justWink is that it allows you to send a card using your social media, like Twitter or Facebook, send it by email, or even use your Apple Watch. There are several categories to choose from, so this app is a keeper, even beyond Valentine’s Day. Not only that, but justWink also lets you choose to send someone a card to be hand delivered by your local mail carrier.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Make love with: iKamasutra ($3)

If you would rather keep your Valentine’s Day celebrations private and at home, maybe you want to surprise your significant other with some new skills in the bedroom. iKamasutra details hundreds of sexual positions in different categories, all nicely drawn and explained. The app also lets you track your progress through the positions and make a favorites list. Each position is rated by intimacy, complexity, and strength to help you find the right one for you and your partner.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Find poetry with: POETRY from The Poetry Foundation

You may not be a great poet, but you can always find great poetry to share with the one you love. After all, it is the thought that counts. You can search through a huge database of poets from Shakespeare to the great Pablo Neruda. Save your favorite poems and share them on social media. The search function is fantastic: even if you aren’t familiar with the name of the poets, you can just search by themes or categories. You’re sure to find some wonderful poems to start Valentine’s Day the right way.

Download now for:

Android iOS

LuvByrd dating app mixes love of the outdoors with — love

Why it matters to you

It’s hard to know who is actually interested in the outdoors in this age of Tinder. LuvByrd helps.

Dating apps like Tinder have changed the way we promote ourselves. People have found that posting outdoorsy photos can earn them a swipe. But this in turn can make it difficult to determine whether someone would actually want to go out on an adventure.

LuvByrd is a different kind of dating app that specifically targets people who love the outdoors. If you are looking for someone to go camping, hiking, or snowboarding with, LuvBryd will be your best chance. It certainly worked for LuvByrd founder and CEO Mike Keshian,who found the love of his life on the app.

More: Photos in dating apps not doing it for you? Badoo is adding video, too

Upon signing up on either the website, Android, or iPhone app, users answer a brief survey to identify their favorite outdoor activities. Once a photo is uploaded, they are ready to find a partner. Similar to other apps, users can choose to “<3” (like) or “X” (hide) other people’s profiles, send messages, or update their account settings.

Signing up for LuvByrd is free, but there are additional features that come from paying a monthly fee. For $3 a month, users can view those who have checked out their profile. Another $3 reveals who is actively interested. Alternatively, users can pay $5 a month for unlimited messaging or $10 for unlimited access to all features.

What really sets LuvByrd apart from other dating apps is the active outdoor events sponsored by the app to bring people together face-to-face. For example, this Saturday is Chairlift Speed Dating. Anyone who will be in the Colorado area on February 11 is welcome to register online or in person at Loveland Ski Area. Attendees will be given a band representing an age group, another representing their ability on the slopes, and a raffle ticket. Couples will then be sent up the mountain on the chairlift.

If they hit it off, they can spend a few runs together. If they don’t, they can return to the base of the mountain and meet a new partner. Singles will receive a raffle ticket every time they meet someone new, to encourage more mingling. At the end of the day, there will be a social hour where prizes are raffled off.Prizes include new snowboards, skis, outdoor wear, and more.Tickets are available here.

Wind power industry passes major milestone, now boasts over 100K jobs in the U.S.

Why it matters to you

Listen to the wind, it’s calling out with more jobs through 2030.

Wind power doesn’t just generate electricity. According to data released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), wind generates jobs, too, reports the American Wind Energy Association.

The DOE reported in January 2017 that precisely 101,738 Americans are now employed by the wind power industry. To put that in perspective, that number is considerably higher than jobs in nuclear (68K), natural gas (52K), coal (86K), or hydroelectric (9K) power plants. But be careful with those numbers.

Let’s be absolutely clear on what the DOE employment stats mean. Not to take away at all from the 100K+ jobs in wind energy generation, but the numbers reported for each energy source include only those employees who work directly in electric energy power generation plants. They do not reflect all workers for each individual power source.

More: The U.S. solar power industry added over 51,000 new jobs last year, and it’s still growing

For example, according to the DOE, workers with jobs that involve acquiring fuels — i.e. mining or drilling — for the electric power plants total 74K for coal and 310K for natural gas. If you look at the oil and petroleum products industry, which was not mentioned in the AWEA report, only 13K work in electric generation plants, but 503K have jobs getting the fuel to create that electricity.

According to Tom Kiernan, American Wind Energy CEO, “Wind means opportunity and job security for over 100,000 Americans. The Department of Energy’s new jobs data underscore the incredible impact of wind power in creating American jobs,” Kiernan continued. “Wind workers directly contribute to our nation’s energy independence and economic success story. We’re especially proud of helping America’s veterans find well-paying jobs after their service, employing them at a rate that is 50 percent higher than the national average.”

Furthermore, the DOE reported that Texas has the greatest number of wind workers, accounting for nearly 25 percent of the overall number. New wind power manufacturing facilities are also under construction in Colorado, Florida, Texas, and Wisconsin — and wind energy farms are being studied on land and offshore in many other states. In the DOE’s latest Wind Vision report, published in 2015, the department predicts 380,000 wind jobs could be created by 2030.

You can read the entire DOE 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report here, and the DOE Wind Vision report here.

How to hide photos on your iPhone

Many of us love to show off our snaps, but there are times when you want to keep certain pictures from others, perhaps because they’re personal or inappropriate. It’s in situations like this when the ability to hide photos on your iPhone becomes invaluable, especially if you have children who often use your phone or friends who are known to snoop.

More: Find out which has a better camera: The iPhone 7 Plus, or the Google Pixel

Here, we’ll detail how to hide your personal images on your iPhone, and recommend a couple of apps that add more security to the media you’ve decided to lock away.

Hiding photos on your iPhone using built-in features

The quickest way to hide photos on your iPhone is also the easiest, namely because it doesn’t require any additional software. The method outlined below comes directly from Apple, and works with the iPad and iPod Touch as well. Keep in mind, however, that this only keeps photos from appearing in the Moments, Years, and Collections views. Hidden photos will still be visible when browsing your Albums.

Open the Photos app.
Tap the photo(s) you want to hide.
Tap the Share icon in the bottom-left corner and select Hide.
Tap Hide Photo to confirm your decision. Hidden photos will be placed in a new Album folder called Hidden.
If you’re using iCloud Photo Library, any photos hidden on your iPhone will also be hidden on other devices, including the iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, and iCloud.com.

Unhiding photos on your iPhone using built-in features

Making photos visible again is just as easy as hiding them, and can be done directly on your iPhone. Doing so also affects your iCloud Photo Library.

Open the Photos app and go to the Albums.
Tap the Hidden folder — you may need to scroll to find it.
Select the photo you want to make visible again.
Tap the Share icon and select Unhide.
If you unhide all photos in the Hidden folder, the folder will automatically be removed.

Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged. 

More: 200 Awesome iPhone Apps | The best Android apps for almost any occasion

Days Pro

Days Pro is an event countdown app with a modern flat design. See all of your events in a grid and customize events with an image, and get notifications for when your events are happening.

Available on:

iOS

Keymoji

Your Emoji Keyboard will never be the same. This app introduces the first Emoji Autocomplete Keyboard for your iPhone.

Available on:

iOS

Remote Drive

Wouldn’t it be great if you could store any file on your iPhone just like you do on a USB flash drive? Now you can with this temporarily free app.

Available on:

iOS

Six pack abs

These exercises are designed for a 30-day challenge with 4 workouts per day. The number of workouts and time required for performing an exercise will increase each day.

Available on:

iOS

MicSwap

Record with 15 different sounding studio microphones. Swap mics and recording studios to get different sounds. Record or import audio and change the sound anytime.

Available on:

iOS

Rotate Video 360

Rotate Video 360 solves the problem of your iPhone being incorrectly oriented when recording videos — you can now rotate your videos in a very easy way, directly on your device.

Available on:

iOS

Gut feeling: Researchers develop medical sensors powered by stomach acid

Why it matters to you

With stomach acid as a power source, targeted medical treatments may be as easy as swallowing a pill.

Internal medical devices like pacemakers require reliable power but batteries are bulky and technology is transitioning to the nanoscale. Given the safety risks associated with conventional batteries, it’s easy to see why alternative power sources are in high demand, and why researchers around the world are exploring innovative and sometimes strange solutions.

Last month, researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland demonstrated that under-the-skin solar cells can power a typical pacemaker. Now, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have harnessed the power of stomach acid to keep small ingestible sensors running.

The stomach acid-powered device uses a principle similar to that of the lemon battery, a makeshift power source made of two electrodes stuck into a lemon. “In our system the gastrointestinal fluid serves as the electrolyte with the copper and zinc servicing as the cathode and anode respectively,” Giovanni Traverso, one of the researchers who lead the project, told Digital Trends. “Our system includes electronics to boost the energy from the battery to a much higher voltage where it can do useful work. For example, we demonstrated the ability to take temperature readings and transmit them wirelessly.”

More: Swallow and forget: Star-shaped capsule offers long-term drug delivery

Traverso collaborated Anantha P. Chandrakasan and Robert Langer, with whom he’d previously developed an ingestible device that could measure biometrics like temperature and heart rate while passing through the body.

A paper published in this week’s Nature Biomedical Engineering journal describes how the team tested its stomach acid-powered device in pigs and was able to capture wireless data from a distance of about six feet every twelve seconds. Although the device’s power supply decreased significantly as it passed from the stomach to the small intestine, it could still generate enough power to transmit data, although less frequently.

“The system demonstrates the potential for long-term harvesting from the gastrointestinal tract and therefore could be applied to a broad set of applications in diagnosis and treatment interventions,” Traverso said. “Specifically, we explored the continuous monitoring of temperature as a model and also showed the potential for drug delivery using the harvested energy.”

The current prototype measures in at 40 millimeters long and 12 millimeters in diameter. The researchers hope to miniaturize a working device to a third of that size.

“We are interested in exploring the coupling of systems like these with some of the other technologies we are developing which enable safe and prolonged gastrointestinal residence,” Traverso said. On top of that, the team is developing sensors that can measure biometrics to detect disease earlier than currently possible. “Coupled with drug delivery, we envision the development of whole new set of ingestible long-term resident electronic systems,” he added.

Samsung may launch a Google Now competitor called ‘Samsung Hello’

Why it matters to you

Samsung Hello might make it easier to keep track of packages, flights, and the weather on future Samsung devices.

If rumors are to be believed, Google Now, Google’s contextual assistant, may soon have competition. South Korean electronics megalith Samsung has filed a trademark for “Samsung Hello” with the European Intellectual Property Office, and the description implies that it has something to do with serving information at a glance.

Google Now, for the uninitiated, is an intelligent assistant that uses signals like geographic location, time of day, search history, and emails in order to make recommendations and predictions. It tracks your flights, stocks, and packages in transit, serves up event reminders and sports updates, monitors the local weather forecast, and keeps track of traffic and transit data. And it lets third-party developers serve up other info.

It launched as part of version 4.1 of Google’s mobile Android operating system, and later came to iOS as part of an update to the Google app.

More: Samsung may name its voice assistant “Bixby,” and debut it on the Galaxy S8

Samsung’s take on a contextual assistant sounds similar, in some ways. The patent describes the eponymous Samsung Hello as “software that will enable block users or computers and mobile devices to access, aggregate, organize, and interact with content, information, and images and topics of general interest to such users,” and that “[gives] personalized features and information on user’s preferences in the fields of weather, music, entertainment, games, travel, science, health, contact, and social news via voice command and voice recognition.”

Samsung isn’t the first to follow in the footsteps of Google’s AI efforts. Taiwanese phone maker HTC took the wraps off BlinkFeed, a so-called social aggregator, alongside the HTC One M8. It tied together social network updates from Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp, news from ESPN MTV, and Fitbit, and other bite-sized informational tidbits into a single chronological stream. And like Google Now, developers can tap into BlinkFeed to serve up notifications.

More: Samsung Galaxy S8 rumors and news leaks

It’s unclear just how integral a role Samsung Hello will play in future Samsung devices, though. Google Now is a native feature of the Android operating system, but Samsung’s assistant might launch in the form of an optional add-on for owners of current and future Samsung smartphones and tablets.

Or it might be a piece of a larger AI puzzle. A growing body of evidence suggests that Samsung’s next phone will feature a holistic assistant called Bixby, a name which the company trademarked earlier this year. It’ll reportedly be capable of identifying objects within images and tie into third-party apps to help automatically make purchases and place orders, and is said to be deeply ingrained in a forthcoming version of Samsung’s operating system.