New Humble ‘Great Adventures’ Bundle may be the best one yet

There’s a great new Humble Bundle for Android, and you’re going to want to spring for this one.

There’s no shortage of great games for the Android platform, but many of the best ones cost money up front. Humble Bundle has always been an effective way of purchasing more than one game at a time, often thematically similar and of the highest quality, for very little money.

The Humble ‘Great Adventures’ Bundle is no exception. You can get classic adventure games like Grim Fandango Remastered, Kathy Rain, and Machinarium — oldies but goodies — for a buck. For $4 or more, you get an additional three titles, including the award-winning Her Story, the fun and unusual Sorcery 4, and the unique Burly Men at Sea. For $6 or more, you get all those and the brand-new-to-Android Lumino City, and the incredible, imaginative Samorost 3.

As always, part of the proceeds go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charity.

[custom:android-gaming]

Apple’s GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork are now free for everyone

Apple has made three of its biggest software packages completely free.

You can now grab GarageBand, iMovie, and iWork (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) for your Mac or iOS device without having to pay a thing. The Cupertino-based company has permanently tossed their pricing for Mac OS and iOS users starting 18 April. However, since late 2013, Apple has offered them for free to anyone who purchased a new Mac or iOS device on or after 1 September 2013.

So, if you still own an older Apple device, you can now install these apps and use them at no cost. Previously, you would’ve had to pay $4.99 for iMovie and GarageBand and $9.99 for each of the iWork apps on iOS. On Macs, iMovie had a price tag of $14.99, while Pages, Numbers, and Keynote were priced at $19.99 each. In other words, this change will save some customers tonnes of money.

• Apple MacBook Pro Touch Bar: What can it do and what apps are supported?
• Microsoft Office for iPhone, Android now available for free

Keep in mind iWork has a lot of competition from the free Google Docs suite and even Microsoft Office, so it makes a lot of sense that Apple would want to offer them at no charge in an attempt to attract users of those rivals. GarageBand, however, has no direct Android competitor, so Apple is basically just being nice by finally opening it up to everyone to use at no cost. Hey, we’ll certainly take it.

Snapchat just added 3D world lenses – see how they work and look here

Snapchat’s latest feature combines 3D effects with augmented reality.

The app has launched a new type of world lenses. Snapchat first introduced world lenses last year. They’re a filter of sorts not limited to selfies. While standard lenses let you try on an augmented reality effects like flower crowns or a dog nose in real time, world lenses manipulate the world around you – not just your face. With them, you can, for instance, show falling snow in the background of a shot.

Now, Snapchat offers 3D versions of world lenses.

Snapchat

The initial lineup includes a cloud, rainbow, flowers, and a floating “OMG”. Like regular lenses and world lenses, they will be changed out daily. Simply open Snapchat, and while on the Camera screen, tap and hold down on your screen. You may see a web graphic, which indicates Snapchat is trying to recognise the environment and serve up lenses. Once it’s done thinking, you’ll see a row of lens options appear.

• Snapchat world lenses aren’t for your face: Here’s how they work
• What is Snapchat and how does it work?

Snapchat’s new 3D world lenses appear alongside regular lenses and world lenses. If you’re unsure if it’s a 3D world lens, simply select one to try it out. You should see a 3D effect on the lens. You will able to place it anywhere on the screen, and because it also uses augmented reality technology, it’ll behave as if the object exists in the real world. So, if you walk away from it, it’ll get smaller.

Watch the video below to see some examples:

Microsoft’s new literacy tool teaches language skills in a browser

Microsoft has partnered with the nonprofit organization CHOICE Humanitarian to release a browser-based digital literacy tool, called Accent, for underprivileged populations. It’s designed specifically for Microsoft Edge so users can interact with its touchscreen mechanics, tracing out letters for kinaesthetic learning. Ideally, the tool will economically empower folks in undeveloped areas to seize opportunities in business and local government.

Microsoft and CHOICE deployed Accent in underprivileged regions of Guatemala to teach local women Spanish, with fluent teachers to guide the inaugural 18-person class. This is the first step in launching programs using the tool in other communities around the world. According to Microsoft’s post announcing Accent, new courses can be customized to teach different languages and skills without needing programming expertise.

Using technology to improve literacy isn’t a goal limited to the developing world. Last June, XPRIZE launched a competition with a $7 million reward to find the best literacy tool that could run on mobile devices. It’s not just handing low-literacy users smart devices loaded up with programs and calling it a day: XPRIZE’s Adult Literacy challenge needed the winning solution to encourage persistence so users stick out the tougher parts of courses. Accent’s kinaesthetic mechanics might be the approach that enables radically different groups to reach literacy…so long as they’re able to get a hold of enough Microsoft Edge-equipped devices.

Source: Windows Blog

Apple’s iWork, GarageBand and iMovie are now free

If you’ve bought an iOS or Mac device in the past few years, Apple’s suite of creativity and productivity apps was effectively free for you. Sure, you had to pay for that expensive tablet or laptop, but the apps themselves were included in the purchase, even if you didn’t download them until later. Starting today, however, Apple is simplifying things and making Keynote, Numbers, Pages, iMovie and GarageBand all free in the App Store for anyone in their ecosystem.

As MacRumors notes, the change in pricing is meant to make it easier for businesses and educational institutions to get the iWork suite through Apple’s Volume Purchase Program. That said, this is still a great opportunity for anyone still running older hardware to give Apple’s in-house apps a try. You’ll certainly never find a better price on GarageBand.

iWork apps require macOS Sierra to run, but GarageBand is available for machines running Yosemite or later and iMovie will run as long as you’re up to El Capitan or higher. On mobile devices, iWork requires at least iOS 10.0, while iMovie and GarageBand require at least iOS 9.3 and iOS 10.2 respectively.

Via: MacRumors

Watch Facebook’s F8 keynote in under 10 minutes

If there was still any question why Facebook paid all of that money for Oculus, today’s F8 keynote provided some extra explanation. From AR to social VR and more, the company laid out its plan for the immediate future that involves blending the virtual world with real life. If you missed the hour-long talk earlier today, don’t fret: We’ve compiled all the big news in a 10-minute clip.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from F8 2017!

Windows 10 will throttle apps to improve battery life

If there’s anything that will kill your laptop’s battery quickly, it’s running background apps. They’ll often chew up a lot of processor power regardless of what they’re doing. Microsoft wants to do something about that on Windows PCs. It just released an Insider preview build of Windows 10 whose Power Throttling feature should keep the amount of CPU work to a minimum. If you have a portable PC with at least a 6th-generation Intel Core processor inside (wider support is coming), Windows can switch the chip to a more energy-efficient state when background apps are active. Those background apps will still get their work done — they just won’t be as demanding as they would be if they were front and center.

The technology throttles depending on whether or not it believes an app is running “important” tasks. It won’t hamper your music app, for instance. However, there’s a good reason why this is still a preview. Although Microsoft believes it can detect which apps will be fine with Power Throttling, it’s asking for feedback in case it inadvertently hobbles a must-have tool. Thankfully, you can either opt out for certain apps (say, a video editing suite) or scale the feature back to invoke it less frequently.

The concept of limiting background apps to improve battery life isn’t entirely new. Just look at Apple’s App Nap in Mavericks for an example. However, App Nap and similar features typically work by telling the app itself to pause or slow down. Here, Microsoft is capping the hardware resources available to those apps — it’s governing the CPU itself. While there’s no guarantee this will add hours of running time, it could make a noticeable difference if you regularly juggle multiple programs when you’re on the road.

Source: Windows Experience Blog

Microsoft replaces the password with a phone-based log-in

Microsoft’s Authenticator app can now save you a step when logging into anything that requires a Microsoft Account. According to a blog post from the company’s identity division, Microsoft has just flipped the switch on a new phone sign-in feature that skips the password entry part entirely.

Microsoft’s phone sign-in works similarly to Google’s sign-in prompts in that it uses a mobile app (available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone) to confirm your identity, but you’ll never actually need to type a password when signing on to Microsoft services. Once you’ve set up your Microsoft Account in the app, you can enable phone sign-in through the settings menu. The next time you log in to your Microsoft Account on the desktop, you only need to enter your username and you’ll receive a notification on your phone to approve the login. Tap approve, and you’re in. The notifications act as a safeguard against unauthorized login attempts and the app can also create a unique code that works as a second authentication factor for OAuth logins.

Of course, you can always switch back to your password if you’ve somehow been separated from your phone, but Microsoft says the whole process is “easier than standard two-step verification and significantly more secure than only a password.”

Source: Microsoft Blog

Google Maps for iOS Gains New Timeline Feature

Google today announced that its popular Timeline feature for Google Maps on Android has expanded to Google Maps for iOS, making it available to iPhone and iPad users for the first time.

With Timeline, Google Maps keeps track of all of the places that have been visited, so users can have a past account of where they’ve been and what they were doing.

What was the name of that antique store I popped into the other day? Where was that coffee shop we discovered on our last vacation? Did I drop off the dry cleaning on Tuesday or Wednesday? Answering questions like these used to take some guesswork (and a great memory). But with Your Timeline on Google Maps, Android and desktop users could quickly revisit the things they’ve done and places they’ve been. Starting today, Google Maps users on iOS can join in on the fun and see a daily snapshot of their life as well.

The Timeline is fully editable, with users able to delete a day, date range, or complete location history at any time. It’s also customizable with different activity types, so users can mark what they were doing and what mode of transportation was being used.

Place cards of locations or businesses that are searched for in Google Maps will include the dates of past visits and can be used to quickly access Timeline information, plus Google also includes an option to receive monthly emails summarizing all of the places that have been visited.

The new Timeline features are available to iOS users starting today.

Google Maps can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tags: Google, Google Maps
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Belkin BOOST↑UP Wireless Charging Pad review

One of the most common features being added to smartphones today is the ability to charge it without need of wires. Many of the flagship models released in the last few months come with wireless charging capabilities. Key models for 2017 already include the LG G6, the Samsung Galaxy S8, and Samsung Galaxy S8+.

Thanks to consolidation in the wireless charging space, we’re finally seeing some industry standards fully emerge. One option, Qi charging, has been around for more than a couple of years now and has been found in phones from Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and the Nexus line. And, in the cases where the phones don’t feature the charging option, there are plenty of cases you can purchase to add it on. It’s pretty damn pervasive to say the least. Looking ahead, we could even see it in future iPhones.

Just because you have a device that’s capable of charging wirelessly doesn’t mean you have a wireless charger. Indeed, you’ll have to purchase accessories like that separately. One such product is the BOOST↑UP Wireless Charging Pad, a unit we’ve spent some time with over the last few weeks.

There’s not much at all to setting up a wireless charging pad. It’s essentially plug it into the wall and place your phone on it. At most, you may have to find the proper placement to get the charge to activate. For a lot of phones you will hear an audible tone or see something on-screen to indicate charging has started.

The Belkin pad has a nice finish to it that keeps your phone from sliding around, potentially disengaging from the charge. You should be just fine for placing the handset on it; it takes a somewhat concerted effort to slide it or move it off. It’s not completely sticky or rubbery, but it does the trick.

There’s a green LED light indicator to let you know your phone is properly aligned to the pad and charging. Should you have an issue, the light switches to red so you can easily identify errors or foreign objects hindering charging. The BOOST↑UP Wireless Charging Pad can charge through cases up to 3mm thick so there shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Thicker cases, though, may be tricky.

The Wireless Charging Pad features the most recent Qi standards and supports charging up to 15W. For smartphones and tablets that Qi enabled and also support 15W, this is as fast as it gets. Yes, even quicker than what Samsung has in its 9W Fast Charge wireless pad.

At $70, the Belkin solution doesn’t come cheaply. But, given the flexibility and what we assume to be long-term viability, it’s a practical investment. Having one of these in a home office or central location could be quite handy in a home full of phones with wireless charging capability. The neutral colors and design ensure it looks great in any environment.