Mozilla releases its Firefox Focus ad-blocking browser for Android users

Following a release for iPhone and iPad users last year, Firefox Focus is now available for Android users.

Mozilla now offers a privacy-focused browser, called Firefox Focus, in addition to the Firefox browser that’s been around for years. You can now download the new browser from Google Play. It blocks adverts and web trackers, including analytics, by default. The company said it launched the browser because it is beginning to see “consumers play an active role in trying to protect their personal data”.

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Mozilla further explained in a blog post:

“Firefox Focus allows you to browse the web without being followed by tracking ads which are notoriously known for slowing down your mobile experience. Why do we block these ad trackers? Because they not only track your behavior without your knowledge, they also slow down the web on your mobile device.”

The browser’s interface is clutter-free and displays an ombre of pinks and purple. Its default search engine is Yahoo, but you can change it to Google or whatever. The Android version has few different features over the iOS version, such as a counter that shows the number of ads blocked, an option to disable the tracker blocker, and a notification that reminds you Firefox Focus is running.

Firefox Focus is a free app in both Google Play and the App Store.

Thanks to Google, we’ve reached peak fidget spinner

If you’ve managed to avoid fidget spinners thus far — whatever you do, don’t Google the word “spinner”.

The fidget spinner craze, which swept the world this spring, may finally seem like its on the way out, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for Google to jump on board. Redditors recently discovered that Google made an easter egg out of fidget spinners. It basically hid a virtual spinner inside Google search. In order to find the simulation, you have to search the right word: spinner.

You can’t search “fidget spinner” or “spinners”. It only works for “spinner”. Once you type in the correct variation, you should see a fidget spinner appear, whether you’re on mobile or desktop, as long as you use Chrome or Firefox. To get the toy spinning, do a rotating motion with your mouse, or just click the designated spin button. You can even swap out the spinner for a wheel.

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Fidget spinners are marketed as a toy you can use to relieve stress. They’re now considered one of the must-have gadgets of 2017. They’re like the Tamagotchi or Beanie Babies of the late 1990s; they emerged out of nowhere and became an overnight sensation.

But maybe, thanks to Google, we’ve reached peak fidget spinner.

Yes, you can actually beat ‘Threes!’

Just when you thought the deceptively complex puzzler Threes! wasn’t beatable, the internet comes along and proves you wrong. Three and a third years later (confirmed by the development team) the folks behind the ThreesPorn Twitter account have captured something special in the GIFs embedded below. It’s quite a bit more elaborate as the victory screen for Solitaire on Windows, too. If you’re going to strive to beat it yourself now that you know it’s possible, don’t scroll down. But if you want to know what score you should strive to top here’s your target: 1,594,458.

[View the story “Beating Threes!” on Storify]

Via: Eurogamer

Source: ThreesPorn (Twitter)

Zepp teams up with New Balance to gamify batting practice

In partnership with New Balance, Zepp just gamified its swing sensor and app. As of today, NB HitClub is available on the updated Zepp app and brings along some new features for users taking advantage of its baseball and softball swing assessments.

Zepp’s multi-sport sensor, which was revamped last year, fits directly onto a baseball bat. It can analyze your swing and give feedback as well as create personalized training plans. With NB HitClub, the app now lets you take swing challenges, earn achievements and compete with other users. US participants will also be eligible to win prizes every month. Some of the in-app challenges include the NB Power Hitter Challenge, which measures bat speed at impact and the NB Spring Challenge that measures time to impact.

“Our focus has always been to bring users the most exciting training experience possible, whether you are in Little League or a professional baseball player. The launch of NB HitClub achieves exactly that,” said Robin Han, Zepp CEO in a statement.

The Zepp baseball-softball kit is $150 and the app with NB HitClub is free.

Source: Zepp

Lenovo laptop concept flexes like a yoga mat

Lenovo isn’t done making exotic concept devices… far from it. The PC maker has unveiled a laptop concept whose centerpiece is a flexible screen that runs right up to the keyboard. It’s not joined by a hinge, it is the hinge — you’d fold it up like a yoga mat, or maybe Microsoft’s Surface Book. It wouldn’t have a trackpad, but you could write on it and speak to it. There’s no guarantees that Lenovo will build it (the company tells us that there’s no hands-on time “yet”), but we wouldn’t rule it out at some point in the future, either.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Although flexible screens are certainly a reality, concepts like this have a habit of either dying on the vine or translating to prototypes that aren’t as exciting as the 3D renders. Lenovo itself is clearly counting on “advanced materials” and “new screen technologies” to make this work, which signals that any possible real-world version is years away.

Having said this, it’s important to remember that this is Lenovo we’re talking about. The company occasionally ships products that would only exist as concepts elsewhere — Yoga Book, anyone? Lenovo may not have production plans for the exact PC you see here, but this might just hint at where it wants to go with computer design in the long term.

A foldable PC? Maybe someday. Just a concept for now. #LenovoTransform pic.twitter.com/UIq1qpaSwj

— Lenovo (@lenovo) June 20, 2017

Via: The Verge

Source: Lenovo (Twitter)

Intel gives up on competing against Raspberry Pi

Say goodbye to Intel’s Edison, Joule and Galileo compute modules. The company has unceremoniously canceled its developer kit lineup, which were meant to give it a foothold in the burgeoning Internet of Things arena, ZDNet reports. Additionally, Intel also canceled several of its Recon Jet smart glasses products, though that’s less of a surprise. With Galileo, Intel wanted to compete directly against the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi, while Edison shrunk down a full development kit to the size of an SD card. Joule, which launched last year, was its most powerful compute module yet.

Intel hasn’t commented on why it’s canceling these products, though we hear that they’re definitely on their way out. At least Curie is still around, the company’s tiny module meant for wearables. Intel clearly wanted to avoid missing out on the IoT market as it did with mobile, so it’s a shame to see it gave up on these compute modules so early. As for Recon Jet, it makes sense to give up on smart glasses after Google Glass failed to take off.

Via: ZDNet

Twitch and Blizzard partner for broadcasts and ‘Overwatch’ loot

Twitch and Blizzard are teaming up in a big way this year. First up, if you’re a Twitch Prime member you’ve got some loot boxes coming your way for Overwatch. “Starting June 20th, Twitch Prime members will receive an Overwatch Golden Loot Box containing a guaranteed [note: emphasis is Twitch’s] legendary item, along with three additional in-game items like emotes, voice lines or character skins,” according to the Twitch blog post. And more on that note, Prime members are going to get 10 more loot boxes this year.

Twitch promises similar treatment for other Blizzard games including Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, which will start In August and September, respectively. This partnership goes back pretty far. According to Twitch, StarCraft II was one of the big inspirations for building the broadcasting service. As such, Twitch will be the official third-party broadcasting partner for some 20 Blizzard tournaments for its competitive games like Hearthstone, Overwatch and StarCraft II. More than that, Blizzard showed off new expansions for the game from the TwitchCon stage a few years ago.

So, which are you more excited about, look boxes or the broadcasts? Hit the comments and let us know.

Source: Twitch

Tumblr’s safe mode keeps racy material out of sight

There’s a lot of porn on Tumblr. Over a fifth of content on the site (disclaimer: it’s a sister brand through Verizon’s Yahoo purchase) is adults-only, if you ask the analytics firm SimilarWeb. And that’s a problem if you’re surfing from work or giving access to your kids, since there’s a real chance you could see some naughtiness. Tumblr is ready to help out beyond its existing filtering options, though. It’s introducing a safe mode to its mobile and web apps that hides sensitive material from view. You can still click to see the content if you’re over 18, but it won’t be visible right away. Also, Tumblr is keen to add that this includes all “sensitive” material, not just naked bodies.

The feature is strictly opt-in, and it’s easy to revert back. However, it’s also being joined by some tweaks to how you find content. Tumblr is now hiding explicit blogs (that is, those with sexually graphic material) from web search results for anyone who’s logged out or under 18. Direct links will still work, but you won’t stumble across something saucy by accident.

It’s easy to get around both changes, whether by leaving safe mode off (it’s optional for over-18s) or by logging in. As such, this isn’t so much an attempt to clean Tumblr itself as another attempt at cleaning up its image. It clearly doesn’t want to be defined by porn, and offering a safe mode could ease the minds of people who might otherwise shy away.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Tumblr

Philips Hue Candle Light Bulb Now Available for Pre-Order in United States

Philips today sent out an email announcing that its White Ambiance E12 candle light bulb is now available for pre-order in the United States.

Priced at $29.95, the candle (or candelabra) bulb is designed to fit small decorative lamps with E12 sockets in the United States. Like other Hue bulbs, the new candle bulb can be connected to a Philips Hue bridge and controlled via HomeKit.

At the current time, Philips is only offering the White Ambiance candle bulb for pre-order in the United States, but the company has said that it also plans to offer a color version, so customers who prefer the Hue bulbs that support shades beyond white may want to wait for that version.

Philips originally announced its candle bulbs in March of 2017, launching them first in Europe. E14 candle light bulbs have been available in Europe in both color and white ambiance versions since April. According to Philips, the candle bulb is “one of the most requested products” from Philips Hue customers.

The bulb is a 40W equivalent, offering up to 570 lumens. It features deep dimming from warm white to cool daylight with a 2200k to 6500k color temperature range. The White and Color Ambiance version, when available, will offer the same white options along with support for 16 million colors.

Tag: Philips Hue
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T-Rex, Vampire, Crazy Face, Zombie, Giraffe, and Pie Among Emoji Included in New Unicode 10 Standard

The Unicode Consortium today released version 10.0.0 of the Unicode Standard, introducing 56 new emoji characters ranging from crazy face and face with monocle to t-rex, pie, and pretzel.

Emoji site Emojipedia has details on all of the new emoji that are included in the update, and has shared a sample image featuring visual representations of the new additions.

Some of the new emoji include star-struck, face with raised eyebrow (which Emojipedia says is also known as the “Colbert” face), exploding head, face vomiting, shushing face, face with hand over mouth, love you gesture, palms up together, brain, orange heart, scarf, gloves, coat, socks, zebra, giraffe, hedgehog, sauropod, cricket, coconut, broccoli, dumpling, fortune cookie, pie, cup with straw, and chopsticks.

New child, adult, and older adult emojis in a range of skin tones are included, as are options for person in steamy room, bearded person, mage, fairy, vampire, merperson, elf, genie, person climbing, person in lotus position, and more, with all of those emoji available in multiple skin tones and genders. While there are 56 distinct new emoji characters, gender/skin tone modifiers and flags bring that total to 239.

These new emoji will not be available for Apple products until Apple adds support for Unicode 10, and the actual artwork for each emoji on iOS and Mac devices will be up to Apple to provide.

It typically takes Apple several months to implement support for new emoji, so the Unicode 10 options could be implemented in the fall of 2017. Emoji in Unicode 9, which was released in June of 2016, were added to iOS in iOS 10.2 in October.

Tags: emoji, Unicode Consortium, Unicode 10
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