Google Search App Gains Personalized News Feed Section

Google today announced a new personalized news feed for its namesake iOS app, offering a stream of content based on user search history and topics they choose to follow.

The feed appears directly below the search bar in the Google app, where users will see a stream of personally relevant articles and media content powered by Google’s machine learning algorithms.

The feed sits in place of Google Now, the company’s predictive search feature that displays traffic updates, weather, and other information, all of which has been moved to a new tab called Updates.

Going forward, when users perform a search in the app, some results will display a “follow” button alongside them. Content ripe for following will include news, sports, and entertainment articles, with relevance prioritized by the user’s search history and previous follows.

The feed itself can be customized by tapping the three dots on top of a card, from which content can be shared, followed, or dismissed to avoid seeing the subject again.

The feed is the company’s latest effort to encourage users to browse with the Google app instead of thinking of it as a simple search portal. Its introduction in the app is also seen as a prelude to bringing similar personalized elements to the Google homepage proper.

The new feed should start showing up in the U.S. today and will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks. The Google app is a free download for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: Google, Google Now
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WhatsApp Video and Photo Messages Reportedly Blocked in China

China has reportedly started blocking some features of the WhatsApp messaging service, as authorities continue to tighten controls over the country’s internet.

WhatsApp users began reporting problems with sharing content on the chat platform yesterday, with many unable to send video and pictures. Despite initial fears of a communications-wide ban of the Facebook-owned service, text-based messages within the app appear to be unaffected.

WhatsApp’s reach in China is small compared to homegrown chat service WeChat, which boasts 900 million users but is routinely subjected to state monitoring and censorship. However, Chinese users concerned about privacy have increasingly turned to the encrypted WhatsApp platform to communicate with friends and relatives as well as businesses abroad.

Facebook and Instagram have remained blocked by China’s Great Firewall since 2009 and 2014, respectively. Encrypted messaging service Telegram was also blocked inside China after it became popular with the country’s human rights lawyers, while several domestic VPNs – which are commonly used to evade censorship and access services abroad – were recently shut down after authorities said they were unauthorized to run.

China appears to be clamping down on potential sources of politically sensitive news as it prepares for a major leadership reshuffle in Beijing. The event happens every five years and often leads to a tightening of online controls to project an air of stability in the country. The death of jailed Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo last week also spurred censors into action, with commemorations on WeChat reportedly blocked by authorities.

(Via The New York Times.)

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: China, WhatsApp
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Bixby Voice now available for every Galaxy S8 and S8+ in the U.S.

It’s time to start talking to your phone (even more).

A full three months after the Galaxy S8 and S8+ launched in the U.S., its voice-powered assistant Bixby Voice is available for everyone to use. An OTA update with the necessary new software is heading out to every U.S. Galaxy S8 and S8+ starting today, July 19, and once it arrives on your phone you’ll have the same voice control features that many people have been testing the past few weeks as part of a limited beta program.

Bixby Voice is genuinely useful for many functions on your phone, but much of the luster of the feature has worn off as development delays meant it wasn’t ready to launch with the phones themselves back in April. With many of those kinks worked out now to the point of being ready for a consumer launch, Samsung will have to really start its campaign of advertising Bixby Voice as a selling point of the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

The cold truth is the entire Bixby ecosystem just hasn’t taken off with consumers.

Of course the goal of Bixby Voice is to be just one part of a larger set of Bixby features, which up to this point also haven’t really caught on. The Bixby Home interface, often opined as a poor man’s version of Google Now, feels weak and rarely useful. And Bixby Vision doesn’t have the data set or algorithms to be a truly useful part of the camera experience. From what we’ve seen of Bixby Voice, however, there’s at least something there that’s properly unique — it’s meant to help you control things on your phone, not just head out to the internet and answer questions for you. It’s a proper differentiator from the way Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri work.

If you’re one of the many in the U.S. who have a Galaxy S8 or S8+ and are curious about this whole Bixby experience, it really is worth checking out Bixby Voice once the latest software hits your phone. It could be enough to make you appreciate Samsung’s hard work on the features, and even think that that hardware Bixby button under your volume rocker was worth it after all.

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Nintendo’s Switch Online apps for iOS and Android are available

The disjointed rollout of Nintendo Switch online features continues, as the company has released its mobile apps for iOS and Android ahead of the Splatoon 2 launch on Friday. That’s going to be the first game to make use of the Switch Online app, which is needed for voice chat and to send game invites over social media. Yes, that’s right, to speak to other gamers you’ll need your phone plugged into headphones. The apps themselves aren’t actually functional yet, but we assume that will change by Friday.

Once they’re active, gamers can use them them not just for communication, but also as a way to access the SplatNet 2 portal to view stats and buy gear. Eventually Nintendo plans to charge $20 per year for Online features, but this year it’s in beta for free. As the FAQ explains, they’re only available in the Americas right now, and voice chat will disconnect if you take a phone call or switch to another app.

Source: Nintendo Switch Online app FAQ, iTunes, Google Play

Facebook disables modified link previews to fight fake news

Facebook has begun implementing a new feature that can prevent fake news from making it on the social network. It has started killing non-publisher Pages’ ability to edit the link previews that appear on the website when they post a story, including its headline, image and the text snippet that goes along with them. The social network says the new feature will “help eliminate a channel that has been abused to post false news.”

In our sample Facebook Page post below, you’ll see our article’s headline in big, bold letters and the text snippet underneath it:

Fake news outlets have been taking advantage of the ability to customize a story’s metadata to spread misinformation. They often replace the headline, image and snippet with something controversial to get the most shares, likes and comments possible. By disabling the capability to modify link previews, Facebook can kill at least one of the ways people to use to deceive the public.

To make sure legit publishers don’t get affected by the change, the social network has added a new tab under Page Publishing Tools that they can use to apply for link ownership. News, sports and entertainment Pages can use that to request exemption from the feature, so they can continue modifying the links they share on Facebook. The company says it’s making link ownership available to publishers “first,” so it might eventually be offered to other types of Pages. They need to submit an application by September 12th, 2017, though, because that’s when Facebook will be done disabling all Pages’ ability to edit link previews.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ready to help in the US

The voice component of Samsung’s Bixby assistant has been a long time in coming. The company was quick to boast about its AI helper at the Galaxy S8 launch, but revealed that the signature voice feature wouldn’t arrive until later in the spring… and even then, it only had a full launch in South Korea. Americans had to make do with a preview. At last, though, it’s becoming widely available: Samsung is officially rolling out Bixby’s voice assistance to S8 and S8 Plus owners in the US. Every American with one of the flagship phones will get to talk to Bixby once an update arrives “tonight.” There have been a few tweaks to this official release, too.

Most importantly, Bixby is better at understanding natural language expressions. You can say “what’s the forecast like today?” or “show me the weather” and expect the right answer. It can also read out the latest text messages in Samsung’s official app, so you can catch up on conversations while your hands are tied. Bixby is better at contextual awareness inside third-party apps (you can use Bixby to change your destination in Google Maps), and it should be quicker to respond to your orders.

There’s no mention of when Bixby will be available in other English-speaking countries (though English does work in South Korea), let alone other languages. Reportedly, just adding this second language was enough of a challenge. Still, this makes Bixby’s voice assistant much more accessible. It could also be crucial to Samsung’s plans beyond phones. If you believe the rumors, Samsung is working on a Bixby-enabled speaker and otherwise spreading its voice companion to all kinds of devices. It can’t realistically do that until Bixby is broadly available. The US release doesn’t achieve that goal by itself, but it’s an important first step.

Source: Samsung

US Army wants helicopters to refuel at robotic pumps

Militaries regularly set up fueling stations at forward bases so that helicopters can get back to the fight as quickly as possible. However, requiring fuel crews creates huge risks and logistical headaches: you’re sending people to a dangerous, isolated section of the battlefield for a fairly mundane role. Thankfully, the US Army might not need to take that risk for much longer. It’s testing an unmanned station, the Autonomous & Robotic Remote Refueling Point (AR3P for short), that can top up a helicopter with no human involvement. Much like Tesla’s robotic charger, it would use self-aligning, articulated arms to hook a fuel line to a helicopter all by itself. That, in turn, would let helicopters fly at all hours without putting footsoldiers in harm’s way, and would likely refuel them faster.

AR3P won’t reach service for a while, assuming it goes forward. It’s currently in the midst of a technical risk assessment, and it still has to go through two phases with real-world tests (culminating in an honest-to-goodness flight test with an AH-64 Apache helicopter). That’s provided the forces can establish a funding framework, too. If it goes according to plan, though, the Army could set up front line stations that are mostly or completely robotic without fear of casualties — the only people at risk would be the pilots.

Source: US Army

‘Nintendo Switch Online’ iOS App Now Available

As Nintendo prepares to launch Splatoon 2 on July 21, it has made the Nintendo Switch Online app available in the iOS App Store. Nintendo Switch Online, first introduced earlier this month, is designed to enhance the online experience when using compatible games on the Nintendo Switch console.

At the current time, Splatoon 2 is the only game that’s compatible with Nintendo Switch Online, and it will allow players to voice chat with friends, invite people to online matches, create teams, and access SplatNet 2.

SplatNet 2, designed specifically for Splatoon 2, offers up online play statistics like match results, stages, and rankings. It also lets users invite friends with Splatoon 2 to Private Battles, League Battles, and Splatfest battles across social media.

While Nintendo Switch Online is limited to Splatoon 2 right now, future games will have built in support, with Nintendo Switch Online serving as the hub for most interactive features like voice chat. When using voice chat, Nintendo says it works in different ways based on the game that’s being played. Users can either chat with everyone in the room or split voice chat into teams.

The app’s functionality and the Splatoon 2 online play will be available for free until the full Nintendo Switch Online service launches in 2018. Following the launch of Nintendo Switch Online, most games with online gameplay will require an ongoing subscription. Nintendo Switch Online will cost $19.99 per year or $3.99 per month with a monthly subscription.

A persistent internet connection is required to use the app, as is a Nintendo Switch console, and a Nintendo Account. Users must be at least 13 years old to download and use the app, and it won’t work until Splatoon 2 is released on July 21. For now, expect to see a login error when attempting to sign in with a Nintendo account.

Nintendo Switch Online can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tag: Nintendo
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New LG device blasts handrails with UV light to keep them germ-free

Why it matters to you

You don’t need to be a cleanliness freak to have second thoughts about touching a handrail that thousands of other people touch each day. LG’s smart solution is here to help.

LG may be best known to most global consumers as the makers of assorted computers, TVs, and smartphones, but South Korea’s fourth-largest business conglomerate has its fingers in plenty of other pies as well. The latest LG development? A gadget that the company is claiming is the world’s first “Handrail UV LED Sterilizer,” designed to remove germs from the handrails of escalators.

Yes, that’s a long way from Android mobile phones, but it’s no less reliant on some pretty cool tech. LG’s handrail sterilizer skips out on boring solutions, such as hand wipes, to take on the problem of germ-ridden handrails. Instead, it uses ultraviolet LED technology to shoot out UV rays from a fixed position. As the moving conveyor belt passes the device’s target zone, the UV LED Sterilizer kills 99.99 percent of the germs, which accumulate from the thousands of people who have put their hands onto said moving petri dish every single day.

However, despite being capable of obliterating germs, the technology is utterly harmless to the human body since it doesn’t rely on any chemicals or heavy metals.

This isn’t the first time we’ve written about the disease-killing prowess of ultraviolet light. In the past, we’ve published articles about gadgets like UVe, a Roomba-style cleaning bot which uses low-wavelength ultraviolet light to clean surfaces, and even medical research that uses UV for eliminating cancer cells.

While the technology may not be entirely new, however, LG’s solution is definitely pretty darn neat. For one thing, the sterilizer is around the size of half an A4 sheet of paper, and can be easily installed without having to make any major changes to an existing facility. And in a suave touch, it also doesn’t need to be plugged into mains power since the wireless device itself is powered via energy from the movement of the handrail.

Right now, there’s no announcement concerning how much the Handrail UV LED Sterilizer will cost, but LG notes that the device has already gained the necessary CE certification required by the European Union, and the KC certificate required in South Korea.

Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before it arrives in the United States, and we can rest easy in airports and shopping malls. Or, at least, our hands can.

‘Titanfall 2’ brings back the franchise’s popular co-op horde mode

Titanfall 2 has kept the fires burning for its dedicated community by valiantly releasing small bumps of free content almost every month this year. While gratis DLC is always great, fans clamored for vertically-inclined maps like the original game had — so the sequel’s team revamped some to include in content packs. The latest DLC, available July 25th, will include another throwback from Titanfall 1: The long-rumored return of the popular co-op player-vs-AI Frontier Defense mode.

Like other horde modes, Frontier Defense spits successive waves of computer-controlled enemies at a team of players — in this case, grunt troops and Titan mechs. While the original game’s version gave players a few turrets to deploy between enemy batches, Titanfall 2’s mode will include a host of traps and tools to fight off the masses of grunts, spectres and Titans. Plus, players get a new Titan upgrade progression system, Aegis Ranks, to tinker with — but it applies only within Frontier Defense.

The new mode is playable on five maps to start, including Rise, a revamp from the first game. Titanfall 2’s cramped PvP mode Live Fire gets a new map as well: Township. The game’s also including new elite warpaints for player firearms and Titan skins that cosmetically upgrade as you complete higher difficulties of Frontier Defense. But best of all for those of you who still haven’t given Titanfall 2 a shot: The game is giving you a free weekend from July 28th until July 30th after the DLC drops to try the game on for size.

Source: Respawn