Google adds security features to help block unverified apps

After dealing with security concerns like the Google Docs phishing debacle, Google has been adding quite a few new security features for its services and apps, including better protection for Gmail accounts and whitelist procedures for G Suite users. Now, the company is adding a new warning screen for any apps from developers that haven’t gone through Google’s app verification system, yet.

Apple has a similar process in place for OS X called Gatekeeper (which isn’t without its flaws), and Windows 10 blocks non-store apps, as well. When you come across an unverified app, you’ll get a notification alert of that fact. To proceed, you’ll need to type in “continue” in the provided field, which lessens the chance you’ll just hit an “ok” button and potentially get exposed to malicious code. As TechCrunch notes, the warning also contains the name of the app and its developer to further help you screen out phishing attempts. Developers can also test out their apps without having to wait for verified status, either, since users can bypass the warning.

“We’re committed to fostering a healthy ecosystem for both users and developers,” writes Google’s Naveen Agarwal and Wesley Chun in a blog post. “These new notices will inform users automatically if they may be at risk, enabling them to make informed decisions to keep their information safe, and will make it easier to test and develop apps for developers.”

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google

New ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ site manages the rules so you can just play

Dungeons & Dragons, the quintessential pen-and-paper game, is more popular than ever, thanks to Twitch channels like Geek and Sundry and podcasts like The Adventure Zone. But it’s one thing to listen or watch a presentation crafted by seasoned gamers and another to actually run your own adventure. Players may get frustrated by the hundreds of pages of rules and quit before they’ve even had their first goblin encounter. Wizards of the Coast and social gaming firm Curse aim to fix this with the launch of D&D Beyond, a website and app intended to take care of all the fine print and number crunching, leaving dungeon masters and players free to focus on crafting a good story.

While Curse specializes in video game add-ons and communities, D&D Beyond is a different kind of project — a digital companion for a tabletop game. At launch it will mostly consist of a compendium of the rules and world information from D&D’s fifth edition, broken down into sections like “spells” and “monsters” that can be either browsed in a list or searched, with plenty of filters to narrow down the exact information required.

The current Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide may give you all the information you need to play an adventure, but anyone who’s ever used the books can attest to how hard it is to find anything in them. Many players end up turning to outside wikis and forums to get the information they want instead. Wizards of the Coast has tried over the years to provide some limited online help: Dungeons & Dragons has had digital content since its second edition, and the tools provided for the fourth edition did rather well with players. One thing all of these sites had in common is that they’ve always been meant as a supplement to the game — you still needed to buy the books to play.

The eventual goal is for D&D Beyond to completely replace the physical books. That doesn’t mean paper devotees are out of luck — the guides will stay in print as long as there’s demand. But players who prefer to keep everything on their computer or phone will have an official way to do that. While seasoned players will appreciate things like easier-to-access game minutia, it’s newbie adventurers who will benefit the most.

For example, character creation has been boiled down to a step-by-step process on the Beyond site that walks you through choosing a race, class and so forth. I used the builder to make an elven ranger and was impressed with how easy it is: After each selection it’ll give you drop-downs for things like expertises and languages, with the weapons and armor you can use clearly marked. When I copied my gnome bard from the game I currently play with friends, it actually showed me a few skill roll bonuses I had missed when I leveled up my character by hand.

The sheer complexity of Dungeons & Dragons is what’s made it so hard to build effective digital tools for it, but Project Lead Adam Bradford notes that it’s not the depth that makes it so hard to digitize but the breadth. The game is an open world, ultimately only limited by the imagination of its players. The rules are written as a guide, not a rigid framework for adventurers to operate in. To support freedom of ideas the site allows plenty of manual input, ranging from things as mundane as dice rolls to full-blown homebrew content that can be uploaded to the site’s database. There’s an entire section dedicated to sharing user-generated content where gamers can upvote the best submissions and add anything they find to their “collection.”

Even with so much of the game experience being moved online, Curse still envisions people sitting around a table to play Dungeons & Dragons, just with their laptops in front of them. Even if the entire game is run through Beyond, with future iterations of the site keeping track of combat turns, attacks and statuses, players will still need to talk to one another to describe what’s happening.

The company also sees the site as a way to make the game more accessible when you’re not playing. When you’re at work or in class you can look at your character, browse for new spells and read backstory anytime you want. By making those little things more accessible during downtime, the actual play sessions can be focused on story, socialization and performance.

The idea of Dungeons & Dragons as performance hasn’t always been a prominent part of the brand. Sure, you’re trying to amuse yourself and your friends, but no one was really playing for an audience outside gaming conventions. Now you can watch seasoned players run through campaigns like the Penny Arcade’s Acquisitions Inc. video series. Curse wants to help that phenomenon grow, especially after its sale to Twitch last year.

You need a Twitch account to sign up for D&D Beyond, because the company has big plans down the line for integrating D&D campaigns into the streaming site. The idea is that when you set up a stream it’ll be connected to the Beyond page for that particular campaign, displaying relevant infographics on the screen to give viewers a better idea of what’s going on. This will include interactive elements — each player will have her character name displayed, which can be moused over to look at that character sheet — and animations for things like spells or statuses. Games will look a lot more professional, and with most of the rules crunching going on behind the curtain, they will be a lot more entertaining to watch, with an increased emphasis on performance.

Features like interactive Twitch streams and the ability to run games completely through the site are big tasks, but Bradford says Curse is in it for the long haul. The first step is to get dungeon master tools up and running later this year, like combat and initiative tracking. There’s been a lot of demand for encounter building — that is, designing battles against monsters and other foes. Encounters form the core of Dungeons & Dragons gameplay, with a typical session usually structured around one or two big battles. Wizards of the Coast sells predesigned adventures, but some players prefer something more customized to their group, especially if they have the type of friends who tend to step outside the box.

Beyond will let dungeon masters tweak existing monsters and build entirely new ones: As an example Bradford mentioned a Challenge Rating 12 Mind Flayer that had been separated from its colony. It would be weaker, but how would a player modify its stats? Beyond can eliminate the guesswork, even taking into account small things like how carrying certain magical items might affect the creature.

Unfortunately, these tools won’t be ready when Beyond comes out in August. Everything introduced in the current beta is what players should expect at launch. That’s the compendium, character builder and spell book, which will be available free of charge to registered users. Nothing needed to play will be locked away behind a paywall. Instead, the premium tiers will have features that make the site more useful, like the ability to store unlimited characters or use homebrew content. The site will also offer a lot of onetime purchases, like guides and special character classes. Dungeon masters who opt into the most expensive Master Tier will be able to share this content with their players with a click. It certainly beats having to carry around a backpack full of source books to every session.

Of course, some people like carrying around heavy bags of books and arguing about attack bonuses. Nothing has to change for them. But for players who really care about collaborative storytelling and love performing, D&D Beyond could be the push they need to give tabletop role-playing a try. It makes Dungeons & Dragons less about the math and more about being someone else for a little while.

Lede image: Vincent Proce / Wizards of the Coast

Clinton, Romney campaign managers unite to fight election hacking

The threat of hacks disrupting US elections is very real, and enough people are concerned that it’s creating some strange bedfellows. Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has launched Defending Digital Democracy, a bipartisan effort to offer technology, strategies and other tools that can protect against election-oriented cyberattacks. And when they say it’s an across-the-aisle effort, they mean it. Campaign managers for former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney will help lead the group, as will Facebook’s security chief, Google’s info security director and the co-founder of security firm CrowdStrike. The head of the group is Eric Rosenbach, who was Chief of Staff to recent Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

There are already a few early examples of potential solutions. The alliance will look at using blockchain technology to ensure the integrity of your vote, and wants to devise “playbooks” that campaigns and election overseers can use to beef up their security. Naturally, countering disinformation campaigns is important. The team even wants to explore methods for deterring cyberattacks in the first place, although that’s only going to have a limited effect on some perpetrators.

There’s no specific timetable for accomplishing these objectives, and there aren’t any immediate partners. Any success will hinge on rallying support. Still, it’s easy to see this getting some traction. The big names attached to DDD could help get its foot in the door, but there’s also a basic reality in the US: there isn’t a thorough, cohesive national strategy for protecting election infrastructure against cyberattacks. The group might not have all the answers, but it could establish a baseline level of security that makes it harder for hackers to run amok.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Belfer Center

Dick’s Sporting Goods is the latest retailer to price match Amazon

In what’s yet another sign of the shifting retail landscape, Dick’s Sporting Goods is now matching prices from Amazon and other competitors online. The new program, aptly named “Best Price Guarantee,” is a necessary move by the company to compete with ecommerce giant Amazon and retailers like FinishLine, Footlocker, Target and Walmart. In addition to that, Dick’s will also start price-matching sportswear brands, most of which are clients, including Adidas, Nike and Under Armour.

It’s worth noting that the company did match lower prices before at its retail stores, but this didn’t include places such as Amazon.com — at least not officially. As of today though, whether you’re at a physical location or the Dick’s Sporting Goods site, you can get the best deal so long as the product you’re buying is an identical match. That said, do keep in mind it won’t work during special sales like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Via: Sara Germano (Twitter)

Source: Dick’s Sporting Goods

Adobe Lightroom for iOS Gains New Pressure Sensitive Selective Brush Tool

Adobe today updated its Lightroom apps for the iPad and the iPhone, introducing a new selective brush, a details tab, a refreshed interface for the iPad, and enhanced support for features like the Apple Pencil and 3D Touch.

Both Lightroom for iOS and Lightroom for iPad feature a new Selective Brush tool, which can be used to selectively paint enhancements on any part of an image. On the iPhone, the Selective Brush takes advantage of 3D Touch for pressure sensitivity, and on the iPad Pro, the Apple Pencil can be used for the same effect. The Selective Brush works with exposure, brightness, clarity, and more.

Adobe has also added the ability to selectively erase linear and radial gradients for a wider range of effects, and there’s a new Details Tab that offers global control over sharpening and noise reduction. On the iPhone, there’s also a new “Show Highlight Clipping” feature available when using the in-app camera that displays overexposed areas to allow users to adjust exposure before capturing a photo.

For the iPad version of Lightroom, Adobe has introduced an entirely new interface that’s designed for the larger screen of an iPad.

Lightroom can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [iPad: Direct Link] [iPhone: Direct Link]
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Most popular Android apps this week: Game Studio Tycoon 2, Chrooma Live Wallpaper and more!

The Google Play Store is filled with many apps, which is great for consumer selection, but can often make app discovery difficult. Some apps just never make it to our homescreen. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of this weeks hottest Android apps that have most likely gone under the radar or are so new that they haven’t had enough downloads to be featured or make it onto a top list.

Game Studio Tycoon 2
App Info: Welcome to the next generation of game development! Game Studio Tycoon 2 puts you in the place of an independent game developer during the early days of the gaming industry. Play through 50 years of gaming history and develop on over 40 different platforms! Expand your studio along the way and hire up to 16 employees! Free

Chrooma Live Wallpaper
App Info: Perfect with the new Android Marshmallow material design style! Gorgeous palettes moving smoothly on your background.Palettes will change every time you come back to your main menu. Free

Rider
App Info: Get ready for some flippin’ action! Perform insane stunts while you cruise through the never-ending world of Rider! Grab your motorcycle and start flipping like a maniac! Free

Pixelation Icon Pack
App Info: The best Pixel inspired style featuring exclusive all-new designs from forthcoming Android releases. $0.99

Loner
App Info: ‘Loneliness is a kind of beauty, a quiet experience.’ LONER is a very simple game, no attributes, no upgrade, or even no score, what it wants to bring you, is only purely tranquillity and loneliness. LONER tells the story of a lonely journey of a pilot, in the journey, you would understand his past and his pursuit. Free

If you like these apps then drop us a comment below with your thoughts. Also if you have spotted a new app that you think is worth a mention, leave a comment below with your suggestion and we’ll be sure to check it out.

Lightroom for iOS adds 3D touch-powered selective brush tool

If you’re into editing photos on your mobile device, you probably have the (free!) iOS or Android version of Lightroom. Today, Adobe announced quite a few new changes to the iOS edition of the app.

The most exciting update is the selective brush, a feature users have been asking for. With it, you can selectively change and enhance parts of your image. For users with 3D Touch or the iPad Pencil, you can increase or decrease the effect simply by how much pressure you apply (or don’t) to the screen. You can also erase both radial and linear gradients selectively.

Lightroom’s interface has also been completely redesigned for iPad, as Adobe acknowledges that more and more photographers are leaving their laptops behind in favor of tablets. The goal is to take advantage of the larger screen of the iPad Pro without sacrificing performance. Users also can fine tune photographs even more in the new Details tab, with added global control over sharpening and noise reduction.

Android users, don’t worry: Lightroom hasn’t forgotten about you. They’ve rebuilt the entire app from the ground up to make it faster and more efficient, as well as to make it actually look and feel like an Android app. Both iOS and Android updates are available for download now.

Source: Adobe

Multi-colored fonts coming to Illustrator in next update, Adobe says

Why it matters to you

Graphic designers won’t have to switch back and forth between Illustrator and Photoshop to use multi-colored fonts — including the emoji font — once the next Illustrator update launches.

Adobe Illustrator is an industry standard for creating graphics — but creating fonts with multiple colors still requires going in and manually adjusting each letter. That’s about to change, however, as Adobe is working to add support for multi-colored fonts to the next update. In a blog post published on Monday, July 17, the company shared plans for Adobe Illustrator multi-colored fonts, using a format called OpenType SVG fonts, which is slated to be available in the next software update.

The update will allow for fonts to be added to the system that have different colorations for each character — and even parts of each character. Adobe says a prime example of the feature is Gilbert Font, a multi-colored font (pictured above) designed in honor of Gilbert Baker, the designer of the LGBTQ flag. Each character is a different color, with some characters even sporting four different hues. For many letters, the different pieces that make up the font are different colors, with a transparent section where the segments overlap, such as where the loop of the lower-case b meets the line.

OT-SVG fonts can have different colors gradients and even patterns all inside a single letter or grammatical symbol, Adobe says. The format is ideal for text with heavy graphics, such as creating a font with floral decor or with the sheen of a metallic surface. Unlike PNG letter graphics, the OT-SVG file format is typically favored because the letters can be any size without pixelating.

To celebrate the compatibility of the new font format, Adobe is expected to include a few OT-SVG fonts for free when the update launches. Adobe says EmojiOne (which is already available inside Photoshop) is a fun, colorful font that will be part of the new options.

While the font type is already compatible with Photoshop, the feature will be launching inside the next version of Illustrator, though Adobe doesn’t say when the update is expected to become available to users. Photoshop added multi-colored font capabilities last year, at the same time the program added emojis and a tool to find similar fonts. At that time, the update included two free colored OT-SVG fonts.

Future chatbots will be able to argue with you enough to help change your mind

Why it matters to you

Argumentative chatbots take us one step closer to AI that can simulate human intelligence.

Artificial intelligence tools like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa don’t really try and change your mind too much, but maybe they should!

That is the idea behind new research being carried out by Dr. Samira Shaikh, an assistant professor in Cognitive Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Department of Computer Science. She developed a smart chatbot that’s goal is not just to carry out a conversation with users, but to actually engage them in arguments and counterarguments with the specific aim of changing a person’s mind.

“ Alan Turing’s question: ‘Can machines think?’ was one of the fundamental questions that interested me as I began my research in AI and natural language processing,” Shaikh told Digital Trends. “My goal in this work was to see if we could inch a few steps closer to answering Turing’s original question by merging the insights from social psychology and cognitive science with AI. I wanted to see if certain elements of human communication can be recreated effectively by an algorithm — and I chose the human behavior of persuasion specifically since it is nearly ubiquitous in human communication. This is a problem that needs solving along the way to achieving true machine intelligence.”

As we noted, chatbots that argue with you regardless of your query is not likely to find too much favor with customers, but Shaikh says there are still times such a tool may be useful.

“Sure, there are use-cases where you would want the agent to explore only a certain subset of topics, but there will still be potential for persuasive behavior in these scenarios,” she continued. “The conversation with an intelligent agent could center on topics including politics and social issues, or what brand of paper towels to buy next.”

Looking further into the future, as chatbots take on new roles as carers and confidantes, an argumentative AI could be incredibly useful. For example, it may be able to help you prepare for a job interview, or for lawyers to better hone arguments for a court case.

“This persuasive behavior is based on the theory of planned behavior, a well-established theory of social influence,” Shaikh said. “I adapted this theory to my work, where the communicator is attempting to persuade the receiver by sending them tailored messages and certain behaviors that are triggered in the agent depending on what has happened so far the conversation. Humans can do this quite effectively, generally speaking, the only difference is that in my framework, the communicator is a computer agent.”

Shaikh said her argumentative chatbot is fully operational and is being tested in a variety of scenarios designed to see if it can change a person’s mind. A preliminary paper on the work is published in the journal AI Matters.

Future chatbots will be able to argue with you enough to help change your mind

Why it matters to you

Argumentative chatbots take us one step closer to AI that can simulate human intelligence.

Artificial intelligence tools like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa don’t really try and change your mind too much, but maybe they should!

That is the idea behind new research being carried out by Dr. Samira Shaikh, an assistant professor in Cognitive Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Department of Computer Science. She developed a smart chatbot that’s goal is not just to carry out a conversation with users, but to actually engage them in arguments and counterarguments with the specific aim of changing a person’s mind.

“ Alan Turing’s question: ‘Can machines think?’ was one of the fundamental questions that interested me as I began my research in AI and natural language processing,” Shaikh told Digital Trends. “My goal in this work was to see if we could inch a few steps closer to answering Turing’s original question by merging the insights from social psychology and cognitive science with AI. I wanted to see if certain elements of human communication can be recreated effectively by an algorithm — and I chose the human behavior of persuasion specifically since it is nearly ubiquitous in human communication. This is a problem that needs solving along the way to achieving true machine intelligence.”

As we noted, chatbots that argue with you regardless of your query is not likely to find too much favor with customers, but Shaikh says there are still times such a tool may be useful.

“Sure, there are use-cases where you would want the agent to explore only a certain subset of topics, but there will still be potential for persuasive behavior in these scenarios,” she continued. “The conversation with an intelligent agent could center on topics including politics and social issues, or what brand of paper towels to buy next.”

Looking further into the future, as chatbots take on new roles as carers and confidantes, an argumentative AI could be incredibly useful. For example, it may be able to help you prepare for a job interview, or for lawyers to better hone arguments for a court case.

“This persuasive behavior is based on the theory of planned behavior, a well-established theory of social influence,” Shaikh said. “I adapted this theory to my work, where the communicator is attempting to persuade the receiver by sending them tailored messages and certain behaviors that are triggered in the agent depending on what has happened so far the conversation. Humans can do this quite effectively, generally speaking, the only difference is that in my framework, the communicator is a computer agent.”

Shaikh said her argumentative chatbot is fully operational and is being tested in a variety of scenarios designed to see if it can change a person’s mind. A preliminary paper on the work is published in the journal AI Matters.