OnePlus brings its custom OnePlus Launcher to Google Play

OnePlus Launcher comes to the Play Store.

The lightly customized and well-liked OnePlus Launcher, which received some nice visual changes with the OnePlus 5 release, has been brought over to Google Play. But the listing is there not to open it up to every phone, but to speed up the process of updating the app outside of a full system update on OnePlus phones.

Along with the newly-public OnePlus Weather, the OnePlus Launcher lets the company add features to its popular Android home screen without having to wait for firmware updates which, though relatively frequent for the OnePlus 5, are still reserved for bigger feature refreshes.

The first public release doesn’t claim to offer any new features beyond performance improvements and bug fixes, but we’d be surprised if it didn’t add a few niceties in the coming weeks.

OnePlus 5

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This 5-port Quick Charge 3.0 desktop hub is a must-have at just $27

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with a great deal on an Anker desktop charging hub!

Odds are that you have more than one gadget that needs to be charged on a daily basis, and that can be a painful process depending on how many electrical outlets you have available to you. Anker is looking to make things easier for you, and right now you can pick up the 5-port USB wall charger for just $26.99, a savings of around $10. This charging hub allows you to use only one electrical outlet while keeping up to 5 of your favorite devices charged up.

Two of the outlets are Quick Charge 3.0 so you can charge compatible electronics up to four times faster using those ports, and the other 3 have Anker’s PowerIQ and VoltageBoost to deliver the fastest charging speeds to everything else.

• Charge Faster: Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 combines with Anker’s proprietary PowerIQ and VoltageBoost to deliver the fastest possible charge to almost any USB device.
• Premium Design: Hard-wearing matte finish, high-gloss detailing, light-blue LED, and cool-blue USB ports combine to make this a truly premium charger.
• Multi-Port Charging: 5 ports pump out 63W of power—enough for the whole family to simultaneously charge multiple devices at the highest speed possible.

This is a match of the lowest price we’ve seen for this charger, so be sure to grab one now if you are interested.

See at Amazon

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For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

The latest Android O developer preview has a new Easter egg: 8 is for octopus

Still no clue about what the “O” will stand for, but we do know an octopus has 8 legs.

We didn’t expect the name for Android 8.0 to be revealed with the latest developer preview’s Easter egg, so we’re not disappointed. What we are seeing is almost as cool.

The 4th dev preview comes with a floaty-magic-physics-enabled octopus on a deep blue sea background. You can tap and touch and drag it around and see the new physics and acceleration features Google is using with Android O on your octopus friend.

To get there:

• Open the Settings and scroll to System.
• Open System and choose About phone.
• Choose Android version and tap it over and over quickly.

You’ll see the older circular Easter Egg. Tap the center a few times then long press on it.

You can use your finger to fling the octopus around, and rotating between portrait and landscape will change its size. Have fun tapping and pulling to see if google has hidden another layer of Easter Egg here …

Android O

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• Should you put Android O on your phone?
• How to get the Android O Beta on your Pixel or Nexus
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Orii smart ring turns your fingertip into a Bluetooth earpiece

While modern Bluetooth earpieces are more compact than ever, chances are you’ll still need to leave at least one stuck in your ear. This can get uncomfortable over time, not to mention the dorkiness that’s been haunting this form factor since day one. Hong Kong startup Origami Labs thinks it has an alternative solution to this problem: why not repackage the Bluetooth earpiece as a ring, and then use bone conduction to transmit audio to the fingertip? That’s the basic concept behind the Orii smart ring.

Using bone conduction for audio transmission is hardly a new idea. It’s a commonly used technology in the hearing aid market, as this transmits sound directly to the inner ear, thus bypassing hearing issues caused by the middle or outer ear. But most of us know bone conduction better in the form of wireless headphones — most notably the ones from AfterShokz, which let you enjoy music or take calls while leaving your ears open for the sake of safety.

It’s a similar use case with the Orii: you wear the ring on your index finger, and when it vibrates with an incoming call, simply lift your hand up, touch your fingertip on a sweet spot just before your ear, then chat away. An earlier crowdfunding project, the Sgnl smart strap (formerly TipTalk) by Korea’s Innomdle Lab, had the same idea, but it has yet to ship to backers long after its February target date this year.

The Orii is essentially an aluminum ring melded to a small package containing all the electronics. The main body on the latest working prototype came in at roughly 30 mm long, 20 mm wide and 12 mm thick. These figures don’t do Orii any justice, as its curved design makes it look smaller than it sounds. At least I’d be fine with wearing it for a while, depending on how comfortable the final design feels.

It’s pretty impressive when you consider what’s housed inside the splash-proof ring: a dual Bluetooth 4.0 radio with Bluetooth Low Energy support, dual-mic noise cancellation, a gyroscope, an LED (for customizable notifications in the app), a 50 mAh battery and, most importantly, a bone conduction actuator near the bottom side of the main body. It’s worth pointing out that the seemingly tiny battery provides about 1.5 hours of continuous listening time and at least 40 hours of standby time, both of which should be plenty for general daily use.

Much like some of the latest Bluetooth earpieces these days, Orii supports both iPhone’s Siri and Android’s Google Assistant, meaning you can simply wave your hand up, stick your fingertip to near your ear and start talking to your voice assistant right away. I can imagine this gesture becoming an excuse for me to use voice assistant more often, mainly because this feels like a more natural way of interacting with my virtual assistant.

But on a more serious note, CEO Kevin Wong sees this screen-free input method serving a greater purpose for those in need — especially his father, Peter, who inspired him as a visually impaired software engineer and also a founding member of Microsoft’s accessibility team.

Given the nature of the Orii prototypes I saw recently, I could only try the sound quality and get a feel of what it’s like wearing one. To my surprise, the audio sounded much better than I expected, and I could hear it well even inside the busy cafe. This would also come in handy when I want to summon my voice assistant, but alas, that part of the prototypes didn’t behave well that day, so there’s still some work to be done.

To ensure each Orii fits well before it ships in February next year, Origami Labs will be sending out a ring sizing gauge to all backers for measurements, as well as gathering final color requests: matte black, sandblasted silver, metallic dark gray or armor red. Each ring will also include three silicone inserts for minor adjustments.

At the time of writing this post, Orii’s crowdfunding campaign had already pledged over four times its funding goal, courtesy of some 835 backers. These folks either really hate Bluetooth earpieces or they just want to play spies. Or both.

Source: Kickstarter

Fairphone will stop supporting its first ‘ethical’ phone

Fairphone has announced that it will no longer be supporting the Fairphone 1, which first hit the market in 2013. That means the company won’t be supplying spare parts for the phone any longer and has ceased developing the Android software update.

In a blog post about the decision, Fairphone CEO Bas van Abel said it had a lot to do with sourcing and stocking spare parts. When its manufacturer stopped making phones, Fairphone went directly to the parts suppliers, but as those companies began to stop producing the parts, obtaining and stocking them became more difficult.

Abel said in the post that the company’s main focus with the Fairphone 1 was to source conflict-free minerals from conflict-affected countries, adding, “By being the first phone company to offer spare parts in our online shop and working with iFixit to create repair tutorials, we were moving towards longer-lasting devices, but it wasn’t our primary objective.” But with the Fairphone 2, launched in 2015, the modular, repairable aspect became more of an active target. “We’ve learned very valuable lessons from our Fairphone 1 spare parts challenges that will help shape our approach going forward,” said Abel, “One concrete step is generating more working capital to be able to buy spare parts upfront, so we can continue to have spare parts available for customers in the coming years.”

As TechCrunch reports, the news wasn’t taken so well by some of Fairphone’s customers who expected to be able to hold onto and repair their Fairphone 1 for longer than this decision will allow. But the company sent out maintenance tips to its customers in order to help make them last as long as possible and Abel suggests that some differences in the production of the Fairphone 2 will prevent this sort of issue further down the road. “Owning the design gives us direct access to our suppliers and a better overview of what’s happening in our supply chain,” he said.

Source: Fairphone

Google ships final Android O beta before official launch

You won’t have to wait too much longer to get your hands on Android O. Google has posted its fourth Developer Preview for the mobile operating system, and it’s the last beta you’ll see — after this, the next stop is the finished version that will reach everyday users. This release candidate is really just a dry run for the official launch, with all the features and behavior intact.

To recap: Android O is mostly an under-the-hood update that improves loading times, battery life and other subtler aspects of smartphone use. There are a handful of conspicuous changes, though, such as notification dots on app icons (with pop-up notification windows), support for lightweight machine learning on-device and a picture-in-picture mode.

As with past previews, though, you will need to have the right device to give this a look. You’ll need a Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player or Pixel device to use the beta, and it’s safe to assume that these will be among the first in line for the polished Android O release. While a handful of third-party Android phone makers are quick to offer upgrades, it’s likely that you’ll be waiting at least a few months before you see O reach third-party Android hardware in earnest.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Snopes needs money to continue fighting fake news

When you want to find out if something on the internet is true, you head to Snopes.com. The venerable fact-checking site, established in 1994 by David Mikkelson, is now part of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, the group that Google and Facebook use to deal with the recent rise in fake news. Unfortunately, Snopes is having trouble with revenue and has gone to GoFundMe to stay afloat on while it deals with legal issues around advertising.

According to Snopes’ GoFundMe page, the fact-checkers have never needed to find a sponsor or outside investors, subsisting on advertising alone. Snopes says that the contract with a third party vendor it uses to manage its website has ended, but the vendor has not yet handed over the hosting control. That means the Snopes team can’t make any changes to the layout of the site, including placing new advertising. Snopes also reports that the vendor is withholding any revenue from the ads currently on the site.

“Our legal team is fighting hard for us, but, having been cut off from all revenue, we are facing the prospect of having no financial means to continue operating the site and paying our staff (not to mention covering our legal fees) in the meanwhile,” writes Team Snopes on GoFundMe. We’ve reached out to Snopes for comment on this matter and will update the post when we hear back.

As of this posting, almost 1,300 people have donated to Snopes, gathering a little over $33,000 to help. If you’ve used Snopes to get to the bottom of misinformation during the last US election, or just hop on it from time to time to prove to your Aunt Carol that her chain letter isn’t real, you might consider donating to the site during the campaign.

Source: Snopes/GoFundMe

ASUS’ take on mesh WiFi is now available

Mesh networking is all the rage for people who want to fill every bit of their home with sweet high-speed Wi-Fi. Lynksys, Google, Netgear, TP-Link and Eero all have devices that use the new technology to smooth out the dead spots in your home. Now Asus has joined the crowd with its Lyra Home WiFi System. Initially announced in January, the new routers are finally available for $400.

Asus’ Lyra will help overcome your home’s natural Wi-Fi interference points like doors, walls, floors and windows with a primary hub and three included satellite units. More secondary hubs can be purchased separately. The company claims that setup and management is easy with its mobile app, which connects to the system via Bluetooth. The app includes Family Overview, a way to monitor all the devices on your network with a graphical dashboard.

The company says that Lyra uses three separate frequency bands, one of which is dedicated to inter-hub communication, which leaves the other two 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands free for device connections. The devices also come with “AiProtection,” a network-security and anti-virus system that Asus says will be automatically updated with the latest code to block malicious attacks or other nasty network packets from reaching your devices. The Lyra system is available now at online and brick and mortar retailers, including Amazon, B&H Photo, Fry’s and Newegg.

Source: Asus

Wisconsin company offers staff implants for keys and passwords

Don’t assume that companies chipping employees is usually the stuff of dystopian science fiction — it’s here… although it’s better than it sounds. Wisconsin’s Three Square Market is giving employees the option of receiving a rice-sized implant (not pictured above) that will handle authentication for just about everything at work. It’s the first such company-wide move in the US, Three Square claims. The chip will handle payments for food in the break room, front door access and even PC sign-ins. It promises to be very convenient, but it’s easy to see why people would balk at an idea that sounds Orwellian at first blush. Three Square at least appears to be addressing some of those issues, but there are still some problems that are difficult to escape.

There’s no GPS tracking, the company says, and all your data is encrypted. Also, you’re not stuck with this chip forever — reportedly, you can “pop it out.” This isn’t some permanent tracker meant to enforce corporate loyalty, in other words, and hackers can’t literally get under your skin. It’s really just a substitute for your credit card and security passes. Workers seem to be enthused by the idea, too, as over 50 of Three Square’s employees have volunteered.

Still, we can see some inherent flaws. Since it’s an implant, it means you’re always carrying the keys to a treasure trove of company resources. Someone could make you grant access to the company or your work PC against your will, regardless of what you’re carrying. And there’s still the reality that you’re implanting a chip to make life easier at one firm. The stigma associated with chipping may be overblown, but you do have to ask whether or not it makes sense to get an implant (even a removable one) that will be useless the moment you switch jobs.

Source: KSTP

One weekend with the ‘Destiny 2’ beta

It’s easy to think of the original Destiny as a large-scale, highly polished test run for Bungie’s vision of the future of video games. When Destiny came out in September 2014, it was unclear whether an MMO-style first-person shooter could even work on consoles, and it wasn’t guaranteed players would be able to reliably connect to the servers over the game’s lifetime. We’re talking about an online-focused game that landed on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 alongside current-generation consoles, back before Rocket League, Smite or Overwatch invaded the living room. Back when the industry knew something like Destiny was possible, but not whether it would be popular or profitable.

Bungie tweaked Destiny over the game’s lifetime, incorporating fan feedback into add-ons like The Taken King and Rise of Iron, and players have stuck around for the ride. Last week, fans got their hands on Destiny 2 for the first time in an open beta across Xbox One and PlayStation 4 — and though the test was supposed to end over the weekend, it was extended through July 25th. Now that Bungie has proven Destiny’s success, the sequel is a chance to truly push the medium forward and leverage a new ecosystem of connected consoles.

So, what’s new in Destiny 2? Engadget associate editor Timothy J. Seppala and senior reporter Jessica Conditt dive in and report back.

Jessica Conditt

I didn’t play the first Destiny for long. I gave it a few months; I put in my time, ran some strikes and dominated a few raids, and then I just kind of stopped playing. I was aware of the hype around The Taken King, and even though players across the board promised it changed the game in wonderful ways, the add-on wasn’t enough to pull me back in.

Playing the Destiny 2 beta feels a lot like those first few weeks with Destiny. I’m intrigued and excited — shooting down enemies and other players feels spectacular, as does jumping and using the special abilities of my Hunter and Warlock characters. Plus, I really, really want to try out the new Titan.

One fear the beta can’t assuage: Will I give up on Destiny 2 after a few months, too? Answer me, Tim.

Timothy J. Seppala

I mean, it’s hard knowing how the game is going to play out beyond that taste of the campaign the beta gave us, right? For the most part, I played through the first game’s story entirely solo. I co-opped a bunch of strikes with my best friend that weren’t so easy to manage by myself, but the narrative missions were pretty much solitary affairs. I know that’s not what Bungie had in mind, but I was curious if the game could hold up as a single-player experience. Spoiler: It did not. That got a lot better with The Taken King, but once I finished the expansion’s narrative missions I didn’t feel like grinding for better gear and set the game down for good.

I will say, though, the lone campaign mission in the beta was awesome. Well, right up to the point where it wasn’t. For me, that happened near the end, after the loading screen that bisects the mission. I have a massive soft spot for the first Halo campaign, and how this plays out with scripted events everywhere and AI teammates jumping in and out of battle felt a lot like that.

And then I met the big boss, he took away all my gear and kicked me off a ledge. Because of course Destiny 2 is going to make sure you start entirely from scratch, rather than have a killer set of exotic weapons and armor at the outset.

Jessica Conditt

I really enjoyed the campaign — including the narrative tension of getting kicked off that ledge — but that’s not where this beta experience ended. There was also the cooperative strike, The Inverted Spire, and a competitive multiplayer mode, The Crucible.

I played through the strike with my partner watching next to me on the couch — he’d played it once already and warned me the final boss, a giant bipedal robot, was difficult. I dove in, took some shots, died once, and a teammate revived me. Just as I re-materialized in a hail of gunfire, my Super ability lit up. I rushed the robot and smacked it around with my lightning-powered staff while the rest of my squad piled on. We took it down with relative ease after that. And then we had a dance party.

That’s what makes Destiny so refreshing — these moments of almost-accidental teamwork, when the digital stars align and transform a haphazard group of video game fans into a real crew capable of getting shit done. That’s one reason I’ve been so obsessed with Overwatch recently, too.

Timothy J. Seppala

I love teamwork like that, and how Destiny 2 incorporates it into the campaign is really neat. The “swift strikes” are an evolution of the “public events” that’d occur during patrols, and kept the game from feeling like a grind (there’s that word again). When others would spawn in to help me fight waves of tougher enemies, that is. Given that I was playing pretty late at night and this is just a beta, that only happened during my first few encounters.

When it worked, it was kind of a thrill. The music would swell, squads of the now-lithe Cabal enemies would drop in from the sky and for a few minutes three perfect strangers were straight up wrecking shit. There was just enough of a challenge that it didn’t feel like a shooting gallery, and coupled with tighter gunplay and faster movement, everything felt simultaneously fresh and familiar.

But after a certain point randoms stopped spawning into my game world and I was facing hordes of aliens by my lonesome, chipping away at their health bars, dying and respawning ad nauseum. It brought to mind my least favorite parts of the first game and sucked the fun out of it for me. Near the end with the giant turbine, I rushed past the overpowered flying mini-boss and jumped into destroying the turbine’s motors just so I wouldn’t have to grit my teeth anymore.

Did you have better luck in that department?

Jessica Conditt

I’ll be honest — I’m still not sure how the player drop-in system works in Destiny 2. My campaign experience was similar to yours: A group of online allies joined my defense of the Tower, which was unexpected and completely welcome, but then I never saw another player again. My partner, meanwhile, didn’t see anyone else during his entire run-through.

This experience messed with my head a bit. I didn’t expect other players to show up in my campaign before reaching the Tower, and afterward, I was constantly looking around for those little floating name tags, especially during high-intensity fights. Bungie gave me a taste of teamwork, only to cruelly yank it away. I assume the full game will have more players, making these drop-in moments more frequent and fulfilling — but we’ll see.

There were always plenty of beta players ready to dive into a Crucible match, however. Crucible is the most eSports-y aspect of Destiny 2, pitting two teams of four players against each other in online matches. The beta featured two modes, Control and Countdown.

I really enjoyed shooting enemies in Destiny 2, so I really enjoyed Crucible. The rounds were fairly rapid-fire, lasting about 10 minutes apiece — just long enough to satiate my bloodlust without making each match feel like a serious commitment. There was a fairly noticeable skill gap among players in my Crucible games, but everyone in the beta was trapped at level 20, making it difficult to really comment on the mode’s matchmaking prowess.

Timothy J. Seppala

See, to me Crucible felt really heavy and slow in the first game so I didn’t even bother jumping into it during the beta. It also felt really unbalanced because your gear from the campaign carried over into multiplayer. Or, maybe those are just the excuses I use so I don’t feel bad about constantly getting owned in adversarial play. But I really like the social aspects of the campaign and how you can play it like Journey, with people coming and going as they please, and no one is penalized for it.

When I talked with Bungie before the first game came out, community manager Eric Osborne called this “mingleplayer.” Meaning, light, casual interactions with other people without the pressure or hassle of sending them a friend request or even starting a voice chat session. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Bungie pushes that further in the sequel.

With the changes to how raids are structured, and the fact that Looking For Game stuff is baked right in, I might actually dive into one this time ’round. A big part of my experience with the first game was doing strikes with my best friend, who found himself surprisingly addicted. He even had three Warlocks at once so he could trade gear among them. But he felt Bungie invalidated all the grinding he did to fully upgrade his sub-class and exotic gear.

Once Destiny’s first expansion was released, you could just buy high-powered weapons and armor. He’s justifiably wary of returning, so if I’m going to spend much time with Destiny 2 I’m going to lean pretty heavily on the social systems to keep me interested. I hope that the hiccups with those were just the nature of the beast: a test version of a multiplayer game we won’t play again for a few months.

Jessica Conditt

You’re absolutely right; the social aspect of Destiny is one of its biggest draws. I played the first Destiny on Xbox One, even though most of my friends were on PlayStation 4 — and that’s probably one reason I stopped signing in after a few months. This time around, I’m on PS4 and I might have more luck jumping into games with friends or diving into Crucible matches, which could keep me coming back for more. After the beta, I’m not 100 percent convinced, but I am hopeful.