Google Phone v17 introduces chat heads feature during calls

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

As much as I loathe Facebook Messenger, one of the app’s best features is Chat Heads. The ability to quickly open and hide conversations in a small bubble that lives on your home screen is extremely convenient, and the latest v17 update for the Google Phone adds its own take on this.

After downloading the new update, leaving the Google Phone app during an ongoing call will result in a “chat head” of said call to appear. The icon shows the contact profile of who you’re talking to with the Google Phone logo near the bottom right, and you can move it around to either side of your screen.

You can hold down on the icon to hide it or end the call, and tapping on it will reveal shortcuts for going back to the Google Phone app, muting your microphone, turning on speakerphone, or ending the call.

This isn’t a ground-breaking or earth-shattering feature, but it’s an appreciated feature and something I wish more communication apps would adopt.

Google Phone v17 should be rolling out to the Play Store now, but if you’re impatient and don’t want to wait, you can always download the APK file to your device.

See at Google Play

Sony drops PlayStation VR prices as low as $200

Sony thinks its holiday PlayStation VR discounts were a success, so it’s bringing them back now that it wants to clear some end-of-winter stock. The company is running a new promo that drops PSVR prices by $100 across the board between February 18th and March 3rd. The sweetest deal by far is the Gran Turismo Sport bundle — you can get the racing game, a PSVR headset and the requisite camera for $200. You can also buy just the headset for $200, although that won’t make much sense unless you just can’t find the GTS pack.

There are similar price cuts for the Doom VFR and Skyrim VR bundles to a respective $300 and $350. You’ll definitely want the Skyrim kit if you want the full experience, since it includes the Move controllers in addition to the camera from the other two bundles. This isn’t exactly a long-lived sale, but it’s worth considering if you have a PS4 and want to dip your toes into the VR waters.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Microsoft’s latest app moves photos from phones to PCs over WiFi

Microsoft Garage makes all kinds of mobile apps for iOS and Android. Some, like the Hub keyboard for iPhone, are experiments; others, like the News Pro app, are a bit more long-term. The team’s most recent foray into mobile apps is Photos Companion, an app that easily moves photos from your phone to your Windows 10 PC over WiFi.

According to Microsoft, when its Photos app was redesigned in 2017, the product team headed out to various US and European classrooms to see how teachers were incorporating videos and images into their curriculum, and to encourage them to use the app. The biggest issue wasn’t the app itself, the team found, but the hassle of getting media from smartphones to classroom PCs. The new app was created to help kids get content from multiple phones into one project PC, from which they could assemble their multimedia presentations.

With the Photos Companion app on your iOS or Android phone, you just scan a code on your Windows 10 Photos app, then select the media you want to transfer. The rest of the process takes place over WiFi, making it an alternative to something like AirDrop, which only works with Apple devices. While the app was created for students and educators, it’ll likely be useful for anyone who needs to get their media onto a PC without having to find a cable.

Via: The Verge

Source: Microsoft

FCC wants to know if changes Pai pushed aided Sinclair-Tribune merger

Last April, the Federal Communications Commission, led by its Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, eliminated a restriction that had capped how many stations media companies could own. Weeks later, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced a long-suspected deal to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion. Anyone finding that timing suspicious wouldn’t be alone: For two months, the FCC’s internal watchdog has been investigating whether Pai and his aides improperly pushed to change the rules and timed it to help Sinclair, Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) confirmed to The New York Times.

For months I have been trying to get to the bottom of the allegations about Chairman Pai’s relationship with Sinclair Broadcasting. https://t.co/JGmRQp4VoN

— Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) February 15, 2018

The extent of the investigation is unclear, as is whatever could result. The office of the FCC’s nonpartisan inspector general didn’t comment on “the existence or the nonexistence of an investigation” to The New York Times. In addition to Pallone, two aides to Democratic lawmakers confirmed the investigation on condition of anonymity.

The merger would’ve been subject to rules repealed last April, which prevented one company from owning stations that captured more than 39 percent of US households — aimed at preventing monopolies on markets. The Sinclair deal adds Tribune’s 42 American TV stations to the conglomerate’s 173, which would reportedly reach 72 percent of the country. While Sinclair currently plans to divest some of those to comply with remaining FCC rules, though it will likely have to part with fewer after chairman Pai trimmed regulations even more in November.

The FCC’s investigation is supposedly looking into whether Pai eased the rules explicitly to pave the way for Sinclair’s ambitions. According to a New York Times investigation published last August, the chairman of Sinclair met with Pai days before he was named FCC commissioner in January 2017 — reportedly, the former requested the latter reduce crackdowns on media consolidation. Soon after, Pai eased the first of what would be many regulations affecting ad revenue and growth limits for media companies.

Critics are especially concern since Sinclair has a clear political agenda that it has no issue presenting as “news.” The company has come under fire for pushing pre-packaged segments on local affiliates that promote a conservative agenda, but are never clearly identified as editorial or commentary. Instead are simply slipped into news broadcasts like any other report. In fact, John Oliver devoted an entire episode of his show Last Week Tonight to explaining its market dominance and agenda:

Source: The New York Times

‘Black Panther’ proves why Afrofuturism matters

Black Panther is groundbreaking on every level. It’s a superhero film that’s smarter and more meaningful than anything from Marvel yet. It’s a blockbuster action movie written, directed by and starring black artists. And, Black Panther also happens to be the purest expression of Afrofuturism — science fiction and fantasy that reflects the African diaspora — to ever hit cinemas around the world. It’s about time.

Even if you haven’t heard the term Afrofuturism before, you’ve certainly seen examples of it. It was coined by culture critic Mark Dery in a 1993 essay, Black to the Future (available in the anthology Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture). It charts the rise of science-fiction oriented art from black artists, starting with Sun Ra’s fusion of space imagery (evoking ancient Egyptian mythology) and innovative jazz. Octavia Butler’s novels, like Patternmaster, actively questioned race and gender roles in society.

More recently, Afrofuturism has been reflected in songs and videos from the likes of Missy Elliot, Janelle Monae (who’s entire aesthetic is practically a sci-fi orgy) and FKA Twigs. You can think of the label as a way for black artists to claim their own corner of the science fiction and fantasy genres — which are still predominantly driven by white artists and characters.

“The notion of Afrofuturism gives rise to a troubling antinomy: Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures?” Dery writes. “Furthermore, isn’t the unreal estate of the future already owned by the technocrats, futurologists, streamliners and set designers—white to the man—who have engineered our collective fantasies?”

Even though the original comic was created by white men, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character was still groundbreaking for 1966. Don MgGregor’s 1973 run fleshed out the world of Wakanda further, but it took several more decades for a black writer to have a shot. Christopher Priest’s 1998 Black Panther series brought the character out of obscurity, and repurposed him as a beacon for diversity in comics. It’s no surprise that even famed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who’s behind the current Black Panther run, considers Priest’s work to be the definitive version of the superhero.

Marvel Studios/Disney

Representation and identity are a core component of Afrofuturism. Fittingly, director Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole make that the root of Black Panther. The film centers on T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the newly crowned king of Wakanda, who takes up the superhero mantle. To the rest of the globe, it looks like a third-world nation. But secretly, Wakanda is incredibly advanced, thanks to its reserves of vibranium, the super-strong metal that Captain America’s iconic shield is made out of. When last we saw T’Challa, in Captain America: Civil War, he was a son seeking revenge for the death of his father. (It’s a long story.) But in this film, he’s trying to determine what kind of king he wants to be.

The movie is just as much about Wakanda’s identity. It’s survived for generations by remaining hidden. But shunning the global stage makes it difficult to help Africans and their descendants around the world. Should T’Challa protect his people, or open his borders and serve as a beacon of hope for those who are systematically disenfranchised in societies outside of Africa?

Marvel Studios/Disney

The vision of Wakanda as a vibrant metropolis — one that’s more advanced than anything we’ve seen on Earth in the Marvel films — is enough to inspire hope in audiences. It’s almost too much to take in at first: there are high-speed monorails, flying ships and gorgeous skyscrapers amid bold colors, fabrics and patterns that makes the city distinctly African. And almost instantly upon seeing Wakanda, comes the realization that it’s unlike anything we’ve ever had in a big-budget Hollywood film. How often are African societies shown to be advanced? Let alone more so than the rest of the world. (Who needs Tony Stark when you have Shuri, the Wakandan princess who’s also responsible for most of the country’s high-tech innovations.)

Unlike most Marvel films, real-world struggles exist in Black Panther. The film opens in Oakland, California, where we see a group of boys playing in a run down playground. One of those kids turns out to be a young boy of Wakandan descent, who grows up outside of the prosperity of his homeland. Over time, he becomes an expert military fighter — one with a burning hatred for the colonialist societies in the West that have oppressed black people for centuries. It’s a surprisingly grounded backstory for a comic book movie character, especially since he’s actually the villain, Erik “Killmonger” (played by Michael B. Jordan).

Marvel Studios/Disney

Like any great bad guy, Killmonger is sympathetic. He’s seen the unjust world that Wakanda has ignored, and he wants to even out the scales. Unfortunately, for him that means pushing Wakanda to arm rebels around the world with its futuristic weapons. While his methods aren’t exactly just, we still understand that he has a bit of a point. What good is a profoundly advanced society if you don’t try to help others? Especially when you know how the rest of the world treats people who look like you? Even during his inevitable showdown with Black Panther, we still have an inkling of compassion for Killmonger.

While T’Challa/Black Panther is the star of the show, the film also reflects the power of women in African societies, a major component of Afrofuturism. His royal guard is a female squad of badass warriors, the Dora Milaje, led by the strong as steel Okaye (Danai Gurira). They’re dressed in elaborate armor, like something out of Lord of the Rings, and are trained in martial arts and traditional spear fighting. T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) is pretty much the Steve Jobs of Wakanda (canonically, she’s one of the smartest people in the world). His ex-girlfriend, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), is a highly skilled spy who’s also convinced Wakanda needs to make itself known. While he has a handful of male confidants, it’s really the women who risk their lives to support and protect T’Challa.

Marvel Studios/Disney

There’s no doubt that Black Panther is going to be a global phenomenon. It currently has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score (97 percent) for a Marvel film. And you could just feel the excitement for the film as people responded to its many trailers (or even better, seeing them in theaters with live audiences). For many black and brown kids, Black Panther will be a defining experience. They’ve spent their entire lives going to theaters celebrating white superheroes. What does it mean to see themselves reflected? Especially when that hero is also the leader of an incredibly advanced country?

This is the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy. You can watch it in less than a minute. pic.twitter.com/v6UBUlsPo1

— Dylan Marron (@dylanmarron) February 14, 2018

The significance of representation matters even more when you consider how Hollywood typically fails with portraying people of color. That’s best exemplified in Dylan Marron’s Every Single Word project, which feature Hollywood films cut down only to show the lines spoken by non-white actors. He was only able to scrape together 46 seconds in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even more damning was his cut of the entire Harry Potter series, which amounted to 5 minutes and 40 seconds, out of a total 1,207 minute running time. It’s no mystery why audiences are excited for Black Panther (or why they’ve responded so well to the incredibly diverse Fast and the Furious franchise).

Marvel Studios/Disney

Afrofuturist art has been around for decades, but aside from music videos, it’s mainly existed along the edges of popular culture. Black Panther is the first shot at taking that concept mainstream, and making black audiences feel like they can see themselves in a comic book film. (Yes, even more so than in the Blade films.) Children will watch this movie and see possible futures where African influences are just as viable as those of the West and Asia. And hopefully, it’ll be a sign to other science fiction franchises (ahem, Star Wars) that they shouldn’t sleep on black artists.

Google Maps for iOS adds easy access to traffic and transit info

Over a year ago, Google updated its Maps app for Android, making it easier for users to search for restaurants, check out nearby traffic and find public transit schedules. Today, that update is now available for iOS users. With the update, Google Maps users will see three options on the bottom of their screens — explore, driving and transit.

Tapping the explore tab will bring up dining options nearby as well as photos, a description of the area you’re currently in and options to search for gas stations, ATMs, convenience stores, pharmacies and other locations. The driving tab gives you a summary of the traffic situation in your area including an estimate as to how much time ongoing delays might add to your drive. If your home and work addresses are saved in Google Maps, it will also give you real-time ETAs for those destinations. Lastly, the transit tab provides estimated bus and train schedules at stations near your location.

The update is rolling out today.

Via: The Verge

Source: Google

Apple will fix the latest major iMessage bug soon (updated)

Every so often, a Mac or iOS bug works its way into the wild that’ll crash your phone or computer with a single character send via iMessage. The latest iteration of such a bug arrived last night, affecting iOS, Macs and even the Apple Watch, but fortunately Apple is already working on a fix. As reported by The Verge and confirmed by Apple, a fix for iOS is on the way. It’ll arrive sooner than the upcoming iOS 11.3 update. All we know so far is that the bug fix update will be available “soon,” whereas iOS 11.3 wasn’t expected to arrive until the spring. Unfortunately, there’s no word about a corresponding fix for the Mac or Apple Watch yet.

iOS 11.3 is expected to be more extensive than most mid-year updates, with new Animoji, battery health monitoring features, Face ID for family account purchases and more. But before that, users should see this bug fix, probably in the next week or so. Going forward, iOS 12 is expected to help iron out the many issues that have cropped up in Apple’s mobile software recently. It may come at the loss of some new features, but that’ll probably be worth it if Apple can avoid users getting stuck with crashing phones every few months.

Update 2/15/18, 4:30PM ET: Apple has confirmed that it is working on similar updates for macOS and watchOS that’ll come out ahead of their next scheduled major updates. While we still don’t have a specific timeframe, it seems this whole issue should be remedied before too long.

Source: The Verge

Lyft’s Baltimore deal turns bike sharing stops into pickup points

Uber isn’t the only ridesharing outfit with an interest in bike sharing. Lyft has formed a partnership with Baltimore Bike Share that will launch hybrid pickup points and bike sharing hubs across the Maryland city. The aim, of course, is to help you switch transportation methods with a minimum of fuss. You could take just one Lyft trip downtown and pedal around for the rest of the day, or bike to a stop if you only occasionally need more than human-powered transport.

The first stop was unveiled at the Baltimore Visitor Center, while others will come to busy areas like Harbor East, Hopkins Place, the National Aquarium and the Shot Tower.

Lyft pitches this as part of its broader efforts to improve urban transportation by giving you multiple travel methods. Like Uber, though, there’s a clear financial incentive for Lyft: this encourages you to ditch a personally owned car and use ridesharing whenever biking isn’t enough.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

Google gives Gmail the Android Go treatment to save data and storage

Last December, Google launched Android Go, a lightweight operating system for less capable phones typically used in places like India and Indonesia. The company has also been creating apps for these less-capable phones, too, including YouTube Go and a Go-enabled Assistant. Now Google has Gmail Go, a Gmail client made to use less data and storage space for lower end Android phones.

Users will still get the smart inbox behavior of the regular Gmail app, 15 GB of free storage space and support for both IMAP and POP email protocols. According to TechCrunch, several reports show the app coming in as a 9.51 MB download, which expands to 25 MB once installed. The regular Gmail app downloads at 20.66 MB and expands to 47 MB on your device. Google declined to comment when we reached out for more info.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google Play

Pad & Quill Debuts New Leather Coasters for HomePod

Following news that the HomePod leaves white rings on some wood surfaces treated with oil or wax, Pad & Quill has designed and debuted new Leather Coasters that are meant to be used with the HomePod.

Available in two colors, Whiskey and Chestnut, the 4-inch HomePod Coasters are made with full-grain leather and offer a soft leather backing.

Pad & Quill’s new coasters will prevent the rings that occur on some wood furniture due to a chemical reaction between the wood and the silicone used for the vibration-dampening base of the HomePod.

The coasters will also work with other speakers that include similar silicone bases and also leave white marks on surfaces, such as the Sonos One, but the coaster’s size and shape were designed with the HomePod in mind.

The new Leather HomePod Coasters can be purchased from the Pad & Quill website starting today for $19.95. Orders will begin shipping out next week.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Pad & Quill and may earn commissions on purchases made through links in this article.

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