Smart Launcher 5 update brings an all-new design and features

Introducing ambient themes, adaptive icons, new app drawer layouts, and much more.

Third-party launchers are often the best way to customize the look and feel of your Android device, and one of the most popular ones — Smart Launcher — is getting a complete overhaul thanks to its new Smart Launcher 5 update.

There’s a lot to take in with Smart Launcher 5, but the thing you’ll notice right away is its new look. Smart Launcher 5 is using an all-new design language called “Acrylic Design”, and the main goal of Acrylic Design is to place your most-used apps to the bottom while reserving the top and middle for “information and visual contents.”

At the top of your home screen, you’ll now see a brand-new clock widget that shows the time, alarms, weather, and upcoming calendar appointments. The search bar has been moved to the bottom of the screen below the app dock, and the search page itself has a redesigned layout and now allows you to create new contacts, make calculations, etc.

Swiping up from the bottom will bring up the app drawer, and there are three layouts to choose from — allowing you to place the category bar on the side, bottom, or hide it altogether.

Rounding out these changes, Smart Launcher 5 also introduces:

• Themes that change color based on the wallpaper you have
• Adaptive icon backward compatibility for devices running Android 4.0 or later
• Ability to resize widgets in a freeform mode without grid snapping
• Redesigned settings page
• New wallpaper picker
• Icon sorting based on color
• Smart Launcher’s notification plugin is now built into the launcher by default

Smart Launcher 5 is available as a free download on the Play Store now, and it’ll replace the old Smart Launcher 3. Smart Launcher 3 Pro will remain, and anyone that purchased it can continue to use it and upgrade to Smart Launcher 5’s Pro features automatically.

Users will also be able to purchase the Feature Pack 2018, and this will add 15 additional adaptive icon shapes, a new mode that hides the on-screen navigation buttons, space for adding more widgets to your home screen, and custom icon sorting.

If you’re a long-time user of Smart Launcher, what do you think about the new update?

Download: Smart Launcher 5 (free)

Please say a VR180 version of Google Clips is next

Don’t just show me pictures, let me stand in the room where it happened.

It takes a little bit of getting used to, but Google Clips is a fantastic way to capture memories without needing to walk around with your camera in-hand all day. After my review, I continued bringing it with me wherever I went, and have continued to enjoy using it whenever the perfect moment struck. But at the end of the day what I have are photos and videos captured from a fisheye lens, which means a lot of times the thing I wanted to capture appeared too far away or wound up being partially off to the left or right of where I had positioned the camera.

I think the next step for Google Clips it to make me feel like I am standing in the room I was in, like I am re-watching a memory instead of observing through the window of my phone. As much fun as I am having with this camera, I really hope the next version is built for VR180.

Where small 360-degree cameras like the Samsung Gear 360 do a great job of letting me capture everything happening around me when something cool is happening, some important context is frequently missing. These images and video don’t capture depth, which means everything looks flat like it would on a normal screen. Not a huge deal if all you want to do is upload to Facebook, but there are options for doing a whole lot more in VR.

For depth, you typically require a pair of sensors on either side of the body instead of just the one. This makes stitching the image into a perfect sphere a little more challenging, usually resulting in the use of six or more sensors to better assemble the perfect sphere. As you can imagine, this dramatically increases the size and cost of the camera. The solution, at least for now, is what’s known as VR180. It takes a pair of sensors, puts them side by side, but has them facing the same direction. This allows for a camera to capture depth, making the photo or video you watch in VR look fantastically real without compromising quality in the photo you would see on your phone.

Google made a big announcement earlier this year about working with companies to produce VR180 cameras with a unified software experience, so those photos and videos would be both easy to share and thoroughly enjoyable in VR. The more content creators you enable for VR, the more likely people are to want to have a VR headset around to watch something cool. This could be as intense as a roller coaster ride, or as story-driven as a scene in a play. But either way, the initial goal is to encourage creators to tell stories through these VR180 cameras. It’s cool, but not at all the experience you get with the Google Clips AI system.

Clips has been designed to set the camera up somewhere and let the AI figure out what events are worth keeping as memories. It works well, but could be so much better if the camera system was able to capture in a way that allowed you to stand as though you were there when it happened. Combining Google’s VR180 software with Google Clips would create VR experiences in the most natural possible way, and being able to share that through a VR headset would allow family members to more personally participate in the scene.

This raises a number of unique challenges. For starters, part of what makes Clips work well now is the ability to self-edit things before you see them. If a VR180 version of Clips were to try to crop an image, for example, it could take away from the immersive effect or negatively impact the depth perception created by the sensor pair. But if it’s possible to merge Clips and VR180 in such a way, I would happily throw money at it.

Facebook is stepping up its fight against fake news

In the wake of the 2016 US elections, Facebook began to fight against fake news and divisive content. It hired third-party fact checkers to start vetting content that had been flagged by regular users. The company sponsored a call today with members of the press to address how it continues to protect elections from abuse and exploitation.

Facebook wants to combat foreign interference in the various elections around the world, remove fake accounts, increase ad transparency and reduce the spread of false news, according to Guy Rosen, VP of Product Management.

Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos pointed out that in addition to fake news, Facebook has to also deal with fake identities, fake audiences, false facts and false narratives (“divisive headlines and language that exploit disagreements and sow conflict”). Of course, doing so will require different approaches in each country. “At the end of the day,” said Stamos, “we’re trying to develop a systematic and comprehensive approach to tackle these challenges, and then to map that approach to the needs of each country or election.”

​​​Facebook’s product manager for civic engagement, Samidh Chakrabarti, said that the company was also proactively looking for foreign Pages that produce false civic-related content, as well, and is removing them from the platform. The tools used for this were piloted in Alabama, have been deployed in Italy and will likely be used during the upcoming US mid-term elections. The company has also removed millions of fake accounts, said Chakrabarti. “We’ve been able to do this thanks to advances in machine learning, which have allowed us to find suspicious behaviors — without assessing the content itself.”

The company is also changing the way it works with third-party fact checkers. “We’re ramping up our fact-checking efforts to fight false news around elections,” said product manager Tessa Lyons. “We’re scaling in the US and internationally, expanding beyond links to photos and videos, and increasing transparency.”

Finally, Facebook is adding more steps in its ad review process, said Product Management Director Rob Leathern. “This spring, in the run up to the US midterm elections, advertisers will have to verify and confirm who they are and where they are located in the US,” he said. This will include advertisers needing to submit government-issued IDs and physical mailing address, respond to a mailed verification letter from Facebook and to disclose which candidate, organization of business they represent.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook

Apple pushes modest, but handy updates for watchOS, tvOS and HomePod

Apple is updating nearly all of its operating systems today. Alongside the newest iOS 11.3, the company has released new versions for its tvOS, WatchOS and HomePod, which is getting its first post-launch update. Unfortunately, the hotly-anticipated AirPlay 2 is nowhere to be found.

For tvOS 11.3, users can add rating-based content filtering and frame rate matching for Apple TV 4, which was previously only available on the 4K model. AirPlay 2 was also present in the beta version of 11.3 but removed before release, and sadly, the same is true for the new HomePod, which won’t be getting the multi-room audio feature. Instead, Apple’s fancy speaker gets some vague improvements. This isn’t just a bummer: The company forecasted it would release AirPlay 2 now, long after they announced it at WWDC 2017, but it seems users will have to wait even longer.

The latest watchOS may be getting the most in this wave of updates. Version 4.3 adds a slew of small improvements and one big one: The ability to parse through your connected iPhone’s music list, which was yanked off the operating system with last September’s watchOS 4. The device update also includes refreshed graphics and a new battery-charging animation as well as a portrait view for Nightstand, which orients the screen correctly when the device is placed on a vertical stand. We’ve personally confirmed that these are live, so download away.

Via: 9to5Mac, AppleInsider

Source: Apple

iOS now informs you when it wants your personal data

In iOS 11.3 (and macOS 10.13.5), Apple has introduced a new data and privacy feature where users can get a better understanding of how their data is used. Now whenever Apple asks for access to information to enable certain features or experiences, a privacy icon will appear — two blue silhouettes shaking hands — along with detailed privacy info for those who want to learn about what’s being done with their data.

One of the major fallouts from Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal is that everyone is now suddenly aware of just how much data Facebook and similar apps and sites collect about you. Since Apple has often been critical of these practices, it seems fitting that it’s brought that philosophy to its latest iOS update as well.

According to Apple, this privacy feature has been in the works for months, mostly in response to the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that is in effect starting May 25th. Apple also says that you won’t see this icon and information pop-up with every new feature; it’s just when Apple needs your information to enable services and personalization.

In addition to the privacy icon, Apple will also start providing privacy management tools in compliance with the new GDPR ruling. Starting in May, you will be able to get a copy of your data, request a correction to your data, deactivate your account as well as delete your account entirely.

Instagram restores Giphy stickers now that racist GIFs are gone

Instagram and Snapchat completely removed Giphy stickers from their apps after finding racist GIFs, but the feature is now ready to come back… on Instagram, that is. The photo-centric social network has restored stickers after Giphy said it “made specific changes to our [moderation] process” to prevent a repeat incident. Snapchat hadn’t made a similar move as of this writing (it reiterated its earlier position in a statement to TechCrunch), but it may be just a matter of time if the company is satisfied with Giphy’s response.

The offensive imagery was gone from both social services within hours of being found. All the same, this underscores one of the problems with outsourcing your media to a service with user uploads: it’s only as good as the content filtering from that service. If vile material slips through the cracks, it can be embarrassing for both sides.

Source: TechCrunch

Apple now lets you access medical records in Health app

Apple released iOS 11.3 today, and along with a slew of other fun additions, the update includes a new feature: Health Records. If you’re a patient within certain health systems — like Duke, NYU Langone, Stanford and Yale — you can view your medical records on your iPhone.

Apple announced the new feature months ago, but now we know how Health Records will work. Predictably, it’s located within the Health app for easy access. Ideally this keeps the info handy for the patient to view and hand over to doctors — which is easier than carrying around an entire medical file. All data contained will be encrypted and protected with the user’s iPhone passcode.

Patients from nearly 40 health institutions across the US (listed here) can view their records after updating to iOS 11.3, but it wouldn’t be surprising if that list continued to grow.

Source: Apple, Apple | Health Records feature

Richard Branson: Government regulation of Facebook ‘makes sense’

By JP Mangalindan

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is joining the growing chorus of top executives calling for government regulation to restrict Facebook (FB) and other companies’ ability to use customer data.

“I think some sensible regulation most likely makes sense,” Branson told Yahoo Finance during an interview on Wednesday at the Adobe Summit, held in Las Vegas, Nevada. “As the CEO of Apple said recently, you don’t want to kill the companies, but some sensible regulation here is probably needed. I mean, obviously, it’s best the companies can regulate themselves. Let’s see what ideas they come up with, but possibly some government regulation may be needed as well.”

Branson would obviously know. As Virgin Group has evolved over more than four decades, so has the sheer amount of customer data it manages and keeps private. Since co-founding Virgin Group in 1970, the British multinational corporation now controls over 400 companies around the world covering a range of industries, from health care (Virgin Care), hotels (Virgin Hotels) to space travel with Virgin Galactic.

Branson’s comments come on the heels of controversial remarks made by Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook over the last week over revelations earlier this month that Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company, had abused Facebook’s terms of service and harvested the data of some 50 million Facebook users as part of a targeted advertising campaign to help elect Donald Trump. Cook stated in no uncertain terms that the situation had become “so dire” and “so large” that “well-crafted regulation” was likely necessary.

“We could make a ton of money if we monetized our customers, if our customers were our product,” Cook said in an interview with Recode and MSNBC that will air on April 6. “We’ve elected not to do that … We’re not going to traffic in your personal life. Privacy to us is a human right, a civil liberty.”

Likewise, Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM (IBM), has also come out swinging, stating at a Beijing event earlier this week that companies dealing with customer data have to be transparent in how they use — and allow third-parties to use — that data so “they should never be surprised.”

“(We have to let) people opt in and opt out and be clear that ownership of the data does belong to the creator,” Rometty added.

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More from JP

• Forget Photoshop, Adobe’s fastest-growing business is marketing
• Former Facebook employees sold their shares before the social network’s stock took a real hit
• Facebook botches response to a scandal, again
• Employee parking is ‘impossible’ to find at Facebook’s campus
• Facebook’s ‘Downvote’ is the closest we’ll ever get to a Dislike button
• Facebook, Airbnb and HP talk about the future of AI

‘Serial’ podcast subject Adnan Syed is granted a retrial

When last we heard about Adnan Syed, subject of the breakout hit podcast Serial’s first season, a judge ruled he should be given a new trial based on his previous attorney’s failings. Today, Maryland’s court of special appeals has affirmed it will grant him one.

Today, Adnan Syed’s appeal in his case was affirmed by the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. https://t.co/kMALyCmTGq

— Serial (@serial) March 29, 2018

Prosecutors had appealed the ruling, but a panel upheld the grant for retrial, Variety reported. Syed had been convicted in 2000 of murdering his girlfriend Hae Min Lee and served a life sentence in prison thereafter until Serial extensively investigated his case in its 2014 first season. Two years later, a lower court judge ruled that Syed’s previous attorney hadn’t cross-examined a cell tower expert acting as key witness about the reliability of phone location data, which had placed him near the victim’s burial site, which had been the basis of his appeal.

“Accordingly, Syed’s murder conviction must be vacated, and because Syed’s convictions for kidnapping, robbery, and false imprisonment are predicated on his commission of Hae’s murder, these convictions must be vacated as well. The instant case will be remanded for a new trial on all charges against Syed,” the panel wrote in its statement.

Source: Variety

Google Play now offers speed control and bookmarks for audiobooks

In January, Google launched its Play Store audiobook category and today, the company has released a handful of updates that will improve the user experience. Now, you’ll be able to bookmark parts of your audiobook that you’d like to return to. Just tap the Bookmark icon and you can easily come back to it whenever you’d like. You’ll also be able to control the speed at which your audiobook plays. Slow it down to as low as half the speed or bump it up as much as three times faster.

Additionally, Google is introducing Smart Resume. Whenever you jump back into an audiobook after pausing it, Smart Resume will rewind back to the start of the word or sentence you left off on, so you can more easily get back into the story rather than wonder what’s going on. And now, you can incorporate your audiobook into your Google Assistant-managed Routine. Whatever you have your Routine set to do, you can add audiobooks to it through the Google Home app.

Lastly, Family Library allows users to share audiobooks and ebooks with up to five family members. Now, 13 additional countries will have access to this feature. Users in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Chile, Mexico and South Africa can now share audiobooks and ebooks through Family Library and those in Japan can share audiobooks.

Audible already has most of these features, so working them into its own audiobook service is necessary if Google wants to compete with its already-established rival. These features are available now on Android, iOS and Google Assistant devices.

Source: Google