Uber will run criminal and driving history checks for every driver every year

Starting soon, Uber says it will run criminal background and driver history checks every year for all of its drivers.

Uber emailed riders about three new safety programs with the subject line, “Your safety is our priority.” The three new safety initiatives include the company’s commitment to ramped up driver screening, plus the Trusted Contacts ride-detail sharing, and 911 access from the Uber app.

Uber states that since 2009 millions of drivers have passed background and driving record screenings. According to Uber’s statement on stricter driver screening in the email sent to users, “Everyone driving with Uber in the U.S. must first pass a criminal and driving history check. Starting this year, we’ll proactively rerun those checks annually.”

In 2016, Uber agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit involving driver background checks in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the 2014 lawsuit, San Francisco district attorney George Gascón and Los Angeles district attorney Jackie Lacey faulted Uber’s background checks.

The district attorneys claimed the procedure missed criminal records for 25 Uber applicants in the two cities in part because the background checks covered only the seven preceding years. The screening also ignored a database of about 30,000 registered sex offenders, the lawsuit claimed.

At the time, an Uber spokesperson said, “We’re glad to put this case behind us and excited to redouble our efforts serving riders and drivers across the state of California.”

The new annual driver screening program will apply to all Uber drivers nationwide.

Uber’s Trusted Contacts lets you set reminders to share trip details with up to five friends and family members. While you are on the ride, your designated contacts will be able to track your location in real time on a map. They will also know when you have arrived at your location. Assuming you have configured the Trusted Contacts feature ahead of time, you will be able to turn it on with a single tap on the Uber app screen.

Ubers’s new 911 feature makes the call with a single tap in Uber’s app. The feature displays your current location and trip details so you can tell the operator. Because not all 911 systems are alike, Uber is working with RapidSOS’ pilot programs in six U.S. cities where the app will automatically share the rider’s name and the car’s make, model, color, license plate number, and exact location.

The email Uber sent users includes multiple links to its Moving Forward website page, on which it states, “We’re listening to riders and drivers, changing our company from within, and working with cities to improve transportation.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• When is your phone getting Android 8.0 Oreo? We asked every major manufacturer
• Uber is stepping up its game on passenger safety features
• Uber adds panic button for U.S. customers, with driver button to come later
• Uber will no longer store exact pickup and drop-off locations in drivers’ apps
• Here’s every game you’ll want to play in 4K HDR on the PS4 Pro

MacOS Mojave brings Dark Mode, stacking, and a redesigned App Store to Macs

Kicking off its annual software developer conference today in San Jose, California, Apple announced software updates and new features to its platforms. “Today is all about software,” CEO Tim Cook said at the beginning of his WWDC keynote this year before announcing that MacOS 10.14 will be called Mojave.

Mojave will be released this fall as a free update to all Mac users, and it will be available as a developer beta starting today for those brave enough to put up with potential bugs to get an early peek at the new exciting features that will debut with this release.

MacOS falls to the dark side

Taking inspiration from the desert after which MacOS Mojave is named after, Apple Senior Vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi showed off the new Dark Mode for MacOS, which turns the operating system black, a feature that’s useful if you’re working in darker environments or want to focus on content development — like editing photos and videos or writing code.

With Dark Mode, it’s not just the menu bar or the dock that’s going black, but the darker theme is applied across the operating system as it’s applied to the chrome around your windows, the side bars, and even content inside the windows, Federighi noted.

While Dark Mode can be manually switched on, it can also be applied automatically through a feature called Dynamic Desktops. Similar to how Night Mode can be automatically set on the iPhone and iPad with iOS, Dark Mode can also be timed to appear. MacOS can now automatically apply new desktop settings and views, including Dark Mode, through the day, so you can end your day with Dark Mode. The desert wallpaper even shifts to night, to emphasize the new mode.

New productivity tools like Stacks and Quick Look

Desktop Stacks is a new feature that’s aimed at helping you manage desktop clutter on MacOS. Rather than have files and folders scattered all across the desktop, you can now toggle the settings in MacOS to automatically group similar files together into Stacks. Content can be grouped according to date, content type, and categories, like photos.

Essentially, Stacks are like folders that are automatically created on the desktop, and files that are dragged or saved onto Mojave’s desktop will automatically be moved into Stacks to keep things organized. Like folders, you can scrub through your Stacks to preview the content.

The MacOS Finder and Quick Look features are also getting revamped to make it easier to get things done when you search for them. Quick Look gets a new gallery view, which essentially turns it into a Photos app for your MacOS files, allowing you to make quick actions, like editing and marking up files. A new side bar shows the file details like the EXIF information for photos.

With Quick Look, you’ll also be able to mark up content without even having to open up apps. You can add signatures to PDFs, trim videos, and even rotate and crop images right from Quick Look.

Capturing screenshots tools and security in Safari

Taking a screenshot or adding a photo or scan to your workflow is now easier with Mojave. Thanks to the Continuity Camera, you can use your iPhone to capture a photo or insert a scan into your presentation with a simple click. A new screenshot menu allows you to capture a screenshot, which will show the preview in the corner. Launching that preview takes you into Quick Look, which displays markup menus. And now, you can also create screen recordings with the new screenshot tool. So long QuickTime!

“One of the reasons why people choose the Mac is because of our commitment to privacy and security,” Federighi said.Capitalizing off of recent data security scandals, like the ones that recently plagued Facebook, Apple also updated its approach to privacy on the Mac. Highlighting its efforts in this area, MacOS will now popup with warnings when a system app requires access to the camera and microphone, to your messaging history, and your Mail messages.

Safari has also been overhauled to reduce fingerprinting and tracking on the web. Now, the Mac will make it difficult for websites to identify you by using standard fonts, making all Macs look the same.

A revamped MacOS App Store

Apple also introduced a redesigned App Store for the Mac. The Mac App Store now borrows from the iOS App Store, with a new Discover tab to surface new apps. Apple also announced that Microsoft will bring Office 365 to the Mac App Store and Adobe will make Lightroom CC available for download as well.

Though Federighi confirmed that Apple has no plans to merge MacOS and iOS together, iOS apps will be coming to the Mac in a new way. Developers will have access to the new SDK to port their iOS apps to the Mac in 2019, and Apple will make it easy to make iOS apps feel natural on the Mac with keyboard and mouse inputs, windows that can be resized, scrolling, and support for various display sizes.

The first of these were made in-house: News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and Home. These apps have been ported from iOS over to MacOS as an example of how to utilize the updated APIs.

Editors’ Recommendations

• How to take a screenshot on a Mac
• Windows 10 vs. MacOS vs. Chrome OS
• The best free antivirus for Mac
• Everything Apple announced at WWDC, from iOS 12 to MacOS Mojave
• Find your type: Here’s our guide for adding fonts to Photoshop

Get a 4-bulb Philips Hue color starter kit and LightStrip Plus for $200

Add some color to your lights.

Right now you can pick up the 4-bulb Philips Hue starter kit with a LightStrip Plus for $199.99. This is just over $90 less than it would run you to pick the two pieces up separately, and considering the LightStrip Plus is $90 by itself, that means you basically get it for free. The White and Color ambiance starter kit comes with four color-changing bulbs and the Philips Hue Bridge, which is the hub needed to run all the lights. The LightStrip Plus is 80 inches long and can be extended beyond that with ease.

All of this can be controlled using Google’s Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa, making it even more convenient. Of course, you can also use the free Philips Hue app on iOS and Android (which was recently updated) from anywhere in the world to set the lights the way you want.

See at Amazon

Get these games free with your PlayStation Plus membership this June!

These are the free games you can get right now with your PlayStation Plus membership.

One of the biggest perks of having a PlayStation Plus membership is the free games you get every month. I’ve got a list of the games PlayStation is offering this month, and I’m very happy to see some Vita games on this list. Start downloading these games, and enjoy your free games for the month of May!

• XCOM 2
• Trials Fusion
• Zombie Driver HD
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
• Atomic Ninjas
• Squares

XCOM 2- PS4

The world has come under alien rule and you have to find a way to restore humanity in order to get Earth back. Take down the enemies while this game is free this month,

See at the PlayStation Store

Trial Fusion- PS4

Make your rounds through all of the tracks in order to show you’re the best Trial player out there. Play alone, against friends, or online while you grab it for free this month.

See at the PlayStation Store

Zombie Driver HD- PS3

Use your vehicle to take down the zombies that have encompassed the human population. Whether you play by yourself or with friends, it’s loads of fun when it’s free.

See at the PlayStation Store

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier- PS3

Head into the story of the Ghosts as you go through the most dangerous areas of the warzone. Take down the most valuable targets in order to survive through this free game.

See at the PlayStation Store

Atomic Ninjas- PS Vita

Atomic Ninjas is a multiplayer platformer where you have to outsmart the other players you’re going against. Use your super abilities and unique weapons to your ability when you pick up this game for free.

See at the PlayStation Store

Squares- PS Vita

Squares tests your reflexes as you try to turn all of the blue squares into grey ones. With 91 different levels and a level creator, you’ll never get bored with this free game.

See at the PlayStation Store

PlayStation announced, however, that they will no longer offer free games for the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita starting March 8th, 2019. This doesn’t mean that you will no longer be able to use the online platform and you will still get the monthly discounts. If this is a deal breaker for you, be sure to end your subscription before March 8th.

Which is your favorite game you’ve gotten for free with PlayStation Plus?

Let us know which game you’ve loved and which one you’re excited about this month!

Updated June 2018: We’ve added the free games for this month!

PlayStation 4

• PS4 vs. PS4 Slim vs. PS4 Pro: Which should you buy?
• PlayStation VR Review
• Playing PS4 games through your phone is awesome

Amazon

Google’s mid-range Pixel phone to come out next year with a Snapdragon 710

HMD Global will also release a Snapdragon 710 handset at the end of this year.

Google’s big hardware release this year is expected to be the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL this October, but starting next year, we could see a mid-range Pixel added to the lineup.

According to Roland Quandt on Twitter, Google’s currently working on a “mobile device” that’s powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 710 processor and is scheduled for a release at some point during the first half of 2019. There’s no word on pricing or other specs, but this sounds a lot like the mid-range Pixel we first heard about last April.

In addition to Google, HMD Global is also reportedly working on a Snapdragon 710-powered Nokia phone that’ll be released even earlier this autumn or winter. The Nokia phone is currently codenamed “Phoneix” while the Google one is known as “Bonito.” For what it’s worth, Bonitos are a type of medium-sized fish. Medium-sized fish = mid-range Pixel phone? Perhaps.

The term “mid-range” typically means that corners are cut in some areas to keep prices low, but thanks to the Snapdragon 710, performance shouldn’t see much of a hit at all. I recommend reading through Jerry’s breakdown of the chipset, but it’s essentially a Snapdragon 845 with better power efficiency and scalebacks where they make sense.

HMD Global’s already proven to be one of the best players in the mid-range Android space, and I’m beyond excited to see what kind of work Google can do here, too.

Snapdragon 710 chips mean nobody has to spend $1,000 on a phone

Might and Magic Elemental Guardians for Android: What you need to know

Ubisoft’s latest game for Android is a robust mobile RPG.

Might and Magic is a role-playing game franchise with a legacy that spans over 30 years. It was one of those early titles that helped establish the early PC RPG genre and still maintains a fanbase to this day.

The latest title in the series attempts to reboot the franchise and bring it into the 21st century by making the game accessible to millions of mobile gamers — Might and Magic Elemental Guardians. It fits into the larger Might and Magic universe that fans will recognize without being inaccessible to gamers who are coming in fresh to the franchise.

Download: Might and Magic Elemental Guardians (Free w/IAPs)

An iconic RPG franchise finds new life on mobile

Ubisoft bought the rights to the Might and Magic franchise from 3DO back when the company folded in 2003.

After 15 years, we’ve finally seen Ubisoft take up the franchise and turn it into a brand new mobile experience that borrows the fantastical settings and creatures found from the original series while updating the graphics and gameplay for mobile devices.

Elemental Guardians gives you have multiple ways to play. The game starts out with a single-player campaign that introduces the world of Ashan and the Akadimia, an Academy of Magic where you are a young Wizard apprentice. As part of your training, you are tasked with training and evolving mystical creatures which are discovered by breaking Soulstones. Create an ultimate team of your best creatures and battle to become the champion of Ashan.

The game features a brand new story that fits into the established world of Might and Magic. But story aside, this game is mostly about creating an epic team and battling through Special Dungeons to collect evolution items for your creatures and then battling other players in the PvP Arena.

The basics of battle strategy

Each creature you unlock is linked to one of four elements — Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. As you’d expect, each element has an advantage or disadvantage over another (for example, Fire is weak against Water but strong against Earth). Different creatures fall into one of four roles.

The most important part of preparing for battle is making sure your creatures are as strong as they can be, and that you have a balanced team that won’t get dominated by a single Element.

Creatures are also defined by their roles. There are four different roles that a Creature can play on your battle team: Attackers, Defenders, Support, and Saboteurs.

Attackers are capable of doling out serious damage but are more susceptible to damage. Defenders are the tanks on your team that are capable of taunting the enemy and can take more damage. Support creatures have special spells that can heal your team. Saboteurs feature spells that affect your opponent’s creatures and can help shut down particularly powerful characters.

To be successful in Elemental Guardians, you will need to be constantly upgrading, evolving, and tweaking your team to make them stronger. Once you unlock PvP mode, you can set your four best creatures to defend on your behalf as you work your way up the PvP ladder.

How many creatures can I collect?

There are currently over 400 creatures available to unlock and collect in the game, with much more ready to be added to the game over the coming months and years as the game expands. Each creature is given a star rating from 1 to 5, with one-star creatures being the most common and five-star creatures being exceptionally rare. Creatures are unlocked by using Soulstones, which are unlocked as loot from battles or can also be purchased via in-app purchases.

If you pre-registered for the game in the Google Play Store, you will have received an extra special creature upon the game’s official launch — Andy the Android bot. iOS users got a glowing orb meant to represent Siri so… Android users clearly won here!

Plenty of things to collect and upgrade

The biggest draw of Elemental Guardians is collecting loot. There’s a ton of stuff to collect — crystal and golden seals (coins) used as in-app currencies, energy and tickets for battles, potions for leveling up your characters. But the two most important collectibles in the game are Soulstones and Glyphs.

Soulstones are used in the Summoning Alter to summon new creatures. You can unlock new Soulstones by completing achievements or purchase them using your seals in the shop. You receive a new Soulstone daily, so you can always unlock a new creature simply by logging in each day. Alternatively, you can buy booster packs with Soulstones via in-app purchases in the shop — although to be clear, in-app purchases are limited and are designed to speed up the upgrading and evolving processes. There is no pay-to-win element in this game and everything can be unlocked without spending a dime in-game.

Glyphs are rare stones emblazoned with 14 different types of power-ups that can give your creatures special bonuses for HP, attack or defense powers, and faster cooldowns for special attacks. Glyphs are unlocked by winning battles and can be applied to open slots on your creature. You need to match up three of the same type of glyph to unlock the available bonuses.

Special events, daily missions, and more

One of the best ways to build up your resources in the game is by completing special events and daily missions. Each time you complete a section of the single-player campaign you will have completed multiple missions, and there are many missions that require multiple playthroughs of each island section to complete.

There are also monthly events that offer additional challenges for you to complete to unlock some epic rewards, such as rare creatures. Daily rewards are also gifted to you simply by logging in every day.

You are also able to create or join Guilds to connect and play with your friends.

See your creatures and battles in augmented reality

One of the coolest things making its way into the game is an augmented reality feature that lets you bring your creatures into your world to snap pictures with your favorites. You can also see battles unfold in augmented reality, too, which worked well in the tests that I saw.

The feature should be live on Android phones that support ARCore.

Download: Might and Magic Elemental Guardians (Free w/IAPs)

Are you an Elemental Guardian?

This game just launched and there’s plenty to do. Let us know what you think of this game in the comments below!

Android Gaming

• Best Android games
• Best free Android games
• Best games with no in-app purchases
• Best action games for Android
• Best RPGs for Android
• All the Android gaming news!

Samsung smartwatches, the Amazon Echo Show, and more are all discounted today

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts on the Amazon Echo Show, Samsung Gear Sport smartwatches, Philips Hue smart lights, and more! Time’s running out to take advantage of these prices, so hurry!

View the rest of the deals

If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you’ll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter, because missing out on a great deal stinks!

6 features from iOS 12 that need to come to Android

Good ideas are good ideas.

The WWDC Keynote just wrapped up and we got to see everything we are supposed to see about iOS 12.

We’re Android folks ’round these parts, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize a good thing when we see it. I’m all for letting company executives and ever-faithful fans fight about who copied who and who did it better and everything else as long as it means my phone can do something that makes my life easier. Besides, everyone knows that all these companies are copying Palm and/or Symbian anyways. (rimshot!)

Anyways, let’s leave the who-copied-who for another article or the courtroom and have a look at a few things we saw in iOS 12 that need to make their way to Android.

Native AR everywhere

Apple has built ARKit, the company’s excellent framework for AR and VR applications, deeper into the operating system so any app can tap into its power without necessarily adding it to the app itself — it’s just there and lets apps use it for cool stuff.

To show this off, Apple added a small utility that can leverage ARKit to measure distances or perform other basic measurements like getting the angle of an object as part of the system. It’s also adding a unique file type that lets apps and users share AR experiences across iOS.

Not everything is going to be better with AR involved. In fact, some things should never be paired with alternate anything. But supporting it across the platform and including a small default system tool for measuring anything is pretty awesome and I’d like to see that come to Android, which has been halfheartedly doing AR for years.

Please don’t create a new proprietary file format for it though.

Shortcuts for Siri

Order your @philz Mint Mojito and then tell @AriX you’re running late! pic.twitter.com/H2LTHmPH9N

— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) June 4, 2018

With a few taps, you can have Siri remind you when it’s time to leave, check the weather so you know if you need to take an umbrella, and even check on the traffic if you plan on driving. Called Siri Shortcuts, these small routines can be saved so they are always available.

Android already lets you create linked shortcuts in lots of different ways, but a simple app that would fire up Google Assistant and get an answer to something we need to ask regularly or a solution to any common task is a great idea. Even Bixby has “Quick Commands” that are a very similar idea. Simple is good. We need simple as much as we need powerful and complicated (maybe even more).

Android has Google Assistant Routines, which are similar to Siri Shortcuts. And using pre-built routines is dead simple. Creating custom routines is not. Google Assistant is super powerful and can do so much more than Siri, it’s time for Google to leverage that in a way anyone can use.

A dedicated place for Do Not Disturb

Adding some features like keeping notifications out of the status bar to the Do Not Disturb feature is great. Adding an icon in the action center so you can get to those settings in iOS 12 is one of those little things that can mean a lot.

Did you know your Android phone can probably do the exact same sort of thing with Do Not Disturb (keep notifications out of your status bar, have a quick shortcut for an hour or a day) that iOS 12 can? If you didn’t, it’s because Google has the whole DND system hidden and it’s difficult to understand how it works. On iOS 12, you’ll see it right in the action center and it’s easy to use.

Make it easy, even if that means adding an icon to the app drawer for it. Not everyone has a family member or friend to show them how Android works and what their phone can do.

Activity reports for managed accounts

Seeing part of Apple’s Digital Wellbeing efforts include an easy way to check what your kids are doing on their phones is perfect!

A lot of debate surrounds how children use a smartphone. No matter which side of it you’re on you have to admit seeing a detailed report of how your child is using their phone displayed right on your phone is a great idea.

Kids are impressionable and will absorb what they see to shape themselves. They often needs some guidance or supervision. When it’s easy to manage what your kids are doing on their phone, there’s no excuse to not do it.

Memoji

Take your face, turn it into an Animoji, then use it in FaceTime so your little head can talk along with you. This is the future and it is now.

Come on, we all want a Bitmoji mode built in to our phones. A little cartoon Jerry belongs on every message I send to Daniel. I’ll not say anything about tongue detection because, well, because.

Performance improvements for older phones

Apple is not only supporting a huge number of older iPhones with iOS 12, they are working to make those phones all run better, too.

Everyone wants updates, but often they can leave your phone sluggish and just worse than it was before you updated. New ideas come to software developers and it’s normal that older phones don’t have the specs to handle it very well.

Apple said it has plans to address performance on older models, which is pretty great. They described some kernel scheduler changes they are making to offset the extra software load on older silicon, and since they are heavily involved in the actual hardware design for those older chips, they can do even more.

When all is said and done, none of these other cool features matter when your phone runs poorly and you don’t even want to try them. Older iPhones needed this sort of attention, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to see Google and Android phone manufacturers doing the same.

What about FaceTime and encrypted messaging? With group messaging!

Apple added group calling to FaceTime, which is something iPhone users have wanted for a while. They also reminded us how FaceTime chats are encrypted from end to end so only the person who is supposed to read it can read what you send.

Nope. Keep that one, Apple.

FaceTime is awesome in its current form and looks even nicer with group calling enabled. But it only works if you have an iPhone and that means Apple doesn’t really care about providing a safe way to communicate — they only want to sell more iPhones. That’s cool and I don’t begrudge them doing it, just stop trying to paint it as some Good Samaritan effort, Apple.

Google needs to help get end to end end encryption adopted into the RCS standard instead so everyone can benefit no matter which phone they use.

You should be able to use whatever phone you want without having to worry about what anyone else thinks. And that phone should be able to do all the cool stuff you want it to do. That’s why we saw Apple take ideas from Google. Siri Shortcuts are very similar to Google’s Assistant Routines (albeit easier for users to create custom shrotcuts), the company’s Digital Wellbeing efforts mimic what we saw Google present to us at Google I/O 2018 in May, and those new features coming to Apple Photos are a carbon copy of what Google is doing with Google Photos.

We won’t even dig into bundled notifications other than to say it’s great that iPhone users can have them now.

We want iPhone users to love their phone. And we want Android users to have access to all the awesome things smart developers can dream of — even if it does “copy” someone else. And we really want to see these things come in the next version of Android.

WWDC 2018: Everything you need to know!

Android P

• Android P: Everything you need to know
• Android P Beta hands-on: The best and worst features
• All the big Android announcements from Google I/O 2018
• Will my phone get Android P?
• How to manually update your Pixel to Android P
• Join the Discussion

Google Lens now has a standalone app you can download

Available in the Play Store right now.

Google Lens is still far from perfect, but new features are steadily making it a tool that’s worth using with each passing day. To ensure everyone can access Lens in the blink of an eye, Google’s added a standalone app that you can download from the Play Store now.

Aptly named “Google Lens”, the app simply brings up the Lens viewfinder that you’d normally see when opening it via the Google Assistant.

Everything seems to work exactly the same as it does when accessing Lens any other way, including new features like Smart Text Selection and Style Match that were just added last week.

Google Lens is already pretty easy to access in its current form with the Assistant pop-up, and it’ll be even more readily available as it starts to make its way to the default camera app of select Android phones. In any case, if you’re a frequent Lens user and want to make sure you can open it ASAP, it may be worth giving this a spot on your home screen.

Download: Google Lens (free)

Apple Reveals ‘Memoji’ Personalized Animated Emojis Coming in iOS 12

Apple today revealed at its WWDC keynote that Memoji personalized animated emojis are being introduced with iOS 12.

Mimojis work similar to bitmojis – personal emojis that act as expressive cartoon avatars.

Apple offered a quick demo of the Memoji on stage, showing how the faces can be customized to look just like the user.

Tools were shown that allow for multiple changes to face shape, eye shape, nose shape, lips, and so on. Spectacles can be added to faces, as can accessories like caps, rings, and even accompanying pets.

More to follow…

Related Roundup: iOS 12Tags: Animoji, Memoji
Discuss this article in our forums