The Nokia 9 could be announced on August 21

Nokia’s hyping this up as its “most awaited phone.”

Thanks to devices like the Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 6.1, the Nokia brand has been dominating the mid-range smartphone market so far in 2018. In just a few short days, Nokia’s expected to take its sights off budget handsets for a second and talk about its newest flagship device.

On the official Nokia Mobile Twitter account, the company shared the following:

We are thrilled to bring you the Nokia smartphones event for one of the most awaited phones on Tuesday 21st August. Stay tuned for more! #Nokiamobile #BringItOn pic.twitter.com/LXgnzguDvm

— Nokia Mobile (@Nokiamobile) August 16, 2018

The teaser image doesn’t reveal much at all about the phone in question, and while Nokia simply states that this mystery device is its “most awaited phone”, our money is on this being the long-awaited Nokia 9.

Nokia’s last Android flagship, the Nokia 8 Sirocco, was a stunning piece of hardware that felt instantly outdated thanks to its 16:9 display and Snapdragon 835 processor.

It’s unclear what sort of design and specs we’ll see with the Nokia 9, but thankfully we won’t have to wait too much longer to learn all about the phone. Stay tuned!

Nokia 7 Plus review: Come for the value, stay for the excitement

Transit App Expands Real-Time Crowdsourced Data to 175 Cities

The developers of the Transit app this week announced the expansion of real-time crowdsourced data for buses, trains, streetcars, ferries, and so forth to 175 cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Normally, the locations of public transportation vehicles are pulled from a transit agency’s data feed, which can take anywhere from 10 seconds to five minutes to update. This can result in the app showing a bus approaching a certain stop, for example, when in reality it has already passed by—without you on it.

To solve this problem, the Transit app has turned to crowdsourced data from opted-in users of GO, its step-by-step navigation feature.

GO itself isn’t new. The feature automatically tracks your transit vehicle, walking speed, and location in real time, notifying you exactly when to leave to catch your ride, and when to disembark. The feature can also reroute you and provide adjusted ETAs when unforeseen changes or delays arise.

Now, when users enable GO, they will also be helping others. Once a rider opts into GO on a bus or train, for example, the Transit app will start broadcasting the vehicle’s real-time location, second-by-second, to riders down the line. In general, this greatly improves the location of a vehicle versus agency data.

This means you can watch your vehicle approach—in actual, second-by-second real-time—on the map, whenever someone on that vehicle is using GO.

The team behind Transit has been testing real-time crowdsourced data for nearly two years. Over that time, they’ve generated data for “millions of trips,” starting in the Canadian cities of Montréal and Victoria. Other test regions have included New York City and Los Angeles. The tests are said to have “went well.”

For those with privacy concerns, the Transit team ensures that your location is completely anonymous. Data is only shared with its servers while GO is active and you are actually on board the vehicle. As soon as you disembark, GO shuts off, and your vehicle’s location stops being sent, according to the app’s FAQ.

It’s unclear if there’s a way to continue using the GO navigation helper without opting in to the real-time crowdsourced data sharing aspect, so if you do not wish to participate, it may be best to keep the feature disabled entirely.

Transit also notes that the location sharing feature relies on extended GPS use, which can use up to five percent of battery life on a 20-minute ride, assuming the rider is actively using the device during the trip. In terms of data, though, Transit says GO uses only about 100 kilobytes on a 20-minute trip.

Despite this, the Transit team is hoping that many riders will opt into the feature. They’ve even added some gamification features to the app as an incentive. GO users will now see a smile face in the top-left corner of the map, for example, indicating how many nearby riders they are helping out.

The app also shows GO users how many nearby riders they’ve helped on a monthly basis, and provides a “helpfulness” rank compared to other GO users. Transit is hoping that a little bit of competition will motivative riders to participate.

Transit bills itself as a real-time urban travel companion. The app is especially popular in Canada, making navigation via public transit easier with real-time data, trip planning and comparisons, step-by-step navigation, service disruption notifications, departure and stop reminders, and much more.

Transit works with not only buses, commuter trains, and subways, but streetcars, ferries, ride-sharing, bike-sharing, scooter-sharing, and more. The app is free to download on the App Store for iPhone and Google Play for Android.

Tags: Transit App, transit
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Google claims censored search in China is ‘not close’ as employees protest

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

Google CEO Sundar Pinchai has attempted to tamp out the fires of dissent in his company after employees scheduled a protest against an alleged project that would see Google develop a censored search engine for use in the Chinese market. Pinchai claimed that such a project was “not close to launching,” in China, but that Google was looking into how it could operate more in the country than it does at this time.

The relationship between Google and China over the years has been a rocky one. Google once enjoyed a more than 36 percent share of the Chinese search market, but due to a combination of China’s Great Firewall and Google’s decision to pull some of its services in response to alleged hacks by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, today it has just over one percent. Many of Google’s key services aren’t available in China, either.

More recently though, reports appeared to suggest that Google was working on a new, censored search engine for use in China. More than 1,000 Google employees protested this news, stating that they did not want their work to be used in support of state censorship. Pinchai responded by speaking at a weekly meeting at Google’s California headquarters, where he said that Google was “not close to launching a search product in China,” as per CNet.

That sort of language may not go far enough though, as it doesn’t do anything to quiet fears that such a project is in the works, but only states that it won’t be launching anytime soon. If Pinchai doesn’t want to see employees leave or protest again, he may need to offer them more than such an empty suggestion. As was evidenced when Google employees protested the company’s involvement with Project Maven, a project which helped the U.S. Government use A.I. to improve the accuracy of drone strikes, Google’s workforce can be steadfast in their demonstrations.

If Google does end up re-entering the Chinese search market, it will find stiff competition. Baidu currently occupies almost two-thirds of the market, with other Chinese-developed engines like Sogou and Qihoo 360 picking up much of the rest. More common western search engines like Bing and Yahoo also have a piece of the pie, but their shares are far smaller than what they enjoy in the U.S. and other territories.

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Adobe Spark Page makes web design easy — here’s how to use it

There are plenty of easy web design tools out there, but when Adobe decided to jump in the mix with Spark Page, it added artificial intelligence, a mobile app, and integration with programs like Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Stock. The result is an easy-to-use web designer with scroll effects that looks good on both smartphone and desktop platforms. Spark Page is one of a trio of Spark apps that also includes Spark Post and Spark Video.

Web pages made with Spark Page are hosted by Adobe, which means you don’t have to buy a domain to create yours (that’s also the downside: You can’t create a specific URL for the page). The simplicity and built-in hosting makes Spark Page an ideal tool for simple tasks like creating an online travel journal, an easy-to-share photo album, or a webpage for an event. We created a travel journal using Spark Page after Adobe walked us through the software during an event in the Virgin Islands — you can see our Page here.

While getting started with Spark Page is simple, there are a few features you may miss out on if you jump in head first. Here’s what you need to know.

1. Download the app or head to the website

Spark Page is available as both an iOS app and a web app located at spark.adobe.com. That means you can create a web page from your iPhone or from your desktop machine via a web browser (an Android version is in the works but not yet available at the time of writing). The online format and artificial intelligence can make the program slow, particularly if you live in an area with a slower internet connection, but the simplicity often makes up for the speed.

Once inside, start a new project by clicking the plus button or by choosing a template. In the browser version, which is combined with the other Spark apps, make sure you choose a template that’s for a Page, or choose the “create a web page” option to start a page without a template.

All projects are saved to the cloud, so you can start a page in the mobile app and finish it in a web browser or vice versa.

2. Start with the template or a blank page

Spark Page will automatically get you started with a few items, even if you picked a blank page instead of a template. Start by editing what’s there — it’s as simple as clicking the existing text or image boxes and adding your own images and text. Pop-up menus will allow you to adjust different elements.

When you’re ready to add something new to the page, just click or tap on the plus icon and choose what you want to add next. Once an item is added, you’ll see a plus icon above and below that item, so it’s still possible to go back up and add something to the middle of the page at any time by using the plus icon in that location.

You don’t have to start over if you decide you don’t like the template that you picked out. On the app, click the magic wand icon at the top to switch to a different theme or click the themes from the menu bar on a desktop computer.

If you don’t want a banner on the website with your name on it, tap the settings option and toggle the option to turn off the header and footer.

3. Add your content

Adding content to the page is simple using the plus icon. Here’s a quick run down of the different options:

• Photo: Use this for a single photo of any size and shape, but not for a group of images.
• Text: All text boxes are added here, with the exception of image captions.
• Button: Add a link with a graphic.
• Video: Currently, videos can only be added through links, such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Spark Video links.
• Photo grid: This adds a static grouping of photos, good for albums.
• Slideshow: Don’t think of old school Powerpoints — the slideshow is the best way to display lots of large images in Spark Page. Slideshows use a scrolling fade out effect and you can add other photos or text on top of the images, or leave them blank. Click the plus to add something new to that slide.

4. Edit

Clicking on each item brings up a toolbar with any available editing options. You can also drag and drop most items to rearrange them, including altering the placement of text over an image or changing the order of a photo grid.

For images, you can use the toolbar to swap images, or to change from a standard image to stretch it as wide as the page. Don’t ignore that focal point tool in the pop-up menu — that allows you to choose what part of the image is the most important. Then, if the viewer’s screen is vertically oriented, like on a smartphone, that section of the image will still be visible. The focal point tool helps you choose how an image looks when the viewer’s screen is the opposite orientation.

For text, use the H1 and H2 buttons to create headlines instead of small body text and the quote icon to create a pull quote. Just tap the icon again to revert back to body text. To the right, you’ll find the options to adjust the alignment or to add a link. Fonts are part of the theme, so if you don’t like a particular font, choose a new theme. Brand accounts with paid Spark subscriptions or Creative Cloud plans can use custom brand themes, as well.

Don’t sweat over anything showing up blank that you don’t want it in the page. If you leave items like captions and the boxes over a slideshow photo blank, they won’t show up in the final webpage.

5. Finish and share

Adobe

Once you are finished adding and editing, hit the preview button to see what the final website looks like or the share button to get a custom link to share. From here, you can also choose to embed the Spark Page into another webpage or share the page on social media.

Spark Page is designed to create websites without a lot of hassle and from any device. The platform is easy to use and easy to publish, though the AI and web-based software may make it slightly slow, particularly for uploading high-resolution images. The platform also has fewer customization options, like fonts and a unique URLs, but those are sacrificed for the sake of speed and simplicity.

Spark Page is free to use, but you will have some Spark branding on the final webpage if you use the free version. Creative Cloud subscribers can create web pages with their own branding. Spark by itself is $10 a month, but subscribing to the Photography Plan is the same price and includes Lightroom and Photoshop — we recommend going with that.

Need your own .com and something with more customization? Try our beginner’s guide to making a website.

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Best Buy drops the price of MacBooks for its anniversary sale

With brands like HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung all vying for your attention, finding the right laptop can be a real struggle. Whether you’re looking for something with a little processing power or an impressive graphics card, you’ll need to carefully consider all of the options before making your purchase.  If you have your heart set on a MacBook, however, the decision becomes a lot more simple. Sure, you have to decide between the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and the classic MacBook, but once you do that, all you have to do is wait for an awesome sale to avoid paying full price. That’s where the Best Buy anniversary sale comes into play. From now until Saturday, August 18, you can save up to $600 on select MacBooks.

It’s not every day you see a MacBook sale like this, so you’ll definitely want to consider these savings — especially if you’re a student. A $600 discount is great, but a $750 discount is even better, right? If you are an active student, you can save an additional $150 just by signing up for Best Buy student deals. This offer excludes any open-box items, but if you’re looking for an Apple laptop fresh out of the box, this is a really great deal. The only question is, which MacBook should you buy?

Choosing between the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and classic 12-inch MacBook is fairly easy if you know what you’ll be using it for. The MacBook Pro is great for anyone looking to do design work, whereas the MacBook and MacBook Air will work just fine for everyday use. Once you’ve decided which model you want, you’ll notice there are multiple price points for each. If you want a MacBook with more storage space and a more powerful processor, the cost is going to go up considerably. If you aren’t planning on running any intense programs or storing any large video files in your hard drive, you likely don’t need to pay the extra cost.

You’ll find Best Buy deals on more than just MacBooks, so if you’ve got a hankering for savings on iPads, Apple Watches, and 4K TVs, you should definitely check it out. Though we won’t blame you if the only thing you want from this sale is a deeply discounted MacBook.

Go to Sale

Looking for more great stuff? Find MacBook deals and more on our curated deals page, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for regular updates.

We strive to help our readers find the best deals on quality products and services, and choose what we cover carefully and independently. If you find a better price for a product listed here, or want to suggest one of your own, email us at dealsteam@digitaltrends.com.Digital Trends may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.

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Beats 1’s Zane Lowe Says Streaming Music Goes Beyond Apple: ‘There is No League With One Team’

In a new interview today with The Los Angeles Times, Beats 1 host Zane Lowe discussed a few topics related to Apple Music’s daily streaming radio show, including the company’s rivals. Without directly referencing Spotify, Lowe explained the need for competition among streaming music platforms.

“This is a controversial statement: I don’t ever want us to be the only streaming service on the block,” Lowe says. “There is no league with one team. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. But you’re still in the game. Not to sound too holistic but I’m glad I’m in the game.”

Still, when Spotify was brought up during the interview — comparing Apple Music’s 40 million paid subscribers to Spotify’s 83 million paid subscribers — Lowe said he doesn’t look to Spotify when thinking about Beats 1. “We’re the only voice in streaming,” he mentioned, referring to the streaming radio show. “That’s not cockiness. It’s fact.”

Beats 1 is a 24/7 streaming radio channel comprised of a collection of radio shows hosted by different DJs throughout the day, including Julie Adenuga, Ebro Darden, and Lowe. Guest and celebrity hosts also include Elton John, Charli XCX, Pharrell, and St. Vincent. Shows range from artist interviews, listing current popular tracks on Apple Music, and more.

In response to Beats 1’s success on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube are now believed to be looking into beefing up their radio-style programming as well.

Other services, however, are starting to mirror the Beats 1 mode of radio-style programming. In June, Spotify announced the hiring of Dawn Ostroff as its new chief content officer. Formerly of Conde Nast Entertainment and the CW network, she’ll oversee production of shows, radio stations, podcasts and episodic programming. YouTube Music’s Lyor Cohen has also indicated a desire to move into Beats 1-style programming.

Despite the apparent influence of Beats 1 in the market, The Los Angeles Times questioned Lowe directly regarding specific listener counts for the service’s shows. Lowe dodged answering and stated that Beats 1 streams in “more than 100 countries,” and doubled down on the service’s ability to sell listeners new artists and ultimately convert them into paid Apple Music subscribers (anyone can listen to Beats 1 in the Apple Music app, but paid Apple Music subscribers get access to on-demand stations and shows).

Last year, head of content Larry Jackson said, “Beats 1 is the biggest radio station in the world.” Is it? Lowe sidesteps because to him the question is premature. He recalls advice given to him by Jimmy Iovine[…]

“Jimmy said to me at the beginning: be the thing that moves the needle.” For Lowe, that meant getting cozy with artists. Before when Lowe encouraged fans to buy artists’ records, whether or not they did wouldn’t affect his livelihood. “This directly affects my business. By that very nature we are in business together.”

In regards to Jimmy Iovine, the former Apple Music head this month transitioned to a “consulting role” for the company’s streaming music service. According to people familiar with the matter, this means that Iovine has stepped back from daily involvement with Apple Music so that he can spend more time with his family, while also support Apple Music and Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue “as needed.” The transition from Beats’ “edgy culture” to Apple’s focus on “appealing to the masses” reportedly proved to be a challenge for Iovine.

Beats 1 launched alongside Apple Music on June 30, 2015, kicking off with a day full of tracks that preceded an interview Lowe hosted with Eminem, the debut of St. Vincent’s “Mixtape Delivery Service”, and more. A few months after launch, Beats 1 eventually began saving replays of recent shows so subscribers could revisit an episode they missed at any time.

During the two-year anniversary of Beats 1 in 2017, Lowe said that he’s “never been more excited about where Beats 1 is at this moment, and this is just the beginning.”

Tags: Zane Lowe, Apple Music, Beats 1
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Google Planning to Launch Echo Show-Like Smart Speaker With Touch Screen Later This Year

Google entered the smart speaker market in 2016 with the introduction of Google Home, allowing users to speak to Google Assistant and control various smart home products, listen to music, get the news, and more. Eventually, Google added the Home Mini and Home Max to the lineup, introducing products that were direct competitors to the Amazon Echo Dot and Apple HomePod, respectively.

Looking forward, the next Google Home will be a smart speaker equipped with a touch display that should arrive in time for the holiday shopping season, according to sources speaking to Nikkei Asian Review. This means that the new device “is likely to be similar to the Amazon Echo Show,” which includes a display so users can do things like watch videos, view photos, and hold video calls.

The Lenovo Smart Display with Google Assistant (left) and Amazon Echo Show (right)
Google’s plan for the upcoming device is described as “aggressive”:

“Google targets to ship some 3 million units for the first batch of the new model of smart speaker that comes with a screen,” an industry source said. “It’s an aggressive plan.”

Earlier in 2018, Google announced a new “Smart Display” platform with partners like Lenovo, JBL, and Sony. Through these partnerships, the Google Assistant can be placed in devices not directly built by Google, like the Lenovo Smart Display and upcoming JBL Link View and ThinQ View. The new product described in today’s report would represent Google’s own first-party entry into this market.

Google and Amazon butted heads following the launch of the Echo Show last year, when Google removed YouTube from any Amazon Echo device with a screen. Google said that Amazon was violating its terms of service, but in December 2017 a YouTube spokesperson explained that the removal was due to Amazon not carrying certain Google products. This grants the upcoming speaker-equipped Google Home a potential edge in the market as Nikkei points out that playing and browsing YouTube will likely be a major selling point.

For Apple, the company is sticking to smart speakers without full displays. Although the HomePod does include a small screen that provides a visual indicator for Siri and volume buttons, no information regarding the currently playing song or album selection is available. Currently, the main rumor for the next iteration of HomePod is that Apple is working on a low-cost version of the speaker.

Google typically holds a hardware event in October, so we should hear more about the upcoming Google Home speaker with a touch screen — if it exists — around that time.

Tags: Google, Google Assistant, Google Home
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Apple Says No Personal Data Was Compromised in Australian Teenager Hacking Incident

In a statement, Apple has confirmed that no personal data was compromised by a 16-year-old student from Melbourne, Australia who admitted to hacking into Apple’s internal servers on multiple occasions over one year.

The Guardian:

At Apple, we vigilantly protect our networks and have dedicated teams of information security professionals that work to detect and respond to threats.

In this case, our teams discovered the unauthorized access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement. We regard the data security of our users as one of our greatest responsibilities and want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised.

Australian publication The Age reported that the teen downloaded some 90GB of confidential files, and accessed customer accounts, storing information in a folder on his computer named “hacky hack hack.” It’s unclear exactly what he downloaded during the series of network intrusions.

The student, who cannot be publicly named due to his age and notoriety in the hacking community, reportedly pleaded guilty to his actions in an Australian Children’s Court this week, with sentencing deferred until next month. His lawyer later told police that the teen “dreamed of” working for Apple.

The teen reportedly had a method of accessing Apple’s servers that “worked flawlessly” on multiple occasions—until he was caught.

The international investigation began when Apple detected the unauthorized access, contained it, and alerted the FBI. The allegations were passed on to the Australian Federal Police, which executed a search warrant on the teen’s home last year, and found the software that had enabled the hacking on his laptop.

Tag: Apple security
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Prince’s Estate Launches 23 of His Albums and New Anthology on Apple Music and Other Streaming Services

Sony Legacy announced over the summer that it had obtained the rights to release the “bulk” of Prince’s back catalog, namely the albums he debuted after he left Warner Bros. in the mid-nineties. Today, The Prince Estate digitally released 23 total Prince albums that first launched between 1995 and 2010 onto “all major streaming services,” including Apple Music and Spotify.

As Variety points out, today’s launch marks the first time that many of these albums will be available for listeners to stream and download. Along with the individual albums, The Prince Estate released a new album called “Anthology: 1995-2010,” which curates a collection of 37 songs from this period in Prince’s career.

The 23 Prince albums now available on Apple Music include:

• The Gold Experience (1995) (“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” greyed out, partial album streaming only; album unavailable for download)
• Chaos and Disorder (1996)
• Emancipation (1996)
• Crystal Ball (1998)
• The Truth (1998)
• Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (1999)
• Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic (2001)
• The Rainbow Children (2001)
• One Nite Alone… (2002)
• One Nite Alone…Live! (2002)
• One Nite Alone…Live – The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over (Up Late with Prince & The NPG) (2002)
• Xpectation (2003)
• N.E.W.S. (2003)
• C-Note (2004)
• Musicology (2004)
• The Chocolate Invasion (Trax from the NPG Music Club: Volume 1) (2004)
• The Slaughterhouse (Trax from the NPG Music Club: Volume 2) (2004)
• 3121 (2006)
• Planet Earth (2007)
• Indigo Nights (2008)
• LOtUSFLOW3R (2009)
• MPLSoUND (2009)
• 20Ten (2010)

To find the albums and anthology, visit the Browse tab on Apple Music and swipe through the carousel until Prince’s “Featured Artist” spotlight card appears. In this section, subscribers can also pre-add the upcoming Prince album “Piano & a Microphone 1983,” which will be a compilation of previously unreleased home recordings for tracks like “Purple Rain,” “17 Days,” and “International Lover.” The album launches September 21.

Before today, many of Prince’s classic albums were already available to stream on Apple Music, so now that his later work is on streaming services, fans have the chance to listen to most of the albums from the late singer’s lifelong career.

There are still numerous Prince albums missing from streaming services, but a deal struck between Sony Legacy and The Prince Estate should see these missing albums appear to stream in the future. Unfortunately, it won’t be until 2021 at the earliest, at which time Sony Legacy’s distribution rights will expand to include 12 of Prince’s non-soundtrack albums from 1978-1996.

Prince passed away in April 2016, and prior to that time he had pulled all of his music from every streaming service except Tidal in the summer of 2015.

Tag: Apple Music
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Watch as a ‘lifeguard drone’ rescues a swimmer struggling at sea

An increasing number of lifeguard organizations around the world are turning to drone technology to help speed up rescue efforts for when swimmers get into difficulties.

Australia, Germany, and Iran are three such countries that have rescue drones ready to take to the skies in an emergency. And it’s not just their speed in carrying flotation devices to struggling swimmers that makes them so useful. Their onboard cameras also enable the drone pilot to survey the scene and relay important information to lifeguards who are on their way to help.

The latest demonstration of just how effective drones can be for ocean rescues came this week in the sea off Sagunto, about 15 miles north of Valencia, Spain.

When a lifeguard spotted bathers caught in an undertow about 70 meters from the shore, the Auxdron Lifeguard Drone was quickly deployed to help out, sUASnews reported.

Initially receiving guidance from a lifeguard in an observation tower, drone pilot Diego Torres flew the quadcopter toward the distressed swimmers.

“I had a general location but with the help of the lifeguard giving me instructions and the video feed from the drone, we were on top of them within the minute,” Torres told sUASnews.

A quick assessment via the livestream revealed that one woman in the group was having particular difficulties in the water, with the other swimmers trying to support her in the choppy surf. Torres responded by releasing one of the drone’s two life vests, lowering it on a tether to within reach of the swimmers. When it touches the water, the vest disconnects from the tether and automatically inflates before being used to help the woman.

A short while later, lifeguards arrive on a Jet Ski to take the woman back to shore. The drone, which was built by Spanish startup GeneralDrones, stays hovering in the air, relaying information about the condition of the remaining swimmers back to lifeguards as the rescue effort continues.

Speedy rescue

Lifeguards in New South Wales, Australia, are also using drone technology to help in rescue efforts. Its specially designed quadcopter hit the headlines earlier this year when it played a central role in the rescue of two struggling swimmers. The drone reached the pair and dropped a flotation device in just 70 seconds — several minutes before a human lifeguard would have been able to get there.

In 2017, the New South Wales government announced it would invest more than $300,000 in drone-rescue technology as part of a trial for coastal areas in the Australian state.

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