Sean Parker’s post-wedding punishment includes making a beach-finding app
A few things happened after Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker got married in a gorgeous redwood forest in Big Sur, California. The California Coastal Commission took him to task for creating a bizarre fantasy realm without the proper permits. Journalists gleefully jumped into the fray. He wrote a nearly 10,000 word defense of his wedding that also served as a meandering takedown of “internet journalism”. As it turns out, Parker’s penance wasn’t just limited to a $2.5 million charity payout — SFGate reports he’s working on a beach-locating app for the very agency that he ignored when creating his dream wedding.
In case you don’t live on the West Coast, all of California’s beaches are public beaches. Theoretically they shouldn’t be that hard to get to, right? Well, there’s plenty of real estate (some of it belonging to profoundly rich old men who try sometimes block beach roads) dotting the landscape, making it tricky for visitors to find the ocean without stumbling into private property first. Parker’s app is meant to help visitors navigate their way to the water, and it looks like his crew’s got plenty of time to finish it up. According to a document made available the commission, the app will be iOS-only — Google fans like the beach, too, California — and should be available no later than mid-2015.
Via: The Verge
Source: SFGate
PhotoMath uses your phone’s camera to solve equations
Need a little help getting through your next big math exam? MicroBlink has an app that could help you study more effectively — perhaps too effectively. Its newly unveiled PhotoMath for iOS and Windows Phone (Android is due in early 2015) uses your smartphone’s camera to scan math equations and not only solve them, but show the steps involved. Officially, it’s meant to save you time flipping through a textbook to check answers when you’re doing homework or cramming for a test. However, there’s a concern that this could trivialize learning — just because it shows you how to solve a problem doesn’t mean that the knowledge will actually sink in. And if teachers don’t confiscate smartphones at the door, unscrupulous students could cheat when no one is looking. The chances of that happening aren’t very high at this stage, but apps like this suggest that schools might have to be vigilant in the future.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Via: Quartz, TechCrunch
Source: PhotoMath
Google’s redesigned Play Music app offers stations that suit your mood
You know how there were hints that Google Play Music was about to get a Material Design makeover? As it turns out, that’s just a small piece of what’s in store. Google has updated its Play Music Android, iOS and web apps with a new Listen Now page that focuses on context-aware music stations from the company’s recent acquisition, Songza. Provided you’re an All Access subscriber, you’ll get to stream curated playlists that fit the time of day and your likely activities — you may get relaxing playlists to take the edge off your commute home, or uptempo tracks for morning exercise. The page also improves discovery with cards that suggest both new releases and stations based on what you like. Google’s redesign should be available today in all 45 Play Music countries, so have at it if you’re an avid listener.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile, Google
Source: Official Android Blog, Google Play, App Store
Google 5.0 for Android will also support Exchange and absorbing stock Email app functions
Yesterday, we got our first taste of Google 5.0 for Android, featuring the expected Material Design visual makeover and most surprisingly, the knowledge that Google intends to make the new Gmail capable as serving as the inbox for Yahoo and Outlook emails too. As it turns out, it’s much more than even that. According today’s information courtesy of Android Police, the new Gmail won’t stop at just allowing you to manage Yahoo and Outlook accounts, but also Exchange accounts and essentially absorbs all functions of the stock Email app.
This doesn’t come particularly as a surprise given that Google has made a habit of combining apps with common purposes, a la Hangouts. This latest change puts Gmail in a realm with all the other email curating apps, though we’ll have to wait for the official app to drop before we can see exactly how good this turns out to be.
What do you think about Google combining the stock Email app functions into the new Gmail 5.0 app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Android Police
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The post Google 5.0 for Android will also support Exchange and absorbing stock Email app functions appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Skype for Windows Phone lets you share drawings with friends
Ever wanted to convey more in a Skype chat than simple text and photos can manage, such as directions to your home? If you’re using Windows Phone, you now have a better way to express yourself. Microsoft has posted a new version of Skype for Windows Phone that, much like Google Hangouts, lets you send simple drawings to friends. You can start with a blank canvas if you’re an artistic type, but you can also doodle on photos and annotate Bing maps. There are a few meaningful under-the-hood upgrades, too, including HD display support and the option to sign in with your phone’s Microsoft account. The Skype team hasn’t said when its Android and iOS apps will get sketching, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them receive matching updates in the near future.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Microsoft
Via: The Verge
Source: Windows Phone Store, Skype Garage
Flickr chooses a great time to launch its iPad app
Apple has chosen to focus on the iPad’s camera abilities with the upcoming Air 2 (we wish they wouldn’t) and apparently, finally snagged Flickr’s attention. Yahoo’s photo sharing service somehow managed to beat Instagram to the punch so perhaps the introduction of its first iPad-ready app (four years after Apple’s slate arrived) isn’t that late. So what’s in the (now universal) Flickr iOS app? iPad-optimized layouts for members to browse pictures whether their own or others that “cascade in a lovely waterfall format.” If you must take a picture with your tablet, the app can record photos or videos with live filters and a full suite of editing tools. It requires iOS 8 to work, and some of the upgrades that stretch across devices include support for the new sharing extensions, photo detail editing and a new unified search. The update is live in the app store now, and of course there’s no time like 3AM ET on a Saturday to give it a try.
We’ve heard you loud and clear! Flickr for #iPad is here: http://t.co/E3ZnrfDrXq
– Flickr (@Flickr) October 18, 2014
Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Apple
Source: iTunes, Flickr Blog
Tumblr’s new desktop app is all Tumblr, all the time
Sometimes you just want to craft your Tumblr posts and browse the latest updates without being distracted by the rest of the internet. For those occasions, the blogging outfit released a desktop app for Mac that does two things and two things only. First, as we’ve already mentioned, it only shows you Tumblr content and nothing else. It’ll also let you post from anywhere on your Mac — so long as that place has the trusty OS X Share button available. If you haven’t yet updated to Yosemite, you’ll need to do so as the new app only works with Apple’s latest version. Of course, you could just visit the website via your browser of choice, unless you’re posting eleventy billion times a day.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Mac App Store
‘Whisper’ app accused of not hiding whistleblowers
Whisper lets you share secrets without the fear of it getting traced back to you. At least that’s the pitch. Now, according to a Guardian report, the service is tracking the location of users that didn’t want to be tracked. The report, which deep dives on several issues regarding user privacy and security, adds that Whisper is apparently also sharing info with the US Department of Defense and is retaining posts and user data in a searchable database. Responding to the claims, Editor-in-chief Neetzan Zimmerman says that Whisper “neither receive(s) nor store(s) geographical coordinates” from users who opt out of geolocation services. “User IP addresses may allow (a) very coarse location to be determined to the city, state, or country level.”
The Guardian says that four days after learning about the report, Whisper changed its terms of service, allowing the company to establish the broad location of people who have disabled the app’s location feature. According to Zimmerman: “Even for users who opt into geolocation services, the location information that we do store is obscured to within 500 meters of their smartphone device’s actual location.” However, to that end, Whisper also has its own in-house mapping tool that allows staff to filter through location data, pinpointing users to that aforementioned 500-meter area. Given the temporary, anonymous selling point of the app, users might have thought that anything they post would soon disappear into the ether… but the report suggests that “data, which stretches back to the app’s launch in 2012, is being stored indefinitely.” Zimmerman’s response: “Whisper may retain posted content for a brief period of time as stated in our terms of service, however, the internal database contains no personally identifiable information and is secure/access-audited, and not publicly accessible” — which doesn’t quite address what some users are probably taking issue with. You can find The Guardian’s report here, and Whisper’s rebuttal to some of the points is right over here.
Filed under: Internet
Source: The Guardian, Whisper
Reddit snaps up Alien Blue, makes it the official iOS app
Despite being one of the biggest websites today, Reddit didn’t have an official app and used to rely on the many, many third-party options for its mobile users. We say “didn’t” and “used to,” because that’s not the case anymore: the startup has just snapped up Alien Blue, its most popular app for iPhones and iPads. The company has been working closely with its sole developer, Jase Morrissey, for years, but they only just made things official after this latest funding round. Reddit’s head of partnership and strategic development Ellan Pao said in an interview:
We want to be able to have new features from Reddit.com show up on mobile faster and better. With Alien Blue and Jase, it was getting to a point where it was too much work for one person. He was helping us, we were helping him and the fit was really strong.
Want to see how the official version looks? You’ll need to redownload the app even if you’ve been using Alien Blue for a long time — it’s already out on iTunes alongside the official AMA app, but it might take a while before it shows up for you (we’ve had to open the direct link to get it). You can import your old settings by following Reddit’s instructions, though, and you can upgrade to Pro status for free for one week. Also, the iPhone and the iPad apps are two separate versions at the moment, but Reddit plans to eventually merge them to create one universal software. While Alien Blue’s exclusive to iOS users, that doesn’t mean Reddit’s ignoring folks on Android: the company’s currently hiring an Android engineer in San Francisco to develop an app for the platform.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Reddit Blog, The New York Times, iTunes
App turns a smartphone into a speech translator for the deaf
Even deaf people who excel at lip reading need a bit of help when it comes to meetings or group conversations. The developers of a new app called Transcense claim it’s the hearing impaired’s answer to understanding hard-to-follow chit-chats where everybody’s talking almost all at once. How? Well, Transcense can translate speech into written words and transcribe it on screen in near real time. To make that possible, the app connects to several phones and activates their mics to capture what everyone’s saying, then it uses voice recognition to assign each person in the group a color for their speech bubbles. Also, the user can ask the program to speak for him using a digital voice or get everyone’s attention through the app when he wants to say something.
The software’s currently in private beta for Android devices, but its developers (including one who’s deaf and another born into a deaf family) have launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise 25 grand for its continued development. They hope to use to use the money to create an iOS and a web version, in order for more people (both the deaf and their friends/co-workers) to be able to use it. If the crowdfunding campaign succeeds and the program becomes available, it’ll cost $360 per year unless you pledge $150 for a year-long membership on Indiegogo now.
Transcense joins other ongoing projects and products already out on the market meant to help make communication easier for the hearing impaired. These include MotionSavvy, a gesture control-enabled tablet that can translate sign language, and SpeechTranslate, an app similar to Transcense meant for Windows mobile devices.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Transcence
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