Android lock patterns as predictable as common passwords
Know how a lot of people tend to use passwords such as “123456” or, well, “password?” Well, turns out Android lock patterns (ALPs) are just as predictable. Norwegian University of Science and Technology graduate Marte Løge analyzed 4,000 patterns for her master’s thesis and found that 77 percent of the participants started from one of the four corners, and 44 percent started their patterns from the top left one. Løge presented her findings at the PasswordsCon conference in Las Vegas, where she told Ars Technica that “We’re seeing the same aspects used when creating pattern locks [as are used in] pin codes and alphanumeric passwords.”
She also deduced based on the mock patterns the participants created for her that most people use only four nodes, with eight-node locks being the least popular. Also, around 10 percent of the patterns use nodes that form letters (imagine how to write C or M or N using the pattern lock), which are usually the first initial of a participant’s child or significant other.
Ars notes that researchers need to look deeper into pattern lock use for more definitive results, as ALPs are still new. If you want yours to be secure as possible, though, Løge suggests incorporating crossovers, not starting from a corner, using as many nodes as possible and switching off “make pattern visible” to protect yourself from villainous shoulder surfers. We’d like to add cleaning your screen to that list, because finger smudges give your patterns away, as well.
Filed under:
Misc, Mobile, Google
Via:
Popular Mechanics
Source:
PasswordsCon, Ars Technica
Tags: android, google, lockpattern, mobilepostcross, security
Selfie reveals a 5MP front-facing camera for the upcoming LG Nexus 5 2015
A Google employee has reportedly captured a selfie using the upcoming LG Nexus 5 smartphone. The selfie was uploaded to Google+ earlier today and reveals a 5MP front-facing camera. The post was listed with code name “Bullhead” thus further indicating this is indeed the upcoming LG Nexus handset.
The selfie reveals that the LG Nexus 5 (2015) will have a 5MP snapper 1944 × 2592, and include an aperture of f/2.0 for better low-light photos. The picture is blurred in order to keep the identity of the Google employee hidden. This means that this obviously wasn’t planned to be any sort of teaser for the upcoming handset.
Rumors and recent reports of the handset indicate a late October/early November launch alongside the release of Marshmallow. We can’t wait to see what the two companies have in store for us time come this fall.
Source: TechTastic.nl
Come comment on this article: Selfie reveals a 5MP front-facing camera for the upcoming LG Nexus 5 2015
Latest Android Marshmallow Developer Preview intros new volume animation
There was much discussion around the changes Google introduced in Android Lollipop to the volume system, and more specifically the volume slider, but putting the confusing system aside, the slider animation itself wasn’t a great experience.
It appears that Google has changed the way things work in the latest Android Marshmallow Developer Preview and now when users hit a volume key, the panel slides into view. The expand icon now does just that and has a full transition from up to down with the rest of the slider folding out.
It seems Google is taking their own guidance, finally.
Just as the shape of an object indicates how it might behave, watching an object move demonstrates whether it’s light, heavy, flexible, rigid, small or large. In the world of material design, motion describes spatial relationships, functionality, and intention with beauty and fluidity.
It’s the small things that please us, hey Google.
The post Latest Android Marshmallow Developer Preview intros new volume animation appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Google to announce changes to its productivity apps on September 2nd
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Google has typically had a monopoly on productivity apps on the Android and Chromebook platforms, but with Microsoft strengthening its presence in Google’s territory, it’s clear some changes are needed to get Google’s apps back in the game. To that end, Google has called for an event on September 2nd at Google’s headquarters which aims to announce updates to its productivity apps including Docs, Sheets, Slides and Google Classroom – that last one allows teachers to manage their lessons and content better.
The focus of the improvements will be for students, teachers and professionals in general and invites to the event have been sent out expressing that these updates will be detailed at the event. We’re excited to see what Google is going to bring to the table as education (and productivity) is an area that could really benefit from more integration with Google’s core services.
What do you think about Google taking more interesting in productivity apps? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: PC World via TalkAndroid
The post Google to announce changes to its productivity apps on September 2nd appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Someone accidentally pushes the button on Play Daily button on the Play Store
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Sometimes new features go live before they are intended to which is exactly what happened to the Play Store earlier today. Astute Android users would have noticed today that a mysterious Play Daily button on the Play Store appeared out of the blue and didn’t appear to go anywhere – click on it only seemed to result in a server error. Also curious is that a “Dogfood Apps” button appeared in the Apps section of the Play Store, which predictably led to a number of Google apps that are already available to the public – no, not Google’s internal special version of apps.
While we’re not sure what purpose these new buttons would serve, it appears that it has all been an accident on Google’s side, with Googler Kirill Grouchnikov confirming that it was accidentally put into the production build:
https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js
We’d expect the buttons to disappear soon, if they haven’t already, but it’s almost nice to know that even Google can be human sometimes. What do you think about the Play Daily button on the Play Store? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Android Police
The post Someone accidentally pushes the button on Play Daily button on the Play Store appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Alphabet names its first new company to oversee
The first company formed under Alphabet’s control will focus on life sciences.
Alphabet President Sergey Brin announced on Google+ that the team behind Google’s smart contact lenses is graduating from the Google X lab. The standalone company, which has yet to be officially named, will be led by Andy Conrad. Before becoming the life sciences team’s CEO, Conrad was actually in charge of Google Life Sciences at the Google X lab. So the move for this team will not bring much change. Corporate structure seems to be the only thing experiencing noticeable change.
A Google spokesperson sent Gizmodo the following description of the new team:
The life sciences team at Google is focused on helping to move health care from reactive to proactive. Combining expertise from the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, electrical engineering, computer science, we’re developing new technology tools for physicians that can integrate easily into daily life and help transform the detection, prevention, and management of disease. Current projects in development include a smart contact lens with miniaturized glucose sensor; a nanodiagnostics platform to help with early detection of disease; and Liftware utensils for people with tremors.
The products being worked on by the life sciences team are not yet available to the public; therefore, Alphabet is presumably going to be funneling a lot of resources into their projects. With time, Alphabet hopes to see those projects become consumer-ready and generate new revenue. Brin noted that the goal for this team will be to “transform the way we detect, prevent, and manage disease.”
Source: Sergey Brin (Google+)
Via: Gizmodo
Come comment on this article: Alphabet names its first new company to oversee
Google is now including tweets in desktop search results
Twitter and Google have been playing together more as of late. A few months ago, Google started including recent and relevant tweets alongside search results on your mobile phone. Today, the company announced that those same results are being included on desktop search as well. As on mobile, the integration of Twitter with Google’s desktop search engine will give you different results depending on what you’re looking for. If you search for an individual, you’ll get a scroll of their most recent tweets. But searching for a more general topic (like the “NASA Twitter” example Google uses in its blog) will show both tweets from the official NASA account as well as tweets from others users talking about NASA. Some of our staff have seen this feature rolling out already, but as of today it should be open to all.
Filed under:
Google
Source:
Google
Tags: desktopsearch, google, search, twitter, twittersearch
5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Android Apps Weekly!
Welcome back to Android Apps Weekly! Here are your headlines for this week.
- Heartstone’s next huge expansion, dubbed The Grand Tournament, will be getting released in the next few days on August 24th. This is a huge update that will help freshen things up quite a bit and will include all kinds of new features. Hearthstone players rejoice!
- As promised, Square Enix has released Final Fantasy 7 for mobile. Unfortunately, it’s only available on iOS for right now but if history repeats itself, that means it is coming to Android sometime in the next couple of months and we can’t wait for that!
- Fallout Shelter continues to turn heads as it quickly becomes one of the most popular Android games of the year. Bethesda released an infographic to show the game’s success with some very surprising stats, including over one billion sessions played to date.
- The latest PC and Android Humble Bundle is out now and includes several awesome games, including three that are brand new to Android. You can pick up all six games plus whatever is coming soon as long as you beat the average which is just under $3 right now.
- Earlier this week, Android 6.0 got its official name and with that, the final developer preview. Along with that, Google announced that the Play Store will begin accepting apps that are Marshmallow ready which is very exciting because we’re about to see a ton of Android 6.0 oriented app updates.
For even more Android apps and games news, updates, and new releases, don’t forget to check out this week’s newsletter to see all the stuff we didn’t have time for here. If you’re so inclined, you can also sign up using your email address and we’ll send this newsletter straight to your virtual door every Friday so you don’t have to miss anything.
Subscribe to Apps Weekly Newsletter
The latest apps, games and Google play news in your inbox once a week.
Don’t forget to also check us out on Twitch. We’ll be streaming live Android games on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday starting at 4PM Eastern Standard Time each day. I don’t know what we’ll be playing yet but I do know that we always have a blast and we’d love to have you there. Click the button below to check it out!
Viddsee
[Price: Free]
Viddsee is a new video streaming application that showcases a bunch of independently made short films out of Asia. It’s a little niche but it is free to use and some of the films are actually really good. Every video has English subtitles so you can read along if you don’t understand the language and the app will promote videos for you to check out each week. There is also a queue system and downloading for offline use. It’s actually fairly decent if you like Asian films.
Get it now on Google Play!
Pac-Man 256
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Pac-Man 256 is a new spin on the classic arcade game. In this one, instead of navigating mazes until you eat all of the pellets, you’re instead doomed to follow one endless maze forever which technically makes this one an infinite runner game. However, most of the game mechanics remain intact and it’s essentially a standard game of Pac-Man that never ends. It’s free to play and comes from the developers who also did Crossy Road.
Get it now on Google Play!
Move Loot
[Price: Free]
Move Loot is a new application that’s kind of like the Craigslist of furniture. Using it, you can buy and sell furniture of all shapes and sizes for whatever price you want. It’s well designed and easy to use but there are a few issues. It’s only available in a select number of cities and there are some release day bugs that still need ironed out. Keep an eye on this one though, it’s not amazing yet but it has a lot of potential.
Get it now on Google Play!
Webmaker
[Price: Free]
Mozilla has been busy lately and they released a new application called Webmaker. As the name implies, you can use this along with a cursory knowledge of CSS and HTML to create web pages right on your phone. There are some release day bugs but otherwise the app seems to be pretty decent and fun. It’s not an advanced tool or anything but it can be fun for beginners or those looking to have some fun. It’s also totally free and open source.
Get it now on Google Play!
Final Fantasy Portal App
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Square Enix released Final Fantasy 7 but they also released the Final Fantasy Portal App. This app is kind of a news application that gives you news about all things Final Fantasy, including game releases, announcements, and information about books, music, games, and merchandise. What makes it interesting is that the application also has the Triple Triad card game from Final Fantasy VIII which you can actually play and collect cards for. It’s a must have for Final Fantasy fans.
Get it now on Google Play!
Wrap up
If we missed any great Android apps or games news, let us know about it in the comments below! Thanks for reading and watching and we’ll be back next week!
Google Chrome spellchecks multiple languages at once
Google is adding a new feature for Chrome that will help bilingual folks and ex-pats a lot. Developer François Beaufort revealed that you can now spellcheck in multiple languages, even in the same document, without getting the dreaded squiggly red lines. That’s a feature that the Android SwiftKey keyboard has had for ages, but it’ll save others a lot of trouble when writing in comments, blogging systems like WordPress or Google’s Docs. It’s now enabled in the experimental Chromium Canary browser on Windows, ChromeOS or Linux, usually a good sign it’ll come to the final build soon (Chrome on Mac uses the OS X language settings). I tried it in a Google Doc, and as you can see below, it works nickel chrome.
Tags: Browser, Chrome, google, GoogleChrome, Languages, multilanguage, SpellCheck
Google updates official AdSense app in the Play Store with Material Design makeover
Google has begun rolling out an update for its official AdSense application. In terms of added functionality, this upgrade brings compatibility for custom date ranges, as well a complete visual overhaul complying with the search engine giant’s Material Design guidelines,
Check out the clean, new interface in the gallery below:
To install the update on your smartphone, simply open up the Play Store, toggle the hamburger menu by swiping in from the left-hand side of the screen, select ‘My Apps’ and click on ‘AdSense’. Then all that’s left for you to do is hit the update button.
Come comment on this article: Google updates official AdSense app in the Play Store with Material Design makeover
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