Prisma’s neural net-powered photo app arrives on Android
When Prisma Labs said you wouldn’t have to wait long to use its Android app outside of the beta test, it wasn’t joking around. The finished Prisma app is now readily available on Google Play, giving anyone a chance to see what iOS users were excited about a month ago. Again, the big deal is the use of cloud-based machine learning to turn humdrum photos into hyper-stylized pieces of art — vivid brush strokes and pencil lines appear out of nowhere. Give it a shot if you don’t think your smartphone’s usual photo filters are enough.
Via: The Verge
Source: Google Play
FCC chief asks telcos to offer free robocall blocking services
Tom Wheeler, head honcho at the Federal Communications Commission, has fired off letters asking the country’s biggest communications providers to offer robocall blocking services for free. The FCC is still fielding a barrage of complaints from people sick and tired of robocalls a year after it passed a proposal that should have helped the situation. If you’ll recall, the commission made it perfectly legal for carriers to block automated calls before they reach subscribers back in 2015. Unfortunately, telcos are still reportedly telling customers that they have no authority to those calls. As a result, they still make the up the biggest number of complaints filed with the agency.
Wheeler wrote on the commission’s website:
“In regard to the Commission’s expectations that carriers respond to consumers’ blocking requests, I have sent letters to the CEOs of major wireless and wireline phone companies calling on them to offer call-blocking services to their customers now — at no cost to you.”
According to Consumerist, he sent the letters to AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon. The ball is now in their court, and it’s up to them to grant the chairman’s request.
Wheeler also sent letters to intermediary carriers, companies that connect calls from internet services like FiOS to carriers’ lines. He asked them to retain the original caller ID info for calls made through those services, since spammers and scammers typically spoof their phone numbers. Consumerist says the letters asked those companies to create a list of local entities regularly impersonated by robocallers. That would make it easy to flag and block suspicious calls, especially those made from outside the United States.
Via: Consumerist
Source: FCC
Google Play starts showing apps’ actual download sizes
Google Play now displays the actual storage space a whole app or an upgrade will take up, so you don’t accidentally download anything too big. If an update is only 2.91MB, it will show that exact figure right there in each app’s detail box. That will give you the chance to reconsider your download or to free up some space before getting a particularly large game or VR experience.
Besides displaying more accurate file sizes, Google also tweaked its Play Store algorithm to make updates even smaller. Most Android apps (98 percent of them) only download changes to their APK files when you update them, and those new files merge with the old ones. The updated algorithm will make those updates up to 50 percent smaller.
Finally, Google’s improved compression algorithms will reduce big games’ file sizes, which could be as huge as 2GB, by around 12 percent. Those with high-end phones might not get much out of these changes, but they could make a big difference for those who own more affordable devices with limited storage.
Source: Android Developers Blog
Cyanogen reportedly cuts jobs as it changes course
The Cyanogen team formed a company with hopes of becoming the third major mobile platform, but it looks like the custom Android developer is scaling back its ambitions. Sources speaking to both Android Police and Recode claim that Cyanogen is making “significant” job cuts, laying off about 20 percent (around 30 people) of its staff. Reportedly, this is part of a “pivot” that will focus on apps, rather than an entire operating system like Cyanogen OS. Whether or not that involves the firm’s MOD platform, its Apps Package or something else isn’t apparent.
Chief executive Kirk McMaster turned down Recode’s request for a comment, so we wouldn’t expect either confirmation or immediate answers as to what’s coming next.
A change in direction wouldn’t be completely shocking. Although CyanogenMod is still a staple of the Android enthusiast world, Cyanogen OS hasn’t had many customers. You probably know Cyanogen’s ill-fated partnership on the OnePlus One, and the rest of its deals haven’t exactly set the world on fire — a one-off Lenovo phone and the cheap-but-cheerful Wileyfox Swift are among the examples. Simply put, many device makers are content with either creating their own Android variants or going with stock software. There may not be a large market for licensing a custom Android release from someone else.
Source: Android Police, Recode
New in our buyer’s guide: All the phones (just the good ones)
It took us a while, but now that we’ve reviewed the Moto Z, we think we’re done testing flagship phones until the iPhone 7 or next Galaxy Note come out (whichever arrives first). With that in mind, we can now confidently say that the following phones belong in our buyer’s guide: the Samsung Galaxy S7, the HTC 10 and the iPhone SE. (Sorry, LG, maybe next year.) While we were at it, we also inducted the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR headsets, since we likely them more or less equally. And, in the less-expensive realm, we added the Roku Streaming Stick in the A/V category. Head over to our buyer’s guide hub for all the details on these and many more. That’s it for now, but stay tuned — who knows what we’ll add after the next gadget-reviewing frenzy.
Source: Engadget Buyer’s Guide
3D-printed ‘Pokémon Go’ cover aims for you, obscures screen
Catching monsters in Pokémon Go sounds deceptively simple: find a creature, and throw an imaginary ball at it by swiping up on your phone screen. The reality is a lot more frustrating — if you don’t flick your finger in a perfectly straight line, the throw will curve to the side and miss. There are two solutions to this. You could practice, or, you could 3D-print a ridiculous phone-cover that takes away all of the challenge. Jon Clever chose to do the latter.
We tease, but Clever’s Pokéball Aimer is actually a clever little tool. The custom phone cover fits over an iPhone 6 and creates a trench that guide’s the player’s finger up the center of the screen for the perfect Pokéball throw.
Unfortunately, it also obscures a good deal of the screen — offering only cut-outs for on-screen controls. There’s a Pokéball shaped window that allows the player to see the target, but the case is only really useful on the game’s capture screen. This means it has to be removed for battles, menus and the game’s GPS-guided walking mode. It also makes advanced moves, like the curve ball, impossible. Still, tedium is a small price to pay for catching Psyduck. Want your own? You can get the plans for free on My Mini Factory.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: My Mini Factory
‘Pokémon Go’ has most first-week downloads in App Store history
Despite only being available in the United States, Australia and New Zealand for its first week, Apple has officially confirmed that Pokémon Go had the most downloads in its first week of any in the App Store’s history. Considering that the game has launched in over 26 countries since then, including opening in Japan today, it might just keep breaking records.
The success has led to billions of dollars in stock gains for Nintendo, which saw its share value double before creeping back down, which has even gotten stock “shorters” to start playing with it. And companies are starting to see their value boosted by association: the game launched in Japan today with a heavy McDonald’s promotion partnership, and the burger giant saw a subsequent 20 percent leap in its stock value. Despite criticism that Nintendo just cashed in on a franchise name without bringing over real gameplay, the game continues its onslaught as a mobile juggernaut.
Source: TechCrunch
A new iOS 10 feature warns against open WiFi networks
We all know it’s generally a bad idea to access unsecured networks via WiFi, but it’s not every day your phone warns against it. According to Florida-based Apple beta tester Jeb Stuart, iOS 10 will do exactly that.
After connecting to an open network, iOS 10 will display a “Security Recommendation” notification beneath the network’s name in the WiFi menu settings. When a user opens up the Security Recommendation, they’re greeted with a notification that “open networks provide no security and expose all network traffic.” There’s also a recommendation to configure your router to use AES encryption for the network.
It seems like a missed opportunity, as Stuart notes, to warn users after they’ve already connected, but it’s an important step forward in keeping users safe and ensuring they understand why what they’re doing carries important implications.
Via: iOS Hacker
Source: Jeb Stuart
Verizon will disconnect its heaviest ‘unlimited’ data users
There’s a limit to “unlimited,” it turns out. Verizon Wireless customers who still have unlimited data plans and who regularly go over 100GB per month will be forced to switch to limited data plans or get kicked off the network on August 31st, Ars Technica reports. Any Verizon customers who rely on their phones to stream entire seasons of Game of Thrones, or are trying to download the entire Library of Congress to their devices, will soon be getting notifications from Verizon that they’ve been flagged as an “extraordinary” data user.
As Verizon explained in a statement, those users truly are extraordinary: “These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB). While the Verizon Plan at 100GB is designed to be shared across multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon Plan is using well in excess of that on a single device.”
Verizon stopped offering the unlimited plans in 2011, but there are still a few people grandfathered in to old plans who haven’t made the switch. Any of these “extraordinary” users who don’t voluntarily change plans will find their line dead on September first, but will have 50 days to reactivate their accounts. In the past, Verizon has come under fire from the FCC for throttling its “unlimited” data plans, but in this case about 99 percent of Verizon’s Wireless customers have already agreed to data caps, so it’s unlikely there will be much resistance to Big Red this time.
*Verizon has acquired AOL, Engadget’s parent company. However, Engadget maintains full editorial control, and Verizon will have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.
New Galaxy S7 Active smartphones won’t leak, says Samsung
It’s official: the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active isn’t quite as rugged as it was originally advertised. Well, it wasn’t, but it is now. Following failed underwater tests from both Consumer Reports and CNET, Samsung looked into the phone’s production process and found manufacturing problems that were compromising its water-resistance. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. From here on out, the Galaxy S7 Active is expected to be sufficiently water-tight.
Although the production process is fixed now, there’s no real way to tell how many units in the wild are effected, though Samsung told Consumer Reports that “compared to the total number of devices sold, it was tiny.” Even so, the company says it will replace any S7 Active with water damage through the warranty period, or up to one year after the device is purchased. Unfortunately, this replacement does not apply to phones that haven’t been damaged, making it difficult for current S7 Active owners to know if it’s safe for them to take their phones in the water.
It’s never good when you have to treat your rugged phone with kids gloves.
Source: Consumer Reports
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