Moto Z Droid Edition sends original images to Google Photos for free
Motorola is bundling the Verizon-exclusive edition of Moto Z with a feature shutterbugs would love: two years of free original-quality Google Photos storage. It wasn’t mentioned on stage during Lenovo’s event, but 9to5google has spotted the info on the upcoming handset’s web page. Motorola’s website only has the “Droid Edition’s” details up, so it’s not clear at this point whether the unlocked version will get the freebie, as well.
Google Photos doesn’t cost anything, but it’s limited to 16-megapixel images and 1080p videos. Further, it doesn’t save images in their original state: it keeps compressed jpeg versions instead. If you want to save your original snapshots without compression, you’d have to upload them to Google Drive, which only gives you 15GB of free storage per month. Upgrading to 100GB will cost you $1.99 per month. If you’re not exactly sold on the Moto Z but already have a Nexus device, you could be looking at a similar deal. Android Police dissected the app in May and found that it could give Nexus devices unlimited original-quality photo storage, as well.
Source: 9to5google, Motorola
Siri hints at upcoming Mac support
Apple may have inadvertently erased doubts that Siri would come to the Mac. Brian Roemmele has discovered that asking iOS’ Siri the right question (such as “open settings in the window”) sometimes produces a response saying that the voice assistant can’t find the Finder app — you know, a crucial part of the Mac’s interface. Barring the inclusion of a full-on file manager in iOS 10 (not very likely), this hints that Apple is laying the groundwork for Siri in OS X.
We wouldn’t count on the feature being finished any time soon. Apple historically releases new OS X versions in the fall, so you may have to wait a while if you’re not the experimental sort. However, the apparent slip supports rumors that Apple would talk about Siri for the Mac at WWDC — don’t be shocked if there’s a beta (public or otherwise) with voice commands in the near future.
Here is the video of Siri looking for Finder. Proof that someday real soon she will be on #MacOS #WWDC2016 #Siri2 pic.twitter.com/RLJszpW5c7
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) June 11, 2016
Via: 9to5Mac
Source: Brian Roemmele (Medium)
Relive the ’80s with the Korg Volca FM synthesizer
Synths are great. You push a key, turn a few knobs and suddenly you’re making “music.” So when keyboard maker Korg realized it had a hit with its low-cost, entry-level Monotron series, it was only natural to follow it up with something that had a little more bite. Enter the Volca line keyboards. At $160, they’re not in the same impulse-purchase range as the $50 Monotrons, but at least one of these synthesizers is a welcome addition for would-be Kraftwerk disciples workings toward converting their garage into sprawling mess of wires and flashing lights.
Of the highly focused new Volca models (bass, loops, beats, etc.) I tested the Volca FM, which is based on the wildly influential Yamaha DX7 digital synth. Both use frequency modulation to create a “metallic” sound — sort of as if your keyboard were attached to a piece of aluminum siding. It’s a crisp timbre that was used extensively in the 1980s by artists like Depeche Mode, Kenny Loggins (DANGER ZONE!), Phil Collins, Tears for Fears, both Janet and Michael Jackson, and really anyone you’d find on a “totally ’80s!” playlist.
Sure, the pedigree is impressive (DANGER ZONE!), but what really matters is that the Volca FM is a powerful little synth you can pick up for $160.
Similar to the Monotron line, the Volca FM has a ribbon keyboard so you’re not going to be hammering out complex songs in real time on the touch-sensitive layout. Still, thanks to the step sequencer that can link as many as 16 sequences of 16 steps together, so you can build incredibly elaborate patterns. It even records knob twists. So if you want to crank up the modular decay during a certain hit that’s part of your final loop, go for it.
It’s all great until you try to edit a sequence. While building out your steps, going back to correct a mistake or just make an adjustment is frustrating, and I usually ended up starting over. For simple patterns it’s not that big a deal. But if you’re creating something complex, get ready for a long night of throwing your hands in the air.
But the Volca is so crammed with features that any minor frustration is quickly eclipsed when you’re playing the arpeggiator, LFO, chorus and the choice of three voice polyphonic sounds, monophonic or mono setting. It even supports the file formats of the DX7 so you can add additional sound patches. The deeper you dive into this keyboard, the better the value.
The electronics are housed in a smoky translucent case that feels solid enough to handle being transported to gigs. There’s a tiny speaker on the bottom that’s serviceable but won’t replace headphones for the best sounds. But thanks to the addition of battery power, the Volca FM quickly became the go-to test bed for off-the-cuff ideas at my house. Why dig a synth out of its storage case, plug it into the wall and find some headphones when I can have this tiny synth in my lap right when the mood hits me?
Another pleasant surprise was that in the studio it didn’t exhibit the line noise that makes the Monotrons less than ideal for live performances. And while there’s no tap tempo button, you can sync it via MIDI to devices so you’re not trying to line up your beats on the fly while on stage.
Throw in an old-school seven-segment LED display and the Volca FM is a fun and surprisingly powerful synth that should be equally at home on stage and in your living room.
Facebook pushes users to download its Moments app
Facebook is urging people to download yet another one of its apps after shoving users towards Messenger. This time, the social network has begun sending out warnings that their synced photos will be deleted by July 7th if they don’t install the Moments app. Facebook gave users the capability to auto-sync their photos on mobile with a private album within its app back in 2012. Three years later, it introduced the standalone Moments app for iOS and Android to house those photos, but it clearly decided to wait a while before phasing the old feature out completely.
According to TechCrunch, users can see more info within the private album that will be affected by the move if they haven’t received an email and a notification yet. If they switched Synced photos on by accident and would like to get rid of the feature, though, then they can take it easy. Just let the deadline pass, and Facebook will do the heavy lifting.
dang i didnt even know facebook privately synced TWELVE THOUSAND of my photos now they tryna delete them wow pic.twitter.com/Ii1fupbHQ7
— a.m. ☆.。.:* (@aurevoiralexis) June 9, 2016
Source: TechCrunch
Say goodbye to the old Yahoo Messenger on August 5th
After more than 18 years of service, faithfully shuttling your messages, emojis and A/S/L requests back and forth across the internet, Yahoo has announced they will be signing off and closing its old Messenger app for good on August 5th. The app launched in 1998 under the incredibly dated name “Yahoo Pager,” but is heading off into the software sunset after the company introduced a more modern version last year.
As VentureBeat points out, the old Messenger was popular with users in the Asia-Pacific region, and according to Bloomberg, the old Yahoo Messenger actually still had a weirdly strong following among oil traders who used the app to bid and gossip on commodities prices. Apparently those two groups aren’t enough to keep supporting such a dinosaur of an app. In a blog post, Yahoo explained the shut down:
While today we provide basic interoperation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016. We intend to continue our focused efforts on the new Messenger, with a goal of delivering the best experience to our users.
After August 5th, anyone still using the legacy Messenger will no longer be able to log in or send messages. Same goes for messages sent through third-party apps built on top of Yahoo’s API. The new Messenger, however, is still available on the App Store and Google Play.
France fines Uber for illegal ridesharing
You may love Uber for enabling your wild drunken weekends, but there’s clearly no love lost between the ride-hailing app and the French government. After a slew of suspensions and protests, a French court has slapped Uber with an 800,000 euro fine (about US$900,000), claiming its UberPOP service caused “durable disruption” of the transport sector.
Uber plans to appeal the charges, and said it is “disappointed by this judgment,” as it stopped UberPOP service last summer. The “POP” portion of the company’s app uses cars owned and driven by non-professional drivers, while UberX and UberBlack employ professionals.
An Uber spokesperson said its service in France will not be affected, and that it currently uses more than 12,000 professional drivers to serve 1.5 million passengers there.
The Paris court has ordered Uber to pay 400,000 euros, suspending the other half of the fine barring further incidents. According to Reuters, Uber’s legal officer told the court that the company made a 500,000 euro profit in 2014.
Two Uber executives were also fined between 20,000 and 30,000 Euros each for what the court deemed to be deceptive commercial practices, being accomplices in operating an illegal transportation service, and violating privacy laws.
France isn’t alone in its crackdown on Uber. Cities in Australia, Italy and Spain have already declared the UberPOP service illegal. In London and the Philippines, however, Uber has become legal after facing similar fines and suspensions. Uber clearly still has an uphill battle in many other countries, but its success in those two regions suggest that its challenges are ultimately solvable.
Via: ArsTechnica
Source: Reuters
Twitter is experimenting with adding ‘Moments’ to your timeline
Twitter is testing adding Moments directly to your timeline. The feature that highlights trends and news items on the social network is appearing in a carousel post that can be swiped horizontally. While only an experiment right now, this early exploration of dropping into user feeds shows just how important the trending-topic element is to the company.
A small group of users in countries where Moments is already live (US, Canada, UK, Australia and Brazil), started seeing the test this afternoon on iOS and Android. The carousel of five topics appears similar to how ‘While You Were Away” works. The “Recommended Moments” box can be dismissed with a tap and appears less frequently the more you’re on Twitter. When a news item is tapped it expands to show you the event.
So far, the test has not shown up on Twitter.com.
Both the iOS and the Android apps already have dedicated Moments buttons. By adding the feature to user feeds Twitter is hoping to get more traction out its curated topics. The company is continually adding features hoping to make the service more attractive to new users.
When asked about the test a Twitter spokesperson told Engadget: “Moments are awesome for catching up with the latest stories unfolding on Twitter. Because we’re always working on new ways to bring the best content to our users, we’re experimenting with showing recommended Moments in the timeline.”
What to expect from Apple’s WWDC keynote next week
Apple’s grand convocation of geeks — also known as the Worldwide Developers Conference — is set to kick off next Monday smack in the heart of San Francisco. We’ll be liveblogging the keynote starting at 1 PM Eastern/10 AM Pacific, but really, who wants to go into a situation like this blind? No one, that’s who. Curiously enough, the rumor mill has been churning more quietly than usual. It’s tough to say whether Apple is doing a better job keeping its juicy WWDC details under wraps or if this is just a low-key keynote compared to previous years. We do know some things, though, so take a few moments to get caught up — and be prepared for some possible last-minute surprises.
iOS 10
Another year, another version of iOS, right? Well, maybe not. Apple Music is widely expected to get an overhaul that trims down the visual clutter. 9to5Mac also points to the inclusion of new 3D Touch gestures and a new “Browse” tab that replaces the lackluster New section that’s currently there. Too bad the social network-y Connect is apparently going to live another day — maybe people are more eager to “interact” with artists than we thought.
Apple Pay is also expected to work in-browser, tapping into your stored payment information to complete online transactions. Google said it was working on the same feature for the forthcoming Android N release at I/O — let’s see who can get there first. Speaking of payments, one of the more out-there rumors we’ve heard is that this iOS update will bring with it the ability to send money to people using Apple Pay. It’s not a new idea, but it’s not impossible, either. A move like this would almost certainly get people using Apple Pay as a sort of Venmo replacement, but making money off those transactions is a tricky proposition.
Otherwise, iOS 10 is shrouded in mystery. Apple is rumored (and it’s a pretty flimsy rumor, at that) to announce iMessage support for Android users on Monday. And noted Apple reporter Mark Gurman pointed to the possibility of a tweaked iOS interface, including “updated notifications.” What does that mean though? No idea. Stay tuned for more on Monday.
A new Mac OS
Details on Apple’s new OSX update are pretty scarce. To start, the company might reveal an improved version of its Photos app for Macs. It’s about time — although the app has gradually gotten more tolerable, it still lacks some of the niceties that old-school iPhoto had. More importantly, Apple’s digital assistant is finally expected to make the leap from iPhones and iPads to Macbooks as part of OS X 10.12 [insert California landmark here], an update that’s expected to drop later this fall. If that name feels a little unwieldy, well, you’re not alone. Recent reports also suggest Apple will also rebrand its desktop operating system macOS, dropping the “X” that’s been part of the platform’s name since 2001.
The macOS moniker first made an appearance in the company’s Earth Day 2016 promotional materials, and WWDC would be an ideal place to announce the shift in branding. Still, it seems like a big change to announce alongside what seems like an incremental update.
watchOS and tvOS
The Apple Watch has received a steady stream of software updates over the past year, the most recent of which arrived around three months ago. The timing seems ripe for another major update — watchOS 2 was first announced a year and two months after the Apple Watch’s launch — but the rumor mill has been terribly quiet. The same could be said about Apple’s tvOS: We got the sweet revamped Apple TV last year, and the software powering it doesn’t seem like it’s going to receive a major upgrade. In fact, Apple pushed out a beta build of tvOS 9.1.1 just days ago (spoiler: It’s just security enhancements) so don’t expect much stage time devoted to this stuff.
About that hardware…
Price cuts and rumors have fueled dreams of new devices at WWDC, but it might be best to stay pessimistic. Mark Gurman recently suggested that there wouldn’t be any new hardware at WWDC at all, a revelation that should only come as a shock if you forgot what the show was called. In recent years Apple has gotten more comfortable revealing new machines at WWDC, but it’s certainly not a guarantee; the last time Apple used this event to unveil new Macs was back in in 2013.
There’s also no denying that the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro lines are due for refreshes — the latter is rumored to get an OLED touchbar later this year — but don’t expect any news on Monday. Gurman also said the standalone 5K monitor we’ve been hearing about isn’t going to be unveiled at the event either; for now, the only way to get an Apple screen of that caliber is to buy an iMac. That said, Apple? Please prove us wrong about this.
Bloomberg: Intel will supply modem chips for the next iPhone
Bloomberg is reporting that Intel will replace Qualcomm as the supplier of modem hardware for some models in the next generation of iPhones. The news service believes that the move is down to Apple’s desire to “diversify its supplier” base for the best-selling devices. Intel will provide the wireless hardware for the GSM version of the device, compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile in the US as well as most worldwide carriers. Qualcomm, meanwhile, will still provide the gear that goes into the Verizon/Sprint model, as well as for other mobile networks that use the CDMA protocol.
It’s a small step for Apple, but a pretty giant leap for Intel, a company that famously turned down the chance to supply key components for the iPhone. Before the first generation device launched, then CEO Paul Otellini was offered the chance to fabricate the processors that would reside within each handset. But, as the chips were designed by a rival, ARM, he decided to take a pass. It wound up costing him big, and firms like Samsung became wealthy from his mistake knocking out the A-series of mobile CPUs.
Realizing its mistake too late, Intel attempted to beat ARM on its own turf, releasing a series of low-power mobile chips designed for Android smartphones. But the gear arrived too late and was considerably slower than the alternatives from Qualcomm, NVIDIA and Samsung. The demise of the PC market has compounded the issue, and the company is now lurching around in crisis mode. Earlier this year it revealed that it’ll have to fire 12,000 employees and re-shape its business in order to remain relevant in the new world.
Source: Bloomberg
Living the trainer life with ‘Pokemon Go’
Niantic senior product manager Tatsuo Nomura and I are walking directly across the street from San Francisco’s Embarcadero waterfront. It’s a beautiful day for a stroll. His phone vibrates as we amble under the Bay Bridge and we stop. It turns out this “landmark” doubles as a PokeStop in the upcoming Pokemon Go mobile game. We pause and he collects an egg that will eventually hatch into a pocket monster ready for battle.
In this way the Pokemon Go mobile game drops perfectly into the mythology surrounding the phenomenon that recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. The company says to expect both iOS and Android apps launching sometime later this year. Instead of battling your tiny digital terrors from the comfort of your couch, it nudges you (well, actually forces you) outside to catch new Pokemon, hatch the ones you’ve already harvested and battle for supremacy of local “Gyms” (a locale where teams battle for supremacy). Sort of like the characters in the actual game and animated series.
“The whole world of Pokemon is based on the trainer going out into the woods and finding Pokemon with his Pokedecks and Poke ball,” Niantic CEO John Hanke told Engadget. “You can live the story of being a Pokemon trainer.”
Part of living that world is the new Go Plus device (no word on price). It looks like a cross between a Google pin and a Poke ball. Designed and built by Nintendo, it allows folks to keep playing the game without taking their phones out of their pocket by alerting them when they are near a Pokestop. Variations in vibrations and colors will tell gamers what’s going on and with a few taps of the button they can gather up new Pokemon without staring at a screen.
Unfortunately, I did not get to see a demo of the Go Plus device during our quick jaunt around San Francisco. Instead Nomura checks his phone and tells me that because we’re near the bay, the creatures we capture will be water-based. “If you’re in a park there will be more grass type Pokemon. We actually try to map the real world with the Pokemon types,” he said while we head to our next destination.
The second PokeStop is only a few yards away from the one below the Bay Bridge. It’s a series of plaques in the concrete. I’ve never noticed them before. “These are points of interest that people are not aware of. We’re trying to have people visit these places to learn more about their neighborhood. To discover the places that they would normally ignore, “Nomura said.
I’m assured that even in small towns, there will be stops for gamers — many of which were suggested by players of Niantic’s other alternate reality game, Ingress. Those players and the company are constantly adding new waypoints in the real world to visit in the digital. Some of those spots are in Pokemon Go with others constantly being evaluated to see if they will be added to the game.
“‘Adventures on foot,’ that’s our motto,” Nomura tells me after we battle (and lose) to try and oust one of three teams (you can join team blue, red or yellow) from the local Gym. Each of these interactions with the game only took about the time it takes to send a few texts. Pokemon Go is probably destined to be a huge hit. Mostly because it’s Pokemon. But also, it looks like a fun way to explore your town with a game that doesn’t require your constant attention.
AIVAnet 