Yahoo’s reworked mobile app is all about sharing news
When you’re browsing your Facebook feed (or Flipboard, or Reddit), you probably spend at least some time reading, sharing and commenting on the latest news. What if there was an app dedicated just to that? Yahoo is giving it a shot. It’s relaunching its core mobile app as Yahoo Newsroom, which focuses on following news “Vibes” like politics or sports, sharing stories in those threads (from anywhere on the web) and commenting on them. The more Vibes you follow and the more you interact, the more personalized your feed becomes.
Newsroom should be available today for Android and iOS alike. And in case you’re wondering: yes, Yahoo believes its app has an advantage over Facebook and other social networks. You can say what you like “free from social pressure,” Yahoo says. That is an advantage if you’re worried about judgmental (or simply uninterested) friends, although there is a concern that you may end up in an echo chamber where you only discuss a narrow range of subjects with like-minded contributors. Still, this beats rival custom news apps where you’re rarely more than a passive reader.
Source: Yahoo (Tumblr)
Apple Pay bolstered by Co-op Bank and Metro Bank in the UK
Since it launched in July 2015, UK banks have steadily begun adopting Apple Pay. All of the big name institutions are on board — including Barclays, Santander, HSBC and Natwest — but there have been some notable exceptions. Today, The Co-operative Bank and Metro Bank confirmed they’re jumping aboard the NFC payment bandwagon, becoming the twenty-first and twenty-second UK banks to enable the technology.
In a bid to stand out from its rivals, Metro Bank is highlighting the fact that it’s the only UK Apple Pay bank that will let customers use the payment service as soon as the account has been opened. Co-op, on the other hand, says that customers can still rack up Everyday Rewards if they’ve already registered for the scheme.
Speaking of rewards, Apple will soon let UK users add their “favourite store credit cards and rewards cards” to their digital wallet. In the US, companies like Dunkin’ Donuts, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Panera and Whole Foods already let customers load loyalty cards onto their iPhone or iPad. Hopefully it won’t be too long until Brits can do the same.
Source: Metro Bank, Co-operative Bank
Pixel leaks keep flowing on the eve of Google’s big event
Everybody keeps spilling the beans on Google’s upcoming Pixel phones. After a UK retailer and a Canadian carrier posted about them early, it’s now Verizon’s turn. Gizmodo has spotted listings of the upcoming devices on the carrier’s Enterprise website, where you can find both the Pixel and the XL under its smartphone section. They also come with a short description of the devices’ features, including a mysterious one called “Google Magic.” We’ll probably find out what that is at Google’s big event. Serial leaker Evan Blass (aka evleaks) has also tweeted out an image of the devices for Verizon, and it looks like they will be available in silver/white and blue.
Across the pond, Google has applied for a trademark on the name “Pixel,” according to The Trademark Ninja. He found the official application on the EU’s Intellectual Property Office website after expressing concerns that other companies might block the devices’ release in member countries, since Google doesn’t own the trademark for the name.
In case you’re sick and tired of Pixel leaks by now, though, here’s an unconfirmed detail about another device that the big G’s expected to reveal tomorrow: its Daydream VR headset could be priced for as little as $79. According to Variety, Daydream could be more affordable than the Gear VR and could ship later this month.
Google Pixel (bottom) and Pixel XL (top) for Verizon Wireless, in blue and silver pic.twitter.com/o1phG9esbP
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 4, 2016
Source: The Trademark Ninja
UE’s new PartyUp feature broadcasts to multiple speakers
Ultimate Ears’ Boom and Megaboom Bluetooth speakers have been some of our favorites in recent years, and if you or your friends picked one up, today’s new software update may surprise you. The company is launching a revamped app interface and OTA firmware update that now allows you to pair far more than two UE speakers at a time. This new feature is called PartyUp and leverages Bluetooth Smart LE to let you see, remotely turn on and add nearby speakers to your audio output. The company claims you can easily add up to 50 at once, provided they’re all running the new firmware. To help kick off the party, you can pick up speakers from the company’s website at a discounted rate in groups of two, five or ten, which will be offered through the holidays.
Once you launch the app and swipe into the PartyUp screen, it will automatically scan for any available speakers and list them at the bottom of the screen. You can then simply drag and drop them onto the main area, where they’ll display as either a full speaker icon (if just doing stereo) or small discs for three or more speakers. They’ll display with a loading icon in the center until they’re fully connected, or occasionally drop back into the found speakers list if the pairing didn’t work the first time.
The design and interface is much improved over previous iterations, although it’s not a drastic overhaul. Connectivity and pairing is generally better too, although we’re at the mercy of Bluetooth, so there’s still a few potential hurdles. I was initially shown the feature on an iPhone 6 and it seemed to work near-flawlessly, finding 10 nearby speakers quickly and adding them to the group, even if they were powered off at the time.
My subsequent tests were done using a Nexus 5X running Android 7.0, with mixed success. Sometimes I had to toggle Bluetooth on and off a few times to get things going. This happened a few times during my tests and isn’t a particularly new occurrence, at least with handset I’ve been using. Once the app connected to the main speaker and found the other devices nearby, things proceeded smoothly, for the most part. As you can see in video below, it took some time to load and a few tries to get them all connected.
Individual speaker volumes can be adjusted while part of the PartyUp output. However, this will add a Volume Sync prompt at the top of the app to allow the person in charge to bring them all up to the same volume again.
This is, by the way, a free update and works for all Boom, Boom 2 and Megaboom speakers. Unfortunately, the Roll and Roll 2 don’t have enough on-board memory to join in and if you want to use the Block Party feature in the app, you’re still stuck with a maximum of two speakers (which the Roll can handle just fine).
It’s hard to say how many people will have access to enough speakers to really put this feature to the test, but I tried it with two Megabooms and five Boom / Boom 2 speakers. The experience feels immersive, especially if you crank it up indoors. On a large outdoor roof deck, they also pumped out enough volume to consider using for a large group or dance party, so invite your friends to bring a UE speaker along. I’ve yet to see if crowds of people would interfere with the Bluetooth connection or not, though.
While UE casually says you can pair up to 50 speakers at once, it’s said that it has broadcast to 150 in a test environment, which was all they had on hand. Keep in mind, this all works by being broadcast from a single host speaker as a one-to-one connection for each additional unit instead of any daisy-chaining. That’s pretty impressive and we’ve only noticed a couple other systems that go beyond pairing two units, like the Bayan Audio SoundScene, which pairs up to eight.
It’s worth noting that you can bypass the app and pair multiple devices manually, in the same manner as before. Just press and hold the Bluetooth and plus volume button on the host speaker until you hear the pairing bongo sound, then double click the Bluetooth button on any nearby speakers to hop into the Party Up zone. This is one way you could use a DJ app on your laptop and have a series of UE speakers to flesh out the sound system. However you choose to use this new feature, it’s bound to be an interesting — and potentially loud — experience.
Find your next ‘Destiny’ raid group with latest Xbox One patch
Next time you need to find a group to help you through Destiny’s latest raid, you won’t have to venture outside your Xbox One. That’s because the Looking For Group feature teased at E3 is starting to roll out to Dashboard Preview Program members at the moment. Those posts can be made up to a week in advance of when you’re ready to play. The update also includes Arena, Xbox Live’s take on daily tournaments, starting with fighting game Killer Instinct according to a post on Xbox Wire.
That’s not all. Xbox is catching up to what PlayStation has offered for awhile and adding rarity ratings to achievements. Meaning, if you completed a championship starting at every race route in Forza Horizon 3 and unlocked the “Horizon Hardcore” achievement, you’d see how unique it is among the general Xbox Live community. The blog post goes on to say that rare accomplishments have a special notification and a diamond icon as a way of differentiating them from commonly unlocked tasks.
Need more? There’s also group messaging shoehorned in as well, and soon it’ll work across the Xbox One, the Xbox app on PC and mobile. As these things tend to go, the wider Xbox Live audience should see these features in a month or so after the preview program has them.
Source: Xbox Wire
Google hires Amazon exec to develop its new phones
Google has hired one of the key personnel in Amazon’s hardware division, according to The Information. The Big G has apparently signed up David Foster (no, not the composer) to head up the development of its Pixel phones and fill a new position in the company. He’s now Google’s vice president of product engineering, underlining Mountain View’s bigger focus on hardware going forward. Foster was with Amazon for five years, leading hardware development of the Echo speakers, the Kindle Paperwhite and Voyage, among other devices at Lab126.
That laboratory, as you might know, is Amazon’s formerly secret hardware facility, which was originally formed to create the Kindle e-readers. It eventually spawned not just the Echo speakers, but also the company’s other devices, such as the Dash buttons, Fire tablets, TV and even the late Fire phone. The last one turned out to be a huge flop — Amazon kept slashing its prices for a year in an effort to move stocks before killing the product altogether. Due to its failure, the company decided to shelve its sequel and several other projects in the pipeline.
Before Amazon, Foster worked on hardware for Microsoft, helping create the Zune HD. He was also with Apple for five years, developing hardware components for its devices. It’s not clear what role he played in creating the Pixel phones Google is expected to reveal tomorrow. But the company’s future devices will have his fingerprints all over them.
Google just hired a key Amazon Lab 126 hardware guy to lead development of the Pixel phones you’ll see tomorrow. https://t.co/ohmQ9qi8VA
— Amir Efrati (@amir) October 4, 2016
Source: The Information
WhatsApp lets you doodle on photos and videos
Even a straightforward messaging service like WhatsApp isn’t immune to the allure of adding Snapchat-style features. The Facebook-owned app is introducing the option to draw on photos and videos, including emoji. If you don’t think that puppy photo is charming enough by itself, you can easily doodle on it to make your point. More interested in improving the quality of the shots themselves? Don’t worry, you’re getting a couple of upgrades as well.
The native WhatsApp camera now supports front-facing flashes, so you can take those nighttime self-portraits without turning to another app. And the Snapchat-like recording controls that made it into Instagram have spread to WhatsApp — you can double-tap to switch between front and back cameras, and swiping up and down will zoom while you’re capturing videos. You can check out all the new additions right away if you’re using an Android device, and they should be coming to iOS “soon.”
Source: WhatsApp, Google Play
Chat app Telegram is now a gaming platform too
If a company has a messaging app, there’s a good chance that chat bots are headed its way. Case in point, today secure-chat service Telegram announced a bot-powered gaming platform. While the app has had text-based games for a while, today’s announcement means those distractions will now have HTML 5 graphics and sound.
To start in on the fun, users can just type “@gamebot” in a group chat to see the list of about 30 available games. Telegram says that hundreds more are coming to the platform and that they will be able to keep track of high scores both within a group and globally.
Plus when someone in a group takes the lead in a game, the rest of the participants are alerted so they can jump back into the chat and try to overtake them.
Updates are currently available for iOS and Android users and because the games are basically tiny web pages, they won’t add to the size of the actual app.
Source: Telegram
Huawei reportedly turned down Google’s new phone strategy
You may be wondering why Google appears to be going with HTC for this year’s Pixel phones instead of Huawei. Wasn’t the Nexus 6P a rousing success? Apparently, Huawei and Google aren’t getting along quite as well as you might think. An Android Police source understands that Huawei bristled at Google’s plan to take more control over its Android hardware, which included erasing any mentions of the phone builder’s name. Huawei wanted a larger footprint in the US, and it wasn’t going to get that by being reduced to a contract manufacturer.
The decision to back out wasn’t helped by trouble with the Nexus 6P launch, according to the tipster. Google had originally promised deals with all four big US carriers, but that never happened. Talks broke down, and the grand launch (which would have included a “multi-hundred-million dollar” ad strategy) was reduced to sales through Google and Huawei stores. Neither this nor the Pixel problem appears to have permanently soured the relationship between the companies (there may even be a Huawei-made Google phone in 2017), but Huawei would undoubtedly be frustrated.
The incidents may be hints of a broader problem with Huawei’s US division. Reportedly, the only device to get any significant traction is the cheap-but-capable Honor 5X. The GX8 (which shares ties with the Honor phone) has seen virtually no sales, while the MateBook is an “absolute flop.” There are hints that Huawei ousted most of its American leadership and has otherwise gone through major management changes in a bid to turn things around.
We’ve asked Huawei for comment on the report. Whether or not the Google stories are accurate, though, it’s no secret that Huawei hasn’t had the best time in the US. Outside of the Nexus 6P and Huawei Watch, the company doesn’t have much stateside recognition or a fiercely competitive lineup. Unlocked phones (beyond Google’s lineup) don’t garner nearly as much attention as their carrier-bound counterparts, and it’s hard to argue for the MateBook when the Surface Pro 4 is both better-known and better-built. In short, it’s not enough to show up — Huawei has to demonstrate that it compete with its biggest rivals on their home turf.
Source: Android Police
Apple Maps displays nationwide Amtrak train routes
Prefer to travel cross-country by rail? If you’re an iPhone owner, you no longer need to fire up a third-party app to plan your trip. Apple Maps has introduced support for Amtrak train routes across North America — if you want to navigate all the way from Los Angeles to Toronto while seeing the sights, you can make it happen. You’ll need to live in an area where Apple’s mass transit directions are available, of course, but this remains a big deal if you’re more interested in how you travel than the time it takes.
Source: MacRumors
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