Action Launcher 3.8 brings Google Now integration for rooted users
Action Launcher is being updated to version 3.8 which brings a number of big changes along with it. Google Now integration has been added for those who are rooted, the base code has been updated to ensure better performance and much more.
This is the first time that the popular launcher has added a root-only feature, and the reason behind it is that Google does not offer an API for developers to use to access Google Now. Some of the biggest changes in Action Launcher 3.8 include:
- Update base code to Android 6.0.1’s Launcher3 code. Notable usability enhancements include the addition of fast scroll in the All Apps drawer, a much improved widget picker and infinite paged folders and more. This base code upgrade also sees a year’s worth of Google’s bug and stability and performance fixes.
- Can select pure black color via Quicktheme.
- Option to disable the Quickdrawer (Settings -> App drawers -> Quickdrawer).
- Option for enabling dark icons on the status bar (Settings -> Display -> Dark status bar icons). Note: requires Android 6.0 or later.
- Add shortcut to jump to weather forecast (via Google App).
- Added old material design versions of Google Play apps to in-built icon pack.
- Option to enable Google Now integration (Alpha). Note: REQUIRES ROOT. Please see FAQ for full details. Option will appear in Settings -> Desktop -> Google Now integration (Alpha) for rooted devices only.
There are also a number of features that have been improved with this release. Some of them include reducing the app’s memory usage, Samsung Knox support, a new high-res icon on the Quickbar and more. Chris Lacy, the app’s developer, has posted an FAQ to answer some questions about this update.
You can grab the latest update from Google Play now to take advantage of all the new and improved features.
AT&T reports Q2 2016 earnings with $40.5 billion in revenue, 2.1 million wireless net adds
AT&T has reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2016, noting a solid bump in both consolidated revenues and wireless net adds over this time a year ago. In total, AT&T says that consolidated revenues were up to $40.5 billion for the quarter, which is an increase of 22% over the same period a year ago.
Concerning the wireless market specifically, AT&T says that it saw a total of 2.1 million wireless net adds total. 1.4 million of those net adds came from the U.S. alone, while Mexico contributed 780,000. According to AT&T, this quarter also saw the company’s second-lowest churn on record at 0.97%. Here are the highlights:
- 2.1 million wireless net adds driven by connected devices, Mexico and Cricket
- U.S. net adds of 1.4M; including 257k postpaid and 365k prepaid
- 185k U.S. branded (postpaid and prepaid) phone net adds
- Nearly 800k branded smartphones added to the U.S. base, offsetting ~600k branded feature phone decline
- Postpaid churn of 0.97%, down from 1.01% in 2Q15 and second-lowest ever in U.S.
- Mexico: 780k branded net adds to reach about 10 million subscribers
For much more, be sure to check out AT&T’s full earnings release.
An ‘Overwatch’ graphic novel is coming
With over 10 million players on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One, Overwatch is a bonafide success. By now, gamers have got to grips with the abilities of its 22 playable characters, the latest of which was added this week, but the game itself doesn’t go into too much detail as to the organization’s origins or explaining why agents were urged to reactivate in the first place. Blizzard has slowly started to fill those gaps with a series of video shorts and an online comic book series, but a new partnership with Dark Horse Comics looks set to expand on that quite significantly.
IGN reports that under the new agreement, Dark Horse will republish Blizzard’s digital Overwatch comics through its own comics service. The publisher will then print a 100-page Overwatch graphic novel in April 2017. Both companies are keeping quiet on the name and the team behind it but we do know that it will follow the story of the original strike team. Finally, there’ll be an oversized hardcover book called The Art of Overwatch, which will be released in Summer 2017.
If you’re wondering why Overwatch lore appears somewhat limited, that’s actually a conscious decision by Blizzard. In an interview with GameSpot (embedded below), its developers explain that they “didn’t want to fill in the blanks” and wanted people to experience different parts of the game and form their own opinions. The game features little hints — the arrival of Ana was teased via various in-game assets — but the comics and visual novel will go someway towards rounding out Overwatch’s overall story.
Source: IGN
Edward Snowden designed an iPhone case to prevent wireless snooping
Edward Snowden is still trying to combat smartphone radio surveillance three years after spilling the NSA’s secrets. With help from hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, Snowden presented on Thursday designs at the MIT Media Lab for a case-like add-on device that monitors electrical signals sent to an iPhone’s internal antennas.
It looks like an external battery case with a small mono-color screen and is being described as an “introspection engine.” The device’s tiny probe wires have to attach to test points on the iPhone’s circuit board, which are accessible through the SIM card slot. The phone has two antennas that give off electrical signals and they’re used by its radios, including GPS and Bluetooth.
The probe wires read the radio’s electric signals, and by doing so the modified phone warns you when these signals transmit information when they’re meant to be off. You’ll instantly receive alert messages or even an audible alarm, and the phone can even shut off automatically. The intention here is to allow reporters to carry their phones into hostile foreign countries without revealing their locations to government-funded adversaries. They’ll still be able to record video and audio while their iPhone’s radio signals are disabled.
However, the device is still nothing more than a design for now. Snowden and Huang are hoping to build a prototype over the next year, and eventually start offering these modified iPhones to journalists.
Via: Wired
Stem cell-based cartilage could fix your broken hip
Doctors want to 3D print transplantable organs from your own stem cells, but now they might be able to replace a bum hip, too. A team of scientists in St. Louis and Durham used stem cells to grow cartilage on a 3D “scaffold” that can be molded into the exact shape of a patient’s hip joint. It could then be implanted onto the surface of the bone, replacing the regular cartilage that acts as a “lubricant” for the ball and socket-style joint. Since it would be made from your own stem cells, there’s no chance of rejection.
The 3D scaffold is made from a woven material that can bear up to 10 times a patient’s weight, letting them to exercise and otherwise live normally. It can even solve the original cause of the program, which is usually osteoarthritis. Using gene therapy, they genetically programmed the joint to release anti-inflammatory molecules on demand to keep the arthritis at bay. “Our hope is to prevent, or at least delay, a standard metal and plastic prosthetic joint replacement,” says Washington University Professor Farshid Guilak.
Lest you protest that this potential treatment is reserved for your elders, think again. “We envision in the future that this population of younger patients [aged 40-55] may be ideal candidates for this type of biological joint replacement,” says researcher Bradley Estes. That’s because doctors are often reluctant to perform joint-replacement surgery on patients younger than 50, because they’ll need a second operation when they’re older and more at risk for infection and other issues.
Via: Science Daily
Source: WUSTL
Nintendo tries to salvage ‘Star Fox: Zero’ with a late demo
Despite being one of Nintendo’s most highly anticipated Wii U games, Star Fox: Zero landed with less than stellar reviews. It wasn’t that the game was bad, just sort of hard to play. Critics and fans alike lambasted the title for having an obtuse, disconnected control scheme that moved half of the action to the Wii U gamepad — forcing players to divide their attention between two screens. Now, Nintendo is letting players judge for themselves: three months after hitting store shelves, Star Fox: Zero finally has a free, downloadable demo.
The demo itself is little more than the full game’s tutorial mode with Nintendo’s Star Fox Zero: The Battle Begins animated short tacked on for good measure, but it’s enough to give players an idea how the game controls. If it’s enough to boost the game’s sales is anybody’s guess, but at least Nintendo seems to have learned its lesson about demos: a free version of Metroid Prime: Blast Ball launched today too — over a month before Federation Force, its retail counterpart, hits store shelves. Both demos can be found on their respective Wii U and 3DS eShops.
Via: Destructoid
Facebook’s solar-powered drone makes first full test flight
Facebook’s solar-powered, internet-beaming plane Aquila is finally ready for takeoff after two years of engineering and scale model flights. As the company reports today, a full-scale version of Aquila made its first official flight on June 28th, staying aloft for 96 minutes while the ground crew tested everything from the autopilot system to the aerodynamics and radios.
The full-size Aquila has the wingspan “comparable to a commercial airliner’s, but weighs only one-third as much as a car” and can fly at 60,000 feet on about 5,000 watts of power, or “about as much as three hair dryers.” While the test flight was obviously much shorter than the two months that Facebook plans to fly the drones in their final version, it pretty much verified the Facebook aeronautics team’s computer models across the board. As the team wrote in a blog post today, the only hiccup appeared to be a structural failure just before landing. The landing itself, however, was also a success. Naturally, the plane was strapped with cameras so it could also help produce its own promotional video:
Although the flight was a success, the team notes a few more challenges for the next test run: namely, will the plane be able to get enough sun to charge the batteries and keep the engines running at night. The team also notes that “for Aquila to succeed, it needs to be an economically viable alternative to current network infrastructure.” Or, in other words, is building and maintaining a fleet of drones going to be more of less expensive than laying fiber optic cable to the remote, internet-less regions of the world? For now though, the team will focus on gathering even more data with more test flights and new aircraft designs.
Hackers reportedly selling leaked terrorism watchlist
An eerily detailed database containing a list of suspected and convicted criminals and terrorists is reportedly being sold online for 10 bitcoin (about $6,600) and 3.5 bitcoin ($2,300.)
The database, colloquially known as “World-Check,” is typically sold by Thomson Reuters to a wide variety of agencies in a bid to offer a screening tool to weed out those who might be involved in criminal organizations. The fact that it exists is strange enough, but the fact that it could be selling online to the general public is even more bizarre.
The information comprising World-Check is taken from a vast amount of public data sources and even includes entries for figures who don’t even appear to be charged with the “terrorism” they’re listed with in the database.
The leaks have occurred after last month when security researcher Chris Vickery stumbled upon a copy of the database, which Thomson Reuters then referred to as “outdated.” It was supposedly “exposed by a third party,” but by then Vickery hadn’t been the only person to get to it. That honor belongs to “Bestbuy,” an individual who supposedly accidentally found the database, and has sold it three times over for 10 bitcoin apiece.
Thomson Reuters is aware of the latest leak of this information and has said in response to Motherboard that they’re “engaging with the appropriate authorities” as far as the databases go.
Via: Motherboard
Spotify is now selling your information to advertisers
If you’re a Spotify user, your friends and family aren’t the only ones who are able to check out your playlists. The popular streaming service is now the latest platform that is opening its data to targeted advertising. Everything from your age and gender, to the music genres you like to listen will be available to various third-party companies.
Spotify is calling it programmatic buying and has already enabled it. Advertisers will have access to the 70 million people that use Spotify’s free, ad-supported streaming across 59 countries. By viewing your song picks, these buyers will be able to look for specific users who might be the best matches for the products they’re selling.
The ads will be 15- and 30-second audio spots and though they might be more relevant to you than before, they’re still another friendly reminder that your information is never safe in this digital age.
Source: Spotify
Wirecutter’s best deals: Save $125 on an iPad Pro 9.7
This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. Read their continuously updated list of deals at TheWirecutter.com.
You may have already seen Engadget posting reviews from our friends at The Wirecutter. Now, from time to time, we’ll also be publishing their recommended deals on some of their top picks. Read on, and strike while the iron is hot — some of these sales could expire mighty soon.
iPad Pro 9.7″ 128GB
Street price: $750; MSRP: $750; deal price: $625
A big $125 drop below the street price, and $25 below the best price we’ve seen on this iPad Pro. This is part of Best Buy’s Black Friday in July sale, and you have to be signed into your Best Buy account to see these discounts. They’re also knocking $125 off of the 256GB model, if you’d prefer to have more storage space. While we’re featuring the rose gold model, this deal is available on all colors.
The iPad Pro 9.7″ 128GB is our upgrade pick in our iPad guide. Dan Frakes said, “If you need better performance for media editing, multitasking, or gaming; support for Apple’s fantastic Pencil stylus; better color accuracy; smartphone-class cameras; more storage capacity; or a huge screen, one of the two iPad Pro models is for you.”
ASUS ZenBook UX305UA
Street price: $750; MSRP: $900; deal price: $700
Zenbooks tend to gradually drop their street price by $50 every few months, and this deal is no exception. We last saw it drop from $800 to $750 towards the end of March, and it’s now dropped down to $700, the best price we’ve seen to date.
The ASUS ZenBook UX305UA is our budget pick for the best ultrabook. Kimber Streams said, “It’s inexpensive, slim, and light, and it has great battery life, a decent keyboard, and a reliable trackpad. It’s the only ultrabook in this price range with 8 GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and an Intel Core i5 processor—you’d have to spend $200 to $400 more to get a better one. The downside? The ZenBook UX305UA lacks a couple of amenities such as a touchscreen and a backlit keyboard.”
Refurbished Pebble Time Steel Smartwatch
Street price: $200 (new); MSRP: $250 (new); deal price: $100
Only the second deal we’ve posted on a refurbished model of the Pebble Time Steel, and a big $40 drop below the best price we’ve seen. This deal is only available on the gold color and comes with a 90-day warranty.
The Pebble Time Steel is a smartwatch we like in our guide to the best smartwatch. Kevin Purdy wrote, “At this price, we’d recommend the Pebble Time Steel as a budget entry for Android phone owners. If the square look and wider straps work for you, the watch does an increasingly good job of relaying and responding to notifications, tracking your steps and sleep, and, of course, showing the time, all of the time.”
Aukey Quick Charge 2.0 54W 5 Port USB Desktop Charging Station
Street price: $25; MSRP: $32; deal price: $19 with code QQFYTSD8
Make sure to use the code QQFYTSD8 to get this price. We’ve seen this charger at $20 after code a couple of times, and while this isn’t much cheaper than that, it is a new low.
The Aukey Quick Charge 2.0 54W 5 Port USB Desktop Charging Station is one of the Quick Charge 2 options we list in our best multiport USB wall charger guide. Nick Guy wrote, “For five-port chargers, we recommend Aukey’s Quick Charge 2.0 54W 5 Port USB Desktop Charging Station. It has a single Quick Charge port plus four 2.4-amp ports. During this round of testing, we didn’t have four iPads on hand to test the maximum charging capacity, but we can confirm that two iPads and one Quick Charge 2.0 smartphone can charge at full speed at the same time.”
Deals change all the time, and some of these may have expired. To see an updated list of current deals, please go to The Wirecutter.com.
