Google’s latest search tools will help you find the best hotel and flight deals
Though we’re still in the heat of the summer, Google is preparing to roll out some interesting new features to make searching for flights and hotels much easier. One of the bigger features rolling out is the ability to opt into tracking fare changes for flights. Simply set a specific date range and route combination, or even a specific flight, and you can get notified when the fares change significantly.
Finding the right place to stay at the right price will also be simpler thanks to smart filters and deal labels. You’ll now be able to define more granular search terms like “pet-friendly hotels in San Francisco for under $200,” and find exactly what you’re looking for.
Further, if Google Search surfaces any rooms that are cheaper than average, you’ll now see a “Deal” label denoting it. Google will even help you by suggesting ways to save with hotel “Tips.” Essentially, if you can save money by moving your dates slightly, Google will show you.
Finally, to help shoppers find what they’re looking for, Google says it is is launching “Showcase Ads” in search, through which retailers can present a scrolling carousel of whole lines of products related to broad search terms. And for YouTube, Google is adding a “Companion banner” next to videos where you’ll be able to scroll through products in a video that uses Google’s TrueView shopping experience.
Pokémon Go Medals: How to unlock bronze, silver and gold for everything!
They’re mostly for rubbing in everyone’s face, which is why you need all of them!
The Medal system in Pokémon Go is a little self serving for the moment. You don’t gain anything by unlocking them, aside from a little note in your account saying you’ve unlocked them. That means there’s a list of accomplishments you and your friends can compete on unlocking, and obviously the one with the most Medals unlocked is the best Pokémon Go player right?
Every Pokémon Go medal comes in Bronze, Silver, and gold. Here’s what you need to do in order to unlock each of these Medals!
First things first — where to check your Medal progress
To see where you are in your personal Medal journey, tap on your character icon in the bottom left corner of Pokémon Go. When your avatar pops up, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You’ll see all of your Medals and their current progress. This list is updated every time you play, so you can see how close you are to reaching a goal by the completion of the ring around the medal.
Looking for something more specific? Here’s the list!
| Jogger | Walk a specific distance | 10 km | 100 km | Unknown |
| Kanto | Register Pokémon to your Pokédex | 5 | 50 | 100 |
| Collector | Number of Pokémon captured | 30 | 500 | 2000 |
| Scientist | Number of Pokémon evolved | 3 | 20 | 200 |
| Breeder | Number of Eggs hatched | 10 | 100 | Unknown |
| Backpacker | Visit PokéStops | 100 | 1,000 | Unknown |
| Battle Girl | Gym Battle victories | 10 | 100 | Unknown |
| Ace Trainer | Times trained at a Gym | 10 | 100 | Unknwon |
| Schoolkid | Normal type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Black Belt | Fighting type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Bird Keeper | Flying type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Punk Girl | Poison type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Ruin Maniac | Ground type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Hiker | Rock type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Bug Catcher | Bug type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Hex Maniac | Ghost type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Kindler | Fire type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Swimmer | Water type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Gardener | Grass type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Rocker | Electric type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Psychic | Psychic type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Dragon Tamer | Dragon type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Fairy Tale Girl | Fairy type Pokémon caught | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Youngster | Catch XS Rattata | 3 | 50 | Unknown |
| Pikachu Fan | Catching Pikachus | 3 | 50 | Unknown |
Pokémon Go
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
- How to deal with GPS errors in-game
- Which team should you choose?
- How to play without killing your battery
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
Are you playing Pokémon Go?
It’s only been a few short days since Pokémon Go was released by Niantic, and it’s already taken the world by storm. Chances are you’re either walking around town to catch Pokémon, or you know at least one person who is. The truth is that this game has blown up big time, and people who have never had any interest in pocket monsters are now looking for Pokémon everywhere from their backyard to the church 10 miles down the road.
That’s what brings us to this week’s poll! We want to know if you are playing Pokémon Go. With that in mind we’ve got four options for you to choose between: “Of course I am!”, “I’ve downloaded but haven’t been able to play much”, “I’m not playing Pokémon go”, “I’m not playing and I wish people would stop talking about it.”
Are you playing Pokémon Go?
Are you caught up in the sheer madness of Pokémon Go? Have you already heard enough about this game? Drop into our comment section and let us know about it!
Pokémon Go
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
- How to deal with GPS errors in-game
- Which team should you choose?
- How to play without killing your battery
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
Google’s Family Library will let you share account with up to six others
You’re about to save a tonne of money on Android apps, movies, and books.
According to CNET, Google will announce a new family plan for Google Play Store. It’ll work a lot like Apple’s family-share program. Called Google Play Family Library, the plan should let you share apps, videos, and books purchased from Play Store with up to six family members.
That content can be shared across not only Android devices but also Google’s websites and the Google Play apps on iOS, though Android apps will still only work on Android devices and, soon, Chromebooks. Keep in mind Google announced last December a different sharing program for Google Play Music. It lets you and six other people from your family stream music for $14.99 a month.
But you don’t have to pay extra to sign up for Family Library. You just need a credit card saved to the account for future purchases. Google will send each receipt to the owner. And everyone in your family will be able to access every single app, video, and book that’s available to the account holder. You can even remove specific titles from your library to hide stuff from others.
The new system should launch in several countries in late July.
Kids’ robot breaks into a dance to teach them how to code
DIY robots are becoming the gateway to coding. Over the last couple of years, a new wave of cute-faced bots has taken shape to make programming languages fun for kids. Instead of dense textbooks and complex online tutorials that are designed for a more mature audience, programmable toys are built to introduce young kids to the world of code. The latest entrant on the educational bot scene is the JIMU robot, a build-your-own-bot kit from UBTECH Robotics that snaps together to form a little dancing humanoid called MeeBot or a more elaborate elephant that flips forward on its trunk for some awkward yoga asanas.
With the JIMU robot, UBTECH Robotics, a Schenzen-based company that has been around for eight years, is stepping into a space that’s quickly getting cluttered with motorized toys. The company already has a lineup that includes industrial bots in China and commercial humanoids like Alpha 2, but now they’re using their existing infrastructure to build affordable, programmable robots for kids, eight and older, with DIY inclinations. They might also find a home in schools that are looking to adopt coding in their curriculum.
The MeeBot kit, which is available exclusively at Apple stores for $130 starting today, comes with interlocking parts that include colorful blocks, connectors, motors and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. A platinum grey control box with a U-shaped line across the front doubles as a smiling face. Lime green blocks make the arms while the turquoise pieces are the legs. Bright red flat feet lend a pop of color and a personality to the robot that can break into a jig with the touch of command. Six servo motors, produced in-house by the robotics company, act as moving joints along the body of the robot.
The humanoid with its 201 parts is actually the simpler build within the JIMU ecosystem. There’s also the Explorer Kit, which lets you construct complex animals like a penguin, T-Rex or a parrot with 372 parts, and the more advanced, 675-piece Inventor Kit. You can buy the latter on Amazon to build an elephant, giraffe or a humanoid that looks like a descendent of Optimus Prime. In addition to these “official characters”, the JIMU robotic system makes room for creativity so that young builders can come up with their own iterations with the same blocks.
The JIMU’s building block anatomy resembles LEGO’s interlocking bricks. Indeed, the higher-end, 16-servo humanoid from the $400 Inventor Kit evokes memories of LEGO’s flashier, laser-wielding Mindstorm robot, which sells for a similar $350. But what the JIMU’s more expensive iteration lacks in flashy accessories, it makes up with the simpler and more affordable MeeBot that can help kids learn a coding language for a lot less money.
In addition to the accessible price point, JIMU’s open-source software is where its educational capabilities really shine. You can build and program the robot from the JIMU robot companion app, which is available on the Apple store and will soon launch for Android. There are step-by-step 3D animated instructions that make the construction a lot easier than working with an old-school print booklet. You can zoom in and twirl the robot’s body around on the screen for 360-degree views to see how the parts interact with each other.
Still, it’s not as simple as building a LEGO figure. The construction, as general manager John Zhee pointed out during a recent demo, is intentionally challenging. It makes room for collaborative building between students or a parent and child. Depending on your DIY skills, after you’re done building the machine you can start programming its movements. You can pick from a list of pre-loaded “actions” that range from basic front and back movements to some “crazy dance” moves or you can come up with your own choreography through the “pose, record and playback” feature. When the Meebot is standing still, you can move its arms or legs, reposition them and record the manual movements for the app to lay down the line of code for you. When you hit play, the robot moves the way you intended. The feature essentially takes your physical interactions with the robot and turns it into automated moves when you hit play.
When you’ve figured out the choreography, you can work through the more advanced programming aspects of the dance routines. In a block cording section that looks like a colorful flow chart, you can drag and drop actions, conditions and coding functionalities from a list of controls. After choosing the starting point of the program, you choose an action that will act as a trigger. The tilt of a phone to the right, for instance, can set the movement off. For the actual moves, you can choose from a preloaded list or you can design your own before bringing it into the final performance.
All of this makes a user think about sequencing, order of events and even the correlation between coding and movements. For someone who wants to dig in deeper into the programming of the robot, a simple tap on an icon on the top right of the screen takes you into Swift to see the breakdown of your code. While the 3D instruction set is rooted in Java, the company says it went with Apple’s Swift programming language for its simplicity. “There’s a big push to bring it into the main fold,” says Zhee. “Kids need to understand robotics at a young age, get their brains primed for what’s coming. Swift fits into that easy coding approach.”
Beyond the build and the programming, another feature that UBTECH Robotics seems to be banking on is its Instagram-style social sharing. Users can share their stories, robot pictures and even how-to-build instructions through a feature in the app so others can like, comment or follow. This kind of community-building aspect seems unique within the landscape of educational robots that have been available on the market. But the ease with which you can build and program a JIMU robot is its biggest strength. A child or an adult who appreciates the DIY robot building activity does not need prior programming knowledge to get into it. In fact, the starter kit is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to step into the world of programming.
Microsoft is leasing Surface tablet and software bundles to businesses
Last month, Microsoft quietly launched a program for individuals to lease its Surface detachable tablets to small businesses so they could use top-line machines without a lot of up-front cost. Today they’re rolling out a more ambitious plan that takes a page out of the SaaS playbook, letting partners rent out the devices alongside the tech giant’s more popular office software.
As part of their Surface as a Service initiative, authorized third parties will offer the tablets along with Microsoft cloud services, Windows 365, Windows 10 and other ISV software. Unlike last month’s small business-focused membership program, the tech giant wants more options to broaden its appeal to both the SMB and enterprise markets. Microsoft has already launched the program with ALSO, a cloud solutions provider in Europe, and will roll out globally as they secure similar partnerships, according to the company’s post.
It will be interesting whether Microsoft expands the concept to its other hardware products. It might suit game consoles’ iterative release schedule: lease an Xbox One now, automatically upgrade to the slimmer Xbox One S as it comes out and then get boosted to the Xbox successor Project Scorpio when it’s expected to launch at the end of 2017. While we may not see the tech giant try to push Windows phones, the company has shown itself willing to sacrifice profits by using bundle sales to get hardware in new hands.
Source: Microsoft blog
Sega Saturn copy protection gets cracked two decades later
Sega Saturn fans have a problem: while the console has long supported unofficial code on CDs thanks to mod chips, that’s no good if you want to use software in any other format. How will you play anything if your decades-old CD drive dies? You can rest easy after today. After years of work, enthusiast Dr. Abrasive has found a way to crack the Saturn’s copy protection system and let it run software from a card with USB support. This was no mean feat, as it turns out — the Saturn has a notoriously difficult-to-read anti-copying system that isolates itself from many cracking methods.
Dr. Abrasive ultimately had to fool the relevant chip into spilling its read-only memory, reverse-engineer its operating system and insert a custom board into the console’s Video CD card slot to feed the desired code. The result not only plays games faithfully, but does things the Saturn was never meant to do. It can write files to the USB stick, for example.
The project may be most helpful for archival, since it’d help you play the likes of Nights into Dreams or Panzer Dragoon on native hardware well after the CD drive kicks the bucket. However, it should also help tinkerers. Emulator developers could better understand how the Saturn works, homebrew game developers could easily load their content and non-gaming tasks (like playing chiptune music) would be that much easier. Dr. Abrasive is hoping to make a polished device that anyone can use, so there might soon be a day where you just have to pop in a card to relive classics you haven’t touched in years.
Source: Assembler Games, Debuglive (YouTube)
Jaguar Land Rover plans semi-autonomous car tests on UK roads
Fresh off of the announcement of its plan to take self-driving cars off paved roads, Jaguar Land Rover revealed that it’s preparing to test autonomous and semi-autonomous tech, or what the company calls Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technologies, on roads in the UK. First, the automaker is planning to amass a fleet of over 100 test vehicles over the next four years, the first of which will cruise a 41-mile test course around Coventry and Solihull this year. The company says the first stage of testing will involve semi-autonomous technology that allows cars to communicate with each other and with infrastructure like signs, traffic lights and more.
Jaguar Land Rover shared some details on its system which aims to make driving safer and more enjoyable. For example, a Roadwork Assist feature uses front-facing 3D camera to scan the roadway for for cones and barriers. The system then charts the best course based on the makers alongside warnings and “a small amount of steering assistance.” Eventually, the tool could be used to navigate through work zones automatically.
There’s also a Safe Pullaway feature that aims to prevent drivers tapping the vehicle in front of them by not paying attention in traffic or hitting something because the car was put in drive instead of reverse by mistake. Cameras monitor the area in front of the vehicle to avoid those low-speed mishaps, applying the brake if necessary based on whether or not the driver hits the gas or selects the wrong gear.
Last but not least, Jaguar Land Rover will test an Over the Horizon Warning that allows for vehicle-to-vehicle communication. When one car has slowed or stopped, a hazard warning would be sent to nearby automobiles to inform them of the issue. There’s an emergency vehicle piece to this as well, a system that would allow first responders to communicate with other cars on the road. The main benefit here is providing a warning before the driver could see lights or hear a siren. As we mentioned, this is the beginning of the company’s trials, so we’re sure to hear more about how it progresses in the months to come.
ESPN will air 18 hours of eSports coverage on July 17
ESPN is increasing its eSports coverage in a big way. The network will be airing 18 hours of eSports programming on ESPN2 and ESPNU on Sunday, July 17. This will mark the first time ESPN will air an entire eSports block on its major networks, a far cry from the days when it relegated League of Legends matches to streams on the web.
The programming block will start at 10 AM ET with re-airings of past matches such as the Madden NFL 2016 championship, and both the 2015 and 2016 Heroes of the Dorm: Championships. This will all lead up to the much anticipated 2016 Street Fighter V EVO World Championship final in Las Vegas, airing at 10 PM ET on ESPN2. Don’t worry cord cutters, all programs will also be available to stream via WatchESPN.
This is yet another sign of eSports going mainstream. It was only in 2015 that ESPN aired its first Heroes of the Storm tournament match on live TV. Since then, the network has launched a dedicated section on its site that focuses on professional gaming, and has aired a handful of championship matches.
With eSports bringing in over half a billion dollars in revenue in 2016 alone, it’s inevitable that ESPN will continue to increase its eSports coverage. It feels like a lifetime ago network president John Skippe said eSports aren’t real sports.
Android Wear’s latest preview opens gestures to other apps
Are you the sort to treat your wrist as a test bed for Google software? If so, today’s a grand day. Google has released its second developer preview of Android Wear 2.0, and it packs more than just some extra spit and polish. It now supports wrist gestures in third-party apps, to start. While you’ll need apps to take advantage of this, it raises hope that your favorite fitness or messaging tool won’t require a free hand (or your voice) for navigation.
Other upgrades are minor, unless you really, really like easier access to action and navigation drawers. However, the biggest gripe may simply be finding a device to use with the preview. The software-based emulator will work on a computer, but you’ll need either a Huawei Watch or the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE to try this beyond your PC. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the fall to see what all the fuss is about.
Source: Android Developers Blog
