These are the top Allo features you need to know
‘Allo Allo.
Google’s smart messaging app Allo is now available. The service competes with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, both of which boast a userbase of over a billion users. Google is looking to differentiate Allo with Google Assistant, a chatbot that provides answers to your queries by drawing on the search giant’s machine learning smarts. AI is at the core of Google’s strategy, and we’ll see the assistant make its way into the Google Home and future products. And it’s all kicking off with Allo.
These are the top Allo features you need to know. If you’re just installing the app, be sure to check out our setup guide.
Your replies are now smarter
When you’re chatting with your friends and family, Google Assistant offers a series of responses based on the context of the conversation. If you’re sharing a picture of your cat, for instance, your friends will see options to reply with “Cute!”, “Adorable!”, “How fun!”, and so on. For images that contain food, you’ll see suggestions for nearby restaurants.
That’s the good part. The not-so-great bit is where most canned responses are generic right now. I had an entire conversation with my colleague Russell Holly without typing a single word. That said, most of it went down like this (exclamation points courtesy of Google):
Google Assistant learns your messaging patterns over time, and it should hopefully offer more personalized suggestions.
When in doubt, emoji
When you don’t want to type, you can use Allo’s diverse set of emojis to get your message across. There’s an emoji for most emotions (which should say a lot, really), occasions, pets, and social activities, so you’re very well catered to in this regard.
Scribble away
You can jazz up images you’re sharing with friends by doodling on them, or adding text.
Emphasize your point with text
Allo has a nifty trick that lets you make your text larger or smaller. To achieve this effect, you have to press and hold the send button, and slide it up to enlarge text, and slide down to shrink it.
Use stickers for everything else
Google has worked with “independent artists and studios around the world” to launch 25 sticker packs for Allo. Messaging app Line pioneered the use of stickers in chats, and ever since most messaging platforms have gotten into the act.
Also, for some reason that I can’t really fathom, a lot of the sticker packs are aimed at an Indian audience. There’s even one about a “little Indian girl who loves her country and relishes any occasion to be patriotic.” No clue what’s going on there, but for the most part, stickers on Allo are just like on any other platform. Some will use it, but most users won’t care.
Go incognito
Allo offers an Incognito Mode that doesn’t store a record of your conversation. You can set a timer specifying the duration of the chat, following which it will be automatically deleted. All ephemeral chats are overlaid with a grey incognito icon.
Ask Google Assistant anything
If you’re feeling bored, Google Assistant offers a variety of ways to pass the time. You can have a conversation with the chatbot wherein you can ask it to tell jokes, recite poems, play games, serve up news headlines, sports scores, and much more. You can invoke the assistant directly from within a chat window by typing @google.
And yes, you can have an emoji party with the chatbot.
Room to grow
For all of its features, Allo can’t be used as the default SMS client on your phone. It uses an SMS relay to communicate with contacts that don’t have the service installed, but it won’t be taking over Hangouts. Then there’s the fact that chat history is non-transferable (at least for now) across devices. When you switch handsets, you’re starting from scratch in Allo.
What do you guys think of Allo? Let us know in the comments.
Score an unlocked 64GB Galaxy S6 for just $389 right now!
Daily Steals is currently offering new unlocked 64GB Galaxy S6 for just $389 with the coupon code ACSEPT10. You’ll have your choice of white or blue here, and it is for model G920A which is the AT&T model. Being that the Galaxy S6 doesn’t offer expandable storage, it’s great to have the 64GB built-in and considering many 32GB versions are selling for this same price it’s great to have double the storage at no additional cost.
If you don’t need the latest and greatest, or are looking for a backup phone, you won’t want to miss out on this deal. Remember, you’ll need coupon code ACSEPT10 for the full savings here.
See at Daily Steals
Best Credit Card-Sized Battery Chargers
The benefits of a power bank in one small, compact package!
If you find your phone tapped out of battery power often, no doubt you’ve probably looked into portable power banks. If you like the idea of having extra power with you, but dislike having to carry around the extra weight, you may love these super small and thin power packs!
- GMLYE Ultra-Thin
- PowerJet Ultra-Compact pocket power bank
- TravelCard Charger
- Lankoo power bank
GMLYE Ultra-Thin
The GMYLE Ultra-Thin power pack has a capacity of 2,500mAh, which is more than enough to extend your phone’s battery life for a marathon session of Pokémon GO.
The GMYLE is only about 5mm in thickness and about the same width and height as a credit card, so you don’t have to worry about finding space to carry this thing around.
It starts around $17, and even comes with built-in Micro-USB and Lightning cables, which saves you the trouble of keeping track of your charging cords.
See at Amazon
PowerJet Ultra-Compact pocket power bank
Power Theory’s PowerJet Ultra-Compact pocket power bank manages to pack a surprisingly big capacity at 4,600mAh, more than enough power to completely charge a Galaxy S7 and have a little left over.
The PowerJet also comes with a built-in Micro-USB cable, so you don’t have to carry around a cord with you at all times. Plus, there is a little LED indicator which will flash red when it’s at 10% capacity or less, so you know when it’s time to charge it.
Due to its impressive capacity, the PowerJet does retail a bit higher than some of the competition, usually starting around $40.
See at Amazon
TravelCard Charger
Truly designed with portability in mind, the TravelCard Charger is a mere 4.7mm thick, making it actually small enough to fit inside your wallet with ease.
While its capacity is only 1,500mAh, it does have a few key features that are included in every power bank this size. The LED indicator will let you know when it’s time to fill it up again, and it even has the ability to be charged while charging your device, so you should have no problem killing two birds with one stone.
The TravelCard has a built-in cable for Micro-USB and Lightning ports, so you shouldn’t spend time having to untangle cords while you’re on the go.
See at Amazon
Lankoo power bank
The Lankoo power bank is for the serious power consumer. It’s got a capacity of 5,000mAh, meaning any phone you’ve got should be able to get a full charge from the Lankoo.
On top of its impressive capacity, the Lankoo also offers a fast charging speed. Its one USB port is certified 5V 2.1A charging speeds, meaning it shouldn’t take you too long to recharge any phone.
The added bonus of the Lankoo, it comes in all sorts of fancy designs and colors making it visibly stand out from the rest of the competition.
See at Amazon
HTC Ocean concept leaks online with no physical buttons in sight
HTC could be heading towards a button-less smartphone future if a recent concept design is to be believed. Called the HTC Ocean, it’s been shown off in a rendered video running a new Sense Touch user interface. What’s interesting is that the new UI relies solely on voice commands and, as the name suggests, touch gestures.
The new phone was spotted and shared on Twitter by usually reliable leakster Evan Blass, who linked to a video he found on Danelle Vermeulen’s website; Danelle is a longtime visual and motion designer for HTC. Danelle says the video is “just a conceptual piece and does not represent any real product from HTC”.
That may be true, but it could inspire future products from the Taiwanese company. The video has since been password protected on Vermeulen’s site, perhaps in an attempt to keep it a secret, although you can still view it on Evan Blass’s Twitter.
From the video, it seems the Sense Touch UI is very slick in operation, although just how slick it will be in the real world of course remains to be seen. But the fact it relies almost completely on voice commands to open apps, call friends, schedule meetings and play music looks mighty clever.
Twitter account LlabTooFeR has further added to the Ocean rumours by claiming current codenames are Ocean Master, Ocean Note and Ocean Smart, suggesting we could in fact see three new devices from HTC in the future. Whether they’ll all be smartphones or if there’ll be a tablet thrown into the mix isn’t yet clear.
ICYMI: In the future, rooms will read your emotions
Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Lab created a wireless detector that can read whether people are excited, happy, angry or sad by checking their breathing and heart rate. EQ Radio has an 87% success rate and doesn’t use a single body sensor.
If you’re interested in the Ghost Robotics video, that’s here and the hacking video showing how a Tesla Model S was remotely controlled is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Europe’s free roaming law won’t have time limits
The European Union is back with a second shot at a free roaming plan… and while it addresses key complaints, it’s raising concerns of its own. The newly proposed rules would ditch the unpopular time limits in favor of letting carriers compare your roaming habits with how you use service at home. Networks could only ask for surcharges (which top out at €0.04 per call minute, €0.01 per text and €0.0085 per megabyte) if it’s clear that you’re abusing your roaming access. You’d raise a warning flag if you consume way more data than you do at home, for example, or get SIM cards that remain eerily inactive until you start traveling.
There would be avenues for disputing charges, including with national regulators, if you think your carrier makes bad judgment calls. However, companies could regularly (if temporarily) apply those surcharges in “exceptional circumstances” where customers in their home markets face price hikes or other “negative effects.” Telecoms would have to show that free roaming was threatening their domestic pricing model.
If the European Parliament likes the approach and puts into effect ahead of a June 15th, 2017 target date, it could be helpful for EU residents who spend large stretches of time away from their homeland. However, the fuzziness of this roaming plan has its problems. Where do carriers draw the line for abuse? There’s a risk that carriers will keep the threshold artificially low, guaranteeing that you’d face surcharges if you use your phone even slightly more than usual (say, to share vacation photos). The EU may need to carefully define its definition of misuse if it wants to avoid a public outcry.
Source: European Commission
Curt Schilling to repay a fraction of $75 million game loan
The saga of former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios, the state of Rhode Island and an awful lot of money might finally be over. At the end of July, it was announced that 38 Studios wouldn’t face criminal charges for a failed $75 million loan for Project Copernicus, a massively multiplayer online game set in the Kingdoms of Amalur universe. Now, Schilling and his compatriots only have to pay $2.5 million to settle the lawsuit out of court, according to the Associated Press.
One bit about the settlement agreement: It says that the defendants “deny liability and the settlement is not to be construed as an admission of liability by any of them.” This is important because Schilling has stressed time and again that he didn’t do anything wrong — that it was Rhode Island’s fault for how everything went pear shaped. It probably also helps insulate his story of being financially drained after filing bankruptcy in 2012.
The AP says that this settlement will pay back bonds, but that the state’s taxpayers still are in the hole over $28 million on the deal. How will the rest of that shake out? Only time (and civil suits) will tell.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Associated Press
A closer look at Olympus’ OMD-EM II flagship mirrorless camera
Is Olympus hampered by its micro four-thirds sensor when mirrorless rivals have APS-C and Fujifilm just launched a medium-format camera? I had a look at the company’s new OMD-EM1 Mark II flagship during Photokina, and the company is doing its best to prove it’s not. By marrying a brand-new 20.4 megapixel sensor to a dual quad-core TruePic VIII image processor, Olympus has made a blazingly quick camera. Combined with a new 121-point phase detection AF system, It can shoot 18 RAW frames per second in continuous autofocus and exposure mode, and a crazy 60 fps with those locked off.
During my admittedly brief tests with the prototype (under controlled conditions), it was able to sustain that 18fps rate for a good 5-10 seconds before it started to slow down. It was then ready to fire again after a brief rest, thanks to the UHS-II card’s nearly 300 MB/s throughput. Photo transfers should be equally quick with the USB 3.0 Type C bus. That kind of speed may tempt news, sports and wildlife photographers who would normally turn their noses up at a micro four-thirds sensor.
The OMD-EM1 II isn’t the lightest mirrorless camera I’ve tried, but it’s a feather compared to any flagship DSLR — another plus workaday photographers. Purists may decry the lack of an optical viewfinder, but the 2.36 million dot EVF has a minimal 6 millisecond delay and very smooth 120fps frame rate. During a brief test, it was just as good as an OVF for focus (if not better), to my eyes. Olympus also redesigned the grip for better handling, and, combined with the sturdy build quality, the camera feels very, very good.
Olympus is finally getting its act together with video, too. The OMD-EM1 Ii has 4K, 30fps video at up to 237 Mbps speeds, and the fast sensor readout significantly reduces rolling shutter, the company claims. Like Panasonic’s GH4, it also supports “Cinema 4K” at 4,096 x 2,160 resolution, compared to regular 4K (3,840 x 2,160). Video is processed internally at 4:2:2 for better colors, and can be output cleanly through the HDMI port to an external recorder.
Olympus also unveiled a battery grip, lenses and other accessories. The 25mm f/1.2 lens will give photographers a fast lens option for low-light, and a wafer-thing focus plane for artistic bokeh shots.
Given the limited time I had with it, the OMD-EM1 Mark II looks like a great flagship. However, Olympus is still battling the mindset that a micro four-thirds sensor is too small for the job. Its toughest rivals, Sony and Fujifilm, also make cameras that shoot fast and do 4K video, but pack larger APS-C sensors. And by launching a medium-format mirrorless camera, Fujifilm is telling serious shooters that even full-frame sensors aren’t big enough.
If the image quality of the OMD-EM1 II matches the speed and specs, Olympus may convince some pros, and serious amateurs, however. That might depend on the price, which we still don’t know, but the original OMD-EM1 ran $1,400. It should arrive before the end of the year.
We’re live all week from Cologne, Germany, for Photokina 2016. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.
Sega harnesses nostalgia to sell you ‘Sonic Mania’
Ever since, uh, 1995, it’s been a hard few years for Sonic The Hedgehog fans as we’re promised a new game that’ll remedy all those past transgressions. In order to commemorate the original’s 25th anniversary, Sega is launching Sonic Mania, a new title that reimagines levels from the first (and best) four games in the series. But that’s not the only thing that Sega is reimagining, which you’ll see if you take a look at the commercial that’s being used to pimp the collector’s edition box set.
The clip above is a gentle tribute to a commercial for Sonic 2 that aired way back in 1993, when Sega’s marketing was the best in town. As GameInformer rightly points out, Sega is hoping that the nostalgia factor will coax back gamers who’ve been burned by so many bad Sonic titles post Sonic & Knuckles. Still, it’s nice to be transported back to a time when we argued over the merits of Blast Processing versus Mode 7, if only for a moment.
Via: GameInformer
Source: Sonic Mania
How to Perform a Clean Installation of macOS Sierra
macOS Sierra is Apple’s latest desktop operating system, which succeeds OS X El Capitan and adopts a new name to bring it in line with iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The OS will come pre-installed on all new Macs once current stock is depleted and is a free download for existing Mac owners.
The main new feature in macOS Sierra is deep Siri integration, bringing Apple’s personal assistant to the Mac for the first time. It also adds new features to Photos and Messages, and includes Continuity smarts like Universal Clipboard and an Auto Unlock option for Apple Watch owners.
This tutorial explains how to download macOS Sierra and perform a clean install, which offers several benefits over the automatic upgrade process included in the installation package.
Benefits of a Clean Install
A clean install can remove annoying quirks and strange behaviors that your Mac may have inherited over time due to driver upgrades, wonky apps, and messy installation procedures. Performing a fresh install can also reclaim lost disk space caused by junk files left by third-party apps, and can generally make your Mac feel a lot snappier, enabling you to relive that feeling of booting it up for the first time.
To complete the clean install procedure described below, you’ll need an 8GB or larger USB thumb drive and an hour or two to spare.
You should also perform a full backup of your Mac beforehand using Time Machine. That way you can restore your system from the Recovery partition if something goes wrong. Alternatively, save a bootable mirror image of your system to an external drive using a clone utility like SuperDuper! ($27.95) or Carbon Copy Cloner ($39.99).
Compatibility Check
Before you do anything, check that your Mac is compatible with Apple’s new operating system. macOS Sierra supports the following:
- iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Air (2010 or newer)
- MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
- Mac mini (2010 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (2010 or newer)
- Mac Pro (2010 or newer)
Another way of checking if your Mac is compatible is to open the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your Mac’s screen and selecting About This Mac. Look just below the OS X version number in the Overview tab – if the Mac model name is the same or a later model year than the one shown in the compatibility list above, your Mac is compatible with Sierra.
Pre-Install Notes
If you want total control of what data gets transferred to the new OS, you can sidestep the Migration Assistant and manually copy any important files and folders on your existing system to an external drive instead. It’s also worth taking a screenshot of your desktop, to serve as a record of how you like things set up.
Some users may find it useful to make a note of the contents of their Applications folder for later reference. A screenshot may suffice (Command-Shift-4, then Space to capture the Finder window), but if not, the following steps describe a simple way to create a list of apps.
Open the Applications folder and press Command+A to select all apps in the Finder window, then press Command+C.
Now open up TextEdit, create a new document, select Format -> Make Plain Text from the menu bar, and press Command+V to paste a list of app names into the document.
If necessary, add details of download locations for any non-Mac App Store apps you use, append any serial numbers you might need, and save the text document to an external drive.Be sure to allow any cloud services you use to complete synchronization before continuing. It’s also worth screen-grabbing or noting down any custom preferences, settings, Wi-Fi passwords, and app-specific profiles you use.
Lastly, de-authorize any services on your Mac, including your iTunes account (iTunes menu > Store > Deauthorize this Computer), since these are usually limited to a set number of systems.
Create a Bootable Installer
Download the macOS Sierra installation package from the Mac App Store. Once it has downloaded, follow these steps to create a USB bootable installer.
Open Disk Utility (found in the Applications/Utilities folder), select the thumb drive in the sidebar and click the “Erase” button.
Name the USB drive “Untitled” if it isn’t already, choose the Format “OS X Extended (Journaled)”, and click “Erase”. Once your thumb drive is formatted and the macOS installation package has finished downloading, open up Terminal (found in Applications/Utilities).
Now, ensure the USB drive is the only disk named “Untitled” connected to your Mac, and then paste the following command into the Terminal window, and press Enter: sudo /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/Untitled –applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app –nointeraction
You should be prompted for your administrator password. Enter it, and the command will create a bootable Sierra installer on the USB drive. The process will take a few minutes to complete, so leave it running.
Restart and Install
Once the USB installer has been created, restart your Mac and hold down the Option key as soon as you hear the reboot tone. Then follow these steps:
Use the mouse pointer or the arrow keys on your keyboard to select the disk called “Install macOS Sierra” in the drive list that appears on the screen.
Once the USB drive has booted, select “Disk Utility” from the Utilities window, choose your Mac’s startup drive from the list, and click “Erase”.
When your Mac’s startup disk is formatted, return to the Utilities window and select “Install macOS”, choose your freshly erased startup drive when asked where to install the OS, and follow the onscreen prompts to complete the installation.
Post-Install Steps
Once the clean installation of macOS Sierra is up and running on your Mac, you can either restore your data from a Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant (found in Applications/Utilities), or begin restoring your apps, files, and settings manually to get your Mac set up just the way you like it.
Related Roundup: macOS Sierra
Tag: macOS
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