Celebrate ‘Back to the Future’ Day with the CAPACITOR Watch face for Android Wear
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
I have always wondered if Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd ever imagined that Back to the Future would become what it has become. Regardless their thoughts while making the movies, the fact is they will always be the best time traveling movies in history. We would all love to have a Delorean that takes us through time at 88MPH, while it might be only science fiction, that doesn’t mean we all can’t have a Flux Capacitor at our disposal. Don’t worry, this sucker isn’t nuclear. The icon master, The Phlash, has a number of watch faces for your Android Wear watch in the Play Store. They are above and beyond your traditional watch faces and bring some pretty cool looks to your wrist. He released another one the other day in preparation for his time travel to 2012 with CAPACITOR.
You know it is sick. You have control over what color your Flux is from the settings of the face on the watch and from Android Wear. Now, if I can get my hands on those Nike’s and a hover board, my life will be nearly complete.
Gear yourself up for some time travel today and pick up CAPACITOR from the Play Store below.
http://playboard.me/widgets/pb-app-box/1/pb_load_app_box.js
The post Celebrate ‘Back to the Future’ Day with the CAPACITOR Watch face for Android Wear appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Twitter makes it easier for anyone to curate and post tweet collections
When Twitter launched Moments, it talked briefly about its launch partners and how eventually anyone would be able to build their own moments. Until that happens, Twitter is launching an ecosystem using the same tools used by Moments to help publishers, developers and really anyone who’s wanted to put together a collection of tweets for a post. Using Tweetdeck or the newly launched Curator tool, people can find tweets they would like to build into a story. The Curator tool also includes 20 different filters to help find relevant tweets and put those updates in whatever order you want. Then you can drop the URL or collection ID of your tweet compilation into publish.twitter.com for an embed code. Drop that code into any site and you’re good to go.
Twitter has also introduced a grid layout (see below) for image and video-heavy stories. These compilations are are also editable on the fly. If you build a collection and realize you need to add or remove a tweet, the ecosystem dynamically refreshes all the instances of the story no matter where you’ve put it.
But, Twitter’s not the only company with a new curation toolset, it’s also partnered with Spredfast, DataMinr, ScribbleLive, Wayin, and Flowics to help them build out their own versions of the feature. Plus if you start work in one tool, you can switch to another and continue building an embeddable collection.
“We think that this workflow could be used by a lot of different people, developers included. Tweets are great content,” Michael Ducker, one of Twitter’s head of product told Engadget. To that end, the ecosystem also works with apps via the new Collections API for developers. So expect more timelines in apps that look similar to the layout found in the official apps.
Source: Twitter
Samsung Pay is now available on all major US carriers
Samsung has opened the floodgates to its mobile payment solution in the US. The company announced today that Samsung Pay now works with all major US carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular and, despite some drama, Verizon. In order to take advantage of this feature, which is Samsung’s answer to Apple Pay, you’ll of course need to have a compatible smartphone — like the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ or Galaxy Note 5. Samsung Pay first became available Stateside in beta on September 28th, but as of today anyone on one of the big networks can start using it. To do so, download the app from Google Play, enter your debit/credit card information and you’ll be set.
Via: The Next Web
Source: Samsung
Twitter to finally update OS X app later this year
While the iOS and Android apps have gotten regular updates, the OS X app has languished. Twitter has shown the app very little love in the past few years. But, today at the company’s Flight developer conference, Jeff Seibert, Twitter’s developer platform lead announced that the app would be getting an update and would be available before the end of the year. It’ll have native GIF and Vine playback and a dark mode. Hopefully that dark mode will make its way to the Android and iOS apps.
iOS and OS X updates arrive with a ton of new emoji
If you’ve ever wanted to text taco pics from your iPhone or give the middle finger from your Mac, today’s your lucky day. Apple has released iOS 9.1 and OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, both of which add a slew of new Unicode emoji ranging from Mexican food through to rude gestures. There are some important under-the-hood fixes, too. Your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus is now smart enough to stop recording Live Photos when you lower the device, and OS X shouldn’t run into trouble with Office 2016. Whichever platform you’re using, you’ll likely want to update pronto — if just to see the cutesy characters you’d otherwise miss.
[Image credit: Emojipedia]
Source: MacRumors (1), (2)
Google Maps adds pit stops along your driving route with latest update
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
Google Maps has been updating to version 9.16 for a few days now, but not everyone has seen it go live just yet. Yesterday Google made the update announcement on their blog outlining all the new features that they have baked into the latest update and boy are they awesome.
Everyone has been on their way someplace important, be it a meeting, an interview, a date or what have you. You get the navigation rolling on your phone and you are off. Along the way you discover you need gas, a quick coffee or something. Normally you have to search it out, stop your navigation to look for something close by and then restart it afterwards. The latest Google Maps update will make all of that a bit easier. Now you can locate Gas Stations, Restaurants, Grocery Stores, coffee shops or anything else you are in the need of along your route and simple add the detour to the mix. Plop in a gas station and Google Maps will reroute you to the destination all while keeping you on track to your final destination.
That will save you some time for sure, but it will also save you some distracted driving trying to locate something in the car. The update takes things a pinch further by showing gas prices at the gas stations letting you find the best price along the way too.
As always, you can sit around and patiently wait for the app to update naturally through the Play Store, or you can bounce over to APK Mirror and pick up the latest version for your device.
Source: Google
The post Google Maps adds pit stops along your driving route with latest update appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Original Chromecast Spotify support firmware update rolling out
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
When Google announced the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio they also announced that Spotify would be making its debut as well. Needless to say, that made a lot of people rather happy. At launch though, the inclusion of Spotify to the Chromecast family didn’t support the original Chromecast devices that were already out in the wild. Support was said to be coming though. It would now appear as though the necessary firmware update to allow you to cast to your original Chromecast is currently rolling out.
To get the updated firmware on your device you can power cycle the device. If the update was already downloaded it will update when it boots back up. Power cycling can sometimes trigger the update to download as well if it hasn’t already. You can always see if it installed when you weren’t looked by opening up Spotify and checking to see if you can cast or not.
There is one critical thing to know about how to cast though. By default Spotify is free and offers a monthly subscription to the service just like many others out there. With Spotify the “Premium” service enables Spotify Connect. If you plan to cast to your 2nd of 1st gen Chromecast, you need to have Premium to use Spotify Connect in order to do it. Needless to say, if you don’t pay, you can’t play.
Source: 9to5Google
The post Original Chromecast Spotify support firmware update rolling out appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Twitter opens up polls to everyone
If you’ve been wondering which candy your Twitter followers prefer — Red Vines or Twizzlers, — the social networking company has your back. Starting today, the micro-blogging service is rolling out its poll feature to iOS, Android and on Twitter.com. Now users can embed two-question ballots into their tweets. Each poll is open for 24 hours and all votes are secret. So, no one will know about your secret love of Twizzlers when you live in a Red Vines family. When the poll does expire, everyone that participated will receive a push notification of the results. Those alerts could compel users to launch Twitter for something other than a 140-character tirade about the new Star Wars trailer and that’s exactly what Twitter is looking for.
Twitter has been adding more and more features and upgrades to the network’s ancillary components. Direct Messages have become full on groups without a character count. Quotes now shares full tweets without killing your 140-characters. While Moments was launched as a way to help new users figure out who and what to follow and give them a daily reason to launch the app. Polls, like the rest of these improvements, are an enticing way to create more interaction on the network beyond retweets and favs.
And because everyone wants to be part of the winning team, there’s a good chance sharing a poll with like-minded friends will become a way to assure a voter’s choice is the winning one. It probably won’t happen on your question about which Enterprise captain is the best (it’s Picard), but for large brands and Twitter, it’s another way to get users to use the service.
Source: Twitter
Uber improves its service for disabled passengers in London
After recently seeing off a challenge from the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) at London’s High Court, Uber is wasting no time in its attempt to broaden its appeal across the capital. The company today announced the launch of uberASSIST, a new service that will offer additional assistance to disabled users. It works like this: when a rider requests a car using the ASSISTUK code, a “top rated” Uber driver, who has passed an equality course developed by Transport for All and Inclusion London, will be told that their passenger may require additional assistance and be invited to contact them ahead of their pick-up.
Vehicles are equipped to store folding wheelchairs, walkers and scooters, but Uber hopes to “add additional fully accessible vehicles to the Uber platform” by early next year. The launch comes as Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London (TfL) look to impose restrictions on the company’s operations in an attempt to level the playing field for traditional taxis and the private hire industry. Uber has been told it should offer more wheelchair accessible vehicles, while other proposals require drivers to complete a Knowledge-like exam and pass an English-language test in order to operate in the capital.
Uber says that the service will be available from 3pm today for no extra cost and more than a hundred drivers are already on board. It’s a small footprint when compared to the 21,000+ London black cabs that are wheelchair accessible by design, but Uber’s finally doing more to support riders who may need extra assistance when travelling across the city.
Waze’s maps and traffic app gets a cleaner and smarter design
Waze is one of the most popular maps and traffic apps on iOS and Android. For good reason, too: It’s fast, intuitive and, often times, more accurate than the highly rated Google Maps. Today, Waze’s making its mobile application even better, thanks to an overhaul designed to offer a cleaner, prettier user interface and quicker access to useful actions. With a single tap, you can now send directions, location or estimated time of arrival to your contacts. You can also get traffic-based reminders, making it easier to get to any destination on time — as long as your calendar is synced with Waze. Last but not least, this new version of the app “significantly” reduces battery consumption, according to the company; if true, that’ll definitely be appreciated by users who rely on the app for their daily commutes or casual trips. The 4.0 update is already available for iOS, while Android’s expected to get it “soon.”
[Image credits: AFP/Getty Images]
Source: Waze
AIVAnet 