Latest Sky+ update helps you discover new movies

The last update for Sky+HD boxes was all about keepings the kids entertained, so it’s only fair that the next give parents a few ideas of what to watch when the munchkins are all tucked up. Rolling out to set-top boxes from today (though it might take a few weeks to land on yours), the third Sky+ update this year is specifically aimed at Sky Movies customers. As part of continued efforts to make Sky+ more like Netflix and other streaming services by focusing on the discovery as much as the content, the new “More Like This” feature recommends other flicks based on your current selection.

And if a couple of those suggestions take your fancy, you can add them to your “Watchlist,” a new section where you make note of movies you’d like to see so you can jump straight into them when you next get the chance. Finally, if you stumble across a film on live TV that’s halfway through already, the new “Watch from Start” feature will download the movie to your Sky+HD box so you can catch it from the beginning. Oh, and later this year, Sky’s also adding a star-based rating system using audience scores from review site Rotten Tomatoes, at which point you’ll know whether that Watchlist of yours is full of classics or flops.

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Home Entertainment, Software, HD

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Sky

Tags: hdpostcross, sky, sky+, sky+hd, skymovies, skyplus

Pocket Casts for Android lets you see what people near you are listening to

If you use Android and love podcasts, chances are good you’ve stumbled upon the Pocket Casts app. It’s well-designed, easy to use and includes a host of excellent features to help you discover new podcasts. Today, developer Shifty Jelly is adding another new discovery option, and it’s a rather unconventional one: Pocket Casts now includes a “Nearby” feature that shows you what other users near you are listening to. If you go to the “Discover” tab in Pocket Casts and tab on “Nearby,” you’ll see the top podcasts being listened to by others who’ve enabled this sharing feature. You’ll also see what shows you have in common with other users near you (chances are good you’ll be seeing Serial pop up a lot here).

How useful this feature will be remains to be seen — it’ll only work with other Android users listening to Pocket Casts at any given moment, leaving iOS users out in the cold. Fortunately, Shifty Jelly says it is working on bringing a “massive” update to its iOS app in the near future. This Nearby feature seems like a shoo-in for that update, and we’re hoping that it’ll let you see anything Pocket Cast users are playing — regardless of which OS they’re using. Until then, the latest version of Pocket Casts for Android is available in the Google Play store for $3.99.

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Software, Mobile

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Google Play, Shifty Jelly

Tags: android, mobilepostcross, nearby, pocketcasts, Podcasts, shiftyjelly

Xiaomi’s global devices to get Opera’s data-saving tech

Following yesterday’s announcement on Opera Max supporting YouTube and Netflix, today the company revealed that Xiaomi’s latest Android fork, MIUI 7, will have the same data-saving technology baked into its Data Saver feature. According to Xiaomi, this can reduce data usage across all apps by up to 50 percent, though encrypted connections are still left untouched. While Data Saver has already been on Xiaomi’s China devices for about a year, it’ll be a first for global MIUI users, though they’ll have to wait for a few more months. That said, other features such as “up to 30 percent faster response time,” “10 percent better battery life” and face recognition in photo album will be available right away. All global Xiaomi devices except for Mi Note and Mi Pad can grab the update on August 24th.

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Internet, Software, Mobile

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Tags: android, china, compression, DataCompression, max, miui, miui7, mobilepostcross, opera, operamax, optimization, phone, xiaomi

Knock twice for friendship with this app

Say you’ve just met someone at a party. It turns out you guys go to the same school, hang out at the same coffee shops and are both really into John Steinbeck. Now it’s time for you to part ways and you want to keep in touch, but it seems a little forward to just ask for the person’s phone number since you barely know each other. But if both of you have a new app called Knock Knock, you could extend him or her your contact info by just knocking twice on your phone. Not only that, but you can select what kind of contact info you want to share — maybe you’re only comfortable sharing your Twitter and Instagram info and not your phone number (at least at the beginning of your budding relationship, anyway).

Here’s how it works, assuming you both already have the app. To initiate contact, you knock twice on your phone. This will bring up the Knock Knock app, even when the screen is off and the phone is locked. That’s because the knocking not only utilizes your phone’s touchscreen, it also uses your phone’s accelerometer and gyroscope. On the app, you’ll see only the people who have Knock Knock installed who are within Bluetooth range (it uses beacon technology to create a Bluetooth mesh network). Tap that person and they will get a knock notification on their phone. From there, they can either choose to connect with you or not, and you can also select just what information about yourself you want to share.

Once that other person knocks back, they’ll be automatically connected to you on all the relevant social channels — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so forth — as long as they agree to it. If you’d rather not share anything but you still want to chat, you can just chat through the app itself. The app will instantly note when and where you met, so that it’s easier to remember who that person is on your contacts list.

Knock Knock was created in part by Ankur Jain, who’s also the founder of Humin, a contact management platform that hooks into your phone’s address book. He says the app was created because there’s still a lot of awkwardness around meeting people for the first time. “There’s the awkwardness of asking someone for their number when they don’t really want to give it to you, or forgetting someone’s name a mere 10 minutes after you’ve met,” he says. Knock Knock, however, aims to remove that friction.

“The easiest way to think about it is this. In a real life situation, say you’re at a conference. If you wave at someone, and they wave back, it’s an invitation to talk and chat,” he says. “At the end of that, you can leave and there’s no commitment. Or you can choose how you want to stay in touch if you want to take it further.”

Aside from connecting one-on-one, you can also create Knock Knock groups for a group chat — you can just knock the phone to instantly join the group — and from there, group members can connect individually if they want. This, Jain says, is great for finding friends at crowded events or meeting up with mutual buddies. Perhaps even a bit of matchmaking, if that’s something you’re into. Even in a group chat situation though, you’re free to choose just what information about yourself you want to share with the group.

You also don’t need to be in the same room to respond to a Knock. Say you weren’t paying attention to your phone at the party, and went home, where you suddenly see that guy you talked to at the party had sent a Knock to you to stay in touch. You can then respond (or not) to that notification if you like. “It’s super low commitment,” says Jain, likening it to the casualness of Snapchat but applied to messaging like WhatsApp.

It’s worth noting here that by default, only your first name can be seen on that Bluetooth mesh network. If you prefer, you can also opt for other privacy settings like to not be noticed by strangers, only sharing your initials or not displaying a photo. Unlike apps like Highlight that simply display who you are if you’re in a nearby location, Jain says, Knock Knock lets you control how much you’re willing to share.

So what happens if the other person doesn’t have Knock Knock but you still want to tell that person what your username is on the various social networks? Well, you can still use the app to send that info to them, but you’ll need their phone number — it simply sends it to them in a text message.

“We’re launching this mostly for college students,” Jain says. “They’re frequently in scenarios where they’re meeting new people.” Also, now that there’s a litany of ways to keep in touch with one another — Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter just to name a few — it’s a little weird to just list them all to your newfound buddy and hope they follow you back. It’s far easier to just give them a list and have them decide to follow you or not, says Jain.

Thanks to Jain’s connections, the team was able to put together a promo video for the app starring Richard Branson, will.i.am and Sophia Bush (seen above). If that’s enough to persuade you, you can go ahead and download the app — it’s available for both Android and iOS — starting today.

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Software

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Source:
Knock Knock

Tags: app, knockknock

Parallels 11 brings Microsoft’s Cortana to Macs before Siri

The latest version of Parallels, the popular Windows virtualization tool for Mac OS X, almost feels like it’s trolling Apple. One of Parallels 11’s key features, alongside full Windows 10 support, is its ability to put Microsoft’s Cortana right on your OS X desktop. That’s right — you could have a Windows-powered virtual assistant on your Mac long before Siri reaches the desktop. Parallels has already made it possible to run Windows apps directly on your Mac desktop for years with its “Coherence mode,” but this latest update marks the first time it’s brought over a Windows feature on its own. Slideshow-313636

In a brief demonstration, Parallel’s Cortana feature (which requires a Windows 10 virtual installation, naturally) worked just like it did on Windows 10 proper, with decent voice recognition and no noticeable delays. It can even take advantage of your Mac’s location data, making it practically indistinguishable from a native OS X app.

Parallels 11 also packs in the usual performance improvements: It can launch and shut down Windows around 50 percent faster than the last version, and a new “travel mode” can save up to 25 percent of your battery life. But really, the main reason you’d want to upgrade is to put Cortana on your OS X desktop and freak out all your friends. Parallels 11 is available today for $80, though users of the past two versions can upgrade for $50. And if you need more out of your Windows virtual machine, there’s also Parallels 11 for Mac Pro Edition, which will take advantage of that machine’s beefy hardware. It’ll cost you $100 a year, or $50 a year if you’re upgrading from Parallels 9 or 10.

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Software

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Tags: Cortana, Macs, OSX, Parallels, Parallels11, Windows10

The stuff-finding Tile now helps you find your phone

Placing a location-tracking Tile on you stuff has become a good way to keep you from pulling up all the couch cushions in your house when you misplace your car keys. Today, Tile has introduced a new white Bluetooth-enabled white square that’ll keep helping you find your stuff, but also your phone with the Tile app. With the updated app and Tile if happen to lose your phone, you can double-press the “e” on the Tile and if the app is running in the background, the phone will start playing a little tune. The app can also be used to locate another phone. So when someone loses an iPhone, their Android-owning friends can help out instead of just shrugging because they can’t load Find My iPhone.

In addition to finding lost phones, the new Tile is also three times louder than the previous version so it’s easier to find lost items that are at the bottom of a bag or under those pesky key-eating couch cushions. The company also has a new site to help folks find their lost items so they’re no longer dependent on an app. Perfect for when you lose your Tile and your phone.

This is in addition to the Lost Mode that’s available for both versions of Tile that gets every phone out there with the app to start looking for a missing item and ping the owner if it’s nearby.

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Misc, Software

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Source:
Tile

Tags: Loststuff, Tile

Opera Max saves data on YouTube and Netflix

Until now, one of the limitations with the Opera Max Android app is that it doesn’t compress encrypted connections, which is probably a good thing except that many video platforms use HTTPS. That’s no longer an issue with the software’s latest release, which can now compress YouTube and Netflix video streams over HTTPS “without any significant loss in quality.” This means there’s less buffer time, and you can binge-watch more viral clips within the same data allowance. But Opera isn’t stopping there, as it’s already working on bringing more secured video services and social apps — including Facebook and Snapchat — on board, so stay tuned.

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Internet, Software, Mobile

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Source:
Google Play

Tags: android, app, compression, mobile, mobilepostcross, netflix, opera, operamax, youtube