Streaming videos from your browser to Chromecast is about to look way better

 

Google is testing a major leap in quality when casting a tab with video content from a Chrome desktop browser to your Chromecast. Ever since the streaming gadget was introduced, this has been a rather lackluster way of sending video to the TV from sources that don’t natively support Chromecast. (Hi, Amazon Video.) Tab casting can be laggy, drops frames, and never preserves the video’s original quality. That’s changing soon and you can try the new solution right now. 

François Beaufort outlines the Chrome team’s new approach in this Google+ post that was reported on by Android Police. Instead of just mirroring the entire tab (and low-quality video) on your TV screen, the Chrome browser will now send the exact video stream to the Chromecast. All you need to do is toggle on full-screen mode in the content you’re watching, and Chrome will handle the rest. “This ‘simple’ feature allows to save battery and keep video quality intact.”

This is what you’ll see when casting full-screen video to Chromecast from a browser tab.

That feature isn’t yet ready for all Chromecast users, so to try it out you’ve got to do a little bit of work:

You can give it a try today if you happen to have a Chromecast device nearby: Go to chrome://flags/#media-remoting, enable the highlighted flag, restart Chrome, go to https://vimeo.com, play a random video, click "Cast..." in the Chrome menu and fullscreen the video to enjoy that experience.

So get streaming, everyone. Amazon Video is one obvious example of where this will be very useful. I’m really hoping that works, but haven’t tested it myself just yet. Vimeo is another that Beaufort confirms as working. If you can think of other video services that don’t offer proper Chromecast support where this will help out, add a comment below. 

The article was published on : theverge

Turns out Verizon’s $70 gigabit internet costs way more than $70

Yesterday, Verizon announced a new gigabit internet plan that the company said would cost just $70 a month, which would have been an aggressively low price for that kind of speed. 

But, as it turns out, that $70 price tag is too good to be true. As Ars Techinca reports, it turns out that the ultra-low price is only for new customers who don’t have Fios already. Existing customers who have tried to upgrade were reportedly met with confusion, with some customers facing upgrade costs of up to $200 a month for the gigabit service. As a Verizon representative told Ars Technica, “The specific price a customer pays to upgrade depends on what their current pricing is." Further complicating things is the fact that Verizon’s own system isn’t able to process the upgrades to gigabit yet, adding a further level of confusion to the whole affair. 

Additionally, even setting aside Verizon’s poor messaging about the plan for current customers, it turns out that even new customers probably won’t be paying $70 a month, as Verizon will be charging either a $10 monthly rental or $150 one-time fee for a Fios router. And apparently, diving in to the fine print of Verizon’s website reveals that even if a customer is eligible for the $70 per month price, that service is actually a $195 / month plan which is reduced to $70 through a $10 online discount and a $115 "special bonus discount,” which is only valid for either 12 or 24 months. (The site isn’t totally clear.)

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DJI and Hasselblad just released an insanely overpowered camera drone

Back in January DJI acquired a majority stake in the iconic Swedish camera maker, Hasselblad. The two companies had worked together on some product integrations, and today they pushed the partnership further, releasing what they are calling “the first 100-megapixel integrated drone imaging platform.” The setup combines an M600 Pro drone, a Ronin MX gimbal, and a H6D-100c camera. The announcement was part of the NAB industry conference currently happening in Las Vegas.

The goal, says a press release, is a system that will be used for the very high end of “landscape and fine-art photography” as well as “robust data for surveying and mapmaking.” The camera has a 53.4mm x 40.0mm sensor, allowing it to capture intricate detail and faithful colors even in poor lighting conditions. 

The M600 Pro currently retails for around $4,999 and has been marketed as a tool for Hollywood-caliber film productions. It was released at the same time as the Ronin MX, which retails for $1,599, and can carry a 13-pound payload. No pricing is available yet on the M600 when paired with Hasselblad H6D-100c, which can sell for upwards of $30,000. 

It’s a nice return to form for Hasselblad, which actually got its start designing cameras for the Swedish Air Force during World War II and rose to international prominence after its equipment was used by NASA to capture iconic images of the first Moon landing.

The article was published on : theverge

YouTube’s family-friendly Kids app is now available on smart TVs

 

YouTube Kids is something of a godsend for parents. It’s a curated version of the video streaming app that focuses strictly on content that’s appropriate for young viewers. The user interface is also streamlined for easier exploration of available videos. Now it’s coming to TVs. 

Since launching the Kids app two years ago, YouTube says it has accumulated 30 billion views and draws over 8 million weekly active viewers. Today, YouTube Kids is launching on smart TVs from LG, Samsung, and Sony.

• All 2015 - 2017 LG webOS TVs
• 2013 - 2017 Samsung smart TVs (plus Blu-ray players that have Samsung’s app store)
• 2016 and 2017 Sony TVs — not including Android TV models

Oddly, YouTube Kids isn’t ready for Google’s own TV operating system just yet. The company only says that the app will be available on Android TV “soon.” As always, YouTube notes that inappropriate videos can sometimes slip through its automated Kids screening system unnoticed and encourages parents to flag anything that seems out of place. Search can also be disabled to lessen the odds of bad videos popping up.

The article was published on : theverge

Facebook to start showing fact-checked ‘related articles’ in News Feed before you click a link

Facebook announced today that it’s testing a new version of related articles that appear in your News Feed, which will underneath the linked story. 

 It’s similar to the existing implementation of the related article feature, but instead of only showing the relevant content after you read an article, Facebook will now surface those links to appear directly in your News Feed before you’ve clicked on the link. 

According to Facebook, the goal of the showing related articles before users read posts is to provide “easier access to additional perspectives and information,” including articles that have been fact-checked by third parties. But presumably the change is also an effort to continue to combat fake news, misinformation, and a “filter bubble” on the social networking platform. In other words, Facebook is trying to help users get additional viewpoints on stories that they might not otherwise have, based on the inherently limited perspectives most people share with friends and pages they like on Facebook. 

The article was published on : theverge

Apple cuts affiliate app commission rates by nearly 65 percent

Apple is cutting commissions for affiliates for App Store apps and in-app purchases from 7 percent down to just 2.5 percent starting May 1st, as per MacStories’ Federico Viticci. 

According to the document shared by Viticci, the changes only affect affiliate referrals for apps, with other iTunes and iBooks Store content like music, movies, TV shows, and books still receiving the 7 percent rate. 

It’s a seemingly strange move on Apple’s part, given both the short notice (affiliates were given just one week of warning) and the dramatic rate of the cut (almost 65 percent). 

And while most users won’t be affected by the changes, developers who rely on affiliate links for their apps to generate extra revenue could see a hit to their income. Given Apple’s focus on giving developers more revenue with initiatives like the changes to subscriptions last year (which gives developers who can maintain annual paying subscribers an improved 85 / 15 percent revenue split with Apple instead of the usual 70 / 30), it’s curious to see the company clamping down on a small but significant source of income for developers. 

The move also has other, more subtle ramifications, given that many sites that cover apps (including MacStories, where Viticci serves as editor-in-chief) rely on affiliate links for additional revenue. Those sites could be forced to turn to other sources of funding, including more ads and sponsored content, depending on how reliant they were on the affiliate commissions. 

The article was published on : theverge

Sony’s XA1 is now available for preorder for $299.99

 

Sony’s “super mid-range” Xperia XA1 phone is now available to preorder through Amazon and Best Buy. It’ll go on sale at other retailers, like B&H and Fry’s, on May 1st. The phone will cost $299.99.

The company announced the device during Mobile World Congress this year. Here are the specs again:

• 5-inch, 720P HD display720P
• MediaTek Helio P20 processor
• 3GB of RAM; 32GB of storage
• 23-megapixel rear-facing camera, 8-megapixel front-facing camera
• 2,300mAh battery
• USB-C

The XA1 and the larger XA1 Ultra also feature something called “Xperia Actions,” which Sony says can learn users’ habits to automatically change settings and manage apps. For instance, the phone’s software could learn your bedtime and automatically adjust screen brightness and volume. 

The article was published on : theverge

Former Lyft driver files class action lawsuit against Uber over its ‘Hell’ tracking program

 

A former Lyft driver is filing a class action lawsuit against Uber less than a month after The Information exposed its controversial “Hell” program. Between 2014 and 2016, the software program allowed Uber to track how many Lyft drivers were available and where, as well as which Uber drivers also worked for Lyft. 

The Information reported that Uber created fake Lyft rider accounts and spoofed their location, thereby allowing them to gather data on available drivers. The company reportedly tracked individual Lyft drivers and cross-referenced their movements. If they were found to also work for Uber, the company targeted them with special bonuses to encourage them to abandon Lyft.

This class action lawsuit alleges four counts of privacy invasions. The defendants allege that Uber violated the Electronic Communication Privacy Act by “intentionally collecting, gathering, [and] intercepting” their electronic communications. Uber hasn’t confirmed the existence of its Hell software.

2017 has been a rough year for Uber. In addition to the Hell software allegations, the company’s CEO Travis Kalanick was caught on tape fighting with an Uber driver. The company also faces allegations of widespread sexual harassment, and yesterday, The New York Times published a report alleging that Kalanick met with Apple CEO Tim Cook after Uber’s iPhone app was caught fingerprinting devices, allowing the company to identify individual iPhones, even after the app had been deleted. This clearly violated Apple’s App Store policy, but after his meeting with Cook, and after disabling the fingerprinting, the app was allowed to stay in the App Store.

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Disney’s latest deal could make it easier to stream ABC shows

Disney announced today that it had reached a deal with over 160 of its local affiliate networks to allow the overarching Disney|ABC Television Group parent company to negotiate streaming deals on their behalf, via Deadline. 

Like NBC, which reached a similar deal with its affiliate networks earlier this month, the deal could make it easier for customers to be able to access ABC content on both cable and satellite provided streams, as well as through over-the-top services like SlingTV, PlayStation Vue, or YouTube TV.

According to Disney, over 90% of all TV households will be able to access ABC streams live through the new deal. Maybe one day, customers will be able to watch the Oscars online even if they don’t live in a major metropolitan area. 

The article was published on : theverge

Sling TV’s cloud DVR now works on the Apple TV

Sling TV is making its cloud DVR add-on available to subscribers who watch the streaming service with an Apple TV. The company charges $5 extra per month for 50 hours of cloud storage. The DVR is already available for customers using Roku, Amazon Fire TV devices, and Android. Sling TV is still referring to this as a “First Look,” as the DVR feature is still being worked on — and it doesn’t work at all on some channels due to licensing rights. 

Cloud DVR recordings remain available for as long as you’re a Sling TV subscriber and, assuming your shows are eligible, the feature allows for all the simultaneous recordings one could need.

Sling TV is using that “recordings stick around for as long as you’re a customer” as a selling point against PlayStation Vue (also available on Apple TV), which erases recordings after 28 days. Also for Sling TV: pausing, rewinding, and fast-forwarding through recorded content is always permitted, which can be a hit-or-miss thing on other services. 

Sling’s beating its rivals on pricing, but the service could still use some improvements to its general design and interface; it’s not quite as elegant or user-friendly as YouTube TV or Vue. That can really be applied to Sling TV as a whole; it’s a little rough around the edges, but it remains the cheapest option among the big ones out there for replacing your cable bill. 

The article was published on : theverge

French presidential frontrunner’s campaign hit by phishing attempts from Russia-linked hackers

 

French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron has qualified for next month’s runoff election, but a Russian government-linked group seems to eager to slow down the campaign’s progress.

According to research from cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, members of the hacking team known as Fancy Bear — called Pawn Storm by the report’s author — created phishing domains related to the Macron campaign, such as “onedrive-en-marche.fr,” plausibly similar to En Marche!, Macron’s political party. The domains were spotted by the researchers as they were created by the group, which likely used them in an attempt to steal credentials and hack the Macron campaign.

“Pawn Storm is known to prepare their credential phishing attacks well,” the report’s researcher, Feike Hacquebord, wrote in an email to The Verge. 

The Macron campaign’s digital director confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that phishing attempts were used against the campaign, and said measures were taken to block emails leading to the fake domains. The campaign has previously made allegations that Russia was launching hacking campaigns against Macron staff.

The first round of the French election, in which all candidates are given as choices, was held on Sunday. Macron edged out the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and is now expected to win a runoff election between the two. Le Pen, a staunch EU critic, has suggested France make a closer alignment with Russia.

Fancy Bear was infamously linked to hacks during the 2016 US presidential election, as emails from Hillary Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee were released and later tied to interference from the group, which the US government has alleged is back by the Russian government. 

The article was published on : theverge

Google Photos now lets you send images to your TV using AirPlay

The most recent update to Google Photos’ iOS app now lets you send images from an iPhone to your TV, so long as you have an Apple TV streaming box hooked up. The update, out today, uses AirPlay to transmit the images, letting you browse on the Google Photos app and choose which ones you’d like to beam to the big screen. 

It’s not a super groundbreaking update, yet it is the kind of cross-platform functionality you’d imagine would have existed already and inexplicably did not. Given Google’s expertise in developing top-class software for the iPhone — if you haven’t tried Motion Stills, do so now — it’s a bit of a mystery what took so long for AirPlay streaming to come to Google Photos. But as they say, better late than never. 

The article was published on : theverge

Nvidia Shield box can now stream Google Play Movies and TV in 4K

The Nvidia Shield box is one of the better ways to get 4K content onto a 4K TV, and it just added another source: you can now stream 4K movies and TV from Google Play. 

This could be the easiest way yet to watch 4K movies on the Shield TV — the box runs on Android TV, so depending on the selection it may save you the trouble of setting up a Vudu account.

The Shield update also includes 4K Google Cast support, so you can send 4K content from any Cast-enabled mobile app to your TV. It’s available today.

The article was published on : theverge

Neil Young’s high-quality streaming music service will be called Xstream

 

Neil Young’s high-fidelity audio project Pono is undergoing a new change. In a post to Pono’s Community site, the singer informed users that after the company shut down its music store last summer, it will become a high-quality streaming audio service.

The new service will be called Xstream, and comes after Pono has struggled to relaunch its music store after its supplier shut down last year, and to find an audience willing to pay a premium for its audio files. 

Young described Xstream as an “adaptive streaming service that changes with available bandwidth.”

Unlike all other streaming services that are limited to playing at a single low or moderate resolution, Xstream plays at the highest quality your network condition allows at that moment and adapts as the network conditions change. It’s a single high resolution bit-perfect file that essentially compresses as needed to never stop playing.

In the post, Young didn’t reveal when Xstream would launch, only that he will be announcing it “very soon.” He also didn’t get into specifics about what the service would cost, other than to say that he’s “insisted that there be no premium price for this service.” He went on to citing the difficulties that Pono faced with its music store, and that when faced with a choice, consumers will follow price, not quality.

Young first introduced the PonoPlayer in 2014 on Kickstarter, and its 2015 retail launch was accompanied by an online music store, where users could purchase high-quality audio files for the device. The service catered to audiophiles who were disgruntled with the lower quality audio that other online stores provided. While the service provided high-quality files to music lovers, its high costs (at times, almost twice the price of what its competitors were asking) left Young and Pono struggling to grow its audience. 

In 2016, the music store went offline after cloud-based music provider Omnifone ran into financial troubles and went into court-ordered Administration. Because it was the only source of high-quality files for Pono, it’s demise forced Young’s company to find a new provider, 7digital, which prompted it to change its model from storefront to streaming service. In the post, Young noted that they began to work on rebuilding the storefront, only to find “how difficult it would be to recreate what we had and how costly it was to run it.” Young goes on to note that the company also faced difficulty raising money to implement its model, and decided to shift to a premium streaming service instead.

In shifting models, Young’s company is a latecomer into a crowded market that is already dominated by major players such as Apple, Google, and Spotify, and which already includes a service that specializes in high-quality audio: Tidal. It remains to be seen if Pono can adequately distinguish itself from its competitors to deliver its dream of high fidelity to the masses. We’ll know “very soon.” 

The article was published on : theverge

Uber tried to fool Apple and got caught

Apple CEO Tim Cook threatened to have Uber’s iPhone app removed from the App Store in 2015, when it learned that the ride-sharing company had secretly found a way to identify individual iPhones, even once the app was deleted from the phone, according to The New York Times.

The article is a wide-ranging profile of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, describing him as a leader who is willing to break and bend rules to get his way, even if it means running afoul of one of the world’s largest tech firms. The attitude has led to Uber’s rapid rise, but has caused the company to run into numerous crises. The article describes how Uber faced problems with account fraud while it was trying to expand into China, and devised a way to identify an individual iPhone, even after its app had been deleted from the phone, or if the phone had been reset. 

The practice, called fingerprinting, is prohibited by Apple. To prevent the company from discovering the practice, Uber geofenced Apple headquarters in Cupertino, changing its code so that it would be hidden from Apple Employees. Despite their efforts, Apple discovered the activity, which led to the meeting between the two CEOs, in which Cook told Kalanick to end the practice. If Uber didn’t comply, Cook told him, Uber’s app would be removed from the App Store, a move that would be a huge blow to the ride-sharing company. According to the article, “Mr. Kalanick was shaken by Mr. Cook’s scolding, according to a person who saw him after the meeting,” and ended the practice.

Uber has faced backlash on numerous fronts in recent months, following revelations that the company has used secret programs to evade government regulators and to track rival drivers, tracked customers without permission, and is being sued for allegedy stealing proprietary information regarding self-driving cars from Alphabet’s Waymo. The company has also faced criticism for its toxic workplace culture following a blog post from a former engineer, and company trips to a South Korean escort bar. This latest revelation adds to the mounting PR problem that the company faces, due in part to the leadership style of its CEO.

“We absolutely do not track individual users or their location if they’ve deleted the app. As the New York Times story notes towards the very end, this is a typical way to prevent fraudsters from loading Uber onto a stolen phone, putting in a stolen credit card, taking an expensive ride and then wiping the phone—over and over again. Similar techniques are also used for detecting and blocking suspicious logins to protect our users' accounts. Being able to recognize known bad actors when they try to get back onto our network is an important security measure for both Uber and our users.”

The article was published on : theverge

Nintendo’s NES Classic will be available at Best Buy stores Monday morning

The NES Classic is officially discontinued, and Nintendo has said that the final shipments of the mini-console are reaching stores this month. But April is nearing its end, and thus so are your chances of getting the Classic — even if there’s no good reason for this thing to be going away in the first place. Best Buy has announced that the NES Classic Edition will be available at its stores (not online) at start of business tomorrow. Some locations will be doing a ticketing process before doors open; that’s the case at several New York stores I’ve called. 

A Best Buy spokesperson said that the NES Classic will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. However, the company has a policy of not commenting on inventory, so it’s impossible to know whether this is really the end of availability at the electronics retailer or whether a few more units might sneak onto shelves between tomorrow and April 30th. Best Buy is also promising savings on Classic accessories, which makes sense seeing as no one will be able to buy the main item for much longer. 

So what will you do? Get in line a few hours from now? Hey, at least temperatures are warming up for all of you on the east coast. Or will you ignore any desire to own the NES Classic as a statement towards Nintendo’s bizarre and terrible business strategy? 

The end of this retro hit is near, my babies. After this, you can hold out hope for GameStop (probably only in expensive bundles), Walmart, Target, and Amazon. After that, it’s either eBay, Craigslist, or waiting for the SNES Classic. 

The article was published on : theverge

This retro Mac-shaped iPhone stand looks nice, but is kind of pointless

A few months back, Elago released its W3 Apple Watch stand, which took advantage of the wearable’s Nightstand mode to serve as a clever bedside stand to charge your watch while simultaneously making it look like the world’s most adorable original Macintosh. Now, the company is hoping to strike Lightning twice with a similarly retro styled iPhone stand, the M4. But somehow, it feels like the M4 fails at everything that made the original W3 great.

First off is design — while both the W3 and M4 share a similar beige Macintosh aesthetic, the W3, by virtual of the square screen on the Apple Watch, actually resembles the original product. In contrast, the M4 iPhone stand offers a stretched-out funhouse mirror version of the classic computer.

Secondly, when it comes down to it, the M4 isn’t very useful. The Apple Watch’s inductive charger meant that you could easily slide the Watch down through the slot at the top to easily charge the device with the W3, plus there was the added benefit of activating Apple’s dock-focused Nightstand mode. The M4 case moves the entry point to the side, making it far more difficult to slip your phone in, and at the end of the day, you’ll still have to plug in a charging cable manually. Plus, once it’s actually in the case, there still isn’t any real benefit to propping up your iPhone like a miniature computer beside the novelty of it. I somehow doubt that Elago’s hypothetical use case of connecting a Bluetooth keyboard for getting work done is realistic.

Lastly, there’s the price. While the W3 could be justified as a cheap, cute toy at $15, the M4 costs over double that at a whopping $35 — almost as much as Apple’s (also overpriced) official Lighting dock, and that at least has the benefit of charging your phone and adding back a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

I really liked the original W3 dock — it was a geeky bit of fun that managed to neatly balance cost and utility while appealing to my sense of retro nostalgia. But with the M4, it feels like that appeal has turned into senseless pandering. 

The article was published on : theverge

Gmail users will soon get Windows 10's best new mail and calendar features

 

Back in February, Microsoft updated Windows 10’s mail and calendar apps with a few useful features. Focused Inbox shows you only the important emails and puts everything else into an “other” tab. And the calendar app gained the ability to display travel reservations and package delivery details. But at the time, neither of these options worked for Google / Gmail accounts — only for Outlook.com and Office 365 accounts. Thankfully, that won’t be the case much longer. 

Today Microsoft announced that it going to be rolling out Gmail support to Windows Insiders over the next few weeks before a wider release to all consumers. Users chosen for early access will receive a prompt to update their account settings to get started. 

For all of this to work, Microsoft says it has to sync a copy of your email, calendar, and contacts to its servers. Any changes you make — composing / deleting emails, scheduling new appointments, or adding contacts — are synced back to Google so everything remains up to date.

Microsoft will be “fine tuning” the experience for Gmail users over the next few weeks before Focused Inbox and the helpful summary cards for reservations and package deliveries make their way to all Windows 10 users at a later date. If you’re a Gmail-using Windows Insider and somehow miss the prompt to test out the new features, you’ll receive another reminder “in a few weeks.”

The article was published on : theverge

Apple appears to be interested in the satellite internet business

 

Apple looks like it’s staffing up an internal hardware team responsible for satellite internet delivery, according to a report from Bloomberg. The company just hired Alphabet’s John Fenwick, who was Google’s head of spacecraft operations, and Michael Trela, Fenwick’s colleague and head of satellite engineering, to be part of a new team under Dropcam co-founder Greg Duffy. Apple hired Duffy, who himself left Alphabet in 2015 shortly after Nest acquired Dropcam, earlier this year for an undisclosed position. 

It’s unclear what exactly Duffy’s unit is working on, but Fenwick and Trela’s expertise in the satellite business seems to suggest the company is looking into internet delivery. Fenwick was the co-founder of SkyBox Imaging, a satellite company Google acquired in 2014 and later sold to competitor Planet Labs back in February of this year. Another big name in the satellite business, Greg Wyler, left Google back in 2014 to work with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and Google ultimately invested $1 billion alongside Fidelity in the space transportation company it appears in lieu of building out its own division. 

So it’s clear the general winding down of satellite work at Google has pushed some of its in-house talent to competitors, but Apple is still a peculiar pick given its nonexistent track record in the satellite space. Both Facebook and Alphabet are the biggest players in the tech industry when it comes to delivering internet over the air, with Facebook working on solar-powered drones and Alphabet having shifted its resources from satellites and drones of its own to its hot-air balloon project Loon and Google Fiber unit. 

But telecom consultant Tim Farrar wrote last month that Apple is funding a Boeing effort to deliver internet using a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. Duffy’s role at Apple working under Dan Riccio, who oversees Apple’s consumer hardware teams, also suggests Apple could be building some of this tech itself, according to Bloomberg. While what the iPhone maker is up to is all very murky right now, it’s clear CEO Tim Cook has gotten serious about looking beyond smartphones and other consumer electronics and into more forward-looking industries like satellite internet and self-driving cars. 

The article was published on : theverge

First images of the Moto Z2 Play leak

The first images of the Moto Z2 Play — the successor to last year’s battery powerhouse, the Moto Z Play — have leaked out, via TechnoBuffalo. Without actual information on the specs of the Z2 Play, the picture is pretty much all we have to go on for now, although hopefully the Z2 Play will be able to supply the same best-in-class battery life as the original.

Visually, the Z2 Play appears to strongly resemble its predecessor, aside from a slightly redesigned home button:

 

The Z2 Play does seem to have the necessary contacts to support Motorola’s growing stable of Moto Mods as well, which should be good news for anyone who already owns some of the hardware accessories. 

It’s also worth nothing that the promo image displays a date of June 8th in the clock widget — which could be nothing, but also may hint that a proper reveal could be coming soon. 

The article was published on : theverge

Samsung’s Bixby is even less useful on the Verizon Galaxy S8 at launch

 

Samsung’s Bixby assistant on the Galaxy S8 is a little bit hobbled out of the gate. It won’t be able to respond to your voice commands until later this spring, and one of the few tricks it can do at launch isn’t yet fully functional on Verizon Wireless. 

That trick is called Bixby Vision. Inside the camera app, you can enable Bixby Vision, point the camera at something, and Bixby gets to work. From our review:

It uses computer vision to identify an object or text and then links you to similar images on Pinterest or options to buy more of the same product from Amazon. It uses Google Translate to translate text, much like how the proper Google Translate app does. It can also identify landmarks and provide links and facts about them or tell you all about the bottle of wine you’re about to open.

On Verizon, however, that Amazon shopping option isn’t available yet. Cnet reported on the odd situation earlier today. Bixby Vision itself works just fine; the camera can identify all those same things above. But the Verizon Galaxy S8 won’t show you any data from Amazon if you’re looking to reorder some household groceries. “The Amazon shopping function isn’t operational yet,” a Verizon spokesperson told The Verge. “We are working with Amazon to provide that experience, but in the meantime you can use the existing Amazon app on your Samsung Galaxy S8 for the same photo and shopping experience.” 

For you — the person using the phone — this isn’t really much of a problem. Dan found that just searching Amazon for a product remains more convenient than trying to shop through Bixby. But it’s one less feature that Samsung’s assistant (with its own button and everything) is capable of on day one. For Verizon customers, that is. If you’re on AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint, have at it. It sounds like the squabble is between Verizon and Amazon, which must be rather annoying on Samsung’s side of things. Hopefully this is something that can be quickly switched on once whatever needs working out... gets worked out. 

The article was published on : theverge

Shuttle's new XPC nano PCs run on ARM

Whenever I buy a Raspberry Pi I like to tell myself I'll do all sorts of cool projects with it and reinvent the face of IoT, but usually I just end up with a cheap, underpowered ARM computer that runs Linux and never takes advantage of all the I/O pins.

The new Shuttle XPC nano NS02A and NS02E (via Liliputing) cut through the lies I tell myself and simply offer a relatively high-powered ARM chip in a fairly small box. Android 5.1 is pre-installed, so that's lame, but hopefully you can get regular Linux up and running without much hassle.

The $150-ish machines both run on a Rockchip RK3368 octa-core processor, include 2GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and room inside for a 2.5-inch hard drive. The only difference between the two models is one runs off a power adapter, while the other can be powered over Ethernet.

Now that I think about it, I'd probably be better off getting a Chromebook. The RK3368 is powerful enough to do 4K video at 60 fps, so maybe this machine would work in a home theater, but the shortage of RAM would struggle with modern web browsing.

The article was published on : theverge
 

Please don’t spend $50 on a screen protector for Samsung’s Galaxy S8

 

Take this as something of a PSA for those of you who obsess over keeping your phone scratch-free: avoid the $50 InvisibleShield glass screen protector for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. Paying $50 for a piece of glass that sticks to your phone is objectively stupid. The thing is overpriced by a mile. But more importantly, it’s just not very good. Best Buy sells it. So do some of the carriers. It will likely be one of their recommended add-on purchases when you walk in to buy the phone. Don’t get ripped off. 

First, some background: curved smartphone screens have proven to be a real pain for Zagg and the dozens of companies on Amazon (that sell way cheaper tempered glass protectors) for some time now. Even when the displays themselves aren’t curved, phone makers often curve the glass slightly at the sides for a more ergonomic feel. The Google Pixel is one example of this. Even the iPhone 7 does it. In these instances, you’ll find a lot of screen protectors try to cover the display area only and stop short of providing edge-to-edge coverage. 

Because when they try to do that, they usually fail and leave an ugly “halo” around the entire phone’s border where the screen protector’s adhesive isn’t fully sticking to the device. Companies have tried a few ideas to resolve this; some screen protectors have color-matched bezels with adhesive only on the perimeter of the glass and not on the display area. It creates the appearance of edge-to-edge protection, but it also creates an air gap between your phone’s screen and the screen protector. That reduces touch sensitivity and can detract from the screen’s quality. Bad approach. 

Unfortunately, Zagg / InvisibleShield took this kind of approach with the $50 Galaxy S8 screen protector. The entire thing is clear, but it only sticks to the phone at the sides, leaving that unwanted air gap. Feedback on user forums has been consistently bad, and the product’s rating has already bombed to hell on Best Buy’s website. So you should avoid it and save $50.

 

You’re probably better off with the more traditional (and significantly cheaper) film-based InvisibleShield for the S8, or a different plastic screen protector from Amazon that adheres to the entire surface of the phone. Verizon has its own glass screen protector; it also only sticks to the S8 at the edges, but hey, it’s slightly cheaper. 

Making a curved glass screen protector at an appealing price is probably a challenge that would put a lot of these Amazon-based accessory companies out of business, so it might be awhile until there’s an ideal solution. Perhaps Samsung could just make one itself? Easy $30 in the pocket. If I were Zagg, I’d probably just pull this thing from the market. I get the appeal of getting that day-one attach sale, but this really seems like a miss.

The article was published on : theverge

Instagram for Android now works offline

 

Facebook announced at its F8 developer conference that the Android version of Instagram is getting offline functionality. In fact, the features are already rolling out in certain parts of the world. (I was able to get some of it to work in New York on a phone running Android Nougat, for example.) Offline mode could eventually make it to iOS as well, according to TechCrunch.

The offline mode features go beyond just saving a draft or queueing up a photo at the top of the feed, which the app already let users do when they tried to post with poor service. You can now like or comment on other users’ photos, or even follow and unfollow accounts, without any data connection. The next time your phone accesses the internet, Instagram will go back through this history and complete each of those actions. 

In addition, Instagram will also effectively cache certain parts of the app (like commonly viewed profiles, as well as the Explore tab) so that you aren’t just staring at a blank screen when you don’t have a good connection.

Facebook says it’s making Instagram more usable offline in order to improve the experience for users in countries where there’s either unreliable service or limited access to consistent internet connections. That could be a big driver as the app continues its rapid growth in places outside the United States.

The article was published on : theverge

Spotify expands its student discount program to 33 more countries

 

Spotify launched a discounted premium subscription program for students back in 2014, but since then it has only been available in the US, UK, and Germany. Today, it’s expanding that offering to 33 more countries across Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Oceania.

To take advantage of the discount, students can sign up at here for the $4.99 / month subscription that offers ad-free and offline listening. Spotify uses SheerID to verify a student’s eligibility status, and will continue to offer the discount as long as the customer is an active student. Apple Music, in comparison, caps out its discount at four (non-consecutive) years but it is available to student listeners in Africa, unlike Spotify’s student program.

Here’s the full list of new countries where Spotify’s half-price plan is available:

• Austria
• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile
• Colombia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Ecuador
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Lithuania
• Latvia
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Portugal
• Singapore
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Turkey

The article was published on : theverge