Geek News

Google is releasing a pair of small but helpful new features for the Google Assistant today: it can now set alarms to music and look up TV schedules. To set an alarm to music, you used to have to store the song you wanted on your device. Now, you can just tell the Assistant to “set an alarm for 7AM that plays Bob Dylan,” and it’ll wake you up to whatever artist, song, or playlist you asked for. The alarms seem to work with whichever music service you’ve set the Assistant to use by default, so Spotify and Pandora, for instance, should be supported. We’ve reached out to Google to confirm this since the feature itself still appears to be rolling out. Google also said that it’s added support for songs uploaded to your Play Music library. The... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2nx5pRZ"

India officially will not treat cryptocurrencies as legal tender and will try to stop their use in payments, according to a Bloomberg report. This isn't unexpected, given how the country sent tens of thousands of tax notices out after realizing virtual currencies are making $315 million worth of trade per month. While India has finally come out against cryptocurrencies, after repeated warnings that they were "Ponzi schemes," the government will continue exploring the blockchain's potential for the future digital economy. This comes a day after South Korea ultimately decided to regulate , not ban cryptocurrencies, despite its government sharing India's concern about tax evasion and the subsequent disruption of global trade. Beyond skirting state revenue collection, both countries have logical worries about the safety of cryptocurrency, given how a hacker stole over $500 million from the Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck last week. Source: Bloomberg via Engad...

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With the rise of ride-sharing, alternative fuels and ongoing developments in autonomous vehicle technology , transportation is in the midst of a rather drastic transformation, and how we get around in the not too distant future is likely to be very different than how we get around today. But with so many companies working towards a new transportation future, things could get a little messy. To address that concern, over a dozen companies have now committed to 10 Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities , a pledge initiated by Zipcar cofounder Robin Chase. Among the signatories are Lyft , LimeBike , Uber , Zipcar , Ofo , Mobike and Ola and the Shared Mobility Principles website says, "The future of mobility in cities is multimodal and integrated. When vehicles are used, they should be right-sized, shared, and zero emission." The principles include some expected goals like promoting equity, engaging with stakeholders and transitioning towards renewable energy. But oth...

A San Francisco federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Twitter is not liable for its failure to block an Islamic State group’s attack, which resulted in the death of two US government contractors, as spotted by Reuters . The decision upholds a 2016 ruling on the same case, which was filed by the families of the victims of the terrorist attack. The 2016 civil lawsuit alleged that Twitter was responsible for the ISIS-linked killings of Lloyd Fields and James Creach in Jordan in November 2015. The families argued that Twitter should have anticipated attacks based on ISIS’s messaging and presence on its platform, which helped the group spread its message, recruit, and raise funds. This week, the court ruled 3-0 against the appeal, with... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DUbmCx"

The Universal Stylus Initiative has found a powerful new ally in Google . Mountain View has officially joined the project's top-tier backers , which include Intel and Lenovo, giving it the power to participate in USI's development of an open active stylus standard and to approve its final specifications. A USI stylus will work with any device designed to adopt the standard -- you don't need to configure or to set it up beforehand to be able to use it, and it even remembers your settings even if you switch devices. USI's technology works by using a two-way (stylus-to-device and vice-versa) communication mechanism, which can command the stylus to switch to a less noisy frequency to prevent interference. The mechanism also allows preferences (like ink color and style) to be stored in the stylus itself and makes it possible for compatible devices to be able to recognize multiple stylus input. Want to collaborate on a drawing with a friend? The tech will enable you to dr...

On Wednesday, a train carrying House Republicans collided with a truck. The accident left one person dead and another injured. It's a tragedy, to be sure, and promoting misinformation around the event is incredibly unhelpful. Which is why it's so frustrating that Facebook is apparently up to its old tricks; the social network promoted stories in the "People are Saying" section of "Trending News" that were full of conspiracy theories and misinformation, including that Hillary Clinton ordered the crash. The Daily Beast first reported on the issue. A Facebook spokesperson told Engadget, "Trending includes a separate section of people's individual posts related to the news event; it's essentially a comments section. We built this as a way for you to easily see what others are saying around a topic. The type of stuff we were seeing yesterday is a bad experience and we're going to work to fix the product." It's great that Facebook rec...

Eastern Arsenal Railguns are another way the PLAN hopes to get an edge in 21st-century naval warfare. China has made military history by installing a functional railgun onto a warship, beating the U.S. Navy in developing this new weapon. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2npFifB"

BATTALION 1944 is Now Available on Steam Early Access! Battalion recaptures the core of classic competitive shooters & refines the ‘classic’ FPS feel for the next generation. Focusing on 5v5 infantry combat, where precise flick shots with your Kar98, covering fire with your Thompson and fluid movement are key to clutching every round for your team. via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2rUnoWS"

Lately, Google has been putting a lot of focus on its lightweight "Go" Android apps that are meant for countries where good cellular coverage and bandwidth in general is difficult to come by. YouTube Go started out in only one country -- sure, it was India, but there were still plenty of other places where the app would be useful. As of today, many more countries will be able to use YouTube Go. More than 130, in fact. If you haven't heard of YouTube Go before, it offers the key features of YouTube along with a lot of data management options. Users can download videos at three different quality sizes and share them with other phones without using any data at all. It also features previews, so you can check out a video before streaming or downloading it. The app itself is less than 10MB, and Google specifically made it work with slower phones with less storage, and it works on much older versions of Android -- all the way back to 4.1 Jellybean, in fact. In addition t...

Stargate: Origins will come to Stargate Command , a new streaming service focused on the franchise, on February 15th . Now MGM has released a full trailer for the show, and it looks pretty spectacular. Origins will focus on Catherine Langford, the daughter of the person who discovered the Stargate on Earth. In the trailer, she battles Nazis as she fights to figure out what the Stargate is. The show has an Indiana Jones vibe to it, and it looks like a lot of fun. Here is the official synopsis for the series: "In 1939, Professor Paul Langford and his daughter Catherine are still grappling with the mysteries of the ancient relic they discovered in the Egyptian desert more than ten years ago. With war looming in Europe and funding running out, these brilliant minds are approaching their lowest ebb. Little do they know, answers are about to present themselves in a dangerous form, when the Nazi Occultist Dr. Wilhelm Brücke approaches their facility with a sinister motive. Enlis...

Instagram is a photo- and video-centric social network by its very nature, but that doesn't mean you always want to share images along with your thoughts. And now, you don't have to. The service is releasing a Type Mode for Stories that, as the name implies, lets you write with a creative flair while skipping the pressure to use pictures. Switch to a new Type section and you can jot down whatever you like while choosing little more than a font style and background. You can produce a deep confessional or a clever transition without having to think about composing a shot, although you can add them (or other flourishes) if you'd like. The new mode is available in version 30 of Instagram for Android and iOS. And in case you're wondering, the new text styles are available for overlays in existing modes -- Type Mode is just the obvious showcase for them. Source: Instagram via Engadget RSS Feed "http://ift.tt/2DT2cSR"