Geek News

Google is the latest company to borrow Snapchat's augmented reality features , although this time it's not grafting them on to a social app . The company has released a new version of Motion Stills for Android that brings AR objects to your animated GIFs and videos. You can add chickens, dinosaurs and other objects to any horizontal surface in your shot, whether it's your hand, a plant or a table. And importantly, you don't have to be finicky when capturing your footage to make the result seem 'natural' -- it's using instant motion tracking tech that avoids the jarring visual anomalies you sometimes get in AR. The moment you tap the viewfinder to place an object, Motion Stills plunks an object in that scene with the assumption that the surface in question is parallel to the ground, using the phone's accelerometer as a reference point. It then separates the camera's rotation and translation estimates to create a 3D translation, and combines that ...

Samsung’s new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S9, is due to be unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month at an event that won’t likely pack too many surprises. We basically know what goes into each new Samsung device from a battery, display, and design standpoint, with a little mystery wiggle room leftover for whatever experimental feature the company tries to push (almost always unsuccessfully) onto consumers. Following some fresh leaks obtained by VentureBeat’ s Evan Blass late last month , we even know what the device looks like. (Hint: It looks like a Galaxy phone.) But a few rumors making the rounds at gadget blogs today, collected by Gizmodo , suggest a rather unpleasant surprise may be in store for would-be... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2C1DJce"

Back in mid-2015, Turing Robotics Industries unveiled its delightfully quirky debut smartphone, an encrypted Android device encased in colorful chrome. Though we cautioned that it could be delayed for a myriad of reasons that often plague small companies, we looked forward to their release in December ...then delayed until early 2016...and long story short, it didn't ship at all. Now the company is filing for bankruptcy in Salo, Finland where it had rented a warehouse for manufacturing. But not to worry, Turing Robotics CEO Steve Chao assured customers in a Facebook post : That doesn't mean the company is actually bankrupt. Finnish publication Salon Seudon Sanomat broke the news of the company's financial issues, reporting that creditors had filed a claim with Turing Robotics last year leading to the seizure of its movable property. Whether that's true or not, the company has strung along customers for years, pivoting the phone to Sailfish OS in early 2016 and...

Tavis McGinn applied for a job at Facebook last year hoping to work in market research. He had previously spent three years at Google, where he helped large advertisers refine their marketing campaigns across the company’s family of products. But part way through the interview process at Facebook, the recruiter told McGinn the company had something else in mind for him. How would he like to track the public perception of Mark Zuckerberg? It was April, and Facebook was caught up in the fallout of the 2016 US presidential election. After initially discounting the possibility that fake news had contributed to Donald Trump’s victory, Facebook acknowledged that Russia-linked groups had spent more than $100,000 on political advertising .... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E5FKG8"

Regulators are in uncharted territory trying to regulate illegal cryptocurrency public coin offerings, US officials told Congress today. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman John Clayton had harsh words for those dodging SEC regulations today at a Senate banking committee hearing: “Many ICOs [initial coin offerings] are being conducted illegally. Their promoters and other participants are not following our security laws,” Clayton said. “Some people say that’s because the law isn’t clear. I do not buy that for a moment.” Clayton and J. Christopher Giancarlo, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), testified today in front of members of the US Senate banking committee and answered their questions on... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E5vC43"

In early January, Senator John Thune's office sent Apple a letter regarding the company's practice of slowing down iPhones when batteries start showing their age. The letter asked if Apple had thought about replacing batteries for free (instead of the company's plan to offer reduceprice $29 replacements). The senator also asked if Apple had notified customers of the slowdown "feature," and if older iPhones had seen similar strategies. Apple has responded to Thune with its own letter, thanking him for his inquiry. The five-page letter, dated February 2nd and sent to Engadget this morning, pretty much rehashes the same information that Apple's been talking about since this whole thing went down, including Apple's timeline for dealing with the problem and the way lithium-ion batteries degrade over time. What's new, however, is the company's response to Thune's final question about whether customers who've paid full price for battery repl...

France’s highest court has ruled that drivers can no longer simply pull over to use their phones. Instead, they will have to park in a designated area, such as a garage or a private driveway, and turn off the vehicle’s engine, according to Gizmodo . The ruling came after a 2017 appeal where a driver protested a fine he received for using a phone while he was parked at a roundabout with hazard lights on. Under the new law, those who text in non-approved areas while in a vehicle will receive a fine of 135 euros ($166) and will receive three points on their driving license that will stay for three years. This is the same punishment currently given to those who use their phone while driving. The law does not apply to hands-free devices (but... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E5DCC9"

While Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks got good news from the European Commission today, Apple and Shazam weren't so lucky. In December, Apple confirmed that it purchased Shazam for an undisclosed amount believed to be in the range of $400 million. But today the European Commission said that upon request by a number of European nations, it would be assessing the deal. The proposed acquisition wasn't large enough to require evaluation by the EC directly, but Austrian laws required the companies to seek regulatory clearance there. A European Union provision allows EU countries to ask the EC to look at proposed mergers, and Austria did just that. Iceland, Italy, France, Norway, Spain and Sweden then signed onto that request. In a statement, the EC said, "The European Commission has accepted a request from Austria, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden to assess under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Shazam by Apple. The Comm...

Google announced Tuesday it has changed the way people can search for hotels and flights using smartphones in a bid to make trip planning simpler on mobile devices. The company said hotel and flight bookings can now be made through Google Search results. Users can scroll through search results for hotels that include photos, and swipe through those photos without having to leave the list of results. Date and price filtering can also be done through the results page, and users can also now book through Google. It’s a similar story for flights, as bookings can be done through search and the same filtering and comparisons as hotels can be done on air travel searches. Google says users can now toggle more easily between flights and hotels... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2nJ8wWV"

Technology A radio signal tells the components to vaporize. Scientists have patented electronic components that vaporize when heated by a chemical reaction. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2C0AykO"

Amazon's Prime Exclusive phones are decent bargains over their regular counterparts, but there has always been a catch: your lock screen becomes a billboard . It doesn't really feel like your phone with those ads and offers. You won't have to put up with that marketing for much longer, however. Amazon will sell its Prime-only phones without lock screen ads as of February 7th, and it's pushing an update this week that will strip the promos from existing phones. Amazon's app shortcuts will still be front and center once you've unlocked your phone, but you can always remove those if you don't care for Kindle books or Prime Video. Those who paid to remove ads can get refunds. The company explains this as a reflection of technological reality. Now that many phones have face recognition and fingerprint readers, Amazon wants to be sure those features work well. Ads that hijack your lock screen can sometimes preclude that. The company also touts the ability to ...

Huawei has announced the Honor 9 Lite, a watered-down version of the Honor 9 from 2017 , although it strangely has one or two extra features that the more premium model does not. While the company has released other Lite series phones in the past, they’ve mostly been limited to India and the Middle East. But the Lite 9 will be heading west, with a European release for £199.99 today. If the price didn’t already tip you off, the Honor 9 Lite is a decidedly midrange phone, with a weaker processor, less RAM (3GB versus 4GB), less internal storage (32GB versus 64GB), and worse connectivity options (Micro USB instead of USB-C) than the Honor 9. Like the Honor 9, the Honor 9 Lite features two rear cameras, but where the 9 had two 20-megapixel... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2E9A5Pn"

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Discovery Communications Inc. announced today that the European Commission has approved its acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive . The merger was announced last July and both companies' shareholders voted to approve the $14.6 billion deal in November. Discovery, which owns TLC, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel will gain Scripps holdings such as HGTV, Food Network and the Travel Channel and once combined, the company will control around 20 percent of ad-supported, pay-TV audiences in the US. Discovery agreed to some concessions in order to get the EC's approval. It will allow third-parties to distribute two Polish TV channels -- TVN24 and/or TVN24 BiS -- on a non-exclusive, unbundled basis as part of the agreement. Discovery says the acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of this year, though it stills needs approval from US regulators. While it certainly hasn't attracted as much regulatory attention as the AT&T/Time Warner deal , Dis...

Gadgets Pick up an instrument, learn your favorite songs, and practice a bit of music theory. Pick up an instrument, learn your favorite songs, and practice a bit of music theory. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2E4k7pv"

The European Commission, a group that promotes the interests of the European Union, says it’s going to examine Apple’s Shazam acquisition with the deal’s effects on competition in mind. Multiple countries, including Austria, France, Iceland, and Spain requested that the Commission assess the acquisition to determine whether it’s allowed under a European Union merger law. Basically, these countries want to know how big of a threat Apple owning Shazam could be to local competition. Apple will now have to ask the Commission to approve the deal, which the EU regulator could sign off on with or without extra conditions. It could also open an investigation if it has bigger concerns. Apple acquired Shazam in December for an undisclosed sum,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2sfP0FY"