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We knew it was coming eventually, but just before the Google I/O keynote began, Google updated its developer documentation with more details about Family Library. Most important, we have a launch date of sorts: July 2nd. That date marks when app purchases will be shared in the Family Library by default unless the developer opts out.

For those who aren't familiar, Family Library will be a way for trusted family members to share Play Store purchases among one another.

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Family Library For Google Play Purchases Is Official, App Purchases Will Be Shared Among Up To Six Family Members Starting July 2nd was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Two gentlemen broke into a watch store in a mall during business hours. A person standing a few feet away shot video of the whole thing. The two burglars didn't get away with the heist, which involved dragging a bag of stolen merchandise behind a scooter.

Two lowlifes robbed the watch shop 'Klockmaster' in Kista Galleria, a shopping mall in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden. This all happened at 10 o'clock 13th of May, Friday 2016. As you can tell from the video, the gun that the one of them has in his hand malfunctions when he tries to be tough and fire it off into the air/ceiling. He then tries to unjam it during the whole robbery while the other guy smashes up the display cases etc. When they're done they try to get away on the scooter but it's having a difficult time starting -- the gunman holds the gun very close to his friends head... What a dope. They were later arrested at a check point near a McDonalds.

"Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid." - Bertrand Russell, "In praise of Idleness"

 Google today said it was unveiling a virtual assistant tool at its annual Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View called Google Assistant. This appears to be similar to what Google Now can do already, but it appears to be an upgraded version of it. You can ask a question for an answer, and follow up with multiple questions, with Google picking the conversation out and returning… Read More

For the past year and a half, the tech world has been recovering from Amazon's surprise announcement of the Echo. Now, Google is finally doing what everybody wanted it to do: release a competitor. It's called Google Home, and it's coming out later this year for an unspecified price. You can sign up to be notified for updates at the Home website.

Mario Queiroz is the executive behind the project. His title, VP of product management, is the sort you hear a lot. But you know him better as the man who has launched the only truly successful living room product Google has ever launched: Chromecast.

You can think of Home as his next act. It's essentially what you'd expect if you were looking for Google to create an Echo competitor. It's a...

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Google would like to remind you that you can talk with it.

Today Google is announcing a "Google Assistant" that essentially performs the same tasks as other Google interfaces do, but in a conversational mode. It doesn't have a name, it just has the power of Google and its deep mine of data behind it.

In the past few years, we've seen every other big tech company launch a personal assistant: Apple's Siri. Amazon's Alexa. Microsoft's Cortana. Facebook's M. All are already iconic assistants with distinct personalities — or at least with the distinct sense that they have personalities. That's mainly because each has a name and a personified intelligence that you imagine you relate to. To be blunt, none of them are quite as capable as...

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Google is announcing a new messaging app today. It's called Allo and its main feature is a Google assistant that's built right in. Google says it'll be available later this summer — for free — on both iOS and Android.

Allo (pronounced like "Aloe" and not like "'allo, guv'nor!") is a mobile-only app that you might think is meant to replace Google's other messaging app, Hangouts. But you'd be wrong. Allo is explicitly meant to be a fresh start for Google's new communication's division (which also runs Hangouts and Project Fi).

"It's really liberating to start from scratch sometimes," says Erik Kay, director of engineering, communications products. And Allo does feel like a fresh new start. Its interface is clean and easy to understand,...

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When German chancellor Angela Merkel allowed the prosecution of a comedian who had insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, some thought it was strategic: that by doing so, it exposed the country's ancient ban on insulting heads of state to broad legal scrutiny.

A court in Hamburg, however, has now banned most of the insulting poem from being read in public there, further rattling those worried about free speech in Germany.

In Tuesday's ruling the court found that "Erdogan does not have to put up with the expression of certain passages in view of their outrageous content attacking (his) honour."

The court found that such material overstepped the boundaries of decency in attacking the Turkish leader.

[Comedian Jan] Boehmermann has indicated his poem was a response to Ankara's decision to summon Germany's ambassador to protest a satirical song broadcast on German TV which lampooned Erdogan in far tamer language.

This line, from the court, really sums up the problem: "Through the poem’s reference to racist prejudice and religious slander as well as sexual habits, the verses in question go beyond what the petitioner [Erdogan] can be expected to tolerate.”

"Germany's Ai Weiei," Boehmermann's clever self-appellation, has a good ring to it, but is surely inaccurate. How often does China interpret its laws for the tolerance of a foreign head of state?

The newest addition to Netflix's suite of internet connection tools is Fast.com, a quick and easy utility that lets you check your connection speed in real time. The streaming service filed for related trademarks just under a week ago, so its existence isn't coming out of nowhere. It works with both mobile and broadband connections, so you can use it both at home and on-the-go; it works around the world, so you can easily put your shoddy hostel Wi-Fi to the test when you're backpacking across the globe; and you don't need to be a Netflix subscriber to use it.

If you're interested in information other than your download speed, you'll need to turn somewhere else. Fast.com doesn't constitute Netflix's attempt to compete with well-known...

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Foundations of the Curtain Theater, where Shakespeare performed early in his stage career, were uncovered by developers in Shoreditch, London. And they come with a surprise: they're rectangular, not the expected oval shape.

“There is going to have to be a certain amount of revision of the chapter on The Curtain in my book,” Bowsher said. “It now seems clear that the playhouse was a conversion of an earlier tenement – essentially a block of flats – and was later converted back into a tenement again.

“There’s been a lot of scholarly argument about the shape of Tudor theatres, but the evidence from actors is that it made no difference to the performance of the plays, you could ask them to stand on a chair and they’d just get on and do it.”

The Curtain was first found in 2012, and plans for a Shakespeare museum unveiled shortly thereafter, with the ruins encased under a huge transparent glass stage. Other finds on the site include a green eggcup, a broken comb, and a report of a cutpurse's arrest.

Starting today, Android Pay is now available in the UK, one of the most advanced contactless nations in the world. Android Pay helps people pay for things simply and securely with their Android smartphones. This builds on the launch of Android Pay in the US last year, with new countries coming soon.

So, where does Android Pay work in the UK?
You will be able to use Android Pay everywhere contactless payments are accepted including your favourite high street stores like Boots, Starbucks and Waitrose and pay for the Tube, bus and train with Transport for London. Just tap with your phone as you would with your card. It’s that simple. And businesses across the country with contactless terminals won’t need to do anything else to be able to accept Android Pay in store.


Android Pay will also speed up checkout in your favourite apps including JD Sports, Deliveroo, YPlan, and many more.

Also, we will be launching Android Pay Day, bringing special offers each month to brighten the last week before pay day. Starbucks UK and Deliveroo will be among the first to reward Android Pay users in the UK. Stay tuned for more offers which will roll out in the months to come.

To start using Android Pay you’ll need to download the Android Pay app on Google Play and have an eligible MasterCard or Visa credit or debit card from one of our supported banks, such as Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA and Nationwide Building Society, with new banks being added all the time.
Security is at the centre of Android Pay. With industry standard tokenisation, Android Pay doesn’t send merchants your real card number when you purchase. Android Pay also makes it convenient to keep track of payments and to lock your device if it becomes lost or stolen.

What’s next?

 Ahead of Google’s annual I/O event kicking off later today in Mountain View, the company is unveiling its latest developments for Android Pay. The mobile wallet for Android-powered smartphones is opening for business in the UK — its first market outside the U.S. (where it launched in September 2015) — starting out on NFC-enabled Android devices running KitKat 4.4 or… Read More

Researchers in the UK have created gloves that rely on acoustic levitation to make particles float in mid-air. They're calling the device the GauntLev, or Gauntlet of Levitation; not only does it make particles float but it also allows wearers to capture the particles, move them around, and combine them. This technique relies on sound waves reflecting off one another to create a standing wave, which holds the particle in the air. They also created two other configurations — "ultra tongs" and "sonic screwdriver" (in a nod to Doctor Who) — that produce the same results as the gloves.

The researchers imagine their findings will allow people handle dangerous or fragile materials without actually touching them. I'm imagining a day where...

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"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines." – Frank Lloyd Wright

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The biggest problem with most deals newsletters is the fact they don’t really cater to your personalized preferences. Goodreads, the Amazon-owned book collectors site, is attempting to fix that with a fully customizable deals email.

When you first sign up for the Goodreads Deals, you’re asked what you want to get emails about. If you don’t want a ton of emails, you can restrict the newsletters to just “Deals from my Want to Read shelf,” and “Deals from my authors,” so you only get emails about relevant discounts. Of course, for either of these to work, you’ll need to follow some authors and put some books onto your “Want to Read” shelf in Goodreads. If you just want to see all the deals, you can pick a few genres too, in which case you’ll get a daily email with any discounts going on in a genre as a whole. You’ll only get discount emails from the retailers you choose, which includes Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, or Kobo.

Goodreads Deals

The once beloved ES File Explorer was revealed recently to be little more than a Trojan Horse, used to get adware installed on thousands of devices with one update. This was apparently just the beginning. Users have started compiling a spreadsheet of apps that sneak the same adware-infused charging lock screen onto your device. There are already about 20 of them. Google, where are you?

The spreadsheet includes apps like ES, Xender, Z Camera, FotoRus, and more.

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Hey Google, Please Deal With The Explosion Of Lock Screen Adware In The Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Uber today announced a new tool that will allow family members and other loved ones to track each others’ trips using its service. Called simply “Trip Tracker,” the addition is a feature connected to Uber’s Family Profiles, a program Uber announced in March which allows customers to pay for rides for their family and friends. With Family Profiles, users can add other… Read More

So much of the beauty and power of art lives in the details. You can only fully appreciate the genius of artists like Monet or Van Gogh when you stand so close to a masterpiece that your nose almost touches it. As you step back from the brush strokes, you wonder how it all comes together. At the Google Cultural Institute, we know that people love experiencing art in close detail. Millions of people spend time exploring our ultra-high resolution “gigapixel” images, inch by inch—spotting something new every time, like a hidden signature or the individual dabs of paint that give the impression of shimmering, turbulent waters.

Zooming into these images is the closest thing to walking up to the real thing with a magnifying glass. This is why we’re so excited about our new Art Camera—a custom-built camera ready to travel around the world to bring people more of these ultra-high-resolution images than ever possible before.
The Port of Rotterdam by Paul Signac, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

A gigapixel image is made of over one billion pixels, and can bring out details invisible to the naked eye. So creating digital images in such high resolution is a complex technical challenge. You need time, highly specialized and expensive equipment, and only a few people in the world can do the job. In the first five years of the Google Cultural Institute, we’ve been able to share about 200 gigapixel images. But we want to do much more. That’s why we developed the Art Camera.

The Art Camera is a robotic camera, custom-built to create gigapixel images faster and more easily. A robotic system steers the camera automatically from detail to detail, taking hundreds of high resolution close-ups of the painting. To make sure the focus is right on each brush stroke, it’s equipped with a laser and a sonar that—much like a bat—uses high frequency sound to measure the distance of the artwork. Once each detail is captured, our software takes the thousands of close-up shots and, like a jigsaw, stitches the pieces together into one single image.

Many of the works of our greatest artists are fragile and sensitive to light and humidity. With the Art Camera, museums can share these priceless works with the global public while ensuring they're preserved for future generations. We want to give museums the tools they need to do this important work, so we're sending a fleet of these cameras from museum to museum around the world—for free.

The Art Camera will dramatically increase the scale and depth at which museums are able to provide access to our shared cultural heritage to anyone around the world. For example, if you wanted to see Van Gogh’s six famous portraits of the Roulin family up close, you’d need to travel across the Netherlands then over to LA and New York. Now the Art Camera can travel for you. It’s already captured the Portrait of Armand Roulin, which you can explore alongside the rest of the family, all in one place.

Today, we’re sharing the first thousand ultra-high resolution images of artworks from artists including Pissarro, Signac, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet and many more from museums across Australia, India, the Netherlands, Brazil and everywhere in between. As we prepare to celebrate International Museum Day and welcome more than 25 new museums on the Google Cultural Institute, we want to thank everyone who worked with us to test the new camera in the recent months. Thanks to their work, today you can start zooming and explore more art in the details than ever before!

Posted by Ben St. John, Engineer, Google Cultural Institute Ben St. John Engineer Google Cultural Institute

When Facebook's internal creative team, known as The Factory, set out to film a proof of concept for its new 360-degree video camera, they picked an ambitious subject: Grand Central Station. A New York City transit center is among the more challenging places to shoot, especially so if you're trying to tell an interference-free story. In fact, Facebook only had three 90-minute windows over the course of a few days to shoot back in March, right when Grand Central closes down at 2AM before reopening at 5:30AM.

The short film, called Here and Now, treats Grand Central as a character, home to thousands of discrete human interactions every day that, with the power of 360-degree video, you can experience up close and personal. The film is v...

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The International Olympic Committee announced today it will begin proceedings against 31 athletes who are believed to have violated anti-doping rules. None of the athletes have been individually identified, but the IOC says they span six sports and 12 different countries. Those athletes now face the possibility of being permanently banned from competing in Olympic Games, beginning with Rio in August. The 12 implicated national committees will be notified in the days to come.

The new doping results come just days after the former head of Russia's official anti-doping laboratory admitted to swapping and destroying samples to protect athletes from negative test results. As many as 100 different samples were destroyed, implicating dozens of...

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BitTorrent has been working on its proprietary live-streaming technology for years, but today unveiled its first dedicated app. BitTorrent Live is scheduled to launch on Apple TV this week, before coming to iOS and Android sometime in June. The app will feature free content from more than a dozen small-scale channels, with BitTorrent promising that additional content (including paid and premium tiers) will follow.

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"This is JoeJoe the Capybara, enjoys baths and hanging out with baby ducks." [via]

In addition to his YouTube Channel, Joe has an instagram account and a Facebook page.

 While the BBC is planning to take on Netflix by building its own “Britflix” on-demand video streaming service, on the news front, it looks like the UK media giant is cutting back to shore up its funds and figure out a better way of competing against (or within!) Facebook. Today, the many-tentacled public broadcaster confirmed that it would be closing down and… Read More

The SoundHound mobile app, which can listen for and identify music it hears through your smartphone speakers, is getting a huge artificial intelligence upgrade. Starting today, the app will be controllable with your voice using SoundHound's new virtual assistant voice software, called Houndify. That means you'll be able to say, "Ok, Hound," and ask the app to play music from Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and a handful of other streaming services. You'll also be able to ask it to add songs to a Spotify playlist, play music videos through YouTube, and use the software to answer musical trivia questions.

It's interesting new territory for SoundHound, which has commonly been considered a Shazam competitor and not an AI company. It's not a...

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