"This is an amazing piece of 3D art [by Patrick Hughes and on display at Birmingham Art Gallery] where the closest part of the picture appears to be the furthest away, an optical illusion known as "Reverspective". As you move around the painting, the room in the painting appears to move with you."
Smartphones caused a major shift in how we communicate, and sacrificing unified messaging was the cost of getting there.
Not all that long ago, I was a 'Linux-or-bust' kind of user. I had everything I needed, and one of those things was a unified messaging client. For me, that app was Pidgin. I loved Pidgin because it worked, and I never had any problems with it. The app wasn't exactly feature-packed, but I could log in to everything and never had to worry about missing a message from my friends across all the platforms they used. For me, this is what unified messaging meant — a way to unify the different messaging apps so I could have all of my communication in one place.
A few months later, I picked up my HTC G1. What I didn't know at the time was this move into mobile computing would slowly crush my unified messaging dream. Now I don't even question it, I just accept it — unified messaging is never going to happen.
It's a mess, and for the most part there's no way to unify these experiences.
There are currently five different messaging apps running on my phone, laptop, and desktop. I use Hangouts with Google Voice baked in for most of my phone calls and texts. Work relies on Slack for group communication and a sort of centralized thought organizer. Many of my friends use Discord because it's basically Slack and TeamSpeak mashed together for gamers. Facebook Messenger lives everywhere for my friends and family who don't use Hangouts. Skype is on somewhere in the background so I don't have to roll my eyes and install the app when someone who is confused by new things asks me to video chat. It's a mess, and for the most part there's no way to unify these experiences without sacrificing features I rely on or general functionality.
I largely blame smartphones for the current state of messaging. Adding a messenger became a way to create ecosystem lock in. Building a great app became the differentiation point, the thing that could be used to pull users from one platform to another when deciding who you wanted to communicate with most.
When my sister asked me why she should message me on Hangouts instead of Facebook Messenger, I showed her how simple video chatting was from the phone. When my friends abandoned our group Hangout for Slack and then Discord, it was due to the available features and the overall quality of the app on every machine we used. Unification stopped being about bringing multiple apps together, and instead became bringing multiple platforms together. Outside of the people who will use whatever is pre-installed or whatever their friends are using, the messaging service that works the best on every screen wins.
For Google, unification meant bringing together all of their messaging systems into a single app. That never really happened with Hangouts, having only gotten as far as to unify Google Talk and Google Voice, and in the process Google ditched support for federated XMPP messaging. This meant apps like Pidgin will occasionally just not get messages with no real explanation. Video Hangout messaging is still not a part of Hangouts, and at this point probably never will be.
The best we can say about Google's attempt at unification is that it's better than Apple's attempt, which was to unify SMS and iChat in a way that is deeply broken if you're trying to talk with someone who isn't using an Apple product. Also, best of luck moving from iMessage to anything else without something breaking in the process. Palm tried their hardest to make everything happen in one place with webOS, merging texts, Facebook, Google Chat, AIM, and more into one conversation in one synergistic app — but even if they had survived they would have run up against the same walls that thwart unified messaging efforts today.
All of this is to say that unification as I first imagined it, where one app let me communicate with all of my friends and family across all of the apps they use, is never going to happen. Even in a stripped-down sense, where all you have is the messaging capabilities, isn't likely to be possible anytime soon. It's not a problem that enough people deal with anymore, because most folks have settled in to one walled garden or another and are happy to install another app if it becomes necessary. Much in the same way that it took a major shift like the commoditization of smartphones to create our current messaging situation, unification won't happen again until our current computing experience changes again in some radical way.
Until today, you needed a Google+ account to use Google Play Games, Google’s online gaming service for bringing online multiplayer gaming, video recordings and social features like profiles and leaderboards to Android games. Today, Google is launching an update to Play Games, however, that removes this requirement. All you need to sign up now is a regular Google account and instead of… Read More
The plan to turn unused NYC phonebooths into free digital hubs for local neighborhoods continues as Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced the second phase of the city’s LinkNYC program — with the unveiling of new, slightly generic tablets at the city’s newly installed hotspots.
LinkNYC demonstrated the android-powered tablet for the press yesterday, taking advantage of a… Read More
Last week, hackers bricked Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, encrypting all the data on its devices and demanding 9,000 Bitcoin (~$3.6m) to give the hospital's IT staff the keys needed to reboot it. (more…)
It's no secret to many of you that I'm a fan of Enpass Password Manager, and last month some of you were able to grab the app for free thanks to a momentary deal and try it out to see if it worked well for you. But whenever I've mentioned Enpass on Android Police, one of the most asked questions and requested features was autofill support. The developer had promised it would come in version 5.0 and today is that day.
Read MoreEnpass Password Manager Adds Browser And App AutoFill, With Full-Time Fingerprint Support In Version 5.0 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Google’s online translation tool hit a major milestone today as it nears its 10th anniversary. After adding 13 new languages, including Hawaiian and Kurdish, Google Translate now includes more than 100 languages (103 to be exact). Read More
Everyone knows that having to write individualized thank you cards is the worst part of receiving gifts. Luckily, ThankView is fixing this with its platform that lets users send customized, video thank you cards to each person on your invite list. Here’s how it works: After uploading a recipient list, users can choose a theme and customize their e-card with photos, text, and colors.… Read More
Tomorrow, private spaceflight company Virgin Galactic will unveil the newest version of SpaceShipTwo — the reusable spaceplane that will become the company's primary vehicle. The company has been without a main vehicle since October 2014, when a crash killed one test pilot and seriously injured another. After the accident, many journalists and industry experts expressed skepticism about Virgin Galactic’s reliability. This new vehicle could help the company stage their comeback.
Mobile World Congress doesn't kick off for another couple of days, but the 2016 mobile firsts are already rolling in. Cat's new S60 is the latest rugged flagship smartphone to bear the famed machinery brand, and it adds a pair of unique features: a Flir thermal imaging camera and the first waterproof rating to a depth of 5 meters for up to an hour.
Microsoft promised Skype group video calling for smartphones last month, and now it's rolling out to iOS and Android today. The software maker will start enabling the option on Skype accounts in Europe and the US today, and expects to complete the roll out over the next week. Microsoft says the feature will be available worldwide in March.
Microsoft is allowing up to 25 people to participate in a Skype group video call, and the person talking with be displayed in the center. Intel has worked closely with Microsoft to enable its SILK Super Wide Band audio codec to run on Azure cloud servers powered by Intel's processors, allowing Microsoft to offload some of the processing power required for such large conversations.
Alongside the group...
Chances are, if you’ve owned a smartphone over the past few years, you’ve used it for countless things: sending messages, using apps, capturing photos and video, or playing games. It’s no secret that installing apps and games and taking photos and video with your phone rapidly consumes the storage available to you, and it doesn’t take much to hit storage limits on your phone.
When you do run out of space, which you likely will, there are three ways to deal with it. You could buy a phone with more storage to begin with, or pick one that has the option for storage expansion. (Most people do neither of these things.) You could plug your phone into your computer and offload pictures and video to make space. Or, you could go nuclear and...
Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Re/code by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Re/code.
Smartphones, especially Android smartphones, are beginning to look and work pretty much the same. Major gains in function and design are rarer and rarer. Though there are always small new features and specs, few of these make a big difference in daily use with high reliability and little work or thought on the part of the user.
But I've been testing a new Android smartphone that clears that hurdle. It cleverly addresses a serious pain point for users by automatically freeing up storage space as you are about to run out. Even better, it...
PayPal's Android app has been sorely in need of an update for some time, and now it's getting one. The new v6.0 update is officially out tomorrow, but the update appears to have started appearing already. We've got it on APK Mirror if you want to check it out, and it's a big departure.
Here's the changelog for the new app, provided by PayPal support. The final changelog might end up being a little different.
Read MorePayPal Gets A Massive Update To v6.0 With A Complete UI Overhaul [APK Download] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Continuing its push to control every facet of the way people discover and experience movies, ticketing site Fandango announced today that it has purchased both the movie critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and the discovery app Flixster. Fandango picked up the sites from Warner Bros. Entertainment, which in turn will now have a minority ownership stake in Fandango. (Lest it seem like Rotten Tomatoes is finally breaking free of the yoke of perceived conflicts of interest, it should be pointed out that Fandango is owned by NBCUniversal, meaning everybody's still staying within the larger Hollywood family.)
It's the second acquisition this year that's telegraphing larger ambitions on the part of Fandango. In January it bought video...
Twitter isn't done rolling out new features today, as the company has just announced that users can now capture and share videos in direct messages. Twitter has long allowed users to send pictures via direct messages by tapping a camera icon next to the text box. However, users will now be able to use that button to record and send private videos back and forth, much like Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts.
Starting today, you can capture & share videos in your Direct Messages. It's rolling out globally on iOS & Android. pic.twitter.com/b5CgWyTQ3H
— Twitter Support (@Support) February 17, 2016
This comes shortly after Twitter announced a new dedicated GIF button that allows users to search for GIFs from Giphy and Riffsy before adding them to a tweet or direct message.
Source: Twitter
Tim from Grand Illusions (which sells cool cabinet-of-curiosity style stuff) demonstrates the Assassin's Teapot:
This teapot comes from China, and it is a trick teapot! Inside there are two separate compartments, and depending where you place your fingers - either covering one hole or covering another hole - you can get the teapot to pour out of either internal compartment.
Supposedly, back in the day, it was a way to get rid of an enemy, since you could pour out some tea for yourself and drink it quite safely (provided you had covered the correct hole) and you could then pour a drink for your enemy, and they would unknowingly get what was in the second compartment, maybe poison.
I also like his demo of an "atomic trampoline":
https://youtu.be/EzFjZJEAt18
Moyo the baby elephant was saved From drowning when he was only four days old. His rescuers delivered him to Roxy, a woman who rehabilitates wild animals. As the baby elephant has grown, he has become something of a nuisance in the house. He grabs things off kitchen counters, knocks over plants, sticks spoons in his mouth, and pees on the floor. Roxy is very patient with Moyo.
The gradual introduction of Facebook's fast-loading Instant Articles format is about to speed up. The company said today that beginning April 12th, all publishers will be able to create articles using the format. The move, which coincides with the upcoming F8 developer conference, is likely to increase pressure on publishers to offer their stories in the format lest they lose an advantage over their peers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has begun principal photography, according to an announcement today by Marvel Studios. Marvel also confirmed the long-rumored casting of Kurt Russell, an actor who may play a key role in the film's plot, which hinges on Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) search for his true father.
The update came with the first production photo, featuring the silhouettes of the film's heroes — Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, and tiny Groot. And if you're still here, great news, we're done with the boring news stuff. It's time to obsess over tiny Groot, the only real thing that matters here. Hahaha, can you believe how well I pretended I care about anything else for the first few sentences.
Oh my gosh, let's get a better look...
Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt announced today that Google Ideas, the New York City-based web and policy think tank, is being transformed into a tech incubator named Jigsaw. Schmidt revealed the news in a post on Medium, saying the team will focus on using technology "to tackle the toughest geopolitical challenges, from countering violent extremism to thwarting online censorship to mitigating the threats associated with digital attacks." Jigsaw will be headed up by Jared Cohen, a former member of the US State Department's Policy Planning Staff who's run Google Ideas since its inception in 2010. Cohen will also remain an advisor to Schmidt.
Cohen's prominent involvement has fostered links between Google and the State...
Apple has formally opposed an order from a US judge to help law enforcement break into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. In a rare open letter published on Apple.com, CEO Tim Cook says the FBI is essentially asking the company to create a backdoor for the iPhone's built-in encryption, something it has refused to do for many years. Cook says that complying with the order would have "implications far beyond the legal case at hand," undermining users' privacy and giving the US government "the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks."
French lawmakers have voted to extend the country's state of emergency by another three months, despite growing concerns that the anti-terror measures violate civil liberties. The lower house of parliament extended the measures until May 26th by a vote of 212 to 31 (with three abstentions), after the French senate approved the extension by a similarly large margin earlier this month. The extension comes as lawmakers continue to debate proposals that would expand government surveillance and make it easier for the president to activate a state of emergency in the future.
French President François Hollande initiated the state of emergency following the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 130 people dead and 367 injured....
India's Ringing Bells has unveiled its latest smartphone, the Freedom 251. As the name suggests, the phone is set to retail in the country for ₹251, which comes out to the equivalent of $3.60. For that price, you're getting a phone with a 4-inch qHD (960 x 540) display, 1.3GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB internal memory, microSD slot, 3.2MP camera, 0.3MP front shooter, 3G connectivity, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 1450mAh battery. On the software front, you'll get Android 5.1 Lollipop.
It is remarkable how low the phone is priced, considering that it offers fairly decent specs. The cost of manufacturing is likely subsidized, as the phone is being offered with support from the Indian government. The Freedom 251 also comes with a one-year warranty, and the vendor has over 650 service centers across the country should you run into any issues. If you're interested, Ringing Bells is kicking off registrations starting tomorrow, Feb. 18, on its official website.
It's almost Valentine's and what more of a perfect gift could WhatsApp give its users than dozens upon dozens of brand new emojis they can use to express all of their emotions and deep feelings? Those cool drawings had been donning the WhatsApp beta for over two months but they're now ready to deck the emoji panel of every WhatsApp user through an update to the stable Play Store release of the app.
Read More[Update: Changelog, New Languages, Android M Permissions] WhatsApp 2.12.441 Goes Live In The Play Store With AllTheEmojis was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
The more popular Instagram has become, the more high-profile users it has attracted — and along with them, hackers who want access to their accounts. Taylor Swift and Kris Jenner are among the celebrities who have found their accounts temporarily inaccessible, and until now, it has required only a username and password to break in. That's changing today now that Instagram is beginning to roll out two-factor authentication, an Instagram spokesman tells The Verge.
We’ve all seen the ads: “make $2,000 a week working from home,” or, ahem, “Start working at home with Google..” but have you ever wondered what happens when you actually try to sign up for one of those programs? Planet Money figured that out.
First things first. In most cases, a work at home scam is almost always about “helping” you start your own online business. Which is to say, surprise, you don’t get to just sit around in your underwear and look at the internet all day. I’m guessing you can see where this is going, but here’s Planet Money on how it typically plays out:
Here’s how it works. When you respond to one of those ads, you give them your name and your contact info. Then, you get a call from someone at a call center saying so, you want to work from home...
You want to set up a website? They can build it for you. They’ll coach you on how to run a web business, handle all the paperwork, the accounting...
Of course, what’s actually delivered is either a terrible web site or nothing at all, but that comes well after they get a bunch of money from someone. The whole scam follows a very specific script that builds rapport with the person before extracting a credit card number. It’s a pretty obvious scam and it’s amazing that it actually works. Still, even if you fancy yourself savvy on these types of things, Planet Money goes through a ton of sales tactics that are applicable beyond just “work from home” scams that are worth looking out for.
Anatomy of a Scam | Planet Money
Back in 2013, Google launched Play for Education, a program that made it easier for educators to purchase apps and books and distribute them to their students’ Android tablets. Now, this program is coming to an end. As first reported by CRN and also confirmed by us today, Google will stop selling Play for Education licenses on March 14. Read More
