Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.
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Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
In an effort to make plastic drinking straws extinct, Chelsea Briganti and Leigh Ann Tucker of Loliware have invented the "world’s first edible, hypercompostable, marinedegradable straw." They hope their eco-friendly Lolistraw will replace the 500M plastic straws that are currently being used in the United States every day.
“From our perspective, the way to get our community involved, and the way to get the world excited about this new innovation is to embrace the fun,” says Chelsea Briganti, one of the cofounders of Loliware, a company that began making edible cups, with a fruit leather-like texture, in 2015. The straws are made from a new seaweed-based material that’s more like plastic, but like the cups, can be made with a flavor or with added nutrients; they’re meant to add a little to the experience of having a cocktail or another drink.
“You can imagine drinking your cold-brewed coffee with a vanilla straw or a caramel straw,” Briganti says. “We think that will really increase this movement around plastic-free, because we’re not telling the consumer, hey, you can’t have your straw. We’re providing them a solution to the plastic straw crisis while also giving them a fun experience on top of that. It’s not about the consumer sacrificing anymore, it’s about the consumer having fun and being sustainable at the same time.”
The company plans to target venues where plastic straws are currently used at highest volumes, such as stadiums, fast-casual restaurants, coffee shops, or juice bars. One version will be clear and look like a plastic straw, while others will be colored and flavored.
It “really feels like plastic,” says cofounder Leigh Ann Tucker. “It transforms while you’re using it to where you can actually bite into it afterward and eat it. But when you first pick it up and put it into your drink, it’s going to feel like a plastic straw.”
Here's the suggested flavors (Palo Santo? Yuzo Charcoal?):
Craig Evans, accompanied by his dog Llew and his son Dafydd, mosey around a beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, picking up everything worth eating and finally enjoying a delicious December meal.
calm dry weather and a very good low tide low tide.We caught and cooked Edible crabs,Velvet Swimming crabs,3 Bearded Rocklings,Winkles and Whelks on a wooden "Solva" stove.
Files Go is our new app for freeing up storage on your phone. Since its launch in December, more than 10 million people have installed it and cleaned up more than 1.1 gigabytes of space on average.
Today, we’ve added three new features so managing files is even faster and more enjoyable:
SD cards: We’ve expanded our SD card support since many of you use SD cards to backup important files. With one tap in the list or grid view, you can easily filter to see files stored on your SD card.
Tablets: Files Go now runs on tablets so you can manage storage and transfer files between your small and big screen Android devices without using any data.
Opening files in other apps: You can also customize which apps open your files with our new “Open with” flow. This should give you greater flexibility and control when handling all types of files. For example, to open PDF files, you may want to use your favorite PDF viewing app and that’s now possible.
With these new features, we hope it’s even easier to free up space, find files faster and share files offline with Files Go.
The “Show SD Card only” feature makes it easier to find only those files saved on your SD card.
Last month, Google launched Files Go — alongside Android Go — with features like smart deletion and wireless file transfer. Hitting version 1.1, the storage manager is improving its support for SD cards, while now working on tablets.
DoodleChaos combines wood blocks, dominoes, marbles made of metal and other materials, and magnets to create a delightful marble run set to Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers. (more…)
If you just can't let go of Windows Phone, Launcher 10 for Android might be a good option.
The dream of a Windows-powered smartphone is effectively over, leaving some holdovers to make the decision to jump to either iOS or Android. I'm of the opinion that Android is by far the better option in this case, owing to the customizability of the OS for things like replacing the default smart assistant with Cortana, the default browser with Edge, and so on. But if you yearn for a more "Windows 10-like" experience, there are options out there.
You can customize Android with home launchers, allowing you to tailor the functionality of the home screen to your desire. Some of them add special features and other improvements over Android's default home screen, bringing customizable app drawers, widgets, and other functionality. Redmond produces a very robust launcher, dubbed the Microsoft Launcher. However, I'm not a fan. It's just not as sexy as Windows 10 Mobile was. It's all business and no style, which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but I simply wanted something more.
Say hello to Launcher 10, one of the Android home screen options I've been using regularly. It's the closest thing you can get to a real Windows Phone experience on Android today.
Features with feeling
Launcher 10 brings the Windows 10 Mobile home screen experience to Android as faithfully as possible given the restrictions imposed by the OS. Of course, you're not going to get rich picture Live tiles for the vast majority of apps, but Launcher 10's developers cleverly emulated the feel of Windows 10 Mobile where possible.
You can pin apps as tiles on Launcher 10, and with a modest in-app purchase, you can unlock the ability to display notification text and counts directly on the tiles, which very closely mimics the functionality found in many Windows 10 Mobile apps, such as Twitter and Outlook.
The home screen works exactly as you'd expect coming in from Windows Phone.
Additionally, some of the system apps, like Photos and Contacts, come with custom tile experiences that pull information from those apps to create a more Windows-like experience. The Photos tile, for example, will cycle through recent images, and the Contacts tile shows off that familiar scrolling display picture collage.
As for customization, the home screen works exactly as you'd expect coming in from Windows Phone.You can long press to change the position and size of a tile or unpin it completely. Swipe right to access the app list, and then long press to pin apps to the home screen. You can even drag tiles on top of each other to create folders, just like on Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 PCs.
Customization and notifications
Just like Windows Phone, Launcher 10 brings many of the tile customization features you might remember, with a few extras.
You can customize the number of tile-columns available far beyond what was available on Windows 10 Mobile, although depending on your screen resolution, you might want to stick with the default three columns, or Windows 10 Mobile's "more tiles" four columns.
You have the option of displaying notification content as Live tiles, which is useful for certain apps. If you dive into Android's settings, you can block Launcher 10 from handling notifications for specific apps, too, giving you a degree of control over which apps show text and which don't.
Launcher 10 also comes with tiles for a pinned system Calendar, showing events. Sadly, my BlackBerry KEYone seems to have replaced the default Calendar app on Android, preventing me from testing this feature. However, the Contacts tile and Gallery Live tiles work well, showing off your contacts and recent images with rich animations that closely resemble Windows 10 Mobile.
There are a few additional aspects of customization that weren't available on Windows 10 Mobile, such as altering the padding space between tiles, the size of text labels, adding additional start screens, and altering which apps use your accent color or simply use a color based on the app's branding.
Downsides
While Launcher 10 has great tile functionality, gorgeous and fluid animations, and some great features, it's sorely lacking in customizability in other areas. For example, there is no option to change the way the Gallery tile handles pictures, as seen on Windows 10 Mobile.
It also seems odd that the app doesn't have the option of using third-party calendars for tiles either, considering it could just be set up to poll the app for information using Android's permissions system.
It would be nice if the app had the option to customize tiles more directly, too, or perhaps provide a framework for developers to bring Live tile functionality directly to the launcher, although that probably wouldn't be practical.
In closing
You're never going to get a full Windows 10 Mobile Live tile experience on Android, due to the OS limitations, but Launcher 10 is a damn fine attempt to recreate that magic Windows Phone fans yearn for.
Launcher 10 is frequently updated. It offers a free trial, and a couple of cheap in-app purchases for Live tile functionality and the ability to remove ads are in the settings menu. It's a polished product that works well even on more modest Android devices, and although it has clear limitations that might frustrate Windows Phone veterans, it's as close as we can get on Google's platform.
What launchers do you use on Android? Let us know in the comments.
"Read more." Every year it’s one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions. But with all the time spent battling traffic, working out, or picking up groceries, there often doesn’t seem to be a minute to simply sit down with a book.
With audiobooks on Google Play, rolling out today in 45 countries and nine languages, you can turn your time stuck in traffic, on the treadmill, or waiting in line into reading time. Find your next great read at an affordable price, and enjoy it across Android, iOS and the web with Google Play Books, as well as on devices that include the Google Assistant, like Google Home and many others. Here’s what you need to know:
Listen without a subscription. On Google Play, you can buy a single audiobook at an affordable price, with no commitments. You can also get a free preview of the book to make sure you’re hooked by the story and enjoy listening to the narrator’s voice. And share your favorite audiobook with everyone in the family through Family Library for no additional fee—even if they’re using a different device.
Enjoy your audiobook with your Google Assistant.Just say “Ok Google, read my book” to listen to your favorite audiobook hands free with the Google Assistant on your phone or speaker, like Google Home. Try “Ok Google, who is the author?” if you need a refresher, or “Ok Google, stop playing in 20 minutes” to set a timer for bedtime reading. For now, the Google Assistant integration with audiobooks is available on Android phones and smart speakers globally in English. It will be coming soon to the Assistant on Android Auto in the U.S.
Weave reading into your day across multiple devices. Start your morning by listening to “Ready Player One” with the Assistant on Google Home, and continue listening with the Google Play Books app on your Pixel. You can pick up where you left off no matter what device you're using, with the Assistant or the Google Play Books app—on Android, iOS, Chromecast, Android Wear, Android Auto or even your laptop.
Now when you want to solve the mystery with “Magpie Murders,” learn “Astrophysics For People In A Hurry” from Neil Degrasse Tyson or spend a Sunday with Oprah Winfrey, Eckhart Tolle and friends in “The Wisdom of Sundays,” all you have to do is select and settle into the sounds of your new favorite book.
Google's Files Go app has a special filter to delete those annoying 'Good Morning' messages.
Millions of Indians are making their way online for the first time, discovering new ways to connect and share with friends and family. And because WhatsApp usage is ubiquitous in the country, they land on the Facebook-owned messaging platform sooner or later. And one way of expressing themselves is through "Good Morning" messages sent over WhatsApp. These messages are usually delivered in the form of images and have a pithy quote attached.
Even accounting for WhatsApp's compression — which reduces the file sizes to under 500KB — thousands of such forwards tend to clutter up a phone in a matter of months. If you're a regular WhatsApp user and are in a lot of groups, the deluge can get pretty infuriating. It doesn't bother me as much as I mute most groups as a general rule and don't set media to automatically download onto my device, but I cannot count the number of times I've had to clear the internal storage of a family member's phone.
Thankfully, Google is coming to the rescue with its Files Go app. For the uninitiated, Files Go is a storage manager that automatically looks through your device's apps and internal storage to serve up recommendations on files you can delete.
Google found that one out of every three smartphone users in India run out of space on their devices daily, so it turned to machine learning to find a solution. The result is a special filter within Files Go that deletes these "Good Morning" messages en masse.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Google group product manager Josh Woodward explained how his team relied on AI to weed out the specific messages:
We were trying to deconstruct what is the DNA of a good morning message for months. It's been a lot of hard work to get it right.
In addition to decluttering your phone, Files Go also lets you easily send and receive files. If you're interested in seeing what the app is capable of, hit up the Play Store from the link below to download Files Go.
We've known for months that Google has been planning to sell audiobooks, and a recent APK teardown revealed that the announcement would come very soon. At long last, audiobooks are finally rolling out on Google Play Books, and you can even play them from your Google Assistant speaker.
Audiobooks will be available in 45 countries and nine languages starting today (full list here). Unlike some of Google's competition, Play Books won't use a subscription for listening.
NHS Digital has issued guidance to the independent authorities and businesses that make up the UK's National Health Service, setting out the case for storing extremely sensitive patient data on public cloud servers.
(more…)
Tanja Brandt shares her videos and photos of Ingo the German shepherd and Poldi the owl. The two have been fast friends since Poldi was a hatchling. (more…)
Ursula K. Le Guin died today at 88. The author of the Earthsea novels, The Left Hand of Darkness and many others, she was and remains among the brightest stars in the sky of fantasy literature.
Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like “The Left Hand of Darkness” and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore. She was 88. Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.
Ms. Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and self-sacrifice than by swordplay or space battles.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous two weeks or so.
Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.
Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
In their endless search to monetize whatever they can muster, Yahoo has decided to create a financial app that allows groups of people to contribute to a pool of money that is then given to one person in the group.
Even by the standards of "storm-buffeted planes landing without incident", this is astounding: a small jet turboprop all but spinning in circles as it comes in, only to plop perfectly onto its wheels at the last moment. According to the video, there were 110 km/h (68 mph) crosswinds.
Over the last week, OnePlus has been investigating a potential security breach after multiple customers reported fraudulent charges following purchases made on the company’s online store. After shutting down credit card payments several days ago, OnePlus has confirmed that there was, in fact, a malicious script that has stolen credit card information from up to 40,000 customers…
In this video, Frogger, a pet red-shouldered hawk in Carson City, Nevada, tries to attack the images of prey in a small game hunting regulations guide. He packs and scratches at it, not realizing the birds and animals aren't real.
This totally reminds me of something I witnessed in the mid-1990s. Those days I lived on the third story of an apartment building across from Oakland's Lake Merritt with my then-boyfriend, a biologist. He had a lizard named Mr. Businessman Socks who was housed inside a glass cage. That long rectangular glass box was seated directly in front of our livingroom's big, curtainless window.
That window was nearly on level with the top of the telephone poles on our street. We would often see the neighborhood's Cooper hawks tearing apart smaller birds on the top of those poles, with all the tiny feathers floating slowly to the ground.
One Sunday morning, I was reading the paper and heard some commotion. I looked up to see one of the hawks had flown directly over to the ledge of that window. His wings were spread out completely as if he were about to attack. Mr. Businessman Socks was FREAKING OUT, puffing himself up and running around like mad. He clearly thought he was a goner. The large meaty hawk looked at the lizard and then looked at me. There was a long pause and then it flew away, knowing it had been defeated.
This was before cell phones so, saldy, I have no photographic evidence to share with you. I'll tell you though, that incident is permanently burned into my memory.
For more than a century, National Geographic has continued to "believe in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world." I still want to believe.
Ashworld is the latest game from OrangePixel, a studio well known for some fantastic pixel art games. Ashworld does not deviate from their style too much, but what is interesting is how its top-down survival gameplay has been combined with side-scrolling platforming.
TAG Heuer's been showing off a bunch of its watches in Geneva, and one model, in particular, has caught our eye. In addition to the new smaller and cheaper Modular 41 announced yesterday, TAG Heuer has been teasing a diamond-encrusted white gold version of its Modular 45. This Android Wear-powered ostentation can be yours for a mere $200K (190’000 CHF).
The watch is part of TAG Heuer's Modular 45 series, though this model has the "Full Diamond" name attached to it as well, which makes sense. With 589 diamonds spread across almost every exterior surface on the bezel and bracelet (totaling 23.35 carats), it's pretty full of them.
Sad news from London, where Cranberries' lead singer Dolores O'Riordan died suddently today. The band's official page announced her death at about 1 p.m. EST, with no further details and a statement requesting privacy for her family.
https://twitter.com/Hozier/status/952959141894639616
https://twitter.com/duranduran/status/952959007219683328
https://twitter.com/MayKapes/status/952958441403944961
https://twitter.com/louisemcsharry/status/952950887475015680
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Kspj3OO0s
In the video above, The National Geographic explains chromatophors, the pigment-changing cells in certain species of octopus.
The blue-ringed octopus is venomous and entirely willing to let you know before you get too close. Karel Mestdagh shot this video on a Samsung Galaxy S4 in a waterproof case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bt1LvpZ1Oo
Octopuses' camouflage is a behavioral as well as colorful performance, mimicking other sea creatures from lionfish to cuttles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgDGTLRcwa8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=123RGfEWhI4
For years, LG has released flagship smartphones in tandem with Samsung, but its devices have consistently played second fiddle. Now, LG's Vice Chairman Cho Sung-jin has confirmed a significant strategy shift at the company. LG will no longer launch phones in the G and V series on a set yearly schedule. Instead, it'll launch phones "when it is needed."
Before this announcement, we've all been able to expect a G-series release in the spring and V-series in the fall.
Sometime last year, Google quietly acquired a U.K. startup doing rather interesting work with sound, including a new type of speaker and haptic feedback. This technology has interesting ramifications and possible uses in Google’s consumer lineup.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.
