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Megabattie posted a video of a female grey-headed flying fox who is "happy to stuff her face" with grapes.

Green grapes, red grapes - any grapes.

This bat is not a pet - she's a wild animal who was rescued, nursed back to health, and released, fatter and healthier, and still pregnant, about 6 weeks after she was rescued, almost dead.

Do not handle bats unless you're vaccinated and trained. Some bats (a very small percentage) may carry deadly viruses.

Call a wildlife group if you find a bat in trouble. If you get bitten or scratched, go to your local hospital and you will be vaccinated free of charge (in Australia).

Bats are nothing to be scared of if you leave them alone.

 Yik Yak co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington published a farewell note to users on Friday, announcing they would shut down their once-popular anonymous social network this week. The app allowed people to connect with other users within a certain radius, and was widely marketed in and used on college campuses. Read More

Chester (or Shasta?), a Red Labrador, has figured out a way to deal with the Roomba that's more efficient than barking at it or biting it: turning it off. [Thanks, Heather!]

Three million Americans have Type-1 diabetes. If they don't get insulin every day, they will slip into a coma and die. The price of rapid-acting insulin, needed by diabetics who can't take slower-acting insulin, has increased 1,123 percent since 1996. Many insurance companies won't cover the costs, forcing desperate parents to look for insulin on the black market.

From NBCNews:

Gabriella is allergic to the kind of insulin her insurer covers at a $25 out-of-pocket cost. She can only take Apidra, but her insurance only covers 25 percent of the price, leaving the family to pay hundreds of dollars a month they can't afford.

So her mom has turned to the black market, trading for the medication with other families with diabetes she meets online, a tactic that regulators and health experts warn is a health risk. And she cut a back-end deal with a sympathetic drug rep: If she bought one vial he would give her 10 vials from his sample kit, nearly a one year's supply. Gabriella's grandmother covered the cost.

• Update 1: 2017/04/28 7:29pm PDT
  Details from Amazon

Amazon's Appstore for Android has always been at a disadvantage compared to the Play Store. It isn't included on devices other than its own Fire tablets, and the Play Store has a lot more content. Amazon has tried to entice users to get apps from the Appstore with various promotions and free apps. Back in 2015, Amazon launched the Actually Free program, which offered paid apps and games at no cost.

Read More

Amazon is ending its Underground 'Actually Free' app program [Update] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Amazon’s Alexa is going to sound more human. The company announced this week the addition of a new set of speaking skills for the virtual assistant, which will allow her to do things like whisper, take a breath to pause for emphasis, adjust the rate, pitch and volume of her speech, and more. She’ll even be able to “bleep” out words – which may not be all that… Read More

iOS: If you want to really kill it at karaoke, approximately hitting the notes won’t be good enough. A free app called Vanido can guide you through singing exercises, and show you in real time how well you’re hitting those notes.

First, though, you get to find out what your range is, and how it compares to terms like bass, tenor, soprano, and so on. (I’m a mezzo-soprano. I feel fancy already.) Once the app knows what notes you can sing, it can give you your daily voice exercises.

You only get three per day, but if you come back tomorrow there will be a different selection of exercises. Or, as the app calls them, games. Each one is a little riff that you sing: “ya ya ya ya ya,” for example, the tones going up and then down again. And then the app gives you a slightly higher note to start on, and you keep going for maybe a dozen repetitions.

If you’ve ever taken voice lessons or practiced with a choir, some of these exercises will sound familiar. Others are more fun, like the “Bumblebee” one that zigzags quickly up and down. There’s plenty of variety, so you won’t get bored.

You need to use the app with headphones: it plays piano notes through the headphones, and then uses the microphone to listen to your voice. (You’ll want to do your singing lessons in a quiet place.)

The best part is the real-time visual of what your voice is doing. If you go a little too high or too low as you approach the note, you’ll see it on the screen. That’s both the strength and the weakness of this app: you can get lost in watching the little squiggly line, and end up paying more attention to it than to how you sound.

You’re totally on your own to decide if you like how your voice sounds. The app doesn’t play you any examples of good singing, and it can’t advise you on anything other than the pitch you’re hitting. But if you need to practice singing accurately, with immediate honest feedback, Vanido is a great pocket voice coach.

Vanido (free) | iTunes

Update 4/28/2017, 11:30am: Vanido’s creator wrote to say: “we are planning to add real voice samples, more guidance on technique, and breathing warmups in the coming updates.”

Poli'ahu, the Hawaiian snow goddess who lives atop Mauna Kea, is the namesake for this stunning and inspiring footage from Sunchaser Pictures. (more…)

In this video for Mental Floss, linguist Arika Okrent and illustrator Sean O’Neill share the keys to understanding commonalities between languages.

[via Laughing Squid]

Nuno Dias shot this absolutely insane surfing footage that looks more like a snowboarder out in front of an avalanche than a surfer on a wave. (more…)

Sgt Pepper: listen to an unreleased outtake of the Beatles' classic

I am sure everyone here remembers the game Draw Something. It was a Pictionary-like game released on Android in 2012 by the developer OMGPOP. For years I had wondered why Pictionary didn't cash in on the popularity Draw Something had capitalized on. Now I have to question whether it would have been best to leave well enough alone this late in the game.

Now don't get me wrong, there is some fun to be had with Pictionary.

Read More

Better late than never, an officially licensed Pictionary game is out on the Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

https://youtu.be/4MTMfblDYso https://youtu.be/7z1XH5L8Jx4

There have been times when I've had a strong urge to pee while sitting on a plane that's waiting for takeoff. Fortunately, I wasn't punished for it. But one poor guy on Delta flight wasn't as lucky. He urgently had to pee. The plane had been sitting motionless on the runway for 30 minutes. He got up to go to the restroom, but a Delta airline attendant told him to get back in his seat. He obeyed the order, but his bladder wasn't happy about it. He got up again, and this time he used the restroom. Shortly after that, the pilot announced that he was pulling the plane back to the gate. Everyone had to get off, and then everyone except the man who peed was allowed back on. The FBI then arrived to speak with the man. Delta allowed the man to purchase a very expensive same-day ticket to fly home to see his kids.

I guess Delta would rather have let his bladder burst.

From YouTube description:

After waiting on tarmac with no foreseeable information that we would take off anytime soon, passenger quickly used bathroom (less than 1 minute). Delta determined to return to the gate (not too far away!) and remove the passenger. This is the first Delta employee who came on (Horatio) speaking not very kindly to the passenger.

One fellow passenger on the flight has created a blog called Frustrated Passenger, to express he displeasure with Delta for the way they treated the man:

Dear Delta:

On Delta flight # 2035 this week, I observed the most outrageous treatment of a paying customer that I have seen in my two decades of flying. I trust that you will investigate this matter and see that similar situations are handled better in the future. Not only did your staff truly harm and humiliate one person who was forced to pay hundreds of dollars for a new same-day flight, but you forced the rest of us passengers to endure a 2 hour saga of watching a man being targeted for having a bathroom emergency. I am disappointed and horrified at how Delta Airlines staff treated their customers/passengers.

I was a passenger on DL 2035 on April 18, 2017 from Atlanta to Milwaukee (2:55 pm departure time). I was seated with my husband and with my infant in my arms across the aisle from another passenger, a stranger to us, but clearly a nice gentleman (“Nice Gentleman”), who played hide and seek with my child as we waited to takeoff.

When the flight attendants commenced the security instructions, the Nice Gentleman was on the phone, and the attendant told him (in a very harsh manner) to end his call. He apologized and promptly did so. This was my first insight into how the flight attendants viewed the Nice Gentleman.

We were then told that we were third in line to take off; however, we waited and waited and barely moved. Nice Gentleman got up, went to the back, and returned to his seat very quickly. Some more time passed, and my husband commented that we had already been waiting for 30 minutes to take off. Nice Gentleman got up again and went to the back, and very quickly returned to his seat. At that point, the pilot stated that we needed to return to the airport to remove a passenger. Everyone was shocked – what could have happened?

Nice Gentleman quickly spoke up and apologized, saying he thought it was him, and he explained to those of us nearby what had happened. The first time he stood up, he went to the back and told the flight attendant he had to use the bathroom because it was an emergency. The attendant (Katherine S) told him that he needed to sit down or he would make the plane lose its place in line because the plane could not move if he was in the bathroom. He apologized, said he didn’t want that to happen, and quickly sat back down. He waited some more. Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer and returned to the back to use the restroom. He used the restroom very quickly; I would estimate less than a minute. When he came out of the restroom, he was told that he caused the plane to lose its place in line, and the pilot would have to talk to him. He was apologetic for causing any delay, but it was an emergency … because he is a human and these things happen to everyone.

Our plane returned to a gate (which wasn’t far because we had not moved much this entire time). A Delta employee (Horatio) came on and asked Nice Gentleman to gather his things. Horatio talked to him in a rude and harsh manner, demanding that he leave the plane; Horatio wouldn’t explain why and wouldn’t give any assurance he could still travel to Milwaukee. Nice Gentleman said he wouldn’t get off the plane.

Then Delta employee Bryant R. [full name redacted] then came on and treated Nice Gentleman in a somewhat more appropriate manner and listened to him a little; he would only tell Nice Gentleman that he would get him on a later plane. Nice Gentleman explained that he needed to get back for a school field trip the next day. He explained that he understood what happened, but that he needed to use the restroom and it was an emergency. Bryant R. claimed that Nice Gentleman broke the rules and that this requires that Delta staff talk to him. Nice Gentleman said he would explain his situation to everyone who needs to hear it but does not want to leave the plane to do so. Bryant R. claimed that Delta had never encountered an issue with someone using the bathroom during taxi/waiting takeoff (REALLY DELTA?!?!). Nice Gentleman stated he would not leave the plane because he is afraid he won’t get on another flight out. Bryant R. then left the plane.

Next we heard the plane engines turn off, and the pilot indicated that it would be getting warm in the plane. Apparently Delta was trying to sweat us and Nice Gentleman off the plane!

Then a flight attendant announced that Delta was making everyone get off the plane. The seat neighbors around us were all astounded and visibly angry at Delta. There was a general talk of no one leaving the plane in support of Nice Gentleman and in rebellion for the terrible treatment by Delta of this man. We eventually deplaned and, in the airport, Nice Gentleman was kept apart from everyone.

While we were waiting, I spoke with another Delta Airlines passenger from a different flight, DL566 from Melbourne, FL to Atlanta. The same thing happened on her flight: while waiting to taxi, TWO people used the restroom. However, that situation was handled very differently. The flight attendant informed the pilot not to move because two people were using the restroom; when the two passengers returned to their seats, the flight attendant informed the pilot that the people had returned to their seats… and the plane continued to taxi and eventually take off. No return to the gate. No removal of a passenger.

We were eventually allowed to reboard the plane, sans Nice Gentleman. Delta staff claimed that he was not criminally charged, because he was not aggressive, which is not nearly the legal description of probable cause. But, here’s the kicker – Delta staff refunded his flight (but only from Atlanta to Milwaukee – and they kept the taxes and fees) and refused to transport him to Milwaukee! Delta wouldn’t return his gate-checked bag to him and told him he could get it when he finds a way to Milwaukee. I doubt that Delta paid him the cancellation fee that it surely would have charged if he had attempted to cancel his flight that day.

Once back on board the plane, imagine our surprise when a woman arrives on the plane with the seat assignment for the Nice Gentleman’s seat! Delta used the 2 hour delay that IT created to bump someone onto our flight.

The final event of this horrifying saga occurred when, after the plane was airborne, the pilot announced his apologies for the delays and explained that the situation was due to a security concern/issue. My husband and I observed the entire event (my husband accompanied the Nice Gentleman when he was taken aside in the airport), and there was never any hint of a security risk or concern… unless an emergency need to use the bathroom after unpredictable delays is now considered a “security risk/issue”.

Delta, what was Nice Gentleman supposed to do? Here are the options as I see it: 1) Urinate in his seat. This would be unpleasant for him, everyone around him, and the airline staff member who has to clean it up. 2) Urinate in a vomit bag or some type of device he could have possibly found. Again, same issue with being uncomfortable for him, those around him, and anyone cleaning up later. 3) Do what he did—wait as long as humanly (remember, we are humans?) possible, and then go to the bathroom as quickly as possible. As evidenced by what happened earlier in the day on Delta #566, the flight attendant can tell the pilot someone is using the bathroom, and then the flight process proceeds as usual. In the worst case, perhaps we have to wait a little longer to get back into line—no one wants that…especially not the Nice Gentleman who doesn’t want to hold everyone up! I am racking my brain to think of other options that would have been a better solution for this Delta customer’s unfortunate situation.

Yes, Nice Gentleman may have broken the rules when he stood up to use the bathroom. Yes, flight attendant Katherine S. may have had her authority questioned when he used the restroom quickly. However, the situation was resolved in the 1 minute he was out of his seat. I don’t believe the plane moved an inch during that time. Why did Delta have to continue this saga by returning to the gate to remove him? What about him made you want to remove him from the plane? Was it the color of his skin that you didn’t trust? Or the color of Katherine S.’s skin that made you trust her version of the story? When did using the bathroom become a security risk? Do you truly claim that this is Delta’s policy EVERY TIME this happens? Because, based on the events on Delta #566, we know that it doesn’t happen this way every time… and, regardless of what Bryant R. says, I am sure that this occurs on a daily basis.

My take-away from this experience is that I will not be flying Delta again. Who treats a person like this? Have you forgotten that the people that pay to fill the seats are actually human beings who sometimes have emergencies (like having to use the bathroom when you have been waiting on the plane for an hour)? Nice Gentleman was faced with an emergency that I’m sure nearly every passenger has faced before; no one wants to be “that person” who needs to use the bathroom while awaiting takeoff.

I think you may have forgotten that your passengers are people too, who sometimes have to go to the bathroom when they can’t wait any longer. These same passengers are your paying customers… or maybe they won’t continue to be your customers if this is the “new standard” of customer treatment by Delta. I hope you will repay Nice Gentleman for the expense he had to go through to find a new flight, and remember to treat all of your customers as human beings in the future.

Sincerely,

Krista R.

Google has been planning to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure in Chrome for a while now, but the company is taking baby steps to ensure users (and owners of HTTP-only sites) don't freak out. Chrome already identifies HTTP sites with password or credit card fields as "Not Secure" in the address bar, and Chrome 62 will expand that to any HTTP site with any data entry fields.

As you can see in the above image, the 'Not Secure' warning will only appear on page load if you're in incognito mode.

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Chrome 62 will mark all HTTP pages with data entry fields as "Not Secure" was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

I don't know why, but apparently every franchise out there just has to shoehorn its name onto a match-3 puzzle game. We get it, Candy Crush made a ton of money, but can we please move on from this tired genre already? Sadly, it would appear that Disney thinks not. In their latest attempt to cash in on the property they have released Star Wars: Puzzle Droids, a match-3 puzzle game.

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To no one's surprise, Disney has released a Star Wars themed match-3 puzzler was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Google has long said that it wants to open up its Assistant to a broader ecosystem of hardware companies and developers. Today it’s taking a major step in this direction with the launch of the Google Assistant SDK, which allows developers to build the Assistant’s smarts into their own hardware prototypes. Read More

 Google’s virtual reality sketching/painting/modeling Tilt Brush program has amassed a following amongst novice VR users as well as artists looking to explore virtual reality as a new medium. Starting today, you’ll be able to peer into their 3D virtual reality canvases of other Tilt Brush users on the web while also gaining the ability to share your own work online. If you see a… Read More

Best Car Chases from Bullitt to Mad Max: Fury Road

Why do people forget what they were going to do when they walk into a room? This video explains the "location updating effect," and how you can work it to your advantage.

Gabriella Corley is a 9 year old with Type I diabetes who's allergic to the insulin covered by her low-income parents' healthcare; to live, she must take Sanofi's proprietary Apidra brand insulin, which has increased in price by 1,123% since 1996, and which is only covered to 25% by her insurer's Pharmacy Benefit Manager, CVS. (more…)

Cats don’t just like small spaces, they love them. From Amazon boxes to grocery bags to the tiny gap between the bottom of your couch and the floor. They’ll even curl up in a square of tape on the floor! But why is your cat so attracted to these small spaces?

The answer has to do with the security and protection that these places offer, and regardless of if they’re truly safe or not, it’s about how they make your cat feel. Science of Us explains how the borders of a box or corner under the couch make your cat feel comfortable, unlike sitting out in the open. When they wedge themselves into these spaces, they can relax and have an easier time keeping an eye on the limited points an attack might come from.

Besides giving your cat discarded boxes and bags to hang out in, you can make them a cat tent and make sure they have a couple high spots they can curl up in. Higher up spots like a cat tree or shelf serve a similar purpose because they give cats a good vantage point to see any perceived threats headed their way.

 With the addition of a camera, Amazon’s new Echo Look device can now see and hear all. The device is a sort of standalone selfie machine so users can take full-length photos and videos of themselves specifically for the sake of checking their fashion choices in the morning. The new home assistant answers to commands like “Alexa, take a picture” and “Alexa, take a… Read More

The conventional wisdom is that limiting your app downloads to the Play Store will help you avoid malware. That's true for the most part, but every now and then we hear about something sketchy that fell through the cracks. For instance, the security firm Check Point says that a number of "game guide" apps in the Play Store were hiding malicious code, and they may have accumulated millions of downloads.

Check Point has named this malware "FalseGuide" in recognition of its presence exclusively in guide apps.

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Security firm Check Point says millions infected with botnet malware via Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Jonathan Demme, the talented director of Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Something Wild, Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense, and numerous other great films, has died at 73. His death was caused by esophageal cancer. From the New York Times:

A personable man with the curiosity gene and the what-comes-next instinct of someone who likes to both hear and tell stories, Mr. Demme had a good one of his own, a Mr. Deeds kind of tale in which he wandered into good fortune and took advantage of it. A former movie publicist, he had an apprenticeship in low-budget B-movies with the producer Roger Corman before turning director...

Mr. Demme’s other films include documentaries about the folk-rock singer and songwriter Neil Young; concert films featuring the country singer Kenny Chesney and the pop star Justin Timberlake; and “Swimming to Cambodia” (1987), Spalding Gray’s monologue ruminating about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and his experience appearing in the film “The Killing Fields.”

Mr. Demme was a member of the alternative arts scene of Lower Manhattan, which included Mr. Gray, who died in 2004, as well as Mr. Byrne and the composer and performer Laurie Anderson, who scored “Swimming to Cambodia.”

After spending five weeks in the hospital and losing 50 pounds, Shane Godfrey is home only to find that he's become unrecognizable to his dog, Willie. The dog barks and barks – personally I would have been scared – but Godfrey sits calmly until the dog comes over and sniffs. Finally recognizing him, the dog becomes overjoyed. Watch his adorable reaction.

Thanks News and Observer!

Senator Ron Wyden [D-Equestria] sent a letter to the chairs of the Senate Committee on Rules & Administration asking why Senate staffers have been issued ID cards whose "security chips" are just photographs of a chip. (more…)

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.

Games

Card Thief

Android Police coverage: Try your hand at Card Thief, a stealthy new solitaire game from the creator of Card Crawl

The creator of Card Crawl has released a new solitaire game titled Card Thief.

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22 new and notable Android games from the last week (4/19/17 - 4/25/17) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

One of a few fallbacks of using a Chromecast as your primary method of consuming television is that not all video services are supported. Most of the mainstream options, like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and others work fine, but there are definitely exceptions to the rule. If you’re trying to stream Amazon Prime Video for example, you have to cast the entire tab from the desktop Chrome browser on a Mac or PC, which until now has resulted in poor performance in most cases.

Well, that’s changing. A new feature recently added to the Dev Channel of the Google Chrome browser basically sends the video stream for these unsupported streams directly to your Chromecast… more…

Google has introduced a new tweak in Chrome Dev channel for streaming full-screen video tabs to Chromecasts, significantly improving power consumption and streaming performance. Now your Chromecast can directly pull the video itself. Obviously there are lots of major and minor benefits to being able to stream any video feed to your Chromecast at higher quality. Now you can stream live feeds and videos from sources that didn't previously support Chromecast streaming, or for which the old methods resulted in a stuttery or low-quality stream.

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Google is testing a way to make tab casting video suck a lot less, and you can try it was written by the awesome team at Android Police.