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One billion is a big number. It comes with nine zeroes. Nine. It's the amount Facebook paid for Instagram, and now, it's how many times Play Books has appeared on an Android device. Google's app for reading ebooks has passed the one billion installs mark.

Since this is a Google app, the accomplishment isn't as impressive as it was for WhatsApp, as Play Books comes pre-installed on probably the majority of devices it's on.

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Google Play Books Becomes The 9th Android App Installed On Over 1 Billion Devices was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Apple announced a ton of stuff today at WWDC. Don’t have time to catch up on all of it? Here’s everything they announced in rapid fire, bite-sized bits. Read More

Yahoo Pipes, a service which enabled users to connect and mash together content from around the Web, is closing its doors on August 30. Yahoo says the move is to help "focus our efforts on core Yahoo product experiences"—the usual company line when the aging Web giant realizes that it has neglected a service for so long that it can't afford to save it.

New Pipes cannot be created after that deadline; existing ones will only work until September 30. Instructions for exporting Pipes have been posted on the platform's blog.

Pipes was an apt name for both the service itself and the cross-Web plumbing it enabled users to build. Launched in beta form in February 2007, its mission was to help users "rewire the Web."

ReadWrite initially described it as an "RSS remixer," but we soon came to understand it as the first glimmerings of the heretofore unstructured Web as a giant database. In a sense, these were application programming interfaces, or APIs, rendered in a visual, drag-and-drop format.

Essentially the platform could gather content from multiple sources—websites, feeds, apps—and then filter and modify it to create something new. For example, RSS feeds could be filtered to exclude certain topics or words.

An example that shows off the power of Yahoo Pipes would be matching New York Times keywords against Flickr photos to show a visual representation of the day's news. It could also translate feeds from one language to another using an appropriate engine.

Unfortunately for power users on the Web, the big tech giants don't see much reason to continue supporting services for users who like to tinker and customize. Google Reader was another recent, much-mourned casualty.

Life After Pipes

There is hope for a post-Pipes world though, with more modern successors offering at least some of the same functionality. Perhaps the biggest and best known amongst end users is IFTTT (If This Then That), which can pull in data from a host of sources, adapt it, and export it elsewhere.

Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, Evernote, Slack, Google Calendar and more are all supported by IFTTT, and there's basic RSS and SMS integration as well. It works with a number of smart home systems and there are mobile apps too.

Zapier is another service looking to offer straightforward integration and automation between apps and platforms, like , though it has a more professional angle than IFTTT (and isn't free). Zapier, for example, pipes messages from status-monitoring systems and Zendesk's customer-support tools into Slack chatrooms, among many other possible routings.

Yahoo Pipes refugees might also want to check out Built.io, which helps businesses streamline the process of building apps. You might think of mobile apps as a very different world than the desktop-centric RSS feeds Yahoo Pipes drew on. But these app-building platforms depend on data drawn and filtered from Web feeds—so under the hood, they require something that looks conceptually like Yahoo Pipes.

Though all of these replacements owe Pipes a conceptual debt, against these more polished, more powerful and more accessible alternatives, Yahoo Pipes looks rather outdated, and it's clear that the writing was on the wall.

Nevertheless, we'll miss it—not just Pipes itself but the way it gave non-programmers and programmers alike the opportunity to take more control over the content they got from the Web. We need more of these democratizing tools online, not fewer.

Images courtesy of Yahoo, ReadWrite, and IFTTT

 Apple’s Jimmy Iovine announced Beats1, the first ever live worldwide 24-hour radio station would be coming to Apple Music at WWDC15 today. “Trent Reznor called me up. He says ‘I got it. Let’s create the world’s first 24/7 radio station.” Iovine said onstage of the origins for the new global radio station. He continued explaining what it was in that raspy… Read More

Apple is reportedly planning to kill off its Newsstand app and replace it with a Flipboard-like experience. Recode reports this morning, just over an hour before Apple’s WWDC event starts, that the "Flipboard-like product" will include samples from publishers like the New York Times, ESPN, Conde Nast, and Hearst. Apple appears to be focused on this new app, and Recode claims the company will "do away" with Newsstand, the existing app that provides access to digital newspapers and magazines.

While a number of media organizations have their own individual apps, Apple is reportedly planning to allow publishers to keep 100 percent of any advertising within the new Flipboard-like app. Apple will still generate revenue from its standard 30...

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Apple Pay is coming to the UK. After recent rumors suggested Apple would announce the expansion of its payment service, the company is confirming today that Apple Pay will be available in Britain in July. Apple Pay will work with over 250,000 contactless payment terminals already installed and in use across the UK for tap-to-pay credit cards. UK retailers have adopted contactless payments on a large scale, and most major stores and restaurants now support the payment method. Apple is partnering with HSBC, Santander, Natwest, Nationwide, First Direct for the UK launch, and many more.

While Apple Pay will support many stores and bank accounts, Apple is also supporting London's transport system. Apple didn't go into details, but it appears...

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It shouldn't be a notable event, but it is: an Apple developers conference with female executives appearing on stage. Jennifer Bailey, a 10-year Apple veteran and vice president of Apple Pay, described the new changes to the company's mobile payments system (including support for the UK) and vice president of product marketing Susan Prescott outlined the company's News app. The conference isn't over yet though, and we hope we might see more from Apple's female exec team — including former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts.

Why does it matter? Apple's own diversity report shows that it under-represents women. Thirty percent of Apple's 98,000-strong workforce is female, but only three women have appeared at the company's WWDC keynotes since...

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Ever since Microsoft first showed off multi-window support in the tablet mode for Windows 8, it's been expected that Apple would eventually follow suit with a true multitasking mode of its own. Now, Apple is finally showing off this new, enhanced multitasking mode for the first time as part of its iOS 9 preview at WWDC 2015. For starters, there's a new task switcher you can see when double-tapping the home button — from there, you can pin an app to the side of the screen in and quickly access it by swiping from the right in a feature called SlideOver.

That lets you slide in from the side of the screen to bring in another app — and it looks for all the world like how multi-app support works in Windows. If you then pull down from the top...

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Apple is launching a public beta for iOS 9 in July, similar to the early testing it allowed Mac owners to participate in prior to the release of OS X Yosemite. The expanded field of beta participants is no surprise considering the focus that Apple has reportedly put on squashing bugs and optimizing performance with iOS 9, which is slated for release this fall. Apple's Craig Federighi said the goal of iOS 9 is to "elevate the foundations of the platform" with a focus on fundamentals like battery life, performance, and security.

But there are new features that beta users will be able to try out early, like the revamped, smarter Siri personal assistant, public transit directions in Maps, improved QuickType keyboard, a more robust Notes...

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Apple has finally jumped into the music streaming race, unveiling Apple Music at WWDC this afternoon. The company revolutionized digital music with the iPod and iTunes, but is now playing catch up, trying to align itself with the current era of subscription offerings. "We’ve had a long relationship with music," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "And music has had a rich history of change, some of which we’ve played a part in." The service will bring combine music downloads, streaming radio, and a streaming music service into a single app. Like most digital services, it promises to learn your tastes and recommend great new songs accordingly.

$14.99 a month for six family members

The service will cost $9.99 a month, or $14.99 for a family plan of...

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OnePlus put it's "flagship-killer" on sale last week for $50 off. Now that you can actually buy it, that's a good deal. Today the company is announcing that the price drop is now permanent, and there's a Dropbox deal starting in just a few days.

The 16GB OnePlus One will now sell for $249 until it's replaced by another device... one of these days. The 64GB model is just $299. The company says that its costs have come down, so it's feasible to continue offering this price.

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OnePlus Makes The One's Price Drop Permanent, Announces New Dropbox Deal was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

A beautiful list, including "[T]he innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.” Read the rest

Meet Matt Damon and the crew of the Ares 3 mission

Chances are you got your first proper look at Ridley Scott’s new sci-fi film The Martian from the exclusive pictures we put in print and online late last month. If you were hoping to see footage of Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain and some of the rest of the cast, we have you covered for that too, as the first promo video for the film is now online.

Yes, before we’ve even had a formal trailer for the film, here comes a glimpse of the various astronauts who crew the Hermes, the ship that makes up the Ares 3 mission. They’re shown in happier times as botanist Watney leads an introductory tour of the vessel and its team before they leave for Mars. Included here are Michael Peña as pilot Rick Martinez, Jessica Chastain as Commander Melissa Lewis, Sebastian Stan as Dr. Chris Beck, the flight surgeon, Aksel Hennie as German astronaut Aleks Vogel, and Kate Mara as computer expert Beth Johanssen. 

Meet the outofthisworld cast of #TheMartian pic.twitter.com/tQtU0Dmq2K

— Simon Kinberg (@Kinberg) June 7, 2015

It’s helpful way to show the various characters, especially Watney. Damon appears to easily channel the personable, slightly sarcastic central figure from Andy Weir's source novel that, after a catastrophic incident during the mission, is left for dead on the Red Planet, and must survive until a rescue ship arrives. Assuming one can even be sent... {First Look At The Martian}With Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean and Donald Glover also aboard the film, The Martian will hit our screens on November 27. 

“My name is Loca, and I can't feckin' run.” She's Irish. Read the rest

About two thousand feet (598 meters) below the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, remotely operated vehicle Hercules encountered a magnificent sperm whale. Read the rest

The poor little fellow! (more…)

In the early 2000s, former US Congressmen Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and Michael Oxley (R-OH) crafted a bill that would put pressure on corporations to comply with federal prosecutors during investigations. It was largely a response to 2001's Enron scandal, when the energy company was able to hide billions of dollars in debt due to corporate loopholes and a little creative accounting. The bill, known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was signed into law by President Bush in 2002.

It could carry up to a 20-year sentence

Since then, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has subtly provided the legal groundwork for prosecuting people for something like deleting their browser history. One such case is that of Khairullozhon Matanov, a 24-year-old former cab driver who...

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Some 41 superhero movies are in the works at various movie studios, and they're all due to be released over the next five years. Read the rest

Weather apps. If one app category gets its own entire section in the Play Store, you should surmise that the choices are beyond wide and the selection is almost impossible. Even browsing the category is a daunting minefield of Froyo-stuck designs and mediocre data and options. So why bother with a third-party weather client, especially when Google Now has its own weather card, Android comes with a News & Weather app, and a simple Google search for the name of your city with the word weather turns up the result you're looking for?

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10 Cool Android Weather Apps With Hot Material Design, Clear Simplicity, Stormy Details, Or Warm Social Elements was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The lucky candidate will be paid about $50 an hour—not bad for government work—but literally endure a shit job. Read the rest

Often when we use our mobile phones, it's for something fast in the moment. We see a food item we can’t identify, or hear a song lyric, and want to know more—quick answers to quick questions.

So we’re bringing a new feature to Chrome—search from any webpage with just a tap. Since Chrome can see the page you’re searching from, it can give you more accurate search results. For example, just tapping on “America” on the page below shows a search about the movie “Captain America: Civil War”, not the country. Just slide up to see more information—news, cast, images and more.
This is coming to Chrome on Android over the next few days (with Asian language support to follow).

Posted by Donn Denman, Software Engineer and Top Tapper

 PayPal this week caused an uproar when it rolled out an updated user agreement that added a clause that allowed the company to pester users with robocalls and text messages – not only to the number they provided PayPal, but also to other numbers PayPal is able to obtain. While PayPal at times may need to call or text you regarding account activity or to settle disputes, the new… Read More

 Online annotation platform Genius, which originally began as a way to mark up rap lyrics before expanding to support any page on the web, is now making its service – including its collection of annotations and musical metadata – available to third-party developers for use in their own applications. The first partner to take advantage of the new API is Betaworks, which… Read More

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn't out for another six months but master maker James Bruton is already finishing up his impressive model of the BB-8 droid.

 Skype’s web-based client, along with both IM and video/audio call functionality, is now available to all users in open beta, the company announced today. The web-based version of the popular chat and calling tool came out at the end of last year, with access gated based on an invite system, but now everyone can join in, so long as you’re residing in the U.S. or U.K. The Skype web… Read More

Etsy's Ohhio knits with crazily thick Merino wool yarn in 70 colors that runs 3"/stitch: the cuddliest blankets; lush scarves and giant cowls (via Crazy Abalone). Read the rest