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The great cathedrals and palaces of medieval England were designed by people who made it up as they went along, and often discovered midway through a multigenerational project that they'd run out of space for an arch, or designed a building that couldn't hold up its own ceiling. Read the rest

Every week we cover new Android apps with Fresh Meat on Wednesday, followed by Android Gaming on Thursday and Top 10 App Updates on Friday. When Monday rolls around, we look back to see which apps were the most appealing to our audience. Read on for the 5 most popular Android apps from last week. These apps are ones that are most likely new and haven’t appeared in the Top 5 list more than 3 times.

1. Zoe (Beta)

App info: Zoe is a simple way to create, share and remix professional quality highlight videos—and it’s even better when your friends pitch in. Choose the photos and videos you’d like to share, add a filter to give your highlight video a unique look, and choose the perfect soundtrack. 

 

2. AutoVoice Pro Unlock

App info: AutoVoice is an advanced Tasker voice control system that leverages the power of having a bluetooth headset in your ear. 

 

3. Tasker

App info: Total Automation, From Settings to SMS. Triggers: App, Time, Day, Location, Hard/Soft State, Event, Shortcut, Widget, Timer, Plugins.

 

4. Fleksy

App info: Fleksy is the fastest keyboard in the world. Colorful and delightful typing, so comfortable you can even type without looking.

 

5. YoWindow Free Weather

App info: YoWindow is a unique new weather app. The magic of YoWindow is a living landscape that reflects your actual weather. For instance, if it’s raining – it rains in YoWindow.

 

Note:  To ensure that all apps receive a fair chance to make the list, we will retire any app that has made the list for three consecutive weeks and will place it in our Android and Me App Hall of Fame. We will post this Hall of Fame list in a dedicated series. Any app with * next to the title indicates it will now be added to our Hall of Fame list and will no longer be listed in this article.

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Featured App

King of Dragon Pass

Android Police coverage: [New Game] Highly-Regarded Interactive Storytelling Game 'King Of Dragon Pass' Hits Android Priced At $9.99

Strategy games can be quite repetitive—once you've played one, you know the drill.

32 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (8/5/14 - 8/18/14) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 Purplebricks, the UK-based property startup which hopes to disrupt the agency model by charging a low fixed fee for transactions which normally cost thousands, has secured a £7 million investment – or a 30% stake – from Neil Woodford, one of Britain’s highest profile fund managers. An additional £1m has also been raised in this round from existing angel investors alongside… Read More

On Sunday night, at 7:50PM, I walked into a theater in downtown Brooklyn, New York, to watch The Expendables 3. I'd already seen the movie, but watching a leaked version a few weeks ago made me want to see it the way it was intended, with all the spectacle and power and volume that a movie like this deserves. This movie deserves a theater experience, I thought, so I went and saw it in theaters. And I thought others might do the same.

I was wrong. Sort of. The Expendables 3 flopped this weekend, making just $16.2 million domestically, good enough only for fourth place in the US box office. The studio points to the 2.2 million views of the leaked copy as the culprit. But most of the leak downloads happened overseas, and The New York Times...

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A lot of phones have a method of opening the camera quickly when the device is asleep, but not all of them are reliable or all that easy. Snapshot aims to make camera access quicker by starting it up as soon as the phone wakes up, provided the device is in landscape orientation (i.e. the way you're supposed to be taking pictures). It doesn't matter how your phone wakes up—it just so long as it does.

Snapshot Automatically Launches The Camera When You Wake The Phone in Landscape Mode was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Comic book writers almost always spin up some inventive pseudo-science to explain how normal men and women transform into superheroes, but what if a real biologist took a crack at it? Sebastian Alvarado, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University, has done just that with a new series of videos. He plumbs the depths of biology in a search for some sort of reality-based explanations for Captain America's and the Incredible Hulk's spectacular transformations. You might be surprised by what he finds. Just don't ask him to explain how Bruce Banner keeps his pants on.

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We owe many thanks to BestBuy for outing the details of several products a bit before their time. It seems the retailer is at it again with a posting of the Moto 360, including a price and most of the product specs. At some time in the near future, $250 will be all that stands in the way of picking up Motorola's brand new wearable. Unfortunately, it's just listed as "Coming Soon" without any release date.

Moto 360 Shows Up At Best Buy With Full Specs And $250 Price Tag, Listed As 'Coming Soon' was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Unlike those in the US, Internet providers in the UK are not obliged to forward copyright infringement notices to their subscribers. This means that local Internet users are spared the typical warnings that are so common elsewhere.

Despite the lacking legal requirements, some anti-piracy groups do send copyright infringement notices to UK ISPs. In most cases these are ignored by the providers, but last week TalkTalk forwarded a notice to one of its resellers.

In the email the ISP asks Opal Solutions to forward the notice in question to one of its subscribers who allegedly shared a pirated copy of “Godzilla”. In addition the reseller was urged to take “preventive” measures, but what these should be is left open.

“Please see below copyright infringement email regarding an IP address of one of your clients, Please inform your client and take necessary preventative measures,” TalkTalk wrote.

At the bottom of this article is a copy of the original copyright infringement notice TalkTalk forwarded. It is a typical DMCA style notice sent by IP Echelon on behalf of Warner Bros.

IP Echelon didn’t make any effort to customize the notice for the UK audience. The email specifically references US copyright law, which doesn’t apply to the reseller or TalkTalk.

What’s most noteworthy, though, is that TalkTalk has decided to pass on this notice. The ISP is not known to forward these notices to its own subscribers, yet they appear to be urging a reseller to go beyond what’s required by law.

The forwarded email is most likely an attempt to avoid any type of liability. The question that remains is this: if TalkTalk do this with resellers does this mean they will start warning their subscribers as well?

Earlier this year the news broke that TalkTalk and other UK providers will voluntarily start sending infringement notices under the VCAP program. While VCAP isn’t going into effect before the summer of 2015, TalkTalk’s forwarded infringement notice could suggest that they might do something sooner.

Below is a full copy of the copyright infringement notice.

—-

We are writing this message on behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc..

We have received information that an individual has utilized the
below-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer
downloads of copyrighted material.

The title in question is: Godzilla

The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted television
programs constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act,
Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3). This conduct may also
violate the laws of other countries, international law, and/or treaty
obligations.

Since you own this IP address
we request that you immediately do the following:

1) Contact the subscriber who has engaged in the conduct described
above and take steps to prevent the subscriber from further downloading
or uploading Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. content without authorization; and

2) Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse
Policy/Terms of Service Agreement.

On behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., owner of the exclusive rights
in the copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state that
we have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner
complained of is not authorized by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.,
its respective agents, or the law.

Also, we hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that we are authorized
to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive rights being infringed
as set forth in this notification.

We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this
matter. Your prompt response is requested.

Any further enquiries can be directed to copyright@ip-echelon.com
Please include this message with your enquiry to ensure a swift response.

Respectfully,

Adrian Leatherland
CEO
IP-Echelon
Email: copyright@ip-echelon.com
Address: 6715 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, 90028, United States

- ————- Infringement Details ———————————-
Title: Godzilla
Timestamp: 2014-08-13T14:06:26Z
IP Address:
Port: 60261
Type: BitTorrent
Torrent Hash: c5cdf551eea353484657d45dbe93f688575a1e31
Filename: Godzilla.2014.WEBRiP.XviD-VAiN
Filesize: 2485 MB
- ———————————————————————

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

 Want to turn something on YouTube into a GIF, but don’t want to futz with downloading third-party apps or digging around for an online converter? Here’s a handy, easy to remember trick… Read More

 Google just acquired the team behind Jetpac, an app that utilizes public Instagram data to determine things like the happiest or drunkest city. Jetpac launched in 2012 as a social travel guide on iPad but later shifted focus to its Instagram-driven data on its iphone app, “Jetpac City Guides.” Google will most likely use the Jetpac team to improve search around location… Read More

Scout writes, "Billions of people experience a severely-censored version of the Internet -- most famously in countries like China and Iran. Now there's something you can do about it." Read the rest

66 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Beatles

 Berlin-based photo-sharing platform EyeEm has acquired a smaller computer vision startup called Sight.io, both companies are announcing today. As a part of the deal, Sight.io founder Appu Shaji, originally from Kerala, India, will now join EyeEm as Head of Research and Development, where he will continue to work on technologies that can help EyeEm improve upon its image searching… Read More

Ours is a world of ecosystems, of single companies hoping to own and operate as many parts of your life as possible. And it looks more and more like there are only three real players: Apple, Google, and Samsung.

Apple's forever going to do Apple things, keeping its products premium and exclusive and tightly integrated with each other. Samsung and Google, on the other hand, are increasingly competing to offer the alternative open platform. Each wants to own the foundation that everyone builds...

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This week it’s been hot where I live, almost unbearable so. Therefore I thought some blue images in nice cool tones would help chill things off a bit.

So continuing on my series of colors we’ve already done Golden and Green . . .

A set of cool blue images for you to enjoy!

The post A Set of Cool Blue Images to Enjoy by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

The World Cup was wonderful for so many reasons this year, whether it was watching Arjen Robben’s 5,268 dives, Luis Suarez’s moment of madness, or the animated facial expressions of Mexico’s manager Miguel Herrera, there was always something to share. It was these moments and more from The Beautiful Game that generated thousands of animated GIFs and Vines of World Cup goals, a big win for social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. While fans happily enjoyed sharing these brief clips, FIFA was far less impressed and began cracking down to remove them. The same is about to happen to the Premier League in England.

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Samsung, which already makes a variety of home appliances, just acquired a company that can help them work better together. The Korean company paid a reported $200 million to acquire the 2-year-old startup, which employs 55 people in Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Minnesota. Smart Things was founded to cut through the confusing network of standards that currently exist among home-automation products, and sells a $99 hub that lets appliances communicate across standards.

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Over the years, Google has added all kinds of security features into Chrome through its Safe Browsing service. It can warn you when you are surfing to a site that it deems unsafe, like malware and phishing sites, but also when you are about to download software from known malware sites. Starting today, Google is expanding this program to include downloads of “deceptive software,”… Read More

Twitter has long received flack for its weak responses to clear instances of abuse over its network, but now it finally says that it's going to do... something. In a statement provided to The Washington Post with regard to the harassment of Zelda Williams, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety says that the company is currently "evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one." He says that may include making Twitter's policies stricter with regard to self-harm or private information, and it could also mean better watching out for users who have just had a family member die.

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