Rolandt

When I got the press release a few weeks ago, I knew I had to have this. Logi Base is just a beautiful piece of engineering. It resembles an iMac but it improves on the design. Let's start with the invisible:

The bottom is very sticky. When you place an iPad Pro on Base, you can use it as if you were holding it with a firm grip. Base it not going to move at all. I placed a business card on it and it isn't sliding one bit. This gives you an idea of how sticky the bottom is.

Base has a Smart Connector for the iPad Pro. When you dock it, Base will charge the iPad. The magnets at the connector grab the iPad and hold it in place. It's very easy to hit the right spot. At the same time Base is heavy enough that you can undock the iPad with just one hand. That's an important consideration for a dock. If you need to hold the dock with one hand when removing the device, you might as well plug it into a cable.

iPad Pro just leans against the Base. Drop it on the connector and then let it rest. As easy as that. You don't have to take the iPad out of a the Apple Silicone Case. As you can imagine, that was taken into account when designing Base. And there is something else I noticed:

Should Apple decide to make a Plus size iPhone 7 Pro with the same Smart Connector, then Base is perfectly sized to hold it.

Base does not come with a Lightning cable (or a charger). Editor-refuses-to-give-it-back award. Big time!

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Photograph taken this Monday afternoon, with the poster in the foreground likely put up by The Chinatown Youth Coalition during their SAVE CHINATOWN Block Party held that same afternoon. The event aimed to oppose the third attempt by Beedie Development Group to rezone 105 Keefer and 544 Columbia Street.

The following is a media release from the Coalition:

May 12, 2016

Chinatown youth leaders oppose 105 Keefer rezoning application; Call for halt – and checks and balances – to new development through social impact study

Vancouver, B.C. – The Chinatown Youth Coalition is calling for temporary halt to all new market development project applications in Chinatown – including the current revised rezoning application for 105 Keefer – until a social impact study is conducted. The Coalition believes the current level of unchecked development is destabilizing the neighbourhood by threatening the viability of small ethnic businesses and affordable housing options for vulnerable Chinese and other residents, especially seniors.

The full media release can be read here.

Vancouver was one of the first cities in North America to experiment with traffic calming – in particular in the West End at the beginning of the 1970s.  And one of the ways chosen to stop through traffic was to create parks where the streets were.  Like this:.

 

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Three were built West of Denman in the 1970s, and then four East of Denman in the 1980s.  And then, not so many.  (Though I welcome nominations of any built over the last two decades, preferably with pics.)

Perhaps we are entering a new era of miniparks.  I came across two in the last few weeks: one under construction at 17th and Yukon:

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The other at Bute and Davie – Jim Deva Plaza:

 

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No doubt they will be different in character.  Here’s a rendering of what the City approved for Deva Plaza (named after LGBT activist Jim Deva):

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It looks idyllic, of course (I see bubbles have replaced kites in the rendering biz), but not particularly reflective of the neighbourhood.  Here’s a suggestion from Copenhagen of what to do with an urban space:

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This is Oscar’s, one of the best-known LGBT restaurant/bars in the city.  The windows open to the adjacent space, where the chairs and tables cluster to create a convivial environment.  Even blankets are provided on the cooler nights.

I think Jim would like that.

They’ve reached Port Moody:

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This clip from The Sun is as interesting (and ironic) for the surrounding ads as for the video itself.

What should you do if you need to write something and you can’t seem to get started? The answer depends on what’s stopping you: lack of ideas, lack of material, or lack of the will to live . . . I mean, will to write. I thought about this when a participant asked it in … Continue reading How to treat and cure 8 kinds of writer’s block →

The post How to treat and cure 8 kinds of writer’s block appeared first on without bullshit.

We’ve dismissed the feature-rich but highly specialized Fujifilm X-Pro2 and added a new alternate pick, the Olympus PEN-F, for street photographers who prize a more compact package. [Best Mirrorless Camera]

Urban designer Scot Hein tells the story.

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Elena Doyle

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When is a district energy plant more than a district energy plant? 

Let’s reflect on the Southeast False Creek Energy (SEFC) Centre.  Initially, the site for this new civic utility was to be located in the “Sawtooth Building” which is located on the site of the former city works yard east of the Cambie Bridge.

During initial design exploration for this location, city staff, along with Bruce Haden of Dialog, became interested in the use of lighting effects to tell the “story of energy.”  The Light Columns at the entry to Los Angeles LAX airport were seen as an interesting visual reference for what could be a public-art-like feature.  As pre-design explorations continued, it became desirable to locate the new utility building under the south Cambie Bridgehead as this was “free land,” and more importantly, this siting would not encumber future utility corridor locations for the WorksYard Neighbourhood which would be the last to develop in Southeast False Creek.

Also at this time, the City began to organize the ownership model, with the City itself being both a utility owner and development permit applicant.  Planning staff insisted that the new building (approximately a third would be seen above grade) be as good as any building we might demand of the private sector.  This meant hiring a skilled architect and public artist to execute the design with interest, especially as a “teachable moment about district energy”.

The City, to its credit, engaged architect Walter Francl along with Stephanie Robb for these respective roles.  As the design process unfolded, it became evident that the building had an important urban design role to play in announcing its location as the intersection of the Cambie Promenade (from Cambie Village to False Creek), with the east-west pedestrian route between the existing community to the west along Spyglass and the future Worksyard Neighbourhood to be implemented as the last phase of SEFC.

The ultimate siting, and shaping of the building became the early focus of the design process with Walter/Stephanie offering the thoughtful triangular shape to creatively reconcile these urban design considerations.  As various energy sources, including bio-mass, were being considered it became evident that the building must “do more”, perhaps as a teachable moment in the urban landscape.  A decision was taken to use sewer heat recovery, in lieu of bio-mass, given the immediate proximity to large trunk lines that facilitated the flow of warm raw sewage.  The “Confluence of Effluence”.

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Walter Francl

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As the technical work advanced, it also became necessary to introduce immediate and future boiler capacity that would emit clean steam as a strategy to augment sewer heat should this be necessary in colder times.  The boilers would need vent stacks to discharge clean steam when called upon.  This requirement generated the wonderful result of what some refer to as “the fingernails” or the five one-meter- X three-meter-high LED panels that are clipped on to the top of each stack that rises above the south Cambie bridgehead on the east side.

Stephanie was brought on board to execute this feature.  Her early thinking generated what she referred to as the “nail polish chart” which reflected a variety of features and effects for breakfast, dinner and afterwards at different times of the year.  We were clearly having too much fun in those early days of the design process.

Also at this time, we began to test mock-ups for the “fingernails” at different scales and under various conditions.  This concluded with a mock-up in the field.  I recall commenting to both Walter and Stephanie that summer evening that we are missing the mirrored disco ball and a funky background soundtrack (read George Clinton and Parliament or Barry White).

The project was constructed on time and was awarded the AIBC Lieutenant-Governor of BC Gold Medal for Architecture in 2010.  This is the highest honour that our professional association recognizes. As a side note,  I understand that there were no cold showers (over 10,000 taken) during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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This is where the story begins. 

The LED panels were energized at occupancy with their colour and effects reflective of the real time consumptive habits for those on the system.  The fingernails were our “Scarlet Letter” for all Cambie Bridge motorists and pedestrians to see just how responsible, or not, those on the system were behaving.  Overly consumptive – the panels trended to red.  Dialed down – the panels trended to blue.  This continues to be the default mode for the system.

During design, we also discussed the possibility of taking the panels off-line in favor of a more specific colour/effect.  We always knew we could dial in orange for Halloween; red for Valentine’s and Canada Day.  On a whim, and with the assistance from project engineer Chris Baber, I e-mailed Gary Killacky who was one of the operating engineers on site along with Kieran McConnell.   I asked him if he would not mind dialing up the five panels to “pink” to announce “Breast Cancer Run for the Cure” which was to occur that weekend.  I wanted to attempt this programming change as my sister Melinda was recovering from her own challenges with breast cancer.  This would be my little secret.

Gary’s initial response was “What?”  “Really?”  And then a small miracle: Gary within about 10 minutes e-mailed me back to confirm that he had gone to the Run for the Cure Website, found the pink colour, had matched it to the Pantone Colour Website, and had made a matching lighting colour selection.  The panels would be pink from Friday through Sunday.  (I am forever indebted to Gary and Chris for this kind act.  We continue to have wonderfully creative, thoughtful engineers at Vancouver City Hall.)

 

But this is where the story gets more interesting.

After a couple of years it occurred to me that we should not stop there.  So I cold called Duncan Blomfield who was BC Place’s Manager for Marketing and Communications, and could influence the lighting programming of the prismatic transom that surrounds the entire stadium under the retractable roof, and simply asked him to match the Pantone colour as with the SEFC Energy Centre for that year’s Run for the Cure Weekend.  Duncan said, without hesitation or needing to run this up the flag pole, yes.

With BC Place also pretty in pink, I phoned my friend at Science World, the wonderfully creative Kevin Kearns, along with Mila Cotic, who agreed immediately to do the same.  Now with three significant, waterfront buildings glowing pink, we only needed to add the Olympic Plaza “Ship Ribs” to complete the ensemble.  I phoned Otto Kaufman in Engineering, who did so much heavy lifting behind the scenes on the OV file,  and he also agreed.  So for two years we were able to enjoy what we, in the City’s Urban Design Studio, would call “Pink False Creek”.

Elena Doyle

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I share this story at Gord’s insistence.  It remains relevant towards a larger conversation about the value of an “Urban Lighting strategy” given our lack of seasonal light, and commanding reflective position on our waterfront.  Perhaps this will generate a discussion back at the hall.

Please share with others.

I am currently on holiday in Edinburgh, but this just arrived in my in box. Hopefully it is getting picked up by the mainstream media and creating a stir. I hope so.

 

Please be advised that the attached open letter was delivered to the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council and B.C. Premier Christy Clark this morning on behalf of the David Suzuki Foundation and 31 other stakeholder groups and individuals across the region.

 

 

5/18/2016

 

The Hon. Christy Clark

Premier of British Columbia

Office of the Premier

 

Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council

Cc: Hon. Todd Stone; Hon. Peter Fassbender

Re: A call for leadership to invest in transit and transportation in Metro Vancouver

 

Dear Premier Clark and Members of the Mayors’ Council,

 

We the undersigned are a diverse group of organizations from business, labour, health, environment and student associations working together to advocate for investment in Metro Vancouver’s transportation system.

 

We are writing to urge you to act quickly and take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the recent federal budget to improve transit and transportation in our region. As you know, in its budget, the federal government made a commitment to a $370 million “down payment” toward the 10-year Metro Vancouver Transit and Transportation Plan.The federal government has also shown tremendous leadership by agreeing to pay 50 per cent of all capital transit costs provided agreements can be struck with the province and local mayors.

 

These commitments have changed the landscape for transit funding in our region, but with this opportunity comes a challenge: we need to be ready with regional and provincial funding, or else these federal dollars, collected from local taxpayers, will go to other cities and provinces that are ready. For the good of our economy and the health and livelihood of citizens, this cannot happen. We are calling on the province and the Mayors’ Council to work together to ensure that we are ready to get Metro Vancouver moving again.

 

Expansion of transit services — especially when they’re electrified — is crucial for Metro Vancouver to improve air quality and health, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote economic development and job growth.

 

A growing number of studies confirm that congestion costs our region more than $1 billion each year due to lost productivity, increased operating costs and lost business revenue and regional GDP. It has been estimated that investment in transit could save the health care system at least $115 million annually, and likely considerably more if the benefits of increased physical activity were also included as part of the cost-savings analysis.

 

We ask you show leadership by putting history and political differences aside to work together and ensure we are ready to take full advantage of federal support and start improving transit and transportation. Adding new federal dollars is an essential prerequisite for moving ahead with stalled transit improvements so badly needed for the Metro Vancouver region, and for B.C. as a whole.

 

Lastly, we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the importance of using newly available federal funds to implement the full set of regional transportation improvements outlined in the Mayors’ Council Transportation and Transit Plan rather than a few projects here and there. A regional approach to transportation investments will ensure that Metro Vancouver residents and businesses throughout the region will benefit. Local and provincial governments have the power to help us make history in B.C. and Metro Vancouver through implementation of a world-class provincial and regional transportation plan.

 

Should you require more information, we would be happy to meet with you or your staff.

 

Thank you for considering this request.

 

BC Federation of Labour

BC Healthy Living Alliance

BC Teachers’ Federation

British Columbia Golf

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Clean Energy Canada

Connecting Environmental Professionals – Vancouver Chapter

The David Suzuki Foundation

Dialog Design

Disability Alliance BC

Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association

Downtown Vancouver Association

Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association

Dr. Lisa J. Jing Mu, Medical Health Officer, Fraser Region

ForestEthics

Gordon Price, Director of the SFU City Program

Graduate Student Society at SFU

Greenpeace Canada

HandyDART Riders Alliance

HASTe BC

Heart and Stroke Foundation

HUB Cycling

Offsetters

Perkins+Will Architects

Peter Ladner, Columnist, Business in Vancouver Media Group

Public Health Association of BC

Renewal Funds Company

Transport Action – British Columbia

Vanterre Projects Corp

Victoria Lee MD MPH MBA CCFP FRCPC, Chief Medical Health Officer, Fraser Health Authority

 

Filed under: Transportation

Catherine Winters @CatherineOmega
@xalking Ontario is weird. They have milk in bags!

That's a great line from Rhett Allain in Telling You the Answer Isn't the Answer:

Students are under the impression that when they are stuck and confused, they are doing something wrong. Think of it this way. What if you went to the gym to work out but you didn't get sweaty and you weren't sore or tired? You would probably feel like you really didn't get any exercise. The same is true for learning. Confusion is the sweat of learning.

As I read the article, I was a little concerned that Allain's story comes from a physics course designed for elementary education majors... Shouldn't education majors already know that learning is hard and that the teacher's job isn't simply to give answers? But then I realized how glad I am that these students have a chance to learn this lesson from a teacher who is patient enough to work through both the science and the pedagogy with them.

One of the biggest challenges for a teacher is designing workouts that ride along a thin line: confusing students just enough to stretch them into learning something valuable, without working them so hard that they become disheartened by the confusion and failure. This is hard enough to do when working with students individually. The larger and more diverse a class is, the more the teacher has to start shooting for the median, designing materials that work well enough often enough for most of the students and then doing triage with students on both ends of the curve.

Another is helping students learn to appreciate the confusion, perhaps even relish it. The payoff is worth the work.

Anker has come out with a pretty cool new USB charger that also supports USB PD, which is the USB-C power delivery standard which means it can fully power a Macbook. So you can take the USB-C cable that came with your Macbook and use this instead of the white brick that Apple makes and other things as well, so fewer things to travel with. It will of course charge any USB-C devices like your Nexus phone super fast as well. I really hope everything uses USB-C PD in the future

Dear reader: Is the name of the Hongcouver blog racist?

Codecademy, May 21, 2016

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If you  don't know how to do this, this will be a really useful skill to learn. "We'll teach you how to build a static site quickly, host it on GitHub, and put it on the Internet using your own custom domain name. After completing Deploy a Website, you'll be able to launch your own websites on the Internet." Codecademy is one of the best, and working with GitHub has additional bonuses that will become apparent later.

[Link] [Comment]

If you work anywhere near digital design, someone has probably talked at you about empathy recently. Or you’ve talked at people about empathy. Empathy is a buzzword du jour.

Now, you and i know empathy is important but – the reality is, most of the people we work with don’t really believe that. They don’t. They think they do real work and they think that we are like tree-huggers but for users.

Banging on about empathy while they are trying to do their ‘real jobs’ doesn’t help get them to care about users more. We need to take a more empathetic approach to empathy.

Guerrilla empathy perhaps.

Here are some things we know.

1. If we work in multidisciplinary teams where research is done regularly and everyone (including senior stake holders) observe users for at least 2 hours every six weeks, we make better services. Our friends at UIE (thanks Jared) did research to evidence this. Everyone watching users use our stuff regularly helps us make better stuff.
2. People (say they) love to use evidence to make decisions. They love data. User research provides evidence. If you take a methodical, hypothesis led approach to user research, your team learns about what works and what doesn’t so it can make things work better. (Qualitative evidence is data too).
3. Businesses care about business outcomes – this might be policy outcomes, compliance rates, fraud reduction, members sign ups or sales. We know that making all of these things work better is always easier if end users understand what you are trying to tell them and can actually do the thing you are wanting them to do. Good usability helps achieve business outcomes.

So, in doing user research (which can build empathy) there are at least three things that business wants that we can supply: better services, evidence for decision making and achieving business outcomes.

We need to talk more about these three things.

And then we need to not let them forget the bit in part 1 that requires them to come observe real users regularly in order for it to work. And we need to make sure that we do the work in a way that really focusses on delivering these benefits for the business. And then you have a much more compelling reason for people to come observe users.

Get people to observe end users regularly in order to meet their business objectives and – unless you have an organisation full of sociopaths – empathy will naturally follow. Without you even mentioning it.

An empathetic team is transformational. But empathy is difficult to sell – especially to the senior stakeholders who need it the most. Business outcomes are not hard to sell.

Do empathy by stealth. Stop talking about empathy. Let empathy be the by-product of helping your organisation meet its objectives through user research and demonstrate this by taking a methodical, collaborative, hypothesis driven approach to your work.

Then stand back and wonder, yet again, at empathy’s power to transform teams and organisations.

In case it’s not clear: with recent and future articles I’m documenting problems that Mac and iOS developers solve using the dynamic features of the Objective-C runtime.

My point isn’t to argue that Swift itself should have similar features — I think it should, but that’s not the point.

The point is that these problems will need solving in a possible future world without the Objective-C runtime. These kinds of problems should be considered as that world is being designed. The answers don’t have to be the same answers as Objective-C — but they need to be good answers, better than (for instance) writing a script to generate some code.

(Swift is just one part of that future world. The part I care about more, far more — as much as I love Swift — is any app frameworks built on Swift. But the design of Swift has an impact on the design of those frameworks.)

There’s a second point: many people writing in Swift right now seem not to realize the extent of their reliance on Objective-C’s dynamism. Even if you don’t write a line of Objective-C, you’re running a ton of code that is Objective-C, and that dynamic runtime, and the app frameworks built on top, is what makes your apps actually work. This is kind of a “duh” thing, I realize, but it’s worth the reminder.

Next up (probably Thursday or Friday) will be a thing on easily updating local model objects with data downloaded from a server. And then more to come.

Tired of installing new apps on your Android devices to watch a video or for a particular functionality? To solve this problem, Google previewed Android Instant Apps that allows you to run an app without actually installing it on your device. Continue reading →

Fido Roam, Fido’s new roaming add-on is now available.

Like Roam Like Home, the roaming option offered by parent company Rogers, Fido Roam gives customers on one of the company’s Fido Pulse plans the option to use their talk, text and data buckets in the U.S. for an additional $5 per day, and an additional $10 per day in more than 100 destinations outside of Canada, including many countries in Europe, the Caribbean, South and Central America, Asia, South Africa, Oceania and the Middle East.

As previously reported, Fido Roam customers will only be charged a maximum of $50 in the U.S. and $100 internationally per month. Pulse plans start at $45.

Microsoft has announced the sale of its feature phone division, initially acquired by the company when it bought Nokia’s mobile division in 2013 for $7.2 billion USD, to Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile for $350 million USD.

The sale includes all of the division’s approximately 4,500 employees, as well as Nokia brand assets and the Hanoi, Vietnam-based factory that manufactured the phones for Microsoft.

Foxconn purchased Microsoft’s feature phone assets in partnership with HMD Global. The latter is a new Finnish company that has been granted an exclusive global license to build Nokia branded phones and tablets for the next 10 years.

In short, this deal means we may see Nokia phones make their way back to Canadian discount wireless brands like Chatr and Wind Mobile.

The deal is expected to close later this year.

During its most recent fiscal quarter, Microsoft reported it sold 2.3 million Windows Phone devices, a drastic decline from the 8.6 million smartphones and feature phones it sold during the same time period last year. Since Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mobile division, worldwide feature phone sales have continued to decline year over year.

For what it’s worth, in the press release the company sent out to announce the sale, Microsoft says it’s still committed to making smartphones. “Microsoft will continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia phones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, and phones from OEM partners like Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and VAIO,” said Microsoft.

At I/O 2016 Google revealed its often rumoured Amazon Echo competitor, Google Home, a voice-activated assistant equipped with an always-listening microphone.

“Google Home is unmatched in far field voice recognition,” said Mario Quieroz from Google’s Chromecast team, while unveiling the device.

Home’s build is more stout and sleeker than Amazon’s somewhat bulky Echo, and features LED ornamentation. Most notably, it also has Google’s search algorithm built directly into it, allowing users to easily make the same searches with Home that they would via a desktop or smartphone. Calendar and Chromecast Audio are also compatible with Google Home.

“We think of this assistant as an ambient experience that extends across devices,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai during I/O 2016’s keynote. “It’ll be on their phones, the devices they wear, in their cars, and in their homes.” Pichai says that Home will work closely with its Google Assistant chat bot technology, another topic discussed at the keynote.

Another unique feature included with Google Home is the fact that it has the ability to hook directly into any wireless Bluetooth speaker, similar to the Echo Dot, though unlike Amazon’s assistant, Google’s device is apparently compatible with multiple speakers simultaneously. This means users will be able to set up wireless Bluetooth speakers in different rooms of their home, all linked together through Google Home.

It also seems the rumours are true and Google intends to make Home act as a third-party device compatible smart home hub, similar to Amazon’s Echo.

Google Home will reportedly be ready to release later in 2016. Canadian availability, as well as U.S. and international pricing has not been revealed.

If you’re interested in Google Home, the Mountain View-based company has launched a information sign-up page.

Related reading: Google shows off Google Assistant’s powerful chatbot capabilities

Update: Google has now opened up pre-registration for Allo. Unfortunately, there is no specific timing for the app’s release as Google only noted during I/O that will be released later this year.

Update #2: It seems Google has pulled pre-registration from Allo in Canada. The same has occured for Duo.

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At Google I/O 2016, Google announced a new smart messaging app called Allo. Presented by Google’s Eric Kay, a Google engineering director, the app utilizes machine learning and the Google Assistant to make conversations more productive.

“Allo uses machine learning to suggest replies on the fly, anticipating what you might want to say next,” said Kay.

The app has the ability to learn from conversations the user has to suggest future responses. Allo offers several ways for users to express themselves with a wide variety of content and stickers.

“Allo is fast smart and secure and it lets you express yourself in fun, new ways,” said Kay.

An example of this is a feature called whisper shout, which allows users to adjust the size of the text and emojis they’re about to send to better relay how enthusiastic they currently feel.

Furthermore, Allo includes an ink feature which allows users to upload and use a stencil feature to write on photos before they upload, in a format that resembles Snapchat.

Keeping in line with several tech companies as of late, messages sent using the app’s incognito mode are encrypted with end-to-end encryption. Kay assured the audience that privacy was at the forefront of Google’s mind when it designed the app. In the same incognito mode announced above, Allo uses a transient data storage model. This means that Google can’t store chat logs or assign an identity to them on its servers. The user also has the control to delete conversations. However, it’s important to note the user needs to opt into these features; they’re not enabled by default.

By hitting @google in the app while you’re chatting users can call up the Google Assistant to initiate a search inside the chat. Users can also chat with Google Assistant directly if they want more information about something.

The messaging app will also serve as the first outlet for the Google Assistant, which is likely to be released later this year.

Allo is one of two new apps that were announced at the conference today, in addition to Duo. The app is set to be available this summer on iOS and Android.

Related reading: Google shows Google Assistant’s powerful chat bot capabilities

Today during its annual developer conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google Photos, the company’s photo management software, now has more than 200 million active monthly users.

Announced at I/O 2015, the service has since combed through billions of photos to generate more than 2 trillion smart labels, with more than 200-million devoted to selfies alone.

Continue to follow MobileSyrup today to get all the news directly from Google I/O.

Update: Similar to Allo, Google has opened up pre-registration for Duo. This will be available with Allo and Google Home later this year.

Update #2: It seems the Google has pulled pre-registration for Duo in Canada.

Google Hangouts is seemingly dead, replacing it are the company’s new chat app, Allo, and a new dedicated video calling app.

Announced at I/O 2016, that new video calling app is called Duo.

Set to launch on both iOS and Android later this summer, the platform features end-to-end encryption and is built around a new feature called knock knock.

When a friend or family calls the user with Duo, the app will show a video preview of the caller, informing the user of the nature of the call they’re about to pick up. It does this in real-time and can function on almost any wireless network.

Duo was built by the team behind the WebRTC platform, the protocol that powers many of the video calling apps around the world, and uses QUIC for its end-to-end encryption scheme.

Huge cheers came from the Google I/O crowd today when it was announced that Android N will be able to automatically update without pop-ups or alerts. The change comes along with the release of the third developer preview, available today.

N will do this by downloading new system images in the background, then installing them the next time the device is rebooted. Google states this new style of updating is inspired by how Chromebooks update.

When it comes to security updates, Android N will let you know the update is coming ahead of time, and for the larger updates — when Android moves to a new dessert — your phone will send an alert and let you decide when you’d like to download it.

“The pesky ‘Android is updating dialog’ is finally gone,” said David Burke, VP of engineering, “It’s just a really nice, seamless way to do it.”

Of course, updates will still have to go through the process of being created by your OEM and approved by your carrier before downloading, but this change will certainly improve the adoption rate for newer versions of Android.

Google states that Android N is the first “beta-quality” candidate, meaning it’s a more stable build than the other two previews, the first of which was rolled out two months ago.

Related reading: Android N Hands-on: Everything you need to know (Video)

At I/O 2016 Google showed off a new high-powered virtual reality platform called Daydream it intends to build directly into Android N, as well as a revamped vision for Google Cardboard. Little is currently known about the physical device so far beyond the reference the Mountain View, California based tech giant showed off on stage.

At the most basic level, Google has created a new high-performance mode for Android smartphones with Daydream. Dave Burke, Google vice president of engineering for Android, said during the keynote that in order for a device to be Daydream-certified, the smartphone in question needs to conform to “lots of rules” before being able to be deemed virtual reality ready.

When a phone is Daydream certified, apps like YouTube will launch in a special VR mode, taking advantage of additional power and phone architecture designed for VR, driving down the latency between the phone mounted on your head and your actual physical movements. Other VR-specific apps will also immediately launch in VR mode with Daydream-enabled devices. Turning VR mode on also changes how Android interprets the information a smartphone’s sensors gather.

Accompanying the announcement of Google’s Daydream mobile virtual reality efforts, is the reveal of virtual reality support for apps like IMAX, CNN, MLB, NBA and USA Today, as well as a dedicated virtual reality section of the Google Play Store.

Video game developers, such as CCP games, the developer behind EVE Online and Electronic Arts’ Need for Speed: No Limits, as well as Canadian developer Minority’s Time Machine, were also revealed to be headed to Daydream. Google also boasted that Ubisoft is working on an Android game that reportedly spans several franchises and genres, though specifics were not revealed.

While we don’t know a significant amount about Google’s new Daydream devices beyond how the platform will operate, the new headset’s controller seems to resemble a Wiimote, with a Siri remote-like clickable touchpad located at its top. The device also reportedly functions similarly to the Wii’s remote or PlayStation Move, by utilizing an orientation sensor that allows the user to move their arm around like a magic wand.

Well-known smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Alcatel, Huawei and ZTE have already committed to create devices that meet Daydream’s specifications.

Daydream is set to arrive this fall and is included in Google’s latest Android N developer preview. It’s unclear how much Daydream virtual reality headsets will cost or when they will be released, but Google likely has already forged a variety of partnerships with Android smartphone manufacturers.

Related reading: Google shows off its Amazon Echo competitor Google Home at I/O 2016

Today during Google I/O 2016, Google vice president of developer products Jason Titus announced that Chrome on mobile has reached 1 billion monthly users.

Titus explained that the development group at Google is constantly working to get Google products into as many users hands as possible.

“We are constantly finding ways to use new and emerging technology to improve our lives,” said Titus.

Related reading: Google previews Android 2.0

 

Google today announced several new free features for Firebase, the mobile backend as a service company it acquired in 2014.

With its new version of Firebase, Google has made a move to turn the backend in to an all-encompassing app platform that could replace Facebook’s Parse. Parse also provided app-focused backend services, but is gradually being put out of commission according to a January announcement.

The main feature Google showed off was its new free and unlimited mobile analytic tool. Jason Titus, head of Google’s developer product group, presented the feature as effectively being Google analytics for apps. Rather than tracking web-focused metrics such as page views, it will track metrics that are unique to mobile and focus on how the user is interacting with the app.

Other new and free features added to Firebase are crash reporting, remote configuration and dynamic links (also known as deep-links, they take users directly to a specific app location even if the app has yet to be installed).

All Firebase features support iOS, Android and Javascript. The new version of Firebase is available today.

Related reading: Google’s Instant Apps lets you use apps without installing them

While Google didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Android Auto during its I/O 2016 keynote today, following the event the company announced that Waze, the crowd sourced traffic app it acquired in 2013, is coming to its car infotainment platform later this year.

While some of Waze’s crowdsourced information has been available via Google Maps, many of its more unique features, including speed trap warnings, are currently unavailable in Android Auto. In a statement issued to The Verge, the search giant said Waze integration has been the single most requested Android Auto feature since the launch platform launched in 2015.

When it arrives on Android Auto in the next couple of months, Waze will be the first navigation app besides Google Maps to land on the platform.

While there hasn’t been a flood of new vehicles come out that support Android Auto, the trickle we saw start earlier this year is set to increase in the coming months and years. The 2016 Accord and Civic from Honda, both of which can be purchased today, support the platform — as well as Apple’s competing Car Play protocol. Every single 2017 Ford model sold in Canada will likewise support Android Auto.

This past March, Waze updated the Android version of its app, adding the features and interface changes it introduced with Waze 4.0. The update first came to iOS, where the majority of Waze’s users are located.

According to reports, Apple has recently hired several wireless charging experts, leading to speculation that the tech giant may be working on a way to improve wireless charging methods currently on the market.

The Verge discovered via LinkedIn that Apple has hired more than a dozen new staff with expertise in wireless charging technology over the last two years. The most recent hires the publication uncovered are two former employees of uBeam, a wireless charging startup that proposes the use ultrasound waves as a wireless charging solution. Lately, that technology has been cast in doubt after a disgruntled former employee blogged that what uBeam hopes to achieve is not possible due to the basic laws of physics.

The use of ultrasound waves is not the only method for wireless charging currently being tested, however. Companies Ossia and Energous are also working on solutions. According to its patents, Ossia utilizes microwaves, while Energous says it uses radio frequencies. The aim of both is to allow users to charge their devices in a contact-less manner within an approximate 30-foot radius.

Its unclear what technology Apple might be testing. In fact, the company has not given any public indication that it is working on a wireless charging solution — apart from the technology featured in the Apple Watch.

Bloomberg, however, reported in January 2016 that according to its inside sources, Apple is working with partners in the U.S. and Asia to develop new wireless charging technology that could be deployed as soon as next year. The article also referenced a 2015 patent outlining a method for making aluminum phone casings radio waves are able to pass through

In the past, Phil Schiller, Apple Senior vice president, has conveyed the fact that Apple isn’t interested in creating a wireless charging mat or puck, like the one Samsung recently launched, stating: “Having to create another device you have to plug into the wall is actually, for most situations, more complicated.”

At the very least, all signs seem to be pointing to the fact that if Apple is working on a wireless charging solution, it’ll be one that aims to differentiate it from the pack.

Related reading: A winner in the wireless charging battle is no clearer at CES