Rolandt

The moment we saw Sarah Spencer‘s knitted Stargazing tapestry, we knew we needed to know more. A couple of emails later, and here’s Sarah with a guest blog post telling you all you need to know about her hacking adventure with a 1980s knitting machine and a Raspberry Pi.

Knitting Printer! (slowest speed)

Printing a scarf on a Brother KM950i knitting machine from the 1980’s. To do this I have a Brother Motor arm to push the carriage back and forth and a homemade colour changer that automatically selects the colour on the left (the white and purple device with the LED).

Here’s Sarah…

Raspberry Pi: what’s there not to like? It’s powerful, compact, and oh so affordable! I used one as a portable media box attached to a pico projector for years. Setting one up as a media box is one of the most popular uses for them, but there’s so much more you can do.

Cue a 1980s Brother domestic knitting machine. Yep, you read that right. A knitting machine – to knit jumpers, hats, scarves, you name it. They don’t make domestic knitting machines any more, so a machine from the 1980s is about as modern as you can get. It comes with an onboard scanner to scan knitting patterns and a floppy drive port to back up your scans to an old floppy disk. Aah, the eighties – what a time to be alive!

Building a networked knitting machine

But this is an article about Raspberry Pi, right? So what does a 30-year-old knitting machine have to do with that? Well, I hacked my domestic knitting machine and turned it into a network printer with the help of a Raspberry Pi. By using a floppy drive emulator written in Python and a web interface, I can send an image to the Raspberry Pi over the network, preview it in a knitting grid, and tell it to send the knitting pattern to the knitting machine via the floppy drive port.

OctoKnit

I call this set-up OctoKnit in honour of a more famous and widely used tool, OctoPrint for 3D printers, another popular application for Raspberry Pi.

I’ve made the OctoKnit web interface open source. You can find it on GitHub.

This project has been in the works for several years, and there’s been a few modifications to the knitting machine over that time. With the addition of a motor arm and an automatic colour changer, my knitting is getting very close to being hands-free. Here’s a photo of the knitting machine today, although the Raspberry Pi is hiding behind the machine in this shot:

I’ve specialised in knitting multicolour work using a double-layered technique called double Jacquard, which requires two beds of needles. Hence the reason the machine has doubled in size from when I first started.

Knitting for Etsy

I made a thing that can make things, so I need to make something with it, right? Here are a few custom orders I’ve completed through my Etsy store:

Stargazing

However, none of my previous works quite compares to my latest piece, Stargazing: a knitted tapestry. Knitted in seven panels stitched together by hand, the pattern on the Raspberry Pi is 21 times bigger than the memory available on the vintage knitting machine, so it’s knitted in 21 separate but seamless file transfers. It took over 100 hours of work and weighs 15kg.

Stargazing is a celestial map of the night sky, featuring all 88 constellations across both Northern and Southern hemispheres. The line through the center is the Earth’s equator, projected out into space, with the sun, moon and planets of our solar system featured along it. The grey cloud is a representation of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Heart of Pluto on Twitter

Happy 6pm, Fri 31st Aug 2018 The tapestry is installed and the planets in the sky have now aligned with those in the knitting

When I first picked up a Raspberry Pi and turned it over in my hand, marvelling at the computing power in such a small, affordable unit, I never imagined in my wildest dreams what I’d end up doing with it.

What will you do with your Raspberry Pi?

The post Networked knitting machine: not your average knit one, purl one appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Today in The Globe and Mail, I share the inside scoop on what it was like to work with social media data in the heyday of Cambridge Analytica:

When we were first heading down that path, vendor after vendor tried to woo me with tools that would give us access to the kind of data Cambridge Analytica sold to the Trump campaign. Facebook was packed with communities, quizzes and apps that existed entirely to get access to users’ friends’ data, and many vendors were selling that data. Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. With its focus on the customer, marketing is one of the primary components of business management. If you want to learn more about marketing then click here.

How did we resist the temptation to follow in that path? Read the full story here.

The Cadre published a store last week on the impending application of Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPP) legislation to the University of Prince Edward Island, Taking Care of Our Own: What the Amended FOIPP Legislation Holds for UPEI.

From the newspaper’s reporting I learned that my own access request (detailed in my post I Paid $166 for Data about Parked Cars) was one of only 8 requests received so far under the university’s existing self-managed access system.

I’m hopeful that a simpler, unified regime for access will lower barriers and encourage others to take advantage of this powerful capability.

I have known Catherine Hennessey for 25 years, and I’ve always delighted in the numerical twist that unites us: she was born in 1933, I was born in 1966. So when I turned 33, she turned 66; when I turned 44, she turned 77.

And so when I turn 66, she will turn 99.

This year Catherine turned 85, and I wanted to make something to mark the occasion, so I combined my love of letterpress with my newfound love of bookbinding and made the guest book for her birthday party.

The covers are heavy green Saint Armand paper covered book board. I printed Catherine’s name on the front cover before affixing the paper to the book board. It’s set in 30 point Futura Bold. For the endpapers I used orange Japanese paper from a pack I purchased in Halifax in March from The Ikebana Shop.

The inside signatures are of cream-coloured Saint Armand tag paper which was a joy to work with: more a living thing than something manufactured. I printed Catherine’s name at the top of each page, along with her birthday date, in a casual script that Sarah Saunders left a font of on my doorstep one day several years ago.

I bound the cover and signatures together using a coptic stitch, something well-suited to a book that’s meant to lay open flat. My stitching needs work, as it’s something completely new to me, but it did the job and held everything together: as I wrote to Catherine in my colophon at the back, “the book feels like it’s improbably held together, but, somehow, it stays bound–like Ms. Hennessey.”

I was very happy to see the book well-used on the evening of Catherine’s party.

Atina, concept and lounge bar since 1830. Must be the original hipster dive then. In Novi Sad, Serbia.

There was a time when Surrey was the butt of jokes. No more.

As we read in Part I of our exit interview yesterday, the city is growing by leaps and bounds. New town centres, new towers, new parks, and of course, new bike lanes.

More tellingly, the next mayor will have at least as much influence over the implementation of the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy as any other mayor. ‘Cause Surrey is where it’s all going to happen —people, homes, transit and jobs. The big question though — in what order?

In our conclusion, Hepner addresses the role of the Province in accommodating that growth, why she feels women sometimes avoid politics, and what candidates should stay away from. (If you’ve been reading this Mayoral Exit Interview series, you may not need three guesses for that one). Plus, her immediate priorities upon leaving office.

How has the city changed in the time that you’ve been in office?
We’ve grown by about a hundred and some thousand people. Not since I’ve been mayor — that’s about forty thousand, but since I’ve been in public office we’ve grown well over a hundred thousand.

I’ve always been a believer that growth is the key to economic success. You could see in 2008 when growth had stalled and nothing’s happening, that’s when the economics become scary. When we inherited a decade of no tax increase it was very difficult to keep up with the kind of infrastructure that growth does demand, and I think that’s a struggle that we’re still seeing even today. I’ll give you an example. Over the ten years that we had zero — I’m not talking about even a cost of living increase, I’m talking about zero tax increase for a decade — if we had just done cost of living and cost of living alone, we would have in our budget another almost fifty million dollars every year. Well, fifty million dollars will build you a pool. It will build you a rec centre. It will build you an ice rink, or close to it. So struggling with a catch-up, because we are the lowest taxed in the region, and we’re often proud of that. But it’s a two-edged sword — it’s very difficult to keep up infrastructure to embrace that growth. That’s a tough balance.

Let’s really take a hard look at the school situation, because that’s a big one in Surrey. Not as big as it was in the ’90s when we had more than 400 portables. But we’re approaching that very quickly — we now have 333 portables. So we’re looking very much like we did at a time when we had to re-assess how quickly we could grow.

And here’s the crux of that in my mind — we create, as a region, the Regional Growth Strategy. It is a document that is required by legislation provincially. And it takes us a very long time to do it, sometimes five to ten years, but we have to do it. So we produced a regional growth strategy that assumes most of the growth of the million people that we expect to see over the next decade and a half will come south of the Fraser — 800,000 of them. We give that to the Province. In my mind, the reason we give that to the Province is so that they can then, not only thoroughly read it, but determine, based on having read it, these are the places that will need the provincial infrastructure to keep up. ie. schools. ie. hospitals.

And I would throw in transportation as well, wherever it becomes the provincial responsibility, and since TransLink is their baby, transportation certainly fits in there. Otherwise, why the hell did we bother doing it? We’ve spun our wheels! This is the first time that I’ve had this discussion with the Premier. They actually get it. But I’m not sure that when they say, “What are our work plans?” that they assess it based on, “Well, the Regional Growth Strategy says this, let’s prepare and do this.” I don’t know. That’s now just me spouting off. That comes from 33 years of sitting here.

What advice would you give an aspiring elected official, perhaps one lacking in any kind of prior experience?
Honestly, I would have to say, “Stick to your guns. Be true to your own principles. Don’t get easily pushed and pulled,” because there will be lots of pushing and pulling going on.

And I would say, “Take care of yourself,” and then I would say, “Stay off of social media. Stay the hell away from it.” I can’t do it. I just find that it creates a mental vortex that is just not good. It’s not good because it brings out the negative, and I have been accused of being a Pollyanna because I truly believe in order to have good governance, you had better be on the positive side of things.

What would you like citizens to understand about governing before you leave?
I’m not sure that too many people today understand that governing is really all about service, and when you’re talking about service, you’re talking about people who are already passionate about their community. So you don’t have to beat them up, they’re already there. They think about and love your community as much as you do.

I just think we’ve lost the ability to have civil discourse. I know you hear it all of the time, but I think it is the greatest danger to democracy that we have today. I think it dissuades those who want to serve, and I think that it dissuades women who are generally, by nature, collaborative.

With a brand new federal government, and with a brand new provincial government, I’ve been able to establish the relationships I need to do the best for my city. Because that’s your job. And that ability to create partnerships and collaboration is fundamentally the most important thing you need to do. Otherwise you can’t achieve anything.

What’s next?
Leisure, hopefully. I have no intention of doing anything initially. I have a great passion for a couple of agencies here in the city that I may choose to help out down the road, but right now my intention will be focused on my family, my home life and my grandchildren.

I’m 70, I’m not going back into public office. I would sit on a board, I would help out some of our agencies, I would do a little bit of mentoring if need be, but I will not run for public office again. I’ve done my time. I spent most of my life at Surrey — 33 years of it. I’ve been honoured to be there, but it’s time to move on.

Ms. Jen has posted a comment:

Roland Tanglao So far, all the photos from the Note 9 have been good to pretty darned good, a few great. But when you look at them at the 1:1 pixel level in Lightroom, they don't shine they way that the Nokia Pureview or Lumia flagship camera phone photos did at the 1:1 pixel level. That is the optics and the sensor.

I had hopes for the small Olympus 4/3rds camera that I got, but I found that I was not actually using it that much. So, now it is the Nikon D850 for the 'serious' shots and the camera phone for the snaps or I carry it everywhere.

Thought, since I got the Note 9, I have been taking more photos with my DSLR. ;o)

Boris Mann @bmann
Pretty happy with how this turned out. Bon Appetit! pic.twitter.com/bBhvqzNC6i

Cecily W. 🏳️‍🌈 @skeskali
I have turned all my MacOS apps to dark mode so that they match my soul.

Although the races for the New York 25th congressional seat and for New York Senate are not expected to be close (Kirsten Gillibrand is given a 99.9% chance of winning for the Democrats in the Senate), I am, like many, particularly motivated to vote in the US midterm elections this year.

So I filled in my absentee ballot this morning, well in advance of the deadline, and it’s going out in the mail today, complete with a beaver stamp, as befits a dual national.

I’m still waiting for the job of making me a window here in my subterranean office to rise to the top of the to-do list, so unless there’s a hurricane going on, I have no way of knowing what the weather is like outside.

As a proxy for this I can connect to the “live view” of my Ring Video Doorbell, across the street. It’s fuzzy, but clear enough to let me know if I need an umbrella or not.

This post provides a short buying guide for advanced and professional cyclists looking for high-end road bikes. Check out this list of the 6 best high-end road bikes!

The post 6 Best High-End Road Bikes: A Short Buying Guide appeared first on Average Joe Cyclist.

I’m 50. I vote every single time, no matter what. Midterms. Primaries. Caucuses. I even vote in that weird non-binding primary that Washington State has.

Dear young people, “Don’t Vote”

Ensuring that the competencies acquired during training are actually transferred to the workplace—what the “Kirkpatrick methodology” defines as assessment level 3-—is a classic human resource management problem. How to address it? And more specifically, how could Open Badges contribute to its resolution?

Open Badges according to Kirkpatrick …

In an attempt to address this question, I went to Kirkpatrick Partners where I discovered a whole range of badges, from simple participation badges (“Kirkpatrick Session Participant”), up to those issued after demonstration of the application of Kirkpatrick Methodology (“Kirkpatrick Certified Professional”).

The 4 levels of assessment according to Kirkpatrick Level 1: Reaction – Did the participants find the training interesting, engaging and relevant to their work? Level 2: Learning – Did the participants gain knowledge, skills, attitudes or self-confidence? Level 3: Behaviour – Has the learning been transferred to a workplace? Level 4: Results – Was there an impact on the organisation’s performance?

First, I find it outstanding that after a mere 3-hour training, participants receive a badge specifying that they are able, among other things, to “plan and deliver training programs with business value in mind.”  How is it possible to measure the acquisition of those skills within a 3 hours “interactive” training session? In addition to being experts in training assessment, would Kirkpatrick Partners also hold a secret recipe to boost the process of skills acquisition and assessment? Or is it mere marketing spiel?

But this is not the most interesting: several of the badges proposed by Kirkpatrick Partners do not correspond to any level of the “Methodology”. For example, “participation” badges do not measure the reaction of the participants (Level 1), as it would be for the participants to validate the criteria. Nor do they measure the acquisition of actual learning (Level 2) – how to demonstrate in 3h the ability to “plan and deliver training programs with business value in mind”?

So, either the badges issued are related to the “Methodology”, and in this case there is something missing, or they do not correspond to anything. My suggestion would be to define these badges as belonging to “Kirkpatrick Level 0” whose definition could be: “the invoice for the participation in the training has been settled”.

We would then have the following levels (of satisfaction):

• Level 0: the accountant is satisfied
• Level 1: the learner is satisfied
• Level 2: the trainer is satisfied
• Level 3: the line manager is satisfied
• Level 4: the CEO is satisfied

Kirkpatrick Partners clearly have not (yet) grasped the real opportunities of using Open Badges to support the learning and assessment processes. Badges are treated as mere digital substitutes for paper certificates. The added value for the holders of these badges? Before one had to scan paper certificates to post them on LinkedIn, now one has to print the badges to display them on the office wall…

… to the “K3 Badges “

As an alternative to paperless certificates that are useless at assessing the transfer of learning to the workplace, and in an attempt at taking Donald Kirkpatrick’s teachings seriously, I propose to define what I coined as K3 Badges—’K for Kirkpatrick and ‘3’ for level 3.

What does a K3 Badge look like? To describe it, let’s go through the following scenario (other scenarios are possible):

1. At the time of registration to a training session, the participant claims and signs the badge describing the competencies that will be acquired during the training intervention;
2. At the end of the training programme, if satisfied with the acquisition of new competencies, the trainer signs the badge;
3. When the participant returns to work and provides evidence of the transfer of the new competencies to the workplace, the line manager signs the badge.

The badge is used as an instrument supporting conversations between employees, managers and HR professionals, as well as between companies and training providers. Has a person returned from training several weeks ago with a badge not yet signed by the line manager? Is it because the training was not relevant or not good enough? Is it because the employee didn’t have the opportunity to practice what she learned? Did the line manager fail to provide such opportunities or is she waiting for more evidence?

The analysis of signatures collected via K3 Badges could inform in real time a dashboard on the state of personnel competency development, the commitment of the management to staff development, the quality of training providers, etc. The signature of the trainer could be replaced by that of an expert or mentor, internal or external. We can also imagine badges with 4 or 10 signatures, and even more if we take into account the endorsements collected from peers, clients, managers and professional bodies once a badge has been issued and validated by the line manager.

What is the difference between K3 Badges and Open Badges?

K3 Badges are based on the systematic use of cryptographic signatures, a technology not yet fully exploited by Open Badge platforms but that should be quickly adopted because of its flexibility and its many possible applications.

A demonstration of the power of this emerging technology will be proposed by bit of trust during the International Recognition Week and ePIC 2018 (Paris, 24-26 October).

mkalus shared this story .

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Microsoft has announced the four Games with Gold titles that will be free to all Xbox Live Gold members next month.

• Overcooked! (Xbox One) — Available October 1st to 31st
• Victor Vran (Xbox One) — Available October 16th to November 15th
• Stuntman: Ignition (Xbox 360, also playable on Xbox One via backwards compatibility) — Available October 1st to 15th
• Hitman: Blood Money (Xbox 360, also playable on Xbox One via backwards compatibility) — Available October 16th to 31st

Overcooked!

Ghost Town Games’ Overcooked! is a cooking simulation game in which up to four players have to avoid hazards and obstacles while preparing meals under a time limit.

The game released on Xbox One in August 2016 and regularly costs $16.99 CAD.

Victor Vran

Victor Vran, an action-RPG from developer Haemimont Games, lets players slay demons using various weapon loadouts in a quest to liberate the cursed city of Zagoravia.

The game released on Xbox One in June 2017 and regularly costs $21.99.

Stuntman: Ignition

Stuntman: Ignition, the final game from the now-defunct Paradigm Entertainment, puts players in the role of a stuntman in various fictional films who must race around and complete objectives given to him by Hollywood directors.

The game released on Xbox 360 in August 2007 and regularly costs $16.99.

Hitman: Blood Money

IO Interactive’s Hitman: Blood Money chronicles hitman Agent 47 as he arrives in the U.S. to stealthily take down various high-profile targets.

The game released on Xbox 360 in May 2006 and regularly costs $19.99.

In the meantime, three of the four September Games with Gold titles are still up for grabs, including Prison Architect.

The post Here are the free games hitting Xbox Games with Gold in October appeared first on MobileSyrup.

While we don’t know for sure what’s coming at Microsoft’s October 2nd hardware event, reports indicate a new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop could be on the table.

The news comes from WinFuture editor Roland Quandt. Quandt explained in a tweet that we could expect the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2. Furthermore, Quandt said that Microsoft likely wouldn’t release any other hardware.

About Microsoft’s hardware event on Oct 2: expect Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2. At the same prices as before, with updated hardware. And likely nothing else.

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) September 26, 2018

As for the hardware that Microsoft will release, Quandt expects the upgrade to be a spec bump. The Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2 will retain the outer appearance, but feature internal upgrades, like an improved Intel processor.

Additionally, Quandt says there will be new colour options, including a black choice.

To cap everything off, Quandt also indicated there might be mention of the next Windows update. We know that it’s going to come out in October, so we can expect to learn the start date for that upgrade.

It seems like the announcement will be rather lowkey, as there won’t be an official live stream of the event, according to Quandt. That’s a little disappointing. Microsoft’s Surface line is quite good. I’d like to see a bit more fanfare around a hardware launch.

Source: Roland Qaundt, WinFuture

The post Microsoft to announce Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2: report appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Facebook-owned Oculus has announced its next virtual reality headset, the all-in-one Oculus Quest — the consumer version of the tech giant’s long in development ‘Santa Cruz’ project.

Coming in at $399 USD (approximately $512 CAD), the Oculus Quest features six-degree room-scale tracking and ships with a pair of Touch controllers. Since the Quest is standalone, it doesn’t require a powerful PC to operate, which means it’s also completely wireless.

Further, the Quest also doesn’t require external sensors for its room-scale tracking to operate, similar to Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Concerning play space, Facebook says that the Oculus Quest will be capable of supporting a 400 square foot area of tracking.

The 64GB Oculus Quest package includes the headset and two Touch controllers. The new version of the Oculus’ Touch controllers loop above your hands instead of below them, but still include the same button layout.

Facebook says that more than 50 games are set to be available when the Oculus Quest launches, including Robo Recall, The Climb and Moss.

To ditch the sensors required to make room-scale tracking work, the Quest features new technology the company calls ‘Oculus Insight.’ This tech utilizes four ultra wide-angle sensors built into the headset, along with computer vision algorithms, to track the wearer’s position in real-time.

The Oculus Rift’s Guardian system, which creates a virtual safety net around the user to prevent them from running into objects, will also be featured in the Quest.

Spec wise, the Oculus Quest features a display resolution of 1600 x 1440 per eye, compared to the standard Oculus Rift’s 1080 x 1200 pixel screen and the competing HTC Vive’s 1080 x 1200 pixels. Similar to the Oculus Go, the Quest headset also features built-in speakers.

In many ways, Oculus Quest combines the high-end, powerful Oculus Rift headset with the company’s more affordable, entry-level Oculus Go offering.

The main question surrounding the Oculus Quest right now is how powerful the headset actually is. While Oculus VR head Hugo Bara claims that the headset is designed “for games,” it’s likely still powered by a mobile onboard processor of some sort.

That said, with ports of graphically-intense Rift titles like Robo Recall in the works, the Quest seems poised to feature enough power for the standalone headset to be a viable virtual reality gaming platform.

The Oculus Quest is set to launch this Spring in the United States. We’ve reached out to Facebook for details related to Canadian pricing and availability for the Quest headset. We’ll update this story when we hear back.

Source: Oculus 

The post Facebook announces Oculus Quest, its first all-in-one VR system with room-scale tracking appeared first on MobileSyrup.

CBS Television Studios has announced plans to open a 260,000-square-foot production studio in Mississauga, Ontario in mid-2019.

According to CBS, the upcoming production studio will include six sound stages, production offices and other support facilities.

CBS already has a significant presence in the province, as it shoots its Star Trek: Discovery series (which is available in Canada on Bell’s CraveTV service) at Pinewood Toronto Studios. The company says additional upcoming productions have been shot in the city, including the Charmed reboot.

CBS’ on-demand streaming service, CBS All Access,also launched in Canada in April.

“The Toronto area specifically has provided our series with diverse and appealing locations as well as production infrastructure and crafts expertise that cannot be easily found,” David Stapf, president of CBS Television Studios, said in a statement.

“These new stages will provide valuable resources and additional capacity for our company’s growing production slate.”

Via: CBC

The post CBS to launch massive Mississauga, ON production studio in 2019 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

“Everything you can imagine is real.” ~ Picasso

tizi hat lustige Namen für alle Produkte. Dabei haben die durchaus eine präzise Bedeutung. Tankstelle oder Tankstation, beides sind Ladegeräte. Bei der Tankstelle ist der Stecker fest eingebaut, die Tankstation dagegenen kommt an ein Kabel. Das mag ich, weil ich im Ausland einfach das passende Kabel dazu kaufe und dann brauche ich keine Adapter. Solche Kabel habe ich für USA und UK. In der Schweiz passt auch der Euro-Stecker.

Diese neue Tankstelle hat eine USB-A und eine USB-C Buchse. An beiden kann man sein iPhone aufladen, aber mit dem passenden USB-C auf Lightning Kabel geht es viel schneller. Dazu muss man nur das Kleingedruckte anschauen. Bei USB-A ist bei 12 W Schluß, USB-C geht da erst los. Auch ein Macbook Pro kann man damit laden, allerdings nicht sehr schnell. An beiden Ports zusammen gibt die Tankstelle maximal 30 W her. Mit einem einzigen Ladegerät kann man z.B. auf Reisen gleich zwei Geräte aufladen.

Das schnelle Laden über USB-C setzt ein passendes Kabel voraus und funktioniert mit iPhone XS, XR, X, 8 und neueren iPads.

Zwei Geräte reichen nicht? Oder es soll schneller gehen? Alles kein Problem:

Tankstation 75 W, 3 USB-A und 1 USB-C 70 €
Tankstelle 60 W, 1 USB-C, 60 €
Tankstelle 30 W, 1 USB-A und 1 USB-C 40 €

Dazu hat tizi noch eine ganze Reihe Tankstellen ohne USB-C:

Tankstelle 25 W, 4 x USB-A (nach unten) 25 €
Tankstelle 20 W, 2 x USB-A (nach unten) 20 €
Tankstelle 22.5 W, 4 x USB-A (nach vorne) 25 €

Das mit dem "ohne Lakritz" ist nicht so leicht zu verstehen. Es war einfach keins dabei. :-)

A pizza delivery car with a big clock running down from 29:00 minutes to 0, like a Deliverator. On the streets of Novi Sad. Very Snow Crash.

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

Apple is rolling out a new TestFlight feature which enables developers to share a public URL for an app beta. Customers can simply open the link on their iPhone or iPad and automatically enroll into the beta testing group through the TestFlight app.

This feature was announced back at WWDC in June but has only just started showing up for developers inside the App Store Connect interface. Previously to public links, developers had to manually ask people for email addresses and then send out invite in emails to each person individually.

As someone who's routinely testing dozens of apps for review purposes, this sounds a lot more convenient than the current email-based invitation system, both for developers and users. By default, developers don't see the names and emails of users who sign up with a link. I have a feeling this option is going to be frequently used for public betas with large pools of testers.

→ Source: 9to5mac.com

Mountain View search giant Google is trying to make group hangouts an easier prospect by launching a new group planning feature on Google Maps.

According to a September 26th, 2018 media release, the new group planning feature allows users to long press on any place to add that place to a list that can be shared through any messaging platform.

Google Maps users can even vote together on places to go through the Maps application.

Google says that the feature is rolling out to Android and iOS users this week.

The announcement of the Google Maps group planning feature comes roughly two days after reports came out that Google was testing a ‘Shortlist’ feature.

Source: Google

The post Google rolling out Google Maps group planning feature on Android, iOS appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Google announced several new features for search this week, but Images got some of the more exciting additions.

For starters, Images will have a new look on desktop. Borrowing heavily from Google’s Material Design, the new look sports a rounded search bar and buttons.

Images on desktop will also show more context around images. When you search for something, Google lists the title and website below each image. Furthermore, clicking into an image provides more information about the site it’s from.

While Images on mobile already sported the new look, Google is adding a new feature to it as well. Now, when you open an image on mobile, you can scan it with Google Lens.

Scanning an image with Lens will highlight important objects in the photo. Users can tap on these objects to see related images. Google says these related images will mostly link to product pages to help users get more information and even purchase something they like.

Perhaps the coolest addition, however, is the new ‘drawing’ feature. Users can draw on an image with their finger to select something for Lens to look up.

Overall, these additions to Google Images will help users find what they’re looking for with ease. Furthermore, the new tools will help contextualize images users find. It’s a substantial evolution of what Google Images.

Source: Google Via: 9to5 Google

The post Google Images gets new look and features for desktop and mobile appeared first on MobileSyrup.

A total of six tornadoes touched down in the Ottawa-Gatineau area since last Friday, September 21st, 2018, with wind speeds reaching between 135 to 265 kilometres per hour.

According to CTV News, approximately 450,000 properties within the path of destruction were impacted.

Telus and Koodo have extended a helping hand to subscribers affected by the tornadoes by waiving voice, long distance, text and data overage fees until September 28th, 2018.

Ottawa and Gatineau, we’ve got you covered. We’re waiving all domestic voice, long distance, text and data overage fees for affected customers until Sept. 28 (or as long as residents are without power). Stay strong friends #thankyouottawa

— Koodo (@koodo) September 25, 2018

Telus and Koodo Mobile both tweeted, “Ottawa and Gatineau, we’ve got you covered. We’re waiving all domestic voice, long distance, text and data overage fees for affected customers until Sept. 28 (or as long as residents are without power). Stay strong friends.”

Ottawa and Gatineau, we’ve got you covered. We’re waiving all domestic voice, long distance, text and data overage fees for impacted customers until Sept. 28. Stay strong friends. @TELUSsupport pic.twitter.com/CDaBhKgSfi

— TELUS (@TELUS) September 26, 2018

MobileSyrup searched on social media to see if other major Canadian carriers waived the same fees, but nothing appeared to be listed. We will update this article if the status changes.

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Fujifilm has announced its second hybrid instant camera.

The Square SQ20 is capable of producing instant, Polaroid-style image prints and has the ability to record up to 15 seconds of video that it stores on a SD card. The SQ20 utilizes that video file in order to create various photo effects, which can be added to images before they’re directly printed out with the camera.

Fujifilm calls this new feature ‘Motion Mode.’ It allows users to scrub through a video in order to find the specific frame to print. Further, Motion Mode is capable of creating a fake long exposure that blurs the motion captured in the video.

Fuji says there’s also a mock 35mm film strip border that can be added to photos in this mode, too.

Unfortunately, the SQ20 features a smaller 1/5-inch sensor when compared to the SQ10, which includes a 1/4-inch sensor. The camera’s glass seems to be the same as the SQ10 though, with it coming in at f/2.4 aperture, though it doesn’t capture as wide of a field-of-view, moving from 28.5mm to 33.4mm.

That said, the SQ20 does feature 4x zoom, which is a first for any of Fujifilm’s Instax cameras.

Fujifilm’s Square SQ20 Instax camera is set to be available on October 20th, 2018 for $249 CAD. Along with the new SQ20, Fujifilm is also launching to new SQ6 colours, Ruby Red and Aqua Blue, which comes in at $159.

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Google is now showing on its Canadian online retail store that the Pixel 2, which is the second-generation smartphone in its Pixel line, is completely sold out in all models.

This isn’t the first time the 5-inch Pixel 2 has been sold out. The device quickly ran out of inventory when it was released and Canadian carriers put the device on ‘End of Life’” status.

This can only mean one thing. Google, as expected, is making room for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, and will unveil the new devices during an event in New York City on October 9th.

As for rumoured specs, the Google Pixel 3 XL will reportedly feature a 6.2-inch display with a Snapdragon 845 processor, 4GB of RAM and also include a glass back for inductive charging. The Pixel 3, on the other hand, is expected to feature a 5.5-inch display with a 2160 x 1080 pixel resolution display.

Source: Google

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Mid-tier Rogers flanker brand Fido has launched its own ultra-tier rate plan.

The plan currently only seems to be available to existing customers, as a Fido subscriber at MobileSyrup was the only one who could view Fido’s newest plans — and only after they’d been redirected to the Fido website through the carrier’s My Account mobile app.

Fido’s new ‘Extra Extra Large’ pulse plans begin at $115 per month and offer 2GB of data and 500 Canada-wide minutes. It appears that existing subscribers are able to receive a bonus 2GB of data.

While the plans are certainly expensive, the Extra Extra Large tier offer an additional $230 subsidy on both iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices when compared to existing Extra Large plan subsidies.

A 64GB iPhone XS costs $429 outright when purchased alongside an Extra Extra Large plan, while the same 64GB iPhone XS costs $659 when purchased alongside an Extra Large plan.

As such, it can be inferred that Fido’s newest rate plan tier is designed to compete with other ultra-tier rate plans that typically offer up to $250 in savings when compared with a premium plus plan equivalent.

Rogers, Bell and Telus — Canada’s three largest carriers — have all launched ultra-tier rate plans, while Bell mid-tier flanker brand Virgin Mobile has also launched its own ultra-tier plan.

“Our new XXL tier is available to existing Fido customers starting today,” a Fido spokesperson told MobileSyrup via email.

“The XXL tier offers customers more choice and flexibility so they can get the iconic devices they want for a lower upfront cost.”

Via: iPhone in Canada

Update 25/09/2018 4:15pm ET: Story updated with comment from Fido.

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