How to Transfer Data From Your Old PS4 to a New PS4

Whether you’re upgrading from your standard PlayStation 4 to a PS4 Pro (perhaps in order to make the most of your new 4K television) or just switching to another standard PS4, you’ll want to transfer your data from your old console to your new console.

This means you’ll need to copy your saves, user accounts, capture gallery, and application data over to your new PlayStation 4. Thankfully, this is a straightforward process that doesn’t require any proprietary cables and doesn’t take long, even if you have hundreds of gigabytes to move.

Here’s the process for transferring data from your old PS4 to your new PS4.

What You’ll Need

Transferring data from one console to another, regardless of what hardware you have, only requires the use of Ethernet cables. If you’re using a wireless router then you’ll only need a single cable. If you’re using a wired connection then you’ll need to connect both consoles via Ethernet.

Any Ethernet cable should do. For this walkthrough I used a Cat6 “crossover” cable I’ve been using to network two Xbox 360s together, but regular Cat5e or Cat5 cables should work just as well.

Both consoles will also require internet access for the transfer to begin. There’s no way to transfer data from one PS4 to another in “offline” mode. The consoles will not transfer any data over the internet, it’s purely used to activate the new console as your primary PS4 with Sony’s servers.

Wired or Wireless?

Since the transfer relies on the Ethernet cable rather than your wireless network, there’s no difference in transfer speed whether you go the wireless route or not. You’ll just need to make sure of two things:

• The wireless access point is within range of both consoles, or
• The wired router you’re using has access to the internet.

Since most of us have wireless networks for web browsing purposes, the easiest method is the wireless route. You’ll only need a single Ethernet cable in this instance.

How to Transfer Data From PS4 to PS4

Step 1: Set Up Your New PS4 Console

Unpack your new PlayStation 4 and set it up as normal. If you only have one display, you’ll need to connect it to the new console for the duration of the setup process.

Power on your new PS4 and follow the prompts to start using it as normal, including connecting to your local wireless network (if you’re using one). If you’re going the wired route, your console should automatically connect to the internet.

The data transfer is initialized on the new console (i.e. the console you’re transferring data to). When you finally see the PS4 dashboard, head to Settings > System > Transfer data from another PS4.

Step 2: Sign Into PSN

If you haven’t done so already, you’ll be prompted to sign in to PSN on your new console. You’ll then be asked to confirm whether or not you want your new console to be your primary PS4.

Remember: You can only have one primary PS4 at a time. All of the content tied to your account (game purchases, themes, free PlayStation Plus games) will become unavailable to other users once you deactivate a console as your primary device.

Step 3: Prepare Your Old PS4 Console

Turn your old PS4 on when prompted to do so, then hit Next. You don’t need to connect a display unless you really want to. Once your new console detects the old one, you’ll be prompted to press the power button on the old console for one second until you here a “beep” sound.

At this point, connect both consoles together using your Ethernet cable. If you’re using a wired network already, you won’t need to do anything. Follow the on-screen instructions and wait for the old PS4 to reboot. If you have a display connected to the old console, you’ll see a message on-screen about a pending transfer.

Step 4: Configure the Transfer

Now you’ll be prompted to select what you want to transfer from your old console to the new one. You can choose application (games etc.) data, game saves, your capture gallery, themes, and settings. You’ll see how much space will be left on your new console once the transfer completes.

You should also see an estimate for how long the transfer will take. My console estimated it would take 79 minutes to transfer around 450GB of data.

We are now in Hour 6 of transferring everything from my old PS4 to my new PS4 Pro. Only 4 hours left! ? pic.twitter.com/hNi3wXF7g9

— Jen Mayhew (@JenM512) July 30, 2018

You’ll finally be asked whether or not you want to activate this new console as a primary console for any other user accounts. If you select no, these user accounts will continue using your old console as their primary PS4.

Step 5: Start the Transfer and Wait

Finally hit Start Transfer and wait for both machines to restart. Once the reboot is complete, you’ll see a progress bar on-screen notifying you of how the transfer is going.

Don’t panic if your console initially reports a hideously long transfer time. Mine reported a wait of 18 hours initially, but the whole process was complete in around an 80 minutes as originally estimated. I’ve seen other users report waits of nine hours for around 500GB of data.

I don’t know whether the use of a high speed Cat6 cable helped, but if in doubt use the best cable you’ve got to hand.

What About External Hard Drives?

You can simply unplug your external drive from your old PS4 and plug it into your new one. It will function just as it did before. Unfortunately it’s not possible to connect two hard drives and transfer data between them. The PS4 uses an encrypted file system that makes it impossible to do this on a PC or Mac either.

The best way to transfer data between two USB drives is to copy your capture gallery to an external USB device using the Settings > Storage menu, then reinstall or re-download application data.

You can also try using the internal storage as an intermediary (again via the Storage menu), but since most of us connect external drives when our internal storage fills up, this is likely not an option for most users.

How to Transfer PS4 Screenshots and Videos

Transferring videos and screenshots from your PS4 is a lot easier, and only requires a regular USB pen drive. Make sure the drive uses no proprietary encryption methods (which often requires the use of additional software) and format it to FAT32 or exFAT.

Other filesystems (including NTFS and macOS Journaled) won’t work, despite reporting that the transfer has completed.

Now head to System > Storage > Capture Gallery and find the screenshots and videos you want to transfer. Hit the Options button and choose Copy to USB Storage Device.

Mark as many items as you like (or have room for) then choose Copy. If you have multiple drives connected (or a partitioned USB drive), you’ll be asked to choose between them.

The PS4 will then notify you of the folder hierarchy used to transfer the content. When you’re ready hit Copy and wait for the transfer to complete. When you’re done there’s no need to “safely eject” the drive, just pull it out.

Note: You can’t transfer saves or application data using this method.

How to Transfer PS4 Save Data

When you transfer data from one PS4 to another, all the save data will be copied across so there’s no need to manually transfer anything. If you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber (what are the differences between PlayStation Plus, PlayStation Now, and PlayStation Vue?), your save data will be backed up in the cloud.

All you need to do to get access to your save data on another console (even if it isn’t your primary) is sign in to PSN. You can manually force your console to upload or download save data by hovering over a game, pressing the Options button and choosing Upload/Download

And that’s it. Your data transfer is complete.

Getting Started With Your PS4 Pro

If you have upgraded to a PS4 Pro, almost all PS4 games can make better use of the hardware using Boost Mode, which you can activate under Settings > System > Boost Mode.

Many games include PS4 Pro optimized modes, whether that’s texture upgrades and upscaled resolutions for 4K displays, or improved anti-aliasing and higher framerates for 1080p content. If you encounter problems and instability, you’d best turn this off (this mostly affects older games).

With that in mind, check out our list of games that look better on a PS4 Pro. And remember, most new titles are optimized for the PlayStation 4 Pro, and first party titles (like Uncharted and God of War) get the royal treatment in this regard.

Read the full article: How to Transfer Data From Your Old PS4 to a New PS4

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The Palette 2 lets any 3D printer output color

The Mosaic Manufacturing Palette 2 – an upgrade the original Palette – is a self-contained system for full color 3D printing. It works by cutting and splicing multiple filament colors and then feeding them through as the object is printed. The system uses a unique and internal cutter called the Splice Core that measures and cuts filament as it prints, ensuring the incoming filament can change colors quickly and easily.

The printer can out items in four colors and it can print any amount of any color. It extrudes excess color into a little object called a tower, allow it to print as much or as little of a color as necessary. It also has automatic runout detection which lets you print larger objects over a longer period.

It works with a number of current 3D printers and the printers require no real updates to use the Palette or its more robust brother, the Pro. A new piece of software called Canvas allows users to plan their color prints and send the instructions to both the Palette and the printer for printing.

The Palette 2 costs $449 while the Pro costs $699. The Pro lets you print faster than the Palette 2.

It’s a very clever hack – instead of making the printer do all the work you instead make the filament do the work. Because it is a self-contained system you can use the Palette with nearly any printer although the team is working on native support for many popular printers. They are able to print lots of interesting stuff including 3D printed phone case models, rubbery watch bands using stretchable materials, and even educational objects. Most impressive? They were able to print a scan of a brain with evidence of a tumor visible in yellow. While it’s not completely full color – yet – the Palette is a great solution for those looking to print color on a budget.

[gallery ids="1696564,1696563,1696560,1696558,1696557"]

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6 Ways to Track Your Monthly Expenses (And Stick to Your Budget)

Apple could release an updated MacBook Air

According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple has been working on multiple new Macs. In particular, Apple could be planning to release a new entry-level laptop to replace the aging MacBook Air.

This isn’t the first rumor about a MacBook Air refresh. While Apple has released a 12-inch retina MacBook, it’s not nearly as cheap as the MacBook Air. It’s also not as versatile as it only has a single USB Type-C port.

And yet, the MacBook Air is arguably Apple’s most popular laptop design in recent years. Many MacBook Air users are still using their trusty device as there isn’t a clear replacement in the lineup right now. According to Bloomberg, the updated MacBook Air could get a retina display. Other details are still unclear.

After Apple updated the MacBook Air in March 2015, the company neglected the laptop for a while. It received an update in June 2017, but it was such a minor update that it looked like the MacBook Air was on life support.

It sounds like neither the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro (the one without a Touch Bar) nor the 12-inch MacBook have fostered as much customer interest as the MacBook Air.

Bloomberg also says that the Mac Mini is going to receive an update. The story of the Mac Mini is quite similar as the product has been neglected for years. Apple last updated the Mac Mini in October 2014 — it’s been nearly four years.

And the fact that Apple still sells the Mac Mini from 2014 is embarrassing. You can find tiny desktop PCs that are cheaper, smaller and more powerful. They don’t run macOS, but that’s the only downside.

It’s clear that laptops have taken over the computer market. Desktop computers have become a niche market. That’s why the updated Mac Mini could focus on people looking for a home server and who don’t want to mess around with a Raspberry Pi.

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Facebook assigns you a fake news flagging trustworthiness score

A new way to attack Facebook is to fraudulently report a news story as false in hopes of reducing its visibility, either because someone wants to censor it or just doesn’t agree with it. Sometimes known as “brigading”, a concerted effort by trolls to flag a piece of content can reduce its visibility. Facebook now sends stories reported as false to third-party fact checkers, and these purposefully inaccurate reports can clog the already-overcrowded queues that fact checkers struggle to worth through.

That’s why Facebook gives users a trustworthiness score ranging from 0 to1 dependon the reliability of their flags of false news, the Washington Post reports. If they flag something as false news but fact checkers verify it as true, that could hurt their score and reduce how heavily Facebook factors in their future flagging. If users consistently report false news that’s indeed proven to be false, their score improves and Facebook will trust their future flagging more. Facebook’s News Feed product manager Tessa Lyons confirmed the scoring system exists. There’s currently no way to see your own or someone else’s trustworthiness score.

Friend Ranking Scores

This isn’t the only way Facebook ranks users, though. It assigns you a shifting score of affinity towards each of your friends that determines how frequently you see them in the News Feed. This “friend ranking” score is essentially a measure of graph distance from you to someone else.

If you like a ton of someone’s posts, get tagged in photos with them, search for them, view their profile, communicate with them, have lots of mutual friends, are in the same Groups, and have similar biographical characteristics like location and age, your score towards them is lower and you’ll see more of them in feed. However, they have a different score for you depending on their behavior, so constantly viewing someone else’s profile won’t make you show up in their feed more if they don’t reciprocate the interest.

I first reported on these friend scores almost exactly seven years ago, and you can still view them for yourself using this browser bookmarklet built by Jeremy Keeshin. Visit this site, drag the “Facebook Friends Rankings” link into your desktop browser’s bookmark bar, open Facebook while logged in, and tap the bookmarklet to reveal the Friend Ranking scores of your friends. It snoops the Facebook JavaScript to pull out the scores. The people you see at the top are who you’re closest to.

Facebook clearly The need for this score highlights the difficulties of Facebook’s battle against fake news. Between subjectivity and purposeful trolling, there’s a lot noise coming in with the signal about what should be removed. Anyone saying Facebook should have easily solved the fake news problems is likely underappreciating the nuance required and the intelligent human adversaries Facebook must defeat.

Facebook has a huge array of signals it can use to calculate Friend Rankings or trustworthiness scores. The question will be whether it can intelligently sort those signals to make coherent inferences about what to show us and when to believe us.

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Facebook assigns you a fake news flagging trustworthiness score

A new way to attack Facebook is to fraudulently report a news story as false in hopes of reducing its visibility, either because someone wants to censor it or just doesn’t agree with it. Sometimes known as “brigading”, a concerted effort by trolls to flag a piece of content can reduce its visibility. Facebook now sends stories reported as false to third-party fact checkers, and these purposefully inaccurate reports can clog the already-overcrowded queues that fact checkers struggle to worth through.

That’s why Facebook gives users a trustworthiness score ranging from 0 to1 dependon the reliability of their flags of false news, the Washington Post reports. If they flag something as false news but fact checkers verify it as true, that could hurt their score and reduce how heavily Facebook factors in their future flagging. If users consistently report false news that’s indeed proven to be false, their score improves and Facebook will trust their future flagging more. Facebook’s News Feed product manager Tessa Lyons confirmed the scoring system exists. There’s currently no way to see your own or someone else’s trustworthiness score.

Friend Ranking Scores

This isn’t the only way Facebook ranks users, though. It assigns you a shifting score of affinity towards each of your friends that determines how frequently you see them in the News Feed. This “friend ranking” score is essentially a measure of graph distance from you to someone else.

If you like a ton of someone’s posts, get tagged in photos with them, search for them, view their profile, communicate with them, have lots of mutual friends, are in the same Groups, and have similar biographical characteristics like location and age, your score towards them is lower and you’ll see more of them in feed. However, they have a different score for you depending on their behavior, so constantly viewing someone else’s profile won’t make you show up in their feed more if they don’t reciprocate the interest.

I first reported on these friend scores almost exactly seven years ago, and you can still view them for yourself using this browser bookmarklet built by Jeremy Keeshin. Visit this site, drag the “Facebook Friends Rankings” link into your desktop browser’s bookmark bar, open Facebook while logged in, and tap the bookmarklet to reveal the Friend Ranking scores of your friends. It snoops the Facebook JavaScript to pull out the scores. The people you see at the top are who you’re closest to.

Facebook clearly The need for this score highlights the difficulties of Facebook’s battle against fake news. Between subjectivity and purposeful trolling, there’s a lot noise coming in with the signal about what should be removed. Anyone saying Facebook should have easily solved the fake news problems is likely underappreciating the nuance required and the intelligent human adversaries Facebook must defeat.

Facebook has a huge array of signals it can use to calculate Friend Rankings or trustworthiness scores. The question will be whether it can intelligently sort those signals to make coherent inferences about what to show us and when to believe us.

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How to Get Verified on Instagram

The Best Apple Watch Apps for Weather, Chats, Anime, and More

Unlike the iPhone, the Apple Watch isn’t exactly known as a place for apps. Apple rightfully continues to focus on improving the strengths of the device, including health and fitness tracking.

But while not every iOS app makes sense for the Apple Watch, there are a number of great choices that focus on providing a quick glance of information.

Here are of some of the best Apple Watch apps in a number of different categories.

Best Apple Watch Weather App: Carrot Weather

Carrot Weather isn’t your usual weather app. Along with up-to-date information about what’s happening outside, the main draw of this awesome app is the hysterical Carrot AI that brings a big dose of personality to the weather. And that fun transfers over to the Apple Watch.

The best feature on the wearable device is the ability to customize the app’s screen to display the information most important to you.

Two different subscription options bring even more features to the watch. These include background updates, precipitation notifications, complication customization, and even an animated radar image. The app is completely optimized to work with the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE, so you can check the weather even away from your iPhone.

Download: Carrot Weather ($5, subscription available)

Best Apple Watch Chat App: WatchChat for WhatsApp

While there’s no official WhatApp app for the Apple Watch, a number of third-party options will give you access to the chat service on the small screen. The best available is WatchChat for WhatsApp.

On the Watch, you can easily view all your chats, including group chats. The app also lets you start a new chat directly from the watch. You can reply to friends and family using a keyboard, quick replies, dictation, and Scribble. It’s also possible to listen to voice messages and view pictures sent through WhatsApp.

If you’re a WhatsApp fan, make sure you’ve checked out the best new WhatsApp features.

Download: WatchChat for WhatsApp ($3)

Best Apple Watch Twitter App: Chirp for Twitter

If you can’t get enough of Twitter, there’s no need to pull out your iPhone to catch up on all the latest tweets. Designed specifically for the Apple Watch, Chirp for Twitter is a full-featured client even on the small screen.

With the free version, you can get a taste of the overall experience. An in-app purchase will unlock Chirp Pro. This enables the ability to post your own tweets, browse your timeline, and more. You can even customize the look of the app by enabling or disabling certain features.

Download: Chirp for Twitter (Free, premium version available)

Best Apple Watch Fitness App: Workouts++

If you’re looking for a different take on Apple’s built-in Workout app for the Watch, you can’t beat Workouts++.

The best feature of the app is the ability to completely customize the fitness data shown on the watch screen during a workout. Along with real-time graphs that show performance, the app can also provide haptic alerts to help keep you on target.

During a workout, you can also listen to podcasts. Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE users can stream shows, while others will need to transfer the podcast over beforehand.

Download: Workouts++ (Free)

Best Apple Watch Sleep App: AutoSleep Tracker

Getting enough quality sleep is a big part of a healthy lifestyle. AutoSleep Tracker for Watch is a no-fuss way to track the metric during the night. If you wear your Watch to bed, tracking will automatically begin when you call it a night.

In the morning, you’ll receive a notification with an analysis that tracks time asleep, time awake, restlessness, and heart rate. You’ll also see an overall sleep score.

All this sleep data is also available to view in the comprehensive Apple Health app.

Download: AutoSleep Tracker for Watch ($3)

Best Apple Watch Calculator App: Calcbot 2

Calculators are another quick way to use the small screen of the Apple Watch effectively. With Calcbot 2, you can do more than just simple arithmetic. The app offers conversion calculators for common units, like miles to kilometers and pounds to kilograms.

And when you eating out at a restaurant, the app also features the ability to calculate a tip and split the bill equally.

Download: Calcbot 2 (Free, premium version available)

Best Apple Watch Anime App: Next Anime Episode

Many anime fans want to know when the next episode of their favorite series will be available. As you could probably guess by the name, Next Anime Episode will let you know when new anime episodes are available in Japan. You should be able to view it soon after on one of the many anime video services available.

The Apple Watch app will show you information about the series you’ve chosen. There are also a number of different complications to choose from.

Download: Next Anime Episode (Free, premium version available)

Best Apple Watch Relaxation App: Headspace

Headspace is a great way to deal with any stressful situation. The full iPhone and iPad app is one of the best relaxation apps available, and offers a variety of different features. But the Apple Watch app can also step in during a quick moment when you need to calm down.

There are two different choices on the Watch. The first, an SOS session, is three minutes long and provides audio to help you relax and handle the stressful situation. The other option is a touch-based session that forces you to focus on placing a finger on the watch’s screen with a particular level of force. This should help clear your mind.

Download: Headspace (Free, subscription available)

Best Apple Watch Calendar App: Fantastical 2

Fantastical 2 offers a top-notch calendar and reminder app in one great package. And on the Apple Watch, the app lets you interact with both of those important options in a number of different ways. You can quickly view calendar events on the Watch app, and even use the complication to view it on a number of different Apple Watch faces.

Using Scribble or voice dictation, it’s also easy to create a calendar event or reminder that will also sync to the iPhone version.

Download: Fantastical 2 ($5)

Kick Your Apple Watch Up to the Next Level

As you can see, there are all kinds of great apps on the Apple Watch perfect for providing a quick glance at the information important to you.

And once you’re done exploring the different apps you can use, check out these lesser-known Apple Watch features you’re missing out on.

Read the full article: The Best Apple Watch Apps for Weather, Chats, Anime, and More

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Gmail’s undo send feature hits Android

Four months after arriving on desktop, Gmail’s potentially job/relationship/self-respect-saving self-destruction feature is finally available on Android. The new feature, which was spotted by Android Police, arrived as part of the version 8.2 update.

It works similarly to its desktop counterpart. When you send a message, a small progress bar pops up at the bottom of the screen, with the word “Undo” on the right side.

From there, you’ve got approximately seven seconds to reconsider your life choices through a cinematic-style montage of increasingly horrific butterfly effects that will unfold over the coming months and weeks until you’re left dead in by the side of the road in a pit of jagged glass and self-loathing.

All of that because of one stupid email. You’re better than that, friend.

Go with Plan B by clicking Undo, and it will bring you back to the body of said email as a draft. The future is bright and wide open. See, was that so hard? I’m not saying you shouldn’t send any emails, ever. That’s just silly. I’m just saying choose your words a bit more careful next time is all. I’m looking out for you here. 

The feature is live now, though it appears to only work with emails sent from Gmail addresses within the app.

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Tinder’s latest feature, Tinder U, is only for college students

Tinder is today rolling out what may be one of its smartest additions yet with the launch of Tinder U, a feature designed specifically for Tinder users in college. Once enabled, students with a .edu email address will be able to register with their school, then swipe on students who also attend their school or others nearby. Beyond limiting potential matches to other students, the overall Tinder experience is unchanged.

Students will still be able to view each others’ profiles, swipe right and left to match or pass, message mutual matches, use Super Likes, and more.

To use Tinder U, students will first have to be geolocated on campus and log in to the Tinder app using their .edu email address. They’ll then have to check their inbox for the verification email and tap the button to confirm their account.

After completing this process, users will be in the Tinder U experience the next time they launch the app.

Here, students will see their school’s logo appear at the top of the screen, and individual profile photos will have flair on the bottom left to indicate the user’s school. Tinder U doesn’t prevent users from swiping off campus, however – using a toggle button at the top of the screen, users can choose to swipe by location instead, or by Tinder Picks by toggling over to the diamond icon (if available).

Tinder U makes sense for the company, whose user base already skews younger – it has said before that half its user base is between 18 and 24, for example. And dating apps’ usage, in general, among this age group has roughly tripped from 10% in 2013 to 27% by 2016, according to Pew Research. And of course, there’s the fact that Tinder itself got its start on college campuses – a market that’s young, single, and more willing to adopt mobile dating apps than other, older demographics.

Tinder says the new feature is launching initially on iOS devices at 4-year, accredited, not-for-profit schools in the U.S. that deliver courses in a traditional face-to-face learning format – meaning, no online universities or virtual schools will be supported. The company didn’t provide a timeframe for the Android release.

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Braavo raises $6M for its app financing business

Braavo, a startup that provides financing to mobile app developers, is announcing that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding.

The might not seem like much compared to the $70 million that Braavo announced raising last year, but that was debt financing, used to loan money to developers. This new round is equity financing, used to fund Braavo’s own operations and growth.

Co-founder Mark Loranger told me Braavo was founded in 2015 in response to the “new dynamics” of mobile app businesses. And it’s worked with developers including Verv, Fanatee an Pixite.

“The data is there to create ways to provide financing to companies that otherwise would have to raise more [venture funding] and dilute themselves,” Loranger said.

For its first financing product, Braavo looks at Apple App Store and Google Play data, specifically the amount of money already earned by an app but not yet paid out. It can then provide an advance on some of that revenue.

Loranger described Braavo’s newer product as “more exciting” and “more data-driven.” It looks at user acquisition, user engagement and revenue, projecting how revenue would grow if a developer had more money for user acquisition — and then it can provide debt financing for that growth.

Braavo gets paid back as “a fixed percentage of future earnings,” Loranger said, so its incentives are aligned with the developers: “We only make our money back as they earn more revenue in the future.” And if app revenue doesn’t grow as anticipated, that just means Braavo gets paid back more slowly.

“We’ve never, ever lost a dime,” he said.

The company is also announcing the launch of a new analytics product that will allow businesses to track key metrics like the lifetime value of their customers.

Loranger said this will be available for free to anyone to anyone with a “revenue-generating mobile app business.” Rather than charging for the product directly, the goal is to “create more success for mobile app business that may end up qualifying for funding.”

The new round brings Braavo’s total equity financing to nearly $8 million. It was led by e.ventures, with participation from SWS Venture Capital (founded by Green Dot CEO Steve Streit) and Shipt CEO Bill Smith.

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Tinder’s latest feature, Tinder U, is only for college students

Tinder is today rolling out what may be one of its smartest additions yet with the launch of Tinder U, a feature designed specifically for Tinder users in college. Once enabled, students with a .edu email address will be able to register with their school, then swipe on students who also attend their school or others nearby. Beyond limiting potential matches to other students, the overall Tinder experience is unchanged.

Students will still be able to view each others’ profiles, swipe right and left to match or pass, message mutual matches, use Super Likes, and more.

To use Tinder U, students will first have to be geolocated on campus and log in to the Tinder app using their .edu email address. They’ll then have to check their inbox for the verification email and tap the button to confirm their account.

After completing this process, users will be in the Tinder U experience the next time they launch the app.

Here, students will see their school’s logo appear at the top of the screen, and individual profile photos will have flair on the bottom left to indicate the user’s school. Tinder U doesn’t prevent users from swiping off campus, however – using a toggle button at the top of the screen, users can choose to swipe by location instead, or by Tinder Picks by toggling over to the diamond icon (if available).

Tinder U makes sense for the company, whose user base already skews younger – it has said before that half its user base is between 18 and 24, for example. And dating apps’ usage, in general, among this age group has roughly tripped from 10% in 2013 to 27% by 2016, according to Pew Research. And of course, there’s the fact that Tinder itself got its start on college campuses – a market that’s young, single, and more willing to adopt mobile dating apps than other, older demographics.

Tinder says the new feature is launching initially on iOS devices at 4-year, accredited, not-for-profit schools in the U.S. that deliver courses in a traditional face-to-face learning format – meaning, no online universities or virtual schools will be supported. The company didn’t provide a timeframe for the Android release.

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Google Fit gets a redesign, adds Heart Points and coaching

Google Fit is getting a major update today. The company’s activity tracking app has been around for a few years now but until today, it pretty much worked and looked that same as on the day it launched. Today’s redesign is quite a departure from that old look and feel, though, and it also introduces quite a few new features that help take the service in a new direction.

The most obvious new feature in the new version is that instead of only focusing on active minutes (or ‘Move Minutes’ as they are called now), Google has now introduces the concept of Heart Points. With this, you don’t just score points for moving but the app will also give you extra points for activities that actually get your heart beating a bit faster. Google Fit will give you one point for every minute of moderate activity and double points for more intense activities (think running or kickboxing). You won’t be able to buy anything with those points, but you’re more likely to live longer, so there’s that.

Like before, Google Fit will automatically track your activities thanks to the sensors in your phone or Wear OS watch. You can always manually add activities, too, or use apps like Strava, Runkeeper, Endomondo and MyFitnessPal to get credit for the workouts you track with them.

What’s also new in this update is actionable coaching, something that was sorely missing from the old version. It remains to be seen how useful this new feature is in day-to-day use, but the idea here is to give you feedback on how active you’ve been throughout the week and help you stay motivated.

What I’m actually the most excited about, though, is the new look and feel. Based on the screenshots Google has shared so far, the app now provides you with far more details at a glance, without having to dig into timelines (which weren’t all that usable in the old version to begin with).

The new version is now rolling out to Android and Wear OS users.

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