10 December 2018

Instagram launches walkie-talkie voice messaging


You’d think Facebook would be faster at copying itself. Five years after Facebook Messenger took a cue from WhatsApp and Voxer to launch voice messaging, and four months after TechCrunch reported Instagram was testing its own walkie talkie feature, voice messaging is rolling out globally on Instagram Direct today.

Users can hold down the microphone button to record a short voice message that appears in the chat as an audio wave form that recipients can then listen to at their leisure.  Voice messages are up to one-minute long, stay permanently listenable rather than disappearing, and work in one-on-one and group chats on iOS and Android. The feature offers an off-camera asynchronous alternative to the video calling feature Instagram released in June. It will have to compete with Viber, Zello, and Telegram as well as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for the use case.

Hands-free Direct messaging could make Instagram a more appealing chat app for drivers, people on the move with their hands full, or users in the developing world who want a more intimate connection without having to pay for the data for long audio or video calls. It could also be a win for users in countries with less popular languages or ones that aren’t easily compatible with smartphone keyboards, as they could talk to friends instead of typing.

The launch deepens Facebook’s entry into the voice market. From its first voice messaging and VOIP features back in 2013 to its new voice control system Aloha that works on its recently launched Portal video chat screen, Facebook has long taken an interest in the accessibility of voice but only got serious about building it across its products in 2018. Along with Instagram video calling, today launch raises the question of whether Portal and Instagram will team up. That could make Portal more useful…but also risks making Instagram less cool by tightening its ties to Facebook.


Read Full Article

Instagram launches walkie-talkie voice messaging


You’d think Facebook would be faster at copying itself. Five years after Facebook Messenger took a cue from WhatsApp and Voxer to launch voice messaging, and four months after TechCrunch reported Instagram was testing its own walkie talkie feature, voice messaging is rolling out globally on Instagram Direct today.

Users can hold down the microphone button to record a short voice message that appears in the chat as an audio wave form that recipients can then listen to at their leisure.  Voice messages are up to one-minute long, stay permanently listenable rather than disappearing, and work in one-on-one and group chats on iOS and Android. The feature offers an off-camera asynchronous alternative to the video calling feature Instagram released in June. It will have to compete with Viber, Zello, and Telegram as well as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for the use case.

Hands-free Direct messaging could make Instagram a more appealing chat app for drivers, people on the move with their hands full, or users in the developing world who want a more intimate connection without having to pay for the data for long audio or video calls. It could also be a win for users in countries with less popular languages or ones that aren’t easily compatible with smartphone keyboards, as they could talk to friends instead of typing.

 

The launch deepens Facebook’s entry into the voice market. From its first voice messaging and VOIP features back in 2013 to its new voice control system Aloha that works on its recently launched Portal video chat screen, Facebook has long taken an interest in the accessibility of voice but only got serious about building it across its products in 2018. Along with Instagram video calling, today launch raises the question of whether Portal and Instagram will team up. That could make Portal more useful…but also risks making Instagram less cool by tightening its ties to Facebook.


Read Full Article

Google+ security bug gave developers access to non-public data from 52.5M users


Google+ was a bit of a disaster for the company when it was still alive and now that it’s walking dead, it’s becoming even more of a stone around its neck. After disclosing a major security bug in October that affected just under half a million users, it announced that the service would shut down in August 2019. But things are getting worse. Today, the company announced a new security hole, one that it found last month, that left some data from about 52.5 million users up for grabs from apps that used the Google+ API.

Because every bug seems to move up the Google+ shutdown date, Google also today announced that the service will now close in April 2019. All Google+ APIs will shut down within the next 90 days.

The new bug, which was only live for about six days in early November, is related to the Google+ People API. It allowed apps that requested the permission to view profile information from users like their names, email address, occupation, gender, birthday, relationship status and age to access this information, even when that data was set to non-public.

It gets worse, though, apps that had access to this data also had access to profile data that had been shared with the user by another Google+ users but that wasn’t shared publicly.

Google says that it doesn’t have any evidence that developers ever realized that they had access to this data (the advantage of running a social network that few people still use, I guess) or that the data was misused in any way. It also stresses that these apps only had access to this data for six days. The bug was introduced, detected and fixed within the period of one week from November 7 to 13 of this year.

The last time around, Google was heavily criticized for waiting far too long to disclose the bug. This time, people in the know inside the company tell me that they decided to react quickly after going through the internal disclosure process, in part because the company wants to show more transparency.

“We understand that our ability to build reliable products that protect your data drives user trust,” the company writes in a blog post today. “We have always taken this seriously, and we continue to invest in our privacy programs to refine internal privacy review processes, create powerful data controls, and engage with users, researchers, and policymakers to get their feedback and improve our programs. We will never stop our work to build privacy protections that work for everyone.”

 

 


Read Full Article

Laptop Issues


Laptop Issues

Google Maps’ new personalized suggestions come to iOS


A more personalized version of Google Maps is now arriving on iOS. At Google’s I/O developer conference earlier this year, the company introduced a series of new features designed to help Google Maps users learn what’s happening around them, track area businesses to receive updates about their events and promotions, and receive personalized suggestions of places to visit, dine, and more. The latter now appear in a “For You” tab in the revamped Google Maps app, which first arrived on Android this June.

Today, the feature is rolling out more broadly.

According to Google, the “For You” tab is now making its way to over 130  more countries on Android and is launching on iOS across 40+ countries.

When switching over to this tab, you’ll see any number of suggestions – from newly opened places to visit or restaurants to try to new pop-ups – to new menu items at favorite restaurants and restaurant suggestions Google thinks you’d like to try. It bases these on your personal tastes and preferences it’s inferred from your use of the Google Maps app, including what sort of businesses you search and follow.

The “For You” tab can also help you with travel planning, by making suggestions of places before you depart, Google notes.

To get better recommendations, you’ll want to follow local businesses you like in Google Maps, or even neighborhoods you frequent, to personalize your suggestions further.

The feature is part of a larger overhaul of Google Maps that’s aiming to challenge Facebook as the place where businesses offer updates of their goings-on, news about their sales, events, and other information they want to share with customers – as well as target potential new customers through ads and being featured in users’ recommendations.

In October, Google Maps launched the “Follow” button for tracking businesses, and last month rolled out a new “Google My Business” app for business owners, so they could more easily create and publish content to their business profile on Google.

With these products in place – content publication tools and the ability for users to follow that content – Google is now ready to turn those signals into personalized suggestions. You’ll find it at the bottom of the Google Maps app, where it will show you potential “matches” (and the percentage for the match), plus news about recent openings, trending spots, and other suggestions.

The company says the “For You” tab is rolling out starting today across the new markets and on iOS.


Read Full Article

How Uber will become an ad company, starting with Eats Pool


Where there is discovery in an app, there is paid discovery. Google helped you choose between links, then sold ads that promote a few. Facebook helped you choose between pieces of content, then sold ads that promote a few. And eventually, as Uber helps you choose between restaurants, it will sell ads that promote a few. It could become the marketing platform through which the physical world vies for your attention.

We got our first glimpse of this future last week when I reported that Uber Eats was offering restaurants in India bonus visibility in a Specials section if they’d offer discounts on meal bundles to Uber’s customers. Knock some rupees off the price of a sandwich, fries, and a drink, and a restaurants wins itself some enhanced discoverability. Whether a chef wants to boost orders during slow hours, get rid of surplus food, preference high margin items, or just score new customers, there’s plenty of reasons to pay Uber — even if currently only indirectly through discounts instead of a direct ad buy.

But now Uber’s senior director and head of Eats product Stephen Chau has confirmed to me the company’s intentions to become an ad company. “There’s a bunch of different ways we can work with restaurants over time. If we have all the restaurants on the marketplace and we give them tools to help them grow, then this will be a very efficient marketplace. They’re going to be spending those ad dollars somewhere” Chau tells me. “One of the things we’ve been experimenting with is allowing retailers to create promotions themselves and show them within the product.”

This conversation emerged from TechCrunch spotting Uber’s latest effort to influence where people choose to eat. To be worthy of ad dollars, Uber has to build leverage over restaurants by accruing sway over how people decide between restaurants. And with Uber confidentially filing to go public last week, it needs to prep new revenue streams. So it’s created what’s effectively “Uber Eats Pool”.

In response to our inquiry, Uber confirmed it’s now testing in some markets a system designed to batch multiple orders from different customers nearby each other to a single restaurant. That way, a single delivery driver can pick up all the orders at once and then speedily distribute them to neighbors or co-workers. Uber must incentivize customers who are close to each other to pick the same restaurant in rapid succession, so it offers a discount.

“$2 off your order — share a courier with a nearby order” the promotion announces atop the Uber Eats homescreen above a carousel of restaurants where you can grab the discount. It’s equipped with a countdown timer to when it will refresh the list of restaurants that follows users on an eatery’s order page. This triggers a sense of urgency to hurriedly buy through Uber Eats (and not check competitors), but also to ensure orders come in close enough together that the first one cooked won’t have to wait long for the last before they’re all scooped up for delivery.

Some customers actually play the Uber Eats Pool discounts like a game they can beat, waiting through several rounds of the timer until they spot one of their favorite restaurants, Chau says with a laugh. For now, passengers don’t ride alongside food orders, though that’s certainly a possibility in the future. And if Uber Eats can batch your order into a Pool with other customers, it will retroactively give you the discount.

“It’s similar to what we did with Uber Pool” Chau tells me. “Generally people are coming in with an intent to eat but there are many, many options available to them. We’re giving you a discount on the food delivery by using machine learning to understand these are some restaurants it might make sense to order from. When multiple people order from the same restaurant, delivery drivers can pick up multiple people’s food.”

Therein lies the leverage. As Stratechery’s Ben Thompson writes about aggregation theory, internet companies are gaining great influence by becoming marketplaces that connect customers with suppliers when previously customers preemptively chose a particular supplier. These platforms not only gain enormous amounts of data on customer preferences, but they also hold the power to point customers to certain suppliers that are willing to play ball.

With all the data, the platforms know just who to show the ads to for a maximum conversion rate. And over time as the aggregator’s perks lure in more customers, it can pit suppliers against each other to further drop their prices or pay more for ads. Spotify used its own playlists to control what songs became popular, and the artists and record labels became beholden to cutting it sweeter deals to stay visible. Amazon looks like the best place to shop because it makes merchants fiercely fight to offer the lowest prices and best customer experience. With Uber Eats Pool, Uber is flexing its ability to influence where you eat, training you to trust where it points you when businesses eventually pay directly to be ranked higher in its app.

“Eats proves the power and potential of the Uber platform, showing how our logistics expertise can create the easiest way to eat” Chau tells me. “We partner with a wide selection of restaurants and bring our trademark speed and coverage to the food delivery experience. This feature shows how leveraging the Uber network allows us to offer people even more affordable dining options.” That quote is even more telling than at first glance. It’s the logistic network that accrues the power and creates leverage over the supplier to benefit customers with the lowest prices.

“We can see on Eats how much more business they’re bringing in and how much is incremental new business. Eventually we’ll be able to do very precise targeting. ‘People who haven’t tried my restaurant before, let’s give them a discount'” Chau tells us. Restaurants are asking him how to grow delivery as a percentage of their orders. “We can see the types of food people are ordering right now but also what they’re searching or are not able to order [because that cuisine isn’t available nearby]. We’re working with them to create new options to fill that gap. They’re able to get much more utilization of their fixed assets and iterate on these concepts much faster than they’re used to.”

Uber demonstrated the data science it could dangle over restaurants with its review of Uber Eats 2018 trends it published this morning. It predicts clean eating, plant-based foods, smoothie bowls, milk alternatives, fermented items like kimchi, and Instagrammably dark ‘goth food’ will rise in popularity next year. Meanwhile, now-tired social media bait ‘rainbow-colored foods’, brussel sprouts, and seaweed are on the decline.

It becomes easy to imagine restaurants running Uber Eats software for tracking order trends and predicting spikes to better manage food and staffing resources, with a baked-in option to buy ads or give deeper discounts to get seen by more hungry people. Chau concludes “Restaurants can think of Uber Eats as a platform that gives them this intelligence.”


Read Full Article

12 YouTube Christmas Movies to Buy or Rent Over the Holidays


christmas-movies

Christmas movies can be pretty hit and miss. The good ones don’t come around too often, and the old ones tend to get a rolled out time and time again.

But if there’s one time of year to give in to shameless nostalgia, it’s Christmas. In addition to YouTube’s catalog of free public domain movies, there are plenty of holiday favorites available to buy or rent.

Here are the best Christmas movies to watch on YouTube this holiday season.

1. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Have you ever wanted a perfect Christmas? So has Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase). When the whole family announces they’re coming for Christmas, Clark’s plans of a perfect holiday are dashed. Repeatedly.

From the acquisition of a Christmas tree, to accidentally wiring 25,000 bulbs to the light switch in the garage, almost everything that could go wrong at Christmas does go wrong. This is the third film in the long-running National Lampoon’s Vacation series, and it’s probably the best of the bunch.

2. Home Alone (1990)

Is Home Alone the best Christmas film of all time? If you were born sometime between 1985 and 1995, it probably is. Follow the antics of Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) as his family accidentally boards a flight to Paris without him.

In their absence, the McAllister residence is targeted by inept thieves Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). It’s up to Kevin to fend off the bandits, overcome his fears, and spread a little Christmas cheer to the scary old man who lives down the road.

3. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

Another Christmas for the McAllister family, and another trip out of Chicago. This time the family heads for the warmer climate of Florida, except for Kevin who mistakenly boards a plane to New York instead.

While much of the format (and brutal Rube Goldberg-esque traps) remain the same, Home Alone 2 isn’t quite as magical as the first. It’s still worth a watch for Tim Curry’s stellar performance as a fumbling concierge, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from none other than Donald Trump.

4. Die Hard (1988)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1eS3c8S3Uk

Don’t let anyone tell you Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie. It’s a movie, it takes place at Christmas, and it features festive mainstays like Christmas parties, German terrorists, and a burning high rise in the heart of Los Angeles.

So while it probably doesn’t sound festive on paper, it’s still the best Christmas action movie ever made. While Bruce Willis’ performance as John McClane shot him to fame as a man of action, it’s Hans Gruber (played by the late Alan Rickman) who really steals the show.

5. Krampus (2015)

From the best Christmas action movie to the best Christmas horror movie. In terms of genre-mashing, horror and holidays go together like blood-soaked holly and poisonous ivy.

This refreshing take on the mythical European half-goat, half-demon who punishes children at Christmastime manages to be both unsettling and heartwarming at the same time.

6. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Charles Dickens probably didn’t foresee his Victorian Christmas ghost story being turned into a musical for children with singing stuffed animals, but he’d probably be thrilled with the result. Michael Caine is perfectly cast as Mr Scrooge, while Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and all of your other favorite Muppets fill in the rest of the cast.

This recounting of a Christmas classic gets the balance of festive frivolity and somber self-development just right for the whole family to enjoy. If you love Christmas music, you’ll love this film.

7. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Tired of the same old Halloween fare, Jack Skellington (Danny Elfman) decides to have a crack at Christmas. The problem is that the inhabitants of Halloween Town don’t quite understand the spirit of Christmas, with dire consequences.

There’s much debate about whether Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Christmas movie or one of the best Halloween movies. The answer is that it’s both, and it’s best enjoyed in that gap between October 31 and December 25.

8. Elf (2003)

Before Anchorman, Will Ferrell was best known for his portrayal of Buddy, a human being who was raised as an elf at the North Pole. After inadvertently crawling into Santa’s sack of presents one Christmas Eve as a baby, Buddy spends the following thirty years in the company of elves a fraction of his size.

Now its time for him to face the fact that he’s not really an Elf, and to find his real family.

9. Gremlins (1984)

When Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) receives a mysterious Christmas gift from his father, it comes with a few basic rules: don’t expose it to light, don’t get it wet, and never feed it after midnight.

The gift is a Mogwai, one of the cutest fictional creatures ever to come out of the 80s. Unfortunately, Mogwais don’t remain cute and fluffy if you expose them to light, get them wet, or feed them after midnight. Looking for more 80s classics? Check out the best 80s movies to watch on Netflix.

10. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3P5TjtStCY

There’s nothing wrong with a Christmas classic, and Miracle on 34th Street certainly fits that brief. The 1947 film tells the story of a charming old man who takes on the role of Santa Claus for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Trouble starts when the man refers to himself as Kris Kringle and claims to really be Santa Claus. It’s not long before the man finds himself in court, having to prove that he is, in fact, the real deal, forcing the courtroom to reexamine a few of their own beliefs.

11. Bad Santa (2003)

Willie and Marcus (Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox) are posing as Santa and his helper, with big plans to rob a department store on Christmas Eve. But Willie is more washed up than ever this year, drinking heavily, and threatening to put the whole plan in jeopardy.

Worse still, a troubled young boy turns up believing that Willie is indeed the real Santa. Thus begins the festive (and definitely not-for-kids) tale of a fugitive who finally learns the true meaning of Christmas.

12. The Night Before (2015)

When three childhood friends decide to end their Christmas Eve tradition of spending the night on the town, they decide to go out with a bang. What follows is an evening of crass humor, inebriation, and self-discovery.

That’s right, it’s a Seth Rogen movie set at Christmas. It’s got all the usual Seth Rogen hallmarks, set against the backdrop of Christmas in New York. If you like the laughs to come thick and fast over the holidays, don’t forget to check out the best Neflix comedies you may have overlooked.

Did We Miss Your Favorite Christmas Movie?

There are so many Christmas films, and we would estimate just 10 percent of them are worth your time. This list is far from exhaustive, but it covers a good selection of holiday movies that you can watch right now with minimal hassle.

We’re sure you have your own favorite Christmas movies. If none of these fancy your tastes, consider checking out these Christmas movies to watch on Netflix. Merry Christmas!

Image Credit: HASLOO/Depositphotos

Read the full article: 12 YouTube Christmas Movies to Buy or Rent Over the Holidays


Read Full Article

7 Ways to Organize Apple Notes for Smarter Productivity


apple-notes

Apple Notes is more than an ordinary note-taking app. It got a functional makeover and new features starting in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. If you’ve just started using Apple Notes or want to migrate from Evernote, you’ll want to make the best use of its features and day-to-day usage workflows.

The simplicity and uncluttered interface of Apple Notes hide some of its best features and organizational capabilities. We’ll show you how to organize Apple Notes and take advantage of the built-in features to get your work done faster.

1. Organizing Notes in Folders

Apple Notes lets you organize your notes into folders for ease of wading through them. To create a new folder, choose File > New Folder, or click New Folder below the list on the left. Type in the name of the folder and press Return. Then drag your notes into the folder.

If you hold Option as you drag a note, you’ll make a copy of it in the new folder instead of moving the original. You can also create a new note within a folder. To do this, click the folder’s name first and type your note. If you don’t click any folder’s name, then the note you create goes into the default Notes folder.

create new folder in apple notes

On the iOS, tap New Folder from the Folders screen. Name your folder, then tap Save. In the notes list, tap Edit.

Tap the note or notes you want to move, then tap Move To and choose a folder or create a new one. The list of accounts and folders you create on your Mac shows up on your iOS device as well.

move notes to a new folder in ios

2. Nest Folders Onto Others to Organize Notes

nest folder onto another on mac

Apple Notes also let you create subfolders to further organize folders and their notes. On a Mac, just drag and drop a folder on top of another. It adds a disclosure triangle next to the folder and places the moved folder into the other.

On iOS, you can’t nest a folder insider another. However, Notes on iOS will sync the subfolders you create on your Mac.

3. Use the Attachments Browser to Organize Files

The Attachment Browser gives you a visual way to hunt through the files you’ve attached to notes, organized by category in a single screen. It includes photos, videos, audio, web links, scans, and documents. No other popular note-taking apps, including OneNote and Evernote, take this approach to letting you browse content.

On your Mac, click the Attachment Browser (grid with four squares) button on the toolbar, or press Cmd + 1. Click a category to see those types of attachments.

On iOS, the Attachment Browser button is located at the bottom-left of the Notes list.

attachments browser in apple notes

With this feature, you can organize notes and their attachments. To do this, right-click an attachment in the Attachment Browser and choose Show in Note from the contextual menu. Now drag and drop the content into another note, or delete it.

If you forget why you added an attachment in the first place, then you can take a quick peek with the Quick Look feature. Right-click the attachment and choose Quick Look Attachment from the context menu. With Quick Look, you can preview dozens of notes without opening them.

open notes in attachment browser to organize notes

4. Use Emojis in Folder Names

Having too many folders is a problem because Notes doesn’t let you customize folder names. You can’t choose a background, assign colored labels, or set tags. It results in dull lists of folders with no visual differentiation, making them difficult to identify.

But you can put an emoji either before or after the folder name. If you place an emoji before the name, Notes alphabetically sorts those with emojis at the top of the list. You’ll end up with a folder underneath the top-level Notes folder.

When you place an emoji at the end of a folder name, they just get highlighted.

emojis in folder names to differentiate folders

You have multiple ways to type emojis on a Mac. But the built-in emoji picker is slow. Sometimes its search does not reveal emojis for a particular context, and navigating the picker is time-consuming. For a better way, use this emoji picker workflow for Alfred to speed up the process.

insert emoji with an alfred workflow

On iOS, you’ll need to enable the emoji keyboard. To insert an emoji on a folder name, tap on the text input field. After you type in the folder name, press the key between the 123 and Dictation keys that has a smiley face on it.

inserting emoji on ios

5. Use Custom Images to Differentiate Notes

Images are powerful visual cues. You can attach an image for every note, or only the important ones. With this simple trick, you can find the right notes faster and also help your memory organize notes in different folders.

Put the cursor just below the title of a note. Then choose Window > Photo Browser and drag the photo from the browser to the cursor location. Right-click the image and select View as Small Images from the context menu.

Instead of a picture, you can also paste a logo or symbol if you prefer.

use custom images to find notes

6. Use Hashtags to Quickly Search Notes

One feature that Apple Notes lacks is tags. But if you need tags to organize your notes, it’s possible to use this feature in Notes with a small hack.

After you type your note, put a hashtag at the beginning or end of the note. Press Cmd + Space to launch Spotlight. Then put a hashtag along with the word you used in a note. Spotlight will pick up that note from the hashtag, but does not pinpoint the tags to their actual location in a note.

search Apple Notes tags with spotlight on mac

On iOS, the hashtag system works in a similar way. Swipe down from the middle of the Home screen to open a search field, where you can type your search term. Spotlight searches your notes and will pinpoint the tags to their actual location in a note.

Do remember that this hashtag system doesn’t work well with multiple tags.

searching tags in apple notes for ios

7. Integration With the Calendar and Reminder Apps

The built-in apps Calendar and Reminders work great with Notes, although this might not be obvious in the beginning. To create a reminder from Notes, select a text snippet and choose Share > Reminders from the context menu.

add a note to the reminders app

In the dialog that appears, either keep the default text (in this case, the text snippet you selected) or type your own. Click the Info button to add a time-based alarm to a reminder.

Select the On a Day checkbox, change the date, and click Add. In the Reminders app, click the tiny Notes icon to open the linked notes directly in Apple Notes.

create a custom alarm for a note

On iOS, open the note you want a reminder about, then launch Siri and say Remind me about this. Siri will copy the content of the note to a reminder and link to it.

If you find it awkward to use Siri in public, then go to Settings > General > Accessibility. Tap Siri and toggle Type to Siri. Then you can enter commands via the keyboard instead.

To create a calendar event from Notes, hover your mouse over a date until the popover menu appears. Then choose Quick Look Event from the context menu.

create an event from apple notes in mac

Click the Details button, type in the title, and add notes or a URL to the event. Lastly, click Add to Calendar.

add details to the calendar

You can use this feature to track online subscriptions, for example. Create a table and list all your subscriptions. Make two columns for Purchase Date and Expiry Date. Then add the details of the event and save it.

You might want to set the alert a week earlier so that you take necessary steps to either continue or cancel the subscription in time.

Tips for Faster Note-Taking

Apple Notes does lack a few features, but these omissions don’t detract from the usefulness of the app. In the future, Apple should make these features easier to discover. In the meantime, you can use these tips to start better organizing your notes.

What if you find the entire process of note-taking cumbersome? It takes time and practice to develop a systematic workflow. To improve yours, check out some great time-saving shortcuts to take notes faster.

Read the full article: 7 Ways to Organize Apple Notes for Smarter Productivity


Read Full Article

Google has acquired one of India’s most popular train tracking apps


Google is increasing its efforts in India after it snapped up the team behind popular transportation app ‘Where is my Train.’

The app claims 10 million registered users and, as the name suggests, it helps commuters track arrivals and departures as well as buying seats. That’s no small job given that India is estimated to operate some 14,000 trains on a daily basis across the country. The app is for Android, it works offline or with poor connectivity and supports eight languages. It is rivaled by VC-backed companies like RailYatri and iXigo.

There’s no official price for the deal, although India’s Economic Times is reporting that it is in the region of $30-$40 million. The site reported on Google’s interest back in August, when it wrote that other suitors included Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. A Google spokesperson confirmed the deal to TechCrunch, but declined to provide a price.

Sigmoid Labs, the company that develops the train app, was founded by four former TiVo executives in 2013. Economic Times reports that it has around 10 staff. It is unclear how much money it has raised to date.

The company told customers news of the acquisition on its website earlier today.

“We can think of no better place to help us achieve our mission, and we’re excited to join Google to help bring technology and information into more people’s hands,” its founders wrote.

Google said that the Where is my Train team would “continue to build on the current offering,” so it seems that the app won’t be shuttered, immediately at least.

The service’s significant userbase would suggest that Google might look to develop and expand its scope to perhaps touch on other areas. Ride-hailing apps, for example, have moved into adjacent spaces including entertainment, payments and food delivery to take advantage of their position as daily apps.

That’s all conjecture at this point. But it also stands to reason that Google could fold it into other apps, including Google Maps, although that certainly isn’t the plan at this point.

The deal falls under Google’s ‘Next Billion User’ division which is developing products and services to help increase internet adoption in emerging markets. To date that has focused strongly on India where Google has developed data-friendly ‘lite’ versions of popular apps like YouTube, and initiatives like public WiFi for India’s rail network that’s used by over eight million people.

The scope has also covered services, with Google looking at apps that provide information and utility to Indian consumers. Google launched an on-demand app and a mobile payment service last year, and this year it released a neighborhood Q&A service. The Where is my Train deal certainly fits that strategy and you’d imagine it’ll become a core part of Google’s consumer-facing product line in India.

The deal is also one of the most significant to date for a U.S-based tech firm in India. Facebook, Twitter, Google and even Yahoo have made acquisitions to build teams or acquire talent but Where is my Train seems significantly more strategic as a product.


Read Full Article

China’s JD.com teams up with Intel to develop ‘smart’ retail experiences


Months after it landed a major $550 million investment from Google, China’s JD.com — the country’s second highest-profile investor behind Alibaba — has teamed up with another U.S. tech giant: Intel.

JD and Intel said today that they will set up a “lab” focused on bringing internet-of-things technology into the retail process. That could include new-generation vending machines, advertising experiences, and more.

That future is mostly offline — or, in China tech speak, ‘online-to-offline’ retail — but combining the benefits of e-commerce with brick and mortar physical retail shopping. Already, for example, customers can order ahead of time and come in store for collection, buy items without a checkout, take advantage of ‘smart shelves’ or simply try products in person before they buy them.

Indeed, TechCrunch recently visited a flagship JD ‘7Fresh’ store in Beijing and reported on the hybrid approach that the company is taking.

JD is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent and valued at nearly $30 billion. The company already works with Intel on personalized shopping experiences, but this new lab is focused on taking things further with new projects and working to “facilitate their introduction to global markets.”

“The Digitized Retail Joint Lab will develop next-generation vending machines, media and advertising solutions, and technologies to be used in the stores of the future, based on Intel architecture,” the companies said in a joint announcement.

JD currently operates three 7Fresh stores in China but it is aiming to expand that network to 30. It has also forayed overseas, stepping into Southeast Asia with the launch of cashier-less stores in Indonesia this year.


Read Full Article