Daily Crunch: Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Fold

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Unfolding the Samsung Galaxy Fold

After eight years of teasing a folding device, Samsung finally pulled the trigger with an announcement at its developer’s conference late last year. But the device itself remained mysterious.

Earlier this week, Brian Heater finally held the Galaxy Fold in his hands, and he was pretty impressed.

2. YouTube’s algorithm added 9/11 facts to a live stream of the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire

Some viewers following live coverage of the Notre-Dame Cathedral broadcast on YouTube were met with a strangely out-of-place info box offering facts about the September 11 attacks. Ironically, the feature is supposed to fact check topics that generate misinformation on the platform.

3. Hulu buys back AT&T’s minority stake in streaming service now valued at $15 billion

Disney now has a 67 percent ownership stake in Hulu — which it gained, in part, through its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Comcast has a 33 percent stake.

4. I asked the US government for my immigration file and all I got were these stupid photos

The “I” in question is our security reporter Zack Whittaker, who filed a Freedom of Information request with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to obtain all of the files the government had collected on him in order to process his green card application. Seven months later, disappointment.

5. TikTok downloads ordered to be blocked on iOS and Android in India over porn and other illegal content

Video app TikTok has become a global success, but it stumbled hard in one of the world’s biggest mobile markets, India, over illicit content.

6. Smart speakers’ installed base to top 200 million by year end

Canalys forecasts the installed base will grow by 82.4 percent, from 114 million units in 2018 to 207.9 million in 2019.

7. Salesforce ‘acquires’ Salesforce.org for $300M in a wider refocus on the nonprofit sector

The company announced that it will integrate Salesforce.org — which had been a reseller of Salesforce software and services to the nonprofit sector — into Salesforce itself as part of a new nonprofit and education vertical.

Read Full Article

Take Your Best Selfie Automatically, with Photobooth on Pixel 3

Posted by Navid Shiee, Senior Software Engineer and Aseem Agarwala, Staff Research Scientist, Google AI

Taking a good group selfie can be tricky—you need to hover your finger above the shutter, keep everyone’s faces in the frame, look at the camera, make good expressions, try not to shake the camera and hope no one blinks when you finally press the shutter! After building the technology behind automatic photography with Google Clips, we asked ourselves: can we bring some of the magic of this automatic picture experience to the Pixel phone?

With Photobooth, a new shutter-free mode in the Pixel 3 Camera app, it’s now easier to shoot selfies—solo, couples, or even groups—that capture you at your best. Once you enter Photobooth mode and click the shutter button, it will automatically take a photo when the camera is steady and it sees that the subjects have good expressions with their eyes open. And in the newest release of Pixel Camera, we’ve added kiss detection to Photobooth! Kiss a loved one, and the camera will automatically capture it.

Photobooth automatically captures group shots, when everyone in the photo looks their best.

Photobooth joins Top Shot and Portrait mode in a suite of exciting Pixel camera features that enable you to take the best pictures possible. However, unlike Portrait mode, which takes advantage of specialized hardware in the back-facing camera to provide its most accurate results, Photobooth is optimized for the front-facing camera. To build Photobooth, we had to solve for three challenges: how to identify good content for a wide range of user groups; how to time the shutter to capture the best moment; and how to animate a visual element that helps users understand what Photobooth sees and captures.

Models for Understanding Good Content
In developing Photobooth, a main challenge was to determine when there was good content in either a typical selfie, in which the subjects are all looking at the camera, or in a shot that includes people kissing and not necessarily facing the camera. To accomplish this, Photobooth relies on two distinct models to capture good selfies—a model for facial expressions and a model to detect when people kiss.

We worked with photographers to identify five key expressions that should trigger capture: smiles, tongue-out, kissy/duck face, puffy-cheeks, and surprise. We then trained a neural network to classify these expressions. The kiss detection model used by Photobooth is a variation of the Image Content Model (ICM) trained for Google Clips, fine tuned specifically to focus on kissing. Both of these models use MobileNets in order to run efficiently on-device while continuously processing the images at high frame rate. The outputs of the models are used to evaluate the quality of each frame for the shutter control algorithm.

Shutter Control
Once you click the shutter button in Photobooth mode, a basic quality assessment based on the content score from the models above is performed. This first stage is used as a filter that avoids moments that either contain closed eyes, talking, or motion blur, or fail to detect the facial expressions or kissing actions learned by the models. Photobooth temporally analyzes the expression confidence values to detect their presence in the photo, making it robust to variations in the output of machine learning (ML) models. Once the first stage is successfully passed, each frame is subjected to a more fine-grained analysis, which outputs an overall frame score.

The frame score considers both facial expression quality and the kiss score. As the kiss detection model operates on the entire frame, its output can be used directly as a full-frame score value for kissing. The face expressions model outputs a score for each identified expression. Since a variable number of faces may be present in each frame, Photobooth applies an attention model using the detected expressions to iteratively compute an expression quality representation and weight for each face. The weighting is important, for example, to emphasize the expressions in the foreground, rather than the background. The model then calculates a single, global score for the quality of expressions in the frame.

The final image quality score used for triggering the shutter is computed by a weighted combination of the attention based facial expression score and the kiss score. In order to detect the peak quality, the shutter control algorithm maintains a short buffer of observed frames and only saves a shot if its frame score is higher than the frames that come after it in the buffer. The length of the buffer is short enough to give users a sense of real time feedback.

Intelligence Indicator
Since Photobooth uses the front-facing camera, the user can see and interact with the display while taking a photo. Photobooth mode includes a visual indicator, a bar at the top of the screen that grows in size when photo quality scores increase, to help users understand what the ML algorithms see and capture. The length of the bar is divided into four distinct ranges: (1) no faces clearly seen, (2) faces seen but not paying attention to the camera, (3) faces paying attention but not making key expressions, and (4) faces paying attention with key expressions.

In order to make this indicator more interpretable, we forced the bar into these ranges, which prevented the bar scaling from being too rapid. This resulted in smooth variability of the bar length as the quality score changes and improved the utility. When the indicator bar reaches a length representative of a high quality score, the screen flashes to signify that a photo was captured and saved.

Using ML outputs directly as intelligence feedback results in rapid variation (left), whereas specifying explicit ranges creates a smooth signal (right).

Conclusion
We’re excited by the possibilities of automatic photography on camera phones. As computer vision continues to improve, in the future we may generally trust smart cameras to select a great moment to capture. Photobooth is an example of how we can carve out a useful corner of this space—selfies and group selfies of smiles, funny faces, and kisses—and deliver a fun and useful experience.

Acknowledgments
Photobooth was a collaboration of several teams at Google. Key contributors to the project include: Kojo Acquah, Chris Breithaupt, Chun-Te Chu, Geoff Clark, Laura Culp, Aaron Donsbach, Relja Ivanovic, Pooja Jhunjhunwala, Xuhui Jia, Ting Liu, Arjun Narayanan, Eric Penner, Arushan Raj, Divya Tyam, Raviteja Vemulapalli, Julian Walker, Jun Xie, Li Zhang, Andrey Zhmoginov, Yukun Zhu.

Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took the stage today at the TED conference. But instead of giving the standard talk, he answered questions from TED’s Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers.

For most of the interview, Dorsey outlined steps that Twitter has taken to combat abuse and misinformation, but Anderson explained why the company’s critics sometimes find those steps so insufficient and unsatisfying. He compared Twitter to the Titanic, and Dorsey to the captain, listening to passengers’ concerns about the iceberg up ahead — then going back to the bridge and showing “this extraordinary calm.”

“It’s democracy at stake, it’s our culture at stake,” Anderson said, echoing points made yesterday in a talk by journalist Carole Cadwalladr. So why isn’t Twitter addressing these issues with more urgency?

“We are working as quickly as we can, but quickness will not get the job done,” Dorsey replied. “It’s focus, it’s prioritization, it’s understanding the fundamentals of the network.”

He also argued that while Twitter could “do a bunch of superficial things to address the things you’re talking about,” that isn’t the real solution.

“We want the changes to last, and that means going really, really deep,” Dorsey said.

In his view, that means rethinking how Twitter incentivizes user behavior. He suggested that the service works best as an “interest-based network,” where you log in and see content relevant to your interests, no matter who posted it — rather than a network where everyone feels like they need to follow a bunch of other accounts, and then grow their follower numbers in turn.

Twitter to launch a ‘hide replies’ feature, plus other changes to its reporting process

Dorsey recalled that when the team was first building the service, it decided to make follower count “big and bold,” which naturally made people focus on it.

“Was that the right decision at the time? Probably not,” he said. “If I had to start the service again, I would not emphasize the follower count as much … I don’t think I would create ‘likes’ in the first place.”

Since he isn’t starting from scratch, Dorsey suggested that he’s trying to find ways to redesign Twitter to shift the “bias” away from accounts and towards interests.

More specifically, Rodgers asked about the frequent criticism that Twitter hasn’t found a way to consistently ban Nazis from the service.

“We have a situation right now where that term is used fairly loosely,” Dorsey said. “We just cannot take any one mention of that word accusing someone else as a factual indication of whether someone can be removed from the platform.”

He added that Twitter does remove users who are connected to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, as well those who post hateful imagery or who are otherwise guilty of conduct that violates Twitter’s terms and conditions — terms that Dorsey said the company is rewriting to make them “human readable,” and to emphasize that fighting abuse and hateful content is the top priority.

“Our focus is on removing the burden of work from the victims,” Dorsey said.

Journalist Carole Cadwalladr says ‘the gods of Silicon Valley’ have broken democracy

He also pointed to efforts that Twitter has already announced to measure (and then improve) conversational health and to use machine learning to automatically detect abusive content. (The company said today that 38 percent of abusive content that Twitter takes action against is found proactively.)

And while Dorsey said he’s less interested in maximizing time spent on Twitter and more in maximizing “what people take away from it and what they want to learn from it,” Anderson suggested that Twitter may struggle with that goal since it’s a public company, with a business model based on advertising. Would Dorsey really be willing to see time spent on the service decrease, even if that means improving the conversation?

“More relevance means less time on the service, and that’s perfectly fine,” Dorsey said, adding that Twitter can still serve ads against relevant content.

In terms of how the company is currently measuring its success, Dorsey said it focuses primarily on daily active users, and secondly on “conversation chains — we want to incentivize healthy contributions back to the network.”

Getting back to Dorsey himself, Rodgers wondered whether serving as the CEO of two public companies (the other is Square) gives him enough time to solve these problems.

“My goal is to build a company that is not dependent upon me and outlives me,” he said. “The situation between the two companies and how my time is spent forces me immediately to create frameworks that are scalable, that are decentralized, that don’t require me being in every single detail … That is true of any organization that scales beyond the original founding moment.”

Read Full Article

ZenGo wants to become the crypto wallet for the masses

KZen is about to release ZenGo, a mobile app to manage your cryptocurrencies securely and more easily. There are already countless of crypto wallets out there, but the startup thinks they’re all either too complicated or too insecure.

If you own cryptocurrencies, chances are they’re sitting on an exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance. If somebody manages to log in to your account, nothing is stopping them from sending those assets to other wallets and stealing everything.

Worse, if somebody hacks an exchange, they could potentially divert cryptocurrencies from that exchange’s wallets. In other words, leaving your cryptocurrencies on an exchange means you give your assets to that exchange and hope they properly take care of them.

Vitalik Buterin: “I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible”

On the other end of the spectrum, you can manage your private keys yourself and rely on a hardware wallet from Ledger and Trezor. The learning curve is too hard for many people. And if you don’t follow instructions properly, you might end up losing access to your wallet or accidentally sharing private keys.

Enough about other wallets, let’s talk about ZenGo. Former TechCrunch editor Ouriel Ohayon and his team think the perfect wallet app involves a smartphone you own paired with ZenGo’s servers.

The company uses threshold signatures, which means that you need both ZenGo’s servers and your smartphone to initiate a transaction. If you lose your device, you can recover your funds. But the startup can’t access your cryptocurrencies on its own.

Behind the scene, ZenGo still uses public and private keys, but everything is completely transparent for the end user. You don’t even need to know what a private key is.

When you set up your wallet, the private key is split in two parts and stored in multiple ways — one part is on your smartphone, the other is on the servers. You need both parts to sign a transaction. If you back up your device part to ZenGo’s servers, you can recover all parts in case you lose your device for instance.

ZenGo stores can’t directly access the second part on its own because it is encrypted using a decryption code that is stored on your iCloud account. But accessing your iCloud is not enough — if you want to recover your wallets, you need to prove your identity.

That’s why the company stores a 3D biometric face map to let you restore your wallets on a new device. The company partners with ZoOm so that you can create a face map from any smartphone with a selfie camera.

The security model has been open-sourced and I hope many security experts will try and find vulnerabilities. That’s the only way you can know for sure that it’s a secure system.

All of this sounds complicated, but most users won’t even realize what’s happening. I tried the app and it’s a well-designed mobile app. Right now, it only supports Bitcoin and Ethereum but more assets are on the way. The company tracks your public addresses to notify you when you receive funds.

The app isn’t available just yet. It should launch as a beta this week and arrive in the stores pretty soon.

Read Full Article

Google expands its container service with GKE Advanced

With its Kuberntes Engine (GKE), Google Cloud Google has long offered a managed service for running containers on its platform. Kubernetes users tend to have a variety of needs, but so far, Google only offered a single tier of GKE that wasn’t necessarily geared toward the high-end enterprise users the company is trying to woo. Today, however, the company announced a new advanced edition of GKE that introduces a number of new features and an enhanced financially backed SLA, additional security tools and new automation features. You can think of GKE Advanced as the enterprise version of GKE.

The new service will launch in the second quarter of the year and hasn’t yet announced pricing. The regular version of GKE is now called GKE Standard.

Google says the service builds upon the company’s own learnings from running a complex container infrastructure internally for years.

For enterprise customers, the financially backed SLA is surely a nice bonus. The promise here is 99.95% guaranteed availability for regional clusters.

Most users who opt for a managed Kubernetes environment do so because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of managing these clusters themselves. With GKE Standard, there’s still some work to be done with regard to scaling the clusters. Because of this, GKE Advanced includes a Vertical Pod Autoscaler that keeps on eye on resource utilization and adjusts it as necessary, as well as Node Auto Provisioning, an enhanced version of cluster autoscaling in GKE Standard.

In addition to these new GKE Advanced features, Google is also adding existing GKE security features like the GKE Sandbox and the ability to enforce that only signed and verified images are used in the container environment.

The Sandbox uses Google’s gVisor container sandbox runtime. With this, every sandbox gets its own user-space kernel, adding an additional layer of security. With Binary Authorization, GKE Advanced users can also ensure that all container images are signed by a trusted authority before they are put into production. Somebody could theoretically still smuggle malicious code into the containers, but this process, which enforces standard container release practices, for example, should ensure that only authorized containers can run in the environment.

GKE Advanced also includes support for GKE usage metering, which allows companies to keep tabs on who is using a GKE cluster and charge them according.

 

Read Full Article

Apple could build macOS feature to use your iPad as extra Mac display

According to a report from 9to5mac’s Guilherme Rambo, Apple is working on a feature that would let you pair your iPad with your Mac to turn your iPad into a secondary Mac display. That feature codenamed Sidecar could ship with macOS 10.15 this fall.

If you’ve been using Luna Display or Duet Display, you’re already quite familiar with this setup. Those third-party hardware and software solutions let you turn your iPad into an external display. You can then extend your Mac display, move windows to your iPad and use your iPad like an external display.

And it sounds like Apple wants to turn those setups into a native feature. It could boost iPad sales for MacBook users, and MacBook sales for iPad users.

Apple wants to simplify that feature as much as possible. According to 9to5mac, you would access it from the standard green “maximize” button in the corner of every window. You could hover over that button and send the window to an iPad.

By default, apps will be maximized on the iPad and appear as full screen windows. Maybe you’ll be able to send multiple windows and split your display between multiple macOS apps, but that’s still unclear.

Graphic designers are going to love that feature as you’ll be able to use the Apple Pencil. For instance, you could imagine sending the Photoshop window to your iPad and using your iPad as a Wacom tablet.

Sidecar will also be compatible with standard external displays. It should make window management easier as you’ll be able to send windows to another display in just a click.

Finally, 9to5mac says that Apple is also working on Windows-like resizing shortcuts — you could drag a window to the side of the screen to resize it to half of the screen for instance.

Read Full Article

Waymo launches robotaxi app on Google Play

Waymo is making its ride-hailing app more widely available by putting it on the Google Play store as the self-driving car company prepares to open up its service to more Phoenix residents.

The company, which spun out to become a business under Alphabet, launched a limited commercial robotaxi service called Waymo One in the Phoenix area in December. The Waymo One self-driving car service, and accompanying app, was only available to Phoenix residents who were part of its early rider program, which aimed to bring vetted regular folks into its self-driving minivans.

Technically, Waymo has had Android and iOS apps for some time. But interested riders would only gain access to the app after first applying on the company’s website. Once accepted to the early program program, they would be sent a link to the app to download to their device.

The early rider program, which launched in April 2017, had more than 400 participants the last time Waymo shared figures. Waymo hasn’t shared information on how many people have moved over to the public service except to say “hundreds of riders” are using it.

Now, with Waymo One launching on Google Play, the company is cracking the door a bit wider. However, there will be still be limitations to the service.

Interested customers with Android devices can download the app. Unlike a traditional ride-hailing service like Uber or Lyft this doesn’t mean users will get instant access. Instead, potential riders will be added to a waitlist. Once accepted, they will be able to request rides in the app.

These new customers will first be invited into Waymo’s early rider program before they’re moved to the public service. This is an important distinction because early rider program participants have to to sign non-disclosure agreements and can’t bring guests with them. These new riders will eventually be moved to Waymo’s public service, the company said. Riders on the public service can invite guests, take photos and videos and talk about their experience.

“These two offerings are deeply connected, as learnings from our early rider program help shape the experience we ultimately provide to our public riders,” Waymo said in a blog post Tuesday.

Waymo has been creeping toward a commercial service in Phoenix since it began testing self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans in suburbs like Chandler in 2016.

The following year, Waymo launched its early rider program. The company also started testing empty self-driving minivans on public streets that year.

Waymo began in May 2018 to allow some early riders to hail a self-driving minivan without a human test driver behind the wheel. More recently, the company launched a public transit program in Phoenix focused on delivering people to bus stops and train and light-rail stations.

Read Full Article

Twitter to launch a ‘hide replies’ feature, plus other changes to its reporting process

In February, Twitter confirmed its plans to launch a feature that would allow users to hide replies that they felt didn’t contribute to a conversation. Today, alongside news of other changes to the reporting process and its documentation, Twitter announced the new “Hide Replies” feature is set to launch in June.

Twitter says the feature will be an “experiment” — which means it could be changed or even scrapped, based on user feedback.

The feature is likely to spark some controversy, as it puts the original poster in control of which tweets appear in a conversation thread. This, potentially, could silence dissenting opinions or even fact-checked clarifications. But, on the flip side, the feature also means that people who enter conversations with plans to troll or make hateful remarks are more likely to see their posts tucked away out of view.

This, Twitter believes, could help encourage people to present their thoughts and opinions in a more polite and less abusive fashion, and shifts the balance of power back to the poster without an overcorrection. (For what it worth, Facebook and Instagram gives users far more control over their posts, as you can delete trolls’ comments entirely.)

Twitter is testing replies moderation. It lets you to hide replies under your tweets, while providing an option to show the hidden replies pic.twitter.com/dE19w4TLtp

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) February 28, 2019

“We already see people trying keep their conversations healthy by using block, mute, and report, but these tools don’t always address the issue. Block and mute only change the experience of the blocker, and report only works for the content that violates our policies,” explained Twitter’s PM of Health Michelle Yasmeen Haq earlier this year. “With this feature, the person who started a conversation could choose to hide replies to their tweets. The hidden replies would be viewable by others through a menu option.”

In other words, hidden responses aren’t being entirely silenced — just made more difficult to view, as displaying them would require an extra click.

Twitter unveiled its plans to launch the “Hide Replies” feature alongside a host of other changes it has in store for its platform, some of which it had previously announced.

It says, for example, it will add more notices within Twitter for clarity around tweets that breaks its rules but are allowed to remain on the site. This is, in part, a response to some users’ complaints around President Trump’s apparently rule-breaking tweets that aren’t taken down. Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde recently mentioned this change was in the works, in an interview with The Washington Post.

Twitter also says it will update its documentation around its Rules to be simpler to understand. And it will make it easier for people to share specifics when reporting tweets so Twitter can act more swiftly when user safety is a concern.

This latter change follows a recent controversy over how Twitter handled death threats against Rep. Ilhan Omar. Twitter left the death threats online so law enforcement could investigate, according to a BuzzFeed News report. But it raised questions as to how Twitter should handle threats against a user’s life.

More vaguely, Twitter states it’s improving its technology to help it proactively review content that breaks rules before it’s reported — specifically in the areas of those who dox users (tweet private information), make threats and other online abuse. The company didn’t clarify in depth how it’s approaching these problems, but it did acquire an anti-abuse technology provider Smyte last year, with the goal of better addressing the abuse on its platform.

Donald Hicks, VP Twitter Services, in a company blog post, hints Twitter is using its existing technology in new ways to address abuse:

The same technology we use to track spam, platform manipulation and other rule violations is helping us flag abusive Tweets to our team for review. With our focus on reviewing this type of content, we’ve also expanded our teams in key areas and geographies so we can stay ahead and work quickly to keep people safe. Reports give us valuable context and a strong signal that we should review content, but we’ve needed to do more and though still early on, this work is showing promise.

Twitter also today shared a handful of self-reported metrics that paint of picture of progress.

This includes the following: today, 38 percent of abusive content that’s enforced is handled proactively (note: much content still has no enforcement action taken, though); 16 percent fewer abuse reports after an interaction from an account the reporter doesn’t follow; 100K accounts suspended for returning to create new accounts during Jan. – March 2019, a 45 percent increase from the same time last year; a 60 percent faster response rates to appeals requests through its in-app appeal process, 3x more abusive accounts suspended within 24 hours, compared to the same time last year; and 2.5x more private info removed with its new reporting process. 

Despite Twitter’s attempts to solve issues around online abuse (an area people now wonder may never be solvable), it still drops the ball in handling what should be straightforward decisions.

Twitter admits it still has more to do, and will continue to share its progress in the future.

We’re working hard to keep you safe. There’s more work to do, but we want to share the results from our latest changes. https://t.co/tb8xCfOk1M

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 16, 2019

Read Full Article

Sony shares some details about the PlayStation 5

Lead architect for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita Mark Cerny gave a lengthy interview to Wired’s Peter Rubin and shared some details about Sony’s next-gen console — the console that is likely to be called the PlayStation 5.

The next PlayStation will be based on an AMD architecture just like the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. The custom made CPU will be based on the third-generation AMD Ryzen CPU line. It’ll feature eight 7nm cores.

As for the GPU, Sony plans to use a custom version of AMD Radeon’s Navi GPUs. While AMD is supposed to unveil this new generation of GPUs in the coming months, Cerny says that the next-gen PlayStation GPU will support ray tracing.

Those chips should also lead to a jump in audio performance. You can expect better 3D audio support if you have a set of speakers or headphones that support this kind of stuff.

The PlayStation 5 will also ship with SSD hard drives by default. This is a key differentiating factor between PC games and console games. Spinning hard drives lead to endless loading screens.

Opting for an SSD changes everything. For instance, Cerny says that fast-travel in Spider-Man running on a PlayStation 4 Pro takes approximately 15 seconds, while it takes less than a second on a next-generation PlayStation devkit.

On the hardware front, Cerny also said that the PlayStation 5 will have a BluRay drive to read physical games. And you’ll also be able to play PlayStation 4 games on the new console.

Based on the interview, it’s unclear whether Sony wants to launch a second-generation PlayStation VR headset. But if you already bought a VR headset, it’ll be compatible with the future PlayStation.

Sony is skipping E3 this year, which means that we won’t hear more about the PlayStation 5 for a while. The company will most likely launch the new console in 2020.

Read Full Article

Notes from the Samsung Galaxy Fold: day one

More like day 1.5, honestly. I spent most of yesterday sick in bed, with fever dreams of flexible displays. This morning, however, I’m already at the airport. Out if the the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.

Point is, after spending an hour or so with the phone yesterday, I now find myself with the Galaxy Fold in hand (or hands, as the case may be). I’ll be using the foldable as my day to day phone as I travel to California for our robotics event.

I’ll have a full review for you in a few days, but in the meantime, I’ll be using these pages to offer up something a bit more stream of consciousness, as I learn to adapt to life with a folding phone.

• The main reaction of bystanders is that of bafflement. I had the phone unfolded, with the Delta app open and an airline employee asked, “Is that a phone?” Fair enough.
• When I responded in the affirmative, the same employee asked, “is it a Nokia?” No sir, it is not a Nokia.
• Attempting to scan my boarding pass at the TSA check-in, I realized it was actually too large for the scanner. I had readjust it at a weird angle, but I was able to get it to scan.
• Three hours into the day, battery’s at 87 percent with standard usage, including some Spotify.
• App continuity is swell, being able to open an app on the small screen and pick up where you left off when the phone is open. It’s super annoying for those apps that haven’t updated, though. Twitter, for instance, opens with letterbox bars and asks if you’d like to restart.
• I really like the size here. It fits nicely in pants pockets when folded, and the 7.3 inch display is big, but not too big.
• Every surface is a fingerprint magnet.
•  The crease is noticeable, but generally not distracting. Occasionally when the light hits it, it really does pick up, though.
• The Fold comes with a pair of Galaxy Buds, which is pretty terrific. They’re great Airpod competitors, and it’s a nice touch for those willing to pay nearly $2,000 on a phone.
• Samsung compares the fold mechanism to a book in the way it’s opened and close. Interestingly, I actually find myself using the phone half opened at a 45 degree angle more than I expected.
• Yes, the snap shut is still satisfying.

Questions about the Galaxy Fold? Hit me up on Twitter: @bheater

 

Read Full Article

8 Reasons to Switch From YouTube to DTube

Video viewing is predominantly an online pastime. Streaming services like Netflix have changed the face of media forever. And sites like YouTube rely on centrally collected videos which they send to devices on demand.

This isn’t the only way it can work though, and DTube is an example of a decentralized video network. Today we’ll look at what DTube is and how it works, but first, let’s look at how online video sites usually work.

How Most Video Sites Work

YouTube, along with almost every other streaming video website, is a centralized service. For most people, this isn’t a problem. Video content uploads to YouTube’s servers and is searchable through YouTube’s search function. Then, the content streams to devices in whatever format YouTube thinks is best.

This way of working is not without its merits. A centralized service provides the same content to all. Some say, however that centralized services are a problem.

What’s Wrong With YouTube?

Since all storage for video content is on YouTube’s servers, users ultimately have no control over what happens to their videos. YouTube decides what should be on their platform, not YouTube users. If you want to make money from your videos through advertising, YouTube is the broker which decides what is fair to monetize and what isn’t.

YouTube’s algorithm is supposed to promote content fairly, but some content creators notice discrepancies in this system, allegedly making some channels disappear overnight.

In this way, centralized video could be a bad idea. But if YouTube sucks, why is everyone still using it? Well, not everyone is. Some people have switched to using DTube!

A Brief Look at DTube

DTube is a decentralized video service that exists on a blockchain rather than a central server. If you are new to blockchain this explanation on our sister site Blocks Decoded should help. Creators can use the service knowing that their data is safe. Furthermore, video content cannot be censored by anyone outside of the DTube community.

Money accumulates through cryptocurrency rather than relying on adverts, and there is no hidden algorithm, opting instead for direct user feedback to rank videos.

That is a lot of terms to take in quickly, so let’s break things down one by one.

1. DTube Is a Decentralized Platform

First of all, DTube has no central servers. All of the content is stored on a blockchain. By nature, a blockchain’s data verifies between all of its members.

This is an example of Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) and works similarly to peer to peer torrenting of information. Consequently, there is no one definitive video file in one place, more a shared agreement of what the video file contains.

This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to tamper with video content on DTube. It is not the only online app looking into this kind of secure operation. If you’ve ever asked yourself whether a truly decentralized internet is possible, DTube is an example of it at work.

Decentralized videos mean there’s no simple way of removing content from the site. This could be a blessing or a curse. For some users, however, the assurance that their content is not in the hands of a large organization is a big draw, and a reason to switch to DTube.

2. DTube Is a Secure Service

No central server means no single place storing all of the user’s data, ready to be hacked. Everyone posts under set pseudonyms and the site does not have a traditional login, opting instead for the Steemit platform.

You can identify yourself any way you wish, but there is no way for data you are not comfortable sharing to get leaked.

3. DTube Doesn’t Have Adverts

Since DTube uses STEEM dollars as its currency, there is no need for traditional advertisements. Users upvote videos to give them worth. Popular videos receive STEEM Dollars and STEEM Power. Provided the total value of the video is over $0.02 in the first seven days this money gets paid into the creator’s STEEM wallet.

Creators are free to advertise within their videos, but many users are averse to advertisements, therefore relying on STEEM seems to be the best way to monetize videos on the service.

4. You Can Earn Money on DTube

You may already have realized that DTube sounds like a pretty attractive platform for content creators, and you would be right. Steemit frequently makes new tokens for distribution, so it is easy to start earning.

Even upvoting videos can earn STEEM power, but it’s the content creators that reap the real benefits. The platform is already popular with vloggers, many of whom make content about DTube itself, as well as cryptocurrency at large.

A significant difference with DTube is that videos only earn money for seven days. Whatever you have made in this time is paid into your STEEM wallet. The video remains on the site, but it stops gaining currency.

5. Dtube Has No Censorship

Another way DTube can benefit you is with its free speech stance. Decentralization means no traditional way of censoring videos. While YouTube gets to decide what is right for its platform, DTube is different.

The community itself judges all video content. In principle, the service allows anything on the site, but in practice, the community is good at filtering out useless or dangerous posts. For a simple analogy, think of Reddit without mods. This could be Heaven or Hell depending on your viewpoint.

6. DTube Has No Recommendation Algorithm

YouTube bases its recommendations on a supposedly fair system of metadata analysis. Whatever you think of this, it is certainly not clear who or what will receive a recommendation to a broader audience at any given time.

DTube gets around this problem by basing its recommendation system on user views and votes. If the community thinks your video has value, your video will gain traction and rank among the trending videos.

7. DTube Has a Good Community

DTube has a tight community, with many content creators linking up on projects and sharing each other’s work. Many users liken DTube to the early days of YouTube and the community aspect of similar channels collaborating.

This active community, together with the financial incentive that being social on the platform brings, make DTube a vibrant young community on the rise.

8. DTube Is Not Part of the Big Five

Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple are tech goliaths. Between them they utterly dominate tech. It’s rare to find any service that doesn’t use them in some way. Most people don’t consider the reach these companies have or don’t believe it to be an issue.

DTube is independent of these big five, so if avoiding large tech corporations is something you aspire to, DTube could be for you.

DTube Is Part of the Blockchain Revolution

Blockchain technology is changing our media, and sites like DTube are pioneering new ways of sharing both creative content and wealth.

DTube is just a small part of a larger movement, and the whole blockchain revolution shows little sign of stopping. Which means there has never been a better time to become a Blockchain programmer.

Read the full article: 8 Reasons to Switch From YouTube to DTube

Read Full Article

What Is Bixby? And How Do You Use It?

Mail vs. Outlook: Which Email App Is Right for You on Windows 10?

Microsoft offers two email clients on the Windows 10 operating system—Mail and Outlook.

But what are the differences between Mail and Outlook? What are their pros and cons? And which app is right for your situation?

Keep reading as we try to establish which app is the best email client for Windows.

Is Outlook Free?

For you and other users, perhaps the most critical difference between Mail and Outlook will be the cost.

Mail is entirely free on all version of Windows 10; it is pre-installed on the operating system. Although Mail is a standalone app on your operating system, it actually comes as a double app called Mail and Calendar in the Microsoft Store. There is no way to install one without the other.

Outlook has been a paid app since it was first included with Microsoft Office way back in 1997. Today, it is distributed with Office 365 Personal and Office 365 Home. It is not part of the Office 365 Student package.

If you live in the U.S., the entry-level Office 365 Personal plan costs $69.99 per year.

Mail vs. Outlook: Using Email

The most important aspect of any email client is—obviously—how it handles messages.

Naturally, both of Microsoft’s apps can do the basics, but if you dig a little deeper, there are some crucial differences between the two. Depending on the functionality you need from the app, they could be deal-breakers.

Of the two, Outlook is more feature-rich. This is a common theme across all the categories we’ll discuss.

For example, Outlook offers the ability to send emails as plain text, a way to clean up email threads, email categories, an Ignore feature, and support for IRM messages. That’s all absent on Mail.

Outlook also uniquely offers inbox rules, local email storage, and the ability to send emails from a shared inbox.

On the flipside, if you want to use a touch device, Mail is the better option. It offers customizable swipe gestures which aren’t a part of Outlook.

Accessing and Managing Your Contacts

Beyond basic email management, two other essential features of an email client are the contacts and the calendar.

Mail pulls its contact list from the native Windows 10 contacts app—People. You can add your existing Outlook.com, Live, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange, and iCloud accounts, and the app will automatically import your contacts and integrate them with your existing list. It’s easy to add other IMAP and POP3 accounts too.

You need to perform contact management tasks through the People app; there’s no way to edit contact details within the Mail app itself.

Remember, People also has the Pivot feature. It will show a list of all your recent interactions with each contact, including recent emails, meetings, and shared files.

In contrast, Outlook can pull contact details from your connected accounts, but also allows local storage on your computer.

Calendars on Outlook vs. Mail

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the Calendar part of the Mail app is part of the same root installation.

Calendars from all your connected accounts will be displayed, assuming you’ve granted the correct privileges. However, you cannot see the calendar from within Mail; you’ll need to open the Calendar app separately.

Even though it’s accessed via a separate portal, the Calendar app is by no means lacking in features. Once again, it doesn’t boast the professional-grade tools of Outlook, but it can handle CalDAV files and subscriptions to cloud-based calendars without difficulty.

The list of calendar features that are unique to Outlook is all aimed squarely at business users.

They include a way to propose new times for events, calendar sharing, the ability to open colleague’s calendars (depending on permissions), meeting forwarding, calendar publishing, calendar groups, visible information about each attendee’s availability, and even a meeting room finder. You easily sync Outlook with your Google calendar.

Furthermore, the calendar on Outlook is part of the main app; you can access it using the tab at the bottom of the window.

Do Mail and Outlook Integrate With Other Apps?

Mail doesn’t offer any integration with third-party apps. If you want to access services like Google Drive, Evernote, or Todoist, you will need to change to a different window. Importantly, there’s also no integration with Microsoft Office.

The only apps which are in any way “integrated” are Calendar, People, and the ever-improving Microsoft To-Do. In practice, the Mail app just includes links to them; they are still external.

Outlook is the opposite. Not only is there a seamless experience with other Microsoft productivity apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but there’s also a long list of Outlook add-ins available through Microsoft’s AppSource store.

For example, you can add Microsoft Translator, Salesforce, Boomerang, Trello, Dropbox, Zendesk, and a whole lot more. All the add-ins bring the respective app’s functionality directly into Outlook; you can interact with them without needing to leave your inbox.

Which Email App Should You Choose?

It’s hard to deny that on paper, Outlook is the better of the two apps. It’s a business-grade tool that has considerably more features.

But more features don’t necessarily mean that the app is right for everyone. Even seasoned Outlook users would hard-pressed to find a use case for every function the app offers.

Indeed, Outlook’s complexity can be off-putting to many. Most people simply don’t need that level of detail (and the associated complexity that goes hand-in-hand with setting up all the extra functionality).

If your use-case is “normal”—and by that, we mean that you want a central hub for your email accounts and calendars but don’t run a network of users or a large business—the native Mail app is almost certainly going to meet your needs.

Home users should only consider using Outlook if they’re a self-confessed productivity freak. Professional users are the target market.

Learn More About Managing Email on Windows

The two Microsoft email apps are both great in their own way, but they are not the only show in town.

Several third-party comes have developed excellent email tools. If you want to learn more, check out our article on the best desktop email clients for Windows.

Read the full article: Mail vs. Outlook: Which Email App Is Right for You on Windows 10?

Read Full Article

10 Chrome Extensions You Need in Opera to Make It Even Better

Find yourself drooling over this Chrome extension and that, but don’t want to give up Opera for Chrome? No problem!

Luckily for Opera users, there’s an easy way to borrow Chrome extensions. All you need is the Install Chrome Extensions Opera extension. This puts an Add to Opera button next to Chrome extensions when you’re browsing the Chrome Web Store from Opera. To learn more about this setup, read our guide to install Chrome extensions in Opera.

Now, the question is, which Chrome extensions should you go for, given that Opera has some great extensions, too? Here are 10 of them that are worth borrowing from Chrome.

1. Auto Text Expander

Auto Text Expander is the ultimate way to speed up your Opera workflow. It lets you insert chunks of text using keyword shortcuts as all text expansion utilities do.

After you install the extension and enable it, you’ll see that it has a few default shortcuts set up for you. Feel free to add more of your own. Don’t forget to back them up by exporting them to a safe location! This will save you a lot of headaches if you ever lose your custom collection of shortcuts to a browser crash or any other digital mishap.

Keep in mind that Auto Text Expander works only in your browser. If you want text expansion to work across all the apps on your computer, you need a text expander desktop app.

Download: Auto Text Expander (Free)

2. OneTab

If you always open more tabs than your browser can handle, you need OneTab to keep them all accessible without hijacking your browser’s resources

The extension lets you bundle open tabs into a list, so you can retrieve them quickly any time, either one at a time or all at once. It leaves pinned tabs alone.

We recommend using OneTab in combination with The Great Suspender. The latter is a Chrome extension that frees up browser memory by suspending inactive tabs until you need them.

Download: OneTab (Free)

3. Grammarly

Grammarly takes the pain out of proofreading your emails, messages, tweets, blog posts, and other text snippets across the web. It works on spelling as well as grammar, going so far as to fix misused homophones and subject-verb agreement issues.

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation fixes in Grammarly are free. Advanced features like writing style analysis and vocabulary suggestions are locked behind a premium subscription.

Download: Grammarly (Free, in-app purchase)

4. Word Count

If you want a quick way to display the word count for text snippets on the web, install Word Count. It adds a Count words option to the right-click menu for quick display of the number of words in the selected text. Remember, word count is all you get here—there aren’t any add-ons like character count and line count.

The extension works fine on most websites, except for certain pages such as Google and DuckDuckGo search pages.

Download: Word Count (Free)

5. RightToCopy

If you’re annoyed that so many websites disable the right-click menu, you’ll love RightToCopy. It re-enables that feature on those websites and also lets you select/copy text as usual.

Download: RightToCopy (Free)

6. Read Aloud

Want someone to read the contents of webpages aloud for you? A text-to-speech conversion utility is just what you need. You can get one in the form of an easy-to-use browser extension like Read Aloud.

It lets you pick from a variety of male and female voices, many of which are free. You can also adjust the reading speed from the extension’s settings.

Download: Read Aloud (Free)

7. Drag

If you treat your Gmail inbox as a to-do list, install Drag to manage your tasks better. The extension gives you a Trello-like setup in Gmail i.e. it turns your inbox into a Kanban board. Move emails to the right columns to sort them and get a clearer picture of all your tasks. You can switch over from Drag to the regular Gmail view anytime.

If you want an advanced version of Drag, try Sortd. It’s the original extension that introduced the idea of Kanban boards in Gmail.

Download: Drag (Free, in-app purchase)

8. Noisli

Noisli gives you a nice selection of background sounds to set up the perfect ambience for focus and productivity. You can mix up the available sounds to create different combinations to match your mood. Noisli also includes a timer for added focus.

Download: Noisli (Free)

9. Marinara

It’s surprising that there’s not a single Pomodoro timer extension in the Opera extensions gallery. While you can turn to a web-based option like Tomato.es to use the Pomodoro technique, if you’d much rather use a proper extension, install Marinara from the Chrome Web Store. Its countdown timer appears embedded in Marinara’s toolbar button.

You can  tweak notification sounds plus the duration of both short and long breaks from Marinara’s settings. You’ll appreciate the extension’s History feature—it reveals stats about all your Pomodoro sessions over time!

Download: Marinara (Free)

10. Papier

While Opera has a few notepad extensions, none are as charming as Papier, which is limited to Chrome. It supports Markdown and displays a character count. That’s about it—no accounts and settings to deal with. Your notes get backed up to your browser, in this case, Opera.

We must mention here that Papier is a new tab extension. In Chrome, such extensions replace the new tab page with all kinds of juicy widgets and utilities. You can install these new tab extensions in Opera too.

There’s a catch though—for security reasons, Opera does not let the extensions replace the contents of each new tab automatically. (You can still load a new tab extension manually by clicking on its toolbar button.)

This constraint renders a few extensions useless or less attractive to users—the beautiful Momentum is a case in point. But, when you’re dealing with a notepad extension like Papier, it’s no hardship to bring up the extension when you need it.

Download: Papier (Free)

More Chrome Extensions to Bring to Opera

Many popular services like Asana, Zapier, and TickTick don’t have a browser extension for Opera. If you use these services, you might want to install the corresponding browser extension from Chrome. One such service-specific extension we consider a must-have is OneNote Web Clipper.

Opera is a pleasure to use! But, while it has a nice set of extensions, Chrome has many more, and better ones at that.

Is that good enough a reason to ditch Opera when it has so many fun and useful features going for it? We think not. Why not get the best of both browsers by installing Chrome extensions in Opera?

Read the full article: 10 Chrome Extensions You Need in Opera to Make It Even Better

Read Full Article

The 8 Best Computers for Music Production

6 Essential Apps for Cord-Cutters on Android and iOS

Backup, Optimize, and Protect Your PC with this $30 Utility Bundle

Your PC might be a workhorse, but even machines can benefit from some TLC. If you want to protect your data and keep your computer running smoothly, it makes sense to invest in the right tools. The Essential PC Utility Bundle brings together four great apps for everyday PC maintenance, including Defrag 22 and AutoBackup 6. Right now, you can pick up the bundle for only $29.99 at MakeUseOf Deals.

Complete Utility

Car owners are familiar with routine maintenance. But for some reason, we expect computers to work perfectly without any input. Most of the time they do — but not always. If you want to keep your PC in top condition, this bundle can help.

The line-up includes O&O Defrag 22, which lets you defrag hard disks and solid-state drives at surprising speed. The software works away in the background, and you can start the process with three clicks.

DiskImage 14 Backup Solution lets you clone your entire PC with one click. You can also schedule automated backups, and restore individual files instantly. Alternatively, you can use AutoBackup 6 to keep your files synced. This app automatically kicks in whenever you attach an external drive.

The bundle also includes SafeErase 14. This digital shredder offers six different deletion methods to ensure that your deleted files are gone for good.

Now Only $29.99

Order now for $29.99 to get all four apps on Windows, worth $139.

Read the full article: Backup, Optimize, and Protect Your PC with this $30 Utility Bundle

Read Full Article

5 Free Project Management Templates Anyone Can Use for Planning

Every task has a beginning and an end. It’s when you combine a series of tasks, you get a project. Projects can be simple or complex. But the planning has to be foolproof. So a little bit of knowledge on project management can take you a long way even if you aren’t involved with business projects.

Life is the biggest project of them all. So try these project management templates to visualize the efforts needed from start to finish. Set schedules. Use them to present your plans to others. And yes—meet your goals.

1. Dropbox Paper Project Plan Template

Dropbox was just another place for cloud storage. Today, it is a more collaborative suite that is taking on Google Drive and Microsoft Office. Dropbox Paper might be minimalistic, but the simplicity works in its favor as it gives you this clean project planning template that includes a timeline.

It’s just right for creative projects. You can define all team goals, delegate key tasks with a to-do checklist, gather feedback, and curate every project asset with a shared Dropbox. Resources like images and videos can be added to the interactive project timeline.

Gantt charts can be complicated, so the colorful timeline gives you a far easier way to visualize your project. You can also zoom into a “week view” or zoom out for a bird’s eye look at your approaching deadlines.

The uncomplicated project planning template is just another reason to try out Dropbox Paper.

2. Hubspot’s Free Project Management Templates

Hubspot develops products for digital marketers. Most of them are paid products, but Hubspot is also a rich resource for all kinds of free templates you can use for running inbound campaigns. These pre-made templates ensure everyone follows the same process and best practices without needing to reinvent the wheel.

Hubspot offers 6 free editable templates for project management. It includes a simple checklist, a Gantt chart template for your project schedules, a process documentation templates for laying down the SOPs, and more. You can download them in PDF or as an Excel file. Fill out a brief form to unlock access to the documents.

3. Google Docs Project Management Template

Google Docs (or Google Sheets) is one of the more flexible tools to create templates of every kind. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing out of the tin unless you start customizing it. This specific free template saves you all the trouble. You just have to get on with planning your project.

The template is made up of three core areas. Timing, To-Dos, and Resources. The first tab called Cockpit gives you an overview of your entire project. The template is designed for collaboration.

For instance, the To-Do tab displays how the tasks are shared, the current status of each task, and their relative priority. The entire project and its assets can be managed from Google Drive.

This template can do most of the heavy lifting. You can also pair it with this free Google Sheets Gantt Chart template.

4. Evernote Project Goals Template

Maybe, you have a small team and a modest project. You can do away massive spreadsheets and complicated Gantt charts. A simple progress tracker can help you stay on the straight and narrow path. And you can create it anywhere. For instance, a shared Evernote notebook could be a good medium.

The Project Goals template is well-suited for any personal project. It is also easy to grasp. Each objective is benchmarked against three key results. You can measure progress by inserting more rows for milestones and tracking the progress with 10% increments.

Simple Evernote templates like these can boost your everyday productivity.

5. Glide

You might need to present a project plan to your bosses or a client. And that can also be at the very last minute. Sounds daunting? It will be less so if you have a few Microsoft PowerPoint presentation templates lying around. Glide has a useful pack that’s available for free and tailored for all types of presentations.

There are 80 different templates in the presentation pack. The slides are professional done and avoid bling. Start with a cover slide template and go on to others that cover pricing tables, charts, agendas, CTAs, and more. You can insert your own branded images instead of using the placeholder images.

In short, the slides are completely customizable. Also, no attribution is required.

Searching for more free PowerPoint templates? 24Slides has a good collection of templates perfect for project planning too.

Tweak Templates for Maximum Benefits

Templates are easy to find. But they don’t have to result in a cookie cutter approach. The best online templates are editable and customizable. So make use of this benefit and tweak them to fit your needs and not the other way around.

And if you are still searching for nicely designed templates for your next project, take a right and stop at these Excel project management templates.

Image Credit: lucadp/Depositphotos.com

Read the full article: 5 Free Project Management Templates Anyone Can Use for Planning

Read Full Article