7 Hidden Calibre Features That’ll Help You Manage Your Ebooks Better

Calibre might not be the most polished app in the world, but it’s definitely the best software for managing your ebook collection.

It ticks all the right boxes: it’s free, there aren’t any ads, and it boasts a vast number of powerful features. Sadly, many of those features fly under the radar, which is a shame because they can elevate your ebook management to the next level.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the best hidden Calibre features.

Download: Calibre on Windows, Mac, and Linux

1. Merge and Split EPUB Ebooks

Some books come in multiple installments. Perhaps it’s a series of books like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or maybe it’s a reference guide such as an encyclopedia.

Similarly, some books are exceptionally long; encyclopedias again spring to mind. A long book means a large file size, and that can be problematic when you’re waiting for a book to fully load in your e-reader.

The solution is to use two Calibre plugins called EpubSplit and EpubMerge. Combined, they let you collate multiple books or divide single books at your choosing.

To install the plugins, follow the instructions below:

1. Open the Calibre app.
2. Right-click on the Preferences icon in the upper right-hand corner.
3. Select Get plugins to enhance Calibre from the drop-down menu.
4. Locate EpubSplit and highlight the plugin.
5. Click on Install in the lower right-hand corner.
6. Choose the toolbars and menus where you want the plugin option to appear.
7. Locate EpubMerge and highlight the plugin.
8. Again, click on Install in the lower right-hand corner.
9. And again, choose the toolbars and menus where you want the plugin option to appear.

To use the plugins, click on the book you want to merge or split in your library, select the correct plugin in the menu bar, and choose the sections you either want to split or merge.

Note: The plugins only work with ebooks in the EPUB format. We’ll discuss how to convert books into different formats shortly.

2. Get Your Favorite Magazines on Your E-Reader

Online magazine subscriptions can be confusing. Some offer an online-only digital version, some offer a Kindle version, and some are only available as Android apps.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could cut through the fluff and download your favorite magazines onto your e-reader automatically?

Well, Calibre makes this possible.

To get started, click on the Fetch News tab at the top of the app’s home screen. In the left-hand panel, you’ll see a list of languages. Click on your dialect of choice to see what’s available.

Find the title you want to read and—if required—enter your paywall login credentials. Next, in the right-hand panel, mark the checkbox next to Schedule for download and hit Download Now.

Lastly, you need to force Calibre to send your newly downloaded magazine issues to your e-reader. Go to Preferences > Behavior and mark the checkbox next to Automatically send downloaded news to ebook reader.

Note: For automatic downloading to work, Calibre needs to be running on your computer.

3. Turn Calibre Into a Sharing Server

If several members of your household have a Kindle, or if you own multiple Kindles, continually syncing your data manually quickly becomes tedious.

Instead, why not turn your Calibre app into a content server? By doing so, you can make your entire Calibre library available on all your devices. You can even upload new content to your Calibre library from those devices.

The process is remarkably straightforward. In Calibre’s menu bar, go to Connect/share > Start content server. Your computer might prompt you to allow the app through its firewall.

Next, click on the Connect/share tab for a second time. You’ll see your computer’s local IP address followed by the port number. Make a note of them.

Now head to your Kindle’s browser (or any other browser) and type [IP address]:[port number] in the address bar. You should see all your Calibre books appear on your screen.

Click on a book’s title to open it or click on the + icon in the upper right-hand corner to add more content to your library.

Note: If you want to access your library when you’re away from your home network, you’ll need to allow port forwarding to Calibre’s port number on your router.

4. Convert Ebooks Into Different Formats

Sadly, the world of ebook file formats is a bit of a mess.

In theory, the standard format is the open-source EPUB. However, Amazon’s Kindle devices—which are the world’s most popular e-readers—can’t read it. Instead, they rely on the proprietary AZW format. And let’s not start on MOBI, LIT, AZW3, or the other dozen different formats you see out there.

Suffice to say, you need a way to convert ebooks into different formats.

Thankfully, Calibre delivers. To convert an ebook into a different file format, use the following instructions:

1. Open Calibre.
2. Right-click on the book you want to convert and go to Convert Books > Convert Individually.
3. In the upper right-hand corner of the new window, choose your desired new format.
4. Click on OK and give the conversion a minute or two to complete.

You can verify if the conversion has been successful by clicking on Jobs in the bottom right-hand corner of the app’s home screen. You can also check whether the new format is listed in the book’s information panel on the right-hand side of the screen.

Note: You can also automatically convert new ebooks when you import them into your library for the first time.

5. Remove DRM From Ebooks

We now live in an age in which true ownership of digital media is becoming less common. Luckily for bookworms, Calibre lets your wrestle back control of your ebooks by offering a way to remove the DRM from titles you’ve bought from Amazon and other online stores.

We covered the process in detail when we explained how to remove the DRM on every ebook you own. So we recommend reading that article for the full scoop.

6. Automatically Download Ebook Metadata

Like any media library, you need to keep the metadata organized. Doing so will lead to a much smoother and more enjoyable experience, especially if you have a vast number of books.

But who has the time to enter all that information manually?

Calibre offers a little-used feature that lets you scan for your books’ metadata automatically. It can even find the correct book covers.

To scan for metadata, right-click on the book in question and go to Edit Metadata > Download metadata and covers. A new box will pop up on your screen. You need to select Download both.

When the scan is finished, you’ll see a notification appear. Click on Review downloaded metadata and make any tweaks as appropriate.

Calibre can pull metadata from Amazon, Google Images, Overdrive, Open Library, Edelweiss, Douban Books, and more.

7. Put Your Ebook Library in the Cloud

If using the content server method that we described earlier sounds too finicky, you can instead use Dropbox as an alternative.

By keeping your books in Dropbox rather than on your local machine, you’ll be able to access them from anywhere. However, if you set up the Calibre app correctly, you’ll also be able to use the app to manage your library locally.

Firstly, you need to download and install Dropbox on your computer.

Next, head to Calibre and move your library to the shared Dropbox folder on your machine. The fastest way of achieving this is to go to Preferences > Run Setup Wizard and point the Calibre app at the Dropbox folder.

Lastly, drag-and-drop your ebooks from their current location into the Dropbox folder. Et voila, you now have a cloud-based ebook library that you can manage locally using Calibre.

Do You Need More Books to Read?

The seven features we have covered in this article are all great, but you won’t be able to enjoy them if you don’t have a library of ebooks to begin with.

But building a library doesn’t necessarily involve spending money. There are lots of sites to get free ebooks, and you can even download free books directly from Amazon.

Read the full article: 7 Hidden Calibre Features That’ll Help You Manage Your Ebooks Better

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Bag Week 2008: Why I still love the Peak Design Everyday Backpack

Welcome to Bag Week 2018. Every year your faithful friends at TechCrunch spend an entire week looking at bags. Why? Because bags — often ignored but full of our important electronics — are the outward representations of our techie styles, and we put far too little thought into where we keep our most prized possessions.

A few months back I declared the Peak Design Everyday Backpack the best thing at CES 2018. It was a silly comment since the bag was released a couple years back but it was new to me. I had purchased the bag from Best Buy a few days prior and was in love with the bag and had to tell the world. I’m happy to report that after carrying the bag around several more conferences and a family trip to Disney World, I’m comfortable declaring it the best backpack I’ve ever used.

The company recently released a black version and sent me one to test. It looks mean. It’s the backpack Darth Vader would carry if he needed to tout around a full frame DSLR, a couple lenses and a MacBook Pro.

[gallery ids="1661479,1661478,1661477,1661475,1661476,1661480,1661482"]

The bag’s main clasp is wonderful. It’s designed in such a way that the wearer can quickly open and securely close it. Just pull down and away to open the bag. To close it, pull down so the top is tight, place the clasp next to the metal rungs and let go. Magnets hold the clasp next to the bag and the tension on the top causes the clasp to find the next available rung. Try it and you’ll love it. I do.

Peak Design equipped the bag with solid hardware. All the clasps are metal and the zippers are durable. I don’t think there’s plastic anywhere on the bag.

Like I said several months ago, the bag is best described as smart and solid. It’s a confident design with just enough pockets and storage options. The bag features one, large pocket that makes up most of the bag. Foldable dividers allow the wearer to customize the bag as needed. And quickly, too. These dividers fold in several ways, allowing the bag to hold, say, a large telephoto lens or several smaller lens.

The bag is packed full of surprises, too. Straps are hidden throughout allowing it to hold a surprising amount of items even a drone.

Small packing cubes make the Peak Design Everyday Backpack a storage cabinet. This is my bag while traveling overseas.

Peak Design positions this bag as a camera bag, but it can be so much more with some little bags. I use these and they fit perfectly in both the 20L and 30L bag. It lets me keep things organized and separated in a way that I’ve haven’t found possible in other bags. Peak Design should look at making a series of these bags. I would be all over them if they did.

The bag I bought back before CES was the 20L. It’s the smallest option though far from small. My 15-inch MacBook Pro squeezes into the laptop compartment and the bag has yet to feel too small even when it’s holding a camera, a couple books and a travel pillow.

The new black bag looks amazing but it seems to show scuffs and dirt more than my grey one. That’s a shame, too. I throw my bags around and expect a lot out of them. This black bag looks more dirty after one oversea trip than my grey one does after six months of use.

Just like I said back at CES, I’m not going to run through all the details of this bag. A few more are worth calling out: The sternum strap is fantastic. It uses clips without moving parts so it should last a lifetime. The shoulder straps are attached to the bag with a rivet that allows the straps to swivel as needed — it’s a smart advancement in the design of a backpack. And inside the laptop sleeve is a small pocket that is absolutely perfect to hold a Traveler’s Notebook and a pen.

As backpacks go, the Peak Design Everyday Backpack costs more than most. The smaller 20L is $260 and the 30L is $290. To me, the higher price is justified and if there’s a backpack worth the extra cost, it’s this one. I highly recommend this bag.

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Bag design with Peak Design

Folks, it’s Bag Week! Tito Hamze visits Peak Design’s HQ in San Francisco to learn about the company and how they create their bags. From humble beginnings starting with a clip to hold your camera to a full-fledged accessory company, this outfit is growing and creating quality products — all while never having taken any traditional VC funding.

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Messenger Kids expands outside the U.S., rolls out ‘kindness’ features

Facebook’s kid-friendly messaging app, Messenger Kids, is expanding to its first countries outside the U.S. today, with launches in Canada and Peru. It’s also introducing French and Spanish versions of its app, and rolling out a handful of new features focused on promoting respect and empathy, including a “Messenger Kids Pledge” and something called “Kindness Stickers,” which are meant to inspire more positive emotions when communicating online.

The stickers say things like “MY BFF” or “Well Done!” or “Best Artist,” and are designed to be placed on shared photos.

Also helpful is the new “Messenger Kids Pledge,” which is designed for both parents and children to read together, and includes some basic guidelines about how to be behave online. For example, it reminds everyone to “be kind when you communicate,” and to “be respectful,” explaining also that when someone doesn’t respond right away, they may just be too busy. “Be safe” and “have fun” are also a part of the guidelines.

This seems like a small addition, but it’s the kind of thing parents should already be doing with their kids when they introduce new technology – and many do not. Some parents don’t even know what apps kids are using, which has allowed those less secure apps to become hunting grounds for predators.

Messenger Kids works differently, as it requires parental involvement. Kids can’t add any friends without parental approval, and the app can be managed directly from parents’ Facebook.

While it’s understandable that people have a hard time trusting Facebook these days, there isn’t any viable alternative that allows kids to “practice” communicating or socializing online in a more controlled environment. Kids instead beg for apps aimed at adults and older teens, like Snapchat, Instagram, and Musical.ly – apps I personally won’t install for a “tween.”

Messenger Kids at least gives kids a way to privately socialize with approved people – kids whose parents you know and trust, and family members on Facebook. They’re at an age where you can still look over their shoulder, and correct bad behavior as it arises.

The alternative to using Messenger Kids is what a lot parents do – they refuse all social apps until kids reach a certain age, then throw them to the wolves on the internet. Is that really better?

Despite its sandboxed nature, kids like Messenger Kids because it has the features they actually want from the adult-oriented apps – like photo filters and stickers. (If the app would please add Facebook’s new lip-sync feature so I could stop hearing the begs for Musical.ly on a daily basis, I’d be much appreciative.)

Related to its push for kindness and respect, Messenger Kids will also soon roll out an interactive guide within its app called the “Appreciation Mission” which will encourage kids to discover and express appreciation for their friends and family. This will live in the “Mission” section of the app, where kids learn how to use features, like starting a video call or sending a photo.

Facebook says it consults with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a global group of advisors on the development of the features focused on these principles of social and emotional learning. (The Yale Center is a paid advisor.)

Come to think of it, a lot of adults could benefit from these sorts of features, too. Maybe Facebook and Twitter should add their own in-app kindness reminders, as well?

Messenger Kids also added support for two parents to manage kids’ accounts, based on customer feedback.

The app is a free download on iOS and Android.

 

Messenger Kids I Safer Messaging and Video Chat

Messenger Kids is a free, safer messaging and video chat app that provides more control for parents and more fun for kids.

Posted by Messenger Kids on Tuesday, June 19, 2018

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The 7 Best GitHub Alternatives for Hosting Your Project’s Source Code

Ever since Microsoft purchased GitHub, many people have been searching for alternative places to host and share their code.

Is switching from GitHub absolutely necessary? Probably not. But Microsoft brings with it a reputation for the occasional takeover disaster, as well as some privacy concerns. So if you’re looking to jump ship, we don’t blame you.

Whether you’re trying to evade Microsoft or you just want to try something new, here are some of the best GitHub alternatives that provide similar functionality.

1. GitLab

As one of GitHub’s most significant competitors, GitLab is having a field day with the GitHub exodus. They’ve even made it easy to migrate projects from GitHub:

As it’s designed for the entire DevOps cycle, GitLab lets you do everything from plan to release to monitor your software. Powerful planning tools mean you don’t need to use another system to keep everyone on track. And GitLab’s branching system makes it easy to design, test, and manage code.

You can download an instance to host on your own server or use GitLab’s SaaS hosting. Both options have different price points ranging from $0 to $99 per user.

This pricing system gives you more flexibility than you get with GitHub, and allows GitLab to provide full DevOps capability to any company. You might end up paying more, but you’ll get everything you need.

2. BitBucket

Atlassian’s Git-based repository system integrates with its other products, like Trello and Jira. This can be a huge bonus to teams that are already using these apps (which are common in the development world).

It also integrates with Slack and HipChat. Developers can create their own integrations within the user interface, adding more flexibility. Two-factor authentication and Soc 2 Type II security keep your code secure.

And if you’re already using GitHub, BitBucket has a walkthrough for importing your repositories.

BitBucket offers a wide range of pricing options for both self-hosted and cloud instances, including one-time and yearly payment plans. You can also pay extra to scale your build minutes and storage if you need more without adding more users.

Also, BitBucket has a free plan for small groups.

3. Beanstalk

With support for both Subversion and Git, Beanstalk is a versatile platform. And because you can create branches and edit directly in your browser, it’s good for developers on the go.

Beanstalk also has robust code review options and reports that tell you how much of your repository has been reviewed. This can be especially useful for teams that contract with outside coders.

No necessary client means Beanstalk makes life easier for highly mobile teams. And there are enough security features that large corporations like Philips, Intel, and Whole Foods feel safe storing their data on the company’s servers.

4. AWS CodeCommit

Amazon’s Git-based source control service is a solid choice for companies that are already using other AWS services. With scalable cloud storage and no size limits, it’s also a good choice for anyone who’s likely to need a lot more server space in the near future.

CodeCommit has the advantage of an extremely straightforward pricing system. The first five users are free, and after that, you’ll pay $1 per user per month. That comes with 10GB per month of storage and 2,000 Git requests per active user.

If you need more storage of requests, you can easily pay for them. CodeCommit is also part of the AWS Free Tier, so you can try it out and get used to it before fully committing.

5. Visual Studio Team Services

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) lets you collaborate, store, review, and deploy your code. Of course, if you’re leaving GitHub because you don’t like Microsoft, you’re not likely to want to use Visual Studio.

Still, VSTS aims to help you with a wider variety of development tasks. It provides Kanban boards for agile planning, support for Scrum, testing and deployment infrastructure, and package sharing.

Guaranteed uptime, 24/7 support, and a regular update schedule are all perks of working with VSTS. Up to five users can work with VSTS for free, and you’ll pay a monthly fee based on the number of users beyond that.

6. RhodeCode

If your organization uses different version control technologies, RhodeCode might be a good choice. It supports Mercurial, Git, and Subversion, giving you the widest variety of options on this list.

Code review, workflow automation, and permission management help you monitor and run DevOps in your group. And the built-in SVN-to-Git migration is a great help when transitioning your team.

RhodeCode’s Community Edition is totally free, while the Enterprise Edition gives you integration with enterprise tools, premium support, more collaboration features and multiple instances. The Enterprise Edition is $75 per user per year, and licenses are offered in 10-packs.

7. SourceForge

There’s a good chance that you’ve downloaded free software from SourceForge sometime in the past. And if you’re working on an open-source project, it’s a great alternative to GitHub.

There’s not much in the way of features, and the site itself is pretty strange (there are articles about cloud storage and business VoIP on the front page), but it’s also free. So if you’re on a shoestring budget and developing an open-source app, it’s worth considering.

SourceForge has caused some controversy in the past when they bundled their own software with open-source downloads. They seem to have cleaned up their act, but it also appears to be somewhat cyclical. Check their current practices before hosting your code there.

Choosing the Right GitHub Alternative for You

With all of these choices, it can be tough to find the best alternative to GitHub. But because most services offer either a free plan or a free trial, you can check them out to see which one works best.

If you just want basic functionality, and you aren’t worried too much about the interface or enterprise features, choosing one based on your budget is a viable option as well.

And don’t forget that version control can be used for more than code.

Read the full article: The 7 Best GitHub Alternatives for Hosting Your Project’s Source Code

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Twitter buys a startup to battle harassment, e-cigs are booming, and a meditation app is worth $250M

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley Editor Connie Loizos and I jammed out on a couple topics as Alex Wilhelm was out managing his fake stock game spreadsheets or something. (The jury is out on whether this was a good or bad thing.)

First up is Twitter buying Smyte, a startup targeting fixes for spam and abuse. This is, of course, Twitter’s perennial problem and it’s one that it’s been trying to fix for some time — but definitely not there yet. The deal terms weren’t disclosed, but Twitter to its credit has seen its stock basically double this year (and almost triple in the past few years). Twitter is going into a big year, with the U.S. midterm elections, the 2018 World Cup, and the Sacramento Kings probably finding some way to screw up in the NBA draft. This’ll be a close one to watch over the next few months as we get closer to the finals for the World Cup and the elections. Twitter is trying to bill itself as a home for news, focusing on live video, and a number of other things.

Then we have Juul Labs, an e-cigarette company that is somehow worth $10 billion. The Information reports that the PAX Labs spinout from 2015 has gone from a $250 million valuation all the way to $10 billion faster than you can name each scooter company that’s raising a new $200 million round from Sequoia that will have already been completed by the time you finish this sentence. Obviously the original cigarette industry was a complicated one circa the 20th century, so this one will be an interesting one to play out over the next few years.

Finally, we have meditation app Calm raising a $27 million round at a $250 million pre-money valuation. Calm isn’t the only mental health-focused startup that’s starting to pick up some momentum, but it’s one that’s a long time coming. I remember stumbling upon Calm.com back in 2012, where you’d just chill out on the website for a minute or so, so it’s fun to see a half-decade or so later that these apps are showing off some impressive numbers.

That’s all for this week, we’ll catch you guys next week. We apologize in advance if Alex makes it back on to the podcast.

Equity  drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocketcast, Downcast and all the casts.

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How to Send Free SMS Texts From a PC Using Android Messages

Apps for texting from your PC like MightyText and Pushbullet always come up when discussing ways to send SMS messages from your PC. But they tend to limit your monthly texts unless you pay for a costly Pro subscription. Pulse, one of the best alternative apps to SMS text messaging, lets you text from your PC but it costs a few dollars per year.

Thankfully, Google has updated it Messages app to finally include free and unlimited texting from your PC. Here’s how to use it:

1. Make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of Android Messages and open it on your phone. It’s pre-installed on many devices, but you can download it from the Play Store if you don’t have it. You’ll also need to set it as your default SMS app for full functionality.
2. Tap the three-dot Menu in the upper-right corner of Messages and choose Messages for web. If you don’t see this yet, you’ll need to wait for the update to roll out to you.
3. Open Google’s Messages for Web page on your computer’s browser (it won’t work with internet Explorer).
4. If you want to stay signed in, enable the Remember this device slider. Then tap Scan QR code on your phone, and use your device’s camera to scan the code on your PC screen.
5. Once it completes, your latest conversations will appear on your PC. Google says that they’re encrypted and cached in your browser. If you don’t access this for 14 days, Google will automatically sign you out for security.
6. If you want to use a dark theme on the website, open Menu > Settings > Enable dark theme.

You can pair with multiple computers, but only your current one will be active at a time. And since this goes through your phone, it won’t work when your phone is off.

For convenience, you can use Chrome to create a pseudo-app for this on your PC. While on the Messages page, go to Menu > More tools > Create shortcut. Give it a name and check Open as window to add a link to it on your Taskbar. Then you can access your messages in a dedicated window.

If you’re not tied to SMS texting, check out the best messaging apps that work on both your phone and computer.

Read the full article: How to Send Free SMS Texts From a PC Using Android Messages

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The Best Way to Find College Admissions Info on Google

How to Back Up and Restore Adobe Lightroom Catalogs

Photos are precious. Photos you have worked on with painstaking edits are even more valuable. That’s why it’s a good habit to get familiar with how Adobe Lightroom backs up and restores its catalog of photos.

Note that Lightroom Classic CC backs up the catalog and not the photos themselves. You need to backup photos separately using a different strategy not covered in this article.

How to Back Up an Adobe Lightroom Catalog

The Lightroom catalog is a database that includes all the information related to the photo. It not only tracks the location of each photo but all the edits it has gone through in Lightroom. So, regular catalog backups on a schedule can save your work in case of a crash.

You can tell Lightroom Classic CC to backup the catalog automatically every time you quit the software:

1. Go to Edit > Catalog Settings (Windows) or Lightroom > Catalog Settings (Mac OS).
2. Choose a backup option from the dropdown for Back up catalog.

The Catalog Settings screen also shows the location of the catalog file and the backup meta-data. You can also exercise your backup options when quitting Lightroom.

1. Exit Lightroom.
2. In the Back Up Catalog dialog box, click Back Up to back up the catalog at the default location and exit Lightroom Classic CC.
3. You can again select a backup schedule and a different location before you click Back Up.
4. If you don’t want to back up this time, postpone the back up with a click on Skip this time or Skip until tomorrow. The command will vary according to the choice of the backup schedule you have chosen in the dropdown.

How to Restore an Adobe Lightroom Catalog Backup

Restoring a backed-up Lightroom catalog is easy and can save you from potential disasters like a hard drive crash.

1. Choose File > Open Catalog.
2. Browse to the location of your backed up catalog file.
3. Select and open the backed up .LRCAT file.
4. You can also copy the backed up catalog to the location of the original catalog and replace it.

Not backing up your photos is one of the photo management mistakes you want to avoid right from the beginning of your photography journey. There is no reason not to do it because Lightroom makes it so easy to backup your catalog.

Read the full article: How to Back Up and Restore Adobe Lightroom Catalogs

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WhatsApp Will Soon Stop Working on These Phones: Is Yours on the List?

If you use an old phone, or if you’ve never bothered to upgrade to the latest version of your phone’s operating system, it’s time to pay attention:

WhatsApp might stop working on your phone soon.

(Oh, and you really should upgrade your mobile OS anyway, you’re asking for a security breach if you don’t).

Which Phones Will Stop Supporting WhatsApp?

Estimates suggest more than 20 million handsets will be affected in total.

Any phone running one of the following operating systems will no longer be supported. WhatsApp will stop working in the coming days:

• Android versions older than 2.3.3
• Windows Phone 8.0 and older
• iPhone iOS 6
• Nokia Symbian S60
• BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10

Worse still, WhatsApp will stop working on several more common handsets in February 2020. They are any devices running:

• Android versions 2.3.7 and older
• iOS 7 and older

Lastly, support for the app on the Nokia S40 will end in December 2018.

We know what you’re thinking: “Those dates are still a long time away, it doesn’t matter.” Perhaps, but in a blog post on the matter, WhatsApp said that users on those operating systems could lose functionality at any time between now and then.

Sure, it’s unlikely that the basic text messaging capabilities will stop functioning before the cut-off in 2020, but what about the ability to send photos and videos? And are you confident that video and voice calling will continue to work?

More importantly, users on any device listed above will no longer be able to create new WhatsApp accounts. That applies to the devices that lose support in 2020, as well as the devices that are set to lose support in the coming days.

The best solution is to update your Android or update your iPhone as soon as possible. And if your device is so old that you cannot upgrade it, perhaps it’s time to look for a new smartphone entirely.

Read the full article: WhatsApp Will Soon Stop Working on These Phones: Is Yours on the List?

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Google adds a search feature to account settings to ease use

Google has announced a refresh of the Google Accounts user interface. The changes are intended to make it easier for users to navigate settings and review data the company has associated with an account — including information relating to devices, payment methods, purchases, subscriptions, reservations, contacts and other personal info.

The update also makes security and privacy options more prominent, according to Google.

“To help you better understand and take control of your Google Account, we’ve made all your privacy options easy to review with our new intuitive, user-tested design,” it writes. “You can now more easily find your Activity controls in the Data & Personalization tab and choose what types of activity data are saved in your account to make Google work better for you.

“There, you’ll also find the recently updated Privacy Checkup that helps you review your privacy settings and explains how they shape your experience across Google services.”

Android users will get the refreshed Google Account interface first, with iOS and web coming later this year.

Last September the company also refreshed Google Dashboard — to make it easier to use and better integrate it into other privacy controls.

While in October it outed a revamped Security Checkup feature, offering an overview of account security that includes personalized recommendations. The same month it also launched a free, opt-in program aimed at users who believe their accounts to be at particularly high risk of targeted online attacks.

And in January it announced new ad settings controls, also billed as boosting transparency and control. So settings related updates have been coming pretty thick and fast from the ad targeting tech giant.

The latest refresh comes at a time when many companies have been rethinking their approach to security and privacy as a result of a major update to the European Union’s data protection framework which applies to entities processing EU people’s data regardless of where that data is being crunched.

Google also announced a raft of changes to its privacy policy as a direct compliance response with GDPR back in May — saying it was making the policy clearer and easier to navigate, and adding more detail and explanations. It also updated user controls at that time, simplifying on/off switches for things like location data collection and web and app activity.

So that legal imperative to increase visibility and user controls at the core of digital empires looks to be generating uplift that’s helping to raise the settings bar across entire product suites. Which is good news for users.

As well as rethinking how Google Account settings are laid out, the updated “experience” adds some new functions intended to make it easier for people to find the settings they’re looking for too.

Notably a new search functionality for locating settings or specific info within an account — such as how to change a password. Which sounds like a really handy addition. There’s also a new dedicated support section offering help with common tasks, and answers from community experts.

And while it’s certainly welcome to see a search expert like Google adding a search feature to help people gain more control over their personal data, you do have to wonder what took it so long to come up with that idea.

Controls are only as useful as they are easy to use, of course. And offering impenetrable and/or bafflingly complex settings has, shamefully, been the historical playbook of the tech industry — as a socially engineered pathway to maximize data gathering via obfuscation (and obtain consent by confusion).

Again, the GDPR makes egregious personal data heists untenable over the long term — at least where the regulation has jurisdiction.

And while built-in opacity around technology system operation is something regulators are really only beginning to get to grips with — and much important work remains to be done to put vital guardrails in place, such as around the use of personal data for political ad targeting, for instance, or to ensure AI blackboxes can’t bake in bias — several major privacy scandals have knocked the sheen off big tech’s algorithmic Pandora’s boxes in recent years. And politicians are leaning into the techlash.

So, much like all these freshly redesigned settings menus, the direction of regulatory travel looks pretty clear — even if the pace of progress is never as disruptive as the technologies themselves.

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What Being a Freelance Programmer Is REALLY Like: The Pros and Cons

Fb Messenger auto-translation chips at US/Mexico language wall

Facebook’s been criticized for tearing America apart, but now it will try to help us forge bonds with our neighbors to the south. Facebook Messenger will now offer optional auto-translation of English to Spanish and vice-versa for all users in the United States and Mexico. It’s a timely launch given the family separation troubles at the nations’ border.

The feature could facilitate cross-border and cross-language friendships, business, and discussion that might show people in the two countries that deep down we’re all just human. It could be especially powerful for US companies looking to use Messenger for conversational commerce without having to self-translate everything.

Facebook tells me “we were pleased with the results” following a test using AI to translate the language pair in Messenger for US Facebook Marketplace users in April.

Now when users receive a message that is different from their default language, Messenger’s AI assistant M will ask if they want it translated. All future messages will in that thead will be auto-translated unless a user turns it off. Facebook plans to bring the feature to more language pairs and countries soon.

A Facebook spokesperson tells me “The goal with this launch is really to enable people to communicate with people they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, in a way that is natural and seamless.”

Starting in 2011, Facebook began offering translation technology for News Feed posts and comments. For years it relied on Microsoft Bing’s translation technology, but Facebook switched to its own stack in mid-2016. By then it was translating 2 billion pieces of text a day for 800 million users.

Conversational translation is a lot tougher than social media posts, though. When we chat with friends, it’s more colloquial and full of slang. We’re also usually typing in more a hurry and can be less accurate. But if Facebook can reliably figure out what we’re saying, Messenger could become the modern day Babel Fish. At 2016’s F8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg through shade on Donald Trump saying “instead of building walls, we can build bridges.” Trump still doesn’t have that wall, and now Zuck is building a bridge with technology.

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Fb Messenger auto-translation chips at US/Mexico language wall

Facebook’s been criticized for tearing America apart, but now it will try to help us forge bonds with our neighbors to the south. Facebook Messenger will now offer optional auto-translation of English to Spanish and vice-versa for all users in the United States and Mexico. It’s a timely launch given the family separation troubles at the nations’ border.

The feature could facilitate cross-border and cross-language friendships, business, and discussion that might show people in the two countries that deep down we’re all just human. It could be especially powerful for US companies looking to use Messenger for conversational commerce without having to self-translate everything.

Facebook tells me “we were pleased with the results” following a test using AI to translate the language pair in Messenger for US Facebook Marketplace users in April.

Now when users receive a message that is different from their default language, Messenger’s AI assistant M will ask if they want it translated. All future messages will in that thead will be auto-translated unless a user turns it off. Facebook plans to bring the feature to more language pairs and countries soon.

A Facebook spokesperson tells me “The goal with this launch is really to enable people to communicate with people they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, in a way that is natural and seamless.”

Starting in 2011, Facebook began offering translation technology for News Feed posts and comments. For years it relied on Microsoft Bing’s translation technology, but Facebook switched to its own stack in mid-2016. By then it was translating 2 billion pieces of text a day for 800 million users.

Conversational translation is a lot tougher than social media posts, though. When we chat with friends, it’s more colloquial and full of slang. We’re also usually typing in more a hurry and can be less accurate. But if Facebook can reliably figure out what we’re saying, Messenger could become the modern day Babel Fish. At 2016’s F8, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg through shade on Donald Trump saying “instead of building walls, we can build bridges.” Trump still doesn’t have that wall, and now Zuck is building a bridge with technology.

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The iPhone Camera Roll: 8 Tips and Fixes for Common Issues

How Can Neural Network Similarity Help Us Understand Training and Generalization?

Posted by Maithra Raghu, Google Brain Team and Ari S. Morcos, DeepMind

In order to solve tasks, deep neural networks (DNNs) progressively transform input data into a sequence of complex representations (i.e., patterns of activations across individual neurons). Understanding these representations is critically important, not only for interpretability, but also so that we can more intelligently design machine learning systems. However, understanding these representations has proven quite difficult, especially when comparing representations across networks. In a previous post, we outlined the benefits of Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) as a tool for understanding and comparing the representations of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), showing that they converge in a bottom-up pattern, with early layers converging to their final representations before later layers over the course of training.

In “Insights on Representational Similarity in Neural Networks with Canonical Correlation” we develop this work further to provide new insights into the representational similarity of CNNs, including differences between networks which memorize (e.g., networks which can only classify images they have seen before) from those which generalize (e.g., networks which can correctly classify previously unseen images). Importantly, we also extend this method to provide insights into the dynamics of recurrent neural networks (RNNs), a class of models that are particularly useful for sequential data, such as language. Comparing RNNs is difficult in many of the same ways as CNNs, but RNNs present the additional challenge that their representations change over the course of a sequence. This makes CCA, with its helpful invariances, an ideal tool for studying RNNs in addition to CNNs. As such, we have additionally open sourced the code used for applying CCA on neural networks with the hope that will help the research community better understand network dynamics.

Representational Similarity of Memorizing and Generalizing CNNs
Ultimately, a machine learning system is only useful if it can generalize to new situations it has never seen before. Understanding the factors which differentiate between networks that generalize and those that don’t is therefore essential, and may lead to new methods to improve generalization performance. To investigate whether representational similarity is predictive of generalization, we studied two types of CNNs:

• generalizing networks: CNNs trained on data with unmodified, accurate labels and which learn solutions which generalize to novel data.
• memorizing networks: CNNs trained on datasets with randomized labels such that they must memorize the training data and cannot, by definition, generalize (as in Zhang et al., 2017).

We trained multiple instances of each network, differing only in the initial randomized values of the network weights and the order of the training data, and used a new weighted approach to calculate the CCA distance measure (see our paper for details) to compare the representations within each group of networks and between memorizing and generalizing networks.

We found that groups of different generalizing networks consistently converged to more similar representations (especially in later layers) than groups of memorizing networks (see figure below). At the softmax, which denotes the network’s ultimate prediction, the CCA distance for each group of generalizing and memorizing networks decreases substantially, as the networks in each separate group make similar predictions.

Groups of generalizing networks (blue) converge to more similar solutions than groups of memorizing networks (red). CCA distance was calculated between groups of networks trained on real CIFAR-10 labels (“Generalizing”) or randomized CIFAR-10 labels (“Memorizing”) and between pairs of memorizing and generalizing networks (“Inter”).

Perhaps most surprisingly, in later hidden layers, the representational distance between any given pair of memorizing networks was about the same as the representational distance between a memorizing and generalizing network (“Inter” in the plot above), despite the fact that these networks were trained on data with entirely different labels. Intuitively, this result suggests that while there are many different ways to memorize the training data (resulting in greater CCA distances), there are fewer ways to learn generalizable solutions. In future work, we plan to explore whether this insight can be used to regularize networks to learn more generalizable solutions.

Understanding the Training Dynamics of Recurrent Neural Networks
So far, we have only applied CCA to CNNs trained on image data. However, CCA can also be applied to calculate representational similarity in RNNs, both over the course of training and over the course of a sequence. Applying CCA to RNNs, we first asked whether the RNNs exhibit the same bottom-up convergence pattern we observed in our previous work for CNNs. To test this, we measured the CCA distance between the representation at each layer of the RNN over the course of training with its final representation at the end of training. We found that the CCA distance for layers closer to the input dropped earlier in training than for deeper layers, demonstrating that, like CNNs, RNNs also converge in a bottom-up pattern (see figure below).

Convergence dynamics for RNNs over the course of training exhibit bottom up convergence, as layers closer to the input converge to their final representations earlier in training than later layers. For example, layer 1 converges to its final representation earlier in training than layer 2 than layer 3 and so on. Epoch designates the number of times the model has seen the entire training set while different colors represent the convergence dynamics of different layers.

Additional findings in our paper show that wider networks (e.g., networks with more neurons at each layer) converge to more similar solutions than narrow networks. We also found that trained networks with identical structures but different learning rates converge to distinct clusters with similar performance, but highly dissimilar representations. We also apply CCA to RNN dynamics over the course of a single sequence, rather than simply over the course of training, providing some initial insights into the various factors which influence RNN representations over time.

Conclusions
These findings reinforce the utility of analyzing and comparing DNN representations in order to provide insights into network function, generalization, and convergence. However, there are still many open questions: in future work, we hope to uncover which aspects of the representation are conserved across networks, both in CNNs and RNNs, and whether these insights can be used to improve network performance. We encourage others to try out the code used for the paper to investigate what CCA can tell us about other neural networks!

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Samy Bengio, who is a co-author on this work. We also thank Martin Wattenberg, Jascha Sohl-Dickstein and Jon Kleinberg for helpful comments.

Bag Week 2018: The Nomadic NF-02 keeps everything in its right place

Nomadic, a Japanese brand sold by JetPens in the US, makes some of my favorite bags and backpacks. The Wise Walker Toto was an amazing little bag and I’ve always enjoyed the size, materials, and design. The $89 Nomadic NF-02 is no different.

The best thing about this 15×7 inch backpack is the compact size and internal pouches. The Nomadic can hold multiple pens, notebooks, and accessories, all stuck in their own little cubbies, and you can fit a laptop and a few books in the main compartment. This is, to be clear, not a “school” backpack. It’s quite compact and I doubt it would be very comfortable with a much more than a pair of textbooks and a heavier laptop. It’s definitely a great travel sack, however, and excellent for the trip from home to the office.

The bag comes in a few colors including turquoise and navy and there is a small hidden pouch for important papers and passports. There is a reflective strip on the body and it is water repellent so it will keep your gear dry.

Again, my favorite part of this bag are the multiple little pockets and spaces. It’s an organizer’s dream and features so many little spots to hide pens and other gear that it could also make an excellent tourist pack. It is small enough for easy transport but holds almost anything you can throw at it.

Nomadic is a solid backpack. It’s small, light, and still holds up to abuse. I’m a big fan of the entire Nomadic line and it’s great to see this piece available in the US. It’s well worth a look if you’re looking for a compact carrier for your laptop, accessories, and notebooks.

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4 Tools to Back Up Your Android Device to Your PC