16 cool things to try with the new Google Photos

You've seen the first impressions. You've tried the app yourself. Now check out some of the awesome advanced features tucked inside the new Google Photos.

Got Photos? (The Google app, that is. Not just photographs in general.)

If so, get ready: Google's new image service packs some serious power. And if not -- well, what are you waiting for?

Beyond the basics, here are 16 awesome advanced features tucked inside the new Google Photos.

Be warned: Some of these may blow your mind.

(Note: The features here are all described as they appear on Android. Most of the same things, however, should be available on the iOS app as well, if that's the way you like to swing. Some of them are also available on the Web, though many are specific to the mobile interface.)

1. Pinch to change your perspective

By default, the new Google Photos app shows your images in a daily view, with medium-sized thumbnails arranged chronologically by date. But there are three other views available, and you can move between them simply by pinching in or out on your device's screen.

Pinch outward once from the day view, and Photos will move into what it considers the "comfortable" view -- in which the thumbnails are all significantly larger and easier to see.

Pinch inward once from the day view, meanwhile, and you'll go to a compact view with smaller thumbnails and thus many more images on the screen at a single time.

The Google Photos app's compact and comfortable views

Pinch inward a second time, and you'll get the Photos app's monthly view. That shows you a bunch of tiny thumbnails arranged by month to give you a broad overview of your images and let you quickly scan through your collection.

2. Keep pinching to navigate into (and out of!) images

The pinch gesture carries throughout the entire Photos app: Every time you pinch inward, you'll go to a closer view of your images, as described above. Once you're in the closest possible view -- the "comfortable" view -- pinching in on any image will open that image in full.

And regardless of what view you started in, pinching outward on any image while viewing it in full will take you back to the main image list (with a really nice transitional animation!).

3. Scroll slowly -- or scroll quickly

Scrolling the normal way -- by sliding your finger up or down on the screen -- works fine in Photos. But the new app also offers another option: Once you start scrolling, you can touch the quick-scroll icon on the right side of the screen and drag it upward or downward to move more quickly through your images. A small text box will show you what month you're viewing as you hop through the list.

4. Jump out of images with ease

While viewing an image in full, you can swipe upward or downward on it to jump back into your main image list. Think of it as a gesture to match scrolling-based navigation, while the pinch-out shortcut (mentioned a moment ago) is meant to match pinch-based navigation.

5. Swipe between sections

While we're on the subject of swiping, did you know you can navigate between the different sections of the Google Photos app simply by swiping left or right? Try it: From your main photos list, swipe left once. That'll take you to Photos' Assistant feature, where you'll find suggestions for expanding and improving your Photos experience.

Swipe to the right, meanwhile -- once from the main photos list or twice from the Assistant screen -- and you'll be taken to Collections, which is where you'll see images organized by trips, topics, and dates (via albums you've created, albums Photos has generated on its own, and a mix of auto-generated movies and "stories" -- tap the little drop-down arrow next to the word "Collections" at the top of the screen to look at any one of those areas individually).

6. Explore the crazy-powerful new search feature -- starting with face recognition

See that blue circular icon with a magnifying glass in your main photos list? Tap it. Tap it now. Trust me.

That icon takes you to Photos' search screen, which holds some of the app's coolest and most powerful features.

At the top of the search screen, you'll see the six most frequently photographed faces from your images. On mine, for instance, I see myself, my wife, my daughter, my brother, my mom, and my friend Andrew (who evidently wormed his way into enough photos to earn a spot in my top six -- sneaky bastard!). You can also see more faces by tapping the "More" link next to the word "People."

Tap any of those faces, and you'll see all of the photos -- or at least many of them -- in which that particular person appears. And here's what's crazy: Google says the app is able to track a person's face and continue to recognize it as they age over time. So in theory, at least, the current photos of my daughter as an infant will one day be grouped together with photos of her as a young child, a teenager (eek!), and an adult.

Spot a photo where it doesn't belong? It's bound to happen every now and then (though the recognition has been pretty close to spot-on in my experience so far). If it happens to you, simply tap the menu icon at the top-right of the screen, select "Remove results," then select the photos that shouldn't be present within any person's collection.

7. Explore your photos by location

Scroll down below the faces in that same search screen, and you'll find a list of locations in which your photos have been taken. What's particularly remarkable about this is that it works even if you don't have location reporting activated, as is the case for me.

How? Google says its technology is able to recognize known geographical landmarks from photos and then use logic (and the laws of physics) to infer your location in other nearby photos. If you took a snapshot of the Eiffel Tower on February 9th at 2 p.m., for instance, Google can safely assume you were still in Paris in that selfie you took in front of a bakery 45 minutes later. The accuracy and level of detail may surprise you.

8. Explore your photos by objects and themes

This may be the most impressive part of the new Photos app: Beneath the locations in the search screen, you'll see a list of common themes found in your photos -- things like flowers, concerts, weddings, forests, nightclubs, and dancing. Tap any categorization, and you'll find a selection of photos that matches that description.

Some of the things identified and suggested by the new Google Photos app

9. Search your photos for practically anything imaginable

This feature's actually a carryover from the old G+ Photos app, but it gains extra power and usability in the new version: In addition to browsing through all the areas mentioned above, you can manually search your photos for all sorts of things. Having this ability completely transforms the way you organize your images -- or, more accurately, don't have to bother organizing them -- in order to find what you want.

On the search screen, tap the area at the top labeled "Search" and start typing in a term. You'll see the app offer auto-complete suggestions as you type; these are all generated based on your own individual photo collection and are specific to things found within your images.

What kinds of terms can you search for? The better question is what kinds of terms can't you search for. I've had luck with things like "swimming," "theater," and "winter." You can even get ambitious and try combining terms for extra-specific searches, like "food on honeymoon" (which worked amazingly well for me -- but then again, we did eat an insane amount of grub on our post-nuptial adventures).

To start, I'd suggest typing different letters and seeing what auto-complete suggestions appear. One fun term I encountered that way was "crochet," which pulled up pictures of my daughter in different handmade blankets friends and relatives had made for her.

Another one worth trying is a color -- yup, a color. Go give it a whirl, and you'll see what I mean.

10. Play around with Google Creations

If you used Google+ Photos in the past, you might be wondering what happened to Auto Awesome -- the fun set of collages, animations, and videos Google automatically generated based on your images. Fear not: They're still here; they just have a new name.

Scroll all the way down on the Photos search screen, and you'll see an option called Creations. There, you'll find all the different ways Google has mashed your photos together into interesting new forms.

The Photos app will still make those mashups automatically, as the old app did in the past. But with the new app, you can also manually makeany of those items anytime you want.

To do so, just select any set of photos from your collection (more on the act of selecting in a second). Tap the "+" icon that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen, then choose from any of the options that appear -- adding the images into a new album, movie, story, animation, or collage. You'll be able to view and share the resulting creation seconds later.

11. Select photos the smarter way

Manually selecting a bunch of items on a phone can be a pain -- long-pressing one item, then tapping each additional item you want to be included one by one. Well, thank your lucky stars, gang: The new Photos app has a better solution.

While viewing images in the Photos app, long-press on any photo to start the selection process. Then, without lifting your finger, drag upward or downward. That'll allow you to quickly select a bunch of consecutive photos without having to do the typical tap-tap-tap dance.

Selecting multiple images in the new Google Photos app

12. Take advantage of Photos' fantastic new sharing feature

The new Google Photos app makes it dead-simple to share any number of photos with friends or family (or hell, even enemies, if you want -- you devious scamp, you).

You can still share photos normally, by sending an image or set of images to any compatible service on your phone -- an email app, messaging app, social media app, and so on. But you can also opt to use a new option called "Get link," and if you're anything like me, you'll really appreciate what it can do.

"Get link" essentially creates an on-the-fly album with all of the images you've selected to share. It then copies a link to that album into your system clipboard.

Send that link to anyone you want, and they'll be presented with a gallery containing the photos you selected (and no others). They'll be able to view the full-res images whether they're signed into Google or not. They'll even be able to download them all in one fell swoop, if they so desire.

A set of photos shared from the Google Photos app, as viewed on the desktop (while not signed into Google)

If the person is signed into Google and has a Photos account of their own, they'll also have the option of adding the images directly into theirown Photos collection with a single click. That's gonna to make the act of sharing images from my phone to my wife's collection and vice-versa easier than ever.

The makeshift galleries you share are accessible only to those who have the link -- but here's what's especially useful: If you share a link and later decide you don't want anyone to be able to access those photos, you can revoke access. Just tap the main menu icon (the three horizontal lines) at the top-left of the Photos app, then select "Shared links." There, you'll see a list of all the photo links you've created along with options to delete them.

13. Free up space on your phone

One of Photos' key features is the ability to automatically and continuously back up photos from your phone to the cloud for safe-keeping and universal access. Once a photo is backed up, then, there's really no reason to also keep storing it locally and thus take up precious space on your phone or tablet.

The new Photos app makes it easy as pie to free up space on your device by removing redundant local copies of images. There's just one caveat: You have to choose to back up images at their full original resolution in order for the feature to be available. If you choose to use the free and unlimited "High quality" backup option, Photos won't offer to delete local versions of images -- since the local versions aren't identical to those stored on Google's servers.

(You can change your choice in the "Back up & sync" section of the app's main settings; just remember that by opting to upload images at their full original resolution, you may eventually run into a storage limit and have to purchase more space.)

If you're uploading at full resolution, look in the Assistant section of the new Photos app. When the local storage on your device gets low, you'll see a card there showing exactly how much space you can free up by deleting local copies. You'll also get a single-tap option to do the deed and remove all the local copies.

Freeing up local space with the Google Photos Assistant

The beauty of it is that so long as you have an active data connection, you won't even notice the difference after the local images are deleted. All of your photos will still show up via their cloud-stored versions, and for all practical purposes, they'll look and act exactly the same as they did before.

14. Save RAW files and other uncompressed originals

Do you shoot photos in a professional-quality format like RAW? If so, you probably don't want Photos to back up the images as JPGs (and if this all sounds like Greek to you, no worries -- it probably doesn't apply to you. Just take a swig of the nearest beverage and move onto the next item).

Google Photos can save files in their original formats, if you want; the key is just to select the option to upload files in their original resolution instead of in "High quality," as mentioned above. With the original resolution option, everything will go to Google's servers just as you have it -- in the same format and at the same size.

Remember that files like RAW images tend to take up a lot of space, though, and this type of storage is not unlimited.

15. Edit images in Photos -- or quick-switch to Snapseed for even more options

The old G+ Photos app had a really nice built-in image editor. The new app's editor is significantly simpler, with a narrow focus on basic image tuning and manipulation -- and you know what? That'll be more than enough for most people. (You can get to the Photos image editor by tapping the pencil icon while viewing any image.)

If you're into more advanced photo manipulation, you'll want to snag Snapseed -- the robust yet free Google-owned standalone image editor. In a neat twist, once Snapseed is installed on your device, you'll find a quick link to it right within Photos that lets you beam any image over for a nearly seamless editing experience.

Just tap the menu icon in the upper-right corner while you're viewing an image. If Snapseed is on the device, you'll see the option there to edit the photo in Snapseed.

Easy peasy, eh?

16. Sync all your photos with a local computer

With all of your photos in the cloud, you probably won't have to worry about having a comprehensive local backup of your images. If you like the idea of keeping your entire image collection on your computer, though, there is a way to sync Google Photos with your own personal hard drive. And once you set it up, you'll never have to think about it again.

First, you'll need to download and install theGoogle Drive syncing app for Mac or Windows, if you haven't already. Make sure the app is set to sync everything in your Drive to a folder on your computer.

Second, you'll need to head to the Drive websiteand click on the link in the left navigation bar labeled "Google Photos." Then, click the button to add a Google Photos folder to My Drive (assuming you haven't done that already -- if you have, the button won't be there).

Within a minute or so, a new folder should show up in your Drive called Google Photos. And since you have Drive set to sync with your computer via the Mac or Windows app, that folder will now be backed up and synced -- both ways -- with the corresponding local folder.

The power is in your hands, compadres. Use it wisely.

16 cool things to try with the new Google Photos

8:22 AM App, Google, Google photo, smart phones

The Inside Story of Google's Bizarre Plunge Into VR

The Inside Story of Google’s Bizarre Plunge Into VR

Google vice president Clay Bavor unveils the new Google Cardboard virtual reality headset at the company's annual developer conference. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

David Coz worked in Google’s Paris office, but what he really wanted was a job at the mothership in Silicon Valley.

Last spring, the French-born Coz turned up at Google headquarters in Mountain View hoping to chat about his latest project with anyone who would listen. “I came with my prototype and my luggage,” he says, “and I met with 10 or 15 people.” One of them was Christian Plagemann, a Google research scientist exploring new interfaces for consumer electronics devices. Though they’d never met, Coz showed him the prototype: a pair of virtual reality goggles made out of cardboard.

Plagemann was intrigued—“David showed me this cardboard box,” he says, “and I thought it was absolutely amazing”—and he took the contraption to Google’s bigwigs, including CEO Larry Page and vice president of engineering Sundar Pichai. “I convinced him to leave me one of the boxes. He flew back to Paris. And I started showing it around,” Plagemann remembers.

Two months later, Pichai unveiled the project on the keynote stage at Google’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, and Google employees handed cardboard headsets to thousands of coders as they streamed from the speakers’ hall. It was a slightly odd sideshow at a conference where the company typically doled out millions of dollars in phones, tablets, and other electronic gear. But in the year since, this unexpectedly low-tech device—something that wraps around an ordinary smartphone screen—has engendered a sweeping virtual reality project inside the company, giving Google a foothold in an area poised to reshape the tech world.

Coz did join the mothership. He and Plagemann and the other Paris employee who createdGoogle Cardboard, Damian Henry, are all part of a Google VR team that’s “bigger than people think it is.” In December, the team roped in a group of 3-D vision experts led by Steve Seitz, a University of Washington professor whose work gave rise to a panoramic photo application from Microsoft called Photosynth. John Wiley, who previously oversaw the visual design of the Google search engine, recently joined as well. And the team is now fashioning rather complex VR tech that puts Google in competition with Facebook, Microsoft, and others.

On Thursday, after team leader Clay Bavor showed off a new incarnation of the cardboard goggles at this year’s Google I/O developer conference, he revealed that the company has designed a 16-lens camera that can record videos across 360 degrees, and that it’s developing a software system that can turn these videos into the kind of immersive, stereoscopic experiences the goggles are intended to provide. The company calls all this its “Jump” VR platform, and it says GoPro will offer a version of its camera this summer. But all these developments, it seems, are merely precursors to something larger. “We have ambitions beyond just Cardboard,” Bavor says. “There are many other things going on.”

Attendees look through Google Cardboard VR (virtual reality) viewers during the Google I/O Annual Developers Conference in San Francisco.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

‘The VR Nerd’

The rise of Google Cardboard shows the unusual way Google operates. In Paris, Coz and Henry worked for the Google Cultural Institute, a way for museums and other institutions to put their art online. Their cardboard goggles, meanwhile, were a “20 percent project,” where Google employees dedicate one day a week (that is, 20 percent of their time) to some new idea.

The project began after they stumbled onto a little-seen YouTube video shot from a flying drone. It was a stereoscopic video meant for a 3-D headset they didn’t have, and at some point, they realized they could view such videos if they wrapped a makeshift headset around a phone—“you just have to make sure the phone understands where your head is looking,” Coz says—and they pitched the idea to their Paris manager as a way for students to virtually visit museum galleries.

20-percent projects have sparked some pretty serious products in the past—think Gmail and AdSense—but even for Google, the transformation of some French cardboard into a well-appointed VR team is an extreme case. “When it came out last year, it seemed like slap in the face of VR—a slap in the face of anyone who thought VR was a high-brow thing. They were like: ‘It doesn’t have to be that way,'” says Brian Blau, an analyst with research outfit Gartner who previously explored virtual reality both as an academic and in the commercial world. “But this slap in the face became ‘Whoa, we’re right.’ And now it’s a lot more serious too.”

Last spring, after Plagemannn—a German-born engineer who previously worked on self-driving cars at Stanford UNiversity—showed the cardboard goggles to the Google braintrust, someone suggested he take them to Bavor. Bavor was a vice president of product management who oversaw user interface design for Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Apps. But inside the company, he was known as a “VR nerd.”

“I’d been experimenting with virtual reality and telepresence: How do you and I have a conversation if we’re not actually here?” says the boyish-looking Bavor. It’s the kind of thing, he explains, that he has always experimented with. He likes to think he created his first VR application when he was twelve, using the old Apple Hypercard program to create a panoramic image of his home. “There were no goggles. It was very much a poor man’s virtual reality. But it was something I was really thinking about.”

Under Bavor, the team turned those cardboard goggles into something that’s now used by as many as one million people. Blau says this makes Cardboard the most successful VR device of all time—“by a large stretch.” Using Google’s designs, anyone can build their own goggles, dropping two lenses into the front of the cardboard contraption and a phone into the back. From the phone, they can then use an app to play those stereoscopic videos—videos that capture the same scene from two slightly different angles and give the illusion of depth when viewed through two separate lens (one for each eye).

As the project expanded, the team added camera designers as well as Seitz and his team. Seitz retains his post at the University of Washington, but about five years ago, he joined Google to create a group dedicated to 3-D vision. “I was told I could come to Google and hire whoever I wanted and work on whatever I wanted,” he says. “I was able to hire my dream team.” Previously, the group built 3-D photo tours atop Google Maps and they worked on a tool that lets yourefocus a photo after it’s taken.

Bavor declines to say what the company is working on outside of Cardboard and Jump. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the team is building a “version of the Android operating system to virtual reality applications.” Though theJournal is short on details, this implies the OS would run on a new breed of hardware—that is, googles that aren’t made of cardboard.

‘At The Right Time’

Google’s virtual-reality effort puts it on a parallel track to Facebook, which acquired the VR startup Oculus last spring and is set to launch its Rift headset later this year. But Google is also eyeing “augmented reality” akin to what Microsoft is exploring with its Hololens headset. In addition to its much discussed Google Glass headset—which sits in a kind of limbo at the moment—the company recently joined a group that invested $542 million in the cagey augmented reality startup Magic Leap. Bavor says he was “very much involved” in the deal.

Augmented reality systems provide a way of layering 3-D images—or “holograms”—atop what you see here in the real world. The hope is that they not only provide a new way of using computing systems, such as hanging a Skype window on your wall, but also transform how we watch movies and play games and even help designers and engineers create physical objects. Virtual reality, by contrast, shuts out the real world, immersing you in a different “place” in a way that’s best suited to games and education and training. On Thursday, Google released what it calls Expeditions—a way for school kids to take virtual trips to places like Venice and the Great Wall of China. It’s an echo of the original pitch Coz and Henry made to their manager in Paris.

Bavor says this is the immediate future of VR. But Facebook also sees it as a means of worldwide communication. That’s a long way off, but we’re moving in that direction—at Facebook and Google and others. “Cardboard,” Coz says, “was a project that came at the right time.”

The Inside Story of Google's Bizarre Plunge Into VR

7:01 AM cardboard, Google, VR, wearables

Can the Herpes Virus Kill Cancer?

Doctors recently modified the herpes simplex virus to fight skin cancer. Could the ability to kill cells by using viruses be the key to curing cancer for good?

There's a pretty good chance that you or someone you love has been affected by cancer in some way. It's the second leading cause of death after heart disease in the U.S. While there are a number of risk factors that can increase your chances of getting it, it can strike anyone at any time. It kills one in four Americans and is the leading cause of death for women aged 40 to 79 and men aged 60 to 79. While a number of treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, can lower fatality rates, these treatments can bring some major side effects and health complications.

A promising new cancer treatment on the horizon uses a seemingly unlikely source: the herpes virus. The largest viruses are many times smaller than the smallest bacteria. They consists of nothing but genetic material wrapped in a protein coat, so they can't live without a host and reproduce by attaching themselves to other cells, which they reprogram to make new viruses. The host cell continues to reproduce the virus it's infected by until it explodes with new viruses. Certain viruses can turn normal cells into cancerous ones. Virotherapy, or using viruses to attack another virus is a known way to kill viruses. This potential first became clear more than a century ago when doctors noticed that cancer patients who caught measles, hepatitis, or other viral-based diseases seemed to temporarily go into remission. 

Recently, scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research in London have been conducting successful trials with a skin cancer drug called T-VEC, a genetically engineered version of the herpes simplex virus which only replicates in cancer cells while leaving healthy tissues intact. In the latest T-VEC trial, it was given to 436 patients suffering from inoperable melanoma. And though the drug is still not licensed, the results have been promising so far, and with any luck drugs like T-VEC will be able to fight other forms of cancer, too.

 

Can the Herpes Virus Kill Cancer?

6:55 AM Cancer, cancer healing, health, herpus, Medical

ASUS NEW ZENWATCH 2

ZenWatch 2

Let's get to the headliner: the big news with the ZenWatch 2 is that it now comes in two sizes - 37mm and 41mm (width). The smaller 37mm sports an 18mm strap, with the 41mm having a larger 22mm band. Both have AMOLED dipslays with Gorilla Glass 3, IP67 dust and water resistance, magnetic charging cables, and use unspecified Qualcomm processors (likely still a Snapdragon 400). The ZenWatch 2 has a crown now, too, which ASUS says adds functionality, but isn't exactly specifying how just yet. It's also not clear if the smaller ZenWatch 2 has a smaller screen, or if the case is simply shrunk down a bit.

There will be a variety of first-party straps to choose from, with rubber ones in blue, orange, red, and taupe, leather in khaki, brown, gray, blue, and orange, and a stainless steel band in silver, gunmetal, and rose gold. There will also be a Swarovski Professional leather strap with embossed diamond pattern and, you guessed it, Swarovski crystals. I'm guessing availability of all these bands with vary a lot depending on where you live. The watches themselves will be offered in three finishes matching the stainless steel bands (silver, gray, rose gold).

The new magnetic charger allegedly offers drastically improved charge times and "effortlessly attaches" to the ZenWatch 2, not that we have any illustrations just yet. The remote camera app has been updated, too, and there's a new "next-gen" Wellness app to track your activity. Availability and pricing were not announced.

ZenFone Selfie

The next product on the block was ZenFone Selfie which, you guessed it, is basically a ZenFone 2 with a big fat front-facing camera for maximumselfitude. Aside from the camera, the major difference here seems to be the chipset, with ASUS having moved to the increasingly popular Snapdragon 615 octa-core chip on this device, as opposed to the Intel Atom in the ZenFone 2. The front-facing camera has an f/2.2 aperture and 88-degree field of view with 13MP of resolution.

 

The same 5.5" 1080p IPS display is on board, and the phone will come in seven colors (which, again: availability will vary by market). Release date and pricing were, again, unannounced.

ZenPads

ZenPad S 8.0 rounded out ASUS' Android announcements at the event, and it actually seems pretty decent (even if the looks are... interesting). A quad-core 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 (also found in the ZenFone 2) with 4GB of RAM, a 2K IPS display, and a rather impressive 6.6mm thinness. Other details include 16 and 32GB storage models, 5MP front and 8MP rear cameras, GPS, USB Type C connector (!), 15.2Wh battery, and a weight of 299g. Apart from a mention of a "Z Stylus," an accessory that will do stylus things, there was also a battery-boosting ZenCase and a predictably large color selection. A "normal" ZenPad 8.0 and ZenPad 7.0 were also announced, but technical details were scant. If you want to do some digging, the model numbers are: Z370C/CG/CL (7"), Z380C/KL (8" non-S), and Z580C/CA (8" S). Android 5.0 with ZenUI will be on all three. Oh, and there's also a 10.1" version that we have basically no details on other than it will have a detachable keyboard, presumably Transformer Book-style.

 

Models with and without LTE/mobile data connectivity are expected, and for the third time, still nothing on pricing or availability. The images above depict the standard ZenPad 8.0 (Z380C) on the left, and the ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580C) on the right.

Quite a set of announcements from ASUS this evening, or rather, this afternoon at Computex.

ASUS NEW ZENWATCH 2

9:52 AM android, Asus, wearables, zenwatch

New Google Photo App Launches

New Google Photo App Launches Today, Includes Unlimited Free Storage Of High Quality Photos And Video

We already have already posted a pretty thorough preview of the features coming with the new Google Photos app, but that doesn't mean Google didn't save a couple of surprises for IO. The big bombshell is that, starting later today, users will be able to upload an unlimited number of photos and videos for free. If you weren't using Google as your primary source for photo archiving, this news may give you reason to reconsider.

Your pictures and videos won't be compressed into oblivion either, they will be stored at up to 16MP for images and 1080p for video. That's plenty big enough for most typical consumers and will still allow for high quality prints of photos.

In addition to the unveiling of Google's generous new gift of unlimited photo storage, another cool feature was also announced. With the new Photos app, it will now be possible to send a group of photos by simply hitting the new "get a link" button. This will create a custom link to a web gallery of the photos you have selected. That link can be sent to anyone and opened in any web browser without having to log in or download an app.

If the recipient is logged in they will have an additional option besides just being able to view the photos. They can touch the cloud icon at the top of the image gallery and instantly import all the high quality shared photos and videos into their own library. This new feature, paired with unlimited storage, could make Google Photos one of the most compelling photo sharing and archive services on the web.

The new Google Photos will be available later today on Android, iOS and across the web.

New Google Photo App Launches

11:59 AM android, App, GOOGLE I/O, Google photo

Google I/O 2015 The 12 most important announcements

At its 2015 I/O keynote, Google focused mostly on optimizing Android — but that's actually a pretty big project. A lot of the updates involved reducing friction: there were updates to Android designed to make moving between apps and the web smoother, updates to Android Wear designed to make it easier to glean information from watch faces at a glance, and a new photo app that will organize all your pictures and back them up for free.

There are also some new, potentially interesting features for the existing apps. Google Now will start to anticipate your needs wherever you are on your phone. If you’re in a region with poor connectivity, Chrome and Maps will be capable of more, including giving directions while offline. As for hardware, there’s a new Google Cardboard — and an educational field trip initiative — and a VR camera system that will be sold by GoPro, but the plans for which will be made available this summer for anyone to make their own.

Android M

Android M looks a lot like its predecessor Lollipop. It’s more like a reorganization of Android, with power optimization, new services, and changes to how your apps interact. If you’re a developer, you can check out the preview today. Otherwise, you’ll be getting it later this year.

App permissions get less intimidating

Android has traditionally given you a wall of permission requests — accessing your location, using your microphone — whenever you install a new app. That’s all supposed to be changing with Android M. There are fewer update categories, and you’ll no longer be asked to look at them on installation. Instead, Google will ask you to approve individual permissions when the developer calls them up. You can also look up everything that the app is accessing, or which ones are using, say, your calendar or camera.

Chrome in all your apps

Right now, when you click on a web link from within an app, you either have to load the browser or use a stripped-down web view in the app. Google announced something called Chrome Custom Tabs, which looks like an in-app Chrome browser and is supposed to make loading pages faster by preloading certain elements, including passwords and autofill. Google also announced measures to make it easier for apps to link to other apps, for example, loading the Twitter app automatically when you click on a link to a tweet.

Better battery life and USB-C

In an effort to save battery life, Google introduced a new feature called Doze. Android M uses motion detection to go into deeper sleep if inactive for longer periods of time. Google said it trades "app freshness" for battery life. While dozing, devices can still respond to high-priority messages and use alarms. In a test against a Nexus 9 running Lollipop, Google, said the M Nexus lasted up to two times longer in standby. USB Type-C will also be supported on Android.

Google Now on Tap

Google Now is getting smarter, and it’s going to be incorporated throughout the phone, through a program called Now on Tap. With Now on Tap, you can hold the home button and bring up Now cards with relevant information, whether you’re in an app, email, or web browser. For example, if someone emails you about going to a movie, summoning Now displays information about whatever was mentioned, with links to YouTube trailers, ratings, and other info. If you’re messaging about laundry and dinner, it can prompt you to set up a to-do item, and give you restaurant listings, along with buttons for Yelp, Maps, and OpenTable. It’s a big expansion for Now, and Google emphasized improvements in contextual understanding. In the demo, asking "What is his real name?" while listening to Skrillex in Spotify brought up the answer without needing to specify "Skrillex."

A new Google Photos app with free online storage

Google already has a photo tool for your Android phone, but Google Photos is a revamped appthat will back up an unlimited number of photos and videos for free (photos up to 16MP, video up to 1080p), organize them as a timeline, and group them together by locations, things like "beaches" or "boats," and people — using what purports to be some pretty advanced auto-tagging. And there are new interface tools for sharing your photos or making collages and movies out of them. Yes, it’s competing with some similar iOS tools, but it could stack up pretty well; it’s available starting today for Android, iOS, and web.

Offline Maps and Chrome for developing countries

Google announced a bunch of updates designed to make its products work better in parts of the world with poor connectivity. A new streamlined search results page will load faster with a spotty connection and optimize pages to load fewer images. Google already lets people save YouTube videos offline in some countries, but now, Chrome will also be able to save pages for offline use, and Google Maps will be able to run a bunch of features offline. In an onstage demo, it could autocomplete searches, show reviews and information, and give turn-by-turn directions offline.

Android everywhere

There's more to Android than phones, obviously. If Google has anything to say about it, it'll be on your wrist, in your house, and in your wallet... sort of.

Some more polishing for Android Wear

Google added some powerful new apps to its Android Wear smartwatch OS, including an easy option for calling Uber cars. It also reiterated some of the ways it's smoothed out the platform. The screen in Android Wear is always-on, Google noted several times, and now apps will be always-on as well, displaying information in a low-power black-and-white mode. If you’re navigating with Google Maps, for instance, directions will stay on the screen, making them glanceable as you move. There’s also a new app launcher designed to make loading apps faster and easier. There are a bunch of other small updates as well, including the ability to recognize drawings and turn them into emoji.

Google wants to manage your smart home

Project Brillo is an operating system built on the "lower layers of Android," Weave is a communications system that will let smart devices talk to each other, and Google hopes you’ll install both of them on your door locks, light bulbs, and thermostat. There’s built-in support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and Google will have a certification platform for Weave, which companies can use with or without Brillo. A lot of people have tried to create a standard for home automation, including Google — it announced Android@Home back in 2011 — but Google will officially be throwing its hat in the ring again by the end of this year.

Android Pay gets closer

We’re getting some more details about Android Pay — which is both Google’s answer to Apple Pay and a second chance for the largely failed Google Wallet service. Android Pay will let you make purchases in apps or tap an NFC sensor to pay for physical goods. Android Pay will work with phones running KitKat and higher, and it’s supposedly being pre-installed by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile; Google promises 700,000 stores will accept it, including Chipotle and Dunkin Donuts. And if your phone has a fingerprint sensor, you can use it to authenticate payment.

HBO Now is coming to Android

We thought we might hear more about TVs from Google this year than we did, but though there wasn’t much news about the Chromecast or Android TV, we did get one new development. HBO Now, the streaming-only service for watching everything from Game of Thrones toTrue Detective, is coming to Android. There’s no firm release date, but this marks the end of Apple’s exclusive access.

Virtual reality

Yes, this gets its own section now. It might still be a fledgling field, but Google put some decent effort into promoting VR during the keynote.

New, iPhone-compatible Google Cardboard

Phones have gotten a lot bigger in the year since Google Cardboard launched, so Google is releasing a new version which can fit phones as large as six inches. The new unit, which goes on sale from partners today, is ditching the headset’s original magnet clicker for a cardboard button that will work with any phone. Google is now making its SDK available for iOS as well as Android, and a dedicated Cardboard app launched on Apple’s App Store today. In order to help kick-start VR use, it’s also announced Expeditions, a virtual reality education tool that lets students take VR field trips while teachers control their experience with a tablet.

A VR Camera rig for everyone

In an effort to make it easier for people to film VR-compatible video, Google partnered with GoPro to build a circular 16-camera rig. The geometry of the rig, called Jump, will be made available this summer for anyone to build their own. Once you’ve recorded something with these cameras, Google’s assembler will figure out depth data from the different images and stitch them together into a stereoscopic VR video. Google said the assembler takes "thousands of computers" and would be available this summer to a "select few" people.

What's next

There wasn’t much talk of Google's new Project Fi wireless carrier at the keynote, or of Android Auto, though the introduction mentioned that 35 car brands are participating. Instead, the focus was on improvements in Google’s machine learning, deployed in Google Photo and Now on Tap. Expanding connectivity was also a theme. Sundar Pichai concluded by saying that Google is about solving problems for everyone: "it's about putting technology to work on important problems that users face and do it at scale for everyone in the world." In the last few minutes, he touched on Google’s self-driving car, the latest version of which will soon begin driving around Mountain View, and balloon-based internet service Project Loon, which he says will expand connectivity to the next billion users.

Google I/O 2015 The 12 most important announcements

8:34 AM Android M, featured, GOOGLE I/O, Google Now, smart phones

Android M To Introduce Granular Permission Control

New security feagturs in Android M

                                                       @Androidpolice

Remember App Ops? Back in Jelly Bean 4.3, the feature could be accessed by resourceful users to switch on or off permissions for individual apps. By KitKat 4.4.2, the feature was completely hidden from users. Google's explanation was that App Ops was never meant for public consumption - it was devised for internal debugging only. But users had gotten a taste of granular app permission controls and wanted more.

After some rumblings earlier this month, we've seen information suggesting that - with Android M - that wish may be fulfilled after all.

Disclaimer: No matter the confidence level, there's always a chance product updates, features, and some or all details will be changed or cancelled altogether. As with all rumors, nothing is 100% until it's officially announced.

We do not have possession of any APKs we can distribute or unreleased devices, so please don't ask for them.

Confidence level

We'll give this rumor a confidence rating of 9/10. This is a feature we know is coming, but the exactdetails of how it will look and behave aren't known to us just yet. The visuals we'll see in this post (which are mockups based on our information) represent our understanding of how the feature will work at the time of writing, but anything could have already changed, and - as with any rumor - things can still change even with I/O less than 24 hours away.

The rumor

From our information it seems that Google wants to decouple permission acceptance from app installs. No longer would users need to accept all an app's permissions en masse before installing said app.

Permission controls would ostensibly live in two places - first, in the app itself, where users will be asked for permission using a series of dialogs. Whether all these dialogs will have to be dealt with immediately before opening the app or if they'll be spread out over the course of use remains to be seen. Evidently, granular permission control will be on for every app automatically, with developers left to decide what the app should do if it is denied permission. This is a potentially worrisome scenario, since apps will need to be updated to degrade gracefully with less and less permissions, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

The second home of permissions controls will be in the device's Settings app. It appears users will have access to a very familiar-looking interface with a list of permissions and toggles to switch on or off permissions as they see fit.

^{Mockups based on our information}

Conclusion

For users, individual permission controls will be a boon. This sort of control is an expectation for iOS users, and many Android users have been looking for similar functionality since before App Ops first hit the scene.

How this will impact developers remains to be seen, but with a dev preview of M expected this year, there will hopefully be enough time for developers to tie up any loose ends before Macadamia Nut Cookie hits a wide release.

Android M To Introduce Granular Permission Control

5:49 PM Android M smart phones, featured, Google

Official launching of Iron man edition of Galaxy S6

Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition officially launched

A couple of weeks back Samsung confirmed that it will be launching an Iron Man edition of the Galaxy S6 edge, the upcoming variant was teased a couple of times and now it’s finally here. Samsung today officially announced the Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition and as the name suggests, it will only be available in select markets and that too in limited quantity.

Samsung has teamed up with Marvel to create this limited edition variant of theGalaxy S6 edge, it’s meant as a “celebration of the technological innovation and creative visual storytelling in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron” Everything else about the handset remains the same, customers will get a special box with the iconic Iron Man mask plastered on top and in it a vibrant red and gold Iron Man-themed Galaxy S6 edge with 64GB of storage. Inside the box there’s also a matching wireless charger that looks like the Arc Reactor found in Tony Stark’s chest, and a clear cover.

The Galaxy S6 edge Iron Man Limited Edition will first be released in Korea tomorrow with Hong Kong and China getting it this June. Samsung has not yet said if this variant will be released in other markets as well, particularly in Europe and North America.

Official launching of Iron man edition of Galaxy S6

6:08 PM featured, galaxy s6, iron man edition, samsung, smart phones

How To Sleep In Seconds?

The Breathing Trick That Puts You to Sleep in Seconds

@Yahoo Health

Nothing is worse than lying awake at night, willing your brain to shut down so you can rest. Warm milk, lavender oil, and counting sheep — we’ve all tried them. But the new solution could be simply learning to breathe.

What is it?

The 4-7-8 breathing technique was pioneered Dr. Andrew Weill from Arizona, who describes the yoga-inspired method as “utterly simple, takes almost no time, requires no equipment and can be done anywhere.”

Dr.Weill claims that 4-7-8 breathing can help people fall asleep in just 60 seconds by acting as a “natural tranquiliser for the nervous system” that reduces stress and tension in the body.

How do you do it?

1. Before you begin, place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth just above your teeth and keep it there throughout the exercise.

2. Exhale completely through your mouth quite forcefully so you make a “whoosh” sound.

3. Close your mouth and inhale quietly and softly through your nose for a mental count of four.

4. Hold your breath and count to seven.

5. Next, exhale completely through your mouth, making another whoosh sound for eight seconds in one large breath.

6. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three times for a total of four breaths.

Remember: All inhaling breaths must be quiet and through your nose and all exhaling breaths must be loud and through your mouth.

How does it help?

• It takes on more oxygen relaxes the parasympathetic nervous system and promotes a state of calmness.
• It helps rebalance the nervous system which can become over stimulated during times of stress.
• It helps you connect with your body and your breathing and distract you from everyday thoughts that can prevent you from sleeping.

How To Sleep In Seconds?

2:21 PM Breath techniques, Good sleep, health

HTC One M9 Camera Fails In Tests

HTC One M9 Camera Fails In Tests: It's Worse Than A Three-Year-Old iPhone 4S

HTC has a problem, and it’s a problem it has had for some time now – failing sales. Even with Cher Wang replacing Peter Chou as leader of the company she founded, the firm has yet to find its feet. One of its biggest problems is that despite very competent hardware design, its phones are let down by a distinct lack of excitement. Its next biggest problem is the fussy UI design that comes from its Sense user interface. While the One M9 was an improvement over the M8, the difference was very slight but the new phone costs considerably more.

But HTC’s problems have worsened again with imaging experts DxOMark declaring its camera worse than the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S3 phones which are three and two-years-old respectively. That has to be seen as a problem for HTC, but first let’s take a look at some background to see how it ended up here.

HTC’s One M9 replaces the dual-camera of the M8, but with little quality increase

The big difference between the M8 and M9 was the camera, which HTC swapped from the dual sensor in the M8 to a higher megapixel version in the M9. HTC touted the dual-camera sensor as a huge advancement in cameraphones, but the truth was quite different. The 4-megapixel cameras just couldn’t keep pace with the sensors in every other camera.

And perhaps worse still, the advantages of the dual sensor were supposed to be that you could re-focus the shots after taking them, but this was so easily duplicated with a software solution that pretty much every phone with one sensor was able to do much the same process in software. And it was this that eventually led HTC to abandon the sensor and move to a 20-megapixel model. That sensor puts it close to phones like Sony’s Z3 20.7-megapixel model, and way in advance of other camera sensors, which tend to come in at around 16-megapixels. But, HTC also forgot one other thing that most other companies have included – stabilization. This is crucial in small, light phones which are easily moved and it plays a huge part in boosting the quality of images taken in poor light, allowing the phone to slow the shutter to allow in more light, while keeping the image free of shake and blur.

At 20-megapixels, this is one of the highest-specified cameras on a phone, but the results just don’t meet expectations

In their findings, the team at DxOMark said that in good light, everything was great – with good colour, detail and with the autofocus performing well. Sadly, in lower light conditions that all changes and everything becomes disappointing with them noting that colours are oversaturated and that there’s a loss of sharpness. They then give the HTC One M9 a camera score of 69.

In contrast, they rate the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge as having the best camera, scoring 86 while the Note 4 grabs second place with 83.The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus assume the third and fourth positions with 82 points. The M9 scores the same as Amazon’s Fire Phone, but is still beaten by phones like the Note 2, Galaxy S3 and LG’s G2.

Worst of all though, HTC only just manages to beat the result of the M8, which scored 68 when tested. That’s a massive problem for a phone costing nearly twice as much money, and with scant other features to sell itself on.

With the announcement that HTC is partnering with Valve for that company’s VR offering, called Vive, perhaps the company is looking for an exit from mobiles. It isn’t a diverse company in terms of investments, so it needs to do something to shore-up disappointing sales. Unsurprisingly though, the HTC Re camera was pretty much universally panned for below-average image quality, so the firm doesn’t have a great track-record outside of phones.

Whatever HTC’s longterm chances of survival are, the message from DxOMark is simple: don’t buy an HTC One M9 for the camera.

HTC One M9 Camera Fails In Tests

9:47 AM android, Apple, HTC ONE M9, Iphone, phone camera, smart phones