Google has reversed its decision to ban explicit sexual content on Blogger.
The tech giant said it decided to reverse the ban in light of feedback and concern related to the "retroactive enforcement of the new policy" that would impact bloggers who have held accounts for over 10 years, according to an update Friday by social product support manager Jessica Pelegio on Google's Product Forums.
In addition, Pelegio said the reversal is due in part to the potential "negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities."
Instead, Google will "step up enforcement" around an existing policy that prohibits commercial porn.
Earlier this week, the online search giant informed users of the Blogger network who ran blogs behind an "adult content warning" page that all adult blogs would be removed from the public eye on March 23, leaving access only granted to registered users. The notice to Bloggers behind the "adult" door read:
"In the coming weeks, we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, or presented where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content. The new policy will go into effect on the 23rd of March 2015. After this policy goes into effect, Google will restrict access to any blog identified as being in violation of our revised policy. No content will be deleted, but only blog authors and those with whom they have expressly shared the blog will be able to see the content we've made private."
In order to prevent their blogs from being removed from the public arena, users were told to delete "sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video." According to ZDNet's Violet Blue, blogs under the "adult" label are wide-ranging and include LGBT diaries, transgender activists, romance book writers, sex toy reviewers, art nude photographers and sex news blogs.
Google said that bloggers should continue to mark blogs which contain explicit content as "adult" so they can be placed behind a suitable "adult content" warning on the network.
Ingress players can will soon be able to access the game's core functions from their Android Wear smartwatch like Motorola's Moto 360.Niantic Labs
Ingress, the augmented reality smartphone game that sets player factions against one another in real-world environments, is moving to the wrist.
Next month, players will be able to access functions of the app from Android Wear smartwatches, creator Niantic Labs said Friday. The game, which uses a device's GPS to overlay crucial points of interest for players near or around landmarks and other areas around the globe, will now let you see friendly and enemy so-called portals from your wrist. It will also let you take action to defend or capture those areas right from the watch face.
Ingress was created by Niantic Labs, a startup within Google, in fall 2012 and has since attracted a dedicated following, with more than 9 million downloads between Google's Android mobile operating system and Apple's iOS. As opposed to sitting on your couch to play the military shooter Call of Duty, Ingress urges players to get out into the world and travel to various locations -- even across country borders -- to meet up with other players for both impromptu sessions and large-scale organized events.
That Ingress is moving to smartwatches is a testament to the wearable design type as a viable platform for gaming. Though you have less real estate on a small circular or square screen, the ability to interact with simple taps while keeping your attention more focused on your surroundings allows for different kinds of gaming experiences, including incorporating the fitness elements of wearables. For instance, Ingress players can dedicate more time to interacting with other members of the game instead of burying their faces in smartphone screens.
There's a still a critical lacking of high-profile titles for smartwatches, but that's changing as wearables become more mainstream. A popular app for smartwatch startup Pebble's platform is last year's mobile sensation Flappy Bird, and big-name publisher Electronic Arts is also considering making standalone games for wearables as well as companion wearable apps that compliment mobile titles.
Though it's confined to smartphones and, now, smartwatch screens, Ingress was designed to be the "ultimate augmented reality app," says John Hanke, head of Niantic Labs. That means that as smartphone technology advances and the burgeoning market for virtual and augmented reality evolves, Ingress will with it.
Google itself is currently working on giving smartphones the ability to "see," using spatial mapping from an initiative called Project Tango. A growing crop of companies, like Microsoft and secretive Florida-based startup Magic Leap, are also building devices that overlay 3D images on top of our environment, giving us true augmented reality.
"Things like Tango and Magic Leap will be awesome for games like Ingress," Hanke said, though he's happy with how passionate the fanbase is now with just their smartphones.
"We're building a line-up of AR games for our phones and Android Wear," he added, "and whatever cool future devices get adopted in the future."
From CNET Could Runcible's circular, wood-backed device be the future of smartphones?Monohm
To find the future of the smartphone, a startup is reaching 500 years into the past when the most advanced gadget told you only the time.
Monohm, based in Berkeley, Calif., plans next week to officially introduce a device dubbed Runcible. Named after a nonsense word by an English poet, Runcible was created by Apple and Sony alumni Aubrey Anderson, George Arriola and Jason Proctor.
Its standout feature is its shape. Runcible is circular, with a convex wooden back designed to nestle in your palm. It's got a screen on the front, a camera on the back and a heft that makes it feel substantial. By eschewing a conventional rectangular, slab-like design and app-centric software, the startup is hoping to draw attention as a funky alternative for people who don't live on their smartphones.
Despite such differences, Runcible can still do most things a standard smartphone can, including making calls, surfing the Web, sending texts and taking photos. It doesn't, however, run apps or have a home screen -- it's point of stasis is, as you'd expect, a watch face. After all, Runcible is designed to be a pocket watch for the iPhone age.
"The form factor has a long history -- magic stones in your hand, compasses, women's compacts," said Anderson, Monohm's CEO. Runcible is designed to return smartphones to the "social niceties of pocket watches."
Runcible represents more than merely an interesting sideshow to the mobile device industry. For years, companies have launched radical, new designs. And just like those devices, Runcible could ultimately influence industry design, even if it may not succeed on its own.
Remember the Motorola Razr? When it was released more than a decade ago, it was billed as one of the thinnest phones on the market. Its striking profile and metal casing stood out, something you see in modern smartphones like the iPhone 6. The Razr was wildly popular, selling by the scores of millions. In contrast, there was the Palm Pre. Its most prominent feature was its software, which allowed you to juggle multiple applications as "cards" you could shuffle around -- a technique that eventually made its way to Google's Android software (along with some of Palm's brightest talent). Despite wide acclaim and initial interest, the Pre ultimately flopped.
Aubrey Anderson, Monohm's CEO, sold a previous startup, Particle, to Apple in 2012.Monohm
The Runcible, however, isn't in the same league. Monohm -- which comes from the combination of the Japanese word "mono," which means "object," and "ohm," a unit for electrical resistance -- lacks the marketing reach or brand awareness of Motorola or even Palm, and its product could just as easily disappear like many other other forgotten smartphones.
Runcible is banking on its retro appeal and is serious about bringing pocket watch designs into the 21st century. The gadget can be attached to a chain and and can even support a third-party clasp cover to flick open when you want to check the time, just like your great-grandfather probably did.
The brainchild of longtime friends Anderson, Arriola and Proctor, it took them only nine months to design, source and build the Runcible and secure a mobile carrier contract. Runcible is slated to debut next week at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, where it will be announced as an exclusive launch partner for Japanese carrier KDDI. Monohm is in talks with other carriers.
Monohm will sell the device online for a little less than the typical full-priced smartphone when it is released later this year. Arriola said he expects it to have a battery life of four days.
Arriola and Anderson say they've designed the Runcible to last for years, if not decades. How? You'll just replace its innards when they need an upgrade. Its curved back can be swapped with one of Monohm's selection of high-end woods with fanciful-sounding names like swamp ash and maple burl -- or with 3D-printed alternatives. They're calling it an "heirloom" electronic device and are introducing it just weeks before Apple is set to debut a high-end smartwatch that has many wondering how long it will last before requiring a replacement.
Runcible faces tremendous hurdles. It's a strange-looking device with an anachronistic appearance. It's also built on the idea that consumers don't need to upgrade their smartphone every two years. Monohm's founders want it to be the anti-smartphone -- an outlier when every successful device to date closely mimics the original iPhone.
The Runcible's inability to run apps like Instagram or Snapchat is another way it distinguishes itself -- although many consumers would be turned off by such a deficiency. Instead, it relies on websites designed for mobile devices. However, Anderson and Arriola say that they plan on making photography a major feature of the device -- think of rotating Runcible to focus your shot. On the technical end, Runcible runs on Mozilla's Firefox mobile operating system, although Monohm is taking some liberties with aspects of the software like the Firefox browser to customize it for Runcible's circular face.
Monohm is calling Runcible an "heirloom" electronic device, meaning it's meant to be held onto for years and even passed down while the computer parts inside are replaced.Monohm
Even the familiar things a smartphone does won't be the same on Runcible. For example, its map won't display a typical top-down grid of streets. Instead, the device displays a compass with a red arrow pointing toward your destination. When it's time to turn, the arrow blinks and adjusts its orientation, leaving you to figure out the rest. Anderson is even considering having the device divert you to interesting landmarks and notable points of interest along the way. "We're trying to facilitate adventure," he said.
Rather than the rings and buzzes your phone emits when you're called or receive a text, notifications appear on the screen as swelling bubbles instead of the familiar red numeric badges clamoring for your attention.
While Anderson said he loves his Apple iPhone 6 and uses it for work "all the time," he believes that smartphones have become too distracting. "I'm at max beeping right now," he said.
By 2016, more than 2 billion people -- or more than a quarter of the world's population -- will have a smartphone, according to eMarketer. And the worldwide market for wearable devices, including fitness bands and smartwatches, is expected to surge to $52.3 billion by 2019, up from about $4.5 billion last year, with shipments north of 110 million units, according to market tracker Juniper Research. The end result is a sea of screens that will provide an even easier, more seamless gateway to our digital lives -- and away from the real world.
Runcible, Anderson said, could help customers to reject the notification-laden devices of modern life.
"Right now, your smartphone provides great connectivity, but your work comes into your personal life all the time," Anderson said. "Runcible is designed to put your head back out in the world and your mind in conversation."
Apple will hold a press event March 9.Screenshot by Shara Tibken/CNET
We may see Apple Watch sooner than expected.
Apple on Thursday sent out invitations for a press event on March 9 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. The company has held many of its product introductions in the downtown venue, which is larger than the Town Hall auditorium on its campus.
Apple Watch is the first major new product category for the company since the "magical"iPadin 2010. It's also the first new push by Apple under Cook's leadership. Cook had promised for over a year that Apple would introduce"amazing" new productsin 2014 and enter"exciting new product categories"beyond its wildly successful smartphones,tabletsand computers. Apple Watch, along with the newApple Paymobile-payments service, fulfill that vow.The lowest-end Apple Watch will cost $349. The company announced the device during a star-studded event in September. At the same time, it introduced its bigger-screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices. It also held an event in October to unveil its newest iPads and Macs, including the high resolution iMac.
Along with Apple Watch, the company also could show off an updated Apple TV that works as the hub for a smart home and has more video and live TV features. And Apple could introduce the long-awaited 12-inch "iPad Pro" or a MacBook Air with Retina Display -- two products market watchers have long been awaiting.
Samsung will launch two new Galaxy S6 phones, according to this latest image.iamdenden | Reddit
Another clue has surfaced that Samsung will unveil two models of its Galaxy S6, one with a standard front display and the other with a curved edge.
Posted on Reddit by a user tagged as a "verified employee" of Sprint, a link dubbed "A better teaser" calls up an image asking people to preregister for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.
The image also reveals shots of both phones. As expected, the S6 is shown with the standard front display and the usual frame, or bezel, surrounding the display. The S6 Edge sports a slight curved edge on the right side and apparently on the left side as well.
Other alleged screenshots and reports have already surfaced claiming that Samsung will unveil two new S6 phones, most notably one with a curved edge. But the new screenshot comes from a user named iamdenden, who's apparently been verified by Reddit moderators as a Sprint employee. The new image also uses Samsung's same "Six Appeal" tagline that appears on an official T-Mobile signup page for the new phone.
Samsung needs a hit with the next version of its flagship smartphone. The Galaxy S5 was criticized for being too similar to its predecessor, the S4. And the company has seen its sales and market share drop in the wake of competition from low-cost phones made by Chinese vendors such as Xiaomi and from the big-screened iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus from Apple. The current Galaxy Note Edge already offers a curved display, but just on one side. The new Galaxy S6 phones will also reportedly sport a metal frame as a step up from Samsung's usual plastic body.
But will a Galaxy S phone with a curved display and metal frame give Samsung the edge it needs to win back customers and regain lost market share? We'll find out over the coming quarters. The company is expected to unveil its new Galaxy lineup on Sunday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
If your phone crashes unexpectedly, or worse gets lost or stolen, then you'll not just be down the cost of a phone, but also a huge amount of data. To get around that, you need to enable cloud backups for as many things as possible, so that logging your account into a new handset transfers most of your data automatically. But not everything can be backed up that way, and that's why it's still important to take regular backups of your phone.
While some third-party apps like Titanium Backup and Helium will let you take a full backup your Android smartphone, they are not for everyone. Most users don't know about rooting their phones, or want to mess around with installing ADB drivers. No worry, it may take a few more steps, but you'll get there (almost).
Here's how to backup almost any Android smartphone.
Backing up to the cloud
On your phone, go to Settings > Accounts & sync.
Under ACCOUNTS, and tick mark "Auto-sync data". Next, tap on Google. Now, tap on the Gmail ID you used to sign onto the phone.
Here, you can turn on all the options so that all your Google related information gets synced to the cloud. This includes your contacts, photos (uploaded to Google+, privately if you want), app data, calendar events, Chrome tabs, your Google Fit data and more.
Now go to Settings > Backup & Reset.
Check Back up my data.
This will save app data and all of your phone's settings including Wi-Fi passwords to your Google account. When you sign in using this Google account on another phone, all of your preferences, photos (via Google+), and contacts will be imported automatically. This data is synced regularly and you just need to log into another device with the same account to recover it. This does not cover your text messages and various other types of data - you'll have to back them up yourself.
Locally back up media, messages and apps Next, you'll want to save the music, movies and other media you've saved on your phone's memory card. This process is easy - just connect your phone to a PC and copy everything that's in the microSD card. This is a manual process so you'll need to make a routine of doing this.
Media
Connect your phone to the computer with a USB cable. If you are on a Mac, make sure you have the Android File Transfer application installed before you do this.
Open My Computer on your PC, or Finder on your Mac.
Navigate to the SD card and copy all the files you want to save to your computer.
After the copying is done, you can unplug your phone.
Text Messages
You can easily save all your text messages and call logs to your Gmail account by using an app called SMS Backup+. Try these steps:
Now grant SMS Backup+ permission to access your Google account.
Now go back to the app and tap Backup. This will save all your text messages to your Gmail account.
Log in to Gmail from any Web browser and on the left side you'll see a new label -SMS. Click it to view all the text messages that have been backed up.
To restore these messages, just tap Restore in SMS Backup+.
Tap OK in the pop-up.
You'll be asked to set SMS Backup+ as your default SMS app. Tap Yes. This is needed to restore messages.
Now the app will automatically restore all your messages and call logs. Once the process is complete, the app will show a pop-up that restores your default SMS app. Tap Yes.
Apps The next step is to backup and restore installed apps. You can re-download apps easily if you're using the same Google account on the new device - just open Google Play, tap the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the top-left > My apps. You can install all previously purchased apps from there.
On the other hand, a local backup could be faster to restore, and wouldn't waste bandwidth either. And it's also pretty easy to do.
Swipe the screen to the right to reveal the Homepage of ES File Explorer.
Tap APP which is under a blue Android robot icon on the top-right.
Tap and hold any app until you see a checkmark on its icon.
Now tap the tick-mark icon on the top-right, the one inside a box with a dotted frame. This will select all apps.
Tap Backup that's on the bottom row. This will save a copy of the apk files of all your apps.
To view which apk files have been saved, tap User apps at the top. From the pop-up, select Backed-up Apps.
Tap any app's apk file here to install that app without Internet.
To save a copy of these files to your computer, connect your Android phone to a PC via USB.
The phone will appear in My Computer like a pendrive. Open it.
Go to Internal Storage > backups > apps.
Copy all the apk files here. In case you format your device, or change handsets, you can quickly copy these apk files to it and install the apps again by placing them in the same folder on your phone, and then following steps 7 and 8.
By following these steps, you're able to save a copy of all your contacts, text messages, media, apps, Wi-Fi passwords, and your app data. Of course, doing everything one by one is a little cumbersome, and the best way to back up your phone is to use a third party backup tool. We've used Titanium Backup and it is excellent but it requires root access on your Android phone, which is something typically expected from more advanced users. Even its interface is too clunky for most average people.
Helium is a great app for those who haven't rooted their phones. It has a nice interface too, but it only works with select Android phones from some international manufacturers. If you bought a phone from Micromax, Karbonn, Lava or countless other brands, you won't be able to use Helium. Further, using Helium requires you to install drivers for the phone on your computer as well.
Google on Wednesday unveiled Android for Work.Google
SAN FRANCISCO -- Google's Android operating system powers more than 80 percent of the world's smartphones. Now the tech giant wants to help Android owners use their phones in the workplace.
Google on Wednesday launched Android for Work, an initiative that tries to bring Android devices up to par with the needs of employers' information technology departments. Workplaces often have more-stringent requirements, like beefed up security, for devices consumers have.
"More than a billion people are bringing smartphones in their pockets to the workplace," Rajen Sheth, a director of product management at Google, said at a press briefing here.
The initiative comes as consumer tech companies try more aggressively to deepen their enterprise roots. Firms like Google and Apple are also trying to take advantage of consumers taking their own smartphones and tablets to work, a trend the industry calls "BYOD," or "bring your own device." Making sure consumers can use their personal phones and tablets at work means more time on Google services, which leads to more revenue opportunities for the company.
Apple is Google's fiercest competitor as the battlefield shifts to the workplace. Apple in July struck adeal with IBM in which the two companies will collaborate on enterprise apps for iPhones and iPads. Also as part of the deal, IBM's cloud services will be optimized for Apple's iOS mobile operating system, and IBM's 100,000 consultants will push Apple products with corporate clients.
Google's approach is rooted in creating two user profiles for Android owners -- one for their work life and one for their personal life. But the goal was to let those two profiles work seamlessly together, without requiring people to toggle between the two accounts. To do that, each work-centric app has an orange briefcase badge on the icon, and is labeled "Work Mail" or "Work Chrome," referring to Google's Web browser.
Google has made inroads in the workplace in other ways as well. The company on Monday announced that Inbox, Google's reimagined version of email separate from its popular Gmail service, would slowly begin to support peoples' corporate Gmail accounts.The company also created a new version of its Google Play marketplace. The enterprise version of the store lets IT personnel deploy and manage apps, as well as purchase apps in bulk to provide to an entire workforce. Google's partners for the launch include SAP, Citrix, Samsung, Sony, Box and Adobe.
Google has also made an enterprise push for Google Glass, its Web-connected headset. The company has focused on getting hands-on workers to wear the device to do things like making tacos or fixing plane engines. Google has been working with brands like Taco Bell, Boeing and Hewlett-Packard to test Glass apps. (The company said earlier this year that it was discontinuing the current Google Glass product but would continue to support the Glass at Work initiative.)
For now, the workplace initiative is aimed at smartphones and tablets, but Sheth said the company eventually wants to extend the push to other Android-powered machines, like cash registers or devices for amusement park operations.
"We want to change and redefine the concept of mobility at work," said Sheth.
A TV ad for a smartphone claiming to be the world’s thinnest has beenbanned in the UK for objectifying women. The ad for the Kazam Tornado 348 shows a woman in her underwear getting dressed, pulling on a pair of jeans and ironing her shirt only to discover the smartphone in one pocket. After receiving complaints about the ad, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned it, ruling that it was “sexually suggestive” and “likely to cause serious offense.”
The ASA’s ruling said that “much of the ad focused entirely on the actor in her underwear, including scenes that featured several close-up shots that lingered over her breasts, buttocks and lips.” It added that the sexual nature “was heightened by the suggestive nature of the music and voiceover and further reinforced because the focus on the woman bore no relevance to the advertised product.”
Kazam argued that the ad was simply illustrating a well-known scenario, that of ironing your clothes in your underwear before going out. It added that the ad’s message was that its smartphone was so slim that the actor did not notice that she was ironing it. Leaving aside the plausibility of this (or indeed the fact that the Tornado 348 is not even the thinnest smartphone on the market), the advert itself is clearly ridiculous. For the fifty seconds that the actor is on-screen the smartphone only appears in ten of them, and the focus on her body (who doesn’t take the time to sexily touch themselves while getting dressed?) is egregious and just plain dumb. The tech market has a bad reputation when it comes to objectifying women because it’s a real problem — ads like this don’t help.
The Kardashians have long defended themselves against rumors that they alter all of their photos, but this source tells OK! magazine “Kim used to ask a friend to fix up photos, but it would take hours. She finally decided to hire a pro who can be on call 24/7.”
The source also says that part of the job is deleting every trace of the “before photos.”
You can see in the gif, created by New York Magazine’s The Cut, that the photo had clearly been manipulated before it was posted to Instagram.
Business Insider reported that a Photoshop expert explained the discrepancies, noting the “curved door frame” and “distortion in the floor.”
The photo had gone viral, racking up half a million likes within days of it being published to social media.
At the time, a rep for Kardashian denied that she had altered the photo in any way. But looking at the gif, the writing seems to be on the wall.
While OK!’s story is only going by the details given by one unnamed source, it’s not the craziest thing in the world to think that Kardashian may deem it necessary to have a hired pro to do her selfie work.
Don’t forget, taking selfies is part of Kardashian’s business and brand. In April, she will release her book, “Selfish,” comprised of 352 pages of her selfies.
