Mobile Apps News from Nicole Hennig
Mobile Apps News
May 7, 2019
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the 68th issue of Mobile Apps News! I hope you'll enjoy this newsletter and spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about.
This issue includes news of:
Firefox Send: a new web app for sharing files privately.
a useful list of audiobook listening apps
Facebook is working on a voice assistant to rival Amazon Alexa
several tips, including how to schedule a message to send in the future with Gmail
accessibility, thought-provoking articles, interesting stats, and articles about the future
Enjoy!
App News
Featured apps
New App Lets You Explore Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights” in Virtual Reality - Bosch VR (iOS and Android)
Take a virtual interactive tour through Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Use with Google Cardboard or similar viewer. Free with a $4 in-app purchase for more content.
Firefox Send is a Free, Encrypted File Transfer Service from Mozilla (web app)
A new web-based file transfer service that allows you to upload and share multiple files with anyone. It’s free, secure, encrypted and works across all modern browsers, not just Firefox. It allows anyone to upload and share files up to 1GB without creating an account, or up to 2.5GB after signing up for an account.
App lists
The Best News Apps for News Junkies
Good list. Includes RSS apps and other aggregators.
Immerse Yourself in a Gripping Tale with iOS Audiobook Apps
Audible is not the only audiobook app on the block.
App updates
Google and Amazon reach an agreement to bring their streaming video apps to each others’ platforms
The official YouTube app will come to Amazon Fire TV devices and Fire TV Edition smart TVs, and the Prime Video app will come to Chromecast and other devices with Chromecast built-in.
Experience the new CC Search, now with 300 million images from 19 collections, easier attribution, an elegant redesign, faster load times, and more relevant results.
A major redesign with faster, more relevant search. “CC Search searches images across 19 collections pulled from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset, including cultural works from museums (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art), graphic designs and art works (Behance, DeviantArt), photos from Flickr, and an initial set of CC0 3D designs from Thingiverse."
Hardware
Apple AirPods 2 Review: Everything You Need to Know
Faster connection to your devices, “Hey Siri” included, wireless charging case as an option, and more.
Oculus Quest Is VR for Normal People
Positive review of this $399 VR headset. Doesn’t require an expensive PC to connect to. Just an iPhone or Android app to set it up.
Folding phones are an unfolding disaster
Samsung’s Galaxy Fold—a new kind of mobile device. But not quite ready for prime time. “Several tech writers accidentally broke the gadget’s foldable display shortly after receiving review units, which led Samsung to delay the Galaxy Fold’s launch indefinitely. “
Just for Fun
Mematic - The Meme Maker (iOS and Android)
Add funny captions to images to create memes.
Cute, floating cube robots arrive at the International Space Station
“Two little robots arrived at the International Space Station to help astronauts with simple tasks. Called Astrobees, the cube bots are 12” x 12” x 12” and propelled around the microgravity environment by small fans.”
My Offerings
Ebook: Best Podcasts: Technology and Society
An annotated guide to 29 podcasts on the ethical and social issues related to new technologies and future predictions for technology. Recommended apps for listening are included, along with the benefits of podcasts. This guide is for anyone interested in podcasts on these topics and for those who recommend podcasts to others.
A book that won’t go out of date.
Keeping Up with Emerging Technologies: Best Practices for Information Professionals
This book focuses on methods for keeping up (instead of on particular technologies), so it will be useful for years to come. If you haven’t got a copy yet, get it now!
Here’s what user “minnemom” said about it on Amazon:
5 out of 5 stars
Useful for librarians working with new technologies
“Because books on technology can quickly become outdated, I elevated this to the top of my reading pile when it arrived. I needn't have worried; this book about technology has ideas and tips that will be relevant for quite some time.
Designed for librarians, and especially those hired to work with emerging technologies, this book hits its target well but with a broad enough stroke that others interested in information technologies could use it as well. There are general ideas for gathering information, turning it into ideas, and taking it to implementation, as well as specific websites, blogs, and reports to read for continual new information. I also appreciated some methods for brainstorming and tips for dealing with naysayers, and ways to use this book in libraries with particularly small staffs, like ours.
With substantial endnotes at the ends of chapters and a good bibliography, I can get more information later at the point of need.
This is a well-organized and useful book with plenty of concrete ideas.”
Tips
How to Schedule Emails With Gmail’s New Feature
You can now schedule a message to send in the future.
How to Tap Less on Your Phone (but Get More Done)
Set up self-expanding abbreviations and more tips by David Pogue.
How Apple Card works
Learn more about Apple’s new credit card.
More search, less feed
Austin Kleon advises thoughtfully searching more often, instead of browsing news feeds.
A Guide to Capturing Tasks in Things 3 for iPad and iPhone
Things is my favorite to-do list app.
Accessibility
How A Trump Proposal Could Reduce ‘Happy’ Disabled People
“A new policy proposal by the Trump administration calls for the surveillance of disabled people’s social media profiles to determine the necessity of their disability benefits. The proposal, which reportedly aims to cut down on the number of fraudulent disability claims, would monitor the profiles of disabled people and flag content that shows them doing physical activities.“
Legal Battle Over Captioning Continues
“A legal dispute over video captions continues after court rejects requests by MIT and Harvard University to dismiss lawsuits accusing them of discriminating against deaf people. ... Some of the videos, many of which were hosted on the universities’ YouTube channels, did have captions — but the NAD complained that these captions were sometimes so bad that the content was still inaccessible.”
Voice Computing
Talk to Me? How Voice Computing Will Change Our Lives
This article from Consumer Reports discusses ways that voice AIs will be used in the future. Article is by James Vlahos — the author of new book, Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think.”
Medical Alexa Skills Keep Doctors and Patients In Touch
“Thanks to Amazon’s new HIPAA-eligible developer tools, you’re going to start seeing many more medical Alexa skills.” Boston Children’s Hospital is leading the way.
Amazon Alexa now offers long-form news coverage in addition to Flash Briefings
“Amazon is rolling out a new feature that will allow Alexa device owners to get more in-depth news from their preferred news provider. Currently, the new feature works with news from Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Newsy and NPR.”
Facebook is working on a voice assistant to rival Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri
“Facebook is working on a voice assistant to rival the likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and the Google Assistant. It could potentially be used on the company’s Portal video chat smart speakers, the Oculus headsets or other future projects.”
Your Company Needs a Strategy for Voice Technology
Good summary of what’s happening with voice (from Harvard Business Review). “It won’t be long before every company will be expected to own and manage its own voice-first presence and capabilities, much like every company is expected to own and manage their web presence and capabilities.”
Amazon Rolls Out Alexa Skills Kit for U.S. Spanish, Alexa Voice Service to Support Language Later This Year
“Amazon announced that the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) software development kit now includes a voice model for U.S. Spanish speakers. This means developers can now build skills for U.S. users that speak Spanish. “
Thought-Provoking
Three problems with the debate around screen time
“Just this week for example, we have seen the resurgence of scaremongering stories claiming that social media is leaving children ‘unable to communicate with each other.’ Such claims are pushed into the spotlight in the complete absence of anything that vaguely resembles supporting evidence. ... Like debates about the effects of playing Dungeons and Dragons, listening to rock‘n’roll, and reading comic books, we risk repeating past mistakes when discussing the place of screens in our everyday lives."
This Remarkably Agile Robot Hand Teaches Itself How To Handle Objects
“Festo’s new BionicSoftHand is not only remarkably dextrous, but using AI, it figures out how to properly hold and manipulate an object before it makes any actual movements.”
The Internet Archive has recovered 500,000+ of the 50,000,000 songs Myspace “accidentally” deleted during a server migration
“Last month, Myspace sheepishly admitted that it had 'accidentally' deleted 12 years’ worth of its users’ music during a server migration; now the Internet Archive has revealed that they were able to preserve two years’ worth of that music, 50,000 tracks from 2008-2010, downloaded by an anonymous group of academics for research purposes.”
Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means
“Russia is planning to attempt something no other country has tried before. It’s going to test whether it can disconnect from the rest of the world electronically while keeping the internet running for its citizens. ... If it happens, don’t expect Russians to hand over their internet rights freely:as in China, it’s likely that determined, tech-savvy citizens will be able to exploit any weaknesses in the system and circumvent it.“
The Internet Just Took a Big Step Toward Killing Passwords
“The Worldwide Web Consortium and the FIDO Alliance took a big step toward killing the password on Monday when they announced WebAuthn, which is short for Web Authentication, is now an official web standard. The login format kills the password in favor of letting people log in using biometrics, such as fingerprints, and facial recognition, or through security keys, and devices such as smartphones, and smartwatches.”
How Instagram Replaced the Contacts List: Why People Are Giving Out Their Instagram Handle
People are giving out Instagram handles to new acquaintances instead of phone numbers (too private) or LinkedIn (too staid).
15 Months of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook
Fascinating long read. “Scandals. Backstabbing. Resignations. Record profits. Time Bombs.”
The Notre Dame Fire and the Future of History
“For the last half-decade or so, an architectural historian named Andrew Tallon worked with laser scanners to capture the entirety of the cathedral’s interior and exterior in meticulous 3D point clouds.”
Coding Is for Everyone—as Long as You Speak English
Good points.
’Disastrous’ lack of diversity in AI industry perpetuates bias, study finds
“A ‘diversity disaster’ has contributed to flawed systems that perpetuate gender and racial biases found the survey, published by the AI Now Institute, of more than 150 studies and reports.”
The Internet Couldn’t Handle All the Data From the First Black Hole Photo
“Once all 1,000 pounds of hard drives were filled with these 5 petabytes of raw data, they were loaded onto airplanes and flown to two centralized 'correlators,' located in Massachusetts and Germany. The fastest way to do that is not over the internet, it’s actually to put them on planes.”
Dead Facebook users could outnumber living by 2070 leaving vast historical archive, Oxford Uni finds
“The number of dead Facebook users could outnumber the living by 2070, leaving a vast archive of such historical importance that archivists should be brought in to conserve the data, Oxford University has said.”
Interesting Statistics
Sizing Up Twitter Users - Pew Research Center
“U.S. adult Twitter users are younger and more likely to be Democrats than the general public. Most users rarely tweet, but the most prolific 10% create 80% of tweets from adult U.S. users.”
Share of U.S. adults using social media, including Facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018
“The share of U.S. adults who say they use certain online platforms is statistically unchanged from where it stood in early 2018 despite a long stretch of controversies over privacy, fake news, and censorship on social media.”
Microsoft Releases Voice Assistant Usage Report, Finds Apple Siri And Google Assistant Tied at 36%, and 41% of Respondents Have Privacy Concerns
“Smartphone-based assistants have the most users and privacy concerns are impacting adoption.”
The Future
Forget about artificial intelligence, extended intelligence is the future
Smart clothes could let you change your temperature with the touch of a button
Please Share
I invite you to share this newsletter with your friends who might be interested, thanks!
They can sign up here:
http://nicolehennig.com/mobile-apps-news/
Follow @nic221 I tweet about libraries, mobile, apps, ebooks, and emerging technologies.
** Tip Jar - help support this newsletter, thank you! **
I’ve been offering this newsletter since April of 2014. Thanks for subscribing!