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The latest news on all your favorite apps.
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Adobe Fresco brings realistic painting to the iPad
Adobe has a second major app release for designers coming this year. Sure, Photoshop for the iPad is going to get most of the attention, but for illustrators and designers who dabble in digital drawing or painting, Adobe Fresco could be the real game-changer. In addition to syncing with your Creative Cloud workflow across desktop versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and more, Fresco's marquee feature makes digital painting with watercolors and oils a lot more realistic. Gone are the days when hardness, opacity and a few other parameters were the only variables you could control when painting in Photoshop. Now you can select an oil or watercolor brush and watch in awe as your strokes blend with the wet paint already on your (digital) canvas.
Telegram's silent messages keep your conversations low-key
Just because you're messaging someone doesn't mean you want to loudly advertise that fact, and Telegram thinks it can help on that front. The newly updated chat app has introduced a silent messaging feature that delivers any text or media without a sound notification, no matter what someone's phone settings might be. It's most likely to be helpful if you don't want to wake someone, but it could also be useful if you're messaging on the sly during a meeting.
Some robocall blockers sent private data without permission
As helpful as robocall blocking tools can be, they can sometimes create their own problems. NCC Group security researcher Dan Hastings has found that some of the more popular robocall blocking apps have been sending data to outside analytics firms without explicitly notifying you, if at all. Hiya and Truecaller sent device data before you could even accept their privacy policies, while TrapCall sent phone numbers without any mention in the privacy policy. Other apps sent info directly to Facebook the moment they loaded.
Group dating service 3Fun exposed data for 1.5 million users
Yet another dating service is learning about the dangers of data vulnerablilities. Pen Test Partners discovered that threesome-oriented app 3Fun left 1.5 million users' data exposed, including precise locations, sexual orientation and even private photos. You only needed to spoof your location to glean information from people in a given area. While you could restrict positional info from the app, that filtering didn't apply on the servers -- a nosy person just had to query the service's framework to find someone's claimed whereabouts.
Nike's app powers Foot Locker's new NYC store
Over the past few years, Nike has heavily invested in making its stores more tech-oriented. A big part of that strategy is integrating its Nike app with the company's physical spaces and trying to make it easy for shoppers to do things like instantly pay for product and scan items to check if they're in stock. You can do all of that in the application, at the Nike store, without having to interact much with store associates. Nike says its customers love these type of features so much that it is now bringing them to Foot Locker, one of its biggest retail partners. The Foot Locker Washington Heights Community Power Store, located in uptown New York City, marks the first time Nike's shopping tech will power (part of) a store that isn't one of its own.
Instagram removes ad partner that tracked millions of users' locations
Facebook's privacy woes aren't over in the wake of its FTC fine. The company has pulled the marketing company Hyp3r from Instagram's ad platform after Business Insider learned that the agency had been collecting massive amounts of data in violation of the social network's rules. Hyp3r reportedly exploited a "security lapse" that let it collect the specific locations of "millions" of public posts. It also violated terms of service by saving public Stories and automatically scraping data from public profiles (including bios and followers), according to BI.
Twitter may have shared your data without permission
Yesterday, Twitter came clean about a data mishap. According to the company, it may have shared data it didn't have permission to with advertisers. It may have also made assumptions about what device you use, again without permission.
Apple might force Facebook to change how its apps handle voice calls
A change coming in iOS 13 could force Facebook to change Messenger and WhatsApp. As The Information reports, Apple will no longer allow these apps to run Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) in the background when it's not in use. At the moment, apps like Messenger and WhatsApp run VOIP continuously in order to connect calls faster, but doing so could also allow them to do other things, like collect user data. According to The Information, Facebook may have to redesign its messaging apps in order to comply.
GrubHub is quietly replacing restaurant phone numbers on Yelp
GrubHub has once again been accused of hijacking restaurants' online presences in the name of revenue. Motherboard and the Underunderstood podcast have learned that some phone listings in the Yelp app have been replaced with GrubHub numbers so that the delivery service can collect a "referral fee" from resulting orders. You may get the restaurant's actual phone number if you tap the call button for "general questions," for instance, but an entirely different GrubHub-owned number if you tap "delivery or takeout."
Adobe adds pro-level speed controls to Premiere Rush CC
Adobe has added professional-style speed controls to its mobile Premiere Rush CC video editing app, making it much more useful for YouTubers and other creators on the go. You can do simple speed changes much like in the main Premiere Pro CC app by either stretching/shrinking clips or entering a specific speed percentage. You can also create speed ranges within a section of your clip, starting it in fast motion and finishing in super slow-mo, for instance.
Google shuts down its Trips travel planning app
Google is killing yet another app, although you might not mind quite as much with this one. The company is shutting down its Trips travel app as of August 5th (that's today, if you're reading in time) in favor of steering users to both its reworked travel search as well as Google Maps. Your information and tools aren't going away -- you will, however, need to look for them in other places.
Google Fit now tracks your sleep patterns
Google Fit should now be that much more helpful when you're ramping down for the night. The fitness app now tracks sleep patterns from apps that share their data, giving you better sense of whether or not you need more shut-eye. You can add to and edit your sleep history if companion apps aren't providing a complete picture of your downtime. Accordingly, there's a new dark theme (in keeping with Google's recent trends) that should be kinder to your eyes at night.
Google 'Play Pass' is a $5 monthly Android app subscription
Google is testing a service called Play Pass that would offer users "hundreds of premium apps and games" for a monthly fee, according to Android Police. The idea of the offering cropped up last year on XDA Developers after users spotted code references in Google Play. It could be similar to Apple's Arcade, but offer a selection of both apps and games (rather than just games) for $4.99 per month, "with no ads or in-app purchases," according to the screenshots.
'Pokémon Go' has racked up 1 billion downloads
So much for Pokémon Go's initial success being nothing more than a fad. The Pokémon Company has released a series of videos in Japanese noting that Niantic's location-based mobile game has been downloaded over 1 billion times since launch. Some of those are re-downloads, and it's not clear how many players are active (Superdata estimated 147 million monthly users as of May 2018). All the same, it's an achievement for a game many thought might fizzle out after a few months.
DeepMind AI can predict kidney illness 48 hours before it occurs
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) kills 500,000 people in the US and 100,000 in the UK annually, often because it's not detected soon enough. Researchers want to use AI to change that. DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned AI company, partnered with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop an AKI prediction algorithm. In a paper published in Nature today, the partners share their findings that the algorithm can predict the presence of AKI up to 48 hours before it happens. The model correctly identified 9 out of 10 patients whose condition worsened to the point that they needed dialysis.
GoPro adds Quik video editing features to its main app
GoPro's main application is absorbing major Quik video editing features as part of the company's quest to create a single-app experience. The action camera-maker purchased Quik back in 2016 when it was still known as Replay and offered it as a standalone application. Now, it's rolling out what it says is the first in a series of updates meant to bring all its mobile editing tools in one place.
Standalone Cortana app available to Windows Insiders
Microsoft has been distancing Cortana from Windows for months. First, it split the virtual assistant from search in Windows 10. Then, a beta version of a standalone Cortana app appeared on the Windows Store. And starting today, Windows 10 Insiders are able to test the new Cortana app beta in Windows.
The best (and mostly free) apps to help you keep up in class
By design, school is supposed to challenge you -- to push at the boundaries of your understanding of the world and make you a more well-rounded person. It's not supposed to be easy as much as it is fulfilling, but thankfully, there are ways to make your educational journey a little less difficult. Luckily for you, a lot has changed since most of the Engadget team went to school. To help out, we've gathered a few apps here that should prove especially useful as you gear up for more long days of learning. (Trust us, you'll probably miss them someday.) Oh, and don't worry: Every one of these handy apps is available for iOS and Android, so everyone gets to benefit.
Magic Leap’s Independent Creator Program delivers its first app
Last fall, Magic Leap launched its Independent Creator Program (ICP), which was meant to give developers the funding and support they need to launch apps and games on the company's augmented reality headset. Today, the first app to come out of the program is available. Portugal-based ONTOP Studios has created PuzzlAR: World Tour, an AR version of its popular mobile game, for Magic Leap One.
Amazon Prime Video comes to Oculus VR headsets
You now have yet another major video service to watch on your Oculus VR headset. Amazon has released a Prime Video VR app that allows Oculus Quest, Go, and Gear VR owners to stream the internet behemoth's shows in a virtual space. There will even be 360-degree videos to watch, although there are just 10 "handpicked" titles that include the climate change documentary Greenland Melting and the animated short Invasion.