As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
If You're Worried About Loved Ones In Nepal, This App Could Help
In the wake of a devastating earthquake in Nepal, a Facebook app could help people worldwide find out if their loved ones in the affected regions are all right.
“Safety Check” is a tool launched in October for the purpose of allowing users to easily alert their Facebook friends that they are OK in the case of natural disasters. If you have the app and are in an area affected by a natural disaster, you’ll get an alert asking you if you are safe. The app determines your location based on where you are using the Internet, the city listed in your profile or the last location where you were tagged.
The app’s creation was inspired by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement when Facebook made the app available worldwide.
Facebook users with the app can also check to see how many friends are in an affected area and how many of those friends have checked in as safe.
The app does have some limitations — a person must have a Facebook account, the app downloaded and access to the Internet to “check in.” However, Facebook does allow users to check in on behalf of friends who also have the app.
The earthquake, the epicenter of which was 50 miles east of Pokhara, was the worst Nepal has seen in over 80 years. “Almost the entire country has been hit,” Krishna Prasad Dhakal, deputy chief of mission of Nepal’s embassy in New Delhi, told Reuters.
As of Saturday afternoon, at least 1,130 people had been confirmed killed by the quake, which set off a deadly avalanche on Mt. Everest.
Neighboring countries were hit with deadly tremors, with 34 dead in India, six in Tibet, two in Bangladesh and two on the Nepal-China border.
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Dan Fredinburg, Google Executive, Killed On Mount Everest After Nepal Earthquake
Dan Fredinburg, a Google executive, was killed on Mount Everest in an avalanche triggered by the massive, 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Nepal on Saturday. At least 10 guides and climbers died on the mountain, with the toll expected to rise.
Fredinburg’s sister confirmed his death in an Instagram post:
This is Dans little sister Megan. I regret to inform all who loved him that during the avalanche on Everest early this morning our Dan suffered from a major head injury and didn’t make it. We appreciate all of the love that has been sent our way thus far and know his soul and his spirit will live on in so many of us. All our love and thanks to those who shared this life with our favorite hilarious strong willed man. He was and is everything to us. Thank you.
A photo posted by Dan Fredinburg (@danfredinburg) on Apr 25, 2015 at 11:27am PDT
Jagged Globe, the company Fredinburg was hiking with, posted a statement mourning his loss.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dan’s family and friends whilst we pray too for all those who have lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies ever to hit this Himalayan nation,” it reads in part. The statement also said that two other climbers sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Tom Briggs, the company’s marketing director, told The Guardian that Fredinburg and the others “saw the avalanche coming and were able to make a run for it but the camp was right in the middle of it.”
Fredinburg headed up privacy for Google X, the company’s secretive ideas lab, and had worked at the Internet giant since 2007. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was involved with initiatives ranging from Google’s self-driving car to “Project Loon,” which aspires to provide balloon-powered Internet access to remote areas. He also co-founded Google Adventure, which, according to the entrepreneur hub Startup Grind, aims to “translate the Google Street View concept into extreme, exotic locations like the summit of Mount Everest or the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.”
The Guardian reported in April that he was part of a group of climbers who were preparing to summit the mountain one year after an avalanche killed twelve sherpas, in what had been the deadliest incident on the mountain to date. According to the newspaper, it was “an open secret” that a Street View camera was being carried to the summit.
Fredinburg posted frequent Instagram updates documenting his journey:
Day 13: Always a long line of yaks at the toilet under Ama Dablam. Yak city bitch, yak yak city… #amadablam #yakcity #Everest2015
A photo posted by Dan Fredinburg (@danfredinburg) on Apr 16, 2015 at 8:06pm PDT
Day 19: We’re cleared for launch. Now we help the Sherpa celebrate this auspicious day and the next stages of our expedition. #Everest2015
A photo posted by Dan Fredinburg (@danfredinburg) on Apr 22, 2015 at 8:58am PDT
As news of his death broke, reactions on Twitter and Instagram poured in. Among them was a long remembrance from the actress Sophia Bush, Fredinburg’s ex girlfriend.
There are no adequate words. Today I find myself attempting to pick up the pieces of my heart that have broken into such tiny shards, I’ll likely never find them all. Today I, and so many of my loved ones, lost an incredible friend. Dan Fredinburg was one-of-a-kind. Fearless. Funny. A dancing robot who liked to ride dinosaurs and chase the sun and envision a better future for the world. His brain knew how to build it. His heart was constantly evolving to push himself to make it so. He was one of my favorite human beings on Earth. He was one of the great loves of my life. He was one of my truest friends. He was an incredible brother, a brilliant engineer, and a damn good man. I’m devastated and simultaneously so deeply grateful to have known and loved him, and to have counted him as one of my tribe. I was so looking forward to our planned download of “all the things” when he got home. I am crushed that I will never hear that story. I am crushed knowing that there are over 1,000 people in Nepal suffering this exact feeling, knowing that they too will never hear another tale about an adventure lived from someone that they love. Disasters like this are often unquantifiable, the enormity is too much to understand. Please remember that each person who is now gone was someone’s Dan. Please remember that our time on this Earth is not guaranteed. Please tell those you love that you do. Right now. This very minute. And please send a kiss to the sky for my friend Dan. His energy is so big and so bright, and it’s all around us, so put some love toward him today. And then hug your loved ones again. #goodbyesweetfriend #savetheice #Nepal
A photo posted by Sophia Bush (@sophiabush) on Apr 25, 2015 at 2:07pm PDT
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Happy Birthday, Hubble: Seeing the Universe in a New Light
If you are at all interested in astronomy, chances are you’ve already heard that the Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 25th anniversary this week. What some people may not know is that Hubble is one of four siblings, so to speak. Back in the 1980s, NASA commissioned the “Great Observatories,” each designed and built to study different wavelengths of light.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum. NASA’s Great Observatories (Compton, Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer) and the electromagnetic thermometer scale. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
The four Great Observatories, in order of their launches that took place between 1990 and 2003, are Hubble, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
A photo of the Hubble Space Telescope, doing its job in space. Credit: NASA
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. Hubble has four main scientific instruments that allow it to observe not only in visible light but also near ultraviolet and near infrared. Hubble helped determine how old our Universe is, what quasars are, and also helped discover “dark energy.”
The space shuttle crew took a photo of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory as the satellite was deployed, with Earth visible beneath it. Credit: NASA/MSFC
In 1991, NASA launched a satellite into space carrying the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO). The goal of Compton was to study gamma rays from objects far out into space. Gamma ray telescopes can study incredibly exotic objects such as blazars, magnetars, cosmic rays, and dark matter. Compton operated in space until when NASA intentionally sent it into the Earth’s ocean in 2000.
An artist’s illustration of the Chandra X-ray Observatory in space. Credit: NGST
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is a telescope specially designed to detect X-ray emission from very hot regions of the Universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes. Because X-rays are absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, Chandra must orbit above it, up to an altitude of 139,000 km (86,500 mi) in space. Chandra was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1999 and continues to be in excellent health and deliver incredible science over a decade and half later.
An artist’s illustration of the Spitzer Space Telescope in orbit. Credit: NASA
The last of the Great Observatories, the Spitzer Space Telescope, was launched into orbit in 2003. Spitzer is designed to detect infrared light, which is primarily radiation from heat. This gives Spitzer the ability to study objects like brown dwarfs (failed stars), extrasolar planets, giant clouds of gas and dust, and organic molecules that may hold the key to life in the Universe.
Over the years, astronomers have used often used data from these telescopes together. Not only does this reap incredible scientific rewards, the combined datasets from the different observatories often make spectacular images that help all viewers get a more complete picture of our fascinating Universe. (Astronomers call images with different types of light “multiwavelength” images because each type of light encompasses different sets of wavelengths.) We think this may be a perfect example of Aristotle’s old adage that the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
With that, we’ve selected some of our favorite multiwavelength images with Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer data (and listed the colors that each image is shown in). Each type of light brings a new piece of the puzzle in the quest to understand the cosmos we live in. We hope there will be many more years to see our Universe in a whole new light.
NGC 6388 is a globular cluster about 35,000 light years from Earth. In this image, the Hubble data is colored in red, green and blue, with X-ray data from Chandra in pink.
MACS J0416.1-2403 is a galaxy cluster about 4.29 billion light years from Earth. In the image, Hubble data is colored red, green and blue, with a lensing map in blue, and the Chandra X-ray data is colored pink.
NGC 602 is a cluster of young stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way. The Hubble image is shown in red, green and blue with Chandra information colored purple and Spitzer colored red.
NGC 2392 is a star like our Sun that is in the end phase of its life, situated about 4,200 light years from Earth. The Hubble optical data is shown in red, green and blue with the Chandra X-ray data in pink.
NGC 922 is a ring galaxy about 157 million light years from Earth. In this image, Hubble information is colored red, green and blue with Chandra X-ray information in red.
NGC 6543 (also known as the Cat’s Eye) is a planetary nebulas located less than 5.000 light years from Earth. The Hubble optical image is shown in red, green and blue, with the Chandra X-ray image overlaid in purple.
VV 340 is a pair of galaxies located about 450 million light years from Earth. The Hubble image has been colored red, green and blue, and the Chandra X-ray image is depicted in purple.
Arp 147 is a galaxy about 430 million light years from Earth. In this image, the Hubble data has been colored red, green and blue, and the Chandra X-ray data has been colored magenta.
SNR 0509-67.5 is a supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which lies about 160,000 light years from Earth. The Hubble image is depicted in orange, red and violet with the Chandra X-ray image overlaid in green and blue.
NGC 6240 is a galaxy about 330 million light years from Earth. Hubble data is shown in red, green and blue and is overlaid with Chandra data depicted in orange and cyan.
E0102, officially known as 1E0102.2-7219, is a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Hubble’s image in red, green and blue has been overlaid with Chandra’s image in blue, cyan and orange.
MACSJ0717.5+3745 is one of the most complex galaxy clusters known, located about 5.4 billion light years from Earth. The Hubble data is colored in cyan and yellow, with the Chandra data in blue and violet.
The Orion Nebula is a rich cluster of young stars about 1,500 light years from Earth. Hubble’s image is shown in red and purple, and Chandra’s X-ray image is shown in blue, yellow and orange.
1E 0657-56 (also known as the Bullet Cluster) is the site of a collision between two large galaxy clusters about 3.4 billion light years from Earth. Hubble data is shown in white and orange with the lensing map in blue, and Chandra data is shown in pink.
N132D is a supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light years from Earth. Hubble’s image is colored in pink and purple with Chandra’s image in blue.
Image Credits: NASA
This post was co-authored by Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke.
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When You Google 'Why Do Women…' Some Very Interesting Results Come Up
By 2015, we know not to trust Google.
Search results are a patchwork quilt shoddily tailored to include our browsing history, physical location and the things an algorithm tells the machine we may be interested in.
Despite this, Google has become a social appendage. We run to her at the drop of a hat, with even the smallest shred of doubt, imploring her to settle a debate at a birthday party or to help us find the best price for hangers.
Google is our transitional object, our blankie, our mother or father onto whom we pin the hope that the answer to everything can be found with the punch of a thumb and the tap of a finger.
After realizing last week that, as a woman, I apologize for nearly everything and to nearly everyone, my first instinct was to ask Google why.
I typed the words “why do women,” but before I could add “apologize,” I was amazed at what Google suggested I ask instead.
The top five results were:
Why do women cheat
Why do women like 50 shades of grey
Why do women moan
Why do women wear thongs
Why do women wear hijab
The same exact prompt for men resulted in these autocompletes:
Why do men cheat
Why do men watch porn
Why do men lie
Why do men pull away
Why do men go bald
The UN Women’s ad series from 2013 brilliantly examined the ways that Google autocomplete reflects widespread sexism in the world, but what’s equally interesting about the above is the relationship the female autocompletes have to their male counterparts.
The top question on all of the Internet — why do men and women cheat — is oddly encouraging. Our basest fear of being cheated on (or cheating ourselves) trumps all barriers of sexism and inequality.
The next couple of questions, however, betray deeply rooted inquiries into sex and power dynamics.
“Why do women like 50 shades of grey” and “why do women moan” — versus “why do men watch porn” and “why do men lie.”
Book one of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy was released in 2012, causing an international sexual flurry, and the film, which came out this past Valentine’s Day, grossed over $568 million worldwide.
The story’s exploration and fetishizing of sex, bondage and power (I haven’t read it — I couldn’t even make it through the sample on my Kindle) is in some ways paralleled to the male autocomplete “why do men watch porn?”
“Why do women moan” and “why do men lie” pose further questions about sexuality, shame and expression.
Do these autocompletes pop up because they are the most unanswered and pondered questions in our society — or is it because they are the things we won’t ask each other out loud?
Are Google searches really just a road map to our deepest insecurities?
The next set of questions tie directly into the ones that preceded them. “Why do women moan” is followed by “why do women wear thongs.” Sex Ed 101: We want to better understand female sexuality. And my guess is it’s not just men asking.
It seems safe to assume that the gender divide on the Internet is pretty equal. In other words, if an equal number of men and women are cruising the slippery slope of the World Wide Web, then we can guess that both men and women are typing the questions “why do women moan” and “why do women wear thongs.”
Are men asking because they like that some women moan and that some women wear thongs? Are women who neither moan nor thong asking out of an insecurity — wondering if in fact they should moan during sex and should wear a specific type of underwear?
Are human beings most perplexed — or threatened — by female sexuality, and equally perplexed by the male psyche? Evidence is found in the following questions: “why do men lie” and “why do men pull away.” These are emotional questions, while their female counterparts are sexual and physical. Lying and pulling away both indicate a lack of intimacy, a barrier that the hypothetical man desires. The opposite of closeness and trust — two specific things that most humans desire when engaging in sex.
The final pair of questions veers into the world of appearances — how we look to others and how we look to ourselves. But they aren’t as basic as they seem.
“Why do women wear hijab” is a question that combines so many topics at the forefront of our international discussions today: power, religion, femininity, control, culture and conflict.
“Why do men go bald” reveals concern over changing appearance, fear of a decline in attractiveness or virility and, in some ways, anxiety over the loss of power that occurs as one grows older.
Many of the questions on both lists are about power and control. But if people are asking them, then we have to assume that they want to know the answers. There is a burning desire for better understanding, a closing of the gap between how we act and who we are.
I started down this rabbit hole asking why women apologize so much.
The set of autocompleted questions for women are about sex and sexuality. The questions for men are about failure. What does this reveal about our insecurities? Is our biggest fear that women are uncontrollable sexual beings and that men will disappoint them?
Google may be our one-stop shop for instant answers: What year did Cruel Intentions come out? 1999. Is Hillary Clinton spelled with one or two L’s? Two. But when it comes to deeper questions about what makes us human, it looks like the only source we can fully trust is — frighteningly — each other.
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OpenTable for Android Updated with Improved Google Maps Integration
OpenTable has updated their app for Android today, bringing significantly improved integration with Google Maps. The update to OpenTable for Android, version 4.4.2.1170 for those keeping score at home, is available now in the Google Play store. It is designed for both Android phones and tablets. For those not familar with OpenTable, it is a service-meets-app that allows you to find restaurants near you and make bookings at them for that day or in the future. Each time you dine you get points which can be redeemed for discounts at any restaurant who is in the OpenTable program. I have
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15 New Wallpapers Available for Your Android or Windows Phone
This morning I have uploaded 15 new wallpapers for you to download (for free) and use on your Android or Windows Phone device. These wallpapers are not original creations but rather a collection of those I have found across the Web over the past few weeks. As such it is a bit of what I like and hopefully you will too. To get to the wallpaper page, just use the top navigation of the site or click this link. There you will find the entire collection.
The post 15 New Wallpapers Available for Your Android or Windows Phone appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
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