Facebook adds support for 360-degree videos

360-degree video has arrived on Facebook.

The social network is beginning to add the immersive videos to the News Feed, the company announced Wednesday. The videos will be viewable from the web and from Facebook's iOS and Android apps.

The videos, first announced at Facebook's F8 developer conference, are filmed with a special camera setup that captures q full 360-degree view of the scene. Much like the 360-degree videos on YouTube, you can change your view of the video by dragging you finger (or cursor, if you're on a browser) around the screen or holding your phone at a different angle.

The videos will be available on the web and Android app first and will roll out to the iOS app "in the coming months."

Facebook is partnering with a select group of publishers on the videos — including Disney and Lucasfilm, GoPro, Vice and Saturday Night Live — to start but says it will open up the videos to more people "who are at the cutting edge of exploring this medium" in the next few days.

IMAGE: FACEBOOK

The eventual plan, it seems, is to open up the video to all users, not just filmmakers and media companies.

"In the future, imagine watching 360 videos of a friend’s vacation to a small village in France or a festival in Brazil — you’ll be able to look around and experience it as if you were there," Maher Saba, Facebook's engineering director for video, writes in a statement. "Along with updates from your friends and family, you will also be able to discover amazing new content on Facebook from media companies, organizations, and individual creators."

But 360-degree vacation videos may be farther off for most Facebook users. Though consumer level cameras, like RIoch's new Theta S, are increasingly common as Google and others move to adopt the immersive videos, relatively few people have access to the equipment necessary to make these videos.

The videos also have big implications for the company's virtual reality ambitions. Facebook users will eventually be able to view the videos through the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headsets; the videos were created as a collaboration with the Oculus team, The Verge reports.

The social network is also rumored to be working on a standalone video app for the 360-degree clips and executives have made it clear they see virtual and augmented reality as the next big medium for Facebook to tackle.

"When Facebook was founded, it was primarily a text based site: there was status posts and there were wall posts," Jay Parikh, the company's VP of global engineering and infrastructure, said at the company's @Scale engineering conference last week. "We’ve moved in to a world where most of the world today is focused on photos. But we’re quickly moving into this world where I think, in the next couple years, most of the experience on Facebook is going to be about video. It doesn’t just stop with videos ... what we see happening in the next couple years is bringing augmented reality and virtual reality to the experience that is on Facebook."

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Ad blocking for the masses, part two: Adblock Browser

Last week, ABP went beyond releasing extensions and launched a standalone Adblock Browser for Android and iOS that has built-in blocking capabilities. Before we take a look at the browser itself, it is worth noting ABP’s interesting (and some call it controversial) business model. ABP signs contracts with companies that agree to its acceptable ads guidelines. Ads from these companies are allowed to pass through the ABP ad filter.In part two of this series on the state of ad blockers, I take a look at a new product from a well-known company whose earlier product has been available for nearly a decade: Adblock Plus (ABP). Adblock Plus develops extensions for web browsers which can block tracking, malware sites, and, of course, ads.

In a 2014 interview, ABP lead investor Tim Schumacher said that only the largest companies pay for these contracts. “Adblock Plus has been experimenting with different models,” he said. “I can’t talk about specific contracts, but in some cases it was performance-based and in other cases it was more of a flat fee. More that 90% of companies don’t pay at all.”

The first thing you should know about the free Adblock Browser is that, unsurprisingly, it works better on recent devices with faster processors. For example, it ran slowly on an iPad 2 with a 32-bit processor in my tests. So, slow, in fact, that there is not much speed advantage to using Safari with ads displayed. However, on a iPhone 6+ with a faster 64-bit processor, Adblock Browser rendered the mostly ad-less web pages fast enough to be interesting and useful. On the Android side, I tested it using a Nexus 4 and Nexus 6.

Here’s the use case that makes Adblock Browser interesting and useful for me: I generally use Google’s own Chrome browser on Android devices and read web pages with ads. However, I often find interesting news items in my Google Now feed. And, some of the sources are either unfamiliar to me with possibly heavy handed ads or are from interesting sources with known heavy ads. So, I have links from Google Now handled by Adblock Browser.

A single ad blocking filter is selected by default: ABP’s own EasyList. ABP describes it as: “The EasyList subscriptions are lists of filters designed for Adblock Plus that automatically remove unwanted content from the internet, including annoying adverts, bothersome banners and troublesome tracking. The subscriptions are currently maintained by four authors.” You can use the Ad Blocking setting option to choose filters for other languages.

The “More blocking options” page lets you select options such as disabling tracking. Surprisingly, the option to disable malware domains is turned off by default.

The “Acceptable Ads” option is turned on by default. As I noted earlier, this allows ads to be displayed from companies who sign a paid or free contract with ABP to agree to display non-intrusive ads.

Finally, in the Privacy settings window, you can choose to turn off cookies and tracking (which are, by default, allowed). It also provides controls for remembering passwords (off by default), and clearing private data manually. There is also an option to clear the cache upon a manual exit using the Quit option. However, I didn’t see a Quit option in the Android app, and I didn’t see this cache setting in the iOS app.

It is worth noting a few differences between the iOS and Android versions of Adblock Browser. The iOS version lets you choose between DuckDuckGo (the default) and Google as its search engine. You can choose from a much larger list of search engines in the Android version. URL suggestions are turned off by default, but can be turned on. The Android version has a large number of display options, including enabling zoom on pages that normally do not allow zooming on mobile devices. The Android version also has an option to save a web page as a PDF file (Settings -> Page -> Save as PDF).

The recently released free Adblock Browser for iOS and Android makes it easy for non-technical people to reduce the number of mobile web ads they see and protect themselves from known malware sites. It is one more tool that makes it easier for anyone to have an arguably improved mobile web experience.

If you missed part one in this series, check out: Ad blocking for the masses, part one: uBlock Origin. Finally, stay tuned for part three, where we will take a closer look at Apple’s Content Blocking Safari Extensions that will be made available in the iOS 9 update released September 16.

Gmail finally lets you block annoying senders

WHAT'S THIS?

IMAGE: GOOGLE

Google launched a new version of Gmail for Android Tuesday, bringing two simple but pretty important features: the "block sender" and "unsubscribe" buttons.

The unsubscribe option was previously available on the desktop version of Gmail, but now you can get off that annoying mailing list from your Android device as well. As for blocking a sender completely, that's new both on Android and the web.

The "block" option is in the message's right side corner menu, just below the "print" option. Tap it and you'll never hear from that sender again (their emails will go directly to the spam folder). If you want to unblock someone, you can do so in Gmail's Settings. "Unsubscribe" is located in the app's top-right corner menu (while you're viewing a message), below the "Mark important" option.

Check out how this all works in Google's handy gifs, below.

IMAGE: GOOGLE

IMAGE: GOOGLE

Both features will be gradually rolling out to users, with "block" coming to the web in 1-3 days, while both options could take longer than three days to appear on Android

Google's a new logo

Google is introducing a new logo today. Just a month after unveiling a major restructuring of the company, Google is updating its image, too. The new Google logo is still a wordmark, but it's now using a sans-serif typeface, making it look a lot more modern and playful. The colors are also softer than they used to be. The logo bears a bit more resemblance to the logo of Google's new parent company, Alphabet, as well. Alphabet's wordmark has a similarly unadorned look, and this update makes the two companies' design language fall more inline.

As Google's video introducing the new logo notes, the wordmark has been evolving ever since it was created in 1998. But this is easily its biggest change since 1999, when Google first cleaned up the lettering and settled on its four colors. Since then, the logo has just been flattened out more and more, with today's update representing a huge leap. In addition to changing up the wordmark, Google is also changing the tiny "g" logo that you see on browser tabs. It's now going to be an uppercase "G" that's striped in all four of Google's colors. Google says that the new design will be rolling out across all of its products soon — in fact, it's already on Google's homepage, with a cute animation that wipes away the old logo and draws in the new one.

THE NEW LOGO IS MEANT TO REFLECT THE NEW WAYS PEOPLE VISIT GOOGLE

So why did Google decide to make the change? In a blog post, Google discusses how much technology has changed how we interact with its products and with the internet at large. It doesn't really settle on a specific reason that a redesign was needed, but it says that this logo should better reflect the reality that Google is no longer a site you visit on a desktop computer — it's a huge collection of sites, apps, and services that you visit on PCs, Chromebooks, smartphones, and anywhere you can find a web browser. Google writes that its new logo is meant to reflect "this reality and [show] you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens."

Making the logo look good on small screens seems to have been a major consideration. The new, simpler lettering is supposed to scale better to smaller sizes, making the wordmark more distinct and easier to read. It's also supposed to be easier for Google to display on low-bandwidth connections: Google says that it's made a version of its logo that's "only 305 bytes, compared to our existing logo at ~14,000 bytes." Given that one of new Google CEO Sundar Pichai's big goals is to bring the internet — and Google, of course — to areas of the globe that don't already have it, that small difference is definitely going to be an important one.

You can also see the new Google "G" beginning to appear across its services. Among the more notable is Google+, which is now represented by a big colorless version of the new G.

Cortana Commands List – Windows 10 Voice Commands

Full Cortana Commands and Questions List

While the list of Cortana Commands is huge, it is not all inclusive.  I encourage folks to use the voice commands below to come up with their own new commands.  If you discover a cool, useful, or funny Cortana commands you would like to share, please use the comments section below.

Cortana Phone Commands

• Call Wife on Speakerphone
• Call Sister at home
• Call boss on mobile
• Call Tyrone
• Redail
• Press [number]

Cortana Texting (SMS) Commands

• Text mom: What time is the birthday party?
• Message my boss: I have completed the budget report
• Send text to Tyrone: When are you coming to pick up my stuff?
• Show me messages from Tyrone

Cortana Calendar Commands

• Create a meeting with Tyrone at 2pm tomorrow
• Create a budget review meeting today at 4pm
• Change my 2pm meeting tomorrow to 3pm
• Add Jessica to my meeting with Tyrone
• Cancel budget review meeting
• What does the rest of my day look like?
• What appointments do I have tomorrow?
• What’s on my calendar for Friday?
• When is my next appointment?
• When is my next meeting?
• When am I meeting with Tyrone?
• Where is my next meeting?
• What am I doing this weekend?

Cortana Reminders

• Remind me at 4pm to submit my time sheet
• Remind me to buy gas when I leave work
• Remind me to check the mail when I get home.
• When my wife calls, remind me to ask her to pick up the kids
• The next time I’m at the grocery store, remind me to buy eggs
• Remind me to buy concert tickets tomorrow

Cortana Note Taking

• Take Note: Pick up eggs, milk, bread, and cheese from the supermarket
• Note: Suspect is five feet tall, heavy build, and wearing a Dallas Cowboys jacket

Cortana Alarm Commands

• Wake me up at 6 am tomorrow morning
• Set alarm for 7:30 am
• Wake me up in 2 hours
• Cancel alarm.

Cortana Commands for Maps and Directions

• Navigate home
• Take me home
• How do I get home
• What’s the traffic like on the way to work?
• Get me directions to Union Station
• How far is Union Station
• Where am I?
• Show me a map of Washington, DC

Cortana Questions for Local Business

• Show me pizza restaurants nearby
• Show me the nearest gas station
• Find flower shop near my work
• Is there a Walmart near me?
• Get me directions to the nearest Starbucks
• Show me highly rated restaurants nearby
• Show me good Mexican restaurants nearby
• What restaurants are open at 10am nearby
• Give me directions to the second one

Cortana Weather Questions

• What’s the weather today?
• What’s the forecast for this weekend?
• What is the weather like in Philadelphia?

Cortana Flight Commands

• What is the status of flight AA 5557?
• Is America flight 76 on time?

Music Commands

• Play artist (Play Alicia Keys)
• Play song title (Play We are the Champions)
• Play genre (Play Jazz)
• Play playlist (Play Old School Rap Playlist)
• Play album (Play Ready to Die)
• Pause the music
• Resume the music
• Play the next track
• Play the previous track
• Shuffle the music
• What song is playing?

Random Cortana Questions

• Who is the mayor of Washington, DC?
• What’s the population of India?
• How old is Hulk Hogan?
• What should I not eat when I’m pregnant?
• Show me a picture of a pit bull
• Who is Kayne West?
• Find recipes for baked chicken breasts

Cortana Math Commands

• What is 21 divided by 7?
• Convert 3 miles to feet

Cortana App Commands

• Open camera
• Turn on airplane mode
• Turn on quiet hours
• Turn on WiFi

Cortana News Commands

• Show me today’s news
• Show me the top headlines
• Show me the local news
• Show me the international news

Cortana Questions for Stock and Finance

• How is the stock market doing today?
• How is Microsoft Stock doing today?
• How much is the Facebook stock per share?
• Convert 100 dollars to Canadian.

Cortana Phones

Cortana ships with the HTC One (M8) Phone for Windows that was released in August 2014.  Preexisting Windows Phones will also get the Cortana app if they can be upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1.

How to Change What Cortana Calls Me

To set the name that Cortana calls you on your Windows Phone, do the following: Launch the Cortana app, select the Cortana Notebook button (), select Settings, then select “change my name”.

In what countries/regions is Cortana available?

As of this writing, Cortana is available in the following countries/regions: Australia, Canada, China, India, the United Kingdom, and of course, the United States.

Udemy Free Course - Beginner to expert in Linux Operating System - Part 1 - 100% Off

COURSE DESCRIPTION

     

This is the first course in the series of many courses which I will be doing on Linux Operating system. There are many OS available but we will see that why we choose Linux.

Linux uses the GNU General Public License (GPL) which is free. It is free as well as open source, meaning that it gives the freedoms to use, study, share (copy), and modify the software. Linux follows POSIX standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems such as Unix and other variants.

We will dive deep in Linux in the other detailed courses like:

1. Shell script - Here, we will learn about shells like sh, bash etc, editors like vi, emacs etc shell commands etc.

2. Understanding Linux Kernel and writing device drivers.

3. Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS)

4. Debugging in Linux - How to debug applications written in Linux using gdb and analyzing core dump.

5. Embedded system - All about embedded systems

6. Programming - Programming languages like C and C++ with data structures.

7. Compilers - gcc and g++ in details

About this course:

We will try and learn installing Fedora and ubuntu. But how do you actually get it installed? Here, we'll show you how to install it on your system.

This course is designed for the IT professional who wants to quickly get their first Linux machine up and running. It is 38mins of console screen capture with highlights and voiceover explanation.

The course assumes some knowledge of computer hardware and operating systems such as files, directories, and disk partitions. If you've been curious about Linux but have been frustrated by the "read the docs and learn" mentality, this course will walk you through installation.

CURRICULUM

Ubuntu Live Installation and Conclusion 

Background of Fedora and Ubuntu

Configuring and installing Fedora

Introduction

Linux Installation

Operation System and Linux

LINK FOR THE FREE COURSE

https://www.udemy.com/becoming-linux-expert-series-install-linux-operating-system/?couponCode=elearningmedium