The app is not new to the Google Play Store and has been recreating the iOS experience on Android for the last three years. Starting with iOS 13 and for every subsequent major iOS release, the app has been updated to reflect changes made to iOS.

The copycat iOS launcher, named "Launcher ‌iOS 16‌," recreates the iOS Home Screen, dock, Force Touch menus on apps, "jiggle mode," App Library, iOS-styled widgets, and more. The launcher also replaces app icons with iOS icons, such as Messages, Notes, Camera, and even the Play Store has Apple's App Store icon.

But no it does not green bubbles for text messaging... then again iPhone users don't get RCS messaging either ;-)

See https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/19/copycat-ios-launcher-android-50-million-downloads/

#technology #android #launchers #iOS

First photographers were creating portraits of people that don’t exist, now Aurel Manea has created a series of “landscape photos” using a new artificially intelligent (AI) software program called Stable Diffusion.

Manea tells PetaPixel that he has been blown away by what the London and Los Altos-based startup Stability AI has created.

“I can’t, as a landscape photographer myself, emphasize enough what these new technologies will mean for photography,” explains Manea.

“Of course, they are not real photos and they only resemble real places (for now, as the input data becomes larger and larger) but for most of the people that consume the images, it is only about the beauty of those images.”

It is open source software, but only has access on request to researchers for now, until its public release.

See https://petapixel.com/2022/08/16/these-are-not-photos-beautiful-landscapes-created-by-new-ai/

#technology #AI #photography #landscapes #opensource

To the human eye, the USB Rubber Ducky looks like an unremarkable USB flash drive. Plug it into a computer, though, and the machine sees it as a USB keyboard — which means it accepts keystroke commands from the device just as if a person was typing them in.

The original Rubber Ducky was released over 10 years ago and became a fan favorite among hackers (it was even featured in a Mr. Robot scene).

“Everything it types is trusted to the same degree as the user is trusted,” Kitchen told me, “so it takes advantage of the trust model built in, where computers have been taught to trust a human. And a computer knows that a human typically communicates with it through clicking and typing.”

While previous versions were mostly limited to writing keystroke sequences, DuckyScript 3.0 is a feature-rich language, letting users write functions, store variables, and use logic flow controls (i.e., if this... then that).

See https://www.theverge.com/23308394/usb-rubber-ducky-review-hack5-defcon-duckyscript

#technology #hacking #rubberducky #security

Robert Sansone is a natural born engineer. From animatronic hands to high-speed running boots and a go-kart that can reach speeds of more than 70 miles per hour, the Fort Pierce, Florida-based inventor estimates he’s completed at least 60 engineering projects in his spare time. And he’s only 17 years old.

A couple years ago, Sansone came across a video about the advantages and disadvantages of electric cars. The video explained that most electric car motors require magnets made from rare-earth elements, which can be costly, both financially and environmentally, to extract. The rare-earth materials needed can cost hundreds of dollars per kilogram. In comparison, copper is worth $7.83 per kilogram.

“I have a natural interest in electric motors,” says Sansone, who had used them in different robotics projects. “With that sustainability issue, I wanted to tackle it, and try and design a different motor.”

The highschooler had heard of a type of electric motor—the synchronous reluctance motor—that doesn’t use these rare-earth materials. This kind of motor is currently used for pumps and fans, but it isn’t powerful enough by itself to be used in an electric vehicle. So, Sansone started brainstorming ways he could improve its performance.

See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-17-year-old-designed-a-motor-that-could-potentially-transform-the-electric-car-industry-180980550/

#technology #environment #EV #USA

You can write project documentation in plain HTML, and that gets the job done. However, plain HTML styling may feel a little spartan. Instead, try adding a few simple styles to an HTML document to add a little pizzazz to documentation, and make your documents clearer and easier to read.

You can use styles to make your documents easier to read. Seeing you're just starting to learn about styles, just a few simple style elements are covered in this linked article:

• background-color to set the background color
• color to set the text color
• font-family to use a different text font
• margin-top to add space above an element
• margin-bottom to add space below an element
• text-align to change how the text is displayed, such as to the left, to the right, or centered

See https://opensource.com/article/22/8/css-html-project-documentation

#technology #CSS #HTML #webpages #styles

The US Federal Election Commission approved a Google plan on Thursday to let campaign emails bypass Gmail spam filters. The FEC's advisory opinion adopted in a 4-1 vote said Gmail's pilot program is permissible under the Federal Election Campaign Act and FEC regulations "and would not result in the making of a prohibited in-kind contribution."

The way I see it is, any e-mail being received by you, which you did not solicit, is spam to you, no matter whether it is a president, the CEO of the golf club, or whoever. Yet again, it seems that politicians (the world over) consider themselves above the laws they created.

In many countries, my own included, there needs to be opt out messages for e-mails and SMS text messages, which if not honoured, become a criminal offence.

But let's watch this one play out, as I suspect more and more users of free services are beginning to realise they have become the product, but that they also have other options, even though change can be very painful (try updating 100+ e-mail address details across your banks, insurance company, medical, etc).

See https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/us-approves-google-plan-to-let-political-emails-bypass-gmail-spam-filter/

#technology #politicians #Gmail #spam

As tablets have advanced, many artists are turning to the best Android tablets and best Android phones as their weapon of choice for making digital artworks. The key to that is a great app to express yourself. With so many out there, how do you choose the right one? This round-up will help you narrow down the choices by sharing some of the best drawing apps available for your Android device.

The criteria: These are the important features and factors to look out for when choosing a drawing app:

• Pressure responsiveness
• A wide range of brushes and tools
• Being able to customize brushes or create your own
• Being able to work with multiple layers
• Layer blending modes such as multiply, overlay, colour dodge, and burn
• Touch gestures and keyboard shortcuts
• Built-in time-lapse recording is a plus

The price of an app will often be a deciding factor, too, especially if you are a beginner and just getting started. Each app here is either free, partially free, or gives you a decent trial period of the full version, so you can test each one and find the one that works best for you.

See https://www.androidpolice.com/best-drawing-apps-for-android/

#technology #android #drawing #sketching

This video sums up really why many like to relax when playing a game, and enjoy realistic scenery as well as simulation. Gaming can be very relaxing and enjoyable, and need not just be first-person shooter games.

That said, my favourite first person realism shooter type games are probably War Thunder and Hell Let Loose. But both require reflexes, a lot of practice and strategy, and do fully consume your attention with no pauses allowed.

Another really great relaxing trucking simulation is SnowRunner. I've been playing this full time for over a year now. It is a more off-road truck simulator with very realistic simulation of ice, snow, mud, and gravel.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grjRStypm4Y

#Technology #Gaming #Simulation #TruckSims

Yes I've been getting to the point that I just ignore notifications for a large part of the day because it's the doorbell warning me someone is walking past, community group on Telegram selling pies, SMS ads, e-mails, news headlines, Twitter, and a dozen other social networks. But some apps get quite invasive too with daily offers. My cellular provider's daily specials and competitions I've also finally managed to silence.

I've now bundled most of those apps into two scheduled notification periods (10am and 7pm), where they are grouped per app for quick check and dismiss if required. But I've also disabled notifications completely for many others, and just left the badge count on for the icons, to show there are alerts.

The point of this being that if an actual notification now comes through at other times, I should actually just check it, as it is something that is time sensitive. My watch notification restrictions are even more aggressive, with zero for any social network.

So you should decide what apps need zero notifications (you just look at count on icon or when you open it), which can be scheduled for specific times in the day, and which are actual immediate or time sensitive ones. Some apps too like Telegram messenger allow you to set silent notifications, so they won't disturb you, but you'll see them when you look at your phone (did you know Telegram also allows you, as the sender, to send any message as a silent notification, or a scheduled notification?).

A bit of time spent on setting notification restrictions could actually save a lot of time later on.

See https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/5/23293924/push-notifications-ios-android-daily-digest-time-sensitive

#technology #notifications #productivity