Thursday
May032018

Google Assistant on Wear OS will help make your life easier

Google Assistant on Wear OS is about to get that much more useful with several updates heading its way over the next few days. One thing coming is smart suggestions. This means, when you ask Google Assistant a question, it’ll automatically populate the screen with contextual follow-up questions that you can select. Another is that if you ask Google Assistant to “tell me about my day,” it’ll speak back to you through the watch speaker or Bluetooth headphones to let you know about what you have going on for the day. You previously had to look at the watch’s display to get these answers. Last new feature is Google getting support for third-party actions with Assistant. Actions are the little things you can do with Google Assistant and third-party developers that support it. By making Actions available on Wear OS, you can do things like turn on a compatible oven while you unload groceries and help get things started.

Thursday
May032018

‘Remixed’ version of ‘Arrested Development’ season 4 drops on Netflix on May 4

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz announced in 2014 that he was going to recut the show after the fourth season made its Netflix debut in 2013. The original structure of the season has each episode focused on one character. Hurwitz has “remixed” this version that intercuts all the characters’ stories chronologically. And has lengthened the 15-episode season into a shorter 22-episode season with 20-minute long episodes that create a more “interwoven” narrative than the original. And after four long years, this new version is coming to Netflix tomorrow, May 4. As for Season 5, it’s “right around the wall,” according to Arrested Development’s official Twitter account.

Source: The Verge

Thursday
May032018

Time to change your Twitter passwords

If you just signed into Twitter today, you might get a pop-up notification telling you to change your password. The social network is asking all its 330 million users to change passwords after a bug exposed them in plain text. According to Twitter, they haven’t seen any evidence of breach or misuse of the passwords but they still want all users to change passwords out of an “abundance of caution.” And they’re reminding users to change passwords for any other account that might have the same password as those used on Twitter. When you change your password, Twitter will also show you what third-party apps are linked to your Twitter account and you can review the apps you want to revoke access to your account.

The bug caused an issue in the hashing process that masks the passwords and replaces them with random string of characters before it’s stored in Twitter’s system. What happened was the passwords were saved in plain text in the internal log. The social network hasn’t said how many users were affected but asking its entire user base to change passwords might mean it’s affected a lot of its users. Twitter claims it’s found the bug on its own and are working to make sure this and other similar issues don’t happen again.

Thursday
May032018

DC Comics names new streaming service as DC Universe

DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. announced last year that they were working creating their own digital streaming platform that will have both DC’s animated and live action series. And now the streaming service gets a name: DC Universe. It even gets a landing page on DC Comics’ website, where it’s described as a “first-of-its kind, immersive digital experience designed just for DC fans.” The shows that have already been announced for the platform include the animated Young Justice: Outsiders, animated Harley Quinn series, and live-action versions of Titans and Swamp Thing. There is no word yet when DC Universe will be officially launching but Titans is expected to come out sometime this year, while Swamp Thing is expected to get a 2019 release.