Feel the World Cup fever with Apple

Starting today, you can keep up and celebrate all things World Cup on Apple devices and services. You can ask Siri about everything from scores, standings, team rosters, schedules, etc. The App Store will feature favorite apps and games from football stars. App Store editors will even offer tips on how to take perfect football photo and get your football fix on social media. If you use the Apple TV App, you can keep track of all of the action on TSN and RDS, Bell Media’s English and French language apps in Canada. You can favourite teams and follow their matches in Up Next as well as receive notifications on your Apple devices when their team is playing or when a match is coming up.

If you just want to keep up on the news, the News app will make it easier for you to follow what’s happening. You get up-to-date scores and schedules as well as a knockout bracket and profiles of the event’s key players from Eight by Eight magazine. Meanwhile, Apple Music will have playlists for each participating nation that feature the most exciting local artists the teams have selected. And Apple Podcast and iBooks will both feature editorial collections called “The Beautiful Game” that highlight podcasts and books that celebrate the sport. If you want to show your love for the sport creatively, Clips now comes with football-themed graphics, which include an animated sticker, label, and poster with customizable text.

Facebook product director joins Uber as head of driver product

Under Uber’s current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the ride-hailing service has placed heavy emphasis on its drivers. But the company has been without a head for its driver product division since December, when Aaron Schildkrout left after the company wrapped its 180 days of change driver campaign. That just changed as former Facebook product director for video and Facebook Live, Daniel Danker, joins Uber. He will serve as a senior director and head of driver product. Danker will be in charge of planning, strategy, and execution for the said division. He has been working in Silicon Valley for a while already. Between 2000 and 2010, he worked in a couple of roles at Microsoft and left when he was a director of development and operations. He found his way to BBC in 2010 and then went to Shazam where he served as chief product officer for almost three years.

“Drivers are the heart of the Uber experience, and Daniel’s passion for our mission and deep product knowledge will ensure we continue to improve and innovate on their behalf,” Uber Head of Product Manik Gupta told TechCrunch in a statement.

Essential Phone gets some camera improvements with new app update

One of the Essential Phone’s weaknesses is its subpar camera performance. Thankfully, the company is acknowledging this is an issue and has continuously been rolling out updates to improve the camera. The latest update, which rolls out via the Google Play Store, brings a few new features. One is a new look for the camera roll. With new icons, it’s now easier to identify modes like slo-mo, 360-degree, Burst Mode, and videos. The update also ushers in the return of “Tiny Planet” feature for 360-degree videos. Burst Mode has also been improved. Plus, there’s the usual slew of stability fixes introduced into the app. The update is currently rolling out to users so keep an eye out for it.

Source: 9to5Google

Samsung Canada announces four winning schools in 2018 Solve for Tomorrow Challenge

Samsung Canada announced the four winning schools in the 2018 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Challenge. Today, Samsung Canada announced the final four regional winners in its annual Solve for Tomorrow Challenge, a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-based education initiative that seeks to ignite student passion in these subjects. This year, Bernice MacNaughton High School (Moncton, NB), Thornlea Secondary School (Thornhill, ON), Meadows West School (Winnipeg, MB) and Westwood Community High School (Fort McMurray, AB) will each receive $20,000 in Samsung technology as a result of their creative and collaborative STEM solutions to real-world issues facing their communities.

Click to read more ...