Spotify tries out ‘driving mode’ for its Android app

Tinkering with your phone while driving is a dangerous thing to do. And that extends to trying to do things like switch playlists on your Spotify app. And it seems the music streaming service is doing something about it—or at least they’re testing something out. Some Android users seem to have gained access to a new driving mode feature that’ll keep your eyes and hands on the wheel while you use the app. As seen in the screenshots shared by Reddit user Chris54721, it features larger buttons, verbal song announcements, and voice control support. There seems to be a new car icon, too, which is obviously meant to toggle the feature. Spotify won’t comment about the feature and said they “test new products all the time and have no news to share.”

Source: Engadget

Dating app helps you find people who look like your favorite celebrity

Dating apps have their own gimmicks to have you choose them over the many others out there. A UK-based dating app has a funny/creepy new feature, depending on who you ask. Badoo now has a “lookalike” feature, which basically lets you search for someone based on who they resemble. If you can’t date Tom Hiddleston, who says that you can’t date someone who looks like him? The app will let you upload the photo of whomever you want and it uses image recognition technology to find you similar-looking faces. Badoo’s tech identifies 160 facial features like eyebrows, hair color, chin size, etc. and takes those details and assigns a unique number of combinations to each face. It’ll then find you the best matches among the millions of images on the app. Badoo also comes preloaded with some recognizable faces, like Jake Gyllenhaal. And since you can link your Facebook account, you can look for people from your own life.

Source: Fast Company

EU-backed Chrome plugin debunks fake videos

Telling what’s real from what isn’t is a bit challenging these days. Thankfully, some people are trying to set things right for us. One of the latest technological attempts to rid us of fake news is a new Google Chrome plugin made by EU-backed InVID. This Fake Video News Debunker does as its name suggests. The tool will help out fact-checking journalists and truth-seekers of the original context of a particular clip. All you need to do is put in the URL of the YouTube or Facebook video in the Analysis tab and let it do the work. The plugin will pull up general information about the clip like time, location, and description, among others. You’ll even get an option to do reverse image searches and Twitter video search. It even has more in-depth features including a Keyframe tab, Thumbnails tab, Magnifier lens tab, Search tab, Forensic tab, and Metadata tab.

The clip above shows how the plugin works. It’s currently in beta version but it might be worth trying it out now, especially for the information it can provide. InVID has gotten funding from EU’s Horizon 2020 programme for projects like this. They’ve already launched other services that check credibility of videos and organizations and even copyright tools.

Source: The Next Web

Young phenom JD McCrary joins first Apple scripted TV show ‘Vital Signs’

We’ve heard a while back that Apple’s first entry into scripted television programming is a Dr. Dre-lead show called Vital Signs. It’s said to be a six-episode series that is rumoured to be debuting in September—although Apple won’t confirm the release date. What we have found out that one of the episodes called Innocence will feature a 9-year-old singer/actor/dancer named JD McCrary. He’s been on different talent shows and has made a name for himself as someone who’s evocative of the late Michael Jackson. It’s been confirmed that he’s part of the show along with Dr. Dre, Sam Rockwell, and Ian McShane.

The show is described to be a semi-biographical drama. And each episode is rumoured to be focusing on a specific emotion. Perhaps, he’ll play a young Dr. Dre. We can’t say yet. But we’re bound to find out soon enough.

Source: The Next Web