SwiftKey Beta introduces the Animoji-like Puppets

It seems every single app wants to have some sort of take on Animoji. Even third-party keyboard apps aren’t safe. SwiftKey Beta is trying this feature out on its own with a new feature called Puppets. It’ll let you record yourself as one of these five animals: dinosaur, cat, owl, dog, or panda. Like all incarnations of this feature, it makes use of your phone’s camera to track your facial movements. Of course, it has the help of artificial intelligence to make this possible. And since it is part of your keyboard app, it’ll work with just about any app. You can record clips of up to 30 seconds long and you can choose to leave in the sound you recorded or just mute it. It is, as we mentioned, shareable wherever you want to.

At this moment there is no native still capture button, so if you want stills, you need to export the clip and screenshot. Ease of use varies as well. As Android Central points out, if you send it through Slack, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram, then you need to select the recipient again even if you’re in the message thread with them. Also, it can’t track mouth movements as well right now, but it’s understandable since this is the beta version. Here’s to hoping SwiftKey tweaks this for the official release.

Samsung might launch a new Email Plus app on Android

If you’re a Samsung user, you might have been alerted to this news. A few months ago, Samsung smartphone users got emails from Google informing them that the built-in Samsung Email app came from a suspicious publisher. And that this had access to their Gmail data and it could read, send, and permanently delete any message with their Gmail accounts. This turned out to be a bug, which Samsung claims it has fixed already. But it looks like the company wants to start fresh. LetsGoDigital found a new Email Plus trademark filed by the company in the UK. It’s described as a “computer software for smartphones and tablets to manage email accounts.” What the Plus in the name means, we can’t say. Nor can we say when it’s coming out, but we won’t be surprised if it gets teased during the launch of the Galaxy Note 10 next month.

Source: MSPowerUser

Teardown of Google Camera app shows what Pixel 4 camera’s hardware could be

We know the Google Pixel 4 is coming. What isn’t clear yet is what the new smartphone will have. We already know that there is a secondary camera on this device, which is a first for a Pixel. But we don’t know what kind of camera it could be. A teardown of the Google Camera app shows what we could expect. Version 6.3 of the app shows changes in the code that reference Sabre, which is Google’s codename for its Super Res Zoom. There are also some new sensor IDs for the camera that weren’t seen in version 6.2 and one of these references a rear telephoto lens, making us believe we’re getting a zoom lens. And that this lens could use Google’s Super Res Zoom to increase zoom distance digitally.

Aside from that, a front-facing IR sensor was seen in the code. This suggests that the Pixel 4 is getting facial recognition. Its presence in the Camera app suggests it could be used for Playmojis or even Google’s take on Apple’s Animoji. The Pixel 4 is slated to come out around October 2019.

Source: Android Central

‘Always Be My Maybe’ gets a directory commentary track through this Netflix podcast

It looks like Netflix is trying to give fans of its movies a bit more context about these films with a recently launched podcast series. Called Watching With, the podcast series has two episodes so far. One is for Someone Great with director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and the latest one is Always Be My Maybe with director Nahnatchka Khan and actor Randall Park. You can listen to the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Unfortunately, it isn’t available natively on Netflix’s platform, so if you want to watch the movie while listening to the podcast, you somehow have to manage to play it at the same time. Or you can just choose to listen to the commentary without having to watch the film. It’s all up to you.

Source: The Verge