Lenovo’s standalone Daydream VR headset passes through the FCC

Lenovo is one of two partners Google that’s working with to release standalone headsets that runs on Google’s Daydream virtual reality platform. There weren’t any significant updates on this front, except for the news that HTC (the other partner) dropped out of creating their own VR headset. But now it looks like Lenovo is forging ahead. Their headset, which is called the Mirage Solo, just passed through the FCC. And according to the FCC document, it’ll come with a 4,000mAh battery and Bluetooth 5.0. Not much else is known about the Mirage Solo but speculation is we might expect to see it at CES. Although there is no certainty in that rumour.

Source: 9to5Google

Google Photos start rolling out ‘Smiles of 2017’ video collage

Google Photos is rolling out one of their compilation video collages. This time, it’s the “Smiles of 2017” movie, which as you can guess from the title brings together your photos taken in the past year that show people smiling in them. Depending on how many of these smiling photos you have, the length of these animated slideshows can range from 40 to 60 seconds. It isn’t rolling out all at once to users so some might get it earlier than others. You should get a notification if your Smiles of 2017 video is ready and like the others, you can share these online or save it if you want. This isn’t the first time Google has done these Smiles video. They’ve done this a number of times in the past but if you want to look back at your happy moments in the year, this is a good thing to look at.

Source: Android Police

Edward Snowden’s Haven app turns any Android smartphone into a remote security camera

If you have a spare Android device around you, you can turn that into a remotely accessible security camera of sorts. Edward Snowden recently launched an app that can turn any Android smartphone into your watchdog device of sorts. It lets you record video, sound, vibration, as well as detects motion and changes in light. According to the app’s website, “Haven is for people who need a way to protect their personal spaces and possessions without compromising their own privacy. We designed Haven for investigative journalists, human rights defenders, and people at risk of forced disappearance to create a new kind of herd immunity.”

By using a smartphone, it makes this less conspicuous to the baddies who want to invade your space. Since Haven is open source, those who want to tinker around with it to suit their needs can do so here. Some of its more notable and useful features include being able to access activity logs remotely and being able to forward detected events to a separate device via SMS, Gmail, WhatsApp, or secure messaging app Signal. The latter feature ensures that you get the data it records even if the phone where Haven is installed gets compromised.

Source: BGR

Face ID doesn’t seem to work for approving family purchases on the iPhone X

Review: Apple iPhone X

If you thought it would be easier to approve family purchases on the iPhone X, you have another thing coming. As seen on Apple’s forums, people can’t seem to figure out how to use Face ID to approve family purchases. Users would need to manually enter password for it to work. In case you aren’t familiar, Apple has an Ask to Buy feature to help parents control what their children buy on their iOS devices. Before Touch ID worked but it seems to no longer be the case with iPhone X. Face ID works to authenticate a user when they make a purchase, but it doesn’t seem to work for this instance. Perhaps it’s a fail-safe to prevent kids who can dupe the phone’s facial recognition software and have them go to town with app-related purchases.

Source: The Verge