HBO’s ‘True Detective’ is coming back for season three, Mahershala Ali takes lead role

ABC/Tyler Golden

To say True Detective has been through a lot is an understatement. What was considered a great show in its first season fell by the wayside by its second season. And as The New York Times reports, few people expected it to make a comeback. But the show, which one starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, will be coming back for season 3 and this time, Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is taking the lead. He’ll be playing a state detective in Northwest Arkansas as a crime happens in the Ozark Mountains.

Not much else is known about the show but its creator Nic Pizzolatto will be writing most of the season and directed several episodes. David Milch, the creator of HBO series like Deadwood and Luck co-wrote one episode with Pizzolatto. For the rest of the season, Jeremy Saulnier will be taking the role of director. No word yet on when the show is coming out as well.

Google’s News Lab collaborated on visual site that shows most common ‘How To’ questions online

The phrase “Google it” is such an important part of our lexicon for years already. But what do we Google exactly? A new website made by Google’s News Lab team together with interactive visual data journalist Xaquin G.V. delves into the searches we made starting with the words “How To.” These two words apparently make up a lot of our searches on the site. Inspired by his own searches of how to fix things around the house, the site makes use of Google and its Trends tools to show what tops the “How to” searches are for different countries. As TechCrunch points out, in Canada, how to searches related to doors, toilets, and fridges are commonly looked up.

On top of that, the site has an essay that looks in the top 100 “How To” searches made around the world to see what we usually need help with. Xaquin breaks this down into categories and adds visual representation of how popular each topic is. The site is highly responsive and looks great on mobile. It was deliberate on their part as Google News Lab Data Editor Simon Rogers said, they wanted to focus on the site’s mobile performance for visual storytelling as this is how people access information. Rogers also said projects like this help them see how their data can be used to tell stories and perhaps fuel interest in creating great data-based journalism.

Playgrounds for iPad now features Swift courses with Sphero and R2-D2

Just in time for Force Friday, the innovative Playgrounds app for the iPad now has Swift courses that allow users to program Sphero and R2-D2.

Two new accessories have been added as Swift coding courses: Sphero Template and R2-D2 by Sphero.

Sphero Template is described as “an open template that allows you to build your own programs with a Sphero robot.” Sphero points users to the Sphero API documentation to see what all you can do with the robot commands.

Both new additions are available to download through the Accessories tab on the latest version of Playgrounds for iPad.

Sphero Template works with the Sphero SPRK+, BB-8, R2-D2, and newly debuted BB-9E robot.

The Essential Phone gets better quality photos from a modified Google Camera APK

Left: Essential Camera; Right: Google Camera with HDR+

The reviews for the Essential Phone have started to come in and what we’ve been seeing so far is criticism towards the camera quality of the new device. But it doesn’t seem to be because of the camera sensor itself but something more to do with Essential’s camera software. The Next Web’s Napier Lopez reviewed the device and he installed a modified Google Camera APK that works with most Snapdragon 820+ phones into the Essential Phone to check whether it’s a hardware or software issue. And he found better quality photos on it, which means, the issue lies on software. The good thing about that is, software can be remedied. Let’s hope Essential works on that soon, and we know they already have enough issues to deal with now.