Misfit pushes back release of Vapor to October

If you’ve been keeping your eye out for Misfit’s Vapor, you’re going to have to wait for a bit. The smartwatch, which was introduced at CES 2017, was expected to come out this summer. But the company just announced they’re pushing the release date back to October. Aside from the delayed release, nothing has changed about the Android Wear 2.0-powered watch.

It’ll still have a round 1.39-inch AMOLED touchscreen, Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 processor, 4GB of memory, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, water resistance of up to 50 meters, and Google Assistant support using the device’s built-in microphone. Unfortunately, the Vapor doesn’t come with GPS. But if that’s something you don’t need, the Misfit Vapor comes in at US$199 (around CA$250).

Source: Android Authority

You’ll soon be able to upload Instagram albums in portrait or landscape

One of the biggest downsides of Instagram’s multiple photo and video uploads is that everything has to be in a weirdly cropped square format. Thankfully Instagram seems to be addressing this now. Instagram albums will soon let you upload in either portrait or landscape. The caveat is every photo in the album has to either be in portrait or landscape. You can’t mix it up yet because Instagram says this will “keep the experience smooth and consistent.”

One of the other changes is that you can now go back and edit tags within the album, which wasn’t available for albums before. And the iOS version of the app can also save albums as drafts. Android users have to wait a bit but it’ll supposedly be coming “soon.”

Source: Instagram | Via: Mashable

Sonos might be looking into supporting ‘multiple voice platforms’ for future smart speakers

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has once sent an internal memo to his team stating that he was willing to work with “global leaders like Amazon, Google, and (likely) Apple… [to bring] all the services that matter to every home.” And it looks like they’re at least trying to make that happen. A recent FCC filing that references “Product model S13,” Sonos might bring different voice assistants to its smart speaker. The filing describes the S13 has having “integrated voice control functionality” and supports “multiple voice platforms and music services.” If Sonos will be able to integrate the likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and even Microsoft’s Cortana, that should give them an advantage over their competitors.

Aside from that, the FCC filing shows off the possible UI look (as you see above). It shows a microphone, pause/play, as well as two unspecified icons to each side of the pause and play button. There’s also a line above the pause/play button. The S13 indicated also comes with far-field microphones, which can be seen in the likes of the Echo devices and Google Home.

Source: Android Authority

Android Oreo might introduce better app integration for Google Assistant

You can do a lot of things with Google Assistant. A simple Google search will bring up all you can do with it. One thing it needs to get better at though is third-party app integration. But it looks like Google is working on that one with its newest operating system iteration, Android 8.0 Oreo. A new string found within the Android Developers website code shows a possibility of interaction by voice as long as the app supports Android 8.0. This means, Google might be opening the ability for other apps to interact with its Google Assistant without the user having to leave the app. On top of that, it looks like Google wants to do the same for other digital assistants like Amazon’s Alexa app and Microsoft’s Cortana app.

Not much is known yet about when this might be coming to users or what sort of activities can be executed. But it does show us what we could expect. But as you might have noticed there are caveats to this, you’ll need to have an Android Oreo powered device and it’ll depend on the developer if they want to start working on the integration.

Source: Android Headlines