Google testing presence detection for invoking the Assistant on smart displays

Google is making its smart displays more receptive to touch, and it appears the update may be part of a larger initiative to make these devices less reliant on voice interaction. According to a new video from Jan Boromeusz (via AndroidPolice), the same person that brought us an early look at the new smart display UI, Google is reportedly testing a presence detection feature for invoking the Assistant. If this feature goes live, users will no longer have to always say, “Hey Google” before uttering a command.

Presence detection will seemingly be made possible thanks to ultrasonic sensing features present in the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max. On Nest Hub displays, a high-frequency noise is sent through the speakers; the displays then listen for the noise to bounce back, detecting people up to five feet away.

Google has previously used presence sensing to tailor the interface on Smart Displays accordingly. If you’re farther away, elements on the screen, including alarms, timer, fonts, and other graphics, will get larger. Presence sensing features were initially rolled out to the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max at the end of last year.

A video demonstrating the new presence detection initiation for Google Assistant was uploaded to YouTube. Whenever the author approaches his Nest Hub Max, the Assistant pops up and wait for their command — all without using any of Assistant’s familiar hotwords. If no command is made, the Assistant will eventually go away.

As mentioned, a feature like this would make Google’s Smart Displays a little less reliant on voice. Instead of invoking Assistant manually, users can simply approach their Nest Hub. Combined with the new UI Google recently unveiled, Smart Displays are suddenly much more touch-friendly. That ultimately makes them more accessible, too.

Of course, adding more presence sensing features to Smart Displays does raise privacy concerns, but it’s worth noting that this feature isn’t live for everyone, and it may never see the light of day. The user who uploaded this feature somehow got their hands on internal firmware for the Nest Hub Max, with a settings page for several dogfood features. While this feature has yet to be introduced, you can always disable ultrasonic sensing on your Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max if it truly makes you uncomfortable.

The post Google testing presence detection for invoking the Assistant on smart displays appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/37wYpfs
via IFTTT

Get the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet for Prime Day prices at Best Buy today

Prime Day had some wonderful deals, but only if you were an Amazon Prime member, and only for 48 hours. If you didn’t want to sign up for Prime or just didn’t happen to have any money on October 13th and 14th, you were out of luck! But don’t worry, as Best Buy has come to the rescue. They’re currently having a sale on their stock of Amazon brand products, and these items are at the same prices as they were during Prime Day. No membership required!

One of the standout sale items? The Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet for $80. It’s currently available at Best Buy in all colors but Plum, and this is a useful budget tablet. The Fire HD 10 is built for easy media watching with a 16:9 screen, and it’s suitable for anything from games to books to TV. 32GB in storage will be enough to download your favorite apps on the Amazon Fire HD 10, but you can also insert a microSD for more space. Of course, the Amazon Fire tablets are known for having a lot of bloatware and not having access to the Google Play Store but don’t worry… there are ways around that.

If you can get yourself into a brick-and-mortar Best Buy store, you can save even more by trading in an Amazon tablet. This will net you a Best Buy gift card, as well as a 20% off coupon for a new Amazon tablet. You don’t need to buy the new tablet in the same transaction, though, so you can use the coupon online and get the Amazon Fire HD 10 shipped straight to you.

Amazon Fire HD 10 10.1-inch Tablet (32GB)

The Amazon Fire HD 10 is a great mid-range media tablet, and right now you can pick it up at Best Buy for Prime Day prices. As part of their Amazon 60-Hour Savings Event, you can grab yourself a new tablet in black, blue, or red for just $80.

$80 at Best Buy

This sale lasts until the end of the day on Thursday, so don’t delay! By the way, Fire HD Kids tablets are also on sale, in case you’re looking for a good holiday gift!

The post Get the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet for Prime Day prices at Best Buy today appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2IWzmbH
via IFTTT

Google Assistant prepares to let you pay for gas from your phone

Remember CES? It seems like the world’s biggest tech event happened ages ago, so it’s easy to forget that so many new products and services were announced there. Take, for example, Amazon’s new “Pay for Gas” service for Alexa. The feature lets drivers ask Alexa to handle fuel payments at over 11,000 gas stations across the U.S. All you have to do is pull up to the pump, launch Alexa, say “pay for gas”, and then follow the directions to activate the pump to refuel your car. Based on code within the latest version of the Google App — version 11.33.5.29 to be precise — it looks like Google is preparing to add a similar feature to Google Assistant.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

In the latest version of the Google App, there’s a new string titled “aa_pay_for_gas_query.” This is one of those hardcoded queries that the Google Assistant can recognize, alongside several others such as one to play calming sounds.

<string name="aa_pay_for_gas_query">Pay for gas.</string>

Digging deeper into the APK, we spotted evidence that this new feature can be launched in another way: through the At A Glance widget on the launcher. When you arrive at a gas station, the At A Glance widget will be updated to say “At [station name].” Tapping the widget will send an intent to view https://ift.tt/31uqWyF (likely to be recognized by the Google Pay app) with several URI parameters, including the brand and store ID. Presumably, this means you’ll be able to pay for gas with the Google Assistant at multiple different gas station chains. Amazon Alexa, for example, lets you pay at over 11,500 locations from Exxon and Mobil.

There’s not much code within the Google App detailing this feature, and we haven’t been able to activate it ourselves yet. That means you should take this news with a grain of salt, but given that Amazon has already rolled out a similar feature for Alexa, it makes perfect sense for Google to follow suit with Assistant.

Google Assistant - Get things done, hands-free (Free, Google Play) →

Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

The post Google Assistant prepares to let you pay for gas from your phone appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2TbpgFE
via IFTTT

New Windows 10 Insider Build adds theme-aware splash screens for UWP apps

Microsoft on Wednesday introduced a new Windows 10 Insider Preview Build, and it includes some visual flair to its Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. The latest build is available now to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

The most notable change is the introduction of theme-aware splash screens for UWP apps. When a compatible UWP app is launched, the splash screen color will match your default app mode. So, if the light theme is turned on in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, you’ll see a light theme splash screen, and the same goes for dark theme.

The Settings app in dark theme.

It’s a small visual change but adds an extra detail that makes the system feel more consistent. Here are the apps that support theme-aware splash screens so far:

• Settings
• Store
• Windows Security
• Alarms & Clock
• Calculator
• Maps
• Voice Recorder
• Groove
• Movies & TV
• Snip & Sketch
• Microsoft To Do
• Office
• Feedback Hub
• Microsoft Solitaire Collection

According to Microsoft, the feature is rolling out to a small number of Insiders in the hopes of quickly identifying any issues regarding performance and reliability. If all goes according to plan, more apps will be updated to have a theme-aware splash screen.

There are some other changes in Preview Build 20241, including an enhanced defrag experience, and plenty of changes, improvements, and fixes to the overall experience.

Earlier this week, Microsoft began rolling out the Windows 10 20H2 update, which includes a new theme-aware start menu design. Today’s update builds upon that feature, but it’ll be a while before most people will see this change.

The post New Windows 10 Insider Build adds theme-aware splash screens for UWP apps appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/3ofoc1x
via IFTTT

IFTTT details new feature road map for its Pro customers

IFTTT has announced a new raft of features for its newly-enlisted Pro customers. Having spent most of the summer clogging inboxes with invitations to “Set Your Price” for features that had previously been free, IFTTT has revealed (via AndroidPolice) what that subscription gets you, or at least, will very soon.

In addition to creating more complex applets than were possible with the free tier (though some were available to defunct Premium users), you’ll soon also be able to clone an existing applet and tweak it, rather than start afresh each time. This also applies to Community-authored applets, which you’ll be able to clone and make your own. The onboarding process for Community applets is also being tweaked, and an analytics platform will let you see where your creations are in use.

Most exciting is that a simple UI interface will allow you to build more complex applets with conditionality (in other words IF/AND/OR arguments) and even trigger the same action to occur multiple times. Given that Google Assistant isn’t capable of this yet, it could prove to be a way for IFTTT to catch up on some lost ground as a Smart Home control hub, while for web services, a number of long-standing limitations are also being removed for Pro users, most of them connected to API calls to apps such as Twitter.

There’s also a new archive management feature that makes it easy to see and restore any Applets you archived. Currently, this is limited to Applets that you’ve made, but IFTTT says this will expand to support archiving discoverable Applets.

Finally, IFTTT has said it’s working on improved navigation and “findability” in the app, which is long overdue, given that it’s currently nigh-on impossible to bring up a complete list of supported services. It’s good to know that the company’s new income stream is being plowed back into making it better.

IFTTT is giving you until the end of October to set your own price (though it’s been extended once so it may well turn into a Christmas special or Black Friday deal and carry on), which can bring it down to $1.99/month, a lot more appealing than the full $3.99 off-sale. There are additional plans aimed at Developers and Business, billed annually.

IFTTT (Free, Google Play) →

The post IFTTT details new feature road map for its Pro customers appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/3jleW8B
via IFTTT

Samsung is recruiting beta testers in the U.S. for the Galaxy Note 20’s One UI 3.0 (Android 11) update

Samsung kicked off the One UI 3.0 developer beta program for the Galaxy S20 series back in August. Later on, the company started offering public beta builds of its Android 11-based custom software to Galaxy S20 users in South Korea, the United States, Germany, and earlier today, the UK. While the stable version of the update has yet to land on any of these devices, the company is now recruiting testers in the U.S. for the One UI 3.0 public beta program for the Galaxy Note 20 and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Forums ||| Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Forums

Today, a Community Manager for Samsung announced the One UI 3.0 beta registration on Samsung’s community forums. While the announcement does not highlight any of the new features and improvements that will be included in the update, we expect the build won’t be too different from the one that’s already available for the Galaxy S20 series. If you have the Galaxy Note 20 or Galaxy Note 20 Ultra on Sprint, T-Mobile, or unlocked through Samsung, you can register now for the beta by opening the Samsung Members app and then tapping on the banner up top.

Samsung Members (Free, Google Play) →

The first One UI 3.0 public beta build, based on Android 11, is not yet rolling out for Samsung Galaxy Note 20 users in the U.S, but once it does roll out, we’ll let you know.

We expect the beta program to expand to other regions in the next couple of days. Keep an eye on the XDA forums to see if anyone manages to grab OTA download links.

The post Samsung is recruiting beta testers in the U.S. for the Galaxy Note 20’s One UI 3.0 (Android 11) update appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/35jEpKB
via IFTTT

Acer Halo is a Google Assistant-powered smart speaker with DTS audio

Acer has joined the smart speaker party with an impressively specced first offering—the Acer Halo. The speaker, which hits American shelves in early 2021, is among the first to offer DTS sound processing at a surprisingly modest price tag, which should give it a competitive advantage over the competition.

The Halo promises to offer “high-quality audio that is projected in 360 degrees to fill any room”. An impressive boast, and to add visuals to that sound, there are RGB lights on the base and a customizable dot matrix-esque display behind the speaker fabric. This will require an additional app that should be ready in time for release, which will let you adapt that display to be a clock, weather forecast, emoji, or another pixelated but motivating image.

Acer points out that the lights and display can be switched off, but more importantly, there’s also a slider for the microphone if you want some privacy. Other controls on the top of the unit cover Play/Pause, Volume +/- and a Google Assistant button that also acts as power control. You shouldn’t need the latter though, thanks to the two far-field microphones for voice control.

From everything we’ve been told, there are still a few things about the Halo that remain a mystery—its exact size and weight (we think it looks around the size of an OG Amazon Echo) and whether two units can be paired for a stereo array (we assume so as most Google Assistant speakers are configured for this).

Assuming these hunches are right (and we’ll update this article when we know more) this looks like a strong entry into the third-party Google Assistant canon. The proof will be in the listening, but from what we’ve seen, this shows promise.

The Acer Halo launches in North America in Q1 of 2021, priced at $109, but lucky European readers may find it in stock in time for Christmas. Initial stocks will be found on the Acer website.

The post Acer Halo is a Google Assistant-powered smart speaker with DTS audio appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/2HqI29a
via IFTTT