Technology and Body

Facebook Messenger Now Only Shares Your Location When You Ask It To Last week, we mentioned that Facebook Messenger shares your location with every message, granting some people access to that information using a Chrome extension. Facebook changed things today so you only share your location if you choose to send it in its own separate message. While it was fairly easy to turn off the location sharing feature in messenger before, a lot of people were unaware that messenger logged your location with each message in the first place. Now location sharing really is completely optional because you can only send your location if you tap the More icon (the three dots), followed by the location pin. That will send a map of your location in its own separate message. Facebook also makes it very clear that your location data is not being gathered at all unless you choose to use the location sharing feature: Messenger does not get location information from your device in the ...

Apple’s WWDC Keynote In 90 Seconds WWDC Apple Keynote Recap Apple had a lot to announce at its Worldwide Developer Conference this morning, and it was easy to miss big news as it happened during the two-hour-plus keynote. We’ve summed it up right here, with links to our coverage if you want to know more. Off the bat, Apple announced Mac OS X El Capitan. While it doesn’t come with a visual overhaul like last year’s Yosemite update, it does bring improved gesture support, the ability to snap windows to fill the sides of your screen, and natural language processing capabilities for Spotlight search. Gamers will be happy to hear that Apple is bringing its Metal API to the Mac from iOS, where it helped developers get significantly better graphics without requiring beefier hardware. With iOS 9, Apple unveiled its Proactive assistant. It’s a lot like Google Now, showing you helpful reminders thoughout the day. Instead of processing everything in the cloud, Appl...

The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Apple Music Spotify killer? Or Ping 2.0? Apple today finally announced its move into on-demand music streaming with the unveiling of Apple Music. Now the question is whether Apple Music will be a hit with the public, bringing legions of new users to streaming and stealing from competitors. Or whether it will be another Apple app we stuff in a folder and forget about. Here’s a comparison between Apple Music and its competitors, plus a deeper look at the positive and negative points from the launch: Strength: On-Demand Streaming – Music download sales are falling fast and streaming is quickly on the rise. Apple desperately needed to transition from its iTunes sales model to subscription streaming, or risk watching usage and revenue decay. Weakness: Launch Date – With the whole world watching, Apple could have told us to go download its new Music app and start listening now. Instead, we have to wait until June 30th for the launch,...

The Ofinity Home Screen Geometry is cool. If you're just wild about basic shapes, particularly those with no more or less than three sides, this home screen design called Ofinity has you covered. This home screen is designed for Themed. To get this look on your device, download the .zip from the source link below, then follow these steps: Move the .zip to sdcard0 > MyColorScreen > Themer > Exported > zip (Your initial location may vary.) Open Themer and browse for themes. Under "Categories" select "Exported." Choose "Ofinity.zip" Do you have an awesome, tweaked-into-oblivion home or lock screen of your own that you'd like to share? Post it in the comments below, or on your own Kinja blog with the tag "home screen showcase" (no quotes). Be sure to include a description of how you made it so we can feature it as the next featured home screen.

Google Maps Updated to Send Directions from Desktop to Your iPhone iOS: If you tend to look for locations on your desktop more often than your phone, Google's rolled out a handy feature for iOS that lets you send location searches from the desktop version of Google Maps to your iPhone in a click. Once enabled, you can instantly send any location from your desktop computer to your iOS device as long as they're signed into the same account by clicking on the "Send to Device" button on the desktop version after searching for a location. To use the feature, you'll need to enable it on your iOS device first: Open up Google Maps on iOS and make sure you're logged into your Google account Tap the Settings menu and open up Settings Tap Notifications Make sure the "Sent from desktop maps" option is enabled and notifications are enabled for Google Maps With that, you should see the "Send to Device" option in Google Maps on your...

Messaging App Jott Is Blowing Up Among Junior High And High Schoolers As Facebook and YikYak try to grow a younger audience, a startup that taps into one of the key attribute of teen users – no money for data plans – is blowing up. Jott, a messaging app that works without a data plan or WiFi connection, has caught on among junior high and high school students, according to co-founder Jared Allgood. He says the app more than doubled to half a million active users in March, up from 150,000 active users previous. Allgood told app continues to gain momentum, adding 15,000 to 20,000 users a day. That’s consistent with numbers from App Annie. The app started ranking steadily in the top 75 on iOS for social networking in the U.S. in mid-April. The reason? Teens who don’t have a data plan that will allow them to text are using their iPods and iPads to message each other on a closed network within a 100-foot area within school ...

Facebook’s Messenger Platform Gets Its First Game Facebook Messenger’s quest to own all the ways you connect with friends is now expanding to games. Today I spotted “ Doodle Draw Game ” in the Messenger platform app list, and Facebook says this is the first true game available since the platform launched in April. Initially, Facebook only allowed content creation apps like GIF and sound effect makers on the Messenger Platform. The closest thing to a game was Talking Tom, which lets you choose a cartoon avatar to deliver your video message. But before the platform’s launch, sources told me Facebook was interested in eventually expanding it to a broader set of experiences including utilities and games if test data looked good. Last month The Information reported Facebook was actively considering how games would fit in Messenger. Facebook tells me “ Currently, we think Messenger Platform is best suited for apps that focus on content creation and curated ...