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talking tom

Talking Tom and his POKE-A-THON!

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Outfit7 is celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary of Talking Tom this summer! Talking Tom made his global debut in his first game in July 2010 and instantly became an overnight sensation! 10 years and 13 billion downloads later, Outfit7 is inviting fans to a special “POK-A-TOM’ event from July 20th to July 30th.

The reason behind this? Can Tom’s fans poke him 10 billion times in 10 days?

The anniversary event is taking place in a total of four of Tom’s most popular games: Talking Tom Cat, My Talking Tom, My Talking Tom 2, and My Talking Tom Friends.

During the celebration the total number of pokes will be displayed on a “POK-A-METER” on the Outfit7 official website. While if players manage to complete the challenge, (10 billion pokes) every player will be gifted a generous in-game currency bundle. More times Tom gets poked, the bigger the reward!

“Fans have poked Tom almost too many times to count since 2010,”  

“Over 400 million fans play with the games every month, so we wanted them to be included in the celebration by doing more of what they love – and getting fun rewards to enjoy with Tom in return!”

Xinyu Qian, CEO of Outfit7

Over The Years

Tom has changed a lot over the past 10 years. Tom has inspired the Talking Tom and Friends Franchise, which now includes a total of 23 mobile games, digital video content, which has over 56 billion views and a movie that’s in development! The original game was named as one of Android’s “Most Downloaded Games of All Time!”

Go ahead and poke Tom and see how many pokes we can all get by downloading his mobile games here:

Android / Apple

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Duolingo

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Lately Dev’s been learning Spanish and he’s been using an app called Duolingo!

You may have heard of it as it’s a famous language learning app that’s been around for some time now. It gets a lot of good reviews and for good reasoning too! Dev’s been praising it as it teaches you in a very good manner. Such as using short phrases and teaching you as if you were a child learning your language for the first time. Furthermore pairing up words to pictures too helps him and the user remember phrases and words!

You can learn Spanish, Latin, French, Japanese even Klingon! There’s loads of languages you can learn on Duolingo! Duolingo is an app which makes learning a language, fun, quick and very enjoyable!

Plus even better the app is free! (It is supported by ads, though you can pay for a premium version. As this will give you unlimited lives. If you get a question wrong you lose a life. Lose 5 lives and you have to wait 4 hrs to get a new set of lives or retake old lessons to gain yourself a life at a time. Furthermore it’ll take away those ads!)

How to learn

As stated earlier, Duolingo makes learning fun by pairing up words to the translated word or pictures to words. You could build up your vocabulary with one lesson a day! 34 hours of lessons is the equivalent to a semester of study at University level. Therefore if you stuck at it for sometime you could learn Spanish and cover enough words to go on holiday and speak Spanish in just a few weeks! The lessons aren’t that long either, lasting 5mins at a time, so you can learn for as long or as short as you like!

Other languages that are available are Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Latin, Russian and many many more!

Download Duolingo here: Apple / Android

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Google Pixel 4 – Astrophotography

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We recently attended a one off urban astrophotography event hosted by Google. All to highlight Google Pixel 4 Astrophotography! We headed up to The Shard and headed out to “The View” and took some incredible shots. The iconic London building even shut off all of the lights for us! They turned off the lights for one hour to allow us to all get closer to the stars and capture the constellations.

Google partnered with the Royal Observatory Greenwich (ROG) for the event, which was very impressive! Astronomer Tom Kerss stopped by to talk about the cosmos and the history of astrophotography. With Google Pixel 4’s Night Sight, a brand new feature which allows us to see into space and capture the Milky Way. Consequently bringing astrophotography to everyone!

In London

New research shows that over a quarter of Londoners (26.7%) said they lived in a city where they can’t see the stars but wish they could! The percentage was higher than any other city in the UK!

Google worked alongside a fantastic team of social experts to look at 3o,000 UK instagram posts. Of which were related to things stars. For example the #NightSky hashtag. Therefore they were able to find out which of the most popular images were from what parts of the capital. As a result Google were able to identify which where the top 10 London locations for Night Sky photography!

Top 10 most popular Night Sky locations in London: 

  1. Tower Bridge
  2. The Shard
  3. The London Eye
  4. The Royal Observatory Greenwich
  5. South Bank
  6. St Paul’s Cathedral
  7. London Bridge
  8. Sky Garden
  9. The 02 Greenwich
  10. Millennium Bridge

So where have you been and are you going to take a look at the night sky tonight?

“Our research has shown that over 10% of Londoners can’t remember the last time they looked at the night sky. We want to inspire people to spend more time looking up at the stars. With enhanced Night Sight on the new Pixel 4, anyone can take incredible pictures of the galaxy – and where better to demonstrate this than in the UK’s tallest building, The Shard.” – Nick Clark, Product Manager for Google Pixel 4

“With so many people living in urban areas it may seem like our connection to the night sky is lost, but even in the glow of London lights the brightest stars, planets and the Moon can still be seen with the naked eye. These days we take photos of everything and it’s incredible that we can now capture the stars using just the smartphone technology in our pockets.”  – Tom Kerss, Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich

Google Pixel 4 Astrophotography – Photos

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Pixelbook Go

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Google are no strangers to the notebook world when they introduced the Chromebook in 2017. Now they’re making the Chromebook even more accessible to more people with the Pixelbook Go!

It weighs 2lbs and is 13mm thin, so very easy to take with you wherever! Plus at a starting price of $649 it’s even more affordable! You’ll get the quiet backlit keys, powerful processors, an even bigger battery and 13.3 inch touchscreen!

Design

The Pixelbook is designed for people on the go, completed with a matte finish, finely painted magnesium casing, it provides the Pixelbook light as possible, yet incredibly solid.

It has a grippable design making it easy to carry, the 12hrs battery life keeps it going as long as you are too! Plus charge it for 20mins and get 2hrs of power! Google even have some care suggestions to keep your new Pixelbook in top condition!

The keys are quiet Hush Keys so you can type away in the local coffee shop without worry! The Pixelbook starts up in seconds and stays super fast with auto updates! The Pixelbook Go has built in security in the Chrome OS, so you get speed as well as security!

Pre-order today

Pixelbook Go pre-orders are available now in the U.S. and Canada, and in January in the U.K.

Simply click here to order!

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Nest Aware

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Google are looking to making it easier to let their customers know what is going on in their homes. They do this via their Nest Aware service. Combined with the Nest Cams you can get intelligent alerts and camera history. Nest Aware will give you more home awareness from your Nest devices at one affordable monthly rate.

One price for your entire home

Nest Aware’s new pricing model covers every single camera, speakers and displays in your home for one low price. Now with even more video and event history.

There’s also event based recording. Nest Aware will record this information only when your camera detects motion or sounds. Such as a dog barking or a person seen on camera. It will send you an alert so you can take action or watch clips later. This new service is alongside Nest’s existing 24/7 continuous video recording. You are able to scan through your entire history to see everything before during and after an event.

Two simple plans for Nest Aware:

30 days of event video history – $6 p/m (or $60 per year)

60 days event history and 10 days 24/7 video history – $12 p/m (or $120 per year)

More helpful alerts that matter from Nest Aware

Nest Aware coverage is expanding to include Nest and Google Home speakers and displays. Now you can enable these devices to be your ears when you’re away. They’ll listen for critical sounds, like smoke or carbon monoxide alarms, and send an alert to your phone. You then have the option to hear the audio clip or listen live to confirm the alarm.

Expanded sound detection is a big step forward in the kind of help we can provide, and it’s designed from the ground up to respect your privacy in your home. Sound detection happens entirely on your device, and your Nest devices will light up to provide a visual indicator when an event is being recorded and sent to Google so you can review it. You can also review and delete audio clips at any time in your Home app.

Emergency  fingertips

If a speaker or display picks up a smoke alarm sound, it will send an alert on your phone, with the new Nest Aware on the Home app you can call emergency services to your home. Even if your away from the house. If you happen to be home and can’t get the the phone you can even ask Google to call them with any Google Nest or Home speaker or display covered by your Nest Aware subscription.

Everything you need to know, in one place

The Home Feed will exist in the Google Home app from early next year. You’ll be able to see all events and notifications from your devices and get a general recap of the day. Scroll through prioritized events, watch full video clips or listen to audio clips.

When and where

The new Nest Aware will be available to 19 countries where Nest Aware is currently available. You are able to switch over your existing plans too. Expanded coverage to Nest speakers and displays with sound detection and emergency calling will initially be available in the US only.

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Nest Mini

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The Google Home Mini has brought Google’s Google Assistant to millions of homes, now the second generation, the Nest Mini, is bringing some major improvements.

A new speaker with powerful sound

With the Nest Mini, the hardware and software have been updated to make it sound even better. The Nest Mini provides bass that is twice as strong as it’s predecessor.  The expert audio engineers at Google have developed propriety audio tuning software to get the most out of the hardware. Helping to provide full clear and natural sound at every volume level. Google didn’t want to suppress any auditory details so expect clear audio from the Nest Mini.

The Nest Mini’s LED lights will alight as your hands get close to the device to indicate where you can tap to adjust volume. It’s also been improved to hear you better in noisy environments. Furthermore the Nest Mini will dynamically adjust the volume of the assistant whilst playing media. So if you have a noisy washing machine, the assistant’s response will be played back at a louder volume.

Whole home audio

Connect the Nest Mini to other Nest speakers to build a sound system for the whole home. Even create different groups in the Google home app and enjoy music, podcasts and more all throughout your home.

You can also stream transfer your music from one speaker to another, even in another room! Plus you can transfer music from your phone to a speaker as soon as you walk through the door.

For example you can say, “Hey Google, move the music to the living room speaker” to keep the party going.

Now you can call your devices from the Google Home app, use the intercom feature to talk from device to device, or call someone on the other side of the world – for free! Just need a Duo account and/or a Google Home/Nest Smart Speaker or display!

Making the best Assistant better

Nest Mini is smarter and faster than it’s original. As Google has embedded a dedicated machine learning chip into it, with up to 1 TeraOPS of processing power (basically very very fast). Thus moving some Google Assistant experiences from the data centers straight on the device.

If you are in the US Nest Mini will now learn the most common commands that you give it and process them locally for an even faster response time!

Nest Mini is available for $49,  you can pre-order from the Google Store. Simply click here to order!

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Pixel Buds New and Improved!

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On average people check their smartphones around 100 times a day, mainly for playing a song, or to set a reminder or getting directions. Which takes up roughly 30 seconds of our time. Well the Google Pixel Buds are here to help make those tasks a little easier and a little, quicker. With instant access to Google Assistant. Not only are they helpful they’re also very clear, comfortable, have high quality sound and have a looooong battery life.

Pixel Buds in your ear

Everyone’s ears are shaped differently, so the folks over at Google have made  design that is comfortable for as many people as possible. They sit flush in your ear and have a low profile, making them extremely stylish! The stabilizer arc gently tucks in and working alongside the interchangeable eartip, Pixel Buds won’t ever leave your ears!

Sound Quality

Pixel Buds not only stay secure in your ear, they also let enough sound from the world around you to keep you aware of what’s going on. Making this a hugely important safety feature! While also delivering powerful sound. The eartios gently seal the ear to isolate the loud outside noise and to give you high quality audio. Yet the spatial vent underneath reduces that plugged ear feeling. While also letting through just the right amount of environmental sound to make sure you don’t get run over! However, there’s also a fantastic feature that the Pixel Buds have. Adaptive Sound! They will automatically adjust the volume as you walk around. For example if you move from a quiet environment to a noisy one you won’t have to constantly raise or lower the volume, they do it for you!

Calling!

Pixel Buds when making a call make sure your voice is at the forefront. The two microphones in each bud focuses on the sound of your voice. While suppressing other sounds in the background. Furthermore, Pixel Buds have a voice accelerometer that will detect speech through the vibrations of your jawbone. So you can be heard even in the most windy of conditions!

Connection

Pixel Buds have long range Bluetooth connectivity so you can use them even when your phone isn’t nearby. You can stay connected indoors up to 3 rooms away and outside up to 100m! They can also connect to Bluetooth 4.0 enabled laptops, tablets and iOS devices. Pixel Buds work with other Andriod 6.0+ devices with just a single tap.

They’ll also be able to detect when they’re in your ear, tap to play/pause, swipe to adjust volume. Get 5hrs of listening time on a single charge and up to 24hrs with the wireless charging case. They’re also sweat and water resistant!

Pixel Buds Are Helpful!

Pixel Buds also give you hands-free access to Google Assistant! Just say “Hey Google” and the assistant will ask you what you need. For example you can play music, send a text or translate a foreign language!

Google Pixel Buds will be available in 2020 in the U.S. at $179, and will come in four colors: Clearly White, Oh So Orange, Quite Mint and Almost Black.

Simply click here to order!

For those outside of the US sign up for Google’s waitlist to be notified.

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Pixel 4

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The Google Pixel 4 has a camera that captures details that many others can’t, you can even use your phone without touching it, has a brand new Google Assistant and has a fast, responsive display! So, you could argue that the Pixel 4 has packed a ton of new tech into it!

Get the perfect photo with Pixel 4

It has the largest upgrade to a Pixel phone to date, there are now a total of 2 cameras on the back of the phone, including a telephoto lens. The software upgrade? A brand new Super Res Zoom feature, giving you exceptional image quality from a distance!

Super Res Zoom (1x)
Super Res Zoom (2x)
Super Res Zoom (3.1x)
Super Res Zoom (5.7x)
Super Res Zoom (8x)

Night Sight has been upgraded and can be used for shots of the night sky, the stars and even the Milky way! Pixel 3/3a users will also get a version of this upgrade with a camera app update.

All Pixel’s have HDR+ capabilities but with the Pixel 4 you can fine the the brightness and amount of details in the shadows. Pixel 4 also has a Live HDR+ in the viewfinder so you know exactly what the photo will look like, even when you’re using the new controls.

A new Google Assistant

The Pixel 4 has a deeper integration of  Google Assistant. Speech processing has improved and more requests can happen right on the phone without having to go to the cloud first.

The assistant also doesn’t take up as much space on the screen anymore, letting you better multi task across other apps. Google Assistant will quickly open apps, search your phone, share what’s on screen and more. The context of the queries will also do a better job answering.

For example, you can ask the Assistant to “show my photos from New York” and then say “the ones in Central Park.” Then, you can share a picture by saying “send it to Mum.”

A phone that senses what you want it to do

Pixel 4 has a Motion Sense feature that uses miniature radar sensors to detect when you’re about to reach for your phone and it will initiate face unlock or turn off your screen when you aren’t around. Also, new quick gestures let you skip songs when you don’t want to pick up the phone. Simply wave your hand to snooze alarms, dismiss timers or silence the ringer.

New built-in apps

The new Recorder app will record meetings, lectures and anything you want to listen to later, it will even simulatneously transcribe speech. It can also identify sounds such as music and applause. Plus search from within recordings to find a specific word or sound! However, English translation is up first with more languages coming soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new personal safety app will automatically call emergency services if you have been in a car accident. The Car Crash detection however,will be available in English in the US.

Built for performance and security

Pixel 4 comes with 6GB’s of RAM, a 90hz display and the Pixel Neural core. Pixel Neural Core is the engine for all the on device processing that goes on on the phone. Therefore more tasks are done directly on the phone increasing performance and privacy.

Also, the Titan M chip from Google provides protection for your most sensitive data and ensure the integrity of the operating system. While all this is combined with the latest version of Android 10, monthly security updates for 3 years, plus access to Google’s advanced security services, the Pixel 4 is designed to keep data secure.

Pricing and availability

For customers in the US the Pixel 4 is available through all the major U.S. carriers for the first time, including AT&T, C Spire, Cellcom, Google Fi, Spectrum Mobile (Charter), Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon, Visible and Xfinity Mobile (Comcast).

You can pre-order a Pixel 4 for $799 and Pixel 4 XL for $899, and phones will ship on October 24, globally. Pixel 4 comes in three colors, including Clearly White, Just Black, and a limited edition, Oh So Orange.

So, what are you waiting for? Simply click here to order!

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Google Maps AR

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Ever wondered how cool it would look if navigations to places just appeared right in front of you? Well that’s becoming a reality, kinda. Google is bringing augmented reality walking directions. It will be called Google Maps Live View. It is available on Android and iOS, if you have beta capabilities. We think Google Maps AR version is going to be incredible!

We first blogged on Google Maps AR when it appeared on Google’s Pixel phone’s earlier on this year. It showed real time navigation of Google Maps through your phone’s camera.

Simply hold your phone up next to the streets and your surroundings. It will then display arrows and directions overlaid on top of the camera view. Making it so much easier to get to places.

How To: Google Maps AR

So, Android owners whose devices support ARCore or iPhones which support ARKit will be able to access Google Maps Live View beta this week. You can test Google Maps Live View by:

  • Searching for a location you want to walk to or tap it on a map
  • Tap on the directions button at the bottom
  • Select walking directions at the top of the screen
  • Tap on the new Live View option at the bottom of the screen

Google is adding a whole host of new features to it’s mapping service. The tech giant want Google to be the place where you plan your trips from start to finish and is adding loads of features, this just seems to be the coolest one yet.

(The Verge)

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