This morning Adobe acquired Allegorithmic, the makers of the application family called Substance. With this buy, Adobe just became a big name in 3D textures and material creation in both video game and major motion picture video post-production. This is in essence the most major power move of the year (so far) with respect to gaming from the tools end of the industry.
Messaging app Telegram, which has grown in popularity as consumers seek more privacy-centric alternatives to texting and Messenger, has receive a major update across multiple platforms. Once updated to version 5.2, Telegram users will be given five seconds to 'undo' chat or history deletion. The update brings a number of other changes, as well, including restricting all the members of a group from posting specific content and new animations.
The newest SwiftKey Beta update arrived today, bringing with it one simple, important change: automatic incognito switching. The new feature is designed to simplify switching from regular to incognito browsing modes by automatically toggling the keyboard when the user is typing in a sensitive field. When in incognito mode, the keyboard won't remember what the user types.
WhatsApp is once again making changes to message forwarding. Beginning today, WhatsApp users will only be able to forward messages to five users at a time, down from the previous limit of 20. The goal, WhatsApp explains, is to curb the spread of misinformation and rumors on the service, which has been the cause of a lot of safety concerns.
For about as long as Spotify has existed, users have been asking for the ability to block certain artists. Whether it's a matter of taste or something more serious, users clearly want to ability to avoid some artists while listening to Spotify-generated playlists or playlists made by others in the community. Spotify has held out on implementing such a feature for years, but now it seems that may all be changing.
Smartphone users who want to use their device to record audio in the best quality may not have very many options, but it looks like the sound experts at Dolby are working on their own solution. The company has apparently been quietly testing an iPhone app with the codename "234" that boasts of studio quality recordings thanks to professional tools and settings.
Facebook is developing a platform called "LOL" that targets teenagers, according to a new report. The product is said to have been in development for months and revolves around video content, including short clips akin to GIFs. The company is testing the new product with a small number of high school students located in the United States ahead of an eventual public roll out, though the company's exact plans for the product are unclear.
Chinese state media has reported that officials in China are set to deploy a new 'deadbeat debtors' app that will enable the public to view which people nearby aren't paying their debts. The new app is part of a program conceived by the Hebei province in North China, where the Higher People's Court intends the app to act as a whistleblower platform for turning in financially wasteful debtors.
Google is finally bringing some of Waze's most convenient features to Google Maps, the most notable being speed trap warnings. Signs of the upcoming feature first appeared in November, later showing up again in December. Now some users are reporting the ability to see speed trap warnings in the app; the alerts are based on reports made by other drivers in the area.
Spotify is rolling out a new feature called Car View to its Android users today. As the name suggests, Car View gives Spotify a simplified UI to use while you're driving, potentially cutting back on the time you spend looking at your phone. That's never a bad thing, so here's hoping this feature sees a lot of use from Spotify's user base.
It's that time in the world of Android - time to pull the plug on Android apps not prepared properly for the coming of 64-bit CPUs. It's not as if these newer, faster computing processors aren't already here in Android devices. They've been here before - and they're not going away any time soon. As such, Google's announced their "TIME'S UP" marker for apps that haven't made way for 64-bit hardware - the future of smartphones in general, that is to say.
DuckDuckGo, the search engine that revolves around user privacy, has brought users a combination of mapping and private searches via Apple's MapKit JS framework. The update enables DuckDuckGo users to search for locations and enjoy better map results, including enhanced satellite images, new visual features, better support for address searches, and more. Unlike now, DuckDuckGo's mapping results utilized OpenStreetMap and were fairly limited.