3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

Facebook changes the way it tallies “likes”
Sony introduces their new waterproof gadgets
iSkin Stickers Provide Touch Control for Mobile Devices
iOS 8.2 could be releasing next Monday

Facebook changes the way it tallies “likes”

Posted: 06 Mar 2015 07:00 AM PST

In an attempt to stop the manipulation of “likes”, Facebook is switching around some code which regulates how the system tallies them.

Facebook likes are about to get an overhaul, at least when it comes to pages for celebrities or business. The website claims new measures will stop tallying ‘likes’ from people who have died or deactivated the accounts as to prevent manipulation, considering part of their algorithm for picking users tailored to each user is based on them. These new numbers will help accuracy and give advertisers and promoters a better understanding of a page’s audience.

Now we have to test Facebook and see if the quality of posts improves or not, as this is far from the first time the social media giant toys around with newsfeeds and the way we get our stories – sometimes, despite liking a webpage users won’t be seeing the content on these on their newsfeed. Facebook’s previous effort had been aimed to remove click-bait titles and stories as they felt like advertising to many members of its userbase.

On the otherhand, what this means is that paying Facebook to advertise becomes more and more of a necessity if a page means to stay afloat by providing new tools like video, or the touted “buy” button. Whether it is a good change or not, we’ll see in time.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at Facebook will add location-based suggestions to news feeds and Trimmed Down Facebook Lite App Is Coming to Android.

Sony introduces their new waterproof gadgets

Posted: 06 Mar 2015 05:00 AM PST

Sony seems ready to get rid of their mobile division, but not just yet, as MWC 2015 saw them introduce a few new waterproof phones and tablets.

The latest phones and tablets introduced by Sony at MWC 2015 in Barcelona were the Xperia M4 Aqua and the Xperia Z4 tablet, a couple of waterproof gadgets that might be amongst Sony’s latest offerings in the mobile department, ever.

The phone is capable of resisting half a meter of water pressure for some 30 minutes, which is ideal for withstanding accidents by the pool or beverages spilling. The Xperia M4 Aqua has a 5 inch screen (1280 x 720), an 8 core processor at 1,5GHz, 2GB RAM, and comes in two version of 8 and 16GB storage with front and back cameras of 5 and 13 megapixels respectively – the best part being that Sony claim the battery is good enough for some 48 hours. This phone will retail for €299 in Europe.

The tablet, the Xperia Z4, is one of the slimmest tablets in the market at barely 6,1 mm. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB RAM, and 32GB of storage, which can be expanded via Micro SD cards. Of course, both devices will run Android Lollipop as their default OS.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at 24K Gold Xbox One & PS4 controllers for classy gaming and PlayStation Now Subscriptions Launch on PS4 on January 13th.

iSkin Stickers Provide Touch Control for Mobile Devices

Posted: 05 Mar 2015 12:59 PM PST

What if there were a simpler way of interacting with our smartphones and tablets than reaching for the connected smartwatch? Silicone stickers that rely on touch input to control mobile devices could be a solution to the problem.

It’s usually Sci-Fi movie characters that sport a keyboard on their arm, and somehow that keyboard is easier to use than any other input method. Not to mention that it’s always at hand, if you know what I mean. Not to get into HUD land, having a method to control other devices remotely attached to your arm is nothing short of fantastic, especially when there are no implants involved, and the controller can be removed at any time. To expand the idea, it’s far more convenient to use a touch surface in such a scenario, than having buttons that need extra pressure and effort.

iSkin stickers came into existence as the result of an ambitious collaboration between Martin Weigel and Jurgen Steimle, from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Saarland University, Saarbrucken, Germany, Carmel Majidi and Tong Lu from the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S., Gilles Bailly from CNRS LTCI, Telecom-ParisTech, Paris, France, and Antti Oulasvirta from the Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

Being made from silicone, the product itself is flexible and stretchable (even though I’m pretty sure it has its limits in these aspects), and can be attached to about any area of the body with the help of some medical-grade adhesive. iSkin includes both resistive and capacitative sensors, and as you have probably imagined, can be tailored to suit specific areas and needs.

Some of the possible uses of these silicone skin stickers include answering and placing phone calls, texting and controlling music playback. Depending on their size and the area of the body they attach to, they could definitely serve more functions. The prototypes are hard-wired to a computer, but future versions of the skin stickers will be able to send and receive data wirelessly, and this is in fact the ultimate goal of the scientists who have developed iSkin.

The paper detailing the scientific basis of the iSkin silicone stickers is available in PDF format here. To get a better idea of how the stickers look and work in real life, check out the following video:

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Pip-Boy 3000 HUD that displays environmental data for NASA astronauts, or the Fallout PIP-Boy iPhone mod.

iOS 8.2 could be releasing next Monday

Posted: 05 Mar 2015 10:58 AM PST

Apple’s next update to their iOS numbered 8.2 could be coming next Monday according to the rumor mill, and will bring some improved health features along with it.

Next Monday apple devices might be getting a software update as the rest of the world hears more about the Apple Watch, Apple’s newest gadget. After concluding a couple of betas, the company decided to start rolling the final build progressively amongst a control group, which might roll to the general public afterwards. The big news of this update come in the form of bug fixes and enhancements on the health department.

These updates are also required to set Apple’s gadgets up to interact with the upcoming Apple Watch, which although it seems it will have a rather short battery life, is already positioning itself to become one of the major players in this entirely new market.

The website CNET reports that some of the new features in iOS 8.2 include:

add the ability to select the unit of measurement for body temperature, weight, height, distance and blood glucose,
improve stability when dealing with large amounts of data,
include the ability to add and visualize workout sessions from third-party apps,
fix units for vitamins and minerals,
fix an issue where health data wouldn’t refresh after changes in data source order,
fix an issue where some graphics showed no data values, and
add a privacy setting that enables turning off tracking of steps, distance and flights climbed.

Apple’s iOS 8 has had a troubled cycle with a few initial bugs that the company tried to address as fast as possible, uncovering new holes in the code in the process. Although these seem to be fixed now, adoption is only up to 75 percent of all devices using App Store. This new patch promises to be a definitive solution to these remaining issues, mainly:

address an issue in Maps that prevented navigating to some favorite locations,
address an issue where the last word in a quick reply message wasn’t autocorrected,
fix an issue where duplicate iTunes purchased content could prevent iCloud restore from completing,
resolve an issue where some music or playlists didn’t sync from iTunes to the Music app,
fix an issue where deleted audiobooks sometimes remained on the device,
resolve an issue that could prevent call audio from routing to car speakers while using Siri Eyes Free,
fix a Bluetooth calling issue where no audio is heard until the call is answered,
fix a timezone issue where Calendar events appear in GMT,
address an issue that caused certain events in a custom reoccurring meeting to drop from Exchange calendar,
fix a certificate error that prevented configuring an Exchange account behind a third-party gateway,
fix an issue that could cause an organizer’s Exchange meeting notes to be overwritten, and
resolve an issue that prevented some Calendar events from automatically showing as “busy” after accepting an invite..