Walyou

Android Wear receives its biggest update yet

Posted: 22 Apr 2015 01:33 PM PDT

Google has announced much needed updates for their OS for wearables, Android Wear, which comes with many new functionalities. From WiFi support to hand waving to cycle through notifications.

The lucky owners of devices running on Android Wear will receive a most interesting update: from the moment you install this, there will be many new functionalities that had been touted since smartwatches had first been touted, which makes the devices themselves more useful and desirable.

Chief amongst these new functionalities is using wrist movements to cycle through notifications, which means your other hand remains free to do whatever you’re doing. We guess it’s useful if you’re cooking, or holding a baby, mostly – regardless, it’s better to have it than not to.

Another feature is the option to keep an app always visible, without it disappearing from the watch – this is particularly useful for Maps, or music, but any app the user desires can be displayed like this. Once users are done with the app, it won’t disappear, but be shown in black and white in order to save energy.

Another new function is compatibility with WiFi networks to connect with the smartphone, which is in turn one of the most appreciated features as of now. With this new feature, if the smartphone and smartwatch are connected to the same WiFi network, they don’t have to be connected to each other via Bluetooth. That means that, if a user is in a different room outside of the phones’ reach, users can still get phonecalls, updates, and continue using the apps – it doesn’t mean the watch becomes independent, but it does add a certain amount of freedom.

The last of these big improvements is that now users can draw on their screens in order to communicate with other users – the software straight up recognizes what is the user intends to send, and will send an emoji instead of the drawing.

All of these updates are coming to Android Wear models starting with the LG Watch Urbane, and then rolling onto the LG G Watch, Moto 360, Zen Watch, Sony Smartwatch 3 and the rest.

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Facebook’s Hello Is a Social Caller ID App for Android

Posted: 22 Apr 2015 12:39 PM PDT

The social network has just started public testing for Hello, an Android-only app that can identify unknown number of both outgoing and incoming calls by matching them to Facebook profiles.

People are sharing an awful lot of information about themselves on Facebook, and with the help of Hello, some of that information will make its way to Hello, the caller ID app that tells on you. The new Android-only app (since iOS doesn’t allow apps to mess with phone calls) has some extra functionality besides displaying contextual data about the person who’s calling you. It can warn you if a certain number is spam, based on the reports of other people.

Xiaomi’s integrated caller ID could also prevent people from answering spammy phone calls, and Google has displayed names and profile pictures for quite a while now, provided that the name was bound to a G+ page, so it’s great to see that Facebook is jumping on this bandwagon, as well.

Assuming that people calling you have their phone number in their Facebook profile, and that their privacy settings don’t block others from seeing their info, you’ll get to see their name, their profile picture and even their city, employer, website, etc. More than that, Hello can remind you of any significant events the person at the other end of the phone call is celebrating.

Andrea Vaccari, Hello Product Manager, explained that “More than 1 billion phone calls are made in the US ever day,” and the main problem is that the “the experience of the phone call hasn't evolved in a long time.” In order to change that, Facebook opened up public testing in the US, Brazil and Nigeria. What do these three countries have in common? Not much, besides being on the 3rd, 5th and 7th place, respectively, in the list of the most populous countries in the world.

“Anyone with your number can ring you day or night and interrupt you,” added Vaccari. “Calling is really big. It’s core to how people connect with each other, including family and close friends, but also businesses and colleagues.”

Supposing that the public tests go out well (and I really can’t imagine why they wouldn’t), more countries will be added to the list in the near future, so stay tuned for that! Also, there’s still time to hide your details or change your privacy settings.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the trimmed-down Facebook Lite app for Android, or the Facebook stickers in comments.