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What is Stable Diffusion?
Stable Diffusion is an image generator focused on realism: Here's how it works
The world of AI creation seems like it's jumped forward decades in only a couple of years because of tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney. However, these user-friendly apps have long-term foundations in technology and research that were carefully put together by programmers over time. That yields incredible tricks, whether it's ChatGPT imitating a president or Midjourney creating surreal artwork.
Google finally figured out that bundling subscription services is a good idea
There's a Google One + Play Pass discount on the way
As part of Apple's big drive to diversify its revenue streams and make more money from services, the company seemed to quickly realize that bundling together popular content streams would make a lot of sense. It looks as though Google is finally arriving at this party, fashionably late, with an upcoming bundle of its own, although it's only a small step in the right direction.
After a redesign in August, the future was looking brighter for Google Voice. The service had already stepped into a larger role by joining G Suite for business. Adding enterprise support meant more people relying on it, and for the most part it has gone well. On October 1st, however, Google emailed users regarding an error the company made with text message (SMS/MMS) forwarding.
Google has been rolling out updates to its flagship app at a record pace, with significant updates landing only a few days apart. The latest may be a sign that the developers are nearly done, as the additions appear to be slowing down. In this update, we can see small visual tweaks, but nothing else too major. As usual, it's in the teardown where the changes are racking up, including signs that users will get to choose their own services for lists and notes taken by Assistant, an ability to trim the silence from podcasts, and a small follow-up regarding Google Doodles.
Google's software Assistant and corresponding Home hardware are there to answer your questions (within certain limits), but it may not always be Google that answers. In some circumstances, including things like service outages, it looks like Google is able to hand off questions it would typically answer to third-party apps or services. With your consent, of course.
One of our pet peeves at Android Police lately (mostly mine and Artem's) has been the lack of a proper Google Assistant directory on the web. Amazon simply has its Alexa skills searchable from its site, like you would for any product or app or book, but to see if Assistant supports a certain product you had to have a phone/tablet with Assistant enabled, browse to the slightly hidden Explore section which is accessible from the blue envelope thing on the top right of the Assistant screen, and just then you could either search or use the trending and new sections. Once you found what you were looking for, you could share the link to the page with someone else if you were trying to explain how to add a new capability to Assistant, but it was really convoluted. That made Assistant-compatible services difficult to discover, difficult to explain, difficult to share, and difficult to parse.
Outlook's so-called "add-ins" were first introduced to the app this February, but the feature was exclusive to iOS. At least, it was, until Microsoft's blog post today. To put it simply, it allows you to use features from apps like Trello, Evernote, or services like GIPHY from directly inside the app. It's sort of like Android's intents system, allowing you to quickly pass data between services, but built into Outlook.
One of the more interesting behind-the-scenes additions in Android 5.1 is a new carrier provisioning API that provides functionality which likely benefits carriers and customers alike. Any time you join a carrier, you get services along with your account, whether it's Play Store billing, visual voicemail, premium subscription services billed to your account, or any number of other things. For as long as Android has existed, the methods used to provision these services on a customer's account have varied widely from carrier to carrier, and there was no standard way of doing it.
Sunrise, a thoughtfully-designed calendar app that only recently made the jump from iOS to Android, got a bump up to version 1.1.0 today, bringing with it new integration for a variety of services including Songkick, Tripit, Evernote, Github, and Asana. Basically, this integration provides syncing between the services and Sunrise, where the calendar app can grab reminders from Evernote automatically, your Tripit plans and trips will automatically populate, Songkick concerts will show up like magic, and Github or Asana changes will be synced (in both directions).
A few days ago, it was confirmed that Google had started asking manufacturers to brand boot animations with a specific "Powered by Android" lockup as part of Google's Mobile Services license. Samsung's Galaxy S5 and HTC's new One M8 both carry the branding, and today Motorola's Moto X and Moto G have joined the party, but Motorola has something else in store as well - a new boot animation just in time for April Fools Day. The animation features a UFO, bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster, all exposed by Motorola's spotlight. Check out the full sequence below.
One of the fundamental differences between Android and every other mobile operating system is the practically unrestricted capability to run services. Without this freedom we could not enjoy something as powerful as a homescreen widget or as straight-forward as a Twitter client with background updates. Aside from games and very simple utilities, it’s becoming increasingly rare to find an app that doesn’t run a service, at least for a short span of time. However, a bug has snuck into recent versions of Android and it can cripple background processing in some apps and widgets.
If you're the sort who already worries Google has too much of your personal information, this is not for you. For everyone else, Google is reportedly developing a new opt-in data collection service that will reward users for passing additional mobile usage data back to Mountain View. The so-called Mobile Meter app is expected to come to both Android and iOS.
For the uninitiated, 2Checkout is a web-based storefront service that allows users to both create an online checkout system for their products as well as handle merchant services like credit card payments. If you've ever tried to set up your own shop, you know how difficult it can be to get all the moving parts together. Now, 2Checkout is making it even easier with the release of its mobile app that will allow sellers to track sales, issue refunds, and even contact customers.
One of the most common questions users have regarding Google's various content offerings is "Why isn't it available in [insert any number of countries here]?" Google has been working to change that, offering more and more of the Play Store's non-app content abroad. In that spirit, today it announced that Google Play Movies is now available in Korea (where we saw Eric Schmidt having some Gangnam style fun earlier this week).
Just after initially unveiling Google Play Services, Google has made the APK installable directly from the Play Store.
AppFeed.net Automates Update And Sale Notifications Via RSS, Indulges Your App ADD
Have you ever seen a mind-blowing app that's sure to change the way you use Android... only to be discouraged by a $6.99 asking price? Or maybe one of
Have you ever seen a mind-blowing app that's sure to change the way you use Android... only to be discouraged by a $6.99 asking price? Or maybe one of your regular apps has updated and broken some core functionality, and you have to uninstall it and just wait for the next version. Now there's a service that will keep tabs on your somewhat neglected apps and convert it into an RSS feed for your favorite reader. AppFeed.net is free, easy and an absolute lifesaver if you're not in the habit of constantly checking the Google Play Store.
British Telecommunications plc (aka British Telecom, or BT) has joined the long list of litigants looking to catch Google on alleged patent infringement, filing a lawsuit with the US District Court for the District of Delaware claiming that Google infringed six of its patents with Android and other services.
If you've ever wanted to keep an eye on your computer from your smartphone whilst you're out and about, then you'll know how limited your options are. You could use a remote monitoring tool such as LogMeIn Ignition to physically control the machine, but it doesn't offer a quick overview of resources on your phone and the application costs a cent shy of $30, which isn't exactly a price that encourages impulse buying.