Secret widens its anonymous network to include your Facebook friends too

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/secret-adds-facebook-login-collections/

When Secret first launched earlier this year, the only subscribers who could see your anonymous missives on the app were folks who were somehow connected to your phone's address book -- they were either your friends, friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends (you get the idea). Now, however, Secret has loosened that restriction just a touch with the introduction of Facebook login support. Now if you sign up with Facebook on the app, you'll be able to spill your secrets to all your Facebook friends who are also on Secret. Of course, the company promises that no personal information is ever shared and you'll still be completely anonymous. On the one hand, this lets those of us who have more friends on Facebook than on on our phone's address book see more Friend posts on Secret. On the other, it does give us a tiny bit of the creeps. Thankfully, the feature is completely optional, so you don't have to participate if you don't want to.

Secret also announced another feature today called Collections, which are simply daily digests of posts from a certain category. You can go to Secret's brand new web interface and subscribe to any of the available Collections -- current categories include Popular, Dating, Reflections, Funny, Work and Loss. If you do subscribe, you'll get secrets from that collection in your Explore stream. This definitely narrow the kinds of posts you see on Explore quite a bit, and it seems like it lets you hone in more on what you prefer to see on there. According to the folks at Secret, they're still experimenting on how to give users more control over what they see on Explore, which can be a rather daunting task given the growing popularity of the network. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, head on over to the source link to find out more. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Secret (Medium), Secret

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drag2share: This Robot Has Written More Wikipedia Articles Than Anyone Alive

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/n0Zu2Mgo8vc/robot-most-prolific-wikipedia-author-2014-7

You might think writing 10,000 articles per day would be impossible. But not for a Swede named Sverker Johansson. He created a computer program that has written a total of 2.7 million articles, making Johansson the most prolific author, by far, on the "internet's encyclopedia." His contributions account for 8.5 percent of the articles on Wikipedia, the Wall Street Journal reports.

But how can a bot write so many articles, and do it coherently? As Johansson--a science teacher with degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics and particle physics--explained to the WSJ, the bot scrapes information from various trusted sources, and then cobbles that material together, typically into a very short entry, or "stub." Many of the articles cover the taxonomy of little-known animals such as butterflies and beetles, and also small towns in the Philippines (his wife is Filipino).

Johansson's creation, known as Lsjbot, is certainly not the only bot to write articles meant for human eyes. For example, the Associated Press just announced that it will use robots to write thousands of pieces, and other news outlets use programs to write articles, especially finance and sports stories. And on Wikipedia, half of all of the edits are made by bots.

Several long-time members of Wikipedia are not happy that so many articles are being written by non-humans. But Johansson defends his bot, pointing out that the articles it writes are accurate (although there have been some glitches that he claims have been corrected), and can! very us eful. For example, Lsjbot wrote a stub about the town of Basey, in the Philippines. When Typhoon Yolanda hit the town, causing deaths, people were able to visit this stub and find out more about the town and its location.

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Google's augmented reality turf war, 'Ingress,' arrives on iOS

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/14/ingress-for-ios/

Google's Niantic Labs grew the potential audience for Ingress in a big way late last year, when it put out the finished Android version of its augmented reality game. Today, the studio is taking the next (if fairly obvious) step toward grabbing more players: it's releasing the long-promised iOS edition. Both iPad and iPhone owners can now capture territory ("portals" in Ingress-speak) and build up their virtual skills by visiting real locations. The experience will be very familiar if you've played before; missions give you an incentive to keep coming back, while faction chats let you coordinate turf battles and meet fellow players. There aren't any major tweaks or upgrades that we've seen. The game ultimately remains an excuse to explore new places, but that's not a bad thing if you're tired of visiting the same old haunts -- hit the App Store if you're willing to give it a spin.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Mobile, Google

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Source: Ingress

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Cut a Watermelon into Sticks (Perfect for Kids and Parties)

Source: http://lifehacker.com/cut-a-watermelon-into-sticks-perfect-for-kids-and-part-1603562078

Summer's beloved fruit, the watermelon, can get pretty messy to eat. Instead of serving the melon in traditional wedges, cut it into sticks—easy finger foods.

This is great for little kids or for serving a crowd and you need smaller portions. I did this the other day and found another benefit: The sticks stack up much better in a container, so you don't have to do that Tetris-like watermelon wedges cramming to save space.

A Thrifty Mom has a tutorial for cutting the watermelon. Basically you'll first cut it into three pieces, then the intersecting 1-2" slices. If you have an apple corer, you can make watermelon cylinders, but with this method you only need a sharp knife.

Watermelon Slices - Perfect for Little Hands | A Thrify Mom

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Chromebooks can get cheaper thanks to new support for a low-end chip

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/12/chromebooks-can-get-cheaper/

You can pick up a Chromebook for a dirt-cheap $200, if you know where to shop. However, there are now signs that these Google-powered portables could get even cheaper. MediaTek has contributed code to Chromium OS (the base for Chrome OS) for a test device with an entry-level ARM Cortex-A7 processor -- a big step down from the relatively inexpensive Cortex-A15/A7 hybrid that Samsung uses, not to mention the Intel Celeron chips in other Chrome devices. Theoretically, this leads to Chromebooks and Chromeboxes that cost significantly less than $200, albeit after a big speed hit. Just as with phones and tablets, a Cortex-A7 system is likely to be pretty sluggish.

MediaTek hasn't discussed what it's doing with the code, and it could be a while (if ever) before there's hardware you can buy. However, it's not hard to see why the semiconductor firm would want to support Chrome gear. The company's chips are seemingly omnipresent in the basic smartphones seen across developing markets like China and India. Support for a starter Cortex-A7 processor could have a similar effect in the PC world, bringing Chrome OS systems to people who might not otherwise get a computer at all.

Filed under: Laptops, Internet, Google

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Via: Francois Beaufort (Google+)

Source: Google Source

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