Dropbox announced mobile offline folders support.

Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud storage services around and it is going to get even better. The company recently announced that users will be able to access their Dropbox files on their phones even without internet thanks to the upcoming offline folders support.

Dropbox made the announcement on Tuesday in hopes to better compete with other services that already had this feature. Although nowadays we can easily keep being connected to the internet non-stop, there are cases where users might find themselves without a connection but requiring immediate access to their Dropbox files such as on a plane.

The new mobile offline folders support will also be easy enough to access so users can benefit from it as soon as its available. You just have to select a folder or even just a specific file in your Dropbox app and tap the option “Make Available Offline.” The app will then begin to download the files on your device, be it a smartphone or a tablet.

Unfortunately, as is the case with all offline viewing features it’s only useful if you know you’re going to have an offline period so that you can download the files you need beforehand, straight from the app. In a blog post, Dropbox emphasizes the fact that the new feature will help reduce downtime during the commute of users or when they are traveling. It will allow anyone both in the office as well as in the field to use the latest documents available.

The feature will become available in the next few days to Dropbox Pro as well as Business and Enterprise users with the latest version of the app on Android. The offline folders support will only become available for iOS early next year. If you’re excited about the new feature remember to check your Dropbox updates.

The mobile offline folders support is a welcome addition to Dropbox’s range of functions, despite being somewhat late to the party. Some of its competitors like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive already supported offline file viewing for a while now. However, Dropbox’s new feature comes with the added functionality of viewing entire folders offline not just files.

Do you use Dropbox? If so, are you going to use the new feature?

Image source: Flickr

BMW workers remotely locked a thief inside the stolen car.

It seems that anyone thinking of borrowing the new BMW 550i without proper notice to its owner, should have second thoughts about doing so, otherwise they might end up being remotely locked inside the car.

This was the situation with a car thief in Seattle which was caught thanks to the car’s ability to have certain features like locking the doors remotely controlled. The car served as a temporary holding cell until the police reached the location of the stolen car to apprehend him.

This situation has been revealed thanks to a report from the Seattle Police Department posted on its blog. According to the post, the car thief found out that he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW only on Sunday morning, after waking up for sleeping inside the car.

The report also reveals that the thief found the unlocked BMW 550i in a parking garage. The owner of the car loaned the vehicle to a friend who apparently forgot the keys inside it. This scenario proved too hard to resist for the thief who took it out for a drive. Once the owner discovered that his car has been misplaced, being very likely that it was stolen, he contacted the local police.

The police also decided to contact BMW employees in order to get the location of the car. However, the BMW workers were able to do more than that as they remotely locked the thief inside the car, without even his knowledge.

When the police arrived at the car’s location in Ravenna neighborhood in Seattle, the thief was found sleeping inside it. According to their report, the thief was a 38-year-old man who was also carrying a small quantity of methamphetamine. The man was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for both auto theft and drug possession.

This seems to be one of the most useful scenarios where the smart systems and advanced technology of a car was able to prevent a major loss for the owner. The situation does seem to be good PR for BMW and their series 5 vehicles, despite the privacy concerns of some potential customers.

What do you think about this whole situation? Are you convinced that a smart car and connected car is necessary in this day and age?

Image source: Wikimedia

Facebook is developing Collections, its own versions of Snapchat Discover.

Part of an ongoing effort to resolve its fake news problem, which only recently company executives have recognized as an issue, Facebook is reportedly trying to develop its own feature similar to that of Snapchat Discover. It is a way to offers user more factual and relevant information from a selection of media partners.

According to two people who are familiar with Facebook’s latest project and attempt to prevent the spread of fake news on the platform, the company is developing a new feature which will showcase various lists of curated content from trusted publishers directly to users’ news feeds.

The function of the new feature which is being called Collections is very similar to that of Snapchat Discover which offers news articles, videos, and other types of content provided by a select number of media partners.

In recent weeks, Facebook has approached a number of media and entertainment companies in order to establish an agreement for various types of content which will be available for Collections. Unfortunately, the company has not disclosed any date for when the feature will be available or at least in a testing phase.

Although this seems like a very good way for Facebook to deal with its fake news problem, at this point there is no certainty whether the new feature will actually be released or not. The company is known for experimenting with new services and often changing its mind about their release.

However, if Facebook is indeed serious with releasing Collections then it could also represent a way for the company to make various publishers even more reliant on the platform to reach their audiences, which is very good for the social network, besides being a way to mitigate the spread of fake news.

Although Facebook has repeatedly stated that it does not want to be an arbiter of truth or even to decide what is newsworthy for all of their users, this seems like an unavoidable measure the company has to take to deal with its fake news. If it will be release, Collections will very likely prove controversial at first, and it will very likely alienate some users who reject’s Facebook media partners.

What do you think about Facebook’s attempts to imitate Snapchat Discover?

Image source: Flickr

OnePlus 3T smartphone is close to a world-wide release.

OnePlus is one of the many Chine smartphone manufacturers. However, unlike most, the first smartphone they’ve launched in 2016, the OnePlus 3, was praised as an excellent device and has become quite popular around the world. Now, the company is close to a worldwide release of the improved OnePlus 3T with the phones already being shipped in the US.

Both phones include high-end specs and feature. However, the OnePlus 3T is to the company like what the “+” version of the iPhone is to Apple. Although both devices are similar in design and dimensions, the new and improved version will feature a more powerful system on chip (SoC), a better front-facing camera, and a larger battery. Additionally, costumers will be able to choose between two different storage variants.

The original One Plus 3 launched back in June with good reviews, but that didn’t stop the company to work on a premium version. The OnePlus 3T has already started shipping devices on November 22^nd in the US, with European customers will be able to receive their new phones starting on November 28^th. The company made the announcement that it will launch in India and probably the rest of the world as well on December 2^nd.

If you’re not yet familiar with the new phone, you should know that it costs $439 in the US, and in Europe, it will be priced at $439. Regarding its technical specs, the OnePlus 3T comes with a 5.5-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) AMOLED display. It will include 6 GB of RAM with either 64GB or 128 GB storage capacity which will not be expandable.  The device will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 64-bit quad-core CPU coupled with an Adreno 530 GPU for demanding graphical applications.

One of the most impressive features of the device is that it will include a 16-megapixel camera on both the front and the back, but with different sensors. This will assure that your selfies will look as good as any other picture.  The OnePlus 3T will include Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. However, it will feature the company’s own OxygenOS with the latest update which includes new feature and fixes.

Finally, the large 3,400mAh battery will include the company’s very fast Dash Charge technology.

Image credit: OnePLus

Microsoft release Solitaire Collection for Android and iOS.

Throughout the various generations of Windows released by Microsoft over the years, only a few set of features have remained constant in all versions. One such feature is the widely-known game of Solitaire, which was in the early days of computers the world’s most popular time-killer, either a work or at home.

If you have switched from a Windows computers, or are just interested in playing the original version of Solitaire on mobile platforms, then you should be excited to learn that Microsoft has recently announced that the Solitaire Collection will be coming on both Android and iOS.

Any Windows version until Windows 10 always included to staple games, Solitaire and Spider Solitaire. These games are also included in the newest Windows, but just in a different application known as Solitaire collection. The new app includes both versions of the original games as well as a few other variants.

Unknown to Microsoft, the company made history back in 1990 when they introduced Solitaire as a pre-installed app on the Windows 3.0. Its purpose was to give users an entertaining way to practice basic tasks in the current form of graphical the user interface, which was unfamiliar to a lot of people back then.

The company hopes to build on the phenomenon that Solitaire proved to be on Windows computers and still is with 119 million people having played the game on the last two versions of Windows, with a promotional release on mobile.

The Solitaire Collection for Android and iOS includes three other game types besides the classic and Spider version. These are FreeCell, Tripeaks, and Pyramid. The standard version of the game bundle is free. However, the premium edition will feature a free one month trial period. After which, you have to pay $1.99 every month to enjoy the game without ads, as well as to receive double coin rewards used in daily challenges and game boosts.

It wouldn’t be a current mobile game without micro-transactions which range from $0.99 up to $9.99. Although there are many other different iterations of Solitaire already available on both platforms made by a variety of developers, Microsoft only counts its version as the world’s number one Solitaire game.

Image source: Google Play Store

Google Search now allows users to see real-time information about locales.

If you want to avoid an extremely crowded place during your night out, then Google’s newest feature is the perfect tool for the situation. The company previously introduced the Popular Times update to their search engine which shows users how crowded a locale is, be it a bar, a restaurant or coffee shop at any time of the week. Google is improving that feature with a real-time tracker so you can avoid wasting precious time waiting for a table.

The Popular Time update was released last year in July. When you look for a restaurant on Google, besides the standard information provided by clicking its title on the search engine or on Google Maps, users were also able to see how busy the restaurant was on a day-by-day basis throughout the week.

The feature was useful when trying to set some plans for the near future while avoiding overcrowded places. However, the feature didn’t provide specific information about the number of people at a specific time. As such, it wasn’t particularly useful when deciding about a place at the last minute.

With their newest improvement to the feature, users are now able to see real-time and specific information about how crowded a place really is at any point during the day and night. This information can be found in the Popular Times widget which appears when you look for a bar or restaurant in either Google Search or Google Maps.

Google is able to provide real-time information about popular places by using anonymous location data as well as searches. Previously, the feature could not predict a surge in clients based on a special event at the locale or anything near it. However, it remained an efficient tool to figure out what are your best chances to avoid crowded times. The real-time data only improves upon this aspect and it will probably benefit busy people who like to schedule every minute of their day the most.

At the time of the writing, the feature is not available yet. However, you can expect it to go live in the next few hours. It’s important to remember to remember that the real-time information will be provided for locales with enough clients who provide Google with the data to establish patterns and a client count.

Image source: Google