Next-Generation iPhones May Soon Ditch Traditional Wireless Networks

It looks like Tim Cook doesn't want to heavily rely on traditional wireless carriers to beam internet data to its iPhone. And he hopes to see results within five years.

Bloomberg reports that Apple Inc. is hiring dozens of top-caliber engineers from aerospace, satellite, and antenna design industries in its bid to develop satellite technology that can beam internet data directly to iPhone devices.

Joining this newly-assembled team includes Michael Trela and John Fenwick, former aerospace engineers who helped lead satellite imaging company Skybox Imaging, which was sold to Google in 2014. Wireless technology messiah Matt Ettus also joins the team, along with Ashley Moore Williams from Aerospace Corp. who focused on communication satellites, and Daniel Ellis, a former Netflix Inc. executive.

Apple can pursue the costly development of a satellite constellation from scratch. Or they can team up with existing satellite makers to beam internet data direct to Apple devices.

Apple's Next-Generation Wireless Technology

The apparent goal of the said project is probably to mitigate Apple devices' dependence on traditional wireless networks across the globe, which are often confronted with issues on cost, efficiency, and privacy.

Remember that Apple's cash cow doesn't solely come from its devices' sales. Apple also gets a significant amount of revenues from other sources such as Apple TV+ subscription, Apple Music, Arcade, and who knows -- Virtual Reality experiences in the future.

Apple's New Patent Gives iOS Quick Access to Camera, Bypassing Passwords & Biometrics

Tim Cook's reign in Cupertino also requires him to fight tooth and nail in VR wars. In fact, Apple is working on its own virtual headset which is expected to debut as early as 2021.

All these TV and internet contents and VR experiences require a massive amount of internet data that needs to be fed to Apple devices in realtime. So, developing its own wireless technology is a sound decision from Apple in my opinion, as foreign companies like Apple are often held at a gunpoint when trying to penetrate a foreign market.

Developing countries, for instance, have exorbitant internet data prices and there are often data caps to deal with -- issues which Apple nor Google is unable to control, disrupting the company's goal to expand its services to foreign lands.

Satellite technology is an unchartered territory of Apple Inc., but with its massive $16 billion pumped in its research and development in 2019 alone, it can be just a matter of time when Tim Cook's reign at Cupertino surprises us with this wireless ambition.

How To Score Cheaper Airline Tickets with Google Flights’ Fare Alerts

Dreaming to hit Philippines’ white sand beaches this summer? Don’t book that tickets just yet! Chances are, you could be getting pricier round trip airline tickets if you’re too excited booking those tickets a lot sooner.

With just a few clicks, I’m going to show you how you can snap up the best airline deals for your upcoming trips using Google Flights.

Google Flights, by the way, is another service of Google launched back in 2011 that lets you search flights in seconds. Unbeknownst to many, Google Flights has a ‘fare alerts’ feature that notifies you in real-time through email if there are downticks (or upticks) of ticket prices from your selected flight. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do in order to get the best deals in real-time from different airlines.

Here's how to monitor airline ticket prices with Google Flights

1. Go to Google Flights website

2. Search for your desired flight. You may opt for a round trip or one-way ticket (there are additional filters too such as desired stop-overs, which cities, airlines, etc.) Best to leave them as is to get the best possible deals)

   

3. As soon as you specify the desired departure date, the page should automatically pull a list of flights you can choose. The best flights for the chosen date will appear first on top of the page. So in case you’re happy with those prices, you can book them right away.

4. If the best flights are too expensive for you, you can activate Track prices toggle. Basically, it will monitor the lowest price for the trip and you’ll be notified through email in real-time.

   

As long as you don’t omit those tracked prices, Google will automatically alert you when there are downticks of those chosen flight, as seen below's screenshot:

Both Skyscanner and Traveloka have "price alerts" functionality, but it doesn't hurt to add Google Flights into the mix to get the best possible airline deals.

Google Launches New Recorder App with Realtime Offline Transcription Support

After announcing the latest iteration of its flagship Android phone the Pixel 4 recently, Google introduces a new voice recorder app for Android with built-in offline speech recognition support. Well, thanks to AI.

The new Recorder app uses speech recognition and AI to transcribe lectures, meetings, interviews and more—and makes them easy for you to find later. (English only right now, with more languages to come.) #madebygoogle pic.twitter.com/fdKRItuS4b

— Google (@Google) October 15, 2019

The voice recorder app, as seen on the above demo, can transcribe audio recordings in real-time with utmost accuracy. And the best part: it works offline. You can transcribe whatever is being spoken during meetings, lectures or interviews even without internet connectivity.

YouTube Introduces AR Beauty Try-On, A Virtual Makeup Experience that Lets Viewers Try On Makeup Within YouTube App

Google’s newest voice recorder app is a massive upgrade from traditional audio recorder apps, which require decent internet connectivity to enable real-time transcription. And in most cases, the experience can be a bit clunky, unpleasant. That’s because your speech is being processed on a remote server before finally returning the transcribed text.

Search Parts of Recorded Audio by Sounds

The new voice recorder app comes with impressive search functionality too. Imagine you have this 2-hours long recorded lecture and wanted to re-visit that part of the lecture but all you can remember is a phrase or word? You can search by voice and the app will automatically highlight playback bar where those spoken phrases or words are mentioned. No more horizontal scrolling.

Google’s offline transcription technology is made possible by combining the power of real-time speech recognition and AI. And with the company’s unlimited resources being pumped in their Machine Learning department, we can expect a better and heaps clever AI-assisted voice processing in the future.

Google Maps Now Predicts Bus Traffic Delays and Crowdedness in 200+ Cities

So, next time you’re in a meeting or lecture, you can pretty much ditch writing notes and just intently listen to whoever is speaking. Let your Android phone do the note-taking.

Again, the app is initially being rolled out on the new Pixel 4, and the offline speech recognition is currently available in English. But with Google’s intention to reach as many users as possible, we can expect it to support other devices and other languages.

This Website Lets You Prank Your Friends with Fake System Updates

Found this really clever and evil site that lets you prank your friends and co-workers with a fake system update and thought you might like this too ;)

If seeing your friends’ worried look delights you, then, this fun website lets you do just that. The website, Update Faker, lets you select a fake system Windows or Mac update on your unsuspecting friends’ computer by simply visiting the website and selecting the “theme”. Just be sure to press F11 to go fullscreen mode on your Windows or Ctrl+Command+F on Mac.

The fake Windows update screen looks too real; from fonts, colors and even progress bars. Your target should definitely freak out upon seeing their computer screen doing the dreaded system updates. Just be prepared for possible reprisal.

Update Faker Themes to Choose From

Yet another reason why you should lock your computer when you take a quick break however short that is. Or else you could be a victim from pranksters lurking around your corner.

This is probably one of the meanest websites we’ve come across.

Enable Front & Back Simultaneous Video Recording on iOS 13 with this App

Apart from the updated keyboard, new editable emojis, system-wide dark mode, and other tiny yet much-needed bells and whistles, iOS 13 also brings a plethora of enhancements under the hood.

One of them is the introduction of a new API that lets you use both front and back camera of your iPhone to simultaneously record all the action in front and back all at the same time.

We saw it from a demo at Apple’s event last week, which showed an iPhone 11 Pro with Filmic Pro installed that delightfully activates and captures both front and ultra-wide back camera.

Newer versions of iPhones will certainly get this multi-cam sessions support. At the recent WWDC event last week, Apple also confirmed that the same multi-cam recording functionality will also be supported on iPhone XS and XR. That’s pretty much good news.

Apple's New Patent Gives iOS Quick Access to Camera, Bypassing Passwords & Biometrics

Filmic Pro, being one of the biggest names to incorporate this feature on its app, is said to be releasing an update to its app later this year.

However, if you want to try it yourself right now without spending a penny and see how this front and back simultaneous recording works, then, you’ve got to check out Dualgram.

Dualgram: Use Your iPhone’s Multiple Cameras To Record Back & Front All At The Same Time

Dualgram was a brainchild of Junda Ong, who says there are so many occasions where he wished he could capture all the actions on both sides of the phone. And he’s not alone. Imagine you’re in your vacation abroad and wants to update your family back home and so you excitedly update them with your pictures and videos. Isn’t it cool to show all the sights in front of you while at the same time showing all the fun right behind you?

A multiple camera recording isn’t new. In fact, it’s been around for years on select Android devices — and it proved to be fun and more personalized.

With the latest iOS 13 and Dualgram, finally you can try it on your iPhone.

How To Turn Off Geotagging on iOS to Permanently Remove Locations from Photos on iPhone

iPhone and iPad camera has this built-in geotagging feature that automatically attaches your current location (aka EXIF metadata) every time you snap a photo. This geotagging support enables iOS to organize your photos by location, making it easy for you to browse through your past photos including personal travel photos and selfies.

Easiest Way To Play YouTube in the Background on iPhone, iPad + Auto Play While Keeping Other Apps Opened

Most iPhone and iPad have iOS camera geotagging enabled by default. You can tell if photo geotagging is enabled when you go to iOS Photos > Albums, there’s a Places folder where all your photos are displayed on a map.

A lot of people may find it cool that their iPhone detects their location and attach it on their selfies. What these people don’t realize is that they’re exposing their exact location coordinates which could turn them into easy prey from people with malicious attentions.

So, if you’re uncomfortable about unintentionally sharing your location data and want things a little bit private, it’s highly recommended to permanently disable geotagging on iPhone before finally sharing them online.

Here’s how to turn off geotagging on iPhone 6, 7, 8, XR, iPhone Max Pro & iPhone 11

1. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services

2. Tap Camera and set Allow Location Access to Never.

   

Preventing iOS from geotagging your photos should be that easy. Once done, it should remove geotag from photos on the iPhone moving forward.

How To: Block Ads on iOS, Including Facebook Ads and Youtube Video Ads (iPhone & iPad)

Please note that past photos with existing geotag won’t be removed. You’ll have to use EXIF remover such as Metadata Remover EXIF GPS TIFF or EXIR Purge to strip off sensitive metadata from iOS photos.

How To: Automatically Capture Web Page Screenshots At Regular Intervals

Previously on this blog we’ve talked about how we can use Google Sheet as Wayback Machine Internet Archive alternative to automatically capture web page screenshots. In that post, we’ve demonstrated how we can use screenshotmachine.com’s free API to generate a screenshot of website using Google Sheet script and store them in a dedicated Google Drive folder Web page captures.

It worked hitherto of course. The bad news is: the script suddenly stopped working, probably because of Google’s API changes or similar. But the good news is: there’s a good alternative to do just that for a minimal fee.

PageCapture: Automatically Capture Website Screenshots Daily, Weekly or Monthly

PageCapture is a nifty web app we discovered few days ago and we thought you’ll love it too. In a nutshell, PageCapture automatically creates a screenshot of any web page URL on schedule. There are a handful of capture frequencies to choose from: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and even custom hourly intervals. You choose.

All screenshots are securely stored on PageCapture website. However, you have the option to sync it with your DropBox or Google Drive account. And if you’re a regular Slack user, PageCapture can automatically push all web page screenshots to your Slack account.

When is it useful?

Web masters and internet marketers will surely benefit such an automated screenshot-capturing tool. Web page screenshots act as visual backup which you can turn to when you want to recover something or just want to look back how your client’s sites look like in the past.

5 Handy Google Sheet Tricks To Help You Work Fast & Save Time

Or if you’re an internet marketer, you can use it to spy on your competitor’s website and monitor SERP positions on Google search results on daily or weekly basis.

While massively popular Wayback Machine is awesome, it only crawls public pages at unknown intervals; no daily or weekly snapshots. So it’s not that totally reliable if you want a simple visual snapshot of a web page daily.

Why PageCapture is awesome

Aside from the fact that you can automatically capture web page screenshot on schedule, there are also other advance options you can explore such as the ability to choose device screen size (e.g. desktop, iPhone, iPad) and user-agents. So, web masters will definitely find this useful too especially if you’re maintaining highly critical sites that requires constant monitoring.

Go check out PageCapture and don’t forget to share this to your friends who might need this.

Finally, An AI-Powered App That Transforms Sketches Into Interactive Digital Prototypes in Realtime

The latest advancement of AI continues to offer us a whole new way to experience our digital lives. We’ve seen how Google predicts traffic delays & bus crowdedness, well, thanks to AI. We’ve also seen how YouTube enables you to virtually try on makeup and help you with your purchases decisions, thanks to its immersive AR Beauty Try-On.

With millions of power users’ growing appetite for anything automated, it’s not difficult to imagine a future where mundane, routinary tasks are being kept to a minimum. And fact is : it has already begun.

One of the coolest finds we’ve come across is Artyline, a free iOS & time-saver app that converts hand-drawn sketches into digital equivalent in realtime. All you have to do is to give a good scan on your sketches and you’re done.

Not everyone will appreciate this app, but such an app comes in handy if you’re an app developer or designer who wants to skip NinjaMock or any online mockup tools to quickly visualize your ideas.

Why Artyline is such a great app

The trouble with hand-drawn sketches is that it can potentially be misunderstood by most clients who normally aren’t adept in UX design elements. So whether it’s a simple app or not, the best way to present your idea and get their approval is to give prototypes as realistic as possible.

Excel Gets OCR Support, Lets You Snap Tables and Convert Into Editable Spreadsheet

With Artyline, generating prototypes is as simple as scanning your sketches and you immediately get an interactive version of our mockup. Think of it as an additional team member in your UX / design department where design sketches drawn from whiteboard or paper are quickly converted to digital formats. So you’d come well-prepared when meeting your client to discuss the next big app.

Artyline limitations

Because Artyline is powered by AI, it has a limited set of training to recognize basic shapes and transform them into design elements. Good thing is Artyline has this easy-to-follow guideline to make your sketches more recognizable by their AI.

Pro Tip: Use markers instead of writing pens. Don’t use pencils as they’re too illegible to recognize by Artyline scanner.

Artyline is still in its infancy and got tons of areas to improve especially in the execution side. However, I can’t easily denigrate an app idea this good just because of those hiccups. So, we are still impressed.

Give your app designs workflows an upgrade. Get this iOS app while it’s free. Thank me later!

Download: Artyline [Apple App Store]

WordPress.com To Acquire Tumblr for Less than $20 Million

A once popular blogging behemoth Tumblr will soon get a new home. It’s WordPress.

Automattic Inc, the maker of world’s most popular Content Management System, is currently in talks with Tumblr’s Verizon Communications Inc for potential acquisition as part of the latter’s media overhaul.

While no definite sum floats around the deal yet, one source familiar with the matter says it will be a “well below” $20 million deal.

Automattic Inc is said to rehome Tumblr’s 200 existing employees and vowed to maintain Tumblr’s existing porn ban.

Tumblr’s Early Years

Back in the days when no Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter yet, Tumblr used to be the go-to place for people who love to share online contents such as photos, music, videos, and blogs. The free service grew exponentially, with millions of daily active users soaked in addictive, user-generated contents hosted on their platform.

With a userbase that large, that got the attention of Yahoo, which acquired Tumblr for a whopping $1.1 billion under the helm of Marissa Mayer last 2013 until Verizon acquired Yahoo in 2017 for $4.8 billion.

Slack Desktop App Gets A Performance Boost — App Now Uses Less RAM, Loads A Lot Faster

Slack Desktop App Gets Performance Boost — App Now Uses Less RAM, Loads A Lot Faster

Popular team communication software Slack introduces a major update to its desktop app that mitigates the performance issues plaguing the app for so long. The new version now loads much faster on Windows and Mac, and eats a lot less memory, giving its millions of daily users a delightful experience when interacting the app.

Slack Drains Your RAM? It’s Time to Update Now

Slack team is rebuilding the app from the ground up, eliminating the resource-hogging bloats from its stack. The recent developments in Javascript in the past few years made it easier for team Slack to make the call and upgrade its client-side ecosystem, bringing the much-needed performance boost within the app.

“We want people to be able to run Slack alongside anything else they are using to get their job done and have that be easy, uncumbersome, delightful even. So we took a look at the environment we’re in. I think the other thing to note is that the ecosystem for client-side development has just changed a lot in the past five years. There have been some major updates to JavaScript and new technologies like React and Redux to make it easier to build dynamic web applications. We also wanted to update our stack to fit in with the modern paradigm.” — Jaime DeLanghe, Director of Product Management

Previous versions of Slack for Windows and Mac are noticeably slow for some. That’s especially true for those who have multiple Slack workplaces and channels to keep tabs on. This is due to the fact that Slack retrieves all conversations for each channel first before rendering the UI, thus, delaying your interaction to the app.

Now, Slack will only load data when needed, depending on which channel you’re on. The result: a speedier and memory-efficient user experience.

Slack is slated to release the new app in the coming weeks.

More than just Skype

Slack is a widely popular team communication tool used in a formal setting like workplace collaboration and remote communication. It got all the bells and whistles you can hope for when collaborating and working with remote team members on shared projects.

5 Handy Google Sheet Tricks To Help You Work Fast & Save Time

How To: Enable Google Chrome’s Built-In Reader Mode

Google’s Chromium team has recently introduced a few enhancements to its beloved Chrome web browser. One of the features it added albeit hidden is the experimental “Reading Mode“ for Windows and Mac, which essentially strips off unnecessary web elements and gives you a simplified view of a web page.

Google Chrome’s Reader Mode is disabled by default. So you’ll have to enable it yourself. Here's how:

Activating Reader Mode on Google Chrome

1. Ensure you’re using the latest Google Chrome’s Canary version

2. In your Chrome address bar, type chrome://flags/#enable-reader-mode

   

3. Enable it and restart your browser

Now, every time you lands in a page and you want a simplified view of it, just go to Settings > Distill Page. It should declutter the page, removing background web clutters such as banners, ads, etc.

While it’s good Chromium team finally brings the long-overdue Reader Mode for desktop without installing a third-party extension, Google Chrome’s default Reader Mode is still in its infancy and begs a facelift. Currently, you can’t change the font size, styles, and colors. Such reading mode features are sure a delight once they’re made available in the next iteration of Google Chrome’s version

LOOK: Upcoming Google Chrome Feature Lets You Organize Active Tabs into Groups

So, if you spend a couple of minutes a day glued on addicting BuzzFeed articles and whatnot, then, Google Chrome’s built-in Reader Mode will do you a favor.

Freshly-Minted Google Maps Now Predicts Bus Traffic Delays and Crowdedness in 200+ Cities

Google introduces a few updates to its Google Maps iOS and Android apps that give commuters live traffic delays updates for buses as well as predictions how crowded your bus or train will be all in real-time.

The updates are welcome addition to Google Maps app that proves useful if you constantly commute your way around the city, helping you see the bus delays and how long it will be as well the recalculated time it takes to get from point A to B. With those live information at your fingertips, you can manage and plan ahead your trip; whether it’s a simple trip to your workplace or back to your apartment.

Using Machine Learning to Generate Bus Delays Forecasts

To produce the most accurate bus delays predictions, Google cannot solely rely on transit agencies real-time data. Google combines data syndicated from transit agencies all around the globe and anonymized data collected from commuters who consented to share their data.

Back in October last year, Google Maps began to ask its users who commute during peak hours and prompt them to rate their experience within the app. Relevant transit information such as travel time, distance, and the total number of available seats were also collected.

Long Commute? Get Power Naps and Get A Phone Call When You Arrive At Your Destination

These information collected are all valuable training data that help Google develop a model that predicts crowdedness and delays with increased accuracy, thanks to AI.

If you're curious about the technology behind all this, check this out.

So next time you’re about to leave from work, pull your Google Maps app and see if you should wait a few minutes or squeeze on a crowded ride like a packed of sardines on a hot bus or train.

Be sure to update your app to get this juicy addition from Google Maps.

YouTube Introduces AR Beauty Try-On, A Virtual Makeup Experience that Lets Viewers Try On Makeup Within YouTube App

There's no way to protest that beauty regimen tutorials and makeup reviews are increasingly becoming more popular content on YouTube. Ask any of your girlfriends who are into beauty fad and you'll immediately get a nod they get most of their makeup skills from YouTube.

Thanks to thousands of YouTube content creators who regularly feed viewers with tutorials and beauty products reviews for their millions of followers.

Now, in another Augmented Reality (AR) initiative from Google, the company seeks to give YouTubers a notch higher experience when watching makeup tutorials on its YouTube app. With the launch of AR Beauty Try-On, viewers can now virtually try on makeup within the YouTube app.

Here's How YouTube's AR Beauty Try-On Works

Once available, your iOS YouTube screen will be split into two: makeup tutorial actively playing at the top, a stream from your own front camera at the bottom. And right within that screen, a palate of colors (maybe a shade of lipstick) can be tapped and virtually applied to your own lips and you'll immediately see how it looks on your lips in real-time.

It's really one powerful feature that should help you as a consumer decide what to buy next.

How YouTube's AR Beauty Try-On Benefits Brands

Other than casual customers who turn to YouTube for beauty tips and reviews, there's another real winner here: brands. Brands including M·A·C Cosmetics can easily tap YouTube's pool of influencers and launch AR Beauty Try-On campaigns to promote their products to over two billion monthly viewers.

This Augmented Reality App Lets You Create Your Own Portal, Teleport to New Places (iOS)

Google says it already tested this new, immersive YouTube experience and revealed that 30 percent of viewers activated the AR experience in the YouTube iOS app, spending over 80 seconds on average trying on lipstick virtually.

Source: Google

Twitter Gets Multiple Accounts Switching Support, Lets You Switch Between Accounts with Ease

For those of you who maintain multiple Twitter accounts, you probably are familiar with that pain of signing in and signing out if you wish to switch to another Twitter account. One may switch between multiple Twitter accounts by having more than one browser opened — one for personal Twitter account and the other is for work-related stuff.

And for Twitter power users, there's Hootsuite to the rescue being the de facto Twitter multiple account manager, which lets you manage multiple social media accounts including Twitter in one, centralised dashboard.

New AI-Powered Apps Help You Generate Captions, Hashtags for Instagram

Twitter's lack of native multiple account switching support is just dead annoying. It's a feature long requested by millions of social media managers who take advantage of their platform for virality and growth.

Thankfully, Twitter finally heeded the call. Now, you can add multiple Twitter accounts and switch between multiple Twitter handles with ease.

Twitter Adds New Account Switching Option

For now, Twitter's multiple account switching feature is available for the web version (both mobile and desktop), Twitter Lite, and Twitter for Windows. Jack Dorsey's team must be brewing multiple accounts support for Android and iOS version too (I hope so).

Skip the sign in, sign out hassle. Now you can switch back and forth between handles faster on https://t.co/AIUgyCj4rs, Twitter Lite, and Twitter for Windows. Just tap the drop down from your profile photo.

Your stan account thanks you.

— Twitter (@Twitter) June 3, 2019

How To Add, Switch Between Multiple Accounts on Twitter

As mentioned, the new feature is available only on web version and Twitter Lite. Here's how to get started:

1. Login to your Twitter account and ensure you're using the new Twitter web version UI.

2. In top right section, click on your name to bring the Account info panel

   

3. Now, click on that Add an existing account. You'll be asked to login for that new Twitter handle.

   

You're done!

Your newly added Twitter account should sit nicely beside your main account. Just click your profile or name to switch to another Twitter account without having to log out and log in again.

Twitter may be late to the party, but this new Twitter multiple accounts switching option is sure a welcome update that power users would surely appreciate.

New Web App Efemr Lets You Send Self-Destructing Tweets

5 Handy Google Sheet Tricks To Help You Work Fast & Save Time

Just like Microsoft's Excel, Google Sheet has equally powerful functions hidden up its sleeve. It can help you do routinary, mundane tasks fast and perform time-saving complex operations.

With Google Sheet, being an open-source software and with its collaboration support, it's likely that you'll end up using the app more often than not. It's one indispensable tool every web master and virtual assistant can't live without.

While you may not use below's list of useful Google Sheet functions everyday, it pays to be familiar and well-verse with these shortcuts. We hand-picked this shortlist of five essential Google Sheets hacks to help you save time in dealing with spreadsheets.

1. Use SPLIT function and obtain the first word from a phrase

Suppose you want to extract the first word from a string in a Google Sheet column. You can use SPLIT() function to split a string and obtain first word , as follows:

=index(SPLIT(A2, " "), 0, 1)

With the above function, a string “10042 Ferrara” yields “10042”.

To obtain the n word, just replace 1 with n accordingly.

2. Use REGEXEXTRACT to retrieve number from a string

Suppose you have this data in a column and you wish to obtain the price

<p>Lined Linen Tunic with Silk Hem</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>RRP    $99.95</strong></p>

You can do so with REGEXEXTRACT function to extract the price, as follows:

=REGEXEXTRACT(C2, "[0-9]*\.[0-9]+[0-9]+")

3. Using CONTACT to combine multiple values

Suppose in Column A you want to get the first word and combine it with the value in Column J, you can achieve it using CONCAT function.

=concat( index(SPLIT(A2, " "), 0, 1), concat("-", J2) )

Or use ampersand to combine multiple values:

="RRP "&value(REGEXEXTRACT(E12, "[0-9]*\.[0-9]+[0-9]+"))

4. Use SUBSTITUTE() & RegexReplace() to search and replace

Say you have a column of data that contains HTML ASCII codes and you want to get rid of them. Here's how you do it:

=SUBSTITUTE(B2," ", "")

Or you can go creative, do a nested SUBSTITUTE

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(B2, "</p>", ""),"<p>", "")

Or you can go use RegExReplace to get rid all HTML tags

=RegexReplace( B2, "<\/\w+>|<\w+.*?>", "" )

Or a combination of Substitute and RegexReplace

=SUBSTITUTE(RegexReplace( B3, "<\/\w+>|<\w+.*?>", "" ),"&nbsp;", " " )

3 Things You Didn't Know Google Spreadsheet Can Do For You (Part 1)

5. Use VLOOKUP to search by keyword and return a specified cell from another sheet

Google Sheet's vertical lookup is a powerful function you need to master. It lets you search down the first column of a range for a key and returns the value of a specified cell in the row found.

If that doesn't make sense, imagine you have Sheet14 containing sku and color columns

Sheet14

And wanted to append the color initial found inside a separate table from Sheet15

Sheet15

You can do a quick search using VLOOKUP and return the color initial (from Sheet15) by providing color from Sheet14.

The full formula:

=VLOOKUP(I2, Sheet15!A1:B7,2, false)

Where I2 is the keyword, Sheet15!A1:B7 is the range, and 2 is column position from Sheet15 we want to retrieve.

Excel Gets OCR Support, Lets You Snap Tables and Convert Into Editable Spreadsheet

So next time you are asked to update a Google Sheet and do dead boring, repetitive tasks, try to look around inside Google Sheet list of functions and see if you can automate stuff and save huge amount of time in the process.

How To: Watch Rated-R, 18+ Videos On YouTube Without Logging In or Signing Up

YouTube may prevent you from playing certain videos because the contents might be inappropriate to you. You may be below the age of maturity to view the video so YouTube normally requires you to sign in or signup first before heading on.

Here's a sample message I got from YouTube when I tried watching this video:

This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as determined by the video uploader. To view this video or group, please verify that you are of the appropriate age by signing in or signing up. If you would instead prefer to avoid potentially inappropriate content, consider activating YouTube's Safety Mode.

How To: Watch YouTube, Netflix on Sticky, Floating Window While Keeping Other Apps Opened

For situations when you're in a hurry and you don't want to waste your time remembering and recovering your lost usernames or passwords, how can you skip and bypass through this age verification process and just play the video of your choice?

If the constant Sign In prompts of YouTube annoys you, here's a you can do so you can instantly play any YouTube video without having to login or signup.

Skip, Bypass Age Verification Process On YouTube - Watch 18+ Videos Without Signing In

1. On the YouTube video you want to view, obtain the URL. For example:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O07u7KdRVo0

2. Now replace youtube with nsfwyoutube
http://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=O07u7KdRVo0

3. Now, head on to that link and you should be able to watch the video without logging in or being over 18.

Easiest Way To Play YouTube in the Background on iPhone, iPad + Auto Play While Keeping Other Apps Opened

You might also want to check out this nifty tip on how to bypass, remove country restriction on YouTube so you can watch blocked YouTube videos anywhere.

Spotify To Launch Experimental Social Listening Feature That Lets Anyone Enqueue Tracks in Real-time

Remember the now defunct Party Player Android app we featured before that lets your friends update the queue and play tracks by simply sending a text message to an actively-playing phone?

It was one promising app back in the early days when subscription-based music streaming services don't exist yet.

Now, it looks like we're going to see almost the same functionality on Spotify, but this time using QR-style codes instead of SMS.

Spotify is currently brewing a shared-queue Social Listening experience that lets anyone with an invite add songs to a queue in real-time. The feature was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong in an Android app exclusively for Spotify employees.

Spotify is working on Social Listening, letting friends to control music together with their own devices

Scan Spotify Code or open link for it to begin

For example, I'm listening Spotify right now. Feel free to introduce me new music: https://t.co/f59D0sis7Y pic.twitter.com/nPOlcPwQdG

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 31, 2019

Why Spotify's Social Listening Is Cool

Imagine you're chilling by the beach with your group of friends and you only have one portable speaker to share. Why not create a shared queue where everyone can become a DJ and collaborate? All you need to do is to scan a dynamically-generated QR-style code and you're all good to go.

Spotify is yet to announce the launch of this co-listening feature, which is expected to arrive on Android and iOS first. Social Listening should not be confused with Spotify's Collaborative Playlists, where the latter lets your friends update a playlist while the former is designed for a shared, real-time listening experience.

Now, your move Apple Music.

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This No-Root Android App Can Hack Wifi Passwords in Minutes

Gaining entry to a password-protected wireless network is no longer an intricate technical process reserved for the gifted. Today, with the right mix of tools and apps, one can quickly gain entry to any WiFi networks using only an Android device by taking advantage of known WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) vulnerabilities.

One Android app that caught our attention is WiFi WPS WPA Tester, currently available on Play Store.

WiFi WPS WPA Tester, as the name suggests, is supposedly a network testing tool that helps you secure your own wireless access point from WPS vulnerabilities. Think you have the most secured wireless network because of your long, unbreakable wifi password? Think again.

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The trouble with most access points, your entry-level access point included, is that they likely have WPS enabled by default. Access points have standard 7-digits WPS PIN, which was recently discovered to have serious design flaw: it can be brute-forced with surprising ease.

And that makes it possible for wifi password cracking Android apps like WiFi WPS WPA Tester to uncover your wireless network passwords. By scanning all available WPS-enabled wireless networks and sifting through AP details such as MAC addresses, it can quickly calculate WPS PINs and brute-force your network.

Okay, enough for the technical side. Just see how this app works:

Hack Wifi Network without Rooting Your Android Device

As shown in the video above, you can hack WiFi on Android even without rooting your device by:

• Download and installing WiFi WPS WPA Tester
• Launching the app
• Tapping on Connect Automatic PIN
• In Choose Method dialog, select No Root
• And wait for a few seconds until wifi password is revealed

WiFi WPS WPA Tester certainly isn't the first of its kind that can hack wifi on Android without root. This category of apps can be both helpful and a curse.

Protecting Your Own Wireless Network Against WPS PIN Attacks

Now you've learned how your network can be compromised even by a first-grader with an Android device, now is the time to revisit and beef up your wireless network security. You are strongly encouraged to follow below's actions to spare your wifi network from this type of attack:

1. Update your access point's firmware. This should be a pretty straight-forward process, normally available in access points Dashboard. All household access points comes with a manual showing how you to administer and update your firmwares. By updating your router's firmware, you get the latest protection including WPS vulnerability patches.
2. Disable WPS. Read your device's manual how it's done or go to your manufacturer's website to learn more. Please note that any Android device can hack your wifi if you have WPS enabled.
3. Set up MAC address filter. All network devices including laptops, iPhones and that offending Android phone are all identifiable with its unique MAC addresses. In your access point's dashboard, you can define access rules, allowing only certain MAC addresses to gain entry in your wireless network.

Few more network vulnerabilities may be sitting right there waiting to be discovered but it pays to take a proactive step to secure your network.