[Update: Official] YouTube tests video chapters to help you jump forward to specific parts

Update (5/28/20 @ 5:00 PM ET): YouTube video chapters for timestamps are now official.

YouTube videos are available in a variety of lengths, starting from 30-second short videos and going all the way up to 12 hours, even though you can even find much longer videos from the past. While watching long content like tutorials, it is common to skip forward to the intended time. So to help with that, YouTube is adding new functionality in the form of “video chapters” that lets you can skip forward or rewind to any specific part of the video without having to drag the scrubber.

Video chapters on YouTube are based on the timestamps for different parts of the video as mentioned in the description. For instance, a video with an entire album or a live concert can have timestamps for different songs. So, with video chapters, users will be able to jump to different tracks through the entire video by clicking or tapping on the different parts of the scrubber. When you just hover the mouse pointer above any section or chapter, you will see the title which is also fetched from the video description along with your current progress in the section.

Image by Android Police

Android Police confirms that as of now, chapters are solely based on description time stamps and YouTube will not add chapters automatically. However, we can expect Google to infuse some of its machine learning prowess to slice the videos into chapters.

YouTube’s video chapters are already available to some users on the web player interface. Some others also reported having received the feature in the Android app and the same has been confirmed by Google to be a “test.” The feature is said to be available on certain videos on the web as well as Android and iOS apps. If you’re a creator and want to opt out, make sure the first timestamp in your video description is anything but 0:00.

Don’t worry if the feature is not available to you since it is still under evaluation by the YouTube team. It appears to be rolling out to a small group of users and we’ll let you know when it reaches a wider userbase.

Thanks to Twitter user @QueBottler for the screenshots.

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Update: Official

0:00 We heard you and added Video Chapters.
0:30 You liked it.
1:00 Now it’s official: Video Chapters are here to stay.
1:30 Creators, try Chapters by adding timestamps starting at 0:00 to your video description. Viewers, scrub to find exactly what you’re looking for.
2:00 Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/bIHGsGVmyW

— YouTube (@YouTube) May 28, 2020

YouTube’s new “Video Chapters” feature is now official. If a video has timestamps in the description, the Video Chapters are shown on the progress bar, making it easy to scrub and find a section. YouTube was apparently just testing this feature before, but it’s now here to stay since so many people are enjoying it.

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Google Maps is making it easier to share your location with “Plus Codes”

Addresses are something most of us take for granted. These strings of numbers and words make it easy to navigate practically anywhere. However, as magical as addresses may seem, they do have limits. Not every location has an address that can be easily shared. Google Maps is hoping to fix that with “Plus Codes.”

According to Google, 2 billion people don’t have an address or their address isn’t easy to locate. Google actually started to tackle this problem back in 2015, when they originally launched Plus Codes. A Plus Code is essentially a digital address and it’s derived from latitude and longitude coordinates. A Plus Code can be generated for any location.

Google is now integrating Plus Codes into Google Maps for Android. To create a Plus Code, simply tap the blue dot on the map that represents your current location. You’ll be brought to a screen that shows the six-digit Plus Code along with some other useful info and options. You can then copy the code and share it with others. Much easier than finding coordinates or enabling location-tracking.

Plus Codes can also be generated by long-pressing any location on the map to drop a pin. You can find a location using a Plus Code by entering it in Google Search or Google Maps. These codes are completely free to use and open source. You never have to use a strange description to help someone navigate to your location again. There are certain places in the world that can really benefit from these digital addresses.

Maps - Navigate & Explore (Free, Google Play) →

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Source: Google

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Google Chrome 84 will automatically minimize abusive permission/notification requests

Earlier this year, Google Chrome 80 started making website notification prompts less intrusive. These “quieter” notifications were enabled by default for people who typically block notification requests and on sites with low opt-in rates. Google is taking the next step on combatting websites that abuse notifications and permissions requests.

There are several ways in which websites can abuse permission and notification requests. Most of the time the notification requests are just plain annoying, but they can be deceptive as well. A website could require the user to enable notifications in order to access the content. Fake chat messages and warnings are another common misleading tactic to get the user to allow permissions. Starting in Chrome 84, the browser will automatically minimize these abusive requests.

desktop UI

Websites with abusive permission requests and notifications will automatically be enrolled in Google Chrome’s aforementioned quieter notification UI. In addition, notification prompts will advise users that the site may be trying to trick them. If a website requires notifications to view content, you’ll see a message that reads “This site may be trying to trick you into allowing intrusive notifications” when accessing the menu.

mobile UI

The warning message will appear on Chrome for desktop and mobile, as shown above. Site owners can check the Search Console to see if they have received any Abusive Notifications Reports. For users, these changes will only apply to new notification requests, but in the future, Google may add protections for permissions that have already been granted from abusive sites.

Google Chrome 84 is set to be released to stable on July 14th, 2020.

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Source: Google

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Google releases Android Studio 4.0 with a new Motion Editor, Build Analyzer, and more

It seems like just yesterday (if yesterday was February) that Android Studio 3.6 was released with a bunch of useful additions and needed fixes. Now, a day (three months) later, Google has pushed Android Studio 4.0 to stable with even more useful additions and needed fixes. Read on to learn more about what’s new.

Motion Editor

The first feature we’re going to talk about is the Motion Editor. For almost a couple of years now, AndroidX has had a subclass of ConstraintLayout called MotionLayout. MotionLayout’s purpose is to help you animate between layout states more easily. The only problem was that you would have to create the transitions in XML yourself. With Android Studio 4.0, there’s a new Motion Editor interface that lets you visually create and edit transitions and animations in a MotionLayout. It all ends up in an XML file anyway, but you no longer have to write it out yourself.

New Layout Inspector

A very useful tool that Android Studio has had for a while now is the Layout Inspector. On debuggable apps, it lets you see exactly how your app is laid out on-screen, along with their various attributes. In Android Studio 4.0, the New & Improved Layout Inspector expands on the old version. While you can still use it for simple view-tree inspection, it now includes features like live refreshing. Paired with devices running at least Android 10, you’ve got even more features, like more detailed View attributes and a 3D representation of what’s on-screen.

Layout Validation

One of the more difficult aspects of designing an app is, arguably, creating the layouts. You might create a layout using the built-in preview in Android Studio, only to have it look terrible on your actual phone or tablet. While it’s possible to switch among different screen sizes and resolutions in the preview, it can be a hassle. If this is something that’s bothered you, you’re in luck! Android Studio 4.0 adds a Layout Validation view, which lets you see how your layout will look on a variety of different screen sizes and resolutions, all at once.

Java 8 Desugaring for all APIs

Another annoying part of developing for Android is trying to use Java 8 features. Maybe you found some code that implements a Stream or you want to use a lambda function. Maybe there’s even a Java 8 API that you need that just isn’t practical to work around. For a while now, the Android Gradle plugin has been able to compile some Java 8 features to older APIs, but starting with Android Studio 4.0, all Java 8 functionality should now be supported.

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This list is far from exhaustive. These are just some of the more interesting additions in Android Studio 4.0. Here’s a summary of the major new enhancements and features introduced in the latest release, courtesy of Google:

Android Studio 4.0 Changelog Overview

Design

• Motion Editor: a simple interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations
• Upgraded Layout Inspector: a real-time & more intuitive debugging experience
• Layout Validation: compare your UI across multiple screen dimensions

Develop & Profile

• CPU Profiler update: improvements to make the UI more intuitive to navigate and the data easier to understand
• R8 rules update: smart editor features for your code shrinker rules, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking
• IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update with performance and quality improvements
• Live Template update: Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code
• Clangd support: Clangd and Clang-Tidy turned on by default

Build

• Build Analyzer: understand and address bottlenecks in your build
• Java 8 language support update: APIs you can use regardless of your app’s minimum API level
• Feature-on-feature dependencies: define dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules
• buildFeatures DSL: enable or disable discrete build features, such as Data Binding
• Kotlin DSL: essential support for Kotlin DSL script files

If you want to learn more about this update, be sure to check out Google’s blog post and the release notes for the full details or watch the video embedded below for a visual overview.

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Google Search will start ranking websites based on “page experience” next year

Google Search is responsible for a huge amount of web traffic. Anyone that runs a website knows how important it is to rank highly on Google. So it’s always a very big deal when the company changes the way it ranks websites. Today, Google announced a new ranking algorithm that will start taking “page experience” into consideration.

“Page experience” is all about how users perceive the experience of interacting with a webpage. Simply put, if Google thinks people don’t enjoy using a website, it will not rank it as highly in Search results. There are a number of metrics and considerations used to understand how a user perceives the experience.

Some of these considerations include page loading speed, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads. Google calls these things “Core Web Vitals.” In addition, Google is using some existing signals, including mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive ads. All of these things together make up the “page experience” secret sauce.

If you’ve ever accidentally tapped the wrong thing because content on the page was jumping around, that’s something Google Search would consider a bad experience. It’s important to note, however, that page experience isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to ranking. The company says it will still rank pages “with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.” In other words, delivering the information that the user is looking for is still ultimately the goal. But if there are pages with similar content, page experience becomes a differentiating factor.

Google says these changes will not be going live this year. The company will give 6-months notice before they go live sometime in 2021. If you have a website, it’s time to get ready for the changes.

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Source: Google | Via: Search Engine Land

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HMD Global launches 3 budget Nokia smartphones for Cricket Wireless

Since HMD Global licensed the rights to the Nokia smartphone brand, the company has been releasing out new Android smartphones like it’s nobody’s business. They’ve released a few high-end smartphones but they’ve mostly focused on mid-range and budget devices. In the U.S., HMD Global sells a lot of budget Nokia smartphones through carriers. Today, the company announced the Nokia C5 Endi, Nokia C2 Tava, and Nokia C2 Tennen for Cricket Wireless.

These 3 new Nokia smartphones are available for between $70-$170 on the AT&T-owned prepaid wireless carrier. Their names aren’t exciting and neither is the software or hardware inside them, but they’re very cheap smartphones in a market littered with overpriced options, so there’s not much to complain about.

Nokia C5 Endi

The Nokia C5 Endi has a 6.5″ 19.9 panel, so it’s a pretty big budget phone all things considered. The display itself has an HD+ 720p resolution with a notch cutout. There is a sizeable 4,000 mAh battery, a MediaTek Helio P22 processor, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, a triple rear camera array with a 13MP primary sensor + 5MP wide-angle sensor + depth-sensor, and Android 10.

 

Nokia C2 Tava

There is also the Nokia C2 Tava with more low-end specifications including a MediaTek Helio A22 processor, a 3,000 mAh battery, a 5.45″ 18:9 HD+ display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, dual rear cameras including an 8MP primary and 2MP depth sensor, a plastic body, and Android 10.

Nokia C2 Tennen

We also have the Nokia C2 Tennen which is basically the same device as the C2 Tava but comes in “vibrant Steel.”

Nokia C5 Endi, C2 Tava, and C2 Tennen Pricing and Availability

The Nokia C5 Endi will be available for $169.99 from June 5th, 2020 in Deep Midnight Blue. The Nokia C2 Tava will be available for $109.99 and will be available starting tomorrow, May 29th. The Nokia C2 Tennen will not go on sale online, though. Instead, it’s becoming available in select retail stores for $69.99 from June 15th.

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OPPO Find X2 Neo and Find X2 Lite forums are open as both go on pre-order in Europe

OPPO recently brought back its Find flagship smartphone line with the launch of the Find X2 and Find X2 Pro. Unlike the original Find X series, though, the Find X2 series also comes in mid-range variants for those who want to get a taste of the flagship experience but can’t pay the high-end devices’ steep prices. The OPPO Find X2 Neo and the OPPO Find X2 Lite are both upper mid-range smartphones in the Find X2 series, and after launching in Germany last week, the two phones are now available in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and other countries in Europe.

Both the Find X2 Lite and the Find X2 Neo are powered by the Snapdragon 765G, Qualcomm’s upper mid-range mobile processor with integrated 5G, but their specification sheets differ in other areas. The OPPO Find X2 Neo is basically a rebranded version of the Chinese OPPO Reno3 Pro, which was a completely different device than what OPPO launched globally as the Reno3 Pro. The Find X2 Neo features a quad rear camera setup (with a 48MP primary sensor), a 44MP front-facing camera, a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with a single hole-punch cutout and a 90Hz refresh rate, a 4,025 mAh battery, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and more.

The OPPO Find X2 Lite, on the other hand, is a rebrand of the little known OPPO Reno3 Vitality Edition that was only released in China. It also features a quad rear camera setup, though it has a 2MP depth sensor instead of a 13MP 2X telephoto camera. It also has a lower resolution 32MP front-facing camera, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a waterdrop notch cutout at a standard 60Hz refresh rate. On the plus side, the Find X2 Lite has a 3.5mm headphone jack while the Find X2 Neo does not, though both devices sadly lack expandable storage.

Product pages for both the OPPO Find X2 Neo and the OPPO Find X2 Lite are now available on OPPO.com in Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and other European countries. The Find X2 Lite retails for €499/£399 while the Find X2 Neo retails for €699/£599, though there are various pre-order offers and carrier deals that can bring down the price and/or net you a free Bluetooth audio accessory. The Neo is available in “Moonlight Black” and “Starry Blue” colors while the Lite is available in simply “White” or “Black.”

If you’re interested in purchasing one of these two devices, then check out our newly opened XDA forums to discuss them with fellow owners.

OPPO Find X2 Neo Forums ||| OPPO Find X2 Lite Forums

Specification	OPPO Find X2 Neo	OPPO Find X2 Lite
Dimensions and Weight	159.4 x 72.4 x 7.7mm 171g	160.3 x 74.3 x 7.96 mm 180g
Display	6.5″ FHD+ (2400×1080) AMOLED; Hole-punch display cutout Corning Gorilla Glass 5 90Hz refresh rate	6.4″ FHD+ (2400 x 1080) AMOLED; Waterdrop-style notch Corning Gorilla Glass 5
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Adreno 620	Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Adreno 620
RAM and Storage	12GB LPDDR4X RAM 256GB UFS 2.1	8GB LPDDR4x RAM 128GB UFS 2.1
Battery & Charging	4,025mAh battery 30W VOOC Flash 4.0 fast charging Fast charger included within the box	4,025mAh battery 30W VOOC Flash 4.0 fast charging Fast charger included within the box
Rear Cameras	Photo: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 Secondary: 13MP 2X Telephoto Camera, f/2.4 Tertiary: 8MP Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.2 Quaternary: 2MP, f/2.4 monochrome sensor Video: 4K @ 30fps 1080p @ 60fps/30fps 720p @ 60fps/30fps	Photo: Primary: 48MP, f/1.7 Secondary: 8MP Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.2 Tertiary: 2MP, f/2.4 monochrome sensor Quaternary: 2MP, f/2.4 Depth Sensor Video: 4K @ 30fps 1080p @ 60fps/30fps 720p @ 60fps/30fps
Front Camera	44MP, f/2.0	32MP, f/2.0
Other Features	No 3.5mm headphone jack In-display fingerprint scanner	3.5mm headphone jack In-display fingerprint scanner
Android Version	ColorOS 7 based on Android 10	ColorOS 7 based on Android 10

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