New Outlook For Mac Now Available, Rest Of Office For Mac Updates Coming In 2015

New Outlook For Mac Now Available, Rest Of Office For Mac Updates Coming In 2015

Darrell Etherington

TechCrunch 

We’ve seen leaks of a new Office for Mac 2015 suite circulate, but the new version of Outlook for Mac is already here, at least for Office 365 subscribers. The overhauled email client includes a new look and feel, as well as search that extends to archived mail (whether stored online or on corporate servers), better all around performance, push email support and more. Microsoft also took this opportunity to make its Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote for Mac updates official, announcing public beta availability beginning early next year, with a general consumer launch in the second half of 2015.

The new Office apps for Mac will be available to Office 365 subscribers with no additional cost as part of their subscription, once released, while the company also plans to launch a perpetual license for a one-off buy at the same time as Office for Mac becomes available as final shipping software.
The new Outlook has a redesign that makes it look a lot more like its companion apps on other platforms, including Windows, and the web on both desktop and mobile. Using Outlook on a Mac is still mostly inconceivable to me, but then again, I rarely have to deal with a corporate email environment and unlike the bulk of large enterprises out there, we run a mostly Mac shop.

Microsoft’s continued commitment to Mac users is a good thing overall, since it means more platform choice for those who have need of Office software. The company seems even more committed to supporting customers beyond the Windows ecosystem than ever, thanks to the release of surprisingly impressive Office mobile apps for iPad earlier this year. Microsoft says the reason its Mac software is lagging behind its usual update schedule relative to the Windows release this time around is because it chose to focus on those mobile apps mentioned above first this time around.

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Scientists can make your inner monologue audible

Scientists can make your inner monologue audible

Terrence O'Brien

Engadget

When you hear someone else speak, specific neurons in your brain fire. Brian Pasley and a bunch of his colleagues discovered this at the University of California, Berkeley. And not only that, but those neurons all appeared to be tuned to specific sound frequencies.

 So, Pasley had a thought: "If you're reading text in a newspaper or a book, you hear a voice in your own head," so why can't we decode that internal voice simply by monitoring brain activity. It's similar to the idea that led to the creation of BrainPort, which lets you "see" with your tongue. Your eyes, ears or vocal chords don't really do the heavy lifting, it's your brain. And if you can give the brain another source of input or output you might be able to train it to approximate a lost ability like speech.

Building the thought decoder began by developing an algorithm tailored to each individual subject. The participant was asked to read a passage, for instance John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, aloud to get a base reading. Then they were asked to read it to themselves. And finally, to just sit and do nothing. That allowed the team to isolate which neurons were firing when vocalizing the text. Then a visual representation of the sound waves is created and those sounds are matched with particular brain patterns. Then while the participants read silently to themselves the decoder is able to reconstruct the words based purely on what neurons are firing.

Of course, the technology is far from perfect. While the results were described as "significant" a reliable device that can translate thoughts in to words is a long way off. But the team from Berkeley is optimistic that one day they'll be able to give the gift of speech to someone who is paralyzed or "locked-in."

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Ashley Tisdale Has Big News For Fans!

Ashley Tisdale Has Big News For Fans!

Ashley Tisdale has revealed that she has some really big news for her fans! Ashley took to Twitter to post the following note:

"So many exciting things happening... I can't wait to share :)"

What do YOU think Ashley is hinting about? We know that she is hard at work with her Blondie Girl Productions, her television shows "Young & Hungry" and "Buzzy's," and her fashion website. Plus she's working on new music with her husband Christopher French.

Stay tuned to find out what Ashley's big news is!

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One Direction's "Night Changes" Was Written After a Huge Fight

One Direction always insist that they're just like brothers, but a major fight inspired their new song "Night Changes"! However, according to Jamie Scott, it wasn't the guys who were doing the fighting — it was their longtime songwriters.

“One of the songs on the record came from myself falling out with Julian Bunetta and John Ryan,” he told MTV. “One night, I came down to the studio, and three songs that I thought were sounding amazing when I left had been changed drastically through the night.”

However, he says the song doesn't have anything to do about their actual fight. It's more about the weird feelings you get staying up all night.

“The song is nothing about that, but the idea and the word came from me coming in the morning, because you get a bit delirious and you never quite know what you’re doing. But it was fine and all was resolved and we had a great song title.”

We agree! Especially after hearing that it's Harry Styles' favorite song on the album.

Plus, we are seriously excited to see what they're doing with their music video, especially after watching Louis Tomlinson get "arrested" while filming it.

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Find Out Ed Sheeran's Favorite Song From Taylor Swift's '1989'

Ed Sheeran has been pretty vocal about his love for Taylor Swift's new album 1989, and now we know which track he loves the most. While appearing on the radio show On Air With Ryan Seacrest, the "Shake It Off" singer revealed that "Bad Blood" is his fave song on her album. In case you missed it, that's the track that is supposedly about her feud with Katy Perry!

“I remember individual circumstances when I would write a song and be so excited about it, so I’d play it for Ed [Sheeran]," she said. "Ed’s favorite song on the album is ‘Bad Blood.’"

“I played it for Ed as soon as I wrote it, which I think was was about a year ago,” she said. “And at that point, it was just a really basic demo track…and he was going, ‘This has to be the first single! This has to be the first single!’ And I was like, ‘Eh, we’ll see.’ But since he’s now heard the album and heard the final track, he loves it even more.”

We kind of assumed the "Thinking Out Loud" singer was on Taylor's side, but now we know for sure! They are the ultimate besties, after all. But we're wondering if he likes the song a little bit more because it's his friend's personal form of "revenge."

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Amazon Admits It Priced Its Smartphone Too High

Amazon Admits It Priced Its Smartphone Too High

An Amazon executive admitted that the company priced its smartphone too high, Fortune's JP Mangalindan reports.
"We didn’t get the price right," Amazon senior vice president of devices David Limp told Mangalindan. "I think people come to expect a great value, and we sort of mismatched expectations. We thought we had it right. But we’re also willing to say, ‘we missed.’ And so we corrected."
Amazon's Fire phone originally cost $199 but the company shot the price down to 99 cents after only a few months. In its most recent earnings call, the company admitted that it took a $170 million hit and had $83 million worth of unsold phones.
Amazon's phone boasts 3-D effects and a camera mode that can automatically identify real-world objects, but it was widely seen as a bit of a flop at launch. Limp says that several software updates since July have fixed some problems users had with the device. Despite the financial hit the smartphone caused, Amazon plans to keep working hard on the Fire phone, taking its usual long-term approach.
"When you’re taking risks, they’re not all going to pay off," Limp says. "Those are the facts." 

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Wearing the Microsoft Band, the next big thing in fitness tracking

Wearing the Microsoft Band, the next big thing in fitness tracking

David Pierce

The Verge

 

I've been wearing it for two hours, and I'm still acutely aware that it's there. This is the first and most unavoidable thing you should know about the Microsoft Band: it's big, and it's heavy. It's not an object with a strap, like a smartwatch or a Fitbit; there's technology in every part of this rigid rubber band. It's not terribly uncomfortable, per se, it's just there. I don't think I'll ever stop noticing it.
The Band is, of course, Microsoft's first fitness tracker, the physical actualization of the company's grand plan to be the source of all the world's health data. The Band is part of the plan, but it's not the whole plan; the whole plan involves cross-platform apps, a machine-learning system that turns your data into "insights" about how to live better tomorrow, and a vast ecosystem of hardware and software developers collecting data and delivering insights. The Band is the first device, but it won't be the last, not even from Microsoft.

The Band looks and feels a bit like a prototype, a relatively unadorned wristband with a clever sliding clasp (so you can change how it fits without taking it off) and a 1.4-inch, 320 x 106 display on the front. There are two buttons below the display: one for waking the device, and the "action button," which you use to scroll through data or start and end a workout. I quickly paired it to my iPhone 6 via Bluetooth, downloaded the beautifully minimalist Microsoft Health app, and was off. It automatically started tracking my steps and heart rate, funneling the data back to the app every time I hit sync.

The hardware needs some work, but the software is already solid

Everything you do on the Band lives in a series of icon-sized tiles, off to the right of the screen. One screen shows me email, text, and phone call notifications (which seem to be stored until you look at them all). The next has my calendar, run information, and sleep data. You side-scroll through everything, only seeing a little at a time: I can't imagine doing very much with the Band, other than wearing it and letting it do what it does. Plus, contorting my hand to read the horizontal screen is already growing a little tiresome. It feels a little better on the underside of my wrist, but I don't really like banging a screen onto every surface I touch either. On the other hand, the interface is zippy and smooth, and the screen is very responsive; the hardware isn't terribly impressive here, but the software certainly is.

The Band is clearly a workout device

There are a few basic settings and a lot of notifications hidden among the tiles, but the Band is mostly a workout tool. I scrolled to the run icon, tapped the action button, turned on GPS, and was off. Doing the same with workouts was easy; I even downloaded a 14-minute ab workout to the Band and set out to get ripped. It worked well, tracking my movements and vitals, except that I don't know what a V-Up is. I'm pretty sure it's not "stand awkwardly and stare at your Band for eight sets of 20 seconds," but that's what I did. The Band did its job admirably, I just didn't do mine.

Throughout it all, notifications were coming in — text messages, emails, calls — and vibrating my wrist powerfully enough that there's no way I'm going to miss it. I couldn't do much other than dismiss them, since the Band doesn't connect to Siri the way it does Cortana on Windows Phone, but leaving my phone across the room is certainly nice.

I've only just scratched the surface of what the Band and Microsoft Health can do. We'll be reviewing the Band in much more detail in the coming days, but a couple of things are already clear. The Band is very much a first-version device, one that will benefit tremendously from refinement and improvement in the coming years. (Not to mention all the ways other developers will find to improve on the experience.) And much more excitingly, it's a remarkably powerful gadget. It knows my steps and my heart rate and Starbucks card information. It knows I'm doing a sit-up, it knows I'm not doing a V-Up, and it knows who's calling me. And it's going to do much more than that really soon.
Now for a nap. Let's see how that goes.

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Taylor Swift Thanks Her Fans in Times Square!

Taylor Swift Thanks Her Fans in Times Square!

Taylor Swift  new album 1989 is basically the best thing to have ever happened to music fans and Swifties everywhere – all of the songs are amazing and Taylor has been killing it on social media lately promoting the album. She’s also been doing appearances to spread the word, including hanging out on the set of Good Morning America today!

Tay hit up Times Square with the show to perform for and thank her fans, and the whole place was flooded with Swifties. “Thank you Good Morning America, thank you to everyone who filled Times Square, thank you New York. #TS1989,” Taylor wrote on Instagram.

We’re sure the concert was amazing, because how could Tay ever not be? 

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Shailene Woodley Reveals Her Biggest Fear

THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON

Actress Shailene Woodley from The Fault In Our Stars and Divergent appeared on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson and spoke about her biggest fear. While Shailene has to travel in the air a lot for work, her fear of flying keeps getting worse and worse - oh no!

Shailene spilled to Craig that she always thinks the plane is going to go down during her trips - such a scary thought! However, Craig was quick to assure Shailene that her fear is irrational as statistically speaking flying is very safe!

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Selena Gomez Will Have The First Wax Figure At Madame Tussauds Orlando

SPLASH NEWS

Great news for Selena Gomez fans! A wax figure of the Rudderless star is heading to the brand new Madame Tussauds location coming to Orlando, Florida.

Selena's wax figure will be the very first celebrity wax sculpture to be featured at the location when it opens to the public.

The new Madame Tussauds Orlando location is opening in early 2015. It's unclear if Selena has already posed for her wax figure measurements. Stay tuned!

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Zayn Malik's Hair is Officially Long Enough to Tie Back In a Ponytail

TUMBLR

First there was a quiff. Then there was a collection of headbands. Now, Zayn Malik's hair has officially grown long enough to tie back in a casual low ponytail. The singer showed off his new 'do while promoting One Direction's new album, "Four" with the band.

Niall Horan seems fascinated by it, and so are we!

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Ariana Grande's Sentimental Ring From Her Grandparents

Ariana Grande's Sentimental Ring From Her Grandparents

Ariana Grande's grandfather sadly passed away in July, but Ariana just received a new sentimental present from him. Ariana was gifted a gorgeous ring from her grandmother, made complete with one of her grandfather's pearls in it.

Ariana's grandmother told Ariana the ring came straight from her grandpa. Ariana Tweeted to fans about the new piece of jewelry:

"Nonna had a ring made for me with the pearl from grandpa's tie pin. She says he told her in a dream it'd protect me."

Our thoughts are with Ariana, who is still grieving over the loss of her grandpa.

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