Month: October 2023
Google Search can help you with your math homework thanks to new update
You can enter that tricky equation for help on desktop or upload a picture of your homework via Google Lens.
Google is updating its search engine and Lens tool with new features to help students visualize and solve tricky math problems.
We’re not talking about basic arithmetic either. The upgraded Google Search can now tackle more complex forms of math like calculus and trigonometry. All you have to do is type in the equation or integral into the text bar at the top or take a picture of your homework with Lens. You’ll then see a series of step-by-step instructions explaining how to solve it with the answer at the bottom. Geometry is also supported with the company recommending people use Google Lens to solve those since they can have diagrams. You won’t be able to draw shapes into the search bar so uploading a photo of the equation is your best bet.
(Image credit: Google)
Additionally, you can type in word problems for physics questions. Google Search will highlight the “known and unknown values” and then show you the correct formula to use for that particular equation. As an example, if you need to find out the average acceleration of a cyclist going down a hill, it’ll tell you the specific kinetic formula needed.
(Image credit: Google)
The math update is currently live on desktop and the mobile app. Google states you can type the phrase “math solver” in the search bar to try out their new experience on desktop. However, when we did, nothing popped up. It’s possible this could be referring to future expansion, but we’re not sure. Either way, feel free to directly type the math problem into the search bar. You don’t need to bring up anything else.
Advancement in science
Alongside the mathematics help, Google is rolling out interactive 3D models for certain fields of science such as physics, biology, and chemistry. The diagrams will let you zoom into an object as well as provide definitions of what you’re looking at.
At the time of this writing, the patch doesn’t appear to be widely available. We saw interactive 3D models for basic concepts like individual parts of a cell and periodic elements, but nothing for specific types of cells or molecules. You can look up a model for an oxygen atom, but not a carbon dioxide molecule for instance. What’s more, nothing had a definition. It was just the model.
We reached out to Google asking if this patch is seeing a global release or will only be available in a few countries like the United States. We’ll update this story if we hear back.
Undoubtedly, this will help students advance in their courses. But don’t forget about the hardware. If you’re in the market for a computer, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best student laptops for 2023.
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‘The Beauty of Finished Software’
Jose M. Gilgado:
Our expectations for software are different from other products we
use in our daily lives.
When we buy a physical product, we accept that it won’t change in
its lifetime. We’ll use it until it wears off, and we replace it.
We can rely on that product not evolving; the gas pedal in my car
will always be in the same place.
However, when it comes to software, we usually have the ingrained
expectations of perpetual updates. We believe that if software
doesn’t evolve it’ll be boring, old and unusable. If we see an
app with no updates in the last year, we think the creator might
be dead.
(Via Dave Winer.)
★
Jose M. Gilgado:
Our expectations for software are different from other products we
use in our daily lives.
When we buy a physical product, we accept that it won’t change in
its lifetime. We’ll use it until it wears off, and we replace it.
We can rely on that product not evolving; the gas pedal in my car
will always be in the same place.
However, when it comes to software, we usually have the ingrained
expectations of perpetual updates. We believe that if software
doesn’t evolve it’ll be boring, old and unusable. If we see an
app with no updates in the last year, we think the creator might
be dead.
DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
DoorDash has added a pop-up in its app this week warning customers that orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered. Upon seeing the prompt in a since-deleted tweet on X, formerly Twitter, The Verge confirmed that if you enter $0 in the tip amount in the DoorDash app while placing an order, an alert appears with the below warning, prompting you to add a tip or continue without a tip:
Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered — are you sure you want to continue? Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do. Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in slower delivery.
The move appears to be an effort by DoorDash to show customers that drivers are likely going to prioritize more profitable work. If they don’t see a tip, they may choose not to take the job. It appears the prompt is not yet live in every locale; one Verge colleague in New Jersey got it, while another in South Carolina didn’t. (Neither proceeded to place an order without a tip, however!)
Screenshot: Alex Cranz / The Verge
Pre-tipping in the DoorDash app is now encouraged for faster service.
While tipping isn’t something anyone who lives in America should be surprised about doing (or should ever consider not doing without a really good reason), pre-tipping is a relatively new concept in our gig economy.
It’s entirely plausible you might be planning to tip your DoorDasher with cash or intend to bestow a giant tip on the driver when they arrive promptly and with piping hot food or perfectly packed groceries, something you can still do in the DoorDash app post-delivery.
The driver preference for pre-tipped orders may be linked to DoorDash’s somewhat convoluted courier payment method, which was reworked following revelations that DoorDash was not giving drivers the full amount of customer tips.
In 2019, DoorDash restructured its payments to drop the controversial “tipped wage” method and pay a base rate with 100 percent of tips going to drivers. The knock-on effect of this, however, makes orders without tips less appealing to drivers.
According to The New York Times, the way DoorDash’s payment structure previously worked was that if a driver got a guaranteed base rate of $6.85 for an order, but the customer tipped $3, the driver would still get $6.85. Now, it seems that an order without a tip will show at that base rate, which DoorDash says ranges from $2 to $10 “depending on the estimated time, distance, and desirability of the order.”
The difference is that the driver gets to keep all of any tip given, but without knowing they are getting one, you can see why they’d pick a $6 order (where the customer included a $4 tip) over a $2 order and the hope that the customer plans to tip.
I did DoorDash for over a yearI’ve seen offers to drive 10+ miles for 4 dollars because there’s no tip includedI passed over every single one and so did everyone elseIf you want to wait an extra 1-2 hours to get your food, then don’t add an extra dollar or twoYour call https://t.co/SHcxOwSVbp— Colin (@IntroSpecktive) October 31, 2023
A person claiming to be a former DoorDash driver posted on X that he often passed up offers where no tip was included, as those with tips had more of a guarantee for his time. “If you want to wait an extra 1-2 hours to get your food, then don’t add an extra dollar or two,” is his advice.
We’ve reached out to DoorDash and will update this story when we hear back.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
DoorDash has added a pop-up in its app this week warning customers that orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered. Upon seeing the prompt in a since-deleted tweet on X, formerly Twitter, The Verge confirmed that if you enter $0 in the tip amount in the DoorDash app while placing an order, an alert appears with the below warning, prompting you to add a tip or continue without a tip:
Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered — are you sure you want to continue? Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do. Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in slower delivery.
The move appears to be an effort by DoorDash to show customers that drivers are likely going to prioritize more profitable work. If they don’t see a tip, they may choose not to take the job. It appears the prompt is not yet live in every locale; one Verge colleague in New Jersey got it, while another in South Carolina didn’t. (Neither proceeded to place an order without a tip, however!)
Screenshot: Alex Cranz / The Verge
Pre-tipping in the DoorDash app is now encouraged for faster service.
While tipping isn’t something anyone who lives in America should be surprised about doing (or should ever consider not doing without a really good reason), pre-tipping is a relatively new concept in our gig economy.
It’s entirely plausible you might be planning to tip your DoorDasher with cash or intend to bestow a giant tip on the driver when they arrive promptly and with piping hot food or perfectly packed groceries, something you can still do in the DoorDash app post-delivery.
The driver preference for pre-tipped orders may be linked to DoorDash’s somewhat convoluted courier payment method, which was reworked following revelations that DoorDash was not giving drivers the full amount of customer tips.
In 2019, DoorDash restructured its payments to drop the controversial “tipped wage” method and pay a base rate with 100 percent of tips going to drivers. The knock-on effect of this, however, makes orders without tips less appealing to drivers.
According to The New York Times, the way DoorDash’s payment structure previously worked was that if a driver got a guaranteed base rate of $6.85 for an order, but the customer tipped $3, the driver would still get $6.85. Now, it seems that an order without a tip will show at that base rate, which DoorDash says ranges from $2 to $10 “depending on the estimated time, distance, and desirability of the order.”
The difference is that the driver gets to keep all of any tip given, but without knowing they are getting one, you can see why they’d pick a $6 order (where the customer included a $4 tip) over a $2 order and the hope that the customer plans to tip.
I did DoorDash for over a year
I’ve seen offers to drive 10+ miles for 4 dollars because there’s no tip included
I passed over every single one and so did everyone else
If you want to wait an extra 1-2 hours to get your food, then don’t add an extra dollar or two
Your call https://t.co/SHcxOwSVbp
— Colin (@IntroSpecktive) October 31, 2023
A person claiming to be a former DoorDash driver posted on X that he often passed up offers where no tip was included, as those with tips had more of a guarantee for his time. “If you want to wait an extra 1-2 hours to get your food, then don’t add an extra dollar or two,” is his advice.
We’ve reached out to DoorDash and will update this story when we hear back.
The Best VPN for Streaming in 2023 – CNET
You can bypass geographic restrictions and give yourself access to an entire world of entertainment with one of CNET’s top picks for the best streaming VPNs.
You can bypass geographic restrictions and give yourself access to an entire world of entertainment with one of CNET’s top picks for the best streaming VPNs.
Deltarune’s next chapter is nearly finished
Image: Toby Fox
Deltarune fans, consider your bones trousled. On Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of Deltarune’s release, Undertale and Deltarune developer Toby Fox shared some wonderful news worthy of a spooky celebration. In a development update, Fox shared that Deltarune’s third chapter is “nearing completion” and outlined his plans for the game’s full release.
“Chapter 3 is pretty much content complete! There will be essentially no more changes to dialogue or gameplay from here,” Fox wrote on his website, interspersed with cute Halloween-themed sprites of everyone’s favorite monster crew.
Though Fox explained that there is still more work to be done on Chapter 3 before it can be released in full, he said that his team has mostly transitioned to working on Chapter 4 and that development on that should be smoother.
In addition to sharing progress on Deltarune’s latest chapters, Fox also explained how Deltarune’s wider commercial release was going to work. “My original plan was to release Chapter 3, 4, and 5 together,” he wrote. “However, the finish line of Chapter 5 is still pretty far off… and I don’t think anybody really wants to wait that long to release anything.”
Fox wrote that his new plan will be to release Deltarune for purchase once Chapter 4 is complete. Fox shared no dates or timeline for release but did say that a “substantial amount” of work had been done on the chapter already in addition to bringing in a producer to make the process even smoother.
Fox also wrote that he plans on pausing detailed development updates for a while.
“Instead, I’ll just let you guys know if the development is getting close to completion, or if something funny happens.”
Image: Toby Fox
Deltarune fans, consider your bones trousled. On Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of Deltarune’s release, Undertale and Deltarune developer Toby Fox shared some wonderful news worthy of a spooky celebration. In a development update, Fox shared that Deltarune’s third chapter is “nearing completion” and outlined his plans for the game’s full release.
“Chapter 3 is pretty much content complete! There will be essentially no more changes to dialogue or gameplay from here,” Fox wrote on his website, interspersed with cute Halloween-themed sprites of everyone’s favorite monster crew.
Though Fox explained that there is still more work to be done on Chapter 3 before it can be released in full, he said that his team has mostly transitioned to working on Chapter 4 and that development on that should be smoother.
In addition to sharing progress on Deltarune’s latest chapters, Fox also explained how Deltarune’s wider commercial release was going to work. “My original plan was to release Chapter 3, 4, and 5 together,” he wrote. “However, the finish line of Chapter 5 is still pretty far off… and I don’t think anybody really wants to wait that long to release anything.”
Fox wrote that his new plan will be to release Deltarune for purchase once Chapter 4 is complete. Fox shared no dates or timeline for release but did say that a “substantial amount” of work had been done on the chapter already in addition to bringing in a producer to make the process even smoother.
Fox also wrote that he plans on pausing detailed development updates for a while.
“Instead, I’ll just let you guys know if the development is getting close to completion, or if something funny happens.”
Twitch ditches Switch
Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
Twitch is pulling the plug on its Nintendo Switch app; the streaming company is “ending support” for the app, according to a support page. It will be removing the app from the Nintendo eShop on November 6th and people who already have it downloaded will “lose access” on January 31st, 2024.
Twitch launched its Switch app in late 2021, but users have voiced some complaints with the app. You can’t see a stream’s chat, for example, meaning you have to use another device if you want to see what other people are talking about or type a message of your own. You can’t subscribe to creators if you want to support them. And you also can’t use the app to broadcast your own gameplay.
I’ve asked Twitch if it can share more information about why it’s shutting down the app. But if you’ve relied on the app to watch your favorite streamers, you’ll soon have to watch them on another platform.
Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
Twitch is pulling the plug on its Nintendo Switch app; the streaming company is “ending support” for the app, according to a support page. It will be removing the app from the Nintendo eShop on November 6th and people who already have it downloaded will “lose access” on January 31st, 2024.
Twitch launched its Switch app in late 2021, but users have voiced some complaints with the app. You can’t see a stream’s chat, for example, meaning you have to use another device if you want to see what other people are talking about or type a message of your own. You can’t subscribe to creators if you want to support them. And you also can’t use the app to broadcast your own gameplay.
I’ve asked Twitch if it can share more information about why it’s shutting down the app. But if you’ve relied on the app to watch your favorite streamers, you’ll soon have to watch them on another platform.
Google plans RISC-V Android tools in 2024, wants developers to “be ready”
We’ve got RISC-V OS support, incoming chips, and soon, an app ecosystem.
Enlarge (credit: Google)
Android is slowly entering the RISC-V era. So far we’ve seen Google say it wants to give the up-and-coming CPU architecture “tier-1” support in Android, putting RISC-V on equal footing with Arm. Qualcomm has announced the first mass-market RISC-V Android chip, a still-untitled Snapdragon Wear chip for smartwatches. Now Google has announced a timeline for developer tools via the Google Open Source Blog. The last post is titled “Android and RISC-V: What you need to know to be ready.”
Getting the Android OS and app ecosystem to support a new architecture is going to take an incredible amount of work from Google and developers, and these tools are laying the foundation for that work. First up, Google already has the “Cuttlefish” virtual device emulator running, including a gif of it booting up. This isn’t the official “Android Emulator”—which is targeted at app developers doing app development—Cuttlefish is a hardware emulator for Android OS development. It’s the same idea as the Android Emulator but for the bottom half of the tech stack—the kernel, framework, and hardware bits. Cuttlefish lets Google and other Android OS contributors work on a RISC-V Android build without messing with an individual RISC-V device. Google says it’s working well enough now that you can download and emulate a RISC-V device today, though the company warns that nothing is optimized yet.
The next step is getting the Android Emulator (for app developers) up and running, and Google says: “By 2024, the plan is to have emulators available publicly, with a full feature set to test applications for various device form factors!” The nice thing about Android is that most app code is written with no architecture in mind—it’s all just Java/Kotlin. So once the Android RunTime starts spitting out RISC-V code, a lot of app code should Just Work. That means most of the porting work will need to go into things written in the NDK, the native developer kit, like libraries and games. The emulator will still be great for testing, though.
What not to do when getting your grocery startup off the ground with Abhi Ramesh from Misfits Market
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Abhi Ramesh, the founder and CEO at Misfits Market, the e-commerce site where customers can buy ugly or off-looking produce, meat or seafood in an effort to reduce food waste. Ramesh talked about: How he
© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Abhi Ramesh, the founder and CEO at Misfits Market, the e-commerce site where customers can buy ugly or off-looking produce, meat or seafood in an effort to reduce food waste. Ramesh talked about: How he […]
© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.