07 June, 2016

Proton is another take on a system-wide mini music player [jailbreak]

The jailbreak community is one place where we can almost always count on developers to create new ways to interact with music throughout the system-wide iOS experience. New tweaks are released all the time that let you control your music without even being in the Music app itself, and each tries to be better than the last.

A relatively new tweak release, Proton, is available in Cydia and offers some unique functionality of its own. We’ll show you what it’s all about inside this review.

Proton: a mini music player you can access anywhere

Proton is another alternative to opening Control Center to control your music and to find out more information about whatever it is you’re listening to. The tweak’s small icon hovers around any interface you’re in, whether it’s an app, or the Home screen.

We’ve seen plenty of tweaks that act similarly to this, however as each one has its own unique user interface and options to configure, no two tweaks of this nature are ever truly 100% alike.

Proton has two forms: one where the floating icon, about the size of a Home screen app icon, hovers around with nothing more than the album art of whatever it is you’re listening to (this iscalled Unsnapped mode), the other is a floating widget, about the size of four Home screen app icons, and this form has all of the following things built into it (this is called Snapped mode):

Play and pause buttons

Forward and backward buttons

The name of the artist playing

The name of the song playing

The art of the album work as a background

You can toggle between Snapped and Unsnapped mode pretty easily by tapping and holding on the floating icon. Tapping on the icon in Unsnapped mode will pause or play the music.

Since the little floating icon can undoubtedly get in the way sometimes when you don’t want it to, you can easily tap and drag to move the icon anywhere on the screen where you might want it to be.

Even when that’s not enough, you’ll find that the tweak’s options will more than deal with this problem in a way suitable for you.

Configuring Proton

After you install Proton, you can immediately head over to the Settings app and start configuring the tweak via the new preferences pane to your liking.

The things you can do here include:

Enabling or disabling the tweak on demand

Viewing the gestures available in the tweak

Choose how the Proton UI is colored based off of the album artwork

Configuring a size for the Snapped “Proton” mode icon

Have the interface hidden when no media is playing at all

Have the interface automatically dismiss when not in use

Choose the timeout period before Proton is hidden automatically

Have the tweak look for updates automatically

Reset all settings to factory defaults

Without a doubt, one of the features I enabled immediately was the “Hide when not playing” option. This is because when I’m not listening to any music, I’d rather not have the interface in my face all the time, getting in the way of everything.

On the other hand, when I am listening to music, I seem not to mind it as much because the controls are at my fingertips immediately, no matter where in iOS I might be.

As far as the rest of the settings go, I recommend the default settings, although changing the style to Adaptive mode does add a touch of slightly sexy color matching, and that’s the only other setting I really changed:

Take note of the brown-colored base, which is different than the default shown at the start of this article. In adaptive mode, the music control buttons change between white or black, depending on the background it has to display over. Even the artist name and song title have the ability to change colors to adjust legibility.

My thoughts on Proton

Because I see so many tweaks always trying to compete to be the best music player for jailbroken devices, I initially thought to myself, “oh great… another one…”

After giving it a shot, however, it has managed to grow on me a little more. I probably wouldn’t use it on my daily driver, because I hate when things hover around on my screen when I’m trying to use my iPhone. Nevertheless, it is an option that’s out there for others who may feel differently than I do.

In terms of the price, which is set at $1.99, the feature set seems a little limited. In my opinion, this should be a $0.99 jailbreak tweak.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for something new to use while listening to your music, whether with Apple Music, Spotify, or another music service, Proton could offer a new kind of experience for you if you’re jailbroken. The tweak can be had from Cydia’s BigBoss repository for $1.99.

What are your thoughts on the idea behind Proton? Share in the comments below!

APPLE SEEDS 2nd DEVELOPER BETA'S FOR APPLE TV OS 9.2.2 AND MAC OS X 10.11.6

AND BETA 2.2.2 FOR NEW APPLE WATCH

In addition to iOS, Apple also seeded new betas for watchOS, tvOS and OS X on Monday. The betas are available to registered developers, and can be installed via the Apple Watch app on iPhone, OTA in tvOS for those with the latest beta profile, and the update tab in the Mac App Store.

The software version numbers are watchOS 2.2.2, tvOS 9.2.2 and OS X 10.11.6, and from what we saw in the first betas, they’re not adding any significant new features. The 10.11.6 change log reads “improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac,” and the others follow suit.

Keep in mind that we’re now just one week away from Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, which is set to kick off June 13. The company has already sent out press invites to its keynote address, where it’s expected to introduce its vision for the future of its four software platforms.

BIOLOGY PSYCHATRIST COULD HELP YOU FIND WHETHER YOU ARE RESPONSIVE TO ANTIDEPRESSANTS

Scientists have developed a blood test that could identify which people with depression will respond to treatment so that patients can avoid spending months taking antidepressants

that do not help them.The experts involved believe the breakthrough could lead to depressed patients receiving personalised treatments that are more likely to relieve their symptoms.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists said that, if it worked, the test could prove to be a key moment in the quest for the holy grail of biological psychiatry.

The scientists at King’s College London behind the development claim that their test “accurately and reliably predicts whether depressed patients will respond to common antidepressants, which could herald a new era of personalised treatment for people with depression”.

If the test proves effective it is hoped that by measuring patients’ level of blood inflammation it would identify which of them would benefit from receiving antidepressants soon after their diagnosis to stop their condition worsening.

About half of all patients with depression get no benefit from antidepressants the first time they take them and they never work for one in three people.

Currently it is impossible to establish who should or should not be given antidepressants, or combinations of them. That means that patients are tried on a succession of different drugs for 12 weeks or more and experience prolonged periods of ineffective treatment because their medication does not benefit them.

Researchers focused on two independent clinical groups of depressed patients on two biological markers that measure inflammation of the blood, as heightened levels are associated with poor response to antidepressants. They found that blood test results above certain levels reliably predicted how well patients would respond to commonly prescribed antidepressants. Their findings have been reported in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

“The identification of biomarkers that predict treatment response is crucial in reducing the social and economic burden of depression and improving quality of life for patients,” said Prof Carmine Pariante from KCL’s institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience.

“This study provides a clinically suitable approach for personalising antidepressants therapy. Patients who have blood inflammation above a certain threshold could be directed towards earlier access to more assertive antidepressant strategies, including the addition of other antidepressants or anti-inflammatory drugs,” Pariante added.

“Such a finding and a test to back it up would be critical to advancing our understanding of the biological causes of depression. It would accelerate our therapeutic interventions and make them more tailored to the needs of the patient.”

But further clinical research is needed to see if the findings can be applied in a clinical setting, Hallstrom added.

Stephen Buckley, head of information at the mental health charity Mind, said: “We welcome research which adds to our understanding of treatments and medications that may work for people experiencing mental health problems. These initial findings are interesting, but, as with all areas of mental health, there is still more research to be done.”

Mental health problems, including depression, are estimated to cost £105bn a year in England. The World Health Organisation has predicted that by 2020 depression will be the second biggest cause of health problems in the world.

06 June, 2016

A NEW MEMBER TO MICROSOFT OFFICE SUITE
MICROSOFT PLANNER

The Microsoft Office lineup is getting a new addition today: Microsoft Planner, team collaboration software that lets you visually organize plans, assign tasks, share files, chat and more. The new app, first introduced into testing last fall, enters a competitive space which includes pro software like Atlassian’s JIRA Core, as well as other easy-to-use tools from startups like Trello and Asana.

Very much like Trello, Planner also utilizes the concept of “Boards” to keep work organized. Within each Board are individual Cards that can have their own due dates, attachments, categories and conversations. These Cards can have documents or photos attached to make it easier to see – at a glance – what that Card is about, and the cards can be organized into columns called “Buckets” which can also be color-coded and prioritized.

Another key aspect to the software is the “Hub” where you can track the overall progress of the plans, see who’s on time and who’s behind, and filter down to see your own tasks and assignments.

What makes Microsoft’s offering compelling versus the competition is its integration with other Microsoft products – something that will appeal to organizations who are already invested in Microsoft’s Office suite and related services. For example, Planner is integrated into Office 365 Groups, which means that the conversations in Planner are also available in Outlook 2016, Outlook on the web, and the Outlook Groups Mobile Apps.

Planner is integrated with OneNote, as well – every plan has a OneNote Notebook created for it, the company says. And the software works with Office, as users can attach Word, Excel and PowerPoint files to a Card. This document, then, is stored in SharePoint Online document library, which makes it available offline, too.

As part of the Microsoft Office suite, Planner is an enterprise-ready tool, with support for technical requirements larger organizations demand, including multiple redundant backups, instantaneous recovery and HIPAA, FISMA, ISO27001 and EU Model compliance.

While Microsoft has long had a project management tool with Project, many people found this too complex or too robust for their needs. There’s a learning curve to being able to fully take advantage of Project, which is why, often, users simply turn to Excel for managing projects, or one of the newer solutions, like Trello.

But if a productivity app steals mindshare from Microsoft Office’s cash cow, the company tends to take action. Microsoft bought Yammer, Wunderlist,SwiftKey, Sunrise, and Acompli, and considered buying Slack, for example. In the case of Trello, it instead simply built its own.

Planner will fill Microsoft customers’ need for a more lightweight, easy-to-use tool and replacement for SharePoint Tasks, which were removed well ahead of Planner’s initial debut. (The Tasks page began to redirect users to Planner’s website a year ago, before Planner was formally introduced.)

Microsoft says that Planner is rolling out now over the next several weeks to all eligible Office 365 customers, including Office 365 Enterprise E1-E5, Business Essentials, Premium and Education subscription plans. These customers will see the Planner tile automatically appear in the Office 365 launcher when it becomes available

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