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Twitter blocks animated PNGs to keep trolls from using them to trigger seizures (updated)
Twitter will no longer animate PNG files after trolls hijacked the Epilepsy Foundation's handle and hashtags last month to send potentially seizure-inducing images to epileptic and photo-sensitive individuals. The company says it recently discovered a bug that had allowed people to add multiple animated images to a tweet and bypass Twitter's autoplay protections using the file format. That said, Twitter also says it isn't aware that anyone used APNG to try and trigger seizures; it just wants to avoid the possibility that people do so in the future.
Roku's official iOS and Android remote apps add 'Play on Roku' to stream music and pics
Along with price and release date details of its new Streaming Stick plus the launch of Vudu, Roku is announcing upgrades for its mobile remote control apps. Hinted at earlier this year when software updates went out to its newer boxes preparing them for future upgrades, the updates for its official app on Android and iOS bring a new "Play on Roku" feature. While it's not quite as feature-filled as AirPlay or DLNA streaming, it will allow owners to present images (JPG or PNG) and DRM-free music files (MP3 or M4A) right through their home theater with the press of a button. The update also includes international support, the ability to name different Roku boxes, a one touch quick rewind button and a few other tweaks. Currently there's no support for video or anything else more complicated, but we're told this is a first step as it plans to build up the second screen experience going forward. Hit your respective app stores to try out the new feature yourself, or check out the press release and demo video after the break.
Plex shows you how to make your TV shows look great with its new Local Media Agent
Out friends at Plex have shuttled out a new Local Media Agent that'll enable you to make your TV shows look great. The updated software lets you add show and season posters, banners, background art, theme music and individual episode thumbnails to your recorded shows to make each one really, really good-looking. It'll happily handle PNG and FLAC files for those lossless enthusiasts and it'll even overlook a messy file structure to get everything looking great. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to catalog our Community episodes with thumbnails of Dean Pelton's outfits.
Adafruit's Monochron retro clock now on sale, changes time with every match point
You might have the vaguest of memories seeing this piece before -- it made a cameo in an Engadget Show segment -- but here we are with a much clearer picture of Adafruit Industries' Monochron clock, now also on sale! As is its modus operandi, the timepiece is open source... but should you plan on sticking to default, you'll be gifted with a great retro-style Table Tennis for two. The best part? The time changes whenever the clock "loses" -- something tells us that gives one side at least a 59-to-1 advantage. See for yourself after the break.
Triangles back on the Leopard Dock
Ever since we first saw the new Dock with its reflective surfaces and little glowing lights under open apps, people have gotten nostalgic for the old Tiger Dock and its less flashy ways. First we showed you how to de-gloss the new Dock, and now Mike at Silver Mac has cooked up a way to get those black triangles back.Turns out it's not super hard to do-- inside the Dock app folder, there's just three .png files that serve as "Dock indicators," so all you have to do is change those (definitely back up what's there, however), and you should be in business. The Dock now scales those indicators based on size, so there's three files to replace-- at your own risk, natch-- and you're all set.Thanks, Mike!
iPhone screenshot utility
Earlier today, I learned about this iPhone screen shot snippet meant to be used inside an application. It produces PDF results. After playing with the code and realizing it probably couldn't be expanded to a general purpose screenshot utility, I decided to write one from scratch by taking advantage of UIApplication's _dumpScreenContents: protocol. My screenshot utility, which you can download here runs from the command line and produces a PNG output of your screen. I look forward to using this tool. It's certainly going to be a lot easier than trying to light the iPhone correctly and avoid reflections while snapping pictures with a digital camera. Update: My daughter figured out that if you set the iPhone to never sleep and put it into camera mode, you can script it to take screen shots every minute (or five minutes or however long) to take time lapse series of images. We are so going to try this out. Update 2: Tried it out. Only gets about 4 pictures per minute when in a loop so video is a no-go.
Give the Sudoku grid a new look
The Nintendo DS is rife with Sudoku releases, both commercial and unofficial. Dress them up with mini-cakes or martial arts if you want to, but it's getting harder and harder for these games to keep us interested with each passing week.Leave it to homebrew superstar Mollusk to add some life to the number puzzle. As its name implies, Skinz Sudoku allows you to customize almost every visual detail of its interface. Dropping a PNG template into the game's included PAFS.bat file spits out a unique Skinz Sudoku ROM with your graphics. Jump past the post break for some examples of the different themes.Think of the possibilities! Design your screens with lightning bolts! Replace all of the numbers with Pokémon heads! Scan in a photo of your secret crush with a word balloon that says, "I luv u! Plz date me!" Just don't let anyone catch you locking lips with your DS after staring into his or her eyes for too long. Seriously guys, that's weird.
iWeb Optimizer - easily shrink oversized images
iWeb Optimizer is a simple Automator app that allows you to easily compress PNG images inside your iWeb site into JPG files, but it maintains the same file name so it doesn't break any of your links or images. Simply drag and drop the site folder that iWeb creates (be it in your iDisk or an exported directory you specified) onto iWeb Optimizer and let it work its magic. The handy little utility will also parse all your subdirectories, making sure no PNG is safe from a little JPG compression.iWeb Optimizer is free and available from Automator World.
