MacRumors

Fitbit today announced the Fitbit Alta HR, which the company is calling the "world's slimmest fitness wristband" that has a continuous heart rate monitor. The Alta HR launches just over a year after Fitbit debuted the original Fitbit Alta, which included new "Reminders to Move" to tell users to stand up and move around a bit, like Apple Watch stand notifications.

The main upgrade for the Fitbit Alta HR revolves around its ability to detect the user's heart rate throughout the day, thanks to the company's PurePulse technology. Additionally, the Alta HR will include all of the usual Fitbit benefits, like automatic exercise recognition, sleep tracking, a seven day battery life, smart notifications, and more.

Thanks to the bolstered heart rate technology, the Fitbit Alta HR also has a few improved sleep tracking features. "Sleep Stages" can detect how long each user spends in light, deep, and REM sleep, as well as detect how many times the user wakes up. "Sleep Insights" accumulates the large picture of each user's Fitbit data and actively tries to help "improve your sleep for better overall health."

Sleep Stages will be available on Alta HR, Blaze and Charge 2 Fitbit devices, while Sleep Insights will be available on any Fitbit "that tracks sleep via the Fitbit app."

“Alta HR and these powerful new sleep features demonstrate our continued focus on evolving our innovative technology to deliver deeper, more actionable insights to help our users improve their health,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit. “The miniaturization of our PurePulse heart rate technology opens up exciting opportunities for future generations of devices and new form factors. Our advances in sleep will provide millions of users around the globe accessibility to invaluable insights that previously could be obtained only through expensive lab tests.”

The company said that the Fitbit Alta HR is 25 percent slimmer than the Fitbit Charge 2, which is Fitbit's other heart rate-compatible wearable. The addition of heart rate monitoring will bolster the Alta HR's ability to better measure calorie burn all day, and subsequently help users stay on track for their fitness goals, according to Fitbit.

Like other Fitbit devices, the Alta HR will also be available in a variety of colors and bands. The basic models come in black, blue gray, fuchsia or coral with a matching aluminum tracker for $149.95. Two special editions include a soft pink classic band with 22k rose gold plated tracker and black classic band with matte gunmetal tracker for $179.95. The Fitbit Alta HR can be pre-ordered today and will launch online and in stores this April.

Although Fitbit remains the leader in the wearable field, the Apple Watch has proven to be a major contender in the market with a strong holiday 2016 boosting consumer knowledge of the Watch, most likely thanks to Apple's marketing pivot from presenting it as a fashion accessory to a workout/fitness companion. The numbers come from research firm IDC, which simultaneously marked the same quarter as one of Fitbit's "largest declines ever," although it still remains atop the market in terms of units shipped and market share.

Bragi announced its Dash earphones at CES way back in 2015, when wireless Bluetooth headsets were still relatively niche. Since then we've seen Apple, Samsung, and a host of other companies launch their own "truly wireless" headphones, prompting Bragi to give the market another pop with "The Headphone" ($149), a less expensive, more awkwardly named variant of its original cord-free buds.

Announced last September two days before the Apple iPhone 7 event, The Headphone only began shipping in January, so Bragi has had plenty of time to iron out any last-minute kinks. Not that there should be any. The Headphone buds are a lot less ambitious than the Dash.

They don't have touch-sensitive controls, for one. Bragi has also done away with the internal music player, heart-rate monitoring and fitness tracking features found in the company's original wireless buds. Are they susceptible to the same connection problems that initially befell the Dash? And how do they compare against Apple's AirPods? Let's find out.

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A few Facebook Messenger users have noticed that the company's "Reactions" are available to use within the app and on the web, along with a long-requested dislike -- or thumbs down -- button (via TechCrunch). Similar to Tapback in the iOS 10 Messages app, to use Reactions in Facebook Messenger users simply have to hover over a specific message and tap the small emoji button.

From there, the app will provide the standard set of Facebook Reactions, including emojis for love, laughter, amazed, sad, and angry. Thumbs up is still available, as well as the all-new thumbs down, which Facebook has said in the past that it wants to avoid using on the main social media site to avoid overt negativity among friends and family members. When Reactions originally launched around a year ago, Facebook aimed for them to be a more nuanced and diverse way to react to posts that was more varied than a simple thumbs up or thumbs down response.

Facebook confirmed this new feature to TechCrunch, saying “We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable people to share an emoji that best represents their feelings on a message.”

But, according to a statement from the company, within Facebook Messenger the dislike button is being seen as a simple "no" response. Similar to iOS Messages and Slack, Facebook said that its Messenger app is used for coordination and planning, and the addition of message-specific reaction buttons helps streamline plans among large groups of friends.

As is the case with these small tests, it's unclear whether or not Reactions in Facebook Messenger will expand to all users at one point. Last year, the company began testing out a disappearing post feature within Messenger in Poland and Australia, called "Messenger Day." Earlier this year, it launched a similar feature, now called "Facebook Stories," but within the mainline Facebook app for users in Ireland. Neither Snapchat-like update has launched worldwide.

Update 3/23: Facebook has launched Reactions in Messenger worldwide, as well as introduced a new @ mentions feature for the separate messaging app.

Google's search algorithms came under renewed fire on Sunday after the BBC highlighted examples in which the company's Google Home smart speaker promotes "fake news" and conspiracy theories through its virtual assistant.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones tweeted a video yesterday that appears to show the smart device responding to the question "Is Obama planning a coup?" with the reply: "Obama may in fact be planning a Communist coup d'etat at the end of his term in 2016."

In another example, Search Editor Land editor Danny Sullivan asked his Google Home "Are Republicans fascists?", to which it replied: "Yes. Republicans equals Nazis."

As pointed out by Business Insider, the fault lies in Google's Featured Snippets feature, which corrals data from the web to provide the user with a supposedly definitive answer to a query typed into the Google search bar.

A version of the feature powers Google Assistant, the company's voice-activated virtual assistant, which is built into the Google Home smart speaker and some smartphones. The algorithms Google uses to verify online sources of information appear to be at fault, but the issue is arguably worse on smart devices because the answers they provide are plucked from the web without context since users are not actively viewing the source.

A Google spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that "Featured Snippets in Search provide an automatic and algorithmic match to a given search query, and the content comes from third-party sites. Unfortunately, there are instances when we feature a site with inappropriate or misleading content. When we are alerted to a Featured Snippet that violates our policies, we work quickly to remove them, which we have done in this instance. We apologise for any offense this may have caused."

Google has come in for criticism before for its predictive search results, but the problem of "fake news" in particular was identified during last year's U.S. Presidential election, and led companies like Facebook to make statements about the action they have taken to bring the quality of articles to users' attention.

Apple is also said to be working on ways to ensure its content delivery services can identify and prevent conspiracy theories being peddled as legitimate news, according to Apple's senior vice president of software and services, Eddy Cue. "We're trying to do some things in Apple News, we're learning from that and we need to share that together as an industry and improve it," he said last month.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has called fake news "one of today's chief problems" and that "we have to give the consumer tools" to deal with the challenge.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

The iconic home button has been a mainstay of Apple design ever since the first iPhone debuted in 2007. Even the buttons on the elevators at Apple Park are said to resemble it. The button's tactile circularity promises an escape route to familiarity should users get lost or apps go wrong. However, its delicate components converge upon a recess in the phone's bezel, an area that could otherwise provide extra space to fit a larger display within the same handset profile.

Rumors that the "iPhone 8" will replace the home button as we know it with an entirely virtual one can be traced back to April 2016. More recently, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that Apple will introduce a functionally distinct area below the screen exclusively for displaying virtual buttons, with a rumor over the weekend seeming to suggest that such a "function bar" is the reason behind conflicting reports over the display size of an upcoming OLED iPhone.

Before the "function bar" rumor first surfaced, MacRumors forum member deuxani shared concept images, reproduced below, that offer some context for imagining how the bar might work.

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Apple is currently promoting Vantage Calendar as its Free App of the Week on the iOS App Store. Notable for its novel visual approach to calendar presentation, the app also features a number of lively design options for highlighting upcoming events in the user's schedule.

Central to Vantage is a 3D vertical timeline that users scroll up and down to move forwards and backwards through their calendar. Navigation is also mirrored by a horizontally scrolling strip across the top of the interface, which can be expanded to a monthly view with a single tap, or two taps for a more detailed view that fills the screen.

Adding an upcoming event is achieved by scrolling to the appropriate day and tapping the plus symbol, which causes an event card to expand fullscreen, where options exist to adjust the usual event options, as well as apply a color, sticker, and even a particular font to the event to make it more prominent in the timeline.

Vantage also includes a 2D horizontally scrolling hourly view of each day of the week, as well as a vertically scrolling flat panel view of the days ahead, both of which are accessible via a tab on the right of the main screen.

In addition, several different color themes can be found in the app's settings, which include a number of other visually impacting options.

Usually $3.99, Vantage Calendar is currently free on the App Store and is available to download for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Casetify to give MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone case, iPad case, and Apple Watch Band, all of which can be customized to each person's liking.

Casetify, for those unfamiliar with the site, offers a whole range of products that can be ordered in one of many artist-designed patterns or created using custom images. For this giveaway, we're offering a Wallet case for the iPhone, a Folio case for the iPad, and the Saffiano leather Apple Watch Band.

The Wallet case, priced at $55 for the iPhone 7 and $60 for the iPhone 7 Plus, is made from Saffiano leather and features a protective cover that can be customized with a photo or design. It has two card slots for credit cards and an inner pocket for carrying cash and other essentials. There's also a spot for a SIM card and a SIM PIN for when traveling overseas.

Casetify's Folio case, priced starting at $60, is available for the iPad mini, iPad Air 2, and 9.7-inch iPad Pro. Like the Wallet case for the iPhone, it is made from Saffiano leather and features a customizable cover. It offers full device protection while leaving all ports easily accessible, and inside, there's space for credit cards, passports, and other documents.

The Saffiano Apple Watch Band, priced at $52, is one of Casetify's newest products. Available for 38 and 42mm Apple Watch models, the band can be purchased with lugs that match several different watch finishes and like all Casetify products, it can be customized with a user's own image or design. The band is scratch resistant, to keep it looking nice, and sweat resistant, so it can be worn even when working out.

We have three Casetify prize packs to give away. Users will be able to choose a Wallet case and a Folio case that fits their device, along with an Apple Watch band in the appropriate size. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner and send the prize. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

The contest will run from today (March 3) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on March 10. The winners will be chosen randomly on March 10 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

Apple has uploaded a pair of new Apple Music ads called "Best British Male" and "Best British Female" to its YouTube channel in the United Kingdom. The 30-second spots, narrated by Beats 1 radio host Julie Adenuga, were aired during The BRIT Awards for pop music in the United Kingdom on February 22.

The ads are in line with a report that said Apple is shifting its focus towards regional marketing campaigns. Apple Music has over 20 million subscribers, which still trails market leader Spotify, which yesterday revealed it has 50 million paying subscribers. Apple Music launched around the world in June 2015.

After a period of testing earlier in the year, Facebook recently began rolling out a new tourism feature called "City Guides" to its iOS app for a number of users (via The Next Web). Located in the Explore tab of the app -- similar to the recently expanded Weather feature -- City Guides presents users with a list of cities visited by their friends and provides recommendations on places to eat, visit, and stay on a future trip.

After tapping on a city, the app provides a list of friends who have been to the location along with the places they checked into while they were there. So if you're looking for restaurant or hotel suggestions, it's easy to bookmark the hotspots right in the app and message a friend to see what they think about it. Further down the page is a "Places The Locals Go" section that lists popular spots based on each location's Facebook page rating.

City Guides also provide insight into upcoming events in each city to help plan a trip, as well as giving tourists a scrollable list of popular attractions to stop by when they arrive. Users will be able to jump into City Guides directly from the home screen as well, thanks to a redirection prompt placed under city check-in posts of their friends and family.

While Facebook is dedicated to bolstering its video content across many devices, the company is consistently adding minor updates like City Guides to its mobile app, even introducing a way for users to apply for a job without leaving Facebook.

The City Guides feature is said to be available for a small group of users at first before a wider rollout. Facebook is available on the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]