Recent News app: Your news, customized, now. Powered by artificial intelligence.

Recent News tip: Syncing your account without Facebook

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 14:14:50 -0800

We've heard from some users that they don't like to using Facebook (or simply won't use Facebook) to sync their Recent News accounts across multiple devices.

Fortunately, there's a way that doesn't require a Facebook account!

First, some background. After you read, share, or bookmark at least five articles, our Android or iOS app will ask our recommendation engine to create what we call an "implicit account."

Once your implicit account is created, your suggested articles (in your Recommendations tab) will start appearing. At the same time, your bookmarks, history, and topics you follow shift from local storage to the recommendation engine. In other words, if you've been using Recent App for more than a few minutes, you already have an account on our recommendation engine—and no Facebook account is required.

Here's how to sync your Recent News account across multiple devices without Facebook:

On device #1, from the main screen, tap on the Search icon in the top right. Then type: ///showid
You should see a message saying: "Copied user ID to clipboard". Transfer that 32-character user ID to device #2 (using email, Bluetooth, etc.).
Switch to device #2. From the main screen, tap on the Search icon in the top right. Then type: ///sync
Paste (or, if you really want, type in) your user ID where it says "Paste your existing user ID..." It will be 32 characters.
You should see a message saying your existing account is loaded. That means your recommendations, history, bookmarks, and topics are now synchronized.

Some screenshots of the process are below.

Yes, this is a kludge—we created it for internal testing and...Read More

Recent News featured by Killer Startups, Netted by the Webbys

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:32:39 -0800

We were delighted to see that Netted by the Webbys (created by the Webby Awards folks) published a review of Recent News for iOS and Android today. They liked how our amazingly smart app "learns your tastes, adjusts your recommendations, and suggests other categories you might like."

Killer Startups also reviewed Recent News. They loved how our recommendation engine grows more intelligent the more you use it. Here's an excerpt from their review:

If you haven't already, you can download the current versions of Recent News—it's free!—from the App Store here and from Google Play here.

Posted by Declan McCullagh, co-founder & CEO (@declanm)

How Recent News protects your privacy

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 15:46:10 -0800

A legal victory this week has highlighted how the FBI uses National Security Letters, which don't require a judge's approval, to obtain user records from Internet companies.

This is a good time to remind Recent News users of our commitment to your privacy. You trust our recommendation engine to learn your interests—so Recent News can grow smarter the more you use it—and we want to be worthy of that trust.

Here are some of the steps we take to protect your privacy:

• You can use Recent News anonymously. Unlike some of our competitors, we don't require you to provide your email address, your name, your phone number, your friends' identities, or your social network login to receive amazingly good recommendations. Our recommendation engine is smart enough to learn your interests based on what you read, share, bookmark, etc. inside the app—we don't need to know your real name.

• Limit log storage. Our recommendation engine stores up to 1 gigabyte of logs for no more than 90 days. Now that we have tens of thousands of users, we're filling up that 1 gigabyte of log storage in 54 days—that is, we're reaching the storage limit before the time limit. (Put another way, given our current usage levels, logs that are 55 days old or older will not be stored.)

• SSL. Requests from the iOS and Android Recent News apps to our recommendation engine are encrypted.

• Protecting location privacy. To provide local news, we don't need to know your exact location, only the general area you're in. On Android we request your device's general area (developers will recognize this as the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission, not the more precise...Read More

Recent News now has improved iOS 9 support and reader view

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 12:33:57 -0800

We're happy to say that Apple yesterday published the latest version of Recent News with improved support for iOS 9.

The biggest change is using Safari View Controller by default for reading news articles. This will be activated only if your device is running iOS 9, of course—devices running an older version of the operating system will continue to use a webview by default.

(If you're using iOS 9 and would like to continue using an in-app webview to read articles, go to the Settings menu and unselect "Enable reader view".)We're not enabling by default a Safari View Controller feature called "entersReaderIfAvailable." That feature automatically conceals ads on sites with reader view available. So ads will be visible unless you tap the reader view button.

But in response to user requests, we are giving you a way to experiment with "entersReaderIfAvailable." There's a hidden feature in yesterday's release of Recent News that will let you enter reader view by default—assuming, of course, that reader view is available for that site.

To activate that hidden feature from the Recent News home screen, tap on the search icon and then type: ///reader

Once you do that you should see an alert saying "Readability mode enabled," as in the screenshot immediately below. If it doesn't work, make sure you've updated Recent News to the latest version, currently 1.2.

Our intent in developing Recent News...Read More

The right way to block ads on news sites

Fri, 02 Oct 2015 00:00:00 -0700

Recent News for iOS will soon have reader view—which displays the text of news articles but not the advertisements.

Background: We're implementing a feature that Apple built into iOS 9 called Safari View Controller. It lets users tap on a button to switch to reader view, which intelligently hides ads but not images from the article itself.

We're implementing the controller not only because our users really, really want it, but also because it's a better experience overall. The controller is faster and more stable on large webpages than the in-app webview we currently use in iOS, it integrates well with Safari, it has a nicer UI for navigation, and on devices with 3D Touch it provides automatic peek for links.

This was a difficult decision because we want to support good journalism, and, at the margin, not showing advertisements could affect news organizations' revenue.

We're sympathetic to this point. One of our founders is a former technology journalist for CNET and Wired and we're the first news app (that we're aware of, at least) using article quality as an input to our recommendation engine. Recent News wouldn't exist without excellent journalism.

So what we're doing is not implementing a controller feature called "entersReaderIfAvailable." That feature hides ads by default on sites with reader view available. Because we're not enabling that feature, ads will always be loaded by default.

We'll revisit this decision in a month or so and see if it still makes sense—especially...Read More

Recent News launches! Now publicly available for iOS and Android

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 00:00:00 -0700

We're happy to announce that Recent News, our iOS and Android app that gives you personalized news in just a few minutes, is now available to download.

Recent News learns your interests, suggests relevant articles, and proposes topics that you may like. It's powered by artificial intelligence that gets smarter the more you use it.

Some of Recent News' features include:

One-minute news summary with very quick load time
Hot News, Local News, and personalized recommendations tabs
Thousands of topics
Works on phones and tablets in landscape and portrait orientations
Instantly share news on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks

iOS users can find Recent News here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recent-news/id1009026110?ls=1&mt=8

And Android users can find Recent News on the Google Play Store here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.recent.personal.news

Recent Media Inc. was founded by Declan McCullagh and Dr. Celine Bursztein. The company, located in the San Francisco bay area, was formed in March 2014 and incorporated in April 2015. We Read More

Recent News featured on Jason Calacanis's This Week in Startups

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 00:00:00 -0700

Angel investor extraordinaire Jason Calacanis invited Recent Media co-founder Declan McCullagh back on This Week in Startups last month.

Here's the video of the show with Declan and investor Ben Parr.

You can—and should!—subscribe to TWIST in podcast form here (the show with Jason, Ben, and Declan is episode 566).

Thanks to Jason and the crew at TWIST for the invitation!

Recent Media co-founder interviewed by Fast Company

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 00:00:00 -0700

Fast Company recently interviewed Recent Media co-founder and CEO Declan McCullagh about artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

Here's the article, written by veteran technology journalist Dan Terdiman. The topic is how well facial recognition algorithms will be able to identify a person who's intentionally trying to hide from them.

Recent News now supports iPads and Android tablets

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:00:00 -0700

We're happy to announce that Recent News now includes tablet support! For both iPads and Android tablets, of course.

When we released the first beta version of Recent News last month, our plan was to add tablet support this fall. But our early users wanted to be able to use their Recent accounts across multiple devices -- so they could bookmark articles on their phones and read them at home on their tablets, or browse the same recommended articles on iOS and Android tablets.

And so today's beta -- available to our early users in the Google Play Store and Apple's TestFlight service -- does just that. It supports landscape and portrait orientation on tablets and phones. Tablets will use the card layout by default, though you can override it if you prefer.

Today's beta also includes a battery saver feature, which reduces network activity by disabling preloading. It's turned off by default, but you can enable it through the settings screen. (This was another feature requested by early users.)

Also, for Android users: Recent News now uses the system browser by default when you read articles. We've found that it's faster and more stable than Android's webview component. Of course, if you prefer to use our in-app browser instead, you can choose that option through the settings screen.

Thanks very much to our early users for generously taking the time to help us make Recent News better!

Declan McCullagh

Recent Media co-founder

P.S.: You can sign up for Recent here.

Recent News beta has been published

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0700

We're delighted to announce that we've started sending Recent News beta invitations for Android and iOS!

If you haven't received yours, please be patient. We're emailing people who asked for early access based on the date they signed up. (More precisely, we've been inviting people in 100-person groups so we can monitor our recommendation engine as the load increases.)

If you haven't already, you can sign up here: https://recent.io/