Gadgetory

foursquare is going through a bit of an identity crisis I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update Foursquare the app that became popular five years ago for location check ins will no longer have check-ins the ability to broadcast where you are to friends has been split off into a different app it's called swarm foursquare is also changing its logo dropping the check mark and bouncing ball from the game it's named after and now is using a big flashy superhero style f perhaps Foursquare sees itself as the hero to help in your quest to find a restaurant the app is completely refocused as a search tool to find nearby places and share reviews just like Yelp and I must say foursquare is a good search tool when you're on your phone looking for a nearby place to eat you can customize the app now to show recommendations tailored to you such as highlights of places with your favorite types of food apps have to evolve sometimes to stay relevant after all you can broadcast your location on just about any network these days this update could help Foursquare become better known as a search tool but by vanquishing the check-ins to a separate app and killing off the gamification features of points and badges it's essentially killing off what made the appt famous in the first place time will tell if this new swarm spin-off can thrive on its own in other news some photos have leaked of the rumored Samsung Galaxy alpha smartphone which is said to be a higher end model of the galaxy s5 and it could be launched within the next two months that would be around the time of the iphone 6 these photos were posted to a vietnamese tech blog and like many leaked images they're out of focus when will these sneaky spy photographers just learn to shoot clear photos we can learn more details by early September during a Samsung event at the IFA tech conference in Berlin and if you've ever wondered what's the point of having a smart light bulb you can wonder no more the Philips hue connected light system has a new trick it's able to use an app to sync up with the audio from a movie so the LED bulbs change color based on what's happening in the scene and of course the four first demonstration of this ability will be for the world premiere of syfy channel's sharknado 2 the second one the sci-fi sync second screen app will use audio cues from the movie to send commands to the bulbs to change color depending on the scene nothing like red light engulfing your room when the chainsaws come out am i right this moment of television history takes place the night of wednesday July thirtieth and you can learn more about the hue connected bulb and all the other tricks it can do from our review on cnet com that's your tech news update from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey