A dramatic escalation in the US war on Chinese tech firms
In the wake of the $5 billion antitrust fine it received from the European Commission last year, Google laid out plans to prompt Android users in Europe to choose a different default search or browser app. In a new blog post, Product Management Director Paul Gennai introduces the changes that will come as part of an imminent Google Play Store update.
The saga of Pocket Casts' controversial v7 update continues, but there's more light at the end of the tunnel... or at least a hint of light at the end of the tunnel. After an update to v7.0.1 that fixed casting issues, made the swipe gesture customizable, and improved episode title layout in filters, a new version is rolling out with a few more features users were clamoring for.
Meizu set itself an eminently reasonably bar for the campaign, too, at $100,000. That may sound like a fair bit of cash, but Meizu would only have had to sell 77 phones in order to meet this goal. It managed just 29. It's unclear how many of those were Meizu employees, other than to say "not enough."
At the beginning of the month, we reported Energizer was planning on announcing a myriad of phones at MWC. The rumors had it some would feature a pop-up camera, and one could even sport a jaw-dropping 18,000mAh battery. Given the brand's expertise in power storage, it was only fair to expect the handsets to receive respectable battery sizes, but we were far from thinking it would present something as enormous as an actual brick.
After the shutdown of Allo, it was only a matter of time before Google took the messaging app's few good ideas and implemented them in its Messages platform. The most important of these, Assistant's integration in chats, was inevitably going to make the jump, and today Google confirmed that the feature will go live in Messages over the coming months for English users.
Microsoft is pushing its Windows Mixed Reality platform, which has so far been limited to virtual reality and HoloLens headsets, onto mobile phones. The company is launching an Android-based version of its HoloLens remote assistance app this spring, as well as an iOS-only tool for previewing products. Unlike lots of phone-based augmented reality, neither tool is aimed at consumers. And there’s no sign that Microsoft is backing away from its HoloLens headset. But this move signals that less futuristic mobile AR is increasingly important to the company.
La firme de sécurité Trend Micro a découvert la présence de 29 applications malicieuses sur le Google Play Store. En se faisant passer pour des applications de retouche photo (« beauty camera »), elles subtilisaient les photos des utilisateurs.
Dolphin, the much-loved Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator, has been making strides in Android support over the past few months. It returned to the Play Store in August 2018, and a few months later, rumble emulation and other improvements were added. The latest update to the Android port has even more improvements in store, like Wii remote emulation and fixes for Android 9 Pie.
While Chrome OS' offline usability has improved a lot since the platform's early days, there's no denying that an internet connection is still essential to get a lot of things done on a Chromebook. When you're away from WiFi, you can tether your phone's connection, but Google has a smarter ace up its sleeve: Instant Tethering. The feature started showing up two years ago to link two Android devices, was later one of the highlights of the Pixelbook announcement, then expanded to more Chrome OS devices. However, until now, you had to have a Pixel phone (or a Nexus) to set up Instant Tethering. Things are changing though as we've received two tips from users who have the feature on their OnePlus and Samsung devices.
You read that correctly. We have the finest phone Google ever created perpetually rebooting while royalty-free holiday music plays in the background. What better way to get in a festive mood? You can even hang out in the Twitch chat while we bask in holiday cheer.
We know by now that OnePlus puts a little more effort into its launches than most, with glitzy events around the world and lots of marketing to stoke interest. The OnePlus 6T will be no different, although it has Apple to thank for moving its unveiling forward a day to October 29th. Just two days later, pop-ups around the world will be selling the device ahead of its official release.
OnePlus has been teasing the 6T for weeks, and we were supposed to learn all the details on October 30th. Well, now you won't have to wait quite as long. OnePlus has moved the date up a day in response to Apple's announcement of an unusual second fall event on the 30th.
Google Search has been a key component of Android since the OS was first released, and Chrome has become increasingly important in recent years. All three products are now intertwined, but the European Union wants them to be separate. Google recently was hit with a $5 billion fine from the EU, and to avoid more fines while the company challenges the EU in court, it is now complying with new regulatory rules.
The Palm phone is basically a tiny phone…to go with your everyday phone. A San Francisco startup has bought the Palm name, but can they keep the ethos? This new Android phone they're releasing exclusively to Verizon is meant to be your secondary device, a tiny little thing for the weekends. Our question – does your phone need a phone?
All the way back in 2012, Samsung created a new file system purpose-built for flash-based storage, called 'F2FS'. It's typically faster on smartphones than the ext4 file system that most Android devices use, but it has suffered from reliability issues over the years. Google apparently thinks it's ready for prime-time though, as the Pixel 3 and 3 XL both use F2FS for local storage.
Wear OS is in a much better place that it was six months ago. In the new 2.1 update, Google changed the main watch face and everything is simpler and easier to use. Pair that with news of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 3100 processor and smartwatches for Android users start looking a lot less grim. In this week’s Processor, Dieter revisits what's next for Wear OS smartwatches.
We're exactly two weeks out from the October 9th Google event and unless the crazy conspiracy theories end up being true, there might not be too many surprises coming our way. Images of the Pixel 3 phones have leaked left, right, and center, and now we're being treated to the live wallpapers that will ship with them.
Android hardware has come a long way in the last five years, and as we come up on that Pixel time of year, I've been thinking back on earlier Android handsets and the path we've taken to get here. In a useful coincidence, I was convinced into using a Nexus 5 for a week as my only personal phone with no backup — I like to take that sort of risk once in a while. This time I was pleasantly surprised, the Nexus 5 has aged a lot better than I expected it to.