Category: Articles

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See What Your Phone is REALLY Capable of with Google’s Android Experiments

ink space android experimentGoogle is celebrating some of the more experimental apps found in the Android ecosystem with their new Android Experiments site. Taking some of these projects, making them open source, and encouraging developers to continue pushing the boundaries on smartphone apps and services.

None of these seem to be fully featured programs, but pieces of design which could lead to some interesting apps. I’m already really impressed with InkSpace, which bends drawings around your phone’s orientation and then creates a gif based on your art. Check out Google’s teaser video below.

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Google Announces Massive Reorganization, Becomes Alphabet

google alphabetGoogle is a pretty diverse company. It’s easy to forget how many pies they have their fingers in. Off the top of my head, you’ve got search, Youtube, Social, Photos, medical research, Fiber, self driving cars, Glass, Nest, Calico, Android, and I’m sure I’m missing a good dozen other divisions.

Announced today, Alphabet will now represent the full umbrella of companies and services, while Google will become the name of a much more streamlined part of the greater whole. Co-Founder Larry Page will become the CEO of Alphabet, Sergey Page will become President of Alphabet, and Sundar Pichai (formerly in charge of Chrome OS and Android) will become the CEO of the leaner Google.

Google will now be comprised of the most successful business ventures of the whole organization. Search, Ads, Maps, Android, and Youtube are now “Google”. Alphabet includes Google, and every other division, program, and experiment.

This move makes each department a bit more accountable to the whole of the organization, and it should be easier to see which teams and companies are performing well.

Investors seemed bullish on the news, with around a 7% stock bumping following the announcement, though that has calmed back down in after hours trading.

Still, it’ll be curious to see future ventures from Larry and Sergei under the Alphabet banner, instead of seeing future Google “BETA” products.

Larry Page’s full announcement is below.

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Reader Customizes LG G Watch R, Sands Off Black, Polishes the Metal

LG G Watch R Custom Sand and Polish (1)LG G Watch R Custom Sand and Polish (3)Arturo sent me some pics on Twitter of his work polishing up the LG G Watch R. The body is metal, but is covered in a black material. If you want a shiny look, LG sells the Urbane, or you can take matters into your own hands like Arturo did.

Taking finer and finer grades of sand paper to get down to the metal, and then finishing off the watch body with a dremel and some polishing compound, I think the completed project is looking really nice.

LG G Watch R Custom Sand and Polish (4)

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NASA Uploads Voyager Golden Record Audio To SoundCloud

the-golden-record-nasaThe Voyager spacecraft was launched in 1977, and on board NASA included a record with a series of recordings as our introduction to the galaxy. This spaceship is flying out past the outer reaches of our solar system, so it would take us quite a while to catch up to it if we wanted to take a listen to that record on board.

Thankfully, we live in the age of the internet, and online media distribution is way easier than planning a rocket mission.

Last week NASA uploaded the contents of the Golden Record to SoundCloud. You can listen to the intro below, or the full contents of the disc on NASA’s page.

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NVIDIA Recalls 88,000 Shield Tablets, Battery Overheating Concerns

NVIDIA SHIELD_Tablet_Cover_Front_Wide_Angle_LeftNVIDIA is calling back almost 90,000 of their 8″ Shield Tablets over concerns that the battery can overheat.

The Shield was a niche favorite, focusing on a nearly stock Android UI combined with gaming prowess and the ability to stream games from a PC.

This affects tablets sold from July 2014 to the present, and should not affect any other NVIDIA products. You can read NVIDIA’s press release below.

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Motorola Announces Trio of Phones: Moto X Style, Moto X Play, New Moto G

motorola moto x style pure play moto gIt’s NEW Motorola time!

Rumors have been swirling about what the company will reveal now that they’re owned by Lenovo, and it’s not a single phone, but a trio of new gadgets.

The New Moto G

Gaining a water resistant build, Gorilla Glass, more color options in Moto Maker, this is the phone that bolstered Moto’s market share. It was an inexpensive, entry-level handset which brought a higher quality of performance to the budget crowd, one of the first Android’s to fight Nokia at “cheap” price points.

This Moto G will come in two flavors, 1GB RAM and 8GB of storage for $179, or 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage for $219. Both come with a 13MP camera, a 5″ 720p Screen, and an “all day” battery powered by a Qualcomm 410 series processor. Recently we’ve seen more companies like Asus and Alcatel’s Idol 3 delivering inexpensive options near this price, and Moto’s offering looks to be pushing the boundaries even further.

Moto X Style

This is our new flagship! Taking some of the lessons learned from building the Nexus 6, you can now get a similar phablet build with some of Motorola’s fun customizations.

Moto X Style has a 5.7″ QHD display. Happily they opted for the Qualcomm 808, the same processor powering the LG G4, instead of the more powerful, but hotter and slower Qualcomm 810. X Style will have 3GB of RAM, and if its build of Android 5.1 is anything like last year’s Moto X, it should smoke the Galaxy S6 in multi-tasking performance.  Plus we’ll see the addition of a Micro SD card slot for storage expansion. The whole affair will be powered by a 3000mAh battery, which based on these specs, should be good for all day run time.

Continue reading “Motorola Announces Trio of Phones: Moto X Style, Moto X Play, New Moto G”

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AT&T First to Offer Surface 3 with LTE

surface 3 attServices are becoming ubiquitous. It matters less which glowing rectangle we reach for, we want access to our data and our favorite programs. Including LTE in tablets is already gaining in popularity, and Microsoft is now building it into their newest version of their Surface tablet PC.

The Surface 3 is a mid-range solution, which for many folks can handily replace both a laptop and a tablet. It’s a smart play for adding cell phone data, as it’s focused on portable productivity, which Microsoft has been pushing with recent updates to Office and OneDrive.

It also fills a serious gap in Microsoft’s lineup, as there haven’t been many slates sporting LTE and running Windows.

AT&T will be the first carrier to launch the Surface 3 LTE, and they’ll kick off with a sale. You can snag a Surface 3 for $399 with the purchase of any Lumia phone on AT&T Next. You can read the full pres release below.

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Will Apple Ever Kill the 16GB iPhone?

It’s that time folks. We’re getting close enough to the launch of a new iPhone for the rumor mill to kick into high gear. Around this time last year, many were praising the merits of sapphire for phone screens, only to have Apple omit that particular lifestyle feature.

Now with the 6S and 6S+ on the horizon, iOS fans are wondering if we’ll see improvements to storage.

This generation, Apple took a great step up for their mid-tier iPhone. Instead of spending $100 to bump up your phone to 32GB, you would receive a whopping 64GB. Unfortunately the base model iPhone remained at 16GB, which is a bit lean for a modern smartphone. Even 32GB can feel a bit cramped these days.

We’re expecting improvements to the camera, likely resulting in larger photos and video files. Phones are often a primary device for storing music, our apps are getting more demanding, and OS updates require a certain percentage of your storage to be unused and available. We ask a lot of our smartphones, and lacking the ability to upgrade the storage on an iPhone means users have to monitor their geebees very closely on that first tier iPhone. Continue reading “Will Apple Ever Kill the 16GB iPhone?”

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