Cam Bunton, Editor at 9to5Google – Cam has been passionate about tech since his dad bought the family’s first Commodore AMIGA back in the late 80’s. He’s been in the tech industry (writing and making videos) since 2010, and joined 9to5Google as the resident video producer and product reviewer in 2015. He sometimes writes news and reviews for 9to5Mac too.
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A few days ago, it was revealed that most of today’s best and most powerful phones won’t support Android N’s seamless updates feature. Sadly, in order for updates to install in the background, the phone needs a special partition in its memory to make that possible. As it happens, it’s also very unlikely that any of the current crop of flagships will be certified ready for Daydream VR either, but for different reasons.
ZTE has just unveiled the next phone in its series of high performance, affordable, flagship-beating smartphones; the ZTE Axon 7. Like last year’s Axon, this year’s model seeks to offer a competitive experience at a price which undercuts similar smartphones from big-name manufacturers, and it might succeed at just $450 USD.
Lenovo has now published its financial earnings report for the final quarter of its 2015/16 fiscal year, ending in March. Highlights for the Hong Kong-based company include full year revenue of $44.9 billion, with Q4 revenue of $9.1 billion, which is down 19% on the same quarter last year. On the whole, it was a fairly uneventful quarter, but Lenovo recognizes its bid to bring in Motorola hasn’t gone as smoothly as planned.
With the OnePlus 3 rumored to be making its first public appearance on June 14th, it’s about the right time for the next “flagship killer” to appear in a listing on China’s TENAA site. Similar to the FCC in the US, all phones launching in China tend to land on TENAA a few weeks before they launch. OnePlus is no exception, and was spotted by Engadget China, with pictures from every angle and a list of specifications.
Xiaomi — a company normally associated with affordable Android phones — has just taken the wraps off its very first drone and it looks set to take on DJI by being an incredibly affordable and capable machine. The Mi Drone boasts a bunch of features you’d expect to find in a modern-day quadcopter and its most expensive version costs just ¥2999 (~$460).
OnePlus announced in a community forum post this morning that it will sell all of its current phones at ‘new prices’. That means the OnePlus One, OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X will all be cheaper than they have been, almost certainly because a new phone is about to be launched by the ambitious Chinese startup.
June is shaping up to be a pretty busy month in the tech world, as it usually is. Google I/O has now passed us, and we can now look forward to what’s next. For Apple fans, that’s WWDC next month. For those who prefer Android we have both Lenovo’s Tech World event and the Moto Z launch, as well as a OnePlus unveiling.
The OnePlus event is set to be the first to take place in a VR world set in space, and will allegedly be happening on June 14th, if a conversation between a customer and a OnePlus CS rep is anything to go by…
The Nextbit Robin — a cloud powered smartphone that we happen to like a lot — has made its way to India. Customers wanting to grab the Robin in India can do so exclusively from Flipkart, where it will cost 19,999 Rupees (roughly $296), that’s around $100 cheaper than it was at launch in the US.
Pebble has just unveiled its latest smartwatches, and has done so in the most Pebble-like way possible, by launching a new Kickstarter project. The smartwatch maker has returned to the platform it used so successfully with the original Pebble, and the following iterations, with a true second generation Pebble and a second generation Pebble Time along with an all-new 3G wearable called the Pebble Core.
Evan Blass, the serial leakster has shared a brief overview of the OnePlus 3‘s specifications. For the spec-hungry among you, they might make for disappointing reading given that they’re much the same as last year.
Update: The financial prosecutor’s office has confirmed that the raid took place, and is part of an investigation in to tax evasion and money laundering. As reported by Reuters:
The investigation, which started in June last year, aims to verify whether Google Ireland Ltd (GOOGL.O) has failed in its fiscal obligations in France, the prosecutor’s office said in statement.
According to several breaking news reports, Google’s headquarters in Paris are being raided this morning by French investigators as part of a probe into the US company’s tax payments. Both Le Parisien and Reuters were informed by sources that a search is underway at the HQ in Paris’s 9th district.
Google is finally about to get the go ahead from the Indian government to run a pilot of Project Loon in India according to a report from the Economic Times. According to the sites source, an anonymous “top government official”, the nation is keen to test as many alternative methods of providing internet connectivity as possible. One of which is Google’s high-altitude balloons.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of projections and claims that we are now in a ‘Post PC era’. But despite the fact that more people than ever are using mobile devices and tablets for web browsing and gaming, when it comes to getting real work done, you can’t replace a physical keyboard with a virtual one.
While using a Bluetooth keyboard with a smartphone or tablet is never going to make for a compelling laptop replacement, it may just be the accessory that saves you in a pinch, especially if you have little space to store gadgets while on the move. The iClever folding keyboard is a wireless affordable keyboard with sturdy metal construction that you can take anywhere.
Google Brain, the search giant’s machine learning arm, is setting up a new group to see if it can teach AI to make its own, original works of art. The company, named Magenta, will be announced more officially at the beginning of June, but was referenced to in a talk given by Douglas Eck, a Google Brain researcher, at Moogfest.
The Big Android BBQ Europe 2016 has been officially announced, and will take place at the CASA400 Conference Hotel in Amsterdam between August 14-16. Developers are invited to register now to take part in the event which promises great grilled foods, and a chance network and build on their coding abilities.
With Android N about to launch, along with Google’s Daydream VR capabilities, this could be one of the most important coding/networking events to date.
One of the lesser talked about but more important new features in Android N is seamless updates. Essentially, what that means is that future Android devices running the next version of Google’s mobile OS will be able to download and install software updates in the background without interrupting your use of the phone. Sadly, none of the current crop of Android phones will get the feature.
Chinese manufacturer, Xiaomi has teased on its own forums that it will soon be announcing its very first drone. It’s a huge step away from its usual Android-powered devices, and will see the company’s first entry in to the quad-copter market.
It was 2006, you were in high school, and everybody had a Motorola RAZR. At least, that’s how Motorola wants you to remember your life ten years ago, in its latest teaser for the upcoming Moto X (or Moto Z) announcement.
Of course, one year later the iPhone was launched and the entire mobile industry was turned on its head. But for that one brief spell, the RAZR was without doubt the most popular phone around, and it turned heads.
Google has announced today that it is working with Yi Technology to build a 360-degree circular Jump camera rig from its 4K Action Cam, which will launch later this year. On top of that, it has also revealed a new collaborative partnership with IMAX to develop more high-end commercial film production-quality cameras. In other words: Google’s getting very serious about VR (as if we didn’t know that already).
Back in April at Microsoft’s Build conference it was revealed that Cortana for Android users would soon be able to have their smartphone notifications show up on a Windows 10 PC. Now it seems that feature is rolling out, at least to some beta testers/Insiders.
Last night, in addition to launching the first public beta for Android N, Google pushed the third developer preview out and it includes some notable differences from the previous two…
Hot on the heels of Android N’s first beta landing for the public, HTC has already announced which of its phones will be receiving the next version of Google’s mobile OS. Whether it’s called Nutella, Nougat, Nachos or whatever you decide to name it, HTC will be pushing it out to HTC 10, One A9 and One M9 users.
Google has announced a new version of Android Wear at I/O this morning. In the biggest update to Android Wear so far, version 2.0 has been redesigned with a focus on more customisable watch faces, fitness and messaging.
While revisiting Android ‘N’ in today’s Google I/O opening keynote, Google’s “Rock Start” engineer David Burke said they’re struggling to come up with a dessert name for the new OS’s name. That means one thing: Google wants you to name this year’s version of Android…
