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AT&T rolling out KitKat to LG G Flex starting tomorrow

Chance Miller

img_0687

AT&T has just announced that it will update its variant of the LG G Flex to Android 4.4.2 tomorrow, April 17th. The update includes all the features we’ve come to expect in a KitKat update.

After updating, you should see a new full-screen “immersive” mode, as well as restyled notification and navigation areas. Battery performance should also drastically improve with the update, as should general OS performance, or so says AT&T. Other new features include cloud printing, Tap & Pay for NFC payments, the ability to choose a default SMS app, colored emoji support, and improved music controls from the lock screen.

  • New full-screen mode
  • Restyled status and navigation bars
  • Battery performance improvements
  • Enhanced processing speed

The update comes in at 686MB and will begin to rollout tomorrow. You can check for the update by heading into Settings>General>About phone>Software update>Update now.

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YouTube for Android updated with UI tweaks, ability to Cast live streams to Chromecast

Chance Miller

YouTube-for-Android

Google’s Update Wednesday continues today with an update to YouTube for Android. The update bumps the app to version 5.6.31 from 5.5.27 and includes a couple of significant changes. The biggest new feature is the ability to cast live videos from the YouTube app to your Chromecast. The process works just as it does on the desktop and the quality is fantastic. Of course, this would have been very useful during the live streams from the Coachella music festival last weekend, but there’s still the second weekend with which to use it. This will also be incredibly useful for watching live streams from Google I/O on the big screen.

The Watch Later interface has also been updated to fit in with the rest of the app’s interface, as opposed to the image-heavy interface in the previous version. You can now see at least four videos without scrolling, while you were previously limited to two on the same screen.

The update is rolling out now, albeit very slowly. If you’d like to bypass Google’s staged rollout, head over to Android Police where they have the APK available for download.  If not, keep an eye on the Play Store for it to hit your device.

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Google adds 50 megapixel Photo Spheres, hints at Advanced Photo Mode in new Camera app

Jonathan Kizer

nexus 5 camera

Hints of new features have been found in the just-released Google Camera app. The APK — which was put under the microscope by Liam Spradlin of Android Police — contains references to an Advanced Camera Mode, Time Lapse Mode, and Wide Angle Mode. Additionally, Google has confirmed that the Camera app now captures Photo Spheres in 50 MP, making for a major upgrade  in image quality. Read more

Marissa Mayer planning to push Apple to replace Google with Yahoo! as the default iOS search engine

Mike Beasley
Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer eat pizza with other industry executives

Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer (right) eat pizza with other industry executives

Re/code reports that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is planning an attempt at persuading Apple to switch its default iOS search engine from Google to her company’s own offering. According to Re/code’s sources, Mayer has built what she hopes will be a convincing arguement in favor of the change.

Yahoo! current powers the weather and stocks apps and Notification Center widgets found in iOS 7 as well as a few Siri functions, such as sports, but lost out on the chance to power Siri’s web search to Microsoft’s Bing. Both Yahoo! and Bing are included as optional search engines in the Safari browser, but the default selection is Google.

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Supposed Google+ app redesign shown off in leaked screenshots

Chance Miller

We’ve seen a lot of leaks regarding Google apps recently, including supposed new icons for Android, new features for Google Now, and a new Gmail interface. This time around, Google+ user Yoel Kaseb has allegedly obtained screenshots of a completely redesigned Google+ app for Android.

Kaseb says the app is unstable and still an early test build, but the design appears to follow the same trends as other recently leaked Google interfaces. Kaseb has also been locked out of the APK by Google and can no longer use the interface, which does lend some credibility to the validity of the images.

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Google’s new Street View image algorithm can crack most CAPTCHAs

Mark Hearn

CAPTCHAs

Although most human eyes struggle to see them clearly, Google has developed a software that can crack most CAPTCHAs. In a paper published earlier this week, Google researchers from its Street View and CAPTCHA teams discuss a new algorithm capable of solving the company’s jumbled text security puzzles with an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent.

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