Chance Miller

BlackBerry today has revealed a major software update for all of its BlackBerry 10 devices. Most notably, the update adds the ability for all BB10 devices to access Android applications. Bumping the build number to version 10.3.1, this update is rolling out to all BlackBerry 10-powered devices, including the Z10, Q10, and Z30. The company announced announced its intentions to add this feature in June of last year.

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Samsung announced in a press release this evening that it has purchased LoopPay, an Apple Pay like mobile payment company. LoopPay turns existing magnetic stripe card readers into secure, contactless receivers. This means that, in an ideal world, LoopPay would be available in nearly every retailer that accepts magnetic strip cards. A specific acquisition price is unclear at this point.

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Google is working on a new social network community called Tablescape for sharing photos of food, according to a new report from Android Police with additional information from El Androide Libre. The service is somewhat of an extension of Google+, but with heavy optimization for users looking to share and browse photos of food.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVIkr7HRMk

Google today has kicked off its fifth annual Science Fair in conjunction with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific America, and Virgin Galactic. Starting today and running through May 18th, students between the ages of 13 and 18 can submit projects to Google across a variety of scientific fields for a chance to win one of a handful of prizes. Possible topics include biology, computer science, anthropology, and any other scientific field.

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HTC’s Vice President of Product Management Mo Versi has revealed in a tweet that Google will post the next maintenance release of Android in March of this year. The tweet from Versi was in response to a user inquiring about an issue centering around the capacitive button backlights on the Google Play Edition HTC One M7.

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Slowly but surely Android 5.0 Lollipop has been rolling out to Galaxy S5 variants in the United States, and now it appears to be T-Mobile’s turn. The carrier this morning has started pushing out the latest Android version to its variant of the Galaxy S5. The update carries the build number G900TUVU1DOB1 and comes in at 900MB (via SamMobile).

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Google this afternoon has begun rolling out a major update to the Play Music app on iOS. The update packs a handful of new features and enhancements, including a totally refreshed Material Design interface, and for the first time, an iPad optimized interface, as well.

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Google acquired the popular email client Sparrow back in 2012 and announced that the entire team would be joining Google to work on Gmail. Since that acquisition, Sparrow apps received only a handful of updates and have been seemingly neglected in favor of Google’s new Inbox initiative. Over the past few days, however, Sparrow appears to have received the final nail in its coffin as it has been removed from both the Mac App Store and iOS App Store (via TechCrunch).

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Google this morning has revealed that it is expanding its Android One initiative to the Philippines. The company announced on its Asia Pacific blog that two affordable Android devices from Cherry Mobile and MyPhone will be available in the coming weeks. Android One was originally unveiled at Google I/O last year and is the company’s attempt at bringing Android devices to countries at affordable price points. The Philippines is the sixth country in which Android One is available.

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Samsung this morning has taken the wraps off of a new octa-core Exynos processor that is widely expected to be the processor used in the upcoming Galaxy S6 flagship. Samsung says that the Exynos 7 processor is built on a 14nm processor and has eight cores. The company touts that it is “designed for next-generation flagships.”

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According to a new report from the Korea Times, LG has decided not to release its expected G4 flagship at Mobile World Congress next month. Instead, the company plans to release it on its own during April. Last year, the G3 was released on May 27th, but LG is believed to still anticipate releasing its successor before that day this year.

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Motorola, which said last month it would update all of its devices to Lollipop “really soon,” appears to have started taking initial steps to upgrade the first-generation Moto G. Users of the device are reporting that they have received a pop-up message on their device regarding a future update (via MobileSyrup).

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1st Gen Chromebook Pixel

According to a bug reported spotted in the Chromium project issue tracker, Google is currently working on a second-generation Chromebook Pixel. Noticed by OMG Chrome, a Google employee recently filed a bug report associated with the Samus development board, which at this point, is unreleased to the public. The original Chromebook Pixel was codenamed the Link within Google’s headquarters.

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With Galaxy S5 Lollipop updates in full swing, many have begun to wonder the status of updates for the Galaxy Note 4. Samsung, according to users in Poland, has today started rolling out Android 5.0 Lollipop to the Galaxy Note 4. The recipients of the update claim that it dramatically overhauls the TouchWiz interface, as expected. It also, of course, adds many of the features we’ve come to know and love in Lollipop (via SamMobile).

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Google this evening has uploaded six new Android ads to its YouTube channel. The ads all follow the same “Be together, not the same” marketing campaign that the company introduced a few months ago and had its partners heavily promote at CES 2015.

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