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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Samsung pushed its first Galaxy Note 5 TV commercial to YouTube today, and no surprise, it’s all about what you can do with that S-Pen. Set to a fast-paced percussion soundtrack, with speedy cuts in the edit, it has been designed to make you excited at all you can do with the stylus as well as convey a sense of productivity and speed.
Edifier is a company normally known for making audio products with an ultra-modern, abstract or minimalist design. I’ve reviewed and tested a few of their speakers in the past, and they’ve all had an unusual aesthetic. It was a refreshing change, then, to get my hands on the R1700BT bookshelf speakers. They’re Bluetooth, versatile, look good and sound great. More impressive, they’re available for a little over £100.
Yesterday the well-known leaker, Steve Hemmerstoffer teamed up with uSwitch to leak digital renders of the purported upcoming LG-made Nexus. Today, the two are back with their first look at what could be this year’s flagship Nexus device. As rumored multiple times, this device is expected to be manufactured by Huawei, one of China’s biggest Android OEMs.
Google and several of its manufacturer partners rushed to fix a vulnerability found within Android which could see malware installed through simply receiving an MMS message. Dubbed Stagefright, it was described as the worst vulnerability to be found since the dawn of the new Mobile OS era. According to one security firm, sadly, the patches being released by a number of Android OEMs aren’t enough to fully fix the vulnerability.
Yesterday, Bethesda finally launched the long-awaited Fallout Shelter for Android and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. In this video, I take you on a brief walkthrough and tour of the initial game stages and how to play. If you haven’t already, you can download the game for free from the Google Play Store right now.
OnePlus One users running OxygenOS can now download the security patches to deal with the Stagefright vulnerability. OnePlus One announced in a blog post this morning that Oxygen OS 1.0.2 is now available to download, and fixes what some dubbed the worst Android vulnerability in the mobile device era. Customers are advised to ensure they back up all their data before flashing. Those using OxygenOS already won’t need to reset their devices.
For the past few weeks, rumors have surfaced suggestion Google will partner with two manufacturers this year for its Nexus phones. We’re purportedly going to see a smaller device made by LG and a larger model made by Huawei. Today we get our first look at some detailed 3D renders designed using hardware schematics sent to case-makers.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ have just been announced and carriers aren’t holding back in letting us know when and where we can get hold of these new devices. The US is going to be one of the first countries to get the latest flagship phablets. Here’s where you can get them and when…
With Samsung deciding to host its own event to launch the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ today, we assumed the company was ditching IFA altogether. Turns out that’s not the case. Right at the end of today’s presentation, the Korean tech giant teased its next smartwatch, the Gear S2. It will be unveiled in Berlin on September 3rd.
In a move that’s no surprise to anyone who’s been following HTC news recently, the company just announced that it’s going to cut 15% of its workforce. Some 2,250 people will lose their jobs as part of the company’s aim to cut 35% of its expenses before 2016 rolls in.
After what seems like an age waiting with anticipation, Fallout Shelter has finally been released for Android. The popular title landed on the Play Store this morning and is available to download for free.
Fallout Shelter’s basic concept is to build yourself a subterranean paradise in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When I say paradise, I mean a vault where your responsibility is to build, repopulate and defend your world from attacks. Not exactly as glamorous as The SIMs, but perhaps more enjoyable for that very reason. As per the Play Store description:
BUILD THE PERFECT VAULT
Create a brighter future…underground! Select from a variety of modern-day rooms to turn an excavation beneath 2,000 feet of bedrock into the very picture of Vault Life.OVERSEE A THRIVING COMMUNITY
Get to know your Dwellers and lead them to happiness. Find their ideal jobs and watch them flourish. Provide them with outfits, weapons, and training to improve their abilities.PROSPER
A well-run Vault requires a variety of Dwellers with a mix of skills. Build a Radio Room to attract new Dwellers. Or, take an active role in their personal lives; play matchmaker and watch the sparks fly!EXPLORE THE WASTELAND
Send Dwellers above ground to explore the blasted surface left behind and seek adventure, handy survival loot, or unspeakable death. Find new armor and weapons, gain experience, and earn Caps. But don’t let them die!PROTECT YOUR VAULT
From time to time, idyllic Vault life may be disrupted by the dangers of post-nuclear life. Prepare your Dwellers to protect against threats from the outside…and within.Vault-Tec has provided the tools, but the rest is up to you. What are you waiting for? Get started building your Vault today for FREE.
If you want to try it out, be sure you’re running at least Android 4.1 or later and then head on over to the Play Store. It’s free, and supported by in-app purchases ranging from $1-$20.
Huawei has started sending out invitations to an event on September 2nd in Berlin, Germany. The invites fit in perfectly with previous speculation that the Chinese manufacturer would use IFA as its platform to launch a new smartphone. What’s interesting about these invites is that they seemingly hint at the name of the upcoming device.
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Just days after releasing its last new phone, Xiaomi has announced yet another device with competitive specs at a very disruptive price point. Xiaomi calls it ‘the new monster’ and for good reason.
The Redmi Note 2 was unveiled this morning, complete with a 64-bit octa-core Helio processor, a full HD 5.5-inch display and 13MP rear camera made by Samsung. It also has dual SIM LTE support, 2GB RAM and either 16GB or 32GB internal storage. What’s more, there’s a 3,060mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0 support. It’s compatible with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and runs MIUI 7 on Android 5.0 Lollipop.
It’s a pretty impressive list of specs for a phone that costs the equivalent of $124. Even if you go for the 32GB model, you’re still only paying around $140. Or if you want the Prime model, which comes with 32GB storage and a faster processor, you only need to part with $156. Essentially, a phone with the specs of the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3, but for $100 less.
As a bonus, the Redmi Note 2 comes in five colors: white, black, pink, brown and light blue.
Xiaomi, of course, is one of many Chinese manufacturers currently squeezing the big names out of the smartphone market in countries like China and India. By offering great specs at a fraction of the cost, products like the Redmi Note series are incredibly disruptive. Perhaps one of the big reasons HTC is struggling to gain any market value, and appeal to consumers.
In many ways, the LG G4c is a mini version of the LG G4. Sadly, unlike Sony’s Compact series smartphones, it’s not a small phone with flagship specs. It’s less powerful, has a lower resolution screen and a smaller battery than the high-end G4. But all of that is reflected in the price difference. We’ve unboxed the device and filmed a brief comparison between the G4c and the LG G4…
If you bought a Nexus 6 from Google during your Project Fi setup process, you may be surprised to know that the company will replace that device once for a fee of just $100. That means, if you dropped your phone and damaged it somehow, all you need to do is make a quick call to Project Fi customer support and they’ll arrange the replacement (via Android Central).
It’s pretty straight-forward, and given the no-questions-asked policy, you can literally swap your Nexus 6 for any reason within the first 12 months of ownership. If you manage to avoid any serious damage to your Nexus and it’s getting a little worn and old, you can ring up and swap for a fresh, shiny new one, as long as you’ve owned it for less than a year.
Of course, if a handset goes faulty during regular warranty period, your usual warranty terms apply. This hidden perk is more of an insurance policy against accidental damage, or things not normally covered by the product warranty. If your screen cracks on your Project Fi-powered Nexus, you know now that you don’t have to spend a fortune on getting your display replaced, or having to make do with a terrible backup phone.
Alleged Huawei Nexus prototype/dummy
Well-known leakster, Steve Hemmerstoffer has leaked further information regarding the upcoming purported Nexus devices. Using his OnLeaks account, he shared some detailed specifications an features of both the rumored smaller LG device and larger Huawei-made smartphone.
Information passed to Steve by his sources suggests that both phones will feature front-firing speakers, USB Type-C compatibility and a fingerprint sensor on the back. Although both are rumored to likely feature a metal chassis, the dimensions will be different. LG’s Nexus is purported to measure in at 9.8mm thick, 147mm tall and 73mm wide while the Huawei device is allegedly going to be 8.5mm thick and measure at around 12.5mm taller and 5mm wider than LG’s Pure Google phone.
Google this morning made tickets available for its Chrome Dev Summit held at the Google Quad building. The event runs for two days between November 17th and 18th and is exclusively designed to help Chrome engineers and developers build better, faster and more attractive web apps. The company warns that places are limited and anyone seeking to go should register for their ticket as soon as they can.
Google’s Chrome Dev Summit will feature short talks, collaborative discussions and code labs among other events. For those who can’t make it in person, Google will stream all presentations live and make them available to watch on YouTube afterwards. Keep an eye on the Google Developers YouTube channel to stay updated during the event.
Tickets to this November’s event are available now from Google’s Chrome Dev Summit home page.
We’ve all heard the phrase that the best camera is the one you have on you, and now with the Panasonic CM1, that could finally be true. It’s possible to have a smartphone that takes amazing pictures. With a 1-inch sensor, Leica lens and some useful software tools, this is easily the best camera setup ever built into an Android device.
Samsung is set to announce the brand new Galaxy Note 5 alongside the Galaxy S6 Edge+ at an Unpacked event on Thursday, this week. Although the company hasn’t officially shed any light on what it intends to reveal, we’re pretty certain by now that the aforementioned phones will be shown off. With the number of leaks, including the most recent retail photos, it’s hard not to be confident of that fact. What we weren’t entirely sure of was the exact retail launch date.
Thanks to some sharp eyes from Dutch Samsung blog, Galaxy Club, we can see that the French Samsung site accidentally revealed the pre-order time frame, before promptly removing the information. Roughly translated, Samsung’s site says the phone will be available to pre-order between August 21st and September 3rd, perhaps suggesting a September 4 retail launch. What’s more, there’s a special where customers get a free pair of Level On headphones and three months of Google Play music with the Galaxy S6 Edge+.
While this leak seemingly confirms the pre-order date for French customers, it doesn’t reveal anything pertaining to its global launch schedule. We’re yet to discover if the US, UK and other nations will all receive their devices on the same date. Although we’d hope Samsung would synchronize the launch multi-nationally, we can never be sure with the giant Korean tech giant. It has prioritized Europe often in the past. Thankfully, we only have two days left to wait before Samsung reveals all.
Samsung’s Note 5 and S6 Edge+ are expected to share similar specifications, including a 5.7-inch QuadHD AMOLED display, an octa-core Exynos processor and 4GB RAM alongside a 16MP main camera and wireless charging. The one feature that should set the Note 5 apart from its sibling is the redesigned S-Pen, which will again act as the unique selling point for Samsung’s flagship phablet.
A report from FireEye Labs (a security firm) reveals that some smartphones with fingerprint sensors aren’t as secure as we’d like them to be. The one device named specifically was the HTC One Max which was supposed to store fingerprint data in a secure enclave that no one could get to. Turns out, that wasn’t the case and any app could have potentially gained access to the fingerprint data and even recreated a bitmap image of the fingerprints stored. Thankfully, HTC fixed the gaping hole “in all regions” before the report went public.
FireEye shared images they managed to gain access to inside the HTC One Max, and cropped them to protect the identity of the owners. What you see to the left is just a small portion of someone’s fingerprint. Data obtained through the One Max’s supposedly ‘secure’ enclave. If there’s one small comfort to be taken from this, it’s that the HTC One Max isn’t the most popular phone around, and by now, it’s also relatively old. What’s more, HTC told The Verge that the flaw was only present in the HTC One Max, and doesn’t effect any of its other phones or devices.
While the One Max is the only device specifically named in the vulnerability report, the company does suggest devices from other manufacturers suffer(ed) with the same issue. What’s more, another issue present in a number of devices was a vulnerability which could potentially allow any app to interrupt the fingerprint scanning process as a user was using the sensor. If taken advantage of, this would see software with the ability to take fingerprint data as it’s being read, in real-time.
All devices mentioned (including the Galaxy S5) and others hinted at, have all be locked down since the vulnerability was discovered. When it comes to fingerprint data, we like to think that the information is being treated with paramount focus. Once someone gets your fingerprint data, there’s not a lot you can do about it. You can’t change it like a PIN, password or pattern.
Yesterday, Google announced a massive restructuring and the creation of a new parent company, Alphabet. While Google will still focus on the traditional internet-related products like Chrome, Android and web search, other company’s will be set up to focus on more exploratory ventures. Along with the announcement yesterday, Alphabet launch its new domain: abc.xyz. Unsurprising to anyone, this new domain is already 100% blocked in China.
The news comes via GreatFire, a site which actively and constantly monitors URLs blocked within China’s borders. Alphabet’s home page has been blocked since it went live yesterday. Although it could be easy to see this as a pre-emptive, and active blocking against Google from China, it’s more likely that the country already blocks any site bearing Google’s SSL certificate. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter what site Google launches, it’s blocked before it even goes live in China.
Google and China’s relationship is an interesting one to say the least. Which is to say: They don’t really have one. Google’s products and services are blocked almost completely. Android phones in the mainland don’t have access to Google’s Play Store to download apps, and Play Services are a complete no go. It’s one of the reasons it’s been rumored the company could be partnering with Huawei to launch the next Nexus smartphone. Google apparently hopes it can use Huawei’s Chinese influence to build its own presence and launch services in China.
HTC‘s stock has taken such a dive in recent months that, this morning, the company’s market value is now less than the cash it has on hand. In its most recent earnings, the Taiwanese manufacturer stated that it had NT$47.2 billion (New Taiwanese Dollar) cash. Today, its market price dropped to NT$47 billion, effectively making the company worthless to shareholders.
Originally reported by Bloomberg, this is a pretty damning turn of events for HTC. One analyst from Sinopac Financial Holdings stated that “HTC’s cash is the only asset of value to shareholders.” So its other assets like buildings and factories are worth nothing. What’s more, investors clearly aren’t confident in the future of the company either. A feeling perhaps based on this year’s flagship model, the HTC One M9, being just a modest upgrade to last year’s all-metal smartphone. And also the fact that now, lesser-known Chinese manufacturers are on the rise and capable of producing competitive smartphones at much lower prices.
HTC’s approach to dealing with this almost-collapse is to cut costs by focussing on the high end of the market where margins are higher. It’s a bold move, and one that might backfire for the company. Especially if the next few flagship devices continue to lose out heavily to the likes of Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy series. In my mind, the solution would be to ensure it has fewer items in its inventory and ensure supply doesn’t massively outweigh demand like it does currently.
How this turns out for HTC isn’t something easily predicted, but right now, it’s not looking so good for the company that once churned out hits like the popular Evo handset in 2010.
Months after its initial announcement at MWC in Barcelona, Alcatel OneTouch is finally making the smaller, 4.7-inch Idol 3 available to buy in the US and Canada. You will be able to order the device for $179 from the company’s online store or Alcatel’s official Amazon store from Friday, August 14. In terms of design, the 4.7-inch model looks virtually identical to its bigger brother. But it does come with different specifications.
Instead of housing a full HD display panel, the smaller phone comes with a 1280×720 resolution screen. Thanks to its size, that still pushes it over the 300ppi mark. It has a 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera and has a 2,000mAh battery to keep it going all day. What’s more, it’s powered by a Quad-core 1.2GHz processor paired with 1.5GB RAM and with 16GB of internal storage. Like the bigger model, you can expand the memory using a MicroSD card, but only up to an extra 32GB. Surprisingly, for a phone this small, it still manages to pack in a pair of stereo front facing speakers powered by JBL audio, just like the 5.5-inch model.
On the software side, it runs Android 5.0.2, what’s more, a security update to patch the Stagefright bug will be available to download OTA as soon as you power the device on.
Overall, it’s a promising device but it will be interesting to see how well it compares to Motorola’s latest Moto G. At the same price point, and similar-ish specs, these two devices are clear competitors.
We’ve been hearing a lot about BlackBerry’s long-rumored Android smartphone over the past few months. In fact, almost as soon as BlackBerry teased the ‘Venice’ slider back at MWC in Barcelona, it was rumored that the upcoming device would ship with Google’s OS onboard. A previous render showed a pretty clear image of Android running on the BlackBerry slider, and now some more official-looking images appear via CrackBerry to hint at a Google-powered system.