Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. You can find his current work at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google 9to5Toys, Electrek, and more. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.
Samsung’s first-generation Android-powered digital camera is on clearance at Best Buy right now for a cool $149.99 (but currently only available for in-store pickup), which is a $300 discount off the list price of $449.99. This is $50 lower than the next best price for this model (at Newegg Flash), and the lowest price we’ve seen.
Mattel and Google have sent out press invites for an event they’re holding together on February 13th in New York City. The invitation, sporting the tagline “view what’s possible,” includes reference to what looks to be a reel from the old View-Master toy from the mid-1900s.
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Xiaomi is known as being the rising star in the smartphone arena, making its way past LG last year to become the third-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world. The success of the company is to be blamed largely on its Chinese reception, as it hasn’t launched a single device on this side of the Pacific.
That said, Xiaomi is going to hold a press conference in San Francisco, California later this month (via Android Police), but don’t get too excited if you’re hoping to hear about a North American launch, as the company has already confirmed that that’s not happening…
Google has said repeatedly since the company graduated the project out of Google[x] that new iterations of Glass will indeed be coming at some point in the future, and that the team behind the wearable display device is still “committed to Glass.” But how is Google going to approach the product going forward?
According to an adviser to Tony Fadell (the previous Apple product executive who now oversees the project), the device is not going to get the same public experimentation treatment that the first version did, and Fadell won’t be releasing the next version of Glass until it’s “perfect.”
It appears that Google is about ready to jump into the kid-friendly mobile app space, as Launchpad toys has today announced that they’ve been acquired by the Mountain View company. Known for its Toontastic storytelling app for kids, the company is joining Google to “create even more amazing creativity tools for kids.”
From 9to5Toys.com:
An LG G2 has popped up on eBay via qualitycellz at a super-low price, shipped for $190. These usually retail around $300 or more, so this deal knocks a a bit more than $100 off the standard price. The LG G2 comes with a 5.2-inch display, a 13MP camera that also captures full 1080p video, a Snapdragon 800 processor, and a 4G cellular radio.
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It may be the perfect example of “a day late and a dollar short,” but a new app called Fessenger is now available for Google Glass, allowing users to send and receive messages through Facebook’s chat protocol (via Glass Almanac). The app’s release comes after Google graduated the Glass project out of Google [x] and into its own division under Tony Fadell…
As was revealed this morning, Apple is planning to deeply integrate the existing Beats technologies into its existing platforms (like iTunes and iOS), and offer its own Apple-branded streaming service for $7.99 per month. But the Cupertino company also has plans to build its own Android app for the service, marking the first time Apple has built an Android application entirely in-house.
Google has this morning announced that Android One is coming to Indonesia, and with that updated their splash page for the initiative. Alongside detailing the three new phones that are soon coming to Indonesia, Google also mentions the latest official build of Android, the previously unannounced version 5.1 Lollipop. Keep an eye on this article between now and the official rollout of the software as we learn more about what the next version of Lollipop has to offer…
In the spirit of bloatware—which oddly goes against basically everything the company stands for—OnePlus has decided that SwiftKey is an absolute necessity for every user of its One smartphone. The company has partnered with SwiftKey to bake the keyboard right in, and says users won’t have to download anything (besides the next update to the phone’s OS) to switch over.
OnePlus has collaborated with SwiftKey to integrate their top-selling keyboard app right into CyanogenMod 11S. OnePlus One users can now switch to the SwiftKey keyboard with the touch of a button – no downloading required.
The keyboard is coming as part of this month’s OTA update to CyanogenMod 11S, and after installing the update, users can head over to the Language and Input menu in settings to select SwiftKey.
Sure, this isn’t the update many would be hoping to hear about for the One, but the company also left us a little hint at the bottom of this blog post. “We’ve got something pretty sweet for you very soon,” it says, teasing the company’s plans to update the One to Lollipop.
The company also told us recently about its custom OxygenOS ROM, which the company says will further it’s goal of bringing a “bold, powerful, straightforward experience” to owners of OnePlus devices.
From 9to5Toys.com:
Yesterday Motorola was offering up codes to make this an even sweeter deal, but the Lenovo-owned company is today giving some nice cash back to those who spend more than $249.99 on their website. Spending between $249.99 and $499.99 will score you $35 off your entire purchase, while spending more than $499.99 will get you a whopping $100 off.
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Update: You can now view the Hangout on YouTube:
As noted on the Google for Education blog, the Pope is currently planning to join his second Google+ Hangout with kids from around the globe. “Pope Francis will extend a virtual embrace to others around the world who have disabilities and special needs,” the post says, as he hosts his second Hangout straight from the Vatican. This time around, children will be joining from Brazil, India, Spain and the U.S.
The dialogue will take place this Thursday, February 5 at 4:00 PM (CET) and can be followed live from Scholas G+ page. Scholas Ocurrentes is an independent organization that the Pope has entrusted with the mission of uniting schools worldwide, regardless of race, gender, class, religion or sexual orientation. Google has been working alongside Scholas, contributing tools and expertise to help Pope Francis’ dream of a global network of schools for Peace come true.
A new feature is rolling out to Google Search that puts a smart mortgage calculator right at the top of results for certain search terms (via Search Engine Land). Specifically, the above interactive quick answer will show up for search terms such as mortgage calculator, loan interest calculator, interest calculator, and many others. Personally, we couldn’t get it to show up yet.
After you fill in the mortgage amount, interest rate, and mortgage period, the little widget will spit out the total cost of the mortgage as well as what the monthly payment would be. The feature was first being tested a couple of months ago, but it appears that many Google users across the net are now seeing it live.
Looks like Google's "mortgage calculator" is live now (wasn't clear if it was a test before) — https://t.co/a81Zow32Fk
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) February 3, 2015
From 9to5Toys.com:
The LG G3 is now available from Amazon for $0.01 on-contract (or $479 off-contract) with a free $100 Amazon gift card. This effectively brings the off-contract price (which notably is still locked to AT&T) down to $379, and means Amazon is basically giving you a free phone and paying you $100 to renew your contract if you go that route.
The phone is definitely cream-of-the-crop in terms of 2014 Android flagships. The device has a 5.5-inch Quad HD display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, a 2.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, a 13-megapixel rear camera, and standard Bluetooth and LTE connectivity. To read more about the phone, be sure to check out our complete review.
There are two variants of the LG G3 that are currently sporting the free $100 gift card:
Android Lollipop is definitely taking its time rolling out to the myriad of Android devices on the market, and until today it wasn’t even included on Google’s developer dashboards page. Today, though, reflecting the week preceding February 2nd, 2015, the page has been updated to show that Android 5.0 Lollipop now accounts for a tiny 1.6% share of the current Android install base.
Verizon has always been one of the slower carriers to update their devices to the latest and greatest firmware, but today it seems that the company is breaking that tradition. The Android 5.0 Lollipop update for the Samsung Galaxy S5 started rolling out in some small international countries in December, but this is the first we’ve heard of an American carrier pushing the update.
Verizon Wireless is pleased to announce an operating system update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. This version brings Android beyond smartphones and tablets, allowing access to apps and Android services on other connected screens like TV’s, cars and wearables. The new material design offers complex animations, 3-D views and improved runtime.
You can find the announcement PDF for the update on Verizon’s website. In-mid-January, it was reported that Samsung was rolling out the update to the Galaxy S5 in the United Kingdom, following its tiered rollout in Poland, Spain, Russia, and Malaysia. This update, notably, is Android 5.0, not Google’s latest official build, which is 5.0.2.
(via Android Police)
The team behind the second most popular custom Android ROM, Paranoid Android, has today updated the software to have a baseline AOSP Lollipop 5.0.2. Along with this first Lollipop-based build, the team has included a bunch of new improvements and features.
Today’s update is “ready to be used in public,” according to the Paranoid Android team. But keep in mind that this release is still an alpha build. “Hope for awesome buttery smoothness, be ready for a bumpy ride,” the announcement post says.
Here’s what new in this version:
- Update the baseline to AOSP Lollipop 5.0.2
- Improvements to Heads Up, such as an option to disable heads up interruptions completely
- Add Quick Unlock
- Extend the power menu
- Animate the volume panel in a more material manner
- Make it possible to skip songs using volume buttons when the device is locked
- Add CM12 Theme Engine
- Fix various small annoyances from AOSP
The last version of Paranoid Android was released four months ago, version 4.6 beta 5.
The rollout of Android Lollipop to flagship devices is still happening more than 2 months after the update started rolling out OTA to Nexus devices, and now it appears that it’s going to be dragged out even longer—at least for HTC. The Taiwanese company set a 90 day goal for the release of Lollipop to carrier versions of the HTC One (M8) and (M7), but it doesn’t look like it’s going to meet that goal.
According to Mo Versi, the company’s Vice President of Product Management:
In the spirit of continued transparency, I wanted to share a quick update on where we’re at with our Android Lollipop rollout process. We’ve been working hard in the labs with Google and our carrier partners ever since the code release and are making great progress so far, but if you’ve been following the progress of this rollout you will know that Google has had to address several issues with this release. We’ve been diligently working to fix some of them on our end and incorporating Google’s fixes as quickly as possible, but despite everyone’s best efforts some carrier versions of the HTC One (M8) and HTC One (M7) will not meet our 90 day goal, which is February 1st. While we are committed to delivering within this time period, we are even more committed to ensuring these updates result in an even better experience with your device because that is what the updates are intended to do.
The update has already rolled out to the Google Play, Unlocked, and Developer Editions of the One (M8). But updates for carrier versions of the device, which HTC promised in November would be getting Lollipop within 90 days, seem to have caught some snags. The company is “making great progross,” but it appears that Google has had to address “several” issues with this release.
We have the Android Lollipop code. We'll be updating the HTC One (M8) & (M7) within 90 days from today. #HTCAdvantage pic.twitter.com/VJ0wB1jQbm
— HTC (@htc) November 4, 2014
Update 2: Samsung has now officially sent out the above invitations.
Update: It appears the invitations, while possibly real, haven’t yet been officially released by Samsung.
Samsung has apparently let out some invites to its first “Unpacked” event of the year, this one happening next month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The event, as noted on the invite, is apparently scheduled for March 1st. The invite first appeared via Vietnamese site tinhte.vn.
It’s been a long time coming, but Google has finally decided to post the Lollipop factory images for the LTE Nexus 7 (2013) and the ‘Mobile’ Nexus 7 (2012). The image, specifically, is a build of Android 5.0.2. As per usual, the OTA update should start hitting these devices soon, and we’ll let you know when these OTA downloads are available.
You can download the factory images over at Google’s developer page. If you’d like to install one or any of these factory images without waiting for the over-the-air update to hit your device, check out our comprehensive guide.
Dr. Tad Vail of UCSF at the kickoff of CrowdOptic’s medical solution
This is part two of my series on the state of Google Glass. Be sure to read the first part of this series where I explain the truth of Google’s official stance on where the device is headed.
Google Glass has an uncertain future, but there are many things we can learn from the past two years. While the general public is holding it to the standard of being a consumer product (and has watched it flop), the Explorer Edition Glass saw amazing accomplishments and successes elsewhere: in the workplace. Many startups—dubbed by Google as the “Glass at Work” partners—have seen the device become a major contributor to their business, and one company in particular, CrowdOptic, has seen extraordinary success working with seven Fortune 500 companies that represent more than $1 trillion in market capitalization.
Although the Glass team definitely missed some hurdles as mentioned in Thursday’s Q4 earnings call, the experimental device definitely has legs (and it’s not just because Google says so)…
Google Glass is definitely in limbo right now, but as I talked about earlier this week, it’s far too early to say that the project is dead in the water. Those of us that had consumer interest in the project are curious enough about what the future might hold, but what about those who have been investing in development for the platform for two years now? Google—unsurprisingly—says there’s still value in developing for Glass, but also that some changes to the developer experience are incoming…
The Google Q4 2014 earnings call is happening right now, and Google CFO Patrick Pichette took a second to speak about projects that miss their goals and how Google asks them to “take a pause” to reset their strategy. Google Glass, and the recent decision to graduate the project out of Google [x] was used as an example of one of these situations…
Google has announced on its Google Cloud Platform Blog that it is planning to make four Google Cloud Platform services available to VMware customers later this year:
Many businesses around the world rely on VMware datacenter virtualization solutions to virtualize their infrastructure and optimize the agility and efficiency of their data centers. Today we’re excited to announce that we are teaming up with VMware to make select Google Cloud Platform services available to VMware customers via vCloud Air, VMware’s hybrid cloud platform. We know how valuable flexibility is to a business when determining its total infrastructure solution, and with today’s announcement, enterprise businesses leveraging VMware’s datacenter virtualization solutions gain the flexibility to easily integrate Google Cloud Platform.