Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. You can find his current work at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google9to5Toys, 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.
Update: A previous version of this article stated that Microsoft was investing $70 million, but it seems more likely that the company is only part of that total number. It’s not known how much Microsoft is investing. Feel free to read WSJ’s ambiguous wording below…
The Wall Street Journalreports today that Microsoft plans to take part in a $70 million investment round in Cyanogen, a company that was once just a group of modders working on a variant of Android. Now, Cyanogen has bigger ambitions. “We’re going to take Android away from Google,” said on the record recently by Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen’s CEO.
OnePlus is today teasing an announcement for tomorrow with the tagline “Back to Basics,” but no one really has any idea what the company plans to tell us about. Interestingly, the teaser image that OnePlus posted across its social media profiles (seen above) definitely makes reference to the Breaking Bad title screen, but it’s not clear yet what it might mean.
Also, updated models of the OnePlus One without Cyanogen branding on their back covers have begun shipping…
TouchWiz has long been known as being far too full of bloat and unnecessary software, but the real problem with Samsung’s version of Android is that these added features come with a hard hit on performance. According to a report this morning from SamMobile, the Korean company might be going as far as to remove all features from the OS that can possibly be downloaded—and this just so happens to coincide with today’s market share numbers showing that Apple and Samsung were neck-and-neck in Q4.
ZTE announced the Blade S6 smartphone today, which packs LTE connectivity, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system, and a 64-bit processor, all for a price that’s definitely in the “affordable” category.
We told you earlier this week about a letter sent from WikiLeaks to Google, asking why it took so long for the Mountain View company to notify them of federal warrants for their personal data. Google apparently stood up against the gag orders preventing them from doing so (via The Washington Post), saying it “challenged the secrecy from the beginning.”
Amazon Web Services is launching a new service (via The Wall Street Journal) this morning called “WorkMail,” an enterprise email and calendar solution that the Seattle-based company believes will bring a wide variety of improvements to a space that is largely controlled by Microsoft and Google.
HTC’s Jeff Gordon, the company’s Senior Global Online Communications Manager, has taken to Twitter this morning to say that owners of the HTC One (M8) in Europe should be expecting to see Android Lollipop at some point very soon.
Users have been reporting back that the update hasn’t seemed to hit their devices yet, but Gordon says to keep checking as the update will be rolling out in waves.
A new image, courtesy of none other than Evan Blass (@evleaks) himself, has leaked this morning showing what looks to be two variants of the upcoming “Hima” HTC One (M9) flagship. While they sport a similar physical build, the larger one includes a hardware home button while the smaller of the two does not. Interestingly, this render is a bit different than anything we’ve seen leaked thus far, straying just a bit in design from the current generation hardware…
Google has announced today, five years after introducing a test version of the feature, that HTML5 video on YouTube is now the default setting for video playback. Before today, Adobe Flash was used for playing YouTube videos, and users needed to go to YouTube.com/HTML5 (pictured above) to toggle the HTML5 player (if your browser supported it).
After seeing the countless doomsday articles over the last couple of weeks, I can’t help but wonder whether or not Google regrets the way they announced the retirement of the Glass Explorer Program and graduation of Glass out of Google[x]. The headline of the announcement, reading “We’re graduating from Google[x] labs” was nothing like the headlines of those that reported the news. Instead of reporting that the device was “graduating” out of Google’s experimental product lab and into its own division (under Tony Fadell’s leadership no less), headlines reported of Glass being a “failed innovation,” as being “killed off,” and blatantly called the project “dead”.
Google didn’t say any of these things. Sure, there is absolutely room to criticize various aspects of the Explorer Program, but Google is moving on from that. That’s what this announcement was about. Google has decided to put all of its resources and focus into the next generation of the Glass project, and meanwhile the world is claiming its demise before what’s next has even been seen. I understand that many objections against Glass are moreso objections against head-worn computing in general, but arguments claiming the overall death of the augmented reality experiment I believe are also premature. And not only is augmented and holographic head-worn computing not dead, but evidence points to it being on the brink of a very real evolution.
We told you yesterday that Google was planning to bring Google Fiber to a handful of new cities, and today the Mountain View company has officially announced the expansion of its gigabit broadband service to Atlanta, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
With Un-carrier 8.0, T-Mobile introduced to the world its new “Data Stash” program, which allows customers to stash away unused data for up to a year. And with Super Bowl XLIX around the corner (and as is T-Mobile style), the company has decided to put together a fairly borderline obnoxious commercial about this new initiative, featuring the pop culture famous person of famous persons. Yes, the Un-carrier has unsurprisingly chosen Kim Kardashian to star in its Super Bowl commercial, and in the clip she seems to focus mainly on mocking herself… Expand Expanding Close
Google has this morning pushed out an update for the stable channel of Chrome OS, and as is usual, it packs a huge number of changes. But also as usual, most of these changes are under-the-hood tweaks and there are often just a few small notable changes that the end-user might notice. This update brings a new default wallpaper that sports Material Design, automatic syncing of wallpapers between devices, and a new “Emoji palette” that will allow users to quickly access Emoji.
The default wallpaper has been updated to Material Design
Custom wallpapers are now synced across your devices
Emoji palette allows users to quickly access emoji
The update, specifically numbered version 40, is being pushed out as we speak. You can likely just give your Chromebook or other Chrome OS device a reboot within the next few hours to receive the update. To read more about the update (in case you maybe want to dig through the countless bug fixes), head over to Google’s Chrome Releases Blog.
An LG G2 has popped up on eBay via qualitycellz at a super-low price, shipped for $210. These usually retail around $300 or more, so this deal knocks about $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. Expand Expanding Close
The Google Lunar Xprize contest has the final goal of taking a robot to the moon, but it’s not just going to lay out the entire $30 million in prizes on one day. Today, Google and Xprize announced five companies that are sharing a total of $5.25 million for reaching milestones in three categories of achievement.
Three years ago, Google, under a secret search warrant from a federal judge, shared the emails and personal data of three WikiLeaks staffers with the US government reportsThe Guardian. Google was unable to say anything to the group about it doing so until Christmas Eve of 2014, at which point the company told the activist publisher of secret information that it had complied with a Justice Department order from 2012. WikiLeaks wants to know why it took so long.
Google and the NFL have struck a deal—just in time for the Super Bowl—to bring a plethora of in-game footage to YouTube, and the Mountain View company says that it’s also putting some of that content directly in Google search results. This doesn’t mean you’ll be able to stream any entire games, but you will be able to catch some of the most important moments. Google says that “no way he caught that” plays from Odell Beckham Jr. will definitely be showing up on YouTube at one point or another.
It’s pretty simple: On any screen you watch YouTube, NFL’s YouTube channel will bring you the sights and sounds this week in Arizona, from pre-game analysis to the highlights that everyone will be talking about. After the Super Bowl, don’t let the worst Monday of the year get you down. NFL’s YouTube channel will post more videos all through the offseason.
Highlights from Super Bowl XLIX will be the first content to hit the channel, but Google says that the NFL will be posting plenty of content through the offseason. You’ll be able to pick up right where you left off at the beginning of the 2015-2016 season, when you can expect the channel to blow up with all kinds of new videos and analysis. And, as a bonus, Google says that it’s making it super easy to find this content; all you have to do is search for the name of your favorite team in a Google search.
T-Mobile is seemingly continuing with its “Un-carrier” parade, as the company just announced a new program called “SCORE!” that lets customers add $5 per month to their bill to get some steep discounts on smartphone upgrades. Essentially, enrolling in this program lets you subsidize one of your own future smartphone purchases, but it looks like T-Mobile is going to try to make the investment worth your time.
Android Lollipop continues to roll out to various handsets, and the story continues this afternoon as LG has confusingly both “introduced” the Lollipop update for the LG G3 but also says that it’s “coming soon.” “Life with your LG G3 is about to get sweeter,” the company’s tweet says.
The Korean company started rolling out the update in Poland in early November, but since it’s the company’s USA account tweeting today, it looks like Lollipop should start hitting stateside G3 handsets soon.
This morning we were told by Motorola that Lollipop is rolling out to the 2nd generation Moto G in the United States and India. Also, OTA downloads for Android 5.0.2 recently became available for the Nexus 7.
The BLOCKS smartwatch platform was unveiled a few months ago, and it’s still very much in development. But the company building the modular wrist-worn computer recently had a chance to sit down with the Project Ara team at Google, and it seems that the Mountain View corporation might be interested in working with the team to bring the best of the market’s modular devices together in harmony.
Motorola this morning has taken to Google+ to say that Android 5.0 Lollipop is rolling out to the Moto G in the United States and India. Specifically, the update is today hitting the 2nd generation Moto G in the states and both 1st and 2nd generation devices in India.
#Lollipop is rolling out in phases to #MotoG (2nd Gen) in US & #MotoG (1st & 2nd Gen) in India. Look for the notification on your device to update!
This official announcement comes a couple months after Motorola began soak testing the update for the 2nd generation Moto G, and about a month after the update started rolling out to the Google Play Edition of the device.
The upcoming HTC flagship is probably one of the most exciting smartphone launches scheduled for the next couple of months, and today Phandroid has shared photos that claim to show the rumored “Hima” device in the flesh. There’s nothing crazy or exciting to see here, but we do now have a bit of corroboration of things we knew previously.
In early December, it was reported that Qualcomm was having some problems with its next-generation Snapdragon 810 chip. The SoC was said to be overheating at certain voltages, and this raised concerns that the next slew of flagships coming in early 2015 might see delays. LG then went on to announce its G Flex 2 smartphone at CES 2015, effectively squashing rumors about the 810 that had spread just about a month earlier.
Sony Hong Kong has today unveiled a purple variation of its flagship Xperia Z3 smartphone. It’s officially called the Xperia Z3 Purple Diamond Edition and it packs the standard black front with a purple backside. On top of the changes in its physical appearance, the new Z3 variant also ships with some content from Disney’s Frozen pre-loaded. The phone is going to launch at some point before the end of the month in Hong Kong at the price of HK$ 4,998 ($645). There’s no word yet on when or if the handset will be making it to other countries.
