Jordan Kahn

As expected, Google finally took the wraps off its new Nexus 7 tablet yesterday during its breakfast with Chrome and Android chief Sundar Pichai. While there was no mention of a possible update to its 10-inch Nexus, it appears Pichai has since confirmed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Amir Efrati that a new version of the device would be arriving in the “near future”:

Expect to see new 10-inch Nexus 10 Android tablet (made by @Samsung) in the near future, Google's @sundarpichai tells me

— Amir Efrati (@amir) July 24, 2013

While we haven’t been hearing much about a new Nexus 10, which was first introduced back in October, we did recently hear that Samsung was working on an octa-core Nexus 11 alongside a new 11-inch Galaxy Tab for later this year. Pichai apparently confirmed that next-gen Nexus 10 would again be made by Samsung, and “near future” seems to indicate we’ll likely see the device shipping with the latest version of Android 4.3 sometime later this year.

Google has announced that it will be rolling out a new textbook section as part of Google Play Books starting next month. Google says it has teamed up with five of the major textbook publishers to offer a “comprehensive selection of titles” and plans to offer book purchasing as well as book rentals when the new store launches. The rental option will allow users to pay only a fraction of the full cost of a book to rent it over a six month period.

Google said the new textbooks will work on the web, Android, and iOS devices, and include search, bookmarks, highlighting, notes, and a “night mode” that will allow you to read at night without disturbing others. You’ll also be able to sync your bookmarks and notes across devices when the new textbooks arrive in early August through Google Play Books.

Google just announced a new gaming hub for Android users that works as part of the Google Play Game services that it launched for developers earlier this year. The new Google Play Gams app will allow users to browse games, view leaderboards, and discover new games by viewing what friends from Google+ are currently playing.

Earlier this year, Google launched its Google Play game services, which now allows developers to easily integrate cloud saves, achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer into games. Today it gave us a little update, noting that “100’s of games added” the new platform in recent months. The new Google Play Games app will essentially act as a hub for end users to view and share stats from some of these new features– like achievements and leaderboards– as highlighted in the images above from Google’s demo today.

Google also showed off a few new games arriving soon on Android with the built-in Google Play Game services, including: Prince of Persia, Riptide, and Asphalt 8.

The app, which some might view as a service similar to Game Center offered on Apple’s iOS devices, will be available on Google Play starting today and ship on the new Nexus 7.

Live from Google’s Android and Chrome event this morning, Google’s Sundar Pichai just provided an update on some of the company’s stats for tablet activations and Google Play content downloads. While noting that revenue per user on Google Play has increased 2.5X over the last year, Google announced that it now has 70 million tablet activations, up from around 10 million last year. It also announced it is now at 1 million apps on Google Play with over 50 billion app downloads.

A run-down of the announced statistics:

-70M tablet activations

-1 in 2 tablets is android

-now 50B+ app downloads, up from 20B last year

-Revenue per user up 2.5x over last year

-1 million apps in Google Play

-revenue increased by 2.5X for devs in last 12 months

-Nexus 7 is over 10% of Android tablets

-in Japan during holidays 45% of Android tablets in Japan were Nexus 7

Nvidia is announcing some big news this week for the future of its mobile chips with the announcement that its Kepler graphics architecture will arrive on mobile devices through its next-generation processor dubbed “Project Logan”. The company is showing off the new Project Logan mobile chip at an event today and detailed some of the new advancements in a blog post:

Project Logan’s GPU is based on our revolutionary Kepler architecture, which forms the foundation for products that a year ago began rolling out across our notebook, desktop, workstation and supercomputer lines.Our mission with Project Logan was to scale this technology down to the mobile power envelope – creating new configurations that we could both deploy in the Logan mobile SOC and license to others, as announced last month. We took Kepler’s efficient processing cores and added a new low-power inter-unit interconnect and extensive new optimizations, both specifically for mobile.

Nvidia claims that Project Logan with Kepler will use around one-third the power consumption of devices like the fourth-gen iPad 4 for the same renders, which would presumably be a big boost for battery life. It also described some of the other benefits of Kepler outside of graphics, including: major improvements to computational imaging, computer vision, augmented reality and speech recognition.

To show off what Kepler can do with Project Logan, Nvidia brings back its “Ira” demo above showing one of the most realistic models of the human face ever created generated entirely in real-time. This time around the demo isn’t running on a GeForce Titan graphics card, it’s on a mobile device running the next-generation Project Logan chip with Kepler.

Another impressive demo called “Island” is below:
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At its event today in New York City, Verizon announced three new Motorola DROID devices coming to the carrier, which isn’t much of a surprise if you have been following the latest rumors. When Verizon sent out invites to the event earlier this month, the carrier hinted that we’d be seeing new Droid devices, and we speculated we’d be seeing the Ultra, Mini, and Droid MAXX that had floating around in recent leaks. Confirming our suspicions, Verizon just made things official and announced pricing and availability for three new devices:

DROID MINI: A compact design with an edge-to-edge 4.3-inch HD display and wireless charging capabilities.

DROID ULTRA: The thinnest 4G LTE smartphone available, measuring 7.18mm, and with a 5-inch HD display. The ULTRA will be available in Black and Red models.

DROID MAXX: Features wireless charging and a 3500mAh battery that gives users nearly two days of battery life on a single charge, making it the longest lasting 4G LTE smartphone available.

The devices pack in much thinner dimensions than their predecessors, as well as some new software features and many of the upgraded specs we’ve been hearing about leading up to today’s launch. Motorola confirmed that the MAXX will come with the 48 hour battery life that was previously rumored, while still coming in at 9 percent thinner than the last generation MAXX. As for software, we see some of the new features we’ve seen in leaks for the Moto X, including: quick access to your device’s camera by twisting your wrist twice, and the ability wake the device hands-free with the “Ok Google Now” command. Also included is the new Touchless Controls and Active Display alerts:
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Following a what feels like non-stop leaks for the upcoming Moto X phone from Motorola, today Tinhte.vn (via AndroidPolice) point us to the 4 minute video above showing what is likely a prototype of the device. There’s no way of telling how far along development this build of the Moto X is, but it certainly looks legit based on the previous rumors floating around. Yesterday, another leak claimed to show off a new minimalistic camera interface, while Motorola already confirmed its upcoming August 1st event in New York will officially introduce the Moto X.
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According to new data from analytics firm Deepfield (via Wired), Google services now account for an incredible 25% of traffic on all internet providers in North America. Not only is that significantly more than Netflix, it’s a huge increase from the approximately 6 percent Google held just three years ago. As noted in the report, Google now measures in at more than Netflix, Facebook, and Twitter combined, but mostly due to YouTube:
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Samsung has just announced that it will be hosting its first developer conference later this year in San Francisco. While we assume that the event would include typical developer sessions for Samsung’s Android/TouchWiz devices, it looks like we’ll also be getting a look at the latest from across the company’s other product lines as well. Samsung isn’t saying much, but it is teasing “what’s next” for developers, hinting that we’ll be seeing at least some new developments with its SDK and developer tools.

The event is scheduled to take place at Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco from October 27-29. Registration isn’t yet open, and no specific details on what we’ll be seeing at the event, but you can sign up on Samsung’s website now to get notified when more information becomes available.

There’s no denying it – the HTC One is one of the nicest pieces of Android hardware on the market. When we reviewed it back in April, we called it “a standout, breathtaking Android phone” and boasted about its above-average build quality and crystal clear display. For me, however, there has always been one thing keeping the HTC One from being my go-to recommendation for the best Android smartphone out there – HTC Sense. This is why I couldn’t be any more pleased that Google has decided to release a “Google Play Edition” of the HTC One running stock Android, giving us more hardware options for pure Android devices on top of its Nexus line that ships alongside major new releases.

HTC Sense, the company’s Android UX overlay it uses to help make its phones unique, unfortunately adds an extra layer that affects the overall performance of the hardware considerably. HTC isn’t the only one. We noticed major performance improvements in our full review of the new Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition running stock Android instead of Samsung’s clunky TouchWiz UX.

For these reasons, I’ve been toting LG’s Nexus 4, which up until recently was the only out-of-the-box, stock Android smartphone available on top of above-average hardware. While there’s no mistaking the HTC One’s superior hardware, because of Sense, it continued to take a back seat to my Nexus 4. With Google’s recent introduction of new stock Android devices under the “Google Play Edition” moniker, the HTC One finally has the opportunity to win me over.
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A new report claims Sony plans to launch an attachment for smartphones that will include a camera lens with built-in sensor, battery, and memory, and connect to a smartphone over NFC or WiFi. The report comes from SonyAlphaRumors, which claims this rumor comes from its top sources (opposed to some of the other stories it often posts from anonymous tipsters and less reliable sources).

There aren’t a ton of details about exactly how the lens would work in terms of integrating with a smartphone, but we’d imagine it would come with a companion app to drive the experience. The report claims it will pack in the same 20.2 MP sensor and Carl Zeiss lens as its $750 DSC-RX100M II digital camera, indicating its price tag might be on the high-end compared to similar camera lens attachments. Another version with a “smaller sensor and larger zoom” is also reportedly in the works.

The site notes that “You can mount it on the smartphone but also use it separately,” which we assume means it will act as a wireless viewfinder of sorts.
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Previous leaks already provided a look at some of the specs coming in Google’s next generation Nexus 7 tablet that will likely make an appearance at the company’s upcoming July 24th event. We already heard it would come with 1.2MP and 5MP cameras, 4GB of DDR3L RAM, Android 4.3, and start at $229 when it finally hits stores. Today’s leak, via Engadget, provides more specifics:

According to the pic, there’s a quad-core 1.5GHz CPU with the still-unannounced Android 4.3 as the OS. The 7-inch screen size remains, though it’s unclear if there’s a resolution bump to accompany it. Also on board are a pair of cameras: 1.2MP up front and 5MP around back. The two more unexpected tidbits are the addition of Slim Port support for playing 1080p video on your TV, as well as wireless charging.

It’s all but confirmed that we’ll be seeing the new device during Breakfast with Sundar Pichai next week, as the latest retail leak shows that stores will start receiving the device on the 20th. 
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The teases for Motorola’s much rumored, upcoming Moto X smartphone keep coming. We already got a look at the device in the hands of Google’s Eric Schmidt, and a leaked video from Rogers confirmed an August release date and some exclusive features like always listening voice control. Today we get what might very well be proof of a solid release date for the device with a leaked memo from US Cellular (via AndroidCentral) pointing to an August 26th launch.

Earlier this month, another document allegedly leaked from Verizon pointed to an August 23 launch for the device, which likely means we’ll see the device launch on a number of carriers that week.

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Many expected Larry Page to talk about the upcoming Motorola Moto X smartphone at today’s earnings call, but unfortunately Page didn’t have much to say about the project. Other than saying he’s very excited about what unit has in store, Page didn’t spend long talking Motorola, possibly because it reported a $342 million operating loss and got rid of around 10K employees during the quarter.

Page did talk numbers– most of which we already knew– such as 900M Android activations (1.5M a day) and 750M Chrome users. He also confirmed that Google Play has surpassed 50B app downloads, a milestone that we knew the service was about to hit. Page said the company paid more to app devs in 2013 than in all of 2012, although he failed to mention any specific numbers.

As for Chromebooks, Page said the product line is growing fast and generally avoiding the general PC trend, but again didn’t provide a lot of specifics.

Head below the break to read Page’s full comments from the earnings call:
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Google just released its earnings report for Q2 2013, announcing $9.56 per share on consolidated revenue of $14.11 billion, up 19% year-over-year. That’s compared to the 31% growth with $13.9 billion in revenue it reported last quarter, and the $12.12B in revenue it reported in the year ago quarter. It’s also slightly lower than the average of around $14.45 billion in revenue and $10.79 per share Wall Street was expecting. Google also reported $54.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents and operating income of $3.12B (22% of revenues), down from $3.24 billion last year.

“Google had a great quarter with over $14 billion in revenue – up 19% year-on-year,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “The shift from one screen to multiple screens and mobility creates tremendous opportunity for Google. With more devices, more information, and more activity online than ever, the potential to improve people’s lives even more is immense.”

Google’s Motorola unit reported revenues of $998 million, up from $843 million in the year ago quarter, which accounts for 7% of total consolidated revenues. However, Google also notes that “GAAP operating loss for Motorola Mobile was $342 million, or -34% of Motorola Mobile revenues” in the quarter, up from $199 million a year ago.

Google’s headcount is also way down from 53,891 full-time employees to 44,777, mostly  thanks to around 10K employees axed from Motorola alone in recent months.

GOOG closed the day hovering around 910 but dropped to 865, down approximately 5%, in after hours trading.

The full report is below:
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Last month, three days before Apple, Google and other technology companies were scheduled to meet government officials for a summit on increasing smartphone crime, Apple announced at its developer conference that iOS 7 would include a brand new theft deterrent feature. At the meeting in June, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced the “Our Smartphones Initiative” to bring together police and other government agencies to help tackle the problem. Now, Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman are hosting the first meeting of the group and attempting to crack not only Apple’s new “Activation Lock” feature, but also LoJack running on a Samsung Galaxy S4 (via Cnet):
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Privacy protection in the apps we use on a daily basis has been a big topic of conversation following accusations that Google and other large tech companies were working with government agencies to provide user data. Google has worked tirelessly to clear its name during the scandal, and today CNET reports that the company is testing encryption for Drive files that could further keep its users’ data protected from prying eyes.

As a reminder, Google does not currently encrypt files store in its Drive cloud storage service, but rather only encrypts files being transferred on their way to Drive:
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DROID MAXX

Verizon just started sending out invites to the press for an event taking place later this month in New York City (via TheVerge). While the carrier isn’t specifically mentioning what we’ll be seeing at the event, it did say to expect the next generation of its most popular family of devices, which leads us to believe it will likely be an announcement for new Droid devices.

If Verizon is unveiling new Droid devices, it’s likely we’ll see one or all of the much rumored Droid MAXX, Droid Mini, and Droid Ultra. Motorola’s already started talking about the Droid Ultra, and the Droid MAXX was already tipped for Verizon in the latest round of leaked press shots.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about these devices, but the latest leaks for the Droid MAXX advertised the device with 48 hours of battery life and availability exclusively through Verizon starting August 8th.

We’ll have to wait until later this month on July 23rd to find out for sure, but we’re expecting one of these new Droid device to make an appearance and replace the current aging lineup of Droid devices at Verizon.