Mark Hearn

We’ve seen Glass hit the hardwood, the OR and the campus, so how about the tennis court? Tennis greats Roger Federer and Stefan Edberg recently swung by Google’s offices to check out the company’s new wearable and of course a friendly match ensued. The onscreen action broadcasts from Federer’s eyewear and while it won’t make you a Grand Slam winner, it’ll give you a closer insight of a tennis champ’s perspective of the game. 

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The smartphone gold rush is showing no signs of slowing down, as Samsung announced today that its Galaxy S5 will be available in the trendy hue across all major US carriers starting on May 30th. Samsung is billing this shiny shade as fashionable, but we think it’s a trend that needs to be as short-lived as possible. While we’re all for seeing devices have a little pizazz, we’d like to see something more original. Ever since Apple launched a gold iPhone last year, it seems like every smartphone manufacturer has jumped on the bandwagon. Nevertheless, if your wireless service is tied to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon or US Cellular, a gold Galaxy S5 can be yours in less than a fortnight.

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Glass may now be available to all US adult residents willing to pay the price, but that doesn’t mean that people in other regions aren’t sampling Google’s famous wearable computer. The Dubai police force is currently performing real world testing of the high-tech eyewear, hoping that it will help its officers when dealing with unruly motorists or wanted vehicles.

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Earlier today, Verizon revealed that it will launch its nationwide VoLTE service across its massive network later this year. If you’re unfamiliar with the terms “voice over LTE” or “VoLTE,” it’s voice calls between two compatible devices being placed over a wireless carrier’s LTE network. To do this, Verizon will be using the Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) speech coding standard to provide its customers with high-quality voice calling. In addition to voice calls, Verizon’s VoLTE will feature video support. This will let users place and receive video calls directly from their contact lists.

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Google released an update for its Chrome OS today and and in addition to some standard bug fixes and security patches, 35.0.1916.116 adds some noticeable features. For starters, the Chrome OS launcher now supports folders, so users can organize their apps as they see fit. Google has also updated window controls based on user feedback. The minimize button has now returned and the left/right tiling of windows is now accessible by long-pressing the maximize button. Hotwording (“OK Google”) in now available to US Chrome OS users through the New Tab Page and Google.com. Mountain View has also added captive portal detection during sign-in. This addition will make it easier to connect to public networks at places like hotels, airports and libraries that use a landing page to authenticate users before using the internet.

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Cloud storage provider Box announced an update for its Android app today that introduces a trove of new tweaks and features. Users of version 3.0 will be greeted by a simplified menu and an overhauled previewer that can handle over 100 file types without flinching. This means that PowerPoint presentation will load directly from within the cloud for fast access on your Android device. This spiffed up previewer also displays page thumbnails and lets you search text in any document. While Box’s new apps isn’t exactly a Drive killer, it may come in handy as a back-up plan if you often find yourself working with funky file types.

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When it comes to smartphones people often go gaga for specs and while beefy processors and gigabytes of RAM always sound good, quality software can be a real game changer. For example, Samsung’s new Galaxy S5 ships with a 2.5GHz quad-core processor pushed by 2GB of RAM. On paper this handset should breeze through everyday tasks and crush a bargain bin device like Motorola’s Moto E in any performance-based challenge.

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Quite possibly the worst kept secret in the world of high-end smartphones, the LG G3 can’t manage to stay out of the spotlight. Today’s big leak: lockscreen widgets. These circular pieces of software are set to jive with the G3’s Quick Window cover that leaves just enough space for each item to be displayed. Revealed by @evleaks, it looks like we can expect to see options for a clock, pedometer, text messages and incoming calls.

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Earlier this month, ClockworkMod previewed an app that would let Fire TV users stream a video’s soundtrack through their Android device, allowing them to watch content with a private audio feed. Today, the company has officially released this new software to Google Play, along with an updated AllCast app. When paired together, users can cast pictures, videos and music from their Android devices to their TV via a smorgasbord of platforms, including OUYA, Fire TV, Roku, Xbox 360 and even Apple TV. If you’re looking to add to some new weapons to your media streaming arsenal, these two free apps are definitely worth the storage space.

After a couple of rumors, Verizon’s new XLTE network is now official and cranking out up to two times the bandwidth previously offered in some of the carrier’s major markets. Customers in cities throughout Alabama, Arizona, California, Indiana, Illinois and New York are among the first to take advantage of Big Red’s new AWS-powered setup.

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Chang Dong-hoon may be out as Samsung’s head of mobile design, but his influence may still be on the company for quite a while. Pictured above is an alleged photo of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Prime, an upgrade to the South Korean electronics maker’s Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone. These images come from the folks at PhoneArena who claim the handset touts a QHD display, a quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, Adreno 420 GPU, 3GB of RAM and Android 4.4.3 KitKat all wrapped up an aluminum chassis.

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Verizon may soon be launching an “XLTE” network that will be powered by AWS spectrum. Recently rumored and reaffirmed by wireless news leaker @evleaks, Big Red’s new setup could be going live sometime this year. The carrier is expected to make an announcement next week, which will hopefully fill in some blanks about its new service.

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Google’s annual I/O conference is a little over a month away and today the company has shed a little light on this year’s show by releasing its schedule. The overall theme of the event appears to be “design, develop and distribute,” so segments will most likely focus on these talking points. Things are set to start on June 25th at Moscone West in San Francisco. The first day of the show will include presentations about making your cloud apps faster, cross-platform design, an introduction to Polymer and an interactive Android fireside chat.

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An unannounced Samsung device listed as SM-G900FG recently cleared the Bluetooth SIG’s certification, so what might it be? The current model of the Galaxy S5 carries the SM-G900F, which suggests that this mystery gadget could be the Google Play edition of the GS5. Adding support to this theory, last year’s Galaxy S4 was listed as GT-I9505, with it’s Google Play counterpart being referred to as GT-I9505G. So that “G” at the end of this foreign device really stands out.

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Nothing lasts forever and if you’ve invested in a Chrome OS-powered device, it’s good to know how much support time you’ll have from Google. The folks in Mountain View recently updated its end-of-life schedule for Chrome OS devices, letting people know how long a specific product will have guaranteed support from Google. What happens when your device reaches its EOL date? It’ll work, however it may no longer receive automatic software updates from Google. This will most likely result in missing features and possible performance issues.

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Google announced a new ad format today that the company hopes will give publishers additional freedom when monetizing their websites. This new marketing tool is called “magazine ads” and it have nothing to do with publication subscriptions in Google Play.

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