Android

When Android first hit smartphones, it shipped with the Android Market, a storefront for downloading apps. Two years ago, however, Google decided to replace the Market with the new, revamped Google Play Store. The new store would house all of Google’s offerings, from music and videos to books and Android apps. You can even buy a new phone through the store these days.

Now, to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the launch, Google is giving users discounts and sales on movies, music, apps, and more store-wide. A special page has been setup that will list the various discounts you’ll be able to take advantage of during the sale.

The promotion isn’t yet running in the United States, but should be available soon.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZLvv0q8ltw]

Samsung today published two new YouTube videos detailing its latest products. The first video runs through just about every imaginable feature of the new Galaxy Gear devices, from fitness applications to customizing the interface, to Android smartphone integration and, you know, checking the time.

A second video, embedded below the break, shows off the company’s Galaxy S5 smartphone. This video recounts the various specs and statistics that most smartphone buyers are familiar with before jumping into a breakdown of the phone’s form factor and design (GOLD IS BEST!).

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Since its initial release last year, the Chromecast has added support for a plethora of apps and services, including Plex, Vevo, Songza, and many more. Last month, Google announced the Chromecast SDK, which it said would make supporting the device even easier for developers. Online streaming video service Vudu has now announced that it too will soon support Chromecast with that SDK.

On its website Sunday, the WalMart-owned company stated that both its Android and iOS apps will soon receive updates that add Chromecast support. The company also adds that streaming will be available through Chrome on Windows and Mac, although that has been available since day one.

There are no details available as to when we can expect the Android and iOS Vudu apps to be updated, although we can’t imagine it taking too long. Rdio and Beats Music are also expected to add Chromecast support soon, so it’s clear that the SDK is going to help beef up the app selection significantly.

Back in January Google announced a new Open Automotive Alliance that would see the company work with automakers to bring Android-based entertainment systems to vehicles. We’ve seen hints of those partnerships start to trickle out and the latest comes from Mercedes. Following a job listing from Mercedes last week looking for a software engineer to work on a “Google Projected Mode” that would integrate content from Android devices into an in-car system, the company has once again mentioned using Android in a press release today.

While announcing that Apple’s just announced CarPlay feature for iOS would be demoed on a new Mercedes-Benz C-Class at the Geneva Motor Show, the company also said it would offer Android support as “as soon as Google brings its own in-car infotainment system to market.”
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After unveiling the first ad for its Galaxy S5 flagship last, and briefly breaking Twitter with a selfie, Samsung has just announced a suite of premium app deals for Galaxy S5 customers.  The app suite will come bundled for free with Galaxy S5 purchases and includes a variety of premium services, subscriptions, and apps for free.

Evernote, Bitcasa, and LinkedIn are all offering 3 months of their premium services for free to Galaxy S5 customers. Bloomberg is offering a free yearlong subscription to Businessweek, while the Wall Street Journal is giving customers a 6 month subscription for free. Previous Galaxy devices offered free DropBox storage this time around, however, users will get 50GB of storage on Box for 6 months.

The full breakdown of offerings is below:

• Run Keeper – 1 year free premium service ($20 value)
• Lark – 1 year premium service ($36 value)
• Skimble – 6 months free premium service ($42 value)
• Map My Fitness – 6 months free premium service ($36 value)
• Wall Street Journal – Free 6 month subscription to Wall Street Journal ($160 value)
• Bloomberg Businessweek + – Free Subscription: 12 Months ($30 value)
• PayPal – Enjoy special offers (totaling $50 or more in value) from your favorite stores when you pay with PayPal
• LinkedIn – Free LinkedIn Premium account for 3 months ($75 value)
• EasilyDo Pro – Free app purchase ($5 value)
• Blurb – Free $5 Coupon ($5 value)
• Cut the Rope 2 – $10 in-game credits ($10 value)
• Flick Dat – Free download of $2 paid app ($2 value)
• Box – Free 50 GB for 6 months ($60 value)
• Bitcasa – Free Premium Service: 1TB storage for 3 months ($30 value)
• Evernote – Free Premium Service for 3 months ($15 value)

All of these deals put together total out to more than $500 in savings, which is pretty impressive and certainly makes the Galaxy S5 slightly more enticing.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivOspWGlMdk

Rumors of HTC’s upcoming flagship have been around for a while now, especially now that Samsung’s Galaxy S5 has been announced. HTC has an event scheduled for March 25th, but that hasn’t stopped numerous pictures of the device from being leaked, including a clear press shot of the device in gold. Now, a kid from Schaumburg, IL has posted an exhaustive 12-minute hands-on video with the device, nearly three weeks ahead of the phone’s official unveil.

The video doesn’t show a lot that we didn’t already know. We do get to see the latest version of HTC Sense in great detail. The kid calls it Sense 6.6, which doesn’t seem very logical, as it is expected to be Sense 6.0. The video also shows the welcomed addition of a microSD card. Most notably, there are now two rear cameras, as expected, while the power button has been moved to the top right and the headphone jack to the bottom. The camera interface has also been greatly simplified with a focus on speed. There are six shooting modes, as well, including: Camera, Video, Selfie, Zoe, 360 Panorama, and Dual Capture.

HTC is set to officially unveil the device on March 25th, but in the meantime, checkout the video up above and let us know if you notice anything neat. Full gallery of images below:

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Earlier this week, a report emerged claiming that Ferrari, Volvo, and Mercedes are going to unveil the first iOS in the Car integrated vehicles this week. iOS in the Car was first announced by Apple at WWDC in June, though the company has been rather quiet since then. Now,  it appears as if Google is getting ready to take a stab at an in-car technology system.

According to a job posting, first spotted by German site Mobi-flip.de, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler is looking for a software engineer who can help implement Google’s in-car system. The in-car interface will reportedly be called “Google Projected Mode” and will allow users to “seamlessly integrate” Android devices into a dashboard’s head unit.

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After announcing its acquisition of Motorola late last month, Lenovo is ending the month with another big bit of news. According to a new report from Re/Code, Lenovo has inked a deal with Ashton Kutcher, star of “Jobs” and “Two and a Half Men”, to release a line of smartphones later this year.

In an interview with the publication, Lenovo Chief Marketing Officer David Roman noted that while the deal does sound kind of odd at first, Kutcher is an engineer and fits the role very well.

“I know on one level, it sounds corny, but it is real. He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it.”

Lenovo and Kutcher have been working together since October, with the actor taking on the role of developing and promoting the company’s Yoga line of devices. Kutcher won’t have much of a say in terms of the design of the phone, but look and feel of the software experience will very much be his.

Kutcher studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa, so he certainly is qualified. Although, he did drop-out to pursue a modeling career before graduating. He’s invested in numerous technology start-ups, however, including FourSquare and Uber.

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After a wave of updates for its Android apps yesterday, Google has just announced an update to its Hangouts for iOS app. The update brings the app version number 2.0.0 and is the first update for the app since all the way back in November.

The update adds a plethora of features and design tweaks, most notably of which is an iOS 7 optimized interface. There are aren’t a ton of changes, but everything definitely has the iOS 7 look and feel to it.Menus and buttons are now totally “flat” and much cleaner overall. The iPad app has also gotten some major tweaks, including picture-in-picture video calling. The app also now supports the ability to send video messages up to 10 seconds long, ala Snapchat.

The full changelog is below:

• Fully-optimized for the iPad, including picture-in-picture video calling
• Animated stickers that help you share exactly how you’re feeling
• Record and send video messages up to 10 seconds long
• Send a map of your current location

The update is live on the App Store now.

Following reports last night when the device was spotted going through the FCC, Reuters reports Boeing today officially announced a new Android smartphone with a number of innovative security features. Dubbed “Boeing Black,” the device will be marketed towards government officials and other organizations that highly value keeping their data secure. The tamper-proof device builds in a number of security features for encrypting calls and more and is designed to wipe itself clean of any data if someone attempts to open the physical casing of the phone. Here’s a bit more from Boeing’s website:
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Google’s Android head Sundar Pichai has been answering questions at Mobile World Congress and French site FrAndroid provided a roundup of a few of the more interesting snippets (in addition to his denial that Google tried to buy WhatsApp).

Update: Google provided a direct transcript (though no video was made available) in which not surprisingly Pinchai is a little less self criticizing:

Sorry, the premise of the question is because Android is open, it has more security issues? Respectfully, I’m not sure that’s a correct premise of the question. Open platforms historically undergo a lot of scrutiny, but there are a lot of advantages to having an open source platform from a security standpoint. I would argue that it’s the best way for a platform to be secure, because every researcher in the world can inspect it, every developer in the world can inspect it, and I think that contributes a lot to Android security.

Android was built to be very, very secure. The thing that you’re seeing is because Android is an open platform, many people can ship Android in many different ways and so there are some partners when they ship devices, they have an older version of Android. And sure you can have a security vulnerability there, but that doesn’t mean Android isn’t secure. We go to great lengths–the depth of work in Android to make it secure; the depth of work done by Google Play…Google Play automatically scans and verifies thousands of applications for malware. We track data on this. It’s state of the art in terms of what we do. What you see across the ecosystem…people will ship good phones and keep them updated…you will have some phones that will not be updated. That’s where we see issues. Not Android at a fundamental level.

As long as you’re on a phone and able to update, Android is very very secure.It’s designed to be very very secure. I would go as far to say — open systems are far more secure. We do this on the browser side. Chrome is very secure. The fact that some things are open, by any stretch of the imagination, does not make it any less secure.

Malware targets where users are. When you say numbers like 90% of malware is targeting Android, you know, I hate to point out that if you’re a smart business person running this malware company, that’s what you should do. It’s the wrong way to look at the lens. Obviously, you will always see more malware targeting Android because Android is used more than any smartphone platform by a pretty substantial difference. I think that drives a lot of it so I understand that part of it. What matters much more is – as a user, if you use Android, are you fundamentally more compromised? We don’t think so.”

Responding to a question about malware on the Android platform, Pichai said:

We cannot guarantee that Android is designed to be safe, the format was designed to give more freedom. When people talk about 90% of malware for Android, they must of course take into account the fact that it is the most popular operating system in the world. If I had a company dedicated to malware, I would also be addressing my attacks on Android … 
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Google’s had a busy Wednesday in terms of app updates so far, having just released the Google Experience launcher for all Nexus devices and Play Edition devices. Now, the company has released a substantial update for the Google+ Android app. The update includes the normal group of bug fixes we’ve all come to expect, but it also includes a plethora of new features for photographers.

First off, the app now offers the ability to start editing a photo on one device, and then continue the process on another Android device. There are also a handful of new filters and editing tools, many of which we’ve seen before from Snapsneed. There are also some interface tweaks, such as a new “View All” option, which displays your entire photo library, both local photos and cloud photos, in one central interface. Finally, the update also a new option to quickly view photos by the date they were taken.

The full change log via Googler Vic Gundotra is below:

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Project Ara, the modular phone project announced by Motorola’s ATAP team last year, will be getting its own developer conference this April. Google announced the event on the Project Ara website (via AndroidPolice) and noted that a live stream with “interactive Q&A capability” will be available online for those that can’t attend. The conference will take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and Google says there will be a limited number of attendees. The event will focus heavily on a new Ara Module Developers’ Kit that will be released online in early April:
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One of the big standout features of the Google’s latest Android release, KitKat, was a new homescreen/launcher experience that essentially merged Google search app with the standard Android home screen. Unfortunately, up until now the feature was exclusive to the Nexus 5. That changes today as Google released the Google Now Launcher app on Google Play allowing users to enable the functionality on Nexus and Google Play Edition devices. The experience brings a few improvements to Google Search integration on the home screen, the most notable of which is the ability have “always-on” voice commands using “OK Google.” It will also put a ton of Google Now content within easy reach:
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