Google bought VirusTotal, an online virus and URL scanner, back in 2012 and it continues to run as an independent company even today. Their website and Mac app offers a very useful utility that lets users upload files to see whether they are ridden with viruses. They recently added the ability to scan a computer’s firmware for suspicious malware.
Samsung likely has more devices to update than most smartphone manufacturers, and as such, they’re constantly pushing out updates to their never-ending list of handsets. Sometimes these are bigger updates—like a firmware update to Android 5.0 Lollipop—but more often they’re just very minor version bumps to fix bugs and close minor security holes.
SamMobile keeps track of all of these updates to Samsung’s handsets, and their latest list of recent updates includes firmware spanning Android 4.0 all the way to Android 5.0.2. Devices include the Galaxy A7, Galaxy Core Prime, Galaxy Ace 4 LTE, and more. Many of these are updates to devices in international locales, but at least one, the US Cellular Galaxy S6 Edge, is for a United States device.
Chainfire has announced this afternoon that the first two models of the Samsung Galaxy S6 have been added to the CF-Auto-Root repository. Specifically, you’ll find that CF-Auto-Root for both the SM-G920T and SM-G925T are now available, otherwise known as the T-Mobile Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. CF-Auto-Roots for other devices in the S6 family are surely imminent…
As per Chainfire’s Google+ post:
Either way, the first CF-Auto-Root’s for the S6 family are up: SM-G920T and SM-G925T – the T-Mobile US S6 and S6 Edge.
Only very minor modifications were necessary [to the existing CFAR script]. The S6 CFAR has been tested on a real device, and root was achieved. Further information? I have none, I wasn’t there in person.
All completely expected, but perhaps nice to know regardless.
Before actually rooting though, consider that KNOX will likely be tripped, and there’s a good chance untripped KNOX will be required for phone based payments.
If you want to download the CF-Auto-Root, be sure to head over to the repository: http://autoroot.chainfire.eu/. It’s probably not going to be useful for many yet, because the Galaxy S6 hasn’t even shipped for most. And in the case that you don’t have any need for a root at all, you’re probably in the majority.
Last week Google announced that Lollipop will come to most Nexus devices in the coming weeks. If you like to get the latest from Google, you know that “coming weeks” could be a pretty long wait. Cut the line and install the over-the-air (OTA) update by following our quick guide.
Pebble has launched version 2.5 of its smartwatch firmware, packing a bunch of great new features. The company says that the firmware brings the ability for the Pebble and Pebble Steel smartwatches to display Emoji, replacing the previous small white boxes that are all too familiar across platforms without Emoji support. The company is also launching the Compass app that they promised long ago, which can be picked up on the Pebble appstore.
Additionally, the app includes some interesting new abilities for users who have recently upgraded to iOS 8. Notably, the update now allows iOS users to dismiss notifications by clicking the X button to dismiss one, and holding it down to dismiss all. Pebble also says that the app should stay live in the background more often on iOS, but the company says that users should make sure not to disable “Smartwatch Proximity.”
The smartwatch should have improved Bluetooth and notification reliability compared to previous firmware versions, and Pebble says that 2.5 also fixes a plethora of bugs.
Sony today announced it’s rolling out a new software update for the Xperia T2 Ultra & Xperia T2 Ultra Dual that brings Android 4.4 KitKat alongside other features to the devices.
You’ll also notice a few other goodies in the update aside from KitKat, including: Sony’s newly tweaked Status Bar and customizable Quick Settings, a new UI and animations similar to those on the PS4, Xperia Themes, and a number of improvements to some of the company’s stock apps:
We’re also uplifting Sony’s entire native app portfolio to the latest versions – bringing tweaked / improved / current experiences for (to name but a few): Messaging, MyXperia, Smart Connect, Small apps, TrackID, TrackID TV, Sony Select, Smart Social Camera and…Sony’s Media apps: WALKMAN, Album and Movies, with Sony Entertainment Network cloud service integration* – a more converged and full Sony entertainment experience – Sony Entertainment Network & PlayMemories integration with a more intuitive UI, better download speeds, and more!
The update also brings support for Sony’s “SmartWear Experience” with the SmartBand SWR10 and Lifelog app.
A full list of what’s new in today’s update is below:
Sony says you can expect the update to arrive for other devices, including Xperia E1 and Xperia M2 (& M2 dual variants), in the near future.
While some of us have been able to get Samsung’s new Gear fitness tracking wearables working with non-Samsung Galaxy devices, Samsung is still only officially supporting 20 Galaxy devices after first launching the wearables with only compatibility for its flagship devices. Samsung today provided details on the exact lineup of compatible devices, which as of yesterday includes 12 Galaxy smartphones and 8 tablets.
As of yesterday, the devices you see in the images above are all compatible with the Samsung Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit. Those are the devices that are officially supported through the ‘Gear Manager’ or ‘Gear Fit Manager’ apps, but we managed to get the Gear Fit working with the new HTC One M8.
If you own a T-Mobile Moto X and are impatient to upgrade to KitKat (aka Android 4.4), the firmware has been leaked on xdaDevelopers.
As ever with unofficial ROM flashes, caution is your watchword. Make sure you have a good backup, and read the thread (a continuation of an earlier 4.3 leak) carefully before deciding whether or not to proceed.
As the CyanogenMod team works to continue releasing new “nightly builds” of its custom Android firmware, it just released a blog post this morning asking for donations from the community. The team said it needed donations to purchase new servers to keep releasing new builds.
CyanogenMod is not a for-profit business. We are just a bunch of geeks, trying to make our phones more awesome. The donations we get currently cover our operating costs and occasionally go towards developer devices. This time, I need to ask for help from the community for something a bit larger. We need to purchase these servers in order to bring the build infrastructure back to full capacity.
The CyanogenMod community quickly jumped into action, and the CyanogenMod team earned the money it needed (and perhaps a bit more) in only a few short hours to purchase the necessary servers. The team will buy “Xeon-class boxes with lots of RAM” next week. Check out the full statement below:
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