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The great unraveling of Google+ as a fiber connecting all of Google’s products continues. Who’s disbanding this time? Well, basically all of the Google ecosystem.
It looks like this could very well be the much-anticipated OnePlus 2 that is set to be announced later today. These images perfectly match what we saw from Chinese telecoms regulator TENAA last week. Head below for the full gallery…
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Google announced today that it is updating its AdSense user consent policy to comply with requests from European Union data protection authorities. The updated user consent policy strengthens the requirement that publishes with audiences in the EU obtain permission from readers before collecting usage data and accessing cookies. Google says the updated user consent policy follows its own approach to comply with privacy laws. The company outlines the updated user consent policy for website and app publishers with EU readers and users:
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Motorola has at least a few major announcements scheduled for tomorrow, but it looks like there aren’t going to be many surprises when it comes to the new Moto G. We’ve seen almost a dozen leaks already (including renders, more renders, real photos, more real photos, and even more real photos), but now we have what is essentially a full reveal. The packaging is in another language, but this unboxing is probably the clearest look we’ve had yet at what the company is going to be showing off tomorrow…
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Samsung’s Galaxy S6, much like previous generations of the S line, is sure to see a few variants to appeal to various segments of the market. The Korean company first launched the outdoors-friendly Galaxy S6 Active on AT&T (check out our full review), and now it looks like we might see a Galaxy S6 Mini at some point down the line as well (via PhoneArena)…
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Mobile security researchers at Zimperium say that they have discovered the “worst Android vulnerability in the mobile OS history” – and it can infect your smartphone simply by receiving an MMS message. Unlike most malware, it is not necessary to open the message in order for your phone to be compromised, reports NPR.
“This happens even before the sound that you’ve received a message has even occurred,” says Joshua Drake, security researcher with Zimperium and co-author of Android Hacker’s Handbook. “That’s what makes it so dangerous. [It] could be absolutely silent. You may not even see anything.”
Once the MMS has been received, it activates code which gives the attacker complete control of your Android device – everything from copying data to taking over the microphone and camera …
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Acer did something a little unusual last month when it announced an all-in-one Chromebase desktop with a touchscreen. It’s the first of its kind, and the company hopes it can bring something unique to the market. I’ve been testing it for the past week and, although it’s clearly not an input replacement for the mouse and keyboard, it actually has its uses.
The entire 21.5-inch 1080p panel has a layer of touch sensors over the top of it. It’s ten-point multitouch, and can be used to do all manner of things. It’s mostly intuitive too. There’s little unusual or unfamiliar if you’ve been using touchscreen smartphones for any length of time.
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Nest founder and former Apple iPod lead designer Tony Fadell has intimated in a BBC interview that the decision to make an early version of Google Glass available for public sale may have been a mistake.
He said that while Google has always launched beta versions of its products and gathered feedback from users, there was a very big difference between software and hardware.
If you are only doing services based on electrons, you can iterate quickly, test it, and modify it and get it right. But when you are dealing with actual atoms – hardware – and you have to get manufacturing lines and it takes a year or more to develop that product, you better understand what it is and what it’s trying to do and specifically what it’s not going to do.
Customers have to spend money to buy those atoms. They want something that delivers value or you end up with a real disappointment and you can spoil the market.
He was, however, “very bullish” about the product, and believes it has a big future …
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Dmail is a Chrome extension which allows you to un-send, or revoke any emails you send through your Gmail account. The service was launched by the same brainiacs that brought us the Delicious social bookmarking tool.
Self-destructing email isn’t exactly a new thing. Google itself rolled out a feature that lets you un-send a message once you’ve sent it. The only issue with Google’s built-in service however, is that you only have 30 seconds to change your mind about sending an email to someone. Dmail lets you revoke emails whenever you like. I took it for a quick spin to see what it’s like, and I have to say, it’s an incredibly convenient way to make all your outgoing communication more secure. It also happens to be ridiculously easy to use.
Following the VidCon keynote address by Susan Wojcicki earlier this evening, the YouTube CEO took a couple of minutes to sit with BroadbandTV CEO Shahrzad Rafati in a fireside chat and answer questions submitted by the community to social networks including Twitter and Instagram. Of note were comments on the yet-to-be released video subscription service, the way in which YouTube measures success, and Wojcicki’s opinion on YouTube stars experimenting with other platforms like Vine and linear TV.
Google today has started a program for startups to gain two non-organic patent families from Google, as well as the opportunity buy more patents from the company at some point down the line. To be eligible however, the interested startup must also join the LOT Network, which includes companies like Dropbox and Canon and focuses on stopping patent trolls (via TechCrunch).
On the same day that Apple launched a massive iOS app sale, Google has also joined the fun. The company has discounted a plethora of apps on the Play Store to celebrate summer. The discounted apps aren’t unpopular by any stretch of the imagination and include a variety of popular games.
When Android Auto was debuted in June of 2014, a variety of automobile manufacturers signed on to support Google’s in-car offering. One of those launch partners was Honda and despite the manufacturer having promised to support the platform from the beginning, it has yet to release any car model with support for Android Auto. Today, however, Honda announced at an event in Silicon Valley that it will begin shipping cars with support for Android Auto in 2016.
Carrier billing, also known as direct billing, is a way through which customers of Google Play can pay for premium downloads without ever manually inputting a credit, debit or gift card – by having new charges billed directly to the carrier service plan they pay monthly. Now it’s available for Play Store customers on a few more select carriers in several countries – only on select carriers, though. The change was initially spotted by Android Police.
Here are the carriers and countries where Play Store carrier billing is now available:
Typing on mobile devices can be a frustrating, mistake-prone experience that takes longer than typing on a full-sized desktop keyboard, so it’s no surprise to see app developers quickly bringing to fruition changes that reduce the amount of finger-pecking necessary to take action – making password input a fallback to fingerprint scanning being one example. The full list of carriers and countries that have support for Play Store carrier billing is available on Google’s support site.
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Sennheiser Urbanite on-ears for $75 or XL over-ears for $130 (Orig. up to $250), more
Seagate Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop Hard Drive: $110 shipped (Reg. $130), more http://t.co/MX0Sx068Qb pic.twitter.com/iI1LeOQUPW
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 22, 2015
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WD Elements 2TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive: $70 shipped (Reg. $100), more http://t.co/MX0Sx068Qb pic.twitter.com/XppZTF5hGu
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 21, 2015
UPDATE – If you want a native app on your Mac to do the same job, using Google’s available Deep Dream code, you can download RealMac’s beta software.
Deep Dream has caused something of a stir online in recent weeks. Google’s neural imaging network has an uncanny ability of taking ordinary images and turning them in to something you’d normally only see if you were sleeping, or under the influence of banned substances. Now, creating your own trippy images is as easy as uploading an image to a web app.
Dreamscope lets you upload any photo or picture and run it through one of its many Deep Dream patterns. The end results is normally weird, scary, or both. There are 20 filters to choose from in total, some scarier than others. Depending on the size of your image, the time it takes to process your nightmare varies. I experienced anything from a few seconds to around half a minute. For extra-trippy effects, re-upload your Dreamscope’d image several times and see what happens.
Take a look at our gallery below and you’ll see some of the virtual hallucinations it conjured up for us.
If you want to create your own, head on over to DreamScopeApp.com and start uploading. There’s also a gallery to look through of images created by others. Some might be NSFW, so be careful where you view them and who you view them in front of. You have been warned.
Just as one European antitrust case against Google reached its conclusion, with a second one underway, it may be facing a third, reports the Financial Times.
The first antitrust case found that Google abused its dominant position in search to promote its own products over that of competitors. with the company told to expect large fines. A second one is underway, to determine whether Google forced smartphone manufacturers to favor its own apps over competitor ones in return for permission to use Android.
The FT now reports that a number of companies selling online advertising have asked the European Commission to consider a third case, to investigate Google’s dominance of the web advertising business …
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Google’s Knowledge Graph attempts to surface relevant, actionable information to the search page so you don’t have to do as much clicking. As one example, Google presents population and other census data front and center when you search for a city. It looks like this card in particular, the one for cities and towns, has been updated with a new actionable snippet for flights…
Pixate has been acquired by Google, according to an announcement on Pixate’s blog. The company, which made software for prototyping and designing mobile applications, has also decided to make Pixate Studio completely free — and is reducing the cost of its Pixate cloud service.
Here’s the full announcement from Pixate:
Today, I am very proud to announce that Pixate has joined Google’s design team.
Pixate was started three years ago with the goal to make designing and prototyping native mobile applications easy and more accessible. Our early adopters helped guide us along the path of making tools and services that best fit the needs of designers struggling to turn their ideas into reality. Today, we have companies of all sizes, from single-person startups to global corporations, using Pixate to bring their app ideas to life.
We don’t want to stop there. Our small team at Pixate has some really big ideas, and with the help of Google we’ll be able to bring those ideas to the design community at scale. We’ve become an essential part of the workflow for tens of thousands of designers, and are excited about expanding our mission at Google to reach millions of product teams worldwide.
Starting today we’re making Pixate Studio free and dramatically reducing the cost of the Pixate cloud service. You can read all about that in our FAQ. I sincerely want to thank all of you for your invaluable feedback and the endlessly inspiring prototypes you’ve created with Pixate. The landscape of design tooling is changing rapidly, and Pixate is committed to staying at the forefront.
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WD Elements 2TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive: $70 shipped (Reg. $100), more http://t.co/MX0Sx068Qb pic.twitter.com/XppZTF5hGu
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 21, 2015
The details of the OnePlus 2 have slowly been making their way out thanks to OnePlus’ ingenious — and annoying — marketing tactics. We know so far that it’s going to have a Snapdragon 810 V2.1 SoC, 4 GB of RAM, a 3,300 mAh battery, and a sweet new 13-megapixel camera. And while all of these specifications are nice to know, there’s still something we won’t know until we actually get to test the phone out for ourselves: how it performs. AnTuTu scores have typically been a good indicator of this, however, and now the OnePlus 2 has been spotted hitting the benchmark app once again, scoring a modest 63,719.
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With companies now able to apply to use their own brand as a top-level domain (TLD), there have been suggestions that doing this might be an easy way to get a boost in search-engine rankings. For example, that Samsung using something like www.phones.samsung might get more hits than the usual samsung.com domain. Not so, says Google …
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As Motorola’s July 28th event draws near, more and more leaked images and renders of the upcoming Motorola handset refreshes continue to hit the Internet. This time we’re getting a look at leaked images (via MobileSyrup) of what is assumably a 3rd gen Moto G display dummy unit, and there just so happens to be a sticker affixed that confirms some previously rumored specifications of the device…
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