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Since its release, CyanogenMod developer Koushik Dutta has been at the forefront of expanding the Chromecas’s capabilities. He first released his AllCast app that allowed users to beam a variety of content to their Chromecast, and now, he’s updated his Mirror for Android app with a few big new features. In a post on Google+, Dutta announced that Mirror for Android has been updated with the ability to mirror your Android device’s screen to a Chromecast or a Chrome browser. Dutta has been teasing this feature for a while, but he finally released it tonight, albeit in a very early beta.

The feature works just as you expect. After installing the app and going through the set-up process, you have the option to mirror your entire Android device’s interface to your Chromecast, Chrome browser, or even Apple TV. Mirror also allows you to create a video recording of your Android screen.

Mirror lets you:

• Create a video recording of your Android
• Mirror your Android screen to Chromecast (Nexus 5 only)
• Mirror your Android Screen to Chrome (Nexus 5 only)
• Mirror your Android screen to an Apple TV

Of course, there are some bugs given that it is still in an early beta. Chromecast and Chrome mirroring is also only supported on the Nexus 5, as it’s the only device that has the required hardware video decoder for the app. You also must have root-access to your device and have the SuperUser app installed.

If you meet all of these qualifications, head over to Dutta’s Google+ page where you can sign-up for the beta and get access to the Mirror for Android app. Dutta hopes to release it, without root required, to the Play Store officially soon. Check out the video demo up above.

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Motorola this evening has released an update for its Touchless Control app that adds a few new features. Most notably, the update adds a new feature that allow you to ask your phone “What’s up?” to have your notifications read back to you. Simply say “Ok, Google Now, what’s up?” or “Ok, Google Now, read notifications” and the app will read your notifications back to you, allowing you to make the decision of whether they are important or not. Obviously, this is most useful while driving and can help you find out why your phone is buzzing without putting yourself or others at risk.

In addition to the “What’s up?” command, the update enhances end-of-speech detection for improved accuracy and faster responses and includes some bug fixes. The full change log is below:

Originally released back in July, Google has just updated its Google Play Games app from version 1.1 to 1.5. The update adds some useful enhancements to help it compete with the likes of Apple’s Game Center.

First off, Play Games now supports the ability to send and view invitations to join multiplayer games. Previous versions of the app only allows you to join games from within the app and did not support invitations. Further improving the social and game discovery aspects of the app, the update has also added the ability to see what games people in your circles are playing.

A few slight interface tweaks have also been made. the settings have moved from the Action Bar to the side bar. The side bar also contains a new menu called “Matches” that allows you to manage your invitations. New “Recommended Games” and “Find Games” tabs have also been added.

The update is gradually rolling out to devices now, but if you can’t wait, head over to Android Police, where they have the download now.

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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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Samsung’s new Chromebooks leaked a little bit last week and again over the weekend, but now they are official.  The biggest upgrades include the form factor featuring the faux leather stitching made famous by its Galaxy Note 3 and a new 1080P 13-inch display on the higher end $399 model. Both still use Exynos 5 Octocore processors that lack a little bit of the oomph of Haswell Intel processors, but they compete very well in battery life (8.5-9 hours claimed by Samsung). These machines also have wake times of less than one second and cold boots in less than ten.

Another prime area of improvement is the Hangouts video chat experience enhance by a 720P front side camera paired with improved mic and 2x 2W speakers.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN0WrJGKNk4]

Google has announced an experimental feature in the developer version of Chrome OS that allows you to access more than one user profile at the same time, easily flicking between them, as well as passing both tabs and files back-and-forth between profiles.

Switching profiles is as easy as clicking on the profile picture in the system tray popup. […] One nice thing, but still highly experimental, is that you can move windows to different profiles with a simple right click in the window top bar. As you can see in the video, even the Files App even supports this feature.

To access the feature in the Chrome OS dev channel, enter the following line:

chrome://flags/#enable-multi-profiles

If you’re not currently using the dev channel, you can find instructions for switching here, but note that by definition you can expect to experience some glitches. The stable channel is always recommended when working on anything important.

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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It’s not just fictitious towns you have to look out for on Google Maps: Microsoft engineer and former Marine Bryan Seely demonstrated to ValleyWag how he was able to exploit the open nature of the product to intercept phone calls to both the FBI and Secret Service.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/136881011″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The technique Seely used was incredibly simple … 
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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.

Search for Agloe, NY, in Google Maps and the small town will duly appear. Which is odd, as Agloe doesn’t exist, and never has.

BigThink reports that Agloe was one of a number of ‘paper towns,’ places that were invented by early map-makers back in the 1930s in order to catch out rival companies who stole their work.

How do you prove someone stole your map, if that map accurately reflects reality? The answer: add fantasy! Mapmakers had been able to take their competitors to court by pointing out fake places (a.k.a. paper towns) on their maps that were copied from their original work! For this reason, fictitious roads are often called trap streets: because they entrap the company copying them onto their own maps … 
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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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Sundar Pichai at D: All Things Digital conference

Despite widespread reporting that Google bid and failed to purchase WhatsApp ahead of Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of the messaging platform company, Google SVP Sundar Pichai went on the record during a panel discussion at Mobile World Congress to put that claim to bed, The Telegraph reports.

“Whatsapp was definitely an exciting product,” he said. “We never made an offer to acquire them. Press reports to the contrary are simply untrue.”

The source of the reports that Google attempted to pick up WhatsApp for $10 billion source back to a report by Fortune citing “two separate sources” claiming Google had previously underbid Facebook.
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A day after Motorola revealed that it is working on a smartwatch for release later this year, Android Police posted low-resolution photos of what it says is an early prototype from some point last year. The unnamed source claims that the watch was code-named Gem but known to the development team as the Google Watch.

With Motorola having now parted company from Google, and Google believed to be working on an LG-made Nexus-branded smartwatch to be announced next month and launched at Google I/O in June, the one certainty is that this device won’t be launched as the Google Watch … 
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Gmail is about to get a new feature that should help users cut down on the spammy mass emails in their inboxes. Coming this week, PC World reports that Google will be automatically adding a big, beautiful “unsubscribe” button to the headers of such emails, allowing you to quickly opt-out of these types of unwanted messages.

Google hopes this will cut down on something we’re all probably guilty of at some point or another: users who sign up for a mailing list or service, then decide they don’t want the messages. Instead of unsubscribing, many users are marking these emails as spam to quickly block them from showing up in the inbox.

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While we’ve yet to get official word on the machines from Samsung, it looks like two new Samsung Chromebooks will be going on sale shortly as retailer B&H begins accepting preorders for the new models. The listings were spotted by OMGChrome (via GigaOM) but since removed.

Presumably replacing the original 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook model that sells for $249 ($329 with 3G) is an 11.6-inch model starting at $299 featuring a Samsung Exynos 5 SoC and a $399 model with a 13.3-inch display. There isn’t much more information on the new Chromebooks at the moment, but we expect Samsung will announce them once it wraps up its big smartphone announcements at MWC this week. 
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Rumors of Nokia launching an Android phone seemed unlikely for a company acquired by Microsoft, but the company today announced not just one Android device, but three: the Nokia X, X+ and XL. The company’s flirtation with Android does, however, appear to be a token one – not that Microsoft is pleased.

The three budget phones are effectively hybrid devices. Not only have they been given an overlay designed to make them look like they are running Windows Phone, they aren’t even running a standard version of Android and won’t be able to run apps from the Google Play store …

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