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Deal: LG G4 w/ 32GB flash GSM 4G LTE (factory unlocked): $290 shipped (Orig. $460)

Buydig via eBay offers the Unlocked LG G4 32GB Smartphone in Black Leather for $289.99 shipped. That’s more than $150 off the original list price, and the lowest we can currently find for a new unit. Recently succeeded by the LG G5, the G4 has a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display, a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808, and a 16 megapixel camera. Amazon shoppers give it 4.4/5 stars.
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Tesla confirmed using wearable tech to increase production efficiency at factory, likely Vuzix hardware (Updated)

Google Glass Enterprise Edition has been leaked in full at this point, but what good is new enterprise-focused hardware unless it’s being used in the field? APX Labs, one of Google’s Glass at Work partners, has confirmed on its site that it has signed renowned maker of electric vehicles Tesla Motors as a client, and there is speculation that the company is using the latest unannounced Glass hardware to increase productivity at its Fremont factory…

Update: While multiple people close to the situation say that Tesla is still deploying both Glass and Vuzix hardware in some capacity at Fremont and running trials to compare the platforms, Tesla has reached out saying that “Tesla does not use Glass hardware in the Tesla Factory”. It seems that, while we’re confident Glass was at Fremont at one point, the company has recently moved away from Google’s platform. A person says that Google engineers were at one point referring clients like Tesla to Vuzix while the Enterprise Edition was in development.


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Clinton email reveals Google working in 2012 on a tool to support Syrian uprising

One of the more amazing revelations in the 30,000 Hillary Clinton emails posted on Wikileaks last week was that Google was in 2012 working on a tool to support the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Washington Examiner highlights an email originally sent by Google Idea‘s Jared Cohen to Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan, who forwarded it on to Clinton. Cohen was a former State Department staffer who subsequently became a senior Google exec.

Cohen described a tool that Google believed could help to destabilise the Assad regime, and Sullivan said to Clinton that it was ‘a pretty cool idea,’ no-one realizing at that point how things were going to unfold …


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Someone is trying to sell the unannounced Google Glass Enterprise Edition on eBay

Update: It appears Google has shut down the eBay listing.

Earlier this year, we told you across several exclusive reports that second-generation Glass hardware was in development, namely a variant of the device reworked with the enterprise in mind. Now, a couple months after getting our first look at FCC images of the device and later an official Google patent, we now have our first look at a unit in the wild via a new eBay listing


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9to5Toys Last Call: LG Watch Urbane $169, Sony Xperia Z5 Compact $400, Pebble Time $95, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

LG Watch Urbane Android Wear smartwatch: $169 shipped (Reg. $200+) | eBay

Sony Xperia Z5 Compact Unlocked Phone: $400 shipped (Reg. $450) | Amazon

Daily Deals: Pebble Time Smartwatch $95, Hisense 55-inch 1080p 120Hz LED Smart HDTV $370, more

Smartphone Accessories: Aukey Bluetooth 4.1 Wireless Sport Headphones $15, more

Buy or upgrade Parallels ($49-$79) & get 7 Mac apps free: 1Password, Parallels Access, & more (Reg. $269)

2016 All-Star Mac Bundle brings together 11 high-quality apps: $20 (Orig. $263)

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

Headphones: Sennheiser HD7 DJ Closed Over-Ears $119 (Reg. $150+)more

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MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

Take home the Lexar JumpDrive 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $50 shipped (Reg. $80)

How-to: Use your car and an inexpensive inverter to replace the need for a home generator

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

Nike’s self-lacing prophecy finally comes true with the HyperAdapt 1.0

This NES-inspired backpack is the perfect carryall for any gamer

Hands-on: LG G5’s modular design and metal build is a peek at the smartphone of the future

The LG G5 is a weird phone, but that’s not a bad thing. If you only look at the spec sheet, there’s not much about LG’s latest G series handset that sets it apart from the other Snapdragon 820-powered competition. On paper, it might as well just be another option available for those perusing the shelves at their local carrier store. It has USB Type-C, a fingerprint sensor on the back, a nice camera set up, and a decent build. All of these things are expected of a 2016 flagship.

But the weirdness of the LG G5 is what makes it intriguing to me. Samsung ditched its plastic in favor of a premium metal and glass build with last year’s handset, and this year LG is following in step with an obvious evolution in the design of the phone. The all-metal beast now just has a single lock button around the back, the volume rockers have been moved to the sides, there’s a dual-camera set up, and most of all, this phone is modular…


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9to5Toys Lunch Break: Google Play MP3 albums $1, Lexar 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive $50, AKG Headphones $120, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

Google Play MP3 albums $1 ea: Arctic Monkeys, Shinedown and Silversun Pickups

Take home the Lexar JumpDrive 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $50 shipped (Reg. $80)

Amazon Gold Box – AKG K-495NC Premium Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones $120 shipped (Orig. $350)

Apple 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (newest) 2.7GHz/8GB/256GB $1,200 shipped (Reg. $1,499)

Save big on Apple’s newest laptops: Retina MacBook Pro $1,000 (Reg. $1,299), 256GB 11″ MacBook Air $870 (Reg. $1,099)

Buy or upgrade Parallels ($49-$79) & get 7 Mac apps free: 1Password, Parallels Access, & more (Reg. $269)

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

Green Deals: Goal Zero Nomad 7 Solar USB Charger (refurb) $30 (Orig. $80), Philips Dimmable LED Bulbs $6, more

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MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

Bluetooth Speakers: Sony SRSX7 w/ Wi-Fi + AirPlay $130 (Reg. $150+), Bohm SoundBlock $22 (Reg. $50), more

How-to: Use your car and an inexpensive inverter to replace the need for a home generator

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

Sony’s PS4 Virtual Reality kit is finally ready for primetime this fall + exclusive titles announced

Alphabet selling Boston Dynamics due to lack of ‘marketable product’ in the next few years

Before former Android head Andy Rubin left Google, he headed up Google’s robotics efforts. In 2013, Google acquired numerous companies and added 300 robotics engineers. The crown jewel was Boston Dynamics, already known for their animal- and human-like robots. However, Bloomberg is now reporting that Alphabet is selling Boston Dynamics.


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Google Hangouts now lets App customers video chat with up to 25 participants

You’ll soon be able to hold video chat meetings with much larger groups as today Google begins increasing the number of participants Apps customers can have in a Google Hangouts video call at any one time. The old limit of 10 participants today gets increased to 25 users.

The change comes to Apps customers only— Business, Government, and Education—  while all other Hangouts users will still have the old limit of 10 participants for video.

Google notes that it will only show “the 10 most active video call participants” along the bottom of the video chat to maintain quality, but it will switch on the fly between active users for the new limit of up to 25 participants.

All Apps customers should start to see the new participant limit increase roll out over the next few days.

Google is giving another ranking boost to mobile-friendly pages

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Google announced in April of last year that it tweaked search results to give a ranking boost to sites that offer mobile-friendly versions, and now the Mountain View company is prepping to give even more ranking weight to these sites. The company is planning a change that “increases the effect of the ranking signal” for mobile searches to put even more mobile pages on the top…


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PSA: Google is now sending out invites (and denials) to I/O 2016 lottery entrants

We told you last week that registration for Google’s 2016 I/O developer conference opened up to the public, and now it appears those that entered the drawing are receiving acceptance and denial emails. The lucky lottery entrants that have been accepted this time around, though, are apparently getting an error preventing them from registering…


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SXSW: JJ Abrams-backed ‘Moon Shot’ tells the stories of the Google Lunar XPRIZE contestants

A new JJ Abrams-backed web series called “Moon Shot” officially launched at SXSW this week, telling the stories of the actual scientists behind the teams that are competing for $30 million in prizes. The series spans across nine short films, all of which are now available for download on Google Play and will soon be available on YouTube…


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Google goes with ‘New York Cheesecake’ for the Android N codename

Every year Google hides a little three-letter codename deep in the bowels of Android to represent the latest version, and this year, as Android Police points out, it looks like the Mountain View company is going with NYC, or New York Cheesecake. Note, however, that this isn’t the actual name of the final release — that has yet to be decided — and that you’ll likely never hear of the company officially referring to the update by this name…


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9to5Toys Lunch Break: Refurb Galaxy S6 $330, GoPro’s HERO4 Silver camera $299, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

Refurb Samsung Galaxy S6 SM-G920A 32GB: $330 shipped (Reg. $400+)

Record all the action with GoPro’s HERO4 Silver Camera for $299 shipped (Reg. $330+)

4K Displays: Dell 24″ $390 (Reg. $600), Dell 27″ $500 (Reg. $700), Acer 28″ refurb $240 (Reg. $500), more

Games/Apps: Guitar Hero Live iOS $50, Battlefield Hardline from $20, GTA Trilogy for Mac $6, freebiesmore

Home Theater Audio: VIZIO 25-inch Sound Stand $150 shipped (Reg. $200), JBL Soundbar (Refurb) $70 (Orig. $200)

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

End the madness – stop renting your cable modem with these refurb Motorola deals from $35 shipped (Orig. up to $130)

MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

How-to: Use your car and an inexpensive inverter to replace the need for a home generator

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

Philips introduces new ambient Hue Lights that automatically simulates the sun

WD’s new internal hard drive for Raspberry Pi brings 314GB of additional storage

Mountain View planning office releases latest renders of Google’s tent-like campus expansion

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Google’s expansion plans for its Mountain View HQ have been progressing rather slowly, but the company has now given the go-ahead for local planning officials to release the renders of the structures it hopes to build next to its existing Googleplex head office.

The company originally submitted plans for a combination of one dome-like structure and a second building looking like a giant tent. As BizJournals now reports, the latest version appears to have abandoned the dome in favor of a lower-profile structure designed to blend into the local environment (more images below).

Once the campus is complete, you’ll be able to take a walk through it …


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CrowdOptic launches its own hardware as other Glass at Work partners seemingly dying

Update 3/16: Augmate has reached out to clarify the situation, noting that CEO and founder Pete Wassell is indeed not leaving the company. The previous “team” page we linked to on the company’s site didn’t list Wassell’s name, but it appears the page — which has now been taken down — was inaccurate.

CrowdOptic, widely known as one of the larger and more successful of the dozen-or-so Glass at Work partners, has today announced its first in-house developed hardware product. The CrowdOptic Eye streams video via the company’s video streaming stack at the flip of a switch, adding additional opportunities for clients that have until now primarily used wearable devices like Google Glass for a wide variety of purposes ranging from medicine to sports…


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This future LeEco phone concept shows off an edge-screened, buttonless beauty [Gallery]

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Chinese company LeEco (previously LeTV) hasn’t launched a phone in the United States yet, but reports from last year say that that’s probably going to change soon. Hopefully, when they do, this is the phone that they’ll launch. We’ve recently gotten our hands on these official LeEco-made renders depicting a future phone concept, sporting a Samsung-like edge screen, and a sleek all-metal buttonless design…


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SXSW: Samsung unveils Entrim 4D VR headset, Waffle & Hum On! Android apps [Video]

Samsung’s Creative Lab — the group within the company that cultivates small startup-like projects within the larger corporation — has unveiled three new projects here at SXSW in Austin, TX. Among them are a new VR technology called Entrim 4D which lets you more intimately feel the VR content you’re experiencing via electric signals sent to your brain, a collaborative social media project called Waffle, and a music creation app called Hum On!..


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9to5Toys Lunch Break: Nexus 6P from $425, Lenovo 11-inch Chromebook $129, 200GB MicroSD $60, more

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: TwitterRSS FeedFacebookGoogle+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS

Deal: 32GB Nexus 6P down to $425 (Reg. $499), 64GB down to $475 (Reg. $549)

Lenovo 11-inch Chromebook 2.16GHz/2GB/16GB SSD: $129 shipped (Reg. $149)

Gold Box Monster SanDisk storage sale: 200GB MicroSD $60, UltraFit 128GB USB $25, much more

How-to: Use your car and an inexpensive inverter to replace the need for a home generator

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

Daily Deals: 8TB Seagate USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $200, Asus Touchscreen Laptop/Tablet $155, more

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MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

Holmes Smart WeMo appliances: Air Purifier $150 (Reg. $200), X-Large Heater $100 (Reg. $200)

Solartab: Powerful Solar Panel/13,000mAh dual USB battery in iPad form factor: $94 shipped ($35 off)

12-inch MacBook now $300 off: 256GB $1,000, 512GB $1,300 + extra $50 savings w/ .edu email

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

LG releases a new line of 4K Super UHDTVs with HDR capabilities and big price tags

Rule this summer’s BBQ with Mark Dredge’s new Cooking with Beer guide

SXSW: Sony’s Future Lab shows off its ‘N’ audio-based wearable, other projects

Earlier this month Sony announced a new R&D initiative called the “Future Lab Program” and a mysterious device simply called “N” was concurrently shown off in a YouTube video. Details on this audio-based wearable were light until today, but the Japanese company set out to fix that by heading to the capital of Texas at SXSW Interactive to take the wraps off…


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Lee Sedol scores his first win against Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo [Video]

Google’s AlphaGo AI may have secured the five-game match with its third win yesterday, but that doesn’t mean the competition is over. As announced today (via Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind), the second-best-in-the-world South Korean Go player Lee Sedol actually managed to score a victory against the Google AI in the fourth game…
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AlphaGo’s historic third game win vs. world’s best Go player seals the match

Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s CEO and founder, today announced the historic news that its machine, AlphaGo, won its third game in a row versus 18-time Go world champion, Lee Sedol. With the third win under its belt, that’s the five-game match now sealed. A machine has officially beaten the world’s best player at a game which is widely considered to be very difficult to teach a machine.


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SXSW: Hands-on with the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ claw game at the Google Fiber Space [Gallery]

We told you a couple of days ago that Google was building a crane game for SXSW attendees, and last night we finally had a chance to try it out for ourselves. Appropriately dubbed “I’m Feeling Lucky,” the huge crane game offers some free swag from the variety of products the Mountain View company offers via its online retail presence (with no SXSW badge required!)…


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Talking Schmidt: Google to soon bring its driverless cars to the UK, humans don’t have eyes in the back of their head yet

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Speaking in South Korea (where he was also seen using an iPhone), Eric Schmidt addressed the possibility of Google’s driverless cars expanding outside of the United States. In an interview with The Telegraph, Schmidt explained that UK officials have approached the company about bringing its self-driving vehicles to the streets.


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