Google has today completely revamped its longstanding Google Fonts website with Material Design, making it easier — and more beautiful — than ever to browse and try out the site’s huge collection of open source designer fonts. The old Fonts site — which first launched in 2010 — was practically begging to be reborn, and today Google delivered…
Update: After a time of VR store exclusivity (why is that a thing?), the OnePlus 3 is now available for purchase from OnePlus.net.
The launch of the OnePlus One was pretty much the worst thing ever (thanks to the company’s loathed invite system), and the OnePlus Two launch was not much better. Now, after many leaks over the last several months, OnePlus has made its next flagship official in its The Loop VR app. The best part? You don’t need an invitation to purchase one.
Rumors of an HTC-made Android Wear watch have been tossed around for more than a year now. Before Mobile World Congress last year, many thought that the company would finally launch its offering as it was rumored that the company had a wearable planned to be shown off. In reality, the company launched a fitness wearable made in partnership with Under Armour. That device never even hit the market.
Recently, well-respected leakster Evan Blass suggested that the long-awaited Android Wear offering from the company would finally launch the week of June 6th. Now, the same guy is pulling that claim, suggesting that HTC has delayed its wearable once again — to the fall…
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We’ve done a lot of coverage on the Honor 5X that Huawei launched in the United States earlier this year. Now, the phone is coming to Canada under a different name: Huawei GR5…
And it seems as if HTC’s downward spiral continues. The latest in its seemingly never-ending doomsday news cycle comes today in the form of a pair of reports from Focus Taiwan, with the former suggesting that the lower-specced HTC 10 has been an absolute flop in China and the latter saying that the company has formed a completely separate company for its VR ambitions…
After first planning to launch the app during Google I/O 2015 and changing its mind at the last minute, Google has finally launched Voice Access in beta, a new accessibility app that allows users to control their phone using their voice. With Voice Access, you can use a wide variety of voice commands like “open Chrome” to bring up the browser or “go home” to go to the home screen…
Update: The Miitomo app is now available on the Play Store.
The game is already available in Japan— that’s how Jeff managed to go hands-on in our first look video earlier this month— but today Nintendo confirmed that its first smartphone game, Miitomo, will officially arrive in the US on March 31st.
The game isn’t exactly bringing over any of Nintendo’s very popular first party franchises to Android devices, but it does feature known Mii characters and, as we noted in our review, the release feels very much like a Nintendo title:
When you first start Miitomo, it’s immediately recognizable as a Nintendo title. It feels like someone took my Nintendo Wii and shrunk it down to fit inside of my iPhone 6s. The music and sound effects, most notably, are of the characteristic Nintendo style. The Miis themselves look just like the Miis on the game-maker’s handheld and home consoles. The writing — witty, with just a hint of corniness thrown in for good measure — is classic Nintendo.
Nintendo noted in its press release today that Miitomo was downloaded over a million times in the first three days after launch in Japan and it also managed to become the #1 most downloaded free app in both the App Store and Google Play.
While Nintendo didn’t mention other countries by name today, it did say that “several other countries” will receive the title on the 31st alongside users in the US.
Check out our review of the game on our sister site 9to5Mac from earlier this month to get a first look before it officially arrives in the US and other countries on the 31st.
LG revealed details of two Android Marshmallow-powered phones called the X screen and X cam just about a month ago, and now the Korean company has announced that they’re beginning to roll out first in South Korea and then following in other markets including “Europe, Latin America and Asia.” It’s not exactly surprising, but LG seems to be taking a pass on these phones for North America…
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…
Sony has unveiled three new Xperia phones, known as the X-series. The entry-level device is the XA, with a MediaTek MT6755 processor rather than a Snapdragon chip. With a 720p display and 16GB storage, Sony’s description of it as a “super mid-range” device seems to be pushing it, though you do get 2GB RAM and 13MP/8MP cameras.
The standard X gets much better specs and should make photography fans happy. It boasts a Snapdragon 650 processor with 3GB of RAM plus 32GB of storage. The display is a good if unexceptional 5-inch 1080p one, but the standout element here is the camera combo. The X gets the same 23MP rear camera as in the Z5 (though with improved firmware) and a 13MP front camera Sony says offers 6400ISO for ultra-capable low-light performance – and a new predictive auto-focus that can track a moving object in the frame …
Not more than a couple days after saying that his fans “criticized [themselves] out of any leaks for a while,” (in reference to hateful comments about the LG G5) Evan Blass is on fire once again. Now, he has shared images of a mysterious Sony “Xperia PP10” smartphone (he says that might not be its launch name), as well as Moto Hint-like accessory called the Sony Smart Ear…
Huawei recently announced the Mate 8 for intenernational markets and brought its low-end Honor 5X to the United States, but the company apparently isn’t stopping there. Today, the Chinese company began selling another smartphone in the United States. As per its Amazon listing the US version of the Huawei GX8 is available for $350…
This one’s a quick one. Google has today launched Google Play Books in 9 new countries, bringing the total number of locales that have access to the service to 75. Those residing in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates will find that they can use Play Books effective immediately.
On a related note, Google updated Play Books this time last month with a new Night Light mode that lets you read in the dark without killing your eyes. Hopefully they’ll bring this feature to the OS as a whole soon, just like Apple is planning to do with the launch of iOS 9.3. Most of us have been using this on our desktops with F.lux.
According to a report today out of The Wall Street Journal, Ford, as part of its plan to reinvent itself, is planning to create a separate business unit dedicated to its ambitions in autonomous cars for “ride-sharing and fleets.” Of course the company is seeking partnerships in this space, and it just so happens that, just as was reported by Yahoo Autos a few weeks ago, Alphabet Inc.’s Google is a big part of this move…
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Google has today launched the Google Cast Remote Display plugin for Unity, in hopes that developers will now be able to more easily bring their mobile games to the TV. This is the same plugin that many games on the Play Store — including Monopoly Here & Now, Risk, and more — already use…
Today we launched the Google Cast Remote Display plugin for Unity to make it easy to take your Unity games to TVs. The Google Cast Remote Display APIs use the powerful GPUs, CPUs and sensors of your Android or iOS mobile device to render a local display on your mobile device and a remote display on your TV.
Google says that, as of today, developers can download the new Remote Display plugin for Unity from both GitHub and the Unity Asset Store.
Developers with preexisting Unity games simply need to import the Remote Display package to their project, add the CastRemoteDisplayManager prefab, and configure cameras for the local and remote displays. More detailed information can be found at Google’s Developers Blog.
A few months ago a report surfaced suggesting that Google has plans to bring the Play Store to China, and today another report surfaced (via Reuters) that Google has plans to bring the Play Store to China. You read that sentence correctly; there isn’t anything new here. But if you had any doubt that Google was going to be headed (back) over the Pacific, I think you can put that doubt to rest…
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Right before Verizon and Motorola took the stage earlier today to show off its new Droid Turbo 2 and Droid Maxx 2 smartphones, a red version of the former showed up on the red carrier’s website. And while we now have a clear look at everything the phone offers, it’s interesting to note nonetheless that Verizon seemingly intends to carry on with the “Employee Edition” tradition…
As is the case with the regular Droid Turbo 2, the device’s listing that popped up earlier today showed that it has a lightweight design with a Snapdragon 810 system-on-a-chip from Qualcomm, a 5.4-inch QHD display, and a couple of great 21-megapixel and 5-megapixel cameras (although those are pretty standard for 2015). This particular phone seems to only be available in 64 GB.
While Verizon has already pulled the page detailing the phone, we can assume that it’s not going to be available to consumers — at least for now — anyway. It is the “Employee Edition,” after all. Be sure to read up on the regular Droid Turbo 2 and Droid Maxx 2, and if you’re really pining for some red on your Droid, you’ll be happy to learn that you can now use Moto Maker on the Turbo 2.
Fossil has today made official its entry into the Android Wear space with the “Q Founder,” a nice-looking but oddly-named smartwatch that definitely pulls inspiration from Fossil’s traditional watches…
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HTC just announced the HTC One A9, and a new phone means new marketing materials. It looks like the struggling Taiwanese company may have over-delivered in this area, as there are 9 (yes, nine) new YouTube videos on the company’s channel…
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Today, HTC will take the wraps off its latest addition to the One handset family. The One A9 is expected to feature an all-metal body, but more slim-lined and without the trademark front-facing speakers of current HTC flagships. HTC’s #BeBrilliant event is going to start at 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific/5pm British Summer Time, and will be available to watch live online. You can watch the live stream on the company’s dedicated launch page, or just stay here and watch the embedded live stream below:
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Before today, signing up for Project Fi meant waiting several weeks in most cases before being about to sign up for the Mountain View company’s MVNO. At least for today, you can sign up without a waiting period. To celebrate the shipment of the Nexus 5X, Google says it is today giving out instant Project Fi invites to those that sign up for one…
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BlackBerry already made the PRIV official last month, and then followed up with some of the first official images of the device posted to its blog. Not much of what the company has said up to this point though has been new, though. Even the official images it published a couple weeks ago were pretty much the same as the ones we saw four months ago.
And this new video follows in the same vein as that theme. We’ve already seen an in-depth hands-on video with the phone, we’ve seen its specs leaked what feels like a dozen times, pre-registration for the phone opened up a couple of days ago, and just earlier today pre-orders for the phone went live in the UK. I guess it’s just a pretty marketing clip…
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You probably know about this little notification center, but it’s very unlikely that you ever use it. That fact is according to data that Google itself has compiled, and — as is definitely not unusual — low usage means cutting features in the name of simplicity…
In some cases, these desktop notifications would appear while users were gone, so in 2013 Chrome launched the notification center, a place for users to find notifications from Chrome apps and extensions that they’d missed.
However, in practice, few users visit the notification center. To keep Chrome simple, it will be removed from Windows, Mac, and Linux in the upcoming release. The notification center on Chrome OS will remain unchanged.
