Christopher Evans

The Apple and Samsung battle has been going on for years… in their marketing jargon, in the legal system, and in the court of public opinion. The two juggernauts constantly try to one-up each other yet aren’t afraid to borrow good ideas, a combination that has helped speed innovation and bring the best-of-the-best to consumers. So has the Galaxy S6 borrowed anything from Apple and the latest iPhone 6?

The Galaxy S6 is a huge diversion from previous Samsung devices, implementing a fixed position battery that cannot be removed which also means there is no expandable storage. The plastic is gone in favor of premium metal. The device is one solid piece of awesome. It’s probably the best device Samsung has ever made, but even the Sammiest of Samsung fanboys would have a hard time denying that one particular Galaxy S6 feature looks particularly iPhone-ish.

The three phones shown above (from top to bottom):

• iPhone 6
• Samsung Galaxy S6
• Samsung Galaxy S5

It’s pretty clear that in the move from the Galaxy S5 to the iPhone 6, Samsung agreed that Apple was doing some things right in terms of component placement and design. I’m not sure I even have to explain… but just to briefly summarize.

• Samsung moved the headphone jack from the top of the phone to the bottom of the phone, mirroring the iPhone 6
• Samsung did away with their waterproofing so there is no longer a cover to the MicroUSB port
• The speaker was moved from the rear of the device to the bottom, mirroring the iPhone 6
• The speaker “grill” holes look very similarly circular

I’m sure this will be argued endlessly, until of course the iPhone 7 or Galaxy S7 or next DilemmaGate arrives. Perhaps we’re throwing fuel on the fire, but hey, we think it’s an interesting observation and one worthy of discussing. Regardless, after playing with the Galaxy S6 for several hours now, it’s easily one of the most beautiful phones – and maybe the best phone – I’ve ever used in my life. I’ll let Apple and Samsung figure out on what merit that came to be.

What do you think about these similar design choices? Is Samsung getting risky? Are the companies artificially inflating a Jay-Z vs. Nas style feud that helps both of their art grow exponentially? Did I just date myself and are you still even reading this?

I’m sure you’ll let me know all that and more in the comments below.

March 1st is closing in fast and while we await Samsung’s Unpacked event in Barcelona — where we’ll finally get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy S6 — new puported images of the phone have just leaked out online. Posted onto XDA, the leaker claims the phone (underneath all that bubble wrap) is the AT&T model clearly marked “not for sale.” While he wouldn’t say who he worked for, it’s likely he got a hold of a demo unit.

Although the pictures aren’t very clear, he mentions the phone has a glass back (although maybe it’s just glossy metal?) and the images show the rounded metal edges of the phone, as well as a larger home button. A triple-sided Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is also rumored to be in the works, but in the meantime we’ll just have to keep analyzing these pics.

The uploader says more pics are incoming once he gets off work. That’s if Samsung doesn’t get to him first. We’ll keep an eye out.

UPDATE: New images provided by the original uploader, now with 99.9% less image obstructing bubble wrap! Seems legit.

UPDATE 2: Now pictures of the top and bottom. Those are familiar looking speaker holes… Oh, only 1 slot that appears to only be for the SIM. So far it’s looking like Samsung could be going with a non-removable battery and ditching the SD card slot entirely for the Galaxy S6. Someone’s gonna be mad.

Twitter account Amazon Movie Reviews sifts the confused, deluded and downright bizarre domain of the Amazon armchair film buff. Here are 20 of our favourites.

1. The Wolf Of Wall Street

2. Guardians Of The Galaxy

3. Boyhood

4. Birdman

5. American Sniper

6. Finding Nemo

7. Alien

8. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.

9. West Side Story

10. The Dark Knight

11. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.

12. Toy Story

13. Annie (1982)

14. Space Jam

15. The Fog

16. The Fifth Element

17. Under The Skin

18. Lawrence Of Arabia

19. Grease

20. White House Down

The post 20 Amazing Amazon Movie Reviews appeared first on The Poke.

Sponsored post: Moone Boy – Imaginary Friend Prank

The post Why Energy Australia couldn’t read your meter appeared first on The Poke.

Combine a bored Dad, some split screen editing and music – the result is ‘Kali Of The Dance’.

Sponsored post: Moone Boy – Imaginary Friend Prank

The post When Dads are left alone you get ‘Baby Riverdance’ appeared first on The Poke.

Lollipop is more than just a new coat of paint. For Android 5.0, Google introduced their all new Material design guidelines which focused on minimalism and rich animations. Whether it’s the new transition animation, or little icons spinning inside of apps, unlike previous versions of the OS, these animations breathe new life into Android in ways we never thought possible.

Since a good majority of you are still patiently waiting for X manufacturer on X carrier to push out the update to your device, we came across a video giving you a clear look at what you’re missing when it comes to Lollipop’s fun UI animations.

Chances are we all know the “trick” to access Android’s hidden developer menu (Settings > About phone > tap build number 5 times). While we’d normally access the developer settings in order to speed up the animations in an effort to make our device feel faster, you can also slow these own up to 10x. That’s exactly what the guys at The Nerd Herd did in their video, allowing you to see every Lollipop animation in gorgeous real-time slow motion. Check this out.

[via Reddit]

Surrounded by tiny screws, planks of wood, and pieces of paper bearing incomprehensible diagrams, we think "can't there be a better way to assemble furniture?" The scientists at MIT say yes. The university's self-assembly lab has developed a chair that will, when submerged in water, put itself together without the need for direct human interaction.

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The chair took seven hours to assemble itself

The chair is built from six distinct blocks, each with magnets attached. When dropped into the tank, currents in the water gently push the blocks together, making connections that form the shape of the chair. The project is the work of Skylar Tibbits and his team of researchers, and is part of a set of experiments designed to test how materials may one day be able to self-assemble into structures and objects. Athina Papadopoulou, one of the researchers in the team, told Wired that the chair struck a delicate balance between control and chaos. With too much randomness, if the chair's parts weren't designed to find their perfect match, then the final product wouldn't recognizably be a chair. But with too much order, if currents were arranged to force the relevant pieces together, then humans might as well build the chair by hand.

As it is, the project is a visual indicator that self-assembly is possible, but you won't be using the lab's chair to sit on any time soon. The chair is only 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters in footprint, and the process of its creation was even slower than if you were to build it yourself — in tests, the chair took seven hours to build itself. But for Tibbits and his team of researchers at MIT's lab, it's a start. According to Wired, the team is planning a larger self-assembly project that will produce hundreds of chairs at the same time, each large enough to actually sit on.

Some might say that this version of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ ‘Uptown Funk’ is vastly improved by the lack of music and the addition of silly sound effects.

Trending: Google Autocomplete finishes sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey

The post ‘Uptown Funk’ without the music and with added sound effects appeared first on The Poke.

LG introduced some style in the wearable community today, by giving us a look at there new iteration to the LG G Watch R line with the LG Watch “Urbane.” LG claims this new watch to be “designed for a sophisticated and cosmopolitan wearer.” You can tell by the images that it is indeed just […]

The post LG Introduces the LG Watch Urbane that Brings More Style to Android Wear appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

Using an Android device comes with a number of quirks and feelings that only Android users can understand. iPhone users lead a boring existence where everything is sliver and has perfectly rounded corners. Our world is full of color and unique shapes and sizes, but it’s not without #AndroidProblems. That’s exactly what makes Android users different, and why we can safely say no one else understands what it’s like.

10. Being able to charge your phone with any cable

If you’ve been using Android devices for a while you probably have an unlimited supply of mico-USB charging cables. The vast majority of smartphones today use micro-USB cables for charging. This comes in handy when you’re stranded at a friend’s house and they most likely have a compatible cable, or when you can let a friend borrow your cable.

iPhone users don’t have this convenience. Since the iPhone uses a proprietary charging cable it’s not so easy to borrow a charge. They have to always carry an extra charging cable with them, or rely on someone else owning an iPhone. I have witnessed first hand how annoying this can be for iPhone users. Standards like micro-USB make life easier. Be thankful you don’t use a device that tries to make its own standards.

P.S. Always use a charging cable from the maker of your phone if you can.

9. Finding the perfect case… but they don’t make it for your phone model

Have you ever walked into a store and found a gigantic wall of iPhone cases, but just a tiny corner of cases for Android phones? It sucks. If you have the latest Samsung Galaxy device or a HTC One you might be able to find something, but if you have a more obscure phone you won’t. Try finding a case for the Nexus 6 at a mall kiosk.

Android dominates market share, but the iPhone is far and away the most popular phone. Samsung has done a great job at making the Galaxy S line consistent and popular enough that you will see cases in stores, but devices like the LG G3 or Xperia line aren’t so lucky. The good news is there are plenty of cases to choose from if you do your shopping online. Go ahead and let your friends waste their money on bedazzled kiosk cases.

8. “That phone is huge!”

Before the iPhone 6 Plus came around there was nothing that compared to huge Android phones. Even a simple Samsung Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8 looked gigantic compared to the iPhone. Every time you pull out your phone there is someone who will say “that phone is huge!” God forbid you let someone use your phone: “Holy cow I can barely hold this thing! How can you use a phone this big?!”

Thankfully Apple finally got with the times and made a bigger phone. Unfortunately that has led to a new problem, but more on that later.

7. Becoming a group message outcast

If you have a lot of friends or family members that use iPhones you’re more than familiar with iMessage problems. Apple’s proprietary system of bypassing SMS works great among iPhone users, but when non-iOS devices get involved things get messy. Your friends might start referring to you as a “green person” because your name is not iMessage-blue in the Messaging app.

You’re iPhone friends can all group message each other and have a continuous group conversation, but since you’re an Android “green person” it sends the messages separately to you. What’s even worse is when you’re included in a group conversation it turns everyone into a “green person,” and that really annoys the iPeople. This problem is 100% on Apple, but it can make your friends hate that you use Android.

6. Getting a flagship phone on launch day without standing in line

Apple fans have one choice when it comes to phones: the iPhone. It comes in two sizes now, but it’s still just an iPhone. That means when the iPhone launches it’s a huge deal. Just imagine if the Samsung Galaxy S6 would be the only option for Android fans. There would be monstrous lines at every store. Thankfully Android fans have many options, and therefore we don’t have to wait in lines.

Buying a popular flagship Android device on launch day is so much easier than buying an iPhone on launch day. Rarely will an Android phone draw lines at stores. That’s not because the phone isn’t popular. It’s because we have more choices. You might think the Galaxy S6 is the best phone ever, but someone else thinks the HTC One M9 is the best. Choice = no lines.

NEXT: Top 5 things only Android users will understand

When it comes to reviewing a product, I tend to spend as much time as possible with the device, so that I’m able to accurately give my honest thoughts for all of you. While this is by no means a fully loaded review with all of the belles and whistles you’ve come to know and love, I just couldn’t keep my thoughts on the Amazon Echo to myself any longer. I cannot remember the last time I found myself this excited to use and talk about a particular device. Using Amazon Echo is very enjoyable and I’ve found myself the past two evenings just thoroughly enjoying my experiences so much that I had to share.

The most surprising and in-your-face observation thus far: Amazon’s Echo bests the Google app (formerly Google Search) in three key areas, where until now, Google had held a clear leader position in two of them.

• Amazon Echo returns results faster than the Google app
• Alexa from Amazon Echo sounds less robotic and more pleasant than Google
• Music controls. Music controls. Music controls.

Now just because working with Alexa is faster and more pleasant than working with Google doesn’t mean that Amazon’s Echo is the superior virtual assistant. Google’s extensive Knowledge Graph has been able to provide answers to some questions that Amazon Echo failed to answer. Conversational search is another area where Google excels, leaving Alexa in the dust, as it just doesn’t exist. Though, for the most part, the two virtual assistants were quite similar with their results.

As for my third observation, the music controls on the Amazon Echo are by far the most advanced I’ve ever used in a product. Being able to say Alexa play, stop, pause, unpause, next, volume up, volume down, shut up, etc. to fully control your music listening experience, all hands-free, is something that I’ve wanted with Google Play Music for years now.

Amazon Echo and Alexa have many other pros and cons to cover. Over the next week I’ll be putting the two through the paces with a full video comparison to the Google app, which will be showcased in our upcoming review. Teaser: I love the microphone.

For now, here’s some questions that need answering: Can the Amazon Echo live up to it’s advertised expectations? Will Amazon’s limited ecosystem spell doom for the Amazon Echo? And lastly, will Amazon Echo be able to compete or replace the Google app?

Keep watching Phandroid for our full Amazon Echo Review to find the answers to those questions as well as more information about the omnidirectional microphone, speaker output, and companion application.

What do you want to know about the Amazon Echo? Let us know in the comments.

It’s wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Facebook tends to drag their feet when it comes to updating their apps to Android’s latest design guidelines. Hell, 2 years ago they barely started using native Android code for their app. More recently — April of last year, to be correct — Facebook finally began pushing out an update to their Android app with a flatter, more Holo UI design (you know, the UI introduced back in Ice Cream Sandwich). But alas, ’twas better than nothing.

It seems Facebook may not be waiting quite as long before jumping on the Material design bandwagon — Android’s all new UI introduced in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Some folks are getting early glimpses at a more Material Facebook in some regions. The UI update is done on the server side of things and rolling out in stages, meaning everyone is running the same version number (28.0.0.0.16), but only some of you will actually see it. Just gotta sit tight for now.

Really, there’s not too much here in terms of Material design (just the floating action button) and we can’t say we’d be too surprised if this is where it ends. We are talking about Facebook here. Here’s to hoping the slightly tweaked design rolls out in more regions.

[Twitter, Google+]

Japan is often highlighted for the crazy, whacky and cool things they came up with, so when we heard that Google’s Japan team was the one behind this chorus of 300 Androidify characters singing and dancing in harmony we weren’t surprised.

It’s more than just cool, though — it’s actually impressive. Each Androidify character occupied its own device, which means there were 300 Android phones and tablets neatly propped up and synced to sing a familiar song and dance. They even had some light show magic going on with displays turning on and off in unison to create a nice flashy effect.

There are far worse ways to spend 2 minutes and 36 seconds on YouTube so why not hit the play button and give it a quick watch and listen? Let us know what you think straight ahead!

Unveiled earlier this week, the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO LM P1 is, to put it bluntly, one of the craziest ideas to pull out onto a race track in decades. The twin-turbo, V6, kinetic-hybrid, front engined, front-wheel-drive car puts out over 1,200 horsepower (895 kW). Yes, you read that correctly: A front engined, front-wheel-drive racecar. Obviously, we need to take a look under the hood... Continue Reading Coming to grips with Nissan's GT-R LM NISMO LM P1

Section: Automotive

Tags: Flywheel, GT-R, Hybrid, Kinetic Energy, Le Mans, Nismo, Nissan, Racing, Torotrak

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When you're in a rush, it can feel your phone is taking forever to charge. A new cable, however, promises to cut the time it takes to charge mobile devices from a PC. The Sonicable is said to be able to charge any device twice as quickly through a PC's USB port than they would with regular charging cables... Continue Reading Sonicable can charge mobile devices faster, when using a PC's USB port

Section: Electronics

Tags: Cable, Charging, Indiegogo, Smartphones

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• The Practical Meter sheds light on smartphone charging times
• Twig iPhone cable doubles as a tripod
• LED-packing USB cable minimizes after-dark phone-charging fumbles
• Samsung’s Power Sharing Cable acts as a lifeline for your other devices

If you haven’t been keeping up, current rumors strongly point to Samsung ditching their tried-and-true plastic and going with a more metal design for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S6. We know, we’ve heard that just about every year the Korean manufacturer prepares a new flagship release — but this time it could finally be different.

Those needing a little more proof than simply the word of “sources close to the matter,” the folks at Nowhereelse.fr have obtained a few alleged photos of the Galaxy S6’s metal frame, photographed from inside the confines of a Chinese bathroom (the worker likely smuggled the phone inside for a worry free pic).

The photos give us a very clear look at what could be the sides of the Samsung Galaxy S6, and we hate to admit it but… it looks a bit like the iPhone 6 (which also looks like the Sony Xperia Z3 or even the HTC One M8). Upon closer inspection, you’ll find cutouts for the camera and LED flash/heart rate sensor, along with a headphone port and speaker grill on the bottom, and what we’re assuming is an SD card slot along one side and SIM slot on the other.

Exactly what kind of materials will be sandwiched on the top and bottom of this phone is anyone’s guess, but according to rumors the phone will come equipped with a 5.1-inch 1440p display, Exynos 7420 processor, 3GB of RAM, 20MP camera, and 2,550mAh battery. Here’s the rest:

• 64-bit eight-core 14nm CPU which is 50% faster
• 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display with a 577ppi density, stunning outdoor visibility, super dim mode for late night.
• 20MP OIS camera sensor and a 5 megapixel f/1.8 front-facing camera with real-time HDR
• 32 / 64 / 128GB of storage
• 2550mAh battery
• Built-in wireless charging
• Four hours of usage on a 10 minute charge
• Quick connect charging
• Samsung Pay: works with 90% of existing magnetic stripe payment terminals, and NFC payment terminals
• Metal and glass body
• Gorilla Glass 4
• Cat 6 LTE

Of course, we wont really know what Samsung has up their sleeves until their March 1st Unpacked event in Barcelona. Samsung has received a lot of flak for sticking to the same stale Galaxy design year after year, but it looks like the S6 could finally be different. Well, different for Samsung anyway.

Whether you've left a wallet in a cab or misplaced something at home, losing your things is a real annoyance. What's worse is that it feels like a problem we shouldn't have to deal with in the age of smart devices. Sure, sometimes you can use Find my iPhone, but what about objects that don't have smart technology inside? About a dozen companies have fashioned solutions for these items — from Tile, to Estimote, to Motorola — but none are perfect. And most of these companies still haven’t solved the biggest problems: size, range, and location accuracy.

Now, a new company called Pixie has announced a product that looks like it can take this market to the next step. It's called the Pixie Point. The Point is an always-on location tag that works over Bluetooth LE. The beacons are extremely light, measure 3.2mm thick, and look like a guitar pick blown up to two times its size.

Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge discussion is going on at AndroidForums.com!

HTC won’t be hogging the spotlight on March 1st when they look to make their big announcement at Mobile World Congress. Samsung has reportedly started dishing out invites to press for an event on the same day.

The invite is really thin on details, naturally, but they do tease us with a curved contour of what could be a smartphone. We’re all expecting the South Korean company to announce the Samsung Galaxy S6, and the curve could confirm rumors that a special version of the Galaxy S6 with a curved edge display ala the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is also coming to town.

That’s as much as Samsung wants to reveal. Early rumors indicate the company is looking to launch a brand new design for the release of this smartphone. We’re expecting a metal unibody build, and one that uses tempered glass on the back to add to its looks. The Samsung Galaxy S6 specs should look something like the following:

• 5.1 inch 2560 x 1440 display
• Samsung Exynos Octa-Core chipset
• 3GB of RAM
• 20.0MP rear camera, 5.0MP front camera
• 2550 mAh non-removable battery
• Android 5.0 Lollipop and the latest version of TouchWiz

Sounds like it has all the makings for a smartphone worthy of attention, but we won’t know for sure until Samsung delivers the details. We’ll be toting our bags to Mobile World Congress so be sure to circle your calendars and ready up.

.[via Tinhte.vn]

Microsoft is throwing its weight behind the newly announced Raspberry Pi 2 today. The Raspberry Pi Foundation's low-cost computer was an instant hit when it first debuted in 2012, and the new Raspberry Pi 2 now includes a more powerful processor and twice as much RAM. While you’ve never been able to officially run copies of Windows on the Raspberry Pi without resorting to an old version or tricks and hacks, Microsoft says it’s "delivering a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2."

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A full Windows PC for just $35?

It’s not clear exactly what version of Windows 10 will be available, but Microsoft is handing it out for free to the Maker community through its Windows Developer Program for IoT later this year. With the pricing of the Raspberry Pi 2 and Microsoft’s free copy of Windows 10, you could have a full PC for just $35 later this year. We’ll have to wait to hear more information from Microsoft on how Windows 10 will function on the Raspberry Pi 2, but the company says it’s planning to reveal more "in the coming months." It's likely that this version of Windows 10 will only run modern universal apps, as the Raspberry Pi 2 includes an ARM-based processor.

Microsoft is currently developing Windows 10 as part of a public series of previews, and the company is relying heavily on feedback. We recently got a chance to see the new operating system running on 8-inch tablets, phones, PCs, and the Xbox One. With new universal apps, a fresh browser, and the return of the Start Menu, Microsoft is expected to ship Windows 10 later this year on PCs, tablets, phones, and even miniature devices like the Raspberry Pi 2.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation's low-cost computer was an instant phenomenon upon its release in 2012, and now, just shy of three years later, it's back with a new one. The foundation is today announcing the Raspberry Pi 2, an equally cheap, equally tiny computer that's meant for use in electronics projects, assisting experiments, and teaching kids how to code.

There are two key changes on this new model: its processor is now a lot more powerful and it includes twice as much RAM. What doesn't change is just as important: it still sells for only $35.

"It's a major leap forward in terms of computing power for users," says Mike Powell, a technology development manager for Pi distributor Element14. Powell believes that the Pi 2 will open up a lot of new opportunities because of its added computing power. "A whole wave of new applications are now possible," he says.

The Saygus V2 is a phone we haven’t talked about much here at Droid Life, but it’s clear from our inbox that many of you are interested. And you know what? I get why you would be interested – this phone tries to pack it all (seriously, all of it) in at a reasonable price. So because we don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity to be one of the first to own it (and with a discount), we wanted to point out that pre-registration for the device is now open until February 2. 

If you pre-register, you will have an opportunity to buy the phone for $549, which is a $50 discount that also includes an extra battery and a “specialized” glass screen protector. The suggested retail on this phone is $900, so $549 sure looks like a deal. After February 2, though, the phone will still sell for $599.

So what is the Saygus V2, and why is everyone excited about it? It’s pretty simple. There might not be a spec or feature that this phone doesn’t include. It literally manages to check all of the boxes for “best phone ever,” well, except for that whole tasteful design thing, but that’s obviously a personal opinion.

The Saygus V2 comes to us from a US-based mobile phone maker that has, again, tried to build the best phone ever, with specs that come close to blowing every other phone out of the water. The V2 (pronounced v-squared) has an edge-to-edge 5-inch 1080p display with “sunlight viewable screen,” Gorilla Glass 4, and both front and back light sensors “for enhanced screen lighting control.” It’s rear camera is a 21MP sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS), which is joined by a front 13MP shooter that also has OIS. A physical camera button is along for the ride as well. The phone has 3GB RAM, 64GB onboard storage, dual-micro SD slots (expandable to 256GB), a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, GSM/CDMA/LTE connectivity, “Fractal Antenna Technology,” IR transmitter, “60GHz wireless gaming and mobile beaming,” biometric fingerprint scanner (on the side), dual front facing Harman Kardon speakers, noise canceling technology, 3,100mAh removable battery, wireless Qi charging, IPX7 waterproofing, and more. Seriously, try to take all of that in for a second.

On a developer front, the phone (the “developer” version) will come with root access and can multi-boot because it supports booting from SD.

The phone and its situation has that Kickstarter or OnePlus feel to it, in that it’s a product that is real, but its creators are trying to gauge interest before they start making thousands of them. They are trying to promise the world, just like similar projects have done in the past, so for their sake, I hope they can deliver.

The phone certainly is an attention grabber. As you can imagine, we have remained somewhat skeptical about the entire deal, but with registration upon us, it’s time to start watching closely.

Pre-registration happens at the link below. Basically, what you are doing is showing interest ahead of time which then should give you an opportunity to buy the phone at $549, whenever it’s ready. Pre-registration ends at noon on February 2, so you may as well put your name in. No money is required at this time.

Pre-registration Link

Saygus V2 Pre-Registration Opens , Get a Discount on the Phone That Tries to Tick Every Box is a post from: Droid Life

If, for some ridiculous reason, you don’t have the easy-to-secure invite to Inbox by Gmail already you’ll be glad to know that another opportunity has opened up… but only if you act fast. Google is giving out invites to anyone who emails them by 9AM Pacific standard time at inbox@google.com (it has to be from a Gmail address).

Inbox, if you don’t know, is Google’s new take on email, a simplified inbox that’ll group like-items and allow you to take action on multiple emails at the same time. It’ll group travel email into the same bundle and automatically add itineraries and such to your calendar, or you can get a look at all of the email you don’t want to see (such as bill alerts) in one fell swoop.

Inbox has features for “snoozing” emails to make them reappear at a later time in case you can’t get to it right away. It’s a pretty big change at first, but many who have gotten used to it exclaim they wouldn’t dare go back to the old way

You can try Inbox without having to give up your traditional Gmail experience so if you don’t end up liking it it’s rather easy to switch back. There are apps for iOS and Android, and you should note that the web version only works in Google Chrome (though Google swears that will change eventually). In the meantime, check out the cool infographic straight ahead to see exactly how people are using Inbox to help regain control of their email.

[via Google]

Google started life in 1996 as a search engine that helped us to better explore the Internet with our computers. Fast forward to 2014, and we know Google is pioneering the science behind making it easier to get the information we want in our hands via voice recognition. We don’t communicate with those nearby us by writing or typing, why should we have to type on our devices to get answers to our questions?

In a short film posted by Google on YouTube, the company shares with us many of the challenges they face with speech recognition and language understanding. Our complex brains can automatically perform so many amazing processes that a toddler can learn to understand speech and speak themselves, but it’s a difficult engineering problem to teach a computer to do it. In this very well done video, Google shares with us these challenges and some of the breakthroughs made to improve the technology.

As engineer myself, I find it fascinating to learn about the history, science and progress made with speech recognition. I use speech recognition all the time with my Android Wear watch and Google Now. I really appreciate the technology in how it is making information transfer easier and even safer in some situations. Do you use speech recognition often? Do you find the science behind it as fascinating as I do? Am I just a huge nerd? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!

I’m an Arsenal fan, and when I’m not busy tweeting my theories about the world you’ll find me on Twitter regularly commenting about football (soccer). Arsenal is one of the most successful clubs in English football — last year it was valued at £1.3 billion ($1.9 billion), making it the fifth most valuable association football club in the world. While Arsenal has some defensive issues on the pitch, it appears the club could also have some problems defending itself against hackers. I tried to reset my password at the club’s website yesterday and the end result left me shocked and angry. After emailing a support address (because the password reset form wasn't working) from an email address that’s not associated with my Arsenal account, I was told "your password starts with 19 and looks like it is one you made up yourself."

Wait, what. A customer services rep could see my password and then disclosed part of it to a random email address. My mind was blown, but then things went from bad to worse. I triggered the password reset option from the site eventually, and a password was sent in plain text straight into the email address associated with the account. After being told the first two letters of my password, the shock really hit home when I saw a password just sitting there in an email. Most sites force you to create a new password using a web form so that the result is stored in a database securely. Emailing passwords like this is a security no no, and really bad practice.

Most people reuse their password on multiple sites and services

100,000 Arsenal members could be affected if someone successfully breached the site, but the effects don’t just end there. Those 100,000 people could have their email accounts breached, Facebook accounts hacked, and even money stolen from their bank accounts because Arsenal.com was sloppy with security and password storage. That might sound a little illogical, but the problem is most people reuse the same password across multiple sites. It’s a human process designed to make passwords easier to remember, and it’s a tough problem for the industry to tackle.

"As you would expect, we take our ongoing technology security very seriously, and are currently in the process of an exhaustive security review," says Hywel Sloman, Arsenal’s IT director, in an email to The Verge. "This is the last issue outstanding and we expect it to be resolved soon. We have also reinforced our security policies with our customer service staff."

If Arsenal can afford to pay Alexis Sánchez £140,000 ($211,000) a week, it can afford to invest a little time and effort into protecting its customers and biggest fans. What worries me here is that a club as big as Arsenal has such weak security. You can imagine how smaller sites that people register with could contribute to the overall problem of huge databases of passwords being leaked online.

Always remember not to reuse your password and use a password manager if need be, because even though Arsenal plans to fix things there are always thousands of other sites that are equally reckless with your privacy.

Am I trolling with that title? A little. Just keep in mind that I’m not the one who called the Apple Watch ugly or said it should be round or who wouldn’t give Apple fans hope of it lasting more than a day on a single charge. Nope, not me.

But because the world will forget about all of that once it launches thanks to their consumption of freshly brewed Infinite Loop IPA, we thought we should point out that smartwatch re-invention is happening in April, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. The Apple Watch ships in April. In April!

Apple Watch, With Its Unattractive Square Design and Average Battery Life, Ships in April is a post from: Droid Life

What if all of those HTC One (M9) “Hima” leaks from the past week were nothing but decoys, dev units in shells made to look like last year’s One (M8) in order to throw off the scent of the hunt? If the retired @evleaks and his new leak have anything to say about it, then I would guess that’s exactly what we saw. In a picture posted to Twitter this morning that lines up the past handful of HTC flagships, along with the tag “Old habits die hard… ,” Evan may have just given us the first real image of the HTC One (M9) and its bigger brother, rumored to be called the One (M9) Plus or One (M9) Ultra or “Hima” Ultra. 

Let’s start first with the One (M9), which is pictured below on the left.

I think it’s pretty obvious, after looking at the picture here and then back at the previous set of supposed leaks, that those leaks, assuming they were real, were really phones tucked into shells made to look like the (M8). Something just seems so off about them, with multi-colored shell/front combos, and jagged, poorly made edges. And then you look at this render, and it certainly seems as if this phone could fit inside that old body.

So what are we looking at? The image is small (we blew it up some), but shows a metal-backed body, BoomSound speakers tucked into the top and bottom edges of the phone (think Nexus 9 style), an edge-to-edge display, centered front-facing camera, and…wait for it…seriously, wait for it…NO BLACK HTC BAR. When I wrote up my “5 ways that HTC could make the phone of the year,” I talked specifically about this area and that it needed to be gone in order to help shrink down the height of the phone. If this is real, then oh my.

The phone looks great. Now, we just need confirmation that it isn’t so damn slippery, that HTC tossed in a real camera in the back, and that the power button has been moved to the side. Tick off those boxes, and HTC, you have done it.

As for the One (M9) Plus (one the right), which is a less official name than “One (M9),” this device is rumored to be a Galaxy Note-esque, oversized phone. Previous leaks showed a phone that was massive and with a fingerprint scanner, two things we are seeing here. We have side button placements, a similar all-metal body to the One (M9), a front-centered camera with odd ring around it, dual massive BoomSound speakers, and the return of the HTC black bar.

Well, what are your thoughts now? We still have over a month to go until these phones are unveiled, but I get the feeling we are about to learn a whole lot more.

Via:  @evleaks

Or Maybe This is Actually the New HTC One (M9)? Please, Please be It. is a post from: Droid Life

Over the weekend, Dropcam announced via its support knowledge base that it would soon be discontinuing support for older products, namely the original Dropcam and Dropcam Echo. The Nest-owned company has plans to improve the experience of its IP cameras, so that (unfortunately) means newly planned features won’t work on these older products and they will be shut down. Thankfully, because of the end-of-life status of those two products in particular, Dropcam is going to replace yours for free with a Dropcam HD. How awesome is that? 

On April 15, Dropcam is killing off the original Dropcam and Dropcam Echo. Like, fully killing off. And I don’t mean that they are just going to stop selling (which they already quit doing), I mean that these cameras will stop recording and connecting to Dropcam service on that day. That’s right, even if you own either of those products and have them setup in your house, they will stop working completely come April 15.

So how do you get your free replacement? Dropcam, said to us in an email that “if you are eligible to take part in the legacy camera replacement program, you will receive an email with more information” and a link to a form that needs to be filled out. They also mentioned that “if you don’t get that email, you are not eligible for the program” and that “support agents will not be able to fill the form out for you.” Until you get the email correspondence from Dropcam, you will have to remain patient.

The Dropcam HD used to run about $149 at retail, so Dropcam is gifting you a $$150 replacement.

If you have questions about cloud video recording subscriptions on your old cameras, hit up the source link below for additional details.

Anyone receive their email with replacement instructions?

Edit:  The original post said “Dropcam Pro” throughout, but the replacement is actually with a Dropcam HD.

Via:  Dropcam

Dropcam is Killing Off Your Original and Echo on April 15, Will Replace With Dropcam HD for Free is a post from: Droid Life

According the latest in a string of scoops from 9to5Mac, battery life has been a pressing concern for Apple throughout the development of the Apple Watch. And for the first time, "sources familiar with the Watch's development" have provided some early figures on what consumers can expect when the device ships sometime this year. In short, Apple Watch will exhibit similar longevity to what we've seen from many Android Wear devices on the market today.

Apple was originally shooting to eke out an entire day of battery life from Apple Watch. Obviously that's not all active use; in fact, the company is said to be shooting for 2.5 to 4 hours of active application use with the screen turned on. That'll vary depending on how heavily you use it, of course. But since the wearable's display will often be turned off throughout the day — and because the iPhone handles a lot of computing tasks — Apple is apparently hopeful that the watch can make it from morning until you place it back on the wireless charger at night. 19 hours of combined active and passive use seems to be the bar as of right now.

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There's only so much that can be done to extend a smartwatch's battery life

This isn't unlike what you'd get from the current field of Android smartwatches; use them constantly and they won't last a day. But that changes with more average use. Notably, the Pebble smartwatch continues to blow away the field in terms of battery life, but it's a very different device when compared against a Moto 360 or the Apple Watch. In standby and low-power modes, 9to5Mac's sources say Apple Watch can last through two or three days. And if for some reason you want to use it strictly as a timepiece and leave the screen on at all times, it'll die out after three or so hours. Using it as a workout companion? Your gym routine shouldn't last more than four hours.

Apple is reportedly testing Apple Watch's battery life aggressively — and in large numbers. 9to5Mac claims the company has distributed over 3,000 units as the development process continues. And while the iPhone is a critical companion to Apple Watch, the device itself may be more powerful than some expected. 9to5Mac says the CPU inside is more or less equally as powerful as the A5 chip that powered the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and remains in the current-generation iPod touch. Considering the tiny form factor, we're expecting the same fluidity and responsiveness that have become hallmarks of iOS. But as for the battery, Apple can only do so much. The simple fact is that battery technology doesn't evolve at nearly the same rate as the smartphones in our pockets and wearables on our wrists. The company will undoubtedly keep pushing for improvements as Apple Watch's launch nears; it's expected to ship beginning in March.

Go ahead and give the page a wiggle. The pulsing effect you see, akin to a throbbing speaker, is the outcome of a new identity created for Sonos by Bruce Mau Design. It’s not clear if the illusion is intentional as it's never mentioned in the synopsis of work — if not, the moiré effect resembling sound waves traveling along a span of catgut is a very happy accident, indeed.

BMD’s been working with Sonos since 2011. The 2014 revisions are meant to be mixed and remixed with a language as variable as the musical tastes that Sonos serves. The New York subway car wrap is a good example of how the branding manages to evoke train graffiti birthed by hip hop culture while still communicating the SONOS palindrome.