Microsoft is reminding everyone today that the free promotion for Windows 10 upgrades is finishing soon. The software maker first released Windows 10 as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 machines on July 29th last year, giving everyone a year to upgrade at no cost. Many had assumed Microsoft would keep the free upgrade rolling past the year cut off, but it appears the company is sticking to its original promise.
Android: Google’s smart keyboard does its best to learn the way you type, but it occasionally gets it wrong. In the latest version, you can now easily remove words from your user dictionary with a simple long-press and drag.
http://lifehacker.com/google-keyboar...
This new feature was slipped into Google Keyboard 5.0 alongside several other bigger features like one-handed mode and improvements to gesture typing. When you want to remove a suggestion as you’re typing, simply long-press the word and drag it upwards. A trash can icon will appear. Release the word on top of the can and it’s gone for good.
PSA: Long Press and Drag Up on Google Keyboard’s Suggestion Bar to Remove Suggestions | XDA
The newest Uncharted is the series’ debut on the PlayStation 4, and the move to new hardware really shows. Uncharted games have always been beautiful, but Uncharted 4 is just stunning; the characters move in a way that feels real, and their faces look, well, human. It’s impressive to watch.
But for me, the real star is the locations. Uncharted 4 has you jumping around the globe — from Italy to Scotland, Panama to Madagascar — and each new area is breathtaking, full of scenes that look like postcards, only you can explore them. The game has a fairly robust photo tool, that lets you tweak things like depth of field and add-in filters, but for me the best part is the ability to remove all of the people and just gawk at the scenery. The...
London's double-decker buses are already used as mobile billboards around the city, but their interiors deliver ads to smartphones too. Since March this year, Bluetooth-powered beacon technology has been used to send ads to passengers' mobiles, capitalizing on what marketers call "dwell time" — the 17 minutes of doing nothing it takes for the average bus journey in London.
The scheme was created by advertising giant Exterion and app-maker Mapway, and means that users of the latter's Bus Times London app receive contextually-aware ads that "capitalize on the consumer’s exact physical context." The ads rolled out for Android users of the app earlier this year, and this week they launch on iOS too.
Location-tracking ads are bad for...
My new favorite subreddit is r/TreesSuckingOnThings, a growing collection of photos of trees growing slowly to encase and envelope signs, railings, motorcycles and other things attached or adjacent to them.
A Russian hacker is apparently claiming to have obtained hundreds of millions of login credentials for various email services. While the single-largest set of data appears to have come from Mail.ru, details from millions of Gmail, Microsoft, and Yahoo accounts are said to be part of the breach.
The data breach was uncovered by Hold Security, according to Reuters:
After eliminating duplicates, Holden said, the cache contained nearly 57 million Mail.ru accounts - a big chunk of the 64 million monthly active email users Mail.ru said it had at the end of last year. It also included tens of millions of credentials for the world's three big email providers, Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo, plus hundreds of thousands of accounts at German and Chinese email providers.
In total, it appears that 40 million Yahoo Mail credentials were compromised, along with 33 million Microsoft accounts, and almost 24 million from Gmail. Thousands of these accounts are said to belong to employees of major U.S. companies.
Now might be a good time to change your password, and perhaps enable two-step authentication for your accounts.
Today, GoPro released some pretty incredible footage of a suborbital rocket launch that climbed to 396,405 feet at speeds as high as Mach 5.5. The launch took place from Spaceport America in New Mexico on November 6, 2015, with a 20-foot tall SpaceLoft-10 sounding rocket from Colorado-based launch provider UP Aerospace. Read More
Shortly after being purchased by Apple, two of Siri's founders left the company to begin creating yet another AI assistant. It's called Viv, and The Washington Post reports that it'll be unveiled to the world on Monday.
Viv is essentially meant to be Siri, but good. It's an AI assistant that you speak to, but the difference here is that Viv is supposed to be able to handle complex requests and actually carry them out. The idea is that you could ask Viv to book you dinner and a movie, and it would just go ahead and do it. Siri, on the other hand, would make you ask those questions one at a time and then kick you over to OpenTable and Fandango to make your purchases.
Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have become our first stop in determining how good a movie is. Until recently, I had no idea how each site arrived at their review scores. Once I found out, I realized I’d been reading them all wrong.
Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings are embedded in everything from movie listing apps like Flixster to Google search results. You’ve probably seen the rating next to a movie title. Experienced users might even know that each site actually has two scores: one for critics and one for regular viewers. What you may not realize is that each site calculates those numbers very differently.
To get the critics’ ratings, Rotten Tomatoes collects critic reviews from a variety of sources, usually a couple hundred or so, depending on how high profile the movie is. Each review is then categorized as either Fresh (positive) or Rotten (negative). The score you see is the percentage of the total reviews that are considered “Fresh.” So, for example, with the recent superhero clash-up Batman v Superman, the site collected 327 reviews, 90 of which fell into the positive category. 90 is 28% of 327, so that becomes the movie’s score.
Metacritic, on the other hand, uses a bit more nuance in their system. The company collects reviews from around the web and assigns them a score ranging from 0 to 100. In instances where a site uses a measurable metric—like a numerical rating system or a letter grade—Metacritic fills in a number that it most closely believes represents that figure. The site then takes a weighted average of all the reviews. The company doesn’t reveal how much weight it assigns to individual reviewers, but it does explain that certain reviewers are given more significance in overall score based on their “stature.” This system allows a bit more nuance to show through. In the case of Batman v Superman, Metacritic gave the movie a 44, which is considerably higher than the 28% Rotten Tomatoes gave it.
It’s worth pointing out that Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic—as well as IMDb—also have separate user scores. These work more or less consistently across all three sites. Users are allowed to rate a movie on a scale from one to ten (technically Rotten Tomatoes uses a five-star rating, but you can use half-stars, making the math functionally identical). Then, each site has different ways of weighting their scores, to come up with the final user rating.
The problem with Rotten Tomatoes’ method is that by boiling down an entire review to “good” or “bad,” it gives critical reviews the nuance of a coin flip. This dramatically sways review scores in polarizing directions. While Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t draw attention to it, you can find an “average rating” for every film directly below the Tomatometer score on the website. This scale averages reviewer scores after they’ve been assigned a value on a ten-point scale. If we look at that Batman v Superman example again, we see that its average rating is actually 4.9. That’s even higher than Metacritic rated the movie. However, since Rotten Tomatoes treats a reviewer who thought the movie was okay but had some problems the same way it treats a reviewer that thought the movie was total crap, that slightly-below-average 4.9 score gets dragged down to an abysmal 28% score.
This effect isn’t just negative, though. We can look at the other big summer superhero clash to see the effect in reverse. Captain America: Civil War pulls in a respectable average rating of 7.9 on Rotten Tomatoes right now, but the Tomatometer score is considerably higher at 92% (with 126 “Fresh” reviews out of 137). Once again, Metacritic’s method gives Civil War a score of 77, which is much closer to Rotten Tomatoes average rating. Appropriately, this effect makes the Tomatometer a bit like Captain America’s super soldier serum: Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse.
The same effect applies to Rotten Tomatoes user scores, though it’s a bit less pronounced. Any score of 3.5 stars (or 7 out of 10) is considered positive, or “Fresh.” Less than that is considered negative or “Rotten.” The user score represents the percentage of positive ratings. While this is still simplistic, the source data has more room for a middle ground than a subjective “good” or “bad,” and it has a much bigger data set to pull from.
Rotten Tomatoes biggest problem may be that it avoids nuance, but there’s an understandable reason why it might want to. While Metacritic embraces nuance, it’s also sometimes criticized for getting it “wrong.” As we established earlier, Metacritic assigns a numeric value to reviews before averaging them. However, picking those numbers can be a subjective ordeal.
For example, many review sites will offer letter grades attached to their reviews on an A through F scale. In the case of an F, Metacritic would assign that review a score of 0, while a review like a B- might receive a 67. Some reviewers disagree with how this metric is assigned, believing that an F should be closer to a 50, or a B should be closer to an 80. The lack of standardization across letter grades notwithstanding, this highlights a key problem with Metacritic: How do you put a numerical value on an opinion?
Paradoxically, Metacritic gives reviewers both more and less control over their scores. A reviewer’s rankings and opinions are represented more faithfully with a numerical score than a boolean good/bad value. On the other hand, it also has more wiggle room that might result in a reviewer’s opinions being represented in a way they disagree with. This can be a huge problem if an industry starts relying on review scores. Of course, if Metacritic only allowed each reviewer to choose a score of either 100 or a 0, there would probably be a lot more disagreement (which, mathematically speaking, is exactly what Rotten Tomatoes does).
http://kotaku.com/a-look-at-meta...
No matter how “objective” we try to get when it comes to review scores, we’re still trying to convert opinions into numbers. That’s a bit like trying to turn love into a fossil fuel. The conversion doesn’t make sense on its face. However, review scores are still useful. There are a lot of movies out there and most of us don’t have enough time or money to watch them all for ourselves. Reviewers help us determine which films are worth spending our time on. Handy review scores make it even easier, turning the decision into a simple, two-digit number. In my experience (also an opinion!) here are the best ways to use each metric:
Most importantly, remember that your opinions are still your own. Reviewers, no matter how well-intentioned, come from different backgrounds than you and might enjoy some things you don’t. Moviegoers like to follow review scores like they’re a competitive sport. While that’s fun and all, it’s important to keep in mind no score will ever be truly objective as long as they’re measuring opinions. Use the metrics that are most helpful to you to decide what you’ll spend your time on, but don’t let a number tell you what to like or dislike.
Don't let your home screen fall into a rut — switch out your wallpaper!
You don't have to pull out a complex new theme like Deadpool or our shiny new Civil War themes to bring a breath of fresh air to your home screen. A new wallpaper can do wonders, and launchers like Action Launcher can re-theme your entire home screen around a good wallpaper. In our effort to help brighten your device — and maybe your day — we're compiling some wallpapers for you to try out.
If you've got a wallpaper you use everywhere, share it in the comments below! We're always looking for something new. Now get your wallpaper picker ready and see what's in store this week.
Everyone thinks that all there is to Hawkeye is sharp eyes and a borderline unnatural talent with a bow, but that's not true. Like Widow, Hawkeye is a master of deception, subterfuge, and all kinds of combat. As both spy and sniper, Hawkeye has been trained to blend in, to make you look him over so he can shoot your eye out. This wallpaper pays tribute to that chameleonic trait of the purple archer. It also pays tribute to the classic mask that we'll probably never see in the MCU. At least I get it in the cartoons....
Scarlet Witch may not be quite the mutant we know and love from the comics, but I'm happy she's sticking around in the MCU, especially now that her hubby Vision has a body. Vision and Scarlet Witch are on opposite sides of the war, but I'm hopeful that they can come together before the war's over.
Speaking of Vision, can we all just take a moment and cheer that Paul Bettany finally gets to really act on screen in a Marvel movie instead of just being a disembodied voice? Yeah, his debut was in Age of Ultron, but he didn't show up till Act Three and he didn't get to do much besides lift Thor's hammer and smash some Ultrons in Sokovia.
Bucky has been through the wringer. While there's a lot of wallpapers out there that can catch the brutality and badassery of the Winter Soldier, few capture the broken soul within. This wallpaper, this frame, these eyes... They try your soul just thinking of what those eyes have seen, and what they've been forced to forget.
The Winter Soldier by ColnChen
James 'Rhodey' Rhodes is one of Tony's closest friends, but if the trailers for Civil War are any indication, Rhodey may not be long for this world. Pour one out for War Machine and the man inside who tried to keep Iron Man on the right path.
The intelligence community has ramped up searches of US citizens' data, according to a 2015 transparency report released earlier this week. The report details 4,672 surveillance queries concerning known US citizens, a number that has doubled since the 2013 report, as pointed out by The Intercept. That number includes queries made the NSA and CIA but not the FBI, although the bureau does have access to the database.
The database is fed by the NSA's bulk collection efforts, which vast quantities of internet data collected overseas. Intelligence agencies query the database without a warrant, relying on section 702 of FISA. In these 4,672 cases, that means the agencies have warrantless access to the private conversations of US citizens — a...
Official Police Business is a weekly column and newsletter by reporter Matt Stroud about new developments in police technology, and the ways technology is changing law enforcement — think body cameras, cell-site simulators, surveillance systems, and electroshock weapons. Sign up to receive OPB in your email every Wednesday at officialpolicebusiness.com, or check for it here at The Verge.
Predictive policing is everywhere. In Chicago, a "heat list" supposedly identifies the citizens most likely to be involved in a shooting. In Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, and a number of other cities, private company PredPol is supposedly helping police to identify where property crimes and robberies might occur. As those cities’ predictive programs...
The Bodleian Libraries at Oxford acquired a recently-discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien, "which reveals his remarkable vision of the creatures, topography and heraldry of his imagined world where The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place. The annotated map went unseen for decades until October 2015 when Blackwell’s Rare Books in Oxford put the map on display and offered it for sale."
(Thanks, Gary Price!)
Android: Google is rolling out a new version of YouTube for Android that adds a familiar, annoying feature: it will now autoplay the next related video when the current one is finished. Here’s how to turn it off.
http://lifehacker.com/disable-youtub...
Despite the feature not being terribly popular (at least as far as our readers are concerned), Google is carrying over the autoplay feature from the desktop. When enabled, YouTube will automatically play the top Related Video from Google’s suggestions.
Fortunately, Google’s made disabling this feature on Android a little more obvious. The toggle should appear directly below the Subscribe button for whatever channel you’re watching at the time. It should stay disabled forever after you turn it off, but as some users have reported with the desktop version, it doesn’t always stick.
YouTube’s Up Next Autoplay Feature Appears To Be Rolling Out To Android | Android Police
When eBay released its version 4.0 interface revamp back in September of last year, I was slightly disappointed. The app looked like a mishmash of design styles and ideas that didn't really belong on any platform but that were trying too hard to not offend anyone either on Android or iOS. It lacked life and felt clinical, with so much grey and white and nary another color. It also removed access to your personal lists, an omission that I still despise because I am very picky about organizing my items in differentiated and clear lists.
Read MoreEbay 5.0 Brings A Material Design Overhaul, Better Navigation, And Related Items [APK Download] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Opera today announced that its built-in ad blocker, which was previously only available in the experimental developer release channel, is now coming to all of its desktop users. In addition, it is now also bringing this same feature to mobile, starting with Opera Mini for Android.
While ad blocking isn’t exactly without controversy, there can be little doubt that it makes for a faster… Read More
Note: We're just a few weeks away from the Galaxy S9 and S9+ being announced, which will certainly have an effect on this list. But until they're available, here are the best Android phones you can buy today.
See at Verizon See at Best Buy See at Google Store
Google's new Pixel 2 gives you sleek and solid hardware, all of the requisite specs inside and runs simple and intuitive software at a breakneck pace. The hardware surely isn't flashy, but it's beautiful and efficient — and it's now IP67 water-resistant like we expect.
The software features and Google's apps aren't numerous, but they're delightfully useful without being bothersome. And with three years of guaranteed updates, you don't have to worry about the future.
The Pixel 2 has once again set the standard for Android cameras as well, with Google's "HDR+" processing buoyed by new camera hardware and even better processing. Photos are accurate with just a little extra punch of color, and can manage tough scenes with little issue. And with Android 8.1, the Pixel Visual Core chipset enables dramatically better photos in third-party apps.
Bottom line: The best Android experience comes straight from Google with the Pixel 2. Great hardware and amazing software support an amazing camera that's only getting better.
One more thing: Though Verizon will tout the Pixel 2 is "exclusive" to the carrier, know that you can buy the phone unlocked from a variety of sources and use it on your carrier of choice.
If you want the best possible Android experience, you go straight to the source: Google. The company has gotten serious about user experience and interface design, and it really shows with Android 8.1 Oreo on the Pixel 2. Everything is blazing fast, smooth, consistent and intuitive throughout the interface. It's a core competency that separates the Pixel 2 from the competition, and it's something that any smartphone user can appreciate.
Google has gotten really good at user experience and interface design.
And it's not just software customization that makes it happen — Google has included a Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM and 64GB (optionally, 128GB) of storage to make sure your phone has plenty of room to run. A 2700mAh battery seems small (well, normally, it is), but it manages to get you a full day of use without worry. The little body also packs front-facing stereo speakers, which are a rarity in 2017.
Further to that point, Google has sourced a quality 5-inch 1080p panel that looks good at the $649 price point. Oh, yes, it's just 5 inches. Despite its big top and bottom bezels (remember the speakers?), the Pixel 2 is quite comfortable to hold and reach to all four corners of the screen without the help of a second hand.
The Pixel 2 doesn't focus on the number of features, it focuses on the impact of each one.
If there's one knock on the Pixel 2, it's that it doesn't have the sheer volume of features in its hardware or software that some of the competition does. It doesn't have a headphone jack, wireless charging or an SD card slot; and if you're used to having a bunch of specialized software features on your Samsung, LG or Huawei phone you won't find them here.
But for most people, those are relatively small prices to pay to get a daily experience of using a phone that's fast, intuitive, smart and filled with a core set of features that can actually wow you. That's what you get from the Pixel 2.
See at Verizon See at AT&T See at T-Mobile See at Sprint See at Best Buy See at Amazon
Take everything that makes the Galaxy S8 great, and scale it up — that's what also makes the Galaxy Note 8 compelling. A very familiar glass-and-metal body is wrapped around a larger 6.3-inch display, but a panel that's even better in terms of brightness and colors.
For this top-dollar phone you'll find top-end specs, great performance and super-capable software. Plus a new dual camera setup that offers you 2X zooming without losing resolution and a new "Live Focus" mode that mimics the background blur of a professional camera. None of the camera changes come at a cost of reduced primary camera quality, either.
Then you get the S Pen, of course, offering fine input, drawing abilities and new productivity tricks you simply can't get from any other phone out there. The stylus isn't for everyone, but you'll find plenty of people who swear by its capabilities.
Bottom line: For the biggest, most powerful and most capable phone Samsung makes, look no further.
One more thing: Be ready to spend the big bucks — the Note 8 is far and away Samsung's most expensive phone ever at nearly $1000.
See at AT&T See at Verizon See at Sprint See at T-Mobile
LG's V series has traditionally been a big and brawny phone, but in 2017 the V30 is just a great overall device that has handily taken over from the G6 launched earlier this year. It stuck with a metal-and-glass build, but slimmed down the sides and integrated subtle curves to make it rather easy to hold despite a 6-inch 18:9 display on the front.
Internally you get top-notch specs you'd expect from any flagship, and around back LG continues to impress with a fantastic pair of cameras. The standard shooter does really well despite its small pixels, and the secondary wide-angle camera is the best implementation LG has ever made. It offers an extremely unique perspective you just don't see anywhere else.
LG's software is capable and smooth, if still a bit clunky and uncoordinated in a few areas — but that can still be said about most phones nowadays.
Bottom line: LG does all of the basics amazingly well, and accents it with a nice body and super-capable pair of cameras.
One more thing: Some markets and carriers have a "V30+" model available with more storage available, offering even better value.
Unlike its predecessor the Mate 9, Huawei's Mate 10 Pro is an absolute looker — and it clearly positions itself right next to the flagship competition. Metal and glass are finely crafted and filled with top-notch specs, and its Leica-tuned dual cameras are capable of some wonderful shots with the help of the Kirin processor inside.
Alongside all of that, the Mate 10 Pro hits it out of the park with battery life. The combination of a 4000mAh battery, efficient processor, somewhat restrictive software and a 1080p display make this a true two-day flagship for many people, and that's just not something you see all that often.
The only downside, as ever, is Huawei's EMUI software. Though it has gotten better with Oreo, it still has many areas that are rough on the eyes, not very functional or inexplicably broken when it comes to integrating with third-party apps.
Bottom line: It's a true flagship with all of the best specs, and incredible battery life. You just have to give a little in terms of software experience.
One more thing: When searching for a Mate 10 Pro, make sure you're getting the U.S. unlocked model so that you have proper network bands and warranty support.
See at Verizon See at AT&T See at T-Mobile See at Sprint See at Best Buy
The Galaxy S8 has slick hardware with tiny bezels that let it have a big screen in a small body, but inside it still offers everything you want: a high-end processor, lots of storage, an SD card slot, full waterproofing and a top-end camera.
Though its software can be a little overwhelming, you can't argue that Samsung continues to pack in hundreds of features to a single phone, making sure there's something in here for everyone's needs. Samsung continues to take this approach of offering more more more with just a few compromises — and it continues to work.
Bottom line: The Galaxy S8 gives you piles of features in a beautiful body, and is a great choice for a wide range of potential buyers.
One more thing: With the Galaxy S9 being announced on February 25, it's probably worth waiting to see what the new phone offers — or at the very least, how Galaxy S8 prices drop.
The Pixel 2 doesn't have as many features as some other phones, but the entire experience of using the phone, from top to bottom, is ahead of the competition. Just about anyone can appreciate what Google offers in this phone.
See at Verizon See at Best Buy See at Google Store
Google's new Pixel 2 gives you sleek and solid hardware, all of the requisite specs inside and runs simple and intuitive software at a breakneck pace. The hardware surely isn't flashy, but it's beautiful and efficient — and it's now IP67 water-resistant like we expect.
The software features and Google's apps aren't numerous, but they're delightfully useful without being bothersome. And with three years of guaranteed updates, you don't have to worry about the future.
The Pixel 2 has once again set the standard for Android cameras as well, with Google's "HDR+" processing buoyed by new camera hardware and even better processing. Photos are accurate with just a little extra punch of color, and can manage tough scenes with little issue. And with Android 8.1, the Pixel Visual Core chipset enables dramatically better photos in third-party apps.
Bottom line: The best Android experience comes straight from Google with the Pixel 2. Great hardware and amazing software support an amazing camera that's only getting better.
One more thing: Though Verizon will tout the Pixel 2 is "exclusive" to the carrier, know that you can buy the phone unlocked from a variety of sources and use it on your carrier of choice.
Update February 2018: The aging KEYone drops off the list, but we've added the now-widely-available Mate 10 Pro as our pick for battery life. The Galaxy S8 remains, but with a caveat on account of its impeding replacement, the Galaxy S9, launching at the end of February.
Greenpeace has handed newspapers 240 pages of current negotiating documents from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a secretly conducted trade deal between the USA and the EU, which has run in parallel with the notorious Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). (more…)
A new scientific study reveals that air rage is much more likely on airplanes where inequality is obvious -- that is, airplanes where there's economy and first class sections. The University of Toronto researchers published their results in the journal Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences. From CNN:
It found that passengers in economy seating were 3.84 times more likely to have an incident of air rage if they were on a plane that had a first-class section. They were 2.18 times more likely to have an outburst if they had to walk through first class to board the plane, as opposed to boarding in the middle of the plane, directly into the economy section....
"Psychology (research) tells us that when people feel a sense of deprivation and inequality, they are more likely to act out," said Katherine A. DeCelles, associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of Toronto....
There was also a nearly 12-fold increase in the rate of air rage among first-class passengers on flights where all passengers boarded through the first-class section, compared with flights that had separate entrances for first class and economy.
"When people from higher social class backgrounds are more aware of their higher status, they are more likely to be antisocial, to have entitled attitudes and to be less compassionate," DeCelles said.
"Air rage triggered by walking past first-class seating, study says" (CNN)
A long time ago, Sony Electronics had a reputation for stubborn adherence to its own proprietary formats. Back when the iPod was just an MP3 player, Sony was still trying to promote its own ATRAC standard that was only available on its own hardware. ATRAC itself was a descendant of MiniDisc, another semi-proprietary format that tried to usurp the CD... not long after Sony had lost the BetaMax war. The company doesn't always lose - Blu-ray is a notable exception - but it doesn't learn very quickly, either.
Sony Announces Three New Speakers And A Receiver With Google Cast Compatibility, Available Now was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Recently I started re-watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix, and about halfway through the series I noticed something strange. The thumbnail for the show had changed from a confident, glowing picture of Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope — the show's lead — to a photo of Chris Pratt in crutches. But the thumbnail hadn't changed for my colleague Helen Havlak, who pointed out to me that she was still seeing Knope's face.
I already knew Netflix constantly changed thumbnails, and I assumed they were trying to figure out which were the most clickable. Today, Netflix confirmed that suspicion, and laid out how it A / B tests thumbnails in two blog posts.
@chillmage my Netflix thumbnail is all Knope so maybe there is sneaky demographic targeting...
A new rumor claims that HTC may finally launch a smartwatch, using Android Wear, sometime during the week of June 6. The latest launch date report comes from noted gadget leaker Evan Blass on his evleaks Twitter account.
FYI, this has been pushed to the week of June 6th. #htcwearablehttps://t.co/Ei1lT4aWoc
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) May 3, 2016
The launch date for the smartwatch was previously reported for the end of April. Rumors about HTC launching a smartwatch began way back in mid-2014, so take this new report of a release date for the product with the appropriate grain of salt.
Are you f__ing kidding me? Whitehouse says Obama hasn’t read the 28 pages showing that it was Saudi Arabia who attacked us on 9/11, not Iraq.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
This week's roundup is brought to you by Playtime Internet Radio from HandyApps.
Read More23 New And Notable Android Apps From The Last 2 Weeks (4/20/16 - 5/2/16) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Uber wants to be your car, and the billboard. It’s turning its frequently used app into a surface for external commerce promotions in hopes of rewarding users with special deals. If Uber will give you $20 off for shopping with its partners, you might stick with it over competitors. Eventually, pushing riders to make purchases could potentially earn Uber referral fees that might boost… Read More
After erasing itself from the internet, Radiohead has returned with a new song. However, instead of another distraught hymn warbled by frontman Thom Yorke, the band has released literal birdsong, sung by an animated bird. While it feels like a troll it’s actually a tantalizing tease.
The dawn chorus is most notable during spring when birds sing at the start of a new day. Radiohead registered a new company called Dawn Chorus, LLP in January, hinting that a new album was about to drop. The band did the same before releasing its two previous albums, creating a company called Xurbia Xendless Ltd. to distribute In Rainbows in 2007, and Ticker Tape Ltd....
When the FBI shut down a trio of illegal Android app marketplaces in 2012, they were the first website seizures of their kind. Now, the individuals behind these sites have admitted to their misdeeds. Aaron Blake Buckley, 22, plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement (and conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement) for his role running Applanet, reports the Department of Justice. Buckley's plea follows that of 29-year-old Gary Edwin Sharp's this January, who ran SnappzMarket, also seized in 2012.
According to the Department of Justice, from May 2010 through August 2012, Sharp and Buckley "conspired to reproduce and distribute more than four million copies of copyrighted Android apps [...] without permission from the...
The Eurovision Song Contest, one of the most watched live events in Europe, is coming to American television for the first time ever. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced on Monday that this year's grand final in Stockholm will be broadcast live in the US on Logo, a Viacom-owned cable network known for LGBT-themed programming. The final will be held on May 14th at 3PM ET, and will also be streamed in the US at LogoTV.com and on the LogoTV app. Logo is available in nearly 50 million homes in the US, the EBU said.
Eurovision has long been among the most popular televised events in Europe, with last year's semifinals and final drawing nearly 200 million viewers, according to organizers. Each participating country selects one...
Next Thing's CHIP is a $9 computer — kind of like a Raspberry Pi, but even cheaper. Well, not as cheap as the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, which was launched after CHIP blew up Kickstarter, but cheaper than the $35 Raspberry Pi. About 30,000 CHIPs have shipped to backers so far, and now Next Thing is getting ready to ship PocketCHIP this month.
PocketCHIP is like a 2007 pocket PC from an alternate timeline where the iPhone never existed. It's powered by the 1GHz CHIP, has a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resistive touchscreen, and a full, physical QWERTY keyboard for typing like old people used to type. It's basically what any number of hackers have attempted to build as the dream case for Raspberry Pi, but it's shipping as a real product, in addition to...
