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Watch this while you can. Run.

Thanks, Doug!

Zenji Funabashi creates colorful animals scultures that lock together in all sorts of fun ways. Imagine the satisfaction of sliding the pieces together. (more…)

Mattia Bicchi captured some stunning panoramas in glorious 8K during a recent trip to South America. (more…)

This year's Google I/O may not be introducing fancy new hardware, or hitting us with a suite of novel apps, but there is still a lot, lot, lot going on. From impressive enhancements to existing services, to giving us our latest look at Android's next big release, there's no shortage of developments to catch up on. If you're strapped for time and interested in a quick brief on what you've missed, Google's got a highlight reel featuring all the bullet points from this year's keynote.

Google I/O 2018 keynote supercut: All the biggest news in one 10-minute morsel was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Back in October 2017, Google announced that it would be releasing a male voice to accompany the female Google Assistant voice. On top of those two, Google then announced another six voices at yesterday’s I/O keynote. If you want to give them a try, they should now be live for you to choose from within the Google Assistant settings.

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Warning: Just watching this video could trigger an allergic reaction.

Eric Henderson of Millville, New Jersey wondered what would happen if he tapped a pollen-laden tree with his backhoe. He soon discovered it would unleash a Hell storm of pollen.

According to Pollen.com, the pollen count is high in that area (no kidding!):

Android Oreo introduced a ton of new features to Google’s mobile OS, but not all of them were received super well. To be more transparent, Google launched a new notification that told users when apps were using your battery, and they didn’t like it very much. Now, Google says that notification is no more…

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Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Games

BATTLESHIP: Official Edition

Android Police coverage: Official Battleship game joins 1,000,001 knock-offs on the Play Store

Marmalade Game Studio's Battleship: Official Edition may be a little late to the party, but that doesn't mean they haven't created a worthwhile digital translation of the much beloved Hasbro board game Battleship.

20 new and notable Android games from the last week (5/2/18 - 5/9/18) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The biggest advantage of Android—and, frankly, the reason I switched to the platform over iOS back in 2012—is its tremendous freedom of choice. You typically aren't locked into using specific apps or services. Whatever app you want to use for a given function can be your default, and third-party apps aren't treated as second-rate. Today is further proof of that, as you can now set Amazon's Alexa as your default assistant—even over the Google Assistant if you so choose.

Alexa can now be set as the default Assistant on Android, and here's how was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

In a departure from previous years, the Google Play Awards were unveiled on the eve of I/O 2018. With nominees first announced late last month, these are the top Android apps and games as chosen by Google employees throughout the company.

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I'm not sure of the technical specifications going on here, but this calmed me down after seeing the latest from the Malabar Front this morning.

Here it is YouTube-doubled with "Biggie Smalls the Tank Engine". You're welcome.

Don't mess with this fierce pigeon or she'll take your finger off. She's protecting her kitten, and snaps every time a human hand reaches towards her.

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Featured App

Keepsafe VPN – Best Virtual Private Network Proxy

Today's roundup is presented by Keepsafe VPN – Best Virtual Private Network Proxy from Keepsafe.

10 new and notable Android apps from the last week (5/1/18 - 5/7/18) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The podcast industry has been relatively active in recent weeks from the announcement of Pocket Casts being acquired by a consortium of public radio stations to Google’s grand plans involving machine learning. After rolling out a homepage and subscriptions, the Google app is now gaining the ability to download shows for offline listening.

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Wil Wheaton has publicly discussed his anxiety and depression before; I know several people whose lives were improved by reading what he had to say. (more…)

 There's no guarantee that the cat in your life won't cut you at the drop of a hat, but learning the correct way to pick one up might make it think twice before breaking off a shiv in one of your vital organs.

We've gone full circle. In April of 2016, Nokia announced its interest to purchase french health-focused company, Withings. The acquisition and transition took full effect in June of 2017 when Withings became Nokia Health and all of its smartwatches and consumer-oriented health products were rebranded under the Nokia name. Fast forward less than a year and Nokia no longer saw value in this Digital Health Division and put it under strategic review.

Nokia in talks to sell its Digital Health Division back to Withings co-founder Éric Carreel was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Facebook's F8 developer conference is underway in San Jose right now, and that means lots of new announcements about many of the company's products. It's funny to think the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012 was actually met with huge skepticism. The photo sharing app seems to have gone from strength to strength and has come out of the recent Facebook scandals largely unscathed.

Yesterday, Instagram announced a host of new features designed to help users share, connect, and discover.

Instagram announces video chat, sharing to Stories from other apps, new bullying filter, and more was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Featured App

Supportiv - Precision peer support

Today's roundup is presented by Supportiv - Precision peer support from Supportiv Inc.

30 new and notable Android games from the last week (4/25/18 - 5/1/18) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

It's May Day, and McDonald's workers in Manchester, Watford, Crayford and Cambridge have walked out, demanding an end to zero-hours contracts and a £10/hour living wage. (more…)

The Kindle app for Android has received an update with a couple of useful new features inside. In version 8.6.0.62, which began rolling out a few days ago and seems to have now reached everyone, Amazon's ebook reading app will let you pull to refresh your library, easily see your Audible audiobooks, and return a book you had leased.

Pull to refresh works like you can imagine: you pull down your library and any new books or changes are synced.

Kindle app gets pull to refresh, Audible filter, and book returns was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Featured App

Keepsafe VPN – Best Virtual Private Network Proxy

Today's roundup is presented by Keepsafe VPN – Best Virtual Private Network Proxy from Keepsafe.

13 new and notable Android apps from the last week (4/24/18 - 4/30/18) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4TaVt7R7vk

The "Final Straw" is a cleverly named, cleverly engineered reusable drinking straw that folds down into a package small enough to use as a keyfob (including a little squeegee for cleaning the straw after use). (more…)

This is what it looks like from the inside of a car when a drunk driver is behind the wheel. Louise Willard, a 41-year-old school teacher, swerves and sideswipes for a few miles in East Sussex, England, before crashing into a parked car. It was all captured on her dash cam. Bystanders from different points of her weaving journey called the police, but she crashed before they caught up to her.

Her blood alcohol content was over twice the legal limit, according to the Sussex Police. They posted this video to "show you exactly what it looks like to drive under the influence of alcohol"

She wrecked her car, but she won't need it now that her license has been taken away for two years. Luckily no one was hurt.

Image of white car: Sussex police

Discovered nearly 110 years ago by a workman on an archaeological dig in Lower Austria, the limestone Venus of Willendorf statuette is guessed to be have been created sometime between 28,000 and 25,000 BCE, aka the "Old Stone Age."

The sculpture now lives in Vienna at the city's Natural History Museum.

If you crochet, you can make your very own Willendorf Venus. Head to Trishagurumi for the free pattern.

Thanks, Amy!

• Update 1: 2018/04/27 10:00am PDT
  Payments profiles were enabled at the beginning of April when the Actions on Google platform added support for transactions in the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and Japan.

Your Google Assistant settings have had a "Payments" section for quite some time where you can set up a payment method and address. This is used for both making purchases through Google Express merchants as well as sending payments to other users.

[Update] You can now set up a Google Assistant payment method in six countries outside the US was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Abba has written and recorded new songs, reports The Guardian, and will release them and tour soon. The band split in 1982 after ruling the seventies with its unique mix of folk music, disco and polyester.

The band said in a statement: “The decision to go ahead with the exciting Abba avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!”

One of the two new songs that resulted, I Still Have Faith in You, will feature in a TV special to air in December.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiEl5cslkdR/?utm_source=ig_embed

Designer Giulio Iacchetti was inspired by the clean lines of the classic Vespa 98 to create a spec concept for an all electric model. He nicknamed his digital mockup the Vespampère. (more…)