A teenager discovered that the website of Budapesti Közlekedési Központ -- the public transit authority in Budapest -- would allow you to edit the price you paid for your tickets, so that purchasers could give themselves massive discounts on their travel, and when he told the authority about it, they had him arrested and issued a press-release boasting about it. (more…)
Tomorrow, Motorola will be taking the stage in New York City for what’s expected to be its biggest press conference of the year. Motorola was in New York this same time last year to unveil the Moto Z/Z Force, and this time around, we’re anticipating both the Moto X4 and Moto Z2 Force to be the stars of the show.
The default keyboards on Android phones aren’t always the best. Some have overly aggressive autocorrect, while others have even started showing users ads. Luckily using a different keyboard is as simple as downloading it from the Google Play Store — you just have to figure out which keyboard is best for you.
Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant is best known for being on its Echo line of speakers, but it's available on both iOS and Android. There's a dedicated Alexa app on both of those operating systems, but only iOS has Alexa built into the main Amazon app. However, that's changing very soon.
Read MoreLooks like Alexa was just added to the Amazon app for Android! Who wants to try playing Deal or No Deal from their Amazon app?
Alexa is finally rolling out to Amazon's Android app, starting this week was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
In a bid to make its Assistant more powerful, Actions on Google was launched in the US late last year. The service allows third-party developers to build their own voice actions for the Assistant, integrating it with their own apps. To encourage development, Google introduced a competition with cash prizes to anyone making compelling actions. Until now the service has only supported US English, but after support for more languages was previously promised, it seems the UK will be next to see Actions rolled out.
Read MoreActions on Google will soon support British English was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
In Hamburg, NY, Kevin Karas' home surveillance camera captured a tornado touching down and lifting his car and pretty much everything else around it right up into the air.
Motion Stills has been on the iOS App Store for over a year now, but today the popular GIF/video generator finally made its way to Android. On iOS, its primary function was to make Apple’s Live Photos easier to share across the web, but since Android phones don’t take Live Photos, this version is a little different.
A young antelope harbors a vicious grudge against this guy, who seems to be half-scared, half-amused by the tiny angry ungulate. The only way he can restrain it is by grabbing it by the horns. He makes a half-hearted attempt to use a towel like a bullfighter's cape, but that doesn't work very well. Hiding behind a pole is a slightly better tactic. The video ends before we find out who wins.
This antelope is savage from AnimalsBeingJerks
With version 5.7.25 of Google Calendar published on June 15, the app added one feature that we've always wanted and sort of gave up on having: drag-and-drop for events. But it took until Reddit user Racing24 noticed it yesterday for us to go back a few versions and track the change down to that specific release of Calendar.
How it works is simple. With your Calendar open on the day view, 3-day view, or week view, you can hold any event and drag it to another time slot.
Read MorePSA: Google Calendar added a drag-and-drop gesture for moving events to different times and days was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Editor’s note: Starting today, you can now explore the International Space Station in Street View in Google Maps. Thomas Pesquet, Astronaut at the European Space Agency (ESA), spent six months aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a flight engineer. He returned to Earth in June 2017, and in this post he tells us about what it’s like to live on the ISS and his experience capturing Street View imagery in zero gravity.
In the six months that I spent on the International Space Station, it was difficult to find the words or take a picture that accurately describes the feeling of being in space. Working with Google on my latest mission, I captured Street View imagery to show what the ISS looks like from the inside, and share what it’s like to look down on Earth from outer space.
For 16 years, astronauts have been working and living on the ISS, a structure made up of 15 connected modules that floats 250 miles above Earth. The ISS acts as a base for space exploration—possible future missions to the Moon,Mars and asteroids—and gives us a unique perspective on Earth itself. We can collect data on the Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, and land surface. We can conduct experiments and studies that we wouldn’t be able to do from Earth, like monitoring how the human body reacts to microgravity, solving mysteries of the immune system, studying cyclones in order to alert populations and governments when a storm is approaching, or monitoring marine litter—the rapidly increasing amount of waste found in our oceans.
There were a few “firsts” on my mission. It was led by Peggy Whitson who, at age 56, became the oldest woman to fly into space and the first woman in history to command two expeditions. The mission was the first time Street View imagery was captured beyond planet Earth, and the first time annotations—helpful little notes that pop up as you explore the ISS—have been added to the imagery. They provide additional information or fun facts like where we work out to stay physically fit, what kind of food we eat, and where we conduct scientific experiments.
Because of the particular constraints of living and working in space, it wasn't possible to collect Street View using Google's usual methods. Instead, the Street View team worked with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to design a gravity-free method of collecting the imagery using DSLR cameras and equipment already on the ISS. Then I collected still photos in space, that were sent down to Earth where they were stitched together to create panoramic 360 degree imagery of the ISS.
We did a lot of troubleshooting before collecting the final imagery that you see today in Street View. The ISS has technical equipment on all surfaces, with lots of cables and a complicated layout with modules shooting off in all directions—left, right, up, down. And it’s a busy place, with six crew members carrying out research and maintenance activities 12 hours a day. There are a lot of obstacles up there, and we had limited time to capture the imagery, so we had to be confident that our approach would work. Oh, and there’s that whole zero gravity thing.
None of this would have been possible without the work of the team on the ground, my colleagues (turned roommates) on the ISS, and the countries that came together to send us up to space. Looking at Earth from above made me think about my own world a little differently, and I hope that the ISS on Street View changes your view of the world too.
Click here to go behind the scenes with Thomas and the team.
Finding great new apps on Google Play can be hard given the massive number available, but Google wants to do something about that. In a blog post yesterday, Google revealed a new feature for Play’s Editors’ Choice section which provides users with curated lists of apps hand-picked by Google Play Editors.
If you're one of those who has yet to even see the two-tab interface, you'll be surprised to hear that Google is already testing out a third tab.
Read More[Update: Rolling to more users] Google is testing a new three tab interface for the Google app was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
New OxygenOS beta is now rolling out to the OnePlus 3 and 3T.
OnePlus is rolling out OxygenOS Open Beta 20 to the OnePlus 3 (Open Beta 11 for the 3T) that lets you take scrolling screenshots even when a GIF or video is playing. The update includes optimizations to the battery saver indicator — you'll now see a notification instead of the orange status bar. OnePlus has also improved the calculation method for data usage, leading to more accurate tracking.
Here's the changelog of the latest build:
Optimization:
Bug Fixes:
You can download the latest builds by heading to the OnePlus forums. As always, if you flash the beta builds, you won't be able to receive updates on the stable channel. You'll need to revert to a stable OTA build to continue receiving stable updates.
Announced at I/O 2017, Google Play Protect is essentially a rebrand of the company’s existing suite of security services for Android devices. In a statement, Google notes that it is beginning to rollout today in the Play Services app and coming soon to the Play Store.
Today the well-known developer Francisco Franco has released a new app: Gratus. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's meant to provide you with appreciation and motivation when you might be feeling a bit down. The name itself means "grateful" in Latin, and it's an apt summary of the intended effect. Think of it as a repository for all the things you enjoy.
The app is quite particular with what it does, but it does it well.
Read MoreFrancisco Franco's new app Gratus is a novel tool that reminds you to stop and appreciate life was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
A dad took his three kids to Walmart and let them try a claw machine. On the third attempt they were successful. Their delight in beating the machine is infectious.
Stacy Dean Stephens, vice president of marketing and sales at Knightscope, told Cnet that it was an “isolated incident” for the K5 unit and that “no people were harmed or involved in any way..."
Since taking the streets in limited numbers, the K5 patrol bot, which is apparently packed with sensors to be the smart eyes and ears for its human law enforcement colleagues, has had its fair share of incidents. In April, a K5 patrolling the mean streets of Google-home-town Mountain View, California was allegedly involved in a carpark altercation with a 41-year-old man, while in July 2016 another K5 unit was accused of running over a 16-month-old child in a Stanford shopping centre.
Steps are our best defense against the Robopocalypse
— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) July 17, 2017
(Security robot down at Georgetown harbor) pic.twitter.com/eVf7YUJX1j
Avast and Piriform are two very well-known names in the PC world and they've both even made a splash in the Android universe (for better or for worse). But now the London-based company behind the beloved CCleaner has been swallowed by Avast in a full acquisition.
It should be noted that Avast claims that it will not touch CCleaner, instead maintaining that whole suite of products — including the Android stuff.
Read MoreAvast has acquired Piriform, the company behind CCleaner was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
It sure looks like Baltimore Police Officer Richard Pinheiro planted drugs at a crime scene and if he did, I'm sure it was the first time it's ever happened and he's very sorry if anyone was offended by the mistake that was made.
From Buzzfeed:
In the January 2017 video, Baltimore Police Officer Richard Pinheiro appears to place a bag of pills under some garbage in an alley. He then walks back out to the street, at which point he activates the body camera. But because the cameras are programmed to capture the 30 seconds prior to activation, the officer’s actions before returning from the alley were recorded.
“I’m going to check here,” Pinheiro can be heard saying, before he walks back down the alley. After furrowing around in the trash for a couple seconds, the officer locates the bag inside a soup can and exclaims “yo!” as he holds it up to his two fellow officers, identified to BuzzFeed News by the Maryland public defender's office as officers Jamal Brunson and Jovannes Simonyan.
The defendant who was arrested in connection with the false drug bust was scheduled to face trial this week, Fox Baltimore first reported, but the charges were dropped after the man’s public defender reviewed the video and alerted the prosecutor.
It looks like the other two cops saw officer Pinheiro plant the drugs. I'm sure they are very sorry, too.
Google Now has long been the center of the mobile search experience, offering relevant information as well as things you’re interested in. Over the past few months, Google Now has been angling itself more and more towards content and interests, and today, Google has announced that Google Now, at least the name, is being replaced with the “Feed.”
A small polyurethane company in Louisville, CO was vandalized on Sunday, with its front glass door completely smashed in, and at first the owners thought they'd been robbed. But when police came and realized nothing had been stolen, they checked the surveillance camera, only to find it was delinquent goat – backed up by a goat gang who can be spotted in the background of the video – who was determined to do some damage. The goat butted against the glass 20 minutes until it finally shattered the door.
Quoted in The Daily Camera, the company's owner, Greg Cappaert, has a good sense of humor about it:
"He must have seen his reflection in the door and thought it was another goat. He was trying to beat up the whole building...Everybody had a good chuckle over it."
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.
Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.
Android Police coverage: Minecraft's next adventure arrives with Story Mode - Season Two
Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two is the latest adventure game from Telltale Games to land on Android.
Read More15 new and notable Android games from the last week (7/12/17 - 7/18/17) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Lifehacker has a list of ways to deal with a manspreader taking up a seat. Asking politely is probably effective, but my favorite is Cassie J Sneider's technique: plop down on the manspreader's leg.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing in front of a thirtysomething guy with his legs spread so far, it looked like he was doing some sort of post-vasectomy physical therapy exercise. He ignored me.
As a woman, I am used to this, so I gestured to the seat and said excuse me again. Nothing. I checked and he wasn’t wearing headphones.
This man, like the three or four others taking up multiple seats on this train car, are the center of our universe from sun-up until sundown, never once considering the lady with the stroller, the World War II vet stooped over a cane, or the child riding home from school alone.
We all go about our ride politely avoiding calling them out on their selfishness, holding grocery bags and diaper bags and the weight of all our frustration, seething. In that moment, something became crystal clear to me: seething doesn’t help anyone, but sitting on a dude sure is satisfying.
I waited a moment. He leisurely stretched his calves, turned away from me, and then I sat on him.
“Excuse me,” I said, using my bony ass to crush his thigh. Outside of a horror movie, I have never seen anyone react so quickly to get away from another human being. There was terror, then disgust, then anger. I took out my book and turned to him. “Thank you,” I said, and then smiled like Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. It would have been rude otherwise.
Image: FriedC/Wikipedia
Novelist Jane Austen will soon become the latest historical figure to be honored on a British banknote, and the Bank of England has revealed an early run of the printed bills. Tuesday is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death.
The author of classics like Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma will take the place of biologist Charles Darwin on the £10 note. The Jane Austen tenner is expected to come out in September, 2017.
From Reuters:
The central bank has printed an initial run of a billion of the new notes, which are known in Britain as "tenners", after last year's launch of a five pound note made from a polymer film that the BoE said is more durable and harder to forge.
(...) The writer was buried in Winchester Cathedral in 1817 and completed many of her best-known works such as "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" in the nearby village of Chawton.
"Ten pounds would have meant a lot to Jane Austen, about the same as 1,000 pounds ($1,300) would mean to us today," BoE Governor Mark Carney said at the launch of the new note in Winchester.
Austen received a 10 pound publisher's advance for her first novel and the new banknote bears a quotation "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!" from her later work, "Pride and Prejudice".
The quotation came from a character who in fact had no interest in books and was merely trying to impress a potential suitor. It drew a mix of amusement and criticism in the media when it appeared on an initial design of the note in 2013.
[PHOTO, TOP: Bank of England governor Mark Carney poses with the concept design for the new banknote featuring Jane Austen outside the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, southern England. (Chris Ratcliffe/Reuters)]
