Chanoatx

T-Mobile was in New York today to announce some exciting new changes for those who choose to use their service. The eye-opener most of you will care for: the un-contract. It’s what John Legere called his company’s commitment to never raise the price of the rate plan you happen to be on (though you shouldn’t rule out the possibility for them to lower it).

But even that isn’t the most exciting thing about this “contract.” The company also promised to make all promotional plans permanent, meaning if you happened to switch to T-Mobile for an unbelievable deal that wouldn’t last forever, that is now reversed.  It does last forever (or as long as you want it to, anyway).

This means that awesome 4 lines for $100 plan that gave each line 2.5GB of data won’t be downgraded to 1GB of data after a couple of years — you’ll always have 2.5GB per line, and it’ll always be $100 as long as you don’t switch plans.

Another big piece of news: T-Mobile is taking Sprint’s cue by not only promising to pay your way out of a contract should you decide to leave, but also to pay for any device payment plans you may still have to take care of as a result. They’ll pay up to $650 per line for up to 10 lines, which should be more than enough wiggle room for you to migrate to Magenta’s network without having to pay your old carriers a dime.

Legere also touched on unlimited data, and while he didn’t have some earth shattering announcement to make in that regard, he did promise that they wouldn’t change their stance, prices or availability of it for at least the next two years. It’s not all that comforting to know that T-Mobile isn’t committed to unlimited data forever, but at least they’re committed long enough to keep sweat off our foreheads. Let us know if any of this will convince you to switch on over (or if this makes you happy that you’re with T-Mobile if you already have).

Yes, folks, this is finally happening. It is now possible to send a Hangouts message through Google Search’s “OK Google” command on your phone or tablet. Simply say “OK Google, send a Hangouts message,” and a dialog box will popup to let you enter your recipient’s name and the message. This information can be inputted via voice dictation or traditional text entry methods, both of which can, of course, be accessed through your keyboard.

Once everything looks good simply send it off and you will have sent that ever-so-important message without actually having to venture into the Hangouts app. It’s a small change, but one that’s sure to make life easier for those who use Hangouts as their primary form of communication.

The feature seems to require server-side activation so even if you’re on the latest Google Search and Google Hangouts update you might not have access to it just yet. In that case it might simply require a degree of patience. For those lucky enough to already have the feature, go nuts!

[via Reddit]

Matthew McConaughey was looking to do some Pro bono acting, so he decided to help Jimmy Kimmel save a video store in Austin, Texas, with its marketing. After all, no one needs more advertising help in 2015 than a store that still rents VHS

Luckily for Vulcan Video, McConaughey pulled out some of his finest acting since Failure to Launch. The commercials are guaranteed to make you forsake your Netflix account

Plus, they have free parking — so stop streamin', and start dreamin'.

More about Viral Videos, Jimmy Kimmel, Tv, Watercooler, and Videos

Produced in collaboration with the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, these Field Notes Two Rivers Notebooks celebrate the wood type manufactured by the Hamilton Manufacturing Company from 1880 through...

Visit Uncrate for the full post.

With Google re-purposing store.google.com as their new devices page, offering up everything from Nexus, to Nests, and other hardware accessories, you may be asking yourself what happened to the old Google Store. You know, Google’s old merch store where they sold all kinds of Google branded merchandise from sweaters, to t-shirts, dog bowls, or even (our personal favorite) an Android cookie jar.

As you probably guessed, it’s officially been moved. Starting today, you’ll want to bookmark googlemerchandisestore.com if you’re looking for Google branded merch. Where should you start? Well, how about these official Android stickers for only $2.20.

[Google Merchandise Store]

There’s a good chance that the cross-section between people who like superheroes and people who like Android phones is pretty big. Manufacturers are well aware of this, which is why we’ve seen a few superhero-themed phones in the past. Samsung could be the next to take a dip into the world of comic books with the world’s most popular group of heroes.

According to rumors coming out of Korea, Samsung is considering producing handsets with a tie-in to the upcoming Avengers 2 movie. The phones seen above are concepts created by a fan on Twitter. They created a special version of the Samsung Galaxy S6 for ever member of The Avengers, including Nick Fury. We have to admit these concepts look pretty dang awesome. If Samsung does indeed go through with this it should make a lot of geeks happy (including myself).

Would you buy a Samsung Galaxy S6 Avengers Edition? Which Avenger would you want? Personally, I’m a fan of Thor, but Hawkeye concept is awesome too.

[via PhonesReview]

A little over a month ago, the man who plays The Mountain on Game of Thrones broke a 1,000-year-old record, becoming the "World's Strongest Viking" with the lift of a log.

But that's just not good enough for 6'9" Icelander Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. He wants to be the World's Strongest Man. From someone who exclaimed, "Nothing can stop me! Nothing can break me!” after winning his last competition, we'd say he's got the world's biggest backbone.

So, what's he been up to lately?

Well, here he is breaking a new world record by throwing a 56-pound kettle ball over a 19'3" bar, because Arnold Schwarzenegger wants him to. This competition, The Arnold Strongman Classic, pits enormous humans against each other in feats of strength like throwing and lifting really, really heavy stuff Read more...

More about Tv, Game Of Thrones, Watercooler, The Mountain, and Strongman

Is visiting every state on your bucket list? What about every major landmark?

When Tracy Staedter at Discovery News saw a map going around Facebook claiming — but failing — to hit all the major landmarks in the U.S., she saw a challenge

She contacted Randy Olson, a doctoral student at Michigan State, and asked him to compute one of the most complicated road trips ever. (Olson previously computed the optimal search pattern for finding Waldo in all the Where's Waldo puzzles.)

The "optimized" road trip hits all 48 contiguous states (sorry Hawaii and Alaska), and includes 50 stops at National Natural Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Parks, and National Monuments. There are two stops in California, and one in D.C. — plus the other 47 states — to get to 50. Read more...

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One of the most popular 3rd-party launchers is getting some Material Design love today. Alpha testers have been using the Material Design version of Nova Launcher for a little while now, and it’s ready to graduate to public beta. There are plenty of new Material goodies for Nova fans to enjoy.

First and foremost is the brand new look and feel of Material Design. You might not notice it immediately on your home screen (depending on your set up), but diving into the menus and settings will show a brand new look. A long-press on empty home screen space will bring up a more modern dialog instead of the old 2.x style pop-up. You’ll also notice a new red and white theme in the settings with smooth Material animations.

A new feature that I really like can be found in the app drawer. When the app drawer is opened you can swipe down from the top to bring up a search bar and list of recently installed or updated apps. This is super handy for trying to find apps quickly. Another new feature is the awesome app icon layout editor (seen above). You can also now adjust icon size and font size independently for desktop, drawer, dock, and folders.

All of these new #materinova features will eventually come to the stable version of Nova Launcher. If you don’t want to wait for that you can opt-in for Nova Launcher Betas from Google Play by following these steps. Check out the full changelog for below.

1. Join the Nova Launcher Beta G+ Community (This is not optional)
2. After joining, Opt-in for Nova Launcher
3. When a new beta update is available you will get it through the Play Store

#materinova.14 public beta 1

• Full Material Design
• Google Search from the search bar shows as an overlay
• Edit Shortcut dialog, and quick menu, tinted based on colors of the icon
• New icon
• New Nova Action icons
• Rebased on top of Launcher3
• Individual icon layout settings (size, font, etc) in Desktop, Drawer, Dock, Folder
• Max icon size boosted to 150%
• Widget Search
• Pull to search (pull down in the drawer to open app or widget search)
• Widgets given their own drawer, removed from App Drawer
• Ability to change Page Indicator color
• Drawer Tab Bar completely optional
• Support for Android for Work managed profiles (Lollipop)
• Workaround Expand Notifications Nova Action not working on Samsung Lollipop
• Requires Android 4.1 or higher (Dropped support for Android 4.0 ICS)
• Unlimited desktop pages (previously limited to 9)
• Add/remove of desktop pages by dropping icons on the blank page, or removing all icons from a page
• Add blank desktop pages (for gestures or live wallpapers) from overview
• Improved bulk edit of folders (Folder > Menu > Select Apps)
• Added shadows to unread badges
• Unread Badge size scales with icon size
• Allow reordering drawer folders by drag/drop within window
• Added Roboto-Medium font option
• Improve handling of apps installed to sdcard

In case you weren’t watching yesterday’s Apple press conference, the company cut out a slot of time to talk about Apple TV. A pretty big announcement was made — HBO Now, a cord cutter’s dream. It brings all of the big studio’s best content without having to be tied to cable service.

This is the first major cable television channel that is offering its full, up-to-date library of content without having to get it through a cable provider’s subscription. It’s $14.99 per month — a bit on the pricy side, but the typical $7.99 packages available through cable are likely to be subsidized by whatever deals the two sides have in place — and it’ll give you on-demand access to HBO’s award-winning television shows new and old, as well as whatever movies are currently in the company’s rotations.

Sounds great, yeah? There’s just one problem: it’s tied to a very exclusive group of folks to start. Apple is HBO’s exclusive launch partner for HBO Now, so if you don’t have an iOS device or an Apple TV then you won’t be able to play ball just yet.

The period of exclusivity lasts 3 months, according to Engadget. An expiration date on the deal means there’s a high chance HBO will eventually make it available for anyone and everyone willing to throw $15 per month their way. We’d hope that would eventually mean we’ll see its arrival on Android.

Surprise Google I/O announcement for Android TV and Chromecast users? We’d hope so, and the event does conveniently take place just before that 3-month window expires. But no matter the venue or date an announcement is made, we’re hoping HBO and Apple won’t decide to continue to play keep away once the deal expires and let those of us who decide to use other platforms in on the fun (because decent human beings shouldn’t let other decent human beings go without season 5 of Game of Thrones).

[via iSource]

OLED displays haven’t always been the bee’s knees — any owner of a Galaxy Nexus from a bad batch will tell you that — but the technology has come a long way over the years. Samsung’s displays are always considered the best in the business, and that doesn’t change with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

Curvy gimmicks aside, DisplayMate performed deep analysis on the displays chucked inside Samsung’s latest handsets and came away impressed — so much so that they’re calling it the best smartphone display ever made.

The display experts put it through an overwhelming gauntlet of tests to come to that conclusion, and if you know their credibility you’ll know it’s hard not to take them at face value. Seeing the device in our various hands-on looks doesn’t do it justice — you’ll have to see it in person, and when you do you’ll most likely be blown away. The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge launch April 10th so it shan’t be long for you to get that chance. Head to the source link if you’re interested in a very lengthy pixel-by-pixel analysis.

[via DisplayMate]

The Texas Southern and Southern University women's basketball teams brawled during a game on Saturday night, resulting in a double forfeit of the game and 15 suspensions. Yesterday, video of the brawl was posted by the The Advocate, and Texas Southern announced that it was withdrawing the women's basketball team from the SWAC tournament because it would not have enough players to compete. The Lady Tigers would have been the tournament's top seed.

Read more...

The shimmer of fresh rain on a road gone copper in the setting sun. The perfect whir of the engine as your sleek '94 Mazda MX-5 Miata hugs the contour of a mountainside curve.

No, it's not a description of your next perfect real-life vacation, but a moment you can have anytime in Forza Horizon 2 — the immersive pick-up-and-play open road racing experience

“Forza Horizon 2” combines legendary Forza authenticity with a vast, wide-open world brought to life in stunning detail, resulting in an Xbox-exclusive experience that will take you around the world and down roads of imagination as you command more than 200 of the most breathtaking moving machines ever built by man. And this March, you can thrill to Forza Horizon 2 as Mazda brings this stunning world to the SXSW Gaming Expo Read more...

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From thousands of feet above the sea, cruise ships look more like intricate toys than gigantic vacation vehicles.

Acclaimed photographer Jeffrey Milstein, 70, captures the photos from a helicopter without a side door, using a high-resolution camera to capture the ships' details.

The pilot tips the helicopter over the ship so Milstein — held in only by a seatbelt — can get the shot.

“When I am shooting, I am so into it I don’t think about risks or anything like that. I find it really exhilarating,” Milstein told the UC Berkeley Cal Alumni Association. “I am usually one to four thousand feet (high). Lower in the helicopters. Higher in the airplanes.” Read more...

More about Pics, Lifestyle, Travel Leisure, Cruising, and Jeffrey Milstein

The Deftones has been in the studio lately tracking their new album and a first tease of what appears to be new music from it slipped out yesterday night thanks to a friend of the band. You can check that out below and find some new photos of the band in the studio here and here.

That is ALL you get 15 SECONDS!! This is the best music I have heard in a LONG TIME!! GET EXCITED!! #deftones

A video posted by Marc Mojo (@marcmojoisback) on Mar 5, 2015 at 11:26pm PST

The post Here’s A Clip Of A New Deftones Song appeared first on Theprp.com.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's just human cannonball Gemma Kirby

Kirby, the world's youngest female human cannonball, performs in the Ringling Bros.' Circus XTREME, and has been shot out of a cannonball more than 500 times. To showcase the dangerous and exhilarating world of extreme circus sports, Kirby, 25, strapped on a GoPro as she was catapulted 40 feet high at almost 60 mph

"Circus XTREME features artists who redefine the word extreme in everything they do, magnifying traditional elements of the circus, and combining them with never-before-seen spectacles, original fast-paced performances and incredibly hilarious moments," a Ringling Bros. spokesperson told Mashable. Read more...

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Send stories, photos, and anything else you might have to tips@deadspin.com.

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How did he do this?

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The Whar-Biner is machined out of titanium, bronze or zirconium and then finished in a 24 hour tumbler to give it a handsome patina.

We knew it was going to happen, but it still made us feel warm and fuzzy inside: The Apple Store just went down, hours before the start of another Apple event

At 1 p.m. ET today, Apple will show off the Apple Watch during a launch event. It marks the company's first foray into wearables and possibly the most anticipated gadget of the year

Image: Mashable/Apple.com

After the Apple Store is back online, we'll pore over it to find out if Apple sneaked in any other new products (or at least pricing changes) besides the Apple Watch. Rumors say Apple is likely to show off an updated MacBook Air as well as new Beats headphones Read more...

More about Apple, Apple Store, Tech, Gadgets, and Apple Watch

LOS ANGELES — Harrison Ford's crashed World War II airplane was being removed Friday from the golf course where it crashed-landed the day before, an employee at the municipal facility told Mashable.

"It's being taken out of here as we speak," said the employee, who declined to give his name, just after 11 a.m. PT. Ford's Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR, a vintage training plane, had been sitting on a fairway at Penmar Golf Course in Venice, California, since crash-landing on Thursday afternoon

SEE ALSO: Harrison Ford's plane was made the same year he was born: 1942

Image: David Buchan

A golfer caught Ford's powerless plane as it sailed over the course, as seen in the above footage uploaded to YouTube by The Associated Press. Read more...

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We may soon have a vertically looping water slide — an engineering feat long suspected to be impossible.

It is called the Sky Caliber, and the company developing the slide calls it the first slide with a truly vertical loop. Riders travel at 50 mph down the tube and travel through a 30-foot-tall loop. The slide itself stands at 90 feet, and can funnel 180 riders through per hour, according to the developers, called Sky Turtle.

It's on! Skyturtle Technologies just inked a deal to bring this beauty to the general public! Congrats to the team! Note the two engineers at bottom right to give you a scale of just how insane this slide is! Weblink in my profile to check out the article about it in today's @latimes #skyturtletechnologies #waterslide #waterpark #wwa #iaapa #nickdiamondphoto #LATimes #makehistory #tbt #throwback

A photo posted by nickdiamondphotography (@nickdiamondphotography) on Mar 5, 2015 at 6:53pm PST Read more...

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During his round at the WGC-Cadillac Championship today, Rory McIlroy yanked his second shot on the par-5 eighth hole into the water. Then he did that thing that a lot of us who golf would probably do if we were extremely rich and could afford to buy new clubs all the time.

Read more...

Alexisonfire have been teasing what looks to be an announcement for future plans that will be made this coming Monday, March 09th.

#AOF2015

A photo posted by ALEXISONFIRE (@aof_official) on Mar 6, 2015 at 7:59am PST

Follow Alexisonfire on Instagram Username: aof_official Never know what could happen… #AOF2015

— Wade MacNeil (@wade_macneil) March 6, 2015

The post Alexisonfire Teasing 2015 Plans appeared first on Theprp.com.

This is how pugs get their flat faces.

Oscar is just a fun-loving pug, frolicking about as fun-loving pugs do. Unfortunately for Oscar, he forgot that his legs bounce about as well as string cheese. Even more unfortunate, he realized this mid-air trying to jump over a log.

No one said pug life was easy.

More about Viral Videos, Watercooler, Videos, and Pugs

You might be tempted to call E'Twaun Moore's game-winning three the highlight of last night's contest between the Thunder and Bulls, but I submit that the night's truly transcendent moment occurred on the ensuing possession, when a portly Bulls fan lost all notion of etiquette and got himself a big ol' handful of Joakim Noah's ass.

Read more...

Sometimes, we all need a little break from the monotony and doldrums of office life. Which is why it's such a good thing that Friday, March 6 is Take Your Action Figure to Work Day!

Take Your Action Figure to Work Day was started in 2014 by Randall Ham. Ham inadvertently created the holiday by posting Instagram images of his Variant New Teen Titans White Raven action figure doing various tasks around his office

The response was so great, Ham decided to expand the event to an entire holiday for the Internet. After all, who doesn't want to celebrate their love of action figures (Barbie dolls count) and toys with their coworkers. Read more...

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We've already settled this debateIt's done. Put to bedIn the Internet history books. But American Idol contestant Jax is refusing to let us forget the Great Dress Debate of 2015

The Idol hopeful took to the stage Thursday night wearing none other than The Dress that divided families last week

Yes, that one.

The Dress — in all its black and blue glory — didn't bring any good luck, though. Her performance of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was not loved by all the judges, with Jennifer Lopez telling her it "didn't work." Read more...

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This past week at Mobile World Congress, Google executive Sundar Pichai confirmed that the company was working on a wireless service that would look to leverage WiFi and new technology that could seamlessly transfer you between different carriers’ networks to ensure quality service. There aren’t many early official details at this time, though rumors have suggested Sprint and T-Mobile will be on board in the early going.

The Wall Street Journal says they’ve heard word that there will be one big caveat for wanting to try this service out, though: you’ll need to own a Nexus 6 if you want to play ball. That may seem like a foul stipulation at first, but it makes total sense.

Google isn’t simply becoming an MVNO ala the likes of Republic Wireless or Straight Talk. They’re creating and testing an entirely new cellular technology that simultaneously leverages WiFi and any number of network signals between any number of carriers to help deliver the best call and data experiences.

It’s an ambitious project, but the only way they’re going to be able to accurately judge results is by keeping variables at an absolute minimum. It’ll be important for Google to be able to control the usage environment as tightly as they can in order to ensure everything works as it should. If that means they can only approve one phone for this experiment then that’s what we’ll have to accept. We’re almost 100% certain we’ll hear more about this venture at Google IO, with the Wall Street Journal suggesting it’ll be ready to go “in the coming weeks.”

You may not be able to ride the new 325-foot tall coaster at Carowinds Park in Charlotte, North Caroline just yet, but a virtual ride offers a pretty good idea of just how terrifying the ride will be

The monster coaster, dubbed Fury 325, hits a top speed of 95-miles-per-hour with a whopping 81 degree initial drop. Once opened, it will be the largest and fastest gigacoaster in the world. (A gigacoaster is a roller coaster that completes a full circuit and has a drop height more than 300-feet tall. )

The park is slated to open March 28, however there is a contest to be the first person to ride the coaster, which goes to benefit the Cam Newton foundation Read more...

More about Travel, Watercooler, Videos, Amusement Park, and Rollercoaster