The Thunder announced that Russell Westbrook underwent surgery to repair that dent in his face . In medical terms, he had a "fracture to the zygomatic arch of his right cheek." Westbrook won't play tomorrow against the Lakers and will be re-evaluated afterwards, but it doesn't seem too serious.
You think Nikola Mirotic is going to take an improper free throw attempt? Not on Joey Crawford's watch. Look at Air Joey soar through the air as he foils a minor error in a game. Thanks for keeping us safe.
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Tomorrow we will finally see the official announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S6, but today we’re talking about a different galaxy. You may have forgot that the term “galaxy” isn’t just used for Samsung phones (even though it’s the first result in Google). A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas and dust, and dark matter. I may have just posted that from Wikipedia, but one thing I do know is galaxies are beautiful.
We have 5 HD galactic wallpapers for you. To get one of these wallpapers on your phone, tablet, or even PC, simply tap or click on the image to see it at full resolution. Let us know which one is your favorite, and be sure to share a screenshot if you use one of these wallpapers!
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Wireless charging technology is one of those modern conveniences that, despite it’s convenience, hasn’t been widely adopted. Sure you can find it in a handful of Android devices, but that’s only one side of the equation. Thankfully, dorm room favorite IKEA is ready to take us into the future, with a new furniture line coming equipped with wireless charging.
Starting this April, you’ll be able to find floor lamps, tablet lamps, bedside tables, and desks with Qi wireless charging stations built right in. Some of the products are the brain child of industrial designer David Wahl. You’ll also find regular ‘ol Qi wireless chargers (in nice wood finishes) for anyone that doesn’t feel the need to go out and buy all new furniture. DIYers can also purchase inserts that require minor drilling to retrofit existing furniture.
Prices start at 40 euros and will be launching first in the US and Europe before a wider global rollout later on.
Yesterday news broke about the Huawei Watch, a beautiful Android Wear device from an unlikely manufacturer. Today it has been officially unveiled at MWC, along with a new tablet. The Watch is aluminum, has thin bezels, and no “flat tire.” These things alone would make most Android fans happy, but it gets better.
The Huawei Watch has a 1.4-inch 400×400 AMOLED sapphire crystal display that is scratch-resistant and can be used with gloves or wet hands. It’s 316L corrosive-resistent, and has a beautiful cold-forged stainless steel body. The watch also has a heart-rate montior, barometer, and 6-axis sensor to track fitness activities. It will launch “mid-2014″ in gold, stainless, and black.
The Huawei MediaPad X2 is a 7-inch tablet with cellular data connectivity. It looks like a stretched out version of something from HTC. The 7-inch display is 1080p, and it has a 2GHz Kirin ultra-octa chipset, 13MP camera, 5,000 mAh battery, and Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. It will be available in 2GB and 3GB of RAM versions later this year.
What do you think of these great devices by Huawei? Do they have enough to compete with the likes of Samsung, HTC, and LG here in the U.S.?
AndroidForums.com Discussion: Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge
From one big announcement to the next — Samsung has officially unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, their 2015 flagship smartphones. The devices are just as we’d imagined them (or just as we saw them in countless leaks, anyway).
They’re quite similar under the hood with the following quick list of specs:
The difference will obviously come with the Edge display of the latter. Through software, it’ll enable unique experiences that only an Edge display can provide.
Both devices look stunning, to boot. They’re built with a metal chassis that’s 50% stronger than the metal used in competing smartphones, and is slathered in the latest Gorilla Glass on both the front and rear. It looks and feels like Samsung, but it’s hard to say their devices have ever looked quite this good.
One new feature is the ability to set up your “fave 5″ contacts with their own designated color, and the S6 Edge’s display will glow in that color whenever they call or send you a message. You can drag that contact’s color from the Edge of the display to act on that message or missed call.
If it’s laying face down on a surface? You’ll be able to see the glow of that contact’s color, and a touch of the heart-rate sensor on the back and send off a quick message to dismiss the call or message in case you can’t respond right away.
The two share everything else in terms of features. TouchWiz is still TouchWiz — no Nexus-like debloat job here — but they’ve refined it to be less confusing and cluttered. They’ve done away with cryptic icons for text-based interface options to make it clear what you’re able to do. They make good use of white space just as Google has asked folks to for Android 5.0 and higher.
Megapixels alone aren’t impressive, and Samsung knows that. That’s why they weren’t insecure about not being able to match HTC’s 20.7 megapixel sensor or some other ridiculous spec.
What does matter is picture quality, and thanks to both the front and rear camera’s f/1.9 aperture the device is able to capture 60% more light. It should make for much better low light performance for both still shots and video, as well as an overall more versatile sensor for everyday use. Real-time HDR — an industry first — is also present for both the front and rear sensor, as well.
The camera software hasn’t gotten a million new selfie modes and other nonsense, but it has been cleaned up to make it easier to get to the options you need. That seems to be the theme here — nothing crazy, just much improved.
Samsung has already announced a release date for this thing — April 10th, worldwide. You can expect all major carriers in whichever country you live to offer the thing so you won’t have to worry about jumping from your network of choice. There will be 32GB, 64GB and 128GB options available, though pricing for each model has yet to be confirmed.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is sure to be on the carriers’ big hype list for promoting new smartphones in 2015, and T-Mobile’s already getting the fun started. The company’s sign up page for Samsung’s “next big thing” has gone live, and on it we see a nice little teaser that actually reveals a bit of its design.
This would be our first real look at the Samsung Galaxy S6 without it being draped in cases, barely visible in a blurry cam photo or being a mere mockup of someone else’s fantasy. This is the real deal, and it’s going to be revealed March 1st.
This particular teaser seems to flaunt the device’s metal build we’ve been hearing about. The weird curvature on the device also might hint that this could be the Edge variant of the Samsung Galaxy S6, but it could just be the workings of over-applied reflection techniques in photoshop.
That small taste is all we get, though, and we likely won’t be treated to the full course meal until March 1st arrives.
When Orange is the New Black returns this June, one original cast member will be missing.
The fate of Jason Biggs' character, Piper's ex Larry Bloom, was up in the air when we left off and Variety confirms that the actor will not be returning for the the third season.
Larry has been a universally hated character from the start, so the news has been met with nothing short of jubilation
The consensus seems to be that, short of a gruesome death, Larry's quiet sendoff is the best possible thing that could happen to the character
More about Netflix, Television, Entertainment, Tv, and WatercoolerJason Biggs won't be back for Season 3 of Orange is the New Black. Great, now I'll have to pause the episode when I want to leave the room.
— Neil McNeil (@Neil_McNeil) February 20, 2015 Read more...
When you’re running low on cash, it’s second nature to reach for your wallet and grab a credit card. What if you’re running low on battery? Keep the wallet out. You can now have a 30-40% emergency charge as readily available with the TravelCard waller-sized charger, now only $29 at AndroidArea.com.
Get the TravelCard wallet-sized charger for $29 at AndroidArea.com
The TravelCard pack 1500mAh of reserve power in a package the size of a normal credit card and only 3/16 of an inch thick. It easily slides into your wallet and includes a built-in microUSB cable; there is no need for added accessories. Lightweight and cased in durable aluminum, you’ll forget it’s there until the moment you need it.
Normally priced at $39, the TravelCard can be yours now for 25% off (plus free shipping) at AndroidArea.com. Power has never been so portable.
From Klay Thompson's 37-point quarter to Tinder night in the ATL, from the bottomless well of schadenfreude known as the New York Knicks to Kobe Bryant and LeBron James' poignant January matchup, from powerful statements by massive stars to the funniest flop we've seen of late, from — ah, forget it; we could go on forever
The point: Full of beauty and grace on the court and endless spectacle off of it, this has been the most entertaining, exciting and all-around awesome NBA season basketball fans have been treated to in years. And it's about to get better
More about Nba, Entertainment, and Sports
Don't even bother ringing the alarm, the Beyhive's already handled it
A website called "The Beyoncé World" leaked 224 allegedly un-retouched images of Beyoncé Wednesday, sending fans into a meltdown of apocalyptic proportions
The images were apparently taken from Beyoncé's 2013 L'Oréal commercial shoots and ad campaigns — she is a spokesperson for the brand. The images, which Complex was able to grab, show the singer with wrinkled and blemished skin
Image: The Beyoncé World
Image: The Beyoncé World
Image: The Beyoncé World Read more...
Instagram is one of the most popular apps on Android or any platform, but it's always been a little slow to conform to Android's changing design guidelines. The most recent beta version makes at least one notable update—a colored status bar on Lollipop devices. Baby steps.
Left: new, Right: old
As you can see above, that status bar is blue and the other one is not. This is the essence of the update, as near as we can tell.
Read MoreLatest Instagram Beta Includes Colored Status Bar On Lollipop [APK Download] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
It all started, as many institutions in our modern world did, with a bunch of Star Wars-loving geeks
John Knoll, a supervisor at George Lucas' visual effects house, Industrial Light and Magic, was intrigued by an image-editing Mac app his academic brother Thomas was working on as a hobby, and started showing it around ILM. The computer graphics folks loved how it did most everything their high-end Pixar machines could do, but for a fraction of the price. It was used in the special effects for James Cameron's The Abyss
The Knolls realized they had a hot piece of software on their hands, and set about developing it for release. John had originally called it "Display." The brothers eventually renamed it Photoshop Read more...
More about Adobe, Videos, Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop, and Tech
Don Draper and co. are clocking out for good soon and, in prep for the big bow, AMC has just released a batch of new photos
As usual with anything promoting Mad Men, they tell us nothing.
But they are gorgeous
All our favorites are featured in the promo pictures, set at an outdoor soiree of some sort. Don, Peggy, Pete, Joan, Roger, Megan, Sally, Henry, Betty and even Betty's sneer
The final batch of episodes from the show's seventh season, which officially kicked off last year with part 1, will air April 5 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC Read more...
More about Television, Mad Men, Entertainment, and Tv
Taylor Swift's awards-show seat dancing is basically at Olympic levels now. But everyone's talents start with humble beginnings
For Swift, her aggressive seat dancing began alongside Jimmy Fallon when they were just sporting-event spectators. During Tuesday's Tonight Show, Fallon dug up old Jumbotron footage of himself and Swift shaking it off, before shaking it off was a thing
Guess we have Fallon to thank/blame for the monster he's created
Some of these alternate helmet designs, created by artist and graphic designer Dylan Young, are cool as hell. Others, not so much. They're all really fun to look at, though, and isn't that what matters?
Reddit, which says it gets about 160 million unique visitors a month, made about $8.3 million in ad revenues in 2014 and is donating 10% of that to charity.
The company announced its revenue figures in a blog post Wednesday. The exact number, in case you were wondering, is $8,276,594.93. For comparison's sake, BuzzFeed claims a "global audience" of 200 million and surpassed $100 million in revenues in 2014
Some observers were quick to point out that media companies that find story ideas on Reddit are better at monetizing their traffic than Reddit is. That shouldn't be too surprising, though, since Reddit — which is owned by Advance Publications — offers just skimpy banner ads on its pages and has proved to be a tough environment for brands looking to market themselves. Read more...
More about Reddit, Media, Advertising, and Business
Definitely sign up to be a contestant Wheel of Fortune if you happen to be a clairvoyant.
There's no proof that this contestant, who managed to solve the puzzle with one fairly common letter on the board, has supernatural powers, but for purposes of protecting our own fragile self-esteems, he had some extra help from the universe. He's totally not just smarter than you.
BOSTON — Snowstorm after snowstorm has pounded Boston over the past several weeks. The latest blitzed the city on Saturday and Sunday, burying much of it with another foot of snow — this on top of the feet-high snowbanks that already lined much of Boston
Some parts of the city look completely different with a thick white blanket. Here are before and after photos of Boston. Read more...
More about Photos, Boston, Blizzard, Snow, and Us World
Only 100 people are still competing for four seats on a one-way trip to Mars advertised by Dutch nonprofit Mars One.
In its latest round of cuts, the foundation cut its applicant pool from 660 to 100 finalists on Tuesday. More than 200,000 people across the globe originally applied when Mars One founder Bas Lansdorp first announced intentions to send what would be humanity's first mission to the Red Planet by 2025.
The organization plans to send an initial four settlers to the planet to establish a permanent human settlement in the next decade then continue to shuttle people out every few years. The colony will supposedly include livable habitats, greenhouses, rovers and everything else a human would need to survive life on the barren, oxygen-free wasteland. Read more...
More about Mars, Us World, Mars One, and Space
In case Season 4 of Game of Thrones wasn't filled with enough death and despair for you (what kind of monster are you?!), HBO has released two deleted scenes featuring sorrow-filled characters
The first scene follows Shae, Tyrion's mistress, immediately after he ends their relationship. Bronn, Tyrion's sellsword, attempts to comfort a heartbroken Shae
The second deleted scene shows Daenerys Targaryen after dismissing her friend and advisor Jorah Mormont due to his betrayal in previous years. A heavy-hearted Daenerys practically begs Missandei to never betray her Read more...
More about Entertainment, Tv, Game Of Thrones, Videos, and Watercooler
What is best in life? Seeing a classic sword-and-sorcery hero brought to the big screen, with an iconic bodybuilder in the lead role. But how did Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian become such a classic film? The path to glory was long and twisted. Here's everything you never knew about the making of Conan.
Here, just an incredible find from @uniformcritic, a wonderful Twitter follow chronicling baseball history and fashion. It's a Houston Astros gameday program from the 1960s:
Director Bryan Singer shared a cryptic piece of production art from his upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse film through Instagram on Monday
The film, which is set to hit theaters in May 2016, is said to be the final installment in a trilogy that started with X-Men: First Class and continued with X-Men: Days of Future Past. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult are all signed on to reprise their starring roles from the past two films, with Oscar Isaac playing the villain Apocalypse.
See also: The Entire 'X-Men' Series in 3 Minutes
More about Instagram, X Men, Entertainment, Film, and PicsSome production art. #XmenApocalypse #GrantMajor I was a little busy but will continue to snap more.
A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Read more...
Far be it from us to question the actions of a multi-billion dollar corporation... no, wait, questioning the actions of corporations is exactly what we're supposed to be doing. Let's try this again: hey AT&T, what gives? Today the carrier is introducing a new tier to its data pricing, giving it a grand total of eleven options in its Mobile Share Value plan segment. $75 gets you 7GB of data, with the new rollover feature enabled.
AT&T Introduces A New $75-7GB Mobile Data Tier... For When 10GB Is Too Much, But 6GB Is Not Enough was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
LG has just sent out a press release for its latest Android Wear device - the LG Watch Urbane.
The Watch Urbane, "first all-metal luxury Android Wear device," ostensibly drops both the "G" naming scheme and the bezel markings of the G Watch R, opting for understated metal casings. Otherwise the specs should look pretty familiar.
LG hasn't provided any specific availability details (or pricing), but we should be finding out more at Mobile World Congress, which is quickly approaching.
Read MoreLG Announces The All Metal LG Watch Urbane was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Earlier this month Mattel sent invites to an event where they and Google would make a joint announcement. Everyone speculated that it would be some sort of new View-Master device that could bring the classic 3D alternate reality headset into the 21st century.
And that’s exactly what happened today. This new View-Master headset is built based on the specifications of Google Cardboard, but it’s what Mattel’s doing on the software side that could interest an entirely new demographic.
With a smartphone lodged into the View-Master and the View-Master app running on said phone, you’ll be able to check out popular destinations and buildings in 3D just as you did on the old reel cards back in the day. The kicker here is that these environments can now be experienced in as if you were actually smack dab in the middle of those places (you simply turn your head and body to check out your surroundings instead of having to click to the next reel).
Many of the experiences will be accessible through actual reel cards, though they aren’t your ordinary “click to switch” reels from the old days. They’ll work as augmented reality cards to give you a unique view of interesting places.
Mattel will also use imagery from their archive of reels to bring you classic View-Master goodness. Of course, the enclosure with a smartphone will be able to work with any virtual reality app meant for use with any Google Cardboard configuration so you won’t be locked into Mattel’s ecosystem of goods to use it.
The headsets will retail for a very affordable $29.99, and reel cards come in packs of four for $14.99. That’s a very inexpensive way to introduce your kids to virtual reality technology if you already have a smartphone. And heck, even this big guy here is interested in revisiting the old days.
The View-Master enclosure and reel cards won’t be available until fall of 2015, so we have a fairly lengthy trek until we’re able to try it ourselves. Let us know what you think of this and if you’ll give it a shot in the comments ahead.
[via USA Today]
