Facebook Moments, the app for exchanging photos amongst friends who all find themselves at the same place at the same time (i.e. at a party), has been updated with a neat new way to relive a moment in the past.
IDC released an updated forecast today lowering its expectations for worldwide smartphone shipments this year with a continuing slowdown of growth in China cited as the biggest contributor to the lower than expected shipments. It also shared some insight into the future of Android, expecting its current 81% share of the global smartphone market as of 2015 to hold strong through 2019, citing continued price sensitivity in the markets with the biggest growth potential (read: China, India, and everyone else in the Asia-Pacific region).
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Google Map Maker, the tool which allows anyone around the world to contribute information to Google’s worldwide map, has re-opened in 45 countries after going live again in 6 countries two weeks ago. The product was temporarily shut down in May after it was discovered that some nefarious edits to the map, like geographic polygons shaped to depict an Android peeing on what is ostensibly an Apple logo, were being approved.
Nest, the Alphabet company focused on building Internet of Things (IoT) products for the home that was acquired last year by Google for $3.2 billion, looks to be close to introducing an updated Nest Thermostat. That comes from an FCC regulatory filing first spotted yesterday by Business Insider.
New images are circulating around the web this morning of what is purportedly Verizon‘s yet unannounced DROID Maxx 2 smartphone, believed to essentially be Motorola‘s new flagship Moto X Play rebranded for the “Big Red” carrier. Motorola has been the manufacturer behind most of Verizon’s DROID line of smartphones.
Sony Mobile has practically made it a tradition to unveil new devices at the IFA trade show in Berlin, and this year should be no different. Sony Xperia Great Britain has tweeted today that eager Sony smartphone fans should get ready for “a smartphone with greater focus,” and that all will become clear on the 2nd of September.
The service may not be launching until next month, but owners of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are now receiving an over-the-air update which includes support for Samsung Pay. The update, which you’ll need approximately 303MB of free storage to install, includes some other additions as well.
For starters, there’s support for live video broadcasting over YouTube, which has been a highly-requested ability from the video hosting platform ever since the launch of the competing Meerkat and Periscope apps. This is possible thanks to WatchMe, an open-source project by Google that allows app developers to integrate with the YouTube Data and YouTube Live Streaming APIs, among others. There’s also higher quality audio output to Samsung headsets (those new Level On headphones, perhaps?), UI updates, and the usual bug fixes.
Samsung Pay is Samsung’s mobile payments app and service that is different from other solutions from Google and Apple because it includes the ability to pay at nearly any credit card terminal. It does this through the use of MST technology, the same thing used in the magnetic strips on the back of all credit and debit cards.
While Samsung Pay is expected to work in far more places than Android Pay and Apple Pay currently do, Verizon Wireless here in the States is still evaluating whether or not to allow the service onto the Samsung devices it sells, according to a representative from the company speaking to 9to5Google.
The update could take several days to hit devices. You can check manually by visiting Settings > About phone > System updates.
Back to school season is in full swing and Google is using it as an opportunity to release a bunch of new features and changes for those of its products geared towards educators. Google Classroom has been updated with question-driven discussions, reusable posts, calendar integration, and more.
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Google has its own enterprise-grade cloud storage offering which competes with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft for storing data from big Internet players like Snapchat and Netflix. Now you can send your data to their cloud in the most literal, or most lazy, way ever before possible.
Cortana, Microsoft’s cross-platform voice assistant not dissimilar from Google Now, is today becoming available as an official public beta through Google Play.
Motorola’s recently announced Moto X Play isn’t coming to the United States — not with that name, at least. It’s widely believed to be coming to the states exclusively on Verizon as the Droid Maxx 2, and the widely-sourced Hellomotohk has released new images of what is purportedly the back cover of the phone.
The most notable thing about these images is how the Verizon and DROID branding blends in with the rest of the cover — Verizon tends to plaster the back of its DROID phones with prominent logos. It depends on how the covers are manufactured and at what stage these were taken off the line to be pictured, but hopefully this is what the back will look like at its consumer release.
The reason it’s believed that the Moto X Play will come to the US as a re-branded Verizon phone is due to simple pattern-matching: Motorola builds all of Verizon’s DROID line of smartphones, and save for modifications to outward appearance and features, they tend to follow Motorola’s phones closely in terms of their baseline platform. Last year’s Droid Turbo, for example, was a tuned up Moto X. And in particular the Moto X Play compromises in places where Motorola’s other recently announced phone, the X Style, doesn’t, in favor of a larger battery. The Droid Maxx is traditionally Verizon’s line targeted at those who want large batteries.
Based on the sight of two different back plate covers, it seems possible that Moto Maker or something similar will be available for this phone, but we wouldn’t get our hopes up. Nothing pictured has been confirmed by Motorola or Verizon, and could be fake.
If you’re like me, you sometimes use the Street View feature of Google Maps to see a place you’re about to visit and what its surrounding area looks like. Maybe you’re apartment hunting and want to see if the neighborhood looks safe. Regardless of why you do it, Google understands us and has made this previewing a tad easier.
Google Maps version 9.13.0 for Android places a thumbnail preview of a location in the bottom left corner of the screen for inputted addresses and places for which you’ve pressed and held on the map. It looks like this:
Tapping one of these previews brings up your standard Street View:
This version is available from Google Play, and an APK can be downloaded from APKMirror.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Beats Studio Wireless Headphones in titanium color: $229.99 shipped (Orig: $380)
Refurbished Garmin nuvi 2699LMT HD 6” GPS with Lifetime Maps & HD Traffic: $149.99 shipped with promo code POI (Orig: $270)
Jawbone UP Fitness Tracker (4 color choices): $25 shipped (Orig: $50)
Refurbished ARRIS SURFboard SB6121 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem: $39.99 shipped (Orig: $99.99)
In today’s best game/app deals, over at Amazon you can grab the hybrid SmaAcc Vertical PS4 Stand w/ Cooling Fans + Dual Charger Station for $19.99 shipped using code JCPO6UZU during checkout. That’s $5 under the current best price and the lowest we can find. The official PS4 vertical stand from Sony will run you $20 Prime shipped on its own without he extra goodies.
It’s your last chance to hit the Mac Game Store Back-to-School sale offering up to 80% off a massive selection of Mac titles. One standout of the many, is Borderlands 2 Complete Edition for $29.99, which includes the GOTY edition of the game and the plethora of DLC that released for it.
Move over Super Smash Bros., the Pokémon tournament fighter is coming to Wii U in the Spring
SLICK’s motorized mount takes the bumps out of your GoPro videos
Beyerdynamic takes its pro-audio pedigree to the streets with these new custom headphones
Remember when we reported that Google’s Chrome browser may soon get the ability to check a word’s spelling in multiple languages simultaneously? That functionality now works, and it’s live now in a pre-release build of the browser.
Not you too, Samsung. After reporting early this month that HTC was sending advertisements to owners of its devices through push notifications, it appears that Samsung is doing something similar.
Android Police is today reporting that owners of Samsung devices have reached out to the site to share with them screenshots of ads appearing in the slide-down menu that includes all their notifications. The ads — one for the Galaxy S6 Edge+ is pictured — appear inside cards that looks just like every other notification. They’re delivered via the Samsung Push Service, a piece of software Samsung pre-installs on its Android devices to send helpful information to device owners. Not exactly helpful this time, though.
We weren’t terribly surprised when HTC started doing this, being in the kind of financial straits they are, but it’s definitely surprising coming from a technology giant like Samsung. The company’s software is already notoriously bloated and known to kill running apps a little too quickly, so this is just another blow for a company that has only just began to produce great phones again after an uninteresting Galaxy S5.
Aside from people just not liking ads in general, much of the frustration here centers around the distrust it creates. While we pay for cable television and still see ads there, it hasn’t become acceptable practice to see ads in and around the gadgets we buy with our hard earned money. Hopefully OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) don’t think they can make it okay.
Google’s X lab is famous for its ambitious undertakings building self-driving cars and balloons that beam Internet to the furthest reaches of the planet. Now all of its life sciences projects are moving on to greener pastures.
Take out your salt shakers, but new images have made their way onto Reddit picturing what is purportedly the case of Motorola’s next iteration to the Android Wear-powered Moto 360.
Location check-in app Swarm continues to become a bit more like the Foursquare app of yesteryear, this time gaining a leaderboard system identical to the original one that helped to make Foursquare so addictive in the first place.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
GoPro HERO4 Black Action Camera: $379 shipped (Orig: $500)
Refurbished VIZIO (S3851w-D4) 38-inch 5.1-Ch. Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer and Rear Satellite Speakers: $149.99 shipped (Orig: $280)
Seagate Backup Plus 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive: $119.99 shipped (Orig: $150)
DHD D1 mini quadcopter: $12.30 Prime shipped (Orig: $35)
Resident Evil Collection on Blu-Ray: $29.99 Prime shipped (Orig: $60)
The Conway Electric Extō Dual-USB is the envy of all power strips
Back to the Future: The Game hits PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, pre-order now
Nintendo 2DS seeing an official price drop of $30
Google Photos now has a feature that will show you all the photos and videos you took on this same day last year. It’s opt-in, and the content will appear within a card in the Assistant view.
Interactive watch faces aren’t the only goodie coming in Android Wear version 1.3, apparently. Google Translate is finally getting its own smartwatch app.
Android Wear is receiving an update with support for interactive watch faces (and WiFi support in LG’s G Watch R!). The new functionality allows developers to detect taps on their watch faces to reveal more information.
Sony has today taken the wraps off the second iteration of its fitness wearable, the SmartBand 2, which it will begin selling in 60 countries worldwide starting in September. There’s not a ton of new stuff going on here, though, so what makes it worthy of being a successor?
Update: This post has been updated to include an APKMirror link to the Docs update which includes Print Layout.
Google Docs and Sheets, two of products that make up Google’s suite of online productivity tools, have received some small updates on Android that will come in handy for mobile warriors (sorry, had to say it).
Let’s start with Docs. Now from the overflow menu of a document you’ll find a new Print Layout option that, when selected, will show you a fully paginated (each page labeled with its order in the document), read-only version of your document. This is what your document will look like printed on paper. Print Layout will continue to update in real-time as collaborators make changes. The ability to edit from within the Print Layout view will come in the future.
The other new updates today come for Google Sheets. The first is a new “intuitive keyboard functionality.” Now when you tap a cell in a Sheets spreadsheet, either the alphabetic or numeric will open depending on which type of characters are in the cell. Tap a cell with only numbers in it, Sheets will open the numeric keypad so you don’t have to make another tap to switch to it. Nice touch.
The final update to hit Sheets is autofill. As you can see in the GIF above, autofill makes it easy to complete a pattern without the tedium of going cell-by-cell and doing it yourself. Select the data you want to repeat and drag to the cells you’d like to repeat it in, and Sheets will fill in the cells using the pattern of your selected data.
The latter two updates for Sheets can be found in the latest update to the app for Android in Google Play, while an APK download of Docs including Print Layout can be found on APKMirror.