Chance Miller

Google today has announced that it is expanding its custom self-driving car project to Austin, Texas. Previously, the company had only been allowing the car to roam the streets of California. Google now says, however, that it is brining “a few” of its self-driving cars to Texas. The cars will stay in the northern part of Austin, like its modified Lexus vehicles have been for the last several months.

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Verizon has recently started allowing customers to bring non-Verizon devices its network and will activate them. The program officially began this week and Verizon confirmed to 9to5Mac that it applies to the Nexus 6, as well as Apple’s iPhone. Verizon notes, however, that the devices must be unlocked prior to being activated on its network.

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One of the features Samsung highlighted when it unveiled the Galaxy Note 5 was the device’s new S Pen slot design. The Note 5 features a spring-loaded mechanism to eject the Pen, which also is flush into the body at all time. This evening, however, several Galaxy Note 5 users started noticing a major flaw with the new slot design. If you accidentally insert the S Pen backwards into the slot, your Note 5 can be permanently damaged.

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According to recent data released by Parks Associates, Chromecast is the second most popular streaming device. Roku, according to the data, is the most popular streaming media device manufacturer with 34 percent of the market, while Apple TV currently is the fourth most popular streaming media device based on 2014 sales, down from third place in 2013.

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After starting to rollout updates to its Galaxy Note Edge and Note 4 variants earlier this week, Verizon today has begun pushing updates to its Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, and Tab 4 10.1 with a fix for the Stagefright exploit in tow. Verizon has shared official update changelogs on its website for all three updates, noting that it bumps the Android OS to version 5.1.1.

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As the changes from Google’s Alphabet restructure continue to emerge, it today was revealed that Niantic Labs, the team behind popular Ingress augmented reality game, will be spun off as its own independent company. In addition to creating Ingress, Niantic Labs also created Field Trip, which will also stick around when the company breaks off from Google.

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Firefox today has started rolling out an update to its Android app, bumping it to version 40.0. The update includes your normal host of bug fixes and performance improvements, as well as a pair of new features.

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Hot on the heels of Google announcing a similar new policy, Samsung this evening has revealed that it is implementing a new Android security update process. In a blog post, the company announced that it will now rollout monthly security updates to its devices, just like Google will now do for its Nexus devices.

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Earlier today, Google announced that it would soon begin improving its security efforts for its Nexus line of devices by rolling out monthly security updates. To go along with that, Google this evening has posted new factory images for seven Nexus devices. The factory images all appear to address the recent security bug that saw “Stagefright” exploited, as well as other fixes.

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Earlier this year Google unveiled its new YouTube Gaming service to rival Amazon-owned video game streaming site Twitch after several months of speculation. Today, Google has released the version of the YouTube Gaming app for Android, albeit in an early “Creator Preview” form. The changelog of the app reveals that the app is capable of many of the features previously announced.

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As it does at the beginning of almost every month, Google today has updated its Android distribution data to reflect a 7-day period ending on August 3rd. It’s been two months since the data was last updated, so some more significant changes have occurred. Most notably, Android 5.0/5.1 Lollipop is now installed on 18.1 percent of devices, up from 11.6 percent last time around.

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Autodesk, the company behind a variety of popular design tools, today has announced a new game engine that it says makes the process of building games considerably more seamless. The program, called Stingray, is based on the Bitsquid engine that it acquired last year, but is entirely revamped with a new, more intuitive interface.

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Chrome v44 hit the beta channel last month and today the update is rolling out to the stable app via the Play Store. While Google isn’t very specific in what has changed, there are usually several hidden features in Chrome version bumps.

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After releasing its guidance earlier this month, Samsung this evening has disclosed its full earnings for second quarter of 2015. The company reports an operating profit of $5.9 billion with revenue of $41.5 billion. In the year ago quarter, Samsung reported operating profits of $6.17 billion.

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After months upon months of rumors and speculation, OnePlus finally announced its highly anticipated OnePlus 2 smartphone this evening. While nearly everything was already known about the device, it’s nice to get confirmation and some rehashing of details from OnePlus. As expected, the OnePlus 2 features a 5.5-inch display at 1080p and a refreshed design. The company brags that it’s not a 2015 flagship, but rather a 2016 flagship. The device will be available August 11th in the US,  Canada, India, EU, and China. It will rollout to Southeast Asia in Q4.

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According to a report from The Information, Google has made efforts in recent months to purchase the Impossible Foods startup. For those unfamiliar, Impossible Foods has been developing a cheeseburger made entirely out of plants, but that tastes and looks like one made out of ground beef.

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