Cam Bunton, Editor at NewGeekGuide – Cam has been passionate about tech since his dad bought the family’s first Commodore AMIGA back in the late 80’s. He’s been in the tech industry (writing and making videos) since 2010, and joined NewGeekGuide as the resident video producer and product reviewer in 2015. He sometimes writes news and reviews for 9to5Mac too.
You can follow Cam on Twitter, add him on Google+ and subscribe to our YouTube channel to be the first to watch his videos about all things Google.
Google announced on its AdWords G+ profile today that its display ads will soon be 100% HTML5. From June 30th this year, display ads built using Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords or DoubleClick Digital Marketing. From January 2nd, 2017, Flash format display ads will no longer run on the Google Display Network or through DoubleClick.
Google has announced in an official blog post that it’s adding a new flood alert system to its services in India. Thanks to information provided by the Central Water Commission (CWC) users will be able to find flood alerts, including river level info, for more than 170 areas in India where the CWC has active observation stations.
Alerts are available in a number of Google’s apps and services like Google web search, Now cards in the Google app, Google Maps and the Public Alerts homepage on desktop and mobile.
A couple of months back, it was rumored that Samsung was going to launch a number of new official first party cases for its upcoming flagship smartphones. That list of Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge accessories included a keyboard cover and the usual S View cover, as well as a ‘Glitter’ cover and a ‘Clear’ cover. If a recent leaked list is anything to go by, however, there could be many more to add to that list…
More often than not, when a manufacturer decides to mess with software, adding its own ‘valuable’ take on what we should have on our phones, it ends up being a laggy mess of unused features. Whether its LG with its inefficient launcher, or Samsung with its TouchWiz, no Android OEM gets it right. With BlackBerry’s PRIV, although there are undoubtedly a couple of things I’d change, most of the custom software is very useful and is — dare I say it — better than stock Android…
As previously announced by the manufacturer, Sony has now started selling the unlocked, fingerprint sensor-free versions of the Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact in the US for $599 and $499 respectively. They’re available from Amazon, Best Buy and B&H plus a few other popular online retailers from now, although they’re not all selling them at the suggested retail price. Best Buy has already discounted the Compact version by $50.
OnePlus took to its official forums this morning to announce that the 64GB OnePlus 2 is being discounted by $40. The new price for the company’s ‘flagship killer’ is $349, down from $389. The drop in price is permanent and will be reflected internationally. In the UK, as an example, you can snag a OnePlus 2 for just £249. As a gesture of goodwill, OnePlus will retroactively refund the price difference to anyone who has purchased the OP2 over the past 15 days.
While Google has expanded its US-based autonomous vehicle trials to include both Texas and Kirkland, WA since its launch in Mountain View, it seems the company is being courted by another city across the pond. London transport officials are said to be in “active discussions” with Google to convince the tech giant to test its driverless cars in England’s capital…
I’ve almost lost count of the number of Android phones I’ve used over the past few years. Some are more memorable than others, but the one that really sticks in my mind is the original. The very first Android phone, the HTC-made T-Mobile G1.
There was something very unusual about it. It didn’t look like the Windows Mobile PDA-phone crossovers, it was nothing like a BlackBerry or an iPhone. It was that unique quirky factor that gave it its edge. Having a touchscreen which flicked out to reveal a full QWERTY keypad was something we’d only really seen on the Sidekick series.
Fast forward nearly 8 years later, and virtually every Android phone looks like every other smartphone. Of all the devices released over the past 12 months, I’d hazard a guess that 99.9% of them were the standard rectangle, touchscreen and no-keyboard affairs. Some might have curved dual-screen designs, but they’re still all-screen. Until the PRIV, we haven’t seen anything remotely decent with a physical QWERTY keyboard since the days of the G2…
Towards the backend of last month, it was revealed that Google had developed an AI machine so advanced, it could beat a French Go champion at one of the most challenging games to teach a machine. DeepMind’s AlphaGo machine beat European champion Fan Hui 5-0 at Go, a game which — although simple to learn — features millions of combinations. Because of this complexity, teaching a machine to play beyond an amateur level has been challenging.
Over the past few months, Sony has been testing various concept software, offering it up to Xperia owners as part of a limited public beta test. One XDA Developers member was able to port the home launcher and release it as a downloadable APK which works on any Android device with Lollipop or later, and doesn’t require rooting. Needless to say, we were eager to go hands-on…
Huawei has announced via a short press release that it has shipped more than 10 million P8 Lite units since it launched last Spring. More interestingly, the manufacturer states that the P8 Lite is its first ever smartphone to be more popular internationally that it is in China, showing that its recent focus on the wider global market is well-placed and working effectively.
Update: VentureBeat received information from a source, shedding a little more light on the situation.
A source close to the situation indicates that Google considers this a “unique case” because two apps are required to invoke the ad blocking. Furthermore, the source adds that Google has no problem with browsers which can block ads within themselves via built-in functionality (like Adblock Browser) or via plugins.
Earlier in the week, Samsung’s new browser API meant developers, if they wanted to, could build ad-blocking apps to work alongside the browser. It’s similar to the ad-blocking feature Apple introduced in iOS 9 with Safari, which lead to a number of ad and tracker-blocking apps become popular within the first few weeks of iOS 9’s arrival.
With this feature added, more developers could develop standalone ad-blockers for Android which work with Samsung‘s mobile browser. It turns out however, that Google has pulled some apps, and rejected updates for others. It seems the company isn’t keen on having standalone apps — designed to work alongside browsers to block ads — on the Play Store…
LG is a manufacturer capable of making brilliant hardware and well-considered smartphone designs. The LG G2 had impossibly thin bezels, unlike anything else on the market when it launched. Likewise, the G3 was the first mainstream smartphone to feature a Quad HD display. The G4 added to that with one of the best cameras we’ve ever seen on an Android phone and it gave us the option of really attractive, comfortable leather back panels.
It wasn’t that long ago that rumors predicted that Google was planning to bring a new podcasts feature to its popular Play Music app. This would see Google add yet another media platform to its already large list of options available in the Play Store. With it already offering books, movies, music downloads and streaming, apps and games, it would mean Google would now offer virtually every kind of popular media. Popular podcaster, Bill Simmons confirmed the move on Twitter before taking down his tweet earlier today.
Thanks to Android Police, we now have a good idea as to what the podcasts user interface will look like and the features it’ll bring along with it…
When Nintendo first announced that it would finally be launching a smartphone game, it’s safe to say, many of us children of the 90’s got a little excited. Sadly, we got excited too soon. Excitement turned to bemusement once the company revealed it would be launching a weird game called Miitomo, which wasn’t exactly a game, but rather a social network.
Following its disappointing Q4 results, Nintendo has confirmed that its second title would include a “very familiar character”, and won’t be another social network attempt. It did, however, stop short of confirming exactly which character we’re going to see.
A few weeks back, Samsung opened up an Android Marshmallow beta testing program for specific carrier models of the Galaxy S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5. While we’re undoubtedly still some time away from seeing the OS update land officially for those carrier-locked devices, Samsung has started pushing out the beta-testing software to some users.
According to a report from BuzzFeed, YouTube is developing a new 360-degree live video service. ‘Multiple sources’ informed the publication that the Alphabet-owned video streaming company is looking to expand its existing lineup of 360-degree and VR content by enabling live broadcasting.
Tech companies make baffling decisions all the time, it’s not a rare occurrence. In most cases, while we’re scratching our heads, we can normally sort-of see a reason or some kind of logic behind those moves. Whether it’s OnePlus’ unusual marketing strategies, Google launching the Pixel C without multi-window multitasking or HTC’s decision to launch an iPhone clone. In the case of Turing Robotics, I’m stumped…
Update: Looks like US Mobile has pulled the phones from its online store already. A quick search for Xiaomi and Meizu phones reveals no matching products.
As a new month began yesterday, it seemed Xiaomi may have finally started selling its devices in the States, through US Mobile. The small carrier drew attention to the fact it was the first to start selling Xiaomi phones in the States, despite the fact that the models being offered didn’t support its own LTE bands.
A few months ago, as soon as it was officially launched in the UK, I checked out the Moto X Play. Price and spec-wise it stood halfway between the Moto G and the Moto X Style/Pure. Although it undoubtedly had its positives, there were some elements of the experience that left me disappointed. It intermittently stuttered and lagged during transitions, and very often refused to load data within apps. It wasn’t all the time, but it was enough to leave a less-than-great feeling.
With Android Marshmallow, the experience is so vastly different, it’s pretty difficult to believe. In fact, it’s so much better, I felt the phone should be revisited…
BlackBerry chief John Chen recently stated that his company is only going to make Android smartphones this year. And if a report from Economic Times is anything to go by, they company might only make Android phones for the foreseeable future, signaling the end of the 3 year-old BB10 platform…
A handful of companies have already announced their intention to launch devices during (or before) MWC 2016 in Barcelona in a few weeks’ time. LG and Huawei have both sent out invites, while rumors are that Sony also has something planned. But, Samsung — a company which for the past few years has used the conference to launch its Galaxy S range — has been quiet so far…
You may remember last year a story broke stating that someone had managed to buy the Google.com domain name. Sanmay Ved had only owned it for about one minute, but he owned it nonetheless. As a result, he was rewarded generously by Google …
A report from ETNews in Korea suggests that LG’s mobile payments service will not be smartphone based. At least, not exclusively. A ‘White Card’ has leaked showing a digital credit-card sized device which will be able to store multiple credit/debit cards’ details and enable a user to pay from any account, using just the single LG Pay card. In essence, it’s LG’s version of the Coin card which launched on KickStarter a couple of years back.
