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Showing posts from June, 2018

Another mysterious glass-back Moto gets spotted in the wild

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As we approach Motorola's August 2 Chicago event , device leaks have naturally been pouring in. As per the rumor mill, we have the proper Moto Z3 flagship to look forward to at the venue, as well as a new Motorola One family of handsets. Hot on the heels of a major render leak , for the Moto One and One Power , today brings a couple of new blurry photos of a mysterious new Moto smartphone. Leaked photos It clearly features a glass sandwich design, so our first guess would be it's either the Moto One or the One Power. However, there are a few problems with that theory. As per previous leaks , the regular Moto One is said to feature a glass build, while the One Power should be made of metal . If we assume that the live photos feature the regular Moto One, the dual camera design on the back, does not match the one on the most recent renders. The metal back on the One Power seems to be a closer match in this respect, but both phones were originally pictured with a notche

3 camera lenses? Psh, Light might be bringing 9 lenses to a new smartphone

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Camera company Light is developing a smartphone that could have up to nine camera lenses. Light created the L16, a DSLR-replacement camera with 16 lenses. Light says its new smartphone could launch this year, but it will likely be very expensive. Remember the Light L16 camera ? In 2015, a company with the very un-Googleable name Light announced a new type of camera that has 16 lenses working simultaneously to create DSLR-quality photos. You may not remember the story, but you probably remember the way the L16 looked: Light In 2015, the L16 seemed pretty crazy. But today, with smartphones like the Huawei P20 Pro (pictured at the top of this article) sporting three lenses working together to create high-quality images, it seems much less insane. Light might have just been ahead of the curve with its product idea, but now that we're getting more used to the concept of multiple-lensed cameras, the company is working to bring a new smartphone to the world tha

Chrome Duplex takes shape in latest Canary w/ Omnibar up top, all controls below

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Earlier this month, Chrome Duplex's bottom toolbar gained several shortcuts to make the design more useful. The latest iteration in Chrome Canary now addresses a major issue, with this possible redesign to the Android browser finally taking shape. Nintendo Switch Chrome Duplex has always been described as a "split toolbar Chrome Home." The first iterations in February added a bottom strip that slides up the "New tab" page with quick access to bookmarks and history. Earlier this month, it morphed more into a traditional toolbar with a Home Page icon that opens New tab or any other set page, Google logo that opens the Omnibar for quick searching and URL entry, tab switcher, and overflow menu. These controls are more reachable at bottom of the page, but duplicate the functionality of the top toolbar. In the latest version (via Reddit ) of Chrome Canary (69.0.3475.0) this week, Google addresses that by making the top of the browse

[Update: APK download] Uber is piloting a Lite version of its rider app in India

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... Scaled down versions of apps are nothing new; Google has made plenty of "Go" apps made specifically for emerging markets where internet connections are unreliable, phones are generally less capable, and plans offer less data. Uber is now getting in on the act, too. Uber Lite has been built with India in mind — where it's currently being piloted — but it will be coming to other regions around the world later on. It's been designed to save space, weighing in at only 5MB (or about three selfies as Uber helpfully points out), and run on any Android phone. Even when on a network with poor connectivity, a response time of just 300ms is touted, so you should be able to book a ride almost immediately. Most of the same features are still there, including sharing trips with others, but there are also some new ones specific to the Lite app. If it can't accurately pinpoint your location (due to GPS or network issues) it will offer you

LG Smart TVs, Sphero robots, MacBook laptops, and more are all discounted today

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Whether you're looking for new tech gear or household items, we've got you covered. We found plenty of great deals today that include big discounts at Best Buy's 4th of July sale event, along with deals on LG smart TVs, Sphero robots, and more! Time's running out to take advantage of these prices, so hurry! View the rest of the deals If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you'll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter , and sign up for the newsletter , because missing out on a great deal stinks! #Google #Android #Smartphones #OS #News @ndrdnws #ndrdnws #AndroidNews

Some Android developers see huge drops in app installs after Google 'enhances' Play Store algorithms

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Last August, Google announced an enhancement to its Play Store search and discovery algorithms , all in the pursuit of a better consumer experience. This was a natural next step after the company said it began tuning its algorithms "to optimize for user engagement, not just downloads" at its Developer Day at the Game Developers Conference in February 2017. In part, these moves appeared to be shots across the bow aimed at getting developers in line. But in recent weeks, it seems we've approached a sort of endgame, and some smaller developers are losing — big time. Some Android developers have recently observed a precipitous drop in installs for their games and apps. Some devs reported losing up to 90% of their typical app install rates in the Play Store. Google has since confirmed that it ratcheted up changes to its Play Store algorithms, though the exact reasons for the drop in installs for some devs remain mostly opaque. There are a few moving parts in

Experimental 'Chrome Duplex' UI now has a tweaked address bar and easy tab switching

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... Google has been working on a new Chrome Android interface for nearly two years now. The first iteration was 'Chrome Home', which moved the address bar to the bottom of the screen. That interface was essentially done , but Google decided to scrap it for unknown reasons . The project was changed to 'Chrome Duplex' in February , with the address bar back at the top and a new toolbar at the bottom (much like Samsung Internet). Earlier this month, several buttons were added to the bottom toolbar . In the latest builds of Chrome Canary, the interface has been tweaked again. There are no longer two tab buttons and two overflow menus - only the toolbar buttons remain.   Left: Chrome 67; Right: Chrome Canary 69 In addition, you can now swipe left and right on the bottom toolbar to switch between tabs ( just as you currently can with the top bar ). I'm still not a fan of this new design, but it may end up looking completely different

5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Android Apps Weekly

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Welcome to the 250th edition of Android Apps Weekly ! Here are the big topics from the last week: The Walking Dead: Our World is the next game about the popular zombie series. It's also the next AR game for mobile. You walk around the world fighting zombies and doing all kinds of Walking Dead stuff. The game features co-op challenges, a collecting element, and a real world element similar to Jurassic World Alive or Pokemon Go. The game officially launches on July 12th. It's available for pre-registration now. MX Player, the iconic video player app, is getting a huge overhaul . It might not be a good one, though. India's Times Group purchased a majority stake in the app this week. They want to turn it into an streaming service for India. That's a far cry from the rock solid local video player app that it is today. We have a lot of questions and not a ton of answers yet. For instance, MX Player is popular all around the world for its video playing capabilitie

Get over $4,300 worth of CompTIA Certification training for only $59

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When you're applying for an IT position , the very first thing the overwhelming majority of hiring staff look for is specialized certifications . They want to know if you've put in the effort to study for exams and, more importantly, that you've passed . They don't care if you're already an IT guru. It doesn't matter how many networks you've set up, how savvy you are on Linux . They want certificates. Certificates are safe. Often it doesn't come down to what you know; it comes down to how many pieces of paper you've collected. 96% of HR managers use IT certifications as screening or hiring criteria during recruitment. If that's one universal truth, then here's another. The 90-minute CompTIA exams are known to be pretty damn tough . Most mentors recommend studying extensively in preparation, and in the past this has meant either muscling through a fat textbook or hiring a private tutor. Fortunately the internet has made

Has Huawei unleashed a triple camera trend?

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When the Huawei P20 Pro launched earlier this year with three rear camera sensors , many considered it an anomaly. No one though phones with such a setup would start coming out regularly. However, it appears the early sales success of the P20 Pro , combined with all the media attention Huawei received for the first phone with a triple rear camera setup , might have made other smartphone companies step up their efforts to launch phones with three rear cameras. Read more: Best smartphone cameras In just the past few weeks, we have heard rumors that the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus  could three rear cameras when it launches in early 2019. Another rumor claims LG is working on the V40 for launch later this year. This report claims the phone will not only have a triple rear camera design, but also two front-facing cameras, making it the first phone with five cameras on board . Even Apple may be jumping on the triple camera bandwagon, as a number of rumors claim a future version of the

T-Mobile starts very, very slow rollout of RCS Universal Profile messaging

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T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray announced that the T-Mobile RCS Universal Profile rollout has begun. However, the rollout only is for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, and doesn't work with Android Messages. This is a good start, but the vast majority of T-Mobile users won't be able to take advantage of the update. RCS Universal Profile – the technology that will finally bring text messaging into the modern era for all Android users – isn't accessible to everyone yet. In fact, it's barely accessible to anyone. However, T-Mobile committed to being one of the leaders when it comes to bringing RCS to all its customers, and yesterday it made good on that promise…sort of. According to a tweet from T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray, the Universal Profile update is rolling out now to owners of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge only: GSMA Universal Profile 1.0 sw updates have started rolling out, extending @TMobile 's long history of RCS leadership, bringing up

We asked, you told us: High performance gaming is for half of you

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This week's poll asked how important is high-performance 3D gaming to you, and the The state of gaming has often been demanding on hardware, with the latest shooters, motorsports, or RPGs throwing every kind of wonderful graphics demands on the internals like your GPU, CPU, and RAM. And it's all worth it, it's quite remarkable how good  smartphone games  like PUBG Mobile ,  Riptide , and  Asphalt  look and play, and how much they ask of your tiny hand-held device. Especially compared to the old PC towers we used to own in the 90s and 00s! Now, not all phones are super capable and not everyone has a spare console or PC at time. So for some people, having a phone  that's able to run these types of games is everything. For others, they're much more dedicated to their gaming setup and while mobile games are fun, they're not quite the same experience as playing on your TV setup or PC monitors. Also read Arm Mali-G76 GPU deep dive In the pur