TalkAndroid Daily Dose for October 27, 2014
With hectic schedules, it can be hard to keep track of everything in your news feed. That’s why we created the TalkAndroid Daily Dose. This is where we recap the day’s hottest stories so you can get yourself up to speed in quick fashion. Happy reading!!
Guides
How to stop notification cards from covering your Android Wear watch face
Android TV
Pre-orders for Google’s first Gamepad are now live
Nexus Player rumored to arrive in Europe next year
Android Wear
Wear apps on the Moto 360 not displayed correctly when language is set to German after 4.4W.2 update
Apps
Nextbit aims to sync Android app data across all devices with Baton
Microsoft giving unlimited OneDrive cloud storage to Office365 subscribers
Facebook Improves Mobile Photo Upload
Carriers
AT&T will carry the LG G Watch R
T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network reaches 250 million people in the United States
LG G Pad 10.1 shows up at FCC with LTE connection for Verizon
James Franco Uses Droid Turbo in Confusing YouTube Ad
Phones
LG to update Japan-exclusive Isai with three new colors and 3GB of RAM
James Franco Uses Droid Turbo in Confusing YouTube Ad
Motorola smartphone users can now track the status of their Android 5.0 upgrade
Samsung Galaxy A7 makes appearance on benchmark site
New contender for world’s thinnest smartphone surfaces from Vivo
ZTE partners with Knicks, Rockets, and Warriors as official smartphone sponsor
ROMs
Nextbit aims to sync Android app data across all devices with Baton
Smartwatches
AT&T will carry the LG G Watch R
Wear apps on the Moto 360 not displayed correctly when language is set to German after 4.4W.2 update
Streaming Devices
Amazon goes after Chromecast and Roku with Fire TV Stick
Tablets
ASUS MeMO Pad 10 officially released
LG G Pad 10.1 shows up at FCC with LTE connection for Verizon
Updates
Alleged HTC Sense 7 screenshots highlight Material Design
Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid Daily Dose for October 27, 2014
New smartphone movie tickets don’t require a scanner
Sure, digital tickets allow you to skip the printer before heading to see Gone Girl or Fury, but you still have to get the scan of approval before nabbing the over-priced popcorn. MovieTickets.com’s new system that only requires theater staff to take a look at your phone before letting you in. Using Bytemark’s V3 (visually verifiable virtual ticket) tech, purchases have security features like animated watermarks, touch animations and color changes to keep the counterfeiters at bay. Those features can be changed and concealed from patrons until just before the doors open, and “tearing” the digital version for verification. While a pilot program is expected to start before the year’s end, the V3 systems are already in use for transit options — including the NY Waterway and Chicago’s South Shore line.
Via: Mashable
Source: MovieTickets.com
Amazon starts selling smartphones on O2 pay-monthly contracts
Amazon and O2 obviously established something of a rapport while working together on the UK launch of the Fire phone. Today, the pair solidify their alliance, with Amazon taking on a new role as an O2 contract reseller. The online retail giant spins it a little differently, saying you can now use its site to shop for the latest smartphones on pay-monthly contracts. With only O2 providing the contracts, though, it’s six and two threes. Anywho, Amazon’s “Phones & Accessories” store has been updated to include these new pay-monthly options alongside the existing SIM-free and pay-as-you-go handsets (which are available through multiple carriers). And to celebrate, several introductory deals are being offered to new and upgrading O2 customers. For a limited time, the Microsoft Lumia 735, Huawei Ascend P7 and HTC One M8 are free on contracts of £15, £20 and £28 per month, respectively. Amazon’s also keen to point out you can now buy its Fire phone direct from the source for the first time — because please buy Fire phone.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Amazon
Source: Amazon
T-Mobile scored 2.3 million new customers in the third quarter, creams the competition again
If there was any doubt as to which American telco company has been growing the fastest in recent months, it has today been confirmed again. According to their quarterly results for the third quarter this year, T-Mobile scored 2.3 million new customers, 1.4 million of which were postpaid customers, and beat out its main competitors in AT&T (2 million) and Verizon (1.53 million) in the same time period – that’s actually less than the 2.4 million T-Mobile pulled in earlier this year. And it’s not like T-Mobile is just pulling in bean counting customers with its average billings per user increasing 4% year-over-year. Not too shabby.
It’s really no surprise given the amount of goodwill that the company has after launching the Un-Carrier plans as well as various other initiatives which for all intents and purposes puts the customer in a very good position. It’s hard to tell whether the recent device launches have affected the number of signings T-Mobile acquired, but it’s hard to argue with results. Now if only Australia had a carrier like T-Mobile…
What do you think about T-Mobile’s quarterly results? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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SmartThings brings its home automation app to Windows Phone
Samsung promised an open platform when it purchased SmartThings, a startup that aims to make every household more intelligent with its products. So, despite the automation service already being present on iOS and Android, the most popular mobile operating systems, SmartThings is opening its doors to a fresh audience: Windows Phone 8. The SmartThings app is great for people looking to upgrade their home but that were, perhaps, hesitant to do so because of the ecosystem’s lack of support for Windows Phone handsets. Most home automations platforms have some sort of integration with iOS or Android from the get-go, leaving Windows Phone users out of options. As such, this is a great move by the Samsung-owned SmartThings. Once you download the app, you’ll be able to control SmartThings devices with ease — and if you haven’t invested yet, maybe now it’s the time to start thinking about creating your own Smart Home.
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Peripherals, Internet, Mobile, Samsung, Microsoft
Source: Windows Phone
Researchers take a hint from birds to fight airplane turbulence
We’ve all been there: you’re trying to catch a little shut-eye on a flight when boom, out of nowhere, the plane hits a rough patch and you’re dramatically roused from your slumber. Thanks to researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, those rude awakenings just might become a thing of the past. Inspired by the way birds detect and adjust to shifts in wind and airflow using their feathers, the school’s Unmanned Systems Research team cooked up a series of sensors they can attach to an (admittedly tiny) aircraft’s wings. Here’s the thing: as well as just measuring gusts of wind as they pass across the wing’s leading edge, the sensors can pick up shifting air currents in front of the wing too before they have a chance to send planes a-tumblin’ (naturally, they proceeded to patent the stuff just to be safe). In its current form the tech is best suited for keeping lightweight planes on the straight and narrow, but team supervisor Simon Watkins thinks it could easily be applied to bigger vehicles — like maybe the shiny new 777 you board down the road.
Source: AlphaGalileo
Tim Cook talks Apple Watch, TVs and the power of the iPhone
Tim Cook started out his talk with Gerard Baker, Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief, at the WSJD Live conference with a very obvious statement: “The phone is the majority of the company’s revenue,” and it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Apple doesn’t just make money from phone sales, but also everything that comes with it — apps, iTunes media and, yes, Apple Pay. Cook was eager to point out that Apple Pay reached over a million card activations in just the first 72 hours, and that Visa and Mastercard said that Apple Pay is already the number one player in contactless payments.
When asked what he thought of retailers like CVS and Rite Aid disabling Apple Pay due to a rival technology, he said it was a skirmish. He added that “over the long arc of time,” retailers are only relevant if customers love them and that they’ll need to adapt eventually. He said that Apple Pay is “the first and only mobile payment system that is easy, private and secure.” “We don’t want to know what you buy, we’re not into collecting data, we’re not Big Brother,” Cook said. “We’ll leave that to others,” he added, as if to imply Google might be the Big Brother in question.
Cook said that [the Apple Watch] is something that you would use so much that “you will end up charging it daily.”
Phones aside, Cook also touted other areas of growth for the company. Mac sales, for example, grew “remarkably” last quarter, adding that he thinks the Mac has a great future. Of course, he also mentioned the much-hyped Apple Watch, which he says opens up two new categories for the company: Health and fitness plus fashion. “We didn’t announce a product, we announced three collections,” Cook said, referring to the Watch. “We saw that something you wear has to be more personable, more customizable … the fashion thing is totally new for us.” As for the Watch’s battery life? Though he wouldn’t give details, he did say that it’s something that you would use so much that “you will end up charging it daily.”
As for televisions, Cook reiterated what he said during his Charlie Rose interview, describing today’s TV experience as outdated and “straight from the 1970s.” He praised HBO’s streaming-only service, and says consumers are increasingly trying to get away from a cable TV subscription. As for what Apple’s going to do with TV? Cook played coy and didn’t offer much details, but he seemed optimistic: “I believe something great can be done.”
Answering a question about whether the Android vs. iOS wars will end up like the Mac vs. PC one, Cook said that wasn’t a fair comparison. “There weren’t enough apps on the Mac,” he said. “That isn’t a problem for iOS.” He adds that iOS has over 1.3 million apps, and that generally speaking, developers are writing iOS apps first and then porting them to Android. “We sold a quarter billion iOS devices last year. I wouldn’t call that a low-volume business.”
Cook also tackled privacy at the end, a recent hot button topic. “Your data is yours,” said Cook, emphasizing that the company takes privacy and security very seriously. “We don’t read your iMessages. We designed iMessage as such that we don’t read any of it,” adding that if the government were to ask for it, they couldn’t supply it. After fielding a question over the demise of the iPod Classic among others, Cook hinted that he’s open to a collaboration with AliPay, Alibaba’s online payment system. Jack Ma had said he wanted to work with Apple Pay in a previous talk at WSJD Live. “If we can find some areas of common space, I’d love it.”
Filed under: Cellphones, Apple
Exploit lets remote attackers lock your Samsung phone
If you’re using Samsung’s Find My Mobile service to keep tabs on your Galaxy phone’s whereabouts, you may want to stop using it for a while. Both NIST and security researcher Mohamed Baset are warning about an exploit that lets evildoers remotely lock, ring or wipe Samsung smartphones. As it turns out, Find My Mobile doesn’t validate the lock code information it gets — an attacker just has to flood the target device with network traffic to get control. Since the locator tool normally turns on when you sign up for a Samsung account, there’s a real chance that you’re vulnerable.
We’ve reached out to Samsung for its take on the vulnerability, and we’ll let you know what it has to say about a fix. For now, though, the only surefire way to avoid any rude surprises is to turn off Find My Mobile altogether and take the chance that you won’t be mugged. You might not want to visit any dark alleys in the near future.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Samsung
Via: Computerworld, Sammy Hub
Source: NIST, Mohamed Baset (YouTube)
High-tech hearing aids make autotune sound even worse
You’d think the more modern, high-tech hearing aids would be better at everything than their older counterparts, but that’s apparently not the case. According to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder, newer models are apparently no match for less sophisticated ones when it comes to music. Since hearing aids aren’t usually designed with music in mind, the latest ones that promise a gamut of features typically use a process called “wide dynamic range compression.” This amplifies soft sounds and leaves loud ones untouched, which makes understanding people’s words a lot easier, but ends up distorting music — especially overly processed tracks, like those that use (and abuse) autotune. Sure, a lot of people believe that being able to hear people better takes higher priority. But at least hearing aid-wearing music lovers now know that they don’t need to buy the “latest and greatest” to enjoy their fave songs more.
[Image credit: KLH49/Getty]
Filed under: Misc
Source: University of Colorado Boulder
In 72 hours, Apple Pay is already the wireless payment leader in the US
Paying with your phone still feels fancy, and at WSJD Live today, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained that the company has already registered 1 million customers. Compared to say, iPhone sales, it might not seem all that impressive, but Cook added that Visa and Mastercard apparently said that if you summed up everyone else in the contactless payment market together, these numbers make Apple number one in wireless payments. Already.
Nicole Lee contributed to this story.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple
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