August Announces ‘Connect’ at CES
August, the maker of the Smart Lock, announced “Connect” today at CES. The tech is used to connect to the Wi-Fi in the house and connect to the door via Bluetooth to give yo the ability to unlock the door for anyone remotely as long as you have some form of internet connection. The “Connect” will also alert you about the condition of your lock, so if the lock is forcibly opened or broken, you will know before you get home to an empty house.
The uses for “Connect” are many. Imagine being on vacation and having a neighbor take your dog out twice a day while you are gone. Simply unlock the door whenever your neighbor wants to come in and lock it back when he leaves and you’ve skipped the risks that come with loaning out an easily-stolen key.
“Connect” will ship in the middle of next month for $50, and the August Smart Lock has been shipping for a few months for $250.
Have you used the Smart Lock? What do you think about August’s products? Leave a message below and share with us your experience!
Source: 9to5Google
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PayPal now available on BlackBerry World but only for specific regions and devices
Are you one of the many PayPal users in the world? If so, might now be able to access your PayPal account through their app on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone. I say might because while the app is now available in BlackBerry World for BlackBerry 10 smartphones, it’s rather limited for now.
First look at the Remix Ultra Tablet
An Android tablet to get work done on
Jide, a company founded by three ex-Googlers, showed off its first device at CES 2015 — the Remix Ultra Tablet. The tablet — which strongly resembles the Microsoft Surface Pro line — has a magnetically connected keyboard and a kickstand what can be extended to 40 and 80 degrees.
Microsoft’s Office preview for Android tablets is now available to everyone
If you’ve wanted to try the preview of Office for Android tablets during its brief history, you’ve had to request to join a Google+ group. That’s not the hardest thing to do, but do you really want to participate in a special club (and in some cases, sign up for Google+) just to try some productivity apps a little early? As of now, you don’t have to. Microsoft has posted the previews of Excel, PowerPoint and Word on Google Play, so you can download them like you would any other app. The only major requirements are that your slate runs at least Android 4.4 KitKat and that you’re comfortable with less-than-polished software. You may not want to finish an important report with these releases, then, but it’s now easy to experiment with the new Office suite before it’s completely ready.
Filed under: Tablets, Software, Mobile, Microsoft
Via: Office Blogs
Source: Google Play (Excel), (PowerPoint), (Word)
Huawei, a big smartphone manufacturer from China plans to enter the U.S. market with contract- free phones.
According to The Wall Street Journal, we will be getting a new phone line from Huawei, entering the smartphone market in the United States sometime this year. Huawei is one of the world’s largest smartphone makers, as it sold 75 million devices last year, but not many were sold in the US.
Huawei will introduce us to their Honor phone line which originally was released in China in 2011. Their latest Honor 6 phone can be purchased on Amazon.com, but it comes via third party sellers at a reasonable price of $359USD. For the reasonable price you get an 8-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 5 inch 1080p LCD display, and a 13 megapixel camera. The Honor line is expected to be sold unlocked for contract-free use.
Huawei is not planning to take on the likes of Samsung and Apple directly, as their marketing budget is no where near those two powerhouses, so they will be relying on digital advertising versus traditional media like television. Companies like HTC and LG who are barely, if at all profitable, probably aren’t too happy about another manufacturer to compete with, but as a customer nothing drives technology and lower prices like stiff competition.
Whatever Huawei does, I hope they do not create a silly invite system like OnePlus did with their phone. That hype got old real fast.
Source – WSJ
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Audi’s Q7 comes equipped with a fully integrated tablet
Not only will you be able to pick up a smartwatch designed specifically for an Audi vehicle, but the company is also including an integrated tablet into this year’s Audi Q7. The tablet sports a 10.1-inch screen and a Tegra 4 processor, so it’s fairly well equipped for a tablet in 2015. The coolest features aren’t in the internal hardware, though.
The Audi tablet has a matted display that was specifically designed to resist vibrations from a moving vehicle, and the screen won’t shatter if the car is in an accident. The tablet is designed to function as an entertainment hub for passengers in the backseat, but it can also let backseat drivers change up waypoints on a map and send them to the main console for the driver, and it has full control of music and media that’s playing.
It’s not completely clear if the tablet runs Android, but considering most devices like this typically do use Android and Audi went with Android Wear for the accompanying smartwatch instead of building something in-house, Android seems like a safe bet.
You’re not going to be able to pick up one of these tablets to use around the house, but if you purchase an Audi Q7, you’ll be able to play around with one of the coolest ideas for tablet integration with a vehicle.
source: Engadget
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Samsung predicts more declining profits in Q4 2014 guidance report
Samsung has issued its guidance report for the fourth quarter of the 2014 fiscal year, and profits continue to be on the decline from just a year ago. However, it appears that Sammy does expect to at least see a bump in both sales and profits over its previous third quarter report.
Android Central Podcast – Live from CES!
Live from CES 2015 at 5:15 p.m. PST!
Join the IRC chat at
To take part in the live Q&A, hit this link. Or watch us live from your phone with the all-new Android Central app!
Dyson’s new vacuums don’t need you to clean the filter
Sure, your vacuum cleaner might not need a bag anymore, but you’re probably still cleaning or replacing its filter every now and then to make sure you’re sucking up as much dirt as possible. You shouldn’t have to if Dyson’s new Cinetic Science vacuums live up to their hype, though. Both the upright and low-slung versions use rapidly vibrating flexible tips (350 times a second) to prevent dust from blocking the aperture, making sure that all those crumbs and stray hairs reach the bin without any kind of filter maintenance. Supposedly, the Cinetic Science line will operate at peak performance even after 10 years of duty.
Like most things Dyson, you’ll be paying a healthy sum to get one of these maintenance-free machines for yourself. The compact Cinetic Animal will start at $550; you’re looking at $600 (£460 in the UK) for the Cinetic Big Ball Animal you see below, and $700 for an allergy-friendly variant of the Big Ball. QVC will start selling the vacuums in the US on January 15th, while everyone else in the country will have to wait until March 1st.
Filed under: Household
Source: Dyson
Dropbox update gives users the ability to export files to an SD card
Just because C.E.S. is taking over the news by storm, doesn’t mean we forgot to report on other useful information. Dropbox released an update recently, version 2.4.7.14, which gives the ability to export files to an SD card. This is particularly important for business travelers who need to work without a wireless or WiFi signal since cloud access requires an internet connection. It’s also important to those of us(ME), who don’t pay for extra space on Dropbox.com. When I near my storage limit I can transfer some of my photos to my SD card on my tablet and store them there.
In addition to the ability to export files to an SD card, Dropbox also can now edit office documents and save them back to Dropbox. Dropbox is definitely my go to for cloud storage for work purposes in addition to Google Drive for my personal matters.
As with most updates, they also sorted out a few bugs to make your experience better.
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