Expedia buys Orbitz to expand its online travel empire
Looking to extend its reach with folks who book travel reservations online, Expedia is snatching up the competition with a quickness. Today, the web-based travel agency announced that it’s purchasing Orbitz for around $1.6 billion, so the most popular option in the US for searching flights, hotels and more on the web gains the business of the third-ranked site. The sale also includes CheapTickets, ebookers and Hotel Club in addition to a couple of B2B brands. “This acquisition will allow us to deliver best-in-class experiences to an even wider set of travelers all over the world,” said Expedia’s president and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Expedia just nabbed Travelocity last month for $280 million, and it already owned Hotels.com and Hotwire — all popular destinations for globe-trotting bargain hunters.
[Photo credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Filed under: Transportation, Internet
Via: USA Today
Source: Expedia
Xiaomi plans to launch US e-commerce site this year
Xiaomi is a rising star, particularly in the eastern markets. But what about the western world? Many us in the tech universe have been anticipating the eventual launch of Xiaomi products in the western world, and at a special meeting in San Francisco Xiaomi revealed to the media (AA’s Josh Vergara included) that this day may soon be approaching.
Before you get too excited, yes Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra publicly stated that they are planning to bring the “Mi.com” e-commerce site to the US market later this year, but the launch of phones or tablets isn’t in the pipeline. Instead, Xiaomi’s many peripherals will be the focus, such as headphones, power packs, fitness trackers and devices like the MiKey.
While selling accessories isn’t as big of deal as a phone launch would be, you have to start somewhere.It’s also worth noting that Xiaomi has been pretty aggressive with pricing of said accessories in its current markets, so hopefully this low pricing scheme translates over to the United States’ Xiaomi e-commerce website as well.
Wondering when we can expect to see the store? Unfortunately, there’s no timeline set. Xiaomi says the US e-commerce launch will happen whenever it’s ready. Baby steps, we suppose. What do you think, excited to see Xiaomi stepping into the US market, even if it’s in limited form at this stage?
Apple Promotes Games Without In-App Purchases in App Store
Apple today made one of its weekly updates to the App Store, adding a new featured category that highlights “Pay Once & Play” games in the App Store. As noted by MacStories, the section includes a list of popular game titles that do not include in-app purchases. The new feature has appeared in European App Stores already and should be making its way to other countries as the weekly update propagates.
“Pay Once & Play” offers a range of titles that are organized into the following categories: Recent Releases, Blockbuster Games, and App Store Originals. Some of the featured titles include Thomas Was Alone, Minecraft – Pocket Edition, Hero Emblems, Threes, Blek, and Goblin Sword.
Games and apps with in-app purchases have gotten Apple into trouble on multiple occasions over the past few years, leading to a 2011 lawsuit and a $32 million settlement with the FTC after children racked up hundreds of dollars in purchases without parental knowledge.
Apple has made several changes to the App Store since the original lawsuit was filed. Apps with in-app purchases are clearly labeled, Apple obtains express permission for an in-app purchase in the form of a pop up, and it notifies users that making an in-app purchase authorizes additional in-app purchases for 15 minutes.
Most recently, Apple changed the “Free” wording on purchase buttons to “Get” to make it clear that apps with in-app purchases are not truly free.
Bring the Quick Charge 2.0 experience to your car with this 4-port 51W turbo charger
I am always on the hunt for curiously cool or interesting gadgetry. Sometimes those things are earth shattering, but they are still important to myself or end users in one way or another. In this case I was it is a relatively new car charger from the likes of CHOETECH. The car charger isn’t your […]
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Dell takes aim at Lenovo, sort of, with new 180 degree hinged Chromebook 11 for students
Dell has announced a new Chromebook today aimed squarely at the education sector of the operating system with the new Chromebook 11. I know, not that original of a name. As the name would suggest, it carries a 11-inch screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768. Under the hood we find the usual suspects […]
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Google publishes new Dunk-A-Thon ad
To promote the launch of a new NBA themed update for its Androidify app, Google has today published a brand new ad over on its Android YouTube channel entitled “Dunk-A-Thon”. In the video, various Droid’s jump around wearing the latest basketball tops whilst taking shots at the hoop. One Droid even uses a cannon to make the drop.
Hit the break below to see the video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Come comment on this article: Google publishes new Dunk-A-Thon ad
Paranoid Android and OxygenOS team up: What to expect
The OnePlus team has announced some information today regarding their upcoming OxygenOS custom ROM that’s being prepared for the OnePlus One and future OnePlus phones.
The team of developers they announced includes a total of eight people, five of which are developers for Paranoid Android, including it’s co-founders Aaron and Jesús. OnePlus says Paranoid Android co-founder Jesús Agudelo is currently working on a “headline feature” for OxygenOS, meaning it’ll be something that hopefully stands out as a selling point for OxygenOS in the future.
The team behind OxygenOS is a very diverse one, with members in the United States, Canada, India, Italy, Colombia, Lebanon and Spain.
Specific details about OxygenOS are still vague, but OnePlus says the software will be designed to be bloat-free, and valuing battery life and hardware efficiency. They want to build an OS that provides useful, non-obstructive features that users will grow to love. They also stated that the tap-to-wake feature in CM 11S will indeed be present in OxygenOS, as well as customizable navigation buttons.
“OxygenOS is built with the same focus on quality and community-driven design that you’ve come to expect from our hardware, and the simplicity of our new logo extends to the software itself. We care about providing our users with the best experience, and we will never differentiate just for the sake of differentiation. We promise that any additional features will be non-obtrusive and extremely useful (tap-to-wake and customizable navigation buttons, for example). With OxygenOS, we want to build something that works for users and gets out of their way. And, that’s exactly what we are doing.” –OnePlus stated on their blog.
With some of Paranoid Android’s strongest team members present in this project, we’ll be sure to see features standing out from other custom ROMs, which is what the Paranoid Android ROM is so popular for. As for the future of the Paranoid Android ROM itself, we shouldn’t have to worry, as OnePlus stated themselves in the post that OxygenOS team member Carlos, from Italy, is still contributing to Paranoid Android, and an alpha ROM was released last week as Paranoid Android 5.0 Alpha 1.
OnePlus says a fully stable beta version of OxygenOS is being tested right now, and that we’ll see it soon.
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Miami cops enter false data into Waze as revenge for revealing locations
Waze is a pretty handy tool for drivers, allowing users to share information about traffic accidents, road closures, and even cops lurking behind billboards with speed cameras. It is the latter which caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago, when Sheriff Mike Brown of Bedford County, speaking at the National Sheriffs’ Association meeting, called for the police reporting feature to be removed.
After polite requests for Google to remove the feature, it seems that Miami police officers have chosen to take the law into their own hands. Hundreds of offices have signed up to the service and flooded it with false data to enact some small vengeance on Waze, according to a report from NBC 6 in Miami. The aim seems to be to pollute accurately reported data with misinformation about police locations and other reports.
Some officials have been concerned that making police locations publicly available puts law enforcers and the public at additional risk, be it from targeted attacks or by criminals more easily circumventing efforts to clamp down on crime. However, this view isn’t shared by all law enforcers. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel suggests that that serious criminals don’t rely on Waze.
“If someone is suffering mental illness and they want to commit a heinous crime or hunt a deputy or a police officer; they don’t need Waze to do that,” – Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel
Waze does not appear too concerned about the possible risks, instead the company believes that the service helps act as a deterrent by highlighting any local police presence.
“Police partners support Waze and its features, including reports of police presence, because most users tend to drive more carefully when they believe law enforcement is nearby.”-Waze
Whether or not you view Waze’s feature as useful or irresponsible, surely there are better ways to resolve this contentious issue than by wasting time entering false data? Where do you stand on Waze vs the police?
Get 37 apps worth $140 with Amazon’s latest free bundle
Amazon has this nice little tradition where it gives away bundles of free apps every now and then. Sometimes these bundles are themed around productivity applications or games, and sometimes they include a little something for everyone.
Today’s bundle would cost you $140 if you bought each app by its own, and includes games, music apps, fitness apps, productivity apps, utilities and more. It’s definitely worth a look.
Here’s what’s inside the goodie bag.
- 80 Days
- A Scientific and Financial RPN Calculator
- Back to Bed
- Bag It! (Ad-Free)
- Battery HD Pro
- Buy Me a Pie! Grocery List Pro
- Caveman Feast
- Cut the Rope: Experiments
- Delicious – Emily’s True Love
- DoggCatcher Podcast Player
- Doodle Jump
- Food Substitutes
- Glow Hockey 2 Pro
- Guitar Pro
- Hidden Object – Be My Valentine
- Listure
- Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5 – Audio Edition
- MeteoEarth
- Monsters Ate My Condo
- mSecure
- OfficeSuite Professional 8
- Pocket Yoga
- Relax Melodies Premium
- Runtastic PRO
- Shazam Encore
- Simple Camera
- Ski Safari: Adventure Time
- Sleep as Android
- Smart RAM Booster Pro
- SmoothSync for Cloud Calendar
- Sorcery! 2
- Speed Reading Trainer Full
- Stellarium Mobile Sky Map
- Sworkit Pro
- Travel Interpreter
- Trivia Crack (Ad Free)
- Tunable
While some of these apps are recurring in Amazon’s free bundles, there are some new faces as well. Check out the bundle page on Amazon to get your fill.
NBC Launches Extensive ‘SNL’ App Ahead of 40th Anniversary Special [iOS Blog]
NBC Entertainment today launched a “Saturday Night Live” app which allows fans to browse a catalog of the show’s entire forty season-run, eventually learning each user’s particular tastes and favorites and subsequently curating videos and sketches for them to view (via Entertainment Weekly).
The app launches a few days before the show’s big 40th season premiere this Sunday, and NBC promises the impressive app contains nearly every single sketch the show has done over the decades it’s been on the air, amounting to about 5,500 sketches from 800 episodes. The network also says it’ll keep the app updated beyond the 40th season premiere with new skits and moments from the newest episodes being uploaded to the app following each new episode of the season.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the app is that, once it gets a feel for the kind of sketches, music videos, and parody commercials a user enjoys watching, it’ll begin personalizing the experience for each user. Those wanting to search for particular sketches, actors, or characters can do just that, too, if looking for a particular aspect of the long-running sketch comedy show.
One of the current cast members, Kyle Mooney, voiced behind-the-scenes support of the app, telling Entertainment Weekly the cast and crew plans to use the app to more efficiently research past sketches when working on new material for the show. As a plus, the SNL app also comes with a keyboard that, when granted access within an iPhone’s General settings tab, allows users to send SNL-themed emojis to friends.
SNL can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
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