Google wants to give you 2GB of Drive storage and keep you safer
On February 10th, Google made a post on its Drive blog about online safety in relation to Safer Internet Day. It hopes that users of the service will take a couple of minutes to complete their Security Checkup. If you do this before February 17th, you’ll receive 2GB of additional data in your Google Drive plan.
Clearly, the company is confident in Drive’s encryption since they’re willing to entice users to keep using the service or to use it for the first time.
The three steps you need to take are to: make sure your account recovery information is current, review your recent sign-in activity, and confirm apps and devices that access some account information. After that, you should see three green checkboxes, like in the image above, that confirm your eligibility. The additional storage will then come around February 28 and a confirmation will be sent via email.
Google notes that users of Google Apps for Work and Google Apps for Education are not eligible for the upgrade, but they should still take the checkup.
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Dozens of Blizzard’s biggest game characters are getting figurines
You’re typically lucky if you get even a few figurines based on your favorite games. That’s certainly true with Blizzard — despite its deep game universes, you seldom get more than a handful of characters. Thankfully, that relative drought is about to end soon. The National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) is launching a collectible line based around Blizzard’s multi-franchise online battle arena, Heroes of the Storm, and it’s planning figurines for all 34 playable characters. If you want to have a Diablo III demon hunter or StarCraft II‘s Tychus on your desk, you can.
Get ready to wait if you’re choosy about the heroes and villains you take home, though. NECA is releasing basic figurines in pairs, starting with StarCraft‘s Nova and Warcraft‘s Illidan Stormrage (shown here). You’ll have to pay extra for deluxe models like Warcraft‘s Stitches, and the only other collectibles lined up so far are Arthas (Warcraft) and Tyrael (Diablo). But hey, it’s a start… and if you’re really determined, you’ll eventually have your own pantheon of gaming miniatures.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Kotaku
Snap v3 Beta 2 now available for download
Although the announcement of a new release on Tuesday hit some snags, Red Light of Love has now been updated and you’ll find Snap v3 beta 2 now available for download and it’s packed with quite a few changes even from the previous release. Looking for the change log? Jump below and have a look for yourself.
Motorola begins Android 5.0 Lollipop soak tests for the Moto E and Moto Maxx
There’s some pretty sweet news for Moto E and Moto Maxx owners today: Motorola has announced that it has begun soak tests for Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Moto Maxx in Brazil and Mexico, along with the Moto E in Brazil and India.
Sneak Peak at Apple Campus 2 Offers New Look at Construction Progress
Apple’s new spaceship-shaped Apple Campus 2 is under construction, and the company gave KQED News a tour of the site, providing them with new details and a ground-based look at its progress.
As previously revealed, the building has an enviromentally-conscious design, with features like using recycled water to flush toilets and solar arrays to power its functions. Keeping with this theme, the building also uses recycled parts from older buildings.
Photo of Apple Campus 2 main office, via KQED News.
“What Apple inherited on the property was several older buildings, all of which were broken down and deconstructed,” says KQED Science reporter Amy Standen, who got a tour of the site. “Much of the material from those old buildings was recycled into new building material to make the new campus, according to Apple.”
Previously, most of the looks at the progress of Campus 2 have been taken from drones in the air. However, these new ground-based photos offer a new perspective on the building’s height and scale. The above photo offers a look at the framework of the main building, allowing one to gauge how tall the building could be.
Progress on what KQED identifies on Apple’s new amphitheater, below, can also be seen, though it’s difficult to visually tell how large the amphitheater will be. Apple will likely use this space for its town hall meetings.
Photo of Apple’s new amphitheater, via KQED News.
The latest air-based update on the construction came from YouTube user myithz just over a week ago. However, it’s fairly difficult to locate some of the locations in KQED’s photos in the video, potentially signaling that a good amount of progress has been made since it was recorded.
Though construction has steadily continued through the last half of 2014 and into 2015, Apple’s Campus 2 obviously has a long way to go until completion. Other than the main circular structure, main theater, fitness center and parking garages, Apple submitted plans for new offices, testing facilities and more parking garages in October for the second phase of construction. The complete campus is expected to be finished by the end of 2015.
Additional photos and information can be seen on KQED News’ website.
Limbo creeps its way onto Google Play
Playdead has finally brought the very popular Limbo game to Android. Limbo was originally released on the Xbox 360 back in 2010, and was an instant hit. Soon after, it made it’s way to the PlayStation 3, Windows, and even iOS.
Limbo is a 2D sidescroller puzzle game in which you are a boy in search of his sister. The game is in black and white giving it an eerie feeling as you try to figure out how to get around various traps. Playdead dubbed the style of play as “trial and death” as you are likely to fail before figuring out the correct solution. And when you do fail, expect a heavy does of gory images.
The game has received over 100 awards, including Gameinformer’s “Best Downloadable” and Gamespot’s “Best Puzzle Game.”
Limbo costs $4.99 and is worth every penny. Granted it’s only the first day of availability, but it already has a 4.9 rating in the Play Store. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Come comment on this article: Limbo creeps its way onto Google Play
US carriers make it (somewhat) easier to unlock your phone
If you’ve struggled with getting your carrier to unlock your phone so that you can easily travel abroad — or, gasp, switch providers — today is an important day. As promised, seven US networks (AT&T, Bluegrass Cellular, Cellcom, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon) are now honoring a voluntary code of conduct that, among other things, lets you get your phone unlocked without a big fight. As a rule, carriers will agree to derestrict your phone after you’ve paid off your device or service contract. You’ll have to ask most of them to do it, which could take up to two days. It’s easier on a couple of carriers, however. Sprint will automatically unlock SIM-based cellular service on phones bought from today onward, while T-Mobile bundles an app with newer phones that lets you start the process yourself.
Just be aware that there are plenty of asterisks (the code is the carriers’ idea, after all). If you’re the customer of a prepaid brand like Cricket or Virgin Mobile, you may have to wait up to a year and keep service active for a “reasonable” amount. Also, Sprint will only unlock your phone for domestic use if it’s a model released after February 11th; anything earlier is limited to international access. You’re bound by the limits of cellular technology, too. Verizon unlocks GSM service on its phones as a matter of course, but you can’t switch from GSM to CDMA unless the phone has supporting CDMA hardware (like the iPhone 6 or Nexus 6). And with few LTE frequences shared between American telecoms, you’ll likely lose fast data.
It’s important to note that you don’t have to go through your telco to get this done. Thanks to last year’s cellphone unlocking law, you’re allowed to get your phone unlocked without your carrier’s explicit say-so. The catches? You’ll almost certainly have to pay, and there won’t be much consistency in their policies. The big advantage of the code of conduct is that you now have an easily accessible and reliable (if not always trouble-free) way to jump ship with your existing handset.
[Image credit: The To, Shutterstock]
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile
Source: CTIA
The Choose Your Own Next-Gen Android Giveaway: G Flex 2, One (M9) or Galaxy S6!
We know a ton of flagship smartphones are coming down the pipeline, and we expect to see most of them released at Mobile World Congress 2015. Samsung has sent out its Unpacked event teaser, likely set to unveil the Galaxy S6 on March 1st. HTC has also sent out its press event teaser for March 1st, which is when the HTC One M9 is expected to come forth. These phones are bound to be pretty expensive, so wouldn’t it be great if you could win one? Thanks to our friends at StackSocial, you can!
The winner of this contest gets to choose one of the following handsets:
Sounds pretty great, right? All you need to do is follow the link below, enter your email address, and that’s it! Entering your email will grant you one entry into the contest. If you’d like more entries, share the link on Twitter after you sign up for yourself. The more your friends and followers enter, the more entries you’ll receive.
Editor’s Note: This deal is through StackCommerce, in partnership with AA Deals Store and other StackSocial partners — and not an exclusive Android Authority contest. The contest ends at 11:59pm PST on 3/20/15.
So, who’s excited? Follow the link below to enter!
Enter the The Choose Your Own Next-Gen Android Giveaway
How to get the most out of S Health on the Galaxy Note 4
It won’t make you get off the couch, but S Health can be a useful tool
S Health has been around for some time on Samsung phones, but it was only with the inclusion of more finely-tuned sensors and a full-blown heart rate monitor on the latest devices that made it a really valuable tool for tracking your health and fitness data. While the options for choosing a third-party system — often paired with a hardware fitness tracker — are still out there, S Health is bundled with every Note 4 and will cover the bases for most people who want to keep track of their health.
Just like any other health and fitness app available today S Health is really only useful when you have it set up correctly and are making the most of it — we’re going to show you how to do just that.
‘Kill switches’ in smartphones have reduced thefts in major cities
According to a report from Reuters, thefts involving smartphones have declined dramatically in three big cities since OEMs began building ‘kill switches‘ inside smartphones. The report states that in the last 12 months, the number of stolen smartphones has dropped by 40% in San Francisco and 25% in New York City. In London, the number of smartphone thefts has dropped by a massive 50% in this timeframe.
In 2013, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched the ‘Save our Smartphones‘ campaign, which progressed the entire kill switch movement into what it is today. If you can remember back to August, California finalized a bill that would require all smartphones sold in the state to come with kill switch features included. That rule won’t go into affect until July 1st of this year, but it seems as though smartphone thefts may already be seeing a decline in the state. Gascon explained that smartphone thefts have already started to drop because manufacturers have began installing the kill switches into their smartphones.
So far, we’ve seen Google, Samsung and Apple implement kill switch technology into their smartphones, and even Microsoft is expected to unveil the kill switch in their new Windows 10 platform later this year. Other OEMs like Motorola and Huawei have signed a voluntary initiative with the CTIA that aims to push forward these security practices as well.
We’re happy to see results out of these new security features, and we only expect to see these numbers rise once more states begin to adopt the kill switch practices.
AIVAnet 