Square Cash goes social with $Cashtags, also expands to businesses
Square Cash was launched two years ago but now it seems to be gaining traction by putting a social spin on mobile payments. Users of Square Cash can be identified by unique $Cashtags rather than phone number or email. Simply get your friends’ $Cashtags and send them money instantly with just a few taps. This way to identify users will also be a great help for the arrival of businesses on Square Cash. The service allows businesses to accept payments with a fee of only 1.5%, meaning that a considerable amount of revenue is retained.
Some of the world’s largest non-profit organizations are taking advantage of $Cashtags. Wikipedia, (RED), and The USO are among those already using Square Cash.
Anyone can post their $Cashtag in the form of “cash.me/$cashtag” for an easy way to accept payments. Square assures its users that data is protected with PCI-DSS level 1 certification and has fraud protection in place to stop unauthorized charges.
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Source: Square
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Android 5.0 Lollipop beginning to roll out for the AT&T Galaxy Note 3
Following in the Galaxy Note 4’s footsteps from earlier today, Android 5.0 Lollipop is now beginning to roll out to the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The update comes in at a hefty 1.2GB and carries build number N900AUCUEOC1.
Much like other updates on AT&T, this build of Android 5.0 is rolling out in stages. So if you have an AT&T Note 3 and haven’t received the update yet, don’t fret – it will make its way to your device within the next few days. When you do receive the update notification, make sure you’re on a solid Wi-Fi connection, as the update can’t be downloaded using your mobile data plan.
With all that said, what exactly are you getting with the 5.0 update? For starters, you’ll get a good amount of Material Design enhancements, though the design changes are much less noticeable on Samsung devices. You’ll also receive the usual slew of Lollipop features including priority mode notifications, new battery saving features, more security improvements and much, much more.
If you have yet to receive the update and would like to check manually, head to Settings>General>About device>Software updates>Check for updates.
Have you received your Android 5.0 update yet? How are you liking it so far?
Google Fiber heading to Salt Lake City Utah
The map that provides a pinned location where Google Fiber is available is slowly getting bigger. Joining the ranks of “upcoming fiber cities” is Salt Lake City Utah. That move will give Utah two Fiber cities as Provo is already hooked up. It also joins Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh-Druham in the design phase. Over […]
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Bold move: Cyanogen and Blu will launch CyanogenOS phone without Google services
In a world dominated by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, there’s little room for another player to take control. There are those who fear that Google’s services will monopolize the mobile industry, and Cyanogen is one of them.
Cyanogen is getting big. Really big. With an $80 million investment from various tech companies such as Qualcomm, Twitter, Telefónica and more, Cyanogen plans to build a mobile ecosystem that doesn’t need Google in the picture at all.
“We’re putting a bullet through Google’s head.” states Kirt McMaster, the brash and confident Cyanogen CEO.
An article by Forbes describes the plan Cyanogen has in place to become the “third player” in the smartphone OS market. The $80 million investment above describes a part of this plan, with all sorts of tech companies taking interest in CyanogenOS. Microsoft is one of those companies. While they were not among the groups investing in Cyanogen at the time, people familiar with the investment deal state that Microsoft is working on a big partnership with Cyanogen to bring some of its services to future phones powered by CyanogenOS, including Bing, voice-assistant Cortana, OneDrive, Skype and Outlook.
McMaster describes his desire for CyanogenOS to provide a fair ecosystem for major software companies. He hopes to attract developers to the OS threatened by Google and Apple. He wants companies like Visa or PayPal to provide the mobile payment system for their phones, and Skype to be the built-in phone dialer. He states services like Spotify could become the default music player, and that his phone would know he uses Spotify as his default music player when he tells it to play a song.
“In a perfect world the OS should know I use Spotify for music,” McMaster says. “I should be able to talk to the phone and say ‘Play that song’ and the f—ing song plays with Spotify. It doesn’t do that today.”
Cyanogen powered phones are selling very well worldwide, with examples like OnePlus and Micromax selling phones like hotcakes because of their affordability, premium hardware and highly customizable software. The next step for Cyanogen, however, is through Blu- one of the most popular phone manufacturers in Latin America and up there in the top selling phones on Amazon. Blu says it will launch a CyanogenOS powered smartphone by the end of this year, without any of Google’s services. Blu CEO Samuel Ohev-Zion states that he plans for the phone to include Amazon’s app store, Opera web browser, Nokia Here for maps, Dropbox and OneDrive for cloud storage, Spotify for the music app, as well as Bing for mobile search and Cortana for voice control.
“When these other apps are deeply integrated into the phone, most of the time they perform better than the Google apps,” says Ohev-Zion.
To describe Cyanogen’s mission as ambitious might be an understatement, but with the attention they are getting and the financial backup from corporations such as Microsoft, it’s likely we will only see them grow from here.
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OpenTable accepting payments from Android devices
Next time you prepare to make a reservation at a restaurant with OpenTable, consider using the service to also pay for the meal. OpenTable announced on Tuesday that its Android app would receive support for mobile payments at participating restaurants. Before dining, users book a table and add a credit/debit card to pay. The bill is then displayed so users see exactly what they paid for. Simply swipe to pay at the end and diners can carry on with their lives.
Hit the break for the full press release.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Pay with OpenTable Now Available for Android
SAN FRANCISCO, March 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations and part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN), today announced that its Pay with OpenTable mobile payments feature is now available for Android.
To pay with OpenTable, diners who book at participating restaurants simply add a credit card in the OpenTable Android app before they dine and can then view and pay their check with a few taps. There’s no separate app to download; no codes to enter; and no scanning or barcodes involved. Diners who pay with OpenTable simply get up and go whenever they’re ready.
“Millions of diners use our apps to discover and book the perfect table,” said Jocelyn Mangan, OpenTable Senior Vice President, Product Management. “We’re excited to provide Android users with a payment experience that is intuitive and integrated into the OpenTable app they know and love.”
Pay with OpenTable is currently available in select cities and restaurants across the U.S. To learn more about OpenTable mobile payments, watch “Life’s too short to wait for the check” and visit http://pay.opentable.com/ to view the current list of participating restaurants. Restaurants who are interested in providing their guests with the experience of paying with OpenTable can learn more at http://pay.opentable.com/restaurants.
About OpenTable
OpenTable, part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN), is the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, seating more than 16 million diners per month via online bookings across more than 32,000 restaurants. The OpenTable network connects restaurants and diners, helping diners discover and book the perfect table and helping restaurants deliver personalized hospitality to keep guests coming back. The OpenTable service enables diners to see which restaurants have available tables, select a restaurant based on verified diner reviews, menus, and other helpful information, and easily book a reservation. In addition to the company’s website and mobile apps, OpenTable powers online reservations for nearly 600 partners, including many of the Internet’s most popular global and local brands. For restaurants, the OpenTable hospitality solutions enable them to manage their reservation book, streamline their operations, and enhance their service levels. Since its inception in 1998, OpenTable has seated more than 760 million diners around the world. OpenTable is headquartered in San Francisco and available throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the UK.OpenTable, OpenTable.com, OpenTable logos, and other service names are the trademarks of OpenTable, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
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Epix streaming app lands on the Xbox One
Epix, a streaming video service that serves up a ton of content such as movies, concerts, and comedy specials, has come to the Xbox One today.
YouTube Live will reportedly launch later this year, centered around live streaming games
In hopes to get back into the streaming business, Google is reportedly working on a platform that will focus on live streaming games and e-sports. Dubbed YouTube Live, The Daily Dot reports that the service will launch sometime later this year, perhaps during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this June.
According to “sources within the streaming industry”, Google has already hired on 50 engineers with expertise in the streaming industry to enhance YouTube Live’s services. The sources explain:
Gaming and e-sports in particular are going to be a big driving force for the new-look YouTube Live. There’ll be huge opportunities for established streamers and organizations soon and I would say that the record numbers of e-sports viewers are only going to grow when Google start promoting and partnering with these events.
News of the YouTube Live service should come at no surprise to most people. YouTube used to live stream cricket matches from the Indian Premiere League back in 2010, though focus on live streaming events has since gone to the wayside. With the growing popularity of current game-streaming services like Twitch, which Google almost bought back in August, refocusing the company’s live streaming efforts makes sense.
With that said, Twitch (now owned by Amazon) is obviously the service to beat in the game-streaming business. Fans of Twitch likely won’t move over to YouTube Live just on a whim, so Google will need to bag some exclusive partnerships in order to deem itself worthy in the streaming community.
LG India says the G2 will get Lollipop next quarter
Quite a few devices are still without Lollipop, leaving consumers frustrated with the waiting. The LG G2, released in 2013, is one of the devices still without the latest version of Android; however, the wait may not be much longer.
On Twitter, LG India confirmed that a software update with Lollipop is coming in the second quarter of 2015. That means owners of the G2 located in India can expect Lollipop by the end of June. Elsewhere, such as the United States, we still do not know when Lollipop is coming.
Source: @LGIndiaTweets (Twitter)
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Google Fiber services headed to Salt Lake City
Google Fiber hasn’t exactly gotten off to a hot start, as it’s only available in a handful of cities. Google has been working on expanding their ISP footprint, though, and the next city on that list is Salt Lake City, Utah.
Google announced today that they’ll be partnering with the city to figure out the best way to lay out their fiber network to get customers connected. Salt Lake City was likely picked due to its large technology sector, since those kinds of cities and areas are prime targets for Google’s gigabit internet service.
You won’t be able to sign up for Fiber in Salt Lake City tomorrow, but it Google typically gets the wheels turning just a few months after announcement, so hopefully the wait won’t be too long.
source: Google Fiber
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Rosetta Stone brings language learning to the Xbox One
Ever wanted to learn a language on your Xbox? Well, now may be your chance, as the popular language learning tool Rosetta Stone has just announced an app for the Xbox One.
Available with English and Spanish options, the app will allow players to explore different virtual locations where they can practice speaking with characters in their chosen language and play various games.
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