The Galaxy S6 lets you remove most apps (including Samsung’s)
It’s no secret that Samsung scaled back on bloatware with the Galaxy S6, reducing the clutter and hopefully giving you a leaner, meaner smartphone. However, there’s one more treat in store: you can cull many of the apps that are included, too. XDA forum member Jeshter2000 has noticed that a pre-release Galaxy S6 edge lets him disable or uninstall many of the preloaded programs, including some of those from Google and Samsung. If you’d rather ditch S Voice entirely and rely solely on Google’s (frankly superior) native voice commands, you can. So long as this carries through to the GS6 you buy in stores, it’ll represent a big change of heart for Samsung — the company is notorious for bundling redundant, non-removable apps, but it’s now determined to give you much more control.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Via: Android Beat, TechnoBuffalo
Source: XDA-Developers
Aeries for Twitter goes bug hunting with another minor update
The Aeries Twitter client for Windows Phone has just received a substantial update in terms of bug fixing, pushing the app up to version 1.2.5. Included in this release are a bunch of bug fixes and improvements to help provide a more stable experience.
Weekly photo contest: Cars
After a brief hiatus thanks to events (and illness), the weekly photo contest is back and in its new weekend slot. We’ve decided to move it from a weekday when there’s potentially a lot of news and other things going on to a more relaxed slot on a Sunday evening. Aside from a new day, nothing else is changing, so let’s get to it!
This weeks contest is something close to my heart: cars. Along with tech, cars are my other major passion in life and recently I had the opportunity to finally visit the world famous Geneva Motor Show. Some 2 weeks later I’m still trawling through all the photos but it gave me some great inspiration for this weeks contest. The shot up top is from my Lumia 830, is completely unedited and is one of my favorites from the show.
But now it’s over to you to get creative! But first, let’s find out who won the last contest…
The new HTC One M9 gets reviewed
HTC’s last flagship device, the One M8, is something we’re quite fond of. Despite seeing a limited launch and coming after the Android version had already hit the market, it was a great example of a high-end Windows Phone.
Now, HTC is back. The One M9 has so far seen no mention of a Windows Phone version, but until someone at HTC flat out says it’s not happening, we’ll live in hope. And our pals at Android Central have just reviewed it.
BerryFlow Upstream Podcast – Graphite
Looking to get yourself caught up on the past week of BlackBerry news? Although it was an arguably light week for news as we head on into the earnings report, we still found plenty to discuss on BerryFlow Upstream such as the Porsche Design P’9983 Graphite, the new BlackBerry Care Protection Plan, BBM Protected, the design of the BlackBerry Leap and more. If you missed out on tuning in live, you can now catch the replay or download the audio below.
BerryFlow Upstream Podcast – Graphite
Looking to get yourself caught up on the past week of BlackBerry news? Although it was an arguably light week for news as we head on into the earnings report, we still found plenty to discuss on BerryFlow Upstream such as the Porsche Design P’9983 Graphite, the new BlackBerry Care Protection Plan, BBM Protected, the design of the BlackBerry Leap and more. If you missed out on tuning in live, you can now catch the replay or download the audio below.
Packing peanuts are the key to fast-charging batteries
Hate buying some new gadget, only to wind up with a sea of packing peanuts that do little more than spill on to the floor? Don’t be too quick to toss them out — they may be the key to a new generation of lithium-ion batteries. Purdue University researchers have developed a heating process that converts these shipping leftovers into anodes (where lithium ions are stored during charging) made from carbon. On top of eliminating waste, this technique should lead to batteries that recharge much faster. The carbon anodes are only a tenth as thick as their commercially available counterparts, so they don’t produce nearly as much electrical resistance.
There’s still some refinement necessary before you’re buying peanut-powered devices, mostly in terms of capacity. Lab samples last for a respectable 300 charging cycles without losing capacity, but you’d need more for hardware that’s going to be used for years. However, the approach is already practical: it’s cheap, simple and easy to implement on a large scale. It won’t be at all shocking if you can one day buy a quick-charging phone and send the packing foam back to help make more phones, rather than throwing it in the trash.
[Image credit: Joey Yee, Flickr]
Filed under: Science
Source: Purdue University (Phys.org)
Packing peanuts are the key to fast-charging batteries
Hate buying some new gadget, only to wind up with a sea of packing peanuts that do little more than spill on to the floor? Don’t be too quick to toss them out — they may be the key to a new generation of lithium-ion batteries. Purdue University researchers have developed a heating process that converts these shipping leftovers into anodes (where lithium ions are stored during charging) made from carbon. On top of eliminating waste, this technique should lead to batteries that recharge much faster. The carbon anodes are only a tenth as thick as their commercially available counterparts, so they don’t produce nearly as much electrical resistance.
There’s still some refinement necessary before you’re buying peanut-powered devices, mostly in terms of capacity. Lab samples last for a respectable 300 charging cycles without losing capacity, but you’d need more for hardware that’s going to be used for years. However, the approach is already practical: it’s cheap, simple and easy to implement on a large scale. It won’t be at all shocking if you can one day buy a quick-charging phone and send the packing foam back to help make more phones, rather than throwing it in the trash.
[Image credit: Joey Yee, Flickr]
Filed under: Science
Source: Purdue University (Phys.org)
Should you buy the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro?
The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro looks like a fine convertible laptop, but what do the reviews say?
If you’re on the fence about picking up the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, we’re here to help you out. Take a look at these expert and community reviews of the slim convertible laptop, and get a general feel for what it has to offer.
NFL player publishes math papers in his spare time
If you were an NFL player, what would you do in between games? Live the high life? Spend more time working out? The Baltimore Ravens’ John Urschel does something decidedly geekier: co-author math papers. The offensive lineman recently helped publish details of a “cascadic multigrid algorithm for computing the Fiedler vector of graph Laplacians” (no, we don’t get it either), which would be impressive for any aspiring mathematician — let alone one who spends his days crushing rivals on the football field. This isn’t his first such paper, but it’s notable that he’s keeping up his academic pursuits even after graduating from Penn State and joining the big leagues.
The publications aren’t shocking if you know Urschel’s history, mind you. As he explains, number-crunching and rough-and-tumble sports have been his passions for years. He may “love hitting people” for a living, but he also plays chess and conducts math research in his spare time. About his only major concern right now is that a nasty collision might put his studies to an end — in other words, he’ll likely keep up this seemingly contradictory lifestyle for as long as possible. Don’t be surprised if the next discovery in machine learning (one of Urschel’s fields of interest) comes from a human steamroller.
[Image credit: Larry France/Getty Images]
Source: ArXiv.org
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