Chrome OS update brings credit card autofill, physical keyboard autocorrection, and more
Chromebooks have come a long way in just a few years. What was once an online-only affair has expanded into a much more capable platform with a growing number of offline-capable apps, a handful of Android apps, and increasingly complex online apps as well.
Chrome OS continues to evolve all the time, and in the latest update hitting the stable channel (43.0.2357.81), is bringing a number of unspecified bug fixes, performance improvements, and a few new features to the table that will make the Chromebook experience even better.
Probably one of the biggest changes here is autofill settings for credit cards from Google Wallet, which should make filling out payment information online much easier. Next on the list are some keyboard changes. First, the physical keyboard will now offer auto correction, handy for those who do a lot of typing and are looking to sort out minor typos on the fly. Second, the virtual keyboard UI on Chrome OS is getting a Material Design upgrade.
The last noteworthy change in the update will affect the least amount of users, as it is only for the 2nd-gen Chromebook Pixel. Pixel owners will now be able to say “Ok Google” anywhere in the OS, making voice search much more useful on Chrome OS.
The new Chrome OS update should be rolling out to many users right away, though it could take a few days to reach everyone.
LG G4 Dual-SIM variant launched in India, priced at INR 51,500 (~ $808)
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A month after officially unveiling its flagship smartphone offering for 2015 – the LG G4 – the company has officially launched it in India. The LG G4 Dual-SIM is priced in India at INR 51,500 (~ $808), and has already been listed for pre-order in the country. The device is already up for pre-order, and the company is bundling what it calls Smart Benefits that comprises of a metallic finish back cover worth $31, one-time screen replacement worth $102, and an extra battery with a charging cradle worth $55. The ones who pre-book the device will get a chance to meet celebrity actor Amitabh Bachchan and receive the phone from him.
As opposed to the international variant, LG has launched a dual-SIM variant of the G4 (D818N) in India due to high demand of dual-SIM smartphones in the country, becoming the only high-end smartphone in the country to offer the feature. The LG G4 Dual-SIM features a 5.5-inch QHD Quantum IPS LCD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection, Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with LG UX 4.0, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor with Adreno 418 GPU, 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM, microSD card slot (that supports up to 2TB microSD cards), and a 3,000 mAh battery.
On the imaging front, the South Korean company is offering a 16-megapixel primary camera with a 1/2.6-inch sensor, phase-detection autofocus bundled with Laser Autofocus, three-axis OIS, and that can record videos in 4K resolution. There’s an 8-megapixel front-facing camera that can record 1080p videos. In terms of connectivity features, the device features two SIM card slots, 4G LTE connectivity, dual-band Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 LE (APT-x), A-GPS with GLONASS, NFC, and a microUSB 2.0 port that can double up as HDMI SlimPort (4K).
The LG G4 competes with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6, the HTC One M9+, the Apple iPhone 6 Plus, and the Sony Xperia Z3 in the country. It is priced quite competitively, and if LG drops the price like it did with the LG G3 last year, it would be a great sell for consumers.
The post LG G4 Dual-SIM variant launched in India, priced at INR 51,500 (~ $808) appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Intel beefs up fifth-gen Core chips with IRIS graphics
Intel has revealed a crop of new fifth-gen Core chips for mobile and desktop that should tide over power-users and gamers until next-gen “Skylake” CPUs arrive later this year. There are five new models for desktop and five for mobile, all packing the latest Iris Pro 6200 graphics. The most interesting model for desktop users is the Core i7-5775-C, a CPU that will replace the current i7-4790S for around $365. Thanks to the Iris chip, Intel says that model will double its predecessor’s graphics performance and boost media chores by 35 percent. The top new laptop model is the $623 Core i7-5950HQ chip, which doubles the overall performance of older i7-5600U models.
Obviously, a mobile CPU that pricy is destined for only the best gaming and graphics-targeted laptops. But if you end up with any of the new Core i7 or i5 models in a new Ultrabook, you’re going to get a big boost in graphics performance without the added cost of discreet AMD or NVIDIA chips. Also, Intel says that the arrival of Iris Pro-level graphics to LGA desktop chips for the first time means faster media encoding, better 4K support and smoother gaming on mini desktop models, all-in-ones and other small form factor PCs. You’ll see new systems packing the chips within 30-60 days.
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Intel
Source: Intel
Report: UK cops request citizen data every two minutes
According to Big Brother Watch (PDF), law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom have requested the personal metadata of citizens nearly three quarters of a million times in the past two years. That is, between 2012 and 2014, UK cops asked for identifying details pertaining to a text, email, phone call or search some 733,237 times. More than 90 percent of those requests were subsequently granted. That averages out to one fulfilled request every two minutes. Alarmingly, these metadata requests have only increased since 2012 with a whopping 250,000 of them coming last year alone. Even more worrisome, that BBW data originated from a series Freedom of Information Act demands and may under-represent the total number of requests actually made.
[Image Credit: Yui Mok/PA Archive]
Filed under: Internet
Via: The Guardian
Source: Big Brother Watch (PDF)
Jawbone’s Up2 fitness tracker arrives in the UK for £90
Jawbone’s delayed Up3 still isn’t available in the UK, but it seems the company is quite content to push ahead with its cheaper Up2 instead. The wrist-worn health tracker is available now for £89.99 in-store from Currys, PC World, John Lewis and Selfridges. You’ll also be able to order it online via Jawbone and Apple’s online stores, and the company says it should soon be up for pre-order on Amazon. The Up2 retains Jawbone’s sleek design aesthetic, but drops some of the more advanced features found in the Up3, such as heart rate and skin temperature monitoring. While useful, those metrics aren’t essential to everyone and the Up2 does everything else you would expect from a fitness tracker — recording steps, sleep and calories burned, as well as food logging, should you want a more complete picture inside the Smart Coach app. Given we weren’t too impressed with the Up3, you might be better off with the Up2 or one of its competitors anyway.
Filed under: Wearables
Source: Jawbone
More details about the ASUS ZenWatch 2: promises 4 day battery and remote camera viewfinder
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Yesterday, the ASUS ZenWatch 2 was announced at Computex 2015, and for the most part looks like a very nice evolution over its predecessor. Keeping mostly the same form factor, the ZenWatch 2 now offers more customization options including 2 body size variants, 3 body colours and an assortment of first-party accessories to spruce up your watch band. As the event has gone on, we’ve found out about a few more features of the ZenWatch 2, in particular the fact that it boasts 4 days of battery life. Compared to a conventional watch, it seems almost ludicrous to glorify 4 days of battery, but in the Android Wear world, 4 days is almost an eternity – we’ll have to see if the production models actually do this when they are actually released.
The ZenWatch 2 also introduces a digital crown, however this only appears to operate as a power button. There are also quite a few improvements to what existed on the original ZenWatch, such as improvements to the remote camera viewfinder feature which lets you see what your camera is seeing all on your watch. We’re interested to see the verdict about the ZenWatch 2 when reviews start pouring in because it seems like ASUS has made lots of little tweaks that should make its latest smartwatch an even better companion.
What do you think about the ASUS ZenWatch 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Mashable
The post More details about the ASUS ZenWatch 2: promises 4 day battery and remote camera viewfinder appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
The PS4 will have a 1TB hard drive version very soon
Coming right on time after Microsoft’s leak a few hours ago, some pre-E3 Sony news just popped up. An FCC filing reveals two new versions of the PS4 are on the way, and one of them is its first to come stock with a 1TB hard drive inside, twice the size of the current one. PlayStation gamers have already been able to crack the system open and swap in a larger/faster storage unit, but if you’d prefer to skip the hassle the option of having one from the jump will be nice, and current games fill up a 500GB unit all too quickly.
Those with keen eyes have noticed that the new systems are also slightly lighter and use less power than the most recent PS4 revisions. While there’s some speculation that could mean they’ll arrive without a Blu-ray drive inside, it seems more likely that an improved design is simply making them more efficient. The only disappointment we have is that they still appear to lack support for 5GHz WiFi, a serious problem for gamers who live in apartment buildings or other areas flooded with wireless networks. Either way, the CUH-1215A and CUH-1215B (1TB) will probably be revealed June 15th at 9PM during Sony’s E3 2015 event, and of course we’ll be there to cover it.
Via: NeoGAF
Source: FCC
Thunderbolt 3 is twice as fast and uses reversible USB-C
Devices with USB Type-C ports will soon be even more useful. Intel today unveiled Thunderbolt 3, which uses an identical port design as its USB brethren. So if you’ve recently bought Apple new’s MacBook, for instance, you shouldn’t need a cumbersome adapter to hook up external hardware via Thunderbolt. It’s a step towards simplifying the often messy sea of ports found on laptops and PCs, and should make the standard accessible to a larger group of people than before. Thunderbolt 3 offers more than just port convenience, however. It’ll also deliver a 40Gbps connection over Thunderbolt, which is double the speed of Thunderbolt 2, as well as 10 Gbps USB 3.1 and DisplayPort 1.2.
With those nippier data speeds, Thunderbolt 3 supports dual 4K 60 Hz displays, in addition to blazingly fast file transfers. Of course, you’ll also be able to use it as a regular USB cable, which will no doubt come in handy for everyday accessories. It won’t be long before the new standard comes into effect either — Intel says the first Thunderbolt 3 products should ship later this year, before wider support and availability arrives in 2016.
Filed under: Peripherals, Intel
Source: Thunderbolt
Google I/O 2015 review for Android Developers
Google I/O 2015 has come and gone, and as expected, left us with a ton of exciting new features, announcements and products, from the entirety of the Googleplex, including Android, Chrome, Search and ATAP. There is a lot of information from this years conference, and we have sifted through this information avalanche, and filtered out the most important stuff for Android Developers.
We will dive deeper into many of these technologies in the coming weeks. At the barest minimum, Android developers should watch the I/O 2015 Keynote, What’s new in Android and What’s new in Android Developer Tools videos. They all contain vital information regarding currently available and upcoming features.
Without further ado, some of the most important announcements in I/O 2015 for Android developers include:
Android Studio 1.3
Android Studio has gotten a lot of love over the years, and has become the de facto IDE for Android Developers. A lot of new features and updates were revealed, although most are currently available in the Canary (experimental, bleeding edge) update channel for now. Some of the updates include:
- NDK C/C++ Support. Complete support provided for C/C++ code, including syntax highlighting, code linking and more.
- New simultaneous visual layout builder and layout editor. While editing a layout xml file, the “Preview” image now also doubles as a visual layout editor.
- Improved gradle build performance. We were shown scenarios, where the time spent in a gradle build was halved, from 10.2 secs to 5.0 secs in one test, and from 54 secs to 5.9 secs in another.
- Use of Vector images (.svg) when developing/designing, and the IDE would automatically generate bitmap images for all the different resolutions on build.
Android Design Support Library
Google introduced the Material Design specifications with Android Lollipop, and strongly encouraged app developers to transition existing apps to conform to, and build all new apps with the new design specs. Unfortunately, there was no uniform implementation for some of the most used widgets (e.g. Floating Action Buttons). This led to diverse implementations of these widgets, especially while trying to support pre Lollipop devices. The Android Design Support Library is a new support library, available to all Android devices from version 2.1 upwards, that provides widgets and views that implement many Material Design specifications and recommendations including CoordinatorLayout, Snackbar, TabLayout, NavigationView, TextInputLayout and Floating Action Buttons. There are exciting APIs available within this library. Visit the Android developer blogpost for more information and links on how to use it.
App Permissions
This is a long requested and anticipated feature. Rather than granting all permissions required by an app on install, users can now grant, deny or revoke previously granted permissions at will. From the users point of view, this is a fantastic and welcome change. For developers, this presents new challenges when building apps. Before accessing a resource that requires permissions, you must confirm that the user has granted your app the necessary permissions, and provide an alternate if your request was rejected.
Full App backup
Currently, app developers can backup user data through Google Cloud services. However, the app developer has to write the code that persists and retrieves the user data. This means that when a user installs your app on a new device, he must start-up your app, and login, before your app fetches the saved data. With full backup however, the backup and restore of user data is done automatically. If the user installs your app on another device, app data is synchronized automatically, and should be available to the user immediately he opens the app. Nifty. Of course, the app developer can specify what files and folders should be backed up, using include (or exclude) tags in the AndroidManifest.xml, but that is all. To take advantage of this, the app must also be built with the “targetSdkVersion” set to 23(Android M). More information is available on the Android Developer site.
Multiple Device testing with Cloud Test Lab
We ran an article, a few days before I/O 2015 kicked off, discussing the best ways to economically test your app across a wide range of Android devices. It appears Google has been hard at work trying to solve this problem faced by Android developers, and introduced Cloud Test Lab during the conference. Cloud Test Lab enables developers test their app(s) on multiple devices simultaneously, and provides detailed reports of success or failures. It appears the devices will be limited to the “top 20 Android devices from around the world”. While this service is not immediately available, it is billed to be released this year, and it’s expected to be completely free and integrated in the Google Play Developer Console. Awesome! You can sign up and get notified of updates.
App Invites
New API that helps users share apps/invite other users to use an app. This is great news for developers, since it helps users share your app via word of mouth with specific other users (their friends, family or colleagues that they expect will like the app). The invites are sent either over SMS or email, with a direct install button. There is a website with detailed instructions and sample code.
DataBindings
This is one of those tools that’s really difficult to explain. You have to see it in action to actually appreciate its brilliance and potential usefulness.
At its most basic, this is a method that helps bind data in an application to specific views in a layout file. For example, if you have a class called User, that has constants firstName and lastName. You could have two TextViews in your layout, called firstNameView and lastNameView, that display the corresponding User values. With data binding, you can describe this relationship in the layout xml file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<data>
<variable name="user" type="com.example.User"/>
</data>
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@user.firstName"/>
<TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@user.lastName"/>
</LinearLayout>
</layout>
This is a support library, and would be available to all Android versions from 2.1 upwards. It is still very much experimental, and there is a guide available
Google Cloud Messaging 3.0
Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is now available for Android, iOS and Chrome apps. The big news here is the new ways of sending the same message to multiple devices. In the past, if you wanted to send the same message to multiple devices, you had to send the message repeatedly to each device id. Now, however, there are two new ways to achieve this. The first, Device Group Messaging, works for sending a message to a single user’s different devices. The other, Topic Messaging, sends a message to all users subscribed to a given topic. With both these methods, you send a single message to the GCM server, requesting either a device group or topic message, and GCM determines what devices to send the message to, and pushes it out to all that match/qualify. This feature is available now, with more information available at the Cloud Messaging website.
Honourable Mentions
Some other exciting stories from I/O include
- Now on tap and App Indexing – App Indexing helps you get your app found in Google Search, while Now on tap is Google Now with contextual awareness.
- Voice interactions – Now your app can interact more fully with the user when making voice commands, by asking for confirmations/clarifications and more
- Fingerprints API – Can verify a user through fingerprint, with the UI completely controlled by your app. Your app can also present a lock screen to the user, forcing him/her to unlock the device before continued use (actually available in Lollipop). Sample FingerprintDialog and ConfirmCredential code available on github.
- App Linking – Enable your app automatically be launched by default for web domains that you own/control. More information available on the M Preview website.
- New developer guides/tutorials – There is a new developer tutorial series/channel/community available containing best practices, guides and correct ways of implementing many Android APIs.
Many of the I/O sessions and talks are available on the Google Developers youtube channel. Be sure to check them out for more information. Also, get started developing for Android M, with the developer preview
We will be running more in-depth articles in the coming weeks, discussing these new features in detail, including howtos and tutorials. Do you feel we left out any vital Android developer announcements? Share with the community using the comments section below.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is $100 off right now
If you are in the market for a new Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro tablet, the 8.4-inch version is on sale right now for over 30% off. That’s a $100 savings.
If you recall, the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is a 2.3GHz Quad-core processor powered 8.4-inch display Android tablet with 2560×1600 screen resolution, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. While not in league with the best around, the camera capabilities are fairly solid, with a 8MP rear shooter and a fairly average 2MP front shooter.
Out of the box, your new Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 will be running Android 4.4 KitKat, but do check for updates, as Android 5.x Lollipop should be along soon enough.
Aside from the spec sheet, this is a comfortable tablet with excellent screen performance. It sport a fairly typical Samsung button layout and even comes with a nice, albeit faux, leather back. Real world performance is still pretty solid, but battery life has always been a little short, especially under heavy usage.
The last time we talked about pricing for this Samsung tablet, it was then also on sale at Best Buy, but for a few dollars more than we see it today. Be sure to check out some of our previous coverage for more details on the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4.
We don’t know how long this sale we be on for, and we do expect this year and a half old tablet to receive a permanent price reduction any time now, but you can grab it today from Best Buy for $199.99.
What do you say, will you grab a new Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 for $200?
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