StubHub lets eventgoers call an Uber from its app
People love it when companies make things easier for them, and that’s exactly what StubHub is doing today. If you use the service to buy tickets to events, like a live concert or sports game, you’ll now be able to book an Uber directly from its iOS and Android apps. The best part about this is that, once you’ve purchased a ticket, the StubHub application sends a notification to your device (two hours prior to the event) asking if you’d like to request an Uber. And, similar to Live Nation’s partnership with the ridesharing firm, there’s no need to type in the address to the venue — StubHub lets drivers know where the drop-off point is.
“We’re in the journey to become a resource for users,” says Parag Vaish, head of mobile at StubHub, about the Uber integration. “Previously it [the service] was for tickets, [but] it’s become more social. Going to the events, there are a lot of elements to that.” The feature, which is only available in the US, Canada and UK at launch, should be rolling out to mobile devices shortly.
[Image credit: Associated Press]
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile
AT&T will require working FM radios in its Android phones
You might think that conventional radio is becoming less relevant as time marches on, but AT&T begs to differ. It’s requiring that Android phone makers not only include active FM radio chips in their devices from 2016 onwards, but that they switch on chips in as many existing phones as possible. There’s no immediate explanation for the throwback, and we’ve reached out for more details. However, it may boil down to matters of efficiency and utility. FM radio reduces the need for streaming audio if you’re not picky about content, and it can be an important source of news during emergencies, when data networks might be down or oversaturated. We’re sure that manufacturers won’t be happy, since they’ll have to work on FM support just to get handsets on AT&T’s store shelves. All the same, it’s nice to see providers enabling features for a change… even if they’re ones that you’re not very likely to use.
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, AT&T
Via: ZDNet
Source: Radio World
7 amazing human-powered gadgets
By Cat DiStasio
Electricity runs the world we live in — but we often overlook the fact that our own bodies generate quite a bit of energy just by doing what we do. This has led engineers and designers to create a wide array of human-powered gadgets that are as creative as they are fascinating. Many are developed as a response to needs in developing nations, where the grid is unreliable or expensive, but others come about purely as convenient answers to First World predicaments. You’ll be amazed to learn what the human body can do, whether it’s generating electricity for light simply by grabbing hold of a flashlight or making a sweet winter beanie while kicking back with a good book.
Filed under: Misc
Samsung adds some power to its latest Android flip phone
With the tactile buttons, nostalgic looks and snappy foldability, flip phones have a certain je ne sais quoi. But nobody wants to use a feature phone like a caveman, so Samsung has just revealed its latest model, the Galaxy Folder. It’s arriving right after rival LG’s Gentle flip phone, but is quite a step up. Along with 4G LTE and Android 5.1, it’s got a higher-res 3.8-inch, 480 x 800 screen, twice the RAM (2GB), a sharper 8-megapixel camera and a much bigger battery. Imagine! That’ll let you do most of what you normally, then fold your phone away like Lindsey Graham. No, really imagine, because it’s available in Korea for $250, but ain’t likely to come here.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Source: Samsung (translated)
High-speed, affordable internet is coming to Sri Lanka via Google’s Project Loon
Google has been testing and making improvements to its Project Loon initiative over the past year or so, and it looks like some consumers will soon get to see just what the futuristic internet balloons can do. Announced today via the Official Government News Portal of Sri Lanka, Google is planning to soon cover every inch of Sri Lanka with seamless access to affordable, high-speed internet. If done correctly, this will make Sri Lanka the first country in the world to have universal internet coverage.
In case you need a refresher, Project Loon uses balloons hovering around the stratosphere that transmit signals to the ground that can provide internet to remote or rural areas of the world. Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera proclaims that he is “proud to declare that we are at the cusp of a reclaiming our heritage of being connected to each other and connected to the world. In a few months we will truly be able to say: Sri Lanka. Covered”.
According to Phys.org, Google will begin releasing balloons to the stratosphere in the coming months until March 2016. Each balloon can stay aloft for approximately 100 days, and can also be adjusted by local internet providers to lower operational costs if need be.
Sri Lanka was the first country in South Asia to introduce mobile phones in 1989, and was also the first country in the region to roll out a 3G network in 2004. Back in 2013, the country received its first 4G network as well. Currently, there are around 2.8 million mobile internet connections in Sri Lanka, as well as 606,000 fixed-line Internet subscribers among the country’s more than 20 million population.
This is certainly a great place to start for Project Loon, and if all goes well, the internet initiative will likely roll out to larger regions in the future.
Vivo X5Pro review
The smartphone market, especially in the United States, is extremely competitive, and it can be tough for smaller players to go up against bigger names such as Samsung, LG and Motorola. With that said, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo may have a plan to do just that.
First launched in May 2015, the Vivo X5Pro features an attractive design, display and specifications, while also being offered at a super affordable price point. Does it stack up against other popular smartphones in this space, or will the device blend into the crowd? We find that out, and more, in our full review of the Vivo X5Pro!
Read more: We have the Vivo X5Pro: ask us anything!
Design
The Vivo X5Pro features a design that’s reminiscent of other popular smartphones on the market, such as Sony’s Xperia line. With a glass sandwich design and smoothly polished aluminum sides, this is one attractive device. The front and back panels meet the aluminum frame almost seamlessly, leaving the glass panels rising just a bit higher than the frame.
Moving around the device, we have 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, on the right we have an aluminum volume rocker and power button sitting above the dual SIM card slot, and the left side features no peripherals whatsoever. The dual SIM card slot provides a little more functionality than most other handsets offer, with the second SIM slot doubling as a microSD card slot. If you only need one SIM card in your device, you’ll be happy to hear that you can expand the phone’s memory up to a massive 128GB. It’s a neat hardware feature that a few manufacturers have adopted, giving more options and versatility to the consumer.
Continuing on, the front glass panel sports an 8 megapixel front facer and a green lighting notification light with 3 capacitive buttons at the bottom. The left-most button is an options key, the center is a home button, and the back button sits on the right side. On the back of the phone, the camera module is in the upper left with the a single LED flash. The Vivo branding sits square in the middle although oriented sideways.
The total result is a device that carries a premium design aesthetic, is fairly pocketable, and is relatively comfortable to hold despite being only 6.4mm thick.
Display
The X5Pro boasts a 5.2 inch 1080p Super AMOLED display at 424 pixels per inch. And it’s that Super AMOLED that really shines here. The screen produces rich colors that look great indoors and especially outdoors. The screen’s calibration leans slightly on the warmer side, and the brightness, while not the brightest on the market, is certainly bright enough for my use, normally kept at around 75%.
Viewing angles are good and colors should be vivid enough for most users. While this device doesn’t sport a Quad HD panel like many users would prefer, 1080p is still perfectly clear enough for most of us out there.
Performance and hardware
Most popular in the budget sector, the Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 615 makes an appearance in this device, bolstered with the Adreno 405 graphics processor and 2GB of RAM. While some of the other cheaper phones with lower resolution displays blaze through performance metrics with this CPU, here the X5Pro stumbles every so often.
Most of the time it’s a fairly fluid experience, but there are many times where the device will lag, almost like the software is playing catch up. Scrolling through web pages can be a tad difficult at times, especially when the phone stutters all the way down to the bottom of the webpage. It doesn’t happen so often that it makes the phone a headache, but often enough that you will notice after use all day. Unfortunately it does only come standard with 16GB of storage, but again you can ramp that up to 128GB through expansion.
Despite having two speaker grills on the bottom, the X5Pro only has one speaker that fires from the left. Regardless, it’s loud enough for media consumption without headphones, but lacks the richness in low end to make it a solid choice for sharing music.
The battery is the smaller side, especially given the larger footprint of this phone with a 5.2 inch display. It comes in at 2450mAh non-removable cell and is almost always a sure shot for a full day’s use. With moderate but consistent use, using mostly apps, web browsing, camera, and phone calling, I ended the day with about 40% left. But on a day when I focused on app and video use consistently I ran the battery down by the end of the night to about 13%.
Because the built in UI doesn’t allow for battery status checking or screen on time, I had to use a 3rd party app, which didn’t seem to register as accurately as I’d hope. The screen-on time of 3 hours shown, seemed to be less than what I actually got on the day of heavy use.
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Camera
Vivo’s camera choice here is a 13 megapixel shooter. Overall, it’s certainly not anything to write home about, but it functions as most do in this price range. Photos in well-lit areas are pretty good, with colors tending to lack a bit of saturation, which makes pictures look a tad dull. Shooting photos indoors without the flash turned on result in a great deal of noise. And because there’s no OIS, folks with less steady hands can expect a bit of a blur, especially in darker photos. Features like HDR and Face Beauty help add some pizzaz to the photos to help compensate for the sometimes dull standard shots.
On the front sits a somewhat larger-than-average 8 megapixel camera that can take high resolution images, but even in good lighting conditions, the front facer finds focus difficult to achieve and almost never gets the image without a bit of blur.
On the front a somewhat larger than average 8 megapixel camera takes high resolution images, but even in good lighting conditions finds focus difficult to achieve and almost never gets the image without a bit of blur.
Software
Vivo’s take on software is their Funtouch OS 2.1 layered over Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, which, in its basic appearance, greatly resembles iOS. Numerous icons are almost a blatant copy of something you’d find on an iPhone, which isn’t something we’re ecstatic about. And while the quick settings page, which can be accessed from a quick swipe up from the bottom of the screen, is arguably more functional in this location, looks a little too familiar, as well.
The left capacitive key brings up a different options menu depending on which app you’re currently using. While Google has tried moving OEMs away from using designated options keys in their devices, it can provide a bit of extra functionality to users in certain situations. For instance, if you’re on the home screen, it’ll behave partly like other Android phones when holding down anywhere on the home screen, bringing up the widgets and page swiping effects settings. Other apps like Chrome will bring up the list of options to select a new tab, bookmark, check history and more.
Since this capacitive key is normally used to bring up the list of opened apps, Vivo has implemented their own widget for this. It shows the number of apps currently running, the percent of RAM used and the efficiency of the phone. clicking on the wheel is the equivalent of clearing all unused apps. Tapping left allows you to go into the app, giving more detail and allowing to clear any specific tasks, a lot like windows task manager.
Themes also make a return here as well as a device manger app that grant and refuses permissions to certain apps.
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Specifications
| Display | 5.2-inch Super AMOLED, 1080 x 1920 resolution |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 |
| RAM | 2GB |
| GPU | Adreno 405 |
| Storage | 16GB internal, microSD expansion up to 128GB |
| Camera | 13MP rear-facing camera 8MP front-facing camera |
| Battery | 2450mAh, non-removable |
| Software | Android 5.0 Lollipop, Vivo Funtouch OS 2.1 |
| Dimensions | 147.9 x 73.5 x 6.4mm |
| Colors | Black, White |
| Dual SIM | Yes |
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Pricing and final thoughts
The Vivo X5Pro is now available from Amazon and through Vivo’s website for just under $440 USD.
So, there you have it, our full review of the Vivo X5Pro! While the device’s camera and performance might leave much to be desired, the beautiful design, interesting, yet familiar software experience, and beautiful screen almost make up for the handset’s shortcomings. With budget-friendly options consistently decreasing in price, it’s tough to recommend the X5Pro to users who are looking for a solid handset.
What are your thoughts on the device? If the X5Pro is available in your region, do you think you’ll pick one up? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below!
Alcatel OneTouch brings the low-cost Elevate and Conquest smartphones to Boost Mobile
Whether you’re looking for an Android smartphone that you can take camping, or a device that won’t break the bank, Boost Mobile has you covered. Smartphone manufacturer Alcatel OneTouch has just announced two new budget-friendly options for the Sprint subsidiary, one of which is already available for purchase.
The Alcatel OneTouch Conquest is for those who prefer to spend their time outside. Featuring IP67 certification and an all-around durable build, this device is both waterproof and dustproof for those folks who need a little extra protection. On the spec front, the Conquest features a 5.0-inch 720p display, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, a 5MP rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing camera and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. This device, pictured in the above image on the left, is now available for purchase from Boost Mobile for only $129.99.
Check out the video below to get a better look at the rugged smartphone.
Alcatel OneTouch has also announced that another budget smartphone, called the Elevate, will make its way to Boost Mobile in August. This device comes with a 4.5-inch FWVGA display, a 1.1GHz quad-core processor, 4G LTE connectivity, a 5MP rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing shooter, and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop. It will be available from the carrier in August for only $99.99.
If you’d like some more details on either of these new handsets, check out the press release in the source link below.
Google Translate now faster, covers more languages
Google has announced some improvements to their Google Translate app for both Android and iOS to make it even easier to communicate around the world. The changes include twenty new languages added to the instant visual translation function and revisions that speed up the conversational translation capabilities so it will work even on slow network connections.
The Google Translate app was already capable of providing visual translations for seven languages – English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This is accomplished by pointing your device’s camera at a sign or text in one of these languages and then letting the app provide a translation almost instantaneously. Now Google has added twenty more languages including Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. In addition to these languages which can be translated to or from English, Google provides one way translation from English to Hindi and Thai. To help showcase the visual translation capabilities, Google’s team produced the video below set to “La Bamba”.
Click here to view the embedded video.
On top of the impressive visual translation capability the app offers, Google Translate is also capable of providing translation of the spoken word across 32 languages. One challenge to this is the need for an Internet connection which is sometimes unreliable, especially in emerging markets. The update Google is pushing out promises to make these translations easier to complete on these sketchy connections and they should sound more natural in the process.
The updated Google Translate is rolling out starting today, so watch for an update on your device. You can get Google Translate or check for the availability of the update for your account by using one of the download links below.
source: Google
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Cyanogen switching from Google calendar to use Boxer calendar
Cyanogen seems to once again be switching default Google apps with replacements from the Play Store. It will now be using Boxer calendar app in Cyanogen OS12.
Boxer’s calendar app looks and functions almost identical to Google calendar. It works with all your calendars including Gmail and Exchange. You can view multiple calendars, has color coding, has a material design look, and much more.
Boxer also makes an Email app that integrates perfectly with their calendar app. Cyanogen already uses their Email app so it is no wonder why they would choose their calendar app as well.
Source: Boxer
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Sprint debuts 4-line 10GB plan for $100/month
Sprint is hot on the heels of T-Mobile in offering an enticing deal for families. They have just announced a Family Share Pack promotion that gives you four lines of service, with 10GB of shared data, for $100/month.
In usual carrier-bashing fashion, Sprint let’s us know how much better this family deal is than its rivals.
I especially like that through comparing equal pricing, Sprint is able to bypass the fact that T-Mobile has its own family promotion going on right now, which costs slightly more but IMO a better deal. As a matter of fact, seeing as how you pay Sprint $20/month more to increase the data allotment to 40GB, both promotions are very close.
Bear in mind that the quoted monthly cost covers service only. Sprint states that you must acquire each phone via Sprint Lease or Sprint Easy Pay (financing the phone’s total cost).
Unlimited talk and text are included in the plan, and the payout offer associated with switching from your current carrier. Sprint says that the Family Share Pack is a limited time offer but doesn’t say how long it will run.
Source: Sprint
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AIVAnet 