Speaker found in ZenWatch 2, fuels speculations of audio support in new Android Wear update
Recently there was a lot of buzz about the discovery of an uncredited speaker inside the Huawei Watch, fueling speculation that Google may provide a speaker support in the new Android Wear update. Now, even the ASUS ZenWatch 2 has been found to feature an unused speaker, indicating that the speculations may not be far fetched.
A Google+ user, David Sears, laid bare his ZenWatch 2 and found that his wearable discreetly housed a speaker just like the Huawei Watch. He, along with a number of smartwatch owners, is now hoping that the new software update will make his ZenWatch capable of making phone calls.
“Asus ZenWatch 2 has a speaker like the Huawei Watch so I think Google is going to include speaker support in a future update. There is talk that Android 6.0 Marshmallow will support phone calls from the watch,” David said in his Google+ post.
Google has a history of surprising Android Wear smartwatch users with its frequent updates. A software update, earlier this year, enabled Wi-Fi for a number of already available wearables. So far, it has been a matter of pushing software support for devices that feature compatible hardware. In fact, there are many smartwatches available in the market with hardware features which are yet to get Android Wear support.
If Google decides to support speakers in the next Android Wear update, it is likely to bring audio notifications, telephony and even playing music on board.
Source: David Sears (Google+)
Via: 9To5Google
Come comment on this article: Speaker found in ZenWatch 2, fuels speculations of audio support in new Android Wear update
Samsung takes to YouTube to showcase its new portable battery pack
Samsung has just released its first promotional teaser for a brand new battery pack, which fully utilizes Fast Charging 2.0 technology. In the 30-second clip, the South Korean company demonstrates just how the unit can be used in conjunction with the Galaxy Note 5 to change the device from 0% to 100% in under 2-hours.
Check it out after the break.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Come comment on this article: Samsung takes to YouTube to showcase its new portable battery pack
PSA: You will soon be able to gift Play Music All Access subscriptions to friends and family
According to a new report, Google is in the midst of developing a pretty neat new feature for Play Music All Access users. The functionality is expected to bear the name “Music Gifts” and will furnish customers with the ability to pay for either a 1, 3 or 6-month subscription of the service for their friends and family.
Music Gifts already has its own support page over on the Google Forums, entitled “Gifting & Lending Digital Content”. Unfortunately, the page simply presents a “403 Forbidden” error when searched for, but the presence of the domain adds credibility to this leak.
Would you be interested in this feature? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Source: Google
Come comment on this article: PSA: You will soon be able to gift Play Music All Access subscriptions to friends and family
New York City may finally ditch annoying taxi TV screens
Hop into one of New York City’s yellow cabs and you’ll notice a Taxi TV unit. It’s supposed to handle payments and give you a feel for current events, but it’s mostly annoying — especially when you’re a frequent passenger watching that talk show sizzle reel for the umpteenth time. Thankfully, relief may be in sight. The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is near voting on a trial program that would ditch Taxi TV in favor of less obnoxious tech, such as tamper-proofed phones or tablets. Only 4,000 cabs out of 13,500 would be part of the pilot, but the hope is to eventually drop Taxi TV entirely. Suffice it to say that the transition can’t come soon enough for a lot of people, including the cabbies themselves. The noise can be tiresome if you’re a driver, and there’s not much point to the TVs when many customers are too busy with their phones to pay attention.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Teru Iwasaki]
Via: New York Times
Source: NYC.gov (PDF)
August unveils a Homekit-enabled lock, keypad and doorbell camera
August Home Inc, makers of the August Smart Lock, announced the forthcoming release of three new products as well as a new service at a press event in San Francisco today. The new product lineup includes a second-generation Smart Lock, a Smart Keypad and a Smart Doorbell Camera. The lock itself offers a number of design improvements over its predecessor including a magnetic faceplate that won’t pop off every time you manually engage the lock as well as a stainless steel indicator on the lock sleeve. Plus, being Homekit-enabled, the new Smart Lock will allow users to issue voice commands through Siri rather than opening the app itself. It’s available for order today and will retail for $230. The older generation locks will be discounted to an even $200.
The weather-proofed keypad will make granting temporary access to service providers (say, the delivery guy or your dog walker) much easier. Instead of forcing folks to download the August app just to use a one-time Bluetooth code, users will be able to program a 4 – 6 digit PIN into the keypad themselves and then share the code via text message or what-have-you. And, like the older shared BT codes, these PINs can be set to last for as many hours, days or uses as you’d like. The keypad will retail for $80 when it becomes available in the next few weeks.
The Doorbell Cam is also weather-proofed, Wi-Fi enabled and pretty darn clever. It’s equipped with a standard motion detector but will also turn on the camera when it detects movement near the door. So instead of issuing a push notification every time a car drives past your house, the motion detector will also turn on the Wi-Fi camera (which is equipped with human-detection software) to ensure that the movement is actually a person standing on your stoop, not just parking at the curb. The camera will retail for $200.
What’s more, the camera integrates with the rest of the August devices allowing you to remotely unlock your door for the delivery guy and record both him entering and exiting the residence. This ensures that he doesn’t swiped stuff from your house while dropping a package in the foyer. Plus, this way, you’ll never miss a delivery. The only drawback is that the camera is powered by your existing doorbell wiring so if you don’t have a doorbell already installed on your door (like me) you are SOL.
Finally, August is expanding the scope of its temporary access system to allow services, not just individuals access to your door. “We’re announcing a new service that we call Access,” August co-founder Jason Johnson told Engadget. “Probably the best way to describe it is, much like, new transportation apps like Uber helps consumers find service providers [in this case, drivers for hire – ed.] are in third party transportation logistics, we’re in third party service logistics. We help consumers find services that have integrated with our platform and we help them connect in a trusted and secure way.”
The company announced 12 initial launch partners today including Sears, Postmates, Pro.com, Handy, Fetch, Shyp, BloomNation, Envoy, Rinse, HelloAlfred, Wag!, Pillow, and Doorman. Instead of having to give partial access to a delivery person every single time you order from Postmates, users will be able to grant access to Postmates the company. This may seem like a security issue however it’s not that far off from what many August users already do with trusted service partners like these. Plus, the lock maintains copious logs about who opened which August-locked door with which access code so tracking down the responsible party should your valuable go missing during a delivery will be a piece of cake.
VW’s 2016 diesels have a different device that may dupe emissions tests
Just when you thought the Volkswagen emissions scandal couldn’t get any worse, it might do just that. The automaker revealed to US regulators last week that its 2016 diesel models may have a different device that could help those vehicles earn higher marks on the government’s emissions tests. The tech in question is “auxiliary emissions control device” separate from the software on automobiles made between 2009-2015 that was first disclosed last month. This new software heats the pollution control catalyst quicker, boosting the performance of the components responsible for separating harmful nitrogen dioxide into nitrogen and oxygen.
[Image credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images]
Volkswagen says that the system was disclosed as part of the approval process for the 2016 2.0 TDI vehicles and the EPA is working to determine if the tech is indeed another “defeat device.” If it is, it’ll raise questions about recent remarks from VW executives claiming software developers were to blame for the software included in last month’s revelation. It could potentially delay those vehicles going on sale, too. The company already faces a massive recall next year and class-action lawsuits on the behalf of the affected car owners.
Source: Associated Press
GoPro rewards you for sharing photos and videos of your adventures
To encourage GoPro users to share more action-packed video footage and still photos, the company is offering rewards. The GoPro Awards will give you money when your snapshots, raw video or edited footage are selected for use on the GoPro Channel or licensed for other uses. Those rewards are $500, $1,000 and $5,000, respectively, and span a smattering of nine genres including motorsports, action, adventure and more. GoPro is pretty serious about the program too, as it plans to shell out $5 million in rewards annually. The company says the awards program offers its customers a way to gain recognition for their efforts as its user base has “some of the most creative people on the planet.” Ready to submit your work? Head over the Awards page to get started.
Download Google Photos 1.7 update APK
The 1.7 update for Google Photos is mainly small big fixes and performance increases. It’s hard to tell right off the bat what is fixed, but one thing I noticed is scrolling speed when using the side scrolling is noticeably smoother, where I noticed more lag earlier. Also, simply tapping on a picture thumbnail to bring it up to fullscreen is slightly faster and smoother.
Besides the very small bug fixes, we’ll be updating this article as soon as we find more changes in the update. But for now, hit the link for the download at APK Mirror.
Google Photos 1.7 APK Download
Version 1.7.0.105329634
The post Download Google Photos 1.7 update APK appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Study finds 87% of Android devices are insecure due to lack of security updates
From the Stagefright exploit to other recent security vulnerabilities found in the Android ecosystem, it’s no secret that device security has lately been on the minds of OEMs and consumers alike. A recent study, partially funded by Google and conducted by the University of Cambridge, shows that more Android devices might be more insecure than most of us think. According to a blog post from one of the researchers, Alastair R. Beresford, on average throughout the last four years, a whopping 87% of Android devices are vulnerable to attacks by malicious applications. Beresford says that this is due to device manufacturers not providing security updates on a regular basis. He comments that while some OEMs are much better than others, this is still a major problem.
The researchers collected this data by having approximately 20,000 users download and run their Device Analyzer application, which can be found in the Google Play Store. Thanks to the app collecting data from a wide range of devices, the researchers were able to rank OEMs on the proportion of devices free from critical vulnerabilities, the number of devices running the latest version of Android, and the average number of vulnerabilities the OEM has yet to fix on any device.
See also: Google’s new Nexus devices offer specific details on security updates
So, which smartphone makers are the best at providing regular updates? According to the findings, Google’s Nexus devices scored the highest with a 5.2 out of 10, making them the safest handsets available. LG isn’t too far behind with a score of 4 out of 10, and Motorola ended up scoring a 3.1 out of 10. Samsung, Sony, HTC and ASUS have fallen behind with scores ranging from 2.7 down to 2.4.
For a more detailed breakdown of these numbers, head to the recently-launched AndroidVulnerabilities.org.
Google, Samsung and a number of other manufacturers have been doing their part to bring monthly security updates to their range of current Android smartphones. The researchers hope that by quantifying the problem, they’ll be able to help people make a decision when choosing a device. This will, in turn, provide incentive for other OEMs to take regular security updates more seriously.
Apple Aiming to Increase Music Library Matching Limit to 100,000 Tracks ‘Before the End of the Year’
Just ahead of the launch of Apple Music in late June, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue took to Twitter to reveal that Apple was “working to” increase the limit for iTunes Match libraries and Apple Music’s similar scan-and-match feature from the current 25,000 tracks to 100,000 tracks for iOS 9.
The arrival of iOS 9 last month did not come with a corresponding increase for the library matching limits, and users in our forums and elsewhere have been wondering when the increase will be rolled out or if there has been a change in plans.
In an effort to answer that question, MacRumors asked Cue for an update on the limit increase, and he tells us Apple is “definitely working on it” and that he expects it will be released “before the end of the year.”
Apple’s $25/year iTunes Match service and Apple Music’s matching feature allow users to add their own songs that are not available from the iTunes Store catalog to the cloud, making them available on other devices using the same Apple ID. The services scan a user’s music library to determine which tracks are already available in the iTunes Store, automatically making those available in the user’s library. Only those tracks that are not matched to the iTunes Store catalog are then uploaded to the cloud, saving time and bandwidth.
The scan-and-match functionality has been limited to libraries of 25,000 tracks since iTunes Match debuted in 2011, although tracks purchased from the iTunes Store do not count toward this limit. Users with larger music libraries have had to use workarounds such as splitting their tracks into two iTunes libraries in order to take advantage of the matching services, but with the impending increase to a 100,000-track limit, many of these users will no longer need to resort to these workarounds.
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