Meet the man who owned Google.com for one minute
Former Google employee Sanmay Ved bought Google.com for $12 on September 29, 2015. He owned the domain for a full minute before somebody somewhere realized this probably wasn’t supposed to happen and revoked Ved’s backstage access.
No, this isn’t an Onion article, it apparently actually happened.
Ved said that he was up late browsing Google Domains, which is Google’s website buying service. While there, he saw that Google.com was available for purchase at the incredibly reasonable price of $12. Long-time readers may recall that Google.com is the most heavily trafficked domain in the world and is kind of a big deal.
“I thought it was some error,” said Ved, “but I could actually complete check out.”
Ved added Google.com to his shopping cart, completed the checkout process, and for all intents and purposes became the proud new owner of the internet as we know it. Rather than getting the usual email notifying him that he had completed a purchase, Ved’s Google Search Console dashboard was updated, and he began receiving messages intended for the Google.com domain owner. He also began receiving emails with internal information, which Ved says he later turned over to Google’s security team.
“The scary part was I had access to the webmaster controls for a minute,” said Ved.
He took a rapid series of screenshots and documented his whole experience on a LinkedIn post.
Ved’s tenure as God of the Internet was fleeting, however. Google Domains reversed the sale about a minute after the purchase went through and sent him a message that claimed someone had registered the site before he could. Ved was refunded the $12 the domain had cost him and went back to being mortal. However, if only for a moment, Ved flew.
“So for one minute I had access,” said Ved. “I can’t shake that feeling that I actually owned Google.com.”
Martian Active Collection: Taking the traditional watch design and making it smarter
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
The smartwatch game is growing constantly. Adoption rate isn’t growing as fast as manufacturers are cranking out device though. It seems to be hit and miss on how people perceive the wearables that are currently available. Many that I have spoken with don’t see a need for another screen attached to their wrist that they have to worry about breaking, charging or learning. Others couldn’t live without the abilities that many, like Android Wear or the Apple Watch, offer. Arguably the two best wearable platforms are Android Wear and Apple Watch. While those might be the ones you hear the most about, there are others out there that can offer a lot to consumer with a different approach. Martian Watches is one such company that I have had the privilege of growing with over the last few years. Unlike many of the other big name brands, Martian took the idea of the smartwatch and went back to the roots, which is a ‘watch’ and then made it smarter.
Building the business up with a watch first direction keeps them in a different market then the more flashy smartwatch manufactures. The first line to hit the shelves was the Martian Voice Command. It offered a square Passport and rounded, but still square, Victory line. They followed up that line with a simpler design, the Notifier, that took the mic and speaker out to bring just notifications to your wrist. At CES 2015 we got to take a look at this year’s line, the Martian Active Collection, that brings back the voice command line, but takes its old design and goes more stylish.
Whats in the box
The packaging is very classical and places the watch first and foremost when you first receive it. It is wrapped around a soft and squishy little pillow inside the box. under the pillow and watch you find the bare necessities like a charging cable, but no wall plug, some legal documents and a short instruction manual.
The Martian Active overview
The new line, Martian Active collection, really steps up the company offerings in terms of looks, design and functionality. The Active collection features 5 distinct designs.
(From left to right you have the Electra S10, Aviator B10, Envoy G10, Alpha T10, and Electra E10.)
Just looking at the images you can see these aren’t your typical LCD or AMOLED screen faces. By design, the Active line is a watch first and foremost. The time is kept by an analog quartz watch with Japanese movement. Inside, the watch is powered by a typical watch batter that keeps your time for approximately 2 years before it needs replacing. Unlike other smart watches, this design lets you still use the watch even if the smart part of it is dead.
The smarts of the watch comes via a 96 x 16 pixel graphic OLED display found in the bottom part of the watch face. The display will ticker feed you all the calls, texts, emails, calendar appointments and more with minimal effort. The OLED is powered by a separate lithium polymer battery that is charged up via your typical micro USB cord. Charge time is about 2 hours and your smart parts should stay on and available for 5 days of use.
As with a normal watch, you have your crown on the side to set the time. You also have two additional buttons, one above and one below. The button on the bottom is a select button of sorts. It lets you pull up a digital clock, the date, the weather and scroll through the menu of the watch. From the menu on the display you can set the watches speaker volume, activate the small LED light to help you find a keyhole, turn on Do Not Disturb to silence all notifications, Camera Mode to trigger your phone’s camera, Find My Phone to force your device to ring, along with other setup details.
The top button is a command button that triggers both Siri and Google Now, depending on your device. Yes, the Martian Active line does offer a mic on the right hand side which offers noise cancellation and a fairly loud directional speaker on the left side. Triggering commands gives you all the same abilities you would have with either platforms voice command apps. With Google Now you can send texts, make calls, add appointments, reminders, search direction and everything else Google Now is capable of doing. You do need to wait a few seconds as the trigger isn’t as fast as if you did it directly on your phone, but it works just as well.
The body of the watch is a light weight nylon composite resin case with a screwed on metal plate on the back. 4 screws hold it in placed. Under the plate is where the battery can be replaced for the normal watch aspect of the device. The top glass is a anti-scratch mineral glass and is your typical 42MM diameter with a weight of .5 pounds.
In the case of the Alpha T10, the watch strap is made from a flexible, but thick, silicone. The clasp is made from stainless steel and looks awesome. Other variants of the watch come with a leather strap of sorts to match its body and could be a bit more pleasing to some.
3 Weeks hands-on with the Martian Alpha
Martian was kind enough to ship me over the design of my choice to give it a whirl prior to their launch exclusively at Bloomingdale’s on September 12th. I opted for the Alpha T10 because of its classy look that would be good for both business and for pleasure. I was also drawn to it because of the inner military time aspect. Having a few friends in the military who still tell me times in military time, this has become useful more than a few times. Rather than mentally thinking what time 2100 hours is, I can glance down and know its 9 p.m.
As I have used the last two iteration of Martian Watches, I can speak to the improvements the company has made over the years. My biggest gripe on previous models was centered around charging. Martian had recessed the micro USB port behind a rubber grommet that required a longer, and proprietary, charging cable. In the new Active line they have since seated the port closer and it can easily be charged with any micro USB cable you have sitting around. The estimated charge time from 0% to 100% of 2 hours was accurate to my calculations and so was the 5 days of usage. The occasions that I forgot to plug it in weren’t world ending as it charged quickly on commutes or while I was getting ready for work. I could easily plug it in for 45 minutes and get through an entire day without worry.
Pairing the watch is as easy as pairing with any other Bluetooth device. Once you install the app, you run through a few motions and are up and running in less than a minute. Once paired you are free to set it up any way you wish through the Martian app.
Martian also dramatically improved the wrist strap of the watch allowing for removal and changing of the bands at will. The included band, on the Alpha T10, is made from silicone with a stainless steel clasp to keep it on your wrist. The new design also allows for something that the Martian Notifier didn’t, and that is for the watch to actually lay flat. Might be silly to want that ability, but it is worth mentioning.
Over the month of use I experienced very few issues. There was a few times, and I mean like 2 times, that it needed to be plugged into power to turn back on even though it was charged well over 50%. I never did discover the reasoning behind it, but it it happened. The delay between hitting the voice button and the phone connecting to Google Now took a bit of time to get used to. With it active the watch still directs all voice controls through your wrist, so if you are using your phone and tap the mic, or use the Google Now command, you will need to give it a second or so or else your command will only be partly recognized.
The Martian App
The app is what brings you what you want to the OLED. Through the app on your device you can enable, or disable, any and all notifications you desire. I personally keep things simple. I want calls, texts and hangouts. However, you can get email alerts, calendar, alarms, reminders and much more, as you can see in the screenshots below.
Inside the app you can also set the vibration intensity for notifications along with specific vibration patterns. I have an absolutely horrible memory, so setting 2 long and short doesn’t make me think of a text at all. I feel it vibrate and I look.
Sound
With the Martian Active line you have a mic and speaker. The mic lets you take calls, ask Google questions, command your phone and more. The speaker gives the voice feedback from those questions or the people you are talking to on the phone. The speaker also offers up audio for call ringtones and notification tones. I spoke to many people while walking around the house, the store and driving in the car. No one gave me ill feedback about my sound quality from the noise cancelling mic, nor were there any missed voice actions with Google. I was able to hear the caller in most cases, but did find myself pulling my hand to my face for a little more volume occasionally.
Overall thoughts
I have always thought highly of Martian and their line of smartwatches. They take the watch first approach and make it smarter. They cater to a very different type of user on the market who love a real watch, but want their watch to do a little bit more in their lives. The latest Active collection is step in the right direction for both form, design and functionality. It certainly looks more ‘watch’ like and premium than the first two lines. I can’t necessarily directly compare it against the Notifier collection because that collection was aimed at notifications only with no voice actions or controls. My only real disappointment with the Active collection is the branding of Active. While it certainly looks Active and some of the models look more sporty than others, they suffer with an IPX-4 rating which only covers splashes from various directions. That cuts out pools, hot tubs and showers. I would have gone with an IPX-5 or IPX-6 with an ‘Active’ collection. After all, busy people may need to see meetings, texts, calls and more while hitting the shower before work, after a workout at the gym or when they are back at the hotel taking a dip in the pool. It isn’t enough of a detractor to make me dislike the watch, as it still serves a very relevant purpose in 90% of a normal users day. Just take it off before you get in the water.
Pricing
Pricing for the Martian Active line cruise up some from the previous Notifier line. They vary from $249.99 to $299.99 depending on the model you choose. The least expensive variant is the Envoy G10 with the higher priced listing being for the more female orientated Electra E10. You can find them Bloomingdale’s across the nation or check out the MartianWatches.com website to get more details and place an order.
The post Martian Active Collection: Taking the traditional watch design and making it smarter appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
ZTE alleges that Google ripped off the design of the Nexus 6P from the ZTE Grand S
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
The smartphone world is rife with design patent disputes, the most famous of which was Apple successfully taking Samsung to task for infringing on its designs. However, there’s a difference between that, and devices that look vaguely alike, something that ZTE‘s marketing head, Lu Qian Hao, has decided to point out. In a post on Weibo, Lu suggests that Google derived the design of the Nexus 6P from the ZTE Grand S, and posted photos of photos which presumably prove the infringement.
Presumably, if there was a genuine patent dispute here, ZTE would be handling it quietly, discreetly and professionally – pointing it out publicly only suggests that they don’t have a patent on their design. We can definitely see where Lu thinks there is some copying going on – the black bar at the top of both devices is glaringly prominent – but that’s just about where the similarities end, and even then they aren’t even that similar. Of course, we now know that the Nexus 6P has the black bar at the top to let wireless signals in and out, though we wonder if the same can be said of the Grand S’ black bar.
Source: Weibo via Phone Arena
The post ZTE alleges that Google ripped off the design of the Nexus 6P from the ZTE Grand S appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Microsoft buys 3D physics developer Havok to boost gaming efforts
Microsoft today announced the acquisition of Havok from Intel. Havok makes a 3D physics engine and licenses it to gaming studios; its work has been featured on more than 600 titles, including popular franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Destiny, Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls and Microsoft’s own Halo. While Microsoft says it is delighted to add Havok’s technologies to its robust portfolio of tools and components for developers, like DirectX 12 and Azure, it did point out that it won’t stop supporting partners going forward. “We will continue to license Havok’s technology to the broad AAA games industry,” Microsoft said in a statement to IGN. “This also means that we will continue to license Havok’s technology to run across various game consoles including Sony and Nintendo.”
Source: Microsoft
10 reasons why your Android battery is charging slowly and how to fix them
You can remember a time when it didn’t take all night to charge your phone. Back in those golden days of yore, your Android’s battery meter went from a pixel-wide strip of red to a fat green bar in a quarter of an hour. Nowadays, however, your poor phone takes ages to recharge, and you’re constantly scrambling from one charge session to the next. Or maybe your phone has always been a snail-paced charger, constantly left in the dust by your friends’ devices.
Whatever your experience, it’s time to finally put your smartphone under a diagnostic microscope and get to the root of its slow-charging issue. Odds are your phone is suffering from one of these ten ailments, and we’re going to show you how to fix it if possible.
We’re going to tackle these roughly in order of decreasing likelihood, so let’s start with the most common culprit…
Possibility 1: You have a bad cable
If your phone is charging slowly, checking the USB cable should always be your first step. It’s actually pretty understandable once you consider all the wear and tear your basic USB cable goes through in the course of everyday use. Many people keep using the same charger setup that came with their device for years, unaware that USB cables tend to get beat up pretty easily.
USB cables are dropped, bent, stepped on, left in cars during scorching and freezing conditions, and plugged in and out of devices on a daily basis. One thing to keep in mind is that USB cables are designed to be less robust than your device’s port. When push comes to shove, you’d rather have your cable break than your phone’s port because the cable is much easier (and cheaper) to replace. That’s why manufacturers deliberately construct USB cables to take the brunt wear-and-tear.
Most of the time, it’s the USB cable’s fault
Ever have one of those cables that didn’t seem to “stick” in the phone anymore? It just frustratingly falls out for, like, no reason. Take a look at the underside of the USB male connector. You’ll see two thin little “teeth” that keep the USB firmly plugged into your device. Those are made to bend pretty easily in the event of any trauma – like your phone getting yanked quickly off the charger – and once they’re bent, they’re toast. Also, look inside the front end of the connector. You’ll find a line of tiny little prongs. Those are made of relatively soft metal, because if one gets slightly out of line, you don’t want it damaging your phone’s port.
In short, lots can go wrong with a USB cable and they are manufactured to be wimps about it. Grab a new USB cable, and you should be good to go. This and this alone probably constitutes 90% of slow-charging problems. If you swap cables and keep experiencing problems, though, then feel free to move along to…
Possibility 2: You have a weak power source
If you’re using your PC to charge your phone, then your phone is going to charge very slowly. Even with USB 3.0, the standard energy output is only .9A (.5mA for USB 2.0). And that’s under ideal circumstances; any damage to your USB cable or ports can knock that meager flow of energy even lower. Likewise, if you’re using wireless charging, you’re going to get a pretty glacial charge as well. No one’s arguing that wireless charging isn’t cool – it certainly is – but we’re kind of butting our heads against physics and safety at this point. Long story short, it’s just plain faster to plug your phone in.
Related: Best wireless chargers – how they work and perform
So yeah, there’s your solution. A lot of device owners use inefficient methods because they just think “charging is charging,” but currently the fastest way to get your battery back to full is to use a dedicated wall charger and physically plug your device into it. If you’re doing this and you still have sluggish charging, the problem might lie in your home’s wiring (if it’s a particularly old building), or it could be that…
Possibility 3: You have a bad adapter
Yeah, that little blocky thing that plugs into the wall. Maybe a power surge left it a little wonky or it got kicked around during a move. Once again, this device is made to take on the brunt of any trauma rather than your phone, so they tend to not be the most stalwart little devices. Grab a new one and get back to charging full-speed.
Possibility 4: Your phone may be outmoded
It can be a touchy subject, but it might be time to update your device. Modern devices have processors that support more rapid charging, and some devices have turbocharging capabilities. If your phone feels like it’s charging slower compared to people who have newer devices, this might be your issue.
However, even if you’ve got a solid device that you know used to charge faster (not only compared to your peers), the sad reality is that things fall apart. The center doesn’t hold. Hardware decays. The falcon cannot hear the falconer, and phones are not immune to the inexorable pull of entropy dragging everything to the ultimate heat death of the universe.
Also, you could have a bad battery.
Possibility 5: You have a bad battery
There have been many instances of manufacturers issuing recalls for whole batches of batteries. Search online to see if your phone’s model came with a bad battery, and see if you can acquire a replacement from your provider. Also, like your phone in general, batteries just get old and bad.
If you happen to own a device such as the LG G4, Galaxy S5 or Galaxy Note 4, good news! If your battery has gone bad, you can purchase a new one from Amazon and pop it into your phone right away when it’s delivered. If you own a device with a non-removable battery such as the Galaxy S6, Note 5, or Moto X Pure Edition, though, you’ll have to send the device in to the manufacturer to get it replaced.
See also: 5 tips to improve the Galaxy S6 Edge’s battery life
Possibility 6: The Enemy is You
Take a look in the mirror, because it’s time for some introspection. How addicted to Facebook are you? Do you have a Candy Crush Saga problem? Do you habitually play with your phone while it’s charging?
A surprising number of smartphone users aren’t aware that the biggest drain on their phone’s battery is the screen. Keeping that gorgeous display lit up with high-resolution Facebook drama will use up battery even as your phone soaks it up. If you combine this with one of the other problems above, you might find yourself in a situation where you are using battery power faster than your phone can take it in.
If you need your phone to charge quickly, give it a rest while it’s on the charger.
Possibility 7: Background apps are sapping your battery
Although your screen is the number one battery sucker, you might have some sneaky apps running in the background that are constantly draining power, causing your phone to charge slower. In addition to charging sluggishly, does your phone also feel like it runs through its battery life faster than it used to? If so, this may be your issue. Apps in Android often boot themselves up or run in the background after only being opened for a moment. Although this used to be a bigger problem than it currently is–Android is getting better and better at efficiently managing resources–having a rogue app or two can give your phone’s performance a nasty hit.
The easiest solution here is to grab a good task manager and check it frequently to see what’s running when it shouldn’t be. When you locate a misbehaving app, try uninstalling it and see if your battery life and charge speed is improved over the next few days.
Possibility 8: Your USB port is obstructed
Your phone spends all day rattling around in your pocket or purse with all manner of lint, dust, and particles. It’s pretty common for a USB port to get a little bit of that trash lodged inside of it. If you plugged in your charger without noticing, it may have packed the obstruction in even deeper, which might be preventing your charger from making a good connection.
Using a bright light and perhaps magnification, look around inside your phone’s USB port for anything that shouldn’t be in there. If you see something that obviously doesn’t belong, grab a thin, pointed object and carefully try to remove it. Remember playing that board game Operation as a kid? We’re in that kind of territory here. Be very careful not to damage any of the port’s components, or you could end up with a bigger problem than you currently have.
I recommend using a plastic (not wooden) toothpick if you can find one. Alternatively, giving your port a good scrub with a dry, brand new toothbrush is a very effective and safe way to make sure it’s free of any blockage.
Possibility 9: Your USB port is damaged
Oh boy. This is what we were hoping it wasn’t. If you’ve made it this far, and your phone still isn’t charging correctly, then you may have broken or bent a pin inside your phone’s USB port. At this point, you should really consider taking your phone to a professional for repair. If you got insurance from your cellular provider, then you may be able to get this issue repaired for cheap or free. Take your phone by a shop and get a quote on a repair job.
Possibility 10: Your USB port is corroded
Yes, you might also have some corrosion in there from sweat or humidity. Corrosion is particularly vicious little problem, because it creates a film over the connective hardware that prevents a proper charge, but even worse, if you don’t get rid of it, it can keep eating away at your device, causing larger and larger issues.
Taking your phone’s life into your own hands is risky business
Once again, you should really consider professional help at this point. Going forward, you risk voiding your phone’s warranty and doing serious damage to the device. However, if you decide to take your phone’s life into your own hands, and you are comfortable and familiar with the process of disassembling and reassembling mobile devices, then you should know that many corrosion problems can be dealt with using just white vinegar and rubbing alcohol.
Disassemble your device to expose the area of corrosion. The intricacies of this process outstrip the scope of this article and will vary from device to device, so once again, unless you’ve done this before and the phrase “disassemble your device” doesn’t make your stomach jerk viscerally, take your phone to a professional. For those moving forward, most corrosion can be removed by using a cotton swab dabbed in distilled white vinegar. Rub down all the corrosion you see with a light touch, and be careful not to get vinegar into the uncorroded areas. I probably don’t have to say this, but getting vinegar into your phone is bad.
Once you’ve coated the corrosion with vinegar, wait 5-8 minutes, then use the tip of a paper towel to remove the vinegar. Repeat this process until there is no sign of corrosion. This accomplished, dab the area with rubbing alcohol on the tip of a cotton swab and let the device air-dry for half an hour. Reassemble your phone, and you should be good to go!
Conclusion
Whew, I think that just about covers it. If you’re getting a slow charge, I hope you found the solution you needed on this list. And I hope it didn’t have to come to you sitting with all your phone’s parts spread around you like a mobile autopsy.
Did we miss anything? Have you experienced any problems with crappy charging that don’t appear on this list? Got a better solution to one of the problems listed above? Let us know in the comments!
Latest Nova Launcher update lets you rescale icon size with the new Icon Normalization feature
The populace was thrilled when Nova Launcher started toying with icon normalization in beta. For ease of on-sight recognition, Google has always encouraged developers to give their icons a “unique silhouette,” but this variety comes with an aesthetic cost. Varying icon dimensions can make your tray look like an absolute mess. Nova’s new algorithm promises to scale up undersized icons to give your home screen and tray a consistent feel, and the update finally available to everybody in the Google Play Store.
Scaling icons is kind of a tricky process. You might think that you would only need to bring them all up to the same dimensions, but this isn’t the case. Although the icons would technically exist in equally sized ‘frames,’ the problem is that the human eye regards consistency in terms of area. If a circle icon and a square icon with the same width are adjacent to each other, the square will look much larger than the circle.
Nova Launcher’s icon normalization process has the ability to identify different shapes and scale them such that icons have a consistent area. It’s a pretty smart feature, and it isn’t limited to identifying simple shapes. It also considers any protrusions or extensions that the icon has and realigns the image to fit more naturally in a grid.
Don’t miss: 15 best Android launcher apps of 2015
The developer received a lot of feedback during beta to adjust the algorithm, and the results are pretty awesome. In addition to adding the icon normalization, the new Nova Launcher update also includes Marshmallow style search bars in color and grayscale, runtime permissions on Marshmallow, and a handful of optimizations and bug fixes. Once you get the update, you can turn on icon normalization in the Look and Feel menu. Even if you don’t have a premium license for Nova, you’ll still be able to have access to this feature.
Playdate: An introverted journey with ‘The Beginner’s Guide’
Everybody needs a creative outlet — a valve, if you will, to relieve the pressure of modern humanity. What if your outlet was creating video games? And what if a friend of yours compiled the games you made during a specific personal crisis, and distributed them to the world to digest? If they did, you’d have The Beginner’s Guide, Davey Wrenden’s weird, introverted interactive narrative experience. Join me, Tim Seppala and the disembodied voice of Wrenden himself at 6PM ET (3PM PT)on Twitch.tv/Joystiq, the Engadget gaming homepage and right here in this post as we explore the mind of a game developer “struggling to deal with something they do not understand.” Fair warning, though: this one is gonna get a little weird.
http://www.twitch.tv/joystiq/embedWatch live video from Joystiq on www.twitch.tv
http://www.twitch.tv/joystiq/chat?popout=
[We’re streaming The Beginner’s Guide at 720p through OBS, so rest assured this game will look dramatically better on your PC at home.]
Google is now Alphabet, the owner of Google
The paperwork is filed and it’s official: Google has restructured itself into Alphabet. As of the close of business today shares of the old Google are now part of Alphabet, which counts Google as a subsidiary. On our end, this doesn’t change much — unless you’re a big fan of Ingress or Pokemon — but now leaders Sergey Brin and Larry Page can chase innovations in seemingly unrelated areas. Sundar Pichai will keep running day-to-day operations at the new Google, except now with the title of CEO. Google now includes Android, Search, YouTube, Apps, Maps and Ads. Meanwhile, Alphabet can focus on Google Fiber (high speed internet), Calico and Life Sciences (health), Google Ventures and Google Capital (investments), Nest (home automation) and Google X (everything fun, like drone deliveries and self-driving cars).
[Image credit: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press]
Google Proceeds With Implementation of New Operating Structure
10/2/2015Google Inc. announced today that, pursuant to its previously announced plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet Inc. (“Alphabet”), by implementing a holding company reorganization (the “Alphabet Merger”), it expects that the Alphabet Merger will close after the close of business on October 2, 2015. Google anticipates that shares of Google Class C Capital Stock and shares of Google Class A Common Stock will begin trading as Alphabet Class C Capital Stock and Alphabet Class A Common Stock, respectively, on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on October 5, 2015. Shares of Alphabet Class C Capital Stock and shares of Alphabet Class A Common Stock will continue to be traded under the same ticker symbols under GOOG and GOOGL, respectively.
Update: The Alphabet merger is now effective. For more information on the merger, please see Alphabet’s Form 8-K filed on October 2, 2015.
Android TV gets new partners, new content
Not slowing down from the release of new devices on Tuesday, today Google announced some updates to the Android TV ecosystem. This is just in time for the Fall TV season, so hopefully this will help you keep up with all your shows.
First off, Android TV now has SHOWTIME®, HBO NOW, and CBS All Access available for use, so you can catch up on shows like Homeland and Big Bang Theory.
Also being thrown into the mix is Disney Movies Anywhere, which is Disney’s digital movie system. EPIX, WWE, and UFC are all also now available on Android TV. For a full list of Android TV apps, go here.
Along with new apps, new TV manufacturers are going to start including Android TV on select models, such as Hisense and TCL. Set-top box manufacturers like Pace, Sagemcom, and Technicolor, along with Pay TV services such as KDDI and Telecom Italia are all going to be partnering with Android TV and including the system with their various products.
That’s a lot of new ways to use Android TV! Google is clearly doing what they can to make Android TV ubiquitous throughout the various ways people use their TV. This continues their efforts to make Android available in a myriad of places, leaving plenty of choice for us as the consumers.
Does any of this new excite you?
SOURCE: Official Android Blog
The post Android TV gets new partners, new content appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Android experiences big gains in September
Net Market Share has indicated a large rise in market-share of the Android OS platform in the month of September. This is mainly due to a large slump in Apple sales over the past month.
Even though Apple’s newest iPhones were announced this past month, it wasn’t enough to keep up with the growing momentum of Android handsets. In the month of September, Apple’s iOS market share fell to 38.58% down from the 40.82% that it had in August. Android showed the largest gains rising from 52.14% in August up to 53.54% in September. It should be noted that Android began the year at 47.45%. This month marks the largest change yield between to the two platforms since last year. In addition, Microsoft’s mobile market share saw a drop of .12% this month, which now sits at only 2.48%. For BlackBerry, the slump in sales has continued on. The company’s share is so low that it has been moved into the ‘Other’ category.
What do you think? Are Android flagships gaining some steam? All the details regarding September’s market-share can be viewed at the source link down below.
Source: Net Market Share
Via: BGR
Come comment on this article: Android experiences big gains in September
AIVAnet 