LinkedIn Android app finally fills position for ‘Material Design’
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The LinkedIn Android app is pretty much a must for anyone who is serious about professional social networking, but the ageing interface hasn’t always made that easy. Thankfully, LinkedIn has updated their app according to the Material Design guidelines which should make plenty of people happy and generally make for a better user experience.
Gone is the grey bar at the top of the app – it’s been replaced by a blue bar that gives a bit more consistency to the app. The menus have also been reshuffled quite a lot, making it easier for users to make changes to their profile without needing to dig around in the app. While the update is live for some, it appears that it is rolling out in stages – you’ll need to keep an eye out for the update on the Play Store.
http://playboard.me/widgets/pb-app-box/1/pb_load_app_box.js
What do you think about the updated LinkedIn Android app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Android Police
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Google announces the winners of it’s Paint the Town contest
Usually, when you hear stories about Google working on their self-driving cars it’s about the technology that goes into them. However, Google also cares about how they look, which is why they had a “Paint the Town” contest where people could submit artwork and the winners would have their designs go on to a Google self-driving car.
The “Paint the Town” contest theme was “my community, my neighbors” where local artists from California submitted their work for Google to judge. The results are now in, Google has selected 10 winners and two honorable mentions. The winners now have their art on the doors of Google’s self-driving cars, some of the artwork is pictured above, but you can see all the winner’s designs here.
Source: Google Self-Driving Car Project (Google+)
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Tinder is building out more information on your profile to help improve your matches
Tinder is planning on adding some new info to your dating profile soon, hoping that it’ll help you score a few more matches. The app will intelligently display things like where you worked or went to school, relying on a complex algorithm to decide if that information is relevant to the person that’s deciding which direction they’re about to swipe.
That’s a little more info than what’s currently displayed, as the app only shows mutual friends and interests right now. Tinder thinks this new info should help users land more matches, and maybe they’re right. Common interests based on your Facebook likes aren’t a great conversation starter, but graduating from the same school will definitely spark something up, at least temporarily.
That’s not all that’s new on the app, though. Tinder has changed up its messaging portion a little bit, displaying people that you frequently talk to closer to the top. You can still see your other matches below those frequent chats, but it’ll help you keep things more organized.
via: Engadget
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Bluetooth is getting big range and speed boosts in 2016
If you’re like me, you employ multiple Bluetooth devices on a daily basis. From headphones to speakers and household gadgets, the wireless connectivity drives many of our tech habits. Thanks to the Bluetooth SIG, the company that oversees the wireless technology, the connectivity that we use on the regular will be a lot better in 2016. The group announced today that in order to improve the experience with connected devices that fall under the Internet of Things (IoT), its making some big updates. While the changes are aimed at smart home gadgets, industrial automation and location-based services, Bluetooth connections in general will have four times the range and a 100 speed boost without requiring more power. This means faster data transfers for medical uses, for example. The Bluetooth SIG is also working on mesh networking so that a collection of individual devices could work together to blanket an entire area or building. This would have a major impact on homes, with the potential for all of those connected wares to work more efficiently. Of course, it means that setups like iBeacon and Google Eddystone could see improvements, too.
Via: The Next Web
Source: Business Wire
Russia demands Twitter store user data within the country
Russia’s social media shenanigans continue. After first blocking Reddit over a thread on ‘shrooms, banning Wikipedia for a single entry on cannabis, threatening Facebook over gaymojis, outlawing memes and demanding Google loosen its Android policies, the Russian government has now reportedly ordered Twitter to move data on the country’s citizens to local servers.
Source: BBC News
US trade agency isn’t allowed to block overseas internet data
If you’ve followed the smartphone patent wars, you know that the US International Trade Commission is a force to be reckoned with — copy someone’s product and you could face a sales ban. Its authority apparently doesn’t extend into the digital realm, however. An appeals court has ruled that the ITC can’t block internet transmissions from other countries when it hands down a ruling. The court argued that there’s a “fundamental difference” between data and material goods, and that the ITC’s authority only covers physical objects.
Source: Reuters
10 best Android tablet apps that all tablet owners should have
Whether or not tablets are the next wave of computing is still a topic that’s up for debate and one without any real answer right now. That said, tablets can be a lot of fun and very useful if you can find stuff to do on them. In this app roundup, we’ll try to get you started with the best Android tablet apps that all tablet owners should have.
See also: 15 best Android apps of all time!
Pretty much any Adobe app
[Price: Free]
Adobe has quite the range of products on mobile, including Photoshop Express, Lightroom Mobile, Capture CC, Illustrator Draw, Color CC, Shape CC, Brush CC, and many others. These are all useful applications that do various things but they really shine on the larger screen real estate that comes with having a tablet. They’re all free to download and most of them work well with Creative Cloud if you happen to use that. We recommend giving them a look and you can do just that using the button below.
Get it now on Google Play!
Amazon Kindle
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
There are a ton of ebook reader apps out there, but there are few that have the stability, selection, and usefulness of Amazon Kindle. The Kindle Store has a ton of books, magazines, and other reading material that you can buy and read. The larger screen sizes make reading much easier and more comfortable than on phones and tablets are where apps like Kindle really shine. Google Play Books is a decent alternative as well.
Get it now on Google Play!
CamScanner and Xodo PDF Reader and Editor
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
CamScanner is a great productivity app. This allows you to use your tablet’s camera to scan in documents such as invoices, forms, receipts, and other documentation that you may want in the digital space. You can annotate PDFs, send the images in PDF or JPEG format, and there is even a service embedded that will send faxes. It also comes with OCR support, print options, and more. You can use this with an app like Xodo PDF Reader and Editor and between the two, you’ll be able to handle all of your PDF scanning and editing needs. You can use that last link there to pick up Xodo and the button below to get CamScanner.
Get CamScanner now on Google Play!
Clover Paint
[Price: $7.56]
The larger screens on tablets make them almost perfect for artists and Clover Paint is about as good as it gets in the artist space. The app is expensive, but it bills itself as a professional-grade painting app. It comes complete with layers, tons of brushes, customizable canvas sizes, stylus support for most devices, and a lot more. There is a free demo version you can try before you buy it. If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, we have a whole list of apps that are great for artists.
Get it now on Google Play!
Flipboard
[Price: Free]
Flipboard is already a wildly popular news-reading application. It uses a magazine-style user interface that looks and feels just delightful on tablets. It’s a great way to read the news and you can customize your news feed with sources you enjoy reading from (we hope one of them is Android Authority!). It’s simple to use, totally free, and you can find virtually any website to use as a news source. If that’s a little over the top for you, Feedly is another great, simple option.
Get it now on Google Play!
Google Drive suite
[Price: Free]
The Google Drive suite is a pretty hearty list of apps and includes Google Drive (cloud storage), Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides (all office apps), Google Photos, and Google Keep (notes). The Drive app will give you 15GB of free storage with more available at a fairly reasonable price and you can back up virtually any kind of file. The individual apps cover the gamut from office apps to note taking, and even photo viewing and backup. Google Photos is especially great because you can backup photos and videos on your phone and then view them on your tablet’s larger screen.
Get it now on Google Play!
HERE Maps
[Price: Free]
It’s true that Google Maps is kind of the de facto option on most mobile devices. However, a good case can be made for HERE Maps. HERE Maps lets you download maps for offline use and also includes offline navigation. You can find info about businesses in the area and you can share your location using the app’s Glympse feature. Google Maps is getting better with offline support but HERE Maps is definitely worth checking out if you want to use your tablet for GPS. Do beware, though, as a few tablets are still waiting for support from the developers.
Get it now on Google Play!
LastPass
[Price: Free with subscription option]
LastPass is a password management application. We’re sure you’re going to log into a bunch of apps, social networks, and websites on your tablet and an app like LastPass can be a real boon for that. The app will securely store your passwords and then automatically help you log into various sites and apps. It’s great for those who don’t want to remember every password they use. There is a subscription service available, but it’s only really necessary if you want to sync between your computer and mobile devices.
Get it now on Google Play!
PushBullet
[Price: Free]
Chances are you have both a tablet and a smartphone. If that’s the case, PushBullet is an app you should absolutely check out. It allows you to connect your devices together in such a way that they can communicate and work together. With this app, you can do things like answer texts on your tablet instead of your phone, copy and paste things between devices, move files between devices, and tons of other features. It helps bridge that gap between your devices and gives you a way to make them all work together.
Get it now on Google Play!
Zedge
[Price: Free]
Of course, you’ll want to pick up some notification tones and wallpapers for your tablet and Zedge is as good an app as any to start your search. It has a ton of crowd-sourced images and sounds that you can use to customize the most basic parts of your tablet. The selections are pretty decent and the app works very well with the advertising being the only minor complaint. If you need something more, we have a whole list of awesome wallpaper apps to try.
Get it now on Google Play!
Bonus: Your favorite video streaming services
[Price: Varies]
One of the more obvious reasons to pick up a tablet is for multimedia and video streaming is a red-hot industry right now. Some of the services we’d recommend is Netflix, Hulu, Crunchroll, Funimation, Sling TV, YouTube, and Google Play Movies & TV. There are plenty of others and none of them are really bad but how good they are will vary based on your taste in video content. There are no wrong answers here because tablets simply rock for video streaming.
Get it now on Google Play!
Bonus: Your favorite music streaming services
[Price: Varies]
Similarly, tablets are great for audio streaming. It could be music from apps like Pandora, Spotify, Google Play Music, and iHeartRadio or podcast apps like Doggcatcher or Pocket Casts. It even works great for a-la-carte apps like SoundCloud. A tablet along with a decent Bluetooth speaker can give you a fun audio experience that’s easy to control and the best part is that it won’t be eating the battery on your phone! With Google Play Music, you can also upload your own music so you can play your own stuff on your tablet without taking up any precious storage space.
Get it now on Google Play!
Wrap up
If we missed any particularly epic Android tablet apps that you think should’ve been on this list, tell us about them in the comments! If you want to stay up to date on the latest Android apps and games news, use the form below to sign up for our newsletter!
To see our complete list of Android apps and games lists, click here!
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Facebook’s Notify app shows you the latest news on your lock screen
Facebook has a new app called Notify that is designed to show you the latest news. You subscribe to your favorite stations and are updated with news right away on your lock screen.
To make this possible, Facebook has partnered with over 70 media outlets, but that list will keep growing. Some of the media outlets that will provide content are: Discovery, Fox News, The New York times, History, Vice, and many more.
The way it works is by picking your favorite subjects then receiving notifications about those topics. It is similar to Flipboard in this regard, but different because the notifications that you receive are basically headlines that come directly to your lock screen for easy viewing. Notify will also give you suggestions as to what stations you may be interested in based on your Facebook profile.
After you receive a notification, you have the option of swiping or tapping it to learn more about the full story. Also, if you like a story and want to save it for later, literally a simple swipe will add it to your saved notifications list.
You may be noticing that all the pictures used in this article are showing an iPhone. That is because Notify is only for iOS currently. However, Facebook is a huge company and we would assume they are working on an Android version as we speak.
Source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: Facebook’s Notify app shows you the latest news on your lock screen
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