LG confirms that it’s working on a mobile payment system
LG has just confirmed that it’s currently working on a mobile payment system, which it hopes will challenge both Android and Samsung Pay. Unfortunately, no details were given with regards to when the service will launch, but recent speculation suggests that there will be an opt-in public beta test in South Korea next month.
Judging from the details provided by LG in its official statement, it looks like its payment platform is set to support MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) and NFC (Near Field Communication), which will deliver an identical tap-to-pay experience to Samsung Pay. However, LG claims its service will excel in terms of software.
Not only is it boasting that the service will be more convenient than its competitors, but the South Korean company also claims that it will be more versatile and functional due to the application’s extremely intuitive, easy-to-use interface.
LG owners: Are you excited to hear that the company is working on its own payment platform? Are you planning on using it? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Source: LG (Korea)
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Sprint offering 50% off comparable plans for those switching from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
If your current mobile carrier just hasn’t been living up to your expectations lately, Sprint just launched an incredibly aggressive promotional event that promises to cut your cell phone bill in half.
This offer is unprecedented in U.S. history, and Sprint claims it’s available for virtually all consumer plans. They are also guaranteeing this rate of savings until 2018. If dropping your old plan would incur fees, Sprint is willing to cover up to $650 of them if it means they get your business in the long run.
This offer coincides with the launch of Sprint’s LTE Plus network, which has been making waves with its consistent high speed connection. Sprint boasts that it’s faster than anything Verizon and AT&T can provide. Although Sprint’s new network is here to stay, the opportunity to switch at these incredible rates is a shrinking window. The offer goes live on November 20th, but it closes on January 7th, 2016. This means that if you want to take advantage of 2+ years of paying half on your cell phone bill, you’ve gotta act during the holiday season.
Sprint says this pricing plan is “simple, with no gimmicks or tricks,” and after a quick review of their fine print, this seems to be the case. The company wants to rapidly expand their user base, and not only are they willing to toss out alluringly competitive rates, they’re also gung ho for covering the costs of bailing on your old network. Looks like a pretty sweet deal, all in all.
Of course, this comes on the tail of Sprint making the most shameless use of the word “unlimited” in a plan that boots subscribers to outdated, 2G networks after using a gig of data.
What do you think? Sprint users, what has been your experience with the network? Non-Sprintsters, does a 50% reduction on your mobile bill tempt you to make the swap? Let us know in the comments!
Google Camera getting an update on Android Marshmallow devices
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Google Camera is one of the more simplified camera apps you can get out there, but there’s no reason it can’t get even easier to use. Google is now rolling out an update to the Google Camera app exclusively for Android Marshmallow devices – which isn’t many device, let’s be honest. The update should rearrange some of the menus so that some toggles, like HDR and flash, won’t be unintuitively buried in a few menus.
It’s not a huge update, but no doubt some heavy users of Google Camera will appreciate it. As always with update roll-outs, don’t be surprised if you don’t see the update today or over the next few days – it could take a few days for your device to see the update. That said, keep an eye out on the Play Store page for any movement.
http://playboard.me/widgets/pb-app-box/1/pb_load_app_box.jsWhat do you think about the Google Camera update? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Droid-life
The post Google Camera getting an update on Android Marshmallow devices appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Google updates Android Wear SDK with support for Marshmallow
Earlier today, Google updated its Android Wear Software Development Kit (SDK) over on its official developer portal to include Android 6.0 (API 23) support for Android Wear, which means that developers can finally start adding Marshmallow-exclusive features to their applications.
The full changelog can be seen below:
- New permissions model and samples: API 23 introduces a new runtime permissions model for both phones and watches. The new permissions model allows users to pick and choose which permissions to grant apps at the time of use. In addition, new permissions settings allow users to turn on and off app permissions at any time.
- -round and -notround resource qualifiers: API 23 makes it easier to build apps for both round and square Android Wear watches. We listened to your feedback and added new resource qualifiers for -round and -notround, so you can use the resource system to load the appropriate images, layouts, and strings based on the type of watch you are working with.
- Watches with speakers: The LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE is the first watch to include speaker support, so you can now add sounds to your Wear app. You can play audio files using the same APIs that are available on Android phones, such as AudioTrack, MediaPlayer, and ExoPlayer.
- Intel x86 support: The new TAG Heuer Connected, along with other upcoming Android Wear watches, is based on Intel x86 processors. If you are working only with Java code, your apps will automatically work on any architecture. However, if you’re using the NDK, you’ll need to provide both armeabi-v7a and x86 shared libraries in your wearable APK.
If you’re a developer and would like to grab the latest version of the SDK, hit the source link below.
Source: Android Developers
Come comment on this article: Google updates Android Wear SDK with support for Marshmallow
Stagelight teaches you how to make music on your Android phone
If you like the idea of learning to compose music on your phone, your go-to app has typically been GarageBand on IOS. But what if you’re rocking an Android phone and would rather not switch? Don’t worry, you’re covered. Open Labs has released a pocket-sized Android version of Stagelight, its music-making app. It’s free to get started, and includes lessons that help you write your first tracks. You pay only as you expand your talents — like with GarageBand, there’s an in-app store that offers more samples and extra features. While you probably won’t produce a hot track solely on your phone (you can sync with Stagelight across devices), this could be what you need to either understand the basics of music or make a rough cut that you can polish later.
Source: Google Play, Open Labs
Local Motors could melt your 3D-printed car to create a new one
You may know Local Motors as the company behind the Rally Fighter, but these days, it’s best known for creating the world’s first 3D-printed car. As the company prepares to sell those cars to the public for the first time, it’s come up with an unusual proposition for potential customers. From time to time, it wants to melt down their cars.
Google Maps offline navigation and search now in India
Google Maps has become a road beast since last week, when the Search Giant announced the rollout of offline navigation, search and more. But not everyone in the world has been lucky enough to have that feature from the get-go. Are you in India? If so, today is your lucky day!
The Google Maps team has just announced offline availability in India starting today. So now you can get yourself around town with no internet connection at all!
Read more:
But wait – didn’t Google Maps already do this before? In a certain way, it sure did. You could download maps from some areas, but the system was pretty confusing. With the new system users can download maps for cities, counties and even countries. That is a huge step. Not only does it help data savers and emerging markets with slow internet, but it will be a life saver for the road warrior who often has to go through areas with no signal.
This is why we were so excited about offline access to Google Maps navigation and search when we first saw it at Google I/O. Offline access is one of the main factors that made some other mapping apps preferable to some users. And that makes sense! You don’t want to be using data every single time you go somewhere, right?
Interested? You can hit the link below to learn how to use the offline feature on Google Maps. It’s fairly simple. Happy mapping!
How to use Google Maps offline
Sprint Launches LTE Plus Network, Offers 50% Off Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T Rate Plans to Celebrate
Sprint today launched its LTE Plus network, which is available today in 77 major markets in the U.S. To celebrate, the carrier is announcing what its calling “the biggest wireless offer in U.S. history”, offering 50 percent off of T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T rate plans. The offer runs from November 20 to January 7, 2015 and the pricing remains in place until January 8, 2018.
“We’ve made tremendous strides with our network because we know consumers want wireless service that provides consistent speed and reliability,” said Marcelo Claure, Sprint CEO. “We are so confident that customers will have an amazing experience that we are encouraging them to give us a try with the biggest wireless offer in the history of our industry. Customers switching to Sprint will never need to look elsewhere. They will learn what our 58 million customers already know – Sprint offers the best value and an award-winning network.”
T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T customers who want to switch to the network will get Sprint plans that mirror their old plans, only for half the price. For example, a T-Mobile customer with four lines and 10 GB of data per line pays $180 per month at T-Mobile, but will only pay $90 at Sprint. An AT&T family who pays $100 for 15 GB data will get the same thing at Sprint for $50. Verizon customers paying $80 for 12 GB will get the same for $40. Verizon and AT&T customers will also get 50 percent off access fees.
The discounts are only available to consumer plans for Verizon’s 1 GB, 3 GB, 6 GB, 12 GB, 18 GB, 20 GB and 25 GB shared data plans, T-Mobile’s Simple Choice 2 GB, 6 GB and 10 GB plans and AT&T’s 300 MB, 2 GB, 5 GB, 15 GB, 20 GB and 25 GB shared data plans. Specific carrier features like unlimited music and video, data rollover and cloud options do not carryover to Sprint.
Customers switching over to Sprint can also take advantage of iPhone Forever, Sprint’s plan that allows customers to upgrade to a new iPhone every year. It’s also a “worry-free” offer, with customers having 28 days to try out Sprint’s service. If they’re not happy, they can return it without incurring a restocking fee. Sprint will also pay any switching fees up to $650 per line with an American Express Reward Card after online registration and phone turn-in.
Sprint says its new LTE Plus network is faster than Verizon’s and AT&T’s networks, citing Nielsen Mobile Performance data. NMP uses crowdsourced data from Android users in 44 of the largest markets in the U.S., and it found that in 20 of the 44 markets, users downloading files over 5 MB did it fastest on Sprint. The carrier says the new network can reach up to 100 Mbps, includes stronger service with an extended 2.5 GHz signal and more reliable service with three brands of spectrum: 1.9 GHz for broad coverage, 800 MHz for indoor coverage and 2.5 GHz for faster speeds.
Current Sprint customers will get a free tablet with one year of free service while supplies last. Sprint says this offer is a $360 value.
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John Legere blasts Sprint on Twitter for new 50% discount plans
It wouldn’t really be a US wireless carrier announcement if John Legere didn’t let everyone know just what he thought about it. Just hours after Sprint announced their new plan to cut your current bill in half, Legere did exactly that. He took to Twitter to post a countdown of reasons why Sprint’s plan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and why T-Mobile is a better offer for most customers.
Some of the countdown included advantages to T-Mobile, like getting unlimited music and video streaming, some of it blasted Sprint’s policies, like their activation fees and charges, and some of it went after the new plans directly, slamming Sprint’s decision to only offer the promotions to new customers and not existing customers. While the posts were definitely magenta colored, Legere makes some pretty good points about how good of an offer these new plans really are.
What are your thoughts on Sprint’s new plans? Do you agree or disagree with T-Mobile’s CEO?
source: John Legere (Twitter)
Come comment on this article: John Legere blasts Sprint on Twitter for new 50% discount plans
Carnegie Mellon says it didn’t help the FBI hack Tor for money
The Tor network volunteers recently accused Carnegie Mellon University of helping feds uncover the identities of some shady website operators and users, including drug distributors and child pornographers, in exchange for $1 million. In a statement released today, however, the university doesn’t only deny getting money from the FBI, but also heavily implies that it was served with a subpoena that requested the details of its Tor research. “The university abides by the rule of law,” it said, “complies with lawfully issued subpoenas and receives no funding for its compliance.”
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
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