[Deal] Two ASUS ZenPad S 8.0 models discounted on Amazon
For those of you in need of a last minute gift, Amazon may have just the deal for you. Amazon has both 32GB and 64GB models of the ASUS ZenPad S 8.0 at a pretty nice discount of 20% and 17%, respectively. So you can get the ZenPad S 8.0 starting at $159.
Base model specifications:
- 8-inch (2048×1536) IPS display
- Intel Atom Z3530 quad-core processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 32GB of internal storage with microSD card slot
- 5MP / 2MP cameras
- Android 5.0 Lollipop
Premium model specifications:
- 8-inch (2048×1536) IPS display
- Intel Atom Z3580 quad-core processor
- 4G RAM
- 64GB of internal storage with microSD Card slot
- 8MP / 5MP cameras
- Android 5.0 Lollipop
All across the web, the ASUS ZenPad S 8.0 is regarded as one of the best Android tablets available right now. Amazon customers alone have given it a 4.5-star rating. If you are interested hit the link below and enjoy your new tablet!
[Amazon]
Come comment on this article: [Deal] Two ASUS ZenPad S 8.0 models discounted on Amazon
Facebook introduces Live for verified pages
Verified Facebook pages are now able to share live video on Facebook for iOS, meaning sports teams, brands and media companies can offer more to followers.
These recent changes to Facebook’s mobile app mean verified pages can make the most of breaking news, behind-the-scenes video, Q&A sessions and announcements.
Speaking via a Facebook blog post, Vadim Lavrusik, Product Manager and Dave Capra, Engineering Manager, said:
“Over the past few months, we’ve been testing Live with a handful of verified Pages. We’ve been excited to see all the ways Live has been used so far, and can’t wait to see what’s to come.”
Stream hosts will see information on the names and number of viewers tuning in to their broadcasts. On top of that, comments will be displayed as they come in, and recordings will be automatically posted to a verified page when the show’s over. Of course, Facebook looks to be playing catch-up with Periscope and Meerkat when it comes to live-streaming tech, but what we’ve seen looks promising.
Facebook’s blog post on Live adds: “People who like your Page can discover your live videos in News Feed and through notifications on Facebook. While watching a live video, people can tap the Subscribe button to get notified the next time your Page goes live.”
Recent examples of Facebook Live in action saw AJ+ stream protests at the recent Paris Climate Talks. Elsewhere, Spanish footballing giants Real Madrid recorded their pre-match training before a game against Barcelona.
The team over at Facebook will be hoping the growth of verified pages helps in the battle against Twitter when it comes to covering rolling news.
In light of these changes, you can expect to see plenty of live video from big-name brands hitting your news feed.
Source: Facebook
Come comment on this article: Facebook introduces Live for verified pages
Apple Offering Free Next Day Delivery On December 23
For procrastinators and last minute shoppers, Apple is planning to offer free next day delivery on December 23rd, ensuring Apple products and accessories will arrive in time for the upcoming Christmas holiday. According to Apple’s website, customers who place an order for an in-stock item by 2:00 p.m. on 12/23 will be eligible for free next day delivery.
In-store pickup orders made two hours before closing on 12/24 will also be available in any Apple retail location. Holiday hours for each retail store are available using Apple’s store locator tool.
Apple already offers free next day shipping on the iPhone, but other products like iPads, Apple Watches, Macs, and accessories are delivered using two day shipping. Products ordered ahead of 12/23 will deliver on time using the standard two day shipping that Apple provides.
As a reminder, Apple’s annual extended return policy is now in effect on the Apple Online Store and in retail locations in the United States, Canada, and many other countries. Most products and accessories purchased between November 1 and December 25 are eligible for return until January 8, 2016, extending the typical 14-day return policy. In some European countries, return dates are extended until January 20, 2016.
Discuss this article in our forums
Charlie Rose to Offer Inside Look at Jony Ive’s ‘Secret Design Studio’ on Sunday
Apple doesn’t often let outsiders into its secret design lab headed up by Jony Ive, but the company invited journalist Charlie Rose to tour the facility earlier this year. Footage from that trip is set to air this Sunday, December 20, on popular show 60 Minutes.
.@CharlieRose goes inside Jonathan Ive’s secret design studio at Apple headquarters, Sunday on @60Minutes pic.twitter.com/q1V6rI5yKi
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 17, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Teasers for the episode were revealed in a tweet from the 60 Minutes Twitter account this evening, depicting Charlie Rose alongside Jony Ive. The episode will also include a discussion with retail head Angela Ahrendts about Apple’s “store of the future” and the company’s retail plans.
.@CharlieRose gets a first look at Apple’s store of the future, Sunday on @60Minutes pic.twitter.com/BdjygqqIdc
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 17, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Charlie Rose has done notable interviews with Apple executives in the past, including Jony Ive and Marc Newson in 2013 and Tim Cook in 2014.
Discuss this article in our forums
Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit for iPhone 5 Wi-Fi Defect That Caused Data Overages
Apple today was hit by a class action lawsuit from iPhone 5 and 5s users on AT&T’s network. The lawsuit alleges that the Cupertino company knowingly concealed a defect in the iPhone 5 and 5s that caused the devices to use LTE data even when connected to a Wi-Fi network.
In September 2012, some iPhone 5 users noticed the bug after finding that they were going through more data than usual. Shortly after the issue came to light, Apple and Verizon issued a fix for the bug, with Verizon confirming that users affected by the bug would not be charged for their data use.
However, according to an investigation by law firm Hagens Berman, Apple and AT&T never issued a fix nor did they acknowledge the defect. The firm and plaintiff Thomas Palmer believe that Apple should not have kept the fix from AT&T customers, and that the company failed to address the issue even as it released iOS 7 and the iPhone 5s.
We believe Apple should not have withheld this repair for AT&T Wireless subscribers for any period of time. By withholding this information and repair, consumers were unaware of the defect and were left to sort out high cellular data charges with their wireless carriers.
Specifically, the law firm says the defect occurred when a user streamed “high volumes of data” for 10 to 20 minutes. In this case, the GPU would take over all video decompression, decoding and presentation to the display. Because of this, the CPU was not needed and would go to “sleep” to conserve battery life. When the CPU went to sleep, the defect caused both the iPhone 5 and 5s to switch from streaming data via Wi-Fi to LTE.
Discuss this article in our forums
The beautiful and delightful ‘Badland’ now has a sequel for iOS
Badland is one of the biggest gaming successes to ever hit the App Store. Its distinctive and beautiful visual style, challenging gameplay and high attention to detail all reinforced the notion that iOS is a great platform for unique and excellent games. Now, some two and a half years after making its debut, Badland 2 has arrived for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The game will feel immediately familiar to the millions who played the original — the character you guide and the obstacles you dodge are still primarily rendered in silhouette, with beautiful, hand-painted backgrounds providing most of the eye candy.
But there’s a major new gameplay feature here: you can now guide your left and right instead of always having to go in a single direction. The game still auto-scrolls, so there’s only so much exploration you can do before getting squashed off the screen, but being able to move back and forth adds a new dimension to level design. Much of the rest of the game’s original mechanics are intact. Your circularly flappy avatar can still multiple, shrink and grow depending on what the situation calls for, but developer Frogmind promises a variety of new environmental challenges to contend with, including liquid, flamethrowers, frost and many more.
The $4.99 game feels expensive in these days of free-to-play, but it’s nice to know that a one-time purchase will unlock a host of levels without any prompts to drop more money, and Frogmind updated the original game with plenty of more levels and content over the years. There’s no reason not to expect the same thing here, so once you’ve finished the main game you can expect more challenges to come your way as time goes on.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the game works with the new Apple TV yet as the original does, but that might come with time. It also seems likely that we’ll see the game eventually spread to other platforms beyond iOS — the original is available for Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Amazon devices, and a “game of the year” edition was also released for Xbox and PlayStation consoles. That console version first introduced the ability to fly left and right, so we’re happy to see it make its way to this new version as well. If you want to give it a go, Badland 2 is available now in the App Store.
Via: cult of mac
Source: Badland
Sundar Pichai: Maybe we’ll use a poll to name Android
Google has never had a problem coming up with sweet-related nicknames for each new version of Android, but after Marshmallow it might start taking suggestions. During a Q&A at Delhi University (jump to 47:11 in the video to hear for yourself) Sundar Pichai was asked why no Indian sweets were on the name list, Pichai said he would ask his mother for suggestions, before opening the possibility of an online poll. Of course we think that’s a good idea, but the real question is what should the options be? Let us know what you’ve got for Android N in the comments.
[Image credit: Michael Halberstadt/Alamy Live News]
Source: Google India (YouTube)
ZTE rolls out camera updates to Axon and Axon Pro
If you’re the proud owner of an Axon or Axon Pro, ZTE’s pair of 2015 flagship smartphones, then you’re slated for a pretty nice update. Although the spotlight feature to this update is the camera improvements, you’ll also be getting security patches from Google and better wireless connectivity.
The ZTE Axon got a new camera quick launch button that allows you to jump right into photography so you never miss a moment. The camera’s zoom feature has been improved, allowing for less deterioration of resolution when digitally zooming. The Google security patches are always a plus, especially with recent fears surrounding Stagefright and malware, and ZTE also threw in some Qualcomm-issued modem patches to boot. As icing on the cake, you now have the capability of using MetroPCS as an APN.
That’s for the vanilla model of the smartphone. The Axon Pro (both the 32GB and 64GB versions) get everything the vanilla model gets with a few added extras. T-Mobile’s WiFi Calling 2.0 will now be at your fingertips, allowing you to save precious minutes on your cell phone bill by using WiFi connections instead of cellular service, but what’s even more interesting (at least to me) is that the camera has received some adjustments that let it focus faster in low light. There also have been some improvements to the camera’s white balance.
These alterations serve to boost the aspect of the device that we were most disappointed with in our review (namely camera quality) and might even make the Axon a more desirable smartphone option overall. Are you an Axon owner? What are your thoughts regarding this latest update? How have you enjoyed your device so far? Let us know in the comments!
Next: Best Android phones
Rooting your phone? A few things to think about – Android customization
Our Android customization series has, sometimes painstakingly, dedicated itself to non-root tools, tips and tricks to get the most out of your Android device. Today that changes. Last week we showed you how to replace a worn out USB port or headphone jack on a Nexus 7 tablet. That same tablet has now been rooted and we are ready to explore with you this new world of customization.
We will simply be working with a rooted device, we have not installed a custom ROM. We do not actually plan to change the installed OS at all, at least not for now.
Before we go too far, as far as the world of rooting your Android device goes, this is an article for beginner’s. Just a few tips and tricks to help you with the rooting process.
Heralding in a new age for Android customization, join us for a quick overview of root, and a few first things you might like to do once you’ve rooted.
Before we begin
The ability to obtain root access is different for most devices, and sometimes not even available, please check that your device has a known and stable root method before you proceed here today. You will be required to download and install an app on your device, a program on a connected PC or both.
We will be working with a Nexus device for our root projects moving forward, our 2012 Nexus 7 that we fixed last week. We rooted it using the Nexus Root Toolkit by WugFresh. This is an application that installs on a PC, then we simply connect our Nexus device via USB cable and follow the provided instructions. From there, we installed TWRP Recovery so that we could flash Xposed.
Today is all about sharing our experience with the root process, a few tips and tricks to help you get through it as best possible.
Disclaimer: Root is an advanced method within Android that gives you permissions to perform actions on your device that are not otherwise possible. These abilities allow you and your installed apps to perform actions on your device that can prove detrimental to your device. Please proceed with caution and understand that you are doing so at your own risk, we will not be held responsible if your device encounters issues. It is possible that you may brick your device, rendering it completely unusable, please be careful.
Also, unless your carrier/manufacturer states otherwise, rooting your device invalidates your warranty. You’ve been warned.
To learn how to root your device, check out some of our tutorials from days past, they are a little older, but the info remains true today:
Should I root my Android device?
How to root your Android device
13 best root apps for Android
Tips when rooting your device
If you’ve made it this far expecting to learn how to root your device, please hit those links above. We do not want to get caught up on the root process in this customization series, we just want to get on with using root to get the most out of our devices.
As I literally just rooted this Nexus 7, a few of the hiccups are fresh in my mind, just little things that I’m hoping will help you as you get started.
Bootloader, Root, Recovery, ROMs and more
OK, let’s start with some basic vocabulary. Please forgive me for this, I am about to explain some really advanced stuff in a really simple way, I may be technically inaccurate in these explanations, but only in the hopes of making it easier to understand.
Bootloader. In an attempt to keep this really simple, let’s call the Bootloader the BIOS of your Android device. If your Bootloader is locked, you will not be able to make any base level changes to your device. You’ll need to unlock your Bootloader before you can root your device, for example.
Root, as mentioned above, is simply the process of granting yourself elevated privileges on your Android device. If you are looking to delete some of those nasty bloatware apps that came pre-installed on your device, root is the permissions you need to make that happen.
Recovery, for our purposes, is a minimal operating system that can be run in place of your main operating system, for basic software management. Much like the BIOS on your computer, Recovery runs before the operating system boots up, but where the BIOS handles hardware, the Recovery on Android focuses on software. I guess it is more like the Install/Recovery screens you may have seen on your Windows machine when the operating system fails to load. Have I confused you yet? All you really need to know for today is that we used the TWRP Recovery and only for the purpose of creating a backup and flashing Xposed. More on that later.
ROMs, for the foreseeable future, we do not plan to handle ROMs in this series. A ROM is basically just another name for a new operating system for your Android device. You may have heard of CyanogenMod, Paranoid Android or the term AOSP. The former are completely different versions of Android, while AOSP is the pure, open source, Android experience that most ROMs are based off of.
These four terms should be enough to work from for now. Everything else we do will relate to working with or managing the above.
Back up
You are going to see these words over and over again, and for good reason. There are several levels of backup that you’ll be able to manage from here on, you can backup your data, including your photos, backup your apps, backup your system and more.
Before you root, your only real options are to backup your user data and your apps. We’ve talked about using apps like Helium to do this, but Nexus Root Toolkit can handle this as well.
Once rooted, you’ll be able to take more in-depth backups, including a full system backup. A popular service for backing up and restoring a full system is called Nandroid.
The key thing that you need to know for rooting is that unlocking your Bootloader performs a full system reset, wiping all of your apps and data. Back it all up and save those files off of the device for re-install later.
Unlock Bootloader
While Unlocking your Bootloader seems a simple thing, be sure to double check your warranty status before continuing, this is the piece that is against the rules for most manufacturers. From there, prepare for a full device wipe – this is done for security purposes, ensuring that no rogue apps already installed can take advantage of your newly opened security permissions.
Once unlocked, most devices will show you an open padlock icon on the initial Android boot screen. You are now ready to dive in to the good stuff.
Root and Recovery
Unlocking your device can be a scary process, the screen flashes, your device reboots multiple times, funny stuff pops up on the display. Relax, if you’ve chosen a respected rooting tool with confirmation that your device is supported, this process very rarely goes wrong. However, do not mess around, if performed incorrectly, if you unplug the USB cable halfway through, for example, this can brick your device.
Before you root, consider what you are looking to accomplish by unleashing these new permissions. What I mean is, as I learned the hard way, are you rooting to wipe some nasty apps, or are you hoping to install Xposed or even a new ROM? If you would like to install Xposed, as I did, you are going to need to install a custom Recovery first.
There is no harm in rooting and then coming back later to install a custom Recovery, in-fact, your tool may not even offer the option to do both. It simply saves you time and a few device reboots to do this all at the same time. Nexus Root Toolkit can install TWRP, CWM and more.
Storage space
Because Xposed is a fairly advanced framework that goes beyond any normal app functionality, it is now required to flash the framework to the device. Once the framework is installed, you can then install the normal Android app to continue.
We’ll talk more about Xposed later, it is a very exciting tool for customization, for now, let’s talk about System space.
You may have noticed in the root process, or now here when trying to flash Xposed to your device, that the installs fail. One common reason for this failure is a shortage of storage space. Now, at this stage of the game we are not talking about the storage locations that you have seen in your system Settings or favorite file explorer app, we’re talking about a reserved partition for your actual system files.
The easiest way to repair the System storage issue is to delete some apps. You’ll need a root file explorer, navigate to the files and kill ’em. If you are not sure what to get rid of, I recommend deleting apps that you can later install from the Google Play Store. For example, Google Sheets and Slides. I rarely use these apps on this device, they are fairly large files and I can always get them back later.
Anything funny going on? You backed up all those apps you deleted, right? Of course you did.
What’s next
I think that about covers the main tips and tricks from my most recent rooting experience. I have not used Xposed on Lollipop or Marshmallow yet, I hope you are ready to explore this great tool and all of the great modules as we go.
Resources:
Nexus Root Toolkit by WugFresh
TWRP (TeamWin) website
ClockWorkMod
Xposed Module Repository
Next week
I hope you found our tips useful today and I hope you are happily rooted and ready to roll. Next week is Christmas Eve, the week after that is New Years Eve. I’m still with you, watch out for some lazy holiday inspired Android customization projects for the next couple weeks. Then, in the new year, we will talk Xposed, maybe walk through the install in more detail, and get started with some cool modules.
What is your top pick for the first Xposed module a new user should install?
- Nexus 7 not charging? How to replace the USB port and headphone jack – Android customization
- Don’t like what you hear? Modify Google Text-to-speech voices – Android customization
- Daily quote or Chuck Norris joke on your Homescreen – Android customization
- How to create custom, actionable notifications on your Homescreen – Android customization
You can toggle “Merge tabs and apps” on and off in Chrome
An interesting feature introduced in Android Lollipop that was built into Chrome is merging the browser tabs into your phone’s multitasking menu. This eliminated the ability to see all your tabs within Chrome for a more minimal interface. The idea is nice in theory, but many users have preferred the old way of accessing the tabs within the Chrome app itself, as the new way creates a rather unorganized system of your tabs being spread all throughout your recent apps and the user not knowing how many tabs they have open.
1. Tap the Chrome menu (three dots on the top right)
This will bring up a number of actions, one of which is the Settings button near the bottom.
2. Go to Settings
Once in the Settings menu, select Merge tabs and apps
Here, you can toggle this feature on and off. Toggling this will restart Chrome to your desired choice and put all your tabs into Chrome’s tabs menu or in your phone’s multitasking.
The post You can toggle “Merge tabs and apps” on and off in Chrome appeared first on AndroidGuys.
AIVAnet 