How to free up extra storage on the Google Pixel
How do I free up storage on the Google Pixel?
The Google Pixel doesn’t come with expandable storage, so you’ll want to make sure there’s lots of free space for your apps, games and other content. Luckily, Google makes it easy to free storage with these built-in tools.
We’re outlining two of those tools in this guide, one built into the phone’s storage settings, and one built into Google Photos itself.
How to free up storage by deleting photos and videos that have been uploaded to the cloud
Google makes it easy to free up phone storage by purging photos and videos that are already stored, for free and in full quality, on Google Photos.
Open Google Photos from the home screen or app drawer.
Open up side menu by tapping on three-line menu bar or swiping in from the left.
Tap “Free up space” in the side menu.
Wait for app to tabulate photos stored in the cloud.
Tap Remove to delete them from your phone.
Note: These photos and videos will still be available, in their full quality, Google Photos. If you want to download them again to access them locally, just tap on the greyed-out version in Google Photos and tap Download.
How to free up storage by deleting unused apps and old downloads
The Pixel comes with a useful tool hidden in the settings that frees up content that hasn’t been touched in a while. The phone calculates which files have been untouched in over 30 days, and lets you delete them, safely, with one tap.
Swipe down on the notification shade to open the notification drawer.
Tap on the Settings icon (circular cog).
Scroll down and tap on Storage.
Tap on three-dot menu button in the top right.
Tap on Free up space.
Choose items to remove (Photos, Downloads, Apps) and tap Free up in the bottom right.
That’s it! The phone will remove those items and you’ll be able to press the back button to see how much extra space you have. While the 32GB of minimum storage should be enough for most people with a Pixel, it’s always nice to know you have easy ways to free up more.
Google Pixel + Pixel XL
- Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
- Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
- Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
- Pixel + Pixel XL specs
- Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
- Join the discussion in the forums!
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Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro offers a glimpse at augmented reality in the real world
Here’s a look at some of the new apps accompanying the Phab 2 Pro on launch day.
The first consumer-centric Tango-enabled smartphone is on sale today. Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro is officially available for $500 and there are already a number of compatible apps available in the Play Store. Here’s a quick glimpse at what you can do with this giant augmented reality-enabled phablet device.
Realistic gaming — sort of
Over the last few months, Google has worked closely with a number of developers to put together a library of apps that show off Tango’s capabilities. Many of those apps are game titles, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, there was plenty of skepticism around virtual reality when it first hit the scene. The upside is that Tango’s mobility lets you take the fantasy world inside your smartphone and experience it outside wherever you are — even on the train ride to work.
Ghostly Mansion is a great example of this. Your objective in the game is to scour the room you’re physically in to search for objects that might help you figure out why you’re dead. The room is merely projected through the Phab 2 Pro’s 6-inch display, but because of its motion tracking mechanisms, I was able to keep my head inside the game despite not having the phone physically strapped to my face. In fact, I was so engrossed into following what was on the screen, that I had to remember to look ahead not to run into something or someone. I now understand all those Pokemon Go-related injuries.
I had just as much fun with Slingshot Island, which plays more like a sophisticated version of Angry Birds. After you choose the real-life placement of the fantasy island, you’ll have to launch boulders, cluster bombs, and other sorts of artillery towards the giant fortresses erected on the land. And to do so, you have to physically pull-back with the Phab 2 Pro to fire off the slingshot.
The result is a game that smartly exemplifies Tango’s interactive abilities while illustrating how immersive augmented reality can be in the real world. For instance, I could “freeze” the angle of the slingshot and then walk around to see what exactly the projectiles would hit. This particular game mechanic becomes a requirement in later levels of Slightshot Island as the fortresses become harder to penetrate with just the standard weaponry.
Not all of the applications will whisk you away to another world, however. I played around with the Phab 2 Pro’s built-in augmented reality “pets” but they’re a bit disappointing. Both the cat and dog, which are available in the camera app as an AR prop of sorts, do not interact with your environment too well. I enjoyed the AR scenery a bit more since it didn’t require me to actively interact with a virtual object.
Tango is not a one-trick pony
Games are not Tango’s only trick, though they’re certainly a great example of what’s possible with the underlying technology. The team behind Tango hope that the Phab 2 Pro will show the technology’s educational abilities too. “If you really want to understand the scale of the dinosaur, today you have to go to the American Museum of Natural History and you have to stand next to a [dinosaur’s bones] to get a sense for how big they were,” said Nikhil Chandhok, Director of Product, a few days ago at a media roundtable at Google’s offices in San Francisco. “But [the Dinosaurs among us app] actually gives you a sense of scale… and that is a very practical teaching tool.”
There will be more communication apps that will take advantage of Tango
Chandhok also sees Tango’s effectiveness in connecting emerging markets. “I think there will be more communication apps that will take advantage of the Point Cloud to build new communication experiences.”
Johnny Lee, Director of Engineering, hopes to see Tango bring experiences to other parts of the world that might otherwise feel isolated. “Part of the appeal of [AR] is that it’s something that makes the transaction more efficient,” added Lee. “You have a greater chance of buying something you really want without actually having to have a retail presence nearby. [Retailers can bring] larger scale shopping to places where physical retail stores are much more difficult to reach.”
Is AR the future of smartphones?
Augmented reality is nothing new. We’ve seen it utilized in plenty of industries and mobile apps, and it’s one of the underlying technologies making headway in the game industry. However, that doesn’t mean that Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro phablet doesn’t have its challenges ahead. There may be more than a few dozen apps currently leveraging Tango’s technology, but that doesn’t prove its effectiveness in the long term. For Tango’s technology to have the pervasiveness of GPS and cameras in smartphones, there has to be a legitimate use for it.
Fortunately, Tango is taking its chances months after the relative success of other augmented reality apps like Pokémon Go. That helped show that the market is there; It’s merely the implementation that will reel consumers in. The Phab 2 Pro might have trouble proving its worthiness as a 6-inch smartphone, but its existence will also help regular users and developers alike acclimate to the idea of using a phone in this interactive manner.
This Tag Heuer Connected Android smartwatch will set you back almost $10K
When we reviewed the Tag Heuer Connected smartwatch at the end of last year we were impressed with its abilities but highlighted its £1,100 price as a sticking point for many. Just imagine what we’d have said if we’d seen the rose gold version – the original is pound shop fare in comparison.
The latest addition to the family is a whopping $9,900, that’s around £8,080 in today’s post-Brexit exchange rate.
Of course, Tag Heuer is a luxury brand, and the Connected is a luxury smartwatch. And let us not forget that the original Apple Watch Edition cost approximately the same price in 2015. However, considering the amount of rose gold on show and the similar design aesthetics to the standard version, you have to wonder why anybody would plump for the pricier model.
Give us a win on the Lottery and we might change our minds though.
- Tag Heuer Connected review: Android Wear gets its luxury tag
Rose gold or otherwise, the Tag Heuer Connected smartwatch is an Android Wear device with a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom Z34XX processor and 1GB of RAM. It also has 4GB of storage and we found the experience snappy and responsive in our tests.
Its 1.5-inch display has a 360 x 360 pixel resolution and it thankfully fills the whole watch face rather than give you the flat tire design many round watches favour.
The ‘dark web’ isn’t all guns and drugs
Whenever you hear the phrase “dark web,” you instantly imagine stern-faced CNN anchors talking about terrorists, sex criminals and drug dealers. A study from Terbium Labs is looking to dispel those dearly-held notions of what the dark web actually is. According to researchers Dr. Clare Gollnick and Emily Wilson, the dark web is less of a science fair filled with the world’s worst people and more like your average teenager’s bedroom.
Terbium Labs is a data intelligence firm that says it specializes in the dark web, and claims that its produced the first legitimate analysis of the Tor network. The study — which scraped a selection of sites — reports that more than half of all traffic is legitimate, and that the amount of truly scary stuff is negligible. Much like that teenager’s bedroom, there are lot of drugs and a significant amount of porn, but you don’t need to worry about calling the FBI just yet.
For instance, the study claims that porn makes up just 6.8 percent of all Tor traffic. Illegal pornography (listed under the umbrella term of “exploitation”) accounted for one percent of traffic. That, unfortunately, is still one percent too much. Drugs, meanwhile, cover 12.3 percent of all traffic, while non-prescription pharmaceutical sales makes up another 3.2 percent. For the purposes of the study, marijuana was included as a drug given its inconsistent definition across the United States.
There’s often talk about how shadowy bodies use the dark web to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction, but the researchers didn’t find much evidence of that. In fact, the pair only found one example of extremism and precisely zero weapons sales sites. This conclusion, however, could be an indictment of the methodology used to prepare this study, which may not reflect the breadth and depth of the Tor network.
The team only sampled 400 URLs that Terbium Labs’ crawler accessed on a single day (August 5th, 2016) and there are several caveats. For instance, researchers blacklisted URLs that they believed to include illegal materials and didn’t analyze them directly. Those sites were still included in the data selections, so the conclusions it draws may not be entirely reliable. In fact, a page in the report even ends with the slightly blasé point that “Research is hard.”
That said, it appears that more rigorous analysis of the dark web is revealing that it’s far less intimidating than it was believed to be. A study from 2015 found that there were just 7,100 .onion sites available to crawl, meaning that one scan took less than three hours.
It’s certainly not conclusive, and there are plenty of reasons to want to inspect this data far more thoroughly. But it does look as if the notion of the dark web as this big, unassailable beast lurking in the bowels of the internet doesn’t match reality.
Source: Terbium Labs
‘Deadpool’ director hired for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ movie
Deadpool and Sonic have a fair amount in common. They vanquish bad guys, protect innocent bystanders and talk with spades of attitude. With this in mind, it’s no surprise to hear that Tim Miller, the director of the (good) Ryan Reynolds superhero movie, is turning his attention to the blue blur next. That’s right, the out-of-nowhere “live-action and animation hybrid” movie that was announced back in February. He’s stepping on as executive producer to help director Jeff Fowler and executive producer Neal H. Moritiz, who also works on the Fast and Furious franchise.
Miller and Fowler are part of Blur Studios, a visual effects, design and animation company in California. The team has produced CG trailers and commercials for Titanfall 2, Doom, Dishonored 2 and Mafia III, among others. Most notably, it worked with Microsoft to give Halo 2’s cinematics a face lift for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Miller and Fowler have collaborated before, developing the Oscar nominated Gopher Broke short in 2005. For Sonic the Hedgehog, they’ll be working with Sony Pictures and Marza Animation Planet, a CG animation studio owned by Sega. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance this movie won’t be complete rubbish?
Sonos speakers can now be controlled through Spotify
While Sonos makes some decent speakers, many feel that its apps are lacklustre at best. If you fall into this camp, you’ll be pleased to hear that Sonos hardware is now starting to play nice with Spotify Connect. If you sign up for the Sonos public beta, you’ll be able to control your speakers from inside the Spotify app. That includes multi-speaker and multi-room setups — change one or change the lot, it’s your choice. If you have friends over that want to play DJ, they can also queue up songs and playlists from their own Spotify app, instead of downloading the Sonos equivalent.
The Sonos app isn’t going anywhere, so if you prefer the company’s own software you can continue as normal. Teaming up with Spotify, however, is a smart way to make its speakers more flexible. The company is fighting on two fronts; in the hardware game, it’s up against a deluge of home speakers, including the Assistant-powered Google Home and Alexa-integrated Amazon Echo. On the software side, it’s tackling Google Cast and the oft-forgotten AirPlay. To keep its speakers attractive, Sonos needs to work with dominant and emerging services — if doesn’t, the company’s hardware will feel uncooperative, rather than seamless in the home.
Smart pen measures the dimensions of virtually any object
Despite all the technological advances over the years, measuring items in your home still tends to involve old-school rulers and tape measures… and they can be inaccurate if there are curves. Instrumments thinks it has a better way. The team of former Misfit creators is launching the 01, a hybrid measuring device and pen (there are also pencil and stylus versions) that gauges the dimensions of objects simply by pointing at them. It works on 3D surfaces, too, so curves and contours aren’t off-limits.
As you’d expect in this day and age, the 01 takes advantage of its link to your Android phone or iPhone. You can automatically log measurements and share them, and even adjust to scale if you’re looking for dimensions in drawings and maps. If you’re without your phone, you can still use blinking light intervals for grids and rough measurements.
Instrumments is taking orders for its gadget now through its own site and Indiegogo for $149, with a leather case available for $29 if you don’t order quickly enough to get one for free. This isn’t a conventional crowdfunding project with months to go before launch, though — certain retail stores worldwide will carry the 01 as of December 1st. It’s an expensive device however you shop, but the cost might be justifiable if you’re an architect, designer or home improvement fan.
Source: Instrumments
The first Google Tango phone launches with over 35 new apps
It’s been years in the making but Tango, Google’s depth-sensing tech, is ready to make its consumer debut. That’s because today is when the first-ever Tango phone, the Lenovo Phab2 Pro, goes on sale for $499. To accompany the Phab2 Pro’s launch, Google is announcing over 35 new Tango apps, all of which will be available in the Play Store today. I had a chance to play around with several of them, talked to a few app developers and delved further into the future of Tango, including its relationship with Daydream, that other well-known Google project.
Tango first started life as a project within ATAP, Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects division. The idea was to integrate an array of sensors and cameras into a mobile device so that it could figure out its position relative to its surroundings. We’ve already seen how Tango’s 3D-mapping can be used to give directions in a museum, assist in home improvement projects and create cartoon worlds, but there are a few new ones that caught my eye.
One of them is Crayola Color Blaster, which is described as a “zombie color-blasting game.” Created by Legacy Games, the object here is to deal with incoming zombies by pelting them with paint. The zombies appear in an augmented reality view on the display, so it looks as if they’re there in your actual living room. It’s a very active game, and I found myself wandering around from one area of the room to the other just to get enough distance between me and the color-hungry undead.
Arielle Lehrer, CEO of Legacy Games, said that there’s also a “horde mode” for smaller spaces, where you’re just pivoting and shooting instead of running around. Lehrer said that the game was originally conceived as juat a coloring book in real space until they figured out there was so much more you could do with the technology. “We started to think about the magic window idea of Tango,” said Andrew Duncan, the game’s lead designer. “Anywhere you look, you change the environment. It really plays in any space.”
Next, I played with Sockethead Games’ Slingshot Island, which is pretty much as the name describes. Again utilizing augmented reality, you place a virtual island in your physical space — be it your dining table or your kitchen floor. From there, you’ll use a slingshot to shoot projectiles at it in order to solve puzzles, like knocking an egg off a structure. The interesting thing here is that instead of swiping down to aim the slingshot, your phone is the controller. That means as soon as you aim your target, you actually move the phone around to establish the shot — as if your entire phone is the slingshot itself. It took a little bit of getting used to, but I learned it eventually.
“This is the one big challenge that we had,” said Randall Eike, the CTO of Sockethead Games. “Users had no concept whatsoever that they can use their phone as a motion controller. It’s completely foreign to them.” After they figure it out though, Eike said, it feels a lot more intuitive. “This motion control ability of using your device and interacting with the object… It’s going to open up this huge class of mobile games.”
I also played a couple of titles that didn’t use augmented reality. One was Hot Wheels Track Builder, which had me racing toy cars down virtual tracks that I could create myself. You could pick up pieces by grabbing a hand and then move them into place by moving the phone to the right place. It’s once again using the idea of the phone as the controller. “We figured out a control scheme where you wouldn’t need a touch screen to build your tracks,” said Kris Jackson, the lead game designer. “That’s the thing you usually struggle with the most.” Another was Ghostly Mansion, where I collected clues in a virtual room by walking around a physical space. I could lean down to open a drawer or lift the phone up to grab a picture on the wall.
A few years after its debut, Tango then graduated to become its own project division in 2015. Now, it’s a part of Daydream, Google’s VR initiative. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of how useful depth-sensing and 3D-mapping would be in virtual reality. Indeed, the combination of the two could lead to perhaps a standalone headset in the future.
“A lot of the work we’re doing will enable inside out tracking in VR,” said Johnny Lee, Tango’s Director of Engineering. “There’s no product that we can talk about. But as Tango matures, as Daydream matures, there’s an obvious crossroads that we’re excited about.”
But before integrating that tech into VR, Google thought it was important to incorporate Tango into phones first.
“There are still a lot of phones being manufactured today,” said Lee. “We feel like this form factor is one that we’ll have with us for quite awhile.” Indeed, one of the reasons Eike was drawn to Tango is because he felt that smartphones are a lot more accessible than VR headsets. “A VR headset isn’t something you whip out of your pocket at a Starbucks,” he said, whereas everyone has a smartphone. “There’s a chance [Tango] will be more ubiquitous than VR.”
Lee shares the same sentiment. He thinks of Tango in the same way as GPS; we were able to get through our lives before it came along, but now we can’t imagine our phones without it. The spatial reasoning and depth sensing allowed by Tango, he said, will be just as important. “I believe there is a whole new suite of experiences that are possible. The way we interact with our computers will change.” Plus, he said, the rise of Pokemon Go shows that the public is a lot more accepting of augmented reality apps than it used to be, which is good news for Tango.
Google is so bullish on Tango that it’s already built up a pipeline of partners. In other words, look forward to more Tango-enabled phones next year. According to the company, they’ll come in varying price points, designs and form factors. So if you’re wary of the giant 6.4-inch screen on the Phab2 Pro, maybe wait a few months for a smaller Tango phone.
“This is not just a research product. It’s a product in the market today,” said Nikhil Chandhok, Tango’s product director. “Should every phone have GPS? Yes. Should every phone have a camera? Yes. Should every phone have inside-out tracking? Yes,” Chandhok continued. “Every phone should have it.”
Twitter Tests Opening All Web links in Safari ‘Reader Mode’ on iOS
Twitter for iOS is currently testing a new way of opening web links in Safari with the Reader mode automatically turned on (via TechCrunch).
Safari’s built-in Reader mode, usually activated by tapping an icon in the browser’s search bar, enables users to load a distraction-free version of websites minus formatting, ads, links, and so on, with font type and size custom options available.
The Guardian was the first to notice that all the links they were clicking on in the Twitter app defaulted to the Reader mode. Twitter later confirmed to TechCrunch that it is testing the feature with select users, the aim being “to refine the product and make Twitter easier to use”, according to a spokesperson.
The downside to any potential rollout is that content publishers can’t customize the Reader view of their site, nor will they be able to generate ad revenue from page views that come from Twitter links. And as pointed out by The Guardian, some sites do not display correctly in Reader mode, potentially detracting from the user experience.
Twitter developers are said to be testing a series of changes to the social media network, in an attempt to improve the service after the company’s recent internal turmoil, such as layoffs, the shutdown of Vine, and its much-publicized failure to find a buyer.
Tag: Twitter
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A guide to Elgato Eve HomeKit accessories
Elgato’s Eve is all about improving your comfort at home. It wants to help you live smarter by giving you the knowledge and insight you need to do this.
There are a number of devices available within the Eve range, all of which connect to the Eve app and are compatible with Apple’s HomeKit.
This means not only will you be able to control your home all from one place, but you will be able to ask Siri questions like the temperature in your home, whether the patio door is open, as well as control all the devices connected to Eve Energy with your voice.
Here is a guide to all the Elgato Eve accessories and what they can do.
Elgato
Eve Room
Eve Room is a simple, subtle wireless indoor sensor that measures 79 x 79 x 32mm and monitors air quality, temperature and humidity. It is powered by three AA batteries and it connects directly to the Eve app via Bluetooth 4.0 Smart.
The Eve Room sensor analyses VOCs beyond CO2 by using MEMS sensors to detect substances like alcohol, aldehydes and organic acids, among others, to help users understand exactly what is directly affecting their well-being.
The measured gas concentration of VOCs is converted into an easy-to-read PPM number that is displayed in different colours within the app and divided into excellent, good, acceptable, moderate and poor categories.
The Eve app presents graphs by day, month and year, while the compatibility with HomeKit means users can ask Siri for the temperature or humidity of a room that Eve Room is in.
PRICE: €79.95
Elgato
Eve Energy
Eve Energy is a smart plug that is available for the EU and the US. Plug Eve Energy into the plug socket and a lamp, fan or another device into Eve Energy and you’ll be able to control that device using Siri or with a simple tap, as well as find out how much energy they are using.
As with Eve Room, graphs are presented by day, month or year in the Eve app so you can gain insight into how much energy you are using, what times you are using the most energy, and which devices are the biggest energy consumers.
Aside from the ability to use Siri to turn Eve Energy connected devices on or off, you’ll also be able to assign custom names to them, combine them into groups and create scenes to control a few of them at once.
It’s also possible to remotely control devices connected to Eve Energy if you have an Apple TV, turning them on or off when you’re out of the house, as well as launch a scene or check the status of your home. The Eve Energy smart plug connects to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch via Bluetooth Smart, like Eve Room.
PRICE: €49.95
Elgato
Eve Weather
Eve Weather is a wireless outdoor sensor the same size as Eve Room at 79 x 79 x 32mm. It uses two AA batteries, connects to your iOS device with Bluetooth Smart once again, and it measures air pressure, temperature and humidity.
The Eve Weather sensor is built to live outside, featuring a IPX3 water resistance. Users can ask Siri to the temperature or humidity, and like the Eve Room and Eve Energy, you’ll be able to see daily, monthly and yearly data graphs to make keeping track easy.
PRICE: €49.95
Elgato
Eve Thermo
The Eve Thermo is a thermostatic radiator valve that replaces an existing radiator valve in order to provide you with smart heating within each room it is added to.
As with the rest of Eve products, the Thermo connects to your iOS device via Bluetooth Smart and it is compatible with HomeKit meaning you can control your heating with your voice and Siri. You can also create schedules on the app to match heating to your daily routines, using either the preset options or by customising your own.
Groups can be created too in order to control multiple radiators at the same time, which is handy if you have two or three radiators in one room, for example. You’ll then be able to say “Hey Siri, set my living room to 21 degrees” and all radiators within the Living Room group will increase or decrease to meet your command.
As with the other Eve products, you’ll also be able to gain insight from the Eve app. Graphs will show daily, monthly and yearly data, like the Eve Room, Eve Energy and Eve Weather sensors.
PRICE: €69.95
Elgato
Eve Door & Window
The Eve Door & Window is a wireless contact sensor that is for use on doors and windows within your home in order to tell you whether they are open or closed. Designed to blend into your home environment, the sensor comes in two parts, measuring 52 x 24 x 23mm and 18 x 18 x 8-23mm.
The sensor connects to your iOS device through Bluetooth Smart and as you might expect, it is compatible with HomeKit meaning you can ask Siri if your bedroom window is open, for example.
The Eve Door & Window sensor will detect an open or closed state, the time and duration, as well as provide insight in daily, monthly or yearly graph format.
PRICE: €39.95
Eve requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 9.1 or later. HomeKit requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 8.1 or later. Controlling HomeKit-enabled accessories away from home requires an Apple TV (3rd generation or later) with Apple TV software 7.0 or later and an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 8.1 or later. Note: iPad 2 is not supported.
AIVAnet 