Google Maps may soon offer parking suggestions

Google Maps can already tell you how congested your drive will be, but how about when you arrive? It looks like the app is about to give you at least a decent idea about the parking situation, thanks to a new feature spotted in the latest 9.44 beta by Android Police. Availability of spaces at a selected destination is shown as “easy,” “medium” and “limited,” with the latter situation highlighted in red. Once you start navigating, it’ll give further details in the instructions, indicating that parking around your arrival address is “usually not easy” or “limited,” for instance.

Waze and Inrix touted a similar feature last September, so Google may be trying to ensure that it at least keeps up. Waze’s app can actually find you a spot, however, while Google’s app just gives a general overview of the situation. It’s not clear yet how Google is getting the data.

I downloaded the app and parking availability didn’t work anywhere I tried in Paris, France, and Ars Technica says it’s not appearing in the New York/Long Island area either. However, it did show up for me at the destinations that Android Police’s tipster tried (somewhere in Maryland, I think). So far, locations seem to be limited to malls, airports and other public spots, which is not surprising considering that the feature is still in beta. It may work for you, though — you can download it from the APK Mirror if you’re feeling adventurous, or wait for the official release.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Google Maps Beta (APK mirror), Android Police

Facebook stops paying publishers to stream live video

For a while, Facebook was obsessed with live video — it even paid publishers to make sure there was a steady flow of professionally-shot streams on offer. However, Zuckerberg and company appear to be tempering their enthusiasm a little bit. Recode sources understand that the social network is “de-emphasizing” Facebook Live when it talks to publishers, and isn’t expected to renew the pay-to-stream deals it struck in 2016. Instead, the focus is reportedly on long pre-recorded videos.

The company isn’t commenting on the report. Supposedly, though, the shift is as much about the cool reception to livestreaming deals as it is changing priorities. While Facebook is still eager to promote user-made broadcasts, publishers weren’t enthused with the cash from their deals as it frequently didn’t justify the cost of staging a live feed. Why hop on Facebook Live if it’d be easier to do nothing? Facebook didn’t intend the paid deals to last long, according to Recode’s tipsters, but it might not have had much luck even if it wanted extended agreements.

This doesn’t mean that pros will avoid Facebook Live entirely. Major events like electoral debates are still going to draw a lot of viewers, and for some brands it simply makes sense to go live instead of shooting canned video. With that in mind, don’t be shocked if you see a marked drop in the number of pro-level livestreams. Not that Facebook is necessarily worried — if it goes ahead with plans for mid-roll video ads, it could still make plenty of money.

Source: Recode

Apple’s Bozoma Saint John on Apple Music: ‘We’re Developing Something Very Special’

Apple Music executives Larry Jackson, Bozoma Saint John, and Zane Lowe sat down for an interview with Complex, where they discussed Apple Music’s performance over the last eighteen months and where the streaming service is going to go in the future.

According to the trio, Apple Music has evolved and is continuing to evolve, with Apple now focusing heavily on pop culture and expanding beyond music into TV and movies.

Image via Complex
“Every day something is changing or moving or evolving for people who love music and entertainment,” said Lowe. “We’re all still working it out, and even when you don’t have the answer, it’s still a privilege to be in the conversation.” Saint John, meanwhile, described Apple Music as a “living, breathing brand.”

When discussing the topic of the music industry, Saint John went on to share what she hopes Apple Music will look like five or 10 years in the future. According to Saint John, Apple is “developing something very special.”

We’re developing something very special and we just want people to pay attention to it. My five-year vision is that I want every single person on the planet to be engaged on Apple Music. I truly believe we’ve created something very, very special. I don’t think anyone else can do this. I will scream from the mountain top until everyone knows. Can I add one thing, too? This is a love fest right now, but I also feel like our conflict makes us better, too. There’s plenty of times where I have screamed at Larry. And though he has not screamed back, I have felt his frustration.

As we’ve learned over the last few months, Apple is making a serious push into original television programming to better compete with other music services like Spotify and Pandora. Apple is already working on two Apple Music-related shows, a documentary called “Vital Signs” starring Dr. Dre and a reality television show based on the “Carpool Karaoke” spot made famous by “Late Late Show” host James Corden.

More original, scripted television shows, even those unrelated to the music industry, will follow, and movies could be on the horizon as well.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video
For more details on Apple Music, make sure to check out the full interview over at Complex.

Tag: Apple Music
Discuss this article in our forums

ZTE Hawkeye Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

When ZTE announced Project CSX, its crowdsourced phone, it seemed sure to go wrong somehow. But thankfully the internet decided to play nice this time around. The result is a $199 phone that you can order from Kickstarter that will ship this September to almost anywhere in the world.

The phone has midrange specs to keep costs low, but its Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor is far from shabby. It’ll have impressive dual rear cameras, too — one 13-megapixel and one 12-megapixel combination that’s capable of optical zoom.

Users also voted for other cool features including a self-adhesive case, eye-tracking for scrolling web pages and dual-SIM support. The phone will come unlocked, and it also has NFC and a fingerprint sensor.

I’m honestly impressed to see how many features ZTE is packing into the phone at this price, but the September shipping date is quite a long time to wait and there will be plenty of new phones that may offer similar or better features by then.

Quick specs

• 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625
• 3GB RAM, 32GB onboard storage
• 5.5-inch display
• Runs Android 7.0 Nougat
• 3,000mAh battery with Quick Charge 2.0

These prototype versions of Hawkeye don’t feature the dual-cameras that the phone will come with when it ships in September.

CNET

Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe review – CNET

The company’s most impressive looking flagship to date, the Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe overpowers the ZenFone 3 and large-screened ZenFone 3 Ultra phones it was announced alongside at Computex in Taipei. It looks like it has the chops to match up with other flagship phones in the market, too.

Sporting a monster 6GB of RAM, the base 64GB model will cost $499 (£340, AU$695). The competitively priced phone will be available in Q3, sometime after July.

8

Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe impresses with metal body and top specs

Own looks

Unlike the glass-clad ZenFone 3, the Deluxe model has a curved aluminium back, though it shares the same rear camera design and a fingerprint sensor on the back.

The phone is comfortable to hold and has a slightly larger 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display as compared to the ZenFone 3’s 5.5-inch screen. Some may have a little bit of trouble reaching over with their thumb due to the slightly wider screen, but for me each corner was reachable with a bit of a stretch.

Asus has also worked on removing antenna lines to give the phone a clean looking back. We’re told that the antenna is located around the sides of the phone instead. If you look closely, you’ll see little antenna bands on the small chamfered edges near the display. Asus’ engineers said the Deluxe won’t have the “grip of death”/Antennagate issue found on the iPhone 4, as the chamfered edges aren’t likely to be in contact with your hands while holding it.

If you look carefully, you should be able to see a small tiny white antenna banding on the chamfered edges.

Aloysius Low/CNET

Top grade hardware

Like the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Xiaomi Mi 5, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. Unlike those devices, it houses a whopping 6GB of RAM.

The Deluxe will come with different storage capacities that go all the way up to 256GB. It blows my mind that a smartphone will soon have more onboard storage than the laptop I’m using to write this right now.

Like the ZenFone 3, the Deluxe’s camera will have four-axis optical image stabilization, but it’s on a 23-megapixel camera instead of a 16-megapixel camera. Asus is using the Sony IMX318 sensor, which features a super quick 0.03s autofocus and three-axis electronic image stabilization for video. The phone can shoot 4K 3,840×2,160-pixel video, and there’s also two tone flash, a colour sensor and laser autofocus.

The fingerprint sensor is located at the back.

Aloysius Low/CNET

Should you get it?

The ZenFone 3 Deluxe seems like great addition to Asus’ ZenFone line. I’m glad the company is finally budging its focus from budget and midrange handsets, which its ZenFone 2 line was largely comprised of, to make this high-specced device.

If you’re due for a smartphone upgrade, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe is a device to keep your eyes on.

Key specs

• 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display, full HD resolution (1,920×1,080-pixels)
• 3,000mAh battery
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor
• Five magnet speaker and NXT amp
• Three colours: Grey, Silver and Gold.

Check out the rest of CNET’s Computex 2016 coverage here.

This review also appears in Spanish. Read: ZenFone 3 Deluxe: nuestra primera impresión del nuevo celular insignia de Asus.

2018 Ford Mustang Release Date, Price and Specs – Roadshow

How to fix a broken Galaxy S7 edge screen

Here’s what you need to know if the screen on your Galaxy S7 edge breaks.

Chances are you will break the screen on your phone one day. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you have it to look forward to. They’re glass — which is pretty fragile — and we carry them around all day every day in our pocket or bag or even in our hand. No matter how careful you are, your phone is bumped and squished and dropped. If you break the screen on your Samsung Galaxy S7 edge you’ll want to get it fixed. Here’s what you need to know about repairing or replacing the screen.

Get a good screen protector

If the display is badly scratched or has hairline cracks but still works, you can usually get away with covering the whole screen with a good glass screen protector. Think of this as a way to delay the inevitable worsening of cracks in the glass or damage to the actual display. Over time, the cracks will get bigger and those dark pixels will expand, but a glass screen protector will really slow things down and gives you a smooth surface while you’re waiting.

Finding a glass screen protector that fits the Galaxy S7 edge well can be difficult. It took a while for them to hit the market, and a good many of them have horrible reviews or have been discontinued. The problem is the curved edge and curving a new piece of glass to fit it perfectly while still being easy to apply. Luckily, there is one that most people seem to love.

See the Zagg Glass Curve

Getting it repaired

This is the route that most of us will take. Having people who know what they’re doing when it comes to taking expensive phones apart is generally a wise decision. But finding the right people to do the repair can be a little tricky.

If anyone besides Samsung fixes your phone you’ll lose your warranty and water resistance.

The first thing to do is take it back to the place you bought it from and see what they have to say. For most of us in North America, that means a carrier store. No matter the carrier, they will be able to help get the phone repaired or replaced under insurance or a warranty. They can start the official repair process, and even if they need you to call Samsung yourself it’s smart to have a record of talking to the folks whose name is on the device first. Be sure to mention any warranty from your credit card or third party program, and let them know if you or purchased the Samsung Protection Plus package.

If you bought your phone outright, you’re going to be mostly on your own here. Don’t worry, that’s not a big deal in this case. Get things started by starting a repair ticket at Samsung.com or calling Samsung customer service at 1-800-SAMSUNG (726-7864). They’ll get the paperwork started and tell you where and how to send your phone to them, give you an estimate of the cost and let you know approximately how long it’s going to take. Generally, it costs about $250 and takes 14 days. The web is full of folks with horror stories, but those aren’t the rule and you likely won’t have any surprises if you send it off to Samsung.

There are also plenty of other places that repair Samsung screens, and there’s a good chance you even have one within driving distance. There are also some good nationwide options for people in the United States, and we can recommend two:

• UBREAKIFIX is a well-known company that has both walk-in and mail-in service. Visit their website to see if you have a local store or your options for sending it in. This is also the company Google uses for their Pixel repairs for Project Fi insured phones.
• Office Depot has a lot of locations that do phone repairs for Samsung phones. Their work has a full one-year warranty and they offer a price match guarantee with same-day service in many cases. They don’t handle mail-in repairs, but it’s worth a look to see if you have one of their repair centers in driving distance.

If you decide to go local, ask around and see which service the local phone reps at your carrier store use. Also, make sure you get a confirmation of any guarantee and warranty up front and in writing from any place that’s going to take your phone apart. Most local “fix it” centers for cell phones have a person or two who is pretty good at doing things like fixing screens, but it’s always better to be sure of everything in advance.

Do it yourself

If you’ve got the know-how and the patience, you can repair the screen on your GS7 edge yourself though we don’t recommend it. Like most newer phones, the Galaxy S7 edge isn’t very repair-friendly but the display can be worked free of the adhesive.

We’re not saying it’s easy. There’s always the chance you’ll break something else taking a phone apart or that you won’t be able to get it back together again. You’ll need to start from the back and disassemble everything between the back cover and the display, including removing the mainboard itself.

There are plenty of in-depth tutorials about changing your GS7 edge screen on YouTube. You should start with Jerry Rig Everything’s video where he repairs the screen and charging port.

You can pick up a kit that includes the complete digitizer and screen assembly if you want to try and do this yourself. It’s not cheap (at the time of this writing it lists for $274.99) but doing it yourself does mean you don’t have to send your phone off and wait.

See at FixEZ

Have questions?

Do you have questions about getting your screen repaired? Or if you know of a good repair option in your neck of the woods, or can tell us how your repair went we’d love to hear it!

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

• Galaxy S7 review
• Galaxy S7 edge review
• U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7
• Should you upgrade to the Galaxy S7?
• Best SD cards for Galaxy S7
• Join our Galaxy S7 forums

Unlocked
AT&T
Sprint
T-Mobile
Verizon

Best Samsung Gear VR games with controller support

What Gear VR games need a controller?

Samsung built the Gear VR so it didn’t have to rely on a separate controller, and most of the time that is awesome. The touch panel on the side of the headset lets you move around quickly and swipe to perform many different actions in apps and games, and it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes, either because you don’t want a single arm getting tired from playing for an extended period of time or because you want to be a little more discreet, a controller is what you need.

Here’s a quick look at the games we like best when played with a Gear VR controller in hand, so you can have more fun in VR for longer.

Read more at VR Heads

ZTE’s $199 eye-tracking Hawkeye phone will have 2016 specs in late 2017

Here’s what Hawkeye will have.

ZTE will be bringing its crowdsourced Hawkeye smartphone to the U.S. and much of the world in September if it can hit its enormous $500,000 Kickstarter goal (as of writing, it’s raised just over $30,000). When ZTE revealed the eventual name of ‘Project CSX’, it gave us some ideas of how the phone would separate itself (eye-tracking technology), and what it would cost ($199), but we were without most of the other relevant specs. Now we have them.

The Hawkeye phone will be, for its entry in late 2017, an entry-level device, with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 625 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a dual-camera setup featuring 12MP and 13MP sensors at two different focal lengths. A 3000mAh battery will keep things moving all day, and the USB-C port will charge at Quick Charge 2.0 speeds. We also know that the supported LTE bands will keep the phone out of Verizon and Sprint, but will support Band 66 for T-Mobile and Freedom Mobile’s growing AWS-3 networks.

So nothing particularly interesting about the Hawkeye’s specs on paper, but it will be very interesting to see how the whole thing comes together when it debuts in September or October.

What should you ask for when demoing VR?

What are the experiences I should ask for when I demo VR?

Say you’ve found a demo station near you and you plan to head down — what will you ask to see when you get there? Many demo stations have a set number of experiences you can try, and you’ll probably be on a time limit. To help you get the most out of your demo, here are the best experiences to try depending on your taste.

Read more at VR Heads!