Google Home Owners Can Now Stream Songs They Uploaded to Play Music

Google has updated its Home smart speaker software so that owners can now listen to music they have uploaded to and purchased on Google Play Music.

Previously, using a free Play Music account through Google Home was limited to playing radio stations, while paying subscribers could listen to tracks in the streaming service’s own online catalog. But now both types of account holders can also play music they have personally uploaded to the cloud (up to 50,000 songs) or bought outright on the Play Music store.

As detailed in the company’s product forum post, Google Home will now prioritize uploaded and purchased tracks over radio mixes when users ask to play a certain artist, but on-demand content will play before purchased/uploaded content unless paying users specifically ask Home to play something from their library.

The feature is currently rolling out to all regions where Google Home is supported. See Google’s help page on the subject for more.

Tags: Google Play Music, Google Home
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OnePlus 5 vs. OPPO R11: Identity crisis

The OnePlus 5 is indistinguishable from the OPPO R11 in terms of external design, but the internal hardware tells a different story.

The OnePlus 5 is one of the best affordable flagships you can buy today, and although it’s costlier than previous generations, you still get a lot of value. With the OPPO R11, the spec sheet isn’t necessarily the primary focus, with the brand instead focusing on the overall experience.

The OPPO R11 is limited to China, and the phone is unlikely to be available outside a few countries in Asia. As such, the OnePlus 5 will be the default choice in most global markets. But that doesn’t make it any less interesting to compare both devices and observe their similarities and differences.

Hardware

Earlier OnePlus designs didn’t have a lot in common with OPPO phones, but OnePlus’ decision to put dual cameras in its latest flagship limited its design choices. The company opted to use OPPO’s sensor configuration, and that meant moving the antenna bands to the top and bottom of the phone. The result is that the OnePlus 5 looks identical to the OPPO R11 from the back. There are a few subtle differences through — the OnePlus 5 has a secondary microphone between the camera and the flash module, and the antenna bands are more pronounced on the device.

At 6.8mm, the OPPO R11 is 0.5mm thinner than the OnePlus 5, and the phone compensates for it by being marginally wider at 74.8mm (versus 74.1mm). Essentially, the R11 feels like a flatter version of the OnePlus 5, and it makes a difference during everyday usage. Of the two, the OnePlus 5 is more comfortable to hold and use.

Although the exterior is identical, the same cannot be said of the underlying hardware. The OnePlus 5 features Qualcomm’s 10nm Snapdragon 835, whereas the OPPO R11 is running the 14nm Snapdragon 660. OnePlus sells its devices exclusively online, and is able to cut down on the overhead that is normally associated with selling phones at retail stores. In doing so, it is able to offer the latest hardware for a few hundred dollars less than the competition.

That isn’t the case with OPPO, which built its brand name by aggressively marketing its products and making them available at thousands of offline stores in China. As a result, the OPPO R11 ends up costing the same as the 6GB variant of the OnePlus 5. Instead of offering the latest specs available, OPPO caters to what its customers want most from a phone — which usually includes a premium design, great camera experience, and all-day battery life. In that context, the OPPO R11 absolutely delivers.

While it may not be as fast as the Snapdragon 835, the Snapdragon 660 is no slouch. The SoC has eight Kryo 260 cores — a step down from the Kryo 280 on the 835 — with four clocked at 2.2GHz and four at 1.8GHz. There weren’t any issues in day-to-day performance, and the R11 handled everything I threw at it with ease. There’s not a whole lot to say about the OnePlus 5 in this area — the phone is an absolute beast.

Both phones use similar AMOLED displays, but the OnePlus 5 supports the DCI-P3 wider color gamut and allows you to adjust the color temperature. There’s also a Reading Mode, which automatically calibrates the display for reading text. On the R11, you’re limited to changing the font size. The color saturation is great on both handsets thanks to the AMOLED panels, but I found the overall brightness to be lacking.

The OnePlus 5 has global LTE bands, and the R11 is limited to Asia.

Both devices have fingerprint sensors at the front, but the R11 has a slender edge when it comes to authentication. It certainly is one of the fastest fingerprint sensors I’ve used, taking just a few milliseconds to unlock after putting my finger on the sensor. It was so instantaneous that I had to try a few times with a finger that I didn’t register (it stores up to five fingerprints) just to see if the sensor was actually working (it was).

The one downside on the R11 is the fact that it uses microUSB and not the newer USB-C standard. With even budget phones offering USB-C, it’s puzzling to see OPPO sticking to the older protocol. The R11 also misses out on NFC, but it does offer a 3.5mm jack.

The OnePlus 5 also wins out in terms of connectivity — the company is selling a single SKU throughout the world, offering global LTE bands. The R11, meanwhile, is designed for Asian markets, and as such has limited LTE bands — FDD-LTE Bands 1/2/3/4/5/8 and TDD-LTE Bands 38/39/40/41 — that allow it to work in China, India, and a few Southeast Asian countries.

Battery life

The OnePlus 5 has Dash Charge, and the R11 features VOOC Flash Charge. They’re the same standard — the only difference is the name and the red charging cable that you get with the OnePlus 5. VOOC offloads the charging circuitry to the wall charger, which ensures the phone doesn’t overheat while charging. The result is the ability to charge your device up to 65% in just 30 minutes. To get Dash Charge or Flash Charge speeds, you’ll have to use the wall unit and cable that’s included in the box.

The OnePlus 5 manages to deliver a day’s worth of usage consistently from the 3300mAh battery, and the combination of a 10nm chipset and larger battery allows the phone to edge out the R11. ColorOS’ aggressive memory management ekes out the maximum out of the 3000mAh battery on the R11, but there were instances where the battery fell below 10% after about 18 hours of use. Both phones offer power saving modes that let you extend the battery life once it goes below a certain threshold.

Software

Although the OnePlus 5 and OPPO R11 share a lot of similarities when it comes to external design, there’s a clear dichotomy when you look at the software implementation. OxygenOS 4.5 on the OnePlus 5 is a skin devoid of customizations, offering a near-stock user experience with a smattering of useful additions, like gestures and accent colors. Overall, the software experience on offer with the OnePlus 5 is unmatched in this segment.

Meanwhile, ColorOS 3.1 (based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat) is a quintessential Chinese ROM — there’s no app drawer, the notification shade doesn’t have quick toggles, and the interface is heavily skinned. The toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and location services are accessible by a slide out gesture from the bottom of the screen, much like how Control Center works in iOS.

OxygenOS is designed for a global audience, whereas ColorOS is made for China.

You get customizable toggles along with a brightness slider, a blue light filter, and a list of your frequently used apps along the bottom row. The status bar has the cellular and Wi-Fi signal icons on the left, with just the battery indicator located at the right.

The bottom of the notification pane has a data counter that gives you an overview of your data usage for the current day, as well as total data consumed in that particular month. You also get to see the time, day, and weather information from the pane. While the notification window itself is customized — like the rest of the user interface — you do get the option to send Nougat-style quick replies without having to go into an app.

The user interface certainly has a learning curve, but it does offer a ton of extra features. The only other Chinese ROM I’ve used with any regularity is MIUI, and ColorOS offers a similar set of additions, including the ability to run two instances of the same app simultaneously. There’s also a split-screen mode, but you’ll need to enable it from the settings.

There’s even a handy guide that runs you through the various features on offer with ColorOS, along with troubleshooting tips and contact information for OPPO’s after-sales service.

Camera

The camera is once again an area where both phones sport identical hardware — a 16-megapixel primary shooter augmented by a 20MP secondary sensor. The secondary shooter is a telephoto lens, allowing the devices to offer 2x lossless zoom. While the sensor setup is the same, the resulting images aren’t identical, mainly due to the differences in the SoC and the software processing algorithms implemented by both companies.

OnePlus 5 on the left, OPPO R11 on the right.

Photos shot with the OnePlus 5 are oversaturated, and the phone loses out on a lot of detail in 2x zoom when compared to the R11. The 20MP camera on the R11 also has a slender edge over the 16MP shooter on the OnePlus 5. That said, the OnePlus 5 benefits from the newer ISP on the Snapdragon 835, with the phone offering better dynamic range.

Images taken from the primary shooter on the R11 tend to be overexposed, resulting in colors looking washed out. That isn’t the case on the OnePlus 5, which produces consistently decent photos in daylight conditions.

Which should you buy? OnePlus 5

For a majority of customers outside of China, the OnePlus 5 is the only viable option. OnePlus has managed to carve out a niche for itself by offering top-notch hardware for a few hundred dollars less than the competition, and that strategy has worked very well for the manufacturer.

The R11 doesn’t come close to the OnePlus 5 in terms of the value proposition, but it doesn’t matter anyway as both phones are targeted at different segments. The OnePlus 5 is sold online and caters to enthusiast users, whereas the R11 is sold via thousands of OPPO stores across China.

The hardware on offer along with the software experience makes the OnePlus 5 one of the best devices in this segment.

See at OnePlus

Xiaomi Mi Smart Shoes review: Obsessively track your workouts

Xiaomi’s smart shoes automatically detect and catalog your workouts.

Xiaomi is no stranger to the wearable segment — its $20 Mi Band is immensely popular worldwide — and the brand is once again turning to fitness tracking with its latest product, the Mijia Smart Shoes. Like the rest of its Mi Ecosystem portfolio, Xiaomi’s smart shoes offer great value for money.

The heel and ankle portion of the shoe is made out of SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber), and the rubber outsole has an anti-slip patch. The knitted fabric upper allows the shoe to be lightweight, and there’s a “torsion balance sheet” inserted in the midsole that protects you from spraining your feet.

If you’re running at night, there’s a reflective thread that’s woven into the shoelace and a reflective stripe at the back.

The brains of the smart shoe is an Intel Curie module, a coin-sized 32-bit SoC based on the Quark SE platform that has a 6-axis sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope. The module can run for up 60 days on a standard coin battery, and it has enough compute power to crunch all the data recorded from the bevy of sensors and transmit it over Bluetooth LE.

The module is IP67 water-resistant and can be inserted into either the left or right shoe. The system is similar to the Nike+ sensor from several years ago, but it does a much better job of cataloging your data. Like the Mi Band, Xiaomi’s smart shoes are manufactured by Huami. I picked up the black colorway, but they’re also available in grey and blue.

The module automatically differentiates between running, walking, and climbing, and you’ll be able to see an overview of the total distance covered in a day along with the calories burned through the Mi Fit app.

You’ll need to initially pair the Curie module with the Mi Fit app during initial setup — the pairing process involves you placing the module in the shoe and shaking it to activate the sensor, and then enabling Bluetooth on your phone so the app can detect the shoe. Once set up, you can view your activity history broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly increments. There’s also the option to sync your activity data with Google Fit.

The success of the Mi Band allowed Xiaomi to clinch the second spot in the wearable category, and a lot of that had to do with the fitness band’s affordability. Xiaomi’s $60 sneakers are similarly worth the purchase, even without the smarts. Factor in the Curie module and you have one of the best options in the wearable segment.

See at GearBest

AI lawyer can help you with a thousand different legal issues

Over two years ago, Joshua Browder, now a junior at Stanford University, created a chatbot that could contest parking tickets in New York City and London. By June of 2016, DoNotPay had successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets — a 64 percent success rate — and earlier this year, Browder added capabilities to assist asylum seekers in the US, UK and Canada. Now, the bot is able to assist with over 1,000 different legal issues in all 50 states and across the UK.

To use DoNotPay’s AI-assisted help, you just type your problem into its search bar and links to relevant aid pop up that are specific to your location. After you navigate through different options, a chatbot then asks you questions and puts together a letter or other legal documentation. The bots can help you write letters or fill out forms for issues like maternity leave requests, landlord disputes, insurance claims and harassment.

Browder hasn’t accepted any outside funding as of yet, but monetization of DoNotPay is in its future. While he hasn’t decided on how that will go, Browder is considering bot sponsorships, like a car dealership sponsoring a parking ticket bot specific to its city, for example.

The “world’s first robot lawyer,” as Browder refers to his service, has beaten an estimated 375,000 parking tickets and saved around $9.3 million in fines. If that success can translate to the 1,000 new legal areas the bot is taking on, DoNotPay can become a seriously useful free legal aid.

Via: The Verge

Source: DoNotPay (1), (2)

Fox broadcasts Formula E’s historic NYC races starting July 15th

Formula E is about to make history by bringing racing back to New York City, and you’ll have plenty of chances to tune in… though it’s not always live. Fox Sports (the league’s official broadcaster) has detailed a coverage schedule for the two Brooklyn races on the weekend, including the pre-race build-up. Everything starts on July 15th at 6:30PM, when FS2 and SDD will rebroadcast the round 9 race’s qualifying results. You’ll see the race itself an hour later, at 7:30PM. Round 10 qualifying will air 11AM on July 16th. The real fireworks start at 12:30PM on the 16th — that’s when the pre-race (and half an hour later, the race itself) broadcasts live on TV. Both races will livestream online through Fox Sports Go, though you’ll need a TV subscription to take advantage of internet viewing.

As for those of us who aren’t Fox customers? We’ve asked Formula E about its plans, but the league has historically offered video on YouTube, including live streams of the races and qualifiers. If so, you won’t have to watch Fox (or endure arbitrary delays) to understand what all the fuss is about. It’s just the most surefire option as we write this.

Source: Fox Sports

Google Home will now play your uploaded and purchased music on Google Play Music

One of Google Play Music’s best features has finally come to Google Home.

Google Play Music is one of the few online music services that allows you to mix your personal uploaded and purchased music with a subscription library with millions and millions of songs. However, when Google Play Music launched on Google Home when the little air freshener lookalike debuted, you could cast any music you wanted to the speaker, but if you asked Google Assistant for your Google Play Music, it wouldn’t properly process queries for uploaded and purchased music. Instead, Google Home was offering up music from the All Access library (or the free radio stations if you weren’t a subscriber).

No more!

A new update rolling out this week claims that Google Home will start playing your purchased and uploaded music when you ask Google Assistant for it. If you’re not an All Access user, Google Home will play your uploaded and purchased music before it dips into the free radio stations. As a lover and listener of thousands of personally uploaded songs that don’t exist on Google’s All Access library, this is fantastic news, as I can call for my special tunes without having to dig out my phone. This is especially good news for users with robust uploaded libraries that aren’t All Access users, as they can start calling for their own music on Google Home without being stuck with the free radio stations.

Google Home

• Google Home review
• These services work with Google Home
• Google Home vs. Amazon Echo
• Join our Google Home forums!

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Samsung’s $500 soundbar offers 32-bit audio, subwoofer-like bass

It’s difficult for soundbars to stand out: they have to be very intelligent or sweet-sounding to rise above the rest. Samsung is clearly betting on that second strategy to stand out. It just started shipping the MS750 Sound+ Soundbar it unveiled back in January, and the emphasis here is on quality above all else. Spend $500 on this plain-looking gear and you’ll get “Ultra High Quality” 32-bit audio upscaling that Samsung says should preserve the quality of a source. That’s going to depend heavily on the source itself, so don’t expect flawless audio from your favorite game or movie, but you can get “HD sound” from a mobile source like Samsung’s own Multiroom App.

The other party trick: reducing (or in some cases, eliminating) the need for extra equipment. As outlined at CES, it’s supposed to offer subwoofer-grade bass all on its own. You can pair it with an optional W700 subwoofer ($700) to lower the sound floor to 27Hz, but it’s not absolutely necessary. Also, it promises a wider sound stage, with wide sound dispersion thanks to an appropriate tweeter and a crossover range between 600Hz and 20kHz.

The question is whether or not you should get a soundbar like this. For $200 more, you can snag a speaker like the Sonos Playbase that may not be as explicitly focused on audio quality, but still sounds good and is decidedly more network-savvy. It really depends on your priorities — how likely is it that your soundbar will double as your home stereo? If the answer is “not very,” the MS750 might be the smarter choice.

Source: Samsung Newsroom

Google won’t have to pay $1.3 billion in back taxes to France

Back in February, France took Google to court demanding back taxes of $1.7 billion. But it wasn’t clear whether the search titan, whose European headquarters is based in Ireland, would be subject to continental taxes. A French court just decided in Google’s favor, sparing it from the $1.3 billion award for tax years 2005 to 2010 that France was seeking.

Authorities had been watching Google for some time, as a parallel investigation led them to raid the company’s French offices back in May 2016 — which they prepared for by staying off the Google grid and even avoided referring to the company’s name to prevent leaks. France had reason to believe its case might succeed given that, back in January, the United Kingdom won a $185 million settlement from Google for back taxes dating back to 2005, with Italy similarly settling for $334 million in May. France was suing for roughly the same period and declined a settlement similar to the UK’s, shooting for the full $1.3 billion. But the case’s judge ultimately decided Google had not abused legal loopholes in choosing to situate its headquarters in Ireland, whose corporate tax rate is far lower than on the mainland.

Aside from challenges to its advantageous tax strategy, Google is facing other legal pressure in Europe. Weeks ago, the EU fined the tech titan a record $2.7 billion for manipulating search results to promote its own products. Meanwhile, the EU’s antitrust case against Google for stuffing Android with its own software continues.

Source: Bloomberg

LG will reveal the V30 on August 31st

LG just dropped a big hint as to what’s next for its smartphone roster. The company has sent out a “save the date” teaser that hints at a V30 launch in Berlin on August 31st, right before the start of the IFA technology trade show. The image doesn’t give too much away, but there are a couple of conspicuous clues. The “V” is the dead giveaway as to what to expect, of course, but the image itself is a 2:1 aspect ratio. In other words, you can expect the G6’s extra-tall display concept (including the minimal bezel) to carry over.

That might be reflected in leaks. If you believe renders put out by OnLeaks and MySmartPrice, the V30 will look like a larger, curvier G6 with a different take on the dual rear camera layout. That’s good news if you like the basic concept behind the G6, but it also suggests that the V-series’ signature secondary display (and the removable battery) is going away. Sorry, folks.

It’s safe to say that the V30 will carry a speedier Snapdragon 835 processor, so this might allay complaints that the G6 was saddled with last year’s 821 (reportedly to avoid delays while Samsung snapped up early 835 chips). And historically, V-series phones have been big on features that appeal to mobile enthusiasts, such as high-quality audio DACs and manual camera controls. The V30 might not be particularly exciting, then, but a souped-up G6 wouldn’t be that bad in our books. The G6 was a back-to-basics phone that nailed fundamentals LG had been ignoring for too long — the V30 would be a refinement of that formula.

Google Launches ‘Backup and Sync’ Mac App for Google Photos and Google Drive

Google today announced the launch of Backup and Sync, a new app for Macs and PCs that’s designed to back up files and photos safely in Google Drive and Google Photos. The new app is meant to replace the existing Google Photos desktop uploader and Drive for Mac/PC.

To use Backup and Sync, Google Drive/Photos users just need to download the app and then choose the folders they want to back up. From there, the selected folders will be continually backed up to Google’s services, providing an alternative to Time Machine and making it easier to automatically store important files in the cloud.

In addition to specific folders on a Mac or PC, Backup and Sync can also automatically import files from SD cards and USB devices when a camera, SD card, or other device is connected to a computer.

There are also specific options users can set to dictate how file deletions are handled, and users can choose to upload photos at a lower quality if space is a concern.

Backup and Sync is available starting today through Google Drive and Google Photos.

Tags: Google, Google Photos, Google Drive
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