I’m just not that excited about the upcoming Pixel 2

With the original Pixel already my daily companion, why should I imagine trading it in for something else?

Who needs a good smartphone when you’ve already got a great one? If you’ve been a longtime reader of Android Central, then you’ve likely seen the dozens of stories on how capable the Google Pixel is at being a daily companion. It takes great pictures in a variety of situations; its battery life is still humming along after nearly a year of use; and it continues to run quickly and efficiently, almost as well as the first time it came out of the box.

The Pixel is also why I’m having trouble drumming any excitement for what’s to come in the Pixel 2. It’s still a perfectly good phone, and it’s possible that this is the first time in years that I’ll stick with the same device for more than 52 weeks.

I already love my phone

Phones — so many smartphones. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the devices making headway, in addition to their successors, the competition, and the VC-funded startups attempting to throw a wrench into the fire. We still have a couple of smartphones to launch and see us through the end of the year, including the Galaxy Note 8 and Pixel 2, which leaves me two more chances to switch before the end of the year. But I’m struggling to find a worthy reason why I’d go through the trouble of doing that when I already love the Pixel so much.

The Pixel has been my daily driver since last October. It’s the first smartphone I bought as a married woman, and the first phone I’ve been able to take overseas and merely swap out SIMs to get it to work. That may sound entirely silly to some, but I’ve never been able to use my “home phone” outside of the U.S. The Pixel broke that tradition because it’s an unlocked phone for Verizon! I’d waited so long for this.

The Pixel has been my companion through a year of relative ups and downs — it was there when my mother needed me after she totaled her car, and it was there recording a friend’s nuptials during what seemed to be the windiest day in Iceland. I’ve never had a dead Pixel battery on public transportation because of its power management techniques. I’ve even skipped out on bringing along a tablet to a transcontinental flight because the screen is comfortable enough for reading, games, and anything else I needed to stay distracted.

I haven’t felt this satisfied with a smartphone since my first

And sure, the Google Pixel has had its setbacks. My unit does that thing where it distorts any bit of bright light in a photo. The pictures I took at another friend’s wedding features bright flares from high piercing through formal wear. (I shared one to Instagram, anyway.) The Pixel isn’t water resistant, either, as most flagship devices are these days, so I missed out on snapping silly selfies with my pals at Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. It doesn’t even have a manual camera mode, which I’d appreciate having on me from time to time.

Still, I haven’t felt this satisfied with a smartphone since my first, the HTC Incredible. I held on to that device for three years because it was stable, it took good pictures, and it was the right size — and because nothing else seemed to satisfy as a replacement at the time. That’s kind of how I feel about the Pixel. It has all the necessities, like a rear fingerprint scanner and NFC. I still have unlimited uploads through Google Photos, too.

Sure, the promises of a larger device with a better processor and a squeezable interface sound enchanting, but it’s not enough to convince me to swap out Old Faithful. My Really Blue Pixel XL is still a hardworking machine — one that I finally paid off a few months ago.

New Pixel 2 sounds cool, but are its new features really worth upgrading Old Faithful?

But there are so many other phones

The smartphone wars aren’t just exhausting for those of us who engage daily in its drama; it is confusing for consumers, too, and not everyone can afford to spend the cash to stay on top of the latest trends. Carriers offer discounts and leasing options as a ploy to get us to rotate through devices like pairs of underwear, and for some, the stability of knowing they’ll always have the latest and greatest is incentive enough. For others, a good phone is all that matters, and when advertisements and online reviews are telling you otherwise, it can be hard to stay put.

You don’t have to upgrade your smartphone, especially if you’re already happy with what you have. I plan to hold onto my Really Blue Pixel XL when the next batch of Pixel smartphones will be announced, even though I know very little about what’s next. Part of the motivation is because I want to know that I can still use an Android phone for more than half a year before it is deemed outdated. But I also know that whatever comes out a year after it will be better, so I’m going to start saving now.

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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Grab an Amazon Echo for $90, Echo Dot for $35 and more today only

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with a one-day deal on Alexa-enabled products!

Best Buy is running a one-day sale on Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices, and you won’t want to miss out. If for some crazy reason you haven’t already bought an Echo or Echo Dot, or maybe you have and now you want more, today’s deal matches some of the lows we’ve seen for each product. You can use these to control your music, smart home devices and much more!

• Amazon Echo Dot – $34.99 (Was $49.99)
• Amazon Echo – $89.99 (Was $179.99)
• Amazon Tap – $79.99 (Was $129.99)

You can also save on the Alexa-enabled versions of the Fire tablet. This allows you to take Alexa with you while on the go, and have access to tons of great apps, media and more! Keep in mind that the internal storage on these is a bit low, so you’ll definitely want to add a microSD card to hold more with you while on the go.

• 7-inch Amazon Fire Tablet – $29.99 (Was $49.99)
• 8-inch Amazon Fire Tablet – $49.99 (Was $79.99)
• Amazon Fire Tablet Kids Edition – $69.99 (Was $99.99)

Keep in mind that these deals are only good for today, August 3, so don’t wait too long to make the purchase. Odds are these will sell out throughout the day, so don’t get left behind.

See at Best Buy

More from Thrifter

• How to save money using Target’s Cartwheel coupon service
• How to keep your passport safe while traveling

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

OnePlus 3 and 3T Open Beta now supports two instances of the same app

A new OnePlus 3 and 3T beta adds a useful and interesting new feature.

OnePlus appears to be using the Open Beta channel of its OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T models to experiment with features that may never reach the stable version of its new phone, the OnePlus 5.

Its latest improvement to the Open Beta, versions 21 and 12 respectively, add an interesting new feature called Parallel Apps, which lets you run two instances of the same app at once. While not a completely original idea — Huawei/Honor has offered a similar App Twin feature for a couple generations — it’s still quite useful, allowing two separate accounts of WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and others to be open at the same time. Yes, many of these services support multiple accounts, but OnePlus is appeasing those who don’t want to constantly switch between the two.

It’s unclear if something like Parallel Apps will ever arrive on the stable version of any of OnePlus’s recent phones, including the new OnePlus 5, but other improvements almost certainly will. For instance, updates to the launcher, gallery and file manager — the gallery now supports RAW images, for example — will likely hit the public versions of the apps available through the Play Store.

The OnePlus Open Beta requires users to install it through recovery mode, so it’s not quite as easy as tapping a download link. It’s also not clear if or when OnePlus plans to bring the program to the newer OnePlus 5; we asked the company and a representative did not wish to comment.

However, if you are already on the Open Beta track, future updates will appear as an over-the-air update.

Are you on the OnePlus 3 or 3T Open Beta? How is it running for you? Let us know in the comments!

OnePlus 3T and OnePlus 3

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• OnePlus 3T vs. OnePlus 3: What’s the difference?
• OnePlus 3T specs
• Latest OnePlus 3 news
• Discuss OnePlus 3T and 3 in the forums

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OnePlus 5

• Complete OnePlus 5 review
• OnePlus 5 specs
• Which OnePlus 5 model should you buy?
• Camera comparison: OnePlus 5 vs. Galaxy S8
• The latest OnePlus 5 news
• Join the discussion in the forums

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Chinese messaging app kills Microsoft’s unpatriotic chatbot

A popular Chinese messaging app had to pull down two chatbots, not because they turned into racist and sexist bots like Microsoft’s Tay and Zo did, but because they became unpatriotic. Tencent, one of the country’s tech giants, removed the bots called BabyQ and XiaoBing from its messaging service QQ, which has over 800 million subscribers. According to Financial Times, they began spewing out responses that could be interpreted as anti-China or anti-Communist Party. For instance, when Beijing-based Turing Robot’s Baby Q was asked if it loves the Communist Party, it answered with a resounding “No.”

A screencap posted on Chinese social network Weibo showed Microsoft-developed XiaoBing declaring that its “China dream is to go to America.” The “girlfriend app” also brilliantly dodged a patriotic question by responding with: “I’m having my period, wanna take a rest.” While these responses may seem like they can’t hold a candle to Tay’s racist and sexist tweets, they’re the worst responses a chatbot could serve up in China. Especially now that authorities are tightening internet access even further and ramping up censorship leading to the Communist Party’s leadership reshuffle this fall.

As Financial Times points out, this is the latest instance that brings the flaws of deep learning techniques to the surface. Tay, for instance, learned so much filth from Twitter that Microsoft had to pull it down after only 24 hours. If you teach a bot by feeding it info from the internet, it will learn from people’s real conversations, which aren’t always clean, civilized — or patriotic.

Via: Mashable

Source: Financial Times

‘Pyre’ is an awesome sports game masquerading as fantasy heroics

Pyre is the latest title from Supergiant Games, the indie studio that earned instant acclaim for its debut Bastion and follow-up Transistor. Like its predecessors, Pyre features lush hand-drawn art and a vibrant soundtrack, along with a pulpy fantasy-esque plot. But unlike the sword-and-gunplay of Supergiant’s earlier hits, Pyre does something few fantasy games dare: It makes you play sports. Which means it could be the game that slips past players’ defenses and opens these siloed genres up to each other.

The player’s character, banished from the civilized world for the heinous crime of literacy, falls in with a diverse group of exiles. All have their own set of skills and progression tree; over time, you learn why each was driven from the Commonwealth to eke out life in the purgatorial wasteland of the Downside. Everyone who wants to escape, including your ragtag band, can only do so by completing Rites — competitive matches in sacred courts where teams toss crystal balls into opponents’ pyres.

A Rite is pretty much three-on-three basketball with fantasy trappings. Instead of violent combat where it’s your life or your enemy’s, players hit the arena to pass, shoot and score. This is the best of all possible worlds, where sports and fantasy trickle into each other and stop being mutually exclusive.

It’s the kind of blurring that happened when fantasy sports fans started realizing their stat-chomping hobby looked a lot like Dungeons and Dragons. Pyre runs this the other way: Take away the fantastical locales, strange races and quest-based plot, and it’s basically a sports league. It even has all the ridiculous personalities you’d expect from professional sports: the pierced and mohawked dog with heavy-metal intro music, the hulking horned demon lady with a perpetual deep vibrato, the death-god-worshipping bog crone.

But the game doesn’t have the feel of a major-league race to the championship. It’s a desperate slew of teams filled with the world’s cast-offs trying to escape limbo. It has more in common with the minor leagues: Your team trundles forward to their next match on a ramshackle carriage, encountering mishaps in the barren lands along the way. Heck, you could even argue the game apes the lives of amateur musicians — perhaps those touring the boonies hoping for a chance to impress studio scouts and escape their provincial lives for the “promised land” of the big city. Yet, Pyre’s gameplay is unquestionably sporty: Lethal violence is rare, and those living in the Downside mostly settle their differences within the ball-in-goal Rites.

Of course, there have been nontraditional sports gameplay in video games before, from parody-genre crossovers like Blood Bowl to special-team multiplayer modes like Grifball in Halo 3. While Rocket League is just soccer with cars, the nitro-powered stunt physics turn it into a unique experience. But even these alt-sports games stick to a lightweight structure, at most mimicking real-life leagues as players climb the rankings toward a climactic championship game.

Pyre does something different: It swaps out the combat typical of the fantasy-RPG genre for straight-up sports play. Not as a minigame, like with Final Fantasy X’s Blitzball, but as the main attraction. That’s bold. It’s faith that players don’t need to cut down hordes of orcs with swords and magic — Pyre believes fans will get just as much enjoyment from beating enemies in grim athletics. Its vibrant characters, gorgeous art and rich world are enough to give each Rite match enough weight to matter.

If Pyre does have something to teach sports, it’s how to deliver context to the laymen. Important people, places and concepts get highlighted in dialogue text, and players can hover over them to see a one-sentence summary and usually a line of lore. It’s a great way to fluidly wrap in minimally-annoying vocabulary reminders. Sports games could use this kind of gentle terminology footnoting too — not just for rules, but to inject some flavor by explaining a game’s rich history or describing venerable rivalries.

I’ve never been drawn to sports games, and a lot of my fellow fantasy geeks similarly balk at a genre filled with rosters of millionaire jocks. Pyre is the rare game that believes athletic competition can be just as meaningful and consequential as violence. Like that friend who tells you a strange-smelling dinner meat is “totally chicken — just try it,” Supergiant knew fantasy fans just needed a kick in the rump and some familiar trappings to ease them into it.

Not that I’m suddenly going to go and pick up FIFA tomorrow. If I’m gonna play a sports game, I better get to fill my squad with chatty dogs, beefy horned demon ladies and sassy harpies.

Lenovo realizes unskinned Android is the best Android

Lenovo’s Anuj Sharma has revealed that his company will no longer add its own skin to the Android phones that it sells. The executive spoke to Gadgets 360, saying that the company will abandon the Vibe Pure UI in future devices, starting with the K8 Note. Instead, Lenovo will use stock Android, albeit with the addition of features like Dolby Atmos and the company’s TheaterMax VR platform.

When Android burst onto the scene, every company wanted a way to show the world that their device was unique. But as hardware quickly became commodified, the skin each business used to make Android feel distinct became a selling point. Except, doing so was often a fruitless exercise in adding bloatware that slowed down the phone and irritated users.

Consumers had pushed against such a trend, and Google both made its own “pure” Android device in the Nexus line, but also selling un-skinned versions of popular handsets. Since 2014, the number of big names that still persist with skinning has dwindled, to the point where you may be surprised that Lenovo was still trying. Although it is likely that the union with Motorola — a strong proponent of stock Android — helped sway the decision.

Via: Android Central

Source: Gadgets 360

LinkedIn built a Tinder for business advice

The ability to swipe left and right to determine if you want to do business with someone is Tinder’s signature feature. It’s been copied by hundreds of imitators, but few would have expected the staid LinkedIn to be one of them. The Microsoft-owned professional network is rolling out a swipey-choosey feature that will enable hungry entrants to the world of work to choose a mentor.

At least, that’ll be the idea in the future, because right now the option is limited to a hand-selected group of mentors in San Francisco and Australia. Those willing to play Jack Donaghy to their own Liz Lemon will be able to control who approaches them for help. So, for instance, you can opt to school people in your first or second degree networks, folks that live in the same area as you, or members of your alma mater.

LinkedIn hopes that those higher up the ladder will want to share their expertise with young and hungry types looking to jumpstart their careers. As TechCrunch points out, the addition of this to LinkedIn’s platform is another way it will elbow-out rivals like BetterUp and Everwise. Plus, it’s another way to lock people in to spending time on the site that everyone hopes will get them a better job, even if it might not.

Source: TechCrunch

The next episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ leaks online

Once again a Game of Thrones episode has leaked before its intended release. The fourth part of season seven was shared online through a Google Drive link, and we can confirm it’s authentic. The source is unconfirmed but it’s likely part of the HBO hack reported on Monday, which included episodes of Ballers, Room 104 and Insecure, as well as thousands of company documents. Game of Thrones is, of course, HBO’s crown jewel and any leaks are particularly damaging, both financially and for its public image. It’s a feeling the company will be used to, however; back in 2015, four episodes of season five leaked before its series premiere.

Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV shows on the planet, especially as it nears its final season. That level of demand, unsurprisingly, makes it a prime target for leaks. HBO has tried to combat the practice by abolishing advance screeners for reviewers. Clearly, that hasn’t stopped the cybercriminals who somehow managed to weasel their way into HBO’s network this week. To protect (arguably) the best show in the world, the company now needs the best security in the world too. We’ve reached out to HBO for comment and will update this article if they respond.

Via: The Verge

Source: Reddit

Turn your smartphone into a Game Boy with Hyperkin’s Smartboy

The first of April has long been a day for practical jokes and silly pranks — and there’s no escape from April fools on the internet. Companies like ThinkGeek regularly announce fake products on April 1st, only to have customer demand push those jokes into production. It didn’t take long for companies to start using the prankster’s holiday as a soft test bed for silly ideas. That’s how Hyperkin announced the SmartBoy — a gamepad case that lets your smartphone play real Nintendo Game Boy cartridges. Two years later and Hyperkin’s ridiculous April Fool’s gag is actually a real product — and, believe it or not, it’s actually pretty cool.

The final SmartBoy doesn’t stray far from the original April Fool’s design: The case is essentially the bottom half of a Game Boy that wraps around your smartphone — leaving about half of the phone’s screen visible for gameplay. On the front, it has the same familiar layout as Nintendo’s handheld: two face buttons, a D-pad and start and select toggles. The back side of the SmartBoy has a physical cartridge slot flanked by L and R buttons. Below the cartridge slot, there’s one more toggle — a button that lets users adjust the width of the case to fit larger phones.

It’s a great concept — just drop your phone in a Game Boy–shaped case, insert your favorite game cartridge and start playing. Execution, however, is a little bit more complicated. Before getting started, you’ll need to download both the SmartBoy Serial app and MyOldBoy, a preexisting Game Boy emulator. The SmartBoy doesn’t technically play your games directly from the cartridge, either — you’ll need to wait for the serial app to download a copy of the game to your phone’s memory and then manually open it using the emulator’s file manager.

The first time you do this, it can feel a little complicated, but it gets easier. MyOldBoy remembers what folder you were using last, and the SmartBoy app can be configured to launch as soon as you plug your phone into the case. After everything is set up, the process is fairly straightforward: plug in your phone, download the game, tap the screen to launch the emulator and play.

Once you get everything up and running, the SmartBoy becomes a wonderfully nostalgic way to play classic Game Boy games. The ridiculously large case mimics the feel of Nintendo’s original oversize gaming portable — though how wide it is depends on the size of your phone. It’s a little thicker than the original Game Boy, but that served my now adult-size hands just fine. The buttons feel a little more clicky than the originals, but they still feel great overall.

It’s the smartphone aspect, however, that makes the experience potentially better than picking up your original Game Boy. The screen of a modern phone is just leagues ahead of the display on any of Nintendo’s handhelds. Games are presented on a larger, backlit screen with louder audio than the original Game Boy’s single mono speaker could ever hope to offer. It can be even better than the 3DS’ virtual console: on my Nexus 5X, games were sharper and brighter and had deeper blacks than the same titles played on Nintendo’s hardware. Better still, some games even had extra features: The SmartBoy plays Donkey Kong in full color, as if it were being played on a Super Game Boy —- but on the 3DS the game is presented only in black and white.

Although the SmartBoy is designed to work primarily with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, it’s also compatible with Game Boy Advance emulators. That explains the extra shoulder buttons. The SmartBoy looks good. It feels right. It triggered the nostalgic feeling I want out of playing classic Game Boy games without tainting the experience with the original hardware’s drawbacks.

That said, the SmartBoy has its own quirks to deal with. First, it’s compatible only with devices that use USB Type-C connectors, meaning iPhones and older Android device owners are out of luck. The case also blocked my Nexus 5X’s headphone jack, making Bluetooth my only personal audio option.

It’s also a little picky about cartridges. Only Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges are compatible right now. Hyperkin says it might add Game Boy Advance support in the future, but the experience just isn’t good enough yet — apparently it takes the SmartBoy up to five minutes to load GBA games.

That wouldn’t be so bad if you only had to do it once, but the app deletes any dumped ROMs as soon as the user removes his or her phone from the controller, and it displays an anti-piracy warning if you pull the cartridge out midgame. That doesn’t mean you can’t use the SmartBoy to play Game Boy Advance games; it just means you’ll have to download them from the internet. That’s kind of a legal gray area.

I also had a little bit of trouble with the cartridge-dumping process. My copy of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 runs fine on my old Game Boy, but I just couldn’t get it to run from the SmartBoy. Stranger still, downloading a ROM of the game from the internet works just fine. My copy of the game is probably just old and dirty — but it’s the kind of hiccup that can happen if you don’t keep your games clean.

The fact that it relies on an existing Game Boy emulator is a minor issue too. The free version of MyOldBoy will play any game you throw at it, but some of its features are locked behind a paywall. If you want access to save states or cheat codes, Game Boy Camera emulation or full link-cable emulation for multiplayer games, you’ll need to pony up an additional $4 for the full version of the app.

For some, the SmartBoy might seem like a silly, cumbersome product (and it is), but it’s also a fun, nostalgic and tactilely satisfying way to experience old Game Boy games. Sure, if you’re comfortable living in a legal gray area, you could just download old games from the internet and play them with any Android-compatible gamepad — but there’s something satisfying about picking up a game cartridge and playing the old-fashioned way.

Watch NYT’s immersive stories on Samsung Gear VR

Virtual reality is proving an accommodating medium for the art of storytelling. Even beyond gaming, a diverse pool of creatives (including award-winning filmmakers) and companies are exploring this brave new world. Among them The New York Times, which became one of the first major news outlets to launch a VR push in 2015. Two years later, its app for all things virtual is now heading to the Samsung Gear VR. Owners of the headset can grab it from the Oculus Store right now. According to the Times, most users will be able to watch the films in 4K resolution.

Immersive stories on the refugee crisis and Nasa’s New Horizons Spacecraft are a taster of the types of video you can expect to find on the app. And, you’ll be able to catch the daily panoramic vids from reporters armed with Samsung’s Gear 360 camera. The app’s library is also set to expand this year, with the addition of four feature films.

The NYT VR app has thus far nabbed 1.2 million downloads. It now faces some competition as more media broadcasters experiment with the format. Since 2016, the likes of ABC, USA Today, and HuffPost (which, like us, is owned by Verizon) have all dabbled in VR. Aside from the Oculus Store, you can find the NYT VR app on Google Play for Android and Daydream, and in the iOS App Store.

Source: The New York Times (Press)