Get two 6-feet USB-C to USB-A Anker Powerline+ cables for just $9

Keep some spare cables around the house. Can’t hurt!

This 2-pack of Anker USB-C to USB-A 2.0 6-feet cables is down to $9.49 on Amazon. It normally sells around $12 and has never dropped this low through a direct price drop before.

It’s definitely worth pointing out that these are USB 2.0 cables, not the more modern 3.0. While that might mean some slower transfer speeds for whatever you use these for, they’re still high quality nylon-braided cords that will last you a long time.

Features include:

• Lasts 6X Longer: Double-braided nylon exterior, toughened aramid fiber core and laser-welded connectors equip PowerLine+ with superior toughness from end-to-end.
• Fast Sync & Charge: Charges phones and tablets with USB-C ports at high speed. (Does not support high-speed charging for Google Pixel or Motorola Nexus.)
• Supreme Compatibility: Tested in-house with countless USB-C devices; proven to provide a fully compatible, secure and reliable fit.

These cables come with a lifetime warranty.

If you absolutely need USB 3.0, you can get two 6-foot USB-C to USB-A 3.0 cables for $22.38 when you redeem the on-page discount and add two cables to your cart. These are $28 without the promotion.

See on Amazon

Amazon Fire TV gets new features for live TV programming

Live TV for your Fire TV.

Amazon’s Fire TV is in the news once again, and this time it’s (thankfully) not about Google removing more content from the streaming platform. Instead, Amazon is finally bringing live television programming to it.

If you’re subscribed to Amazon Channels (more on this in a bit), you’ll see a new row on your home screen that’s titled “On Now.” This is where you’ll see a list of any shows that are on the air at that given moment, and clicking on a program will let you start watching it instantly.

Clicking the Options button on your Fire TV remote will bring up a more traditional guide to view what’s airing now and what’ll be on later in the day, and you can browse upcoming content up to two weeks into the future. Channels are presented vertically, and you can favorite your top ones so that they appear above everything else.

And, of course, you can control all of this with Alexa. Just say, “Alexa, tune to HBO” or “Alexa, go to the Channel Guide,” and you can go through all your content without having to mash away at buttons on your remote.

As mentioned above, this live programming is powered by Amazon Channels. Amazon Channels is reserved for Prime subscribers, and it allows you to sign up for and watch services such as HBO, Starz, CBS All Access, Showtime, and others right within your Amazon account. It’s an odd take on live Internet-based TV streaming, but with these new features rolling out to the Fire TV, it’s possible Amazon will start building it up into a more viable competitor to the likes of YouTube TV, Sling TV, etc.

Firefox now available on Fire TV with support for YouTube

Amazon Fire TV

• What’s new on Amazon Prime Video
• Read our full review!
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Voice Control, Call Activate! [#acpodcast]

This week, Daniel Bader, Andrew Martonik, and Alex Dobie take a look at some fresh Samsung Galaxy S9 and LG G7 rumors before diving into Android Central’s Best of CES 2018 Awards.

They also take a look at other news from the show, including Google Assistant penetration into the automotive market, Lenovo’s Smart Display, an NVIDIA 4K HDR TV, fingerprint sensor technology, Razer’s “Project Linda”, and more!

Show Notes and Links:

• Samsung Galaxy S9 will be announced in February at MWC

• Samsung Galaxy S9: Rumors, Specs, Release Date, and More!

• LG will stop releasing new phones every year

• LG G7 (2018 flagship) rumor round-up: Everything you need to know

• Android Central’s Best of CES 2018 Awards!

• Google Assistant is now everywhere, including screens and cars

• Lenovo’s Smart Display is the Google Assistant answer to the Echo Show

• NVIDIA launching new 65-inch 4K HDR gaming displays with Android TV

• Razer’s Project Linda turns your phone into a laptop

• Android Auto is even more useful with Google Assistant and wireless

• Vivo’s in-display fingerprint sensor is the future of smartphone biometrics

• Sony Xperia XA2 and XA2 Ultra hands-on: No more quirks, just good phones

• AT&T steps away from deal to sell Huawei phones

Sponsors:

• Thrifter.com: All the best deals from Amazon, Best Buy, and more, fussily curated and constantly updated.

• GameStash: Hundreds of awesome games on your Android phone. Try it free for 14 days!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral367.mp3

Sony adds ‘Monster Hunter’ and white PS4 Pro options this month

Sony has released two new versions of the PS4 Pro that will be available exclusively at GameStop this month. The consoles are the Limited Edition Monster Hunter PS4 Pro Bundle for $450, available starting January 26th (when the game launches), and the Glacier White PS4 Pro for $400, sometime around the end of the month. If you’re in Canada, look for the Glacier White edition at EB Games for $500 CAD.

The bundle features a Monster Hunter: World PS4 Pro console, a red matching DualShock 4 wireless controller, and the Blu-ray disc of the game plus digital content. The Glacier White PS4 Pro includes just the console and matching controller. The white console was previously available as part of the Destiny 2 bundle. Sony has made it clear that both of these consoles will have very limited availability, so if you’re interested in snagging one, it’s best to move fast.

Source: Sony

Google’s cloud is spreading through new undersea cables

Today, Google announced that it will be adding three undersea cables, as well as five new Cloud Platform regions, to its infrastructure in 2018. The Netherlands and Montreal regions will open in Q1 2018, while Los Angeles, Hong King and Finland will follow. The three cables will connect Chile to Los Angeles, the US to Denmark and Ireland and Hong Kong to Guam, and are called, respectively, Curie, Havfrue and HK-G.

According to Google, its Cloud service delivers up to 25 percent of total Internet traffic. These investments are designed to help improve connectivity around the world, and will help Google expand its reach and the availability of its cloud services. Google has direct investment in a total of 11 cables, including these upcoming projects. The five new Cloud Platform regions will be added to the 13 existing regions.

Google isn’t the only company making this kind of investment in infrastructure. Microsoft and Facebook worked together to build a massive oversea data cable connecting Virginia Beach in the US to Bilbao, Spain. That cable, called Marea, was completed in late 2017.

Source: Google

The next weird 3DS game includes a tiny fishing reel

Japan’s fondness for games with highly specialized controllers frequently produces wonderfully weird results. If you need proof, you just need to look at Bandai Namco’s upcoming Baku Tsuri Bar Hunter for the 3DS. The manga-linked augmented reality fishing game revolves around an elaborate add-on case that scans barcodes to add sealife, and a tiny reel (plus the 3DS’ own motion controls) to catch creatures. In essence, it’s the lovechild of Bass Fishing and Barcode Battler. It absolutely sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it looks like a blast in the promo video… at least, for gamers willing to scan their shopping.

The game is slated to reach Japan on March 17th. Does it stand a chance of reaching other countries? Good grief, no. The combination of a manga theme and an ornate controller virtually guarantees that it won’t (officially) leave its homeland, at least not without some dramatic changes. Even so, you have to give kudos to the developers for making a game that stands out — especially on an older platform.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Boys Toy Web, Baku Tsuri Bar Hunter (YouTube)

Levandowski faces fresh accusations of stealing trade secrets

The Waymo v. Uber trial is set to finally get started next month, but Anthony Levandowski, the man who has been accused of taking 14,000 files from Google’s self-driving outfit when he left the company for his own startup Otto, has been hit with a lawsuit that may affect Waymo’s. Wired reports that Levandowski’s former nanny, Erika Wong, has filed a suit against him claiming Levandowski failed to pay her wages, violated labor and health codes and inflicted emotional distress. But the complaint also includes details of Levandowski’s business practices, which suggest that he might have been paying off employees of other autonomous vehicle companies and that he considered fleeing to Canada when Waymo first filed its lawsuit.

In the filing, Wong says that the day Waymo filed its suit against Uber, Levandowski was noticeably agitated while he spoke to his lawyer over the phone — sweating and pacing as he cursed into the phone. When Waymo filed for an injunction against Uber, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick visited Levandowski’s house, according to Wong, with legal documents for Levandowski to sign as well as a bucket full of circuit boards and lenses. She claimed that Levandowski had also discussed driving to Canada in order to avoid prosecution.

Wong also alleges that Levandowski often referred to payments made to a Pat Green, supposedly an employee at Tesla who was providing Levandowski with updates on Tesla’s trucking technology. And Wong suggests that Levandowski was involved in the formation of a number of startups including Argo AI and JingChi Corporation, though both told Wired that wasn’t the case.

In a statement, Levandowski’s spokesperson said, “On January 5, a frivolous lawsuit was filed against Anthony Levandowski in US District Court. The allegations in the lawsuit are a work of fiction. Levandowski is confident that the lawsuit will be dismissed by the courts.”

Wong is reportedly seeking over $6 million in damages.

Via: Wired

Facebook vows to simplify Messenger in 2018

Today, Facebook released an outline of its priorities when it comes to Messenger, and one thing is clear: The organization wants to simplify the service. Over the past few years, the company built many new features that it packed into Messenger, and now the app is cluttered. “Expect to see us invest in massively simplifying and streamlining Messenger this year,” Messenger lead David Marcus explains. He says the end goal for Facebook is “to make Messenger the easiest and most delightful way for people to spend time together in happy and harder times.”

Facebook is also prioritizing visual messaging, from further investment in real-time video to improving GIF, sticker and image options within Messenger. Additionally, the social network is trying to improve group chats as a whole, whether you’re trying to add someone to an existing chat or conduct a live video chat with multiple people. The company is also putting more emphasis on companies that use Messenger to reach their users, whether by using it for customer service or marketing.

Considering Facebook’s massive user base, it isn’t surprising that Messenger is widely used. The company cites 1.3 billion monthly active users of Messenger, as well as a noted rise of visual communication through GIFs and emoji. It’s nice to see that the company is focusing on simplifying the service and looking at data to figure out why and how its users are utilizing Messenger and then trying to streamline that as much as possible.

Source: Facebook

BMW buys a parking app in hopes of tackling urban traffic

Automakers increasingly see parking as the next great frontier, and BMW is no exception. It just bought Parkmobile, which it says is the largest mobile parking services provider in North America. This isn’t BMW’s first parking initiative, but it promises to help the German brand craft a parking offering it can market around the world. And notably, this isn’t just about finding a way to profit beyond selling cars — if you ask BMW, it’s about solving traffic woes.

The company claims that as much as 30 percent of city traffic is created by people hunting for parking spots. If it can reduce that figure by helping people find open spots, it could reduce road congestion an tackle a major “pain point” of driving. In that light, this is as much about keeping customers interested in the concept of personal car ownership as anything else. If traffic and parking become less nightmarish, you may be inclined to buy a BMW instead of hailing rides whenever you need to get around in a hurry.

It wasn’t hard to see a deal like this coming. BMW has had a minority stake in Parkmobile since 2014, and its expansion into services like a virtual assistant suggested that it was increasingly interested in all aspects of driving. The question is whether or not BMW can significantly expand Parkmobile’s existing footprint (it currently has over 1 million parking spots in North America) and become your go-to choice when you’re tired of looking for a free parking space.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: BMW, PR Newswire

OnePlus halts credit card payments on its site after fraud reports

This weekend, reports began to surface that some people who had made purchases on OnePlus’ website were seeing unauthorized transactions pop up on their credit cards. OnePlus released a statement on its website saying that it was looking into the issue and today in an update, the company said it’s shutting down credit card payments on its site. “This is a serious issue and we are investigating around the clock. As a precaution, we are temporarily disabling credit card payments at oneplus.net,” it said. “PayPal is still available, and we are exploring alternative secure payment options with our service providers.”

So for now, if you want to buy something on OnePlus’ website, you’re currently limited to paying through PayPal. And if you’ve made any recent purchases on the site with your credit card directly, you might want to keep an eye on your transaction history. OnePlus says it’s doing a complete audit of its system.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: OnePlus