Serious talk: What is the next Nexus smartphone going to be named?
The Nexus 6 is a great, but flawed, device. It had every hallmark of being a standout, but lack of availability has relegated it to the realm of guilty pleasures. For Google, it appears that the Nexus 6 filled a logical hole in its Nexus device line-up, perching its new ‘phablet’ device squarely between the […]
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Google reveals cutting edge plans to revamp their headquarters in Mountain View
Google has just announced their plans to revamp their headquarters in Mountain View into a futuristic wonderland. The company has just submitted their plans to the Mountain View City Council in hopes to significantly increase the overall square footage of the company’s offices. Google built these plans with Bjarke Ingels, architect and founder of BIG, and Thomas Heatherwick, architect and founder of Heatherwick Studios.
The company plans to create lightweight block-like structures that can be moved around easily in order to utilize space more efficiently. Here’s a few more details on what will go into the new headquarters:
The idea is simple. Instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we’ll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas. (Our self-driving car team, for example, has very different needs when it comes to office space from our Search engineers.) Large translucent canopies will cover each site, controlling the climate inside yet letting in light and air. With trees, landscaping, cafes, and bike paths weaving through these structures, we aim to blur the distinction between our buildings and nature.
Google is taking this opportunity to work with the community by integrating bike paths and retail opportunities, like restaurants for the local community. The company also plans to save as much energy and work with the environment as much as possible by widening creek beds and even enhancing burrowing owl habitats.
Since these plans are still under approval, there is no slated timeframe for when building the new headquarters will start. But for now, take a look at the video below, which explains the new design in greater detail.
What do you think of the new plans?
Android Wear support coming to Google’s Ingress game
For all of you die-hard Ingress fans out there, your missions are about to get much easier. Android Wear support is coming to Ingress, and will be rolled out sometime next month. Just like any other Android Wear app, you’ll still need to use your phone to run the application, but you’ll soon be able to glance down at your wrist for important Ingress updates while you’re playing.
For those who need clarification, Ingress is an augmented reality app developed by Google’s Niantic Labs back in 2012. Players can create and perform missions, allowing users to attack, reinforce or defend “portals” based on local landmarks. The game puts players either on the “enlightened” side or the “resistance” side, allowing them to battle against one another in hopes to gain a win.
A big problem with this game, however, is that users would have to use their smartphones to find different landmarks around their towns, making them keep their smartphones out while playing. With Android Wear support, players will get to keep their smartphones in their pockets while only using their smartwatches for guidance. Notifications will show up in the form of a Google Now-like card, telling you if a portal is in range or if it’s under attack. Here’s a preview of what the game will look like on a Wear device:
Android Wear support will be extremely convenient for users who play the game while out on a run or running errands. You can look for the update to hit the Play Store sometime next month. If you have yet to play Ingress, head to the Google Play Store link below to download it for free.
5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Android Apps Weekly
Welcome back to Android Apps Weekly! Here are your headlines this week:
- The Google Play Store is now delivering sponsored app search results in Google Play.
- AVG’s latest report shows the apps with the worst storage, worst battery drain, and most data use.
- Google launches Android for Work to make the workplace better.
- The developer of Falcon Pro 3 explains how he developed the app in just three weeks.
- Google Play Music now allows you to upload up to 50,000 songs.
If you want even more headlines, app releases, and app updates, then check out our newsletter. It’s curated weekly by yours truly and there’s no spam. Just the latest and greatest in Android apps and games news straight to your inbox!
Subscribe to our Android Apps Weekly newsletter!
Flynx
[Price: Free]
Flynx is a special kind of browser that opens up in floating bubbles instead of full screen like a normal browser. It was updated to version 1.0 which means it has finally left beta. The update also brought a number of new features. It’s totally free so why not check it out?
Almightree: The Last Dreamer
[Price: $1.99]
Almightree is a 3D puzzle platformer where you play as an adventurer to who must bring balance to a crumbling world. It brings with it decent graphics, a fun story, and surprisingly good game music. It’s $1.99 but there are also no in app purchases.
SoundHUD
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
SoundHUD is a new app that helps you control your volume and does so without root. Using this, you can put your Lollipop device into actual silent mode if you want and there are a range of other features such as the ability to only adjust media volume on tablets. It’s free to use with in app purchases.
Heavenstrike Rivals
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
Heavenstrike Rivals is a new tactical RPG out of Square Enix. It has some pretty decent graphics and similar battle mechanics to old classics like Final Fantasy Tactics. Not exactly the same, but similar. It’s free with in app purchases and it’s worth a shot if you’re a strategy RPG fan.
YouTube Kids
[Price: Free]
YouTube Kids was released this last by Google to generally positive reviews. It is a YouTube app that is geared specifically at kids and contains playlists with entertaining and educational content for kids. It’s an app that all parents should at least try out and it is totally free.
Wrap up
If we missed any great Android apps and games news, let us know in the comments!
Microsoft made an Android keyboard especially for Excel
Because we do spreadsheets on the move. Because we simply need numpad. Because we didn’t buy a Surface. Microsoft has launched a new keyboard on Android, expressly made for Excel, with the main keyboard being truncated to make space for an unassumingly simple number pad, although there’s no pluses or minuses. Alas, it’s built for tablets, meaning it’s incompatible with ‘mere’ 5-inch Android smartphones — even if those devices, too, are aching to do expenses in transit.
Filed under: Tablets, Software, Microsoft, Google
Via: Android Police
Two Nexus phones on tap for this year and one of them could be made by Huawei
Yesterday it was leaked that the next Nexus phone would be made by a Chinese manufacturer, and today we might know who that is. Not only that, it appears that there might actually be two Nexus phones launched this year.
The same leaker is now saying there will be two Nexus phones, one produced by the said Chinese manufacturer, and the other by LG. This isn’t something that Google has done in the past, but it doesn’t sound so far fetched since we already have both the Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 available at the same time. If you take into account that Google cannot call the next Nexus phone the Nexus 7 for obvious reasons, it’s likely they will make new versions of both the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 6. This would keep most customers happy since not everyone wants a 6-inch phone. It would also solve the issue of having just one expensive Nexus phone. The Nexus 5 could be more budget-friendly and the Nexus 6 would be the premium-priced version.
The next question is who is that Chinese manufacturer? Well the leaker didn’t say, but he did divulge that the said manufacturer might use their own processor. As of right now, there is only one manufacturer that it could be. Huawei has their own Hisilcon Kirin chip.
So there you have it. LG and Huawei will make the next Nexus phones. I say that with a little chuckle because we are very early in the game so I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on it just yet, but it doesn’t sound all that crazy does it?
source: Weibo
via: GizmoChina
Come comment on this article: Two Nexus phones on tap for this year and one of them could be made by Huawei
Google shells out $25 million for top-level domain rights to .app
The .app top-level domain is like any other custom url ending. Think “.com”and “.net” or the more interesting “.rocks” or “.guru”. Essentially it is the web address for something. The TLD’s have been growing in the past year with a number of new special TLD’s coming into play around the world. Google has scooped up […]
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Sundar Pichai discusses Google’s future with Google Wallet, Google Plus, and the Chinese market
Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior VP of products, was recently interviewed by Forbes about the direction the company is taking in key areas. He discussed Google Wallet, how Google plans to utilize Android in the Chinese market, and where Google’s own social network was heading. It was a pretty interesting interview that shed some light on some of Google’s intentions and more or less confirmed some rumors we’ve been hearing.
When it came to Google Wallet, Pichai said he was pleased with Google Wallet, but he said that the company needed to figure out how to get those mobile payments functional on as many points of sale as possible. This definitely suggests that Android Pay will make an appearance at Google I/O this year, as that’s exactly what it’s designed to do.
When asked about Google+, Pichai noted that Google had already split G+ up using Hangouts and Photos, but Google was looking into bringing the Google+ Stream into its own, further splitting up the different products. That’s a departure from how the social network started, but it keeps in line with how the company has handled it recently.
China is an odd topic for Google, mainly because of how hard it is for the company to remain successful there. Android is already fairly prevalent, but Google misses a big chunk of revenue from China because of the distinct lack of Google services on many Android handsets sold in the country. Pichai didn’t have any concrete answers on how to turn that around, but he did say Google sees China as a huge opportunity for growth and it was something they were very serious about staying on top of.
To check out the full interview, hit the link below.
source: Forbes
Come comment on this article: Sundar Pichai discusses Google’s future with Google Wallet, Google Plus, and the Chinese market
Google paid $7 billion to developers on Google Play and they’re rolling out a new way to search ads
2014 turned out to be a fantastic year for developers on Google Play as they raked in an impressive $7 billion. It’s no wonder when we saw app advertisements during the Super Bowl, with super model Kate Upton promoting Game of War which is available on Google Play. The cost for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl was an astounding $4.5m, or $150,000 per second, which means app developers are definitely pulling in the dough.
Google also announced today that they are rolling out a new program to search ads on Google Play. It’s only going to be a limited pilot program, but if anyone knows how to handle search ads, we all know it is Google. Google manages over 100 billion searches per month on google.com, which means they know how to strategically place ads where people will actually use them, versus the traditional type ads like side-bars. Hopefully in the end, the new way to advertise will help us users learn which apps are the best ones to use.
Here is a copy of the press release.
Hi — Today, we announced
<http://android-developers.blogspot….
that
we’ve paid out more than $7 billion to developers for distributing apps and
games on Google Play over the past year.
In addition, we’re rolling out a new pilot program to introduce search ads
on Google Play. We think this will help developers improve the
discoverability of their apps with new users. You can learn more about the
limited pilot below.
***
A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play
Google Play now reaches more than 1 billion people on Android devices in
more than 190 countries, helping a growing number of developers like you
build successful global businesses. In fact, in the past year, we paid more
than $7 billion to developers distributing apps and games on Google Play.
We remain as committed as ever to making Google Play the best place to find
great apps, games and other entertainment.
App discovery plays a critical role in driving your continued success, and
over the past year Google has provided best
<https://developer.android.com/distr… practices
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v lZH… to enhance app discovery and
engagement, as well as app promotion tools
<http://adwords.blogspot.com/2014/04…
to get the most out of search and display advertising for developers. We
are always looking for new ways to help you get your apps in front of
potential new users. That’s why, in the next few weeks, we will begin
piloting sponsored search results on Google Play, bringing our unique
expertise in search ads to the store.
With more than 100 billion searches every month on Google.com, we’ve seen
how search ads shown next to organic search results on Google.com can
significantly
improve content discovery for users and advertisers
<http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/07…
both large and small. Search ads on Google Play will enable developers to
drive more awareness of their apps and provide consumers new ways to
discover apps that they otherwise might have missed.
In the coming weeks, a limited set of users will begin to see ads from a
pilot group of advertisers who are already running Google search ads for
their apps. We’ll have more to share in the coming months about the
expansion of this program as we look at the results and feedback. We
believe search ads will be a useful addition to Google Play for users and
developers alike, and we hope this will bring even more success to our
developer community.
Posted by: Michael Siliski, Product Management Director, Google Play
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Motorola will let you customize your next smartwatch
Motorola’s philosophy is that if you can’t customize it, it probably isn’t worth buying, which is why Moto Maker will soon let you tailor the Moto 360 to your individual taste. In an interview with Wired, the company’s Dickon Isaacs said that the option to pick a case color, band material and size were always planned for the smartwatch, but had to be postponed for time reasons.
When Moto Maker is relaunched in March, users will be able to pick the color of their watch as well as the size and material of the strap. The case will be sold in a choice of black, silver or champagne gold, while the straps come in two sizes in leather or metal. In addition, users will also be able to pick one of 11 watch faces to appear as the default — although you’ll still be able to change this at your whim, naturally.
Filed under: Wearables, Google, Lenovo
Source: Wired
AIVAnet 