Cult of Android - page 10

Tony Fadell was put in charge of redesigning Google Glass into something non-nerds would actually want to wear, and based on the FCC’s images, it looks like his team has done just that. Not only is the new Google Glass slimmer and durable, it also touts a bigger display prism while packing a hinge that will allow wearers to fold it up during travel.

We still don’t know when or if Google will officially announce the headset, but based on the FCC documents, it appears that the device is nearly ready to launch.

Take a look at its internals:

Verizon Wireless is just about matching the deal other carriers have offered for a while to entice customers on other networks. It’s essentially offering to buy you out of your contract with up to $650 per line, less the trade-in value of your current device. But Verizon also has a few extra bonuses to brag about.

If all of the big boys’ flagship phones – the iPhone 6s Plus, the Google Nexus 6P and Microsoft’s Lumia 950 XL – raced in NASCAR, which would be the fastest phone around? This speed-test video puts that concept to the test, making all three phones “run laps” to see which is the fastest.

Although Samsung has vowed to take its patent fight with Apple all the way to the Supreme Court after welching on a deal to pay Cupertino $548 million in damages, Apple isn’t letting up its assult on the Galaxy-maker. As a Christmas present, Apple just asked for an additional $180 million in damages.

Describing the funky weirdness of Katamari Damacy has always been somewhat of a challenge. You play a pill-headed little person who must roll a big sticky ball around various environments, picking up weird stuff like rice candy, cows, and pencils, while taking your quests from some odd king-looking dude who speaks in an odd, english as a second language-flavored patois.

It’s bizarre, but super fun, and its coming to a mobile phone near you as Tap My Katamari on iOS and Android. Check out the teaser trailer below.

China’s Foreign Ministry said today that U.S. tech companies have nothing to fear from the country’s new anti-terrorism law, which could require companies to create “back doors” in products, or to hand over encryption information to the Chinese government.

Forget The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles are coming to Apple Music, Google Play, and a variety of other online streaming music services — and just in time for Christmas, too.

Starting Christmas Eve, the Fab Four will be available for your listening pleasure on Apple Music, Spotify, Slacker, Tidal, Microsoft’s Groove, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play, and Amazon Prime.

Apple has claimed final victory in a lawsuit arguing that the company was purposely intercepting and failing to deliver texts sent from iPhones to Android owners.

The case was related to Apple’s iMessage service, which posed a challenge to Apple-to-Android switchers up until 2014, when Apple finally issued a fix for the problem.

Remembering passwords is one of the biggest pains of modern tech living. Hundreds of geniuses at dozens of companies have been searching for an easier solution, but Google may be ready to unleash a new solution that uses your smartphone to replace passwords all together.

Google is reportedly teaming up with Ford for a self-driving car project that will combine Ford’s vehicles with Google’s technology.

According to sources supposedly familiar with the plans, the deal will be announced at next year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.

Target is reportedly looking to become a player in the mobile wallet game. The fourth largest retailer in the U.S. would be joining a market that’s quickly becoming pretty crowded. The next mobile payment solution on your smartphone very well could be Target Pay, though it can’t be confirmed at this time.

Evernote’s efforts to streamline its business will see it chop a number of apps from its lineup, including the popular annotation app Skitch. Clearly, a browser extension for Google Chrome, is also getting the boot — as is Evernote’s Pebble app.

Apple Pay will finally arrive in China next year, and it’s going to have strong competition from day one. Just hours after Apple announced the expansion of its mobile payment service, Samsung confirmed its own will be following after it struck an almost identical deal with China UnionPay.

Scribblenauts Unlimited, the latest version of a fun game that’s been on one device or another since 2009, is headed to mobile.

Main character and magic notebook owner Maxwell’s got a sister, Lily, who he’s gotten cursed, thanks to his smart-ass ways. The pair go to see Edwin, one of the 40 other brothers and sisters of Maxwell and Lily (go figure), and find out that doing nice things for people is the only way to earn starite, the magical cure for Lily’s curse.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has waded in on the the question of whether or not Apple is right to refuse to help the government access smartphone data for security purposes.

“For years, government officials have pleaded to the technology industry for help,” Chen wrote in a recent blogpost. “Yet [the requests] have been met with disdain.”

Chen’s position is simple: that, “We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good.”

iPhone ranks as the no. 1 consumer tech gadget on Google’s newly-released “Year of Search” list, beating Samsung’s Galaxy S6 as the smartphone we were, apparently, all looking for this year.

Australian banks including Westpac, ANZ and Macquarie have announced that they will soon accept contactless payments made via Android Pay — although would-be Apple Pay customers are still being left out in the cold.

The reason? Banks still aren’t happy with Apple’s terms for its mobile payments solution, and showing that they are willing to accept Android Pay is a way of forcing a better deal with Apple.

After some controversies and embarrassing missteps, social-media giant Facebook is introducing tools to let its users go by the names they most identify with.

The tools it’s rolling out today will change up both how account owners can both report on and respond to real-name challenges.

You no longer have to rely on third-party apps to track your fitness on a Pebble watch. Pebble is today rolling out a new update that adds Pebble Health, a new fitness and sleep tracking feature that wants to help you become fitter and healthier.

Samsung’s next-generation Galaxy S7 will get its grand unveiling in March, and its big selling point will be an iPhone-like pressure-sensitive display, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing sources familiar with the company’s plans.

Quick! Get yourself over to the Google Store now, where you can claim a free Star Wars Cardboard, courtesy of Google. The limited edition headsets are themed to look like BB-8, a First Order Stormtrooper, Kylo Ren, and RS-D2 — but you can only pick one!

The carrier announced this morning that it’s having a huge ‘buy one get one free’ promotion that includes top of the line Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

The latest quarterly report from antivirus company AVG has outed the battery-killingest, storage-hoggingest apps currently available.

Some of the culprits are unsurprising, but a few might be murdering your phone’s performance without you knowing, like some kind of ninjas that have somehow taken app form. All of this and more happens in “Appsassins,” the screenplay I’m pitching to SyFy.

But here are the biggest offenders, because that’s really the more important information here.

Google knows your best photos shouldn’t stay hidden away inside your camera roll, so it is making it incredibly easy to share them with friends.

A new Google Photos update, which is rolling out today on Android, iOS, and the web, introduces shared albums, which you can send to friends via SMS, email, or instant message.

Apple made a minor design faux pas with its newly-launched iPhone Smart Battery Case, so of course all of the company’s rivals are doing the mature thing and getting on with their own work, knowing that joining the pile-on will only come back to bite them.

Wait — that’s not what’s happening at all! In fact, LG and Asus today debuted two new ads poking fun of Apple, while at the same time advertising the alleged superiority of their LG V10 and Asus ZenFone Max phones respectively.