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Remember Gello, that neat Android browser based on Chromium code that was teased by the CyanogenMod developer team a little less than a year ago? It looks like the app is finally finished, or at least ready to make a version 1.0 debut. Joey Rizzoli, the CM developer who teased Gello last July, says that it's ready to go and that managers can begin to incorporate Gello into nightly builds. The browser will be added by the individuals or teams of developers responsible for upkeep on each CyanogenMod device build, so Gello may or may not be immediately on your device's nightly release.
These days advertising seems to be looking for an edge, a unique and original approach that will engage potential customers and hold their attention better than the bombastic and simple ads of days gone by. And then again, sometimes it doesn't... sometimes subtelty goes out the window, right before you apply a sign the size of a 25-story building to the other side of it. Such is the case with a Samsung advertisement in the Sokol district of Moscow, which uses a 262-foot tall building as a backdrop for the world's largest Galaxy S7 Edge.
It might be tempting to think that there's nothing new under the sun for top-down airplane shoot-em-ups. After all, the genre has been kicking around since the 1970s. But you'd be wrong - in fact, the vertical layout and touch controls on smartphones make them ideal for this sort of title, as exemplified by Air Attack way back in 2011. The original game was one of our favorites during the initial Android boom, and now the sequel has arrived. Air Attack 2 is free to download on the Play Store today.
It's alright if you've already forgotten about Project Soli - with all of the crazy futuristic stuff that the Google Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) team works on, it's easy to get confused. Essentially, Soli is a system that adapts radar-style techniques into tiny hardware in order to enable the tracking of hands and fingers (or anything else, really) which in turn allows software to recognize hand gestures with precision and accuracy that beats anything on the consumer market today. It's pretty cool - watch this video from last year's Google I/O for a crash course.
Fans of the burgeoning art of 360-degree short-form storytelling have probably been enamored by Google's Spotlight Stories, a series of videos designed to highlight the narrative potential of the VR format. The latest one is Pearl, a sort of extended animated music video about a man, his daughter, and the beat-up hatchback car that they share over about 20 years. The short is directed by Patrick Osbourne, and the original song "No Wrong Way Home" was written by Alexis Harte and JJ Weisler and performed by Nicki Bluhm and Kelley Stoltz.
Confession: as a web writer who has to constantly research new stories, keep an eye on social networks, stay in contact with my coworkers, and see if that jerk on eBay has outbid me for the LEGO T-rex from the Dino Defense HQ set, I often have dozens and dozens of Chrome tabs open on my desktop by the end of the day. That sort of wanton disregard for computer memory doesn't really translate over to mobile, where the single screen limits multitasking to a certain degree. But Google is going to enable my bad habits on Android phones and tablets soon: in the third developer preview of Android N, users can open Chrome windows side by side.
Allo And Duo APKs Leaked But Inoperable, So One Modder Used A Custom Xposed Module To Peek Into Allo
So Allo has some people in the Android world quite excited, even if it is Google's third chat standard in four years and leaves the future of Hangouts somewhat nebulous. It's going to be several months before the public gets access to Allo in all its Assistant-infused glory, but there are already APKs leaking out to the Internet for both the standard Allo and the new Duo video chat app. At least a few users were able to grab the apps off the Play Store despite them being in pre-registered mode, and both of them were posted to our sister site APK Mirror.
Resident Evil 5 Lands On The SHIELD TV, But You'll Need Ten Bucks And 5.5GB Of Free Space To Play It
Long ago in the far-off time of last year, NVIDIA announced a handful of current and last-gen console titles would be released for the Android TV-powered SHIELD. It took a long time, but eventually most of the promised high-profile games came along, including Metal Gear Rising, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and War Thunder, but one of the more long-standing franchises was still a no-show before today. Capcom's Resident Evil, or at least the fifth entry in the main series, is available on the SHIELD TV right now.
You might have noticed that there aren't a lot of Android TV boxes around. Aside from the original Nexus Player, the much-recommended NVIDIA SHIELD, and the generally regrettable Razer Forge TV, only a few somewhat random cable boxes and some Sony televisions are using Google's living room version of its mobile OS. But there's a surprise entry announced at Google I/O 2016: Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi. Its "Mi Box" Android TV device ticks all of the hardware boxes, but what's even more surprising is that it's coming to the United States.
NVIDIA is taking advantage of the excitement around Google I/O to announce some improvements to its own Android hardware. The SHIELD TV is getting some interesting new capabilities with its next update, version 3.2. Specifically, it will be the first Android TV hardware to support High Dynamic Range (HDR) video - that's something that's coming to Android N later, but NVIDIA wants to get a jump on the competition.
Android TV didn't get much screen time at the opening keynote of the Google I/O developer conference, but there were a few goodies mentioned for upcoming builds. Specifically, VP of engineering David Burke showed off a new picture-in-picture mode that allows users to continue a streaming video while doing something else in the main ATV user interface, such as performing a voice search or downloading an app.
One of the more exciting revelations at the opening keynote of Google I/O 2016 is "Assistant," Google's upcoming expansion of its search tools. Explaining exactly what Assistant is and isn't is a bit tricky, because it both integrates a lot of existing Google technology and spills over into other upcoming services, like Google Home and Allo. Essentially, it's a new way to interact with Google Search, with the intention being that you "speak" with it in a more human fashion.
Yahoo Mail might not be the trendiest web mail service on the planet, but it's still used by hundreds of millions of accounts (if not necessarily that many actual people). And somehow, the official Yahoo Mail app for Android has neglected to sync contact information with the operating system before now. That's been rectified, according to the Mail blog on the Yahoo-owned Tumblr. The latest version of the app in the Play Store, 5.5.3, confirms it in the changelog.
Good afternoon, Aussie and Kiwi readers. If you've been drooling with envy at your American counterparts over the ad-free options in YouTube Red and bonus access to the YouTube Music app, you can stop it now. Both Google's support page and several Android Police readers report that the services are now live down under, available for anyone who'd like to sign up. It should be possible to begin a subscription from the web or the YouTube app.
Despite some technical objections, T-Mobile's unlimited video streaming option Binge On has proven to be a hit with the company's customers, just as the audio equivalent Music Freedom was before it. With these two programs, T-Mobile customers aren't charged against their data caps for watching or listening on participating services. Today Binge On expands to a few new services, and existing Music Freedom services are adding at least some video content to Binge On.
There are only a few months left (probably) before the young and young at heart will be able to live out their Pokémon fantasies in glorious augmented reality with the upcoming Pokémon GO game. But a select few will get an early ticket to Kanto (or wherever you set a Pokémon game with an entire planet's worth of playing surface). Today The Pokémon Company announced that it was looking for participants for the game's "Field Test," and registration is open on the US site. (It may be open to others, but we can't verify that.)
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we have a sci-fi local party game, no less than three platformers, and a game about a samurai bear. Without further ado:
Slowly but surely, Android offshoot-slash-alternative Cyanogen OS is gaining ground. The incorporated and semi-proprietary version of the CyanogenMod ROM now powers a handful of retail-available phones from companies like YU, Zuk, and Smartfen, though larger manufacturers like OnePlus and Oppo have seemingly cooled on Cyanogen software. Speaking of OnePlus, its One hardware was the first to get access to Cyanogen OS version 13, based on Android 6.0.1 code. Today the Swift from Wileyfox becomes the second.
Google is no stranger to legal conflict in Europe: between accusations of monopolistic practices with Android and web search tools, to a forced implementation of the European Union's "right to be forgotten" laws, to butting heads with German privacy advocates over Street View data, it's safe to say that the company's relationship with the continent is... complicated. The latest complication comes from the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, which will reportedly hand down an unprecedented fine over Google's alleged violations of antitrust laws.