About Ryan Whitwam
Ryan is a tech/science writer, skeptic, lover of all things electronic, and Android fan. In his spare time he reads golden-age sci-fi and sleeps, but rarely at the same time. His wife tolerates him as few would. He's the author of a sci-fi novel called The Crooked City, which is available on Amazon and Google Play.
Latest Articles
It's no longer cool to have just one router. This is the age of mesh routers, and Eero is one of the top brands. The company (an Amazon subsidiary) recently unveiled a new version of its routers, and that one is on sale along with the older "Pro" variants. You can save as much as $150 on new mesh routers if you go all out.The new Eero kit is cheaper than the older Pro, but it's slightly less capable. It's dual-band, and you have to set the access points on a table. The Pro has a hub that needs to sit on a flat surface, but the "beacons" plug right into a wall outlet. The Pro is also a tri-band system.
Twitter will begin deleting inactive accounts next month (Update: Further clarification)
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- In response to all the feedback it received following this policy's announcement, Twitter issued a series of tweets clarifying the situation. The company said it has always had an inactive account policy but never enforced it. It will begin applying it in the EU to follow the GDPR and may later expand it to comply with other regulations around the world. As for the impact this would have on accounts of deceased people, it admitted it missed this angle completely and promised it won't deactivate any accounts until it puts in place a way to "memoralize" those who belong to dead people.
Your Twitter follower count might take a nosedive next month. That's when the company says it will begin a purge of inactive accounts, ostensibly because it needs people to agree to its new privacy policy. However, it will have the added benefit of freeing up usernames.
It's rare that earbuds get significant new features after launch, but Sony is doing that for the WF-1000XM3 true wireless earbuds. The WF-1000MX3s were already fantastic, but now they've gotten even better with Alexa support, volume controls, and more.
Google launched the Pixelbook in 2017, but it has thus far refused to offer a worthy successor to this machine. The Pixel Slate and Pixelbook Go don't really fill the same niche, but the OG Pixelbook is still a capable laptop. It's coming down in price, too. The top-of-the-line model costs $1,649 from Google, but Best Buy has the same device for $352 less.
Facebook has a history of collecting mountains of user data and doing a pretty awful job of keeping it safe. If you, for some reason, are comfortable giving Facebook even more data, there's a new app to help you do it. Facebook Viewpoints is a survey app that awards point for participation. When you get enough points, Facebook will give you a whole five bucks.
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- Google has officially announced this feature in a brief post on its support forums, saying it's rolling out to users. It's likely a slow rollout, though, as we don't have it on our devices yet.
Google Photos likes to offer up automated edits of your snapshots, some of which you might even like. However, there are a few basic editing tools you you want to manipulate your snapshots in other ways. There's a new tool rolling out in Photos, and it's long overdue: you can finally doodle on your photos with markup.
Google Earth got a full makeover two years ago with support for modern web browsers and new apps. Google also rolled out the Voyager program with the new Earth, featuring stories from the BBC, The Jane Goodall Institute, and more. Now, the map-based storytelling tools used for the Voyager experiences are available to everyone in Google Earth on the web.
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- Sometimes dark mode just isn't dark enough. Following up on Viber's release of a tinted theme earlier this year, the developers have finally delivered on a new, true "black" mode. To enable it, you'll first need to grab the latest version of the Viber app from the Play Store or sideload from APK Mirror. Then open the app, go to Settings > Appearance > Black. This new theme looks especially inviting when used in tandem with Android 10's built-in dark mode that has been making its way to handsets since first reaching Pixels in September.
Things were simpler back in the days of SMS, but now you have to choose which silo you're going to lock yourself inside. The messaging world has been consumed by the likes of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, but there are also smaller players like Viber. Fans of that app will be happy to hear there's a dark mode in the latest update, and you don't even have to send a moon emoji to anyone.
Things that you should do with the Pixel 4 XL: take lots of pretty pictures. Things you should not do with the Pixel 4 XL: bend it. The latter advice comes courtesy of the latest JerryRigEverything video, in which the Pixel 4 XL goes through the usual battery of durability tests. Sadly, you can add the latest Pixel to the list of phones that fail when bent too far.
Call Screen debuted last year on the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, and has since expanded to the newer Pixel phones and a handful of other devices. If you're lucky enough to have this on your phone, you never have to answer another call without knowing who's on the other end. Google might be planning to automate part of the process, too. According to XDA, Call Screen may automatically screen select calls and hang up on spam.
Google video shows off a Pixel 4 Motion Sense DJ setup — it's as awkward as it sounds (Update: Making of)
We first saw Google's Project Soli radar at I/O a few years back, and it seemed magical. The version that just launched on the Pixel 4 is somewhat... less magical. It only does a few things, and it doesn't even work in many parts of the world. Google is trying hard to convince us that Motion Sense is useful, though. Its latest attempt comes in the form of a DJ "music experiment," and it's impressively bad.
We've spent the last few years watching carriers bungle RCS messaging, and so has Google. The search giant dropped Allo last year to focus on RCS "Chat" functionality, but the carriers have continued to drag their feet. It seems that the recent workaround to add RCS messaging on Android was leading up to something—Google is deploying RCS in the US starting today.
The foldable Moto Razr is official, coming exclusively to Verizon on January 9th for $1,500
There are some grown adults who don't know the satisfaction of snapping a clamshell phone closed to hang up on someone. Well, those days are coming back with the new foldable Razr. Motorola has unveiled the device after months of leaks, most of which were right. The new Razr is a Verizon exclusive, and it'll cost you a whopping $1,500 when it launches in early 2020.
Motorola is set to unveil the long-rumored foldable Razr phone later today, but the FCC beat Moto to the punch. Thanks to a bungled confidentiality request, the FCC has posted numerous images of the phone's exterior, along with some of the innards. The device looks very much like the leaks suggested.
Today's megacorporations are not content to remain corralled in a specific industry—they want to become woven into as many parts of our lives as possible. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google's next big move is in the world of banking. Starting next year, you may be able to sign up for a Google-branded checking account, which is cleverly code named "Cache." We expect a much more boring name at launch.
Setting up a home security system is easier than it used to be thanks to wireless technologies and compact, inexpensive sensors. Ring's home security kit is already a good value at $199, but it's on sale today for $60 off over at B&H. It's a good addition for homes with Ring security cameras, but it works fine even if you don't want video monitoring.
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Google has been selling smartphones for more than a decade at this point, but it's only on the fourth generation of Pixel phones. The Pixel era is when Google got serious about building a cohesive product that married hardware and software rather than just a vehicle for the latest stock version of Android. With the Pixel 4, it's clear that Google has learned a lot from the last three generations of Pixels, but I worry it hasn't learned all the right lessons.The Pixel 4 has an incredible, industry-leading camera, and the software experience is thoughtful. Google also nailed 3D face unlock on its first try. At the same time, Google doesn't provide as much storage or battery capacity as similarly priced phones. The shortcomings are something that I can forgive, but that won't be the case for everyone. After four generations, the Pixels still get some of the basics wrong, and we should be holding Google to a higher standard.
You might remember a decade ago when everyone wanted a digital photo frame, but those devices were all junk. In the era of smart displays, we finally have good digital photo frames powered by Google Photos that happen to do a lot of other things, too. The experience is getting a bit better today with the addition of dates in the photo slideshow. However, they only appear on some photos.
Google's long-awaited game streaming service is almost here, and you can get ready by installing the newly arrived Stadia app. And then... you can wait some more. The Stadia app will let you select a Google account, but you can't connect it to Stadia to buy or play any games just yet.
Some apps like WhatsApp offer to keep app data when uninstalled in Android 10 (Updated)
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- XDA Developers have looked into this and explained how this feature works. Essentially, apps can save their data in three locations, one of them requires root to be accessed, the second under /Android/data and reachable with the right permissions, and the third in the regular user-accessible storage on Android. When you uninstall an app, the first two are cleared automatically, but the third one remains and you usually have to manually clean it.
Google has never been good at app backups, so uninstalling an app usually means losing all the data associated with it forever. Android 10 has a feature that saves your app data, and it's just starting to appear in a handful of apps. One of them is WhatsApp, meaning you can save your accounts and chats even if you uninstall it from your phone.