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The tagline for Google's smart home products, "A little help at home," resonates with many, but none more so than users with disabilities. The hands-free assistance offered by Google Home devices can go a long well to helping users feel more independent, and this is particularly true of people living with paralysis. Today, Google announced a partnership with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation that will see 100,000 Home Minis given out to improve even more lives.
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Adding to its lineup of lighter apps for low-cost phones, Google has introduced Gallery Go — a photo organization app intended for offline use while taking up as little space as possible. Even so, it features some of the same machine learning capabilities and editing tools as its more advanced sibling, Google Photos.
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The latest update to the beta channel is live for Samsung's popular Chrome replacement, and although there's nothing major in this release, there are a couple of new additions to note. You can now rename pages that you add to the home screen for easy access and there's a new notification manager.
As is the way with such a high-profile new phone, the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Note10+ have been leaked left, right, and center. Thankfully, it looks like a plan to ditch physical buttons didn't work out in the end. Previous rumors have suggested that the phones wouldn't be getting Qualcomm's latest silicon, the overclocked plus variant of the 855, but fresh information from a trusted leaker contends that point.
At an event in China today, Huawei's sub-brand unveiled two new upper mid-range handsets, the Honor 9X and 9X Pro. They both feature pop-up front cameras, as well as the Kirin 810 SoC and a 48MP main camera sensor on the back. In view of their name, they sport a dazzling 3D gradient X -shaped finish on the back.
We've been skeptical about the need for dedicated gaming phones over the years, but it appears there's enough appetite for them as they keep on coming. The latest is the second generation ROG Phone from Asus, and its got an insane spec list that no other Android phone can boast right now, just as we were expecting after the recent leaks.
It can easily be argued that Samsung's Tizen smartwatches are better than Wear OS competitors in a number of ways, but the voice assistant is not one of them. Bixby will never be able to compete with Google Assistant in this space, so it's always been a bit of a blow for Samsung watch owners. Until now, that is, as a new app is bringing the Assistant to the Galaxy Watch and others Tizen running 4.0 and above.
Google's upcoming game-streaming service has shown a lot of promise, plus it isn't even priced too badly, but there are still a ton of questions surrounding the platform as we edge closer to the November launch. For that reason, Stadia's Director of Product, Andrey Doronichev, took part in a Reddit AMA to fill in some of the blanks and address some people's concerns.
Google has several different vulnerability rewards programs tied to different products, and it pays out huge sums each year to researchers find these security bugs. This, in turn, protects users from data theft and other nefarious activity, so it's good to see that Google is increasing the bounties for its Chrome Vulnerability Rewards Program.
After recent leaks, we knew Xiaomi would soon be introducing its latest Android One phone, and now the Mi A3 has been officially unveiled. Its predecessors were pretty well received, so we have high hopes for this one. For just €250 it offers a 48MP sensor as part of a triple camera setup, an in-screen fingerprint scanner, and a 6-inch AMOLED display (Edit: Sadly it's only HD+, 720x1520 — no wonder they didn't emphasize that in the PR) with a waterdrop notch.
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Remember when you had to wait until Black Friday and Cyber Monday to stock up on cheap tech? Nah, me neither, and that's largely thanks to Amazon and the advent of Prime Day. Not only does Amazon discount its own hardware and tons of other stuff on its site, other retailers have had no choice but to join in. This means that Prime Day (confusingly, a two-day event) is a great time to find deals on the latest tech each summer — today and tomorrow, to be precise.
Danish audio brand Libratone has a reputation for attractive speakers and headphones that also sound pretty decent. Its Made for Google USB-C earbuds and made and more wireless-but-wired Track+ models both impressed us, so we're excited to see the company launch its first true wireless earbuds.
Established security firm ADT broke away from Samsung SmartThings to launch its own fully-fledged smart home security platform earlier this year, and now its LifeShield subsidiary is releasing a video doorbell to go with its own DIY system.
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Back in January, LG rolled out the Android 9 Pie update to the G7 in its home country of South Korea, but users elsewhere haven't been so lucky. It's now finally hitting devices in the US — better late than never, I suppose.Even though the G7 is an Android One phone in some regions, LG's track record of slow updates continues to blight it. According to a post on Reddit, both Verizon and Metro customers have received the update. It's also going out to some users in Europe.
Last month, Google broke with tradition and showed off the rear of the Pixel 4 way before it's due to launch. This was in response to a pretty vague and unattractive initial render produced by @OnLeaks, but this time he's back again with something more tangible. His latest renders show a Pixel 4 XL with a large forehead and bottom-firing speakers — at least there's no hideous notch, I guess.
While you might assume that the relatively few people who use a Chromebook as their main computer are more likely to have an Android phone than an iPhone, it would still make sense for Chrome OS to be capable of tethering to an Apple device for the purpose of data sharing. That isn't possible at present, but it could be coming soon.
When it comes to over-ear headphones with active noise cancellation, Sony's WH-1000XM3 are probably the best in class, but the Japanese tech giant hasn't yet wowed us with an equally impressive pair of true wireless earbuds. That could be set to change, however, with the introduction of the (also obtusely named) WF-1000XM3, coming next month for $230/£220/€250.
The state of the Android tablet market in 2019 isn't a pretty one, so much so that Google has decided not to bother making any more of them, but this isn't stopping Samsung from plowing ahead with its latest release. The popularity of 7 and 8-inch tablets has likely declined because we're all using huge phones these days, which makes the announcement of a new Samsung Galaxy Tab A (8.0") all the more perplexing.
Team 17 is best known for the iconic game series about anthropomorphic worms blowing each other to smithereens, but the developer also has some other solid titles to choose from on mobile. The Escapists 2: Pocket Breakout that came out earlier this year and Sheltered are among the games on sale — in fact, the whole Team 17 catalog is discounted right now.
With the introduction of Plus models and decimals, HMD Global’s range of Nokia phones has taken on a somewhat bloated and hard to decipher form, far from the essential selection of handsets across various price points it started out as. With each new release, it gets harder for consumers to decide which budget phone in the burgeoning lineup is worth the money, which was no more apparent than when the Finnish company announced the Nokia 1 Plus, 3.2, and 4.2 at MWC back in February. The 4.2 appeared to be the most appealing of the bunch, and it went on sale in the US for $189 last month.