10
May
Google-Hangouts-Logo

Multiple Reports Now Indicate Babel Will Be Called Google Hangouts, May Be Unveiled At I/O

Posted by in News, Rumors

Readers, Babel no more. As first reported by a historically credible member of The Verge forums and confirmed today by a Tech Radar source, Google's unified messaging platform will be known as Hangouts when it's officially unveiled, and may launch as soon as Google I/O. Tech Radar's contact provided a screenshot that further lends credence to the new name: nestled among the emoticons and toolbar of the alleged interface, an expanded drop down menu includes particularly conspicuous options referencing "Hangouts," which is the closest thing to a dead giveaway that I can think of.

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Google's efforts to consolidate its Talk, Google+ Hangout, and photo sharing services into a cohesive product have been rumored for the past several months.

10
May
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LG Optimus G Pro Available At AT&T Starting Today

Posted by in AT&T, News, Optimus G Pro

The 5.5-inch, LTE-toting LG Optimus G Pro is now available for purchase at AT&T. Packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1080p display, and a 3,140mAh battery, the G Pro's no slouch, and, as we found in our review of the Korean version, stands up well against competitors like the Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

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The Optimus G Pro can be picked up for $200 on a 2-year contract, $450 on a 1-year one (an option that makes the least sense financially), or $550 without signing your life away. It's currently in stock both online and at AT&T retail locations, so if you're in the market for a new tab/phone, get to it!

10
May
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LG Lucid 2 Quick Review: It Might Be The Best $350 (Off Contract) You Can Spend On A Verizon Phone

Posted by in Lucid 2, Phone Reviews

We review a lot of high-end phones here on Android Police. In fact, we probably review a disproportionately low number of entry-level and mid-range devices, because many of them are, well, boring. We also know that you, our readers, are rarely interested in the often no-value value-proposition that these handsets tend to represent, especially in the US. Here, a wireless contract is two years long whether you're buying a refurbished Galaxy Nexus (ew!) or a shiny new Galaxy S4.

This is particularly frustrating for Verizon subscribers. Verizon's prepaid smartphone plans are basically worthless (strict phone options, no LTE). There is no national Verizon MVNO.

10
May
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HTC One Commercials Highlight BlinkFeed, Literally Throw Dirt On The Competition

Posted by in HTC, News, One

The HTC One is pretty great, and HTC has had no problem vividly illustrating its hardware features. Now they've moved on to the software in a pair of 30-second TV spots. The ads are all about BlinkFeed, HTC's proprietary social/news stream, and the centerpiece of the Sense 5 user interface. The commercials get right to the point, showing that other phones make you "dig" for information and content, while the mighty One with BlinkFeed puts everything you want right there on the home screen. Dirt literally falling out of inferior phones makes the point with all the subtlety of a thrown brick.

10
May
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Finally, Google Has Come Up With A Predictable, Intuitive Sidebar Navigation Design - Now Please Add It To Everything [Update: Confirmed By Googlers!]

Posted by in Design, News

What exactly is the deal with slide-out sidebar navigation? Is it a standard Holo thing? Is it not? 3rd-party developers aren't really sure what to do with it, and even Google-made apps are all over the place. Some apps have sidebar navigation, some don't. The ones that do have it all function a little differently and none of the implementations were actually any good - until now.

Google Earth and Google Shopper were just updated with a new sidebar design, and, well, have you seen them? Google has fixed the biggest problem I have with all the previous designs: unpredictability.

In order to understand what's so great about the new design, we have to talk about what's so crappy about the old designs.

10
May
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Tek Recon NERF-Style Guns Use Smartphones For Radar And Scopes, Kickstarter Campaign Now Live

Posted by in Accessories, News

In many ways, the proliferation of the Call of Duty generation is just an extension of ye olde Cops and Robbers, traditionally played with cap guns, rubber bands, or NERF darts. The Tech 4 Kids company is trying to bring kids' games full circle with Tek Recon, a series of toy guns. What makes these toys unique is the video game-style smartphone HUD, enabled with a docked phone and an Android or iOS app. The Tek Recon Kickstarter campaign started this morning, and it looks like it won't have any trouble meeting the reasonable $50,000 goal.

Tek Recon functions well enough as a toy gun alone.

10
May
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AllThingsD: Larry Page Declines To Go Forward On Physical Google Wallet Card, Kills Project, Axes VP Of Wallet

Posted by in Android OS, News

In an oddly-specific narrative published this morning, AllThingsD reported that sources close to Larry Page and Google Wallet have confirmed that plans for the physical Google Wallet credit card have been cut up, and VP of Wallet Osama Bedier pushed out of the company.

We exclusively reported on the Wallet card last November, when it appeared in a leaked version of the Google Wallet app. You could even initiate the card ordering process, suggesting the project was well on its way to completion. So, we waited. And we waited. And then we waited some more. The Wallet card seemingly went off the radar, and as Ron noted, the "new Google Wallet" sign up page still greets visitors of the Wallet site, like a big "Coming Soon" banner in front of that one restaurant that never seems to actually make progress on those renovations that have been going for like 6 months now.

10
May
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Clutch Mobile Wallet Launches, Promises Passbook-Like Functionality For Android

Posted by in Applications, News

Watch out, Google Wallet, there's a new player in town. Actually, Google Wallet hasn't really done all that well; it's still being blocked by big carriers, and NFC point of sale systems aren't exactly ubiquitous yet. For those reasons, stopgap apps like Clutch - an e-commerce app that allows you to pay with barcodes generated by your credit, debit, loyalty or gift cards - probably have a better chance than Wallet of moving us towards frictionless mobile payments.

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Users of Apple's Passbook app on iOS will feel right at home with Clutch's payment mechanism. With the aforementioned card-scanning capabilities, the app looks to make storage of plastic as simple as possible.

10
May
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EasyAcc 12000mAh 4-Port External Battery Pack Is Just $40 On Amazon, With Refreshed Hardware After Customer Feedback

Posted by in Accessories

We're featuring this external battery charger for three reasons. One: it's a pretty neat piece of kit in its own right, with a huge 12000mAh capacity (4-8 charges for most recent Android phones) and four USB charging ports, three of which can be active simultaneously. Two: the manufacturer made some small but pertinent additions to the hardware design after receiving feedback from a knowledgeable customer. Three: at $40, it would be a pretty good deal even for a basic 1-port charger of this capacity. With the extra features, it's a downright bargain.

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The EasyAcc charger's biggest differentiator is its four standard USB charging ports ,which are set to amperage outputs between .5A and 2.1A.

10
May
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New Bipartisan Phone Unlocking Bill: DMCA Circumvention Redefined, Permanent Exemption For Carrier Unlock

Posted by in Carriers, News

The legality of certain phone modifications in the United States, particularly those that allow phones to be used on wireless carriers for which they weren't originally intended, is currently on a congressional see-saw. Every three years, the Librarian of Congress has to approve or extend an exemption of the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to allow or deny consumers the right to unlock (read: carrier unlock, and in some cases rooting/jailbreaking, but not unlocking bootloaders) their phones by circumventing digital rights management. Congress let the exemption slide earlier this year - read the gory details here.  Now a new bill has been entered that, if passed, would grant a permanent exemption to the DMCA for carrier unlocking, among other things.

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