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Tenet in grainy B&W on the Playdate is just the sort of trolling Christopher Nolan's been asking for
Why watch in the theater when you can view the film on a tiny pixelated screen
As we all know, some directors can be pretentious auteurs (or at least some can be perceived this way), so it didn't come as much of a surprise to hear Christopher Nolan (director of The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar) made a stink about seeing Tenet in theaters back in 2020. Thanks to this meme-worthy outlook during a time people were self-distancing, it's a prime target for trolling, which is precisely why an enterprising user on Twitter has loaded the movie onto the tiny black and white pixelated screen of the adorable new handheld gaming device known as the Playdate.
Google trolls Redditor with constant alerts about Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak
Please, Pat, don't hurt 'em
When I was a kid growing up in Nashville, Pat Sajak was, for a short time, the weather guy for our local NBC affiliate. Then Sajak headed off to Hollywood and stardom — well, fame, I guess — doing the job he still has today as the host of "Wheel of Fortune." Nashville didn't necessarily miss him. Like LA, the city is a little jaded about would-be and current celebrities. Google, however, thinks the weather guy turned game show host is pretty damn important to one unlucky Redditor who recently shared a weird and frustrating glitch which is alerting him to very important Pat Sajak news several times a day.
Some guy managed to buy Google Search's domain name in Argentina
The issue was quickly sorted out, but not before a lot of people noticed
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Google Search is one of the biggest, most recognizable brands on the planet. So when it's suddenly inaccessible for a country of 45 million people, someone's bound to notice. Such was the case on Wednesday, after an Argentinian man was somehow able to purchase the domain for the Argentina portal to Google Search, google.com.ar.
12 Halloween costumes for robot vacuum cleaners absolutely no one asked for
Wherein Jeff escapes from his cage on the night of a full moon and writes an article that is sure to make the rest of the Android Police staff cringe.
Happy Covidween AP readers. Holidays during pandemics, as we've all now discovered, are kind of lousy. The only real advantage that Halloween has over other holidays is that at least today just about everyone should be on board with wearing masks... of one sort or another. As I contemplated the lameness of an impending holiday at home with just the family, when we normally host a costume party with friends, an idea occurred to me. If I couldn't have friends come over in costumes, why not dress up some little robots and have a party with them? (That was not even top 10 strangest idea I had that day in case you were wondering.)Well, after I had that glorious idea I reached out to my buddy Dan at Roborock, and asked if the company would be willing to send me a couple of clean and pristine units so I could play robot dress-up. Rather surprisingly, he said yes (confidence is powerful persuader my friends). The vacuums almost didn't arrive in time, but finally, yesterday afternoon, I received a shiny black Roborock S6 MaxV and a gleaming white S6 Pure in the mail (yeah, Roborock definitely earned that plug the hard way). I stayed up late last night in my office, like Dr. Frankenstein, bringing these little suckers to life. Now I share them vith the vorld! (I know, that's a Dracula accent, not a Frankenstein one, but it's still got that Halloween vibe, so it's cool.)Oh, one more thing before you see my creations, I, uh, didn't bother to ask Artem, the site owner, for approval of this article, but I'm sure he'll love it. (Pretty sure. Maybe. 3/10) Just in case he doesn't, if you like this kind of random weird stuff in your news feed, please feel free to say so in the comments below. Please. (I need to keep this job.)Now, my homebound Halloween friends, grab yourself a bucket of Kit Kats and enjoy the Roborock Costuum Parade. (No, that wasn't a typo Rita, I spelled it that way on purpose, because it's like vacuum, get it?)
Google Assistant knows a surprising number of things. Ask it for the distance between the earth and the moon or who won the last Superbowl, and it will give you the correct answer right away. But like any virtual assistant, there are times when it just doesn't get it. It either takes things too literally or comes up with a completely unexpected answer. We've collected a few of these instances over the past months and thought we'd brighten up your weekend with them.
Earlier this week, Samsung officially announced its Bixby-powered smart speaker - the Galaxy Home. The design is certainly interesting, as its three legs and curved frame sets it apart from most competing products. As it turns out, the Galaxy Home bears a striking resemblance to various common objects - including pots, grills, and even cow udders.
Easily the best demonstration from I/O this year was Google Duplex, an in-development feature for Assistant that will call businesses for you to set up reservations or appointments. The possibilities are quite likely endless, which has inspired some people to come up with other great uses for Duplex.
Seven months have passed since we published the last installment of the AP Files. In that time, the Android world has seen some pretty interesting additions. Way too many flagships, including the latest from ASUS, Huawei, LG, and OnePlus, are being leaked/revealed with notches (thanks, Apple). Android P made its debut in developer preview form, and it looks like Google may be adding gesture navigation as well. LG unveiled the successor to the V30, the nicely-named V30S ThinQ, which is just a V30 with more RAM and some AI features you'll play with once and never touch again.
These days, many advertisements try to be truly different to stand out from the crowd and get people talking. Nokia seems to be attempting this approach with its new ad, which features a guru teaching an apartment renter about the arts of minimalism and 'Phone Shui.' In other words, Nokia is pushing its pure Android angle.
Back in May, Google Assistant added support for shortcuts, allowing you to say one thing and have Assistant perform another command. For example, I set "night" as a shortcut for starting ambient noise on my Google Home. But you can just as easily have fun with it, when combined with Assistant's 'repeat after me' command.
Google has been using CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA for years now to crowdsource information from images it has found online. On the one side, you prove to Google you're a human, on the other, Google gets humans to see small images of text from a book, numbers on a house, or various objects and animals and provide OCR for the text and numbers plus logical grouping and categorization for the objects/animals.
Just a week ago, Spain-based phone manufacturer Doogee announced the S60, a mostly-unremarkable durable phone. The best part about the device was the accompanying press release, which was filled to the brim with hilarious spelling errors. Doogee just unveiled the 'Mix 2,' and the announcement is almost as entertaining as the S60's.
Welcome back to the Android Police Files, your #1 source for the brilliant stuff that the AP staff receives in our mailboxes. Since we last convened, a lot has happened. The latest version of Android shares a name with a branded product for the first time since 4.4 KitKat. The Galaxy Note8 was released, and it doesn't catch fire. And most recently, a Canadian 17-year old and his "youth leadership coach" tried to pass a Chinese ODM's phone off as their own and crowdsource it on Indiegogo.
With most commercials in the US, companies compare their products to "the leading brand" or "competing product." But not so in the telecom industry. Carriers often go after their competitors with satirical ads and CEO rants, calling out each other on their claims and figures. Sprint is no stranger to this behavior, and has started a series of ads directly targeting Verizon.
It's been over half a year since the last installment of the AP Files was published, and the world has undergone some drastic changes. There's a squeezable phone. Bezel-less phones now dominate the world. And the newest LG phones haven't had any major reports of bootlooping. I'm sorry, I had to.
Samsung has had a rough couple of months. It seems like every time the Korean electronics giant is in the news it's because something is catching fire, getting hacked, or its chairman is being arrested. The recent revelation that the CIA has hacked Samsung's smart TVs got the company on John Oliver's radar. Naturally, he roasted the company on the most recent Last Week Tonight.
Every now and then, we all can't quite make out what somebody just said. Sometimes, you fill in the blanks with whatever it is you've been thinking about. If Amazon's Alexa works the same way, this video will really make you wonder what's been on her mind.
Google has added a few entertaining Easter eggs to Google Assistant since its release, including fully interactive quiz games. In the spirit of the season, a few new holiday-related commands have made their way to Google Assistant.
Welcome back. Last we gathered here, the Pixel phones were only a rumor and Google's Home invasion had only just appeared at Google I/O.