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Like most Android phone manufacturers, Alcatel has uploaded many of its phones' apps to the Play Store. This allows the company to update various system apps without sending out a full Android upgrade. Some time in mid-November, Alcatel's gallery app received such an update - a very bad update, if reviews from owners of Alcatel phones are any indicator.
It's fairly simple to create unobtrusive advertising on computers, phones, tablets, and other devices with a screen - users can simply ignore the ads. However, that doesn't translate to smart speakers, since the only interface is speaking. There's no unobtrusive way to stop in the middle of a sentence and start talking about a sale.Thankfully, at least for the moment, Amazon agrees that ads have no place on smart speakers. According to a report from The Information, Sony approached Amazon several times about running ads on its Jeopardy Alexa game. The company refused each time, explaining that advertising could alienate users. This frustrated Sony, which felt like it could not generate revenue from the Alexa skill it created.Right now, there are only two ways Alexa skills can generate revenue. First, skills can obviously be used to purchase products, thus generating more revenue for a given company. For example, Pizza Hut allows you to order pizza through Alexa. Secondly, Amazon is allowing some developers to create subscriptions with more functionality. You can pay a $1.99/month for extra questions on the Jeopardy skill, but I can't imagine many people are doing that.Last year, Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast film was promoted in the Google Home's morning summary. Many believed this was the first instance of Google monetizing the smart speaker, but Google later said in a statement, "This wasn’t intended to be an ad. What’s circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content."Smart speakers are still in their early days. As they become more popular, and as Google and Alexa continue to pour more development resources into their assistants, maybe we'll start to see limited advertising. But for now, Amazon is vehemently opposed to the idea.Source: The Information
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Strava is a popular fitness app for Android and iOS, and one of its main features is the ability to see other users' tracks and runs on a map (or share your own). In November of last year, Strava released a global heatmap, with the tracks of every run and bike ride visible as bands of light. There's only one problem - it revealed the location of several secret military facilities.
Earlier this month, Fossil announced new Android Wear-based smartwatches, under its Kate Spade and Skagen brands. Both watches use the same round frame that the Misfit Vapor and Fossil Q Control have, but with different lug styles and bands. Now you can buy the Skagen Falster smartwatch, starting at $275.
After becoming a runaway success (pun intended) on iOS, Temple Run finally arrived on Android in mid-2012. Less than a year later, the sequel went live on the Play Store. It took half a decade, but Temple Run 2 has now passed 500 million installs on the Play Store.
Xiaomi's Mi Box is one of many set-top boxes running Android, and the third generation was released in China in late 2016. An international model running Android TV 6.0 was released shortly afterwards, simply called 'Mi Box,' but that received mixed reviews. Now it looks like the fourth-generation Mi Box will be unveiled on January 29, according to reports from Chinese media.
Mesh routers make it easier to cover large areas with great Wi-Fi. Think of each mesh station as a cell phone tower, where your devices automatically switch to whichever one has the best signal. No more upstairs-only networks, or $30 janky repeaters that interfere with other signals. If you've been itching to try one, Netgear's Orbi system is on sale again.This particular model is the router + wall satellite combo, which means you get one base station and one 'satellite' (basically just a less-powerful station that plugs directly into an outlet). The base station should cover 2,500 square feet, and the satellite can cover 1,500 square feet. The system with one station and two satellites went on sale earlier this month, but it was still $300.There are some other nice features too, like an app for setup and management, support for creating a guest network, content filters for young children, Alexa compatibility, and more. You can buy the Orbi system for $194.97 ($55 off) from Amazon at the link below. Best Buy also has it for $199 ($50 off), with in-store pickup options available.Source: Amazon, Best Buy
For over a decade, web-based applications have been replacing native programs - at least on the desktop. I manage my calendar with Google Calendar, check my email through Google Inbox, chat with fellow AP members in Slack, listen to music through Plex and Google Play Music, and talk with friends on Discord and Hangouts. Every single one of those services is available as a web app.
Back in November, Samsung started rolling out beta builds of Android 8.0 Oreo for the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Several updates to that beta have been released over the past few months, but now Samsung is getting ready for the final public release. In the release notes for the most recent beta, the company announced that the program would end on January 26.
Amazon and Google are in a race to expand their voice assistants to more countries. While both Google Assistant and Alexa are already available in the United Kingdom, neither have a presence in Ireland. Today, Amazon announced that Alexa is officially available in the country, with some of the company's Echo speakers also making a debut.
If there's one area Chromebooks are consistently crushing the competition, it's in the educational market. According to IDC figures from 2016, Chromebooks made up 49% of school computers. Dell's 5000 Series is the company's latest attempt to cash in on that lucrative market, with a rugged design perfect for use in education.
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- The blocker for redirecting ads has actually been delayed to a later Chrome release, see this post for more information. If you still want to turn it on, you can follow the below instructions.
The first Chrome release of 2018 is here! Chrome 64 includes the long-awaited redirect blocking feature, but it's still not enabled by default for some reason. There are a few other minor changes as well, like a white navigation bar and new APIs for developers to use. Without further ado, let's get into it!
Atari is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic companies in the video game industry. Pong was one of the first arcade games ever, the Atari 2600 computer was wildly popular in the late 70s and early 80s, and the 1985 Atari ST was fairly successful. However, the company began to falter in the 90s, and the poorly-sold Atari Jaguar was the last nail in the coffin. After that, Atari Corporation merged with hard drive manufacturer JTS Corp, who later sold the Atari brand to Hasbro in 1998.
We've known for months that Google has been planning to sell audiobooks, and a recent APK teardown revealed that the announcement would come very soon. At long last, audiobooks are finally rolling out on Google Play Books, and you can even play them from your Google Assistant speaker.
Near the end of last year, T-Mobile announced that it was buying Layer3 TV, an online television provider. T-Mobile said that it wanted to "un-carrier" the TV industry by offering its own service, and purchasing Layer3 was the first step. T-Mobile's acquisition of Layer3 is now complete, according to a press release from today.
If you're not familiar with it, Wine is a free and open-source compatibility layer for running Windows programs on Unix-like operating systems. It has been in development since 1993, and can run a wide variety of Windows programs on Linux and macOS (though modifications or tweaks are sometimes required).
At last year's IFA in Berlin, SanDisk announced a microSD card with 400GB of storage. If that wasn't enough space for your needs, Integral Memory announced today that it has beat that record, with its new 512GB microSD card.
One of the new features in Android 8.0 Oreo was Notification Channels. This gives users the ability to toggle categories of app notifications from the Android settings. WhatsApp was the latest high-profile app to add support for the feature, and now it appears Twitter is joining the club.
Over the past few months, websites have begun to capitalize on the increasing value of cryptocurrency in not-so-great ways. Numerous websites have started to include scripts that use your device's processing power to mine cryptocurrencies. While the scripts usually aren't as noticeable on desktop computers, they can slow smartphones down to a crawl and drain the battery.
A few months ago, I reviewed the Collectors Edition of Anki's popular 'Cozmo' robot. Cozmo was first and foremost a toy, but the app included a 'Code Lab' where owners could create simple block-based programs (Anki has even extended that in subsequent updates).After that review, Wonder Workshop asked me if I wanted to try out two of its toy robots - the 'Dot' and 'Cue.' Unlike the Cozmo, where coding functionality was more of an afterthought, programming is at the heart of the Dot and Cue. Almost all the activities you can do with these robots involve some level of coding, but they are accessible enough for most kids to get some enjoyment out of them.More and more parents are trying to introduce programming concepts to their children at a young age, and as such, robot kits like these are becoming increasingly common. So do Dot and Cue deserve the $79 and $199 asking prices, respectively? I think Dot is a great toy for younger kids, but Cue... not so much.