Corbin Davenport
Contributing since August, 2015
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3615articles
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About Corbin Davenport
Corbin is a tech journalist and developer who worked at Android Police from 2016 until 2021. Check out his other work at corbin.io.
Latest Articles
Earlier this month, Amazon unveiled new Fire tablets. The new models aren't really much different from the previous generation - just a bit thinner and lighter for the most part. Now Amazon is clearing its inventory, and you can get the previous-gen Fire tablet with special offers for just $39.99.The specs weren't impressive when it was released in 2015, and they sure aren't any more impressive in 2017 - but that should be implied by the price tag. You get a 7" 1024x600 screen, quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek CPU with 1GB of RAM, microUSB port, and headphone jack. The $39.99 model comes with 8GB of internal storage (with 4.5GB available out of the box), but the 16GB model is also discounted to $59.99. You can also use a microSD card for more storage.Like all of Amazon's tablet offerings, this model comes with Fire OS, a fork of Android 5.0 Lollipop without any Google services or apps. Thankfully, it is very easy to sideload the Play Store, and there are a few custom ROMs available too.This tablet should be fine for basic media consumption, but you definitely won't be able to play graphically-intensive games or do any serious productive work. Keep in mind that this also has 'special offers,' which displays Amazon ads on your lockscreen. Removing those ads isn't too difficult, especially if you already know how to use ADB.Source: Amazon
Everyone's getting into the mesh Wi-Fi business these days. Google Wifi was released last year, Samsung is working on a mesh router, and a handful of other products from Netgear, Linksys, Ubiquiti, and others are on the market. Now ASUS is preparing to launch its own mesh network system, called 'Lyra,' and the Android control application is already live on the Play Store.
Android Wear 2.0 hasn't been as fast of a rollout as everyone had hoped, to put it mildly. The first watches to ship with the update were LG's Watch Style and Watch Sport, but existing watches have had to wait anywhere from a few weeks to several months for the update.
Google Photos is ground zero for the company's crazy machine learning technology. At Google I/O 2017, a number of new features were announced for Photos, including suggested sharing based on who's in a certain photo. But for that to work, Google needs to figure out who is who, and now the Photos web app is asking users to identify what they look like.
Instagram isn't just for posting pictures of food anymore. Whether you like it or not, the app has branched out to become a Snapchat competitor too, and now its direct messaging abilities are getting an upgrade.
What's worse than a security vulnerability in a widely-used program? A security vulnerability in several widely-used programs. Researchers from Check Point Software Technologies have uncovered a flaw in a handful of media players (including VLC, Kodi, Stremio, and PopcornTime) that allows hackers to run executable code through subtitle files.
Acer's lineup of Android products mostly consists of low-end hardware with few (if any) unique features. At Computex in Taiwan, the company has announced two more 10-inch tablets. One of them has a quantum dot display, which appears to be a first for any tablet (as far as I can tell), and the other has a focus on productivity.
Last year, LG unveiled the LG K8 budget phone, alongside the less-powerful K5. As you might be able to tell from the name, the LG K8 V is the Verizon variant, and now Big Red is pushing an Android 7.0 Nougat update to it.
eBay periodically offers site-wide discounts, and today the site is bringing it back again. From now until 8PM Pacific Time/11PM Eastern Time, you can save $15 on almost any purchase of $75 or more.
USB Type-C cables can be expensive, especially if you're trying to find one that won't fry your gadgets. If you're short on them at the moment, we've got just the deal for you. One of Veckle's Type-C to Type-C cables is just $14 on Amazon ($3 off the usual price), once you apply a coupon code at checkout.Unlike some other Type-C cables you might find, including Google's, this one supports full USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds for fast data transfers (as long as both devices support that speed, of course). The cable is also rated for 100W power transfer, so you can use it to charge your Type-C equipped laptops as well. Finally, because I know all of you will ask - it is Benson-approved.You can find a link to the cable below. You'll need coupon code 9Z8YX7AC to get the full discount.Source: Amazon
Capcom's Ace Attorney series likely needs no introduction, spanning several games across multiple mobile platforms. In Dual Destinies, you take the role of defense attorneys Phoenix Wright, Athena Cykes, and Apollo Justice to find the truth in various court cases. The game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 and for iOS the following year, and now Dual Destinies is out Android.
There are a handful of good 360-degree cameras for consumers, like the Samsung Gear 360 and EZVIZ Mini 360. Garmin's first entry into this product category was announced today - the VIRB 360. It's a pretty powerful little camera, but you'll be paying a premium for it.
The Wireless Power Consortium was formed in 2008, to promote the Qi wireless charging technology in consumer products. It looks like someone at the WPC has messed up, as the unannounced Galaxy S8 Active has appeared on the site.
PayPal integration in Android Pay has been a long time coming. We first spotted it in a teardown back in January, and an official announcement came last month. Now the feature appears to be going live, at least for some users.
The ability to unlock a device with your face is nothing new - Android had it back in 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. But recently, we've seen more complex eye unlocking technology crop up on consumer electronics, such as Windows Hello. The Galaxy Note7 and S8 included something similar, called the Iris Scanner.
If you've never heard of it, Splitwise is an app that makes sharing bills and payments incredibly easy. You can use it to split bills between groups, keep track of IOU's, and figure out costs for vacations. The latest update to Splitwise adds support for Paytm, for users in India.
Perhaps by coincidence, both Instagram and Snapchat have announced new features related to Stories today. Instagram is rolling out stories in the Explore tab, which contain a mishmash of Stories tagged with a certain location or hashtag. Now Snapchat has announced the ability to create Stories for groups.
Instagram created a carbon copy of Snapchat stories last year, but now the company is making them far more discoverable. In a blog post, Instagram announced that Stories will now be accessible by location and hashtags.
Joaquim Vergès, best known for his work on the Falcon Pro Twitter client, joined Twitter in 2015 to help improve the company's Android app. He left Twitter in March to work for Twitch, and it seems like the company has taken that opportunity to change the app's design again. A new user interface is being tested in the app's alpha testing branch, and everything is round for some reason.