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Last year, Motorola skipped on updating the Moto X line of devices, in favor of introducing the Moto Z. The device's main selling point was 'Moto Mods,' modules the user can hotswap to add functionality. Unfortunately, the expensive cost of both the device and the Moto Mods, as well as the lack of a headphone jack and short battery life, led it to fall below expectations.
The Samsung Smartcam is a great example of why consumers should be wary of 'Internet of Things' devices. Multiple exploits for the camera have been found since the Smartcam initially went on sale, previously allowing for remote command execution and changing the admin password without knowing the original one. Now another exploit has been discovered for the Smartcam, this time allowing commands to be executed as the root user.
If you're familiar with the history of Android and Google, you likely have heard about Andy Rubin. He co-founded Android, Inc, and when the company was acquired in 2005 by Google, Rubin continued to work at Google until 2014. Bloomberg reports that Rubin is preparing to announce a new consumer hardware company, named 'Essential,' with one of the products being a bezel-less smartphone.
One of YouTube's many problems is video monetization. With the site changing its discovery algorithms constantly, many major creators have turned to services like Patreon to ensure a steady source of income. Now YouTube has decided to shut down its Fan Funding feature, which allowed users to donate to channels with it turned on.
Google has allowed paying for Play Store purchases through your phone carrier's bill for a while now, but it's not available on all carriers. Vodafone in Portugal just started supporting Play Store carrier billing, becoming the first carrier in the country to do so. In fact, the Google Play support page for Portugal hasn't even been updated yet.
It looks like Google is working on spring cleaning a little early this year. After removing the remaining Huawei Watch models from the Google Store earlier today, all of Fossil's Android Wear watches are now gone. The company's lineup includes the Fossil Q Founder, Q Marshal, and Q Wonder.
For years, NextApp's SystemPanel has been a popular way to quickly monitor almost all aspects of an Android device. The app supports monitoring running applications, hardware information, network activity, and more. But like many pro tools for Android (looking at you, Titanium Backup), the interface is a bit dated.
By far one of the most annoying aspects of Google Now and Assistant is that you have to speak "OK Google," before every command. Even though Now and Assistant can continue conversations based on context (for example, you can follow up "Who is the president?" with "How old is he?"), you still have to say "OK Google" before asking anything.
When Google Assistant was first unveiled at Google I/O last year, it promised to be a more natural voice assistant - similar to Siri, Alexa, Cortana, etc. It also serves as an Alexa competitor, with Google positioning Assistant for use with third-party devices and services. Right now, Google Assistant is officially available on Google's Pixel phones, the Google Home, Google's Allo chat application, and soon Android TV.
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- The Nokia 6 is official on Nokia's site, branded as "the first Nokia smartphone powered by Android" (there was this, but it was technically developed by Microsoft) and will be released in early 2017. The device is being manufactured by HMD, and the company is now the exclusive licensee of the Nokia brand for phones and tablets.
The once-great phone giant Nokia sold its smartphone business to Microsoft back in 2013, and later began licensing the Nokia name to various Chinese companies. Nokia previously announced its return to smartphones last month, and now a promotional video for one of the company's upcoming Android-powered phones has leaked.
It can be hard to keep up with all the major voice assistants - Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, Alexa, the list goes on. SoundHound, perhaps best known for its music recognition app, has been working on its Hound voice assistant since 2015. At CES, SoundHound announced they have partnered up with Onkyo and Shenzhen to produce Hound-powered speakers and robots, respectively.
Since the very first disc drive, the 5MB IBM 350, storage has only become cheaper, smaller, and more plentiful. Today at CES, Kingston Digital announced the DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte (that's a mouthful) flash drives, which will be sold in both 1TB and 2TB configurations.The drives themselves are just 2.83 inches wide (72mm), and claim to support full USB 3.1 Gen 1 (otherwise known as USB 3.0) speeds; although I doubt this flash drive can max out at 5GBp/s. I would have liked to see both USB Type-A and Type-C connectors, like this Lexar drive, for easier connectivity with USB Type-C Android devices (and new Apple computers).Both drives will ship in February, but Kingston did not mention a price - no doubt they will be extremely expensive. If you buy one, please backup your data - 1/2TB of anything is a lot to lose.
Until now, Google Assistant has been limited to the Google Home and the Pixel phones (unless you edited your phone's build.prop file). Assistant is slowly making its way to more devices, starting with Android TV. "In the coming months," it will become available on all Android TV devices in the US running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher (sorry, ADT-1 owners).
The Android apps for Google Docs can be handy for quick edits, but lack many of the features available through the web app. Today's update for the Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps for Android bring a few useful features to mobile.
Polaroid is one of many dead brands used to sell mediocre electronics, including smartphone and tablet lineups running Android. C+A Global, with a license to use the Polaroid brand, revealed the Polaroid Hoop security camera at CES today.
Remember when Palm was still very much alive, and competed against Android and iOS with its own webOS? After HP bought the company in 2010, they promptly ran the entire OS and ecosystem into the ground and sold it to LG. Now webOS is a mere shadow of its former self, continuing to exist on various LG electronics (mostly TVs).
It's no secret that BlackBerry hasn't been doing well in recent years, with the company eventually deciding to outsource hardware development to partners. The DTEK50 was the first BlackBerry-branded TCL device, but was simply a rebranded Acatel Idol 4. Steve Cistulli, President and GM of TCL in North America, posted a teaser on his Twitter account of an upcoming TCL-made BlackBerry phone.
LeEco is determined to succeed in the North American market, despite a strange launch event and mediocre devices. The company has announced two new smart bikes, the aptly-named LeEco Smart Road Bike and LeEco Smart Mountain Bike (not LeBike?), which can be seen on the CES show floor.
Although Android Wear 2.0 has been put off until "early 2017," ASUS isn't waiting for the update to deliver its own improvements and fixes. The company has released OTA updates for the ZenWatch 2 and ZenWatch 3, with some exciting new features (well, for ZW3 owners).
The ZTE Axon 7 Mini, as the name might imply, is a slightly-smaller version of ZTE's Axon 7 with downgraded specifications. The phone has a Snapdragon 617 CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage with microSD expansion (if the second SIM tray isn't being used), and a 2,705mAh non-removable battery. Now you can grab it for just $199.99, $100 off the normal MSRP.