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SwiftKey is getting back to normal. It all started with a bug that led to people receiving personalized suggestions for other users, which caused SwiftKey to temporarily shut down its sync servers. While sync came back pretty quickly, it only provided predictions for regular words, not more complex items like email addresses and phone numbers. A final fix with support for emails and phone numbers hit SwiftKey Beta last week and today it has made its way to the stable.
If you're getting started with a smart home setup or working on an upgrade, your wallet is probably feeling pretty light. While you're still on your own for all the connected devices, Amazon has the best price we've seen on Samsung's SmartThings Hub at $79, $20 below the typical going rate.The hub sets up by simply running the included ethernet cable to your router. You can manage your devices via the free SmartThings Hub app. While I'm sure you would have expected it to work well with Samsung's smart home devices (it does), it also plays well with Honeywell, D-Link, Bose, Cree, and several other prominent manufacturers on the market.
Hiding your root status from apps that refuse to work when you are rooted—like Android Pay—is a cat and mouse game that enthusiasts have been losing lately. Chainfire, the developer who has become the main source of advances in rooting, announced today a new way to work around Android apps' ability to detect the root status of a device. The app, called suhide, works but comes with a number of caveats.
Opera users who utilized the browser's cloud sync option may have had that synchronized data taken by hackers, according to the company. While the full extent of the breach isn't yet known, Opera fears that passwords saved in the browser's manager may have been exposed.
What's better than unlimited data? You guessed it: unlimited data you can use to stream videos, music, and games at the same speed you can stream anything else. Well, Sprint has decided to offer us lucky consumers the opportunity to use unlimited data for the things that motivate most of us to consider these plans in the first place. Of course, you have to pay $20 more per month, per line for that right.
Samsung is slowly rolling out a new app meant to centralize your photo management. For those using storage with multiple cloud services, Samsung Cloud Together might be a good option for dealing with the mess. And even if you have a well-organized setup, the app also includes a security feature that allows you to password protect selected photos.
Everybody hates telemarketers, but the classic stranger on the line phone call has an important limiting factor: humans. Somebody has to get paid to make those calls, so there are big financial reasons for the spammers to knock it off.
The MIT researchers-turned-entrepreneurs at a company called SolidEnergy have something you've probably heard before but also something you haven't. A battery breakthrough that will drastically increase your future phone's battery life? We've heard that before. New battery tech that is ready for production within a year? That's new.
In a move that strikes a balance between becoming more consistent with the mobile apps and giving desktop users the best experience possible, Google has made some tweaks to Play Music's playlist interface. While playlists are no longer on the top level of the left-side hamburger menu—to be more like the phone and tablet UI—web users can use a shortcut to access a new sliding menu from the right.
The Nextbit Robin, a crowdfunding idea that actually came to fruition, can be had at a massive discount through Amazon's daily Gold Box deal. Originally $399, for today only you can get it at a paltry $199. If you're on a GSM carrier, there's a lot to like here, especially at the price.The Robin has been discounted before, but this is by far the best deal we've seen. We made a fuss on Prime Day when it was marked down to $239 and this is yet another $40 better than that. While the original $399 price didn't last long, beyond Prime Day it hasn't sunk below $299.
Thanks to the industry-leading hardware on NVIDIA Shield, many of the best games on any platform are available for Android. One of those games you can play on your NVIDIA Shield Tablet and Android TV is Borderlands 2, the instant classic that lets you play as one of four different vault hunters as you deal with Handsome Jack and countless other foes.
If you like fashionable over-the-ear headphones, today's Amazon Gold Box deal is for you. AKG's K545 headphones are relatively portable for over-the-ear headphones, equipped with a folding mechanism so you can take them wherever you go. Previously $150, today only you can get them for $99.
In the latest series of updates to Microsoft's Office apps for Android, the headlining feature is inking support with a couple of other minor additions. Of those, the one most likely to affect your day-to-day use is that each app now allows for saving to SD cards.
Sunshine, a popular and unique weather app for iOS, is making its way to Android. The app specializes in providing useful, rather than detailed, information while crowdsourcing for more accurate weather data. While there hasn't been an official announcement from the developers, the app is now open for beta testing.
Samsung, no stranger to special edition phones, has one just in time for this summer's Olympics in Rio. The S7 edge Olympic Games Edition is now on sale in the USA, where it is exclusively available at Best Buy. The unlocked phone will run you $849.99, an extra $100 above the non-Olympic equivalent.
After a previous deal fell through, Opera has reached an agreement to sell the mobile and desktop browser portion of its business to a group of Chinese companies for an estimated $600 million. Opera will retain its advertising business in a bid to avoid a long regulatory holdup.
Microsoft continues to hammer away at its Android offerings, this time with monthly updates to its office suite. There's no earth-shaking changes here, but as usual regular users are going to appreciate these. The most broadly useful is the new ability to put shortcuts to Office files on your home screen, much like on your desktop computers. For the business types, each of the three apps can now open IRM-protected files.
Google first talked about Expeditions way back at I/O 2015, after which they began trying it out with a large number of classrooms worldwide. Using the magic of VR, Expeditions would allow educators to take their students on realistic escapades into far-off lands. At long last, Google is making the app available to anyone who wants it.
Today HP announced its latest Chromebook model update, this time with a budget focus. The Chromebook 11 G5 will, most notably, run Android apps and will cost just $189. Another headlining feature of the new laptop is its claimed 12.5 hours of battery life, which is top shelf in general and quite good for a laptop that costs considerably less than most of the phones our readers have. An optional touchscreen, which will increase the price by an unspecified amount, will make Android apps even more usable at the cost of just one hour of battery life.
The latest Snapseed update brings a couple of things that the development team says have been oft-requested by users. For those tweaking RAW images, you get two new handy ways to get the white balance. For all image types, an additional color filter has been added to the existing choices in the black and white editor.