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Amazon has started sales of the Alexa-powered Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus smart speakers in Japan. Pre-orders opened on March 30th, with devices scheduled to ship starting on April 3rd. This release is moderately delayed—Amazon announced last October that Echo would release in Japan "later this year," on the same day Google announced Google Home sales to start in Japan that week. Half a year later, Amazon has finally followed through.
The ZenFone AR was a peculiar device when it launched. Just looking at the specs, it seems rather beefy for the time—few phones with the Snapdragon 821 had 6/8GB RAM options. This was all intended for use with Google's Project Tango augmented reality platform, but that was unceremoniously killed last December. As a result, the ZenFone AR is getting a $200 price cut.This brings the 6GB RAM / 64GB storage SKU to $399, and the 8GB/128GB SKU to $499. This is a first for the higher-end model, as it didn't see a discount in January.Android Police reviewed the ZenFone AR, concluding that "Tango is cool and all, but you'll likely play with it a few times and never open it (or the apps) again." While the ZenFone AR seems to still be on 7.0 (Nougat), it was updated to the December 2017 security update, and supports the bootloader unlock tool.Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for ASUS to revive the PadFone.Source: Amazon (6/64GB, 8/128GB)
Japanese IT firm Fujitsu has announced a plan to spin off their mobile device business into a separate company. Under the deal, investment firm Polaris will take over management and assume control of 70% of the company, while Fujitsu will retain a 30% stake. While Sony is the largest Android device manufacturer in Japan, Fujitsu is also a major contender. Fujitsu's Arrows series of smartphones and tablets are available primarily on NTT Docomo, the largest mobile network operator in Japan.
The standards organization JEDEC has released version 3.0 of the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) specification. The new specification more than doubles the bandwidth from the previous version, providing up to two lanes at 1450 MB/s, for a maximum of 2.9 GB/s, compared to a maximum of 1.2 GB/s. The standard also includes temperature reporting mechanisms on the storage controller intended specifically for the automotive market, where electronics are subject to more adverse conditions.
Nintendo has announced (as part of an investor call) plans for the release of Mario Kart Tour, the first Mario Kart game on smartphones, by the end of the next fiscal year. As is standard for Japanese companies, the fiscal year runs from April 1st to March 31st of the following year, meaning that Mario Kart Tour will grace the Play Store and Apple App Store by March 31st, 2019. Other than the logo, no information about the game was disclosed.
I've been told that smartphone enthusiasts are often a bit prickly about their preferences, though OnePlus is taking things to a bizarre new extreme with their latest campaign. Apparently titled "The OnePlus 5T Smart Tests," the first in the series features two men in underwear—one holding a OnePlus 5T, the other holding a Samsung Galaxy S8—having bits of cactus thrown at them, only able to leave after they open 20 "everyday apps." Truly, this takes advertising to a bizarre and unwarranted new level, and you should trust me on this because I live in Japan.
Essential—the phone company led by Android co-founder Andy Rubin—has had some difficulty in getting a stable 8.0 Oreo update released. After three beta releases, the company is not quite satisfied that the update is ready for general release. Because of these protracted issues, Essential has announced plans to skip the 8.0 release entirely in favor of 8.1, which will "push the public release back a couple weeks," according to the company.
The Copyright Royalty Board of the U.S. Library of Congress—which determines the licensing fees paid by streaming services to artists (and their publishers)—has reportedly increased the royalty rate from 10.5% to 15.1% of total revenues for the five-year period from 2018 to 2022. Streaming services rely on the compulsory license established under U.S. law rather than negotiate directly with publishers. For comparison, Netflix and Amazon must negotiate with studios for the use of programs, which is why their catalogs are not "all-inclusive" in the way that music streaming services are.
Following the rumors indicating a forthcoming announcement, Xiaomi has officially announced the Mi Box 4 and budget-minded Mi Box 4c (pictured) for the Chinese market. Xiaomi released only one Mi Box product internationally, though the company has released multiple versions of the Mi Box in China. The China-only devices run the custom MIUI TV interface instead of Android TV. That said, Xiaomi has not shared any plans for these devices to be the basis of a successor to the Mi Box.
Nintendo has announced that services for Miitomo will end on May 9, 2018. The ability to buy coins inside the game has been disabled as a result of the announcement. Remaining coins can be used inside the game, or can be exchanged through the My Nintendo service for discounts on game downloads for 3DS or Wii U, among other items. According to Nintendo, users can receive daily login bonuses of coins and game tickets in order to continue playing Miitomo Drop and use other features in the game until the end of service.
Level-5's first mobile entry to the Professor Layton series of puzzle-solving adventure games is now available in a free-to-start version. The game centers around Layton's daughter, Katrielle, who solves mysteries with her friends and talking dog. While this is not quite the first Professor Layton game on mobile, it is the first game to receive a simultaneous release on Nintendo 3DS and mobile (well, in Japan, anyway).
Since late last November, Nexus Player owners have had the frustrating experience of erratic behavior from the remote. After about 5 to 10 minutes, the remote would seemingly go to sleep. Pressing any button causes the remote to blink for a few seconds, then hopefully reconnect. While not precisely broken, the erratic functionality from the remote has been a point of pain for owners of Google's streaming hockey puck. Finally, Google is preparing to roll out a fix.
It appears to be new Chromebook season, as Acer has announced the Chromebook Spin 11 (pictured), Chromebook 11 C732, and Chromebox CXI3. All three are priced near the budget end of the price spectrum, with the latter two intended specifically for education and enterprise markets. The newly-announced models are run by 8th generation (Apollo Lake) Intel processors. As with all new Chrome OS devices, the trio support Google Play, allowing them to run Android apps.
Android TV is very much alive, as was made abundantly clear by the plethora of new Android TV powered televisions with Google Assistant capability shown off at CES 2018. Streaming boxes powered by Android TV, however, are conspicuously missing—the last Android TV set-top box to be released in the United States was the Xiaomi Mi Box in October 2016.
While CES brought a stack of announcements for Android TV-powered televisions, streaming boxes have been in conspicuously short supply. The CCC Air Stick 4K is breaking up that monotony, cramming in support for 4K HDR10 as well as aptX and aptX HD—apparently a first for Android TV-powered boxes. It has a relatively minimal 2GB RAM and 16GB storage, though this is double what the Nexus Player provides. Unfortunately, it is Japan only, though you could import it if you feel the urge.
Xiaomi's mixed record for releasing kernel sources continues, as the company has still not posted sources for the Mi A1. While Xiaomi has previously stated their internal goal for releasing kernels is "within three months," according to XDA-Developers, the Mi A1 is well past this mark, as it was released last September. With the apparent end of the Nexus device program, the Mi A1 would be a prime candidate for custom ROM development, in place of the 2+ year old Nexus 5X.
The Huawei Watch was perhaps the best of the first-generation Android Wear devices. Aside from it being the most watch-looking watch (compared to the postage stamp glued to a piece of leather styling of the original ZenWatch), the original Huawei Watch was a solid performer, particularly compared to the second generation. Amazon has slashed the price of the premium gold-plated stainless steel watch with matching band to a third of MSRP.At $252.52, the watch has reached a new price low. Last December, Amazon was selling it for $379.99. It's a solid deal if gold is your thing. As smartwatches go, it is decently powerful, with a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. That said, the first generation Huawei Watch has been left on Android Wear 2.0, and will not receive further updates. It also will not get Android Pay support.As of yet, Android Wear has not added support for identifying Yo-kai.Source: Amazon
Project Fi users around the world have reported on Reddit that they are being disconnected from roaming networks after 30-60 seconds of activity, starting late Friday, Pacific Standard Time. Perhaps not coincidentally, T-Mobile US subscribers have also reported similar problems when roaming. Given that mobile phones are a vital lifeline for travelers, particularly when navigating language barriers, roaming outages have the potential to be a distinctly harrowing experience.
The Signal protocol—which powers the Edward Snowden-approved Signal Private Messenger—is being used to bring end-to-end encryption in Skype. The new "Private Conversations" feature is available to Skype Insiders running version 8.13.76.8, and is planned for a full rollout later this year. Naturally, both parties in a conversation must be running a supported Skype version for the feature to be usable.
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- Android Police reader Nicholas Torkos installed the latest beta (OP_O2_Open_29) on his OnePlus 3, and used mitmproxy to inspect the data being sent. From his findings, the clipboard data itself is not being transmitted, but the app is making connections to a server whenever the content of the clipboard is updated.
An intrepid user on the OnePlus forums, v1nc, noticed a suspicious new system app "com.oneplus.clipboard" attempting to access the network after upgrading to a beta release of Oreo with the December 1st security update. Suspiciously, the IP address led to a block owned by Chinese conglomerate Alibaba. Android Police reached out to OnePlus, which confirmed that this was present in the beta.