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- Snap has just rolled out support for creating your own Snapchat filter or lens directly from within the Android app. There's still a more full-fledged Lens Studio for desktop for more complex filters, but for the average snapchatter, being able to put together a quick filter directly from within the app will certainly be very appreciated.
Snapchat is an inexplicably popular service, but you know what it's missing? There just aren't enough augmented reality filters (known as Lenses) for your snaps, right? True or not, Snap has announced a new tool called Lens Studio that will let anyone create augmented reality objects and publish them for other Snapchat users.
The Cat-branded S60 was a very interesting phone, even if it wasn't the best phone for most people. This phone was the first and only Android device to have an integrated FLIR thermal camera, but it won't be the only one for long. Now, Cat is following it up with the Cat S61. It has a lot in common with the S60 (as the name implies), but all the specs have gotten a boost—even the thermal camera.
The encrypted messaging app Signal has become quite popular with millions of downloads on iOS and Android, and its underlying technology has been integrated with the chat platforms used by billions of people. Signal has done all this with only a handful of developers. Now, Signal is growing into the Signal Foundation. With $50 million in initial funding, this nonprofit will continue building on Signal's success to support private communication.
AT&T has been vague on its 5G plans, saying only that a dozen cities will have 5G of some sort by the end of the year. Today, AT&T's plans are slightly less vague. We know three of those dozen 5G markets: Dallas, Waco, and Atlanta.
Nest has been absorbed by Google's hardware team, but that hasn't slowed it down. The previously announced Assistant integration for the Cam IQ is rolling out today, and that's not all. Nest has also announced a number of improvements to Nest Aware, including a cheaper plan option.
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The format of Android build numbers has been the same for years, but it's changing in Android 8.0. The first non-preview version of Oreo just rolled out with the new format, which is a big departure. Rather than being three letters followed by three other characters, it's split into three blocks of numbers and letters separated by periods. It looks confusing at first, but you actually get more information from it.
After a decade of operation, Flixster Video is calling it quits today. The company has been warning registered users via email in recent months, so this won't come as a surprise. You can't stream your digital movies at all anymore, and the website is no longer operational. If you haven't saved your movie library to another platform, you may still have a shot.
Motorola made some changes to its Prime Exclusive phones recently to make them less annoying but also less economical. They cost a bit more, but you don't have ads on the lock screen anymore. The price isn't a problem for the Moto X4 right now, which is deeply discounted to $250. With the removal of ads, this is a great deal.The standard Moto version of the X4 costs $400, and the Prime version is usually $50 cheaper. Today, it's a further $100 off the usual Prime Exclusive price, so it's $150 less than the retail phone. There are no ads, but you do get a selection of pre-installed Amazon apps. The bootloader is locked down as well. Since this is based on the Motorola version of the phone and not the Android One edition, you get Alexa and the Moto Sound System included.
The Moto X4 comes in either blue or black, and it's compatible with all major networks (CDMA and GSM). It's not the fastest phone, and the camera isn't amazing. It's a tough sell at $400 or even $350, but $250 is very compelling. The sale price is available today only.Source: Amazon
Samsung fired up its own rewards program in late 2016 to promote Samsung Pay, and it later expanded to a few other products. Anyone who's been serious about earning points with Samsung Pay might notice something has changed. Samsung is now only offering half as many points for qualifying transactions.
Google's custom Nexus/Pixel dialer has added a few cool features over the years like local search and video call integration, but the interface hasn't changed in ages. Today, it looks like Google is testing a redesign that moves your tabs to the bottom. This isn't always a surefire way to improve app usability, but I think it works here.
As you traverse the internet, you will often encounter URLs that have tracking or referral junk tacked on the end. You probably don't want all that garbage included when you share a link, and Chrome recently started taking care of that for you. As of v64, the browser trims off unnecessary strings at the end of URLs.The URL streamlining happens automatically when you use the Share menu in Chrome (but not Chrome Custom Tabs). You can copy to the clipboard or share directly to another app—no setup required. If you highlight the URL bar and select text manually, you can still get the full URL with all the junk at the end. You can test it yourself with this Amazon URL.We suspect this feature is related to the "canonical page" URLs Google started supporting some time ago. We've seen similar features in AMP pages so that sharing the content would share a usable URL. The general URL streamlining seems subtly different, though. It doesn't work in Chrome v63 or earlier, but it's available in v64. That's in the stable channel now, and it came to beta and dev in the December-January timeframe.There could be situations when you want to manually copy URLs to avoid this feature. Chrome's URL trimming will even remove anchor tags that load a page to a specific location, For example, the "Free" section of this sale roundup. Share that in Chrome v64 or higher, and it just loads the top of the page. That could be a bit annoying. More often than not, though, this feature is probably going to be incredibly handy.[EMBED_APP]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome[/EMBED_APP]
Samsung's own web browser used to be exclusive to its phones, but that was fine because no one really wanted to use it. More recently, Samsung has stepped up its game and made Samsung Internet a capable Chromium-based browser. After pushing v6.4 as a beta some weeks back, it's now stable with a few more features.
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- According to a new support page, Android Wear 2.9 is rolling out now. As long as your watch has some version of Android Wear 2.0, you should get it at some point (Oreo is not a requirement).
Google just started rolling out Android Wear 2.8 earlier this month, but it's already talking about Wear 2.9. Like the last update, this one isn't making huge changes to the nature of Wear. It does, however, include a few new options for notification counters on your watch face and some changes to the way developers handle complications.
Google increased the price of its larger Pixel phone to $850 this generation, which is a lot to spend on a phone. There have been a few deals, but the latest offer from Best Buy and Verizon is the best one we've seen yet. You can get $400 off this phone (nearly half price), but there are some strings attached.
When you call 911 from a landline phone, that number is tied to a physical address. It's easy for emergency responders to get to the right place. However, cell phones can be anywhere, and the carrier-based location reports sent to call centers are not always good enough. Google is working on a system that would provide faster, more accurate locations to 911 operators, and its first test reportedly went well.
Facebook rolled out a special Community Help section last year to do some good during a crisis. It's intended as a way for users to offer assistance to each other including food, shelter, and so on. Now, Facebook is going to let certain businesses and organizations post in Community Help to do the same.
Google's Pixel 2 is a great little phone, but the $650 asking price is a little steep for some. You can get a solid discount on the device today if you don't mind a refurbished phone. Woot is selling the Pixel 2 for $529.99 (64GB) and $579.99 (128GB).
Google's Project Fi would already work in 135 countries around the world, but today that number balloons to a whopping 170. In newly added countries like Belize and Myanmar, you pay the same $10 per gigabyte of data, and data after bill protection kicks in is free (but slow). You'll even know if a country is covered before you go just by opening the Fi app.
The Razer Phone launched last year with plenty of features that cater to power users. There's a 120Hz screen, a huge battery, front-facing speakers, and more. One thing that was missing: the option to flash factory images. The phone was unlockable, but the images didn't exist. Well, now they do.
Essential launched its first phone last year with Nougat, but it promised a quick update to Oreo. Well, sort of quick. We're still waiting for the final update, and the company recently decided to skip 8.0 altogether. Sure enough, the first Android 8.1 beta is rolling out as an OTA.