Ever wish that you could have packages delivered to your garage, safe from thieves and waiting for your return home? Amazon is already on it with today's launch of Key for Garage, a system that allows Prime members to let deliverymen into, you guessed it, their garages. On the surface, this seems like a good idea, and it requires a special kit from Amazon.
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Two weeks ago Amazon announced both the new Cloud Cam and Amazon Key service, with November 8th set as the official release date for both. According to the calendar, that day is today. Right now you can order both the standalone Cloud Cam as well as the Cloud Cam Key Edition, an Amazon Key kit, or the separate individual Amazon Key Edition smart locks.
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The Kwikset Kevo Bluetooth-enabled door lock is the kind of tech that reminds us that we're living in the future. With one of these installed in your home, you can get inside just by tapping a finger against the lock. Before you panic, this only works if your phone is in range and on the right side of door (i.e. the outside).
The product first hit the market over a year ago, but it only supported iOS. The developers didn't want to exclude Android—the platform just wasn't ready. To get things to work, they relied on Bluetooth Smart, which Android has only now started to properly support with the release of Lollipop.
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Themer Beta, a launcher replacement initiative by the team at MyColorScreen.com, has received a lot of attention in the last few weeks. And I mean a lot, as it currently has a waitlist of 280,000+ people strong. That's right, two hundred and eighty thousand.
The invites have so far been released in relatively small batches of a few thousand at a time, leaving the majority of those on the list waiting impatiently and scrambling to find a code or two to satisfy that Themer craving. Our own Ryan Whitwam took the app out for a spin in the first exclusive look on the web and came out relatively impressed.
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The slew of deals coming out today just isn't stopping. Besides Google's coordinated End of Summer Sale, BeyondPod, an extremely popular podcast manager, is offering its full version unlock key for $1.99, down from the normal $6.99. A handy price drop after Listen was abruptly pulled from the Play Store. The key works for both the regular and tablet-oriented versions. This app is one of the more powerful podcast managers and is able to run on a wide selection of devices, including many Google TV boxes.
The normal version only lasts for seven days before you'll be prompted to buy the unlock key.
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Google Authenticator, an important security tool that enables 2-step verification for your Google account, has racked up over 250,000 downloads over its lifetime, which is no small feat for any app in the Play Store. However, a few days ago, that version (previously available here) all of a sudden became obsolete and was consequently silently deleted.
Its replacement, which can be found here, bears version 2 (2.15 to be exact) and offers the following changelog:
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- New entry for Google Play, same great app
- Updated look and feel
- "Scan barcode" and "Manually add account" options moved to Menu > Add account.
A new version of SwiftKey X has been released to private beta testers, and it brings quite a few improvements. Chief among them: the ability to learn from your blog via RSS - certainly a nifty feature. Other highlights include better error reporting, general performance improvements, and a number of bug fixes. The update also brings a new novelty feature in the form of the "My typing heatmap," which keeps track of keystrokes and displays a "heatmap" of the keyboard.
Read MoreWhat's new in this version?
New features:
- Autocaps toggle - now choose whether your sentences begin with a capital letter or not
- Better personalization - SwiftKey can now learn your typing style from your blog
- Language switching - easy transitions between (e.g.) English and Russian keyboards, just slide the spacebar
- More stats about how you type with SwiftKey - and more links to share them
- My typing heatmap - cool visualization shows how you use your keyboard
Improvements:
- Alternative character selection - now select with a slide rather than a new tap (this works for smileys too)
- Instant language updates - refresh your language list to see new languages and new updates as soon as they are ready
- Various layout and user interface usability improvements.
What an absolutely insane week it has been for unlocking encrypted and signed hardware!
First, the Thunderbolt, which turned out to be HTC's most closed off device ever, was cracked wide open by team AndIRC within days after release, including our own Justin Case (jcase), Jamezelle, scotty2, and others.
This morning, however, we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel for devices that have been uncracked for many months - namely, Motorola Milestone and possibly Droid X, Droid 2, Charm, and other devices from the Sholes family (this, apparently, does not include the Atrix 4G).
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One of my greatest annoyances with Android, as a developer and an employee having to connect to my company's VPN, is the complete lack of attention to usability of VPN-related activities. Not only is it impossible to pull out a widget to connect to a VPN server, but Google apparently thought it wasn't useful (and so insecure that it shouldn't even be an option) to add the ability to save the VPN password. Sure, it's more secure to type it up every time, but I give you 3 tries before you want to pull out your hair, especially on a shaky connection.
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Ingenious apps come out very rarely, but when they do, I make sure to have them installed on all my Android phones and recommend them to everyone I know. Theft Aware is one such app, as you may have already found out if you've read my review. It hides itself in your phone so well, especially if it's rooted, that unless the thief installs a whole new ROM (a hard reset doesn't remove Theft Aware on rooted phones) or knows you are running Theft Aware for a fact, you will be able to track your device for as long as it has battery life.
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