latest
Meta humbly suggests we all change the way we tell time
What are we going to do without an extra leap second?
The march of time is inexorable. None among us can escape its ravages nor its whims. Time's also messy, and while we'd love for it to line up cleanly with the physical phenomena we use to keep track of it, that's frustratingly rarely the case. Plenty of efforts have been made to deal with that over the years, and now the latest push is coming from an unlikely source.
Amazfit's bestselling smartwatch is nearly half off today
You don't want to miss out on this Amaz(ing)fit deal
It's tough to find that perfect smartwatch for your wrist, especially with the Apple Watch single-handedly dominating the wearable market. Thankfully, there are plentiful of other decent smartwatches that won't lure you into Apple's proverbial walled garden, including Amazfit's bestselling GTS watch. It's an excellent companion that screams premium at every angle, and you can snag one for $80 at B&H — nearly half off its $140 MSRP.
Android 11 isn't a 'boring' update, you're just not looking at it the right way
It's all about saving you time
Android 11 has reached its "beta" milestone, and while we'll still probably see a few tweaks over the coming months, the general concepts and big-feature changes in the next Android release are just about set in stone. But while the common refrain is that Android 11 is a more minor (or even boring) update to Google's Android platform, the longer I use it, I'm not sure that's fair to say.
In Lebanon, when someone says it's 3 o'clock and it's daytime, we all know they mean 3pm and not 3 o'clock in the morning. So you can imagine my confusion when I moved to France for a year where everyone uses the 24-hour format and I had to do the mental gymnastics every time (pun intended) to figure out the correct time. There are countries where this is the norm and others where it's not, but until now, you had to manually pick that setting in your Android phone. Not with P though.
Since its inception it seems that Inbox, by Google's Gmail team, has had the goal of streamlining your email experience in mind. To accomplish that goal, it makes every email a task, lets you quickly triage messages, and pulls out highlights like reservations, plane tickets, or attachments for faster access. But, according to the official Gmail blog, Inbox is getting one more cool feature starting now: the ability to automatically choose the best snooze date for your messages. For those unfamiliar, a "snoozed" message is temporarily dismissed, bubbling back up to your inbox at the selected date and time.
What's the point of being one of the world's most powerful tech companies if you can't use those resources to travel back in time? Google is tackling this conundrum head on with the ability to roll back the clock in Street View. From the comfort of Google Maps on a desktop, users can select various periods in time to see how locations have changed.
To wrap up the year, TIME's been working on a "Top Ten of Everything 2013" series, listing off the top ten items in various categories from Pop Culture and Social Media to, of course, tech gadgets. In that category, TIME listed things like the LEAP Motion controller, Oculus Rift Developer's Kit, and new iPads, but they awarded the top spot to Google's plucky Chromecast dongle.
GMD, or Good Mood Droid, has been known to make some incredible – if relatively niche – apps (remember GestureControl?). Today, the developer is back with GMD Speed Time – an aptly-named tool for root users that will bring in your digital corn harvest faster than you can say "cheating device."
We've already heard that Google was expanding their Play Movies and Play Music services today to new countries and with new content. Play Magazines isn't getting left out in the cold, though. Today, the storefront is opening up to our neighbors up north, in addition to signing extra content partners for a more robust distribution platform.
The Sony SmartWatch, which was only just announced for the US earlier today, is already available for an awesomely reduced price. Expansys USA is offering the device for just $118, which is $32 off Sony's price of $149.99.
KF Software House recently introduced a solution for the more time-constrained Android users among us, releasing App Timer Mini to the Android Market. App Timer Mini (ATM) does exactly what you may expect after reading its name. The app allows users to observe and track how long they spend using certain apps by placing a handy timer in the corner of your screen.
As we know, the source code for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is going to be published fairly soon, which means developers of all trades will be able to download, modify, and compile it into ROMs. A few great examples of this are handset manufacturers (SE, Motorola, HTC, etc) working on incorporating ICS into new and existing devices as well as CyanogenMod developers merging the source with all the awesome modifications they've added into CM so far.
Last night, I sent out a message from our social accounts praising the Epic 4G Touch's boot times. They amazed me as soon as I turned this Galaxy S II Sprint variant for the first time last Friday and haven't ceased to amaze me ever since. I have loaded up all the same apps and then some compared to any of my other phones, and still - the Epic 4G Touch blazes by the competition like no other device I've seen.
Do you like steak? No? Then get out of this post right now - because it's Steak Time.
Alright, I was really excited to get the HTC Hero. REALLY. I had extremely high hopes for the Hero (those are long gone) and Android (which I still do - I even began developing for it) but the Hero has so many ridiculous bugs that I am *this* close to bringing it down to the Pre level (I'm not going to dare though - Pre still leads in the "I Want To Smash This Phone Into A Wall" category).