Highly rated gadgets
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9.0
Panasonic LUMIX LX100 II
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FujiFilm X-T3
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Apple iPhone XS Max
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8.0
BlackBerry Motion
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Nikon Z 7
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9.0
Sony WH-1000XM3
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8.5
Xiaomi Mi A2
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9.1
Apple iPhone XS
Google -- Meebo services shut down on July 11th following acquisition
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Only days after Google acquired Meebo for a rumored $100 million, the social messaging and advertising company announced that the majority of its services will be discontinued as of July 11th. The services being shuttered include Meebo Messenger, sharing on Meebo, Meebo Me and all Meebo’s Mobile applications. The company did confirm, however, that the Meebo Bar will continue to be available to site publishers and will see “continued improvements and new features in the weeks and months ahead,” most likely with deeper Google integration.
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Google Nexus tablet release date rumor: June Nexus 7 launch reported
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Google will launch its first own-brand media tablet in collaboration with ASUS later this month, a recent report claims. Google has long been reported to be working on its own tablet that will follow a model similar to its Nexus-brand smartphones. The company is said to have partnered with ASUS to manufacture the device, which earlier reports said will begin shipping this month. While rumors suggested the tablet would be delayed until July, a new report from Android Authority cited an anonymous source at ASUS in claiming that the Nexus 7 quad-core tablet will launch in June. The Nexus slate will reportedly run Jelly Bean, Google’s next major Android release, and it may be unveiled later this...
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Rubin denies he’s leaving Google: 900k daily Android activations
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It’s not often that Andy Rubin takes to Twitter, but a rumor first posted by Robert Scoble on Google+ has prompted Google’s Senior Vice President of Mobile to post an update. The tip sent to Scoble detailed how Rubin would be leaving Google to go work to a new startup called CloudCar. Rubin recently published his eleventh tweet, saying that the rumors were false and that he was staying put at Google.
In addition, Rubin also gave an update for daily Android activations, which was hitting around 850,000 back in February when Mobile World Congress was in full swing. Rubin has now declared that Android is up to 900,000 activations per day. Of course, there’s no distinction between smartphones, t...
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Google handed July deadline to respond in European antitrust case
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Google must respond by July with regards to the ongoing antitrust investigation by the European Commission for Competition Policy, presenting realistic and workable proposals in order to avoid huge fines, which could potentially be as much as 10% of the internet search firm's annual income.
"By early July, I expect to receive from Google concrete signs of their willingness to explore this route," said Joaquin Almunia, the Commission's vice president during an address at a conference in Switzerland at the weekend.
The threat of a fine, which would reach as high as $4 billion comes as the first stage of the European antitrust investigation nears its end. The investigation dates back to Novembe...
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Are Multi-Core Processors a Waste of Time for Android?
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Many Android handsets feature incredible processing power these days, with multiple cores and high clock speeds seeming to offer incredibly smooth performance. According to Mike Bell, from Intel's Mobile and Communications Group, though, the specs might not be as impressive as they first appear.
Speaking with The Inquirer, Bell explains that Android software just isn't up to using multi-core processors efficiently—and that, as a result, they may even be detrimental to performance.
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Intel says Android not ready for multiple-core processors
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There you are with your Android phone sporting a dual-core processor and you're wondering why sometimes the software isn't as snappy as you'd like it to be. According to testing conducted by Intel, not only is Android not ready for multiple-core processors, having more than one core could actually be harming Android performance.
Inet says that it wasn't until April 2011 when Android 2.3.4 became available that the OS was really ready to embrace dual-core processors. Before that, you had Android devices shipping with dual-core power that was not being taken advantage of by the OS. Mike Bell, GM of Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group, says that the thread-scheduler on Android is not ready ...
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Google ousts Yandex to become default search option for Firefox 14 in Russia
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Yandex may be the most popular search engine in Russia, but when Firefox 14 rolls out in the country Google will become the new default option for search. It's not clear why the decision was made, though Google and Mozilla did sign a three year revenue sharing agreement at the end of last year. Yandex currently enjoys an estimated 60 percent market share in Russia and became the default option for Firefox back in 2009. But while it's no longer number one, Yandex will be the second search option for Russian users, and as the company points out it will also be offering a customized version of Firefox with Yandex as the default. Yandex has also said that it doesn't believe the shift will impact...
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Google Street View cars have driven 5 million unique miles, collected 20 petabytes of images
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Regardless of how you may feel about Google Street View cars and what kind of effect it may have on your privacy, they're still on the roads throughout every continent in the world (heck, even Antarctica is represented). And, in impressive fashion, Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps, just announced that the fleet of camera-topped vehicles has driven a total of 5 million unique miles and collected an impressive 20 petabytes of imagery. That's no small feat, to be sure. To hear more from Google on its latest developments in Maps, check out our liveblog!
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Google's mystery "communication device" could hit the FCC in August
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Fans of mobile technology may already be aware that Google has more than one mystery device in development. There is of course Google’s Project Glass, which is not exactly a mystery any more, although they when and wherefore are still big unknowns. There’s also a “household entertainment device” that hasn't received a lot of coverage from us yet, since it’s still a mystery and it's not clear that it will actually pertain to mobile (although the end product may well integrate with our mobile devices). And now there is evidence of a separate “next generation personal communication device” that Google expects to hit the FCC in August.
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Android malware scanner spoofed by security researchers
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Android security researchers Jon Oberheide and Charlie Miller have devised ways to circumvent the cloud-based security filter that Google uses to attempt to keep the market devoid of malicious Android apps. By feeding the scanner a maliciously crafted file and shell commands to reveal files and list system attributes, the research team were able to procure information about how the malware scanner works.
"So this is just one technique to fingerprint the Bouncer environment, allowing a malicious app to appear benign when run within Bouncer, and yet still perform malicious activities when run on a real user's device," Oberheide said in a demonstration video (seen below). Oberheide and Miller a...
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CyanogenMod's new mascot, Cid, gets his own start-up animation
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Equal parts creepy and adorable, CyanogenMod's new character has been gifted his first big appearance, in his own animation for the Android modder platform of choice. Cid (that's short for CyanogenMod ID) will replace the slightly overfamiliar skateboarding Android icon when you turn on your now tinkered-with gadget. Gaze at his sweetly-sinister glow right after the break.
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Google Fiber GFHD100 'IP set-top box' breezes through the FCC, doesn't say where it's headed
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The future of Google as a hardware manufacturer (beyond its purchase of Motorola) continues to be shrouded in rumor and mystery, but the GFHD100 box that just popped up in the FCC's database is very much a fact. As seen in the pictures, it's sporting a Google Fiber label which suggests it's a part of rolling out video services to the Kansas Cities, and also reveals it's being built for Google by Humax. The MAC address shown in the picture is registered to Google directly, while the test report calls it an IP-set top box, equipped with WiFi, IR, USB, Ethernet, HDMI input and output and an Ethernet / coax (we assume MoCA?) bridge, which sounds similar to the boxes favored by Verizon's FiOS. Un...
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Google patents location-based mobile alerts that know where you're going to
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To date, the term smartphone's mostly been a misnomer for larger screen, albeit still dumb, handsets imbued with rich web browsing experiences. With the exception of the Galaxy S III's SmartStay feature and the Droid RAZR, not many other high-end devices can lay claim to "intelligent," user-adaptive behavior. Which is why our eyes are trained on this recently awarded Google patent that stands poised to turn future Android (we presume) devices into location-aware assistants. Originally submitted back in September of 2011, the USPTO filings describe a software-based profile alarm that seems eerily reminiscent of Motorola's own Smart Actions -- a fitting appropriation given the just wrapped acq...
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CyanogenMod gets a new boot animation for CM9
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CyanogenMod is far and away the most popular custom ROM for Android handsets – as of May they had hit 2 million unique installs – so when they decided to update their boot animation for CyanogenMod 9, we figured at least one or two of you would want to check it out.
The video (embedded below) replaces an earlier version developed for CM9 that stared the iconic Andy the Android; the new animation stars Cid, a new mascot the CM team introduced back in April. At the time Cid lacked a name – it was being referred to as rAndy at the time, a name we weren’t terribly fond of. While Cid may conjure up images of a spike-haired kid torturing toys, it at least avoids capitalization-based word play.
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Google continues to load up on patents, purchases Magnolia Broadband's portfolio
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When Google acquired Android years ago, they clearly did not anticipate the patent war that would result from their successful move to being a mobile platform provider. In retrospect it seems obvious that this would happen, as Google’s relative corporate youth meant it lacked a strong patent portfolio it could leverage to negotiate legal cease-fires. The result has been a yearlong patent buying spree of epic proportions.
Their most recent acquisition is from Magnolia Broadband, which apparently sold its entire patent portfolio to El Goog for a wad o' cash of undisclosed dimensions. The deal was made public by Mooreland Partners, the financial firm that advised Magnolia on the deal. Their bri...
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