Hasta La Gadget!

More and more tech companies are showing interest in education and helping out students by offering services and features to assist them during their studies. After all, the youth are the future. Google thinks so too and has introduced a textbooks category in Google Play where students can rent and buy digital textbooks.

Just in time for the fall semester, Google will be bringing textbooks to Google Play starting sometime next month, and they plan to offer a “comprehensive” selection of textbooks for students, although they didn’t go into specifics as to how many textbooks they’ll be offering. However, they did say that all five major publishing houses are on board.

To up the ante, though, Google is promising that these textbooks will be available at discounts of up to 80%, which is sometimes even more of a discount than even buying them physically used. I’m sure exact discounts will vary greatly depending on what book you’re looking for specifically, but most books should be a lot cheaper than their physical counterparts.

Like any other piece of content that you purchase in Google Play, textbooks will be able to sync across your multiple devices, including Android, iOS, and desktop computers through the browser. Seeing as how Google is marketing the Nexus 7 as the tablet to get for students, digital textbooks seems like a great way to continue marketing that.

Google is launching an education section in Google Play later this fall, and we’re guessing that today’s textbook addition will be a part of that platform. Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all displayed a huge interest in education and helping students succeed, while Facebook is aiming to do the exact opposite by distracting students during those long study cram sessions. We kid of course.

Google Play gets textbook category as Google dives deep into education is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple’s App Store is truly a success for the ages, and who would have thought (other than Steve Jobs himself I suppose) that the App Store would have exploded and be where it is today? Google has an app store […]

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Google updated the look and feel of the Google Play Store yesterday for desktop users, giving it a cleaner look that fits more in the line with the mobile version. However, the update hints at the possibility that Google Glass apps could be distributed through Google Play, and Glass owners may be able to browse the Google Play store on Glass itself.

When you go to download an app in Google Play, you can choose from a list of all your Android devices from a drop-down menu. The updated Google Play store now lists Google Glass in the drop-down menu, giving us proof that Google has at least some intention of bringing the two together at some point.

As it stands now, Glass owners have to navigate to a specific portal in the My Glass app on their Android device, which isn’t too terrible of a process, but it would be so much more convenient for Glass users to download and install apps without the leaving the comfort of that small heads-up display and touchpad on the side of their head.

Of course, the appearance of Google Glass in that drop-down menu leads to a grayed-out selection, meaning that compatibility between the two isn’t quite ready just yet, but Google may be in the process of getting it up and running.

We already know that Google Glass is getting some kind of boutique app store with Glass-specific apps, thanks to code that was discovered in the latest Glass update, but Google hasn’t addressed it publicly and they haven’t enabled it yet. This boutique method seems a little different than the simple Google Play integration, so it’s possible Google is experimenting with a few different options right now.

VIA: Android and Me

Google Play Glass Boutique support hinted in new store update is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Last week we got our hands on the HTC One Google Play edition and shared our first impressions. Today we dig a little deeper into how this superphone differs from its Sense 5-equipped siblings, with a focus on benchmarks, battery life and camera performance. As you’ll recall, Samsung introduced a Galaxy S 4 running stock Android at Google I/O and HTC quickly followed suit by announcing an unskinned version of its own flagship, the One. The handset, which went on sale in the Play store on June 26th for $599 unsubsidized, is based on AT&T’s 32GB model and features identical specs. As such, it also comes with the same limitations. So, what’s the HTC One like with stock Android? Is it better than the devices running Sense 5? What do you give up and, most importantly, is it worth spending the premium for this Google Play edition? Find out after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC, Google

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