Well that didn’t take long. The Google Edition of the HTC One has really only just gone on sale in the US, but already some enterprising hackers have dumped its ROM and made a version any GSM HTC One owner can install on their non-Google Edition devices. You didn’t exactlylove Sense, right?
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Confused by where that delete button went when you updated to the latest version of Android’s Gmail app? You weren’t the only one. The delete button has now reappeared alongside the archive option for quick access, while the update also improves settings for showing both buttons, accessed through the menu icon on the far right corner. Touching sender images will now let you choose multiple emails in a thread and Google’s bundled in a handful of bug fixes too, just weeks since the last refresh.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Android (Google+), Gmail (Google Play)
If this view looks familiar, it’s because it was the inspiration for the Javier Bardem’s cyberterrorist HQ in Skyfall. Now, you can explore the real-life island on Street View.
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Convergence, the dictionary tells us, is the point where two things combine, so imagine Sceptre’s new hardware as the singles bar where speakers and Android first met. The SB301524W Sound Bar 2.1 marries dual front-facing speakers, a 35W subwoofer, 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Ice Cream Sandwich to rejuvenate any old display into a Smart TV. Naturally, users will be able to access Google Play and download apps to the machine, but there’s no word on capacity or expandability — something you’ll have to ask in the store before you shell out $300 on the gear.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Google
Source: Sceptre
Google is working on building multiple new devices to keep pushing its globally dominant Android OS beyond smartphones and tablets. It’s building its own games console and a smart watch that would connect with a smartphone via Bluetooth, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal which cites “people familiar with the matter”. Mountain View is also reportedly lining up a second version of the Nexus Q Android-powered media-streaming gadget which it unveiled at I/O last year, and gave to attendees, but never sold to the public after issues with production led to the release being delayed indefinitely.
As well as seeking to spread Android’s smartphone momentum to other device types, Google making its own hardware is intended to counter possible similar device launches by Apple, according to the paper’s sources. The sources say Google is hoping to design and market all these new Android-powered gadgets itself — and is aiming to release at least one of them this fall.
On the games console side, Google moving into making its own hardware is in part a reaction to its expectations that Apple will launch a videogame console as part of its next Apple TV product release. One of the WSJ’s sources also cited the momentum behind the Ouya Android-powered games console as another source of inspiration. The $99 console, which started out as a Kickstarter concept and went on to raise a whopping $8.6 million in crowdsourced funding — and subsequently raised a $15 million VC funding round (led by Kleiner Perkins) – went on general release this week.
The games console aspect of the WSJ‘s report also resonates with a tip we received back in April, that Google was working on a Nexus-branded Kinect-style gaming console. We were unable to confirm this at the time, and the WSJ’s sources make no mention of gesture-based controls. Google declined to comment on “rumors or speculation” at the time.
The WSJ also says Google is preparing to push Android onto even lower cost smartphone hardware. Its sources say the next release of Android — presumably the Key Lime Pie flavour — will be “better tailored to the lower-cost smartphones prevalent in developing countries with the aim of firming up Android’s market-share globally”. This could also be in preparation for a Cupertino push into the lower mid-tier, following the myriad rumours it’s readying a low cost iPhone.
But it’s not just the software that Google is making here either. According to the WSJ, Google has been developing its own low-cost Android smartphones for developing markets too — including markets where Google has plans to fund or help create high speed wireless networks aimed at bringing high speed Internet connectivity to regions lacking next gen wired infrastructure. (Presumably see also its balloon-powered Project Loon efforts here.) Perhaps Google has been unhappy with the quality of low end Android-powered devices made by its OEMs. Or wants to increase the number of devices at this price-point that include its services. Many lower cost Androids, especially in countries like China, don’t include Google services — shutting it out of any revenue generation.
Other device types that Google plans to “aggressively” target with the next iteration of Android include laptops, wearables and appliances such as refrigerators, according to the WSJ. It plans to do this by giving Android OEMs greater freedom in where they use the platform, the paper says. It notes that PC makers including HP are already working on Android-powered laptops (specifically laptops, rather than tablet devices with detachable keyboards) running the next version of Google’s mobile OS — and says these computing devices would be designed to compete with full-fat Microsoft Windows.
Google getting into making more of its own hardware seems inevitable, given that both Apple and now Microsoft — with Surface — are taking that route. With Android so dominant in the smartphone space Google doesn’t have to worry too much about treading on the toes of its own OEMs — especially if its hardware focus is on newer device types, rather than eating into their mid- and high end smartphone businesses.
By pushing out new types of Android-powered hardware itself Google may also expedite similar releases from its OEMs, in effect seeding new markets with Android to encourage faster development and try to lock Apple out before it’s ready to launch its own iWatch et al.
It goes by the name of Hashima, or Gunkanjima (“Battleship Island”), or even “The Dead Island”, since it inspired the water-locked cyberterrorist HQ in Skyfall. As you can see for yourself, courtesy of the new Google Street View (and official “making of” video) embedded after the break, it’s a very a real place off the coast of Japan’s Nagasaki Peninsula, and it’s even lonelier than its fictional counterpart in the Bond film (which wasn’t actually filmed there). There are no tourist offices or giant Oedipus Complexes, as far as we can see, just long stretches of overgrown roads and collapsing apartment blocks that once housed 5,000 people, before they abandoned the island in 1974 following the demise of its coal industry. It took a Google employee two hours to map the place and preserve its crumbling visage for posterity using a special backpack, but don’t be surprised if you want to leave it after just a few minutes.
Filed under: GPS, Internet, Google
Source: Google’s Japanese Blog
The OUYA gaming console is pretty unique in the sense that it is powered by Google’s mobile operating system, Android. However according to reports, it seems that Google might be interested in developing a console of their own which will […]
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Going to a remote location? You can volunteer to document the scenery using one of Google’s own Trekker backpacks, and your work will be added to Street View.
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Google is working on an Android games console similar to OUYA, as well as a smartwatch, sources close to the plans claim, in addition to a media playing replacement to the ill-fated Nexus Q. The new hardware, currently in development the insiders tell the WSJ, will be internally designed and marketed it’s said, with the
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google might make another foray into living room hardware as it’s currently developing an Android powered gaming console. Since that’s just not enough of a rumor bomb, the talkative “people familiar with the matter” also claim a wristwatch and followup to its “postponed” Nexus Q project are on the way. If you believe the rumors, its reason for jumping into all these categories is to beat products Apple is reportedly developing in the same categories, with at least one of them launching this fall. Finally, the leaks indicate Google’s next major Android update will be “tailored to low-cost devices in developing countries,” and are ready to go in a much wider variety of devices.
That could mean laptops or even appliances running the rumored Key Lime Pie flavor of Android, built by manufacturers like Samsung which is already working on a watch of its own. Also mentioned is HP, which the report goes on to claim is building laptops that run Android. Companies like Ouya, Mad Catz, Pebble and GEAK probably think Mountain View is already late to the party, but official OS-level support and heavily marketed hardware could take these segments to the next level.
Filed under: Gaming, Wearables, HD, Mobile, Samsung, Google, HP
Source: Wall Street Journal
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