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.
Niantic Labs’ Field Trip is a location-discovery app that runs in the background during your aimless wanderings, piping up when you stumble across something notable. Unfortunately, for software designed to help you travel, it’d only made the one journey itself — to the UK, and no further. Fortunately, the Google-owned company has sent the Android version of the app truly global, helping you find attractions in over 80 countries. Niantic Labs has also jammed in 30 languages and auto-translation, so if you find a restaurant review in an unfamiliar tongue, you won’t have to resort to negotiating with the locals.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Google Play
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Google’s making it easy for educators and their students to discover and recommend applications and books with Play for Education. Announced onstage at this year’s I/O by Chris Yerga, Google’s Android Engineering Director, the new Play storefront organizes content by education type, age and various other criteria to make the content discovery process simple for higher learning institutions. What’s more, all of the content that appears within this curated portal bears educators’ stamps of approval, so users know that what they’re accessing is tried-and-tested for quality.
Play for Education also makes use of Google+ groups, so schools and universities can quickly push apps, books and other content out to their students and even bill to one central account. A pilot program for the service has already been underway with six New Jersey schools. Despite Google making the service official today, the actual sign-up window for general access won’t be until sometime later this fall. However, developers can start submitting their applications right now.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Google just released a new Play Store version (4.0.27) that, at first glance, contains only very minor tweaks — except for one little thing. A new policy change will no longer permit any apps to update without going through the Play Store’s internal system. That won’t affect most software, but there’s a notable exception in Facebook, which recently added auto-downloading to the latest version of its Android app, allowing it to bypass Play. The new policy seems designed to put a stop to that kind of thing, but you never know — it could be just be a coincidence.
Update: Google has reached out to clarify that it also posted the policy changes to its Developer Console with the following statement:
Google Play Program Policies have been updated. See “Content Policies” section, which clarifies that “An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism.” Google Play is a trusted source for Android application downloads, and we are committed to providing a secure and consistent experience. Learn More.
[Thanks, Thomas]
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Google, Facebook
Source: Google Play
So, you are rather pleased with yourself that through your years of saving, you finally have the largest TV among the households on your street, and this is not taking into consideration those who prefer to use projectors as their viewing tool of choice. Everything that you watch now looks all the more vivid than ever before, as colors and characters seem to be more realistic and jump out at you. Well, perhaps you might want to change your mind and be humbled by dropping by Sao Paulo in Brazil next Sunday, as that is when “Play!”, the world’s largest interactive arcade game, will be projected right on the city’s cultural center.
“Play!” is best known as an art exhibit that was cobbled together by an international team of designers who wants pedestrians to interact with and take notice of their surroundings, and they decided to fall back on the use of video game classics from the 1970s to get the job done, where among the games on display would be Pac-man, Tetris and a specially modified version of Space Invaders among others.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Remake Coming Summer 2013, Two GTA 5 Box Art Artwork Highlights Michael, Franklin Performing Cash & Carry, 
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Apple devices will finally get a Google Play Books update received by Android users back in September that packs a couple of useful new flourishes. The headliner is a geographical look-up feature that lets you see a description and Google Maps view of a location from a book just by tapping and holding on it in flowing text mode — letting you supplement A Moveable Feast with details about Paris, for instance. Mountain View also added a user guide, support for fixed layout EPUB books plus Japanese vertical flowing text and the ever-popular “substantial improvements in performance and stability.” Now that Maps is back in the Apple fold, hopefully similar location features will hit more of Google’s iOS apps — meanwhile, hit the source to grab today’s update.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Google
Source: Google Play
Even as Facebook is testing an end-run around Google’s app repository, the company’s next version of the Play store has apparently been revealed on Droid-Life. Pictures and a hands-on video reveal a tweaked look and deeper integration of the Holo-theme, although the overall layout is mostly still the same. While many of the new pages are still blank in this look, it’s easier to switch between searching for apps, music, books and video and everything has a more consistent look. The settings are also slightly altered, with items like auto update apps and auto update over WiFi consolidated into one. We don’t know when this update will go live to the general public (Google I/O is still so far away), but let us know if you’re seeing v4.0.16 locally. The video is embedded after the break, check the source link below for more pictures and impressions.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Droid-Life
If the Nexus 4‘s recent scarcity has been making you want it even more, there’s good news: it’s now back on Google Play shelves. After a lengthy shortage resulted in a minor finger-pointing episode between Mountain View and manufacturer LG, the pair have starting restocking the popular quad-core, Android 4.2-pure device, on Play, well ahead of LG’s February estimate. So far, it’s only popped up in Germany, and there’s no word yet on when they’ll arrive elsewhere. Given the pent-up demand, however, you may want to grab one when it does.
Update: The Nexus 4 is now available through Google Play in the US as well! Hopefully other countries won’t be far behind.
Update 2: Google isn’t leaving out our northern friends, as Canadians can once again buy both Nexus 4 capacities.
Filed under: Google
Source: Google Play
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