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Smartphone device  Image Source:  EverythingApplePro, YouTube Apple’s hot new iPhone X has it all. From design and display quality to features and performance, the tenth-anniversary iPhone is a class-leading smartphone through and through. The design in particular has been praised to no end. In fact, even some of the iPhone X’s harshest critics ( myself included ) have come around to love the controversial “notch” design with the phone’s display. Of course, the sleek design and gorgeous display are only half of the equation here. The software side of the user experience is even more important, and the iPhone X delivers there as well. Benchmark test scores are off the charts, and we’ve seen time and time again what the iPhone X’s A11 Bionic processor is capable of. But savvy Apple fans know that despite how impressive the iPhone X’s performance is compared to most devices out there, there’s something that has been holding the phone back. Now, that issue has caused the iPhon...

Android device  You thought you were completely disconnected from any location tracking by  Google  and your phone when you went into your phone’s location services and toggled them off, right? You’d be wrong! Hah…ha…haaa…ugh. According to a report from  Quartz , Google has been doing a bit of location tracking on Android phones even if you told them not to by turning off your phone’s location services. And we’re talking about any of the modern Android phones you might own, so yes, you are included in this conversation. Quartz  found that Google has essentially been pinging nearby cellular towers and retrieving that info through the Firebase Cloud Messaging service that manages push notifications and messages. Again, this is all still happening even if you have turned off location services on your phone. This collection of location via cell tower can happen over both WiFi and cellular data connection too, by the way. The data collected is encrypted, but the ...

Google Add Your Comment   After  several weeks  of  rumors ,  Google announced  this evening an “agreement” that will see HTC employees who worked on the Pixel join the Alphabet company’s hardware division. The deal is valued at $1.1 billion, while HTC will continue to run its smartphone business. In a blog post this evening, hardware chief Rick Osterloh announced that Google “signed an agreement with HTC” to “fuel even more product innovation in the years ahead.” This acquihire will see “a team of HTC talent” — pegged at around 100 engineers this morning — join Google’s hardware division. With this agreement, a team of HTC talent will join Google as part of the hardware organization. These future fellow Googlers are amazing folks we’ve already been working with closely on the Pixel smartphone line, and we’re excited to see what we can do together as one team. Osterloh specifically notes that the incoming team has already worked with Google on...

Smartphone s If you always leave Bluetooth on your phone on, you might want to rethink things. A vulnerability known as BlueBorne was  discovered this week by security research firm Armis . With it, researchers were able to infiltrate Samsung Galaxy Phones and the Google Pixel as well as an LG Sports Watch and a car audio system, all by exploiting the Bluetooth connection. Other devices  are also vulnerable . Specifically, iPhones and iPads that haven’t been upgraded to iOS 10, as well as a number of other Android, Microsoft, and Linux products. A BlueBorne attack reportedly only takes 10 seconds to do and can give a hacker control of your Bluetooth-enabled device, even if it isn’t connected to anything when the attack begins. Google and Microsoft put out security patches to get rid of the vulnerability this week. If you haven’t updated your phone in the past few days, you should go ahead and do that right now. No really, do it now. The issue brings up a much bigger prob...

Bitcoin  Yesterday  a video teaser  from blockchain technology company Blockstream created  waves of excitement  among enthusiasts of both cryptocurrencies and space. Most participants speculated that Blockstream was about to implement the idea, promoted by Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik (among others), of a satellite system that streams the Bitcoin blockchain to the whole planet from space. The speculations were, indeed, correct. Today, the company is announcing  Blockstream Satellite , a new service that broadcasts real-time Bitcoin blockchain data from satellites in space to almost everyone on the planet. Blockstream Satellite covers across two-thirds of the Earth’s land mass and, according to the company, additional coverage areas will soon come online to reach almost every person on the planet by the end of the year. “Bitcoin is a powerful and transformative internet native digital money that has blazed a trail of disruption, with its full potential...

Welcome to the 206th Android Apps Weekly! Here are the the headlines from the last week: Android Oreo will get non-root theming . A third party app called Substratum will include the feature. There are some caveats. You have to use a computer to make it work. It also breaks a bit of basic functionality. It’s nothing serious, though. It’s a bit unconventional. However, it’s one step closer to native theming on Android. Plus, Substratum is a fairly excellent app on its own. Telltale Games launched a huge summer sale this week . Included are four The Walking Dead games, both Minecraft: Story Mode titles, The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, and others. The sale includes the base game as well as the season pass for those titles. That means you can get the whole game at a discount. It might be worth it for adventure game fans. Google is trying to help depressed people . They’re working with the National Alliance of Mental Illness to get people help. Google Searchin...

Essential Phone Nearly 90 days ago,  Essential wowed the world  with their smartphone. It was supposed to  ship not long after that , but as everyone probably knows, that didn’t exactly happen. It’s taken a few months to iron the process out, but if you ordered an Essential Phone, you should be getting an email with tracking information very shortly.  That’s great news for Essential, and great news for early adopters and anyone considering buying the phone now that it’s available. It’s not so great that the launch will now be overshadowed by the  Galaxy Note 8  and the impending  iPhone 8 , both of which will likely command serious amounts of attention from reviewers and buyers, but maybe Essential managed to do something that will keep some of the spotlight. We’ll find out over the next month or so.

ckBerry has always placed a high priority on the needs of businesses, especially when it comes to security. All of the company's Android phones come with the 'DTEK' security suite, and BlackBerry has done a pretty good job of pushing out Google's monthly security patches. Now, BlackBerry may be looking to license its secure version of Android to other companies. According to a report from  The Economic Times , BlackBerry is calling its version of Android "BlackBerry Secure," and it includes all the security features currently shipping on its Android devices. The company's Senior Vice President, Alex Thurber, said, "We have a number of different contracts that we are working on right now. We expect some to be announced soon. We have an agreement with Optiemus for the India market for BlackBerry Secure." You may not have heard of Optiemus, but they are one of three companies licensing the BlackBerry brand to sell phones (the other two being TCL...

With each new iPhone 8 leak that we’ve seen so far, it becomes increasingly obvious that the hottest iPhone that Apple will launch this year will also feature a design unlike anything we’ve seen on previous models. The iPhone 8 will not have a physical home button and its bezels will be smaller than ever. CAD drawings, 3D renders, and protective case designs have shown the same purported iPhone 8 design over and over. Well, it looks all the rumors are true, and we have Apple to thank for the biggest iPhone 8 leak to date. DON'T MISS Genius flash drive works with micro-USB, USB-C, and USB-A all at once You know how Apple is big on secrecy and how the company has employed a team of highly skilled former intelligence officers to combat internal leaks? Well, Apple probably didn’t see this one coming. Someone at Apple accidentally — or intentionally — released the first firmware of Apple’s HomePod smart speaker. Intrepid developers took that firmware apart to find various details ab...

Ever since the release of the HTC Dream back in 2008, Android has been growing steadily. Over the weekend, the platform achieved a pretty major milestone when  Google Play Services  crossed 5 billion downloads on the Google Play Store. If you know anything about Android, you know that Play Services isn’t something you go to the Play Store and download yourself. Instead, the app is automatically loaded onto your Android-powered gadget — if it has access to Google’s suite of Play services, that is. Play Services was first launched in 2012, and since then, more than 5 billion people have logged into an Android device with their Google account to enable it. That’s a substantially large amount of people, and it makes sense considering  Google’s claim at I/O  earlier this year that there are currently 2 billion monthly active Android devices. The 5 billion number for Play Services is substantially higher because it includes billions of devices that are out of commissi...

Here’s a DEF CON talk that uses tools you likely have and it should be your next hacking adventure. In their  Saturday morning talk  [Mark Williams] and [Rob Stanely] walked through the process of adding their own custom code to a gaming mouse. The process is a crash course in altering a stock firmware binary while still retaining the original functionality. The jumping off point for their work is the esports industry. The scope of esporting events has blown up in recent years.  The International 2016 tournament  drew 17,000 attendees with 5 million watching online. The prize pool of $20 million ($19 million of that crowdfunded through in-game purchases) is a big incentive to gain a competitive edge to win. Contestants are allowed to bring their own peripherals which begs the questions: can you alter a stock gaming mouse to do interesting things? The  steelseries Sensei  mouse was selected for the hack because it has an overpowered mircocontroller:...

Changes big and small are coming to Android and these are our favorites. Android O  will soon be here, though it will take a while for most of us to see it. With it comes more of the tweaks under the hood with each release: changes to make batteries last longer, apps run better, and to keep our information safer. But there is also a lot of other cool stuff there! Things that sound small but will make a big difference like better ways to manage fonts and emojis, as well as bigger changes like new ways to show notifications. Everyone has a favorite feature from the list of changes, and that's what we're going around the table with this week. See what we're most looking forward to when Android O arrives. Jerry Hildenbrand I have two things, but they kind of go together so it's not cheating. The new window controls like picture-in-picture combined with new ways to use the keyboard mean developers can build apps that work even better on  Chromebooks . It's great ...

Samsung has been  the world’s top smartphone vendor  for a few years now, and the most successful TV manufacturer since 2006, but the chaebol’s domination of the two very important and competitive markets is nothing compared to Intel’s supremacy in a similarly influential industry. Check that, semiconductors are even more crucial than phones for the evolution of the entire technology landscape, sitting at the core of computers and any “smart” device you can think of. Thus,  yesterday was a momentous day for Samsung  in more ways than one, with record-crushing overall profits  probably exceeding Apple’s latest quarterly gains  (to be confirmed next week), and sales figures in the semiconductor segment beating Intel’s total Q2 revenues. That’s right, Samsung made a staggering $7.2 billion profit between April and June 2017 on $15.8 billion earnings, consumer electronics (aka TVs and appliances) and mobile communications divisions not included. Meanwhile...

HMD is set to roll out a new Nokia branded phone. It’s not just another Android smartphone but it’s the brand’s first ever premium flagship smartphone. This new mobile device will be announced officially on August 16 in London. Press invites are now out, following the recent leak about the handset. The upcoming Nokia 8 is expected to feature Carl Zeiss optics. We’re not surprised about this because the two have previously partnered already. We’re just curious how the camera technology will play well with the new Android phone. Nothing has been confirmed yet but here are the Nokia 8 specs and features we know so far: a 5.3-inch display screen, 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, 13MP rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Snapdragon 835 processor as we  noted  earlier, 64GB onboard storage, 4GB or 6GB RAM, and dual SIM support. We’ve seen the  blue version  last week while a  copper colored Nokia 8  appeared yesterday. A silver version is also expected to be intr...

If anyone knew that big phones were a menace, it was Steve Jobs. He vowed never to make a large phablet sized iPhone because he knew the consequences. Difficulty of gripping and use, as phones and their screens grow bigger but hands stay the same, and a nuisance to carry, because they occupy so much space in your pocket. However, that’s the past… because the average phone screen size today stands at roughly 6 inches, while the average human thumb is just 2.74 inches. Phone cases are so commonplace today that you’ll rarely see a phone without one. Their use goes beyond just protecting your phone now, as they act as stands, card-holders, external batteries, wallets, etc. In fact, they’re so commonly bought alongside phones, it makes perfect sense that they solve this rising problem of phones slipping out of your hands (and hitting you in the face when you’re checking Instagram in bed). As opposed to those obscenely ugly PopSockets or those hideous Ring Stands that do nothing but make yo...

Galaxy S8 has become one of the topmost flagships of the year 2017. In 2018, we will encounter with a new device having latest features, awesome technologies, stunning display- Yes. We are talking about The Samsung Galaxy S9. No doubt, Display of Galaxy S8 is amazing having a Super AMOLED screen, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 with a screen size of  5.8 “(146.5mm) and Quad HD + (2960 × 1440), 570 ppi, automatic brightness control,  adaptive color adjustment and luminance, color correction. Display of S8 + is 6.2 “(158.1 mm) Quad HD + (2960 × 1440), 529ppi. In the case of upcoming Galaxy S9, the body has a glossy appearance and display is large with edges present on all four sides with Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Processor: Galaxy S8 has a powerful processor Exynos 8895, 8 cores (4 cores to 2.35 GHz core 4 to 1.9 GHz), 64 bits, 10 nm, in some markets Model 835 available on Snapdragon. Galaxy S9 would have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with Adreno GPU. Additionally, Ex...

Drones? Pfffff, quadcopters are old news. They’re great if you want to spend thousands of dollars on a professional-grade model that you use for high-resolution aerial video recording or something. But if you’re just looking to have some fun, we’ve got a great alternative to your run-of-the-mill drones that you’ll definitely want to check out. The  PowerUp 3.0 Smartphone Controlled Paper Airplane  is exactly what it sounds like, a motor-powered paper airplane that you can actually fly around and control with your phone! It’s a ton of fun, and it can fly for up to 10 minutes per charge, which is comparable to similarly priced quadcopters. Here are some key details from the product page: The world’s first remote controlled paper airplane conversion kit has a 180 feet/ 55 meter range and a crash-resistant designContains Bluetooth Smart Technology controlled by your smartphone (check compatible models below)Special template paper to ensure easy folding and flying spare, micro ...

Ryne Hager It might not matter how high the DPI on a screen gets cranked by each new model if you have trouble seeing it. Thankfully we have Google's TalkBack, Android's accessibility service for the blind and disabled. It reads what's on your screen, but it also provides feedback for actions allowing users to fully interact with their device. Now the latest update has left beta after a few months of testing, bringing with it even more features, like verbosity (an adjustment for how much or little content it reads, based on your preferences), character counts for password fields, and a new Select to Speak service that allows you to tap content to hear it spoken, and more. The recent changes should go some ways towards easing accessible interaction with an Android device. Phones are pretty much a requirement these days to a productive life, and each new accessibility feature makes them easier to use, enabling everyone to have the same advantages in communication. Google f...

There are plenty of things to get excited about when thinking of this year’s new iPhone 8, many of them never before seen on an Apple smartphone. The handset is expected to feature a brand new design with a display that occupies much more of the phone’s face — the home button is going away, and the bezels will be reduced significantly so that a bigger screen can be mounted inside a phone that’ll be about as big as the 4.7-inch iPhone 7. Rumors also indicate the phone might have curved edges, a fingerprint sensor embedded in the display, a stainless steel chassis sandwiched between glass panels, and a 3D facial recognition scanner. The battery, meanwhile, is expected to be bigger than before, and the iPhone 8 is tipped to feature wireless charging. But a new report suggests the Galaxy Note 7’s battery problems might prevent Apple from rolling out wireless charging this year. Don't Miss:   It’s not just Jet Black iPhone 7 mode...

India has successfully launched 104 satellites from a single rocket, setting a world record. Most of the orbiting hardware was made up of nano-satellites; the smallest weighing just over a kilogram India has successfully launched 104 satellites from a single rocket, Scientists  at India's southern spaceport of Sriharikota applauded as the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that all the satellites had been deployed into orbit on Wednesday. "My hearty congratulations to the ISRO team for this success," the agency's director Kiran Kumar said to those tracking the progress of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his congratulations on the launch and ejection of satellites, which was covered live on national television channels. The rocket was launched at 9:28 a.m. (0358 UTC), releasing all 104 satellites into orbit about 30 minutes later. Its main cargo was a 714 kilogram Indian satellite to be us...