Android-enabled mobile devices are taking the world by storm, giving Apple's iPhone a run for their money. And if you're holding an Android cell phone in your hand, getting accustomed to all the flashy features can be daunting, especially if you're new to multimedia smartphone ...more
Google recently unveiled the start of their new social network Google+, which is set to compete with Facebook and fix the awkward, broken aspects on online sharing they claim exist. It's currently only open to a limited number of Googlers during its "field trial," and if you w ...more
At Google I/O this morning, Google finally announced the launch of its much awaited Google Music service. It's currently in invite-only beta mode, but they claim it will open up to the masses soon enough. To start syncing your music library with Google's Cloud now, you need ma ...more
Many companies were disappointed when Google+ rolled out and banned the creation of accounts specifically for businesses and brands. Fortunately, today, Google began rolling out Google+ pages, for them to start connecting with customers and followers. For an example of what a ...more
Remember what life was like before your iPhone? Before there were palm-sized smartphones with seemingly endless features, there were phones like Motorola's RAZR that peaked with its embedded camera. Before that, there were simple flip phones with texting capabilities, bulky tw ...more
Google Maps never looked better on the Android mobile OS than on the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. Watch this video to see how to use the Maps application, including how to use Google Street View. Also, check out how to use the Places app for finding your way to nearby points of int ...more
Finally out of the beta-only invites, Google Voice is now officially out for the USA. Google Voice can link multiple numbers together and customize the way calls are received and sent to. Here is a video on how Google Voice is handled on your cellphone: And one for the featur ...more
Learn how to use Google's official Google Maps app on your Motorola Droid Android smartphone with this video demo from the folks at IntoMobile. Get where you're going with GPS-style turn-by-turn directions. This clip will teach you everything you'll need to know.
Last week's round up was all about third party services that sprang up to fill any Google+ voids. This week, I'll let you know how to keep up with the latest Google+ updates, and give you some great tips for interacting with your followers. Although Google+ updated its naming ...more
The lack of a search function within Google+ is driving me crazy. It takes me way too much time to find the posts I want to save and refer back to, and it's counter-productive for Google to launch their social networking product without an integrated search. Although Google h ...more
Send text messages, conduct Google searches, play music, get directions and even send emails (complete with emoticons!) using the voice actions function available on your Android phone. This tutorial demonstrates this awesome new voice input functionality for your Google Phone.
In a gesture to bring the social qualities of Google+ into the real world, photographer +Trey Ratcliff invited his Google+ followers to join him on a photowalk this past Thursday, held on the Stanford University campus. Over 150 people showed up to take pictures with fellow Go ...more
In this video brought to us by Google Nexus One, we are shown how to use the new Nexus One Android Phone. The demonstrator starts off by showing us how to use the phone's dial pad. A benefit of the Android is that you can use your apps while on a phone call. Next, she explains ...more
As Google+ is still in its Limited Field Trial phase, joining can feel quite lonely. You can't exactly get all your friends and family in during the brief periods when the invitation system opens up. You can, however, add several interesting people to your "Following" Circle t ...more
Google has been slowly rolling out a new update for the Android Market in the United States, which gives mobile users a new interface and some additional content for their Android-powered smartphones and tablets. The update started a couple weeks ago, taking the Android Market ...more
Remember the good ol' days when you actually had to swipe your credit or debit card to make a payment at the store? Now all it takes is a flick of the wrist to purchase goods with your card, thanks to RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology from Chase (blink), Visa (p ...more
"Google+ is dead." How many times have you read that in the past few weeks? It seems like I can't get away from this notion that Google+, as a social network, is a total failure. Don't feel too sorry for them, though. +Bradley Horowitz isn't worried. In an interview with Ventu ...more
The iPad has established itself as "the" tablet computer for gadgeteers on the go. But Google is giving Apple a run for their money as Android tablets improve with each new release. Motorola XOOM and Samsung Galaxy are among the top dogs competing against the iPad, along with ...more
There's a new way to shop, and it's called your phone! On an Android mobile device, there'a handy shopping application called Shop Savvy, found in the Google Marketplace. Okay, so you can't actually buy things with it, but you can scan barcodes of products to get more informat ...more
You've finally got an invite into Google+. Now what? At first glance, things can be a bit overwhelming. We've got some great tips to help you get started. 1. Fill your Circles The circles feature is the core of how Google+ lets you manage your online relationships with your ...more
Google has caught a lot of flack for various privacy infringements over time. Google Buzz was the latest uproar, when lack of proper prior testing allowed the tool to expose a slew of information users did not necessarily want shared, resulting in massive complaints. A Harvard ...more
Android devices are becoming more and more popular with each passing day, so why is it that Google has yet to design a software program that allows users to manage their music and video libraries on their computers? Apple's iTunes offers iPhone users an easy way to control the ...more
Christian Cantrell, Adobe's Air Product Manager and Evangelist, has released a video to demo websites that take advantage of the motion sensors in a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop via JavaScript. Now, let's take a look through the code and break down the core pieces that you' ...more
It's once again Monday, which means it's time to highlight some of the most recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Since two of these posts were on polyhedral versions of M.C. Escher's tessellations, I thought we'd take a look at building a simple tes ...more
More viedos at www.videos.studiorealism.com. "Google's Earth" is a sculpture of a globe made out of dozens of little figures. It is meant to represent the collective power gained from Google's open source approach.
As Google+ hums along, releasing new updates and unveiling new features every few days, Facebook seems to be in panic mode. Every week, they've been revealing new features that seem suspiciously similar to Google+. Facebook Updates Makes Facebook Look a Lot Like Google+ Let' ...more
Google+ is the most exciting new social network to come around this decade, and the only product with a chance of challenging the monopolies we know as Facebook and Twitter. As an Internet addict, I've joined every major social network there is - from Friendster (who?) to MySp ...more
These days, there seems to be an endless amount of music player apps accessible on the web, from Pandora to Cantio, and the amount available in the mobile market is constantly growing. If you have an Android device, you're probably well aware of Jukefox, which lets you listen ...more
In a recent announcement, Hewlett-Packard announced that they're considering spinning off their PC hardware business, but even more recent was the decision to completely off webOS devices. Though they aren't eradicating the once popular Palm platform altogether, they are liqui ...more
Android users who have been itching for Instagram have finally got their wish. The company seems to have been promising a version for Android since what feels like the beginning of time. Well, Android fans need not stay in the dark, because Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, state ...more
The Nintendo 3DS comes with six AR cards that allow you to play the augmented reality games packaged with the device. Of course, if you were to lose the fragile paper cards or damage them in some way, you would be unable to continue playing them. It's easier and safer to carry ...more
In this article, you will find out how you can simulate poor network service on incoming callers on your Android phone using an Android app called CallDropper. CallDropper is available for Android 2.3 devices and above. Download and Installation There are currently two ways ...more
Congratulations to Katie Howell for her colorful triptych, Christmas Colors, the winning shot of our Phone Snap Holiday Challenge! We hope that everybody had a wonderful holiday weekend full of great company, food and lots of resulting cell phone photos to share! Many thanks ...more
Google's sociable equivalent to the Facebook Like button is finally here, and it works very similar to your favorite social network's recommendation system, except it shows up directly in Google search results. Whenever your Google friend gives a website or webpage the +1, you ...more
Rovio's highly successful Angry Birds game has generated a slew of wannabe Angry Clones and dominated nearly every device and platform known to man—iPhone, Android, PSP, Xbox 360, Windows—and now, for the first time it's available for play directly on the web (for free). It wa ...more
Sprint has a new cell phone coming out soon, and it's called Transform (by Samsung). If you want to get a head start on learning your way around the new Android-powered mobile device, the official Sprint User's Guide has been leaked onto the web, thanks to Sprint in Overland P ...more
When you look up the word free in the dictionary, you'll find a lot of definitions, but in the days of digital dependency and a falling economy, free only means one thing—expensive stuff for nothing. And if you own a Windows computer, one of the best sites to get free software ...more
It may not seem like it, but it's been less than 90 days since Google+ was introduced to the world. Since then, we've seen many great features that have made Google+ one of the most attractive social networks around. Today, we've received even better news: major improvements a ...more
Last week, I demonstrated how to go a little deeper into your Google+ profiles, photos, and introduced cross-posting. This week, I'm highlighting a bunch of different unofficial resources that have sprung up that will help improve your Google+ experience, and give you the late ...more
Here, Gina Trapani explains three cool ways to combine the camera on your iPhone or Android with two of their apps, Google Goggles and Shopsavvy, to accomplish productive goals. These include scanning bar codes, translating text, and storing your membership cards for the gym o ...more
Apps don't need to come bundled with an entire browser just to be able to display web pages — instead, they can call on the system WebView browser to render content for them. Android's default WebView renderer is Google software, which isn't quite as privacy-forward as some ot ...more
While Apple and Samsung have started integrating depth sensors into the iPad Pro and Galaxy smartphones, more advanced AR experiences are arriving for standard smartphone cameras on Android devices. Earlier this month, Niantic began rolling out updates for Pokémon GO that add ...more
Android has finally got a proper alternative to Apple's AirDrop. With a few touches, Nearby Share lets you send files, links, and even tweets to Android, Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, or Linux. But AirDrop has not been without its share of issues, and thankfully, Google has learne ...more
Everyone should know that assigning complex passwords to sensitive digital accounts is the best practice for protecting yourself against hacking. Those who adhere to password creation best practices also know that keeping up with passwords for every account is nigh impossible, ...more
Brand loyalty is one of the main factors behind our decision to choose a particular mobile device, but it doesn't have to be the entire equation. Educated consumers know that certain devices simply fit their budget and usage better than others, which means you can't always let ...more
The new Google Assistant is only officially available on three platforms—newer Android phones (Pixels and those running Marshmallow and Nougat), the Google Allo app, and Google Home. However, most of the Assistant's basic functionality is also bundled into the Google app for A ...more
|Choose Your View: Quick Bullet Points | Detailed Descriptions Android's newest major update is a special one — it's the tenth full version of the world's most commonly used operating system. The latest release, dubbed simply Android 10 (codename Android Q), was first showcas ...more
Android M, the successor to Lollipop, is almost here. If you have a Nexus, you can install a preview of Android M using either the Fastboot method or Nexus Root Toolkit. For those of you without a Nexus, you can still get a piece of M on your device right now by installing the ...more
Having an open-source platform like Android is great, allowing manufacturers and developers the ability to make their own skins and apps to truly customize the end-user experience. The only downside is that when an update comes to vanilla Android, many of us are left in the co ...more
It's a sad day for one of the most beloved series of Android phones. For the first time since 2009, there's a new version of Android, but it's not being made available to Google's own Nexus devices. Android 9.0 Pie was released on August 6, 2018, but the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X ...more
This year's I/O was all about bringing Android into the future and onto new devices. On top of announcing the upcoming "L" release of its mobile OS, Google showcased Android Wear, Android Auto, and Android TV. With a unified design language and notification mirroring, the var ...more
By combining years of web search advancements, natural language processing, and even DeepMind's artificial intelligence, Google Assistant hopes to change the way you interact with your devices. If you're familiar with Google's previous services, Google Assistant is like Google ...more
Whatever you want to call it for now—Android Nutella, Android Nougat, or Android 7.0—the upcoming "N" release of Android will surely bring in tons of new features and functionality. We know it will be named after a dessert, and we know that Google uses an alphabetical naming s ...more
The Google Assistant is available almost everywhere. It powers smart speakers like the Google Home, it's built into Android phones, and it can even be installed on iPhones and iPads. So when Google adds a feature like the ability to send reminders to other people's Assistants, ...more
Smartphones are now indispensable when traveling. Domestic and overseas travel alike require food, navigation, translation, and so much more to make work or vacation successful. Gone are the days of lugging multiple tourist books around with you everywhere you go — you need to ...more
Google Assistant just got a lot more powerful thanks to IFTTT. The automation platform, whose name stands for If This, Then That, connects your favorite online services and smart devices to one another, allowing for a seamless experience with many different gadgets—and Google ...more
Even though most phones don't have Oreo yet, Google has released Android 9.0 Pie. It's available on Google's own Pixel devices, and updates should soon be available to partnered devices from Essential, Nokia, Oppo, Sony, Vivo, and Xiaomi. We're already digging into it to highl ...more
Staying alert to directions and changing the music you're listening to on your smartphone at the same time can be cumbersome, but Google Maps wants to fix that. One of the mapping service's features allows you to control music playing on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play M ...more
Sure, it's the giving season, but sometimes you've just got to treat yourself to some cosmetics. If you're shopping at Walmart, L'Oreal just made that a shade easier when shopping for Garnier hair color products with an assist from Google Lens and the Modiface AR platform. D ...more
There's a feature in Google's Photos app for Android, iOS, and the web that lets you create shared albums with your friends and family. It's really a useful feature that makes it fun and easy to collaborate on an album with a person or persons of your choosing. It allows for ...more