XDA Member NFSS10's Beat.Me is an arcade shooter where you play on levels which are generated according to the music on your device. Check it out!
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Samsung's Bixby virtual assistant has been received with mixed emotions. Many enthusiasts want to distance themselves from the new feature but there are some within the community who have been looking forward to using its many features.
The situation has been made worse with how Samsung has been handling all Bixby-related topics since the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ was announced.
A lot of people were happy when it was revealed we could remap the dedicated Bixby button with standard hardware button remapping applications. This didn't last long though as the company rolled out an OTA update that removed this functionality with the remapping applications we're used to. Thankfully there are still ways to workaround this but it shows how hard Samsung is pushing back on the community with this, even though the remapping methods could have co-existed with Bixby.
There was even an issue with Verizon branded Galaxy S8 units not having its Bixby Vision feature working with Amazon the way it was advertised.
However, the biggest talking point was likely that Bixby's voice command service wasn't going to be made available at launch. They still aren't ready to roll out the service around the world but at least now they're making some progress. It is being reported that Galaxy S8 and S8+ units in South Korea are now able to use Bixby's voice command feature and associated functionality.
Samsung hasn't announced when the voice command service would be available to Galaxy S8 and S8+ owners that are not in South Korea. Previous reports have pegged this month as a possible launch period, but nothing has been made official just yet. Samsung says they just needed extra time to fully prepare their servers before the feature was to be rolled out to their customers.
Many hoped issues would be ironed out by launch but it makes sense for Samsung to not want people getting a bad first impression of the new service. A few would still argue that Samsung oversold Bixby at its launch. What do you think?
Source: ZDNet
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Right on schedule, Google has released the Android Security Bulletin for this month along with updated security patches for recently discovered vulnerabilities. This month's security update includes fixes for a wide range of vulnerabilities ranging from critical to low vulnerability levels
Google has again provided two security patch level strings to make it easier for OEMs to fix common vulnerabilities across the Android platform. Security patch level 2017-05-01 (partial) ensures that all vulnerabilities up to the 2017-05-01 date have been addressed, while security patch string 2016-05-05 (complete) indicates that all issues up to the 2017-05-05 date have been fixed. An overview of the particular vulnerabilities that have been patched has been detailed in the announcement post.
According to Google, the most severe of all patched vulnerabilities is one that could allow an attacker to remotely execute malicious code by using multiple mediums. Thankfully, Google has had no reports of active consumer exploitation or abuse of these newly reported issues. Source code patches for these issues will be released to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository in the next 48 hours.
As usual, OTA updates will be rolled out to the Pixel devices and supported Nexus devices in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the factory images and full OTAs are also available from the Android Developers site if you want to flash them manually.
Links for the factory images and full OTA's for Pixel and Nexus devices are given below for your convenience. We advise you to confirm that you are flashing the build intended for your device only.
Device (Codename) | Build Version | Factory Image | Full OTA Image |
---|---|---|---|
Pixel XL (marlin) | N2G47O | Link | Link |
Pixel XL – Deutsche Telekom | N2G47T | Link | Link |
Pixel XL – Verizon | NHG47L | Link | Link |
Pixel (sailfish) | N2G47O | Link | Link |
Pixel – Deutsche Telekom | N2G47T | Link | Link |
Pixel – Verizon | N2G47L | Link | Link |
Pixel C (ryu) | N2G47O | Link | Link |
Nexus 6P (angler) | N2G47O | Link | Link |
Nexus 5X (bullhead) | N2G47O | Link | Link |
Nexus 6 (shamu) | N6F27C | Link | Link |
Nexus Player (fugu) | N2G47R | Link | Link |
Nexus 9 LTE (volantisg) | N4F27B | Link | Link |
Nexus 9 WiFi (volantis) | N4F27B | Link | Link |
Have you flashed the latest update? Let us know your experience with the new update in the comments below!
Source: Android Security Bulletin
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Depending on where you live, you likely have differing opinions on the success of companies such as Huawei, Vivo and Oppo. Huawei has been able to garner some attention from the enthusiast crowd thanks to the company manufacturing the Nexus 6P. They also have their Honor sub-brand helping it get more attention in Europe and USA. Vivo and Oppo haven't done these things so some might look at them less favorably, although both continue to heavily invest in markets like India.
All three of these Chinese smartphone OEMs have been putting impressive growth lately. We just saw a report about how Huawei was able to take the #1 spot back from Oppo in China, and Vivo is also chipping in with some more competition. A new report from the IDC says these three smartphone OEMs combined were able to ship 15.5 million more smartphones. This brings their combined shipments for the first quarter of this year up to 77.9 million units.
When breaking this down individually, this growth is smaller, but it shows how much the Chinese smartphone market in general is growing. By comparison, Samsung was able to ship 79.2 million units during the same quarter, and Apple was able to ship 51.6 million units. We won't be seeing Vivo, Oppo and Huawei combine forces to take on bigger competition, but these numbers do show how much faster they're growing when compared to Samsung and Apple.
Samsung's market share for the quarter actually dropped by 1% while Apple's market share dropped by 0.5% during the same quarter. These three Chinese smartphone OEMs have been able to outpace market growth quarter after quarter for over a year. We are seeing these three companies releasing more premium and high-end smartphones these days. However, the IDC expects most of the growth from these companies to be from the low-end to mid-range market.
Source: The Investor
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Microsoft's venture into the mobile phone market was once the talk of the town, but no longer generates near as much excitement. Windows CE had some dedicated fans but overall it wasn't a widely accepted platform. This evolved into Windows Mobile which is cited as having 11.3% of the smartphone market in the United States in 2004 and even reportedly grew to 42% by 2007. Since then though, the company's presence in the smartphone market has been dropping.
The company saw a resurgence of interest with the introduction of Windows Phone and then their accompanying partnership with Nokia. Microsoft then announced that they were acquiring Nokia's mobile phone division in 2013, and overall they released some very capable Lumia devices. Nokia phones used to be highly regarded for their camera quality over the years and Microsoft had hoped that Windows Phone 10 and the Lumia brand would have kept their momentum going.
Microsoft reported their hardware phone revenue had gone up to $1.397 billion back during the first quarter of 2015. This was impressive for the company and was definitely the peak of Lumia's popularity. A year later during the first quarter of 2016 though, this phone hardware revenue had dropped by $662 million down to a total of $735 million. While that still isn't the best of numbers, it's better than what some other smartphone OEMs can produce in the Android space.
Sadly though, this has continued to drop as Microsoft reported their hardware phone division brought in just $5 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2017. The company's chief financial officer, Amy Hood, even went as far as to say they aren't expecting anything exciting for the second quarter of this year either. Granted, this shouldn't come as a surprise for Lumia and Microsoft Phone 10 fans because they've been waiting for a new phone for a while and have yet to see the company produce anything noteworthy.
The last phones Microsoft have announced were the "liquid cooling" Lumia 950 and 950 XL, and that was announced back in October of 2015. They are rumored to be working on new hardware now, but Mrs. Hood's comments seem to indicate that they aren't really coming anytime soon. Overall, it's a bleak future for Windows in the phone space.
Source: Microsoft Story Via: Neowin
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Phone skins are great to add style to any phone, plus they're not expensive, but they provide minimal protection if you happen to drop your phone. On the other end of the spectrum are cases, which are generally more expensive but offer much more protection. Cases are bulky and they don't let the beauty of your phone show through because they often have to cover all four edges as well as the back of the phone.
That's where CrashGuard by RhinoShield comes in. CrashGuard is essentially a bumper case, which means that it does not cover the back of your phone but only the sides (thus giving your device a more "naked" feel), but because of how it's engineered, it provides more protection than most cases. CrashGuard is far superior to the bumpers of the past because it has been engineered to absorb impact. This is done by utilizing a proprietary polymer material that is far more shock-absorbent than plastic, and it also has a protective honeycomb structure within the bumper to disperse impact properly. In fact, within the honeycombs are compartments of pressurized air that act as airbags and deflect impact energy. If that sounds really elaborate, it is, and the net result is that you can drop your phone from a variety of heights (up to 11 feet) and if you have a CrashGuard bumper on the phone, you're going to have a completely unmarked phone. You've probably seen the insane drop test video. Here is a drop test video with the Galaxy S7 (RhinoShield tells us that they're working on their S8 drop test video and it's going to be epic):
"The bumper is super-lightweight, weighing at only 12 grams (less than half an ounce) yet it is still fully capable of providing at least the same level of impact protection as many leading brands or any other brick-like case product."
Here's the CrashGuard for the Galaxy S8+…you hardly notice it's there, especially with this Midnight Black color.
"Our goal is to cover up as little of your device as possible while adding maximum protection. The bumper is only 2.5mm thick and yet it still offers extreme protection."
Not only are CrashGuard bumpers durable, but they're lightweight (with most of their bumpers coming in under 14 grams). They're also pretty grippy thanks to the matte finish, and they come in a variety of colors. Another thing we really like about the CrashGuard line is the pricing: the Galaxy S8/S8+ bumper is priced at $24.99.
Order a CrashGuard for the Galaxy S8 Order a CrashGuard for the Galaxy S8 Plus
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