Google Android discussion - Page 24

Spotify music streaming service is now available for Google's new Chromecast streaming dongle.

Spotify enables users to stream music on various devices. The service is officially available for several platforms such as Windows, OSX, Linux and on most of the mobile operating systems.

Each year Android fans start wondering what Google’s next Nexus devices will be called, and whether Google will correlate naming schemes to display size or not. This year, Google was expected to launch an 8.9-inch high-end tablet that will either be called Nexus 8 or Nexus 9, and a Nexus 6 smartphone likely based on the LG G3. Apparently two of these three product names have been confirmed in Chromium Code Review.

SmartDroid.de reports that Florian Kiersch and Carsten Knobloch have found the Nexus 8 and Nexus 6 mentioned in Chromium Code Review, although other details are not available for these devices yet. These mentions can always be faked, but they could also indicate that Google has chosen the next Nexus product names for its 2014 Nexus tablet and smartphone.

Recent discoveries in the Chromium Issue Tracker suggested that Google is already working on an HTC-made Nexus tablet but also on a device that could be an Android TV. However, those code discoveries did not actually confirm new Nexus product names. Instead, those products were referred to as Flounder and Molly, respectively.

Other reports indicate that this will be the last year Google will make new Nexus devices, which will be replaced in 2015 with an Android Silver program that will help Google and OEM partners sell high-end devices that will run Google’s latest Android versions.

Google is expected to unveil the Nexus 8 tablet this summer, alongside Android 4.5, and launch a Nexus 6 smartphone in fall.

Asus has lately become the king of anime-style transforming electronics, with their Transformer tablet line and Padfone devices. It looks like Google is paying attention, at least when it comes to conceptual hardware. US patent 8,649,821, granted to Google in February of this year, describes a laptop with a built-in and detachable cell phone, with the two working in tandem for various functions. While Android and Chromebooks aren't specifically mentioned in the patent documentation, it's easy to assume they were on the engineers' minds, since it was filed in September of 2012.

Yesterday we’ve heard some more details about the HTC One M8 Prime courtesy of @evleaks and now the folks at HTC released a teaser that talks about something with “beautiful curves.”

The teaser was posted on HTC’s official Twitter account and it reads “In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.” We can’t know for sure what the Taiwanese company’s teaser is about but we are confident that more will follow.

In the past couple of years, HTC’s design language was all about curves and it’s pretty obvious that their upcoming devices would stick to the same design philosophy. Even though some may be tempted to believe that the new HTC teaser is about an Android Wear-powered smartwatch or about the highly-anticipated HTC One M8 Prime, we think that HTC is trying to tease a new tablet.

Aereo customers looking to watch live TV and recorded shows on the popular Google Chromecast adapter will have to wait just a wee bit longer.

“We are delaying release of Chromecast support to June 4 to work out a few kinks. Bummed about the delay, but next week is gonna rock!” Aereo said in this tweet on Thursday.

Goodbye Google TV, hello Android TV. At least according to the latest report from GigaOM, which indicates Google will officially debut its new television software platform at Google I/O in late June.

While the core differences between the company's Google TV efforts and its new Android TV platform can be a wee bit confusing, GigaOM said the latter will be designed with simplicity in mind. Think online services and Android-based video games, with some of the usual media services lining up for the platform's launch (Netflix, Hulu, et cetera).

Android TV users will be playing with a brand-new "card-based interface" to access content. Google has been calling this setup "Pano" internally, and it's designed to put content front-and-center instead of the apps used to play it.

"Content will be presented in a series of cards that can be browsed horizontally, and each movie or TV show episode has deep links into publisher's apps, giving users the option to start playback right away," GigaOM's Janko Roettgers said. "That's different from the traditional smart TV experience, where users generally first have to launch an app from a publisher, and then browse that apps catalog before they can play a title."

Over the years, sports giant ESPN has been expanding the number of screens and devices that viewers can watch its content on. Now it’s adding another: Starting today, the cable network is making its WatchESPN app available through Google’s popular Chromecast dongle.

The addition of Chromecast will allow users who already have the WatchESPN iOS or Android apps to send those streams directly to their televisions with the latest update. That’ll allow them to watch live broadcasts from a wide range of the company’s channels, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3, ESPNEWS, and ESPN Deportes.

Of course, this won’t be available to everyone — users will have to authenticate with their cable logins to prove that they pay for the content. But that’s nothing new in today’s TV Everywhere world.

Amidst recent news that Chromecast's support has extended to RedBox among other services, a tidbit of information appeared on the forums for media player VLC late last month letting users know it will soon join the list. When isn't known, but support for all desktop platforms and iOS is in the pipeline.

VLC is a free media player that supports a variety of audio and video formats across many platforms. On the software's iOS forum board late last month, a request for when Chromecast compatibility would be available for iOS users was made.

On June 12 2014 05:27 skyR wrote:
SwiftKey is now free on Android. Those who have already paid will get some themes.

http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/06/11/swiftkey-goes-free-for-all-rewards-paid-users-with-10-free-themes/