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Saturday, April 4, 2015

HTC Offers up to 100GB Extra Google Drive Storage Free for Select Phones

HTC, teaming up with Google to woo new smartphone consumers, has announced that it will be offering up to 25GB additional, or up to 100GB additional free Google Drive space for select HTC smartphones.

The Taiwanese giant on Tuesday announced the news on Twitter and also revealed names of some HTC models included in the offer. The HTC smartphones will be offered the additional cloud storage space for a limited period, which is two years.

Googles support page for Google Drive offer for HTC Android devices lists the new HTC One (M8), HTC Desire 816, HTC Desire 610, and HTC One Max smartphones, which will be receiving up to 100GB additional free Drive storage. In addition to the recently launched high-end smartphones, the page details that up to 25GB additional free Drive storage will be available for select 2013 HTC handsets including HTC One, HTC Butterfly S, HTC One Mini, and HTC Desire 601.

The page further mentions, "When upgrade to HTC Sense 5+ and Sense 6 becomes available on certain 2013 HTC models, +25GB for two years. [..] The offer must be redeemed before January 1, 2016. For most devices, youll have your storage for 2 years, starting on the date you redeem the offer."

Google notes that consumers will be able to redeem one offer one time per device. However, the post notes, "You may redeem one +100GB offer and one +25GB offer on two eligible devices using the same Google account. You may not redeem the offer of the same type on more than one account within a 12 month period."

The support page clearly notes that at the end of the two year period, "All of your files will remain in Drive and you can access, download, or share them whenever you want. You wont be able to add additional files if over quota unless you buy more storage."

Last year, the Taiwanese giant in a similar manner announced free Google Drive storage offering up to 25GB to 50GB free space for select HTC smartphones.

HTC recently launched its most affordable smartphone, the Desire 510 in HTCs Desire line-up to support 4G LTE.

Google Unveils Real Time Feedback Option Applause for Hangouts On Air

Google on Tuesday introduced a real-time feedback feature called Applause for its Hangouts On Air desktop interface.

With Applause, users will now be able to give simple thumbs up or thumbs down for any Hangout streaming on-air and Google will instantly chart them in real-time, below the streaming Hangout (see above image). Previously, the search giant had two other feedback options for Hangouts On Air - Q&A and Showcase.

Q&A allows Hangouts broadcasters to interact with their live audience in the form of question and answeres in real-time, whereas Showcase allows broadcasters to direct viewers to websites, merchandise, YouTube videos, Google+ profile and Google Playcontent, from the right-hand side of the Hangout On Air.

"With Q&A, Showcase and now Applause, were excited to give viewers and creators more ways to interact live. So give Applause a try in your next Hangout On Air, and let us know what you think!" said Googles Ming Zhang on a Google+ post.

On Tuesday, Google reportedly started updating its Hangouts messaging app for Android (and its various desktop interfaces) to integrate Google Voice services, letting users chat via voice SMS and send voice mails. The changes are reportedly being made to the back-end, and users will not have to download an update.

Notably, the Google Hangouts app, which links both the text SMS and the Google Talk service, now delivers a notification about the integration via a pop-up window in the apps conversation list, giving an option to Migrate Google Voice to Hangouts. The feature was earlier spotted in dogfooding stage in a video uploaded by a YouTube user in July.

Cyanogen reportedly declined acquisition bid from Google

According to a report in The Information, Cyanogen Inc. rejected acquisition interest from Google. Google’s Android chief, Sundar Pichai reportedly discussed the search giants interest in the small company in a recent meeting with its top brass.

Instead of becoming part of Google, Cyanogen is in late-stage discussions for Series C round of financing. The company is seeking a valuation that is close to $1 billion, despite the fact that it is barely generating revenue.

Potential Cyanogen investors have reportedly been told that the company has struck a deal with the Indian manufacturer Micromax. The latter’s smartphones will be outfitted with custom Android ROMs, a la OnePlus One as part of the agreement.

Cyanogens exact plans are yet to be fully revealed. However, it looks like the future ahead of its small team looks brighter than ever.

Google Earth 8 0 for Android adds new 3D tech quicker map updates

Google has just announced a pretty big update for the Google Earth app for Android. The new version will be rolling out over the next week, bringing with it faster and smoother transitions as you’re zooming in.

Mountains and cities get sharper 3D views too, thanks to an overhauled 3D rendering technology that was built from scratch. This is, in fact, the first big upgrade for the 3D tech since Google Earth launched 10 years ago. And more 3D updates are promised for the coming months.

Moving on, Google Earth is finally getting updated map information at the same time as Google Maps. So you’ll always have the freshest details when using Earth. Furthermore, roads and labels have received a new coat of paint as well, as you can see in the image below.

If you’ve ever created your own map for Google Earth, you’ll be happy to find out that you’ll even be able to open your KML files from Google Drive directly inside the Earth app.

Google Hangouts update enables free voice calls to the US and Canada

Ever since Google launched Hangouts, people have been waiting for the company to truly incorporate voice calling features into the app. There’s been a way to use your Google Voice number (if you had one of those) to call people, but from now on things got a lot simpler. The requirement to have a Google Voice number is gone, basically.

Rolling out during the next few days, an update to the Hangouts app for Android will let you call people for free – if they also use Hangouts, or if they’re in the US or Canada. For those who use Hangouts on iOS or the Web, voice calls will be available the next time you open the app.

So not only is the voice calling ability free between users of the app – a la Skype or Viber, if you will – but you also get to call any phone number in the US and Canada for free. What’s more, you can also use Hangouts to call phone numbers in other countries too. And while these won’t be free, the rates are very competitive compared to the likes of Skype. Google’s full list of calling rates can be found here.

On Android, after you update to Hangouts 2.3, you’ll also need to install the Hangouts Dialer to turn on voice calls.

If you use Google Voice, that will also be integrated into the new Hangouts experience even more than before. When you’ll call someone from Hangouts, the call will still come from your Google Voice number. You can also answer from Hangouts when someone calls you on that number. Sending and receiving of Google Voice SMS messages from the Hangouts app will also be supported, and voicemails will appear in Hangouts as part of your conversations. The Google Voice features will be activated a few days after the rollout of the new Hangouts app is completed.

Google Experience would be the new Android Kitkat 4 4 Launcher

One of the thing that didnt change a lot throughout all the Android evolution is the launcher. So far, we are using the 2.0 version of the launcher which has been introduced with Ice Cream Sandwich.

Android Police has discovered that the name of the launcher inside Android 4.4 is mainly referred as com.android.launcher3 instead of com.android.launcher2. Some others items cites com.google.android.gel where gel stands for Google Experience Launcher.

There would also be a new popup when starting with Android to inform you of the changes :

The message indicates a "Google Nowish" experience with your launcher which would become dynamic and learn from your habits. So far, no informations as to what it would learn or do once your habits are learned.

Source : Android Police

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