Ingress, Google's intriguing augmented reality title for Android, has just made its début on the iTunes App Store, allowing iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to get a piece of the action. It's free of charge, and below, we've got the details and download link so be sure to join us right after the break!
If you're a user of Google's very efficient, feature-rich Gmail service, you mightn't know that, in actual fact, you have two different email addresses through which you can be reached. This ideal if, say, you wish to make two accounts for a specific site or service, but want all notifications and correspondence to be sent to the same inbox, and although many of you will already be aware of this little tip, it's still a useful one to know.
Being able to interact with the world in a different way through touch and audible gestures feels like you've been catapulted into a futuristic, science-fiction movie. But what if there was a way to remove the limitations associated with having to bark out voice commands in public and use nothing more than a little brainpower to get things done with Glass? The future is here thanks to London-based company This Place and its new Glass compatible technology.
Google Now is still very much a work in progress, and even though it has evolved significantly since its introduction a couple of years ago, it's always going to have its imperfections. One such case is when, rather irritatingly, the voice recognition feature cannot properly comprehend what you're saying, and if you're asking a long question, having to repeat the entire speech becomes cumbersome even at the second time of asking. Now, though, thanks to an update, you can correct just the word that Google Now has failed to latch onto by using a simple command, and although it's rare for the polished service to mishear anything anyway, it's a good little tip to know.
There are literally hundreds of reasons why a particular device may appeal to one person and not another, but when you strip that away we're all concerned with the privacy and integrity of the data that passes through that device. If your smartphone of choice resides on the Android side of the fence then it could be time to rethink how sensitive data is wiped from memory after a new research has suggested that data removed using Android's native wipe feature can be restored.
Android's open-source nature is a bit of a double-edged sword in many respects, for although it's customizable to the nth degree, it's also much more susceptible to malicious intrusion when compared with the likes of Apple's iOS. On a regular basis, we hear of new, cunning schemes designed to attack smartphones and tablets running on Google's flagship mobile OS, and today, we've encountered a particularly alarming security hole that could potentially help a hacker relieve you of vast mounds of cash.
The next major version of Android, dubbed as ‘L’ (Lollipop?) was announced by Google at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco. Android L brought with it a ton of new changes, most of which are for developers. But the user-facing end got a neat facelift too, and as ever, we took the latest OS from the search giant for a spin on a Nexus 5, and couldn’t help comparing it with last year’s offering, Android KitKat.
With as much technology infiltration as we have in our daily lives today, it becomes quite a challenge to truly protect and maintain your privacy and data security. It’s not just the inherent risk with technology and software bugs, either; we willingly expose our personal identification information to a number of parties in order to use their services. Take the newest discovery, for instance, where it has been found out that an Android phone that has its screen turned off and is connected to Wi-Fi network, can actually be actively browsing the user’s location history to anyone who’s interested in listening.
This year's Google I/O was undeniably one of the more interesting and fruitful Google gatherings that we've seen for some time. In the middle of the plethora of announcements made during the keynote we managed to get an insight into Project Volta, Google's latest internal crack at singling out a weakness within its Android platform and fixing it. Last year it was Project Butter that stole the limelight by attempting to make animations within Android run at 60 frames-per-second. This time around the Volta team will concentrate attention on various aspects of Android in an attempt to improve battery life. The good news? Early investigations into Android L suggests that the hard work is proving fruitful.
We know that Android Wear, like most smartwatch ecosystems, will rely heavily on a smartphone for a great deal of its functionality. Given that they're designed, in essence, to supplement our handsets, this isn't too much of a surprise, but with some standalone Android Wear apps having just cropped up on Google Play, it's clear that the likes of the Moto 360, and LG's G Watch will have minds of their own, too. The first batch of Android Wear apps untethered by any post-installation smartphone interaction have begun appearing on the Play Store, and although, naturally, we're talking bare basics in terms of functionality, it sets a very encouraging precedent.
