Android

Google voice search is a powerful feature of the Android-powered smartphone. By simply talking to your phone, you can do internet searches, call contacts, take photos, set an alarm, create a calendar event, make a note, the list goes on.

However, not everyone wants to use the voice-controlled feature for various reasons. Some don’t like the idea of their smartphone listening to them, while others don’t speak English that well and don’t see the benefits of keeping the feature turned on.

The traditional shape of a watch face is round. There are variations, of course -- square, rectangular, and so on -- but for the most part, round is a safe bet. With the Moto 360, however, Motorola raised a few eyebrows when its screen was launched with a design that has become known as the 'flat tire' look.

Yesterday, the company unveiled the new version of the Moto 360 and the same flat tire, non-round screen is present. What gives? Despite disappointment, and even ridicule from users, Motorola remains adamant that it made the right choice, standing by its decision to keep the flat tire in the second generation of the smartwatch. So, is it ugly, or does it make sense?

Paper books are archaic -- e-readers and tablets are the proper way to read nowadays. They are more convenient for traveling, helpful for nighttime reading, and most importantly, don't take up room. Both public and in-home libraries are a waste of space.

Today, Barnes and Noble announces its newest tablet-based reader, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK. Unlike Amazon's Kindle Fire Android tablets which are designed in-house and don't have access to Google Play, B&N partners with Samsung for the hardware while giving access to Google's app store. In other words, it is a proper Android tablet with a B&N experience baked in. I like it.

Android developers looking to include web content in their apps have a new option available to them that will help to greatly improve performance. The new (for the stable branch, at least) 'custom tabs' feature makes it possible to pre-load pages in the background resulting in load times that are a fraction of using WebView or firing up Chrome separately.

The feature can be used by developers to use their own app to change the way Chrome looks and feels, effectively blurring the move from app to the web. In addition to the speed advantages, custom tabs also bring improved security to apps, and provide users with a more familiar browsing experience.

Google has come a long way over the years, but one thing has remain remarkably simple: its logo. There have been various designs for the six, colorful letters and today the company has taken the wraps off the latest version... complete with an uppercase G!

It's going to take a while for some people to get used to, but the clean, sans serif look of the new logo is simultaneously modern and retro. But today's announcement is about more than the main logo -- this is the launch of a new 'identity family'. In addition to the main logo, there's also a new four-color G icon, as well as similarly-colored imagery for other elements.

Chinese tech startup Duodian Network has released an English version of Nox APP Player, an emulator which allows users to run Android apps on their Windows desktop.

The package took a while to download on our test PC, but installation was easy, getting us a virtual Android 4.4.2 tablet in a near full-screen window.

The wearable market is not very mature. We are only starting to scratch the surface of what the future holds. For the time being, however, we pretty much have alerts and fitness tracking. Let's be honest, many computer and gadget nerds don't bother with exercise (prove me wrong, people), making the wearables a glorified alert screen. In other words, as fun as Apple Watch and Android Wear can be, they are very much version 1.0 of smartwatches.

While Samsung embraces Android Wear, its Tizen-based models, such as Samsung Gear S, have more functionality. Today, the company officially announces the beautiful successor -- the Gear S2. Users can even opt for a 3G model so they do not need Wi-Fi or to be tethered to a phone. Android Wear and Apple Watch can't do that...yet.

The LG G4 is making quite a splash and being advertised seemingly everywhere. There's good reason for that as I previously explained in my review. Overall it's a nice phone, but there are a few things you need to know before getting underway with it.

One is that OK Google is not enabled by default, you'll need to do so yourself. It isn't intuitive, either. But the good news is that it isn't hard once you know how to do it. Here are some simple steps to get you going.

Is it a design flaw, or just a case of a company expecting its customers to know how to do something? The problem of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 S Pen getting stuck inside the handset if inserted the wrong way has divided opinion.

But whether you think someone who has managed to get their S Pen stuck is stupid or has fallen into a trap that could have caught out anyone, there is a solution. There's no need to resort to brute force to remove your S Pen -- it is possible to get it out without breaking anything. The solution is beautiful in its simplicity.

I must apologize to Art Alexakis, lead singer for Everclear. In a personal post last night observing his role as a tattoo artist in movie "Wild", his name is misspelled. Funny thing, so to get it right, I copied and pasted from the web into the WordPress editor. Yet somehow when published, and I missed, his name appeared as Alexis. My thanks goes to Scott Bell, who pointed out the error in a Google+ comment.

It's strange how tech meant to be beneficial gets in the way. More mistakes appear in my stories because of autocorrect than I make myself. The pattern is consistent: I will write, nix autocorrect's changed misspelling, but later edit something else in the sentence. Word changes! As a long-time writer and editor, I revise constantly until publishing—and afterwards, too. The spelling errors I miss most often typically are the ones made for me during spot edits.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley announced two new smartphones from his Obi Worldphone brand, built to target the developing world.

The devices, powered by Android, will apparently cost less than £160, and are built for the Asian, African and the Middle Eastern markets, Cnet says in a report.

Google will officially introduce Android 6.0 Marshmallow in a few months, if history is of any indication. And, like with every release of a new version of the operating system, one of the common questions that users will ask is whether an upgrade will be offered for their devices.

It is not uncommon for Android manufacturers to reveal such information following the new operating system's introduction, but, this time around, Samsung has decided to announce which Galaxy devices are set to receive an upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow first. Is yours on the list?

The tablet market is expected to witness yet another decline in shipments, with IDC estimating an eight percent drop in 2015 compared to last year. However, by the end of 2019, the market is said to recover, thanks in most part to a boost from Windows tablets which will help increase shipments by nearly 13 percent over this year's estimate.

Windows tablets do not currently contribute by a significant amount to overall shipments, as they are estimated to have a market share of just 8.4 percent in 2015 from 17.7 million units. That being said, they are the only slates that will display dramatic growth, expected at 59.5 percent by the end of the year compared to 2014. By the end of 2019, their market share is expected to reach 17.5 percent, thanks to shipments of 41.7 million units.

Even though China’s smartphone market is saturated, and now relies only on people replacing their devices instead of buying their first one, Apple still bets a lot on that market.

In its third quarter earnings the iPhone business grew by more than half, to $31bn (£19.64bn) on 47.5 million shipments. According to a report by the IB Times, sales in China more than doubled to $13bn (£8.24bn), over a quarter of Apple’s revenue. The company did not say exactly how many iPhones it sold in China last quarter, but it was an 87 percent increase on a year earlier.

Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Provided free, really is free of course (so many "free" things these days come with hidden costs). If you’re an Android user you’ll want to sit up and pay attention to a new app from Amazon which provides a way to get your hands on all of the apps and games that are actually available for free throughout the Amazon Appstore.

Better still, while the apps and games offered might include in-app purchases in other stores, in Amazon Underground, everything is entirely free. Find an app you like and you'll pay nothing for it, ever.