Articles about Smartphone

The arrival of offline mode to YouTube Music may not seem like news, but the reality is that the "mixtape" option that was available was very limited. Now YouTube has made it possible to download playlists, songs and albums for offline listening.

As before, you need to be a YouTube Red member to take advantage of the feature, and the update means that users now have far more control over their offline listening rather than relying on YouTube to select tracks based on listening history.

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Starting with the K8 Note, all of Lenovo's smartphones will come with stock Android installed. The company is dropping its customized Vibe Pure UI in favour of an (almost) untouched version of Android.

The Lenovo K8 Note will come with Android 7.1.1 Nougat installed, and the company is making only minor additions in the form of Dolby Atmos and TheaterMax -- gone is the bloatware that irks users so much.

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There are many metrics by which to measure how good an app is, and Google is starting to use a few more when it ranks Android apps and games in the Play Store. The latest app-ranking algorithm now takes into account app stability, performance and battery usage.

As well as improving the relevance of listings for people downloading apps, Google is also using this change to push developers to improve their apps.

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You don't, as we all know, get something for nothing... but that doesn't stop companies from making it appear as though you do. The latest perpetrator of this crime against common sense is Verizon. The carrier has rolled out a rewards program -- Verizon Up -- which enables subscribers to earn credits for racking up a bill.

For every $300 spent on Verizon Wireless products and services users are paid a credit which can be collected and spent on various rewards (money off handsets, accessory discounts, and so on). But there is a price, and that price is privacy. In return for letting you accrue credits, Verizon scoops up vast swathes of personal data including browsing history, app usage, location, interests, and much more.

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LG has confirmed rumors that its next flagship smartphone will feature a 6-inch OLED screen. While the Korean company does not reveal the name of the handset, it is believed to be the V30 which is due to be revealed very soon.

Despite the giant size of the screen, the overall size of the phone is smaller than last year's LG V20; the company says this is thanks to a reduction in bezel size. The QHD+ OLED screen will also feature curved edges to improve ergonomics and, despite being plastic, there's still protection from Corning Gorilla Glass 5.

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Amazon has once again decided to suspend sales of the popular budget Android smartphone maker Blu as many of its devices came preloaded with spyware.

The Miami-based company has been suspended from selling its phones on the e-commerce site after cybersecurity experts at Kryptowire revealed that software on its devices was collecting sensitive user data and sending it to China.

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Millions of smartphones around the world could have been affected by a Wi-Fi security flaw, security researchers have claimed.

Broadcom's mobile Wi-Fi chips hid a vulnerability on them which could have allowed malicious actors to potentially attack a billion Android or iOS devices.

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When Apple added support for third-party keyboards on iOS, many users were excited. To be honest, I was not, however. While I appreciate having the choice, I much prefer privacy. You see, when you add a third-party keyboard, the developer can potentially intercept your keystrokes. If you are OK with that, more power to you. Me? I'll stick to the stock variant, thank you very much.

But OK, let's say you don't like Apple's keyboard and trust Google with your entries. If that is the case, the search giant's Gboard is a very impressive offering. It is more than just a keyboard, as it adds the ability to easily insert things like gifs, plus do Google searches. It even offers swipe-style typing, meaning you can glide from letter to letter rather than peck. Today, Gboard gets even better thanks to new Maps and YouTube functionality. Google has also added support for drawing, plus three additional languages -- Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew.

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Flagships like the Apple iPhone 7 Plus, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 all have such great cameras that it can be really hard to definitively say which one is the best option for mobile photographers. Reviews, comparisons and blind tests all point to different winners, but, more often that not, you will usually find an Android smartphone at the top.

Vic Gundotra, who lead Google's mobile efforts for a couple of years, helped create Google+ and is an avid photographer, has a rather different opinion, claiming that Android is actually "a few years behind" the iPhone for mobile photography, and that, if you really care about photography, you should get an iPhone 7 Plus.

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The Android version of Cortana has been getting some attention from Microsoft recently, and today the company has released another update to its virtual assistant. With Cortana 2.9, Microsoft not only introduces something of an interface makeover, but also adds new features.

While the redesign is nothing major, it is a move for the better, with Settings now easier to access and the interface is reduced to two tabs rather than three -- and they are now labelled too! But it doesn’t end there.

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Strong sales of its latest Galaxy S8 smartphone and increased demand for its memory have led Samsung to have a record second quarter.

The company released its financials for Q2 today and the company earned $54.8 billion total with $12.6 billion in profit. All of Samsung's products performed exceptionally well with its smartphone and memory divisions leading the charge.

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Google has been stirring things up a little recently, adding autoplaying videos to search results, and killing off Google Instant. The autoplaying videos are also something that Facebook has tinkered with recently, managing to irritate people in the process.

If you're searching Google on your phone, one of the last things you want is to have your battery draining unnecessarily because of videos playing automatically. Thankfully, you can disable this feature; here’s how.

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Enterprises are under constant attack from increasingly sophisticated cyber adversaries, but they are struggling to recruit people with cyber security skills.

Automation is the answer that many are turning to and cyber defense specialist DarkLight is launching its latest software which has AI that is trained to think and act like a human analyst.

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Android fans with a Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P or Nexus Player (or if you're happy using the Android Emulator) can now try out Android O Developer Preview 4. Google has released the final beta version of its mobile operating system as we draw ever-closer to the official launch of Android O -- or Android 8.0, if you prefer.

At this stage we don’t know what the O stands for. There's an octopus-related Easter egg in Developer Preview 4, but that's not in keeping with the dessert theme naming convention. The biggest news in this release is the inclusion of the stable version of Android 26.0.0 Support Library, but the main focus is on small updates and stability improvements.

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If you ignore its G and V series, LG makes some rather boring smartphones. Its new Q8 is an exception though. It may not have a premium design, like a high-end device does, but it is really close to flagship territory in terms of specs. In fact, it's nearly on the same level as its bigger brother, the G6.

The Q8 packs a 5.2-inch display with a resolution of 1,440 by 2,560 and it also has a secondary screen, with a resolution of 1,040 by 160. It's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. There's 4GB of RAM on board and a 3,000mAh battery too.

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