LG G3 global rollout starts June 27 in Asia, EMEA in July

LG's premium flagship, which has unsurprisingly enjoyed popularity and good sales in Korea, will soon be launching in other parts of the globe. The LG G3 will first make its stop in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines starting this Friday, before heading out to the rest of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East sometime in July.

The LG G3 is definitely not only an eye-catcher, with the stylish "faux" brushed metal back cover and rear control buttons. It is also a smartphone that is worth drooling over in both hardware and software, the latter if you especially favor less modified Android versions. It is actually no wonder that LG has reported selling 100,000 units in Korea during its first week in the market. Now the company is hoping that the same enthusiasm, and of course sales, will be replicated in these upcoming markets.

For Europe and Asia, LG is advertising the fact that the LG G3 will be featuring wireless charging capabilities. We do wonder whether that means that other markets, like the US, will not be entitled to that nice feature. The smartphone is compatible with the Qi wireless charging standard, and so compatible with many charging plates already out there in the market. But of course, LG would prefer if you buy its own "stand-type" charger, which admittedly is a bit unique in the sense that it won't require your phone to lie horizontally flat. Slightly contrived video ad located below.

LG has not yet revealed when the G3 will hit US markets, though some carriers have pointed to a late June launch, which is becoming later and later by the day. Pricing details are also still up in the air, and the company says that those will be revealed in local markets when they launch.

SOURCE: LG

Story Timeline

• LG G3 first week sales reach 100,000 in South Korea


• LG G3 review: the phone every Android OEM should make


• LG G3 showcases company's new visual design lanugage

RunPee tells you best bathroom time in movie theaters

We’ve all been there. You’re totally engrossed in this movie, when suddenly, the call of nature cannot be ignored. But the moment you stepped into the restroom, apparently something important happens in the theatre and you missed a crucial part when you go back to your seat. The RunPee app will make sure that this will never happen to you again.

The app’s name is pretty literal and self-explanatory: it tells you when it’s safe to run and pee. It contains all the latest movie listings and each movie is analyzed to tell you which is the best part to take a bathroom break so that you will not miss anything important. They choose sequences that are 3-5 minutes long but don’t have any plot twists or crucial reveals. But if you really can’t hold it in anymore, the app will also update you as to what you actually missed.

Don’t worry, the people around you in the movie theater will not be disturbed by any loud alerts as the Runpee Timer alerts you about an upcoming “Peetime” only through a vibrating alarm. An added feature for users that doesn’t involve any sort of bathroom activity is that the app will also tell you if there are mid-credits or after-credits bonus material. This is good information to have as more and more movies start adding surprise sequences after the movie has already ended.

On the app’s official website, some celebrities have apparently recommended this app. Hugh Jackman even says that he has looked up his own movies to check when the recommended Peetimes are. It could be a mixed bag for a director to check out the Peetimes of their own movies: it could be a learning tool for them as to what parts people find boring or it could also be an insult since no one wants to hear that one or several scenes are worth going to the bathroom for.

Download RunPee on the Google Play Store

Google Glass now available in the UK

Google is finally doing it! It is finally expanding the reach of its popular but rather contentious Google Glass wearable outside the shores of the US, across the pond, and right into the territory of the United Kingdom. Starting today, those in the UK will be able to become Explorers themselves and enjoy everything that their US counterparts have experienced, including the rather hefty price tag.

We are still probably quite a long way to go before the final retail availability of Google Glass, so an expansion like this is definitely worth noting and celebrating. Just as with the Chromecast, the UK is the first to get dibs on Google's exclusive hardware outside of the US. And they will have access to everything that Google Glass has to offer, including all the colors and frames and shades.

Would-be explorers will be able to get to choose from the usual color options of Shale, Sky, Tangerine, Cotton, and Charcoal. But they will also have access to the new lightweight Titanium frame styles including Split, Thin, Bold, and Curve. In addition, they can also have their pick of shades such as Edge, Classic, and Active. If you're curious what Google Glass in London would look and sound like, Google was nice enough to provide a demo video, complete with that distinctive English accent.

Of course, Google Glass, whether in the US or in the UK, is still a limited Explorer club. Even if you are able to purchase it directly from Google Play Store, you will most likely still be limited by the price. In the UK, Glass will fetch a price tag of ₤1,000. For that price, however, you will be able to get your choice of frame or shade at no extra cost.

SOURCE: Google

Story Timeline

• Google Glass XE18.1 update: photos, footie, batteries


• The Traveler for Android gains a Google Glass companion app


• Google Glass DVF | Made for Glass collection now available

Yahoo Aviate gets a new look and a global launch

Yahoo has finally taken out its launcher from invite-only beta. But aside from also giving it a new name, now called Yahoo Aviate, the former search giant has revamped the launcher's design, which could leave some revisiting users a bit confused.

The entire philosophy behind Aviate is to simply your home screen. It tries to do so by banishing the clutter-inviting conventions of regular homescreens and providing users with a clean, organized slate. It even practically removes the separation between homescreen and app launcher/grid, by putting the latter just a simple swipe away, making it feel like it were just a dedicated panel or page. But Yahoo Aviate also wants to make your homescreen smarter, by injecting a bit of user habit learning and contextual information to the mix.

Aviate has accomplished those two goals even before this public launch, but now it rearranged things a bit. The concepts of Spaces and Collections are still there, only they've been relocated to new places. The main home screen has been left alone to be just that, your main screen. It is a place for your favorite photo or photos, not a wallpaper, some quick launch icons, and your choice of widgets. Remember though that the same height limitation, basically only one screen worth, for widgets on the home screen still apply. Collections, the automatically grouped apps, are still located on the right and still don't let you create your own groups.

The dynamically-changing Spaces, however, have been moved to the left of the main screen, right beside the Spaces settings panel, bringing the total number of screens to a more balanced number of five. It is still the same vertically scrolling list of widgets and gadgets, though it feels that the number of custom Aviate widgets you can use have been reduced a bit. You can still add Collections and the usual Android widgets of course. The Apps list hasn't been moved but did get a face lift. To make it look and feel like a distinct section of the homescreen, it sports an inverse color scheme, with a light on dark theme instead of the default dark on light for the rest of the homescreen. Comically, that convention actually only works if you use the Light color scheme. Switch to the Dark one and the Apps list stays dark.

Yahoo Aviate did get one new feature for this release in the form a new Favorites people section. A simple swipe from the bottom will reveal a panel containing circles for your favorite contacts. From there you will see both Favorites and Recent people, and get to choose to launch the Phone or Messaging app directly.

Yahoo Aviate is now live on Google Play Store and free for the taking, with no in-app purchases needed. It will be interesting to see what Yahoo still has planned for this admittedly unique smart launcher, and whether Yahoo will be riddling it with ads in the future to make a profit from it.

SOURCE: Yahoo

Story Timeline

• Aviate launcher hands-on


• Aviate smart launcher gets folded under Yahoo's wings


• Smart Launcher Face-off - Battle of the Brains

NVIDIA giving out Google Play credits with Shield purchases

The NVIDIA Shield is probably the best evidence you will have of a PC gaming-inclined company acknowledging the exponential growth of the casual gaming market, especially in Android devices. The Shield is a handheld -- a purely gaming device at that, designed to play any game available on the Android platform to date, and NVIDIA is sweetening an already lowered price point with additional freebies to convince us to buy.

The Shield debuted at USD$299. As NVIDIA was trying to push sales of the device, they lowered the pricing to USD$249. NVIDIA has recently cut the price further to USD$199, an already incredible offer on the SHIELD gaming device. As an additional come-on, NVIDIA is now giving for free USD$25 worth of Google Play Store credit which you can use in buying premium titles like Half-Life 2 and Portal – both these games looking gorgeous when played on the Shield.

The handheld’s specs are as follows – you have a 5-inch 1280×720 (294 PPI) as your main screen, it’s not 1080p (which is a bummer), but the 720p screen looks adequate for our uses. Under the hood, there’s an NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor complemented by 2GB RAM. The Shield’s internal storage comes up to 16GBs, and it has all manner of WiFi and Bluetoooth connectivity. What really sets the portable apart from any device is that it allows PC gamers to stream its games to the device, like being able to access your PC games with the handheld. The Shield also has an HDMI out port, allowing you to play your game on a bigger screen.

The device runs on Android 4.4.2 Kitkat, and reviews have said that the battery life of the gaming console runs to around 5 to 6 hours when playing graphic-intensive games. Another special feature which will surely appeal to droid hacks out there is that the bootloader of the Shield is unlocked, opening itself up to the various tweaks and customizations that Android users usually want in their devices. You like the offer? Hit this link.

VIA: thedroidguy

Story Timeline

• NVIDIA SHIELD Console Review


• NVIDIA SHIELD 2 specs surface in benchmark report


• NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet rumor - Tegra K1 and GameStream

Facebook improved its Android app for emerging mobile markets

If you live in a country that has lightning-fast Internet connection, Facebook on mobile should have no major issues. But for those who are in developing mobile markets, like countries in Africa, then connection speed is a major deterrent towards experiencing the Facebook Android app in all its glory. This is something the Facebook developers themselves experienced in a recent trip to the region to further understand how they can bring faster connectivity to the “next five billion.”

This is part of Facebook founder Mark Zukerberg’s big idea to bring Internet access to the almost 5 billion people who still do not have proper Internet access. A team of engineers and product managers went to Africa, bought Android devices to test how the Facebook app fares in areas where Internet is intermittent and downright slow. Aside from the fact that they were able to use up their monthly data limits after only 40 minutes of accessing the app, they also experienced low memory issues on the phone, still because of the slow connection and the lack of memory space.

After their field testing experience, the engineers focused on addressing four issues, namely, performance, data efficiency, networking and application size. To solve the performance issue, they have deterred initialisation of all the features until after the startup of the app or only when the features will actually be used. According to Facebook, the changes have reduced app startup times by more than 50 percent. For the data efficiency issue, they are now using a different image compression method (WebP) that will transmit data faster as well as improvements in the cacheing and reuse of images. This has save 50 percent of data transfer usage compare with previous implementation.

Networking stack problems were fixed by switching to OkHttp, a stack that is currently being used in the Android app, which will allow faster retries when the connectivity has issues. Lastly, since the most popular devices in Africa have lower disk space than other gadgets, they worked on adapting Google Play’s system so that app size efficiency will be improved. The team will continue coming up with new features that will further address the identified problems so that those in developing areas will be able to use the FB app properly, regardless of connectivity issues.

SOURCE: Facebook

VIA: Slashgear

GM app scans license plates, gets driver’s phone number

Scared of having your phone number accidentally spread over the Internet? That may be the least of your worries if GM's new app and system ever takes off. The app, called DiDi plate will let anyone, with the right app of course, take a snapshot of a car's license plate and get the driver's phone number, opening him or her to a world of hurt from unsolicited messages.

It may sound like a feature from a crime procedural TV show, but in the wrong hands, it could be a weapon for mass distraction. And no, that is not a typographical error. The way the system works is that a smartphone app will scan the license plate and compare it to a database that associates plates with their drivers and, of course, their phone numbers.

In theory, this could be a useful feature to contact owners of erring vehicles, warn drivers of opened doors or leaking tanks, or even contact appropriate persons in case of an emergency. In practice, however, it will be too easy to use this as a vehicle for spam, accident-causing distracted driving, and even stalking. Amusingly, when GM China debuted DiDi Plate at Telematics Detroit 2014 early this month, it indeed used that latter scenario, with a random male driver trying to pick up a random female driver using only her license plate as reference.

If that has gotten you all paranoid, the good news is that DiDi Plate is still in its prototyping stage and could very well never leave the borders of China. And even though it may eventually be released for general availability, it will definitely meet some resistance from privacy groups everywhere.

SOURCE: Computerworld

VIA: SlashGear