Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Google Store launches in Puerto Rico, Pixel and other products available for purchase

Puerto Rico, despite being a territory of the United States, is often treated as a separate country by businesses. Until now, the online Google Store was not available on the island, but that changes today.

Google has updated the Google Store country picker to include Puerto Rico. In addition, the support document listing product availability by country has been updated with mentions of the island. Currently, only the Google Pixel, Daydream View, Samsung Chromebook Plus, and various accessories are available for purchase.

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Google Store launches in Puerto Rico, Pixel and other products available for purchase was written by the awesome team at Android Police.



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Allo v12 adds animated selfie clips and a redesigned compose bar, prepares to add support for the 'enter' button, and more [APK Teardown]

allo

If you're dying for the next cool personalization feature from Allo, today is going to be a good day for you. Version 12 of Google's most talked about chat app is set to roll out today and it is upping the selfie game with a new feature called selfie clips. The name kinda says it all – they're basically short gifs of yourself. According to Amit Fulay of the Allo team, this version will also bring an updated design for the compose bar.

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Allo v12 adds animated selfie clips and a redesigned compose bar, prepares to add support for the 'enter' button, and more [APK Teardown] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.



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Google Search just made art education much more interactive

Google Search is an amazingly spectacular thing. Google Arts and Culture is also amazingly spectacular. Wouldn't it be great if they worked together in a fun and educational way? Now, they do.

Announced on Google's own blog, "The Keyword", searching and learning about art has just become a lot more interactive through the tech giant. While you could already search about specific pieces and get a pretty good understanding of them, the Google Search team has teamed up with Google Arts and Culture to make the experience even better.

Now, when you search for an artist, you can get an overview of their life, see a panel of high resolution photos of their works, and even see where their art is currently on display. If you can't travel there yourself, you can always jump into Google street view and do a virtual museum tour to experience the pieces up close and personal. While you're walking through, quick information about each piece will pop out, and you can click on the art you're interested to take a closer look.

To do this, Google scanned over 15,000 unique pieces all over the world at participating museums, and used machine learning to index them, similar to how Google photos lets you search for people, places, or things. The whole process was nearly automated, and that's pretty darn cool.

If you want to try it out, just search for your favorite artist and check out some pieces. There's bound to be a plethora of works for you to zoom in and explore, and you might even learn something new about them while you're at it.



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ASUS has updated the Chromebook Flip with a new processor and USB Type-C

The original ASUS Chromebook Flip (C100PA) was released in 2015, and was one of the first Chromebooks to receive the Play Store. It's $250 MSRP made it a popular device, and ASUS has finally revealed a sequel at Computex 2017.

The new Flip looks very similar to the original model, with the same 10" screen and the same hinge design. However, there are two important improvements. The original model used the ARM-based Rockchip 3288-C processor, but the new Flip is using a slightly-faster Rockchip RK3399.

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ASUS has updated the Chromebook Flip with a new processor and USB Type-C was written by the awesome team at Android Police.



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Samsung updating Gear Fit 2 with new and improved workout features, SOS function

Workout detection and post-workout feedback are getting better on Samsung's fitness wearable.

Samsung has just pushed out an update to the Gear Fit 2 right around a year after launch that makes a few solid upgrades to its tracking — because, after all, that is what it's designed to do. Building on the Gear Fit 2's automatic fitness tracking that auto-starts workouts when it detects certain sustained movement, Samsung says it has improved its ability to detect workouts.

For runners, you can now set custom pace targets for runs or set certain time or distance goals in Samsung Health to let the app build an appropriate workout for you. After your run is done, the Fit 2 will now give you a detailed color-coded graph of how long you spent in each heart rate zone over the duration. You'll also get more accurate information on a map of where you ran, right on the Fit 2's display.

Samsung has also improved its sleep tracking to give more details on how well you slept through the night, and changed activity reminders to give you some options for light activity instead of simply telling you to stand up. Finally, the Gear Fit 2 now has an "SOS" function that can be activated with a triple press of the home button to send your location and a message to specified contacts.

The update is available now through the Gear Manager app on the phone you have paired to the Gear Fit 2. Just visit the "About Gear" section to download the update, which comes in at a 47MB.



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Samsung Gear Fit 2 update brings automatic activity recognition and an SOS feature

Samsung has released a big update for the Gear Fit 2, which improves the device's heart-rate and exercise-tracking abilities and offers new ways to maximize your training.

When you finish a workout, you'll now see a color-coded graph that shows you the time spent in different heart rate zones. These are broken down by level of exertion to Moderate, Vigorous, and Maximum.

See also:

Best fitness trackers

3 weeks ago

The update also enhances the device's activity detection, as the Gear Fit 2 will automatically activate its fitness-tracking functions after you exercise for more than ten minutes. And when you complete an auto-tracked workout, you'll see your approximate location on the map that pops up on the screen.

If you're a serious runner, you can set customizable pace targets via the Samsung Health app. It's a useful feature to have and only requires you to input the desired distance and time into your device. You can also choose between runs that are designed to either help you burn fat or increase your endurance.

Thanks to the new update, you have the option of customizing the info you see on the display during workouts. There's a lot of different data available including the total distance, calories burned, and the duration of an exercise, just to name a few. The last feature worth mentioning is the ability to send an SOS alert with your location just by pressing the home button of the device three times.

The update is already available for all users via the Samsung Gear app.



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Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom review: A promising phone that falls victim to bad software and cut corners

Asus was not on the radar of most US phone buyers until the ZenFone 2 popped up a few years ago with solid specs for a reasonable price, but the ZenFone 3 family hasn't been as prominent. It took Asus ages to roll these devices out in North America, and the pricing was not as generous. However, there are more variants of the ZenFone 3 still trickling out, from the flagship-level "Deluxe Special Edition" to the low-cost "Laser." The ZenFone 3 Zoom is somewhere in the middle with its $329 price tag and mid-range Snapdragon 625 chip.

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Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom review: A promising phone that falls victim to bad software and cut corners was written by the awesome team at Android Police.



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