Letter suggests Apple and Google will also compete in the self-driving vehicle market

Google and Apple are now long-time enemies. They continue to fight in the smartphone, tablet, smart TV and wearable markets (among others), but recent rumors suggest they are also taking this fight to the road, where self-driving cars are said to rule in the near future. Today we are getting more solid confirmation the iPhone maker is jumping on the self-driving wagon.

Apple has revealed a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, expressing their position on how self-driving vehicle regulations should be handled in the years to come. While the iPhone maker is not confirming its involvement in the market, the sole fact that they have taken the time to write to U.S. regulators means their interest in self-driving cars is strong. This makes previous rumors much more credible than ever.

"Apple uses machine learning to make its products and services smarter, more intuitive, and more personal. The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation." -Steve Kenner, Apple Director of Product Integrity

The document goes on to mention matters regarding security, privacy and the benefit of sharing data across companies. Their idea is that companies should share data that could be used to improve all self-driving systems. This would make vehicles more secure for drivers (riders?), as systems could learn from a broader collection of data. But Apple also wants the government to care about privacy, something they should consider when regulating said data.

• Apple reportedly abandons 'Project Titan' self-driving car plans
• What's going on with Apple and McLaren?

Apple then goes on to talk about giving a fair chance to newer manufacturers. It seems more established car makers have an easier time testing vehicles in public roads, while newcomers need to go through more obstacles to get a car out there.

"Both Congress and NHTSA have long recognized that manufacturers need to conduct limited and controlled testing on public roads. In fact, Congress recently enacted a provision in the FAST Act explicitly allowing established manufacturers to test on public roads without pursuing exemptions from FMVSS. But the FAST Act does not provide the same opportunity to new 10 entrants." -Steve Kenner, Apple Director of Product Integrity

You can read the whole letter by downloading the PDF file here. It is pretty interesting to see this new technology making it to the world, especially considering it will be a life-changing experience. Now we just have to wait and see what Apple has for our future.

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The bizarre Kodak Ektra goes on sale December 9

New players in the Android smartphone game are great, but old players from other industries entering the Android game are even more fun. With BlackBerry about to drop its final Android phone for the year and Nokia hitting the world's largest mobile operating system in early 2017 it only makes sense that the Kodak Ektra arrives just in time for Christmas.

The bizarre device will go on sale on December 9 in Germany with other markets to follow. In Europe it is priced at €499 and will be available from Media Markt, Saturn, Amazon, Ringfoto, notebooksbilliger.de and kodakphones.com and will be available from Telekom and online on January 16.

The interesting-looking Kodak Ektra specs include a heavy focus on photography, with a 21 MP fast-focus camera with PDAF, OIS, f/2.0 aperture and dual LED flash. The front-facing camera also sports PDAF and comes in at 13 MP with an f/2.2 aperture.

A full manual mode, 'Super 8 VCR' video filter and scene selection hardware dial complete the picture but the Ektra has an incredibly capable host of competitors already crowding the smartphone photography space.

Other specs include Android Marshmallow out of the box, a deca-core Helio X20 chipset clocked at 2.3 GHz, 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB ROM with expandable storage, a 3,000 mAh battery with USB Type-C and fast charging. There's also a fancy retro-styled leather camera bag, I mean, phone case, for €69.99.

What do you think of the Kodak Ektra? Can Kodak compete with the likes of Samsung and Google?

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Lenovo Phab 2 Pro now available in Europe for €499

The world's first Tango smartphone, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is now available in Europe for €499. The product page for the device have appeared on the German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch Lenovo sites. For now the UK doesn't have a product listing but it is likely not far away.

See also:

Augmented Reality – Everything you need to know

July 20, 2016

Announced in June and initially available on November 1, the Tango phone has had a very leisurely launch. Offering a bunch of really intriguing but arguably niche augmented reality tech, the Phab 2 Pro is fortunately quite affordable.

With a 6.4-inch QHD display, Snapdragon 652 (Tango edition) chipset, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of built-in storage, the Tango phone is not a bad purchase for $500 even if you discount all the awesome AR potential it contains.

If you want the skinny on everything the Tango phone can do, be sure to read our detailed Phab 2 Pro hands on and know that things are only going to get more interesting as time goes by.

Thanks to Paul M for the tip!

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Android Nougat on the OnePlus 3 is impressive, even in beta

There's an inverse relationship between OnePlus' software and its reputation where updates are concerned. As clean and smooth as OxygenOS is, the company has historically struggled to get Android updates out in a timely fashion. That's all set to change with the Nougat beta for the OnePus 3 though, which has arrived right on time and according to promises.

See also:

The OnePlus 3 will get updates just as long as the OnePlus 3T

2 weeks ago

The Android 7.0 Nougat beta is only available for the OnePlus 3. The OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T will begin sharing an update cycle when Nougat officially drops in December, but the beta is an original OnePlus 3 exclusive. (Note: OnePlus has now removed the download link for the Nougat beta.)

The first thing to note is that the Nougat beta on the OnePlus 3 is more like Marshmallow on the OnePlus 3T than it is like the OnePlus 3 community builds that have been floating around recently. So while the changes are quite noticeable on the OnePlus 3, it looks like you won't see as much of a difference on the OnePlus 3T when Nougat arrives later this month.

Notifications and Quick Settings

First up: the notifications shade. We've now got a row of mini quick settings toggles readily available up top, above the full width notification cards. The toggles aren't swipeable, but you can customize their order. Unfortunately we only get five rather than the six available in Android 7.1, but hopefully that'll change with the next version update.

The Quick Settings area looks a lot like it does on the OnePlus 3T. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles fall into line with the other toggles and lose their mini-menu capabilities. The whole Quick Settings area no longer takes up the entire screen either but there are now multiple tabs so you can add as many shortcut as you wish.

The brightness slider migrates south out of the way and the user shortcut changes sides because reasons. As before, you can edit the Quick Settings tile layout and any changes you make to the order will also be reflected in the mini toggles at the top of the notifications shade. The Quick Settings look a lot neater generally and there's now a Data Saver toggle as well.

Recent apps and Split screen mode

Taking a look at the recent apps overview reveals cards that are much larger in Nougat than in Marshmallow and the three shortcuts along the bottom have been replaced by a single floating action button to Clear All.

Stock Android's implementation of split screen mode is accessible via the app overview screen by dragging and app card to the top of the screen and selecting the secondary app from the bottom window. If you're using on-screen navigation buttons you'll also be able to launch split screen mode by long-pressing the recent apps button, but this functionality doesn't work for capacitive buttons (yet).

Quick app switching and Shelf

Quick app switching is also on board, allowing you to rapidly jump between your two most recent apps by double-tapping the recent apps button. There's also plenty of other general Nougat additions like bundled notifications and Quick Reply, app locker for securing apps with a fingerprint, Data Saver, Doze Mode on the Go, notification priority and so on.

Shelf has been slightly redesigned and still lives on the left hand screen where Google Now used to live. It's handy to have the ability to quickly take a note and see your Google Now cards, but OnePlus still hasn't pushed Shelf to anywhere near essential status. Fortunately if you don't use it it is easily disabled.

Customization and Settings

Long-pressing on the home screen brings up some new home screen management options. A new Settings icon has appeared, which takes you to a short menu with options for disabling Shelf, toggling two anywhere-on-the-homescreen gestures (swipe up for search and swipe down for notifications) and switching from the standard layout with an app drawer to one without. The customize menu now only shows the icon resizing tool with a couple of icon style options.

The Settings menu has received a bit of a visual makeover, taking its color scheme from the Google Pixel and rearranging some items. You'll get Suggestions at the very top of the menu on occasion, just as in stock Nougat and other important information will be displayed here for example when you have Do Not Disturb enabled or are in Airplane Mode.

Summary information is visible in each Settings section, meaning you don't have to access a menu to see what Wi-Fi network you're connected to, your battery percentage or what Bluetooth devices are connected. A new sub-section called Custom appears right below Wireless & Networks, but basically contains stuff you'd already know: Alert Slider settings, Button options and shortcuts, gestures and status bar icon settings.

The Display menu has absorbed a couple of the Customization menu options from Marshmallow, being home to Night Mode (which is an awful shade of yellow) as well as Themes and Nougat's stock DPI scaling feature which alleviates the bugginess of OnePlus' resizing options on Marshmallow.

See also:

OnePlus shows how fast its OnePlus 3T charges compared to the Google Pixel XL

2 weeks ago

Themes and more

The default theme is light with blue highlights and gray Quick Settings and menu headers. If you switch to the light or dark theme you'll be able to choose your accent color from the familiar palette and your header areas and Quick Settings will either become white or black rather than gray. In the default theme you don't have any other highlight color option than blue.

Sounds & Notifications have been split up, now getting their own dedicated sub-sections in the Settings and you'll also have access to Nougat's quick access Settings menu, so no matter how deep you are in sub-menus you can always quickly access the top level settings. Swiping out from the left seems to work consistently, but tapping the hamburger menu icon sometimes drags the pane out and other times goes full screen.

At the very bottom of the Settings menu you'll see an Advanced section that contains Accessibility settings, a toggle for Pocket Mode, access to the user experience program and options for the Clear All button in the recent apps overview (clear the task list and cache or clear task list, cache and background processes). The software update screen has now added local upgrade and auto-download options too and there's a new-look power off menu with no screenshot option.

Initial impressions

Despite being a beta release, the Nougat beta on the OnePlus 3 is remarkably stable, with only the occasional crash or stutter. With only a few weeks until the official Nougat update arrives, it's probably not worth flashing on your daily driver unless you're really keen to check it out (and OnePlus has now removed the download link), but it does bode very well for what's about to come.

There's not much point discussing battery life, general performance or the touch latency issue because these will all be dealt with in the official Nougat release for the OnePlus 3 and 3T. Speaking of the OnePlus 3T, if you do a fresh install of the Nougat beta on your OnePlus 3 you'll also enable the F2FS file system the 3T introduced, which uses flash storage for faster load times.

After seeing some of weird and wonderful things floating around in the community builds for the OnePlus 3 I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the restraint shown in the Nougat beta. While some other changes might still arrive in the final firmware, what I'm seeing right now is very promising.

It may be a little early to say OnePlus has turned its software reputation around, but it did deliver the Nougat beta on schedule and has done a very good job of it. The additions made to stock Nougat are useful and well thought out, the entire interface is relatively clean and consistent (even if the location of a few settings is a little odd) and if OnePlus can start getting updates out on time, we're in for an enjoyable 2017.

How do you like the Nougat beta? Any features you want that are currently missing?

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Lenovo Phab 2 landing in India December 6

The Lenovo Phab 2 – the non-Tango version of the Phab 2 Pro – is landing in India on December 6. The company has sent out press invites to a webinar launch with no mention of the most interesting of Phab 2 family members, the Phab 2 Pro (the Phab 2 Plus already went on sale a month ago).

See also:

Lenovo Phab 2, Phab 2 Plus, Phab 2 Pro hands on

June 9, 2016

Despite being Tango-less, the Phab 2 will still get you a giant screen with decent mid-range internals. The Phab 2 specs include a 6.4-inch HD display, MediaTek MT8735 chipset, 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB ROM with microSD expansion and a 4,050 mAh battery. It runs Marshmallow out of the box and comes in Gunmetal Gray and Champagne Gold color options.

Unlike the Phab 2 Plus, the regular Phab 2 doesn't have a dual camera array on the back, featuring a single 13 MP primary camera and 5 MP front-facing camera with a wide-angle lens for group selfies. The Phab 2 will be a Flipkart exclusive and we don't have an official release date or price just yet, but the U.S. conversion puts it in the vicinity of INR13,000.

Will you pick up a Phab 2? What is the perfect screen size for you?

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‘Really Blue” Google Pixel is finally back in stock

The 'Really Blue' Google Pixel has been a surprise hit (as wildly colored phones typically tend to be). So much so that it has been a very difficult color to get ahold of, being out of stock in Google Play for weeks. That has now changed, with Really Blue Pixels once again available for the masses. Until they go out of stock again, that is.

See also:

Googler explains why Nexus phones won't get Pixel fingerprint gestures

November 1, 2016

Keep in mind that it's only the 32 GB regular-sized Pixel that's available: the Really Blue color is not an option for either 128 GB Pixel and the Really Blue 32 GB Pixel XL is still out of stock. As a matter of fact, all colors and sizes of the Pixel XL are still out of stock. It's not clear when the Play Store will have fresh XL stocks either.

Considering Really Blue is a limited edition color choice, we had originally suspected that when stocks were depleted the first time that that would be it. Fortunately Google later confirmed more would eventually arrive. So if you're at all interested in a Really Blue Pixel you might want to pull the trigger fast, or take your chances on holding out for the possibility of a Pixel XL showing up at some point.

BUY 32 GB REALLY BLUE GOOGLE PIXEL

What color Pixel would you like to see? Rose Gold? Crimson? Silver?

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Is this the last QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry phone?

Last month, BlackBerry's CEO John Chen, promised "one last in-house phone" equipped with a QWERTY keyboard. That phone has been long rumored as the BlackBerry Mercury and it looks like we may have just got our first look at it in the wild.

The images above appeared on Weibo recently and look to show the last of the three BlackBerry Android devices scheduled for 2016, with the first two being the DTEK50 and DTEK60. While we can't rule out the possibility of a clone or fake, they certainly look legit and fit well with what we know BlackBerry is working on.

See also:

BlackBerry quits designing their own phones

September 28, 2016

The BlackBerry-Android experiment has been a fascinating one. From the vastly overpriced Priv to the grossly under-rated DTEK60, BlackBerry has proven it can still innovate, even on another platform. But progress invariably means some things must be left behind, like the iconic QWERTY keyboard of BlackBerry lore.

While the demise of the iconic physical keyboard will be a sad day for aging businessmen and stubborn diplomats the world over, if the rumors about the Mercury are anything to go by BlackBerry may well be going out with a bang.

The benchmarked BlackBerry Mercury specs are decidedly mid-range, but performance has never been the primary allure of a BlackBerry phone. As the last of its line, this is one time we're happy to see the Mercury rising.

Would you buy the Mercury? Will you miss the QWERTY keyboard?

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