LG’s new portable speaker floats in mid air, works in water

A few days ago, LG announced that it will show off quite a few new smartphones at CES, which kicks off on January 5. Now, the company has also announced that it will unveil an interesting floating Bluetooth speaker called PJ9 during the trade show in Las Vegas.

The futuristic looking speaker offer 360-degree sound and has an IPX7 rating, meaning it can withstand being submerged in 1 meter (about 3.3 feet) of water for up to 30 minutes. According to the manufacturer, the battery allows for 10 hours of continuous use. And when it runs out of juice, the speaker thankfully won't crash down on your floor, but will instead safely land on its base, which also serves as the woofer. As soon as it lands, the speaker will start charging automatically.

See also:

Meizu Gravity: a unique "floating" speaker on Indiegogo

May 18, 2016

The speaker has a very simple egg-shaped design that doesn't stand out too much and magnetically floats above the cylindrical woofer station. It will be available in the Glossy White color option.

LG has not yet revealed the speaker's price or when exactly will it hit markets across the globe. The company will announce more details during the official presentation of the device, which is just around the corner. So stay tuned everybody.

What do you think about floating speakers in general? Do you find them interesting? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

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Report: LG wants to release the G6 early to get a head start on Samsung

LG's smartphone division has gone through a bruising year. The phone that was supposed to drive its recovery, the G5, turned out to be a dud. People just didn't like it, and the its modular "friends" proved just as disappointing.

It makes sense for LG to accelerate the transition to its next flagship.

According to a report published by ETNews, a well-respected Korean outlet, LG wants to have the G6 in stores a full month earlier than its predecessor. The LG G6 will supposedly go on sale around late February or early March. In contrast, LG announced the G5 in late February and released it in early April.

LG is reportedly trying to take advantage of a favorable window opened by its rivals Samsung and Apple. The former is rumored to delay the launch of the Galaxy S8 for April, while the latter is expected to hit a sales lull around the same period.

If it sounds like you've heard this before, it's probably because you have. Every year, manufacturers jostle to one-up each other, and a phone's release date can play a big role it its sales performance. It should come as no surprise that LG is racing for a good spot in the calendar.

Videos

LG V20 review

LG V20 vs LG V10

LG G5 vs LG G4

LG G5 Tips N Tricks

LG has already started to approve component suppliers for the G6, as the company aims to bring up mass manufacturing by a month, ETNews reports.

"It seems that LG Electronics has pushed forward the release date of G6 after believing that release dates of its products are late compared to its competitors' products," a source said.

LG is deep in the red: the company recently announced another quarter of losses, the sixth in a row. There's a lot riding on the success of the G6. In September, the company said it had faith in the modular approach, but rumors are pointing to the contrary. According to sources out of Korea, the LG G6 will feature a non-modular construction, with highlight features including water resistance, mobile payments integration, wireless charging, and potentially a Note 7-like iris scanner.

If today's report is accurate, LG might launch the G6 before MWC, which is set for January 27 – March 2 2017. That would give it time to prepare a release in early March. There's also a chance that the G6 will be unveiled at MWC 2017 and made available in stores within days, though that seems less likely.

Let us know your thoughts!

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Nubia Z11 and Nubia N1 to go on sale today in India

A couple of weeks ago, ZTE launched two new smartphones in India under its Nubia sub-brand  — Z11 and N1. We're now happy to report that both devices will go on sale today and will be available exclusively on Amazon India. You'll be able to get the Nubia Z11 for Rs. 29,999, while the Nubia N1 will set you back Rs. 11,999.

So, which one is right for you? Well, the Nubia Z11 offers more power as it comes with the Snapdragon 820 processor and 6 GB of RAM. It has a 5.5-inch Full HD screen, a 16 MP camera with an f/2.0 aperture, and a front-facing selfie snapper with an 8 MP sensor. Other specs of the device, which runs Android Marshmallow, include 64 GB of storage, a 3,000 mAh battery, and a fingerprint sensor. It's available in Black Gold.

See also:

Check out this Nubia bezel-less slider concept

4 weeks ago

The Nubia N1 also sports a 5.5-inch Full HD screen but is powered by the Mediatek Helio P10 processor and 3 GB of RAM. It has a large 5,000 mAh battery, comes in Gold, and features two 13 MP cameras with an f/2.2 aperture, 64 GB of space, a fingerprint sensor, and runs the same version of Android as the Nubia Z11.

If you're thinking of buying the Nubia Z11 or Nubia N1, click on a button below to visit Amazon's sales page.

Get the Nubia Z11 Get the Nubia N1

Are you considering getting the Nubia Z11 or Nubia N1? Which device do you prefer?

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LineageOS will continue the great legacy of CyanogenMod

CyanogenMod is no more, but its legacy will be carried over by a new community-driven custom ROM project called LineageOS.

Cyanogen Inc., the corporate counterpart to the CyanogenMod community project, recently announced it would shut down its services by the end of the year. Despite initial hopes that the shutdown would not cripple CyanogenMod, the OS project's website and infrastructure have been taken offline over the Christmas weekend. The abrupt and unceremonious closure appears to be the end of the CyanogenMod project as we know it.

UPDATE: As of this morning we have lost DNS and Gerrit is now offline – with little doubt as a reaction to our blog post yesterday. Goodbye

— CyanogenMod (@CyanogenMod) December 25, 2016

While CyanogenMod appears to be dead for all intents and purposes, there's a silver lining: some of the developers behind the project are rallying behind LineageOS, a "fork" of CyanogenMod. Presumably, that includes CyanogenMod's father, Steve Kondik, who recently left Cyanogen Inc.

According to a final post on the CyanogenMod blog (now taken offline), LineageOS is more than a rebranding of CyanogenMod. "This fork will return to the grassroots community effort that used to define CM while maintaining the professional quality and reliability you have come to expect more recently," said the CyanogenMod team.

The post also clarifies why a fork was necessary. Cyanogen Inc holds on to the "CyanogenMod" brand and, in theory, it could prevent the community from using the name or even sell the brand to a third-party. "Even if we were to regroup and rebuild our own infrastructure, continuing development of CM would mean to operate with the threat of sale of the brand looming over our heads."

See also:

Cyanogen: where did it go wrong?

2 weeks ago

Some crucial details about LineageOS are missing. We don't know who is working on the new project, what their development plans are, or how they plan to raise the significant funds needed for the venture. For now, the LineageOS website only contains a blog post that confirms the transition and promises more information for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the sole, pithy tweet on LineageOS' account reads:

Your Lineage will finish what you started, Cid

— Lineage Android (@LineageAndroid) December 24, 2016

Tell us what you think!

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Crowdfunding project of the week: The Compass Stone offers navigation without distractions

Got time for some innovative tech in the midst of your holiday celebrations? We are back with another interesting 'Crowdfunding project of the week', a weekly series in which we tell you about the hottest gadgets from sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Let's jump right into today's featured campaign.

Other featured projects:

• Muggino smart mug
• The MATRIX PowerWatch runs on body heat
• BumpOut portable audio system

Navigating on a phone is easy, but we can't deny staring at a screen while walking around a new area is not the best way to enjoy the scenery. This is why K&L Inc has put together the Compass Stone, a navigation device that will keep you looking up, as opposed to staring down at your phone.

The concept is simple. All you have to do is set a destination from your smartphone. This pebble-shaped device features 12 LED lights, which can indicate in which direction you need to go to reach your destination.

The lights will flicker when you are close to your goal, and there will be a circling motion when you arrive. That's it; no annoying voices, distracting screens or complications. Oh, and the device can also tell you the time.

Interested? You can sign up for one by backing the project with as low as €89. It's not the cheapest product, but some of you will definitely enjoy it. Especially adventurers. The company has a long way before it reaches its €45,000, but with 36 days to go there is still a chance to see the campaign end in a successful manner.

Are you signing up?

Check out the Compass Stone on Kickstarter

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Honor 8 International Giveaway!

Welcome to the Sunday Giveaway, the place where we giveaway a new Android phone or tablet each and every Sunday!

A big congratulations to last week's winner of the ZTE Grand X4 Giveaway: El Hafid M. (Belgium) Enjoy your new ZTE phone.

This week we are giving away a brand new Honor 8!

There are few companies that can claim such commitment towards value, the latest technologies, and actually being available than Honor. This week, we are giving away an Honor 8, a device which accords its owner such a premium design, exceptional internals, and all in a package that doesn't break the bank; not even close to it.

While the Honor 8 is indeed a great value for the money, it is important to recognize that this is a very competitive price segment so you have many options to chose from. It would be wise to consider what you value most in a smartphone and base your final decision off of that.

• Honor 8 hands on
• Honor 8 Review
• Honor joins the 'flagship killer' fray with the Honor 8
• Huawei announces super-affordable Honor 8
• Honor 5X review

Honor has brought what many have wanted from an affordable flagship for a while now: a gorgeous design, a smaller size, and a great camera. In addition, the Honor 8's excellent performance and IR blaster are not always common on an affordable smartphone.

Enter Giveaway

Honor 8 International Giveaway!

More Giveaways

• Oculus Rift & Oculus Touch VR giveaway – vrsource.com
• DJI Mavic Pro International Giveaway – charged.io
• Beats PowerBeats 3 Wireless Headphones Giveaway – soundguys.com
• iPad Pro 9.7 International Giveaway – tabtimes.com
• Best Android Phone (December 2016) Giveaway – AndroidAuthority.com

Winners Gallery on Google+

Terms & Conditions

• The giveaway is an international giveaway (Except when we can not ship to your Country.)
• If we can not ship to your country, you will be compensated with an online gift card of equal MSRP value to the prize.
• We are not responsible for lost shipments.
• We are not responsible if your giveaway prize malfunctions.
• You must be age of majority in your Country of residence.
• We are not responsible for any duties or import fees that you may incur.
• Only 1 entry per person, do not enter multiple email addresses. We will verify all winners and if we detect multiple email addresses by the same person you will not be eligible to win.
• We reserve all rights to make any changes to this giveaway.
• This giveaway is operated by AndroidAuthority.
• The prize will ship when it is available to purchase.

Good luck. everyone!

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5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week! – Android Apps Weekly

Invi SMS and Messenger

[Price: Free]
Invi SMS & Messenger is an SMS and MMS app that also doubles as a standalone messaging app. You'll be greeted with a variety of features, including a built-in meme generator, emoji, stickers, group chats, voice to text, and more. Since it supports SMS, you won't need to invite your friends to use the service. It also includes a new feature called the Awesome Bar which gives you all kinds of fun stuff at the touch of a button.
It rocks a pretty decent design that features Material Design and the app works very well. It's a simple, clean app that is easy to use and has a ton of functionality. You can pick it up for free with no in-app purchases right now. Give it a shot and show your support for Android Apps Weekly!

Download now on Google Play!

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Welcome to the 171st edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are the headlines from the last week:

• A round of Twitter hacks made their rounds this week. The white hat hacker group OurMine claimed responsibility. Their targets included the official US accounts for Netflix and Marvel Comics along with the verified accounts of Tony Stark and Captain America. The group has also successfully hacked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai earlier this year. Everything is back to normal now, but it was a fun week.
• There is a new YouTube show out called Devs. The premise of the show is to shine light on how video games are made. On top of that, there are some pretty good insights on things like how the industry has changed over the years. It also talks about why Finland is a good spot for game development. It's a fun little show and definitely worth a watch if you like this kind of stuff.
• Amazon announced this week that it intends to start taking India more seriously. During an interview this week, an executive stated that Amazon was ready to make the necessary investments to do just that. This comes just a week after Amazon launched its Prime service in India. The company will receive some competition from Flipkart which is to be expected. The investments made by Amazon so far are the largest in company history.
• Vine isn't entirely doomed after all. The company plans on stripping down the app and re-releasing it as Vine Camera sometime in 2017. It'll still take six second videos like the app did except this time you can upload them directly to Twitter or keep them on your camera roll. Videos should also be compatible with other social networks. We'll tell you more about it when we get our hands on it.
• Super Mario Run has made an estimated $14 million in just a few days. The game has already rocketed to the top of the charts on iOS despite mixed reviews from pundits. The game had $5 million along five million downloads in its first day. That's more than Pokemon Go. We imagine both numbers will rise significantly once there is an Android release. It should be out on Android in early 2017.

For even more Android apps and games news, releases, and more, check out this week's newsletter by clicking here! There you can find all of the stuff we didn't have space for here. You can also use the form below to sign up for the Android Apps Weekly newsletter and we'll send it to you every Sunday! Also don't forget to check out the Android Authority app!

Android Apps Weekly

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Retro City Rampage DX

[Price: $4.99]
Retro City Rampage DX is an action-adventure game. It's also reminiscent of very early Grand Theft Auto titles. You'll engage with an overhead view of a retro world as you complete missions, do challenges, play minigames, and explore the open world. It boasts well over 100 activities, 50 vehicles to steal, 25 weapons, 200 character customizations, and more. The game plays well enough although there are some early release bugs that you may heave to deal with. In any case, it's $4.99 with no in-app purchases.

Download now on Google Play!

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Gboard

[Price: Free]
Google revamped their Google Keyboard last week and turned it into Gboard. At its core, it still works as it did before. However, there is now Google Search integrated directly into the keyboard. This allows you to search for practically anything and then immediately share it. This includes the GIF search, a feature that was highly touted in the iOS version of the app. It's completely free to use. About the only downside is that you may run into a few bugs here and there.

Download now on Google Play!

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Twilight Struggle

[Price: $4.99 / $3.99]
Twilight Struggle is a board game that has been ported to Android. The game puts you in the center of the Cold War and the political drama between the USSR and the United States. You'll draw event cards, play them out, and strategize accordingly. You can play with people online or against AI opponents if you want to. The mobile controls work rather well and you'll even have an online profile showing your stats. It's relatively inexpensive at $4.99 and you can buy additional content as in-app purchases.

Download now on Google Play!

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Official TWRP App

[Price: Free]
TWRP has been the go-to aftermarket recovery on Android for years. Now, they finally have an official app. It's not a very complicated app. You can open it, find your device, download the recovery, and then you can flash it. It can also keep you up to date on which version you have. As you probably guessed, you will need root access on your phone in order to use the app to its fullest extent. If you're rooted and using TWRP, you want this app. Thankfully, it's free.

Download now on Google Play!

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Angry Birds Blast

[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Rovio is at it again with another casual game called Angry Birds Blast. It's a match-three game where your goal is to break certain blocks each round to free the birds. It works like pretty much every match-three game where you wait for two or more of the same color to line up. You'll also have boosts and powers to help make things go easier. The game has 250 levels, colorful graphics, and a family friendly demeanor. It's a casual game through and through, but it's not bad if you need a time faster.

Download now on Google Play!

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Related best app lists:

• Check out the best free Android games!
• Or take a look at the best keyboard apps for Android!

If we missed any big Android apps or games news, tell us about them in the comments! To see our complete list of best app lists, click here.

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