Android

Android devices have a new productivity app to choose from and this time it’s Microsoft Office Mobile. The software, which launched on iOS in June, is freely available in the Google Play Store as of Wednesday. It’s not free to use, however, and is limited to Android phones; the software can’t be installed on Android Continue Reading →

It’s not just the computers on Star Trek that Google wants to build for real. The company is also working on a device similar to the show’s universal translator — a mythical device on the show that lets everybody speak any language and still be perfectly understood. Hugo Barra, Google’s vice president of Android product Continue Reading →

Google’s new Chromecast HDMI stick is a lot of things: it’s a simple new way to bring internet video to your living room after the company stumbled with Google TV, it’s a new platform for content creators like Netflix, and it’s an interesting extension of Chrome as a platform beyond the browser itself. That’s a Continue Reading →

News of the new Nexus 7 leaked early, so the highlight of today’s breakfast with Sundar Pichai was a product that truly surprised us: Chromecast, a tiny, $35 dongle that streams audio and video to your TV from phones, tablets and laptops. But that wasn’t all: the new Nexus 7 emerged as expected, with a Continue Reading →

Android 4.3 isn’t an overly dramatic advancement over Android 4.2, but the new version of Google’s mobile OS announced on Wednesday does bring a number of improvements that should appeal to both developers and end users. Highlights include the redesigned camera interface, general performance improvements for the OS including smoother animations, and long-awaited Bluetooth Low Continue Reading →

Google just introduced a new, dedicated gaming app for the Android ecosystem called Google Play Games. It’s essentially Android’s answer to Apple’s Game Center — it lists both games and your friends on a single screen and lets you see highlights from both categories. You can tap through to see achievements for the games you’re Continue Reading →

Google today unveiled its new Nexus 7 tablet at a special event hosted by Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai. The tablet isn’t a surprise, thanks to a handful of early leaks, but it is an impressive device nonetheless. The Android 4.3-powered tablet ups the ante on screen resolution in a big way with a Continue Reading →

Verizon Wireless and Motorola are getting exclusive with their relationship. Starting with the Droid Ultra lineup, Motorola will be the only smartphone manufacturer to build Droid smartphones, Verizon marketing executive Jeff Dietel told CNET on Tuesday. Verizon and Motorola unveiled the Droid Ultra family of products, including the Droid Ultra itself, the Droid Ultra Maxx, Continue Reading →

Nokia’s decision in 2011 to pin the future of its smartphone business on Windows Phone has been heavily scrutinized over the years, but the reasoning behind that choice is only becoming fully clear now. When asked last week if he regretted not choosing Android, CEO Stephen Elop told reporters that he’s “very happy with the Continue Reading →

If you’re using Google’s “back up my data” feature for Android, the passwords to the Wi-Fi networks you access from your smartphone or tablet are available in plaintext to anyone with access to the data. And as a bug report submitted by an employee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on July 12 suggests, that Continue Reading →