作者彙整: Daniel Bader

According to sources at 9to5Google and Android Police, the Pixel 3 lineup will begin selling at T-Mobile and Sprint
Both of those carriers will also sell the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL
Carrier announcements likely coming at Google I/O next week
Google’s Pixel lineup has been Verizon exclusive since 2016, and while its phones work on all four U.S. carriers when purchased unlocked, it appears that Google will be expanded its carrier footprint in the U.S.

According to sources at 9to5Google and Android Police, the Pixel 3 and 3a series will be sold at T-Mobile and Sprint, leaving AT&T as the sole outlier (which is odd because AT&T loves phones that don’t sell well).

No word on pricing yet, but the Pixel 3 currently sells for $599 at the Google Store (down from $799 when it debuted) and the 3a will likely begin at $399.

Google Pixel Stand

The Google Pixel Stand is more than a wireless charging stand — it’s designed by Google to turn your phone into a bedside alarm cloc… 閱讀全文 →

Get rid of the Galaxy’s most disappointing feature.

Ever since Samsung announced the Galaxy S8 with its onboard assistant, Bixby, people have been asking for ways to disable it and forget the button ever existed in the first place. With the Galaxy S9 and Note 9, that chorus became even louder, and with the Galaxy S10 now available, a whole new generation of customers will be looking to disable Bixby.

While the hardware button’s not going anywhere, we can definitely do something about the software. Here’s how to get rid of as much of Bixby as possible.

Why do you want to disable Bixby?

One of the biggest frustrations with the Bixby button is its placement; the button is right under the volume keys and nearly directly opposite the power buttons. On larger phones like the Galaxy S9+ and Note 8, this often leads to accidental presses and unintended Bixby launches, especially when double-pressing the power button to launch the camera.

The Bixby button is also not mappable to anot… 閱讀全文 →

I was playing Settlers of Catan when everything went to hell. It was late morning on Sunday, October 9, 2016 and I was at a rented cottage with my wife and some friends, drinking some coffee. It was Canadian Thanksgiving, so I had no plans to work that day.

Suddenly, two days shy of a month after the first recall, Galaxy Note 7 batteries started exploding again. I’d already had my unit replaced with one that was deemed safe, and for a couple of weeks things had been relatively quiet. It appeared that Samsung had quickly identified the problem with its latest smartphone — batteries produced for the phone by Samsung SDI had a design flaw that warped some of the electrodes near the top right of the cell, causing potential thermal runaway and short circuiting. Causing potential fires.

Except the fires weren’t just potential; they were very real. The following day, October 10, Samsung recalled the Note 7 for a second time, canceling it outright a few days later. The company report… 閱讀全文 →

You wouldn’t ordinarily think of your Amazon Echo speaker or Google Home Hub smart display as a phone, but beneath the relatively unwieldy form factors, they share similar components and intentions, just optimized for different environments. That’s also probably why you wouldn’t necessarily think to dig into the system-on-a-chip that powers the smart home gadget because that’s not how they’re marketed — they just work.

But Qualcomm, as it does in phones, tablets and, increasingly, laptops, also has a big role to play in building the brains behind many smart speakers on the market. But to date, most of those processors have been modified from phones and other mobile hardware, which leaves them with plenty of limitations. Now, Qualcomm is introducing a new series of chips under the mouthful of a name, QCS400 SoC series, designed to fit into various smart speakers, soundbars, and displays, each with different levels of complexity.

The basis behind the chips — and there are… 閱讀全文 →