Apple is offering interest-free financing to boost iPhone sales in China
4 hours ago
Permalink
Android

Apple is offering interest-free financing to boost iPhone sales in China

Apple is looking to get over its sales woes in China by offering prospective customers interest-free financing with a little help from Alibaba. Apple’s China website now offers…

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Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo
22 hours ago
Permalink
Android

Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo

Facebook will end its unpaid market research programs and proactively take its Onavo VPN app off the Google Play store in the wake of backlash following TechCrunch’s investigation…

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Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo
22 hours ago
Permalink
Android

Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo

Facebook will end its unpaid market research programs and proactively take its Onavo VPN app off the Google Play store in the wake of backlash following TechCrunch’s investigation…

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Facebook adds new background location privacy controls to its Android app
20th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Facebook adds new background location privacy controls to its Android app

Facebook is updating its privacy settings on Android to make it easier for users to control what location data is sent to and stored by the company. In…

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Europe agrees platform rules to tackle unfair business practices
14th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Europe agrees platform rules to tackle unfair business practices

The European Union’s political institutions have reached agreement over new rules designed to boost transparency around online platform businesses and curb unfair practices to support traders and other…

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Is Europe closing in on an antitrust fix for surveillance technologists?
10th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Is Europe closing in on an antitrust fix for surveillance technologists?

The German Federal Cartel Office’s decision to order Facebook to change how it processes users’ personal data this week is a sign the antitrust tide could at last be…

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Opera adds a free VPN to its Android browser app
8th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Opera adds a free VPN to its Android browser app

Opera became the first browser-maker to bundle a VPN with its service, and now that effort is expanding to mobile. The company announced today that its Android browser…

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Google intros a pair of Android accessibility features for people with hearing loss
4th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Google intros a pair of Android accessibility features for people with hearing loss

Google this morning unveiled a pair of new Android features for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. As the company notes in a blog post this…

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Daily Crunch: Google launches Live Transcribe
4th February 2019
Permalink
Android

Daily Crunch: Google launches Live Transcribe

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am…

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Google brings Chrome OS Instant Tethering to more Chromebooks and phones
4th February 2019
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Android

Google brings Chrome OS Instant Tethering to more Chromebooks and phones

Tethering your laptop and phone can be a bit of a hassle. Google’s Chrome OS has long offered a solution called Instant Tethering that makes the process automatic, but…

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First China, now Starbucks gets an ambitious VC-funded rival in Indonesia
1st February 2019
Permalink
Android

First China, now Starbucks gets an ambitious VC-funded rival in Indonesia

Asia’s venture capital-backed startups are gunning for Starbucks . In China, the U.S. coffee giant is being pushed by Luckin Coffee, a $2.2 billion challenger surfing China’s on-demand…

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Gmail on mobile gets a fresh coat of Material Design paint
29th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Gmail on mobile gets a fresh coat of Material Design paint

Gmail on mobile will soon get a new look. Google today announced that its mobile email apps for iOS and Android are getting a redesign that is in…

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Researcher shows how popular app ES File Explorer exposes Android device data
26th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Researcher shows how popular app ES File Explorer exposes Android device data

Why is one of the most popular Android apps running a hidden web server in the background? ES File Explorer claims it has more than 500 million downloads…

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Groww, an investment app for millennials in India, raises $6.2M
23rd January 2019
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Android

Groww, an investment app for millennials in India, raises $6.2M

Groww, a startup hoping to make saving and investment opportunities more widely available to young people in India, has closed a $6.2 million Series A to grow its business.…

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LG hints at gesture interface for smartphone flagship next month
23rd January 2019
Permalink
Android

LG hints at gesture interface for smartphone flagship next month

LG has put out a gesture-heavy hint ahead of the annual unveiling of new smartphone hardware at the world’s biggest mobile confab, Mobile World Congress, which kicks off…

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Politiscope, an app to track Congressional voting records and bills, launches on Android devices
22nd January 2019
Permalink
Android

Politiscope, an app to track Congressional voting records and bills, launches on Android devices

Last September, two former National Football League players launched an app called Politiscope to track the voting records of members of Congress and the bills that they were…

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Politiscope, an app to track Congressional voting records and bills, launches on android devices
22nd January 2019
Permalink
Android

Politiscope, an app to track Congressional voting records and bills, launches on android devices

Last September, two former National Football League players launched an app called Politiscope to track the voting records of members of Congress and the bills that they were…

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Google starts pulling unvetted Android apps that access call logs and SMS messages
18th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Google starts pulling unvetted Android apps that access call logs and SMS messages

Google is removing apps from Google Play that request permission to access call logs and SMS text message data but haven’t been manually vetted by Google staff. The search…

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Flutterwave and Visa launch African consumer payment service GetBarter
17th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Flutterwave and Visa launch African consumer payment service GetBarter

Fintech startup Flutterwave has partnered with Visa to launch a consumer payment product for Africa called GetBarter. The app-based offering is aimed at facilitating personal and small merchant payments within countries…

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Spotify launches Car View on Android to make using its app less dangerous behind the wheel
17th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Spotify launches Car View on Android to make using its app less dangerous behind the wheel

Spotify is making it easier to use its streaming app in the car, when the phone is connected to the vehicle over Bluetooth. The company today confirmed the…

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Twitter bug revealed some Android users’ private tweets
17th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Twitter bug revealed some Android users’ private tweets

Twitter accidentally revealed some users’ “protected” (aka, private) tweets, the company disclosed this afternoon. The “Protect your Tweets” setting typically allows people to use Twitter in a non-public fashion.…

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Twitter’s de-algorithmizing ‘sparkle button’ rolls out on Android
16th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Twitter’s de-algorithmizing ‘sparkle button’ rolls out on Android

After launching on iOS, Twitter is giving Android users the ability to easily switch between seeing the reverse-chronological “latest tweets” and the algorithmic “top tweets” feeds on their…

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VLC prepares to add AirPlay support as it crosses 3 billion downloads
11th January 2019
Permalink
Android

VLC prepares to add AirPlay support as it crosses 3 billion downloads

VLC, the hugely popular media playing service, is filling one of its gaps with the addition of AirPlay support as it has just crossed an incredible three billion users.…

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Tor pulls in record donations as it lessens reliance on US government grants
11th January 2019
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Android

Tor pulls in record donations as it lessens reliance on US government grants

Tor, the open-source initiative that provides a more secure way to access the internet, is continuing to diversify its funding away from its long-standing reliance on U.S. government…

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Shareholder suit alleges Google covered up its sexual harassment problems with big payouts
11th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Shareholder suit alleges Google covered up its sexual harassment problems with big payouts

Months after an earth-shattering New York Times investigation exposed Google parent company Alphabet’s $90 million payout to Android co-founder Andy Rubin, despite the accusations of sexual misconduct made…

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GM is smartening up its Bolt EV smartphone app
10th January 2019
Permalink
Android

GM is smartening up its Bolt EV smartphone app

GM is sprucing up its smartphone app for owners of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt through a collaboration with charging network companies EVgo, ChargePoint and Greenlots. The idea is…

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Facebook is the new crapware
9th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Facebook is the new crapware

Welcome to 2019, where we learn Facebook is the new crapware. Sorry #DeleteFacebook, you never stood a chance. Yesterday Bloomberg reported that the scandal-beset social media behemoth has inked…

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Millions of Android users tricked into downloading 85 adware apps from Google Play
8th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Millions of Android users tricked into downloading 85 adware apps from Google Play

Another day, another batch of bad apps in Google Play. Researchers at security firm Trend Micro have discovered dozens of apps, including popular utilities and games, to serve…

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China’s Baidu says its answer to Alexa is now on 200M devices
7th January 2019
Permalink
Android

China’s Baidu says its answer to Alexa is now on 200M devices

A Chinese voice assistant has been rapidly gaining ground in recent months. DuerOS, Baidu’s answer to Amazon’s Alexa, reached over 200 million devices, China’s top search engine announced…

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Apple’s increasingly tricky international trade-offs
6th January 2019
Permalink
Android

Apple’s increasingly tricky international trade-offs

Far from Apple’s troubles in emerging markets and China, the company is attracting the ire of what should really be a core supporter demographic naturally aligned with the…

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Chinese app developers have invaded India
2nd January 2019
Permalink
Android

Chinese app developers have invaded India

If you’ve conquered China, then India — the world’s second-largest country based on population — is the obvious next port of call, and that’s exactly what has happened…

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Put down your phone if you want to innovate
28th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Put down your phone if you want to innovate

We are living in an interstitial period. In the early 1980s we entered an era of desktop computing that culminated in the dot-com crash — a financial bubble…

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Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, banked a $3 billion profit in 2018
27th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, banked a $3 billion profit in 2018

Epic Games had as good a year in 2018 as any company in tech. Fortnite became the world’s most popular game, growing the company’s valuation to $15 billion,…

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The top smartphone trends to watch in 2019
22nd December 2018
Permalink
Android

The top smartphone trends to watch in 2019

This was a bad year for the smartphone. For the first time, its seemingly unstoppable growth began to slow. Things started off on a bad note in February,…

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Firefox Focus adds support for enhanced tracking protection and Google’s Safe Browsing service
20th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Firefox Focus adds support for enhanced tracking protection and Google’s Safe Browsing service

Firefox Focus for Android and iOS is Mozilla’s privacy-centric mobile browser. Today, the organization stepped up this promise of keeping its users’ data private by adding to the…

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Ola, Uber’s India rival, invests $100M in scooter rental startup Vogo
18th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Ola, Uber’s India rival, invests $100M in scooter rental startup Vogo

We’re familiar with Uber cozying up to scooter startups — it has bought one and invested in another — but over in India, the U.S. firm’s key rival…

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Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android, despite Europe’s antitrust action
18th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Google still claimed to be blocking search rivals on Android, despite Europe’s antitrust action

Mobile licensing changes made by Google this fall, when it tweaked terms for OEMs wanting to license its Android smartphone platform on devices destined for the European market,…

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Prisma’s new AI-powered app, Lensa, helps the selfie camera lie
14th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Prisma’s new AI-powered app, Lensa, helps the selfie camera lie

Prisma Labs, the startup behind the style transfer craze of a couple of years ago, has a new AI-powered iOS app for retouching selfies. An Android version of…

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Popular avatar app Boomoji exposed millions of users’ contact lists and location data
14th December 2018
Permalink
Android

Popular avatar app Boomoji exposed millions of users’ contact lists and location data

Popular animated avatar creator app Boomoji, with more than five million users across the world, exposed the personal data of its entire user base after it failed to…

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The annual PornHub year in review tells us what we’re really looking at online
14th December 2018
Permalink
Android

The annual PornHub year in review tells us what we’re really looking at online

PornHub, a popular site that features people in various stages of undress, saw 33.5 billion visits in 2018. There are currently 7.53 billion people on Earth. Y’all have…

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