Google Maps is far and away the best online mapping service out there and it’s no mystery why: Google has been working on it constantly for years and it employs more than 7,000 people whose sole job is to make it better. This year has seen a huge flurry of new Google Maps features and to help you keep track of them all we’ve decided to list our five favorites that you should definitely check out to enhance your traveling experience.
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Earlier this year, Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin said Google will discontinue the Nexus line in 2015 and replace it with a family of handsets. At the same time, rumors about 2014 Nexus tablets and smartphones arrived, suggesting that HTC may be working on a Nexus 8/9 tablet, while LG builds the Nexus 6 handset. But Murtazin’s revelations were soon backed by reports detailing Android Silver, a new Google initiative supposed to replace the Nexus line.
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We’re still several months away from seeing Apple unveil its next-generation iPhone 6 handset, but the leaks and rumors have already kicked into high gear. There are plenty of purported new iPhone 6 details that pop up each day, but we also see bloggers constantly finding new ways to use the many supposed iPhone 6 mockups currently circulating. Rumor has it that these mockups were created using actual schematics for Apple’s iPhone 6 that were leaked from Foxconn and used by third-party case makers to get an early jump on producing cases for Apple’s new iPhone.
Now, one blogger has found an entirely new way to use an iPhone 6 mockup, and it may give us our first glimpse of what it will be like to actually use a larger iPhone handset.
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Microsoft is widely expected to unveil its first-generation Surface mini tablet during a press conference on Tuesday. The device is thought to feature a display that measures approximately 8 inches diagonally, and it is also said to include a Qualcomm processor instead of an Nvidia chipset like the ones that powered Microsoft’s earlier Windows RT tablets. According to a new report, however, a refresh of one of Microsoft’s current tablets could steal the show.
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After agreeing to a ceasefire with Google, Apple may soon find a way to settle all its disputes with Samsung out of court, The Korea Times has learned, as the two companies have recently agreed to resume settlement talks. This isn’t the first time Apple and Samsung have tried to solve their legal issues out of court, and put an end to a legal war that started more than three years ago, but the publication suggests things have changed since the last time they met.
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Halo fans who have purchased Microsoft’s newest console should be thrilled to hear that a special edition “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” game is coming to the Xbox One this year, according to Engadget, bringing several remastered Halo titles to Microsoft’s new gaming platform.
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Google is reportedly ready to purchase another company in a deal worth $1 billion, focusing this time on live streaming service Twitch (or Twitch.tv), which is a very popular platform for live gaming videos. According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Verge, the two companies have agreed on a price and are ironing out the final details of the sale “such as how independent the Twitch company and brand will remain.”
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The “Never Settle” Android smartphone has an exciting price and even more interesting specs, but OnePlus doesn’t appear to have what it takes to meet the impressive demand, or at least not for the time being. That’s why the company is using an invite system, which will be the only way to buy a OnePlus One handset for now. The company on Saturday announced that it’s finally ready to roll out the first “major batch of invites,” although it did not provide an actual release date, saying the invites are coming “soon.”
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The great mobile patent wars are finally coming to an end, at least as far as battles between Google and Apple are concerned. Per The Wall Street Journal, the two companies announced on Friday night that they were dropping all remaining patent suits that they have against one another and instead work to push for reforms in United States patent law. The new patent truce doesn’t mean the two companies will start licensing one another’s patents, however, and Apple says that the truce won’t change anything when it comes to its ongoing lawsuits against Samsung even though its last effort at squeezing money from the Korean smartphone titan was not nearly as successful as it had hoped. Even so, the mutual disarmament between Apple and Google seems to indicate that the “holy war” that Steve Jobs wanted to wage against Google has now come to an end.
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Living in the desert no longer has to mean being parched for drinking water. MIT has posted a video this month that shows how some researchers from its School of Engineering are working with researchers at the Pontificial University of Chile in Santiago to design a system for collecting fresh drinking water from fog that regularly rolls through Chile’s otherwise arid coastal region.
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