Androidifying

So far, if you’ve mostly been using Wikipedia’s website to impress everyone around you with your “in-depth” knowledge about everything under the sun, the newly redesigned Wikipedia Android app can now help you show off even more. After adding the new Explore feed to the Wikipedia app for iOS in March this year, the Wikimedia Mobile Apps team has redesigned the home screen of its Android version to bring you the same feature. The Explore feed on the redesigned Android app brings you curated content, such as images, news content, and articles, based on what you’ve read. Don’t like any of Wikipedia’s suggested images or articles? You can simply swipe away any uninteresting content because the app now uses a card-based layout. If you’ve been too busy to keep up with the news, you can just keep scrolling down the feed endlessly to check out older content. If you are looking to re-visit an article that you didn’t have the time to go through, the app also allows you to simply save it to yo

Samsung has released a video of a battery test comparing all major flagship smartphones and you’ll never guess who the winner is. Not surprisingly, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge beat out all other devices in the test, including the LG G5 which is actually the first phone to die. If all this sounds a little too convenient for you, then you’re not alone. See also: Should I leave my phone plugged in overnight? 134 Now, every smartphone manufacturer does a ton of internal testing. And every smartphone manufacturer buys phones from competitors for comparisons so they can make those bold claims you always see at press conferences. But you’d have to be a little naive to believe the claims being made are 100% accurate. There are a lot of ways to manipulate data or otherwise rig the system to come out on top and Samsung’s battery test video is no different. Samsung video on how the battery test was conducted . Which is not to say that the S7 and S7 Edge batteries aren’t good –

With the announcement of Android N back a few months ago, Google mentioned that Android would be supporting the new Vulkan graphics API . If you haven’t heard of Vulkan then we have a full rundown in our  Vulkan – everything you need to know article, plus we did a deep dive into making high performance 3D apps with Vulkan . One key question is this, how does Vulkan perform compared to OpenGL ES 3.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0? Let’s find out. Methodology of the tests At the moment, there is no easy way to test Vulkan versus OpenGL ES 3.1 on Android. My go to 3D engine Unreal Engine does not support the Android-24 API, so while Vulkan is technically supported, I was not able to get Vulkan working on my Nexus 6P to do this. Instead, I will be using Nvidia’s samples for this article to test Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 on my desktop for performance tests and Unreal Engine for graphics comparisons between Vulkan on mobile with OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.1. In the Nvidia tests the C

Hailing a ride on Uber just got easier because you can now book their cab directly using just the Snapdeal app. While Indian consumers have been enjoying the wave of discounts, bargains, and offers being given by e-commerce companies in their bid to woo customers, the intensifying competition is also forcing the players to enter into partnerships for trading their products and services on each others’ platform. In April 2015, the online marketplace Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd) forayed into the services space by acquiring Freecharge, a utility bill payments and mobile wallet service provider, for a huge $400 million, marking the biggest-ever acquisition in the Indian consumer Internet history. Snapdeal has now just begun offering flight and bus ticket bookings, hotel reservations, and food ordering services on its platform by entering into partnerships with Cleartrip, redBus, Zomato, and home services provider UrbanClap. Offering a range of services through partnerships, ins

Amazon Imagine never having to leave your house to get groceries – simply say the things you need, and everything is delivered to you. Does this sound like some futuristic utopian world? Well, what if I told you that’s been the reality for quite some time now with Amazon? Amazon Dash is a device that AmazonFresh customers can use to order groceries through scanning bar codes of products that they’ve run out of or simply by dictating what they need. The Dash device recognizes the desired items and automatically adds them to your basket. All you have to do is confirm your order, and your groceries are delivered to your front step. Simple as that. The grocery scanner has been available in the US for some time now albeit through invitation only.  Well, for our neighbors across the pond who have been waiting, we bring you good news: the Dash scanner is now available in the UK. The bad news is that initially, the service will only be available in 128 London postcodes. Don’t be too

On the whole, Google’s parent company is on the rise. Alphabet is reporting a 21 percent revenue growth year on year, and most of that comes from the boons of advertising. While it’s no question that the information king has advertising in the bag, the company is nevertheless hemorrhaging funds in a blanket category described as “Other Bets.” See also: FTC extends its antitrust investigation into Alphabet and Android 48 So what exactly is Other Bets? Well, mostly these include moonshot projects, a number of initiatives that earned about $185 million over the course of the last quarter. However, in spite of these earnings, projects like s elf-driving cars and worldwide internet powered by balloons has cost the company a hefty $859 million. Fortunately, it appears that Alphabet is able to neatly eat these costs thanks to their $7 billion advertising profits. It’s worth noting too that, even though Other Bets is still in the red, the category at large may eventually have a futur

Over the past few years, we’ve been seeing a growing number of high quality but affordable smartphones being released. While many have hoped, or outright claimed, to be flagship killers, they have tended to fall short of the flagship competition in some respects. The great news is that this is slowly changing as well, and there are a few smartphones out there that are largely indistinguishable from the expensive flagships, but offer far more bang for you buck. One such phone is ZTE’s $400 flagship, but the great price point aside, this device can still be considered one of the best smartphones you can buy. We list the reasons why, in this closer look at the ZTE Axon 7 ! Buy the Axon 7 now! Design Design is certainly a point of focus with the Axon 7, and that is made abundantly clear as soon as you first hold the phone in your hand. With ZTE being a Chinese OEM, the “Designed in the USA,” tag on the back of the phone may come as a bit of a surprise, but it is symbolic of a special