We recently covered the Remix Mini, a pocket-PC running Remix OS designed by ex-Googlers to replace your desktop, mentioning that ROMs for Android tablets were in the works. That has now become reality for the Nexus 9 & 10, allowing them to benefit from windowed multitasking and desktop-class functionality.
Interested in Motorola’s latest flagship but wish you could play in Moto Maker already? Reddit user Wishbound has put together a great thread full of the options we can expect to pick from for the Moto X Style.
The OnePlus 2 invite queue contains flaws that allows cheating. That and much more news is covered by XDA TV Producer Jordan when he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week’s news is the announcement of a the details of the serious security vulnerability on Android called Stagefright and be sure to check out the article talking more about the voices of XDA. That’s not all that’s covered in today’s video!
Be sure to check out other great XDA TV Videos
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Looking to solve several problems he faces when using meeting rooms: knowing whether an empty meeting room is going to be available; and, knowing if a booked meeting room is actually used. Jan Jongboom has developed an Android connected IoT meeting room and has now shared the replicable process.
By now you may have heard that OnePlus are auctioning off 100 invites for the OnePlus Two on eBay with all the proceeds going to UNICEF’s Project Tap. But what is Project Tap, how do they relate to mobile and why would One Plus care? We reached out to OnePlus to find out.
The highest bidder on each of the 100 invites when the auction ends, will be sent an invite via direct message on eBay on August 10th. The winner will then have 7 days to claim this to their OnePlus account and a further month to purchase the device, a 64GB OnePlus Two in sandstone black. The normal invites will have just a 24-hour window to be redeemed. All the money from the sale will then be directly transferred to Unicef, a charity chosen by buyers of the OnePlus One. As OP told us “Clean water is a basic necessity and access to it makes a huge difference. This is the second year we are attempting this project, and there are likely to be more. We do see our company and movement as something that can and should be a force for good in the world.”
The Tap project initially relied on both donations and web usage. Donations were added to the app’s kitty where they could then be unlocked 1 day’s clean water at a time, which is equal to $0.025. Similar to many anti-procrastination apps that we have seen, every 15 minutes you left the app open on your phone, Unicef would release a day’s clean drinking water to children in need. They state that with just $1, UNICEF can help provide a child with access to clean, safe water for 40 days. Visiting tap.unicefusa.org from a mobile device will access your accelerometer and request that you place your device down somewhere. As soon as it detects you are not moving a timer starts, and the site displays various facts, images and statistics about the project. It is really simple to use and is something we can all help with, simply leave the page open while you sleep or are at work. Eight hours sleep would allow for 32 days of clean drinking water to be donated. Likewise so would a standard 8-hour work shift. That means in a week where you work 5 days and get 8 hours sleep a night you can donate enough for 384 days! If you did this for a full year you would have unlocked almost 55 years worth of water, now if that was not easy enough think about if you automated the process with Tasker to trigger at certain times or upon charging. The Unicef website now states that time donations are currently inactive but keep checking back and you could help change the world.
At the time of writing the auction had amassed a total in the region of $56,600 spread over thousands of bids, with days left on the auction we could easily see this reach $100,000 which would be sufficient to provide clean water to 11,000 of those who need it for a year.
Get involved:
The auction can be found here,
More information on Project Tap is available at the Unicef website.
Editor’s note: “Sorry for the click bait title, but whether you like OnePlus and their devices or not, this is a truly worthwhile cause. The charity was voted for by the public and can really make people’s lives better when they need it the most. If my use of click bait saves even one person’s life then it was worth it.”
Have you placed a bid on an invite? Win or lose the auction every bid helps raise the price and gives a little more to a worthwhile cause.
Zimperium, the security company that initially discovered the Stagefright bug, have released an update on their blog with further details and patching progress, along with a demonstration video. They’ve also published a Detector app to the Play Store here, which quickly displays your device’s vulnerability to the exploit.
Google announced that the entire Nexus family—Nexus 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, and Nexus Player—will henceforth be receiving monthly OTA security updates. The first of such updates has been pushed out, today, and fixes various bugs, including for issues related to libStageFright.
