Here’s our first look at LG’s crazy dual display “Wing” smartphone

The LG Wing is an upcoming dual-screen smartphone from the South Korean manufacturer, which first popped up online earlier this year in May. Unlike other dual-screen devices in the market today, the LG wing features a swiveling 6.8-inch main display that can be rotated to reveal a second 4-inch display hidden underneath. While LG is yet to reveal any information about the device, a video showcasing the LG Wing in action has now surfaced online.

The folks over at Android Authority have managed to procure exclusive footage of the LG Wing in action, which gives us our first look at the crazy dual-screen smartphone. As you can see in the attached video, the LG Wing can be used in the portrait orientation with the second display open on the side to show additional information. In this instance, the main display on the device is being used to display navigation info, while the second display shows the music player and an incoming call.

Accepting the call replaces the music player UI with the phone UI on the second display, without interfering with the navigation UI on the first display. This is one of the many ways the second display on the LG Wing can come in handy. The leaked image that we saw previously shows another use case, in which the second display is being used in the portrait orientation and it displays the keyboard, while the first display is in the horizontal orientation. Thanks to this unique approach, the LG Wing doesn’t feature a notch or a hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera.

While the video doesn’t show the swiveling mechanism in action, we suspect that it may work like the mechanism on the LG V9000. The video also doesn’t reveal any information about the device’s hardware, but previous leaks suggest that it will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 series processor with 5G capabilities. The device is also expected to feature a triple camera setup on the back, with a 64MP primary sensor. LG is scheduled to announce the smartphone in the coming months and it will have a price tag close to 1 million Won (~$842).

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Source: Android Authority

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Google Home app adds a dark theme, expanded Android 11 controls, unified camera feed, and more

Google Assistant users were treated to a slew of new features in the latest version of the Google Home app for Android. Version 2.27 of the app brings expanded support for Android 11’s smart home power menu controls, the addition of a dark theme, a unified camera feed, and teases the ability to unlock Google Nest smart locks. Here’s a summary of what’s new.

Unified Nest camera page

One of the most helpful new features in Google Home version 2.27 is a new unified page for all your camera feeds (via 9to5Google). Going forward, users can access a page that will show every camera feed on their network. The view is similar to what you’d get in the Nest app. Currently, it only seems to show feeds from Nest cameras.

Screenshots credit: Abner Li/9to5Google

To access it, simply tap on the “Cameras” button right under the name of your home.

Unlock Nest smart locks

Google Home will also soon gain the ability to unlock Nest locks. Google actually teased this feature in a promo featuring Fred Armisen, who unlocks the Nest x Yale lock with his Android device. 9to5Google notes that the version 2.27 release notes for the iOS app mention the ability to unlock a Nest x Yale lock, though the feature is not yet live in the latest Android release. The feature will likely go live soon via a feature flag toggle in a server-side update, though.

Dark theme

Additionally, Google has added a dark theme to Google Home which syncs with Android’s system-wide dark mode toggle, making the app a little easier on the eyes. Google has brought dark mode to its various apps over the past year, and it’s nice to see the same treatment brought to Google Home. AndroidPolice notes that the dark theme has been applied to basically every part of the app, including the settings, the media controller, and more.

Screenshots credit: Rita El Khoury/AndroidPolice

There’s no toggle to change the theme in the app’s settings, though.

Expanded Android 11 Device Controls support

As spotted by AndroidPolice, the same Google Home 2.27 update also expands upon the types of devices you can add to Android 11’s power menu. You can now add Chromecasts, speakers with Google Assistant or Chromecast built-in, and smart displays to the power menu.

Google Home 2.27 now lets you add Google Assistant smart speakers (like ones from JBL), soundbars, and Google Home devices. Screenshots credits: Rita El Khoury/AndroidPolice

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That’s quite a lot of new features squeezed into one update. Not only is Google Home more visually pleasing, but it’s now more useful for anyone with a Google Nest product. Google Home v2.27 is rolling out now on the Google Play Store, but as always, you can sideload the latest release from APKMirror.

Google Home (Free, Google Play) →

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Microsoft Word on the web adds a speech transcription feature for Microsoft 365 subscribers

Microsoft Word on the web is getting a new feature that will make it much easier for students and reporters to record notes, lectures, or interviews. The company on Tuesday announced that the Microsoft Word web app is adding a transcription feature. Called Transcribe in Word, the feature will allow users to record conversations directly in Word for the web and have the service automatically transcribe the audio.

According to Microsoft, your recording and its transcript will appear alongside the Word document. When a conversation is transcribed, Word will separate each speaker and format the document into sections, with timestamps to let you return to that part of the audio. This will make it easy to playback, edit, or insert the transcript into a Word document. The feature also supports transcribing previously recorded audio or video files in .mp3, .wav, .m4a, or .mp4 formats, so you can easily upload an interview or lecture you previously recorded.

Users will get access to five hours per month of uploaded recordings, which are capped at 200MB per recording. If you record and transcribe directly through Word, though, there are no restrictions. As of this writing, English (specifically, the EN-US locale) is the only language that is supported for transcription, but more languages will be supported down the road.

Microsoft 365 subscribers can start using Transcribe in Word beginning today. Right now, the feature is only available in Word for the Web in the new Microsoft Edge or Chrome browsers. Microsoft said it has plans to bring the same features to the iOS and Android apps by the end of the year.

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Google Chrome gets faster and new tab, PDF, and URL sharing features

Google on Tuesday said Chrome will be faster thanks to Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) and tab throttling. In addition, Google is adding a few productivity tweaks that make tabs easier to manage, URLs easier to share, and PDFs easier to fill out.

With Profile Guided Optimization, which is now in Chrome 85 on Mac and Windows, Google says tabs will load up to 10% faster at the median, with even greater performance improvements when your PC’s CPU is loaded with many tabs or other programs. It’s a compiler optimization technique wherein the most performance-critical parts of the code can run faster.

In addition, Google Chrome is introducing tab throttling in beta. The feature works by giving more resources to the tabs you’re using, rather than distributing resources equally. “We see improvements not only in loading speed but also battery and memory savings,” said Max Christoff, Engineering Director, Chrome.

Google also detailed the browser’s new tab grouping feature, which the company previously rolled out to PCs in beta and to Chrome OS 83. The feature allows users to distinguish tabs by topic, task, or priority. And when tabs are in groups, they can be collapsed and expanded for a cleaner, more organized workspace. According to Google, this was one of Chrome’s most requested features.

Google also said tab previews are coming to Chrome in beta. The feature will allow users to hover over a tab and quickly see a thumbnail preview. The feature will come in handy in situations when you have a lot of tabs open from the same website or service.

 

Additionally, Chrome is adding the ability to share a web page via a QR code on Android, touch-friendly tabs for tablets (shown below), suggestions for switching to an already-open tab on Android, and the ability to fill out PDFs before downloading them.

Google Chrome: Fast & Secure (Free, Google Play) →

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Fitbit announces Sense, Versa 3, and Inspire 2 fitness tracking wearables

Fitbit on Tuesday unveiled two new smartwatches and an affordable fitness tracker to help manage your physical health during these uncertain times, as expected. The smartwatches include the Fitbit Sense and Fitbit Versa 3, the former of which comes equipped with an electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor, although the feature is still pending FDA approval. The Inspire 2 is the name of the new fitness tracker.

The Fitbit Sense is the most advanced of Fitbit’s new smartwatches. At a price of $329, the wearable features an array of sensors in addition to the aforementioned ECG app. The Sense offers an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor for managing stress, on-wrist skin temperature sensor, and advanced heart rate tracking technology. The EDA sensor is particularly interesting in a world where stress is the norm. By placing your palm over the Sense’s display, the EDA will read your skin’s temperature and score you on your stress level. Over time, the Sense may recommend ways to manage your stress.

Buyers also get a free six-month trial of Premium, a service that tracks things like heart rate variability (HRV), breathing rate, and SpO2. These insights will give users the data to improve their health and wellbeing.

Beyond that, both the Sense and Versa 3 come equipped with many features you’d expect from a smartwatch: built-in GPS, OLED displays, water-resistance up to 50 meters, and at least six days of battery life. The two devices also support Fitbit Pay and Google Assistant (coming winter 2020).

Additionally, the company has announced the Inspire 2, a small fitness tracker that offers up to 10 days of battery life and a new touch panel. While not as advanced as the Sense or Versa 3, consumers who opt for the Inspire 2 will a free one-year trial of Premium ($79 value).

Fitbit Inspire 2

Finally, Fitbit has introduced Premium + Health Coaching, a service that will provide subscribers with virtual one-on-one coaching. The service features certified health professionals who can come up with personalized health plans based on Fitbit data.

The Fitbit Sense will be available for $329 in carbon/graphite stainless steel or lunar white/soft gold. The Fitbit Versa 3 will be available for $229 in black/black aluminum, pink clay/soft gold aluminum, and midnight/soft gold aluminum. The Fitbit Inspire 2 is available for $99 in black, lunar white and desert rose. You can preorder the devices today, with worldwide availability starting in late September.

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Mozilla rolls out Firefox 79 for Android with a year’s worth of changes

Update 1 (08/25/2020 @ 1:06 PM ET): Mozilla has officially announced the rollout of the new Firefox for Android experience. Scroll to the bottom for more information. The article as published on July 29, 2020, is preserved below.

Mozilla Firefox is among the most popular alternatives to Google Chrome for both — mobile devices and desktops. Despite competition from Chrome, Mozilla Corporation — the organization behind Firefox — has been rolling out several updates over the years to keep their desktop and mobile apps relevant. After overhauling their desktop browser, known by its interim name “Firefox Quantum,” Mozilla has been working to upgrade the mobile browser — temporarily recognized as Fenix — for about a year. The new version has been available in the Preview channel (which was recently merged with the Nightly channel) for quite some time and is finally rolling out to the stable channel as Firefox 79 for Android (via AndroidPolice), albeit without one key feature.

In July 2018, Mozilla for Android entered the maintenance phase to focus on developing an entirely new version without a new codebase instead of updating the existing one. Firefox for Android hasn’t received a major update since July last year and is now making a jump straight from version 68 to 79.

Among the new feature, Firefox 79 for Android brings a clean and modern UI. The codebase and thus, the functionality is the same as the Preview builds but one feature that’s lacking on the stable build is proper support for add-ons (a.k.a. extensions). Mozilla only starting adding support for add-ons on Firefox Preview/Nightly back in February this year. It added five more add-ons in April, and then another three earlier this month. As of now, the total number of add-ons supported on the stable as well as the Nightly channels is only nine. This means that Firefox for Android loses access to thousands of extensions that were supported on the previous versions.

While it is understandable that the complete migration of add-ons to the new codebase requires time, release without proper support is bound to disappoint those who like to use specific extensions avidly. If you want to continue using those add-ons, you may have to stick to the older version of Firefox for Android. But if you’re among those who want a cleaner and faster browser experience, you can go ahead and either update the app from the Google Play Store or download the latest version from APK Mirror.

Download Firefox 79 for Android from APK Mirror

Firefox Browser: fast, private & safe web browser (Free, Google Play) →

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Update: Official Announcement

In a blog post, Mozilla announced that the new version of Firefox for Android is rolling out widely for users in Europe starting today and will roll out for users in North America on Thursday. The new update, which has version number 79, brings a new, cleaner UI with improved one-handed use, Collections, an automatic dark theme toggle, Enhanced Tracking Protection, an improved Private Mode, initial support for 9 extensions/add-ons, and most importantly, Mozilla’s new GeckoView browser engine. Mozilla has dubbed this release “Firefox Daylight” since it marks a new beginning for the company’s Android browser.

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TWRP now supports the Samsung Galaxy M30, Galaxy A40, Huawei P20 Lite, Moto G5S Plus, but drops POCO F1 support

The Team Win Recovery Project, AKA TWRP, needs no introduction to the Android modding community. Over the last few years, TWRP has become the de-facto standard for custom recovery in the Android ecosystem. One of the reasons why TWRP is so popular compared to other custom recovery solutions is the massive number of Android devices the project supports, with new devices being added to the official roster on a regular basis. Since our last coverage, the developer team has officially added support for the Samsung Galaxy M30, Galaxy A40, Huawei P20 Lite, and the Moto G5S Plus.

Samsung Galaxy M30

The Exynos 7904-powered Samsung Galaxy M30 has had an unofficial port of TWRP available on our forums for a while now, courtesy of XDA Member Akhil99. If you were one of those standing by for an official build, your wait is finally over — official TWRP is now available for your device from the same developer. Before you go ahead, make sure to take some time to read through the flashing instructions posted on the aforementioned forum thread.

Galaxy M30 TWRP ||| Galaxy M30 XDA Forums

Samsung Galaxy A40

Next up is the Samsung Galaxy A40, which has received its official TWRP build thanks to the efforts of Alberto Ponces, AKA XDA Senior Member ponces. The developer also provides separate AOSP and One UI-based kernels for MTP to work properly inside the custom recovery environment.

Galaxy A40 TWRP ||| Galaxy A40 XDA Forums

Huawei P20 Lite

The Huawei P20 Lite was launched back in 2018 as a budget offering in the Chinese OEM’s P20 lineup. The official TWRP build for this phone is maintained by XDA Recognized Developer DarkJoker360 and can be downloaded from the link below. You should also check out the device forums to see which ROMs and mods you can try out after you have flashed the recovery.

Huawei P20 Lite TWRP ||| Huawei P20 Lite XDA Forums

Moto G5S Plus

There are plenty of aftermarket developments that exist for the Motorola Moto G5S Plus on our forums, and the official TWRP build is a welcome addition to them. XDA Member iamsaalim is the maintainer of TWRP for this smartphone.

Moto G5S Plus TWRP ||| Moto G5S Plus

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Removal of POCO F1

Not all of today’s news is good news, though, as the fan-favorite POCO F1 is no longer officially supported by the team. Fortunately, third-party development for the POCO F1 is still on high-gear, and users can choose from a number of unofficial TWRP forks from our forums.

POCO F1 XDA Forums

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