Author: Clinton

One of the interesting tidbits that came out of CES 2016 this week was an announcement yesterday from Lenovo and Google around Project Tango.  The companies announced that such a devices will be available sometime this summer, bringing what has been a somewhat quiet project for Google this past year to the market.

So what exactly is Project Tango?  By Google’s definition it is…

Project Tango technology gives a mobile device the ability to navigate the physical world similar to how we do as humans

Now that’s a bit broad but essentially what it does is bring a whole new level of awareness to your device through various sensors.  These sensors allow for the device to understand motion, depth perception and area learning so your device learns and becomes aware of its surrounding.  The most obvious example of this would be a game being played in the physical work of your house with things like walls being walls and sofas being barriers as you play.  But really, the potential of this technology is hard to grasp.

One of the best articles explaining Project Tango I have read is from Mike Elgan for a piece he wrote for Computer World.  I highly recommend reading it to get a grasp of what it is and how it could impact so many facets of life.

In the flurry of updates that happened to not just Google apps but apps in general for Android at the end of last year, one big change came to Google Maps.  The app gained the ability to have offline maps available, something that competitor products had enjoyed for a long while yet for whatever reason, Google had not yet supported it.  That has changed now and in typical Google fashion, they have made it very easy to create offline maps.

Why would you want offline maps?  Simple really.  No matter which carrier you use for your mobile service, you will undoubtedly hit a dead zone where you have no coverage.  I experienced this over Thanksgiving when I drove from my home in Denver to ski in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  There is a good 50-odd miles stretch that has absolutely no mobile coverage.  I did not have it with Project Fi (which meant there was no T-Mobile or Sprint in the area) and my wife had no coverage on her iPhone with AT&T.  This scenario is exactly where offline maps become important, especially if you know you are going to have to make some road changes to get to your destination but aren’t exactly sure where those are going to happen.

For this How To I’ll show you how easy Google has made it to create offline maps in Google Maps and how the app works with them.

Honor, the budget conscious subsidiary of Huawei, has announced their arrive into the US market in a big way.  Their first phone to launch here, the Honor 5X, is a 5.5″ unibody design and is only $199.99 right now at Amazon.  The phone will start shipping on January 31st but pre-orders are being taken now.  For the price, you get an impressive phone.

To start, the Honor 5X has a 5.5″ 1920 x 1080 Full HD display that is powered by 1.5Ghz Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor.  It has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of Storage and can be expanded up to 128GB thanks to a MicroSD card slot.  It has a 3000 mAh battery, a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera.  Here in the US it will support LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 12 and 17 and WCDMA bands 1,2,4,5 which means that it will work on any carrier here at some level.  Be sure to refer to my guide on LTE bands for more details on carriers here in the US and their LTE bands.

Honor 5X – Available January 31, 2016 – Pre-Order for $199.99 from Amazon

Android Marshmallow continues to roll out to a wide range of devices with even more expected in this quarter but to suggest the adoption is setting the world alight would be an great overstatement.  In their latest report on Android versions that have hit the Google Play Store, Google has posted that devices running the latest version of the mobile OS accounts for 0.7%.  While that is up .2% from December, it is a far cry from rapid adoption.  Worse, Android Lollipop, the previous version, continues to hold steady with about 32% of the market.  While the information is not 100% accurate, it does give developers a good idea of users who are coming to the store which in turn gives us as users a good idea too.

By far the two most dominant version of Android remain Lollipop at 32.6% and KitKat at 36.1%.  KitKat has seen a slow drop in usage as more people move to newer devices with a newer version of Android but it gives you a good idea of the challenge Google faces in getting consumers and manufactures to move up to the latest version of their mobile OS.

[Update]  Thanks to reader Andrew Mikolajczyk who posted another code that is available.  See it after the break along with the rest of the codes.

Like any mobile provider, Project Fi has a list of Dialer Codes that force your Nexus device to interact with the service in a certain way.  This could be, for example, to force your phone to only use T-Mobile, or Sprint or even repair a bad activation.  Generally speaking these codes should only be used in specific circumstances with the guidance of the Project Fi support team.  However, if you want to try them out, you can do so and you will find all of them after the break.

A word of warning before you jump ahead.  While I am publishing these codes, Google can change them and I make no guarantee they will work for you.  Further, you use these codes at your own risk.  Dialer Codes will force a behavior and to “unforce” that behavior, you may (likely) have to reboot your device.  Note also that these codes are aimed for Nexus devices.  Given that Project Fi is not officially supported on any other devices other than Nexus devices (6, 5X and 6P), your mileage may vary on other devices you have connected to Fi.  It should work but again, no promises, guarantee or warranty implied.

Acer has been busy at CES 2016.  Earlier they announced the new Chromebook 11 and now they have announced the release of the Chromebase 24.  This new all-in-one desktop will be the first Chromebase to be powered by Intel CoreTM processors and will sport an impressive 23.8″ Full HD display.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with what a Chromebase is exactly, it is a desktop PC that runs on Chrome OS.  We often associate Chrome OS with Chromebooks but there have been several Chromebase products in the market for some time now.  This one from Acer however is certainly going to be a premium product.

The new Chromebase 24 will support up to 8GB of DDR3L ram and will have 802.11ac Wi-Fi capability.  It has a built in HD webcam and has four digital microphones for video calls and conferencing in clarity.

The exact configuration and pricing combinations were not released in the Press Release but given that the current Chromebase DC is starting at $329 and is powered by a NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, I suspect this new 24 will be a bit more but not overly so.