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Google wants you to use Android Pay and through the rest of this year, when you use the tap-and-pay app, Google will contribute to special needs educations projects here in the United States.  How is that for incentive to give the app a try on your NFC enabled Android device?  The announcement came on the official Android blog and basically how it works is that on any transaction you make and pay with using Android Pay, the company will donate $1 to special needs education projects.  The cap is set at $1 million total.

Teachers spend nearly $500 out of their own pocket each year to outfit their classrooms with enriching projects and programs. Since each student learns differently, let’s support special needs classrooms across the country to make education more inclusive for every kid.

This type of promotion hits home for me personally.  Both of my sisters are educators and I have several friends who are special needs educators.  Chances are you know someone who is in education or likely someone who is in special needs education.  You can read more about the program that Google is supporting here.

If you have been looking at getting a Nexus 6, head over to NewEgg today.  Right now they have the 32GB version of the device in stock for only $288.99.  That is a 56% savings off the original price of the Google flagship device from last year.  The version that the online retailer is offering is in white and there is no other color option and to top it off you will get free standard shipping on your order.

To give everyone a reminder, the Nexus 6 is powered by the Snapdragon 805 processor and coupled with 3GB of RAM and has 32GB of storage (it is not expandable with an SD card).  The display is a 5.96″ 1440 x 1960 display with about 493 PPI.  When you order the unit from NewEgg it will come with Android Lollipop as that was the original build of this device but you can upgrade it to Android Marshmallow and gain all the benefits of that great version of Android.

Nexus 6 32GB in White – SALE $288.99 – NewEgg

If you have been craving a OnePlus 2 but haven’t got your hands on an invite, this week could be your week.  The Chinese manufacture has taken to Twitter to let everyone know that starting November 27th through the 30th you can order a OnePlus 2 without having an invitation.  They are terming it as “Unlimited” and fundamentally, it speaks volumes to the challenge that OnePlus has created for itself with their invitation system.

Like the OnePlus One, the company rolled out an invitation purchasing system for the OnePlus 2 announced this summer.  When I wrote a post outlining what the company needed to do to make this new flagship successful, I pointed out that a key to the success would be a smarter and far smoother roll out of this invitation system for this new device.  It has been anything but smooth and frankly, given the lack of some key features of the OnePlus 2, sales have not been exactly stellar. So to make up for it in a way, they are suspending the invite system for Black Friday so you can get your hands on one of these devices without having to wait for an invite.

No indication on how long you will have to wait for the device however.

HTC is making good on their promise and keeping the new One A9 up to date with security fixes.  Just three weeks after Google released the latest update to Android Marshmallow, unlocked US-based One A9 owners are getting the latest update rolled out to their phones via an OTA update.  It is a far cry from other vendors, including HTC themselves on other devices, that take months to roll out a security update.

If you are in the US and have a One A9, the update was approved over the weekend and has started rolling out.  How fast it will take for your device to see it is not clear but it should be pretty quick.  HTC doesn’t have the same staged roll out process as Google does on their Nexus devices and second, quite frankly, there are not a lot of One A9’s in the wild.  My guess is you should see it by mid-week if you haven’t already (but that’s my opinion, not fact).