Amazon’s 12 Days of Deals starts this Sunday, but Dec. 10 is the day to watch

Amazon

• There will be an Amazon 12 Days of Deals event starting this Sunday, December 2, 2018.
• Each day will focus on a particular category, with December 10 being centered on electronics.
• Amazon will discount hundreds of items in each category each day, but what and by how much is a mystery for now.

---

It might seem unbelievable, but tomorrow is the first day of December. Hopefully, you’re ready to get into holiday shopping mode, because the clock officially starts ticking tomorrow!

To make things easier for you, there will be an Amazon 12 Days of Deals event happening over at Amazon.com. Starting this Sunday, December 2, 2018, Amazon will heavily discount hundreds of items within a particular category, with a new category launching each day.

Editor’s Pick

Best Buy Christmas sale is an advent calendar stacked with tech deals

Best Buy

Best Buy has announced its festive, 20 Days of Doorbusters sale to celebrate the holidays. Starting tomorrow, the retail giant will roll out a new deal every day and it’s promising its …

The idea is to have a day where you buy gifts for the different people in your life. There’s a day for beauty supplies, a day for home improvement supplies, and even a day for your four-legged friends.

Amazon was kind enough to share the schedule for each day’s category, which we’ve listed below. Each new day starts at 12:00 AM PT:

Amazon 12 Days of Deals 2018:

• Sunday, Dec. 2 – Home Improvement 
• Monday, Dec. 3 – Gaming
• Tuesday, Dec. 4 – Toys
• Wednesday, Dec. 5 – PC
• Thursday, Dec. 6 – Home
• Friday, Dec. 7 – Fashion
• Saturday, Dec. 8 – Baby, Pets & Camera
• Sunday, Dec. 9 – Beauty & Personal Care
• Monday, Dec. 10 – Electronics
• Tuesday, Dec. 11 – Kitchen
• Wednesday, Dec. 12 – Furniture, Lawn & Garden
• Thursday, Dec. 13 – Sports & Outdoor

As you might have guessed, Monday, December 10 is the day we’re most excited for. While Amazon didn’t disclose what will be discounted on each day or how much those discounts will be, we can expect plenty of smart home devices, tablets, e-readers, smart wearables, and possibly even smartphones to be on the list that day.

If Amazon isn’t your favorite place to shop, don’t worry: both Best Buy and Samsung are running similar days of deals, too.

The Amazon 12 Days of Deals web page is empty right now, but click the button below to bookmark the page so you can check the deals when they go live!

Amazon 12 Days Of Deals

Source: Android Zone

The post Amazon’s 12 Days of Deals starts this Sunday, but Dec. 10 is the day to watch appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

OnePlus shutters device seeding program for custom ROM developers

• Per an anonymous tip, it appears OnePlus is shutting down its long-standing program of giving custom Android developers OnePlus devices.
• According to the tipster, the program has been mostly ignored by OnePlus for a long time, but now is officially shuttered.
• With the closing of this program, some custom Android developers might move to other devices, such as the Pixel lineup.

---

According to an anonymous tip from an Android Authority reader, OnePlus is shutting down its long-standing development seeding program. While the program has been mostly ignored by OnePlus for a while now, a company representative announced the suspension of the program to its members, making it semi-official.

In the beginning, OnePlus used the custom Android development community as a way to build buzz for the company. By seeding out OnePlus smartphones to prominent developers and making it easy to unlock those devices’ bootloaders and communicate directly with company reps about development issues, OnePlus positioned itself as a development-friendly organization. This initial act of goodwill helped make OnePlus the company it is today.

Editor’s Pick

OnePlus 6T review: Fundamentally great (Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr6baqZG3aY

The OnePlus 6 is one of my favorite Android phones ever. The hardware is simple and streamlined, providing a blank slate for its incredible software. The OnePlus 6 nails the fundamentals first, before adding complexity …

However, since OnePlus has attained much success outside the hardcore Android enthusiasts community, it has slowly started to ignore its development seeding program. A recent shift in the management of the program didn’t help, and now it seems there will be no more device seeding or OnePlus development assistance in the immediate future.

Below is a screenshot of forum community member — and OnePlus employee — “Manu” announcing the suspension of the seeding program:

What does this mean for you? If you own a OnePlus smartphone and like to flash custom ROMs and other bits of custom software on it, you might find in the future that there are fewer developers working on the devices. According to the anonymous tipster, some prominent developers who previously worked on OnePlus phones have already jumped ship to other devices, such as the Google Pixel 3.

Even if you don’t flash custom ROMs, the lack of a device seeding program could lead to future security exploits lasting longer in the wild. Since OnePlus isn’t seeding devices to developers, security exploits and software bugs those independent persons would have found could go undetected for a longer period of time as compared to when the seeding program was active.

What do you think? Is the removal of this seeding program a bad move from OnePlus, or is it simply time to move on from the company’s humble beginnings? Let us know your opinions in the comments.

NEXT: 6 reasons to buy the OnePlus 6T, and 6 reasons to pass

Source: Android Zone

The post OnePlus shutters device seeding program for custom ROM developers appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Phones at concerts: If the artist says ‘no phones,’ then you should put it away

At the end of 2017, I went to see the brooding gothic rock band A Perfect Circle in concert. It was my first time seeing the group live after being a huge fan for the past 18 years, so I was understandably excited.

However, when I arrived at the venue I was shocked to see signs everywhere saying that there would be no smartphone usage allowed during the concert. The signs explained that any smartphone use of any kind — not just photography, but texting, phone calls, etc. — would result in one warning. A second warning would result in a staff member escorting you out of the venue.

Editor’s Pick

Valkyrie: a portable speaker that is louder than a concert

Forget all those fancy features and cute designs. If what you want is the biggest, loudest, and baddest portable speaker in the market, we might have found the one. This accessory is named Valkyrie and …

Along with the signage dishing this info, the person who frisked me as I entered the arena told me about the policy, as did the person who scanned my ticket. Even the person who showed me and my girlfriend to our seats made sure we knew the rules.

Before A Perfect Circle took the stage, an announcement was made emphasizing the rule: no smartphone displays should be visible until the end of the concert, period.

Somehow, even with all that warning, a couple in front of us were escorted out of the venue after their second infraction of the rule. I’m sure there were others as well that I didn’t notice in the huge arena (I was watching the show, after all).

These people probably spent close to $100 for each of their tickets, and they got booted out before the end of the show because they couldn’t follow this one simple rule.

A growing trend

Rolling Stone

A Perfect Circle is not the first musical group to adopt this strict “no phones allowed” policy. Maynard James Keenan’s other bands like Tool and Puscifer enforce the same rules at their shows. Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes, has a similar policy during his performances, as do many others.

Editor’s Pick

10 best music player apps for Android

A lot of folks these days have transferred to some sort of music streaming service like Pandora, Spotify, Google Play Music, or Apple Music. However, there are those of us left that hang on to …

It’s not just musical groups, either; prominent comedians also have phone restriction policies. Chris Rock went so far as to have people lock their phones in zipper pouches supplied by the venue, and several members of the audience at a recent Kevin Hart performance were told to leave the venue after breaking Hart’s posted “no phones” policy.

Chances are good that at one of the upcoming live events you attend, you will be faced with this policy if you haven’t already.

As with most things, there are two sides to the debate when it comes to whether phone restriction policies at live events are a good idea or not. Let’s look first at the anti-restriction argument.

Phone restriction policies are a bad idea

The most obvious argument against phone restriction policies is the fact that the audience is paying to be there, sometimes in incredibly excessive amounts. If someone pays money to enjoy something, they should be able to enjoy it how they like.

Granted, how someone enjoys a concert shouldn’t infringe upon someone else’s enjoyment of the concert, which is why so many different safety and security policies are in place at most events. If your idea of a good time at a concert is wildly jumping around pouring beer all over everyone, it’s obvious why that isn’t going to fly, even if you paid $1,000 per ticket.

Editor’s Pick

10 best texting apps and SMS apps for Android

Text messaging is among the most popular ways to communicate in the whole world. It’s quick, easy to do, and it doesn’t require you pausing what you’re doing like phone calls do. We do understand …

But it would be difficult to argue that taking out your phone to send a quick text during the show would drastically infringe upon someone else’s enjoyment of the performance.

On the same note, what if you receive a very important message during the concert? This is 2018 after all, and our hyper-connected world creates an environment where we are expected to be accessible 24 hours a day. What if someone messages a concert-goer with incredibly time-sensitive information? It doesn’t seem fair that they should have to neglect that message, especially because — once again — they are paying to be there.

Finally, one could also argue that phones are ubiquitous and any attempt to deny that is futile. In other words, we are with our phones every minute of every day and performers can’t expect us to change how we live our lives just to see them play some music or say some funny one-liners.

These are all very good reasons to be opposed to phone restriction policies at live events. Unfortunately, I don’t think these arguments can hold a candle to the opposite side of the debate.

Phone restriction policies are a great idea

The primary reason performers want to restrict smartphone usage during their performances is for the protection of their art. In the case of musical artists like A Perfect Circle, a shoddy smartphone video of their concert could give any YouTube visitor the impression that their show sounds and looks as bad as the potato-quality footage that some random user uploaded to their account.

Editor’s Pick

Your next Samsung phone could be a low-light beast thanks to new ISOCELL Plus tech

Samsung’s ISOCELL technology is a common fixture in smartphone sensors, but has just announced its brand-new ISOCELL Plus technology. This tech promises improved color accuracy and better light sensitivity from upcoming smartphone cameras.

In current ISOCELL …

Smartphone recordings also expose things about performances that the artist might not want making the rounds online for free. In the case of comedians, their comedic material might not change much from night-to-night, so if a person uploads their set to YouTube the next crowd might already know all the jokes. It’s unreasonable to expect a comedian to develop new material for every single show, so Chris Rock’s zipper-bag policy makes a lot of sense.

With this in mind, some might argue that a “no recordings allowed” policy is more practical than a strict “no phones allowed” policy. But trying to enforce those policies is difficult because if everyone in the crowd has their phones out, how will an usher know who is recording and who’s just sending a text?

Even if you ignore the idea that performers should be able to control their own art when it comes to (oftentimes illegal) recordings of their shows, the use of smartphones can be distracting for the audience. How many times have you been to a concert and seen this?

Grammy.com

A large touring band can spend hundreds-of-thousands of dollars on their incredible stage production, and for what? For it to be ruined for the audience as they try to see through all the smartphones lit up in front of their faces? Not to mention that obstructing another audience member’s view of the stage falls under the category of one person ruining the show for another.

Finally, getting through a two-hour concert without using your smartphone is not exactly a new thing. Fifteen years ago, if you attended a concert, you wouldn’t see any phones on or up in the air, because smartphones weren’t even a thing. For the bulk of popular music’s history — from Frank Sinatra to the Backstreet Boys — people were able to happily attend concerts without having their smartphones out. Why should today be any different?

If you don’t like the rules, then don’t go

Maybe you don’t agree with the arguments I just laid out. Maybe you feel that no matter what, the idea of anyone — a famous person or otherwise — telling you when you can or cannot use your smartphone simply doesn’t sit with you.

If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t be at the concert.

Think of going to a live event like a concert or comedy show as stopping over a friend’s house for dinner. Imagine you enter your friend’s house and they ask you to take your shoes off because they want to preserve their floor. You’d take your shoes off, right?

Editor’s Pick

How to transfer music from iTunes to Android

With modern technology, access to music has become quicker, easier, and nearly instantaneous. Especially with music-capable portable devices such as phones, laptops, and media players, which allow people to carry around thousands of songs in just …

Well, what if they asked you to put your phone away while you’re at the table because the house rule is that there are no phones at dinner? Would you put your phone away to respect your friend’s rules or would you deny them this very simple request?

Sure, the guys in A Perfect Circle aren’t my friends and they’re not serving me dinner (thankfully). But for the few hours that a concert lasts, I am a guest in their “home,” so to speak, and the rules of the house are that I can’t use my phone. If that doesn’t sit right with me then I should leave, because it’s not my place to tell them what their rules should be.

In fact, the only thing about my experience at the A Perfect Circle show that doesn’t sit right with me is that I didn’t know about the phone restriction policy until I got to the venue. By the time I was there and ready to walk into the arena, it would be too late for me to say, “No, I don’t want to go because I won’t be able to use my phone.” In that respect, improvements need to be made to make ticket buyers more aware of the policy while there’s still time to either get a refund or resell the tickets.

Barring that though, I’m glad I got to see one of my favorite bands in a smartphone-free zone. I sincerely hope that I get to attend more concerts with similar phone restriction policies.

NEXT: 10 best musician apps for Android

Source: Android Zone

The post Phones at concerts: If the artist says ‘no phones,’ then you should put it away appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Huawei fined $10.5 million in America for 4G LTE patent infringement

• A Texas jury just found Huawei guilty of infringing on LTE technology patents with some smartphones.
• The jury found that Huawei should pay Texas company PanOptis — the owner of the patents — $10.5 million.
• Huawei has yet to respond to the ruling, but will likely appeal.

---

Although Huawei smartphones barely have a presence at all in America, that didn’t stop a Texas jury from finding the Chinese company guilty of patent infringement related to 4G LTE technology, via World IP Review.

PanOptis — the Texas company that owns the LTE patents in question — claims that it tried unsuccessfully nearly a dozen times over two years to strike an agreement with Huawei over the infringements. The jury agreed that Huawei should pay $10.5 million to PanOptis for the violations.

Huawei has yet to respond to the ruling, although it’s likely that the company will appeal.

Editor’s Pick

Still doubt Huawei? Well, it just became the second biggest smartphone OEM in world

Back in 2016, Huawei made a seemingly lofty goal to become the world’s number two smartphone manufacturer in two years. According to tracking firms Counterpoint Research and IDC, the company has accomplished its goal with …

PanOptis owns several patents that relate to LTE technology, specifically systems that work to decode picture and audio data. PanOptis claims that multiple Huawei smartphones (including the Nexus 6P, which Huawei made in a partnership with Google) used these patents without paying the requisite licensing fees. The patent numbers in question are 7,769,238; 6,604,216; 7,940,851; 8,385,284 and 8,208,569.

Curiously, the patent infringements also involved older Huawei products like the Huawei Mate 9 and Huawei P8 Lite which barely had a presence in America at all compared to the Nexus 6P.

This is not the first time Huawei has faced issues in America. Earlier this year, Huawei’s big plans of breaking into the U.S. market through a partnership with AT&T were thwarted partially by the United States government. As of now, Huawei is keeping quiet about any of its plans to attempt to break into America.

NEXT: Huawei slams Australian 5G ban, calls it ‘politically motivated’

Source: Android Zone

The post Huawei fined $10.5 million in America for 4G LTE patent infringement appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Leaker says that Samsung Gear S4 will have bigger battery, gold variant

• A new leak suggests that the upcoming Samsung Gear S4 could have a larger battery than the S3.
• Another leak also suggests that there could be a gold variant of the watch, in addition to traditional black and silver colors.
• It’s also possible that the Gear S4 might not be a Gear at all if Samsung is doing away with the branding.

---

The Samsung Gear S3 – the most recent watch in the line of Samsung wearables – got a great review here at Android Authority. However, the review was in 2016, when Samsung launched the watch, so we are overdue for some new Gear action.

Today, via trusted leaker “Ice Universe,” we have our first bits of information regarding the next iteration in the Gear line, likely to be called the Samsung Gear S4 (however, maybe not).

According to the leak, the next Samsung smartwatch will have a much larger battery than the S3 – a nearly 24 percent bigger battery. The S3’s battery has 380mAh of power, while the alleged power capability of the S4 will be 470mAh.

Granted, an increase like that isn’t going to make the battery last an extra day during regular use, but it might give you a few extra hours to stretch the time between charges.

Editor’s Pick

Best smartwatches (May 2018)

Smartwatches are still a very new thing to a lot of people, and for good reason. You don’t absolutely need one to get through the day, and some of the best smartwatches are much too expensive …

In other Gear S4 news, via SamMobile, the Gear S4 could come in a third color variant: gold. The S3 came in only two colors – a dark gray called Frontier and a polished silver called Classic. It’s not clear if the S4 will also come in the same colors as the S3, nor is it known what the gold variant will be called. But more options are always nice!

Rumors abound that Samsung might be ditching the Gear moniker for devices, with trademarks filed for wearables that don’t feature the word Gear and the possibility that the next Gear VR unit might drop the Gear as well.

With that in mind, the next wearable from Samsung might not be the Gear S4 after all, but something entirely different. Either way, we can assume for now that the device will have a bigger battery and at least one new color option when it launches. Stay tuned for more updates.

NEXT: Is Samsung doing away with the Gear brand name?

Source: Android Zone

The post Leaker says that Samsung Gear S4 will have bigger battery, gold variant appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

If you want it bad enough, LG might let you remap the G7’s Assistant button

• The LG G7 ThinQ features a hardware button dedicated to opening Google Assistant. It cannot be remapped.
• However, LG might let you remap the Assistant button if you let the company know that you want to do so.
• Start here in the comments section of this article!

---

The LG G7 ThinQ is official as of this morning. We now know that the extra hardware button that caused much speculation over the past few months is a dedicated button used to launch Google Assistant.

According to LG, even though there are currently no plans to allow users to remap the Assistant button to some other function, the company might reconsider if LG smartphone enthusiasts make it clear that they want that to happen.

That’s your cue everyone: hit up the comments of our articles, send out some tweets, and update your blogs to let LG know that remapping the Assistant button would be a welcome feature for the LG G7 ThinQ.

Editor’s Pick

LG G7 ThinQ hands-on: Amplified

The latest in the G series tries to bring the relationship between LG and Google even closer, while once again upgrading its main feature, the camera experience. The LG G7 ThinQ brings an AI-enabled camera, …

While the Assistant button is a good idea and will certainly make launching Google Assistant faster than using your voice, there are plenty of people out there who don’t use virtual assistants enough to warrant an entire button dedicated to that purpose. But if they could remap the button to something else — like putting the device in silent mode, calling a loved one, or even opening up Netflix — that would be quite useful indeed.

OnePlus fans have repeatedly called on the company to allow users to remap the alert slider that appears on devices like the OnePlus 5T and the upcoming OnePlus 6. However, the company has yet to oblige. If LG listened to its users and allowed the Assistant button to be remapped, that would undoubtedly be a boon for the relationship between LG and its smartphone fans.

However, maybe LG’s reluctance to allow users to remap the Assistant button is on the money, and LG users wouldn’t use a remap feature. There’s only one way for LG to know, and that’s for you to speak up! Hitting up the comments below is a good place to start.

NEXT: The LG G7 ThinQ is here: Bright screen, brighter camera

Source: Android Zone

The post If you want it bad enough, LG might let you remap the G7’s Assistant button appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Samsung reiterates mid-May goal for Galaxy S7/S7 Edge Oreo update

• Samsung has said it is “doing its best” to deliver the Android Oreo update for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge by mid-May.
• The company made the announcement on its South Korean Samsung Members portal.
• The U.S. rollout might not be far behind.

---

Samsung South Korea has reiterated its aim to roll out Android Oreo for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in mid-May. The Samsung Members portal posted a recent update [translated] via SamMobile, where it said it was “doing its best” to have the update rolled out by the middle of next month.

Samsung Turkey’s Guncelmiyiz portal suggested last week that the update would appear around May 18, but this outlet often sees ETA amendments and the confirmation may not have inspired much hope at the time.

Editor’s Pick

Samsung’s first Android Go phone may have been spotted (or has it?)

Phones powered by Android Go are slowly making their way around the world, bringing better performance compared to conventional entry-level handsets. It looks like Samsung might be the next company to deliver a phone in …

This additional, more recent statement from Samsung on its home turf is therefore good news — but questions regarding location and carriers remain.

Samsung Canada has previously suggested that the S7 Oreo update would land in the summer, while the S7 and S7 Edge received certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance with the new firmware — including U.S. carrier variants — a couple of weeks ago. With that in mind, a rollout in North America around the same time as South Korea and other markets isn’t out of the question.

However, once Samsung is done with the firmware, carrier deployment is out of its hands: even Samsung it hits the mid-May target itself, it could still take weeks/months for the update to arrive with Sprint/AT&T etc.

Samsung’s comment nonetheless suggests it is confident about the deployment in the next couple of weeks. We’ll have our fingers crossed for you, S7 owners.

Source: Android Zone

The post Samsung reiterates mid-May goal for Galaxy S7/S7 Edge Oreo update appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.