The new in the world of technology

UPDATE: 2020/01/30 7:54AM PST While leaks and rumors often break the big news about upcoming smartphones, occasionally some good information comes out by way of various industry and regulatory groups, like the FCC or Rumors started swirling  last October  that the upcoming OnePlus 8 series might pack wireless charging, and more recent reports are beginning to confirm that the much-requested feature will be included in the company's next phones. The latest voice to add its support behind the earlier leaks is  @Samsung_News_  (also known as Max J. over at  allaboutsamsung.de ), whose  track   record  throws a whole lot more confidence behind the rumor. Max J. recently and independently confirmed the wireless charging rumors, originally leaked via OnLeaks last year. With two trustworthy sources now confirming the details, OnePlus' former critics and glass-backed phone critics will likely have one less reason to dislike the OnePlus 8-series of devices. M

G oogle hasn't offered its own Android TV product ever since the Nexus Player fell out of support. While the Pixel hardware division still doesn't seem interested in a new Android TV box, there is a Google-made alternative intended for app development: the ADT-3. In contrast to the first two ADT streaming boxes, this one is available to just about anyone who wants one, via the online Askey Store. It's $79.00, and the product listing states the box is "not intended for consumer use and should only be used by developers." Don't count on Prime Video and Netflix support. A s previously revealed , the ADT-3 has a quad-core A53 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and 4K/HDR4 support over its single HDMI 2.0 port. Just like its predecessor, the ADT-3's sole purpose is to give developers a platform for creating and testing Android TV applications. It will also receive regular updates and security patches, so developers can always test on the latest and gre

L et me preface this post by saying that I  love  Android's notification shade. I love the toggles for things like airplane mode and dark theme, I love the platform's increasingly rich and smart notification quick actions, notification bundling, and just how Android handles notifications in general. But after three months of using the Pixel 4 XL, I've come to an increasingly annoying realization: the notification shade is having absolutely ruinous effects on the phone's facial recognition performance, something I've never experienced on the iPhone. And the simple reason is fingerprints. Sensors that have to see things don't like fingerprints, for obvious reasons. Just smudge up on your phone's camera lens and you'll see the effects readily: sharp lines become vague blurs, and faces are distorted into a muddied mess. Unfortunately, those smudges on your camera have the same basic effect when they're on the sensor array responsible for authenticat

UPDATE: 2020/01/30 11:38AM PST Huawei's statement Huawei got caught in the middle of the US/China trade war and  has been cut off from Google's apps and services  for more than half a year now. That forced the company to quickly  create a Google-less Android variant  to ensure phones like the  Mate 30 Pro  could ship. Even though it looks like the US and China are coming to terms with each other and  Huawei's ban might be lifted soon , the manufacturer has told Austrian newspaper  Der Standard  that it still won't return to Google's services. Huawei's Austrian country manager Fred Wangfei says the company wants to get rid of its dependence on US politics, as no one could tell if there would be another blockade following the current one. That's why the manufacturer's stated goal is the creation of a third smartphone ecosystem next to Android and iOS. In both the long and short term, Huawei wants its version of Android to stay as close

T he  Pixel 4  launched with a few innovative features, among them a  new version of Google Assistant  that integrates much tighter with the system than older implementations. After its initial release, some issues quickly arose, though. You couldn't use the new Assistant  with G Suite accounts  or with  languages other than English , and you had to  activate gesture navigation  to get it to work. While G Suite users and non-English speakers are still left in the cold, the rethought Assistant finally supports the tried-and-true three-button navigation. The change might not be active on everyone's Pixel 4 phones just yet, as it could be a server-side rollout. We can confirm that the new Assistant works with three-button navigation using  Google app version 10.92.10.29 , which isn't even the latest stable release anymore, but your mileage may vary. Using the beta might also jumpstart the experience for you, available by  signing up for it on the Play Store  or via a do

A new subscription service called Scroll launches today, offering advertisement-free access to over 300 sites, including The Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, Gizmodo, The Verge, and even us: Android Police. Eventually, it will run you $5 a month, but you can  try it out  for the next thirty days for free, and those that sign up early get a 50% discount on their first six months of service. Okay, so our logo is a bit hard to read here, but  look at the company we keep .  News-serving sites can't exist without a means to make money, but it can be tough balancing advertisements in a way that keeps readers happy. Some types of ads can be downright intrusive to the content you're trying to access, and blanket blocking advertisements only serves to reduce the incentive for content creation itself, with some sites even blocking access for those that do. Several concepts like  Google's Contributors  and the  Basic Attention Token  have tried to solve the problem with diffe

Want to know how to create a drop down list in Excel? Well, we’ve got you covered. Creating a simple drop down list in Excel might sound a bit intimidating at first, but it’s actually very simple. It’s so simple, in fact, that even an elementary school kid can do it – all it takes is a few quick clicks of the mouse. That’s the beauty of Excel and spreadsheet applications like it. Their existence is to make what would be otherwise complicated tasks so much easier to do and much more accessible to even those who are not very computer savvy. Creating a drop down list is as easy as pie, regardless of your Excel skill level. There’s a more technical process, but we’re only covering the easy methods. Whether it’s for your small business or for work, you’ll master soon enough how to create a drop down list in Excel. 1. How to create a drop down list in Excel using existing data In this first method of creating a drop down list in Excel, we’re working under the presumption that