Technology - Google News

Samsung Galaxy Fold: Breaking screens plague the $2,000 phones - CBS News
YouTube is finally coming back to Amazon’s Fire TV devices - The Verge
Google pulls popular Chinese Android apps over large-scale ad fraud - Engadget

Samsung Galaxy Fold: Breaking screens plague the $2,000 phones - CBS News

Posted: 18 Apr 2019 06:03 AM PDT

Samsung introduces foldable smartphone

Sporting a screen that unfolds to nearly tablet size, Samsung's Galaxy Fold will cost $2,000.
But some journalists reviewing pre-release versions are reporting problems with breaking phones.
The foldable screen has become "completely unusable," says one reviewer.
Samsung says the device can withstand being opened and closed 200,000 times, or 100 times a day for five years.

Some of Samsung's new, almost $2,000 folding phones appear to be breaking after just a couple of days. Journalists who received the phones to review before the public launch said the Galaxy Fold screen started flickering and turning black before completely fizzling out. Two journalists said they removed a thin, protective layer from the screens that they thought was supposed to come off but was meant to stay.

However, reporters from The Verge and CNBC said they left that layer on, and their screens still broke. A CNBC video shows the left side of the inside screen intermittently flashing and the right side as unresponsive. The phone was "completely unusable" after two days, CNBC reporter Todd Haselton wrote.

The long-anticipated folding phone is about the size of a standard smartphone when folded, but it can open up to the size of a small tablet. The phone is designed to work whether closed or open. When open, the single-screen display is bisected by a crease.

Trending News

Samsung promises the screen can withstand being opened and closed 200,000 times, or 100 times a day for five years. The Galaxy Fold goes on sale April 26 in the U.S. for $1,980, making it one of the most expensive phones anywhere -- particularly if it isn't as durable as promised.

Samsung acknowledged it had heard reports of the screens breaking and said it would "thoroughly inspect these units in person to determine the cause of the matter." A company spokesman also said it would make it clear that the top protective layer is necessary to prevent scratches.

The company is no stranger to problems with new products. It had a disastrous rollout of a smartphone in 2016 with the Galaxy Note 7, which Samsung eventually recalled because its batteries were catching on fire.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

YouTube is finally coming back to Amazon’s Fire TV devices - The Verge

Posted: 18 Apr 2019 06:00 AM PDT

YouTube is returning to Amazon's lineup of Fire TV products, and the Amazon Prime Video app will be adding Chromecast support and become more widely available on Android TV. Those two developments, jointly announced by both companies this morning, mark the end of a long-running standoff between Google and Amazon, a feud that has kept a native YouTube app off of the Fire TV platform for well over a year. Customers were really the ones who were disadvantaged as soon as these two tech giants entered into this spat, so to see that it's over is very good news.

Google will bring YouTube back to Amazon's Fire TV devices "later this year." The flagship YouTube app will come first sometime within the next few months — there's no firm launch date as of yet — and it will be followed by YouTube TV, the company's subscription TV service, and the child-oriented YouTube Kids before the end of 2019. Fire TV will become fully certified for YouTube, signaling that it offers first-rate video quality and minimal buffering. YouTube for Fire TV will also support Alexa voice commands for searching and playing content.

In exchange, Amazon will be adding Chromecast integration to its own Prime Video mobile app, allowing users to more easily view their movies and shows on a TV screen if they own one of Google's affordable Chromecast streaming dongles. Prime Video will also become universally available on Android TV; until now, it's been limited to select devices running that operating system.

During its absence, Fire TV users were still able to access YouTube through web browsers, so it wasn't completely unavailable. But a proper app will certainly make life easier for those customers.

Notably, this deal leaves out Amazon's smart display, the Echo Show, so YouTube won't be arriving on that device anytime soon. But a person familiar with the matter said that both companies continue to engage in ongoing conversation. In the meantime, the browser workaround can be used as a way to access YouTube on the Show, too.

Google and Amazon would not comment on the specifics of their new agreement, nor would they specify how often they've tried to resolve things over the course of this stubborn feud. When YouTube was initially pulled off of Fire TV, there was a ton of finger pointing between the two companies.

Amazon claimed Google was hurting consumers and "selectively blocking customer access to an open website," while Google voiced frustration with Amazon brushing off its Chromecast / Google Cast feature and leaving it out of the Prime Video app for Android for years. Google also took issue with the online retailer's refusal to sell many of its products like Google Home, Chromecast, and Nest devices. Amazon resumed selling the Chromecast in December of last year, but that alone wasn't enough for YouTube to relent. Finally getting on board with casting and broadly expanding Prime Video on Android TV seems to have done the trick.

The new agreement is strictly about streaming and doesn't include any retail component, so Amazon hasn't caved when it comes to selling Google Home (a direct competitor to its Echo speakers) or Nest's more recent devices.

This has been a week of tech companies working out their differences. Apple and Qualcomm settled their contentious legal battle on Tuesday just as it headed to trial, and now we've got Amazon and YouTube finally reaching common ground.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Posted: 18 Apr 2019 01:23 AM PDT

Google pulled a number of popular Android apps from the Play Store after BuzzFeed News has discovered a large-scale ad fraud scheme their developers were pulling off. Six of those apps were by DU Group, a developer that spun off from Chinese tech giant Baidu a year ago. (Baidu, however, still owns 34 percent of the company.) DU's properties include the immensely popular Selfie Camera app that's been downloaded over 50 million times from the Play Store. Ad fraud researcher Check Point found that it contains code that causes the app to automatically click on advertisements without the user's knowledge.

Users don't even need to fire up the app: the clicks happen even if the application isn't running, which means it can drain battery and consume data. This fraudulent action happens with ads served with Google's AdMob and Twitter's MoPub, further showing how bad actors are exploiting Twitter's ad platform. Back in March, BuzzFeed News reported a massive ad fraud scheme that also exploited MoPub by hiding video ads behind legit banner advertisements.

In addition to fraudulently clicking on ads, the DU Group apps involved in the scheme -- Omni Cleaner, RAM Master, Smart Cooler, Total Cleaner and AIO Flashlight, aside from Selfie Camera -- also hid their affiliation with the company. They didn't disclose that they were collecting data and sending it back to China, as well.

BuzzFeed News discovered DU Group's involvement after examining 5,000 popular apps on the Play Store. It found a lot of more apps involved in ad fraud other than the six DU Group applications, though, proving that it's a major problem Google needs to address. Arete Research Senior Analyst Richard Kramer told the publication that Google needs to do more to solve the issue. "Ad fraud is simply the norm in China (and for many other apps), and... Google should be doing far more to prevent it, even if it would materially reduce sales. They cannot claim ignorance of, or deny the problem," he said.