The head of Google’s map division said in an email Tuesday that the company is cutting jobs at Waze. Google has been merging Waze with its own mapping products since late last year. The company hopes to “create a more scalable and optimized Waze Ads product,” the email said.

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XDA Developers - Written, Video

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Google today announced a new “Shop” tab on Android TV to let users browse titles that are available to purchase and rent. The company is rolling out this feature on all Android TV devices in the U.S. starting today.

While the new tab will let you explore new titles, a section called “Library” with a carousel of thumbnails will show you movies and TV shows you’ve already purchased from Google Play Movies & TV, YouTube, Google TV or Android TV.

Users can also buy titles from Android TV and then use their phone or tablet to download it through Google Play Movies & TV to watch offline or on another device.

Last year, Amazon redesigned Prime Video and also put more emphasis on titles and channels that are available for purchase or rental.

Google said the new Shop tab will be available to Android TV users globally in the next few weeks.

The search giant has made good progress in growing the Android TV ecosystem. Last year, the company said there were more than 110 million monthly active Android TV devices.

Google is also preparing to roll out Android 14 to Android TV devices. According to 9to5Google, the beta version of the software suggests that users will get features like a top-level accessibility menu that includes options like text scaling, bold text and color description.

While digging through Android 14 Beta 3 released earlier this month, I discovered a new launcher flag labeled ENABLE_TASKBAR_PINNING that, when enabled, lets the user switch between the new “transient” taskbar and the old “persistent” taskbar behavior. The toggle to do so is accessed by long-pressing on an empty spot on the taskbar. A pop-up will appear with the options to “always show taskbar” or “change navigation mode”. The former swaps between the two taskbar styles, while the latter opens navigation settings.

This launcher flag isn’t enabled by default at the moment, however, so users on the Android 14 beta are stuck with the “transient” taskbar for the time being. Hopefully when Google releases Android 14 for the Pixel Tablet and Pixel Fold, the company flips this flag, so users can choose the taskbar style they prefer. Personally, I’d like to use the old “persistent” taskbar when I need to multitask but the “transient” taskbar otherwise, as having to swipe up every single time to access the taskbar feels like it will slow things down.>

Le red (green in the review) ✅ le smoll ✅ le jack ✅ le manual ✅ it's ~~miat~~ Zenfone 10

I remember they where testing this when they first implemented direct replies

I recently got myself a new Motorola Edge 20 Pro, but after just one day, I noticed the battery was draining like crazy, even on standby. So, I decided to try a few things and holy smokes, they actually worked! Figured I'd share my experience here in case anyone else is struggling with battery life.

First off, I "recalibrated" the battery by letting it charge to 100% and leaving it plugged in for an extra hour as per Motorola's support team's advice.

Next, I manually selected my mobile network and disabled automatic network selection.

Then, I disabled background data for all the social apps like Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit, because honestly, who needs all those memes and shitposts loading in the background 24/7? Surprisingly, not many people know about this trick, and I'm wondering why I never tried it before.

Lastly I enabled developer options and disabled "mobile data always on". This is said to be necessary for fast switching between wifi and data but i haven't had any problem after turning it off.

Anyway, these tweaks made a huge difference in my battery life. Right now, I'm sitting at 70% with over 3 hours of screen-on time. So, if you're having battery issues, give these tips a try!

Update: got some 8 hours of sot with 18% left. Pretty sure i'd get more battery life if i lived in an area with less crappy cell network coverage.

I would have posted the source but like clockwork the same mistakes were made when people leak the pixel phones. They showed their own info, then deleted everything.

Introduction and specs

Even though the Redmi sub-brand is now mostly focusing on mid-range offerings, it hasn't dropped its entry-level lineups, such as the numeric Redmi series. The Redmi 12 is this year's most affordable phone from the company and succeeds the Redmi 10 from 2021. That's because there was no Redmi 11 last year for some reason, which likely has to do with declining smartphone sales and piling up inventory.

Fast-forward to 2023 and we now have a brand new Redmi 12. Or do we? A quick skim through the specs sheet reveals surprisingly similar specs to the 2021 model with only a handful of changes. Let's examine!

The new Redmi 12 features a bigger 6.79-inch screen, which makes it one of the biggest in its class and bumps up the storage to 128GB on the base version. That's twice as much as the Redmi 10. Moreover, the Redmi 12 comes with IP53 certification for protection against dust and splashes, replaces the plastic back panel with a glass one and brings a cleaner new design to the table.

Xiaomi Redmi 12 specs at a glance:

• Body: 168.6x76.3x8.2mm, 199g; Glass front, plastic frame, glass back; IP53, dust and splash resistant.
• Display: 6.79" IPS LCD, 90Hz, 550 nits (peak), 1080x2460px resolution, 20.5:9 aspect ratio, 396ppi.
• Chipset: Mediatek Helio G88 (12nm): Octa-core (2x2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G52 MC2.
• Memory: 128GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM; eMMC 5.1; microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot).
• OS/Software: Android 13, MIUI 14.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.8, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 8 MP, f/2.1, (wide).
• Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
• Battery: 5000mAh; 18W wired, PD.
• Connectivity: LTE; Hybrid Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 5; BT 5.3; NFC; FM radio; Infrared port; 3.5mm jack.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted).

But before you say these are too few changes for two years of development, here's the real trick up the Redmi 12's sleeve. Despite the doubled storage the new phone starts at around €150, while the Redmi 10 was asking for €200 at launch. We guess inflation ran past the low-end Redmis.

See article for more.

While usually our app updates don't get a dedicated blog post, this one is a bit bigger and provides a good opportunity to reflect on how the Android app changed since launch roughly a year ago. Today, Mastodon for Android has received a complete Material You redesign. We left no stone unturned---tab bars, settings, composing---everything is refreshed and reflects your color palette.

We've entirely revamped the previously sparse settings section with dozens of new ways to customize your experience, as well as the ability to access information about the server you're connected to and view its rules. You can choose to hide boost/favourite counters, remind yourself to add alternative text for media uploads, change your default posting language, hide all content warnings and much more.

When developing our native apps, we don't just copy how everything works in the web app, but deliberately take the opportunity to have our professional designers work out the best user experience from first principles. As a result, profile screens now ergonomically display all the featured content that was previously missing from the app---like pinned posts, featured hashtags and endorsed users.

We've also finally added filters management into the app. You can now view, edit and create filters for specific phrases or keywords, and customize how and where exactly those filters apply, so if there's some topic you never want to hear about, you can just tune it out. For more peace of mind, we've also added the ability to temporarily pause all notifications.

One subtle but important change is where and how we show verifications. If a profile has a verified link, we'll surface it in search results and other lists so you can more easily tell different profiles apart. All in all, this is just scratching the surface of all the changes in this redesign. There are so many more features, bug fixes, and easter eggs we didn't cover. Try it out!

Mastodon is a non-profit headquartered in Germany and fully crowd-funded through donations. If you enjoy using mastodon.social, or our official apps for iOS and Android, or want to support the development of the server software itself, you can donate to our non-profit on Patreon.

Highlights

• Sync UI: New consistent UI across all platforms. UI that syncs with the vibe of the music
  • Vibrant, breathing and alive player UI (smaller screen)
  • Blur is the new background in playlist, album, bottom player (biggger screen)
  • Smooth animations and adaptive UI
• Piped.video API support
• Localization & Translation: English, Bengali, Hindi, Japanese, French & German
• Credentials Encryption to securely store login information
• Playlist Generator (Spotify DJ but better)
• Personalized playlist recommendation including artist mixes, mood mixes, discover weekly etc...
• Desktop:
  • Floating lyrics mini-player (always on top)
  • System tray controls
  • Minimize to system tray (Hide window)
  • Windows OS media control support
• Playback:
  • New libmpv based media_kit enables gapless playback & fast stream download
  • Buffered length of track
  • Queue with mixed local tracks and streaming tracks
  • Search for alternative track source across Youtube Music and Youtube
  • Sleep timer

• Google is currently working on Android TV 14 based on Android 14.
• It’s developing the OS on its ADT-4 reference device.
• Unlike with previous iterations, Google doesn’t plan to offer this device todevelopers.

The TLDW: on the Xiaomi 13 ultra the 75mm equivalent lens is actually a 60mm lens. It crops in at 75mm in auto mode but when using raw it just outputs the 60mm instead.

Google’s Pixel Tablet is a unique product and a good reminder that not every tablet needs to double as a full-on computer.