Google Play Music subscribers will get YouTube Music Key for free

We’ve all heard about YouTube Music Key by now, and it seems pretty cool. It’s a subscription service that allows you to watch music videos on YouTube ad-free, turn off your display while listening and save music offline. Perhaps best of all, though, is that existing Google Play Music subscribers won’t have to do anything to get YouTube Music Key.According to Google, those with a Play Music subscription won’t even have to sign up for YouTube Music Key because they’ll get it for free automatically. This greatly boosts the value of a Play Music subscription for existing members (I’ve been a paying customer since it was released).Good on Google for making this as easy as possible for subscribers of Google Play Music. Signing up for the service manually would have been a big annoyance. Keep an eye out for the Music Key section of YouTube on your device if you’re a Play Music subscriber, and let us know how you like it!

Via: Android Police

Project Tango is now in the Play store, but you can’t buy it

Google’s Project Tango tablet has made an appearance on the Google Play Store. Don’t get your hopes up too quickly, though, because the developer tablet isn’t yet for sale. And when it does come up for sale, you’re going to have to pay a pretty penny for it; specifically, $1,024. Project Tango is Google’s initiative to create a device with 3D-sensing technology that can sense and virtually recreate your environment. The technology has been in development for quite a while, but Google announced earlier this year that the developer kit would be available in Q4. That seems to be taking place with the listing on the Google Play store.As a developer kit, the Project Tango comes without a warranty and Google won’t be accepting any returns or issuing any refunds. Once it does go up for sale, both the black and white models will be available for purchase. As a reminder, the Project Tango tablet features a 7-inch 1920×1200 display, NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, 4GB RAM and of course that motion tracking camera and depth sensing that make it unique.

Source: Google Play

Does Project Tango pique your interest?

HTC’s Google Play edition lineup to get a taste of Lollipop starting next week

The Lollipop craze is set to continue next week with HTC’s Google Play edition lineup. HTC’s @moversi revealed on Twitter that HTC’s targeting its Google Play edition Lollipop release for sometime next week. Google Play edition phones run a bare bones version of Android with a few modifications that allow for the optimization of unique hardware features like HTC’s DuoCamera and IR blaster.

Once HTC’s development team gets its GPe lineup updated to Lollipop, we expect the HTC One (M8) to be next in line. HTC has promised to release the update for its 2014 and 2013 flagship phones by the first week of February, but we’re hoping the phones will be given a Lollipop treat just in time for Christmas.

Asus may not reach its 2015 sales target because of Xiaomi

Asus is expected to ship around 8 million smartphones this year, according to "Taiwan-based supply chain makers". The company's ZenFone line has proven quite successful in its home country, but also in Southeast Asia. It's now set on doing well in Russia, Brazil, and even the UK with its wares.

Asus wants to sell 16 million smartphones in 2015, which would represent a 100% jump over 2014, if it pans out. It won't be easy, though, because of increasing competition in the affordable handset space, especially by Xiaomi.

The Chinese company, that has become the world's third biggest smartphone maker, is keeping prices for its products extremely low in the mainland - making it harder for Asus to compete.

Asus' smartphone business is currently losing money, but if it does manage to sell 16 million units next year, then it should finally become profitable. The company will unveil new members for its ZenFone family at CES 2015 in early January. Among those devices we're apparently going to see a 5.5-inch phone, which was created to satisfy demand for this specific size.

Asus is selling the 5-inch ZenFone 5 and the 6-inch ZenFone 6 (pictured above), but hasn't had anything in between those sizes so far.

While all of the new ZenFones that it will announce at CES will be powered by Intel chipsets just like their predecessors, Asus is going to start working with another chip maker too in the future. The company didn't name this new supplier, but it will apparently enable it to produce cheaper devices than those with Intel inside. So we assume we're talking about MediaTek here.

The new Intel-powered ZenFones will have the starting price of TWD 9,990, which means around $325 or €261. On the other hand, those cheaper versions with parts from the yet-unnamed chip maker will start at just TWD 4,990 - so $162 or €130.

Samsung and BlackBerry announce strategic partnership

Samsung and BlackBerry announced a strategic partnership. The deal will bring the Canadian company’s highly praised mobile security solutions to the Korean giant’s lineup of Android devices.

The end result of the partnership between the two companies will be available in early 2015. It will merge BlackBerry’s BES12 cross-platform EMM solution and Samsung’s KNOX into a single security suite for Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

Samsung KNOX and BES12 will offer complete separation of business and personal data. The upcoming security suite will also provide enhancements that address some of the Android-specific security issues.

The deal is a win for both parties. It will instantly make Samsung a major player on the enterprise market. BlackBerry on the other hand, will surely welcome the fresh stream of cash to its business.

Alleged Xiaomi Mi5 spy photo reveal bezel-free design

Possible Xiaomi Mi5 spy shots have surfaced showing the phone right from the production line. As you can see from the photo, the phone in question is clearly made by Xiaomi and features what looks to be a display that's larger than 5".

The bezels are extremely thin, but we can't really tell how thick is the phone itself. Unfortunately, there are no suggested specifications available at this point either.

The Xiaomi Mi4 launched in July and it's interesting to see that the company is already starting the production of the Mi5. In any case, we quite like what the phone is shaping to be.

Xiaomi is close to scoring $1.5 billion funding from companies like Facebook, Alibaba and Airbnb. Its worth is estimated to go past $40 billion, so the company is going to get more and more active as time goes by.

new new new Microsoft Lumia 535 Dual SIM

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 900 / 2100
	SIM	Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)
	Announced	2014, November
	Status	Coming soon. Exp. release 2014, November

BODY	Dimensions	140.2 x 72.4 x 8.8 mm (5.52 x 2.85 x 0.35 in)
	Weight	146 g (5.15 oz)

DISPLAY	Type	IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	540 x 960 pixels, 5.0 inches (~220 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass 3

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

MEMORY	Card slot	microSD, up to 128 GB
	Internal	8 GB, 1 GB RAM

DATA	GPRS	Yes
	EDGE	Up to 236 kbps
	Speed	HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
	Bluetooth	v4.0, A2DP
	USB	microUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	5 MP, 2592 x 1936 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Features	1/4'' sensor size, geo-tagging
	Video	480p@30fps
	Secondary	5 MP

FEATURES	OS	Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1
	Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 200
	CPU	Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
	GPU	Adreno 302
	Sensors	Accelerometer, proximity
	Messaging	SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML5
	Radio	FM radio
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS
	Java	No
	Colors	Orange, green, white, black, gray, blue
		- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic - MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player - MP4/H.264 player - 15 GB free OneDrive storage - Document viewer - Video/photo editor - Voice memo/dial/commands

BATTERY		Li-Ion 1905 mAh battery (BL-L4A)
	Stand-by	Up to 336 h
	Talk time	Up to 11 h (2G) / Up to 13 h (3G)
	Music play	Up to 78 h