First-ever Google Play Awards to be announced on May 19 at I/O 2016

Google has announced that it will host the first ever ‘Google Play Awards’ for apps and app developers on Android across a variety of category. The awards will be given at this year’s I/O conference, which starts on May 18. Google will announce the names of the winners on May 19.
A blogpost announce these inaugural awards reads , “ Google Play has seen tremendous growth over the past year, reaching more than 1 billion Android users across 190 countries. As a way to recognize our incredible developer community and highlight some of the best apps and games, we’re kicking off our first-ever Google Play Awards. ”
Google Play Awards will have 10 categories and five nominees in each. The nominees have been chosen by a panel of experts on the Google Play team based on criteria emphasising app quality, innovation, etc.
Below is the full list of nominees and categories and what each one represents:
Standout Startup: Google says this list has apps from new developers that offer a unique experience while achieving strong install growth.
Nominees: Dubsmash, Hopper, Musical.ly, Robinhood and Vrse.
Standout Indie: This one is for games from indie developers that focus on artistic design, high quality and innovative gameplay.
Nominees: Alphabear, Alto’s Adventure, Fast like a Fox, Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector and Prune.
Best Families App: This is for apps or games with family friendly design that encourage creativity and exploration
Nominees: Card Wars – Adventure Time, LEGO Jurassic World, My Very Hungry Caterpillar, Thinkrolls 2 and Toca Nature.
Best Use of Material Design: First-class implementation of material design concepts that deliver an immersive and innovative user experience.
Nominees: Bring!, Robinhood, The Fabulous, Todoist and Vevo
Best Use of Google Play Game Services: High quality games with several strong GPGS feature implementations.
Nominees: Sea Battle 2, Table Tennis Touch, Tapventures, TowerMadness 2 and Zombie Highway 2
Early Adopter: This award is for early adopter of a nascent technology or platform, providing a delightful user experience.
Nominees: Glide, Mechanic Escape, Minecraft: Story Mode, World Around Me and Zumper
Go Global: Apps or games with great localization and culturalization, or subject matter appeal, across multiple regions.
Nominees: Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle, Freeletics Bodyweight, Memrise, Musixmatch and Pokémon Shuffle Mobile
Most Innovative: Apps or games offering a highly engaging novelty experience or unique benefit.
Nominees: Fast like a Fox, NYT VR, SmartNews, The Fabulous and This War of Mine
Best App: A true representation of beautiful design, intuitive UX and high user appeal, quality and rating, says Google.
Nominees: BuzzFeed News, Colorfy, Houzz, TuneIn Radio and Yummly
Best Game: Games with strong mechanics, informative tutorial, broad appeal and tasteful design.
Nominees: Alphabear, Clash of Kings, Clash Royale, MARVEL Future Fight and Star Wars: Galaxy of Hero

Google is expanding its Android N Preview to non-Nexus devices with Sony's Xperia Z3

Google is expanding its Android N Preview to non-Nexus devices with Sony’s Xperia Z3.
Google in a blog post announced that the preview version of next Android will be available for test on Sony’s Xperia Z3 smartphone. The Android N Preview was initially available to Google’s Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, Nexus Player, Pixel C tablet and Android One based General Mobile 4G devices.
Google’s post reads , “Sony has been working closely with us to bring you the N Developer Preview on Xperia for early testing and development.”
With Android Marshmallow having turned almost a year old and most Android devices still stuck on Lollipop and KitKat version, the Android N Preview can be seen as an effort to deliver faster OS updates.
For those interested in trying out N Preview on Xperia Z3, the latest preview build can be downloaded from here and then manually flashed to the device. Google says all future Developer Preview will be available as an OTA update.

AT&T Is Reaching Out to Low-Income Americans With $5 Internet Service

AT&T says it is now offering discounted Internet service to low-income Americans who receive food stamps, following in the footsteps of some of its biggest rivals.
The program, called Access from AT&T, lets eligible households sign up for basic wired broadband that starts at $5 (roughly Rs. 330) a month for download speeds of 5Mbps. It also offers faster speed tiers of 5Mbps and 10Mbps, both of which cost $10 (roughly Rs. 666) a month.
As many as 20 million Americans are without wired Internet service of at least 10Mbps, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission .
Access from AT&T resembles low-cost Internet programs run by other Internet providers. Comcast, for instance, runs a service called Internet Essentials that offers 10Mbps download speeds for $10 a month, primarily to households with children who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. And
Google Fiber , meanwhile, has been actively working with the Obama administration to put its high-speed services in public housing. It's currently revamping its program for low-cost Internet ; the new plans will cost $15 (roughly Rs. 1,000) a month for speeds of 25Mbps.
The push to wire low-income households to the Internet comes despite a broader shift in society toward mobile, wireless data networks. A recent study by the Commerce Department showed that non-wealthy Americans mostly use cellular data to access the Web - and the trend is growing across all income brackets.
Still, the program from AT&T could help some Americans connect cheaply to the Web. With Access, AT&T is following through on a voluntary offer it made during discussions with regulators as it was trying to secure approval for its merger with DirecTV, according to officials from the Federal Communications Commission.
There is a catch to the program, though. For starters, customers who've demonstrated their eligibility for Access will be automatically assigned to the fastest speed tier available in their region - they won't be able to choose a slower, cheaper plan even if that's what they would prefer. Meanwhile, Access from AT&T is a time-limited program; it'll run only until April 2020 before customers will presumably need to find another plan.
An AT&T spokesman said it is "premature" to discuss what will happen beyond then.

Reliance Jio Executive on Why the Commercial Launch Hasn't Happened Yet

Reliance Jio, whose commercial launch has been inordinately delayed, on Friday denied any technical glitches behind the hold-up and said network optimisation is taking time as it wants to ensure a seamless and foolproof rollout with a couple of million users.
At the last AGM, company Chairman Mukesh Ambani had said the commercial launch would happen by December, which was then postponed to March.
The telecom venture of RIL, however, launched services for its employees late December and later extended them to their families and friends, taking the overall consumer base to a little over 5 lakh.
Asked about the delays in commercial launch, Reliance Jio's Strategy and Planning head Anshuman Thakur said, "There is no reason for the delay. It's first time that the LTE technology is being tested on such a large scale anywhere in the world.
"As it needs a lot of optimisation, which will lead to some disturbances in services, we want to ensure that once commercially launched the service is seamless. In fact the only delay is network optimisation. Also, we want to have a larger user-base of say a couple of millions at least (up from the present 0.5 million) to do the rollout." But he parried a query on what is preventing them from ramping up the user-base.
As against the national average of 150MB data usage, for Jio customers, who are getting free service now, it is 18GB and the highest usage come from states like Assam and Jharkhand, Thakur told reporters. The average voice usage is over 250 minutes within the first month of test-rollout.
In a statement earlier in the day, Ambani, without proffering a timeline, said, "Jio will launch commercial operations in the coming months and it is test-programme has established smooth operations of all aspects of the network over half a million users. The initial feedback is very encouraging and has established smooth operations of all aspects of the network."
RIL Group Deputy CFO V Srikanth said the parent RIL will be investing over Rs. 60,000 crores in capex in Jio this fiscal, an amount which is over and above the Rs. 1 trillion it has pumped in since bagging licence in 2010. At the Group level, the capex will be higher by Rs. 30,000 crores at Rs. 1.5 trillion.
The company has an equity capital of Rs. 45,000 crores while the debt component is around Rs. 33,000 crores. On the number of Lyf branded mobile handsets, he said they have already sold over 1.5 million units since November. Asked whether Rel Jio will be bidding for the spectrum
auctions in July, Thakur said the company is yet to take a call. Thakur said of the over Rs. 60,000 crore capex for the telecom vertical, some money will be spent on widening the network coverage to 90 percent as planned from the present 70 percent of the population.
He further said the company has around 90,000 telecom towers now, half of which owned by the RIL and rest on lease. At 90 percent network coverage, the number of telecom masts will be over 1 lakh.
Some money, which is yet to be finalised, will have to be paid to
RCom for sharing its towers as well, he said but declined to quantify it.
The company has already made an advance payment of Rs. 2,800 crores to Reliance Communications (RCom), Thakur said.
Reliance Jio holds 751.10 MHz of liberalised spectrum across the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands. In addition, RJIL has entered into agreements with RCom for change in spectrum allotment in the 800MHz band for nine circles and sharing of spectrum in the 800MHz band across 17 circles.
"This arrangement will be extended to the balance circles as well subsequent to pending approvals from the government, such that RJIL will have pan-India spectrum in the 800MHz band in addition to 2300MHz band," the company added.
Earlier this week, Reliance Jio launched a new 8,100 km cable system, the Bay of Bengal Gateway, which provides direct connectivity to Southeast Asia and West Asia, then onward to Europe, Africa and the Far East seamlessly.

Moto G 4 and G4 plus may launch on june 9

The rumoured Motorola Moto G (Gen 4) smartphone and the Moto G4 Plus have leaked quite a few times recently via videos and images. Now it has been reported that at least one of them will finally see the light of the day as soon as June 9 this year.
On Thursday during the launch of the Zuk Z2 Pro smartphone, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing confirmed that
Motorola will launch a smartphone on June 9, reports GizmoChina.
To recall, Zuk is Lenovo's brand, while Lenovo completed its acquisition of Motorola from Google in late 2014. Yuanqing did not give any more details as to what the company will launch at the given date. However, with the increasing number of leaks and rumours for the Moto G 4th Gen. and the Moto G4 Plus, it is likely the company might launch one of them.
Earlier this week both the Moto G (Gen 4) prototype and the Moto G4 Plus leaked separately in a video and an image . The leaked image showing the white-coloured Moto G4 Plus shows a square-shaped fingerprint sensor placed as a home button, a speaker grille, a front-facing camera, and the rear camera with flash and autofocus sensors enclosed in a pill-shaped module and a dimple with the company logo below the camera.
The video published on YouTube showed the alleged Moto G (Gen 4) lacking the fingerprint sensor seen on the Moto G4 Plus. The black-coloured smartphone was compared with 2014 Moto X model and clearly seemed slightly bigger in size than any other Moto G handsets. The video also showed its Active Display technology, something that has been there in the Motorola handsets since quite a while.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 will be available without registration in India on April 27

Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 3 smartphone in India early last month, which went on sale in the first flash sale starting from March 9th. The smartphone usually sells out in few minutes after the flash sale begins and the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage variant goes on sale rarely. Now Xiaomi India has announced that both the variants will be available through open sale, without registration on April 27th. It will also stock more units this time, but the company did not reveal any numbers.
To remind you, the Redmi Note 3 packs a 5.5-inch 1080p screen, is powered by a Hexa-Core Snapdragon 650 (Snapdragon 618 previously) processor, runs on Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop) with MIUI 7 top, has a 16-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, LED flash and phase-detection auto-focus (PDAF), 5-megapixel front-facing camera. It has a metal body, hybrid dual SIM support with 4G on both, fingerprint sensor on the back and packs a 4000mAh battery with fast charging.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 comes in Dark Grey, Silver and Champagne Gold colors, starts at Rs. 9,999 and will be available through open sale on Mi.com next Wednesday at 2PM. Both the variants will also be available through Amazon.in .

Samsung Galaxy Note6 could feature 5.8-inch QHD curved display, 6GB RAM, 4000mAh battery

Samsung Galaxy Note6 rumors have started surfacing months ahead of the official announcement. Earlier reports suggested that the Note6 will be waterproof , similar to Galaxy S7 series, will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 823 SoC and come with a iris scanner, in addition to a fingerprint sensor. Now a new report says that Samsung is testing a 5.8-inch Quad HD curved screen for the Note6 as well as a standard screen of the same size, but it is planning to release only one version.
Samsung is also testing both the Exynos 8 and the Snapdragon 823 processor for the Note6 and 6GB of RAM for the smartphone in the prototype. Although there is no exact battery capacity, it is expected to pack 4,000mAh battery, similar to the Galaxy A9 and A9 Pro smartphones.
It is expected to come with the same 12-megapixel Dual Pixel camera used in the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge smartphones, but it is expected to come with improved camera software. There is no image of a Note6 prototype yet. We will have to wait for more leaks.