Google Keep is now a full featured app on your Android Wear smartwatch thanks to latest update

Making that monthly shopping trip to Walmart is never easy task. If you’re anything like me, you probably cruise about the aisles phone in hand, narrowly avoiding pedestrians with your cart (or occasionally bumping their heels). Today, Google is making those trips a little easier, with new and improved Keep notes now available on your Android Wear device.

Now, we’ve been able to add Keep notes for quite some time using the “Ok Google, take a note” command, but this allows you view all your notes straight from your wrist with a fresh new UI. Simply say “Ok Google, open Keep” and the app will pop up right on your smartwatch (or you can open from the app list). From here you can view all your notes, archive, add list items, or even add a reoccurring reminders. But until the latest Android Wear update arrives — which allows for always-on apps — you’ll have to keep opening the app every time the screen turns off. Not. Fun.

To get started, simply update the Keep app from the Google Play Store. Link provided below.

Download on Google Play: Google Keep

Android M battery lasts 2X longer than Lollipop thanks to new “doze” feature [VIDEO]

If you were watching the Google IO 2015 keynote, you’ve gotten an early look at some of the things Google’s doing for Android M. One of the biggest things they announced was a feature called “doze,” and it has everything to do with saving precious juice on those petite batteries.

The simplified explanation is that “doze” is a system state that will idle your device and background apps to a near-off state when you haven’t used it for a while, a tactic that can make your phone last twice as long as it would if your Lollipop phone were on standby.

This comes with one sacrifice: apps don’t stay as “fresh,” meaning they won’t be fully up to date with the latest information while your phone is dozing. That’s a small price to pay for double the battery life, though.

And the reason it’s called “doze” is because that doesn’t mean your device has to be completely off the grid to get these battery gains. You’ll still get alerted about phone calls, alarms, and high priority messages (such as text or Hangouts messages) to make sure you don’t miss a thing.

Battery life has been something of concern for Android users since the beginning, and with devices coming with more demanding hardware we’re glad Google is taking drastic measures to improve it.

HTC One M9 now supports RAW image format thanks to latest camera update

HTC’s camera app has received a nice upgrade over at Google Play. The biggest feature in tow is for users of the HTC One M9 — HTC has enabled the RAW image format for those who prefer capturing images that way.

In case you don’t know, RAW format is the completely raw, untouched result of whichever image you’re capturing. No software or hardware-based encoding or alterations are carried out.

The benefit of shooting RAW is that the image retains 100% of the original color information, so it’s much preferred for making adjustments to color, saturation, tone, contrast and all sorts of other things. While it’s still possible to make these changes to an image encoded in JPEG, the partial loss of original color information might make it difficult to achieve the exact effect you want.

The one downside to RAW is that it typically has to be encoded to a file format suitable for sharing on the web after it has been edited. That extra step is a small price to pay for being given total control over the outcome of your image. There’s also the issue of RAW files being significantly larger in file size than JPEG images of the same resolution.

The lack of RAW format typically isn’t an issue for your everyday camera user, but professional photographers view the ability to capture in RAW as invaluable. It’s there if you need it, but if the original image format worked well enough for you then you’re just as free to continue.

Here’s a quick list of some of the other changes coming along as part of this update:

• Crop-Me-In mode, only available on the HTC One (M8 EYE) running Android 5.0 Lollipop and the HTC Desire EYE


• Adjustable divider in Split Capture mode


• Add and remove camera modes

Be sure to grab it from the Google Play Store right here if all that sounds good to you.

Cyanogen OS to get caller ID integration thanks to Truecaller partnership

Cyanogen Inc today announced a new partnership. They’ve teamed up with Truecaller, the makers of a caller ID app that’ll show you unknown callers or identify phone numbers known to be spam. The integration will come at the OS level, says Cyanogen, so there will be no need to download a separate app if caller ID is something you fancy.

That deep integration will also allow the company to integrate the information you’re looking for in a way that makes sense. Whereas a standalone caller ID app might require going into their app to see information about calls that were already placed, you will be able to see that information right from Cyanogen’s built-in dialer.

Cyanogen says the deal will apply to all future mobile devices that ship with Cyanogen OS globally, and will also be available to tens of millions of existing users via an over-the-air update. We don’t have an exact timeline on when to expect these features to arrive to existing customers, but we imagine it shouldn’t be long if they’re already promising it to be ready for all future Cyanogen devices.