We’re live from the Samsung Galaxy S6 (and Edge) event, here’s where to watch live!

We’ve zoomed from HTC and are now sitting at Samsung’s shindig in Barcelona this week. We’re expecting the company to unveil the Samsung Galaxy S6, and we’re likely to see an “Edge” variant with a display that curves on both sides.

Anything else Samsung is announcing will be quite the surprise as there hasn’t been anything else in the rumor mill other than the goliaths mentioned above. We’ll be bringing you all the info you need, but if you care to watch along you can do so using the YouTube embed above.

We’re here at the LG G4 event in New York!

In less than a hour we will be officially introduced to the LG G4. We’ve got Rob and Kevin on the ground in New York to get up close and personal with the new device. LG has already revealed a lot about the G4. We know it will come in a variety of leather options. It will have a 5.5-inch Quad HD display. The camera will be 16MP with a f/1.8 aperture. We even know what the software will look like.

The G4 will also most likely have a removable battery and expandable storage, which will appeal to disgruntled Samsung fans. Other rumored specs include 3GB of RAM, 3,000 mAh battery, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 or 810. Going into the event we know a lot, but hopefully LG surprises us with a few things. Are you planning on buying the LG G4? Do you like LG phones?

You can follow along with the live stream right here.

We’re live at the HTC One M9 event at Mobile World Congress, here’s where you can watch!

Just a quick heads-up, folks: we’re live at Mobile World Congress, and it all begins with HTC’s “Utopia in Progress” event starting at 10AM Eastern. Word on the street is HTC’s looking to launch the HTC One M9 we’ve been hearing so much about, which is poised to be their 2015 flagship.

HTC’s also gone on record to suggest they’re bringing more that we likely haven’t heard about yet. Smart watch? A new RE camera? Heck, a VR headset? Anything is possible, and the only way to get the news first is to tune in (whether that be to Phandroid for the latest news and hands-on goodness you can handle or checking it out on live stream right here). Get hyped!

Newly announced HTC J Butterfly 3 could be the redesigned One M9 we were looking for

When the HTC One M9 was finally unveiled at Mobile World Congress, there were more than a few fans who were disappointed to find the design didn’t deviate much away from last year’s One M8. It didn’t help matters that only a few weeks prior to the official unveiling, famed tipster @evleaks revealed press renders of an alleged One M9 with a vastly different front face. In the end, that device apparently never made it out of the concept phase with HTC instead opting for something a little more familiar to consumers (perhaps even a little too familiar). But is it possible HTC incorporated that leaked design in its latest handset for Japan?

Announced in Japan, the HTC J Butterfly 3 is the company’s latest high-end device for Japanese carrier KDDI. It packs a design aesthetic eerily reminiscent of that leaked One M9 we saw awhile back, only with a few key differences. One, this phone is all plastic and the perforated speaker holes sit in between the glass display and the plastic bezel. It’s very similar to what we saw with the HTC Desire EYE. Running with that, the Butterfly 3 even packs a similar 13MP front facing shooter like the Eye, mounted directly in the middle of the top plastic bezel. You may remember this was rumored early on to come equipped on the One M9 (and shown in @evleaks’ leaked render).

On the back, HTC’s Duo Camera makes a return (another feature we heard would make it to the One M9 but didn’t), coupled with a 20.2MP rear facing camera. As far as other hardware specs, the Butterfly 3 features a pin sharp 5.2-inch 2560×1440 resolution LCD 3 display, Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB RAM, 2,700mAh battery, IPX5/IPX7 water resistance rating, and comes in 3 color options: red, white, and blue.

There really is a lot here to love and honestly, it makes us wonder if the Butterfly 3 doesn’t trump the One M9 in some respects. The Butterfly 3 will launch in Japan this June on KDDI.

[HTC | via Engadget Japan]

Google’s self-driving cars have been involved in 11 accidents in 6 years, and none were their fault

“Self-driving cars? Madness! What happens when the cars get hacked? Or the electric circuitry gets all weird? Or, even worse, they become sentient evil beings? These cars must be banned before they even hit the road!”

Those are the lines we imagine many people have had run through their heads when they first heard Google was working on self-driving vehicles, but Google’s cars have actually proven to be much safer than many people could have anticipated. Head of the project Chris Urmson revealed that Google’s cars have only been involved in 11 accidents in the past 6 years.

While that number alone should be low enough to quell fears, this fact should drive that point home: none of the accidents were caused by fault of the vehicles, and they all resulted in 0 injuries and only minor damage. The most common cause of accidents were other drivers rear-ending the driverless cars, which Google says accounted for 8 of the 11 accidents.

Those are some pretty strong numbers to be able to tout, and Google’s sure to keep it in their back pocket should they ever face strong resistance from road regulators due to questions of safety.

Other choice statistics from Urmson’s latest blog post:

• Google self-driving cars have traveled a combined 1.7 million miles in testing combined


• Of the 1.7 million miles, nearly 1 million were autonomous, the rest being manually controlled by the test drivers


• Google is averaging 10,000 self-driven miles per week, which is just less than a typical American drives in a year


• Driver error causes 94% of road crashes


• In America, 660,000 people at any given moment have their attention split while behind the wheel (texting, calling, eating, etc)


• Meanwhile, Google’s self-driving cars have 100% of their attention focused over all 360 degrees of their surroundings

You can read Urmson’s full post over at Medium right now if you’re interested in a deeper look at how their self-driving car project has evolved to become one of the most safe driving experiences on the road today.

We’re live at OPPO’s 10 year celebration event, here comes the R7 and R7 Plus

We’re live here on the ground floor of the AOYA Exhibition Center in beautiful Beijing, China to celebrate a decade worth of products from OPPO. It all started with the OPPO X3 MP3 player back in 2005 and the saga continues today with the announcement of the Oppo R7 and R7 Plus. Stay tuned to Phandroid for all things OPPO as we get our first look at their latest addition to the Android world.

Want to watch from the event from comfort of your own home? Tune in right here.

Lollipop’s sound profiles were confusing, Android M’s are much clearer

Android VP of Engineering Dave Burke addressed criticisms surrounding the Lollipop’s awful sound profiles head-on while on stage at Google I/O. Along with “thousands” of bug fixes making their way to Android M, arguably one of the bigger bugs was Lollipop’s convoluted sound profiles which made sense to just about no one and didn’t really behave the way they had in previous versions of Android.

For Android M, Google’s making things a little bit simpler with new and improved controls. Currently, changing the volume in Lollipop brings up the volume slider along with the options to choose between no sounds at all (even alarms), priority notifications, or all notifications.

Android M has a similar UI, only now it spells things out more clearly with a first-time popup message explaining each option in plain language. There’s also a handy drop down when adjusting the volume to control audio output for notifications and alarms individually. Again, it’s not too drastically different from what we had in Lollipop, but it’s better and better is good.

Thanks, Hernan!

We’re here: Google IO 2015!

After making 22 bold predictions about Google IO 2015, we jumped on a plane, flew to San Francisco, and got in line with hoards of others to grab our passes for tomorrow’s huge keynote presentation. You’ll be able to watch streaming video of the Keynote on Phandroid and follow all the event coverage with our Google IO Guide.

After waiting in line for about an hour we finally got into the belly of the beast where an awesomely decorated room awaited.

There will undoubtedly be much more in store tomorrow when we’re able to ascend two levels above, where various booths and stands showcase Google’s latest offerings.

For now, on the ground floor, attendees lounge around after getting their event badges, surrounded by several larger than life Android statues.

Meanwhile, smaller than life Android statues await in the Google Store where 3 IO themed shirts designed by local artists were also being sold.

Google staffers are hard at work preparing and setting up for two the company’s most important days of the year.

While our own hardworking Steve Albright works furiously on his swinging skills and pizza eating capabilities.

Want to see more “behind the scenes” style stuff throughout Google IO? Let us know in the comments.

Just want the breaking news? Follow our Google IO Guide.

Pokemon Jukebox now on Google Play, probably isn’t the Nintendo title you were hoping for

It’s not exactly what he had in mind when he heard Nintendo would soon release apps/games for our mobile devices. Today, The Pokemon Company has released a new application for western audiences from their new developer account and before you get too excited, no it’s not the Pokemon Style theme maker we saw earlier this year for Japan. Instead, Pokemon Jukebox is now available on Google Play.

As the title suggests, the Pokemon Jukebox is little more than a music player that will allow you to play various Pokemon tunes… and that’s about it. Users can compile their favorite Pokemon tracks into playlists for easy listening on the go, adding sound effects on demand for added nostalgia.

While Pokemon Jukebox is free to download in the in the Play Store, most tracks will run you 99 cents with medleys running about . There is a free limited time preview for most tracks taking place over the next 24 hours, so it’s got that going for it. We can’t help but shake the feeling that is simply the one of the most blatant money grabs we’ve ever seen on Android in quite sometime. Download link provided below if you want to check it out for yourself.

ポケモン音楽図鑑 (Playboard) | ポケモン音楽図鑑 (Play Store)

Another high-end HTC One device launches, and we’re still wondering why it isn’t the HTC One M9

Seriously, HTC, this is just getting ridiculous. The Taiwanese company has revealed another new smartphone as part of 2015’s One lineup. It’s the HTC One ME, and just like the HTC One E9++ and HTC One M9+, it outclasses HTC’s supposed “flagship” HTC One M9 in every way.

It does so with a 5.2-inch 2560 x 1440 display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a front-facing UltraPixel camera, a fingerprint scanner and 2,840mAh battery. The only thing you could knock it for is using MediaTek’s octa-core Helio X10 chipset over something from the Snapdragon family, but MediaTek chipsets aren’t even bad these days.

Like many of the other variants, this one is only slated for a launch in China right now, which is fascinating considering that market now has access to 3 of HTC’s 2015 devices while most others only have the HTC One M9.

[via HTC China]