Minuum Demos An Android Wear Keyboard That Might Not Suck

Perhaps you've tried the Minuum keyboard on your phone or tablet. It's designed to take up as little space as possible on the screen with just a single line of keys, which is great for smaller screens. How small, though? The developers think smart watch size sounds good, so they are working on Minuum for Android Wear. There's a beta you can try to get into as well.

The video shows someone pecking at the compressed Minuum keyboard.

Minuum Demos An Android Wear Keyboard That Might Not Suck was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Shazam Will Now Stream Full Songs In-App Via Rdio, Android App Update Coming Soon

Shazam, the company whose app uses a phone or tablet's microphone to identify a song or TV show, has partnered with Rdio to offer users full in-app song playback. Previously Shazam kicked users out to a separate app to check out the track. Going forward, people with Rdio subscriptions won't have to deal with such disruptive behavior.

Yes, that's an iPhone screenshot. Android's update is coming soon.

The integration doesn't stop there.

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[New App] Starwatch Brings Star Trek's Iconic LCARS Interface To The Android Wear Watch Face

Captain's log, stardate 45638.2. A scan of a long-lost pleasure cruise that exited Earth in the late twenty-first century has yielded some fascinating archaeological findings. In addition to a pair of primitive foot coverings that Commander Data identified as "Converse All-Stars," a complete and mint-condition collection of the classic mythological saga known as Animorphs, and a small, vibrating "Furby" that Mister Worf immediately eviscerated, we have discovered a piece of anachronistic human technology.

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Softbank’s Son getting ready for long merger battle

As Sprint edges closer to a merger deal with T-Mobile, sources say the parties involved are bracing for a longer than expected approval process. This has triggered lenders to seek higher fees as part of the financing deals. Both Softbank, Sprint’s controlling shareholder, and T-Mobile shareholder Deutsche Telekom AG expect the regulatory approval process to take at least 12 months. Building in some cushion to the schedule, it is expected a drop-dead date will be set for around 18 months after an official announcement is made.

Besides the long regulatory process, Softbank and Deutsche Telekom also appear to be seriously considering being prepared for a legal challenge if the government rejects the deal. In 2011 when AT&T’s move to acquire T-Mobile was turned down, the company initially announced it would fight it in court, but eventually backed off citing the high costs of litigation.

Softbank’s Masayoshi Son revealed a little bit of the strategy the company may use to get around the U.S. government’s position that four players are needed in the wireless market. It appears the argument will be made that wireless carriers are more about providing Internet services, a market in which AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are the major players. A merger of Sprint and T-Mobile would create a fourth alternative that could compete with those companies in offering high-speed wireless Internet services to consumers.

Sources indicate the primary companies involved in the merger talks are close to a deal with only details, notably fees for lenders, to be ironed out. An announcement could come as soon as August.

source: Bloomberg

via: TmoNews

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HTC Loses Two More Execs ahead of Smartwatch Launch

Just like everyone else, HTC is also working on a smartwatch. In fact, they are one of the Android Wear partners, and we are expecting them to launch their smartwatch later this year. However, there’s some more bad news for HTC, as it looks like they just lost their CMO and COO of the company. That’s Ben Ho, and Fred Liu, respectively. This makes Ho’s time with HTC pretty short, since he did just join the company around 18 months ago. While Ben Ho is no longer CMO, he will still be with the company until the end of 2014, however. Fred Liu has also dropped his day-to-day operations and instead is in an advisory role now, as he gets ready to retire after 16 years with HTC. Which is a nice amount of time. Liu joined HTC about a year after it was founded by HT Cho and Peter Chou.

It’s important to remember that neither of these should really reflect the roadmap that HTC has in place. As neither of these people are completely leaving the company, just stepping down from executives to doing other roles. So hopefully it’s not all doom and gloom for HTC with Ben Ho and Fred Liu leaving the company at the end of the year. HTC sent a statement to Engadget about this report which is below:

“HTC’s dedication to innovation drives us to pursue our goals. We are taking the necessary steps to create a resurgence of the HTC brand. As a company, we will continue to push forward, making the hard decisions needed to continue growing as a global presence. We are confident that the business steps we have taken, and continue to take, are the right ones to lead to a strong resurgence of the HTC brand. HTC continues to invest in talent and recruitment as part of our broader human resources strategy to ensure the continued strength of our company’s organizational structure.”

How many of you are surprised to see both Ben Ho and Fred Liu leaving their positions at HTC? Let us know in the comments below.

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HTC losing more executives

Despite the recent announcement of a strong second quarter for HTC riding on the success of the HTC One (M8), it appears all is not well with upper level employees at the company. According to a report out today, Chief Marketing Officer Ben Ho has tendered his resignation only a year and half after taking over the role. Some sources are suggesting Ho may have been catching heat for HTC’s Robert Downey, Jr. marketing campaign. According to the report, Ho will remain with HTC through the end of the year even though Chairwoman Cher Wang has taken over the CMO duties.

At the same time, President of Engineering and Operations Fred Liu is retiring from the company after 16 years. The company is also losing Paul Golden, a former Samsung executive, who had been brought on as a marketing consultant pursuant to a short-term contract. It appears HTC may have wanted Golden to stay on longer, but he declined the opportunity.

HTC has not issued any official statements concerning these reported departures.

source: Bloomberg

via: Android Central

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Sprint Updates Its HTC One M8 To Android 4.4.3, Throws In Wi-Fi Calling For Good Measure

Dedicated Android fans will probably be a little disappointed that the latest update to HTC's One M8 flagship on Sprint doesn't include the bleeding edge 4.4.4. But it's pretty close, 4.4.3, and Sprint has thrown in a couple of notable expansions specifically for its network. In addition to the small back-end improvements in 4.4.3, the 2.16.651.4 release adds the Wi-Fi Calling feature that Sprint has been slowly rolling out for the last few months.

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