Jeff Koons Live Case now available for the Nexus 5X and 6P

Jeff Koons’s sculptures have normally been seen by the public, but Google is giving you the chance to gain a private gallery of his art. All you have to do is by a Jeff Koons Live Case for your Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P.It’s become almost common to see a designer ...

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Off-beat: Taiwanese artist turns trashed mobile phones into a car sculpture

When we talk about recycling our smartphones or thinking about the environment once we’re done with our devices, we often see dreaded fields of waste or look to companies thinking up solutions like Fairphone. OnePlus makes a token gesture every once in a while to help doctors out. Some people just ...

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AnTuTu 5.0 overview: what’s new in this upcoming update? (Video)

Benchmarking programs have long been a controversial subject. Big manufacturers have been accused of cheating them, and the process of putting a score to a phone has been debated too. So when AnTuTu Labs announced that its famous benchmarking app would be receiving a pretty huge update, we decided to give it a run — this is our AnTuTu 5.0 overview.Many tests are run as part of any benchmarking program, and AnTuTu is no exception. While these tests themselves are generally considered great metrics ...

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Android codebase makes the shift from Dalvik to ART

With last fall’s release of Android 4.4 KitKat, Google introduced an experimental new runtime, ART. As opposed to the Dalvik virtual machine, ART promised speed improvements at the cost of storage space – or at least, that was the idea. In reality, the speed boosts could be hard to see, and compatibility issues that broke certain apps prevented ART from being a slam dunk. Nevertheless, the option has been there for users interested in trying it out. Lately, though, we’ve been seeing evidence ...

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Art on an iPhone: the unbelievable mobile photography of Sarah Jarrett

All images copyright Sarah Jarrett Looking through Sarah Jarrett’s gallery, it’s hard to believe these images were made using only an iPhone and an iPad. From painterly landscapes and still lifes to surreal portraiture, Sarah’s work is expressive and unique. While many still associate the term “mobile photography” with the occasional selfie or family photo, Sarah is a pioneer in a growing movement of people who create serious fine art on their mobile devices. We talked to Sarah about mobile ...

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Android devs brace for more root changes

Back in January, noted Android dev Chainfire raised some warning flags about changes Google was making to Android sources that threatened to disrupt the way root access works. While the changes seemed intended to help beef-up Android security, the side effect was that we needed a new superuser app, and that some apps taking advantage of root needed to be re-tooled. Over the weekend, Chainfire has posted an update, talking further about the ongoing efforts in the AOSP to enhance app security and the effect this all has on ...

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Google’s new ART may be giving Dalvik the boot quicker than you think

We all know that a platform without many apps isn’t very attractive. As far as mobile computing platforms are concerned, Android is somewhat uniquely positioned when it comes to apps.  Most platforms require their apps to be compiled for the particular processor tucked neatly inside the device. This has some significant advantages, not the least of which is speed. Programs that are written and compiled for one particular architecture are generally much faster, more responsive, and a lot less “laggy” than devices that go through a middle-tier — like Android does. ...

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Next Android release may forsake Dalvik for ART

With the release of Android 4.4 KitKat, we saw Google introduce a new virtual machine, giving users the opportunity to switch from the just-in-time compilation of the familiar Dalvik VM to one using ahead-of-time compilation, the Android Runtime ART. With KitKat, ART was added as a bit of a preview – it wasn’t the default VM, and while our experiments with it revealed a lot of promise, initial load time and the threat of compatibility issues were still factors that gave us ...

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Dalvik vs. ART: Android virtual machines and the battle for better performance

A huge advantage that devices powered by the Android operating system have over virtually every other OS is the use of a virtual machine in which apps run. Yes, virtual machines, but we’ll get to those in just a moment. What makes all this relevant now is the decision by Google to include a new runtime in Android 4.4 KitKat — one that promises to make your device faster, your battery last longer, and give you thicker, more manageable hair. Wait, not that last one. Before we jump into this brand new VM, and why it’s turned off by ...

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