World of technology

Amid stiff competition in the mid range from Chinese and Indian brands like Oppo, Vivo, Asus, Xiaomi, Micromax and Lava, the new Moto G5, a smaller but feature-rich sibling of the Moto G5 Plus, seems to offer a great value for money. When Motorola, then owned by Google, had launched the first Moto G series in 2013, the phones, especially for the Moto G model, had become an instant hit in the mid-tier Android ecosystem. A year later, as the company made a comeback into the Indian market with the Moto G smartphones, the ultra-affordable feature-rich devices drew a lot of interest from the discerning Indian consumer, known to seek a bang for every buck. In 2017, the fifth-generation Moto G series of Motorola, now owned by Lenovo, continues the legacy of its predecessors. But, surely, the competition now is much higher than ever before. Is the Lenovo-made Moto G5 as attractive today as the older generation of the Moto G were? Let’s take a look: The smartphone: The Mot...

The Motorola Moto Z Play will get the Android 7.1.1 update. This was confirmed by a company representative during a chat session. There was, however, no information on when the update will be rolled out. The device started getting the Nougat (version 7.0) update back in January this year. Units in Europe got the update first, followed by regions like India and Brazil. Then in the month of March, the update arrived in Canada as well as the US.

Of the three G4-branded phones it launched last year, Motorola has already updated the G4 and G4 Plus to Android 7.0 Nougat. The software rolled out in some markets last October, and made its way to the US in March. But what about the G4 Play? The cheapest and lowest-end G4 is still on Marshmallow, and you may have expected things to stay that way given its affordability. Software update expectations are generally low in that price bracket. Yet Motorola begs to differ. The Lenovo-owned company has confirmed to Android Authority that the G4 Play will indeed get its very own taste of Nougat. This will be released at some point in June, at least for devices sold in the US. It's unclear when (or if) the update will become available for G4 units purchased elsewhere.

The battery on Samsung's flagship devices are in the news once again, fortunately, it's not about the devices catching fire or exploding. Though this time, Samsung's Galaxy S8 batteries have caught everyone's attention for an amusing reason. While the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ house a non-removable Lithium-ion battery which shouldn't be disassembled without any supervision, but if anyone happens to disassemble the smartphones, the battery label says it should not be left unattended around dogs or any of your pets. Apparently, the intent behind is that pets might think of the battery as a chew toy and puncture it while fiddling around it. This could further cause harms to your pets as battery contains toxic elements in it. If ingested, the battery toxins can cause burns, irritation, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and damage to the dog s digestive tract. If ever a situation occurs like this, pet owners are recommended to seek medical hel...

Over the past day or so, we've noticed a major change in the Google Play Store. While the main Play Store screen has remained untouched, an overhaul to the "My Apps & Games" tab has arrived aimed at making it much easier to manage updates, and makes far more efficient use of the available space. If you wish to force the update, you can do what we did to our Huawei P10 unit: We simply restarted the device and opened the Play Store. This triggered the change and we were able to see the new "My Apps" UI. The My Apps and Games tab has been shuffled around a bit: There is no longer a "Subscriptions" tab and the "Installed" tab no longer displays updates. Now, "Updates" gets its own tab and here you'll be able to see which app updates are available, how long ago they became available, and below that, you'll see your most recently updated apps and how long ago they were updated. The most recent updates available sh...

Almost two weeks ago Verizon started sending out the update to Android 7.0 Nougat for its versions of the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+. And today it looks like it's finally time for those devices' slightly older and smaller flagship siblings to be put through the same treatment. We're talking of course about the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, now more than two years old - but still receiving big OS updates. That said, this is likely to be the last major new Android version they will get. Although Verizon is yet to publish its usual documentation for this new release, owners of the S6 and S6 edge are already reporting that they're seeing the update notification. The screenshot you can see to the left comes from such a report. The changelog doesn't say much, except that aside from all of the improvements built into Android 7.0, you're also getting security updates and a new battery management page.