Google Play Store updated to v5.0, gets more Material Design elements

Google has started rolling out v5.0.31 of the Play Store for Android. The major difference here is in the UI, and it’s approximately 600% more Material Design now.

First up, the action bar on top is now teal (or something close to that) with a new side menu and a cool animation for the hamburger button.

Interbrand: Apple is top value brand in the world, Google comes second

Brand consultancy firm Interbrand has released its report on the most valuable brands in the world and has placed Apple in first place. The brand of the Cupertino based tops the list containing 100 companies and is valued at $118.9 billion.

It is followed by Google, which isn’t too far off with a brand price of $107 billion.

HTC RE action camera goes official – 146-degree 1080p videos for $199

HTC has decided to step out of its smartphone comfort zone and announce an action camera. Dubbed simply the HTC RE, the camera boasts a 16MP 1/2.3″ CMOS sensor with an 146° ultra wide angle lens. And since it’s an action camera, the RE is IP57 dust and water resistant (you can optionally bump the certification to IPx8 with an accessory cap).

HTC’s first action camera records 1080p@30 fps video and 720p@120fps slow-motion video.

Galaxy Note 4 goes through the bend test

In case you are not aware, the whole iPhone ‘Bendgate’ controversy was started when YouTuber Unbox Therapy bent an iPhone 6 Plus into a boomerang on video using just his hands. This sparked a lot of debate, ranging from the validity of these tests (I say these because everyone else started doing them as well) to the legitimacy of the original video. He later did another video in public where he bent another iPhone 6 Plus out on the street on camera.

Samsung looking to settle its patent dispute with Microsoft through arbitration

The long-standing patent fee dispute between Samsung and Microsoft, which first made headlines this summer, apparently continues to be an issue as still neither can come to an agreement.

In an attempt to put the issue at rest, Samsung has filed for arbitration under the International Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

Nokia disses Google Maps, calls its offline functionality “a glorified screenshot”

Free from Microsoft influence, Nokia quickly reoriented and made its HERE maps available on Samsung devices. And it would have you know it’s so much better than Google Maps where the offline mode is “a glorified screenshot.”

Google is an Internet company so offline mode was never much of a priority, while Nokia has been offering navigation software on its phones since less than 10 people had mobile Internet.

Samsung shows how tough the Galaxy Note 4 is with drop test video

Samsung has released a second video of the Galaxy Note 4 testing facilities and it shows the phone in a series of comprehensive drop tests. While in the previous video, Samsung focused on bending the Note 4, here the company goes medieval on it with hundreds of drop and tumble tests.

Surprisingly, the Galaxy Note 4 walks out of all of them with the screen intact and working perfectly.

Nvidia launches GeForce GTX 980M and GTX 970M for mobile gamers

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M and GTX 970M went official today offering superior performance over the Kepler series of GPU they replace. The GTX 980M and and GTX 970M use the company’s latest Maxwell graphics architecture, which also powers the company’s latest desktop GPU line-up.

Thanks to the Maxwell architecture, the two mobile GPUs are more power efficient and offer greater performance. The GTX 980M and GTX 970M feature 1536 and 1280 CUDA cores, respectively.

Opera Mini is the first web browser for Samsung Gear S

The Tizen-based Samsung Gear S now has its very own full web browser thanks to Opera.

The Opera Mini will allow you to browse the internet on your wrists and has the familiar features – mobile compression that shrinks pages to as little as 10% of their original size and speed dial with your recent pages.