Deal: Up to 65% Off Select Samsung MicroSD and SD Cards

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Today’s Gold Box deal from Amazon is for a selection of MicroSD cards, as well as SD cards. For MicroSD we’re looking at 16GB, 32GB, 64GB PLUS SDHC MicroSD cards wight he adapter for $9.99, $17.99 and $35.99 respectively. There’s also the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB PRO MicroSDHC cards for $14.99, $24.99, and $49.99 respectively. Amazon is also offering the 16GB PLUS SDHC card for $8.99 and the 16GB PRO SDHC for $14.99. Finally they also have the 64GB Pro SDXC card for just $49.99.

So we’re looking at some pretty good deals here on microSD cards. If you’re pre-ordering your Galaxy S5, Galaxy TabPRO8.4, 10.1, 12.2 or the Galaxy NotePRO 12.2, or just want to grab a microSD card, this is probably the best time to grab one, as they are pretty cheap right now. Or maybe you’re thinking about getting that Sandisk 128GB microSD card? All of them are great choices, obviously.

Amazon Gold Box Deal: Up to 65% off Select Samsung microSD and SD Flash Memory Cards

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Now Available for Pre-Order at T-Mobile

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While AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular began their pre-ordering process for the Samsung Galaxy S5 on Friday, T-Mobile has begun theirs bright and early this morning. T-Mobile will be shipping these pre-orders out around April 11th, as they stated “early April” but it appears that just about everyone is going to be selling theirs in store on April 11th, so it’s fair to assume that’s around the time pre-orders will get theirs. The T-Mobile Galaxy S5 variant will be on sale for $0 down and $27.50 per month if you want to sign a “contract”, yes I know it’s not technically a contract, but it is. If you want to buy the phone outright, it’s going to cost you about $660. Which is about the same price we’ve seen at AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular already.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 features a 5.1-inch 1080p AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of storage along with a microSD card slot inside. It’s got all the high-end specs you’d expect, although we were looking for 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage internally by default since that’s what the Galaxy Note 3 launched with.

As for those on Verizon, well that’s the only carrier we haven’t heard anything from just yet. We’re thinking, that since they supposedly have this exclusive for a couple of weeks on the HTC One 2014, that we may not see the Verizon Galaxy S5 until after that exclusivity is over with. Which is surprising, I’d think it’d be the other way around. But then again, out of all the carriers, Verizon is the only one that can afford to piss off Samsung, because they aren’t going anywhere.

For those interested in pre-ordering the Samsung Galaxy S5 from T-Mobile, you can do so right here.

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Hugo Barra Talks About How Xiaomi is Being Successful, and When They’ll Reach the Rest of the World

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In 2013, Hugo Barra had left Google. This was shortly after Andy Rubin had to step down from being head of Android and move over to another project. Which put Sundar Pichai in charge of both Android and Chrome. A lot of us were worried what would happen with Android, but so far it looks like we’ve overreacted. Recently, former Googler Hugo Barra sat down with CNET for an interview, where they discussed all kinds of interesting things. The main topic being how Xiaomi can expand to the rest of the world, which is what we all thought was going to happen when Barra became an exec at the Chinese company.

“We’re just starting to think about building truly, truly global products. I think Xiaomi’s already good at that because of the mentality of some of the senior engineers. A lot of them have worked at Google or in Silicon Valley, and we have a bunch of ex-Facebook engineers. We have people with the global mentality,” Stated Barra in an interview. “In a year or two, we’re going to shift even harder towards building inherently global products. Whenever we think about a new feature, we try to think about it from a Chinese perspective and a global perspective.”

Numbers don’t lie, and in 2012 Xiaomi sold 7.2 million smartphones, and the next year they more than doubled that to 18.7 million. Additionally Xiaomi had to double their office space in lockstep, which is their new building and look kinda like Google. But no, Barra had nothing to do with that.

It’s interesting that Xiaomi has a bunch of engineers from Google, Facebook and even Microsoft. Which means that Hugo Barra wasn’t the first Googler that the 4-year old Chinese manufacturer managed to grab. Personally, I’m excited to see a Xiaomi phone make it outside of China. Their devices always sell out so quickly, about as fast as they can make them, and they have top-of-the-line specs with pretty low prices. Which is something we can appreciate here.

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Google Updates Design Guidelines for Chromecast Icons

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Chromecast is finally outside the US, so millions more people can enjoy what those of us in the US have been enjoying for months now. The SDK is also available, so now we’re seeing plenty more apps with the Chromecast button and the ability to cast directly to your TV. Which is awesome. Now Google has made a slight change to the design guideline for Cast icons. Basically all they’ve done is change the way it looks when it’s connected, so instead of turning blue, it just fills in the middle of the icon with the matching color. So in Google Play Music, for example, the icon is white and when connected the center will also be white. It actually looks really nice and even minimal one would say.

It appears that the new assets will be available for Chromecast developers in the next update to the Media Router Support Library. The new PSD templates fort hose using custom Cast icons. Obviously the new icons will probably appear in Google apps first, and we could see them as early as this week, during Update Wednesday. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the apps that launched with Chromecast to get it first add well. Like Hulu Plus, Netflix, and HBO Go.

This update is a pretty big one, even if it doesn’t seem like one, and one that we needed. I think it brings uniformity back to your app, not to mention it looks so damn nice. For those of you interested in more information, check out the source link below, which is to the Android Developers official post on Google+. How many of you are liking these new Cast icons from Google? Let us know in the comments below.

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Deal: JayBird BlueBuds X Sport Bluetooth Headphones for $129

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JayBirds Bluetooth headphones, the BlueBuds X are some of the best out there, especially at staying in your ears when doing things like working out. They are also quite expensive, however Amazon has them on sale today for $129 which is about 24% off their normal pricing. The BlueBuds X feature breakthrough technology that doubles the playtime to a solid 8 hours offering a full week of workouts or a full day of listening. It also features SignalPlus for skip-free music outdoors. Use your music device left/right side, above/below waist, it doesn’t matter with SignalPlus. JayBird also has a lifetime warranty against sweat, so that these were made for going to the gym everyday.

The JayBird BlueBuds X are available in Midnight black from Amazon right now for just $129, which is definitely a great price for these earbuds. They have all kinds of ear tips, so you can use the ones that fit the best for your ear, since everyone’s ears are different sizes.

How many of you are going to pick up a pair?

JayBird BlueBuds X Sport Bluetooth Headphones – Midnight Black

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Unreal Engine 4 Demoed on the Nexus 5; Looks Awesome

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While the next generation of games consoles for the home, with vastly improved graphics and capabilities is now the current generation, things are continuing to move forward on the mobile front. In the last four years or so, we’ve seen mobile gaming go from colorful 2D graphics with simple gameplay mechanics to putting dedicated handhelds like Sony’s PS Vita to shame, as well as creating completely new gameplay experiences. Thanks to the likes of the Unity engine and better OpenGL support in Android, games have gotten easier to make and better-looking overall. One of the bigger things to happen to mobile gaming in recent years has been the arrival of the Unreal Engine on Android and now, version 4 of the engine is here, and it’s been demoed on a Nexus 5.

The Unreal Enginer 4 has now been demoed on the Nexus 5, which as a lot of you know features a quad-core Snapdragon 800 under the hood, a far cry from the 192-core GPU in nvidia’s Tegra K1 we first saw the engine demoed on. Still, the Snapdragon 800 showed some great performance in the video you can see below and everything looked stunning. With 2GB of RAM onboard, there’s obviously the ability to pack more textures into the engine and dynamic lighting is on show, as well as moving fabric. Moving fabric alone used to be something that only high-end PCs could do, but now we’re beginning to see it in mobile games and those based on Unreal Engine 4 should prove to be something special, indeed.

At the rate mobile gaming is expanding, it’s no surprise that folks like Mad Catz and OUYA have inexpensive games consoles on sale that utilize nvidia’s mobile chips. The Tegra 4 inside of the MOJO is particularly potent and with Unreal Engine 4 looking this good, it could mean big things on the horizon for all Android gaming, not just on-the-go gaming.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Petition Started to Ask Sony to Update the Xperia SP to Android 4.4 KitKat

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Since Sony took over their mobile branch, they’ve paid a lot more attention to the mid-range and low-end of the market, developing devices such as the Xperia SP, which we reviewed last year. A solid mid-range device that features an HD display, a decent camera, some party tricks and a very pleasing build. It launched with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and was since updated to Android 4.3 Jelly Bean towards the end of last year. Now a petition has been started in order to persuade Sony to update the Xperia SP to Android 4.4 KitKat. Said petition is being held over at Change.org and so far has around 200 signatures.

Previously, an update to Android 4.4 was planned by Sony as their website previously showed. However, this has now changed from “Future version” to “under investigation” which seems code for “we have no current plans to update this device any further”, which is itself code for “no KitKat for you.” So, it’s probably not as bad as that, as we’re sure Sony is indeed looking into updating the Xperia SP to KitKat, as even though Sony might be slow with their updates, they do come and they usually arrive with few issues. It’s the fact that Sony seem to have quietly gone back on their initial plans here that presumably worries Xperia SP owners, and rightfully so. The Xperia SP has been out roughly a year now, which would say is far too soon for any company to cut update support, and more than that the Xperia SP is more than capable of running Android 4.4. With a dual-core Snapdragon S4 and 1GB of RAM, there’s little reason for Sony not to update this guy.

Hopefully the petition, as well as pressure from elsewhere, pushes Sony to change their plans and that an update will be coming shortly. Even if the Xperia SP didn’t sell many units, it’s a decent device and updating as many of your devices as possible will show other consumers that Sony cares about their products. Which in turn could turn more people onto their smartphones. You can sign the petition yourself at the source link.

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