T-Mobile seems to be the only major carrier looking out for the customer these days. They know that this is their only chance to break up the duopoly and take a favorable market share. They have been using this tactic to their advantage to include taxes and fees in their plan prices, offer consumers free stuff and more. Now they will be increasing the throttle limit on unlimited data plans to 50GB per line per month. The change will take place on September 20th. Their new limit more than doubles the limit of the other three carriers. This increase is great for those customers who now have free netflix.

via AndroidCentral

A new form of Android malware was able to slip past the anti-malware protections in Google Play and could have infected up to 4.2 million devices, according to a report from Check Point security researchers. According to the report, ExpensiveWall infected at least 50 apps and could have been downloaded 1-4.2 million times. So, what does this malware do? The report said that it "sends fraudulent premium SMS messages and charges users' accounts for fake services without their knowledge."

Continue Reading @ TechRepublic

Verizon customers can now purchase the Essential phone with confidence. It received full Verizon certification over the weekend. Andy Rubin posted that you would simply need to reboot your phone for the changes to take effect. The Essential phone shipped out a few weeks ago. The phone may be able to pick up some OnePlus fans who have held back purchasing due to its incompatibility with the Verizon network. After rebooting your device you will be able to receive full Verizon service with your Verizon sim.

via @Arubin

Verizon just dismissed more than 8,500 customers in rural areas for using a "substantial amount of data". Verizon of course offers "unlimited data" to their customers. Many of the customers dismissed were on these unlimited data plans. Verizon was apparently spending too much money to get their data to rural areas like Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Utah. For this reason Verizon decided it wasn't worth having the customers.

Verizon will be turning off 8,500 accounts, 19,000 lines in 13 states. These customers have until October 17th to find a new provider. They were not given an option to continue service with Verizon. One of the affected customer who spoke with Ars Technica said that her family with four lines used about 55GB per month in total. Each line is allowed 22GB before throttling according to Verizon's plan. The family should be able to use 88GB before incurring throttling according to Verizon. Should Verizon be responsible for supporting these customers at a loss since they sold these customers...

Early reports indicate that Samsung is working on a big upgrade when it comes to the camera on the Galaxy S9. In order to compete with Sony's Xperia XZ1 camera Samsung is apparently developing an in house camera sensor capable of shooting at 1,000fps. This is pretty amazing considering that pro style cameras with the same capabilities can cost up to $10,000. This sensor is expected to begin mass production beginning in November. This would give Samsung plenty of time to include the sensor in the S9 which is now rumored to release as early as January. We also expect the S9 to include a 5.8" infinity display, Snapdragon 845 cpu, and possibly an in-display fingerprint scanner. Is a super high powered slow mo camera like this important to you?

via SamMobile

The Bixby Button is Samsung's attempt to get those using their millions of new handsets to use the Samsung created voice assistant. Bixby is their answer to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. In some ways it can actually do more than either voice assistant. On the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 Bixby can seem a bit redundant. Those phones also feature Google Assistant which comes standard with Android. I find myself using Google's service almost exclusively.

That being said I have accidentally launched Bixby a time or two on my Note 8 by hitting that dedicated button that sits just below the volume rocker. If you do that a time or two you start looking for a way to turn it off. Until now Samsung has blocked all apps that allow for the button to be turned off or remapped. It looks like Samsung is finally hearing our pain regarding this matter. The latest Bixby app update include a Bixby button toggle so you can turn the button off if it gets in your way. Even if you toggle off the button you can still access Bixby voice by long pressing the button. If the Bixby button has been giving you heartache you should check your app to see if you have the update with the on/off switch.

via SamMobile

Well that was quick only a few days after Samsung began work on Android 8.0 Oreo for the Galaxy S8 the device has been spotted running the software a Geekbench benchmark. There is still no time table on the release of the software. The S8 still doesn't have an update of 7.1.1 Nougat. Hopefully they will get this ready quickly enough to just skip that version. It would be nice to see Samsung get a version update out quickly, but I'm not holding my breath.

via SamMobile

A reddit user who had been using an iPhone for a few months while waiting on a replacement for his Nexus 6P pointed out that when he went to his Google Drive account to check on his backup of the device it was nowhere to be found. Apparently when you back up your Android device the backup file has an expiration date. Even if you pay for Google Drive and choose to back it up there the only way to avoid the backup disappearing is to use your older device once every few months. It seems rather unintuitive to arbitrarily delete backups especially when stored on a paid service. Maybe they assume that a file older than 2 months could corrupt a device when installed on newer firmware? It doesn't really make sense to me. You can find this users full account of the situation at the link below. Has anyone else had a backup disappear?

via Reddit

Android One has always been an odd program and, for a time, it seemed that Google would give up on it altogether. That seemed especially possible after it announced its Android Go program for “constrained devices”. But Google insisted that Android One is still a go and it has, in fact, launched the first new device in a long while, the Xiaomi Mi A1. Now it seems that there will indeed be new Android One phones, with the next one coming from HTC, based on the unreleased HTC U11 Life, a.k.a. the HTC Ocean Life.

Continue Reading @ slashgear

The video above shows the entire process Zack of JerryRigEverything used to turn his glass back on the Note 8 clear. This is a pretty cool look, but will kill the IP68 water and dust resistance rating. It makes you wonder why Samsung wouldn't just offer a special clear edition. Is this something you would be interested in if Samsung offered it with their next flagship?