YouTube Gaming and its corresponding Android app went live at the tail end of August, with a report surfacing in September that indicated the app would support streaming to the service right from an Android-based device. The wait for that specific feature is finally over, and streamers have a new option for revenue.

Google has made it official on their YouTube blog that YouTube Gaming now supports streaming from an Android device. The announcements states that Android users can now record and live stream mobile games through the YouTube Gaming app on their device. To activate it, simply tap the “Go Live” option within the app, then activate the front-facing camera on your device to show your face while playing the game. The microphone on your device will be used to provide the commentary as a streamer plays.

Additionally, Google has confirmed that paid “sponsorships” are now going live for streamers using YouTube Gaming. This is similar to Twitch’s subscriptions, which allows a viewer to subscribe to a streamer they like. YouTube Gaming’s sponsorships are $3.99 per month, and Google says that the majority of that sponsorship goes to the creator. (Twitch, on the other hand, offers a half-and-half deal, where the streamer gets half of the $5.99 subscription that viewers pay.)

With a sponsorship, the viewer will get a badge next to their name indicating the they’re a subscriber to the streamer, and will have access to exclusive chat sessions. One caveat: Paid sponsorships are only available to beta users. Google says they have plans to rollout beta channels soon.

Have you checked out YouTube Gaming yet?

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Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 is one of the hottest smartphones on the market, and with good reason. It has blazing fast performance, a gorgeous display and a stellar camera, all paired with its distinctive feature of the S Pen, an active stylus that can be used for writing and drawing. To make it even better, Samsung is adding two new color options, dubbed Silver Titanium and Pink Gold.

The downside of the two new color options is that, for now at least, they’re exclusive to South Korea, with no word on if or when there will be availability in other parts of the world. If you’re in Korea, however, it’s going to be good to know that the Silver Titanium model will sell in storage options of 32GB and 64GB, priced at 899,800 won and 965,800 won respectively. The Pink Gold model will only be available in 64GB capacity for 965,800 won.

We’ll keep you posted if Samsung decides to bring these new color variants outside of South Korea.

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The wearable market continues to grow and one of the latest wearables to hit the market is Samsung’s Gear S2, which sets itself apart with a round display and a rotating bezel to navigate through the software. Samsung is selling its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-only model, but now Verizon and T-Mobile have announced availability details for their cellular-enabled models.

Verizon has now opened pre-orders for the Gear S2, with general availability happening on November 6. Pricing is set at $299.99 on a two-year contract or $349.99 at full retail price. Customers can add the Gear S2 to their plan for $5/month, which will allow it to tap into the same talk, text and data pool that you use for your phone.

T-Mobile isn’t offering pre-orders, but will begin selling the Samsung Gear S2 in-stores and online beginning on November 15, one month from today. The carrier will sell the Gear S2 for $359.99 at full retail price, though customers can split that up into 24 monthly payments if they wish. T-Mobile customers can add a Gear S2 to their plan for $5//month, which allows unlimited talk, text and data, with up to 500MB of high-speed data.

To allow its deep customization and unique navigation, Samsung has opted to use its own Tizen OS instead of Android Wear on the Gear S2. That being said, the Gear S2 is compatible with most Android phones running Android 4.4 or later, though there is a requirement of having at least 1.5GB of RAM. All in all, it looks to be a fantastic smartwatch for those who aren’t concerned about using Android Wear.

Source: T-Mobile, Verizon, (2)

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Good news, LG G4 owners! Android 6.0 is starting to roll out to your device next week! There’s just one catch: The update is only rolling out to one country initially.

LG says that G4 units in Poland will start getting Android 6.0 Marshmallow next week. Updates for Europe, Asia, and the Americas are in the works, too, but LG hasn’t given a timeframe in which we can expect to see them start rolling out.

As for what’s included in the LG G4’s Android 6.0 update, LG has chosen to highlight a few of Marshmallow’s new goodies:

• Permissions have been simplified with greater control of the information applications can access, not only at the installation stage but any time
• Silent feature for sound and vibrate mode as well as a Do Not Disturb mode to block all sounds or only alarms and notifications
• Doze Mode which shuts down background processing of certain apps when the phone is not in use, to significantly prolong battery life

Interestingly, LG also chose Poland as the first country to get Android 5.0 for the G3 last year. Perhaps there’s a small but rabid LG fanbase in that country? Whatever reason, LG G4 owners outside of Poland are sure to be jealous of their Polish counterparts next week. Here’s to hoping that rollouts for other locales aren’t too far behind.

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The BlackBerry PRIV might not be the most exciting device of the year, but it’s definitely intriguing. I’m personally very interested in it, as I’m one of those that dearly misses physical keyboards on phones.

BlackBerry has decided to tease a few more specs to get people interested in the device. The battery is going to be 3,410mAh, which is pretty good. The display will be 5.4 inches and curved on both sides, the camera will be certified by Schneider-Kreuznach, the device will feature DTEK by BlackBerry as a privacy warning system, and the sliding mechanism is called SmartSlide.

It isn’t much information, but the device looks like it’s going to be solid. I can’t help but like it. What do you think of the device? Will people flock to buy an Android smartphone with a BlackBerry keyboard, or will it be the companies final flop?

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With October nearing its midpoint, there’s even more to look forward to in the coming days. For fans of the DROID-branded handsets from Motorola and Verizon, especially so, as the companies have just announced a date to circle on the calendar in preparation for new devices.

Motorola and Verizon are hosting an event on October 27 that will see the companies unveil “the newest DROIDs.” There’s a tagline on the invitation as well, which reads: “Everything you expect from a phone will change.” The event will kick off in New York City beginning at 11:00 AM ET, or 8:00 AM PT. It’s certainly curious to see the invitation use DROIDs, doing a pretty obvious job of suggesting that we’ll see more than one device at the event.

Then again, with rumors swirling that there is a DROID Maxx 2 and DROID Turbo 2 out there in the world, Motorola and Verizon’s wording starts to make sense.

Are you excited to see some new DROID-branded devices?

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New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of additions to the Google Play store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and propel them to new heights. Our weekly Fresh Meat column highlights new apps with fewer than 100,000 installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.

Betternet

Description: Betternet gives you access to the entire blocked websites and applications in your country, at school or at work. You can unblock facebook or unblock Youtube, Snapchat and other social networks at work and school and bypass the government censorship.

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 SwiftKey Neural Alpha

Description: SwiftKey Neural Alpha is an experimental keyboard app that uses artificial neural networks to predict and correct your typing.

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VideoPocket BETA

Description: VideoPocket is your go to app for downloading videos from a bunch of different providers! Just share the video to VideoPocket or paste the URL into the app and click download. It is as simple as that!

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Halloween Watch Face

Description: This halloween watch shows the basics of what a watch should display : hour & day. Choose your pumpkin! Freaky, happy, scary, joker… make it match your mood!

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Shedd

Description: Introducing Shedd – a fashion marketplace for regular people, stylish fashionistas, designers, and small businesses to post and discover unique, original, desirable, interesting and obscure fashion items and accessories.

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Comic Chameleon

Description: Only Comic Chameleon lets you tap to navigate every single webcomic strip or page from PANEL TO PANEL, with each tap gliding to the next panel cleanly cropped and zoomed for maximum readability. 

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Game Tuner

Description: Game Tuner is an app to keep your phone cool and save battery life by tuning resolution and frame rate of games.

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Newsbrewer

Description: Newsbrewer is our effort to make the news app you need, to create an intuitive, comprehensive, effortless and fun news reading experience!

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Ringtone Maker

Description: Create new ringtones from your existing music. Assign ringtones to your contacts. Create custom alarms, music, notifications and ringtones. Search for Ringtones or Contacts.

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 Cybrary

Description: Cybrary is a free cyber security learning platform providing free online training courses on subjects such as Computer Hacking and Forensics, Advanced Penetration Testing, CompTIA Security+, CISSP and many more!

//playboard.me/widgets/pb-app-box/1/pb_load_app_box.js

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The HTC One A9 isn’t official yet — that should happen on October 20 — but that hasn’t stopped the French carrier Orange from unveiling the device on their own site.

Orange has recently launched a dedicated landing page for the upcoming, but still unofficial, One A9 from HTC, showcasing the device in a variety of angles and its two color options. It’s listed at €599.90, which is about $688, but there’s no telling just yet how much HTC plans on charging for the device in the United States when they get around to announcing it later this month.

The landing page does a nice job of summing up the One A9′s features, too. That includes a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1920×1080, and there’s a 13-megapixel camera on the back, with a 4-megapixel front-facing camera on the other side. It will apparently be running Android 6.0 Marshmallow under the hood, and HTC’s proprietary user interface Sense will be on board, too.

Rumors round out the rest of the features, which aren’t present on the landing page: 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor. The battery is said to be measured in at 2150mAh.

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Still not sure if a new ZTE phone is as good of those offered by the competition? ZTE wants to give you the opportunity to get some hands-on time with its smartphones without having to shell out the full price of the phone. ZTE is launching a new lease-to-own program in the US, allowing you to split the cost of the phone over 6 to 24 monthly payments. If you have a ZTE phone for 3 months but don’t really like it, simply cancel your lease, return it to ZTE and you’re done. Yes, you’ll have paid a bit for the 3 months you had with the phone, but at least you didn’t pay full price for it.

If you want to keep the phone and upgrade to a new ZTE phone, you can pay off the remaining balance on your lease and start a new lease-to-own agreement with ZTE for another device. ZTE’s leasing program isn’t much different than the different options currently available from the major service providers. The difference is that you can get any of ZTE’s US smartphones and take them between service providers without having to worry about paying the phone off before making the switch.

Be sure to check out the full press release below to get all the details on ZTE’s new lease-to-own program.

Show Press Release

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In mid-July of this year, T-Mobile launched a limited-time promotion that saw subscribers net 10GB of high-speed LTE data per month for up to four lines, all for $120 per month. That final price tag was available because the magenta carrier made the fourth line free, which it says saw people “flock” over to the Un-carrier, opting for the new plan.

It was such a hit, T-Mobile has decided to bring it back. The carrier announced today, October 14, that the promotion has returned, and as usual, it will be available only for a limited time. As far as the details go, it’s the same promotion that the carrier launched earlier this year. That means a subscriber can buy two lines with 10GB of high-speed data access per month, which will cost $100 per month. Each additional line — which also comes with its own access to 10GB of high-speed data per month — costs $20 more per month, but T-Mobile is making the fourth line on the account free, which means the running total for four lines is only $120. Get four for the price of three.

T-Mobile put a handy chart together as well, comparing its own new plan to that of Sprint’s, Verizon’s, and AT&T’s. While Sprint offers the same amount of lines with 40GB of shared data for the lines at $120 per month, T-Mobile also notes that Sprint has overages, while they do not. AT&T’s 40GB of data with 4 lines, according to the chart, costs $360 per month, while Verizon is $380.

If you missed switching over to T-Mobile to sign up for this plan, do you intend to this time?

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