Rdio has announced that it will be shutting down its service worldwide next week – December 22, at approximately 5PM PT. This comes nearly a month after Pandora agreed to acquire Rdio’s technology and staff.

Rdio made the announcement in an email sent out to subscribers, where-in it also said that users can head to the service’s special farewell site to download an archive of their collection. You can also use the site take a look back at your activity on the streaming music service.

Rdio began cancelling user subscriptions and stopped taking new ones starting November 23. You can, however, still access ad-supported stuff until the service goes…

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Google updated its support page with information regarding new data-only support for tablets on Google’s own MVNO network, Fi. The following devices are ready to active on the Fi network:

Nexus 7 – K009 (US LTE)
Nexus 9 – 0P82300 (US LTE)
iPad Air 2 – Model A1567
iPad mini 4 – Model A1550
Galaxy Tab S – Model SM-T807V

It’s safe to say that any tablet compatible with T-Mobile’s network will work on Fi. Due to hardware limitations, and unlike the Nexus phones, tablets on the Fi network will only connect to T-Mobile’s network for data.

The cost will be the same as the smartphone data plans: $10/GB. The good news is there isn’t a base charge for maintaining a line like the phones have. You can go a whole month without using data and you will be charged $0.

As a final note, it looks like the only way to activate a tablet onto your Fi account is by adding it to an existing line. You must already have an active Fi account before you can add any of the above devices to your plan.

Source |…

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If you’re in the US and planning to purchase the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 edge, here’s some good news: both handsets are currently being sold at insanely discounted rates on eBay.

The Galaxy S6 on offer is an unlocked 32GB T-Mobile variant (should work on any GSM carrier, including AT&T), and it carries a price tag of just $399. For comparison, the device is currently listed on the carrier’s website for $580.

As for the Galaxy S6 edge, it’s a 128GB Verizon variant that is being sold for just $599, down a whopping $300 from its usual price of $899. While shipping is free in both the cases, a “limited quantity” of units are available, so you’ll need to act fast if you want to take advantage of any of these two deals.

Source 1…

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Today, Google wrote a post on its Australian blog of its plans to launch Android Pay in the first half of 2016. Up until now, there was no official word from Google on the status of Android Pay’s rollout for the land Down Under.

Google is closely working with ANZ, Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Cuscal, ING DIRECT, Macquarie Bank, and St. Geroge (whew! That’s a lot of banks) to bring payments to Android Pay at launch.

There is also a list of places you can use Android Pay once it launches including: 7-Eleven, Brumby’s Bakery, Coles Express, Coles Supermarkets, Crust Gourmet Pizza, Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited, Donut King, Gloria Jean’s Coffees, McDonald’s, Michel’s Patisserie, Pizza Capers, and Telstra.

Everything else mentioned on this blog post isn’t stuff we haven’t already heard about: using loyalty cards, storing gift cards, and paying within apps.

Stay tuned for more news about the launch of Android Pay in Australia as soon as it becomes available.

Source |…

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Huawei is going to help you chase you dream with this new contest. One lucky winner (residing within the 50 United States and over the age of 18) will be chosen and rewarded 1,000 hours of professional training in any field they choose.

Participants must submit a video or essay and say what they would do with 1,000 hours of practice in the field of their dreams. The contest is to promote the Android Wear-powered Huawei Watch.

The Chinese company has a video promo on its website saying that “this watch can teach you to speak German” or “this watch help you become a dancer” and “this watch can make you a magician”. The promo ends by saying “this watch can make you smarter by giving you time”.

Under the official rules and regulations, the award is capped at $70,000 or 1,000 hours, whichever comes first. Obviously the company will be involved in making sure the academy or school is legitimate and the people who are teaching it are accredited in the field.

If you would like to enter the contest, enter a short video or an essay and you can be chosen to follow your dreams. The contest closes on December 31, so be sure to get your videos and essays in over the holidays!

Contest Page | Official Rules |…

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Starting today, Twitter is bringing its curated news offering to the UK. This is the first time we’ve seen Twitter Moments making it outside of the US, where it was launched back in October.

Moments is a new section that will show up for you both on the service’s website and also in its mobile apps. You’ll recognize it by the lightning symbol. Clicking or tapping on that will bring you to a curated view of the top news tweets which are based around something that is trending.

The categories inside Moments are Today, News, Sports, Entertainment, and Fun. The content is continuously refreshed throughout the day. You’ll see big, immersive images inside Moments, as well as auto-playing videos, Vines, and GIFs. You can obviously retweet anything you find in Moments. Everything you see in this section has been curated by a dedicated editorial team made up of former…

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After a short beta testing period, Pebble has today released the latest software version for its smartwatches. This is the one that brings the all-new Timeline UI (as seen on the Pebble Time, Time Round, and Time Steel) to older models such as the Pebble Classic and Pebble Steel.

But that’s not all it does. If you have a newer Time, Time Round, or Time Steel watch, you’ll be happy to know that it can now track your health without the need for a third party app. Unfortunately though, this functionality hasn’t made it to the Classic or Steel, so if you have one of those you’ll still need to use apps like Misfit or Jawbone.

Pebble Health tracks your daily activity and automatically detects your sleep phases. And, as you may expect, it’s fully integrated in the Timeline UI, showing you easily glanceable information about the day’s stats. Pebble Health doesn’t nag you to achieve an arbitrary step count, instead measuring your progress against your own personal average. It also tracks how well you sleep and suggests methods of improving your sleep if you need to. Pebble Health is fully compatible with Apple HealthKit and Google Fit.

To take advantage of all these features you need to have the latest Pebble app installed on your Android handset or iPhone, and the latest 3.8 firmware on your smartwatch. To upgrade your wearable’s software, use the appropriate menu inside the Pebble app for either iOS or…

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Now On Tap is one of the biggest updates arriving with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The feature works like this: you tap and hold the Home button on your Android device and in a few seconds you get more information about whatever is on your screen.

The functionality built into Now On Tap has slowly been expanding since the first Marshmallow build got released, and now it’s time for a few new features to get detailed.

First off, Now On Tap can now track packages and flights. It will show you tracking information when you invoke it upon looking at a text or email with the tracking number included. You don’t need a separate search for that anymore.

Next up, a related news section will show up in Now On Tap for certain personalities or events (see this in action in the screenshots above). This section is located below the usual information cluster, and you can tap on any news item in it to be taken to that particular article.

Now On Tap even has a screenshot feature now, which can be activated from the new share icon in the bottom left. This is already up for many, while the other new features should reach everyone “over the coming days”.

And finally, Now On Tap is available for speakers of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Korean from this point forward. More languages are coming soon, Google says.

Source |…

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Ming-Chi Kuo is perhaps the world’s most prolific creator of predictions and analyses regarding Apple’s future plans. And now he’s at it again.

According to the KGI Securities analyst, the iPad Air 3 will be outed sometime during the first half of next year. That could mean there’s a chance it will join the Apple Watch 2 and the much-rumored 4-inch iPhone 6c at a March unveiling event.

Kuo goes on to say that the successor to the iPad Air 2 will not feature the 3D Touch tech that’s built into the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, being billed as one of their main new (and differentiating) features. This looks to remain exclusive to the iPhones for the time being, and the reason why it’s not headed to the next iPad Air reportedly has to do with production issues.

These have plagued the iPhone 6s and its bigger sibling too, with the 3D Touch components said to be “one of the most severe production bottlenecks in iPhone 6s supply chain”. Perhaps for the same reason the iPhone 7 is rumored to come with 3D Touch hardware that will be incredibly similar to what’s inside its…

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Verizon has started rolling out the December security update for its iterations of Samsung’s Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+. This comes just one day after T-Mobile has basically done the exact same thing for its versions of these devices.

Since this is just a security-patching software variant, an update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow isn’t included. However, both Google’s security patches up to December 1 as well as Samsung’s own bug fixes are in. So it’s one update you should probably install as soon as you get the chance.

After applying the update, your Galaxy Note5 will be on software version N920VVRU2OJ3. If you own an S6 edge+, then the build is going to be G928VVRU2AOJ3. From this point on, you should expect to see such updates each…

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