Google Tells This Year’s Most Popular Movies, Books, Music, TV Shows On Android

Google has released its annual End Of The Year lists. While the listings on the other lists are not much surprising, the top books category will surely surprise you. It looks like the Android users just can’t get enough of the steamy “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy. The top 4 spots of the books chart are occupied by these books written by EL James.

Talking about the other categories, “Game of Thrones” won at the most popular TV show battle, Adele’s “25” ranked as the top album, and “Interstellar” won the honor of the most popular movie.

If you wish to know the other chart-toppers, take a look at the top 10 in each category:

Top 10 Books of the Year on Google Play:

1. Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E L James

2. Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by E L James

3. Fifty Shades Darker: Book Two of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E L James

4. Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three of the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E L James

5. American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice

6. The Girl on the Train: A Novel by Paula Hawkins

7. Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn

8. The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir

9. Fifty Shades Trilogy Bundle: Fifty Shades of Grey; Fifty Shades Darker; Fifty Shades Freed by E L James

10. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Top 10 Movies of the Year on Google Play:

1. Interstellar

2. Lucy

3. American Sniper

4. The Interview

5. Kingsman: The Secret Service

6. Big Hero 6

7. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

8. Get Hard

9. Avengers: Age of Ultron

10. Jurassic World

Top 10 Albums of the Year on Google Play:

1. 25 from Adele

2. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late from Drake

3. To Pimp A Butterfly from Kendrick Lamar

4. Fifty Shades Of Grey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) from Various Artists

5. Beauty Behind The Madness from The Weeknd

6. Dark Sky Paradise (Deluxe) from Big Sean

7. American Beauty/American Psycho from Fall Out Boy

8. Dreams Worth More Than Money from Meek Mill

9. Compton from Dr. Dre

10. DS2 (Deluxe) from Future

Top 10 TV Shows of the Year on Google Play:

1. Game of Thrones

2. The Walking Dead

3. Downton Abbey

4. Fear the Walking Dead

5. Vikings

6. Better Call Saul

7. The Big Bang Theory

8. Rick and Morty

9. Archer

10. American Horror Story

Tell us your favorites in the comments below.

Samsung Agrees To Pay Apple $548 Million For Copying iPhone Designs

According to the latest report from AppleInsider, Samsung has finally agreed to pay Apple $548,176,477 after they lost the famous iPhone-Galaxy patent dispute. The Korean company was sued by Apple in 2012 for infringing smartphone patents by copying the iPhone design.

Back then, Apple took the route of courts and asked for $2.5 billion in damages and was awarded about $1 billion. In the further proceedings, the amount was whittled down to $930 million and ultimately $548 million.

Notably, Samsung’s earliest Galaxy phones looked a lot like iPhones and it fueled this court case. Later, Samsung made its lineup more diverse and it’s latest flagship Galaxy S6 Edge is an example of a radical redesign.

Samsung has confirmed that if Apple sends an invoice before this weekend, it’ll pay Apple $548 million before December 14th, according to the local Korea time.

Well, the story doesn’t end here. If the judgement is reversed at the later stage, Samsung reserves the right to reimburse the payments. The further damages in the Apple vs. Samsung case will be decided later in 2016.

After 20 Years, Adobe Has Just Killed The Flash Name

It’s very hard to remember a time when Flash was good enough to earn a respectable place on the web. Back in the day, Adobe Flash made the internet a fun place with games, animation, apps, and graphics. But, as Steve Jobs predicted about five years ago, these are the last days of Flash.

Now, Adobe has decided to rebrand its Flash Professional CC as Adobe Animate CC. If you are still not convinced, read this statement by Adobe in its blog: “Animate CC will be Adobe’s premier Web animation tool for developing HTML5 content.”

Accepting Flash’s defeat, in its blog post, Adobe said that more than over a third of all content made in Flash Professional today uses HTML5. However, the Animate CC app will still support Flash output and other animation and video format.

Adobe writes in the blog post, “when the release becomes available in January, it will be listed as “Adobe Animate CC” in the Creative Cloud desktop application. When you install or update Animate CC, it will be found on your computer as Adobe Animate CC 2015, not Adobe Flash CC 2015.”

Over the past few years, HTML5 and open web standards have become dominant. On the other hand, Flash has been on the receiving end due to its numerous zero-day flaws and other security loopholes.

Father of Android Plans To Start His Own Smartphone Company

Andy Rubin founded Android before it became one of the most known products of Google. According to the sources close to the situation, Andy Rubin, the father of Google’s Android phone operating system, is planning to get back in the Android game.

After being away from Android for more than two years, he is planning to start his own phone company. The Information reports that Mr. Rubin has recently tried to hire people to help start a new smartphone company.

Andy Rubin shares an interesting relationship with Google. In the year 2013, he left the Android division of Google to work in Google’s robotic department. Next year, he left Google completely to start his own incubator Playground Global. Currently, he is running his venture capital firm Playground Ventures with $300 million in funding. He’ll be starting this Android phone company via Playground Fund, his own tech startup incubator Playground Global.

If we believe the reports, he might bring something special to the family of Android handsets. In the past, he has mentioned that Android is his baby and he is not leaving it behind forever.

When he left Google few years back, Android ecosystem was an entirely different category. Now it features tons of major players like Samsung, Xiaomi, HTC, Motorola, Lenovo, Asus, Micromax etc. So, it would be interesting to notice Rubin’s strategy as Android is already an overcrowded category with low-profit margins.

You can modify your iPhone's logo so it glows like the one on your MacBook

Did you ever wish your iPhone's Apple logo would glow like the logo on your MacBook laptop? You could have the ultimate harmony of glowing Apple products.

Well, your wishes have come true. David Cogen from TheUnlockr.com, a smartphone how-to tutorial site, happens to sell a kit that lets you replace the shiny Apple logo on the back of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with a glowing logo. He also shows you exactly how to do it.

The kit for the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are available for preorder.

There's a huge caveat, though. The procedure requires you to take your iPhone apart, which voids your warranty and puts you at risk of permanently damaging your device.

Western Digital’s HGST releases helium-filled 10TB hard drive

Hard drive technology is developing leaps and bounds this decade and simultaneously the prices are also decreasing. Western Digital subdivision HGST is looking to take this forward and announced Ultrastar He10, a cutting-edge drive that’s filled with helium.

It is well known that HGST was working with helium for some time now. According to HGST, helium gas offers several advantages over traditional air-filled drives thanks to its lower density, with decreased power consumption and increased storage capacity.

Western Digital’s HGST division has released the world’s first helium-filled 10TB hard drive for everyday use costing about $900 (£600).

The Ultrastar He10 has two important features :

1. It’s hermetically sealed and filled with helium,
2. It has seven platters crammed into a standard-height 25.4mm (1-inch) hard drive.

Ultrastar He10 has seven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) platters are packed into the standard 1-inch height of the drive. Earlier hard drives used a technique called shingled magnetic recording (SMR). The disadvantage of SMR is that it reduces the speed at which data can be accessed as it overlaps portions of data tracks to increase density.

Ultrastar He10 uses PMR in the more traditional way and hits sustained transfer speeds of up to 249 megabytes for second. HGST will release both an 8TB and a 10TB version of the new Ultrastar, with SATA 6Gbps or serial-attached SCSI interfaces being released.

It is surprising that the world leader in hard drive, Seagate has been lagging in helium based drives. Both HGST and Seagate are working on HAMR drives, though Seagate has been more vocal about it, saying that it could have some HAMR drives on the market in 2016. HGST, with shingled recording and seven platters at its disposal, should have no problem hitting 15 or 20TB over the next year—but its path towards larger online drives, using PMR or HAMR, is unclear.

Though Western Digital has not divulged price point at which Ultrastar He10 will sell, it is bound to make a hole in the user’s pocket. Given that its predecessor the He8 currently sells for around $550, the He10 is anticipated to launch at around $800 – $900.

Bill Gates And Mark Zuckeberg Join Hands To Change The World With Clean Energy Tech

Just before the United Nations climate talks in Paris, Bill Gates has announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. This is a joint act of more than 20 billionaires who have decided to invest in the clean energy innovation. In Bill Gates’ words: “We need clean-energy innovation and lots of it.”

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition comprises of Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alibaba chief Jack Ma, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and others. These tech giants will work with the countries that are developing new technologies for zero-emission energy solutions.

Earlier this year, Bill Gates announced plans to invest about $1 billion in clean energy tech over the next 5 years. On his website, he mentioned that when we are willing to fight a global war, this investment will matter less.

Bill Gates and the tech leaders has also announced an initiative called Mission Innovation that involves commitment by 20 countries including USA, China, India, Japan, France, Brazil, and many others. The countries have pledged to double their investment in the clean energy research and development.

The group will consider early stage investment in the basic sectors like electricity generation, agriculture, transportation and energy system efficiency.

Stressing on the need of partnership with government, the coalition says that a transparent and workable structure will make things possible.

It should be noted that most venture capitalists are unwilling to invest in these transformative technologies that as they give returns after a longer period of time. This joint initiative also wishes to link the promising clean energy projects with investors who are ready to enter a long-time commitment.