Google is rolling out a new version of Google Maps for Android, bringing some new useful features to the most popular online mapping service. The update bumps the app version to 9.1, and comes just a few weeks after the version 9.0 was released.

The updated app will provide more information about destinations and alternate routes — it will display the current weather and time at the given location, along with some interesting facts about your destination, and will also let you know exactly how much time the alternate route will save. One of the significant additions in the new version is that the app will now respond audibly to your requests for showing or hiding traffic. Read more »

The Motorola Nexus 6 sports the brilliant Ambient Display feature, which allows you to take a peek at ongoing notifications without unlocking the phone. However, a clever XDA Developers member found out that the phone sports another method of letting you know of a pending notification – a hidden LED light.

The LED light is situated right below the speaker grille on top. It requires root privileges to activate and currently it shows only red, green and blue colors. Members of the community are trying various ways to make the notification light display a combination of colors, too. Read more »

The Adidas MiZX FLUX service allows you to create custom sneaker design and having it shipped to you. Now, the company has made it even easier to do so with its dedicated MiZX FLUX app for Android and iOS.

You just snap a photo of whatever you like to get printed, after selecting your gender, country and shoe size and then scale and adjust the photo to the shoe template. Then, you place an order, but it doesn’t come cheap. Read more »

Motorola released an update for its Camera app in the Google Play store. The latest version of the application brings Material Design and new features to users.

The new additions to the camera app’s already extensive repertoire of tricks include new three and ten-second timer options. Read more »

The SwiftKey third-party keyboard for Android has received a pretty hefty update today. The new version should already be available in the Google Play Store.

Its main claim to fame is the all-round improved performance. The time it takes for the keyboard to appear has been reduced, and the same can be said for the keyboard quit time too. Switching between fields is faster, and typing is said to be more responsive now as well. Read more »

Real time traffic information is great if you’re already on your way, but does little to help you plan a trip ahead of time. Here Maps are getting a new feature, Predictive Traffic, which can improve ETA estimation by up to 20% by accurately predicting the traffic in the next 12 hours.

Nokia’s Here has partnered with Esri, one of the world’s top Geographic Information System (GIS) providers. Read more »

Apple iOS 8 stars in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and offers a ton of new features and under-the-hood changes. We’ve outlined all of them in our all encompassing iOS 8 review, but the guys over at DotComInfoway have made an infographic which quickly sums up what’s new in Apple’s latest iOS iteration.

Ranging from novelties for developers to what’s new in iTunes, the infographic does a great job at showing the effort Apple has put into making iOS 8. Read more »

A Fleksy keyboard user has broken his own Guinness World Record for the fastest typing on a mobile device. Marcel Fernandes Filho, who had a previous record of speed-texting at 18.19 seconds, has set a new record of 17.00 seconds.

The Brazilian teenager used an iPhone 6 Plus with a Fleksy touchscreen keyboard to type the phrase “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.” Read more »

Opera’s Max mobile data saving app for Android is capable of compressing precious data traffic by up to 50% and it’s been available in North and South America, Europe Union countries and Russia. Today, Opera announced the service is available in 16 additional countries.

Now, users in Albania, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan can enjoy Opera Max. Read more »

PayPal released an official app for the Pebble smartwatch lineup. The application is now available to install on the original Pebble and the Pebble Steel.

PayPal for Pebble allows users to check-in to pay or settle through a payment code with all merchants that accept the payment method. Read more »

WhatsApp’s Android iteration can now boast end-to-end encryption for your messages, according to a new report. The functionality has been baked into the latest update for the app, and the encryption is turned on by default.

The “end-to-end” part means WhatsApp (or Facebook, its owner) won’t be able to decrypt your messages, even if it is compelled to do so by law enforcement agencies. Read more »

The makers of the popular instant messaging app Viber announced Public Chats. Dubbed social entertainment channel by its makers, the feature allows users to share conversations and content on mobile devices.

Public Chats will include live discussions with personalities and various celebrities. Read more »

This year Facebook has pushed its Messenger app for mobile more than ever, even forcing people to use only that for messaging one another. And now the social network has announced a new standalone mobile app that focuses on one single aspect of your Facebook experience. In this case, we’re talking about Groups.

The new Facebook Groups app is already available in both the iTunes App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android. Read more »

Rightware, maker of the popular Basemark and Browsermark benchmarking products, today released the Basemark ES 3.0 test suite. It’s specialized in assessing the smartphones and tablets ability of running OpenGL ES 3.0 based graphics.

OpenGL ES 3.0 was introduced in Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, iOS 7 and BlackBerry OS 10.2. The new graphics API is used by developers to create stunning games and rich navigation software. Read more »

Nokia’s custom Z Launcher is ready to graduate from pre-beta – it lands in the Play Store today and it even works out of the box on the new Nokia N1 tablet.

The tablet is similar to Aviate – it learns from your usage and picks up contextual cues (e.g. whether it’s morning or evening), but the feature that sets it apart is scribbling. Read more »