Posted: 01 Feb 2012 02:03 AM PST  After its huge success in the world of indie PC games, The Humble Bundle is making its way to the Android scene. The Humble Bundle is a charity which offered a pay-what-you-want video game option to people. And now that it's bound for the Android arena, the same effect can be expected. With the Android option, The Humble Bundle has plans to offer 4 big-time games for just one price, which is whatever the user would like to pay. As of this writing, there are a few PC games that have turned to Android are included in the bundle; such games are Anomaly: Warzone Earth, World of Goo, EDGE, and Osmos HD. When bought separately, the total cost of these games would be $15.46 from the Android Market. Considering it's a pretty pricey sum for playing games, Android users may not want to spend that much at a single time.  Who Benefits from It?Among PC gamers, the charity is pretty popular. Humble Bundle works in a set up that's beneficial not only to the gamer, but also the developer. By offering a bundle of a set of games, players can name their own price on the whole download. Apart from letting gamers choose a price that's either higher or lower than the offered bundle price, users are also encouraged to beat their average paid price. This can either come in the form of another game, an original soundtrack of one of the offered games, or something similar.It's a Charity, Right?Going back to its purpose, Humble Bundle is a charity that works with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play organization. With the sum of money they have collected from the sale of bundled games, Humble Bundle separates it for the developer, the Humble Bundle administration, and to the two charity groups: Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit working in efforts of protecting digital rights; and Child's Play, a charity organization which helps provide video game systems for sick kids in hospitals.The good thing about The Humble Bundle is that they are not just limited to Android games. They also provide Windows and Mac versions for the four games being offered. So while users can get a smartphone or tablet version, the larger version can also be played on a computer. And since these games are free of digital rights management, they can be downloaded as many times as the players prefer. With only a couple more weeks available remaining, the charity group has already sold 68,435 bundled games. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKENo related posts.This article, Name Your Price on Bundled Android Games for a Cause , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 08:59 PM PST  NEC may not be doing so well in the smartphone market lately, but they aren’t going down without a fight. DoCoMo has just announced a new smartphone for Japan, called NEC- ES N-05D. What’s most spectacular about this device is that they are built to be water-proof while still being 0.11 inches thinner than a Galaxy S 2, which is already a pretty thin device. These are all the specs: The phone actually looks very competitive with a 4.3″ display with an HD resolution of 1280×720. It even has a dual core 1.5 Ghz S3 processor, although that has proven to be even a bit weaker than a dual core 1.2 Cortex A9 processor. It won’t be until S4 when Qualcomm will reach catch-up in raw CPU power. It’s also a bit unfortunate to still see devices still launching with Gingerbread, but it is what it is. Hopefully they at least plan on upgrading it soon to ICS. With 4 GB of internal storage and 1 GB of RAM, and a dual core processor, it should be more than capable to receive the Android 4.0 update. There’s no word whether these phones will be available outside Japan, but if they will be, you might have to wait a while for that to happen. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, DoCoMo and NEC to Launch Ultra-Slim and Water-Proof Android Smartphone , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 08:57 PM PST  It looks like Samsung is already getting ready to release 2 more tablets very soon. These 2 screenshots show that Samsung is getting Wi-Fi certifications for 2 new devices, both which have dual-band Wi-Fi. Although they are put in the “smartphone” category, we know they are tablets because of their naming convention. GT stands for Galaxy Tab, and P stands for its category (tablet). So what will these tablets be about? First of all, the GT-P5100 one should be the one we’ve already been hearing rumors about, the one that is supposed to have a display larger than 10.1″, an ultra-HD resolution of 2560×1600, and last but not least a very powerful dual core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU along with a very powerful Mali T604 GPU. This will obviously be the more expensive version, that should be at least $500. Hopefully it’s only $500, but seeing the pricing of the new Transformer Prime tablet with the Full HD resolution of 1920×1200, which will be $600, it doesn’t leave me very optimistic. It’s true that the Transformer also comes with 32 GB of storage by default, and Samsung might keep it at 16 GB to save costs there, but even so this tablet’s resolution will be even higher, and with a brand-new world-leading ARM CPU. I guess we’ll see in 2 weeks at MWC how much it will be.  The second tablet is called GT-P3100, and it’s either a 7″-8″ version with the same SoC, but with a bit lower resolution (1920×1200?), and which will cost just slightly below the larger one, or it has little to do with the larger tablet, and they made it as cheap as possible, while still looking and working great – say for $250? It would also have a cheaper dual core or even quad core Cortex A9-based SoC, like the dual core Exynos 4212 or the quad core Exynos 4412. Personally, I would favor the second strategy, because Samsung shouldn’t ignore this low-end market. There’s a tremendous opportunity to dominate that market, and also the whole market through sheer numbers thanks to having a quality cheap tablet, and right now they are missing that opportunity. If they could make at least a $250 dual core tablet that does everything well, and comes with Android 4.0, it would be a bigger seller. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Samsung Is Working on Two Tablets Called P3100 and P5100 , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 08:55 PM PST  Sony was one of the early adopters of Google TV along with Logitech, but they haven’t said so far how well it has been working out for them. Perhaps they are still optimistic about the whole deal, and hope that demand will catch-up soon once Google gets more serious about Google TV, because it looks like they keep sending updates for their Blu-Ray player, which comes with Google TV. The new updates include Chrome enhancements, making it faster and more up to date with HTML5 specs, and now the owners of Sony’s Blu-Ray player can also watch Blu-Ray movies in 3D. Sony has just announced that their 3D channel has had 10 million views so far, so it seems a lot of people will be excited about this Google TV update. I have to say, I didn’t like how Google released a pretty buggy Google TV 1.0 software, and they didn’t take the interface too seriously either, and they treated it more like it was more for computer than a TV. I’m still not sure whether they will be successful with Google TV 2.0, because while it’s more intuitive as an interface, I don’t think they’ve gotten the input methods right yet. If it’s significantly harder for a user to change what they are watching than it is to change channels, then it can’t really succeed with the mainstream population, who is used to flip channels until they get something interesting or what they are searching for. Built-in search, the way Google TV has it, could help with this. But they could make it easier and simpler, say through voice commands, which is a technology Google already has. They just need to implement it and ask the manufacturers to put mics in their TV’s and set top boxes. Of course that’s not the only way they can improve the usability of Google TV. They can also do it through building apps for Android phones and tablets that allow you to interact with the TV’s interface directly. Something like that would like the difference between how we browsed the web on dumbphones and featurephones pre-touchscreen era, with arrow keys, and how slow that was, and how we do it now by just touching what we want to interact with directly on the phone, which is a lot faster. Google TV 2.0 won’t have this, and it won’t have ICS either, but I’m hoping that by Google TV 3.0, Google will have figured things out and with the help of Motorola in the set top market, and with the help of other TV companies, they can push for Google TV to become something everyone wants. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Sony Pushes a New Google TV Update to Their Blu-Ray Player , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 07:43 PM PST  Just a couple of days ago I was saying what a bad move Motorola made with the Droid RAZR “Developer Edition”, and not just because it’s a poor strategy in general to release so many similar (identical?) phones in such a short time, but because this time they are releasing a “new” phone that has absolutely nothing different from what the original phone has, except a small software tweak that they could do for the original one, too. I mean, what’s next? Releasing a “new” phone that only has a different background? So it appears that online protests don’t get made only over bills like SOPA, but also over locked bootloaders, broken promises, and “slap-on-the-face” Developer Edition phones. What do they all have in common? Motorola. A group of protesters has gathered to protest against Motorola’s latest RAZR phone, and for breaking their promise to unlock the bootloaders of the phones by the end of 2011. They call themselves #opmosh, short for Operation Make Ourselves Heard. It turns out they are the same people who back in 2011 got Motorola to agree to unlock their bootloaders by the end of the year. But Motorola didn’t, so now a lot of people bought their phones thinking that they will unlock them, only to find out later that Motorola’s fix for that is offering a whole new phone. Feeling outraged over this? If you want to join the protest you can start by signing this petition. Only about 1000 more signatures needed it seems. You can also try other things that are listed in this XDA thread. I’m hoping Google buys Motorola already to set them straight. Rumors say they might put someone from Google in charge of Motorola, once the acquisition is done, although I don’t know if that means getting rid of Motorola’s current CEO or not. Still, it most likely means that things at Motorola will start being done more Google’s way pretty soon. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Online Protests Increase Over Motorola’s “Developer Edition” RAZR , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 07:10 PM PST  This could be just a coincidence, but it seems that a few unofficial 3rd party Steam apps were removed from the Market, just after the official Steam app was made available. Is it Google behind this or the company behind Steam itself (Valve)? The API that those 3rd party developers were using is still public and available to developers, so if Steam did it, then they are only blocking access to the API for those few developers. But why would they do it? It’s possible that they thought some of those apps were infringing their trademark. But let’s be honest here. In most of these cases, they usually just want to remove the competition. This reminds me of when Skype blocked Fring’s access to their own API because Fring offered video-calling before them, and they were afraid they would take too much market share for that before they could get a chance to show their own video-calling feature. I think that was a pretty low blow from Skype. Companies should be careful what they give an API for if they think they will try to compete in the same area in the future. Don’t just release an API to get others to promote your platform, and then when you decide to compete in a certain market, you take it away from them just like that. Google is also a potential aggressor here. It wouldn’t be the first time they do it either. I remember when they removed the unofficial (yet very legal) PS1 emulators from the market as soon as Sony made available theirs. Google shouldn’t play on other corporation’s side like that just because some 3rd party developers are competing with the corporations they are friends with. Still, if I were willing to bet on it, I’d say it’s just Valve doing it this time. Maybe we’ll hear from those developers soon and see if they know what’s really going on. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, So Who’s Removing the 3rd Party Steam Apps? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 04:21 PM PST  Although Samsung has been consistent in releasing superb Android devices in the market for the past few months, we must admit that the manufacturing company still has a lot to do in order to push the boundaries of dual core. Its quad-core Exynos processor may just prove their willingness to improve, especially since the said chipset series is one of the fastest, most efficient, and capable chipsets available for mobile devices. Taking another step further Samsung is taking another step further in the mobile device world with their Exynos 5250, which is an ARM Cortex A15 chipset, that boasts of a 2GHz clock speed, without the need of sucking much power from the device. As of now, the chipset has begun sampling and will come into full production sometime this year. Rumor has it that Samsung will put the chip into test on a new Galaxy Tab, which is reportedly bigger than their usual 10 inches tab, and showcase it at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Some people have reported seeing the prototype of the said device but without any pictures or other types of proof of it, it will be hard to believe, even for the biggest Android fans, that a Samsung Galaxy Tab with a WXQGA (2560×1600) does exist. There are reporters however, that can confirm the credibility of Samsung’s prototype for this years MWC and we’re pretty sure that Android lovers are more than excited for the rumor to be true and for the tablet to be available for mass production this year. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Samsung: Taking Another Leap With Quad-Core Exynos Processor , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 04:00 PM PST  One of the things that sets Android apart from other platforms like iOS is the ability to change the launcher. Most people don’t stick with the stock launcher, they normally install a third-party one from the Market. In other cases, people will install the launcher from the latest Android version so they can look cool to all their friends, I’m guilty of that one.There are many good launchers out there from ADW Launcher, to GO Launcher EX all the way to Launcher Pro. But which one do you use? Vote in the poll below. If you’re launcher isn’t there, feel free to leave the name of your launcher in the comments. Personally I normally stick to the stock launcher no matter which phone I get, until I get tired of it which takes a few months then usually switch to Launcher Pro. Check out some of our previous polls: Do you have any ideas for future polls? Email us and let us know, you may see your question posted here in the near future. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Nightly Poll: What’s your Favorite Android Launcher? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:49 PM PST  The recent Carrier-IQ scandal has caused such a commotion when several smartphone users discovered that the app was pre-installed on their devices. Apart from just being installed on the device, the app collected user data including time and geographic location, without the consent of its user. As a result, the US Congress is now trying to prevent similar suspicious activity by introducing the Mobile Device Privacy Act. Once this bill passes, it will have a large effect on organizations such as the CarrierCoverage.com, which is scheduled to have an official launch in a week's time. The bill will crowd-source mobile performance metrics to be transparent, honest and open about their strategies, practices and methods. Compared to Carrier-IQ, Carrier Coverage has been created for the use of its consumers, in the hopes of providing accurate and unbiased reports on manufacturers and their carriers. This is where the Mobile Device Privacy Act will take effect. Any company observed doing any mobile tracking, will be enforced several requirements by the bill. Every carrier, manufacturer, or game/app developer should disclose any tracking software that they have installed on a device upon purchase. Or they can make disclosures once they have installed it after purchase. It is then the decision of the user to provide consent. Based on this decision, the company will have to make visible attempts to protect data. While this sounds like a fair bill, many are concerned with how the Congress does not always get things right. Particularly with this new bill, the Congress has done some vague wordings that might cause an issue with the bill later on: 'To require disclosures to consumers regarding the capability of software to monitor mobile telephone usage, to require the express consent of the consumer prior to monitoring, and for other purposes.'It seems like more consideration needs to go through the bill before it is passed, in order to avoid any future issues. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
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