Android Authority

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• Zynga in trouble with mass layoffs and studio closures
• Amazon opens Kindle Store in Japan, also brings Kindle Paperwhite, Fire and Fire HD
• Nokia launches Windows Phone based Lumia 510 for those on a budget
• LG Q3 2012 financial results: 14 million phones shipped, how many run Android?
• Google Drive apps rebranded to Docs, Sheets and Slides. Now available on Chrome web store
• 8GB Nexus 7 now listed as “coming soon” in Play Store
• Samsung under investigation regarding use of FRAND patents against Apple
• LG Optimus G will have a locked bootloader after all
• Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2 X and Galaxy Note Jelly Bean updates coming soon to Telus subscribers
• Dead Trigger Halloween-themed update hinted at by Madfinger Games through image teaser

Zynga in trouble with mass layoffs and studio closures Posted: 24 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT Game developer and publisher, Zynga, looks to be in serious trouble as CEO, Mark Pincus, reveals plans to shut down studios in Boston, the UK, and Japan. The firm is also “sunsetting” 13 games and laying off over 100 staff at its Austin studio. The remaining workforce will be cut by 5 percent. The company will also be scaling back support for The Ville which is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with EA. Industry giant EA feels the game is a little too close to its The Sims Social release. After a meteoric rise based on an incredibly fast-growing player base, Zynga has been in decline for a while now as its stock price has been on the slide. It also spent $200 million to acquire developer OMGPOP based on the success of Draw Something and that's now looking like a very expensive acquisition. Many people will feel this is karma of some kind. Zynga has been strongly criticized in the past for cloning rival's games, spamming people with notifications, and generally chasing profit rather than seeking to turn out great games. Whether you believe that or not Zynga had certainly been working to reverse that impression and hired some well-respected industry veterans over the last couple of years. The company has released a number of successful games on the Android platform including Words with Friends, Zombie Smash, Zynga Poker, and Horn, but it is best known for Facebook games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Has Zynga failed with a strategy of copying and buying its way to success or did it simply expand too fast? There's no suggestion that its San Francisco headquarters is in any danger and it has a roster of successful games still out there so this is far from the end of Zynga. Related Posts No related posts.

Amazon opens Kindle Store in Japan, also brings Kindle Paperwhite, Fire and Fire HD Posted: 24 Oct 2012 02:28 AM PDT We don't know if the timing has anything to do with Apple's iPad mini unveiling, but Amazon is finally making headway with its new e-book reader and tablets in the key market of Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun will get the Paperwhite and two Kindle Fires starting next month, while Amazon's Kindle Store will open tomorrow, on October 25. The virtual bookstore available at Amazon.co.jp will offer a large selection of "the most popular books", including over 50,000 Japanese-language Kindle books, but also over 15,000 manga titles. Among these, there'll be 10,000 free Japanese books and an undisclosed number of free manga titles for starters, although the selection should grow significantly over the next few months. There'll be of course additional "best sellers" available in English and other languages, so the store will actually offer over one million titles upon launch. That's not too shabby, although Amazon will still need to make a push to challenge the likes of Kobo and Sony, whose freshly released bookstores have over 65,000 Japanese books to offer each. As for devices, Amazon hasn't brought its entire line of e-book readers and tablets in Japan, but for a beginning, even one delayed several times, things are looking decent. The new Paperwhite e-reader is up for pre-order and will start shipping before its more high-end "cousins", on November 19. Japanese e-book lovers will have to cough up ¥8,480 for the 6-incher, which would translate into around $106 based on today's exchange rates. That's less than Americans have to pay for the gadget, but it's a tad higher than Kobo Touch's ¥7,980 price. Kobo's e-reader will most definitely be a worthy opponent for the Paperwhite, which is why the new e-reader is so cheap. The 3G version of the Paperwhite is also up for pre-order over in Japan for ¥12,980 (around $162), but it will only start shipping on December 2. The 7-inch Kindle Fire and Fire HD will come even later, on December 19, but you can pre-order them for some pretty lucrative prices. The 8 GB Fire is only ¥12,800 ($160), the 16 GB Fire HD is ¥15,800 ($197), while the 32 GB Fire HD goes for ¥19,800 ($247). Not bad, not bad at all! Now all Amazon has to do is keep its promise of launching the Appstore in Japan by the end of the year, and nobody will have any more complaining to do in that part of the world.       Related Posts What’s wrong with the Kindle Paperwhite? Amazon explains Kindle Paperwhite is official, and it looks amazing Watch the full Amazon Kindle Fire event here

Nokia launches Windows Phone based Lumia 510 for those on a budget Posted: 24 Oct 2012 01:50 AM PDT Although Nokia has released details of its upcoming Windows Phone 8 smartphones, it is still releasing phones based on the older version of Windows Phone. In this case, the just launched Lumia 510 runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. The new Lumia 510 is aimed at the low-end of the smartphone market and really isn’t going to be a threat to anything that Samsung, HTC or Sony are shipping. The entry-level smartphone does have one thing going for it though, it features a 4-inch display which was unexpected as the Lumia 610 and Lumia 710 both have 3.7-inch displays. All three phones have a screen resolution of 800 by 480 pixels. However, besides the display the phone is definitely low-end. There is no front facing camera and the rear camera, although 5 megapixels, has no flash and can only record video in 640 x 480. It is powered by an aging 800MHz  Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, has 256MB RAM and provides only 4GB of non-expandable storage – no memory card slot here. But don’t worry about the lack of storage, processor power or video capabilities as the Lumia 510 comes in five vivid colors, which according to Nokia, makes “for a fun and personal way to enjoy Windows Phone.” We all know that Nokia are losing money and market share, and I do feel a lot of sympathy for them, before the smartphone revolution, all the phones in our house were Nokia. When the company jumped off its burning deck at the beginning of 2011 it teamed up with Microsoft to use the Windows Phone OS and Nokia are now stuck with it. The release announcement almost sounds desperate when it says “people who use Windows Phone quickly realize how much more intuitive it is than other smartphone platforms.” Sadly if that was true these “people” would be buying them by the truck load. And almost to make matters worse it points out that “Windows Phone is different to other smartphone platforms thanks to Live Tiles.”  I won’t comment on that one! However, this is an entry-level smartphone and it isn’t designed for the North American or European markets. The Nokia Lumia 510 will be available in November starting with India and China, and followed closely by other Asia-Pacific countries and South America. Nokia estimates the retail price will be around USD 199, excluding taxes and subsidies. Related Posts Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 handsets official – what you need to know Nokia's slump continues with $1.27 billion quarterly loss, hopes Lumia 920 will turn things around Is Nokia's $99 Lumia 900 a threat to Android?

LG Q3 2012 financial results: 14 million phones shipped, how many run Android? Posted: 24 Oct 2012 12:13 AM PDT LG has just posted their Q3 2012 financial results. The mobile phone division is what we care about, so here are the numbers you need to know: 14 million phones shipped, that’s up 9% from the previous quarter. Profits hit $19.42 million. Should we be happy with these figures? Let’s start by stating the obvious, the Samsung Galaxy S III alone managed to hit 10 million sales after just 2 months on the market. It took a little over a month after that to rack up another 10 million sales, so we’re at 20 million units as of this summer. LG’s 14 million, by comparison, isn’t very impressive. The more important question: How many smartphones did LG ship during the quarter? When LG reported their financial results in Q2 2012, their press release said: “Smartphone shipments rose to 44 percent of unit sales, up from 36 percent the previous quarter.” Let’s do the math. LG shipped 13.1 million phones in Q2 2012. If 44% of them were “smart”, then that’s just 5.76 million smartphones. Let’s be incredibly generous and assume 55% of LG’s Q3 2012 phones shipments were smartphones. That’s 7.7 million handsets running Android. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? We’re very curious to know why LG stopped disclosing smartphone shipment numbers all of a sudden. Samsung stopped disclosing their shipment numbers over a year ago, so it’s not like they’re any better. But still, we can’t help but be upset that there are literally zero Android handset makers saying how many Android devices they’ve shipped during any given quarter. The flagship devices get all the attention, but what about the rest of the portfolio? Samsung is going to report their Q3 2012 financial results on the 26th. They’ll probably say how many Galaxy S III units they’ve shipped since launching the device back in late May. They might even say how many Galaxy Note II shipments they’ve made since the beginning of this month. But don’t expect to hear them say how many phones they shipped. Update: According to an article from the Associated Press, LG “sold more than 7 million smartphones” during Q3 2012. The AP is just about the most bullet proof source of information you can get. We wonder why LG didn’t disclose that 7 million figure in their press release or in their financial results PDF. Related Posts ARM Q3 2012 financial results: More smartphones sold means more profits Motorola Shipped 4.8 Million Smartphones and 100,000 Xoom’s in Q3 & Made More Money Forecast: Samsung to break profit records once again, may have shipped 50 million phones during Q2

Google Drive apps rebranded to Docs, Sheets and Slides. Now available on Chrome web store Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:23 PM PDT Cloud computing is an increasingly popular means of doing work. With major companies offering their own online office suites, professionals and even casual users are given more options in accessing their data and documents, whether on desktop computers, notebooks, tablets, smartphones and other devices. Google Docs, being one of the more popular cloud-based office suites available, is constantly updating. Google’s latest update is quite minor, but could have a big impact in terms of branding. From Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations, these apps are now renamed to Docs, Sheets and Slides. These apps are now available for download from the Chrome Web Store. Once installed, you get easy shortcuts to the apps whenever you open a new tab on Google Chrome. Wait, there’s more. Chromebook users will be happy to know that these handy app shortcuts will also be available on your local directory upon install. Google Drive launched earlier this year, promising support for at least 30 file formats. Google offers its services for both consumer and enterprise clients, which means they’re geared to take over what has been traditionally the forte of Microsoft and its Office suite — which is now incidentally going online, too, with Office 365. This Google Drive update may be a minor functionality, but hints at an increasingly bigger role the cloud plays in office and productivity apps. Related Posts Google Drive launched, 5GB free, replaces Google Docs Updated Google Drive SDK brings closer integration of third-party apps Google buys QuickOffice to enhance Google Docs on mobile devices

8GB Nexus 7 now listed as “coming soon” in Play Store Posted: 23 Oct 2012 05:07 PM PDT Sometime today, the 8GB Nexus 7 went from “In Stock” to “Coming Soon” in the Google Play Store. Could this mean that the 32GB Nexus 7 is on the way, or could it just be a lot of people who decided to buy the Nexus 7 when they saw how much even the cheapest iPad Mini would cost? With the 32GB Nexus 7 expected to be announced at the Android event on October 29, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Google drop the price of the 16GB Nexus 7 and remove the 8GB version entirely. Of course, until the event actually happens, nothing is certain, even if we have a pretty good idea of what we’ll see unveiled at the event. With a Nexus 10, the LG Nexus 4 and a 32GB, 3G version of the Nexus 7 all possible or even likely to be unveiled this month, we’re unsure of what the future of the 8GB Nexus 7 might be. One thing is for sure, though: right now, you can’t buy it through the Google Play Store. Do you think the 8GB Nexus 7 will return to the Play Store? Or do you think the 16GB Nexus 7 will replace it when the 32GB version is released? Related Posts No related posts.

Samsung under investigation regarding use of FRAND patents against Apple Posted: 23 Oct 2012 04:44 PM PDT It seems that it’s impossible to go a week without something washing up in the wake of Apple vs Samsung. This time, the United States Department of Justice is investigating Samsung for possible abuse of its standard-essential (or FRAND) patents. The Statement A statement filed  by Apple with the International Trade Commission, filed yesterday and entered into the public record today, states that “the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the manner in which Samsung has used–or misused–its declared-essential patents.” If this sounds especially familiar, it could be due to the story that we ran last week about Google considering a settlement in the antitrust case that the FTC been building against them. In that case, Google claimed that many of its competitors, including Apple, had acted the same way: pursuing litigation right away without trying to licence their patents first. With Apple and Samsung at each other’s throats, it’s easy to see why Apple would claim this, but the question at hand is whether there is anything to back it up. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents says “I have no doubt that Apple’s representation is accurate because Apple would otherwise risk major problems with the ITC and the DoJ.”  He mentions a Bloomberg article from June 30 where an unidentified source states that “U.S. antitrust regulators have agreed the FTC will focus on Motorola Mobility and the Justice Department will scrutinize Samsung Electronics Co.’s handling of industry-standard patent claims.” There is no doubt that Apple is trying to get government authorities to investigate Samsung. This most recent incident and the investigation Apple got opened into Samsung in Korea show that the Cupertino company is doing everything in its power to get governments to do a large portion of the work against Samsung that they might have to do themselves otherwise. Samsung Fires Back Samsung, of course, is not taking this action laying down. The company filed a public interest statement yesterday, stating that it made a FRAND offer and that its 2.4 percent royalty demand is fair. While this may not seem like much, University of Iowa College of Law Professor Herbert J. Hovenkamp wrote in a paper earlier this month that “Permitting the owner of a FRAND-encumbered patent to have an injunction against someone willing to pay FRAND royalties is tantamount to making the patent holder the dictator of the royalties.” Do you think that either Samsung or Apple are in the right here? Are they both just companies that, like so many these days, seem to have gone crazy for patents? Related Posts Apple countersues HTC in Virginia for abuse of 4G LTE FRAND patents Google (Motorola) forced to accept FRAND patent license to Apple in Germany Apple gets antitrust investigation opened against Samsung in Korea

LG Optimus G will have a locked bootloader after all Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:48 PM PDT Looking forward to the LG Optimus G? If so, we have a bit of potentially bad news for you. An LG representative has now confirmed that the Optimus G will not have an unlocked bootloader. Is this confirmation all doom and gloom? It is hard to say. Sometimes developers can find a workaround that makes flashing custom ROMs and other tweaks possible, but it certainly isn’t as easy as it would be if an unlocked bootloader was present. Even if the developer community figures out a way around the locked bootloader, that’s not really the point. Part of the lure of Android is that it is an open operating system and we aren’t forced into a restrictive ecosystem that tells us what we can and can’t do with our phones. A locked bootloader kind of defeats the purpose here. In the past, LG was generally pretty open with their Android devices, but their most recent efforts show a very clear change in direction for the company. What do you think, does this turn you off from buying the Optimus G or not? Related Posts No related posts.

Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2 X and Galaxy Note Jelly Bean updates coming soon to Telus subscribers Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:39 PM PDT The Jelly Bean rollout continues and we have some news – not necessarily good but it's not bad either – for Telus subscribers in Canada that happen to own a Galaxy S3, Galaxy S2 X or Galaxy Note. According to a Telus PDF document dated October 17, these three devices are set to receive the Android 4.1 update at some point in the near future, with the Galaxy S3 kicking things off in late November, with the Galaxy S2 X and the Galaxy Note getting the upgrade in late December. Yes, you still have to wait for Jelly Bean to roll out, which isn't that great considering that at least the Galaxy S3 is already rocking Android 4.1 in several countries. But at least these three devices are going to be upgraded to Google's latest Android version – of course, at the time the upgrade will hit, Android 4.2 will be the latest Android version that you'll want to run on your handset or tablet. The same document reveals that the Galaxy Tab 8.9 was supposed to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich a couple of days ago – so hopefully you got it already if you own the tablet. But a Jelly Bean upgrade for this Samsung tablet isn't available at this time. In fact, the document doesn't mention any other Android devices from other OEMs, so you're out of luck if you're waiting for Jelly Bean to come to a non-Samsung gadget. Related Posts Galaxy S2 Jelly Bean update rolling out in November, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 10.1 getting it in Q4 Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean coming on August 29 alongside Samsung Galaxy Note 2? Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean update coming in Q3/Q4, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2 Android 4.1 upgrades to follow

Dead Trigger Halloween-themed update hinted at by Madfinger Games through image teaser Posted: 23 Oct 2012 02:06 PM PDT With Halloween just around the corner, game developers are releasing themed updates that go with the season. For one, survival horror first-person shooter Dead Trigger is getting a Halloween-themed update in time for October 31. Madfinger Games has released a teaser by way of its Facebook page. But what will this new update feature? Madfinger has gone the quiet route on this one, so we don’t actually have much information on what will be in store for us. On its teaser graphic, though, we see what appears to be a graveyard accompanied by a small horde of zombies with pumpkins for heads and a couple dozen bats swarming about. Dead Trigger previously received an Olympic-themed update, which came with a new arena and re-skinned zombies bearing Olympic-themed clothing. Notably, this update was offered for free, meaning the Halloween update may also come with no purchase required, should Madfinger opt to follow tradition. Other than that, we are left clueless as to what the people behind Dead Trigger have in store for us, but we will be sure to keep you posted on any news released on the upcoming update. What do you think will feature in the new update? Let us know in the comments! Related Posts No related posts.

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