Android World: Android Central

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Android Central

Google Now will change the way we use our smartphones
CyanogenMod 10.1 RC4 update rolls out to address math calculation bug
Apps of the Week: Couple, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Hiversaires and more!
Stock Talk: Dish, Clearwire, Sprint, Softbank and the big game of poker
Google won't yet approve Glassware that uses facial recognition
Android Central 137: Have you ever been experienced?

Google Now will change the way we use our smartphones

Posted: 01 Jun 2013 03:05 PM PDT

Google Now

As Google Now gains more functionality, we see more and more what a Big Deal™ it will become

This is not a guess. It's not even a prediction. Google Now is going to change the way you use your smart phone, and maybe even the face of mobile itself. What started as a neat way to see baseball scores has graduated into its own platform and service, fully extensible, and downright wonderful.

Hearing and seeing what Google Now can do is one thing. It looks and sounds really cool, but when you use some of the more advanced features for the first time in a real-life situation, you'll have an epiphany. I know this, because it just happened to me. The experience moved me, and made me realize that Google Now is the killer feature everyone has always looked for.

CyanogenMod 10.1 RC4 update rolls out to address math calculation bug

Posted: 01 Jun 2013 01:49 PM PDT

CyanogenMod

Rest assured you didn't use 100GB of mobile data over night

CyanogenMod pushed out a small update to CM10.1 yesterday bumping the software up to RC3, but it turns out there was a small math calculation bug that gave users quite a scare the next day. Because of changes made to the way the software handled complex math calculations, many devices had issues anywhere the system had to calculate and display numbers. The end result were some shocking data usage counters, which often showed devices using 100GB or more over night from very basic usage. The bug, it turns out, was giving exponentially (yikes!) incorrect results when counting on any device with a chipset other than those the new code was tested on, which understandably caused some panic.

Fear not, your phone didn't randomly pull down over 100GB of mobile data while you were sleeping last night -- and the update today to CM10.1 RC4 has fixed the issue. Things like this happen, and that's part of the nature of flashing custom ROMs. Luckily the issues were simply cosmetic, and can be fixed with a quick update to RC4 from the get.cm source link below.

Source: +CyanogenMod; More: Get.cm

Apps of the Week: Couple, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Hiversaires and more!

Posted: 01 Jun 2013 12:27 PM PDT

Apps of the Week

We have another diverse group of picks to keep you busy this weekend

Welcome back to yet another edition of the "Apps of the Week" post, where we bring together a group of apps that the Android Central writers have been using on a regular basis. App discovery can be tough with so many options out there, so our goal is to give you some personal recommendations on the apps we're using ourselves. This week we're looking at a few tools, a couple of good games to kill some time with and as usual some odds-and-ends.

Stick around with us after the break to see what we have for you this week -- you may just come away with a couple apps that you want to download on your own device.

Stock Talk: Dish, Clearwire, Sprint, Softbank and the big game of poker

Posted: 01 Jun 2013 08:16 AM PDT

Poker

The U.S. telecom landscape can get confusing. But I think we can all agree that technology is pushing forward and consumers will benefit by having more ways to watch the video content they want to watch in a simple way. And so if you’re a subscriber to DISH satellite TV service, it would be really nice to be able to stream the content you’re paying for to a smartphone, tablet or computer within your home or when you’re on the road.

The action going on between Sprint, Clearwire, Softbank and Dish Network is really interesting, and much like a game of poker. Let’s have a look.

Google won't yet approve Glassware that uses facial recognition

Posted: 31 May 2013 07:38 PM PDT

Google Glass

Taking into account user feedback, the policy will evolve in the coming weeks and months

Writing on its official Project Glass Google+ page, Google explained that because of privacy concerns it will not be approving Glassware (apps for Glass) that take advantage of facial recognition technology. While a consumer release of Glass may still be several months away, there are now enough people out there with Explorer Edition units that Google felt the need to address this concern. One of the biggest struggles it is fighting with Glass currently is concerns over privacy, and following its current company line on the use of facial recognition it thinks that now is not the time to include it.

Google says that it is listening to feedback from early users of Glass, and will be evolving its policy on facial recognition software in the coming weeks and months. We of course know that with a little bit of hacking non-approved Glassware including facial recognition could easily be added to Glass, but in these fragile stages of building public perception of the product it is best for Google to have an official stance here.

Source: +Project Glass