| Asphalt 8: Airborne update adds cars and tracks, removes price tag Nov 7th 2013, 03:17, by Juan Carlos Torres While those who patiently waited and then paid for Asphalt 8: Airborne might feel a little bit cheated, those who have held off buying the game now have no reason to do so. With this latest update, the hit racing game is being offered for the very affordable price of zero. 
Asphalt 8: Airborne has had a pretty colorful story, starting with Google, either accidentally or intentionally, revealing in its Nexus 7 demo an August 8 launch date for the game, preempting game publisher Gameloft‘s formal announcement. Whether it was related to that incident or not, come release day, Gameloft announced an indefinite delay. Meanwhile, numerous fake copies and imitations sprouted all over Google Play Store, which speaks for the anticipation and expectation of Android gamers. The game finally hit Android on August 22 with a relatively lower $0.99 price tag. That gives players access to 47 license cards, 180 racing events, and 9 new tracks. As you can read from our review of the game, which was on done on the amazing NVIDIA SHIELD gaming handheld, Asphalt 8: Airborne puts out the best of the best in terms of stunning graphics, spectacular music, realistic vehicles, and an all-around intense racing experience. Apart from the core game, the update gives players access to 7 new reverse tracks set in Nevada and Iceland, a couple of new boosters, and a stylish Clio R.S., with a promise more cars to come soon. Players can now also rearrange the touch-based controls to their preference. Just hit the download link below and all these can be yours for free. Download: Asphalt 8: Airborne on Google Play Store |  | Google Text-to-Speech now has its own app on Google Play Store Nov 7th 2013, 02:46, by Juan Carlos Torres Google has just uploaded its own Text-to-Speech engine as an independent app on Google Play Store. While this is hardly a groundbreaking change, it does give the Android maker some leeway in pushing out updates to the engine. 
Previously only a part of what is considered to be accessibility features, text-to-speech, or TTS for short, have become an integral part of the modern mobile user experience, providing the voice for features like reading books, translations, and more. While some Android devices, such as those from Samsung, come with their own TTS engines baked into the system, Google provides its own engine and downloadable voices that some find to be a lot better than those preinstalled on their smartphones or tablets. In some cases, at least for Nexus devices, the Google Text-to-Speech engine comes built into the image, making it uninstallable. However, with Google’s TTS engine now on Google Play Store as a separate app, it can more easily roll out updates independently, without having to build and push firmware updates for devices and manufacturers, something that will definitely take up more time and resources. Of course, the Google Text-to-Speech engine is available for free and can be downloaded from the link below. Once installed, simply go to the Language & Input settings of your device and select it as the default TTS engine. Choosing a voice that has not yet been installed will automatically download and install it for you. Download: Google Text-to-Speech on Google Play Store | | Google Play Services update silently disables Android Device Manager Nov 7th 2013, 02:18, by Juan Carlos Torres Google has just started to roll out an update for its Google Play Services that, while surely bringing in some improvements or bug fixes, exhibits a rather strange and somewhat worrying behavior. For a yet unknown reason, the update disables the Android Device Manager without informing the user at all. 
As updates for various Google Play Services and apps happen silently, there is no immediate or direct way for users to know that something has changed or will change until after the fact, and sometimes, like in this case, in not so obvious ways. While this app does have an entry in Google Play Store, it does not mention anything that would lead users to believe that an important setting has been changed. In fact, the changelog is pretty much outdated, listing only the modifications for version 3.2 of the app. With the 4.0.30 and 4.0.31 updates, the Android Device Manager, as well as the option remotely lock and wipe devices, becomes unchecked, regardless of the feature’s state before the update. Fixing it, of course, is quite simple. Just re-enable the feature again. You could also first check if your Google Play Services app has already been updated to the mentioned versions. If not, be sure to be on the look out when it does so that you can enable Android Device Manager again. Considering how crucial the Android Device Manager is in giving users some amount of peace of mind when their device has become lost, silently changing such settings, without explicitly informing the user, at least via a notification, is a bit objectionable. Hopefully, Google is now aware of the situation and would take steps to go about this properly for future updates. VIA: Android Police | | Samsung discoloses plans for own 64-bit chips, 560 PPI and 4K smarpthone screens Nov 7th 2013, 01:49, by Juan Carlos Torres If yesterday’s revelation about Samsung‘s plans for bended and foldable displays for 2014 and onwards had you a wee bit curious, then these latest tidbits will probably make you intrigued even more. At its second Analyst Day, the Korean electronics manufacturer is spilling the beans on how it plans to keep itself on top of the competition in the years to come. 
Samsung has implied that it will be slapping 64-bit processors on its future smartphones, riding the wave that was started by Apple with its iPhone 5s. However, Samsung plans to eventually take this one step further. The company may be known for producing its own Exynos brand of chips, but these processors use chip designs licensed from ARM Holdings, unlike Qualcomm and, just recently, Apple, who design their own ARM chips. Samsung is now telling its investors that it is planning to cut out the middle man and design its own 64-bit chips eventually. The technical details and benefits of this Samsung-designed application processor (AP) are still unknown at this point. As you may already have read, Samsung plans to produce bended screens in 2014 and, if it manages to overcome technical barriers, foldable displays starting 2015. The company also has big plans for the more conventional type of smartphone displays and wants to push the limits of just how much they can cram into a smartphone-sized screen. In 2014, Samsung envisions displays that will boast pixel densities of 560 ppi. For reference, the Nexus 5, which was just launched last week, already touts 445 ppi. But Samsung doesn’t plan to stop there. It wants to put out smartphone screens with 4K resolutions by 2015. That’s 3840×2160 pixels, something that Vivo, whose upcoming Xplay3S wants to be the world’s first 2K display smartphone, will probably be drooling about.   These are definitely very ambitious goals, even for someone who probably has the muscle to pull it off. But Samsung doesn’t really have much of a choice. In a overly saturated mobile technology market that has almost all but peaked, the company has to assure its investors and partners that it can still innovate, or at least put out some rather interesting products in the future. VIA: AndroidBeat | |
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