Cameron Summerson - 223/264 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Cameron Summerson

Cameron is a self-made geek, Android enthusiast, horror movie fanatic, and musician. When he's not pounding keys here at AP, you can find him spending time with his wife and kids, plucking away on the 6-string, or watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on repeat.

Follow @Summerson

Jul

[New App] Redfin Real Estate Comes To Android, But Only In Certain Areas

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Attention would-be homeowners: Redfin Real Estate released its official Android in app into the Android Market! It's a well laid out app, with all the bells and whistles to improve the overall quality of your house hunting experience. It offers an MLS powered search with "up to the minute" results, the ability to easily find homes and open houses in your area using geolocation, and it stays fully synchronized with your Redfin account. This ensures that all of your Redfin activity stays current, as everything that do on the website stays synced with your mobile and vice-versa.

While this app offers some incredibly nice features, it's not without its shortcomings - namely area limitations.

Jul

[Coming Soon To Android] Protoxide: Death Race Is An Insane Hovercraft Racing Game... With Guns

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Games, News

Remember F-Zero from back in the Super NES days? Or perhaps the more modern WipEout for PS3? Those are both great hovercraft racing games. Do you know what would make them better, though? Guns. And bombs. And all other sorts of artillery that can be used to blow folks up. That's where Protoxide: Death Race comes in, because it has just that. Have a look at the gameplay teaser:

Looks sick, right? It features four single player modes, WiFi multiplayer mode, 12 battle war gliders, and 16 monstrous tracks for you to attempt to blow your adversaries to smithereens.

There is but one problem with this game: it's not yet available.

Jul

hi-256-0-14d8d8a9217519d1a3c43903a9178a25f281c14c

Google+ App Gets Update, Brings Fixes For Swype, Huddles, Circles, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

The Google+ app received an updated today that brings about several much-needed enhancements, bug fixes, and performance improvements. Have a look at the changelog:

Customize the main stream view to show streams from individual circles
Fixed some issues encountered by users with the Swype keyboard
Set permissions for who can start a huddle with you
If someone you've never huddled with before invites you to a group huddle, you can now dismiss the invitation (without blocking them)
New UI allows adding multiple people or entire circles to an existing group huddle
Set photo as wallpaper
Performance improvements and bug fixes throughout the app

The update hasn't made it to the Web Market just yet, but you can pull it directly from your device.

Jul

Qualcomm Releases Vellamo: A New Web Benchmarking App

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

It's a well-known fact that Android enthusiasts love benchmarks. When new devices hit our hands, what is one of the first things we do? Run benchmarks. It's how we compare devices to one another, and what we use to develop the standards on which future devices will be set. At this point, we use a set of benchmarking tools that have become clutch throughout the community: Quadrant, Linpack, SmartBench, etc.

Now, Qualcomm is getting into the benchmarking game with a new web benchmark called Vellamo that aims to judge device performance in areas that really matter: rendering, javascript, networking, and user experience.

Jul

[Deal Alert] Carrier-Unlocked HTC Inspire 4G For $350 With Free Shipping From eBay

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Deals, Inspire 4G (Ace, Stallion), News

This is an excellent deal for anyone looking to pick up a new handset without having to sign up for a two-year commitment with a wireless carrier. You can grab a carrier-unlocked HTC Inspire 4G (GSM) for $350 from eBay right now. This may seem a bit steep compared to the relatively low price that you can nab this handset for in-store or for one of the third party manufacturer - until you remove the contract from the equation, that is. If you were to walk into an AT&T store to pick up this phone sans-contract at this very moment, you would be leaving $450 lighter.

Jul

[New Game] Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack Coming To Android This Month [Video]

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Games, News, Videos

Fans of the classic first person shooter series Serious Sam can rejoice, as the cult video game is making its way to Android sometime this month. Titled Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! you play the role of Sam's arch nemesis The Headless Kamikaze, as you make your way through various obstacle-filled levels in order to fulfill your greatest desire: destroy Sam.

The game features 40 levels of action-packed adventure, with one seemingly common theme: you're going to die. The beautiful graphics and rich environments are both inviting and distracting while you journey down the treacherous path to your demise. The developer, Be-Rad Entertainment, highlights the overall look of the game with a fantastic and memorable quote: "Cartoon dismemberment has never been so pretty."

The game will also feature social media integration so you can share you achievements with all of your homies on Facebook.

Jul

[Poll] Some Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1s Experiencing 'Newton's Rings' - Is Yours?

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Tab 10.1, News, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

It looks like owners of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 are facing yet another display issue: Newton's rings. According to Wikipedia, Newton's rings is an "interference pattern caused by the reflection of light between two surfaces;" but how does this apply to the Galaxy Tab, you ask? Imagine what motor oil looks like when combined with water, now place that under the screen of your Tab 10.1.

^{Image by wesbalmer of XDA Forums}

That's what a whole slew of users over at XDA are dealing with at this very moment. The thread is currently up to eleven pages, and basically every single post is an affirmation of this issue.

Jul

[Deal Alert] [Updated: It's Back!] Acer Iconia Tab A500 For $385 ($65 Off) From eBay Daily Deals

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Deals, Iconia Tab A500, News

Update: This tablet is gracing the front page of eBay Daily Deals once again, but this time it's a bit more expensive ($5), which is still quite a good deal. Hit the updated source link below to buy.

When it comes to the Android tablet market, pricing is one of the main areas that defines the competition. Acer clearly knew this when pricing its Iconia Tab A500 tablet at $450, but for today, you can score this 10.1 inch Tegra 2 device for the low price of $380 with free shipping from eBay's Daily Deals site.

If you're not familiar with the Iconia A500, here's a quick look at the specs:

10.1 inch 1280x800 LCD display
1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor
1GB RAM
16GB built-in storage
5MP rear camera, 2MP front
Honeycomb

If you have been waiting for the best price to pick up a new tablet, you better jump on this deal - a sub $400 Honeycomb tablet is hard to find.

Jul

Sprint To Confirm 4G LTE Deal During Upcoming Earnings Call On July 28th

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Sprint

Sprint has been doing everything in its power to earn customers lately, but this may be the thing that reels in the biggest fish: according to CNET, The Now Network will be announcing a 4-5 billion dollar LTE deal with LightSquared during its upcoming earnings call on July 28th. Sprint launched its WiMax network early-on with Clearwire, which proved to be a hole-in-one for the duo, but Clearwire has since slowed the growth of WiMax due to financial reasons.

Considering VZW's new LTE network has set the standard for 4G across the country, this is the obvious evolution for Sprint to take - and it's reported that it will drop the aforementioned $4-5 billion over the next three to five years on upgrading the network to LTE.

Jul

[Update: Now With Market Links] SwiftKey X Graduates From Beta, All-New SwiftKey Tablet X Is Just Getting Started

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

We took you on a brief walkthrough of the SwiftKey X beta several weeks ago, and now this psychic keyboard has shed its beta skin and emerged as a fully-developed app. TouchType also pushed out a version of SwiftKey optimized for tablets, appropriately dubbed SwiftKey Tablet X. Both keyboards are using TouchType's Fluency 2.0 artificial intelligence engine to crawl deep into your brain and pull out the next word that's on the tip of your fingers - and it actually works reasonably well.

SwiftKey X and its tablet-optimized brother also "learn" by analyzing your typing style in Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as monitor your precision and adjust themselves accordingly to improve key prediction and accuracy.