Eric Ravenscraft
Eric is a snarky technophile with a taste for the unusual. When he's not obsessing about Android, you can usually find him obsessing about movies, psychology, or the perfect energy drink. Eric weaves his own special blend of snark, satire, and comedy into all his articles.

18
Jun
heroofmanytiny

Hero Of Many Is A Beautiful Side Scrolling Game That Definitely Isn't About Sperm

Posted by in Games, News

Hero of Many is a side-scrolling game featuring that silhouette style that so many indie games love these days. You play as a glowing nucleus of energy, leading a "swarm of water beings" around, fighting bad, black water thingies. They are definitely not sperm cells.

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The game is played with no words, which is not a romantic metaphor. Your nucleus collects new pieces and expands, which is not a visual representation of a growth cycle. Your white minions with swollen heads and wiggly tails fight for survival as they surround the nucleus which is not an allegory for conception.

10
Jun
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You Don't Have A Roach Infestion, You Have A Potential Kickstarter-Funded RoboRoach Army

Posted by in News

If you're like me, you don't need much out of life. A good movie, a pretty girl, and a massive swarm of cyborg insects that you can command to bring a swift end to your enemies. Well, if this Kickstarter project has its way, we'll have the third one in no time. Meet the RoboRoach. This little kit allows you to mind control a living cockroach.

Let me repeat that for you: mind control a friggin' cockroach. A-like so:

Well, perhaps "mind control" is a bit of a stretch, as cockroaches don't exactly have "minds" in the same way we do.

05
Jun
mcpetiny

Minecraft Pocket Edition Reaches v0.7, Brings New Menus, Eggs, Milk, Buckets, Fire, Realms, Kitchen Sink

Posted by in Games, News

Minecraft Pocket Edition has had a hell of a development cycle. Each new point release brings a ton of new awesome stuff, though. Today, the app reaches version 0.7 and users get a whole bunch of awesome new features. Like fire. Fire is cool. Spawn eggs have also been added. You can use these items to create sheep, pigs, cows, or chickens.

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The new version also includes an in-game chat function (finally!) and initial support for Minecraft Realms. While the feature is currently in alpha, Realms will allow players to pay for easy-to-setup mobile servers that up to ten users can join.

30
May
2013-05-30_19h00_33

With MessagePetz, Your Kids Can Send You A Digital Hug Before They Have Nightmares About Their Horrible Robot Teddy

Posted by in News

I don't have kids, so it's entirely possible I don't "get it." By "it" I mean this freaky robot teddy bear that sends and receives text messages because 2005 still had one more horror movie on its to-do list that it forgot to tell us about. That's what MessagePetz are. They're teddy bears that have a cold, black screen with bright blue LEDs shoved into their torsos.

Of course, maybe I'm being too hard on this thing. After all, aside from the gaping chest cavity and surgically-enhanced cyborg parts, this thing is kind of cute! How does it work? Well, you see, mommy sends a text message to the bear, which is then displayed on its chest.

29
May
01A_AndroidPolice-logo-with-bg-242x242_thumb_thumb1_thumb4

[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 62: I Challenge Buckhead Atlanta to a Guitar Duel

Posted by in News, Podcast

Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 62.

Don't forget - the Android Police Podcast's live broadcast is every Thursday at 5PM PST (www.androidpolice.com/podcast). The unedited video version of the podcast can be found here - and will likely include various verbal expletives, technical snafus, tangents, and probably a good 5-10 minutes of pre-podcast banter as we prepare. Watch at your own risk!

21
May
01A_AndroidPolice-logo-with-bg-242x242_thumb_thumb1_thumb4

[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 61: NFC Tramp Stamp

Posted by in News, Podcast

Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 61.

Don't forget - the Android Police Podcast's live broadcast is every Thursday at 5PM PST (www.androidpolice.com/podcast). The unedited video version of the podcast can be found here - and will likely include various verbal expletives, technical snafus, tangents, and probably a good 5-10 minutes of pre-podcast banter as we prepare. Watch at your own risk!

15
May
play music logo

[Hands-On] Play Music Is Now The Template For All Future Music Services (Even If It Takes A Little While To Love)

Posted by in Google, News

At the start of this review, I was simultaneously excited and frustrated. Now I'm just plain excited. For a bit of context, I have been bouncing between cloud music services since Lala was still a thing. I had one simple desire: I wanted to pay a monthly fee for unfettered access to a large library of content, but still wanted to be able to bring my own. I know that $10/month is not going to get me every song in existence, but if I can pay for most music, and then supply the rest, I'll be happy. Today, Google finally gave me what I wanted and, make no mistake, this is the model that other apps are going to follow for a long time to come.

15
May
2013-05-15_13h47_50

[Update: Hangouts Is Live! | I/O 2013] Google+ Gets A New Stream, And Hangouts (Read: Babel) Becomes Real, Unifies Messaging Across Android, iOS And The Web

Posted by in Google, News

Today, Google announced a new look for the Google+ stream. Gone is the weird, bubbly look that we've had for forever. The cards-centric UI that we've seen on phones and tablets is now coming to the desktop as well. You can select a one, two, or three-column layout and each individual card can flip over with a slick animation and provide more information and options.

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Google's also improving its search and tagging functionality. Now, the service will analyze tags that you've provided and G+ will provide related hashtags to improve discovery. Even when you don't provide tags, Google can infer them.

15
May
play music logo

[I/O 2013] Google Launches Play Music All Access, Finally Updates The Music App, Combines Your Library With A Subscription

Posted by in Google, News

Today, Google brought it's A-game with a subscription service for Play Music. Now, you can pay a $9.99 monthly fee to get unlimited access to a library of music. It also comes with a new, updated Play Music app that doesn't look like complete garbage. There's also a host of features including the ability to turn any track into a radio station.

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The one key way that this service distinguishes itself from other subscription services is that this includes all of your own personal music. In other words, the MP3s you've purchased and own are in the same app as all the music you've added to your library via your subscription.

15
May
2013-05-15_12h22_45

[I/O 2013] Google Officially Launches Play Games, Brings Achievements, Game Sync, Leaderboards And More

Posted by in Games, Google, News

Today, Google announced Google Play game services that brings a suite of new features that game developers can integrate into their titles. The biggest of them is cloud data sync. Game developers can sync their players' progress across devices and platforms. Yes, this feature works on Android and iOS. This is hot.

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In addition to cloud data sync, the suite of services also brings achievements and leaderboards. Any game can now tap into a unified system for showing off your accomplishments. If you want a more personal grandstanding experience, Google also introduced both live and turn-based multiplayer features for game developers to utilize.

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