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.

07
Jan
Qube2s

Okay, so the Google TV world has been a little stagnant lately. Alright, a lot stagnant. But! This is CES! There are plenty of new devices and gadgets and stuff to play with. While LG is on the other side of the show floor showing of its Google TVs (that is, TVs running Google TV), ASUS would like to introduce you to its Google TV box (that is, a box that runs Google TV that plugs into a TV...TV TV TV Google Google TV Google). The distinguishing feature on this one? It's a cube!

qubefront1 qubeback

qubeui qubeui2 qubeui3 qubeui4

Yes, both the box itself and the UI feature cubes everywhere.

07
Jan
ouyathumb

Time to grab the closest energy drink, sit down at your biggest, baddest, multi-monitoriest coding rig and get cracking on some game ideas, devs! Ouya has announced a 10-day competition that will challenge contestants to come up with an Ouya-compatible app from scratch. The shindig gets started on January 14th and from that point, participants will have until January 23rd to submit a playable demo of their original game.

The contest is being put on in partnership with Kill Screen, which will be reviewing the entries. After the initial reviews, some entrants (not all) will even be played by a "team of industry pros" that includes Ed Fries (co-creator of the Xbox) and Felicia Day (no intro needed).

07
Jan
2013-01-07_11h14_16

There aren't many things in this world that can be as purely amazing as LEGO. The only people who aren't fans of the world's best creativity toy are people who (mistakenly!) think the company has sold out and encourages kids to follow pre-made instructions instead of building something new. To that I say: Mindstorms EV3. With Android compatibility out of the box. Your argument is invalid.

2013-01-07_11h37_50

The main part of the new kit, the Intelligent Brick (seen above as a glowing torso with a QR code on its chest) will have more processing power, more memory, and more on-brick programming capabilities.

07
Jan
mogaproclosed

Back when I reviewed the original MOGA controller, I had two problems with the controller. First off, the software was cumbersome (though I didn't cover using third-party drivers to use it with emulators or anything like that), and secondly, while it was a good size, it still felt just a little too small. Well, the MOGA Pro solves at least one of these problems by being bigger, better, and more button-y.

mogaproclosed moga-pro-group mogapro

As with the original version, the controller includes a flip-up arm that can grip phones as large as 3.2" wide (not to be confused with the diagonal screen size measurement).

07
Jan
2013-01-07_09h59_41

If you like Nexus tablets, Vizio is gunning for your wallet. Today, the company announced a duo of tablets running stock Android. The first is most similar to the Nexus 10: a 10" display with the same retina-melting 2560x1600 resolution, only this one is powered by a Tegra 4 processor. Kal-El may not be a slouch, but let's be real. It's hard to not envy the 72 GPU cores that Wayne is packing.

vizio10

Here are the known specs for the device:

  • 10" 2560x1600 display
  • Tegra 4 SoC
  • 32GB storage
  • Front & rear cameras
  • Mini USB (Yes, mini not micro; see center photo below)
  • Micro HDMI
  • Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (model shown running 4.1)

vizio10hdmi vizio10usb vizio10logo

As if that wasn't enough, the company also announced a direct Nexus 7 competitor.

07
Jan
2013-01-07_09h38_17

Who knew that keyboards could be so competitive? After SwiftKey released its new Flow feature, and even included the ability to fly through space, Swype had a pressing need to escalate. Well, how's this for handy: now you no longer need to register in order to download the new Swype beta! In times past, Swype's distribution model has been a little cumbersome. Of course, this will only help people who want in on the beta, but it's still a great thing. Speaking of great things, here's a video of anthropomorphized finger ninjas talking about crowd-sourced dictionaries.

Yeah, you read that right.

06
Jan
2013-01-06_23h54_30

Okay, so sure, OnLive still exists, but given its financial woes and general instability, it's unlikely that the company will be investing in any new hardware or infrastructure. This is a shame, because NVIDIA just dropped some sweet-looking server racks on us at CES. While it bears more than a little resemblance to the GeForce GRID program, the NVIDIA GRID features the ability to support 24 concurrent users on a single node.

grid1 grid2 grid3

In addition to providing businesses with huge, server-side processing power, the company is also touting a fully-integrated video game streaming system that includes an Android client.

04
Jan
01A_AndroidPolice-logo-with-bg-242x242_thumb_thumb1_thumb4
Last Updated: January 14th, 2013

Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 43.

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!

Subscribe to the Android Police Podcast:

The Cast

  • Matthew Smith, Host
  • Bob Severns, Editor, A/V
  • David Ruddock, Co-host
  • Eric Ravenscraft, Co-host

04
Jan
2013-01-04_14h04_58

I miss you, HTC. My Evo was the first phone I ever truly loved, and between 2007 and 2010, as a company you did remarkably well for yourself. Then the Thunderbolt happened, and then Beats got involved and... Well, let's just say it hasn't been a great couple years. So, when I hear that your CEO, Peter Chou, is planning some bold new changes for 2013, I'm hopeful. Skeptical, but hopeful.

It hasn't been any secret that HTC hasn't been doing so hot. Its stock has plummeted (from a high of 661 TWD in February of last year down to 287 today), its market share is dwindling, and while it has promised to streamline its product portfolio, we're still getting bizarre mid-range devices that break way too many branding commandments.