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.

06
Jun
2012-06-06_16h19_20

Tactus Technology Demos A Prototype Android Touchscreen Display With Disappearing Physical Keys

Posted by in News

If there's one downside to the proliferation of touchscreen technology, it's the lack of tactile feedback. Tactus is one of many companies that aims to alleviate this problem. This week, at SID 2012, the company demoed a product that offers disappearing physical touch keys. As seen in the demo video here, these buttons can raise on command and disappear when they're not needed. Which sounds like something out of science fiction.

image

At the moment, the display can only be configured for preset layouts. Meaning, you configure it for a landscape QWERTY layout, that's all you'll get. No gaming controls, no dialer configurations.

06
Jun
2012-06-06_13h18_26

Google Earth Gets Some Amazing New 3D Maps, Rubs It In Apple's Face Just A Bit

Posted by in Google, News

Today's Google Earth announcement brought a couple of nice new features to the Google Maps suite. In addition to moving offline maps out of Labs, the company also pre-empted rumors of Apple-branded 3D map software with a demo of some stellar 3D maps that Google has been creating with high-tech camera planes. Yes, Google now has camera planes.

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The company is using some sophisticated mapping software and planes outfitted with a bevy of camera sensors to create photo-realistic 3D maps of the entire terrain of a metropolitan area. This is in stark contrast to the previous method of simply using 3D building models.

06
Jun
google-tv6-m

Sony And Logitech Google TV Devices Receiving Updates Right Now To v.2.1.1 And Honeycomb 3.2 Respectively

Posted by in Google TV, Logitech, News, Sony
Last Updated: August 2nd, 2012

Google TV is one of those products that Google tends to forget about most of the year. Today, though, the platform is getting some love as Sony Google TV devices are getting a firmware update to version 2.1.1. Included in the update will be the ability play movies rented via Google Play (about time) as well as watching movies via youtube.com/movies.

Logitech's update, on the other hand, is less straightforward. The company has announced via its forums that the Revue will be getting updated to Honeycomb 3.2 beginning a couple of days ago and ending tomorrow, June 7th. Oddly, the company seems to have made no official announcement or change log anywhere else.

05
Jun
tagytiny

Tagy Replaces Rows Of App Icons On Your Home Screen With A Tag Cloud, Lets You Know What You Don't Use

Posted by in Applications, News

One of the nicest things about Android that gets taken for granted is the ability to customize your user interface. While most folks tend to stick to app icons for launching their apps, Tagy offers an alternative approach: a tag cloud. Tagy is actually a set of widgets that let you specify a list of apps, contacts, or bookmarks to appear in a single widget. Then, as you use the widget, the items you use more often will get bigger.

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Users can customize the color of their tags to fit into whatever theme they're already using. Additionally, because the items you use get larger the more you use them, you can isolate the less-used apps, which you can then either remove from the list or uninstall altogether.

05
Jun
quickofficepro

[Breaking] Google Acquires Quickoffice - Let The Productivity Wars Begin

Posted by in Google, News

So, Google just acquired Quickoffice, one of the leading distributors of productivity and office software for Android. The company, best known for being better than Docs or Microsoft Office on Android, has now been purchased by the search giant. Google says that the company will be working to bring Quickoffice's "record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats" among other "powerful technology" to its Apps product suite.

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This is exciting news for Google Docs Drive. The company's interest in its office software has been growing lately, with a revamp of its Docs service, and the addition of the Dropbox-like Drive software.

04
Jun
htc-logo

Sony And HTC Are Partnering To Bring PlayStation Certification To HTC Devices

Posted by in HTC, News, Sony

Back in February, we heard that HTC might be getting PlayStation Certification on some of its phones. Today at E3, Sony announced that it will be opening up the PlayStation Mobile program, which was previously known as PlayStation Suite, to HTC. This means, among other things, that HTC phones that receive PS Certification will be able to play the host of classic PlayStation games available. Additionally, HTC devices will also have access to the third-party apps and games developed using the SDK.

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It's hard to say whether this is bigger news for HTC or Sony. On the one hand, having not-quite-but-kind-of exclusive access to PlayStation games gives HTC a competitive edge over Samsung and Motorola and the other Android manufacturers.

04
Jun
smartwatch

Sony SmartWatch Update Is Breaking Devices, Users Report Problems All Over The World While Sony Is Silent

Posted by in News, Sony

If you own a Sony SmartWatch, you may want to ignore the impending update to the SmartWatch app on the Play Store right now. Some users are reporting that, after updating the required app, their watches are experiencing random reboots, notifications no longer working, and random disconnects. We've reached out to Sony for comment, but so far we've heard nothing back.

2012-06-04_20h17_47

It appears that version 1.2.33 of the software began causing problems. The current app has now been bumped to version 1.2.34, however it's unclear if this update fixes the problem and allows users to upgrade safely. What is clear is that if you already updated to 1.2.33, and your device was then bricked, you won't be able to update to 1.2.34, as the device disconnects right away.

04
Jun
nyko1

Nyko Introduces Gaming Controllers For Android Tablets To Be Released This Fall

Posted by in Games, News
Last Updated: June 5th, 2012

Nyko, best known for making the slightly less solid and slightly less expensive console controllers you buy to save money, is getting into the Android game. Literally. Working with mobile gaming force of nature, NVIDIA, the peripherals company aims to bring "physical and familiar controls" to tablet games that run on NVIDIA processors, including, but more importantly not limited to, the Tegra 3.

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The PlayPad in a variety of colors (left), and the PlayPad Pro (right).

Beginning in Fall 2012, the company will begin selling two different controllers. The PlayPad will be the smaller of the two and feature a collapsible tablet stand and carrying case, making your tablet every bit as portable of a gaming rig as a Virtual Boy.

04
Jun
att galaxy s iii

AT&T's Galaxy S III Goes Up For Pre-Order On June 6th, Red Galaxy S III Available Later In The Summer

Posted by in AT&T, Galaxy S III, News

The last horse finally crosses the finish line, as AT&T announces that its version of the Galaxy S III will be available for pre-order on June 6th. The 16GB version of the device will be available for $199 with a two-year contract. The company is also boasting the option of a 16GB MicroSD card available in stores for $39 (which you can easily get elsewhere for much cheaper). This might mean that a 32 GB option is not available for AT&T yet. But you know what is? A red Galaxy S III.

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That's right, AT&T is announcing exclusive access to a red Galaxy S III, "for red, white and blue color choices." The red version won't be available immediately.

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