Jeremiah Rice
Contributing since July, 2012
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1288articles
Page 57
About Jeremiah Rice
Jeremiah is a US-based blogger who bought a Nexus One the day it came out and never looked back. In his spare time he watches Star Trek, cooks eggs, and completely fails to write novels.
Latest Articles
Transformer Prime owners, you should see something extra in your digital stocking today. The 10.4.2.18 update is now rolling out (at least in the United States) ready to download and apply for stock users. Unfortunately it's not Android 4.2, but there are a number of small yet useful tweaks to the software. Most notably, errors with the Spanish and Dutch keyboards have been patched, and the Transformer Prime can now connect to Wi-Fi access points with Chinese characters in the SSID.
More than a few senior citizens got their first tablet in the form of a Kindle Fire last Christmas, and I'm sure a few more will be getting HD versions this year. Maybe that's why the powers that be at Sony Pictures chose to make the official Wheel of Fortune mobile game exclusive to Amazon's Appstore, at least until January 13th, when it will hit the Play Store as well. Wordsmiths can purchase the game for $2.99.
What makes a developer great is a continued commitment to a great product, and Apex Launcher dev Android Does has it in spades. Their latest in a long line of updates adds a handful of features, most of which are designed to allow the app to more seamlessly integrate with Android 4.2. There's a new shortcut to the Quick Settings menu, as well as modifications to the shortcut selection screen for 4.2 devices. Other changes include better theme, and live wallpaper support and a new dock swipe gesture on the Pro version.
Here in the States digital jocks tend to obsess over the latest Madden or 2K titles. But pretty much everywhere else, it's all about the soccer action in FIFA. Electronic Arts is well aware of this, so they've bundled the EA Sports Football Club into the full versions of FIFA 2013. The Football Club is a combination fantasy league and digital marketplace. As of now, you don't even need to be playing the game to access it - the new Football Club app is available in both North American and worldwide flavors.
For decades, the majority of video games have been about non-stop action, encouraging players to stop on innocent turtles, shoot terrorists and generally go nuts. Sure, there's the odd strategy or puzzle game, but even those have an element of tension and urgency - it's part of what makes them fun. Game developers know how to push our mental buttons of risk and reward.
Ah, the holidays. Nothing says family togetherness like carols, eggnog, and a horde of ravenous undead monsters trying to gobble your brains like gingerbread. Madfinger's popular zombie shooter Dead Trigger has been updated once again: after the crowd-pleasing Halloween content, they've gone and added Christmas-themed levels. You'd better hope for some ammunition in your stocking.
There's some disturbing news today on the Android security front: an vulnerability has been discovered for Samsung's Exynos 4-powered devices. While the related exploit is useful for the mod scene in that it can be harnessed to gain superuser permissions and root pretty much any device running on an Exynos 4 chip, it's also got some rather disturbing implications. According to an XDA member with the handle "alephzain", who developed the exploit, using this security hole can also grant an app access to all physical memory on a given device - basically, anything stored in RAM is fair game. The virtual directory for memory within the kernel, dev/exynos-mem, is wide open, apparently for access to various camera-related functions.
The Humble Bundle for Android isn't just a great way to get cheap indie games and help charity - it's also shaping up to be a pretty great platform for launching Android ports. Take Eufloria: it's been available on Steam for PC since 2009, but once it came to the Humble Bundle, it was made available for Mac and Linux too. Now the game has been released to the Google Play Store. Five bucks gets you all the interstellar botanical strategy that you can handle.
Update: All 6000 Nexus 7s have been sold, but we're confident a similar deal will pop up soon.
50 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 3 Weeks (11/21/12 - 12/14/12)
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.
Tis the season, Android shoppers. Today there's a cavalcade of games from a variety of developers on sale in the Google Play Store, as well as some of Loud Crow's interactive books for children. We haven't seen any word of when this sale will end, so if you want any of the games or apps listed above, get 'em while they're hot. First, to the game shelf!
Alright, so Avengers Initiative wasn't the earth-shattering mobile experience that its marketing made it out to be. In fact, according to Matt Demers' review, it's an Infinity Blade ripoff that only true believers will really enjoy. But for those who finish all their comic reading on Tuesday and are looking for anything more to scratch that superhero itch for the rest of the week, there's a big update to the game. Captain America is now available as the second playable character.
Say what you will about the sorry state of broadband in the US, we were one of the first to have large-scale LTE networks available to the public. It took about a year for mainland Europe to catch up, and the UK is still in the very early stages of getting their high-speed networks started. Everything Everywhere (EE) has taken the lead on the tablet front, offering the very first LTE tablet to United Kingdom wireless users: Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1. Plans start at £25.99 per month for 3GB of high-speed data.
Quick quiz: can you name how many different beers you've had in the last week, their country of origin, and their brew style? Do you know what beer to recommend with barbeque shrimp? Have you ever successfully used the word "mouthfeel" in a sentence? Then Beer Citizen is for you. It follows the basic formula for enthusiast "social" apps (in other words, just like BeerAdvocate) but presents all that information in a mobile-friendly format that's got more taste and is less filling.
Mobile advertising is an unavoidable part of the Android experience - in fact, some would make the case that it's the whole reason for Android coming to exist in its current form. But that doesn't meant that it can't be improved. So Google's AdMob team has been looking at ways of making delivered ads both less intrusive and more functional, namely by cutting down on unwanted activations.
With college football nearly over and the NFL ending just a month or so afterwards, pigskin fans are... oh, wait. This is the other kind of football. Sega's Football Manager franchise has long enabled obsessive compulsive soccer fans to live out their somewhat sedate dreams of managing a pro club. It looks like the developer is giving the handheld versions the same yearly release cycle that the console and PC games enjoy - as well as a nice price bump up to $9.99. Hey, it's a business, not a sport.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.
Lenovo might not be the most prodigious maker of Android tablets around, but it's got its followers. Those who bought the 9.7-inch IdeaTab A2109 model, check your Tablet Settings: users on Lenovo's official forums are reporting that their hardware is being updated to Android 4.1.1 (A2109A_A411_03_13_121126_US) today. So far only American users have confirmed the over-the-air download or the WiFi tablet.
Dear Android game developers: always use the Play Store for those massive extra downloads. Rockstar has got the message. They've returned the open-world classic Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to the Play Store after a few initial hiccups, and now there's no pokey downloads from outside sources. They've also fixed various bugs found in the original release, so fell free to shell out five bucks for a trip back to the 80s.
If you think the term "motion comic" means some barely-animated, poorly-produced DVD tie-in made for a quick buck... well, you're mostly right. But developer Leviathan Games is hoping to buck that trend with their new series of apps, Bane of Yoto. The story is based on the trade paperback of the same name, which has become something of a favorite in horror circles as of late. You can try the first part of the story for free, and the second episode landed yesterday for $3. Unfortunately, both are restricted to Tegra devices for the moment.