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We've heard very little out of Google internal team Niantic Labs. Before today, their sole public presence was Field Trip, a mash up of Google Now and various hyperlocal points of interest. The team'' latest creation, Ingress, defies description: it's a virtual reality game in which players are tasked with going to real-world locations to harness a fictional energy source. Also there are two "teams" and every player in the world is one one or the other. Think Alliance versus Horde.
There are still great swatches of the American wireless industry woefully lacking in LTE coverage (we're looking at you, T-Mobile) but bit by bit the various carriers have been hopping on the bandwagon. While budget carrier Cricket Wireless has actually had LTE coverage in Las Vegas and Tucson for the last few months, it'd been restricted to USB access dongles, WiFi hotspots and the like. Their first LTE smartphone, the LG Optimus Regard. Yup, that's the name they went with.
There are only a few launchers that have stood out from the pack since Ice Cream Sandwich came along, and one of them is TeslaCoil's Nova Launcher. Just in time for the brand new Nexus devices and Android 4.2 update, the developers have freshened up Nova with a compatibility update. The latest version has been updated to play nice with 4.2 (Jelly Bean+) as well as add a couple of features for those of you lucky enough to be running the latest version of Android.
Usually we'd save a cool live wallpaper for our next roundup, but this one's just so groovy we had to let our readers know about it now. GyroSpace 3D is a live wallpaper that, like many others, uses your device's gyroscope for visual effects. But the space-scapes shown off in GyroSpace move around on a three-dimensional plane, coming in and out of the user's filed of view with remarkable smoothness. It's a neat effect that's not unlike a stereoscopic 3D screen, without the added hardware. Check out the video below for a demonstration.
On the Venn diagram of gaming genres, shooters and rhythm games rarely intersect, with the exception of some oddball titles like Space Channel 5. But with Beat Hazard Ultra, shooter fans and music junkies now have something that they can agree on. With success on iOS, Steam, Xbox, and PS3, developer Cold Beam has created a game with stunning visuals and an impressive tie to music that everyone will love - their own. The beta/demo version for Android is available from Cold Beam's website now in a free APK file.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the Poetic Slimline Portfolio case for the Nexus 7, after buying it for my personal use and finding it to be a good choice with a great value proposition. After seeing the review, the folks at Poetic decided to send us some more, in the hopes that I'd give some of their other options for the Nexus 7 a good rundown. The whopping four cases they sent me are all based on the same design (a pouch and cover combo, with magnetic closures and wake/sleep functions), each with slight variations.
Just in time for Halloween election night, the original paranormal investigators are ready for another round on Android. But hold on, would-be busters: this ain't no ordinary mobile cash-in. Ghostbusters: Paranormal Blast is an augmented reality mobile cash-in. The core gameplay is finding ghosts though your smartphone camera (AKA Ecto Goggles), zapping them with your handy dandy nuclear-powered Proton Pack until they're weak enough to catch in a regulation Ghost Trap. For proper ambiance, try to find a high-class but antique hotel, or an abandoned firehouse.
Docks are hard to come by for Android hardware, where very few individual models rise above the pack. But if you're one of 30,000,000 people sporting a Galaxy S III, or one of the considerably smaller number using AT&T's Samsung Infuse 4G, you can pick up an official vehicle mount for a song. Assuming that you can sing a song that's worth five American dollars.
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 2 weeks or so.
It never rains, but it pours. Yesterday Samsung posted the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean source code for both new Galaxy Tab models and the AT&T Galaxy Note II. Today they're keeping the open source train rolling with the first available code for the new Galaxy S III Mini, the flagship model's 4-inch brother-from-another-mother. The 4.1 code is available now from Samsung's developer website.
Welcome to the newer, friendlier Motorola, where every would-be Android modder is catered to. After creating developer editions of both the new Droid RAZR M and Droid RAZR HD for Verizon (the first from the manufacturer-carrier combo since the XOOM) Google's new acquisition is spreading the love to AT&T. The company announced the ATRIX HD Developer Edition, complete with unlockable bootloader, via its Twitter account today. There's currently no price or date available, beyond the fact that it will be available soon.
I'm a big fan of EA's Need For Speed series - according to Steam, I played Hot Pursuit for over 50 hours on my PC. Their latest addition to the cops 'n' racers stable is Most Wanted, hotly anticipated on consoles because it's from the racing pros at Criterion. But for those without an Xbox or PC and an abundance of mobile horsepower, EA offers the Android version, for a reasonable $7.
Remember when you were in grade school, and your parent or teacher told you to apologize to the other kid? And you'd reply, "I'm sorry that Johnny has a big stupid face and he made me want to punch it"? Apple's been doing the same thing, except in this case the kids are billion-dollar international companies. With big stupid faces.
A review of Exor Studio's Zombie Driver is somewhat redundant, since it's been available on PCs via Steam for almost three years. But as any dedicated mobile gamer knows, translating a console or PC gaming experience to a handheld is rarely as straightforward as developers or publishers think, and the $7 asking price is a respectable chunk of change, even for a proven game. So, does the NVIDIA-published THD version of Zombie Driver live up to its undead-slaying progenitor?
We know a lot of you out there are collectors of Andrew Bell's line of plastic Android figures - they've released dozens since the original "Bugdroid" version. With the holidays coming soon, the special editions for 2012 are now rolling out, starting with the Halloween werewolf version.
US Cellular Expanding LTE Coverage To 30 New Markets In November, Mostly Northeast And Midwest
US Cellular Expanding LTE Coverage To 30 New Markets
With T-Mobile acquiring MetroPCS, things are starting to look mighty lonely in the regional carrier department here in the States. Even so, US Cellular has been making admirable strides in rolling out LTE services to their relatively small customer base, even beating some of the bigger carriers to the punch in many of their markets. Starting on November 5th, US Cellular will be adding new markets and expanding existing LTE zones... just in time for Galaxy Note II owners to enjoy them.
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.
There's been a glut of zombie games lately - nary a roundup goes by where I don't have to try and find something new to say about the oh-so-popular undead. But Zombie Driver, the rare mixture of top-down driving and survival horror, comes by it honestly. The indie game was released on Steam for the PC back in 2009, and has been a popular seller on various platforms ever since. Now the THD version is available to owners of Tegra-based phones and tablets for $6.99.
Huawei has been steadily increasing its high-end offerings for the last year or so, and their latest offering is the top-of-the-line Honor 2. Last year's model gets upgraded in just about every possible way, starting with Huawei's own quad-core K3 V2 processor clocked at a blistering 1.4Ghz. Pair that with 2GB of RAM and you've got potent hardware in anybody's money... though to put down a pre-order, you'll need some yuan. Pre-orders for the Honor 2 in China will begin later this week, with a price of 1888 CNY, or about $302.
Most of our readers consider themselves power users, and rightly so. Perhaps you don't have a spare 1.8 seconds to laboriously tap the Home button, then the app launcher, then that app you use every third Tuesday. Well, obsessive customizers, your new best friend on the Google Play Store is FlipLauncher, a free app that embeds up to five completely adjustable launcher ribbons over any and every part of Android.