Michael Crider
Contributing since December, 2013
-
3608articles
Page 173
About Michael Crider
Michael is a born Texan and a former graphic designer. He's been covering technology in general and Android in particular since 2011. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order. He wrote a novel called Good Intentions: A Supervillain Story, and it's available on Amazon.
Latest Articles
Now that Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition is no longer laughable because of its anachronistic gadget name, Verizon has decided to make it laughable with the carrier's standard enormously narcissistic branding. Go-to gadget leak guy Evleaks posted a press shot of the upcoming carrier version of the 10-inch tablet.
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.
There are so many regional and carrier variants of Samsung's Galaxy S4 flagship that even we can hardly keep them straight, but apparently CyanogenMod hasn't released an official ROM for the white bread, vanilla, Exynos-powered original GS4 before now. But lo and behold, a new build for the GT-I9500 GSM model has appeared on the CM download page. It's a test version of CyanogenMod 11 (Android 4.4) if you're interested.
Despite the excitement of the newly-announced sequels, Star Wars remains one of the most stale and stubbornly unchanging franchises in science fiction. So clearly what Star Wars needs to get people excited again is... a mobile trading card game.
Mobile World Congress starts in just under two weeks. As with most of the big mobile shows, Samsung will be doing its own thing with an Unpacked event, which the company already announced last week. For some reason Samsung has decided to issue a second announcement, this time with a tiny bit more information. And lots of fives.
At least once or twice a year you hear about some desperate and/or stupid person who decided to be their own doctor, suturing their wounds with staples or fishing wire in lieu of an emergency room visit. If that sounds like fun, then Amateur Surgeon 3 from the quirky folks at Adult Swim is right up your artery. This is an Android release of a Flash and iOS game, not to mention a gruesome and sarcastic take on the old 'Operation' idea.
Chromecast streaming is all the rage right now, but BubbleUPnP has been reliably streaming local audio and video to compatible devices like the Xbox 360, PS3, XBMC, or any Universal Plug and Play or DLNA devices for months. Today the app has been updated with a special treat for root users: an "Audio Cast" mode that expands BubbleUPnP's streaming capability to include most third-party apps like Spotify or Google Play Music. Check out the demonstration below:
The last two years have not been kind to HTC. Despite garnering critical acclaim from the One series and consistently improving both hardware and software, the Taiwanese company is getting battered on high-end phones by Samsung and Apple, and battered on low-end phones by Samsung and just about every Chinese company out there. According to a report from Reuters, HTC will try to shift its strategy in 2014 to give more attention to mid-range devices, which it has been ignoring somewhat for the last few product cycles.
There are two ways to make a "mini" phone these days. The first is typified by Samsung and HTC, who have made Mini versions of the Galaxy SIII, S4, and HTC One with lower specs to match the physically smaller size. The second way is to make smaller phones that still strive to be the technical equal of their larger stablemates, like the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact and the Motorola DROID Mini. Guess which way HTC is going with its upcoming One refresh.
Quick, what's the most hated company in mobile gaming today? If you answered EA, Zynga, or Gamevil, well, you might be right. But the answer I was looking for was "King," creator of Candy Crush Saga and two of the most ridiculous copyright stories in recent memory. After the company trademarked the word "Candy" in all applications for video games and apparel, a few cheeky developers decided to risk the wrath of King's lawyers and release candy-themed apps on iOS and Android. Intern Saga: Trademark Lawyer takes a (slightly) more subtle approach to its parody.
Remember when we reported that T-Mobile was suing AT&T because the marketing for the Aio budget carrier used a shade of purple that was too close to T-Mobile's (literally) trademark magenta? Yes, that is a thing that happened. And apparently at least one Texas judge thought it was a valid complaint, because a federal court has ruled that Aio did, in fact, infringe on T-Mobile's corporate trademark.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a quirky Tin Man game book, a gorgeous endless Neverending runner, and a fusion of Minecraft and Where's My Water. Without further ado:
Motorola's Droid Zap, an exclusive feature for Verizon's 2013 DROID line, always seemed a bit on the limited side. Maybe that's because only those three DROID phones could actually use the service - other phones could receive photos from nearby users with the Zap app, but only the DROID Ultra, DROID Mini, and DROID Maxx could send them. Today Moto has seen the light and made both sending and receiving photos possible for any phone.
Those of you lucky enough to be visiting Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics might not have opulent luxuries like floors or potable water, but at least getting around town will be a little easier thanks to the Word Lens app. The developers added support for Russian today, allowing users to translate signs, menus, and other text on the fly.
Those SHIELD owners who are lucky enough to be eligible for NVIDIA's GRID game streaming service, you've got two new options for cloud-based entertainment today. NVIDIA has added the zany open world sandbox game Saints Row: The Third and atmospheric zombie shooter Dead Island to the GRID beta, bringing the total number of streaming PC games to twelve.
Sony hardware fans, you've now got at least two more options when it comes to Android-based software. The current Sony flagship, the Xperia Z1, is now officially supported by the CyanogenMod ROM. The first CM 11 (Android 4.4) nightly build was posted to the CyanogenMod download page last night. There's also a new version of CM 11 built specifically for the Xperia Z Ultra Google Play Edition, the AOSP version of Sony's monster phablet on sale in the Play Store.
Warning: if you just woke up (howdy, West Coast readers) you might want to wait a minute or two before hitting "play" on that video. It has 300% of your daily recommended amount of color. Avoid - Sensory Overload is a typical endless runner, at least if you only look at its core elements; you fly around trying not to hit stuff. But that's a pretty inadequate way of describing the experience.
You've got to give it to Google: the company has its finger on the pulse of the world's search habits. Take the upcoming Sochi Olympics - while Russia itself seems poised for an international embarrassment of epic proportions, Google has already tuned up its search engine with Sochi information for desktop and mobile searches. Most searches with "olympics" and an event will return a quick schedule and/or results card in the Knowledge Graph area.
Mobile news hounds, you'd better start getting the popcorn ready - Mobile World Congress starts in just over two weeks. Following Samsung's confirmation of their Unpacked event, Motorola has also scheduled a press event for the Barcelona trade show on Tuesday, February 25th.
Today Mozilla showed off something that seems like it's an amazing addition to its software portfolio: a Firefox Android homescreen launcher. That would be huge news, if it weren't for the fact that Mozilla invested in the promising launcher Everything.me (later rebranded EverythingMe) in November of 2012, eventually making its search-focused interface a core part of the Firefox mobile OS, which is just now getting off the ground. Now Mozilla and EverythingMe are showing off a tweaked version of that app, rebranded as Firefox Launcher for Android.