About Ryan Whitwam
Ryan is a tech/science writer, skeptic, lover of all things electronic, and Android fan. In his spare time he reads golden-age sci-fi and sleeps, but rarely at the same time. His wife tolerates him as few would. He's the author of a sci-fi novel called The Crooked City, which is available on Amazon and Google Play.
Latest Articles
It has been about a year-and-a-half since game streaming service OnLive abruptly shut down operations and fired its staff. The company was sold off to an investment firm that kept the lights on, but it was unclear until now what was to become of OnLive. Now OnLive has returned with a new approach to selling you games in the cloud and new management that aims to avoid making the same mistakes twice.
Evernote Gets A Big Update To v5.8 With Handwriting Support, Text Highlighter, An Improved Camera, And More
Evernote is one of the premiere note taking apps on Android and it's getting a big update today. Version 5.8 improves support for notes made on other platforms and brings some new features to the Android app.
Samsung's previously announced TabPRO 12.2 finally has a release date – March 9th. The giant tablet will cost $649.99 through retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, Newegg, and direct from Samsung. This device is basically the new NotePRO without the stylus, but you don't really have many choices in huge tablets. Samsung is the only game in town.
The Android 4.4.2 update is hitting yet another version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, this time on T-Mobile. The update clocks in at 495.74MB and will be the first significant update to T-Mobile's Note 3 since release late last year.
There were rumblings earlier this week about something called 'Ouya Everywhere.' You can take a guess at what that entails just based on the name, and you'd probably be pretty close. Ouya boss Julie Uhrman has now confirmed Ouya Everywhere is about expanding the platform beyond that one little cube.
Big news down under – Australia has become only the fourth country to get access to TV shows through the Play Store. This will give you Australian folks one more thing to do instead of going outside. Really, why would you want to go out there? The country seems to be crawling with poisonous... umm... everything. I kid (mostly).
Too many files? No problem – RAR them. You can do that now that there's an official RAR app on Android. This is a fabulously useful app on Windows, where it costs cash money. On Android, it appears to be completely free.
We're still a bit more than a month out from Samsung's Galaxy S5 and Gear smart watches, but Samsung is looking to keep the hype train going with its new intro videos. You know the drill – it's super-pretty, everything works perfectly, and there's calming music in the background.
If there's one thing I can say for Out There, it's that this title does not sugar coat the harsh reality of space. Things go wrong that are totally out of your control, and sometimes that means you're going to die. If that was literally the only thing I had to say, this game would be pretty lame. In fact, there's a lot going on in Out There. This is a sci-fi choose-your-own-adventure game that doesn't fall back on laser blasters and explosions to create tension – it's all about survival. And really, isn't that the ultimate challenge?
[New App] Francisco Franco's Per-App Modes Lets You Choose System Settings For Individual Apps [Root-Only]
Saving power while using your phone then bragging about it on the internet is all the rage these days – it's like hypermiling for smartphones. If you're not into flashing custom kernels to get the job done, there's now Per-App Modes from the developer behind Franco's Kernel.
You only need a little bit of self-control to save some real money on apps and games. Don't blow your app budget on whatever comes up – spend smarter with on-sale apps. You might not even have to spend anything. Now that's thrift.
When the name of that song playing in the background escapes you, Shazam is the most common way to figure it out. This app has a few hundred million installs on Google Play – no big deal, or anything. A recent update has brought the updated experience that was teased at MWC to the Android app, so get your updates started.
[New App] App Habits Tracks Your App Usage, Translates Your Shameful Procrastination Into Helpful Graphs
You have what amounts to a tiny super computer in your pocket, and what are you doing with it? Hmm? App Habits will track which apps you're using and when so you can get the low down on exactly how you're wasting time with neat graphs. It will also use this data to surface apps you might be interested in based on the time of day.
After showing up as a humongous ROM, the T-Mobile LG G2's Android 4.4.2 update is making its way to devices as a regular OTA. Well, it's probably getting the update. T-Mobile's support page is a little fuzzy on the details, but today (March 3rd) is listed as the start date for the software's availability.
RunKeeper 4.4 Update Brings New Training Tab With Free Workout Plans For Reaching Your Goals
The hyper-popular fitness app RunKeeper has gotten an update today with a new "Training" tab, among other things. The interface doesn't look much different, but this tab includes some free training plans for losing weight, working up to a 5k, half-marathons, and more.
[New App] Notifications+ Brings Robust, Encrypted Android Notification Mirroring To Chrome
There are already a number of apps that plug into Android's notification service to mirror the notification shade on your desktop, Pushbullet being perhaps the most prominent example. Notifications+ is a new entrant in this category, but it focuses only on feature-rich notification mirroring.
Paranoid Android Team Clarifies v4 Plans, Will Rewrite The ROM From Scratch In A "Googly" Way
Fans of ROM flashing were a bit perturbed when a Paranoid Android developer announced several weeks ago that PA's Halo multitasking system was dead. The situation was certainly more nuanced than that, but the Paranoid Android Google+ account has finally posted a clarification of what's happening with the next version. The short version is... everything's changing.
Weird Bug: Google+ Profiles Are Missing From Web Play Store Reviews [Update: They Fixed It]
No, you're not the only one seeing something odd in the web Play Store – the reviews are all missing the Google+ profile data usually associated with them. Everything says "A Google User" instead. You can still leave reviews, but they won't show up with your name online.
The Still Unannounced New HTC One (M8) Appears In 12 Minute Video "Review"
HTC isn't expected to announce the new HTC One until late March, but press renders of the device have already been circulating online. Now things have gotten even leakier with a 12-minute video showing all the angles of the device, as well as some of the software.
Samsung Posts Android 4.4 Kernel Source For The T-Mobile Galaxy Note 3, OTA Could Be Right Around The Corner
We've learned from experience that when Samsung drops some Note 3 kernel source, the update is only a few days away. This time the Note 3 on T-Mobile is in Samsung's sights as the KitKat code has just been uploaded to Samsung's open source page.