Android - 12/169 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jan

Larry Page On Apple's Thermonuclear War: 'How Well Is That Working?', Also Facebook Is 'Doing A Really Bad Job On Their Products'

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

It's hard to argue that Google hasn't been a significantly different company under Larry Page's leadership. If nothing else, it has certainly become more directly competitive. Mountain View has generally (though not always ) preferred to be passive in its approach to other companies, allowing the product to speak for itself (whether for good or ill), rather than outright antagonize others. Apparently all that reservation was just saving up for when Page would take the helm and let the zingers fly. In a Wired interview, the CEO had this to say on the subject of Apple:

Wired: Steve Jobs felt competitive enough to claim that he was willing to “go to thermonuclear war” on Android.

Jan

40 Best New Android Games From The Last 3 Weeks (12/25/12 - 1/15/13)

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Last Updated: January 28th, 2013

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.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

Ant Raid

Today's roundup is sponsored by Ant Raid by Herocraft. This brand-spankin' new game has you controlling a literal army of ants as they defend their colony from evil snails, bees, worms, and other nefarious backyard baddies.

Jan

ASUS Aims For 'Emerging Markets' In January With The $149 Seven-Inch MeMO Pad, US Launch Set For April

Posted by Liam Spradlin in ASUS, MeMO Pad, News

ASUS, in a bid to sell to "several emerging markets," has just announced the MeMO Pad – a seven-inch tablet sporting ASUS' nearly-stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience, a 1GHz VIA CPU (with Mali-400 GPU), a 1024x600 display, 1GB RAM, and up to 16GB internal storage with a refreshing microSD slot available for expansion.

Just like the Nexus 7, the MeMO pad just offers a front-facing camera, though it's a 1MP shooter with a back-illuminated sensor. On top of Android, it comes with ASUS' pre-installed apps, and 5GB of free ASUS WebStorage space (if you don't have enough cloud storage accounts already).

Jan

Flipboard Updated With Daydream Support For Android 4.2

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Flipboard's release last summer was hotly anticipated to say the least. A recent update to utilize the screen real estate of Android tablets bumped the app up another notch, and today's update (to version 1.9.18) puts the icing on the cake. As of today, Flipboard has Daydream functionality for Android 4.2.

Daydream, when it was first introduced, seemed kind of boring (okay, you can look at a lovely animated gradient while charging). The feature was, to put it mildly, more fluff than substance. That said, as a Flipboard user, my opinion of the feature has suddenly shifted. Playing with multicolored jelly beans (while delightful) can now be replaced with actual information.

Jan

[CES 2013] Toshiba Introduces First Android TransferJet Adapter For The Fastest Close Range Data Transfer You Might Never Use

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Accessories, News

Have you heard of TransferJet? We won't begrudge you if you haven't. It's a fairly obscure bit of technology that hasn't managed to work its way into many consumer products, despite first launching to the public back in 2008. So, consider this whole article a bit of indulgent dreaming when we tell you about Toshiba's newly-announced micro-USB adapter that can add TransferJet capabilities to Android phones. What does that mean? Well, it means 560Mbps transfers between devices with a tap. To put it another way: you could easily send 250MB worth of data from one handset to another in the time it takes to read this sentence (or about 70MB/sec).

Jan

[CES 2013] Hands-On With Polaroid's Android Camera With Swappable Lenses - The iM1836 (Video)

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News, Videos

So, the idea of an Android-powered camera with a swappable lens intrigues you, yes? Well, last night we got a chance to play with such a device, the Polaroid iM1836... and moral of the story: execution, execution, execution. Polaroid, we think, got it wrong. While we were playing with a pre-production model, I can't help but feel Polaroid took a half-decent idea and managed to totally flub it. First, the video.

Even after a few short minutes with the iM1836, we were able to assemble a formidable list of problems with the device. First, the actual image sensor for the camera is located inside the lens.

Jan

[CES 2013] Intel Uncovers Low-Power Atom Platform For 'Value Smartphone' Market, 'Bay Trail' Quad Core SoC For Tablets

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, News

Intel, not to be left out of the early CES fun, had a couple of announcements for tech fans today – a low-powered platform formerly known as "Lexington," (lovingly called Atom Z2420) for "emerging" value smartphone markets, and the Atom Z2760, codenamed "Bay Trail" headed for tablets and higher-end smartphones.

Intel says that it's already found partners in Acer, Lava International, and Safaricom for the Z2420 platform, and that the chip will be capable of 1.2GHz speed, 1080p hardware acceleration, and support for two cameras (with burst mode). With the Z2420, Intel is hoping to target what most call the budget smartphone market, which their release indicates will reach 500 million units by 2015 according to "industry sources."

The high-end Bay Trail SoC, meanwhile, is a quad core, 22nm chip that Intel hopes will expand tablet prospects in both the Windows 8 and Android arenas.

Jan

[CES 2013] Bring On The Influx Of Android-Powered Photography Machines: Polaroid Announces The iM1836 Mirrorless Camera With Jelly Bean [Updated]

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Polaroid

Last Updated: January 8th, 2013

Not to be outdone by Nikon and Samsung, Polaroid has taken the wraps off of its previously leaked new Android-powered camera, the iM1836. Past its super-clever and easy-to-remember (not really) name, this offering weds an 18.1MP mirrorless body, 3.5" display, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with Android 4.1 for an out-of-the-box hoot of a good time.

While there's no tentative release date for the iM1836 right now, the camera is already tagged with a price of $399, which includes a 10-30mm lens. That's a pretty reasonable price for a mirrorless compact, especially considering its versatility over the competing offerings from Samsung and Nikon.

Jan

[CES 2013] LEGO Announces New Android-Compatible Mindstorms EV3 Kit For Programmable Robot-Building Nerdgasms

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in News

There aren't many things in this world that can be as purely amazing as LEGO. The only people who aren't fans of the world's best creativity toy are people who (mistakenly!) think the company has sold out and encourages kids to follow pre-made instructions instead of building something new. To that I say: Mindstorms EV3. With Android compatibility out of the box. Your argument is invalid.

The main part of the new kit, the Intelligent Brick (seen above as a glowing torso with a QR code on its chest) will have more processing power, more memory, and more on-brick programming capabilities.

Jan

[CES 2013] NVIDIA GRID Will Power The Next OnLive (With Android Integration), If NVIDIA Has Anything To Say About It

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in News, NVIDIA, Tablets

Okay, so sure, OnLive still exists, but given its financial woes and general instability, it's unlikely that the company will be investing in any new hardware or infrastructure. This is a shame, because NVIDIA just dropped some sweet-looking server racks on us at CES. While it bears more than a little resemblance to the GeForce GRID program, the NVIDIA GRID features the ability to support 24 concurrent users on a single node.

In addition to providing businesses with huge, server-side processing power, the company is also touting a fully-integrated video game streaming system that includes an Android client.