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Apr

SendHub Arrives On Android, Provides Cheap Calling And Texting For Businesses In U.S. And Canada

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Google Voice is a great service for replacing your carrier's voicemail and texting options. If you need something that's a bit more robust, however, SendHub has launched on Android and allows business-class users to set up a phone number (or set of numbers) and get texting and calling for free or cheap, depending on what class of service you need.

Free users can get 60 voice minutes, 500 messages, and 3 groups of 50 contacts for their first line. That probably won't be enough to convince the average user to ditch their current phone number, but for a new business line (or a throwaway), it can be great.

Feb

Opera Buys Skyfire In $155 Million Deal, Looks To Improve Mobile Video

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Opera and Skyfire have a lot in common: specialized use cases, small, dedicated populations of users. That appears to be enough for the desktop browser to swallow the mobile one. Opera Software ASA announced via a press release this morning that it is acquiring Skyfire and its assets, in a deal worth $155 million USD. The sale price includes a mix of cash and stock, $50 million of which will be delivered up front.

While its market share is small in the desktop world, Opera's userbase is incredibly dedicated, and many don't realize that the software and the company have been offering surprisingly advanced browsing for nearly two decades.

Feb

The Curious Case Of The Brazilian Android-Powered iPhone: Apple Loses Trademark Suit

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in News

International trademark, patent, and copyright law is a bit of a legal minefield, and Apple has proven itself to be among the best in navigating it these last few years. But there is one exception to their otherwise impressive track record: the lucrative South American market of Brazil. While Apple iPhones have been sold in the country for years, Apple has never owned the trademark for the name. A regional phone manufacturer, Gradiente Eletronica, registered the trademark for "iphone" way back in 2000.

That didn't stop Cupertino's legal bulldogs from suing Gradiente after they released the iPhone Neo One, a ~$300 mid-range Gingerbread phone, in December.

Feb

[New App] Foursquare For Business Checks Into The Play Store To Attract Customers On The Go

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Believe it or don't, Fourquare has grown beyond hipster urbanites who desperately want to be the Mayor of the 6th Street Starbucks. More than a few businesses - independent or otherwise - are seeing the value in the location-based service. To that end, Foursquare has released its free business app on the Play Store, allowing local managers to update their business status for single or multiple locations.

Within the Foursquare for Business app, you can keep tabs on recent check-ins, set specials for users, and look up in-depth statistics for your business's performance on Foursquare. You can also update your location's status and send it out to Facebook and Twitter.

Sep

Bloomberg Radio+ App Launches With Access To Live Finance Radio Talk 24 Hours A Day

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Finance radio! Are you excited yet? Good. Bloomberg has released an app for the company's 24 hour network of audio shows discussing economics, business, and investment. Through Bloomberg Radio+ you can either choose to listen to whatever's on the air right now, or pull from a list of on-demand shows. You can even download the episodes for offline listening.

The app actually looks very well made. It's as feature-packed as one would want a streaming radio service to be. There's even a persistent stock ticker at the bottom of the screen. Because you can't talk about money without one.

Sep

Hootsuite Acquires Seesmic, Has Big Plans For Business Customers

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

In the mad scramble to keep up with all the major social networks, a number of third-party clients have popped up over the years to help you manage everything. Not that Twitter takes too kindly to these sorts of shenanigans. Still, services like Seesmic tried to replicate the native Twitter experience while augmenting it with Facebook integration in one app. When Twitter gutted third-party APIs for consumer-facing apps, Seesmic likely faced some trouble. What's a struggling independent developer to do? Team up with an even bigger one!

HootSuite is another popular social network management app, though it seems to have a more broad range of services, including integration with Google+ pages.

Jul

Samsung Releases Commercial For The Galaxy Note 10.1, Reminds Us The Galaxy Note 10.1 Exists

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Galaxy Note 10.1 (GT-N8000 / N8010 / N8013), News, Samsung

When the Galaxy Note came out, the cynics and skeptics (myself included) scoffed. "Too big for a phone, too small for a tablet" we said. Well, as it turns out, quite a few people bought it. However, as much as some people may have liked the Note, it's hard to disagree that the stylus would feel more at home on a full-size tablet. Which is exactly what the Galaxy Note 10.1, shown in this shiny new ad, aimed to accomplish.

http://youtu.be/9k1r0Sx-wpQ

Of course, we haven't heard much about this device since it was announced at MWC back in February. At the time, the device lacked a few notable features, particularly the slot for the S-Pen which was actually added to a retooled version of the device more recently.

Jun

Here's A First Look At The ViewSonic 22" Android Smart Display, And It's Kinda Nice

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in News, VCD22 Smart Display

We heard just recently that ViewSonic was launching a 22" tablet/display running Android. Today, we get a look at this display. We've also learned that it's running a dual-core TI-OMAP processor, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.0, and a 1920x1080 display underneath the gargantuan screen. The demo seems to be targeted at being used in a classroom setting, with plenty of child-friendly apps and videos, but that's just bundled software. The display, which starts at $479, could be used by any budget-conscious consumer that wants to try using Android instead of Windows as their primary OS for a shared family device.

Feb

[Editorial] Virtual Game Tokens For Android Games Exist, And They're Even More Evil Than DLC

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, Games

To say that DLC is a growing problem would be an understatement. Of the last five games I've reviewed for this site, all of them have had some form of in-app purchases to expand the game or unlock content. Sometimes it's awful, sometimes it's not so bad, but all of them guarantee you only get most of a game. A new service called Pocket Change, however, wants to let game developers charge on a per-play basis. This is beyond scummy.

Going From Bad...

Back before DLC became a common term amongst gamers, we still paid for extra content. Whether we called them "expansion packs", "map packs", or "Pokemon Every Color Of The Friggin' Rainbow", we would pay money for new content to extend games we enjoyed.

Jan

Barnes & Noble Thinking About Selling NOOK Business – "It's The Right Time To Investigate Our Options" Says CEO

Posted by Liam Spradlin in News, Nook

Barnes & Noble announced today that it is considering selling its NOOK business, citing significant shortfalls in sales and cutting its full-year forecast.

B&N also cited NOOK sales which fell below expectations, and investments in advertising and expansion as reasons for a predicted shortfall in fiscal 2012 sales of between $200 million and $320 million less than average estimates of $7.32 billion.

The major bookseller indicated that it plans to market the NOOK for "years to come," but that it "over-anticipated the growth in consumer demand for single-purpose black-and-white reading devices this holiday," as the company's simplest e-reader lagged far behind in sales compared to other members of the NOOK family.