04
Jan
playmags

Print Magazine Subscribers Can Now Grab Their Free Digital Copies Directly From Google Play

Posted by in Applications, News

When Google first launched Play Magazines, there was an immediate backlash from users who were already subscribed to paper magazines that offer a free digital copy, as there was no way to grab said digital subscription from Google. Instead, these users were treated as if they had no prior subscription at all and were effectively forced to pay again if they wanted to read on their mobile device. Needless to say, that didn't go over very well.

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Fast-forward to now, and you can finally get your digital fix from your analog subscription straight through Google Play. For magazines that offer such a thing – like Wired and GQ, for example – there's a new entry under the "subscribe" option: "Free for print subscribers." After selecting this entry, it's pretty cut and dry – just enter your current subscription info and you're good to go.

27
Dec
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[Deal Alert] Grace Digital's ECO X Terra Waterproof Boombox On Amazon For $50 (That's $100 Off)

Posted by in Android OS, Deals

If you've been searching for a way to safely play your Android phone's music library in the rain or at the beach, Amazon's got a deal for you. Grace Digital's ECO X Terra (orange only) is available for just $50 shipped, which is a notable $100 discount over its original price.

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If you're wondering how the ECO X Terra works, it's simple – just cram your Android-powered phone (or "any mp3 player") into the center compartment, and enjoy your tunes. Grace Digital boasts, by the way, that the boombox's center compartment can accommodate the "largest Android phone" with a case, as well as keys, credit cards, and other sundries.

09
May
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[New App] ShoeBox Turns Your Android Device Into A Sophisticated Photo Scanning, Organization, And Sharing Machine

Posted by in Applications, News

ShoeBox, an app that represents 1000memories' first foray into the Play Store, is an awesome digital photo organizer, "turning your Android device into a mobile photo scanner," and allowing for sophisticated organization, storage, and sharing of your treasured paper photos.

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For those that can't exactly hold their device with machine precision when scanning old photos, ShoeBox offers edge detection and perspective correction, ensuring that your newly-digitized photos won't be distorted or misshapen.

ShoeBox also allows users to add tags, dates, and locations to photos and organize them into separate collections. While users can instantly share photos with services like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others, the app also offers "private shoeboxes," which will stay separate from shareable images.

04
Apr
nextissuetiny

"Netflix For Magazines" Is Finally Here, $10-15 A Month Nets You All The Magazines You Can Read From Next Issue

Posted by in Applications, News

We've heard whispers that the powers that be have been working on a bulk subscription service for magazines. Now, they're finally delivering it. Next Issue offers users a very Netflix-like subscription service that includes unlimited access to current and some older issues of a selection of magazines for $10 a month. Or, for $15 a month you can get a slightly bigger selection of magazines. Yes, it's tiered.

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At the moment, the selection is particularly small, though it does offer quite a few big name magazines. In that way it's sort of the opposite of Netflix, which tends to have a wide selection of movies and TV shows you've never heard of.

08
Jun
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Adobe Quietly Releases Content Viewer For Android, Wants To Become The Cross-Platform Magazine Distributor Of Choice

Posted by in Applications, News

While snooping around the Market this afternoon, I ran into Adobe's newly released product called simply Adobe® Content Viewer. With almost no description and usage instructions, I spent about an hour familiarizing myself with Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite which apparently creates content this Content Viewer is supposed to consume (read: display).

So, what does it mean in layman's terms? Content creators, such as magazine and newspaper publishers, use the Digital Publishing Suite to create distributable versions of their products, and the cross-platform (iOS, Android, Blackberry, etc) Content Viewer lets users sign into their Adobe accounts and view digital subscriptions on their mobile platforms of choice.

05
Mar
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The War Against Infringement On The Android Market Is Heating Up: Fruit Ninja Clones And More

Posted by in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, Editorials, News

The Android market is filled with apps of questionable legality. But oftentimes, overpriced, branded theme and clock apps like those you'll find here are considered relatively harmless - who's stupid enough to buy them, anyway? Still, apps in this category are in clear violation of registered trademarks - and that doesn't sit well with their holders.

Google even has a page for developers and copyright holders to submit DMCA takedown requests for apps on the Market. Google's form guides you through what information is needed, and how to identify the apps in question - really, it makes the whole process quite simple.

26
Jul
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United States Library Of Congress: Jailbreaking/Unlocking/Rooting Your Phone Is A-OK With The Government - Here Are The Implications

Posted by in News

If you’ve cruised the blogosphere today, you’ve probably noticed a number of articles talking about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Library of Congress having decided to add a few exemptions to the sweeping piece of legislation’s authority. Why is this a big deal? And is it a big deal at all?

On the latter, in some ways yes, and I’ll explain why only some later. For the former, it signifies a change in attitude over what constitutes infringement of digital copyright for two major pieces of technology, one of which we’re interested in here at Android Police (take a guess at what sort of technology that is).