Cult of Android - page 73

Viber, the popular cross-platform mobile communications service, has today announced that it has now surpassed more than 140 million users across six platforms, with 400,000 people joining the service each and every day. To celebrate the milestone, the company has introduced a number of new features to its Android and iOS apps, including the ability to send “fun stickers” and “playful emoticons,” and support for the iPhone 5’s larger display.

Korean electronics giant Samsung has today announced that it will drop its patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The announcement comes just hours after Apple was denied its request to have 26 Samsung devices banned in the United States — though the two cases are unrelated.

Another chapter has closed in the Apple/Samsung patent saga thanks to a couple decisions handed down today by Judge Lucy Koh. Apple has been denied its bid for a permanent sales ban against the 26 Samsung devices found to have infringed on a handful of Apple’s patents back in August. According to the Koh, those infringed patents are but a small fraction of the overall features that make up Samsung’s devices and thus do not warrant a permanent ban.

‘Tis the Season for icy corpses and carnivorous reindeer. Okay, maybe not the reindeer part, but there’s definitely a legion of undead terrorizing the North Pole and spreading Christmas fear. That’s right, our favorite zombie shooter title Dead Trigger has received a freakishly festive holiday update full of cold corpses, new weapons, and a jolly dead soul called Zanta.

As the largest social network in the world, Facebook has a crap-load of data on everything from nightlife, restaurants, shopping, and much more based on Likes and checkins. Facebook is ready to start using that information to help users find cool stuff with their revamped Nearby feature.

Nearby is basically Facebook’s answer to Yelp and Foursquare, except it’s got a lot more users ready to jump on board, a whole lot more information, and is going to be better at recommending places to you.

There’s a problem I often run into with my mobile devices, and that’s not enough storage space. I insist on purchasing devices with just 16GB of memory, and then I have to find ways to manage that storage the best I can. Some devices will take microSD cards that will allow you to bump their storage as and when you need it, but others — like Apple’s iOS devices — don’t come with that luxury.

Vantec’s new NexStar WiFi hard drive dock lets you bump your smartphone, tablet, and even PC storage over Wi-Fi. You can use it to store your audio and video collections on your home network, then use Vantec’s dedicated apps to access them wirelessly when you need to.

Towards the end of each year, IBM Research publishes a list of five things it predicts our gadgets will be capable of within the next five years. While some of its predictions seem a little too outlandish and farfetched, others — such as its 2006 prediction for realtime speech translation — become a reality.

IBM’s 2012 list is all about the five senses. It predicts that by 2018, our gadgets will help us touch, see, hear, taste, and even smell. Your smartphone, IBM believes, will use new technologies to simulate the physical sensation of touching something, while your tablet will be able to taste your food.

As soon as Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion earlier this year, we knew it was only a matter of time before Instagram became more like Facebook. Eventually the two service have to converge in some ways.

Instagram has updated their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service to let users know that starting on January 13th, 2013, all your data is going to be shared with their owner, Facebook. If you don’t want Instagram to share that information with Facebook, well there’s no opt-out so you’re tough out of luck.

Late last week, Instagram — now owned by Facebook — confirmed it had disabled Twitter integration, and the ability for users to see Instagram “cards” or previews in their timelines. While it’s not a massive issue for Twitter users, who will still gets links to Instagram photos, it marks the first major breakdown between the two social services since the Facebook acquisition.

But things could have been very different. Weeks before Facebook bought Instagram, Twitter was close to acquiring the photo sharing service for just $525 million.

Sprint has announced today that it is set to acquire 100% ownership of Clearwire in a deal worth $2.97 per share — or roughly $2.2 billion. The carrier says it plans to utilize Clearwire’s 2.5 GHz spectrum, which will be migrated to 4G LTE standards, to achieve “operational efficiencies and improved service for customers.”

We’re very stingy with our five-star ratings, and it’s even more rare for us to slap all five onto a gadget.  So pay attention — because today we’re awarding the full five stars to the Logitech UE Boombox ($250), a portable, battery-equipped, eight-driver Bluetooth speaker that sounds absolutely astounding. In fact, the Boombox does a better job of rocking out than some non-portable, home systems costing much more.

These Scosche Realm RH656 ($130) headphones compete in the same league as with headphones like the Beats (formerly Monster) Solo HD, the Incase Reflex and the Fanny Wang 1000 Series. These ‘phones have a lot in common: they have smallish earcups that sit on the ear, instead of over; they all have track and volume controls (remember though that the volume control won’t work on Android devices); and they’ve all had a dash of fashion added.

But there are some key differences too. And as you’re about to find out, the RH656 does pretty well against its competition.

Tower offense game, Anomaly Korea, will be out in time for Christmas, says developer 11bitstudios. The sequel to Anomaly Warzone: Earth will feature new weapons, new levels, and new game styles, as well as the dynamic tower offense game play of the original game.

The aliens are back, and this time, they’re fighting in Korea. You’ll get to command a squad of troops and use tactical planning touch controls to lead them through 12 new missions against the new alien enemies.

I’d say the single most annoying part of my mobile experience is when I accidentally click on a strategically placed ad. Most of the time, ads are placed in close proximity to where a user needs to touch in order to scroll or advance — not to mention there’s little screen real estate to begin with. Thankfully, and surprisingly, Google has been working on making accidental clicks a thing of the past.

Are you a big Angry Birds fan? Rovio’s media onslaught is set to hit the big screen, with a 3D CGI feature film produced by Despicable Me and Ice Age alum John Cohen helming. Yay?

As is typical of Verizon every holiday season, they have gone ahead and updated their return policy to reflect an extended period for holiday purchases. Any new device purchased from Verizon between November 22 and December 25, 2012 may be returned or exchanged through January 15, 2013.

Samsung might be Apple’s biggest rival, but it’s clear to see the Korean company loves its work. It’s been trying to make its Android smartphones more like the iPhone for many years — that’s hard to deny, no matter whose side you’re on — and it’s spawned retail stores, tablets, and even charging adapters that are remarkably similar to those form the Cupertino company.

Even Samsung’s executives can’t fight their love of Mac and iOS devices. One, Young Sohn, a chief strategy officer, admits to using a Mac, iPhone, and iPad at home, and praises Apple’s unique ecosystem.

In case you hadn’t already heard, Google finally released an official Google Maps app for iPhone on Wednesday night, and I must say, I think it’s terrific. It’s super quick, it looks fantastic, and it brings back all the mapping features you had on your iPhone before Apple gave Google Maps the boot — including Street View and transit directions. Google has also thrown its own turn-by-turn navigation into the mix for good measure.

In fact, the new Google Maps app for iPhone is so good that Google admits it’s better than the Android version. It also promises an iPad version is coming soon.

The United Kingdom is a little late to 4G — just a few months ago, 4G networks didn’t exist. Now it has one, EE, which is quickly trying to expand its 4G coverage across the country. It began its rollout in 11 major cities, and the company has announced today that it will be reaching an additional 17 by March 2013.

When you think of Redbox, you probably don’t think of streaming movies to your TV or smartphone. Redbox has represented the last remnants of paying to rent physical media, but that’s about to change. Today Redbox announced its plans to take on Netflix with its own movie streaming service. Accompanying apps for Android and iOS will come out when the service begins its invite-only rollout later this month.

For $8 per month, Redbox will give you unlimited streaming and four nights of physical DVD rentals from any Redbox kiosk. Pay $1 more and you’ll get four Blu-ray rentals as an upgrade. Netflix customers can either have unlimited streaming or only unlimited DVD rentals for $8 per month.

Qualcomm, the company that manufactures Apple’s baseband chips for iOS devices, has slammed the Cupertino company in an official ITC filing over its response to questions regarding the availability of injunctive relief over SEPs and criteria for FRAND royalty rates.

Qualcomm says Apple’s thoughts on the subject are a “sham,” that the company “should be ashamed of itself.”

In the battle of the mobile platform wars, Android has been extending its lead over Apple’s iOS platform at a steady rate for over a year. Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt believes that the battle between Android and iOS is similar to Microsoft’s desktop expansion in the 1990s.

Schmidt say down with Bloomberg to talk about the mobile war with Apple and said that with 1.3 million new Android devices being activated per day,  he thinks it’s pretty obvious that Android is winning now.

Netflix video streaming remains one of the largest sources of peak downstream Internet traffic in the US. With over 1 billion hours of Netflix being watched per month, it’s safe to say they have a pretty good idea of the strains their service puts on ISPs. In fact, Netflix has been keeping tabs and gauging these ISPs to see just how well they perform.

A group of high-tech companies, including Samsung, Apple, Research In Motion, Intel, and others petitioned the US Congress today to provide more broadcast bandwidth, ostensibly for smartphones and tablets like the Galaxy, iPhone, Nexus, and iPad. The group sent a letter to both House and Senate technology committees, asking them to auction off some of the spectrum that is being used by the federal government.

Google is finally getting around to updating the Google News experience for tablet users. While this change most likely has to do with the surge in Nexus tablet sales, it’s a welcomed update for all. Tablet users (yes, even you iPad users) will now enjoy a more intuitive experience when catching up on current news via the Google News website.