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Have you ever wished that your phone's screen was the size of a theater? Do you hate looking normal in public? Do you hate being able to see any aspect of your surroundings? If you answered "yes" to any or all of these questions, you need to re-evaluate your priorities. Seriously, go do that. If, after a good deal of self reflection, you're sticking to your guns, we've found a product that suits your misguided needs perfectly. This is the vrAse:
If you told me that you'd never heard of Foursquare, I'd call you a liar. We've all see the cross-posts from Foursquare on Twitter and Facebook. I'd find it hard to believe that you had gone your entire life without seeing Foursquare notifications, but if you told me you didn't know what Foursquare was for, that I could believe. Foursquare, at its heart, is a fairly straightforward location-based game. You check into whatever establishment you're at, you collect points, and you lord your obvious superiority over your friends and loved ones. You can leave tips about businesses on their foursquare pages, get discounts at stores and coffee shops, and see if any of your friends are nearby. By doing this, you're giving Foursquare something very valuable in return: data. Foursquare has grabbed an almost NSA level of stuff. Why, though? That's what it has just revealed.
Digg Reader is a news service that wrangles the best stories from all over the web and delivers them to you in an attractive and sensible way. Using some social networking magic in addition to actual living humans, Digg decides what the most relevant and talked about stories of the day are. Today, they've released the Digg Reader app onto the play store and, my oh my, is it pretty.
I, like most people, am a great fan of beautiful games. When a game is outstandingly gorgeous and offers great gameplay, I feel that it is my civic duty to spread the word as far as I can. It seems that the time has come once again for me to don my bullhorn and tell you about Badland.
, we detailed the specs of the the Neptune Pine, a strangely-named smartwatch that doubles as a smartphone. If you've been chomping at the bit in anticipation of wearing this monstrosity's 2.5" display on your wrist, the time has come. The Neptune Pine is now available for pre-order at NeptunePine.com, lightening your bank account to the tune of $335 for the 16GB version or $395 for the 32GB model. Both are available in Jet Black and Polar White. It looks like they're also throwing in a bonus heart rate monitor for the pre-order crowd, so for those of you out there who want to exercise with a small TV on your wrist, this is it.
The Moto X has been making headlines as of late for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the astoundingly versatile Motomaker. Motomaker lets you to customize your phone to a degree that we've never seen before, allowing for a staggering total of 504 unique color combinations. Don't gasp in amazement at that number just yet, though. It looks like Motorola is preparing Motomaker to include the wooden backs we saw last month at the phone's unveiling. A quick peek at the code of the Motomaker webpage reveals that, though hidden to the common viewer (perhaps part of the checkout process), wooden Moto X backs are waiting patiently to make their debut and, further, that they will cost an additional $50.
Duolingo, the much-loved app/game for learning new languages, got its second significant Android update this morning since being released back in May. Version 1.2 of the app brings with it the ability to store up to an hour of lessons on-device for offline use. Previously, Duolingo required an always-on internet connection in order to download your lessons and stay in sync with the server, but with the latest update this is no longer necessary. Here's the Play Store changelog in full:
If there's one thing we love here at Android Police more than anything, it's puppies. That usually doesn't come into play here, though, so we often deal with our very close second favorite thing: Amazingly playable, gorgeously rendered, ingeniously designed games. I just so happen to have one of those right here.
Gameloft, the gaming studio behind such games as Modern Combat 2, N.O.V.A. 2 HD, and Asphalt HD, has recently released a new game for all you mythology and movie fans out there. If you're familiar with Gameloft's games, though, this may be a bit different from what you've grown accustomed to.
Today, BlueStacks - a company specializing in Android app integration in Windows - will be making two large, and (hopefully) impressive announcements.
Every once in a while, an app comes along that revolutionizes the Android experience in an unimaginable way. More often, though, we get apps that simply regurgitate the same thing we've seen a thousand times before but with a different colored title bar or some such minor adjustment. A happy medium between the two, however, is necessary to the advancement of the platform. Perhaps the most important type of app is one that provides the functionality that we've been using the whole time but solidly improves how it is done. Car Tunes is just that type of application.
It's been a long time since my opinions on a device have been so torn. On the one hand, the Revolution is a pretty impressive piece of hardware, but on the other, there are some seriously annoying things about it (specifically some software elements - the lock screen makes me want to assault something adorable). All the handset's different aspects ultimately lead to one conclusion: MEH.
How many of you out there have taken a picture only realize later that, as you were snapping the photo, somebody totally photobombed you, there is an ugly light pole in the distance, or a hobo was giving you the finger in the background? All of you, you say? Well, boy howdy, have I got an app for you! No longer will you need to employ this supposed "skill" that people claim to have in photography, nor will you need to "pay attention" when taking photos. I can barely pay my cell phone bill, let alone attention to things I'm doing!
We all remember the T-Mobile Sidekick. It was the phone to have back before smartphones were a normal, everyday thing. It was the phone that did all the smartphone-y things first. It was built for one main purpose, though; messaging like a demon. It was all about staying in contact with your friends, shooting out emails, and texting all the time, no matter how fast you were driving. It did that job, and it did it damn well. Now that Danger Incorporated is dead, though, can there still be a Sidekick? Well, since Andy Rubin was part of the mastermind team behind Danger and is now heading up the mastermind team behind Android, it's safe to say a worthy successor is possible. Enter the Sidekick 4G, holding the same classic form factor but, this time around, rocking Android 2.2 Froyo, manufactured by Samsung, and possessing one of the wonkiest button layouts I've ever seen. Lil' John likes it, though:
I've had this problem with my cell phone for the past couple of years. Somehow, despite my best efforts, telemarketers have gotten ahold of my cell phone number. In addition to that, I'm STILL getting calls from debt collectors for the person I assume had my phone number before I got it, which was around 4 years ago. This is really annoying. Like, really, really annoying. I've got my own debt collectors calling, I don't need this "Sherry's" collectors calling me as well. Lucky for me, though, warranties are just a cute, ignorable line of text from the manufacturer and I promptly root all devices within 15 feet of me. If you hate getting phone calls and have root access, I'd like to introduce to you the one, the ONLY, Root Call Blocker.
Last month, Microsoft took bookseller Barnes & Noble, the company responsible for the Nook and Nook Color, to court over some patents infringed because B&N used the Android operating system in the Nook and Nook Color. This is definitely nothing new in the world of mobile devices. It happens all the time, especially with companies like Apple and Microsoft trying to take complete dominance of every arena they enter. That's not the big story here. The big story is the extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY douche-tastic way Microsoft is trying to attack Android with these patents.
A few days ago I posted about my experience with the Google Voice integration with Sprint and outlined exactly how I did it. In the comments section, you guys responded with a lot of good thoughts and, in some cases, some serious bugs and questions. I have done a little bit of research, some testing, and some drinking (just kidding. Kind of), and I have some answers and responses for you upstanding, early-adopting citizens.
Good news, everyone! The Acer Iconia has been rooted and the process is so ridiculously simple that it's almost offensive. Seriously. Here is the entire step-by-step process to gaining full root on the Acer Iconia:
Shazam, the music tagging service that listens to a song and tells you what it is, has announced today that the free version of their app will support unlimited tagging until January 1st, 2012. While this is pretty cool if you're a Shazam user who doesn't want to pay $5 for Shazam Encore (or didn't grab it what it was Amazon's app of the day), it's still pretty laughable for people who have been using Soundhound the whole time. While I can appreciate what Shazam is doing here with the help eBay, who is sponsoring this unlimited tag-fest, I can't help but feel that Shazam should've done this on its own a long time ago. Either way, you get free tagging for now, and that's pretty neat.