Just as promised, Rovio released today their new Angry Birds Friends game title. It’s available on Android and iOS for free.
Angry Birds Friends premiered on Facebook last year. It has more than 60 million players that can now battle each other and against the new smartphone users.
The game doesn’t cost a dime and this one is not a limited time offer. It will stay that way, so you don’t need to hurry.
Here is the official trailer:
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After the initial buzz about Google+ dried out, we barely hear any news about the service these days but Google seems determined to make this one a success. They’ve updated Hangouts with some cool new features and bringing it to Google+ Messenger on mobile devices.
With the update, Google aims to make Hangouts the online conferencing tool. The first step is to make it easier to start or join a hangout.
You can do that through a handy new shortcut in Google+ posts, or through a list of three active hangouts to the right of your Stream. Google+ can also ring your device (phone or computer) to notify you that you’re invited to a hangout.
You don’t need a computer or a fancy smartphone to join a Hangout – you can now dial-in anyone’s phone to let them join the conversation. For the US and Canada calls are free (Google extended the free calls period) and it’s possible to dial other countries too (you can look up international calling rates here).
If you do have a fancy smartphone, you’ll be able to get the updated Google+ with video Hangouts from the Android Market and iOS App Store in a few days.
Another feature that we’ve seen in exclusive events (e.g. a Black Eyed Peas concert or a Dalai Lama peace talk) is Hangouts On Air. It’s available to accounts with a big number of followers and can be started at any time, it doesn��t need to be a pre-scheduled event. The video will be recorded and uploaded to the user’s YouTube account as a private video where it can be made available to people who couldn��t see it live.
Google say they’re working on making Hangouts on Air available to everyone but they didn��t say when that will happen.
Finally, a bit of a holiday gimmick let��s you put on virtual antlers.
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Shopping for an e-book reader this holiday season is certainly an exciting task, from a geek’s point of view at least. There are interesting offers on all price points and manufacturers and bookstores are vying for your attention. Whatever your price range though, you can’t miss on checking out the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, which just launched today. Priced at $119 with Special Offers (which means lockscreen ads), this is probably the most sophisticated e-book reader your money can buy right now.
As the first reviews of the Kindle Paperwhite are now rolling in, we get to learn more about this, still US-only, gadget. Here’s a rundown of what’s hot and what not about this new e-reader.
Design-wise, the new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite e-reader is a lot different than the previous gen and that’s good. Gone is the shiny plastic, and the matte, soft touch black material is more than welcome. The Kindle Paperwhite is faster than the Kindle Touch and now about as responsive as the Nook with Glowlight.
The 6-inch screen is of higher resolution. This has led to a higher pixel density, making fonts more legible even at lower sizes. The new capacitive touch technology certainly makes life easier when you are going through the interface and settings. The screen surface has an added texture to make swiping and touching it feel even more tactile. The display certainly lives up to its name and at full brightness of the frontlight, it really looks as white as paper.
To add to the novelty, this year’s Kindle comes with built-in magnet switch, so when you are using it with the original case, the e-book reader would actually wake up as soon as you flip open the cover case.
And, of course, the pi��ce de r��sistance – the new system for front lighting is without a doubt the Paperwhite’s key selling feature. You are free to guess how many times I mistakenly called it Paperlight, while drafting this article. It just rolls off the tongue so much easier.
All reviewers agree that the light looks amazingly even and it feels almost as if the light comes from all sides. The new front light is reportedly useful for much more than late night reading. There are some 24 levels of brightness so you will always be able to fine tune it to match the ambient lighting (or the lack of it thereof). And having it on, has a benefit almost everywhere, except perhaps on a bright-lit beach, I guess.
The Kindle Paperwhite (right) compared to the Nook Glowlight (left)
Software-wise, the Kindle Paperwhite features novel perks such as an estimate of the time needed to finish the current chapter or the whole book. X-Ray, another feature, will show you all the major characters or terms throughout the book, though its usefulness is somewhat questionable.
X-ray shows the most frequently featured characters and terms
Twitter and Facebook integration allow you to share the name and link to the book you are reading directly to the social networks.
Modern day gadgets rarely escape reviewers’ scrutiny without warranting a scorning word or two. In this case, tech reviewers found that the relatively thin bezel on the Kindle Paperwhite makes it harder to hold than say, the Nook Simple Touch.
The Paperwhite also could have used some page turn buttons or at least, a single menu button. The storage is also not expandable, unlike the Nook Simple Touch, but honestly, I’ve never had to use a memory card inside my Nook, e-books take up so little space.
The Kindle case prices still seem like a rip-off and I can’t help the feeling that the maker is actually trying to offset the cheap introductory price of the e-book reader with overpriced accessories.
Summing it all up, all reviewers agree the Kindle Paperwhite is a must buy if you are after a new e-book reader. Perhaps, it may not be enough to make you upgrade if you already own the last year’s Kindle Touch or the Nook Simple Touch, but it’s definitely a top pick this holiday season. You just can’t beat the new front-lighting system and Amazon has some of the best prices on e-books these days.
All Kindle Paperwhite e-readers are already available, starting at $119 for the Wi-Fi only version with Special Offers. Unfortunately, there is still no word on when this thing is coming to our side of the ocean.
So what about you, are you getting one?
Gizmodo | Engadget | TechCrunch | Mashable | The Verge
There was a time when if something could stand still long enough someone would install Linux on it. The same is true for Android today. And so the latest gadget to get an Android port is the recently announced sports tracker, Motorola’s MOTOACTV.
In its defense the device already runs a highly disguised version of Gingerbread but it still wouldn’t have been easy. Developer Chris Wade, the guy responsible for the useful but woefully misnamed Dingleberry jailbreak for the BlackBerry PlayBook, is the one responsible for achieving this feat. But before he actually installed the new OS, he ripped open the device apart first. This is when he took some blurry pictures and found out that the device runs on a TI OMAP3630 clocked at 600MHz with 256MB of RAM, enough for the purpose that Motorola intended for the device. But will it be able to run a full-fledged Gingerbread installation?
Of course, there was only one way to find out so he installed a custom ROM on it by first rooting the OS. The MOTOACTV only has a back key so he added a Honeycomb-like interface with on-screen controls. He also managed to get applications working on it so you can play Angry Birds on it among others, as demonstrated in the video below. You will of course need fingers as thin as toothpicks to operate it properly but the performance is quite good, probably due to the low resolution display which would not tax the hardware much.
You can check it out in action in the video below. For information on how to root the MOTOACTV and pictures of the insides, click on the source link below.
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