Relive Winamp’s glory days with Spotify’s retro music app
Winamp may be riding into the sunset today, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have to go without its classic interface in the future. Spotify is paying tribute to the jukebox software by releasing Spotiamp, a tiny Windows app that streams your Spotify playlists with Winamp’s 1990s-era flair. The connection to the AOL-owned player isn’t just skin-deep, though — Spotiamp includes its own Shoutcast server, so you can send tunes to a Sonos speaker or anything else with native Shoutcast support. As long as you have a Spotify Premium subscription, you can take a musical trip down memory lane through the source link.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: Spotify
Source: Spotiamp
SEGA Holiday Sale Starts Today With Up To 80% Off On 5 Sonic The Hedgehog Games
What better way to celebrate the holiday than with Sonic the Hedgehog! SEGA is offering 5 Sonic the Hedgehog titles at a discount as part of their SEGA Holiday Sale from the 20th of December through to the 1st of January 2014, so you’ve got a bit of time to make up your mind, if it isn’t made up already. The games and their prices in the SEGA Holiday Sale are:
- Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing (Google Play/Amazon) – Was $3.99, on sale $0.99
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (Google Play/Amazon) – Was $4.99, on sale $0.99
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 (Google Play/Amazon) – Was $1.99, on sale $0.99
- Sonic CD (Google Play/Amazon) – Was $2.99, on sale $0.99
- Sonic Jump (Google Play/Amazon) – Was $0.99, on sale FREE
All the games are available from either Google Play or the Amazon App Store and links are provided beside each game. All of these games are great deals, particularly if you’re even a little nostalgic about playing Sonic when you were younger; for better or worse, SEGA’s ports to Android have been very true to the original game.
Some of the deals don’t look to be live yet though, but when they do go live, be sure to jump on these deals quick smart. Who’s going to make good use of this deal? Let us know if you pick up one of the games.
BlackBerry teams up with Foxconn for budget smartphones as sales continue to plunge
BlackBerry’s new interim chief John Chen has just got a rude wake-up call: the company realized revenue on only 1.9 million smartphones in Q1 compared to 3.7 million last quarter, and lost $4.4 billion. It also said that most of the phones shipped were BB7 models, and that much of the bloodletting can be chalked up to a massive $2.6 billion loss on BlackBerry 10 devices and other associated BB10 charges. Given that, Chen has already started making big changes, including a new organizational structure and partnership with Foxconn to build smartphones for emerging markets like Indonesia. The Canadian outfit’s now been divvied up into the following business: Enterprise Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded business and Devices. It hopes that’ll create more focus for the services group and greater efficiencies for its handset division.
Given that BlackBerry’s smartphone sales are now in freefall, the company also detailed its new five-year partnership with Foxconn. It said such a deal would let it focus on design and software, while “Foxconn’s scale and efficiency will let us compete more effectively.” Foxconn will build handsets in both Indonesia and Mexico, while BlackBerry said it would focus development on market segments still friendly to the brand, like enterprise and government. Meanwhile, the Waterloo company’s only bright spots in the quarter were messaging, with 40 million new Android and iOS users, and its bread and butter Enterprise services. However, given the hardware sales drop in just a single quarter as shown in this latest earnings report, it would appear that the next quarter or two will be do-or-die for the iconic company.
Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry
[RUMOUR] The Samsung Galaxy Note Pro May Be The 12.2-Inch Tablet We’ve Been Expecting
You might remember that several months ago, king of technology leaks, evleaks, predicted that Samsung was developing a 12.2-inch tablet with model number SM-P900. Since then, almost no information regarding the 12.2-inch tablet from Samsung has emerged, however a picture published on Move Player may have confirmed that the device actually exists and is called the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro.
Seen pictured above beside its ‘smaller’ brother, the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, the 12.2-inch Note Pro looks positively gargantuan. That monstrous screen is rumoured to carry a resolution of 2560×1600, same as the Note 10.1, and is said to possess 3GB RAM, Android 4.4, a 9500mAh battery and weight a pretty hefty 750 grams. Previous rumours also say that the Note Pro AKA the SM-P900 will possess Samsung’s new Exynos octocore processor which was announced about the same time these rumours surfaced back in July.
The rumours suggest that the Note Pro will be shown at CES 2014 in a few weeks so we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it when we’re there. Do you think these rumours are true and this Samsung Galaxy Note Pro is real? More importantly, would you buy this 12.2-inch monster? Let us know what you think.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Source: Move Player via Sammy Hub
[OP-ED] Dear Google, Where Are My Google Play Edition Devices? Sincerely, The Rest Of The World
The Google Play Edition devices are an intriguing prospect for Android purists everywhere. Marrying the power and quality of OEM (original equipment manufacturer) created hardware with a stock Android operating system is a drool-worthy affair for some, and the recent releases of the LG G Pad 8.3 GPE and Sony Z Ultra GPE have further filled out Google‘s impressive line of stock Android devices to the point where they now have a device offering at almost every major screen-size for both smartphones and tablets. Like the previous GPE devices, the HTC One and Galaxy S4, the G Pad and Z Ultra are only available on the American Google Play Store, which has once again revived the question: why aren’t the Google Play Edition devices available in countries other than America?
Part of the reason these devices aren’t available anywhere else would intuitively be rooted in supply and demand; Google must suspect (or have researched) that demand outside of America is high enough for them to make any sort of an impact or turn any profit.
In terms of supply, I’m not going to pretend to know how Google’s unique and intricate supply lines work, but I would have expected that these supply lines would be very similar to the ones Google uses to distribute its Nexus devices to the entire world. If Google itself doesn’t handle the distribution and it is instead the manufacturers’ responsibility, surely they could supply them to the regions that they already sell products in. Again, I don’t know how these operations actually work as the mere existence of GPE devices already blurs the lines between responsibility and liability for the companies involved, but it’s food for thought as to why exactly Google doesn’t offer these devices worldwide or even just a service to ship them around the globe.
If Google is worried about demand, they just need to spend a few minutes reading comments on any Android news site to see that people do want these devices. I won’t say that these people are a majority, but they are definitely the target demographic of these kinds of devices, and a lot of them don’t live in America. You may argue that these people would have gone to extreme lengths to get these devices anyway, and a lot will have, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
It’s mainly a matter of convenience and it’s times like these when we wonder what’s actually motivating these decisions; perhaps Google doesn’t earn any money from Google Play edition devices, or manufacturers have only agreed to sell a certain number of these devices. Whatever the reason, it would be nice to know why the rest of the world has been left out to dry again.
What do you think about the Google Play Edition devices: would you like the see them available away from America? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
IMDb’s latest iOS update makes it easier to follow movie stars without getting arrested
Whatever happened to Joe Carnahan after he directed the 2002 cop classic, NARC? And what the heck is Joaquin Phoenix up to these days (aside from deeply inappropriate love affairs)? The redesigned IMDb app for iOS 7 delivers answers to these questions and more, especially now that it supports shareable “People Lists” that allow you to track the careers of actors, directors, cinematographers and pretty much anyone else who tends to work on good movies. It’s slightly tricky to figure things out at first: you have to sign in to the app, create a list and then change the list’s type from “Title” to “Name” before it’ll let you track individuals. The app also seems to lack the ability to trigger notifications when someone in your list starts work on a new film. Nevertheless, it all works smoothly once you get the hang of it and, if we’d had this feature sooner, we might well have paid more attention to the 2010 remake of The A-Team.
Via: Cult of Mac
Source: iTunes
Samsung Smartphone Gamepad To Be Paired With Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 In Game Edition Bundle
If you wanted to know how much Samsung is willing to milk its first-party Bluetooth gaming controller, the Samsung Smartphone Gamepad (see announcement here), we may have just had that question answered. According to German news site All About Samsung, Samsung has readied something called a “Game Edition” bundle which will contain the Gamepad as well as a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 and what looks like a MHL adapter for playing games on larger screens.
The bundle is slightly ironic in that the Gamepad can’t strictly be used with the Tab 3 8.0 due to its size; the sliding clip on top of the Gamepad looks good only for smartphone/phablet use. This is of course slightly mitigated by the inclusion of the MHL adapter which will allow you to sit back and enjoy your games on your TV screen, though I’m still interested to know why Samsung chose the 8-inch Tab 3 to be part of this package and not the 7-inch or 10-inch variants.
We don’t know how much this “Game Edition” bundle is going to cost, but the Gamepad alone is expected to cost $110 which is a colossal amount for a Bluetooth game controller, so we hope the bundling of the Gamepad with the Tab 3 will soften the blow a little, particularly as we make our last minute Christmas purchases. Who’s interested in getting a Game Edition bundle like this one? Let us know in the comments.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Source: All About Samsung via engadget
‘Taskbar Windows 8 Style’ Brings a Windows App Launcher to Your Device [APP OF THE WEEK]
With so many launchers out there, the Play Store can seem pretty saturated. A lot of the launchers out there though, simply replace your defualt homescreen, but if you want just an “app launcher”, then you should try something that is truly not Android. I give you Taskbar Windows 8 style.
A lot of you are probably reading this on your PC, and some of you are probably running Windows 8. Yes, the tiles can be sort of an eye-sore, but Windows 8 does give you the option to utilize it like the old desktop style. When you hit that Start button, all your computer apps and files can be accessed, and that is exactly what Taskbar wants to do.
Taskbar Windows 8 style brings you your apps in a Windows like manner. An icon will always be present on your screen to click for quick access to all your apps, and even your toggles. The drawer pops up just like it would on your PC, and you can be in any app to use it. There are many customizations you can use for Taskbar, such as a dark or classic themes, adjust transparency, height, location, and you can choose what your little hovering icon looks like. That hovering icon can also be changed, and you can also adjust the transparency so you can make it almost invisible when you are roaming through your device.
So I suggest giving Taskbar a try. There is a free version, as well as a premium version for you to download.Make sure you check out my video review to see it in action. If you do try out Taskbar, let us know how you like it.
Oppo N1 CyanogenMod Phone Gets CTS-Certified, Launches On Christmas Eve
For fans of CyanogenMod that have been eagerly waiting on news regarding the pure CyanogenMod phone i.e. the Oppo N1 with CyanogenMod loaded, Christmas may have come early, almost literally. Oppo announced on their Twitter account earlier today that the Oppo N1 with CyanogenMod preloaded has been compatibility test suite (CTS) certified, meaning that the CyanogenMod Oppo N1 will be able to use the Google Play Store to install apps. This makes the Oppo N1 the first phone running CyanogenMod to get Google’s blessing to use its app store.
The #OPPON1 is the world’s first Google CTS-Certified @CyanogenMod phone! Available on 12/24. http://t.co/RefQDR6pnA pic.twitter.com/qKCjVpHlWE
— OPPO (@oppo) December 20, 2013
This is huge news for CyanogenMod fans, particularly those who are getting a little tired of sideloading apps. Oppo also announced that this version of the N1 would be launching on Christmas Eve, December 24th, and while no mention was made of the pricing, we can’t see it straying far from the price of the vanilla Oppo N1 at $599.
Who’s now definitely considering the Oppo N1 CyanogenMod phone after hearing this news? Let us know what you think.
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Oppo N1 CyanogenMod phone launches December 24th with Google’s blessing
Oppo’s announcement of a CyanogenMod custom Android version of the N1 was great news for performance phone fans, but who wants to sideload, right? Luckily, the new handset and CyanogenMod 10.2 combo has just cleared Google’s compatibility test suite (CTS) gauntlet, meaning it’ll officially get Google’s Play Store to install apps. That’s the first time CyanogenMod has been certified by Mountain View on any device, a milestone which entailed “a lot of sleepless nights,” according to the group. With that hurdle cleared, Oppo’s announced that the CM-equipped handset will be available on December 24th, though there’s no word if it’ll cost $599 like the standard model. Either way, fans of a more-or-less stock Android experience now have another choice besides Nexus and Google Play Edition handsets.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software
Via: Android Police
Source: CyanogenMod, Oppo (Twitter)
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