Give your OnePlus One a bamboo back for $49
The OnePlus One’s a handsome little devil as is, but there’s always room to accessorize. Though you’re probably still waiting on the actual handset to turn up, OnePlus has announced the phone’s first “SwapStyle” cover will arrive at the end of August, and it’s made from bamboo (the material’s all the rage, you know). The standard white and black polycarbonate shells that come with different variants of the phone will also be available online soon for $29, €25 or around £20, while the flashier bamboo version will retail for $49, €39 or £32. Other SwapStyle covers should cost about the same, though we could be persuaded to pay a little more for the one that makes double-denim acceptable again. We wouldn’t say a bamboo phone cover needs its own two-minute promo video, but who are we to kill OnePlus’ buzz?
Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile
Source: OnePlus (1), (2)
Gaijin Entertainment announces War Thunder for NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet
Do you remember that leak we got a few days ago regarding the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and SHIELD Controller? Well, it looks like it has been indirectly confirmed as Gaijin Entertainment has announced War Thunder for NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet. This will allow SHIELD Tablet players to play the MMO dogfighting aerial game with other platforms like PC, PS4, Mac and Linux. The release even goes as far as to show a video that is basically the announcement video for the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet, which you can see below:
As last week’s leak predicted, the SHIELD Tablet is going to have the 192-core Tegra K1 processor that mobile gamers have been obsessing about, and it’s going to be so good that Gaijin claim that War Thunder will run “natively in parity with PC and video game consoles”. Of course, let’s not forget the wireless SHIELD Controller which is naturally going to be optimized for War Thunder on the SHIELD Tablet, particularly if you feel like connecting your SHIELD Tablet via HDMI to your TV for a more theatrical experience.
There has been no launch date set in stone for the release of War Thunder on NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet, but it will be free-to-play, and the game already contains “400 historically accurate planes and armored vehicles”, which should be exciting for those budding historians among you.
What do you think about War Thunder on NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet? Is the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet everything you wished for? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Press Release
Gaijin Entertainment Announces Their Cross Platform MMO War Thunder is Coming to the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet
Enabling SHIELD Tablet Users to Play Against PC, PlayStation 4, Mac and Linux Players, Gaijin Entertainment Continues Its Commitment to Supporting New Technologies, Bringing War Thunder to More Players Around the World – On the Go or at Home on the Couch
(MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION) – July 22, 2014 – Award-winning developer and publisher Gaijin Entertainment announced today that they will support the NVIDIA SHIELD tablet – the ultimate tablet for gamers – with their mega-hit War Thunder.
“The days of being pious to one platform are dead. We are platform agnostic because we believe that our community demands that they have access to War Thunder on as many platforms as possible. Gamers have many tastes and it is a bad business model to restrict your game to a single platform when your community has ever evolving tastes and preferences and are always on the lookout for the next great gaming adventure,” said Gaijin Entertainment’s Creative Director Kirill Yudintsev. “War Thunder on the SHIELD tablet will be that next great adventure. It provides our growing community of almost eight million players another amazing option to battle with or against friends and foes in cross platform play across the widest variety of home platforms, mobile devices and VR headsets – more than any other game in the industry.”
The SHIELD tablet is the first Android-based device that can run War Thunder natively in parity with PC and video game consoles. The SHIELD tablet includes the world’s most advanced mobile processor, the 192-core NVIDIA Tegra K1. It’s the only device capable of running today’s AAA video games such as War Thunder without hiccup or stutter.
The SHIELD tablet will allow War Thunder fans to take the WWII blastacular experience with them on the go, using a specially created control scheme for the touch screen. When in need of a TV screen experience, players can connect via HDMI and enjoy War Thunder using the high performance, precise SHIELD wireless controller with ultra-low latency Wi-Fi direct.
“Gaijin Entertainment has done an amazing job with War Thunder, creating a cross-platform experience with unbelievable graphics on SHIELD tablet,” said Keita Iida, Senior Director, Global Content Management at NVIDIA. “Tegra K1 really brings the game to life and we’re excited to deliver a game GeForce gamers can play at home – and continue playing anywhere, anytime they want.”
No launch date has been announced for War Thunder on the SHIELD tablet, but Gaijin Entertainment can confirm that War Thunder will remain a free-to-play, cross-platform, massively multiplayer military masterpiece, that allows players to fight their way across air and ground with access to over 400 historically accurate planes and armored vehicles. Fans can expect hundreds more added as Gaijin Entertainment commits to ongoing development via regular updates.
See the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohrddwVQqg
For more information visit: http://warthunder.com/
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ROM of the Week: Carbon
ROM of the Week is dedicated to highlighting our favorite custom ROMs and builds for Android users. If you’re the type who likes to tinker and push their device to new limits then this column is for you.
Note that this isn’t the sort of thing that every AndroidGuys reader will enjoy; however, it can be an eye opener. Our hope here is that we help you discover something new and exciting that you can do with your favorite smartphone. Enjoy!
This week’s ROM of the Week goes to Carbon, which is a highly maintained and covers many devices. Carbon has many unique features such as PIE controls, unique lockscreen and many shortcuts.
Even though Carbon keeps a very stock AOSP look overall, it is still PACKED with additional features that you can enable as you please. There are honestly way too many features to list, but we have the main features highlighted in some snazzy gifs presented below.
Features
Here is a short list of features that can be found in Carbon:
- Pocket Ready (Moto X Like Notifcations)
- Night/Day Mode
- App Privacy
- Right At Home (4 Apps/Shortcuts in Quicklaunch ring)
- PIE Controls
One of my favorite features is “Shed Some Light”. This feature allow you to turn on the flashlight by long pressing on the lockscreen lock. This is extremely useful when I am navigating the dark halls of my home and don’t need to worry about digging for my flashlight app. Overall, the developers of Carbon have created a wonderful ROM that is packed full of features.I highly recommend you check out their website found here and see for yourself what Carbon has to offer.
Device Support
Carbon supports a lot of devices which can be found here!
The features really speak for themselves and thanks to user @noodles90 for all the hard work in putting these together! Check out the features below or if you’re having JavaScript issues, you can check them out on the next page.
The post ROM of the Week: Carbon appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Researchers fully ‘delete’ HIV from human cells for the first time
So far, HIV has eluded a cure because it installs its genome into human DNA so insidiously that it’s impossible for our immune system to clear it out. While current treatments are effective, a lifetime of toxic drugs are required to prevent its recurrence. But researchers from Temple University may have figured out a way to permanently excise it using a highly-engineered HIV “editor.” Here’s how it works: the team analyzed a part of our immune system that fights infection and built a “guide RNA” strand consisting of 20 nucleotides (RNA building blocks). Those strands were then injected into cells typically infected with HIV, like T-cells. There, they targeted the end parts of the virus’s gene and snipped out all 9,709 nucleotides that made up its genome. Since the guide RNA strand contained no human DNA sequences, it left the host cell intact — but free from HIV.
Though scientists eliminated the virus from cultured cells, there’s still a lot of hurdles to clear before such therapy is ready for human trials. The virus’s highly mutative nature means that there are numerous variants that the treatment would have to remove. The other challenge is to deliver the treatment to every infected cell, since complete removal of the virus is required to cure AIDS. However, Temple researcher Kamel Khalili said that “We are working on a number of strategies so we can take the construct into preclinical studies… we want to eradicate every single copy of HIV-1 from the patent. That will cure AIDS.”
[Image credit: AP/NIAID]
Via: Motherboard
Source: Temple University
Xiaomi announces the Xiaomi Mi4, the self-proclaimed fastest smartphone in the World
Xiaomi is the rockstar among Android manufacturers in the Asia region, commanding a formidable, almost religious, following of fans. We’ve all heard stories about how Xiaomi’s marketing tactics sell phones faster than hotcakes, and their latest phone should do the same, especially when they claim it is the fastest smartphone in the world. The Xiaomi Mi4 was announced today in Beijing, China, by Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, showing off a device that wouldn’t have looked unusual in an Apple designer’s sketchbook.
The Mi4 also has the specs to back up its looks and Xiaomi’s claim. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.5GHz, the Mi4 also comes with 3GB RAM, a 5-inch 1080p display and a gigantic 3,080mAh battery. Xiaomi claims that battery will get you up to a day and a half of battery life. The cameras on the Mi4 are likewise impressive with a 13MP camera capable of 4K video recording on the back, and a 8MP low aperture camera situated on the front of the device, perfect for the artistic selfie. It is available in 16GB and 64GB variants which will cost $320 USD and $400 USD respectively. Not bad for the “fastest phone in the world”.
What do you think about the Xiaomi Mi4? Would you rather it than one of the other Android smartphones on the market now? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: Xiaomi via Phone Arena
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Xiaomi’s $13 fitness band can also unlock your phone
The “one more thing” at the Xiaomi Mi 4 launch was the Mi Band, the Chinese company’s first smart wearable, and it’s obviously aggressively priced: Just CN¥79 or about $13! Like many of its competitors, the Mi Band tracks your movement (walking or running) plus sleeping pattern, and you can also use it as a smart vibrating alarm to wake up feeling better. Interestingly, a single charge on this waterproof device will last up to 30 days, which easily beats its competitors that tend to last for a week or less. Better yet, the band doubles as a security token that automatically unlocks your phone — likely just Xiaomi’s for now — when within proximity. There’s no word on availability just yet, but as always, Xiaomi should be debuting this in China where it’ll instantly sell out. We’ve got a couple more product shots — one of which shows the more stylish bands — after the break.
Filed under: Wearables
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: Xiaomi (Sina Weibo)
Totes amazeballs added to the dictionary, because YOLO
When dictionary makers use internet slang, we always feel the same as if our parents had gotten a Justin Bieber tattoo. Chambers Dictionary is the latest wordy tome to get an update for 2014, which now includes YOLO, Bitcoin and totes amazeballs as words and phrases it’s acceptable use in your homework. It’s just just digital neologisms that have made the cut this time around, since the 13th edition also includes words such as schemie (someone who lives on a council estate), hipsters (self-hating members of the middle class) and f**kbuddy (a very, very good friend). Still no mention for Chumbumble, a word we invented purely to protest dictionaries trying to be cool, but there’s always the 14th edition.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Independent
Xiaomi’s latest phone gets a steel frame, IR blaster and top specs for just $320
Having sold 26.11 million phones in the first half of this year, the beast from the East that is Xiaomi is back again with a new flagship Android phone: the MI4. For the first time ever, the company is adding a touch of metal — the common SAE 304 stainless steel, to be exact — to the phone’s frame, which is sandwiched between a flat 5-inch 1080p screen and a swappable, slightly curved plastic back cover. The internal specs are as you’d expect: 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 16GB/64GB of internal storage, 13MP f/1.8 main camera, 8MP selfie camera, LTE radio (at last), 802.11ac WiFi plus a 3,080mAh battery. As a bonus, you also get an infrared transmitter to play with the TV (which Xiaomi also sells). As usual, the MI4 will be very affordable: Just CN¥1,999 or about $320 for the 16GB version, and CN¥2,499 or about $400 for the 64GB version (both off-contract, of course).
Admittedly, from afar, the black MI4 does remind us of the iPhone 5 or 5s, but you have to give credit to Xiaomi and its partners — Foxconn and HiP — for the extra work gone into crafting the metal parts. The shiny chamfer alone takes more than six hours to finish, apparently, and they’ve also added a nano-coating to the sides to deter fingerprints and liquids. The result is a 67.5mm-wide body — beating the Smartisan T1′s 67.74mm — that sits comfortably in your hand, and the phone only weighs 149g.
The MI4 will be available for pre-ordering in China on July 29th, and you’ll also be able to pick up one of the many back covers to suit your taste — be it bamboo, wood, leather, cloth or even stone textures. On top of that, you can add CN¥99 or about $16 for an annual insurance for broken screen plus accidental liquid damage.
The boost in Xiaomi’s sales figure is helped by the company’s expansion into other parts of Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and, very recently, India. You can thank ex-Googler Hugo Barra for that, who has been very hands-on with this project. On a related note, there are now 65 million activated MIUI users, who will be able to upgrade to version 6 as of August 16th. After 26.11 million phones — which translates to 33 billion yuan or about $5.32 billion — so far this year, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun expects to sell a grand total of 60 million phones in 2014, which would be more than twice of that from 2013. With that price point and Lei’s promise to keep a tighter grip on the supply chain, this will no doubt be a walk in the park for Xiaomi.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
The THL T11 is a budget smartphone with an octacore processor and lots More
The mid range market is a hotly contested one with many manufacturers offering their own take on what they believe is the finest definition of the category. The THL T11 is one such device, and it has an attractive price tag to match. Powered by MediaTek‘s octacore processor which is clocked at 1.7GHz, the T11 looks like it has some impressive power behind it. But how much would you expect to pay for a device which is powered by such a processor? If you guessed $219.17, then you would be correct. The THL T11 is currently on sale on GearBest (normally $413.32), which is a very decent price for something that outguns our mid-range favourite, the Motorola Moto G.
The T11′s other hardware specifications are rounded out by 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, a 5-inch 720p IPS display and 2,300mAh battery. The T11 also comes equipped with a 8MP rear camera and a very selfie-friendly 5MP front camera. A full list of features for the T11 include:
- Android 4.2
- Octa Core MTK6592W chipset 1.7GHz
- Mali-400 MP
- 2GB RAM
- 16GB RAM
- Expandable memory
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
- 5.0 inch 1280 x 720 IPS display
- 8.0MP rear camera with flash and AF
- 5.0MP front camera
- Dual SIM support
- NFC
If you’re interested in picking up the THL T11 for $219.17, you can visit its product page over at GearBest here.
What do you think about the THL T11? Let us know your opinion in the comments below.
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Google now lets you comment on Photo Spheres
Google’s Photo Spheres can sometimes be a marvel to behold, but it’s not always easy to let the photographer know about it; if you stumble across a picture in the Views portal, for instance, you may be stuck. Or rather, you were stuck. Google has just added commenting and +1s to Views, making it easy to praise someone’s immersive landscape shot or offer some constructive criticism. The addition probably won’t turn the image hub into a hotbed of activity. However, it might get you to revisit some of these 360-degree panoramas well after the novelty has worn off — including your own.
[Image credit: Colby Brown]
Source: Evan Rapoport (Google+)
AIVAnet 