Subway Surfers update transports the team to Rio de Janeiro
The extremely popular endless runner game, Subway Surfers, has received a long-awaited World Tour update which transports Jake and his track-hopping friends to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The upgrade also brings new boards, outfits and prizes to the award-winning title.
The full changelog for version 1.41.0 of the game can be seen below:
- Travel to Brazil on the Subway Surfers World Tour
- Party with Jake and the crew in the colorful subway of Rio de Janeiro
- Use up to three Score Boosters in one run and take off for even higher scores
- Surf on the new Birdie board and get a flashy Shake Outfit for Carmen
- Search for cute toucans on the tracks to earn prizes in the Weekly Hunts.
To install the update, simply open up the Play Store on your device, toggle the hamburger menu by swiping in from the left-hand side of the screen, select ‘My Apps’ and click on ‘Subway Surfers’. Next, hit the update button, and the application will instantly start to download and install the upgrade from the Google Play servers. Alternatively, you can scan the QR code below to initiate the procedure.
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EE fined £1 million for not properly dealing with complaints
As part of its job as the communications industry regulator, Ofcom routinely checks to see if UK mobile carriers are doing a good job of looking after their customers. This includes how they log complaints and what they do once they’ve received them. After almost three years of investigation, the watchdog announced today that Britain’s (current) largest operator, EE, hasn’t properly handled customer complaints and has issued it with a £1 million fine.
Ofcom says that between July 22nd 2011 and April 8th 2014, EE did not send written notifications to customers to highlight their right to take a complaint to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme. When a customer raises a complaint, they can refer it to an ADR scheme eight weeks after their initial contact, so that an independent body, like an ombudsman, can reach an impartial decision. EE either didn’t send written confirmations, known as “deadlock letters”, in the necessary time or failed to send them at all.
Following Ofcom’s probe, EE has updated its Customer Complaints Code to let customers know that it will send these letters. It will also include references to ADR schemes on paper bills and other written correspondence. In a statement, the company said: “This fine relates to our historic performance regarding complaints handling, collected from 2011 to April 2014. While this is in no way excuses it, it is important to note that we identified issues in our complaints handling and began our programme to tackle these problems head on in 2013, before Ofcom started their investigation. We have made considerable improvements since then.”
“Ofcom’s current figures highlight that complaints into Ofcom about EE have fallen by 50% in the past year alone and, while even one complaint is one too many, we’re working tirelessly not only to improve the handling of complaints but also to identify root causes, and fix problems customers have with us, to ultimately achieve our goal of offering the best service in the market.” Back in October 2014, Three was found guilty of closing customer complaints when it shouldn’t, which resulted in a £250,000 fine. Like its rival, EE has 20 days to pay its fine, which will be absorbed by the Treasury.
Source: Ofcom
Music streaming has officially exploded in the UK
Music streaming has never been more popular in the UK. The latest figures from the Official Charts Company show that 11.5 billion tracks were streamed in the first six months of 2015. That’s almost double the 6.4 billion recorded for the same period last year, and close to the 14.8 billion tracks logged for the entirety of 2014. Likewise, streaming on video platforms such as YouTube are skyrocketing. The Official Charts Company reported 14.3 billion streams last year, and already listeners have clocked 12.5 billion streams in 2015.
What impact is this having on the rest of the industry? Pretty much what you would expect. CD and digital album sales are in decline, although vinyl has continued its resurgence with a 56.3 percent rise in 2015. It’s a little early to project end-of-year figures, but the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is suggesting that sales of the classic format could top 2 million this year — its highest tally since at least 1994. Vinyl sales are, however, still a blip against the gargantuan rise in music streaming. Now that Apple Music has entered the fray, we expect these numbers will be even higher during the latter half of 2015.
Filed under: Misc
Source: BPI
Microsoft and Kyocera quietly squash patent beef
Microsoft can cross out another patent dispute in its list, now that it has settled its issue with Kyocera. Redmond filed a lawsuit against the Japanese electronics maker back in March, claiming that the latter’s Android phones infringe upon seven patents it owns, including their messaging and location tracking features. Several Android device manufacturers, such as HTC, ZTE and LG, have been paying Microsoft royalties to use its patents for quite some time. It’s unclear if money will change hands when it comes to this particular deal, though, since its announcement only talked about signing “an agreement expanding” an older one. The two have apparently signed a cross-patent license after making peace, allowing them to use each other’s technologies in their own devices.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Via: PhoneScoop
Source: Microsoft
The Hyperkin Smart Boy is a must-have for Game Boy nostalgics
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While much of the tech industry is forging ahead with wonderfully complex and futuristic-looking products, there’s one manufacturer out there who is still doing wonderfully complex things, but under a slightly different guise. That manufacturer is Hyperkin, and they’re most famous for bringing back video games from decades past in ways that can be played now, for nostalgia’s sake if for nothing else. Their latest product is the Hyperkin Smart Boy – as you can probably guess from the name and the image above, it’s a hardware and software emulator for the Game Boy, making use of your smartphone as the primary driver. Hyperkin has teased the device several times in the last year, bringing it to E3 2015 in prototype form:
Concept art for the #Android smartphone version of the #SmartBoy. Let us know what you think! pic.twitter.com/GCZqCXe6ra
— Hyperkin (@Hyperkin) April 11, 2015
Here’s the Alpha Build of the #Smartboy that we’ll be bringing to #E3! pic.twitter.com/Zh6tnBIM2q — Hyperkin (@Hyperkin) June 15, 2015
We’re assuming that the Smart Boy uses a Game Boy emulator app, not unlike those already on the Google Play Store, and the hardware controller is just an awesome way to play the game. However it is that it works, I know I want one, and I hope Hyperkin comes out with the Smart Boy soon.
What do you think about the Hyperkin Smart Boy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Nintendo Life
The post The Hyperkin Smart Boy is a must-have for Game Boy nostalgics appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Google’s preparing to launch a new Android One smartphone this month
According to a report published by The Economic Times, Google is currently preparing to launch a brand new Android One smartphone in India on Tuesday, July 14. The device is expected to be manufactured by a local company operating under the name Lava and will carry a price tag of around INR 12,000 ($190).
Whilst the first batch of Android One devices weren’t designed and developed in conjunction with Indian suppliers, this latest handset has been created in close collaboration with Lava and MediaTek — so it should be pretty well suited to the Indian market. Unfortunately, we don’t have a spec sheet for the device, but we do know that it will feature a 5-inch display and 2GB of RAM.
Despite demand for Android One devices never really taking off India, Google is determined to make this smartphone a success and has confirmed that it will be available from all channels, including retail stores.
Do you think Google should continue to add devices to its Android One lineup? Or should it just quit while it’s ahead? Be sure to let us know your thoughts below.
Source: The Economic Times
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Chevy’s 2016 cars can keep charging phones from overheating
Early summer on the East Coast hasn’t been its usual level of brutal this year, but it’s only a matter of time before smartphones start wigging out in the heat. Things only get trickier when you’re charging up in your sweltering car, so Chevy cooked up an “active phone cooling” system to keep gadgets from overheating in their 2016 range of vehicles. Don’t get too carried away, though: That’s just a high-falutin’ name for an air vent that points at a warm phone while it’s wirelessly charging.
It’s a simple solution for sure — you’ve basically got a teensy icebox in your car — but it could go a long way in keeping your phone happy and healthy. Prolonged exposure to heat often means bad news for the lithium-ion cells that keep everything running, and really, the last thing a worried driver needs is their phone shutting off mid-navigation because it’s suddenly running too hot. Chevy claims they’re the first manufacturer to focus on the plight of our nation’s hot smartphones, but the answer they’ve cooked up is so simple we’d be surprised if other car makers didn’t take the hint. Until then, though, you’ll have to own a 2016 Volt, Cruze, Impala or Malibu with the wireless charging option to stay frosty.
Filed under: Mobile
Via: Windows Central
Source: Chevrolet
N64 controller modded to (sort of) work with the Xbox One
Microsoft has an exorbitant $150 controller coming this year that it hopes will make up for the Xbox One’s middling gamepad, but that won’t make the upcoming Rare Replay feel any more authentic when you play. The folks at Hyperkin — makers of the Retron 5 console — know this and set forth a challenge: mod a Nintendo 64 controller to work with Microsoft’s latest game console. And they succeeded. Mostly. As you’ll see in the video below, the three-pronged paddle can navigate the console’s dashboard and select apps, but, since there’s only one analog stick, that rules out it playing nicely with a vast majority of modern games. The wiring is a bit wonky and certain inputs trigger at random, but, from the sounds of it, the project is far from over.
The plan is to make “an awesome controller” work in time for Rare Replay‘s release. Does that mean Hyperkin will actually sell an N64-styled controller for the game? It sounds like a possibility. We’ve reached out to the company for more info and will update this post should we hear back.
[Image credit: Reintji/Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Via: Kotaku
Source: Chris Gallizzi (YouTube)
Swappa launches Play Store app to check the price of your devices
Swappa is a fantastic website for buying and selling your smart devices. There are tons of smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches listed on the site, and it uses PayPal for security, making it one of the best places to unload your old smartphone or pick up a new one.
Swappa has a fairly decent mobile site, but today they’ve released an app onto the Play Store specifically for checking out prices of devices on the site. You can browse through different devices based on carrier or manufacturer and view detailed pricing on what that particular device has sold for over the past few months. You’ll get an average estimate of what the device is currently worth, as well as a history chart so you can see how well it’s held its value.
Unfortunately, it looks like the app is currently only for viewing the price of devices, not for actually making any purchases or creating a listing to sell your own phones or tablets. You’ll still have to use the website for that.
In the meantime, the app is free, and it could be pretty useful if you like to keep up on how much your device is worth or how much it’ll cost you to upgrade to something else.
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Casio is making smartwatches, too
When America’s greatest actor needed to defuse a bomb mounted to a passenger bus, there was only one name he could trust to keep time: Casio. Like Keanu Reeves, the company’s fallen out of the limelight a bit since then. It has a comeback plan, though: smartwatches. As The Wall Street Journal tells it, the outfit thinks it has what’s necessary to compete in the crowded space too. Namely, a rich history of making watches that do more than tell time. It expects the device to hit “a level of smartwatch perfection” by being durable, easy to put on and generally being comfortable to wear.
The gizmo’s been in development for a few years already and Casio expects it to ship domestically and to Japan next March, tentatively for around $400. Does the storied electronics company have what it takes to hit its lofty $80 million goal for smartwatch sales? That’s anyone’s guess at this point. But hey, if this week’s Top Gun news is any indication, we could at least see Mr. Whoa himself rocking one of the new devices in an upcoming Speed sequel/reboot.
[Image credit: Adam Piotrowski/Flickr]
Filed under: Wearables
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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