App Highlight: Arena Masters – Legend Begins

The App

Developed by NEXON Company, Arena Masters: Legend Begins is an established app with over 500,000 installs. Having been updated on May 24, 2017, the developer is constantly fixing various bugs with the latest update introducing new gear and skins. The game is a PvP real-time battle strategy royale.

What it does

You can battle in real-time in a variety of battle modes including zombie virus, king of the hill, and dual arena. You have full control of your battle heroes of which there are 13 to choose from all with their own special abilities.

Combining the heroes can be used to create teams to gain strength and be even more powerful. Choosing from a variety of skins adds a touch of customization to your own army.

Why we like it

Arena Masters draws you in and you’ll find you won’t be able to put it down. The graphics are great and I really like that you have control of your heroes rather than have to sit helplessly and watch AI make bad strategic decisions. If you’re into PvP games then be sure to pick this one up.

How to get it

Arena Master: Legend Begins is available for free from the Google Play Store. You can download it right here.

MosaLingua Spanish: A different but familiar way of learning Spanish (Review)

As the only native Spanish speaker in AndroidGuys, it is always amusing for me to see Android apps for learning Spanish. After all, it is a fairly useful language, with approximately 500 million people talking it natively throughout the world. There are different approaches for learning it, but MosaLingua Spanish uses a fairly common one: repetition.

Developer: MosaLingua Crea
Price: $4.99

Setup

Even though apps are trying to move from an extensive setup process and assume defaults that can be configured afterward, MosaLingua Spanish deviates from this approach and makes you go through a lenghty setup wizard.

First, in case you feel more comfortable in languages other than English, you will be glad to know that you can also learn Spanish with MosaLingua on the basis of French, Italian, Portuguese, and German. Also, in an effort to tailor the app to your needs, it asks you what are your motives for learning Spanish. Unfortunately for some of you, “Understanding reggaeton lyrics” is not one of the choices, but there are other possibilities for you:

• Travel
• Speak and socialize
• Work and do business
• Improve my grades at school or study abroad
• Pass an exam (DELE, SIELE…)
• Other

In case you already know some Spanish words, MosaLingua Spanish lets you start at a higher level. However, for testing the app, I started from the very basics.

Finally, the app asks you to make an account. If you don’t want to, you can scroll down and press skip, but some features will be unavailable until you sign in. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have the option of creating the account later, in case you discover that the app is not for you.

Overview

You can start at any level.

Unlike other language-learning apps, MosaLingua Spanish is not based on a gamification approach, like Duolingo. Instead, you are the biggest input for it. If you are the kind of person who writes words into cards and goes through them constantly, then you’ll feel right at home here.

The whole approach is based on repetition. The app makes you repeat each word by talking, reading, and spelling it, and then asks you at the end how confident you are that you memorized it correctly. If you feel like you will have problems with remembering the word in the future, you can let the app know and it will bring it up on your next sessions.

There are different categories of words, such as eating, weather, and transportation, but the recommended way is to follow the order that the app gives you. In it, you go through basic stuff and gradually get more challenging words and expressions.

General Impressions

Each exercise is composed of a set of cards, which the app will first read out loud to you. Then, it will ask you to record yourself. However, it doesn’t give you feedback on how good or bad you did. It more or less relies on how you think your sound compared with the recording, which is, frankly, not ideal.

Easy enough? It gets more difficult later, don’t worry.

Then, it makes you memorize the words by looking at a picture of it. Yet again, it speaks the word to you, so that you not only memorize its meaning but its pronunciation. Finally, the app asks you to spell the word (or phrase) by giving you the letters (or words) in a scrambled order. It will give you immediate feedback on how good you did.

Through constant repetition, the app aims to slowly improve your Spanish level. Later, it also adds dialogue in conventional situations, such as asking for a table in a restaurant, buying medicine, asking for a taxi, and similar useful situations.

As a native speaker, I find these dialogues to be very useful for anyone who is learning Spanish. There’s a point where learning more words is useless if you can’t form a sentence with them, so this is a great way to use all of this vocabulary.

There are different activities you do with each set of cards in order to memorize words.

Frankly, I’ve used a variant of this kind of repetition method myself when learning German and Estonian, and I know several people who have used similar approaches, so I’m sure that MosaLingua’s research about this topic is based on real evidence and not just made up.

If your motivations for learning Spanish are not enough, then the app has you covered. It keeps you going by asking you to do your exercises every day and by showing you different stats, progress graphs, and videos by MosaLingua members in which they constantly encourage you.

If you find that the available content is not enough for you, there are optional packs with more words and exercises. These include advanced vocabulary, slang, and vocabulary for specific situations, such as news and idioms that native speakers use. These are all available separately or can be bought as a discounted pack.

Interface and Sound

The dialogue at first sounds very generic, but you can download a pack to improve its quality. I suggest you download it because audio recordings go from regular to top-notch with this. If you are interested to know, the dialogue sometimes uses the Latin American way of pronouncing “c” and “z” (that is, make everything sound like an “s”), and sometimes it uses the Spanish way (so they have a “th” characteristic sound, as in “thaw” or “theater”). Look it up on YouTube if you are unsure of what I mean, but this lack of cohesion between pronunciations could be very confusing for newcomers.

Interface is the weakest point of the app

Regarding the interface of the app, I find that sometimes it looks like kind of unpolished. It feels as if the app was developed with one of these mobile web frameworks that then generate Android apps, instead of using native tools. Animations are not as fluid as they could be, interface doesn’t follow material design guidelines, elements such as alerts appear out of nowhere instead of using Android’s built-in animations, and the app itself feels like it was brought directly from the Jelly Bean days.

It also sometimes doesn’t feel responsive enough, and I found a bug in which if I went to the optional packs screen, tried to buy one but canceled instead of going through with the payment, and the app became unresponsive.

Conclusion

MosaLingua uses a different approach than several language-learning apps. Instead of incorporating a gamification aspect to the process, MosaLingua bases its method on constant repetition of words throughout time for the best results. Obviously, every person learns stuff in a different way, which is why we should be thankful that there are so many options. There’s a free version of MosaLingua Spanish if you want to evaluate its effectiveness first. If you are able to deal with a fairly antiquated interface, the content beneath it is good, and, in the end, eso es lo único que importa.

Download and install MosaLingua Spanish from the Google Play Store.

Intel’s upcoming 10-core i9 chips will hit 4.5GHz without even overclocking

Why it matters to you

Core i9 chips might be far too expensive for the average consumer, but top-end performance often trickles down to the hardware we mere mortals can afford.

New details have emerged for Intel’s upcoming 10-core Skylake X CPU, the i9 7900X, and it looks like the chip could end up being more powerful than anyone expected. Along with its 10 cores, it sports a base clock speed of 4.0GHz, which boosts up to 4.5GHz. That shows a real architectural difference between it and AMD’s upcoming Threadripper Ryzen chips.

The latest details for Intel’s i9 series CPUs appeared in a published Sisoft Sandra benchmark results post. Although it labels the chip as an i7 part, that’s erroneous because of the lack of official support for such a chip yet. The specifications, however, should be perfectly accurate, telling us that despite running 10 cores and 20 threads, this chip is still capable of hitting 4.5GHz without any overclocking.

Overclockers.ua

This is far higher than we would expect from a chip with 10 cores as there is a real possibility of a CPU running rather hot at that sort of speed. Considering it was initially expected to be clocked far lower, some have speculated that this could be a revision on Intel’s behalf to counter the potential for AMD’s Ryzen CPUs to unseat its performance crown before the end of the year.

Other details about the chip confirmed by this listing include the fact that it has 10MB of level two cache with 1MB for each core and 13.75MB of level 3 cache, with a TDP of 175W (thanks Overclockers, via TPU).

Although this release is mostly exciting because of the Intel CPU detail reveal, we can also draw a little information on the motherboard from it. The Gigabyte X299 Aorus Gaming 7 is an unannounced motherboard and shows that Gigabyte will be one of the first partners supporting Intel’s upcoming CPU design.

While chips like this aren’t really designed for everyday consumers, the added performance of that high clock speed should further ramp up the competition between AMD and Intel, which has been raging this year since the launch of Ryzen. It’s a good year to be a hardware enthusiast.

Moto G5 and G5 Plus: Everything you need to know

Why it matters to you

Lenovo’s midrange G series added two new family members at Mobile World Congress: The Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus.

The Lenovo Moto G5 and G5 Plus have finally been unveiled, and the two made a big appearance at Mobile World Congress 2017. The new phones, successors to last year’s G4 and G4 Plus, are in keeping with the series’ core tenet of uncompromising affordability. Both pack capable processors, high-definition displays, fingerprint sensors, and sizable batteries. And like their predecessors, they’re compatible with all major carriers in the U.S., including T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and U.S. Cellular.

Check out the latest details about the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus below — but you can also read our full review here.

Improved G5S and G5S Plus on the way?

Android Authority

AndroidAndMe

The Moto G5 and G5 Plus have only just been released, but reports from AndroidAndMe and Android Authority indicate even better versions could be waiting in the wings. They’re called the G5S and G5S Plus, and although details are scant at this moment, the one clear difference appears to be the inclusion of a dual-lens rear camera on the larger Plus model, visible at the right.

Aside from that, both phones look to be constructed entirely from aluminum this time, compared to the metal back plate and plastic sides of the current G5 models. Because of this, the rear of the S variants sport antenna lines, and there doesn’t appear to be any removable battery cover.

According to AndroidAndMe, both phones will retain the sizes of their counterparts already on the market — meaning we’re looking at 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch screens here, still at 1080p resolution. If there are any other changes lurking beneath the surface, we aren’t aware of them yet, but we’ll update this article as we hear more.

Price and availability

The pricing and availability for the Moto G5 and G5 Plus is a little confusing, so strap in.

If you live in Europe, the G5 and G5 Plus are both available from many local carriers in in a range of different markets. If you live in the United Kingdom, you’ll get access to a special Sapphire Blue color for the G5 through O2. The G5 and G5 Plus launch in March for 229 euros ($244.46) and 279 euros ($297.83), respectively.

If you live in the United States, you’ll have to go for the G5 Plus — however there are two G5 Plus variants available. Those include a $230 model with 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and a $280 model with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.

If you want to save a few bucks on the U.S. version, Amazon is subsidizing a series of phones, including the Moto G5 Plus — so you can get it for yourself for $185. Of course, getting an Amazon-subsidized phone does have its drawbacks, like the fact that you’ll get ads and personalized offers. It doesn’t seem like the standard Moto G5 is part of the promotion — which we expected, as the standard G5 was not slated to reach the U.S.

Both handsets are available in two color configurations: Lunar gray and fine gold. And both ship running Android 7.0 Nougat.

Moto G5

At first glance, the G5 doesn’t look any different from the G5 Plus, but it’s a different story under the hood. The lower-end handset packs a 5-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080p) screen, but sports a Snapdragon 430 paired with 2GB of RAM, a sizable step down from the G5 Plus. It also lacks support for NFC, and internal storage and battery max out at 32GB and 2,800mAh, respectively.

Despite the G5’s weaker specs, it didn’t seem all that much slower than the G5. It flew through apps like Chrome and Gmail, and crushed a burst shot photo session like a pro.

The G5 has support for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm audio jack, and USB Type-C.

Motorola said that the designs of the G5 and G5 Plus were informed by its customers, and that much seems clear. Citing the results of a customer survey, Motorola said that 63 percent want a higher screen resolution and display, 62 percent want all-day battery life, and 58 percent want better camera capabilities.

From what we can tell so far, both the G5 and G5 Plus deliver on all fronts.

Moto G5 Plus

The Moto G5, much like its predecessor, is a veritable powerhouse of a smartphone. On the front is a 5.2-inch Full HD display (the same resolution as the G4 Plus) shielded by Gorilla Glass 3, and powered by a Qualcomm 2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 625 and up to 4GB of RAM. The battery is the same size as last year’s model at 3,000mAh, and supports Lenovo’s proprietary TurboPower fast-charging technology. (Motorola said it can deliver up to six hours of battery life in just 15 minutes.) It also has a notable upgrade from the G4 Plus — support for NFC, the wireless standard that enables tap-and-pay transactions via Google’s Android Pay platform.

We were impressed by the responsiveness of last year’s G4 Plus, and the G5 Plus was just as smooth as glass to our eyes. We put the G5 through the wringer in our brief time with the device, opening as many browser tabs and apps at once as we possibly could. It fluidly switched between all of them, but we’ll need to run a few benchmark tests and games to see how it really compares.

A fingerprint sensor is embedded in a raised nub on the front of the Moto G5 Plus, and a MicroSD Card reader sits under the removable back cover. It also features Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C connector, and 64GB of internal storage.

Christian de Looper contributed to this report. Article updated on 05-25-2017 by Adam Ismail: Added Moto G5S and G5S Plus rumors.

Researchers create high-speed internet lane for when disaster strikes

Why it matters to you

This research could help facilitate the important work emergency responders do when natural disasters and other crises strike unexpectedly.

When disaster strikes, emergency responders often rely on the internet to communicate and share crucial information on the task at hand. With that in mind, a group of researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology has proposed a method of creating a high-speed lane of online traffic dedicated to this kind of usage.

The team has created a new network protocol to ensure that vital communications reach their intended recipient, according to a report from Science Daily. The Multi Node Label Routing (MNLR) protocol features an immediate “failover” mechanism, which means that if a link or node fails — which is not uncommon when the network is being stressed — the data is sent via an alternate path immediately.

This protocol can run beneath established internet protocols, which means that other users’ access to the web should not be affected by its implementation.

Earlier this month, the MNLR protocol was put head-to-head with the widely used Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), using the United States Global Environment for Network Innovation. It took the BGP around 150 seconds to recover from a link failure, while the MNLR protocol was able to do so in less than 30 seconds.

Nirmala Shenoy, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the principal investigator on the project, attributes the problems with current protocols to their age. They were put in place at a time when the kind of information transferred via the internet was very different, and they’re not necessarily well-suited to its current usage.

“Sharing data on the internet during an emergency is like trying to drive a jet down the street at rush hour,” said Jennifer Schneider, who served as co-principal investigator alongside Shenoy. “A lot of the critical information is too big and data heavy for the existing internet pipeline.”

In a disaster situation, emergency responders might need to exchange maps, details of where personnel are being dispatched to, cell phone location data, video, and audio calls, and various other pieces of information depending on the nature of the event. Given that such a scenario is likely to prompt a flurry of communication among civilians, internet traffic can become incredibly congested.

While the internet becomes more vital to everyday life all the time, some of the foundational elements of its operation have been in place for many years. Research projects like this one help ensure that the web can continue to grow and evolve in step with our usage.

Google explains how machine learning improved its Gboard mobile keyboard

Why it matters to you

Google’s machine learning techniques predict how you type in Gboard, it’s third-party mobile keyboard.

Gboard, Google’s mobile keyboard for iOS and Android, is almost like a digital secretary. It can predict what you’re going to type before you type it, perform Google searches, translates in real time between more than 15 different languages, and boasts a growing library of handy emojis. And on Thursday, Google researchers pulled back the curtain on efforts to make it better.

“Most people spend a significant amount of time each day using mobile-device keyboards: Composing emails, texting, engaging in social media, and more. Yet, mobile keyboards are still cumbersome to handle,” Google said. “The average user is roughly 35 percent slower typing on a mobile device than on a physical keyboard. To change that, we recently provided many exciting improvements to Gboard for Android, working towards our vision of creating an intelligent mechanism that enables faster input while offering suggestions and correcting mistakes, in any language you choose.”

In a post on the Google Research Blog, Google explained how Gboard is using machine learning to cut down on errors. Using neural networks — computer systems modeled on the human brain and nervous system — researchers were able to correct for for mistyped letters, misspellings, character insertions, and deletions. “[Gboard] address[es] these errors at the character level, mapping the touch points on the screen to actual keys,” Google said.

In addition, Google employed TensorFlow, its hardware-accelerated machine learning platform, to train hundreds of neural networks and optimize them for suggestions, completions, and other keyboard-specific features. After a year of work, the models were six times faster and 10 times smaller than the initial versions, Google said, and showed a 15 percent reduction in bad autocorrects and 10 percent reduction in “wrongly decoded gestures.”

Those changes were just the beginning. Google factored lexicon, which tells which words occur in a language, and probabilistic grammar, which tells what words are likely to follow other words, into Gboard’s machine intelligence. The result was what Google calls Finite-State Transducers, which power the app’s natural language processing and supply word completions and predictions.

Google used the same Finite-State Transducers to map sequences of Latin keys to symbol sequences in Indic languages. The result? Gboard lets you type a word according to its phonetic pronunciation — the Hindi “daanth” for “दांत” (teeth) — and automatically transliterates it. Compared to Gboard’s old system, the new models are 50 percent faster, and reduce the fraction of words users have to manually correct by more than 10 percent. “Some languages have multiple writing systems […] so between transliterated and native layouts, we built 57 new input methods in just a few months,” Google said.

“While we hope that these recent changes improve your typing experience, we recognize that on-device typing is by no means solved. Gboard can still make suggestions that seem nonintuitive or of low utility and gestures can still be decoded to words a human would never pick, Google said. “However, our shift towards powerful, machine-intelligence algorithms has opened new spaces that we’re actively exploring to make more useful tools and products for our users worldwide.”

Apple hires New York Magazine executive editor to aid war on fake news

Why it matters to you

As tech companies continue to crack down on fake news, users will hopefully find it easier to discern fact from fiction.

The fight against fake news is causing social networking sites and news aggregators to take a look in the mirror and develop practices to keep their users better informed. That means properly vetting stories and conducting rigorous fact-checking. Tech firms that used to simply link users to content are now tasked with curating it as well. According to Politico, Apple is ramping up its efforts in the crusade by hiring a big name.

The iPhone maker has added Lauren Kern, formerly of New York Magazine, to its team. Kern will serve as Apple’s first Editor-in-Chief, in a move that demonstrates an interest in bolstering the Cupertino, California-based company’s news service. Although Apple doesn’t produce original journalistic content, it does hand-pick stories to promote, so it can be assumed Kern will factor heavily in that decision making.

Kern previously served as executive editor at New York Media, and before that deputy editor at the New York Times Magazine.

Today’s news follows previous statements by Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as the company’s senior vice president of software and services, Eddy Cue, relating to stemming the spread of clickbait. Back in February, Cook called it “one of today’s chief problems,” noting the dilemma of “filtering out” malicious content while preserving the “great openness of the internet.”

A week later, at this year’s Code Media conference, Cue called upon other tech companies to stand up, saying “we all have a responsibility” to eliminate fake news.

“We’re very concerned about all of the news items and the clickbait from that standpoint, and that driving a lot of the news coverage,” Cue said. “We’re trying to do some things in Apple News, we’re learning from that and we need to share that together as an industry and improve it.”

Apple’s not the only one. Earlier this year, Facebook began flagging illegitimate stories, with the help of fact checking organizations like First Draft. It followed that up in April by releasing resources and links in its Help Center designed to educate users on how to spot fake news.

Stickers aren’t just social — Amazon brings odd shoppable stickers to iOS

Why it matters to you

Amazon’s latest iOS update allows you to fantasize about where your new product may go in your home.

Imitation has become common between social media networks, but now even Amazon is taking a nod from popular networking apps. The retailer launched an update on Tuesday that integrates camera stickers, only instead of sharing funny photos with friends, those stickers are designed for online shopping.

The feature adds another mode to the iOS app’s camera, which also allows users to shop using computer vision to ID the items in the shot, much like Pinterest’s beta version of Lens and Google’s version of the same name launched last week.  Much like stickers inside social media apps, the new feature allows users to place stickers in the live scene using the view from the camera, then tapping to save the image.

But unlike social stickers, Amazon’s version includes actual products, which of course you can buy by clicking on the ‘i’ info icon above the sticker. From finding new decor for your desk to adding Legos to any scene, the new feature allows users to drag and drop stickers, then resize. Taking a photo saves the image or you can send to a friend via text, email or social media.

While the feature easily belongs to social, stickers in a retail environment are rather unusual. While you can snap a photo of what different decor would look like in the room, it is more for fun than a realistic representation, with the characteristic white sticker border around the edges and no way to tilt the sticker, just resize.

The odd feature means that iOS users can now add stickers of GoPros, dinosaur-shaped cell phone stands or a sticky note holder that looks like a toaster and share then on social media or send to friends. Stickers are arranged in several different categories from home to little kids, no doubt designed to encourage browsing Amazon products that you never knew existed, like a replica of Genie’s lamp from Aladdin.

The feature, for now, appears to be only available for iOS users but joins the app’s list of camera modes, which also include the more useful ability to scan packages or search by barcode.

‘Magikarp Jump’ wants you to dominate using primitive first-gen Pokémon

Why it matters to you

If you have a soft spot for splashing magikarp, this game gives the fish its due by letting it become a champion in its own right.

Drawing inspiration from a Pokémon Stadium minigame, Magikarp Jump is the latest Pokémon-themed game to make it to mobile. Going in a different direction from the classic Pokémon RPG games and the more recent augmented-reality title, Pokémon Go, it challenges you to raise a magikarp who can jump higher than all the others.

Unlike the main Pokémon games, the point of catching a magikarp this time around isn’t just to evolve it into a gyarados as soon as possible. Instead, Magikarp Jump charges you with training your fishy friend to jump higher than the competition. Feed it, train it, and teach it how to maximize its jump power.

Once it’s fully trained, you can take your magikarp to test its mettle in local tournaments, before heading to the grandest stage of all: the world championships. Can you become the greatest magikarp trainer the world has ever seen?

No magikarp can jump forever, though, so if it becomes knocked out or retires after a long career, you can start again with a new generation of fish, retaining some of the skills and abilities of its forebears. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to unlock a classic shiny one, or one of the newer variants, which can sport calico or polka-dot patterns.

To help you out along the way, several other Pokémon will offer you food and assistance to keep your magikarp fighting fit. This being a freemium app though, there will also be in-app purchases which speed up the leveling process and help you become a champion, if you’re willing to pay for the advantage.

There are also microtransactions for aesthetic options, letting you customize the decor of your magikarp’s habitat with various trophies and items. Some of them can also be earned through gameplay.

Magikarp Jump is available now, for free, on both iOS and Android.

MSI is touting its new motherboard as the best it’s ever released

Why it matters to you

MSI’s upcoming motherboards and graphic cards will surely appeal to gamers who are looking to build a new rig, or refresh their current system to ensure peak performance.

MSI has unveiled some of the PC components that it will be showing at Computex 2017 in Taipei, Taiwan next week. Building on its strong reputation among gamers, the company is set to field some new motherboards and graphics cards with top-tier performance in mind.

Leading the charge is the MSI Z270 Godlike Gaming motherboard, which the firm bills as the best component of its type that the company has ever produced. It has been outfitted with cutting-edge LAN technologies, which should ensure the best possible experience during online play.

Gamers can connect other PCs and notebooks to their system via Ethernet to take advantage of networking specialist Killer’s advanced bandwidth management system to yield low latency. Consoles and mobile devices can also be connected via Killer Wi-Fi.

The Z270 also packs Audio Boost 4 Xtreme technology, which uses an ESS digital-to-analog converter and two dedicated audio processors to offer the ability to use headphones and a set of speakers at the same time.

Meanwhile, the MSI X370 Gaming M7 motherboard has been designed to offer superior stability when it matters the most, especially for users who want to overclock their hardware. It also takes advantage of the latest fast storage standards, like U.2, Twin Turbo M.2 with a patented M.2 shield, USB 3.1 Gen 2, and front USB Type-C to provide the fastest possible speeds for any data transfer operation.

In terms of graphics cards, MSI is preparing to showcase the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z, which is said to combine groundbreaking new technology with tried-and-tested features like a TriFrozr cooler, a TORX 2.0 fan, Mystic Light LED effects, and Military Class 4 components.

Finally, there’s the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G, which combines graphics powered by Pascal with MSI’s TwinFrozr VI thermal design, providing excellent visuals with peak performance and power efficiency. The card supports USB Type-C, for interfacing that’s as flexible as possible.

These products and more will be on show at MSI’s Computex booth between May 30 and June 3.