Here’s how tech influencers reacted to the FCC’s net neutrality repeal

After months of anticipation, the fate of the internet has been decided. On Thursday, December 14, the Federal Communications Commission voted to reverse net neutrality regulations. The Restore Internet Freedom declaratory ruling that passed in a 3-2 vote, meaning there are no regulations in place to stop service providers from blocking or slowing down access to content.

The internet didn’t break down — yet — and people, companies, and organizations have taken to social media to voice their opinions freely. Here are a collection of reactions to the FCC’s net neutrality repeal.

Jessica Rosenworcel, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission:

The @FCC voted to roll back #NetNeutality today. History will not be kind to this vote to destroy Internet openness. But this is not over. I'm not stopping here or now–and neither should you. Let's keep up the fight. Let's keep raising a ruckus. The future depends on it.

— Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) December 14, 2017

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman:

“This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but you should all be proud of the awareness you’ve created. Those who thought that they’d be able to quietly repeal net neutrality without anyone noticing or caring learned a thing or two, and we still may come out on top of this yet.”

Michael Powell, National Cable and Telecommunications Association president and CEO:

“Today’s FCC action rightly restores the light-touch approach to government regulation of the internet that has fostered the development of a vibrant, open and innovative platform. For decades, America’s internet service providers have delivered an open internet — allowing consumers to enjoy the lawful internet content and applications of their choosing. Nothing in this decision alters that commitment — ISPs have stated repeatedly that they do not and will not block, throttle or unfairly discriminate in how internet traffic is delivered.”

Ed Markey, Democratic senator from Massachusetts:

My fellow @SenateDems will fight the @FCC’s repeal of #NetNeutrality in courts and in the halls of Congress. We will not allow massive broadband corporations to throttle our democracy.https://t.co/jyhYvFDZzS

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) December 14, 2017

Tom Wheeler, former Chairman of the FCC:

“With this vote, the FCC walked away from over a decade of bipartisan efforts to oversee the fairness and openness of companies such as Comcast, AT&T, Charter, and Verizon. These four companies control over 75 percent of the residential internet access in America, usually through a local monopoly. Henceforth, they will be able to make their own rules, subject only to very limited after-the-fact review.”

Eric Schneiderman, New York State Attorney General:

I will sue to stop the FCC’s illegal rollback of #netneutrality. New Yorkers and all Americans deserve a free and open internet. pic.twitter.com/BNW7TDsp4z

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) December 14, 2017

Bob Quinn, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs:

“For more than a decade, under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, AT&T has consistently made clear that we provide broadband service in an open and transparent way.  We do not block websites, nor censor online content, nor throttle or degrade traffic based on the content, nor unfairly discriminate in our treatment of internet traffic … In short, the internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has. Despite the existence and the enforceability of all of these commitments, we have, since 2010, also repeatedly called for a non-Title II legislative solution that would make these consumer protections permanent.”

Netflix:

We’re disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large & small, to oppose this misguided FCC order.

— Netflix US (@netflix) December 14, 2017

USTelecom:

“The FCC’s smart broadband protections encourage continued network investment, which is a win for rural Americans. Those winding country roads are intersecting with a vast information superhighway to improve local economies, education, and quality-of-life.”

Travis Helwig, screenwriter:

Why are we talking about #NetNeutrality like it’s about saving memes? Without access to the internet, it’s almost impossible to apply for a job or college or pay your bills. @AjitPaiFCC just made poor people poorer and rich people richer.

— Travis Helwig (@travishelwig) December 14, 2017

Michael Beckerman, Internet Association President and CEO:

“The internet industry opposes Chairman Pai’s repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order. Today’s vote represents a departure from more than a decade of broad, bipartisan consensus on the rules governing the internet. Relying on ISPs to live up to their own ‘promises’ is not net neutrality and is bad for consumers.”

Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington

Washington state will act under our own authority, our own laws and our own jurisdiction to protect #NetNeutrality for all of Washington's citizens. pic.twitter.com/K5eE1o5W6R

— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) December 13, 2017

Cinnamon Rogers, Telecommunications Industry Association senior vice president for government affairs:

“Today’s vote paves the way for a free and open internet, which everyone agrees is essential for growth, innovation and consumer opportunity. We strongly support the FCC’s new plan, which achieves this goal by relying on smart technology and technologists, rather than on restrictive regulations and lawyers.”

Professor Barbara van Schewick, Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society

“Today’s vote is a stain on the FCC. For decades, the FCC prided itself on being careful, deliberate and transparent in its mission to keep the internet open for free speech, commerce, and innovation, while maintaining incentives for broadband providers to invest. This FCC has failed to live up to that standard.”

We will continue to update this article with more reactions.

How to use desktop mode on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro

If you’ve got a Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone, then we want to make sure you’re using every great feature, and one you really should try is its desktop mode. It’s part of EMUI 8.0, Huawei’s user interface on the smartphone, and it’s called Easy Projection. Plug your phone into an external monitor and you’re instantly given a full screen desktop experience, based on the Android operating system on your phone.

It’s simple to set up, and works very well, with control features available on your phone so there’s no need for an external keyboard or mouse. Here’s how to use desktop mode on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro.

What you need

You need a Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone. If you haven’t bought one yet, our Mate 10 Pro review will tell you why you really should. You also need an external monitor with at least one HDMI port, and we’ve got our picks of the best monitors you can buy here. Finally, you need a USB Type-C to HDMI cable.

The cable is the important part here. Huawei doesn’t supply or sell one, so you’ll have to turn to another source. We found difficulty locating one in computer retail stores, so we recommend finding one online. Pay attention to the length of cable. The phone is used to control desktop mode, so if the cable is too short, you may not have the freedom of movement you’ll need. We chose this Choetech cable from Amazon, which is less than $20, and is 1.8m in length. It worked perfectly for us, but there are other alternatives too.

Getting started

You’ve got your phone, cable, and monitor, so now it’s time to set up desktop mode. Here’s how easy it is. Just make sure your phone has plenty of battery power, as it’s not possible to charge and use Easy Projection mode at the same time.

Take your USB Type-C to HDMI cable and plug it into a spare HDMI port on your monitor, keeping the USB Type-C end free and easy to access. You don’t need to do anything to your phone, or the monitor at all just yet.

Plug the USB Type-C cable into your Huawei Mate 10 Pro. You should feel it vibrate. If it’s the first time using Easy Projection, then a series of screens guiding your through the way it works will show up. If you missed them, you can see them below:

Pull down the notification shade on the phone and look for the alert saying: “Touch to switch to Desktop mode”, and tap it. If you need to, change the source on your monitor. You will see either a recreation of your phone screen, or the EMUI desktop. If your phone screen shows on the monitor, tap the notification alert again on your phone. To return to the phone screen, tap the notification alert saying, “Touch to switch to Phone mode.”

Next, activate the virtual touchpad on the phone, by returning to the notification shade and tapping the alert saying: “Virtual keyboard and mouse.” This turns your phone screen into a touchpad to control the onscreen pointer. When you select an area that requires text, a keyboard will pop up on the phone screen, with a small touchpad area above it.

How to use desktop mode’s controls

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Your Huawei phone’s screen becomes a virtual keyboard and mouse. Slide a single finger around the screen to move the on-screen pointer. Tap once for a left-click on a mouse, and double tap to select text, or to shift windows around the screen. A two-fingered tap works like a right click on a mouse, and finally, sliding two fingers up and down the screen scrolls through web pages and apps.

What can you do?

How much value you get from desktop mode depends on your expectations. On the desktop there are shortcuts to Chrome, email, videos stored on your phone, and the gallery. All these are simple to use and provide native-feeling experiences. Browsing the web and looking at the photos on your phone is great.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Look down in the bottom right of the screen to find phone connectivity status, battery percentage, and the usual Android navigation keys. On the bottom left side shortcuts to open apps will appear, alongside a menu key. Tap this to find all the apps suitable for use with desktop mode.

Look for a folder called Third-party apps. Tap it once to open. Huawei warns that some apps won’t work correctly in Easy Projection, and it’s right. If you hope to play games, you’re going to be disappointed, as there’s no easy way to use apps with touchscreen controls. We tried Reckless Racing 3 and Happy Hop, neither of which could be played in this mode.

However, Twitter works perfectly, along with messaging apps like WhatsApp and Line, plus Huawei’s own Notepad app and Microsoft Word. Take Word fullscreen and it’s just like using Word on a PC, only you type using the phone’s keyboard. If you have a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, you may be able to pair them with your phone to make them work (although we have not tested this yet).

When you finish, just unplug the cable from your phone. That’s it, have fun exploring the mate 10 Pro’s desktop mode.

If you have a Samsung Galaxy S8 or a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, you can do something similar if you purchase the DeX dock station, and you should check out our review to see what it’s like.

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Tick fossil found. Dinosaur traces inside. Theme park doubtful

Remember how Jurassic Park started with geologists finding chunks of amber containing mosquitoes filled with dinosaur blood? An international team of scientists led by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Oxford just made a similar discovery — evidence that ticks once fed on the blood of dinosaurs — after studying parasites preserved in a 99 million-year-old piece of fossilized amber. And while they don’t have any plans to try and clone dinosaurs and open a global theme park, their findings could help shed more light on what we know about dinos.

“That ticks sucked the blood of dinosaurs had been previously hypothesized, but never before a fossil tick had been found associated to remains of its host,” researcher Dr. Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente, from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, told Digital Trends. “Although we cannot know the exact type of feathered dinosaur that ticks were parasitizing, modern birds can be ruled out because they appeared about 25 million years later than the age of Burmese amber following current molecular and paleontological evidence.”

The ancient tick found by the researchers, named Deinocroton draculi, or “Dracula’s terrible tick”, is very different from almost any living tick. The fossil records are very poor when it comes to specimens of this species, and the researchers hope that the discovery will help plug some important knowledge gaps.

Sadly, what it won’t be doing is leading to dinosaurs walking the Earth once more. “So far, and using modern techniques, extracting coherently preserved genetic material from inclusions preserved in amber has proven impossible,” Enrique Peñalver, a researcher from Museo Geominero in Spain, told Digital Trends. “DNA is a very fragile molecule, and even in ideal conditions, it is destroyed before 1 million years. For that reason, scientists think that it cannot be preserved in any amber. An additional — but certainly not minor — problem would be that we cannot use dinosaur ovules for cloning. Ovules contain very complex information key for the development of the embryo, and there are no suitable ovules among the extant biota that can be used to clone the ancient dinosaur DNA.”

On this occasion it seems that life, unfortunately, won’t find a way.

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Google Flights will now tell you if you should wait to buy those tickets

Google’s travel tools are getting even more budget-friendly. On Thursday, December 14, the company announced new tools for Google Flights as well as saving on searches for hotels and now, attractions.

The tools continue an update that launched earlier in 2017 that told travelers if prices were lower or higher than normal. Now, inside Google Flights, the same tool will also tell you how much lower or higher than usual the price is and, even more importantly, whether or not prices are expected to drop or increase between now and the departure date.

A similar tool is rolling out for hotel searches inside Google. Now, along with triggering options to add check-in dates and pricing parameters, Google will now tell you if those dates are busier than usual. A line of text above the hotels will warn travelers of busy travel seasons — for example, pointing out when you have selected dates that are during popular travel holidays. Google says the tool will also alert users if they are trying to head to town when a large conference or other event is also in the area, making rooms scarce and driving prices up.

While Google already has travel alerts by email for flights, users can now get hotel alerts on a smartphone, with a similar tool expected to arrive after the new year.

The final update isn’t about getting there or where to stay, but what to do when you are there. The Google Trips app now has a discounts section that allows travelers to search for price drops on attractions. The new feature allows travelers to access discounted tickets for attractions from the same app that can handle the flight and accommodations.

The update expands the travel tools Google announced over the summer. While the earlier feature would show if the price had decreased recently, the algorithms will not also estimate if those prices will go down further — or if they will only go up from there. The same update brought parameters to hotel searches, allowing travelers to find a hotel that will also welcome their dog, for example, or accommodations that also have a pool.

The price predictions are accessible all through a Google search, while additional tools and the discounted attractions will be rolling out to the free Google Trips app.

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Best External Hard Drives for PlayStation 4

The days of cracking open a PS4 for expansion are over!

PlayStation 4 owners have no shortage of choice when it comes to storage expansion. Popping out the internal drive is fairly easy, but if you don’t want to go through that trouble there’s an alternative. Just plug a USB hard drive into your console, and instantly you have all the storage you could ever need.

All you need now is to pick the right drive for your needs. Here are some solid options available to you today.

Toshiba Canvio Connect II

If you need a storage bump but don’t want to take up another power outlet on your entertainment center or would prefer the hard drive be easy to hide away, Toshiba has what you need. The Canvio Connect II is a 1TB hard drive that is powered by the USB port and is small enough to tuck away behind the console.

This will effectively double the storage of the more spacious PS4s you can buy today, and will be more than enough for those upgrading a 500GB console. And for $52 you don’t have to worry about hitting the wallet too hard.

See at Amazon

Western Digital WD Elements

People who want to massively upgrade the storage on their PS4 but don’t want the hard drive to take up a lot of space aren’t left with a ton of options, but one of the better choices comes from Western Digital. The WD Elements series isn’t small enough to be pocketable, but can be concealed on most entertainment centers. Most important of all, it’s a 2TB drive, so you’re unlikely to fill it with your PlayStation 4 games anytime soon.

WD Elements do also come in 1TB and 3TB variants, but for $70 the 2TB model is the most competitively priced and will be more than enough for most PS4 owners.

See at Amazon

Seagate Expansion

If all you really care about is storage, and you want to make sure you never have to worry about running out of storage on your PlayStation 4 ever again, the Seagate Expansion series has you covered. These external hard drives will go up to 5TB in capacity, but is one of the few 3TB options for under $100 if you’re also concerned with your budget.

These drives are big, so don’t grab one thinking you’re going to be able to easily hide it next to your PlayStation 4. As long as that isn’t a problem for you, these $80 drives will get the job done.

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BYOD (Bring Your Own Drive)

Not everyone needs to buy a whole new external drive to expand a PlayStation 4; you just need a solid enclosure to put an existing drive in. If that’s you, the Inateck enclosure is everything you need. It’s USB 3.0 enabled, offers an aluminum body to better handle heat dissipation when under stress, and doesn’t require any additional software to set up.

Drop your drive in, connect to your PlayStation 4, and you’re done. Not bad for $28, assuming you already have a drive you aren’t using.

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Update December 2017: This post has been updated with our favorite portable drives for PlayStation 4.

Why are we talking about PlayStation 4 stuff on Android Central? Let us explain.

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Amazon will once again sell Chromecast and Apple TV

Is Amazon’s dispute with Google finally coming to an end?

Google Chromecast and Apple TV are two of the most popular ways to stream online content to your TV, but if you tried searching for these gadgets on Amazon, you wouldn’t have any idea that they even existed. Amazon stopped selling Chromecast and Apple TV products around two years ago likely as a result of them being direct competitors to its Fire TV lineup, but it looks like this is finally changing.

According to a spokeswoman from Amazon that spoke with CNET, “I can confirm that we are assorting Apple TV and Chromecast.” No other details on the change were given aside from this, but this is exciting news for Amazon shoppers that want more options when shopping for streaming boxes.

Amazon will be selling the Google Chromecast, Chromecast Ultra, 4th generation Apple TV, and the Apple TV 4K, and while the products are all listed on the site, they appear as “currently unavailable” with no option to actually buy them just yet.

This is awesome news for sure, but why make the change now?

The reappearance of the Chromecast might be a result of Google’s action against YouTube on Fire TV.

Amazon stated back in 2015 that it removed the streaming products because they didn’t offer a way to access Prime Video content, but earlier this month, an Amazon Prime Video app was finally launched for the Apple TV. As for reinstating sales of the Chromecast, this could be attributed as a peace offering to Google after the search giant announced that it’d be revoking its YouTube app from Amazon’s Fire TV platform in 2018.

All appears to be hunky dory with Amazon and Apple now, so here’s to hoping we’ll be able to say the same about Amazon and Google at some point soon.

YouTube won’t be available on Fire TV or Echo Show starting January 1

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The Polaroid Moto Mod prints retro photos with incredible technology

Eighty years ago, a company called Polaroid sprouted from a garage not far from the current location of the MrMobile studio. The company’s founder soon developed a special polarization technology that was rapidly adopted across a slew of products ranging from desk lamps to sunglasses. That work later led to military contracts including pilot goggles, spy satellites, and a special synthetic quinine for treating malaria in troops serving in tropical regions. While that last bit sounds out of character for a company specializing in optical science, it isn’t: quinine has photosensitive properties that make it useful for photography. Over the next 40 years that’s where Polaroid built its empire: with instant cameras that didn’t need a darkroom to develop their film.

Flash forward to 2017. The new Polaroid Moto Mod (or Polaroid Insta-Share Printer, to be precise) doesn’t use any of the technology mentioned above. What’s more, the “Polaroid” brand on its backside has been bought and sold so many times it’s almost meaningless today. But two things tie this mobile printer to it roots: it still produces instant photos you can hold, and it uses technology that got its start inside Polaroid Corporation to do it. Join me for a look at the latest Moto Mod for Moto Z smartphones, a new take on the old “instant camera,” the Polaroid Insta-Share Printer!

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The $2 Blood, Sweat, and Pixels eBook explores the turbulent world of making video games

You think beating that final boss was hard? Try designing him in the first place.

Amazon has discounted dozens of Kindle books during a huge one-day sale, including some great reads like Blood, Sweat, and Pixels for $1.99. That’s a price that won’t be here tomorrow.

You don’t need an Amazon device to read a Kindle book. Read it anywhere you can download the Kindle app, including iOS and Android.

And if you don’t want to read it yourself but know a gamer who might be interested, remember you can click the “Give as a GIft” link on the product page and surprise a friend this holiday season.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels isn’t just a book about the joys of playing a new game or living out one’s dream of seeing the game they create become reality. It’s a real-life look at the games industry, the “crunch” time that happens right up until a game’s launch, and the stress game developers go through with each new title.

The book dives into stories covering some of the industry’s most successful games over the last few years, including The Witcher 3, Destiny, Uncharted 4, Stardew Valley, and more. Since these games made a lot of money, and you’ve probably played a few yourself, you might say there’s a happy ending most of the time. But none of those games got into your hands without trouble, and there is one chapter dedicated to Star Wars 1313, a game filled with promise that never saw the light of day.

The author, Jason Schreier, is a news editor for the gaming website Kotaku. If you want to see what this book is about, just look at some of the articles he’s written over the years including a story not in this book, the troubled five-year development of Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Check out the full Kindle sale going on right now.

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Best Arcade Games for Android

Bring back all the nostalgic feels with these arcade classics for Android.

For all the great new games that are released on Android, sometimes you want to play something … familiar. Maybe something a little retro that reminds you of those arcade days spent plugging quarters into standalone machines for hours on end.

You can relive those moments on your Android phone with these great arcade games available in the Google Play Store.

• PinOut
• PAC-MAN
• Galactic Nemesis
• Metal Slug 3
• R-Type
• SoulCalibur
• Crazy Taxi Classic
• Pinball Arcade
• NBA JAM

PinOut

PinOut is a brilliant reimagining of the classic pinball action we’re all familiar with into an endless arcade format, created by the award-winning developers behind Smash Hit. The game features sharp, futuristic graphics and smooth controls as it pits you in a race against the clock to see how far you can make it on one ball.

Unlike other pinball games that give you a set number of balls and have you focused on racking up combos and bonuses by strategically hitting bumpers and other features on the table, PinOut instead offers an infinite race against the clock on a seemingly neverending table. Tap to use the left and right flippers and strategically work the ball up through rails and onto the next section. Some rails feature a trail of dots which add time to the countdown clock at the top, so you’ll need to master your flipper control and focus on hitting the ball through the time bonus rails. If you fail to hit the ball and it falls between your flippers, the only penalty imposed is the time you waste getting the ball back up to where it once was. If the time runs out, it’s game over.

PinOut is a free download from the Google Play Store, but you might want to spend $2.99 on the one-time upgrade to premium to unlock the ability to start from previous checkpoints you’ve reached.

Download: PinOut (free with in-app purchases)

PAC-MAN

The quintessential arcade classic has been ported to Android over and over again, with a dozen of different twists on the tried and true gaming formula. But if you’re looking for a pure Pac-Man experience, Bandai-Namco’s free PAC-MAN app is everything you’ll need.

In Classic Mode, you’ll find everything looks and plays as you remember — minus the need for a stack of quarters. Once you’ve had your fill of the classic mazes, check out the collection of new mazes which add a new layer of strategy.

Tournament mode adds another layer of replay. Try and set the high score in regularly occurring tournaments against players from around the world.

PAC-MAN is a free download in the Google Play Store, and includes in-app purchases for different maze packs.

Download: PAC-MAN (free)

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Galactic Nemesis

Galactic Nemesis is an updated version of arcade classics like Galaga and Galaxian for your Android phone. Blast your way through wave after wave of alien invaders, upgrading your ship as you go.

Controls are dead simple. Tap and drag your finger around the screen to move and shoot at the same time. Power-ups collect along the right side of the screen, so simply tap them when you need a little help.
You get the first world for free but will have to pay $1.99 to unlock 3 other worlds. You’ll also get 10 ships to unlock, over 50 in-game challenges, and no ads.
With great pixel art, simple controls, and a winning gameplay formula, you can’t go wrong with Galactic Nemesis if you’re into classic arcade games.

Download: Galactic Nemesis (free with in-app purchases)

Metal Slug 3

A classic run-and-gun arcade title, Metal Slug 3 has been perfectly ported over to the Google Play Store and is worth checking out if you’re a fan of the original games or simply enjoy action arcade shooting games.

The Android version gives you multiple ways to play.There’s a single player campaign, which you can play in classic Arcade Mode or Mission Mode, which allows you to play your favorite mission or practice a particularly tough mission.

If your friends have the game, you can connect up via Bluetooth and play co-op modes. Metal Slug is always more fun with friends, so the addition of wireless local multiplayer greatly enhances the replay value.

Download: Metal Slug 3 ($2.99)

R-Type

Fans of R-Type will enjoy how smooth this classic side-scrolling shoot-em-up game plays on Android. Man your ship and take down the alien invasion one level at a time.

The game lets you control your ship directly via touch or using an on-screen joystick (Bluetooth controller support would have been nice here) and has a toggle for autofire. We’ve found the touch control to be the best compromise for allowing full control for evading enemies without obstructing too much of the screen.

Having reliable controls is important because this game is as tough as you remember it being. With wave after wave of enemies, tough boss battles, and one-hit deaths, you’re in for a real challenge with R-Type.

Download: R-Type ($1.99)

SoulCalibur

We’d be remiss to have a list of best arcade games without at least one fighting game making the cut. This port of Soul Calibur is one of the nicest direct ports we’ve seen, featuring (thankfully) updated graphics from the 1998 original.

Beyond the classic Arcade Mode, there are multiple game modes to enjoy: Time Attack challenges you to beat all characters as fast as you can, Survival sees how far you can go in sudden-death battles, and Extreme Survival cranks things up to see how far you can go without being hit.

Before you click your heels and jump into the Google Play Store to get this one, here’s the bad news: the price. At $13.99, this is priced more along the lines of a console download than a mobile offering. But this is essentially a full-fledged console game on your phone. This might be strictly for the hardcore SoulCalibur fans, but if you’re looking for a quality fighting game for your Android device, SoulCalibur is as good as you’ll find.

The only other downside besides the price is its lack of controller support; however, the virtual gamepad is surprisingly responsive and fully customizable.

Download: SoulCalibur ($13.99)

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Crazy Taxi Classic

Hop in! The classic arcade driving game Crazy Taxi has been ported to Android by Sega and it’s just as fun as you remember.

For those who might be unfamiliar with the concept, the game is a wicked-fast game where you play the raddest taxi driver in San Francisco as you break all the traffic stops to get your passengers to where they need to be as fast as possible. Featuring the classic punk sounds of The Offspring and Bad Religion, this game is a total throwback to the old arcade machines, or perhaps you remember the game best from the Sega Dreamcast.

You can play by classic arcade rules where you’re always working to extend the countdown timer, or see how much money you can rake in over a set amount of time. The game is free to play with ads, or you can remove the non-Sega ads via an in-app purchase.

Download: Crazy Taxi Classic (Free w/ads, $1.99 to unlock full game)

Pinball Arcade

For fans of pinball, nothing will quite replicate the experience of playing on a glass-top pinball cabinet. Pinball Arcade for Android might just be the next best thing, featuring 70 classic pinball tables.

Each table is faithfully reproduced with all original features and graphics in rather stunning 3D graphics.

You get the full Arabian Nights table for free and are able to play free versions of all of the other tables included in the game, but you must plop down some serious cash to get full access to the other tables, which are sold individually ($5-$9 per table) or as part of a Season Pack ($35-$42 per season pack).

These prices are going to be way too steep for most, but if you’re a hardcore Pinball fan who collects pinball cabinets, you’ll appreciate the ability to test and play classic tables for a fraction of the cost of owning one in real life.

Download: Pinball Arcade (free with in-app purchases)

NBA Jam

NBA Jam has been available on Android since October 2010, and yet it still remains one of the most polished and fun sports arcade games you can play on the platform.

This remake of the 90s classic features all the fast-paced two-on-two action you remember from back in the day, with upgraded graphics including hilarious big head animations for every player in the game. Touch controls are simple and responsive, making it super easy to set up an epic alley-oop, or sink three shots in a row and hear Tim Kitzrow — the original NBA JAM commentator — yell his infamous line, “HE’S ON FIRE!”

There are four modes of play and no in-app purchases or currencies to deal with, so you can jump into a game right away. On top of quick matches and a Classic Campaign where you can unlock legendary players and other goodies, you can play online (but good luck finding a random opponent) or with a friend over local Wi-Fi.

If you’re an NBA fan or a fan of the original game, NBA Jam should be a mainstay on your Android device.

Download: NBA Jam ($4.99)

Any arcade games we missed?

What are your favorite arcade-style games for Android? Any that should be added to our list? Let us know in the comments!

Update December 2017: Added Crazy Taxi Classic and NBA JAM to our list.

BLU Life One X3 now available after One X2 screw up

The BLU Life One X3 has a metal body, fingerprint sensor, and 5,000 mAh battery for just $149.

There’s a ton of great value to be found in the smartphone space these days, and one company that continually releases respectable hardware for not much cash is BLU. The Life One X3 is BLU’s latest unlocked Android handset to hit the market, and it really does look like a pretty good value.

The BLU Life One X3 has a regular price of $249, but for a limited time in honor of its release, you can purchase it for just $149. For that price, you’ll be getting a phone with a metal body, 5.5-inch 1080p Full HD display, front-facing fingerprint sensor, 13MP rear and front camera, and a massive 5,000 mAh battery. Inside the device is the MediaTek 6753 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB of expandable storage (up to 64GB), and Android 7.0 Nougat.

Being able to get that much phone for $149 is a great value, and while the One X3 might be worth checking out, it’s worth mentioning that BLU really dropped the ball recently. The company accidentally locked its users of the One X2 out of their phone with a faulty software update, and it took the company almost an entire week to come up with a fix – let alone reach out to its customers to let them know that it was aware of what was going on.

The BLU Life One X3.

We aren’t saying that the Life One X3 will be faced with a similar issue, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind.

If you’re still interested in picking up the One X3, click/tap the button below.

See at Amazon