Sprint Outs Upcoming KitKat Updates for Note II, S4 Mini and Others
Sprint put up a bit of a silly little release on their newsroom page today. It announced that Android 4.4.2 updates were beginning to roll out to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It is funny simply because the S4 update started on February 13th and the Note 3′s update started on February 20th. We are sure there are plenty of people out there that don’t know the updates are rolling out, so it is still good that they posted about it, but still, seems a bit late to make it a Newsroom item.
Along with that little announcement Sprint also makes mention of four other Samsung devices that will be getting the update. As it sits today, Sprint plans to push out Android 4.4.2 to the Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S4 Mini, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Mega and the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0. They don;t mention when the updates for any of the devices will start to take place, but at least we know Sprint at least plans to make it happen. Our best guess would be that two or three device updates will start popping up in a few weeks after the current Note 3 and S4 updates near completion.
Source: Sprint Newsroom
Via AndroidHeadlines
Gmail for iOS now fetches for mail in the background, simplifies log-in
Today, Google updated its Gmail app on Apple’s mobile platform, bringing with it some features bound to be very useful for users. The iOS application is finally capable of fetching mail in the background, so new stuff can hit your inbox at any given time — not just when you open the app. For the background app refresh to work as intended, however, the company points out that notifications will need to be turned on. Google’s also made its sign-in process more streamlined, meaning that once you log into the Gmail app, you’ll automatically be signed in to other iOS apps from the search giant. Because, c’mon, Google wants you to be doing Google things all the time.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile, Apple, Google
Source: App Store
OnLive reborn: can the cloud gaming company find footing with two new services?
In early August 2012, OnLive employees told us that the cloud gaming company was close to falling apart. Despite creating an impressive service rooted in a futuristic idea — playing bleeding edge PC games on the highest settings, remotely, streaming from the cloud to virtually any device — a cocktail of financial issues all crested at once. The result was mass layoffs (“at least” 50 percent), including lead evangelist and company CEO Steve Perlman. OnLive had a new owner, venture capitalist Gary Lauder, and a renewed directive to become profitable. Then, the company went silent.
“My focus has been on turning this from proof of concept into a real business.”– Gary Lauder
Its services continued operating — business as usual, as it were — and as media, we didn’t hear a peep. The usual trade show appearances and interview opportunities dried up. Our last post about OnLive before this was in February 2013. Today, that’s changing: the company is re-opening the lines of communication, announcing two new initiatives in CloudLift and OnLive Go.
The first, CloudLift, takes the cloud streaming concept of OnLive and applies it to games you already own. By logging in with a Steam account (required, at least for now), games you’ve got attached will be “unlocked” in the cloud, playable using the OnLive client or Microconsole anywhere else (including save data that syncs between devices). Of course, not all games registered or bought through Steam will work with CloudLift; just 20 games are launching with the service today, with “dozens more planned.” Lauder told us OnLive’s game onboarding process has been streamlined significantly, specifically with the intent to bring more games, more rapidly to OnLive.
The First 20 Games
| Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY | Batman: Arkham City GOTY |
| Batman: Arkham Origins | Darksiders II |
| Dead Island GOTY | Dead Island: Riptide |
| LEGO The Lord of the Rings | Metro 2033 |
| Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition | MX vs. ATV Reflex |
| Painkiller: Hell and Damnation | Red Faction: Armageddon |
| Saints Row IV | Scribblenauts Unlimited |
| Strike Suit Zero | The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles |
| The LEGO Movie Videogame | The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief |
| Truck Racer | Type: Rider |
Interested? OnLive’s hoping you’re interested enough to drop $15 every month for the functionality (there’s also a seven-day trial). It goes live today.
The other side of today’s news is a totally new route for OnLive. A new business unit, dubbed “OnLive Go,” takes the company’s cloud abilities and applies them to other people’s stuff. The first example is “SL Go” (or “Second Life: Go”), a mobile interface for…you guessed it, Second Life. In this particular example, OnLive’s powering cloud support for Second Life on Android. In another example, OnLive’s working with Gaijin Entertainment to help support people testing out games — rather than having to download a huge file and start a game, you can just stream a demo.
OnLive’s executive staff called this a “much more efficient” method of stabilizing the company, while still supporting legacy customers. It’s not hard to see their logic: Gaikai employed the same method for growth before being purchased by Sony for a whopping $380 million. Lauder insists that the goal here isn’t to “flip the company,” but “to build value — and lasting value — whether it’s for us or for some future suitor.”
So, what does that mean for those of us still using OnLive’s PlayPass system? It is no more, “but users who have purchased games will continue to have access to them,” an OnLive rep told us. The functionality is being replaced (and enhanced) by CloudLift, thus obviating its continued existence. The PlayPack “all-you-can-eat” model — which costs $10/month and offers access to all of OnLive’s games — remains in place.
Whether these moves will turn OnLive around is still up in the air, but Lauder and co. certainly sound more realistic than their predecessors. With major players embracing game streaming in PlayStation Now and Steam, the playing field is more crowded than ever. OnLive is certainly the underdog here: can it fight its way back?
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD
Source: OnLive
Adobe’s all-in-one photo app Revel arrives on Android
If one of the many, many photo apps on Android isn’t doing it for you, Adobe’s just added Revel to the fray. Though it’s touting features like ease-of-use, automatic syncing, sharing and privacy for the app (which has been on iOS for quite a while), we actually found the built-in Photoshop Express-like features to be the best part. Those include scaling, rotation, brightness, contrast, filters and other handy adjustments, with a much simpler interface than Photoshop Express (thank goodness). If interested, you can upload all the photos and video you want for the first 30 days, then add 50 videos or photos a month for free after that. For unlimited storage, you’ll pay $6 per month or $60 per year. A notable oversight is that Creative Cloud subscribers don’t get free access, as it would let pros share their portfolios more easily. As for as the privacy, it’ll probably take us quite a bit more time to get over some deep trust issues.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Via: CNET
Source: Adobe (Google Play)
Chrome beta for Android lets you send web videos to your Chromecast
Want to stream any web video from your smartphone to your Chromecast? Grab the beta release of Chrome 34 for Android. The browser includes experimental support for sending embedded clips to Google’s media stick, saving you from launching a native app just to watch something on a TV. As you’d expect, there are some compatibility hiccups at this early stage. YouTube works well (surprise!), but other sites are hit and miss — you’re best off sticking to videos from major, HTML5-friendly hosts like Vimeo. If you’re willing to live with some inconsistencies, though, you can try the streaming feature today.
[Image credit: WhyYouPaul, Reddit]
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, HD, Mobile, Google
Via: Liliputing
Source: Reddit, Google Chrome Releases
Tell Gmail what to do with the latest Dragon Dictate for Mac
Let’s face it: not everyone uses Nuance’s Dragon Dictate software to power a ridiculously automated dorm room, the less creative among us have had to get by using it to take notes or write term papers. No matter what you do with it, however, you might appreciate that the latest Mac version of the app lets you use your mouth instead of your fingers to write emails and navigate your inbox — so long as you’re using Firefox or Safari to access Gmail. You can tell Mac’s word processor, Pages, what to do too. Beyond that, Dictate will also transcribe single-speaker recordings either from a smartphone or digital voice recorder now (including .mp3 and .wav files), and, what’s more, it apparently boasts improved voice recognition accuracy. The suite is $200 directly from the developer should you want to give your hands a rest, or perhaps you just really like hearing the sound of your own voice.
Filed under: Software
Via: 9to5Mac
Source: Nuance
Google Play Store’s 2nd Birthday is soon, Happy Birthday Deals Coming
The official swap from the Android Market to the Google Play Store happened almost 2 years ago. I can’t believe it has been that long. I still vividly remember how anti Play Store everyone was for the first 6 months or so, so much so that people even reverted back to the Android Market and turned updates off they didn’t have to see the new Play Store. As with all things over time everyone became more accepting and now we can’t live without it.
As with all Birthdays and events that are pretty important in Androids life, Google like to celebrate a little with some deals for us all. The 2nd Birthday of the Play Store re-branding is no different and apparently there will be some pretty sweet little deals rolling out soon. A tipster on Reddit from Australia shared the details. While here in the U.S. I am not able to. However, if you toggle your region to Australia with your tech savvy trickery, you can pull them up. In a nutshell, we should see these same offers posting up on our U.S. Play Store late tonight since Australia is considerably further ahead in time than we are.
The Birthday deals will run across all the various offerings of the Play Store. From Books, to Magazines, to a 24-hour music sale to apps and games. The list that was compiled is particularly for Australian users and we are pretty certain that the U.S. offerings and price tags will be a bit different. Here is the list that has been compiled though.
- “FIFA 14″ by EA – Free
- “MOVIE: Disaster Movie: – AU$0.99
- GQ Australia Magazine Subscription – 30% off
- “Theme Park” By EA – Free
- “BOOK: I Came To Say Goodbye” by Caroline Overington – AU$4.99
- “Heroes of Dragon Age” By EA – Free
- “Tiny City” by Chillingo International – Free
- “BOOK: Outback Dreams” by Rachael Johns – AU$4.99
- “The Sims Free to Play” by EA – Free
- “MAGAZINE: Taste.com.au” – AU$2.99
- “Need for Speed Most Wanted” by EA – AU$5.49
- “MOVIE: Vanity Fair” – AU$0.99
- “Bejeweled Blitz” by EA – Free
- “BOOK: The Luminaries” by Eleanor Catton – AU$4.99
- “MOVIE: Thirteen” – AU$0.99
- “BOOK: Burning Lies” by Helene Young – AU$4.99
- “Dungeon Keeper” by EA – Free
- “MAGAZINE: Super Food Ideas” – AU$1.99
- “Dead Ahead Game” by Chillingo International – Free
- “NBA Jam” by EA – AU$5.49
Fairly certain NBA Jam won’t go up by $0.50 for a birthday deal. Also, titles that are already free will be free, of course that means there will be specials on in-app purchases or various little party packs, add-ons or little things inside the games.
We will be keeping our eyes peeled for when they are live and do our best to alert you. Alternatively, the permalink for the deals location page has already been outed. Just head to the Google Play Store. It won’t be found on the server yet, but it should come on live later.
Source: Reddit via AndroidGuys
Deals: Google Play Store
Android 4.4.2 OTA Rolling Out for Sprint Moto X Users
Those of you rocking a Moto X on the Sprint network should have a nice surprise hitting your notification tray today, or shortly. Sprint is currently in the process of rolling out the Android 4.4.2 update across the carrier supporting devices. The update will carry a version of 161.44.32.ghost_sprint.Sprint.en.US and offers up some enhancements that you are sure to be happy to see.
The support document says it should be available for everyone right now. If you don’t see it, or haven’t picked it up yet, head into the settings, About Phone, System Updates and proceed to download and install it. You will want to make sure you have over 50% battery life and are able to stay connected to Wi-Fi until the process is over.
Source: Motorola
Via AndroidPolice
Rival cycle: Beats Music VP of product reportedly headed to Spotify
It looks like Beats Music’s uphill battle to upstage the incumbent streaming services just took a hit. CNET reports that Fredric Vinna, product lead and one of the outfit’s early creators (alongside Trent Reznor et al.) back in 2011, is on his way to one of its biggest rivals: Spotify. The departure comes a little over a month after the launch of Beats Music and is breaking on the heels of the acquisition of Topspin — whose ArtistLink service is embedded inside both streaming options for merch and ticket sales. Artist Tools in Beats Music are also built using the Topspin’s platform, and the duo should bring even more artist-to-listener interaction as the service looks to further differentiate itself. However, now it’s in need of a new captain to take the product reigns.
Beats Music declined to comment on the matter when we reached out. We’ve contacted Spotify as well and we’ll be sure to update this post when we hear back.
Filed under: Software
Source: CNET
HBO Go arrives on PlayStation 3 today
It’s been a long time coming, but today the HBO Go app is finally available on PlayStation 3. Sadly, those of us who moved last-gen’s consoles out of the living room to make space for shiny new ones are still in the lurch — the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are still missing release dates. But for the rest of us, still enjoying The Last of Us‘ DLC or soaking up those delicious free PS+ games, there are episodes of True Detective to watch! Starting today!
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Software, HD, Sony
Source: HBO
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