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Showing posts from December, 2015

Discrete cuckoo clock using Tasker – Android customization

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We actually had some fun last week going over some of our best Android customization posts from the year, it reminded us some of the fun we’ve had. It’s almost the new year now, and forgive me for stretching here, but I am inspired to think of time. Before we really dive into root stuff, let’s do one more lazy Tasker project, a clock. The idea is simple, we’re building a type of cuckoo clock, but silent. Every hour, on the hour, we’ll make your phone vibrate one tick for each hour of the current time. Simple enough, at 4pm, your device will vibrate four quick spurts (or 16 if you use the 24 hour clock like I do) and there is no need to pull your phone out to check the time. Hey, it’s the end of the year, let’s have some fun. Truth is, I was planning to give you a big project here today, we were going to use Tasker to act as a musical instrument, to play Auld Lang Syne. Feel free to check out MIDI and all the magic and horror it can bring, or hold on, perhaps I’ll get this thing wo

India hits 1 billion smartphone users

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Pabak Sarkar The Indian smartphone market made a 0.7 percent increase from September to October, vaulting the nation over the 1 billion user threshold to 1.03 billion users. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India just released this information yesterday , making India the second country in the world to reach this milestone. Anyone care to take a guess at what that first country was? Anyone? Anyone? See also: Sundar Pichai talks new internet initiatives for India 1 India’s population, which triples that of the United States, has created a ravenous market for the smartphone industry. Whereas the US really only has four major carriers, a proportional twelve battle over subscribers and contract holders in India. This fierce competition combines with other factors to make India’s phone bills some of the least expensive in the world. It’s no surprise that smartphone manufacturers and service providers in every time zone are turning an interested eye to this smartphone-hungry nat

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has the third best smartphone camera according to DxOMark

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While it’s no secret that the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a pretty stellar camera, its quality has now been made official. DxOMark has declared that everyone’s ‘phavorite phablet’ has the third best smartphone camera currently on the market. DxOMark is something of a touchstone resource for image quality comparisons.  Their analysis of camera quality of devices across the board is widely regarded as both thorough and unbiased. They’ve given the Galaxy Note 5’s camera a score of 86, ranking just below the tied-for-first camera cappos: the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus and the Sony Xperia Z5 . The pair eked out the win by a hair’s breadth with an 87 each. What makes the Galaxy Note 5’s camera so outstanding? DxOMark points to the 16 MP rear shooter’s ability to maintain balanced contrast and exposure regardless of whether or not lighting conditions are ideal. The Note 5 has a built-in feature that detects when high-light situations would result in overexposure and activates its HDR

Lucky user receives test build update on Huawei Watch, brings audio and speaker support

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Back in November Google announced that Android Wear was gaining support for cellular connectivity , as well as support for speakers and phone calls . These three features were supposed to be the big selling points for LG’s Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, which unfortunately never made it to market due to hardware issues. This meant we never really got the chance to play around with these features and to see how they worked on the Android Wear platform. With that said, the new version of Android Wear that brings speaker support might not be too far off, according to one lucky user on Reddit . According to the posting, Huawei has sent out an updated build of Wear to Huawei Watch owners enrolled in a special user test group that brings full audio and speaker support. The user’s Huawei Watch received an update to Android Wear build 1.4.0, running atop Android 6.0.1. The user says his device’s speaker is now functional, and he can place and receive phone calls directly from his watch.

Square Enix is bringing Final Fantasy IX to Android

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Square Enix has been working to bring just about every Final Fantasy game to mobile devices for the past couple years, and it has just announced its next re-release that’s coming to mobile. Final Fantasy IX, one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time, is coming to Android, iOS and PC sometime in 2016. While there’s no specific release date nailed down as of yet, we’re just excited that the game developer has decided to bring this iconic title to Android. We’re not entirely sure how much Square Enix plans to change in this mobile-friendly version, but we can conclude, at least from the trailer attached above, that we’ll be seeing some improved graphics and smoother animations. Square Enix is promising “high-definition graphics, newly added achievements, auto-save, high speed mode and several game boosting features.” There are no details regarding any of these new achievements or ‘game boosting features’ so far, so we’ll need to wait for more information in the new year. Rel

Deal: Getflix easily unlocks geo-restricted streaming services (88% off)

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Ever wanted to use geo-restricted streaming services outside the USA? It can be a bit of a hassle. Companies like Netflix and Hulu (among many others) can’t be accessed everywhere, and the most common way to bypass this is by using a VPN. The truth is that most VPN services are confusing, hard to set up and a bit expensive, though. Not to mention the fact that people don’t always want to reroute all their internet activity. Especially considering using these virtual private networks can slow your internet down. How do you get around this? Those who simply want to stream some movies can now go with Getflix, which happens to be 88% off from the AA Deals Store right now. Getflix will unlock over 100 video channels for your viewing pleasure. It will reroute only your streaming data, leaving the rest of your device untouched and using the regular network. The best part is that it will cost you only $39 to get a lifetime subscription! I have paid that amount of money for 2 months of VP

2015 in review: 10 defining moments in the world of Android

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Looking back at 2015, we’ve had a hell of a year. Not only have we seen quite a few impressive phones introduced over the last twelve months, but there has also been a number of big surprises, changes, and innovations in the world of Android this year, some of which could set the tone for 2016 and beyond. With that in mind, we are taking a look at just 10 “defining moments” of 2015 that not only shook up the Android world this year but could have lasting effects going forward. 1) Samsung’s plastic days are over For years, Samsung was criticized for its overuse of what many called cheap plastic . Despite a few attempts to change up the design in minor ways, it wasn’t until this year that Samsung finally gave users a massive update to its design language with the unibody glass and metal Galaxy S6 . Since then, we’ve seen the same design makes its way over to the Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Plus. The new design language isn’t without its own set of controversies, however . The unibody