Author Archive | Jared Newman

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Will Put Apps in Your Apps

Posted by Jared Newman on July 5, 2011 at 11:08 pm

Samsung may be onto something with the TouchWiz interface that it plans to release for the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

A new promotional video for the tablet shows off what Samsung is calling “Mini Apps” — a collection of utilities that can be launched on top of other Android applications. These include a notepad, calendar, task manager, clock, music player and calculator. They’re the kind of utlities you’d find on a desktop OS, coming in handy for other tasks.

Tablets need more of this. One of my big frustrations with current tablet software is how inconvenient it can be to perform one task that requires two programs, such as taking notes off a web page or adding up numbers from an e-mail. Switching between apps can be a chore if you have to go back and forth several times.

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Something’s Fishy About This Playstation 4 Rumor

Posted by Jared Newman on July 5, 2011 at 4:07 pm

If the Playstation 4 really is a distant thought on Sony’s mind, then the latest rumor from DigiTimes is a longshot: Sony’s not only thinking about a new console, the publication’s sources say, it’s starting production this year and will launch the Playstation 4 in 2012.

DigiTimes doesn’t provide many details on the rumored console itself, except that it’ll have body movement-based controls like Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360. Foxconn and Pegatron Technology will reportedly assemble the PS4, with a planned shipment volume of at least 20 million units in 2012.

That shipment estimate is the biggest reason to be skeptical of this report. Sony launched the Playstation 3 mid-way through its 2006 fiscal year, and only shipped 5 million units through Q4. After that, when Sony started reporting sales instead of shipments, the PS3 took two years to reach 20 million sales. For 20 million Playstation 4 shipments to make sense in 2012, initial demand would have to be unprecedented.

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Skype Video Chat Now Works on Android Phones (But Probably Not Yours)

Posted by Jared Newman on June 30, 2011 at 3:39 pm

At last, Skype’s Android app supports video calling, but it’s only available on four phones for now.

Video calling works over Wi-Fi and 3G, and is supported on the HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro and Google Nexus S. The common thread among these phones is that they all run Android 2.3, but a Skype representative told me that the company’s working to make video chat available on a wider range of devices shortly after launch.

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World of Warcraft Joins the Free-to-Play Craze

Posted by Jared Newman on June 29, 2011 at 8:00 am

Why, it was only last week that I wrote about how Valve and several other big video game publishers are lovingly embracing the free-to-play business model. Now you can add Activision-Blizzard to that group, because World of Warcraft is going free-to-play.

The new program is called World of Warcraft Starter Edition, and lets players explore the massive multiplayer game for as long as they want. Eventually, they’ll hit restrictions that can only lifted with a full, paid account. Those restrictions include a level cap of 20, a gold cap of 10, a trade skill cap of 100 ranks, no trading, no guilds, no public chat and no voice chat.

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HTC Evo 3D Review: Average Phone, Cheap Trick

Posted by Jared Newman on June 29, 2011 at 7:06 am

If you’re thinking about buying the HTC Evo 3D on Sprint, the first thing you should do is ignore the 3D.

The phone’s namesake features — a glasses-free 3D display and dual cameras to shoot your own 3D content — amount to little more than a cheap party trick. And with a dearth of 3D movies and games to enjoy on the smartphone, the Evo 3D’s design and performance in two dimensions is far more important.

Strip away the gimmicks, and the Evo 3D is just average among high-end Android handsets. It’s a phone that provides lots of power through a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, but falters on design.

Compared to the graceful curves and smooth materials of HTC’s newly-launched Sensation 4G, the Evo 3D’s figure is no triumph. It’s not uncomfortably large despite a 4.3-inch, 960-by-540 resolution display, but its boxy shape and considerable weight lack elegance.

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Violent Game Law, Hopefully Stops the Madness

Posted by Jared Newman on June 27, 2011 at 2:35 pm

When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last year to rule on a California law that would restrict the sale of violent video games to minors, I was relieved. Finally, I assumed, the nation’s highest court would rule that violent video games should get the same First Amendment protections as movies and books, instead of being regulated like pornography.

Turns out, my assumption was correct. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down California’s violent video game law for good, with seven of nine justices in agreement. If you love video games and despise the way they’ve been demonized by politicians, read the first couple pages of the decision. It’s quite cathartic.

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Team Fortress 2 Goes Free to Play, As Does the Rest of the Games Industry

Posted by Jared Newman on June 24, 2011 at 1:30 pm

The free to play gaming craze has suddenly swept through some major players in the video game industry.

Valve announced that its popular first-person shooter Team Fortress 2 will now be free forever through the company’s Steam PC gaming service, with some optional premium perks for players who spend money on anything in the game. This is part of Valve’s of larger effort to bring free-to-play games to the Steam service.

But Valve is hardly going against the grain here. Last month, Ubisoft announced its first free-to-play foray with Ghost Recon Online. Electronic Arts, which has dabbled in freemium for years now, added its popular Battlefield franchise to the mix this year with Battlefield Play4Free. In March, Sony’s Free Realms became the first free-to-play title for a home game console.

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Hulu Plus Hits Android in Fragmented Fashion

Posted by Jared Newman on June 23, 2011 at 1:40 pm

If you’re the lucky enough to own one of six particular Android phones, you may now enjoy Hulu Plus on the go.

An app for Hulu’s premium streaming video service, which costs $8 per month, is now available from the Android Market, but only for the Nexus One, Nexus S, HTC Inspire 4G, Motorola Droid II, Motorola Droid X, and the Motorola Atrix. “We expect to add to the number of Android smartphones and will be making additional device announcements throughout the year,” Rob Wong, Hulu’s director of product management, wrote in a blog post.

The limited launch is reminiscent of Netflix’s partial Android app release last month. At the time, Netflix said that Android lacked a standard set of playback features across all Android devices, although the company previously blamed platform security issues.

Hulu’s not saying why its own Android app rollout begins with only a half-dozen devices. Except for the Nexus One and Nexus S, the devices that Hulu supports are different from the ones that Netflix supports at this time.

I guess that’s an argument for going pure Google. But with Netflix and Hulu both launching in limited fashion, it’s clear that Android needs a standard solution to make media companies happy, especially as the number of Android tablets grow. If they can’t stream media from major sources like Netflix and Hulu, they’ll have a tougher time answer the question of why you’d buy one instead of an iPad.

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