Pocket League Story hits Android Market

The creator of one of the most addictive mobile game – Game Dev Story has recently announced a new game which has made its way to the Android market. It is called Pocket League Story and is yet another simulation game from Kairosoft.

Pocket League Story is a soccer simulation game, where you control the entire soccer team and it mainly includes selling merchandise, selecting players, building a stadium for your team and getting the best sponsors involved with your team.

Well, there might be a few people who never actually liked the simulation games from Kairosoft, but I certainly did enjoy them. So, if you did like their other titles it is up for grabs in the Android Market for 240 INR ($5 approx).

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Amazon Tablet vs. Apple iPad: Who Wins?

The Amazon tablet may soon be upon us. And unlike some other tablet manufacturers that tried—and failed—to bend the touch-screen market in their favor, the online retailer has a sizable chance of leaving a lasting impact.

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler recently had an opportunity to play with an early version of the tablet and, in lieu of being able to snap photographs, did his best to describe its capabilities. In addition to a custom Android interface (complete with a tabbed Android Webkit browser and a dock for displaying available books and movies), the device offers a 7-inch screen and 6GB of internal storage for books and applications.
Those hardware features aren’t necessarily enough to rock Apple’s iPad back on its heels or carve out a sizable niche among the Android tablets currently on store shelves. However, Amazon offers an Android applications storefront in addition to a full collection of multimedia offerings, which could allow it to compete head-to-head against Apple’s iTunes and App Store. Other tablet manufacturers have been slow to build robust multimedia hubs, and their products rely on Google’s Android Marketplace for apps.  
Amazon also boasts considerable marketing muscle, and its Kindle efforts have already smoothed the path, so to speak, for people to perceive the retailer as an effective mobile-technology producer.
But the killer app of Amazon’s tablet—which has yet to be officially unveiled—isn’t hardware or software. Nor is it Amazon’s marketing or business skills. It’s the low starting price: $250, which considerably undercuts other tablets currently available.


After Hewlett-Packard announced it would shut down production of its TouchPad tablet and slashed the retail cost to a mere $99, customers turned out in droves to purchase a respectable touch-screen device at a bargain. Amazon seems similarly positioned to feed that hunger for a low-cost, quality tablet.
That’s not to say that Amazon has an easy path to victory in tablets. For one thing, it will have to compete against other Android tablets on the market, offered by some very aggressive and well-funded companies. Also, analysts generally predict that Apple’s iPad will continue to command the lion’s share of the market, which could make things difficult for any upstart trying to establish its own presence—whether or not the upstart in question is produced by one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Third, based on MG Siegler’s posting, it seems that Amazon is aiming squarely at the consumer market with its tablet offering. That would effectively close off businesses, which represent a growing segment of the tablet-buying population.


Nonetheless, Amazon seems ready to make a splashy entrance into the tablet market. Whether it can score iPad-size sales is more of a question.

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Sony Tablet S on display at Best Buy, available for pre-order

Want to get your hands on Sony’s upcoming Honeycomb tablet, the Tablet S? If you can’t wait until pre-orders start shipping from the Sony Online Store (September 16), and if you don’t want to buy it right now for $100 more at HSN.com, you might want to check out your local Best Buy.
It appears as if Best Buys have started to put the Sony Tablet S on display at some locations. At the moment, it doesn’t look like the new Honeycomb tablets could be purchased. The person who noticed the new tablet on display, Twitter user @DaHarder wasn’t able to purchase it; when he went to the register to attempt to purchase the tablet, Best Buy was unable to locate the tablet in their system.
So, it looks like it’s only available for display at the moment. If you want to get your hands on the display unit of the Tablet S, head over to your local Best Buy. Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll have to wait a few more days to own this tablet, unless you don’t mind paying an extra $100 from HSN.
Source: @DaHarder (Twitter), via Engadget

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PSA: There is no 3D Facebook Phone

Even though an HTC Status 3D would be the talk of the town, certainly, if it were real, and certainly not only for positive reasons, we’ve got to let you know that the September Best Buy BUYER’S GUIDE has a slightly less than factual bit to it. On the back cover of our beloved Best Buy mobile-intensive mini magazine, (the one you can get when you walk in the door, right over by all the smartphones,) there are three devices, (four, technically,) sitting one next to another: the “ThunderBolt by HTC”, the “HTC EVO 3D” and the “HTC Status 3D” with new choice of either AT&T standard silver coloring or Best Buy’s exclusive Mauve coloring. I asked, they giggled.

Also technically it was less of a giggle and more of an uh-ohhh on behalf of the Best Buy Mobile Department attendant’s friend whom he says is one of or perhaps the only person in charge of proofreading the monthly guide. We’d just been speaking about 3D devices and how they certainly had a chance at catching on, but with a display as small as the HTC Status (called the HTC ChaCha internationally), there was just no chance that the current glasses-free mobile versions of 3D would be able to look at all good.

So rest easy, ladies and gentlemen, it’s only a typographical error. There will be no 3D Facebook phone any time soon, even though this paper would have you believe that such a thing exists. 

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HTC patents are at the center of lawsuit against Apple

It’s getting harder and harder to try and keep up on this one.  Google bought Motorola Mobility and that came with some patents which Google then sold to HTC including 5 others.  Then HTC used those nine patents to file a lawsuit in court against Apple.  Make sense?  As the patents fly around like currency in the mobile world and lawsuits pop up all over the place, the mobile competition keeps getting more aggressive as each company tries to position itself higher on the list.  The patents were sold to HTC on August 29th and lawsuit was filed by September 7th.
The lawsuit HTC filed against Apple comes after Apple has already filed similar lawsuits against HTC, but because Google has padded HTC with the new patents, this new lawsuit is looking to send a new message to Apple.  Of the nine patents that HTC is citing in the lawsuit, none of them actually originated from Google.  Two of them came from Palm and three more from the Openwave System.  The patents that seem to be getting the most attention are the ones from Motorola that Google acquired with the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility.  Google reportedly called the move the only way they could protect Android from patent attack.  Motorola Mobility controlled more than 17,000 patents at the time of the purchase.
The four patents that Google owns were transferred before Motorola split into two branches and all were acquired before the end of March of this year.  With the four patents, HTC added five other patents in the lawsuit and the International Trade Commission.  In the meantime, the patent lawsuits are flying around but Google has never been sued by Apple in any way directly.  Google has been on watch for allegedly sitting by and not willing to protect partners that make Android devices.
Some experts say that by Google stepping in to help HTC against Apple, they are increasing the chances that Apple might just go after Google directly.  Google has applied for over 1,000 different patents since January of this year and vowed to build on that number in order to protect their intellectual property rights.  With the 17,000 they acquired with Motorola Mobility, that seems like a pretty good defense system to build on.

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HTC Inspire 4G 1st Generation Still Popular Amidst 2nd Gen 4G Handset Releases

The HTC Inspire 4G Android smartphone released on AT&T’s 4G mobile broadband network hit the mass-market in early 2011. With a big 4.3 inch screen and 1.0 GHz processor, it was immediately touted by HTC and AT&T as one of the most powerful and well-rounded smartphones in the 4G marketplace. And that was certainly true back when it was released.
But with so many second generation 4G handsets released in the last few months, many first-generation 4G phones have seen a decrease in popularity, and also in sales. However, the Inspire 4G handset has remained a popular phone, even though smartphones in the 4G arena with broader feature sets and more powerful processors have arrived, albeit at much higher retails. The Inspire sells for $29 for a two-year activation, and at that price, remains one of the lowest priced 4G handsets available.
When the HTC Inspire 4G was released, it’s large 4.3 inch screen certainly made an impact. Currently, however, 4.0 and 4.3 inch screens are the norm. That is why AT&T’s aggressive pricing for the HTC Inspire 4G is drawing such customer support. A 4G Android handset shopper does not have to lay out three figures to get a large display. The screen on the HTC Inspire 4G has a coating of scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass, and the display is presented in 480 x 800 pixel resolution, a proximity sensor and a light sensor are built into the screen, and multitouch touchscreen navigation is employed.
The software set for the HTC Inspire 4G is as follows. Out-of-the-box, Google’s Android 2.2 Froyo operating system is on board, however, the Inspire 4G recently benefited from an over the air upgrade to Android’s 2.3 operating system version, Gingerbread. The single core processor is a Snapdragon MSM 8255 1.0 GHz model with 768 MB of RAM memory supporting it.
And unlike most 4G handsets of late, the HTC Inspire 4G offers only one rear facing camera, foregoing a front facing video chat camera. The rear facing camcorder delivers 8 megapixel resolution with dual LED flash, face detection, special effects, geo-tagging and autofocus, and delivers video recording capability in 720P HD.
Upgradable to 32 GB of memory, the Inspire 4G offers a microSD slot, microUSB port, DLNA wireless video out, Bluetooth stereo and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity. Google delivers popular preloaded apps with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube, and Adobe Flash media player support is also on board.

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Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman teardown photos posted at FCC

Over the past year or so, Sony Ericsson has been bringing their A-game to the Android smartphone and oddities market, and with the combination of the forever-famous Walkman brand name, they’ve got a good chance of continuing to increase business built on the Google mobile OS platform. What’s up today is an FCC listing of the Sony Ericsson media player known as Live with Walkman, a long name for an interestingly quite possibly awesome future mobile device running Android. Look like the originally announced bright white to you?

Everyone likes to see the insides of their handsets before they see the outsides in action, right? Have a look right here and see some guts! Sony Ericsson has never been known for bad looking insides, and they certainly don’t disappoint with several layers of green, black, and gold. What we know about this device right this moment is that it’s got a 5 megapixel camera on the back, a VGA camera on the front, a 3.2-inch 480 x 320 pixel resolution TFT LCD display, more than likely a 1.2 or 1.5 GHz single-core processor inside, and a big fat slew of Sony and Sony Ericsson-specifically optimized apps and sound-related features.

This device has been announced to be coming out inside the fourth quarter of 2011, all of its features appearing to sort of pale in comparison to the tip we’ve reported on the Sony Ericsson Nozomi 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and a fantastically dense-pixeled display. We’ve also got word that the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S coming inside September, and though we’re almost certainly not going to be getting Ice Cream Sandwich any time soon, Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread should be pretty much a fix.
[via FCC]

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TouchPal Android keyboard alternative out of Beta, Free for Limited Time

If there’s one thing you can count on for Android, it’s an ever-increasing selection of 3rd-party keyboard alternatives. Today we’ve got word that developers at Cootek have upgraded their TouchPal keyboard out of Beta, available now for free on the Android Market. Know before we go any further that this is instantly going to be compared to SWYPE as it’s got what that app made famous on the Android platform: moving your finger across the keypad, collecting letters for words as you go. With this comes predictive text and an amazingly intelligent engine connecting all elements for the potential to “type” text as fast as possible on mobile platforms. In addition to that, this app, unlike some similar keypads on the market right this moment, is free during this first release leading up to a paid version on October 31, 2011.


This again is the first time you’re able to get access to this app without having contacted the developers directly to test, this version is solid and ready to go right this moment, and a giant list of improvements has been released to go along with this pre-cost yet full-release app. See if you can spot the differences between this and previously released keyboards:
• Unique patented technologies of TouchPal Keyboard
• TouchPal Curve – the first predictive sliding in the world!
• Intelligent next-word prediction. It may save up to 80% keystrokes.
• Magic mistyping correction on Full QWERTY layout. Blind typing is no longer a dream!
• Mixed language input allows auto language detection. No need to switch languages.
• Innovation of T+ dual-letter layout. Bigger keys than QWERTY!
• Multi-lingual support (download language packs after installation)
• Voice input (system requirement: Android 2.2 or above)
• Outstanding dictionary with online update
• Import contact list to your user dictionary
• Backup/restore user dictionary in SD card
• Slide down on keys to quickly input number and symbols
• Fantastic sliding experience
After having tested it very briefly just today I can tell you that this is certainly a professionally produced app that’s been created to compete directly with both the current stock keyboards on all versions of Android as well as 3rd party apps on the market today. As this app is completely free right this second, you simply MUST check it out if you’re looking for a new keyboard solution.
Check the app out right now on the [Android Market]
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HTC Integrates 'Attentive Phone' In Windows Phone Mango Settings

HTC has an "Attentive Phone" section build into Windows Phone Mango devices like HTC Titan and Radar. It's basically useful for natural gestures like making your phone stop ringing once you flip it over, making it quiet once you pick it up and so on.

There's also an "Attentive Phone" application available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. The app doesn't integrate with the Settings but if you have an HTC device that's running Mango (and you don't have the section built into your Settings) you can give it a try by downloading it for free.

Source: WPCentral, Marketplace

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