Explorer Gets his Glass Stolen and Smashed to the ground in San Francisco

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This story has been making the rounds since Friday, and we’ve been waiting to run it until we had more information, which we do now. A reporter, Kyle Russell, was in San Francisco covering some events and such, as a typical journalist would. He was heading to the 16th BART Startion, probably to head to his hotel or head home, when a woman aka a Glass hater, yelled “Glass!” then ripped his Glass off his face and ran off with them. She didn’t get away with the $1500 pair of Glass though, as they did get smashed on the ground. This is reportedly the second incident like this in the past month.

Now this is atypical to a hate crime. But it’s also important to note that Russell was using Glass in broad daylight and outdoors. So it’s not like he was in a bar, Casino or another establishment with them on. In fact, it’s likely that Russell was using Glass to aid his story, by using the video recording functionality. Although that’s kinda mute at this point. It appears that Russell was wearing Glass in the wrong place at the wrong time. Russell stated:

“Unfortunately, anything associated with Google has come to represent gentrification in the city, from the buses that take young software engineers to their corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to Google Glass. This is especially true in areas where gentrification and income inequality have become points of conflict in the community,”

Glass didn’t survive the mean streets of San Francisco, as the device doesn’t respond to touch or voice anymore. Hopefully Google will replace them for him free of charge, although there’s no word on that just yet. Also, don’t forget that Google is opening the flood gates tomorrow for Glass. So if you’ve wanted to spend $1500 on Glass, tomorrow’s your chance. It’s open to anyone in the US.

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Samsung’s Commercial for the Gear Fit Highlights the best feature, That Curved Display

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Samsung announced the Gear Fit in February at Mobile World Congress along side the Galaxy S5. Now this actually caught us all by surprise. We knew they were launching the Gear 2 at Mobile World Congress, and in fact it was announced two days before hand. But the Gear Fit, we knew nothing about. It actually turned into the most interesting wearable that Samsung had at Mobile World Congress this year. The Gear Fit is more of a fitness tracker than anything, but it does have a curved AMOLED display, which we know that Samsung has been working on for some time – just look at the Galaxy Round they announced last year for Korea. But to see it in a product they are going to be pushing hard, is amazing. The Gear Fit is my favorite wearable from Samsung right now, as I’m sure I’m not alone. It looks amazing, and the curved display looks great too. Samsung decided to price it at $199, which I think is the right price for this one.

The Gear Fit went on sale last Friday, April 11th after being available for pre-order for a few weeks. So we are now beginning to get all the reviews out and available from various sites now. As we are getting a real feel of what Samsung was working towards with the Gear Fit. They’ve integrated it pretty well into S Health, which we expected. S Health is actually one of my more favorite features and Apps that Samsung has developed. I used it on the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 last year, and loved it. Being a person that works from home, that’s something I want and need, so that I can stay active.

How many of you have picked up the Samsung Gear Fit already? How many of you are still planning on it? Let us know in the comments below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Android 4.4.3 Hitting Sprint Nexus 5s From Today?

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For a long time now, we’ve been hearing about an update to Android 4.4 KitKat, and today might be the day we see the first rollout of such a release. The much-rumored Android 4.4.3 release might be happening later today, if Sprint’s latest support documents are to be believed at least. According to Sprint’s support site, a new update is about to roll out to Sprint Nexus 5s, it brings with it support for Spark bands 26 and 41 and “misc Android updates”, and comes with a build number of KTU48F.

Considering that the Sprint version of the Nexus 5 is exactly the same as the unlocked one from the Play Store, this could be a sign that the Nexus 5 is about to get a new build of Android. However, there is of course the slight chance that this is a Sprint-only update just for Spark purposes, as the carrier has been updating a flurry of devices to bring faster LTE speeds. We’re assuming that this is the update that will fix the dreaded camera bug that effects not only the Nexus 5 but the new Nexus 7 as well. A point release like this is the norm for Google and on platforms that aren’t using a Qualcomm processor, we’re sure that other bugfixes will be coming along for the ride as well.

Later on today, we should know whether or not this update was Android 4.4.3, but don’t get disheartened if the update doesn’t arrive today for you. Updates like these will take a couple of days to hit everyone, but if you do get the update, let us know in the comments and over on Google+ if this brings your Nexus up to Android 4.4.3, and if there are any noticeable changes. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and hopefully have some more news soon.

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HTC One (M8) Mini Due to hit store shelves in Taiwan in May?

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The HTC One (M8) Mini still is not official, but according to a new report coming out of Taiwan – HTC’s homeland – it appears that the device will hit store shelves there as early as next month. Last year, HTC made a HTC One mini, and it was actually one of my favorite devices of 2013. Not because it was a mini, but because of how well done it was. Typically a “mini” smartphone has low-end specs, but the HTC One Mini was in between high and and mid-range. It had a 720p Super LCD3 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and a gig of RAM. Sure that doesn’t sound spectacular. But a 4.3-inch display with 720p resolution, it’s pretty great. Not to mention the Snapdragon 400, it’s pretty great as well, especially for more mid-range devices.

With the HTC One (M8) Mini, I’m kind of hoping that HTC goes the way of Motorola and Sony. In that they used the same specs in their “mini” smartphones as their regular sized ones. For example, the Sony Xperia Z1 and the Xperia Z1 Compact have the same specs aside from Screen size. We’ll have to wait for official word from HTC on the specs of their mini this year, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for good things.

HTC has already gone on record and stated that they are happy with the initial sales of the HTC One (M8). Considering it didn’t completely launch until late last week, it’s still a bit hard to see how well it’s doing. The HTC One (M8) is a great smartphone, as you can tell from our review, I just hope it gets the attention it deserves. As usual, the tech press has been praising it like crazy, which we saw last year with the HTC One (M7). That’s what started the whole “ask the internet” thing that HTC is doing in their commercials now.

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UAProf and Leaked Screenshot Point to LG’s G3 Featuring a 2560 x 1440 Display

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With the G2 Pro announced (and US buyers patiently waiting for hit to shelves) it’s time to look forward to the next thing from LG, which we’re all thinking is going to be of course, the G3. We’ve heard a number of rumors recently about the G3, but most of these have revolved around the G3′s display, which looks very much like it’s going to be a 2560 x 1440 panel, and if the 5.5-inch rumored size comes true, that’ll give the G3 a pixel density of 530 ppi, which is as big a deal as it sounds. That’d make the G3 one of the densest displays on the market and considering that the Galaxy Note 4 from Samsung is said to be packing a QHD display as well, it’d give the G3 enough to go up against Samsung’s best.

Sprint’s website has been kind enough to show off a User Agent profile of what is more than likely the G3, with a model number of LS990 and a display resolution of 2560 x 1440. Other tidbits found in the profile include a “Krait CPU” which points to either a Snapdragon 801 or the newer Snapdragon 805. Meanwhile, a photo of what could be the device in question has surfaced from UberGizmo, running an AnTuTu Benchmark, proudly displaying the figure “2560 x 1440″ for the display resolution. Of course, we’ve no idea if this photo is genuine, or if AnTuTu had simply been messed with to produce the desired results.

According to UberGizmo, LG has confirmed that their next device will in fact carry a 2560 x 1440 display, but just what size of display, or what that device even is remains unclear. At this point, it’s beginning to look like a no-brainer for the G3 to sport such a dense display, while we’re not sure it’s needed on devices at this sort of size, being able to sell such a device will please LG, and the Korean giant is known for their great displays. In their home turf of Korea however, dense displays mean sharper characters, but here in the west, we question the need for such a dense display.

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Android Headliner: Can The Samsung Galaxy S5 Come Through For Gamers?

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For many, the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be the hottest new device of the year and like its predecessor, it had legions of people waiting in lines to get their hands on one and be the first in their group of people to own one. Others will likely wait a few months to snatch one up as they want to see how things work first. From my personal point of view, if I was ever to pick up a Galaxy S5 as my new device my first question would be “how does it handle games?” It’s likely that the answer to that would be extremely well, given the Snapdragon 801 processor and the 2GB of RAM. However, like most things some real world experience is best to find out the truth.

This isn’t necessarily the first thing people think about when going to grab a new device, but like me there are a good sized group of people that will be engaging with the device through games quite often, so knowing how well it performs during this activity is important. We want to know how it stands up to the competition, and ultimately, is it really going to perform that much better than our older current devices? While this could be easily determined by going down to your local carrier store or the closest Best Buy and checking out a few games, you might have a certain game in mind that you want to test and well, some of the best games are paid and that won’t likely be an option before you buy the device. Luckily there are plenty of free games out there that are fairly memory intensive with awesome graphics, so it should be simple enough to figure out if you want to spend a half hour or so checking things out at your brick and mortar store of choice.

The other thing to take into account, is how well the battery is going to hold up while playing games. Some games are meant more for a casual short spurt, while other require more time and vastly larger amounts of attention as you become engaged with the game and can become immersed into the complexities of the story. These games sometimes can be the heaviest not only on the processing power, but on the battery as well for the sheer fact that you can play them for hours. That’s not to say that you can’t sit down and play a casual game like Quiz Up for hours on end, but for me personally I spend more time with games like RPG’s and action games such as Deus Ex: The Fall than casual games. The good thing with the Galaxy S5 is that should you almost completely kill your battery by playing games with it, only to realize that you still need it to stay powered on for another 6 to 8 hours, you can simply flip it into the power saving mode and keep it alive for another 24 hours with only 10%. There’s also the matter of the screen. How good will games look on it while playing them? Although the screen size isn’t a huge bump from the GS4, the size of the display on the GS4 was already decent for playing games, so a slight increase is good. It’s also Full HD and is sporting Samsung’s next generation of AMOLED displays. My final thoughts, the Galaxy S5 could serve as a great phone for gaming, although I am personally rather partial to some of the graphical benefits that you get with a tegra processor. Would you game on this phone?

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Android Game Of The Week: Slingshot Braves

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Slingshot Braves is a quaint little action-rpg game that has great anime style art and some cool in game graphics. This is a different rpg experience compared to what some may be used to, but in fact that’s what makes it so appealing. The game starts you off with a tutorial battle to get you familiar with the controls, which at first seems pretty basic. You simply tap on the circle that surrounds your character and drag back as much as you can, and let go to slingshot them forward into the enemy for attacks. It’s actually quite fun and puts a different spin on things.

In slingshot braves, you must search for an ancient weapon to help you defeat the invasion of demons that are on the rise and ravaging towns. During your quest you’ll meet some friends, and you’ll encounter many foes, but nothing a gamer like you can’t handle right? As you slingshot back your character in battles you’ll have the chance to aim him/her with precision. You can also try and predict your enemies movements, and yes they will move so sometimes your hits might miss. That is unless you plan your attacks carefully. You attacks will also sometimes cause your character to bounce off other enemies or walls, letting them come back for another attack and causing combos for more damage.

Just like the games description says, the wonderous marvel of the interwebs allows you to play Slingshot Braves with friends. You can team up and engage in glorious battles together against a common enemy, or you can fight alone for victory against other players. Whatever you choose to do, the possibility of some sweet epic loots is at your fingertips. Not happy with your current items and weapons? No matter, find the necessary materials and craft a new weapon with which to lay down the hurt and smite those who stand against you. Full 3D graphics and real time connection make this one of the better online rpg’s out there and it’s tons of fun. Slingshot Braves is a great display of what some games should be, which is an experience that leaves no room for disappointment. Slingshot Braves is a free game and offers IAP, but thus far I haven’t seen any need to spend any money. The game seems fully enjoyable without having to spend a dime.

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