Humble Mobile Bundle 5 Arrives With 6 Awesome Games And more To Come

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You know the drill. Humble Bundle offers up a handful of really slick game titles from indie devs, and you can pay what you want for them. That’s the basic idea. Like all Humble Bundle game packs, there will be a few games you can pay whatever you want for, with a few titles that will be come unlocked if you pay the minimum average amount. Paying what you want is nice because you can pay next to nothing to get your hands on some really awesome games, but remember that you can choose which portion of the money you pay goes to charity, with the other amounts going to Humble Bundle themselves, and some to the developers. You decide how much goes where. With that in mind, why not spring for a little extra and grab yourself some more awesome games in the process?

To start things off, you can pay what you want for three really cool game titles: Bag It!, the classic shoot em up from days past that was recently ported to Android by DotEmu known as R-Type II, and the infamous Aralon Sword and Shadow by Crescent Moon Games, the open world 3D RPG that came before the wildly popular Ravensword Shadowlands, which was actually in the last Bundle that just ended. If you’re feeling particularly generous and want to score yourself more games to play, you can pay the minimum average amount which is currently sitting at $3.94 at the time of writing, and you will unlock not only The Room Two, and Carcassonne, but the instant classic from Double Fine Productions, The Cave, which is one of the best platformers you will ever have the pleasure of playing using your thumbs and fingers.

The best part is that more games will be added to the bundle at a later date, which is most likely in a week or so. The yet unannounced games will be unlocked for anyone who has already paid the minimum amount before their release, or for those who pay the minimum amount once they drop. If you want a better deal on whatever those games end up being, it’s best to pick up the bundle while the minimum price is low. The Bundle is live now so you can grab the games any time you wish, and they’ll be forever available and you can even re-download them through your Humble Bundle account later if you ever want to switch devices. Check out the video below for a brief overview of every game.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Hidden Download Booster Discovered On ATT And Verizon Galaxy S5 Models But Still Unusable

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Ok, so there has been plenty to say about the lack of the Download Booster feature from within Verizon, Sprint and ATT Galaxy S5 models. T-mobile is the only carrier who seemingly decided to allow the use of the feature on their network, which is certainly a disappointment to some. The interesting thing is, that the Verizon and ATT variants of the Galaxy S5 actually have Download Booster still. The feature was discovered by a friendly member over at XDA, who are the folks you would definitely expect to come across this type of discovery. As one would have it, all you would have to do to find the feature would be to first install a home launcher application like Nova or Apex launcher, both which have the option to create system shortcuts to place on the homescreen, after the which the feature could be found and turned on.

While the feature actually does exist on the devices, finding it and toggling the feature on does nothing at this point in time, which means there is probably something else on the carrier side that is preventing it from operating correctly. There will eventually be some way of getting around this as the development community is a pretty crafty bunch and it most likely won’t be long before someone has a fix to turn the feature into a usable one. That will probably require root access though, and a tad bit of patience as we wait for the devs to work their magic in this area.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a blocked feature has required some finagling to jumpstart it into a usable status. As of now there a good number of possible scenarios on the table that could see Download Booster as a usable feature to consumers in the future. The carriers who have chosen to block or remove the feature initially could end up updating the devices down the line which would officially make the feature available to users, or we could end up getting it through an unofficial means which is basically with some tweaks to the device which as stated above, would most likely require root access from the user. Now that we know the feature actually exists on those devices, users just have to play the waiting game.

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Can Samsung Ship 35 Million Units Of The Galaxy S5 In Q2?

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What investors first thought could end up a similar year to last with smartphone sales, looks to have a more promising outcome as Samsung is expecting to have better numbers in the way of shipments and sales from last years Galaxy S4. On the day of its release, Samsung has shipped 1.3 times as many Galaxy S5′s compared to Galaxy S4 devices the same time last year, at least according to Samsung. If that is truly the case then shipment and sales numbers certainly look to end up more on a positive note. Although not every device shipped will equate to one being purchased, because lets be honest that isn’t realistic, Samsung is projecting that it will ship around 35 million handsets in just the second quarter alone, and they will probably sell most of them.

Samsung stands to be in a good place if they can keep their sales numbers on the rise or at least keep them from dropping. The Galaxy S5 undoubtedly costs more to manufacture but what Samsung may have lost in production cost compared to last year with the S4 could be made up by the decrease in spending they have been applying to their marketing strategies. All Samsung really has to do is stay on track with the same ratio of their sales conversion rate from the Galaxy S4 and they should be just fine.

While it’s still extremely early to start projecting the success of Samsung’s smartphone sales for this year, smartphones sales are the main bread winner for the Korean manufacturer so it isn’t a surprise that they place a lot of focus on how well they do in this particular market. We have no doubt that Samsung will flourish with the S5. Every device since the original Galaxy S has gotten increasingly more popular and last years Galaxy S4 was their most popular device ever, so with the S5 already doing better in numbers, it would be safe to assume that they will come out doing better than they did last year overall. They’re also taking a different approach to selling the S5 than they did with its predecessor, in that they’re focusing less on gimmicky new features and more on useful life improving qualities in a more refined package.

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Xiaomi Has Begun Beta Testing Kit Kat Version Of Miui For All Xiaomi Devices

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If you’re a fan of the popular Miui ROM and have been waiting for Miui V5 to come along and offer some Android 4.4 goodness, the good news is that Miui V5 is going through some beta stages at this time and will begin beta testing the new ROM starting next week Monday. As some of you might have expected the new kit kat based Miui to show up in February as was stated, this might come as a shock and a nice surprise to find out that it is finally close to being in the hands of users. As of right now Xiaomi is only looking to test out the new ROM with one specific device, but in two separate models. If you own and use a Xiaomi Mi3S-both the wcdma and the cdma versions apply-you are likely a prime candidate for the new Miui V5 ROM. You’ll most likely have to be living in the China region to become a beta tester though.

The news of Xiaomi looking for beta testers was posted up to the official Miui Weibo account-the popular Chinese social network-just this morning, so Miui fans don’t have much longer to go before Miui V5 is ready for the masses. That’s the hope anyway. Seeing as there’s no telling just how long it could take to beta test the new version of Miui, it might actually still be a long ways off. We’ll cross our fingers though and hope that isn’t the case. If it does end up available sooner than later, you can be sure that we’ll let you know.

At some point, literally ALL Xiaomi phones will end up getting the new Miui ROM based off of the Android kit kat firmware, at this point it’s just a matter of when. There wasn’t any mention of whether any non-Xiaomi devices will end up with Miui V5 support down the road, but we can’t imagine someone wouldn’t pick up that torch and pass it along by starting development for other phones and tablets. Miui ROMs are quite a bit different than other ROMs, as they don’t look quite like your standard Android setup. They have a nice clean and elegant design but you might not ever know it’s Android just by looking at them. If you’re interested in Miui V5, keep your eyes peeled.

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Project Ara Is Developing Much More Than A Device, They’re Developing Choice

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You might already know the basis of the Project Ara smartphone, an effort to build and offer a modular smartphone to the consumer that would allow them to fully customize their smartphone from the ground up, including the size of the core endoskeleton that all the little pieces fit into. The modular tiles are such that any person with no technical expertise on how to build a device, can swap out and upgrade the modular tiles when needed for bigger or better parts, whether it be multiple tiles at once or simply one tile that needed the upgrade. This would allow customers to just upgrade the pieces they need or want when the time comes, without having to buy a whole new device. Project Ara still might have a long way to go before it reaches consumers, but it’s coming along nicely as we’ve seen over the past couple of months.

The Project Ara team has a goal to meet, which is to get the Ara smartphone ready for market by sometime early in 2015. Their current step right now remains getting developers involved and getting them interested in producing the modular tiles that would essentially make up the device. The modules themselves would be fitted to a custom designed shell, that would allow for the consumer to have what seems like a near unlimited amount of options to customize the look and feel of their device. The team at Project Ara is working with a company called 3D systems to have these custom shells produced on large scale using a 3D printer. We already saw a handful of different look and styles when Phoneblocks took us behind the scenes to meet the Project Ara team members, and while some of the shells seemed a little bit loud and expressive, others had a more minimal design to them but still just enough uniqueness to call it your own.

When and if the Project Ara smartphone ever makes it into the hands of Google officially to sell to consumers, the Ara phone could certainly change the way we think about smartphones going forward. Consumers would have true choice when it comes to getting a device that they want, in being able to choose not only how big their device is, but also pick out the display, the processor, the memory, the RAM, the camera, and the custom shells for a personalized design and much more. Ara could actually change the face of the smartphone and it’s well on the way, the question is if the consumer will ever get the chance to build such a device.

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ASUS Soon To Deliver Three New Android Kit Kat Tablets

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Three new budget tablets from ASUS look to be on their way to market in the near future, as listings have popped up on the wifi certification site and the Bluetooth sig. So far there is little to know about all three of the devices, but all three are listed as running Android 4.4 kit kat. While these won’t end up being high end devices, any new kit kat device is more than appreciated. Unfortunately there wasn’t any time frames listed on when to expect these three tablets to hit market, or what they’ll cost. Until than though we at least have one or two details for you.

The three tablets listed are the ASUS K013, the ASUS K011, and the ASUS K010. The K013 will be a 7-inch tablet with an IPS display and 1280 x 800 resolution, and come powered by 1GB of RAM. The K011 will be an 8-inch tablet with an IPS display and carry the same resolution and the same amount of RAM. Lastly, the K010 will be the biggest of the three, and will sport a 10-inch IPS display, also with the same 1280 x 800 resolution and 1GB of RAM. All three tablets will also carry a camera on the back as well as a camera on the front, but there was no mention of sensor quality. That’s pretty much all the details that were listed, other than the fact that these three tablets will be part of the ASUS MeMo Pad series of devices.

Since the specs of what we know so far aren’t anything to write home about, we can assume that all three of these new tablets might come in under $350, of course we have no way of knowing that for sure as of yet. It just seems like it would make the most sense to make up for the lack in high end hardware. If you’re in the market for a new tablet soon, we’d suggest to keep an eye on these three as they might be cost effective yet still perform decently, and they also come in a size to fit just about everyone’s taste. As soon as we know more about them we’ll be sure to update you all here.

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Project Ara Developers Conference Day 1 Live Stream is Here!

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Today is day one of the Project Ara developers conference. It kicked off at 8:30am PT this morning, and will take place today and tomorrow. We are expecting them to announce the MDK and get developers on-board to start making modules for Project Ara. Originally, Project Ara was developed inside Motorola. But when Google sold off Motorola to Lenovo, they decided to keep Project Ara along with all the patents. So this is now Google’s baby, one of their moonshots, which they have a ton of those. We’re expecting to see more at Google I/O in June, but at this point, we may have a full Project Ara device here by Google I/O.

“We plan a series of three Ara Developers’ Conferences throughout 2014. The first of these, scheduled for April 15-16, will focus on the alpha release of the Ara Module Developers’ Kit (MDK). The MDK is a free and open platform specification and reference implementation that contains everything you need to develop an Ara module. We expect that the MDK will be released online in early April.”

Obviously, Project Ara is still really alpha at this point, but we should see the first few alpha devices available later this year. Are any of our readers excited for Project Ara to be released? Let us know in the comments below.

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