Soon, Amazon Will be Streaming Android Apps and Games with AppStream

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Amazon has quickly become a force in the Android world, ever since the original Kindle Fire hit the scene, and convinced us that affordable Android tablets could not only be decent devices, but also commercially viable. We all know however, that Amazon would never have been able to produce a tablet in the first place if it weren’t for their Appstore efforts. The Amazon Appstore has become one of the more popular app stores on Android, which is saying something considering the default, the Google Play Store, ships with every Android device imaginable, pretty much. It’s a good question as to where Amazon head next, selling apps and games is hardly original after all. It seems that the answer, like so many of their other digital products, is in the Cloud.

By now, many of you will have heard of Amazon’s Web Services, the dynamic hosting services that keeps things like Netflix running. These web services are about to give the same sort of boost to apps and games as they have done to web services all overt the internet. A new type of service, dubbed AppStream, will allow developers to host part of their infrastructure on Amazon’s servers and speed up things like loading times and graphics rendering. A lot of this news is only going to be of interest to developers and publishers, or at least that’s the case right now.

In the future however, we could be looking at apps that load incredibly fast, thanks to the widespread adoption of LTE across much of North America, and the load on our smartphones could soon become even lighter. Something that could further the already explosive growth in the mid-range market of Android devices like the Moto G and the Blu line of devices. Just when this service will hit the vast majority of our smartphones and tablets is unclear, but we’re going to say that this is something Amazon, and developers, will want to move quickly on. For those technical folk, take a look at the source link to get more info on the changes they’ve recently implemented.

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LG’s Upcoming G3 Could Have Been Spotted with a Model number of D850 and Quad HD Display

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Last year, LG released their best smartphone to date with the G2, but unfortunately for LG it was released at a strange time of the year and never really sold quite as it should have done. That doesn’t mean the other Korean giant is going to give up and this year should see the release of LG’s G3, which we’re all looking towards to present us with the next flagship from the company. The G Pro 2 that was announced earlier this year certainly built on the great features that debuted with the G2, but the G3 will be its true successor. The infamous @evleaks is back again with word on what could be LG’s G3.

The device, with a model number of D850 was spotted on LG’s own website, and taking a look at the device’s User Agent Profile (of which a portion is below), we can see a display resolution of 2560 x 1440, otherwise known as Quad HD, or QHD. We can’t take away anything concerning screen size here, but at those resolutions we would be surprised if LG managed to keep the display at 5.2-inches. Having said that, LG have done some pretty incredible things with displays in the past, so there’s always room for improvement. According to rumor though, we’re looking at a 5.5-inch display, would make the G3 a considerably larger device than Samsung’s Galaxy S5, which comes in at 5.1-inches.

Recently, the model number D851 popped up, which could be another variant of the G2, as could the VS985 rumored for Verizon here in the States. Of course, it’s still pretty early to say for sure what is, and what isn’t the G3, but these are certainly interesting leaks. With the G2, LG bucked the trend a little with their rear-mounted control buttons and we’re sure that the G3 will continue this trend, what else they have in store however, remains a mystery for now. Who’s looking forward to the G3? Sound off in the comments below!

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Key Android Apps From the Galaxy S5 Leak Out; S Note, S Translater and Watch ON Included

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Samsung’s Galaxy S5 might not even be out yet, and in fact hasn’t even gone up for pre-order in the UK yet, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t devices out there already. We’ve already seen some leaked footage from the device’s camera – which looks to be very capable indeed – and now, we’re getting a look at some of the device’s key apps. Thanks to an enterprising XDA Developers member, key apps from the Galaxy S5 have been uploaded to the web and are now available for all to give a go. These include S Note, S Translate, Watch ON, Gear Manager, Gear Fit Manager, S Health and a Calculator.

While not the most useful array of apps, as S Health is reported as not working and the Gear managers are pretty useless until the new wearables hit the shelves, it is nice to get a flavor of what Samsung’s new theme is like in apps and utilities. There all available for download from the source link below, but we doubt how many of you will be able to use the apps, after all they were designed to work on the Galaxy S5 and nothing else. Chances are however, that if you’re running a TouchWiz ROM on Android 4.4.2 on the Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note 3 you might well be in luck. By all means take a look and let us know in the comments and over on Google+ if any of the apps worked for you!

With the Galaxy S5, Samsung took a slightly more minimal approach where software was concerned, and it does come out a little bit in these leaked apps, but there really isn’t too much to write home about. The new apps look cleaner, but don’t offer too much from their Galaxy S4/Galaxy Note 3 counterparts. Notice anything different? Hit us up in the comments below!

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Mathematician Proves The Obvious – Candy Crush Saga is Too Hard!

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Chances are that if you’re reading this, and you own a smartphone or you have a Facebook profile and if you’re even casually interested in games, then you would definitely have played or at least heard about the hugely addictive Candy Crush Saga. If you have no idea who or what Candy Crush Saga is, (I’ll be unprofessional here) then dude, seriously! Anyways, for the uninitiated, here’s a quick recap. Candy Crush Saga is a hugely popular and addictive game, available on Android and Facebook, wherein you have several colored candies which have to be swiped with their neighbors across a board, in groups of 3 or higher. The difficulty is stepped up with either a limitation on the number of ‘moves’ or time or even in the fulfillment of ‘orders’ where you have to make special candies while combining 4 or more similar candies across the board.

For people who have been addicted to the game, myself included, Candy Crush Saga soon develops into a second nature of sorts. The game may sound simplistic enough but once a player reaches a certain stage, the difficulties set in and the game becomes hard. The question to be answered was ‘how hard does this really get’ and surprisingly the answer comes in from the least obvious source – a mathematician. Mathematician Toby Walsh, at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia used his expertise to analyze the game and has come to the not-so-surprising conclusion that the game belongs to a class of mathematical problems called NP-Hard. In real life terms, NP-Hard problems are categorized as those for which finding an optimal solution is a very tough job. For the sake of simplicity, we will forego Walsh’s methodologies, which you can read up in the Source segment of this article.

However, we would definitely delve more into the NP-Hard classification. Walsh further classified the game to belong to a subset of the NP-hard problems – called NP-Complete, which basically means that once the size of the problem increases, solving them becomes more difficult. Some researchers also believe that there is no practically efficient way to solve NP-Complete problems. Walsh notes that “It would be interesting to see if we can profit from the time humans spend solving Candy Crush problems. Perhaps we can put this to even better use by hiding some practical NP-hard problems within these puzzles?”

So have you played Candy Crush Saga? How difficult is it? Do let us know in the comments below. Bored with Candy Crush Saga? Perhaps Farm Heroes Saga is more to your liking.

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Enjoy Multitasking on Android? Then You’ll Love the Sidebar Launcher

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Let’s face it, if there’s one thing (among many) that Android does pretty damn well, it’s multitasking. We can easily run a good amount of apps at the same time and switching between them has been real easy ever since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the multitask button. That’s great and all, but as always, the community has taken this part of Android and made it even better. We’ve seen a number of new launches hit the scene over the past year, and Sidebar Launcher is a little different. It leverages the great multitasking inside of Android, and amplifies things to bring you a bucket load of functionality with a simple slide out.

The app is available from the Play Store and, somewhat impressively, it runs on anything from Android 2.3 Gingerbread and up, making it a decent app to breathe a little new life into that old phone you just refuse to get rid of. The launcher itself is easy to set up and works off a concept of “cards”, which I like to think of as modules. Each module contains different functionality, and they take up a strip of your sidebar launcher – which is scrollable, by the way – and feature things such as toggles to adjust WiFi and such, to memory monitors and music controls. You can customize where and how your launcher appears too, which makes things a little easier when using your phone for long periods of time.

There’s even a way to put this guy on your lockscreen, and the app is under active development, so don’t hesitate to swing by the thread on XDA and leave a suggestion, leave thanks or whatever it is you want to say. Apps that developed like this one are the reason we love Android so much, and we’re sure that Sidebar launcher will only continue to get better. You can download the app from the Play Store and take a look at the video below for a taste of what it can offer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Tinder Prepares to Launch Verification Method for Celebrity Users

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If you happen to be a celebrity who uses Tinder (Ashton Kutcher reads Android Headlines, right?), then here’s a bit of good news: CEO Sean Rad has announced that Tinder will soon offer a verification process to its celebrity users, allowing them to bypass the requirement of logging in with a Facebook account. Verification for celebrities on social networks is nothing new, as Twitter has been plopping green checkmarks on the accounts of high-profile people who verify their identity for quite some time.

For the uninitiated, Tinder is a dating and networking app that allows users to swipe through potential matches, swiping right if they’re interested in getting to know the person better, or swiping left to move onto the next one. The app pulls information and images from Facebook and uses them to conjure up suggested matches, basing who you see on things like your proximity to one another or mutual friends the two of you share. The app has blown up in a pretty big way too, boasting up to 10 million matches per day.

It’s a neat idea, if we’re being honest, but celebrities who use the app – such as Ashton Kutcher and Lindsay Lohan – find that they don’t get very many matches because users who encounter them during their swiping frenzies assume the profiles are fake. According to Rad, celebrities will soon be able to enter Tinder in a different way, but he didn’t get too specific about the verification process. Then again, we suppose a very small percentage of us need to know the ins and outs of the process, so in this case, it’s at least somewhat acceptable that Rad is holding back most of the details.

Once the verification process is in place, doesn’t that mean the celebrities who use Tinder will suddenly be flooded with an endless amount of new matches and chat requests? Not necessarily, as Tinder requires both users to swipe to the right before one can contact the other. There still isn’t any word on when Tinder will receive this new verification feature, so until further notice, it might not be a bad idea to continue swiping with caution when a supposed celebrity pops up. Stay tuned.

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Tweeting Just Got Easier Thanks To A New Twitter Client Called Robird

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In case you haven’t found the perfect Twitter client app for use with your Android device yet,(and in my honest opinion this is because the two best have already reached their maximum amount of users: Carbon and Falcon Pro) a new Twitter client app called Robird for Twitter has popped up to offer a solution to those who are without when it comes to Twitter apps. Robird give users an option with a clean and minimalist look, with a simple to user interface and arguably one of the best and most useful features we’ve seen from any Twitter client app around. We’re putting all cards out on the table, and letting you know that Robird for Twitter will cost you $1.99 if you want to use it. With that being said, we think you’re getting your money’s worth here and it definitely has what it takes to be up there with the best of them.

First of all, one of the better features we’ve seen is the ability to Tweet anything any time, no matter what you’re doing within the app. Robird for Twitter achieves this by placing a tastefully noticeable button at the bottom right corner of the screen, which displays your Twitter profile image next to a pencil, which opens up a new tweet upon tapping it. This button never goes away and is placed on top of any page that you’re on inside the app so it’s always simple to Tweet something, and fast. We found it to be non obtrusive and out of the way just enough that it didn’t take away from the beautiful simplicity of the rest of the app. In terms of the apps aesthetics, Robird for Twitter is as minimalist as one could get without skimping on some nice design aspects. It has a clean news feed without a bunch of clutter, which is always nice. It also adds to the design by allowing users to choose a theme from a preset list, of which there are a few. We we’re partial to the standard dark theme show in the image above.

Everything else you need to access while using Twitter is just a tap or a swipe away, so using the app is nice and fluid. Settings is located in the top right, just like you’d find inside the Play Store and many other apps, which makes accessing the settings menu familiar and a snap, just tap and you’re there. As for everything else, we said it was just a swipe away and we weren’t kidding. From the main screen of your news feed, just swiping your finger from the left edge to the middle of the screen brings up anything else you could want or need to do in Twitter, and lays it out for you in a nice, clean list of options. Robird for Twitter has a dedicated Tablet UI so it’ll look great no matter what device you’re using it on. One of the other great things we noticed about it, is that it’s fast. Some other awesome and notable features about Robird for Twitter are that it has Pebble smartwatch support, and.. it has a widget extension for one of our other absolute favorite apps, which is Dashclock. There are plenty of other great features to Robird for Twitter but arguably too many details to name off. If you want to check out Robird for yourself, you can grab the app from the link here.

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