Monthly Archive: February 2016

Nintendo announced the release of their first app for mobile gaming sometime this coming March, and in anticipation of their encouraging new for a into mobile gaming platforms, Android as well as iOS smart phone users will in the near future have the capacity to interact with their friends and acquaintances by creating and customising their personal Mii character avatars. Despite their latest rendering not being a stand-alone mobile game it certainly compliments the other Nintendo gaming platforms including 3DS and the Wii U, since users will be able to import the characters directly into the mobile app. Mii character avatar customisation is will include personality, and facial features, and surprisingly even a personal voice. Nintendo app users can even earn additional rewards by registering early for a MyNintendo account. The app’s initial launch during March will only occur in select countries, and only on Android and iOS, this signifies a strong foretelling of a massive increase in Nintendo’s presence in the mobile market during the upcoming years after their partnering-up with DeNA.

iOS users can already download and install Stellar Wanderer, a fantastic space opera completely set in its cosmic sized open world universe. Players are able to choose a path that best suits their playing style, which allows them to continue growing their skills in becoming a trader, fighter, engineer, or tank with each career delivering its own set of special abilities and bonuses. Players can also choose to either just follow its main storyline or alternatively opt to complete numerous side missions they would prefer to play, or just continue mining for resources or even becoming one of the most dangerous pirate clans in this galaxy spanning adventure.

Blackwell 5: Epiphany on intro delivers players into a great adventure showcase that sees a dead man’s soul crying out against the ferocious force of a deadly blizzard. He soon screams for assistance, while crying for answers. A short screech is a precursor to him being torn apart like so much damp tissue paper, and this was not the first time, and it will not be the last such occurrence. The police remain powerless in the face of such evil, so the weight falls upon the shoulders of the only forces able to do so. The question remains kind of force could be this powerful and yet still this malevolent that it is willing and seeking to destroy the very existence and core of each life in its quest to attain what it seeking for.

One of the most crucial decisions, when journeying to any new haven where the traveller is not in full command of his or her chosen destination’s local language, is the choice of app to do your translations for you. Selecting the correct translation app is of paramount importance since unintended insulting remarks could lead to a disastrous cultural faux pas that could lend the traveller in hot water or even in jail.

Google Play Store a smorgasbord of translation apps; however, because they vary greatly in accuracy and quality the apps under discussion below highlights the best in this category so that nothing is lost in translation (pun intended).

Language Translator, a free app from Clave Gandora performs the best when you require a quick translation. The developer created the app focusing on ease-of-use and such succeeded admirably, which also makes it a perfect match for beginners due to its simplistic interface. It offers only two translation formats, speaking and typing both of which deliver quick translation results. The interface provides relatively large control buttons with flags displayed next to them that make it easy to distinguish between languages, together with its large font size makes for quick reading of your translation. Any app achieving in excess of 1 million downloads that still manages to score a 4.4 rating by its users must be excellent.

PONS Online Dictionary provides a myriad of free apps as well as a number of paid ones. It is the best of its kind since it is essentially a dictionary featuring translation functions. It performs best when looking for an in-depth description on individual words, which can come in real handy since words can quite often have a variety of different meanings. PONS delivers a number of options displayed in its uncomplicated UI, with a descriptor as well as an indicator of word type use such as nouns and adjectives. It instantly translates and displays the translation in a split screen fashion next to the originating language, provides users with an improved understanding of each word in both the desired languages, which incidentally also makes it an excellent teaching tool.

With all that said, any user that requires a solid multifunction translator app would be wise to keep Google Translate on their phone’s back burner… Just in case!

Smartphones and their manufactures, app developers, and users, have since its heady early days experienced numerous chapters of an action packed adventure that initially saw users with star filled eyes stare lovingly at these latest, magical new devices when they first appeared on the market. This quickly swung the other way to include disgruntled complaints about a lack of content depth, this matter was rectified in short order to see the virtual store shelves from largest two mobile smart device platforms provide a myriad of options that often leaves users dazed and confused due to the vast quantity of available content of all types. The games discussed below is an attempt to see the best content prevail instead of being lost in a sea of available options.

Scribblenauts Unlimited, currently available to both Android and iOS users will have you imagine that you are in possession of a magic infused notebook that causes any word laid down in writing within its pages to come to actualisation in real life. Imagine all the good it could do by helping others, and you will experience Maxwell’s forced view on life after an old man lays a curse on his favoured sister Lily. Totally understandable since Maxwell gave the poor old man a completely rotten apple after he requested food to sate his hunger; however, petrification is no laughing matter.

Players will initially only control Maxwell, until you become aware of other avatar characters discovered as you progress through the game. The main-focus of play is the collection of Starites, which come into existence by acting kindly and doing good deeds for other game characters. In order to receive redemption Maxwell needs to help out as many other people as possible to see the curse on a sister Lily reversed.

Scribblenauts Unlimited delivers high quality aesthetics as well as excellent gaming entertainment that sees players off on extensive travels throughout his world, while solving puzzles by other modifying existing items, creating new objects, or changing situations to fulfil the requirements of the various game characters. Gameplay achieves a nice balance of knife between two easy or too difficult while following a good pace that prevents play from becoming boring or repetitive.

One of Android’s most appealing aspects over its rivals is its capacity to offer customising options. Users adore this freedom it allows them to extensively personalise and alter the device to set their own personal preferences in both appearance and functionality. Android launcher apps form a long-standing and integral part of the whole Android experience, users that fall out of love with the appearance or functionality of their home screens can choose to ultra by simply downloading a simple app to completely change both its appearance and functionality. Many Android launcher apps offer far greater diversity in its feature set than other genre of customising application, allowing users to create amazing new ways to squeeze the appearance and performance they desire out of their Smartphones. Below we take a quick look at a couple of the best apps.

Action Launcher is a long-standing favourite amongst Android users. It delivers a fairly stock looking Android interface; however, it delivers a number of unique integral features such as Quicktheme that utilises the home screen’s background in order to determine the theme’s accent. Additionally it’s Covers delivers a unique new look and functionality to its folders, Quickpage presents users with a and the cover home screen they may access from just about anywhere and loads of other interesting features. Action Launcher is renowned for its stability as well as frequent updates to bring about new features, styling, and looks. The app is available at no cost with ads or $3.99 for its ad-free version.

Apex Launcher has also been around the block many times, yet still remains one of Android’s most iconic launchers to date. Similar to Action Launcher, it attempts to provide the stock Android feel and look while adding a couple of additional features that makes it really interesting. Amongst these features it includes the capacity to alter animation features such as scrolling habits, transition animations, as well as a scrolling dock that users can fill up with a multitude of app icons. Apex Launcher also features a theming engine that delivers a multitude of available themes downloadable from Google’s Play Store, with its themes fully supportive of numerous of its icon packs. It can be downloaded at no cost with ads or a contribution of $3.99 will get rid of all unwanted advertisements.

Google Play Store currently lists in excess of 250 mobile browsers amongst those are the obvious well-known choices offering brilliantly developed browsers such as Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Dolphin, and numerous other variations all attempting to cater for every possible personal preference.

Flyperlink represents an excellent example of an Android browser that typical for the android platform is hard to believe that it is available at no cost, since stands out in excellence of execution. It is a light small footprint web browser specifically designed to optimise multi tasked browsing on mobile devices. After its initial installation and first launch, Flyperlink goes about its business quietly running in the background. Until you tap on a hyperlink, then a bubble appears that you may choose to minimise or expand or even moved around freely to keep it out of the way of your current task we will then be able to access it at your convenience.

Moreover, after you have finished perusing the website is simply drag-and-drop the bubble into the recycle bin appearing at the bottom of the screen. Aside from its core functionality and diminutive size, Flyperlink presents an incredibly feature rich web browsing experience. Some of its highlights include its ability to open links in other apps by launching a floating bubble to display its wares. It even offers the capacity to open content in other applications via the share button inside its floating browser.

A minimise button allows you to move the pop-up bubble or alternatively use conventional navigation keys in order to close and exit their web pages you’re finished with. Another stroke of brilliance allows you to show content over your lock screen, while tech selection allows users to select the complete page text to copy and paste. When necessary its desktop mode forces pages to render exactly as one would experience on a PC desktop.

Flyperlink delivers an excellent lightweight browser that is for the most part free; however, it also contains a number of optional in app features that users can purchase separately. The in app purchases allow users to resize the pop-up bubble, or even just support the worthwhile project via small personal donation and projects like these are worth giving your personal support to.

The hottest news this February has to be from Samsung, LG, and Sony, with the latest launches of their brand-spanking new flagship devices. This in turn opens up an even greater requirement for any potential new apps that the lucky millions of new handset owners will want to install on their shiny new toys. The below list contains the useful wheat anyone looking for new apps may wish to install on their devices, but only after a proper separation from the chaff that always makes its presence felt as well. This leaves you, the smart phone user, with a lovely to-do, and to try out list to find out which of the new apps suit your personal tastes best.

Doo – Get Things Done is a worthwhile new app available for download from the Apple Store at $4.99 that will present its users with their task list in a Tinder-esque style card format, which will assist/force users to remain singularly focused on tasks. It represents a nice fresh approach that delivers its smooth brand of tasking and to-do’s via a pretty interface, currently and sadly only available via a relatively steep price.

IShouldNotifications, a free subscription based app recently added to the Apple Store for download forms part of the iShould series of office platformed apps that allows users to create and grade their tasks by order of urgency, importance, and or level of difficulty. The app provides a great new way to organise work between all the members required in any creative team, and in addition has the option of live stats and chat rooms.

Droidart, has the capacity to transform any of its user’s pictures to imitate wall paintings via a variety of different stylistic filters simulating the styles of a number of famous artists throughout history is already available as a free download from the Apple Store. It provides for a fun new way to look at your old pictures after they’ve received an extensive rehashing. The service is currently free, but a few reports remarking on either slow or non-existent connections surfaced.

Glitch art forms part of an eccentric new form of photo crafting that utilises visual bugs, or artifacts, as well as a number of analogue type errors, which traditionally would be considered undesirable to provide otherwise perfectly good conventional photos with a special style causing each creation to appear completely unique. The effects imbues photos with nostalgic effects that could possibly remind persons viewing it of the long lost VHS era, or even unlock a completely unexplored and new visual frontier that enable artist to express themselves via a new set and form of creative tools.

The new art style of glitch effects already entrenched itself to become a long-term permanent fixture in the world of photography and visual creativity, despite it currently is still considered as a niche art form. The apps under discussion below represent the best of its kind currently on the mobile market and can consider it a worthwhile addition to any modern photographic artist’s much-needed creativity toolset.

Decim8 is currently available at just $0.99 and it is the name would suggest provides artists with the capacity to turn completely great photos into unrecognisable piles of pixel mush. The app incorporates 27 unique glitching filters, all of which visual artists may choose to apply simultaneously. Budding glitch artists will do well to remember that the app utilises a layered approach, with each effect applied in a successive order and players can be swapped from front to back to create completely unique effects, where each layer provides the budding artist with completely tweakable parameters. If an artist runs into a visual version of writers block the app offers up a number of randomising buttons that surprisingly may result in an excellent final rendering if mashed a sufficient number of times. One of its greatest features is the capacity to save presets of particular glitch combinations a user falls head over heels for.

Hyperspektiv users can download the app for $1.99, and it too delivers 27 wacky glitch filters. The developers provided the app with a unique feature that allows its viewfinder to act as a conventional X/Y control of the parameters for each filter effect. Newly aspiring artists can simply slide their finger to the right causing the filter to of ever faster, or alternatively slide the thing upwards to create an increasingly intense effect. The great benefit of the above features is the capacity to record video as users play with the X/Y sliders in order to create a far more dynamic clip as an end-result.

With few exceptions, the world across each holiday season represents a time of tremendous gastronomic overindulgence. Conversely, with the festive season just past and the New Year presenting us with another opportunity to start-off with a clean slate to sweat and starve away the extra pounds gained over the holidays. However, since we’re all reasonably aware that starvation diets bring about unhealthy and temporary relief from weight gain, an app that keeps us on the straight and narrow while eating correctly proportioned meals is always of great help in conjunction with a decent exercise regimen.

Amid a narcissistic generation, to be socially acceptable looking good became one of the key components of success along with having each latest tech gadget. This makes it the perfect opportunity to use your latest smartphone tech gadget to shift those additionally collected pounds.

LoseIt!, Is a true gem and has become one of the most popular in the marketplace and with good reason. The app analyses all elements of following a healthy lifestyle, assisting users to meticulously track all aspects in their quest to improve their personal health. Initially users will be required to enter a few personal details, provide an outline of their health and dietary goals before launching into action.

Users receive a succinct, easy to follow regimen detailing their nutrient requirements, as well as their step count, on top of which they balance the always-crucial calorie count to their even more crucial financial means (budget). This app provides you with a complete overview of your exercise regimen, lifestyle, and dietary requirements, if you are committed to changing your culinary ways.

It integrates with other fitness apps like Runkeeper as well as Nike+ in order to centralise all your inputs and provide an accurate picture on which direction you’re moving when looking at your lifestyle on a wider scale. The basic app is available for free on both iOS and Android with the premium version available at $39.99, where the seriously committed health lifestylers will enjoy a number of extra features such as a detailed meal planner amongst others.

February once again sees the various iStores leading with a rich serving of brand-new mobile gaming apps and titles so brilliant and entertaining that they absolutely just have to be played. Android leads the way with one of the most exciting titles in a long time called Downwell, with the whole mobile gaming community going absolutely apesh** about it at the moment.

Downwell became an instant smash it amongst the masses after its first release on iOS and PC platforms and now the Android crowd can join in on the deliciousness of this game. Uncommonly Downwell sees a vertical portrait orientation on the small screen, where players dropped through its narrow gaming screen while blasting enemies and collecting upgrade items as you progress. Upon reaching the end of each stage players will be offered a selection of power ups to assist them through their next high-speed level, with each of the stages becoming increasingly difficult. Players only benefit from a tiny number of game lives of which they will lose a life each time they sustain serious injury.

All receive all the coolest items they could possibly wish for in any game, such as Gunboots, murderous jellyfish, blocky spectrum graphics, in conjunction with precise control elements and in excellently rated enemy AI that ensures Downwell’s awesomeness. A great part of its success is the continual ice the decisions you’re forced to make, with limited gunboot ammo that can be re-quipped whenever a player lands on top of an enemy or object. Game play offers a constant risk versus rewards calculation, since a number of enemies can cause significant damage should you land on them. Game play offers incredibly rewarding difficulty levels when successfully completed, offering players a rare opportunity to enjoy themselves in a game the court all the plots perfectly sorted.

Alto’s Adventure, is at the moment not quite officially available yet on Android; however, it is released today on 11 February and players are guaranteed to play and love this game. It delivers a snowboard side scrolling game with one of the greatest soundtracks of any gaming title on Android featuring significantly gifted artwork. The game sees travellers head down mountains while collecting coins and making massive jumps to gain speed boosts, with equally significant penalties for failures.

Smart device sales are booming, showing massive increases in sales each year in sectors such as Smartphones, Tablets, and netbooks. These devices potentially all have one great central issue on which they either fail, or succeed admirably and that remains the speed and stability of the network they connect to.

Current day high-end smart devices all feature blazingly fast hardware, but for the greater part the speed of the network they connect to determine the functional speed of the device, which basically means higher network speeds equals faster devices. Since high network speeds are crucial to optimising the performance on these devices a decent reliable and accurate speed testing tool forms part of any formidable smart device’s toolbox.

One of the most accurate and stable of these apps arrive from Speedtest.net, internet speed testing apps are fairly simple; however, amongst many tested just a few perform well universally on all devices to deliver accurate results time after time. Of the numerous apps tested few besides the Speedtest.net software remained stable and reliable regardless of how many times the test was performed on different networks.

The above statement may seem fairly obvious, which may be correct in densely populated cities that offer stable, high-speed networks across the board irrespective of your location; however, whenever you leave these well serviced areas mobile 3G and HSDPA may at times be far slower in rural areas. At these times, it is essential to have the correct tools to identify the issue that is holding up the speed on a smart device’s functionality.

Speed Test will give you accurate reliable results regarding any form of Internet connection, including ping to determine distance from the server, latency, upload, as well as download speeds. An easy to use clearly visible tachometer display up and download speeds live as the testing occurs, with a clear succinct summary at the end of the test. The app will display the ISP information and server location, with a number of additional options available in its settings that allow users to specify the units in which each test is to be displayed.