"The bird is back"

After the withdrawal of the application, many developers have tried to ride the success of Flappy Bird by creating clones. But the question we've all asked is: how can someone give up $ 50,000 a day like this? 

After all, it all might be a marketing strategy since the author announced its return on all smartphones and tablets on YouTube. There are no pictures of the game yet, just a dove and the famous pipes!


 

The author of the game no longer communicates on his Twitter account and there is no way to verify if he's the one who posted it.
So, for the moment, we can only assume that the withdrawal of the application was for marketing purposes. 

YouTube offline: Vevo is categorically opposed

Last week, we learned, not without joy, that the YouTube application for Android mobile devices will soon allow watching videos offline. Once the video is loaded on your device, you'll be able to watch it as much as you want in a period of 48 hours.A new feature that can be useful when you are in a bad coverage area, when you carefully monitor your 3G consumption or simply if you intend to listen repeatedly to the same song over and over again.

Vevo: A party pooper!

  

Unfortunately , apart from our expectation about the eventual integration of offline mode on YouTube, Vevo sees this novelty as evil.

"We’re not going to allow viewing of our music videos or other programming in offline mode"
 
The ultimate promotion tool on the net of giants like Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, Vevo account, aren't counting on  losing a dime generated by advertising, nor will consider the risk that they might be overshadowed by Youtube's own application. A choice that is anything but a wise on their part and should further encourage piracy.After all who want to wait four minutes loading whenever he wants play a song when you can just download it illegally to be available on the SD card as soon as you want? It is clear that only way to attract music consumers in making it accessible . But obviously, Vevo couldn't care less.

However, Vevo's decision should not compromise the integration of offline mode in the YouTube application, expected in November .

What's really going on between Google and Nestlé?

After the quite unexpected announcement Google made about the name of the next version of Android, some additional explanations were published today to clarify that this agreement was non monetary .
  
  

For every major new version of Android, Google gives a new name corresponding to a dessert. And for each new version, the first letter is incremented in an alphabetical order. Thus, with the letter K we were expecting Key Lime Pie, but finally Android 4.4 KitKat has been announced to take us by surprise.

Obviously, many questions have been raised about this partnership with the Swiss food giant. Many tech writer started to talk about a financial settlement that has been reached between the two firms. But this is not the case.

Thanks to a publication of the BBC, we learn that this marketing operation began in a telephone meeting between the Android sales manager and Nestlé's advertising consulting agency. Then all that was finalized at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, last February. More importantly, no money has been raised, only an exchange of visibility between the two giants has been concluded.

Shortly, you now should expect to find Android shaped chocolate bars since Nestlé plans to distribute more than fifty million of these treats, stamped Android. And maybe we'll get then the chance to win one the latest Nexus, or gifts from Play Store.

And finally to learn more about this, visit http://kitkat.com, which is, I might say the most perfectly designed website I've seen so far. It is just AWESOME!

A security vulnerability affecting 99% of Android devices

The security problem affecting 99% of Android devices has been fixed by Google. And now it's up to manufacturers to deploy the update.

Last week, the security editor Bluebox revealed a security flaw affecting 99% of Android devices and indeed relevant terminals in circulation for four years, since the 1.6 version of Android, or about 900 million devices. This flaw allows a malicious user to modify the installation file an application without changing the signature and insert malware.

"The company has not seen any evidence to support use of the fault on Google Play or other app stores through (their) security scanning tools."  
According to Google's communications manager Gina Scigliano.

Anyway Google confirmed that hey have corrected this vulnerability and sent the patch to its partners.On Samsung, for example, it would already be deployed. Other OEMs task provide a quick update, including the oldest terminals.

Source: ZDnet

10 Free Android apps

To keep up with the description of this blog that imply that it covers news, tutorials and "apps", I thought of sharing ten Android applications I use or I have used.

Wheres My Droid. A find-your-phone app, it can make the phone ring so you can find it in the house. Or you can check Google Maps for its exact coordinates.

PhotoWonder. This app lets you edit photos on your mobile device.

Speedtest.net. Test Internet speeds with one easy tap to connect and test.

Flipboard. Create your own personalized news magazine. Select topics you are interested in, and Flipboard displays a beautiful news magazine for your phone or tablet featuring only those topics.

EverNote. Remember anything you need to remember across all devices. Store and organize reminders from all over the web.

Astro File Manager/Browser. This app keeps you connected with all the things you use in the cloud. Features include file management, cloud storage, Android file browser, file and/or app backup, image and text viewers, networking, Bluetooth, SFTP, Zip/ Tar, downloader, thumbnails, search files, application manager, task manager, attachments and more.

SmartActions. This intuitive app learns how you use your phone depending on where you are, and it automatically changes the phone to fit your environment and needs while there.

Poynt. Dinner? Movies? Friends? Shopping? Get Poynt and get there. The tiled dashboard allows you to easily tap what you need so the app can then point you to where you want to be.

Kakao Talk. Make free calls and send free messages, including group calls and group chats

Captain Oil Altough I found their Super Ninjas a bit uncreative, this new Puzzle/Adventure is a major time killer. It challenges the user to find the right angle and speed to shoot his ball and free the trapped Oileys. 


P.S: The fact that the title of this post doesn't include the words "top", "amazing", "best", and "great" doesn't make the apps above any less cooler.

A brilliant app and an awesome android smartphone..

First let's take a look at this awesome and free app that lets you wirelessly manage your Android from your favorite browser.

It's called AirDroid:

Not only this app is capable of many functions that could be achieved with additional third-party apps, but it also looks extremely slick.

 And once you succesfully connect, it will take a few seconds to show you the beautiful “desktop” where you can see your phone’s memory and free space, manage your phone’s files, share URLs and more.

The application is very secure and it is completely free. You can get it from google play store.

Google to make more money from Youtube.

YouTube the streaming giant, issued the following statement: "While we don't comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we're looking at that."

Now the rumor is, that Google is to launch a subscription music service of their own, with suggestions of going live later this year.  It is believed that the service will be heavily linked with the Android mobile operating system, thus syncing with Google Play, where people can upload music to play anywhere. You know, something like "Spotify".

While the YouTube service is to be largely free, users can upgrade to unlock more features, such as ad-free access, for instance. And regarding the scale of YouTube it's impossible not to see the record companies jumping onboard any new venture, since streaming represents a sizeable portion of online revenues at the major labels.

The only question is whether it should be ad-supported or subscription based.

So would you be interested to pay for some extra youtube features?

Merry Christmas

May this Christmas be bright and cheerful and may the New Year begin on a prosperous note!

And as always I'll leave you with this App recommendation :
NORAD tracks Santa :  Keep track of Santa. Be sure you get your Gift.

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat

Snapchat what the first and only app that let you exchange pictures with caption for a limited time. It was initially released on september 2011.

"The first real-time picture chatting app is now available on Android!
Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends.
You control how long your friends can view your message -
simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send.
They'll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever.
We'll let you know if they take a screenshot!"        Snapchat as described on the playstore.



Yesterday, Facebook announced  Facebook poke a very similar app to snapchat. 

“With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app. “         Facebook announcement


So, to make it easier on you here's a simple comparision between these two apps:

Snapchat	Facebook Poke
Text, Drawing over images, Photos, videos, 10 seconds video limits, screenshot alerts, countdown clock
Sharing time 1-10 seconds	Sharing time : 1,3,5,10 seconds
No location service	Location service
33 caracters/photo caption	120 Message caracter
Photos deleted from servers for ever after the countdown.	Facebook terms of service

I know what you're thinking, Facebook poke is so much better. Well based on this comparison I can't blame you but there is something to be careful about : Facebook terms of service which implies that even that you're Facebook friends won't be able to see your pictures after the countdown, Facebook still keeps these photos in their servers.

Additional remarks: 

• Facebook Poke claims that it deletes the encryption keys two days after they’re read so they’re unreadable. Key backups are destroyed within 90 days, making a poke completely inaccessible but still no practical evidence and the app is still running under Facebook's terms of service.
• After 1 day of its launch, Facebook Poke is the #1 App in the Apple app store, followed by Google maps.