Sure, Opera Mini may (or may not) already be the most popular mobile browser in the world — but why stop there? Following up on the Android release of Opera Mobile 4 just over a year ago, Opera has just launched Opera Mini 5 for Android into public beta.
The jump from version 4 to version 5 is pretty huge, introducing a handful of features that Opera says “makes your mobile browsing experience as close as it can be to your desktop experience.”
Doodle Jump for the iPhone is something like a developer’s fairy tale: two brothers set out to make a game using only the talents they’ve got at hand, and end up striking gold. They keep pushing out minor updates, and the game just keeps selling.
Tomorrow morning, Lima Sky will be announcing that Doodle Jump has just surpassed 3 million sales — a feat, they claim, is a first for any Indie development house. If it seems like we were just writing about Doodle Jump surpassing the 1 million download mark, it’s because we were; that last landmark only just came in mid-December of last year. Less than 3 months later, Lima Sky has managed to triple an already impressive haul.
Doodle Jump for the iPhone is something like a developer’s fairy tale: two brothers set out to make a game using only the talents they’ve got at hand, and end up striking gold. They keep pushing out minor updates, and the game just keeps selling.
Tomorrow morning, Lima Sky will be announcing that Doodle Jump has just surpassed 3 million sales — a feat, they claim, is a first for any Indie development house. If it seems like we were just writing about Doodle Jump surpassing the 1 million download mark, it’s because we were; that last landmark only just came in mid-December of last year. Less than 3 months later, Lima Sky has managed to triple an already impressive haul.
Our full review of the Motorola Backflip should be up in a few days, but a few words of wisdom in the mean time: Don’t buy it. Between its crazy form-factor and the hidden trackpad tucked on the back of the display, everything we took as merits at face value have devolved into novelties.
Worst of all, it seems AT&T has taken a page from their time with the iPhone that no one wanted them to take. Like the iPhone — but unlike any other Android handset we’ve seen — the Motorola Backflip can’t install applications from any sources beyond the official, on-handset application store.
What do you get when you mix a Unicorn and a Nexus One? I’ve got no idea – but if you put an iPhone and Furby together, you get a Xachi pet. Announced last week at the American International Toy Fair, a Xachi (pronounced “ZAH-chee”) Pet is an iPhone-controlled toy. It looks kind of like a Furby with a giant LED screen in place of its face. And, yes, you interface with your Xachi Pet through your iPhone/iPod.
It’s pretty a simple concept, but it’s the first time I’ve seen someone pull it off. The closest thing to an iPhone-enabled toy on the market is a helicopter with your iPhone as a remote control, and that’s not exactly cute and cuddly.
Late last year, Ustream and qik launched iPhone applications that let you stream videos from the iPhone to the web and allow others to watch them as they’re being recorded. And now there is an iPhone app called TwitCasting Live (iTunes link), which offers the same basic functionality, but is – as the name suggests – much more deeply integrated into Twitter.
The free app is essentially a live streaming app and Twitter client rolled into one. TwitCasting Live splits the iPhone screen in half, allowing you to view your Twitter timeline, update your status, access the web etc. on the bottom half, while recording (broadcasting) video on the top.
Uh oh.
On at least a few occasions, Android developers have mentioned to me that the multi-touch sensors on certain Android handsets — especially the Nexus One — seemed a bit.. flaky. I’d had nothing but solid experiences while dabbling with multi-touch in all of the apps I could find that support it, so I chalked it up as a coding error on the developer’s part until something a bit more solid came forward.
Well, something a bit more solid has just come forward.
Well – not entirely. After all, it’s bright, responsive, and has a much higher resolution. But there is a lot more to making a good screen, and under a detailed analysis it’s far from a rout when you pit HTC’s bleeding-edge OLED screen against the old-school LCD of the iPhone.
Here is the basic list of complaints, which seem to be backed up by pretty credible evidence.
“Bump is just a gimmick for young people” says DubMeNow CEO Manoj Ramnani. DubMeNow (”Dub” for short) is a real business, he implies, and he can prove it. Dub has been on a tear the last few months in all aspects of their business.
They’ve got real revenue: over $2.7M projected for this fiscal year. They’ve raised over $2.8 million in funding thus far, led by Syncom Ventures with other undisclosed angel investors participating. Furthermore, they have found traction in the education market and are soon-to-be deployed to over 750 Universities as a contact-sharing option for students.
There’s nothing like finding and getting rid of junk on eBay, especially if you’re a gadget hound looking to offload last month’s toys for the latest and greatest. While it’s entirely possible to manage your eBay account on your phone’s browser, a dedicated application would make life so much easier.
The new eBay app for Android could make shopping, paying and selling through the online auction site a breeze. We’ve got screenshots and it looks pretty solid.