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Qualcomm's universal AllPlay streaming now works with Spotify
Qualcomm's AllPlay is supposed to deliver a world of simple, universal media streaming, and it just came a lot closer to realizing that vision by both landing a raft of new partners and widening its app program. You can now stream to AllPlay devices using several additional music services, including Spotify; if you want to blast that new album on every system in the house, you can. Appropriately, both Fon's Gramofon media hub and Monster's SoundStage speakers will now take your AllPlay tunes.
Free browser RPG Candy Box 2 is your next click-for-sweets addiction
Candy Box 2, the ASCII art-based sequel to the click-for-candy RPG is now available to freely play. Set up like other simple all-you-do-is-click games like Cookie Clicker and Clicking Bad, Candy Box 2 has players collecting pieces of candy in their browsers, trading candies in for items and equipment to aid them in quests. The game's blog describes changes to the formula introduced in the first game, noting that there are more items as well as hidden goods and fun Easter eggs; not every piece of equipment can be found in the text-based missions. French developer aniwey introduced an offline save system for Candy Box 2 so players can transfer their addiction progress to other computers.
Clicking Bad is the darker side of Cookie Clicker [Update]
The latest strangely enticing phenomenon, Cookie Clicker, rewards players with cookies for every click of the mouse. Among the list of things more addicting than cookies is methamphetamines, the drug central to the plot of the popular, recently ended TV show Breaking Bad. Capitalizing on both properties is Clicking Bad, a free browser game in the same style as Cookie Clicker that has players cooking up drugs and selling them to upgrade their equipment. Clicking Bad launched its public beta roughly a week ago and just recently hit version 0.6, which added more manufacturing and selling tiers as well as changing the cost structure. The game tasks players with managing their drug creation business by either manually clicking "buy" and "sell" buttons or using in-game money to purchase upgrades like sleazy lawyers and abandoned trailers, each providing a boost to sales or production. The upgrades may also impact the odds of authorities catching on and seizing your meth-cooking labs as well as the purity levels of your drugs. The game's Twitter account notes that an achievement system "may or may not make it in this week," indicating that more updates are on the way. We're waiting for the right moment to introduce Clicking Bad to our own Richard Mitchell, who recently opted to stream his Cookie Clicker obsession for all to pity. We're worried about him enough as it is. Update: The game has just been updated to version 0.7, and sure enough, it now includes achievements.
Toshiba's Satellite Click detachable PC promises better graphics than your typical budget system
We get it: speeds and feeds aren't everything. But this might be a rare case where a chip could actually make the whole story. Toshiba announced the Satellite Click today, and until you get to the spec sheet, it reads like a totally forgettable product. What we have here is a 13-inch detachable tablet with a 500GB hard drive inside the tablet and an extra battery inside the keyboard dock. Sounds like lots of other things you've read about, right? Well, lo and behold, the Click is actually one of the first products to ship with AMD's Temash chip, whose graphics prowess we showed you back at CES. To be fair, this is a dual-core 1GHz A4-1200 processor with AMD Radeon HD 8180 graphics, not the quad-core one we demoed earlier. Even so, the general concept is the same: this is a system-on-a-chip tailored for tablets that makes use of AMD's 28nm Graphics Core Next architecture, which you'll also find inside some of AMD's discrete GPUs. Depending on the exact chip, Temash promises to compete with Intel's Atom processors as well as its Core i3 series. Unlike a Core i3 tablet, though, Temash allows for a fanless design, more akin to what you'd expect from an Atom or ARM-powered device. Also, it drives down the cost. The Click will go for about $599, making it $150 cheaper than the Core i3-powered HP Split x2, which also has a 13-inch screen, dual batteries and a 500-gig hard drive in the dock. Granted, there are likely to be tradeoffs, and we suspect battery life could be one of them, if not speed. A Toshiba rep estimated runtime at three to four hours for the tablet only, and six to seven hours with the dock. That wouldn't match up well against a new Haswell hybrid but then again, some of its competitors (like the Split x2) are based on Ivy Bridge, which isn't so hot in the longevity department either. The Click will be available later this month exclusively at Best Buy and on Toshiba's site. Update: We've just seen the Click on display here at IFA... sort of. Toshiba is showing off the European version, the Satellite W30t, which for whatever reason ships with an Intel Core processor, not an AMD Temash chip. So, similar design (save for the fans), but very different performance, we'd imagine. Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
Click KeyPad Watch is the timewasting retro-timepiece you've been waiting for
We do like a good indecipherable timepiece 'round these parts and Click's KeyPad certainly fits the bill. Resembling an old-school mechanical numerical keypad, each button packs an LED -- press any number and it'll blink out the time in single digits, so if it was 9:15am, the zero, nine, one and five buttons would flash in sequence. Push the hash key and the watch will oblige you for today's date. If you enjoy frustrating colleagues who ask you for the time, then you'll be delighted to hear that it costs $90 and is shipping now. However, we're not sure we could pull one off -- maybe the hipster down the street will have better success.
Sony offers 'adjustment' for NEX-5N camera to reduce clicking sound while recording video
Looks like we weren't the only one afflicted by the Sony NEX-5N camera's annoying click problem. In case you missed it, the camera displayed the disruptive tendency of producing an audible click loud enough to ruin any 1080/60p video if it was moved suddenly while shooting. Tonight Sony updated its support site to promise a "performance improvement" available to all owners under the camera's warranty that it claims reduces the sound. At the moment we don't have any more information on what's causing the sound or what the improvement entails, but owners can dial 888-868-7392 to get their units upgraded.
HTC Tattoo earns FCC's love and respect
HTC's fourth Android phone (the Dream, Magic, and Hero all came before it, lest we forget) just got hooked up with some sweet RF emission approvals, meaning anyone carrying a Tattoo this side of the pond is now welcome -- nay, encouraged -- to fire off a few shots of Bluetooth, WiFi, and a little EDGE here and there. The documentation indicates a model name of "CLIC100," verifying the commonly-held belief that the phone was known as the "Click" internally prior to its introduction (not to be confused with CLIQ, of course), and the "100" code indicates that it's the first variant with quadband GSM / EDGE with HSDPA 900 / 2100. Whether there'll be another variant produced later with 850 / 1900 3G for North America remains to be seen -- but for now, at least you're welcome to plod along with 2.5G without fear of FCC reprisal.
Vodafone to launch HTC Tattoo in October
This next item is sure to please HTC fanboys and Anglophiles alike: according to some well-crafted PR, Vodafone has confirmed that it will be launching the HTC Tattoo sometime next month. Indeed, if Android, resistive touchscreen, and FM Radio aren't enough to blow your mind, wait'll you hear this next bit of news: this one is available in black -- a UK exclusive! Maybe not worth moving overseas for, but possibly worth pre-registering for? If you think so, hit the read link and get started. Show full PR text VODAFONE UK ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE HTC TATTOO Following last week's announcement of the Nokia E72, LG GM750 and Sony Ericsson XPERIA™ X2, Vodafone UK will be ranging another innovative smartphone exclusive. The new Android-powered HTC Tattoo is a smartphone which will keep you entertained and up to date wherever you are. The HTC Tattoo, available exclusively in black on Vodafone UK, lets you customise your own mobile experience using the latest HTC Sense technology. It delivers lots of the features of the enormously successful HTC Magic at an affordable price, for example, you can create shortcuts to your favourite internet sites, social networks, games, widgets and applications – and there's an amazing opportunity to personalise your phone further with thousands more applications and widgets available for download in the simple to use Android Market. Android also gives you quick and easy access to popular Google services such as Google Maps, Google Mail and Google Search as well as favourites like YouTube. Take your favourite snaps with the 3.2 megapixel camera with sharp focus, and view them on the HTC Tattoo's high resolution screen or upload them to your social network via the handset's superfast internet connection. And you are able to alter the look of your phone further with the unique covers that you can design yourself and purchase, or simply choose one from popular cover designs available. Key features of the exclusive black HTC Tattoo include: 3.2MP Camera Android technology FM Radio and MP3 player 2.8" Touchscreen Unique personalised covers Available in October, customers can pre-register for the Vodafone exclusive HTC Tattoo here: http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/htc-tattoo
HTC claims Tattoo's screen is too small for capacitive to work well
For full-touch mobile use, capacitive touchscreens are the best solution we've got -- and it has absolutely nothing to do with the iPhone, it has to do with the incremental improvement in usability brought about by near-100 percent touch registration. That's a big deal, because even a 5 percent loss of registration on an on-screen QWERTY keyboard would represent roughly one letter missed every five words (assuming an average word length in the English language of just over 5 letters). Resistive screens have many, many totally valid applications, but put simply, phones aren't one of them; they've been outmoded by a different technology that's more appropriate for the size and use that the average handset sees. Registration issues aside, fingers are larger than styli, and when a resistive display is registering an unweighted pinpoint coordinate, you end up ironically losing accuracy -- a benefit touted by resistive that's really only realized if you're using a stylus full-time. No one's claiming that capacitive screens are the magic elixir to make human digits achieve superhuman accuracy on a tiny screen, but... you know, step one is making sure the phone knows you pressed something. Anyhow, HTC's now claiming that the just-announced Tattoo has gone resistive because its 2.8-inch screen is simply too small "to be accurate with" as a capacitive. The company's tweet goes on to say that resistive "ends up registering fewer miss-clicks," which could be argued -- maybe -- were users expected to use styli. Android is not and was never designed as a stylus-driven platform, and unless HTC's driving in that dubious direction, the claim is bunk. More realistically, the resistive display is probably a cost sacrifice the company made to keep sticker shock to a minimum, which is fair enough -- HTC's trying to cover many market segments with Android, as it should -- but we wish they'd been upfront about it.
HTC Tattoo (aka, Click) brings Android, Sense UI to all
This one sure took awhile but the oft leaked HTC Click has been renamed and kicked out the door as the Tattoo. While HTC is light on specs with the press release, we know it has a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, 3.5-mm headset jack, and microSD expansion. And besides being small and compact, the Tattoo can be personalized with owner-designed covers -- hence the name. The HTC Tattoo lands in Europe early October before hitting select global markets in the months to follow. Update: And... out pop the specs: 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 512MB/256MB ROM/RAM, 106 x 55.2 x 14-mm / 113 grams, 2.8-inch touchscreen LCD pushing 240x320 QVGA pixels, 900/2100MHz HSPA/UMTS and quad-band GSM/EDGE, internal GPS, 802.11b/g WiFi, digital compass, accelerometer, and Bluetooth 2.0. Not bad for a mass-market device.%Gallery-72133%
Video: HTC Click gets a 6-finger 'Donut' salute
Looks like Vietnam is the new place to be for early device leaks. A place where gadget-nerds are rapidly evolving extra digits to master their surplus of hi-tech gear -- lucky bastages. As followup to its GSM-flavored Palm Pre scoop, site Tinh Te is once again showing off the HTC Click only this time, it's a full-on video. The device sports some interesting graphics (likely customized by the owner) on the back, a microSD slot, 1100mAh battery, standard 3.5-mm headphone jack up top, camera (no flash), and of course, Android, "Donut" build 1.50.999.0 according to the device's about page. Clearly, it lacks that swank SenseUI and the LCD is much smaller than the HTC Magic -- indicators that the Click is very much HTC's cheapo Android phone as previously rumored. See it in action just past the break.Update: A few high-res pics of the Click posted at Tinh Te. Sample after the break.
HTC Hero and Click coming to China under Dopod brand
HTC has been on a global Android-pimping mission with its Hero device, and it looks like Chinese subsidiary Dopod gets the honor of announcing three new handsets for the Middle Kingdom. Unlike others, the Hero retains its WiFi capabilities by playing nice with China's custom WLAN security protocol and is expected in late August on China Unicom for 5,600 Yuan ($820) along with the few-frills Click for 3,400 Yuan ($500). The carrier has opted to strip Google Maps from the Hero (though it's still downloadable), and to soften the blow it will likely offer a snazzy red version of the phone. China Mobile will have to settle for an as-yet unspecified TD-SCDMA handset and the already announced Magic, both of which will likely be sporting the OMS flavor of Android. We're not sure we'd classify the Hero's price tag as reasonable -- but really, can you put a dollar figure on being the first big-name Android release in the world's largest wireless market?
Android-powered HTC Click rumored to be crazy cheap unlocked
One more note about that Android-powered HTC Click that we saw in a gloriously-framed shot yesterday morning: it's going to be cheap. It had been said all along that the Click would mark HTC's first Android entry into the low-end fray (joining the Touch Viva on WinMo), meaning the sticker price would be kept to a minimum -- but the Vietnamese forum that first brought you this picture is saying that we're looking at somewhere between 5 and 6 million dong, which works out to $280 to $336 unlocked. That's cheap enough to ensure that it's free on contract virtually anywhere in the world where it's sold, bringing Android to a whole new demographic. Now, just call us when the Hero's down to $280, eh?
HTC Click gets pictured again, this time with better bokeh
Dare we call this new shot of HTC's alleged Click almost... artistic? It's a great picture, almost ripe for an official press release -- but as far as we can tell, there's nothing official about it. The phone, which is said to be bringing Android to a new, cheaper target demo the same way the Touch Viva did for WinMo, has popped up on a Vietnamese message board -- it's not on, unfortunately, but you can clearly make out the presence of enough Android-required buttons to deduce that there's some Google code under the hood here. We still can't decide how usable that giant nav pad is going to be, but hopefully, we have a chance to find out for ourselves sooner rather than later -- we're obviously not visiting Vietnam enough.[Thanks, vuhai]
HTC Click in the wild -- Android on the cheap?
Not satisfied with your Android selection? Looking for something a little easier on the pocketbook, perhaps? Well, that's cool, partner -- look no further than the HTC Click. This thing hasn't been announced, but rumors have been swirling for a few days now that the Click would be taking HTC's Android ambitions decidedly downmarket, and like clockwork, we've now got a couple alleged pictures of it. We can't verify the authenticity of this stuff, but we certainly don't have any reason to doubt that it's real -- it's pretty much what we'd envision a low-end HTC Android phone would look like. One open question would be the mystery surrounding that crazy pad arrangement where we'd normally expect a trackball to be -- don't get us wrong, we're not married to the trackball by any stretch, but it'll be interesting to see how well this works in practice. We don't have any details on the Click's release, but you can bet your sweet little green robot we'll be passing that on just as soon as we get it.
RIM CEO: "SurePress is here to stay"
In a scandalous, but not entirely shocking turn of events, RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis has declared from the stage of D7 in no uncertain terms that "SurePress is here to stay." The trouble is, there's no clarification of what he means by that, since the Storm 2 we've been toying with quite obviously lacks a click-screen mechanism. Our best shot-in-the-dark guess is that RIM has developed some alternative to a physical click that may or may not duplicate the functionality adequately, while hopefully removing some of the frustration experienced by the physical click of the Storm. What is clear is that apparently whatever face-saving technology that turns out to be, Mike and co. plan on calling it SurePress.
Cyan porting Myst to iPhone
An employee of Cyan Worlds (proprietors of the legendary Myst series of games) has announced that they will be porting the original Myst to the iPhone. Apparently it's an "outside-funded" project -- though who might be funding it isn't yet clear -- and is apparently proving to be an "interesting and fun" project with a small team of just three people. No word yet on how it might work (or work differently) from the original, but the classic puzzle/exploration of Myst is good gaming no matter what platform you're playing it on.Starting with the NES emulator, the iPhone was following the evolution of gaming pretty well -- at least until the App Store started mixing things up a bit. After Myst, I think we're right around Wolfenstein and Doom at this point -- those were available jailbroken, but it's about time we get an FPS officially as well. Carmack, you interested?[via TouchArcade, which is strangely down as of this writing]
Sony's MicroVault Click Excellence drives are Bill and Ted approved
Sony's MicroVault Click and Click Excellence range of USB drives were just announced in Europe. "Click," as in a clicking, retractable design with up to 16GB of flash capacity. "Excellence," as in an un-heinous 32MBps read and 11MBps write speed with a comforting, blinky-LED light for visual data flow. Unfortunately, the most excellent model is limited to a non-triumphant 8GB max capacity. Whoa, dudes.[Via Engadget Spanish]
WoW Insider pwns a Mage, Druid, and Priest
Last night the WoW Insider arena team went over to the Arena Tournament server and played 14 matches over a couple hours. We went 8-6 for the evening, a much better number than our 3-11 score the week before. That places us at 11-17, with a team rating of 1435. Not too bad considering we've only played together a handful of times, and some of us are playing completely unknown classes.So what helped us go in the right direction? A few things. First, we were communicating much more over vent. We were letting each other know what our target was, where we were going, what our status was, etc. This gave us the edge in a few matches. Another thing that helped us win more was focus targeting a player down. This action in itself might seem like a no-brainer to many of you out there, but it is easier said than done. One of the reasons we had success in the video above is that we focus targeted the Mage down quickly. This was good not only from a DPS stand point, but from a target selection stand point as well. Mages are squishy, and go splat easily. This Mage didn't last long.
Finally, no more loot click hunting
There's one little mostly unseen note in the 2.1 patch notes that has quietly been making players' lives easier for the past few weeks. Hidden way down inside the "User Interface" section, we find this: "Active corpses or objects (ones with loot on them) now can be selected and looted, even if they are underneath another corpse that does not have loot on it."We've all been in that situation before 2.1, where we were fighting, and had to deal with adds that died in almost exactly the same place, and then had to slowly move your looting cursor over the whole area, looking for that tiny little section in which it went from black and white to color, just so you could look that few silver and bit of trash from it. Nowadays, in these enlightened 2.1 times, we can simply loot at will, and life is good.Of course, it's not perfect-- I still can't target anything through walls, and that's a known bug. But it is very nice to see that one simple sentence in the patch notes, and know that I never again have to hunt around for a tiny point of contact just to loot a piece of junk.
