52 per cent of smartphones will cost under $150 in 2017

December 12th, 2012, 00:26 Posted By: wraggster

Market share of expensive devices will shrink from 85 per cent last year to 33 per cent.
New research from Informa Telecoms & Media claims the smartphone market will see a huge shift in pricing over the next five years, as more than half of devices sold will be priced under $150.
Consumers often complain the likes of the iPhone are too dear, which leaves the likes of Nokia and ZTE to lead emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia with low-end devices, which are set to become the norm.
Comparatively, the high end market accounted for 85 per cent of smartphone sales in 2011, but will fall to 33 per cent in 2017 as buyers avoid paying above $250 for their phones.
The average price of a smartphone was at $188 in 2011 and it will continue to decline to $152, driven by a balancing act between the high-end phones sold in developed markets and entry-level devices in emerging ones.
The price drop will force OEMs to compete fiercely with each other, though some vendors will struggle to maintain profitability as a result.
Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said: "As the market develops, the supply chain will increasingly be divided between two camps – the innovators who will continue to introduce new features and high-performance components to the market place and followers who will take this innovation to the mass market in later years.
"In any case, these players will have to align their pricing strategy with market demand if they want to survive. The new environment will make it hard for all vendors to achieve a balance between generating scale and maintaining decent margins."

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...in-2017/020090

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Pokédex for iOS arrives... for £17.45

December 10th, 2012, 22:09 Posted By: wraggster

The Pokémon Company International has today confirmed the release of Pokédex for iOS.
Described as “an illustrated encyclopaedia of more than 640 Pokémon characters�, the app offers a ton of detail about the virtual critters including where they can be found and how best to evolve them.
The initial download costs £1.49 and includes access to the Unova Pokédex, (National Pokédex) including numbers 494–647.
Additional packs cost £3.99 each are as follows: Kanto Pokédex (National Pokédex No. 001–151), Johto Pokédex (National Pokédex No. 152–251), Hoenn Pokédex (National Pokédex No. 252–386), and Sinnoh Pokédex (National Pokédex No. 387–493).
That’s a total cost of just under £17.45.
Still, if you really do have to catch them all…

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/pok-d...-17-45/0107862

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Google App Verification Service Detects Only 15% of Infected Apps

December 10th, 2012, 21:56 Posted By: wraggster

Researchers have tested Google's app verification service (included in Android 4.2 last month), and found that it performed very poorly at identifying malware in apps. Specifically, the app verification service identified only ~15% of known malware in testing — whereas existing third-party security apps identified between 51% and 100% of known malware in testing

http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/12/1...-infected-apps

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MoMinis raises $6m for Android games portal

December 10th, 2012, 21:47 Posted By: wraggster

PlayScape developer to expand service to iPhone, Windows Mobile and Facebook

Israel mobile gaming outfit MoMinis has raised $6 million in a second round of funding.
As reported by Venturebeat, the Tel Aviv-based company received the investment from Gemini Israel Ventures, having previously raised $4.9m from BRM Group and Mitsui Ventures in April last year.

Last year MoMinis released Android game portal PlayScape, which allows users to play up to 50 games through one free app, and has since garnered more than 35 million users, with 5.5 million monthly active players. The firm also said that there were now 100 titles in development for the portal in 18 countries.
MoMinis chef exec Itzik Frid said the funding would be used to scale up the company’s efforts and find new ways to retain users and increase discoverability, as well as expanding PlayScape to iPhone, Windows Mobile and Facebook.
“We are very excited about how our relationship with Gemini will play into our new stage of growth,� said Frid.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...d-games-portal

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Australian police issue warning after Apple maps directs motorists into dangerous ter

December 10th, 2012, 21:28 Posted By: wraggster

Police in the Australian sate of Victoria are telling people to avoid iOS 6 maps after a number of users have found themselves directed off the beaten track.
Multiple motorists intending to visit the town of Mildura have been directed to a national park. One man was stranded for 24 hours in temperatures of up to 46 degrees, and three others have been rescued after following Apple’s mapping system.
The police have conducted tests on iOS 6 maps and have confirmed that it lists the town 70km away from its actual location, and sends drivers to the middle of Murray Sunset National Park.
“Police are extremely concerned as there is no water supply within the Park and temperatures can reach as high as 46 degrees, making this a potentially life threatening issue,” reads a statement on the Victoria Police News website.
“Some of the motorists located by police have been stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water and have walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception.”
The police have contacted Apple about the issue and advise using other forms of mapping.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...rrain-2/029780

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Ppsspp 0.4

December 10th, 2012, 16:54 Posted By: wraggster

via http://emu-russia.net/en/

First version of Sony PSP emulator for Android/Windows has been updated. Changes:
- Much improved graphics in several games, more games go ingame, more games go to title screen. The usual type of emulator progress See the downloads page for the new version (Windows + Android, others are coming soon), and see some new compatible games at the compatibility list.


PPSSPP is in its early stages and thus few PSP games are currently playable. However, this will change over time!

Some currently known playable games:

• BlazBlue
• Fate Extra
• MotoGP (on PC)
• Puzzle Bobble Deluxe
• Lumines
• Puzzle Quest

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Fixing games for the BlackBerry AppWorld

December 10th, 2012, 16:32 Posted By: wraggster

I have fixed the games I submitted to the BlackBerry Game-Port-A-Thon. I had many bugs reported by the AppWorld team that occurred only on the BlackBerry DevAlpha device, but not on the simulator. It seems that the DevAlpha is very important tool, if you want to develop for the upcoming BB10 phones.
[h=4]FreeJeweled[/h]This one was the trickiest. I don’t own a DevAlpha, and yet I developed for it. The game seemed to work really well on the simulator, but it didn’t work as well on the real device. Luckily I got some images from the BlackBerry AppWorld testing team to help me with my development.
FreeJeweled running on DevAlpha device. ScreenShot provided by BlackBerry AppWorld team

FreeJeweled running on simulator. In here the menu bar is perfect

[h=4][/h]As you can see the game worked really well on the simulator, and badly on the real device. At first I thought that my problem was that the size of the menu bar buttons is based on the jewel size from the game, and those values came from c++ engine. I thought that maybe there’s some very strange timing issues or something… and that’s causing the qml side ending up with some strange default values. My first attempt was hardcoding the button sizes, but I still got rejected from AppWorld, and they told me that it still looks just as bad.
The FreeJeweled is using custom fonts which are packaged into the application itself. My second guess was that the fonts are not working in the same way on the real device as they are on the simulator. This time I had help from a friend with BlackBerry DevAlpha to run some tests for me, and it turns out that the problem was with the font behavior. I blindly changed font sizes on my code, and sent a package for him to test, and after couple of packages we finally got it right.
Below you can see the working version of the game running on the DevAlpha, and running on Simulator.
Working version of FreeJeweled running on DevAlpha

Working version of FreeJeweled running on simulator

It seems that I really need the DevAlpha device if I want to do quality ports, since things like this tend to happen sometimes.
[h=4]Blubbles[/h]Blubbles was running really smoothly on my simulator, but it didn’t work on the DevAlpha. I used Qt’s setGeometry function to set the QWidget into the right place on the screen. It worked really well on the simulator, and it left only small black borders on both sides of the application, but it didn’t work at all on the real device. I strongly recommend not to use the setGeometry function in your apps (if you don’t have DevAlpha), since it is working differently on the device, and the on simulator.

Blubbels running on DevAlpha, image provided by the AppWorld testing

My solution was to run the App in full screen with:

1 2	MainWindow *mw = new MainWindow; mw->showFullScreen();

I also commented out the set Geometry function since it didn’t work. After that I also decided to run the game in portrait mode instead of landscape, and I also modifies the code a bit, so I could get the screen full of bubbles. Now it’s running really well on the simulator, and on the real device too. See the image
Fixed version of Blubbles, screen full of bubbles

After this I got one more rejection from the AppWorld. It turns out that I left a link to the original Blubbles project at source forge, and I had to remove it, since it was against the BlackBerry AppWorld policies. They categorised the sourceforge as “Another app store�, and told me to remove the link. It’s really not an issue for me, since they still agreed that I could keep the link to my github page where I host the source code. I’m fine with the “github only� policy, since the source code is still easy to find for anyone who’s interested about it.
[h=4]qmlSokoban[/h]For this game I got a very valid point from the AppWorld testes that the man is impossible the move. Actually it was possible to move the man, but you just had to click the next block of the screen where the man is. Dragging event’s with a finger moved only the world around the man(not the man itself). I guess that this happens all the time with the real device and touchscreen. The controls are easy only with the mouse, but they don’t work that well with the touchscreen.
I decided to add a DPAD to control the man. I still wanted to keep the sokoban controls “clean� in the way that no one will mess up their game by an accidental move. Therefore I configured the buttons to only control the character from “mouseClick’s�, and not from drag events. The character moves now only with one “tap� to the DPAD. The character will not move two screens even if you keep the finger pressed to the button(this to prevent accidental moves). The AppWorld testers also agreed that this was a good fix, and I got the game passed to the store.
Here’s a snippet how to create “tapping� DPAD buttons for your game. You only need one image component, with proper anchors.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

//qml-code for one controller button Image { id: up source: "./images/controller/up.png" anchors.top: parent.top anchors.horizontalCenter: parent.horizontalCenter MouseArea { anchors.fill: parent onClicked: { Game.moveUp(); } } }

http://www.summeli.fi/?p=4129#more-4129

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Tweejump for Windows Phone 8

December 9th, 2012, 23:07 Posted By: wraggster

I started my wp8 development by playing around with Cocos2d-x port for wp8. I also used this start by participating to the forum.nokia wiki-competition with my article about Porting Cocos2d-x Games for Windows Phone 8. You can see the port running on the video below. I had really good time with cocos2-x, and I think that I might even make my own game based on this framework. It’s really easy to use, and you can port the games created with it so easily to iOS, and for Android as well.

http://www.summeli.fi/?p=4093

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Where Do You Draw the Line On GPL V2 Derived Works and Fees?

December 9th, 2012, 21:44 Posted By: wraggster

First time accepted submitter Shifuimam writes"I downloaded a DOSBox port for Android recently to get back into all the games of my childhood. Turns out that the only free distribution available hasn't been updated in nearly two years, so I looked for alternatives. There are two on Google Play — DOSBox Turbo and "DOSBot". Both charge a fee — DOSBox Turbo is $3.99; DOSBot is $0.99. The developer of DOSBot says on his Google Play entry that he will not release the source code of his application because it's not GPL, even though it's derived from source released under GPL v2 — this is definitely a violation of the license. The developer of DOSBox Turbo is refusing to release the source for his application unless you pay the $3.99 to "buy" a license of it. The same developer explicitly states that the "small" fee (although one might argue that $3.99 is pretty expensive for an OSS Android app) is to cover the cost of development. Unless I'm misreading the text of GPL v2, a fee can only be charged to cover the cost of the distribution of a program or derived work, not the cost of development. And, of course, it doesn't cost the developer anything for someone to log in to Google Play and download their app. In fact, from what I can tell, there's a one-time $25 fee to register for Google Checkout, after which releasing apps is free. Where do you draw the line on this? What do you do in this kind of situation?"

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/...works-and-fees

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Shatter coming to iPad

December 8th, 2012, 23:36 Posted By: wraggster

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Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition now on iPad

December 8th, 2012, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster

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Final Fantasy IV iOS port confirmed, dated

December 8th, 2012, 23:13 Posted By: wraggster

Following earlier teasers, Square Enix of Japan has confirmed that Final Fantasy IV is on its way to iOS and Android devices.
Releasing in on iOS on December 20, the remake will be a port of the DS version, which itself enhanced the 2D SNES original with new 3D visuals.The Android version is planned for release in spring 2013, according to Joystiq translations of the Game Watch report.
FFIV's iOS port was revealed earlier todayvia the iTunes US listing for the original Final Fantasy iOS port, which advertised a sale on FF games.
Release details for the West are yet to be confirmed.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...nfirmed-dated/

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Rogers puts all Windows Phone 8 devices on sale, keeps them well under $100

December 8th, 2012, 22:53 Posted By: wraggster

Rogers is currently in a full-court press to get us using Microsoft-branded devices, and it just made that clear through steep, across-the-board sales on everything Windows Phone 8. Nokia's Lumia 920 has dropped from $100 to $50; the yet-to-ship Samsung ATIV S has already dropped from $150 to a more tempting $80 for early adopters. The sweetest of deals may be for the HTC Windows Phone 8X, which has dipped to $30 for a 16GB model and a solitary penny for the 8GB version. For all the cuts, Rogers is careful to warn that they're part of a "limited time offer" and might not last beyond the weekend. We're delving deeper for an official statement on the drops, although the ATIV S cut may be to counter a leaked (and as yet unconfirmed) Bell deal at the same price. Whatever the cause, we'll gladly take steep discounts on cutting-edge hardware.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/07/r...vices-on-sale/

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Sony and Box extend BFF status, offer 50GB free storage to Xperia owners through 2013

December 8th, 2012, 22:42 Posted By: wraggster

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Steve Jobs Patent On iPhone Declared Invalid

December 8th, 2012, 22:23 Posted By: wraggster

Apple's most famous multitouch software patents are increasingly coming under invalidation pressure. First the rubber-banding patent and now a patent that Apple's own lawyers planned to introduce to a Chicago jury as 'the Jobs patent.' U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949 covers a method for distinguishing vertical and horizontal gestures from diagonal movements based on an initial angle of movement. For example, everything up to a slant of 27 degrees would be considered vertical or horizontal, and everything else diagonal. The patent office now seems to think that Apple didn't invent the concept of 'heuristics' after all."

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/1...clared-invalid

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Apple and Google Joining Forces On Kodak Patents Bid

December 8th, 2012, 22:20 Posted By: wraggster

Bloomberg reports that Apple and Google have partnered to make a bid of more than $500 million for the Kodak patent portfolio. The bid relates to Kodak's 1,100 imaging patents. 'Kodak obtained commitments for $830 million exit financing last month, contingent on its sale of the digital imaging patents for at least $500 million.' This is likely to be an opening bid, with the final figure being far larger. By comparison, a group including Apple, Microsoft, and RIM bought Nortel's 6000+ patents for $4.5 billion last year. 'Google lost the auction for those patents after making an initial offer of $900 million.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/1...ak-patents-bid

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Google Launches Private Android App Stores

December 7th, 2012, 23:17 Posted By: wraggster

Malicious apps have emerged as perhaps the most serious threat to mobile devices at the moment, and the major players, such as Apple and Google, have tried several different methods of preventing them from getting into their app stores and into the hands of users. Now, Google is taking one more step with the launch of a new service called the Private Channel for Google Apps, which gives enterprises and other organizations the ability to create private app stores and control the apps their users can download. Private Channel is essentially a way for organizations to stand up their own miniature app stores inside of Google Play--the main app store for Android devices--and publish apps to it. That gives these organizations the ability to point their users directly to the apps they want users to download for their Android devices. The new service will include some of the security features built into Google Play, most notably the anti-malware system and the ability to authenticate users

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12...oid-app-stores

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iPhone Finally Coming To T-Mobile In 2013

December 7th, 2012, 23:02 Posted By: wraggster

Five years after the iPhone originally launched in 2007, T-Mobile will finally start carrying it. It might not be as buzz-worthy as when Verizon finally got the iPhone back in 2011, but it's going to be a pretty big deal for T-Mobile subscribers next year, when the carrier starts selling Apple products. ... T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said while speaking at the Deutsche Telekom conference Thursday that it will carry the iPhone and will offer it in a different way. 'What was missing? A certain number of customers wouldn't come to the store if we didn't have the iPhone,' Legere said. 'We worked very, very hard for a deal that made sense for us.'

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/1...mobile-in-2013

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RIM offers incentives to prospective BB10 users

December 7th, 2012, 22:52 Posted By: wraggster

The Canadian smartphone maker is on the verge of releasing its latest Blackberry 10 operating system, and is hoping to entice users to make the switch,
RIM has somewhat fallen behind its competitors. Both Apple and Samsung have recently released new additions to their smartphone ranges, whilst RIM hasn't offered a new device in close to 18 months.
However, in order to aid its new operating system, the firm has launched an incentive program designed to influence business customers to upgrade to the new OS.
Blackberry 10 Ready Program offers RIM's larger business customers perks such as online training and webcasts, along with free upgrades of licences to the new BB10 OS.
"Starting in January 2013 through to December 31, 2013, Research In Motion (RIM) will be offering customers who purchase new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, the ability to trade up their existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server licenses on a one for one basis for free," reads the press release sent out by the firm.
"The new license trade up will allow customers to secure and manage their BlackBerry 10 smartphones."
RIM has been relatively quite for a while now, but things are expected to heat up in the New Year, starting with the roll out of BB10 on January 30th.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...0-users/029773

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'Apple's manufacturing announcement just a PR stunt' says corporate watchdog

December 7th, 2012, 22:51 Posted By: wraggster

Following the announcement by Apple CEO Tim Cook that the firm plans to move some manufacturing to the US, the move has been labelled as just a publicity stunt.
During an interview on American news network NBC, Cook revealed that one of the company's existing Mac lines would begin to be manufactured within the United States from next year.
However, the CEO did not reveal which of the firm's product lines would have its manufacturing process moved to the states, staying close to Apple's well-known profile of complete secrecy.
Following the news, many have been quick to counter the comments, labelling them as nothing more than a PR stunt by the company.
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman of corporate watchdog SumOfUs, said: "Apple has a track record of announcing changes in its supply chain as PR stunts. For years, Apple’s been making and breaking promises when it comes to ethical sourcing and how it treats its workers."
"This spring Apple’s biggest supplier published a far-reaching report that promised to make massive changes in how Apple products are made over the course of this year -- and yet we’ve seen no virtually improvement in workers’ lives."
These comments likely refer to the well-publicised troubles that occurred at a Foxconn factory in China earlier this year, where over 2,000 workers were involved in a riot, which left 40 people injured.
The firm has come under heavy fire for the working conditions of its factories across the country, with employees citing bad living environments, which have caused a number of suicides.
“Apple has spent $650 million just on advertising for the iPhone alone since it launched. They’re talking about spending less than 20% of that on this shift. They’re talking about moving 1/10th of 1 per cent of their global production costs," added Kauffman.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...atchdog/029774

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