BBC Olympics: Bringing the Olympic games to your Android device

BBC is one of the best news channels that keeps us abreast of all the important events around the globe, from local news up to the events of international significance. With the London Olympics now in motion, BBC also prepared something for Android users–the BBC Olympics app for Android–to keep them updated on the important happenings of this long-awaited international event.
The app lets you stream videos of the Olympic games right to your Android live or on demand, along with news updates, commentaries, and interviews from BBC journalists themselves.  It’s
Get exclusive Olympics news fast and easy through the app, so you won’t need to miss out on spectacular Olympic moments and highlights free of charge. It would make things easier, particularly for die-hard fans who want to keep track of their favorite athletes.

Upon launching the app, you are instantly welcomed by a neat and clean interface, intuitive and user friendly, not to mention classy yet simple with the yellow and black color combination.
When you tap the Menu icon on the upper right of the screen, it then reveals to you all the underlying options. The Menu contains starting points for your close monitoring of the Olympics coverage from BBC, so from the Menu, you can go to the schedule of games, live broadcasts, news on all sports, medal winners, a special section for the U.K. team, BBC’s coverage of the games, and more.

Aside from providing you with news to digest, the app also includes several extra perks for you to enjoy. For instance, you may opt to read about the top stories during the Olympic games, read daily text commentaries by BBC journalists, or watch video highlights of the games.
You can watch the Olympics live with up to 24 live video streams on either 3G or Wi-Fi connection. It’s also worth mentioning that the app includes relevant Olympic contents for every Olympic event, and information on competing countries and every participating athlete.

If you find interesting stuff — news and feature stories, videos, or game results — you can easily share them via popular social networks or email. Judging from the features and the interface of this app, it does make quite an impression especially with the fact that it’s developed just for such a short, though big, Olympic event.
On the other hand, upon reviewing this app, I noticed a few flaws that could potentially sour the moods of some users. Based on Flash instead of HTML 5, the BBC Olympics app sometimes plays videos erratically, or not at all in some instances (can dampen a fan’s Olympic spirit, you know), but considering that it’s dedicated to that one event (i.e., the Olympics), it’s quite a handy app and a must-have for fans of the Olympic games.
The games have begun, but if you have not done so as yet, download BBC Olympics free from the Google Play Store, and let the Olympic games begin on your Android device.

SOURCE:  View the original article here

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Amazon Q2 2012: Kindle Fire best-seller device, net income down 96%

All the main companies in the tech business are posting their financial details for the second quarter of the year, ending on June 30, and after we looked at various players in the mobile business – including Google, Apple, AT&T or Samsung – we now have Amazon’s financial report for Q2 2012 to inspect.
As expected, the most important product for the company remains its own tablet, the Kindle Fire, a device that’s sold at cost, as the giant retailer tries to make money off the digital content purchased on the tablet by its owners.
But Amazon’s numbers weren’t necessarily good for a company that’s fairly interested in turning in a healthy profit each quarter. The company reported $12.83 billion in sales for the period, a 29% increase in sales, but net income dropped 96% compared to the year-ago quarter to $7 million.
Sure, that number was affected by a $65 million “of estimated net loss related to the acquisition and integration of Kiva Systems, Inc.” but also by a “$272 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter. But $7 million is still a very low number for such a retailer.
It is not clear how many Kindle Fire units the company sold in the second quarter of the year, but those numbers must have surely been affected by the launch of the new iPad, which made Apple discount the iPad 2 by $100, but also by the Nexus 7 rumors that hit the web during the time – the Jelly Bean tablet has only been unveiled in late June, and started selling on its announcement day at Google I/O.
What we’re mostly interested to see from Amazon is its new generation of Kindle Fire tablets, which may be announced and launched in the following months – the company is rumored to have quite a few models in stock soon, with the most recent report suggesting that Amazon will release six different Kindle Fire versions this year.

SOURCE: View the original article here

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Want Adobe Flash on your Jelly Bean-running device? Find out how to install it and make it work

As expected for quite some time, Google has broken all  ties with Adobe Flash and ceased offering support for the web technology in the latest Android version, Jelly Bean. And while many users are probably doing fine without the multimedia platform, there surely are a few nostalgic ones who would like the chance to install Flash on their new Android 4.1-running gadgets.
Fortunately, a couple of XDA-Developers forum members have already thought about that, so you can now easily and safely install Flash on any gadget with JB. Those who own a 4.1-running device with Android’s native browser app, like the Galaxy Nexus or the Nexus S, will have the easiest time.
If you have a Nexus and would like to get a taste of how Flash works on Jelly Bean, you’ll only have to go to recognized XDA contributor Stempox’ thread here and follow the simple instructions. The same goes for those who are currently using any of the numerous custom ROMs based on JB and have a device running Android’s native Browser (Flash won’t work with the Chrome browser, which doesn’t support plugins).

For Google Nexus 7 adopters, the road to installing Flash is a bit bumpier, due to the fact that the new 7-incher doesn’t come preloaded with Browser. What you’ll have to do in this case is go to senior XDA member Censura_Umbra’s thread here and download Android’s native browser. There are a couple of permissions and folder names you’ll have to change after installing the app, but, overall, you should get everything done pretty quickly, even if you don’t have much experience in installing unofficial APKs.


After installing Browser, which supposedly works like a charm, with no bugs reported until now, your Nexus 7 Tablet will have to be taken through the same “treatment” like any other JB-running device. You’ll have to go to Stempox’ thread as well and follow his six short steps.
Has anyone tried installing Flash with Steampox’s APK and guide? Does it work? Do you recommend other users to go for it as well, or is it as glitchy as one would expect? Let us know in the comments section below.

SOURCE: View the original article here

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