Dexter the Game 2 will bring everyone’s favorite serial killer to Android this fall

Movies and television have changed a great deal in the past decade or so, making the thin line between good and evil gradually diminish, or, in some cases, disappear altogether. That’s the case of Showtimes’ hit series “Dexter”, where a serial killer/vigilante becomes the beloved hero of a crime-riddled Miami.
Dexter Morgan is a killer of killers, and one capable of fatherly and brotherly love, but we still can’t say that we anticipated his booming popularity over the past six years. However, he is one of TV’s most loved characters, which is why we are ecstatic to welcome him into the Android gaming world as well.
Dexter the Game 2 will be unleashed upon us this fall and will hit Android, iOS and PC for yet to be announced prices. Details on the game are a bit hazy at this time, but we do have an official press release and a trailer to sketch a picture of what awaits us.
The game is developed by Ecko Code in close collaboration with Showtime and it has a few ingredients that will make it irresistible to the TV show’s fans, but not only to them.

First off, the plot. Fortunately, unlike the series, the game will only concentrate on Dexter, his investigation of killers and slimy guys of all sorts, and his unorthodox ways of dealing with them and bring them to justice. In other words, it’s all about finding the bad guy, putting him to sleep, then starting all over again with a fresh new a-hole. Simple, yet so cool!
The game’s producers also promise to have unlimited gameplay at your disposal, meaning that you’ll never end up with no killers to hunt down. That sounds just a bit too good to be true, but if it is, it’s super! Finally, what personally makes me want this game really, really bad is Michael C. Hall’s (aka Dexter Morgan)’s involvement in the project. It seems that he has been a “close collaborator” of the game’s developers from the starting point, and he will also voice his own character.
However, the trailer looks horrible, at least the parts with actual gameplay. To say that the graphics look outdated would be a huge understatement. The scene where Dexter is running (0:15 in the YouTube video) is particularly grueling and offers a very dark preview into what could be a very early ‘90s-looking arcade game (in the bad, bad sense of the word).
I don’t want to end this article on a very dark note, especially given the fact that I’m a huge fan of Dexter’s and his Dark Passenger, so fingers crossed for the developers to change something in the graphics by the time of the game’s release.


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Nokia Drive 3.0 Now Available

Nokia’s free GPS Navigation software available for Nokia Lumia devices tonight has seen its 3.0 update which brings some great new features.  The feature I’ve been waiting for is the ability to pin destinations to your start screen.  It’s a bit difficult to find, but if you go to the Set Destinations window and then tap and hold on a location in the History or Favorites listing you’ll find the “Pin to Start” option. That will give you one-touch access to launching Nokia Drive and setting that location as your destination.
The other feature I was primarily hoping for is unfortunately not there.  If you find a location using Bing or Bing Maps or Location Scout, normally there will be an “Apps” section where you can share the content with other apps.  This is the perfect place for a Navigation program to show some integration with the operating system, however Nokia Drive does not show here (however, Nokia Transit does if you’d like to use public transportation to get there instead of driving.)
The big new feature in Nokia Drive 3.0 that many are sure to love is the “My Commute” feature.  This allows you to set up a Home and Work location along with the times that you tend to leave each location each day.  Then the software keeps track of the route around the time that you’re planning on leaving and updates the commute timing based on the current traffic… and of course displays the pertinent information on the Nokia Drive live tile if you happen to have it pinned to your start screen.
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Microsoft Sets Windows 8 Release Date; Bring On The Surface Tablets!

We’ve known for a while now that Microsoft will release Windows 8 sometime this fall, but so far the company had yet to provide a hard date for the platform’s retail launch. With just over three months to go, Microsoft has now revealed October 26 as when Windows 8 will finally arrive.

Microsoft’s announcement of its Surface tablets last month caught us all a bit by surprise. Sure, some sort of tablet news was rumored, but the quality of the products Microsoft ended up revealing, along with that very compelling keyboard cover, were really an unexpected slam dunk. Today’s revelation of the Windows 8 retail launch doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing Surface arrive at the same time, but you can bet the first of those tablets will be hot on its tail.

That’s the case for the Windows RT version of Surface, at least. Don’t forget that there’s also a more full-featured Windows 8 Pro version, with an Intel processor and specs more in-line with those of a typical laptop. Last we heard, that model could be landing another three months after the RT Surface debuts, meaning we’re looking at some time around late January or early February of next year.
Surface won’t be alone in the Windows 8 tablet market, and once the OS arrives, we’ll be seeing models from a number of additional manufacturers.

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Nexus 7 Tablets Arriving With Loose Screens; Luckily, The Fix Is Simple

With shipments of the Nexus 7 now arriving, tons of Android users are getting their first hands-on experiences with the tablet. At least some of them, though, have been finding that their new tablets arrived with loose screens that tended to come away from the tablet’s framework a bit. If you’d rather not ship things back to Google and wait even longer to get a replacement, there’s a quick fix you can do yourself that seems to full resolve the issue.


Basically, all you need to do is pop-off the tablet’s rear casing, and then tighten-up all the little screws you see exposed.
The rubber backing can be pried-off (carefully) with a piece of plastic to avoid marring the finish. Then you’ll need to grab a tiny Phillips head screwdriver and give all the screws around the edge another twist. Reportedly, they’re in about 80% of the way already, and making them just a smidge tighter manages to hold the screen securely in place.
Obviously, don’t attempt this fix if anything here sounds confusing or makes you apprehensive, but if you’re up for it, it sounds like a pretty darn elegant solution.

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AT&T announces new Mobile Share plans, to launch in late August

We knew for a while that AT&T would eventually follow Verizon’s example and move to a shared data model for its plans but we now have the official details.
Today, the carrier announced that starting this fall, customers will be able to choose new Mobile Share data plans that come with unlimited talk and text and a common pool of data that can be shared between up to 10 devices.

AT&T’s new scheme is quite similar to Verizon’s Share Everything plan – both plans have tiers for data, with the price per gigabyte being higher for the lower tiers. In addition, you will have to pay a fixed fee per added device (of which at least one must be a smartphone). On AT&T, you will have to pay a monthly $30 per feature phone, $20 per laptop or netbook, and $10 for a tablet or gaming device. For each smartphone, you will have to pay between $45 and $30, depending on the size of your data bucket.

As a quick example, a family with two smartphones and a tablet that uses a maximum 6GB of data per month will have to pay $170 per month: $35 for Smartphone 1 + $35 for Smartphone 2 + $10 for the Tablet. The two smartphones will have unlimited voice and talk, and will share the 6GB of data with the tablet. If you go over your monthly data allowance, you will have to pay $15 per GB.

Unlike Verizon, which completely phased out their old plans, AT&T is playing it safe and keeping their other plans. In other words, new customers won’t be forced into the new pricing scheme for now.
What do you think about AT&T’s new pricing model? Is it convenient or just another scheme to help customers part with their money?


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Nexus 7, a wolf in sheep’s clothing for other Android tablet makers?

The Google Nexus 7 is right now one of the most popular 7-inch tablets out there, and considering it’s a Nexus-branded device ready to offer buyers a pure Android experience, it will probably become one of the best sold tablets of the year.

Google is yet to mention sales numbers for the device that started shipping last week and which is currently sold out with certain third-party retailers, but Digitimes reports that according to “industry sources” the Search giant may ship as many as 2.5-3 million units this year.
That may not seem like an impressive number, as the tablet is only available in a limited number of markets right now, but will Google hurt its partners when it comes to overall tablet sales and profits? The Nexus 7 doesn’t, and can’t, target the iPad – Apple is expected to sell tens of millions of iPads each quarter – but instead it’s meant to compete against the Kindle Fire, a product Google can’t afford to ignore.
Amazon’s tablet became popular with the crowds because it’s an affordable device, ready to offer a good enough experience for that price, not to mention access to the company’s digital content stores.

 Google has adopted the same model, selling the device at cost, hoping to prevent users from jumping ship to Amazon and have them immersed in an improved Google Play environment instead. But while Google can sell the Nexus 7 without making any profits because users would then spend more money in its digital stores, other Android makers won’t be able to enjoy the same perks.

And they won’t be able to come up with similarly priced devices ready to offer a similar experience. Google did say that’s plenty of room left for innovation in the tablet environment, implying that its product will not hurt tablet sales from its Android partners, but the fact is that each Nexus 7 buyer is a customer that may have chosen an Android tablet from a different OEM. At the same time, that customer may have chosen the iPad too, so having him or her purchase a Nexus 7 instead is a better alternative for Google.

But, and I’ll say this again, Apple may sell as many as 30 million iPads by the end of the year (that’s a guesstimate from my part), that’s not counting what it has already sold in the first two quarters. And Apple did not cut the price of its tablets once the Nexus 7 launched. And Apple also has its digital stores in place that can be accessed almost in full in more markets that Google Play is available in, which means Apple too can make plenty of money off of its digital offerings.

Meanwhile, other Android device makers will have to suck it up, and fight even harder for a piece of the (Android) tablet ecosystem. The same Digitimes reports that various OEMs including Samsung, Asus and Acer, have started to cut the prices of their tablet offerings in order to better adapt to the new competition from Google’s tablet:

Samsung, which enjoys a high level of brand recognition, cut slightly the prices of its tablets in order to cope with increasing competition and to pave the way for the launch of its own new models.
But for Acer and Asustek Computer, they seem to have adopted the same strategy of lowering the prices of their 10.1-inch models to the levels close to those quoted for 7-inch models by Google or other rivals in order to attract consumers.

So is the Nexus 7 a wolf in sheep’s clothing for the Android tablet ecosystem? We’ll be able to better asses that in the following months when we’ll find out more details about tablet sales from the most important players in the business.

Finally, there’s also one more negative effect of the Nexus 7 that we can’t overlook – the iPad mini. Apple was rumored since last year to be working on a 7.85-inch iOS tablet, but the company didn’t make it public. Then the Kindle Fire appeared and the Google Nexus 7 rolled out seven months later revealing that there’s a certain share of the population that’s interested in purchasing cheaper tablets – but not the very cheapest, as there are various cheap Android tablets from unrecognized brands that don’t enjoy the popularity of the Kindle Fire or Nexus 7. And that could be a good enough reason for Apple to launch its smaller iPad this fall/winter. Android tablet makers will then have to fight against the smaller tablet as well.
What tablet are you buying this year?


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Two Galaxy Nexus units and other gadgets you can find inside Steve Wozniak’s backpack

Self-professed gadget addict Steve Wozniak certainly likes to travel with an entourage of devices in his backpack. He recently shared the content of his travel gear with Gizmodo, which provides a rare glimpse to the multitude of gadgets of varying platforms and sizes that Woz apparently carries at all time when he hits the road.
Let’s start with the meat of the finding. In case you’re wondering what this particular Apple co-founder’s choice of Android device is – he actually has a pair of Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones, both unlocked from AT&T, with one being the spare phone. He also carries with him a Motorola Droid RAZR. That’s as far as the Android love affair goes.
Meanwhile, the usual suspects include 3 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 iPod Nanos (complete with wristbands), MacBook Pro, an iPad case/keyboard, an AirPort Express, and a MacBook Pro 85W magsafe adapter. Each of the pair of iOS devices includes one device that belongs to his wife Janet — except for the iPhones, where she has two of them.
The list goes on with a bunch of USB peripherals, two Verizon 3G MiFis, Bluetooth mouse, and projector connectors.  Here’s the rest of the electronic device-related stuff:
Multiple Gameboy Lights (a special edition Gameboy sold in Japan)Gameboy link cablesA pair of MutewatchTwo Garmin GPS devicesJawbone Jambox wireless speakerCountless foreign AC adaptersGameboy link cableLaser pointers with varying colorsiPhone lens adapterFlash keys and flash media adaptersCigarette lighter dual USB adapterAudio doubler cableiPad USB/SD Card adaptersAA, AAA, CR2, CR12 batteries
On top of those, the Woz also carries lots of pens, paint pens and pencils for his pencil puzzles. Oh, and a binocular as well. According to him, his backpack usually weighs 50 pounds (roughly 22 Kilograms), yikes! Odd and abnormal as it may seem, he admits it’s actually customary to him to carry all of the above when he’s on the road. We’ve all been guilty of carrying too much electronic devices during a trip, but he certainly takes the cake.
Any item you find interesting from the list? Do you shove in as many gadgets as possible to your backpack when traveling?


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