PC games in the living room? Yes please. Photo: Razer
Forget the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One — wouldn’t you rather play your PC games in your living room? Razer’s new Android-powered Forge TV allows you to do just that, thanks to a new technology called Cortex: Stream, which beams games from your PC to your television.
Like all popular apps, Monument Valley faces a piracy problem. Photo: Ustwo
One of the biggest reasons why many app developers continue to snub Android is piracy. The platform’s “open” approach, which allows applications to be downloaded from third-party sources and installed manually, makes it incredibly easy for users to circumvent Google Play and obtain paid apps completely free.
Piracy on Android is so rampant right now that just 5 percent of installs of Monument Valley — one of the best mobile games of 2014, which is currently priced at $3.99 in the Play Store — have actually been paid for.
Xiaomi is selling smartphones by the bucket load. Photo: Xiaomi
Call it a ripoff artist that rides on Apple’s coattails if you want, but Xiaomi continues to go from strength to strength in its position as the world’s third-largest phone manufacturer.
Having recently announced a new valuation of $46 billion — making it the most valuable tech startup in existence — China-based smartphone maker Xiaomi Technology recently announced that its sales revenue leaped up by more than 100 percent in 2014, as the company sold a massive 61.1 million smartphones to customers.
Love it or hate it, those are some pretty big numbers!
Google takes on AirPlay with Cast. Photo: Google
Google today announced a new Apple AirPlay competitor called Google Cast, which lets you stream audio from a whole bunch of popular apps to Cast-compatible speakers. The search giant has teamed up with a number of popular services for its launch, including Pandora, Rdio, and NPR One.
The Venue 8 measures just 6mm thick. Photo: Dell
Dell doesn’t usually impress us with its Android-powered offerings, but its new Venue 8 7840 tablet could be far more impressive than the onslaught of new slates we see at CES this week. It’s powered by a speedy Intel processor, has four cameras, and takes the title of the world’s thinnest tablet to date, measuring just 6mm thick.
