Amazon Coins, the new virtual currency from Amazon that was announced back in February, makes its public debut today. It’s available to Kindle Fire owners who use the Amazon Appstore to download their digital content, and every user in the United States gets 500 coins — worth $5 — free to get them started.
Google looks set to launch a new cloud-based gaming service at Google I/O this week, dubbed Google Play Games. How do we know? Well, screenshots that show a leaked Google Play Games app running on an Android smartphone have been published ahead of the grand unveiling, and they’re well worth getting excited about.
Sony has today announced the Xperia ZR, a midrange alternative to its flagship Xperia Z. Like its bigger brother, the Xperia ZR is waterproof and promises to survive depths of up to 1.5 meters. It also has some pretty impressive specifications for a midrange smartphone.
I’ve decided to use Google Now exclusively for a long list of tasks. I’m calling it the Google Now Diet.
Here’s why I’m doing it. New technology is great. Trouble is, we’re all stuck with habits formed by old technology.
For example, when you want to search, what do you do? I habitually type in a search in the URL address bar or go to Google.com.
When I want to give myself a reminder, I tend to open the Gmail app on my phone and send myself an email.
And when I want to play a YouTube video, I thumb through the apps, find the YouTube app, open it, tap on the search field and type in the name of the video or song I’m looking for.
I know that Google Now does all this stuff easier, faster and better. Yet my habits were formed in olden days before Now existed. So I forget to use Google Now.
The good news is that there’s a way to break old habits and form new ones. And that is the diet concept — limit yourself only to the new way of doing things.
And that’s why I’m going on the Google Now diet.
The Galaxy S4 is now available in nearly every major market around the world, including the United States, Europe, and Asia. Like with the Galaxy S2 and S3, Samsung has released two variants of the Galaxy S4 – the I9500 that uses the Octa-Core Exynos SoC, and the LTE variant that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoC.
If you own the international variant of the Galaxy S4 (I9500), or the Korean variant (SHV-E300S/K) that uses the Exynos 5 SoC, and are looking to root it, here is how to do so the right way.
