Google has issued a workaround that finally allows Android Wear users to install paid applications on their new wearables. It comes days after early adopters of the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live discovered that they could only install free Android Wear apps on their devices due to a Play Store security feature meant to curb piracy.
Google has removed almost all of last year’s Google Play Edition devices from Google Play, including the Xperia Z Ultra, the HTC One M7, and the LG G Pad 8.3. The only 2013 devices that remain are the Moto G and the Samsung Galaxy S4, but the latter is currently out of stock and has been for some time.
I’d have put good money on Android Wear’s first game being a Flappy Bird clone. Google Play has been inundated with them since the incredible success of the original title, and so it seemed inevitable that someone, somewhere, would be working hard to be the first to bring a flappy game to Google’s new wearable platform.
It’s called Flopsy Droid, and it’s a free download that’s compatible with both the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live.
A gang of 20 armed robbers have raided a Samsung factory in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and stolen over 40,000 devices worth around $6 million. Phones, tablets, laptops, and other electronics were loaded into seven trucks before the thieves made off with the loot.
Everyone knows that the Apple vs. Samsung patent war has been raging for what seems like forever, but would you be any the wiser to hear that Samsung is invoking “Alice” to try and beat two Apple patents?
The patents in question are Apple’s “slide-to-unlock” patent, which describes swiping your smartphone’s home screen to unlock it — and “universal search,” which refers to a universal interface for retrieving information in a computer system.
In May, a jury found Samsung to be guilty of infringing on the first patent, but let it off the hook for the second.
But while Apple was only awarded an underwhelming $119.6 million (compared to the $1 billion it was awarded from Samsung in 2012) Samsung lawyers think they’ve come up with a way to invalidate the whole lawsuit: by taking advantage of a recent legal precedent called Alice v. CLS Bank.
