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Kyocera Brigadier videos show how crazy tough it is

The cat is out of the bag and Kyocera indeed has in its repository the world's first non-luxury wallet-friendly sapphire glass toting smartphone. And just to show what it means when it says "tough", Kyocera has pushed two new YouTube videos that summarize the Brigadier's key rugged features as well as demonstrate the excruciatingly painful things you can do to this smartphone.

Who better to know what tough really means than tough man Bear Grylls himself. This British adventurer is best known for his Discovery Channel series "Man vs. Wild" and, according to him, the Brigadier is crazy tough. After all, it meets IP65/68 dust and waterproof ratings as well as the US military's MIL-STD 810G standard. But the Kyocera Brigadier has one special trait not found in its Kyocera brethren: a Sapphire Shield display that is tough enough to withstand anything less than a diamond.

But if Grylls' word isn't enough to convince you, then maybe the battle scars, or lack of it, on the Brigadier will. The video below puts two Brigadiers, one with impact-resistant glass only and another with Sapphire Shield, to the ultimate torture test. Scratch or drop, the sapphire-clad Brigadier survives unscathed. This is practically the same torture video leaked before that hinted at Kyocera's next rugged smartphone, this time without the secrecy and with a clear Verizon branding.

In all other aspects, the Kyocera Brigadier is a decent mid-range smartphone, carrying specs that match the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini or the HTC One mini 2. These include a 1.4 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, a 4.5-inch 720p display, 4G LTE support, and Android 4.4. Of course, with all its rugged features and especially Sapphire Shield, the Brigadier pretty much surpasses those. And only at $99.99 a month, $399.99 in full, available exclusively from Verizon.

SOURCE: Kyocera (YouTube channel)

Humble Mobile Bundle 6 brings 6 into the fold

Can't get enough of Android games? Well here, have six more! Humble Bundle is offering three or six, depending on how much you want to pay for them, titles to keep you company while you whittle down the hours. And at a price of "pay what you want", it's a practical giveaway!

The usual Humbe Bundle system is, of course, at play here, no pun intended. You pay what you want for these games but, depending on how much you actually pay, the number of games you get differ. For the minimum amount, you get your hands on three games. Eliss Infinity turn your fingers into galactic gods, deciding the fate of planets by fusing them together or splitting them apart. Careful not to let same colors touch, though, or you'll have a cosmic mess in your hands. Combo Crew Special Edition, which includes some unlockable content for free, is a cel-shaded fighting game that eschews virtual buttons and d-pads for more touch-friendly controls. Swipe and tap your way to combos and to glory. Making its Android debut, Duet Premium is a rather creatively unique game where you try your best to keep two dots, one red, one blue, out of harm's way. The only problem is that these dots' movements are constrained on the circle they're on. The "Premium" in this Humble Bundle offer is no joke either, as the game comes with all unlocked content and even disables in-app purchasing to prove that point.

If you pay more than the average, however, you unlock even more games! At the front of the line is Threes!, the insanely addictive and intricately beautiful puzzle game that has mesmerized even usually hardcore gamers on their fancy Xbox Ones. Mines of Mars isn't Minecraft on Mars, but this mining-themed RPG has its own enticing feature. Maps are procedurally created so that each time you play, you are greeted by a different one and a new gaming experience. Last but definitely not the least is Joe Dever's Lone Wolf, an RPG based on the gamebook series of the same name. The great news about this Humble Bundle offer? It contains both Acts 1 and 2 of the game, the latter of which is unlocked only after finishing the first one. But wait, there's more! Acts 3 and 4, which are still in development, will be added to the game when they come out.

Humble Mobile Bundle 6 will be around for two weeks, so there's really no need to rush. That said, the average to beat, which now only stands at $4.28 as of this writing, rises ever so slightly as each day passes, so it might be wise to get in early. One other advantage of paying more than the average is that you get access to future titles that will be added to this bundle. And based on the dozens of bundles that have gone before it, that will happen here too.

SOURCE: Humble Bundle

Pebble comes out with #FreshHotFly limited colors edition

Smartwatches are becoming not just sought-after wearable gadgets but even fashion accessories as well. The fashion-conscious would not just be content wearing the usual black, gray or white devices on their wrist but would prefer something cooler and even changeable. Pebble has come out with limited edition colors for their smartwatches in a campaign they’ve dubbed #FreshHotFly.

Two years ago, the wearable brand conducted a #ColorMyPebble competition where they asked users to submit their nominations for the the next color ideas for their smartwatches, to add to the existing Jet Black, Cherry Red and Arctic White. The winners were for the colors Orange and Black, which they then produced. But it looks like there’s a demand for more colorful options, and so they’ve added Fresh Green, Hot Pink and Fly Blue in their smartwatch line, but for a limited time only.

But it’s not just the colors that they’ve tweaked. Pebble has also added new watchfaces that are available in their App Store, which includes of course a Fresh, Hot and Fly editions, plus a weather watchface from the Weather Channel. Later this year, they will also be releasing a Reading Rainbow watchface with an 8-bit Levar Burton, after their kickstarted campaign to bring back the children’s TV series has finished and backers have received their Special Edition Pebbles.

So if you feel like getting yourself a #FreshHotFly Pebble smartwatch, head on over to their website to choose among the three colors. You just need to shell out $150 and a green, pink or blue wearable will be yours, while supplies last at least.

SOURCE: Pebble

LG G3 Stylus accidentally revealed in G3 Beat ad

It seems that LG is read to take its rivalry with Samsung to the next level. In a video that was meant to solely advertise the features of the LG G3 Beat, people watching took more notice of the end of the video, which revealed a trio of G3 branded smartphones, the very last of which is something no one had any inkling of until today: a stylus-toting LG G3 Stylus.

Quite an apt name and one that immediately speaks to the device's purpose. This never before heard of smartphone was shown to sport a stylus that could be plucked out of the top edge of the device. Quite an unconventional design in this day and age, where styluses are often regarded as relics of the past. However, it isn't exactly new and there has been one stalwart of the fine-tipped accessory, LG's forever rival, Samsung.

lg-g3-stylus-2

Of course, Samsung doesn't have any monopoly on the stylus design, which has been in existence since the time of Palm. It is, however, probably the only one that insistently champions the digital writing instrument. In fact, the manufacturer is set to unveil the next generation Galaxy Note 4 at IFA next month. The stylus still has its following and its advantages, as seen by innumerable designs available in the market. But it will take more than a simple "me too" for LG's own take to be noticeable.

Samsung's stylus implementation uses digitizers licensed from Wacom, so LG might be going with other makers like N-Trig, also found in Sony's and now Microsoft's tablets, or completely different tech like Qualcomm's ultrasound pen or NVIDIA's DirectStylus. Or it could actually have been working on something on its own, though a little less likely. The original video has, unsurprisingly, been pulled down but has fortunately been mirrored a number of times already. And it's probably not because of the G3 Beat.

Based on previous speculation plus snooping around the LG website's UA Profile, a certain LG D693n believed to be the G3 Stylus bears a resolution of 960x540. In other words, qHD. Based on the video, it seems that is it as big or even bigger than the LG G3 itself. If so, the device might actually be a variant or modeled after the recently announced Verizon LG G Vista, which sports a 5.7-inch qHD display. Not exactly encouraging.

VIA: SlashGear, My LG Phones

Sony has announced that it will no longer support PlayStation Mobile on Android.

Sony has announced that it will no longer support PlayStation Mobile on Android. The service will continue to operate, but from Android 4.4.3 and up, Sony won't guarantee that games will work properly.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G adds LTE, keeps the same price tag

Xiaomi's devices may sell like crazy, but not all of its smartphones, like the relatively new Redmi Note, have completely desirable traits. Now the Chinese manufacturer is ready to push that phablet to into the LTE age by announcing its sibling, the Redmi Note 4G, toting LTE connectivity without bumping up the price.

The "Note" part of the name might be a bit misleading, but Xiaomi's device doesn't wield a stylus like Samsung's Galaxy Note or even NVIDIA's Tegra Note 7. It is, however, Note-like in size, bearing a 5.5-inch 720p HD screen. Practically nothing has changed in this variant of the Redmi Note. You still get the same 1.6 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400, for one, and the ample 3,100 mAh battery for another. Even the cameras are the same, at 13 megapixels and 5 megapixels for back and front, respectively.

There are, of course, some changes. Unlike the previous Redmi Note, this variant only comes in one configuration, and that's with the aforementioned processor and 2 GB of RAM. The star of the show, however, is the 4G LTE, compatible with China's TDD-LTE bands. Xiaomi advertises that this gives users a theoretical download speed of up to 132 Mbps. Of course, that is only during ideal conditions.

The best news of all, at least for those still planning on buying this, is that there is no price change at all, at least compared to the higher-end Redmi Note. This new Redmi Note 4G will only cost 999 RMB, roughly $160 today. That's the exact same price tag of the non-LTE variant that has the same specs. This is by all means great news for those who still don't have one, but for those who may have already invested in the original 2 GB Redmi Note variant, this might come as a rather disappointing news.

SOURCE: Xiaomi (1), (2)

New photos, UAProf of Samsung Galaxy Alpha leaked

It seems like some people can’t stop talking about, or rather leaking information about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Alpha. The rumored high-end smartphone is being positioned as the outright rival of another soon-to-be-released phone, Apple’s iPhone 6. New photos as well as User Agent profiles on Samsung’s website have been leaked, giving credence to those rumors and getting people even more excited about the newest member of the Samsung family.

In the Samsung site, there are five versions of the Galaxy Alpha, with the base model being Samsung SM-G850, with each profile having a letter that tells us what region and/or carrier it belongs to. For example, G850F is for Europe, G850A is for AT&T, G850T is T-Mobile and G850M is Vodafone. The G850H is still a bit sketchy but it may very well be a 3G-only phone, following the logic that the G900H, which turned out to be the Exynos 5 Octa version of the Galaxy S5, is also a 3G-only device.

Meanwhile, leaked photos show a black unit of the Galaxy Alpha, in contrast to the earlier leaked images of a white version of the smartphone. Looks like it will indeed be a metallic or aluminium device and if you put it next to an iPhone, it looks like it is ready to compete with its main rival, at least on the physical side of things. The rumour mill has previously stated that it will be running on Exynos Octa Core 5433, 2GB RAM, 1850mAh and will probably have a 4.7” 720p display and a 12MP rear camera. The specs are pretty much similar as well to the iPhone’s usual features.

Now whether or not Samsung will also be coming out with a 6.7” version of the Galaxy Alpha, to match again the rumoured 5.5” version of the iPhone, is still cause for speculation. All will be revealed soon, if it’s true that the unveiling of the Galaxy Alpha will be this coming August 13.