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Hugely popular ‘Wayward Souls’ has come to Android

If you’re up for a dungeon crawler that will throw you into a random room and say “good luck, hope you make it out of there alive”, then Rocketcat’s “Wayward Souls” is the game for you. It’s notoriously difficult, an easy game to get into but very hard to get past. Some people get challenged by these types of games, so yeah.



What most RPG and dungeon crawl gamers tend to do is to memorize bosses and skills that work effectively with each boss – pretty standard. But this strategy doesn’t work well with Wayward Souls, as the game changes with each playthrough. It’s more of your ability to adapt your character to new challenges.




There are six characters that you can choose from, and thirteen different area types, and you can grind through them all. It takes a special kind of skill and patience to actually get to the bosses, so bring your “A” game.


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Noodlecake, the developers who are bringing this game to Android are charging USD$4.99 for the game, but it will increase USD$1.00 after every update. Paying for the game gets you through all the next updates – which Noodlecake promises there will be. They are planning to bring controller support, boss health bars, sync of game saves, and other helpful stuff – in this case it will pay to get in on the action pretty early. Check out the game at the source link.


SOURCE: Google Play Store





Cool down your Android device with Coolify app

One side effect with us being eternally attached to our mobile devices is that more often than not, your smartphone or tablet will definitely overheat, particularly if you’re a heavy user (aren’t we all?). While you can’t use a cooling pad (yet) unlike with your netbooks or laptops, of course we expected that there will be an app for that. Coolify has one function only, and that is to ensure that your device will always be cool, literally.



Using the app isn’t that complicated since its functionality is very basic. Once you’ve installed it and opened it for the first time, it tells you how cool your device is (no, we don’t mean the cool factor but it’s actual temperature). It will then supposedly keep your device on normal temperature, specifically when you’re not using it or when you’re actually charging it. If you prefer to prettify it a bit, you can custom the background color of the app, but since you won’t be opening it often, then it doesn’t really matter.


The app doesn’t really say if it will keep your device cool when you’re actually using it, which might defeat its main purpose. Also, if your phone isn’t rooted, the “turn on normal temp protection” doesn’t really work and might just exist to tell you what the temperature of your device is. However, as it is “nearly transparent”, meaning you hardly notice it, and has almost zero CPU or battery consumption, it wouldn’t hurt to have it installed in your smartphone or tablet.


You can download the app for free from the Google Play Store. Or if you prefer the original version, you can get it from the developer’s site.


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VIA: XDA Developers


The Asus Smartwatch Will Cost Less Than $200


We knew that Asus was working on an Android Wear smartwatch, and now we have some details. According to China's Central News Agency, the ZenWatch will be announced on Wednesday and sell for less than $200.


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Xiaomi outs MIUI v6 developer preview for the Mi3, Mi4

If you’re looking for more eye-candy in your custom Android UI than most, chances are you’ve across the MIUI – the tweaked Android OS from Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi. The flipside of it is that while you get a nice, clean UI, there are bugs galore, and that the MIUI is not really known for Android functionality. That said, if you own a Xiaomi Mi3 or Mi4, you pretty much have no choice. The good news is that a new version of MIUI is out.



A developer preview of the MIUI v6 has just been released, specifically for the Mi3 and Mi4 devices. Unfortunately, the installation process is a bit roundabout – as everything seems to be with the MIUI. The first step requires users to upgrade to the developer preview build of MIUI v5. When the upgrade is done, they should automatically receive a notification for an OTA update for upgrading to MIUI v6.


In fairness to the new build, there are a number of new things that MIUI fans might be excited about. First is more eye candy, tadah! The MIUI v6 packs a flatter, more streamlined UI than the past versions. Clutter has seemingly been removed. Also, there are new features like lockcreen notifications and a new control center, among others.




MIUI has been known to sport an iPhone-like look over the years, not necessarily a bad thing for those looking for a clean, streamlined, premium look. But since this version is technically still in beta, one can expect a good number of bugs to be present – something that the MIUI has been infamous for even in stable versions. If you’ve tried the new version out, tell us about it.


VIA: Android Beat





OnePlus may start accepting pre-orders in October

The OnePlus One smartphone is a great device, but because of business risk mitigation and the manufacturers wary of competition, it has become a niche market device, and something of an urban legend. Consumers are certainly divided on the company’s “invite only” policy, but signs are pointing to an improvement – a pre-order system might be online by October.



In a Reddit “Ask Me Anything, Again” session, OnePlus Tech spokespersons with handles of “Carl” and “David” got asked when the company was doing away with the divisive “invite only” policy. The short answer was that OnePlus has been mulling a September launch of a “pre-order” system, but will most likely settle on an October launch.


OnePlus is still standing by its initial invite policy, saying that it may be “one of the better moves” the company has made. It is pointing to the fact that they are selling the device with bare profit margins, so they can’t afford to absorb any business risks. Inventory is also an issue – keeping large stocks of anything costs money, and the company can’t afford for stocks of either components or the finished product to be stagnant for long periods of time.


There have been a lot of after sales and tech support complaints recently – one issue standing out is the OnePlus One phone that spontaneously burned. OnePlus says that the slow support would actually be much worse if they did away with the invite policy. With a lot of other smartphones coming out this month at the IFA 2014, it remains to be seen if opening up pre-orders in October will be a good move for the outfit.


SOURCE: Reddit





“The New Moto X” leak: Moto Maker on Verizon, Bamboo option

Just three days or so before Motorola makes its big announcement and we're still getting last minute leaks about the Moto X+1. Here labeled as the "new Moto X", which sounds like a page out of someone else's marketing book, Motorola's next flagship is shown to be available from Verizon from the get go, including a few configuration options as well as Moto Maker customizations.



The Moto X and, for an even longer time, the Moto Maker service was initially available to only one carrier. Whether Motorola has seen the light or is just doing it differently this time, it seems that its next premiere smartphone will be available from Verizon right at launch. But more than that, Verizon's subscribers will also be able to buy and customize the Moto X+1, or the New Moto X if you prefer, to their taste from Moto Maker, without having to wait for a few months to get their hands on the service.


But what exactly will those options and customizations be? The screenshot of Verizon's system confirms previous rumors and leaks about some of the choices that will be made available to users. Of course there's the typical black, but the white version won't just be plain white. This white device will come with a bamboo back cover, one of the more anticipated options back in the Moto X's days. For devices designed with Moto Maker, there will be two configuration options of 16 and 32 GB. We will presume that the same two colors mentioned previously will be available from Moto Maker as well.


It isn't known though, if these offers are exclusive only to Verizon or if Motorola, and Lenovo, will be playing fair this time around. Whichever path it will take, we will most likely hear about it on Thursday, September 4, when Motorola unveils not only the Moto X+1/The New Moto X, the Moto G2 ("The New Moto G?"), the Moto 360 (finally!), and probably a Bluetooth earpiece as well. Join us as we trek the treacherous jungles of IFA 2014 for the next few days to bring you Motorola's latest gadgets as well as those form other manufacturers.


VIA: Phandroid





Is sapphire glass all it’s cracked up to be?

With IFA 2014 set to start in a few days in Berlin, one of the buzzwords being bandied about is sapphire glass, particularly because it is rumored to be one of the features of the anticipated iPhone 6. Another OEM has beaten Apple to the punch as Kyocera recently announced the availability of its Brigadier with Sapphire Display through carrier Verizon. But as a supposedly scratch and drop resistant material, is sapphire glass all it’s, well, cracked up to be?



uBreakiFix, a tech repair company, released a video showing the results on tests that they conducted on sapphire glass, as compared to the Gorilla Glass, which is used by several devices from Motorola, ASUS, Samsung and Amazon. They did three “torture” tests to compare the two: a scratch resistance test using a tungsten drill bit, an impact test, and a four-point bend stress test. When it comes to being scratch resistant, sapphire glass more than impresses as it is indeed a good material to keep your device scratch free, since after all, it is ranked in the mohs hardness spectrum.




But while it is indeed harder than most of the smartphone glass materials used by OEMs, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will result in an unbreakable device. As the result of the other two tests showed, sapphire glass is brittle and so it is unable to bend and absorb the impact when dropped or stressed. Its failure strength is 25% higher than gorilla glass, but that’s not what will make it effective and may present a problem for engineers. How sapphire can make a gadget better is “clever engineering and protective features”, which may be something Apple has managed to overcome.




Kyocera, which has made a name for itself for smartphones that can survive rough terrain, released two videos showing off how the sapphire glass has made the Brigadier tougher than any of their previous products. Discovery Channel superstar Bear Grylls starred in one of the videos, putting the phone through various real-life tests while the other video put the phone through the ringer and it emerged virtually unscathed.





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