Straight Talk launches Bring Your Own Tablet program

Most households nowadays own a tablet or two. For some, each family member has a tablet to use for school, home, or the office. There’s no denying that mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, and soon wearables, have taken over our digital lives.

The Bring Your Own Tablet (BYOT) program was recently introduced by Straight Talk to bring more people access to the Internet. It’s a special offering by Straight Talk that lets the tablet owner to choose a data plan for mobile surfing even without a contract. Straight Talk is a wireless service provider that doesn't offer any contract, only unlimited data plans usable for a limited number of days or as needed.

With this new program, you can do almost anything for your family whether you’re out or simply at home. Need a recipe to cook for dinner or your son’s upcoming party? Check your tablet for some of the greatest recipes online. You can also watch tutorials on how to cook properly and prepare a grocery-shopping list with your Straight Talk connection. If you’re a mamarazzi, you can always share your kids’ photos on your favorite social network and share with your friends and family. Check the weather to know if it’s safe and sunny to play outside. No need to spend more on an exclusive contract now that Straight Talk is here.

If you want to relax and pass some time, you can watch movies or play games on your tablet. The BYOT can help you entertain kids when they are bored or if you need an instant babysitter while doing some important office work. Download a book and read or play some music to put you in a good mood. Straight Talk offers you all these and more with your choice of data plans and at 4G LTE speeds for some tablet models.

The BYOT program works with any GSM-enabled Android tablet. You can bring your unlocked tablet to Straight Talk to get data plan even without any contract. The $45 unlimited data plan will last for 30 days and will include talk, text, and data services.

SOURCE: Straight Talk

Story Timeline

• Samsung Galaxy Centura bound for Straight Talk


• Straight Talk and Net10 data throttling policy clarified


• Straight Talk now selling nano SIM cards for AT&T and T-Mobile

Adobe Creative Cloud now in preview mode on Android

For designers and creative people that are dependent on Adobe's suite of products (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc), it can sometimes be a pain to work mobile-wise, as you often cannot carry those programs and the files on your smartphone or tablet. Adobe has now shown a sort-of workaround to that with the launch, or at least preview, of the Adobe Creative Cloud for Android devices.

Now don't get that excited and think that you can actually work directly from your mobile device. They actually haven't reached that point yet. But what the app does is it allows you to browse and preview your Adobe files that are saved in their very own cloud storage. You can also organize the files that are stored in there, so you can manage your creative projects from the app itself by sharing it with other members of your team.

So, for example, you are going on vacation but would like to keep a close eye on the designs for an upcoming advertising pitch for a major brand, you can ask your graphic designers to upload their working files from Photoshop and Illustrator on the Creative Cloud. Then you could view them, make comments and suggestions (but probably through your messaging app of choice) so you can let your team know the changes or improvements that they can make to the current designs.

The Creative Cloud is subscription-based, but if you sign up for a free account, you get 2GB of cloud space as well as trial access to all creative tools from Adobe. However, it's still just working on mobile phones as of now, and most creative people would probably prefer to view designs on tablets. And since it's still on preview mode in the Google Play Store, you can expect a few bugs and kinks for now. But if you'd like to sample how the app works, you can download it for free (subscription isn't free though).

Story Timeline

• Adobe Photoshop Express updated, brings new editing and cloud features


• Adobe Photoshop Express update brings borders and 'pet-eye' fix

Xperia Z2 and Z2 tablet Android 4.4.4 update gets certified

Sony Xperia Z2 and Z2 Tablet owners who have been wondering when they would finally get the update to Android 4.4.4 finally have an idea when they will get the OS update. Android 4.4.4 firmware 23.0.1.A.0.167 has finally been certified for the Xperia Z2 and Z2 tablet.

Both of those devices have been stuck on Android 4.4.2 for a while now. It's unclear what features will come to the devices with the new update. Presumably the two Z2 devices will get a user interface that looks similar to what the Xperia Z3 has since that device has ran Android 4.4.4 for a while.

What we don’t know right now is if all the features of the Z3 will be ported to the Z2 devices. The Z2 firmware is certified for the D6502 and D6503 versions of the smartphone.

The Z2 Tablet update is certified for the SGP521 and SGP541 variants of the tablet. The new firmware hasn’t started to roll out yet for either device, but with the certifications posted, it should begin any time now.

SOURCE: Xperia Blog

Samsung to report weakest earnings since 2011

Over the last several years, Samsung Electronics has been doing very well with its line of Android smartphones and tablets helping to push profits to ever-higher levels. Samsung is now reportedly set to announce its biggest annual income decline since 2011. The earnings reported for its July-September quarter will reportedly be the lowest reported in the last three years.

Part of the blame for the lower profits is that short-term prospects for smartphones are uncertain. Analytics firm Strategy Analytics has said that Samsung has been outclassed by the iPhone in the premium segment and undercut by rivals from China such as Lenovo and Xiaomi for the bottom end customers.

Samsung said in a regulatory filing this week that profit for Q3 is expected to fall 59.7% to 4.1 trillion won, or $3.8 billion. The mean forecast for the quarter was a profit of 5.6 trillion won.

The decline for the quarter also marks the fourth consecutive quarter where earnings have declined on a yearly basis. Samsung does expect things to turn around for the last quarter with strong demand for smartphones and TVs expected in the holiday shopping season.

SOURCE: Reuters

Land’s End is a gorgeous game for the Samsung Gear VR

The Samsung Gear VR is one of the accessories to the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 that most tech and gaming junkies are excited about, a virtual reality headset in the mold of the Oculus VR. Virtual Reality has been on a general decline since its heyday in the mid-90s where it was supposed to be the next big thing. Maybe it was really just ahead of its time, as the current technology is now allowing for a better representation of the technology. Evidence to this is “Land’s End” a beautiful VR game designed for the Samsung Gear VR.

The game is designed by “ustwo” and the studio has just released its first trailer. The indie game developers are best known for “Monument Valley” a game primarily designed for tablets. It would seem that the developers had to learn a lot on coming to the VR platform but it seems that they have done fairly well for themselves, if the trailer is of any evidence.

A simple lowdown on the game – it’s a puzzle-based game that takes place on a mystical ocean where there are islands scattered around. The controls are reportedly such that it is very, very near telepathy – where you would only need to “look” in a direction to actually go there within the game. The developers have made it so that the controls are intuitive to VR.

The Samsung Gear VR hasn’t even launched yet – although there are leaks and rumors saying that the virtual reality headset will be available in Korea by the 1st of December. Although that makes sense with the holidays coming, we suggest you take that news with a grain of salt. Once the Gear VR launches, then we can begin to ask when this beautiful game will be released.

VIA: Droid Gamers

Story Timeline

• Oculus producing a game for Samsung Gear VR


• Early Gear VR games will come without price tags


• Internal document leaks release date, pricing of Samsung Gear VR

OnePlus OTA update for CM 11S (38R) rollout begins

Owners of OnePlus smartphones have a new firmware update on the way that will bring some new features and fixes to the mix. The OTA update for CM 11S (38R) is rolling out starting today. The new firmware improves the responsiveness of the touchscreen of the smartphone and adds a new lock screen to the mix.

Fans of photography using their smartphone will love this new feature; photos can be taken in RAW format with the new firmware applied. Audio support was also enhanced to give the One the ability to play high-resolution 24-bit, 96/192kHz flac/alac/wav files without resampling.

A new method of reporting bugs directly to Cyanogen was added along with a pause button for video recording. Battery life has been improved and issues with camera exposure compensation being stuck in auto mode were fixed.

An issue where users who had chosen 4G preferred weren't able to connect to 3G data when needed has been patched. Static in headsets when changing the volume was fixed and a rotation issue where the screen didn’t move if turned slowly was fixed. The update also adds ANT+ support. OnePlus says the update is rolling out slowly starting today, so it could be a while before everyone has the update.

SOURCE: OnePlus

Star Warfare 2: Payback lets you even play as an alien

Star Warfare is back and it's back with a vengeance. Or at least that's what the name implies. But aside from what may seem like a catchy title, this sequel to Star Warfare: Alien Invasion, which is noted to have millions of downloads and a four-star rating, puts a few twists to the tried and tested sci-fi shooter convention.

Star Warfare 2: Payback, like its predecessor, offers two modes of playing. In single-player mode, you are left on your own to face hordes of aliens and other "biological oddities". Of course, you're not technically on your own as you have a wide assortment of weapons, robotic "pets", vehicles, and combinations of those to assist you in vanquishing your foes.

The game gets just a wee bit interesting when you dive into multiplayer mode, offering different ways of playing with others online. Aside from your usual PvP fights, you also have Co-op standoffs, where you get to team with other players in squad-based competition. There is also that popular capture the flag game that no modern multiplayer shooter can do without. Perhaps the most interesting mode is when you actually get to be the Alien Boss that will turn on your friends, or any other human players, to get a feel of what it is to be rooting for the other side, and maybe even getting owned yourself.

Star Warfare 2: Payback is free to download and play from Google Play Store. But, of course, like any freemium game this day and age, the game comes with in-app purchases. Thanks to the new Google Play Store feature, we now know that those range from $0.99 to $99.99, for a single item purchase, that is.

Download: Star Warfare 2: Payback on Google Play Store