Sony Xperia Z phones getting Android 5.0 Lollipop very soon

Owners of Sony Xperia Z phones have only been waiting for the official Android 5.0 software update to be released. We learned about this was under development quickly after the latest Android platform was launched by Google last year. We were expecting a release last week and rollout to some units have already started. We also mentioned that more Xperia devices are receiving the Lollipop update. Unfortunately, we're not certain what will happen to non-Xperia Z phones as Sony already announced that they're not upgrading non-Xperia Z phones to Lollipop.

This week, more Sony Xperia Z3, Xperia Z3 Compact, Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact owners should be receiving a notification about the new mobile OS version. Next week, the Xperia Z2 and Xperia Z2 Tablet will finally receive their turn. Even the Xperia T2 Ultra and Xperia C3 will also receive the improvements that come with Android 5.0--Material Design elements, more fluid animations, and enhanced lockscreen notifications among others.

Sony Mobile just posted a teaser, telling us that Android Lollipop is coming soon.

Yet-to-be-released is the sweet Lollipop version for the classic Xperia Z. We have no information on the exact release date but at least we know it's arriving. This is welcome news for anyone who owns a classic Xperia Z. Moreover, on Twitter, Sony Mobile News mentioned that the software update for the Z1 compact will be released the same time as the Z1 and Z Ultra and that Lollipop for Xperia Z2 will roll out next week.

SOURCE: Sony Mobile (1),(2)

Story Timeline

• Sony Mobile to release Lollipop for Xperia Z next week


• Sony starts rollout of Android 5.0 to Xperia Z3, Xperia Z3 Compact


• More Sony Xperia devices receiving Android Lollipop update


• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra and C3 to get Lollipop update

Facebook now lets you make digital scrapbooks of your kid’s pictures

Parents, especially new ones, can always be found sharing photos of their child or children on social networks. Some even give monthly or weekly photo updates to show off how cute their progeny are, especially to relatives or loved ones that are far away and can only see the kids online. But sometimes, the photos are digitally scattered so it's hard to keep track of them. The largest network of them all. Facebook, is now giving you a much more organized way of sharing your children's photos with their new Scrapbook feature.

On the Family and Relationships tab on your About section, you can now see an option to create a scrapbook. If you already have a child there on your profile, you just need to click Add Scrapbook. And if your child is too young to have their own FB account, just create a scrapbook, choose the name for it, and choose the tag that you'll be adding to pictures you'll be uploading from now on. You can also choose your partner to co-own the scrapbook with you and only you and he/she will be able to choose which photos to put the special tag on to include in the scrapbook.

The next few feature rollouts would also be useful. So that you won't always flood your timeline with pictures of your kids (not everyone appreciates their pictures, no matter how cute they are), you can invite people whom you know would be interested in your child's progress, to subscribe to the Scrapbook directly. Or you can also choose specific photos which you want to share with your parents, other relatives, or friends.

This is a Facebook feature that comes from the personal insights of some of the developers and it is obviously a labor of love that will benefit a lot of parents who want to organize the photos of their kids as they slowly grow up. This should be available on your Facebook accounts now, but if it isn't yet, just wait for the gradual rollout to reach you.

SOURCE: Facebook

Inbox for Gmail now lets you custom your snooze times

In a world where not everyone works in the morning or sleep in the evenings, it is important that you will be able to customize your snooze options (and we don't mean the actual snoozing/sleeping or your alarm clock's snooze alarm). Google says that one of their most requested for features in their Inbox for Gmail app is the ability to choose when you'd like to snooze certain emails, and now they have finally given the users what they want.

The minor update to the Inbox app now lets you customize your morning, afternoon, and evening snooze times for when you want to check (or not check) your emails. And customizing it is not that complicated and in fact you just need to click a few buttons and Inbox will adapt to you. So when you snooze one of your emails and you choose a different time, Inbox will prompt you if you'd like to change your default morning snooze time to that. So if you say yes, then it will automatically change all your morning snoozes (sneezes?) to that time. But if you'd like to adjust all of those times (morning, afternoon, evening) in one go, you can just go to the Snooze Settings.

Another minor update to Inbox on the web is that you now have quicker access to your contacts. They're also working on giving you an easier way to delete emails from your Inbox, as well as adding customizable signature support for the app. Again, these are features that have been requested by users.

If you don't have Inbox for Gmail yet, you can get it for free from the Google Play Store. if you already have it, just wait for the update to roll out to you.

SOURCE: Gmail

Story Timeline

• Inbox by Gmail update: tablet-ready, more browsers added


• Google Inbox to dabble with Google Apps for Work users


• Gmail improved, view all inboxes in one place

Google welcomes April Fools with Google Maps Pacman invasion

Trust Google to always be creative in the way they celebrate online events. April Fools is such a big thing on the internet right now that it’s quite impossible for Google not to do something, as they have done for the past few years. This morning, the mothership started the cute prank early, with respect to time zones who were already on April 1st – this particular one involved our favorite pellet-chomping video game hero Pacman.

Google went to one of its main services, Google Maps for this one, and they incorporated the classic Pacman video game to certain portions of the maps – both in the browser version and the Android version. How does it work? Well, you have to follow one of the given location clues (see below).

Once you’ve found one of the locations, a small Pacman icon will appear at the lower right corner of the screen. Click or tap on the icon, and then you’re good to go. On Android, you can also find this, although it’s not quite the big screen experience that it is on a laptop browser. To find Pacman on Android, you'll have to make sure you’ve updated to the newest version of Google Maps, specifically version 4.4 that rolled out in the past week.

It’s good old fun, and we love the people at Google who think up these cute little Easter eggs – they make you smile, don’t they? There should be more April Fools stuff going around as the day progresses. Watch out, and be very, very suspicious of the Internet today.

VIA: SlashGear

Story Timeline

• April Fools gone wrong: CyanogenMod joke release still in use a year later


• April Fools 2013: Round-Up from Android and the web


• Google's got jokes: their best April Fools day posts

Space Bounties Inc lets you capture space roving criminals

In a place like space, galactic leaders cannot afford to have space criminals like pirates, warlords and even wayward laser beams run amok. That is why they need the services of space bounty hunters to keep these creatures in check. Enter Space Bounties Inc and your team of agents, and the problem is solved for the universe in this new Android game. As they say, "No bounty mission is too small and no bounty mission is too dangerous!"

Your goal in this strategy game of course is to hire these bounty hunters to bring in the space scum that you want captured to have not just world peace, but universe peace. The game has procedurally generated content so that no two games are the same and each one is a different adventure. Both the bounty hunters and the fugitives in each game have different abilities, attributes, health, and to make it more fun, weapons. There are over 132 of these unique characters, including aliens, androids (a different kind of Android this time), cyborgs, and mutants.

Even the space location and planet surfaces are procedurally generated so you won't get bored with your surroundings while you play. You'll be able to buy and sell equipment at the base and upgrade the attributes, armor, equipment and weapons of your characters, depending on how many points or money you have. There are three game difficulty levels, so more chances for you to earn points the higher the level is.

You have the ability to save the game whenever you want to (even during battle scenes) and resume from where you stopped. You can download Space Bounties Inc for $2.15 from the Google Play Store, and there will be no ads or in-app purchases.

Power Great Gaming with New Analytics from Play Games

By Ben Frenkel, Google Play Games team

A few weeks ago at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), we announced Play Games Player Analytics, a new set of free reports to help you manage your games business and understand in-game player behavior. Today, we’re excited to make these new tools available to you in the Google Play Developer Console.

Analytics is a key component of running a game as a service, which is increasingly becoming a necessity for running a successful mobile gaming business. When you take a closer look at large developers that do this successfully, you find that they do three things really well:

• Manage their business to revenue targets


• Identify hot spots in their business metrics so they can continuously focus on the game updates that will drive the most impact


• Use analytics to understand how players are progressing, spending, and churning

“With player engagement and revenue data living under one roof, developers get a level of data quality that is simply not available to smaller teams without dedicated staff. As the tools evolve, I think Google Play Games Player Analytics will finally allow indie devs to confidently make data-driven changes that actually improve revenue.”

Kevin Pazirandeh

Developer of Zombie Highway 2

With Player Analytics, we wanted to make these capabilities available to the entire developer ecosystem on Google Play in a frictionless, easy-to-use way, freeing up your precious time to create great gaming experiences. Small studios, including the makers of Zombie Highway 2 and Bombsquad, have already started to see the benefits and impact of Player Analytics on their business.

Further, if you integrate with Google Play game services, you get this set of analytics with no incremental effort. But, for a little extra work, you can also unlock another set of high impact reports by integrating Google Play game services Events, starting with the Sources and Sinks report, a report to help you balance your in-game economy.

If you already have a game integrated with Google Play game services, go check out the new reports in the Google Play Developer Console today. For everyone else, enabling Player Analytics is as simple as adding a handful of lines of code to your game to integrate Google Play game services.

Manage your business to revenue targets

Set your spend target in Player Analytics by choosing a daily goal

To help assess the health of your games business, Player Analytics enables you to select a daily in-app purchase revenue target and then assess how you're doing against that goal through the Target vs Actual report depicted below. Learn more.

Identify hot spots using benchmarks with the Business Drivers report

Ever wonder how your game’s performance stacks up against other games? Player Analytics tells you exactly how well you are doing compared to similar games in your category.

Metrics highlighted in red are below the benchmark. Arrows indicate whether a metric is trending up or down, and any cell with the icon can be clicked to see more details about the underlying drivers of the change. Learn more.

Track player retention by new user cohort

In the Retention report, you can see the percentage of players that continued to play your game on the following seven days after installing your game.

Learn more.

See where players are spending their time, struggling, and churning with the Player Progression report

Measured by the number of achievements players have earned, the Player Progression funnel helps you identify where your players are struggling and churning to help you refine your game and, ultimately, improve retention. Add more achievements to make progression tracking more precise.

Learn more.

Manage your in-game economy with the Sources and Sinks report

The Sources and Sinks report helps you balance your in-game economy by showing the relationship between how quickly players are earning or buying and using resources.

For example, Eric Froemling, one man developer of BombSquad, used the Sources & Sinks report to help balance the rate at which players earned and spent tickets.

Read more about Eric’s experience with Player Analytics in his recent blog post.

To enable the Sources and Sinks report you will need to create and integrate Play game services Events that track sources of premium currency (e.g., gold coins earned), and sinks of premium currency (e.g., gold coins spent to buy in-app items).

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: A Quirk That Doesn't Really Work

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 is a fantastic smartphone . But maybe you find it boring. Maybe it’s disappointing that the new Android standard-bearer looks so much like an Apple product. If that’s the case, perhaps the Galaxy S6 Edge is more your speed.

Read more...