Hasta La Gadget!

It looks like a handful of select apps have outed Mountain View’s Labor day plans: Google Play’s End of Summer Sale. SwiftKey 3, The Lorax — Dr. Seuss, Square Enix’s Crystal Defenders, and other apps are now brandishing deep discounts, almost uniformly attributing the savings to the End of Summer Sale. Not every title on discount claims to be part of the unannounced event, however — Max Payne Mobile slashed its price by 67 percent without so much as a hint at the alleged festivities. Google hasn’t made the event official just yet, but we’d be willing to wager the deals will run through the holiday weekend. Check out the source link below to start making the most of your Google gift cards.

Update: Google’s made the sale official, featuring 18 discounted apps for your shopping pleasure. Check out the official list of sale items at the updated source link below, but don’t limit yourself: Max Payne Mobile and a handful of other deeply discounted games aren’t on it.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Mobile

Google Play’s End of Summer Sale outed by discounted apps, lets the Lorax speak for the savings originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google would really like you to grab more content from Google Play. Really. Just to drive its point home, the company has subtly introduced a Recommended for You section across the app and media portals of the Google Play Store on Android devices. The recommendations build on what we’ve seen through the web and go by similarities to other users, regional tastes and (naturally) +1 clicks. Don’t worry that you’ll be stuck with endless lists of Sudoku games after you download one on a lark: you can hide individual suggestions to thin the ranks. Recommendation systems aren’t anything new for mobile stores, but Google’s implementation is no doubt a useful tool for both Android fans moving beyond the basics as well as developers that would like to accelerate an already brisk app download rate.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

Google Play starts recommending content on Android devices, keeps the downloads flowing originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Play quietly updated its device availability page over the weekend, making the Nexus 7 available to Germany, France and Spain. Patient Europeans can now pick up Mountain View’s seven-inch wonderkind’s 8GB and 16GB models for €199 and €249, respectively. Conversion rates comparatively price the slate at about $248 and $311, meaning the new markets will have to suffer a small premium for the slate. Worse still, is that not all of Google Play’s services are available worldwide, with both Play Music and Magazines retaining US exclusivity. If you can bear with the inconveniences, however, one fine little tablet awaits.

Nexus 7 checks off Spain, Germany and France on availability chart, sells for a premium originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Aug 2012 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you thought Google’s perspicacious searching application was clever before, prepare for a shock. Google Goggles version 1.9 adds support for devices without autofocusing optics, giving those on budget gear a chance to use the real world as a search box. Point it at a QR code containing a URL, and it’ll show you a thumbnail of the page and check its credentials against its blacklist of malicious sites. If it comes up short when searching for a product, it’ll even search for similar-looking items to help you find what you’re looking for, and it’s available from the Play store for free — so you don’t really have any excuse.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Software

Google Goggles update brings support for devices without autofocus originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The official Google Play store for digital media such as apps, music, and books, has been given a collection of real-life gift cards. This set of gift cards appears in $10, $25, and $50 denominations, and is able to be used on digital media only – no hardware or accessory purchases here! These gift cards will be available immediately if not soon at RadioShack, Target, and GameStop.

The gift cards you’re seeing here are made available by Google for those of you looking to grab your kid, sibling, friend, or associate something simple and relatively free of commitment. Just like the iTunes gift cards that’ve been appearing in holiday gift cards for years now, the Google Play gift card line is set to be a giant force in holiday gift giving. In other words, Apple will be making a double-effort from now on to make sure they’ve got rack space above Google’s new offering.

These gift cards are able to purchase songs, movies, and TV shows instantly from the Google Play store online or through your Android-toting device. You can also purchase Android apps as well as eBooks galore from Google’s vast library of titles. These cards work to not only rent movies and TV shows, but to buy them as well – but purchases of TV shows and movies only work on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean devices so far – so watch out for that!

These cards are set to appear at the three retailers listed soon – they may already be in stores if you’re lucky! Google adds, once again, that “Google Play gift cards cannot be redeemed for Android app subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, or hardware and accessory purchases. Refer to the Google Play Gift Card Terms and Conditions for more details. Content subject to availability by country.” Remember that bit!

[via Google]

Google Play gift cards hit Target, GameStop, and RadioShack is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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