Hasta La Gadget!

It’s another massively successful day for Google as they announce their second quarter financial results to investors along with celebrations of both the launch of their first Google-branded tablet and their real pairing with Motorola. Reminding investors that their acquisition of Motorola was finally approved around the world – for real this time – and that the Google Nexus 7 – launched at Google I/O 2012 – was already doing fabulously. In addition, Google announced an undeniably amazing consolidated revenue of $12.21 billion for the quarter.

This is the first quarter in which Google is able to report the operating results of Motorola included in with their own. Because of this, one may want to consider how it’s affecting their bottom line. We won’t get into that too deep, however, moving right on down to the fact that compared to the second quarter of 2011, Google’s income increased a massive 35%.

Google’s revenues for advertising and its “other” category were $10.96 billion for the quarter, this being 90% of Google’s overall revenues. This is a 21% increase compared to the same quarter last year. For Google-owned site revenues Google has $7.54 billion this quarter, 69% of their total number, this a 21% increase over last year. Finally for Google’s Network revenues, the company had $2.98 billion for this quarter, that racking up to be 27% of their total revenue and a 20% increase over last year.

International revenue for Google this quarter, that being everything outside the United States in this case, equaled out to $5.96 billion USD, this a whopping 54% of Google’s total revenue for the second quarter of 2012. Oddly enough, Google reports that this percentage of its profits have been attributed to international revenue in the first quarter of 2012 as well as the second quarter of 2011 as well – 54% exactly!

Check out our Google hub for additional updates surrounding this earnings report today, and check out the main news hub for more gadgets, gizmos, and everything in-between here on SlashGear forever more as well!

Google Q2 2012 financial results hit $12+ BILLION in revenue is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The NVIDIA TegraZone has brought on many next-level shooters, racing games, and graphic-heavy beasts that show the power of Tegra processors plainly – with Auralux, it’s not quite so simple to see. What you’ve got here developed by Wardrum Studios is not a shooting game with rippling puddles of blood, nor is it a water shooting game where you put out realistic looking fires – instead its the most minimalistic vision of what Warcraft addicts fell in love with back in the 1990s with strategy and troop controls, but this time it’s in space. And it’s fought with bubbles.

This game is an instant buy for anyone who loves the game Osmos in that it requires you to look at your physics-heavy blob-controlling situation from a bird’s eye view – though you’re in space, so it’s more of a gods-eye-view. Everything is flat, but you’ve got hovering bodies living around planets which produce these bodies. These bodies – or bubbles – are your troops. The object of the game is to reduce your enemies to nothingness.

To defeat your enemies, you’ve got to control your troops by selecting them with your finger – this done by creating a circle around them – then commanding them to attack. But you don’t tell them to attack as you would a normal war-like game, you tell them to advance. You can tell your troops to move to a certain area on the screen, or you can tell them to make their way into one of the planets.

The planets are either controlled by you or one of your enemies, or they can be neutral. Depending on the setup of each level, you and your enemies will have different positions amongst different amounts of planets which can be taken over by your troops. To take over a planet, you’ve got to sacrifice an amount of troops to it.

Once you’ve activated a planet with enough troops, the planet will begin producing troops. The smallest planet size produces troops the slowest, the largest produces the quickest. Each dormant/gray planet has a limit to how large it can get, with the most challenging environments having only a collection of the smallest planets. The larger you make a planet, the harder it is for an enemy to take it, as well.

This game is played at a relatively slow pace, but you can purchase a Speed Mode from the Google Play store that allows you to rock and roll at what I just hate to call “blazing” speeds. There are also levels galore you can buy with an NVIDIA Tegra exclusive pack hiding near the end of the list – it’s the best!

This game is a home run for mobile devices, and on a Tegra-toting device it’s a powerful punch for tablet and smartphone gamers alike. Auralux sits somewhere between a rather involved game and a casual game, making it really great for lots of different types of people looking to make great use of their touchscreen interfaces on all manner of devices. This game has rather quickly become a first-install for all of the devices I’ll be reviewing in the near future – count on it.

You can download Auralux from the Google Play Store or catch it on the NVIDIA TegraZone starting this week as well. What are you waiting for?!

SlashGear Android App of the Week: Auralux with Tegra-exclusive expansion is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s new Nexus 7 is a great little tablet, but it may have bigger problems than being difficult to unpack: we’re hearing reports that suggest many of the devices have a loose screen. More »

Now that the Google Nexus 7 tablet has been released to the general public and many citizens of the USA and the UK have it in their hands, a display looseness issue has arisen. This issue is rather similar to what Google I/O 2011 attendees experienced with the special edition Galaxy Tab 10.1, where the glass appears to have been glued or screwed incorrectly, resulting in a bit of looseness in the whole unit.

The issue with the Nexus 7 appears to be rather similar to the Galaxy Tab 10.2 I/O special edition, but because ASUS constructed the device as they did, there’s a simple fix you can do yourself if you find your unit to be screwy. All you’ve got to do, first of all, is pop the back panel off of the tablet: This will be a bit nerve-racking to do if you’re anal-retentive, but it does come off easily.

NOTE: check out our full Nexus 7 review if you’ve not got one already!

From there it’s only a matter of locating the screws all around the edge of the device inside and tightening them up a bit. Not too tight, as you could crack your screen, but not loose either, as you don’t want the glass popping up in any way at all. You must do all of this at your own risk, of course, but it is rather simple when it comes down to it.

Have you experienced looseness in your Nexus 7′s display? We know a collection of folks at XDA Developers Forums certainly have. Let us know if you plan on fixing it yourself or if you’ll send it in to Google to make it right.

[via Android Community]

Nexus 7 has display looseness and instant fix is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google has begun offering Nexus 7 pre-order customers complimentary upgrades to overnight shipping, reacting to complaints of delayed deliveries and citing “incredible demand” for the Jelly Bean tablet. In an email to those who pre-ordered the Nexus 7 tablet after its launch at Google IO last month, Google confirmed its shipping schedule for the 8GB and 16GB versions.

“We wanted to send you an update on your Nexus 7 pre-order. We’ve had incredible demand for the new tablet and are shipping them as quickly as possible. All Nexus 7 8GB orders will ship by July 20, and Nexus 7 16GB orders will ship by next week. We’ve upgraded your shipping to overnight so your your order will arrive sooner” Google email to UK Nexus 7 pre-order customers

According to Google’s new help page on the topic, in the US all “standalone” 8GB Nexus 7 orders have been shipped – that is, orders that do not include a case, charger or Nexus Q – and, by the end of the day on July 19, all standalone 16GB Nexus 7 orders placed through July 11 will have been shipped (and upgraded to overnight shipping). The remaining orders of the 16GB Nexus 7 will be shipped by the end of next week, again with automatic – and free – overnight shipping upgrades.

In the UK, all Nexus 7 8GB orders will ship by July 20 (BST) and all 16GB Nexus 7 orders placed through June 30 will ship by the same day. Remaining Nexus 7 16GB orders will ship next week.

In Canada, all 8GB model orders have been shipped, but the 16GB orders will be shipped within 1-2 weeks. Finally, in Australia orders for both models will be fulfilled by the end of the day on July 19, and are expected to arrive in 3-5 days.

The news is being met with mixed reactions. While overnight shipping is a welcome addition, the fact that Nexus 7 buyers who opted for third-party retailers have already been receiving their tablets as of several days ago, those who opted for official Google Play pre-orders are understandably frustrated.

More on the Nexus 7 in our full review.

Google salves Nexus 7 pre-order delays with speedy shipping upgrade is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.