Hasta La Gadget!

Believe it or not, we’re still rooting for Ruslan Kogan and the rest of his Aussie compatriots, but the company’s announcement today of an Android 2.2 set-top TV box with full Market access is, as usual, equal parts intriguing and unbelievable. The Kogan Agora Internet TV Portal: Powered by Android is priced at A$149 with a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor from Samsung, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage, HDMI output and three USB ports for external storage, that it claims will bring the full internet — including everyone’s favorite Angry Birds — to your TV screen. According to the sales page it’s expected to ship May 27th to anywhere you like, as long as it’s in Australia or the UK. We’ll mark our calendars to see if it beats official Google TV boxes to Market access in the living room (we’re still waiting for the TV shown off last year), but in the meantime check after the break for a press release with more details on this box, a familiar looking 7-inch tablet that also claims access to the Market’s thousands of apps and a couple of netbooks. Finally, we spotted a video from ARM fan Charbax checking out what could be the OEM version of the TV box at CeBIT, so that’s included after the break as well.

Continue reading Kogan’s Agora Internet TV Portal promises Android Market access, our LCDs remain skeptical

Kogan’s Agora Internet TV Portal promises Android Market access, our LCDs remain skeptical originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Open up Android Market on your Android device today and (most of) you will see a familiar set of three headings — Apps, Games and My apps — bidding you welcome. Do the same on your Sony Ericsson Android phone, however, and the last item in that list might no longer be there. That’s because SE has decided to introduce its own “channel” to the Market, wherein you’ll find a load of Xperia handset-specific junk software and other specially curated bits that your smartphone is adjudged to be in need of. The change means you’ll need to open up your menu to get at your own apps, but that shouldn’t be an entirely unfamiliar activity for Android users. Sony Ericsson may be the first manufacturer to pull this switcheroo, but it’s following in the well-worn footsteps of Verizon and T-Mobile in the US. And speaking of carriers, Sony Ericsson says this change is operator-dependent, so if you’re nice and lucky, your operator won’t bother to roll this out. Sadly, our Xperia Arc has already been infected.

Sony Ericsson sets up its own channel in Android Market, relegates ‘My apps’ link to a menu item originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been one week since Google pulled the PSX4Droid emulator from the Android Market without warning, and today its lead developer has decided to take a stand — ZodTTD’s made a new version of the app free of charge, and is hosting it at his personal website as a downloadable APK. He now claims that not only did Google pull his app, the company has frozen his developer accounts, effectively restricting his ability to publish to (and profit from) the Android Market until this gets sorted out. We can’t confirm his story at this point — and we hear things may not be quite as cut-and-dried as he claims — but we can tell you that if you happen to have a legally-obtained PlayStation BIOS and ROMs sitting around, you’re only a few clicks away from being able to use them on your Android phone. Not a bad deal, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

ZodTTD makes PSX4Droid 3.0 free, claims Google booted him from Android Market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dungeon Defenders: First Wave cost $3 when it first came out. This week, the iOS version will cost you ninety-nine cents. But if you want to play the Unreal Engine-powered tower defense game today, you can have it for free — developer Trendy Entertainment is now leaning on Android’s new in-app billing system to pay for the whole thing. We can’t give Trendy all the credit, of course, as Glu Mobile’s Gun Bros and Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge 4 are doing the same thing, but to our knowledge both of them were free to play from day one. Free-to-play gaming has been a controversial proposition in the console and PC gaming space — most publishers would just like to sell a game once, and call it a day. On phone, however, where apps are expected to be cheap, it could indeed make more sense to charge users for items and upgrades than to have users “buy” the game. Either way, we penny-pinchers are pleased as punch with the idea. PR after the break.

Continue reading Android’s in-app billing makes a dent: Dungeon Defenders free on Android Market

Android’s in-app billing makes a dent: Dungeon Defenders free on Android Market originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uh oh, the day has finally come. We just gathered from Joystiq (and confirmed ourselves) that the renowned Android first-gen PlayStation emulator, PSX4Droid, has been pulled from the Market. The reason? Its author, ZodTTD, said Google informed him that it was a matter of “Content Policy violation,” however the fact it’s taken eight months for Google to take action suggests it might have a little something to do with the imminent launch of the Xperia Play, which will have its own mechanism to power the original PlayStation’s games. Another mystery is that it looks like other emulators such as SNesoid (SNES), GameBoid (Game Boy) and, in particular, FPSe (PlayStation) appear to be safe for now, which might suggest that there are other reasons behind this removal; but still, the timing suggests otherwise. On the bright side, we can always rely on third-party app markets.

Update: Here’s a super generic statement we just received from Google regarding this matter:

“We remove apps from Android Market that violate our policies.”

Android PlayStation emulator PSX4Droid pulled from Market, timing pointing at Xperia Play (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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