There are many reasons companies move to change their brand name or graphic identity. These changes range from the subtle like a modification in logo color to something more draconian like an entirely new company name. Invariably the decision to tinker with a brand identity rests on how the brand is perceived in the marketplace, and whether a refresh will enhance esteem and business.
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Build A 747 For Your Pets With This Fully Operational 3D-Printed Jet Engine
It really, really works — just look at the window blinds behind it getting blasted out of the way. And it even does thrust reversal (what jet engines do when a plane lands to help slow it down).
August 30, 2015 at 12:14PM
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These are some of the best apps and games of the week.
Swype
Swype 2.0 for Android brings with it two new features. The first is a theme store where users can purchase additional themes for the keyboard, including the new Star Trek theme. Second, there is now an emoji drawer, which allows you to pick and choose all the system emoji. Other than that there is also support for two new languages, improved auto-correct, and bug fixes.
Price: $0.99
Download: Android
Instagram 7.5 brought with it a major change for those who regularly use the platform. You can now upload images and videos in landscape or portrait orientation and are no longer restricted to the 1:1 square aspect ratio. All you have to do is click a button while picking the image from the gallery and you can upload it in the original aspect ratio (limited to 3:4 vertically). This feature is available on the iOS and Android versions of the app.
Price: Free
Download: iOS Android
WhatsApp for Android finally got updated on the Play Store, which brought with it several new features. You can now mute individual contacts by opening their profile and clicking the mute option. You can also mark conversations as read or unread by pressing and holding on them. There are also new emoji and some of the existing ones get the multi color skin tone option as first seen on iOS 7. You can now also choose to reduce the WhatsApp call quality to save data.
Price: Free
Download: Android
Lara Croft GO
Lara Croft GO is a new action/adventure/puzzle game from Square Enix. The game is built along similar lines as Hitman GO, where you move the character along a grid of lines but there is less emphasis on the board game aspect this time. Still, you move Lara along the lines on the floor and walls and this presents some interesting challenges as you can’t just move around freely. This is especially true when you are facing enemies and traps and have to navigate the grid skillfully. Lara Croft GO has a lot of fun moments and plenty of throwbacks to older Tomb Raider games, such as the circular carousel menu, the sounds when you pick up a hidden item and some of the movement animations. It’s a wonderful combination of the new Hitman GO gameplay and Tomb Raider elements. If you enjoyed Hitman GO, you’re going to love this.
Price: $4.99 (iOS) / $6.99 (Android)
Download: iOS Android
Whispering Willows
Whispering Willows is a 2D side scrolling horror game. You play as a young Elena Elkhorn who is out to find her missing father in the Willows Mansion. Her amulet allows her to astral project her spirit into the ghostly realm and communicate with the dead. You have to use the project to solve puzzles and find out the secrets of Willows Mansion. The game features beautiful anime style hand-drawn 2D graphics and a creepy background score. If you buy it now you can get 50% off the price ($4.99).
Price: $9.99
Download: iOS Android
Ember’s Journey
Ember’s Journey is a side scrolling 2D puzzle game where the only light source is the little cube you are controlling and the rest of the level is dark. This means you can only see a small part of the level at a time and only things that are very close to you. You have to navigate the level using the bleak light of your cube and find your way to the glowing blue line at the end.
Price: $1.99
Download: iOS Android
Doodle Jump DC Super Heroes
Doodle Jump DC Super Heroes is a spin-off on the original Doodle Jump and is based on DC superhero characters. Episode 1 of this game features Batman as he fights against Gotham’s biggest villains: Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Riddler, and Joker, in typical Doodle Jump style gameplay. Future episodes of the game will feature other superhero characters.
Price: Free
Download: iOS …
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The popular MMORPG goes free-to-play in the run-up to its ‘Heart of Thorns’ release.
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Una de las aplicaciones más populares, con mejor valoración y que mejor funciona en todo Android, es QuickPic. Una aplicación de galería que realiza su función de manera perfecta. Ya que la función de una galería es mostrar nuestras fotos de una forma fácil, sin complicaciones y sin añadidos raros. QuickPic lo hace, por eso es tan utilizada y por eso nos gusta tanto.
Con una rapidez pasmosa, ligera y con un diseño atractivo, QuickPic es la mejor –o de las mejores– aplicación para ver todas nuestras fotos. Libre de publicidad, gratis y sin ralentizar nuestro smartphone, un claro ejemplo de como hacer bien las cosas. Por lo menos hasta ahora, ya que el miedo ha entrado en nuestros cuerpos cuando descubrimos que esta gran aplicación ha cambiado de manos. De la noche a la mañana, sin comunicado previo. QuickPic es ahora propiedad de Cheetah Mobile, los dueños de la tan polémica Clean Master.
Polémica porque muchos usuarios piensan que Clean Master en verdad no realiza bien su función. No limpia lo que dice que limpia, es una aplicación pesada y además está llena de anuncios. Aunque Clean Master es sólo una de las muchas aplicaciones de Cheetah Mobile, las cuales nos dejan algunas dudas sobre su funcionamiento.
Pues bien, ahora el futuro de QuickPic es incierto. No sabemos si mantendrá su esencia, la de ser la aplicación de galería más ligera de Google Play, o por el contrario sus nuevos dueños la transformarán por completo, añadiéndole nuevas funcionalidades o quien sabe, publicidad.
Pero no nos llevemos las manos a la cabeza todavía, el cambio no tiene porque ser malo. Tan sólo estaremos atentos a los próximos días a ver que sucede con QuickPic. Si Cheetah Mobile es lista, no tocará nada y dejará QuickPic tal como está. O por lo menos eso es lo que nosotros esperamos.
Google Play | QuickPic Gallery (Gratuita)
¿Y tú que piensas? Pásate por QuickPic cambia de manos, ahora es propiedad de Cheetah Mobile, dueños de Clean Master para dejar tu huella.
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Publicado recientemente en Andro4all
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Vendors, the trade press and even popular media are talking about the world’s rapidly expanding body of electronic data. Lots of data equals lots of value, right? The not-so-subtle message surrounding all this is that data is the new gold rush, so you’d better get your stake in the game
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Amazon’s formula isn’t perfect, but it’s taken them from scrappy online bookseller to dominant player in the retail, publishing, and IT infrastructure industries. We may argue their tactics, but there’s no arguing with their success.
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Oliver Sacks was one of the greatest scribes of science of the past 50 years. Maybe *the* greatest.
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Business is a numbers game and selling 1 million units of anything is always a good reason to pop open a champagne bottle. The big names in the mobile industry do it easily, but we’ll look at some of the celebrations that have faded from memory. We’ll also take a peek at Nokia’s attempt at computers and a couple of cancellations.
Million sales club
iPhones and Galaxy quickly blow past the 1 million sales mark, but those get enough exposure. Let’s think back to phones that have been largely forgotten instead.
Back in 2009 LG was on a roll. It sold 5 million Viewty phones, a touchscreen device known for its camera. Afterwards the affordable touchscreen feature phone, the Cookie, also hit 5 million. Then the LG Arena reached the same benchmark, a premium flagship handset.
Samsung’s low-cost touch feature phone, the Star, was doing great too. It reached five million sales in about three months.
In 2009 “touchscreen” was a must for a hot-selling device, but smartphone wasn’t necessarily a requirement even though the iPhone and Android were already changing the market. Eventually smartphones took over and some of the biggest companies on Earth are phone makers.
A new class of device has been heating up recently. The Pebble smartwatch reached 1 million sales even without Apple or Samsung’s marketing presence. To put things in perspective, the Apple Watch sold 1 million units on its launch day. At one point in 2013 Samsung sold 1 million phones each day.
Another underdog, OnePlus, also celebrated 1 million sales this year. Even Samsung isn’t successful in everything it does – it’s still trying to develop an alternative to Android, but after Bada failed and despite delays Tizen found some success. The only phone so far – the Z1 – made it to 1 million sales in 6 months and celebrated with a gold color option.
Nokia laptop
Nokia started life when a paper mill and a rubber factory joined but you probably know it for its phones. The rubber business expanded to communications, insulation for telegraph and telephone cables at first but this was a gateway to electronics.
The company even made a computer for a Finnish nuclear plant and there were Nokia home computers too. In 2009 the Finns tried to rekindle that business with the Nokia 3G Booklet – a beautiful aluminum netbook, 20mm thick and weighing 1.25kg.
Nokia 3G Booklet is Nokia’s first notebook
As the name suggests it packed a 3G/HSDPA modem and a GPS receiver, plus Nokia Maps (naturally). The 10″ netbook boasted up to 12h battery life and sounded like a great option for road warriors but it never caught on.
Nokia would return to non-mobile Windows with the Lumia 2520 tablet but that didn’t catch on either. These days the company is back to communication (for cell carriers) after selling the maps division. The rubber business is still going.
Cancelled!
We started on a positive note, but couldn’t help noticing some high-profile cancellations in our archives dating to the last week of August.
In 2011 HP cancelled the Pre 3 launch in the US and slashed the European price. Earlier the company had started a fire sale of the TouchPad tablet at just $99 – a steal, especially after devs started working on an Android port for it.
Either way, these were the death knells of WebOS as a mobile platform. At least until LG resurrected it to power the LG Watch Urbane LTE though the company was very reluctant to even mention “WebOS.”
A year later T-Mobile US quickly axed the Samsung Galaxy Note. Samsung’s original phablet wasn’t at fault though, it was a case of the carrier being tardy – by the time it was supposed to launch the Note, the Galaxy Note II would have been only a month away. Yep, T-Mo trailed the AT&T launch by seven months (a year if you look at the international…
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The Military Wants Swarm Bots It Can Retrieve in Midair
They’ll bite through your aileron wires. They’ll insert toasting forks in your tires. That is the tale of the Gremlins.
August 30, 2015 at 09:47AM
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