The wonderful thing about Android is that it can be installed on any device if a company is willing to invest time in porting the OS to its hardware. But the bad thing about Android is that it can land in hardware of questionable pedigree — like a portable gaming system that looks remarkably similar to the product of another company.
The JXD S5110 is the Android-powered PSP clone many gamers have been secretly pining for. While Sony Ericsson’s current Android-powered gaming smartphone, the Xperia Play, is nice, its slide-out controllers lack the ergonomic styling of Sony’s PSP systems. The JXD S5110, however, borrows the PSP formfactor, and looks to be the perfect marriage of hand-held gaming hardware and Android.
Nonetheless, the JXD could run into trouble with its button design: The controller features triangle, circle, cross and square icons on its action buttons — and these buttons are registered trademarks of Sony.
And if looking just like the PSP wasn’t enough, JXD also touts the S5110′s ability to support simulators for the Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and Sega Genesis consoles. Apparently, the handheld will play everything from Tetris and Sonic the Hedgehog ROMs to official Angry Birds ports available on Google Play.
The Ice Cream Sandwich-powered console has a 5-inch, 800×480 capacitive touch screen, and includes an HDMI port that will push games and other Android apps to an HDTV for a big-screen experience. Powered by a Amlogic M3 processor with 512 DDR RAM, the S5110 also has a 0.3mp backside camera, USB 2.0 port, microSD slot and audio mini-jack port. Throw Wi-Fi connectivity into the mix, and the S5110 looks to be a pretty great piece of gaming gear.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to actually purchase the S5110 on JXD’s site. Wired sent emails to the company’s locations in China and Iran, and also reached out to Sony for comment, but neither company replied by press time.
Last year I made the switch to Google Chrome from Mozilla Firefox, and I haven’t looked back. Google’s browser feels faster, smarter, and more streamlined — which helps explain why it’s a top choice for business users.
Chrome also boasts hidden productivity benefits in the form of extensions (or “apps,” to use Chrome parlance).
Some of these are embedded links to external services, not Firefox-style plug-ins, but that’s a good thing: they don’t clutter up and slow down your browser.
Instead, they appear in your app list when you open a new tab. One click and you’re there.
I’ve rounded up five essential Chrome apps for business users. Take a look:
1. Scribble Still using Windows’ notepad to preserve thoughts and ideas? The horror. Scribble brings sticky notes to your browser, complete with alarms if you have time-sensitive notes.
Even better, it works offline, so your notes are accessible even when the Internet is not.
2. Shareaholic If you’re building your business by leveraging social networks (and you should be), you’ll love the convenience afforded by Shareaholic. With one click of this extension’s toolbar icon, you can share any Web page with your accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and over a dozen others.
You can also click to share via e-mail, Digg, Reddit, and pretty much any other service with a social component.
3. Todo.ly A good task management tool should adapt to the way you work, not vice-versa. Todo.ly offers simplistic, straightforward, versatile task and project management. It reminds me a lot of the awesome WorkFlowy, but with a spiffier interface and a few more organization tools.
4. Vyew A great tool for teams, Vyew offers virtual “rooms” where you can share just about anything: documents, photos, a whiteboard, and so on. There’s also screen sharing, voice- and video-conferencing, public and private chat, and just about everything else a small-biz crew could need.
Amazingly, Vyew is free for up to 10 people.
5. Write Space You need to get that report written, stat, but you’re constantly distracted by everything else on your computer: e-mail, Twitter, those damn Angry Birds.
To achieve total focus, fire up Write Space — a full-screen text editor that blocks everything from view except a blank black page and white text. (Remember WordPerfect?) It saves persistently in the background, works offline, and rocks.
Okay, you’ve heard my picks. Now head to the comments and tell me what Chrome apps/extensions you find indispensable to running your business.
PC World - Last year I made the switch to Google Chrome from Mozilla Firefox, and I haven’t looked back. Google’s browser feels faster, smarter, and more streamlined — which helps explain why it’s a top choice for business users.
Chrome also boasts hidden productivity benefits in the form of extensions (or “apps,” to use Chrome parlance).
Some of these are embedded links to external services, not Firefox-style plug-ins, but that’s a good thing: they don’t clutter up and slow down your browser.
Instead, they appear in your app list when you open a new tab. One click and you’re there.
I’ve rounded up five essential Chrome apps for business users. Take a look:
1. Scribble Still using Windows’ notepad to preserve thoughts and ideas? The horror. Scribble brings sticky notes to your browser, complete with alarms if you have time-sensitive notes.
Even better, it works offline, so your notes are accessible even when the Internet is not.
2. Shareaholic If you’re building your business by leveraging social networks (and you should be), you’ll love the convenience afforded by Shareaholic. With one click of this extension’s toolbar icon, you can share any Web page with your accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and over a dozen others.
You can also click to share via e-mail, Digg, Reddit, and pretty much any other service with a social component.
3. Todo.ly A good task management tool should adapt to the way you work, not vice-versa. Todo.ly offers simplistic, straightforward, versatile task and project management. It reminds me a lot of the awesome WorkFlowy, but with a spiffier interface and a few more organization tools.
4. Vyew A great tool for teams, Vyew offers virtual “rooms” where you can share just about anything: documents, photos, a whiteboard, and so on. There’s also screen sharing, voice- and video-conferencing, public and private chat, and just about everything else a small-biz crew could need.
Amazingly, Vyew is free for up to 10 people.
5. Write Space You need to get that report written, stat, but you’re constantly distracted by everything else on your computer: e-mail, Twitter, those damn Angry Birds.
To achieve total focus, fire up Write Space — a full-screen text editor that blocks everything from view except a blank black page and white text. (Remember WordPerfect?) It saves persistently in the background, works offline, and rocks.
Okay, you’ve heard my picks. Now head to the comments and tell me what Chrome apps/extensions you find indispensable to running your business.
So you’ve built yourself a Chrome app and you put it up on the Chrome app store. Too bad there’s so many other apps there vying for attention. What’s an intrepid Chrome app developer like yourself to do? Google has the answer – inline installation.
Now, I assure you, inline installation isn’t some kind of new fad where we put inline skates on a Web browser. That just doesn’t make any sense. The true purpose of inline installation is to let potential customers download your Chrome app straight from your Web site.
You aren’t bypassing the Chrome store when you do this though. You are essentially providing a direct link to the Chrome app store on your Web site that allows users to download the app without leaving your Web site.
A few Chrome app developers have already implemented inline installation onto their apps and have seen their installation rates rise quite dramatically in some cases. The Chromium blog details the three examples of Evernote, Angry Birds and Equire. In the case of Evernote, they saw an increase of 15 percent when they implemented inline installation. Rovio saw an increase of almost 10 percent when they put a direct link to the Chrome version of Angry Birds on their Web site. Equire has seen the largest increase with 66 percent more installs since implementation.
The Chrome app store has already been pretty popular with millions of downloads per day according to the Chromium blog. Google expects that number to increase once users realize they don’t have to go to the Chrome app store to download Angry Birds.
How can you get inline installation on your Web site for your Chrome app? Google lays it out in three easy steps:
1. Provide a link to your Chrome Web Store item.
2. Write some script to check for whatever client-side capabilities your app requires (support for WebGL, the Web Audio API, etc). Modernizr is a great library to use for this.
3. Call a JavaScript function to initiate the install process.
Easier said than done, right? If you want more detailed instructions about how to implement inline installation, check out the code here.
From Dust is the latest console and PC game to migrate to the Google Chrome browser, indicating just how important web-based games are becoming to both the Mountain View internet giant and traditional game developers.
The Ubisoft title was designed by Eric Chahi, who made his name in 1991 with Another World (aka Out of This World).
From Dust arrived in 2011 as a download on Xbox 360, Windows PCs and PlayStation 3 and was considered a return to the once-popular genre of God games, as players shepherded a group of nomadic islanders through various natural disasters.
It’s not the first game to make the transition from console or PC to Chrome — the award-winning Bastion moved over in December, joining other well-known fare such as Angry Birds, Fieldrunners, Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled — but its April arrival indicates how significant gaming has become to Google, and Google to game developers.
PC World
—
Chrome’s minimalist design isn’t eye-catching, but its lean toolbar leaves more room for viewing Web pages. And what Chrome lacks in flashiness, it more than makes up for in performance. Google’s browser really shone in our JavaScript test, leaving its competitors in the dust. JavaScript is used in many popular websites–Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, etc.–because it makes those sites more immediately responsive and those JavaScript heavy pages will perform better in Chrome. The browser also performed admirably in our speed test, fully loading an image-heavy page in just over five seconds.
Along with impressive performance, Google’s browser has some other useful tricks up its sleeve. For starters, tabs are run as separate processes so that if one crashes, it doesn’t take the entire browser down with it. If your wanderings take you to a foreign language Web site, Chrome will recognize the language and offer to translate it for you in a matter of seconds. The translations, which are powered by Google Translate, are not always completely accurate–but they can be helpful in giving you a basic idea on what the page is about. Chrome is one of the most secure browsers on this list because it is sandboxed: The plug-ins Chrome uses are limited to accessing information only within the browser itself and cannot read information from other areas on your computer. Sandboxing allows Chrome to prevent malware that uses plug-in exploits from spreading through your PC.
Mobile users will be glad to know that if you own an Android phone or tablet running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), you can sync your Chrome bookmarks and web history to your mobile devices.
You can customize Chrome with web apps, themes, and extensions to fit your preferences. Chrome has a built-in web store that makes it easy to search for and install add-ons to the browser. Add-ons range from simple things, like an Evernote plug-in, all the way up to full games like Angry Birds or Bastion. And, unlike in Firefox, you don’t need to restart your browser every time you install a new extension or app.
Still, Chrome lacks an integrated RSS reader, so you’ll need to come up with your own solution if you subscribe to multiple RSS feeds.
Note: The Downloads button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.
Chrome’s minimalist design isn’t eye-catching, but its lean toolbar leaves more room for viewing Web pages. And what Chrome lacks in flashiness, it more than makes up for in performance. Google’s browser really shone in our JavaScript test, leaving its competitors in the dust. JavaScript is used in many popular websites–Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, etc.–because it makes those sites more immediately responsive and those JavaScript heavy pages will perform better in Chrome. The browser also performed admirably in our speed test, fully loading an image-heavy page in just over five seconds.
Along with impressive performance, Google’s browser has some other useful tricks up its sleeve. For starters, tabs are run as separate processes so that if one crashes, it doesn’t take the entire browser down with it. If your wanderings take you to a foreign language Web site, Chrome will recognize the language and offer to translate it for you in a matter of seconds. The translations, which are powered by Google Translate, are not always completely accurate–but they can be helpful in giving you a basic idea on what the page is about. Chrome is one of the most secure browsers on this list because it is sandboxed: The plug-ins Chrome uses are limited to accessing information only within the browser itself and cannot read information from other areas on your computer. Sandboxing allows Chrome to prevent malware that uses plug-in exploits from spreading through your PC.
Mobile users will be glad to know that if you own an Android phone or tablet running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), you can sync your Chrome bookmarks and web history to your mobile devices.
You can customize Chrome with web apps, themes, and extensions to fit your preferences. Chrome has a built-in web store that makes it easy to search for and install add-ons to the browser. Add-ons range from simple things, like an Evernote plug-in, all the way up to full games like Angry Birds or Bastion. And, unlike in Firefox, you don’t need to restart your browser every time you install a new extension or app.
Still, Chrome lacks an integrated RSS reader, so you’ll need to come up with your own solution if you subscribe to multiple RSS feeds.
Note: The Downloads button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.
January 21, 2012, 7:34 AM — Getting too much work done? If so, fire up your Web browser and head over to chrome.angrybirds.com. This is where you can play Chrome Angry Birds, the browser-based version of Angry Birds. It’s just as addictive and as fun as the mobile version. And that’s why your productivity will end here.
Angry Birds is available in the Chrome Web store; simply add it to your browser to begin playing. It automatically installs an offline version, too, so you don’t have to be connected to the Internet in order to play. If you prefer to use a browser other than Chrome, Angry Birds also works in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (but only IE 9 or higher). You can choose between SD and HD versions, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
Just like its insanely popular mobile version, the browser-based version of Angry Birds has you slinging birds at those annoying pigs. Instead of using your fingers to do so (unless you’re using a touch-screen tablet or PC), you simply grab your mouse and start slinging. Making the adjustment isn’t difficult at all, but I found that I had just a tad less control over the positioning of my birds–or maybe that’s just what I tell myself when I have trouble knocking over enough little green pigs.
The browser-based version features the same levels found in the mobile version, but adds a Chrome dimension available only to Web users. I’d tell you more about it, but I’m still trying to unlock it. If you get there first, let me know what to expect.
Getting too much work done? If so, fire up your Web browser and head over to chrome.angrybirds.com. This is where you can play Chrome Angry Birds, the browser-based version of Angry Birds. It’s just as addictive and as fun as the mobile version. And that’s why your productivity will end here.
Angry Birds is available in the Chrome Web store; simply add it to your browser to begin playing. It automatically installs an offline version, too, so you don’t have to be connected to the Internet in order to play. If you prefer to use a browser other than Chrome, Angry Birds also works in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (but only IE 9 or higher). You can choose between SD and HD versions, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
Just like its insanely popular mobile version, the browser-based version of Angry Birds has you slinging birds at those annoying pigs. Instead of using your fingers to do so (unless you’re using a touch-screen tablet or PC), you simply grab your mouse and start slinging. Making the adjustment isn’t difficult at all, but I found that I had just a tad less control over the positioning of my birds–or maybe that’s just what I tell myself when I have trouble knocking over enough little green pigs.
The browser-based version features the same levels found in the mobile version, but adds a Chrome dimension available only to Web users. I’d tell you more about it, but I’m still trying to unlock it. If you get there first, let me know what to expect.
Getting too much work done? If so, fire up your Web browser and head over to chrome.angrybirds.com. This is where you can play Chrome Angry Birds, the browser-based version of Angry Birds. It’s just as addictive and as fun as the mobile version. And that’s why your productivity will end here.
Everything’s bigger in the browser-based version of Angry Birds, including the ads.Angry Birds is available in the Chrome Web store; simply add it to your browser to begin playing. It automatically installs an offline version, too, so you don’t have to be connected to the Internet in order to play. If you prefer to use a browser other than Chrome, Angry Birds also works in Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer (but only IE 9 or higher). You can choose between SD and HD versions, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
Just like its insanely popular mobile version, the browser-based version of Angry Birds has you slinging birds at those annoying pigs. Instead of using your fingers to do so (unless you’re using a touch-screen tablet or PC), you simply grab your mouse and start slinging. Making the adjustment isn’t difficult at all, but I found that I had just a tad less control over the positioning of my birds–or maybe that’s just what I tell myself when I have trouble knocking over enough little green pigs.
The browser-based version features the same levels found in the mobile version, but adds a Chrome dimension available only to Web users. I’d tell you more about it, but I’m still trying to unlock it. If you get there first, let me know what to expect.
