Google quietly released an Android TV app, which allows streaming of live channels to the platform. Dubbed Live Channels for Android TV, the application works only on the Asus Nexus Player for the time being.

Live Channels needs a built-in tuner to work (IP-based tuners are also supported) — you cannot simply stream a channel by installing it at the moment. Read more »

Back in January, Facebook introduced a new Trending section on its website. And starting today, Trending is going to be available inside Facebook’s Android app. It will only be seen by people in the US for now, however. Support for Trending on iOS and for other countries is reportedly “coming soon”, though with no time frame attached.

Trending helps you discover stuff that is interesting, relevant conversations about hot topics, and stories from different sources. Read more »

It looks like yesterday’s rumor was right. Google has now announced the Android 5.0 Lollipop update for its Wear smartwatch platform, which will be rolling out to all Android Wear devices in the next week. Aside from bumping up the Android version number it’s based on, the new Wear software will come with several enhancements.

And what is already the most advertised of those is the addition of Android Wear watch faces to the Google Play Store. There are many new watch faces in there just waiting to be downloaded. And the new watch face API is now out for all developers, so they can create even more of them. Read more »

The Nokia that still exists after Microsoft bought off its mobile device-making unit has been working on a version of its Here Maps app for Android for quite a while now. A beta version has been available through sideloading since October, and today it arrived in the Google Play Store.

This will surely make it a lot more accessible for more people, as not everyone with an Android device knows what sideloading is or how to do it. Even so, however, apparently more than a million people had downloaded Here Maps for Android prior to it going live in the Play Store. That’s quite an achievement. Read more »

We’ve seen some games crop up on smartwatches, but what about playing with the smartwatch rather than on it? That’s exactly what HandyGames did (I’m not sure if the name is a coincidence or not).

HandyGames adapted its Aces of the Luftwaffe to use a wearable as a sort of joystick. Read more »

Indian telecom Swipe has just made the newest addition to its Slate tablet series available online. The device is now up for sale on the company’s website and through Snapdeal for INR10,270 or around $165. The tablet features a 9.7 inch 1024 x 768 pixel IPS display, a quad-core CPU, clocked at 1.3 GHz, 1GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage.

For the modest price tag you also get two cameras – 2MP primary and 0.3MP front as well as a microSD card slot and 3.5mm audio jack. Interestingly enough, the Android 4.4.2 tablet also features a 3G modem and logically a SIM card slot and can double as a phone with voice calling features integrated into the OS. Read more »

Amazon UK is holding a pretty sweet deal for the Sony Xperia E3 today, selling it for £79.90. That’s £100 less than the phone’s regular price, but if you want to get it, you have to be quick. The deal ends in less than 14 hours, provided that Amazon UK has enough units of the phone in stock.

The Xperia E3 packs LTE connectivity as well as a 4.5″ IPS display with 854 x 480 pixel resolution and is powered by a Snapdragon 400 chipset with 1GB of RAM. At the back, there’s a 5MP camera, which records 1080p video. Read more »

Last week we took a look at Telltale’s latest game based on George R R Martin’s series of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ books (and the subsequent HBO show). Back then iOS was the only mobile platform where the game was available on but you can now also purchase it on Android on Google Play Store for $4.99 for the first episode, with subsequent episodes costing $4.99 each.

In my review of the iOS version of Game of Thrones I noted several graphical issues with the game. On Android things don’t get any better. Read more »

Motorola released another ad for the Moto 360 smartwatch. The latest clip, like the quartet of videos from last week, is part of the “A watch for our times” series of ads.

Entitled “Architect,” the new clip shows a creative mind in the middle of work, accompanied by classical music. Read more »

Dropbox added new features to its Carousel gallery app for Android and iOS. Going forward users of the application will have automatic device storage management at their disposal.

The above mentioned new functionality will automatically delete images on a device if they have already been backed up in Dropbox. Read more »

On the phone and tablet side some devices have already been updated to run Android 5.0 Lollipop, the latest version of Google’s OS. But the company’s Android Wear platform has not yet made the jump. That could all change tomorrow.

A new rumor says that’s when the update to Android 5.0.1 Lollipop for Android Wear will start rolling out. This means the smartwatches that have been released so far running Google’s wearable platform should all get the new software in the following days and weeks (since Google itself is in charge of updating the Wear devices). Read more »

After spending over 2 years in beta, the VLC for Android app has finally graduated to stable release. Although the stable release brings a host of bug fixes, no new features have been added. In fact, Chromecast streaming support, which was promised earlier this year, is still missing.

Specifically, the release fixes Android 5.0 crashes as well as issues that affected devices with ARMv8 processors. In addition, the updated app also brings along a new interface (available in dark or white colors), an equalizer, playlist management, Widi screens support, DVD iso and menu support and updated SD cards detection. Finally, hardware acceleration is now enabled by default on Android 4.3 and higher, and software decoding has been accelerated too. Read more »

It took a while, almost a year and a half since it was announced in the US, but the Google Chromecast is finally coming to India.

The multimedia streaming device will be available exclusively through Snapdeal.com for a price of Rs. 2,999 ($48). Read more »

With the holiday season drawing closer the annual wave of Christmas-themed ads is coming steadily and instilling that particular cheery mindset that fuels shopping sprees. ASUS is definitely no stranger to the tradition and has just released a Christmas-flavored promotional video for its MeMo Pad.

The ad itself is as Christmasy as it gets with gifts, decorated trees, light and of course jolly old Saint Nick himself showing off the MeMo Pad’s performance. Read more »

Toshiba unveiled the TT301, aka The Shared Board. It’s a 24″ 1080p tablet that also doubles as an HDMI monitor if you hook it up to a TV or you can use it as a wireless display via Miracast. It weighs only around 1.8kg (remember it’s 24″ big) and packs two 2W speakers.

Toshiba also included its own implementation of split-screen multitasking, but it seems it’s limited to only two apps at a time (Samsung’s Multi Window can do up to 4 split-screened apps, plus floating apps). Read more »