April 10, 2013 By 1 Comment

Facebook Home available for select HTC and Samsung devices from April 12th

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Facebook Home is a new launcher and messaging skin available for select Android devices and has been confirmed for download from Google Play from April 12th. According to a favourable review from The Verge, Facebook Home will initially be available on the HTC One, One X and One X+, Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and Note 2, as well as being the default launcher on the soon to be released HTC First. Home offers deep integration with your Android device and as such will not be available for all devices straight away, although Facebook have promised to expand the range of devices that are supported with monthly updates to the service.

Home replaces the launcher on your Android device – the software that is used to display your homescreens and lockscreen, display and manage applications on the screens and the app drawer, manage notifications and more. If you are using one of the intended HTC or Samsung devices then you will probably have got used to using a version of either Sense or TouchWiz respectively, the skins that both companies employ ‘on top’ of Android. Home will get rid of this interface to replace it with its own (although you can at any time go back to the original launcher by disabling or uninstalling Home), so be prepared for quite a bit of change to the way your device looks after installing.

Read on below for more details on Facebook Home and the features it will add to your device

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March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Clearance products: what’s your best bargain?

I expect most of the regular Clove Blog readers will be the kind to want the latest and greatest devices and technology they can get their hands on. I know from conversations and from my own personal experience that sometimes the price tag doesn’t always matter so much when you just have to have the best you can get.

What about when the tables are turned though? When you simply need a device or gadget to get a particular job done and you don’t want to spend too much money. Or perhaps you’re browsing around the Internet or the local high street and something catches your eye that is just simply too good an opportunity to pass up? I once bought 5 HDMI cables for about 8 pounds online because I knew I could shift them to some of my friends getting PlayStation 3 consoles and ‘save’ them from being fleeced 15/20 quid for one in store (I still sold them for a fiver each mind you).

In the world of technology and with smartphones in particular, devices tend to have a very short lifespan. Even when a device is not that old and still more than capable, you may find it rapidly dropping in value when its successor is released or a new technology is announced that leaves it slightly behind the curve. This can be the perfect time to snap up a bargain.

I particularly remember a time when I was working for a national UK electronics chain and there was a huge “clearance drive” to try and clear the company of old stock that was, quite literally, cluttering up stores and warehouses and simply wasn’t selling, even at the standard below profit margin prices being offered to try and shift it. Now officially store colleagues were unfortunately only allowed to purchase one item from their store’s inventory, although individual store managers were willing to bend the rules a bit to get the stock off the lists rather than write it off. Over those two weeks I found myself the proud owner of 16 GB mp3 player, a 22” AOC LCD computer monitor and several PlayStation 2 games all for about £40! There was also a mild bidding war for an old 40” HDTV that had been marked down to £50!

Now these kind of events in stores are rare and I was in an enviable position to take advantage but it’s not the only bargain I’ve managed to get over the years. So have any of our readers managed to find some real diamonds in the bargain bins or got hold of an amazing short time offer? Let us know in the comments below

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March 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Humble Bundle with Android 5 now available

First off, the title is referring to the 5th time Humble Bundle has teamed up to provide content for Android devices and is not anything to do with Google’s upcoming 5th iteration of Android – it got me confused for a few seconds too! View the video below:

Humble Bundle offers collections of games (and also sometimes albums and e-books) at a price determined by the consumer at the point of purchase. Games are usually from small indie development teams eager to get their creations noticed and in the hands of as many people as possible. Humble Bundles often provide games for Windows, Mac and Linux, although every now and again an Android Bundle is released (you can still install and run the games on a home computer too though). You can download the games for as little money as you like, although paying over the current average (only $6.81 at the time of writing) will net you some extra content including a few more games and the some soundtracks as well.

You also have the option to decide who receives the money you spend, be that the game developers, the Humble Bundle operators or a donation to charity (Child’s Play or the Electronic Frontier Foundation), or a combination of the three of your choosing. Paying at least $1 will also net you a Steam activation key for all of the games you are eligible for. The Humble Bundle with Android 5 currently includes:

Beat Hazard Ultra: A music oriented arcade shooter that can use the tracks stored on your smartphone

Dynamite Jack: A top down stealth action game featuring a captured space marine trying to escape his prison

Solar 2: A quirky physics intergalactic exploration game where you control an asteroid

NightSky HD: A beautiful physic puzzle game where you control a spherical object through a variety of gorgeously rendered environments

Paying above the average will unlock:

Splice: A biology inspired bacterial splicing puzzle game

Super Hexagon: A tough as nails reaction based action game, steadily climbing up the Google Play charts

Dungeon Defenders Second Wave: A cute fantasy style tower defence game with fantastic 3D graphics (also includes all current DLC)

Crayon Physics Deluxe: A creative and interesting physics based game

Sword & Sorcery EP: A future/retro inspired audio-visual treat

Humble Bundle say that getting hold of all of these games and soundtracks separately could cost up to $170 dollars, so the ability to name your price is an incredible bargain, especially considering the bundled Steam activation for your home computer. A list of mobile device requirements are listed on the site, which you are also prompted to take a look at before confirming your purchase. Also take note that you will need to allow 3rd party applications to be installed from the settings menu of your device as the downloads will be in Android package format (.apk) for manual install and not directly from Google Play.

Happy gaming!

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March 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

HOOKED! Battle Cats

Tower defence games are about as old as the Internet itself; in fact I remember many lost hours spent defending my castle during what passed for IT lessons in the UK about 10 years ago. I could have been forgiven for assuming that little more could be added to this particular genre and never really wanting to play another. Then a friend recommended Battle Cats to me a couple of weeks ago… HOOKED is definitely the word!

Developed by Ponos, Battle Cats has a ridiculous sense of humour and an utterly unique self-aware quality that seems to toe the line between genius and insanity. The game begins with a hideously translated story in purest Engrish and continuously breaks the 4th wall:

“In 2012, USA launched a secret proejct. To wake up Japanese people from being too peaceful, their new weapon was sent into Japan. Code name “Battle Cats” Japanese people are too kind and nice to use cruelty weapons to the Battle Cats… By the way, I Saw the developer of the Battle Cats was interviewed on TV… I know, it’s insane.”

The game itself is a relatively straightforward tower defence game: your tower sits at the right hand side of the screen, with an enemy tower on the left. The enemy tower spits out a stream of enemies to which you can counter with your collection of cat warriors. Currency to deploy cats rises every second and also comes in chunks when you defeat an enemy in the field. In standard tower defence mechanics, how you balance your expenditure is up to you and different levels will require different tactics (although many will involve just unleashing as many of the feline WMDs as quickly as you possibly can).

The art style of Battle Cats is minimalistic but very effective. The sprites are drawn almost exclusively in black and white but every cat and enemy has a personality that shines through in the animation. The enemy towers are also each meticulously drawn, the whole package looks like it could be hand painted and hung on a wall.

Completing a level gains experience which can be used to purchase new types of cats, upgrade the ones in your roster (with special forms when fully upgraded), and increase support such as how fast currency is obtained, the total amount that can be held, power and range of your cat cannon (on top of the tower) and how much HP the tower has. 

The enemy gallery is an example of the off the wall humour and this may not be to everyone’s taste (the image to the left is a sample..) however the whole thing is clearly meant to be taken with a pinch of salt and is designed to be poking fun at itself; one enemy that apparently speaks terrible English is reported to have taught the designers the language.

Microtransactions appear in Battle Cats however they are only presented as an option to progress through the game faster should you wish; I think the balance is just about right here with the energy required to attempt missions regenerating relatively quickly and prompting you to jump in for say 15-20 minutes at a time, perfect for mobile gaming.

Pros

Utterly ridiculous comedy value

Difficulty curve and procedural progress is very well designed

Cats. Lots of cats.

Cons

Level completion treasures are random drops

Later levels require lots of energy to attempt

Replaying old levels for experience can become repetitive

Verdict

Battle Cats is a slice of uniqueness in a mobile gaming space that is increasingly filled with clones and short term fads. It may not be the newest game but the charm and simplicity will keep you coming back for more

8/10

Available on Android (2.2 and up) and iOS

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February 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

HOOKED! Blood Brothers

Welcome to HOOKED!, a new instalment on the Clove blog that will hopefully become a regular over the coming weeks. Adding a weekly post for you to chew on, I will be looking at gaming apps available for Android (usually with an iOS option as well). As a pretty dedicated console gamer throughout much of my childhood, teens and right up to now, my tastes are pretty broad and so will the criteria for me talking about a game. The only real caveat is that I’ve got it installed on my Nexus 4 and have been playing it for at least a week in my spare time. These might be games at the top of the Google Play charts, hidden gems I found after looking through the store for too long one night, old games from last year that have slipped a bit, recommendations from friends or readers and won’t be limited to free apps either – if something is worth paying for, I’ll let you know!

For this first issue I bring you Blood Brothers from  DeNa Co., creators of the Mobage social game network. I’m not quite sure where or why I first found Blood Brothers but something about the artwork and advertising wherever it was caught my eye. Blood Brothers is free to download and play and follows the ‘freemium’ model of many mobile games at the moment – with no content blocked or inaccessible for free players, but made much easier to obtain and progress with in-app purchases.

Blood Brothers (RPG)

The game itself is a very simple RPG; starting off by picking one of a number of ‘Warlords’ to be your main character each with the usual specialisation within the range of magical / attack / heal RPG rock-paper-scissors style characteristics. The gameplay is very basic, with your character traversing through linear environments to a goal at the end of a map, sometimes choosing a pathway at crossroads – some paths leading to extra treasure, different enemies and occasional boss fights. Set experience is provided and your character levels up and becomes stronger with experience as one would expect. Defeated enemies can be captured and trained as your own ‘familiars’ to bolster your party. Familiars can in turn be evolved if you capture identical doubles to unlock rarer, more powerful creatures.

Combat is extremely simplified – each character has a single attack and magical power for either attacking or healing the party. Battles are largely pre-determined based on character statistics, effectively an advanced version of Top Trumps. The charm lies in the cute ‘medieval-comic’ art style and the collection aspect of gaining new familiars, evolving them and gradually gaining strength. As a gamer brought up on Pokemon and Final Fantasy, who now doesn’t have the time to invest in lengthy single player console games, mobile apps like Blood Brothers hit a nostalgic sweet spot for the half an hour or so I drop into each day.

Time is the big issue with Blood Brothers though, and extended play time will lead you into the dark money making world of in-app purchases. Moving one space through the world costs 1 energy, of which a full compliment is 30. This is replenished when you level up, which is frequent at first, but as any RPG player knows, takes longer as you progress. Energy replenishes at 1 per 5 minutes, so leaving the game alone for 2 and a half hours will refill.

Intermittent PvP fights against other Blood Brothers players worldwide pop up time and again, with bonus rewards for single and chained victories (PvP battles appearing in sets of 3 at a time). A single PvP battle costs 1 ‘Morale’ of which a full compliment is 3 (a super powered attack almost guaranteeing victory costs all 3), each taking 15 minutes or a rare in game item to refill.

Instant replenishment of either energy or morale comes at the price of real world payment, a model adopted by the vast majority of freemium games. Real money buys you “Mobacoins”, stored in a digital wallet and shared across all DeNa games logged into from your account. There’s nothing wrong with this business model for a game and it is very successful, fast becoming the norm for monetising mobile games. The issue I have here though, is the deeper into the game one gets, the more the in-app purchases become a necessity to feel any sense of real progress. Some games have a balance where putting in the time will eventually reap the final reward. Blood Brothers however always seems to dangle the best items and characters behind a screen of real world payments. Eventually the game feels like it has been solely designed for you to spend real money (which it probably has, and brilliantly well done at that), but at that point the fun disappears if one (rightly) doesn’t fork out.

Blood Brothers is a fun distraction, and one that I have found myself putting a fair bit of time into since I installed it, probably more so than other recent games. Fans of ‘proper’ RPGs will likely get little enjoyment from the extremely watered down game mechanics and there is little in the way of story, but for a casual bit of fantasy gaming, Blood Brothers does well. If you like a little bit of number crunching and level grinding then becoming strong enough to power through the weekly PvP events may hold some longevity, but be prepared to be harassed to pay for rare items and characters once you get HOOKED!

Pros

Highly polished, funky, fantasy art style

Well balanced RPG mechanics

Hundreds of characters to collect and evolve

PvP events create longevity and feeling of success

Cons

Combat is too simplistic with little user control

Energy/playtime ratio badly skewed to force in app payments

High level items & characters seem almost inaccessible without payment

Verdict

6/10 An interesting diversion, Blood Brothers fills the spot for some basic turn based RPG gaming. Hardened RPG fans won’t find anything to challenge here and the push for in-app purchases gets quite heavy, but a decent overall casual experience while it lasts.

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February 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Fujitsu’s ‘phone for the elderly’ now available in France

Launched with Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo in August last year, the Raku-Raku F-12D Smartphone from Fujitsu is specifically targeted at senior citizens, a rapidly growing market not just in Japan, but in many countries, and will also find a market for anyone looking for a simplified and accessible entry to modern smartphones.

Raku-Raku translates from Japanese somewhat as “easy-to-use” or “comfortable” and this is exactly how this smartphone has been designed, alongside feature phones from Fujitsu’s range of the same name. Raw specifications don’t mean much with a device like this but the core OS is a highly modified variant of Android 4.0 ICS with a 4 inch VGA screen, 8MP camera and 32GB microSD slot.

The interface has been adapted so icons and text are now much larger so they are both easier to see and select, as well as having the most prominent features such as calls and texts available first on the home screen. The main idea is for the phone interface to be a similar to a standard feature phone as possible, whilst still having the benefits of a smart device with Internet connectivity and browsing, emails etc. that the user can learn about intuitively.

The Raku-Raku touchscreen has been specifically designed to depress slightly when used to provide more feedback to the user and has also been configured to realise the difference between a tap and a stroke in such a way that users should not become frustrated. Icons can be highlighted before a second press to open with an accompanying vibration – all designed with the inexperienced touchscreen user in mind. The sensitivity at the edges of the screen has also been adapted to aid those that may grip the device in a non standard fashion and not accidentally select items at the edge.

The F-12D has proven to be a big hit in Japan and Orange have now picked up the device to be sold in France, prompting a press release from NTT DoCoMo outlining a European localisation to begin sale in June. Perhaps we will see the F-12D, renamed the ‘Stylistic S01’, in more markets soon?

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February 12, 2013 By 6 Comments

Windows Phone 8: No Bluetooth HID profile

This took me by surprise a little bit today when I discovered it, however after doing some digging it seems that it is an issue that has been around since the launch of Windows Phone 7. I was attempting to help a customer who was having trouble connecting a Samsung Ativ S to a Freedom Bluetooth keyboard when I discovered on some Windows forums that Windows Phone 8 does not support the HID (Human Interface Device) profile.

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For those not in the know, Bluetooth is not simply just one technology – it is more a collection of profiles that devices must both support in order to communicate with each other in a desired manner. The collection of supported profiles on a device creates its Bluetooth ‘stack’. HID is the low latency profile used for keyboards, mice, game controllers and other peripherals that a person interacts with and expects an almost instantaneous response on the paired device. Windows Phone 8 does not currently have this profile in its stack.

The result is that although the Ativ S I was testing (along with a Nokia Lumia 920 to check it wasn’t just a Samsung issue) would recognise the Freedom keyboard and attempt to pair, it would not hold the connection for more than a couple of seconds. HID support has been present in Android and iOS for many iterations now and it seems like a massive oversight on Microsoft’s part to not have included it in WP8. Considering that all WP8 devices include Office and OneNote, being tied to the onscreen soft keyboard is a big let down for anyone wanting to get some serious heavy typing done.

Currently there is no word on an update from Microsoft to include HID support in the WP8 Bluetooth stack and considering this has apparently been an issue since WP7, a resolution does not look likely any time soon. 3rd party applications also seem unlikely as I doubt Microsoft allow app developers the opportunity to tinker with OS code at that level, rather provide access to functionality through an API – any Microsoft app developers out there, clarification would be appreciated!

A list of the supported Bluetooth profiles in Windows Phone 8 can be found at the Microsoft support page HERE

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February 11, 2013 By 2 Comments

The Digital Home

For some it could be considered a technological paradise and the culmination of years of convergence. Others may baulk and see the idea as something horrible, unnatural even. The truth is that the “Digital Home”, the idea of having technology pervade every facet of your home living, is not only a modern reality and possibility for those willing to invest but the way forward. In fact you have probably made steps towards it without even realising!

As technology becomes cheaper, consumers become more technologically savvy and R&D wizards create wonderful new toys for us all to play with, yesterday’s science fiction becomes today’s science fact. Most homes will have a wireless network now, not just to connect Internet ready portable devices, but increasingly to share information between other users. A good few years ago, when I worked for a major electronics retailer, I could wow most customers by explaining that a Sony laptop could share a video to a high end Sony TV over a wireless network using the DLNA standard. “What magic is this!!” they (never) cried. Now though, this kind of news would only seem incredible to someone who hadn’t kept up with tech for the last few years and would likely surprise almost no-one.

So what would the Digital Home really contain? At its heart would be a core wireless network, available in every room with enough bandwidth to support high definition wireless streaming from multiple users. Add to this a multimedia server with huge storage and redundancy to allow for streaming to the personal devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones) of every individual in the home. Oh and add as well the Smart TV’s with Internet access installed on a wall in every room. Not out of the boundaries of current possibilities yet?

The next stage of Smart appliances is where the magic really starts to happen. Smart LED lights which can be programmed to turn off and on at particular intervals, display different colours or brightness levels and controlled remotely via an app are a reality. How about the same for your central heating, hot water or air conditioning? The same application could even tell you in real time how much energy you are using and what it costs. Apps that connect standalone gadgets to our personal mobile devices are becoming more and more prevalent, recording data, storing personalised settings, setting targets – soon enough there won’t be an item in the house that can’t be switched on, made to flash or share information to a social networking site with the press of a few buttons from your phone. I welcome these days, although others may not.

Would you buy an oven with an IP address? Maybe I could sway you by putting food in it in the morning, turning it on with your phone on the way from work and walking in to a cooked meal. It might not put it on the plate for you but it’s another time saving use of technology. I’ve not heard of one of these before, but I’m sure someone would buy it (and maybe someone’s designing it…) – perhaps I should get down the patent office!

Not everything is reliant on WiFi either. Updates to Bluetooth version 4.0 have now focussed on creating very low power (BLE) applications. The Zigbee protocol is also concerned with using tiny amounts of power – Zigbee certified devices need to be able to last on battery power for up to 2 years and could be at the very heart of the kind of interconnected energy systems present in the designs of tomorrow’s homes. The idea being that these units can record all sorts of information and control your systems to save power while having a negligible performance hit in your total energy use.

So what about you? How deep does the network run in your home?

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February 8, 2013 By 4 Comments

BlackBerry Z10 Review

It’s no secret in the mobile industry that BlackBerry, formerly RIM, has needed a drastic change of direction to halt what has been a rather ungraceful decline in recent years. The release of BlackBerry OS 10, built on the foundations of QNX purchased by RIM in 2010 and powering the ill-fated, although generally critically well received PlayBook, has been plagued by delays and now arrives a full 18 months since the release of the last BlackBerry device – an eon in the fast lane lifecycles of smartphones.

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No-one can be sure when the final decision was made to drop the company name RIM and drive forward under the single banner of BlackBerry, but if the Z10 box that states in small print “2013 Research in Motion Limited (“RIM”)” is anything to go by, it seems like it can’t have been too long ago. It makes perfect sense from a consumer point of view to drop the RIM brand; the average consumer likely didn’t know the difference between the two anyway and it is this type of consistency that helps to show a clear direction for a company which looks to be in desperate need of one.

blackberry-z10

Enter the Z10, a handset with a new operating system for the modern landscape of devices dominated by Apple and a whole dessert cart of Android flavours. Could a BlackBerry be the final fruit to sweeten the market? Or will it leave a bitter taste in the mouth and be the last time it gets ordered?

As the Z10 and BB10 are completely new entrants in the current environment, I’m going to split this review in two. The first section will take a look at my first impressions of the Z10 and the standard smartphone hardware features a review generally covers. The second part is going to take a more in depth look at BB10 itself and how navigating and operating the new interface impacts on the experience of using the Z10. So read on for my full review.

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February 5, 2013 By 4 Comments

Smartphone photography: is now the time for RAW?

Photography on smartphones has come an incredibly long way in the last few years, it doesn’t take too much effort to cast the mind back to a time when pixelated VGA images were the norm and the idea of a phone with a camera sensor with even a single megapixel was a distant thought.

Nowadays, imagery on smartphones is big business as Facebook’s billion dollar (or thereabouts) acquisition of Instagram last year is but one testament to. When you pick up a new smartphone, you expect to be able to start taking decent quality pictures with it straight away and, connection provided, share them almost instantaneously. Camera functionality is now so ingrained in smartphone operating systems that there is often a shortcut to get to the camera app from the lock screen, and any security issues this once caused have now been ironed out in many versions.

It was professional photographer Chase Jarvis that said the now trademarked and oft-repeated quote “the best camera is the one that’s with you”, which has become something of a mantra for those invested in smartphone photography. This is true in so far as, sure, if all I have with me is my phone, then what else am I going to use? However, with the rise in both interest and knowledge of the standard user, coupled with the power and ease of use of many editing applications, there is a growing community of people that want to be able to do more. So along with belated improvements to mainstream smartphone cameras such as improved sensor size and physical zoom, one thing being asked for is RAW format shooting. If you don’t know what RAW files are then read on.

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