Google X Phone vs Galaxy S4: the battle for Android in 2013?

A new Wall Street Journal report reveals that Google is indeed worried about Samsung’s increased role in the Android ecosystem, with the South Korean company being currently the number one Android smartphone and tablet maker when it comes to market share and profits.

We say indeed because we have speculated more than once that Samsung’s impressive lead could become a problem for Google at some point in the future. In fact, just recently an unofficial look into googling habits from potential buyers for the past year showed that some customers may already be confusing “Android” with “Galaxy,” with the later being the strongest device Android brand out there.

At the same time, Samsung is a great ally in the Android vs Apple war, one that Google can’t really afford to lose, so the Google-Samsung relationship is definitely one to follow in the coming months, especially if the latter is unhappy.

The report

As it always does, the WSJ has spoken with people familiar with the matter, who remain unnamed, but are able to comment on this particular business relationship. According to them, Google executives are worried about Samsung’s influence in the Android ecosystem and what the giant corporation could do in the future, as its market share increases:

Google executives are worried that Samsung could extract financial or other concessions if it gains more leverage, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. […]
At a Google event last fall for its executives, Android head Andy Rubin praised Samsung’s success and said the partnership had been mutually beneficial, a person familiar with the meeting said.
But Mr. Rubin also said Samsung could become a threat if it attains a dominant position among mobile-device manufacturers that use Android, the person said. Mr. Rubin said that Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which makes Android-based smartphones and tablets, served as a kind of insurance policy, or “hedge,” against a manufacturer such as Samsung gaining too much power over Android, the person said.

The worries

Apparently Google is worried that Samsung may affect its bottom line by demanding a larger cut of its mobile ad-based profits in the future – currently Samsung is getting 10% of the take – and/or that Samsung may ask for special favors, such as early access to future Android updates.

To Google, mobile ads are worth 8 billion a year according to recent estimates, and the number will certainly grow in the future. That 10% accounts for one hefty pay off to Samsung, and the South Korean giant has apparently “signaled that it might want more.”

Samsung is pulling some serious cash from Android device sales – $60 billion in 2012 alone – so should it demand more cash from Google ads? Well the company may have its own reasons for being sort-of angry with Google, including the Motorola purchase, or the Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 pricing structures, which may have affected to some extent Samsung’s own bottom line. So Samsung may feel it’s entitled to make up for lost Galaxy smartphones and tablet sales with more of Google’s money. After all, Samsung is in it for hardware profits, and needs to make money off device sales, without being able to rely to other revenue streams such as the Google Play Store or online advertising.

Is there also a worst-case scenario that Google fears, like Samsung completely moving to a different mobile platform? Samsung is still developing its own Linux-based OS, Tizen, which doesn’t look half-bad considering the recent screenshots we’ve seen. In fact, it looks like Tizen will become an even more important part of Samsung, with bada merging into Tizen in the future. Not to mention that Intel is also a very interested party in the Tizen project, as it could become an important play in its attack on the mobile market.

While it seems like a strange proposition for now, what if Samsung decided, at any point in the future, to move from Android to its own OS? The more it builds its Galaxy brand, the more customers will follow, without knowing or even caring that their next-gen Galaxy devices won’t run Android anymore. Sure, Android fans will stick with Android, and Samsung would lose customers in such a case, but the more power it can leverage in the Android landscape, the more it can present such a scenario to Google and make more demands.

We’re not forgetting that there’s always Windows Phone, a mobile OS Samsung is also working with, but one that wouldn’t necessarily fit to Samsung’s needs as a main mobile OS.

More realistically though, Samsung would only need to remove Google services from its Android smartphones and tablets – in an Amazon-like manner – to get Google’s attention.

The solution

If Google does indeed have a Samsung problem, then should we view the upcoming Google/Motorola X Phone as a possible solution to it? Are we going to see Google silently fight Samsung this year in an X Phone vs Galaxy S4 clash of titans?

Google has always said – at least so far – that it won’t give preferential treatment to Motorolanow that it owns it. We have no idea whether it meant it, or whether it was all just a show, so other Android device makers won’t worry about competing against future Motorola Nexus devices.

Moreover, according to a Google exec, the Motorola purchase was all about the patents – and now we hear it was a hedge bet according to Rubin. The company didn’t release any special Android device, not counting the new RAZR models, and did say recently that it still needs time until it’s able to make its own hardware.

But that might change with the Google X Phone, an extraordinary device expected to arrive at Google I/O in mid-May sporting high-end specs and running Google’s future Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie without actually being a Nexus device.

The X Phone has been spotted in various rumors and leaks so far, without being actually confirmed, but this time around WSJ does mention it:

Meanwhile, Google’s Motorola has been developing what it calls the X Phone to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S devices, people with knowledge of the initiative have said.

The fact that the WSJ talks about the device gives added weight to the current X Phone reports out there – let’s not forget that just a few days ago, the same publication talked about Google’s Chromebook, which was launched hours after that particularly story hit the virtual presses. This time around, an X Phone announcement will not be just around the corner, but the device is looking more and more real.

The Galaxy S4 is going to be unveiled on March 14 at a special event in New York – which we’ll attend live – therefore at least two months before the X Phone becomes official. We’re certainly interested to see how this particular battle will play out, since in light of this WSJ report the X Phone looks more like a Galaxy S4 rival than a device meant to further chip away at Apple’s market and profit share – but yes, it will do both if successful.

Without mentioning any details about the device, the WSJ can certainly make Android fans dream about a high-end Motorola handset that would fight Samsung flagship devices:

In the event that Google’s relationship with Samsung goes south, the U.S. company’s Android business could work with the company’s Motorola unit—similar to the way Apple’s hardware and software units work together to create iPhones and iPads—to make sure Motorola’s Android devices are superior to the competition, people familiar with Google’s thinking said. Such a move could alienate other Android device makers, however.

Yes, other Android OEMs would also be hit by the X Phone, and could put Google in a strange situation. But Google has been in a strange situation before and was able to sort-of deal with that problem.

Looking back at how it all started – assuming Samsung disliked the Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 pricing policy – we’ll remind you that Google had to come out with a cheap Nexus 7 and to fight off the Amazon threat rather than to hurt Apple’s iPad sales, even if that mean angering regular Android partners in the process. Similarly, it could now have to launch a X Phone to prevent the Galaxy S4 from selling as well as it’s expected to sell, even if that means, again, angering everyone else in the process.

Naturally, don’t expect anyone to confirm that the X Phone is a product Google needs to prevent Samsung from getting an even larger share of the Android pie. The WSJ’s sources could always be wrong, and we could be wrong speculating on the state of the Google-Samsung relationship. Maybe the X Phone is meant to be Google’s own iPhone rival rather than a competitor to high-end Android devices. Time will tell.

From a different point of view, Google is said to have “high hopes” for the HTC One or the recently unveiled HP Slate 7 to threaten Samsung’s dominance in the Android ecosystem, although these are products that aren’t yet selling, and it will be a while until they hit stores. Does Google plan to help either HTC and/or HP in any particular manner? Again, time will tell and we’ll be here to report everything.

But since other high-end devices are yet to show their muscles, the X Phone – or the promise of an X Phone – could keep plenty of Android device buyers at home when the Galaxy S4 launches, especially those customers that prefer Nexus devices over anything else.

Earlier today we witnessed Samsung crashing the MWC 2013 party by casting a long Galaxy S4 shadow over the show. In its turn, does Google have reason to crash Samsung’s Galaxy S4 party in the coming weeks and months with more X Phone rumors primed to hit the web on a more regular basis? We’ll just have to wait and see.

What high-end phone would you rather buy, a Google X Phone or a Samsung Galaxy S4?

Android smartphone to control satellite in orbit

A satellite with an Android smartphone at its heart is now orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 785 kilometres. Called STRaND-1, the satellite's incorporation of a Google Nexus One phone is a bold attempt to test the how well cheap, off-the-shelf consumer electronics handle the harsh temperature variations and microchip-blasting cosmic radiation of space.

If it can, say the satellite's makers - Surrey Satellite Technology and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford, UK - such spacecraft could become a lot cheaper to make. The orbiting phone was bought from a shop in Guildford's High Street.

The phonesat lifted off at 12.32 GMT yesterday aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Shriharikota, India. The rocket carried small satellites from India, France, Canada, the UK, Denmark and Austria. One of the two Canadian spacecraft was the suitcase-sized asteroid-spotter NEOSat, short for Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, which will watch out for incoming rocks like the one that came out of nowhere and exploded over Russia on 15 February.

But it is STRaND-1 - the UK's first cubesat - that space-flight engineers will be watching with particular interest. The shoebox-sized satellite includes a Linux-based computer to maintain its orientation by controlling miniature plasma thrusters. But control will, at various points in the mission, be switched to the Android phone's circuitry to see how its consumer-level electronics copes. Can accelerometers and GPS receivers operate as a cheap guidance system? No one knows. The satellite has already been successfully in contact with ground control and the team plans to contact the phone in the next few days.

Radiation can be a major problem in space because incoming cosmic-ray protons have enough energy to flip a binary 1 stored in a memory chip to a 0, and vice versa, corrupting software and causing crashes. On the first paid-for SpaceX Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station last October, for example, one of the spacecraft's flight computers was knocked out by a radiation hit. So the Google phone faces a challenging time.

On the fun side, the STRaND-1 smartphone also carries four Android apps written by the winners of a Facebook competition to fly "your app in space".

FIREFOX SmartPhone System Challenges ANDROID, IOS

Mozilla Foundation announced Sunday it will launch in mid 2013 its widely anticipated Firefox operating system for smartphones in a direct challenge to the duopoly of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Mozilla, which campaigns for open development of the online world, showed off the first commercial version of the Firefox OS on the eve of the opening of the world’s biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, Spain.

Smartphones equipped with Firefox OS look familiar to those on other systems, with an array of apps, or application programmes, to be made available on an online store, and a mapping programme developed by Nokia.

“With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online,” said Mozilla chief executive Gary Kovacs.

Mozilla, which aims to take third place behind Android and iOS, said it had already lured 17 operators including Sprint, China Unicom, KDDI, Singtel,Telefonica, Telenor and Deutsche Telecom.

The foundation said it was working with handset manufacturers South Korea’s LG and China’s TCL and ZTE on Firefox OS-run devices, with China’s Huawei to follow later in the year.

All the smartphones would be run with Qualcomm Snapdragon application processors, which use an architecture licenced by Cambridge, England-based ARM.

They will be available from the northern hemisphere summer, with the first devices arriving in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. Other markets are to be announced soon, Mozilla said.

Google and Apple’s operating systems combined now control more than 90 percent of the smartphone market.

Google’s Android ran 69 percent of all handsets sold last year and Apple’s iOS 22 percent, said a study by independent analytical house Canalys.

Analysts say the two leaders will still dominate the market in 2013 although there could be room for a third player.

There are several operating systems vying for that number-three spot, however, including Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Blackberry, Firefox and Samsung’s open-source project Tizen.

Blackberry, formerly RIM, announced last month its BB10 operating system as it sought to regain its glory days with a new smartphone, the Blackberry Z10.

RIM had tried to escape its niche business market several years ago but could not resist the iPhone, said research house booz&co analyst Mohssen Toumi, who gave the firm little chance of success now, either.

“Windows Phone has a real chance via the business market because it is made for work as much as for leisure,” he said.

Operators, too, are keen to break the operating system duopoly of Apple and Google, said Ian Fogg, senior mobile analyst at research house IHS.

Some Asian handset makers such as China’s Huawei and ZTE or global group’s like Spain’s Telefonica could be interested in using Firefox OS to bring out products for developing countries, said Thomas Husson, analyst at Forrester Research.

But “for a third ecosystem to really hatch, you need to have partnerships with all the players, and the operators alone are not enough. You also need the manufacturers and all the third-parties: developers, brands, content suppliers, and media,” he added.

The support of app developers was the most important and toughest to obtain.

“Developers, which are often small operations, will not want to spend their time developing and supporting applications on several platforms,” said Toumi, especially if one of them has only a small share of the ma

Firefox for Android gets all new inbuilt PDF viewer

The latest Firefox web browser brings Integrated PDF viewer along with faster speeds and lowered CPU requirements.

An upgraded version of Firefox web browser has been released for Android devices, which brings the much needed PDF reader application to the browser itself. What it means that users no longer need third party PDF readers like Adobe Acrobat, rather they can open PDF files right on the new Firefox 19 browser.

To make the browser more eye friendly, users will now be able to add themes to the browser in order to personalise their browsing experience. Themes will be available from the Mozilla store.

Besides, Firefox 19 has much lower CPU requirements than its predecessors so devices with slower processor (ranging from 600 MHz and above) will be able to download and use the application.

Earlier Firefox had adopted a new JavaScript compiler, IonMonkey, which allows the browser to process pages faster than before and return results in a shorter time.

Firefox 19 Android browser also comes with the phishing protection feature. The new phishing and malware feature protects users from malicious websites. Firefox for Android warns users when they encounter websites that may be used for malware or phishing to protect users from malicious websites.

The latest Firefox version is compatible with devices running Android version 2.2 and above. It is advised to the users that they connect to a high speed internet source such as a WiFi or 3G to download this browser as it has a over 17 MB installation file and can take a while to get downloaded using regular GPRS connection.

How Google Retooled Android With Help From Your Brain

When Google built the latest version of its Android mobile operating system, the web giant made some big changes to the way the OS interprets your voice commands. It installed a voice recognition system based on what’s called a neural network — a computerized learning system that behaves much like the human brain.

For many users, says Vincent Vanhoucke, a Google research scientist who helped steer the effort, the results were dramatic. “It kind of came as a surprise that we could do so much better by just changing the model,” he says.

Vanhoucke says that the voice error rate with the new version of Android — known as Jelly Bean — is about 25 percent lower than previous versions of the software, and that this is making people more comfortable with voice commands. Today, he says, users tend to use more natural language when speaking to the phone. In other words, they act less like they’re talking to a robot. “It really is changing the way that people behave.”

It’s just one example of the way neural network algorithms are changing the way our technology works — and they way we use it. This field of study had cooled for many years, after spending the 1980s as one of the hottest areas of research, but now it’s back, with Microsoft and IBM joining Google in exploring some very real applications.

When you talk to Android’s voice recognition software, the spectrogram of what you’ve said is chopped up and sent to eight different computers housed in Google’s vast worldwide army of servers. It’s then processed, using the neural network models built by Vanhoucke and his team. Google happens to be very good at breaking up big computing jobs like this and processing them very quickly, and to figure out how to do this, Google turned to Jeff Dean and his team of engineers, a group that’s better known for reinventing the way the modern data center works.

Neural networks give researchers like Vanhoucke a way analyzing lots and lots of patterns — in Jelly Bean’s case, spectrograms of the spoken word — and then predicting what a brand new pattern might represent. The metaphor springs from biology, where neurons in the body form networks with other cells that allow them to process signals in specialized ways. In the kind of neural network that Jelly Bean uses, Google might build up several models of how language works — one for English language voice search requests, for example — by analyzing vast swaths of real-world data.

“People have believed for a long, long time — partly based on what you see in the brain — that to get a good perceptual system you use multiple layers of features,” says Geoffrey Hinton, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto. “But the question is how can you learn these efficiently.”

Android takes a picture of the voice command and Google processes it using its neural network model to figure out what’s being said.

Google’s software first tries to pick out the individual parts of speech — the different types of vowels and consonants that make up words. That’s one layer of the neural network. Then it uses that information to build more sophisticated guesses, each layer of these connections drives it closer to figuring out what’s being said.

Neural network algorithms can be used to analyze images too. “What you want to do is find little pieces of structure in the pixels, like for example like an edge in the image,” says Hinton. “You might have a layer of feature-detectors that detect things like little edges. And then once you’ve done that you have another layer of feature detectors that detect little combinations of edges like maybe corners. And once you’ve done that, you have another layer and so on.”

Neural networks promised to do something like this back in the 1980s, but getting things to actually work at the multiple levels of analysis that Hinton describes was difficult.

But in 2006, there were two big changes. First, Hinton and his team figured out a better way to map out deep neural networks — networks that make many different layers of connections. Second, low-cost graphical processing units came along, giving the academics had a much cheaper and faster way to do the billions of calculations they needed. “It made a huge difference because it suddenly made things go 30 times as fast,” says Hinton.

Today, neural network algorithms are starting to creep into voice recognition and imaging software, but Hinton sees them being used anywhere someone needs to make a prediction. In November, a University of Toronto team used neural networks to predict how drug molecules might behave in the real world.

Jeff Dean says that Google is now using neural network algorithms in a variety of products — some experimental, some not — but nothing is as far along as the Jelly Bean speech recognition software. “There are obvious tie-ins for image search,” he says. “You’d like to be able to use the pixels of the image and then identify what object that is.” Google Street View could use neural network algorithms to tell the difference between different kinds of objects it photographs — a house and a license plate, for example.

And lest you think this may not matter to regular people, take note. Last year Google researchers, including Dean, built a neural network program that taught itself to identify cats on YouTube.

Microsoft and IBM are studying neural networks too. In October, Microsoft Chief Research Officer Rick Rashid showed a live demonstration of Microsoft’s neural network-based voice processing software in Tianjin, China. In the demo, Rashid spoke in English and paused after each phrase. To the audience’s delight, Microsoft’s software simultaneously translated what he was saying and then spoke it back to the audience in Chinese. The software even adjusted its intonation to make itself sound like Rashid’s voice.

“There’s much work to be done in this area,” he said. “But this technology is very promising, and we hope in a few years that we’ll be able to break down the language barriers between people. Personally, I think this is going to lead to a better world.”

It's Apple versus Galaxy, not Android

Samsung ‘Galaxy' has become a more popular search term than Android for web users searching for information about Android-powered smartphones, highlighting many handset makers' fears that Samsung is becoming bigger than the other Android manufacturers and that the smartphone market is  becoming a two-handset, rather than an operating systems, race.

Research by analyst Benedict Evans plots the popularity of Android-related search terms over a period of years and shows that 'Galaxy' has become more popular than 'Android' as an Android-phone-related search term since November. He claims that 'Galaxy' now has greater brand awareness among consumers than the term 'Android.'

Brand awareness is one thing, sales are another, and according to data from mobile analytics firm Localytics published on Thursday, eight of the top 10 Android devices currently in use are Samsung smartphones and tablets. The Galaxy SIII accounts for 9.2 percent of the market on its own, making it the most popular Android handset, and the Galaxy SII is the second most popular, with an 8.2 percent share of the global market. In all, Samsung currently has a 47 percent share of the world Android market.

The only good news for the wider Android community in Localytics's data is tablet use, but even that is not 100% positive. "It's interesting to note that despite their overall Android dominance, Samsung does not hold the number one spot for Android tablets; that honor goes to the Amazon Kindle Fire, which accounts for 37% of all Android tablets, the vast majority being US-based," said Localytics's Daniel Ruby in a blog post. However, Amazon's tablets, though nominally Android, run a ‘forked' version of the operating system that is different from the version found on other Android tablets and therefore offers a different user experience and access to a different ecosystem of apps.

Further proof of Samsung's growing dominance comes from research released on Wednesday by Canaccord Genuity that shows that only Apple and Samsung made any profits in the smartphone market in 2012. Apple's profit share was an incredible 69 percent of the global market, while Samsung's profits were 34 percent, which when added together comes to 103 percent of total profits. This number is possible because Nokia, Sony and Motorola together made a loss or a -3 percent profit. BlackBerry and HTC are believed to have broken even over the last 12 months.

It will be interesting to see how this situation develops. Some industry experts have suggested that Google should sell the Android platform to Samsung while others believe that if the platform is to survive and continue to be open and inclusive, Google needs to follow Apple's lead and start building its own, high-end smartphones to offer consumers more choice.

Samsung Galaxy S IV camera samples appear online

Just like multiple leaks in the past from tons of high profile smartphones, we’re now starting to see what appears to be photos snapped with a Samsung Galaxy S IV. Yes this means the smartphone is out and in the wild being used by a few lucky Samsung employees, but certainly doesn’t give us any other details. They aren’t pretty but are worth the quick mention.

Last month we brought forward some details regarding a device in the UAProf that appeared to be the AT&T Galaxy S IV, complete with a model number listed as SGH-i337. Today that same device has been found along with a few other unknown Samsung devices taking photos and posting them to the interwebs to pique our interest.

The folks from SamMobile are reporting that they’ve found three different devices all very likely to be the next flagship smartphone for the company. They claim to be seeing pictures taken with the AT&T version from the US, as well as a few others including the Korean or international GS4. While this is really anyone’s guess at this point, we like seeing any information on this upcoming device.

Sadly the images are fuzzy, blurry, and don’t appear to confirm the 13 megapixel rumor we’ve been hearing for the next-gen smartphone. Instead they are at a much lower resolution for whatever reason — so that’s something to take into consideration. Reports from earlier today and this week hint that Samsung will unveil their Galaxy S IV at an event on March 15th so hopefully we start to see more and more leaks as the date draws near. Samsung worked really hard to conceal the final design of the Galaxy S III, and we have a feeling they’re being even more protective of this new model.

20 best Android apps around now

The selection includes apps and games, with the prices quoted referring to the initial download only: games in particular often use in-app purchases, even if they're free to download.

Read on :

Aralon: Sword and Shadow (£3.17)

Good news for Android owners itching to get stuck in to a sprawling RPG adventure. Aralon: Sword and Shadow is the work of Crescent Moon games, with a huge open world to explore, lots of quests and side-quests to occupy your time, and more monsters than you can shake a (sharpened) stick at.

4oD (Free)

Channel 4 has ported its 4oD TV on-demand app to Android, providing a selection of its shows (plus those from E4 and More4) to stream over a Wi-Fi connection in the UK. The broadcaster promises a 30-day catch-up window for programmes, although there's no offline caching, nor will the app work on rooted devices.

Carbon for Twitter (Free)

"Simple, Dark, and a dash of elegance for your Twitter day-to-day pleasure," promises Carbon for Twitter's Google Play listing. It's a Twitter client that's already causing plenty of excitement, with a stylish design promising less taps to navigate around your stream.

Wunderlist 2 (Free)

Excellent to-do list app Wunderlist 2 has been out for Android smartphones for a while, but now it has a native tablet version too. It's good for building all manner of lists, with reminders, notifications and social features thrown in for good measure.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out (Free)

Americans: this one's for you. I'm told that EA's free-to-play Simpsons game will be available to Android owners elsewhere in the world later this month though. For now, the US-only port of the popular iOS game sees you rebuilding Springfield, fuelled by the in-game donuts currency.

The Little Mermaid (£2.99)

Developer StoryToys has made a name for itself with cute digital pop-up books based on various Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Now it's turning its attention to Hans Christian Andersen and The Little Mermaid, with a mixture of pop-up scenes, mini-games and easily-readable text.

Life is Magic (Free)

Once upon a time, location-based gaming meant 24 Swedish men running around a field pretending to shoot one another with text messages. Nowadays, things have moved on a bit. Life is Magic is a massively multiplayer location game set in a fantasy universe, where you explore dungeons, battle monsters and team up with other players – all overlaid on the real world.

Tesla Model S Beta (Free)

Got a Tesla Model S electric car AND an Android handset? Okay, it's a niche right now, but the official app is interesting for its hints at future connectivity between smartphones and cars. The app lets Tesla Model S owners check charging progress, heat or cool the car before driving it, ping its location and honk its horn when trying to find it, and lock or unlock it.

Fox Now (Free)

Another US-only app – this column gets plenty of American readers, if you're wondering why I cover them – this is from broadcaster Fox. "The mobile destination for your favorite Fox shows," as the Google Play listing puts it. That means trailers and clips, cast interviews, photos and social features for shows including The Simpsons and Raising Hope.

Burpple (Free)

Those photos your friends are taking: they're not random snaps of lasagne. They're "trusted food moments". Well, they are on Burpple. It's the latest app aiming to help people share snaps of their meals, tagging them with times and places, while cross-posting them to various social networks.

Young Driver (Free)

This UK-focused app comes from The Co-operative Insurance, and is aimed at young drivers. You may have guessed that from the name, of course. It runs in the background on their Android phone and rates their driving from 1-5, with the aim of showing them whether they're eligible for the company's Young Driver insurance policy.

Cartoon Wars: Blade (Free)

The title says it all: cartoon graphics, lots of people to make war against, and blades by the dozen. Part of a wider Cartoon Wars series from publisher Gamevil, this is a zippy adventure with characterful graphics and lots of hacking and slashing.

Guns 4 Hire (Free)

There are LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS in the Google Play listing for Rebellion's Guns 4 Hire game, to indicate its EXPLOSIVE gameplay. Said gameplay involves four "ass-kicking, money-hungry mercs" taking on hordes of bad guys in this free-to-play bullet-fest. It looks great fun.

Autology Homework Tutor (£2.99)

The Kids, of course, shouldn't be having great fun with (virtual) big guns: they should be doing their homework. Autology Homework Tutor wants to help with that. Aimed at 11-19 year-old students in the UK, it aggregates educational content from a range of sources, charging £2.99 a month or £29.99 a year for access.

Monster Rivals (Free)

Monster Rivals is a social game from developer Pixelmaji that sees players building their own monster then battling those of Facebook friends, working their way through more than 30 weapons to find the best strategy.

MoviePass (Free)

US-only, but a very intriguing idea: a subscription service that lets its users pay a monthly fee to see as many films as they want in partner cinemas. The app ties in with the existing MoviePass website.

Metal Slug 2 (£2.49)

One for retro-gaming fans this: the second Metal Slug game from SNK Playmore, brought up to date for Android devices in 2013. New features include a mission mode to choose which level to play, and controls reworked to be less fiddly on a touchscreen.

Bakery Story: Valentine's Day (Free)

TeamLava's Bakery Story is more for present-day mobile gamers, being a free-to-play social game based around running a virtual bakery. This is a brand new app: a Valentine's Day spin-off. Expect heart-shaped cakes and plenty of pink icing.

MyPics (Free)

Developer AppStair says more than 850k people have downloaded the iPhone version of this media-organising app. Now it's on Android, helping you to browse the photos and videos stored on your device and its SD card, and organise them into digital albums. Editing and sharing features are also included.

Quietto (£0.61)

Finally this week, something for anyone presenting at a conference with an Android device to hand (or, rather, in pocket). Described as a "discreet time-control app", Quietto vibrates gently at pre-set times to keep you alerted about your progress.

That's our selection, but what do you think? Post your recommendations or views on the apps above in the comments section.

Android's Domination; $200 to Quit Facebook; Microsoft Gets 'Scroogled'

The Android mobile operating system topped tech headlines on Thursday.

According to data from Canalys, Android smartphones made up 34 percent of global phone shipments during the fourth quarter, while iOS came in at 11 percent. Drilling down on smartphones, Android handsets made up 69 percent of the 216.5 million devices that shipped, Canalys said.

Meanwhile, Android also carried the lead in fourth quarter mobile ad impressions, according to Opera's latest State of Mobile Advertising report. Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III, which makes up 9 percent of Android traffic, helped the Google platform emerge late in 2012 as the top mobile phone OS in ad impression volume, beating iOS by about 2 percentage points.

According to stats released by Google, Android Jelly Bean is now running on 13.6 percent of Android devices. About 29 percent of Android devices are running Ice Cream Sandwich, but 45.6 percent still have Gingerbread.

Meanwhile, Boston father Paul Baier is paying his 14-year-old daughter $200 to quit Facebook until the summer. The "Facebook Deactivation Agreement," signed by both parties, ensures that the teen won't access Facebook until June 26. Baier will pay his daughter $50 in April and the remaining $150 in June. The arrangement, Baier said, was actually his daughter's idea.

In other news, Microsoft is back on the warpath with another attack against Google, this time taking aim at Gmail with the "Scroogled" campaign. A full website and a series of videos criticize how Gmail handles email data, including targeted ads that surface on Gmail based on your email conversations. The Scroogled site also provides links to news stories about Google an the issue of privacy, as well as infographics outlining the differences between Gmail and Microsoft's Outlook.com services.

Here's Why Android Phones Eat Through Your Data Plan Faster Than The iPhone

It's become a well-known fact that Android phones gobble up more 3G/4G cellular data than iPhones.For those on tiered plans, watching every megabyte, this is important to know.
As part of a comprehensive new report on the state of the mobile Internet, Cisco quantified exactly how much more cell data Android eats:  38 percent more megabytes per month per user.
This wasn't always the case. Cisco conducted a three-year study, and at first, Apple's operating systems had data consumption that was equal to or higher than Android's.
We asked Cisco's senior analyst Arielle Sumits to explain. She told us:
"Approximately 70% of the traffic generated by an iPhone is over Wi-Fi and 30% is mobile, while on an Android smartphone, about 45% is over Wi-Fi and 55% is mobile. The reasons why iPhone may offload more traffic might include: (1) iPhones automatically revert to Wi-Fi if available (most Android phones do now too, but it varies), (2) iPhone users may watch more video and download more apps than Android users, and video consumption and app downloading tends to take place in a stationary environment where Wi-Fi is likely to be available."
Here's the relevant chart that compares which operating systems are using cell data networks the most. (And don't miss Cisco's whole mind-blowing report on the mobile market in 2017)

Ongoing updates to this research can be found at the Cisco Data Meter web site. 

Are we entering a new era of gorgeous Android applications?

Being a long-time Android, I have come to accept that few of the applications are, well … lookers. After years of sifting through Google Play and checking out new applications, my typical "form over function" mentality has gone to the wayside.

With Android, it has practically always been a bit backwards. There's no question, it was definitely function over form.

With Ice Cream Sandwich in late 2011, that slowly started to change. With the trained hand of Matias Duarte at the helm, Ice Cream Sandwich was the much-needed interface overhaul Android needed to begin attracting users a little more in tune with design language and beautiful interfaces. It was the update that visually indicated that Android was finally maturing.

Shortly after Android 4.0, Google released the Android design guidelines in hopes that third-party developers would also reflect the maturing interface. It was meant to encourage said developers to work towards a more cohesive and consistent experience throughout the entire system, including applications from the Play Store.

Almost immediately, larger developers from Google Play started publishing updates with new interfaces. They began to adopt the unified holo theme and made Android look and feel like everyone was on the same page. Finally, Android started to feel like a more distinguished platform with a thriving ecosystem, not just another operating system with pot-luck for an application catalog.

Then something happened. Applications started to lose personality and everything started to feel somewhat … uninspired. It was the product of developers taking Google's design suggestions to the extreme without applying their own personal touch.

Fast forward nine months, and a few gems – applications that adhere to Android design guidelines while still invoking personality and creativity – started to appear. Some developers that first updated their applications soon after the guidelines were released are refreshing their own interfaces once again. And new applications are arriving and taking the Play Store by storm.

It was this past weekend when I finally realized this. Carbon for Twitter, a long-awaited Twitter client for Android users, finally landed in the Play Store. Immediately after installing, I opened the application and started sliding panes around and playing with the animations. I'm not huge on animations – I never have been. But there is one thing about Carbon that shouldn't go unsaid: it's beautiful. In fact, it's one of the best looking Android apps … ever.

This made me think back to all the gorgeous Android applications that I've installed or used recently. Falcon Pro, for example, hit the Play Store last month and quickly became regarded as one of the best Twitter clients Android users have every seen. Many – myself included – called it the Tweetbot of Android, which certainly says a lot.

Feedly, one of my favorite Google Reader clients, underwent a pretty major interface refresh in September 2012. Not only did it incorporate the Android design language, but it brought a whole new level of creativity along with it. Sliding panels, gorgeous typography and just an absolutely beautiful design.

Another Google Reader client hit the Play Store recently, too. Press. It, too, adheres to the Android design language, but it incorporates gesture navigation, gorgeous visuals and easily the best RSS experience I have ever had on Android. Reeder is regarded as the gold standard for Google Reader on iOS. Press is Android's Reeder – not only because they look and feel a lot a like, but because Press seriously ups the ante in design and quality.

Agenda Calendar, one of the most popular calendar applications on iOS, finally made its way over to Android, as well. It's a minimalistic calendar application that focuses heavily on typography and gestures. Albeit less strictly, Agenda Calendar also utilizes Android design language.

These are only some of the rapidly increasing number of high quality Android apps. Path, Carbon for Twitter, Eventbrite, Eye In Sky Weather, Camera ZOOM FX, BaconReader (reddit), Pinterest, Pocket and many more are helping Android look and feel a lot more like a quality platform.

Many of Google's own applications – ones that we thought may have been forgotten – are beginning to look a lot more mature and pretty, such as Google Translate, Google Voice, Google Search (Google Now), Google Wallet and some others. Google+ looks better with each and every update.

Have you noticed that there are far more great looking applications for Android now than there were just a few months ago, readers? Was this bound to happen in due time? Or was this a direct reaction to Google's Android design guidelines? What do you think is the best looking Android application available right now?

How to move from iPhone to Android; guide to moving from iOS to Android

Things to consider before moving from an iPhone to an Android phone. How to transfer contacts, calender, photos, video and music from iOS to Android.

Since it launched in 2007 the iPhone has been the undisputed king of all smartphones. Android and BlackBerry were cheaper alternatives, but if you had the cash you went for an iPhone. Not any more.
Android's app store Google Play now has more apps than the iTunes App Store, and its Music, Books, Movies & TV and Magazines apps rival their Apple equivalents. And you can choose from multiple music stores if you use an Android phone. See also: Best Android apps and Best iPhone apps.
Now high end BlackBerry, Windows and Android phones are true rivals to the iPhone, and top Android phones such as the Nexus 4, Galaxy S3 and HTC One X+ cost less than the iPhone 5. No wonder many people consider switching.
Here's our guide to moving from iPhone to Android. We outline things to consider before you move, then show you how to transfer Contacts, Calender, Photos, Video, Music and eBooks from iPhone to Android.
Moving from iPhone to Android: things to consider
The top Android phones match the iPhone's build, features and performance, but not all Androids are equal. There are myriad Android operating systems, and iPhone users need at least Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean. Remember there's no guarantee your phone maker will upgrade Android when a new OS comes out.
The good news is that on any Android handset email, Twitter and Facebook work much as they do on an iPhone - moving email and social accounts is not a consideration here.
Do consider accessories, speakers, adaptors and cases you have amassed for your iPhone, however. You will of course get a charging cable with your new Android, but don't assume that any speaker docs will work without an adaptor. This is also the case if you upgrade from an iPhone 4 or 4S to an iPhone 5, of course.

Apps are also a factor. Your favorite iOS apps should be on Google Play, but check before you commit to Android. Factor in the cost of replacing your apps: app makers charge separately for each platform on which you install their wares.
Not all Android phones can install all Android apps, either, so check your favourites are available on your chosen handset.
Bear in mind that some features native to iOS require you to install third-party apps on Android. The open nature of Android means have options when hunting down features, which can be a good and bad thing.
There's no native Android equivalent of Find My iPhone, for instance, but you will need security software anyway. Not for the antivirus - the threat comes from rogue apps you install from outside of Google Play. But the best Android security apps let you track, wipe and brick your handset in the event of theft. They are usually free, either as standalone products or as part of your PC security software.
Android has no equivalent of the iPhone's Facetime video-calling, although you can use Google Hangouts to video call other Android users. You can also install Skype and video call anyone for free. There's no Android iMessage, but the rest of the world is already using Viber and Whatsapp for mobile messaging.
There's no iCloud, but plenty of cloud storage providers are available. (You will lose what you have spent on iCloud for the forthcoming year and should go into your iPhone's Settings, then iCloud, Account, Storage plan and Downgrade options to ensure you don't pay again next year.)
One last cost to consider: music and videos you have purchased from iTunes. Almost all iTunes music files are DRM free, and Android handsets will store and play them. But TV shows and movies you have purchased from Apple are a very different story. There is no legitimate way of viewing iTunes video on an Android phone - the same is true of Newsstand magazines and iBooks. If you have a large library of both, this could be a deal breaker. We explain how to transfer music, movies and books below.

Moving from iPhone to Android: Contacts, Calender, Photos, Video, Music and eBooks from iPhone to Android

MOVING CONTACTS FROM IPHONE TO ANDROID
The most important part of moving from iPhone to Android is transferring contacts. Having a Google Account makes this straightforward - you need a Google Account to use an Android smartphone or laptop so sign up as soon as possible. It's free.
Plug in your iPhone to your PC and laptop. Open up iTunes. Your iPhone should appear on the top righthand corner - click it and select the Info tab from the iPhone Summary screen. If you are currently syncing your contacts over iCloud, at this point you should go into the settings on the iPhone itself, select 'iCloud', and move the Contacts slider from On to Off. Then head back to iTunes and tick 'Sync contact', selecting Google from the Drop Down list. Then sign into your Google account and your contacts are uploaded to Google.
When you first set up your Android phone signing into Google will give you the same contacts as you had on your iPhone. That's it.

MOVING CALENDAR FROM IPHONE TO ANDROID

Moving the calendar is also easy. How easy depends on how synced your existing iPhone calendar is. If you sync to your iPhone a Google Calendar, you're in clover. The same is true if you use a calendar from another webmail provider such as Hotmail - sync that account to your new phone and away you go.
It gets more tricky if you created your calendar on an iPhone and it is stored locally or in iCloud.
If it is stored locally, grab your iPhone. Go to Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendars. If you have an existing Google account with which you are going to sync your Android phone it may be listed there already, if not hit Add Account and add it in. Once you can see the relevant Google account, tap to go into it and ensure the 'Calendars' slider is moved across to 'On'. When you sign into Google on your Android phone your calendar will sync.
If your calendar is created on your iPhone and stored in iCloud you may need to purchase an Android app to help with the transition. SmoothSync for Cloud Calendar costs a couple of quid and will sync your calendar from iCloud.

MOVING MUSIC FROM IPHONE TO ANDROID
Simply make sure the music on your iPhone is backed up to your PC or laptop. Your Android device will be able to play them. One of the great things about Android is that your phone appears on your PC like a storage device or memory stick. Drag and drop music files on to it and Android will do the rest. This is the same for ripped CDs and music purchased from myriad stores, and you can purchase music on your Android device from whichever download or streaming store you choose - not just iTunes.
You can also sign up for and use Google Music to transfer your files.

MOVING PHOTOS AND VIDEOS FROM IPHONE TO ANDROID
It's a similar story to that of moving music files, but with one significant difference. Back up your video and photo files from your iPhone to your PC and you can drag and drop them to your Android phone. Photos will be viewed in much the same way as on your iPhone. Videos you have ripped from DVDs or captured yourself will also play, although you may have to install a third-party media player app.
But videos purchased from iTunes are unlikely to play nicely due to digital rights issues.
Android is host to multiple video services, including Google Play Movies & TV, Netflix and BBC iPlayer. But Google's own media store is nowhere near as well packed as is iTunes in the UK at this stage. Check that your particular handset can install all these apps if you need them.

MOVING EBOOKS AND MAGAZINES FROM IPHONE TO ANDROID
eBooks in all formats for which there is no DRM will transfer across easily. Simply back them up to your PC, attach the Android phone and drag and drop them across.
Most of us read digital books and magazines on our phones and tablets via apps such as Kindle, iBooks, Zinio and Newsstand, however. The availability on Android of your preferred service dictates whether or not you will be able to move across books and magazines.
On Android the Kindle works perfectly. Install the app, sign in and your books are there to read. On recent Android OSes you can also install Google Play Books - this is similar to Kindle, so you can check both for the best price. Any books you purchased through iBooks are gone, though. You need an iPhone or iPad to read them.

It's the same story with magazines - you can read PC Advisor on Zinio and Magster as before, but issues of PCA you bought on Newsstand aren't available on your Android phone. Instead you can subscribe to our magazine via Google Play Magazines.

If you have an existing subscription check with the individual publisher to find out what your rights are. Because Google, Apple, Zinio and the others all have fingers in this particular pie we suspect you are unlikely to be able to port a subscription from one device to the other. The best-case scenario is a refund.