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Cracking China: How Tencent is working with the best Western mobile game publishers

Jul31
by on July 31, 2014 at 12:49 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Asia, Mobile Gaming, Profiles and Interviews, wechat

Tencent-WeChat

China’s mobile gaming is a hot space with lots of potential for growth, and Chinese internet giant Tencent clearly knows that. Tencent, the operator of popular social networks and apps in China including WeChat, now reaches over 180 million daily users on its game distribution channels. It reported CNY1.8 billion ($291 million) revenue from online games in the first quarter of 2014, about triple the amount from the previous quarter. The paying user base for mobile games also more than doubled compared to Q4 2013. Meanwhile, the Chinese government estimated the mobile gaming economy generated almost $2 billion last year –and even this…

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The trouble with crowdfunding: When an interesting product blinds you to red flags

Jul31
by on July 31, 2014 at 12:35 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider, Investigations

Indiegogo

Writing about crowdfunding campaigns is a minefield. We don’t cover many, but when we do, we’re very careful to only bring you the highest quality projects. On one recent occasion, we may have missed the mark. There are so many crowdfunding campaigns vying for attention that we reject well over 95 percent of the pitches we receive. After all, in most cases, they’re nothing more than pipedreams. At their best, crowdfunding campaigns bring fantastic products like the Pebble smartwatch and Oculus Rift into the world. At their worst, they can be scams designed to extract money from over-enthusiastic coolhunters. The…

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Report: Android reached record 85% smartphone market share in Q2 2014, Xiaomi now fifth-largest vendor

Jul31
by on July 31, 2014 at 12:06 am
Posted In: Around the Web, Google

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Market research firm Strategy Analytics has put out new numbers for the second quarter of 2014 that estimate the Android platform’s share of the global market at a record 84.6 percent. Strategy Analytics reported 295.2 million smartphone shipments during the period, just 0.1 million off from IDC’s number. Growth seems to have tapered off, with the firm recording the market’s slowest growth level in five years. Android widened its lead on all its competitors. The share of Apple iOS reportedly fell from 13.4 percent a year ago to 11.9 percent, while Microsoft dropped from 3.8 percent to 2.7 percent, and BlackBerry…

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Google releases the source code for its I/O 2014 app as a template for developers

Jul30
by on July 30, 2014 at 10:39 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Google

Google today published the source code for its I/O 2014 app in hopes of teaching developers some of its best practices for Android apps. While you may have used the I/O 2014 app to plan your schedule at the conference, Google had bigger plans for the app. It’s designed to serve as a kind of template for other Android apps. Google describes a number of features, APIs and design approaches that went into the app: “Fragments, Loaders, Services, Broadcast Receivers, alarms, notifications, SQLite databases, Content Providers, Action Bar, the Navigation Drawer, the Google Drive API, Google Cloud Messaging, material design, the…

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Hands on: Will Lytro’s Illum camera, aimed at photographers, live up to its vision?

Jul30
by on July 30, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Product Launches

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Lytro’s Illum, the first professional light field camera, will be available at consumer outlets worldwide and will ship all pre-orders on Friday, August 1. The camera retails for $1599 and is available in the US from Amazon, Best Buy, Target and B&H. The camera combines a unique mix of 3D graphics and computational photography to produce distinctive “living pictures” that can change focus, depth of field, and perspective tilt at a viewer’s command. It’s targeted to professional photographers and enthusiasts keen to experiment with alternative photographic techniques and interactive storytelling. The refocus and perspective shift features offer new opportunities to convey a narrative or…

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