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samedi 24 décembre 2016

Telltale’s The Walking Dead Season 3 game debuts its first two zombie-filled episodes

Telltale Games has finally made the first two episodes of its latest entry in its popular zombie-themed adventure game based on popular The Walking Dead comics (not the TV show, the comics). The third season, called The Walking Dead – A New Frontier, was made available late on Friday in the Google Play Store after launching for other platforms earlier this week.

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Best adventure games for Android

June 23, 2016
While the first episode in A New Frontier is priced normally at $4.99, Telltale has priced the second episode for just 99 cents as an in-app purchase for a "limited time". The game itself takes place some time after the end of the second season, as players control a new character, Javier, who like many in this apocalyptic world has lost everything. He encounters Clementine, the girl survivor of the last two seasons who has gotten a bit older. Fans of the comics will notice characters, such as Jesus, popping in this new season.

Fans who have their save file from Season Two of The Walking Dead can import it into Season 3 directly. If they have the save file on a platform other than the one they are using to play A New Frontier, they can still import that file with the new Cloud Saves feature. Telltale has posted detailed instructions on how to handle that transfer.

If for some reason you have played The Walking Dead Season 1 or 2 but don't have the save file, but still want to continue playing Season 3 in the way you remember how it ended with Season 2, Telltale also has a partial solution. It has created a "story generator" , which is based on data the developer has gathered about the choices the players in the previous Walking Dead games have made over the past few years. As it turns out, the data showed 42 different ways those players have interacted with those games. The story generator asks players with no earlier save files a series of questions based on those 42 play styles, The final result should offer a virtual save file that is supposed to offer a version of Season Three that feels "right" to gamers who have played through the previous titles in the series.

If you have downloaded and played The Walking Dead – A New Frontier, what are your impressions and how does it compare to the two previous seasons? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Get it at Google Play


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AsteroidOS review – the future of Android Wear?

With Android Wear 2.0 being delayed until the next year, and seemingly no new smartwatches planned from OEMs like LG, Motorola, and Huawei, things in the Android Wear universe has come to a standstill. If you can't wait for the Android Wear 2.0 update, or are just looking to breathe some life into your smartwatch, you might want to give something new a try. Currently compatible with a limited number of devices, including what was the first Android Wear smartwatch to be launched, the LG G Watch, here is a quick look at AsteroidOS!

AsteroidOS has been created by Florent Revest, a French computer science student, and is a completely standalone linux-based wearable OS that is not based on Android Wear in any shape or form. It is also entirely open-source, which will allow other developers and manufacturers to freely modify it as they see fit.

Before diving into the review, something to keep in mind is that AsteroidOS is still in the alpha stages of development, so understandably, not everything will work perfectly. You will notice a lot bugs and freezes, but it does run well enough for you to get an idea of what this new take on the wearable operating system has to offer.

There is an app you can download from the AsteroidOS website, that will allow you to manage certain functions and pair it to your smartphone for notifications. So far, the smartwatches that AsteroidOS can be ported to include the LG G Watch, the LG Watch Urbane, the Sony Smartwatch 3, and the ASUS Zenwatch 2, but that list should continue to grow.

Bluetooth pairing works only with the LG G Watch however, and even then, it can be quite finicky. The connection isn't always stable, and notifications tend to disappear after a few seconds, with the watch going back to saying that you have no new notifications. So far, there isn't a way to interact with, or even read, notifications either.

When the watch is connected to the phone, you have several options within the app itself. You can change the weather to the city of your choice, locate your watch, take a screenshot, and tinker with the notification settings. The weather settings and the find my watch options are currently the only features that work for now. The app also tells you the remaining battery life of your smartwatch, but it isn't accurate at the moment, so you are better off checking the device's battery life on the watch itself.

Since it is touch based, all the navigation is done via swipes. If you swipe down on the display, you will get access to some quick shortcuts for screen brightness, Bluetooth, and enabling or disabling vibration, and you can also see the remaining battery life here. If you tap on the lock icon, it will put the watch to sleep, and a double tap on the display will wake it up.

Swiping to the left will show you your notifications, assuming that notifications work properly. Swiping right works like a back key, unless you are already on the main home screen , in which case a swipe to the right will take you to the Recent Apps screen. Here, you can quickly jump between apps, and easily close these apps with a long press on them, and tapping the x that appears.

No third party apps are available at the moment, but there are a few basic applications that are pre-installed that you can access by swiping up on the screen. These include a calendar, calculator, alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, a music player, and a weather application. All the apps are simple and minimalistic, with white text and graphics, and colorful backgrounds.

You can also access all the watch settings here, which has all the basic functions that you would expect, like the time, date, language, Bluetooth, screen brightness, and the options to power off or reboot the watch. There are also some customization options here for wallpapers and watch faces, and it comes pre-installed with a surprisingly decent amount of them, given that it is such an early build.

So, there you have it for this quick look at the AsteroidOS! If you are looking to install this new wearable operating system, you can find all the information you need here. Keep in mind though that the installation process isn't easy, and some amount of technical prowess is definitely recommended.

Another thing to consider is that this isn't daily driver material just yet. Instead, what you will get instead is a fair idea of what the experience is like, and what to expect going forward. It doesn't overwrite Android Wear either, so you can easily go back to the regular OS by simply rebooting the watch. Asteroid OS is a wearable operating system that looks like it has a lot of potential, and is definitely worth keeping an eye on to see where it can go from.



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Cyanogen Inc. shuts down services and OS; open-source CyanogenMod project will remain

Sneaking the big news on the long holiday weekend, Cyanogen Inc. has announced discontinuation of the operating system and all services by December 31. Per the official statement, CyanogenMod OS and source code will remain available for the community.

The ambitious startup aimed to build a better version of Android, but the software received lukewarm response because the OEMs didn't want to ditch the Google ecosystem. And then, there were issues with partners like OnePlus who ditched the alliance immediately after the first outing with OnePlus One.

The announcement was made in a very uncharacteristic and brief bog post:

As part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen, all services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds will be discontinued no later than 12/31/16. The open source project and source code will remain available for anyone who wants to build CyanogenMod personally.

While surprising, the announcement isn't shocking, really. The company had recently laid off staff, and we heard the news of the exit of its CEO as well as another co-founder. The company will now look to pivot towards a modular operating system that can work with Android, which they'll hope will be more attractive to OEMs.



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vendredi 23 décembre 2016

Some Google Home owners report speaker randomly stops playing music

The Google Home connected speaker has been available for over a month now, but a few owners have since reported that the device just randomly stops playing music in the middle of playing a song. So far, there's no explanation for why this might be happening.

See also:

Google Home review – the future of the home?

November 18, 2016

Google's support forums have a number of posts from owners on this issue, including one who says it occurs while using voice commands to play a song or when Google Home is casting from a phone or PC. Many of the owners have tried to reboot the speaker, but the problem keeps popping up.

Some users have speculated that a bad Internet or WiFi connection may be to blame, but others have stated their connection seems to be fine when it is in use to stream content to other devices.  A Google rep posted on the forums on Nov. 19 stating the company is going to do some "further research on this matter". However, that's the last time that a team member has posted on the issue in those forums. In the meantime, more and more owners of Google Home have been reporting the same random music interruptions.

If you own a Google Home speaker, have you experienced these same kinds of problems? If so, let us know your impressions in the comments.



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Pokémon Go’s new holiday event will help you hatch more creatures

Pokemon Go Gym

Pokemon Go Gym

The augmented reality game Pokémon Go will begin its latest holiday event on Monday, December 25. The event will give players a better chance to find and hatch some of the new Pokémon creatures that were recently added to the game.

See also:

How to find Pokemon in Pokemon Go

October 10, 2016

From December 25 to January 3, 2017, the game's PokéStops will award one single-use Incubator each day after the player's first Photo Disc spin. There should be a better chance of finding Eggs that hatch the new Togepi, Pichu, and other new creatures in the game during the same time period. Also, the special Pikachu wearing fun "festive" hats will continue to show up during the event.

There will also be a New Year's event that will begin on December 30 and run through January 8, 2017. Niantic Labs says there should be a better chance of catching a number of rarer creatures like Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venusaur, Charmander, Charmeleon, Charizard, Squirtle, Wartortle, and Blastoise in the game. Finally, the game will increase the time for its Lure Modules from 30 to 60 minutes.

Will these temporary holiday changes make you go back and play Pokémon Go if you haven't played it recently? Let us know in the comments!

Get it at Google Play


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Lots of NVIDIA Shield games are on sale for Android TV and GeForce NOW

This holiday season, a good amount of premium apps and games have been going on sale. You can grab over a dozen Square Enix titles for cheap, the wonderful Nova Launcher Prime for just $0.99, or other popular apps like Lightning Launcher, Slide for Reddit Pro or Moon+ Reader Pro.

You didn't think NVIDIA would skip out on the discounts this holiday season, did you?

If you happen to own a NVIDIA Shield device, you're going to want to check out the company's Holiday Game Sale. Whether you play Android TV or GeForce NOW, you're bound to find something worth downloading. The sale started yesterday, December 22 and ends December 28, so you better hurry if you want to take advantage of the discounts!

Wondering what's on sale this holiday season? Here's the full list:

Android

GeForce NOW

See anything you like? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!



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Rovio’s match-three puzzler Angry Birds Blast launching December 22 (Update: available now!)

Update (12/23): If you've been waiting to get your hands on Rovio's new Angry Birds Blast title, your wait is over. The latest Angry Birds title is now available for download in the Google Play Store.

As a reminder, Angry Birds Blast is free to download, and features in-app purchases ranging from $0.99 to $99.99. You should be able to play the game without spending any real money, though. If you're interested, head to the Play Store link attached below.

Get it from Google Play

Original post (12/19): Rovio, creators of the Angry Birds franchise, has revealed that its latest Angry Birds title will be officially released on December 22. Angry Birds Blast, which soft-launched on July 12, is a free-to-play title which riffs on the match-three formula popularized on mobile by the likes of Bejeweled and Candy Crush Saga.

In Angry Birds Blast, players must match identical candy balloons to pop them, freeing the trapped angry bird characters inside. "How they got in there is anyone's guess," wrote Rovio in a press release, "but it's up to you to blast them to freedom."

"How they got in there is anyone's guess," wrote Rovio in a press release, "but it's up to you to blast them to freedom."

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Of course, there are many developers trying to iterate on the successful match-three formula; whether Rovio's latest title will do enough to become a smash hit remains to be seen.

You can pre-register for Angry Birds Blast from today, which means you'll receive ten bucks worth of in-game gold for free and a notification when the game arrives to the Play Store. Note that in the regions where Blast soft-launched you may be able to access the game from today.

Are you going to check out Angry Birds Blast? Give us your thoughts on it in the comments below.



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