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Along Together is a new puzzle adventure game for Daydream

Slowly but surely new Google Daydream VR titles are trickling out. Along Together is the latest release on the platform. It is a puzzle adventure game where you play the role of a kid's imaginary companion. Your job is to guide them through their journey of finding a lost friend.

Unlike many Daydream games, this is not a port. It was exclusively created and released for the platform. Sadly, that means all of you Gear VR owners are out of luck for now.

Along Together is a new puzzle adventure game for Daydream was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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HTC teases the squeezable U 11 in new video

Earlier this year, HTC launched the U Ultra, a big phone with a secondary display, but the company already has a new flagship handset coming down the pipe.

The HTC U 11 is the rumored name for the handset that HTC has confirmed will be unveiled on May 16. To keep folks interested, HTC has published a quick 30-second video to its YouTube channel that teases the upcoming squeezable handset.

The video is titled “HTC Squeeze the Brilliant U” and it shows about a half second of the edge of the upcoming phone in what appears to be an eye-catching blue shade. The entirety of the video is instead dedicated to watching a bunch of people’s hands squeeze things, like a shampoo bottle, food, and more.

The biggest feature of the rumored U 11 is called Edge Sense. With it, users will be able to squeeze their phone to launch apps, or slide a finger along the edge to navigate the software.

HTC says squeezing things is natural, and obviously all the things they show off should be squeezed, but it will be interesting to see if people find squeezing their smartphone just as natural as squeezing a lemon.

Check out the video below.

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Android and Me 9:49 PM No comments

Robot Unicorn Attack 3 dashes onto the Play Store

Robot Unicorn Attack 3 has moved the series from pixels to polygons. That's right, now you can enjoy this quirky endless runner in all three dimensions.

Adult Swim Games have just released Robot Unicorn Attack 3. If you are not familiar with the franchise, this is an endless runner that stars a robotic unicorn with a constant rainbow flowing out of its backside. Suffice to say, this fits in well with Adult Swim's stylized humor.

Robot Unicorn Attack 3 dashes onto the Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Apps , Apps/Games – Android Police – Android News , Games , Phones , Tablets 7:16 AM No comments

Moto G4 Plus receives heavy discount at Amazon and B&H

If you’re in the market for an affordable new Android phone, there’s a sale now happening that you may want to check out.

Amazon and B&H Photo Video are now discounting the unlocked Moto G4 Plus. The 2GB/16GB model is now available for $159.99, which is $90 off of Amazon’s normal price and $70 off B&H’s regular price. Meanwhile, the 4GB/64GB version is being discounted by $70 at both retailers, leaving its price at $229.99.

As a refresher, the Moto G4 Plus features a 5.5-inch 1920×1080 display, octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB/4GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel rear camera with laser focus and phase detection autofocus, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, and a 3000mAh battery. The models come with 16GB or 64GB of built-in storage, but you can add a microSD slot if you’d like even more storage.

While the Moto G4 Plus was recently replaced by the Moto G5 Plus as the newest Moto G family member, the G4 Plus is still a solid device for the money. You can check out our review of the phone right here, and you can see the Moto G4 Plus at Amazon and B&H using the links below.

Sources: Amazon, B&H Photo Video

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Android and Me 6:49 AM No comments

Samsung updating Galaxy S8 with screen color adjustments in South Korea

Some Samsung Galaxy S8 devices have had issues with red tint on the display, and now the company has officially released an update to fix it. The update is currently rolling out in South Korea but will be pushed to other countries soon.

The update adds a setting for display color balance, which you can use to tune the color temperature to your preference. You can also adjust the screen edge color balance separately.

Hopefully the update automatically adjusted the display color temperature so that users won’t have to fix it themselves (which is a task not suited for many casual smartphone users).

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Android and Me 5:49 AM No comments

Better late than never, an officially licensed Pictionary game is out on the Play Store

I am sure everyone here remembers the game Draw Something. It was a Pictionary-like game released on Android in 2012 by the developer OMGPOP. For years I had wondered why Pictionary didn't cash in on the popularity Draw Something had capitalized on. Now I have to question whether it would have been best to leave well enough alone this late in the game.

Now don't get me wrong, there is some fun to be had with Pictionary.

Better late than never, an officially licensed Pictionary game is out on the Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Apps , Apps/Games – Android Police – Android News , Games , Phones , Tablets 4:36 AM No comments

SafetyNet attestation, a building block for anti-abuse

Posted by Arindam Basu, Borbala Benko, Alan Butler, Edward Cunningham, William Luh

Building innovative security features for Android app developers and their users continues to be a priority. As part of this effort, we provide SafetyNet attestation, an API for developers to remotely evaluate whether they are talking to a genuine Android device.

SafetyNet examines software and hardware information on the device to assess its integrity. The result is a cryptographically signed statement, attesting basic properties of the device — such as overall integrity and compatibility with Android (CTS) — as well as metadata about your app, such as its package name and signature. The following JSON snippet shows an example of how the API reports this information:

{
  "nonce": "R2Rra24fVm5xa2Mg",
  "timestampMs": 9860437986543,
  "apkPackageName": "com.package.name.of.requesting.app",
  "apkCertificateDigestSha256": ["base64 encoded, SHA-256 hash of the
                                  certificate used to sign requesting app"],
  "apkDigestSha256": "base64 encoded, SHA-256 hash of the app's APK",
  "ctsProfileMatch": true,
  "basicIntegrity": true,
}

The contents of an example attestation response, providing information about the calling app and the integrity and compatibility of the device.

The SafetyNet attestation API can help your server distinguish traffic coming from genuine, compatible Android devices from traffic coming from less-trusted sources, including non-Android devices. This classification helps you better understand the risks associated with each device so that you can fine-tune preventive or mitigative actions in case of abuse or misbehavior.

We encourage developers to use SafetyNet attestations to augment their anti-abuse strategy. Combine SafetyNet attestation with other signals, such as your existing device-side signals and behavioral signals about what the user is trying to do, in order to build robust, multi-tier protection systems.

For further information, check the recently updated documentation and see the SafetyNet API Samples on GitHub.

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Android Developers Blog 4:14 AM No comments

Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S8+ with 6GB of RAM launching in Hong Kong

The US isn’t lucky enough to get the beefy Samsung Galaxy S8+ with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but some markets are. Unfortunately, the devices in those markets are carrier-locked and thus can’t be imported to the less lucky markets for use.

Today Samsung announced that Samsung Pay is coming to Hong Kong, and in the process confirmed that an unlocked version of the upgraded Galaxy S8+ is coming there as well.

Since the device is unlocked, we’ll start seeing them being exported to other markets that have similar network bands. The device will launch on May 25, so if you really want one, start watching for it then!

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Android and Me 3:44 AM No comments