Nokia has issued a statement today reaffirming its intent to get back into the smartphone game, mostly reiterating statements made by the company’s CEO in June. However, the company’s plans revolve around finding the right licensing partner who will be responsible for manufacturing and distributing the phone — similar to how the Android-sporting Nokia N1 tablet came to be.
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Toram Online is a new MMORPG for all of you gamers out there to sink your gaming teeth into. The game is a continuation and/or expansion of sorts from Iruna Online – if some of you are familiar with that MMORPG. The game has been in beta for quite a bit, so it’s good to finally see the wraps off and the game now available to most people.
It helps to appreciate that Toram Online’s beta was mostly done in the Japanese language. That the game is now out via Google Play means most of the content should now be translated to English. The game itself is not the card battle or collectible MMORPG that seems to be the trend these days. It is a standard MMORPG, with character creation, skill selection, dungeon crawling, levelling up and all the MMORPG good stuff.
The plot is standard fare for MMORPGs – it tells of a cataclysmic event that split the ground and also split the nations. People of the world are divided into four groups, regardless of race. You then get to do adventuring by facing off with underworld creatures and over-ground journeys. Build your experience up, get the nice items from your loot, sell the others for money. Pretty standard, but usually fun for those who appreciate a good MMORPG.
You can play the game alone, but there will be bosses and areas where the strength of monsters will require partying up with others. The game is free to download, certainly with IAPs but not required purchases – you can finish the game without spending. Since the game is just recently out of beta, expect some typos and translation mistakes in the content. Those should be reported so that they can be fixed in future patches and updates.
SOURCE: Errol Willoughby
DOWNLOAD: Google Play Store
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What happens when you want to make a custom handbag with some handy tech features, and have access to a nice laser cutter? You end up doing what [Christian] did: design a assemble a Woman’s Handbag made of Laser-Cut Leather with iPhone charger and LED Light.
The design of the bag was made in Adobe Illustrator and sent off to a Epilog Legend 36EXT laser cutter located in the hackerspace located near [Christian] in Vienna. Once the parts were precision cut, traditional leather sewing methods were used to assemble the handbag (with a little help from a shoe cobbler).
The interior of the bag was lined with old blue jeans and a white LED, which is wired and held into place with conductive thread. Powered by a coin cell and controlled by your choice of a button, or a slide switch, the light helps locating items in the deep bag.
Slide a standard USB battery pack in one of the pockets of the old jeans and you are ready for a night out on the town. Join us after the break for a video showing the design, construction and features of this practical project.
Filed under: iphone hacks, laser hacks, wearable hacks 
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Apple makes money hand over fist and water is wet, but just how wet Apple’s water is can still be something to behold. Citing an estimate from financial services firm Canaccord Genuity, a report from the Wall Street Journal says Apple raked in 92% of all smartphone profits in Q1 2015, dwarfing second-place Samsung’s 15% share—a number that may soon dwindle further. Apple turned in those profit figures while selling less than 20% of all handsets worldwide.
The more mathematically inclined might notice that 92%+15%=107%, but these figures take all of the smartphone losers into account, with both Lenovo ( whose numbers include results from subsidiary Motorola …
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Various devices have power saving modes that are great for extending battery life. On the surface, they sound great because everyone wants to use their phones for as long as possible without having to sit next to a wall outlet while charging. Power saving modes can really limit what is possible in reality. So it may or may not be worth it, especially considering that the added time on batter life may not be worth it.
Note: Power Saving Mode is different than the more intense Ultra Power Saving Mode.
This test will be conducted with the Galaxy S6 Edge to show whether or not Samsung’s Power Saving Mode has a real advantage when activated.
I mostly use my phone for social media, web browsing on Chrome, and the camera here and there. In terms of outside connections, I have Bluetooth on at all times for my Gear 2 Neo with WiFi and GPS being activated when available and necessary. Although this test is being done with the Galaxy S6 Edge, the battery only differs from the Galaxy S6’s by 50mAh.
I used my phone normally in its regular full power mode and then switched to Power Saving Mode for the next day (after charging). I kept switching between these each day for eight days and what follows are my results. Again, I switched to the opposite mode after charging and not an actual 24-hour day as some days go past 24 hours.
On the first day, I decided to test on full power for a baseline. Totally normal day and normal use. I had been using Power Saving Mode before this and one of its changes include turning off the capacitive buttons. When I turned Power Saving Mode off, they never came back for some reason. I then toggled the switch on and off a few times and they eventually came back returned. I assume this is a bug, but figured I’d mention it in case the bug actually kept Power Saving Mode partially on.
Overall, I got pretty great battery life. It was actually the best battery life I have ever had with this phone so far.
Total time: 28hrs
Screen on time: 4hrs
This is the first Power Saving Mode day. I expected a little less battery just because yesterday was unusually long lasting for no apparent reason. However, due to the day running long, my charging time was different. This meant it went two nights before charging from lengthy standby time. The only good thing was my phone was now basically dead first thing in the morning making future testing more accurate.
Using Power Saving Mode here did add a few more hours of battery life with roughly the same screen on time.
Total time: 35hrs
Screen on time: 4hrs
The third day was a much better test as the phone was charged in the morning. Interesting enough, it lasted almost as long as the others. A little worse screen on time and lower total time.
Total time: 31.5hrs
Screen on time: 3.5hrs
Again, the phone was charged in the morning. I was trying to keep my use roughly the same each day so the only deciding factor is Power Savings Mode. It seemed to be adding a few more hours of life. On this day, however, I had to go out for hours on the eve of Canada Day. The time was noticeably less as it was not on WiFi and had bad signal for a few hours.
Total time: 25hrs
Screen on time: 4hrs
On Canada Day, I was out all day. Not the best signal and WiFi networks were few and far between. I took lots of pictures today between all of the traveling done for the holiday and there was much more use than standby time.
Screen on time was definitely lower with all of the activity. I would imagine this was because of the power-hungry camera that uses a ton of battery and switches the display’s brightness to its upper limit when turned launched.
Total time: 18hrs
Screen on time: 2.5hrs
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Signal was a bit iffy on the sixth day and I was mostly on WiFi. I took a few pictures, but not as many as the previous day and did most of my work with Samsung’s Multi Window. Running two apps simultaneously on the display is sure to deplete battery life.
Total time: 15.5hrs
Screen on time: 3hrs
Multi Window was used a lot on the seventh day for work-related purposes. I had low cell signal for most of the day, but also mostly on WiFi overall. Other than that just a normal day with normal use.
Total time: 20hrs
Screen on time: 3hrs
This last day was more like the first couple of days where basically WiFi was used the entire day. Chrome and YouTube were the apps used most.
I could of “cheated” and not used it for a couple minutes longer, saving me battery and allowing it to have just enough to get though the night. It would of added an extra 8hrs of total time making the results to be around 20hrs total standby time. I decided that was pointless and I’d just do the extra couple google searches draining the battery into low range.
Just a quick bonus story. I ended up plugging it into a quick charger as I went to brush my teeth etc before I went to sleep. Obviously not that long, but when I came back and unplugged it the battery read 20%. It went up 15% in only a few minutes. Very impressive and giving me easily enough battery to last the night.
Total time: 13.5hrs
Screen on time: 4.5hrs
Overall, the testing was pretty fair. I had a few days on each mode where I did nothing much all day and a few days where I’m working the phone’s processor.
Here are the totals:
Full Power
Standby Time: 97.5
Screen on Time: 13
Power Savings
Standby Time: 89
Screen on Time: 15.5
Interesting results, right? I expected Power Savings to be ahead in standby time and only a little difference in screen on time, but the results show the opposite. In a normal week, I actually got more standby time with full power, but, despite that, a few more hours of screen on time with Power Saving Mode on.
However, on the eighth day, which was a Power Saving Mode day, I did say that it would have been possible for me to get roughly 7-8 hours more standby time, thus making the standby time on both about equal. Personally. I think over a month the results would become very similar. It seems much more dependent on how you use your phone overall.
In terms of actual use, I didn’t notice much difference when Power Saving Mode was on. The phone felt basically the same with only the buttons losing sensitivity. A few other differences is the home screen apps refresh a little more often when exiting an app and the camera launches a little bit slower.
Due to the added battery life, I’d recommend using Power Saving Mode most of the time; the results show it can really go either way. The only time I definitely don’t recommend having it on is when you are playing high-powered games or apps that would use lots of power. Another time to keep it off is if you are using the camera to take shots of things that are moving whether it be cars, animals, or children. I was in a car trying to take pictures of rare cars driving around me and Power Saving Mode added just a touch of delay when you press the capture button. I would always end up only getting part of or totally missing the car because of this. Very frustrating and a mistake I won’t make again.
Are the results what you expected? Tell us in the comments below.
Come comment on this article: Does Power Saving Mode actually result in better battery life on the Galaxy S6?
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This isn’t a news story, but more of a “public service announcement” about an Android feature not everyone may be aware of. If you’ve ended up here because your Android phone is telling you that, after a factory reset, you cannot log into your device for 72 hours (3 days), I don’t have much good news: you’re going to have to wait it out.
If you want to know why exactly this happens, regardless of whether or not it has affected you, this post will at least show you how to avoid falling victim to this security measure again if you find it to be too much trouble, as well as why this feature exists to begin with.
Don’t Change Your Google Password Before Factory Resetting Your Android Phone – You Might Trip A 72-Hour Security Lockout was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
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You can’t stop the kids from using your smartphone or tablet. Admit it or not, you sometimes use your mobile device as a babysitter. It’s not really bad to let them use your gadgets once in a while. The burden is on the parents to discipline, teach their kids, and provide time limit for tablet or phone use. If only all games and apps on the Play Store is like this Alphabear, then we won’t have any problem but it’s not really the case.
This new word puzzle game is an original by Spry Fox. Alphabear can teach the kids how to spells words simply by selecting letters found on a grid. Bears appear when you use letters that are near to each other. The challenge is to use more letters to get more points and so the bear gets bigger. If you’re into collecting bears, you can do so here virtually as you can win different bears every time you hit a high score. Bears are not useless because you can use them as powerups to extend timer, increase points, and increase or decrease the frequency of the appearance of letters.
Game is still in beta mode but it’s already attracting a lot of attention. Well, at least from the parents and kids who are always on the lookout for new educational games. The background music is already catchy that kids will find it cute and fun to play with. The bears looks like square icons, kind of reminds me of Minecraft, Crossy Road, and those pixel-art graphics we’ve been seeing a lot lately.
Download Alphabear from the Google Play Store
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While most backers have already gotten their hands wrists on the Kickstarter-funded Pebble Time smartwatch, the high-end Pebble Time Steel still has yet to make its way to early adopters. That will change sometime very soon, according to an announcement made by the Pebble team on Kickstarter.
The Pebble Time Steel will start production this week and will begin shipping out to Kickstarter backers the last week in July. All backers should receive tracking numbers by the end of August, as long as production goes as planned. The metal-clad smartwatch will ship out to backers in both leather and metal strap varieties, though due to limited availability, some backers of the Pebble Time Steel will receive their metal bands as a separate shipment as more become available.
In addition, when the watch hits retail shelves, the metal band will only be sold as a separate accessory and won’t be included in retail units.
In case you missed it, we’ve already posted our review of the Pebble Time. Offering an affordable price point, unique software experience, full week battery life and cross-platform compatibility, the Pebble Time is one of the best smartwatches on the market. Be sure to check out our full review for more information. If you’re interested in pre-ordering the watch, you can do so for just $200 from Best Buy.
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Photos of an alleged Motorola-made DROID back cover have just popped up online courtesy of HelloMotoHK‘s Google+ page. There are no real details given but this appears to be an OEM replacement part of some sort, sharing similar design cues to that Motorola Moto G 2015 that leaked last week (silver strip with camera, flash and Moto dimple). @Upleaks — who claims he’s done with that leaking HTC devices — also leaked a very tiny photo of a mystery device last month that looks extremely similar to what we’re seeing here.
So, why is this being called an upcoming DROID device and not just a Motorola Moto X 2015 with a different colored/textured battery cover? Nobody knows. We’re assuming it has something to do with the small (blank) plastic piece towards the bottom which, if based on last year’s Motorola DROID Turbo, could be the spot where Verizon sticks their “DROID” branding. That tag only came on the 64GB Ballistic Nylon option and even though it’s hard to make out from this photo, it’s possible that’s what we could be looking at here.
The reason this “leak” is throwing us off is because last year’s DROID Turbo actually had a body and look all of its own — it wasn’t simply a Moto X variant. Of course, Motorola could be changing that for this year’s model, going with a uniform Moto X 2015 body, instead giving Verizon some sort of exclusive back plate and/or added storage, battery, etc. Who knows. What we do know is that September is closing in fast and although nothing has been made official quite yet, we expect Motorola’s new Moto X lineup will be announced somewhere around then.
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Hot on the heels of leaks that teased the new Moto X and Moto G, it appears that a new Motorola DROID phone has leaked.
HellomotoHK has posted a photo that’s said to show the back cover of a new Motorola DROID phone. The shell includes a pattern that looks like it’d be right at home on a DROID as well as a metal strip with cutouts that look like they’d house a camera, flash, and Motorola dimple logo.
That metal strip appeared in a recent leak that claimed to show the Moto G (3rd Gen.), and the Moto X (3rd Gen.) shown in a different leaked image appears to support a metal strip, too. That shared design feature, along with the outer edge of this new DROID that looks similar to the Moto X (2nd Gen.), suggests that what we’re looking at today is indeed an upcoming DROID phone. Unfortunately, there’s not much else we can figure out from this rear shell, so we’ll have to wait for more details to come out.
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