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Click the image above to watch the video on YouTube!
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Android Apps you shouldn't miss this week
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Blue Angels
It's been a long time since we've seen a really good flight sim come out and this one is really good.
Download from Google Play
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Suicide Squad: Special Ops
Suicide Squad: Special Ops is a first-person action game where you take on bad guys with your favorite anti-heroes.
Download from Google Play
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Google Arts and Culture
The Google Arts and Culture app was released this week and gives you a glimpse in over 850 museums!
Download from Google Play
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Swiftmoji
Swiftmoji is SwiftKey's first new project under Microsoft and it's a keyboard that tries to predict which emoji you want.
Download from Google Play!
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Borderlands 2
Yes, THE Borderlands 2 has arrived on Android! It's currently only available for Android TV devices as well as Nvidia Shield Console devices right now and has a fairly hefty price tag. There are also some optimizations that still need to be made, but this is a great sign.
Download from Google Play
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Headlines this week
- Razer has announced that they're making a chat application specifically for Pokemon Go. The app, which will be called RazerGo, is a location-aware chat app that will be open to everyone who is in your general vicinity. The idea is to help Pokemon Go players chat it up when they're near each other and talk about taking Gyms, dropping Lures, and other Go related stuff. It should be out fairly soon.
- The first sponsored Pokestops were dropped this week. The winner of being able to say that they were first was McDonald's. The chain will have most of its 3000 locations in Japan become Pokestops and Gyms for players to flock to and enjoy. We don't know when it will roll out to other companies, but we can say for sure that it will be sooner rather than later.
- A Redditor did a little research this week and showed that level scaling in Pokemon Go is absurdly high. Getting from level 30 to level 31 requires as much XP as going from level 1 to level 25. This has launched discussion about whether or not the game scales too aggressively and what Niantic can do to make things a little easier. We'll let you know how it turns out.
- GameStop has reported that their sales have spiked 100% since the launch of Pokemon Go. They've been able to make their establishments Pokestops or Gyms and have been hosting family events. This has brought tons of people which has, in turn, caused sales to spike. It's a genius strategy, really, and GameStop is one of many companies to see sales go up thanks to Pokemon Go.
- It's been estimated that Pokemon Go is currently making about $2 million per day. The AppInstitute website has a real-time tracker that shows you a rough estimate of what the game is making every second. It piles up wicked fast and the game seems to be making a ton of money right now.
- Pokemon Go was actually supposed to release in France earlier this week. However, after the tragedy at Nice, Niantic decided to delay the release there for a little while to respect the events that occurred there. There is still going to be a French release, but it's going to be a little bit longer. It did launch in Canada along with Japan and 26 European countries over the last week.
- Sprint is jumping onto the Pokemon hype train by giving out a ton of free stuff. Each of their locations will become charging stations for players and they will also offer experts to help in certain locations along with Lures at locations that also have nearby Pokestops. This is after T-Mobile announced free data for a year for Pokemon Go players last week.
- Everyone is talking about a new photo app called Prisma this week. The app uses artificial intelligence to apply some truly unique filters to your photos to give them a unique look and feel. We have a hands-on video on our YouTube channel if you want to check it out. It was briefly available as an invite-only beta, but that has since closed down and now we all must wait for the general release.
- As of Chrome 52, users of Google Chrome on Mac, Linux, and Windows will say goodbye to the Apps Launcher button. While it seemed useful in theory and to its many fans, Google conducted studies that found that people actually didn't use the button all that often and opted to open apps in their browser through the browser itself. This build should be rolling out soon.
- Sheets to the Streets is a fun little art project where the artists used Google Sheets to create some truly interesting art. The premise is to show the limitations of females in society through artwork with Google Sheets being the only thing they can use to create the artwork. If nothing else, it looks really good.
- A court ruling this week has set a precedent that uploading videos of people in a bathroom stall to Snapchat without their consent is now a crime. This occurred after a high school student took video of another student in a bathroom stall and uploaded to his Snapchat. The other student later committed suicide because of the video and the courts have ruled against the defendent in this matter. Why this wasn't a law sooner is beyond me, but it's official now.
- Twitter is making verification a little bit easier for accounts. The idea is to help people get verified accounts even if they're not as popular. The process is actually very simple. You'll be asked to make some changes to your profile to accommodate the requirements, then you'll need to submit some links to verify who you are and then submit the form. Twitter will reach out a few days later if you're verified.
- A while ago, it was announced that conglomeration of Chinese investors wanted to buy Opera for $1.2 billion. However, this week it was announced that the deal has fallen through due to regulatory issues with a new deal in the works. The new deal, which features all of the same players, is for $600 million for a controlling stake in Opera instead of for the whole company.
- Telltale Games has released a new trailer for their upcoming Batman game. Check it out!
- It has been announced that Netflix will be streaming the new Star Trek series Internationally starting in early 2017. This is great news for all of you Star Trek fans not in the United States!
- In this week's Android Customization post, Feisty teaches us how to create a custom Pokestop timer using Tasker!
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App Updates this week
- Tinder launched a new feature this last week where you can invite many people to hang out as part of a group. The idea is to help people be more social and instead of the usual one-on-one hookups, the app is promoting that a bunch of people come together and hang out at the same time. This is similar to Google's "Who's Down" app, except this one isn't invite only.
- WhatsApp's latest beta build includes voicemail as well as a new font style. The voicemail feature in particular is pretty unique. We don't know when it will roll out to the stable release.
- Adobe Photoshop Mix received a massive update to version 2.0 this week. Included in the update is improved blending tools, unlimited selective looks, some other new features, and bug fixes along with performance improvements.
- According to reports, an upcoming Tasker update will give you the ability to create firewalls without root, which is pretty awesome!
- Facebook is slowly rolling out the ability to save videos for offline viewing. This week, some users in India were able to accomplish this, suggesting that a larger rollout could happen soon.
- An update to the official Google App now not only can see your location, but estimate how long you were there.
- Google has updated Google Play Books this week with a new Bubble Zoom feature that helps you read comic books more effectively.
- Action Launcher 3 was updated this week to include Google Now access for root users along with a ton of other features, fixes, and more!
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