Casinos Go Mobile

With the rising popularity of smartphones, more and more people are filling their spare moments by playing games, checking their social networks and having a quick gamble online; but of these three options we find the last is becoming more and more commonplace. It's estimated that out of the 780 million participants who play social games on Facebook alone, 98 million of these play casino games and even while the number of members on Facebook dropped in 2011 the utilisation of casino games increased by 60%.

However You Want,

There are quite a few benefits to playing online casinos on your mobile, but the variety of options for how to play is by far the biggest one. No matter your game, you will find something to your liking on a mobile site, native app or local app; most good gambling websites now have their own mobile sites which are optimised for iPhone, Android and iPads. Studies show that one in twenty iPhone owners are users of sport betting apps, mostly used on public transport or while watching TV.

Whatever You Want,

The many game and theme choices are completely open to players. While websites like http://www.bgo.com offer casino games, slot games and video poker games on their optimised mobile site as well as blackjack, live baccarat and roulette, other websites will specialise in themed slots or specific card games. There is also a huge amount of bingo games on offer, from quick, small bets to longer games where chat options are popular.

With Whomever You Want!

Speaking of chat, the sociable aspect is one of the most appealing features of mobile gambling. With Facebook gaming, players are able to compete with or against their friends, and on many bingo sites live chats are commonplace, unlike a bingo hall in real life where chatting among players is strictly prohibited. First time or nervous players can also get a lot of additional help on gambling sites from live chat hosts.

A study released in 2010 revealed that expectations are that by 2015 the total sum wagered on mobile casinos games will be over $48 billion, and another forecast predicts that the 2014 mobile gaming revenues from around the world will reach $11.4 billion. The online casino industry is estimated to be worth over $30 billion, with mobile capitalising on bringing entertaining and challenging games to the pockets of those in desperate boredom on trains, bus stops and waiting rooms around the country.

For Facebook, it still comes down to making money on mobile

When Facebook checks in with Wall Street for its quarterly review on Wednesday, it will hand in results for mobile advertising for just the fourth time and reveal its first full-year report card on revenue from mobile ads.

By most accounts, Facebook is expected to do well on the mobile front and make close to one-third of its advertising revenue from mobile placements, according to analysts' consensus. It would be a remarkable achievement, one that comes just in the nick of time to save Facebook from a decaying desktop business.

From zero to last-minute hero

RBC Capital Markets is particularly bullish on the subject and expects Facebook to pull in $487 million from mobile, which would be good enough for 34 percent of the firm's projected $1.43 billion second-quarter ad revenue estimate. Goldman Sachs holds a more conservative perspective and is predicting that Facebook will make $425 million in mobile ad revenue.

Whatever the number Facebook reports, it will be a marked improvement from the infinitesimal amount that Facebook made from mobile advertising at this time last year. Then, Facebook said it was bringing in $500,000 per day from mobile ads. Now, Facebook's mobile revenue may come in as high as $5.4 million a day, or up 980 percent from the year ago quarter...

Read the full story here. Source: CNET

Nokia Lumia 925 Sexy Beast

Nokia Lumia 925 Sexy Beast ... a new (for 2013) flagship WIndows Phone 8 smartphone with new styling & some awesome camera features. More coverage coming soon on Geekanoids.

BlackBerry Launches Q10 for Younger Audience

Waterloo, ON – BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) today introduced the BlackBerry® Q5, a new youthful and fun BlackBerry® 10 smartphone for selected markets. The BlackBerry Q5 smartphone features a QWERTY keyboard with discrete keys in a stunning youthful design that is confident, fun, and bold. Every feature, every part of the BlackBerry Q5 has been built to provide a fast, effortless experience that flows and moves with you to help you explore, create, and share while on the go.

“BlackBerry is excited to bring a new BlackBerry QWERTY smartphone, the BlackBerry Q5, to our customers in selected markets around world,” said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO of BlackBerry. “The BlackBerry Q5 gives you the best of everything with its cutting-edge BlackBerry 10 functionality and a physical QWERTY keyboard. It is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected.”

As part of the BlackBerry 10 experience, the BlackBerry Q5 smartphone offers a powerful and unique mobile computing experience that continuously adapts to your needs. Features and apps work seamlessly together, allowing your every move to flow into the next. Highlights of the BlackBerry Q5 smartphone include:

The evolution of the classic BlackBerry Keyboard

The BlackBerry Q5 features a classic BlackBerry Keyboard with discrete keys that has been re-engineered and elegantly designed to help you type fast, accurately and with the least amount of effort. Plus with Instant Action shortcuts you can type to perform tasks faster. The BlackBerry Q5 smartphone gives you the best of both worlds – a classic QWERTY keyboard for optimized communications and a 3.1” touchscreen for all the rest.

Create the perfect shot with BlackBerry Time Shift mode and Story Maker

Create the picture perfect shot with BlackBerry® Time Shift mode, then create and share your story, weaving together your photos, videos and music into a movie with BlackBerry® Story Maker.

Share and be seen with BBM Video with Screen Share

Instantly switch your BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger) chat to a BBM Video conversation and catch up face-to-face. You can even share your screen, whether it’s a photo, a page in the browser, an idea, or a view from your camera.*

Stay close to what’s important to you with BlackBerry Hub

With BlackBerry® Hub, all of your messages and social conversations are only one swipe away. There’s no need to stop what you’re doing. Simply peek into the BlackBerry Hub from anywhere with a swipe to effortlessly flow in and out of your messages and conversations.

BlackBerry World delivers a rich, thriving app and content ecosystem

Discovering and sharing great apps and content is easier than ever with recommendations based on similar purchases, and access to more than 100,000 apps on the BlackBerry® World™ storefront.

Pricing and Availability

The new BlackBerry Q5 smartphone will be available in selected markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America, with expected availability beginning in July.

Tweetbot update brings new media timeline and image viewer

The popular Twitter client Tweetbot has been updated to version 2.8, bringing the addition of a new "media timeline" and image viewer for the iPhone and iPad apps. Media view allows users to see photos and images that have been tweeted directly in their feeds, with the text of the Tweets neatly located above the media.

The app's image viewer has also been updated to be faster and features a redesign. In addition, tweet details such as the number of favorites and retweets have been changed to update in real time, Instagram previews have been fixed, along with the standard bug fixes that come with every update.

To locate the new media view, scroll to the top of your timeline and tap the square next to the search button. The update is live now.

[Source: TUAW]

iPhone 5S Front-Facing Camera Leaks Again

Just last week we published a story that included photos of several alleged parts of the iPhone 5S. Now, NoWhereElse has published a new image that reportedly shows us a glimpse of the front-facing camera module. The photos apparently first surfaced on a Japanese retailer’s website, and NoWhereElse says the part design “differs greatly from that of theiPhone 5.”

That could suggest that we’ll see a different industrial design with the iPhone 5S, although history tells us that it will maintain the same exact body as the iPhone 5. It’s possible that Apple’s just tweaking how it lays out the innards of the phone, perhaps to make room for other hardware changes.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

Twitter narrows TweetDeck AIR and mobile app shutdowns to May 7th

Twitter has been warning for weeks that it would shut down TweetDeck's AIR and mobile apps sometime in early May, but it didn't say exactly when loyalists would finally have to move on. The company now has a firm date: May 7th. In just over two weeks, Twitter will both pull the apps from their respective stores and stop existing installs from working as the service's version 1.0 API rides into the sunset. While the persisting native and web-based desktop apps will lessen some of the sting, we'd suggest that you pay your last respects if you have fond memories of TweetDeck's early apps.

[Source: Engadget]

YouTube App for iOS Now Supports Live Streaming

Google on Monday updated its Youtube app for iOS to version 1.3, which allows users to watch live streams right from their mobile device. Many users might be asking themselves where this was over the weekend, when YouTube was streaming Coachella, but better late than never. Right? There’s always next year, and plenty of other events this year when the new functionality will come in handy.

In addition to the headlining feature, the updated YouTube app also introduces minor fixes, including a My Subscriptions feed and support for queuing up videos for TV playback. Of course, the typical performance enhancements are also included in the update, too.

Ever since YouTube was booted from iOS, the app hasn’t exactly been a favorite standalone offering. And while there are alternatives out there, Google is at least slowly unraveling an experience on a par to what it offers on Android.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

Facebook addresses privacy concerns over Facebook Home

Facebook answers important user privacy questions. Read them before you install or buy anything.

A lot of folks have serious privacy concerns about Facebook's new Home application. Questions about location gathering, message reading, and the general "safeness" of Facebook tracking what you do on your Android phone. We have our own here as well, and have had plenty of internal discussion.

Facebook doesn't want folks to worry, so they released a privacy FAQ about the new product. It's a short read that everyone who might install the app needs to look at, but here are some highlights:

• You can use Facebook without using Facebook Home
• Facebook Home is just another app you install from Google Play. You can uninstall it at any time.
• Facebook Home collects your Facebook activity, location, Facebook messages, and the apps in your Home app launcher. This data is user-identifiable for 90 days.
• Facebook can not collect any data outside of the Home app, unless you use the HTC First  -- then it can track what apps generate notifications, but not the content of the notification.

We're not going to judge any of these policies -- that's for you to do. We are going to tell you about them and direct you to the full statement so you can read it and discuss. And you should.

[Source: AndroidCentral]

Vine now lets you embed your 6-second clips on Websites

Viners rejoice -- you can now embed your 6-second mini-movie masterpieces on Websites. The Twitter-owned service has just added the functionality, itannounced in a blog post.

If you want to give your movies a home on a site, you'll just have to enter some simple code. You can choose from three sizes: 320px, 480px, or 600px. Choosing the "simple" option will embed just the video, while the "postcard" one will retain the clip's original format, complete with text description and location.

Or you can embed your clip using the iOS app, which has just been updated to include the feature. Tap the ellipses in the bottom-right corner, then "Share this post", then "Embed". It might not work on all sites though, so best check before you start shouting about it too much.

Head to our US cousins' site and you'll see our very own Ken German's brief retrospective of old mobile phones. It's like a sped-up shuffle down memory lane.

Vine launched a couple of months ago, but is still only for iOS. Hopefully us Android users will get a version soon. It's been a massive hit though, with 6-second clips springing up everywhere. The new Wolverine film even had its very own trailer on the service. At least it didn't give away the whole story, like a lot of trailers.

If you fancy seeing what people are making vids of, a site called Vinepeek will give you a glimpse. It's pretty addictive viewing, though I don't want to be held responsible if anyone posts anything not safe for work. Viewer discretion is advised, as they used to say at the start ofWorld's Scariest Police Chases.

[Source: CNET]

Temple Run Finally Available On Windows Phone

Temple Run, one of the most popular endless runners around, is finally arriving for Windows Phone—months after Microsoft promised the game would launch. Better late than never, even though Temple Run 2 is already available for iOS and Android.

It may not seem like a huge deal, but getting a big title like this will do well to push theWindows Phone platform forward. However, it certainly doesn’t do fans of devices running WP8 any favors when big name titles—Temple Run 2, for instance—don’t launch simultaneously, or shortly after, for Microsoft’s mobile OS. Temple Run will have to tide WP owners over for now.

Windows Phone is getting a handful of other titles as well, including Gravity Guy 2, Chaos Rings, 6th Planet, Propel Man, Orcs Must Survive, Ruzzle, Fling Theory and Drift Mania Championship 2. Microsoft said the games will roll out during the week, so if any of them tickle your fancy, keep checking the marketplace to see if they’re live.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

Is iOS 6.1.3 Making Battery Life Worse?

Things can go a little hinky whenever a new software update comes out. And so maybe it shouldn’t surprise anyone that iOS 6.1.3, which released earlier this month to fix a lockscreen bug, might kick up some glitches itself.

Some users on Apple Support forums are complaining that, after downloading and installing the latest update, the battery drain on their iOS devices has accelerated. Commenters have tried the usual route of shutting down notifications, tweaking location settings and restoring tofactory settings, but nothing seems to help. A few people on the boards blame a Microsoft Exchange bug for zapping the battery, though this doesn’t appear to be a universal problem.

In addition, some (though not all ) users also say they’re experiencing Wi-Fi issues, with wireless connections being grayed out or otherwise not functioning. This isn’t entirely new, though. It first reared its ugly head in iOS 6.0, then vanished with subsequent updates, only to return with 6.1.3.

And to add insult to injury, even though the incremental update was pushed out to address security vulnerabilities, lockscreen issues still persist.

If you haven’t updated yet, I’d advise against doing so unless you absolutely have to. If you’ve already done it and have spotted these problems in your own devices, hang tight. Hopefully a solution will be forthcoming. Have you noticed any of these behaviors in your own iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch? Report in and let us if you experienced these problems too, what you saw and what device you’re using.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]