Bluestacks tease the Gamepop as OUYA's console is delayed until June 25th.

   Some of you guys out there might have heard of the company Bluestacks. They're probably best known for their efforts on giving Windows and Mac computers the ability to run Android apps in their emulator, which works really well. But, it seems that the guys are looking to diversify and the way they're hoping to do that is to tackle the OUYA and the GameStick head on with their new 'Gamepop' device.

   The Gamepop is a little Android 4.2 Jelly Bean-based console which runs mobile games on your big screen! Throughout May BlueStacks are happy to offer you the device 'for free' when you drop $93.83 on a one-year subscription which basically buys you the console and access to all of the games. At the moment Bluestacks promise that there will be "over 500" games, but there aren't too many specifics at the moment. 

The guys behind Fruit Ninja have already said that, "We've been a featured partner in App Player since early on and they've delivered on every promise in terms of distribution... GamePop is a great incremental channel for us." Developers will receive their cut of the 50% of the total subscriptions which are paid to Bluestacks. 

   The device which this will be going head-to-head with is the OUYA. We already know everything there is to know about the console, but the ship date for non-Kickstarter orders has been pushed back to June the 25th as the guys have updated the design of the controllers to alleviate some 'issues' and this deadline also allows them to put more devices on store shelves.

   The Gamepop is an interesting take on this new mobile games on the TV craze and we'll see how this goes when everything is launched. In the mean time you can check out the video below which gives you a little more information or alternatively head over to Gamepop's website here if you're interested in pre-ordering the device. 

Via Engadget and Slashgear.

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In Other News: 12/02/2013.

• A rumour from SamMobiles has suggested that Samsung's Project J is much more than simply one device. The suggestion now is that Project J can be broken down into three separate things. They are the Altius, the Project J Mini Serrano and the Project J Active Fortius. The Altius is now expected to be the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Serrano is hinted at being the Galaxy S4 Mini and finally the Active Fotius is meant to be some sort of wearable smartwatch! Each of these will have a host of accessories which can be seen at the source link below!Via SamMobiles.

• Nokia have sold their Oulu Campus for €30.5 million. They will do the same thing they did with their Espoo headquarters and rent it back as they continue to use it!
  Via TechCrunch.

• Facebook is facing legal action over their 'like' button from a patent-holding company acting on behalf of a dead Dutch programmer called Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer. The suers seem quite confident that they'll be successful in any litigation, but we'll have to wait and see!
  Via BBC.

• Sony France have confirmed that they will be launching the Xperia V in the country in March. It's an interesting decision to take at this point, but perhaps the company just wants to offer consumers something a bit smaller than the 5" Xperia Z flagship!
  Via XperiaBlog.

• Bluestacks have officially announced their app player for the Surface Pro today and assuming you could Android emulation as fully-fledged apps then the amount of apps available for the Surface Pro has been bumped up from around 30,000 to 750,000 now!
  Via LittleGreenRobot.

• Microsoft have announced that they have now shipped 76 million Xbox 360's and sold more than 24 million Kinects! The company also confirmed that they have more than 46 million paying Xbox Live subscribers. That makes the company's Xbox 360 the fourth best-selling home video game console of all time behind Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation One and PlayStation Two consoles which come in third, second and first in the all time rankings!
  Via BGR.

And finally, Vertu have shown off their newest smartphone, the Vertu Ti. As you would expect with a super-luxury smartphone you get a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to specs and software. In this particular example though there's a 3.7-inch Sapphire crystal screen, dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 64GB of internal storage, NFC, a 1.3 megapixel front and an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

You can find full details here!

Via AndroidCommunity.

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07/12/2012: Bluestacks for Surface RT? Video game sales slightly down, LG finally gets ICS on Optimus 2X and much more!

Bluestacks to offer Surface RT support as Rubicon complain about RT sales!

   Some of our loyal readers may well have seen us cover Bluestacks before. It's essentially an Android app emulator which gives you the possibility of playing you favourite Android games or booting up your Taptu feeds. It seems that their emulator has come in very useful with the arrival of Windows 8 and all those touchscreen devices.

   At the moment it seems the guys at Bluestacks are doing pretty well on their own. They've had over 5 million organic installs direct from their website in only 8 months! The future is look very, very bright too as they've penned some deals with ASUS and AMD that will see their app pre-installed on 100 million devices next year! 

   The only problem is that, at the moment, there's no support for Windows RT, which powers Microsoft's Surface tablets. Indeed, apps on Windows RT don't seem to be doing too well as game creator, Rubicon, posted up a blog which explains how their foray into RT apps resulted in the grand total of £52 or $83 worth of income. That was for a whole week of sales of their smash hit Great Big War Game! 

   This news alone makes it interesting to hear that Bluestacks have acknowledged that they would lioke to offer Bluestacks for Windows RT at some point in the next year. This is not a concrete commitment in any way, but they have expressed an interest in doing so. This leaves Microsoft in quite a predicament because they are simultaneously confronted with the possibility of 750,000 of Android's touch optimised apps, whilst at the same time trying to convince companies to develop 'Metro' style apps to suit their new OS.

   What would you prefer? Lots of Android apps on your Surface or upcoming Surface Pro or apps designed specifically to play nice with the Metro UI? Let us know in the comments below!
Via Engadget and TechCrunch.

Video game sales decline despite the big releases!

   Video games - the bane of parents and teachers lives everywhere, but the past time of a budding generation of tech-centric kids and big kids alike! Unfortunately, it seems this year we've not turned out in force with sales of both hardware and software down 11% on the year to this November.

   NPD have released some interesting information here because "entertainment software units decreased by 15%, however, when comparing the performance of the top five titles from this year to last, we see a rise in unit sales of 5% - [it was] games outside of the top five [which] sold less, leading to overall declines." This isn't wholly surprising given that November last year saw the simultaneous launches of Uncharted 3, Skyrim, Lego Harry Potter 5-7 and Modern Warfare 3!

   There's also the distinct lack of new consoles this year. The Wii U will not figure prominently in these figures because there has only been widespread availability very recently and for the most part people who want a console now have their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3!

Via BBC.

In other news:

• RIM is widely expected to give their Blackberry Fusion enterprise customers an easy way to get involved with Blackberry 10. The plan is to introduce this idea to the UK first with other countries to follow soon after. Their senior director for enterprise at RIM, Bryan Lee, said:

'We remain committed to our enterprise customers and want to provide them with a head start on understanding the power of BlackBerry 10 and preparing their existing environments for the new mobile computing platform. The BlackBerry 10 Ready Program gives customers access to a variety of services, information, tools, and special offers to help ease their transition to BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.' Via MobileToday. 

• Sony has agreed a deal with Box to up the bundled storage with new Xperia smartphones to 50GB to match LG and Samsung's similar offerings (although Samsung offers Dropbox storage instead).
  Via Clove.

• HTC has launched it's budget Windows Phone 8 device, the 8S, on Three today with very reasonable pricing too! It's available for £180 on Pay-As-You-Go and from £17 a month on contract! This means that Three now offer both the 8S and 8X and should you opt for the latter then you also get a complimentary copy of Windows 8 Pro for your computer! You can check them both out over at Three's website here!
  Via BGR.

• AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile have teamed up to bring forward to release of  emergency texting, or text-to-911! We can only assume this is because of the issues with Hurricane Sandy and the support of the FCC!
  Via PCAdvisor.

• LG is today pushing out the ICS, yes ICS, update to their Optimus 2X devices! The phrase better late than never comes to mind!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Apple and Samsung were back in front of Lucy Koh today and she called for "global peace" between the two. Something which brought out a few chuckles from onlookers as she reiterated her point. She said "I'm not joking... it would be good for consumers and good for the industry" if the pair could iron out a deal. Samsung, for their part said that they were more than "willing to talk," but Apple weren't. Instead they restated their position that the billion dollar punishment which was initially agreed by the jury was a mere "slap on the wrist" for Sammy. Unsurprisingly, we're no further along. As always we'll let you know when we hear any more!
  Via Engadget.

• After reporting yesterday that Huawei was working on a 6.1" challenger to Samsung's Galaxy Note, Huawei's exec, Yu Chengdong, came forward to offer a rough time frame for a release date. He was only prepared to offer up early “early 2013”, which essentially means that it will be landing at either CES in January or Mobile World Congress shortly after that! There was one other tasty little tidbit and that was that Mr. Chengdong thinks you should pass up Samsung's Galaxy Note II, because it's 'grossly overpriced'. We'll have to wait and see what Huawei can tempt us with early next year!
  Via IntoMobile.

And finally, this is Onda's, a company famous for making solid PMP's, new V972 tablet! Aside from having a very catchy name, there's also a good set of specs for this little thing. It's got a quad-core AllWinner processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage which is expandable with microSD cards, rear and front facing cameras at 5MP and 2 megapixels respectively and a 8,000mAh battery that is rated for 8-10 hours usage. The real highlight though is that there is a Retina-equally 9.7" display with a resolution of 2048x1536! 

So what's the catch you ask? Well as far as we can see there isn't one, it comes with Android 4.1 and there's plans for a 4.2 update. The price you ask? $240 or £150!!! Wow. Don't you wish you had a relative in China sometimes?

Via PhoneArena.

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Monday at Computex

   This week has seen the Computex show in Taiwan kick off and tomorrow E3 gets going in LA. The former has kicked off in style with an absolute barrage of announcements today from Asus and Acer. Probably the best way to consider all of this is to do one manufacturer at a time and one device at a time! Hold tight this will be a long old post!

Asus.

   Asus has announced that they have teamed with Bluestacks, who are famous for their Android app player which integrates into Windows. This software will be available in all Asus products from now on and it will be free for 6 months, but after that you'll have to cough up a bit of money unfortunately.

   Currently there's no word on whether the will be legacy support but we'll find out sooner rather than later.

Asus Taichi.

   This is a very novel idea indeed from Asus. The Taichi is essentially a convertible notebook with  two displays! It runs Windows 8, nope no dual-boot with Android. It appears to be a regular notebook when opened, complete with a 13.3-inch display, keyboard, trackpad and a 3rd Gen Core i7 processor, it's not until you close the lid and you’ll find a second screen, which is an 11.6-inch panel. Both of these panels are Super IPS+ and offer support for Full HD 1080p resolution.

   There are cameras front and back, and interestingly both displays can be active simultaneously; ASUS suggests that’s great for back-to-back working or sharing slideshows or presentations with an audience, though this could kill of the TAICHI’s battery and the reality of this might prove that this isn't quite as useful as we expect it will be but it's a good idea.

The smaller panel is a touchscreen, yep it supports stylus', which means owners will be able to use the closed-down notebook as a tablet, in a similar way to the Dell flippy lid tablet. This will give you all the benefits of touch optimized Windows 8 and it's Metro UI. Storage is solid-state, helping keep things as lightweight and with solid (pun intentional) performance.

   As of yet there is no word on pricing or availability, although given the ASUS TAICHI runs Windows 8 we won't expect it until around October.

Transformer Books bring tablets and docks to the mainstream!

      Just like they promised, ASUS has come through with their promise of unusual form-factors; the company has announced it's new Transformer Book series; these are a range of 11.6-, 13- and 14-inch notebooks which have detachable touchscreen displays. You have a good choice of Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors and discrete NVIDIA GeForce graphics. All of these tablets will have Full HD IPS displays with support for multitouch input.

   On-board there's  4GB of DDR3 memory as well as USB 3.0 connectivity. They devices offer you a choice of SSD and HDD storage. ASUS is also been keen to highlight their speaker technology, with the ASUS SonicMaster audio apparently offering decent bass in spite of the tablet sizes of the devices.

   Again these tablets have two cameras, the front-facing camera being a HD webcam and a 5-megapixel camera on the rear. ASUS hasn't specifically mentioned the size of the battery, but the assumption is that the Android Transformer range has given the cue here and so there's a pair of batteries, one in the tablet parts and the other in the key board dock.

   Asus is targeting this range at “the seasoned user who enjoys the portability of a tablet for leisure but still prefers a more traditional Windows-based notebook when it comes to work.” As with pretty much everything else today there's no word on price or availability.

A proper tablet with WindowsRT: The Asus Tablet 600.

   Ok, so this is the only real tablet ASUS has announced today; the others are docking notebooks. The ASUS Tablet 600 is running the version of Windows 8 specifically for Tegra 3. NVIDIA’s quadcore beast has been paired with 2GB of RAM and a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 IPS+ touchscreen, so this is a recognisable tablet right here.

   Beneath that very familiar exterior there's WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, a digital compass and NFC. The front-facing camera is considerably better than most laptops and indeed tablets, it's a 2-megapixel sensor, the rear camera is a solid 8-megapixels with auto-focus and LED flash.

   ASUS has been very shy on stats today and the battery life expectations for the Tablet 600 have been MIA today too, but we’re expecting the device to last between 10-15 hours like Android-based Transformers. This is one of the benefits of the ARM processors as opposed to Intel processors.

    No prices or availability today but again because it's running Windows 8, the Tablet 600 should arrive later this year. If ASUS can meet the same price point as Android Transformers, this could be one to watch.

ASUS Transformer All-In-One.

   This badboy is what we all thought the Transformer Books would be. This AIO dual-boots Android and Windows!!! 

   It has a HUGE removable 18.4-inch touchscreen! This is much, much larger than the maximum 14-inches of the Transformer Book line and this is not designed to leave your house! The screen is an LED-backlit panel with 10-point multitouch support, but ASUS glossed over resolution at the moment and the magic OS switching happens with a button press that flips it into Android mode from the main Windows 8 OS.

   The way this works is a bit strange because the screen part acts as a wireless display of sorts for Windows 8, which means you’ll have to be within a certain range of the base station.

   The exact tech specs haven’t been outed and we don't know what’s inside the base station, maybe something from Intels i5 range would be more than adequate. You get an optical drive and enough ports and holes to keep you guessing what they are for a while!

   This is certainly unique and novel, noone will have anything like this, but is it really better than a normal laptop or tablet? Hard to say without actually using it!

Asus Transformer 810.

   Windows 8, the full version in a tablet!!! This is an 11.6-inch model who see the Transformer Book as a little large for proper mobile use.This runs Intel Medfield-series Atom processorand has 2GB's of memory.

   The display has a 1366 x 768 resolution and is a Super IPS+ panel. ASUS has also taken advantage of Windows 8′s support for active digitizers, utilizing Wacom technology so you can use both your digital pen and 10-point multitouch with your fingers.

   Storage is 64GB via a eMMC drive, which helps keep the size down. There’s NFC too and the customary keyboard dock for that second battery, trackpad, and some extra USB connectivity.

   And you guessed it no pricing and availability yet, but again this is Windows 8 so later this year!

Acer.

   Asus have basically stolen the show today, Acer were also at Computex, believe it or not and their offerings aren't quite as exciting as Asus', if you need a good solid overview of Acer's announcement click here for all the details.

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