Phandroid
xda:devcon 2014 announced, get your early bird registration now
If you’re familiar with rooting and flashing ROMs on your Android phone or tablet, chances are you’re familiar with XDA-Developers. The XDA community consists of some of the most popular Android enthusiasts, hackers, and developers from around the globe. XDA-Developers recently announced their second annual developers conference and are now accepting early bird registration for attendees and taking bids for conference speakers.
As XDA puts it, xda:devcon is a conference by developers for developers. The general idea of the XDA conference is to take what normally happens throughout the XDA community, but bring the community together to learn, have a great time, and collaborate with like minded folk in person.
Since XDA-Developers is a global community, this year they’ve opted to host their developer conference across the pond in the UK. xda:devcon 2014 takes place in Manchester, UK at the Radisson Park Inn, on September, 26th – 28th.
Tickets are on sale now for the 3 day event starting at £75 (about $125 USD). For the entire conference schedule and other available packages, you’ll want to check out the official xda:devcon site for more details.
Or to put it in XDA speak:
[CONFERENCE][xda:devcon][UK Release][Sept 26-28][£75][No Bugs]
Best Android games from May 2014
The weather is warming up, and so are the new game releases. May brought us many awesome new games to play. The only problem is you may have missed some of them while you were enjoying the nice weather. We’ve got a big list of great games that launched this month for your reading pleasure. Check it out and download a few of these for a rainy day. Enjoy!
Aliens Drive Me Crazy
In Aliens Drive Me Crazy you use a car to blast your way through the city to reach the alien base. Get it? Aliens Drive me Crazy. While you are driving you can defeat invaders and terrifying bosses to get access to powerful weapons, cars and power-ups. If you like destruction and aliens you can download this game for free.
Castlestorm: Free to Seige
CastleStorm: Free to Siege is a genre mash-up of 2D physics destruction and tower defense brawler. Think of it like your typical tower defense game with the vantage point of Angry Birds. You get tons of different weapons, spells, and characters, plus console-quality graphics. All of this is completely free to download.
Dark Lands
Dark Lands is an epic battlerunner action game. Develop your hero to survive this infinity battle and run as long as possible. This game is an addictive mix of an infinity runner fantasy horror game with a dynamic combat system. This epic and addictive game has great art design and is available for free.
Dragon Coins
Our very own Chris Chavez has the best description for this game: “Dragon Coins is a new one from Sega and for whatever reason, I can’t stop playing it. It’s an RPG, mixed with card games, mixed with Pokemon, mixed with that dozer coin game at Chuck-E-Cheese. Sounds weird and I don’t normally like games like these, but it’s WILDLY addictive.”
Half Life 2
Half-Life 2 is a bit long in the tooth by today’s standards, but it was one of those genre-defining games when it launched nearly a decade ago. The best thing about Half-Life 2 is its advanced physics and interesting weapons. This great game is now available for Android users via the NVIDIA Shield. You can download it for $9.99.
Heroes: A Grail Quest
Heroes : A Grail Quest is a turn-based strategy game in a fantasy world. The player leads the hero and his army across the world to find the lost artifact and to save the king and his kingdom. You will go on an exciting journey with lots of battles, powerful atrifacts, magic and dungeons. Pick this game up for $1.00 in the Play Store.
Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage
A coldwind has swept the Vikings away, leaving them stranded in a dangerous and icy land. It’s up to you to save them. To do this you need to use your icebreaking skills to solve puzzles and cut your way through ice, rope, cannons, explosives, slime and more to get the Viking back to their ship. Download this game for $2.51.
JoyJoy
JoyJoy is a new fantastically satisfying twin-stick shooter from the creators of Inferno+, Ballistic SE, Super Crossfire, and more. In this game you need to blast your way through 24 unique waves and 6 intense challenges. It’s psychedelic and chaotic fun for hours, and it costs $1.99.
MacGyver Deadly Descent
MacGyver is back in a new puzzle game. This time he is tapped as the last hope when a computer virus rips through the top-secret D.A.W.N Laboratories. It’s a race against time before the lab runs out of air. If you love MacGyver and puzzles this is an easy $2.99 to spend.
Metal Slug Defense
SNK’s Metal Slug series is well-known for its Contra-esque gameplay. This new game, however, is a tower defense game. In Metal Slug Defense, you recruit soldiers and build structures in a real-time. You get a one-lane defense layout through which you send the soldiers into the enemy base with no real control.
Monument Valley
The best way to describe Monument Valley is to call it a playable work of art. It’s a puzzle game that might be just as fun to look at as it is to play. The puzzles are optical illusions that require you to look at things differently in order to complete the level. The game costs $4.99 to play, but it is worth every penny. For free this is a pretty fun game.
OTTTD
HEROCORP is calling you to command heroes, build towers, discover strange and exotic worlds and blow them all to bits. This awesome game is a combination of top-down and real-time strategy games. The art design is beautiful, and the action is epic. Command your squad of heroes today for $2.99.
Portal
By this point you’ve probably heard of Portal. This ultra-popular game has been around for a while now, but this month it came to Android on the NVIDIA SHIELD. Portal is an insanely fun puzzle game that uses a portal gun to transport you from one place to another. If you have a SHIELD you can get it for $9.99.
Tiny Dice Dungeon
Tiny Dice Dungeon is an epic RPG full of danger, warriors, wizards and loot. Adventure with tiny heroes through dark dungeons full of giant monsters and ultimate treasure. Tame evil creatures to fight at your side as you build a powerful army to take over this fantasy universe. If you love this style of game you can get it for free in the Play Store.
Trials Frontier
Explore a vast world on your motorcycle. Compete against your friends on Global Leaderboards. Master physics-based tracks to challenge the world’s top riders for the best times. Race your motorcycle through a world of adventure, crazy characters, and unfairly addictive tracks. All of this will cost you absolutely nothing.
Word Monsters
Word Monsters is a super social word search game. It requires you to sign in with Google+ or Facebook to use. Look for words on the screen and swipe them away to get points. Performing that action will cause them to disappear, sometimes removing letters needed for future words and making the game more difficult. Grab it for free in the Store.
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There were many other games that launched this month that didn’t make the list. What were some of your favorites? Have you been playing any of these games?
Oppo officially announces the Oppo N1 Mini
Oppo has finally announced the Mini version of last year’s oversized wonder, otherwise known as the Oppo N1 Mini. This device brings the interesting form factor to 5 inches down from 6 inches. It still maintains that 13 megapixel swivel camera that was so awesome on the original, and takes many other design cues from its big brother.
The display has 720p, and it should be running a fairly modern version of Android (we’re hoping KitKat) with Oppo’s ColorOS 1.4 sitting on top. Aside from its weight — it weighs about 150 grams — Oppo didn’t give us many other details to go on, though a more formal event taking place on June 10th should reveal far more details.
Motorola is shutting down their Texas factory
It’s only been operational for barely a year now, but it seems Motorola is finally ready to call it quits on their assembling factory in Fort Worth, Texas. Really it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Once churning out 100,00 Moto Xs a week and home to a workforce of about 2,500 workers, that number has since dwindled down to about 700.
The Texas factory was originally built to help get customized Motorola Moto X handsets into the hands of customers faster than if shipped from overseas. Unfortunately, dwindling sales of custom Moto Xs simply couldn’t offset the costs that went into paying for US wages. Motorola President Rick Osterloh went on the record saying that the North American market was proved exceptionally tough to break into and with new parent company Lenovo taking the helm, we’re sure there was little Motorola could do.
So, what does this mean for Motomaker? Well, it’s possible the entire thing will come crashing down, but that doesn’t mean prospective Motorola Moto X+1 buyers should worry. If the Moto G and Moto E taught us anything, it’s that you don’t need someone else to glue down a battery cover when you can simply order your favorite color and do it yourself.
For those feeling nostalgic, you can take one last look in Motorola’s factory via Google Maps Street View, back when it was still operating at capacity. Our condolences to those losing their jobs as a result of this decision, and we wish them the best of luck.
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