Words With Friends for Android updated, promises "smoother game experience"

As several of you noted in the comments to our post asking for cross-platform iOS/Android games, Words With Friends for Android does not provide the smoothest gaming experience... and that's being rather charitable.

You might be happy to hear that a couple of days ago Zynga released an update which promises to solve many of the Android-specific issues, such as notifications not popping up.

Sadly, installing the update is not a smooth experience; you have to manually uninstall the previous version, and then go to the Android Market and install it. What's nice is that it doesn't lose your saved games - this screenshot shows a game I've started before the update and continued after updating.

How's the new update working out for you? Let us know in the comments!

Words With Friends for Android updated, promises "smoother game experience" originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/words-with-friends-for-android-updated-promises-smoother-game/

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Nanogenerators produce electricity by squeezing your fingers together, while you dance

It's been a while since we last heard about nanogenerators -- you know, those insanely tiny fibers that could potentially be woven into your hoodie to juice up your smartphone. Dr. Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology has reported that he and his team of Einsteins constructed nanogenerators with enough energy to potentially power LCDs, LEDs and laser diodes by moving your various limbs. These micro-powerhouses -- strands of piezoelectric zinc oxide, 1 / 500 the width of a single hair strand -- can generate electrical charges when flexed or strained. Wang and his team of researchers shoved a collection of their nanogenerators into a chip 1 / 4 the size of a stamp, stacked five of them on top of one another and can pinch the stack between their fingers to generate the output of two standard AA batteries -- around 3 volts. Although it's not much, we're super excited at this point in development -- imagine how convenient to charge your phone in your pocket sans the bulky battery add-ons. And that's only one application of this technology. Yea, we know.

Continue reading Nanogenerators produce electricity by squeezing your fingers together, while you dance

Nanogenerators produce electricity by squeezing your fingers together, while you dance originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/iASiAFIq6Eg/

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Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers

Burrito Bison is a pretty simple game, but if you're into gummy bears you might find it addictive.

As you may have guessed from the name, you're a bison (not a burrito, though). In the course of your day-to-day grocery shopping, you're abducted into a bag of gummy bears, and must now fend for yourself.

At the beginning of each round you launch yourself onto the marching gummy (gummi?) bears, while you're being watched by a huge crowd of even more gummy bears. Your goal is to keep bouncing on the bears and earn more and more money while you do it. Every time you hit a gummy bear, you lose some momentum. If you hit the floor, you basically lose all of it.

But don't give up just yet! You have an emergency thrust which you can use to gain some momentum and keep bouncing on those bears. This extra thrust gets refilled as you hit more bears.

There are also special gummy bears that give you extra thrust or extra money. The money comes in handy at the end of each round, when you can shop for cool stuff to make your bison even more effective against those gummy bears.

It's a fun and colorful game that kept my interest for quite some time, and almost sent me running to the closest store to get some gummy bears!

Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/26/burrito-bison-is-a-simple-game-for-gummy-bear-lovers/

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Daily Crunch: Walking Through The Sleepy City Edition

Blunt Umbrellas Reduce The Possibility Of Rain-Related Impaling ?Condor? Supercomputer Made Of 1,716 PS3s Now Online Woah, This Robobird Really Flies Like A Bird ? Like, With Wings Time Waster: Play Old Handheld LCD Games In Your Browser Twimal: Super-Cute Twitter Toy Pet Reads Tweets For You (Video)

Source: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/03/26/daily-crunch-sleepy-city/

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Useful keyboard shortcuts for Twitter.com

When Twitter.com unveiled its recent overhaul at the end of 2010, one of the least-discussed features was the addition of some excellent keyboard shortcuts.

Some keyboard shortcuts only work from some pages, but we'll mark those where appropriate.

• n -- post a new status update (works from any page)
• r -- reply to your selected tweet
• t -- retweet (only works on Twitter profiles other than your own)
• m -- direct message (but it doesn't auto-fill the recipient)
• / -- move the cursor to the search box
• . -- move back to the top of the page, and check feed for updates
• g then h -- go to your home page (twitter.com)
• g then r -- see your @ mentions
• g then m -- see your direct messages
• g then p -- go to your profile page (twitter.com/username)
• g then u -- go to a specific user's profile page (it pops up a dialog box)

For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, type ?.

Now, if you don't use Twitter.com (which is about 65% of Twitter's users), these keyboard shortcuts probably won't work. Every installed Twitter client has different keyboard shortcuts (and some don't have any at all). If you want to lessen your mouse hand dependency, your best bet is to simply head to Google and type the name of your client + "keyboard shortcuts".

For more tech tips, check our tips index.

Useful keyboard shortcuts for Twitter.com originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/18/useful-keyboard-shortcuts-for-twitter-com/

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Adobe Flash 10.2 for Android available today, improves performance, adds hardware acceleration for Honeycomb

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 will land in the Android Market today, bringing with it modest performance improvements for Android 2.2 and 2.3, and hardware acceleration for 3.0. Flash 10.2 is also the first version of Flash to work on the Motorola Xoom tablet.

Engadget says that they "saw a slight but noticeable boost in framerate when playing a YouTube trailer at 480p" on their Droid 2, and that the same videos were "perfectly smooth" on their Motorola Xoom tablet. Engadget were playing with a beta version of Flash 10.2, however, so performance might be further improved by the time it hits the Market later today.

Other than some further performance and usability improvements for Android 3.0, there doesn't seem to be much else of note in Flash 10.2.

Adobe Flash 10.2 for Android available today, improves performance, adds hardware acceleration for Honeycomb originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/18/adobe-flash-10-2-for-android-available-today-improves-performan/

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Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers

Burrito Bison is a pretty simple game, but if you're into gummy bears you might find it addictive.

As you may have guessed from the name, you're a bison (not a burrito, though). In the course of your day-to-day grocery shopping, you're abducted into a bag of gummy bears, and must now fend for yourself.

At the beginning of each round you launch yourself onto the marching gummy (gummi?) bears, while you're being watched by a huge crowd of even more gummy bears. Your goal is to keep bouncing on the bears and earn more and more money while you do it. Every time you hit a gummy bear, you lose some momentum. If you hit the floor, you basically lose all of it.

But don't give up just yet! You have an emergency thrust which you can use to gain some momentum and keep bouncing on those bears. This extra thrust gets refilled as you hit more bears.

There are also special gummy bears that give you extra thrust or extra money. The money comes in handy at the end of each round, when you can shop for cool stuff to make your bison even more effective against those gummy bears.

It's a fun and colorful game that kept my interest for quite some time, and almost sent me running to the closest store to get some gummy bears!

Burrito Bison is a simple game for gummy bear lovers originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/26/burrito-bison-is-a-simple-game-for-gummy-bear-lovers/

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