As if its venture into Facebook gaming this summer was not enough, Amazon Game Studio has released its first mobile game, a free-to-play strategy game named Air Patriots.

Now available on Google Play, Amazon’s App store and on the iOS App Store, Air Patriots seems to take a detour from traditional tower defense games like Fieldrunners 2.

In Air Patriot, players have at their disposal mobile planes, as opposed to stationary turrets. Kindle Fire owners will enjoy the game more, as it makes use of the GameCircle social platform for stuff like achievements and high scores, and the Whispersync for Games capability that allows the sharing of saved games across devices.

The possibility to alter a plane’s course while on flight provide Air Patriot players a more flexible and dynamic gameplay. If you find that your units are on the wrong path, all you have to do is literally redraw your planes’ flight paths and focus your firepower to other bases.

The dynamic nature of Air Patriots provides players with enough challenges to keep them hooked, long after the novelty of the gameplay wears off.

Will you try Air Patriots? What do you think of Amazon’s first effort in mobile gaming?

Thought that flexible displays were a long way off before they could start showing up on smartphones? Think again. Samsung is leading the way towards producing the very first such displays that could be part of its next  smartphones generations. This has been a big year for Samsung and its work on flexible displays is another step in the right direction.

The company has already submitted a number of patent applications that detail the intriguing folding display designs for its smartphones. All along, since back at CES 2009, Samsung had presented a prototype of the unit and promised to deliver on it. The new flexible displays are expected to replace the traditional LCD displays by 2015-2016, at least according to a recent Samsung announcement. But in the mean time, it looks like Samsung has filed a new flexible display patent, this time describing a tri-fold panel.

The patent includes a number of representations that clearly show how a tri-fold display unit would work in a smartphone:

If delivered successfully, the tri-fold display could be revolutionary and would likely be the display of choice that allows a smartphone to be expanded into a mini tablet that would let users enjoy surfing the web, watching movies or playing games. It could also allow Samsung to produce the gadget of choice for cool Internet devices and unseat competing Apple products in the products. This would also help clean up Samsung’s image, which has already been marred by the copycat designer accusations and reveal it to be the true innovator in the mobile device space.

Currently, Samsung’s handsets shipments give it a 2-to-1 ratio lead over Apple’s iPhone shipments in Q4. Clearly, the mobile device war is only going to accelerate, especially if the Samsung tri-fold flexible display kicks off.

The hype surrounding Android 4.2 has indeed been warranted. As we continue to explore the new iteration to the Android OS, new features and improvements continue to be revealed. The latest revelation has been Photo Sphere. This 360-degree panoramic shooting mode is like no other you have seen.  The Photo Sphere feature on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean now allows you to snap pictures in every direction while the stitching is automatically done for you. This means that you get to create your own Street View scenarios that you can navigate, share on Google+ and even allow others to enjoy your own creations.

Photo Sphere is essentially an app that is aimed at Apple’s latest iOS 6 Panorama feature update and Google has done a good job at it. When you take your first shot, Photo Sphere will automatically set the starting point and will give you another point of reference that overlaps with the first. This will go on over and over again until you have the entire scene covered. Once the rendering has been completed, you will have a large scrollable image similar to what you are used to with the Street View in Google Maps.

Due to Hurricane Sandy, Google has canceled the special event that was expected to unveil the Nexus, no doubt with demos on how the Jelly Bean updates fair on the phone. Other features that have come with the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update include Miracast support, a sharing tool similar to iOS AirPlay, a gesture typing feature similar to Swype and support for multiple users on Android tablets.

We have tried out the panorama feature on the iPad and it will obviously be interesting to have this feature on your Android phone. We can’t wait to get our hands dirty and create superb panoramic shots using Photo Sphere.

Samsung has posted its last quarter profits and the numbers are not surprising at all. The company has reported a record $7.4 billion, which is double the profits compared to the same period last year. The Mobile Communications division accounts for half of all the revenue during the quarter, making up for weak chip sales.

The South Korean electronics doesn’t disclose its smartphone sales figures, but according to analysts, an estimated 60 million smartphones were sold. Comparing this to Apple’s recently announced quarterly earnings, Samsung leads by a huge margin in terms of actual sales. Apple reported having sold 26.9 million iPhones in the same period which stand for a big chunk of the company’s $8.2 billion in profits.

The Galaxy S3 is Samsung’s most successful flagship smartphone to date and comes fully loaded with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, 4G LTE, a zippy dual-core processor and an 8MP camera. Its large and vibrant HD display, with tons of internal memory, make it a favorite among Android die-hards. Samsung has specifically singled out the GalaxyS3 as a key component in its profit margins, with LTE-enabled devices seeing an increase in sales during the quarter.

Despite the ongoing battles with Apple that could cost the company over $1 billion in damages, Samsung expects its Galaxy smartphones to continue being the major revenue earner as the holiday season begins. Meanwhile, the Sprint Galaxy S3 will be the first to get the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update in the U.S. The update will include support for accessories with NFC One Touch Pairing for Bluetooth devices and wireless mirroring through AllShare. If you are on Sprint, your device should already prompt you to download the Jelly Bean update and perform the install.

Glympse, the pioneer for real-time location sharing, has introduced an updated app of its popular service that makes it possible to share location with family and friends. The new app now includes Glympse Groups, calendar integration and the ‘Request a Glympse’ features.
The app is available for free on the iOS and Android platforms (Google Play link). Speaking on the launch of the new app, the CEO and co-founder of Glympse, Bryan Trussel, said that the company has reached a “pivotal point in the evolution of location sharing – moving beyond static check-ins, to location as a mainstream way of communication.” By adding these new features, Trussel reinstated the company’s continued goal of providing an “instinctive way for anyone to share their location – as privately or widely as they would like – by integrating the action easily into everyday activities.”

Glympse Groups will allow users to share and interact via such common activities like social gatherings and sports by revealing a user’s real-time location on a map and encouraging social discovery and local interaction. Users simply enter a bang(!) and the group name without any login details and all group members real-time locations are displayed on a map.

The calendar integration update makes it possible to automatically schedule location updates based on your Outlook, Google or iOS calendar. This virtually eliminates the need for those ‘on my way’ text messages or calls.

The Request a Glympse feature works by sending a text request to users asking them to broadcast their location at a given time. Accepting the request allows the recipients to instantly start broadcasting their real-time location. If the recipient does not have Glympse installed, the request comes with a link to download the app and start sharing their location.

The new features plus the intuitive design allows Glympse to be more instinctive by integrating it further into daily life.