Earlier today Twitter released an update for its app across Android and iOS for both phones and tablets. Although everything looks pretty much the same, there are a few slight changes. Most notably, the “My Profile” Page has been altered to include background images and ‘photo streams’.

The Blog post concerning the update published by Twitter explains:

New profiles now feature header photos so you can express who you are more meaningfully on Twitter. Upload an image from your mobile device and see the same beautiful profile design on your phone, tablet or computer.

The second part of the blog post addresses photo stream specifically:

Photo streams for profiles display the images people have shared on Twitter. Whenever you see a photo stream, swipe left or right through the thumbnails or tap to view photos in fullscreen mode. Android users can also get closer to photos with pinch-to-zoom.

Here are some photos of the apparent visual changes. They certainly make the mobile Twitter experience that much nicer when you view peoples profiles. Other than that I’m guessing this update contained plenty of bug fixes.

Fans of Chameleon Launcher – you shall not be waiting much longer now. With a regular release and update cycle, the Chameleon Launcher team has reached its first release candidate build.

Most of the 0.95 features and fixes make a distinct difference to the performance and usability of Chameleon, notably the stability improvements regarding widgets. I’ve been running the update this morning and I’m delighted to see that everything is a little faster and the Widgets don’t implode after a few hours of usage.

New Features / Inclusions

• Added Dashboard Manager animations when adding/deleting a Dashboard
• App Tray icons no longer get cut-off by some devices.
• Additional start-up time improvements.
• Fixed a major bug in the web views used for widgets causing bloated memory.
• Home screens now go into a ‘Sleepy’ mode when inactive for a period of time.
• Fixed issue where widgets still sometimes appeared blank (fingers crossed)
• Fixed issue where widgets sometimes appear to be continually loading.
• There is now a max of only 4 home screens.
• Added “Shout Outs” section, to make our Kickstarter backers famous! Thanks for the support.
• Can now post tweets/updates from Twitter and Facebook Widgets when the native apps are installed.
• Added, updated and finalized the default Chameleon wallpapers.

The demand for more widgets has also been answered. The team claims to be working on a Google+ and Calendar widget. In the 0.9.0 build they also released Widget templates and a system which means developers can begin designing away before the final release. The final release is expected to include a store/market for the widgets to be downloaded from.

Not long now everyone!

Over on XDA Developers, a user named “Football” has posted a test only build of Jelly Bean for the HTC One X, identified as 3.00.999.7 with a large 641MB download size. Users on XDA are being urged not to install it due to the unstable nature of the test build. Football said:

And last but not least, this is highly unstable release, 999 ID means it’s only for test purposes and you shouldn’t use it for everyday usage.

Instead of trying to flash this unstable ROM it’s probably best that everyone takes away the thought that HTC are working on Jelly Bean for their flagship device. With a near-working build such as this, it can’t be too far away!

For those of you keen to try this build regardless of the forewarned instability, here is the download link.

If you do try this ROM out, please let us know your experience with a comment below.

So Adobe has chosen not to release the Flash player to Jelly Bean devices and is discontinuing the product as a whole. Poor move, frankly. This encompasses everything from the Nexus 7 to the custom Jelly Bean builds released by AOKP and CyanogenMod. However, XDA members are here to save the day, as usual. If you want to get Flash back on your device so you can watch Flash animations, videos and other content in your browsers, here is all you need to do.

Step 1: Go to this XDA Thread page, and read the first post. This is all we need to do, not a lot right?

Step 2: On your device go to Settings > Security > Unknown Sources and ensure it is ticked, thus enabling us to install Android software not found on Google Play. Please keep in mind that on some older Android versions this may be found under Settings > Applications.

Step 3: Download the Adobe Flash .APK file which is linked to in the post. I personally used this link and here it is to save you flicking between tabs.

Step 4: Once you’ve downloaded that package, install it. Your device should do it without complaint because you enabled ‘Unknown Sources’ earlier.

Step 5: Now download a browser which has the ability to use Flash. The default Android browser on most devices supports Flash so from here you should be ready to go! Enjoy! If not, then download SkyFire or a similar application such as Dolphin HD.

Step 6 (For Dolphin HD Browser users): Despite installing Flash, the content will still not appear… why? Well the answer is that due to knowing of Flash’s demise, the Dolphin HD team have disabled Flash in their latest update to the browser. Not a problem though, XDA have that covered too.

Step 7 (For Dolphin HD Browser users): Download this version of Dolphin Browser. Install it just the same way as you did for the Flash package. It will alert you that you’re overwriting an existing package, downgrading etc. Click Accept.

Step 8 (For Dolphin HD Browser users): Now open up Dolphin HD, press the Menu softkey, hit up More > Settings. Then go to Web Content and turn ‘Flash Player’ to ‘Always On’, or ‘On Demand’ if you prefer.

Step 9 (For Dolphin HD Browser users): Now enjoy! You’ve got Flash again. Just remember to defer from accepting upgrades to Flash and Dolphin Browser!

Hope this has helped those of you trying to get Flash back. As everyone’s saying, it was a silly move for Adobe to make, but at least we’ve got ways around it.

I enjoy it when I get to write a bit of Quick News about something that is fun and a little silly. Some of you regular readers may recall I reviewed a ‘Duck Beak‘ stand for Android and iOS devices a few months ago. Well, today I’ve got something slightly more practical to share with you, Android Ice Cube trays!

Coming in at $12 for one tray and $20 for two, they are hardly cheap! However if you love Android a lot, it may be something you’ll want to add to your collection. These little moulds would also work with molten chocolate and when making baby-jello snacks, so you can use them for treats as well as chilling drinks.

The specs list from the manufacturer is:

• Flexible Food-Grade silicon
• Freezer and dishwasher safe
• 8 icey bots per tray
• 6 1/2″ x 5″ tray, each cube aprox. 1 1/2″ x 3/4″

If you think you fancy some Droid’s in your drink, or you want to make Jelly Droids for your kids, take a look at the manufacturers link here, also sourced at the bottom of this news post.

If you’ve ever played Great Little War Game then you’ll be delighted to hear that the developers, Rubicon, have released a sequel which is bigger and better than the addictive first game.

The original Great Little War Game was so popular amongst mobile gamers that Rubicon decided they would release a bigger and better edition, packed with even more features than the first.

For those of you who haven’t played Great Little War Game or anything similar – it’s a turn-based strategy game. In each ’round’ you are given a set amount of cash, which you can increase by conquering buildings in your fights. You use this cash to buy soliders, and vehicles (and now aircraft too!). Every unit has a maximum firing range, damage rating and so forth. It’s your job to allocate them on the battlefield so that you will eventually win the game.

The starting base consisting of vehicle and infantry buildings, the oil rigs to the right generate money each round. More are discoverable and can be captured across the map by either team.

So what’s new?

Put very basically, everything has been ‘one upped’ on the previous version. All the graphics have been improved since the newer devices released today have powerful graphical rendering capabilites which embarass devices released only two years ago.

Altered User Interface

The overal user interface of the game has been tweaked and altered to provide a better gaming experience over the first game. Small things are not immediately noticeable, such as proper health bars instead of percentages, and clearer indications of terrain height difference. The bigger ones are instantly noticeable, for example the menu in which you choose new units has been tweaked to make the process clearer. They’ve also added in “Fog of War” which is common used in Real Time Strategy games to hide the enemy base and manouveres until you discover those areas. You can see it in the screenshots above and below.

Here you can clearly see how the Fog of War works. Until the enemy come across to your visible area, all you can see is ‘Shuffle Shuffle’ printed above the foggy area where units are moving.

New vehicles – Air Force! 

This is something the first game had in no form at all. The new airbase building lets you spawn attack helicoptors and jets for use across the battlefield. All of them very powerful, but also very expensive. A few new ground vehicles have been added too, a few new boats, and a couple of new infantry units.

Multiplayer!

One of the most fun and impressive additions to the game has to be the free cross-platform multiplayer functionality. Now you can play this game with any of your friends, whether they are on Android or iOS, tablet or phone. It’s very simple and nearly seamless.

The main Multiplayer menu screen – A new addition to the ‘Great War Game’ series.

Just as in the normal game, you wait for the enemy to complete their turn, but instead of AI doing it, it’s a real person. Additionally instead of thirty seconds, you could wait up to thirty minutes.

Any Flaws?

Just like it’s older brother Great Little War Game, this game needs to be taken in small regular doses. Although Rubicon advertise it as a highly addictive game that you can’t put down, that is not the case, or at least it wasn’t with me. The game is fun and great to pla,y don’t get me wrong! It just becomes a bit repetitive quite quickly – hence the need of small regular doses.

Requirements

The game has adjustable graphics levels allowing both older and newer phones to play the game. I would say the thresholds for lower-end gaming are around the Galaxy S2 and Transformer TF101. Anything newer like the One X and Galaxy S3 will be able to run it at full power just fine.

Final Thoughts

If turn based strategies are your thing then you’ll love to sink your teeth into this great game. The excelling graphics and units available to play with make it great to play either against the computer or a real person.

The price for Great Big War Game is $2.99 – not exactly an arm and a leg. If you think it might be for you the Google Play link is here and also at the Source section at the bottom of this article.

Google’s famous voice search functionality already operates in 29 languages and is built into nearly every Android phone. Now another 13 have been added to that list, bringing the grand total to 42 languages and accents.

The new languages are:

• Slovak
• Swedish
• Romanian
• Norweigan
• Basque
• Bulgarian
• Finnish
• Galician
• Hungarian
• Catalan
• Icelandic
• European Portuguese
• Serbian

If you are a resident of these newly added countries and haven’t had the chance to experience a great piece of voice-search technology: grab your phone and give it a try. Remember that you need to be connected to the Internet for the app to even recognise your words before it searches them.

The update is being rolled out slowly but surely. Google promise a full rollout worldwide by next week.

If you haven’t already got the Voice Search app, check out the Google Play link.

(Airport window / Shutterstock)

Right now the Samsung Galaxy S3 is THE must-have smartphone. These months are also among the most popular times of the year for people to go off on their holidays. I did that myself very recently, and brought my new Samsung Galaxy S3 along. I learned that if you are taking your Android smartphone with you, it can be handy to know a few things before you leave.

Media

The most obvious topic to cover involving smartphones and travel would be movies and music. You can’t sit in the sun for the whole holiday. It hurts, I know. When you go back to your room you would usually want something to do. Anticipating this I loaded up my phone with plenty of movies and TV Show seasons to keep me entertained. Everyone gets bored on holiday at some point, and this is the perfect way to counteract it. You’ll never watch the entire lot, as it would be a waste of your holiday. However, it is certainly nice to know you have a selection should the desire arise.

Of course, the other great time for having films on hand is you are on flights to and from your holiday destination. If you’ve got a ten hour flight, then the airline probably has some in-flight entertainment, but it won’t be as good as watching on the great screen the S3 has, believe me. The screenshot below of Commissioner Gordon was taken directly from my S3 and VLC. Full 1280×720!

I chose the newly released VLC Media Player to be my weapon against boredom as it already has such a successful reputation, and my ammunition was various films, either in .avi or .mp4 format. A ten hour flight goes quickly if you’ve got the likes of Batman Begins, Sherlock Holmes 2, and X-Men: First Class at hand.

The large 2100 mAh battery on the S3 allows you to watch hours of films before it coughs out. I didn’t drain all of my battery watching films in one go, but had I done so, I expect the battery life would be up to 7 hours at least.

Foreign Mapping and GPS

If you’ve ever tried to use the GPS on your phone abroad or while traveling the first thing you will notice is that you require internet access to pull down the map data as you go along. This would bring apocalyptic roaming costs and so the only sensible thing to do is use an app that will download and store the maps on your phone before you go abroad.

Enter MapFactor Navigator. This application is a well-polished GPS navigation app which has an easy-to-use interface that allows you to grab the mapping of whole countries from the OpenStreetMaps foundation. Once downloaded the application can give you turn-by-turn navigation just like a Tom-Tom without requiring network access. Leave your phone in flight mode, it still works fine.

Here is the Play Store link for you all. It’s free. Remember that the app prompts you to download the free maps on first launch so don’t worry about hunting them down on the Play Store.

Games

As well as media, games go a long way to keeping you entertained away. Here’s a brief list with some of my current favourites.

Great Big War Game – This is the recently released sequel to Great Little War Game. A great top-down combat strategy game with a wide array of vehicles and troops to use. Well worth the small fee.

Cut The Rope – Everyone’s favorite green monster pet needs his candy fix. You’ve got to deliver it to him through various puzzles involving rope, bubbles, swings, traps and much more. With hundreds of progressively more difficult levels, this game will keep you coming back for more and more.

Angry Birds Space – The world’s most popular feathered friends have taken to space to defeat the egg-stealing pigs. This game shows how gravity (or the lack of it) affects the birds as they fly through the levels.

Temple Run – If you’ve not heard of this game, where have you been for the last year? It’s one of the most popular games of all time in which you run down a randomly-generated temple bridge and see how far you can go before obstacles catch you out. Excellent timekiller when you keep trying to beat your own person best.

Let’s Create Pottery – This recently released game isn’t really a game at all. It’s more of a sensation and realisation of an idea. The objective is simple, using your fingers and a pottery table, create a piece of pottery that sells for a lot of money, or matches a custom order. With bird song in the background and a gentle touch when creating, this game will relax you and give you hours of enjoyment. There is a cut-down free version to try out first.

Minecraft Pocket Edition – The pocket version of one of the most popular computer games ever created. The game has the foundations in there and is good to kill time with. Recent upgrades brought in monsters and furnaces.

Keep your phone in flight mode or get an alternate SIM

Unless you are going out on an adventure/traveling holiday where you need a lifeline, leave your phone in flight mode when you get off the plane. When going abroad, even receiving texts from your friends back home could incur charges, and if you enable mobile data, the charges get out of hand fast. In the UK, T-Mobile charges £1 for every megabyte downloaded. That’s right, just 1 megabyte.

But if you want to keep connected, we recommend buying a prepaid or pay-as-you-go SIM if your phone is unlocked. This way, you can still keep in touch while not necessarily incurring hefty roaming fees.

General Tips

Take another battery for the plane. If you’re on an extremely long flight then one full charge on your battery won’t be enough. You could always order a spare battery from third-party retailers, or buy a device that lets you use ordinary AA batteries to charge your gadgets.

Take spare headphones. Mine broke whilst I was away, but luckily I had worried about this while packing, so I threw a pair of old iPod headphones in with my kit as backup.

Get a case. Don’t take chances with something that you paid a lot of money for. Spend a few extra dollars and put your device in a case. Drop it whilst in your carefree holiday mood and that mood will be shattered and replaced with regret and sadness for quite some time. Get a case!

Final Thoughts

Obviously, you shouldn’t be wanting to use your phone all the time on your holiday. You should be soaking up the sun! However if over a two week period you find the monotony of everything a little much, you’ve got your Android phone to keep you company.

A car modifier and Android enthusiast has taken his new Nexus 7 and created a great in-dash holder for his 2008 Dodge Ram, and also linked up the charger and audio output.

As said in the video, many iPad installs have been done on vehicles, but the Nexus 7 is a cheaper (and we think better) alternative for in-car navigation and media.

So why bother doing this? Well, for starters, the Nexus 7 is great for media. The music application with its sleek cover flow would give an unprecedented experience if you like to enjoy your music while driving. You also get to use Google Maps, which has a navigation feature built in. You would need to acquire mapping for your area beforehand, though. Alternatively, just switch to a navigation application that uses OpenStreetMaps, such as MapFactor Navigator. This is a great app I have used abroad, and I thoroughly endorse it. Both the cover flow and maps are shown in the video below.

The Audison Bit One device which redistributes audio.

The audio output from the Nexus 7′s headphone jack goes into an Audison Bit One audio controller. You can play with an equaliser on the Audison device, or download an app to do it on the Nexus 7 (also shown in the video). The Audison device then pipes out the audio to all of the speakers in the Dodge Ram.

Back in March, I posted an article on an OEM Android car stereo from Clarion. Their system was a low-end Android device tailored for music, navigation and a couple of games, though. This “bay for Nexus 7″ idea for the Dodge Ram allows you to use your Nexus 7 at the office, then pop it into its holder and enjoy music/podcasts on the way home with a touchscreen interface.

Obviously not everyone (very, very few in fact) will want to gouge out part of their dashboard, and a lot of cars don’t even have room for something like this. Still, it’s a step towards the right direction. Android tablets might come integrated in cars in the future.

As always here is the original video, showing how the Nexus 7 fits in the Dodge Ram and what it is used for. Enjoy!

A wonderful video has been created to exhibit a potential future of visually augmented reality. Perhaps an eventual evolution of existing projects such as Google Glass.

This exceptional short film lets you see through the eyes of a ‘Sight’ user. ‘Sight’ is a fictional electronic contact lens system that utilizes Heads-Up-Displays and alters your perception of an environment. Not only is an incredible feat of special effects, but it brings to life so many ideas for augmented reality you have surely thought of these past few months.

Here is the original video on Vimeo, in full HD for your enjoyment. Let us know your thoughts, as always.

Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.