Outfit7, The Maker Of Talking Tom And Friends, Launches Real-Life Talking Toys That Can Be Controlled With An App

Just when you thought Talking Tom couldn't get any more annoying, he comes to life. Well, sort of. He's not really alive, but he's real. Err, he's a physical thing... not just an app anymore. The company behind Talking Tom and Friends, Outfit7, has now released a line of Talking Friends "Superstars" that can be controlled by an app. I still can't believe this is a real thing.

There are currently toys available of Tom, Angela, and Ginger - each of which can be controlled by this app. The app is, of course, free, but the annoying Talking Friends Superstars will set you back $50 a piece. And yes, it's OK if you never ever let your kids know that these exist. We don't blame you one bit.

If you feel you must buy one, though, you can find the whole collection here.

Via: Outfit7, The Maker Of Talking Tom And Friends, Launches Real-Life Talking Toys That Can Be Controlled With An App

[The Android Police Week In Review] The Biggest Android Stories Of The Week (11/18/12 - 11/25/12)

Welcome to the Android Police Week In Review - your source for the biggest Android stories of the week. Don't forget, you can catch a lot of these stories (and more) on our weekly podcast.
Features

• Getting to know Android 4.2, part one of Ron's twelve-volume epic.
• Android 4.2's kinda-sorta broken.
• Black Friday / Cyber Monday buyer's guide: don't end up with a phone / tablet that makes you want to hurt yourself or others.

Product Reviews

• DROID DNA: I love-hate it.
• One X+: It's the One X but better-er.
• Buhbo tablet case for kids: dawww.
• Spigen Coated backpack: it holds stuff. A lot of it.

Rumor Roundup

• Samsung's going to make a mobile chip with 8 cores, will allow you to multitask while you S-Voice while you SmartStay while you Pop Up Play while you get hit by a car walking across the street.

Android at Arms

• Peter Chou calls the $6-8 Apple royalty estimate "outrageous." So, it's less than that, is what you should be taking away here.

Code Google

• The Nexus 4 has LTE after all ... in Canada.
• Google linked to the T-Mobile version of the Nexus 4 on the Play Store and something ridiculously, extremely, highly usual happened: it sold out.
• Do you have Nexus anxiety? Use this handy checker to make it worse.
• Google finally decided to fix a 2.5 year-old networking bug in Android, because surprisingly it didn't fix itself in that time. Next on their list? That off-balance table in the lunch room that's had the same piece of cardboard under it for 8 years.
• Nexus 10 Toolkit: Break things the easy way.
• Eric's review of Ingress: It's good and stuff.
• The Nexus 10 is in stock again until it isn't anymore.
• Google might make you have Google+ to leave an app reviews on the Play Store, which is clearly a violation of the Geneva Convention and other human rights accords.
• Google Music now has more music. From Europe. Nifty.

The Hotsheet

• Unlocking the DROID DNA's bootloader - so easy a caveman could do it. Well, probably not, actually. He'd have to learn to type first. And read. I smell a new Rob Schneider movie.
• The Optimus G's bootloader is also unlockable, but I don't think I'm going to come up with a better joke about it.
• Device Updates: Archos 80 / 101 G9 and 101XS, Galaxy Nexus (Yakju).

App Roundups

• 38 best new apps and live wallpapers from the last three weeks.
• 26 best new games from the last two weeks.

App Update

• CyanogenMod's open source Apollo music player has been removed from the Play Store because of copyright infringement, something resembling irony.
• There's some Black Friday sale business going on with a bunch of stuff on the Play Store.
• Ermah gerd: Berder's Gert fer Andrerd!
• Game Review: Paper Monsters.
• Game Review: Waking Mars.
• Vice City is coming to Android. Velour track suit, gold necklace, and Guns 'N Roses album not included.
• Amazon now has an official tablet app, and coincidentally, my bank account now has less money.

Via: [The Android Police Week In Review] The Biggest Android Stories Of The Week (11/18/12 - 11/25/12)

[Deal Alert] LG Intuition On Verizon Wireless Only $99 For New Contracts And Upgrades From Amazon Wireless

Maybe you like the whole phablet idea. Maybe the thought of a handset with an aspect ratio which rivals that of your old CRT monitor sounds like a good thing to you. Really, it sounds like you actually want the Intuition from LG.
If that's the case, why spend full price? Verizon's asking $150 with a two-year agreement for this oversized behemoth. You can now get the same phone, with the same plan, for just $99 from Amazon Wireless. That's a much better deal.

Specs

• Screen: 5.0" 1024x768 (4:3 aspect ratio) display with Gorilla Glass
• CPU: 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4
• RAM: 1GB
• Storage: 32GB (no microSD slot)
• Cameras: 8MP rear, 1.3MP front, both with voice-activated picture taking
• Battery: 2080mAh (non-removable)
• Rubberdium pen
• Connectivity: MicroUSB, CDMA, LTE, Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n, NFC
• OS: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

Sound like your dream phone-tablet thing? Hit the link below to make it yours.
Amazon Wireless

Via: [Deal Alert] LG Intuition On Verizon Wireless Only $99 For New Contracts And Upgrades From Amazon Wireless

T-Mobile Updates Official Visual Voicemail App With Annoying Banner Ads

The nation's smallest carrier has to score points with customers somewhere, and providing free visual voicemail has been one of those places. Some of the big players charge Android users a monthly fee for this feature. Well, T-Mobile has to defray the monstrously large costs of making your voicemail easier to access somehow, right? In the newest version of T-Mobile's official visual voicemail app, it has chosen to include banner ads. The users are not amused.

Instead of showing you a full list of your messages, the UI cuts off the bottom and instead displays a banner ad. The content is the usual kind of spam you see in other apps: dating sites, free apps that want your data, and products you'll never use. Strangely, tapping on the ads does not reach out to the Android system handler to open an appropriate app T-Mobile has added a built-in browser to its voicemail app so it can load ads. So an ad for an item in the Play Store doesn't open the Play Store; it opens the visual voicemail browser and loads the app's webpage. Bizarre.
T-Mobile advertises the visual voicemail app as an included feature of all its data packages (voicemail transcription costs extra). It feels a little slimy to start pumping ads into everyone's official T-Mobile apps. Users are currently hammering T-Mobile with 1-star reviews in the store, but the app never had a high rating in the first place. Now might be the time to get conditional call forwarding set up so you can use Google Voice instead of T-Mobile's voicemail system.
[Thanks, Dan]

Via: T-Mobile Updates Official Visual Voicemail App With Annoying Banner Ads

Apollo, CM's Music Player, Pulled From The Play Store Due To Alleged Copyright Infringement

On Monday of this week, Apollo - the default music player in Cyanogenmod - was released to the Play Store in both free and paid variants. As of yesterday, just four days after its release, both versions of the app have been pulled due to alleged copyright infringement.
Andrew Neal, the app's creator, took to his Google+ page to let users know what happened:

Hey, just to let those of you who noticed that Apollo and Apollo+ are no longer in the Play Store know, MusixMatch filed a complaint and had them removed for alleged copyright infringement due to the way that Apollo fetches lyrics. I'm looking into the best way to handle this, and will be trying to get Apollo back into the store ASAP. That's all I know for now.

Unfortunately, that's all the information we have at this time. As stated above, Andrew is trying to find a quick and efficient way to correct this issue - but Google doesn't normally take accusations of copyright infringement in the Play Store very lightly, so it could be a few weeks before we actually see Apollo and Apollo+ become available again.
We'll keep you posted of any new information as it arises.
[via Reddit]

Via: Apollo, CM's Music Player, Pulled From The Play Store Due To Alleged Copyright Infringement