Google Play now considers user engagement, not just downloads, in ranking games

Nexus 5X smartphone, co-developed by LG Electronics Inc. and Google Inc., and manufactured by LG Electronics, sit on display at the NTT Docomo Inc. unveiling in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015. Docomo, Japans largest mobile-phone carrier by subscribers, introduced 10 smartphone models today. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images Google is making a significant change to how its app store, Google Play, will work in terms of making the best games more easily discoverable by end users. At the Game Developers Conference, the company announced that it recently tuned its app store algorithms to take into account user engagement, and not just downloads in order to better reward quality titles, as opposed to those that are… Read More
Android – TechCrunch

The $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W is the teeniest little Wi-Fi-enabled computer you’ve ever seen

img_3020 When the original $ 5 Raspberry Pi Zero came out – to much fanfare, I might add – users connected it to all sorts of things. They made micro gaming rigs that ran on the 1GHz single-core CPU and added Pi Hats – little breakout boards – to power robots and sensors. Now you can do all that but without worrying about a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth dongle. The $ 10 Pi Zero W is the… Read More

Gadgets – TechCrunch

Kado wants to make the world’s thinnest charger

screen-shot-2017-02-28-at-6-51-00-am What can you wrap up in ribbons? Stick in your sock? And what can you take out in public and not get thrown in the dock? The Kado phone charger, of course. This new product by Itay Hasid and Daniel Assis is making the rounds at MWC and is essentially the “world’s thinnest wall charger for smartphones.” Obviously a wall charger isn’t that exciting but the pair raised… Read More

Gadgets – TechCrunch

LG proves that taller screens are the future of smartphones

lg-g6-1 Bigger screens don’t cut it anymore. Now, we need taller screens. I’ve been playing with the LG G6 for the past 24 hours. In many ways, it is just another phone. But the company is trying something new with a 2:1 aspect ratio display — essentially a normal 16:9 display that can fit a few extra lines of text at the top and bottom. And it makes a big difference. At first, I… Read More

Gadgets – TechCrunch

Watch Huawei’s MWC conference live right here

screen-shot-2017-02-25-at-6-04-00-pm Huawei’s press conference at MWC in Barcelona is about to begin. The conference starts at 2 PM CET (1 PM GMT, 8 AM EST). The company has already said that it’ll unveil the P10, its new flagship phone. You can expect a double camera system and a big update across the board. Huawei has become a leading brand, especially in China. So it’s going to be interesting to see how… Read More

Gadgets – TechCrunch