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Final Fantasy VII Now Available For Android

July 7, 2016 By Daniel Giordano Leave a Comment

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Aerith, as seen in the Final Fantasy VII animation.

Final Fantasy VII is one of the games who has stood the tests of time. With its initial release in 1997, the seventh installment in the always popular Final Fantasy series is nearing a decade of popularity.

The decade marker has been hit by several games in the past but those games have received balance patches over the years. The gameplay style of other cult classic decade-old games additionally had more replayability offering either several multiple choices or mechanics such as New Game Plus.

Final Fantasy VII inspired sequels and prequels, novels, comic books, and a movie to name a few. In 2015 it was announced that the game was finally receiving an overly demanded remake, but there is talk that it may end up a different game altogether.

Android users are now able to buy, download, and play Final Fantasy VII on their smart devices. Considering there is almost no chance for even the Remake version ever to make it to Xbox Consoles, Android is the last platform on which the game finally arrived.

VALVe re-brought the game to attention in 2013, when it became available for purchase on the Steam Store. The iOS Store received its version of Final Fantasy VII in August 2015. Sony also made the game replayable to the PlayStation 4 in December 2015, almost nine years after its original release on the first PlayStation in January 1997.

Final Fantasy VII for Android is priced at $16 and requires 2GB of storage space to play but a bit over 4GB to initially install, making the classic a steep investment not compatible with older devices.

Much like the iOS version, the Android release of Final Fantasy allows players to skip random fights, and to max out all their values entirely minimizing the duration of the otherwise lengthy combat scenes. Realistically, the game is only affected by a strategic system alone as some fights can still be lost with poor choices even when having capped out stats.

The original code of the game also comes with its caveats for smart devices. Android users are advised to safe as often as they remember and to also backup their saves. A glitch which will probably never be fixable unless the engine for Final Fantasy VII is made open source affects how data is stored in the game.

The glitch causes sudden crashes with no data saved on forced exit leading players to lose all their unsaved data or sometimes all their game data, hence the backups. Even so, Final Fantasy is a cult classic for a reason and is worth the time of any lover of the genre.

Is The Final Fantasy VII Remake Coming Out On The 10th Anniversary In January 2017?

Image and Videos Courtesy of YouTube.

Paper Declared Obsolete By Facebook

July 1, 2016 By Nicholas Anderton Leave a Comment

Facebook will be discontinuing the Paper app for iOS.

Facebook is Taking Paper to the Farm.

On February 3rd, 2014 Facebook launched its newest app, simply called Paper, on the iOS App Store. The app was meant to be a virtual magazine or newspaper for the iPhone. It was a stand-alone feature, not anchored in any direct way to the Facebook interface.

Facebook Creative Labs and Paper

Paper was a well-received app by the iOS user community. It had been designed, created, and updated by the Facebook Creative Labs team. The app was, in fact, the first finished product of Creative Labs and its positive reviews and acclaim encouraged the team to continue. Facebook Creative Labs carried on to specialize in many different experiences and to develop several other apps.

Facebook wanted to create an app that was also a magazine. The app could present a large amount of discoverable content on an iPhone screen without overwhelming its readers. Tilting, as a motion gesture, was heavily integrated into the app, adding to the ease of use and unique experience of the app. Finally, Facebook allowed for curator and third-party collaboration.

Many iOS users considered Paper’s better and more streamlined display and functionality to be an improvement from the actual Facebook app. Creative Labs was even asked several times to try and upgrade the social media interface to resemble Paper’s accessibility and dynamics.

In less than three months from Paper’s release, Facebook listened to the voice of the masses and allowed iOS users to access several Facebook features through Paper. In addition, the company re-published the app’s animation engine as open-source.

Dying Hype

The last update for the app was released on March 11th, 2015. The Creative Labs team still offered full support for the app but would not continue to develop the app. Several of Paper’s features were becoming part of the main Facebook app.

Facebook’s Creative Labs was disbanded at the end of 2015 and Paper user support was drastically reduced. While new content was still being updated onto the app, direct third party collaboration began to diminish.

On June 29th, Facebook finally announced that Paper will be discontinued. The app is no longer available for download on the iOS App Store. All updates and support will be discontinued on July 29th. As continuous upgrades were done to the Facebook interface and its apps and Instant Articles currently covers most of Paper’s core features, the app was regarded as obsolete.

Image and Video Courtesy of YouTube.

An App Will Tell if You are Pregnant

January 7, 2016 By Micheal Baptiste Leave a Comment

First you have to download the app

Forget about peeing on a stick and waiting for bars or pluses and minuses to appear, from now on an app will tell if you are pregnant.

First Response Pregnancy Pro is the future of pregnancy tests, presented this week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show.

As the company brags, it is the first connected pregnancy test in history and no, it does not require you to pee on your smartphone.

First Response is basically working as any other test as you still have to sit on the toilet with a stick in your hand. But this is not any ordinary plastic stick! It is connected via Bluetooth with your smartphone or tablet.

So to benefit from First Response’s features you have to follow some steps in an exact order: first buy the test for a modest price between $15 and $20; then download the First Response Pregnancy Pro app from App Store or Play Store; set up the app by responding some questions; turn on the Bluetooth and connect the stick; pee on the stick and wait for the response to appear on your phone. Now enjoy or cry.

The test will ask you in the beginning if you are trying to get pregnant and when was your last day of menstrual cycle. Based on your answers the app will give you completely different experiences during the test.

Women who were trying to get pregnant but the tests shown them a negative answer are going to receive indications and resources to increase their future chances.

From the moment you’ve done the test to the moment when you get the results there is a three minute waiting time. For women taking the test these three minutes are a very stressful period so the app developers collaborated with content providers to keep you company during those hard moments.

You can choose what you prefer to do during the three minutes: get educated, get calmed down or be entertained and the app will give you what you wish. If you choose education the app will display pregnancy-related info while if you want to stay calm it shows meditation exercises and if you prefer to be entertained it will display Buzzfeed videos.

The app won’t deliver the news until you provide a security code that you will find on the stick. Developers say this is a safety measure which helps the user keep their results private.

If you are trying to get pregnant and the result is positive the app will provide a lot of useful information such as important milestones and questions to ask your doctor.

Image source: First Response

Invitation Email Requirement Could Cause Inbox to Be a Bust

October 24, 2014 By Micheal Baptiste Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, Google launched its new smartphone alternative to emailing: Inbox. Currently, the app is available by invitation only and its goal is pretty straightforward. Google wanted users to be able to organize, sync, group and bring together all the important content that the user requires in any given day. And such an idea is uniquely appealing to many people, especially since the email is considered to be the old horse that just keeps on galloping. Anyone from small business owners to self-employed, multi-taskers or just casual email users can benefit from Google’s apparent spectacular new app.

There is a twist, however, to this seemingly perfect Google story. Many of those quite enthusiastic to try out Google inbox have already begun to question the legitimacy of the tech giant’s initiative because of the mandatory invitation. Inbox requires an invitation to join, regardless of the fact that it is already available in App Store and in the Play Store.

As such, some wonder whether Google has lost touch with what is important to its users. And while they may not know precisely what you particularly want, they have a general concept about what the average email user desires. Google believes that the goal is organizing rather than prioritizing (despite the fact that marketing of the app has been unclear in that regard, letting many believe that Google and the Inbox app will eventually believe to make choices for the user).

But the fact is that all Google attempted to do was to employ its Google Now technologies into a user-friendly email application that would modernize the email experience and synergize various types of features.

The goal of the app wasn’t to replace Gmail, but to rather put a modern spin on the modern man’s necessity, the email, and transform it into an app that could also meet his changing needs.

Jack Gold, an independent analyst, studied Google’s app and believes that this may actually be a slippery slope for the tech giant, if Inbox fails to keep up with its end of the bargain and efficiently organize.

“The issue is, how does an overseer sort through all the communications and accurately predict what’s important to the user? It’s not an easy task.”

Gold said on Thursday.

There have been some to argue that Inbox will learn the behavior of the user, but that speaks to what Google Now is already about.

“It will learn which contacts are important to you and which topics you tend to actually read and respond to rather than delete.”

Rob Enderle, an analyst for the Enderle Group said.

Regardless, only time will tell if users will appreciate the process of requesting to be brought into the app via App Store or Play Store and then having to request to join via email.

Facebook’s Rooms App Makes for Unique Anonymous Chatting

October 24, 2014 By Brandi McCants Leave a Comment

Do you remember the anonymous internet forums that dominated the mid-2000s? Facebook has launched a new iPhone app meant to bring back precisely those experiences that the internet used to provide back when everything could be anonymous.

“Rooms” is an app that brings anonymous internet forums to your smartphone, functioning like a newsfeed or tiny message board. The Room gets a name, a wallpaper and afterwards, people are invited to share anything from text to photos or videos.

The most notable feature of Rooms, however, is the fact that users choose different identities whenever they enter a new room and because the app does not require a link to Facebook, Twitter or Google+ profiles, anonymity is ensured. Some Rooms have already been set up by the app’s team. Early users are dedicated to trainers, home-cooked food or Kendama, the traditional Japanese cup and ball toy.

Additionally, users can basically customize their Rooms to their liking, for instance renaming the “like” button or choosing an emoji-icon they like. If your room is connected to gardening, why not upvote the content in it by using a large tree or a flower? Invitations to join particular rooms are sent out by using QR codes which look like cinema tickets.

The invitation can be sent out on Facebook or Twitter, sent via text message or email and all the user has to do is screenshot the one he or she prefers and the Room automatically becomes a new board on the app’s homescreen.

Rooms is designed to allow more than just your Facebook friends to enter the chat- it’s more than just a place to organize days out. What Rooms aims is to become a place where like-minded people discuss topics they’re interested in. Rooms also allows users to make the content of the board searchable or mark it 18+ only.

However, there is something that Facebook has to overcome: the difficulty with which the app can become famous. Since it is a mobile-only and invite-based app, it will have to be spread by word of mouth and since people might not always be into what you like, users could have difficulties in actuallly finding rooms they’re interested in.

What Facebook knows for certain, however, is that the future of the web is mobile and that the pseudonymous message boards have been and will continue to be immensely popular. Rooms may just be the next best thing for Facebook, all they need is for someone to start the party.