Android Axis

– Seecrypt Mobile allows everyday people to make and receive unlimited calls and texts in complete privacy all over the world.

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, May 7, 2013 — Seecrypt Group Inc. announced today the launch of Seecrypt Mobile, a new software-only communications app which allows registered users to make and receive unlimited, secure voice calls and text messages in real-time between Seecrypt Mobile-enabled devices anywhere in the world.

Currently available for Apple and Android smartphones, Seecrypt Mobile has an easy-to-use interface, similar to popular social messaging apps. Seecrypt Mobile is a compelling privacy service that is simple to use, easy to share, and looks and feels like your favourite apps. But more importantly, the app protects your private conversations over any public network.

The number of smartphones in use globally crossed 1 billion for the first time last year and will double by 2015. “For smartphone users who value their privacy, Seecrypt Mobile provides an unmatched level of protection,” said Mornay Walters, CEO and Co-Founder of Seecrypt. “From personal to business users alike, whether at home or on the road, we think they’ll find the service invaluable.”

Using double layer, end-to-end, military-grade encryption techniques, Seecrypt users are given true privacy around the globe, wherever they might be. Each and every new call or message is encrypted on the device with a unique key. This affords peace of mind and maximum protection when communicating with another trusted Seecrypt user.

By using narrowband and adaptive voice compression, Seecrypt Mobile is extremely conservative on data usage, consuming data well below the current benchmark of standard voice applications. Seecrypt Mobile operates securely over any Internet-connected network worldwide, from Mobile (2G/EDGE, 3G, 4G/LTE) to Wi-Fi, and even Satellite Broadband networks, which allows for making data roaming calls more cost effective. This is a major benefit to users with poor cellular coverage or those who suffer on congested networks.

Encrypting real-time data and handling large volumes of users are both challenging and equally critical. “Creating a scalable encrypted voice-over-data application that can operate with minimal latency anywhere in the world is not easy,” said Walters. “Seecrypt met and surpassed this challenge by using a set of proprietary protocols and a carrier grade back-end infrastructure that operates on a privately controlled and globally deployed network.”

The Seecrypt Mobile app is available as a free download on Google Play and the App Store. All first-time users receive a three-month, no-obligation ‘free-to-use’ account. By participating in the referral program, users will earn an extra free month for each new subscriber referred, up to a maximum of one year free. Thereafter, unlimited service costs $3 a month.

About Seecrypt:

Seecrypt Group Inc. is a privately owned and funded software development company anchored in the Cayman Islands, with regional presence in the United States, Europe and Middle East. Development and network operations are located in Pretoria, South Africa.

For more information on Seecrypt, please visit www.seecrypt.com

CONTACT: Spence Bovee, Seecrypt Global Marketing,
spence.bovee@seecrypt.com, U.S.: +1 310 722 9191, Seecrypt secure
voice/text: +2810 722 9191

Web site: https://www.seecrypt.com/

Note: the following is directly from the android market and is NOT an AndroidAxis review.

DSLR Controller is the first and only app that allows you to fully control your Canon EOS DSLR from your Android device with only a USB cable. No computer or laptop required, no root required, only a compatible mobile device, a compatible camera, and the right USB cable.

NOTICE: This is a BETA / PRE-RELEASE version. The product is not finished yet and there will still be issues. Due to massive demand and a great many requests to release it is being released early. Please read the entire description (specifically REQUIREMENTS) and the discussion web page (listed under BETA). The price will go up once v1.0 is reached, but the upgrade is free for those who have this BETA.

Features
——–

Features include but are not limited to:

- Live View
- Auto Focus (tap Live View)
- Manual focus adjustments in Auto Focus mode
- Histogram
- Zoom control
- Grid display
- Bulb capture
- Continuous capture
- Extensive modification of settings
— Shutter speed
— Aperture
— Exposure Compensation and Bracket
— Flash Compensation
— ISO speed
— Auto-Focus Mode
— Focus and Zoom area (tap-and-hold Live View)
— Picture Style
— Drive Mode
— White Balance
— Colour Temperature
— Auto-Lighting Optimizer
— Metering Mode

Note that available options depend on the mode you have your camera set to (M, Av, Tv, etc)

Controls
——–

You can tap anything on screen that looks like a button to bring up a configuration dialogue for that option. If an option is not available, it will not look like a button.

Additionally, after you have used an option, or you long-press said option, it will become highlighted. The highlighted option is configurable using the volume up and volume down buttons.

Tap the live view image to perform Auto Focus (if the lens is not set to Manual Focus). Tap-and-hold to move the zoom and focus area (red rectangle, availability depends on current focus mode)

The capture button works the same as the capture button on your camera, but it only does “deep” presses, not “half” presses. For example, in continuous or bulb shooting mode, tap-and-hold the capture button as long as you want to shoot.

Usage
—–

Install the app on your device, then connect your camera. A pop-up should ask you if you want to open DSLR Controller. Tap yes, and you should be in business.

BETA
—-

There are various known issues in this BETA. The most common ones are communication errors and freezes – including the live view still working but buttons not responding. When such an issue occurs, we strongly advise disconnecting your camera, turning it off and on, rebooting your Android device, and only then trying again.

Further information and discussion (MUST READ) about the BETA can be found in the XDA-Developers thread here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1202082

Future
——

There are many features on the to-do list. Including for example video support, timelapse, scripting, and image review and transfer.

Requirements
————

- Android device with USB host support
- Canon EOS DSLR
- Correct USB host / OTG / On-The-Go cable for your device

Tablets running Honeycomb have USB host support in software. This does not guarantee hardware-compatibility.

Phones running Gingerbread or earlier do not officially have USB host support, BUT the Samsung Galaxy S2 (firmware KG1 or newer only) does support USB host. At the moment, as far as we know, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the ONLY PHONE with USB host support available in its software.

The USB cable you use is very important. It will ONLY work with the proper USB host / OTG / On-The-Go cable for your device. “Rolling your own cable” using various USB cables and connectors you have lying around will NOT WORK.

DSLR controller has been tested with the following hardware:

- Samsung Galaxy S2 (KG1 firmware and newer)
- Motorola Xoom

- Canon EOS
— 550D
— 50D
— 7D
— 5D mk II
— 1D mk IV

If you have the cable, a compatible phone and an EOS camera (and you buy the app), please let us know if it works for you.

Also, if you know where to get a cable like that in South Africa, please let the rest of us know.

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. If you live by these words, this app was made for you.

Planning out your entire week is a bummer – Do It Tomorrow lets you give yourself reminders for today, but makes it really easy to push things off to tomorrow. Party today, do tasks tomorrow!

Features:
* Full virtual todo notebook experience
* Simple interface – just todo and just today and tomorrow
* Easily check off tasks as completed or delete them altogether
* Sync your Todos with cloud synchronization! (Free syncing and backup)
* Reorder your existing todos.
* Edit todos in-place.

This little moleskin look-alike has a very basic, yet aesthetic look and feel. The interface is very self explanatory with just 2 days in it; Today and Tomorrow. The default font looks like a neat hand-writing that some may find a little harder to read. However, this is very easy to change in the settings.

One great feature is the syncing, although, If you’re that that much of a procrastinator, would you really want to sync it with your significant other? Apparently a tablet version is in development and will be released soon.

To download this free app now (or a little later) hit up the download links below

Google Maps Navigation, a standard feature on all Android phones for ages has finally been enabled for South Africa. The big announcement was brought to us at the Sony Ericsson Android event in Johannesburg earlier today.

We verified that it is indeed up and running in Cape Town and Johannesburg. This is very big news, especially in South Africa, where dedicated propriety GPS devices are still selling like mad.

If you didn’t already know, some of the highlights of Google Maps Navigation are:

• Free turn-by-turn, voice-assisted navigation
• Multiple Layers (Satellite, Traffic, Points of Interest)
• Google Streetview navigation (where available)
• Navigate by Voice
• Search along Routes “Offline Reliability” with Map Caching along Routes
• Separate navigation volume control so that it doesn’t impact your media volume

We do not have all the functionality (like live traffic and transit layers) yet, but they will be coming soon.

For more information about Google Maps Navigation, go to the official site, and check out the relevant posts on the official Google Mobile blog.

So fire up your Google Navigation and let us know in the comments if it’s working for you too. If the navigation is still bloat-ware for you (not working), please let us know as well, along with where you are in South Africa.

[ via ZADROID ]

FNB have released their smartphone app for iPhone, Blackberry and Android which is a huge improvement on their mobile banking site, which I only ever visited when they had a competition where you could win a prize by finding some hidden dots.

FNB have gone to great lengths to ensure that the appropriate security measures are in place. You have to link the app to your online banking account and then log on to online banking to complete the process, which involves approval of the linking process by entering your OTP as well as a confirmation OTP. Online banking displays an image of the phone that you’re linking but they seem to always display an HTC phone for all Android devices, even if your phone happens to be a Nexus S or RBM HD. FNB could have simplified the process by allowing the OTP’s to be entered directly into the App instead of having to log on to online banking to complete the process, which basically defeats the whole object of having a mobile app in the first place.

The start-up screen features animated graphics and sound effects which could have rather been replaced by a static FNB logo in order to to reduce the excessive size of the app, which is close to 20Mb. The animation can also be extremely annoying when you have to wait for it to load only to be told that you currently don’t have internet connectivity and then have to exit the app and watch the animation all over again. FNB really need to remove this in the next version of the app.

The app includes a handy branch locator, but it would be useful if the branch code could be included in the branch information.

FNB already have a separate FNB Connect app, but they have also bundled it into the banking app so that you have the option of either using FNB Connect or your Cellular Provider to make a call to their numbers listed under the “Contact Us” menu. This feature only bloats the application unnecessarily and most people don’t even notice the tiny little icon that you need to click on in order to be able to bring up your contact list in order to be able to fully utilise the FNB Connect feature.

The interface to transfer money and make payments is really clean and simple, and the slot machine effect is really useful for easily browsing through your list of recipients. It allows transfers and payments to be done extremely efficiently by simply entering an amount and a reference number.

The FNB App is simple to use and provides a convenient, easy and secure way to do your banking any time and anywhere.

With the FNB App you can:

• Access your banking accounts (view account balances; detailed transaction history)
• Make payments to third parties
• Transfer funds between your accounts
• Other value added services, such as:
• Use Location Based Services to find FNB ATMs or Branches
• Make and receive calls (powered by FNB Connect), including FREE calls to FNB Call Centres
• View Forex Rates

Anyone can download the FNB App, but you need to be a FNB customer registered for FNB Online Banking to use the transactional services.

Living in South Africa and owning a smart phone can be a really expensive thing with the cost of data and how easy it is to burn through your allotted bandwidth at an alarming rate.

Whereas our previously reviewed ZDBox is a great tool for letting you know how much data you still have on your plan, It doesn’t take the next step and let you know where it’s all going. When installed it keeps track of your plan type (monthly or pay-as-you-go), amount of data included per month, and the 1st day of your billing cycle.

Whereas we strongly recommend that you don’t use data roaming while travelling (We’ve all heard the nightmarish stories of  bills in the tens of thousands of rands), This app will keep track of exactly how much you are using while roaming. From then on it will log your use of mobile data, roaming mobile data, and Wi-Fi data used.

You’re also able to set up 3 warnings for each of the categories (3G/Wi-Fi/Roaming) when they reach a certain amount of data. One small drawback—the app will not work if moved to an SD card. It only takes up 1.1mb of space, so this shouldn’t be a big deal for most users.

Where this app really shines is in recording what app is using how much data. So if you find that you’re running out of data on day 3 of the month, you can have a look at this app and see what’s chewing it all up.

My Data Manager is a free app with ads displayed for Android 2.2 or better. You can also buy a pro version without ads for R28.79.
Free:

Paid:

Age of Wind 2 indulges the side of us that would like to go off with Captain Jack Sparrow and look to make our own fortune. After an opening “story” sequence where you’re tossed overboard from an exceptional ship, you’re left to start with your own crew and a smaller vessel, hopefully to achieve success.

Yo ho!

Age of Wind 2 plays a lot like one of my favourite titles, Sid Meier’s Pirates!. In that title, you would take on the role of a budding young pirate, patrolling the Caribbean and plundering how you’d like. The game was great because it was a sandbox game with a great premise: you could choose national allegiance and help them gain dominance over the Spanish Main, or just wreck everyone.

Age of Wind 2 is obviously a bit pared down, as the politics system of “Pirates!” isn’t present here. However, a number of similar mechanics do make an appearance here, like economies that fluctuate based on where you are in the world.

While visiting ports, you have the opportunity to trade goods, upgrade your ship, or buy a new one. Upgrades are based on a “star” system, where improving certain parts of your ship gives it more efficiency. Docking also gives you the chance to repair your ship, this can be a bit costly – so rather just avoid taking on any damage.

Combat is achieved by sailing close to an enemy vessel; this is kind of frustrating, as there are times I would much rather run or pass by a threatening ship before it has “seen” me and decides to fight. Because the camera’s locked into a different style (in order to accommodate combat) it’s very difficult to see where you’re trying to run. However, that being said, you can hold down the “telescope” button to see where you’re going, but your ship still slows down.

The Combat

When you do want to fight, though, the controls are actually quite decent – as long as you turn on the on-screen controls in “options” beforehand. I find that when developers try to make the main function of their game based on tilt controls, it either turns out to be very frustrating or surprisingly intuitive: this game falls into the latter category, as it shows the real difficulty of sailing a ship.

Activating the on-screen steering wheel eliminates much of the frustration that comes with trying to turn by tilting, and makes it much easier to end fights without becoming terribly damaged. The game encourages you to avoid shots as opposed to taking them: this is definitely smart, as repairs are costly and early ships don’t have the greatest amount of health.

You have an unlimited amount of ammunition for your cannons, which I can say takes some strategy out of fighting, but is a simplified move for a mobile game. Killing enemy ships gives you a number of drops, like crates of supplies (which you can sell), health pickups or barrels of rum, which fuel your special shots.

These one-use ammunition variants include flaming shots and cannon balls held together by chains, which tear enemies’ sails and slows them down. While enemy ships have health bars as indicators of how much you’ve damaged them, I would have liked something a little more deep, like visible wreckage in the water.

The Eye Candy

The game looks beautiful, as ships and water are rendered quite gracefully. While it might be a bit much to ask for fully-rendered cutscenes, the addition of drawn scenes on parchment does the job well enough.

The camera, again, serves to hamper things a little bit by being a bit too angled for my tastes: about half of your screen real estate is taken up by sky. While this looks great, the angle makes it a bit difficult to differentiate things on the horizon, and eliminates a large part of what’s behind you, as well. While it’s better than always being stuck in the combat view (which gives you a whole lot more water), I’d like to be able to have a little more awareness.

Wrap-Up

I can honestly recommend Age of Wind 2 because it pulls of a premise that could have been screwed up immensely. The game is actually quite playable, and looks to give you a decent playground in which to flex your pirate skills. The controls and camera may take some getting used to, but this game is the closest thing you will have to pirate freedom on your phone.

Age of Wind 2 offers a free trial in order to see if the game’s right for you, and is only R13.42 to buy.

Full:

Demo:

[via Android Police]

If you haven’t heard yet, Google+ is Google’s shiny new full blown take on social networking. If you have been so lucky as to be part of the initial field test, there is an official Android app now available on the market. For the rest of us, we can take a quick peek at what the app will offer once the service has rolled out for public consumption, whenever that may be.

Google+ is obviously a bit of a big deal. Of course what social networking service would be complete without a mobile app or two. Google+ will be bringing several of the key features to your Android phone in a neat, pretty package to help you get hooked on the new service. The main features are your Stream, Circles, Huddles, and Instant Upload.

One of the big differentiating points for Google+ is that it will let you divide your friends into “Circles,” something any high schooler who is friends with their grandma will tell you is a great idea. The Circles feature of the app lets you share statuses, pictures, etc. with your particular groups of friends. Likewise, you’ll be able to view all of your friends, from any Circle’s updates in the Stream.
Huddle, pictured below, is for group chats, and if the Market’s description is to be trusted, its fast. This is probably what I’m most excited about for Google+ in general. Huddles will be part of the Google+ app, but a seperate Huddle+ app is installed with it. Texting multiple people on Android, or any smartphone isn’t very clean and this looks like it just might be. We’ll have to see if it can live up to my expectations whenever Google decides to let me into the party.

The last major feature is Instant Upload. This will let you upload any pictures and videos you take on your phone automatically to the Google+. The app has permissions to Picasa albums, so it may just be storing them there, but you will be able to view and share them from Google+ as well as the app.
If this app doesn’t have you convinced yet, Google’s serious about this one. What do you think? Are you ready to replace your Facebook app with a Google+ app? Or do you need to give it a try first? Either way you can bet if Android continues to be a big part of it we’re excited to see how things shape up!

[via androidcommunity]

Bithack has developed a game that brings back the days of “The Incredible Machine”, or “Tim” as it was called.

Apparatus, is an addictive, brainteasing game for your phone or tablet device. The only thing stopping you from getting the marble to it’s goal are the laws of physics and limits to your creativity.

You’ll begin the game with a few objects and a single goal: to deliver a marble to a blue, bucket-like container. You’re free to build any kind of machine you want with the materials you’re given, and creativity is essential.

You can also use the hammer or wrench tools to connect wooden planks, wheels, and other objects. Cables can be used to link up batteries to motors. You’ll need to build bridges, set up see-saws, swing with ropes, build rolling vehicles, or just give the marble a complex, Rube Goldberg-style roller-coaster ride.

You’ll sometimes need to create a fabulously complex mechanism for moving the marble a few centimetres and other times construct a sleek, efficient structure that’ll allow the marble to travel a for what seems like kilometres (okay, maybe just a few meters) in as few steps as possible. Whereas there’s no fixed way to complete all the levels, there’s usually one much easier way. But where’s the fun in that?

Once you’ve got your pieces in place, hit the “play” button at the top of the screen. This will kick start gravity and get the ball rolling, and then you’ll see how your creation stands up to the test of physics: if it falls apart, or the marble gets obstructed at some point instead of being delivered to the blue basket, you’ll know immediately that your machine will need more work.

Play Challenge Levels or Go Freestyle

There are two ways to play Apparatus: Either you can progress from level to level, as in a standard video game, or you can do your own thing and go straight to the Sandbox for free-build mode.

In conventional play, the early levels teach you how to play the game and go through some basic concepts, so you should probably do this first. The more you progress, the more freedom the challenge levels provide; many levels can be solved in many different ways. Of course, they also get more difficult as you go along.

If you don’t have the inclination (or patience) to face the challenge levels, why not just play around in the Sandbox and build whatever comes to mind? After touching the Sandbox prompt in the main menu, you’ll be presented with an empty level. All possible materials and tools will be at your disposal, and the only rule will be gravity. Here’s where you can really set your creativity loose.

Unfortunately the free-build mode is only available in the Pro version which costs around R13.84 (at current exchange rate).

Building the Community One Machine at a Time

If you’re really proud of one of your creations, share it with other Apparatus players. Every time you complete a level, you can go into free-build mode and modify the level however you like. If you make the level better, or just harder, you can upload it to the Community section and let other people play the modified level.

Same goes for your Sandbox. After you’ve created something amazing, log in to your free account and share the machine with anyone else out there. You can download and comment on other players’ creations, too.

And the nod from Amazon? Amazon are currently giving away the Pro version for free in their US-only Android market.

Apparatus has been verified to work on the following devices:
• Nexus One
• Samsung Galaxy S
• HTC Desire HD
• HTC Desire
• Samsung Galaxy Tab
• ZTE Blade

But they should work on any that have met the minimum requirements:
• A minimum processor speed of 600MHz
• A screen resolution of 800 x 480
• Android 1.6 (Donut)

Size: 11.6MB
Version: 0.9853
Developed By: Bithack

Lite Version:

Pro Version:

It’s here! The planet has it’s very first 7-inch (18cm) Android 3.2 tablet! Huawei (the Makers of the Red Bull Mobile phone available through Cell C) just introduced a beautiful new tablet over in Singapore, with CommunicAsia being the launchpad for the 7″ MediaPad. It’s the first big-brand 7-inch tablet we’ve seen in a while, and at the same time, it’s managed to beat most of the currently shipping Honeycomb tablets with a build of Android we’ve only been dreaming about.

Huawei informs us that Honeycomb 3.2 is basically the same as 3.1, but specifically tailored to 7-inch tablets as opposed to 10-inch (what that means, we’re not quite sure). Stuffed in the MediaPad’s 10.5mm shell, there’s a 217 pixels-per-inch capacitive touch-screen, GPS, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, 802.11n WiFi and a battery good for around six hours of use. The real eye-catcher is the CPU: a dual-core 1.2GHz chip from Qualcomm.

It’s got a bit more bulk than the new Galaxy Tab 10.1 (8.6mm), but still slimmer than the original Tab, which (by today’s standards is a chunky 11.98mm. It weighs in at 390g, supports full 1080p playback, includes HSPA+ (14.4Mbps) 3G support, has 8GB of internal storage (as well as a microSD slot) and of course, comes loaded with Facebook and Twitter. It’s also got Let’s Golf and Documents To Go pre-loaded. There’s also a Bluetooth module, an HDMI output for watching your HD movies on any HDMI-capable TV or computer monitor. It’s also got the Flash 10.3 player which will ensure that you can enjoy all of the web’s content.

Where do I sign up? Ah, but there are a few things we’ve not been told… What it’s going to cost  is anyone’s guess. How much RAM does it have? Also, no word on this, but we’re hoping that, as they’ve packed a blisteringly fast CPU under the bonnet, they aren’t going to throttle it with minimal RAM. If there aren’t any delays, it’ll ship in the US by the end of the year. When will it Reach South African shores? We can only hope that it doesn’t take too long.