Take Your Android To Your PC With BlueStacks App Player!

Ever played a game or used an application on your mobile device that you wish existed for your computer/laptop as well?

Well, if you are an Android users, which has a market place filled with millions of applications, some of them so good that we too have also felt that it would have been awesome if we were able to run the same applications on our PC. To quote a couple, Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds and a few others have been our all time favorite that we have always wished to play on our PCs.

So here is an application which, well, we wouldn’t term it anything less than revolutionary. An application has been developed that lets you run Android application without doing any changes to your system OS! The alpha version of its App Player — software that allows users to run a host of Android apps on Windows PCs, tablets or desktops, without requiring them to make modifications to their original OS.  It features 10 pre-loaded apps along with an option to add custom apps. You can either download new apps from the BlueStacks Channel or push your favorite apps from your Android phone to your PC via BlueStacks Cloud Connect.

Even though the Alpha test version of the app player has been called off for now and one can expect the beta version to be available anytime soon but if you are one of those who loves to ‘try’ things out before they are officially available, here is the alpha version of the App Player which, as stated, will let you use 10 pre loaded apps and a few custom apps which is supports as of now.

A great feature of this application is that you can push the apps from your Android device to your PC by using the BlueStacks Cloud Connect option. To use BlueStacks Cloud Connect, you must first install the BlueStacks Cloud Connect app on your phone from the Android Market. Once done, open the Cloud Connect page on your PC’s browser to receive a Phone PIN. Open the app on your phone, enter the PIN and tap OK. You should now be able to see a list of all your apps inside BlueStacks Cloud Connect. Check the app that you want to push to your PC and tap Sync.

All in all, this is one application that you should surely try out. Even though the application was only in its alpha version, it showed a lot of promise letting you run applications without much issues. Hence, expectBluestacks to come up with support for many more applications and make your desktop your next Android home!

Amazing application. A must try for all.

In the end, here is a video by the developers of the App Player that lets you run Android applications on your PC!

2012 The Gaming Year: Top Games In 2012

Gamers and the rest, get happy because this is going to be a happy and eventful year for us. There are some super exciting games to look forward to this year and some of the most awaited ones are listed here. This is a pick of our favorite one’s

HALO 4:

Halo 4 has been kept under wraps more or less but from the trailer what’s obvious is that there is some high action drama, a superb story line and top notch multiplayer gaming. Also, it features Master Chief and Cortana although these two are the only ones shown as of now; these are the only ones the audience cares about. It is speculated that the game will be out in the fall of 2012. This being the first of the three new part series, and considering that the efforts of around 343 industries within Halo have gone in, the company is leaving no stone unturned for making this really big.

GTA 5- 2012:

It is undoubtedly the most awaited game of the year. Even before its release, GTA 5 has managed to cook up a storm that is refusing to settle. A well received feature of the game, the planes, are back and the map this time is huge but not empty like last time. This time its going to be Los Santos and its country side filled with crazy things to do and lots of fun. “It’s Los Santos and the surrounding countryside – and a very big map” said an official from Rockstar games.

FAR CRY 3:





Not as if the last two games of Far Cry were easy, the third edition is trying two combine the package of the first and second and in the process it is achieving a real tension and fire effect providing ability. The second game itself is so difficult that its getting hard to get through and the fire effects are so realistic it just completes the experience.




HITMAN ABSOLUTION:



Now we have to agree that for a series that has been going on for six years now, this game has been long overdue. The Hitman games give the player a Bond like feeling and the player can actually choose the way in which he wants to execute his kill. You can either don the disguise of a friend of the target or kill them stealthily or you can go all guns blazing and knock everyone out. The new game is rumored to have more for the gamer in terms of missions to be completed.

THE LAST OF US:

Now this game is a survival horror game and many will say that there are plenty of such games in the market. But, what sets this one apart is the style of the players and the incredible graphics that it displays.

These are just some of the games waiting to be launched on your Playstation or Xbox. Others include titles like Mass Effect 3, BioShock Infinite, Max Payne 3, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. Hardware upgrades like Playstation Vita and Wii U will also be launched this year.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare Game For X-Box :Preview

Game: Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Genre: Third-Person shooter, action game, Psychological thriller
Platform: XBox Live Arcade
Release Date: 22nd February, 2012


Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is an upcoming story-driven action-horror video game, being developed by Remedy Entertainment. Published by Microsoft Studios, the game is not a sequel to to its predecessorAlan Wake, but is rather a downloadable follow up which only exists to broaden the universe of the game.Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is set as an independent game and does not reflect on the major storyline of the franchise. Remedy Entertainment has clearly stated that this is not in any way the last game of the series and a proper sequel Alan Wake 2 is in works. 

The game will follow the story of Alan Wake who seems to be stuck in Arizona. Even worse, he seems to be inside one of his Night Springs episodes he wrote earlier in life when writing for the show. Whilst he uncovers a mystery of his own, he is caught between a battle of light and dark, whilst he reflects on the borderline of reality and fiction.


The game is scheduled for a release later this month (22nd February) and will be available for download from XBox Live Arcade.
Here we leave you with it's trailer...

Install Windows 8 With A Stick!

Microsoft released the first Windows 8 Developer preview free. We are posting guide on how to install Windows 8 using USB it’s available for every one.

First You Will Need:

• Windows 8 ISO – Developer Preview [Download]
• Windows 7 USB/DVD [Download] – This is the official Microsoft tool for creating bootable DVD or USB device of Windows 8

Here is how to make a Windows 8 Bootable USB Stick:

Step 1: Install Window 7 USB/DVD tool and open it, Browse the Windows 8 ISO which you downloaded earlier and click next.


Step 2: In the second step select USB in creating bootable image.

Step 3: Plug in USB and browse the USB as shown in picture below to create bootable Windows 8 drive, now click begin copying:


Step 4: That’s it Windows 8 files will now be copy to usb in the form of bootable image.

Step 5: Now simply restart your computer and boot the computer via USB drive to begin installation of Windows 8.

Try today!

SmartRoute Contacts: An App Bringing Together Twitter , Facebook And Other Contact Information In One Profile!

Platform- iOS, Android, Chrome Extension

Cost: Free

Smartr Contacts, as the name suggests is a contact manager application for your mobile device as well as your gmail on your laptop or PC. Essentially, Smartr Contacts pulls contact and calendar information from your Google account, sorts everyone, adds a picture to their profile, and tries to make sense of why you’ve contacted them in the first place. You can also log in to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to see more detailed information about your contacts. Otherwise, you’re limited to three of the four tabs available whenever you choose a contact. Basically, the more information you provide it, the smarter the app gets. The more you use it and interact with your contacts, the better it will rank your contacts. When you first sign up for the app, however, it has a pretty good idea of who your most used contacts are. 

What smartr contacts does is that it allows you to effectively manage all your contacts and it does so by integrating your different contacts from different social media accounts as well as Gmail in one single place. The contact entries are quite detailed with four informational tabs: Details, Social, History and Common. It shows a picture of that person (either their Facebook photo or Google Account photo) at the top and indicates whether they’re part of the Top 10 or not. The Details tab shows phone numbers as well as e-mail addresses they use with their various accounts. Social shows their social networking activity and history shows your call, text and e-mail history. You also get a neat little graph at the top of the tab showing the frequency of contact. You can see the friends you have in common with them on the History tab.

For those of you who are students of technology will be able to relate this application to something that was released a few time back. We are talking about the integration of all the contacts in Windows Phone Devices which does pretty much the same thing. Places all your contacts in one place and provides you with a detailed history from all the accounts you are linked with to that person. 

So smartr contacts provides you with that one big USP that Windows Phone devices would have thrived on or rather are thriving on! The fact that it is a cross platform application i.e. available for your gmail, Android and iOS (still in beta) devices, it helps you manage all your contacts effectively. For those of you wondering how it does that cross platform, you have to create a ‘xobni’ account (the developer of the application) so that the contacts are saved on the cloud and retrieved every time you login from a different device. 

The fact that this application stores up to 10,000 contact entries and manages them very effectively, lets your integrate all your accounts (we say all for gmail, facebook, twitter and linkedin are what most people use nowadays), it is one of the better contact management applications that we came across. 

All in all, Smartr Contacts definitely gets smarter as you use the app and surely manages your contacts pretty effectively and efficiently. We give it a 4.5/5 from us at OP. We  cut the half for it would have been much more effective had it let users integrate contacts from other email and social media clients as well. Still, a must have contact manager for your device!

Let us know how you feel about this app!