I was at my wife’s holiday dinner about a month ago and a conversation came up about Google Home and Amazon “Alexa” (a.k.a “Echo”). Mind you, the rest of the people there are not as technically savvy as my wife and me. Just about everybody had an aversion to these devices. One person at the table said “Dan, they’re always listening right?” I said Google isn’t always listening. The device is listening for the “Okay Google” key phrase inside of the device, then sends what it hears after the key phrase to Google. [Read More]

Today Google announced that Video and Voice “chat” is coming to Google Talk on Android. I just got an Acer Iconia Android tablet yesterday, and it already supports this. Understand what this means - you’ll be able to call and video chat with other Android phones, tables, and anything that can run GMail & GTalk in the browser. No need for a phone carrier. All that you need is network connectivity, which could come in the form of ubiquitous wifi. [Read More]

I was enthused about the announcement of the Android Market Licensing Service. This is a step in the right direction to fight rampant piracy. You can actually now use a pirated version as an opportunity to sell your app. If someone downloads a pirated version, you can use the licensing service to detect it and direct them to buy the paid version. However, there are a couple of problems. First of all, the generic version of the licensing code has been cracked. [Read More]

Any time you put an additional step in the sales process, you gain an opportunity to lose a customer. Such is the case with Free and Paid apps. It’s a common freemium pattern in the Google Android Market and Apple App Store. You’re familiar with the pattern - there’s a Free version of the app that’s restricted and then there’s a Paid version that has all of the features. As a developer, the problem is that you have to maintain two versions of the same app. [Read More]

I must give many thanks to my wife and kids for putting up with my long hours and lack of attention while I was completing our new game Syrious Blasts and launching our new brand Syrious Games. Your patience with me is greatly appreciated!

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Archived Comments

Tina - Sep 6, 2010

You are very welcome. It is fascinating to see you create such magic! You are a true genius.

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We have made our first release of Syrious Blasts!^®, an addicting fast-paced puzzle game for Android devices. The Lite version is free and the Full version is on sale right now for $.99.

Go and grab yours before the price goes up!

We have renamed our popular “AlphaMixr” game to Syrious Scramble^®. This aligns with our new Syrious Games^® branding.

New name - same addicting game!

Minor configuration update.

AlphaMixr 1.3.0 Full & Lite were released today. AlphaMixr Lite now contains 100 games instead of 20. The time bonus issue has been fixed in both versions.

Here’s another Intellectual Property follow-up. This time it’s a very interesting TED video. It’s well worth watching.

Johanna Blakely: Lessons from fashion’s free culture: