http://www.androidcentral.com/android-quick-app-wordfeud-free

I really like the fact that you can set up push notifications to tell you when it is your turn to play. They have recently made some updates to fix some of the bugs but there are still occasional times when you can’t zoom in to the board.

The first is ‘Talking Tomcat’ which I know has been around for a while. My son (two) loves playing with this app. Particularly giving the cat a glass of milk. Only downsides are:

• It is too easy for him to accidentally hit the ads at the top and launch a browser
• If you tap the cat it ‘punches’ him (very funny but doesn’t teach good animal husbandry – we have a real cat ;-))

Another app that got my attention is ‘Noise Alert’ which can be used as an impromptu baby monitor. I wouldn’t rely on it but I can see it might be useful as a backup if you were staying over at someones house and hadn’t taken your normal monitor with you.

I’d love to see Baby Go / Super Baby Go ported to Android. This has to be my son’s favourite app on any platform (he doesn’t spend his whole day on mobile devices I should point out!) but is only available for the blackberry at the moment. One nice feature of this is it totally locks the device out so your child can’t accidentally make calls or launch other apps. you can unlock it using a key + password combination. (Once they can work out how to unlock they are probably too old to be playing with the app :-) !).

Super Baby Go! (currently not on Android)

I was really surprised by a message on the logon screen saying that passwords are sent in clear text:

I figured this might just be for the API but decided to investigate whether this is also the case on the main site and it seems it is. Running LiveHTTPHeaders you can see the following when you log on to foursquare.com (I’ve put some asterisks in to remove user identifiable stuff):


F***231419577AFW=true&F*****1419575D1V=********%40gmail.com&password=4square


(this is the same on the ‘/mobile/’ site)

And when you change your account password (in this example to ‘nothidden’):

-----------------------------*****591617307847261632891267
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="****2314598660HU"
nothidden
-----------------------------*****591617307847261632891267
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="****231459867BB4"
nothidden


I’m really surprised at this as it means a packet sniffer could easily pick out your password. It also suggests a relaxed attitude towards sending and maybe even storing users data. I wouldn’t be surprised if the smartphone apps (such as the Android one) also send password details in clear text although I haven’t tested this hypothesis.

So, if I keep using it I will definitely use a unique password for Foursquare.com and not store any sensitive data in your account. Like my erm.. email, date of birth, where you’ve been for the past few days for example…

However, Handango have also been mentioned in reference to Android so it sounds highly likely that the Android Marketplace won’t be the only point from which people can access software. I’m personally not a huge fan of the ‘grim’ Handango’s way of dealing with developers or customers. So I hope Google treats people with more respect.

A more worrying trend in mobile gaming is in multiplayer games using GPS. From what I can understand of this phenomena, this could lead to it becoming a normal day to day experience to see geek types spontaneously jumping on each other and battering the cr&p out of each other with their mobile phones. Whilst i’m sure Darwin would approve, I’m not sure what the police will make of people on tube platforms taking sniper shots at each other with their G1′s.

I’m sure the tabloids would also have a field day with titles such as Slashwars [cached link here] where random punters are meant to attack each other by swiping their phones in the air (presumable simulating knives). I guess if they keep their cameras switched on then this could create a whole new genre of ‘happy-slapping’.

Wow! I bet with all the not-so-great publicity Android and the HTC Dream has already received the Google guys are really pleased to have the backing of gaming giant Gizmondo! Phandroid amongst others have covered this. From reports the Gizmondo 2 is erm… exactly like the old Gizmondo except with a new battery and video chipset. It will apparently come in two flavours – Android or Windows CE.

I guess it proves the point that Android can be used as a basis for anything from phones to set top boxes but if you wanted the blessing of a successful name in the gaming industry then Gizmondo isn’t the first one that would naturally spring to mind.