Android Forum at DroidForums.net

On another Thursday with slow news back in January of this year, we shared an interesting bit of Off Topic news regarding the future of gaming graphics. It was a video of a French apartment which was rendered entirely in the Unreal Engine 4 game rendering engine. It was amazing to say the least because of its realistic depiction of textures, shapes and lighting. As amazing as it was, another video has surfaced which actually trumps it.

The above video is from a real-time demo created using the Unreal Engine 4 game engine for future next-gen gaming. This time we have a Scandinavian apartment that was created using the expertise of an architectural visualization expert. Its realism is mind-blowing! What's especially cool is that you don't have to take the video's word for it. You can actually download the demo and check it out yourself if you think your PC has the internal hardware to tackle it. You can also find a second video which is much like the one above.

Here's the link: Virtual Tour cgcloud

Folks on Sprint's network who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will be able to get the latest version of Android starting today. The Android 5.0.x Lollipop rollout began for that device this morning. The update is build N910PVPU1BOB7. As is usual, the update will likely rollout in waves, so if you aren't in the first batch, it should come in a few days.

Sound off and let us know what you think of the update!

That was quick. Almost 10 days ago (on February 24th), Google and Softcard announced that they had purchased the company's technology and worked out deals with the carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile for the new service to transfer to Google.

At that time, they indicated that more info would be coming regarding the existing account holders of Softcard. That info was just shared: Google plans to shutter Softcard's operations on March 31st, and will transfer existing customer accounts over to Google Wallet.

Update: According to some new reports from folks here in this thread, it looks like Softcard will not be transferring accounts, but will be closing them. Folks will need to pull their money out and contact Google if they want to get it moved into a Google Wallet account.

Source: CNET

Here's an interesting double story for you guys this morning. Both the HTC One M9 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 have been featured in two different contests. What's especially exciting about these contests is that they basically leaked the final retail prices of both products.

First, we have a T-Mobile contest in which you can win one of several prizes, including a Samsung Galaxy S6. The contest lists the price of the Galaxy S6 as $699. While they don't specify which storage option version of the Galaxy S6 this is, more than likely they are referring to the 32GB model. This means the Galaxy S6 base US price will likely be about $50 more than the previous generation Galaxy S5 when it launched. You can see more details on this contest here: Samsung s Next Big Thing is Almost Here New Samsung Smartphone T-Mobile

Second, we have an HTC contest. This one is giving away an HTC One M9 and shares its approximate retail value as $599. Interestingly, this is about $50 less than Best Buy listed the device ahead of the unveiling. This contest also does not reveal the storage option on this device, but it too is expected to be the 32GB version. For further details on this contest, check out this link: HTC One M9 Giveaway Terms and Conditions HTC United States

If we were to extrapolate on this base model pricing, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to...

The image above has surfaced across the Web yesterday. Will Samsung launch a special edition Iron Man Galaxy S6 Edge. Sounds like a winner to me. Right now it's just another rumor. We don't know if these photos are a Photoshop hoax or the real deal. We will keep you informed as additional information becomes available.

The Galaxy S6 has finally been unpacked and now it has been officially unboxed, but you won't be able to get it until a bit later this year. You can actually get a small taste of the Galaxy S6 on your device now. The stock Galaxy S6 wallpapers have been leaked. You can download them now and set them as your homescreen wallpaper. Head to the link below for the download.

via DroidViews

If you are going to unlock your Moto E and install a custom recovery you will want to go ahead and grab the stock firmware incase you need to flash back to stock for warranty purposes or to unbrick. You should also be aware that Motorola devices no longer use RSD Lite and FXZ/SBF files. You will actually need to know a bit about running fastboot commands. You will also need to be sure you have the Android SDK installed on your PC or at least the proper fastboot.exe and adb.exe files on your PC. Extract the firmware to the same folder with your fastboot and adb file.

Navigate to your folder that contains the extracted firmware file in the command prompt. Then you will flash each of the following partitions in sequence being sure you get an OKAY.

mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin
mfastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img
mfastboot flash logo logo.bin
mfastboot flash boot boot.img
mfastboot flash recovery recovery.img
mfastboot.exe flash system system.img_sparsechunk1
mfastboot.exe flash system system.img_sparsechunk2
mfastboot.exe flash system system.img_sparsechunk3
mfastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
mfastboot erase modemst1
mfastboot erase modemst2
mfastboot flash fsg...

The Motorola dev site allows you to quickly and easily unlock the bootloader of your brand new Moto E 2n Gen. Once you are bootloader unlocked however their will be an unlocked padlock on the screen during bootup warning the manufacturer or your carrier that the phone has been bootloader unlocked "warranty voided". You can actually remove this warning from the bootup screen pretty easily by simply flashing a custom boot image with the unlock padlock removed. You will need to be familiar with fastboot and fastboot commands which you would be if your device is already bootloader unlocked. Head to the link below for the files needed.

via XDA

Last night Verizon posted their release notes for the Lollipop 5.0 OTA update for the HTC One M8. After seeing this we announced that the rollout had begun. Many of you checked in settings for the update and the update was not being pushed to your device. The same thing happened to me. Upon further investigation it looks like Verizon may have posted the release notes prematurely. The roll out has been confirmed for tomorrow by "Mo Versi" Vice President of HTC Product Management. He stated that the OTA roll out will begin March 5th for the VZW HTC One M8.

Via XDA

There are quite a few features in Sense that make the HTC One M8 stand out from their counterparts. One of the features that is really useful is the Power Saver feature. It changes some of the performance settings on your device for battery optimization automagically just by toggling it on. It adds some precious time to your battery life. The only real downside to this is the fact that it imposes a power saver icon in your notification bar. To get rid of this annoying icon you will need to be S-Off, rooted, and will need to run a few commands in the terminal emulator app.

-Open the terminal emulator.
-type "su" to grant super user permission
-type "pm disabled com.htc.htcpowermanager/.powersaver.PowerSaverNotificationReceiver"
-Enjoy

via XDA