Nexus Story

It's been more than three months since the Nexus 5 has made an official public appearance, to be precise its release on October 31st last year, allowing people to place orders directly from Google's play store and the pure Google experience that is stuffed inside this gorgeous flagship device has dramatically changed the way people look at mobile devices. 

The Nexus story was quite a little bit old by now but when you look back how it has changed over time was pretty amazing. We have come a long way since the first Nexus device suitably named to the Nexus One announced in 2010. Now we are in the new generation of apparently, ultra powerful, ever evolving smartphones at this point. Nevertheless for whatever reason, when Google was going to release their new version of the Nexus device along with their sweetest version of Android layered around it into this new era, they didn't make a big deal about it with announcements and subsequent releases. For this search engine giant, publicity was never needed to be sought and still their recent Nexus devices sold out in minutes like hot dogs out of the stove.

After the successful Nexus 4, it's clear that Google has built up a relationship with LG for the following Nexus, which made both devices sold out in first few minutes as it was first released for placing orders. Unlike other flagship contenders like Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, everybody was quite anticipated to see how would it look, what features would it sport and who would take the challenge to cater the demand by manufacturing it for Google. Speculations twirled around the tech savvy people letting them wait for the successor to the previous Nexus, the 5th of its kind.

Nexus 5 was made after LG's own flagship smartphone named LG G2, designed with a minimal yet more premium and sophisticated look and feel, having almost of all its features trimmed a little bit down to match the Google's low price point starting at 350 dollars for the 16GB version. It first came with two color choices say black and white and now it's available in bright red too. The competitive specifications of Nexus 5 were good enough to bring a great smartphone experience as a reference device for the industry and for developers or general consumers, bundled with pure and powerful updated Android experience currently available unlike the predecessors. Most importantly the main advantage in Nexus devices is quick over the air Android updates.

Google uses their Nexus line to introduce the latest version of Android operating system and this time they released the tastiest Android experience they have ever made Android 4.4 KitKat with new user interface improvements and other eye-catching features that comes only available for the Nexus 5 at the moment. The new Google Experience launcher provides translucent notification and navigation bars with a second home screen fully dedicated to 'Google Now' with the ability to initiate voice searches by simply saying "Okay Google" when you are in any home screen. The updated camera was improved to produce better image quality with clear and saturated colors as a result of optical image stabilization plus incremental updates to Android KitKat in order to make the imaging experience more serviceable. Initially the downside of the Nexus 5 was its battery life and it's not as pathetic as it seems on average usage, but someone would feel like reaching for the charging cable earlier than any probably it should compared to competitors. 

With the Nexus 5, you are getting exactly what you are needed without having any bloatware or heavy applications that provides sky high features. It is a phone that suits the daily drive, because it is simple and it does what you need to do without giving any fuss. A rumor which started circulating a few weeks back stated that we might have to rely on much expensive Google Play edition devices to get our hands on pure Android experience, as it seems the Nexus line might come to an end this year, which surely is not a good news for many consumers. So let's have our fingers crossed until 2015 to see these rumors to get some backing. Till then enjoy pure Android on Nexus.

Control your world with Ingress

It is a game, but it's more like a realistic mission that you have to accomplish in your real life. Ingress is one of those addictive games that can be found in Android community that is not only limited for foreign players. Ingress is a game that was introduced by Google's Niantic Labs. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of players around the globe who are addictively playing this strategic game and to be more precise, this is a location based game which makes the players go out and roam wherever they like to collect and gather points as well as to help other players who are striving to level up by completing missions. Simply put, Ingress is one big addictive augmented reality mobile game released by Google on 15th of November 2012. This is a game that turns you into a traveler and make you enjoy going out in a smart way.

First, to play this game you should have an Android powered smartphone with GPS and mobile data enabled. With the GPS, it finds your approximate exact location and display it on a road map where you can find yourself and the surroundings. Your every movement is recorded and synced with their servers and the more you move the more you earn. The concept about this augmented reality game is all about a fictitious project called 'Project Niantic' experimented by Niantic Labs. Ingress invites its players to go outside and explore the world around them since it can be played throughout the whole globe. Ingress is a good playground for gamers to interact with other players too, which is way better than playing a game sitting in one place. The game actually costs you time and physical strength since this is an augmented reality game in which every player has to physically move in their map, find the landmarks called as 'portals', interact with those and gain more advantages to level up and win missions that are planned with co-players. 

According to project Niantic, they came across a special, yet weird energy source called 'Exotic Matter (XM)' in our world, that are emitted from those aforementioned portals, which are considered as historic landmarks, architectural sculptures, monuments, government buildings, statues and pillars. Those energies can be found anywhere in our environment and a part of the world believes that those energies are harmful for human beings, who are called 'Resistance' (in blue) and the other part believes the opposite, called 'Enlightened' (in green). As a whole, everyone is called 'an agent' of their party called 'a faction'. Every player has to decide which part of the world they choose to join and play against whom. To be more clear as mentioned before, every player becomes an agent of the party they choose to play for. Irrespective of the faction you are in, exotic matter power you up to live throughout the game. 

The agents have to find the portals depicted as either friendly or enemy on their map and visit them. Visiting a portal does not mean anything but they have to get closer to them and interact in order to hack and acquire items like portal shields, portal controllers, ammunition, points to level up plus obtain badges from them. Agents can also attack enemy portals, destroy, then capture them converting the ownership of those back to their own faction/party. The next most important duty that all agents must carry out is connecting portals and create fields, which allows to take the control over a whole area under your own faction that blocks enemies from creating their fields unless they attack and capture portals under your party's ownership. 

That is how Ingress is played and it seems fun as the battlefield you play is your surroundings when you travel and is only happening virtually in the screen of your mobile device. It has become a growing and addictive game among many Sri Lankans and it is your decision to join the right community, become an agent to save the world and control it with your fellow agents.