PokerStars wins Best Mobile Poker Operator award

The world’s largest online poker site, PokerStars, has been named the Best Mobile Poker Operator of 2013 at the mGaming awards in London. The awards ceremony was organised by leading industry media company, iGaming Business, along with sponsors MicroGaming, and concluded the four-day long mGaming summit last month.

The PokerStars Mobile app is a free to download version of the website and has been available to iOS and Android devices since February of last year. Users are able to sign up to the site without the need for a desktop computer and play against the 50 million registered members in various poker games, including Zoom tournaments and access major online events, such as the WCOOP and SCOOP.

In addition to PokerStars Mobile, PokerStars also offer their customers additional apps that have been designed and developed to meet the needs of the online poker community. These include the PokerStars Clock, the EPT (European Poker Tour) Guide and PokerStars TV, which allows access to poker shows and live coverage of PokerStars events. “Users are also able to not only stream anything that they wish to see,” according to poker.co.uk, “but even download it in total if they want to watch it at a later date.”

“Poker is one of the most-loved games in the world and in recent years has become one of the most popular online games,” said the Director of New Platforms at PokerStars, Jeffrey Haas. “Our mobile app allows more people to discover the game, while providing more opportunities for existing fans to play wherever they want and whenever they want.”

The other winners at the mGaming awards included Paddy Power, who scooped three awards for Best Gambling App, Innovation in Mobile and the Best Mobile Sports Betting Operator for their Paddy Power Sportsbook. The title of Best Mobile Bingo Operator went to Mecca Bingo, while mFortune won the Best Mobile Casino Operator category and the Best Mobile Billing Application title went to OpenMarket.

Source: Gadget Helpline

Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition announced – GS4 running stock Android

It would seem that Google has been listening to our prayers and has answered. To the surprise of the large majority, it revealed the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition today at its I/O event – a version of Samsung’s flagship that runs stock Android, Nexus-style.

For those out there who like the sound of the S4 but, like many, are put off by the large amount of bloatware and unnecessary apps that come installed, this is the answer. Just like the Nexus 4, the S4 Google Edition runs Android Jelly Bean in its purest form.

The new model will be available directly from Google, SIM-free and ready to use on any network. Unfortunately for us, it will only be available in the US for the forseeable future, and that will be exclusively through the Google Play Store from June 26^th for $649.

The handset features 16GB of internal memory and exactly the same specs as the regular S4. The only thing that’s changed is the software, with all of Samsung’s add-ons removed. It’s currently unclear, but we think that’ll mean that Samsung’s extra features like eye tracking, Dual Mode camera snapping and S Voice will be gone, so you’ll be forgoing almost all of Samsung’s key selling points with this phone. Still, if you’re an Android fanatic you’re probably already past caring about that!

Android Jelly Bean 4.2 will be the operating system installed, without a sniff of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI in sight. With Samsung’s hardware this should make for a very fast phone indeed. Now, are there any friendly US folk out there that want to send us one?

Source: Gadget Helpline