Fully Charged: Samsung says fewer phones ahead, Nokia’s Z Launcher hits Google Play, and now you can search every tweet ever
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Fewer Samsung phones in 2015
Samsung went a little crazy with its smartphone selection this year, with all manner of variants and spinoffs for its flagship devices, not to mention numerous mid-range and low-end options. Perhaps relatedly, Samsung also reported dramatically sinking profits after the Galaxy S-fueled surge.
So it’s time to pare down the release calendar, it seems. Robert Yi, Samsung’s head of investor relations, tells The Wall Street Journal that the company will trim its selection down by about 25-30%, and that they’ll seek to share more key components between models.
No doubt, we’ll see a Galaxy S6 before long, and surely new versions of other familiar Samsung handsets, but expect fewer slightly-tweaked variants that are probably more trouble than they’re worth for the manufacturer.
[Source: The Wall Street Journal via Engadget]
READ MORE: Samsung Galaxy S6 preview
Nokia’s Z Launcher out on Android
As we found out yesterday morning, Nokia has a brand new tablet called the N1, which looks a whole lot like an iPad mini – except it runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. More specifically, it utilizes Nokia’s own Z Launcher, which offers predictive suggestions of the apps you’ll want to use at any given time, and lets you scribble with your finger to initiate searches.
It’ll be a few months before the N1 actually launches, but you can grab the Z Launcher now on your Android 4.1+ device via Google Play. It first became available as an APK through Nokia’s own beta program over the summer, but now anyone can snag the slick still-in-beta launcher and give it a shot.
[Source: Google Play]
READ MORE: Nokia N1 tablet: looks like an iPad mini, runs Android L
Search all of the tweets
About half a trillion tweets have been sent out over Twitter since its debut in 2006, and now you can easily search the entire database thanks to substantial upgrades made by the service.
You can track the trajectory of popular hashtags by finding tweets bearing them over a certain time span, or seek out certain terms sent out into the world by particular users. Twitter posted a mind-numbingly long and complex explanation of how they pulled it off, but the takeaway is this: whatever embarrassing scree you posted that one hazy night back when is now much easier to find. Take care.
READ MORE: 35 best free apps for Android
Final Fantasy VII recreated in LittleBigPlanet
We honestly don’t want to think about the amount of time and determination it took to bring this project to life, but someone has recreated the entirety of PSone role-playing classic Final Fantasy VII within LittleBigPlanet 2.
What you see above is the first of 107 video clips than span the entire, freely playable experience, using the PlayStation 3 creation suite to recreate iconic locations, characters, and moments. And since all past shared series content is also available in LittleBigPlanet 3 – launching soon on PS4 and PS3 alike – even new-gen console owners can get in on the nostalgia-glazed zaniness.
Andrew Hayward
Freelance Writer 
