Rogers, Bell, TELUS and Virgin HTC One is getting minor update (addresses touch response issues)

According to users reporting to MobileSyrup, the HTC One across Canada is getting a minor update to address bugs and includes "system enhancements". One of the reported fixes are more responsive capacitive buttons. Our review unit hasn't gotten the update yet but we'll keep you posted.

Amazon Appstore available for Canadians [Update:] Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 coming to Canada

After years of being a US exclusive, Amazon has finally made their Appstore available to Canadians. Creating their own ecosystem withing the Android Ecosystem, the Amazon Appstore offers users a "Free App of the Day" as well as various other Android apps for free or a fixed price.

While there is no indication of this, we like that the Appstore is now available in Canada as this would be an important step for the very successful Amazon Kindle Fire to come to Canada.

UPDATE: According to Amazon PR it looks like the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 will in fact be coming to Canada. This is sans Amazon Prime and Amazon MP3 Store however.

Nvidia Shield now official, public pre-orders started, to be shipped end of June

One of the big headliners at CES 2013 has just gone official, Project Shield is now the Nvidia Shield. Pre-Orders have gone live directly through Nvidia as well as through Canadian Retailer Canada Computers. According to finalized specs the Shield has a 5-inch 720p HD multitouch display, Nvidia Tegra 4 Quad Core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (with MicroSD Card support), dual stereo reflex speakers, HDMI out and of course the hardware controller.

The Shield is running Stock Android 4.2.1, and it preloaded with Nvidia's Tegra Zone application which will feature all the Tegra optimized games, as well as allow users to connect to a computer equipped with a GeForce GTX (600 series or better) and stream PC games right to the Shield via .

For now the streaming capabilities are marked as beta and the Steam Big Picture games and GeForce optimized games are probably not as many as Nvidia was wishing for.

The Nvidia Shield is still quite an interesting device and we are working on getting our hands on a review unit.

[Google I/O 2013] Google Play game services announced

Well rumoured and leaked were Google's gaming initiatives and today that work has culminated in the Google Play game services APIs. These tools for game developers will hopefully allow for more in depth gaming experience, not only on Android, but all mobile games. Google stated that saved games, would be made available on the cloud and would sync cross platform, so games played on an iOS device could be continued on an Android device.

This API will also allow developers to hook in easier multiplayer integration using Google+ and will seamlessly allow users to send and receive multiplayer game invites (not unlike GameCenter on iOS).

[Google I/O 2013] Samsung Galaxy S4 with Stock Android announced (Update: U.S. Only)

Colour us surprised, as rumours of a stock Android version of the Galaxy S4 to be made available were swirling, we weren't at all convinced, especially given that Google has given out a skinned device like the HTC EVO 4G in the past (with Sense UI and all).

Hugo Barra mentioned that the Stock Galaxy S4 would come with an unlocked bootloader, LTE support for T-Mobile and AT&T and a Nexus experience at the tough to stomach cost of $649 (probably $659 for Canadians) which is a far cry from the more affordable and arguably better value in the Nexus 4.

According to MobileSyrup, the Stock Android equipped Galaxy S4 will only be made available to US customers. We hope this somehow changes in the future.

[Google I/O 2013] Google Music All Access now official

While Google Music still isn't available in Canada, this is still interesting news for people who might have used "workarounds" to get access to the the Google service. Google has announced All Access an alternative to Spotify that will cost $9.99/month or $7.99 for early adopters who sign up before June.

This service doesn't seem available to Canadians, but we can only hope for a timely rollout of Music Cloud storage as well as their All Access streaming service.

[Google I/O 2013] Google announces "Google+ Hangout", their unified Messaging service

Google has taken the wraps off of one of the most anticipated services, Google+ Hangouts. While it bears the name of the existing video service offered by their social network, this incarnation of Hangouts is the unified messaging experience that Google took far longer than anyone thought to release.

Compatible with Android, iOS, as well as on Chrome, Google Hangouts is synchronized across all those platforms. So a chat happening on one device will be synced on another device as well as only notifies the actively used device via new Play APIs announced by Google today.

It's available for download right now from the Google Play Store.