Lilbits (8-20-2014): Intel partners with Unity to court Android game developers

While most Android phones, tablets, and other devices are powered by ARM-based processors, there are a growing number of Android devices with Intel inside. After reviewing a few recent tablets with Intel Atom Bay Trail chips, I’m convinced that Intel has largely caught up with ARM in the mobile space: tablets like the Asus MeMO Pad 8 and Transformer Pad TF103C offer long battery life and speedy performance.

But while most Android apps can run on devices with Intel chips, Intel is at a disadvantage with some native apps that weren’t optimized for its chip architecture, since those apps have to run on a compatibility layer… so they don’t run as quickly as they could.

So Intel is trying to encourage app developers to create Android apps that are optimized for its chips. And as part of that effort, the company announced today that it’s partnering with Unity to let over 2.9 million registered developers use the popular 2D and 3D graphics engine to create native Android games and other apps optimized for Intel chips.

Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web. You can keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

• Intel and Unity deliver dev tools to optimize 2D and 3D Android games and other apps for devices with Intel chips
  Native Android support for Intel’s x86 chips will be part of the Unity 4 and Unity 5 engines. Unity has long supported x86 architecture for Windows. [Intel]
• Report: Verizon to launch Android app store to compete with the Play Store…Update: Or maybe not
  Verizon actually had an app store that it included on Android phones up until last year. Now it looks like the company is going to try again. What remains to be seen is whether the carrier will offer users any real reason to use it this time around. The report comes courtesy of an article at The Information, but you’ll need a subscription to read it. [The Verge summarizes]
• Humble Bundle launches a dedicated mobile section
  Name your price for a bundle of Android games. Sales run for two weeks, and when they end there will be a new group of games available. Humble Bundle had offered occasional mobile-centric packages, but now it looks like they’ll be a regular feature of the site. [Humble Bundle]
• Sony is launching a selfie-centric, perfume bottle-looking smartphone accessory camera in China this month
  Apparently people in China really like their phones to be encased in things that look like perfume bottles… and they like to take pictures of themselves (which seems to be less-specific to China). [Engadget]
• SolidRun releases Android 4.4 images for the CuBox-i and HummingBoard dev boards/mini PCs
  These small, low-power computers can run a range of operating systems including Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and Android. Now you can run the latest version of Google Android. [SolidRun]