I spend a whooooole lot of time with my tablet. And how could I not? The thing is GREAT! I can read comic books and manga on it, I can watch Netflix, I can browse social media, I can play videogames, I can spin slots, hell, I even have the Kindle app installed on it for when I’m too lazy to get up and get my actual Kindle! Yeah, that’s how much I’ve grown to rely on this silly little gadget for all of my daily needs! Still, out of all of the things I’ve been doing on my tablet, I’ve probably dedicated by far the most time on online gambling and mobile gaming. With that said, it’s only natural that I’d spend a lot of time comparing the two. Not in a “which is better” kind of way, because that’s unfair, more in a “how are they similar and how are they different” kind of way. So… How about we do it together, just for fun?

Keep in mind, there’s a whoooole lot of different mobile game types, but for now, I’m going to be focusing on the ones which are free to download and play, but allow you to purchase different in-game items through microtransactions. There’s lots of mobile games that you simply buy once and that’s that (such as the absolutely and utterly excellent “Adventures of Mana”, which you should absolutely buy if you’re even remotely interested in RPGs), as well as plenty of games that you can download and play for completely free which make their money through ads (or not at all, if they’re smaller student projects). While I do love those, for the moment I want to focus on games that resemble mobile casino in structure.

So, what are the similarities? Well, first and foremost, both allow you to play for completely free, if you’re willing to skip certain features. “Avengers Academy”, while one of the more pay-to-win mobile games out there, still allows you to recruit numerous Marvel characters to your Academy completely for free, with only holding a couple of characters and items behind a paywall. Similarly, most online casinos give you access to their entire catalogue of titles for free by taking away the gambling element – if you want to play for real money, you need to invest real money. Another similarity is, very obviously, the chance and randomness that are very prevalent in both circles. “Candy Crush Saga”, for example, allows you to spin a wheel every once in a while in order to determine which bonus item you’ll get, if any – the outcome of that spin sometimes decides whether or not you’ll be able to complete your level. Similarly, in mobile casino, chance is a huge deciding factor on whether you’ll win or lose. Last, but not least, both mobile gaming and mobile gambling, while initially only restricted to several regions, are quickly spreading – Google’s Play Store is officially available in over 135 countries, while, according to the leading casino site bestukcasino.org.uk, mobile casino is available in almost every single country that also supports regular gambling, including Kenya.

Surprisingly, there’s a lot more similarities than differences between mobile gambling and mobile gaming. The primary one is, of course, that mobile gaming doesn’t allow you to win real money. A lot of mobile games allow you to win in-game currency – for example, in “Future Fight” you’re able to purchase shards with real money and spend them on stuff, but if you do really well in certain aspects of the game you can win free shards, and lots of them. But with that said, you can’t really exchange these shards back for money – you can only use them for in-game items, which is a huge difference from online casino, where you can use the money you win on both games and in real life. Additionally, most mobile games are also rather skill-based, while most gambling games are very luck-based, but honestly, with gambling laws changing rapidly, that distinction might be a thing of the past within 5-10 years. We should really stop and think about why so many mobile games have gambling elements in them, or, hell, why there are so many non-gambling mobile games based on stuff like slots. It’s because mobile gaming and mobile gambling really aren’t that different, and as time goes on, they’ll become even closer to each other.

Every reputable online casino offers at least a dozen roulette games and more and more are added with time. A decent percentage out of all the available variations also have mobile versions which is perfect for those of us who stuck to their smartphones and tablets like glue. Being a huge roulette fan, I’ve tried most of the available online variations and for sure all the mobile roulette games on the market, in search for even better graphics, experience and betting options. In this article, I will share with you which are my favourite ones.

Monopoly Roulette by SG Interactive

You might be surprised by the fact that one of my favourite mobile roulette games is Monopoly Roulette. You shouldn’t though, as this is actually a regular roulette game that is only themed around the popular board game that has one extra slot, called Hot Properties, which, if won, leads you to an additional game where you get to draw Monopoly cards which bring you different winning amounts.

Though the game’s additional bet adds something different to the experience playing it, that’s really not why I like it so much. The main reason is that I like playing with neighbour bets and often make other called bets such as Orphelins and Tier, so having a racetrack is one of my main requirements for a roulette game. And while almost all desktop versions offer this option, most mobile roulettes are stripped from it. Monopoly Roulette is one of the very few variations that offers this option so that’s why it’s in my shortlist of favourite mobile roulette variations.

Microgaming’s European Roulette Gold

Another roulette game that I really enjoy is European Roulette Gold. Though it doesn’t shine with the best graphics, this game offers you the opportunity to place called bets and is pretty well functional. This is definitely my whenever I play at a Microgaming casino, as not that many of their games feature a racetrack. It runs pretty well on all types of touch-screen devices which is also a must for every mobile-friendly casino game.

Immersive Roulette

One of the coolest things about mobile casinos is that now they allow you to play even live-dealer games on the go. The same is true for roulette. My favourite live dealer roulette that is also compatible with mobile devices is undoubtedly Immersive Roulette by Evolution Gaming. This game is so good, that it even won the EGR award for casino game of the year in 2014.

What I like about Immersive Roulette is that the video stream is very smooth, the dealers are pleasant and there are multiple camera views which switch automatically. On top of that, there’s a slow-motion video replay of the moment the ball lands into the winning slot. If that weren’t enough already, except for the standard bets, you can make neighbour bets which, as I told you, is a must for any roulette game from my perspective.

If you like what you read about so far, but want to learn about even more the available mobile-friendly roulette games for real money, then make sure you visit this page: roulettesites.org/mobile/. There you will find many other suggestions for great roulette games that you can play on your Android smartphone, tablet, iPhone or iPad.

Since the official announcement from Microsoft that they are planning to support play between Xbox One, PC and other networks, there has been a lot said about the possible cooperation. Now, if you’re an avid gamer like me, you will appreciate the dickishness of the move. We all know that PlayStation and Xbox have been worse than a cat and dog for over a decade now. So making an invitation for cooperation publically was pretty clever, leaving not much space and time for Sony to respond without looking like “the bad guys” in the situation.

Sony of course was quick to response; it wasn’t very clear though. To quote “PlayStation has been supporting cross-platform play between PC on several software titles […] We would be happy to have the conversation with any publishers or developers who are interested in cross-platform play.” I guess it is safe to assume that this is all a bit in the air now and no serious and committing talks have been held. We are probably far, far away from any peace agreement in the console market wars. Which imho is a shame as it would make a massive difference and aid progress and development for the benefit of players. But what do I know. Let’s compare the two in order to find out if a possible cooperation is viable for both and so – more likely to happen in the not too distant future.

Sony are winning big time in terms of sales at present. PS4 has sold over 36 million items (numbers for January 2016). Microsoft have always been a bit shady about their stats, but an estimate from VGChartz put their sales at around 20 million up to February. Even without being exact, it is clear that PS4 is leading the race.

So, with that in mind you can understand why Sony would not be so optimistic about a cross-platform cooperation – they have more units out there. So if all your friends worldwide are playing on PlayStation, you will go and get one to join them, right? Imagine you can get an Xbox and still play with them? You get it, many people would. So that’s a huge disadvantage for Sony from an eventual future cooperation. Realistically speaking, as it stands, gamers can already play console to PC. But console to console will seriously affect sales in a very unpredictable way. So as gamers, as much as we would all like to see a friendship between the two long-standing rivals, it is not going to happen soon, that’s for sure. But opening the talks for it is a good step forward I suppose. The only way I see that happening is if Sony get so confident and comfortable with the sales of the PS VR (which is kind of getting there), that they simply decide to not worry about their market share and give that historic cooperation a go just for the fun of it, as risky as it may sound. It is a business, I know but then – it is about games, right?

Project Morpheus – as is the codename of Playstation VR is currently aiding NASA to train space robots for tasks that would otherwise have to be completed by humans. Describing this as a step in the right direction would be an understatement as you can imagine how dangerous their missions are and how many people have lost their lives. Being able to prevent that has an unmeasurable value, no doubt.

The Playstation VP is a head-mounted virtual reality display developed by Sony, designed to work with the video game system of Playstation 4. The OLED 1920×1080 px display (providing 960×1080 px resolution/eye) promises to take you to a whole new dimension, as is expected from virtual reality gadgets. Part of the ‘Mighty Morphenaut’ project, this system allows the user to control the robot in the environment that it is in and make decisions which will choose its next move.

Nevertheless, given the long distance between the robot and the user, the developers expect to use what they call “ghost hands”, which will immediately respond to the operator while the robot’s movement will follow later on. This will enable humanoids to assist and even take on dangerous tasks on the International Space Station (ISS). While NASA has been experimenting before with drones and probes, they proved to be to specialized, lacking the dexterity and flexibility of humans. NASA has already developed a humanoid robot called Robonaut 2, designed to be as human-like as possible, with arms, fingers and hands; however, this is only half of the task, as the most important thing is making these robots as effective and ready to improvise as human hands.

“The hope is that by putting people in an environment where they can look around and move in ways that are much more intuitive than with a mouse and keyboard, it would require less training to understand how to operate the robot and enable quicker, more direct control of the motion,” Garrett Johnson, Software Engineer at NASA told Ben Lang for roadtovr.com.

Virtual Reality has been tested and implemented in many departments, such as education and healthcare and it has already started to do its magic. Ultimately, the implementation of virtual reality has the achieved the greatest performance in healthcare, being used for surgery simulation and training, as well as for experimenting in a risk-free environment.

If you have been keeping an eye on the latest tech trends and gadgets, then you know that 2016 is expected to be full of surprises, among which the much-coveted input of virtual reality in numerous departments, from education all the way to healthcare. But we’ll save that for last. Let’s first have a look at some other fantastic gadgets expected to blow you away in the nearest future.
Invisible furniture chargers – MiniBatt, a Spanish start-up company have come up with the brilliant idea of embedding a special charging system in any type of furniture, no matter what type of material it is made of. The way to charge your device is by placing it on top of the respective piece of furniture. I want one, like now!

Talking robo-phone – Sharp recently introduced a tiny robot by the name of RoBoHon that can be used as a mobile phone. With the help of voice recognition, it will answer your questions and perform searches, as well as read the text messages that you receive. A bit creepy for my taste, but I guess it could come in handy when you’re driving.

Holograms – I never thought I would say this so soon, but holograms are awesome and now they are very close to becoming a fact. Developers believe that once 5G mobile networks will be faster, speaking to a hologram of your friend or relative will be possible and I dare say that I am dying to try it.

Sony Xperia Eye & Ear – Something that is pretty impressive comes from Sony, under the form of a wireless ear piece – Xperia Ear and a 360 lens camera – the Xperia Eye. Both take voice commands and the ear piece can also inform users of reminders and daily schedule, as well as recent news and weather forecast.

VR is here – Virtual reality is something we have all been looking forward to and now, in 2016, our waiting has ended. The amazing technology that can make you feel part of a virtual environment and even interact with it. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, both South Korea’s SK Telecom and Samsung presented a virtual reality ride; the first is an underwater trip in a yellow submarine, but Samsung’s rollercoaster ride is surely something I want to try in the nearest future. Mobile developers have been joggling with virtual reality and I must admit that the thought of having such a device is as tempting as it gets. However, It seems we will need to wait for faster 5G mobile network speed to add a hologram to it and then… the sky is the limit!