Eric Johnson

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Unu, Yet Another Android Gaming Device, Ships by November

Are you getting overwhelmed by all the Android gaming devices coming out this year? Well, too bad, because here comes another micro-console and media box, Unu.

Unu is a combination console, tablet and home entertainment device, promising to bring “virtually any game” from Google’s app store, Google Play, to the big screen by way of a TV-connected dock. The Unu tablet that fits in the dock can then be removed and used independently, running Android 4.1 with a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and 8 gigabytes of flash storage.

An “airmouse” for controlling some apps from the couch will ship with the dock and tablet as the media edition for $200, while the gaming edition will cost an extra $50 and include a gamepad controller in the hardware bundle. Starting today, Unu is accepting pre-orders through GameStop, which lists the release date as Oct. 29, and Newegg, which pegs it at Nov. 8.

2013 has been a big year for gaming hardware built on top of Google’s mobile operating system. We’ve already seen stabs at the mobile-to-TV crossover audience like Green Throttle (was $40 in April, now $30), Ouya (June, $100) the Nvidia Shield (July, $300) and the GameStick (September, $80). And we’re awaiting the release of the GamePop and GamePop Mini (release TBD, $129 and free with software subscriptions) and Mad Catz M.O.J.O. (December, $250).

And that’s to say nothing of all the non-gaming-specific Android-based phones and tablets that, in most cases, can play many of the same games.

A video explaining Unu’s various uses is embedded below.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik