Did you ever thought about using your Android Smartphone as your Desktop PC ?
Well, Christian Cantrell did thought about it. Cantrell posted an 8 min Video on his Youtube channel showing how he used his Samsung Galaxy Nexus as a Desktop PC with Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.1 (Not rooted) with some cables (that you may already have!) which will only cost you about $20-40 ONLY.
Cantrell showed that with only some cables and a little experience can make a useable Android-Desktop Computer with a big screen, Android devices Nowadays have enough CPU and RAM to do this, Here is the Stuff that Cantrell used to create the Android Computer:
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Not-Rooted)
- LCD Screen
- MHL cable for the Galaxy Nexus (for Display)
- MicroUSB Cable with a USB Hub
- 3.5mm Cable for Sound output
- Galaxy Nexus Charger to charge the phone while using
- Keyboard (wireless)
- Trackpad OR Mouse (wireless)
Ice Cream Sandwich Software buttons
He also showed how useful is the Ice Cream Sandwich Software Buttons as he no longer need to touch his phone, He can simply use his trackpad or mouse to click on the buttons which appear on the right-side of the screen as you can see on the screenshot above. So you have sound-output, Display-output, Wireless control, wifi ,Internet access and your phone is charging at the same time. What you need else? pair of bluetooth headset and you are good to go (or good to stay home!).
Chrome For Android and More
He shoed on the video Chrome Beta for Android running very smooth, Google Music, Notes, Facebook, Folders, Search, Gallery and all other Apps with no lag or anything. So, How much it will cost you to do that ? $20-40 depending on the cables prices that may vary between phones and retailers.
We saw some rumors about a Google-Android Home Entertainment device a while ago, Today, We can confirm that Google is allegedly working on creating her own entertainment device capable of streaming music in multiple locations within a house. Imagine a Google Music Player that uses latest NFC integrations and Android OS around you gomee.
The information about the Google-branded device comes from a "Wall Street Journal" report from unnamed people briefed on the project. If true, it would mark the Google first attempt at creating a hardware product without the aid of an electronics manufacturing partner. The search giant is concentrated recently on its open-source Android operating system software for mobile and streaming media devices.
Acer said that it will announce its a New Phone Acer CloudMobile during the MWC later on this Month, Acer Cloud Mobile has received the "iF" design award 2012, in recognition of outstanding achievement in design, even if the device has not been announced yet, you can see the Official press photos of the device and it really has great design.
When it comes to the specs at this point we don't know much. The Acer CloudMobile is said to feature a 4.3-inch HD screen, Dolby Advanced Sound, and a body less than 10mm thick. On the software side, the Acer CloudMobile is said to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. The device will also be the first implementation of Acer own cloud technology.
As we said before Acer CloudMobile will get unveiled at MWC later this month, Market availability scheduled for Q3 this year.
Transformer Prime owners in the US are getting a notification of a new OTA update , ASUS said that this Update should bring improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth performance, along with a new kernel version 2.5.39.
There is no Official changelog just yet, but the Update also brings a fix for the random reboot issue that plagued many users after the update to Ice Cream Sandwich last month.
Amazon always mocking of the iPad ever since the first version of it launched, but the latest effort of the online retailer is pretty good even for its own high standards.
Amazon points out that if you happen to have 500 Dollars to spare you might want to purchase a poor-sunlight-display iPad or better get an Amazon Kindle eReader + 2x Kindle Fire slates for the same 500 Dollars with Android OS.
Google Has just released the Chrome browser for Android. This beta version is currently only available for ICS phones and tablets and like its desktop progenitor, the synced settings and bookmarks are all in tow. Expect to see a new, more natural mobile view of the tab system.
It will also remember what you were last looking at on your desktop Chrome browser, and sync it across to your mobile device it is like Kindle or iBook bookmarking system, but for the web. Your autocorrect content from the desktop is similarly synced.
You can now bring your personalized Chrome experience with you to your Android phone or tablet. If you sign in to Chrome on your Android device, you can:
- View open tabs: Access the tabs you left open on your computer (also signed into Chrome) picking up exactly where you left off.
- Get smarter suggestions: If you visit a site often on your computer, you'll also get an autocomplete suggestion for it on your mobile device, so you can spend less time typing.
- Sync bookmarks: Conveniently access your favorite sites no matter where you are or which device you are using.
Chrome for Android Beta is available on phones and tablets running Android 4.0+, Ice Cream Sandwich in the Following Countries:
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- France
- Germany
- Spain
- Australia
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- Argentina
- Brazil
Chrome For Android [Market]
Demo Video Below!
According to a study by Crittercism on Android and iOS, both platforms have their share of apps that crash and it shows that iOS apps crash more often. The company which specializes in providing real-time crash reports for mobile apps evaluated reports over a period of one month and found that iOS apps crash quite a lot more than their Android counterparts.
In the first of the three quartiles we got data for, iOS apps crashed after 0.51% of all launches, whereas Android apps only crashed in 0.15%. In the second quartile the picture is similar with iOS apps crashing in 1.47% of the cases, whereas Android apps did so 0.73% of the time. Things are much closer in the third quartile 2.97% crashes for Android vs 3.66% for iOS.
Crittercism even gave us a detailed breakdown of the most problematic releases by OS. As it turns out, iOS 5.0.1 generates more than a third of all iOS crashes 33.93%, while iOS 4.3.5 is the second most problematic with 10.62%. That sounds quite believable as these two software versions are the two latest releases of iOS4 and iOS5.
BBC has once again updated its Android app, this time focusing on all of you with Android tablets. The new version of the application sings along Honeycomb devices, offering simple browsing in landscape and portrait view. In other words, the app now has a new UI for large tablets while those of you with 7-inch ones will continue to see the mobile phone version.
And that is about all there is in this release. The future update will also bring Live News Channel and home screen widgets.
Despite a point of contention over the true nature of these applications, a string of 13 apps have been identified as potential threats on the Android Market. One of the largest security software makers in the business, Symantec say they have identified these applications and relate them to a botnet-like virus called Android.Tonclank.
The applications in question run a type of malware called Android.Counterclank. Botnets spread from a host command computer and take control of other device via means of spam messages or in this case, malicious applications.
Un-install These Apps Immediately, If you already have them!
Symantec already say millions of users could be affected and they consider the damage level to be "medium" with regards to data and identification theft. So far a list of 13 applications have been identified on the Android Market as malicious, with the majority of them being mobile games of some form.
In December 2011, Huawei offered a demo version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for its Honor smartphone, allowing users to dream about a full version.
Now the handset has been officially launched with Android ICS on board in China (via China Unicom). Of course, this means that if you have already bought the Honor with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, an update to Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich should be available for your device soon.
The Huawei Honor features a 4 inch FWVGA 854 x 480 display, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, 8MP rear camera with 720p video recording, front-facing camera, 1.4GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal memory, and a 1930 mAh battery. The handset is available in the US via Cricket Wireless under the name of Huawei Mercury.
Qualcomm recently launched GameCommand to showcase games that leverage on the capabilities of the their Adreno GPUs. GameCommand features games from various dev companies, but apparently, Qualcomm are upping the ante with a game studio of their own.
They are also working on a much improved version of GameCommand, which is expected to launch at the upcoming MWC.
Qualcomm game studio will target phones and tablets powered by the company Snapdragon chipsets (which use Adreno graphics). They are promising "console-quality graphics" on the mobile devices.
Desert Winds [Free]
Verizon announced during its earnings call today that 15 million Android phones were activated and nearly 11 million iPhones were sold. This news comes after the largest wireless carrier in the United States activated a record of over 4 million iPhones in the fourth quarter.
Apparently these numbers were not too impressive as investors punished the company stock because costs associated with offering the iOS handset weighed heavily on Big Red earnings.
CyanogenMod is working on releasing their very own application store for Android. The idea was originally by one of CyanogenMod team members Koushik Dutta, who wanted to create an application store that would host applications that were removed from Android Market for some reason. This would include stuff like one click root apps, game emulators, tether apps, visual voicemail apps, etc. Although Google Market is open, some of these apps do get removed from time to time when they do not meet Google or the carrier terms and conditions.
Dutta admitted to having approached Amazon to bundle their Appstore within CyanogenMod if the CM team got a cut from the app sales but the idea was shot down by Amazon.
The other reason to have their own application store is so that they could use a small portion of the money coming in from app sales to fund the CyanogenMod project, which has been made available to users for no cost at all.
AppTech new ReconAge Android app rocks. Relying on a proprietary technology developed in partnership with Cognitec Tecnologia Brazil and data processing specialist BrScan Tecnologia, it can recognize the approximate age of anyone using the phone's built-in camera to take pictures.
Available as a free download, the application is made to demonstrate the power of this patented technology called FaceMidia. which will be able to ascertain the age, gender and ethnicity of their audience and evaluate whether they are advertising the right products to the right demographics.
Google has launched the Android Design site, a page of guidelines, design principles, UI best-practice and style shortcuts for developers working with Ice Cream Sandwich. Made up both of guiding principles for apps and interfaces, such as "delight me in surprising ways" and "let me make it mine", as well as the actual building blocks of an Android UI, including tabs, seek bars, switches and spinners, the site marks Googlemost obvious attempt to-date to get all Android coders on the same style-sheet.
Much of what we saw and praised in Ice Cream Sandwich is being put forward as best-practice by Google today. The People hub, new in Android 4.0, is used as an example of using pictures instead of words, while the shift from physical buttons to virtual and the changing context menu is used to push the idea of not overwhelming people with too much at any one time.
Google updated its podcast client for Android Google Listen. There are no visible changes except that reference to the now defunct Google Labs was removed. Other than that, it is the same app that allows users to listen to the podcasts while on the go and that sings along Google Reader.
Box updated its Android app with some major improvements in the 1.5 version.
One of the coolest new feature which also takes advantage of the unique value proposition of Android is the ability to get update widgets. This allows you to see which files have been altered and this is especially important for Box, which is used by many companies. Additionally, you will be able to send files to box from anywhere you can open files and that is another nice ability of Android. You can also look forward to new compatibility with third-party apps like QuickOffice Pro.
This week we have had more than a general share of conversation on the ASUS Transformer Prime, especially on the fact that it'll be shipped to users with a locked down bootloader, this blocking general efforts to develop on a deep level for the device today ASUS has announced that due to the response they have had on the subject, they will be releasing a bootloader unlock tool for the device as well!
Developers and hackers alike will be able to work with their NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core toting Transformer Prime on an intimate level, and will be able to do it with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well, starting on January 12th, 2012.
The chart breaks down some pretty incredible percentages. According to the study, 18 percent of users have unusually large heads, which might confirm the geek tag the Android platform get sometimes, just guessing. Also, 62 percent wear jeans and 63 percent have a significant other. Check the Infographic Below!
Even though the bulk of the population out here in Android Land are not yet updated to the newest version of Google Mobile OS, modifications on the basic user interface of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich are in full force, shown here with the CyanogenMod team Trebuchet launcher, made to make your experience as lovely as possible. What you are seeing is a hacked version of the newest version of Android made perfect as the developer team CyanogenMod sees it.
They have got their newest version, CyanogenMod 9, under development now, and inside you will find this new look at Ice Cream Sandwich complete with improved widget resizing, auto-rotate, home screen modification, and a whole lot more!
This build is only in pre-alpha mode. At the moment, Trebuchet only works on hacked devices running Android 4.0.3 ICS.
Alcatel still around and they have nice entry-level Android offerings, like the new Alcatel Blaze Duo OT-918N. As the name suggests, it is a dual-SIM, dual-standby device.
The phone has a twin the OT-918D. The OT-918N uses 850MHz/2100MHz for its 3G connectivity, while the D version uses 900MHz/2100MHz instead. The 2G connectivity is quad-band.
Other than that, they share the same specs. Do not expect much of them though, they are really low-level entries - they run Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a 650MHz processor with 256MB RAM, the screen is a 3.2-inch LCD with HVGA resolution, and there is also a 3MP camera, A-GPS, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and A-GPS to complete the tally. The Blaze due OT-918N is available for 140 USD and 918D for 179 USD.
Sony may not have had a lot of success in the tablet market but it is not going to leave those who decided to spend their money on their Tablet S. And so to show that it will continue to support the device, Sony has just announced its intention to upgrade the tablet to Ice Cream Sandwich.
Sony Official Anoncement
"Sony Tablet™ is evolving, and we'd like to keep you informed with the latest updates.
Today we're happy to confirm that an update to Android 4.0 will be available for Sony Tablet.Details including timing will be announced in due course, so please stay tuned.
Just recently we released the Software Development Kit for Sony Tablet P. For more information on this and future updates please visit us at Sony Tablet Evolution.
Best regards"
It has been just a day since Google released the Android 4.0.3 update and the folks over at xda-developers have managed to get it working on the original Motorola Xoom already.
While this may sound like exciting news, it is still pretty much a work in progress, which means things are not working quite as well as they should. The camera is not working and there is a green overlay from time to time.
The Kindle lineup has made Amazon proud over a million Kindle devices are flying off their virtual shelves every week, three weeks in a row now. That includes the eInk readers, of course, but the droid tablet, the Kindle Fire, is doing very well too.
Amazon did not give any specific numbers, but said that the Kindle Fire was the bestselling product on all of Amazon for the 11 weeks during which it has been on sale. It is also the most gifted and most wished for product on Amazon lists.
Ainol Novo 7 is a 7-inch tablet with Android 3.2 Honeycomb pre-installed that retails for 145USD at many online retailer.
What you get for your money is a 7-inch WVGA (800 x 480) resolution multi-touch display, a single-core Ingenic JZ4770 Xburst 1 GHz processor, 512 MB worth of RAM, 8 gig storage, 2 MP back and VGA front cameras and, most notably, Android Honeycomb 3.2 preinstalled.
The tablet is reasonably thin and light at 12mm and 370g. It is a pretty good deal for newcomers to the tablet game.
Before you begin, try plugging your phone in and see if it works straight away. At the time of writing, the only official Android Ice Cream Sandwich phone is the Galaxy Nexus and it may not work. But future ICS phones might work, depending on whether they have an SD card slot or not, and whether they support exporting the card as USB mass storage. If it works, you should be good to go.
First up, install the necessary tools:
sudo apt-get install mtp-tools mtpfs
Now, connect your Galaxy Nexus to your computer. On your phone, open up the notification drawer, and click on “USB Connection type”. Make sure that MTP is selected.
Then, run these commands:
mtp-detect | grep idVendor
mtp-detect | grep idProduct
You shall get an output like this:
Note down the numbers written in front of idVenfor and idProduct, you’ll need those later on.
Now, run this commands:
gksu gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
A gedit window should open up. Type this text in it, all in a single line:
SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, ATTR{idVendor}==”VENDORID”, ATTR{idProduct}==”PRODUCTID”, MODE=”0666″
Replace VENDORID with the idVendor you had noted down earlier. Similarly, replace PRODUCTID with the idProduct you had noted down. In my case, they were 04e8 and 685c respectively, but they might have been different for you. Also, remember to re-type the quotes in the line after you’ve copied and pasted it, otherwise udev may output an error. If you’re in doubt, you can copy the same line from this pastebin instead and then replace PRODUCTID and VENDORID as needed.
Save and close the file. Then, disconnect your phone and run these commands:
sudo service udev restart
sudo mkdir /media/GalaxyNexus
sudo chmod a+rwx /media/GalaxyNexus
sudo adduser YOURUSERNAME fuse
Replace YOURUSERNAME with your Ubuntu user name. Now, run this command:
gksu gedit /etc/fuse.conf
In the Gedit window, remove the # at the beginning of the last line (the one that begins with “#user_allow_other”) like this:
You’re almost done! Now, restart your computer, and then run these three commands :
echo “alias android-connect=\”mtpfs -o allow_other /media/GalaxyNexus\”" >> ~/.bashrc
echo “alias android-disconnect=\”fusermount -u /media/GalaxyNexus\”" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Again, do re-type the quotes in each command after you’ve copied, otherwise the command won’t work.
Connect your phone again, and then make sure your phone is using MTP, then run this command:
android-connect
Voila! You can now browse your Android phone contents using Nautilus. Just fire up the file manager, and then in the side bar click GalaxyNexus to browse your phone contents just like you would do with a USB stick. You can also add, remove and modify files just like a normal file system.
You might have noticed that you cannot use the Nautilus eject icon to disconnect the phone. Instead, to safely remove the phone, just run the command:
android-disconnect
From now onward, you just need to run android-connect to mount your phone and then android-disconnect to safely remove your phone. Everything else should be handled automatically. I tried many ways of getting the mount and unmount to happen automatically on cable connect, but this was the best solution I could come up with.
Today the new Timeline Facebook layout has been rolled out to the general public to mixed reviews, and that launch includes mobile. The official Facebook app for Android now sports the new look, as well as the mobile site for iOS devices. This is not to say the iOS Facebook app will not be getting Timeline at some point in fact, the original launch showcased an iPhone running the feature just fine.
If you have not had a chance to check it out, the new layout offers a nice big banner image behind your profile picture, then blasts through your updates in a chronological order. The main idea is to present your whole life as a timeline, which in the long run actually makes a fair bit of sense, given how much people use Facebook.
ASUS has announced that buyers of the Eee Pad Transformer Prime will have to wait until the end of January,2012 before they can pick up the tablet however, it will likely be released running Ice Cream Sandwich as standard. The OS news lends further weight to the rumors that ASUS will have the Android 4.0 upgrade ready next month.
The Transformer Prime currently runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, with only the Galaxy Nexus fresh to Verizon today getting Google latest platform so far, at least officially. Android 4.0 brings with it an improved UI, better multitasking control and many other improvements.
Google has started pushing out a new Market update with version 3.4.4, which upon quick inspection operates faster than before and brings a setting for auto-adding and Updating any applications widgets to your home screen.
Note: If the Market starts force closing, just open Settings > Applications > Manage > Market, and "clear data".
Download Here
A bit earlier this month the folks at Qualcomm had an analyst summit with about 50 industry analysts from both North and South America to show off their developing technologies and in particular one device which had us raising our eyebrows a new Snapdragon S4 developer tablet running Android 2.3 Gingerbread news today from Qualcomm shows off how this tablet is now prepped to be running the newest OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. You will remember the MDB Qualcomm handset we had earlier this year, that one of the last developer-centric devices the chip manufacturer had out for purchase.
Though details are not especially numerous or expansive at the moment on this build, Qualcomm themselves have provided the images you are seeing above.
While we liked the Amazon Kindle Fire as a simple media tablet, some have been complaining that the device is not as responsive as it should be. Well, Amazon is promising a software update soon which should bring many improvements.
According to a report in the New York Times, Amazon said the Kindle Fire update will improve the multitouch response, enable users to edit the last-seen menu and more. I think that the Amazon tablet has some decent hardware inside of it but the software is not getting as much out of it as it can.
Coby Electronics announced today that it is preparing to offer five new tablets running Google latestAndroid 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform in early 2012. The company promises to show the devices at CES in January, making it one of the first companies to have such an extensive lineup of Android 4.0 tablets.
The Coby tablets will have a range in sizes, including a 7-inch (MID7042), 8-inch (MID8042), 9-inch (MID9042), 9.7-inch (MID9742), and 10-inch (MID1042) models. All the tablets will have capacitive touchscreens and be powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with 1GB of RAM. They will also support WiFi, HDMI 1080p output, and expandable storage up to 32GB.
If you are looking forward to getting your mitts on a new Asus Transformer Prime tablet and live in the UK, you can get your pre-order in right now. The Transformer Prime is up for pre-order on Clove in the UK. We reviewed the Transformer Prime not long ago and it is a very nice tablet and will be one of the best Android tablets to hit the market.
Clove has two version of the tablet up for pre-order. You can get the 32GB version with the keyboard accessory or the 64GB version with no keyboard accessory. Both of the devices sell for the same price at £459. The kit with the keyboard is the more appealing to me, that keyboard accessory greatly increases the battery life of the tablet.
Facebook is getting ready to refresh its arsenal on Android. Facebook Android team is now putting the finishing touches on version 1.8 of the Facebook app for Android and there will be a whole new app coming also to Android, a location-based app to show yuo where is your friends now called "Nearby" from facebook too.
The new version of the app brings slightly cleaner UI and should supposedly improve navigation, menu and search functionality. We should be hearing more about it in the near future, when it is expected to hit the Android Market.
Archos G9 tablet with the latest version of the Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich on it. The G9 is a cheaper tablet that sells for about 350 USD Only. The OS appears to be fully functional in many aspects on the tablet even though ICS has not launched.
The video shows the OS version to be 4.0.1 and the video goes though some of the transitions and the UI elements. The OS is very smooth looking with minimal lag and delay between actions and the movement of the screen. Zooming of photos is also very fluid and smooth with no stuttering.
Video Below!
Google has kicked off a new Android Market promotion to celebrate 10 billion downloads, offering ten days of offers on premium software. The 10 Billion Promo sees ten apps being released each day at just 0.10 USD in the US, with first day titles including SwiftKey X, SoundHound and SketchBook Mobile.
The remaining titles are Asphalt 6, Minecraft, Endomondo Sport, Great Little War Game, Fieldrunners HD, Color & Draw for kids and Paper Camera. Google hasn’t detailed the promotion yet, but we are assuming the line-up is likely to change daily as the celebration goes on for the next week and a half.
The Chinese brand known for their controversial designs that closely resemble a certain product from Cupertino, has announced a new Android smartphone called the Meizu MX.
Specifications include a 4-inch, 960 x 640 resolution ASV display, 1.4GHz dual-core Samsung Exynos processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB built-in memory, 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording, VGA front camera, Bluetooth, WI-Fi, A-GPS, HSPA+ connectivity and a 1,600mAh battery. The phone will be running on Android 2.3.5 but will get the Ice Cream Sandwich update soon.
MobileIron, announced its New Android Application MobileIron 4.5, it provides the deepest security on the broadest set of Android devices, including brand new Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones. This new security suite also offers:
- Encryption enforcement for data at rest – allowing IT departments to set encryption policies
- Secure SSL VPN connectivity for data in motion – integration with Cisco AnyConnect
- Exchange account configuration with certificates – allows IT departments to authenticate device posture and user identity using certificates so that end-users can utilize the native e-mail, contacts, calendar, and tasks apps.
- Single MobileIron client for all Android devices
- Notification upon removal of Android administrative privileges
- Hardware lockdown – restricting camera, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth functions in high security environments.
The update to the official Google Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 build for Nexus S that you have been waiting for long time is HERE, Word is that the build sent out today to some Google employees is an early build of Ice Cream Sandwich, so there is certainly some kinks to work out, but this is no 3rd party street nightly build folks, Google sends out the good stuff right away. For those of you waiting at home, you can also get Ice Cream Sandwich right this moment if you wish, but you will have to do some hacking to get it. Refer back to our post about the Rocket Launcher hidden in the system to see.
For those of you not understanding what all the fuss is about, Android 4.0 is the newest version of Google mobile operating system and one that takes the whole platform to a new level of integration.
MIUI is a ROM outside the one device they have developed across the platform, the only way you can get it on your device is to hack/Root it. Out News today is that there is a new version in the works, one made specifically for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and like its predecessors, it will both take all the best bits of the operating system and re-arranges them for a lovely dessert thats without compare.
Below you will see a neak peak on the ALPHA verison of it.
Acer has officially announced the Iconia Tab A200. it runs Android 3.2 on a Tegra 2 processor promising affordability rather than cutting-edge specs. However, Acer has confirmed that the A200 is in line for an Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 upgrade by January 2012.
The tab size is 260 x 175 x 12.4 mm slate weigths 720g and comes with 8/16GB of storage. A good 3,260 mAh battery for up to 8hrs of video playback or 400hrs of standby Acer reckons, together with 1GB of RAM and a full-sized USB port for connecting external peripherals like keyboards. A microSD card slot can be used to add to the storage, and the 10.1-inch display runs at 1280 x 800 resolution with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.
Google has updated their Android Market website to allow any user, with the Android Market installed of course, to push applications for automatic download on their devices. Many rooted devices have not had a problem with this feature before the update, but those that owned a NOOK Color, HP TouchPad, or the new Kindle Fire were not recognized before the update.
They clearly want its users to take advantage of the ability to download applications from their website and push them to their rooted phones and tablets. This update clearly helps both parties, although it still has a few bugs. One of which includes the Android Market constantly requesting to update applications that were not directly installed from the Android Market.
The unique-looking Sony Tablet P was announced way back in April along with its bigger brother, the Tablet S. The latter went on sale a while back but those hoping to get their hands on the Tablet P have been put on hold.
Not any more, at least in the UK, where the device has just appeared for pre-order on Sony online store for a whopping £499 ($771). Even by UK generally high prices that is quite a lot. In fact it is even more than the bigger Tablet S, which costs £349.
What you get for that kind of money is a unique dual display design that split the user interface into two parts. As you scroll across a webpage, for example, you can see is sliding across the two screens as if it were just one large single display. Each of the displays are 5.5-inch in size and have a resolution of 1024 x 400. This allows the device to fold in half like a spectacle-case and carried around in your pocket with ease.
Other than the interesting display arrangement you get a 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM, 4GB internal memory with microSD card slot, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi with DLNA, GPS, 5 megapixel rear camera, VGA front camera, accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass and Android 3.2 Honeycomb.
The next most powerful Android device on earth is now available for pre-order from Best Buy, that being the Asus Transformer Prime, an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor toting 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet.
This device is available for pre order in two forms: one with a gray back, the other with a champagne back. Both models have 32GB of data storage built-in with a microSD card slot to expand by an additional 32GB if you wish. They have also got the official champagne-colored keyboard dock and a mystery portable dock which we must assume is the gray-colored keyboard dock, both up for 149.99 USD and at pre-order status as well.
The Galaxy Nexus will be the first handset to ship with Ice Cream Sandwich and will include all the latest bells and whistles including facial recognition and improved notifications. Owners that snag one at launch may be surprised to discover that Adobe Flash is missing. According to Google "Flash has not been released for ICS yet so as far as we know, Adobe will support Flash for ICS."
Adobe chimed in and confirmed that it "will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will give support for Android 4.0 expected to be released before the end of this year."
For many of us, the Xperia Play just was not quite tempting enough to throw out your PSP or 3DS, but there is no doubt that mobile gaming is on its way to the big leagues. The dedicated D-Pad was an excellent idea, but there simply were not enough games supported to make it a worthwhile investment.
Meet Fluctel Gametel Gaming Controller a bluetooth controller that latches on to any Android phone that runs Android 2.1 or higher. It will support over 50 games straight out of the box, including Cordy, Asphalt 6 HD, Reckless Getaway, Guns'n'Glory, MotoX Mayhem, Happy Vikings and Zenonia.
According to PocketGamer, the Gametel Gaming Controller offers about nine hours of battery life and automatically shuts down after six minutes of inactivity. The controller connects to the phone via Bluetooth, which means that you can also disconnect the controller and play from afar. A handful of powerful Android devices sport kickstands these days so that is an option, but if your phone supports HDMI out then you are in for a real treat. No console, no expensive games just you, your phone, and the gaming controller docking it out on the big screen.
Amazon Kindle Fire was torn-aprt, Already a one-click rooting tool is available for it and the 7-inch tablet was disassembled by people curios to see what is inside.
iFixit open the Kindle Fire and reported with a list of components and a fairly good repairability score.
The Fire is powered by a TI OMAP 4430 chipset with two Cortex-A9 cores and 512MB Hynix RAM plus Samsung-made 8GB flash storage. The 7-inch IPS LCD display of the tablet is courtesy of LG. It has a Bug 4,400mAh battery.
SOURCE CODE
After a few weeks of waiting, Google has finally released the source code for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This means you will soon be able to get the latest update running on your Android devices, assuming you have the programming skills. Or you could just wait for your favorite custom ROM to be made available in Ice Cream Sandwich flavor.
Google is saying that the code is still being pushed due to its large size and if synced at the moment it will end up being useless. Their advise is to wait for them to tell you when its ready to sync.
The code is actually the 4.0.1 update, the exact same one that the Galaxy Nexus will be running on. This code will have to be modified in order to run on other devices. It also comes with a full history of the Android source code tree, including Honeycomb, which was till now unavailable.
Swiftkey, which along with Swype is one of the best virtual keyboards out there, has finally started adding multi-touch support. Still in Alpha, the Android application is still being tested out but we are hoping the beta release will be launched in few weeks.
Here is what Swiftkey folks had to say at itsVIP track site:
We have made improvements for rapid typists. We now properly support multi-touch so you should not get accidentally repeated letters or accidentally missed letters when typing at speed with more than one finger. If you could try this out and in particular look out for issues with long-press keys, alternative character selection or keys where the highlighting gets stuck. We are particularly interested in results from tablet users touch typing as well as phone users with two thumbs.
The Launch date for the upcoming Nvidia quad-core ASUS Transformer Prime tablet has been push back to Early December.
keep in mind this supposedly has something to do with the device debuting with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and not Android 3.2. Apparently, Google needs a little more time to prepare and by "prepare" we mean wait for the launch of the Galaxy Nexus which we are sure Google is wanting to be the premier device to show-off ICS to the world.
Last week ATT announced the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket for its newly developed high-speed LTE network. And now those LTE beasts are on sale on the carriers website with special online discounts.
There is another good piece of news. ATT has also confirmed that both LTE devices will get Ice Cream Sandwich in the first months of next year. The exact date is yet unclear as Google has to roll-out the OS to manufacturers to develop for their devices and then they need to pass the ball to carriers for further testing and release.
The 1.4GHz quad-core CPU that powers the Asus Transformer Prime sure sounds promising, but the real question is how much of a performance boost it brings. And, as it turns out, the answer is a lot. About two times, to be specific.
As it turns out, the Tegra 3 chipset is not all talk and no action that thing is blazing fast. The Transformer Prime score appeared in the results browser of the AnTuTu benchmark and its more than twice higher than that of the Tegra 2-powered Motorola Xoom.
Even the Ice Cream Sandwich-running Galaxy Nexus barely achieves 60% of the Transformer Prime score. And you should not forget that the Samsung smartphone needs to handle lower resolution than the Asus tablet.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Font
Among the first new features championed by Google at the Hong Kong media event was a brand new typeface for Android in the shape of the easy-to-read "Roboto." Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich System Bar and Action Bar.
At the launch event, Google showcased a host of virtual buttons that appear at the bottom of the screen in some apps and allow users access to areas of the device like phone and contacts.
These are located in the System Bar present in all apps and enables you to navigate instantly to Back, Home, and Recent Apps. Virtual buttons are present across all apps, but can be dimmed by applications for full-screen viewing.
You can also access the contextual options for each app in the Action Bar at the top of the screen.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich voice control
Android 4.0 introduces new voice input engine, You can dictate the text you want, for as long as you want. After dictating, you can tap the underlined words to replace them from a list of suggestions.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich multitasking
Multi-tasking has also been given a boost and with ICS it's easier to see which apps you've been using recently. If you decide you're done with using one, you can easily flick it away to close.
Google says it has made multitasking "even easier and more visual" on Android 4.0. The Recent Apps button lets users jump instantly from one task to another using the list in the System Bar. The list pops up to show thumbnail images of apps used recently tapping a thumbnail switches to the app.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Face Unlock
Perhaps the most 'Star Trek' of all the new Android 4.0 features is a new piece of functionality called Face Unlock which, as the name suggests, unlocks your handset based on facial recognition tech.
You can also do more without unlocking. As in iOS 5 you can jump straight to the camera. You can also pull down the notifications window.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Home Screen folders
Like iOS before it, Android is now getting home screen folders too. You can group apps or shortcuts together and, as with iOS, you can do this just by dragging icons on top of one another.From the All Apps launcher, you can now drag an app to get information about it or uninstall it should you wish.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich notifications
Notifications have also been improved. On larger devices - tablets - the updates appear in the System Bar, while on phones the notifications roll down from the top of the screen as before.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich favorites tray
On phones and other "smaller screen devices", there is now a customisable favorites tray. You can put anything you want here apps, folders, shortcuts - whatever you want check out this screen:
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich widgets
As in Honeycomb, you can now resize widgets on phones too. As in that OS, the widgets in 4.0 are designed to be far more interactive, enabling you to flick through appointments, play music and more.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich data
Android 4.0 includes new graphical displays so you can see how much data you're using and how much you have used over Wi-Fi or cellular. You can also see the amount of data used by each running application.
Warning levels can also be specified, as well as determining how much background data apps can use.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich camera
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich also brings some much-needed improvements to Google camera UI, which the company says it has been working on with Samsung.
ICS devices, and the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Nexus in particular, will have 1080p video, zero shutter lag, a new picture-stitching panorama mode, easier sharing and Instagram-esque filters.
In the panorama mode, you can start taking the picture and then move the camera. The phone assembles the full range of continuous imagery into a single panoramic photo.
"When taking pictures, continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, and decreased shot-to-shot speed help capture clear, precise images," says Google. "Stabilized image zoom lets users compose photos and video in the way they want, including while video is recording. For new flexibility and convenience while shooting video, users can now take snapshots at full video resolution just by tapping the screen as video continues to record."
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Apps & Beam
The People app does what many manufacturers have been doing on Android for ages bringing together various social networking feeds into one place, This offers richer profile information, including a large profile picture, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, and a new button for connecting on integrated social networks.
The Calendar app has also been updated to bring together different calendars, while the email app can now autocomplete responses and is able to store oft-used replies.
The web browser is also improved especially in terms of speed and now allows up to 16 windows. You can now sync it with Google Chrome and the browser supports offline browsing it can save versions of web pages you choose.
There is also a new NFC-based app called Android Beam, which allows two phones to exchange a wealth of information, just by holding them together.
The next Kindle Fire ereader tablet in Amazon line-up is likely to use an 8.9-inch touchscreen display rather than a 10.1-inch panel as originally expected, sources in the supply chain have revealed. While we have heard talk of a pair of tablets one small, the 7-inch Kindle Fire shipping in little over a week time, and one large, potentially arriving toward the end of the year since the beginning of the Amazon rumors say the retailer has switched to a smaller screen and pushed a 10.1-inch version further back down the roadmap.
LG Display and CPT, both suppliers of the 7-inch LCD in the Kindle Fire, will apparently also be supplying Amazon with its 8.9-inch screen. They are reportedly already preparing production to meet Amazon demand.
Streaming media service Plex has launched a Google TV version, putting its IPTV content on the latest version of Google smart TV platform. All of the channels from the Android version of Plex are present, and the company says the majority of content will play, even with Google TV limited transcoding support.
The one omission is the remote control functionality, which means you will not be able to control your laptop playback from the Google TV interface. Considering that was really intended to turn an Android phone into a remote.
It appears that the Android Market is going to grow another checkout option. The PayPal support that we have been hearing about for quite some time now is finally going to land in Android official app repository.
The evidence for this was found in the source code of the latest Android Market app, which repeatedly mentions PayPal. And if the code is already there we guess Google will be putting it to use quite soon.
Adding another checkout option will certainly increase the reach of the Android Market and allow more people to shop from it. Here is hoping it comes in time for the Holiday season shopping spree.
The analysts from Nielsen have just published their report on the smartphone market in the US and revealed that Android is still the most popular platform there. 43-percent of all US mobile subscribers now own a smartphone and 43% of them have a device running the Google OS.
The 43% market share represents a 4 percent points increase compared to the Android result in Q2. In fact, Android is the only platform to gain ground over the past three months in the US.
In second place, iOS is not doing too bad either, managing to retain its 28% market share. Thats despite the fact that Apple did not release a new iPhone in Q3, so the Cupertino-based company should have every reason to be optimistic about the Holiday season.
If you are looking for a new browser for your smartphone, the latest version of Opera Mini is now available. The new version for the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Java-enabled phones is Opera Mini 6.5. If you are using a Symbian S60 smartphone, the browser for you is Opera Mobile 11.5. The big upgrade in these browsers is the ability for the user to track data use.
The idea is that by having the browser track your data use, you can stop huge data bills from your phone company. Opera claims that the new version of the browser can save you up to 90% of data use. The browser is fast enough that Opera claims you can surf without 3D and still enjoy your smartphone. The browser tracks both total data use and temporary use.
Asus decided to delay its smartphone/tablet product, Padfone, until February 2012. Yep that unfortunately means the device I talked about for couple of times in the past will not be available for the Christmas shopping season.
I guess the reason is that the Taiwanese company will not have time to properly "implement" the new version of Android, which tablet "version" will be released in early December. Related to that, Asus will start shipping the upcoming Eee Pad Transformer Prime with Honeycomb on board, offering the Ice Cream Sandwich update shortly afterwards.
Winamp has released a new version (1.2) of its Android app, which now allows Mac users to sync their songs with Android smartphones. To that end, the company also launched Winamp for Mac Sync in beta, enabling 1-click iTunes Sync, playback functionality, playlist creation and management, and wired/wireless sync support.
In addition to the Mac support, this version of Winamp for Android also rocks full access to all available "Spinner MP3 of the Day" songs, more albums in CDLP, improved audio quality with Winamp native playback engine, as well as various headset optimizations and code enhancements.
The graphic (above) illustrates Android serious problem with the way it updates its devices. This comes after the company recently announced that Nexus One users will notbe getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The chart demonstrates the major problem with the Android ecosystem. The motivations of the carriers and manufacturers are obvious, which are short term gains and keeping customers by locking them into proprietary overlays. Discussing this matter further, DeGusta says on his site:
"It appears to be a widely held viewpoint3 that there is no incentive for smartphone manufacturers to update the OS: because manufacturers don’t make any money after the hardware sale, they want you to buy another phone as soon as possible. If that’s really the case, the phone manufacturers are spectacularly dumb: ignoring the 2 year contract cycle & abandoning your users isn’t going to engender much loyalty when they do buy a new phone."
Get your documents all in order today on the Amazon Appstore with OfficeSuite Professional 5, an Office editing app thats normally 15 USD, completely for free. As you may or may not know, the Amazon Appstore is a place where you can pick up apps on your Android device, this app store completely separate from the official Google version, that being called the Android Marketplace. If you will take a look at your humble narrator original Android Community 101: Amazon Appstore, it will all become abundantly clear. Today the Amazon Appstore is giving away no less than your one-stop shop for everything Office.
To get this app, you will first have to download the Amazon Appstore. All this consists of is dropping your email in the box in the upper left of Amazon Online Appstore, waiting for a confirmation email in your inbox, and clicking the link inside that email. Your download then will contain the appstore itself, and inside you will find not only a full-range of lovely applications including the only ad-free Android versions of Angry Birds, but OfficeSuite Pro 5, an app that’ll normally cost your three $5 bills, completely free today.
Those of you with T-Mobile version of the Samsung Galaxy S II may be glad to know that your device of choice has been rooted. Not everyone is interested to modify its SGS2 smartphone, since the out-of-box experience is already rock-solid.
However, if you feel adventurous, you can try out to root your phone today. You'll need the usual apps like ODIN and Windows drivers to flash the software you want on the Galaxy S II.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that has quite a few people heard about its ability to hide applications that you would otherwise not be able to get rid of. These apps are generally calls pre-installed because they are added to the basic build of the device and cannot be deleted by the user What this new function will bring is the ability to shut these apps out of your device ALMOST entirely save for the amount of space they take up in a very rudimentary sense. What you might not know is that both the Motorola DROID RAZR and the DROID BIONIC both have this ability already no Ice Cream Sandwich required!
Before we continue, I must disclose that I have not had an extended time with the DROID BIONIC if you will take a look at the reviews here and over at the other site I have reviewed for in the past, Android Community, you’ll see that it was Vincent Nguyen and Cory Gunther who took that review on when the device dropped.
The iPad continues to be the undisputed tablet market leader as the Q3, analysts show. During the past three months 16.7 million slates were sold and the mind-blowing 66.6-percent of those were iPads.
The few dozens Android tablets shipped a total of 4.5 million in the third quarter, giving them a share of 26.9%. Now that may be enough to make Android the only other major player in the tablet game, but its actually a step back for the Google OS, compared to Q2.
Google added the ability to rent films to the Android Market for Android users in the US back in July. If you were outside the US, the only thing you could do was hack the app that plays the films to allow you to watch. If you are not the hacking sort, Google has now announced that movie rentals are officially available in the UK.
Movie fans in the UK will have 1,000 films to watch to begin with and they will start at a price of £2.49 each. For that price, the user will get 30 days to watch the film and the movie will be available on any connected device the user logs into. That means the user Android smartphone, tablet, and even the computer can be used to watch the movie.
ASUS has just posted a new video teaser for what appears to be a next-generation Eee Pad Transformer. Titled "The next Transformation," the clip is pretty light on details, though the mysterious device does make a brief appearance toward the end, sporting a design similar to what we saw last week, with ASUS Zenbook lineup.
No word yet on whether the forthcoming Transformer will be powered by NVIDIA quad-core Kal El, as rumored, but you can see the teaser for yourself after the break.
Mozilla has recently decided that in order to improve Firefox for Android they need to dump XUL-otherwise known as eXtensible User interface Language, the language thats currently used to develop a consistent Firefox look and feel across multiple platforms-and start using Google native Android interface widgets. This does not mean that Mozilla is going to stop using their Gecko rendering engine that makes
Firefox what it is, it just means that they will ditch their attempts at creating a consistent user interface in order to deliver users a better experience. Johnathan Nightingale, Director of Firefox Engineering, announced the decision on the mozilla.dev.platforms.mobile usenet group, saying the three major areas that should see drastic improvement are:
- 01: Startup - A native UI can be presented much faster than a XUL based UI, since it can happen in parallel with Gecko startup. This means startup times in fractions of a second, versus several seconds for a XUL UI on some phones.
- 02: Memory use - We believe a native UI will use significantly less memory.
- 03: Responsiveness - A native UI has the potential for beautiful panning and zooming performance.
If you own an Android-powered smartphone, chances are you are using ASTRO to manage your files. The popular file manager app provides all the basic features you would expect from such application plus much more via third-party plugins. As a matter of fact, its one of those must-have applications pretty much every Android user should have installed on his/her device.
And now it has been updated with support for Honeycomb tablets. Needless to say, all that extra space is used to cram more information on the screen, presenting users with a split-screen menu view. In addition, there are in-app drag and drop capabilities, one-touch pop-up menu options, and advanced settings for customizing user experience.
The picture above does not show us much we do not already know but there are a few things that may interest a few people. One thing that we are surprised to see is that the handset will not be a world phone. This really will not mean much unless you travel a lot but even if you do not its a nice option to have. We have also got the confirmation that the Galaxy Nexus will rocking 4G LTE, which is something we have heard ever since we first got word of the handset.
Larry Page, who not so long ago took over as Google CEO, handed in the company Q3 financial results with a big smile on his face. Revenues were up 33-percent Year-on-Year (YoY) to 9.72 billion USD.
The number of paid clicks on Google ads increased 28% YoY and 13% compared to the previous quarter of this year. They were 5% more expensive too, both YoY and consecutively.
Larry Page also posted on Google+ that there are now 190 million activated Android devices around the world. Last Year, that number was 135 million. The Google revenue from mobile devices also grew 2.5 times over the last year.
click to view Original version
Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich is all set to be unveiled October,19 with the Samsung Nexus Prime and Google tradition of putting up a statue for each major update continues. Google Andy Rubin shared the video below showing the Ice Cream Sandwich statue going up.
We have seen some leaked videos and photos of Android Ice Cream Sandwich and it should have a cleaner UI and some new features. We have heard that this will be the unification of Android on the phones and the Honeycomb tablet version but lets hope there are a few surprises.
Video Below!
The folks at Sharp have decided to bring desserts and technology even closer together by creating an Android device which looks like a chocolate bar. In the most literal sense of the word that is.
The Sharp Q-Pod packs a single-core Snapdragon MSM 8255 1GHz. There is 512 MB of RAM on board. The 3.7-inch LCD screen of the device has qHD (540 x 960 pixels) resolutio and 8MP camera with LED flash and an infrared port are on board too.
Well, If you own an HP Touchpad HP or snatched one up for $99 either way, there is a good chance you want to lose the WebOS and move to Android Honeycomb
The CyanogenMod team just released an alpha of v7.1 that you can install. But it is a really early version and the team themselves discourage you from installing it because you will encounter problems "ranging from the benign to the very serious".
Its also worth noting that putting Android on your TouchPad will void your warranty. Also, things like Wi-Fi, sound and camera might encounter problems among many other things.
Demo Below!
App Player alpha for Windows is a newly released piece of free software from developer BlueStacks. Designed to run on Windows PC and tablets, it allows you to run Android apps on your Windows computer or tablet, with no modification to the original app.
App Player lets you run apps windowed or full screen and with their Cloud Connect service, you can share software between your Android and Windows devices easily.
After a long wait, the CyanogenMod 7.1 has finally been released. Although originally planned to release last weekend but some issues with their automated build system prevented that from happening.
The latest version adds a host of improvements that can be found here and is now supported on 68 devices. Quite a few of these are from Sony Ericsson, something that was possible because the company reached out to CyanogenMod developers and provided them with devices, technical assistance and drivers. Samsung did something similar a while back.
New devices included on v7.1:
- HTC Desire S
- HTC Incredible S
- HTC Incredible 2
- LG Optimus 2X and T-Mobile G2x
- Motorola Backflip (Motus)
- Motorola Cliq / Cliq XT
- Motorola Defy
- Motorola Droid 2
- Motorola Droid X
- Samsung Captivate
- Samsung Fascinate
- Samsung Mesmerize
- Samsung Showcase
- Samsung Vibrant
- Samsung Galaxy S
- Samsung Galaxy S2 (multiple carriers)
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X8
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray
- Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
- ZTE V9
Music Player and Google+ app from a build of Ice Cream Sandwich discovered by one of their readers, nicknamed Geek Vundotra, who also happens to be a Verizon employee.
Moving on to the actual apps, as you can see the Music app has received a facelift and looks a lot better. Personally, I am not a big fan of 3.0 app thats available for Gingerbread and Honeycomb right now because it looks like its trying too hard to look cool.
It looks cleaner and more focused. It also dumps the grey/green look for a uniform blue theme. The album art is shown much bigger now than before. The presence of the search key is due to the lack of a physical search button on the Nexus Prime and future ICS devices.
The v2.0 of Google+ app is much simpler in comparison. Just like the current app, it uses a minimalistic and straightforward UI. But there is one notable change in the app. Recently, Google renamed Huddle to Messenger. Apparently, they are not satisfied with that name so they renamed it to Chords, for reasons best known to Google.
T-Mobile USA announced new LG-made T-Mobile myTouch and the T-Mobile myTouch Q Android smartphones, both of which will be available "in time for the holiday season," whatever that means. The first of the two is an all-touchscreen device with a 3.8-inch display while the latter sports a smaller 3.5-inch screen along with a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard.
In addition, both smartphones also rock a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording support on the back, HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, 1GHz single-core processor, while Android 2.3 Gingerbread is running the show. The myTouch also has a front-facing camera that is used for video calls.
Old customers Can Updated too.
Google has updated its Google Docs app for Android to make it look better on Honeycomb tablets. The application is said to have an "entirely new design" that takes advantage of the larger screen space on tablets.
The layout now consists of three panels, including filters and collections, document list, and document details. From here you will be able to see a thumbnail to preview a document and all of its details before opening it.
We had obtained a Screenshot of the Amazon inventory management system that uses the acronym ALASKA from a verified source.
According to the data, Amazon has been reserving 2,000 Kindle Fire units each hour which works out to more than 50,000 daily. Thus, in the five days since the tablet has been open for pre-orders, 250,000 tablets have been reserved. If this trend continues, Amazon will have 2.5 million tablets "sold" prior to its launch on November 15th which would make the Amazon Kindle Fire the fastest selling tablet in history, outpacing both the Apple iPad and the Apple iPad 2 in first month sales totals.
Disney has launched a couple of new Android smartphones, nevermind the fact that Steve Jobs is on Disney board of directors. check the specs.
The first of these is the DM010SH handset which has the following specs:
- Android 2.3
- Qualcomm MSM8255 1GHz CPU
- RAM: 512MB
- ROM: 2GB
- 123 × 61.5 × 12mm
- 129g
- 4 inch 3D Capable
- 960 × 540 3DqHD
- 8MP Front Facing Camera
- W-CDMA (1500/2100MHz) GSM (900/1800/1900MHz)
- WiFi 802.11 b / g / n Bluetooth 3.0
- Colours: Classic Pink Classic White
- Battery: Unknown
The second is the DM011SH which has the following specs:
- Android 2.3
- Qualcomm MSM8255 1GHz Processor
- RAM: 512MB
- ROM: Unknown
- Size: Unknown
- Weight: Unknown
- 3.4 inch LCD
- Resolution: 854 × 480 FWVGA
- 8MP Camera with LED Flash
- W-CDMA (1500/2100MHz) GSM (900/1800/1900MHz)
- WiFi 802.11 b / g / n Bluetooth 3.0
- Colours: Silky Pink, Silky White
- Waterproof & Dustproof
Sharp AQUOS PHONE 102SH
Starting with Sharp AQUOS PHONE 102SH. This one is built around a 4.5-inch LCD of HD resolution (329dpi) that supports glasses-free 3D and a TI OMAP 4430 chipset with its 1GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM.
The element-resistant smartphone is just 9.7mm thick and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Its main camera does 12 megapixel stills and 1080p videos, while connectivity includes everything from 3G to Infrared.
Panasonic Lumix Phone 101P
Next comes the Panasonic Lumix Phone 101P with its 4" qHD LCD and 13 megapixel camera with Lumix sensor. It shares some of the major features of the AQUOS 102SH - the TI OMAP 4430 chipset, the waterproof body and the Android 2.3 platform.
The Panasonic Lumix Phone 101P weighs in a mere 128g and measures just 9.8mm in thickness. The Lumuix Phone 101P and the AQUOS PHONE 102SH are also sporting digital TV antennas as customary for Japanese high-end handsets.
Dell Streak Pro 101DL
Finally, we have the Dell Streak Pro 101DL, which makes it the third Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone announced today. Its 4.3" qHD AMOLED display sounds really exciting and the Snapdragon chipset with dual 1.5GHz Scorpion cores is not bad to have either.
Amazon announced several new devices today, ranging from a $79 eBook reader that uses electronic ink to a $199 tablet with a 7 inch IPS display called the Fire. One thing they talked about that immediately grabbed my attention was the web browser that comes preinstalled on Fire.
Its called Silk and its supposed to improve your browsing experience because it ties into Amazon cloud services, so it will be able to do things like compress images, text, that sort of stuff. This is not really anything new. The folks at Opera Software have been doing this since 2005 on mobile devices with Opera Mini.
Following up on some leaked press shots, Huawei today announced its latest Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread smartphone called the Honor. The Honor packs a 16M 16:9 true color HD 4-inch FWVGA capacitive touch screen. Here are some other specs:
- 1.4 GHz processor
- 8-megapixel HDR-enabled camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera
- A sleek 10.9 mm-thin body and weighs just 140g
- Exclusive Huawei user interface
- DLNA-certified
KDDI au announced recently a bunch of new Android handsets, including the HTC EVO 3D, the Motorola Photon, and this AMAZING Android handset made by Toshiba and Fujitsu. It has a 4.3-inch 1280 x 720p touchscreen, packs a 13.1MP camera on the back, and is running Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread on a dual-core 1.2 GHz OMAP processor with 1 GB of RAM.
Its also Waterproof and functioning fine when submerged up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. Also it features an infrared port and digital TV tuner, along with some more standard stuff like and HDMI-out port, WiMAX connectivity, and a Wi-Fi hotspot function.
The Huawei Honour has been pictured before at various Far East trade events but the Chinese tech giant has now released a whole stack of impressive official press photos of its forthcoming high-end Android phone.
The Honour tech specs are not 100% confirmed, but we are currently expecting the Honour to arrive with a 4-inch capacitive screen, Android 2.3, a 1.4GHz processor of unknown manufacture, a noise-canceling secondary microphone, front-facing camera...
At the end of August we first caught theHuawei Honour, its the best-looking Android handset to come out from China. Now the official press photos is available.
The Honour specs are not 100% confirmed at this stage, but from what we have understood it will rock a 1.4GHz processor, 4-inch capacitive touchscreen, 8-megapixel camera on the back, front-facing camera, noise-canceling secondary microphone, and I guess 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Hulu Plus is adding support for nine more Android devices. No, its not yet universally available, but we are a step closer to that dream.
The streaming service is now available on eight new smartphones: the Motorola Droid Bionic, Motorola Droid 3, Motorola Droid X2, LG Revolution, LG G2x, HTC Incredible 2, HTC Evo 3D, and HTC Sensation 4G. The ninth device is the HTC Flyer Android tablet. Hulu is gradually expanding its list of gadgets compatible with Hulu Plus.
While Hulu Plus seems to be making all of the right moves, Netflix has been making all of the wrong moves lately. It jacked up prices by a whopping 60 percent and is now spinning off the DVD service into a separate entity called Qwikster. And yes, I guarantee you will misspell that name at least once within the next few weeks.
Coming from Asus itself it seems that the Eee Pad Slider will finally be available. The Eee Pad Slider will come with Android Honeycomb 3.2 with a starting price of $475 for the 16 gig model and about $100 more for the doubled capacity 32GB model.
Archos definitely has the best-priced Honeycomb tablets coming out and, thankfully for you, it will not take long to head to store shelves. They have just announced September 20th availability with final pricing plans for two of the G9 tablets.
First up, we have got the 8 inch model. This one has a 1GHz dual-core OMAP4 processor and 8GB of internal storage for just $300. They 8 inch line is topped out with a 1.5GHz dual-core OMAP4 and either 16GB or 250GB of internal storage for $329 and $369, respectively.
According to the first mobile media rankings based on audience measurement data from metered Android smartphone usage, aside from the Android Market app itself, Facebook, Google Maps and Gmail were the most used among U.S. Android users 18 years and older. To determine each apps "active reach" the percentage of Android owners who used an app within the past 30 days Nielsen analyzed the data from on-device meters on thousands of Android smartphones.
While many of the top 20 apps, including the streaming music service Pandora and two versions of the popular game Angry Birds, showed similar usage by both men and women, there were notable differences in active reach for social apps. Facebook mobile app saw an active reach of 81 percent for women compared to 69 percent for male Android users. Twitter also had slightly higher active reach among women (16.5%) than men (13.4%). However, Google+, Google new social network, had more than twice the active reach among men (15.8%) than women (7.2%).
After the HP TouchPad fire sale a few weeks back, Fusion Garage, who were planning on announcing their Android-based Grid 10 tablet this month has decided that their original $499 and $599 price tags for the Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi + 3G model was perhaps a bit too ambitious. Fearing they may have another JooJoo on their hands, they have announced a rather generous price-drop.
$299 makes the 10-inch, 16GB Android tablet with Tegra 2 processor.Unfortunately, the launch date of the device has been pushed back by a couple of weeks, and it will now be coming out on October,1.
Today Nokia introduced a new application for their Symbian smartphones, designed to make them easier to use when you are driving a car. Called Nokia Car Mode, the standalone app features an optimized user interface simplifying the access and use of Nokia Drive (voice-guided car navigation with Nokia Maps), traffic updates, music and voice calls while driving.
Nokia Car Mode also supports the MirrorLink standard, which lets your smartphone integrate with supported car audio, video and navigation systems. Thanks to MirrorLink you can control your smartphone via the car dashboard and use the handset navigation on the car display its as cool as it gets.
Compatibility has only slowly been opening up since, but has now come to support a much wider variety of handsets since launch. However, the Netflix team have just announced that their app will now be able to work with any Android device running Froyo 2.2 or Gingerbread 2.3.
Originally, those without official support could easily instil their droid with Netflix goodness once the .apk had been uncovered but this news means that for most, they can keep it all above board from now on and access their content on-the-go with Netflix blessing.
Of course this is not quite as good news for those who have been hoping for some Netflix action on their Honeycomb tabs, but all in due time, baby steps and all that.
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Sharp has announced a new 3D Android smartphone in Japan, the Aquos SH8298U. This is the same phone whose images were posted a couple of months back on the FCC website.
The specifications of this phone are mostly identical to what we reported earlier, a 4.2-inch, qHD resolution, stereoscopic 3D display, Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with single-core 1.4GHz CPU and Adreno 205 GPU, 512MB RAM, 2GB internal memory, dual 8 megapixel cameras on the back for recording in 3D with a single LED flash, 1240mAh battery and Android 2.3.4. The model launching in Japan has GSM radio instead of the CDMA version that we saw earlier in FCC images.
Citrix is bringing its popular GoToMeeting application/service to the Android community. Available as a free download, it provides Android device users with access to the popular mobile collaboration service, allowing users to join online meetings while on the go.
Once downloaded, GoToMeeting will allow you to join meetings in seconds by clicking a link in an email or clicking the GoToMeeting icon and entering the meeting ID. And its not just the talk you will also be able to access all of the conference materials and zoom content up to 200% by pinching the screen.
What do we know about Jelly Bean is Not much, actually. Other than the name itself, the only thing that is known is that some "game-changing" features that were supposed to land in Ice Cream Sandwich have been pushed to this update. Obviously we do not know what these features may be but apparently they were ambitious enough for Google to want to spend more time on them. Whatever these features may be, we can imagine they will be worth the wait.
Norton announced several new offerings under its "Norton Everywhere" initiative that aims to protect consumers and their families across multiple devices and platforms. The new products/services include:
- Norton Tablet Security Available in the next few weeks, it is designed specifically for Android tablets to protect the device, privacy and all other important data against loss, theft, viruses and other threats.
- Norton Anti-Theft Beta Free to download, this web-based service allows users to quickly and easily lock, locate and possibly get back a PC, laptop or Android device, along with the information on it in the event it is ever lost or stolen. Among the cool features included in this product is the so called Sneak Peek, which allows you to remotely activate the Web cam to see who has your smartphone or tablet.
- Norton Online Family for Android and iOS users Now out of beta, this free mobile application allows Norton Online Family users to view their children online activities and manage each child House Rules from their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or Android device.
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