Saturday, November 19, 2011

Google Android News Android Forums

Google Android News Android Forums

[DEAL] Amazon Offering DROID RAZR And HTC Rezound At $199 For New Customers, Deals For Upgrades Too

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 05:36 PM PST

If you’ve been holding out on grabbing a new phone, Amazon has a great deal on two of Verizon’s newest devices. The HTC Rezound and DROID RAZR are both available right now for $199.99 over at Amazon.com for new Verizon customers. I know most of us are trying to hold out as long as we can for the Galaxy Nexus, but both of these devices are fine Android phones as well. If you missed it, you can check out our hands on with the RAZR right here. If you’re already a Verizon customer, there are still some prices deals for you too. Hit up the break to see how they shake down and the links to order.

New Verizon customers can grab either phone for a solid $199.99. If you’re an existing Verizon customer with an upgrade coming on an individual or family account, both will cost you $229.99. Lastly, to add a new contract to a family account you’ll pay $199.99 for the Rezound and $219.99 for the RAZR. Be sure to let us know if you’re going to order one.

HTC Rezound Amazon Link

DROID RAZR Amazon link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YoYo Games First Freemium Game, Rick O’Shea, Hits Android Market Nov. 22nd [video]

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 01:55 PM PST

Game developer YoYo Games will be releasing their physics based title Rick O’Shea to the Android market on Nov. 22nd. You’ll be firing Rick out of a circus cannon through Big Top tents bouncing him on his head to get through the levels. As you’ll see in the video to follow, there are obstacles to  bounce around, magnets to change the direction of your bounce, and other cannons to re-fire yourself. Looks like an interesting enough game to check out. YoYo games has a number of other titles you can expect to see a review about here soon, so stay tuned to see if they are worth your hard earned cash (though visually they certainly look worth a dollar or two). Hit up the break to check out the teaser video for this new title and let us know what you think.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

 

Batteries Last 40% Longer With Tegra 3 and DIDIM Technology

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 11:33 AM PST

The other day we brought to your attention a rumored HTC tablet that will have NVIDIA’s new Tegra 3 processor. Of course the Transformer Prime will be the first device with the quad-core chip. Well it appears that those of you waiting for a quad-core device will be treated to longer battery life. Even though the processor may consume less power, by roughly 60%, display technologies will always be the main source of battery consumption. During the UBS Global Technology and Services Conference, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang broke down in detail a new technology in Tegra 3. This technology is said to reduce backlight power by 40%, which in turn, translates into longer battery life; like and Android tablet with 14 hours of video playback. This technology is known as DIDIM and Jen-Hsun describes it as:

“It's the ability to per pixel, per frame, per scene to modulate the backlight so quickly that we over a long period of time, reduce the amount of backlight intensity and backlight energy by nearly half. We save as much power in the backlight without changing the visual fidelity at all to save, essentially, the entire power used by our chip."

When the Tegra 3 processor is in full active mode, it consumes 1-2 watts, while a typical display will consume 3-6 watts depending on brightness. Basically, DIDIM technology will allow Tegra 3 processors to save more power than they consume.

Given that more and more people are going to tablets as their main device of use, it’s nice to see a company pushing for better battery life. DIDIM technology will help us get longer performance out of our Android tablets. It will be interesting to see what else NVIDIA has hiding in this new processor.

Pattern Unlock Screen Patent Plus Other Lockscreen Patents Award to Google

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 11:21 AM PST

Well it appears that Google is looking to strengthen its patent portfolio even further. Google has recently been awarded some patents that Android fans can get excited about. One of them is the Pattern Unlock Screen that has been in the Android OS for some time. This feature allows users to have a set pattern that they must input in order to unlock their phone. Its good to see that Google is doing what they can to hold onto this feature.

While it may be good in itself, what’s even better is they have added patents for more functionality to this. Hypothetically, one could slide their finger in a certain pattern and their calendar events would pop up (see picture below). Although this feature hasn’t been implemented yet, as far as anyone can tell, it’s good to see that Google is holding onto it for possible implementation down the road.

From a general unlock screen patent perspective:

“A lock screen view is displayed on the mobile device to prevent unauthorized and inadvertent access to the mobile device's data. While the mobile device is locked, a touch gesture having a pre-defined shape is detected on a touch screen of the mobile device independently of the initial position of the touch gesture on the touch screen.”

The document goes on to elaborate:

“In response to detection of the touch gesture, a particular action is executed on the mobile device while the mobile device stays locked. The particular action determined according to the pre-defined shape. In this way, detection of the touch gesture causes the particular action to execute while keeping the mobile device locked.”

So even though Google has yet to implement these features, it’s good to see that they have them patented just in case. While right now it’s hard to see how Google plans on adding them, it will be interesting to see how these patents will fuel the patent wars between Apple and Google.

Install Android 3.2 Honeycomb on Laptops, Netbooks and PC’s

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 11:19 AM PST

It seems that developers are becoming more and more interested in bringing the Android operating system to more devices than just smartphones, tablets and recently TV’s. You can also find car stereos that operate on a specialized version of the OS and even in a self contained, dual-core USB stick. Currently there is an open source project going on named, Android-x86, that aims to get Android up and running on your laptop or PC. People are already successfully running Android 3.2 Honeycomb on their computers via this new project.

Most people are reporting easier success with ASUS products and is as simple as downloading the Android ISO and by using UNetbootin you can install the image to a USB stick or SD card. Once complete, just throw that puppy in your computer and you can now run Honeycomb from the comfort of your desk or lap. Most hardware is fully functional, including Wi-Fi, and you can even download the Android Market and various apps. Jump past the cut to see some guy’s rather lengthy, sometimes comical, Youtube video showing Android 3.2 running on his Eee PC netbook. With the recent release of Android 4.0 I can only imagine that developers will soon try and climb that mountain as well. Super exciting!

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

 

Motorola to Update Original Droid With Security Updates

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 11:12 AM PST

Even with the over abundance of new phones in the DROID line, the RAZR being the latest, it appears that Motorola is still showing the flagship phone that started it all some love. Motorola has come out with an update that adds two security updates to the phone. They say:

“Thanks very much for signing up to give feedback about your Motorola Droid. You will be testing final software for Droid. This is a very limited update providing two security patches for the device. It should be essentially "invisible" in terms of device operation.”

So those of you still using the original DROID, be on the look out for this update. Sorry to say this isn’t the Gingerbread update you had hoped for. However it is nice to see that Motorola is still updating this phone.

Google’s Chris DiBona Calls Out Mobile Antivirus Companies

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 08:43 AM PST

Google’s Open Source Programs Manager, Chris DiBona, recently posted a to his Google+ page a rant of sorts calling out mobile antivirus companies.

“Sometimes I read an article about open source that drives me nuts. A recent one stated, without irony, that ‘critics have been pounding the table for years about open source being inherently insecure’ and that android is festooned with viruses because of that and because we do not exert apple like controls over the app market.”

In the post that follows he effectively explains how there is nothing inherently insecure about open source. Further more, no major cell phone has a ‘virus’ problem in the traditional sense that windows and some mac machines have seen. If there were, they haven’t gotten very far due to the user sandboxing models and the nature of the underlying kernels. Then his post gets especially juicy,

 ”virus companies are playing on your fears to try to sell you bs protection software for Android, RIM and IOS. They are charlatans and scammers. IF you work for a company selling virus protection for android, rim or IOS you should be ashamed of yourself.”

The fact of the matter is, the few issues we’ve seen haven’t been viruses, but rather trojans. Viruses are different in that they have the property of spreading infection.

“The barriers to spreading such a program from phone to phone are large and difficult enough to traverse when you have legitimate access to the phone, but this isn’t independence day, a virus that might work on one device won’t magically spread to the other.”

In short, the claim is  if you read an analyst report about ‘viruses’ infecting your android phone, its safe to assume that analyst firm is dishonest and is staffed with, as DiBona would say, charlatans.

The openess of Android demands treating customers as responsible adults in order to offer them more control over software choices, which includes giving them the ability to make bad decisions. App permissions are expressed at the time of download and it is up to the user to accept them or not.

In my personal experience, I find Android antivirus to be worthless and bloating, but perhaps someone has a different experience to share. Feel free to speak up in the comments.

 

Motorola Unveils XT615 Smartphone For Taiwan

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 07:40 AM PST

Looks like the people out East are about to have a heck of a December courtesy of Motorola. We just brought you news about the Chinese DROID RAZR variants earlier this week, now we have some news for those in Taiwan. Motorola has just announced the XT615 phone which will cost around $360.00 USD. It looks like a gorgeous phone as the body features a rounded-off finish and will feature both white and black color variations. While the phone certainly looks sleek and attractive, the features are certainly hit and miss. You will find on one hand an 8MP camera, VGA front-facing camera, and Gingerbread 2.3. On the other hand, you’ll find an 800MHz processor and a ho-hum 512MB of RAM. While the device’s features are a mixed bag, the build of the phone sure is attractive and will certainly catch Taiwanese interest.

Google Confirms Flash Isn’t Supported On Ice Cream Sandwich, Not Yet Anyway

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 07:27 AM PST

 

It looks like Flash is currently not installed on the Galaxy Nexus nor is it downloadable from the Android Market. This should’t come as too much of a shock as Adobe recently put a halt to developing Flash any further for mobile browsers. Google has confirmed with Slashgear that this is normal and the ball is in Adobe’s hands to release an update to support ICS. Before you get too upset, Google had the following to say about all of this:

"Flash hasn't been released for ICS yet so as far as we know, Adobe will support Flash for ICS."

This may be a show stopper for some thinking about picking up the Galaxy Nexus, but I personally can live without Flash on my phone, at least for now. I would think Adobe would have had something for ICS already in the works, but that’s anyone’s guess. Let us know how you all feel about this right down there in the new style comments.

Android System With Dual-Core Processor & Android 2.3 Squeezed Onto USB Stick

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 07:07 AM PST

“Less is more” is a mantra Norwegian company FXI Technologies seems to believe in. How accurate is the unofficial philosophy? Well, they recently presented their USB computer prototype, ‘Cotton Candy‘. Some of you are thinking, “why the unusual name”? There’s actually a clever reason– the USB computer weighs just 21 grams, the same weight as a bag of you guessed it, cotton candy. You plug the USB computer into your device with a USB slot (TV, computer, phone, tablet, you name it!) and run the operating system as you would a normal Android device. Many of you are shrugging and thinking, “big deal”. It is indeed a big deal because the company has managed to squeeze in high-end specs that rivals many Android devices. Check this out– the device features Android 2.3, a 1.2GHz dual-core Samsung Exynos ARM CPU (yep, the same as in that oh-so fast Galaxy S II phone), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI-out and oh, an SD card slot for expandable memory. Something for you to salivate over even more is the fact that since the USB computer has a dual-core processor, you’ll be able to view full HD videos from the web or local 1080p HD videos. By the looks of this, FXI needs to hurry and start production of this thing so people like me can hurry up and snag one up.
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