August 2011 Archives

Aug

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And The Winner Of The 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Tablet In The Giant Giveaway #5 Is...

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Contests / Giveaways, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung

Last Updated: September 2nd, 2011

Our 6th and largest ever giant giveaway is already underway, but where is the winner of the 5th one? You can blame me for that - I decided to take a little vacation and have only had time for peeking in here and there. Organizing and sorting through the entries is no small feat, and I finally found a couple of hours to do so on the quiet (for now - the hurricane is coming! :-S) coast of Cape Cod.

With over 4500 entries from Facebook, Google+, and Twitter (in this order of popularity), the 5th giveaway was great ...

Aug

Dat's Phat: DROID BIONIC Gets A Side Profile Shot, Has Junk In Trunk

Posted by David Ruddock in 4G, Droid Bionic, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Not really. Actually, the BIONIC looks pretty svelte in these images leaked by the good folks over at Pop Herald. Here's the BIONIC stand-alone, and side by side with the DROID X2:

While the BIONIC clearly is thicker than the DX2, it's not by that much. Of course, press shots (which these likely are) have a tendency to play with lighting and perspective in order to make a phone seem thinner than it might actually be, so until you hold it in your hand, it's all kind of relative.

Still, based on these images, it's thinner than I expected....

Aug

[New App] Stay On Top Of The US Open Tennis Championship With The Official App

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

The US Open Tennis Championship is set to kick of on August 29, and if you want to keep up with all of the happenings of the event, the US Tennis Association has teamed up with IBM to bring an official app to Android.

The app features everything you need to stay in the loop:

Live video streaming during Labor Day and Finals weekend
On-demand video of highlights, press conferences, and analysis
All the latest news
US Open radio with live streaming
Daily schedules
Photos, draws, and Twitter coverage

The app is free in the Android Market, hit ...

Aug

AT&T, T-Mobile, And Sprint Galaxy S II Models Outed In Leaked Image?

Posted by David Ruddock in AT&T, Galaxy S II, News, Sprint, T-Mobile

Update: On further reflection, we're going to tentatively call this image a "rumor" for now, as we have no way to confirm its authenticity, but we have no reason to think these images are fake, either.

Finally, visual proof that unicorns do exist! Someone, somewhere, has leaked a shot of the upcoming Galaxy S II US market handsets headed for three of America's big four carriers (ATT, T-Mo, Sprint). Without further ado, here they are:

Where the image is from, we're not sure (pocketnow provided no details), but it could very well be a slide from Samsung's upcoming press conference ...

Aug

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[Updated x2: It's Rootable] Exclusive Download: Official Gingerbread Build For The HTC Droid Incredible

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Droid Incredible, News

We've been talking about Gingerbread for the Droid Incredible and its on-again-off-again status quite a bit lately, but after the official support docs showed up on VZW's site, we had confirmation of what we knew all along: the update is alive and kicking. It was rumored that it would start rolling out OTA-style earlier in the week but was delayed for unknown reasons, leaving Incredible owners without their cookie-filled upgrade just a little bit longer.

Fortunately, the wait is over, as we've received and exclusive leak of the Gingerbread RUU from a giving tipster. This looks like the final ...

Aug

[New App] ESPN Bowl Bound 2011 Brings All The College Football You Can Handle To The Palm Of Your Hand

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

We've already covered a couple of Fantasy Football apps for the NFL fans, but what about those who are more into college ball? For you, there's ESPN Bowl Bound 2011, an app that puts all the latest news, videos, stats, photos, and tweets about your favorite team right on your handheld.

Some of the key features Bowl Bound include

Real times stats, news, and charts
Game highlights and interviews
Weekly projections from Brad Edwards and Mark Schlabach for all 35 bowl games
Aggregated Twitter feed from top EPSN College football analysts
Weekly rankings
Customizable according to your favorite

...

Aug

Samsung To Release LTE Variants Of The Galaxy S II And Galaxy Tab 8.9, Both With Upgraded Specs

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab 8.9, News

It looks like Sammy has some big news for us in the coming weeks -- we already know we're going to hear about the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the Galaxy Note at the IFA conference beginning September 1st, but now we're hearing rumors that Sammy will also unveil LTE versions of the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab 8.9, both rocking upgraded specs from their non-LTE counterparts.

The LTE Galaxy S II is said to have a larger, 4.5-inch display along with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor (no word on whether it's an Exynos, but we assume that it is) ...

Aug

Download: The Official Droid Bionic Boot Animation

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Droid Bionic, Mods, Motorola, News

The elusive Droid Bionic is finally within weeks of release (it should drop September 8th for $299.99), but if you want to pretend you already have one for a moment or if your current boot animation is not a gorgeous fiery bionic eye (is such a thing even possible?), then download this official Droid Bionic boot animation and sound. It won't grow you an extra arm, but it will make you the coolest chap in town (not really).

Update: I've dropped the frames into GIMP and created an animated gif version. It's too big to embed on this ...

Aug

[Deal Alert] HTC ThunderBolt For A Penny With A New Agreement From Amazon Wireless

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Deals, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha)

If you've been considering making the jump to Verizon's ultra-fast 4G LTE network, then I can think of no better time to make that commitment than now, as you can score the HTC ThunderBolt for one cent from Amazon Wireless. Like always, signing up with Big Red for two years is a requisite to get that price, but it still saves you $250 over the retail front.

Specs:

4.3 Inch TFT display
1GHz Snapdragon processor
768MB RAM
8MP rear shooter, 1.3MP front
8GB built-in storage
4G LTE
Android 2.2

So there you go -- a 4G LTE phone for a ...

Aug

[Updated] Well, That Was Fast - One-Click Droid 3 Root Now Available

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Dev, Droid 3, News

Earlier today it was announced that the Droid 3 had officially been rooted. As previously stated, the process doesn't look all that difficult as long as you have ADB set up and ready to go. Now this process is even easier, though, as a 1-click solution has become available! That's not the best part, either -- P3Droid seems to think that this method should work on all Moto phones running Gingerbread.

This is designed for use on Windows machines only.

Update: Linked to version 7 of the script, as version 5 could potentially cause some issues.

Instructions:

Install Motorola

...

Aug

[Mobile Security App Shootout, Part 8] Overvi3w Provides Intuitive, Feature-Rich Experience In A Discreet Package

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Mobile Security App Shootout

Overvi3w from Unfairware is our next entry in the Mobile Security App Shootout, bringing a nice set of features for free (and a bevvy of other features with a subscription) in a lightweight, battery-friendly package.

At A Glance

Unlike the past two apps in the Shootout, Overvi3w relies on an online interface to remotely control and receive data from your phone. The app itself installs pretty quickly and is out of your hair after that - it automatically hides itself after setup (if you reboot), making it more secure against clever thieves.

The online interface has much the same ...

Aug

Google+ App Gets Update to Version 1.0.6, Brings Reshare, Bug Fixes, And Other Convenient Tweaks

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Google+, the titular search giant's latest entry into the social networking scene, has seen some success so far, and of course a mobile app is a critical step in making the service usable and popular. Android's Google+ app got an update to version 1.0.6 recently, bringing a few much-needed conveniences as well as support for a ton of new languages.

Here's a list of just what this update includes:

The ability to reshare a post
The app is now available in 38 languages
Incremental Improvements to notification reliability
Clearer instant upload options in the initial setup dialog
A host

...

Aug

Verizon Will Not Be Getting The Samsung Galaxy S II, Make Ready The Pitchforks And Torches

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy S II, News, Verizon Wireless

Samsung has an event coming up on Monday where the US Galaxy S II will finally be announced. We've all been waiting for this beast of a phone to hit US shores for some time, but word just broke that one big name will be left out of the announcement: Verizon. That's right, folks, Big Red will not be getting the SGSII.

It's rumored that VZW will instead be getting the Samsung Stratosphere, a QWERTY-slider along the same lines as the Epic 4G, as well as the Nexus Prime. If that's the case, then I say it's a worthy tradeoff ...

Aug

[Game Roundup] 5 Hidden-Object Games That Bring Mystery And Suspense To Android - Play Detective On-The-Go

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Game Reviews, Games

One of the most basic and (relatively) inexpensive genres of games, hidden-object games ask the player to find, well, hidden objects in a given scenario. Generally this involves some level of problem-solving and combining objects to find the next clue.

There are myriad hidden-object games developed for Android, but we've picked out five that we think are worth checking out.

Mystique

First up is Mystique, a hidden-object game that comes in three parts - only the first of which is free. It's a fairly standard experience for this genre, and places the player in a grotesque bathroom with blood, bandages, ...

Aug

Motorola Droid 3 Finally Joins The Rooted Community

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Droid 3, News

The Droid 3 is the most powerful Droid to date -- its 1Ghz dual-core OMAP processor and Android 2.3.4 make it a speedy and capable device. As with most devices, D3 owners wanted root access in order to take full advantage of all that it had to offer. That day has finally arrived, as the D3 has been rooted by developer drjbliss from the XDA forums.

The rooting process seems to be rather easy, granted you have ADB set up and know how to use it. The vulnerability was found in some proprietary Motorola code that allows specific files to ...