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David Ruddock

David's phone is an HTC One X+. He is an avid writer, and enjoys imparting a legal perspective on Android news where it is relevant. He also doesn't usually write such boring sentences.

Follow @rdr0b11

May

Motorola DROID X2 Rooted Via Gingerbreak - Well, That Was Easy

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Droid X2, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

Well, that's the easy part done. The DROID X2 has been rooted, huzzah! The device was found to be vulnerable to one of the known root exploits out there (Gingerbreak) - apparently Moto couldn't be bothered to patch up the hole (the fix has been backported to 2.2 from AOSP, according to our own Justin Case.) This hasn't been fully confirmed yet, but it seems plausible, given that all previous Motorola Froyo builds have been susceptible to this exploit.

Next on the list: cracking open that bootloader (good luck.)

Droid-life

May

Tiered Data Coming To Verizon This Summer As Planned, Says CFO - And Family Data Plans?

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Verizon Wireless

We knew it was coming. We've known for a while, in fact. But as summer draws near, reality is starting to set in: unlimited data is coming to an end on Verizon. For real. Here's what you need to know (based on what we know): Verizon's CFO told Reuters at a tech conference that tiered data will be implemented this summer, and that all unlimited data options will be eliminated. There was also a suggestion that family plans may (eventually - not with the launch of tiers) get data pooled in a fashion similar to minutes - eliminating the need for individual data plans.

May

[Deal Alert] Amazon Drops Price of DROID Charge To $199 On New 2-Year Agreement

Posted by David Ruddock in Charge (i510), Deals, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: May 20th, 2011

So, I'm probably not the best person to write about anything that might encourage someone to buy a DROID Charge (I sure as hell wouldn't, and our friends at Droid-life agree), but here we are. Amazon's offering the Charge for a slightly-more-reasonable price of $200 on a new 2-year agreement or eligible upgrade, down from the absolutely absurd price of $300 you'll get it for everywhere else.

I still wouldn't call it a deal. But hey, it's $100 cheaper than it was, and if you were thinking about buying one (for whatever reason), now is probably a good time.

May

Google Buys Up Modu's Patent Portfolio For $4.9 Million, More Android Protection Money?

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News

Last month, Google bid $2 million for the patents of the now-defunct micro-cell phone company Modu, fueling speculation as to just what Google's plans would be with that intellectual property. Today, it was announced that the bidding process for the last remnants of Modu's legacy had ended, and Google was the winner (albeit by a narrow margin of $10,000), with a final offer of $4.9 million.

If you've never heard of Modu before, don't worry - the company came out of Israel, and was generally unknown to most of us in the US-of-A until it started having financial troubles. Modu was famous for developing extremely small smart/featurephones (like the little guy in the thumbnail), a market that all but dried up in the US by the time Modu was founded in 2007.

May

[Update: Now Flashable] DROID Incredible Gingerbread Test Build Leaks

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Gingerbread 2.3, Incredible, News

Update 2: You can now get a fully-flashable ROM of the Gingerbread test build for the DROID Incredible, and it includes a new radio baseband version as well.

Get the ROM here, and the new radio here.

Instructions below:

Instructions:

*Includes superuser.

1. Download the GB file from above and drop it on your SD card.
2. Boot into Clockwork Recovery and perform a factory reset.
3. Choose “install zip for sd card” and locate the file from above.
4. Install it.
5. Enjoy!

Update Radio:

1. Download “New Radio” file from above and drop on root of SD card.

May

PayPal App Finally Gets Check Scan And Deposit, iPhone Users Have One Less Thing To Brag About

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, News

PayPal for Android has, at long last, been updated with a killer-feature iUsers have enjoyed since last October: camera-based check scanning and depositing. As a frequent PayPal user, myself, I have to say: this is awesome. Checks are the very bane of my (financial) existence; I mean, who uses checks? Every time I get one of those evil little slips, I scurry down to my local Wells Fargo, wasting precious gasoline and time - assuming it doesn't just sit on my desk for a month, taunting me with its hand-scrawled promise of currency (if you haven't noticed, I'm kind of lazy.)

Yes, I'm poor

While I could wait for Wells Fargo to implement such a feature, I might be waiting a while: their Android app is still just a URL bar-less mobile web page.

May

[Updated] Google Rolling Out Fix For Wi-Fi Security Vulnerability To All Affected Android Devices

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, News, Tips & Tutorials

Well, that only took one media firestorm. Google, in response to widespread reports of a potential credential security hole in Android (which not only affects Android, but any OS using authTokens), is starting to roll out a fix for the public Wi-Fi vulnerability to all affected Android devices today. Google's statement, below:

Today we’re starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in calendar and contacts. This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days.

The vulnerability could only be exploited on public Wi-Fi networks - either by a sniffing attack, or SSID spoofing (a much more common method), and allowed an attacker to take a user's authToken for a particular service (eg, Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and then use it to log in to the respective service and engage in whatever unscrupulous behavior they so desired.

May

Rumor: Dell Streak Pro 10-inch Tablet Packing Tegra 2, Keyboard Dock, Weighs As Much As a XOOM?

Posted by David Ruddock in Dell, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2

After spending some reviewing the Dell Venue last week, I have a renewed interest in the world of all things combining Dell and Android. But, let's face it, Dell hasn't exactly had a great track record with its Android hardware, particularly its first attempt at a tablet - the universally-disliked Streak 7.

The Streak name, then, does evoke a bit of a grimace for most folks familiar with Android hardware. The Streak 5 wasn't much of a winner, either - particularly because it shipped with the ancient Android 1.6, and had an OS update delay that could only be described in Samsung proportions.

May

Confirmed: The (LG) Revolution Will Be Televised May 26 - With Netflix And A Sexy New Black Paint Job

Posted by David Ruddock in LG, News, Revolution, Verizon Wireless

Droid-life just broke the news: the Revolution is coming, on May 26th, to be precise.

That's right - the LG Revolution, Verizon's third 4G LTE smartphone, is dropping next Thursday to a Verizon near you - packing a 4.3" WVGA display, a 1GHz MSM-series Snapdragon processor (same one you'll find in the Thunderbolt), and a 16GB SD card pre-installed.

The revolution has received a cosmetic touch-up for its debut next week, and now sports a sleek black battery cover and frame (it was brushed aluminum-look, previously), take a look:

We took a look at the Revolution (hands-on here) way back at CES in January, and I had some time to play with it at CTIA back in March.

May

DROID X2 Shows Up On Verizon Accessory Page; Still Unannounced

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid X2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Continuing in the grand tradition of letting its less-than-flagship phones remain relatively free of fanfare leading up to release, Verizon (and Motorola) have let slip that the DROID X2 is probably coming soon, with the addition of an accessory page for the device on Verizon's website.

In case you've forgotten, the DROID X2 is the dual-core, qHD-display packing successor to the wildly popular DROID X (the most popular Android phone to date, in fact). The X2 will be dropping with Gingerbread and the latest iteration of Motorola's not-MOTOBLUR overlay when it lands supposedly some time this month (maybe May 26).