19
May
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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.

19
May
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The newest update to Rovio Mobile's movie inspired version of Angry Birds hit the official Android Market this morning. The game was originally exclusive to the Amazon App Store, so naturally, it was the first to see the update.

The update brings 30 new levels as well as "hidden bonuses and juicy secrets" to the birdy-centric game, according to the official changelog. If you haven't already seen it, here's a video that shows the action:

The update is available in the Android Market now.

Angry Birds Rio

Download Angry Birds Rio from Google Play
QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsrio

Thanks, Greg!

19
May
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If you've been waiting in anticipation to make the Droid X2 your next Android purchase, but just can't convince yourself to wait a few days, then we have good news. You can score VZW's first dual-core phone in-store at Best Buy right now. We called a Best Buy to confirm - and the X2 is a go.

It will set you back $199 with a two-year agreement (or upgrade), but what's a little bit of extra money in exchange for instant gratification? I know we just told you the official specs yesterday, but it would be both cruel and unusual of me to leave out that bit of vital information...

19
May
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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.

19
May
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Verizon's LTE network is probably the hottest thing smokin' right now as far as networks are concerned, and, as of today, it has been expanded to nine more major metropolitan areas including Mobile and Montgomery, Alabama; Greater Fairfield and New Haven, Connecticut; Gainesville, Pensacola, and Tallahassee, Folorida; Fayetteville-Lumberton, North Carolina; and Bryan-College Station and Temple-Killeen, Texas.

Also included in this rollout is an expansion to five areas that currently have LTE coverage: Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

VZW4G

This brings the total number of covered metropolitan areas up to 55 now, which isn't bad considering that VZW just started rolling out LTE in December of 2010.

19
May
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The refreshed version of the original and very popular Motorola Droid X - the dual-core Droid X2 with a hi-res qHD screen - is up online at VerizonWireless.com for $199.99 on a 2-year contract a whole week earlier than you will be seeing it in brick and mortar stores. With free overnight shipping, you can rock Verizon's newest and, ironically, first dual-core Android phone by tomorrow (Bionic who?).

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The Droid X2 features a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 4.3" qHD display, an 8MP camera with 720p recording (no 1080p :-[), HDMI with mirror capabilities, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, DLNA, 8GB internal memory, and 8GB microSD.

18
May
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While browsing some new arrivals this afternoon, I noticed that Qik, one of the large players in the mobile video chat business, today released an app called Qik for Samsung, clearly targeted at users of Samsung Android devices. Qik has been releasing apps customized to certain classes of devices, or even individual ones, for as long as I can remember, starting with the EVO 4G last year, so seeing yet another variant doesn't surprise me (see Qik for Sprint, Qik for T-Mobile, and Qik for Atrix).

What is not clear is exactly what is optimized for Samsung devices compared to the regular Qik app and whether higher resolution video is available, so I'm going to leave it to you, Samsung device owners, to figure out and report back.

18
May
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Like clockwork, the thumb-hungry Xperia Play from Sony Ericsson went up on VZW's site, ready for some early pre-order action. It will set you back $199.99 on a 2-year contract and should ship out May 25th to be in your hands by May 26th, all for free.

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This Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" phone features a 4" screen, slide-out PlayStation-style controls, a 1GHz single-core Snapdragon processor with Adreno 205 GPU, a 5MP rear and VGA front camera, and comes with a bunch of games pre-installed: Madden NFL 11, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Crash Bandicoot, and Tetris.

18
May
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Last Updated: August 2nd, 2011

Earlier today, a tip about a new augmented reality game called HoopsAR hit our inbox. Since augmented reality is a relatively new and kind of cool subject, I decided to take a deeper look and go hands-on. Before I could play the game, I needed to print out a basketball "ticket" which serves as the game board. The phone's camera then scans it and overlays the court on top of it in 3D.

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If you're still a bit confused about how it works, don't worry - I whipped up a quick video hands-on in order to explain the overlay function and simple controls that make this game worth checking out.

18
May
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HTC is continuing to release devices with signed locked bootloaders, as we found out today after taking a look at the latest HTC Sensation system dump. The upcoming HTC Sensation is one of the most powerful and desirable devices coming up, alongside the Galaxy S2, but while the latter's bootloader is unlocked, the one in the Sensation is protected via HTC's private key.

Unless we get really lucky, this means no custom kernels on the device (i.e. no custom ROMs) or recovery (i.e. no Clockwork, RA, or nandroid). Lady Luck was hovering around when we got our hands on the Thunderbolt - Justin Case and Team AndIRC who fully unlocked it can tell you just how lucky they got, but we may not get so lucky with the Sensation.