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Mar

Verizon Suing The Pants Off Of SMS Scammers

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, Verizon Wireless

Have you ever been annoyed by SMS spam that attempts to convince you to pay for new Paris Hilton ringtones or something else you probably don't want? It appears that Verizon Wireless has too, as they have filed a federal lawsuit outlining a fraudulent SMS scheme that targeted its customers.

Among the violations that the scammers allegedly performed on Verizon customers:

misappropriating approved short codes for unapproved “shadow” campaigns that did not comply with Verizon Wireless’ consumer protection and disclosure policies
blocking certain IP addresses from accessing the websites associated with these shadow campaigns
re-directing visitors to shell websites, preventing Verizon Wireless and its auditors from finding the shadow campaign websites in the normal course of monitoring Premium SMS campaigns for compliance

Customers who think they might have been on the receiving end of this scheme and think they might be entitled to a refund can visit www.premiumsmsrefunds.com to get the full scoop.

Mar

Love For Android! Portions Of $100 Million Fund Set Aside To Help Indie Devs Port From iOS To Android

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News

If you are an indie developer who has had success with iOS apps, your prospects of porting your work to Android may have just improved. Social gaming platform OpenFeint and Chinese game operator The9 have committed unknown portions of a staggering $100 million fund to help move things along. The two companies will review games based on quality, downloads, and the strength of the game developer to determine who the lucky beneficiaries will be.

It was reported elsewhere that an entire $100 million was being allocated exclusively for porting from iOS to Android, but that was a misinterpretation: the $100 million Fund9 also supports "mobile app, game engine, and platform technology developers around the world." It is currently unknown exactly what portion of this will be devoted to Android development, but we certainly welcome any of it as good news.

Mar

Support For Dinosaurs: OG Droid Set To Receive Update FRG83G To Fix SMS Bug

Posted by Will Shanklin in Droid (Sholes), News

It appears that a major glitch like the recent SMS bug can help spur on support even for an ancient (in Android years at least) phone. The original Motorola Droid will start receiving an OTA update today, sporting several crucial messaging-related bug fixes. Update FRG83G brings the Droid's Froyo version up to 2.2.2.

Released over 16 months ago, the OG Droid has actually been fairly well-maintained by Moto, launching with Android 2.0 'Eclair,' and now running an updated build of Froyo. In addition to several property space exploits (like rageagainstthecage) that were patched with 2.2.2, the SMS-related changes to this update include:

Sporadic issues with unintended recipient list corrected for text, picture, video and audio multimedia messages
Correct message populates when messaging application is opened and quickly accessed

While this may not be the Gingerbread update some have been hoping for, there is always CM7 for that, right?

Mar

Cars.com App Wheels Into The Android Market

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News

Say you are shopping for a new car and the dealership that you were sure was going to have the perfect one for you turned up with only lemons? You want to hit up another dealership, but you don't know where to start. Now you can pull out your Android phone, open the new Cars.com app and find the ideal auto for you. Are you Dealing with a car salesman who swears the one you like is the last on the lot? Open up the cars.com app, check the dealer's inventory, and - BAM! - call him on his bluff.

After Cars.com's iPhone app was downloaded over 871,000 times, the website, which has been around for nearly 13 years, has now issued an equivalent Android app into the Market.

Mar

Droid X2 Is Looking A Lot Like The Droid X - Available "This Week?"

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, Rumors

In an internal memo leaked from SCK (the Radio Shack subsidiary that sets up wireless kiosks at Sam's Club) it appears that the Droid X2 is on its way very soon, and it may not be much of an upgrade over the original. The note to employees says that kiosks can expect to see the Droid X2 (which showed up at the FCC recently) "this week."

So surely Motorola's sequel is an exciting upgrade over the original, right? Well, according to the memo, it will sport a 2GB SD card and sell for the same price as last year's version. As the current model now ships with a 2GB SD card as well (unlike the memo, which has the old information of it shipping with a 16GB card) that leaves us to figure out the rest of the changes.

Mar

Razor-thin 8.9" Galaxy Tab Teased Again By Samsung

Posted by Will Shanklin in News, Rumors

We know Samsung will be unveiling a new tablet at CTIA later this month, and all signs point to their showcasing an 8.9" Galaxy Tab. The same number, 78910, which was displayed in a promo last week, has appeared again on a new image posted on the manufacturer's Facebook page. It will almost certainly be measured at 8.9" because Samsung debuted the first major Android tab at 7" (the original Galaxy Tab), and has announced a 10.1" model (the Galaxy Tab 10.1) - leaving 8.9" as the likely proportion of the upcoming slate.

Asking us again "What's your Tab life?", the visual shows an extreme closeup of a tablet with a cross-hatched texture that looks quite thin.

Mar

40 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (3/2/11 - 3/8/11)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Last Updated: April 13th, 2011

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous week's roundup? Find it here: 45 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/22/11 – 3/1/11)

Featured

This app roundup is sponsored by XIMAD, an Android publisher with over 60 games and apps in the Android Market.

Mar

Foursquare 3.0 Update Landing Tonight With An Emphasis On Discovery And Exploration

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, News

Foursquare may be the king of the check-in game (they're boasting over 7 million users and over 500 million check-ins last year), but that won't keep them resting on their laurels. Launching tonight on the Android Market, Foursquare 3.0 will introduce several notable changes that could fundamentally alter how the service is used.

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley explains that, because of the effort put into scaling the service for such a wide increase in users, they haven't been able to innovate and improve it as much as they hoped. But the update to version 3.0 should change that, by making use of every check-in:

One of the big ideas kicking around foursquare HQ these last few months has been the idea of “every check-in counts.” Regardless of whether you’re checking into the same ol’ coffee shop or some far-away beach, we want every check-in to add value to every foursquare user.

Mar

Google Wants You To Earn That Free I/O Ticket; Announces 10 Day Developer Challenge

Posted by Zak Stinson in Android OS, Contests / Giveaways, Development, News, Tips & Tutorials

When Google opened registration for I/O, demand from the public made the Tickle-Me-Elmo rush look like a small group of seniors enjoying a day at the mall. After the servers were slammed for a total of 59 minutes, every last ticket had been sold, at least according to Google. At the end of February, tickets for the event (and the supposed hardware goodies that come with attending) were being hocked on eBay for $2000. Given those two facts, I'm guessing you didn't manage to get your golden ticket.

Well, if you are a talented developer, there is still one last ray of hope.

Mar

Prepare To Groan: Verizon Exec Says HTC Thunderbolt To Arrive "By The End Of The Second Quarter"

Posted by Will Shanklin in HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Yesterday, we heard that yet another (unconfirmed) HTC Thunderbolt "release date" was a big dud, but today, we have some even more disappointing news for eager LTE customers: Verizon chief technology officer Tony Melone said that customers will have 4G phones in their hands "by the end of the second quarter." Yes, that would mean by the end of June - probably not anytime soon. While Melone intended to highlight their pursuit of excellence in this interview, I think most of us can already hear the collective groan from Verizon customers who have been anticipating the upcoming HTC Thunderbolt.

This from Melone: