24
May
htc-evo-3d_video-300x265
Last Updated: June 1st, 2011

Update: If you've somehow inexplicably ended up at this article, please note, HTC has since announced the 3D will be unlocked (at some point) and their future policy is to have unlocked bootloaders on all devices.

It seems HTC has finally caved to what are likely the security demands of wireless carriers with its newest phones, and is locking down its handsets Moto-style. Latest case in point: the EVO 3D - which sports the same sort of security we found on the Sensation earlier this month. In other words, good luck cracking into this thing.

Before we get any further, there seems to be some confusion on what exactly is "locked down." Let's clear that up: the bootloader image itself is not encrypted.

22
May
professor_tbolt

When we posted on the work-around for enabling the Netflix app on unsupported devices, more than a few of you weren't thrilled to hear that the fix didn't work on the Thunderbolt. We knew a fix would come eventually, and now we're happy to report that the developer community has delivered; they've found a way to get the Netflix app working on the Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, there is a bit of bad news, too: it only works on devices that are rooted and running a Gingerbread ROM.

If you fit that criteria, the instructions are pretty damn simple. As always, its highly recommended that you fun a Nandroid backup beforehand in case anything goes awry.

20
May
amazon-app-store-app

Yesterday, in the Federal Court for the Northern District of California, Apple filed its response to a counterclaim (filed by Amazon) in its ongoing suit over Amazon's use of the word "Appstore" in its new Android... app store (what else am I supposed to call it, Apple? An app acquisition service?)

The counterclaim contained one of the single greatest premises for a trademark lawsuit I have ever seen (not that I've seen that many):

Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words “app store” together denote a store for apps.

- Apple, Inc., 2011

Now, from a legal perspective, this makes a bit more sense given what Apple is arguing (not to say that the merits of their case don't look shaky.) From a common sense perspective, this is one of the most hilariously backward things I (and I'm sure you all) have ever read.

19
May
thumb
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

I know, I know... it's only been a week since the last roundup, but when you just happen to stumble upon a gaggle of awesome animations all at one time, what else can you do? If you were thinking "post 'em up for everyone to enjoy," then you win! What do you win, you ask? Why, some sick new boot animations, of course! How sweet is that?

Don't know how to change your boot animation? Take a look at our primer on the matter.

Don't forget to take a look at the last three editions of this roundup here, here, and here.

19
May
image

What a week for Samsung Galaxy S family device owners! First, the Captivate was officially added to the list of devices supported by CyanogenMod, the largest Android ROM community in the world, and now not 1 but 3 more phones are following suit - the Galaxy S, the T-Mobile Vibrant, and the Sprint Nexus S 4G (crespo4g).

The news hit yesterday, but since no downloadable builds were available from the CM mirror network until late last night, we decided to wait until they're up.

Of course, support for these Android 2.3.4 "Gingerbread" (GRJ22) releases is right now limited to said nightly builds of CyanogenMod 7, which will graduate to release candidates and stables releases when the time is right and all but non-serious bugs have been ironed out.

19
May
80207_modu_phone

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
droidinc

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.

18
May
26-Android-security_thumb

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.

18
May
image

Galaxy S owners, you may have a reason for some early celebration. CyanogenMod 7 for the GS variants, which has been around in relatively unsupported early alpha stages for the last couple of months, has just gone quite a bit more formal with the introduction of the new "captivatemtd" device branch.

What does it mean? Captivate is the first device of the Galaxy S bunch to move to the official CM download area in the form of nightlies. Once the nightlies, which, as the word implies are rebuilt nightly, are stable enough to warrant a daily driver, you can expect to see a number of RCs (release candidates), culminating in a stable release.

18
May
1305724536

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.