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May

Confirmed: EVO 3D's Bootloader, Recovery, and Kernel Images All Locked Down

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, EVO 3D (Shooter), HTC, News, Sprint

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.

May

The Power Of Tasker - "Google Cal Widget & Auto Sat Nav" Is The Most Intricate And Amazing Tasker Script We've Seen So Far

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Development, News

Last Updated: May 25th, 2011

Some call Tasker the most versatile application ever created for Android, and I'm inclined to side with them. The app can automate hundreds of actions and bundle them together in powerful scripts that do exactly what you want them to do (see our Tasker review). Want to silence your phone at night and then restore the ringer to a predefined volume in the morning? No problem. How about popping up a menu of music apps when you plug in your headphones? You got it.

However, the Tasker "task" that brandall from xda created today takes the cake when it comes to complexity and functionality.

May

Twitter Closes TweetDeck Deal For More Than $40 Million

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, News

This whole ordeal seemed a little surreal since day one of the rumors, but earlier today, Twitter and TweetDeck finalized an agreement which would see Twitter take ownership of the popular multi-platform social media app. The price is reported to have been over $40 million in cash and stock.

Twitter has always had stand-offish relations with the many 3rd party applications which tap into its own service, heavily restricting the manner in which such apps can use and present Twitter feeds. TweetDeck, though, has become wildly popular for its integrated feed system, which combines Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz all into a customizable multi-pane user experience.

May

Miro 4 Allows for Torrenting, Video and Music Syncing, Podcasting and Everything Else Under the Sun

Posted by Matt Demers in News, Tips & Tutorials

Miro is an open-sourced, free solution to your media problems with Android. It's touted as an all-in-one solution, and with its feature list, I'm not about to disagree. It offers a media player, BitTorrent client, video encoder, music store and device sync component all wrapped up in a single program, which covers some of the problems Android has run into without its own downloadable client.

With your phone connected to your computer, you can use Miro to sync music and video to your phone. It maintains a library by scanning folders, and can even import your current iTunes library on first load.

May

Toshiba Thrive Tablet Briefly Shows Up Online For Pre-Order; $449 For 8GB, $579 for 32GB

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Thrive / Regza / Antares / AT100

Last Updated: June 4th, 2011

Well, whattya know! Remember Toshiba's Thrive tablet that has been hiding in the shadows for the last few months? Well, it turns out that it may be hitting the streets somewhat soon, as it briefly showed up on J&R for pre-order earlier today. It has since been removed, but not before we got a sneak peak at some probable pricing.

Before the listing was suddenly ripped from J&R's website, the 8GB model was rocking a $449 price tag, while the 32GB version was sitting at $579 - a pretty competitive price point for a 32GB tablet. The 8GB version, however seems to be a moderately steep price for the size, considering that you can get 16GB out of the the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer for $400, or the Acer Iconia A500 for $450.

May

[New In The Market] Robotek Brings Lasers, Explosions, and Risk-Based Mayhem To The Palm Of Your Hand

Posted by Matt Demers in Applications, Games, News

Just in case you thought today would be devoid of some kind of fun, developer Hexage decided to release its latest game, Robotek. You play as the last human holdout on a robot-conquered Earth, slowly working from one base to take liberate nodes, countries, continents, and eventually the planet back from your oppressors. Combat plays out in a strategic, turn-based style, but there's a bit of a twist to it.

You fight your robot enemies by spinning a virtual slot machine from which you gain bonuses, drone units and special attacks based on the outcome. This mechanic adds a bit of unpredictability to the game while still allowing you to plan your next move: the first tumbler moves slow enough that you can choose where it lands, but the second and third are more of a crapshoot.

May

Download: EVO View 4G Full Release Firmware Leaked, Get It Now

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, EVO View 4G, HTC, News, Sprint

911sniper has done it again - this time with a full RUU (full release firmware) from the upcoming EVO View 4G, Sprint's 4G-ified version of the now-available HTC Flyer (the latter is on sale now at Best Buy).

The hefty file weighs in at a staggering 522MB - and given the massive load that's going to be placed on 911sniper's mirror, we're going to try and get a copy of it up on our own high-speed mirror in the next hour (as soon as we finish downloading it), so that the community can get cracking on this thing.

Full RUU files allow developers to get their hands on what are often older flashable ROMs, which may contain unfixed exploits allowing rooting or bootloader unlocking.

May

[New App] Chainfire3D Hits The Android Market, Tweaks Your Graphics To Improve Performance And Battery Life

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Android app developer Chainfire released an interesting app into the Market recently called Chainfire3D - "an intermediary OpenGL driver." Basically, this app sits between your app and the proprietary graphics driver on your device and can manipulate the commands between the two.

This enables you do some pretty rad things with your device in order to increase efficacy, battery life, performance, etc. For example, you can use Chainfire3D to enable night-mode, which basically only powers the red pixels on your device in order to save battery life (yes, it makes everything look red - see below).

Other features of Chainfire3D includes a multitude of texture manipulations, including the ability to reduce texture sizes and quality (for faster gaming) and unroll textures, which converts non-32 bit textures into 32 bit.

May

ASUS Is Making a Tablet Phone Combination Thing, To Be Unveiled At Computex

Posted by David Ruddock in ASUS, News

With its Transformer tablet selling like hot cakes, ASUS is probably feeling pretty good about its Android product division right now. Next on the hardware manufacturer's list? A tablet phone sort of... thing. Is it going to be another Dell Streak mini-tablet mega-phone? I don't think so, though these are the images we've got of it so far:

The image on the top right is most intriguing to me. It appears as though we're seeing the back of the device, but in the center, it looks like something is plugged in or docked into the chassis. My guess is that we're seeing a gutless tablet, with display and battery, with a phone that docks into it to power the the device.

May

T-Mobile Unleashes New Unlimited Plans, Except They're All Actually Tiered Data Plans

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, T-Mobile

Earlier this month we told you that T-Mobile was working to revamp a couple of its pre-paid plans to include unlimited data, and that is finally official as of today.

(Note from David: Except, that data isn't really, truly unlimited. I mean, if you count 2G EDGE [which is what you get when you exceed your cap] as "data," then yes - you can have all the EDGE you can eat. But that's like eating sand. And not beach sand, either - it's dirty playground sand. That is T-Mobile's definition of "unlimited data," and it's nothing but marketing department spew, plain and simple.