HoneyBar Removes Status Bar from Android Tablets on command

It’s always good to have options, and with Android, there’s no mobile OS on earth with more of them – right? Turns out that’s not always true, or so it is if you ask any number of developers on the Android circuit, just so long as they’re looking for total and complete control they’ll never completely be satisfied. Thus, there must be apps such as this: HoneyBar, an app which requires root but gives you the ability to get rid of your Android 3.x Honeycomb status bar whenever you like, with just a tap of a button.

The developers of this application, namely Perry Nguyen, are rather against the idea that this sort of functionality hasn’t been added per a request at Google Code for such an ability to be active. He’s decided to create an app that costs $0.99 and adds a big ugly white box in the middle bottom of your display, disappearing after you’ve activated the single ability this app activates 10 times. In addition to being able to hid e your Honeycomb status bar, you’ll be able to do so with a slightly offset button should you be using Samsung’s TouchWiz UX as there’s a button in this same location to bring up some quick launching min-apps in that particular tablet UI.
You can pick this app up on the Android Market if you wish, and you MUST remember that it will not work unless you’ve achieved root on your tablet device. Should you try the app out without root or on an Android handset instead, not much of anything will occur. The developer of this app also has several other Android control apps that work with the basic functions of your Android device to give you the top experience you expect from a device you want utter dominance over.
[via Android Market]

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Google Offices Raided by Korean Fair Trade Commission

It appears that Google’s Seoul offices have been raided today by Korean trustbusters looking for information on the possible stoppering of search opponents in the company’s mobile operating system Android. Search engine company NHN (popular in the area) and Daum Communications this past April asked the country’s Fair Trade Commission to investigate Google’s mobile search business practices. It appears that this request may well have been the source of the raid this week, and Google has responded with compliance and assurances to the public that they’ve got no ill willing code in play that would make their OS an unfair playing field.

It appears that other mobile device manufacturers in South Korea have also raised questions about restrictions Google has placed on their Android mobile OS. Of course we all know this to be preposterous, if I do say so myself, as any restrictions put on Android of course come only with a carrier or manufacturer’s wish to carry the Android Marketplace. Android is an open-source operating system which any group can use to create a device, and Google offers a certain package of requirements on the back end IF a manufacturer or carrier does so desire it. Aka this set of requirements is not necessarily required.
Google has released information in a statement, part of which reads as follows:

“We will work with the KFTC to address any questions they may have about our business. Android is an open platform, and carrier and OEM partners are free to decide which applications and services to include on their Android phones. We do not require carriers or manufacturers to include Google Search or Google applications on Android-powered devices.” – Google

Just this past May the same Google office in Seoul was the target of a raid by South Korean police, this time on suspicion that one sect of Google’s mobile advertising outfit was illegally collecting personal location data. This would have been, said the Korean police at the time, and according to Reuters, “without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission.”
We must of course turn our attention back to the post we posted a few days ago, that being one on how the South Korean government is very likely looking into developing their own mobile OS based on Android. How this situation and that situation could possibly both be in effect without being related to one another is nearly unfathomable. How and why this whole situation is going down without the evil eye pointed directly at it is another situation entirely.
[via CNET]

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HTC Droid Incredible up next for Sense UI 3.5 Port

 Thanks to the HTC Bliss we even received some hands-on video with the new Sense UI. Now all of the developers over at XDA are starting to port the awesome new UI over to all of our favorite HTC phones and the DROID Incredible is up next.

Last week we also brought news of Sense UI 3.5 being ported to the Desire HD and it was only natural that we’d start seeing more devices appear soon. So far this Incredible build seems pretty far along and like most of the bugs are gone. Initial support and reactions over at XDA seem very happy and can’t wait to give it a try. I like the new launcher icon and app tray myself.

Shown in the images clearly we can see these are all based off the HTC Bliss build that was recently leaked, same goes for the Desire HD port. Although the Desire HD version already is flashable and users are trying it out as we speak sadly the DROID Incredible build is not quite ready for prime time. Sorry to get everyone’s hopes up but this is just news today, but most likely will be a flashable ROM very soon so stay tuned here, and at the XDA thread.
In just a few short days they’ve made a lot of progress and are moving quickly, don’t worry you should have a build available shortly.

Device Specifications and Information

Device Info

Device Name : Droid Incredible

Manufactuer : HTC

Carrier : Verizon

Announced Date : April 15, 2010

Release Date : April 29, 2010

Also Known As :

Display

• Screen Size : 3.70 Inch
• Resolution : 480x800
• Screen Type : AMOLED

Dimension & Weight

• Height : 4.63 Inch
• Width : 2.30 Inch
• Depth : 0.47 Inch
• Weight : 130 Grams

Battery & Power

• Battery Type:
• Lithium Ion

• Battery Capacity : 1300 mAh
• Talk Time : NA
• Stand By Time : 146 hours

Software

• Android OS:
• 2.2.x

• Audio Playback:
• AAC
• AAC+
• AMR
• MID
• MP3
• WAV
• WMA

• Video Playback:
• 3GP
• MPEG-4 (MP4)
• WMV

• Messaging:
• SMS
• MMS

Hardware

CPU : Snapdragon

CPU Clock Speed : 1000 Mhz

Core : 1

Ram : 512 MB

Internal Storage : 8.192 GB

Front Facing Camera :

Camera Resolution :8 MP

• External Storage:
• MicroSD
• MicroSDHC

• Camera Features:
• Auto focus
• Flash
• 720p Video Recording

• Sensors:
• Accelerometer
• Ambient light
• Proximity

QWERTY :

Cellular Network

• Network Technology:
• CDMA

• CDMA Band:
• 800
• 1900

Device Connectivity

• Wi-Fi:
• 802.11b
• 802.11g
• 802.11n

• Bluetooth:
• Bluetooth 2.0

• Location Features:
• Compass
• GPS
• Cellular location
• Wi-Fi location

FM Radio :

[via XDA Forums]

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HP TouchPad Android Port Moving Along, Gets Multitouch Support [Video]

If you’ve been watching the HP TouchPad Android ports news lately you’ll know that things are slowly but surely getting there. Developers are making some great progress with Android for the failed HP Slate that recently has seen huge sales thanks to the $99 firesale price. The developers TouchDroid, are hard at work and have a booting and running CyanogenMod 7 Android 2.3.5 port for the TouchPad but things are still very beta.

Today we have another video to tease everyone with showing off not only CM7 booting, but full touch support with 10 point multi-touch fully functioning. Not only is everything working but it appears extremely quick, responsive, and we don’t see any lag from the video. This my friends is what we call progress! While I’m sure things are still a long ways away from being fully functional, this is a great start and enough to get plenty of users excited.


The last video we saw things were not too far along and nothing was working but today’s shown above shows not only the progress that has been made, but that things are moving quite fast thanks to team TouchDroid. They still have a long ways to go but I figured a few would be glad to see the video and the TouchPad in action. Stay tuned as we will be keeping our watchful eye on the TouchPad as more develops.
[via Android Police]

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Maylong M-260 Budget Android Tab clears the FCC

How exciting, we have another amazingly fast and awesome tablet for you all today. Actually it’s quite the opposite because this is the Maylong M-260 “budget” Android tablet and it has just cleared the FCC. You may not be familiar with Maylong but they are the producers behind more than a few cheap Android tablets in the past.

You may remember the Maylong M-150, it was a $149 budget tablet that landed at places like Walgreens and some Toys-R-Us stores nationwide. Sadly no dual-core CPU’s present but for that price what did you expect. Lets just say the M-150 didn’t review well. The next tablet from Maylong is headed to markets soon and today it cleared the FCC showing its internals.

I’m not a fan of the dedicated buttons that is for sure, but who would now we have Android Honeycomb tablets at our disposal. We don’t know much on the M-260 yet but from the images we see it has HUGE buttons, a micro USB port, micro SD, 3.5mm headphone jack and a few other large holes on the bottom possible housing a stylus to go with the cheap resistive touchscreen. I’m also hoping that circle on the face is a camera and not a power button.
From the photo found in the manuals it appears to be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread but that is about all we know. We will update when more specs become available for those looking for a great entry level budget Android tablet.
[via Engadget]

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Gateway A60 10.1″ 16GB Honeycomb Tab available for $399

Here is a little deal and news for everyone. Over at futureshop.ca you can get the Gateway A60 Android Honeycomb tablet for just $399. Wait Gateway makes tablets? Yup we recently saw the A60 clear the FCC back in June and now it is available for purchase.

If looking through the FCC pictures above you didn’t notice, this is almost exactly like the Acer Iconia A500 Tab. The Gateway A60 is basically a re-branded Iconia Tab with a few minor changes and a glossy black color scheme but everything else remains the same. Not to say that is a bad thing because we do have the usual awesome Honeycomb specs on board.

With the Gateway A60 you’ll get a NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1.0 Ghz CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1″ 1280×800 res display, 16GB of internal storage, HDMI Out, Micro SD support, and everything else most tablets have these days. 5MP camera on the rear, VGA up front, W-Fi and the works all for just $399. This is basically just the Acer A500 with a different color and a few curves aimed a different direction but otherwise a perfectly great and functional tablet at a decent price. Get it at Futureship.ca right now and they’ll throw in a free 16GB microSD card giving you 32GB of storage all for $399.
[via AndroidGuys]

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Acer Liquid Mini Ferrari Edition roars its engine

We haven’t seen much from Acer or the Liquid Mini lately but they are planning their next Ferrari phone and we have the details. Who remembers the Acer Liquid E Ferrari Edition? Basically what we have is that same idea wrapped around the recently released Liquid Mini.

The Acer Liquid Mini was released in April in the UK and at one point was spotted at the FCC heading to AT&T. While carrier or regions aren’t yet known we are now seeing the new Ferrari edition looking beautiful in glossy red roaring its engines for everyone. This is as special edition as it gets.

For those that don’t remember the Liquid Mini this is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone with a 3.2″ display, 800 Mhz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, 512MB of RAM, 5MP camera on the rear and 8GB of internal storage. Basically a decent little mid-range offering surrounded by Ferrari and topped off with a custom UI overlay by Acer. It will come in exclusive glossy Ferrari Red and also come with an included Ferrari branded bluetooth headset. More details about specs, color, chrome trim, turbo chargers and more can all be seen at the source below.
[via Acer]

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Baidu and Dell building Android-based OS for phones and tablets

While Google is huge in America and many other places around the world, Baidu is the biggest in China and are planning to get their own slice of the Android and mobile market. Google operates a big operation in China but is still behind Baidu in that region. China has a massive mobile market and it’s only getting bigger, they are aiming to build their own OS using Android at the center but call it “Yi”.

Yi will consist of Android but be stripped of anything Google and replaced with Baidu and have a beautiful user interface over the top, looking a bit like iOS and MIUI combined for a nice pretty UI. Dell sees this as an opportunity and is already planning a large hardware partnership with Baidu to launch their own smartphones and tablets running on the new “Yi” OS. Some being branded by Dell, and other by Baidu they expect this to greatly improve their mobile business.

Some analysts stated this is just Dell grasping at anything to help their ailing mobile business not to mention China still has a huge fan base of Apple products that dominate the market. While seeing 3rd party or custom “operating systems” running off of Android is nothing new, I do like to see what others come up with and how they will implement everything. Did you guys see the Google Android running Yahoo! Phone? This is what comes to mind although something tells me Baidu has a much better chance than Yahoo does.
More as this story develops.
[via SlashGear]

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Verizon gets official with BlackBerry Torch 9850 launch date and pricing

No more waiting on details for the Verizon BlackBerry Torch 9850 we spotted earlier this summer. As expected, RIM’s latest all-touch smartphone will be available online starting on September 8, and will be in stores on September 15. Pricing will sit at $199.99 on a two-year contract, which is a bit pricier than what Sprint’s asking, but I’m sure that cost will go down quickly enough.
The BlackBerry Torch 9850 lines up with the other new OS 7 devices from RIM, packing a 1.2 GHz processor, 768 MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, a solid 3.7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen. Augmented reality is finally a go on the newer devices, but this one doesn’t have NFC, and the rumoured inclusion of mobile hotspot sadly didn’t pan out. As far as connectivity goes, the 9850 plays on both GSM and CDMA 2G and 3G networks, ensuring solid world roaming (if not any high-end LTE action). The software’s nicely polished and responsive, but more or less the same experience you’ve come to expect on a BlackBerry. I reviewed the Sprint model, if you’re thinking about picking up the Verizon one.
The Torch 9850 joins the Bold 9930 in Verizon’s BlackBerry lineup, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Curve 9350 show up later this month, and possibly a lower-end version of the all-touch BlackBerry to keep the other two company. You’ll be able to find the Torch 9850 in the online store over here starting Thursday.
[via]

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