Eric Schmidt: Motorola acquisition “Won’t screw up the ecosystem”

Many industry insiders, not the least of whom being Motorola’s competitors, have worried that Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility might make the hardware company the “golden child” of the Android universe. Google chairman Eric Schmidt gave an interview this weekend, assuaging fears and assuring investors that the stability of Android is paramount. Google, he said, is committed to Android as a whole, and will not play favorites – sort of.

Schmidt was quoted as saying the following:

The Android ecosystem is the No. 1 priority, and that we won’t do anything with Motorola, or anybody else by the way, that would screw up the dynamics of that industry. We need strong, hard competition among all the Android players. We won’t play favorites in the way people are concerned about.

That last clause, “in the way people are concerned about,” may indeed be cause for concern. Samsung certainly thinks so – they gave a statement earlier last week saying that they “can’t rely on Google” for patent protection. Not surprising, given that Samsung has been the hardest hit by Apple’s worldwide lawsuits. Microsoft, which has licensing agreements with both HTC and Samsung, rakes in an estimated $444 million a year off of the “free” Android OS. Schmidt mentioned the 17,000 mobile patents that Google received from the Motorola purchase in the interview.
It’s important to note that flagship “pure” Android devices have come from all three of the biggest Android manufacturers thus far – HTC had the Nexus One, Motorola had the XOOM and Samsung has the Nexus S (and if rumors can be believed, the Nexus Prime as well). Google’s strategy for its intellectual property going forward is a “rough truce”. “From our perspective, we will end up having enough patents that we can end up with a rough truce with everybody else, which is how it’s done,” said Schmidt. The executive said that he does not know when such a truce might be achieved.

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Adobe unveils more powerful Photoshop Touch

Let’s face it: Photoshop Mobile is a joke. It’s not really an image editor as much as it’s a tweaker, an app that’s just about worth its free price tag and doesn’t really live up to the Photoshop name. Now that tablets with the screen real estate and horsepower to take advantage of more traditional photo editing exist, Adobe wants to take advantage of them with Photoshop Touch for Honeycomb.

The app features a full-screen interface that mimics the tools of the desktop version of Photoshop, while still staying relatively finger-friendly. Basic functions like rotation, crop and various color corrections are easy with advanced warps and modifications also possible. Most exciting is that Photoshop’s robust selection and layer tools seem to have made the mobile transition intact, making truly useful image manipulation possible. The app also takes advantage of tablet hardware for live video layers.
Perhaps the most exiting part of Adobe’s announcement is that the Android app will cost just $9.99 in the Market. Considering that you’re getting a solid chunk of the functionality found in Photoshop Elements on a relatively new platform, that’s a downright steal. Couple Photoshop Touch with a cheap capacitive stylus, and all of a sudden you’ve got a full-on digital drawing tablet at a fraction of the cost (and to be fair, a fraction of the functionality) of hardware like the Wacom Cintiq.
Adobe demo video
Photoshop Touch will release sometime in November for Android, with an iOS version to follow. How often do you get to hear that, Android fans? It’s part of a small suite of apps including Collage, Debut ( a presentation manager), Proto (simple website designer), Kuler (color manager) and Ideas (vector editor – why not just call it Illustrator Touch?). All six apps will work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud system, so you don’t have to keep local files on your tablet.
[via SlashGear]

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Adobe Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 available tonight for download

Today Adobe is rocking the news with their MAX conference. They have just announced the much anticipated Adobe Flash Player 11 will be available starting tonight for multiple platforms, including Android. Same rules apply for Air 3.0 and they will be available tonight at 9:00 PM PT or early morning for you East Coast folks. The latest Flash updates will bring significant changes that were detailed in-depth back in September.

Sadly for mobile and Android this initial release wont see the new Stage 3D codenamed “Molehill”. Although both flash and air will eventually bring major improvements to mobile that will help to stabilize and revolutionize the way we game and consume content on the web and our mobile devices. Stage 3D was one of the most exciting aspects of the new Flash 11 and while it is coming soon, its sad that we can’t see it today on Android.
More details can be found over on the Adobe blog and the downloads for both Flash 11 and Air 3.0 should go live tonight around 9:00 PM PST. For now until everything gets incorporated into Android we’ll just have to wait and watch. Soon we’ll be experiencing amazing 2D and 3D graphics at upwards of 60 FPS on our Honeycomb tablets for some true console-style gaming. Stay tuned for more details regarding Android as the Adobe event continues, below is one example of what we can expect to see coming soon.



[via Adobe]

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Archos 80 and 101 G9 Tablets receiving firmware update

The brand new Archos G9 Honeycomb tablets have only been out a short time and Archos has already started pushing a firmware OTA update to the devices. The new update from Archos fixes plenty of bugs, and adds some new features like Google Talk so head on past the break for full details.

The Archos G9 tablets are their first entry into the Honeycomb tablet game and are aiming at the low priced segment. Our hands-on (linked to above) shows plenty of the new tablet from Archos and our full review is coming shortly. Like most updates it adds a number of features and fixes a number of bugs. Here are a few of the highlights right from Archos:
-Google talk is now part of the firmware and comes pre-loaded.
-Improved volume control (better volume range, less glitches on notifications) leading to faster gaming experience on some 3rd party applications
-Improved camera quality in high and low light condition
-Added Flash acceleration support
-Better quality SD video upscaling (e.g. on 1080p display)
-Improved memory management for smaller memory footprint
-more
For more information you can head over to the Archos support page and see all the changes in the change-log by clicking here.

The latest Archos Firmware version 3.2.46 is available now for those who already own the Archos G9 tablet and can be updated right from the device. Head to menu > settings > about tablet > then just hit “Firmware Update” and start the download. It should only take but a few minutes and upon rebooting you should be on firmware version 3.2.46 and be able to enjoy all the bug fixes, Google Talk and more.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G hitting T-Mobile October 26th

T-Mobile has a few Android tablets up their sleeves. Then just last week T-Mobile confirmed it was coming soon on Twitter. Today we have a leaked calender from the inside stating October 26th for the launch date.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 should be rocking T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ network but no other details or pricing has been revealed. We should see the same Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 and 32GB variants like usual. The Wi-Fi Tab has received updates to the newest Tab Touch Wiz UX from Samsung but the 4G LTE version is still waiting. Hopefully we see their customizations come out of the box with the T-Mobile version that is coming soon.

This isn’t the only tablet T-Mobile has up their sleeves as we mentioned above. We recently saw a leaked Galaxy Tab Plus sporting T-Mobile frequencies as well so its safe to assume they have a few in the pipelines coming for the holidays. Samsung recently made the Galaxy Tab 7 Plus official, so we could see that hit T-Mobile shelves come this October too. Stay tuned for more details as October 26th gets closer.

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T-Mobile and Walmart offering $30 no contract unlimited 4G plan

Today T-Mobile and Walmart have unveiled a new partnership to offer a pretty great deal for those looking for cheap and reliable 4G service. Announced today and starting come October 16th, users will be able to get into their new $30 unlimited web and text monthly 4G prepaid service plan.

Offering unlimited 4G data with no annual contract for just $30. Although “unlimited” really means 5GB here, that should be enough for most users and we even get unlimited texts too. I like the sound of this T-Mobile. The monthly 4G plan will offer unlimited data and texts, and 100 minutes for users. While 100 minutes might not be a lot and we don’t have 4G LTE here, this is one of the best deals I’ve seen in a while.
One important note is any phone featuring T-Mobiles HSPA+ (4G) network will be able to take advantage of the new $30 unlimited plan (but not offered). So snag a friends old Nexus One, get a G2x used, or even get the upcoming Amaze 4G and enjoy those fast speeds at an unbelievable price and if you start to run out of those 100 minutes, just start texting people. Isn’t that all we do these days anyways — that and social networking?
The offer will start on October 16th and will be available in Walmart stores only. If you were thinking of snagging a no contract 4G plan this is something to consider.

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AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II on sale at Walmart and Amazon as low as $149

The Samsung Galaxy S II is finally available over on AT&T for just $199 and as always others are trying to capitalize on the release. Like usual those include Amazon, Walmart and others all offering lower prices than if you were to over to AT&T themselves.

This 4.3″ AMOLED display packing dual-core beast is as thin as a pencil, but as fast as a Ferrari — Not really but close enough. Like linked to above it is available this week and you can get it from AT&T right now for just $199 with a new 2-year contract. With the same contract agreement the Galaxy S II from AT&T is also available from both Walmart and Amazon for lower prices than AT&T. If you don’t want to wait for shipping you can head down to your nearest Walmart Super Center (I call them Wallyworld) and pick up the Galaxy S II for just $164.99

Then Amazon is at it like they always are and have undercut both AT&T and Walmart and are offering the SGSII for just $149. Prices are for new activations or for those eligible for upgrades signing a new 2-year contract like you’d expect so for now you’ll have to make due with that. So head on over to Amazon or Walmart and get yourself one of the best new smartphones on the market — the Galaxy S II.

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Motorola DROID RAZR caught running benchmarks

Motorola’s newest Android handset is in the news again this week. First spotted a while back being called the DROID HD new details are claiming this is actually codenamed the “Spyder” and will officially be called the Motorola DROID RAZR. The leaked press images look nice but today we are seeing a potential benchmark result of the rumored handset.

As always, results found from NenaMark are never fully trusted although they’ve been reliable and accurate in the recent past with devices like the Bionic, and the Vigor. Today we have some results thanks to NenaMark being ran on none other than the Motorola RAZR. Everything from the leaked benchmark results seem to line up exactly like the recent leaks we linked to above.

With a TI 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and a qHD display at 960 x 540 and more this sure looks good. We’ve heard the display will be a qHD AMOLED screen and not a 720p “HD” display and these results seem to clarify that a bit more. Unless something changes I don’t think we’ll be seeing an HD display in this phone. According to all the recent leaks this dual-core beast should also be rocking Verizon 4G LTE making it one of their main launches coming this holiday season. With benchmarks being ran freely it is only a matter of time until we get more pictures or info of the DROID RAZR out in the wild.
[via Droid-Life]

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Dell Streak 7 receiving OTA to Android 3.2 Honeycomb

Well folks, we haven’t heard much from Dell lately in regards to their lineup of Android, especially regarding the Streak 7 Android Tablet. Back in July we saw leaks of their new 10″ Honeycomb tablet as well as a glimpse of the Streak 7 enjoying the same tasty Honeycomb. Now sources are stating the Android 3.2 Honeycomb update for the Streak is rolling out now.

Some users are claiming to finally be receiving the update to 3.2 Honeycomb for the Dell Streak 7″ Tablet. Over at the Dell support forums there is some chatter that more than a few have already received the OTA update and are giving it a try as we speak. One mentions all user data was wiped during the update and he lost everything, while another user reports just the opposite and that the update did not wipe the entire device. Either way I’m sure a few Streak users are excited to give the tablet OS a try.
With reports that the hardware menu button isn’t working in select situations, and of course that low resolution not looking its best, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more soon but at least this is a good sign. For now it seems users across the pond and outside of the U.S received the update and we still have no further details for the U.S. market or those running with a T-Mobile Streak 7.
As soon as we hear more regarding an official statement from Dell, or confirmation on the OTA update we will be sure to update with more details.

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