Verizon’s white DROID RAZR on sale tomorrow, mum’s the word on the Galaxy Nexus

If you’ve been holding on to your three hundred bones, waiting on the prospect of chillier version of the Motorola DROID RAZR to land in time for Christmas, you needn’t wait much longer. Verizon announced availability for the white variant via press release, just one day shy of its December 15th debut. Speed freaks and fashionistas can pick one up tomorrow at the regular $299 on-contract price.

There’s also the deal for a select group of consumers who want both a Verizon 4G LTE smartphone and tablet: buy a new DROID RAZR and you can take an extra hundred dollars off the price of a DROID XYBOARD tablet. Since the cheapest 8.2-inch XYBOARD is $429.99, that makes for an attractive offer – but only if you really want two multi-year contracts. 

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10 Billion Apps promo, day 9: EzPDF, Guns’n'Glory and Zenonia for 10¢

The penultimate day of Google’s 10 Billion Apps promotion is upon us, and thankfully there’s a fresh batch of apps and games to pick up on the cheap. Google is celebrating more than 10 billion (with a b) app downloads with apps discounted to just ten cents / pence, a discount of more than 90% in most cases. Today’s batch of new apps includes EzPDF, Guns’n'Glory and Zenonia.

Here’s the list of new apps so far: Collapse!, Deer Hunter 3D, EzPDF, Guns’n'Glory, MX Moto, Sleepy Jack, Tank Riders, Toddler Tapping Zoo, and Zenonia. If you didn’t pick up SwiftKey X already, you’ve got another chance today. Google’s focus on games remains, but it’s nice to see them throw in another utility, in the form of the very solid ExPDF. If you often find yourself viewing Adobe documents on your phone or tablet, it’s well worth the dime.

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Samsung Galaxy S II test ROM leaks with Ice Cream Sandwich [UPDATE]

What’s this? An official Samsung ROM with the most desirable bit of software this holiday season? Someone out there has been a very god little Android modder this year, and if you own the international version of the Galaxy S II, you can take advantage of his or her good fortune. Sammobile got their ans on a leaked version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the SGSII, and the adventurous can flash it at their leisure.

The ROM is a customized version of Ice Cream Sandwich that’s a long way from ready for an OTA release, but it’s surprisingly complete for a test build. All the basics are covered, including calls, SMS, Internet access, etc. Sammobile claims that some of the apps are unstable, and random reboots are an unfortunate reality at this stage. By all accounts, it isn’t ready for use as a daily driver.

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Clever Sense nabbed by Google to provide local recommendations

Whether or not you like Apple or the iPhone; the Siri search assistant in the latest versions of the iPhone is a very cool feature. Google is gearing up to fight Siri and some of the cool local recommendation and other features that the AI assistant touts on the iPhone 4S. To help beef up the Google arsenal in local recommendations Google has plunked down the cash needed to buy up Clever Sense.

Clever Sense is a recommendation service that will undoubtedly find its way into Majel, the rumored Siri competitor for Android. Clever Sense is the firm behind the Alfred apps for Android and iOS devices that are able to keep track of restaurants close to the user and then make recommendations based on what the app determines are the tastes of the user.
The team of geeks at Clever Sense will become part of the Google local search team. Cleaver sense had plans to make its app more than just a food recommendation service. It was planning to make the app suggest entertainment options and deals in a system sort of like Groupon. I can see all of those things making nice additions to Majel.
[via SlashGear]

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LG Prada Phone K2 leaks again, launch event today

The coming LG Prada Phone isn’t exactly a closely held secret at this point. We have spotted the smartphone in the wild when it surfaced back in October. Some other photos leaked in late October, and then we saw the device cross the FCC in November to get the approvals it needs. Today more pics of the smartphone have leaked coming from BestBoyz.

That new pic comes a tiny bit ahead of the official unveil of the phone by LG later today at an event we will be attending to bring you the details as they happen. The phone is expected to be available for users to purchase starting in early 2012. Naturally the phone will be running the Android OS under the hood. We already know virtually all there is to know about the device other than how it feels in the hands and how well all those specs work together to make a decent smartphone.
The device rocks a 4.3-inch WVGA NOVA display that is really bright at 800cd/m2. The smartphone will use a TI OMAP 4430 1GHz dual core processor and work on the HSPA+ networks floating around. Other features include WiFi, Bluetooth, and an 8MP rear camera. That camera can shoot 1080p video and the phone has 8GB of internal storage.
[via SlashGear]

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HTC Flyer missing from Best Buy online

Could the Flyer be discontinued? It is no longer available for purchase on Best Buy’s website, and the trend may follow with other retailers soon. It has been discounted many times over the past couple months, and may be nearing the end of its shelf-life. Of course, after using the tablet myself – it functions better than many of the current tabs out there.

In one sale the Flyer dipped down to $240 for a brief moment, and that was quite the deal. It may not have appeared for $99.99 like the famed HP TouchPad, but still 50% off. If Best Buy is pulling its inventory, another “Firesale” could be underway soon.
When a tablet is discontinued, the developmental community is bound to worry. The HTC Flyer has many unofficial developers on its side producing some excellent ROMs and kernels. Knowing the Flyer may never see Android 4.0 could be quite the disappointment, but at least developers won’t be waiting on it. It may even give a few the spark to start a something from scratch.
[via Phandroid]

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Netflix could get scooped up by Verizon for 4.6 Billion

Rumors suggest video streaming service, Netflix, could get purchased by Verizon Wireless for $4.6 Billion. The source also revealed Verizon has been currently looking for a way to minimize costs for video streaming, thus Netflix sounds like an excellent company to get involved with. Netflix is already available for practically every capable Android device, so syncing it within a service would be amazing.

However, we just heard yesterday Verizon was preparing a service with RedBox termed “Project Zeotrope”. This service would allow subscribers to pay for credits prior to a media purchase. Then of course, the media would be available for up to 24 hours after a rental. Could Veizon be dealing with both RedBox and Netflix? It seems like they would pick one of the two.
Verizon using Netflix technology to stream both movies and TV shows would practically eliminate the need for their Verizon Video application. Verizon Video already has a great selection with the latest TV episodes on many channels, and tied in with the vast Netflix library it couldn’t get much better. Of course, it helps to operate all of this over a WiFi connection – streaming video takes quite the toll on your allowed data usage.
[via TalkAndroid]

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ASUS Transformer Prime hitting Australian shelves in January

The ASUS Transformer Prime is said to be hitting the US before Christmas (December 19th?), but for Australian retailers – expect to see the device in early January of next year. The price is yet to be confirmed, but the Transformer Prime may end up seeing an instant OTA update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) due to the delayed release. In my opinion, this tablet is the best announced thus far for the year – so once updated to ICS, the best will just get better.

This news was gathered directly from an ASUS (Australia) tweet, so it’s official. We’re not sure the cause of the actual delay in the states to December 19th, but there had been rumors of WiFi issues. To give you a rundown on the tablet’s specifics, it will sport a 10.1-inch SuperIPS display and 1.3GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 Processor.

It’s the first quad-core tablet, and has some excellent benchmarks. The best feature by far, is the capability of to connect to the lapdock keyboard with the included touchpad. It’s finely tuned, and looks just like a laptop when clamped shut. And with 12 hours of video on a single battery charge, there’s not much this tablet doesn’t offer.

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Sega snubs Android, delays Sonic CD release till 2012

If your only experience with Sega‘s blue hedgehog is post-Dreamcast, you can stop reading now – this story isn’t for you. If, however, you’ve been patiently awaiting the Android arrival of one of the most celebrated 2D platformers of all time, prepare to be disappointed. Though the Sega CD classic Sonic CD will see a release on the iPhone tomorrow, December 14th, it won’t be hitting Android until early next year. We’d blame Dr. Robotnik, but you’d think that he’d be on board with Android all the way. Android fans should be used to waiting by now.

It’s not all bad news. XPERIA Play owners can add Sonic CD to the ever-growing list of games that will support its game pad, and with a fast twitchy game like Sonic, that’s a godsend. And it’s good to know that more people will at least get to play Sonic CD, which had a pretty small audience way back in 1993 due to the Sega CD’s failure to sell. We can wait in good company – the Windows Phone 7 release has been delayed as well.
While you wait, you might as well check out some classic Sonic action with this here trailer. Sonic CD is considered by many to be the best of Sonic’s 2D adventures, with gigantic stages and high-fidelity music made possible by the denser CD format. The re-release will be getting the original Japanese soundtrack. Though Sonic has fallen on hard times in modern 3D versions, Sonic CD remains a highlight of his fast-paced career.




[via Pocket Gamer]

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