Sunday, February 6, 2011

HTC ThunderBolt Given Away Free at Verizon Locations Feb 12

10:20 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments

It has begun! The free wars. Not that giving away smartphones for free (with contract) is a brand new idea, but giving away a phone of this magnitude certainly is a bold move by Verizon. Apparently if you attend the grand opening of at least one Verizon location in Northampton, MA, you’ll be eligible to win a basically free HTC Thunderbolt and walk out of the store with it that day. Everyone else in the world who isn’t inside the network will have to wait until February 14th for the honor of holding this phone for their very own.


The store in question will be giving away not one, but TWO free phones on February 12th, one of them being the 4G speed HTC ThunderBolt, the other being a complete mystery. Maybe a WebOS phone. Maybe something exciting. They’ll also have food and beverages, and their local radio station 93.9 The River will be broadcasting and giving away ski passes. So win a phone or just go skiing. Probably don’t bring the phone on your ski trip or it’ll get stolen in the locker room.
The location of this particular Verizon is 162 North King St Big Y, Walmart, Staples Plaza, Northampton, MA 01060, and it’s already been soft-opened. They’re open seven days a week and if you’d like to call them up to confirm the phones they’ve got or if they reeeally plan on giving a ThunderBolt away early, you can call them up at 413-341-3473. Nate will take care of you.
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Angry Birds Update Today with 30 Extra Levels, Access to your SMS

10:19 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments



The folks at Rovio Mobile Limited have granted this earth a brand new world of Angry Birds today – and it’s not the Valentine’s Day edition. Ham Em’ High is a western themed AB world with 30 extra levels, a few new bonus items and – new to the whole game, a graphics toggle for lower end devices. No more need for Angry Birds Lite. Only thing this expansion doesn’t have is a good reason for asking for permission to use your sms – WHOA WHAT?!


That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, take a peek at what this upgrade has to offer in the permissions department:
This application has access to the following:
• Services that cost you money
Send Sms Messages
Allows application to send SMS messages. Malicious applications may cost you money by sending messages without your confirmation.
• Your messages
Receive Sms
Allows application to receive and process SMS messages. Malicious applications may monitor your messages or delete them without showing them to you.

Read Sms Or Mms
Allows application to read SMS messages stored on your device or SIM card. Malicious applications may read your confidential messages.
• Network communication
Full Internet Access
Allows an application to create network sockets.
• Phone calls
Read Phone State And Identity
Allows the application to access the phone features of the device. An application with this permission can determine the phone number and serial number of this phone, whether a call is active, the number that call is connected to and the like.
Why Rovio is asking for this permission and what they plan to do with it are a mystery to us. It doesn’t seem very likely that Rovio would opt to read your sms messages, and the text you see above is the same for any app that allows these permissions, but it’s erring on the side of caution, and if you’d like to do the same thing, you’d be better off holding on the download for now, at least until Rovio explains what the deal is.
Take a look at the upgrade for this app in the “What’s New” section in the Android Market listing for Angry Birds: AM_Angry Birds — and perhaps there is no reason to fear. Have a look at some of the reviews left today on the app, followed by a small gallery of gameplay.
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HTC Desire 2, Flyer, Pyramid, LG Optimus 3D, Star Tab Appear in Inventory Lists

10:15 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


Dear sneaky ninja photographers, thank you so very much for your help in finding ways for early adopters to get pumped up earlier than was ever possible before. That said, the photos you’re about to lay eyes on, dear reader, were submitted to fonearena overnight, and they show no less than HTC Desire, HTC Flyer, HTC Pyramid, LG Optimus 3D, and a Star Tab in various inventory lists. Although we trust fonearena to be tossing out trustable info, and they say this source has been good in the past, there’s always the fact that these lists could quite easily have been replicated in any gridlike program for computing.


Regardless of that, this is exciting. HTC Desire 2 and HTC Pyramid which was only just rumored a couple days ago. HTC Flyer, a much looked forward to Android tablet. The LG Optimus 3D! Star Tab LG, looking like, as FoneArena suggests, the European version of the Optimus Pad. Most or all of these devices will be revealed in earnest at Mobile World Congress 2011, a set of events which we’ll be running around quickly to bring you news about all bits in time and with mighty excitement.
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Android Honeycomb Boot Animation [VIDEO]

10:13 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments



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How’s the weekend going? Are you preparing Android-style for the big game? Trudging through winter weather? Well grab a very small cup of cocoa and pull your seat up for this 10-second video showing what Honeycomb looks like when booting up:

Pretty sweet! And now back to your regularly scheduled weekend Super Bowl weekend.
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Samsung TV Remote App Released For Galaxy S And Tab Devices, Available For Download In The Market

10:10 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments

Samsung announced that they have released their TV remote app for both the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab devices.  As of now, the application is not available for any other device, hence the reason it will not appear for you if you search for it in the market.  In addition, we are told that there will not be an apk around the interwebs for you to sniff out.  Who knows, maybe our boys over at XDA can take care of that.
The remote application allows you to control several of Samsung’s WiFi enabled televisions, all seamlessly from your device.  So, if you’ve just purchased one of Samsung’s TV’s and you’re sporting a Galaxy S or a Tab, then head on over to the market for the download and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments below.
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Best Buy store confirms launch dates for Thunderbolt, Xoom?

10:07 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments

Well, I’m not sure how credible a source the Grand Rapids South Best Buy Facebook page, but they have it from the highest authority that the HTC Thunderbolt is dropping on Valentines Day with the Xoom following up on the 24th.
This is news that has been talked about for a little bit, but nevertheless I think by now we can fully expect to see both of these devices landing before the end of the month. Stay tuned.
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System Dump from HTC Inspire 4G Made Available

10:05 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments

Nothing gets the developer community hopping more than the system dump of a new, high-profile phone. Well, fans of the HTC Inspire 4G will be happy to know that its system dump has just been made available. The new version of HTC Sense is included in this, and the report is that there’s not a lot of the AT&T “bloatware” that is so common with so many phones. Developers, or anyone planning to purchase an Inspire and do any hacking, should really look into grabbing this download from Android Central.
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Nearly 90% of All Android Devices Run 2.1 or 2.2

10:04 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments


“Fragmentation” is a very common buzzword in the Android world, especially among its critics. But how big of a problem is it, really? Granted, different carriers and different manufacturers like to put their own spin on the OS, but most of that is cosmetic. At the core, most Android devices are running either the 2.1 or 2.2 version of the OS. The Android developer blog has released numbers, compiled of all the devices that have checked into the market over the last 2 weeks. As it turns out, 57.6% of all devices are running Android 2.2 right now, and 31.4% are running 2.1 – bringing the total between the two up to 89%. With nearly 90% running the same version of the OS, and Google saying that they’re at a point that major updates will be coming out about once a year, that should go a long way to addressing the perception of fragmentation.
 

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Android Software Engineer Explains More Detail on Fragments

10:02 AM Simranpal SIngh No comments

If you watched the Google event a few years ago or just read our coverage of it, you’ve heard a little talk about “fragments” in the Honeycomb OS. Over at the Android Developer’s Blog, software engineer Dianne Hackborn has shed a little light on exactly what these fragments are, and how they’ll work.
There’s a lot of technical information in the post, so it’s definitely worth a good read if you’re interested in the developer side of the platform. For the rest of you, the interesting part is that fragments are a way of organizing information and pulling it across various parts of the app. She also mentioned that fragment technology will be rolling back across to older Android versions, all the way back to 1.6. No word on the “when” of it, but it’ll be coming down the pipe.
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