Sunday, April 15, 2012

Update - 273



Posted: 22 Mar 2012 11:02 AM PDT
Verizon and AT&T get the most ink for their super-fast LTE networks in the US, but they aren’t alone. Regional carrier US Cellular has been working on gaining a foothold for LTE in various markets, and the tried-and-tested Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be the first device to take advantage of it. The Android Honeycomb tablet is launching on the network’s website and in retail stores today. The price is $499 with the 5GB data plan or $599 with the 200MB plan, both after a $100 mail-in rebate, but there’s a special introductory price of $399 at the moment.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is getting a little long in the tooth, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of an excellent device. The 10.1-inch LCD screen uses a resolution of 1280×800 to display Samsung’s TouchWiz-skinned version of Android 3.2, with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor and a full gigabyte of RAM powering it. The US Cellular version is getting the larger 32GB storage capacity, a blessing since there’s no MicroSD card slot. The rear camera is just 3.2 megapixels, but still manages 720p recording.
US Cellular’s LTE network is only in a handful of markets in Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Maine, North Carolina and Iowa at the moment, but of course the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will work on the carrier’s 3G network as well. The Samsung Galaxy S Aviator (AKA a re-branded version of the DROID Charge) should follow on the network in a few weeks at most, for those who want their speed in a smaller package. Head on over to US Cellar’s website if you’re interested.

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 10:33 AM PDT
Last week we got a sneak preview at Ice cream Sandwich running on the HTC Vivid, but now it looks like everyone can join in on the fun. HTC tweeted that the update would be going out over AT&T’s servers starting today, so if you’re still rocking the stock software, head to your Settings>AT&T Software Update menu to search for a manual update. The tweet linked to an official AT&T service page, so presumably the update is being sent out immediately.

We did a thorough hands-on of the Vivid’s new software last week, and came away impressed. Sense 3.6 isn’t drastically different from its previous version, but there are enough changes to make the upgrade more than worth it. All the standard Ice Cream Sandwich features are present, if somewhat hidden: face unlock, automatic homescreen folders, and (yes!) the ability to disable system apps. HTC’s added Beats audio to the update, though you’ll need to plug in some headphones to take advantage of it. The update seems to significantly improve the Vivid’s benchmark scores, though I haven’t noticed any serious changes in performance. Check out the hands-on here.
Our previously updated review unit isn’t getting any notifications, so this is almost certainly the same version that was leaked earlier. If you’ve already updated via the leak or less official means, congratulations. If you’re planning on applying the update immediately, you’ll want to get to a WiFi network, especially if you’re on a limited data plan. The software is over 300 megabytes thanks to HTC and AT&T’s additions. Never fear, root users: there should be a root method for the update soon, if there isn’t one already.

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:59 AM PDT
Trying out your shiny new Tablet P on AT&T, only to wish it had an operating system that wasn’t nearing a year out of date? Then you’re in luck: Sony has announced that it’ll be pushing out the Ice Cream Sandwich update to both the Tablet S and Tablet P in April, making good on its earlier promise. The bad news is that it’s only confirmed for Japan at the moment; those with WiFi-only Tablet S machines in the US and elsewhere will have to wait an indeterminate amount of time to get their hands on the update.

The Tablet S and Tablet P both run on an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset with a gigabyte of RAM, so the update should prove no trouble for either device. The really interesting thing will be what Sony does with its custom interface. ICS has a great look and feel, which both Samsung and HTC have basically thrown out the window in favor of their own UI skins.  It looks like Sony will follow in their footsteps and adapt the admittedly light changes they’ve made to Honeycomb to ICS as well. This will present some software engineering challenges on the Tablet P in particular, with its dual screens and custom API. New features include the ability to watch content from a Sony Blu-ray player over a home network and “Small Apps”, free-floating widget-style programs that are pretty similar to the “docked” apps on Samsung’s later Galaxy Tab line.
The Tablet S WiFi version should be updated in other territories not too long after Japan gets its update, but the Tablet P is another story. It just launched on AT&T earlier this month sporting Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and any update will have to come through AT&T first. We all know how that story goes; it’ll probably be several months at least before the brand new device is running on current software, it indeed it gets updated at all. Custom ROMs will be difficult, since they might need to be translated from the Japanese version to preserve the custom split-screen changes to Android.

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : Tablet S
    Manufactuer : Sony
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : April 26, 2011
    Release Date : September 11, 2011
    Also Known As : S1
Display
  • Screen Size : 9.40 Inch
  • Resolution : 1280x800
  • Screen Type : TFT
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 9.5 Inch
  • Width : 6.86 Inch
  • Depth : 0.40 Inch
  • Weight : 598 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Polymer
  • Battery Capacity : 5000 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 3.1.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • MP3
    Video Playback:
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
Hardware
    CPU : Tegra 2
    CPU Clock Speed : 1000 Mhz
    Core : 2
    Ram : 512 MB
    Internal Storage : 32 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 5 MP
    Camera Features:
  • 720p Video Recording
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 2.0
    Location Features:
  • Compass
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : Tablet P
    Manufactuer : Sony
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : April 26, 2011
    Release Date : TBA
    Also Known As : Sony Tablet S2
Display
  • Screen Size : 5.5 Inch
  • Resolution : 1024x480
  • Screen Type : TFT
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : NA
  • Width : NA
  • Depth : NA
  • Weight : NA
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Polymer
  • Battery Capacity : 3080 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 3.1.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • MP3
    Video Playback:
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
Hardware
    CPU : Tegra 2
    CPU Clock Speed : Mhz
    Core : 2
    Ram : NA
    Internal Storage : NA
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 0.3 MP
    Camera Features:
  • 720p Video Recording
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Location Features:
  • GPS
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :

[via SlashGear]

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:31 AM PDT
It’s finally here: the avian outer space destruction simulation that’s been on the minds of Bird-brains for weeks. Angry Birds Space represents the first major revision to Rovio’s familiar formula since the game launched – unlike the various Seasons themed updates (with the occasional extra bird thrown in) Angry Birds Space shakes up the equation with physics-based levels and puzzles, forcing players to account for areas of low, zero and radial gravity in order to smash those thieving pigs. Does Space live up to its world-conquering predecessor? Read on to find out.

When you start Angry Birds Space, you’re presented with the familiar formula of slingsh0t-based carnage with only one twist: the playing surface is now an asteroid that curves aroung 360 degrees. No problem, right? Just aim for the prize and don’t overshoot, like always. Until the first time that you do overshoot, or zip right through the pigs’ hastily-built constructions, and keep going in a deteriorating orbit that slowly spirals down to the planetoid. This is a bird of a different color.
Through the various levels you’ll encounter pigs and obstacles free-floating in space, where a direct point-to-point trajectory can hit home on the first go. But there’s also free-floating debris, some of which generates its own gravity field (the white bubbles you see around the asteroids in the screenshots). You can use these bodies to curve your otherwise straight flight path, shoot down to the asteroid for some standard destruction, or bump the pigs’ flotillas into the nearest gravity field to give them an up-close and personal introduction to the ground. There’s a staggering array of ways to accomplish your goals, and the familiar methods aren’t always the best.

Then there’s the birds themselves. The red, blue and black birds behave pretty much as they always have, with the addition of straight flight in zero gravity. (Also they get some Buck Rogers in the 25th Century-themed costumes.) The yellow bird is now the “Lazer Bird” in a fetching shade of purple, and alters his path once during flight while speeding up. The Ice Bird smashes into any structure and turns a good portion of it to ice ( the Angry Birds Space equivalent of glass) and the the inexplicably named Terence (green bird) has a huge amount of mass for getting through multiple formations or big piles.
While the Space gameplay will be familair to anyone who’s played the original, there’s enough new material and flexible gameplay to keep even the most saturated of fans coming back for more. The gravity and physics makes new options possible, while creating an environment for puzzles and triggers that makes you want to play some levels over and over. This really is a significant addition to the simple game, enough that those who’ve skipped the last year’s worth of expansions will want to check out the differences.

It isn’t perfect. While playing on my Galaxy Tab 8.9 with its 720p resolution, the cinematic and field itself is shrunken somewhat; on Android at least, the UI needs a little tweaking to be ideal. Owners of 720p phones and tablets of any size should download Angry Birds Space HD. On more than one occasion I actually pushed pigs outside of the playing area without smashing them – presumably they were just hanging in space, awaiting bird-based death that never came. And for all the new gameplay tweaks and great sound design, the graphics still leave a lot to be desired – just about any Android device can handle the game, but it’s not pushing any boundaries in the technical department.
If you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy Note (which I don’t), you get access to 30 exclusive levels of the game that are off-limits to other Android devices. There may be even more than that – while playing through one of the Golden Egg levels I spotted an emblem with the Galaxy Note and its S-Pen, presumably a hidden treat for owners of the premium hardware.

The bottom line is this: if you love Angry Birds, you’ll continue to love Angry Birds Space. If you haven’t been impressed thus far, give it a shot – the regular Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Space HD are both free downloads in the Google Play Store. If you’re a regular player and don’t want to see the ads, spend a dollar on Angry Birds Space Premium.
Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-21-54 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-27-21 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-55-47 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-05-06 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-06-01 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-08-00 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-15-07 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-02-37 Screenshot_2012-03-22-10-03-14

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:45 AM PDT
There’s still very little official information to be had about Android’s next major version, though even Google seems to have settled on the name Jelly Bean. Today DigiTimes quotes its anonymous sources (which are almost always hardware or component suppliers) saying that Android 5.0 is due in the third quarter of 2012. For those without a pocket planner handy, that’s between July and September. They also note that a new OS revision may be detrimental to the platform if Ice Cream Sandwich adoption continues at its glacial pace.

To be frank, DigiTimes excels at these sort of vague predictions. Based on Google’s previous development cycles, the next version of Android is almost guaranteed to come some time in the latter half of this year, whether it’s Jelly Bean or Android 5.0 (they may do another Gingerbread-style incremental update instead). Q3 is a little earlier than we expected, since both Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich came in the fourth quarter, with Honeycomb serving as a sort of beta for the Android tablet platform. Given these extrapolations, their sources have a 50% chance of being right or wrong.
There’s an astounding lack of information on the next version of Android, with the sole rumor so far being centered around a docked desktop-style interface. We’ll almost certainly get some more information from Google at the Google IO conference in late June, including a confirmation of the name and version number. Until then, it’s all a chasing after the wind. You can expect another big reveal media event for the new OS, and whatever device ends up being its hardware counterpart, in late 2012.
[via BGR]

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:11 AM PDT
Play it again, Sam. In the latest in an ever-growing line of leaks, rumor and downright fakes leading up to the Galaxy S III announcement, Phone Arena got a look at a leaked device purporting to be the “Samsung GT-i9300″, one of many possible model numbers for the much-anticipated device. The phone in the photo is running what looks like TouchWiz over Ice Cream Sandwich, including Galaxy Nexus-style on-screen navigation buttons. No further context is given.

There are a few strange things about this photo: one, the bezel around the phone’s glass front is different than any of the high-end Samsung phones we’ve seen in the last year or so, and it looks like the glass is actually slightly recessed from a 1-2mm plastic lip. That could be some kind of protective or concealment case, or this could be an early prototype of the hardware. Two, the Samsung logo has moved to the bottom of the phone, something you normally only see on the US version to make room for carrier logos, though this unit is bare. There’s no mention of a screen size in the leak and nothing to compare it to in the photo, but extrapolating from the elements on the screen and the front-facing camera, I’d say it’s somewhere in the 4.5-inch range (give or take a couple of tenths of an inch).
Is this the Galaxy S III? Maybe, but I doubt it. The industrial design doesn’t scream flagship to me, and I would be surprised if this turn out to be either an early production test device or another phone entirely. We’ve heard a handful of possible model numbers for the GSIII, one of which was i9300, but a leak from Samsung earlier this year placed it at a strange 1024×600 resolution. That could certainly be the same device we’re looking at here: the aspect ratio is about right. But with the Galaxy Nexus having a 720p Super AMOLED display (along with several competitors) and the Galaxy Note bumping it up to 1280×800, it’s hard to believe that the GSIII would go lower than 720p.
Also note that this photo looks nothing like the half-dozen “leaks” and renders floating around the net for the last couple of weeks. This is certainly a real device, but that doesn’t make it the real deal, any more or less than the other leaks.  Samsung is still silent on when they’ll announce the Galaxy S II’s successor.

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 06:29 AM PDT
Well Galaxy Note owners, it looks like you’re going to have a slightly longer wait than you’d hoped to get Ice Cream Sandwich running on your phabulous phablets. Samsung’s Korean division announced that they’re delaying the release of the official Android 4.0 release for the Galaxy Note to sometime in the second quarter, putting it somewhere between a few weeks and three months away from now. This sort of thing isn’t really surprising given Samsung’s track record, though the relatively timely update of the Galaxy S II had us hoping that ICS would be coming to the Note sooner rather than later.

To help soften the blow, Sammy also announced that it would be throwing in a “Premium Suite” of new applications designed for use with the S-Pen stylus. These include My Story, a sort of digital postcard app, Shape Match, an engine that can recognize geometric shapes drawn on the screen, and formula match, a heuristic app that will recognize and solve standard mathematics equations written with the S-Pen. Oh, and Samsung was quick to remind its users that they’ll have access to 30 exclusive levels of Angry Birds Space when it launches
tomorrow
today.
All that’s fine and dandy, but I’m sure that most advanced Galaxy Note users would much prefer to have an up-to-date OS rather than a few new included apps, especially considering how many are already on the device. Even waiting until the end of the second quarter wouldn’t put the Note too far behind the rest of the pack, at least by the lackadaisical standards of manufacturer Android updates, but it’s still disappointing to see a flagship premium device go without a much-needed update for so long. US readers, note that this announcement is directed at owners of the international Galaxy Note – AT&T’s LTE version will likely be at lest a month or two behind its GSM brother.

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : Galaxy Note
    Manufactuer : Samsung
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : September 01, 2011
    Release Date : TBA
    Also Known As :
Display
  • Screen Size : 5.30 Inch
  • Resolution : 800x1280
  • Screen Type : Super AMOLED
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 5.78 Inch
  • Width : 3.27 Inch
  • Depth : 0.38 Inch
  • Weight : 178 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Ion
  • Battery Capacity : 2500 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : 390 hours
Software
    Android OS:
  • 2.3.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AMR
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
  • WMV
    Messaging:
  • SMS
  • MMS
Hardware
    CPU :
    CPU Clock Speed : 1400 Mhz
    Core : 2
    Ram : 1024 MB
    Internal Storage : 32.768 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 8 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
  • MicroSDHC
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
  • Flash
  • 1080p Video Recording
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
  • Proximity
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 3.0
    Location Features:
  • Compass
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Posted: 22 Mar 2012 05:39 AM PDT
Acer has outed its first quadcore Ice Cream Sandwich tablet, the Acer Iconia Tab A510, a 10.1-inch slate running Android 4.0 on NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset. The A510 has a 1280 x 800 10-point touchscreen with 85-degree viewing angles, a microHDMI port, micro USB 2.0 port and microSD card reader.

Inside there’s 32GB of storage and 1GB of RAM, along with WiFI a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. A front camera runs at 1-megapixel and is fixed focus, while the 5-megapixel rear camera supports autofocus and can simultaneously snap stills while recording HD video.
Polaris Office 3.5 along with various other apps are preloaded, together with Acer’s own clear.fi DLNA streaming system and the Acer Ring UI. The chassis is 10.2(w) x 6.9(d) x 0.43(h) inches and weighs a little over 24 oz, and bears both Acer and Olympics logos as it’s apparently an “Olympic Games Tablet Edition.”
The Acer Iconia Tab A510 is up for pre-sale today, priced at $449.99, and available in black or silver. A matching case with integrated stand is priced at $39.99.
IconiaTab_A510_Lft IconiaTab_A510_SO IconiaTab_A510_Rt

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 01:41 AM PDT
Angry Birds Space has gone live in the Android Play Market, offering bird-hurling pig haters the opportunity to fling feathers in space. Featuring sixty levels spread across both space and planets, with a mixture of zero-gravity and non-Earth gravity to get your head around, the updated game also introduces new birds and a variety of in-app purchase content.

For instance, there’s the DANGER ZONE pack, with 30 of what developers Rovio Mobile says are the “most difficult levels” every offered. The regular game itself features a number of hidden levels, including one focused on anti-cyberbullying.
The Android version of the game is a free download, unlike the iOS versions which kick off at $0.99, though that does mean you get adverts. You can download Angry Birds Space here.
[via SlashGear]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 05:32 PM PDT
Holy cow. According to a new report from analytics firm Flurry, the number of newly activated Android users in China has surpassed that of the United States to become the world’s fastest-growing body of smartphone users. The stat holds true for iOS as well, making China the #1 country for total number of smartphone users on the planet. That’s hardly surprising – they’ve got the largest number of people after all, nearing 1.5 billion as of 2010 – but the rapid adoption rate in the country just a few years after the emergence of the current mobile market is astonishing.

The difference is small at the moment. Flurry said that 23 percent of the combined new devices for Android and iOS come from China, compared to 22 percent from the United States. But that percentage is sure to grow, and grow quickly. At the moment the US still has twice as many smartphones as China (the new figures are for activations, not active users). The rapid adoption can be accounted for by rising prosperity among China’s middle and upper class.

The interesting thing about it is that Google doesn’t officially offer its services for Android in China. Pretty much all of the Android phones and tablets sold at retail are using the open-source operating system independently, doing without the popular Google apps and integration and the ease of use of the Google Play Store. Also note that Google doesn’t count non-certified devices among their official activations – that 850,000 figure from Mobile World Congress likely doesn’t include anyone outside of Hong Kong.
[via TechCrunch]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 05:08 PM PDT
If you’re an Android developer and/or a dedicated modder, you’ll want to hear this. Google’s Android dev team has just updated the official SDK tools to version 17, with a host of new goodies for developers to try out when creating new Android apps or builds. There’s a lot of tweaks for performance and stability, but the major addition doesn’t even come from Google: they’ve borrowed some code to make the Android emulator that comes with the tool package run natively on x86 systems.

Basically, that means that the emulator included in SDK tools will run faster and more efficiently on your Windows or OS X computer (sorry Linux users), since it no longer needs to go through as many layers of virtualization. It’s still not speedy by a long shot, but based on a quick run-through, it’s a lot less frustrating than it was. With Ice Cream Sandwich adding considerably more processing and memory strain that Honeycomb and Gingerbread, that’s a major blessing for anyone who’s ever worked on a time-sensitive app. To get the emulator, install the package from the Android Developers website and use the SDK tools to download the relevant packages, then start the AVD tool.
Another interesting feature is tethered multitouch support, allowing for full control of the emulator and test apps with an Android smartphone or tablet connected to your computer via a USB cable. Unfortunately this is in the experimental stage, and requires a device running Android 4.0 to function. This feature comes along with tethered sensor support, allowing the emulator to get real-time data from your device’s accelerometer, gyroscope, magnometer, light sensor, etc. for interaction with a test app.

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 04:51 PM PDT
This is a quick shout out, or PSA if you will, for anyone that happened to miss our ASUS Transformer Prime Quad-core Bundle Giveaway we started back on Friday. While some were lining up to get the next iPad hopefully tons of you were sitting at home, riding the bus to work, or whatever else you do while reading Android Community daily and decided to enter into our giveaway. In case you missed it here are some of the details again.


Here at Android Community, and thanks to NVIDIA we have not one but two of these ultimate bundles to giveaway to a few lucky readers. This is the ASUS Transformer Prime quad-core Tegra 3 tablet, the additional keyboard dock ($149 value) and a Powerbag Messenger tablet carry case with a built-in 6,000 mAh battery — all up for grabs in our giveaway this week. Two lucky readers will get all three of the items mentioned above in our Transformer Prime bundle giveaway.
The rules are simple and once followed you’ll have two chances to win. Once over on Google+, and another on our Facebook page. Plus two more chances from our sister site SlashGear. For all the details, instructions, and full giveaway rules head to the original post for all the info. As a reminder here are the ways to win:
1. "Like" us on Facebook: /AndroidCommunity
- Leave a comment in [this Facebook thread] telling us one or more ways you plan to use the Transformer Prime quad-core tablet, or what Tegra 3 optimized games you can’t wait to play.
2. Circle us on Google+ at: +Android Community
- Leave a comment in [this G+ thread] also telling us one or more ways you plan to use the Transformer Prime and that quad-core Tegra 3 processor. As well as any games you’re dying to play.
- We'll pick a set of our favorites and select two random winners from that group on March 23rd!
That’s it! That simple and you’ll be entered in our giveaway. Remember to only comment and enter ONCE in either of the threads, and entries left in the comments section of this or any other post other than those specified above will not be recognized.
Get on those thinking caps, say something smart or catchy and hopefully you’ll be one of our lucky winners. Good luck!

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : Transformer Prime
    Manufactuer : Asus
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : November 09, 2011
    Release Date : December 19, 2011
    Also Known As : Transformer 2
Display
  • Screen Size : 10.10 Inch
  • Resolution : 1280x800
  • Screen Type : IPS+
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 10.35 Inch
  • Width : 7.12 Inch
  • Depth : .33 Inch
  • Weight : 586 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Polymer
  • Battery Capacity : 6579 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 4.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • MP3
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
Hardware
    CPU : Tegra 3
    CPU Clock Speed : 1400 Mhz
    Core : 4
    Ram : 1024 MB
    Internal Storage : 64 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 8 MP
    External Storage:
  • MicroSD
  • MicroSDHC
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
  • Flash
  • 1080p Video Recording
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 3.0
    Location Features:
  • Compass
  • GPS
  • Wi-Fi location
    FM Radio :
    NFC :


Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:34 PM PDT
Google Wallet hasn’t had an easy start. Despite becoming the de facto standard for payment in the Android Market/Google Play Store, its adoption with consumers and retailers for NFC-based payments is effectively nil, with CitiBank and Mastercard being the only non-carrier infrastructure partners of note. The fact that the service has suffered multiple privacy scares and a short feature outage doesn’t help. So it’s no surprise when Bloomberg reports that Google’s top brass is reevaluating their strategy, with the possibility of adding a revenue share system for the carriers that support it.

If you want to get wireless carriers aboard, there’s really no better way to do it than offer them some cold hard cash. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are already part of the ISIS consortium, which aims to compete with Wallet directly and give the carriers a slice of the gigantic pie that is credit cart transactions. Visa, American Express, Discover and Mastercard (playing on both sides of the fence) are on board  already, and a national rollout is expected sometime this summer. With hardware, software and marketing coming from so many sources, it’s entirely possible that ISIS could corner the market for NFC payments in the United States.
Google hasn’t committed to a course of action yet, and even if they did, it’s unlikely that the carriers would support them. Verizon is just short of openly hostile towards the Google Wallet service, blocking its download for their customers along with T-Mobile. Only AT&T and The Now Network allow their users to download the Wallet app from the Google Play Store (without hacking) and even AT&T didn’t allow it initially. For Google’s NFC payment hopes, it may be too little and too late.
[via SlashGear]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:32 PM PDT
I’ve seen this question come up before and while there are a few decent solution for Android this new SDK take things one step further. That question is about FRAPS for Android. Users want to be able to see their frames per second, take screenshots, and record actual game footage on their Android devices. Meet SeeMeGaming from LunarG studios.


SeeMeGaming is a free SDK users can download and use to record and share in-game footage of gaming or apps for Android phones and tablets. With PC solutions like FRAPS it records entire gaming sessions and users can then choose what they want to keep, and delete the rest. With SeeMeGaming they make things even easier since we are on mobile devices after all.
You wont need root access and this will allow users to capture those hero moments during games, most useful in those multiplayer games where you want to share some epic headshot with fellow players. With SeeMeGaming the SDK will actually record the entire time you have it enabled, but throw away all the unused video to save space. Gamers wont have to anticipate when good moments will happen, or sort through entire game sessions to find the good stuff. One you make something special happen, get a kill streak going, or anything else you’d like to record you simply tap a button and it goes “back in time” and will capture 30, 60, or 90 seconds of video and save it to a file for you.


You wont need root access, and you wont have to tweak or edit video with a PC. Instead the short clip is instantly available on your Android phone or tablet and can then be played back, and easily shared to your favorite social site or YouTube. All the competitive or hardcore gamers will love this option to show off their l33t gaming skills. The SDK is available for game developers to integrate into their upcoming games, and users can download from the LunarG site linked to above. Hit the source for additional details if this is of any interest to you.
[via DroidGamers]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:53 PM PDT
“Ich will die große, bitte.” That’s “I want the big one, please,” in German, and it’s something you might want to learn to say if you like the looks of Toshiba’s massive new tablet. The 13.3-inch AT330 is a solid 30% bigger than any mainstream tablet on the market. Yet another Toshiba prototype, it’s also running Ice Cream Sandwich with a built-in TV tuner with collapsible antenna. For some reason, Toshiba thought that Germany would preferable to, say, Texas for introducing this beast to a hungry public, and TechFokus got a good look at it at on video.

In addition to its size, software and media prowess, it’s also running an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, matching the one found in the earlier 7.7-inch prototype. Unlike that model and the currently on-sale Excite AT200, the AT 330 employs what looks like a more contemporary plastic body accented with metal. The extra space allows the gigantic tablet to accommodate 32GB of storage and a full-sized SD card slot (not MicroSD). It’s also got HDMI-out, plus a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing cam. There’s no word on what kind of resolution it’s got, but based on the video, it looks like a 1920×1200 LCD panel.
Check it out in action below:


Toshiba says the AT330 is just a prototype for now, and considering the size it’s hard to blame them. Of course there’s nothing about a 13.3-inch screen that’s inherintly wrong, it’s just that up to now it’s always been in a laptop form factor that’s meant to rest on something else. Holding a 10-inch tablet can be tiring after a while (hence the multitude of stands out there) so it’s hard to imagine how doing the same would be for something even bigger. Probably a lot like a slightly lighter version of the old tablet PCs, one would think. What say you, readers – what’s the upper limit for you?
[via 9to5 Google]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:45 PM PDT
Samsung and their popular line of Android tablets seem to be everywhere these days, just like their Galaxy S II smartphones. While AT&T in the US has an LTE version, and a few carriers in Canada do too Rogers has been lacking a solid 4G LTE tablet. Available now is the Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE for just $399 or $650 outright.


Starting today, the Tab 8.9 is available from Rogers for $649 outright or users can opt for a 3-year contract and pay only $399. Pretty hefty prices but you do get an excellent dual-core tablet with an awesome AMOLED display that looks great, and is extremely lightweight. If you’d like to see more you can check out our hands-on of the tablet.
The Tab 8.9 LTE features a Qualcomm 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of internal storage and of course Rogers 4G LTE speeds. We still have Android 3.2 Honeycomb on the tablet but Samsung has recently tipped us off that it’ll be getting Ice Cream Sandwich soon, as well as multiple other Samsung products. If you’ve been eying a fast and thin tablet complete with LTE speeds on Rogers this would make a great choice. Get it now at Rogers.com

Device Specifications and Information
Device Info
    Device Name : GALAXY Tab 8.9
    Manufactuer : Samsung
    Carrier : NA
    Announced Date : March 22, 2011
    Release Date : October 02, 2011
    Also Known As :
Display
  • Screen Size : 8.9 Inch
  • Resolution : 1280x800
  • Screen Type : TFT
Dimension & Weight
  • Height : 9.09 Inch
  • Width : 6.21 Inch
  • Depth : 0.34 Inch
  • Weight : 470 Grams
Battery & Power
    Battery Type:
  • Lithium Polymer
  • Battery Capacity : 6100 mAh
  • Talk Time : NA
  • Stand By Time : NA
Software
    Android OS:
  • 3.0.x
    Audio Playback:
  • AAC
  • AAC+
  • AMR
  • MID
  • MP3
  • WAV
  • WMA
    Video Playback:
  • h.263
  • h.264 / AVC
  • MPEG-4 (MP4)
    Messaging:
  • SMS
  • MMS
Hardware
    CPU : T250S
    CPU Clock Speed : 1500 Mhz
    Core : 2
    Ram : 1024 MB
    Internal Storage : 65.536 GB
    Front Facing Camera :
    Camera Resolution : 3 MP
    Camera Features:
  • Auto focus
  • Flash
  • 720p Video Recording
    Sensors:
  • Accelerometer
  • Ambient light
    QWERTY :
Cellular Network
    Network Technology:
  • GSM
    GSM Band:
  • 850
  • 900
  • 1800
  • 1900
Device Connectivity
    Wi-Fi:
  • 802.11b
  • 802.11g
  • 802.11n
    Bluetooth:
  • Bluetooth 3.0
    FM Radio :
    NFC :

[via MobileSyrup]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:26 PM PDT
Recently mobile games have really been taking off, but to partner with a game developer and release it on the same day as a major movie just seems like a good idea. The popular and highly anticipated Men in Black III is coming to theaters on May 25th. Along with the release will be a game designed and released by Gameloft for Android.


Gameloft and Sony haven’t released too many details, but as launch date edges closer we’ll be hearing more. For now we know the MIB III game will be released on smartphones and tablets, and be available the same day as the movie hits the streets. Not two months later. I wish everyone did the same thing, and released things at the same time but sadly that just doesn’t happen. Take Mass Effect 3 for example. They released a lousy live wallpaper for Android along with the game, and that was all.
The Men In Black game for Android will be a freemium title. Meaning it will be free to download and play but users can also make in-game purchases to go farther, unlock levels, or buy guns and such. The actual type of gameplay hasn’t yet been revealed but most likely will be some sort of side or top down shooter with aliens, but we have nothing to confirm that speculation.
With a movie this big, and the game launching on consoles, iOS, and Android we have a feeling it will be better than just some tossed together game — or we hope so at least. Gameloft and Sony will be giving players the “keys” to the Men in Black universe starting on May 25th, same day the movie launches. Are you excited about this movie, or the game for that matter?
[via DroidGamers]

Posted: 21 Mar 2012 12:41 PM PDT
Google’s music streaming option has continued to grow over the past few months since it was officially released back in November of 2011. Originally called Google Music it was recently renamed Google Play Music along with the Google Play Store. While the average user wont run into some of the below issues, many of the die-hard Android users (and there are plenty) will have them, and hopefully Google can make some changes moving forward.


For anyone like me that has multiple Android smartphones, tablets, and media players, that also loves to flash custom ROM’s you’ve surely had the issue from my screenshot above. Previously Google Music was limited to 8 devices and would just close if you reached your limit. They recently upped the limits to 10 but with Android devices coming in all shapes and sizes some might burn through that quite quickly.
If you have a Galaxy Nexus and use Google Music, then decide to flash the latest CyanogenMod 9 or other custom ROM’s when you resign into Google Music that same device will use two activations. I’ve reached my limit of 10 multiple times and had to deactivate the same device on multiple occasions, as I’ve wiped it out and flashed a different ROM more than once. Like I said above this wont be an issue for the average user, but we all know that tons and tons of Android users aren’t what we’d call “average” users.
Next up, we all know Google Play Music allows “unlimited” streaming of up to 20,000 songs to any device be it PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. I have two PC’s, two laptops, and way more than six Android devices so that goes out the window quite fast for me — before I start flashing custom ROM’s. On top of that, their so called unlimited streaming appears to have some sort of limits. According to reports from Droid-Life earlier today, users are seeing a message saying “Your limit for streaming music has been exceeded. Please try again later.” From what we understand this is not a 20,000 song limit, but an actual limit where this user that streams tons and tons of music has apparently reached some sort of limit, and can no longer access his own songs, including the ones he’s purchased from the Google Music Store.

Now this could simply be a mistake, or this user could have actually reached some sort of data, or time spent streaming cap that Google has to this point, not detailed to the end users. I don’t know about you guys but I sure didn’t read the fine print. I just hit go and enjoyed the new streaming options. Does Google Music actually have streaming limits, or was this just a mistake? We are currently looking into the matter and hopefully get some clarification soon.
We know not everyone has an abundance of Android devices like the hardcore enthusiasts, and most wont stream so much music that they reach these types of limits, but if Google is going to impose them they should at least offer an alternative or paid access for those needing more. For now they do allow downloading your Google Music to a PC, or make music available offline for phones and tablets. That is a start but I’d love to see even more options as Google Music becomes a bigger part of my daily life.
Have you reached these limits? What do you guys think?

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