Sunday, July 8, 2012

Google Android News Android Forums

Google Android News Android Forums

Unlocked Xperia S, P and Sola Now Available In the U.S.

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 11:45 AM PDT

Sony Mobile is now delivering on its promise to deliver their NXT lineup of Android devices unlocked in the U.S.  The Xperia S with a dual core 1.5 Ghz Qualcomm CPU, 4.3″ (1280 x 720) HD display, and capable 12MP camera is available for $469.99 from Newegg in black or white. The Xperia P rocking a 1Ghz dual core CPU, 4″ (960 x 540) qHD display, and 8MP camera is up for $388.99 from Newegg. While the budget friendly Xperia Sola with its 1Ghz dual core CPU, 3.7″ (854 x 480) display, “floating touch” technology, and 5MP camera can be had for $299.00 from Newegg.

All three models will receive Sony Mobile’s ICS update and will work on AT&T’s 3G network. The Xperia U is not yet available, but should be up sometime soon. These are all capable devices and should only get better once they have the Android ICS update installed. Anyone interested in one of these devices?

source: Xperia Blog

Samsung Promotes the Cool ‘Share Shot’ Feature in New Galaxy S III Commercial

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 10:35 AM PDT

Just in case you weren’t completely sold on Samsung’s newest flagship phone, the company has aired a new video reminding people about one of its many great features. Share Shot is Sammy’s new way of sharing photos instantly with friends and family as long as they also have a Galaxy S III. Using Wi-Fi direct, the Galaxy S III can instantly share photos once a photo or video is taken. Simply add the people you want to share with before snapping pictures and voila! Instant media sharing. Now if you could just talk all of your friends and family into getting a new GSIII. Check out a perfect use scenario in the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In Other News: Verizon Locks The Samsung Galaxy S III’s Bootloader, But Device Gets Rooted Anyways

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 07:59 AM PDT

While Samsung generally makes developer-friendly devices, Verizon Wireless went ahead and became a party-pooper by locking the bootloader of the Galaxy S III smartphone. Of course people didn’t take too kindly of that and immediately went to work and take it to Big Red. Well a landmark achievement has been accomplished by a tireless developer who hates the needless extras and bloatware on Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy S III. Thanks to superstud invisibleK of RootzWiki, interested parties of the Verizon variant of the Galaxy S III will now be able to slap on some root action, with little to no trouble. Looks like that recently-released stock image is looking just a little more tantalizing, isn’t it?

Naturally, those of you who are interested will want to take extreme caution as rooting the device will not only void the warranty, but any mishaps or stumbles could possibly result in an unusable or bricked device. Now that we gave you Verizon Galaxy S III owners a full disclaimer, hit the break to see the full detailed instructions on how to get in on some sweet, sweet root action.

 First off, you’ll need some files. This basically flashes a custom system.img.ext4 which has your su binary. You then boot up and flash cwm

– Odin: http://samsung-updates.com/Odin307.zip
– Rooted system.img tarball: http://goo.im/devs/i….system.img.tar (this is big ~1.5gb, I’ll work on slimming it down)
—–torrent for ^ (please seed!): http://goo.im/devs/i…img.tar.torrent
– CWM recovery.img: http://goo.im/devs/i…35/recovery.img (this was ripped out of CWM-Recovery-LTE-SGS3-Sprint-v4.zip from the e4gt team)

Ok, lets get started….

1. Boot into Odin mode on the phone. Do this by powering off and then holding vol down, home and power to power on. Then press vol up to accept the disclaimer. Plug into your computer.

2. Fire up Odin (Heimdeil may work in linux, haven’t tested) choose the PDA section and browse to wherever you downloaded rooted.system.img.tar then click flash. This takes awhile, be patient. Took me around 8 minutes to flash this.

3. It will auto reboot. It should boot up and thing should act mostly normal except that you’ll be able to adb in and use su to take root

If you don’t want a custom recovery, you may stop here. You are rooted.

Continuing on to get CWM on your device…

4. You’ll need adb installed and working for this. If you don’t know how, this isn’t the thread for that. Open a command prompt and follow these commands:

<cd to the directory with the files you downloaded earlier>
adb push recovery.img /sdcard/
adb shell
su
dd if=/sdcard/recovery.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p18
adb reboot recovery
5. Profit

Should be it guys. It should be noted I haven’t really tested anything in CWM

I’ve only done it once, but you are welcome to join me in #verizons3 on irc.freenode.net for help
I’m tired, can’t guarantee there aren’t any typos here, if you are scared, just wait. I’m sure someone will come up with a simpler way to do this…

enjoy :)

Thanks to many people…
Epic 4g Touch Team
Samsung-Updates.com
rizdroid for this: http://forum.xda-dev…304&postcount=1 which i loosely followed to build our rooted system.img
Many others for bits an pieces for this whole thing

FAQ:

Q: It’s not working!!! Keeps failing!!!
A: Try again. Turn the phone off (battery pull) and boot into download mode again

Q: Odin doesn’t seem to be doing anything!
A: Be patient, it can take awhile sometimes. I’ve also noticed if you try to flash something, and leave the phone plugged in and try to flash something else it won’t work. Unplug, then replug, then try flashing again

Q: Does this trip the flash counter?
A: No

 

source: RootzWiki

Official London 2012 App Offers Oympics Results, Schedules, And News

Posted: 07 Jul 2012 12:03 AM PDT

With the 2012 Olympics starting later this month, the timing is perfect for the Official London 2012 Results App to be released. Yes, the name is a mouthful, but so are the features, including news, live schedules, and results from all Olympic and Paralympic sporting events. You can even set reminders and notifications for specific countries, which is a nice touch.

Olympic fans, head on past the break for a full list of features and the download link.

  • Results: Covering all events for the 36 sports for the Olympics and 21 sports for the Paralympics.
  • Live Schedule: Follow the latest sporting Olympic events that are currently in progress. View results in real-time and share with your friends. View live updates: news, photos and social commentary from the Games.
  • Calendar Schedule: View day-by-day which sporting events are taking place in the Olympic schedule. Set favourites or reminders to create a personalised selection tailored for you.
  • Sports: View details of each of the sports; all the latest results, latest news, latest pictures and background information including football, swimming and track.
  • Medals: View the overall Olympic medal count as they are awarded throughout the Games – by country, by individual and by sport. Learn more about the medals.
  • Athletes: View all the participating athletes and review their details and current Olympic standings for London 2012. Use the sophisticated search tool to personalise your experience and follow the performance of your favourite athletes.
  • My Games: Follow any participating country and receive news and updates tailored to your needs. Manage your favourites, reminders and settings. Stay informed: set up notifications and alerts to keep you posted throughout the Games.
  • The Results app is available in English only, but useful for anyone around the world interested in the Olympics and Paralympics.

Grab the app from the Play Store download link or QR code below.

QR Code generator

Play Store Download Link

Stock Firmware Image Released For Verizon Galaxy S III

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 11:01 PM PDT

 

Samsung Updates has released the official stock firmware for the Verizon version of Samsung‘s flagship Galaxy S III smartphone. This is great news for ROM modders, hackers, and devs since it now offers the safety net of being able to always get back to stock should things go wrong.

This could lead to great new ROMs being cooked up for the S III, but Verizon users have another barrier to get through first. The bootloader on the Verizon S III appears to be locked, meaning no easy hacking or flashing of unsigned images, and no one has been able to unlock or root it yet. Verizon is known for keeping their phones locked down, with the exception of Google’s Galaxy Nexus, and it’s unlikely they would change their policies for the S III. Hope is not lost, however, since devs have been known to find loopholes in the past. As more S III’s hit the streets, the chances get better that someone will find a way to crack this beast. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Still, the stock firmware is greatly appreciated and a good first step on the road to root.

source: samsung updates

AT&T plans to launch new blocking service for stolen devices

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 08:54 PM PDT

According to trusted sources, AT&T is planning to launch a new service on Tuesday, July 10th, that will allow customers to deny voice, data and SMS access to individual phone and tablet devices without implementing a full SIM block. A copy of guidance provided to customer service representatives indicates AT&T will compile a "blocklist" of stolen devices in order to implement this new service for reporting and blocking such devices. The message shows service will be automatically suspended "if any attempt is made to use a device that is stored in the blocklist."

Reports indicate the service can only be activated by contacting a customer service representative directly. Likewise, only the person who originally requested the block will be able to get it removed. This seems to imply AT&T will have to keep a list or some record of who requested a block on a device matched up with the device. It is unclear how this will be accomplished and at the same time meet AT&T's claim that "no directory of blocked phones" will exist.

This new service follows the announcement last April of a plan by major U.S. carriers, including AT&T, to develop a central database of stolen phones in conjunction with the FCC. Those plans were met with some resistance on the part of privacy advocates and this new service may raise some questions as well.

source: The Verge

Verizon Encrypts the Galaxy S III Bootloader, Developers Currently looking for a Workaround

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 08:34 PM PDT

Just when you thought Verizon couldn’t piss you off any more, they appear to have gone off and done it again. According to a few lucky developer-types who received their GSIII pre-order early, Verizon’s version of the phone has a protected bootloader. Yeah, that’s right. Verizon has the only U.S. Galaxy S III, nay, the only Samsung phone that isn’t unlockable – the bootloader has been signed and encrypted at Verizon’s request.

Now before you go and cancel your pre-order because you were hoping to hack your way to a better experience, keep in mind that you still have a two week return period before you are stuck with the device. I say this because we aren’t at a complete loss just yet. Keep in mind that only a select few of the many thousands have received their pre-ordered GSIII and hopefully someone will find a loophole in the near future. One interesting thing I should mention is that one dude from XDA got his new GSIII and supposedly it had already been re-flashed. We are just waiting to see if a system dump can be obtained from that unit, and who knows, maybe that will hold the key to our hackable future. Either way I have faith still. We’ve seen our beloved developers overcome some pretty sticky situations in the past. Lets just hope this one isn’t too much of a pain in the ass.

source: XDA

 

 

ITU plans summit to address rampant patent litigation

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 08:26 PM PDT

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a part of the United Nations, has announced plans for a roundtable in Geneva on October 10, 2012. The purpose of the gathering is to address the surge of patent litigation and lack of adherence to standards bodies' patent policies. These actions are leading to more instances of markets being blocked and high-profile cases of goods being impounded at docks. The roundtable discussion will include standards organizations, key industry players, and government officials.

According to Dr. Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary General, "…patents are meant to encourage innovation, not stifle it. Acknowledging patent holders and user requirements, as well as market needs, is a balancing act." A key issue to be addressed is the relevance of reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) patent policies, especially with respect to the question of what is "reasonable?" Several parties who commented on the planned roundtable also mention the need to maintain a balance between the needs of implementors of standard essential patents (SEP) and the needs of inventors so they will continue to contribute their inventions to standards.

Do you think a roundtable will help the industry get control over the growing patent litigation problem? Could we at least see a reduction in the cases of products being banned or held up from markets?

source: ITU
via: Engadget

Sony LT30 Bluetooth approval reveals more details about unit

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 07:46 PM PDT

Sony Mobile continues work on shepherding a new phone referred to as the LT30 through various approval processes. Sony has now obtained Bluetooth certification for the device. The entry on the Bluetooth SIG web site reveals a few details about the device beyond the fact that it has obtained Bluetooth certification.

Sony indicates the phone will be part of their "premium product line" highlighted by an "ARC" design with a metal back. The unit will possess a 13MP camera that supports 1080p HD video recording and a 720p capable front-facing camera. The display is reported as 4.6 inches running 720p HD. Sony also indicates it will be capable of stereo recording. The dimensions indicate the unit is a slim phone weighing in at 140 grams. Previous reports suggest it will possess a Snapdragon S4 processor.

Sony indicates it will ultimately be available on all continents. The question is, how long until we hear an announcement from Sony about this new smartphone?

source: Bluetooth SIG
via: PhoneArena

Samsung granted temporary stay of ban on the Galaxy Nexus

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 05:48 PM PDT

Last week we reported that Apple had won an injunction against Samsung effectively blocking sales of the Galaxy Nexus. It’s clear that this action has frustrated and angered many people in the Android community. However, it seems as if Samsung’s protests have paid off as the U.S. Court of Appeals has now granted a temporary stay of ban until July 12, awaiting a response from Apple on the matter.

It’s safe to say that Google’s not out of the woods yet on this one, so stay tuned for more updates on Samsung and Apple‘s latest tango.

source: bloomberg
Posted by at 5:38 AM

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