Android Community |
- Kal-El NVIDIA Chipset Benchmarked Against Core2Duo and Tegra 2
- SpringPad passes 1 million users, celebrates with new features
- HTC Slim concept: a work of art
- Why These Two Android Phones will Change Everything
- Sony Xperia Play not exclusive to Verizon
- Huawei IDEOS X3 [Hands-On] [VIDEO]
- doubleTwist Android Sync System [DOUBLE DEMO] [VIDEOS]
- LG Optimus 3D price and release dated
- User guide for Motorola Xoom surfaces online
- HTC Desire to get Android 2.3 update!
- Mvelopes envelope budgeting software comes to Android
- Androidify Shines at Official Google Print Station [Hands On] [VIDEO]
- Android Toy Series 2 Secret Figure #1 [SPOILER]
- XOOM Euro Edition Release Date Revealed
- Behold, the Google Pod [Video Tour]
- TI working on 720p video chat through Skype?
- LG Partners with YouTube for 3D sharing
| Kal-El NVIDIA Chipset Benchmarked Against Core2Duo and Tegra 2 Posted: 18 Feb 2011 10:53 AM PST Unless you’ve been living in an opaque bubble for the past few days, you’ll be completely aware that NVIDIA held a meeting in which they revealed a roadmap into their future, all the way to 2014 where their chipsets will be somewhere around 100x more powerful than they are now. But what about now, you ask? What would happen if they released their newly announced “Kal-El” quadcore right this moment and set it up against the other sets available today? Funny you should ask.
When run in Coremark benchmarking system, scores between Kal-El, Core2Duo (T7200), and Tegra 2 shows at least a couple of pretty impressive things – not only does a Core2Duo blast Tegra 2 by almost double, Kal-El tops that top score by over 1,000. Kal-El is more than double than the current Tegra 2 chipset, and Tegra 2 is of course undeniably powerful when compared to what we were using only a few years ago. Three years from now, in 2014, NVIDIA plans on releasing codename STARK (aka Tony Stark who is aka Iron Man,) this chipset being 100x the power of the Tegra 2. Holy bajesus. Have a look below at both sides of the NVIDIA roadmap if you’ve not already seen it. The other superheros names, if you’re interested, are Kal-El (Superman,) Wayne (aka Bruce Wayne aka Batman,) and Logan (aka Wolverine of the X-Men.) Between this and rumors that a competitor of the group Marvell spelling their name wrong by forgetting the second L, we’ve been pretty pumped up about comic book superheros this past week at a strictly tech-related convention, let me tell you.    )
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| SpringPad passes 1 million users, celebrates with new features Posted: 18 Feb 2011 10:37 AM PST Online reminder service SpringPad targe recently passed one million users and is celebrating by adding new features. New features include fixes and improvements to sync for it’s Android web app, extensions for Google Chrome, and a new iPhone/iPad app. There’s even a forum where users can suggest new features, and SprinPad plans to launch features based on some of those suggestions in the coming months.
The concept is to create a personal database in the cloud to save anything you want to remember, be it music, photos, notes, even calendar dates and to-dos, and access them from any device. Android users can also push notes to their phone from the online portal by pressing “Send to Phone.” Very advantageous if you’re planning a weekly menu plan and want to push a shopping list to your phone before heading to the market. It even has a barcode scanning utility so users can get the best deal on an item. Other push notifications include reminders, deals of the day, news, and other suggestions that can turn SpringPad into a personal assistant. )
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| HTC Slim concept: a work of art Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:47 AM PST HTC announced a new phone for NEC today at MWC called the HTC Slim and it really looks to be a beautiful work of art. With a curved design and thin waistlin, the Slim runs on Android, with what looks like a Sense overlay. The three main buttons that are within easy reach of a single thumb thanks to it’s tapered bottom end.
The Slim was designed by Sylvain Gerber, and industrial designer who has created some impressive speaker designs for JBL. Gerber says that the phone is mostly for business use and has little in the way of media functions. Other than that, there’s little else to go on at this point.    [via Concept Phones] )
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| Why These Two Android Phones will Change Everything Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:37 AM PST Before we begin, have a look at two phones – one, the LG Optimus 3D, and two, the HTC ChaCha (aka one of the several Facebook phones to reveal themselves in the past 40 or so hours.) Alone, these phones have chances of becoming popular phones for a while, maybe a few months of bigtime sales, then on to the next one, if you take my meaning. But what these two phones being released at relatively the same time means is that the social aspect of mobile has entered the hardware realm.
Being of course aware that cellular has taken over the telephone business because it allows us to be social much easier and more constantly than ever before, the implications of the two phones we’re talking about here are nonetheless significant. First, there’s the HTC ChaCha with its physical Facebook button, then there’s the LG Optimus 3D which is essentially the starting point for LG and Texas Instruments plan for Me-D, a plan which includes 3D recording the sharing in its infrastructure. The HTC ChaCha is the more blatant in its method than the Optimus 3D in that its physical Facebook button notifies the user instantly that this mobile device is optimized (or at the very least in cahoots with) Facebook. Of course we know that HTC has worked very closely with the Facebook crew to make sure this phone is a Facebook sharing machine, but its because this social network has literally become a physical button on a device that’s especially important. With the LG Optimus 3D, the worth for the evolution of the mobile industry is the ability not only to view what they’re calling 3D content, but the way in which with this device you’re able to capture and share 3D content. It’s not a new media, but it’s certainly the first time the media (and we’re talking about 3D content here) has been available in a device with a process so complete – you can capture and share and view the product from the same device. The legitimizing and propagating of two items here, one of them a form of media, the other a brand that signifies a piece of the current state of digital communication. Both of the devices this new situation rides in on look lovely, but even if they were complete vapor, we’d open their deeper meaning with open arms. Long live the ever-changing nature of communication.             EDIT: BONUS read Ben Bajarin’s analysis of the situation over on SlashGear with a post by the name of HTC’s Facebook Button is the Start of Something Big. )
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| Sony Xperia Play not exclusive to Verizon Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:18 AM PST Sony CTO Jan Uddenfelt has confirmed that the new Sony Xperia Play phone will not be exclusive to Verizon and that AT&T could launch the phone later this year. Working closely with Google to develop the gaming aspects of the new PlayStation cellphone may have given Google’s partner Verizon the inside track to launch the phone. However, Sony believes that the U.S. is a leading smartphone market in the and wants to keep it’s options open and only expand it’s reach. In addition, armed with a new focus on the importance of keeping their phones up to date, Sony-Ericcson is expanding it’s research and development to keep it’s phones on the cutting edge.
Along with the other three Sony Ericsson Android phones, the Xperia Play will come loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box. Game wise, the Xperia Play will come with 5 to 10 preloaded PlayStation games with up to 60 titles launched in the Android Market that are separate from their PlayStation Suite coming later this year. Uddenfeldt also confirmed that Sony-Ericsson advanced in their LTE product development and plans LTE/4G phones to launch “pretty soon.” In a demo at Mobile World Congress, Sony Ericsson showcased TD-LTE voice and video services for China Mobile on a prototype LTE handset. [via Fierce Wireless] )
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| Huawei IDEOS X3 [Hands-On] [VIDEO] Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:17 AM PST The folks at Engadget had their eyes peeled back and an eye open whilst at the Huawei booth at Mobile World Congress 2011, finding the Huawei IDEOS X3 right there, sitting out in the open. This is the sort of phone that’ll work great to usher in new users into the Android world, having basic features plus a few surprises to leave them wanting more. This phone has a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscree, a Qualcomm MSM7227 CPU, front facing camera of unknown power, 3.2 megapixel camera on the back, 256GB of RAM, and a 1200 mAH battery. As for connectivity, the IDEOS X3 has Wifi b/g/n, dualband HSPA and quadband EDGE radios… and believe it or not, a skinned version of Gingerbread.
What an odd thing, this phone runs a custom skin on top of Android 2.3 (or perhaps 2.4 or higher once its released,) Gingerbread. This phone looks strikingly similar to the LG Optimus U, having an extremely similar size and Android experience, despite having completely different teams working on either. This phone is slated to be released in March for $200 unsubsidized, but only in Japan for now. Hopefully it wont go the way of the Disney phone, destined to remain in the land of glittery fun excess.    [via Engadget] )
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| doubleTwist Android Sync System [DOUBLE DEMO] [VIDEOS] Posted: 18 Feb 2011 08:17 AM PST Here at Mobile World Congress 2011 we’ve had a meeting with several doubleTwist reps including Stuart Collingwood (Vice President, EMEA,) and Monique Farantzos (Founder, President.) In this meeting we’ve been told wonderous things of a future where syncing your Android with your desktop is as simple as pressing a single button, and in many cases not pressing a button at all. Before we even continue in this post, I recommend you grab the app and the desktop client from doubleTwist.com and get to freaking out. Then lets have a peek with video demos into the future with some demos below so you can see the simplicity if you aren’t already completely convinced.
What you’re about to see is both a transfer of a movie to an Android handset in basically no time at all, then a playing of a movie, then a transfer of a movie back to the desktop. It’s really quite slick. This app is known on the streets as “iTunes for Android” – looking VERY similar on the desktop, not working in exactly the same way of course, but definitely not on Apple’s best loved Android apps list. That should send up a flag for you Android users, as should 1 million + active users and a 300% growth for doubleTwist in the last quarter of 2010. For a 20 person operation, they’ve done extremely well for themselves thus far. What doubleTwist aims to do, says Collingwood, is to clinically solve the problem. The problem being “how do I move music and movies and all sorts of fun media back and forth from my Android to my desktop?” What doubleTwist is offering here, continues Collingwood, is offer essentially the only end-to-end system for media management between your desktop and your Android phone. And what does the future hold? In speaking about updates to the app, changes are coming as they will, updating for regular bugs and the like, but in slightly longer term – a tablet specific interface. Currently doubleTwist is used in over 150 countries, and they’d like to expand that, obviously, to every single country in the world, but they’ve mentioned they’re putting special focus on expanding outside the USA and UK. Did you make it this far into the article without downloading the apps? Get on it! )
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| LG Optimus 3D price and release dated Posted: 18 Feb 2011 06:34 AM PST The LG Optimus 3D has been priced and dated, for the UK at least, after making its official debut at MWC 2011 this week. According to retailer Expansys, the 3D-capable smartphone will be £514.99 when it arrives, SIM-free and unlocked, on April 25.
Of course, we’re also expecting that price to come down considerably when subsidized by carriers. More details in our hands-on. [via Recombu] )
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| User guide for Motorola Xoom surfaces online Posted: 18 Feb 2011 05:07 AM PST Not long ago, we got to spend some quality time playing with the awesome Motorola Xoom tablet and Android 3.0 and we loved every minute of it. if you are eager to learn all you can about the Xoom tablet and Android 3.0 a new source has surfaced.
The user guide for the Xoom has turned up online for the Verizon version of the tablet. The geeks at Droid Life perused the thing and saw no mention of a required data plan. The thought is that the data plan requirement may be at Best Buy only and not in Verizon stores, that would be strange though. If you are interested in reading the user guide for the Xoom, you can download the guide at this PDF link. Note that the link is broken right now, but it was apparently working before. Via Droid Life )
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| HTC Desire to get Android 2.3 update! Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:57 AM PST If you are one of the folks that uses an HTC Desire smartphone and have been longing for an Android update for your device your lucky day is here. An update for Android 2.3 for the Desire is coming your way.
The downside is that the update is still a while away with a date pegged for sometime in Q2. The update is said to come within a month or two of the Desire S hitting stores. The tip comes by way of CNET from MWC. That Q2 time frame is looking like sometime in June since the launch of the Desire S is expected in April. That is a long time to wait, but at least you now know the update is coming. Via Clove )
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| Mvelopes envelope budgeting software comes to Android Posted: 18 Feb 2011 02:42 AM PST
The new Mvelopes app has real time sync with the web-based client server. The coolest part is that the software will interface with thousands of banks around the country and is able to pull transactions automatically from your online baking account. That means you don't have to make manual entries to your budget, the app will see a charge and you can put it into the correct section. The app will allow access to your financial data on the go and you can add, change, and delete data on the go as well. The app supports location based charges too using a check-in feature. If you are at a restaurant and need to put the charge into your weekly lunch allowance, you can do it by checking in. the service has a monthly fee to use and offers a free trial. This sounds interesting to me. )
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| Androidify Shines at Official Google Print Station [Hands On] [VIDEO] Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:42 PM PST After you see the results of the two most important people at the Google Pod during Mobile World Congress 2011, you’ll definitely want to take the Androidify app to the next level. The two most important people at the Google Pod, of course, where the people sitting at the printers on the second level of the stand, helping people who’d created masterpieces get them printed out to sheets of stickers. Ever so helpful and witty, full of jokes from start to finish.
As you’ll see in the video below, we were having the bet time ever creating ourselves (in the video, me, myself,) on the Motorola XOOM tablet at the Google Pod. The area where this took place was the second constructed level of Google’s special room at Mobile World Congress, infinite green and white covering the walls and floor, Androids galore. Three stations for using the Androidify app were available for use, one of them (the one we grab in the video) being connected to a big fat HD TV so everyone around could see what you were doing. Have a look at the video then download the app, it’s free in the Android Market and if you look right now, it’s in the recommended section and therefor right on the front page, just a couple clicks and you’ll be named Andy.    )
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| Android Toy Series 2 Secret Figure #1 [SPOILER] Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:30 PM PST I warn you! Before you venture any further, be aware that the DYZ Plastic designer toy you are about to see is extremely cute, and definitely not for the weak or heart. Next let me warn you that this is one of the figures from series 2 of the official Google-licensed vinyl toys, and you might be ruining the surprise for yourself! Third, let me gloat in saying that we, or I, rather, have this toy before the series is even officially on sale yet! Hooray! Now let’s get to peeking! And note that you could get your own courtesy of Android Community very soon!
Before we continue, yes, the rumors are true, we are going to have a contest very soon where you can win an unopened, mint condition, super awesome Android toys series 2 figure free of charge. Keep your eyes on Android Community for the announcement, and I assure you you’ll be happy you did. Next, lets discuss this little fellow you’re about to see in the gallery below. He is the secret version of the Cupcake Android as released in this set as a slightly uncommon white frosting version. This rare version is chocolate. Both are extremely cute, and both have a fantastic little secret – they smell! The vanilla (or white frosting, whichever you prefer) version smells like vanilla, while the chocolate version (below) smells like chocolate! How ever did they accomplish such a thing!? DYZ Plastic, you so crazy. Have a closer look at this cutie below and have a nice little smile in celebration of his cherry hat.            )
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| XOOM Euro Edition Release Date Revealed Posted: 17 Feb 2011 09:03 PM PST It appears that we’ve now got not only the place (or one of the places, you never know,) where the Motorola XOOM tablet will be released, we’ve got the expected shipping time too! Before you get any further, check out all the most info on the XOOM, paying special close attention to the stories about the XOOM being a Carphone Warehouse exclusive in the UK, and the XOOM silver Euro Edition hands-on we picked up whilst in Barcelona this past week at Mobile World Congress.
On the Carphone Warehouse Motorola XOOM page for early registration and the like, they list “April 2011″ as the possible release date for the Euro version of the tablet. We’re still hoping for the back panel with silver to be a global option, but we’re not holding our breath. Us lowly souls in the USA might just have to suffer with the all-black version. — thanks for the tip, Magid!
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| Behold, the Google Pod [Video Tour] Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:37 PM PST We’re here still at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona and we’ve filmed for all you non-travelers a short walkthrough of Google’s magnificent presence in Building 8 of the convention. This “booth” is either the largest or one of the largest exhibits in the entire convention, and certainly many people’s favorite. I’ll get into a bit more about Google’s tactics for going viral in the convention via creative advertising, but here we’ll just take a walk through the big fat Google playground.
Google has positioned itself in a room sort of in the back corner of one of the buildings in a place where no matter where you enter, the vision is something like engulfing. It’s a vision of joy, though, as you cannot help but get a bit of a grin on your face when you enter the room as it’s bright green and full of giant-sized Android figures. Around each of these uniquely dressed Andy totems is a series of developers / designers / representatives of apps and brands working on or with Android. Each of the apps represented by these people were hand picked by Google to represent Android.
On one end of this little town of developers is a help desk where you can ask all your questions, get directions to the other end, or grab an Android pin (which we’ll talk about extensively very soon,) or a tiny green candy. On the far end of the pod, there’s a smoothy bar where you can get all manner of mixes, each of them named after an update of Android, (I had Gingerbread, while my good pal Chris Davies had Cupcake.) Up on top, on the balcony level, there’s a bit of a lounge area as well as three Motorola XOOM tablets running Androidify, a new app from Google, free in the Android Marketplace, that allows the user to create their own Android character with all manner of clothing, color, and accessories.
Near the back on the ground level, several manufacturers such as LG and Motorola have booths very similar to what the app developers have, with Google supplied screens and everything. Finally, all along the left half of the back of the gallery is a conveyer belt running glass containers with essentially every single iconic bit of technology ever to run Android (phones and tablets all.) If you were lucky, every once in a while a Google rep would walk by with a full case of Android boxed toys from DYZPlastic and you’d be able to grab one for free – series 2 even, not even for sale yet anywhere in the world. All of this is punctuated by the fact that there are gigantic Androids holding up all of the displays and plastered all around the walls. Well played, Google, well played.            )
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| TI working on 720p video chat through Skype? Posted: 17 Feb 2011 02:34 PM PST Over at the Texas Instruments booth at Mobile World Congress, there’s an interesting demo going on through TI’s partner PathPartners showing off the HD capability of Skype through an Android handset. Using the OMAP 4 platform, PathParnters (along with Ittiam) have been able to create video calls in 720p and hope to get it Skype certified later this year.
The result would be Android users being able to make HD video chat calls over the 4G/LTE network. In addition to 720p video chat, the OMAP 4 platform can shoot stills at 20MP and is capable of 1080p video recording and playback. PathPartners hopes to get the app in the Android Market and make it available for multiple Android platforms by years end. )
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| LG Partners with YouTube for 3D sharing Posted: 17 Feb 2011 01:43 PM PST LG has announced a partnership with YouTube to bring 3D sharing via the Optimus 3D to the popular online video portal’s 3D channel. Optimus 3D users will be able to upload and share recorded videos to YouTube directly from their phones. Of course, viewers will need a special set of red/blue 3D glasses to watch them, but hey, it’s 3D!
3D in a phone seemed rather niche oriented, but having a portal to upload 3D content and sharing makes the option more interesting. And users needing 3D glasses will be able purchase them in packs of 10 from Google’s online store for about $7.10. Press Release:
[via BGR] )
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If you are the sort that lives within your means, you likely have a budget. You may find yourself looking at things in the store you want to buy and wonder if it will fit your budget at the moment. An interesting budgeting software company called 
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