Android Community |
- Sony Ericsson Teases Bouncy Device?
- Android 2.1 Upgrade FINALLY Available for Xperia X10
- HTC Sensation 4G Launching on T-Mobile IMMINENTLY
- Pantech Crossover Android Slider Announced on AT&T
- Zinio digital magazine app hits Android phones & slates
- Hack adds 1080p 24Mbit/s recording to Samsung Galaxy S II
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 gets Android 2.1 update starting today
- Asus Eee Pad Transformer with Android 3.1 supports Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers for gaming!
- Latest Nielsen survey shows Android lead over iOS may have stopped growing
- Nexus S Beats Out Dual-Core Devices for Top Spot in Performance Benchmarks with Trinity and CM7
- NVIDIA Shows off SHADOWGUN Kal-El Quad-core Processor Game
- Android Community 101: Where do I find Xperia PLAY games?
- ASUS Padfone Accused of Xerox by AlwaysInnovating
- Battle Bears -1 for Xperia PLAY Review
- HTC PLAY to be HTC’s Newest App Store Effort – Social Networking, Sales, Storage
| Sony Ericsson Teases Bouncy Device? Posted: 31 May 2011 11:00 AM PDT No, not really. What you’re seeing is an image that was passed to us by a friendly tipster by the name of Bouncy (well named!) and shows off a bouncing Sony Ericsson ball hitting the ground between some white lines drawn on the ground surrounding it. What this sort of thing generally means is that we’re going to see a new device on the horizon. What this particular image ACTUALLY means is something much less sinister and a whole lot more 2012.
Have a look right here for all your answers: Sony Ericsson Open. This event is a tennis competition that’s set to next take place March 19 till April 1st, 2012. It’s a set of tennis matches created by Sony Ericsson to cross-promote themselves and the sport, working with WTA and ATP (plus brands like Rolex watches,) all just playing a bit of the whack-a-ball sport for the fun of it.
This news is sure to make a few friendly fans sad in the eyes as a bouncy phone would be more fun than essentially anything else. On the other hand, we do have something sort of bouncy, that being the Casio GzOne, or if you want to have a lot of fun you could always go with the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY. Speaking of which, we’ve got a series of app reviews happening right now surrounding the Xperia PLAY – wouldn’t you like to check that out? )
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| Android 2.1 Upgrade FINALLY Available for Xperia X10 Posted: 31 May 2011 10:49 AM PDT With half the world’s eyes turned to Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the tablet-based Android 3.1 Honeycomb, and yes, even the next upgrade Android x.x Ice Cream Sandwich, you may have certainly forgotten that some Android devices out there are still running Android 2.0! Can you believe it?! One of those devices is the AT&T based Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson announcing today that they’re going to be releasing Android 2.1 very very soon.
This update will be coming to you over the air starting May 31st, 2011, and you’ll be happy to hear that they “can’t thank you enough for your patience.” This upgrade will allow you to download more apps, gain better functionality for the processes you’re already going through day by day, and will fix many bugs you may have experienced on your X10 device since you purchased it. You can also download the update via Sony Ericsson’s update service, aka SEUS by this particular webpage: SEUS BRINGS YOU XPERIA X10 UPGRADE. You’ll need Intel® Pentium® 4, 2.0 GHz or higher, AMD Athlon on a Windows XP, Vista, or 7 computer. If you do not have one of these, you may be in trouble if you’d like the upgrade. On the other hand, you could just wait for the update, again, to come to you over the air. [via Sony Ericsson] )
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| HTC Sensation 4G Launching on T-Mobile IMMINENTLY Posted: 31 May 2011 10:15 AM PDT Well would you look at that, a clue for us to be following. A job listing has popped up in the Houston, Texas area for a “Tech Savy BA” that would be working an event for T-Mobile on June 8th that’ll “showcase 3 new HTC phones.” You know what that means, I know what that means, but just for the sake of literally writing it out, let’s discuss what it COULD mean. There’s a whole list of possibilities, and certainly we wouldn’t want to overshadow the new KING of HTC devices, so what shall we guess?
First of all, one of the devices that will almost certainly be at this event: the T-Mobile HTC Sensation 4G. Have a look at some packaging first then head back to SlashGear’s review of the English version so you know what all the fuss is about. Next is the HTC ChaCha – could T-Mobile be getting this device before AT&T? Of course we could move on to the leaked T-Mobile roadmap from the 18th of May that says indeed that June 8th is the release date of the Sensation 4G. That same report contained a few more notes including the following: So that’s another very possible addition there in the HTC Doubleshot aka MyTouch 4G Slide. And of course the Marvel aka HTC Wildfire S is about to drop as well. Sound reasonably within range of one another? We think so! Oh and that job listing? Here it is:
[via TMo News] )
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| Pantech Crossover Android Slider Announced on AT&T Posted: 31 May 2011 08:38 AM PDT Here comes a rather unique looking phone from a player we’ve not oft seen in the Android game – Pantech. This device is called the Pantech Crossover and it set to be a mid-range Android smartphone offered on AT&T, featuring a 3.1-inch touchscreen display, 600 MHz processor, AllSport GPS, and a 3-megapixel digital camera on the back. THis device makes its headline read “looks different” and “messages well with a dash of social media.” Have a peek!
This device connects via HSPA Tri-Band 850/1900/2100 MHz; Quad-Band and GSM850/900/1800/1900 MHz, plus Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n. It’s got a microSD card slot that comes packed with a 2GB card installed and space for up to 32GB. The device is sized at 4.45″ (L) x 2.28″ (W) x 0.56″ (D), Weight: 5.15 oz, and it’s got the standard micro USB port as well as 3.5mm headphone jack. Voice recognition, accelerometer, and a 1500 mAh battery — with this size a phone and that size o’ battery, expect this situation to be running for days on end without a problem.
This is the very first USA effort with Android Pantech has offered, and they’ve certainly come out with a device that’s not nearly the most powerful, but definitely unique in its looks. Can you imaging offering this up to your relative who just hasn’t been able to get into the smartphone game yet, saying “hey, this one’s really easy to use, who not give it a try?” Sure thing! Have a look at the press release for the Pantech Crossover below:
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| Zinio digital magazine app hits Android phones & slates Posted: 31 May 2011 07:24 AM PDT Digital magazine app Zinio has landed on Android, with versions for smartphones running Android 2.2/2.3 and tablets running Honeycomb. Well established on other smartphone and tablet platforms, Zinio offers titles like Men’s Fitness, Esquire and ELLE through its on-device store, as well as digital subscriptions that can be read across multiple devices.
To encourage downloads, Zinio will be giving every Android user who grabs the app prior to June 15 a free copy of 24 different magazines. They include: AFAR, BlackBook, Cosmopolitan, ELLE DECOR, ELLE, ESPN The Magazine, Esquire, Food Network Magazine, Harpers Bazaar , Harvard Business Review, Home Theater, Juxtapoz, Marie Claire, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Journal, Motor Trend, O, The Oprah Magazine, Outdoor Photographer, Outside, Popular Mechanics, Road & Track, Robb Report, Rolling Stone, Seventeen and Us Weekly. Zinio for Android is a free download from the Android Market.    Press Release: )
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| Hack adds 1080p 24Mbit/s recording to Samsung Galaxy S II Posted: 31 May 2011 06:49 AM PDT The Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone has sold very well for the company with a over a million units sold in Korea alone since it launched. The smartphone is certainly popular and a new hack has surfaced that will make the SII record even better video that it is capable of from the factory. The hack comes by way of modder hyperX and adds some notable features to the mix. Those features include 24 Mbit/s 1080p 30fps recording with 44.1khz 192-bit audio.
Right out of the box the Galaxy S II is capable of recording 16Mbit/s 1080p HD in MP4 format with the H.264 codec using AAC mono audio. The new hack adds significantly to the capabilities of the onboard camera and is a very nice addition to the device. The hack still records mono sound because the SII has only one mic onboard making stereo sound impossible. Now that Galaxy S II owners are excited about the video cam mod the bad news lands. The mod is not quite ready for public consumption just yet. Apparently, hyperX needs to polish it up a bit before offering to geeks everywhere. We will have to wait and see when the hack comes to the public. [via SlashGear] )
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| Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 gets Android 2.1 update starting today Posted: 31 May 2011 03:57 AM PDT Xperia X10 users have cause to be both happy and sad as a bittersweet update for the Xperia X10 has been announced by Sony Ericsson. Sony confirmed to us back in January during CES that after the Android 2.1 update was offered for the X10, there would be no further Android OS updates coming for the smartphone. That was not good news for early buyers of the smartphone. Here we are months after CES 2011 and SE is finally announcing that the Android 2.1 update is here.
Sony has posted an official blog that says starting today the Android 2.1 update will be rolling out of AT&T US users of the X10. This update means that unless Sony Ericsson changes its former statement, what you get after the update is applied will be all you have to look forward to, at least officially. You can already update the X10 to Gingerbread using Arc if you want. Sony offers up a list of the things that the X10 gains with the new update. Users will be able to record 720p HD video on the X10. It will support multi-touch and the camera gets continuous autofocus in still and video capture mode. The phone will also get face detection in video capture mode and the home screens have been increased from three to five. Click this link to get your update if you are an US Xperia 10 user on AT&T. [via Sony Ericsson Blogs] )
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| Asus Eee Pad Transformer with Android 3.1 supports Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers for gaming! Posted: 31 May 2011 03:19 AM PDT We really dig the Asus Eee Pad Transformer around here and we posted up a review of the tablet earlier this month. The little table has a lot to like. We are fond of the hardware inside the tablet and the cool keyboard dock that will let you actually work from the tablet when you need to. Not long ago the Transformer was updated to Android 3.1 and if you have applied that new update and like to play game apps on the tablet, we have some very interesting news for you today from Asus UK.
According to a tweet from Asus UK, the Transformer tablet running Android 3.1 for the OS is now able to support the gaming controllers from your Xbox 360 and PS3 game consoles. That will bring a whole new dimension to gaming on the device. It’s admittedly hard to tell in the photo here whether the dude is holding a black Xbox 360 controller or a PS3 controller, it looks to be a PS3 controller to me. What you can clearly see is the wire running to the notebook. I was hoping that with the PS3 controller being Bluetooth that it might work wirelessly. Wires or not, this is a very nice feature and many gamers will really appreciate the ability. Couple some of your favorite Android game apps with the 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution screen and a real game controller and the Transformer will be a very nice device for gaming at home. [via AsusUK] )
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| Latest Nielsen survey shows Android lead over iOS may have stopped growing Posted: 31 May 2011 02:41 AM PDT When it comes to data for seeing what smartphone operating system is the most popular with users or is growing the fastest we generally look to Nielsen. The last time the company offered some new insights on what the smartphone market looked like was back in April. Nielsen is back again with some new details on the smartphone market and it looks like the market might be leveling out growth wise according to the latest data.
The new data looks at the three month period from February to April 2011. Nielsen reports that the smartphone is increasing in popularity as a whole with 37% of all mobile phones in the US being smartphones. Android is still the top operating system, but it is no more popular than it was in April, the last time Nielsen surveyed the market. Android is still holding at 36%. Apple’s iOS also reminded relatively steady at 26% of the market. Nielsen says that iOS’ percentage of the market is within a few points of where it was from the last survey. Interestingly the data shows that RIM’s loss in the market may have stabilized finally with RIM having 22% to 23% of the market. The latest figures from Nielsen also show that Android users are the most data hungry with the average Android user consuming 582MB of data each month and the average iPhone user consuming 492MB monthly. One of the interesting facts to me is that WebOS has a mere 3% of the smartphone market and its users are third in data consumption with 448MB monthly.   [via CNN] )
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| Nexus S Beats Out Dual-Core Devices for Top Spot in Performance Benchmarks with Trinity and CM7 Posted: 30 May 2011 09:46 PM PDT Behold, the once and still king of numbers, Nexus S. The following winning spots have been achieved by our very own forum manager Simms22 and are achieved by combining a Samsung Nexus S device with the latest version of CyanogenMod 7 and the kernel currently known as Trinity 1.544Ghz. What this kernel has done in combination with CyanogenMod 7 is bump the effectiveness of the Nexus S, a phone that, mind you, only has a single core, up to benchmarks that are beyond even the greatest dual-core scores of today. This is big business, and if I do say so myself, chip manufacturers need to put their game faces on and start steppin.
Let’s talk for a moment, for the folks who never took the time to figure out all this deep modifying junk or are just brand new to Android and all that, about what Trinity14 aka Trinity 1.544Ghz (as it exists today) is, exactly. It’s a kernel, aka the central component of your Android mobile operating system. What your kernel does is act as the lowest down base boss of your system’s resources and effectively tells your phone where to distribute its money. If a kernel is the brain of the body that is your Android device, the ROM is the guts and the skin. The kernel tells your car that it needs to go forward, while your ROM tells it how to steer and not crash. Nexus S x CyanogenMod 7 ROM x Trinity KernelNow what we’ve got here is Trinity working with CyanogenMod 7, by far the most famous and well updated and distributed ROM for Android in the world. It’s so popular that it recently hit the 200,000 installed devices mark. The Nexus S in question here has both the newest version of Trinity and the newest version of CyanogenMod 7 running hot. This is not the first time we’ve seen Trinity push the Nexus S to the next level. The first of two posts in the past show the Nexus S overclocked to 1.3Ghz showing a score of 3508 overall with 8897 in CPU, this is already a massive jump from the 1Ghz stock it basically starts with.
Then the second time, as recently as May 18th (today is the 30th), we see the LG G2x, a phone we also very much love, but know to be a dual-core processor having powerhouse on its own, scoring 4570 overall with 12009 in CPU in Quadrant – this is with the G2x overclocked to 1.5Ghz.
Then today we’ve got two updates. The first shows the Nexus S to be scoring a new high with 5592 overall (with a 7858 in CPU).
Finally we see that score beaten once more, again by our hero Simms22, this time up to 5680 total and CPU up to 8290! Insane! Again, dual-core processor manufacturers, step up your game!
BONUS: Smartbench 2011′s contenders don’t even stand a chance.
UPDATE: Nexus S still climbing!
[via Android Community Forums] )
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| NVIDIA Shows off SHADOWGUN Kal-El Quad-core Processor Game Posted: 30 May 2011 04:32 PM PDT Behold the next game NVIDIA is showing off to display the power of quad-core, NVIDIA’s next project Kal-El, the name of the case. This is a game presented also by the developers Madfinger Games, makers of Samurai II: Vengeance. This newest game is a shooter game of some note, some fantastic blasting out the faces of all enemies with four cores of CPU, 12 cores of GPU, and you can tell em Superman sent ya. Also NOTE: we saw this game in press-release style (without video) on May 26th – now we can see the full bigtime blast.
This game has been demoed via video today being run on a Tegra 2 toting Acer Iconia Tab A500 (see our review). This of course means that the game might very well be out for the dual-core tablet lineup that’s out right this moment, but we’ve got word that the game will also be re-vamped for the quad-core world to come. In fact we’ve got a bit of a quote from Ashu Rege, Vice President of Game Content and Technology at NVIDIA: "SHADOWGUN shows off the console-quality experience that Tegra is bringing to Android devices. We're especially excited that Madfinger is creating a special version of SHADOWGUN that's optimized for multi-core processors and will take advantage of the processing and graphics power of Project Kal-El." What do you think? Enough blasting to make you wanna flip out over the soon to be quad? How about another demo to placate you until that day? This one is called Glowball and you can see the full post back here. And now for a note from NVIDIA on SHADOWGUN:
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| Android Community 101: Where do I find Xperia PLAY games? Posted: 30 May 2011 04:17 PM PDT So you’ve purchased your first Xperia PLAY, your first ever gamer phone, a PlayStation phone like you’ve never seen before. It’s fabulous, the games are great, and you’re having the time of your life. But wait, is this it? Aren’t there any more apps to be downloaded? All I see are regular games in the Android Market, aren’t there any more games that are optimized for this PlayStation controller? I can’t believe I can’t just click around and figure it out – Ah ha! I’ll go to Android Community, they’ll know!
That’s right we DO know how to do it, and this is how we do it: downloading Xperia PLAY games can be easy, so easy that even the most daft of newbs. The place for you to get your optimized apps isn’t the Android Market at all, I say thee nay! But you don’t have to go somewhere strange and download a bunch of oddities, also nay! All you’ve got to do is locate the “Xperia PLAY” app in your apps drawer and click.
Next, you’ll see all of the Xperia PLAY optimized games you’ve got available to you above two tabs: Xperia PLAY Games and MORE games. When you tap More Games, you might have a heart attack because there’s a whole crapload of games in there, all of them available for you to tap! But you can’t play them unless you buy them. Here’s where it gets complicated. Once you’ve clicked a game that you’d like to purchase, you’ve only to realize that you’re in V-Cast Apps, the store Verizon has provided you to be able to purchase apps at your leisure, using money you’ll be owing later on your Verizon bill. In other words, whenever you purchase an app here, in a terrifyingly easy way indeed, you’ll be utilizing your Verizon account like a credit card, having to pay back the cash upon glancing at your next gigantic or otherwise teeny tiny bill.
This bodes well for us as we’ve got a reviewer’s unit here and essentially this give us instant access to every app instantly! Hooray! This is good for you, too, because now we’ll have quicker access than ever to apps for review, this situation unfolding as we speak as an extended Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY Games Review series. [Get into it!]        )
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| ASUS Padfone Accused of Xerox by AlwaysInnovating Posted: 30 May 2011 03:16 PM PDT The group AlwaysInnovating is a bit peeved with ASUS’s new phone/tablet combo. AlwaysInnovating is a company based out of San Francisco who seems to have a knack for coming up with cool ideas that don’t take off until someone else copies them. The “All-in-One Smart Book” clearly came first, having a youtube video demo over a half a year old, but there was no mention of copyright infringement, so we’ll have to see how this shapes out.
The ASUS Padfone, was made official earlier this morning at Computex, and has been leaking for a few days now, but AlwaysInnovating has had the following video on Youtube for months Click here to view the embedded video. If you head over to AlwaysInnovating’s website, you will find displeasure with many other concepts including ASUS’ Eee Pad Transformer and Motorola’s Atrix 4G laptop dock. Showcasing products similar in concept several months to a year older than the versions made by ASUS or Motorola. Once again, the attitude taken is more complaining that they thought of it first, then a threat to sue, but the complain none the less raises a good point. As hardware manufacturer’s start to present more radical concepts in an attempt to create new market shares, how much of a right will companies have to introduce similar products without being sued? Clearly anyone can build a phone, but if someone else tries to make a phone dockable in a laptop, should Motorola sue them? Should they win? This first round of accusations doesn’t sound like it’s going to result in a lawsuit, but than again this is consumer electronics… Oh well they’ll probably be fine, as long as new products don’t look too much like an iPhone. [via SlashGear] )
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| Battle Bears -1 for Xperia PLAY Review Posted: 30 May 2011 01:20 PM PDT Behold the next chapter in our review series of the games currently exclusive to (or otherwise optimized for) the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, aka the PlayStation phone. What this game “Battle Bears -1″ consists of is you controlling an upright-standing cartoon 3D bear from a 3rd person over-the-shoulder perspective as he collects weapons and cuts down, blasts, or otherwise destroys the rest of the characters in the game. You’ll be using all your fingers for this one.
This game utilizes the entire controller in a way we’ve not yet seen a game do on the Xperia PLAY thus far. While we’re used to games on the PlayStation taking the controller to the next level, so far we’ve seen games simply transferring their joysticks from the screen to the controller. That’s simply not the case here in Battle Bears -1. What you’ll be getting here is full use out of your PlayStation certified controls, including the joysticks, the directional pad if you don’t like using the left joystick, the shape buttons for side controls, and the Left and Right buttons for switching weapons and firing. You’ll be blasting bears in no time with a long line of weapons including everyone’s favorite, the chainsaw, right from the outset. There’s not too much blood, but there’s certainly some decapitating – and since you’re murdering what appear to be stuffed animals here, even little Johnny can enjoy some of the fun! You’ll be able to choose between three hero bears, three difficulty levels, and three modes of play. Xperience with us here the Survival Mode of the game, one where you’ve got to kill as much as possible before you’re overrun by the enemy, tall bears, short bears, ghost bears, and more! Speaking from an aesthetic perspective, this game is fabulously well designed. From the start screen to the options screen to the cinematic, it’s a well-selected blend of types of animation and illustration including 3D gameplay, flat cartoon cinematic, gorgeous painted home screen, and square-box options screens. This game is currently available to Xperia PLAY owners via special Xperia PLAY portal connecting to your V-Cast store from Verizon. Go buy it! It’s so weird and wild! Then check out the rest of our Xperia PLAY review series for answers as to which ones are worth it and which one’s you should leave behind in the dust to rot forever! Also of course check out our full review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY (the Verizon version) for your full enjoyment! )
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| HTC PLAY to be HTC’s Newest App Store Effort – Social Networking, Sales, Storage Posted: 30 May 2011 11:30 AM PDT It appears that HTC has had a bit of a leak in the form of a trademark filing for a so-called “HTC PLAY.” This name is set to be attached to a store that will be working with mobile content (aka at least Android, maybe Windows Phone 7,) in more area than one. It’ll be an app sales location, it’ll be a place where you can store and organize your content, you’ll be able to grab multiple kinds of media (games, apps, music, images, data,) and HTC PLAY will be addressing not only mobile devices but computers too (computers here we’re assuming means desktop/laptop hardware.) This make sense since the line is being more and more blurred on the daily.
Don’t be fooled into believing that the following paragraph means that there’s going to be an actual physical HTC store out there for you to go to and pick up a couple of HTC video games for your Xbox, nay!
Retail doesn’t mean that it’s on the corner of your block, it simply means that its a place from whens small quantities of goods are sold. In this case, apps via your mobile device and the internet. Furthermore, if you’d be so bold as to expand your thinking on over to OnLive, the cloud gaming service, you’ve got quite the doozie of a release of info there. Could this be another competitor for the Android Market? You never know.
[via HTCPedia] )
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