MegaDroid project is a virtual town with 300,000 Android smartphones

Sandia’s David Fritz holds two Android smartphones, representing the virtual network of 300,000 such devices that he and other researchers are using to advance understanding of malicious computer networks on.

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Digital music sales up 15% over last year, 1 billion songs already sold

There is no denying that services like Spotify and Rdio are great for listening to music, but they may not be the future of all music like some people may think. A recent Nielsen report shows that digital music sales aren’t slowing, and actually will likely break last year’s sales record.

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NTT DoCoMo’s new Grip UI can detect how you hold your phone and acts accordingly

Mobile devices are always getting new features. Over the last year we have seen countless features evolve from NFC, for instance. Pretty much every new phone coming out has a really nice voice search system in place. We recently said goodbye to Motorola’s Webtop application. NTT DoCoMo is looking to bring a little uniqueness to their offering with Grip UI.

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Papaya’s cross promotional tool AppFlood expanding, getting iOS version

PapayaMobile launched AppFlood, a cross promotional tool for developers, back in July. The service seems to be a hit, and according to Papaya, AppFlood is only getting started.

How It Works

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Introducing the 7-inch Alcatel One Touch T10 budget tablet

The market for lower priced tablets like Google’s Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire series continues to grow, and more and more companies are announcing their own entries into the market. The latest company to throw their hat into the ring is Alcatel, with its recently announced One Touch T10.

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It is official, Motorola has finally announced that they’ve killed off Webtop

We all knew this was eventually coming. Amid many reports over the last few months that Motorola could be killing off Webtop, Motorola recently reported to CNet that it would be discontinuing Webtop support. There are plenty of other things to be excited about for the new Motorola line up. However, those who were looking forward to Webtop are going to be disappointed.
For those who don’t follow Motorola products, Webtop was an open-source interface that customers could use to connect their Moto phones to their computers. Once you dock the phone, Webtop opens up and people can use various applications from their phones on their computer. It was based on Ubuntu and the desktop interface was very Ubuntu-like.
When Webtop was released, it was critically acclaimed. Many believed that it could be a go-to feature in the ever waging battle of Android vs iOS vs Windows. It very well may have been if Motorola had done a little more to make the feature accessible. According to CNet, interest in Webtop died when getting the full accessory package for the Motorola Atrix 4G cost a whopping $500.

What is Motorola doing now that there is no Webtop?

Now that Webtop is out of the way, Motorola is getting back to the basics. Better internal specs, better external specs, and better battery life is the credo going into the next release of Motorola phones. They’ve even gone so far as to nip a few problems in the bud before people got a chance to complain about them. This has also been HTC and Samsung’s credo over the last year or so. While it is nice seeing smart phone makers focus on specs and quality assurance, we are seeing less and less odd and unique features because of it.
Webtop may be officially dead, but it is not officially gone. You can still download the source code from Sourceforge as of the time of this writing. Additionally, phones that had Webtop will still have it. So there is still a chance for third party development if Webtop fans want more.
Although Webtop wasn’t a particularly popular feature, it was definitely a pretty cool one. It helped Motorola stand out from the pack and really, it was just implemented wrong. There was nothing wrong with the actual software. Is there anyone who’s going to miss Webtop? Let us know your thoughts.

SOURCES CNet

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iPad mini, Razer’s Project Fiona confirmed for production

Android tablets are about to get new competitors in the near and distant future, some of them running iOS 6 while others will have Windows 8 under the hood. Today I’m specifically talking about Apple’s iPad mini and Razer’s Project Fiona, as both have been confirmed for production.

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LG Optimus G Nexus announcement coming at end of month, new report says

The LG Nexus rumors keep coming up these days, and we’re almost certain that we’re going to see the first LG Nexus handset ever reach stores this winter. We now have a new report talking about the device, this time from CNET, which is apparently able to confirm that “the phone will be a modified version of the Optimus G.

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Galaxy S4, other 2013 Samsung smartphones to pack 3GB of RAM?

While the Galaxy S3 was launched less than six months ago, the first Galaxy S4 rumors started hitting the web a few weeks ago. In fact, we’re looking today at a new Sam Mobile report that reveals that Samsung is already working on 2013 devices that would feature 3GB of RAM.

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Android 4.2 rumors bonanza: Nexus program, customization center, Project Roadrunner and more

Taylor Wimberley from Android and Me just dropped a carpet bomb of Android 4.2 rumors.
After publishing several rumor-based reports about the upcoming LG Optimus Nexus (a variant of the Optimus G), Taylor seems to have struck gold with Android 4.2, the next version of our favorite operating system, which is supposed to be announced at the end of the month.
According to him, the source of the rumors is a well-positioned “Android insider” who has proven reliable in the past. Let’s get on it, we have a lot to discuss.

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[SSKIN] Butterfly+ launcher 2.1.1

Overview:

It is easy enough for anyone to use the SSKIN Butterfly+ (plus) Update SSKIN Butterfly By users, For users !!
It is easy enough for anyone to use the SSKIN Butterfly+ (plus)
SSKIN Butterfly+ (plus) provides ‘Creating the folder in the menu, Changing the style of individual icons, Copying the home screen setting of the other launcher’

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Photo Grid HD 4.01

V4.01
* Fix the bug what can’t zoom in in single mode.
* Add JPEG files supported.
V4.00
* Brand new User Interface updated.

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TrackID™ 3.60.60

A few important fixes.
As always thanks for the feedback from all of you.
We are constantly trying to improve TrackID, enjoy!
Overview:
What am I listening to? TrackID™ knows. And makes it look good.

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Lightning Launcher Home 4.9

4.9
- support for dual position: items can have a position in portrait mode, and another one in landscape mode.
- support for using distinct setup per screen orientation (but not enabled yet)
- yet another fix on folders sometimes not centered on their content
- fix status bar covering items after hide/unhide

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7Zipper 1.7.6

Please give your hand to localize ‘Zipper’ app
http://androboy.cafe24.com/zipper.html
———- 1.7.5 update list ———–
supports AES 128/256 Decryption for Zip File

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Nissan NSC-2015 drives and parks itself, uses LTE connectivity to communicate with your smartphone

It seems Google is not alone in developing self-driving cars. Take for example the Nissan NSC-2015, which is making its rounds — literally! — at the CEATEC 2012 Smart Mobility 2012 exhibit in Japan. At first glance, it looks just like any ordinary Nissan Leaf electric car. A closer look shows you that it’s not your run-of-the-mill Leaf.

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Magic Wingdom 1.02

v.1.02 Many small fixes
Overview:
New Action Puzzle Hit from developers of Death Worm!
A unique combination of action and puzzle, Magic Wingdom is carefully crafted to win over your heart and become your next gaming obsession!
Make incredible combos, sort out desperate collisions, make the most out of amazing powerups and master this little gem of a game!

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GEARS & GUTS 1.2.1

➤ HALLOWEEN UPDATE
➤ When the crypt goes creak, and the tombstones quake, zombies come out to claim their stake!
➤ Unique spooky cars on sale, including The Beast, Devil-Bilt and the pumpkin-powered hotrod known as Trick or Treat.
➤ Integrates a confirmation screen for store purchases, to address customer complaints about “fat finger” errors triggering purchases

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Rail Rush 1.0.1

No recent changes.

Overview:
How long can you travel inside the mine? Find out, by downloading Rail Rush NOW!
Get ready for this epic adventure! Step into your cart and begin this mine exploring frenzy! Accelerate through these insanely fast rails while tilting and swiping to avoid the obstacles.

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Lane Splitter 3.2.6

Two awesome new heros are available!
Bobby Dean: This ex POW is still living life to the fullest sixty years later. (By the way, the cops won’t bug him!)
Scary Harry: He has one goal – to be the world’s best stuntbike rider.
Plus:
- Reduced the prices of some of the heros and items in the store.

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New research cuts Li-Ion battery charging time in half

Power is usually a big concern for mobile devices, and finding ways to improve efficiency is the holy grail for smartphones, tablets and even other applications like electric vehicles. This is why developers have been coming up with ways to improve the use of batteries on these devices, which includes alternative sources, such as solar, inductive and even motion-based charging.

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Star Wars Angry Birds mash-up in the works?

Those pesky piggies have certainly caused problems in some pretty strange places, from outer space to the setting of the movie Rio. They even now star in their own game, Bad Piggies. One place we have yet to see them in is the Star Wars universe. Starting Oct. 8th, we may finally see the angry birds and bad piggies get their hands on lightsabers after all.

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Samsung, Amazon, and Apple are becoming household names according to Interbrand

There are some names that everyone just knows. Band Aids, Coca Cola, Pepsi, General Electric, Disney, and others that we have known practically our entire lives. They are household names and they are companies that we’ve known about for decades. There is a company out there that rates household names on their value called Interbrand.

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Could Snapseed for Android be nearing release?

A photo posted to Google+ by Senior Engineering VP for Google Vic Gundotra may be a hint that Snapseed for Android will arrive some time in the near future.
At first the photo just looked like a picture of a sunset, albeit a nice picture of a sunset taken from an airplane. Then people start to notice that the information at the top of the post indicated that the picture was posted from Snapseed, which currently only has an iOS client. Seeing that Gundotra has been with

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LG Optimus G Nexus specs and features leaked, release date set for mid-November

Just earlier today we looked at a report detailing an LG Optimus G Nexus early hands-on experience, and now we have a new leak. This time around we’re looking at leaked specs and features for the handset, but considering that the smartphone is based on the high-end Optimus G, we won’t act so surprised.
After all, it’s only logical to assume that the Optimus G and Optimus G Nexus will share a variety of specs and features. Until the latter is confirmed, we’ll take a look at today’s specs sheet provided by MoDaCo.

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Samsung S-Voice, Google Now, and Apple Siri in the cross hairs of a patent troll called ATC

It’s about time for everyone to heave that collective sigh of discontent yet again. It seems that every month, some barely known company is suing over a patent they happen to own. It results in a bunch of people caring even less about a company they hadn’t really heard of before. This month’s patent troll goes by the name of ATC, or Accredited Transcription Corp.

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ZTE T81 phone announced: a dual-core ICS-based mid-ranger coming to Australia soon

Although it did threaten to take the Western tech world by storm during 2012 with several high-end phones and tablets some time ago, ZTE is still keeping a somewhat low profile outside Asia. The only new handhelds we’ve seen from the company in the past couple of months have been the same old decent looking budget-friendly devices with low-end specs.

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Motorola scores minor win against Microsoft in German patent war, Microsoft still has the upper hand

Despite not being in the headlines as much as the Apple-Samsung legal brawl, the patent fight between Motorola and Microsoft has been very eventful lately. In fact, if we wouldn’t want to keep our objective perspective on all these legal accusations and trials, we might say that the Moto-Microsoft conflict has got a little out of hand.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 2 review [video]

When the world first saw the Galaxy Note, people had mixed reactions. Some said that the device was just too big to be a phone but too small to be a tablet. Other people, however, fell head over heels with the device.
The screen was large enough to make media viewing an absolute joy and the S Pen, the Galaxy Note’s stylus, brought a whole new level of fun to gaming. Fruit Ninja was even more fun when you held a

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Bloomberg: T-Mobile value might have dropped $13 billion after failed AT&T sale

Despite being considered one of the US carriers “Big Four”, T-Mobile hasn’t exactly had the most prodigious year. First, there’s been talk about a merger with AT&T, which should have resulted in a wireless service giant that would have been almost impossible to compete against.

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Google Chrome to Phone 2.3.1

- Changed behavior to send web page even when text is selected (since some websites automatically select text without user involvement)
- Updated look and feel
- Fixed crash when copying text from Chrome to the device
- Added landscape support
- Bugfixes

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HTC Desire X up for sale in UK – get it on O2 and you receive free Beats headphones

HTC’s latest mid-range budget offering, the Desire X, didn’t exactly look like a phone to make the crowds very excited, so it didn’t come as a big surprise when the weeks passed and we didn’t hear a thing about its release.

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Is Google revamping the Nexus 7? 32GB and 3G-equipped models rumored for mid-October

Just yesterday, the internet went abuzz with reports of a 32GB version of Google’s successful Nexus 7 tablet. The chatter was sparked by a screenshot produced by the folks at Droid-Life, which supposedly depicted an entry in the inventory system of the British retailer Carphone Warehouse.

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Galaxy Note 2 NL100XXALJ1 firmware update enables multi-window feature

A few days ago we told you that not all Galaxy Note 2 units that are already in stores come with the multi-windows feature available on Samsung’s 2012 Note devices. However, we suspected that a future firmware update will bring the feature to the second-generation phablet and it looks like European Galaxy Note 2 buyers already have access to such features.

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Samsung thinks LG will claim third place in the smartphone market

According to a Samsung Securities report LG Electronics is looking like a good investment right now. The South Korean manufacturer may not be as big as its compatriot rival, but the flagship Android smartphone, the LG Optimus G has got everyone excited.

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Smartphone sales responsible for two thirds of Samsung’s record breaking profits in Q3 2012

Samsung is going to report their Q3 2012 financial results on October 26th. Today though, they’re giving us a sneak peak as to how well their business is running. The company estimates that they’re going to earn roughly $7.3 billion in profit, which is almost double the profit from the same quarter a year ago.

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Google Play Music 4.3.615.481147

v4.3.615
* Minor fixes.
v4.3.609
* Bug fixes and support for Google TV devices.
* Expandable notifications in Jellybean.
v4.3.606

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LG Optimus G Nexus with Android 4.2 – first hands-on report

The Nexus buzz is increasing day after day, with new reports providing more unconfirmed details about this year’s new Google Nexus smartphones. An article stirred the waters yesterday suggesting that the Search giant is planning to expand the Nexus program and allow anyone interested in creating such devices to make them, under certain conditions.

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MagicLocker Main 1.5.6

1.5.6
1. Fixed the issue of Missed Calling notification disappearing.
2. Fixed the issue of Text/DateTime position.
1.5.5
1. Supports Fonts Customizations! (Themes dependents, and you can use your own fonts via putting them inside “SDCard/MagicLocker/Fonts” folder.)
2. Fixed the ANR issue in LG phones.

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Nova Launcher 1.3.2 beta1

If you experience redraws after updating a simple reboot will help.
Since 1.3.0
Fix preview screen
Misc minor fixes
Since 1.2.2
Jellybean launcher features (Works with ICS)
-Desktop automatically rearranges to fit
-Long-press then fling to delete items

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AT&T snatches Samsung’s Galaxy Camera, data speeds currently unkown

Samsung’s Galaxy Camera is finally headed our way. As it turns out, AT&T will be the first carrier to officially support the device. The device will be rocking on AT&T’s data network. However, it has been speculated since the FCC discovery that the device will not support LTE data speeds. It’s rather interesting, seeing as Samsung is claiming it will be on the 4G HSPA+ network, This comes as a rather odd omission but we will have to wait for more details to know exactly what’s going on.

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Google settles with American publishers after 7-year Google Library lawsuit

Digitizing books and indexing the contents thereof might seem like a good idea, if only to increase access to content. But when Google launched its Library project, a lot of publishers voiced dissent, saying Google was infringing on their intellectual property.

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Watch out, T-Mobile! Sprint also eyeing MetroPCS deal.

T-Mobile is not the only party interested in getting into a merger with super-regional carrier MetroPCS. Another major player, Sprint, is eyeing to make a bid for the smaller telco.

Sprint is holding talks with advisers and is evaluating the viability of putting up a bid for MetroPCS, reports Bloomberg. According to sources, the Sprint board will be meeting this week, and a potential bid for MetroPCS will be part of the agenda.

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HP CEO Meg Whitman says no HP smartphone in 2013

Last month, HP CEO Meg Whitman was quoted as saying “we have to ultimately offer a smartphone.” This lead us and many others to believe that HP had a smartphone in the works. While HP still plans to enter the smartphone market, apparently it isn’t going to be any time soon.

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Google, Motorola urged to leak Ice Cream Sandwich / Jelly Bean internal ROMs for Atrix 4G, Photon

A few days ago, we told you that Google/Motorola decided not to update the Atrix 4G and Photon (Electrify) to Ice Cream Sandwich – both smartphones were released only last year. That was certainly a surprising move not because we haven’t seen it before, but because Motorola is now a Google subsidiary, and we would expect the Android maker to offer more support to its customers, especially when it comes to software upgrades.

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T-Mobile Galaxy Note 2 image leaked, release date not available yet

We know that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 phablet is heading to various markets in the following months, including the U.S., and we also know that no less than five carriers will get the device this year in the States, but we don’t have any release dates for either Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or U.S. Cellular.

The U.S. Galaxy Note 2 versions have already been spotted with the FCC, and some carriers have already acknowledged the fact they will have the phablet in stock, without offering too many availability details to interested buyers.

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Google Launches More Than A Map website to showcase 800,000 websites that are using Maps API and not Apple Maps

We would explain how and why Apple Maps was such a big failure, but thankfully the ever critical community known as the internet has done that for us. Google Maps, on the other hand, remains as stable and helpful as ever. In fact, it is so stable and helpful that 800,000 websites on the internet use Google’s Maps API to show their web visitors around. To showcase that fact, Google has released a website to tell you about it.

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Korean Samsung Galaxy S3 gets Jelly Bean on Oct. 9th

While the Samsung Galaxy S3 Jelly Bean update status is simply listed as “coming soon” in the U.S., it seems that Korea has an actual date. According to Sam Mobile, the Korean LTE models of the Galaxy S3 will receive an update to the latest version of Android on Oct. 9th.

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Amazon AppStore coming to Japan by year’s end

In June, Amazon opened up their app store to Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain. Today, the company announced they are bringing their successful Google Play alternative to Japan as well. While the official launch date for the Japanese version of the AppStore has yet to be revealed, the company has made it clear that the release will be this year. Considerin

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Vodafone picks up the Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Just three days after its launch in the UK, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 finds a new home with Vodafone. While this is good news for those who have been waiting, it may not remain that way when they see the pricing. When compared with O2’s and Three’s pricing at £41 and £34 a month, Vodafone customers will have to pony up £47 a month. The slight price increase may, in fact, frustrate and confuse future adopters.

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