posted 2 hours ago

Asus To Transformer Owners: “Here Is Your Unlocked Bootloader. Happy Now?”

Screen Shot 2012-02-22 at 12.46.43 PM

The Asus Transformer Prime was the great, grey hope for many Android lovers – until they realized that the bootloader was locked it was impossible to upgrade or install a new bit of firmware onto the device. Asus has finally relented, allowing folks to download an unlocked bootloader and install it over the “official” Asus bootloader.
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posted yesterday

Canonical Announces Ubuntu for Android

android-ubuntu-03

Canonical’s Ubuntu TV, unveiled earlier this year, was the first in a series of announcements about “Ubuntu on devices”. The next device in Canonical’s multi-screen strategy for world domination is being unveiled next week at Mobile World Congress 2012, and it’s an Android-powered smartphone. It’s not entirely what you might think, though.

This is not an Ubuntu app running atop Android. Nor is it an all-Ubuntu device running an Android emulator. Rather, Ubuntu for Android is the full Ubuntu desktop running side-by-side with Android on a shared kernel that provides context appropriate access to all your content. When out and about, the phone operates as any other Android-powered phone; but when you slip the device into a dock connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse you get the familiar Ubuntu desktop experience. → Read More

posted yesterday

For Some Developers, Amazon Appstore Now Brings In More Money

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In the latest monthly report from app analytics firm Distimo, the company delved into the revenue generating possibilites for apps sold through both Google’s Android Market and the Amazon Appstore. Looking at the top 110 apps available in both marketplaces, Distimo found some surprising data: 42 of those top apps made more money on Amazon’s store than in the more widely available Android Market.
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posted yesterday

Finally: RIM Releases PlayBook 2.0 OS; Email, Android Support Included

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By most accounts there aren’t very many people out there in the world using PlayBooks, but for those that are, or are considering the purchase of one, comes some good news: RIM has finally updated the OS to include two services that have been long discussed and much anticipated: integrated email support and Android app availability.

The OS could serve to give the device a boost in the market, after many people slammed RIM for shipping the tablet too early when it debuted last year without these and other features. → Read More

posted yesterday

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend

friend

Microsoft and Apple should hate one another right now. I mean, really hate each other. After decades of domination, Microsoft has watched their rival move from death’s door to become the most valuable company in the world — over $200 billion more valuable than Microsoft itself. And it was Microsoft who helped get Apple there, remember, with a timely cash infusion in 1997.

Steve Ballmer laughed off the iPhone, which eventually helped kill off Windows Mobile — and it’s now bigger than all of Microsoft’s businesses combined. And the company shrugged off the iPad, even as it established a category, tablets, which Microsoft itself had been trying to establish for years. → Read More

February 20th, 2012

Flurry: Mobile Ads Still Get The Short Straw In Brand Spend; Women Driving eCPMs

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There have been some big numbers thrown at the medium of mobile advertising recently — eMarketer says it will make $2.6 billion in the U.S. alone this year; the IAB says that 72 percent of top brand marketers are going to increase spend in the medium in the next two years.

But some new research from app analytics firm Flurry throws a little bit of cold water on what, exactly, is happening in the world of mobile ads today. → Read More

February 20th, 2012

Report: Fujitsu To Launch Handsets In Europe. U.S. Next?

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Fujitsu once said that it didn’t have any plans to launch mobile handsets outside of Asia, but that strategy appears to be changing rapidly. Today comes a report that the Japanese handset maker — which makes both Android and Windows Phone-based devices — is planning to start selling its devices in Europe, with a debut to take place next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The news comes after Fujitsu said that it also planned to sell devices in the U.S. market either this year or 2013. → Read More

February 18th, 2012

Android Breathes New Life Into “Made in China”

mic

How do you end up with millions of new sales overnight with low development and implementation costs? In the case of Chinese electronics companies Rock Chips and Box Chips the answer has been simple – hitch a ride on Android.

China’s economy is booming thanks to low cost assembly, the country’s key advantage when competing on the global playing field. Manufacturers deliver low cost laborers who are able to follow processes and procedures to a reasonable degree of accuracy at very reasonable rates, and thus gain an edge over Western manufacturers.
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February 16th, 2012

Auraslate Is An Open Source Android Tablet For Hackers

Screen Shot 2012-02-16 at 8.54.17 AM

If you’re sick of firmware lockdowns and failed reflashings on your other Android tablets, the Auraslate may be for you. It’s basically an Ice Cream Sandwich-compatible tablet built from the ground up for hax0rz and programmers alike.

There are two models – the 7-inch 726B and the 10-inch 1026 – and the 1026 can run the latest version of Android. You can upload any version you want, however, and even the hardware is open source in that you receive a hardware source disk for about $20 extra. → Read More

February 15th, 2012

Utter Robustifies Voice Control In Android, Adds App Support

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Android was doing voice recognition for a long time before Siri came around, but the truth is Apple’s implementation of voice commands made Google’s look limited and out of date. And that hasn’t changed in the last few months, despite a few Siri-like apps that have attempted to cash in on the “talking at your phone” craze.

This app, called Utter!, is the first one that actually makes voice control on Android look better than Siri. It hooks into applications, handles compound and stacked phrases, and may actually be useful. → Read More

February 15th, 2012

Gartner: Apple’s iPhone Stole The Smartphone Show In Q4, 2011

Screen shot 2012-02-15 at 08.52.14

We’ve seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales. But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it’s not because people are not buying smartphones; it’s because they’re all buying iPhones.

Figures out from Gartner today say that smartphone sales totalled 149 million units in Q4 2011 — 47.3 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago, led by none other than Apple’s iPhone, which its analysts noted “saved” the smartphone market after two quarters of declining sales. → Read More

February 10th, 2012

New Android App Lets You Flashback To The Arcades Of Yesteryear

cpsemu3

The arcade scene here in the United States is but a fraction of what it was back in its heyday, but that doesn’t mean that the love for those classic games has just evaporated. Capcom’s CPS2 arcade board has attained legend status in certain retro gaming circles because of its catalog of instant classics, and a developer named Cpasjuste has just given those games a new lease on life with a new CPS2 emulator for Android. → Read More

February 10th, 2012

Android Hack Exposes Google Wallet PIN On Demand

Like most hacks, this discovery of a way to find an Android phone’s Google Wallet PIN requires a lot of initial access but is disturbing nonetheless. Google knows about the hack and is repairing it. Discovered by Joshua Rubin of Zvelo, the hack is one of the most interesting attacks on Google Wallet so far.

In short, this hack allows access to credit card data and purchase history and could, in theory, allow a hacker to use a Google Wallet freely in the wild. However, it does require the hacker to have unfettered root access to the phone. Using a small program, the exploit simply brute-forces a file found in the phone, thereby revealing the PIN and unlocking the wallet.
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February 10th, 2012

Foursquare Adds NFC Support To Its Android App

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In addition to the updated “Explore” feature that rolled out to Foursquare’s Android and iPhone applications this week, the social discovery service also added a special feature to its Android app that sort of flew under the radar: support for NFC.

NFC, or near field communication, allows devices to exchange data over short distances, typically with a wave or a tap. In Foursquare’s Android update, NFC support has been added for the app’s Venue, Lists and Me pages. → Read More

February 7th, 2012

Pledge Your Android Allegiance With The Andru MicroUSB Charger

andru

There’s no shortage of Android swag floating around out there — Android-themed watch anyone? — but this thing is probably one of the more useful gifts for the Android devotee in your life. Take it from me: of all the AC adapters floating around TechCrunch’s New Jersey headquarters (a.k.a my home), none are quite as charming as Andru here. → Read More

February 6th, 2012

‘Transparent Screen’ Android App Lets You Text And Walk Without Fear

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I used to scowl when I saw people walking down the street with eyes locked on their phones, but necessity has gotten me in the habit of doing it too. Thanks to a new app called Transparent Screen though, now I can do it free from the fear of falling into an open manhole or into a large fountain.

No, that’s not a hastily Photoshopped image you see here, that’s more or less exactly what you’ll see when the app is running. I say “more or less” because while all of the Android UI goes translucent upon launch, you’re afforded with quite a bit of a control over how dramatic the effect is. It’s in your best interest to get familiar with the settings if you plan on using Transparent Screen for a while too, because you’ll soon have some choices to make. → Read More

February 6th, 2012

When Will The Post-PC Era Arrive? It Just Did.

Scrabble on the iPad

There has been much debate about what the post-PC era is, when it will arrive, or whether it’s already here. But key pieces of new data, emerging last week, are making the case that we crossed the imaginary line from the “PC” era to the “post-PC” era at the end of 2011. According to analysts at Canalys, two major computing milestones were achieved at the end of this year: smartphone shipments outpaced PCs for the first time ever, and Apple became the world’s largest PC maker, if you count iPads as PCs (as well you should).

Combined, what these numbers tell us is that the post-PC era is happening now. Right now. And maybe we need to think about how we define “PC.” → Read More

February 6th, 2012

iPhone 4S Ranks #1 In Q4, But More First-Time Buyers Choose Android

4s

According to new research from the NPD Group, Apple passed LG and Samsung to become the top-selling U.S. handset brand in Q4 2011. Combined, the three available models of the iPhone (iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS) accounted for 43% of the U.S. smartphone market.

Android, however, continued to see larger market share at 48%. → Read More

February 6th, 2012

Rdio Releases New Android App, Ought To Be Ashamed Of Its Windows Phone App

rdio

Today, Rdio is releasing a brand new application for Android phones chock-full of fresh features, which is awesome. Mainly because it gives me an excuse to write up a rant I would have published at some point anyway. → Read More

February 5th, 2012

Pedestrian Map App, Lumatic, Raises $800K From Joi Ito And 500 Startups

Lumatic screen

All the major map apps like Google Maps, Bing Maps, and Mapquest have walking directions as a standard feature, but the folks at Lumatic don’t think they are good enough. It is creating mobile maps designed for pedestrians, cyclists, and people who use public transit. Originally a TechStars company called Omniar, serial entrepreneur Scott Rafer (MyBlogLog, Lookery, Mashery) joined as CEO a year ago.

He recently raised a seed round of $800,000 from Joi Ito’s Neoteny Labs, 500 Startups, Chamath Palihapitiya, Allen Morgan, Ted Rheingold, and other angels. → Read More

Real-Time
Crunchbase

nScaled Inc — Received $7M in Series A funding from Almaz Capital and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
2.21.2012
Tugg — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
2.21.2012
LiteTouch — Acquired by Savant Systems.
2.21.2012
AVG Technologies — Went public with stock symbol NYSE:AVG.
2.2.2012
LiteTouch — Acquired by Savant Systems.
2.21.2012
Circle of Moms — Acquired by Sugar.
2.21.2012
Hyperpublic — Acquired by Groupon.
2.21.2012
ttMobiles — Acquired by Tangoe.
2.21.2012
Traffix Systems — Acquired by F5 Networks.
2.20.2012
nScaled Inc — Received $7M in Series A funding from Almaz Capital and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
2.21.2012
Collegium Pharmaceutical — Received $22.5M in Unattributed funding
2.15.2012
Wheelz — Received $13.7M in Series A funding from Zipcar and Fontinalis Partners
2.22.2012
Fanzy — Received $500k in Seed funding from Georges Chryssostallis, Gary Stiffelman, and Roland Swenson
2.22.2012
Jayride.com — Received $400k in Seed funding from Andrey Shirben
2.21.2012
2.21.2012
Almaz Capital — Invested in nScaled Inc.
2.21.2012
Zipcar — Invested in Wheelz.
2.22.2012
Fontinalis Partners — Invested in Wheelz.
2.22.2012
Gary Stiffelman — Invested in Fanzy.
2.22.2012
AVG Technologies — Went public with stock symbol NYSE:AVG.
2.2.2012
Brightcove — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:BCOV.
2.17.2012
Jive Software — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:JIVE.
2.3.2012
Tugg — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
Collegium Pharmaceutical — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
Jayride.com — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
Imperative Energy — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
Savant Systems — Company added to CrunchBase
2.22.2012
Reeli (iPhone App) — Product added to CrunchBase
2.21.2012
CrunchBase