root

If there's one thing you can say about the Android developer and hacker community, it's that it moves incredibly fast.

Each time a new smartphone or tablet finds its way into the market, the modders and hackers get to work, trying to root the device. And now, just days two days after its release, the Amazon Kindle Fire has become the latest target.

Gaining root-level access gives users the ability not only to install applications from additional sources, but also it allows for the removal of the standard software. Potentially that means that developers and tech-savvy enthusiasts could … Read more

As I wrote earlier this year, Android battery life can be atrocious. Most of the Android-powered phones I've tried end up dead overnight if they're not left on a charger, and Android tablets are just as bad.

I can understand phones having power issues, what with all their syncing and pinging and fetching. But tablets aren't phones; they should be able to last for days--maybe even a week--before needing an AC assist.

Witness my iPad: it consumes almost no power when it's not being used, so even if I don't touch it for a week, it'll have juice left when I pick it up--nearly as much as when I last put it down. But every Android tablet I've ever tested? Dead after a day--maybe two--whether I use it or not.

The culprit for this, it turns out, is a couple of "phone services" baked into the Android OS. They have no business on a tablet, but there they are, sapping the battery unnecessarily.… Read more

The average consumer probably isn't thinking right now about installing custom firmware on Amazon's Kindle Fire, but I know the first thing a bunch of you wondered was, "Wow, a $199 Android tablet with a dual-core processor; is this thing rootable?"

Well, at least according to one Amazon rep I spoke to at the launch event, it is--and apparently Amazon isn't putting up any measures to stop people from doing it.

Call it confidence (or arrogance), but Amazon seems to feel that it's giving consumers--and even more hard-core Android enthusiasts--enough attractive features to keep … Read more

Companies are increasingly collecting amounts of digital information that are so large as to be unwieldy. It's no surprise that finding a way to securely store, categorize and recall this information efficiently is a huge advantage for any enterprise or organization.

The growth of information has introduced an entirely new category of software in the big-data arena, which includes a variety of databases, processing engines, and applications. The main objective of all of these tools is to make data more malleable and consumable so that it can be used in an easier way.

This week, CERN, the European Organization … Read more

Uninstalling apps you don't use is a great way to keep some free space for new apps and can sometimes lead to improved battery life or even a faster device. If you've followed the guide for uninstalling apps without the Android Market, you may have noticed that most of the preloaded apps are resistant to being removed. For help removing these apps once and for all, follow this guide:

Note: Removing these apps requires root access. For help rooting your Android device follow this guide, courtesy of CNET's Seth Rosenblatt. … Read more

A brick is really just a half-baked hunk of dirt, unless you put it to good use. Such is the case with the HP TouchPad, a half-baked tablet that recently became a $500 brick when HP announced it was discontinuing support for all WebOS devices. Now, a team of coders is looking to put this shiny brick to good use.

They call themselves the TouchDroid team, and they've set up shop over on the RootzWiki forums with the goal of porting Android onto the TouchPad, which has been selling out everywhere from online vendors to my local, rural Wal-Mart since HP announced its liquidation prices--$99 for the 16GB model, $149 for the 32GB.

The project is just getting going--at last check not all team members had even gotten their hands on a TouchPad yet.

The goal is to first produce a stable beta using Android Gingerbread and then move on to developing a Honeycomb version while still supporting and fixing bugs in the Gingerbread build, according to a post by team leader Thomas Sohmers on Rootzwiki.… Read more

It's really easy to accidentally click on ads when using your phone to browse the Web. Many of us are spoiled by the ad-free browsing we experience on our desktop computers, and wish we could experience the same on our rooted Android phones that have less screen real estate to work with. The solution is simple, AdFree, an app by BigTinCan, offers the ability to block out all ads--if it's the right option for you.

Note: This particular application requires that you have a rooted Android phone. Even though you will still be able to install the app … Read more

The hacking and modding community scored a small victory this week when HTC announced it would no longer be locking bootloaders on its handsets. In other words, it will be easier to unlock future HTC phones and, hopefully, tablets. Once a phone is unlocked, it is possible for the end users to load any custom ROM or experience they'd like. What's more, while many of HTC's products are loaded with Sense UI and carrier-branded applications, modders often load a clean and clutter-free version of Android.

HTC's CEO Peter Chou delivered the news via a Facebook post … Read more

Talk about good news/bad news. Last week, the long-awaited Netflix app for Android finally arrived--but only for five phones. If you own, say, an HTC Thunderbolt, Motorola Droid 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab, or other incompatible device, the waiting game goes on.

Or not, if you're tech-savvy enough to root (that is, jailbreak) your device and fiddle with some settings. Over at Reddit, a user by the name of natemckn explains how to make Netflix for Android work on unsupported devices.

The hack works by fooling the Netflix app into thinking your phone or tablet is one of … Read more