android

Believe it our not, government bureaucracy can be exciting. If you don't believe me, then look at the Federal Communications Commission over the last few days. Most of the time the cell phones passing through the agency's gates aren't terribly exciting, but you can have periods where some highly-anticipated models get the FCC's approval. And this week was one of those periods.

Samsung's Google Android phone, the Galaxy I7500L, first popped up on the FCC's Web site in May, but it made another appearance on Thursday. Though it now offers U.S. 3G, Engadget … Read more

Sherpa is a new location-based service from Geodelic that was set to launch with the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G on August 5. Luckily, however, the app got an early release to the Android Market and it's now available for download.

Users will find a well-polished app that allows them to quickly obtain information that is relevant to their location and tailor it to their liking. Simply open the application and Sherpa will begin displaying locations and information around you based on distance, relevance, and personal interest. Users can browse the results in a slick-looking carousel view, top-down Google map, or … Read more

Update: Article updated at 1:10pm PT with confirmation from Facebook.

Thanks to close collaborations with Apple, Microsoft, RIM (BlackBerry) engineers, and so on, Facebook-sponsored applications are available for a wide spectrum of mobile phones. An official Android app is in the works, Facebook has confirmed, with Facebook and Google working together on the software.

Some have scoffed that they'd never see the day when the two Silicon Valley titans pause the rivalry long enough to cooperate on a project. The truth is that they need each other, at least this time. Google needs to fill its Android … Read more

The Android Market has more than 6,300 applications and continues to expand every day. If you need an application for a specific task, chances are there's one available.

Recently, I set out to find a fitness application to use while running. CardioTrainer is one of the most popular fitness applications currently available in the Android Market. It maps your workout using GPS, automatically uploads your workouts online, plots various statistics of your workouts, and has an integrated calorie calculator. I chose to try the app based on recommendations from friends, its "Race Against Yourself" feature, and … Read more

Despite reports to the contrary, the latest from Acer is that their long-promised Android Netbook is still on its way for Q3 2009, not 2010. This also seems to blow a significant hole in the "no new Netbooks" report given by Digitimes. Then again, maybe not: Acer claims they'll put Android into a 10-inch Aspire One with an Atom processor. Will it be a machine already on sale?

Regardless, if we can try to glean a bit of truth behind this game of PR chess, it's still this: Netbooks haven't been upgrading their basic specs … Read more

Amid markedly lower sales and sluggish demand for its cell phones, Motorola saw a dramatic boost in earnings for the second quarter.

The company on Thursday reported net profit of $26 million, or 1 cent a share, for the quarter ended July 4, compared with $4 million for 2008's second quarter.

The jump in earnings surprised analysts, who had expected a loss of 4 cents a share, and Motorola itself, which had forecast a loss of 3 cents to 5 cents per share.

Quarterly sales fell to $5.5 billion, a drop of 32 percent from $8.1 billion … Read more

Apple is currently king of the smartphone world. The iconic iPhone has doubled in market share since 2008, rising to 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from 5.3 percent in 2008, according to Gartner.

But Apple may be in for a Microsoft moment. Just as a steady stream of well-heeled competitors like IBM, Red Hat, and Oracle are aligning themselves with Linux as a way to undermine Windows in servers and desktops, so, too, are crowds starting to form around Google's open-source Android in the smartphone market.

Linux: the bete noir of proprietary operating system … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Researchers have discovered a way to take complete control over an iPhone merely by sending special SMS messages and demonstrated it on my iPhone at the Black Hat security conference on Wednesday.

Although an attacker could exploit the hole to make calls, steal data, send text messages, and do basically anything that I can do with my iPhone, the researchers were kind and merely rendered it temporarily inoperable.

Here's what happened: While I was talking on the phone to Charlie Miller, his partner, Collin Mulliner, sent me a text message from his phone. One minute I'm talking … Read more

Although Acer may be applying the brakes to its planned Android Netbook deployment, when the Google-y mini computers do hit the shelves, SugarSync will be ready.

On Wednesday, Sharpcast, SugarSync's developer, released a version of the cross-platform multimedia syncing management software for Android phones and Netbooks. SugarSync for Android lets you view and download files on your Android Netbook or mobile phone, and upload local files to your free or premium SugarSync repository.

Since SugarSync's applications are free (you just pay for the storage you use), you can use it as a makeshift remote access tool, and as … Read more