Android Community |
- Google Offers keeps growing — Five new cities available today
- Samsung Galaxy S II commercials continue with two new videos
- Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet finally gets root access
- Darth Maul Me app prepares you to disembowel Jedis
- Sony Tablet S and Tablet P ICS update coming this spring, with PS3 controller support
- Official: Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX hitting Verizon January 26th
- Galaxy Nexus, Kinect and projector combine for a wall-sized Android interface
- Dutch court rejects Apple’s case against the Galaxy Tab 10.1
- Dolphin Browser adds Evernote, Skitch functionality
- Skydroid to offer a Windows 8 user interface on Android
- Motorola DROID RAZR update leaks, available now
- Android Market offers even more free music
- Original Transformer will get ICS update in February, says Asus
- Casio G-Shock takes a beating from the ugly stick
- Apple blew $100 million on its HTC lawsuit, and all it got was this lousy post
- DROID Incredible 2 dropped to just $10 bucks by Verizon
- Google adds “experiments” option to Gmail in Android 4.0.3
- Stick it! lets you watch videos in other apps
- The latest Siri clone, Evi, is actually worth checking out
- India’s Aakash Tablet gets a mild upgrade: Ubislate 7+
| Google Offers keeps growing — Five new cities available today Posted: 24 Jan 2012 11:15 AM PST Google’s popular and slowly growing coupon and discount application Google Offers has just been extended today with support for an additional five cities. Google Offers is similar to Groupon or deal of the day type websites but neatly integrated into an Android app that works great. More details available after the break.
After initially launching in Portland and reaching over 33 cities in 2011 Google is ready to keep things rolling this year and starting today Google Offers is now available in an additional five locations. Those include: Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tampa. Deals include half off beer tastings (yes please), free glasses, $10 gets you $20 worth of food and more. All the details for specific deals per city can be read on the official Google Commerce Blog. With discounts on food, service, and everything else around your exact location or city this is actually a really great application if you’ve not tried it yet. Anything that gets me a free cookie with a combo is good in my book — although not very healthy — thanks Google. Head down to the market link below and give Google Offers a try, especially now that it’s available in all the above cities. One downer is the fact the application is so different from other Google Apps. No Ice Cream Sandwich style menu buttons and everything is different. I think all the different Google App developers need to be on the same page — because they clearly aren’t.
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| Samsung Galaxy S II commercials continue with two new videos Posted: 24 Jan 2012 10:15 AM PST Samsung’s been pretty busy on ad campaigns lately with the “dude you’re a barista” and the “next big thing” commercials but today we have two brand new ones to share. You can say they are taking shots at Apple — and they sort of are but in a subtle way. They’ve left out the goofy “Samsung’d” catchphrase and replaced it with a cute blonde flirting with iPhone users. Check them out after the break.
I’m a fan of these commercials personally but some might think they poke fun a little too much, or are obnoxious. Maybe it’s because they are brutally honest. Either way they are worth a quick look so we have them right here for you. The first video introduces an iPhone user than is then suckered into Android by a cute blonde flirting her way into his heart. While the ad is good, do don’t need those tactics in real life because Android does all the work for us with it’s awesome features. Is it just me or does the guy act like a 13 year old that has never talked to a girl before? Just saying. Then the next new video by Samsung is much shorter — and basically just a follow-up to past “barista” commercials like the original we all loved (linked to below). In this new video the barista talks to his Galaxy S II empowered friends about the speeds of 4G. So what do you guys think? Were these as good as the originals from last year, or a bit too casual this time around? I know over the holidays I had a few family members loving my Galaxy Nexus and trying to trade me.
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| Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet finally gets root access Posted: 24 Jan 2012 09:53 AM PST Normally any Android phone or tablet with even a mild community interest will be quickly given root access, allowing for more powerful apps and (usually) custom ROMs to be installed. But in the case of the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet released way back in August of 2011, that freedom has eluded owners for some time. An enterprising modder named Dan Rosenberg has finally managed to crack the black plastic nut, and score himself a nice bounty of nearly $800 in the process. It wasn’t long before the boys at XDA had ClockworkMod recovery running, too.
The root process is about as complicated as they come for Android – those hoping for a one-click solution will have to look elsewhere. You’ll need to install custom drivers, go through the Android SDK (which requires Java) add the ADB tool like most root exploits, the run some custom code, then connect your tablet to your computer, making sure that USB debugging is enabled, the screen is unlocked AND it’s connected to a WiFi network. After running the exploit, the world is your oyster or mollusk of choice. Since it’s taken so long to get root access, there’s a definite dearth of customized apps and ROMs for the ThinkPad Tablet. That said, it shouldn’t be long before someone releases a “clean” version of the Honeycomb software already installed, with Lenovo’s user interface tweaks removed or hidden. There manufacturer has already promised an Ice Cream Sandwich update for the tablet, but you can bet that there will be an AOSP or CyanogenMod 9 release long before that. Device Info
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 [via Android Police]
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| Darth Maul Me app prepares you to disembowel Jedis Posted: 24 Jan 2012 09:12 AM PST Star Wars is coming to the theaters! Again! In 3D! And it’s starting from the beginning, the classic 1976 adventure that millions fell in love with… wait, what? It’s starting with Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the lackluster beginning of the downfall of America’s greatest sci-fi series? Oh, well – at least we get to see the pod racing and lightsaber duel (you know, the 11 minutes of Episode 1 that are admittedly pretty awesome). To celebrate, Lucasfilm has released the Darth Maul Me app on the Android Market, allowing you to mimic everyone’s favorite double-lightsaber murder master.
The app is pretty simple: take a photo with your Android phone’s front-facing camera, make a few adjustments, select a creepy facepaint and horn pattern, and bam, you’re sporting the look of the baddest alien mamajamma since Boba Fett. The app uses Adobe AIR, so it requires the seperate download, but should work on just about any phone running 2.2 Froyo or later. The app is naturally full of Star Wars-themed animations and sound effects, but someone call in R2 – the camera is fliped upside down on my Galaxy Nexus. After a little coordination, I managed to get a gruesome visage of my very own. The app is free, which is sort of surprising, considering how much George has been milking his franchise for the last couple of decades. Notably, you can’t buy or rent any of the six Star Wars films in the Android Market, though Darth Maul Me is getting an early release on Android before it assaults iOS. When the inevitable sequel to this app comes out (I’m putting my money on “Meesa Jar Jar”) we’ll probably be skipping it.
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| Sony Tablet S and Tablet P ICS update coming this spring, with PS3 controller support Posted: 24 Jan 2012 08:45 AM PST Sony announced late last that its first two Android tablets, the mostly conventional S and the hinged split-screen P, would be getting an official Ice Cream Sandwich update. Of course, a promise without a timeframe rings somewhat hollow. TechRadar reports that Sony announced that both models will be updated “this spring”, speaking to the press at a London event. The company spokesman also let loose about some exciting new functionality, including Microsoft Office and PlayStation 3 controller compatibility.
The former honestly isn’t that big of a deal – anyone who really needs Office support has already shelled out for one of the many document managers already available in the Android Market. But using Sony’s PS3 SIXAXIS and/or Dual Shock 3 controller in conjunction with tablets that are PlayStation certified is an exciting prospect indeed. After the update, you could ditch the on-screen controls and play classic PSX titles like they’re meant to be played – not to mention play new games with physical controls. Previous attempts to use PlayStation controllers on Android hardware have met with little success, but the controller support baked into Ice Cream Sandwich has likely changed the equation. We can assume that the declaration only technically applies to tablets in the UK, especially since the Tablet P still isn’t available from US retailers. (They were more than happy to show it off at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month.) That said, WiFi tablets usually get a pretty universal update, and with a minimal language barrier US Tablet S owners can expect to see Ice Cream Sandwich gracing their hardware soon. Hopefully we’ll see the Office and PlayStation features trickle down to Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA phones as they get updated.
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| Official: Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX hitting Verizon January 26th Posted: 24 Jan 2012 08:03 AM PST
There’s only one major difference between the DROID RAZR and the DROID RAZR MAXX: the latter has a gigantic 3300mAh battery, nearly doubling the capacity of the former. Compare that with most high-end smartphones, which usually have a battery in the 1500-1800mAh range. Even the Samsung galaxy Note with its 5.3-inch screen has only a 2500mAh battery. Even with the expanded battery power, the DROID RAZR MAXX measures just 8.99mm thin, only a smidgen thicker than the original and still slimmer than the majority of smartphones out there. Verizon claims that the DROID RAZR MAXX can last for 21 hours of talk time on a single charge. Beyond the battery, the specs remain the same: 4.3-inch qHD AMOLED screen, 1.2Ghz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage with a “free” 16GB MicroSD card, an 8MP rear camera and access to Verizon’s LTE network. The phone runs Gingerbread at the moment, but Verizon is already promising an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. Like the DROID RAZR, the DROID RAZR MAXX has a non-removable battery, and very probably a locked bootloader as well.
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| Galaxy Nexus, Kinect and projector combine for a wall-sized Android interface Posted: 24 Jan 2012 07:20 AM PST Android is surprisingly scalable – it works well on smartphones and tablet,s and is even passable as a desktop OS when loaded onto x86 hardware. But who among us hasn’t longed to make their Android phone’s interface 50 inches diagonal and throw it up on a wall? Well me, for one, but an industrious modder has done just that, outputting the video from a Galaxy Nexus through a projector and combining it with the Xbox Kinect motion control gadget. The result is a huge version of Ice Cream Sandwich, not only projected onto a wall but controllable by “touching” the enlarged interface.
Modder “DDRBoxman” of Rcursive Penguin went to considerable lengths to achieve this, with no small amount of skill and ingenuity. The hack is made possible by connecting the Xbox Kinect to a Windows PC, capturing the touch input via a custom application and sending the “taps” on the projected image back to the Galaxy Nexus, which is sending its video out through an HDMI adapter. This is more than your everyday mod: to allow the Nexus to accept input from the TUIO application, the builder had to create his own custom ROM from source. See the results for yourself below: Practical? No. Awesome? Most definitely. The “Android Kinect Projector Interface w/ System Access” requires a lot of work at the moment, but with a little creative thinking this sort of thing is easily possible using existing hardware and software. Follow along with me: if you could plug your Android phone or tablet directly into a projector, then position it so that the front or rear camera is observing the projected image, you’ve got all the hardware components necessary to duplicate this trick without an extra PC and webcam. All it needs is the right gesture recognition/input app, and a gigantic, portable interface could be achieved on any Android device (though you’d probably need root). How about it, devs – any takers?
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| Dutch court rejects Apple’s case against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Posted: 24 Jan 2012 06:58 AM PST After a solid year of courts beckoning to Apple’s call, it would seem that sanity is returning to European benches. Taking a queue from Germany, which is set to reject Apple’s patent case over the revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a Dutch court rejected Apple’s final appeal to get Samsung’s tablet banned from sale in the Netherlands. Free and Open Source Software advocate Florian Mueller reported the legal news on the FOSS Patents blog. The appeal denial is the latest in a string of many Apple defeats and few victories in the last few months.
The saga of Apple’s patent trolling in Europe is a long one, dealing almost exclusively with Samsung. the most high-profile case was the victory the scored over Samsung in Germany, where the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 was banned from import and sale after the court found it in violation of Apple’s design patents. When Samsung released the revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N, Apple once again sued for patent violation… but the German court was having none of it. Earlier this month Apple called for yet another injunction of ten of Samsung’s smartphones in Germany, though the outcome of that case is currently up in the air. Apple is certainly wasting time on their crusade against Android, but what they’re wasting most of is money. An estimate from a Newsweek columnist put their legal expenses in a US patent case against HTC at $100 million. For their trouble, they actually won the case, barring HTC from using a phone number hyperlink feature or face a United States import ban. HTC promptly disabled the feature, giving Apple a whole lot of nothing to show for months of legal finagling and a significant chunk of stockholders’ money down the drain. Cupertino seems to be speeding up its patently ridiculous claims in the face of failure, instead of slowing down. Expect to see more and more complaints from Apple as Android pulls further and further away from iOS in worldwide sales. [via Cnet]
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| Dolphin Browser adds Evernote, Skitch functionality Posted: 24 Jan 2012 06:02 AM PST Dolphin Browser HD remains one of the most popular third-party browser alternatives for Android with over ten million downloads, and at least part of that is because of the strength of its add-on system. In that respect it’s often thought of as “Firefox for Android” (even though we now have, well, Firefox for Android). Today developer MoboTap is partnering with Evernote to add both the primary Evernote functionality and notation engine Skitch to its widening array of integrated services via Dolphin’s add-on system.
The Evernote add-on works exactly as you’d think it would: connect your Evernote account with Dolphin, select text in the browser, and activate Evernote via the shortcut in the right sliding panel. The selected text will be instantly saved to a new note in Evernote. If you’re unfamiliar with Skitch, it’s a sort of annotated screenshot engine, easily allowing users to mark up and share images from the web via their integrated “photo” sharing service. Skitch was acquired by Evernote last year. The Skitch add-on is almost as simple: after connecting it with your account and installing the stand-alone app, activate the add-on in the right sliding panel and a screenshot of the web page will be sent to the Skitch app. Mark it up so your liking and share or save the annotated image as you will. The add-ons are available today in the Android Market, though naturally, they won’t work with the less resource-intensive Dolphin Browser Mini. Despite major competition from heavy hitters in the browser world like Mozilla and Opera, Dolphin is staying relevant with almost continuous updates and new features. Just last month they announced integration with the popular cloud storage service Box.net. The expanding options for Dolphin users, not to mention the modular nature of the plug-ins, keeps power users coming back despite the impressive expansion of Android’s standard browser. If and when Google finally integrates true Chrome functionality into Android, it’s going to be interesting to see who comes out on top.      
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| Skydroid to offer a Windows 8 user interface on Android Posted: 24 Jan 2012 12:00 AM PST There are countless user interfaces currently available for Android, and that number is steadily growing. It’s obvious Windows 8 is going to turn some heads once it hits tablets soon, but what’s to stop us from bringing a bit of that metro look to our Android devices? Nothing, if TheRedDrake over at XDA Developers has anything to say about it.
He specifically states that Skydroid isn’t going to be an exact replica of the new interface, but more or less just inspired by it. Usually, a homescreen replacement application doesn’t include any other functionality besides acting as your new homescreen. What Skydroid aims to do, is bake in around 20 applications into the app itself. This new idea of bundling many applications together will help create a completely unique environment to the user. Not only that, but included applications will most likely be optimized to run at their maximum potential. Expect the first release to hit in late March to early April. [via XDA Developers]
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| Motorola DROID RAZR update leaks, available now Posted: 23 Jan 2012 09:01 PM PST An next official build of the Motorola DROID RAZR has leaked, and it is available now for download. Of course, it hasn’t been released by Motorola officially. Now at Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), your device will be upgraded to 2.3.6. There are a few significant changes in this build, and an LTE radio update will probably be the reason most update now opposed to waiting for a push.
Also updated will be Motorola’s very own user interface, Motoblur. It will add a few applications such as Moto Car Finder and a few other enhancements you early adopters will have to tell us about. To go through with the update, download this file and place it on your external SD card. Placing it on the external card is EXTREMELY important. After the file is placed in the proper spot, go ahead and turn off your RAZR. Press both volume keys in and then the power button. Once in recovery, press both volume keys at the same time again. Look for the file you just downloaded on the external card, and select to install it. Select to “Reboot System Now” after the installation, and your RAZR should be running 2.3.6. For those of you brave enough to give this a try, let us know if this worked for you. Do note: This will remove root. [via TalkAndroid]
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| Android Market offers even more free music Posted: 23 Jan 2012 06:46 PM PST You have to admit, it would be terrible trying to compete with the discounted – and often free – music tracks in Google’s Android Market. You all know about Google’s ‘Free Song of the Day’, but did you know there are a couple other hidden freebies out there tonight? The list isn’t too long, but great songs for free none the less.
You’ll find a few tunes by Drake including “Take Care (ft. Rihanna)”, “Make Me Proud (ft. Nicki Minaj)”, and “Fancy”. And for those Maroon 5 fans out there, “Moves Like Jagger” and “How” are now available. Mary J. Blige has a freebie too, so definitely head on over to download it just incase prices go back up. The Free Song of the Day seems to be a way Google plans on promoting bands not as well known as they should be, so don’t just brush over it without giving them a quick listen. You’d be surprised by how much talent goes unnoticed. And finally, don’t forget about the giant pack of free songs that were previously released. [via NetbookNews]
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| Original Transformer will get ICS update in February, says Asus Posted: 23 Jan 2012 06:02 PM PST The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is great – great enough to be our top tablet pick for 2011. And early adopters are already seeing an update to Ice Cream Sandwich, albeit a somewhat rocky one. But Asus also promised to upgrade the original Transformer to Android 4.0, and hundreds of thousands of Android fans are waiting with bated breath for some shiny new software. According to a response to a curt question on Asus North America’s Facebok page, they won’t have to wait much longer: the update is currently scheduled for mid-February.
Since the Transformer remains one of the most popular Honeycomb tablets out there (and arguably, it was the first hardware/functionality/price point combination to get people really excited about Android tablets) getting it to run Google’s latest and greatest is a top priority. There are already aftermarket ROMs for the TF-101 based on the open-source code for Ice Cream Sandwich, but there are plenty of users out there who prefer to play it safe and wait for an official update. Mr. Alan Warrick on Facebook seemed pleased at any rate. We spend a lot of time ranting about manufacturer and carrier timetables for Android updates, or lack thereof, so it’s only fitting that we stand up and recognize when someone does right by their customers. Good on ya, Asus, for providing timely updated and honest feedback to your Android-using customers long after the final sale. Samsung, inventor of the “Value Pack”, could surely learn something from your example. Unlocking the Transformer Prime bootloader is just icing on the cake.
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| Casio G-Shock takes a beating from the ugly stick Posted: 23 Jan 2012 05:36 PM PST Choices for ruggedized Android phones are a little sparse in the United States – at the moment, your best option is probably the Casio G’z0ne (AKA Commando) from Verizon. It’s a little small and out dated, but it will (to borrow a competing slogan) take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. If the current model is too small, conservative and, well, attractive for your manly tastes, wait a few months and you might be able to pick up the G-Shock, a new model based on Casio’s well-known tough watches. It’s covered in rubber and steel, waterproof to ten meters, and it looks like a bag full of pig knuckles. G-Shock Zone got a hold of some photos from the CES booth.
The G-Shock takes design cues from the watches that inspired it, which to be fair look rather fetching in a sporty kind of way. Blow that up to a 4-point-something screen and it looks significantly less dashing. That said, if the intent is to make a phone that can survive your average nuclear attack, this might be it. It’s shock resistant for 10 feet, and can handle up to a ton of pressure before cracking – let’s see the “Kevlar-strong” DROID RAZR do that. Even so, it includes all the basics, including physical Android navigation buttons and a camera with flash. The phone is just in the concept stage at the moment – Casio was showing it off for potential vendors at CES in early January. But with the current dearth of ruggedized phones, you might be seeing this one on store shelves within the year. There’s something alluring about having a phone that’s rated to survive the average NFL kickoff rush – it’s probably got something to do with the fact that you could use it as the ball.      [via Droid-Life]
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| Apple blew $100 million on its HTC lawsuit, and all it got was this lousy post Posted: 23 Jan 2012 04:56 PM PST Apple hates Android. With a passion. It hates Android as much as superfluous buttons and UI elements without gentle gradients. And if a rumor running around the legal circles of the tech industry can be believed, it hates Android enough to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees with barely anything to show for it. According to Newsweek’s Dan Lyons, Apple spent around $100 million dollars in its latest design patent suit against HTC. The result? HTC designed around the patents, leaving Apple with a big bill and a feeling of superiority. Not that they didn’t have that already.
When Apple petitioned the International Trade Commission to grant an injunction against HTC’s devices , it came back with its ruling in December, stating that the mechanism that allows phone numbers to be automatically highlighted and sent to the dialer app in Android violates Apple’s software patent. Facing a possible import ban, HTC simply disabled the feature (the only major function that Apple was able to successfully sue for) to comply with the ruling. After a series of software updates, probably costing HTC much less than its own legal defense fees, they’re good to go. Will this zero-sum outcome deter apple from further legal skulduggery? Yeah, right. Just last week they his Samsung with a lawsuit based on the slide-to-unlock feature on the Galaxy Nexus, with a call for a ban on ten more devices in Germany. Despite being defeated in similar lawsuits in Australia and the US, and being designed around on the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 lawsuit in Deutschland, Apple seems intent on crying foul to any court that will hear them. Keep it up, Cupertino – surely your rabid userbase will forgive your incredible profit margins, outsourced labor force and engineered obsolescence for another year or so. [via BGR]
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| DROID Incredible 2 dropped to just $10 bucks by Verizon Posted: 23 Jan 2012 04:56 PM PST Whoa! If you’ve been looking for a good deal lately or that original Motorola DROID is showing signs of age we have a sweet phone for you with an impressive price. The HTC DROID Incredible 2 might not be the Galaxy Nexus or the DROID RAZR but then they wont cost you under $10 bucks either. Yes we mean $10, not $100.
Verizon appears to be slashing prices on tons of devices to make room for some new stuff we will probably be seeing at Mobile World Congress. From the image above you can clearly see they are aiming to clear out stock of the Incredible 2 because they are offering it for a mere $9.99 with a new 2-year contract. Yup, just a little more than what you paid for that Starbucks this morning. With deals on the Thunderbolt, DROID 3, Rezound and now the Incredible 2 it’s safe to say Verizon is gearing up for something. In case you forgot the Incredible 2 comes with a 4″ display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, an 8 megapixel camera around the back and is powered by a 1.0 GHz single-core processor. If this phone sounds good — or the $9.99 price tag hit the link below and enjoy it! Device Info
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[via Droid-Life]
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| Google adds “experiments” option to Gmail in Android 4.0.3 Posted: 23 Jan 2012 04:43 PM PST While many of us might already own an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich device like the Galaxy Nexus only the few with things such as the ASUS Transformer Prime or the WiFi XOOM with the latest Android 4.0.3 update can enjoy the new features under the “experiments tab in Gmail. The Transformer Prime just received ICS so we gave it a look.
Ice Cream Sandwich is still fairly new but Google is already implementing new features and experimenting with possible ones and the Gmail application has a few that look promising — although nothing revolutionary or amazing. These two new options however do make Gmail feel even more complete and are quite nifty if I don’t say so myself. The first one is pretty self explanatory and basically indexes entire messages so you can easily search and find them based on content, not just titles. The second one is what I was excited about, especially on a touch-based operating system and enables dragging contacts and they are being called “chips”. The new style for contacts are almost like tiles and we can now press and hold then move any of these contact chips wherever we need or would like. To/Cc/Bcc is as simple as a long press and dragging where you’d like. Nothing amazing here but neat nevertheless. Obviously this is the early stages and only an experiment for now but we expect these to be present with future updates and more experimental features added as the updates roll out. If you have an Android 4.0.3 device give it a try and let us know what you think. [via Computer World]
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| Stick it! lets you watch videos in other apps Posted: 23 Jan 2012 04:04 PM PST Desktop media fiends will no doubt be aware of most full-sized OS’ ability to display video and other windows at the same time, making multi-tasking and entertainment possible. While this isn’t exactly ideal on a mobile screen, it’s now possible, thanks to “Stick It! Free your Player !” [sic] from ambitious developer MBFG. The app pops out video into its own small window on your smartphone or tablet, and the window stays above new apps, allowing you to work or browse while still enjoying a local video file.
The window is small – only about 1.5 inches diagonal on the Galaxy Nexus – and allows you to drag it around the screen just like a Windows, OS X or Linux program. This in turn allows you access app controls that are temporarily “beneath” the video player, making nearly full control of almost any app possible while still keeping your video going. It can even play multiple videos at time, thanks to its widget-style player windows. It works on just about anything, including (usefully) tablets. The video windows are resizeable, and a series of multi-touch gestures that allow dragging and navigation controls. This might not seem overly useful, but consider tutorial videos or newsreels where the actual video isn’t totally essential, and you can see the utility that the developer had in mind. It is a paid app, going for $1.49 at the time of writing. Reviews are almost universally positive at the moment – just don’t use it with Navigation like one of the provided screenshots. [via Reddit]
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| The latest Siri clone, Evi, is actually worth checking out Posted: 23 Jan 2012 03:26 PM PST There’s a new contextual AI voice app out there to take on the likes of Apple’s Siri. No, wait! Don’t touch that tab bar! There have been a lot of these lately, especially on Android, but Evi is actually worth your time. The new app uses some of the same algorithms and data sources as Apple’s hyperbolic app, giving some impressive results using Android’s native voice search and text-to-speech engines. You can download the beta app in the Android Market now.
Operation is simple enough (especially if you’ve seen an iPhone ad lately): tap the microphone button, ask a question and wait for Evi to respond. The app gathers information from broad Google searches, GPS, Google Maps, Wolfram Alpha and all sorts of other places, giving a contextual answer with links and photos when appropriate. Evi uses Nuance’s voice recognition and natural language engine. In addition, you can vote up or down on answers Pandora-style to help improve Evi’s effectiveness for you and other users. I tried Evi this morning with some generally impressive results: when I asked for the population of Montreal, it automatically estimated an exact population for today, based on census data from 2005 and 2011. Unfortunately it seems to be almost completely unresponsive now. It’s very likely that a tidal wave of early users on both Android and iOS is causing developer True Knowledge’s servers to overload, making it nearly impossible to get a complete request through. Evi is definitely worth a look-see if you’ve been envious of your iDevice-totting friends, but give it a day or two before going on a trial run. Failing that, you could always wait for Google’s rumored “Project Majel” to take you to the final frontier of voice activated artificial intelligence.     [via SlashGear]
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| India’s Aakash Tablet gets a mild upgrade: Ubislate 7+ Posted: 23 Jan 2012 02:55 PM PST The Indian tablet market has its own product to set the world on Fire: the Aakash, a 7-inch, resistive screen tablet that runs Froyo. It can’t do much, but many aparently think it’s just enough: the tablet sells for the local equivalent of $35 to students and teachers. The original has reportedly sold over a million units. Now there’s a slightly improved commercial version available, going by the name “Ubislate 7+” (though the original device had so many codenames and monikers that it might not be the final or only one). The new model gets a modest bump in specs and runs Gingerbread as well.
With a new Cortex 8 700mhz CPU, the Ubislate 7+ should be noticeably zippier than its predecessor. That’s almost exactly twice as fast as the original Aakash, though of course it doesn’t hold a candle to recent mid-range or high-end tablets elsewhere. The battery gets a bump from 2100mAh to 3200mAh, so it should last considerably longer than the original. And that’s it: the rest of the tablet’s specs, including a low-resolution screen, WiFi-only data connection. There is one major software advantage: The Ubilate 7+ will reportedly have access to the Google Android Market. For the upgrade Indians will spend an additional 400 rupees, or about $8. Well worth it considering the upgraded processor architecture – it brings it more in line with the lowest of current-generation Android phones, roughly equal to the original G1. That might even be enough for some basic web video. Considering the insane demand for the first Aakash tablet from Datawind, expect a lot of excitement for the new model. Pre-sales are already booked through February of this year. And no, it still won’t be available outside of India.
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After a couple of weeks of post-CES speculation, Verizon has put all doubts to rest about Motorola’s upgraded DROID RAZR MAXX. The capacious Android phone will be available January 26th from online and retail locations, with a 2-year contract price of $299.99. That’s the same price as the standard model of the DROID RAZR, though you can now purchase the original without the 16GB MicroSD card for $199.99. The MAXX will hit the market just ten weeks after its predecessor.
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