Mobilityfeeds

Time Warner Cable brings live TV to your Android Ice Cream Sandwich device

Time Warner Cable customers in North America can now watch live TV on their Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich-equipped tablets and smartphones.

As promised, the cable provider on Tuesday updated its Android app, bringing live streaming television to devices running the most recent version of Google's mobile operating system.

TWC TV 2.0, which is available now via Google Play, lets users watch selected live cable channels, including Bravo, the Food Network, and CNBC, on their Android 4.0 smartphone or tablet through their home wireless network.
The app does not support rooted devices, however.

600 classic MGM movies now available from Google Play and YouTube

Google just released another tidbit of awesome news yesterday for everyone that loves movies and Android.

That is everyone right?
New details on the official YouTube Blog have just confirmed that Google has partnered with Metro Goldwyn Mayer, better known as MGM, and will be bringing 600 of their classic and famous movies to Android and YouTube.

The folks at MGM are responsible for some of the most classic and iconic movies around.

Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 review

An inexpensive alternative to an Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 ($149.99 / €114 list, 8GB) acquits itself well as a basic, budget MP3 and video player that also runs most of the 400,000 Android apps available.

It's for people who want to play "Draw Something" but don't want to deal a smartphone contract, and it costs US$50 (€38) less than the same-capacity iPod Touch.

But its low-res screen may limit its appeal to status-conscious teens who could make up its core market. 

Physical Design and Networking

 The Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 looks like a small budget smartphone.
Made of black and chrome plastic, it has standard MicroUSB and headphone jacks on the bottom panel and a matte back.

The front is mostly a somewhat-dim 3.6", 480-by-320 LCD screen with three standard Android touch buttons below it. At 10.6 by 6.6 by 1cm (HWD) and 119 grams, it'll fit easily into any hand and most pockets.

76% of main mobile apps are now available on all three major platforms; Android, Windows Phone and iOS

There has been a lot of noise recently about a shortage of apps in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

Winsource has done some research and found 76% of the 100 most popular app on Windows Phone, both paid and free, were cross-platform apps present also in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The other 24% are mainly Xbox Live games (10) or other games.

The result suggests both that Windows Phone has been good at drawing developers from other platforms to the Marketplace, and that those developers are often rewarded by a high rank in the sales charts.

Android Trojan attracts Japanese users with porn, video trailers and games

Security experts are warning of yet more malicious applications found on Google’s official online apps market, Google Play, this time designed to steal personal data in the background while promising to show trailers for Japanese anime, video games and porn.

McAfee malware researcher Carlos Castillo explained in a blog post that the new Android Trojan had been discovered in 15 applications on Google Play (former Android Market) so far and downloaded by at least 70,000 users.

The malware, specifically designed to target Japanese users, is hidden in apps which show Internet-based video trailers, among others.

Follow the UEFA Euro 2012 live from your Android device

While most European football (for our US readers, we are talking about 'soccer') leagues are coming to its season end soon, the next highlight, the UEFA Euro 2012, which will happens from 8^th June to 1^st July 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, is just around the corner.

And the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is already preparing for it and has recently released its free Android app.

According to the description, the official UEFA EURO 2012 app, sponsored by french mobile operator Orange, gives football fans access to the final tournament of the 14^th UEFA European Football Championship.
It informs about live results, features free customizable alerts, video highlights from midnight after the end of the match (against payment only), news, photos and standings.

A Trojan is hidden in fake 'Angry Birds Space' for Android

Be on the lookout, pig-crushing Android enthusiasts.

The latest game from Rovio, Angry Birds Space, already has a fake counterpart in Google Play that downloads malware to your device in the background.

The fake version is actually a functioning game of Angry Birds Space.
However, security company Sophos identified a Trojan horse within the app named Andr/KongFu-L.
It quietly installs itself onto your Android device and can then start displaying ads all over the device and bring up any Website at any time without your permission.

Samsung announces a new line-up of Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Player Android devices

Samsung on Wednesday announced pricing and availability details for three upcoming Android-powered devices that will soon join the vendor’s ever expanding lineup of Galaxy-brand devices.

Continuing its efforts to address a variety of price ranges and screen sizes in order to give consumers as many options as possible, Samsung will launch two new Galaxy Player devices and two new Galaxy Tab tablets between now and mid-May.

Already available in many countries, Samsung‘s entry-level Galaxy Player 3.6 offers a 3.65" HVGA display, a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, a 2-megapixel rear camera, a VGA front-facing camera, 8GB of internal storage expandable to 40GB, and Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
The budget Wi-Fi-only player aims to take on Apple’s iPod Touch at an iPod Nano price point, costing just US$149.99 (€113.68).

Sony launches the Android Smartwatch - Your mobile on your wrist

Google's Android isn't just for smartphones and tablets anymore.

Sony has unveiled its new SmartWatch, an Android-powered timekeeper that brings smartphone-like capabilities to the wristwatch.

Priced at US$150 (€113.68), the Bluetooth-enabled SmartWatch retrieves text messages, Emails, and Facebook and Twitter updates from most Android (2.1 Éclair and above) smartphones, Sony says.

The primary benefit of the SmartWatch is being able to access smartphone information without having to remove the phone from a pocket or bag.

Got yourself a Windows Phone? Here are some apps you need immediately

As the Lumia 900, Nokia and Microsoft’s beautiful child, comes to the market it seems like there will be more than a few new Windows Phone users soon.

If you are moving from Google's Android or Apple's iOS, you might notice that there’s not exactly as many apps (though these days there are more than 82,000 Windows Phone apps).

In fact, there’s a couple hundred thousand app difference. 

Despite the quantity difference, there’s no shortage of quality apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace to help you get started with your new phone.

Let's have a look after the break at our five favorites.

Instagram for Android reached 5+ million downloads in a week

Guess what: Android users really, really like Instagram.

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that lots and lots of people like Instagram, and a lot of them use Android phones and tablets.
At least 5 million, to be precise – today the download ticker in the Google Play Store was upgraded to “5-10 million”, meaning that at this precise moment it’s probably at around 5.1 million total downloads.  

For an app that came out exactly one week ago, that’s an astounding number… though we’ve got to point out that they’d be doing a lot better if they hadn’t waited a year and a half before releasing a proper Android port.

Facebook buys Instagram, now that it is available on the two main mobile platforms, iOS and Android

After spending a few hours talking to Facebookers about the company’s mobile strategy, we can safely say that Instagram’s move to Google's Android probably had a lot to do with the US$1 billion price the startup fetched in yesterday morning’s acquisition news.

Unless you’ve spent your day yesterday under a rock, you’ve probably heard by now that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his company’s acquisition of Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service.

What he didn’t announce, but what we know from multiple Facebook conversations and campus visits, is that the company sees Apple's iOS as just one piece of the mobile platform puzzle.

Samsung has "no plan to launch a 3D smartphone" in the near future

We've already seen a couple of Android device manufacturers try their hand at creating a 3D smartphone, including HTC with the EVO 3D and LG with the Optimus 3D Max, but recently one company made it clear that we shouldn't hold our breath for any 3D-capable handsets from it.

In a statement, Samsung explained that although it's always looking into new tech for its smartphones, 3D support won't be making the cut any time soon.

The word straight from Sammy after the break!

Dolphin Browser 8 beta brings new and improved features to best Android Web browser

The Dolphin Web browser for Google's Android offers a number of features you don’t get with the standard Android Web browser, including support for browser tabs in Android 2.3 Gingerbread and earlier, support for add-ons, gesture-based commands, and voice commands.

Now the developers have released a public beta of Dolphin Browser 8 with a new toolbar and improved add-on navigation.

The first thing Dolphin users will notice is that the menu bar has been redesigned so that it no longer looks like something designed for Android 1.6.
The new menu features a new, lighter color scheme and simple icons. It also takes up less of the screen when it slides up from the bottom of the display.

Google Play is a piracy-plagued app store 'we don't want to duplicate' - RIM

Research In Motion (RIM, BlackBerry maker) is dropping app sideloading support from the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in a bid to prevent the problems that have plagued Google's Android, the company's Developer Relations Vice-president Alec Saunders stated earlier in the week.

The company would have a "solution" for developers to do it in testing, but the end user would have to go through BlackBerry App World, much like Apple does with the App Store.
He believed Android had a rampant problem with piracy, where about a quarter of material was pirated.

Saunders didn't clarify whether that meant the number of apps in the store or the volume of downloads.
Regardless, he saw developers as being worried about losing too much revenue and preferring the lockdown to a possibly very troubled Google Play Store.

Popular PS3 and Xbox 360 game 'Joe Danger' comes to iOS and Android

Stunt motorbiking game Joe Danger will be expanding beyond the console market soon.

Developer Hello Games has confirmed that they're developing Apple's iOS and Google's Android versions and it's said to be very different than the game available on the PS3 and Xbox 360. 

"Simply porting a game is never something I could get excited about, it’s soulless work. Joe Danger on iOS is a new game, and it's been written from the ground up for iPhone," Hello Games co-founder Sean Murray said. 

Google shares 'Project Glass', augmented reality glasses that may replace smartphones in the near future

Google has taken the wraps off its long-rumored augmented reality glasses project, officially dubbed "Project Glass."

A concept video, titled "One day...," shows how Google's glasses might work.
In the video, the user performs tasks commonly handled by smartphones, such as scheduling meetings, taking pictures, checking the weather, getting directions, and placing a video call.
The information simply hovers in the user's field of view, and the interface is controlled by voice or other inputs.

Google says it is gathering feedback from users on Project Glass, according to a post on Google+ by Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun.

Instagram for Android tablets is far better than the iOS tablet version

Google's Android tablet users can now get their hands on the hot photo sharing app Instagram, though the experience appears to be better than what Apple's iPad users currently have.

On tablets, the updated Instagram Android app runs an upscaled version of the Android phone interface.

Instagram runs at the tablet’s native resolution, which means the picture quality is better than the way the iPad simply doubles the resolution of the iPhone Instagram app.

While all versions of the iPad can run iPhone apps, on the original iPad and iPad 2 the upscaling process was notoriously ugly.
On the new iPad, upscaled iPhone apps look much smoother, though they’re still no replacement for apps built specifically for the tablet.

Microsoft financially assists developers to make apps for Windows Phone, while the interest for the platform rises

Nowadays, mobile phones are all about apps.

And Microsoft is so determined to have lots of brand-name apps for its Windows Phone Marketplace app store that it is willing to pay for them.

All an app maker has to do is sign on the dotted line!

After years of struggling in the phone market, Microsoft teamed up with Nokia last year to challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPhone and Google, which makes the Android mobile Operating System (OS).

The latest fruit of their collaboration is a gleaming machine called the Lumia 900, which goes on sale in the United States on Sunday and is considered to be the first true test of how well the partnership will fare.

eBooks and eReaders entice North Americans to read - Survey

eBooks aren't just becoming increasingly popular.

They also appear to be promoting reading habits among American adults.
So says new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which states that about one-fifth of the United States adults have read an eBook in the past year.

And if you expand that to include Americans over 16 who have used an eReader device or app to read news articles or magazine-style features, the figure jumps to 43%.