Hailo branches out, can now hail a cab with your Android device in Dublin, Ireland

Hailo has been something of an overnight success since its launch towards the end of 2011. The idea was so simple, but truly a way in which Londoners could use their Android devices in actual, real world, day-to-day situations. By making a sometimes unpleasant experience -- trying to flag down a cab -- and getting your Android device to do the work. Anyone in London for the Olympics, seriously, download a copy of this app while you're there. 

Today the Hailo team marks another milestone since the launch of the service, in their first expansion outside of London. The second city to go live, is the Irish capital, Dublin. This is fantastic news, and hopefully the start of a bright, and widespread future for the service. There's a whole lot of cities around the world that could benefit from something as useful as this. 

Source: Hailo, Download: Hailo

Get all hot and steamy in the shower with your Android device - wait, what?

We can control our music from our Android devices. And our TVs. Open garage doors. Play instruments. And now, control your steam shower. If you've got a ThermaSol ProSeries, you apparently can control the start of your "steam session," including setting the time and temperature, so long as you're connected to your home's router. You also can control light and music settings, and it'll hook up to Pandora, Spotify and other streaming services for your steaming enjoyment. And it'll also run the diagnostic and maintenance features, which we presume is some sort of self-cleaning mode and that it doesn't just call over the local plumber's crack.

We're currently in the midst of a no-holds barred cage match to see who gets to demo this one. Rubber ducky not included.

read more

TELUS HTC Desire HD update to Android 4.0 cancelled, down to 'poor device performance during testing'

TELUS has been pretty good as far as information surrounding their devices update schedule to Ice Cream Sandwich. There's another update now doing the rounds, and sadly it brings bad news for owners of the HTC Desire HD. The update for the Desire HD has been cancelled "due to poor device performance during testing." 

While it's sure to be a bitter blow to owners of the device eagerly awaiting their turn to upgrade, if performance is an issue then it's the right decision to make. An update isn't worth waiting on, let alone accepting, if it doesn't make for a good user experience. 

Additional Android devices featured on the latest documentation still shows August for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 with the 10.1 also slipping to August after we'd previously seen late July for the tablet. Also, there's prospective August 7 in market date for the LG Optimus LTE. 

Source: TELUS via Mobilesyrup

Nexus S 4G officially an AOSP device once again

Hooray! It looks like Google, Samsung, and Sprint were able to iron out the difficulties in redistributing the closed source radio code for the Nexus S 4G and it's now officially a part of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) again! Says Jean-Baptiste Queru, Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project --

We've been able to resolve the issues around Nexus S 4G, and we can now properly distribute its CDMA and WiMAX binaries. That allows Nexus S 4G to work with AOSP just as well as Nexus S.

As a result, we now consider Nexus S 4G to be fully supported in AOSP,with no restrictions. Overall, Nexus S is the preferred platform for AOSP work.

I've updated the set of IMM76L binaries for Nexus S 4G to include WiMAX support. They're available at their usual location: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers

Enjoy!

JBQ

Enjoy we will. Welcome back to the family, Nexus S 4G. We've missed you. You might remember back in February, support for CDMA devices was dropped from the AOSP. Dan Morrill explained that this was because binaries for proprietary radio code was signed by a different private key, and projects built from the AOSP would use the standard platform key. This would lead to all sorts of difficulties, and official support for the devices had to be dropped. Legal issues tend to conflict with open-source more often than not. It seems that the issues have been resolved, and Google can now deliver binaries with the correct key, and the Crespo 4G is alive and kicking in AOSP.

It's worth noting that there's no mention of the Sprint Galaxy Nexus, which uses LTE for the 4G network in place of WiMax. Hopefully, those issues can be resolved as well and we're one big happy Nexus family again.

Source: Android Building Group

AirDroid gives your Android device its very own webtop [App Review]

After poking through some of Josh and Jerry's favorite apps of last year, one that kept coming up in the comments when talking about file management over PC was AirDroid. After playing around with it for awhile, I can see why readers were eager to suggest this handy little remote access app.

read more

PSA: ROMers beware! Google Music only allows four ‘device’ deauthorizations per year

Quick warning to the cross section of you that both love your Google Music and frequently flashing new ROMs onto your device(s), which I imagine might be quite a few of you.

Google has recently put a limit on the number of ‘devices’ that a user may deauthorize in a year and at just four that limit could definitely be a problem. If you weren’t already aware, the ceiling for devices that you can have authorized on a single Google Music account at any given time is ten.

I suspect if you are savvy enough to flash a new ROMs you can already see where the problem is, but for those that aren’t aware the phone is given a new ID within Google Music each time you register it after flashing a new ROM. So the same device could potentially eat up your entire quota after just a few new ROMs.

Considering the dedicated and often vocal ROM development community that Android has fostered, it’s possible that we will see some serious backlash over this which could in turn lead to a reversal or at least a softening of the policy by Google.

In the mean time if this sounds like it may be a problem for you I would recommend heading over to the XDA thread listed in the VIA link below as they are already discussing potential workarounds such as restoring accounts via Titanium Backup to avoid a new authorization.

I’m hoping this is one of those situations where the full ramifications of the policy change were not thought through properly and that we will see Google come up with a workable solution, but as the vast majority of users would never run into this problem it’s entirely possible that it will stand.

As suspected, Verizon won’t be getting an HTC One device

There’s no beating around the bush; most of us on staff here at Android and Me love the HTC One series of devices. I had a chance this weekend to spend some hands-on time with the HTC One X from AT&T, and was completely blown away by both the look and build quality of the device.

At CTIA last week, Verizon Wireless announced the mid-range Droid Incredible 4G LTE by HTC. The Droid Incredible 4G LTE is not a One device, and HTC Spokesman Jeff Gordon indicated to Android Authority that Verizon “is not going to be carrying either of the HTC One devices currently announced.” Considering the HTC One V, One S, and One X devices have all been announced, Gordon’s remarks suggest these phones won’t be coming to Big Red’s network.

That’s not to say future HTC One (or, is it HTC Two?) devices won’t make their way to Verizon Wireless. It’s possible Verizon and HTC are working on a superphone to take Verizon’s network by storm later this year. We’ll continue to incessantly check our inboxes for a special invitation from Verizon or HTC, though we won’t hold our breath.

Were you hoping to see the HTC One series come to Verizon’s network? Does the Droid Incredible 4G LTE suffice for your HTC smartphone needs? Sound off below.

Instagram rolls out latest update to address some front facing camera issues and device compatibility

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

The latest Instagram for Android update is now available for download in the Google Play Store. This update will be higher priority for those of you out there making use of devices with a front-facing camera. As noted in the change log, it corrects some issues when using the advanced camera option as well as some problems with the reliability of photo filters for certain Galaxy Y and Ace devices. If you fit into either of those sections, or just want to ensure you have the latest installed, you can grab the link below.

read more

Leaked Samsung device possibly headed to Sprint

Here we see an image of what is claimed to be the Samsung SPH-L300 which, based on its product code, appears to be destined for Sprint in the near future and the folks over at BriefMobile got the first look at this rumored device.  If it hadn't already struck you as looking familiar with it's big silver chin, the HTC Nexus One comes to mind for us but the internals are a definite departure from that original Nexus phone.

Rumored to sport a Qualcomm MSM8960 processor (the Snapdragon S4 chip) which is the same unit as in the LTE enabled HTC One X and Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE, this phone should pack quite the punch should it come to fruition.  Other features and specs this device is reported to have include 1 GB of RAM along with 4 GB of ROM, 4G LTE, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0 all underneath Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich.  However, the display resolution is quite disappointing at only 480x800.  With all that hardware inside, we'd hope to see a 720p resolution display or at least a qHD display, but keep in mind this is still an unconfirmed device and that means things are subject to change.  We'll bring you more info on this as it rolls in.

Source: BriefMobile

Future of CyanogenMod 7 detailed, new device support on the way

While much of the custom ROM community is focused on getting the latest and greatest Ice Cream Sandwich-based goodies onto their devices, the CyanogenMod team continues work on the Gingerbread-based CM7. The current iteration, CyanogenMod 7.2, is being developed alongside the upcoming CyanogenMod 9, and a final release is coming "soon" according to the latest status update.

There's also good news for owners of devices that won't make it up to CM9 -- development on version 7 will continue beyond 7.2, so hopefully no-one should be left in the lurch. Finally, the CM team announced that five new devices have been added to the nightly list for CM7.2 -- the HTC Status (aka ChaCha), HTC Wildfire S, LG Optimus Chic, Motorola Photon and Samsung Galaxy 5.

There're more details to be found in the full CM status update, over at the source link.

Source: CyanogenMod

Behold, the unholy marriage of a Tegra 3 game on a device of Snapdragon S4!

One of the great success last year marketing comes from NVIDIA and its Tegra platform. Tegra 2 began the dual-core era in early 2011. And late last fall, he increased the game even more with the platform Tegra 3hearts.

One of the NVIDIA ' main competitors of s in space, Qualcomm, responded to return in 2012 with a processor dual core Snapdragon S4 and Adreno graphics. And in one of these strange twists that can be done with Android for manufacturing (or so it seems), we ' ve had the opportunity to see it in action in the x a HTC.

There may be a little confused, but. In the United States, the x fact HTC reference (so far) of AT & t ' s version with its Qualcomm processor and LTE. Outside the United States, the version of Qualcomm is called a HTC and Tegra 3 XL is the a x. follow?

Return to Tegra 3. For a time, NVIDIA ' s strategy is firmly based on optimized games available only on devices Tegra 3 Tegra 3 and some only through NVIDIA ' s own Tegra Zone store. A number of titles have been fact their way into Google game store large and is now available on devices non - Tegra 3. We ' re with Riptide GP as our example, because we ' re very familiar with it. Very. He ' s a version in the Google game store that plays on almost all high end devices - Qualcomm S3 and S4, OMAP, Exynos, etc.. She plays very well and our hat ' s off to developers for a great game.

But this same game is loaded on Tegra 3 devices, you will see all kinds of effects and graphics that other processors can only ' handle t. things such as splashes of water on the screen, or a cool hyperspeed blur effect when you use the speed increases. Here ' s what developers have to say .

"RIPTIDE GP IMPROVED TEGRA 3!
The power of the hearts of NVIDIA ' s superchip Tegra 3 allowed us to add even more details and excitement to the experience of Riptide GP.  Tegra 3 players get extra heavyweight-detailed wave mapped to normal, water splashes on the camera and a spectacular movement realistic blur effect when stimulate them.  "Riptide GP seems even better with the power of the Tegra 3!"

Other games, such as Shadowgun THD won ' support even on our propelled S4 x t a HTC. And on GTA3, you must run a Tegra 3 max on all settings and run in frame rate. We can ' t just dismiss these differences, and NVIDIA Gets the blink of eye for the wow factor.

So. What happens when you run one of our favorite games - Riptide GP - on the version of Snapdragon Qualcomm dual-core of the x S4 a HTC? One way to know. A hit the break to see how it is.

Read more