Augen Gentouch 78 preview

It’s taken quite a bit of chasing (and Kmart stalking) this week to score Augen’s $150 Gentouch Android tablet, but lo’ and behold, the gadget is now in its rightful home… our home! We don’t need to tell you that we ferociously ripped open the box to finally see how the Android 2.1 tablet performs, test out its touchscreen and see if it actually has access to app stores (unlike Augen’s smartbook which we toyed with earlier this week). We’re assuming you’re just as eager to find out the answers to those questions, so hit that read more button for some early impressions as well as a hands-on video.

Continue reading Augen Gentouch 78 preview

Augen Gentouch 78 preview originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New ‘licensing service’ replacing existing copy protection method in Android Market

Copy protection has always been a concern in the Android Market, primarily because applications can be sideloaded onto phones without a root or other modification from the end user. In a brief announcement made today, Eric Chu has made clear that a new method for protecting the work of paid app creators will be implemented long-term, with the plan being to “replace the current Android Market copy-protection mechanism over the next few months.” This new “licensing service” is available now for those that want in, providing developers with a secure mechanism that can ping a Market License Server upon launch in order to see if a particular app was indeed purchased legitimately. It’s hard to say how exactly this will affect usability (specifically in offline scenarios), but it’s certainly an interesting twist to the whole situation. Expect to hear lots of growling on both sides as more and more apps opt to take advantage.

[Thanks, Jonathan]

New ‘licensing service’ replacing existing copy protection method in Android Market originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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aCircuit Board live wallpaper is aMazing (video)

Like teardowns? Ever worn a loose resistor in your pierced 80s earhole just to show the world how geek-punk you really are? Man, have we got the Android Live Wallpaper for you. aCircuit Board is a ¥99 (a bit more than a US buck) animated wallpaper available on the Android Market. Moving fan; binary clock; GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth status lights; a pulsating Android bot; and active circuit paths depending upon where you touch the PCB. Of course, it’s all configurable too, via the options menu. Buy hey, don’t take our word for it, see it in action after the break.

Continue reading aCircuit Board live wallpaper is aMazing (video)

aCircuit Board live wallpaper is aMazing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T explains, basically ignores criticism for locking down Android handsets

AT&T explains, basically ignores criticism for locking down Android handsets

When the Moto Backflip launched we were a wee bit miffed that AT&T stuffed its ROM with what our esteemed Chris Ziegler referred to as “unremovable crapware.” But, even more annoying was the handset being locked down to only accept apps installed via the Android Market, preventing users from the wealth of other goodies floating around these great internets. A few months on the situation is still the same for the HTC Aria and the company is responding directly to criticism with a statement that indicates it’s all in your best interests:

AT&T selected Android Market as the exclusive source for applications because it forces developers to be accountable for the apps they submit. If the Android community has issues with an app, the app can be flagged and removed. This minimizes the risk of malicious apps harming customers and provides more protection to the customer’s private data stored on the phone.

There, don’t you feel safer now?

AT&T explains, basically ignores criticism for locking down Android handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed)

Look, we know that checking the Android Market for updates its a nervous habit during brief periods of downtime for many of us — but for now, you’re going to have to go back to chewing your nails or tapping your fingers on the table, because the Market’s down. Well, that’s only partially true — you can still get into the Market app on your phone without any errors, you just won’t see any apps in there, which renders it pretty useless by our estimation. Hang on, don’t panic — we imagine this won’t last long.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: It’s still down for us on a Froyo Nexus One, but if you take a gander through our comments section, you’ll see that a lot of folks are having no trouble at all — so it’s probably based on your location, your devices, and your operating system. As far as we can tell, it’s not restricted to Froyo since we’ve received a number of tips on the issue and we’re hearing of some Droids that can’t see apps. Keep the observations coming, folks!

Update 2: Google just reached out to us to let us know that it should be fixed and that the total outage was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. They’re apologizing for the inconvenience — but with the Droid X being announced today, can you really hold a grudge?

Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DoubleTwist adds some polish to Android with new media player app

Peruse the Android Market this morrow and you might come across a hot new addition from the folks at DoubleTwist. That’s right, the iTunes-aping desktop sync manager has gone native on the Android platform and early feedback on its media player implementation has been positive. The free music and video player app does that whole seamless thing quite well, apparently, interfacing directly with your Windows or Mac computerino and porting over relevant playlists, ratings and media. A widget and other features are coming soon, though you’ll likely have to pay for them, given the “free for a limited time” note on the download page. Better get it while the gettin’s good.

DoubleTwist adds some polish to Android with new media player app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skype Mobile with video support coming to Android Market later this year?

Skype’s PR folks have been unusually loquacious today, as they’ve responded to a query about whether HTC’s EVO 4G would get a Skype client with a deep and meaningful forward-looking statement, underpinned by a promise of an Android app “for all consumers globally to download regardless of carriers.” This universally available addition to the Market should arrive “later this year,” but what’s important about it is that it’s preceded by a lengthy spiel about Skype’s ambition to “set the bar on mobile video calling,” which it also intends to do this year. Does this necessarily mean that Skype video calling is coming to Android in time for us to wish granny happy Hanukkah over video chat? No. Is it a well constructed insinuation to that effect? Hell yes. Read the full statement at the source, or find the juiciest excerpt after the break.

[Thanks, Jeremy]

Continue reading Skype Mobile with video support coming to Android Market later this year?

Skype Mobile with video support coming to Android Market later this year? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 06:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android

Sure sure, Froyo is great and all, but Google just blew our minds with two previews of upcoming Android features at I/O: OTA application installation and remote music streaming. OTA installation is just as simple as you’d expect — after browsing to an app on your desktop, you can push it to your phone and install it with just a single click, all done over the air. Interestingly, Google also showed music being purchased and transferred from Android Marketplace in the same way, which could indicate a deeper push towards music integration, or just be a nice demo. Either way, it’s pretty slick stuff — the fewer wires we have to carry, the better.

The remote music streaming is a little crazier: Google bought a company called Simplify Media, which makes a bit of desktop software that can stream all your music directly from iTunes to your phone. The demo was quite slick — you just open the app and push “all,” and all your music is instantly available. Whether or not this’ll work over 3G or be limited to the local network is still up in the air, but we’re dying to try it out.

Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android support for memory card app storage is finally ‘coming soon’

Android support for memory card app storage is finally

One of the biggest complaints with Android since the dawn of civilization is that the expansive plains of storage available on microSD cards have been left under-utilized; coldly ignored by the OS while it did everything it could to stuff the measly couple-hundred megs of internal storage with apps. Soon that problem will finally be rectified, with a Google representative closing the long-running Issue 1151. The issue, which covers external installation of apps, was opened in October of 2008 and since then was voted on by 2561 people, all of whom want Google to set their memory cards free. Exactly when this functionality is coming it remains to be seen, but the “coming soon” note in comment 535 is very encouraging. Froyo, anyone?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Android support for memory card app storage is finally ‘coming soon’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 May 2010 08:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Market clears the 50,000 app mark, says AndroLib

Google has never been too inclined to give the world the straight dope on total app counts in the Android Market, but other companies — notably AndroLib — have been happy to try to pick up the slack. The app tracking site now reports a grand total of 50,031 approved binaries as of this writing, marking a pretty magical milestone in light of the Market’s humble beginnings as a free-only cache of a handful of apps for the G1. To be fair, AndroLib is aggregating across all of the Market’s regional sites — you won’t find 50,000 apps in any one Market alone — but it’s undoubtedly a solid sign for the platform. Now we just need a little Froyo to go with that, right?

Android Market clears the 50,000 app mark, says AndroLib originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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