Hasta La Gadget!

Keeping up with their promise from Friday, Motorola and Verizon have begun rolling out the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the DROID RAZR HD and the DROID RAZR MAXX HD. Over-the-air update notifications are slowly hitting users’ devices, and new RAZR owners will finally be able to experience Project Butter, Google Now, and ISIS enhancements.

While Verizon simply said that update would hit sometime this week, we’re glad it’s happening first thing rather than later in the week on a Thursday or Friday. Either way, Verizon is pushing out the update “in phases,” so be patient if you haven’t yet seen the update hit your notification tray — it will come!

The Jelly Bean update comes with Google Now, which offers a Siri-like voice search experience that we really like, as well as Project Butter, which adds a layer of virtual butter to the user interface to make it snappier and smoother to navigate, as well as make it quicker to open up apps and switch between them effortlessly.

The DROID RAZR HD comes with a 4.7-inch 720p Super AMOLED display and runs on a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5GHz with 1GB of RAM. While the 2530mAh battery may be plenty for most users, Motorola launched the RAZR MAXX HD, which is practically identical to the RAZR HD, except for the larger 3300mAh battery for those who really want to last all day long.

Motorola DROID RAZR HD, MAXX HD Jelly Bean update rolling out now is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

One of Gameloft’s popular mobile racing games, GT Racing: Motor Academy, is getting an update thanks to a partnership with Red Bull, which will see three new cars added to the game. The three cars are the F1 RB8 (F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel’s 2012 ride), the Camaro SS, and the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, all of which are plastered in Red Bull paint schemes.

Also, Gameloft and Red Bull Media House are partnering up and hosting an international contest that can be accessed directly through the new update in the game. Gamers all around the world will be able to compete against each other in different races, and the one with the best times will get two VIP tickets to a F1 Grand Prix.

Gonzague de Vallois, Senior Vice President of Publishing at Gameloft, says that the company is “thrilled to work with Red Bull Media House…Red Bull has been very active in the world of car racing for years, and we couldn’t be more excited to have one of our most popular racing simulations…associated with this leading brand.”

The video above shows off the three cars in action, and the update is rolling out today for the iPhone and iPad. Users who already own the game will see an update for it in their App Store app, while new users can download the game starting today that will already have the new Red Bull cars included.

GT Racing: Motor Academy gets 3 new Red Bull-themed cars is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After updating their Android app with Microsoft account login abilities, Skype is doing the same for its iOS app today. The company has issued an update for the app that follows along with their plans to merge Windows Live Messenger with Skype. Along with the Microsoft account login, the app adds animated emoticons and a few other welcomed additions that users will find useful.

Users are now able to login to the Skype app using either their Messenger, Hotmail, or Outlook.com credentials, and then merge their accounts once they’re in. Users can also chat with their friends who use any of these Microsoft services straight from Skype, thanks to the integrated Microsoft account support.

If you have an iOS device with a Retina display, you can now also enjoy animated emoticons. We’re not sure why Skype limited this new feature to only Retina displays, but if you’re using a last-gen iDevice, you’re stuck using the inanimate emoticons until you can upgrade, but it’s probably not a huge deal for most users.

The updated app also lets you set up a new Skype account from directly within the iOS app. It also allows you to edit instant messages you’ve sent to your friends by tapping and holding individual messages. And as usual, you’ll find that Skype also included a handful of bug fixes and general performance enhancements.

Skype for iOS is a free download, and the new update is available now in the iTunes App Store.

Skype for iOS updates with Microsoft account login, animated emoticons is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Skype just released version 3.0 on Android, which brings its new Microsoft account login feature, as well a revamped Android user interface. Skype has optimized the new tablet UI for the Galaxy Tab 2, Nexus 7, the Transformer Prime from ASUS, and a few others. Menus and navigation have been redesigned to make use of the extra screen real estate, and while the home screen still exists on the phone version, your contact list will be front and center most of the time on a tablet.

However, we noticed that the new Skype update on the Nexus 7 is landscape only, and the camera is portrait style, meaning that the camera doesn’t use up as much of the screen as it could. Definitely a bummer indeed, but the update still brings a lot of new design tweaks to Android tablets, and we can’t complain too much about it.

Skype for Android 3.0 also brings support for the company’s audio codec, SILK. The codec was designed to improve sound specifically with the human voice, so that talking would sound more crisp and clear. The codec collaborates with your internet connection speed, so that the audio quality is optimized as much as it can be.

Overall, the new additions are welcomed, but we noticed the app ran a little too slow for our liking, especially when launching the app, since the splash screen stays on for a good 8-10 seconds. Either way, try it out for yourself. The Skype update is out now and it’s available at the Google Play store.

Skype 3.0 arrives on Android with Microsoft login and new tablet UI is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of November 5th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Refresh Roundup: week of November 5th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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