Hasta La Gadget!

As promised, it seems that T-Mobile’s version of the Vibrant is getting Froyo today after a brutally long wait. The good news is that you won’t need to wait for a staggered rollout, apparently — but the bad news is that currently you’ll need to get it using Samsung’s Kies Mini PC app, not over-the-air. Tethered updates are always less convenient than their OTA equivalents (though Samsung continues to be particularly fond of them), and in the case of Kies Mini, there’s no Mac version, so you’ll need to be near a Windows machine to make it happen. This hasn’t been officially announced yet, though commenters over on TmoNews appear to be having luck — so if you give it a go, let us know how you fare.

Samsung Vibrant’s Android 2.2 update now available, it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  TmoNews  | Email this | Comments

It’s here, what looks to be the world’s first attempt at overclocking a Samsung Galaxy Tab. User Bauxite at the always happening xda-developers forums has posted the way to boosting Samsung’s hunk of burning Android up to 1.2GHz — along with some seriously stern warnings:

THIS KERNEL MAY NOT WORK ON YOUR DEVICE, MIGHT DESTROY YOUR DEVICE, MIGHT PUNCH YOUR CHILDREN, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY THIS KERNEL, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Initial user reports are generally positive but, given the risk and the complexity here we think we’ll be staying at the stock 1GHz speed. For now, anyway.

[Thanks, Alain]

Galaxy Tab gets 1.2GHz overclock, very scary warning originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  xda-developers  | Email this | Comments

Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he’s unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java. That’s a big deal, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement in Android — which isn’t a hard case to prove when you’ve got 37 Android source files marked “PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE” by Oracle / Sun and at least six more files in Froyo and Gingerbread that appear to have been decompiled from Java 2 Standard Edition and redistributed under the Apache open source license without permission. In simple terms? Google copied Oracle’s Java code, pasted in a new license, and shipped it.

Now, we’ve long thought Google’s odd response to Oracle’s lawsuit seemingly acknowledged some infringement, so we doubt this is a surprise in Mountain View, but we’re guessing handset vendors aren’t going to be so thrilled — especially since using Android has already caused companies like HTC and Motorola to be hit with major patent lawsuits of their own. We’ll see what happens, but in the meantime you should definitely hit up Florian’s site for the full dirt — it’s some 47 pages worth of material, and it’s dense, but if you’re into this sort of thing it’s incredibly interesting.

Update: It appears things aren’t this simple, but they’re still not great. Check here for the latest.

Oops: Android contains directly copied Java code, strengthening Oracle’s case (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  FOSSpatents  | Email this | Comments

Canadians, you must chafe under the yoke of a Gingerbread-free existence no longer, for the Nexus S is coming to the Great White North sometime in March. According to Mobilicity CEO Dave Dobbin, the handset will be available on the company’s AWS band, but he also said that Bell, Telus, and Rogers will carry the Nexus S as well. If true, that means Samsung will be providing another model of the phone with support for WCDMA 850 / 1900 for it to work with Canada’s big three wireless providers. We can only hope that’s the case, as said model would be usable on AT&T’s network — making an awful lot of us living south of Canada quite happy. Peep the video after the break to hear the good news for yourself.

Continue reading Nexus S comes to Canada courtesy of Mobilicity (and maybe Bell, Telus, and Rogers, too)

Nexus S comes to Canada courtesy of Mobilicity (and maybe Bell, Telus, and Rogers, too) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mobile Syrup  |  Howard Forums  | Email this | Comments

Motorola files dozens upon dozens of FCC certifications a year, so what makes us so sure this here IHD-P56LS1 is the might Atrix 4G for AT&T? Fair question: for one thing, it’s got 850 and 1900MHz 3G (or 4G, in AT&T parlance). Furthermore, it’s approved for 5GHz 802.11n WiFi, which is extraordinarily rare for a phone — and it was a feature Moto was sure to pimp during the Atrix’s CES unveiling. Oh, and finally, it’s identified in the filing as model number MB860, which would be the Atrix’s model number. So yeah, there’s one more checkmark to tick off prior to release… which hopefully won’t be too much longer, because we’re seriously jonesing to do some laptop docking.

Motorola Atrix 4G gets FCC approval originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  FCC  | Email this | Comments