Hasta La Gadget!

StumbleUpon’s been serving up crowdsourced, personalized website recommendations since the turn of the century with the simple idea that like-minded surfers will enjoy the same stuff, and if that sounds like a fantastic formula for recommending apps, then you’re in a spot of luck. StumbleUpon’s bringing App recommendations to Android today as part of an update to its app, and we have to say, the program’s got some potential if it catches on.

As with all crowdsourced software, StumbleUpon’s not terribly good at its job right off the bat and a moderately unresponsive UI (with tiny touchscreen buttons) doesn’t really help, but the app presently pulls from a set of existing Android app databases that give it a nice head start. After you log in with your StumbleUpon ID, it asks you if it can (a la AppBrain) take a look at the existing apps on your phone, after which point it displays likely correlations one by one (complete with descriptions, screenshots and Android Market star ratings) for you to vote up or down. We got quite a few flashlights, soundboards and fart machines, mind you, but most everything we saw had plenty of ratings and at least four stars, and a good number of our favorites (and some probable soon-to-be-favorites) popped up as well, and voting up and down app concepts is an amusing diversion in and of itself. Sadly, it doesn’t use your existing StumbleUpon topic preferences to recommend apps, but it will hopefully align them to your tastes soon, assuming that enough folks can look past the iffy UI long enough to help their fellows and give the free app a go. PR after the break.

Update: It’s on the Android Market right now — find it at our source link, or use the handy-dandy QR code at right.

Continue reading StumbleUpon launches App Discovery on Android, trips over clumsy interface

StumbleUpon launches App Discovery on Android, trips over clumsy interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We got our first taste of Navigon‘s MobileNavigator for Android way back at CES last January, and since then Googlephone users across Europe have been merrily navigating around using the thing. Finally, Americans get our chance, with Navigon announcing a North American release. This version includes maps of the good ‘ol US of A, downloaded to the storage card (1.5GB worth) to enable full offline navigation, though you’ll need a connection to get traffic updates. There’s an improved Reality View Pro mode, which shows “photo realistic 3D views” of street signs and, the cream of this frothy app, a new Reality Scanner mode. This Layar-like view overlays nav and POI information over a real-time stream of the world from the phone’s camera, letting you spot that Stuckey’s from afar. The app hits the Android Market today for $39, but that’s one of those limited time deals. After two weeks it jumps up to $59, so don’t be slow with the clicking.

Continue reading Navigon MobileNavigator finally hits American Androids, includes augmented reality POI view

Navigon MobileNavigator finally hits American Androids, includes augmented reality POI view originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 06:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tired of wading through dissertations in hopes of grokking a hacked-up method of overclocking your Droid X and / or Droid 2? Clearly, you aren’t alone. Unstable Apps has just released a $0.99 gem that enables one-tap overclocking on the aforementioned phones, with DX/D2 Overclocker giving users the option to run at low voltage, stock voltage or two higher-than-recommended voltages. Of course, given just how simple it is to potentially ruin your handset, we’d highly encourage using common sense and rational judgment when pushing the proverbial envelope. You know, the kind of judgment that convinces you to sing Bell Biv DeVoe’s Poison in a karaoke bar full of your closest colleagues.

Droid X and Droid 2 gain overclocking app: painlessly push your CPU for just $1 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lack of Google’s official app store has been a thorn in the side of would-be Android tablet makers for a good long while, and it looks like the Tegra 2-powered Advent Vega will be no exception when it hits the high street tomorrow. Electricpig took the £249 device for a spin, chatting up Advent product manager Adam Lockyer the whole time, and discovered that while the 10-inch tablet will come with the 5,000-app-strong Archos AppsLib store, it won’t have Android Market at launch. “The plan is that when you get to January time, there’s a new release of Android and you’ll be able to get the marketplace on this product,” Lockyer said, suggesting that maybe — just maybe — the availability of Android Market itself might be one of the fragmentation issues Google intends to fix in Gingerbread. Wouldn’t that be nice? Video after the break.

[Thanks, Chak I.]

Continue reading Advent Vega tablet won’t come with Android Market, might get it as part of Gingerbread update (video)

Advent Vega tablet won’t come with Android Market, might get it as part of Gingerbread update (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Oct 2010 13:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hardcore hobbyists have been controlling their Mindstorms NXT creations with all sorts of paraphernalia for years, but now Lego itself is stepping in to lend a hand. The new MINDroid app just splashed down in the Android Market, and it enables Android 2.1 (or greater) handsets to dictate Mindstorms NXT robots over Bluetooth. According to Lego, tilting / turning the phone can make the robot move forward, turn to the sides, and by pressing an action button on the phone’s screen, activate the ‘Action’ motor. Given that the download will cost you absolutely nothing, what are you waiting for? Your robot army awaits your commands.

Lego’s MINDroid Android app remotely controls Mindstorms NXT robots originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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