Hasta La Gadget!

What is there to do on a cloudy Friday in Britain? Why, scouring the web for your phone’s firmware update, of course. That’s probably how a Modaco member unearthed the Dell Streak’s latest Android 2.1 build (apparently just for locked O2 devices), anyway. Sure, the link’s quirky domain name and sluggish speed may arouse some suspicion, but our sources have confirmed that this non-final update is indeed coming from Dell (and you can expect the link to be killed soon). Many users — including ourselves — are reporting a successful update and enjoying the same goodies we spotted in our preview: 720p camcorder, a much improved keyboard, live wallpapers, etc. Fancy giving it a shot? Here’s how: copy the .pkg file to the SD card, rename it to “Update.pkg,” then boot the Streak into recovery mode (hold down both volume keys and then power on), and finally choose to recover from said file (your phone will be wiped!). Of course, as with any firmware updates, make sure you have some sort of backup somewhere and tread carefully.

In other news: as promised, Dell’s AT&T Streak ordering page went live today, and yes, it’ll still be shipped with Android 1.6. Looks like xda-developers and Modaco are well on course to beat Dell on releasing a 2.1 or even a 2.2 update.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Looks like someone’s managed to get this firmware working on an officially unlocked Streak. Again, do it at your own risk. And if all fails, you can try going back to the 1.6 firmware.

Dell Streak gets leaked Android 2.1 update in the UK, but still the same ol’ 1.6 in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Modaco  |  Dell (O2 2.1 update), Mediafire (mirror), Dell US  | Email this | Comments

When we asked fine readers like yourself how you’d improve the EOS-1D Mark IV and Rebel T2i not a soul mentioned manually exposed video, but if you were personally plagued by a jittery aperture when shooting said footage with certain lenses (a bug that previously appeared in the 5D Mark II) you’ll be happy to hear Canon diligently decided to fix the issue anyhow. The 1.0.8 firmware updates for both aforementioned DSLRs are now available at our source link, but unless you’ve personally had a problem they may not be worth your time; Canon’s changelog shows aside from fixing a few menu misspellings, the new code does absolutely nothing else.

Canon updates EOS-1D Mark IV and Rebel T2i / 550D firmware, squashes manual exposure movie bug originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink dpreview  |  Canon (EOS-1D Mark IV), Canon (Rebel T2i / 550D)  | Email this | Comments

Uh oh. There’s been a tiny little hitch in the latest EVO 4G update, which has resulted in a number of people finding their superphones becoming unusable. Aside from rooted handsets having their predictable woes with new official software, some users have found that applying the update twice bricked their phones, stock OS and all. That’s pretty worrying, particularly when you consider that checking for updates after a successful install gives you the option to apply it all over again. Sprint and HTC have acted quickly to pull the OTA for the moment, and promise to restore it as soon as its lethal streak has been ironed out:

While the vast majority of consumers successfully downloaded and installed the most recent HTC EVO 4G software update, we have received a handful of reports from customers having some issues with the update. In light of this, HTC and Sprint have decided to temporarily halt distribution of this software release until we can investigate further. We expect to be able to resume software updates shortly.

In the mean time, let’s all just sit, wait, and hope the sky doesn’t fall on our heads.

Sprint halts EVO 4G update due to reports of it bricking phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android Central  |  MobileCrunch  | Email this | Comments

The Android 2.2 source code just went public this morning, but we’re hearing a fully-compiled, legitimate OTA version of Froyo may be hitting small batches of Nexus One handsets as well. Though a 1.78MB ZIP file floating around XDA-developers this afternoon was originally thought to be the droid we’ve all been looking for, Android and Me reports that they received an honest-to-goodness OTA version of FRF83 after trying (and failing) to get that ZIP to work, and we’re getting several similar reports. Let us know in comments if you’ve received a frozen treat of your own.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nexus One getting Android 2.2 FRF83 update over the air? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Android and Me  | Email this | Comments

Pandigital rolls out Novel firmware fix following recall originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Pandigital  | Email this | Comments