droid

HTC and Verizon officially announce Droid Incredible

After an early slip up, HTC and Verizon Wireless officially introduced HTC's latest Android smartphone on Thursday, the Droid Incredible.

The Droid Incredible will hit stores on April 29 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. It runs Android 2.1 and the latest version of HTC Sense. The latter includes such features as a new Leap screen where you can view thumbnail versions of all seven home screens for easy switching, a FriendStream widget, and group contacts. All should run smoothly given the smartphone's 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

As far as … Read more

The 404 557: Where we just add water (podcast)

Wilson's taking a three-day weekend to recuperate from last week's Apple madness, so Natali takes his place to kick off this week of Apple-free episodes...not. Just when you thought Apple would let someone else have the news spotlight, out comes Stop the Madness Steve Jobs, an open letter written by developer Jack Freeman about Apple recently changing the requirements in the iPhone OS terms of service, limiting the programming languages developers can use to create applications.

According to the letter, "these new terms will shut down many current developers, and disallow many popular game engines and other "middlewares." The article also pleads with Jobs to filter the current app store based on quality of the end product instead of the programming methods. There's no petition to sign, but Jack encourages all supportive developers to comment on the letter and forward it to friends!

Meanwhile, in Droid country, a YouTube channel called DROIDshortcuts is showing off codes that let you use the phone to access very "special" features including changing traffic lights and improving your billiards game.

The most controversial app lets you detect a woman's bra size with a simple swipe of the handset. The video demo posted shows a couple guys walking into a "random" bar and asking the bartender's permission to "scan" her female parts with the Droid, although we're pretty sure this is old technology--version 1.0 didn't even need a phone; it was just called using your eyes.

Finally, we have some bad news for fans of "Arrested Development"--the much-discussed movie adaptation might actually be dead in the water, or at least that's what star David Cross recently said to a reporter, claiming too much time has passed since the series finale. It's not an official death sentence, so we'll just have to assume that the movie would've been a crappy, stretched-out version of the series anyway. Hopefully.

EPISODE 557 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

How Motorola's Droid can unlock bra sizes

YouTube is graced by a channel called DROIDshortcuts. Here you will find many vastly serious ways in which you can use special codes on your Droid to improve your life and make you a better person.

You can, for example, use your Droid to change the traffic lights. You can use it to improve your pool prowess. That would be pool hall, rather than swimming pool.

However, many readers might find the most spiritedly enchanting video on this channel the one that reveals the unlock code that releases one of the Droid's most needed features. At least for the … Read more

Android 2.1 officially rolling out to Droid owners

After a very limited release, all Motorola Droid users are finally getting their Android 2.1 updates. Moto said the official rollout to Verizon customers began on Friday and will continue over the next few weeks in batches. Droid owners will receive a notification on their phones when Android 2.1 is ready for download.

You can find the official release notes here (PDF). Let us know how it goes for you.

Buzz Out Loud 1195: Five years. You're welcome, tech world. (podcast)

It's our five-year anniversary today, and wow, is that a long time. We've been here longer than the iPhone (rumors of a Verizon phone announced in June), almost as long as it took the U.S. House to ask the FTC to investigate Google Buzz, and about how long it will take Verizon to actually deliver the Android 2.1 rollout to Droid users.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1195

Two new iPhones coming: one for Verizon http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575152242601774892.html http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/29/wsj-apple-developing-new-iphone-plus-another-for-verizon/ … Read more

Droid owners to get Android 2.1?

After what must seem like an eternity to Motorola Droid owners, Android 2.1 could start rolling out to handsets this afternoon. That is, of course, provided you believe the Engadget report from today.

The site got its hands on an internal Verizon e-mail that was sent out early this morning, and, from what we can tell, all signs point to it being legitimate. We've asked Verizon for confirmation and will let you know when we have a reply.

According to Engadget, 1,000 people will receive notification today that an update is available for their phones. Another 9,… Read more

Google's Nexus One vs. brick and mortar

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--Of all the reasons put forth asserting why Google's Nexus One is not selling, I subscribe to the most simple one: no brick-and-mortar stores.

When the estimates came out showing the initial 74-day sales tallies of the Google Nexus One were a fraction of the iPhone and Droid, it was fodder for a lot of opinion about why Google's phone had already failed--or not. (The Apple iPhone hit 1 million on day 74, according to Flurry).

Allow me to ignore a lot of well-reasoned arguments about how Google is trying to break the typical … Read more

Battle Royale: Five smartphone screens face off

With the recent release of DisplayMate Multimedia Edition for Mobile Displays, a battery of tests to measure the quality of portable screens--and apparently because I'm a glutton for punishment--I thought now would be the perfect time to bring five popular smartphones back to CNET Labs for a down-and-dirty comparison of their screen performance.

The five phones I chose to put through the ringer (ahem) are the Samsung Behold II, the Motorola Droid, the Apple iPhone 3GS, the HTC Nexus One by Google, and the Palm Pre Plus. These five were chosen because of their relative popularity and similar feature sets.

We used three different types of tests to evaluate each phone:

Scientific measurements: We used the Konica Minolta CS-200 ChromaMeter to test the maximum brightness, black level, and contrast ratio of each phone and reported numbers for each of these three tests.

Test pattern screens: We used several DisplayMate Mobile test patterns to test for color-tracking errors, 24-bit color, and font legibility, among others.

Real-world: Finally, we conducted real-world anecdotal testing using 3D games, photos, and a little tool I like to call "the Sun" to test the diffuse reflectance of each display.

All test screens were viewed within each phone's native gallery application. Some phones may handle pictures differently--and even improve them to some extent--outside the application. That said, we believe that testing within the respective gallery applications is still a viable test as this is where most users will view pictures on their phones.

In order to diminish potential repetition, I'll dive right into the details of how each phone performed; if you'd like to know more about our tests, you can binge off nerdy details in our "How we tested" section at the bottom of this article. Please note that this is an evaluation of each phone's screen performance and nothing else. Check out the full reviews of these phones to determine which is right for you. Also, DisplayMate recently conducted a more technically focused evaluation of the iPhone 3GS' and the Nexus One's screens that I recommend you take a look at.

The bottom line… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1186: Free chickens for all (podcast)

If 3D is the chicken and the Avatar DVD is the egg, somehow we should all get free chickens or 3D is DOA. Or something like that. We've all still got a bit of a BBQ hangover from our time in Austin, but at least Rafe's here to make a little sense. Oh, wait, he came up with the 3D chicken thing. Anyway, Facebook rules the Web, IE 9 may or may not embrace actual standards, and Droid users are getting 2.1, finally. We're home.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) … Read more