Published on Saturday, July 10, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand HTC has released an update to its HTC Sync software for the HTC Aria, and along with it comes the ability to install third-party applications and enable mobile network sharing.  Hallelujah! While this isn't nearly as handy as installing the applications directly from the phone, it's a huge step in the right direction.  The addition of mobile network sha...

Published on Saturday, July 10, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand Finding a parking spot just got a little easier, thanks to Google's new Open Spot app for Android.  The concept is simple enough, fire up the app to see what spots are near (.9 mile radius) you, and the color of the pin tells you how long it's been since someone marked it.  Red means 'freshly-marked', orange pins mean the spot was marked 5 minutes ago, and t...

Published on Saturday, July 10, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand NTP is once again suing over patents they hold for the wireless collection of e-mail data, charging Google, Motorola, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Apple with infringement.  (Seems they forgot carrier pigeon breeders and pilots who fly banner ads).  Many of you will remember the drawn out affair between NTP and RIM, which ended in 2006 with a mega-million dollar ju...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand It's always great to see Android spreading it's robo-love to the smaller guys, and starting today Credo Mobile is carrying the HTC Hero (CDMA).  The Hero, running Android 2.1,  will be offered at $79.99 with a two year agreement, and plans (voice only) start at $59.99 monthly.  Credo Mobile is a small nationwide carrier that uses the Sprint network for ...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand Today is the launch of the Samsung Acclaim on US Cellular, and the nation's sixth-largest carrier has a treat for everyone coming in to pick one up -- the Acclaim (as well as other select handsets), will include Your Navigator Deluxe.  Your Navigator Deluxe is a TeleNav powered turn-by-turn navigation system (very much like SprintNavigator for Sprint smartphones)...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand While some of us use our phones to communicate or play awesome games, there are those who take science and spare time to the next level.  Mike Partain is one of those people.  Using an off-the-shelf Lego NXT robotics kit, a Motorola Droid and a whole bucketful of ingenuity and smarts, Mike has added sensors the robotics kit was missing -- camera, GPS, and co...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Phil Nickinson When we saw Martin Cooper -- the inventor of the cell phone, by the way -- on C-SPAN in March, he was telling us how he gave up his iPhone for the Motorola Droid. Fast forward to today, and he's continuing his praises of everybody's favorite smartphone operating system, this time in a Q&A with CNN. Much of it has to do with his influence on the cell pho...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand The Motorola MB710 (which looks and sounds a lot like the Motoroi) has been cleared by the FCC, and it appears headed to T-Mobile.  The FCC documents include a user manual mockup that shows us MyFaves, and the radio bands (1700 MHz AWS) pretty much scream that T-Mobile is where it's headed.  Wonder which device on the leaked roadmap it could be?What we know ...

Published on Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand The Comscore results for May 2010 are in, and it comes as no surprise that Android is still skyrocketing towards the top spot in US smartphone market share.  While ALL other platforms show a loss, Android comes in with another big jump of 4 percentage points and now has reached a double digit share of 13 percent, just a hair shy of Microsoft's 13.4 percent and po...

Published on Thursday, July 8, 2010 by Jerry Hildenbrand AT&T has released a software update for the Motorola Backflip to improve performance and fix bugs, but it's not an update to Eclair just yet. Instead, you're getting:Improved Text Messaging: General improvements to text messaging - especially for longer message threads.Improved Display: Color and clarity improvements to the display.Camera Correction: Repairs ra...