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If unlocking your phone by looking at it is already old hat, fear not: Google have filed a patent that would allow you to access your phone using your voice. I should make it clear that this doesn’t appear to necessarily mean voice recognition unlocking, but perhaps allowing a user to set their phone to respond to an “Oi, wake up” sort of command.

Either way, I can’t see that particular function catching on as - while certainly novel in the same way Face Unlock is - it’s not the most discrete way of getting into your phone, and would be utterly nightmarish if it were to catch on with those numpties who insist on checking Facebook in the cinema.

But it’s good to know that Google is getting some more tricks up its sleeve to counter the slew of lockscreen-based legal disputes arch-rival Apple has brought upon Android manufacturers like Samsung.


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On the 12th February, we brought you this leak. On the 19th February, LG has announced the Vu!

The Vu has a 5 inch screen, 8 megapixel camera, 1.3 mega pixel front camera and a 1024x768 resolution 4:3 aspect ratio display(!)

The screen, while lower resolution than the 1280x800 Super AMOLED item on the Galaxy Note, has a display brightness of 650 nits, and is IPS. IPS stands for In-Plane Switching, its name comes from the main difference from TN (Twisted Nematic) displays, that the crystal molecules move parallel to the panel plane instead of perpendicular to it. This change reduces the amount of light scattering in the matrix, which gives IPS its characteristic wide viewing angles and good color reproduction.

Other important specifications are:

• 8.5mm thick
  
• 168g in weight
  
• 2080 mAh battery

It has a 32gb eMMC, which is an embedded storage solution, it may not be upgradable or removable, and there is no mention of an additional memory card slot. It will support HDMI and DLNA, and the CPU is a 1.5ghz dual core Qualcomm processor.

Lastly, it is running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but LG have promised within 3 months of release (not sure if those are actual months or 'LG months', an Android 4.0 ICS update will be available.

Are any of you guys interested in this? Will you be replacing your Dell Streak with one of these, or considering the Galaxy Note?

Source:LG


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If you, like many Android users, have given much of your digital life over to the big G in the sky (Google that is, not, you know...) and like a bit of Twitter, then perhaps CloudMagic is for you.

It is a simple-to-use search app that will rapidly (and I mean very rapidly) scour multiple Google accounts for Gmail, Docs, Contacts, and Calendar as well as the aforementioned Twitter.

Even entering a couple of letters will turn up a quick and invariably accurate search of all your G goodies, or narrow it down to searching just one of the services you use. If you want to be more specific still you can enter an operative “from:...”, “filename:...” to hunt down exactly what you’re after.

Voice searches are supported, but either due to my East-Midlands non-accent or feeling I’m being put on the spot by my phone, these things never seem to work well for me, so I’ll just say that the option is there.

The app is very good as it stands, but in order to make it truly indispensable the CloudMagic wand needs to be waved over other services such as SMS, Google+, GoogleTalk, Facebook, even your apps and so on. I know they aren’t all strictly “cloud” based, but I’d love to see the speed and simplicity of CloudMagic applied in a way you can use it for everything.

In spite of that it’s well deserving of the 4.5 stars it has on the Android Market.



Source: Android Market
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Enormously popular custom ROM builders CyanogenMod recently requested help from the Android community to help fund the purchase of new servers.

Having lost access to a large computer cluster, the team were no longer able to get through the 50+ nightly builds they were used to.

While you might expect our beloved Android community to rally round rather quickly, the level of funding necessary was reached in less than a day - the plea and the thank you message on CyanogenMod.com both being published on 18th Feb!

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Stories like this are a perfect illustration of how tight-knit the Android universe is, and how valuable both top-notch developers and faithful, supportive users are to its future. Keep on keeping on, Android fans.

Source: CyanogenMod
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In the second of our fortnightly 'MoDaCo Recommends...' features, we would like to know about your chosen social media apps for Android or Windows Phone.

How do you keep up with your Twitter feeds, Facebook timeline, or other Social Media platforms? Which tool gives you the best user experience? If you are like me, you will have tried a variety of apps before settling on one or two that satisfy your need.
Now is your chance to share your favourites with the MoDaCo community.

Make your nominations in the comments - you have until Thursday evening to give us your suggestions, with the voting starting at 9am on Friday.

Please only give a single nomination, along with any reasons for using your chosen app.

Get nominating!
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If you are looking for a cheap Android phone and the Orange San Francisco isn't your thing then you will be pleased to know that Three have reduced the Galaxy Ace down to £99.99

Coming with Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box with a reasonable 800MHz CPU and 320x480 resolution it's quite a decent little phone for the money... and with it being a Samsung the build quality is pretty good.

Three.co.uk have this tasty little phone available online or in store right now. Click the link below for more details!

Source: Three.co.uk


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Fresh from Hot UK Deals comes another bargain price for a ZTE handset, and this time it's the popular favourite Orange San Francisco aka ZTE Blade.

When this phone was released back in 2010 it very quickly became the fastest selling and most popular budget Android device ever - and it's still popular even today!

Argos.co.uk are selling both the grey and the white phones for £63.99 and £62.99 respectively. A mandatory top up of £10 is required as pointed out by some readers.

The phone will come with an Orange customised build of Android 2.1. Power users may want to follow our easy guides to upgrading the phones to Android 2.2 or Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Those living on the edge might even want to try the Android 4.0.3 alpha builds currently available thanks to some talented people.

We are proud to have the largest ZTE Blade forum around and if you buy one of these phones, why not join in?

You can go to the product listings on the Argos website by clicking these links:
Orange San Francisco in grey
Orange San Francisco in white

UPDATE: Sadly stock has almost run dry for this deal.

Source: Hot UK Deals


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At long, long last the Swype Beta has made its way (officially) to Android 4.0 and the Galaxy Nexus. Rejoice!

I was dumbfounded when I booted mine up for the first time and was punched in the face with the news that Swype wasn’t compatible with my phone and its odd 720x1184 resolution.

‘Big deal,’ I thought and got down to business using the stock keyboard to text a man about a dog. I may as well have eaten my thumbs and bashed at the keyboard with my nose for all the sense my messages were making. I even bought SlideIt (for a cool 10 pence) as an alternative. It works, but it’s not the same.


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Following on from our exclusive details on HTC's forthcoming Endeavor flagship phone... our tipster has some more details for you!

We already covered a lot of the basics in our earlier post, but now we have some more specifics!

First and foremost is one of the key selling points of this phone. We don't have exact dimensions but it's THIN, without compromising HTC's renowned build quality. There's a lot of thin devices out there now, but many leave something to be desired in the construction... the Endeavor will buck that trend.

There has been a lot of discussion about the button configuration and although leaks have shown hardware buttons on the front, we can confirm that the keys will be on screen, with only a power button and volume rocker adorning the device. If you are a fan of the multi colour LED on the Galaxy Nexus i'm afraid you're going to be disappointed here... the Endeavor is packing a green / amber notification LED only.

As you'd expect, the audio experience on the device is 'Beats' branded both in software and on the back of the device and as with the Sensation XE / XL, the device will ship with a pair of Beats buds in box. Like the Galaxy Nexus, the Endeavor has a 5-pogo-pin setup for a speaker dock that is also likely to be Beats branded as is an optional Bluetooth speaker bar... let's hope HTC can ship in a more timely fashion than Samsoogle!

Another feature the device shares with the Galaxy Nexus is no microSD slot! Nope, no microSD expansion... although at least the device has 32GB of onboard memory as standard, which, intriguingly does support mass storage mode, which isn't offered in stock ICS. That said, i've been told by someone with one of these mythical beasts that, as usual, a relatively small slice of the 32GB is lost immediately to system partitions etc.

If you're coming from anything but a RAZR or an iPhone, get ready to trim your SIM. In the quest for thinness, only microSIMs are welcome here.

Power comes for a 1800mAh battery, we're not sure if this is removable as yet.

The Tegra3 processor is now confirmed as a 'nVidia AP33 1.5GHz / XMM6260' device, so we shouldn't be short of horsepower, along with 1GB RAM. The 4.7" HD720 screen is of the Super LCD variety... no OLED here - whether that is a positive or a negative i'll let you decide. Whether this means the device will or will not have a pentile matrix configuration a-la-Galaxy Nexus i'm not sure... if it doesn't that'll be a definite bonus.

We spoke of the quad band HSPA radio before, this will be HSDPA 3GPP Release 7 compliant with a 21Mbps peak rate and HSUPA for the upstream with a 5.76Mbps peak rate. Bluetooth 4.0 is present (we'll see this grow in popularity over the coming months) along with 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi (2.4GHz/5GHz).

All the usual array of sensors are present... A-GPS, motion sensor, FM radio (this is a GOOD thing in my book), a digital compass, proximity sensor, light sensor and gyro. NFC is included as you'd expect for a flagship device now.

The camera is a 8 Megapixel item with a backlit sensor (so the snaps should be pretty decent) and LED flash, 1080P recording with stereo mics (also used for noise reduction)! The front facing camera is 1.3MP for HD video calls.

Software wise, as you'd expect Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 is on board, although our sources tell us this is likely to get bumped to at least 4.0.5 prior to launch. This is combined with Sense 4.0, which streamlines HTC Sense and sources say will be much more appealing to both existing Sense users and power users.

I don't know about you, but i'm putting my name down first on the list for one of these babies...
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On the 9th February, Motorola Mobility announced they are releasing the Defy Mini in Europe.

It's a cute device, running Android 2.3.7, and is IP67 certified, With dust-proof, water-resistant and a scratch-resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass display.



Hardware highlights include; MSM7225A 600mhz ArmV7 processor, 512mb RAM, 3 Megapixel Camera, LED Flash, and a 3.2 inch HVGA display.

But that is where the good stuff stops, because since Motorola's Software Update Release schedule has been published, it's clear that the Defy Mini is the new Motorola Flipout, in other words it's staying on it's release version of Android indefinitely. Add in the fact that Motorola lock down their bootloaders, this handset has little chance of a custom rom community.

I would advise to avoid this handset unless Motorola change it's mind and announce Android 4.0 ICS for it as an update... do you agree?

Source:Motorola
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Motorola have spilled more beans on their Android software update plan. For now, we have confirmation that the DROID RAZR, DROID RAZR MAXX, DROID 4, DROID BIONIC, DROID XYBOARD 8.2 and 10.1, and MOTOROLA XOOM WiFI + 3G/4G will be upgraded to Android 4.0 ICS, but no exact details of when.

Motorola have historically been very vague (and often late) with Android software updates. Their flagship device, the Motorola RAZR, has been marked with a "ICS upgrade rollout begins in Q2 2012" tag. From this information all we can glean is that the update may arrive from April onwards...

Here at MoDaCo we hope that the planned, and almost completed, takeover of Motorola Mobility by Google will change the way Android updates are rolled out to devices. If you're a Motorola device owner, we hope you'll be singing "ICS ICS Baby!" by the end of 2012.

Hit the link below for the source at the Motorola Mobility Owners' Forum to get excited (or maybe disappointed) with the upgrade plans.

Source: Motorola Android Software Update News


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An interesting post was recently put up on CyanogenMod’s Google+ page. In it, Sven Dawitz discusses the use of OnSkreen’s recently open-sourced window manager – Cornerstone. The plan is to integrate it into the tablet version of CM9.

At the current stage, it’s just in testing, but there are some shots that prove it works. CM says:

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So, we could theoretically see it if all goes well. Obviously the software is of most use on tablets, where the extra screen space affords the use of more windows. A multi-paned approach is being taken by Microsoft in Windows 8’s Metro interface, and the addition of it to Android may boost the utility of Android tablets quite significantly.

Source: Google+


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The popular Android benchmark tool Quadrant has just received its first update in a fair while. With it comes multicore and ICS support - things that had been notably missing from before.

The previous version had long gone un-updated through the beginning of the Dual Core era, where it gradually started drawing disdain as it could easily be fooled with small software tweaks. Now that true support for newer devices is in, perhaps this benchmark will regain some credibility it had lost in the last year or so.

It is worth noting that the scoring system has changed, and thus you cannot compare results from version 2.0 with those from previous editions. All versions have been updated, including the free version on the market and the Advanced version on SlideMe.

Get it now from the Market: Quadrant Standard
Or Quadrant Advanced from SlideMe: Quadrant Advanced


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Two morsels of cheap Windows Phone goodness for you today.

First is news of a ZTE Tania price drop. As seen on Clove, the Tania will be launching at £199.99 unlocked on 16th February. £200 is a very decent price for a 4.3in smartphone, considering it also packs a 1GHz CPU and a sizeable chunk of that fee also goes towards licencing Windows Phone from Microsoft.

The Tania’s direct competition is from the Nokia Lumia 710 here in the UK, which is £250 unlocked, but £200 PAYG. However, what if you want to go even lower in price?

A report from TechRadar suggests that we will be seeing a lower specced Lumia appearing at MWC. The device, the Lumia 610, will apparently feature Windows Phone Tango, an interim version that will increase hardware support, presumably to allow for lower end devices. Hence we may see the 610 with a smaller, low res screen, or maybe a slower, cheaper CPU. Either way, it seems we may know by the end of the month.

Tania: Clove
Lumia 610: TechRadar


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Well, it looks like the HTC Endeavor (or whatever it shall eventually be called) won't be the only device appearing at MWC sporting a Tegra 3 chip... as it will be joined by the LG X3 (internal name P880), LG's new flagship device!

Our secret source inside LG has been in touch to let us know that the features include...

• 4.7" HD 720x1280 screen
  
• Tegra 3 Quad core processor (1.5GHz on single core, 1.4GHz when on 2-4 cores) + SMP Core (core companion) for IDLE task operations which will save battery life
  
• 2000mAh battery
  
• 16GB internal memory + microSD slot
  
• 8MP camera with ultra fast shutter
  
• 1.3MP Front Facing camera
  
• Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3

Now, not only has our contact spilled the specs (which confirm what have been posted elsewhere), but they've winged us a couple of screenshots too, which i've posted below (click for full size versions).

What can we glean from the screenshots? We can see the device is benching at a jaw-dropping 4412 points in 'new Quadrant' and we can see the device is indeed running Android 4.0.3 but with a 2.6.39 kernel, which is the latest release from Nvidia (thanks flibblesan for pointing that out!). The theme in the screenshots looks fairly vanilla, so hopefully LG won't hack about stock Android too much on this one (I know, wishful thinking!)

I also took the opportunity to prod said contact about the forthcoming Optimus 2X update to ICS and, predictably, it's 'in progress but not ready yet'. LG device buyer beware...?


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