Smartphone Gurus: Portal of the Gurus

Mark Moons from HTC has reported via Twitter that HTC are to begin the update process on Desires from 28th July. I know it's been mentioned before but maybe, just maybe, it's true this time.... Thanks to Engadget for the heads up
It looks as though Google is going to get tough with pirated applications according to this report on the register.co.uk: "Android now comes with an API allowing applications to phone home to check for a licence when launched, locking out pirates and anyone with an unreliable data connection. The "Licensing Verification Library" does allow the developer to permit caching of responses, so an application shouldn't stop working when one gets on a plane, as long as there was a connection (and a valid licence) the first time it was run. The new API will allow developers to lic...
It looks as if the Chinese will have Froyo on their soon to be shipped Android devices according to HTC China! News snippet courtesy of engadget.com: "A wordy headline, to be sure, but a pleasing one nonetheless. We came across HTC's Chinese web portal listing the Desire as coming with Android 2.2 (with Sense!) and simply had to ping the official source for confirmation. It turns out the info up there is no mistake: all HTC Android handsets shipping to China -- which includes the Wildfire and Tianyi-- will do so with Froyo preloaded, cutting down on your upgrade angst at l...
Whilst looking through twitter earlier this evening i spotted a tweet from samsung firmwares stating the Android 2.2 froyo update for the Samsung Galaxy S will be out tomorrow at 12 noon. I'll be keeping an eye firmly on developments and will post back as soon as there's any news If you want an immediate update when/if it appears you can subscribe to this thread :)
Sky + (or HD) owners are in for a treat, after a long run on iPhone the Sky+ application has finally made it onto the Android operating system. The app allows a Sky+ or Sky+ HD owner to set recordings on their home set-top-boxes remotely - something that's incredibly handy should you forget to series link your favourite show, or realise that there's a match on that you'd like to watch when you get back. You can browse through all of the current Sky listings, select them through a genre-specific filter, or just search for a specific show. And you can set the box to record...
Engadgetare reporting: Dell's Kevin Andrew answered a few questions about the Streak in a new "vlog" on YouTube, and it's a mixture of encouragement and confusion. On the good side, Kevin showed off Android 2.1 up and running on the phone / tablet / lady-killer. It looks just like 2.1, of course, but with Dell's customizations still riding atop it. While showing off 2.1, Kevin reassures us that Dell is still planning to go to Froyo (2.2), which is reiterated by the text below the video, with no clarification if 2.1 will actually be released as an intermediate m...
With six updates in six months, Google Maps for Android has been getting plenty of new features, both big and small. A continued focus with each update has been on giving you better ways to find places nearby. In the most recent updates, Maps has gotten features like swiping between search results and info like photos, reviews, and more helpful content on the result pages. With today’s launch of Google Maps for mobile 4.4, we’re introducing an even easier way to find places around you: a dedicated Places icon that lets you quickly look up nearby places and pick a place to go using updated...
CrunchGear are hailing a landmark (their words) change in the DMCA over in the USA after the US Copyright Office made some amendments on it's usual 3 year cycle of evaluations..... Quoted.... It’s no longer illegal under the DMCA to jailbreak your iPhone or bypass a DVD’s CSS in order to obtain fair use footage for educational purposes or criticism. These are the new rules that were handed down moments ago by the U.S. Copyright Office. This is really big. Like, really big. The office looks at copyright law every three years in order to make revisions or exemptions. The six “classes” ...
I came across this rather interesting article over at TheRegister, I wonder if it will have wider ramifications? US citizens can legally jailbreak and unlock their smartphones — notably Apple's iPhone — and videographers circumvent copy protection to use short movie snippets for "criticism or comment". This rulemaking decision by the US Copyright Office's Librarian of Congress to grant exceptions to the Digital Milleneium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a clear victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which submitted a request for the three exceptions in late 2008...
While most of the Android-carrying world still waits on the edge of their seat for Android 2.2 (Froyo) to grace their handsets, a handful of engineers over in Mountain View are already hard at work on their next big thing: Android 3.0 (Gingerbread). Gingerbread, it seems, is getting far enough along in its development cycle that at least one or two engineers have it up and running on their kits. GreeneComputing, developers of the LINPACK benchmarking software for Android, were running some analytics on their app usage logs and uncovered a few little gems: in between all the Andro...