Tyfone putting NFC in MicroSD Cards

Wow, this sounds like a great idea, Tyfone has developed a system and are now putting NFC chips, controllers, and antenna’s into Micro SD and SD cards. This makes it possible for mobile phones and other PDA like devices to easily add NFC capabilities to their device just by simply changing the SD card they are using. Sounds like a great plan, don’t have a Nexus S, just get a Tyfone MicroSD Card.


According to them the first field trials of Tyfone’s u4ia Secure Memory Card (SMC) technology are now expected to take place during the first half of this year, following successful internal testing at 21 organizations around the world. Tyfone’s u4ia (pronounced ‘euphoria’) has some serious potential to be very popular, especially with how NFC has been taking off lately, not to mention Google jumping into NFC head first as principle member.

Tyfone’s u4ia Secure Memory Card would be able to break free the handset availability problem and allow any device with a SD slot to have NFC. This goes for most cell phones these days, as well as camera’s and GPS systems and more. For more information on what Tyfone’s cards contain see below:

* An industry standard, GlobalPlatform-compliant multi-application contactless smart card chip
* A memory card controller that includes Tyfone IP that enables the SMC to work with any SD slot equipped device
* A miniaturized antenna, developed by Tyfone
* Flash memory, available in standard SD and microSD card capacities (Tyfone’s NFC additions don’t reduce the size of memory available)

Even though we welcome as many phone manufactures as possible to integrate NFC into mobile handsets because of the possibilities it holds, Tyfone’s solution looks to be a very good one. We will report back with more on this as we hear it.

• [via NFC World]

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LG Thrive: Meet AT&T’s First Prepaid Smartphone

AT&T and LG have launched LG Thrive, the first Android smartphone to be available as part of AT&T’s GoPhone prepaid plan.

LG Thrive is a 3.2-inch device with a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, Wi-Fi, HSDPA and 160 MB of memory expandable via SD memory cards up to 32GB. The device will be powered by Android 2.2, and while it cannot compete with the top Android phones such as the Motorola Atrix or Samsung Galaxy S, it is the most powerful device on the GoPhone plan.

Customers who choose the Smartphone $0.10/min Plan or Smartphone $2/day Unlimited Talk and Text Plan Data will be able to choose between the following data plan options: $5 for 10MB, $15 for 10MB as well as $25 for 500MB.

The device will retail for $179.99 and is expected to hit the market April 17. On that same date, AT&T also plans to launch LG Phoenix, which is the same device as the Thrive but with a dark blue case, a price tag of $49.99 and two-year service agreement requirement.

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Motorola XOOM Gets SD Card Activation Early via Tiamac Kernel

Behold a fabulous kernel that’s been modified to allow YOU usage of the SD card slot on your Motorola XOOM. It’s called Tiamat, and word on the street is that the dude who’s one of the main creators of this lovely beast has used bits and pieces of code from the Asus Eee Pad Transformer to push the Motorola XOOM another step closer to perfection. Perfection, I tell you!

Now you’ll be able to take that XOOM that you got completely free and clear from us here at Android Community and the fine folks over at NVIDIA, and you can use that slot to load all your favorite oddities. You’ll be loading this and that and whatever you like with all the ease in the world. On the other hand, everyone knows that rooting and booting kernels and all that good stuff isn’t for everyone, so perhaps this isn’t the solution for you.

If you ARE the kind of person who likes to live in the wild side and wipe their systems clean and buff out the insides for a chance at eternal hacking glory, consult the oracle. The oracle in this case is bigrushdog, a fellow who’s sitting pretty over at XDA Developers just waiting to provide you with Tiamat for your goodness. Use caution! And don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Also note – you need to reboot once you put your SD card in for it to show up, so it’s not PERFECT, but it works!

• [via XDA Developers Forum]

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HTC Thunderbolt Full Root and Bootloader Unlock Instructions

Uh Oh, looks like HTC has failed again. For some odd reason all these manufacturers insist on trying to lock down these devices. I think they should just embrace the custom ROM and hacker community. After all it’s extremely popular and has totally helped Android become what it is today. I’m just waiting for CyanogenMod Phone One to be released so we don’t have to ever worry about rooting ever again. (Happy Face)

 

The Thunderbolt was one of, if not the most locked down device from HTC to date. Apparently they made signed images, a signed kernel, and a signed recovery. They locked the memory too. As always the developer community has done what they do best, and that is completely take care of all the hard work for you. It is now fully rooted, as well as S-OFF. Fully unlocked. Team AndIRC has been working on this for the last 72 hours almost non stop. So feel free to thank them, or buy them a drink. Now we just have to wait a few weeks and you will all be able to run CyanogenMod 7 and overclock your Thunderbolts to 1.5+ Ghz. 

Now I’ve talked way to long. I’ll just go ahead and skip to the good stuff. I must mention that this is NOT for the faint at heart. These instructions are new, and just released. I’m sure easier ways will eventually show up, but for now this is it. Most people that will do this I expect to know what they are doing. As always, take extreme caution with anything in adb. Remember it voids your warranty, and enjoy it. Android Police, or AndroidCommunity hold no responsibility for your actions.

Rooting The ThunderBolt – Version 2

Pros

* Root with read/write access to /system
* Ability to downgrade and flash any RUU (i.e. signed firmware)
* S-OFF
* Fully unlocked bootloader
* All ThunderBolts survived testing

Cons
* Voids warranty
* Could brick your phone if you aren’t careful

• **** Remember to take your time and fully read all instructions. Make sure you have a full battery before starting.

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