Go chic line, Samsung released several USB 3.0 external storage devices

Today, Samsung (SamSung) released a variety of external storage devices, including portable drives and M3 C2/M2 desktop drive, and they are connected with USB 3.0 interface, can be completed in just four minutes 25GB high-definition television transmission.

  Samsung C2/M2 portable drives are used corrugated grid design, with USB 3.0 interface (compatible with USB 2.0). M2 which 1TB external drive capacity hard disk can be upgraded to provide brown-black, elegant beige, gray and orange clay in four colors.

Desktop drive is the M3 style with rounded corners not only look beautiful and feel good. It also uses USB 3.0 interface, providing brown-black and beige two options noble, hard disk capacity can support 1/1.5/2TB. Management software with a Samsung drive, user data processing; addition, it provides SecretZoneTM software for users of various operations, such as creating a virtual drive, automatic generation of backup and format the disk and so on.

Samsung side said the new external drive in the second quarter will be listed in the regions in which M2 Series portable drive shelves in mid-April, while the C2 M3 portable drives and desktop drives will have to wait until the May frame.

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Windows 7 Catches Up Market Share in US

It was recently revealed that after about 5 monthes of AT&T and T-Mobile phones running the OS, its market share has grown to almost 2%.It was recently revealed that after about 5 monthes of AT&T and T-Mobile phones running the OS, its market share has grown to almost 2%.

December is generally a more active sales month than November, and that might have fuelled the growth. This might seem a good figure to most, but not to Ross Rubin, who points out that webOS and Android did significantly better in their launch quarters, despite not being a full quarter. webOS and Android managed figures of 4% and 9% respectively.

This might be attributed to the changing competitive environment and lack of stand-out features in the first batch of devices. However, the partnership with may change all this and more, as the company would invest very heavily in the success of the OS, unlike others like Samsung and HTC.

Windows Phone 7 didn’t have a dream launch by any standards, but the recent Nokia deal and Microsoft Mobile World Congress announcements have given it the necessary impetus to go ahead with. IDC has even gone to the extent of predicting that the OS would hit 20.5% market share in 2015. The OS has seen strong growth in US, with its share of installed base growing 350%.

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Viewsonic GTab Overclocked to 1.6 GHz [Let's Race!]

So a few minutes ago we were going ahead with some benchmarks of this brand new T-Mobile LGx and what did we find sitting right next to our result on MANDRO bench? That pesky Viewsonic G-Tablet! So we went hunting to find out more and what do you know? Those mad maniacs over on XDA developers have been at it again, overclocking their devices until they explode, and this time it’s the Viewsonic GTab. XDA user pershoot played around with the kernel until his device set its rockets for stunning and blasted off into outer space – GTab style!

This developer had the throttle at full, hitting a whopping 1.6 GHz – it was scaled down because of UV being applied to 1.4 GHz, but hey! That’s still pretty sweet, eh? First benchmarks have added up to be 57.657 on Linpack, 3088 on Quadrant, and 4433 on Smartbench. Sound pretty sweet? Run the kernel yourself!

But remember, this kind of stuff can really mess your beloved device up, royally. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re probably going to make it explode, or worse, brick. Take a peek back at the original thread to get all the info you need on making this masterpiece float.

•  [via XDA developers forum]

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Let Me Goo.gl These New Features For You

Back in September, Google formally launched goo.gl, the official URL shortener from the tech giant. The service first went into operation late in 2009 and was tied to Google’s own products, like Google Toolbar, but now it’s a direct competitor to the myriad consumer-focused shorteners, the most famous of which is bit.ly. Today, goo.gl has announced a handful of new features that should make fans of the service happy.

First up is easier copy and pasting — after you submit a link, Google will automatically highlight the resulting shortened URL, which means you can immediately hit Control-C to copy it. No, not a huge deal (and rivals like bit.ly already do the same thing), but if you use this as part of your workflow, you’ll appreciate it.
 


Next, you can now remove URLs that are shown on your dashboard. Again, another minor feature — but one that comes in handy if you’re a big Goo.gl user. As you use the service, it builds a list of URLs you’ve generated and displays how many clicks each has received. But that list got cluttered fast if you frequently used it. Now you’ll be able to highlight your most important links while hiding the ones that you don’t care so much about.

Google also goes out of its way to say that it has had zero downtime since the service launched in September, which is notable because URL shorteners are often criticized for adding additional latency and points of failure to the web.

Finally, you can now report spammy links. Hooray!

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Beautiful Widgets now supports tablets, looks great on Xoom [Mini Review]

Beautiful Widgets by LevelUp Studios has been one of, if not the most downloaded app for Android other than some games. Everyone that doesn’t have HTC Sense seems to use Beautiful Widgets. They have now updated the widget pack to support Android tablets and the new look and interface for my Xoom sure looks like. I have some pics for you all to enjoy. It just recently finished it’s BETA.

They have completely redesigned the layout, and menu’s and what not to be fully compatible with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and I must say, they did a good job. It works great, it’s smooth, and the new Moon phases sure are cool. I have Weatherbug for Honeycomb but the widget disappears every 3 minutes, very irritating when you can’t see it to remove it. So for now I’d have to recommend Beautiful Widgets.

On screen look of Beautiful Widgets on my Xoom, this is one of many different looks, you can make it completely custom, change colors, font, opacity and everything.


Next up is inside the app when you touch the sun, or the clouds. the animation into full-screen is smooth and clear and you can still see the home screen under it, me likes.


Here we have the new Moon Phase option, it is really cool and I’ve used it for the last few days just to check it out. It is really neat to see the different phases. Nice touch levelup, nice touch. They use honeycomb’s context menu on the top right of course.


Now to keep this short I’ll just show one of the settings tab, You can go in and change whatever is needed. Here is a screenshot of me changing the widget from showing weather and the sun, to my battery life instead. Options, and more options are what we get with Beautiful Widgets. That is why they are so popular.

I told you I would keep it short, and I really tried. They have just done a great job making the widgets and animations smooth and well, beautiful. So I had to show a few screenshots and what not for you all. I’m sure more updates and options will come as they tweak it for tablets, as the phone version sure has tons and tons of options. I’ve downloaded a few skins and made it look pretty funky so far, but for now I’m going to keep it simple. Go ahead and get Beautiful Widgets in the Android Market now and enjoy it, I’ve used it since my G1 days. Thanks for reading, don’t forget to click the gallery below for larger pictures.
 

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T-Mobile to offer Unlimited everything plans on and off contract

Looks like T-Mobile has decided to get in a little closer with the competition. They have now unleashed their new Unlimited Everything plans, sadly they aren’t truly unlimited but more on that below. They are offering two unlimited packages, one being on contract, and the other is contract free.


The Even More plan is $79.99 per month and requires a two-year contract, then the Even More Plus plan is $59.99 per month with no annual contract required and is geared towards the month-to-month prepaid customers. Both of these are for a limited time only so we suggest you hurry in and get a shiny new Sidekick 4G, or wait a few days and get the LG G2x.

Sadly we have heard some news that makes these exciting plans not all that exciting after all. Yes everything is unlimited but if you go over 2GB on your data T-Mobile will start to slow down and throttle your speeds, basically to a crawl. T-Mobile has said that all you facebookers and mobile data consumers use on average about 1GB a month of data, well they said that the “average” customer uses this amount. I know that I use anywhere from 3GB-5GB a month right now, but I’m more of a power user when it comes to Android. So those plans are a no go for some of those more power users, or those that use lots of data. I am glad to see they are lowering prices, and not increasing them now that data is being used more and more, but unlimited data that is actually capped, and slowdowns are a few things I’m not to happy to see. What are your thoughts? Full press release below:

T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced that new, single-line unlimited plans are available starting tomorrow for just $79.99 per month, with an Even More™ plan and a two-year contract, or $59.99 per month, with an Even More Plus™plan with no annual contract required. Available for a limited time, the new plans offer great value for new and existing customers with unlimited nationwide calling, texting and data on America’s Largest 4G Network™.

“Consumers today are looking for even more value and flexibility from their wireless plans,” said John Clelland, senior vice president, marketing, T-Mobile USA. “While data plans for many of our competitors continue to be very expensive, T-Mobile is lowering the price of our unlimited plans and offering more options, making it easier than ever for customers to step up to a richer mobile data experience on our 4G network.”

Combined with an extensive lineup of affordable smartphones, T-Mobile’s new Even More unlimited plan allows customers to save more than $350 per year on an unlimited smartphone plan, compared to similar plans from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint1. Customers have the flexibility to purchase any phone in T-Mobile’s lineup and sign up for an unlimited rate plan – with or without a contract term commitment.

In contrast to some competing offerings, T-Mobile’s new Even More unlimited and Even More Plus unlimited plans enable customers to use mobile data on their smartphones without incurring any overage charges. Consumers exceeding 2GB of usage in a billing month will still have access to unlimited data at reduced speeds until their new billing cycle starts. On average, T-Mobile 4G smartphone customers consume about 1 GB of data per billing month.

In addition to its unlimited plans, T-Mobile continues to offer one of the industry’s most affordable entry-level data plans, starting at just $10 for 200 MB per billing month. The company also strives to help customers on these data plans avoid surprise bills with SMS alerts when they are reaching their data limit.

The new $79.99 Even More unlimited and $59.99 Even More Plus unlimited plans are available starting tomorrow for qualifying customers. To find the T-Mobile plan that best fits their needs, customers can visit http://www.t-mobile.com.

T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network not available everywhere. See coverage details at T-Mobile.com.

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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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Andi-One Android universal remote surfaces

A company called Conspin has announced a new and really cool looking universal remote control that runs the Android operating system. The remote has an interesting charge base and a big touchscreen for use. The remote is called the Andi One and will support over 5,000 brands of devices.

The company says out of those 5,000 brands the remote will work with up to 10,000 different devices. The operating system that the remote runs is Android 2.1. The remote will connect to devices via IR, RF, and WiFi and can be used as a WiFi phone as an option.

The touchscreen is a 3.5-inch unit with a resolution of 320 x 480 and the remote will run Android apps. The battery inside is a 1500mAh unit and it will last for up to 20 hours per charge. Pricing and availability on the Andi One are unknown at this time.

• [via Conspin]

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T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Hands-On and Unboxing

Looks like we’ve got the brand new T-Mobile Sidekick 4G in today for our ultimate pleasure and handson-edness! Not only do we have this lovely handset here in full working order, activated, shiny, perfectly lovely, we got the pink edition! Hooray forever! Now let’s take a look at what it’ll be like for all the consumers of the earth to be unboxing this lovely little beast, piece by piece. Looks like quite the hipster machine to me.

We have had an opportunity to take a peek at this device when we were back at CTIA 2011, clicking about here and there and photographing our eyes out, but nothing beats the ability to carry it around in your pocket. That’s what we’ll be doing for the next few days and weeks so we can get a good idea on how this device is going to be faring out in the field. Watch out for the custom user interface – heavy scrutiny ahead!

See the video here and the close-up photos below, keep tuned to Android Community’s front news feed here and our Facebook page at http://facebook.com/androidcommunity.com/ for unique content on this device from each! Then head back to our T-Mobile Sidekick 4G portal for all the coverage your eyeballs can handle!
 







 

 

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Exxon Mobile unveils new app to help you locate stations

I have a couple gas stations that I will use because the quality of the gas is better and my car runs better as a result. I know some people that only like to use certain stations because they get cash back on credit card purchases of fuel too. If you want to specifically use an Exxon Mobile station the company has a new app to help you find one.

 
The new app is called Exxon Mobile Fuel Finder and runs on Android devices. The app uses the GPS tech inside your smartphone to find where you are and show you the closest Exxon station near you. The app will also tell you what features the station has like a car wash or SpeedPass capability.

The stations can also be filtered by hours of operations and more. Once you find a station that will work the app will route you from wherever you are directly to the station. This app has been available for iOS devices since last year.

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