Contest: Win 1 of 30 free copies of SkyLark by BerryGoodThemes!
This week’s BlackBerry theme roundup is devoted entirely to themes that were sent in to us over the past couple of weeks. Have you created a theme you want to see featured here, or given away in a contest? Did you find a treasure that you want to share with the CrackBerry community? Have a favorite theme developer you want the spotlight to shine on? Well quit wasting time and send us an email at themeroundup[at]crackberry.com. In the meantime, check out this week’s picks, and enter to win a free copy of SkyLark by BerryGoodThemes!
rel="attachment wp-att-25248" href="http://www.appcraver.com/country-living-treemail/country-living-treemail-2/">
style=' float: left; padding: 4px; margin: 0 7px 2px 0;' class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-25248" title="country living treemail" src="http://www.appcraver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/country-living-treemail1-200x300.png" alt="" width="200" height="300" />It’s hard not to notice the myriad of iPhone apps meant to creatively communicate messages from one person to another. Valentines Day may be over, but romance is still alive and well in the App Store. One unique app that found itself in the spotlight recently is Country Living Treemail. This isn’t treemail like in Survivor, but rather the high-tech equivalent of carving someone’s initials into a tree.
title="download country living treemail on the App Store" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/country-living-treemail/id416093694?mt=8&partnerId=30&siteID=saW0nB/fQ6o" target="_blank">Country Living Treemail lets you select various types of tree bark and blade widths to carve small, short messages into a virtual tree that can be shared by email or on Facebook and Twitter. There is also a collection of symbols – hearts, arrows, and such – that work like stamps, which can be positioned and resized on your tree carving. Custom carving is done with the tips of your finger.
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href="http://www.appcraver.com/country-living-treemail/">No Pocket Knife Required for Country Living Treemail
Motorola said they’d be trying to meet developers half way when it comes to encrypted bootloaders on their devices. Many interpreted this to mean that most or all of their future devices would be encryption free: this moderator at Motorola’s support forums says to not assume that and to wait for official word from Motorola as any announcements will be device specific.
Today, though, they’ve tweeted that the Motorola XOOM will indeed be hackable as it’ll employ a lockable/unlockable bootloader that’ll allow developers to access the hardware however they want.
We all assumed this would be the case considering it’s stock Android 3.0, but now there’s no question. And while I’m sure this wasn’t what you folks had in mind in your initial uproars regarding Motorola’s encryption practices (we’re sure you were talking about their MOTOBLUR phones), it’s definitely something. Let’s see what else they’ll hit us with as the weeks and months move on. [Thanks Trident, Adam!]
Our good friends over at Lookout Labs gave us a sneak peek at an app that will be made available tomorrow morning, and it’s a great app for all our readers to be aware of. From the makers of Lookout Mobile Security, Plan B is an excellent app for anyone who has lost their phone and didn’t have the foresight to install a “Find My Phone” app. Thanks to the excellent synchronization between your phone and market.android.com, you can push this app to your phone, which will then aid you in locating it.
We’ve recently caught wind that for some odd reason, though the HTC Inspire 4G is HSPA capable, it’s HSUPA functionality has been disabled. No word from HTC or AT&T as of yet noting the reason why. The folks over at Engadget managed to get their ears on some info regarding the issue from what they are calling a trusted source. Here are some statements regarding the lack of fast up link speeds summarized by Engadget’s Chris Ziegler, one of my favorite nerd heroes of all time:
Google has just announced that the final release of the SDK for Android 3.0 is now available for all who wish to develop for upcoming Honeycomb tablets, such as the Motorola XOOM or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’ll be API level 11 when you go looking for it. Here are the changes they’ve made to the SDK tools and to ADT for Eclipse:
UI Builder improvements in the ADT Plugin:
New Palette with categories and rendering previews. (details)
More accurate rendering of layouts to more faithfully reflect how the layout will look on devices, including rendering status and title bars to more accurately reflect screen space actually available to applications.
Selection-sensitive action bars to manipulate View properties.
Zoom improvements (fit to view, persistent scale, keyboard access) (details).
Improved support for <merge> layouts, as well as layouts with gesture overlays.
Traceview integration for easier profiling from ADT. (details)
Tools for using the Renderscript graphics engine: the SDK tools now compiles .rs files into Java Programming Language files and native bytecode.
If you were looking for an Inspire 4G or an Atrix 4G soon, AT&T’s brick and more and online shops may be the only places to find them. Wirefly, LetsTalk, and numerous other third party retailers have announced the disrupt in availability of AT&T products and services. As AT&T has not publicly announced anything and as other major retailers – such as Best Buy and Amazon – hasn’t put out any notices, we’re not sure to what extent this is happening. It’s unfortunate as these retailers often provide the best deals on devices soon after they launch, while the carriers usually reserve promotions for holiday sales or EOL preparation. [BGR]
Are you a nerd or phone geek and want to get your hands on the source code for some of HTC’s high end devices? Yeah, me too. Alright, I wouldn’t exactly call the Aria a “high end device” either, but you know what I mean. Head on over to HTC’s Developer Center via the source link where you’ll find source code for the HTC Aria, Desire Z, Desire HD and the MyTouch 4G. We’re hoping that those of you who are “programatically” inclined will do some awesome things with it, all in the name of Android. As expected, any proprietary code will be omitted from the source. We can’t wait to see what comes out of this. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
If your like me, you may have been playing a little with the emulator in the Honeycomb SDK pre-release, well now they have released the official Honeycomb SDK with finalized APIs and hopefully a much better emulator experience. You can now run your applications in the emulator to test for compatibility and I’m sure much more goodness to play around with. I’ve set the new release downloading while Im writing this article and hopefully will have some news for you soon.
Android 3.0 Platform
API Level:11
For developers, the Android 3.0 platform is available as a downloadable component for the Android SDK. The downloadable platform includes an Android library and system image, as well as a set of emulator skins and more. The downloadable platform includes no external libraries.
Honeycomb home screen
There are so many very cool and new features in Honeycomb and most of it has been covered before, but with the release of the Motorola Xoom now on pre-order and coming very soon we are all eager to play around more and see what a real Android Tablet can do.
Honeycomb Tasks
If you’re technical enough to already have the SDK installed, fire up the SDK Manager and download the Honeycomb SDK as soon as you can. If you don’t already have the SDK installed, head over to the Android SDK Download page and put your bandwidth to work.
QuarkXPress 9 arrives on the scene with new desktop, device publishing, and e-book features aimed at giving designers the tools to design for and publish to a variety of digital devices.
Google just tossed a tweet out around a half hour ago letting the world know that Gingerbread has begun hitting Nexus One handsets. Finally, the “next few weeks’ has come to a head, right? Not so fast. According to the tweet, it could take a ‘few weeks’ to complete. So, sit patient. Just a few more weeks. Seriously. We mean it this time. Technically speaking, we were right back on the 15th when we heard “within the week” as we’re just hitting the seventh day!
Gingerbread (Android 2.3.3) update now rolling out to Nexus S and Nexus One. Be patient, may take a few weeks for OTA to complete. – via twitter
We reported to you yesterday that the Motorola Xoom wouldn’t have Flash capability at launch, and the disclaimer only said “Expected this Spring.” But earlier today via their blog Adobe publicly stated that they are working quickly to optimize Flash for the tablet experience and that they expect to release an OTA update “within a few weeks” of the first Honeycomb tablet (the Xoom) hitting the market. So those of you who were on the fence about your Xoom purchase, don’t let the lack of flash sway you away from it. It’ll just be a short wait.
Wireless 3G data service for the Motorola XOOM will begin at $20 monthly access for 1GB. Best of all, it will be upgradeable to 4G LTE service at no additional charge in the second quarter of 2011.
One of the big deficiencies within mobile app store environments these days is the ability to meaningfully discover apps, games and themes that are going to be worthwhile for you. Best Sellers and Top Downloads lists do typically provide a good starting point for app discovery, but moving beyond that app stores tend to fall apart. Star ratings usually regress somewhere to the mean (that 3 star average that leaves you wondering whether you should or shouldn’t download an app) and the comments left by anonymous users far too often provide little or no value (anybody notice all the spam and gibberish in App World these days?). Sum it up, and it’s no wonder so many BlackBerry users check into a site like CrackBerry daily for advice and info on what apps to download. App discovery via the app store environment itself can be frustrating!
That all changes today with the rollout of AppVerse within the CrackBerry App Store. AppVerse delivers a really trusting and engaging app store experience, thanks to the layer of social interaction and features it adds. Should you choose to create your AppVerse account (it’s not mandatory and you can shop in the CrackBerry App Store as you always have), you can setup your public profile which display app purchases you have made, along with reviews and ratings you provide (you can choose to hide apps as well and also have full control over privacy/notification settings from the My Account > AppVerse page). You can follow other AppVerse members, comment on their reviews and rate whether individual app reviews were helpful or not. You can also ask other AppVerse members to provide a review for any app you’re interested in. This social interaction really ups the accountability of everybody in the app store, which delivers reviews that are REALLY HELPFUL. When you tap into the power of AppVerse, that frustration and uncertainty are gone. You can even review apps that are not available in our CrackBerry App Store (ie. it’s in App World and not the CrackBerry App Store catalog yet).
It’s still early days, so if you find any bugs or have any ideas for new features you’d like to see implemented, be sure to drop us a comment. We already have some more features planned for rollout in the weeks ahead, but take a browse around and you’ll see it’s already off to a great start. Not sure where to begin? Try checking out the AppVerse profiles of me and our other writers and forums moderators here on CrackBerry at the link below.
style=' float: left; padding: 4px; margin: 0 7px 2px 0;' class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-25416" title="dont drink and drive app" src="http://www.appcraver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/dontdrinkanddrive-e1298321589676-300x200.jpg" alt="Don't Drink and Drive for iOS" width="300" height="200" />
Don’t Drink and Drive! is a new educational game for the iPhone, intended to discourage drinking and driving. Straightforward and well-intentioned as this sounds, it is not what you’re expecting. Made in collaboration with the Romanian police, Don’t Drink and Drive! is very strange indeed. At worst, it’s buggy and designed in a counterintuitive, possibly counterproductive way. At best, it’s diverting and unintentionally funny.
The game consists of four levels of increasing intoxication, and the goal is to drive around for as long as you can without getting in a wreck. I have to use the term “game” loosely; a game is a test of skill, so that you can progress to the next level only after you have achieved something or completed some challenging task. In
title="Don't Drink and Drive! on the iTunes App Store" href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/do-not-drink-and-drive/id408932120?mt=8&partnerId=30&siteID=saW0nB/fQ6o" target="_blank">Don’t Drink and Drive! the action only moves forward after the player loses.
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href="http://www.appcraver.com/dont-drink-and-drive/">Don’t Drink and Drive! Simulates Driving in a Drunken Stupor
I stumbled across a new game in the Android market called PewPew today. It was released a couple of weeks ago, but I figured it was worth shouting out if most of you haven’t heard of it. It’s something like Geometry Wars if you’ve ever played that – you move about the playing field trying to avoid and shoot different shapes that are trying to take down your shield and destroy you. The game ends when you run out of lives.
I didn’t play long before making this video, but I played it enough to know that it’ll be a mainstay on my phone for quite some time. I’d love to see this get updated for Xperia Play support in the future as those digital thumbsticks would be perfect for this game. Check out the video above and then head on over to the Android market to check it out for yourself for free.
Times are sure changing as well as technology. We’ve gone from 3G to 4G, GSM to UMTS, Edge to 3G and then HSPA+, single-core to dual-core processors and the list just keeps going on. Well, with the next gen Galaxy Tablet in mind, Samsung is continuing the tradition of innovation by introducing their new line of memory modules. Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) is improving more and more on a daily basis. With this new module, Samsung has developed a 1GB DRAM module with a wide I/O interface capable of interacting with both tablets and smart phones, transmitting data at 12.8 GB/sec. That is music to our ears.
Here’s to the greatest words ever spoken, “faster is better”. Compared to the LPDDR2 DRAM chip set, this is an eightfold increase in bandwidth. Samsung has also trimmed power consumption by 87 percent while successfully doing this. This is extremely impressive and something to look forward to as new and innovative handsets and tablets join the market by Samsung. Samsung increased data transfer rates by using a new wide I/O DRAM which encompasses a 512 pin system, much larger than the 32 pin set used in previous chips. The folks over at Engadget have reported that Samsung hopes to provide 20nm-class 4GB wide I/O mobile DRAM by the year 2013. Here’s to hoping the technology reaches new mobile products much much sooner than that. As the technology begins to unfold more, we’ll definitely be reporting it back for you all, so don’t forget to check back in with Talk Android. What do you think? Is an attainable 12.8 GB/sec fast enough for you?
EQNZ.co.nz has a running feed from Twitter and Geonet, as well as photos and a blog. This site has graphs of earthquake data from Geonet.
ReadWriteWeb compiles and summarizes social media and mapping resources:
The hashtag #eqnz has been the mobilizing factor on Twitter, including prominent placement to important local Twitter accounts like @nz_quake (an unofficial account that tracks data from GeoNet) and @NZcivildefence (an official account run by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management).
#eqnzcontact is a more specific hashtag to collate information about people affected by the quake.
Telecommunications updates can be found at this Telecom NZ web page and on Twitter. Also, Vodafone NZ advised via its Twitter account: “Do not overload phone lines with non-emergency calls, stick to TXT and short calls if you can.”
Much of Christchurch is without essential services, with gas, power, water and phone infrastructure all affected by the 6.3-magnitude tremors. Civil Defence reported freshwater and sewage pipes had cracked and water was pouring into the streets. The 111 emergency line was down immediately after the quake but service was restored when calls were diverted to a Wellington centre.
Both cellphone and fixed line telephone services struggled to shoulder the extra load. Vodafone manager Matt East said eight sites out of 150 were down and 43 were disconnected from the power supply and running on back-up batteries.
Commando Solo, the Air Force’s airborne broadcasting center, normally beams out psychological operations in AM and FM for radio, and UHF and VHF for TV. It may be used to get internet service up and running again, says Wired Magazine.
“We have both satellite- and nonsatellite-based assets that can come in and provide access points to get people back online,” Arquilla says. “Some of it is done from ships. You could have a cyber version of pirate radio.”
States create their own GIS-enabled information-sharing platforms. Oregon has their Virtual Emergency Network of Multnomah (VENOM) while Washington has their Washington Information Sharing Environment (WISE). Humaninet’s Maps 2.0 tool enables humanitarian organizations to post, access, share, modify, and use critical, geo-referenced information in emergency relief operations, post-emergency reconstruction, and continuing development projects using Google Maps.
When your power goes out, your cordless home landline also won’t work, so an old traditional phone, that doesn’t require AC power, ought to be available as backup.
When the big one hits, everyone will be looking for a WiFi hotspot. APCO has no plans for that. Does your local emergency management agency have a plan for public WiFi access? Why not? In Haiti, volunteers provided mapping and communications.
A self-contained emergency communications hub might be stashed in a bike trailer. I’d include a couple of 100 ah, 12 volt batteries ($200), two, 60 watt thin film solar blankets ($600), an Inmarsat or WildBlue VSAT terminal ($2000), two 4G Wireless Routers ($600) and 6-8 Meraki repeaters ($1600).
You can now start pre-ordering your Motorola Xoom from the AndroidSPIN store today. We have included a video (courteous of WireFly) and some specs of this revolutionary tablet.
Motorola Xoom Specs:
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
10.1″ HD Widescreen Display
NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz Dual-core Processor
5MP Rear Facing Camera
720pHD Video Recording
and so much more.
Check out the video below of the unboxing
So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the AndroidSPIN store and pre-order you Motorola Xoom today. Be the first to experience Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
If you thought location based games were just a fad and were going to die out soon, think again. Member bompo, over at XDA has brought us another location based goodie called Home Invasion. Home Invasion takes place around the fact that aliens have invaded your neighborhood and aim to destroy everything their leader has ordered them to. Oh yeah, did we forget to mention that you are the alien? Head outside and turn your GPS on and begin your alien quest on destroying the human race one neighborhood at a time, as they come within laser range. If you’re ready to give this a go, then head on over to the application thread here and get your human blasting practice on. Don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments below.
Workers at a Chinese factory that supplies Apple are still suffering the effects of exposure to a chemical cleaning agent more than a year after the incident.
I noticed the other day in the comments some BlackBerry Curve 9300 owners were asking where their latest OS leak was. So here you all are, fresh from the CrackBerry forums. Give this OS a go and let us know how it works out for you all. Remember, back up your device before loading.
*OS Disclaimer – Please Read: Keep in mind this is NOT an official release and as such is not supported by RIM or your Carrier. If you choose to install, do so at your own risk and only if you’re comfortable in the process of upgrading and downgrading your device software. It is quite normal during operating system development for certain features to be crippled or disabled while others are tested, and these beta builds often reflect that. They are not always better. Depending on your BlackBerry comfort level, it may be best for you to wait for community feedback on a build before deciding to download and install for yourself or simply wait for the next official release. If you require support, you will find it in our CrackBerry forums via our extremely knowledgeable community base – do not contact your carrier or RIM for Beta OS technical support (their first course of action will be to advise you to downgrade to a supported OS). *
If your like me, you may have been playing a little with the emulator in the 
QuarkXPress 9 arrives on the scene with new desktop, device publishing, and e-book features aimed at giving designers the tools to design for and publish to a variety of digital devices.
Readability’s new iOS app has been rejected from the App Store for failing to comply with Apple’s new in-app subscriptions policy.
Workers at a Chinese factory that supplies Apple are still suffering the effects of exposure to a chemical cleaning agent more than a year after the incident.
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