LG negotiating to become a 'Nexus' manufacturer

LG is reportedly in talks with Google. The company wants into the list of companies that have partnered with the Android maker to produce a Nexus device, the first handset be loaded with one of the upcoming next iterations of Google's mobile OS.

Ramchan Woo, head of LG's smartphone division, told said, "We're heavily in discussions. We're working on it."

It's unclear which version of Android that LG is vying for. The next already "scheduled" version, loosely scheduled, is Jelly Bean or Android 5.0, which is expected to ship late this year. Jelly Bean have the ability to be loaded on tablets alongside Windows 8.

Becoming partners with Apple on a Nexus device is a great opportunity for an OEM. It gives them access to the new OS before anyone else. Those devices are also uncluttered by skins such as TouchWiz and Sense, meaning they are easier to upgrade to later versions.

The latest of these have been HTC (Nexus One --- Android 2.1), Samsung (Nexus S --- Android 2.3, Galaxy Nexus --- Android 4.0) and Motorola (Xoom --- Android 3.0).

In 2011, discussing the Motorola Mobility acquisition and how Google will ensure "fairness," Android chief Andy Rubin said that once an OEM for the next Nexus devices, teams --- including from the OEM --- get together and work in the same building for nine to twelve months until the project is complete and shipped.

LG is a smaller player among OEMs, but this would reinforce its standing among Android OEMs. By ensuring that Motorola isn't given Jelly Bean, it would also affirm Google's claim of no special treatment for the company it is in the final stages of acquiring.

FBI has difficulty locating, recovering disabled GPS trackers after SCOTUS ruling

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that warrantless GPS tracking is unconstitutional, the FBI is taking action --- by disabling thousands of thus illegally-used GPS tracking devices that were in use.

In the ruling, in U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court determined that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant violated the law. A District of Columbia drug dealer, Antoine Jones was the subject of 28 day of warrantless GPS surveillance, and the Supreme Court chose to take up the case after numerous conflicting federal and appeals court decisions, including one from August of 2010 which upheld warrantless GPS tracking, in which dissenting judge Alex Kozinski said that "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last."


On Friday, FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called "Big Brother in the 21st Century," said that the Supreme Court ruling caused the FBI to disable about 3,000 GPS devices.

As the devices were often stuck beneath vehicles in order to track the movements of their owners, the FBI had some difficulty recovering the disabled devices, as they could no longer find their locations. Weissman said that, ironically, in some cases, the FBI was forced to obtain court orders in order to turn the devices on briefly, so that authorities could find and recover them.

Although all nine justices agreed that the GPS tracking was unconstitutional, there was some nuance to the decision. Five justices said physically attaching a GPS device to the underside of a car amounted to trespassing and was a search requiring a warrant. Meanwhile, four justices said the prolonged length of time in the Jones case amounted to a search requiring a warrant, but did not affirm whether or not GPS monitoring for shorter periods would require a warrant.

Adobe's Photoshop Touch to hit the iPad 2 on Monday, same $9.99 price as Android

Adobe's Photoshop Touch, which hit Android tablets back in November is about to hit iOS. Briefly leaked to the Australian and New Zealand App Store on Saturday, it was pulled, but you'll be able to find it among the Adobe apps on Monday, for $9.99, just as on Android.

The app will be available only for use on iPad 2s, not iPads. Just as with Android, it will be tablet-optimized. The Android version of the app lists the following features:

• Use Photoshop features designed for the tablet such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters to create mind-blowing images.
• Use your tablet camera to fill an area on a layer with the exclusive camera fill feature.
• Select part of an image to extract by scribbling with the Scribble Selection tool. With Refine Edge, use your fingertip to capture even hard-to-select image elements, like hair, with ease.
• Search and acquire images with the integrated Google Image Search.
• Share images on Facebook and view comments right within the app.
• Browse an inspirational gallery for the styles and results you'd like to achieve. Then follow step-by-step tutorials to easily learn techniques the pros use for great-looking results.
• Sync projects with Adobe Creative Cloud* and open layered files from Adobe Photoshop Touch in Photoshop.
• Image resolution: 1600 x 1600 pixels

The app currently has a 4.2 star rating in the Android Market, with 287 ratings.

Reviews of the Android version were pretty positive, particularly when the price is taken into account. We'd expect at least the same from the iPad 2 version, as well.

A few tidbits from Steve Troughton-Smith, who took apart the iPad 2 app: it's an AIR app, which he believes is why it's an iPad 2-only app, there is no integration between Photoshop Touch for iPad 2 and Photoshop on the desktop, and despite expectations of the app based on pricing, it does far more than the original desktop version of Photoshop.

You can watch a short overview of Photoshop Touch, below.

Too good for its own good? Siri rival about to get App Store boot

The App Store's T&C's have always made it clear that Apple doesn't like imitation, as section 8.3 says “Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected." The app Evi (iTunes link) is about to learn that lesson.

Evi, also available for Android (Free), isn't a 100 percent Siri clone, as it can't integrate with the calendar and perform tasks like that, but it can answer questions ... a lot of them ... and that's part of the Siri advertising campaign.

In fact, Evi had a database of more than one billion facts available at the time of launch, according to developer True Knowledge at the time of its release. Too much competition for Siri? True Knowledge CEO William Tunstall-Pedoe says that Evi's about to get the App Store ban.

His complaints about the ban may sound like sour grapes, but there's a measure of truth to them. He said,

"I don't think it takes too much of a leap of the imagination to realise that 'confusingly similar' is code for 'competitive with' – and that all the user and press reviews along the lines of 'now you don't need to buy a 4S – you can download Evi', 'better than Siri' etc. have resulted in a change of heart from Apple about allowing its users to get the app."

Such a ban would cut off updates for the over 200,000 users who have already purchased Evi from the App Store. The only recourse for them would be if Evi was moved to the Cydia store for jailbroken devices, and that wouldn't help those that are unjailbroken.

Evi would still be available in the Android Market, where its rating isn't good: 3.0 out of 5. Quite of a few of those ratings might rise if Evi integrated with Android, though, something it could probably do if the company wanted to.

Evi is still available in the App Store, but the question is, for how long?

Huawei intros three smartphones, MediaPad at 2012 MWC

It's Mobile World Congress so what would you expect? That's right, a lot of mobile announcements, even from manufacturers you may not be all that familiar with. Huawei, the multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services giant, announced a number of devices on Sunday, just ahead of MWC, which officially begins Monday.

Cue the Ascend D quad, a 4.5-inch 720p Android phone that the company bills as the "world's fastest quad-core smartphone," sporting the Huawei's own K3V2 CPU (also introduced) clocked at 1.2 or 1.5GHz.

The 8.9mm thick device will run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), come with 8GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM, along with an 8 megapixel rear camera, Dolby 5.1 surround sound, LTE support and an 1,800mAh battery that, using proprietary energy management software, Huawei claims will last for up to two days (key on the "up to").

Along for the ride are the Ascend D quad XL, which is basically the same device with a larger 2,500mAh battery (slightly thicker at 10.9mm), and the Ascend D1, which swaps out the quad-core processor for a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU using a 1670mAh battery.

The Ascend D quad and quad XL will be available in North and South America, China, Australia, EMEA, and APAC in Q2 2012. The Ascend D1 will be available in the above markets starting in April 2012.

In addition, Huawei introduced a tablet, the MediaPad 10 FHD which comes with has a 1920 x 1200 10.1-inch display, an 8-megapixel camera, and Huawei's quad-core K3 in a package just 8.8mm thick. The Android 4.0 device is so early that the model on display on Sunday was hand-made for the event, but despite that the tablet's due to be available in Q2. It's unclear where it will initially go on sale.

HTC unveils the HTC One X quad-core smartphone, rumored since November

Here comes the quad-core device we were expecting from HTC. HTC on Sunday confirmed the existence of a 4.7-inch, quad-core superphone, dubbed the One X, powered by a Tegra 3 quad-core processor.

In fact, the HTC One X has many of the specs that were rumored in our report back in Nov. 2011. We thought it would have a 1.5GHz Tegra 3 CPU (check), a 1280 x 720 Super LCD 4.7-inch display (check), 32GB of internal storage (check), 1GB of RAM (check), support for 21Mbps HSDPA networks, and while we thought it would sport a f/2.2 lens it will come with an f/2.0 lens.

It will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) out of the box, NFC, Beats Audio, and instead of offering a microSD card slot for expansion, HTC and Dropbox are offering users 25GB of online storage, similar to what Microsoft does on Windows Phone.

In addition, despite the fact that Google said "real" buttons were a thing of the past, the HTC One X will sport three touch-sensitive buttons below the display, for back, Home, and recent apps.

U.S. users will be happy to know that the device will be LTE-capable when it hits American shores. U.S. users will be UNhappy to know that since the Tegra 3 is not compatible with LTE, the device, which will be on AT&T's network, will only have a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor.

Typical of these announcements, there's no pricing or availability info yet, but HTC has said it expects to make the One X available to its first regions within the next 60 days.

Samsung unveils Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), refreshed Galaxy Beam projector phone

There have been concerns that with the Google / Motorola deal coming to a close, some Android OEMs will bolt, but it doesn't seem like Samsung is one of those. Just about two weeks after announcing the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), the Korean giant has announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) and the Samsung Galaxy Beam, which will be an update to the original combo smartphone / projector device launched in 2010.

For the Galaxy Beam, there will be many improvements on the original device. It will sport Gingerbread (Android 2.3), a 1GHz dual-core CPU, 8GB of internal storage (the original had 16GB), 768MB of RAM (the original had only 384MB of RAM), and just like the original an integrated projector capable of a brightness level of 15 lumens. There's no word on exact release date or pricing.

Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) joins the earlier (7.0) version, adding its 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD screen to the earlier's more modest 7-inch 1280 x 600 screen. The device will carry a 1GHz dual core processor and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and wills port a 1GHz dual-core processor.

It will be 9.7mm thick, carry 1GB of RAM , and come in both 3G (HSPA+) + wi-fi and wi-fi only versions. Both versions will have a 3-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera, as well as Bluetooth 3.0, GPS. The 3G version ONLY will carry a proximity sensor.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) will come with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. Samsung says it will launch in the U.K. sometime next month alongside the 7-inch version. There is no exact launch date or pricing yet.

Amazon Appstore's Free App of the Day, 02/26,2012: Radiant HD

Amazon.com has promised to make a paid app free every day in the Amazon Appstore, and today's app is Radiant HD.

Radiant HD is priced at $1.99 in the Android Market, and is normally priced at $1.99 in the Amazon Appstore. As we've noted before, there are sometimes differences in pricing between the two marketplaces.

Radiant HD is described as follows:

You are First Space Sergeant Max Blaster, fighter pilot and archenemy of evil space creeps everywhere. Sharp-witted with even sharper reflexes, it's up to you to dodge asteroid fields and decimate aliens attacking from the top of the screen. Blast forward and take a stand against the odious Supercreep and his synchronized hordes to stop them from destroying all humans in this challenging, colorful space shooter.

Blending the Classic and Contemporary

Radiant HD gives you arcade shoot 'em up goodness the way you like it, blending retro tropes like limited movement (right and left only) with modern takes on the genre such as upgradeable weapons and on-screen power-ups.

Battle on one of three difficulty settings through a three-part story with over 100 levels. Collect power-ups, upgrade an impressive arsenal, and dodge your foes to stay alive. Destroy over 10 huge bosses like the Planet Cruncher, the Hunters, and the Supervisor. The challenges may be steep, but the power at your disposal is staggering.

Big Guns for a Big Threat

Blasting asteroids, groups of baddies, and larger enemies can reveal credits in 25, 50, and 100 increments. Collect these and every few stages you'll get a chance to spend them on upgrades to your guns. Each weapon can go up to level 10, and the rate of fire and number of rounds fired with each shot will improve as you buy upgrades. Invest wisely in each of these interchangeable extensions like you would in a role-playing game to smooth out your weaknesses and prepare for any challenge that may come your way. They include:

• Vulcan Cannon, a traditional blaster that fires rapidly but is fairly weak
• Bio Blaster, a small, slow shot that deals enormous damage upon impact
• Plasma Gun, a well-rounded weapon with moderate speed and firepower
• Disruptor Laser, a powerful but slow laser that carves through hordes of enemies
• Seeking Missiles, homing rockets that steer toward the nearest creep
• Smart Gun, small, rapid shots that fire straight then curve toward the nearest enemy

Grab Passing Power-Ups
Radiant HD doesn't just ask you to dodge rocks and return enemy fire; it rewards you for your destruction and smooth moves with helpful power-ups. Like collecting credits, other power-ups may appear when you destroy your enemies. Unlike credits, though, these goodies will sate your need for instant gratification. They include:

• Energy Shield, a guard that covers the front of your ship and absorbs painful projectiles
• Megablast, a screen-clearing blast that wipes out all visible enemies
• Time Freeze, a convenient time stopper that lets you gun down your foes while they sit helpless
• Various gun power-ups, an instant increase to the level of the weapon indicated on the power-up icon

Connect to Facebook and Share High Scores

Defeating your enemies in quick succession increases your score multiplier and lets you rack up huge high scores. Sign in via Facebook so you can challenge your friends and compare scores without ever leaving the game.

Invite your friends by posting a link to your Facebook wall. View a list of your Facebook friends who play Radiant HD. Compare your high scores with those of friends on your leaderboard. You can even share your in-game achievements on your wall.

Compatibility
This HD version of Radiant is optimized for tablets and high-end handsets (Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S, DROID, Desire, Incredible, myTouch 4G, G2, EVO, Nexus One, Nexus S, etc.). Try the non-HD version if you have a lower-spec device.

Radiant HD has a rating of 4.6 stars in the Android Market and a rating of 3.3 stars in the Amazon Appstore.

There's a big difference between the two stores, but Radiant HD's 4.6 rating in the Android Market comes with 1,261 ratings at the time of this writing. The Amazon Appstore has only 72 ratings at the time of this writing.

We'll go with the mid-4s as representative of the true rating for this app. Notably, this is the HD version for higher-end devices with higher resolution screens, but although the developer points to the non-HD version for lower resolution devices, it doesn't appear to be in the Amazon Appstore. It is in the Android Market, for the same price.

Those who are considering "buying" a Free Amazon Appstore app might want to consider what it means to developers.

Amazon.com opened up the Appstore despite a lawsuit by Apple, which has previously trademarked the term "App Store." Microsoft has filed an appeal against that trademark, saying the term is too generic. Amazon.com has responded to the lawsuit in the same manner.

Best Buy sees smart TVs invaded by porn after wi-fi hack

Customers at a Best Buy store in Greenville, SC were appalled when they were greeted by a pornographic image that was briefly displayed on the store's television sets, including large-screened 55-inch TVs. It wasn't a video, at least, but rather a pornographic picture of a man and woman.

Customer Gloria Berg said, "It was extremely, extremely pornographic image. I think even the word 'pornographic' doesn't cover it. I have never watched pornography, so I don't know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated."

According to the manager, Berg said, someone had used the store's wi-fi to upload the image to the TV's. He added that the same thing had happened the prior night and that there was nothing the store could do about it.

That's a little hard to understand. While wi-fi networks can be infiltrated, if they are "open," one would think Best Buy would know better, and have their network secured with WPA or WPA2 or some sort of encryption. Even if they were hacked, they should be able to make changes to prevent future hacks ... or at least slow the hackers down, not say there was nothing they could do about it.

While that was the store manager talking, the corporate office was a little more self-assured about the incident, and about future incidents. They said,

"Two individuals accessed our store's wireless signal to broadcast inappropriate content on a smart television display. In both cases, we worked immediately to disable the inappropriate content. We greatly apologize for this unfortunate incident and we are working to ensure that it does not happen again."

This is perhaps another cautionary tale of what happens when wi-fi is unsecured, though its unclear if that's what happened in the case of Best Buy. In the past, some people have even been subjected to criminal arrest when their wi-fi was leached by others downloading child porn or committing piracy.

Viddy re-enters the App Store after short ban for racy content

Viddy, the mobile social video application, is back in the App Store after being banned for a short time. Viddy, which we've written about previously (1, 2) which allows users to custom 15-second videos and share them via social media, but the problem, it appears, is that some users were creating sexually charged videos with partially nude or fully nude people.

The app itself is free, but there are in-app purchases which give the users "Production Packs" to use in their videos. Mindless Behavior and T-Pain, for example, have teamed with Viddy.

At the same time, a number of celebrities have signed up for Viddy, including Bill Cosby (shown), Snoop Dogg, and Linkin Park. It also has b een well-funded, with a $6 million Series A round from Battery Ventures, Greycroft Ventures and Qualcomm that closed just a few weeks ago. Viddy also partnered with some major content provider, including Disney (for the release of last year's Muppets movie).

The app was taken down on Thursday night, because a user complained. While most of the Viddy clips uploaded are innocuous, there are a few ... or more than a few ... that are graphic, with women dancing in the shower, touching themselves, and ... you get the drift.

That said, by Saturday, the app was back in the App Store again. It's not clear what happened between Thursday night and Saturday to convince Apple to put the app back into the store, but somehow the company did.

Honestly, Viddy videos can be no longer than 15 seconds in length. That makes it really hard to create anything even close to resembling porn, but Apple's stance on anything it possibly perceives as adult material is long-standing.

Viddy has tools in place to filter adult materials and users can flag videos. In addition, Viddy's terms of service states:

"You acknowledge that creating, submitting or sharing your User Content may give rise to various types of legal liabilities and you represent that your User Content (whether or nor you are the author of such content) complies at all times (both when first submitted and throughout its accessibility on the Service) with the TOS and all applicable laws. You understand that Viddy does not pre-screen User Content and is not liable for the content (including User Content) transmitted by users."

For now, it seems Viddy has satisfied Apple enough to get back into the App Store. How long it stays there remains to be seen.

Viddy is currently an iPhone (not even iPad) only app. The company is also planning versions for Android, Windows Phone, iPad, and BlackBerry.

Amazon Appstore's Free App of the Day, 2/25/2012: Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack

Amazon.com has promised to make a paid app free every day in the Amazon Appstore, and today's app is Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack.

Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack is priced at $0.99 in the Android Market, and is normally priced at $0.99 in the Amazon Appstore. As we've noted before, there are sometimes differences in pricing between the two marketplaces.

Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack is described as follows:

Parking Lot Blues

Honk! Honk! You're trapped! You're stuck in a crowded parking lot, so you must use masterful strategy to maneuver the cars and clear a path for your grand escape. With 480 different puzzles, Aces Traffic Pack is a challenge for even the most sophisticated drivers. This puzzler offers 80 puzzles per level from Novice, Amateur, Rookie, Pro, All Star, and finally Ace. You'll always have to come up with a new escape plan.

The bird's-eye view of each parking disaster provides a clear field of vision and perspective. For further ease of use, apply the gridlines to help visualize your next move.

King of the Road

You can't be a road king if you don't keep track of your stats. Aces Traffic Pack keeps a variety of records. Keep tabs on your overall stats, level stats, and even stats for specific puzzles. The online high scores and statistic tracking adds a competitive element, so you can compete against yourself or challenge a friend to beat your best time or lowest move count. See which puzzles you've easily escaped, which are giving you traffic nightmares, and which ones you've haven't solved yet.

Aces Traffic Pack features colorful backdrops of cityscapes with open starry skies and the rumbling of car engines. The racecar-themed interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, but there's nothing easy about figuring out your escape route.

Aces Traffic Puzzle Pack has a rating of 5.0 stars in the Android Market and a rating of 4.0 stars in the Amazon Appstore.

So, the reason Astral Plague has a 5.0 rating in the Android Market is that the game only has 9 ratings, period. There is a free version that also has a 4.0 rating, with 235 rating. We'd guess the 4.0 is the appropriate rating.

Those who are considering "buying" a Free Amazon Appstore app might want to consider what it means to developers.

Amazon.com opened up the Appstore despite a lawsuit by Apple, which has previously trademarked the term "App Store." Microsoft has filed an appeal against that trademark, saying the term is too generic. Amazon.com has responded to the lawsuit in the same manner.

Apple nearing replacement of iDevice dock connector: report

In late October of 2011, a rumor flew around that Apple was mulling over a change to the dock connector design on its iDevices. The rumor has arisen again, and considering the current dock connector has been around since 2003, we really wouldn't be surprised to see it happen.

Indeed it would be a pain for many who have all those iDevice cables lying around, but if Apple is smart --- or at least, consumer-friendly --- it will make the new connector work if an adapter is applied to the old connector. While it would be great if Apple would move to a microUSB connector like just about everyone else, we don't expect that.

This development is despite the fact that all major phone manufacturers, including Apple, have signed up for an E.U. plan to use a common charging port based on the microUSB standard.

Naturally, even with an adapter, not all of the accessories available for iDevices today will fit on an iDevice with a new dock connector.

The earlier rumor said the new dock connector would arrive on the iPad 3. If that's still holding true, we should know quite soon: Apple is expected to host a media launch event on March 7th.

Wireless carrier data throttling mostly a ploy to eliminate unlimited plans: study

AT&T has been in hot water of late, accused of throttling those with unlimited data plans when they hit 2GB of usage. Much of that anger comes from the fact that although AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, they do offer plans that offer more than a 2GB limit, and the fact that they offer a 3GB plan at the same price as grandfathered unlimited plans has grated on the nerves of subscribers.

Why, these unlimited subscribers ask, should they throttle us at all when they allow others to buy into tiers with more data than we get throttled at?

[While AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans, those who had it previously have been grandfathered in at the same price as the 3GB data plan, but AT&T ONLY throttles unlimited data plan users. AT&T says it only throttles those in the top 5 percent, but unlimited plan users see this as a way to force them into tiered data plans.]

The idea of throttling, wireless carriers say, is to reduce network congestion. However, a new study just released seems to say that throttling is useless in terms of reducing congestion.

Validas, a wireless bill analysis firm, took data from 2011 cell phone bills from 55,000 AT&T and Verizon Wireless subscribers. Their findings echo those of disgruntled AT&T subscribers. Validas's findings point to throttling as a possible ploy to force grandfathered unlimited data subscribers out of those plans.

In its report, Validas said,

“When we look at the top 5% of data users, there is virtually no difference in data consumption between those on unlimited and those on tiered plans—and yet the unlimited consumers are the ones at risk of getting their service turned off. So it’s curious that anyone would think the throttling here represents a serious effort at alleviating network bandwidth issues. After all, Sprint does seemingly fine maintaining non-throttled unlimited data for its customers.”

Sprint is the only carrier among the Big Four (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) that has unlimited and unthrottled data plans --- at least for now.

According to Validas' data, Verizon Wireless subscribers on unlimited smartphone data plans actually used less data on average than those with tiered data plans. The median value for unlimited users vs. tiered users was slightly higher, but only by 0.02GB.

At AT&T, the opposite was true for average usage, but unlimited subscribers only used 0.78GB more data on average than tiered users, with the median data usage being 0.53GB higher.

It's also true that average numbers for both carriers are well into 3GB of use, making one wonder how 2GB of data could fit into the top 5 percent, as AT&T says it does.

At any rate, Validas' results seem to point to the same conclusions as common sense does: carriers want to get rid of unlimited plans as they make more money on tiered data plans.

AT&T has already admitted this, in a sense. The carrier said earlier that to get truly unlimited AND unthrottled data, a user should get into a tiered plan, because you can use unlimited data as long as you pay the overage fees.