Official Twitter for Android app goes live, will go open source

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Twitter had committed to rolling its own client for Android not long ago — and like clockwork, here it is. Looks like the OS integration goes pretty deep, too, with support for Éclair’s Quick Contact bar and tweeting straight from the Gallery app; you’ve also got a timeline widget for your home screen, and you can even see your friends’ latest tweets from your contact list and the Google Talk app. It sounds like Twitter worked pretty closely with Google to make this happen, contributing the code to Android’s trunk for open sourcing in the near future — and developers will even have access to a set of standard Twitter APIs for their own applications. The only downside appears to be that you need Android 2.1 to use it, but that’s just an excuse to run out and upgrade to a sweet new phone, right?

Official Twitter for Android app goes live, will be included in the platform going forward

Posted from Engadget by admin

Twitter had committed to rolling its own client for Android not long ago — and like clockwork, here it is. Looks like the OS integration goes pretty deep, too, with support for Éclair’s Quick Contact bar and tweeting straight from the Gallery app; you’ve also got a timeline widget for your home screen, and you can even see your friends’ latest tweets from your contact list and the Google Talk app. It sounds like Twitter worked pretty closely with Google to make this happen, contributing the code to Android’s trunk for open sourcing in the near future — and developers will even have access to a set of standard Twitter APIs for their own applications. The only downside appears to be that you need Android 2.1 to use it, but that’s just an excuse to run out and upgrade to a sweet new phone, right?

LG Ally to say ‘aloha’ to Verizon in mid-May?

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Well, LG’s Moorestown-based, Moblin-running GW990 may sadly be no more, but it looks like the company will be bringing another fairly impressive-looking handset to US shores: the Android-based LG Ally. According to Android Central, it will be landing on Verizon around the middle of May and, if it looks a tad familiar, it’s because it’s apparently simply a US version of the phone we’ve known alternately as the LU2300 or Aloha (though it does seem to have undergone a few design tweaks). Details are otherwise light, but it’ll presumably pack the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor as the LU2300, along with a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a sliding QWERTY keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera, and Android 2.1.

[Thanks, Erik]

Eye-Fi Pro X2 review

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Five years ago, stuffing a fully-functional WiFi radio into the size of a standard SD card would’ve seemed like science fiction — and actually, it kind of still does. Be that as it may, Eye-Fi is now well into its third generation of products, amazingly, and we’ve gotten a chance to check out the company’s newest top-of-the-line model that just recently started shipping, the Pro X2. Like the original Pro model before it, the Pro X2 is differentiated from its less pricey stablemates in two major ways: one, its support for RAW uploads, and two, its ability to connect to ad-hoc networks — in other words, you can wirelessly tether the card straight to your laptop rather than going through an access point. Where the Pro X2 gets the nod, though, is in what Eye-Fi calls the “X2 Engine,” a three-pack of features that includes 802.11n support, Class 6 SD performance, and a nifty feature coined Endless Memory. Let’s have a closer look at what’s changed — and for current Pro owners, whether the X2 warrants an upgrade.

Continue reading Eye-Fi Pro X2 review

Motorola RAZR3 comes back from the dead for a very special hands-on video

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While you’re still trying to decide whether or not we’ve entered the post-Moto era, or if recent sales numbers are but a mere hiccup, might we introduce you in a hands-on of Motorola’s doomed RAZR3 (aka Ruby)? Featuring an improved interface, GPS, FM radio, and a touchscreen, this would have been the phone to beat — in 2006. For a closer look at the dumphone that almost was, check out the video after the break.

Continue reading Motorola RAZR3 comes back from the dead for a very special hands-on video

ASUS CEO: netbooks will outsell tablets, Eee Pad to run ‘Microsoft software’

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ASUS CEO Jerry Shen sure is making the rounds this week talking up the company’s upcoming entry into the tablet arena, but before giving up some more Eee Pad details he clarified that he doesn’t anticipate tablet sales surpassing that of netbooks. The latter category is for personal computing while tablets are based on consuming content and Cloud computing. Shen said something similar when we spoke with him at CeBIT, but this time he also added that without Apple the tablet category would have been slower to ramp up. We’d say he’s on the money with that one, but still he plans to launch an Eee tablet in early June at Computex. And though he mentioned there being a few versions, he revealed the “first phase will use Microsoft software.” We don’t know if that means the the tablet will be Intel powered and run Windows 7, or pack a Tegra 2 processor and boot some version of Windows CE like we saw at CES. Regardless of what happens, we’d say Microsoft’s happy to hear this all after this week’s news.

PowerColor HD5970 Eyefinity 12 makes six screens yesterday’s news

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Alright, so your six-screen Eyefinity rig may not be obsolete just yet, but it’s definitely just been knocked down a few notches on the jaw drop-o-meter. What you’re looking at above is a prototype of PowerColor’s HD5970 Eyefinity 12, which — you guessed it — packs twelve Mini DisplayPorts, along with a full 4GB of DDR5 memory. Unfortunately, there’s no images or video of an actual twelve-screen rig in action just yet — PowerColor is saving that for Computex in June — but you can check out a few more shots of the card itself after the break.

Continue reading PowerColor HD5970 Eyefinity 12 makes six screens yesterday’s news

Palm Pre Plus, Pantech Breeze 2 dummies showing up in AT&T stores

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It’s pretty wild that neither Palm nor AT&T have fessed up to a release date for the GSM-ified versions of the Pre Plus or Pixi Plus yet — especially considering that there are already unboxings going on — but we’ve now got confirmation that dummy units (of the Pre Plus, anyhow) are filtering into retail stores, so it definitely shouldn’t be much longer now. Dummies of an updated version of the ultra-simple Pantech Breeze (uncreatively named Breeze 2) is also coming in, so between these two, you should pretty much be able to outfit every member of the family from grandpa to the newborn. Seriously though, AT&T — wait much longer on this release, and this sucker’s going to be obsolete.

Engadget Podcast 194 – 04.30.2010

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The Engadget Podcasters ‘double down’ on the juicy goss from this week. And when we say “juicy goss from this week” it means more than in other weeks – like if the juice were from a succulent, perfectly ripened, just about to fall from the vine grapefruit of a gossip week as opposed to a shriveled, 2-month old lime you forgot to use that’s been sitting out in the sun of a gossip week.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Syphus – Save a Prayer

Engadget Podcast 194 – 04.30.2010

Posted from Engadget by admin

The Engadget Podcasters ‘double down’ on the juicy goss from this week. And when we say “juicy goss from this week” it means more than in other weeks – like if the juice were from a succulent, perfectly ripened, just about to fall from the vine grapefruit of a gossip week as opposed to a shriveled, 2-month old lime you forgot to use that’s been sitting out in the sun of a gossip week.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Syphus – Save a Prayer