HTC ThunderBolt RUU Available for Download

HTC ThunderBolt is one of the mobile phones that should bring the 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) goodness and Google's Android mobile operating system to Verizon Wireless' customers in the coming weeks.

Following a long series of rumors on this device, which was expected initially to arrive on the market as the DROID Incredible HD, the official announcement on its arrival has finally emerged earlier this week, and phone's ROM didn't take long to make an appearance either.

The info on the availability of the HTC ThunderBolt RUU (ROM Update Utility) emerged on the XDA-Developers forum here.

Those who are interested in learning more on what was packed inside the software should find it available for download on the said thread as RUU_Mecha_VERIZON_WWE_1.03.605.10_Radio_1.02.00.01 03_2r_NV_8k_1.37_9k_1.52_release_165253_signed.exe

For those who might not know, as we should note that the ROM is not available for installation on a mobile phone, but it does offer those familiar with this kind of software the possibility to learn a little more on what was packed with the handset that would feature it.

Pieces of info on settings, apps, and the like are available there, and some of these might also be posted to other devices, so as to make them more appealing than they are.

At the same time, we should note that the guys over at briefmobile posted on their website links to the HTC ThunderBolt (aka Mecha) system dump, and to the PG05IMG.zip file.

Little is known at the moment on what info these files would provide on the new smartphone that would soon feature 4G connectivity on Verizon Wireless' airwaves, but more should emerge in the near future.

Of course, the HTC ThunderBolt is not the only LTE-capable Android device announced officially for Verizon, but, since it leaked many months before the official announcement, it can be considered as the most popular of them all at the moment.

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Xperia X10 Powered by Android 2.2

Sony Ericsson might not come up with an official Android 2.2 Froyo software update for the high-end Xperia X10 smartphones, but custom ROMs that enable users enjoy the benefits of this OS version already started to emerge into the wild.

The new ROM available for Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 devices is currently available only in a beta flavor, and can be installed through xRecovery.

The software comes from the XDA-Developers forum, and is described in this thread: “FreeX10 is a clean, fast and stable rom for Xperia X10 based on AOSP and CM sources.”

For those users interested in installing this ROM on their Xperia X10 smartphones, we should note that it requires a rooted 2.1 ROM to be present on the device.

As usual, we warn users that the rooting of any mobile phone results in voiding the warranty for that device.

It should also be noted that installing unofficial software in the device is sometimes quite risky, and that users should refrain from doing so, especially if they are not familiar with what the rooting of a mobile phone is all about.

As for this particular ROM, we should note that, being only in a beta flavor for the time being, means that it still comes with a series of issues, and that users might experience random crashes with it, or that the camera does not work as of yet.

The USB Mass Storage, the hardware video enc/dec + Youtube and Wifi DNS/DHCP / ringtone loop issues initially present with the software already got hotfixes, and the existing known issues might be solved in the near future as well.

Additional info on this custom ROM for Xperia X10, as well as the necessary download links can be found in the said forum thread.

While no OS upgrade will be on its way to Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 devices past the Android 2.1 platform version, users would still benefit from software updates from the handset vendor, it seems.

One of them is reportedly the 2.1.A.0.390 firmware update, unavailable for end-users at the moment, which should bring forth multi-touch capabilities.

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Dual-Core Motorola DROID Bionic Now Here

A new Android-based mobile phone has found its way into Verizon's family of DROID handsets, namely the Motorola DROID Bionic, which packs a dual-core application processor and support for the wireless carrier's new 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network.

The new mobile phone includes a CPU with each core clocked in at 1GHz, along with 512 MB of RAM, and support for data transfer speeds than are up to 10 times faster than 3G.

The new Motorola DROID Bionic also comes with support for enhanced web browsing features, offering users all the benefits of Adobe Flash Player and HTML5, while also being able to deliver improved graphic rendering when compared to the previous single-core solutions.

“Motorola’s DROID BIONIC gives new meaning to the word “socialize” by delivering multiple ways for customers to stay connected,” the wireless carrier announced.

The mobile phone comes with a front-facing VGA camera so that users can take advantage of video calls on Wi-Fi or 4G. Moreover, it packs an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, with video recording capabilities.

The Android device sports a 4.3-inch qHD quality screen, HDMI connectivity for pairing it with HD televisions to enjoy favorite games, or HD content, in full 1080p, not to mention that the handset also includes support for simultaneous streaming of video to the TV and on the device.





“DROID BIONIC brings to life the speed and power of Verizon’s 4G LTE network, giving consumers an unrivaled mobile experience,” said Marni Walden, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless.
“Whether downloading movies in minutes, connecting with friends or co-workers through video conferencing, or blazing through the Internet, Motorola’s DROID BIONIC is what the 4G LTE experience is all about.”

The new mobile phone also comes with corporate email, remote wipe and data security and encryption capabilities that any business user would enjoy, not to mention Quickoffice for document review and editing, conference calling, access to calendar, and a wide range of Google services and applications.

“DROID BIONIC is the epitome of speed, providing consumers with instantaneous access to their personal and work content, anytime and anyplace,” said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president of portfolio and device product management, Motorola Mobility.

“By combining such a powerful mobile device with the performance and capabilities of Verizon’s 4G LTE network, we’re empowering consumers to define how they want to live their mobile lifestyles.”

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Exclusive First Look At Apple i phone 5

It may be too early to speculate further than what these pictures purport to show, but readers are more than welcome to share their impressions with us in the comments.

The source of these images is reportedly GlobalDirectParts.com.

Comparison between the alleged iPhone 5 (assembled) and the current-generation iPhone (4)
“We have carefully examined and scrutinized these components and have confirmed 100% that these are born from an Apple iPhone not yet released,” the PDA and smartphone parts supplier said.

“Could it be parts for the CDMA Apple iPhone 5 for Verizon Wireless or simply a reworked Next Generation Apple iPhone 5 or Apple iPhone 4 for AT&T that will be released ahead of Apple’s Traditional June Launch?” GlobalDirectParts.com asks.




“Perhaps these parts belong to an Apple iPhone 4 CDMA Version that will be released on Verizon Wireless Only? One thing is for certain, these parts are new and internals for a yet unreleased Apple iPhone Handset,” the company concludes.

It is possible, some claim, that the new design pertains to an improved version of the iPhone 4, perhaps the one rumored to emerge on the Verizon CDMA network.

And while the clearly visible SIM card tray would indicate otherwise, it is also possible that Apple is going for a universal design with the upcoming iPhone model, be it an improved version of the current-generation handset, or the 5.0 iteration of its insanely popular smartphone.

Perhaps it is worth noting that Apple pundit John Gruber (of the Daring Fireball) calls the news “Crazy.”

He adds: “My guess is that these are parts from N92, the upcoming (but as yet still unnannounced) CDMA iPhone 4. But why a SIM card slot? World compatibility?”, he writes.

Features:

Thinner! With shiny glass back piece – 9.3 mm thick.

Face recognition

Face Time (Video Chat) access on 3G AND 4G

Custom SMS tones

Custom E-mail alerts with ability to assign different tones to each email address

A new, sleeker body design.

OLED screen.

Scratch proof and shatter proof screen

Wireless sync with iTunes

32G (basic) and 64G of memory. You’re sure to never run out.

Extended battery life = 14 hours talk time on 3G and 7 hours on 4G. Standby 600 hours.

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More than Half of the Android Phones Run On Android 2.2 Froyo

Google's Android 2.2 Froyo platform iteration is accounting for the largest number of Android devices out there, being present on no less than 51.8 percent of the active Androids that accessed the Market in the two weeks prior to January 4th, 2011.

The latest data published on the Android Developers website shows that this OS version gained over 8 percent share of the Android distribution charts since December 1st, 2010, when it was loaded on 43.4 percent devices.

According to the said data, Android 2.1 was present on 35.2 percent of all active Android devices out there, down from the 39.6 percent it accounted for as of December 1st.

The charts show a newcomer too, namely Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which accounted for 0.4 percent of active handsets accessing the Market during the said time frame.

Older platforms, namely Android 1.5 and Android 1.6 decreased their share even more, being present on 4.7 percent and 7.9 percent of Android devices, respectively.

It's a common fact that Google is offering these details to developers, offering them a glimpse at most active Android devices out there, so that they could focus their applications on these OS releases.

Although Google calls it platform distribution, there are some who stress on the fact that this is actually the fragmentation of Android that is being showed here.

This state of fact might also be proved by the fact that Google has just unveiled a new flavor of the mobile OS, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which was built from the ground up to fit the large screen of tablet PCs.

Android platform distribution as of January 4th, 2011
Enlarge picture
Designed specifically for tablet PCs, the new OS flavor widens even more the gap between various Android iterations.

However, it should start appearing in these charts as soon as the first devices running under it land on shelves sometime in the first quarter of the ongoing year.




“The [...] stacked line graph [to the left] provides a history of the relative number of active Android devices running different versions of the Android platform. It also provides a valuable perspective of how many devices your application is compatible with, based on the platform version,” Google notes.

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Cheryl Cole in Elle: I Have Had Enough of Negativity

2010 was undoubtedly a difficult year for singer and television personality Cheryl Cole, what with her personal life coming apart and some of her decisions on X Factor generating severe criticism. The time has come to turn her back on that.

Cheryl will always strive to be the “nation’s sweetheart,” as she was once called, she tells the latest issue of Elle magazine. However, she’s not willing to put up with negativity for it.

In the Elle interview, Cheryl talks anything and everything, from fashion to music and, last but not least, what a rough year she had.

Not only did she see her marriage to Ashley Cole come apart because of a very public cheating scandal, but she also saw her every move and decision on X Factor harshly criticized.

She even received death threats for them, as we also noted at the time – and that’s not something she was accustomed to until that moment.

Luckily, she’s decided she no longer cares what people think of her: if they listen to her music and like, then it’s cool. If they don’t, it’s just as cool, she says in the interview with Elle.

“I have taken so much [expletive], I’ve stopped listening to other people. I have had enough. There's only so much you can cope with and then you either allow it to swallow you up or you say, ‘Sod this.’ I have had it with negativity,” Cheryl tells the magazine.

“I want people to like my music but I couldn’t give a [expletive] about what they think of me. Take it or leave it. I do not care,” the singer adds.

Luckily, the very difficult year (which was also marked by her coming down with malaria after a visit to Tanzania) also showed her that she can rely on her close friends and family when the going gets really tough.

“I’m lucky in that I’ve got family and friends to turn to. I realize now that it’s not a bad thing to lean on people and accept support. You get to find out who your real friends are when the [expletive] hits the fan,” she says.

For more on Cheryl Cole’s interview with Elle, please refer here.

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Windows 8 New UI (Codenamed Mosh) and App Model (Codenamed Jupiter)

While the first taste of Windows 8 might be just around the corner as CES 2011 kicks off later today, some fresh tidbits related to Windows 7’s successor have made their way to the public.

Windows 8 will reportedly feature a new graphical user interface codenamed Mosh and a new application model codenamed Jupiter.

The information comes from WinSupersite, and has not been confirmed, which means that users should take it with a grain of salt.

Under the codename Mosh the Redmond company is said to be developing a new tile-based user interface for the slate version of Windows 8.

On various occasions when I talked with Microsoft employees that asked for feedback related to Windows 7 and touch, I always stressed the importance to delivering a fully-fledged NUI (natural user interface) for such devices as Tablet PCs, instead of just Windows Aero.

And I always have Metro, the Windows Phone 7 UI as an example. In fact, when I hear tile-based UI, I immediately think that Windows 8 will get a new Metro-like user interface adapted to slates.

An older report indicated that Microsoft was hard at work on yet another GUI for Windows vNext, this time codenamed Wind, and it appears that it’s not really related to codename Mosh.

Codename Jupiter seems to be a confirmation of past speculation indicating the fact that a Windows 8 app store is cooking in Redmond.

The software giant again, has offered no confirmation but it appears that Windows Phone won’t be the only Microsoft OS with its own app store for very long.

According to sources familiar with codenamed Jupiter, the company is said to be developing a Cloud store designed to offer Silverlight applications as AppX packages (.appx).

It also appears that the next iteration of Microsoft’s development platform, Visual Studio 2012 will have a great role to play in allowing devs to build content for the Windows 8 app store by leveraging C#, Visual Basic, or C++.

Suggested Readings:
Windows 8 first look and all new Tablet PC OS

Windows 8 Feature Wish List Item: App Blacklisting

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Free Kindle Apps for Tablets By Amozon

Amazon's Kindle e-reader may be its best selling product, but there is always room for improvement, and Amazon decided to extend the possibility of buying its e-books to even more users by offering free apps for tablet PCs.

As end-users probably know, many tablets, running Android or Windows, will be released at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.

Since the expo will kick off just days from now, content availability is, naturally, on the minds of everyone thinking of buying one.

Seeing the excellent marketing opportunity inherent in so many slates, Amazon decided to offer a software platform for acquiring and reading its many e-books.

As such, the company has prepared, or is preparing, Kindle apps, free software meant to provide tablets with the functionality already present in the Kindle device.

Considering that such apps already exist for PCs, Macs, iOS devices and smartphones, this will even further boost the marketing prowess of Amazon's e-book store.

"Kindle is light weight, easy on the eyes with a paper-like Pearl e-ink display, and has a full month of battery life. It’s purpose-built for reading. Many people are buying both a Kindle and an LCD tablet computer," said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle.

"We’re very excited to support the upcoming Android and Windows LCD tablet computers with free Kindle apps that we’ll tailor for the particular devices," he added.

Amazon's e-book store contains 775,000 Kindle books and allows one to get free samples of any publication, meaning that the first chapter of a book can be read before deciding whether to buy it or not.

The apps will probably come to be known as “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” and will let one sync and read books, jump to the last page read and create bookmarks, notes and highlights.

For more information on kindle apps click here

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" I'm Still Here " - Exclusive Behind The Scene Pics

Press:
"Hoax or no hoax, Phoenix gives an all-out performance, which begs the question he asked himself at the beginning of the documentary: IS THE ACTOR PLAYING A ROLE OR IS A ROLE PLAYING THE ACTOR?"
-Sherri Jennings, Washington Post

We all know how better the so called "JP" actor is which all his work has proved.

Here are Some Exclusive Pics of Mr.Phoenix which shows his anxiety during the making of the movie.









About The Film

Oscar®-nominated actor Casey Affleck in his directorial debut together with fellow Oscar®-nominee Joaquin Phoenix blow the roof off of conventional filmmaking in this unique and groundbreaking experimental project. Joaquin gives a powerful performance as “JP,” an out of control Hollywood celebrity who commits career suicide in announcing that he is “retiring” from acting, while at the top of his game, to become a hip-hop star. JP shuts himself off from the protection and better judgment of his agent, manager and publicist, and sets out on a jaw-dropping journey into a decadent frenzy of sex, drugs and outrageousness, as he tries desperately to break away from his old celebrity persona to develop his rap career. Mired in self-doubt and harsh criticism from the media, he struggles to find his identity.


Dvd's Now Aviaible:

Click On The Links Below To Grab Yours



* BUY DVD



* BUY BLU-RAY™

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