2011年2月28日星期一

Sprint's Total Equipment Protection app searching out lost Androids and BlackBerrys

Joining AT&T and Verizon in offering some software-based data security for owners of its handsets, Sprint is today introducing its Total Equipment Protection app. Funnily enough, it uses the same Asurion software as the aforementioned other carriers, which would be why its functionality mirrors them so closely. With the TEP app, you'll be able to track your phone via a web interface, force it to sound an alarm even if muted, lock it, and finally wipe your contacts (which can later be restored once you get your handset back). The app itself, compatible with Android and BlackBerry devices, is free, however you'll need to be signed up to Sprint's Total Equipment Protection program, which costs $7 a month. You'll find more details in the press release after the break. 

MobileNotifier: iPhone alerting improved

If you haven't jailbroken your iPhone yet then MobileNotifier might just push you over the edge -- a place you're probably already teetering upon given Apple's pathetic push notification implementation. MobileNotifier beta v3 is a free open-source rewrite of iOS' notifications from Peter Hajas (lead developer) and Kyle Adams (UI and UX). Perhaps the biggest feature of MobileNotifier is the addition of unobtrusive alerts that appear at the top of your existing app. Unlike Apple's interfering popups, MobileNotifier alerts can be ignored, leaving them on the display without inhibiting use of the device. You can also take immediate action on alerts or tap them away for later. Pending alerts can be found in the AlertDashboard -- the previously unused area above the app switcher, accessible with a double-press of the iPhone's home button. Pending alert counts are also displayed as a line item on the Lockscreen. We've been running MobileNotifier for a few hours. While it's not perfect (opaque windows?) we have no plans to remove it either. At least not until we see what Apple has in store for iOS 5 which, with any luck, will be revealed on Wednesday for a summer launch. Another screenshot and demo video can be found after the break. 


Dell Venue Pro arriving in the UK at long last: £459 off contract, shipping in 10 days

Time for a quick memory check: remember the WP7  slider that Dell announced some months ago? That's right, it's the Venue Pro -- the one that's been struggling to meet demand in the US due to some mysterious reworking. Well, here's some good news for the folks on the other side of the pond: starting today, Dell's UK store is taking orders for this unlocked slider for a hefty £459 ($745), and the first deliveries are expected to arrive in 10 days. Man, these wicked people from Round Rock sure love making us wait, but better late than never, right?

Source: Thumbplay Music Closing To Getting Sold; Fate Of Ringtone Ops Unknown

MocoNews has learned that mobile entertainment company Thumbplay is getting sold. Its cloud-based music service, Thumbplay Music, may be going to a “traditional media company”, with the deal expected to close this week, possibly as soon as today; while the fate of Thumbplay’s other main line of business—selling ringtones, games and other casual mobile entertainment—is still unknown.
Thumbplay Apps for iPhone, BlackBerry and AndroidOur source tells us that the sale is a do-or-die scenario because the company is running out of cash: “The price is very low. No one is making any money.” The ringtone business is still on the block, and the company is trying to sell it to another ringtone distributor. 
We have contacted Thumbplay for confirmation and will update this post as we learn more.
If true, Thumbplay’s story, in a way, doesn’t come as too much of a surprise—the music industry has been hit hard with cannibalisation from digital sales and piracy. And the promise of new revenues, on the back of the explosion in mobile and internet usage, have yet to materialise for most music companies, with Apple’s iTunes dominating the market with more than a 60 percent share. If anything, a Thumbplay sale could be a signal for more sales or closures to come.
Thumbplay was founded in 2004 by Are Traasdhal and Evan Schwartz (who is the current CEO) as a mobile entertainment startup, selling services like ringtones and wallpapers. It launched its cloud-based music service, Thumbplay Music, in 2010. This has the backing of all four major record labels, as well as independents, and has more than 10 million songs in its catalogue, which it sells on a $9.99 monthly subscription, via a smartphone app (iPhone, BlackBerry and Android) or as a desktop app.
What’s getting bought. Apparently not as much as you would think. Our source says that Thumbplay Music was built on a platform licensed from the Oslo, Norway-based mobile entertainment platform provider Aspiro. Aspiro sells both its own-brand music service under the name WiMP, as well as white-label services to companies like Telenor, Portugal Telecom, and Thumbplay. In other words, whatever sale goes down, the price paid will be for Thumbplay subscribers and revenue made from them.
However, it is unclear how many subscribers Thumbplay has at the moment. Visitors to the company’s main site, Thumbplay.com, have been in decline, according to Quantcast, but that’s not a completely accurate marker because the company runs its business mainly via its apps.
Thumbplay has a strong list of backers that include Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital; and it has raised at least $41.5 million and was valued at around $400 million back in 2008.
In addition to the founders, Thumbplay has an equally strong list of executives, including Pablo Calamera as the CTO—he was previously director of Apple’s MobileMe, the cloud-based service that seems to have been discontinued of late. Eric Hippeau, the SoftBank partner who recently left his role as CEO of Huffington Post after its sale to AOL (NYSE: AOL), is listed as a director of the company. But several executives are also understood to have left.
Thumbplay’s ringtones business saw a bit of controversy last year, when it was included in a class-action lawsuit in which users accused it (along with others like Motricity) of levying unauthorized charges for content. The defendants never admitted any wrongdoing and collectively settled the case out of court for $10 million.

MobileNotifier Does iOS Notifications Truly Right, Will Make You Want To Jailbreak

iOS’ Notifications system sucks. A lot. In the Great Smartphone War, it’s probably the platform’s most inexplicable Achille’s heel. Oh, you’re playing a game? Sorry, Bobby texted you again! PAUSED! Watching a movie? Sorry, the battery is at 10%! PAUSED!
Peter Hajas’ MobileNotifier, demoed above, shows us that things don’t have to be this way. Dismissible, nonintrusive notifications? An easily accessible notifications tray? Be still, my heart. The catch: as with anything that modifies the deeper system files, you’ll need to jailbreak to get this working.
Our fingers are crossed that Apple will finally be addressing this in iOS 5 — meanwhile, consider us jailbroken.

About Motorola: all our high-end smartphones will have Webtop from June onwards

You know how Motorola's Atrix is unique in having all these docking stations and a Webtop app that collectively turn it into a far more versatile computer than your average superpowered smartphone? Well, Sanjay Jha has just told investors at a Morgan Stanley shindig that the Atrix won't be unique for long -- the Webtop app will be making an appearance on all of Moto's "high performance" smartphones in the second half of this year, and we're told that the only reason the Droid Bionic won't be shipping with it was the simple constraint of time. What that implies, but something Jha didn't say, is that the Bionic and Moto's other forthcoming devices are likely to have laptop docks of their own -- hopefully with a connector that makes the docking accessory interchangeable between models.

Microsoft Increasing The Senseless Limit On How Many Free Apps A Developer Can Submit

So, let’s say you’re Microsoft. You’ve got this brand new smartphone platform — one that, thanks to the timing and that of the competition, is a bit of an underdog. To be at all competitive, you need to convince developers to not only make applications for your platform, but to make lots of applications for your platform. Now, what’s the one thing you definitely, absolutely, should not do? Limit those that are actually interested in your platform — say, by setting some arbitrarily low limit on the number of apps they can submit.
Alas, that’s exactly what Microsoft did. Up until this morning, Microsoft had limited developers to a maximum of 5 free applications. If they wanted to throw any more on the market, they’d either have to charge for the app or cough up $20 bucks for the submission. (Really? Charging the developer for submitting a free app, on top of the $99 yearly fee? Really?!) This cap is now set at a considerably more reasonable level of 100 apps.
I understand why they did this. They didn’t want a mountain of crapware filling their store — a totally reasonable desire. But this was probably the silliest possible way they could have gone about it. Deal with crapware developers individually, don’t just throw a wet blanket on everyone.

Google’s Building 44 Getting Its Honeycomb Statue

At this point, it’s pretty much tradition: Google releases a new major build of Android to the public, and a statue themed around that build’s codename (like Froyo, or Donut, or Gingerbread) goes up in its honor at the Android Team’s building (Building 44) across from the Google Campus.
The first official Honeycomb (Android 3.0) device, the Motorola Xoom, just hit the shelves last week — and sure enough, the Honeycomb statue just went up. Android Developer AdvocateJustin Mattson tweeted out the shot above to celebrate. Rockin’ both the Android robot and a big ol’ nasty lookin’ honeybee, this statue is quite possibly the coolest one yet. Check behind the jump for a shot of all of the other statues kickin’ it.

AT&T's Motorola WX450 showing its rugged self in FCC filing

Motorola has a fairly sterling reputation for concealing interesting tidbits of information in its FCC filings -- but every so often, one slips through. Take this WX450, for instance, which you might mistake for an iDEN handset at first -- it looks a little bit like the i465 Clutch, after all -- but it turns out this puppy has 850 / 1900MHz WCDMA 3G (along with GSM) for use on AT&T... which would explain the AT&T logo button to the lower left of the d-pad. The giant screw on the back is indicative of the fact that this is a water-resistant device, backed up with what appears to be a thick non-slip, shock-absorbing rubber cover; Motorola already sells the rugged Tundra on the carrier, so there's certainly precedent for this sort of thing. Sadly, judging from the user's manual, it doesn't look like it'll be running the samewacky build of Android as the i886, which is a crying shame if you ask us.

Sony touting high-speed 17.7 megapixel CMOS sensor for cellphones

It's been over a year since Sony introduced the world's first16.41 megapixel CMOS sensor for cellphones (pictured at right), but the company's now finally back with another entrant in the megapxiel race: a 17.7 megapixel sensor. This one delivers more than just a higher resolution, though, as it's also Sony's first sensor with a bandwidth of 34.8Gbps (or about five times faster than previous CMOS sensors), which promises to allow for 120 fps video at full resolution -- assuming the phone's processor and storage are able to keep up, of course. What's more, the new sensor is also said to boast some improved consumption and, according to Nikkei, it seems that Sony is planning to use it in digital cameras in addition to cellphones, although there's no word as to when either of those will be available.

Apple’s Cook Saying iPhone Is Not Just A Rich Person’s Gadget

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) COO Tim Cook wants to make sure that Apple can reach the mass market with the iPhone.
Cook sat down with Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi last week for a wide-ranging chat about Apple, according to a research note put out by Sacconaghi this morning and picked up by multiple outlets, including Forbes. While Apple is well known for pursuing the high end of the PC market with its Mac product strategy, multiple products and pricing strategies ensured the iPod became a mass-market gadget, and Cook implied Apple is going to try and duplicate that feat with the iPhone.
$100 Million iPhone AppsApple is “not ceding any market,” Sacconaghi wrote in the note according to Forbes’ account. (A Bernstein representative did not immediately return an e-mail seeking a copy.) Cook also suggested that Apple wants to avoid having the iPhone be seen as a product “just for the rich.”
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and its Android partners are aggressively going after a mass market with multiple products and pricing strategies around the world. Often that involves tackling the pre-paid mobile market, which Apple has not spent as much time worrying about given the success of the iPhone over the last several years.
That sounds like it could be changing, and could pave the way for lower-cost iPhones or different pricing strategies that avoid the standard two-year subsidized contract model common among many of Apple’s mobile partners. Sacconaghi also noted that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer talked about plans to expand the number of carriers that feature the iPhone, from the 175 currently on board to something more like the 550 that carry the BlackBerry.
Over time, however, tablets could present as much if not more opportunity for Apple as the iPhone. Cook told Sacconaghi that he thinks tablets could represent between $60 billion and $100 billion in new business for just Apple over the next several years, and that “intense competition” from other companies could make for a pretty big pie.
Apple, of course, is expected to unveil the next version of the iPad Wednesday in San Francisco, and we’ll be there.

Motorola subsidiary 3LM to offer enterprise-class device management for Android; HTC, Sony Ericsson, and others on board

Apple's been working hard to chip away at RIM's lead in the enterprise over the last couple years by beefing up iOS' IT policy management chops in ways that traditionally only BlackBerry (and thenow-marginalized Windows Phone 6.5 / Windows Embedded Handheld platform) have excelled at, but Motorola -- a company that's got virtually 100 percent of its skin in the Android game -- would obviously like to see that change. To that end, it acquired a little company called 3LM (that's "Three Laws of Mobility") last year that's been working on an enterprise management platform for Android, and it appears they've pulled off a bit of a coup -- not only will its parent company be supporting it on devices starting in the second quarter of the year, but devices from competitors like HTC, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and Pantech are on board, too. A standard software package for this sort of thing is just what IT bosses like to see -- and it could be Android's most dangerous strike yet on the enterprise side of the market. Follow the break for Moto's press release. 

Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread leaking for Samsung Galaxy S

Not every Galaxy S user around the globe even has Froyo yet -- but Samsung's ready to move on, it seems, crafting a ROM based on Android 2.3.2 (in other words, quite recently) for the i9000 model that just leaked across the giant faucet better known as the internet. The darned thing is nearly a quarter gigabyte in size, so Samsung's not playing here, but users haven't fleshed out everything that's changed just yet. Of course, if you're using one of the millions of Galaxy S devices that aren't an i9000, you've got more waiting to do... but we're certain hackers are already well underway tearing this bad boy apart and crafting custom ROMs for various SKUs. Hang tight!

LG Optimus 2X now coming to Europe in March, a little later than planned

European dual-core aficionados were promised their fix way back in January from LG, however the Korean company's delivery schedule evidently slipped a tiny bit as we're today bidding adieu to the month of February. Good news is that LG will definitely, totally, honestly be releasing its Optimus 2X in "key European markets" this March. It'll ship with Froyo on board, however a Gingerbread update is expressly promised, which should allay fears of being left with a very powerful but outdated piece of hardware. Last time we looked, Amazon's German branch had priced this handset, to be known as theOptimus Speed in Deutschland, at just under €500, which sounds about right for its eventual unlocked price. 

Creator Of Angry Birds’ Physics Engine Calling Out Rovio For Not Giving Him Credit

Aaaawkwaaard!
I’m not at this week’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco for various reasons (the main one being that I’ve been covering events non-stop for nearly two months and my body is falling apart), but we’re keeping a pretty close eye on things just in case. We’re hearing that things just got a little dramatic in the “ANGRY BIRDS – An Entertainment Franchise in the Making” panel headed by Rovio’s “Might Eagle” (read: head honcho) Peter Vesterbacka.
During the Q&A session, someone from the audience stood up and claimed to have created the physics engine behind Angry Birds, requesting a credit. The audience, we’re told, roared with applause. I’m working to confirm this right now, but I’m almost certain that person would have to be Erin Catto, creator of the open-source Box 2D physics engine. (Update: Yep, folks in the audience have confirmed that it was Erin Catto.)
This issue started heating up back in December, after a handful of people in the development community (here’s one) started wondering aloud if Erin should get some financial love from Rovio — or, at the very least, a mention in the credits.
Technically, Rovio isn’t at all obligated to compensate Erin, be it with monies, fine jewels, or a passing mention. From Box2D’s license:
The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
Rovio’s lovable characters, near-constant updates, and generally awesome employees have given the company a pretty dang positive public image. They wouldn’t want a dispute with the guy who built a core element of their game (especially when the guy is giving said element away for free) to tarnish that; in this situation, they become David’s Goliath, and that’s a terrible spot to be in. If all the guy is asking for is some credit, giving him that as quick as possible is probably the best thing they could do.
The gist of Rovio’s response was pretty straight-forward: if he’d come see them after the panel, they could talk about it.

Bentley Collection iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry casing are made of rich, non-Corinthian leather

Bentley Collection iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry cases are made of rich, non-Corinthian leather
If you'd like to give your iPad the same cosseting your posterior receives when you slot into the sport buckets in your Continental GT then you, good chap, are in luck. Bentley's "luxury leather partner" Ettinger, which ensures no surface of the vehicles is bereft of animal hide, is releasing a line of gadget cases to cover your iPad, iPhone, or BlackBerry -- though it's unclear exactly which model for the latter. Prices? You're looking at £45 for either of the phone holsters or £89 for the iPad-sized model. That's about $73 and $145, respectively, and a lot of cash for a little hide. If you're still not dissuaded there's another image of the tablet-sized version and a press release below. Those, at least, are free. 

Bentley Collection iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry cases are made of rich, non-Corinthian leather

Flyer - HTC's Android 2.4 Tablet Review

HTC release it's tablet, named Flyer. The Flyer will ship in Q2 2011 with Android Gingerbread 2.4 on board.
flyer
The Device has 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage, 1024 x 600 resolution. On the back is a 5 megapixel camera, with a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling. The HTC Flyer supports both WiFi and cellular 3G and HSPA+ (near 4G) connections, and it comes with GPS and Bluetooth.
flyer 

Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) Now Coming To HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, and Incredible S In Q2

Do you carry an HTC Desire Z, Desire HD, Desire, or the brand-friggin’ new Incredible S? Are you wondering when you’ll get a bite of that sweet, sweet Gingerbread (or, in non-mega-geek-speak, when your handset will be updated to Android v2.3)?
While HTC isn’t naming any specific dates (that just tends to make people rage when the unavoidable delays occur), they’ve confirmed to Slashgear that the four aforementioned devices will get Gingerbread, and they’ve offered up a pretty big window for when those updates will come: Q2. That means we probably won’t see any of them by March, but all of them should be floatin’ over the airwaves by the end of June.

ChaCha now sues HTC for Facebook phone trademark infringement

Facebook phone rumors were swirling for quite awhile, then HTC answered a question that seemingly nobody asked by delivering unto the world a phone with a dedicated Facebook button... the ChaCha. In what can only be considered a stroke of luck for all of humanity, the Taiwanese handset maker has been granted the opportunity to rectify its naming gaffe courtesy of a trademark infringement suit brought by ChaCha Inc. That company trademarked its name and logo in 2007 for its text and voice internet search engine services and is (rightfully) displeased with the HTC's choice of names for its Facebook-focused handset. ChaCha doesn't want mobile users thinking that it's endorsed the phone, and given that the company's bread and butter is providing mobile search, such confusion seems likely. ChaCha is asking for money damages and a permanent injunction to prevent the phone from going to market with its name. That's just fine with us -- if only the courts could grant an injunction to remove that Facebook button.

Upgrading old Pres, Pre Pluses to webOS 2.1 slightly easier, fraught with less danger thanking to new scripts

Let's be honest, Palm user: in all likelihood, your days with your Pre or Pre Plus are numbered. At this point, you've got the Pre 2 available, the Pre 3and Veer in the pipeline, and countless awesome assaults from other platforms in constant danger of stealing you away. Might as well have a little fun, right? Maybe try your hand at an unauthorized upgrade to webOS 2.1, for example? WebOS Internals has thrown together some scripts that make updating a variety of Pre and Pre Plus versions from Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Telcel, and Bell -- devices that HP recently decided wouldn't get webOS 2.0 -- relatively painless, though they're quick to note that any number of absolutely awful things could still happen to your device or your Palm Profile. It's not for the faint of heart... but then again, carrying around a Pre these days shows a level of platform defiance that isn't for the faint of heart, either, so you're no stranger to bravery.

Sony Ericsson detailing Xperia Play development: buttons easy, touchpad just a little trickier

In a post on Sony Ericsson's Developer Blog coinciding with the official launch of the Xperia Play at MWC earlier this month, the company clued in developers on how to take advantage of the game-specific controls they'll be dealing with on that glorious slide-out board. In short, it's insanely straight forward for the most part: the hard buttons just generate standard key codes, which explains why existing games worked so well with the unit we'd previewed. The only tricky part comes into play with the center-mounted touchpad, which can't be accessed through the standard Android SDK -- for that, you'll need to turn over to the NDK, the native-code escape hatch that Android devs use when they need higher performance and want to get closer to the hardware. SE's published a 16-page guide on getting to the touchpad through the NDK, and it seems straightforward enough -- and plenty of game developers are well acquainted with the NDK already, anyway -- so we're guessing it won't be much of a hurdle. Getting devs to support an input method that's only available initially on a single commercial device might be a bigger hurdle... but we digress.

Nexus S 2.3.3 updating adjusts screen's color temperature, we go eyes-on

We've been hearing reports about Nexus S' Android 2.3.3 update adding a yellow tint to the screen and even washing out its colors, but according to Google's Ry Guy, said patch is indeed intended to tweak the display's color temperature. Here's the full quote from Google's support forum:
"With your new OTA complete, you may notice a slight difference in the way colors are displayed on your Nexus S. For Nexus S, we have adjusted the color temperature settings to more accurately reflect darker colors at all brightness levels. The Gingerbread UI being darker, we found that the colors were not as accurate when the device was being used at lower brightness levels. For example, some users reported that the initial color temperature was too high leading to some darker greys having a reddish tone; with the new color temperature this is no longer the case."
So while this display tweak is well-intentioned, it looks like many commenters on both the forum andXDA-Developers aren't too happy with this. Being curious geeks that we are, we went ahead andmanually updated our own Nexus S (and by the way, be sure to match your build number with the appropriate patch). As you can see in our comparison photos (shot with the same manual camera settings and medium screen brightness), the new overall color temperature is no doubt subtly warmer, although the dimmer brightness settings no longer suffer from the aforementioned red tone. Interestingly, we actually approve this change, and the Super AMOLED display certainly doesn't look washed out to us, nor do we see any noisy dithering that some have reported. Surely we can't be alone. Well, there's only one way to help solve this mystery: if you happen to be a fellow Nexus S owner who's applied this update, why not chime in below?

Opinion Of Sony Ericsson developer boss: 'in favor' of rooting option if done right

Is the tide about to turn in the Android hackability debate? Not long after Motorola indicated its willingness to start helping out folks that want unlockable bootloaders, Simon Walker, head of Sony Ericsson's developer program, has noted on Twitter that he's "actually in favor" of allowing some sort of rooting option as long as it's "done right." Clearly, manufacturers across the board are interested in getting tight and cozy with the developer community -- apps are the key to any platform's success, after all, and many Android devices have unique features that can take advantage additional custom coding -- so they're appearing a little conflicted about how to proceed on the dev-friendliness front without coming across as outright hacker-friendly (commercial developers and hackers are often at odds, after all). Walker says that he needs to "take the discussion" inside the company before any sort of decision is made, but at least we know there's a proponent up in the ranks.

HTC Aria for AT&T getting official Froyo update

AT&T had just said in the past few days that the Aria's Android 2.2 update was in the labs... and, well, here it is. That was a pretty painless wait, right (assuming you don't count the wait since Asia got it)? The download is up on HTC's site right now, weighing in at 165MB and warning that it'll delete your text messages and your downloaded email, wipe your apps, and scare your children... so proceed with the same level of caution that you would any firmware upgrade.

2011年2月27日星期日

HTC Incredible S, Desire HD, News : Desire Z and original Desire will all be eating Gingerbread by the end of June

When it launched the Incredible S at MWC a couple of weeks ago, HTC promised the new 4-inch device would be quick to get a Gingerbread update and now it's giving us a definitive schedule for it by saying that Android 2.3 will be distributed to its new flagship phone by the end of Q2 2011. We're not sure four months of sitting by the window waiting for the OTA update to float in necessarily matches up to our definition of "quick," but there are much better news for owners of HTC's older devices. The Desire HD and Desire Z -- both released in September 2010 -- will also be leaping away from Froyo and up to Gingerbread and will be joined by the original Desire, which was announced way back at last year's MWC. That handset was essentially HTC's own-brand Nexus One, so we already knew it was capable of running Gingerbread, but it's still rare to see a device go through two significant Android updates (the Desire began life with Android 2.1). All these old Desires are placed on the same update schedule as the Incredible S, whereas the newly announced Desire S and Wildfire S will ship with Gingerbread preloaded.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc turning pink in Japan for March 24th launch

After having played with it back at CES, we'd argue that the Xperia Arc is a pretty stunning phone purely by virtue of its design; there's not really any need to spice it up with a crazy color. But hey, if you want to, you'll be able to -- if you're on Japan's NTT DoCoMo, anyway. The carrier has announced the Xperia Arc as the SO-01C in the local market with retail availability coming on March 24th -- right around the same time Europe should be getting it, too -- and the in-your-face "Sakura Pink" is joining Misty Silver and Midnight Blue for the launch palette. Retina damage seems inevitable in this particular segment of the visible light spectrum, but we'll admit: ultra-thin Gingerbread devices seem like a pretty good excuse to sustain said damage.

PlayBook Android app supporting mentioned during demo at MWC, old BlackBerrys show up in ShopSavvy's BlaAndroid logs

As far-fetched as it may seem, rumors that RIM is working on some sort of Android app support for its QNX-based PlayBook tablet have persisted in various forms for months now -- and they've turned up once again in a video posted by development community MobileMonday's Rio chapter taken at MWCearlier this month, where a RIM rep seemingly says "we will also support Android apps" after talking about Java-based offerings. Of course, this could've been staged by some rabble rousers or a rep could've simply been echoing back the rumors he's seen on the interwebs -- but regardless, it adds fuel to the fire. Follow the break to see the video of that.

But it gets weirder. ShopSavvy -- which makes versions of its app for iOS and Android -- has started turning up a couple of older BlackBerry devices in its Android build's usage statistics on Flurry: the Curve 8300 and 8520, to be specific, along with an 8600 model that doesn't exist (at least, not yet). The 8300, in particular, is pretty ancient at this point and we're having a hard time wrapping our brain around RIM's game plan in porting Dalvik (or a Dalvik-like) VM and associated libraries over to it; if anything, Flurry could be confused. Then again, a next-generation full-touch BlackBerry that just happens to run a full suite of Android apps in a sandbox could be a pretty compelling product, indeed.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]