Google Now, Google’s new voice search feature for Jelly Bean introduced during Google I/O last week, is now available for download on all AOSP ICS devices as well.

As is usually the case with exclusive apps and features introduced in a new Android build, the folks over at xda-developers forums were able to get their hands on the apk, and successfully port it over to Android 4.0. Read more »

We received several worrying tip in our inbox – Skype isn’t supported on Nokia Belle and it won’t work properly, specifically on the Nokia N8. Sure enough, we found multiple reports of crashes on Belle and going to www.skype.com/m we were greeted with a message that our Belle-running Nokia (for the record, 808 PureView) isn’t a supported device.

A bit of Googling revealed a workaround too, but you better sit down for this because it’s going to sound silly. Read more »

Mozilla’s HTML 5 based Boot 2 Gecko is getting traction with Alcatel and ZTE jumping on the bandwagon to produce the first ever devices running the mobile OS.

At MWC 2012 Mozilla announced the first ever Boot 2 Gecko devices are going to launch in Brazil by the carrier Vivo. Now, the project has been backed up globally and carriers such as Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, and Telenor are also going to start offering devices. Read more »

Samsung has launched an app which allows Galaxy S III owners to sync their smartphones with certain medical equipment to effectively measure and monitor vital health statistics.

S Health can connect to various weight, blood pressure or glucose monitors to present a health profile over a period of time that can be viewed or shared via SNS services. Read more »

It didn’t take too long after the official announcement for VideoLAN to launch a beta version of the famous VLC media player for Android.

Naturally being in beta, the app might be unstable at times, although most of the early feedback is positive. Mind you, it’ll run only on devices with an ARMv7 processor, which supports the NEON engine. Read more »

At the announcement of the latest iteration of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Google unveiled their updated Voice Search engine. It’s not exactly a virtual personal assistant but we decided to just go with it and see how it stacks up against one of the best ones out there – Apple’s Siri.

Google’s Voice Search in Jelly Bean, as its name suggests, is limited at doing web searches, and setting up the occasional alarm. Siri, on the other hand, is a full-blown virtual assistant – able to open applications (iOS6-only) set up meetings and even crack you up with a joke. We’ll be comparing the two in a series of web search tests and a side task to see how they fare. Read more »

Google Chrome is among the topics of discussion at day two of Google’s I/O developer conference. According to Senior Vice President of Chrome and Apps over at Google, Sundar Pinchai, Chrome has 310 million active users.

This makes Chrome the most popular web browser in the world. Year over year the jump of active users has almost doubled from the 160 million back in 2011. Read more »

The Google Play Store website already offered a super convenient way to just push apps to your device but now Google has taken it a couple of steps further.

Google has updated the ‘My Android Apps’, which until now only displayed some of the apps that you have downloaded on your device, to include the option to remotely update apps as well as uninstall them. Read more »

The Google Maps app isn’t the only one getting a major update today. Google has also released updates for the YouTube and Google+ apps on Android that bring some slick new interface design to both the apps.

Let’s start with the YouTube app, which you’ll notice has a new UI that looks similar to the recently released Google+ apps. The app shows you new videos from your subscribed channels with large thumbnail images spanning the width of the display. Read more »

Google’s new tablet, the Nexus 7, will be the first device that will come with the mobile Google Chrome as its default browser. Google’s presenters were mum on what that means for other devices.

Nexus 7 is also the first Jelly Bean device, so it’s possible that JB will drop the current browser and use Chrome. Since it would be a while since any of us not present at the Google I/O gets one, I suggest you head to the Google Play app store to get the latest version of the Chrome browser for Android. It just graduated from beta. Read more »

We already had a look at how many new Androids are activated a day, now it’s time to look at the Google Play store. There are now 600,000 apps and games in the store and users do 1.5 billion installs each month. Google have tallied the score and there have been 20 billion installs in total.

It’s not just the number of apps though, the way apps are handled has been improved and the Play Store now offers magazines and TV shows. Read more »

Bing Maps has received a huge update, amassing a total of 165 terabytes of information and imagery. This is the largest update to the mapping service ever and it’s larger than all of the past Aerial releases combined! To give you a little perspective the prior existing Aerial coverage of Bing Maps was 129 terabytes in total.

The update brings high-quality aerial photos of North America, South America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia with the total covered area being around 38 million square kilometers or roughly Russia’s land area multiplied by two plus the whole of India. Pretty impressive stuff. Read more »

Skype announced today that their Android app has surpassed 70 million downloads from the Google Play Store.

The achievement is celebrated with a special infographic showing the progress the app has made to become the most popular video calling application for Android. Read more »

The Nike+ running app provides a nifty way to track your workouts as well as receive recommendations on how to improve for your next workout, as well as compete against your friends or anyone in the Nike+ community.

The app, which has been an iOS-exclusive until now, finally lets Android users join the party. Read more »

Flipboard first made an appearance on Android exclusively on the Galaxy S III through a partnership with Samsung. Soon after that they released a beta for other Android phones to those who had signed up on their websites.

After a couple of months of beta testing, the final build of the app is now available on the Google Play Store, Amazon Appstore and the Barnes & Noble Nook store. On the Galaxy S III in the US, the app will come pre-installed from all the carriers. Read more »