Motorola has started rolling out an OTA Ice Cream Sandwich software update to its Xoom Wi-Fi tablet but sadly only users in the US can take advantage so far.

Among the new features are a faster, updated browser, swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, browsers tabs, the new app launcher, resizable widgets and more. Read more »

Microsoft has been using data from Navteq for their Bing Maps since the beginning, a subsidiary owned by Nokia and has also allowed the use of Nokia Maps on Nokia’s Lumia phones. Now, they will be making this partnership more visible to the user.

Microsoft will now be displaying Nokia’s name within Bing Maps. And this applies to every device that runs Bing Maps and not just Nokia’s. Read more »

When the whole Carrier IQ fiasco happened, Sprint was found to be one of the key offenders who sneaked in Carrier IQ software in their phones. After they were caught in the act, they promised to remove the offending software from their devices soon.

The first Sprint phone to be relieved of its Carrier IQ duties was the HTC EVO 3D through a firmware update and also added some security enhancements and bug fixes along the way. Now three more Sprint devices have joined the Anti-Carrier IQ squad. These include the HTC EVO 4G, the EVO Design 4G and the Samsung Epic 4G. Read more »

Just as expected, Apple made three important education-related announcements at their event in New York today. The company unveiled the next version of iBooks for iPad – iBooks 2, which now features interactive textbooks.

Apple also unveiled iBooks Author – a Mac OS X application that should greatly facilitate the creation of those textbooks (or other interactive books) and iTunes U iOS app, which lets you access complete courses from leading universities and plenty of free educational content. Read more »

Kindle Fire users are reporting that an OTA update is rolling out, bringing the Kindle Fire software version up to v6.2.2. Amazon still hasn’t officially announced it though.

The most notable feature of the update is full-screen mode for the web browser of the Kindle Fire. Read more »

With a loyal following numbering north of a million users, there is no doubt that CyanogenMod is among the premier aftermarket Android ROMs out there. One of the latest ideas regarding the future of the project is likely to make it even more attractive as it involves a proprietary store for root apps.

According to the CyanogeMod team member Koush, a proprietary app store would enable the CM team to take a small cut from developers who showcase their apps there, which will be used for paying for server and hardware maintenance. Read more »

With all the new gadgets at CES taking our attention, we missed a nice little update for Android that Google unveiled. Google Search received an update yesterday that brings some speed improvements and novelties to Android 2.2 (Froyo), 2.3 (Gingerbread) and 3.x (Honeycomb).

The new features include search suggestions (where Google completes your search with logical results), a refreshed look, suggestions grouping by type and local-specific results for countries with Google domains. Read more »

The OnLive Desktop app is now available for download over at the App Store for free. The app is an iPad exclusive and gives you access to a copy of Windows 7 with Word, Excel and PowerPoint plus 2 GB of free cloud storage.

If you’re really into the whole using-iPad-as-a-desktop solution you could opt for the Pro version of OnLive Desktop. Read more »

We’ve got some great news for those of you eager to get a feel for what your Galaxy S II running the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich build. A new ROM for the international version of the Galaxy S II just leaked from the Samsung R&D center and you can give it a try if you want.

Better yet, we installed the leaked Android 4.0.3-based ROM on a Galaxy S II we had at hand and prepared a quick video for you to show you what it feels like. Read more »

Google has just released an update to its Maps app for Android. The update brings more indoor floor plans and should prevent you from getting lost at CES or some of the other famous venues in Vegas.

The list of new places includes famous casinos and venues from the Las Vegas strip as well as Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. The most interesting addition, however, is the new Google Maps game for Google+. Read more »

Vimeo, famed video-sharing site, popular among users for its array of user-generated original and consistently high quality content, have just released a number of mobile apps for both Windows Phone and Android devices, alongside the Kindle Fire.

Previously mobile users of Vimeo only had access via means of an iOS device or a clunky unofficial iteration, but now it would appear that the love has indeed been shared more freely with a bumper release onto two app stores at the same time. Read more »

The popular file syncing app SugarSync just got an update, which makes it even easier to keep the multimedia files on your computer and your smartphone/tablet synchronized. The update hit both the Android and iOS versions of the app, but the change logs for the two seem a bit different.

On iOS, the SugarSync version number jumped to 2.5 and it got batch uploads for multiple photos and videos. The rest of the changelog follows below: Read more »

The Galaxy S II owners around the world rejoice – Dead Space is now free via Samsung’s proprietary store – Samsung Apps.

The promotion applies for every Galaxy S II phone – whatever the carrier, region, etc. Read more »

I’ve been using the Nokia N9 for a while now and I’m totally awed by the user experience. Now I regularly find myself swiping other touch phones with the intention of dismissing program screens and whatnot. Yeah, I’m surprised at myself too. I’m an old dog that doesn’t like to learn new tricks but this whole swiping thing on MeeGo, it totally got me. Yes, the Nokia N9 grew on me. Big time.

It’s really a sad thing that the N9 might just be the last MeeGo handset and that it comes with this OS that hardly has any developers appeal or even future. If you are not happy about the available out-of-the-box apps on the N9, you can safely call it a day. There’s no “eventually” in the possibility of getting a wider variety. And although Nokia has worked hard to deliver the modern-day basics such as Facebook, Skype and Angry Birds (who plays that anymore?), there are still apps that I do miss from iOS and Android. But I digress. Read more »

Nokia has just announced that its car mode app for Belle-running smartphones is now available for download. The software that makes your smartphone much easier to operate while you are driving has hit the Nokia Store and you can now download it directly from your Belle smartphone.

The Nokia software engineers have created two versions of the app. The first of them is called Nokia Car Mode and offers Nokia’s leading turn-by-turn navigation, as well as the overall smartphone experience into the car environment, while also bringing Nokia Drive, traffic updates, Nokia Music and voice calls while driving. This one is free to download. Read more »