The Acer Iconia Tab A500/A501 was quick to jump on the Android 3.1 update and it has made another jump – to Android 3.2. The update is available Over-The-Air, so if you have one of these you should hit the Check for updates option in the About menu.

Aside from a variety of optimization across the whole OS, Android 3.2 brings a couple of other important changes, so this update is quite welcome. The other two changes are app scaling so that apps designed for phones can be stretched to fit tablets and syncing media from the SD card. Read more »

Samsung has released a second video teaser for the IFA trade show for consumer electronics, which teases viewers with waves and the laconic punch line – “Something Big is Coming”.

Now we can’t ignore the clever sneaked-in waves or the fact that “bada” in Korean means ocean or sea. The teaser obviously hints at the newest Wave flagship – the rumored Samsung S8600 Wave III. Read more »

Nokia released its Symbian Anna update last week for the N8, E7, C7 and C6-01 handsets and has released an introductory video of the Anna UI to familiarize users with it and, naturally, brag a little about it. Not only that but they’ve put up a dedicated page on how to upgrade to Symbian Anna using the Ovi Suite, the Nokia Software updater for Mac and finally, the in-built updater app on the supported Symbian phones.

The first video focuses the viewer’s attention to four main concepts of Anna – the new design, the battle-proven Nokia maps navigation, the updated, faster web browser and finally, the better PIM (multiple emails support, file manager, business-grade security and more). Jump after the break for the full video. Read more »

Nokia Beta Labs has a cool new app – it’s called Nokia Nearby and it tries to bring location-aware searching to emerging markets. It works even on phones without a GPS receiver (it’s focused on Series 40 devices) and works similarly to Google’s What’s nearby? search.

Nokia Nearby is in the beta stages right now, but you can already download and use it to find info on shops, restaurants, movie theaters and other places close by. Read more »

The Nokia N8 has just made the official jump to Anna, but those unafraid to mess with their smartphone platform (and void their warranties in the process) have already been spending quality time with the next Symbian revision – Belle.

Today we got yet another video showing the Nokia cameraphone flagship running on Symbian Belle. Even longer than the last one, this new clip demoes just about every part of the updated user interface. Read more »

Skype will buy the GroupMe messaging service in order to expand its group messaging capabilities and gain points on the mobile battleground. People close to the deal say that the chat giant will cash out the whopping $85 million although Skype itself hasn’t yet disclosed this information officially.

GroupMe is a very young company, started in 2010 and has around twenty employees. During the course of its first year it earned around $11 million in funding from the likes of Betaworks, First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and more.

Skype CEO Tony Bates has said that he’s been in talks with GroupMe for a few months, around the time Skype was in negotiations with Microsoft, which is currently acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion. He has also said that Skype will keep GroupMe as a standalone brand, located in New York City, and look for points of integration with Skype’s service portfolio. The ultimate goal for Skype is to get to 1 billion active users and the company believes this would be done with the mobile ecosystem, where GroupMe would be a great asset to Skype.

Skype faces many rivals on the mobile ground, including BlackBerry’s Messaging, soon-to-be officially launched Apple iMessage service and third-party cross-platform apps like WhatsApp and Viber, and let’s not leave out Facebook’s Messenger out of the equation.

We’re yet to see the fruits of Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype and now those GroupMe will bring to both companies.

Via | Source

The iOS 5 beta 6 was released via an OTA update a couple of days ago and it already got its jailbreak via the Sn0wbreeze v2.8 beta 6 tool.

The iOS 5 beta 6 itself brings some bug fixes but nothing too major. You can get it OTA directly from your iPhone issues-free. The jailbreak brings developers full access to the OS, but the jailbreak is a tethered one again so your device will need to be jailbroken anew every time your restart or power-off your phone.

The only device that’s skimping on the spoils is the iPad 2 – no jailbreak there.

Have you jailbroken your iOS 5 beta 6? Have some issues? Pray tell in the comments below.

Via | Source

Carrier billing for Android has landed in Europe – Vodafone is the first operator to do it, starting with the UK and it will soon enable it in Germany too. Vodafone is expected to expand the service to other countries and other carriers should follow suit.

Carrier billing works by charging your phone bill for the apps purchases, so you don’t need a credit card. The simpler process should boost app sales, or so Vodafone hopes. Read more »

Here’s one for frequent travelers with an iGadget – Skype released an app called Skype Wi-Fi (the same service was offered for laptops under the name Skype Access), available for all iOS 4.1+ devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch).

What Skype Wi-Fi does is give you access to over a million commercial Wi-Fi hotspots around the world and let’s you pay for using them on the go with your Skype Credit. It’s good for quick connections to the Internet at odd places, but not so much for all-day usage as you are charged by by the minute. Read more »

In case you are into the eye-candy graphics and the id Software actions, you will be pleased to know the iOS mobile game Rage is now free for a week in the Apple’s App Store.

id Software has promised it will make the game free if a dedicated Facebook page gathers 100 000 likes. Yes, the 100 000 likes has been made so id kept its promise and Rage and Rage HD for iOS are now free. Read more »

Unlike some other Google projects, which seem to spend an eternity in the beta stages of their development, it only took Photovine a little over a month to graduate. The ambitious photo-sharing service is now accessible for everyone.

And by everyone, I mean only those who have an iOS device, as Photovine is currently only available as an app in the App Store. At least it covers the lot with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad units running iOS 4.2 or later being supported. Read more »

Nokia N8 hasn’t even received the official Anna update yet, but the most daring of its users are already rewarded with the next Symbian iteration – Belle. The files required for flashing Belle on your N8 are already available for download so if you are knowledgeable enough and decide that it’s worth voiding your warranty you might get it up and running right now.

There’s not much in the way of instructions on how to flash it in the forum thread that lists the download files, but you can find them over here. You would need to apply the Anna update first though, if you haven’t done so already. Read more »

Mozilla has released the next iteration of their Firefox browser for Android. Version 6 comes with a slightly refreshed interface, including a new welcome screen and a slight facelift to the menu.

Yet the main changes that Firefox 6 brings are under the hood with faster zooming, crisper text and reduced pixelation promised to be the results of the new enhanced image rendering algorithms. Read more »

The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY promised to play PlayStation One games and it does – but only ones you get from the dedicated market. An industrious dev is working on (an unofficial) way to load any PS1 game from an ISO image of its disk and play it in the Xperia PLAY’s own emulator.

It’s still a work in progress, but you can check out this video of an Xperia PLAY running Crash Bandicoot 3 to see how far the develoment has gone. Read more »

Facebook released today a brand new (separate) app, called Facebook Messenger for the iPhone and Android devices. It combines all of your messages into a single app and can be used to text your Facebook buddies via your profile or text message, via your carrier.

Also 9to5Mac have uncovered that the app (both for the iPhone and Android) has a top-secret video component to it, which would mean that the Palo Alto-based company is on route to rub shoulders with Skype (among others) by bringing cross-platform video calls. Read more »