Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Google’s “Nexus One” phone has been stirring up plenty of interest in the past few weeks, not only as Google’s next big phone after the slightly disappointing one that was on T-Mobile not so long back (apparently this is the phone that should’ve been) and the apparent lack of originality in the name(according to the Philip K. Dick family estate saying they stole it from the author’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? AKA Blade Runner). However all this aside a little birdie(a Voda spokesman to Engadget) let slip that the release will be “imminent” and should be shipping “within weeks”

The UK will be the first country in Europe to receive the Nexus One with the rest of Europe having to wait till later in the year.

The Nexus One is a collaboration between HTC and Google and from what we’ve seen it looks nice and on paper looks………nice!!! Powered by Snapdragon, OLED touchscreen, 5MP camera, Android 2.1 OS(animated wallpapers, lovely window transitions……..nice!) This could really be the next best rival to the iPhone. Hopefully when we get the full officialness we can let you all know the exact prices and dates!!

It seems that HTC the Taiwanese mobile company will continue to use the Android platform with a supposed 20 new phones on the horizon. With the success of the Hero and the well reviewed HD2 this can only be a good thing.

The rumours have come from a text thread inside the new Android 2.1 ROM. Some of the names within have been seen before but some new have shown up. Since the first phone released the T-Mobile G1, HTC have used the Google made OS in its phones. I personally have not used one but with the sheer volume of new phones using and big mobile manufacturers switching to it, it must be a solid performing OS leading to so many great reviews of Android phones.

The full list of names within the ROM are Bahamas, Bravo, DesireC, Dragon, Dream, Espresso, Halo, HeroCT, HeroC, Hero, Huangshan, Incredible, Legend, Liberty, Memphis, Paradise, PassionC, Passion, Sapphire and Supersonic. Obviously some of the names will be phones probably based in the East but it shows HTC’s future in the Android Mobile business.

Source : T3

Well them Google developers don't mess around do they?

Google has commented on the issues saying:

“We’ve been notified of this issue (Jailbreaking of Android) and have developed a fix. We’re currently working with our partners to push the fix out and updating the open source code base to reflect these changes.”

It is likely the update will be rolled out in the next few days.

Via: Androidcommunity, via xda-developers

It has only been a few days since the launch of the T-Mobile / Google G1 and hackers have already bypassed the restrictions implemented on the Android platform.

This hardly comes as a surprise as Android is open source, and hackers didn't take too long to crack the closed iPhone system.

The hack allows the user to access the phone as a root/superuser.

The process seems relatively easy, you need to get PTerminal, a command line tool, from the Android marketplace. From there, you navigate to your system/bin folder (where the binaries are kept) and type telnetd to launch the telnet program which lets you login to the phone remotely.

Make sure your Wi-Fi is switched on then type netstat to get your IP address. From there, you just grab a computer on the same network and telnet in. You now have root access to the entire file system.

It is worth noting that this will essentially allow anyone to access the phone as a super user as the phone has no authentication. So it is advisable to shut everything down once done.

At the moment the hack has mainly been used to install applications onto the SD card which is prohibited normally. However it should be possible to use this technique to unlock the phone, allowing you to use it on any network.

It is expected Google/T-Mobile will try and fix this issue ASAP as T-Mobile cover the cost of the phone based on the user being tied into a long term contract.

Personally I think things like this could end up being one of the strong points of Android. When a system can be opened up and customised by individuals it tends to get a huge community following. Just look how many people contribute free work to things like Linux, Wordpress and Joomla. Granted Android is quite different than them 3 examples but you get my point.

Via: Wired

Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators in Baltimore has informed the New York Times that he was able to install a keystroke logging application by redirecting the G1's web browser to a malicious web site that automatically installed the software.

Google has acknowledged the security flaw and points out that the sandbox-nature of Android limits the damage to a single application. Unlike other smart-phones and PCs, this security flaw only affects the web browser and will not compromise any other portions of the phone. Google has already patched the open-source version of Android and is currently working with T-Mobile and HTC to get the security patch out to current T-Mobile customers.

Some videos and pictures of the new T-Mobile G1.

Hands on pictures from Engadget

Google Android walkthrough on the G1

There has been quite a bit of talk recently about the release of the new G1 phone by HTC using Google's Android.

Android is a open source smart operating system for mobile phones and is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.

The G1 which is the first phone to be released using Android will be available in the UK in early November and the rest of Europe 2009. The handset will be exclusive to T-Mobile (they are a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance) and will be free on price plans from £40 a month (no news on pays as you go), which will make it competitive with the iPhone on pricing, which is “free” for a £45 a month tariff from O2. You can pre-register with T-Mobile here www.t-mobile.co.uk/tmobileg1.

In the US the G1 Phone will be $179 - very cheap for a smart phone - and will be launched on October 22.

T-Mobile are touting the G1 to have a “Superior user experience” and they predict their Web 'n' Walk will get a 250% increase in Internet traffic.

The G1 has a touch-screen interface and a Sidekick-like keyboard, which will really set it apart from the iPhone.

With video you can swipe, frame and crop a photo to the homescreen. Street view and Google maps look great. Compass (GPS) mode moves as you move. Comes with Google Talk, Google Maps with directions and traffic view, street view with landmarks. Facebook looks good in the Webkit browser. The Music player has advanced features. The Android Market will be an app store for games and apps. It has a dedicated search button on keyboard, which competition authorities might take a good look at.

Unfortunately it does have some major downsides (for me at least!). There is no Exchange functionality (even the iPhone has this!), it can not be used as a tethered modem, and there is no 3.5mm headphone jack.

Exchange is a big one for myself as I use my phone for business and I like to synch everything, there is the opportunity for third party developers to build for this.

Engladget have confirmed that the G1 will use a proprietary ExtUSB connector, meaning you'll need custom headphones or an adapter to plug in your own, AND the adapter wont be available immediately at launch!

I have been quite excited by Android, and I love HTC (I just hate Windows Mobile) but I think this phone may some key features missing that will stop me buying it. I am confident we will see some brilliant phones using Android, and once more 3rd party applications are available this phone could very well be more appealing.

So the first images and videos of the Software Development Kit(SDK) for Googles new Android OS have been released.

From the looks of it is appears quite impressive so far. Especially if you consider it was only announced a few days ago.

After the jump we have some Images and Videos, though you should note these are all on a hardware reference model so you wont be buying an Android based phone anytime soon.

Some of the our of box support includes:

• Touchscreen
• 3G
• Webkit-based browser
• Threaded text messaging
• MPEG-4, h.264, MP3, and AAC file formats
• Accelerated 3D graphics

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