Daily News Courier

Energy looms as issue in presidential race

The choice of Paul Ryan, a harsh critic of Obama’s clean-energy agenda, as vice presidential candidate sharpens the differences between the two parties.

Political pundits say that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney

HTC’s fix for the ‘menu button issue’ is welcome, but not very elegant

HTC and AT&T have pushed out an OTA update for the One X today, and while it provides the standard bug fixes and security enhancements, it brings a new feature to address the menu button "issue." Previously, if you were running an application that wasn't updated to support the latest Android style guidelines, you'd have a full-width black bar about 48 pixels high that held an on-screen menu button. It was horrible to look at, and we hoped that Android application developers would soon update their apps to get rid of it. We can't knock HTC, they used the correct layout for their capacitive buttons (we do question why they went with capacitive buttons in the first place, though) and did what they were supposed to do. But it was still pretty darn ugly.

Then along comes Samsung, with a menu button on what will probably turn out to be the most popular Android phone ever in the Galaxy S 3. They shouldn't have done it (according to the Android developer team's way of doing things), but they did. A quick look at the HTC One X tells us why — that big, ugly, black bar. 

Of course, application developers don't have to update to make their app look good on the phone that is selling the most, so very few did. Love it or hate it, time saved is money saved, so the folks at Twitter or Facebook (as well as smaller development teams) just let it ride. It became an HTC problem instead of an application problem.

HTC had to fix it themselves. Never mind the fact that they were only following guidelines, their phones look bad running an app that needs a menu button and Samsung's don't. We saw a bit of it in the Desire C, and we're pretty sure we heard Android hacker/developer/guru Paul O'Brien mention that it was coming. 

It's here now, at least on the AT&T One X. Filed under Settings > Display, gestures and buttons is an entry where users can choose how they want the multi-tasking button to work. It can work as normal, or have a second function if you long-press. Phil's been playing around with it, and he says the best and most natural way it to have a single tap bring up the menu, and a long-press open the multi-tasking view — just like Samsung's Galaxy S 3. 

We would prefer that developers just use the action bar on their apps as instructed. Hopefully, new apps will be written that way and eventually this whole mess goes away. Until then, at least we have a way to get rid of the black menu bar. We expect to see a similar fix roll out for the rest of the HTC One series of phones, and for hackers to grab some code and do the same in custom ROMs until then. For now, enjoy your 48 pixels of freedom.

HTC’s fix for the ‘menu button issue’ is welcome, but not very elegant

HTC and AT&T have pushed out an OTA update for the One X today, and while it provides the standard bug fixes and security enhancements, it brings a new feature to address the menu button "issue." Previously, if you were running an application that wasn't updated to support the latest Android style guidelines, you'd have a full-width black bar about 48 pixels high that held an on-screen menu button. It was horrible to look at, and we hoped that Android application developers would soon update their apps to get rid of it. We can't knock HTC, they used the correct layout for their capacitive buttons (we do question why they went with capacitive buttons in the first place, though) and did what they were supposed to do. But it was still pretty darn ugly.

Then along comes Samsung, with a menu button on what will probably turn out to be the most popular Android phone ever in the Galaxy S 3. They shouldn't have done it (according to the Android developer team's way of doing things), but they did. A quick look at the HTC One X tells us why — that big, ugly, black bar. 

Of course, application developers don't have to update to make their app look good on the phone that is selling the most, so very few did. Love it or hate it, time saved is money saved, so the folks at Twitter or Facebook (as well as smaller development teams) just let it ride. It became an HTC problem instead of an application problem.

HTC had to fix it themselves. Never mind the fact that they were only following guidelines, their phones look bad running an app that needs a menu button and Samsung's don't. We saw a bit of it in the Desire C, and we're pretty sure we heard Android hacker/developer/guru Paul O'Brien mention that it was coming. 

It's here now, at least on the AT&T One X. Filed under Settings > Display, gestures and buttons is an entry where users can choose how they want the multi-tasking button to work. It can work as normal, or have a second function if you long-press. Phil's been playing around with it, and he says the best and most natural way it to have a single tap bring up the menu, and a long-press open the multi-tasking view — just like Samsung's Galaxy S 3. 

We would prefer that developers just use the action bar on their apps as instructed. Hopefully, new apps will be written that way and eventually this whole mess goes away. Until then, at least we have a way to get rid of the black menu bar. We expect to see a similar fix roll out for the rest of the HTC One series of phones, and for hackers to grab some code and do the same in custom ROMs until then. For now, enjoy your 48 pixels of freedom.

rdio and Sony Music Unlimited both issue important updates for Android apps

Two of the more familiar names in music streaming services updated their Android apps today. Both the beautiful and highly rated rdio and the massive and growing Music Unlimited upped their game.

For Sony’s Music Unlimited, subscribers finally get access to the curiously absent feature of being able to save music to listen to offline. The phone version has had the feature for a few months, but now tablet owners can finally designate a group of songs or albums to cache on their device and access when an Internet connection is not present.

And speaking of phones, the Music Unlimited app was updated on handhelds as well. The phone version can now create artist radio stations; in other words, you can create an Incubus station that will populate with songs from the band and artists who make similar music. There’s the option of moving to SD card.

rdio’s update improved both the app’s appearance and it’s buffering when queuing up new songs. New Releases are now displayed in a grid, extended search results are now viewable, and it’s now easier to edit playlists. The company also adds the generic “bug fixes” and “UI improvements” in the changelog, so you’ll notice a small change here and there.

Whichever service you use, the music should sound a little sweeter thanks to the new features.

[Download rdio]

[Download Music Unlimited for phones]

[Download Music Unlimited for tablets]

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Ask AC: HTC One S voice mail notification issue

Ingram1225 asks in the HTC One S forums,

Anyone have voice mail notification issues? Like always saying you have voice mail? Seems to be a rampant HTC issue with all their phones.

I did listen to all my voicemails… even deleted the saved ones. My One S keeps notifying me that I have a new voicemail… and when I check there are no new voicemails.

As Ingram1225 mentioned, this is a quirk on a lot of HTC Android phones, and not particular to the One S. When you activate or put your SIM in a new HTC Sense phone, sometimes you get a voice mail notification. It happens seemingly at random, and nobody is 100-percent sure how to prevent it. Good thing it's easy to fix!

Grab another phone, it could be a landline, another cell phone, or even a call from Google Talk, and call your number. Don't answer it, you need to let it go to voicemail. When it does, leave a message. Now go back to your phone with the stuck voice mail notification. You should now have two voice mails showing, the "stuck" one and the real one you just left. Call your voice mail service from your HTC Sense phone, and listen to and delete the new message. That should fix your problem, and you're good to go until you get another new HTC phone.

Have a question you need answered? (Preferably about Android, but we're flexible.) Hit up our Contact Page to get in touch!

Next Issue is Netflix for magazines: read multiple mags on Android tablets for $9 a month

The number of quality Android tablet apps is a hot topic whenever discussing the iPad vs. Android tab divide. One area where Android has made real strides is quality reading apps, and Next Issue has just arrived to push those bonafides further.

Next Issue is like Netflix for magazines. Rather than pay for monthly subscriptions to individual magazines, which can be $12 for print editions, Next Issue offers up an entire library of publications for only $9 per month. And if you’re someone who wants access to weekly magazines as well, just pay $15. That’s it. Pay once, read everything.

Best of all, the magazines are not just glorified PDF’s. Each issue is optimized for reading on a tablet and there are additional photos and videos embedded in some articles. The app browsing process is a little disappointing because of its reliance on the web for set-up, but the all-you-can-read model is appealing enough to warrant overlooking that failure. By the way, if you are a current subscriber to a magazine and wish only to see that, you can subscribe to individual magazines or use your existing subscriber info.

As for the magazines featured, the app is currently limited to titles from Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp, and Time. That leaves a lot of content wholes depending on your interests or tastes, but the newly-launched app does have a lot of titles. The full list of supported magus is available below. Visit Google Play to try out Next Issue and sign-up for a 30-day trial to see if it’s for you.

Supported Magazines

All You, Allure, Better Homes and Gardens (10

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on Android

Ah, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has arrived. It's the time of year when men head to the mailbox and back a little quicker, and young teens sneak peeks before sneaking entire magazines. (You know you've done it.) Only, it's 2012. And as we saw from Sports Illustrated as early as Google IO in May 2010 as part of Google's HTML5 and WebM push, the publisher's expanding far beyond the print product. We got our first taste of that on the mobile side at Google's Honeycomb event in early 2011.

Today, you've got several options for Sports Illustrated, and a little something extra for the Swimsuit issue. For those who subscribe to the print product, you can use the Android smartphone and tablet apps just like you normally would. Fire it up, log in, and download the week's take. SI's also offering the Swimsuit issue a la carte, for $6.99. 

But what we were interested in is the new (and free) SI Swimsuit Viewer app, which works in conjunction with the print product. A smattering of pages have a little video icon on them. Fire up the app (it doesn't work on Ice Cream Sandwich, by the way), and let it focus in on the page. (It might take a try or two, and as you can see it might make you feel a little funny, like when you climb the rope in gym glass.) Once it locks on, you get bonus video of whatever model you just ogled. It's gimmicky, to be sure, and it's overly sponsored by Direct TV. Though we're surprisingly willing to put up with that sort of in-your-face advertising, considering the bodies that those faces are attached to.

On one had, yeah. We're talking about bikini models here. We're not exactly propelling the species foward or anything. But on the other hand, it's nice to see a traditional print product embrace the digital and mobile space. Sports Illustrated has certainly done that, and done it well.

We've got some hands- and eyes-on video after the break.

Download: Sports Illustrated (smartphone, tablet);
Swimsuit Issue standalone app; SI Swimsuit viewer

read more

CyanogenMod drops support for Samsung Vibrant because of 911 routing issue

Samsung Vibrant owners who love CyanogenMod will not see any new ROM’s, at least for the foreseeable future, from Team Douche. CM Forum Moderator ciwrl announced yesterday that development for the Samsung Vibrant has ceased due to an issue with dialing 911 Emergency services. The statement posted on the CM Vibrant forum reads

We are no longer supporting the Vibrant due to the inability to dial 911. We consider the issues related to this unresolvable without source code from Samsung related to the Radio interface layer and its interactions with the Audio layers and have taken the decision to no longer support this. We apologize for the inconvenience and strongly suggest that Vibrant users use a Samsung ROM due to the 911 issues with any ROMs based on open source code.

The problem stems from the way that the Vibrant handle call routing to 911. There are “patches” that make it possible to dial 911, but audio issues prevent the operator from hearing the caller. Figuring out the proper way to have custom builds dial emergency services require reverse engineering that has so far proved fruitless, so support for the Vibrant has been dropped. (Things could change with more information.)

ciwrl elaborated on his Google+ page that the risk of a CM user – or one using the ROM’s based on CM work – being unable to communicate with a 911 operator in the event of an emergency is too great to continue supporting the device. “The consequences of an actual emergency situation going wrong are not one we want to be a part of,” ciwrl posted.

The only other Samsung device known to face this issue is the Samsung Epic 4G. Adnan Begovic, a ROM developer working on the build for that device, states that reverse engineering to discover a fix “is now the primary concern for the group working on the Epic 4G build.” As disappointing as that may sound to some users who were anxious to use CM9 on their device, Begovic poignantly states why this is a necessary step, writing “I do not want to be a reason someone loses life or limb because they cannot get the proper emergency services.”

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Google chimes in on Lodsys patent issue, asks USPTO to re-examine their validity

Google has broken their silence on the whole Lodsys software patent nonsense, and are asking the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) to re-examine the validity of both patents in question.  This is in contrast to the way Apple has handled this situation, they have made the argument that the patents are covered by their license with Lodsys and developers for the iOS platform are immune to litigation.  Google is saying that the patents should have never been issued in the first place.  In a statement to Wired, Google senior VP and general counsel Kent Walker said:

We’ve asked the US Patent Office to reexamine two Lodsys patents that we believe should never have been issued. Developers play a critical part in the Android ecosystem and Google will continue to support them.

Lodsys is currently suing 11 application developers for infringment, saying that their patents cover in-app payment technology.  Of the 11, Rovio, and Illusion Labs have released applications for the Android platform.  There is no wanton suing of Android specific developers — yet. 

Google’s stance that these patents are invalid goes along with their strategy of the patent system being broken and in need of a revamp.  But even if the USPTO grants the re-examination request, that doesn’t mean they will be invalidated.  A quick look at the current crop of lawsuits and trade dress actions makes that evident.  We wish Google, and the developers involved, the best of luck.

Source: Wired; via TiPb

Update now available to fix the Toshiba Thrive’s oversleeping issue

Toshiba’s just released an update that addresses the Thrive tablet’s issues when coming out of its sleep mode. The update is available in the Thrive’s "Service Station" app — a handy little guy that manages your updates on the device.

Here’s the official word from Toshiba:

A limited number of Thrive Tablet users have experienced a Resume issue when in Sleep mode. Toshiba has released a software update to resolve this issue, improving the sleep-and-resume performance, as well as enhancing the multimedia playback capabilities of the device. The software update can be downloaded through the Toshiba Service Station utility app found on the Thrive Tablet.

And that’s that. If you’ve got a Thrive, get to updating.