Daily News Courier

T-Mobile looks to be testing LTE in Kansas City

T-Mobile is in the midst of some sort of LTE testing in and around Kansas City, according to a poster at XDA forums. These screenshots show an unlocked AT&T Galaxy Note (the original SGH I717 Note) using the T-Mobile network, and as you can see they suggest an LTE connection. While the first screenshot is familiar to us all, the second screenshot, the one of the device ServiceMode settings, is the one to focus on. It's a bit nerdy, but what you're seeing is a device on Band IV LTE (that's the 1700 and 2100 MHZ bands), on a 5×5 MHz configuration. The theoretical maximum of such a network would be 37 mbps download and 12 mbps upload. Worth noting, the poster clarified that he was using the standard T-Mobile APN setting, meaning that anyone in the vicinity with the correct hardware should see similar results.

It also shows speeds much slower than the current HSPA+ network many T-Mobile customers enjoy, but remember — this is just a test. I imagine when we see a fully deployed 10x10Mhz LTE network from T-Mobile, things will be a good bit faster — until people start using it. We'll keep an eye out for it, right along with you guys.

Source: XDA; via Tmo News

Why Cisco Loves the Smart Grid

The electricity grid is in the midst of a transition from older proprietary networks to one that resembles the Internet.

When you talk to Cisco about energy, you’re reminded of what the nebulous smart grid term actually is. It is, at its core, a network and Cisco, whose networking gear is pervasive on the Internet, wants a big hand in how it gets built.

Samsung Continuum gets update to Android 2.2.2!

We're sitting here smiling because the Samsung Continuum is in the midst of receiving not one, but two updates that end with the phone being upgraded to Android 2.2. Yes. We're excited about a Froyo update.

The Continuum, as you may recall, was a crazy little phone that came out in late 2010 (we actually got our hands on it a few months before it was announced) that was running Android 2.1 and featured a crazy little secondary display just below the capacitive buttons. It was an interesting idea, but it never really took off and the Continuum was left to wither and die. (Read our full Samsung Continuum review.)

Now here we are in February 2012 — some three major versions of Android later — and the Continuum is being updated to Android 2.2 Froyo. It's actually coming in the form of two updates. The first is the Froyo update itself (software version EB01). The second update (software version EC09) brings a bunch of improvements, including the ability to run Adobe Flash Player 10.1, among others. We've got them listed after the break.

So to all you Samsung Continuum owners out there, today we raise our glasses to you. Enjoy.

Source: Verizon Samsung Continuum update (pdf); More: Continuum forums
Thanks, Trailblazer101, for the tip!

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Honeycomb OTA for the HTC EVO View 4G rolling out, rooted users beware

The Android 3.2.1 update for the HTC EVO View 4G is in the midst of a rollout, bringing Honeycomb and a new "virtual and holographic user interface" to the 7-inch HTC tablet.  The official change log reads:

• Physical Hard keys replaced with on screen Soft keys
• New Google search, available on every page
• System Bar: Quick access to notifications, status, and soft navigation buttons available at the bottom of the screen
• Notifications menu moved to the bottom right corner of the screen, on the System Bar.
• The Action Bar—which can be accessed by touching the Plus Sign icon at the top right of the screen—is the key to contextual, changing menus that are controlled by each application.
• Enhanced security including Sprint Data Link and 3LM
• Google video chat
• Fixed a bug that kept Bluetooth from working in airplane mode

The update is rolling out itself, but if you'd like to force a check, On the Home screen, tap Menu and then tap Settings; scroll up and tap System updates; tap HTC software update.  On the Software updates screen, tap Check now and your View will check for updates.

We know a lot of you have been waiting for this update, and the manual update location is available in more than a few places (heck, just grab it right here), but if you've rooted your View 4G don't even think about it.  Waiting for a bootlooping View 4G's battery to die is no fun — trust me, we know this first hand.  This update is not only as of yet unrootable, but it also changes things so that Revolutionary ceases to work by replacing the hboot files.  Developers will get it sorted soon enough. 

Thanks everyone who sent this in, and SprintGirl for bootlooping her EVO View!

More in the EVO View 4G forums

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Honeycomb OTA for the HTC EVO View 4G rolling out, rooted users beware

The Android 3.2.1 update for the HTC EVO View 4G is in the midst of a rollout, bringing Honeycomb and a new "virtual and holographic user interface" to the 7-inch HTC tablet.  The official change log reads:

• Physical Hard keys replaced with on screen Soft keys
• New Google search, available on every page
• System Bar: Quick access to notifications, status, and soft navigation buttons available at the bottom of the screen
• Notifications menu moved to the bottom right corner of the screen, on the System Bar.
• The Action Bar—which can be accessed by touching the Plus Sign icon at the top right of the screen—is the key to contextual, changing menus that are controlled by each application.
• Enhanced security including Sprint Data Link and 3LM
• Google video chat
• Fixed a bug that kept Bluetooth from working in airplane mode

The update is rolling out itself, but if you'd like to force a check, On the Home screen, tap Menu and then tap Settings; scroll up and tap System updates; tap HTC software update.  On the Software updates screen, tap Check now and your View will check for updates.

We know a lot of you have been waiting for this update, and the manual update location is available in more than a few places (heck, just grab it right here), but if you've rooted your View 4G don't even think about it.  Waiting for a bootlooping View 4G's battery to die is no fun — trust me, we know this first hand.  This update is not only as of yet unrootable, but it also changes things so that Revolutionary ceases to work by replacing the hboot files.  Developers will get it sorted soon enough. 

Thanks everyone who sent this in, and SprintGirl for bootlooping her EVO View!

More in the EVO View 4G forums

read more

Verizon data struggling tonight

Yep, looks like Verizon's in the midst of a pretty widespread data issue tonight, if you folks on Twitter are any indication. Could be worse, we suppose, but any outage is a bad outage, even if it is Sunday evening. Hope Verizon's IT folks didn't have anything planned.

Anyhoo, voice your displeasure in the comments.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer in the midst of an update, still says Android 3.1

We know, we know. Now that the Motorola Xoom’s getting Android 3.2, everybody else wants in as well. Can’t blame ya. And while the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (read our full review) appears to be in the throes of yet another OTA update, it’s still showing Android 3.1 in ye olde about page.

Before anybody gets all out of whack, ASUS has said this week that Android 3.2 is in testing for the Transformer, so it’ll likely be coming sooner rather than later.

Source: Transformer Forums

Looks like Google TV’s getting another update

Word on the street (and in the Android Central Forums) is that the Logitech Revue is in the midst of another update to Google TV. Sounds like nothing too major as far as the UI is concerned, but the build is dated Dec. 15, if that’s any indication. If you see something different, be sure to sound off in the source link. [Android Central Forums] Submitted via the Android Central app

Update: It’s for security fixes.

Looks like Google TV's getting another update posted originally by Android Central

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Wednesday night build.prop wackiness shows Motorola Olympus, Android 3.0

We love these Android "about" screens. And the reason we love them is that you can make your own with a couple of lines in the command prompt and about 30 seconds with a text editor. So when we say take what you see above with a grain of salt, we mean a mountain-sized piece of the ol’ sodium chloride.

That could be the Motorola Olympus, with Android 3.0.

And possibly that weird 480×818 resolution is for real, and part of some super secret Android Tablet with a quad-core fuel-injected flux capacitor running at 1.21 gigawatts that, for some reason, Motorola is keeping quiet about. (Or if you look at the top right of the image, you’ll see where the notification bar — or something — probably was cropped out.)

And maybe it’s a version of Android running a Linux kernel that’s way past the latest try-at-your-own-risk version of 2.6.36-rc7-git4 that’s actually available as of this writing. But that sort of tinfoil hat talk sends Jerry into a GNU tizzy. So let’s hope that’s not the case, because Jerry don’t need any more crazy, ya dig?

As long as we’re in the midst of Wednesday build.prop Wackiness, let’s revisit one of our favorite build.prop fakes to make its way into a blog post: The HTC Supersonic on T-Mobile running Android 3.0 — on Jan. 22, 2010. Classic, folks. Classic.

So maybe this one’s real, and maybe it ain’t. If it’s not, well, that’s another one for the fake build.prop gallery. [Droid Life]

Posted originally at Android Central

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