Malala: ‘New life’ after surgeries

Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani teenager who defied Taliban attackers to promote education for girls, says she’s “feeling all right” after two weekend surgeries.

Dogs help war vets find ‘new normal’

More than 2 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001, and it has been estimated that one in five of those veterans are likely to be afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression.

HTC Incredible 4G LTE

I raved about the HTC Incredible 2 (Incredible S internationally) so much that I bought one. It was a great purchase a year ago, and now the upgraded HTC Incredible 4G LTE has been released by Verizon. With a very similar build, the Incredible 4G only physically distinguishes itself from the Incredible 2 by losing a search button and adding the Beats by Dre logo.

Underneath, the Incredible 4G has been overhauled with this year’s camera, processor, and OS upgrades, but lacks a unique feature to set itself apart from the field. While I got accustomed to the Gingerbread-looking Sense UI, I realized HTC isn’t competing with Samsung for best Android phone manufacturer, a title that was firmly in HTC’s possession in the first two years of Android’s existence. The Incredible 4G LTE is proof that HTC has fallen out of favor with many bleeding-edge Android enthusiasts.

Hardware

The Incredible line hasn’t always been cutting edge like the HTC One X or Galaxy S III, but it has been a fan favorite because of its solid build, easy customization, and reliability. Fortunately, HTC hasn’t forgotten any of these concepts with the Incredible 4G. The phone still, much like the iPhone fanboys’ motto, “Just works.” The high-quality build is metal with a rubberized back panel with grooves in the right places. There is a bulkiness that has been lacking in recent devices which may throw some users off but it adds a nice weight to the device.

The sides of the Incredible 4G are fairly bare with only the necessities. The headphone jack and power button are up top, the volume rocker is on the right, and the micro-USB port is on the left. Unfortunately, I found the power and volume buttons to be difficult to find and press. If HTC could raise these buttons a little, it would help tremendously for when you’re fumbling around for them. It also has a mini-SD card inside the back panel which is nice.

The Incredible’s internals are fairly common now. A dual-core, 1.2Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor powers the 4 inch display with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage. There’s nothing that’s going to impress the geeks, but the performance is deserving of the Incredible moniker, and I can’t complain too much about these specs.

Screen/Camera

It is was the best of screens, it was the worst of screens. While not exactly top of the line resolution, the Incredible 4G shows off a Super LCD, qHD screen with a resolution of 960 x 540. This screen is beautiful with high contrast and ultra-vibrant colors, which looks better than my Galaxy Nexus. Movies and games are gorgeous, but as I’ve found to be the case in most HTC phones, the screen always looks a little softer, a little more washed out than most phones which makes direct sunlight a killer to HTC phones. The 4 inch-ness of the Incredible is disappointing to me as well. I understand that many people love 4″ screens to combat the wave of supersized displays favored today, but I need a big screen. I love games looking huge instead of scrunched and having the real estate for my thumbs to play dual-stick shooters. The 4″ screen also makes the phone a little imbalanced. The height to width ratio is off a bit. The Incredible looks like it should spread another quarter to half inch wide; instead, it looks a little candy bar-ish.

The camera is a beauty. The HTC camera app itself allows you to do away with Instagram or any other camera app in the Play Store. Pictures are extremely crisp with good lighting. The front camera is only VGA quality, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.

Software Performance

Because Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was just released. HTC’s Sense UI, the factor that slows down your updates, has received a semi-overhaul for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and it works very well. The Sense overlay still reminds me of Gingerbread which is off-putting, but it has upped the overall speed and cut down on the plethora of hidden menus and options Sense was known for. The small ‘additions by subtraction’ let the Incredible 4G not feel like an old

Street View on Google Maps update adds Android 4.0 action and availability in South Korea and Russia

Along with the Gmail and Google Play Books update, Google has also added some Android 4.0 features to Street View on Google Maps. If you grab the latest update from the Google Play Store you'll now find the Android 4.0 action bar has been added. That wasn't the only addition for this release though as some new locales have been added to the mix. South Korea and Russia now have the capability to download Street View and come across all the funny and sometimes downright weird things found on Street View that we've all enjoyed.

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HTC Evo 4G LTE offers large screen, Android 4.0, LTE, and OMG it

Sprint and HTC took the veil off their latest collaboration, the HTC Evo 4G LTE. Confirming previous rumors that this is the flagship Evo device for 2012, a mix of HTC power and Sprints burgeoning network like we’ve seen with previous devices bearing the ‘Evo’ brand, Sprint declared this would be a “gold standard” in media devices.

The Evo 4G LTE takes the impressive device that HTC debuted at Mobile World Congress and adds some of the features that made the original Evo 4G such a hit. It has the new: a large 4.7-inch touchscreen with 720p resolution; and it has the old: a kickstand built into the physical body that allows the phone to be propped up without the need for additional cases or accessories. That was one of my most beloved features in the original Evo, and I’m glad to see that the latest embraces that same virtue.

A major part of the new Evo is that it has improved call quality. CEO Dan Hesse claimed that it will be the first HD voice-capable phone released by a U.S. carrier, eliminating background noise and making sound quality better than ever according to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. He went on to say that the quality is so clear,

Pocket God Episode 44: The Perfect Swarm Lands in the App Store

Dropbox referral bonuses doubled for free and paying users

Cloud storage provider Dropbox has just doubled the referral bonus it gives users for referring friends to the service. Previously Dropbox referrals resulted in a bonus of 250MB for both the referrer and the new sign-up, but from today that's been increased to a more substantial 500MB. Similarly, the maximum amount of storage users can earn through referrals has been upped from 8GB to 16GB. If you're a paying user, that's doubled again to 1GB per referral, up to 32GB total.

There's also good news for anyone who's already referred a bunch of people  – your bonuses from those referrals will also be doubled, so you'll likely see your Dropbox allowance increase a little.

Dropbox continues to offer generous amounts of storage for users willing to plug its services to friends, or help with the testing of new features. Recently launched an automatic camera upload feature, and credited testers with 500MB for their first upload, as well as 500MB more for each 500MB of automatic uploads. The company's also partnered with some leading smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung and HTC. The HTC One X and One S launche tomorrow with Dropbox built-in, with an extra 23GB of storage for HTC One users.

Google’s Project Glass shows vision of wearable mobile tech

Rumors that Google may be working on a wearable HUD-based mobile device have been circulating for a few months now, and today the project has been revealed to the public for the first time. Project Glass is its name, and currently it's being developed at Google's secretive X Lab, or Google[x], to give it its full name.

The concept designs and demo video on Project Glass's Google+ page show sleek, stylish glasses that look like something right out of the Deus Ex universe. There's a metal frame for support, with a chunkier, plastic area and HUD (likely where the actual electronics are stored) near the right eye.

In an introductory post, the the Project Glass team says it's aiming to create technology which can be "there when you need it, and get out of your way when you don't." A demo video shows off possible uses for the tech, including messaging, navigation, video chat, social networking and photography. At this stage the team says it's looking for feedback and input from the public, and there's no information on any actual products which may spring from this project.

When they do arrive, though, it's only natural that they'd run Android in some form or other. We'll be watching Project Glass with interest as Google IO approaches, we're it's possible we'll learn more about this exciting new tech.

It's official folks — we are living in the future. We've got the first video of Project Glass after the break, along with more photos of people with crazy futuristic eyewear.

Source: Project Glass

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Fast Facebook is a beta app that

The Facebook Android app isn’t very good, and speed is one adjective that will seemingly never be applied to the app. Fast Facebook tries to address that problem with an alternative client whose name sums up its mission. I won’t tell you that the app is great, because it’s not and still in beta, but it is good in many regards. And it’s good in the one area that Facebook can’t seem to get right – speed.

Fast Facebook tends to load a Facebook stream quicker than the official Facebook Android app. A lot quicker. While the official app takes me 20 to 30 seconds to load the timeline, Fast Facebook took about 6 to 8 seconds. Sadly, that advantage is only seen on the first timeline because FF lacks the infinite scroll that users see when they’ve reached the end of the timeline. To see more updates and shared content from friends, users have to search for a person or scroll through their friend list and see individual updates. (On the plus side, the developer tells me that will be changed in the future and more posts will be available.)

There’s more good and bad news to consider. The bad: thumbnails are often displayed in very low quality. The good: this is a beta app we’re talking about, and it has room and time to improve. (I actually had to rewrite the review because previous complaints were addressed in the most recent update.) The Ice Cream Sandwich inspired design is simple and very fast, and the developers are committed to optimizing the app without compromising that great feature.

Rendering speed will only keep Fast Facebook users for so long. At some point, they’ll want the content to load properly as much as they want it to appear quickly. Fast Facebook is a client that has a solid foundation that might make that possible. FF uses an ICS design that can be customized to have a solid grey background, built-in images from the app, or a custom image from the gallery. Users can post updates and import photos from the gallery app and access their notifications. This is definitely still bearing the early faults of a beta, but it’s really fast and has enough features that Facebook fans might want to try it out.

Follow the progress of the app on Facebook and download the beta version from Google Play. Android 2.1+ is required to use the app.

 

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Does it Matter if Electric Car Maker Fisker Fails?

Tesla and new fuel-economy standards have already jump-started battery-powered vehicles.

Last night Fisker Automotive, maker of the luxury Karma electric vehicle, unveiled its new car, the Atlantic, which was previously known as Project Nina. The car, which is expected to cost about half as much as the Karma—or around $50,000–is meant to make the company mass-market automaker.