Developers anxious for the full open source coding of the Samsung Captivate were joyous today as they received the following message in their inboxes:

Dear _____________,

You can download the source code of SGH-I897 on this site in Mobile Category, SGH-I897 model.

Thank you.

Short, sweet, and to the point. This is excellent news for those intrepid ROM developers already hard at work at opening the system and trying to add and/or fix functionality in the device. One little quirk in particular seems to be on many developers' minds in the mimocan external SD card lag issue. Solving this problem (where the internal Samsung memory does not properly handle application data) would boost the already fairly impressive Quadrant scores of the device to an awesome 1750. With Android 2.2 installed with a mimocan fix, you could probably expect somewhere between 2000 to 3000, an impressive feat.

If you're a developer, hop to it! We're all anxious to see what beautiful creations you guys can cook up for these powerful devices.

[via briefmobile.com]

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

Samsung Captivate Code Goes Open Source

After the recent leak of a Android 2.2 (Froyo) test firmware for the Samsung Galaxy S, people have been wondering when the official firmware release would be out. But thanks to SamsungUKMobile's Twitter account, we can now expect it in September.

Remember though, this is for the international Galaxy S, and not for any of the US variants. The TouchWiz UI on the Galaxy S isnt as deeply integrated compared to other customized Android user interfaces,which makes updates like Android 2.2 Froyo easier for Manufacturers to roll out.

The Galaxy S is a great device, and I cant wait to see what else Samsung plans to package in the upcoming Froyo update. It cannot get here fast enough.

[Via: AndroidGuys]

Samsung Galaxy S receiving Android 2.2 (Froyo) in September is a post from: ZOMGitsCj.com

Related Posts:

• Android v2.2 Froyo for the Samsung Galaxy S leaked?
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: The Android Market
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Web Browsing
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Swype and Text Input
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Camera Samples & UI

Samsung is getting really serious about their Galaxy S line, with the international Galaxy S version already doing great, the four US variants, and a confirmed Android tablet called the Galaxy Tab coming soon.

Apparently Samsung recent went to developers and asked them to prepare their apps to run perfectly on their new Android tablet. Samsung contacted the Plex6 team about their Magic 8 Ball app, since it wasn't rendering properly on the 7 inch display of the Samsung Galaxy Tab:

Dear Plex6 Team,
We would like to preface this email with Samsung's enthusiasm to give Mobile
device users enhanced Application experiences. Samsung Electronics is
committed to making Mobile and Tablet PC spaces comfortable and enjoyable
ones and your support for this would be highly appreciated by Samsung
Electronics.
It has come to our attention that your application [Magic 8-Ball] submitted
in the Android Market returns following error(s) when operated on our soon
to be released Samsung Android Tablet PC.
Please find the error(s) occurred on Samsung Android Tablet PC below.
Application does not properly display on Samsung Android Tablet 7inch
screen (600X1024/WSVGA) and draws a black background around the application
due to Compatibility-Mode display.

Please modify and adjust your application so that it would support the best
possible display on the Samsung Android Tablet device screen
(600X1024/WSVGA).
This will ensure your application to provide a consistent environment across
all devices and that you can deploy to any new devices that offer different
screens in the future.
**
Samsung Electronics is focused on strengthening its Android device line-up,
therefore, our mutual efforts on each application will be beneficial for
both parties.

W00t! Seems like Samsung is trying to make sure that their Galaxy Tab is just as awesome as their Galaxy S lineup. Now if we could only get some confirmed specs on this thing.

[Via: Phandroid]

Samsung asks Developers to prepare Android apps for Galaxy Tab is a post from: ZOMGitsCj.com

Related Posts:

• Samsung Galaxy S receiving Android 2.2 (Froyo) in September
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Confirmed, Seen in the Wild
• Android v2.2 Froyo for the Samsung Galaxy S leaked?
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: The Android Market
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Web Browsing

Awhile back, we did a review and giveaway of WaveSecure, an app that allows you to remotelyloss and theft of your Android device. Now, tenCube, maker of WaveSecure, is set to be acquired by McAfee.

According to the official announcement on McAfee's website, they say that the acquirement is set to:

• Further establish itself as the leader in mobile security with the most complete set of mobile technologiesMcAfee now has the technology needed for users and their families to locate, lock, encrypt, protect against malware, wipe, filter, manage, back-up, restore and access their data online
• Leverage its expertise at the endpoint and in the cloud to broaden its existing mobile security portfolio beyond anti-malware, data protection, Web security and family protection
• Expand the addressable device market with best-in-market mobile device platform support, including a wide range of mobile operating systems including Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Java powered feature phones
• Combine the skills and resources of both companies to develop and deliver scalable solutions through global partnerships with mobile service providers and mobile device manufacturers
• Expand the breadth of its device management solutions available for enterprise IT administrators to implement policies, assist users and enforce compliance for mobile applications across the enterprise

Darius Cheung, chief executive officer of tenCube, has commented on the acquisition, saying Mobile devices have become an extension of our lives. Through this acquisition, McAfee can broaden its security capabilities and offer users protection and remote control of the phone whether it is in their possession or not. This means no more worries about the whereabouts of your phone or losing personal contacts, photos or messages.

The procedure is on track to be complete by the end of August. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

[via McAfee]

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

McAfee acquires tenCube, makers of WaveSecure

Source: Slacker Radio Press Releases (http://www.slacker.com/company/pressreleases.jsp)

Slacker Radio has gained its share of popularity among music fans for offering a nifty cache feature that other mobile music apps lack; after creating a station, you can save it for offline use (perfect for underground subway rides or long plane trips). Now it's distinguishing itself from other services even more by incorporating still more diverse content.

Slacker isn't the first service of its kind to incorporate news content Sirius | XM does something similar but this move does serve to give Slacker what could be seen as an edge over Pandora, which only serves up music and doesn't allow caching.

For 14 days, basic Slacker users will be able to access ABC News content; Slacker Plus users can keep on tuning in after the two-week period ends (the Plus subscription is $3.99 per month). The content which includes segments from Good Morning America, anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Juju Chang and Sam Champion; and Nightline anchored by Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir is located within the mobile app in a folder marked News, and works in much the same way music stations do (i.e. you can skip stories).

You can also choose to add hourly news updates to any of your stations, but the process to do so is laborious, to say the least. First, you have to futz around on the website, create a station, go to the Fine Tune tab to select that option, save the station, make it a Favorite, and, if you're already logged into Slacker on your mobile device, sign in and out to make the Favorited station appear. Sure, you can choose to Fine Tune any pre-existing station which is easier than creating your own playlist or choose to have ABC News turned on for all your stations by surfing over to Account Settings, but all this still requires signing online. We wish it were possible to do all that within the app, as going through all that song-and-dance degrades the whole easy and accessible aspect of it.

More About: abc, App, Mobile 2.0, music, News, Slacker-Radio

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Well we kind of already knew this, with the recent wallpaper fiasco, but here is a video interview with Anthony Leinberg (sorry if last name is misspelled!) who is a security researcher with Lookout Mobile Security. Anthony and his associates at Lookout have developed an exploit that can give them root access to a variety of Android phones, including some higher-end devices like the HTC EVO, Droid X and Droid Incredible. Just check out the video and watch for yourself:

[via networkworld]

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

Unhackable Android phones can indeed be hacked

Remember the CrunchGear Geek Weekend series, where we attempted to show some fun stuff to do in various cities across the U.S.? Yeah, we kind of let that peter out, didn't we? Also, there are lots of great non-geek things to do in and around cities. This is especially important for families: the kids might be more interested in Tecumseh! than the early television museum. With the A Day's Outing website, and now its new iPhone app, you can quickly find all sorts of interesting things to do.

This is a super simple app, and provides a nice front end to the website. You plug in what kind of activities you want to see, a date range (today, this weekend, next 7 days), and define a range (5 miles, 30 miles, 60 miles, etc). The app will query the A Day's Outing site and return a list of things going on. You can toggle between list view and map view, and you can get driving directions to any destination you select.

If you don't have an iPhone, you can simply use your smartphone's browser to access the website to get the same functionality: it'll just involve a bit more scrolling around on the page.

I like the presentation of this app. I find it calming. It's simple and uncluttered. My only gripe is that the back button is a little too small for my meaty fingers.

If you're making a cross-country road trip with your family, or just visiting in-laws for the weekend, A Day's Outing ought to let you find something interesting to do. It's only $3.

Working in the mobile advertising business, New York City-based Xtify has been building its platform for brands and other app developers, allowing for geo-targeted notifications most often, ads that are pushed to consumers when they are within a predefined area, say a one-mile radius from a department store. The company has announced it has raised $2.8 million in a first round of institutional funding, which it is using to beef up its product development and team, currently ten-people strong.

Xtify picked up the funding from Acadia Woods Partners, SeventySix Capital and an undisclosed, significant New York-based angel investor. CEO Josh Rochlin says Xtify is looking to raise another sum of money in the fall, due to major announcements and partnerships that are rolling out soon, although he declined to disclose those just yet.

Xtify's platform allows for brands, businesses and anyone building apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices to create and manage push notification campaigns. When users who have downloaded an app for instance, an app for a clothes brand are within a certain distance from a retailer, they will get a notification of a sale or special offer, or a prompt for whatever action the app developer desires, on their cell phone, much like the ones users get now when there are software updates available. The trick is that the app doesn't have to be running in the foreground: Users will be notified even if the app is not currently in active use.

This only applies to the users who have downloaded the app that notifies them, nobody gets spammed, Rochlin explained. Xtify also keeps things anonymous, as no phone numbers or email addresses are collected. Instead, users in Xtify's database are identified with random user keys, which are then paired with information about the device, such as the make and model of it, and its location.

Xtify faces competition from other location-based ad companies, such as San Francisco, Calif.-based Placecast, which runs geo-targeted ad campaigns, for instance pinging users with text messages when they are near a shop. Xtify says that the very fact that they have a background-running notification system is what differentiates them from the competition. In addition, the service is not reliant on getting a phone's location from a carrier, nor is it using SMS, which makes the service cost-efficient, Xtify says.

Founded in 2009, Xtify launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last February, and the team is currently keeping its head down, building out the product. The major announcements that the company has in the pipeline in the following weeks will make for a big increase in traction for the platform, Rochlin says.

Tags: geo-fencing, mobile ads

Companies: Acadia Woods Partners, Placecast, SeventySix Capital, Xtify

People: Josh Rochlin

Staska / Unwired View:
Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas By now most of must us have heard about the problems U.S. patent system is facing. With software and business model patents, patent trolls and lawsuits, and patented things like one-click buying online. Well, if Apple has it's way, things are about to get much worse.

Today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, CA, James Lamberti, VP of Global Research and Marketing for InMobi, sat down with our Michael Arrington to tell us a bit about mobile advertising.

InMobi is the largest independent mobile ad network in the world. Overall, they're number two behind Google's AdMob. That earned them an $8 million investment from Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo Ventures a couple weeks ago. But what's particularly interesting about InMobi is how well they're doing outside the U.S.

Out of inMobi's 16.9 billion mobile ad impressions globally, 2.6 billion are in Africa, more than the US's 2 billion. 10 billion are in Asia, no surprise considering inMobi was founded in India and had more time to develop reach, while Europe follows Africa with 1.6 billion and the Middle East .5 billion. InMobi's mobile eCPM development is highest in Europe at 29%, with North American coming in a close second at 24%.

When inMobi's development rankings, are stack ranked by country, Australia comes in first due to its high adoption of the iPhone and Malaysia performs at number two. Not surprisingly the iPhone platform dominates inMobi's marketshare the US, being responsible for 38.2% of all mobile ad impressions. Globally Nokia trumps other platforms serving inMobi ads, at 22.2% of the market.

Lamberti says that InMobi's biggest growth markets are in the US, Japan, and South America and the US, partially because of the benefits from Google Ad Mob changes on the iPhone. While 60% of all mobile iPhone impressions are still in the US, inMobi is now poised to to monetize the 40% that aren't.

Slides from their presentation below.

Name: KnowPro

Quick Pitch: KnowPro apps helps people learn new topics, test for competence, or compete against friends or colleagues through social platforms.

Genius Idea: It's no secret that the iPhone can be used as an educational resource, and KnowPro's extensive lineup of tutorial-style iPhone apps demonstrates just how pocket-friendly and fun learning can be.

KnowPro has developed dozens of apps for practically any educational purpose. App categories cover subject matter such as animals, science, history, music, politics, business and pop culture.

In the science category, for instance, Board Review: Pharmacology is designed to help pharmacologists prepare for their board exam, Periodic Table of the Elements includes quiz questions on all 112 elements, and there's even an app to help with preparation for the biology portion of the MCAT.

Each app tutors users by testing them with quiz questions. At the beginning of each randomized quiz, you can set how many questions you want to answer. Then, for each question, you'll be presented with four possible answers. Get a question right and you'll advance to the next question. Get a question wrong, and you'll need to continue guessing until you get it right.

At the end of each quiz you can then publish your score to the service-wide leaderboard or publicly share it on Facebook or Twitter.

KnowPro's selection of apps is impressive, so if there's a particular subject matter you'd like to master, chances are a KnowPro app can help. The only downside is that each app comes at a price, with the more sophisticated tutorials costing as much as $6.99 apiece. Still, being able to use your iPhone in lieu of flashcards could make the expense worthwhile.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

[img credit: foundphotoslj]

More About: educational, iphone apps, knowpro

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Smart piece by Fred Vogelstein for Wired:

The true comparison is between Android and iOS, Apple's mobile operating system. Android's activation numbers are not device dependent. Apple's shouldn't be either. If we are going to truly compare the two mobile OSs we need to include sales of iPads and iPod Touches. Add them into the mix and the data shows that Android is catching up but still isn't close.

Something to think about: If Android unit sales surpass those of all iOS devices combined, can iOS remain the dominant mobile software platform? I think the mobile market is going to be more like the console gaming market, with a handful of major players each with a 20-40 percent slice, rather than the monopoly-dominated PC market. Raw market share isn't everything.

At their genesis, bike-sharing networks were low on tech and heavy on grassroots, cooperative spirit. But the programs and systems rolling out today for tracking and distributing up to thousands of bicycles in cities from Milan to San Antonio are of another generation one built upon mobile access to the real-time web and GPS chips.

Armed with these IT tools, new and evolving bike-sharing networks fit into the larger trends of smarter digital and networked transportation systems, innovation around providing mobility as a service, and moves by unconventional players (from non-profits to advertising giants to health insurance firms to new startups) to assume new roles in the transportation sector.

Public entities are getting into the act, too, with Montreal's BIXI system being deployed in cities in the U.S. and the UK, while federal and state governments are providing seed money and ongoing funds for some programs. The hope is that the right combination of technology, pricing and convenience will help integrate bicycles into the larger transportation system at mass scale (right up there with buses, trains, ferries and taxi cabs, for example) and spur the growth of some new businesses in the process.

On Friday, the world's largest bike share network will launch in London, with 6,000 bikes at 400 stations. It's an illustration of what technologies like text messaging, smartphones with GPS, and the real-time web are ultimately driving in the bike-sharing market: a shift in scale, as infrastructure costs come down, and growing convenience attracts a broader market.

As it becomes increasingly common for consumers to have web access on the go and operators can use sensors and real-time communication to flag available docks and bikes barriers to adoption are falling away. It's just plain easier to find a station and a bike that's ready to roll. And with GPS chips that can locate you, a bike, or a parking spot, operators have a tool for tackling the bane of bike sharing networks of yore: theft.

A similar shift can be seen on the automotive side of the mobility as a service market. Whereas car sharing providers have had networks at the city or regional scale for years, often using a nonprofit model, Zipcar has built up a national footprint and begun to extend its reach overseas over the last decade. While the company which filed in June for a $75 million IPO has never turned a profit, its revenues reached $131.2 million last year, up from just $13.7 million in 2005.

Zipcar, which has also grown through acquisitions, developed its fleet technology with a plan to scale it. The company's vehicles carry some essential hardware, including a black box device (a custom circuit board, processor and modem) fitted to a vehicle windshield that allows users to unlock the car they've reserved, and also lets Zipcar remotely monitor vehicles. It's a relatively streamlined customization process, compared with competing systems that require installation of keypads in the dash, for example, or a hands-free calling setup. In fact, Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith has told us that the ideal vehicle for car sharing would be modeled after smartphones, with an open platform that would allow Zipcar to roll new cars into its fleet with little more than a software download.

Zipcar's grand vision is for a subscriber who lives near its Cambridge, Mass. headquarters, for example, to rent a car in a Barcelona or London Zipcar fleet just as easily as in their home network. Might we eventually be able to rent a bike just as easily in any city around the world, with the swipe of a smartcard or by sending a text message? The race is on to find out, as a growing number of operators seek to replicate their systems in other cities.

We put together a cheat sheet on 10 bike sharing networks to watch earlier this year. But the pace of growth in these programs called for an update, so we revamped our guide to show how bike-sharing networks are putting technology to work, who's paying how much, and what you might expect to find in your own city sometime soon. There are dozens more that we couldn't include on our list (tell us about em in the comments section), but here's 20 places to watch as the latest generation of bike sharing systems put chips to work for pedal power.

Related articles on GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transport Networks' Last Mile

Electric Vehicles Give Mobility as a Service a Jumpstart