Pogoplug partners with Amazon to offer affordable cloud storage family plans

Pogoplug is pairing up with Amazon to offer not only its own storage devices but also online archival storage. That means that your information will be accessible even if your hard drive dies, gets a nasty virus, or you just upgrade your computer. They are also offering family plans that come with a free Pogoplug device to get you started.

According to Engadget, the partnership between Amazon and Pogoplug is expected to be part of Amazon’s conference this afternoon. Pogoplug is offering three different family plan tiers all of which come with one of their devices. The lowest yearly plan is a $29.99 plan that gives three family members unlimited onsite cloud storage and 100 GB of offsite cloud storage. The $49.99 per year plan bumps up the onsite storage 300 GB offsite cloud storage and gives five users all of the different storage options. Ninety nine dollars a year will give seven family members a full Terrabyte of offsite cloud storage as well as unlimited onsite cloud storage.


The offsite cloud storage will use Amazon Glacier. This unique cloud storage service normally costs one cent per gigabyte per month to store information. There are no up front costs and you only pay for what you store. With Pogoplug, you are paying the yearly fee for a certain amount of offsite storage whether you use it all or not. You are also paying for more family members to access the service as you purchase larger storage plans.

The reason why you can get the Amazon service so cheap (300 GB would cost $3.00) is because you pay for it on the backside when you go to download. First your download request is sent to a queue and and according to Engadget won’t be available to download for three to five hours and it is only available to download for 24 hours. The first five percent of the download is free. After that you pay one cent per additional gigabyte you download. You don’t have to worry about any download cost because it is included in your plan.

You don’t have to use the Amazon Offsite storage option if you don’t want to. Pogoplug has its own storage system and it has much quicker access and download times than what you get with Amazon Glacier. The offsite storage option is there as a backup backup option (no that is not a stutter). For those that want to make sure that their most precious pictures or documents are safe, you can have your own redundant backup system.

For large families with multiple devices, this may be just the type of service you could use. Once you have your device set up, you can access the content with any browser or with apps on your iOS devices or Android devices. As families accumulate multiple computers, smartphones and tablets, having an easy to use and easy to access storage system becomes essential. Check it out and see if it is something your family could use.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 makes its debut but is it worth it

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has finally appeared six months after its initial preview at Mobile World Congress (MWC). The tablet comes complete with an included stylus and the ability to give you a split screen view. You can watch a video on one half while taking notes on the other. Both provide some novelty and value but is it enough to justify the $499 price tag?

According to Engadget’s review of the new device, it certainly isn’t worth the virtually $500 price tag for the 16GB version. Yes, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has some nifty features but it also has some serious deficiencies. Those deficiencies are enough that the price is too high.


The tablet starts out with some rather nifty specs. It is the only tablet out at this price point with 2GB of RAM. It has a very fast proprietary quad core Exynos 4 processor running at 1.4 GHz. The devices multitasking capability is so far unsurpassed and its split screen ability is fantastic. The included S-Pen is a nice touch and the tablet includes several programs that make very good use of it.

In spite of these outstanding features, Samsung severely hamstrung the device with a several inferior specs. The camera is a middling 5 megapixel rear camera that takes poor pictures. The 1280 X 800 screen resolution is not enough to compete with the same priced iPad’s retina display or the new Asus Transformer Pad TF700’s 1920 x 1200 resolution. It comes with Ice Cream Sandwich and not the latest Android OS version of Jelly Bean. To finish it off, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has a cheap plastic build with creaks and squeaks.

Meanwhile Android Authority reports that you can get the Asus Transformer Pad TF700 with its Tegra 3 quad core processor, 32 GB of memory, superior screen resolution and build quality for $499. Techradar’s review of the top of the line Asus tablet talks about its excellent build quality, aluminum back, gorilla glass, 8 megapixel camera, excellent display and overall great feature set. Well except for the speaker which is on the back. For the money, at least at this moment, it looks as if ASUS has the better 10.1 inch tablet at the $499 price point. As always, visit your local gadget store and try them both out. Like with all devices, some of it comes down to personal preference.

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Smartphone market now a two-horse race

Two trends have been apparent in the smartphone market for some time now: Android becoming dominant in number one slot and everyone else other than Apple taking a real kicking. Newly released figures confirm that trend: if you buy a smartphone today, it’s probably running Android.

The figures from IDC cover worldwide sales between April and June this year. Android is now on 68 percent, with iPhone lagging behind on 17 percent. In the space of a year, Android’s lead has gone from a little over double to selling four handsets for every iPhone.


You can of course argue that such comparisons are a little unfair as it’s dozens of manufacturers against one, but that’s missing an important point: the wider the gap grows, the more likely it becomes that app developers will direct their efforts towards Android handsets.

The figures also suggest Android may be benefiting from another advantage: the sheer range of devices with different specifications at different price points means its more likely smartphone buyer will find exactly the right balance of cost and hardware for their needs with an Android than the far more limited range of iPhones.

The combined Android and Apple market share of 85 percent is a new high, speaking to the collapse in popularity of rival operating systems. BlackBerry may be in bronze medal position, but it won’t be taking much pride in a market share of 4.8 percent. Meanwhile Microsoft continues to get grim news: at 3.5 percent, Windows Phone is still lagging behind even Symbian on 4.4 percent. That’s despite Nokia effectively ditching Symbian to joint forces with Microsoft.

Samsung is the big winner among individual manufacturers. It made 44 percent of the Android handsets covered by these figures, which means it is now responsible for almost three out of every ten smartphones being sold.

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NFC security questioned

Whenever a new technology emerges, you can quickly expect one of two things: porn and hackers. Sadly for skin flick lovers it’s the latter that’s making the news with Near Field Communication.

It’s time once again for the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas and, as usual, Charlie Miller has popped up to show off the latest flaw he’s discovered in popular technology. This time he’s turned his attention to NFC chips, billed as a convenient and secure alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.


The problem Miller demonstrated wasn’t in the transfer of information between an NFC-enabled phone and another device or tag. Instead it’s that the Android and Nokia handsets he examined were simply too gullible when it came to following orders issued over NFC.

In the demo, Miller showed that simply placing an NFC tag besides a Nexus S could force it to visit a website without the user’s confirmation. Combine that with one of the numerous browser flaws that are constantly being discovered, exploited and then fixed, and you’ve got potential problems.

In practice hackers aren’t likely to bother walking around with an NFC chip in their hands, patting people on the butt in the hope of getting within range of their handsets (and in any case, the connection only works when a phone’s screen is switched on rather than in standby). Instead, Miller argues, attacks are likely to involve replacing legitimate chips or tags with bogus ones: he gives the example of switching a tag on a movie poster that supposedly send the user to the movie’s website.

This isn’t so much a bug as a fundamental design flaw. Miller says the only solution is to redesign NFC features on phones so that they won’t carry out actions such as opening a website without the user’s active confirmation.

Meanwhile Nokia’s MeeGo operating system also came under criticism from Miller. He said that if users have NFC switched on and default settings unchanged, the phone will not only accept any NFC connection request it receives, but can even be forced to make a Bluetooth connection via the NFC chip, thus giving a hacker control over some of the phone’s features.

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Aisle411 wants to help you navigate through Walgreens

As grocery stores, Walgreens and Walmarts continue to supersize, finding your way around can be difficult. Different stores within the same chain are set up differently which only adds to the confusion. Just because you know where the the toilet paper is in one Walmart doesn’t mean you can find it in the same place in another. That is where aisle411 is supposed to come in. Just plug in your shopping list for Walgreens and the app should lead you on a simple path to each item.

Aisle411 has been available on the iPhone for a while and is also available in Google Play for Android phones. According to Engadget, aisle411 is now available for Walgreens. All 7,907 drugstores nationwide have been mapped in the app. So far only Walgreens is mapped nationwide. Depending on where you live you might have a larger selection of mapped stores. The application doesn’t have Walmart yet but hopefully its coming.


The application provides more than just a store navigation system. You can create shopping lists within the app and search through recipes. You can create more than one shopping list so that you can hit different stores for different items. For those who do extreme couponing and visit multiple stores to get the best deals, this app could come in handy. It will also show you what coupons are available in different stores. You can save the ones you want to your “grocery savings card” and use it when you check out.

For many of us who don’t live in one of the “select markets” with mapped out stores, the only store we can currently use the app to navigate through is Walgreens. For some people that might be enough of a perk to choose it over say Out of Milk or Grocery IQ.

Some people really like the app and the way that you can use it to navigate through stores. Others find the app to still be a bit primitive when it comes to using GPS to maneuver through stores. Others find that it doesn’t provide necessary options like the ability to rearrange your shopping order or add custom aisles. One big drawback is that it doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between frozen products and fresh products, for example frozen and fresh pineapple that are almost always on different aisles.

Every app goes through teething issues and hopefully aisle411 is just going through such a phase. The potential to become a killer app is definitely there, it just needs a bit more work.

Now if they could only map out the various Walmarts and Targets, it just might make the top shopping app of all time. Code corrupted. Insert fresh copy.

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Kickstarter projects for Android that you can help fund

For those of you unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it is “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.” People post videos of their projects and ask the public to help fund them. This article is only going to focus on projects surrounding Android development and apps. Depending on the level of funding, you can get a variety of different perks from the ability to alpha or beta test an android app or developer kit to ad free versions of the app to T-shirts. Some of these projects will only appeal to the really geeky and others to the more general user.

First from Kickstarter is the libKCE project. The goal is to raise $5,000 by July 11, 2012. So far the project has raised $242 from 67 backers. The project wants to create a quick way for developers to create new applications that will cut overcome the fragmentation issues that currently exist in Android. The toolkit will be offered free once it is up and running.



libKCE is a FREE Android / HTML5 Toolkit that we’ve developed with the primary purpose of transferring the power from the manufacturers, the carriers, the policy makers and other powers that be into the hands of the software developers (the people that make things happen) and on to the people, YOU!

libKCE is a drop-in, plug-and-play library that allows developers to quickly add it to their new and current projects. It offers an Intuitive API that conforms to international programming standards, which allows anyone to be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Second, is List Ninja that wants to combine several apps into one. It’s goal is to raise a more modest $1,500 by July 15, 2012. So far it has raised $90 but it still has 6 days to go and that isn’t a lot to raise in that time. It could replace multiple apps with one. For instance task, grocery, workout, mileage and password lists can all be accommodated in this one app.


List Ninja can replace any "list" type of application on your device. In addition you can customize it to have just the fields you want and the colors you want. Enjoy having things the way you want it, after all you’re not using an iPhone right? The way Android was meant to be
What all can the List Ninja do?

The List Ninja runs on a flexible template engine that allows you to build any type of list imaginable. Here are some examples of lists you can have with List Ninja.
Notes
Tasks
To-Do List
Grocery List
Passwords
Gas/Mileage Tracker
Calorie Counter
Gym Workouts

Basically if it’s some type of a list, where you go and input some data, List Ninja can handle it.

Third, is a very geeky project called the Sensordrone. This includes not just an app but a small device that will provide a variety of readings from temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide level, to stud finding. More uses are expected to be coming soon. The external gadget is small enough to fit on your keychain and can be used in a variety of places. The project has already earned $118,930 of a $25,000 goal but hurry and you may be able to get in on some Kickstarter only perks like a T-shirt and reduced cost of a sensordrone.


Sensordrone can fit on your keychain, monitor your environment, and talk with your smartphone via Bluetooth. Sensordrone already includes more sensors than anything else available, so you can run hundreds of new apps. Apps that are surprisingly useful in your daily life, fun apps, scientific apps, and more.

For example, apps using the capacitance sensor can work as a stud finder, a proximity monitor, or a liquid level monitor. Apps using the pressure sensor can work as a barometer, an altimeter, calculate elevation differences so you can measure the height of a building, be hooked up to a pressure cuff to work as a blood pressure monitor, and more. Humidity sensing is not just for weather, it determines comfort level for infants, finds the optimum conditions for storing foods, and could even help prevent mold from growing in your home

The sensors in Sensordrone don’t just give you data, they guide you to smart decisions. Sensor apps will teach you, help you, and guide you. You’ll be informed enough to demand action. For example, the carbon monoxide sensor will measure carbon monoxide, but combine that with an Air Quality Index guide, and you’ll get much more information than just a number.

Fourth is more of a novelty item. It is the Droidalyzer alcohol detector and developer kit. The goal is to raise $6,500 and has so far raised $332. Unlike the other projects that give you levels from $1 to $2,500 for your investment, the Droidalyzer gives you exactly one – $65. While it is a novelty, if it will keep someone from driving drunk, it would be worth the $65 investment.


The Droidalyzer is an open source, Bluetooth alcohol detector accessory for Android Phones. After pairing the device to your phone using Bluetooth, breathe into the device’s alcohol sensor and then check your alcohol level from your phone.

Note: The Droidalyzer is a novelty device, it is NOT calibrated to be a professional Breathalyzer and/or medical device and is for entertainment use only.

The last project is Craftie™ beer app. Yes there are other craft beer apps out there but most of them have limited abilities. The goal is to raise $48,900 by August 19, 2012. So far they have raised $2,276. I presume that some of that $48,900 will be spend on creating the bottle openers, coasters and other promo items promised with the different levels of contribution.


Our goal is simple: we’re creating the perfect app for craft beer lovers.Craftie™ will be unique because it focuses solely on craft beer, and will house a robust database of the country’s finest breweries and the great craft beers that they produce. Featuring three search options, extensive brewery and brewmaster profiles, and tons of information about the craft beers themselves, Craftie™ will aim to personalize your craft beer drinking experience like never before. You’ll now have your own personal database that allows you to make notes and rate the craft beers you love most, all right at your fingertips. And when it comes to an app, we know users expect an intuitive experience and reliable performance, which is why when Craftie™ is released it’ll be polished and ready to hit the ground sprinting.

So for those of you who want to bring a few more apps and gadgets to the Android universe, here’s your chance. There is a price range for every investor and a perk that comes with most of them. Enjoy browsing other Kickstarter projects as well. There are a couple of 3D printers that look promising. Code corrupted. Insert fresh copy.

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Androids form rogue army

We often speak of smartphones as more like mini computers than mobile telephones. Now we’ve may have the downside of such similarities: a botnet made up of Android handsets rather than PCs.

A Microsoft security blogger has noted that a recent batch of spam e-mails showed many familiar characteristics: it all come from hijacked Yahoo e-mails and offered bogus stock tips. However, Terry Zink also noticed that all the messages had a message saying they were sent from an Android device, a claim backed up by the code that is sent along with the message.


According to Zink, many of the messages came from developing nations, or those such asRussiawhere cybersecurity is relaxed to say the least.

Zink’s theory is that people in these countries are more likely to seek out sources of smartphone apps other than the official Android market (now known as Google Play), and are also less likely to exercise security concerns. He openly speculates that the phone owners concerned have been seeking free knock-off copies of legitimate paid-for apps.

Naturally you have to take into account that a Microsoft employee has some interest in disparaging both Yahoo and the Android system, and there certainly seems to be some degree of assumption in Zink’s claims. It’s also fair to note that at the moment we can only infer there’s a botnet at work from the results: there isn’t yet specific evidence such a botnet exists, or any indication as to what the relevant malware is, or what form of disguise it uses in app stores.

Still, regardless of Zink’s motivation, it’s certainly a plausible theory, and serves as a reminder that with an open operating system users need to exercise the same level of caution and suspicion as they would when downloading and installing software for a PC.

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Android-powered Ouya console breaks all Kickstarter records, raises over $2M in a day

Yesterday an interesting project launched on Kickstarter. An Android-based gaming console called Ouya promised to change the gaming world for good. The $99 console aimed to deliver cheap, high quality games to everyone by being completely open to developers, hackers and users.

Yet, what Ouya managed to achieve was probably beyond its creators’ wildest dreams. The developers were hoping to gather $950,000 to begin production, but the Kickstarter project generated a whopping $2 million on the first day alone.
At the time of this writing the counter is at a mind-blowing $2.7 million and it keeps rising quite quickly. Shocked by the amount of money they got, the developers are now working on their stretch goals – the things they will do with the extra financing. In case you have an idea you are welcome to contact them ideas@ouya.tv and if you want to back the project or just learn more about it, feel free to follow the source link.

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Angry Birds to hit Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo 3DS later this year

The Angry Birds universe will undergo another expansion at the end of the year. After a small teaser on the E3 in June, Rovio has finally spoken on the matter.

New Angry Birds versions that are being “built from the ground up” will hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS in the holiday season.
The game will be distributed physically on discs (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) and a 3DS cartridge. There is no info on the pricing just yet.
The console Angry Birds offerings will include the original Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. It is yet unknown if the game will pack all the levels available on iOS and Android.
The fact that Rovio rebuilt the game from scratch for the consoles allowed the devs to include animated backgrounds, new and better effects, HD (and probably Full HD) resolution support, etc. MS Kinect, PS3 Move and 3DS StreetPass support is going to be included as well.
There will be new leaderboard and achievements system as well as individual score charts for each level.
Angry Birds for consoles is coming this holiday season.

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Indoor Google Maps gets support for 22 of the most popular US museums

The indoor maps are one of the coolest features of Google Maps, but the coverage is rather limited for now, meaning you don’t get to use it as often as you might like. It’s good to know though that the developers are working on that and have just announced newly-added map data for 22 new museums and a zoo.

The newly supported venues include the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural

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First Galaxy S III ads talk up All Share

According to most reviews the Galaxy S III is the best Android handset to date. Hell, the S II is still pretty damn good and the S III is superior in every way to its predecessor. But even the best phones need to be advertised to interest the masses, and Samsung has begun its campaign promoting the S III.

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Apple’s App Store oops frustrates users and developers alike



IPhone and iPad users were frustrated on Wednesday when a “rogue” server added digital rights

management (DRM) software to more than 100 apps being downloaded.

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Amazon smartphone on way, probably



It looks as though Amazon is developing its own smartphone alongside Foxconn, the Chinese company that

currently manufactures the iPhone for Apple.

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Install CyanogenMod 9 Android 4.0.4 ICS Motorola Defy Plus

Finally we found the tutorial How to Install CyanogenMod 9 CM9 Android 4.0.4 ICS custom Firmware rom update on Motorola Defy Plus. Motorola Defy+ Plus is a rigid Android Smartphone from telecom giant Motorola. They have done pretty fine with this phone but we are not much impressed with battery. The phone is totally water and dust resistant. For people who work on very dirty atmosphere or keep throwing and dropping their phone here and there can go for this phone. Recently, XDA dev forum member has launched Android 4.0.4 ICS custom ROM for Defy Plus and it is not official yet still in beta stage. This custom developed ROM is based on CyanogenMod 9 which can be installed manually, most of the things are working. Being based on AOKP this ROM is fast and performing nice with battery as well. You just need to root your Defy plus on current firmware which you are currently running and also install Custom Recovery too.

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Install Cyanogenmod 9 Android 4.0.4 ICS Galaxy Note N7000

We have found quick tutorial how to install Cyanogenmod 9 CM9 Android 4.0.4 ICS Firmware Rom on Samsung Galaxy Note N7000. Galaxy Note GT-N7000 has got the ICS update recently and now CyanogenMod team has launched a full ICS overhauled version of ICS Firmware update based on XXLB2 Android ICS 4.0.4. CyanogenMod are best ROMs for Android devices. CM9 for Galaxy Note is yet in nightly build and final official version will take 3-4 weeks to release. There are few issues like FM radio is not working, GLONASS satellites are not reporting GPS status, also issues with Noise reduction and volume controls. But these are all minor issue that will be resolved soon. CM9 is a fully stripped version based on AOKP, crafted to perform faster and give a better battery life. ICS camera feature was working excellent and also taking high resolution photos and videos. Developers are promised that they are going to fix all this issues on upcoming release updates. We have provided a detailed step by step guide to assist you with the installation.

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How to Install Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Update Galaxy Nexus GSM

Are you more anticipated? How to Install Android 4.1 Jelly Bean JRN84D firmware update on Samsung Galaxy Nexus GSM, then we have detailed tutorial with steps on below. Galaxy Nexus is the first device going to get latest official Android 4.1 JellyBean OS update. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is released recently for both mobiles and tablets and also Nexus 7 Tablet comes with pre-installed with it. This has made Nexus 7 tablet the most updated and desired one. You can get the update over the air. However, if you have rooted your device and want to update, then follow the below procedure to download and flash Jellybean updated firmware on Galaxy Nexus. Jelly Bean will be soon available for Motorola Xoom, Nexus S and a few other phones.

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How to Install Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Update HTC One X

It was the perfect chance for HTC One X users to update their devices with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean JRN83C Firmware version. We have tutorial How to Install Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update on HTC One X. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has created a lot of ripples on the internet as everyone is eager to download and install Jelly Bean for their phone and tablets. Jelly Bean is faster and more efficient than Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich ICS. Some of the great features are Offline Voice to text support. The new UI is very fast and butter smooth. HTC One X owners can now enjoy JellyBean on their phones and we must say thanks to tgascoigne a xda dev forum member for releasing the SDK port. WI-FI, Camera, Radio and Audio are not working so it is not a problem for people who want all the functionality from the device. This custom ROM is based on the Jelly Bean update released for Galaxy Nexus. Developers are trying to resolve the bugs in the upcoming build versions, and it will take few weeks to get a fully working stable ROM.

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Install Official Android 4.0.4 ICS Update Sony XPERIA Ray ST18A/I

Sony Xperia Ray ST18a/I was shipped with Android Gingerbread on a 1GHz Qualcomm snapdragon processor paired with Adreno 205 GPU. Every Xperia Ray user is looking for Android 4.0.4 ICS firmware update and they can get it now officially. But Sony didn’t release the Official update via over the air (OTA). Users must download the rom package from official site and install the Android 4.0.4 ICS firmware update manually through flash tools on their Sony XPERIA Ray ST18A/I devices. We are providing detailed tutorial and Firmware package that will guide you to installed latest ICS update on Xperia Ray. The latest Official Android ICS was dubbed with FW 4.1.B.0.431 firmware version and this update has many bug fixes and also added new features. Sony has also tried to resolve the battery drainage problem, enhanced other features and solved Wi-Fi disconnection issues.

Are you confused with what is ST18A/I? well here is your answer Sony has released two different models Xperia ST18A and ST18I both having same specification and features. But Xperia ST18i was international model and ST18A was american version.

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Android apps come to Macs

A company that already lets you use Android applications on a desktop PC is now doing the same for Mac users. BlueStacks is able to bridge the technical gap between the various systems, but will only do so with the authorization of the app developer.

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Google I/O: Nexus 7 tablet unveiled

The long-awaited Google Nexus tablet is real, is here, and is serious competition to everything from the iPad down.

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