Historically, Samsung has worked up a pretty spotty record for properly supporting its Android devices with updates to newer versions of the platform -- just look at the Behold 2 debacle for evidence of that -- but that doesn't mean some enterprising folks out in the field can't make up for that, now, does it? The Galaxy Spica (also known as the i5700) has been blessed with multitouch support in some homebrew drivers that are making their way into homebrew kernels for homebrew ROMs, despite the official line that said phone doesn't support more than one finger at a time. Really drives home the point that "support" can refer both to the hardware's capability and the manufacturer's willingness to maximize it, doesn't it? Follow the break for the hack on video.

[Thanks, OKK77]

Continue reading Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica hacked for multitouch support

Samsung i5700 Galaxy Spica hacked for multitouch support originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It appears we missed an opportunity at IFA to spend some quality time with LG's recently-outed C300 Town, a dumbphone in every sense of the word whose main mission in life seems to be making your texting an easier task thanks to a full portrait QWERTY keyboard. It's got a few other tricks up its sleeve, though, namely support for push email, a 3.5mm headphone jack (hopefully accompanied by a decent music player), and a 2 megapixel cam on back to capture those amazing moments with enough clarity (in theory, anyway) to make for a decent MMS. We're still waiting for details on pricing and availability, but we know that it'll be available on Orange at some point -- appropriate, we must say, considering the orange accents.

[Thanks, Willeke]

LG's C300 Town spotted in the wild, textin' on the cheap originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering the sheer volume of 5800 XpressMusics that Nokia has sold over the past year and a half, it's little wonder that they've got a few dedicated hackers out there working on keeping the company's first S60 Fifth Edition device up to date, isn't it? Sure enough, the C6's updated skin with legit home screen widgets has been shoehorned onto both the 5800 and its 5530 sibling -- and although the update process seems like a bit of a nightmare fraught with bricking dangers, a successful update means you might be able to go another year without shelling out for a new set. Cheers to that, we say. Follow the break for the firmware in action on a 5800 (Navigation Edition, we think).

[Thanks, Kalle H.]

Continue reading Nokia C6 firmware hacked with care onto 5800 and 5530

Nokia C6 firmware hacked with care onto 5800 and 5530 originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, sure -- a few people have called Google's Nexus One a "superphone," but suddenly, that nickname has taken on a whole new level of meaning. A team of talent from MIT has put its head down in order to concoct a new Android application that can come darn close to solving complex computational problems in just a fraction of the time that it'd take a bona fide supercomputer. The goal here is to let researchers and scientists convert to Google's mobile OS, but if you aren't falling for that one, it's also designed to "let engineers perform complicated calculations in the field, and to better control systems for vehicles or robotic systems." Of course, the models that are hosted on the phone do require a supercomputer to create, but once certain formulas are embedded, the app can then compute approximations in mere seconds rather than hours. Best of all, rbAPPmit is available for download as well speak in the source link below, but we'd probably wait for the (presumably thick) user guide to surface before diving in headfirst.

[Thanks, Alasdair]

MIT app turns your Android phone into a supercomputer... of sorts originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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O2 UK has been a little late to the Desire's Android 2.2 party, but of course, it's a "better late than never" sort of situation -- or is it? After getting a "small number" of reports that the just-released update for O2-branded units was causing problems, the carrier has put the software on ice for the moment; there appear to be several failure modes ranging from freezing to having Sense get stuck in a crash loop, but the net result is that there's definitely some wonkiness with the binary O2's put out so far. Though we imagine you can probably find an update.zip floating around, we're not sure sure attempting an install is a hot idea -- we might wait for this situation to get sorted first. In the meantime, here's O2's full statement in its official forums:

"Hi all
As some of you will have noticed the Android 2.2 Froyo update for HTC Desire on O2 went live this morning. While we're pleased that so many of you have been able to download it successfully and are enjoying the benefits of 2.2, we have seen that a small number of people are having problems installing the update.

While we check out these issues we're putting the 2.2 update on hold. We'll update you as soon as possible and would like to thank our HTC Desire customers for their patience.

Thanks
JP"

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

O2's HTC Desire gets official Froyo update -- for a moment, anyhow originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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