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Motorola Mobility is currently in the process of a limited rollout of Android 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich (Version 4.0.3/Package IML77 to be precise). Instead of waiting for the wider release you can manually upgrade your Xoom to ICS.

Your will need

• A USB host cable, and
• A USB thumbdrive, or an sd-card on a single card reader also works. Not too sure about those N-in-1 card readers – I’d stay away from those. Also, it doesn’t work from the micro-sd drive in the Xoom.

I use an SD-Card connected to the Xoom via micro-USB host cable and a USB-2.0 SD-Card reader. My Xoom is the Wifi model running the latest US Honecomb 3.2 (i.e. HTK75D).

Instructions:

1. Download the zip file from Google and save it into the root folder of your USB drive.
2. Connect the USB drive to the Xoom using a Host cable.
3. Shut down your Xoom.
4. Switch it on and press the Volume Down button as soon as the red Motorola logo appears.
5. It should say Android Recovery in the top left. If it doesn’t keep pressing Volume Down until you see it.
6. Press Volume Up to select the option.
7. When the Green Android with the Exclamation Point appears, hold the Power button and press Volume Up.
8. Select Update from USB drive.
9. Pick the downloaded zip file.
10. Enjoy your Ice Cream Sandwich!

Source: XDA Forums / Bauxite

Carrier IQ is a spyware program for mobile phones that has been in the news a fair amount in recent weeks. It is able to record many things including the list of installed apps, the location of the device, buttons pressed including keystrokes on the soft keyboard, and the content of messages. This data is sent to the Carrier IQ servers and then onto the mobile service provider which can be used for generating statistics or further relayed onto third parties such as advertisers, and law enforcement. This program cannot be uninstalled without rooting the phone.

While service providers and Carrier IQ claim that they do not store the content of messages, it has been found that they are infact doing this. They claim that this is a bug, and they are working on a fix.

Currently in the US, AT&T and T-Mobile include this program in their phones, while Verizon has made clear that they do not use it.

From an alleged T-Mobile document it appars that the following phones contain Carrier IQ:

• HTC Amaze 4G
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Samsung Exhibit II 4G
• T-Mobile myTouch by LG
• T-Mobile myTouch Q by LG
• LG DoublePlay
• BlackBerry 9900
• BlackBerry 9360
• BlackBerry 9810

So, I’d steer clear of any of those phones on AT&T or T-Mobile if I were you. (In fact I’d steer clear of those networks alltogether! :p)

Mobile operators in the UK do not use Carrier IQ.

via: The Verge

If you have a fairly recent Canon DSLR Camera and somewhat newer Android device, then you’re in luck … There is now an app which allows you to control the functions of your camera and take pictures straight from your Android tablet!

The app here is DSLR Controller by Chainfire. It streams the live-view to your phone and provides easy access to pretty much all camera settings like aperture, exposure time, ISO speed and a whole lot more. It can show a live historgram, zoom the live-view for better manual focus, and even lets you touch to focus!

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Android 3.2 finally provides external storage support in actual android code, so the manufacturers don’t need to patch it in. However, it is currently just read-only. That seems to have dissapointed a few people.

One of the biggest niggles however in Android 3.2 is they introduced a bug in intents. Its the mechanism how one activity launches another one. If there are multiple apps installed which can handle an activity (e.g. if you have multiple image viewer apps), android gives you a window where you can pick which app you want to use. This bug prevents the picker window from coming up properly. Instead, the screen just darkens a little. The workaround is to rotate the device which will cause the window to come up.

As all the UK (as well as other non-US) Motorola Xoom owners are aware, their Xooms are stuck on Android 3.01 whereas the US version is already rolling onto 3.2. The European customers were promised version 3.1 a few weeks ago, but there is no news of anyone actually getting that update yet.

So … if you have a UK Xoom Wifi, here’s how you can get 3.2 installed on it. It’s not completely risk-free, and not entirely simple either, but it’s certainly less frustrating than dealing with Motorola Support when it comes to finding out information on updates.

I guess right now your About tablet screen looks like this …

… and that’s what we’re about to change!

The Process

The process you’ll follow is:

1. Flash the U.S stock 3.0.1 image
2. Auto-update to 3.1 (and then to 3.2)
3. Flash the ClockworkMod Recovery image
4. Flash the Rooted 3.2 image.

UPDATE: As a couple of comments have pointed out, the 3.2 update is now available OTA via the Auto Update. It is a two stage process, it will first update to 3.1 and reboot, after which, if you check for updates again it will find 3.2. So, follow steps 3 and 4 only if you want a rooted version of 3.2. Cheers commenters for pointing this out.

NOTE: By following these steps you’ll be voiding the warranty on your Xoom, and there is a chance you could brick your device. I’ve only tried it on the UK Wifi Xoom i.e. the MZ604. Also, this will erase all your data from the Xoom, so back things up!

These are quite detailed instructions so the process seems quite long, but it should take less than an hour to complete for most people. If you’ve done firmware updates before, it should really take around 20 minutes to fully root, or less than that to get the stock Android 3.2.
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You can actually take screenshots on the Samsung Galaxy S II without having to root the phone. Simply press the HOME and POWER buttons simultaneously, and voila! you’ll hear a snapshot.

The screenshots are stored in /mnt/sdcard/ScreenCapture.

I like mahjong. It’s amongst favourite timewasters. Windows 7 has a fairly nice one called Mahjong Titans, but Random Factor Mahjong on Android is something else. Unlike other Mahjong games on phones, this one looks fantastic, especially on a tablet like the Motorola Xoom.

It features 3 difficulty levels, auto hints, and if you get stuck you can shuffle the remaining tiles or start over. If you still fail, you can also walk through the solution. It’s got some nice touches like slowly zooming in as you clear tiles near the edge of the screen, as well as multitouch. It automatically saves the game state when you quit, or if your game is interrupted by a phone call.

Its Unique selling point is meant to be that each game is generated completely randomly, which definitely its longevity. It definitely has the addictive factor.

It’s available in Ad Supported and Paid versions. Considering the amount of time you’d spend playing it, the paid version is worth it.

• Ad Supported Version
• Paid Version

So I got myself a Motorola Xoom! This is what it looks like …

 
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When you’re installing Android SDK (on Windows 7 64-bit – perhaps on other versions too?), it can’t seem to find your JDK installation. When you click next on the first screen, it will present you with a screen saying Java SE Development Kit (JDK) not found.

When that happens, just click back, and then click next. Lo and behold … it’s found Java now!

The smartphone market is finally getting a full-fledged flash player. Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch demonstrated Flash 10 running on Nokia Series 60 (based on Symbian), Windows Mobile and even the Google Android platforms. There was a major but expected absentee … The iPhone.

While Adobe has a near complete version for the iPhone, it’ll probably never be released to the wild. The problem as some see it is that it is too close for comfort for Apple, providing a free application platform that would compete with the App Store. They would lose the tight control they have on what can be run on an iPhone, as well as losing the revenue stream from sales via the App Store.
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