Smith Micro is best known for its Mac software and StuffIt! in particular but the company’s portfolio is much wider than that. Andy and Don chat to Carla of Smith Micro Software to find out what else the company does.

Smith Micro has a portfolio of products in the mobile wireless space, delivering solutions for telcos and cable operators. As Carla points out, if you’ve ever connected your laptop to a 3G network, you’ve probably used some of their software.

Sprint chose Smith Micro’s Mobile Network Director to intelligently manage traffic between 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi connections. A software client on the smartphone works with the carrier’s systems to select the connection technology that will give the best performance in the particular situation. For example, in a very congested 4G area, the software will transfer the data connection to a quieter and consequently faster 3G network.

From the interview, it sounds like Sprint has learnt from the CarrierIQ debacle and while the software on the smartphone works transparently, the owner can override the connection selection manually. Good.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net and Don Baine, the Gadget Professor.

Going to be implementing some Studio upgrades in the next couple of weeks should be fun. I go after a couple of my state legislatures pretty hard tonight on two idiotic bills that they introduced. Also hope I was not to punchy on the last show notes. I am feeling much better by the way and although the voice is not a 100% I feel a 100% better.

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Squeezing among all the CES news, UK mobile telco Three reports a huge jump in smartphone data over the past year. On New Year’s Eve, smartphone traffic was up nearly 600% in the UK compared with the same evening a year before. On 31st December 2010, 14 TB of data was transmitted.  For the same date in 2011, it was 80 TB.

A similar pattern emerged on New Year’s day, with 74 TB in 2012, compared with 14 TB in 2011. Facebook seems to have become the place for New Year’s wishes with a 20% rise in traffic between midnight and 1am.

I sometimes think people should look up from their phones a bit more often. Now I know I’m right!

If you grew up in the era of Atari then you probably still get nostalgic for it once in a while.  Thankfully, there are still ways to get your Atari fix.  I occasionally fire up an emulator on my computer from time to time and play a game of Centipede or Asteroids.  But, if you don’t want to sit in front of your desktop or laptop, you can now take your Atari addiction mobile.

Atari’s Greatest Hits is now available in the Android Market.  The app itself is free and comes with Missile Command.  Additional games packs are available for $0.99 each, or you can purchase all 100 games for $9.99.  The game packs can only be purchased from within the Atari’s Greatest Hits app, and are sold through the Amazon Android App Store.

Atari requires you to be running Android 2.2 or newer.  If you’re looking for a fun way to waste some time and take a stroll down memory lane then this is a must-have app for a reasonable price – and, hey, if you just like missile Command, it’s even more reasonable at the price of free.  You can check out the brief intro video below.

EA, one of the most popular game makers, has been in the mobile market for some time now.  Thanks to a deal with some handset makers, like Motorola, preview editions of their games come pre-installed.  That’s great but, of course, to get the whole game you have to pay up.  Also, in some cases the games are not even an option for uninstall.  That’s bad, but here’s what is not so bad – EA makes some really good games.  Their flagship racing game, Need for Speed, has been a best-seller in the Android Market with the “NSF Shift” version.

Now NSF Shift has been surpassed by EA’s latest release, which hit the market a couple of days ago.  Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is now available with a host of cool features.  You can choose from a variety of sports cars that will make the average male drool.  There’s the Porsche, Pagani, Bugotti, and Lamborghini Murcielago to name just a few.  Or, if you choose to be the cop in this game, you can get the rarest of them all – the Lamborghini Reventon.

Before you get too excited though, there’s one key thing you need to know.  To get the hottest cars you will need to unlock them.  Unlocking a car requires a certain amount of points.  With each point level reached another vehicle becomes available.  Once you get a car you can choose to use it or any of the ones you have already unlocked.  You can also customize its color by using sliders to choose the way you want your vehicle to look.  Like the previous NSF Shift, it uses your phone’s accelerometer to control the car.

The game is available for $6.99 from the Android Market.  It’s not a small download, being around 500MB when it’s all said and done, but it will entertain any mobile gamer.  In the first 24 hours my son is up to a Porsche Cayman, but I would really like my Droid back…

Did you ever wonder what everyone around you is doing with their constantly-out smartphones?  Well, Mobclix did some research about what cell phone users are clicking and came up with a snapshot of what goes on in a single minute of usage.  Some of the results may surprise you – like 4,111 ads were clicked on.  Some may not – like that Angry Birds is simply in a category of usage all by itself.  You won’t believe how many people are looking for song lyrics or slicing fruit in Fruit Ninja.

All of this data was put together into one cool infographic.  It’s posted below, so have a look and see what you think.  Does it reflect what you expected?  Do you find anything really surprising?  What would an infographic of your usage reflect?

Source: Mobclix

If you ever needed evidence that mobile telcos (MNOs) are moving their business focus from telephones to data, then look no further than a recent post on Three’s blog. Phil Sheppard, the company’s Director of Network Strategy, revealed that 97% of the traffic flowing through Three‘s network was data. Only 3% was voice.

Also staggering was the growth in smartphone data use which grew 427% in 14 months. Yes, over 400% in slightly more than a year. It’s clear that in the last year, lots of people have upgraded to smartphones and are now actively using them online. There’s probably a combination of reasons for the explosion but the wider choice of handset models at a range of price points will be the main reason.

Three has always paid attention to data, being the first mobile company to offer 3G in the UK back in 2003, but with figures like this, it would be a fair assumption that every mobile telco is now shifting more data than voice traffic and that means these companies are more like mobile ISPs (Internet Service Providers) than phone companies. Whenever you hear an announcement by one of these companies, think about it in these terms.

pogoplug-mobile

In this day and age, we talk about Cloud like a car dealer talks cars. We put stuff in the cloud and take it down. We don’t even know where this cloud is – but a lot of us trust it for our photos, music, movies and more.

Now we can put a cloud on our desks, and share media through our mobile device. All through Pogoplug.

Pogoplug is a device you plug into your network, plug in your USB drives, then share the contents across the web. You can set access to private or public viewing on desktop, iPhone, iPad, Android or other mobile device. You can also set permissions so your workmates can collaborate on files.

Today, Pogoplug announced their newest product in the line of devices. Pogoplug mobile is a version of Pogoplug geared at taking all the media off your smartphone and keeping it on your personal cloud.

“Pogoplug Mobile is the perfect companion to your mobile phone or tablet.” says CEO Daniel Putterman. “Not only can you stream the media from your hard drives straight to your mobile device over WiFi or your cellular connection but you can also automatically back up your camera roll to your Pogoplug.That means, no matter where you are, the photos and videos you take on your mobile phone are automatically backed up to your Pogoplug.”

Pogoplug Mobile lets you attach USB drives and now SD cards into the device. You configure the drives up on my.pogoplug.com, then download an application for your PC, Mac or mobile device. When configured, you can access your mobile data through your own cloud.

Prices for Pogoplug Mobile start at $79.99 (£59.99 in the UK). For more information, go to Pogoplug Mobile site (http://www.pogoplug.com/mobile/). It is also one of the 5 Backup Cloud Solutions I reported on back on September 21st. You can also check out the video we did with Pogoplug at CES2010.

Ofcom, the UK’s regulator for the telecommunications industry, issued an update on its plans for the auctioning off of the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum bands. These are the frequencies that will be used for the delivery of 4G services.

There has already been one consultation on the auction of the frequencies but based on the responses received, Ofcom has decided to carry out an additional second consultation at the end of 2011 which will run for around 8 weeks. The outcome of the consultation and auction proposals will be published in the summer of 2012, with a delayed frequency auction expected in Q4 2012. More likely Q1 2013, based on their track record.

Ofcom think that this delay to the auction is quite acceptable because the frequencies involved won’t be available until 2013. The last region to turn off the analogue TV signal will be Northern Ireland on 24 October 2012, freeing up the 800 MHz spectrum. The digital switchover programme was announced in 2005 and started in 2008, moving by region until 2012. I don’t know what it takes to achieve this technically, but it seems rather slow. It’s not as if the UK is a big country.

Looking back historically, Ofcom awarded the 3G spectrum in 2000. Mobile telecoms company Three was the first to offer 3G services in 2003, so it took 3 years to move from award of spectrum to service availability. I’m really hoping the that telecos can move a bit faster than they did with 3G but frankly I’m not holding my breath. The whole digital TV changeover and 4G auction has been a farce here in the UK with the US and other parts of Europe well ahead. I won’t be surprised if us Brits are still waiting for 4G in 2015.

You will love the rack overheat alarm going off in the middle of the show. Adds for some comedy and bewilderment by me as I have never heard that alarm coming out of the rack. Lots of great tech news and the show goes way long tonight. Will get that back in check as I do not have to report on “All the News”

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Credits:
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iPhone

Three US Senators have introduced a new bill aimed at getting the FUD out of today’s 4G coverage mess.  The “Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act” will attempt to do something that providers have done their best to avoid – state plain facts about their coverage and it’s speeds in their advertisements.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn introduced the act today.  It stems from the mess that came when providers began advertising 4G networks that don’t technically meet actual 4G standards.  To get a great technical breakdown of what real 4G is, and what many wireless companies (AT&T and T-Mobile for instance) are actually using (referred to as near-4G) head over to the article on Wikipedia.

The new bill would require providers to guarantee a minimum speed, provide real coverage area maps, and specify the technology being used.  It also would cover network reliability and pricing.  Finally, it allows the FCC to oversee the speeds of top carriers and provide comparison tests that users can look at when deciding which carrier they should enter into a contract with.

A similar bill passed the House of Representatives back in June of this year.  Expect it to be a harder sell in the Senate, where telecom lobbyists are sure to put up a tremendous fight.

Flickr today announced two new releases – Photo Session and an app for Android devices.  While the Android app has been wanted by users for a long time, the Photo Session app came as a bit of a surprise and also a treat, especially for those who have family in far-flung locations that they want to browse photos with.

The more popular of the two releases is likely to be the Android app.  The app allows users to take pictures, edit them, and then forward them on to not just Flickr, but also other locations like Facebook and Twitter.  According to their announcement, “Browsing and navigating has been custom designed for Flickr to make use of maps, tags, and activity around your photos.”  It allows users to view comments and also go full-screen and set up and play slideshows.

Photo Session has been overshadowed in today’s news cycle thanks to anything Android being what the media takes and runs with.  It’s a cool release on it’s own though, as it allows users to view pictures, through a web browser, with friends and families who can be located anywhere in the world.  Once you create a new photo session you can send invitations to others.  In turn, you can all get together in real-time and view and discuss the shared photos.  When you move from one photo to the next it changes for all viewers in your session.

You can find the Android app in the Android Market and Photo Session at Flickr.  Both are free downloads.  Photo Session is only available in English and is still in beta.  You can see a preview video below.

What could happen did happen. Someone needs to fix Chrome so Flash quits crashing as it caused some excitement for me at the beginning of the show not to mention pushing a higher bandwidth stream seemed to create some issues for viewers on slower connections. Faster is not always better, good lessons learned. Plus a Weird Product recommendation at the end of the show plus a Family Update.

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Credits: Jack Ellis – Executive Producer

I talk about different podcast models and why there is room for multiple flavors in the space. I also share with you some personal info that I hope will help some of you that listen to the show. Lots of tech as usual!

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Credits: Jack Ellis – Executive Producer

If you play fantasy football, and many people do, then there is a fairly good chance that you use Yahoo to manage your league.  Yahoo Sports has been a great resource for news for a number of years, and their fantasy league software has been the best for quite some time, topping even NFL.com.

A lot of people may not know, though, that Yahoo also has an incredibly good mobile app for fantasy football.  It’s available for free in the Android Market.  Just use your Yahoo log-in to set it up and you are off and running.  Logging in will only have to be done once at set-up.  After that the app opens to your homescreen automatically.

Once you are up and running, you can check your current score under “matchup”, which also shows individual players and how they are performing.

You can check all of the scores from around your league.

Click on a player to get more in-depth information.

You can even check the current standings in your league.

There’s a lot you can do with this app.  It’s a must for any armchair coach to check their team’s progress and manage, or micro-manage, their roster.  You can get Yahoo Fantasy football ’11 free from the Android Market.  Good luck this season!

If you want information on your Android device, and I mean DETAILED information about EVERYTHING going on, then you will want to check out Elixir 2.  It bills itself as a “system information application”, and I would say that they are putting it rather mildly.

Elixir 2 will give detailed information on “displays information about battery, internal and external storage (sd card), cpu, memory, telephony, wifi, bluetooth, location, display, airplane mode, synchronization, audio, camera, camcorder, input devices, build, operating system, settings, configuration, clipboard, environment variables, features, java system properties, shared libraries”.

More importantly,  it allows you to make changes to screen settings, running apps, WiFi, BlueTooth, and various sensors like GPS, compass, microphone, and accelerometer.  It will tell you what’s using your battery, CPU, or memory so that you can make changes to better utilize your device.

There is far more information available than can be fully discussed here.  If you are a techy then this is probably a must-have app.  If you aren’t, you probably can still benefit by saving some battery life and killing processes that are slowing down your device.  The app is free (ad supported), and can be found at the Android Market.  You can check out a few screenshots below.

Elixir 2 main screen

Elixir 2 sensors

Elixir 2 system information

Evernote is probably the most popular online note-taking application.  With versions for computers (both Windows and Mac) and mobile versions for Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and WebOS, the app is virtually everywhere.  There is a free version and a Premium version, but the free version previously limited users to only being able to include text, image, audio and PDF files in their notes.

Today, Evernote announced that the restriction has now been removed and free account users can include any type of file in their notes.  “The reason we lifted our file restriction is that we want to allow our users to store everything related to an experience or memory in a single, visual, searchable place.”

The other restrictions for free accounts still apply – there’s a 25 MB file size limit for notes and a 60 MB upload limit per month.  Evernote is promising that there are a lot more innovations “in the works”.  If you aren’t familiar with, or haven’t tried, the service, you can visit Evernote to check it out.

I give lots of Prizes away and also a chance to win some very exclusive prints from a cool artist. Listen to win and join me for a trip down memory lane, we kick it off old school with some intros that we have used in bygone years. Nearly 7 years of podcasting excellence all made possible by all of the Ohana that subscribe and listen to this show.

Big Thanks to Our Executive Producer Jack Ellis for all his work on all of our shows!

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With Hurricane Irene now making it’s way up the east coast of the US, it’s a good time to review what you can do to conserve your phone’s battery during power outages.  It’s also handy for travel, or anytime you won’t be able to recharge for an extended period.  Fortunately, Android makes it very simple to manage battery life – at least to a degree.  After all, this mobile OS isn’t known for it’s great power management.

To get started, turn on your device, go into All Apps and select Settings.  Now select Battery & data manager.

Select Battery mode.  By default, Android is set on Nighttime saver.  This is to allow “Normal operation during the day. Battery saving at night.”  However, you can switch it to Maximum battery saver, which offers “Best battery saving.  Least automatic data updates.”

Of course, you can switch these settings whenever you want.  For the most part the default “Nighttime saver” is best, but it is handy to be able to conserve your phone’s life when necessary.

Meetup in Albuquerque is Wednesday night details out tonight to those who have agreed to meetup.. Really need more cores on the road, time for a laptop update buy man really hate buying another PC you all know the drill. Show 700 Contest Details!

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Motorola-Android

Google announced this morning that it will be acquiring Motorola Mobility for $40 a share – $12.5 billion total. With it, come 24000 patents on mobile devices, in which 70-80% will most likely move right into Android technologies. Is this a major win for Google and their partners?

Motorola Mobility started in 1928^[Wiki]. They pioneered mobile devices starting with the StarTAC in 1996. Motorola Mobility also invented the flip phone and their most successful handset – the RAZR - was the most popular phone from 2004 to 2008 (when the iPhone surpassed it).

“This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility’s stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world” said Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility. “We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses.”

24,000 patents, ranging from initial cellular connections all the way to current technologies, are also a part of that purchase. This means that Android has a better chance of warding off most other patent lawsuit disputes, which seems to be a key to a smartphone or tablet.

It’s also a great advantage to Android partners Samsung, HTC, Sony-Ericcson and LG-Electronics. Motorola had several Android-based smartphones themselves, including the Droid and Droid 2.

“The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences.”Says Larry Page. “I am confident that these great experiences will create huge value for shareholders. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

With this news, the mobile eco-system might take a major turn. Google has some major firepower behind their Android system now. While not all technologies they purchased might not be viable in today’s tech market, they could be a basis for modified technology based on original patents.

Have you switched to an Android phone yet? Do you have a Droid3? What are your thoughts on this acquisition?

Official Google Press Release

You win some you loose some. But I will be honest an extra set of hands would be great. First five minutes of the show are comical as you will see. An absolute metric ton of tech tonight. Be advised the primary Video feed is going HD and the Mobile Video feed will much more manageable.

Note to Subscribers: Rough show tonight dealing with family issues in Japan that are not good, Shoko is fine but they are having a rough go of it! Thanks for being part of the family. My head was not a 100% engaged tonight as will be evident.

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ISP Refuse Blocking of PB.
Judge Threatened.
ZIP/RAR Support in Google Docs.
Are you a Thief.
Google+ Malware.
Slack versus Spot.
Feds take your Drivers License.
Sprint 3 Million Ad Campaign Giveaway with NASCAR.
ChromeBook for 7 Days.
Password Trends you don’t want to set.
Atlas 5 Human Lift.
20 Million Pound Tool.
IPV6 Update.
Wanna make a quick 250k?
Anonymous kicked out of Google+
Lion on Wednesday?
CNN Live on iPad.
The Verge?
Car Apps Coming.

For a while now I have been controlling my Windows Media Center HTPC with a remote control app on my Android phone.  Recently I have been playing with…er reviewing…a DirecTV remote control on the same phone.  I control my FreeNAS home server from that phone.  I could also control Windows Home Server, a TiVo, a Comcast DVR, and probably many other set-top boxes as well.  All of this got me to thinking….will smartphones make things like the Harmony remote control a thing of the past?

For years now, Harmony has reined supreme as THE device to have for home theater geeks, and has even edged it’s way into the mainstream.  Sure, there are other “universal” remotes, some of them are even higher-end than Harmony, like Crestron.  Yes, Crestron can do a LOT more than the average universal remote, like control home security and lighting.  But now there are smartphone apps for those things too.

What can Harmony do that my Android can’t?  Well, there are a few things.  Some are due to the limitations of my hardware and some are due to the limitation of the apps.  For one, my A/V receiver isn’t networked and neither is my LCD TV, so they can’t be controlled from my phone.  For another, the “one-app-to-rule-them-all” isn’t there yet.  By that, I mean that Harmony can turn on my receiver, TV, and DirecTV HD DVR with a push of one button, even setting the receiver to the proper output and the set-top box to a particular channel.  By contrast, my phone requires me to open each app separately to do these things.

So, can Android, iOS, and the others replace these universal remotes?  Yes, but not quite yet.  The hardware exits already.  Virtually every home theater device available today can be found with network capability.  If a device can be networked then you can be sure that an app will exist for it.  What is stalling things right now is the “one-app-to-rule-them-all” part.  Nobody, as far as I know, has come close to creating an app that can control multiple devices, like my HTPC and DVR.  Until that happens, and I am positive it will, then Harmony and the others will continue to be survivors.

Netflix opened a complete hornets nest by raising prices, but how many of you have canceled your service. New Video feed is available starting this show we will be publishing a mobile device only feed to see how many of you will subscribe to the smaller feed. As soon as we have the videos published I will update the website. New contest starting next show listen to win.

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With Verizon instituting data usage plans for all new users, and AT&T having already done so, it has become a sad fact of today’s mobile life that we all need to watch what we download, upload, and browse.  Of course, you can visit your account on your wireless provider’s site, and Verizon will be sending text messages to users to alert them to what they have used, but that doesn’t completely cover the user.

All mobile providers need to take responsibility for their choice to implement data usage limits, but it seems they are doing as little as possible to meet that goal.  In fact, it seems they are actively hoping users will exceed their plans and bring the provider a new revenue stream.  With that said, one phone manufacturer is stepping up to the plate.

If you have a Sony Ericsson phone, then the manufacturer has you covered with a newly-released app on its Android Market channel.  The Sony Ericsson Data Monitor app tracks mobile data consumption in both directions, and gives you the option to set an alert when your usage hits a certain level.  If you are on a monthly contract then you can set the counter to reset at the start of your billing period.

The bad new here is that you have to own a Sony Ericsson device, but hopefully other manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, and Motorola will take a queue from them and implement their own apps.  The app is available for free on the Android Market.

News International today announced that this Sunday’s edition of the News of the World newspaper would be the last edition and that the newspaper was closing down. Ostensibly the reason is that a phone hacking scandal had a irretrievably stained the name of the newspaper but the suspicion is that there’s far more to the closure.

For non-UK residents, it’s an astonishing story that involves several alleged crimes and some disgraceful behaviour. First of all, News of the World (NOTW) is one of the biggest selling Sunday newspapers with around 40% of the market and 2.8 million readers. It’s been going for 168 years and while considered a tabloid paper, it has been instrumental in revealing other scandals involving politicians and other well-known figures.

The scandal itself is that around six years ago, a private investigator used by the newspaper is alleged to have hacked into the voice mailboxes of over 4,000 people, including royal aides, sports stars, celebrities and politicians. Even worse, it is further alleged that the mailboxes of soldiers killed in Iraq and murder victims were hacked into. In particular, the alleged deletion of messages on Milly Dowler’s phone is suggested to have given hope to her parents that she was still alive when she had been killed.

Rumours of the hacking arose when the newspaper published stories that could only have been discovered from personal messages. The private investigator and the journalist involved were sent to prison back in 2007 and at the time, a police investigation suggested that the two individuals involved acted alone. In 2009, the Guardian newspaper claimed that thousands of mailboxes had been hacked and that the practice was well known and routine. The Metropolitan Police refused to re-open the investigation. It has also now been alleged that NOTW made payments to the police in return for information. The hacking of the mobile phone’s voice mail was not sophisticated. The private investigator simply relied on the fact that most people did not bother changing the default PIN on their voice mailbox.

Over the past week, as the revelations of the alleged hacking continued, public opinion turned against NOTW. Major advertisers in the paper withdrew their contracts, unwilling to be associated with the unfolding scandal. It was perhaps inevitable that the NOTW would have to close but it seems harsh to punish the current staff for the activities of their predecessors.

The intrigue continues as the parent company, News International, is keen to buy out the remaining shares in BSkyB. However, this had raised concerns that one single company would own too much of the UK media – News International owns the The Times too. The suggestion has been made that by closing one newspaper, NOTW, this will reassure the regulatory authorities but there are also now questions about whether News International is fit and proper to take over BSkyB. It is rumoured that News International will launch a Sunday edition of a sister newspaper The Sun. The domains “TheSunOnSunday.co.uk” and “TheSunOnSunday.com” were registered two days ago, though it’s not clear by who registered them

It’s an amazing scandal and totally despicable – some of the stuff you couldn’t make up. If there’s one thing to be learnt from the scandal, it’s make sure you change the default PIN on your mobile phone’s voice mailbox.

WebOS is the most underrated mobile operating system on the market.  It has everything but a large user-base.  So, it seems a bit strange that WordPress has chosen it to be the first recipient of their new visual editor app.  Android, with the largest market share, would have been a no-brainer, iOS would have seemed logical, and Windows Phone would not have been a major surprise (Microsoft has been know to throw some money the way of developers for things like this), but it landed on WebOS.

WordPress already has rudimentary apps available for Android and iOS, but they lack the power and functionality of the WebOS release.

The WebOS WordPress app uses sliding panes to navigate between various sections and editors.  You can easily edit text, add media, and get a preview of what your post will look like before publishing it to a website.  You can not only moderate comments on your posts, but also get notifications when new comments arrive through the WebOS’s native notification system.

The app supports both WordPress.com hosted sites and self-hosted sites also.  WordPress for webOS is a free app and is available for the HP TouchPad through HP’s App Catalog.  You can watch a walk-through video below.

Most people don’t know it, but there is a slightly modified interface for Facebook for Android floating around.  You could wait for it to reach and Android Market, but, thanks to the folks over at Android Central, there is a hack to get it on your device right now.  This may go down as one of the strangest work-arounds that I have ever come across, but it actually worked so I will let it slide.

To get started make sure you have the latest Facebook app installed (version 1.6) and launch it.  Once it is open, begin clicking buttons and then quickly clicking the “Back” button until the app crashes.

Go ahead and click “Force Close” and then reopen the Facebook app.

Once open you should have a slightly different Facebook app.  It still shows as version 1.6, but the look has changed somewhat.  I didn’t take a screenshot of the original, but there was one in the Android market.  Take a look below at the top menu from the “News Feed” page.

Now, check out the “News Feed” top menu of this newer version that is from a screenshot that I just took off of my device.

When you press the item on the right of the top menu (Top News in the above shot) you will receive a new pop-up menu that you can scroll through.

There is no word about when this will be legitimately available, but if you can’t wait, then this strange hack does seem to work.  Let us know if it works for you, and what you think of the new UI.

With my invitation to Google music secured, the Google Music Manager installed on my PC, and 90 GB of music slowly making its way to the cloud, there is one final hurdle to overcome.  That is installing the Google Music app on my Droid X.  After all, what good is all of this if I can’t have my music on my mobile device wherever I go?  So, that is what we are going to walk through now.  We will install and explore this service together as novices.

Start off by searching the Android Market for “Google Music”.  The official app should be the very first result.

Click to download and install the app.  It’s a small file and should take less than one minute.  Once it has installed you can launch the app for the first time.  Oddly it shows up under the simple name of “Music” as opposed to “Google Music”.

Once launched, the interface was simple but it also told me that there were “no music files available”.  I had assumed I would need to log into my Google account, but there was no option to do so anywhere within the program.

As it turns out, the install should prompt you to associate an account with the app – mine had not done that.  I uninstalled, re-downloaded, and installed again.  This can actually take some work and Googling to get it working.  There are some crazy solutions out there, some of the them are pure voodoo.  But, voodoo isn’t real, and I can’t say exactly how to get it to work, all I can tell you is to keep  trying.  This can prove to be frustrating and different solutions are probably available for different model devices.

(Yes, I know I didn’t remove my email from the above screenshot, I will just trust all of you not to spam me, and welcome you to contact me with questions or comments).  So, now we are in business.  Since I only have one account associated with my phone I did not have to choose it, but was automatically linked.  At this point you receive a welcome screen – and my congratulations for persevering through all of the crap that Google is putting their Music beta testers through on Android.

And now, finally we arrive at the finish line.  The player is open and shows all of the music that uploaded from your PC to the cloud.  Press the menu button and you get the options seen at the bottom of the following screenshot.  Scroll across the top of the screen menu and you can choose from artist, album, genre, etc.

You may have a LOT of trouble getting here, but once installed, Google Music is pretty darn cool.  If you haven’t yet signed up for the service then you can request an invitation at Google Music.  Expect a delay of at least two weeks before hearing anything.  Consider that your patience warm-up to installing the Android app…

Everyone is talking about the mobile revolution, but today Google announced the next step in it.  All of Google Sites properties are now receiving automatic mobile rendering.  The new update is compatible with iOS 3.0+ and Android 2.2+ devices.  According to Google’s announcement:

By going to General settings under More actions > Manage site and clicking on Automatically adjust site for mobile phones, your Google site will be automatically adjusted whenever it’s viewed from an iOS or Android 2.2+ device:

The most noticeable automatic adjustments include:

• Aligning the header layout and top bar
• Fitting the width of the site to match the device’s width
• Smart handling of sidebars, horizontal navigation, and dropdown links

After you’ve enabled this feature, you can preview the page from your computer as a mobile viewer using More actions > Preview as viewer (Mobile).

In addition to that, Google says that you can hide links in your site’s footer to save vertical space, as well as a search option for your Site and Site categories.

To access the new capability you can use either iOS 3.0+ or Android 2.2+ to navigate to Google Sites.  It’s a nice, but probably not huge, step in the march forward to more and more wireless access.  It’s also likely to prompt other web heavyweights to move in this same direction.