Gadgetoxic – Toxify your tech life

Smartphones , Tablets , Computers , laptop and news on every other gadget

If you are a big Minecraftian, or whatever you might can yourself, then an update just landed that might make you waste away the rest of the weekend. We all know that Minecraft PE is a huge seller, but it did have its limitations. With only one available mode, creativity mode, leaving you wanting more and many people board. Well, that is no longer the case.

MPE has just been updated today, bringing the 8-bit wonder version 0.2.0. The update brings in a whole slew of new goodies to feed your addiction with. There is a new mode called ‘Survival’, new blocks like doors and fences, and the ability to fly has also been added in. They have even tossed in sheep and zombies. Overall it is a pretty big update that offers you a much better experience for your money.

If you haven’t picked the update up yet you should. Feel free to pop into the market via the QR code below to snag it faster, or to pick the game up if have been waiting for it to do more.

Application: Minecraft – Pocket Edition
Developer: Mojang
Cost: $6.99

Alternatively, it looks like they have update the DEMO version with the same new goodies. You can check it out HERE.

Nothing like catching unannounced goodies thanks to the FCC filings being public record. Looks like a new ZTE 7-inch tablet just crossed paths with the department sporting the ever so important 4G LTE logo on the rear. Anyone that has been around the block knows that little logo is for Verizon only. The current lame name of the tablet is the V66, but that should of course change. At least it should have a semi normal name unlike the Motorola tablets that no one knows how to pronounce.

In the way of specs the V66 is said to be running 1.2 GHz dual-core processor pushing Honeycomb 3.2 to the 7-inch display. We shouldn’t have to mention that it will run on Verizon’s 4G LTE network, but I will because I am sure someone would ask about it. You can also expect the usual Wi-Fi and camera available as well. The V66 could make its way out in the next couple of months, but one never really knows. We will keep our eye out for more information as it becomes available.

Source: DroidDog

Now undoubtedly some of you have already flashed your first Ice Cream Sandwich ROM onto your phone, and it was probably in either an alpha or beta stage. This comes true to me, after flashing two different alpha and beta ROMS, I have had my share of problems. The second ROM I flashed had everything working pretty well excepted that the launcher would crash anytime I would scroll through it. Many moans and groans came out of lips, so I went through the XDA forums to find a solution.

The solution came with the name Nova Launcher. Nova Launcher is a stock ICS home launcher replacement, and has way more features. Thank God for that. Some of your ROMs might already have this built inside it, but for those that just have a the plain old stock home launcher, check out what other goodies you can have:

• Custom grid size (default 5×4 on the Galaxy Nexus)
• User setting for auto-rotate
•  Resize any widget
•  All/New/Downloaded categories in App Drawer
•  Widgets-in-drawer (requires install as a system app) or from system picker
•  Shortcut or resizable information in Widget Drawer
•  Edit App Shortcut icon and label (Supports ADW Icon Packs)
•  Wallpaper scrolling options (Disabling scrolling improves performance of live wallpapers)
•  Cube desktop effect
•  Various other smaller tweaks/optimizations

One thing I absolutely LOATHED about the new ICS launcher (please don’t hate me) is the way you have to place a widget on your home screen. You have to click the widget tab, and then scroll through all your widgets to find the one you like. Now yes, it is nothing to really complain about but I am a widget freak and have a ton of widgets on my phone. So getting to the ones at the end just got annoying. With Nova Launcher, you get to the traditional hold down on the home screen and the pop-up window appears letting you easily (and quickly!) find the widget you want. Of course if you do happen to like the widget-in-drawer feature, there is a separate add-on for that.  I know it is dumb to complain about that feature on the stock ICS launcher, but I am glad this launcher gives me the choice not to have that. I must say as well, the launcher is really flies. I moaned and groaned again, but with a satisfied feeling this time. It has not crashed since I have been playing with it, so I am a happy little Android boy with stable ICS.

So if you are having launcher problems with your newly flashed ICS ROM, give Nova Launcher a shot. It is still in a beta stage but it is pretty rockin’. Head over to the XDA thread to download.

Link: XDA Thread

Are you still playing Zynga’s Hanging with Friends? I sure am, and I was glad to see it got some attention today in the form of an Android Market update. The latest version is 4.5.0, and it brings with it a couple of new additions and enhancements. The first thing you’ll notice is the addition of the “Coin Store” — I haven’t had a chance to toy with it yet, but I’m assuming this will be a place to go to spend your in-game moolah on assorted pixellated goodies. Also, players can now set up custom avatars and balloons, making their profiles a bit more personalized. From here out, it’s pretty much performance enhancements. Smoother animations, improved performance and stability, better support for varying screen sizes and a smaller .APK file round out the changelog.

Since Hanging with Friends launched back in September, the game has already surpassed 1 million download and continues to be a fan favorite which sits high on the list of most popular Android Games. Facebook and Twitter integration have definitely helped out Zynga’s cause, as well. If you’ve never tried it out, it’s definitely worth a download, especially considering it’s free.

If you’re looking for a challenge, feel free to send me a game invite via my Facebook account. I’ll be sure to show you how the game is played. Happy updating!

Application: AndroidSPIN News
Developer: AndroidSPIN
Cost: FREE

Talk about some crazy developers. I love it. I truly did not think anyone was really going to try to get some Ice Cream Sandwich on the phone that started it all, the T-Mobile G1. Should have realized that at least one developer was going to try it for bragging rights. Someone actually gave the G1 an unofficial Honeycomb port, so I guess it was only natural that someone would fit some good ole’ ICS on the grandpa phone. Touchscreen works very slowly, and even though some ICS goodies work on the device, there is still the normal bugs of WiFi, bluetooth and GPS not working.

So grandpa still lives. Who is still rocking a G1? I still got mine somewhere but the screen does not turn on anymore because a flashed that thing into the ground. Check out the video of the work in progress. Oh G1, how I miss you.

Source: Engadget

It looks as though GameStop is getting everyone extremely excited. They have updated the ASUS Transformer Prime release date moved up to November 28th. One of the advantages of picking up this tablet from GameStop is the collection of FREE games they offer with the purchase as well as $60 off on a gaming controller for it.

The tablet would be the 32GB version and is being listed for $539.98. Not really all that bad of price when you include the goodies they are also tossing in.

Source: GameStop via Phandroid

There are 2 things I love and 2 things I hate about November. The 2 things that I hate are similar in nature, both of my daughters birthdays are in November. It is a very broke month for me. The 2 things I love though are easily the feast on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Not that I ever have money to go shopping for any of the deals that roll out, but it is fun to see all the great stuff others get to go buy.

With Black Friday approaching us slowly, we should start seeing some awesome deals being advertised. It looks like Staples is one of first major stores to have their sales leaked out. Of course our focus is all about Android related items, so if you are looking for other specials, keep an eye out for the entire ad. Below you can see the deals that are scheduled for Black Friday in regards to some Android goodies though -

Staples

• Acer Iconia Tab 10.1″ Tablet w/16GB Storage – $299.99 (Early Bird special, 6AM-Noon)
• Toshiba Thrive Tablet – $349.98
• Nook Colour w/$25 Staples Gift Card – $199.99 (Early Bird special, 6AM-Noon)

The most notable sale item is the Acer Iconia 10.1. Pulling an early-bird special of $100 off retail price. The NOOK color was recently lowered to $199.99 by B&N, so the only special you are getting there is a 25$ Staples gift card. If you were planning on a NOOK color anyways, at least you could use that $25 on something else in the store.

Stay tuned in the following weeks for a complete list of specials that we find. It should start to get interesting very soon.

Source: AndroidGuys

Looks like the devs have something new to play with today. HTC has released the source code for for their Gingerbread build for the Thunderbolt. Now the devs will have all the official goodies they need to clean things up and make improvements rather than patching things together. Not that they don’t do a good job, but this will help us ROM flashing addicts get even better quality work.

The 2.6.35 kernel source is available via HTCdev and is ready for your tinkering.

Source: HTCDev

The new episode of The ManDroid Show is ready for your viewing pleasure. Mainly talk about the much talked about ICS unveiling and go over most of the features. We will touch on a few devices set to get ICS and few other ICS related goodies. You can find the links to all the articles used in the video below as well as on the YouTube video its self. Check it out and let us know what you think even if it’s bad feedback.

Ice Cream Sandwich articles:

• ICS Promo Video
• Android Beam
• Camera and Photo Editor
• Screenshot
• FaceLOCK

Device Updates:

• Nexus One SDK port boot
• Sony Xperia ICS update

ASUS Transformer updates:

• Transformer ICS update
• Transformer 2/Transformer Prime 

Tweaks of the Week:

• CM7 ICS theme
• Roboto MIUI font theme

If you are anything like me, then no matter how bad a$$ a device may be you wait for a root announcement before you pick one up. That’s how I was with the Vibrant and how I plan to purchase devices going forward. There is no way I can live with out custom ROMs and all the other goodies that come with root. Thankfully root is fully functioning on the unreleased Droid Bionic.

The guys over at MyDroidWorld were able to convince a source that has a Bionic to try out the root method that was put together and released for the Droid 3. Low and behold, just like they thought it would, it worked. The Bionic will be hitting shelves in about a week and you are already guaranteed full permanent root access. If you have been eyeballing this device but were worried about Motorola making your life difficult or miserable, you can breathe easy now. Now we just need the devs to start cranking out those ROM’s that will make the device truly bionic.

Source: MyDroidWorld

The Motorola XOOM customers on the business side of Verizon, have had the pleasure of playing around with the latest Android 3.2.2 for their device. I haven’t been able to track down much of anything about this update except that it includes a new modem that will let you kick the tablet into high gear on the 4G LTE network. That might be all the update really does, but it might be enough to make you want to get your hands on it.

XDA developer solarnz from Team TiamatXoom got a hold of the update and got straight to work on it. We are pleased to announce that he has it fully available to flash to your XOOM. He makes special mention that this ROM is pre-rooted and a stock build build, so no funny business has been added as of yet. The updated ROM will offer the current Verizon customers the added 4G support, Wi-Fi users won’t see a data difference, but it might be worth flashing anyways.

If you are a flashing maniac and have a XOOM already rooted, you may just want to head over to solarnz XDA thread and give the latest update a few rounds. Let us know if you know any other goodies that this update includes.

Source: XDA

Wroclaw, Poland – If you shop online, your routine probably looks like this: you type in what you’re looking for in your favorite search engine, going through results you open link by link (or use separate tabs for this), skipping between pages and tabs. But you keep forgetting what your first impression of this particular product was. Also, it’s hard to compare prices from different shops.

Goodies compares prices from different online retailers. Type what you’re after in a single text field, and afterwards visit your favorite shops’ pages to decide whether their offers are interesting or not. If an offer is similar to others, add your goodies to the “Compare” tab so that you can review them, side-by-side, with prices, notes and scores.

Organize your goodies – there is always something you need to buy this month, and something that can wait until next month. If you’re not sure when you want to make the purchase, you can conveniently store items in the Wish list.

Moving to a new house? A lot of new stuff to buy? This is where projects and tags come to the rescue. Move that gorgeous new sofa to the living room project, don’t forget about the bookshelf, and tag each book with an appropriate tag, like “sci-fi”.

Note that this is probably not the best application for grocery shopping. You don’t often use the Web to do comparison-shopping for the the best carrot in town.

Feature highlights:
* Search across many online retailers in just one step
* Review results from each shop using tabbed browsing (just like in your favorite web browser)
* Add interesting deals to the “Compare” tab, and once you’re ready just select the best product from there (having its price, webpage, your own notes and score handy)
* Use any e-commerce site. If it’s not in Goodies yet, use the “Your shop” tab and enter the web address of your choice
*Organize your shopping into convenient groups: To buy this month, Scheduled, Wish list and Archive
* Assign products in Scheduled to a month you’d like to make your purchase
* Stay within your Budget. Set up a budget for each month and make sure you’re not in the red before you decide to buy something
* Manage your shopping list by organizing it into categories (projects) and tags
* Find your added products easily, even when you have already planned for a few months ahead
* Print your shopping list
* Review each item’s webpage (even while offline), thumbnail, price, priority and note

Goodies has direct support for Amazon.com’s API (application programming interface).

Device Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
* 64-bit processor
* 1.5 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Goodies 1.1 for Mac is available exclusively in the Apple Mac App Store, under the Lifestyle category. The special introductory price is $24.99 US (or the equivalent in other currency).

Goodies 1.1
Download Trial
Purchase and Download
Screenshot
App Icon
Press Kit (zip)

Located in Wroclaw, Poland, Piotr Byzia is an independent software developer. All Material and Software (C) 2011 Piotr Byzia / All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Product Description

Help keep your HTC EVO 3D protected with the Mobi Hard Shell Case while not sacrificing the slim look of your device!

This Hard Case from Mobi Products is designed specifically for the HTC EVO 3D and has cut outs for all of the devices features while leaving the screen exposed for full functionality.

Features:
Slim, Low-Profile Design
Cut outs for all HTC EVO 3D features
Screen uncovered
2-Piece Snap-On Design

Works with: HTC EVO 3D

This is an inexpensive way to protect your investment. They come in 5 various colors and are currently on sale. MSRP is set at $19.95, but you can pick up the color of your choice from the AndroidSPIN Store for only $12.95. Go check em out and see what other goodies we have for you.

If you are an eager little beaver and still itching to get your hand on the Moto Droid Bionic, Motorola has has your back. They have just made their sign up page for information on launch and other various goodies available to the masses.

If the details have been correct about this device, we should see it launching on or around September 8th. Anyone out their just itching to get their hand on this device? Or are you more interested in the SGS II which is supposed to hit some time in August?

Feel free to click HERE to sign up for notifications.

Source: Verizon

I seem to be on a roll tonight! I just keep coming up with some of the greatest thread posts in XDA. I of course take absolutely ZERO credit for any of the actual work in making it happen. I simply help those of you that don’t have hours to spend searching for something be a little easier to find.

With out further ado, here is what I have found. Thanks to developer zHk3R, there is a very nice list with indexed pages to locate, view and download some of the sweetest widgetlocker themes available. Not all have been created by zHk3R, but he does have a hand in quite a few of them.

With 135 available themes, it is pretty much impossible for me to post them all here. If you are looking to add a little more style to your WidgetLocker app head on over to zHk3R XDA-Developers thread and get to looking through the thread for that perfect fit.

Like I said with the Theme Chooser Post, I’ll dig out some of my favorite ones and put them up through out the next month or so. Hope you all enjoy!

Source: XDA