Jerry Hildenbrand's blog

Net neutrality is more than just one of the current industry buzzwords, and according to T-Mobile, Android is smack dab in the middle of it all.  After reading a great article over at Fierce Wireless, I got to thinking about just how the outcome of the whole net neutrality issue can and will affect Android as a platform.  Hit the break to see my thoughts on the whole issue -- as well as an interesting tale about how some badly coded app nearly took down T-Mo's network. [FierceWireless]

As proof that you can't keep a hacker from besting anything you design, the G.O.T. team wrangled themselves a leak of the upcoming Android 2.2.1 update for the Motorola Milestone, made it better, stronger, and faster, and then released it for the community long before Motorola and the carriers ever will.  And as you can see from the benchmark above, they did an amazing job on the year-old hardware.  In the words of someone who's been running it for a bit "I've been running it for 6 hrs now with no problem. And it's really fast!!"

A few things do need saying here -- there doesn't appear to be a version available for the Cellular South Milestone, and the installation instructions aren't for the timid -- thank the locked-down bootloader for that one fellas.  Have a look at the source link and digest the instructions and decide for yourself if its something you can work out.  There's video (in Korean) of it in action after the break.  [G.O.T.] Thanks for the tip, Sean!

Our favorite Muscovite Football leaked out the latest HTC Lexikon RUU (that's geek-speak for the Verizon Merge), so I just had fire up lil' Hal and get to cracking it open.  What's better than spending a Friday evening with your main squeeze having dinner and seeing a movie?  Sitting in a basement, slugging down diet Mountain Dew and tearing into leaked Android software, of course!  There are no big surprises -- it looks like it's still "old" HTC Sense, is Binged out with search and maps, and all your favorite VerizonWare is on board. That's all stuff we've seen in our exclusive hands-on preview and video walkthrough with the Merge (whose name might still change).

What is music to my ears is that this appears to be a full release version of the software, so the engineers at Verizon and HTC might be done with this one and it's ready for Big Red to decide to start selling it.  If you're like me and are compelled to tinker, grab the RUU from the source link. [XDA-Developers]

The wait is over, and Angry Birds is now available -- immediately at GetJar, and later in the Android Market.  Yes, the whole Angry Birds, with a boatload of levels to make for hours of lost productivity and battery-burning good time.  We can't get enough of it, and neither can you.

Oh, and it's free. Ad-supported, actually, just like the version that Rovio started handing out on Thursday. A paid version will come later. The full e-mail from Rovio is after the break, and we'll update with Market links just as soon as it's in the Market. [GetJar]

Update: And GetJar is down. See what you guys did? Hope you're proud of yourselves.

Update 2: GetJar just sent out a new link. Give this one a shot.

Update 3: And it's now in the Android Market. Links after the break.

Sony Ericsson has posted a short video of the desktop environment from the long awaited update to the Xperia X10, and it says a lot.  Mostly what it says is -- "five months after its release [and nearly a year after its announcement], we still won't be providing Android 2.2".  The extra row of homescreen icons (the X10 will support 20 icons per screen vs. the standard 16) is a nice touch, as is the new calls widget, but I think I speak for everyone with an X10 when I say that development time might have been better spent getting Froyo working. 

To their credit, it looks like the folks at SE have made the already great camera on the X10 even better, so for many I guess not being current with the operating system is a fair trade.  We've got a video of the new desktop in action after the break, and hit the source link to see some demos from the new camera software.  [Sony Ericsson Product Blog]

While we're all waiting for a real rooting solution for the T-Mobile G2, part-time car enthusiast and full time Android geek Paul O'Brien has whipped up a really nice one-click solution to get temporary root.  With the G2, the current root method goes away when you reboot the phone, so a simple method to get it back is a welcome sight.  To take it a step further, Paul has made a version of the application (called VISIONary, aptly enough) that runs automatically at reboot, and reads a script that the user can drop his or her own commands in.  For downloads, and full instructions, visit the source link.  [MoDaCo]

Remember that Huawei Ideos that the Wall Street Journal seemed to think was headed to T-mobile?  The good folks over at TmoNews got their hands on some internal docs that show it as the T-Mobile Comet, coming on Nov 3.  Before you turn away at the thought of another cheap, entry level Android handset, consider this -- the Ideos ships with Froyo on board.  Stock, beautiful vanilla Android 2.2. 

No word on final specs or pricing, but expect them both to be low.  And that's OK.  To me, a low spec "beginner" phone is just fine as long as the manufacturer takes the time to make it work well and uses the latest version of the operating system they can get their hands on.  I'm looking forward to playing with this one.  [TmoNews]

Video may have killed the radio star, but Cyanogen and the fellows behind the MIUI ROM have revived it for the Nexus One -- the code for the FM radio hardware that's inside the Nexus One has been merged into CyanogenMod and can now be tested by the public at large (that's you and I) in the nightly builds. Do note that nightly builds are the bleeding edge and likely have bugs in them (they're nightly compilations of code and not necessarily a finished release-ready ROM).

What most interests me here is that this is all code written from scratch by the geniuses behind the MIUI ROM, and uses nothing proprietary from HTC.  Gives me a big warm and fuzzy FOSS (Free Open Source Software) feeling inside.  That's open.  That's Android. [CyanogenMod github]

Sony just took the wraps off its Google TV line, and it's a double shot. If having everything bundled together into one sleek unit is your style, Sony is offering Internet TV models starting at just $599.99 for a full 1080p HD 24-inch model, going up the ladder to the top of the line 46-inch version for $1399.99.  They all have full LED backlighting, a picture-in-picture style system Sony is calling Dual View, and are being powered by Intel processors.

If a component-style setup is your thing, you can grab the Internet TV Blu-ray player for $399.99. It's also powered by Intel, offers built in WiFi, and support for Sony's Dual View technology. 

Both Television sets and the Blu-ray player will be available for purchase on Oct 16 at Sony Style, and followed "shortly" by Best Buy.  You can read the full press release after the break. [Sony]

Remember those Smartphone Coasters we talked about yesterday?  Well the folks at newpcgadgets.com have hooked us up with 20 of them to give away.  Entering is easy, just visit the Android Central forums giveaway thread, make sure you're registered, and let us know where you would use one of these cool new gadgets, and we'll pick 20 winners at random.  Easy as pie I tell ya! Contest ends at 5 p.m. EDT on Oct. 13.

Enter here to win a Smartphone Coaster