Tether, formerly known as TetherBerry, has spent lots of time behind the scenes porting their extremely successful BlackBerry application to Android. Tonight is a great night for many that have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this beta. Tether has sent out emails to those that have signed up for their long awaited beta so that public testing can begin.

This announcement comes shortly after they announced their 1st Birthday Celebration, which includes some amazing prizes, including 3 Android devices. If you are not signed up for this beta and want to sign up, point your mouse here, fill out the few pieces of required information and sit back and wait. At this time there is no word as to when more testers will be given the application, but keep an eye out for more information to come!

You know all those stories about developers getting free Android phones this conference or another? Our pal Rene Ritchie (of TiPB) is at GDC in San Francisco and got to witness the carnage in person. Check it out after the break.

We'd love to give you guys good news about the Android-powered Spring Design Alex e-reader but sadly that's not the case. It's not entirely bad news so that's something to hang your hat on (kind of). But the Alex e-reader that was originally supposed to become available at the end of February is no where to be found. Their own website currently says that orders will begin in the first week of March, and that has gone by as well. Engadget says that they've been re-assured by the company that orders will begin in the "next week or two" and customers will get the Alex e-reader by "early spring", whatever that means.

The Alex e-reader, which we got a hands-on with at CES, is an impressive little device that combines a LCD screen and e-ink screen on one slate (like the Nook). Unlike the Nook, Android is front and center and we thought everything worked really well together. We hope that Spring Design can hammer out the final details because we think that the Alex e-reader can be that Android-powered e-reader we never knew we wanted. 

We're well into our review of the Motorola Devour (check out our initial hands-on), but we wanted to take a station break to mention how to get at the battery and microSD card. Because the Devour is one of those newfangled "unibody" devices -- as in cast from a single piece of aluminum -- it doesn't have the traditional battery door on the back. Instead, it's tucked away into the side of the device. The official page from the manual is above, and check out our how-to after the break.

It's just not fair. Anytime anyone puts that cute little green Android robot on anything, we want it. This 12-inch by 12-inch by pillow probably isn't even comfortable but with that Android robot handcrafted on it, it's just too adorable to pass up. At the very least, maybe it can soothe your nightmares of Android 2.1 never coming to your phone? Twenty bucks for one on Etsy.

[via gizmodo]

Chances are if you've been hanging around Android for a while you've run across the Pure series of widgets. There's Pure calendar, Pure messenger and now, Pure music.

The widget works with the stock Android music players (or HTC's music player, if that's how you roll) and like the other Pure widgets is skinnable, so you can make it look however you want. The widget also is available in several sizes, from a 1x1 spot to 4x4. It offers direct controls to your music including repeat mode, shuffle mode and Bluetooth on/off.

Pure music costs about $1. [Market link] More screen shots after the break, and check out our discussion in the AndroidCentral Forums.

If you're in the market for an HTC Droid Eris on Verizon, you might want to hold off for a few weeks. BerryScoop has it on good authority that the HTC Incredible is going to replace the Droid Eris, the end-of-life date is April 1, and that we may see the Incredible about the same time.

Also, BerryScoop's source says that the Nexus One won't actually be sold in Verizon stores, which is what we've been saying, too.

Either way, big things are ahead, Verizon fans. Stay tuned. [BerryScoop]

This would have been the picture Droid users would eat their hearts out to. Ever since February 8, when Moto kinda said it was coming, Droid users have been patiently waiting for their promised 2.1 update. Then to see that Spain has the Milestone with 2.1 just adds fuel to the fire, as seen on the Motorola website. Turns out that was a glitch, however, and today it was fixed, which leaves us thinking are they just teasing us now, or is this a sign for Droid/Milestone users of what is in store in our near future? [via Droid-Life and Motorola]

The folks at Otterbox -- makers of some of the most rough-and-tumble cases out there -- just released a pair of cases for the HTC Droid Eris. And we're giving away 10 cases -- five from the Commuter series, and five from the Impact series.

Here's all you have to do to win: Head on into the AndroidCentral Forums and leave a post in this Droid Eris thread. We'll pick 10 winners at random and get your winnings shipped off post haste. Contest ends at 12:01 a.m. Friday, so get to it!

For those of you who are into putting custom ROMs on your Nexus One (and with as painless as it is, there's really no reason not to, right?), know that there's a new build in the wild. Redmond Pie breaks it down:

Compared to the last leaked build ERE36B, kernel and radio remains same, while there are some new changes in system/framework/*, system/app/*.apk and otacerts.zip. The kernel version for this ROM is 2.6.29-01117-g4bc62c2 android-build@apa26 #1 while baseband version is 32.26.00.24U_4.04.00.03_2.

Mmmmmmk. Flash 10.1 isn't in this version, so we're still going to have to wait on that. Either way, look for it to make it into your favorite cooked Nexus One ROM any time now. [Redmond Pie] Thanks, Taimur!