In Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Android Beam -- that's the NFC-based device-to-device transfer service -- has been augmented to support sending photo and video content. This is done from within the Gallery app, and can be activated by holding two NFC (Near-Field Communication)-supporting Jelly Bean devices back-to-back while one has an image or video open. Then, when prompted, tap the screen to send, just like earlier Android Beam incarnations. File transfers themselves are handled by Bluetooth, so depending on your device's Bluetooth version support, your transfer speeds may vary. However, it is nice to see the hassle associated with Bluetooth file transfers all but eliminated thanks to NFC and Android Beam.

Android Beam's latest upgrade also means it can support transferring multiple files. Simply long press on a photo or video in the Gallery app, select as many items as you like, then hold the devices back-to-back to send. Like we said, though, the fact that Bluetooth is used for all the heavy lifting means that you probably won't want to send too much stuff over Android Beam if you can help it. In our experience, though, it's worked out pretty well for smaller stuff.

We should note, however, that while the new Android Beam shares a lot in common with the Samsung Galaxy S III's S Beam, the two technologies aren't compatible. Samsung's uses Wifi Direct for file transfers after an NFC connection has been established, compared to Android Beam's Bluetooth. So sending photos from a Jelly Bean-equipped Galaxy Nexus to an ICS-running Galaxy S III won't be possible. (And actually, this may present something of a technical headache when the S III eventually gets Jelly Bean.)

In any case, if you want to check out how this all works in more detail, you can find out hands-on video of photo and video transfers over Android Beam after the break.

See, sometimes there is method to my madness! After being a little lot stupid and buying a crappy $200 Vuvuzela app from the Google Play store on Sunday (see video above), I thought I kissed that money goodbye. I failed to remember you can easily get refunds out of the Googe Play store within 15 minutes of purchase just by going back to the app and tapping the Refund button. D'oh! By the time Phil reminded me about this later in the day, hours had already passed, so we both assumed I was out of luck.

Turns out that's not the case though. While the 15 minute refund is a no-hassle, no-questions asked refund policy, you can actually request an app refund beyond the 15 minute time window. As I type this it's almost 30 hours after I bought the Vuvuzela app, and I just requested the refund and was issued it within minutes. I'm sure many of you out there are familiar with this process already, but for those who are not keep reading for the details!

delldude405 asks in the Samsung Galaxy S III forums,

Being new to the Samsung community, I notice that Samsung is doing their updates through Kies.

Could someone explain what this is, is it safe, and all that other jazz. I'm not one who can root because of security concerns but, is this like the Motorola feedback community (soak testers)?

Kies is a lot of things. It's a way to sync and backup your contacts and device data, it's a front end for transferring media like music and video between your computer and your phone, and as you've noticed, it's a method to update the device firmware on Samsung phones.

Using it is pretty easy. Install it on your computer (Windows or Mac), then plug your phone in with the provided USB data cable. Kies will find it, and present you with a fairly simple user interface full of things you can do with it. On Windows computers, Kies includes a set of universal device drivers so you don't have to fool with that, and it will automatically recognize your phone in case you have more than one. 

Most power users only use Kies for firmware updates, and even then only when it's required. Because all the features are available without Samsung's fancy front end, there's no real reason to install yet another software suite to your computer if you don't mind doing things the manual way. We're just glad users have a choice to use it or not to use it.

For an in-depth look at Kies, hit the break for a video from Samsung.

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If there's one thing we discovered in writing our exhaustive TouchWiz Nature UX guide, it's that there's a ton of stuff to discover on the Samsung Galaxy S III (S3). We've been using it for the best part of a month, and we're still finding new features. So we've put together a quick round-up of the top ten things you need to know about your new Galaxy S3, if you're picking one up over the next few days.

Take a look through the list below -- chances are you'll discover all manner of features you didn't even know your phone had!

• That lock screen can be customized in all sorts of ways
• The water droplet sound when you press buttons can be disabled
• You can connect USB keyboards, mice, hubs and storage devices
• The stock Gallery and Music apps now have DLNA streaming support baked in
• There's a slew of gesture-based control options that are disabled by default
• You can sync photos, videos and music wirelessly using Kies
• Some previously bundled Samsung apps can now be downloaded from "More Services" in the app drawer
• You can disable S Voice's double-tap shortcut for a faster home button response
• You can shoot 6MP stills at the same time as recording 1080p video
• You can find even more tips and tricks for your Galaxy s III by checking out the Android Central forums!

​How to connect flash drives, hard drives, keyboards and mice to the Samsung Galaxy S III using USB host

Here's a lesser-known feature of the new Galaxy S III -- the ability to connect all manner of USB peripherals to Samsung's latest flagship phone, from mass storage to input devices. You'll need a USB OTG (on-the-go) cable to be able to connect all this stuff into the Galaxy S III or any other USB host-supporting phone.

Like the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note before it, the S III supports full USB host capabilities, meaning if you've got the right connector you can go completely nuts and plug all sorts of stuff into the phone. In our video, we tried USB memory sticks, full-sized SD card readers, USB hubs, hard drives, keyboards and mice. All of them worked. At one point we even had a hub plugged into the S III, allowing keyboard and mouse support simultaneously.

While we don't imagine many people will be using this feature every day, it's certainly impressive to see a smartphone able to handle such a wide range of USB gadgets, including full-sized desktop peripherals. Check out our video demo of USB host on the Samsung Galaxy S III above, and be sure to share your own experiences down in the comments if you've tinkered with this sort of thing yourself.

Your HTC EVO 4G LTE is capable of doing much more than simply managing your life. Your powerful Android phone can also be a media powerhouse – once you figure out how to actually get your media onto the device.

Getting your media from your PC or Mac onto your HTC EVO 4G LTE (or other Android phone) is not always as straightforward as you might hope.  Fortunately, however, there are a few very good options for transferring your music and videos onto the phone.

The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to “buy into” the Google ecosystem in a similar manner as to how an iPhone user buys into iTunes.

If so, this is probably the easiest way to get your media content from the computer onto the phone.

Samsung's marketing campaign for the new Samsung Galaxy S III (S3) focuses heavily on how the visuals and sounds in its software are "inspired by nature." But one of the less welcome results of this is the water droplet sound that plays every time you press an on-screen button, menu or widget. Thankfully there's an easy way to make this quieter -- or completely silence it -- if it's not your cup of tea. Check out the video above for a quick walkthrough.

Your Galaxy Nexus can be an amazing tool for keeping your life organized.  Before it can be the tool you need it to be, you need to get your valuable information into your device.

The reality in today’s smartphone world is that organization of your important data – contacts, calendars and media is easiest when you “buy into” the ecosystem of the primary developer.

That means, iPhone and iPad users have an easier time when they let iTunes control their syncing and important information, Windows Phone users have an easier time when they use Windows Live and Outlook and Android users have an easier time when they let Google store and sync their data.

Multitasking is a word you'll hear a lot around here and at other places on the Internet that talk about smartphones or other tech. It doesn't mean what it used to, back when dinosaurs with long beards first dreamed up computers, but it still makes a very big difference for some folks and can be the deciding factor when picking a smartphone operating system. Let's have a look and see what the fuss is all about, and how it relates to Android.

A long time ago, in a laboratory far, far away, some Jedi masters decided that computers should do more than one thing at a time. They really already were doing plenty of things behind the scenes, but to the user it was a case of entering a command, and waiting for it to finish. Using threads and schedulers, and probably a little magic and a lot of luck, engineers were able to work up an operating system that could run more than one user command at a time, and multitasking was born. When you switch to a new VT (virtual terminal) on a Unix box with no GUI, you're multitasking. When you have more than one window open on your Windows or Mac or other computer that does have a GUI, you're multitasking. You're doing more than one thing at a time, and the computer is running more than one user task at a time. You can now read Android Central while your completely legal torrents are downloading in the background.

On a smartphone, multitasking is a bit different. We don't have the luxury of a 20-inch monitor, so showing more than one "thing" running at a time isn't a big deal. Samsung is testing the waters and trying it with the Galaxy S III with the Pop-Up Play feature, but for the most part whatever we're doing takes the whole screen to do it. We also don't have tons of RAM and video memory available and have to watch the power usage. This means smartphone multitasking has to be a bit, well, smarter. 

Smartphones have been multitasking for a long time. All the mobile operating systems do it a bit differently -- some suspending all other apps in the background, some saving the state and closing the app itself, and others just letting everything run. The way Android does it is to let threads and processes run depending on their priority. If you're using Google Play Music, the processes that make the sound come out of the speaker have a high enough priority to stay running when you switch away from the app. Not all of it is running in the background, but enough of it is to keep the tunes playing. Other apps can be killed if they aren't being used, and some apps get "frozen" (for lack of a better word) and restore themselves when brought back to the foreground. What's important, and prioritized, is decided when the application is written and compiled so the end user doesn't have to worry about it. It's not perfect, but it follows the very strong multitasking model from Linux and tweaks it for Android. It's all open-source, so manufacturers and ROM builders can (and have) tweaked things to allocate memory the way they want it allocated. Sometimes the tweaks are great, sometimes not so much. 

In the end, remember the next time you open an app and start up where you left off that you're seeing multitasking at work. 

Check out the complete Android Dictionary

This time on Android A to Z we're going to be talking about LG's L-series phones. They made a big splash earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, and a few carriers in Canada jumped at the chance to sell them, but then they seem to have fallen off the map. I'll admit, even I have to look and see what we're talking about when we have potential news about the L3, L5, or L7. Let's have a refresh.

Imagine LG's Prada phone, but remade for folks who don't buy Prada. The L-series phones are all stylish (and really resemble LG's iconic Prada phones -- check out our look at them in Barcelona) and have an emphasis on good looks. The entry-level L3 competes with phones like HTC's One V and Samsung's entry-level Galaxy phones. It's running Gingerbread on a 3.2-inch display, but it looks nice doing it. Compared to something like the Motorola Defy Mini, you get good looks along with your dirt-cheap pricing. The L5 takes things up a notch to Ice Cream Sandwich and a 4-inch screen, placing it in the middle of the road where most people look first when buying a new smartphone. They'll see the L5, and notice the build materials and design. Finally, the L7 looks to compete with the big dogs of the Android world, with all the bells and whistles you would expect from a high-end smartphone, in a damn fine looking external shell. All three are eye-grabbing, and getting people to notice is the first hurdle. We're really not sure why we don't hear more and see more about them, but we're guessing a saturated market has something to do with it. 

Maybe we'll see the L-series phones make their way into the spotlight, maybe we won't. But at least now we all know what we're talking about when we see them mentioned.

Check out the complete Android Dictionary