I’ve been busy this past year –  making videos, attending press events, establishing professional contacts, writing for various tech sites and constantly trying to find somewhere close to home to work 9-5 so that I wouldn’t be too far away from my wife and newborn.

I test phones everyday, from the consumer low level to the developer dream devices. I take them apart, and i put them back together. I take hundreds of pictures and then I delete them after comparison. I travel from location to location picking the brains of cell phone stores and then bestowing knowledge upon them; until one day my phone went and played dead on me.

Sure, I tried to fix it myself. After all I do it all anyway, right? I tried different methods over and over; buying this part, replacing it, fixing this, manipulating that – none of it worked. I was at a loss. Head hung in shame, I sought out to find somewhere a decent distance from me to repair and restore my device to something of a brand new state. After days of searching, I nonchalantly drove by a shopping center that seemed to glow against the night sky – that’s when I walked into Smart Phone Repair.

More after the break

» Read more: From the Basement to the Block: This SmartPhone Repair Store is Android’s Genius Bar

Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain is just four weeks away. That means that many carriers around the world will be refreshing their device portfolio, which seems to be the case with T-Mobile USA.

A leaked document has made its way around the internet over the past two days. The document outlines five Android devices which are nearing “end of life” status on big magenta.

The HTC Amaze 4G, The HTC Sensation 4G, and the LG MyTouch, MyTouch Q and DoublePlay are all in the queue to be discontinued.

More after the break

……..More

HTC is holding a press conference at MWC where we are expecting the formal announcement of the HTC Ville, Endeavor and Primo.  Rumor has it that we will see the quad-core, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich packed HTC Ville on T-Mobile by the summer.

The HTC Primo has been leaked as a midrange device, which of course has the same specs as an early 2011 superphone.  HTC has already vowed to stick to quality over quantity in 2012 so that could be it for T-Mobile for a while.

The most interesting thing on this list are LG’s two MyTouch devices. T-Mobile may have been resorting to a strategy that had worked in the past with the T-Mobile Sidekick.  T-Mobile and partner (the Andy Rubin led) Danger, had the iconic device manufactured by Flextronics, Sharp and Motorola through various incarnations of the Sidekick.

This time around HTC had made the first five versions of the MyTouch manufactured by HTC although under private labeling as the device was called the “T-Mobile MyTouch”. Going with LG to manage their flagship family Android device may have been a mistake since the MyTouch was widely recognized as an HTC product.

One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to see what the T-Mobile device portfolio looks like in six months.

Source: PocketNow

One of the apps I’ve found myself using a lot lately, is Voxer. Voxer is a chatting app for Android and iOS that let’s you seamlessly communicate with all your buddies–you know the drill. One of the big reasons to get a smartphone is to communicate all the time with everyone you know using any service you want. There’s simple text chatting apps. There’s messaging apps provided by social giants like Facebook and Google+. Then there’s Voxer.

More after the break
» Read more: App of the Week: Voxer

If you’re not familiar with Taptu you’re missing out big time on one of the best reader apps out there. Taptu lets you dj and remix your news feeds precisely the way you like to.

The Taptu interface shows everything in block stories across your tablet or smartphone. You can customize each channel of news the way that you want to. If you want Android news from Android Central, Phandroid and Thedroidguy you can throw us all into the same feed.

If you prefer to get your tech news from Theverge, Yahoo and Nibletz you can set them in another channel, and you can remix your channels together.  It all comes in a graphically rich, eye appealing interface.

Taptu has announced that they have expanded their horizons and their app is now available on Samsung’s Bada platform. That means if you live abroad and own one of Samsung’s Wave smartphones with Bada you can now dj and remix your news as well.

On the Android side of the world, Taptu recently expanded to support Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

source: PRweb

Bob
We’ve got a problem. As you know we have a long history together both with GoDaddy and also because through several incarnations of my dj career I’ve done several of your family events.

I started buying and hosting with GoDaddy in the beginning when domains and hosting cost a lot more. Heck our customer number is so low the IVR doesn’t recognize it when I call for technical support.

I’ve been ridiculed in the past for staying so loyal to godaddy but until SOPA I had no problems recommending GoDaddy.

I know you’ve changed your stance on SOPA but as thedroidguy with the largest independent Android twitter following in the world, one that supports open source, collaboration and internet freedoms, ideals that youve always stood by it looks like we’ve got to pack up and move.

You guys have always pushed the envelope. Even when faced with subpoenas I know from personal experience you’ve sided with your creative, open minded, supportive customer base until now.

Its hard to believe the company that walked a very thin line with your very creative over the top Superbowl ads and the company that at one time vigorously defended the rights of your site holders has come to this.

Unless something changes we will be moving on or before January 15th.

All of us that are fans of the Sci-Fi genre have at least attempted to watch or read a version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Now we can play it! Taking the setting of the 1953 movie adaptation and Martians have just attacked London. You are playing as Arthur Clarke who must travel through the city to get to his loved ones in this dark and adventurous side-scrolling game.

One great aspect is the narration by Patrick Stewart as Arthur Clarke. It gives this ominous overtone as you walk through the rubble of a train wreck that you just survived. You must navigate through the terrain by running and jumping from platforms while being very careful to avoid the long falls, down power lines, and raging fires.

One of the hardest things to get past in this game is that it is very hard to tell what parts of your scenery are background and what is the foreground, so it is hard to navigate without knowing what platforms you can jump on and what you can’t. Also some of the platforms are rickety and collapse under Arthur’s weight. Others will shift and wobble as you walk across them making it very difficult to plan your next jump before the platform fails.

This is a fun way to dive in to one of history’s greatest science fiction novels. There is no health system so you have no way to tell if you are strong enough to survive a fall, but there are also infinite lives so you play through until you finish the story. The game will cost you 800 Microsoft points or $9.99 depending on how you look at it. Overall it’s a fun game, but listening to the same Patrick Stewart line over and over until you defeat a certain obstacle can get a little old.

We’ve been fans of 360 for quite a while now, and the panorama photo taking/sharing app has received another update that make it a must have for panorama photo-takers. 360 allows users to take high quality photos, and upload them to be shared with friends or viewed locally on the device. 360 has been stitching beautiful landscape panorama’s since the beginning, but with a recent update portrait panorama photos have been added to the mix as well. They have also added a brand new screen for capturing pictures, which is much easier to use making the experience much smoother. 360 also has different options for capturing pictures as well, now with high quality and normal modes so users can always choose. 360 has been improving since day one, and should be downloaded by anyone who enjoys photography. 360 is available in the Android Market for free and can be found here.  The full list of updates for 360 include:

What’s in this version:

1. Portrait mode and higher resolution panoramas.
2. High quality and normal quality modes.
3. Re-designed capture screen for easier use.
4. Fresher popular panoramas.
5. Fix memory leaks and force closes.
6. Faster uploading of panoramas.
7. Force close fixes.

Netflix has had a pretty shaky launch on Android, as it was originally coming with many Verizon phones and failed to do so. When the app finally was released, it came to support only a few devices, making many wish they had canceled their memberships. Netflix, has however, begun to get back on track, and now the app supports all 2.2-3.x devices in the US, Canada, and Latin-America. This is a huge leap for the app, as many tablet users have felt left out for quite sometime. While there were other ways to get the app on your tablet, nothing feels as good as an official build.

Be sure to check the Netflix app out if you haven’t, and those of you with Android tablets start downloading.