Rooting the Motorola Milestone has been a somewhat impossible task given Motorola locking down the bootloader. I say somewhat because some folks at AllDroid have managed to gain root access on the TELUS Milestone, albeit without kernel access.

A good start is better than nothing and there are some directions on how to root the TELUS Motorola Milestone over at AllDroid. I find the poll at the top quite humorous: “Did this thread help any” with the choices all answering questions with questions… onf of them “Did you brick your phone”? Feel free to try this out yourself, but if you have to answer the question with the question we noted – don’t blame us!

So you’ve got an Android application that pretty much kicks but and haven’t monetized it and don’t want to charge for it in the market. We all know ad-supported apps are a go-to model for monetization and to be honest – they’re one of my favorites. Integrating them in a non-intrusive manner can even AD value to the app, especially when you’re talking about geo-targeted coupons and whatnot. Now developers have another method of monetization through a company called Nexage.

AdMax is a mobile platform owned by Nexage that pulls ads from over 35 mobile ad networks, ensuring developers a large pool of potential advertisers that should help maximize the targetability and fill-rate. New APIs the company is offering allow devs access to location-enabled ads, expandables, native video player ads and more. I’m sure users don’t like hearing that more ads will be in more apps, but done tastefull I think its MORE than acceptable. Especially considering you’re getting your apps for free.

The company put out a Press Release, which I’ve included below. Developers out there take note!

Nexage Announces Mobile Ad Support for Android Platform
Nexage’s New Android SDK and Android API Give Developers Tools to Serve Ads to Android Apps, and Better Monetize Mobile Advertising on the Android Platform

BOSTON, March 10 /PRNewswire/ – Nexage (www.nexage.com), a leading provider of mobile advertising yield optimization and mediation solutions, today announced the immediate availability of the new Nexage Android SDK and an open API, providing flexibility for developers to create Android-based apps capable of serving mobile ads through AdMax, Nexage’s mobile mediation platform.

Nexage’s Android SDK is easy for developers to integrate, and supports all mobile ad formats, including local advertising for location-enabled applications, expandables, native video player, and more. Leveraging Nexage’s AdMax Gateway, which sends ad requests to more than 35 mobile ad networks worldwide, the Android SDK delivers the most inventory fill at the highest effective CPM. Nexage also exposes an API to developers who want to implement custom ad treatments in apps on any platform. More details on these two approaches can be found at www.nexage.com/developers.

“Our new Android tool will help advertisers and publishers capitalize on the explosive growth of the Android platform,” said Dev Gandhi, CEO of Nexage. “Furthermore, our AdMax ad-optimization service ensures that publishers generate the maximum revenue from their mobile properties – on Android and other major mobile platforms including Blackberry and iPhone. Nexage is focused on providing publishers and app developers with the leading single source mobile yield optimization solution, bridging the disparate mobile platform silos.”

At CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, Nexage will host a tutorial and Q&A for developers on launching Android apps with the Nexage Android SDK or the open API, in booth 6529-A at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23.

About NEXAGE, Inc.

Nexage is a leading developer of Mobile Advertising solutions that enables companies to maximize advertising revenue from their mobile properties. The company’s leading product is the AdMax, a hosted advertising optimization service that enables carriers and media companies to fully control and maximize the monetization of their mobile channels. It has been demonstrated to serve text, banner, in-application and video ads with higher fill rates and effective CPM than could be achieved previously. Currently, AdMax powers mobile ads for a number of top-tier publishers, broadcasters and operators. Additional information is available at www.Nexage.com.

These companies getting involved with mobile advertising networks are going to be making BANK in a few years from now. And mark my words… a bunch of these more “start-uppy” type companies will be getting acquired for handsome amounts. Also beautiful and sexy amounts.

[Via Press Release]

Android seems to be gaining great velocity in the UK – not only has Vodafone shown great interest in Android recently (besides already major Android players such as T-mobile) but Network 3 too. 3 UK’s head of internet services -David Kerrigan – said that the company will release 6 Android phones all within the next 3 months and will focus on devices with Android as the platform will help push sales. Sounds like a good plan to me!

They didn’t exactly point out what handsets they’ll be stocking but did however share  they’ll be working closely with Samsung and Sony Ericsson to market the devices. Just having a guess here but I would say you’ll probably have a choice from the Samsung Galaxy, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, maybe  some budget or entry level handsets and of course HTC’s slew of devices will probably appear. After all we already know the Desire is coming to 3 among other networks.

David Kerrigan also confirmed that all these six devices launched will support Music service Spotify.BONUS!

“The Spotify application will be available on all Android devices we launch on the network. These applications have been important in driving mobile data and will be available as an add-on for all contract tariffs going forward”

Network 3 already sells the popular HTC Hero on two different price plans. £25 without and £35 with a premium spotify account the length of the 24 month contract, so I would imagine these new releases would be on very similar tariffs. It’s worth noting if you get a £25 plan without spotify, a premium spotify account is £10 a month anyway.

It’s great to see more operators showing interest in Android phones and gadgets, helping Android grow and giving people the opportunity to choose what operator they might want to go with!

[Via Mobile News]

The Motorola Droid launched with Android 2.0. Then the Nexus One launched with Android 2.1. Since then Droid owners have been clamoring for 2.1, been promised and then unpromised the update, and are still waiting for its arrival. That arrival might finally be coming if its pre-loaded existence on Motorola Milestones in Bulgaria is any indication.

That’s right – starting March 20th, Motorola Miletones sold in Bulgaria with a carrier named VIVACOM will come with Android 2.1 according to Bulgaria.com. If that’s the case, we would expect other operators in Europe to start offering the same. And furthermore, we would expect a carrier offering 2.1 out of the box to also offer updates to existing Milestone owners with the same phone (but with an older OS).

Whether or not this situation extends to the American brother – the Motorola Droid – is uncertain. And lets not forget that each carrier is probably putting Android 2.1 through the paces on each separate phone before it will push the update to the public. But this is at least a good sign that the Droids and Milestones of the world will be getting Android 2.1 before long.

Lucky, lucky Bulgarians.

[Via Engadget]

Often times manufacturers will take a high-end handset, make it smaller, slightly lower the specs, slap a name like “Lite” or “Mini” on it, slash the price and call it a day. Sony Ericsson is doing something similar with the X10 and we’ve seen Samsung do it with the Galaxy. But it happens everywhere. Now, thanks to a rumor from TechTree, we’re wondering if the same thing will happen to the Nexus One on its way to India.

The rumors are suggesting that the phone, which will be targeted towards developing markets where consumers have less disposable income, will keep its 3.7-inch screen but with a slimmer frame and less fancy innards. Whether it will be called the Nexus One, Nexus One Lite, or something else remains to be seen. And to be honest, whether this rumor holds any weight remains to be seen as well – it doesn’t seem like the most likely of scenarios but in this industry we’ve learned anything is possible.

[TechTree via A&M, Slashphone]

The Nexus One sold through Google’s website is a Google Experience phone. That is – it runs a stock version of Android with no customizations out of the box. That makes perfect sense since it isn’t branded as an HTC device. But something else makes sense in a different way: Verizon’s Nexus One, still sold through the Google website, might come pre-packaged with HTC Sense.

The above screenshot is supposedly a leaked screenshot of Verizon’s Equipment Guide. You can clearly see:

• Top line indicates ONLY sold at google.com/phones (should be “phone” singular)
• 4 bullets from the bottom left it says “Sense UI (User Interface)”

Whether this is legit, typ0-free document we don’t know, but hopefully we’ll find out soon. I’m guessing a LOT of people have been waiting for the Nexus One to hit VZW and Voda since they were announced as eventual partners the first day.

[Via AndroidCentral]

We know what you’re thinking. “Man! Now that Microsoft has confirmed (and re-confirmed) that the HD2 won’t be getting an (officially endorsed) upgrade to Windows Phone 7, I can only hope that it will some day be able to run a desktop OS from fifteen years ago!”

Well, friend, that day has come.

The always incredible folks over at XDA-Dev have successfully managed to get Windows 95 up and running on the QEMU virtual machine emulator. Stuff like this generally runs slow as dirt; but coupled with the HD2’s 1ghz processor, there seems to be enough meat here to muscle through the fairly complex emulation.

[Good find, WMpoweruser!]

In our review of the TELUS MILESTONE we lamented Motorola’s decision to digitally sign the bootloader which makes rooting quite difficult. Thankfully, over the past couple of days there has been a lot progress within the Android community and root access for the TELUS MILESTONE has obtained by way of a Brazilian sbf. Sadly kernel access is still absent, but at this point we guess we should just be happy we’ve made it this far. Hit up the read link for a full set of instructions.

Thanks, Arjun!

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The code monkeys at Vodafone look like they’ve been rather busy today! The usually rather vacant ‘coming soon’ section of Vodafone’s UK website has just today added 3 of the latest handsets including the HTC Legend and HTC Desire clearly pointing out they’re coming in “April” with the Nexus one still “coming soon” – however we do expect the Nexus One to also be available in April. Why not have some screen-shots to gaze over:

Vodafone sure are jumping on the Android bandwagon! Offering the Legend, Desire, X10, Nexus one and possibly even making there own Android based device.

Their ‘coming soon‘ section has never looked so nice – oozing with Android offerings!

We told you to keep an eye out on androidforums ‘Official HTC Incredible thread’ now more pics have surfaced of the snapdragon powered incredible thanks to AF member NKT!

With the pictures come interesting specs. Reportedly, the Incredible measures 17.5 x 58.5 x 11.9 mm – almost the same as the Nexus one, comes with an 8MP camera with auto focus and 512mb of RAM & ROM. Interestingly it seems the 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor has been under-clocked to run at 768MHz – presumably to save battery but without effecting the performance.

Don’t forget this incredible phone should come loaded with Android 2.1,  HTC’s Sense UI, a 3.7″ AMOLED screen, an optical trackpad, an FM receiver and Wi-fi, bluetooth and GPS.

I’m really digging the look of the handset but I do think this could potentially be a final design as it has altered from that bright, red glossy cover to a soft feel black one while keeping the unique shape design & ofcourse this one brandishes Verizons logo. Though I really like the red thing going on theres no info it will still be this color at release. What do you think of the bold red design?

The Incredible has already appeared on Verizons inventory so lets hope for an official announcement real soon!

[Via Androidforums]

(Thanks to NKT & everyone that sent this in/tipped this!)

Boy Genius tends to know what he’s talking about when it comes to BlackBerry leaks – so when he says hes got some new details, we tend to believe him.

According to his tipsters, the Verizon BlackBerry Tour 9630 will be seeing an upgrade to BlackBerry OS 5.0 sometime in the next month. With that upgrade, says the same tipster, comes the option of push-to-talk functionality for an extra 5 bucks a month.

But that’s not all! This all leads up to the release of a brand spankin’ new piece of BlackBerry kit — presumably a new Tour — launching some time around May, complete with OS 5.0 and push-to-talk functionality out of the box. Alas, that’s all we know about it at this point; keep your ears to the ground for us, won’t you?

[Via BGR]

For those that are not up to speed, here is the Reader’s Digest® version of the Apple and Nokia legal saga. Nokia sued Apple, Apple sued Nokia, the ITC got involved, and here we are. A U.S. court date to settle the alleged patent violations has tentatively been scheduled for some time in the middle of 2012. Legal analysts have said the proceedings could last for two or more years which, barring a settlement, would delay the verdict to sometime in 2014. For those cheer-leading the demise of one of the involved parties, you’ll just have to wait until then.

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If I lose my phone, it’s a bad day. If this guy loses his phone, he just lost the equivalent of a CEO’s salary.

According to Brandon Chang, the ridiculous piece of absurdity you see up above is wrapped in 18 karat gold. Because that wasn’t enough, they then went and glued on 4,150 itty-bitty diamonds, ensuring that you can see just how tacky it is in even the lowest of lights.

The final price tag? $200,000 bucks. If you’ve got that sort of money to throw around, more power to you – but really, there’s a line between “impressive” and “obnoxious”, and this is a few miles past it.

[Via BlackBerryCool]

The Tattoo might have been designed to be dirt cheap, but that doesn’t mean HTC doesn’t love it as much as the rest of their phones.

French Android site Frandroid shot a note to HTC to see whether or not the Tattoo would be getting the Android 2.1 treatment. Their response? Drumroll, please.

Yep! (See response below) They aren’t dropping any specific dates, but they did say it’ll be “just a little while longer”. The hang up? HTC’s still polishing up Sense on Android 2.1. Sense seemed pretty dang solid when we saw it running on 2.1 on the Desire – but given that the Tattoo is half as powerful with half the screen resolution, there’s probably some tweaking that needs to be done here.

HTC’s response:

“Kindly note that now we understand that a phone running Android OS 2.1 is available that you are excited to get an update for your Tattoo. We are still working hard to Sense for building this new version but we expect to have the upgrade finished and ready to go soon.”

[Via GSMArena]

This February, Microsoft Xbox 360 sales bested those of the Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii for the first time since September of 2007. The February sales figures were: Xbox 360 422,000 units — up 8% year-over-year, Wii 397,900 units — down 47% year-over-year, and Playstation 3 360,100 units — up 30% year-over-year. Take-Two Interative’s BioShock 2, which hit store shelves on February 10th, can be partially credited for the surge in Xbox sales. BS 2 sold over 750,000 copies, 75% of which (562,000) were for the Xbox 360. Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wii, sold 555,600 units raking second on the game sales chart and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came in a respectable third.

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