Android Now the Largest Smartphone Platform in US

Q2 sales reports have come out and Android has offically become the largest smartphone platform in the US. Worldwide, Android saw an almost 900% increase in units shipped. Congrats to Google and manufactures like HTC, Motorola, and Samsung being a part of this feat.

At SRG many folks have been getting Android devices, so I will be making an e-mail list to help send alerts to Android users if need be, as well as helpful Apps, etc. like we have for iPhone users.

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Google Distributes More Twice the Malware of Bing, Yahoo! and Twitter Combined

The most popular platforms are always targeted for malware and viruses. Google, as you all know, is the most popular search engine on the planet. Malicious links and software are often designed to come up most often in Google searches as well as in sponsored links. Barracuda Labs did a study on malware and viruses distribtuted through search engines and found Google's distrubutes more than two times the amount of malware than Bing, Yahoo! and Twitter--combined!

The report and Downloadsquad point out that only 2% of the malware is 0-day, meaning malware that came out/was released to the public domain that day and that 98% of the malware is older-known malware. Downloadsquad also brings up an interesting question- why doesn't Google do more to block known malware?

Hopefully stories like this one will motivate Google to help combat malware and viruses.

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Verizon Moving to Tiered Data Plans

Engadget reports that Verizon will soon be moving to tiered data plans in the next month, much like AT&T has done. The reason they are doing this is because of a data usage boom in smartphones. The other day I saw an article that said Droid users utilize an average of five times more data than other smartphone users.

T-Mobile is keeping to their "unlimited" to 5GB soft limit and 10GB hard limit (they publish a 5GB limit for their unlimited plan, but supposedly you can hit 10GB until you have your data speeds limited. Sprint has similar limits for their 3G phones, while their new 4G phones will be allowed to legitimately use unlimited data (although you pay a $10 a month premium for it currently).

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Turn Your Handwriting into a Font

The folks over at Pilot have created an innovative new tool for converting your own handwriting into a font. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll shut up now and let the video do the talking.

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Our Latest Launch - SayNoToString.com

This week we launched another in a series of campaigns for Waterpik up in Fort Collins. SayNoToString.com is aimed at promoting the benefits of using a Waterpik Water Flosser instead of painful, messy, and annoying dental floss. On the site there are a series of videos which correspond with banners ads that are driving visitors to the site. If you are looking for an alternative to the bloody gums caused by using string floss, you should check it out.

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New Samsung Android Phone Available Soon on All Carriers

Samsung is releasing their Galaxy S phone in the US soon on all major carriers. This will be one of the first Android phones available on all carriers, even international carriers. There are many things that make this phone the "next big thing" spec-wise, but this article is about it's insane battery life.

A Geek Blog got their hands on the GSM version of the Galaxy S and ran some battery tests. Here are their results:

Here is what we did with it over the 84 hours from its full charge to its battery going flat.

• 90 minutes video playback
• 2 hours music playback
• 40 minutes voice calls
• 30 minutes navigation
• 30 minutes general usage
• 10 minutes browsing
• 10 minutes shooting photo and video

I challenge you to test your phone with the above tasks and see how many days it lasts! ;) An incredible feat for the worlds most powerful smartphone... best of all? This sweet thing is going to be available on all major carriers - AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. The Sprint version will be the only one with a full hardware keyboard that slides out. No word yet on whether they will be getting a non-hardware keyboard version yet.

Because of the popularity of the phone, it will also have a giant modding community following it. Mmmhmm. Hitting some carriers as early as mid July, keep an eye out!

Image from Engadget.

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Switched Asks - What is Android?

I blame the Droid. Naming one of the first Android phones to come out Droid really has caused a lot of confusion over what Android really is. Since Google licenses their OS, the potential for confusion is much greater.

Switched asked folks on the street what they thought Android was:

Link to video - embedding breaks the video, doh!

So what is Android? What is the difference between Droid and Android?

-Android is Google's cell phone Operating System (OS), much like Windows is Microsoft's OS, or Snow Leopard is Apple's OS. It is the backbone of a device that all apps, etc. run on top of.

-Driod is a cell phone made by Motorola that is powered by the Android OS. There are many different phones powered by Android, but only one Droid phone (well, actually there are two as the new model just came out).

Now go forth and share your knowledge of Android!

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