| Sony outs Xperia Play ICS beta for unlocked phones, wants to know which games work Mar 30th 2012, 08:45 While the promised Sony Xperia Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade rollout is quickly running out of March and into April for all models, the company has just unleashed a new beta version of the upgrade for Xperia Play owners. Following the alpha release in December and a beta update in February for the Arc S, Neo V and Ray, Sony has pushed this version for the Play to find out which games may need some work to be compatible with Android 4.0. The usual drawbacks remain however, so because this release requires unlocking your bootloader -- which will keep users from upgrading to the final ICS update when it comes out -- and it lacks such creature comforts as Google Mobile Services apps (Gmail, Google Maps, Face Unlock) it's intended for developers only. If your gamepad-equipped handset is staying official-upgrade only, you can safely check out a video of the beta ROM running on an Arc S embedded after the break and take this as a heads up that the final release is that much closer. Continue reading Sony outs Xperia Play ICS beta for unlocked phones, wants to know which games work Sony outs Xperia Play ICS beta for unlocked phones, wants to know which games work originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Mar 2012 04:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink |  Sony Developer World | Email this | Comments | | ZTE announces 2011 financials: turnover up, profits down, political scandals tricky Mar 30th 2012, 08:08 ZTE's annual earnings report is out and it's a mixed bag for the Chinese company with aspirations to go west. Revenues grew 23 percent to 86.25 billion RMB ($13.7 billion) but net profit fell a hefty 36.6 percent to 2.06 billion RMB ($327 million). More than half of ZTE's operating revenue came from overseas as the company moves into the global space and, while some of that cash came from its smartphone business, much more poured in from the infrastructure arm that supplies LTE equipment to networks. At the same time, ZTE is having to deal with accusations that it sold $131 million worth of snooping gear to Iran to monitor its own citizens, forcing the company to limit its operations there -- although it insists this won't have any impact on its future income. Continue reading ZTE announces 2011 financials: turnover up, profits down, political scandals tricky ZTE announces 2011 financials: turnover up, profits down, political scandals tricky originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Mar 2012 04:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  The Next Web | ZTE, Reuters | Email this | Comments | | Bump Pay lets you tap a friend for cash Mar 30th 2012, 07:22 Taking cues from an ING Direct app that used its API, Bump Technologies has developed its own version of the mobile payments software, enabling phone-to-phone "Bump" transactions using PayPal. Yes, PayPal. That minor processing detail aside, the service appears to offer a fun solution for simplifying the fairly painful process of paying the check at group meals, or splitting a tank of gas with a friend. Both you and your bud need to have the app installed before you can beam that green, and there's no option to send payments remotely, though you could always use plain ole vanilla PayPal for that. The app is free, and if you have a checking account linked you won't have to deal with any fees. Bump Pay is iOS only "at launch" (read: it could be making its way to Android as well), so for now you'll need to bump the App Store to get folks paid. Bump Pay lets you tap a friend for cash originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink TechCrunch | Bump Pay | Email this | Comments | |
