Sony Ericsson Promotes Android Bootloader Unlocking

April 14, 2011 by Noah Dunker 42 Comments

Sony Ericsson recently added a new section to their developer world portal called Unlocking the boot loader. They provide all the information and tools needed to root some of their newer Android phones.

Of course, this information comes from Sony Ericsson dripping with warnings, disclaimers and warranty-voiding rhetoric. Once you’ve waded through all of that, you’ll have to enter your phone’s IMEI number, your name and email address in order to get your phone’s unique bootloader unlock key. Here’s hoping they don’t use the form information to instantly void warranties.

Unlocking doesn’t come without consequences, but from UI tweaks and performance improvements to custom apps and tethering, there are probably more reasons to unlock your Android device than there are reasons to leave it alone. In an age where people are making a fuss about companies adding stumbling blocks for would-be jailbreakers, it’s good to see that at least one of them is doing what they can to help hackers take the plunge. Anyone want to clear up why Sony Ericsson feels like supporting hackers but Sony sues people for doing similar things on the ps3?

Thanks to [flip] | remixed image credit (cc by-sa 2.0): [taka@p.p.r.s]

Google Android Application Challenge Winners

May 23, 2008 by Sean Percival 5 Comments

The Google Android team recently launched a challenge to encourage development for their new cellphone based platform. Part of the first phase was to narrow down the 1,788 submissions to the best 50 application ideas. They’ve posted the complete list of winners on their website and put together a little slide show(PDF) as well. As part of the challenge some $10,000,000 is up for grabs from Google.

We browsed through the list and found a lot of social this and family that; nothing overly exciting honestly. There were a few interesting application ideas in there though:

BioWallet – Biometric authentication system that uses iris identification.
Talkplay – Video and voice message system, see and talk to your friends while on the go.
Writing Pad – A unique way to enter text into your phone where common words are replaced by simple strokes.

The Android platform will probably cause the largest adoption of Linux based cellphones yet. We can’t wait to see what the homebrew community does with the platform and so much development for an unlaunched phone is amazing. Apple seems to go out of their way to lock us out, where this platform couldn’t be more open. With 3G support, WiFi, SQlite, Virtual Machines, GPS and much more what’s not to like.

Have any of you experimented with the Android SDK?

[via LinuxDevices]