If you’re using an Android phone – you’re paying $30 per month already for wireless data. Doesn’t it seems silly to pay again to connect your laptop on those infrequent occasions that you need a little remote bandwidth. If you have limited needs for remotely connecting your laptop check out PDANET in the Android Marketplace. It will allow you to tether your Android phone (NO root required) via cable or Bluetooth. Why let all that bandwidth go to waste when you could share it with your laptop. Most cellular companies frown on this practice – and it may even be against your terms of service – so tread lightly with the usage (even if it is practically undetectable). For a limited time score your own copy for $18.95 (normally $29 or $23).

PDANET for Android

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Through January 24, 2010 you may download and use the NBA League Pass for free on either your Android or iPhone. The application allows for streaming live game video either through 3G or Wi-Fi connections. You can listen to one game while checking scores on another. Full replays of past games are also available. The NBA League Pass Lite trial version is free through 1/24/2010 when the normal $19.99 fee will apply if you wish to continue.

NBA League Pass Free Trial

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When I was buying my Verizon Droid the guy next to me asked the salesperson if tethering was allowed on the device. He was promptly informed that Verizon doesn’t have a plan for that yet but when it happens it will be an extra cost fee.  I wanted to tell him that while the salesperson was technically correct that Verizon doesn’t allow (condone) tethering that there in fact is a solution available right now. The program is PDANET and it’s in the Android Market for free download.

PdaNet provides you with FULL Internet access so all your email, instant message programs will work without any setting changes. Supports both USB Tether and Bluetooth DUN.

PdaNet does NOT require root access or hacking your phone’s firmware in order to work. It is just a regular Android application that works on all Android phones as-is. Tethering is fast, secure and USB mode will also charge your phone at the same time. Your phone can either connect to 3G data, WiFi, or even through VPN and PdaNet will share the connection with your computer.

PDANET – $29.99

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you’ve purchased a new Verizon Droid and used the calendar you’ve seen how quickly it links up to your Google Calendar “in the sky”.  But what happens if you use Microsoft’s Outlook on your desktop – and you’re not also a Microsoft Exchange user (which the Droid will synchronize)? There’s seemingly no way to make the connection between Outlook and the Droid’s Google Calendar.

One of the selling points (for some) of the Droid is that all of the applications live “in the sky” – aka cloud. There’s no software to load onto your computer to synchronize because the smartphone handles connections wirelessly. Well this doesn’t work as well for those who are not using Google as their calendar. Here’s a simple solution (free) that you can use to synchronize the Microsoft Outlook calendar on your desktop to your Google calendar.  This supports two-way synchronization as well as one way. Download the program from the link below and you’ll be able to setup and have your Google calendar synchronized to Microsoft Outlook calendar in a matter of minutes and the software will run on your computer continuously to keep the two in harmony. Tip: Droid includes built in support for Microsoft Exchange which is used by many corporations and will synchronize your Outlook calendar, contacts and address book.

Google Calendar to Microsoft Outlook Synchronization

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Amazing as it may seem there’s actually a series of Motorola Droid smartphones powering Google voice searches this week in New York City’s Times Square. Over the past couple weeks from 12:30-2:00pm or 6:30-8:00pm,  Google Search by voice has been powering Times Square’s largest combined displays — the Reuters Sign and the NASDAQ sign. Anyone can call 888-376-4336 and say the name of a business or a location that they want to search for, like “museum of modern art” or “pizza”. Then, the query and local search results from Google will appear on one of the two electronic billboards. Starting on Friday the Times Square interactive search display will run for 20 hours straight (watch via webcam here).  A caller’s voice is sent through the phone system, directly into a small farm of real Droids running voice search that are connected to the big outdoor electronic displays! Developers made use of the Android voice recognition API just like any Android developer can. Check it out yourself by calling call 888-376-4336!

Google Mobile Blog

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Are you the type of person who loves Disney but hates the line wait? Within the theme park there are some tools for avoiding lines. You can always obtain a Speed Pass that provides a definite time when you can board the ride with no waiting. And Disney has announcement boards that display the estimated wait times at various locations in their parks. However if you’re just too tired to walk to one of their display boards you can check out the estimated wait times using a new application for iPhone, Palm Pre or Android devices.

From TouringPlans.com:

Today, we’re launching a preview version of Lines, a mobile website for the iPhone that displays estimates of wait times for every attraction at Walt Disney World.

For the past 10 years we’ve been obsessively researching wait times at Walt Disney World, collecting and processing a massive amount of data along the way. We’ve launched products such as Touring Plans and the Crowd Calendar to help you efficiently tour the parks and avoid the crowds.

In designing Lines, we thought a lot about the experiences we’ve had touring the parks: we’re standing in Frontierland and want to know how long the line is at Space Mountain. Is Soarin’ really a ninety minute wait? Will there be FASTPASSes left at Toy Story Mania if we get there at noon?

Lines was built to solve these problems, and we’re really excited to give you a sneak peek. There are many mobile applications doing wait times (Disney included), and accurate estimates are particularly challenging. We’re eager to see how accurate we can be.

Here are some of the ways Lines is different:

We independently estimate wait times

Ever wait in line for 20 minutes when the standby sign said 5? Or vice versa? Yeah, we have too. For Lines we use thousands of historical data points and a myriad of statistical models (prepared by a professional statistician) to estimate how long you’ll actually wait in line.

We love user data, but don’t require it

You can submit wait times via your iPhone (and you would be awesome for doing so!)–but we do not depend on it. Our product is useful on Day One, regardless of how many people are submitting times.

We predict… the future!

We estimate future standby times, when FASTPASS will be gone for the day, and when the peak wait times will be. Want to know if FASTPASS will still be available after dinner? We’ve got you covered.

Much, much more

Crowd calendar data, park hours, refurbishments, an attraction closure reporting system, all now available on your phone!

To give it a go, grab an iPhone and navigate to http://m.touringplans.com (other mobile platforms are on the way). You’ll need a TouringPlans.com subscription to use Lines during this preview. Lines is free to use for a limited time. We’d love your feedback!

UPDATE:: We’re now supporting Android and Palm Pre/Pixi phones!

TouringPlans via Android Community

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Google Maps Navigation (beta) just drove onto the Android Market highway and is available for download to Android phones using OS 1.6 or higher. Sadly this kicks sand in the face of the Sprint HTC Hero and Verizo Droid Eris – both of which shipped with Android 1.5 and are therefore unable to run this new application until they receive an OS update to 1.6 or higher. The updated Google Maps includes the new Layers feature which lets you overlay geographical information on the map. View My Maps, transit lines, Wikipedia articles, about places and more. Some features that are available on Android 2.0 will not be usable on 1.6, for example the ability to “navigate to” using voice command is not available. For the present moment HTC Hero and Eris users will have to occupy their time by adding this to their list of “why it’s not wise to buy a phone more than one OS revision away from being current”.

Google Maps Navigation (Beta)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Maybe it’s just me – does an application designed to provide closing times of the closest liquor store seem a bit too enabling? Here’s the  interesting part — the application provides “turn by turn driving directions” to the liquor store along with 1,000+ drink recipes. Let’s hope this functionality doesn’t get used all together while the car is in motion. Perhaps one of the future upgrades can include Trapster for locating police along the route to the package store.

Liquor Run Mobile – Free (Android Market)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Deal of the day sites offer incredible savings on particular items with one catch. They’re only made available for a limited time (typically the day). The problem with these deal sites is remembering to check them regularly. Now there’s a free Android application, Dealdroid, that will automatically check one-deal-at-a-time sites like BonkTown, Brociety, ChainLove, Steep and Cheap, Tramdock, Whiskey Militia, Woot and associated sites, ThingFling, and SlickDeals. DealDroid runs in the background and produces Android notifications when new items become available. Instead of having to manually visit multiple deal sites you can now swipe your Android notifications and see daily bargains at a glance.

Dealdroid

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tired of overpaying carriers for ringtones that are then locked to the phone you’ve downloaded them to? Here’s a way that I’ve been obtaining free ringtones and notifications for my new Verizon Droid.  What’s great about this service is you don’t need to register or provide your mobile phone number (often used by unscrupulous sites to ding you with some absurd monthly fee). Here’s how.

How To Load Free Ringtones, Notifications and Alarms to your Verizon Droid

The first step to loading your own ringtones, wallpaper and notifications is to cable your Droid to your computer. I’m using a Mac but this will work just as well with a PC.

Once you have the cable connected you’ll see the USB icon in the upper left corner of your Droid’s screen. Use your finger to pull down on the icon and view the notification.

Touch the USB connected notification on the above screen and then select “Mount” as shown below. That’s it. That’s all you need to do for your Droid to then show up as a drive on your computer.

Open up Windows Explorer on the PC – or if you’re using a Mac as I am in this example – open Finder.  You can see my Droid has mounted onto my computer and is shown by the “NO NAME” label under devices.

To the right you can see all the folders on the Droid microSD card. Some of these are default folders created by Android.

The folder that you want to create is media. I created it right in the root (home) folder.

Once you’ve created the media folder – create folders to hold your content. You’ll want to use

• alarms
• notifications
• ringtones

Place these folders inside the media folder as shown

Now you can drag and drop mp3 files into the appropriate folder. When you dis-connect your Droid it will re-scan your microSD and the new media files will show up for selection.

I’ve found the web site Zedge.net to be handy for downloading free ringtones and notifications. There’s no registration and you don’t provide your cellular phone number. All their tones can be downloaded to your desktop and then uploaded to your droid.

To edit tones on your Droid – use Ringdroid which is free and allows you to open any MP3 on the Droid and select a tiny portion to use as a notification or ringtone.

Zedge

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.