Adobe Flash Player 11 for Android hits Market

Jordan Kahn

Flash Player 11 has just landed on the Android Market, bringing with it a potentially “new class of gaming and premium video experiences” thanks to hardware accelerated 3D and 2D graphics. This gives devs the ability to create console-quality games on mobile devices and as you can see in the video above, the early results are pretty impressive.

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 take these even further by introducing Stage 3D, a new architecture for hardware accelerated graphics rendering that delivers 1000x faster rendering performance over Flash Player 10. It enables new classes of console-quality games and immersive apps, such as Tanki Online and Zombie Tycoon (see videos below). Stage 3D enables content that efficiently animate millions of objects on screen, smoothly rendered at 60 frames per second — the result is fluid, cinematic app and game experiences.

Other features now supported by Flash Player 11 include HD video conferencing, theatre-quality HD video, and native 64-bit optimizations. Adobe’s Flash Platform Blog has the full breakdown.

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Apple rejects Samsung’s offer to remove some Galaxy Tab 10.1 features in Australia

9to5 Staff

Apple today before a Sydney court rejected Samsung’s seemingly practical proposal calling for the removal of certain Galaxy Tab 10.1 capabilities in exchange for a smooth tablet launch in Australia. Samsung reportedly agreed to take out the feature which ignores unintended touches on the home screen to prevent apps from being launched accidentally. Apple, it appears, instead wants a definite ruling on a temporary Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction, which should be expected later this week.

If the court sides with Samsung, it gets to launch its iPad rival in Australia in time for Christmas. If not, the case drags out into another year, possibly without a clear winner in sight. Remember, Samsung threatened to ban sales of the new iPhone in Korea the instant it launches. Apple is scheduled to unveil their next iPhone at a media event today in the Cupertino headquarters at 1pm ET, 10am PT. The event is headlined under the “Let’s talk iPhone” tagline, suggesting that the rumored Assistant feature will be in the focus, among other things.

Lawyers for the Cupertino, California-based Apple insist the Galaxy Tab 10.1 “is vastly the one that is going to be targeting the iPad 2″. According to Reuters, Apple lawyer Steven Burley made it clear that “the main reason we are here is to prevent the launch and maintain the status quo”. Note: The Wall Street Journal provides a live blog of today’s court hearing. Such a legal maneuvering on the part of the iPhone maker suggests that Apple isn’t interested in settling its dispute with Samsung out of the court unless, of course, unexpected legal setbacks arise.

This is the second blow in two weeks to Samsung’s efforts to make peace with Apple, its largest buyer of components such as NAND flash chips, custom-designed iPhone processors and displays.

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Sony Ericsson CEO wishes he took the iPhone a little more seriously at first, no plans for Windows Phone

Jake Smith

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sony Ericsson’s CEO Bert Nordberg went on record saying he and Sony Ericsson, “should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived in 2007.” He also said that the company will begin focusing more on Android, instead of feature phones. Interestingly, he dropped note that Sony was considering purchasing Motorola Mobility before Google, but said, “before you go shopping you have to become rich.”

Yep.

Also noteworthy, Sony Ericsson has no plans to go Windows Phone any time soon saying “why add an inferior platform?”

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HTC’s software found in many of their devices has a HUGE security hole

Jake Smith

The fine folks over at Android Police have discovered that many HTC devices have a huge security hole due to a recent Android update. The results are pretty shocking, and HTC has no one to blame but themselves. In a recent update, HTC included a set of logging tools that logs users email accounts, last known network and GPS connection, phone numbers that have been recently dialed, encoded SMS data (probably can be decoded), and system logs.

Okay so HTC logs all of this, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that any app that requests android.permission.INTERNET can get their hands on this information. Phones include the Thunderbolt, Evo 4G, Evo 3D, and more.

As of now, the only way to patch this hole is to root your device and remove /system/app/HtcLoggers.apk. If you’re not rooted, stay away from sketchy apps. As Android Police points out, even a high-quality app could still get their hands on this information. Android Police has all of the technical details.

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Google Chrome is on its way to Android, message board post says

Jake Smith

Confirming previous reports, Conceivably Tech has uncovered a post that Google Chrome will soon be making its way into Android. A post on the Chromium Message Boards tells us that Android’s version of Chrome will have the same features as the desktop version — tabs, Skia 2D graphics library, and maybe a combined search and website bar?

Sadly, there’s no word on when this new browser will hit.  Now we’re not drawing any conclusions, but perhaps this will be announced at Google’s (and Samsung’s) event October 11th? For those of you who haven’t heard, Samsung and Google are rumored to announce the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich. While this tour didn’t show it, let’s hope Chrome is bundled into ICS. Read more

Here’s an AT&T Galaxy S II security flaw that you need to fix

Jake Smith

BGR has discovered a pretty big security flaw in AT&T’s version of the Galaxy S II, which hits shelves tomorrow. For users who have a unlock pattern or pin set, they can simply bypass it by waking up their screen to unlock and then let the screen timeout to go black. Then simply, the user can wake up the phone once again and they’ll no longer have to use a pattern or pin to access the phone. BGR shows how simple it is in the video above.

Samsung offers a temporary work around, while they work on a permanent solution, after the break:

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