Mihăiță Bamburic

Even though mobile devices play an ever-increasing role in our digital lives, on more than one occasion they can act counterproductive, delivering noisy notifications or consuming too much battery life. With Silence, however, Android users can take control of their devices, scheduling the usage of built-in functionality like vibrate or airplane mode.

Silence basically allows users to enable or disable commonly used connectivity options such as airplane mode, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as set the ringer to silent, vibrate or normal, all within an established period of time. Each of the available options can be individually controlled, meaning that airplane mode can be enabled at night to preserve battery life, or silent mode can be activated during working hours so as to not disturb co-workers.

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Little more than six months into the Galaxy S III's lifespan, Samsung has announced a software upgrade for the popular Android smartphone. Dubbed Premium Suite, it delivers a number of new features borrowed from the Galaxy S III's bigger brother, the Galaxy Note II.

Some of the most noteworthy improvements include Multi Window, which lets users view two apps concurrently, Page Buddy, for contextual actions (like opening the music player after headphones are plugged in), and Best Face and Low Light Shot, that allow users to select the best out of five pictures, and improve photography under bad lighting, respectively.

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Google has announced that one of its cloud-based services, Apps for Business, will no longer offer a free tier. The Mountain View, Calif.-based search leader now asks customers to pay a yearly fee for the service, which includes Google's popular Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Calendar specially designed for private enterprise deployment.

Citing growing business needs, such as requests for "24/7 customer support and larger inboxes", Google considers the premium Apps for Business version is a better option, and as a result eliminated the free variant from its portfolio.

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Japanese manufacturer Sony has announced the release of a beta tool that can be used to restore factory software on a number of Xperia smartphones. The program targets green droid modders that wish to go back to stock, after running custom distributions such as CyanogenMod 10.

Sony says that the beta tool is released at the request of the Android community and currently works for the Xperia S, Xperia arc and Xperia arc S, with plans to increase the number of supported devices. At the moment users only have the ability to restore to a single software variant on each smartphone, but the Japanese manufacturer says it intends to include a wider version selection in the future.

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Nearly two months ago HTC teased Android enthusiasts with the J Butterfly, but sadly the handset was only for the Japanese market. On Friday, the Taiwanese manufacturer introduces the global variant, simply dubbed Butterfly, sporting similar specifications.

The Butterfly features a 5.0-inch SuperLCD 3 display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. Power comes from a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor paired with an Adreno 320 video card and 2GB of RAM. On top of the 16GB of internal storage, the Butterfly has a microSD card slot which can extend the capacity by an additional 32GB. HTC is, however, evasive when it comes to the operating system, but it's fair to assume that it ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, similar to the Droid DNA and J Butterfly.

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On Thursday, Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra announced the launch of Google+ Communities, a new feature which allows users to join and create interest groups on Google's social network.

Google+ Communities rolls out today and in typical social networking fashion, it will allow both private and public membership options. Users will be able to plan events, start hangouts and share Web content with fellow community members. Categories have been implemented to improve navigability and searchability.

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Google first introduced its Siri-like voice search Google Now in Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Functionality was rather limited at first, but the search giant eventually added new "cards" (data feeds on user-selected topics) and even Gmail integration. With the latest iteration released today, users can do a lot more with Google Now, including dictate Google+ posts and show United Airlines boarding passes.

Users can power up Google Now, tap on the microphone icon, say "Post to Google Plus" and then simply add their message. Automatic posting is not enabled, so users can edit and select the circles which will see the message. Another new feature is the ability to scan barcodes, which is triggered by the fairly intuitive command "Scan a barcode". Using the camera, Google Now allows users to take a picture of the item in order to display relevant product information.

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What was Microsoft thinking? The software giant initiated a campaign on Twitter, dubbed #DroidRage, inviting Android users to share their "malware horror stories", only to have it backfire spectacularly shortly afterwards. A huge number of anti-Microsoft posts with the #WindowsRage hashtag appeared on Twitter and Google+, almost immediately.

The problem with the campaign, apart from the less-than-brilliant concept, is the timing. Criticism of Microsoft’s more recent products, such as Windows 8, Surface and Windows Phone 8, should have caused the company to lay low for a while. Instead, the firm unwittingly gave frustrated users of its new products a unified hashtag to rally behind.

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Wednesday, Finnish smartphone maker Nokia introduced the Lumia 920T, the first TD-SCDMA variant of the Lumia 920 that will be available later this year on the world's largest carrier, China Mobile. Off-contract, the Windows Phone 8 handset runs for roughly $720 and ships in the typical black, red, yellow or white trim.

Nokia has given little away regarding the device's hardware specifications. That is likely due to the fact that the two Lumia 920 device types share most of the same underpinnings, except support for the TD-SCDMA wireless standard used in China. As a result, buyers can expect a 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display with a resolution of 1280 by 768, a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 32GB of internal storage, an 8.7 MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording and PureView technology, and a 1.3 MP chat camera.

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Surely Microsoft is not overcome by joy after IDC placed Windows Phone as the third largest player in the 2016 smartphone market, lingering behind the biggest competitor -- Android. Taking vengeance upon the green droid, the Redmond, Wash.-based software corporation initiated the #DroidRage campaign on Twitter, inviting users to share their Android "malware horror story".

As an Android user myself, I can't help but feel overly amused by Microsoft's idea. The #DroidRage campaign exudes desperation, considering Windows Phone's lowly popularity and embodies anything but a professional attitude, which is expected from one of the largest software companies in the business. Furthermore, Twitter users responding to the save-the-world-from-Android-malware campaign are not necessarily on Microsoft's side.

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Nokia's Windows Phone 8 line-up currently targets the high-end and mid-range smartphone market with the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, respectively. However, starting from Q1 2013 the Finnish manufacturer will also offer a more affordable device powered by Microsoft's latest mobile operating system.

The Lumia 620 will come with a modest $249 price-tag, without operator subsidies or local taxes, and feature a 3.8-inch ClearBlack LCD display with a resolution of 800 x 480. Power comes from a 1.0GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor aided by just 512MB of RAM. On the back there is a 5.0MP camera capable of 720p recording at 30FPS and an LED flash to brighten up indoor shots. On the front the Lumia 620 sports a 0.3MP camera capable of shooting pictures and videos at 640 x 480.

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HP revealed the pricing for its initial Windows 8 line-up in late October, and today the company introduces another model designed to run Microsoft's latest consumer operating system. The EliteBook Revolve is described as a convertible tablet/touch-enabled notebook, aimed at business and government use, and with support for legacy applications.

The company is evasive when it comes to detailed specifications, though, giving very little away. Not overly surprising considering the same thing happened with the ElitePad 900. However, HP does say that the EliteBook Revolve comes with an 11.6-inch HD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 2 (with the resolution likely to be in the 1366 x 768 territory). Processing power comes from third generation Intel Core processors, suggesting Core i3 to Core i7 CPUs. Solid state drive options, coupled with Intel Rapid Start Technology, are available in a choice of sizes up to 256GB. There’s also a 720p HD camera onboard; WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network); USB 3.0; DisplayPort and NFC (Near Field Communication).

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Almost a week ago the team behind the popular custom Android distribution CyanogenMod announced that Android 4.2-based nightly builds for the Google Nexus 10 were on the way. The developers kept their word and have now delivered the first official CyanogenMod 10.1 release for the 10-inch tablet.

The CM10.1 builds for the Nexus 10 (codename "Manta") are available with December 3 and December 4 time-stamps. Users should expect a number of features to be missing due to the early nature of the development and on-going feature porting process. However, Quiet Hours, the battery percentage indicator, and Trebuchet launcher are all included. Steve Kondik, the project's founder, has further good news for CyanogenMod fans.

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Jelly Bean may be the youngest member of the Android family, but it’s also enjoying some amazing month-on-month growth, based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending December 3. It still has some way to go to match Gingerbread though, which is yet again the green droid ruler.

On November 13, the search giant introduced its latest sugary treat, Android 4.2. Three weeks later, the new version of Jelly Bean had claimed a distribution level of 0.8 percent, a number aided by Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 sales, and Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 upgrades. That growth however, pales in comparison to 4.1 Jelly Bean which is now found on 5.9 percent of green droid devices, an increase of 118 percent when compared to the previous figures released in early November.

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Android devices from Verizon Wireless are known among the modding community as fairly restrictive when it comes to rooting or unlocking the bootloader. The Samsung Galaxy Note II, now available at the big red, is no exception, but the controversial smartphone can be modded to run apps using elevated privileges, with plans to unlock the bootloader as well.

The process is fairly simple to carry out and can enrich the software experience by allowing users to perform otherwise restricted tasks, such as disabling carrier-branded apps or making full-system backups. In order to unlock the modding gates on the Galaxy Note II, Odin, the Samsung driver, and a modded stock image with elevated rights enabled must be downloaded. Then "system.img" has to be extracted from the stock image and used in the flashing tool to finally get root up and running. But what about the bootloader?

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