Verizon to allow shared Family Data Plans by Mid 2012, Verizon “Loyalty” Offer, Skype arrives on Windows Phone.

Smartphone Briefs

By Chris Coleman|@PhoneKnack

Verizon’s CTO Fran Shammo revealed that Verizon Wireless will be offering shared family data plans to Verizon Wireless customers by the middle of this year. The rumor has been circulating for a while, Shammo said that Verizon has been working on this for a year, so that everything will be smooth once the shared family plans are launched.

Unfortunately the rollout of these shared plans will begin with current 4G subscribers, so 3G users, looks like it’s time to upgrade.

Filed under: Android, General technology, Hardware, Media, Preview, Services, Software, Windows Phone 7, WP7, 3g users, 4g users, beta, Chris Coleman, cto fran shammo, customers, Data, family data, Free, gold version, Google, HTC Corporation, htc radar, loyal, Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, Motorola, MOTOROLA DROID RAZR, MWC, Nokia, nokia lumia 710, nokia lumia 800, plans, rollout, Samsung, Samsung Focus, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, samsung stratosphere, shared data  android, shared family data plans, Skype, upgrade, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, verizon wireless htc titan, Windows Phone, windows phone marketplace

GetJar announces Virtual Currency for Android

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

Brian Hickey GetJar Developer Relations

Brian Hickey GetJar Developer Relations spokesman announced “Virtual Currency for Android” in the latest developers newsletter. Virtual Currency is an expansion of the GetJar Gold Program (free premium apps) that will reward consumer loyalty and improve monetization across the Android ecosystem explained Hickey.

Consumers can earn GetJar Gold virtual currency by downloading supported Android apps, and can spend the virtual currency on Premium apps and in-app purchases. GetJar Gold claims that the virtual currency can be used with any Android apps from any app store, including GetJar, Android Market and Amazon.

Filed under: Android, Breaking News, Gaming, General technology, Google, Media, Preview, Services, Software, Amazon Appstore, Android, Android Market, AppStore, Brian Hickey, feature, featured, GetJar, GetJar Gold, GetJar Gold Virtual Currency, GetJar SDK, GetJar SDK to support virtual currency, GetJar Virtual Currency, global markets, global virtual currency, Ilja Laurs, in-app purchases, Real versus nominal value (economics), user experience, Virtual currency, Virtual Currency for Android, virtual market

Google having Leap Year Music Sale: 29 Albums for $2.99

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

Google is offering 29 albums for its $2.99 Leap Year sale promotion which is available today in the Android Market. Follow the Android Market Link to take advantage of the offer.

If you like this article, please share it with your friends and contacts on Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter using the following buttons so that they can also enjoy the article:

Filed under: Android, General technology, Google, Media, Music, $2.99 music sale promotion in Android Market, 29 Albums for $2.99, Android Market music leap year promotion, Google $2.99 music sale, Google Android, Google Android Market, Google Leap year music sale, Google Music Sale

LSDroid offers free lifetime licenses of Cerberus anti-theft app in celebration of reaching 100,000 user mark.

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

LS Droid is offering free lifetime licenses of Cerberus an Android anti-theft app through February 29 in celebration of reaching the 100,000 user milestone.

In order to take advantage of the offer, download the app which normally includes a 1 week free trial and register an account including your desired username, password and email address within the application. Then fill out this Cerberus Google docs file, all licenses will be activated on March 1.

The license will be associated with your Cerberus account, you can protect up to 5 devices per account.

Filed under: Android, General technology, Google, Media, Quick look, Software, Android, android anti-theft software, anti-theft app, Cerberus, Cerberus anti-theft app, email address, free lifetime licenses of Cerberus, Google Docs, licenses, lock, Lock your phone, LSDroid, mobile anti-theft software, Remote control, SD Card, Secure Digital, secure your phone with sms, SIM, sim card, Subscriber Identity Module, text messages, Theft, theft recovery app, User (computing), username, www.cerberusapp.com

Unlock Your iPhone With a SIM card, Tweeticide: Allows iOS users to delete all of their Tweets at once.

Smartphone Briefs

By Chris Coleman|@PhoneKnack

The Gevey Ultra S is a now up for preorder for $55 and will unlock your iPhone without the need for a jailbreak. Unfortunately this sim unlock only works for GSM phones meaning only users of AT&T and TMobile will be able to use the Gevey Ultra S. Verizon and Sprint users have to figure out another option. The Gevey Ultra S will begin shipping March 3rd.

The Gevey Ultra S boasts the following feature set –

• GEVEY™ True Plug-and-Play Unlocking SIM Interposer
• No Need to Dial International Emergency Number 112
• Untethered Unlock with no Jailbreak Required
• Compatible with all GSM iPhone 4S SIM Cards (Does not work on CDMA iPhone)

Filed under: Apple, General technology, Hardware, Services, Software, app, App Store, Apple, AT&T, CDMA, Chris Coleman, embarrassing  apple, Gevey, Gevey Ultra S, GSM, iOS, IPad, iPhone, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, ITunes, SIM, sim unlock, Sprint, Subscriber Identity Module, Tmobile, Tweeticide, tweets, Twitter, unlock, Verizon

EaseUS Software CleanGenius Pro limited time giveaway promotion

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

EaseUS Software is offering a limited time giveaway of its Mac utility CleanGenius Pro to Celebrate Steve Jobs birthday. The utility is normally available for $2.99 in the Mac AppStore but is available for free till February 29. To take advantage of the offer follow this EaseUS link.

CleanGenius Pro is a Mac system maintenance utility that claims to improve Mac System performance by removing junk files from the System and User caches and logs, unwanted user downloads, and emptying the trash files.

Filed under: Apple, General technology, Mac, Media, Preview, Quick look, Services, Software, Apple, CleanGenius Pro, Disk Management, Disk space, EaseUS, free space monitor, limited time giveaway, Mac, Mac OS, mac uninstaller, Mac Utilitiy, Operating Systems, promotion, software, Steve Jobs promotion, Uninstaller, utility, Utility software, Vacuum, www.easemac.com

10 Search Engines That Don’t Start with a G, B, or Y

by Christine Kane

internetserviceproviders.org

In the world of online search engines, most people stop with the Big Three. Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search are indisputably the most widely used. For those who like to run off the beaten path or march to the beat of their own search engine, here are ten alternatives to consider the next time you need to find information online.

1. AltaVista – In operation since 1995, AltaVista is one of the web’s search trailblazers, and is still in operation today. For those of us who were around in the wild days of the internet’s infancy, the fact that the familiar name is still an existing entity might come as a surprise. Though they retained the name and url, AltaVista search was acquired by Yahoo! in 2003.
2. WebCrawler – If searching the Big Three individually just won’t do, spin all of them into one search with WebCrawler. With a single-query system that uses metasearch technology to trawl most of the major-player engines in one go, you’ll also find multimedia results and local news.
3. DuckDuckGo – DuckDuckGo is a pared-down approach to web searching, offering prompts for disambiguation and a zero-click feature that plops information in an easy-to-spot red box above the link results and a no-tracking policy for the privacy-minded user.
4. Ask – Once known as AskJeeves, Ask.com is another longtime player in the online world. A unique approach to results grouping and simple presentation make Ask a standout.
5. MetaCrawler – Taking its name from the metasearch technology that allows a single-query search of several indexed engines, MetaCrawler’s popularity peaked in the late 90′s, but the site is still in use and relatively popular today.

Filed under: General technology, Media, Services, 10 Search Engines That Don’t Start with a G, AltaVista, Ask, B, Bing, Dogpile, Duck Duck Go, Google, Info, Lycos, Mahalo, MetaCrawler, or Y, search, Web search engine, WebCrawler, Yahoo

Latest Swype Beta update features Nuance’s Dragon Dictation software

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

There are a lot of great keyboards for Android. I have been an especially fickle consumer regularly jumping between a number of excellent choices. If you haven’t had a chance to use Swype with Dragon Dictate you’re in for a treat, it’s a great keyboard with an easy-to-use and very accurate voice recognition app that allows you to speak your text and have it transcribed automatically.

The latest Swype keyboard beta integrates directly with Nuance’s latest Android app Dragon Go which utilizes advanced language modeling for an up to 40% increase in prediction accuracy. The application learns over time as you use it, building up a personal language profile for you.

Filed under: Android, Beta, General technology, Google, Media, Preview, Quick look, Services, Software, Android, Canadian, Downloadable, Dragon Dictation, Dragon Go, DragonDictate, English, Keyboard layout, Language model, language modeling, Nuance, Speech recognition, Swype, Swype Beta, Swype keyboard, voice recognition

CyanogenMod 9 boot animation posted

by George Heymann|@techeadlines

technology-headlines.com

I have been a CyanogenMod fan for some time now, I’m currently running a custom CM7 Gingerbread rom on a couple of my smartphones. I have briefly run an early Alpha version of a CyanogenMod 9 ICS Rom that is surprisingly stable and responsive for such an early version of the ROM.

I really enjoyed using the ICS ROM, but went back to the Gingerbread ROM because the camera is not yet supported on the Alpha ROM. As soon as this feature is added I will be re-flashing my phone to CM9. (Boot animation video after the break)

Filed under: Android, General technology, Media, Preview, Services, Software, 73v1N, Android, Cameron Bezadpour, CM9, CM9 boot animation, Cyanogen Mod 9, CyanogenMod, CyanogenMod 9 boot animation, HP TouchPad, Neutral build, Nook, Samsung, Software release life cycle, Xeon

iPhone 5 design rumors, your chance to win a Lumia 800 from Nokia, HTC X looking to steal the show at MWC

Smartphone Briefs

By Chris Coleman|@PhoneKnack

With Mobile World Congress (MWC) rapidly approaching phone leaks abound, MWC is the perfect stage for companies to unveil their products. According to the latest unsubstantiated rumors the iPhone 5 is slightly taller and wider than the 4 and 4S. The front facing camera is also higher resolution on the iPhone 5.

Is Apple looking to shape-up the front facing camera game on smartphones? If these rumors are true, we are on the edge of our seats awaiting further details about the iPhone 5.

If you head on over to Nokia’s Facebook page you will see a contest to win a white Nokia Lumia 800. The game is simple, upon opening the page, you will have 60 seconds to catch a white tile by clicking on it. After catching the tile a score will be displayed and you will be asked to enter your info for a chance to win.

Filed under: Android, Apple, Hardware, iOS, Preview, Services, Software, Windows Phone 7, WP7, Android, Apple, Barcelona, HTC, HTC Corporation, HTC X, iPhone, iPhone 5, Leaks, Mobile World Congress, MWC, Nokia, Nokia Facebook page, Nokia Lumia 800 contest, Samsung