Android

One of the most nerve-wracking things about ordering a product from an online retailer is waiting for the tracking number to appear in your inbox. Sometimes the e-mail ends up in your spam folder or, even worse, it's never sent by the vendor.

Thanks to a free service from FedEx called FedEx Delivery Manager, you can keep track of incoming packages and get alerted the moment the shipping label is created. That's right, you no longer need to wait for a tracking number to be sent to you before you start monitoring it. Going even further, you can … Read more

Of all the great features that come with Android, I think perhaps my favorite is endless customization. If you don't want to root the device to go deep into modifying, there's still so much you can do with just apps. For example, you can give yourself a fancy home screen.

I've gathered a small handful of my favorite home screen apps here, but nothing that requires root access. Rather, these are the sorts of apps you can install and play around with on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Come next weekend, you just might have a completely different-looking … Read more

After an aborted launch last Halloween, the WikiPad Android gaming tablet looks ready to finally hit the market. So says WikiPad Inc., anyway, who this morning declared that its unique gaming device will finally hit shelves this coming Tuesday, June 11 (aka the first official day of E3).

This new WikiPad, you may recall, is a shrunken edition of the 10-inch behemoth (itself an update of the original 8-inch version) the company was showing off last year.

This new model, which came to light this past February, has the same core features as the 10-inch model -- removable standalone Android … Read more

Microsoft's Windows Phone will account for 12.7 percent of all global smartphone shipments in another four years, Canalys said in a forecast released Tuesday.

The growth from just 2.4 percent in 2012 means that Windows Phone will capture third place among all smartphone platforms in 2017, just behind Apple's iOS. To obtain that growth, Microsoft will require an assist not just from Nokia but from Chinese vendors such as Lenovo, Huawei, and ZTE, according to Canalys.

"Nokia is the most active vendor in the Microsoft camp and it continues to make steady progress with its … Read more

Last week Google announced a revamped Gmail experience across both its Web and mobile services. The Web version rolled out later on that same day. We already covered how to activate the new tabs feature, and how to use it once you do, but Android version 4.5 was said to begin rolling out in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Android Police, who happened to grab the Gmail APK, you can download and install the revamped version of Gmail for your Android device right now.

You'll need to download the APK from one of the mirrors on the Android … Read more

In the PC era, Microsoft's Windows dominated with more than 90 percent market share of systems, including desktops and laptops. It was a virtual monopoly, and Microsoft was able to attract the best and brightest talent and developers. With the massive shift to mobile devices, however, Microsoft has fallen behind where the market is heading.

But reports of the death of the PC are premature. According to Net Applications, Microsoft is still the king of the desktop, with about an 83 percent share of the desktop market.

However, that market is in steep decline, with PC sales falling nearly 14 percent … Read more

Twitter is bringing Vine, the popular 6-second looping video application, to Google's Android operating system, months after debuting it for Apple's iOS.

Vine launched on January 24 for people with iPhones and iPads and has climbed to 13 million users, but none for Android. That vacuum, on world's No. 1 mobile operating system platform, forced Android smartphone users into circumventions to view the snippets.

The Android version gets many of the same capabilities: easy video creation with automatic playback and sound; the Explore feature, for discovering popular posts and seeing what's trending; and Find Friends, to … Read more

Update: This article was originally posted on May 30 at 1:31 PM PDT.

Updated on May 31 at 1:35 p.m. PDT: corrects processor. Though the system as listed on reseller sites was confirmed with Acer on Thursday, those specs are incorrect. Resellers are incorrectly showing the AIO with an Intel 4430 processor. It is a Texas Instruments 4430 ARM chip.

Less Windows, more Android. Acer is about to give us a taste of this trend, as Android PCs begin to creep onto the market.

The Acer DA220HQL, which is already live on Acer's site, comes with … Read more