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You have a tablet. You have an NFC enabled device. You have a thirst for anything awesome (read as: beer). So, what do you do? Well, if you’re Google employee Paul Carriff, you’d probably respond with something along the lines of “make a beer dispenser”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Paul has taken a Motorola Xoom tablet and combined an Ardunio board to make this totally awesome beer dispenser, seen above. The way it works is simple. You have an NFC tag that literally cards you, as your age is built into the tag. You scan, and the dispenser gives it out, in perfectly defined increments. The Xoom even verifies that the beer is kept at an icy, refreshing 39 degrees Fahrenheit.

androidcommunity

Here’s a bit of news that should be welcomed by our North-of-the-Border friends.  Samsung Canada has begun releasing Android 4.0 updates to a number of their Galaxy products.  Starting today and rolling out over the next few weeks, the following nine products will see their Ice Cream Sandwich update.

• GALAXY S II
• GALAXY S II LTE
• GALAXY S II LTE HD
• GALAXY S II X
• GALAXY Note
• GALAXY Tab 7.0
• GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus
• GALAXY Tab 8.9
• GALAXY Tab 10.1

“We are passionate about providing the best possible mobile experience to Canadians and the upgrade to Android 4.0 will offer an improved user experience for Samsung GALAXY devices,” said Paul Brannen, Vice President, Mobile Communications at Samsung Canada. “We expect that our customers will enjoy an enhanced experience with their GALAXY device through this upgrade and we remain committed, alongside our carrier partners, to satisfy our customer needs”.

If you’ve got one of the aforementioned smartphones or tablets then you are advised to keep an eye open for update notifications.  The timing of your particular update will depend on the device and carrier so don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away!

EETimes

In a move that shouldn’t really surprise anyone, LG has decided to set development of Windows Phone hardware in lieu of using Android for more handsets. LG has been known to bring to the market some great devices such as the new LG Lucid and LG Thrill 4G, and (as shown at MWC by the complete lack of anything WP-related) has been able to bring up a profit for the first time in 7 quarters of turning over losses, greatly due to the Android device market.

What do you think this means as far as what we can expect in the future from LG? Let us know in the comments.

androidcentral

Yesterday, we showed you a leaked Sony device which will be launched in July, and there was another device in the roadmap known as Tapioca. The device today showed up at TechBlog, alongside Sony Xperia S. The device is scheduled for July and it will be the tiniest member of Sony Xperia series. 

As it will be an entry-level device, it will be featuring specs like a single-core 800MHz Qualcomm processor, 512MB of RAM, 3.2-inch display with HVGA resolution, 3MP camera, and other goodies. More will be revealed in July when the phone will make its official début.

On the roadmap, another device was mentioned which is Tapioca-DS, and probably that device is the same but featuring a sliding QWERTY keyboard. Like if you remember the SE Xperia X10 Mini and Mini Pro, it’s probably the same situation. Anyway, let’s wait till July and see what Sony got for us in their stove.

Anyone interested in Sony’s upcoming smartphone line or you are happy with the Xperia S? Tell us in the comment box below.

Source: Xperia Blog

If you are one of the Sony Tablet S users, then you’re in luck. After all the working and coding, the Android 4.0 release for Sony Tablet S is finally here, and the update is a breath of cool, fresh, Ice Cream-y air.  It brings all the good Android 4.0 stuff to the tablet which will include things like: 

• Enhanced lock screen
  • Direct access to Notifications
  • Unlock direct to camera
• New panoramic camera mode
• Enhanced Gallery media viewer
  • Direct SD card access + photo editing tools
• Exclusive “Small Apps’ for multi-tasking
  • Calculator, Browser, Remote Control
  • Move to screen edge for reduced clutter
• New Home Screen actions
  • Drag icons together to create folders
  • Add names to folders
• Enhanced web browser
  • Switch from mobile to desktop web sites
  • Save pages for offline viewing
• Access files directly from SD card
• Native screenshot capture
  • Press “power” and “Volume –“

If you are using the Tablet S, then connect to Wi-Fi, your Sony Tablet S should prompt you to do a system update, click OK and after few minutes, your tasty Ice Cream Sandwich should be ready, so folks, try the new update and share your thoughts with us in the comment box below.

Source: Sony

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed any problems with moving their users from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010? I have noticed that my users with 9350 and 9650 devices have around a 50% failure rate when moving. The user’s exchange accounts move just fine and then I move their BES accounts to a new BES server (that is using a separate BES service account for exchange 2010 and it has all necessary rights on their AD accounts) and then I run the handheldcleanup on the target server. The devices sometimes run through the mini activation just fine and are working but atleast half the time the devices act like they never receive the command and I am forced to perform a reactivation on the devices.

I have tested this over and over again and looked through the logs on the servers and the servers show that they are just waiting on the devices to check back that they acknowledged the move. Here is the fun part if I perform the same type of migration with users on 9930 devices they move 100% of the time with no issues at all.

I am wondering if there isnt a bug with the older devices and their firmware’s that could be causing this. Firmwares range from 5.0.0.724 to 6.0.0.524 as ones that I have had issues with.

Verizon has gone back to using their famous “Droid Does” line to promote some of their Android smartphones, as evidenced in the Youtube video below.  Gone are the days of scaring consumers into buying a powerful hardware beast capable of doing just about anything.  At least that is our hope.  If this first clip is a sign of things to come, then we can expect to see a campaign that still promotes all the great things that Android phones do, but in a more subtle manner.

What do you think of the kinder, gentler Droid Does ad below?