Gadget Venue

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has been out a while now. Today we noticed that rooting the X10 is now possible thanks to the guys over at XDA Developers.

Several developers over on the XDA forums are responsible for the work. A thread has been created that shows a step by step way to root the X10. Depending on which X10 model you have depends on which method you choose although they all look as simple as each other, so it’s just a matter of making sure you select the right model number from the instructions. [Read more…]

Last week a system error caused Verizon [VZ] to ship 170 Motorola DROID X smartphones early. The DROID X isn’t being launched till July 15 (another 3 days time). When users received the DROID X, the device couldn’t be activated which meant users had to wait till the official launch to use their new smartphone.

Verizon have now made a change to it’s systems that allows the 170 DROID X users to activate their new phone.

In an announcement on the Verizon site it said that provisions had been put in place that allow DROID X users to activate as of July 9. [Read more…]

John Morrell is a researcher over at Yale University who is working on a system which is able to warn drivers of dangers by vibrating a car seat.

The system uses a bunch of cell phone vibration motors attached to the underside of the seat. The system vibrates each time a car approaches allowing drivers to know when to look more closely for dangers that might be lurking.

While driving the motors are going all the time at a slow speed and when a car approaches the motors speed up. As well as speeding up the system detects what side of the road the car is coming at you. For example, if a car is pulling out of a drive way then one side will vibrate more and if a car passes on the other side of the road the other side of motors will vibrate more to let you know where the danger is. [Read more…]

Google [GOOG] has launched Google App Inventor. The software allows users to create apps for Android based smartphones by using an easy to use user interface to drag and drop elements on to a page.

The system uses blocks which you drag and drop on to a virtual phone screen. When the functions are on the page you can then edit actions and so forth to create interactive applications.

The application is not just limited to simple apps either. The App Inventor software gives users access to sensors and other functions of the phone allowing them to create more in-depth applications. [Read more…]

For those of you who still have the trusty T-Mobile G1 kicking around, you are now in for a treat as Cyanogen has released an Android 2.2 Froyo build for the smartphone.

Running Android 2.2 on a G1 apparently works well although it does lack a few features such as Adobe Flash 10.1 and it does on occasion see the Force Close box pop up which might put a few people off. Either way, it’s an early build and one that will be updated we assume over the next month to iron out a few remaining issues.

It’s certainly a good step in the right direction as many people said that the G1 was stuck on Android 1.6 and laughed last year at the idea of even 2.0 running. We then of course saw 2.1 and now see 2.2. [Read more…]

Yesterday Fring launched an update to it’s iPhone app for those using iOS 4 and in particular, the iPhone 4 it’s self. The new update allows users to make video calls to other devices such as Android, Nokia and anything else running or connecting through Fring. Video calls were enabled via 3G or WiFi.

Thanks to a huge amount of people uploading and testing video calling from their iPhone 4, Fring has had to take down support for Skype temporarily. When logging on to Fring today you may have noticed that Skype contacts are gone as well as the small square login box for Skype found on the Add-Ons menu. [Read more…]