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There's always a pause after someone asks, "Can I have your number?" Someone's silently wondering if complying will mean trouble. What if you didn't have to worry about about that?  Enter the Burner App. For $1.99 per use, iPhone owners can get a disposable, short-term phone number to use for business, pleasure or any combination of the two. From within the app, you choose an area code and ask for a number.  But like a prepaid phone card, when the time expires, no more calling. The number is "burned," or quarantined for two weeks before being recirculated. Fresh Burner numbers are good for talk and text for seven days. During that week, you get up to 20 minutes of talk and 60 texts. You can add time to a burned number, too. An additional 30 days, 50 voice minutes and 150 texts costs about $2.50. Burner requires you to have a phone plan in order to get a temporary line.  Nefarious deeds aside, burnable phone numbers can be useful when conducting transac...

Aug 11, 2012 4:00 PM   I had a dumbphone for a long time, so when I finally got a smartphone, one of the big things I was excited about was using it as an mp3 player. "One less thing to cram in my pockets!" thought I, and I just assumed everyone else felt the same way. Any trimming I had to do to get my collection from one device or another was a joyful chore. Then, I started to notice something odd on the train. I noticed lots of people, perhaps even the majority, would be fiddling with their smartphones but have their headphones connected to an iPod Touch. Even people with iPhones, sometimes. And so I pose the question to you: Do you listen to music on your phone? Why or why not? View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Aug 9, 2012 11:06 PM   For two years, from June 2010 through June 2012, Samsung sold 21.25 million phones. Its most popular model during that span? Not a Galaxy S II phone, not a Nexus phone but the not exactly vaunted... Samsung Galaxy Prevail on Boost Mobile. How do we know this? Because of the Apple-Samsung court battle. Samsung and Apple lawyers had to file documents to the court that detailed the breakdown of their phone and tablet sales which revealed some previously private information to the public. Like how Samsung has only sold a relatively paltry 1.4 million Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices. Or how a phone on Boost Mobile is Samsung's highest seller. The Galaxy Prevail individually sold 2.25 million phones while the entire Galaxy S II series (with all its variants) reached 4.1 million of sales in that two year span. Amazingly, none of the Galaxy S II variants beat the Galaxy Prevail head to head. That Prevail, which is a decidedly low-end Android model that only ...

Aug 10, 2012 11:00 PM   Dirty pictures, dirty texts, top secret work info, contact information for who knows who—our phones are like little vaults containing all our most super top secret important info. And yet... A good friend of mine recently woke up to find he'd left his phone (a Blackberry, sucker!) at some girl's apartment, in a state of drunken oblivion the night before. Obviously the phone is just brimming with all manner of juicy and inappropriate text messages. And she's been reading them, no doubt. Which serves him right... right? His is a textbook case for keeping your smartphone password protected. The thing is, I can totally understand why it wasn't. Mine isn't either. Sure, I've tried it before. But usually the password only lasts a day; entering in that little 4-digit code every time I want to check my email or texts or Twitter or whatever—it is just too annoying. Exasperating. Luckily, I'm more careful with who gets their grubby mits on my...

Aug 9, 2012 1:20 PM   Apple is convinced that Samsung are just a bunch of shameless copycats, but as this patent shows, Samsung went and conjured up an innovation Apple didn't have the foresight to do themselves: make a phone that sprays perfume. Yes, perfume. When the scentphone market blows up in 2020, it'll be Apple having to defend itself from copycat claims. [USPTO via Engadget via Ubergizmo] View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Aug 7, 2012 11:20 PM   It's long been considered in poor taste to check your texts and emails and assorted other smartphone features while out on a date or socializing in close company. But is it possible that this social taboo is no longer worthy of being considered such a social crime? At this point, the odds are in your favor that whomever you're out with will have a smartphone, too. And you're probably going to receive a few texts in your time together. Maybe they'll be important, maybe they'll just be your mom saying she loves you (which: important, but not urgent ). But perhaps it's okay, finally, to acknowledge the need to check our phones for a second, just to make sure we're not needed. Should we ease up on the stigma at this point? Or is it still just plain rude? Image via Tawkify View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating...

Aug 7, 2012 5:40 PM   The PlayStation Vita has not exactly been the runaway success that Sony had hoped it would be. It's partly due to a lack of compelling games, and partly due to competition from smartphones. And the GameKlip could very well be the last nail in the Vita's coffin. The most common critique of smartphone gaming is a lack of hardware controls. Touchscreens can be finicky for certain action-based titles, so the GameKlip provides an easy way to attach an Android-based smartphone to the iconic PlayStation DualShock controller. It's really nothing more than a $15 laser-cut ABS plastic adapter that combines a phone and PS3 controller into a single unit—but it vastly improves the playability of many smartphone games. You will need to be able to root your Android handset and install Dancing Pixel Studios' Sixaxis Controller app for wireless Bluetooth support. But if that's not an option a USB-tethered version of the GameKlip is also available for $23. Th...

Jul 26, 2012 5:49 PM   Zuck's on the phone with (antsy) investors right now, and, of course, the question of the unicorn Facebook Phone came up. His reply? No, The Book isn't building a phone. "Building out a phone wouldn't make sense for us to do," to be precise. And he's probably right! This, of course, doesn't mean that Facebook can't ask, say, HTC, to build a "Facebook Phone" instead of Facebook building its own Facebook Phone internally. They already tried that once, remember? View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Jul 26, 2012 5:49 PM   Zuck's on the phone with (antsy) investors right now, and, of course, the question of the unicorn Facebook Phone came up. His reply? No, The Book isn't building a phone. "Building out a phone wouldn't make sense for us to do," to be precise. And he's probably right! This, of course, doesn't mean that Facebook can't ask, say, HTC, to build a "Facebook Phone" instead of Facebook building its own Facebook Phone internally. They already tried that once, remember? View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Jul 26, 2012 1:49 PM   Google is now letting you perform searches by just scribbling a few letters on the face of your phone or tablet. Handwrite is a new function on iOS and Android that should help you search for and find stuff more quickly. To use it, you just have to go to google.com on your device, and enable Handwrite in your Search Settings. After that, you can draw a few letters anywhere on the page, and after a moment pause, the text will be dumped into the search bar, with autocomplete options, and the keyboard. Looks really convenient for when you're running around, or know exactly what you're looking for, but don't want to type out a full name. Plus, it's not like mobile keyboards are thaaaat much better than what you'd get with your finger. [Google] View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Jul 24, 2012 4:00 PM   Gargantuan Android phones are everywhere. But a lot of people just want something smaller. The Incredible 4G is one of the few phones that isn't the size of a dinner plate, but it also raises a question: Does an Android OS even make sense on smaller screens anymore? The best HTC phone on Verizon—which did not get the HTC One series. Android fans who love small phones. HTC Sense enthusiasts. Beats by Dre fans, maybe, but probably not. It's an HTC phone. It's solidly built, with a matte rubberized back. It's thick enough that, when you first pick it up, you're not sure if it has a slide-out keyboard or not. Using the Incredible never feels like using a premium phone. It's fast, until it's not. Lag creeps in under medium loads. With several apps running, actions like returning to the home page slow to a crawl. The camera. HTC's been making good cameras for a while, going back to the Amaze last year, and definitely including the One ...

Jul 23, 2012 4:40 PM   The original Motorola Atrix was a big star of CES 2011. Despite the fact that it morphed into the world's worst laptop, the phone itself actually held its own. Now, the Atrix is back. The gimmicks are gone, and what's left is a solid, affordable phone with a sharp HD screen and a speedy OS. Is the new Atrix about to make a splash again? A $100, 4.5-inch, 720x1280 phone running Android 4.0 (ICS) on AT&T's speedy LTE network. Business users, as Motorola pitches it—but, really, anyone who wants a solid Android phone. It's plasticky and blocky, but with that cool Kevlar back that debuted with the RAZR. The buttonless navigation is more like an Android tablet than a comparable HTC or Samsung phone. Performance is surprisingly zippy throughout and the camera has virtually no shutter lag. Motorola's new MotoBLUR skin sticks close to stock Android—and Gizmodo's comparison of the major Android skins proved that that's that's a good th...