A while back, we brought you a story about the Android Market licensing server, and the ways in which it can help developers protect their applications from piracy.  Today, we’re going to look at a key component of that licensing server, which is the License Verification Library (LVL).  The LVL simplifies the process of adding licensing to your app, and helps to make it more secure from illegal piracy.

No security system is perfect, and the LVL is no exception.  However, effectively utilizing this tool can make a hackers life so miserable, that they may be far less inclined to try and crack your application for illegal distribution.  Here are some methods developers can use for preventing hackers from attempting to disassemble the LVL code from the application.

• You can obfuscate your application to make it difficult to reverse-engineer.
• You can modify the licensing library itself to make it difficult to apply common cracking techniques.
• You can make your application tamper-resistant.
• You can offload license validation to a trusted server.

If you are a developer and are looking for a very in-depth look at the License Verification Library and the ways in which you can implement it, hit up the source link below.

Securing Android applications with the License Verification Library

HTC’s SenseUI definitely has its positives and negatives, but most people have good things to say about their weather widget. Some people even like it so much that they’ll port it onto their PCs.

Called HTC Home, it’s an obvious port of the weather widget from SenseUI. The widget itself is pretty customizable, you can resize it, put it in the taskbar, switch animations on/off and change your location pretty easily (as seen above). If you’re not sure how well this works, just check out the video:

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Love the HTC weather widget? Get it for your Vista/W7 PC

GigaOM’s website, NewTeeVee.com, posted an article today demoing Flash running on Android via a Nexus One. In the article they end up describing Flash for Android as ’shockingly bad’. This raises an important question to all people using Flash 10.1 on Mobile Devices; should we expect all Flash on the web to run perfectly on our mobile devices. Here is the video demo in question:

The presenter is a guy name Kevin Tofel. I see a key flaw in Kevin’s experiment. The flaw being that he has tested Flash in just about the worst examples for mobile possible. Here is my reasoning:

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Flash on Android ‘Shockingly Bad’ According to Website

DoubleTwist, the application with the ability to be to Android devices as iTunes is to iPhones, has announced a slew of great new features in their coming update. They have announced that they will be releasing a new website, and that it is intended to be “the iTunes.com of Android” with support for the Amazon MP3 Store later this fall, as well as the ability to install apps to your phone via your desktop (AppBrain, anyone?).

They also mention that their new desktop client will be the happy recipient of faster syncing and improved media library management. There is also talk of the Android DoubleTwist app getting the ability to use FM radio (we assume you would require the appropriate hardware), as well as syncing over wifi.

Sounds pretty good to us, but we want to know what you think! Be sure to leave your comments below!

DoubleTwist adds new features and website

All of you Galaxy S owners out there may have noticed that audio sounds amazing on your device.  Well, that audio quality can be enhanced even further by utilizing the SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround technology built right into the phone.  To turn on this feature, which provides an accurate 5.1 surround effect through any stereo headphone, simply touch the (5.1ch.) button within either the embedded Music Player or Video Player.

Other features of SRS 5.1 include Dialog Clarity, which boosts the frequency range of the human voice, and a drastic increase in bass response.  So go ahead, try out this cool feature and let us know how it sounds in the comment section below.

SRS 5.1 Virtual Surround on Samsung Galaxy S phones

Droid owners everywhere have been enjoying their long awaited serving of Froyo, but with one small catch: the initial release was not compatible with the Flash 10.1 build found in the Android Market, which is one of the big draws of Android 2.2 in the first place.  Well, Verizon has begun pushing an OTA update which fixes this Flash incompatibility.  From Verizon’s official statement:

“Verizon Wireless has begun pushing an update today to the DROID by Motorola (introduced November 2009) that will allow customers to download Adobe Flash 10.1 via Android Market. Flash Player 10.1 provides access to millions of sites with rich content including animations, casual games, videos, rich internet applications, audio and much more.”

There is no word yet regarding how quickly the update is expected to roll out, and as many of you know far too well, sometimes it can take a while.  We’d love to hear from you, so leave us a comment if you’ve received this update.

Verizon pushing Droid OTA update for Flash 10.1 compatibility

The Galaxy S, one of Samsung’s most popular current devices and possible plot to take over the universe, is not without issues. You may have read before about the GPS bug that has been plaguing Galaxy S users (as well as the fix for it), but now there seems to be another problem cropping up.

It seems that, if you have a file with 16 or more characters in the file extension (For example, file1.abcdefghijklmnop), the phone may crash, resulting in it becoming unable to connect back to Kies software. Example video of the issue below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In an official (translated) statement from Samsung France, they say:

We discovered that in very limited circumstances does connect the Samsung S Galaxy to a PC via the utility Kies may cause an auto-reset of the product. This happens in cases where the product contains files whose extension includes more than 16 characters. Deleting these files remedy the problem.

Any of our readers out there experience this problem? While we definitely don’t rec commend you try the bug to see if it happens, be sure to let us know if it already has in the comments below!

Galaxy S reported to have new software bug

Love your Galaxy S phone but hate TouchWiz 3.0? Fear not Galaxy S users, for there are some very crafty people working on getting vanilla Android 2.1 working on your precious Hummingbird driven devices. It’s not exactly working 100% though, with the biggest bug being the camera. It doesn’t work… at all. But anyway, once all of the kinks get worked out, who’s ready to jump on some plane-jane Android for their Galaxy S? Let us know in the comments and click on after the break for the video.

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Samsung Galaxy S gets vanilla Android 2.1

The Samsung Vibrant is certainly an awesome phone right out of the box, but why not make it leaner, meaner, faster, and louder right? Below are some of my favorite mods/hacks that I have found and am using on my device. (But be sure to check out our general Galaxy S tips and tricks as well.)

Set The Volume to 11!

This mod will boost the maximum volume of your phone. It is unknown if this will cause any damage to your device to run it at full volume but it may cause hearing loss if its up next to your head. Root is not required for this.

Dialer *#*#197328640#*#*
[5] AUDIO
[1] HANDSET
[1] VOLUME
[1] SRC Speech RX Volume
[5]5_lvl : 88
Menu -> Key Input
Change to 100
OK
Press back to save.

Default values:
0_lvl: 63
1_lvl: 68
2_lvl: 73
3_lvl: 78
4_lvl: 83
5_lvl: 88

Source: bchalk via [XDA Forums]

Continue reading after the break for the other three tips:

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Four great Samsung Vibrant mods

Trillian, the popular multi-protocal IM client, released an Android version today in the form of an open beta. Some of the IM protocols include, but are not limited to, AIM, Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, and IRC.  You are required to register for a Trillian account to use the app, but all of your accounts are stored in the cloud and can be accessed on the desktop version as well.

Some of the other features include landscape mode, tabbed chat, and those Trillian emoticons we all know and love.  Check out the beta site here, and grab the download link below to check it out for yourself.

[thanks to all who sent this in!]

Trillian for Android released as open beta