As geeks and nerds ourselves, we know it’s sometimes tough to get a girl to notice you, let alone pay enough attention to you to get a date or, dare we say it, a relationship. These days with the popularity of the online world and sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterst, it’s often more difficult to meet people in real life, connect with them and try to take things to the next level.

Fortunately, there’s an upside to the isolation of the online world and if you’re too busy, too shy or too lazy to leave Mom’s basement long enough to meet people IRL, there’s a way for you to simulate having most of the benefits of a girlfriend — and all it will cost you is $5.

That’s right fellow nerds, we introduce you to the website GirlFriendHire. It’s a place where you can go, pick from one of the many attractive (and less so ) girls listed there and pay them to be your girlfriend on Facebook or perform other tasks for you.

What do you get for your hard earned scratch? Well, your new gal can post sexy messages on your Facebook wall, send you sexy text messages or even send pictures of herself to your phone to make all your fellow nerds jealous. The girls will also perform other mundane tasks like help with homework or teach you how to use your iPhone.

No, they won’t actually meet you in real life or perform any “personal” services, but hey, who cares? At least you’ll look like a stud where it counts: on Facebook, in the Skyrim forums or wherever else geeks and nerds congregate en masse online these days.

Continue Reading →

As most of you probably know, the iPhone is an extremely popular smartphone which has been sold to millions of customers around the world. In fact, most of us here at The Flickcast use the iPhone on a daily basis as our smartphone of choice.

But just because the iPhone is popular and most of us use it, that doesn’t mean we don’t take a shine to other smartphones worth checking out. One such device coming soon is HTC’s Incredible 4G, which is headed to Verizon Wireless later this month.

Up until now, details on the new device have been relatively scarce. We do know it’s been approved by the FCC and is expected to be released soon. Fortunately, the folks over at Android Police have dug a little deeper and come up with even more info.

Not only do they have some new info on specs, they also managed to snag a few photos of the device as well. Regarding specs, the display will reportedly be 4″ in size and the device will be powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor.

Continue Reading →

Much like death and taxes, another inevitable fact of life is change. When it comes to products and services, often change is for the better and helps a product or service improve and attract new customers while solving some of the complaints of existing ones.

That’s one of the things Google is trying to accomplish by giving its relatively new, yet successful with over 170 million users, social media service Google+ a facelift. The changes, announced late yesterday and rolling out for all users over the next few days, introduces a more “functional and flexible user experience.”

The new interface focuses largely on customization and Google’s Hangout video chatting service which gets new features to make it easier to discover conversations and new profile pages. There’s also a new navigation bar perched to the left of the screen.

This so-called “ribbon of applications” can be dragged, dropped and placed in any order. The new interface also features a Facebook-like chat bar on the right with a “Trending” widget to help users discover popular topics. There’s also a dedicated Hangout page which will help users by giving them quick access to popular hangouts, tips and live broadcast.

For more on the new design, click through to check out Google’s official video on the subject.

Continue Reading →

With the exploding popularity of smartphones like Apple’s iPhone, there was also a corresponding rise in the number of people taking photos with those devices. One of the most popular photo apps ever to hit the iPhone is Instagram.

Since its release, Instragram has been exclusive to the iPhone. However, as we previously told you, that exclusivity is now at an end because, as of today, the app has been released for Android.

In case you haven’t used Instagram (you really should, btw), the app allows users to capture photos and edit them using a number of filters that give images a cool “retro” look. Users can also use selective focus tools to enhance and customize photos further.

Said pictures can then be shared with other Instagram users and also on Twitter, Facebook or via email. Filters can be applied to images imported from a device’s camera roll as well.

The new Android version of Instagram supports devices running Android 2.2 or later. It is available immediately for free in the Google Play store.

Given the proliferation of smartphones with decent to very good cameras, it made sense that what followed was a whole lot of camera and photography apps for those smartphones. Among the most popular for iOS devices, with over 27 million registered users, is Instagram.

But what of Android and its users? Are they supposed to sit on the sidelines and not be able to enjoy all that Instagram goodness?Not much longer, apparently. As we previously reported, the app was announced for Android in December but not specific release dat was given.

However, at the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger of Instagram hinted that the Android version of their app is coming “really soon.” In fact, Systrom briefly showed the app running on his Galaxy Nexus and claimed that “it’s one of the most amazing Android apps you’ll ever see, in some ways, it’s better than our iPhone app.”

Continue Reading →

Even though we love Apple’s iPhone here at The Flickcast, that doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally look at offerings from the Windows and Android world. In fact, if there was a phone other than the iPhone we would use, it would probably be the Galaxy S from Samsung.

Mostly due to the tight integration with Google and the Android OS, the Galaxy S is a smartphone we can see taking the place of, or being side by side with, our beloved iPhones. But up until now, we’ve resisted the temptation.

However, thanks to the diligent folks at BGR, we now know that the Galaxy S III is coming soon and we also know that the specs on this new device are going to be even harder to resist. Here’s the specs:

Continue Reading →

You have to hand it to Google. Even though it’s a fight between their Android OS and Apple’s iOS for dominance of the smartphone, they do come up with the better names for their software releases.

Apple pretty much sticks to numbers, with iOS 5 being the latest, while Google is now at Android 4.0 — which has the much cooler name of Ice Cream Sandwich. It is about that very delicious-sounding Android release we are talking today.

HTC has announced via their Facebook page that an Ice Cream Sandwich update will be available for some of its devices by the end of March. First in line to get the update will reportedly be the Sensation, Sensation 4G and Sensation XE. Then, a little later, the Sensation XL.

The Rezound, Vivid, Amaze 4G, EVO 3D, EVO Design 4G, Incredible S, Desire S and Desire HD will all be updated “later this year.”

So HTC users, how does this make you feel? Are you excited for some Ice Cream Sandwich action?

For those of you loving Google’s Chrome Browser on your desktop or laptop computers and who also have an Android-powered phone, this is a great day. Why? Well, as you can probably guess from the headline above, Google has announced the first beta release of the Chrome Web browser for Android-powered smartphones and tablets.

“Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s SVP of Chrome and Apps, wrote on the company’s blog.

Chrome for Android is available immediately as a free download in the Android Market. It is compatible with smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0 or later. As I user of Chrome on Mac OS X I can only hope they release a version of Chrome for the iPhone. Although, knowing Apple’s reluctance to share, I won’t hold my breath.

If you want to see the Chrome browser for Android in action before your decide to try it yourself, check out the video from Google after the break.

Continue Reading →

When I first heard about the Amazon Kindle Fire, as a fan of Amazon and its earlier Kindle models, I was hopeful. In fact, I put down my $199.00 as soon as the company started taking orders.

Then, it arrived and with a mixture of excitement and anticipation, I opened the box and got my first real look at the Fire. Sadly, my excitement turned to disappointment as I put the Kindle Fire through its paces. Sure, it has some nice features and makes ordering content from Amazon extremely easy, but in many other ways it came up short.

In the end, even at $199.00, I decided it wasn’t for me and sent it back to Amazon for a refund. Apparently, I am not alone as reports have been coming it hat many others have been doing the same thing.

Fortunately for those still using the Fire, Amazon is set to address some of the concerns with an upcoming software update for the Fire. “In less than two weeks, we’re rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire,” Amazon spokesperson Drew Herdener told The New York Times in a recent interview.

According to Herdener, the update will improve multitouch performance on the device and will also enable a feature that allows users to edit their usage history on the tablet. That’s all well and good but it won’t address the physical problems I had with the device such as the lack of a volume control and the placement of the on/off switch which, it seems, is designed to be in exactly the wrong place no matter how you hold it.

As a fan of Amazon and their earlier Kindle devices, I’m going to keep an eye out for the next version of the Kindle Fire. Maybe 2.0 will be the magic number.

With the popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and myriad of Android-powered handsets, one of the things users love to do is take and share photos with friends and family. One of the best apps for doing this when using the iPhone is Instagram.

This app allows you to take a photo, manipulate it if you choose and then upload it to your photo stream for all to see. People can then subscribe to your photo stream and view your photos on their devices. Or, you can upload them to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.

It’s extremely popular on the iPhone (many of us here use it, in fact) but so far, it’s only been available for iOS devices. Apparently, that’s not going to be the case much longer.

Speaking during the LeWeb conference in Paris this week, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed that an Android version of the company’s popular iOS application is coming soon. ”We have two people working on Android now,” Systrom said.

I know what you’re thinking. Two people doesn’t sound like very many. However, keep in mind that the whole company probably isn’t that much bigger and has been exclusively an iOS app since launch.

No launch date was forthcoming from Systrom but we expect to see the Android version of Instagram sometime early next year.

Even though they seem to, at times, be mostly in the business of making their customers angry, Netflix is still one of the best places to get your movie and TV content from. In fact, their streaming service is one of the most popular available.

One of the ways Netflix is going to keep that service popular, and growing, is with updates to it and the applications that make it possible. That’s just what they’ve done this week with the user interface for their Android application.

The company explained that the revamped UI now displays twice as many movie and TV titles, with larger cover art, and that users can easily swipe through titles to find additional content.

“In the last 12 months we have seen a threefold increase in how long Netflix members are watching on their tablets,” Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt said. The company also said they wanted to introduce the redesigned UI in time for the release of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet.

Netflix said the update will be available for iPad users “in a few weeks.” The update is free and is available now in the Android Market.

Click through for the full press release from Netflix.

Continue Reading →

Once the dominant player in the mobile and web content delivery space, Adobe’s Flash has seen quite a backlash against it in recent years. In truth, tt was always kind of a pain, at least for me, made websites look pretty ugly and often hogged system resources on my Macs to the point of crashing the entire system.

But the beginning of the end was probably Apple and then CEO Steve Jobs’ staunch refusal to include Flash on any of its iOS devices, including the iPhone and iPad. At the time some commented that Apple was making a big mistake in not including Flash on its devices. Now it looks like those people may have to reconsider their opinions.

According to reports, Adobe says it will “no longer adapt” the once-dominant program for handling multimedia and animation on computers and mobile devices. In an email to developers Adobe added that it will “continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”

Previously, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs led the opposition to the program, which he said in 2010 was “unreliable, vulnerable to hacking, a battery hog, and gave Adobe too much power over the services that could be offered on mobile devices.” Besides, power over mobile devices was his job, not Adobe’s. I kid, I kid. Much love to Steve.

At the time, Apple, Google, and Microsoft said they preferred an open system: the pretty cool and easy to use HTML5. However, in spite of this, Flash survived and was incorporated on Google Android and BlackBerry smartphones — until now. Although, having used a few Android phones with Flash enabled, it was still pretty much a POS.

However, now it looks like even Adobe has seen the proverbial writing on the wall and has decided to end mobile Flash and concentrate on HTML 5. Smart move. A bit late, but smart nonetheless. Now let’s hope they end up killing Flash altogether and we never, ever have to see it again.