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.

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of apps out there for the iPad and iPhone. Many of them are even useful and, on occasion, fun to use. You can add Flipboard to that list.

In case you haven’t tried it yet, Flipboard is a very popular magazine-style news application which, up until today, was available only for the iPad. Now, those of you who want the same experience on your iPhone or, for some reason, don’t have an iPad yet, can now enjoy Flipboard on your iPhone because it’s now available.

The app allows users to flip through a single feed of articles and photos that have been shared across various social networks. It can also display stories from a variety of news categories including technology, design, “Flipboard picks,” photography, business, sports, style, travel, food and more.

It’s a great app that really helps you digest a lot of information quickly and easily and does it inside a very user-friendly interface. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Flipboard for iPhone is free and available in the App Store now.

We told you last month that Harry Potter director David Yates was gearing up to make a Doctor Who feature film. At the time there was some ambiguity as to where it would stand in relation to the current, and extremely popular, British series that just finished up it’s sixth season. Yates seemed to suggest that this would be a new incarnation, with no relation to the current Doctor or his television show.

Current show runner Steven Moffat thankfully provides some more information that should be great news to all the Doctor Who fans out there. He recently tweeted:

“To clarify: any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and certainly NOT be a Hollywood reboot.”

Leave it to the Grand Moff to assuage fans the world over in a concise 140 characters or less.

Of course this is far from official, there are still several years before this movie hits the screens, and we are still over a year off from a very big 50th anniversary year for the Doctor, which I am assuming will come with it’s ample share of surprises. Still, it is good to know some one deeply involved with the project has his head screwed on strait.

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JC and WallE are back with the 7th epic edition of the Bitcast. In the News of the Week, the two discuss the announcement of the PlayStation 3 Smash Brothers inspired brawler Title Fight and the characters that may be coming to it. They also talk about a recent study that links violent video games to slower brain activity. Finally, they look at how Angry Birds developer Rovio passed on a $2.25 billion dollar offer from social media games developer Zynga who incidentally lost almost a million players in their game Mafia Wars 2 in just one month.

In the second edition of The Long Grind featuring The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, JC discusses the story (spoiler free) and the open world adventuring aspects of the game.

In this week’s Topic of the Week, social media in gaming such as Facebook integration and community sites like Raptr are brought up. Finally, in Now Playing, JC gives some more insight into his longer than expected play sessions on Saints Row: The Third and WallE discusses his review of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Make sure to subscribe to The Flickcast iTunes feed to get each weekly episode of the Bitcast downloaded right to your iOS device.

Daniel Day Lewis is a badass. The There Will Be Blood star is infamous for never breaking character during a film’s production, and it seems that his latest portrayal of the iconic American president in Steven Speilberg’s Lincoln is no exception.

Spotted at a local cafe in Richmond, Virginia by Michael Phillips, this image has been making the rounds as the first glimpse of what this film could look like.  Even though he’s enjoying his meal in jeans and a turtleneck, his hair an makeup certainly make a spot-on Abraham Lincoln.

Take a look at the candid image in full after the jump.

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The fine folks over at La La Land Records recently released a fantastic 3-disc collection of music from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Focusing on the music of Dennis McCarthy, Jay Chattaway and a few choice guest composers, the set features the music of some all time classic episodes. You can check out are full review on this week’s film score friday, but right now you have the opportunity to win a copy of this limited edition set.

All you have to do is follow us on twitter @TheFlickcast and @reply us with your favorite Starfleet captain and why. Now that covers a wide array of captains from the movies, TV shows,even the books, comics and video games is fair game so don’t hold back.

After this weekend we will take all the responses and pick the winner, good luck!

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How the once mighty have fallen. Remember when MySpace was the place to go for everything “social”? Well, those days are long over and now the site has been sold for quite a bargain price.

According to AllThingsD, Specific Media has acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million. Which, as I said, is a real bargain considering NewsCorp paid $580 Million for it in 2005. I would call that a pretty big loss for NewsCorp. Myspace’s CEO, Mike Jones, will remain for “an interim period,” and the social network will lay off about 50% of its staff, which is around 200 people. Sorry to hear that.

MySpace’s decline in recent years is not really all that surprising considering how horrible the site is to navigate and, of course, due to the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. By comparison, Facebook looks like the most clean and easy to use UI ever invented, which we know isn’t really the case as it still has its share of problems as well.

Who knows, maybe MySpace will rebound and climb back out of the pit it finds itself in? Anything is possible and people do love an underdog. However, first order of business: a complete re-design. Then, we can talk.

This morning at a keynote event held to kick off its Worldwide Developer Conference and hosted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs the company announced details of several of its upcoming products. These included the much rumored iCloud service as well as the upcoming updates to iOS, called iOS 5, and Mac OS X, code named Lion.

Here’s the scoop and highlights on the announcements:

iCloud

According to Steve Jobs: “Keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy. We’ve got a great solution to this problem… We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device. We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”

• Store all content in the cloud and push it to all devices – “iTunes in the Cloud”

• Mobile Me Out, iCloud In – 100% Free

• iTunes Match – Will look for your songs and match them in iTunes – $25.00/Year

• Backup – Your device will backup important info once daily. To restore or with new device, just sign in and all info will be there

• Photo Stream – Photos (first 5000) uploaded to cloud and available on all devices and Apple TV

• Documents – iWork app sync files with the cloud so available on all your devices. Will still sync Mail, Contacts and Calendar as well

• 5 GB Free Storage

• Developer Beta Available Today. iTunes in the Cloud will run on iOS 4.3 today

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Whatever your thought on the relative merits of Twitter and the power of the Internets, one thing is for certain, over at Twitter HQ, if the public says something sucks, they listen. At least in this case.

In case you haven’t been keeping up, here’s the background. A few weeks ago Twitter released an update to its popular App for iOS devices. Most of the time updates bring needed features and bug fixes and are met with a generally positive response from the users at large.

Not this time. Instead, the update featured one big new thing: QuickBar. According to Twitter, the QuickBar “was originally conceived to help users discover what’s happening in the broader world beyond people they already follow.”

It didn’t really do that. What it did do was ignite a storm of protest on Twitter and elsewhere decrying that the QuickBar, and its intrusive nature, had to go. Well folks, Twitter has listened and as of the latest update released late yesterday, the QuickBar is officially gone.

So, fire up iTunes or go to the App store on your iOS devices, get the latest update and be rid of the QuickBar forever — or at least until Twitter decides to put it back again.

Even though they’ve been updating the Twitter app for iPhone and iPad pretty frequently, that doesn’t mean the one for Android has been totally left behind. In fact, the Twitter team announced today they have updated their Android client to version 2.0. The new version sports a modified interface along with a some feature improvements and additions. These include:

• Use the app without having to sign-in so you can keep track of trending topics and more

• Single window layout much like Twitter on your computer

• @mentions and Retweets are now included in the replies tab

• Auto-complete of User Names

• Universal search with terms you specify

• Scan your address book to discover new friends

Twitter 2.0 for Android is available in the Android Market as of today. If you end up downloading it, let us know what you think.

You can’t always believe what you read on Twitter. I know, shocking, right? However, when news comes directly from the verified account of none other than Playboy Magazine founder and publisher Hugh Hefner, we take notice.

So, what did Mr. Hefner have to say? Well, in a recent couple of messages the man himself revealed that his magazine which got millions of young men through adolescence would be coming soon to Apple’s iPad. And as if that wasn’t enough, according to Hef, the magazine will be completely uncensored. Nice.

This development is very convenient for those out there who like their tech and their naked women to be closely tied together. It’s also a good deal for Hefner who is able to get his magazine into the hands of potentially millions more subscribers.

No word yet on potential pricing or subscription models available but we can hope it will be in line with current print edition — or even cheaper.

Update: It seems Hef wasn’t talking about a new iPad App Playboy App as some had suggested. Instead, he was referring to a web based subscription service available on the iPad. That’s the version that will be uncensored. I guess you really can’t believe what you read on Twitter.

A few weeks ago, we reviewed Rock Band 3, letting you all know it still holds the title for the best party band game by far.  One of our reasons for this is because of the ever expanding library of music constantly being added to it. Now, we mentioned we are going to be having a live event in Connecticut with some Rock Band 3 prizes coming up in December but until then we have some awesome DLC codes to give away for any Rock Band 3 owners over our twitter.

With the help of Harmonix’s own @HMXhenry we have acquired four codes to giveaway Bon Jovi’s Greatest Hits packs for the XBox 360. The packs include three revamped Rock Band 3 pro guitar versions of “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” in addition to nine new songs never before seen in the Rock Band series.

Check out the full list, and get the giveaway times after the jump.

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