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Lilbits (8-01-2014): You are now free to unlock your smartphone (kinda)

Want to unlock your smartphone so you can use it on a different wireless network, but worried that a SWAT team will kick down your door the instant you complete the task? No worries… it’s legal to unlock your phone in the United States again. Last week Congress passed a bill that would make cellphone […]

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Lilbits (4-22-2014): Use Amazon’s smartphone by tilting?

You’d think the key difference between Amazon’s upcoming (and as-yet, officially unannounced) smartphone and other Android devices would be tight integration with Amazon’s app, music, book, and video stores. And you’d probably be right for thinking that — but with hundreds of other options available for smartphone shoppers, it looks like Amazon may be trying […]

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Unlocking a Motorola Developer Edition phone no longer voids the warranty

Motorola offers a few of its latest smartphones in ‘Developer Edition” configurations, allowing customers to pay full price for the phone and request codes that let them unlock the bootloader. Up until now, if you actually did unlock the bootloader you took matters into your own hands and voided your warranty. Now Motorola is reversing […]

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Google Nexus 5: How to root, unlock the bootloader, install custom recovery (video)

Google’s Nexus 5 smartphone is the first to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat, and the stock software is pretty nice. But if you think you might want to install a custom ROM or custom recovery, it’s a good idea to unlock the bootloader right away – because it’ll wipe all your data, and it’s a […]

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Nexus Root Toolkit makes rooting new Nexus 7 easy (mildly risky)

Developer WugFresh has updated the Nexus Root Toolkit to add support for the new 2013 model Nexus 7 tablet and other Nexus phones and tablets running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. The toolkit is basically a one-stop-shop for rooting, unlocking the bootloader, unrooting, or re-locking a Nexus device. It makes the process fairly quick and painless… assuming […]

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Google Glass is hackable (ADB debugging, unlockable bootloader)

This week the first people who don’t work for Google started to pick up their own Google Glass wearable computers. Google is making a limited number of Google Glass Explorer Edition devices available to developers and others who signed up for early access… and who paid $1500 to basically be guinea pigs and beta testers. […]

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Bootloader unlock tool released for latest Motorola devices

Want to install a custom ROM on your Motorola smartphone? Up until now that’s been easier said than done on some of the latest Motorola devices, thanks to bootloaders which were locked down tight. But security researcher Dan Rosenberg has figured out how to crack open those bootloaders, and he’s released the tools to do […]

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How to unlock, root Google Nexus 4, use custom recovery and more

The Google Nexus 4 is one of the first devices to ship with Google Android 4.2 Jelly Bean software. But if you want to install custom firmware, run apps that require root access, or make other changes, there’s good news: The Nexus 4 is just about as easy to work with as earlier Nexus devices. […]

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How to root the Google Nexus 7, unlock the bootloader, install custom recovery

The Google Nexus 7 is a pretty great tablet right out of the box. It has a speedy NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software. But before doing anything else with my Nexus 7 when it arrived, I wanted to unlock the bootloader, […]

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Official Eee Pad Transformer Prime bootloader unlock available

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is a 10 inch Android tablet with a quad-core processor and an optional keyboard docking station… and a locked bootloader. That means you can’t install custom firmware on the tablet unless you unlock the bootloader — and as promised, Asus has just released a tool that will let you […]