The NBA has sent a C&D letter to Google, informing them that there are apps in their Android Market that infringe copyright on a few items that the NBA owns. 90+ apps are listed in the letter from the NBA’s Legal Department and they include themes, games, news apps, widgets, tweet apps, and wallpaper apps, and not all of them are paid apps.

The news comes from a 12 page scan of the letter sent to developer HydTech. I can understand the need for the NBA to claim ownership of their own property but it seems that this is going a bit overboard, these are people who are fans of your teams and people want this kind of thing, apparently. Unless the NBA plans on releasing their own versions of the same things (which I don’t see happening) they should just let it go.

(via HydTech and the HydTech Blog)

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I was approached a while back about testing out and reviewing a new product called GoodSync2Go (or RoboForm2Go) — an easy way to sync passwords via USB drive. I was interested, merely at the fact that I would be able to load all my passwords on the USB drive and bring it around with me and not have to worry about my log in information being saved on the PC or anything like that.

So a flash drive was sent to me and I began to test just how well GoodSync2Go worked. Well you can call me impressed, I didn’t think it would work as well as it does but it definitely does the job. Using it at work is the main thing I had in mind for it and the GoodSync2Go bar that runs when the drive is plugged in makes it easy to log into sites you need to have access to. I especially like the ability to click on a site from the toolbar it automatically opens the site and logs me in.

GoodSync2Go is for Windows only, although you can sign up for Roboform Online and it will work with Mac and Linux computers via an online interface. There are also iPhone and Android clients available from their respective marketplaces.

The only thing that I noticed in my testing was in Gmail accounts. GoodSync saved the URL for the password as my Google Accounts page, but it was an easy fix to edit the URL for the saved password and point it in the right direction. Other than that it was a joy to play with and use GoodSync2Go.

GoodSync has two account types, Free and Pro, the free version of GoodSync2Go can be downloaded from the GoodSync website. Pro accounts can be purchased for $30 and include unlimited files in a sync job and unlimited sync jobs, and also free phone support.

The same guy who was first in line for an iPhone when it was released is back and he’s in line for an iPad this time. A couple of passersby got a micro-interview with him about his views on the iPod and what he has packed with him this time around. Check out the video at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

TechCrunch is selling the DIY kit to make your own CrunchPad out of a laptop screen that you already have at hand. Just remove the screen from your laptop and use the supplied guts from the CrunchPad Kit (even an optional 4G card) and you will have your own CrunchPad that even runs flash videos! Check out the video of how to do this at TechCrunch.com.

Yup, Google has done it again. This time they have purchased Aardvark, a site that uses artificial intelligence to find the right person to answer a person’s question. I’ve posted a few times on This Mobile Life about how great Aardvark is as a social question answering service. I still use it and still love it! Hopefully this will only make the service better (and perhaps we’ll see an Android widget for it).

(via Technology Review)

The past few years have brought Augmented Reality to the forefront of mobile life. With apps such as Layar and Wikitude leading the way, it would only make sense for even more things to fall in line behind what our cellphones and webcams can already do. Keiichi Matsuda has put together what he thinks the Augmented New World would look like and, I hate to say it but, I can see the future like this and it’s scary.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop

The people over at GrafiXpressions.com have graciously agreed to give away two (2) new Motorola Droid Screen Back Overlays exclusively on This Mobile Life!

Just comment below with what you think the next overlay should be that GrafiXpressions makes for the Droid and you’ll be entered into the drawing to win one of the Droid Screen Back Overlays that are already in production (on the left). The winning entry will be picked by our patented Winnerator Pickum-Outer Machine (patent pending).

So, get your ideas in now! The winners will be drawn midnight December 18th.

It looks like there is an unconfirmed Google Maps outage on Android devices. A few users from AndroidForums.com have reported that they are getting the error “Data connection lost, retrying…” when they open Google Maps. Whether this is just a problem for users who downloaded the updated app yesterday or not remains unknown. I will post more info as it become available.

UPDATE: Things look to be back up. I’m looking for any official word from Google.

After playing with the HTC Eris I’ve only come to one conclusion, but you will have to read through to the end to see what that is.

Out of the Box
You can read my initial reactions here but straight out of the box I love how small the Eris is and how well it fit in my hand.

It’s really fast; there was some initial lag when I first started it up, especially when moving through the home screens, but over all this phone is just as fast as the Droid.

Play Time
You have all read the specs so I’m not going to bore you with the details that you’ve seen all over the web already. Playing with the Eris was fun and the Sense UI made it a joy to engage with the device. The lack of hardware keyboard will put some off but if you aren’t planning on typing much then this droid is the one you are looking for.

Since it isn’t running Android 2.0 there are some things that aren’t on this device that Verizon has advertised are on the Droid, namely Google Navigation, a slower browsing experience, and the older Marketplace. Of course an over-the-air (OTA) upgrade to Android 2.0 is rumored to be hitting the HTC Hero and HTC Eris in the near future so that could all change.

There’s not much more about this phone to say, it’s a great little phone — it is fast, reliable, and Verizon’s 3G makes it the best non-hardware keyboard phone the carrier has out. If you don’t like the bulk of the Droid or don’t need a hardware keyboard then definitely go check this little beauty out today. (Currently, for a limited time Verizon is selling the HTC Eris for $99.99 with a NEW 2-year agreement, $199.99 for existing customers.)