This hack turns the Square reader, a dongle meant to support swiped transactions, into one that can be used for electronic-only transactions, reports CNET. Creative? Yes. A real-world concern? We're not so sure.

However, a second hack, which turns the dongle into a card skimmer is of more concern. And it begs the question: where is the hardware encryption Square promised us earlier?

It's Hard to be a Fraudulent Merchant on Square

But it's hard to create a dummy merchant account on Square, despite its "open to all" nature.

Besides simply making it easier for any individual to accept credit cards at dramatically lower rates, the Square system also takes advantage of the smartphone's sensors itself to determine a device's location when the card is swiped. Transactions that show a San Francisco Bay resident has all of a sudden gone on a shopping spree somewhere across the country, for example, would be an obvious red flag to Square's risk management department, just as it would be for those using traditional credit card systems. And Square's risk management is done in-house, in real-time. So far, that's been a successful strategy for the company - its fraud protection rate of 0.05% is lower than the industry average of 0.07% and has remained consistent over time.

In addition, one of Square's less-talked about features is its ability to track device IDs alongside these geo-coordinates and then cross-reference those with social signals. Yes, social media signals. When new merchant accounts are verified, Square looks at their social footprint: their Facebook page and number of fans, their Yelp reviews, Twitter followers and retweets, blog posts, Flickr photos, Google Street view, etc. All these things are taken into consideration before a merchant is determined to be a "real" person, and not a dummy account of some sort.

This matters because the hack in question would seemingly necessitate a dummy merchant account in order to work. After all, what merchant would let a criminal attach some sort of contraption to their smartphone during a face-to-face transaction?

Square as Credit Card Skimmer: This is the Real Concern

From the sounds of it, the above hack is not as worrisome as the second, which turns the Square reader into a credit card skimmer. This is the same sort of issue that VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron raised in March, posting an open letter to his company's website warning consumers of the dangers involved with Square's technology. Using the Square reader and a fake Square application, VeriFone was able to turn the Square device into a free skimming machine.

While reporters from sites like GigaOm, TechCrunch and Gizmodo initially attacked VeriFone as waging a smear campaign against its competitor, the issue it raised, however indelicately, was valid. The Square dongle did not include hardware encryption, which is (and should be) a concern. Without encryption, hacks that turn the dongle into a free credit card skimmer are not just possible, they're easy to do.

Laurie and Franken demonstrated their variation of this hack at the conference, using a program that included less than 100 lines of code.

Soon after the VeriFone debacle, Square itself admitted that hardware encryption was a necessity. At a Visa conference in April, Square Security Lead Sam Quigley announced that Square would begin shipping dongles that offer hardware encryption sometime this summer. Well, summer's almost up now, and apparently, the encrypted dongles aren't yet available. Either that, or the researchers were using an older dongle to showcase their hack. Franken told CNET that he had heard Square would be shipping new dongles, but CNET was not able to reach Square to confirm. (Square is difficult to reach, for what it's worth. We tried too.)

Update: Square has provided an official comment -

Like all credit card processors, we aggressively guard against the use of stolen credit cards- and we use traffic analysis and other patented methods to detect and prevent malicious activity.

While the ingenious nature of the first hack is notable, the complexities to implement it in the real world make it less of a danger to consumers and merchants alike. In addition, as CNET noted, federal anti-fraud bank regulations in the U.S make it difficult for fraudsters to set up dummy accounts, too. Laurie suggested that criminals could pay legitimate account holders to operate as Square money mules, but frankly, that's a lot of effort when there are still much easier ways to commit fraud.

It's the second hack that should be concerning. Where's the hardware encryption that Square promised? When is it coming? Is it still coming? Why won't Square respond to reporters' questions about this?

Using the computer's webcam and Zugara's AR e-commerce software dubbed "Webcam Social Shopper," shoppers can immediately see what clothes look like on them and can ask friends for an opinion via Facebook and Twitter.

Using the computer's webcam, visitors to Banana Flame's website can instantly try on any of the clothing items it sells. To start the process, you have to step a few feet back from the computer, making sure the camera can see your face. The garment will then automatically position itself on top of what you're currently wearing. Using Kinect-like motions, you can then touch virtual buttons to make minor adjustments to the garment's position on your body. In fact, the technology seems similar to a Kinect hack that does basically the same thing.

You can also swipe your arm to navigate between the controls provided in the software. These controls let you change the garment's color, move it around or take a photo of you "wearing" the item. You can then immediately share that photo with friends via Facebook and Twitter using the software or download it to your computer.

In theory, the system sounds great, but in practice, it still needs some work. For example, it was completely frozen when we tried to use it on our Mac (in both Safari and Chrome), but worked well on our Windows PC (in IE). This appears to be related to the software's use of Adobe Flash - the Mac webcam is not set by default to work with Flash. There's a workaround for this, but an average user wouldn't know to try it. And the website doesn't offer instructions.

Also, we have to admit, using AR in this way is not anything like actually trying on clothes.

But it's a start. And not just a start at using AR for virtual shopping purposes, but a start for AR to be used for anything that's not some gimmicky marketing push, like AR-enabled posters or sports tickets. For that, we're grateful.

As always, share your thoughts on those we missed in the comments below.

Spott: This app uses your phone's GPS to point to map out nearby film and TV locations. Great for entertainment buffs. ($0.99, iTunes and $1.13, Android Market)

Nosh: This food-spotting and reviews app lets you photograph, share and track great places to eat and the meals you've had there. (Free, iTunes and Android Market)

Facebook for Every Phone: This new app brings Facebook to over 2,500 phones worldwide. To download, go to m.facebook.com or enter d.facebook.com/install in your mobile browser.

MyMoby lets families privately share their location with each other and send alerts when needing assistance. (Free, iTunes, Android and BlackBerry)

iPhone

Batphone: This experimental app uses the phone's microphone to record the sounds in a room to develop an acoustic "fingerprint" for that space. The idea is that this type of location-detection could be used in future apps when GPS is not available. There's nothing much you can really do with this app right now, but what a cool concept! (Free, iTunes)

Capture: Instead of wasting time hitting "record" or adjusting settings, the Capture app starts recording video as soon as the app launches. Finally, you can record the kids before the moment has passed!($0.99, iTunes)

Trover: Newly launched app Trover was an undiscovered gem until the big press push this month surrounding the app's update. With Trover, you can connect with others to discover places and things nearby using photo-sharing combined with geolocation. (Free, iTunes)

Summify: This new iPhone app delves into the social news space to deliver periodic summaries of the news from your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader. (Free, iTunes)

Trimit: This app summarizes webpages into either 1,000, 5,000 or 140 character summaries for easy reading and social sharing. (Free, iTunes)

Katango: Like the idea of Google Circles but happy on Facebook? Katagno automatically organizes your Facebook friends into groups, then allows you to share just with them. It's automagical! (Free, iTunes)

Evoz: This app turns your iPhone, iPod or iPad into a baby monitor by working with another iOS device connected over Wi-Fi. Put one device in the baby's room, listen on the other. (Free, iTunes)

Dragon Go: This voice control app understands the intent of your questions and opens the appropriate website to provide an answer (e.g., Reviews of sushi restaurants might open Yelp, music by Lady Gaga, starts playing a song on your iPod, etc.) (Free, iTunes)

Photovine: This new photo-sharing app comes from Google-acquired Slide (yes, we know, weird!) Fun, but invite only for now. (Free, iTunes)

ON Voicefeed: A great new app for iPhone, ON Voicefeed lets you set up custom voicemail greetings for different callers or groups of callers. A premium version ($9.99/year) adds unlimited greetings and voicemail storage. (Free, iTunes)

Foreca.st: From the makers of Hurricane Party, Foreca.st lets you share where you're going with friends, then lets you check in using Foursquare when you arrive. (Free, iTunes)

Flixlab: This app lets you easily make movies and slideshows on your iPhone which you can then share with friends on Facebook. (Free, iTunes)

OfficeDrop: You can scan, search, organize and archive your paper files, PDFs and other documents using this new iPhone/iPad app and view them either on your device or the Web. (Free, iTunes - additional storage available for a fee)

im360: With this iOS application you can check out an amazing collection of 360-degree videos from your iPhone (Free for Lite version or $1.99, iTunes)

Next Page: Android & Tablet Apps

Android

ABC News: The official ABC News app arrived on Android bringing top stories, video briefs, pictures, breaking news and more. Select cities also have access to local news. (Free, Android Market)

Do it (Tomorrow): A great new productivity (or procrastination) app for Android, Do it Tomorrow lets you keep track of your to-do's in an attractive, simple interface. Cloud syncing is available, too. (Free, Android Market)

AwayFind for Android: This app brings email management tool AwayFind to mobile users, letting you route urgent emails to your Android phone or tablet, read the whole message and reply. Push notifications are supported too. (Free, Android Market)

Vellamo Mobile Web Benchmark: This new app from Qualcomm lets you evaluate Web performance in detail so you can see which Android devices offer the best experience in terms of browser performance. (Free, Android Market)

Localicious: This new Android app from WhitePages helps you find popular nearby businesses, plus real-time tips and trends. Foursquare users can also use the app to do "pre check-ins." (Free, Android Market)

Scrabble Free: This month EA launched its first free Android game, Scrabble Free, which includes all the features you love and expect. (Free, Android Market)

Tablets

SwiftKey X: One of the best alternative keyboard interfaces for Android added a ton of new features, including better predictive intelligence and "cloud learning," which lets you optionally connect to Twitter, Gmail, Facebook and SMS to improve its predictions. Android Honeycomb is also supported. ($3.99 for Android phones, $4.99 for Tablets, Android Market or Amazon Appstore)

Crayola ColorStudio HD for iPad: Not just an app, but an app and pen combo, this new experience for iPad actually lets your kids color on the tablet with a big pen. No more crayon on the walls! Can't wait for my daughter to be old enough for this! (App is free in iTunes, iMarker pen is $29.99.)

Star Trek PADD: The app you nerds (ahem, self included) have secretly been waiting for: the PADD turns your iPad into an authentic-looking PADD from Star Trek. For practical purposes, you can read Star Trek news, but really, who needs practical? ($4.99, iTunes)

iUsers: This iPad app sets up your iPad for use with multiple users, each with their own mailbox, settings and apps. (Jailbreak only - add http://cydia.iblogeek.com as a source then search for iUsers)

Birds-Eye: An iPad app that shows you who's tweeting around you. Simple, but fun. (Free, iTunes)

NASA Visualization Explorer: An awesome app for space geeks, this new iPad app provides a direct connection to NASA's research news in an engaging format using photos and videos. (Free, iTunes)

iSheetMusic: Although it works on iPhone too, we like iSheetMusic on the iPad instead - it's easier to see. As you may have guessed by its title, this app lets you search for, buy and organize sheet music collections on your device. An audible and visible Metronome are included, too. (Free, iTunes)

Notable Updates

You may have missed the following app updates this past month. Here are a few worth mentioning.

Social

• Foursquare launched notifications on Android (first!) and added directions to the iPhone versions.
• FriendCaster (Facebook app for Android, formerly called Flow for Facebook) came to Android tablets (in alpha, via invite)
• StumbleUpon! came to the iPad
• Hashable's social CRM app was updated with a new focus on privacy instead of broadcasting connections.
• Twitter for Android added push notifications and support for multiple accounts

News/Info

• Bloomberg arrived for Android tablets
• NASA's official app arrived on Android

Entertainment

• Amazon's Cloud Player arrived on iPad via a Web interface, and added unlimited storage for $20/year
• Hulu Plus for Android added support for more devices
• Zinio's magazine reader app expanded Android support to all Froyo and Gingerbread devices
• SoundHound for iPhone added LiveLyrics, which lets you search for lyrics for the music you're listening to
• IMDb added support for Android tablets and several new features
• TV guide app i.TV partnered with check-in service GetGlue on iOS

Google / Other

• Google Maps for Android added stop-by-stop information for transit and offline maps
• Google Docs for mobile browsers added the ability to sort, narrow and share multiple docs from your list
• Google Shopper was updated with support for Google Offers (local deals)
• Evernote for Android updated with new interface, rich text notes and more.
• Pinger brought free text messaging to European users
• Mint for iPhone was updated with more money management features, including the ability to add transactions while on the go
• M-commerce app Zaarly arrived on Android
• Cross-platform smart note-taking app SpringPad was updated with reminders, push notifications and badges (iOS)
• Thrutu, which lets you share information and media while on the phone, arrived on iOS

The XDK itself is a Web app, and is available in the Chrome Web app Store for free.

If you can write code using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, you can use the XDK to build an application, says appMobi. There's no need to learn Objective C or download any other SDK's. Instead, the new XDK lets you use industry standards to build your apps, as well as appMobi's own aUX javascript libraries, for things like transitions and scrollers.

The XDK also offers debugging tools with on-screen emulation, local-on-device and remotely anywhere in the world, without ad-hoc builds or security features, says the company. And it works on both Mac and Windows.

Works with PhoneGap, Offers Cloud Services

In addition, appMobi says the XDK is fully compatible with the PhoneGap HTML5 cross-platform development project, which recently launched into version 1.0. Like PhoneGap, appMobi's XDK also provides access to a device's native features, such as the GPS, accelerometer, and camera, while also offering touch interaction, gestures, vibration and more.

Developers building apps using the XDK can choose to integrate appMobi's other services, which aren't typically a part of an HTML5 development suite. These include things like in-app purchases, rich media push messaging, usage analytics, secure user authentication and live app updating.

HTML5 App School

Along with the XDK, appMobi launched HTML5 App School, an online resource for those new to mobile development. It provides detailed information on all parts of the development process, from conceptualization, through planning and development, to posting the app on app stores. The App School site also provides access to tools, libraries and other resources, forums, code samples, seminars and instructional videos.

What Do You Think?

Some of the early reviewers of the XDK noted they had trouble with Java, but others seemed to have no trouble. If you try it, let us know what you think in the comments below.

The price of the Dragon SDK is a barrier to entry for many developers and businesses, the company believes. iSpeech wants to be the more affordable alternative.

The iSpeech service is free to all mobile developers, and is available to Web developers who want to use the same technology via the iSpeech API and online payment system. On the Web, prices start at $.005 per word, but on mobile it's free. iSpeech says it may offer some value-added services on mobile in the future.

iSpeech is already used in several well-known apps, including Car & Driver's Txt U L8r, TeleNav's Evie, plus the company's own DriveSafe.ly app, and more. Its SDK's and API's provide over 40 text-to-speech voices and include support for over 25 languages. Premium services, like celebrity voices or custom text to speech voices are also available. Developers can also optionally pay for the ability to increase speech recognition performance specific to their use case, when applicable.

Those interested in trying out iSpeech can do so by signing up here.

Update: iSpeech says its FAQ regarding mobile ads was out of date, so we removed the reference to the credit purchasing feature from an earlier version of this post.

In addition, only 8% never buy local deals, up from 28% who said they never buy them just a few months ago.

Still, that describes a large swath of the Internet-connected U.S. population today, and especially those participating in the local deals space. Simply put, the trends occurring within this audience are notable for the deals industry.

Increased Sharing

Since Q1, JiWire found that sharing local deals is up 21%. Now, 75% of the on-the-go audience are sharing deals regularly, the company says. The most popular way to share deals is email (35%), but word-of-mouth (19%) and Facebook (18%) are also regularly used.

Demand for Deals Up, Too

Demand for deals has also increased over last quarter, says JiWire, with 28% of consumers now buying deals once per month, up from 20% in Q1. As noted above, only 8% say they never buy deals, a decrease from 28% a few months ago.

Women Prefer Less Expensive Deals than Men

78% of people spend an average of less than $50 on local deals these days, but when comparing trends between the male and female audiences, there are some differences. Women are more likely to spend less than $25 on deals, JiWire notes, while men will spend $25 to $50 on a deal.

Image credits: Lead image, Hudson Horizons; Charts: JiWire

The updated app brings GroupMe to over 90 countries worldwide, with support for over 900 carriers. However, SMS-based chat is not available outside the U.S., only in-app chat is. The option to include non-smartphone users into a group chat session within GroupMe via SMS has always been one of the app's best features, so we hope that international markets will one day have the same option.

The company also announced that GroupMe is cross-platform now, with apps for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, but none of those apps are new as of today. The newest apps, those for BlackBerry and Windows Phone, were launched over the past couple of months, with the Windows Phone app launched just a couple of weeks ago. GroupMe did a soft launch at the time, so this is the first the cross-platform support is getting any press.

We like the Web access option that now ships with GroupMe, which allows you to start, view and manage all your groups and messaging from the Web. This is great for being able to pick up where you left off, by allowing you to seamlessly transition between devices. Too bad more mobile apps don't offer a complementary Web experience like this!

Also new is a Twitter-like direct messaging feature that lets two people have a private conversation, initiated by a tap on their GroupMe avatar.

Mobile Q&A with Questions

Of course, the biggest and most interesting of the new features is "Questions." The feature is in beta testing, but has been made available to any who downloads version 3.0 of the app. Questions don't have to be targeted directly at a private group, like the groups of family members or friends you already have configured on GroupMe. While that is possible, the app also supports the option of posting public questions by broadcasting to Facebook or Twitter. And respondents can answer via Facebook or Twitter, thanks to the included website address posted alongside the update.

According to GroupMe, the idea with questions is to initiate a group chat when the "what" is defined but the "who" is not. That is, you have a question, but you don't know who might have the answer. For example, "anyone want to go to a movie?" or "what is everyone doing this weekend?"

It's an interesting take on how to combine Q&A and social, which Facebook itself has seemingly failed to capitalize on with its Q&A services "Facebook Questions." Perhaps the key to social Q&A is the mobile component?

Of course, Facebook may have already realized that. One of GroupMe's biggest competitors is a similar group messaging app, Beluga, which is now Facebook-owned. But so far, Facebook has not done anything with the technology Beluga offers, and the app still runs as a standalone service. But as Beluga's (public) development slows down, apps like GroupMe that continue to innovate and move cross-platform have a chance at gaining a critical mass of their own. If we had to pick between the two today, GroupMe would now come out on top.

For example, last year, Appcelerator saw developers were displaying great enthusiasm for Apple's iPad pre-launch. And it's now seeing the same excitement for Google Plus.

How Developers See Google Plus

At 25% of respondents indicating interest in Google Plus, the results show it ranking higher than other products and trends, including Apple's iCloud (22%), NFC (18%), iOS 5's Twitter integration (14%), Android patent issues (13%), Amazon's forthcoming Android tablet (6%) and the HP TouchPad (2%).

In addition to Google Plus' impact on mobile growth and adoption, developers also said they believed Google Plus could catch up to Facebook in the long-term. Two-thirds said that the new social network would be an asset for Google in gaining mindshare among consumers and developers alike in addressing both the Facebook challenge and the Twitter/iOS 5 integration.

Why Mobile Developers are Excited About Google Plus

The reason developers feel this way has largely to do with Google's ability to leverage Google Plus across a portfolio of products, including Search, Maps, YouTube and more, all of which also have a mobile presence.

Other popular responses to the "why Google Plus" question included positive sentiments about the innovations Google Plus delivered (e.g., Sparks, Hangouts and Circles), its overall user experience, and Google's ability to bake in Google Plus deeply into its Android operating system.

That last item is an especially notable key advantage over Facebook, which does not yet have a deeply integrated Facebook experience on any mobile platform in particular, although there are some phones, like the HTC ChaCha (aka the HTC Status on AT&T), HTC Salsa and INQ's Cloud Touch, which offer a Facebook-focused experience.

But for developers, there's an understanding that what Google Plus may soon offer is not just another way to integrate "social" into their mobile applications, but an ability to map a user's particular "interest graph" into their apps, as well. For example, if a user has a Google Plus Circle of friends who like to discuss movies, explains Schwarshoff, an app like Flixster could take advantage of that for a more personalized and customized social experience. Similarly, a photo-sharing application could allow you to share some photos with just a Circle of family or friends, instead of the general public or a wider network of "followers."

For Now, Facebook Still Wins

All that being said, developers aren't jumping to use Google Plus within their applications immediately. For one thing, Google does not yet offer developer tools for Google Plus (i.e., a Google Plus API - application programming interface) so it's not even a possibility at this time.

However, although Facebook is the API leader over the next 12-18 months, according to the survey, Google Plus and Twitter are tied for second place in terms of future API usage.

Of course, it should be noted that what any survey respondent says they will do and what they actually end up doing can sometimes be very different things. But Appcelerator's surveys in the past have usually been on target when it comes to spotting trends.

And lest you think that Appcelerator's core audience is biased towards Android developers somehow, you'll be interested to know that, in fact, the opposite is true. iOS apps make up 75% of Appcelerator's 25,000+ mobile applications. The apps are Web developers primarily, not those coding in Java or Objective C. Web developers are those who are most focused on building cross-platform applications, which makes this group's thoughts on Google Plus most interesting indeed.

It looks like Google Plus will soon see itself integrated into iPhones and Androids alike through mobile applications, even though Apple has anointed Twitter as its social network of choice.

Meanwhile, despite seeing a slight jump back to Q1 levels of interest, Android tablets remain a platform with a number of challenges, developers report. Explains Appcelerator, these tablets are in somewhat of a "no-man's land" in terms of developer priorities right now, as developers aren't sure what to make of the overall Android Tablet picture.

One of the big questions the survey always asks developers is where each platform ranks in terms of developer interest. As expected, iOS (iPhone, iPad) are doing well, with 91% and 88% of developer interest respectively, as is Android (Phone), with 87% interest. The Android Tablet platform still ranks high, too, with 74% saying they're "very interested" in developing for that platform. HTML5 comes in 5th (66%), above Windows Phone, BlackBerry, webOS, Symbian and MeeGo.

But even though Android Tablets rank well here, Appcelerator says that mobile developers are confused by the Android Tablet space, which remains fluid in terms of the changing nature of the OS itself, the hardware and the form factor requirements. This confusion is reflected in the historical chart (below) which tracks developers' interest over time.

In January, prior to Android OS's launch on commercial tablets, developers said that pricing was the most important issue to consider. And indeed, Android tablets that were priced higher or equivalent to the iPad have not sold well, it seems.

But now, developers see other issues as even more important than price, including the need for user interface improvements, phone to tablet portability, fragmentation problems, increasing the size of the app catalog and more.

These can be seen in either a positive or negative light, depending on your particular viewpoint. For example, Appcelerator says that these suggestions could now indicate that in developers' minds, it's a question of "how" Android Tablets will succeed, as opposed to an "if."

More details on the survey results can be found on Appcelerator's website here.

But most importantly, in an effort to further define itself, AOL has made the bold decision to forgo real-time updates in favor of a magazine that you can actually finish reading throughout the course of the day.

Although you can schedule your download of AOL Editions for any time of day, the magazine is clearly designed to be the iPad equivalent of either the morning or evening newspaper. The idea is that it's the paper (or magazine, we suppose) which you would read over breakfast or after work, while relaxing at home with your iPad.

According to AOL's own internal research, morning and evening are the two times of day where people really engage with their iPads. And for this reason, AOL decided to forgo offering real-time updates within the application.

"So many things today are beeping at you with breaking news," explains Sol Lipman, Senior Director of Mobile at AOL, "we wanted to make something that was succinct and completable." He also notes that most iPad owners are sitting at a computer most of their day, and can get real-time news online.

With its focus on a once-per-day interaction, AOL Editions is like News Corp's app The Daily. But unlike The Daily, AOL Editions doesn't provide original content nor does it employ human editors.

Instead, the content is sourced from a limited selection of top sources and it uses smart algorithms that learn your preferences as you tap through and read stories. These automated bots track things like what you clicked, how long you read an article and what topics you tend to prefer, among other things. Users can further refine the personalized experience by connecting to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and by choosing their favorite sections during the setup process.

Personalization Features

Each of the 15 sections (e.g. Design, Tech, Business, Family, Health & Fitness, Sports, Entertainment, Travel, etc.) can be edited to include your favorite sources and subjects. You can also sync with iCal and Facebook to see your events, meetings and birthdays on the magazine's homepage. And articles can be saved and shared by email, Facebook or Twitter.

The app offers a few cute touches, too, like a delivery notification that mimics the sound of a paper boy or girl riding up on a bike and throwing a newspaper on your doorstep and a section showing today's weather on the magazine's cover where the mailing label would be on a traditional publication.

There's also an interesting feature that involves using keywords for even more refined personalization. Each article is tagged with keywords, which themselves are sourced from Wikipedia entries about the article's subject.

Sources themselves, like BusinessWeek or CNN, for example, can also be selected as keywords.

"Personalize!," shouts the header where the keywords are displayed, "Tap the check on the things you want to see more of and the X on things you don't."

That seems straightforward enough for even non-geeks to understand.

Pageviews for AOL Properties & Others

Of course, this is an AOL product, so it leverages its own properties here, including Huffington Post, and all the brands that now fall under Arianna Huffington's watch as Editor-in-Chief, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, the local news content from Patch and others. It does not, however, appear to give any sort of weighted preference to AOL brands as news sources, as far as we can tell in our tests. It did however, attribute an article of mine here on ReadWriteWeb to the editor, Richard MacManus instead of me. And it put a slash in "Read/WriteWeb," even though we dropped that ages ago. But in the grand scheme of things, these are minor quirks and easily resolved.

Download for Free

AOL Editions is a product from AOL's "Mobile-First" group, a group whose focus is to develop new brands for AOL, like the recently launched music app AOL Play. With AOL Editions, the hope here is clearly to deliver a way to increase pageviews at AOL properties, within the context of an iPad application for consuming news. Editions sends readers directly to the article's website when tapped. It doesn't strip out text or ads, or attempt to reformat the article in an iPad-friendly format. It is displayed as the publisher chose, including inline photos or video, when applicable.

AOL Editions is a free download for iPad. You can learn more about Editions here. The download is expected to go live at midnight, perhaps sooner.

About Layar Vision

To use Layar Vision, developers must first upload reference images to Layar's servers. Those images are then used to extract the fingerprint of the object so it can detect, track and augment the object with audio, video and/or animated 3D objects, as specified. Currently the system only supports 2D images with 3D models on the target objects. Layar Vision will be able to instantly detect up to 50 target objects at launch.

The company says there are some limitations to what the technology can recognize and track. It works best on planar surfaces, like posters, magazines and newspapers, as mentioned above, as well as billboards, flyers, book covers, CD covers, paintings and other surfaces with "a minimum amount of discriminative texture and detail." This is different than Qualcomm's recently released AR SDK for iOS (the Android version was already available), which can track both planar objects as well as simple 3D objects like a box.

The Layar platform is already in use by over 10,000 developers who work to build AR experiences for smartphones. These experiences exist both as layers within the Layar smartphone application itself, as well as in third-party apps using the Layar Player. The Layar app has been installed 10 million times, and now has over 2,500 layers, the company says.

Where and When

Developers can expect to see Layar Vision included in the newest beta of the Layar Platform, arriving in the coming weeks, says the company, but no exact date was given for the launch. For developers using the Layar Player in their own apps, they can expect to see Layar Vision in the Q4 release, on both iPhone and Android.

In addition, to kickstart development, Layar is hosting a contest called the "Layar Creation Challenge," offering a total of $55,000 in cash prizes. The top 10 developers with the best and most useful concepts for Layar Vision will receive between $2,500 and $15,000. You can learn more about Layar Vision and the contest here.

The idea behind LaunchPad is to give developers a jumpstart on getting their application noticed. For starters, Ansca Mobile has provided a Marketing 101 Guide that will walk developers through all the steps needed to get an app discovered.

They've also patterned with app review sites Technobrains and AppShrink.com, where they have negotiated discounts to get developers featured reviews. And if a developer wins "App of the Week," they get a free review. Ansca says it will also select other applications for additional app reviews and placements.

Analytics

The included analytics product in Corona has also now been improved too. No longer will app developers have to create app ID's through a third-party provider, a task which the company thought was "a little bit clumsy." Starting today, developers will have access to easier-to-use, basic analytics, no app ID required.

Gaming

On the gaming side, Ansca partnered with PapayaMobile to offer developers access to its network of 22 million users worldwide. PapayaMobile's SDK has now been integrated into Corona's SDK, and the game network API have been unified under a single gameNetwork" library interface.

Monetization

For monetization, Ansca parntered with InMobi's advertising network, which serves over 36 billion ads across 165 countries. In tests, Ansca Mobile says it seeded the new library to select developers and found that InMobi generated up to 3 times more revenue than AdMob.

New SDK and More

The LaunchPad release comes alongside the latest version of the Corona SDK, which includes the features, improvements and bug fixes from the daily builds of the last 4 months. The back end has been updated for faster build times, too, especially for Android which is now 2.5 times faster than the previous public release. The new release also bundles several 3rd-party tools, with 30-day trials, including Corona Project Manger, Kwik, and Spriteloq.

Full release notes are here.

But at the end of the day, the question still remains: who will buy this tablet over the iPad?

Need More Ports? Thrive Has That. (Also, Lots of Extra Weight)

Android tablet makers have been criticized for focusing more on specs instead of on the overall ecosystem. And if any tablet is guilty of this, it's surely the Toshiba Thrive. This tablet is more like a laptop, sans keyboard, especially if you go by the number of ports it offers. There's a full-sized SD card slot, an HDMI port, a USB 2.0 slot, a mini USB port, a docking port, plus the usual headphone and power jacks.

Maybe all those ports are what make the tablet so beefy. It's .62 inches thick, which is double that of the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1. And at 1.66 pounds, it's closer to the iPad and the Xoom (1.5-1.6 lbs) in weight than the iPad 2 (1.33 lbs). These small differences matter a lot when you're talking about portable gadgets. After using the Thrive for reading, for example, it became uncomfortable to keep it propped up.

The Thrive also has a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel display, the same as the Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Tab 10.1, the same 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor as the Galaxy Tab and a better camera than the Tab (5 megapixels vs. the Tab's 3 megapixels). Both have a 2 megapixels front camera, too. (If you really care about specs, you can delve into more of them here. We don't review hardware in this way, however.)

But What Can You Do with the Thrive?

What's more important is not the processor speed and pixel density, but what you can actually do with the tablet you purchase. Apple's iPad has an answer for that question, with over 100,000 native iPad apps, and 425,000 apps in total that work on both iPhone and iPad, combined. And it has iTunes, the marketplace for movies, TV shows, music, podcasts and educational content. The iPad no longer struggles to answer the question, "what can you do on a tablet?" It's now trying to limit the responses to the question of "what can you NOT do?"

That's not to say Android isn't making advances in this area. This spring, Google released an update to its Market which allowed users to rent movies and stream them to their devices. More recently, the mobile Android Market was updated so users could start the purchase process from their mobile, as opposed to only on the Web. But these are still baby steps, when you look at the larger challenge of reaching equity with the iPad.

For what it's worth, the Thrive takes a big step forward in trying to answer the question of "what to do" with the inclusion of pre-installed software applications. Although sometimes unwelcome, in the case of the Thrive, the apps aren't what we would call "bloatware." That's especially true since some of them that normally come with a hefty price tag are provided for free. The paid apps that ship with the Thrive include Quickoffice HD, LogMeIn Ignition and Kasperky's Tablet Security. There are also a ton of free apps pre-installed, like Angry Birds, Backgammon, Toshiba's own e-reader app "Book Place," Google Books, several card games, NFS Shift (a racing game) andThe New York Times.

I also really liked the bundled PrinterShare app, which easily found my Wi-Fi printer and let me immediately print out photos, webpages, documents, messages, contacts, Gmail, and more, without any hassle. Too bad that you only get 5 free prints before having to upgrade to the paid version, though ($12.95 from Toshiba's own store). That's the kind of thing which Toshiba should have thrown in for free to make the tablet more competitive. It's really a great feature.

Pure Honeycomb 3.1…if You Like That sort of Thing

On the software front, Toshiba's Thrive is notable for the fact that it's the first to ship with Android 3.1, the latest version of Honeycomb. That means you can do nifty things like resize your homescreen widgets and enjoy other minor user interface improvements, like a bigger "recent apps" list. And if you like Honeycomb, you'll like the Toshiba Thrive because at the very least, Toshiba didn't bog down the operating system (OS) with a overlay like Samsung's TouchWiz or HTC's Sense.

But...

Well, I'm just going to say it.

I don't like Honeycomb. I don't think it's a great tablet OS in its current state. I don't think that relocating the menus and controls that you find at the bottom of Android smartphones to the top of the screen on Android tablets makes sense. As you move back and forth between your Android phone and tablet devices, the swapped layout gets confusing.

Plus, everywhere you look, there's some sort of button, control or menu system: search is accessed in the top-left, access to the apps menu is at the top-right, navigation buttons are in the bottom-left while notifications and the clock are in the bottom-right, similar to what you would find in Windows PC's "system tray." Because really, if you're going to rip off a design, you would copy from Windows?

But it's unfair to criticize Toshiba for Google's design choices, and my own personal preferences. If you're an Android geek at heart, you might enjoy Honeycomb quite a bit. If so, you'll enjoy it more on a Toshiba Thrive.

At the end of the day, the Toshiba Thrive is a good enough Android tablet, maybe even one of the better ones, but it's not a good enough answer to the question "why not an iPad?"

The Thrive is available in 8 GB ($429.99), 16 GB ($479.99) and 32 GB ($579.99) models.

And in total, only 6% of all Android downloads on Chomp's network were paid.

The 1% increase on Android was spread out across multiple price levels, but the $4.01 - $5.00 range saw the largest jump, from 0.1% to 0.6%. The most popular categories were games, utilities and entertainment.

In comparison, iOS app developers saw a 4% increase in paid apps last month, over May. The ranges seeing the most growth there were the $0.99 and $1.99 price levels. The $4.99 price level also saw an increase, going from 0.8% in May to 1.0% in June, while the $9.99 price level declined from 0.3% in May to 0.1% in June.

In addition, the word "free" was the number one search term across all countries sampled on Android, through the Chomp app for Android.

On iOS, the company saw much more diversity on search terms, although "games" was a popular query.

According to Verizon, its customers will be able to sign up for Serve accounts on both Verizon phones and tablets, although it did not specify which devices those would be.

Serve, which can be funded by a bank account, debit or credit card, or from another Serve account, does not require users to be American Express card holders. Instead, it's aimed at those who don't rely on credit cards. With Serve, customers can shop both online and offline, anywhere American Express is accepted.

Verizon Wireless customers will be able to use Serve to buys goods and services on their mobile device in just a few clicks. The process is easier than entering in a credit card number by hand, because all that's required to checkout using Serve is your mobile phone number.

American Express and Verizon will also team up to use Serve as a way to source, distribute and enable the redemption of online and mobile offers with participating Serve merchants. The offers and coupons customers redeem at checkout will automatically appear in their Serve accounts, which can be viewed and managed online and on mobile.

In addition, both companies are working with Payfone, a mobile payments startup which American Express invested in this spring.  Payfone helps to combine mobile authorization and payment services with the Serve platform. This allows customers to pay for both digital and physical goods using just their phone number. Payfone is unique as it leverages the security built into mobile operator networks to fight fraud. With Payfone, the customer's SIM card, device ID and location are tied to each customer's account for more secure transactions.

Merchants interested in learning more about accepting Serve can visit www.serve.com/billmyphone.