No, this isn’t some new fancy device that’s going to kill the Sidekick. It’s a corrupted 3gp video file that has the potential to hard reset a Sidekick with very little user interaction that’s out in the wild. That’s right, hard reset, as in wipe out all of your data and force you to redownload it from Danger’s servers. Luckily with the way the Sidekick is designed you won’t lose anything, but it’s still an annoyance to have to wait for all your email, settings, etc to download. It’s also a really nasty trick to play on someone you don’t like.

This was first posted in the PBD forums under a thread titled “Virus In Email?! Important!! Read!!”. I know, my first thought too was, “yeah right, Sidekicks don’t get viruses”. Technically this isn’t a virus, and it isn’t even malicious in intent. It looks like it’s just a bug with the way the email application handles a corrupted video. Needless to say though, it is a serious bug that Danger will hopefully fix in an OTA quickly. This currently affects the new Sidekick 2008, as well as Sidekick LXs with the video OTA.

Want to protect yourself from this sort of crash? In your Email, go under Menu->Settings->Attachments->Remove Attachments of these types, and check “Multimedia”. This will remove any movie files that are attached to emails sent to you, including this nasty one.

Want a Limited Edition Sidekick LX? If you’re Soulja Boy it’s as easy as this:
Step 1: Get a Sidekick LX
Step 2: Show off your big LCD TVs so everyone thinks you’re cool enough to get Limited Edition stuff
Step 3: Get your Sidekick repainted by Colorware or snag a new Lens Frame.
Step 4: Jump on sklxthemes.com and grab the Sidekick LX XBOX 360 Theme
Step 5: Go into the Catalog and download Resident Evil for $6.99
Step 6: Make a video about how you’re the only one who has this and post it to the internets!

Nice try Soulja Boy, we’re on to you. A Soulja Boy Limited Edition Sidekick LX would have been better. Maybe you should stop trying to punk people and start working on your music so you don’t stay a 1-hit wonder. Hopefully you realize how much easier (and more convincing) this would have been with a Sidekick 2008 and a custom made XBOX 360 shell.

If you follow the above steps, please let us know which “Limited Edition” you’re faking and where the video is. If you want to see Soulja Boy’s video, check it out here or below:

Via GamerTagRadio – Bury it on Digg

T-Mobile is continuing their 3G network rollout. With rumors of an Android device coming this fall, it only makes sense to have the high speed network deployed in major urban areas before the device launches. This also means that the doors are more open for Danger/Microsoft to put out a 3G Sidekick. Want to know when your city will be enjoying 3G speeds? Here’s the list of rumored dates for when the network will go live in each city:

Baltimore – Aug 18th
Houston – Aug 19th
Minneapolis – Aug 20th
San Diego – Sept 15th
Los Angeles – Sept 16th
Phoenix – Sept 16th
Sacramento – Sept 17th
Portland – Sept 18th
Seattle – Sept 23rd
San Francisco – Sept 24th

Don’t see your city? Don’t worry, there are other cities that are slated for 3G by the end of 2008:
Atlanta
Birmingham
Chicago
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Kansas City
Memphis
Miami
New England
Orlando
Philadelphia
Tampa
Washington, D.C.

via

The confidentiality request for the FCC docs for the Sidekick 2008 (Gekko) has expired and all the docs submitted to the FCC are now available on their site. There’s not much new and exciting since the Sidekick is already out and everyone and their brother is picking one up. But there are some internal photos of the device as well as some photos showing how they test the device to make sure it doesn’t microwave your brains. It’s also kind of interesting to know where the actual antennas are located on the device. If that kind of stuff interests you, here are some of the pics we pulled out:

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Original FCC Docs

For all of those of you out there that are still wrapping their Sidekick 2008 in saran wrap to keep from scratching the screen, your wait is over. InvisibleSHIELDs for the Sidekick 2008 went up on their site today. Head over to the Sidekick 2008 Screen Protector page on Sidekick Shopper to get the 15% discount for Sidekick users and get yours now. They’ll even hook you up with free shipping! They’re a bit pricey, but when you think about how much you spent on your Sidekick Gekko and how much $$$ you’ll want to get when you sell it to buy the Sidekick 2009, it’s worth not having scratches all over the screen.

UPDATE: Here are some pics sent over of a Sidekick 2008 with the full body invisibleSHIELD applied to protect the shell.

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We posted before about InvisibleSHIELDs and how great they are. After chatting with the guys over at , they’ve agreed to give 15% off to the Sidekick community so you guys can protect your devices for cheaper. Just head over to our sister site (aka the one that pays our bills), Sidekick Shopper, to get the discount code. Here are quick links:
Sidekick 3 Screen Protectors
Sidekick LX Screen Protectors
Sidekick Slide Screen Protectors
Sidekick II Screen Protectors
Sidekick iD Screen Protectors
(No Sidekick 2008 shields yet, but we’ll let you know when they’re in)

Oh, and this discount applies to any of their shields, so you can still get 15% off iPod, PSP, DS, whatever shields as well.

Want to watch YouTube on your Sidekick? Well you’re out of luck for streaming, but you can convert the videos from YouTube to a Sidekick friendly format on your PC. Dave writes in to our comments about how to convert YouTube videos for watching on the Sidekick:

Guys please listen up closely 😉 and read carefully.

Ok, I did a little research and figured out how to Download the videos off youtube and convert them to mp4 so they can be added to your phone.

Follow closely these steps and read carefully, its fairly simple.

1. Download Free Youtube to Ipod Converter
Link: https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/download/FreeYouTubeToiPodConverter.exe

2. Open the converter and Add a Youtube link to it. For Example…This random video I chose!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4UuTiK4a7o&fmt=18

(Now notice, that in the end of the link theres a “&fmt=18″. That is very important and It must be there, If it isn’t then add it onto the link”

Simply place that in the Input URL.

3. Select the Output.
Click Devices, Choose MP4 Mobile Phones, and select The Standard Quality. Then just simply edit where you want the video to be downloaded to and the name you want it to have and just download it.

4. Plug in your phone through the USB connector to your pc, and open the Music Folder. Simply click and drag the video in there.

5. Unplug your USB, and check your Music Player library, and there should be a video in the videos tab. Just click and viola.

Your welcome in advance

Thanks Dave!

When Apple released their App Store for the iPhone most Sidekick users laughed and talked about how the Sidekick has had the Catalog (aka Download Fun) for years. We’ve been buying, downloading, and installing apps before the iPhone was even around. But as it stands now, there aren’t many phones out there that you can do this with. T-Mobile is looking to change that. They’re basically going to take the Catalog model and make it easy for developers to write applications and get them deployed to multiple devices. And when you buy an application, part of what you paid for it will go back to the developer with a revenue-sharing arrangement.

We don’t foresee anything major happening to the Sidekick platform, as it basically has the capabilities that T-Mobile is looking to implement on other phones. What we do think will change is the quality and quantity of applications and games available in the Catalog. With developers programming apps for multiple devices they will be motivated to make them Sidekick compatible as they wil make more money the more devices their application can be purchased on. T-Mobile is also opening things up for anyone to get in on the action. So you won’t have to be some big software firm that’s partnered with T-Mobile. You can be just some guy sitting on your couch writing programs.

Another interesting thing is that T-Mobile will be doing a revenue-sharing model with the developer that’s based on the amount of bandwidth used. With T-Mobile launching their 3G network, we should start seeing more streaming audio and video in the future. Chances are we won’t see any of this streaming (except perhaps low quality audio) on the current Sidekick models as the EDGE network can’t handle it, but we would be very surprised if the next generation Sidekicks don’t have support for it along with 3G capabilities. And no, we haven’t heard any details worth reporting about a Sidekick 3G is coming yet. If you’re debating on whether you should wait for it or buy a Sidekick 2008, Hiptop3.com recommends buying the Sidekick 2008.

T-Mobile hasn’t dropped an official announcement on any of this yet, but as soon as we hear more, we’ll let you know.

T-Mobile’s Developer Site
via

Looks like Motorola had one shot at making hardware for Danger and they blew it with the Sidekick Slide. A device plagued with a simple, but glaring power flaw is being laid to rest. Rumors are circulating that the Sidekick Slide is no longer being manufactured and that once it’s sold out at T-Mobile stores (looks like it’s already pulled from online), you’ll have to end up looking for people selling the Slide on eBay if you want this small device. Don’t get us wrong, there were some nice things about the Sidekick Slide, and many people out there love it, but in the end it looks like T-Mobile decided that it wasn’t selling as well as they hoped. We’ll agree that this is probably a good decisions, since it would be pretty hard to compete with the other Sidekicks lately as it won’t be getting a video update and only comes in two colors.

via EngadgetMobile

Looks like we’ve got our first custom Sidekick 2008 Shell unboxing. Kyrios, a PBD regular, sent this in to us. It’s a PoweredByDanger themed shell. Looks like they’re quality! You can make your own over at sidekickshells.com.

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