ATT has been blocking the ability to download applications outside of the Android Marketsince day one. Since then, there have been a few ways to get around the blockade, for those Android users who want to install apps that they downloaded on their own. Today, we are seeing a new sideloading workaround for the Motorola Atrix 4G.

First off, you should be fairly comfortable with ADB (Android Debugging bridge) before you get started. You should also be prepared to turn your shiny, new Atrix 4G into an expensive, dual-core paperweight. Seriously, do not blame us if you brick your Atrix doing this. That said, Linux and Mac users should be good to go before running the commands, but Windows users will have to download the sqlite3 executable file, which can be found in the Android SDK.

Assuming you have ADB set up, connect your device, and do the following:

[user ~]$ adb shell

$ su
# busybox cp /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db.bak
# chown system.system /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
# ls -l /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db*
# busybox cp /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db /sdcard
# exit
$ exit

[user ~]$ adb pull /sdcard/settings.db
sqlite3 settings.db
sqlite> SELECT * FROM secure WHERE name=”install_non_market_apps”;
3|install_non_market_apps|0

sqlite> UPDATE secure SET value=1 WHERE name=”install_non_market_apps”;
sqlite> SELECT * FROM secure WHERE name=”install_non_market_apps”;
3|install_non_market_apps|1

sqlite> .quit

[user ~]$ adb push settings.db /sdcard/
[user ~]$ adb shell

$ su
# busybox cp /sdcard/settings.db /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
# chown system.system /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
# ls -l /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db*
# exit
$ exit

[user ~]$ adb reboot

The Motorola Xoom is the epitomy of the Android Honeycomb tablet and it launched quite recently so its only natural that it gets a lot of media attention. The latest news is that the device just got a price tag and a pre-order option in the UK and a coming soon price-tag for T-Mobile Germany.

In the UK the Xoom will be available some time in this or the next month, for the asking price of £449.99, courtesy of PC World. This price is for the Wi-Fi only Motorola Xoom, the 32GB version, and it amounts to about $730, which is not that bad in European terms, really. Whats more the Xoom is less expensive than its direct competitor the iPad 32GB Wi-Fi, by as much as £60.

For the Xoom to succeed in the market it will have to win the competition with the iPad. This will be no easy task, as the Apple tablet has a whole year ahead of the Xoom and Apple is announcing its next generation slate tomorrow at an event in San Francisco.

But back to the Xoom, its also headed for T-Mobile Germany. The telecom promises to have it on the shelves in the end of April, but at the steep price of €699.95 or $968. Sure this is the 3G-enabled version we are talking about, but still its a serious asking price. The deal is, T-Mobile get to be the exclusive operator to offer the Motorola Xoom for 3 months, after which other carriers should get the same chance. And hopefully bring the prices down a notch.

The Motorola XOOM packs some serious punch under the hood and there is hardly an Android application that would require more. However this does not stop the hacking community to try and squeeze every last drop of performance out of dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU.

We just got news that an XDA-developers forum member has successfully managed to increase the clock speed to 1.5 GHz with a few kernel modifications. And it’s not the see-what-I-have-here kind of deal you can follow a short tutorial and get the extra power on your very own XOOM.

Of course, you will need to unlock your bootloader and root your tablet first, but how-to guides on those two are available as well. And with benchmark results after the overclock surpassing 3100 on Quadrant and 47 MFLOPS on Linpack it might be worth the trouble.

The first Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based tabled the Motorola Xoom is now available in Verizon USA network. It can be yours for $600 on two-year contract with data plan or $800 without any commitment. A Wi-Fi-only version is yet to be released.

So, Motorola Xoom is available at Verizon, currently only the Wi-Fi+3G (LTE-ready) model though. There are three payment options for you:

• $600 on 2-year contract with a data plan
• $800 on 1-year contract with a data plan
• $800 free retail price

You perhaps noticed the LTE-ready thing above. The currently shipping Xoom units do not pack LTE support, but they all are legible for a free upgrade. Once thats available, you will have to ship you tablet to Motorola for a week so they can hook you up with LTE.

The surprises does not end here. The Honeycomb ticking inside the Xoom is not capable of handling Flash content just now. An update adding Flash support will be released this spring.

Surely the Motorola Xoom will be an excellent performer. But this LTE upgrade affair, the lack of Flash, and the lack of any tablet-ready apps in the Market and lots of reports for various bugs, sound like the Xoom was rushed to the market. Or perhaps we should we consider it as a developer slate. Only time will tell if this was a good move. Still the first Honeycomb tablet is out, so the race has begun.

As far as material committed to film goes its hardly Ben Hur, in fact Verizon's first Moto XOOM advert lasts less than 20 seconds. Its definitely in keeping with previous advertising for Motorola products on the American network i.e. masculine and aimed squarely at men. Not that I'm saying no woman would want to be encased by a robotic jetback and blasted off into the stratosphere, but it just seems like more of a boys toys thing.

Check XooM Full Specifications

Demo Below!