Over the weekend, the first alpha builds of the 3.50 Paranoid Android ROM hit the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7. Starting today, all of you Galaxy Nexus owners can get in on the fun too. What makes Paranoid Android so special is that it features the fancy new Halo feature, something we have been chatting about for the past week. With Halo, you can have a system-wide Chat Head-like feature for your most recent notification. It’s new, sexy, and very cool. 

This week, the CyanogenMod team announced that their newest nightly ROM builds of CM10.1 would include Pie Controls. We have been a fan of Pie since we first saw it being used in Paranoid Android, so it made us happy to hear it was coming to the more widely-used CyanogenMod. To help show some folks how to enable Pie Controls and set them up, we put together this nice little video that you see below. 

Since the departure of Pete Alfonso and updates to his Bugless Beast ROM, folks have been on the search for a new minimal, stock AOSP build that brings smooth operation and vanilla Android feel. We received a few requests to make sure everyone new about a somewhat newcomer to the custom ROM scene called, Shiny. 

The new radios from the Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39) for the Galaxy Nexus LTE on Verizon that was released tonight are now available in .zip form. Thanks to XDA member mwalt2, this file should be flashable over any current G-Nex radios as it includes the full radio.img.

With little testing thus far, it’s tough to tell what kind of difference these can make it network connectivity, battery life, etc. If you are willing to take the risk and do not feel like leaving your current custom ROM, feel free to give them a look. Understand that the CDMA radio will take a while during the flashing process. 

Over the weekend, our buddy El Madhatter sent us a screenshot of his Galaxy Nexus test device which had received an update to Android 4.2.2 (JDQ39). This caused some excitement around the DL community, as in the past when we had seen leaks from him, they were quickly released for our own flashing. Unfortunately this time around, he had already taken the update and was unable to grab the file URL, thanks to a busy schedule. Well, folks, he finally found some time and wit ha little help from XDA member oldblue910 has grabbed the direct Google download of the update for your flashing pleasure. 

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta flash ROM’s on Friday! Well, now that you all hate me for getting that stuck in your head, let’s start talking geeky ROM goodness. Today, we are featuring custom ROM’s for the Galaxy Note 2 on Verizon and the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon. 

Custom ROM’s are still a large part of this community, with two of the top dogs being AOKP and Paranoid Android for a multitude of devices. If you are currently running one of their previous builds, then it looks like it is time to update.

Over the weekend, a release candidate for Paranoid Android 3+ was uploaded to XDA, along with an extremely awesome/in-depth hands-on video giving an overview of the ROM and its features such as hybrid property settings. These settings allow you to change the layout of the entire device and for individual apps. For example, you can use the tablet UI for the Gmail app if you so choose and any other app that is compatible. Definitely watch the video if you are prepared for your mind to be blown. 

The guys behind Paranoid Android ROM are in the process of finishing up their latest build, version 3.0. In a quick teaser to help get their base excited about the release, they published a video that highlights a their “Expanded Desktop Mode” and some of its new features. What is “Expanded Desktop Mode,” you ask? Only the coolest ROM feature I have seen in quite some time.