Mayur's Posterous

Facebook Gains an Android Facelift

Facebook for Android (s goog) got a long overdue update tonight (perhaps the final push was Mark Zuckerberg’s installing the Android app himself last week?), after playing second fiddle to the iOS version for far too long. The updated app gains some of the iPhone’s client look and feel, but also adds a draggable Notifications drawer and a new photo reel showing pictures and videos from friends.

 

The new client for Android supports more actions from the main screen. You can now respond to friend requests in the app, for example. There’s also a one-touch button to post a status update, support for Events — including RSVP in the app — and the new photo reel along the bottom. A Facebook spokesperson told me via email that the new client now supports in-app video playback that uses H.264 encoding, although I haven’t tried videos just yet. None of my friends are camera-happy today, it seems.

Android device owners that already have Facebook installed will see an update in the Android Market now. There’s still room for improvement here — I’m thinking support for Facebook chat and contact groups — but overall, the overhaul is welcome. And the Notification shade is a nice play on the native Android notifications, allowing Facebook users to be informed, but not overwhelmed with new information from their friends. After missing the fuller-featured app when I moved from iOS to Android in January, I’m ecstatic that I now have a richer Facebook experience — consider that a warning to all of my Facebook friends that I’ll be annoying them far more often now.

Many of the updates seem designed to keep users in the application longer. That’s not a bad thing — I personally prefer to stay in apps instead of bouncing out to the web for related features. Though like other Facebook mobile products, the new Android client doesn’t yet have ads, Android’s massive growing user base combined with increased engagement could make a killer platform for mobile revenue opportunities.

 

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How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated Superphone

How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated Superphone

How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated SuperphoneWhat if your phone automatically went silent when you step into the movie theater? Texted your significant other when you finished your long commute? Or automatically turned down the volume when a particularly loud friend called? It can; here's how.

How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Fully-Automated SuperphoneAndroid application Tasker gives you total rules-based automation for your Android phone. It's not free, but it offers a free 14-day trial download. In the Android Market, it's £3.99 in UK money—a little over $6 U.S. If you grab the trial, or shell out the cost of a Double-Double meal at In-N-Out Burger to buy it in the Market (scan the QR code at left), you'll discover it's worth the cost, even if you only have one super-specific use for it.

Visit the website for the whole article.

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BlindType for Android will solve all typing problems for humanity (maybe) | Android Central

I'm currently using SwiftKey Beta on my N1 and that works like a charm but this looks awesome!

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Screen wars! AMOLED vs. S-LCD vs. LCD vs. Super AMOLED | Android Central

HTC recently announced it was going to start outfitting certain handsets with SLCD screens rather than AMOLED, due to short supply of the latter. The SLCD screens may be easier more plentiful, but do they look as nice? The people over at Howard Forums put them to a test in a video comparison, with a Nexus One sporting an AMOLED screen, an HTC Desire with S-LCD, a Motorola Milestone with regular LCD and a Samsung Wave with Super-AMOLED. 

The conclusions:

All the displays were really good, they all had decent colour and respectable viewing angles. The super AMOLED was noticeably less reflective than the others and was blacker with the best viewing angles. Super LCD had similar detail in the rock face video and had a superior horizontal viewing angle compared to a regular AMOLED display. The AMOLED had slightly better blacks (you can't tell from the video - sorry) and slightly better vertical viewing angles. Both Super LCD and AMOLED were very reflective.

Can't wait to get our hands on some. Check out video of the test after the break. [HowardForums via Slashgear]

 

 

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FroYo factory.

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Calvin Klein’s Newest Ads: Suggestive QR Codes | Style News @Signature9

Calvin Klein’s Newest Ads: Suggestive QR Codes

by Shawn Ingram

Calvin Klein Jeans is known for having fairly racy billboard advertisements, or just racy ads in general. Last year the label debuted an ad in New York City depicting a two guys and a girl in a threesome, and a fourth undressing on the floor that was too suggestive for many people. {Shiny Style}  This year it looks like the brand is trying to capitalize on that history while avoiding it at the same time.

To promote the Calvin Klein Jeans Fall 2010 line, the billboards are much simpler.  There’s two billboards in New York City, and one in Los Angeles, all of which feature the same design.  The ads have the words “Get It Uncensored,” with a large QR code below.  The idea being that those who are walking by the ad (or those who see a picture of the ad) with smartphones will scan the code, and go the the website it points to.  The website has a quick 40-second ad that is every bit as racy as the previous billboards (and seems to show a topless female model for about half a second).  After viewing the video, viewers can send it to their friends on Facebook and Twitter, so even those without smartphones will be able to see the video. {Mashable}

The idea of showing racy ads isn’t exactly new -  GoDaddy.com has been doing it for a while now.  The fact that the ads use QR codes to even view them may be a bit unusual.  In the US QR codes aren’t nearly as ubiquitous as they are in Japan where people have been using them for years.  Not only that, but a vast majority of cell phones users still use feature phone rather than smartphones.  It’s not unreasonable to think that fans of the Calvin Klein Jeans brand would be more likely to have smartphones than the average consumers though. Plus, the early adopters most likely to have an iPhone or Android phone are probably a good demographic, and points have to be given for creating a mobile campaign that gives passersby a reason to stop and share it.

 

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Google’s Do-It-Yourself App Tool for Android

Google is bringing Android software development to the masses.

The company will offer a software tool, starting Monday, that is intended to make it easy for people to write applications for its Android smartphones.

The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.

The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves.

“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Abelson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project.

The project is a further sign that Google is betting that its strategy of opening up its technology to all kinds of developers will eventually give it the upper hand in the smartphone software market. Its leading rival, Apple, takes a more tightly managed approach to application development for the iPhone, controlling the software and vetting the programs available.

“We could only have done this because Android’s architecture is so open,” Mr. Abelson said.

Mr. Abelson is a longtime proponent of making intellectual and scientific resources more open. He is a founding director of the Free Software Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Creative Commons, and he helped initiate M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare program, which offers free online course materials used in teaching the university’s classes.

The Google project, Mr. Abelson said, is intended to give users, especially young people, a simple tool to let them tinker with smartphone software, much as people have done with computers. Over the years, he noted, simplified programming tools like Basic, Logo and Scratch have opened the door to innovations of all kinds. Microsoft’s first product, for example, was a version of Basic, pared down to run on personal computers.

The Google application tool for Android enables people to drag and drop blocks of code — shown as graphic images and representing different smartphone capabilities— and put them together, similar to snapping together Lego blocks. The result is an application on that person’s smartphone.

For example, one student made a program to inform a selected list of friends, with a short text message, where he was every 15 minutes. The program was created by putting three graphic code blocks together: one block showed the phone’s location sensor, another showed a clock (which he set for 15-minute intervals), and third linked to a simple database on a Web site, listing the selected friends.

An onscreen button would turn on the program, Mr. Abelson explained, for perhaps a few hours on a Saturday night when the person wanted his friends to know where he was.

A student at the University of San Francisco, Mr. Abelson said, made a program that automatically replied to text messages, when he was driving. “Please don’t send me text messages,” it read. “I’m driving.”

A program by a nursing student at Indiana University enabled a phone to send an emergency message or make a call, if someone fell. It used the phone’s accelerometer to sense a fall. If the person did not get up in a short period or press an onscreen button, the program automatically texted or called the person designated to receive the alert.

“These aren’t the slickest applications in the world,” Mr. Abelson said. “But they are ones ordinary people can make, often in a matter of minutes.”

The Google tool, of course, works only for phones running Android software. A sign-up with a Google Gmail account is required. The tool is Web-based except for a small software download that automatically syncs the programs created on a personal computer, connected to the application inventor Web site, with an Android smartphone. When making programs, the phone must be connected to a computer with a U.S.B. link.

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aCircuit Board Android Live Wallpaper

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Nexus One: Linux Ubuntu Update on Android 2.2 Froyo : Product Reviews Net


We have some interesting news for Nexus One owners now, as one clever modder has managed to get Ubuntu working on his device, and best of all – he has already posted up a full tutorial so you can get started on it too.  

As reported from BGR, Ubuntu for the Nexus One has been achieved courtesy of NexusOneHacks.net. A video tutorial has been provided which you can check out below, which shows Ubuntu Linux running on a Nexus One with Android 2.2 Froyo.

Unlike other OS hacks, you can run Ubuntu straight from the apps homepage, meaning that you won’t have to perform any special tasks when booting up the device.

If you are a regular user of Ubuntu and just so happen to be in possession of a Nexus One, today is your lucky day it seems. Check out the video tutorial below and let us know how you get on.

 

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Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks

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Google's Android mobile operating system got some significant performance improvements in version 2.2, codenamed Froyo. A high-performance JIT was introduced in Android's Dalvik runtime environment and the browser got some very deep optimizations. These enhancements make Android's performance more competitive than ever.

In our recent review of Android 2.2, we conducted some tests on the Nexus One to measure the extent of the JavaScript performance improvements. SunSpider and V8 benchmarks show that JavaScript execution in Froyo's Web browser is almost three times faster than in the previous version of the platform.

We compared these findings with that of our tests of Apple's mobile Safari browser on the iPhone 4. The results show that the Android device delivers significantly faster JavaScript execution than the iPhone, scoring over three times better on V8 and almost twice as fast on SunSpider. Apple has some work to do it if wants mobile Safari to retake the crown as the fastest mobile browser.

I know what you're thinking - that I'm a rabid fanboy.

I'm not. Srsly.

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