Mayur's Posterous

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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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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Android 3.0 Gingerbread details:

We’ve been hearing about the upcoming Android Gingerbread release in Q4 for a while now. And also how the new Android user interface will blow our socks off.

Still, everyone’s been pretty sketchy about exact details of what’s actually coming to Android Gingerbread. Until now.

Mobile-review.com’s Eldar Murtazin just went and spilled a boatload of interesting details about the upcoming Android Gingerbread release.  Don’t run searching for these details to his blog or his main site, you won’t find anything there yet.

Eldar did all the spilling in his Russian podcast “Digestiv”. It’s audio only, so Google Translate won’t help you much. If you do not speak Russian, you’ll have to trust me on this :)

 

Her we go:

  • Android 3.0 Gingerbread will be released in mid- October (around 15 -16th), 2010. First handsets shipping in November/December – for the Holiday Season.
  • Minimum hardware requirements for Android 3.0 devices are: 1GHZ CPU, 512MB or RAM, displays from 3.5” and higher.  (We all, of course, heard that Android handsets with 2GHz CPU’s are coming)
  • New 1280×760 resolution available for the devices with displays of 4” and higher. (Anyone thinking about Android tablets now? )
  • Completely revamped user interface. If you want to get a feeling of what Android 3.0 Gingerbread UX is like, check out the Gallery  App on Nexus One. The same overall feel, light animated transitions,etc. Natively, through all the UI.
  • Android’s split into 2 branches becomes official. 3.0 for top of the line/high end devices. Cheap, low-end mass market handsets will keep Android 2.1/2.2

Eldar also confirmed my musings about the death of third party User Interface shells like HTC Sense, MotoBlur, etc;. Android 3.0 basically kills the need for them.

Still, there’s some hope for third party vendors here – while Google takes over the UI on the high end, vendors get to keep their UI shells/improvements on mass market Android smartphones, running Eclair or Froyo.

 

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Android-Robo: Every Google gift shop should have one - Recombu

Android-Robo: Every Google gift shop should have one

By Andrew Lim on Monday, 21st June 2010

If you grew up watching sci-fi films then you'll share our disappointment about the current lack of robots in all our homes - it is the 21st century after all. All is not lost though, there are groups of people around the world building robots as we speak, in preparation of the robot-filled future we've all been hoping for.

Hideyuki Takei and Reo Matsumura, for example, have been busy making an incredibly cute Android robot that is controlled with an Android phone via Bluetooth. Hideyuki came up with the software and Reo built the robot. OK, it doesn't do the dishes or help you with your homework but you want one, right? We certainly do.

We're not sure if the Android-Robo is going to be available to buy but we think Google should sell these. Seriously, Google get on it.

 

Needless to say but I want one.

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Latest Froyo Build (internal Google release) For Nexus One Leaked (FRF72)

Good thing for our readers that I’m a night owl, and I happen to love my Nexus One, and love me some frozen yogurt. Especially together:

Nexus One with Froyo

 

And now I have my T-Mobile Nexus One updated with the latest and greatest FRF72 build.

I just happened to be browsing a forum about the upcoming official Android 2.2 Froyo release when I see someone leak a URL for the FRF72 build that Google Employees were given a week ago. Someone at xda-developers.com seems to be the original source.

Download URL and Instructions

Here’s the URL for the upgrade, while it lasts:

 

http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF72-from-FRF50.bc033f9e.zip (1.9MB)

 

 

Based on the filename, it appears to be an incremental build from FRF50, so you must already have FRF50 installed to use this new build.

I followed the same instructions that we posted here on AndroidPolice.com a few weeks back when FRF50 was leaked, and they worked just fine for me. After step 9, scroll to the top, select Reboot, and go grab a coffee.

For whatever reason, the first reboot after installing a new ROM takes forever. Here’s my timeline:

(02:02:49 AM) rebooting phone after flashing
(02:03:26 AM) nexus animation starting
(02:05:52 AM) home screen shows up, swipe to unlock, and in the system settings to prove:

DSC07264

 

Total reboot time was just over 3 minutes. Which felt like ages after waiting for the next Froyo build to drop.

What’s In The Upgrade?

We have no idea. We’ve heard rumors that Flash support was updated, and some improvements to make the web browser operate even faster. As we discover anything, we’ll be sure to let everyone know.

Personally, I haven’t noticed any changes yet, but I’ll add more details here if I find anything.

EDIT: Change of headline, this update is an internal Google release ONLY. The OTA for everyone else is still some time away :|

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B9cf6bbfe7broken

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Google Sky Map froyo update?

As soon as I went online on my N1, the market gives me an update for Google Sky app and under the change log I read this:

New:
1.5.2: Move app to sdcard (Android 2.2 users)

I guess froyo is right around the corner :D

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Froyo updated Nexus One arriving soon in South Korea

Google Nexus One

South Koreans will soon be able to buy Google Nexus One phone. Telecoms Korea is reporting that KT will start selling 4,000 Nexus One phones as pre sale orders soon, while the actual online and offline sales with begin in July end.

Another reason to be happy for Korean consumers is the presence of Froyo in the device. While Nexus One users around the world are still waiting for Android 2.2 to land on their phones, South Korean version will have it pre-installed.
Nexus One by Google features a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED screen, Qualcomm 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor and a 5-megapixel camera. It will be priced at 699,600 won.

After reading every line, I shouted out "COME ON!" just like KB in this PS3 ad

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Nexus One hack allows 720p HD video recording in a patch to CyanogenMod

I think I'm going to root my phone. Google, out with 2.2 already!

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