Nokia Normandy budget Android phone leaked again in new purported render

Nokia may not have officially revealed plans for making Android devices, but rumours about the company's first Android-powered smartphone, thought to be codenamed Normandy, are buzzing again.
@evleaks has posted a render showing Nokia's alleged first Android smartphone, Normandy in various colour variants. The tweet reads, "Nokia Normandy, 2013" and includes the purported render of the device. The tweet also indicates that Nokia might launch the alleged Normandy by end of this year.
The Nokia Normandy's leaked render shows the yet-to-announced device sporting a similar design to the Asha touch range of phones. There is a physical back button on the front panel of the alleged Normandy, as seen in leaked render. The rear panel is seen with the camera accompanied by the Nokia logo branding in the middle. The rumoured Nokia Normandy can be expected to come in Black, Cyan, Mint Green, Red, Yellow and White colours, if the leaked render is believed.
If the rumours turn out to be true, Nokia, which has been supporting the Windows Phone platform like a lone ranger, might be finally changing gears and entering Android segment with its first device.
Earlier, a report had claimed that the Finnish handset maker might launch the Normandy in 2014 and described the Nokia Normandy efforts as 'full steam ahead'. The report also revealed that Nokia, following the lead of Amazon, has been working on a fully-tailored or forked version of Android, like the software on the online retail giant's Kindle Fire tablet range.
Further, the alleged Nokia Normandy has been said to be targeted at the low-cost segment as an Asha-equivalent smartphone, but with access to more traditional smartphone apps - a benefit that the report suggested has been missing in Nokia's dated Series 40-based Asha phones.
As of now, there is no clarity whether the alleged Nokia Normandy Android phone is real or just a rumour. However, contradicting the rumours about a Nokia Android phone, Stephen Elop, the former CEO of Nokia had said in July that the company made the right decision by choosing Windows Phone over Android.

Google asks US court to rule that Android has not infringed Rockstar patents

Google has asked a court in California to rule that it does not directly or indirectly infringe seven patents of Rockstar Consortium, after the Microsoft, Apple, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony backed patent firm sued seven of Google’s Android partners in a court in Texas.
The lawsuits filed in October in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, have placed a cloud on the Android platform, threatened Google’s business and relationships with its customers and partners and its sales of Nexus-branded Android devices, and created a justiciable controversy between Google and Rockstar, Google wrote in a complaint this week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Rockstar acquired Nortel Networks’ patents for US$4.5 billion after outbidding Google in 2011. It filed lawsuits in October against Samsung Electronics, HTC and five other companies alleging infringement of some or all of seven patents.
Samsung’s Mobile Hotspot feature, which allows sharing of a mobile device’s data connection with other devices by turning it into a wireless access point, is alleged to infringe claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,128,298 (“the ‘298 patent”) entitled “Internet Protocol Filter,” for example.
Describing the lawsuits by Rockstar as “Android OEM actions,” Google said in its filing that Rockstar has asserted its patents only against “certain mobile communication devices having a version (or an adaption thereof) of [the] Android operating system.” Each of the “Android OEM Defendants” also makes other products that do not use Google’s Android platform, Google added. Rockstar has also alleged patent infringement by Nexus 7, a device offered for sale by Google and built by Asus, one of the “Android OEM Defendants,” according to the filing.
Google claims that its Android platform and the Nexus 5, 7 and 10 devices it sells directly or indirectly do not infringe any claim of the seven patents in the suit. It has asked the court for a declaration that both Android and the Nexus devices do not infringe Rockstar’s patents.
The Internet company has described Rockstar as a firm that “produces no products and practices no patents” in its filing. “Instead, Rockstar employs a staff of engineers in Ontario, Canada, who examine other companies’ successful products to find anything that Rockstar might use to demand and extract licenses to its patents under threat of litigation.”
Google said the California court had jurisdiction as, among other reasons, Rockstar’s shareholders like Apple in Cupertino, California, “direct and participate in Rockstar’s licensing and enforcement efforts against companies in California.”
In a separate action, Rockstar and subsidiary NetStar Technologies have alleged that Google has infringed seven other patents acquired from Nortel. The patents, all titled “Associative Search Engine,” relate to an invention used to provide advertisements based on users’ search terms. Google has asked for a 30-day extension of time to file its response to the complaint, which was granted by the court in Texas. Advertisements around search terms is a key component of Google’s business.

src : http://www.pcworld.com/article/2083040/google-asks-us-court-to-rule-that-android-has-not-infringed-rockstar-patents.html

Simple tips that can make your new Android phone better

Did you find a new Android phone among your holiday gifts? Well here’s another gift: Five of them, actually. These tips and apps will make that new Android phone even better.

don’t know how many people found an Android smartphone among their holiday gifts although I suspect it was more than a few. There’s no lack of good options available from Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola and others. No matter what Android phone you might have unwrapped, however, there are a few easy things you can do to make the experience a great one.

1. Find a keyboard that works the way you do. I actually like the stock Google keyboard that comes with Android, but everyone is different. Luckily, Android lets you install and use the keyboard — or keyboards, for that matter — you prefer. A quick search in the Google Play store will get you started but most people can’t go wrong with SwiftKey.      
   

Viewpoint of developer V/s tester

Easy , Understandable and Simple definition of - Big Data

Post by PhPRinG.

MobileIron advances Android MDM

Summary: Improvements in security and management for Android devices by MobileIron should make Android deployment an easier and safer decision.

Android is cleaning up in market share for smartphones, but it's still a dodgy bet in the enterprise. The security architecture has always been a few steps behind that of Apple's iOS, and even third party products have had a hard time filling in the gaps. 
Now MobileIron, one of the leading Mobile Device Management (MDM) companies, is announcing improvements in their Android support with the goal of making it a safe choice for the enterprise. Already, according to the company, more than half of their customers are using Android devices under management by MobileIron; 30 customers have over 1000 Android devices under management. But IT still sees Android as risky, and deployed iOS devices vastly outnumber Android devices.

The highlights of the announcement are:

    Containerized Native Email. Mobile Application Management (MAM) products allow developers to "containerize" an app to make it manageable and to provide fine-grained security. But they can't containerize the pre-loaded Android apps like the Mail client. MobileIron, as part of a partnership with Divide (formerly Enterproid), will provide a containerized version of the native Android Mail client built from the Google Android distribution.
    Because it's the standard Android Mail app, users will have a familiar experience and the app should work on all Android distributions.  It can be managed from the same MobileIron console as other managed apps, allowing IT to impose policies such as: encrypt all content, run app in secure container, block copy paste with unprotected apps, run embedded URLs through MI secure browser, and so on.

    A containerized IBM Notes Traveler app. There are still many Notes installations and they are at very large corporations. A secure and manageable app will be appealing to these companies.
    Validated FIPS 140-2 encryption. Encryption for data at rest and in motion by MobileIron has been certified by an accredited lab for FIPS 140-2 Level 1. Support for this standard is often required for government agencies and regulated businesses.
    Secure tunneled browsing. Traffic to and from Web@Work, the MobileIron secure web browser, will travel through Sentry, the MobileIron secure gateway, making a device-wide VPN less necessary. Sentry provides a single sign on for both web and native apps under management, and uses Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) to get a Kerberos ticket. This ticket can be used to access enterprise resources within the enterprise network.
    Samsung KNOX support. MobileIron is the first commercial licensee of Samsung KNOX. KNOX devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, are not enabled for KNOX out of the box. You need a license key and a service to manage the device. MobileIron now provides that, using KNOX native facilities for containerization and policy.

MobileIron expects Android deployments in the enterprise to accelerate, in part because of a September recommendation by Garner that customers move off of Blackberry. Rather than be locked into iOS, they will grow their Android usage. For certain applications, such as ruggedized deployments (a market that had been dominated by the old Windows Mobile), Android is especially appealing, as OEMs can customize many features as needed.

MobileIron_for_Android_620


By Larry Seltzer for Zero Day | November 6, 2013 -- 05:00 GMT (21:00 PST)

Pressy adds a physical, programmable button to Android phones

via  http://www.theverge.com By Nathan Olivarez-Giles on August 29, 2013 09:17 pm 

Android phones nowadays are largely devoid of physical buttons — save for the typical duo of volume and power keys. But Pressy, a Kickstarter project that promises to bring a programmable physical button to nearly any Android device, is challenging the idea that consumers are happy doing everything on a touchscreen. With 45 days left to go, Pressy's creators, Nimrod Back and Boaz Mendel, have raised more than $92,000. Pressy surpassed its stated $40,000 goal in less than 24 hours. To put it simply, Pressy is taking off.
The idea behind the project is a simple one: use a standard 1/8-inch headphone jack (but without the headphones) to create a diminutive but easy to find button. When installed, Pressy can perform a number of straightforward operations such as launching a phone's camera app, starting a voice recording, opening up settings, activating the flashlight, or any other number of other options. Each action is assigned to the button in an a Pressy app. According to Back and Mendel's Kickstarter page, Pressy can even be set to perform multiple functions by defining what happens with single or double short or long clicks — basically, the inputs are morse code.


The way Pressy works is by running on Android as a background service. The duo says that their app monitors the headset jack, but only really does anything when Pressy is clicked, which should prevent the button from draining battery life. The Pressy app, and therefore the actual hardware, works on any device running Android 2.3 or newer. And once the app is set up, Boaz and Mendel say users will even be able to use the mic button on a set of headphones to perform the same actions the Pressy button would.

BRINGING BACK BUTTONS

Since Pressy isn't yet a real consumer product — the pair says it'll take about four months before the buttons are shipping to donors — we can't say how well the device will work in the real world, especially on the many, many different Android phones out there. But, if you want to give Pressy a shot, the asking price isn't much. For a $17 pledge, donors will get the button and the app. Or if you're feeling really spendy, $45 can buy a gold-coated Pressy button with a matching key chain holder.

Google Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 And HTC One With Stock Android 4.2 Now Available In The Play Store, Shipping July 9th

The day is here, AOSP fans: you can go pick up a gloriously stock Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC One in the Google Play Store now. The "Google Play Edition" phones went live this morning, right on time, and are now for sale next to the Nexus phones and tablets. The GS4 Google Edition can be had for $649, while the HTC One goes for slightly less at $599. Both are running the latest version of Android 4.2 shod of all skins and add-ons, with promised updates via Google itself. At the moment, the phones are only available to United States residents. Both are shipping out on July 9th, with free shipping as a nice bonus. Which one to get? You've probably already decided this for yourself, but here's a quick comparison of specs just in case you haven't. Both phones pack a gorgeous 1080p display: the GS4 uses a 5-inch Super AMOLED panel that's a bit brighter, but with color saturation that some don't appreciate, while the One has a slightly smaller 4.7-inch Super LCD that's a bit easier to read under direct sunlight. The HTC One wins for pure storage with a generous 32GB of space, but the GS4 gets 16GB of storage plus a MicroSD card slot. Keep in mind that Google Play Store content (apps, movies, and music) can only be placed on internal storage on a non-rooted phone.

Both phones are powered by the quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, but the GS4 is clocked slightly higher at 1.9Ghz to the One's 1.7Ghz. It won't make a huge difference for everyday operation, but speed demons will probably lean towards the GS4. Samsung's phone also has a bigger battery at 2600mAh versus the One's 2300mAh, with the added bonus of being removable and replaceable. Cameras are hard to compare on the two, since HTC uses a proprietary 4-"ultrapixel" sensor while the GS4 has a conventional 13.1MP rear shooter. Check our reviews of the Galaxy S4 and HTC One for some comparison shots, and keep in mind that you'll be shooting photos and videos with Android's stock camera. Both phones feature 3G and LTE bands that will work with AT&T or T-Mobile, and of course, the bootloader is easily unlockable for development or ROM tinkering.

But let's be honest here: both phones are pretty amazing, and either would serve and discerning gadget hound well. The biggest difference, and likely to be the deciding factor for many, is the design philosophy behind them. Samsung's is more conventional, with a plastic build that focuses on the screen above all else, while HTC goes for a more sturdy aluminum unibody build. Those who consider loudness and audio fidelity will probably lean towards the One with its front-facing stereo speakers, while those who want a lighter feel in the hand will go for the GS4. The One wins on pure price, but if you're spending six hundred bucks on an unlocked phone, I doubt you'll balk at $650. At the moment, the One is available only in silver, and the GS4 comes clad all in white - these are likely to remain the only color options.
And since you've made it this far, I'll point out that the Nexus 4 is still available at a much cheaper $299/$349 for 8GB and 16GB models. You lose the amazing screen, screaming performance, and access to LTE, but it's still a pretty great device considering the price.
The Google Edition Galaxy S4 and HTC One are likely to sell out very quickly. If you want one, run, don't walk to the Play Store.

Google Play Store - Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition
Google Play Store - HTC One Google Edition

src -http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/06/26/google-edition-samsung-galaxy-s4-and-htc-one-now-available-for-purchase-in-the-google-play-store/

T-Mobile drops $50 off the price of the Galaxy S 4 for one month

0

by Jared Peters on Jun 13th 2013, 12:40am
tagged galaxy s 4, Note II, S III, Samsung, T-Mobile

If you’ve been itching to pick up a Galaxy S 4 on the nation’s new uncarrier, now’s an excellent time to be shopping around. For a month, T-Mobile is dropping the price of Samsung’s latest flagship to just $99 down with $20 payments over 20 months. This brings the total price of the phone down to $579. Alongside the S 4, T-Mobile is also dropping the down payments of the Note II to $169 and the Galaxy S III to $49, so there are some pretty great savings on other Samsung flagship devices as well.

If you want to take advantage of these deals, you have until July 13th. You’ve got a month, go grab a new phone.

source: T-Mobile

At Google I/O, Glass and Android Get All the Love, if Not All the Money

Google remade its annual developer conference, I/O, to focus even more on programmers this year, eschewing the usual barrage of consumer product announcements. So what did this audience of hard-core software geeks want to hear about?
Ways to talk to Google hardware, judging by audience size at various panels, town hall meetings and tutorials. Developers mobbed sessions related to Android, Google’s mobile operating system, which sometimes runs atop Google handsets. They even jammed up a talk titled “Writing Custom Views for Android,” involving software methods with names like “onInterceptTouchEvent” and held in one of the largest rooms on offer; dozens of developers sat along the walls, unable to find proper seats. A Q&A session with Android developers was liveblogged on at least two separate websites.
Ditto for Google Glass. Programmers could not get enough of the wearable heads-up-display, filling up sessions like “Developing for Glass” and “Fireside Chat with the Glass Team.” But all that gawking won’t necessarily translate into action: Glass isn’t available to the public yet, and it’s reportedly going to cost close to $1,500 when it goes on sale by the end of this year. That contrasts sharply with Android, a free operating system installed on many of the cheapest smartphones. It was hard to tell how many people in the Glass meetings were just satisfying their curiosity about the sci-fi-feeling platform.
Still, Google has detailed official and unofficial ways to write Glass software and made hardware units available to developers under an “Glass Explorers” pilot program. At I/O, it showed off apps from Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Evernote. It was enough to make the case, however tenuous, that Google is making waves with its hardware present (Android) and hardware future (Glass).
Compared with all the enthusiasm around Glass and Android, sessions on Google+, YouTube and Google advertising tended to look underwhelming — pick a chair, (almost) any chair.
It’s interesting that a company that made its name on web services and web apps seems to be attracting developers primarily to its hardware-related products. But kudos to Google for seeing this shift to native apps coming — and for managing to keep both camps inside one conference center.
via  Ryan Tate (http://www.wired.com/business/2013/05/glass-and-android-win-io/).

The First Jolla Smartphone: Quirky, $500, and Android-Friendly

When a band of engineers fled Nokia in 2012 to develop a MeeGo-derived OS called Sailfish, they needed a vehicle to carry the software. And this is it: the first Jolla phone, which is as quirky as the OS it runs.

Featuring a 4.5-inch display, dual-core processor, 8-megapixel camera, 4G, 16GB of onboard storage, and a microSD slot, its most obvious physical feature is the contrasting removable back cover. The phone recognizes which cover is attached and changes its colored theming to match, but the subtly different shaping of the two parts is what actually makes it interesting from a design perspective. (Check the picture above close-up to see what we mean.)

Jolla claims the handset will be "compliant" with Android apps, though the phone runs its own Sailfish OS. That's based on MeeGo, which originally powered the Nokia N9, and it's not clear how well the Android integration will work—how many apps will be supported, and how well they'll work, for instance—let alone where the apps will be downloaded from. But, hey, let's give 'em chance to prove themselves.

Initially launching in a handful of European countries, Jolla will roll out the handset more widely in the near future. It looks set to cost around $500. [Jolla via Verge]

via

Jamie Condliffe (http://gizmodo.com/the-first-jolla-smartphone-quirky-500-and-android-f-508840357)

E-business answers

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Track Snipers with Android (Android Phones Pinpoint Snipers)

 The military has high-tech equipment to track sniper fire, using microphones carried by soldiers or stationary ones mounted at strategic points. Now that technology is getting shrunk down so that it can be used in the hands of civilian bodyguards sporting Android phones.

A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University, led by Akos Ledeczi, has developed an inexpensive piece of hardware and related software to turn an Android smartphone into a sniper finder. The Vanderbilt team described the new system at the 12th Association for Computing Machinery/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks in Philadelphia earlier this month. NEWS: ‘Smart’ Armor Learns More With Every Bullet

They built a sensor module that is about the size of a deck of cards. When a shot is fired, the sensor picks up the sounds and logs the exact time. The sensor then sends the data to a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. If any other smartphones in the local wireless network have similar modules, the location of the gunshot can be pinpointed by the timing of the sounds’ arrival. It’s a similar idea to the ShotSpotter, a system used in Seattle to track locations of shooting incidents.
There are two versions of the system. One uses a single microphone per module, but requires at least six separate phones to accurately calculate the location of the shooter. The second setup has four microphones in each (slightly larger) sensor module, but needs only two separate phones to locate the sniper.
The sensors make use of a distinctive feature of gunshots: they produce two bangs. One is from the muzzle of the gun, as the gases propelling the bullet expand and create a shock wave. That sound wave goes out in all directions, and it is shaped like a sphere.
Bullets make a second sound. As they are usually moving at supersonic speeds, it is a small sonic boom. The sound wave is conical, with the bullet at the point of the cone.
Timing when the two sounds arrive at the microphone can give a good idea of where the shot came from, and when that data is taken from separate locations, it allows for triangulating the sniper’s position.
Using the sonic boom form the bullet allows the microphones to “hear” the shots over longer ranges. Janos Sallai, a research scientist on Ledeczi’s team, told Discovery News that at larger distances, the spherical wave from the muzzle is distorted by obstacles on the ground. That’s one reason people have a difficult time figuring out where sounds like gunshots are coming from.

ANALYSIS: How the Falling Meteor Packed a Sonic Punch
The microphones in a phone, he added, wouldn’t work. “Originally we were thinking of the phone mic, but the sampling rate wasn’t enough,” he said.
In addition, the noise cancellation that most phone makers build into them so that you can have a conversation in a crowded restaurant or outside, gets in the way.
Civilian bodyguards could use these sensors to protect dignitaries, with each member of a team equipped with a sensor module. If a shot were fired, the guards could track where it came from and help local police track down the shooter. Sallai added that the Secret Service has shown a lot of interest in this system and has even called for proposals.
Credit: Vanderbilt University

via  http://news.discovery.com (Apr 27, 2013 09:16 AM ET // by Jesse Emspak )

Appreciate Is A New Way To Find Quality Apps On Android

The Android marketplace, Google Play, may now be catching up with the Apple App Store in terms of sheer number of applications available, but finding the better-quality apps outside of the big names is still something of a challenge. Today, an app discovery service called Appreciate has launched on the Android app store to address this problem.

The company was founded two years ago by CEO Amir Maor and CTO Yaron Segalov, both who have previous experience in the mobile industry and with big data. As they developed the concept which has become today’s new Appreciate application, earlier prototypes released into the Android marketplace gained tens, and even hundreds of thousands of installs, indicating demand for the service they’ve been building
Maor notes that the first version of the app reached over half a million installs, even though it was more prototype than finished release. The private beta launched around a month ago has already gained 10,000 users. While backend of these apps has evolved over the years, the version of Appreciate launching today would be unrecognizable to any of the company’s previous users.
It’s not just the overall look-and-feel that’s changed, it’s the entire way the new app discovery service has been set up, the way it works, the navigation, the personalized recommendations it delivers, and more.
Like many startup founders, Maor cites a personal need as the inspiration for building Appreciate, originally. “As the number of apps grew, we found it harder to find good content for our mobile phones,” he says. “It started with just finding quality apps, and that improved over time. But then, even though we could find quality apps, it got harder to find those that were more suited to what we were interested in.”
Maor says that though it has become easy enough to find the Android app blockbusters, sifting through a narrower category, like chess games or arcade games (his personal favorite) is difficult.
With Appreciate, while the user interface is attractive, the power in this service is the algorithms on the backend. Appreciate not only understands which apps are quality apps – a metric it understands by analyzing a variety of specific signals – it also matches those apps to a user’s unique personal tastes.
Appreciate doesn’t determine an app’s “quality” based on ratings or reviews, however, which Maor explains can be less than reliable. Instead, its secret sauce looks for other indicators – like whether or not users have installed the app then rapidly uninstalled it, for example – a sure signal that it may have left something to be desired. Apps with a good install base across your social network may also be recommended, as are those other Appreciate users have indicated are good, too.

Appreciate works better for those who sign in using Facebook, however it already knows a little about users’ tastes from the apps installed on their own devices. Within the app, users are encouraged to follow other “experts” who are also interested in the same types of apps, which also gives Appreciate a social network feel, to some extent.
In addition to expert recommendations, users also get personalized feeds showing app recommendations, apps trending across favorite categories, friend notifications, and a personalized app search engine which shows results indicating which apps are used by friends.
For example, if Appreciate knows you love wildlife, a search for “birds” might return an app about actual birds, not the Angry kind.
Appreciate is available now in Google Play, and the plan is to bring the service to the iPhone in the future. However, Maor admits that he, like many developers today, doesn’t really understand Apple’s new clauses around its ban on app discovery service. “It won’t be just mimicking an app store,” he says. “We hope everything will work well and they’ll actually approve it.”
Time will tell.
Based in Israel, the ten-person company has several million in seed and Series A funding by Magma Ventures, and many undisclosed angel investors.

by Sarah Perez via  http://techcrunch.com

Android 4.1.1 rolls out to Sony Xperia S tablet today

Owners of Sony's Xperia S tablet will finally get a crack at Android 4.1.1, aka Jelly Bean, early today.
Sony expects to push the update to its production server sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. PT. Xperia S owners will then receive a notice in the bottom right Notification Area alerting them that a system update is available. Users can also follow the steps outlined on Sony's System Update page to manually check for the latest Android flavor.
The update will be available in the U.S, Canada, and Latin America. Once the update is set to launch, Sony will provide futher information on Android 4.1.1 via its Release Notes page.

by Lance Whitney

  via -http://news.cnet.com

Zuckerberg: Google Can't Stop Facebook Home on Android

At Facebook‘s mobile strategy event yesterday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was surprisingly confident of Google‘s inability and unwillingness to prevent Facebook from rolling out Home on Android, because of the search engine commitment to opennness.
But when Google realizes Facebook Home is hijacking Android, drawing users to the social network’s services and ads, away from Google’s, things might turn ugly.
Below are Zuckerberg’s comments on the matter:

Zuckerberg on the relationship with Google
Google is aware of what we are doing and we talked to them about this and all of that. But fundamentally Android is just a more open system, so we don’t have to work directly with them in order to build an experience like this. So we can even go deeper that we’re talking about today. They’ve designed Android from the ground up to support deep integration.

Can Google stop Facebook Home?
We think that Google takes its commitment to openness in this ecosystem really seriously. These features that we are plugging into aren’t like a surface feature of Android that you can easily paper over… they’re operating system really is designed from the ground up to support these things. And it is theoretically possible that they go back on there commitment to openness but I don’t think that they will and it will take a lot of effort, a lot of really concerted effort to change the rules of something like this and make the system different. So it won’t just be some subtle thing that they choose to do. It will have to be a complete 180˚ in their philosophy and promise of openness to the community if they go back.
 
But what if they decide to do it?
If 20% of the time that people are spending on their phones are in [Facebook] Home or in other Facebook experiences then I really think that they’re going to have a hard time making a rational decision to do that and looking at themselves in the face and saying that they are building the best experience that they can… Every company that I know wakes up in the morning trying to build the best experience. And Google too!
(src http://www.forbes.com)

Camera Trigger ,ShutterBox Turns Your Android Phone Into A Sophisticated, Sensor-Laden Remote

A new Kick-starter campaign from San Antonio-based Ubertronix, Inc. aims to turn your Android Smartphone into a wireless activator for DSLR. The mission follows others that offer similar devices, but this one, the brainchild of Josiah Leverich, who founded Ubertronix a little over a year ago to build camera remote hardware, has some unique elements, including a way to use your Smartphone as a lightning sensor for capturing remarkable storm photos.

Ubertronix began as a way for Leverich to build and market his Strike Finder camera trigger product, which is a dedicated piece of hardware that features built-in sensors to help capturing high-speed photography, and lightning specifically. The ShutterBox is an extension of that tech, which features a hot shoe-mounted receiver box that communicates wirelessly with your Android smartphone via Bluetooth. It uses the phone’s built-in sensors for triggering automatic shutter activation, including light sensors for lightning, as well as motion detection for capturing wildlife or other movement-based events.

shutterboxThe ShutterBox can also be used as a standard wireless remote for triggering single shots, time lapse, bursts of exposures and more. It’s even designed to be able to work with multiple slave units for capture across multiple cameras at once, or for triggering remote flashes in a studio setting.

The idea following ShutterBox is to leverage the devices already in users’ hands instead of making them invest in and learn new proprietary hardware. The ShutterBox receiver will still cost you $199 as a pre-order (or $249 retail), but since a lot of its features are app-based, there’s ample potential for later capability improvements and expansion.

(src 

http://techcrunch.com

Darrell Etherington

)

Android, iOS face heat from rivals Tizen, Ubuntu, others

WASHINGTON: A handful of new smartphone platforms are expected to become available this year, challenging the stranglehold of the two market leaders, Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

Android and Apple account for more than 90 percent of the surging smartphone market, and third place is being contested by BlackBerry and Microsoft's Windows Phone.

But phones using operating systems based on the open-source platforms Linux and Mozilla's Firefox will be hitting the market this year, most likely in emerging markets. Among smartphone makers, "there is a consensus that there is room for a couple more operating systems," said Ramon Llamas, analyst with the research firm IDC.

"Maybe not globally, but in some markets which could be used as proving grounds."

An IDC survey showed Apple and Android accounted for 91.1 percent of all smartphones sold in 2012, but that new platforms are worth watching in a market with 46 percent growth last year.

The Mozilla Foundation, developer of the Firefox browser and a new mobile operating system, claims to have 17 operators on board and plans Firefox OS phones in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

The key player being watched, however, is Samsung, which is the biggest smartphone maker with some 40 percent of all Android phones but is planning new devices using Tizen, an operating system based on Linux.

The Tizen Association, which also includes France's Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, China's Huawei and US-based Intel, say the firms "view openness as a key to raising the bar for user experience."

Some analysts were surprised by Samsung's move, saying it's not clear if the South Korean giant is trying to distance itself from Google and Android, which is a free operating system but offers advertising possibilities to the Silicon Valley firm.

"I wonder about Samsung's motivation," said Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies.

"To get out from Google's control might be part of it, but I'm not sure how rational that is. The partnership has been very fruitful for both companies, and it's hard to see where the negatives are."

But Aapo Markkanen, an analyst with ABI Research, said Samsung is trying to break free from Google and that Tizen could be the key for that.

"All signs are pointing to Samsung trying to pull off a Great OS Escape within the next year or two," Markkanen said in a blog post, adding that the platform "will be given a kick start with the software and service portfolio that Samsung has accumulated" along with "Samsung's gargantuan marketing budget."

Other Linux phone systems are also readying their entry.

Ubuntu, a Linux-based operating system promoted by British software firm Canonical, expects to have phones ready later this year. And Sailfish, another Linux variant from Finnish-based Jolla Mobile, has released its program for developers.

Analysts say smartphone makers are seeking to mimic the success of Apple by controlling both the hardware and software "ecosystem."

"We are seeing more desire to control the whole user experience," said Gerry Purdy, analyst and consultant with the firm Mobile Trax.

A major challenge for any new platform, however, will be developing the applications that make up the ecosystem. These are key attractions for users of the iPhone and Android devices.

Although some apps can be developed across platforms using HTML5, a programming language that can be adapted for different devices, analysts say these are inferior to "native" apps developed for a specific platform,

"You can provide a reasonable experience with HTML5 and the browser, but the native app is smoother, cleaner and more natural," Purdy said. "It's pretty obvious when you watch them side by side."

Even a powerful firm like Samsung will have a hard time putting together an app ecosystem that can compete with Apple's App Store and Google Play.

"There is some open space, but putting together an entire ecosystem and doing that where there are established incumbents is a pretty iffy proposition," Kay said.

Because of these obstacles, Llamas said progress for any new system will be "long and slow."

"None of these things will happen overnight. There has to be time for gestation, reception and evangelization. And picking the markets will be important," he added. 

via AFP | Mar 25, 2013, 01.17 PM IST(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

Pivot nepal mobile apps ideas

Android this week: Nexus 7 dock stock; Galaxy S 4 ‘spec-tations; how to speed up Chrome

This week finally saw a long-awaited dock launch for Google’s Nexus 7 tablet. The $29.99 accessory holds the Nexus 7 in landscape mode, propping it an angle that’s good for watching video or other online content. A micro-USB port and 3.5 millimeter headphone jack are the only interfaces, keeping the dock simple, but limited, to use. Also limited is actual stock of the dock.
In under 24 hours in the U.S., the product page went from “in stock” to “temporarily out of stock” to “ships soon”. Google is also selling the dock in the U.K., Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan, and readers in those countries have told me there is still available stock outside of the U.S. While its good that as of this writing, Google’s Play Store says it should have stock in less than one week, the company needs to get a better handle on its product supply to become a viable hardware retailer.

On the software side of Android, Google has no such problems. This week it added data compression support to its Chrome Beta for Android. By typing chrome://flags in the address bar in Chrome’s beta, you can find and enable the experimental compression. Doing so sends all non-secure HTTP requests through Google’s servers. Where possible, Google will further compress images to its WebP format and remove any unneeded data during the web session; this speeds up the browser experience while reducing the amount of wireless data needed.
After you enable this function the Chrome Beta for Android app, you can even see how much of a data reduction is taking place. Type chrome://net-internals in your Chrome address bar and tap the Bandwidth tag. A real-time table of the data compression savings will appear, both for your current session and for all time, starting when you turned on the experimental feature.
This coming week is a big one for Android users as Samsung is holding a big press event on Thursday. There’s not much of a surprise factor involved as the company is widely expected to introduce the Galaxy S 4 smartphone. I’ll be on hand at the launch event for the news but I don’t anticipate a big departure for the company’s flagship phone. Based on rumors, leaked screenshots, and my own thoughts, here’s what I expect:

• A 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display but no active digitizer or S-Pen
• Android 4.2 will ship with the device which will still be largely created with plastic
• 2 GB of memory and a minimum of 32 GB of internal capacity, along with micro-SD expansion
• A U.S. model that uses Qualcomm’s newest silicon — due to LTE integration — and an international edition with Samsung’s newest Exynos chip
• Various new Samsung-specific software features such as scrolling based on eye-tracking and hover touch tech
• A battery with at least 2300 mAh capacity, which should last a full day
• An outside chance the Galaxy S 4 will support the new 802.11 a/c Wi-Fi standard

 via By Kevin C. Tofel

Download Time Table 2013 Android Apps for of Year 3 Islington college

Click on the link below to download apps and install on your device

• https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzKumSTVSJNYX05JTnZENmJJSkU/edit?usp=sharing

• https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzKumSTVSJNYTWN4dGdQMDFXT1U/edit?usp=sharing

Android this week: HTC One introduced; Ubuntu on Nexus; Galaxy S4 using Snapdragon?

This week saw the introduction of HTC’s next flagship phone, named the HTC One just like its predecessor. The handset materials and design are a bit of a departure for HTC as the new phone will use an all aluminum enclosure and a pair of front-facing speakers. As a result, the audio experience ought to be a highlight for the One, but visually oriented readers will be happy with the display as well: HTC is packing in 468 pixels per inch on the 4.7-inch, 1080p display.

LG Optimus G AT&T Wireless Cellular Phone - OPTIMUSG (Google Affiliate Ad)

HTC OneHTC’s One will include an LTE radio for fast mobile broadband and run on Google’s Android Jelly Bean software. The company is also including several of its own software features: BlinkFeed streams news, social networking updates and other information; Sense TV provides video content guides and uses an infrared sensor turning the One into a remote control; customized home screens are available, similar to prior versions of HTC’s sense software.Apple AT&T 64GB Black iPhone 5 Wireless Cellular Phone - 69304 (Google Affiliate Ad)LG Optimus G AT&T Wireless Cellular Phone - OPTIMUSG (Google Affiliate Ad)

The flagship phone doesn’t yet have a price tag as that will come from carriers — likely next month — but will be available in both a 32- and 64 GB option. Other internal specs include a 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, 2 GB of memory, NFC radio and integrated 2300 mAh battery.Apple AT&T 64GB Black iPhone 5 Wireless Cellular Phone - 69304 (Google Affiliate Ad)

Speaking of Snapdragons, Qualcomm’s chip may power the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. Samsung has yet to introduce the revised Galaxy but online benchmarks and other evidence point to the company opting for a Snapdragon over its own Exynos chip. Reports indicate the same Snapdragon 600 found in the HTC One will be inside the Galaxy S4, due to heat issues when testing the Samsung 8-core Exynos chip.Motorola DROID 4 for Verizon (Google Affiliate Ad)

This wouldn’t be the first time Samsung chose a competitors chip to power its own smartphones however. The US version of the Galaxy S III also used a Snapdragon chip, mainly because at the time of launch, Samsung hadn’t yet integrated LTE support in the Exynos silicon. In some sense, Samsung is lucky that it has a secondary option for chipsets, else its flagship phone could face delays. We’ll get the story for sure within the next few weeks as Samsung is expected to hold a launch event for the new Galaxy smartphone on or around March 14.

Ubuntu on NexusWe don’t, however, have to wait to see Ubuntu on a smartphone: This week, Canonical released instructions on how to install a preview of the alternative platform on Google’s Nexus line of tablets and phones. You’ll end up wiping out your Android system if you do this, but Canonical provided the handy links to Google’s own factory images for all Nexus devices, making it easy to reinstall Android.

I haven’t taken the Ubuntu plunge on my Galaxy Nexus yet, but expect to next week. From all accounts I’ve read so far, the Ubuntu interface is intuitive, but the software is still rough around the edges. There are still quite a few features and functions not ready yet although the Nexus phones will still be able to make calls and connect to both Wi-Fi and mobile broadband networks.
By Kevin C. Tofel

Nexus 7 Updated to Android 4.2.2 Via LiquidSmooth Jelly Bean ROM

Google recently released the latest Jelly Bean software update-Android 4.2.2 JDQ39-for its Nexus devices. The OTA update is more of bug fix and solves the Bluetooth bug found in the previous Android 4.2.1.

Followed by the official release, the LiquidSmooth team has released LiquidSmooth (RC1) custom ROM featuring Android 4.2.2. The key difference is, along with software update the LiquidSmooth ROM brings an array of customised features which are not found in the official build. Since the custom ROM is in its development stage, bugs are likely. Head over to the development page to learn more about the ROM.

Features of the LiquidSmooth Android 4.2.2 Jelly BeanGoogle GCC 4.7 Toolchain
10.1in Samsung Galaxy Note 16GB Tablet - White - Tablets (Google Affiliate Ad)
O3
Strict-Aliasing (Linaro)
C++11 Mode
Optimised String Handling Routines (Linaro/Sony) 
Misc other Linaro and Code Aurora optimisations
Customisable lockscreen buttons and sliders
Chronus clock widget
Customisable hardware and software keys
Transparent navbar and status bar
Customisable navbar ring
Navigation bar widgets
Customisable power menu
Notification power widget
Customisable quicksettings panel
Statusbar mods
Theme engine
Quiet hours
Volume rocker music controls
Full Rotation ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T, Black TF300T-B1-BL (Google Affiliate Ad)

Documents revealing spring release for Android Key Lime Pie taken down by Qualcomm

By Aaron Souppouris on February 1, 2013 05:39 am

On Wednesday, Android Police published information from leaked Qualcomm slides that showed the tentative release date for the next version of Android, "Key Lime Pie." The slides indicate that the Android "K-release" will be announced during "spring 2013." The date neatly lines up with this year's Google I/O, scheduled for May 15-17tth. Shortly after posting the slides, Android Police, and other sites repeating the story, were ordered to remove the information by Qualcomm.

It's not clear if the takedown was related to the Key Lime Pie timeframe — cited as a "Google Estimated Release" — or information regarding future Qualcomm chip development, but the fact that the chipmaker scrambled to suppress the information indicates that the spring date may be accurate. After all, Qualcomm supplies the chips for a huge number of Android handsets, so it probably has a good idea of Google's plans.

Android's Web share down 13% since Nov.; Apple's is up 1%

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt    February 1, 2013: 6:32 AM ET
Usage numbers contradict estimates of Samsung's smartphone and tablet sales
Data: Net Applications Mobile operating system share

Data: Net Applications' Feb. 1 report

FORTUNE -- According to a report issued Friday by Net Applications, the Web presence of Android devices peaked in November at 28% and has been drifting down ever since.

By contrast, Apple's (AAPL) iOS has climbed since October, after the company launched the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini.

That quite a different story than the one being told by market research firms like IDC, which has Samsung's Android-based smartphones outselling the iPhone and Samsung's tablets rapidly catching up to Apple's iPad. "IDC says Android is the new king of tablet market share," was Thursday's headline on CNNMoney.

I was skeptical of IDC's tablet shipment numbers Thursday, given that of the major tablet manufacturers, only Apple actually releases unit sales data.

And I'm doubly skeptical today, given the trends shown in Net Applications' data above. Unlike IDC, which seems to pull numbers out of thin air, Net Applications is actually counting something: The browser data from 160 million users per month weighted geographically according to the number of users in each country. (StatCounter, a competing service, does not weigh its data geographically and gets very different results.)

How can Google's (GOOG) Android be the king of tablets and smartphones if more than 60% of Web users are on Apple devices and only 24.5% on Android?

Either a lot of Android owners are not using their devices to surf the Web -- which is certainly possible -- or someone's numbers are screwy.
Posted in: Android, Apple, IDC, Net Applications, Samsung