Android Mobiles

Anyone who closely follows the future of Android knows that development builds are referred to by incrementally alphabetic desserts – Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo. So that makes “G” the next unknown, right? Well Brian Swetland, an Android Kernel expert, recently told us to run, run as fast as we can, we can’t catch him he’s the gingerbread man!

This week we’re finalizing our move to 2.6.32 for the Android “Froyo” release, and we’ll likely be on .33 or .34 for “Gingerbread”.

Yup, the next version of Android is codenamed Gingerbread! The next unknown is now “H” – any guesses? We threw out “Gelato” for G and “Honey” for H (see the list) but it seems like Google is going the route of baked goods.

[ Brian Swetland via AndroidAndMe]

This is a pretty cool look into the future of Android capabilities and with those new Bluetooth APIs I’m sure we’ll be seeing stuff like this come out for consumers as well. The LEGO Mindstorms robot below is controlled with an HTC Hero accelerometer and actually it connects via Wi-Fi (not Bluetooth). Check out the video:

Call me a dork but I’m really eager to start using my phone to control other physical objects. Home entertainment systems, lights, security cameras, coffee pots, toy robots, you name it!

[ENEA, Recombu, Gizmodo]

So you’ve got an application that isn’t ONLY available on the iPhone – it could be on Android, WebOS, WinMo, BlackBerry and other platforms. In your “description” you may want to let users know, and heck, maybe you got an award or something in one of the platforms and want to show users you’re product is noteworthy. Sound fair? Not according to Steve Jobs.

If it’s Android you want to mention you better think again. Flash Of Genius, developers of an app called SAT Vocab 2.2, have had the following description in the iPhone App Store:

They have just posted (on their blog) a letter they received from Apple suggesting they remove the mention of Google Android or else have their app removed from the App Store:

Dear Flash of Genius, LLC,

Thank you for submitting Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 to the App Store.  During our review of your application, we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections.

Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store.  While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate  to remove “Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!”  from the Application Description [Emphasis added].

Please log into iTunes Connect to make appropriate changes to the Application Description now to avoid an interruption in the availability of Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 on the iPhone App Store.

Regards,

iPhone Developer Program

Apple definitely has the right to do this… it just seems… overly defensive. Doesn’t it make them seem scared of Google and Android? Perhaps they should be! Meanwhile Flash Of Genius are just wondering how they can leverage their success on Android to show iPhone users they should give the software a shot!

I’m severely doubting Google cares whether or not you mention Apple or any other competitors in the Android Market. Do whatever the heck you want!

You can take our description… but you cannot take… OUR FREEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

[Via Gizmodo]

We’re all familiar with slider phones of various forms… the LG enV, T-Mobile G1, Sidekick, Palm Pre, etc… there are a lot of different possibilities. HTC has filed a patent that could lead to a new form factor that, in the end, just accomplishes the same thing in yet another way:

Apparently the clamshell uses magnets, is spring-loaded, and somehow opens on its own after you give it a nudge in a certain direction. I’m not positive they’ve got it right, but Greg from MobileCrunch seems to describe it best:

Imagine a clamshell phone, like the LG enV. Instead of opening the handset by pulling the hinged halves apart, however, you slide the top layer down a few millimeters, and bam! It springs open. When you slide the top half down, you’re breaking the connection between two magnets (one in each half of the phone) that held it closed, allowing the spring-loaded hinge to do its thing.

Will this be used for an Android phone? No clue… but given the company’s pursuit of Android dominance/success, there is at least a decent chance that if this comes to market, it’ll be sporting our OS of choice.

[USPTO via WMPowerUser]

Google continues to organize the world’s information and the next step in that process could be creating “street view” type recreations of store and business interiors. According to a retailer called “Oh Nuts” in New York, a Google representative entered the store and took pictures with the camera positioned every 6 feet. Here are some still images that seem to have been captured by the store’s security camera:

This would be a project of enormous proportions. Whereas with Google Street View you can blanket the nation/world by driving everywhere, often at high speeds, Google would need to enter stores individually by foot. Of course they COULD ask participating stores to take their own images, or use a “citizen journalist” type crowd-sourcing – but I’m not sure how likely that would be.

Google responded to a question about the alleged Google Store View by saying:

We are always experimenting with new features for Google Maps. We have nothing further to announce at this time.

They obviously aren’t denying anything. But would Google Store View even be helpful? If you really wanted a review of a business and to see the inside couldn’t you just Google the business name? How do you see this technology being used?

If Google were to somehow get businesses to participate and then somehow link in-store inventory to the pictures… allowing you to browse products from your computer or phone as if it were a “virtual” store – that would be neat. But neat and practical are 2 different things and logistically, I’m not sure how feasible or attractive Google Store View is.

Time for you to chime in…

[Via Search Engine Land]

Good old QR codes. To some people they are brilliant and to others they are just random barcode thingies that they have no clue about other than they look like barcode thingies. If you’re in the latter group, read this. If you’re in the former group watch this:

Pretty cool little integration, right? I wonder if more TV stations will start doing this kind of thing. Unfortunately the animation comes up and you only have about 5 seconds to pull your phone out and then you have about 8 seconds to scan it. Ample time?

Try and scan the QR code from the embed and let us know how you fare!

[Via AndroidTapp]

One of the developers on the Mozilla Firefox team is a guy named Vladimir Vukićević and he has just made a really interesting post on his blog about Firefox and Android. Basically, they’ve got the FULL FIREFOX browser working on Android and although it has some kinks (which he explains) it seems to be working really well.

Why the full Firefox? Because it’s much more complex and complicated to get running on Android… so if they can do THIS version they can do anything. Not a bad approach.

I like some of the things I had to hear about his experience with Android:

• Porting Firefox/Fennec to Android is progressing at a good clip
• Android has been pretty great to work with so far;
• It’s a bit unusual platform for us due to its Java core, but with the NDK we’re able to bridge things together without many problems.

As for the outlook of completion? Nothing to get too excited about but a product is definitely in-the-works and they’re optimistic:

We’re still a ways  to go before any kind of usable alpha release, but we’re certainly one step closer.  We’ll also be able to accelerate our progress now that we have some of the basic scaffolding in place.  I know I’m looking forward to running Fennec on my Droid, and there are tons of Android devices coming out that should be great platforms for Fennec.

Eagerly awaiting!

[Via Giz]

One of our readers just dropped this fun news into our inbox. Looks like Dyzplastic is manufacturing series 1 of our favorite robot in 3″ vinyl figures with rotating head and arms. Series 1 features 12 different designs sold in cases of 16, so, a single case will hopefully complete your series.

Looks like we will all have some new knick knacks on our desks and will be bidding up a storm on eBay to complete our collections. There will also be a few rare figures and the release of series 1 is set for the end of this month. Who’s ready to place their order?

[via DyzplasticBlog]