Android and Me |
- Google I/O 2011 day one keynote is available on YouTube
- Andy Rubin explains why Android is open sourced but not a community-driven project
- Little Android robots are about to take over your house with Android@Home
- Google Music is finally here, here’s everything you need to know
- Catch releases Catch Notes for Honeycomb at Google IO
- Andy Rubin: Nexus 3 announcement is coming, we can hardly wait
- Google chronicles the growth of Android over the past year.
- Samsung gives away 5,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets at Google I/O
- Google partners with manufacturers and carriers to speed up Android updates
- Ice Cream Sandwich will unite Android with new app framework and UI
| Google I/O 2011 day one keynote is available on YouTube Posted: 10 May 2011 07:28 PM PDT We tried to catch all the juicy tidbits from the keynote this morning for you, but if you prefer to hear about all the latest and greatest direct from the Googlers themselves you can now do so at your leisure via the magic of YouTube. Here are the time codes for some of the highlights if there is anything specific you wanted to check out and hit the links for our own coverage.
What was your favorite moment from the keynote or announcement of the day? Anything they missed or glossed over that you were really hoping to see?
|
| Andy Rubin explains why Android is open sourced but not a community-driven project Posted: 10 May 2011 05:23 PM PDT There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether Android is truly open or not. SVP of Mobile at Google — Andy Rubin — decided to set the record straight about Android’s openness. In the Q/A session at Google I/O this morning, he explained why Android is an open source project, but not developed in the open like other open source products. When asked about this issue by Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine, Andy responded: Open source is different than a community-driven project. Android is light on the community-driven side and heavy on the open source. Everything we do ends up in the open source repository. That makes sense to us. In order to have stable APIs in each update, Google needs to have a tight grip on Android’s development. If it didn’t, all hell would break loose with many Android devices launching with many different APIs — truly fragmenting the OS. So no, Android is not an open source project in the same way that Firefox or WordPress are. But there’s a good reason for that. Those two products don’t have to deal with keeping a few hundred different devices all compatible with each other. While I know some people will disagree with Google’s decision, I think most of us understand where they’re coming from.
|
| Little Android robots are about to take over your house with Android@Home Posted: 10 May 2011 02:10 PM PDT Are you ready to let Android take care of everything around the house? You better be, ’cause that’s where we seem to be headed. At the Google I/O keynote this morning, the company gave us a sneak peek of Android@Home. A project Google has been working on that’ll let us control everything in our home right from our Android phones. Google wants everything in our house — from light bulbs to the faucet — to connect via Wi-Fi a low-power wireless connection with our Android devices. The company gave us an example of an alarm application that gently turns on the lights and stereo on your bedroom to wake you up. Later on, Google showed us a concept media hub developed by the company named Tungsten. In one of the most mind-blowing moments of the whole keynote, a Googler tapped an NFC-enabled CD case to the device, and it automatically started playing all the songs inside the CD. The futures has arrived, people. The possibilities are endless for what developers will be able to do with Android@Home. If Google gets its way, your fridge will soon buy the groceries, the vacuum cleaner will clean the house when you’re not home, the thermostat will adjust the temperature when you get home, and the front door will open using your phone. That’s all coming in the near future, thanks to Android. Android@Home might be ready around this year’s Holiday season, said Google. How else do you think Android@Home will help us in the future? Let us know in the comments.
|
| Google Music is finally here, here’s everything you need to know Posted: 10 May 2011 01:17 PM PDT After a whole year of waiting, Google has finally announced its cloud music service, Music Beta by Google. Product Manager at Google, Paul Joyce, unveiled the service during this morning’s keynote at Google I/O in San Francisco. While everything we heard about the service last night turned out to be true, Google shed some light on how the whole thing will work. The service will initially be invitation-only and available just for those in the U.S. When talking about pricing, Google promised that the service will be free, at least for the beta period. If you manage to get an invitation, Music Beta by Google will allow you to store 20,000 of your songs on Google’s servers. You’ll be able to do this by using a small piece of software that’ll upload the music files stored on your hard drive. This tool will also let you upload all the playlists that you have on iTunes or Windows Media Player. The service will then sync — via the cloud — your songs and playlists across all Android phones and tablets you own. Additionally, users will be able to listen to their music files using the very slick-looking Music web app. The web app will also allow you to easily create a playlist based on one song. Google calls this feature InstantMix, and believes it’s a "truly ingenious" feature — an obvious poke at Apple’s iTunes Genius feature. Once you’re on your Android device, Music will constantly sync your music with the cloud. Making any changes you make appear almost immediately on the Music web app — and vice versa. The Android app will keep a cache of the songs you listen to most, for those times when you don’t have an Internet connection. If you want to download a specific song or album, you’ll able to “pin” them and the app will save them to your Android device. While Music Beta by Google shows promise, there are currently two big features missing from it. One of them is being able to buy songs and the other one is recognizing which songs you already own so you don’t have to upload them. Both of these features require Google to strike a deal with record labels. But like we heard yesterday, record companies are not interested in what Google is offering them. Instead, they’re trying to impose terms that are “unreasonable and unsustainable." That usually means that they want to milk consumers as much as possible with high prices, and DRM-protection. For a company like Google — best-known for its free products — this is unacceptable. Even though the service has some shortcomings, we’re glad Google has decided to go ahead and release it once and for all. Hopefully, record companies will realize this is the way forward and sign a deal with Google in the near future. Gallery     
|
| Catch releases Catch Notes for Honeycomb at Google IO Posted: 10 May 2011 12:18 PM PDT Catch Notes today has announced the launch of Catch Notes for Honeycomb, a tablet-friendly version of their note-taking application for Android. I've been using Catch Notes since it was called 3Banana Notes (a much cooler name, IMO, but I digress), and am very excited to see this application come to Honeycomb, if for nothing else than to be able to view my notes that are stored on Catch's servers. Improvements include a tablet-friendly UI as well as the following:
As far as how useful Catch Notes for Honeycomb will be now that Google has released their long-awaited Google Docs application, I'm not quite sure. I, and many other Android users I believe, use Google Docs pretty religiously and the thought of using two cloud-based note-taking applications makes me cringe a little bit. But as always, I want to hear from you. Will you be rushing over to the market and downloading the new Catch Notes for Android, or does Google Docs (or another office productivity suite application) suffice for your mobile productivity needs? Sound off in the comments.
|
| Andy Rubin: Nexus 3 announcement is coming, we can hardly wait Posted: 10 May 2011 11:43 AM PDT Andy Rubin just spilled the beans, confirming that the Nexus 3 is definitely in the works. When asked about the Nexus 3 by our very own Taylor, Andy had this to say: The Nexus has been the thing that we used to set the bar, and there's always going to be new ones coming out in the market…we'll make an announcement at some point in the future.Andy RubinSVP of Mobile at Google How soon in the future? It’s very possible that the company announces the phone in December alongside Ice Cream Sandwich — Taylor seems to believe so as well. We recently broke down every bit of information we have about the Nexus 3, and came to the conclusion that the Nexus 3 could very well be made LG, powered by Tegra 3 Kal-El, and run Ice Cream Sandwich. If true, we’re certainly in for a treat this Holiday season. With a CPU five times faster than a Tegra 2 and running Ice Cream Sandwich, the Nexus 3 is starting to look like a dream come true for us Android fans. Winter can’t get here fast enough.
|
| Google chronicles the growth of Android over the past year. Posted: 10 May 2011 11:42 AM PDT It's no secret that Google and Apple are battling it out for dominance in the mobile and tablet sectors. Apple had an amazing head start which left a lot of analysts wondering if Google would succeed with their mobile platform. As you already know, Android has outperformed everyone's expectations, shooting to the top of almost every chart in only two and a half years. Google may not say much about the competition, but the first graphic they showed at Google I/O 2011 (pictured above) tells the whole story. Here are some of the Android highlights that Google shared today:
Considering that one year ago Google announced that they were activating 100,000 devices per day, we're having a hard time imagining what the numbers are going to look like a year from now. With new services like Google Music Beta, Movie Rentals, and the new enhancements in Honeycomb 3.1, Google is finally focusing on the little refinements which will knit more Google services into the Android framework and deliver a more complete mobile OS. Gallery      
|
| Samsung gives away 5,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets at Google I/O Posted: 10 May 2011 11:26 AM PDT After hearing rumors that Google I/O attendees would be getting a free phone and a tablet this year, we could not help but to start speculating which devices these might be. Well, whether the rumor we reported was exactly true or not, we now know that the folks that were lucky enough to snatch a Google I/O ticket are going back home with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung is is giving away 5,000 tablets to everyone at the Moscone Center today, surely a treat that will keep all developers enthusiastic and working hard. So, are we all jealous? If you are one of the 5,000 lucky ones, how is this giveaway making you feel?
|
| Google partners with manufacturers and carriers to speed up Android updates Posted: 10 May 2011 10:54 AM PDT Are you sick and tired of waiting for your carrier or phone manufacturer to roll out the latest Android update? Fear not, Google feels your pain. The company just announced at the Google I/O keynote that it’s partnering with wireless carriers and OEMs with the goal of speeding up the updating process. Initially, Google has partnered with the following carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Sprint, and Verizon. On the hardware side, the partners are HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola. These companies have agreed to update their phones for at least 18 months after release. Knowing that your phone won’t become obsolete the next time Google releases a new update, certainly brings piece of mind to many would-be buyers. Additionally, from now on Google will dictate guidelines on how long it takes for a device to be updated. Hopefully, this means we’ll no longer have to wait six months to get Android’s latest and greatest. It seems like Google wants to standardize the update process and the time it takes to update an Android phone — and that’s all fine by us. Meanwhile, I’ll be here dreaming about the day all Android phones get updated one month after Google announces an update.
|
| Ice Cream Sandwich will unite Android with new app framework and UI Posted: 10 May 2011 10:28 AM PDT We just finished watching the hour-long Google I/O keynote, and boy was it jam-packed with Android news. One of the most important announcements made is that the next version of Android — Ice Cream Sandwich — will unite all Android devices under one umbrella. Google Product Manager, Hugo Barra, mentioned during the keynote that Ice Cream Sandwich will be Google’s “most ambitious release yet”. The update will tie together all Android devices — phones, tablets, TVs, etc — under one API framework, making it easy for developers to build applications for every kind of Android device. Ice Cream Sandwich will also bring the Honeycomb UI to Android phones, making the experience between Android devices more consistent. Android’s next version will also bring a boatload of new APIs and tools for developers to use. At the Google I/O keynote, Google showed off some new features that will surely make developers drool. Like a new OpenGL engine, face-tracking, and auto-panning using voice detection. This was only a preview of some of the things that are coming with Ice Cream Sandwich, and the final update will most likely bring many more goodies. Hopefully, we’ll get a lot more details as we get closer to the end of the year. Gallery   
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from Android and Me To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment