Android - 154/166 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Aug

Ubuntu Fans, This Theme Is For You: Download Ubuntu Theme For ADW Launcher

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Are you an Ubuntu fan? Then you are going to love Ryan Olson, the designer behind the Ubuntu Theme for ADW Launcher. Ryan launched the theme 4 days ago and so far it's been well received scoring a 4.28/5 average with more than 5000 downloads.

As Jaroslav mentioned today in his Modder’s Monday: Hacking Without Hacking – A Guide to Customizing Your Android Device Without Voiding Your Warranty, you don't need to root or hack your Android in order to customize your launcher, and ADW is one of the best launchers Android offers.

Check out the screenshots below and then proceed to download ADW and the theme below.

Aug

Editorial: Convincing Your Non-Techie Friends To Go Android

Posted by Kenny Embry in Editorials

Last Updated: August 2nd, 2012

I have always been a techie. As a child of the 80s I had an IBM PC with a 10 megabyte hard disk that had to remain completely immobile and level or risk scratching, I had a 300/1200 baud internal modem and I stayed up all night downloading a 64 kilobyte game that, at the time, was the coolest thing I had ever seen. My wife, on the other hand, thought anything with a screen needed rabbit ears to get good reception and that PC stood for popcorn.

Convincing her to get an iPhone was almost impossible. She thought $200 for the phone was money headed straight down the toilet.

Aug

Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet Now Available For Preorder For $299.99

Posted by John Thompson in Cruz Tablet, News, Velocity Micro

Velocity Micro’s Android tablet called Cruz is now available for pre-order from Borders.com and CruzReader.com at a bargain price of $299.99.

The CruzReader.com order page is currently citing a late September release date, while Borders.com is expected to ship October 15th, so you may have to wait for a number of weeks before you can get your hands on one yourself.

After seeing the specs and the price, we think this tablet could very well be a genuine competitor in the market.

Specs

What exactly are you getting for your $300? The Cruz sports:

Full color TFT display
7” diagonal 16:9 800x480 screen
Capacitive touch screen
a rumored 800MHz CPU
802.11n wifi
512MB RAM
4GB internal storage
8GB bundled SD card
Android 2.1
Supports ePub, PDF, TXT, PDB, HTML reader files
MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV audio support
MPEG-4, H.264, H.263, MOV, AVI video support
JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP image support
Built in speakers
Mic and headphone jacks
Mini USB
User replaceable Li-Ion battery - up to 10+ hours of life, 24+ standby
Built-in Dictionary, Notepad, Calendar, Alarm Clock, Contacts, Games, and other useful apps
Access to over 2 Million ebooks via included Borders E-book library portal application (Kobo)
Access to the Cruz Market

The battery in the Cruz is reportedly good for 10 hours of usage, which is great for anyone hoping to use a tablet on the go.

Aug

App Roundup: 5 Apps That Turn Your Android Phone Into A Portable Document Scanner

Posted by Brian Emery in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Using a camera to “scan” documents to a digital format is nothing new. There are a number of PC applications available that help users turn photographed pages into PDFs or other document formats. Android enthusiasts can now enjoy the same functionality, as higher resolution cameras on mobile devices have finally allowed this application category to reach maturity. This roundup will cover 5 apps you can use to turn your Android device into a portable document scanner.

Keep in mind with all of these applications, lighting conditions and the surface on which a document or book is placed will have an effect on the quality of each “scan.” You will have the best results if you place the documents as flat as possible on a dark, solid color surface in a well lit area.

Aug

What's Around The Corner For Verizon

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Droid 2, Droid Pro, eDGe, News, Verizon Wireless

It's no secret that Verizon loves Android, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's featured heavily in a leaked roadmap.

Yesterday, BGR confirmed the Droid Pro, Droid 2 World Edition, and Motorola Tablet, and now PhoneArena is reporting that they have a "trusty source" inside Verizon that has given them a sneak peek at the device release schedule for the rest of the year.

Let's start with September: we "should" see the Droid 2 World Edition released, and it will be the first Android phone to support both GSM and CDMA networks. Of course, Android isn't just for us nerds, and therefore it's reasonable to assume that Verizon wants Android devices in the hands of as many people as possible, even if those people only pay them $50 or so upfront.

Aug

[Adobe Android Summit] Full Video Of The Google TV Talk

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Google, Google TV, News, Videos

Yesterday, Aaron and I attended the Adobe Android Summit, where Adobe, among other things, did a demo of the upcoming Google TV box. Below, you will find Aditya Bansod's whole talk recorded by me in 1080P HD using Canon T2i (love this beast).

For more info on this and other talks, read Aaron's summary report: Adobe Android Summit 2010: "One Web. Any Device."

Unfortunately, the card was formatted as FAT32, so as soon as the videos reached 4GB, T2i shut off recording, resulting in small gaps between all the parts.

In my defense, it doesn't look like Canon included support for NTFS, so I don't see a way around the problem yet.

Aug

Adobe Android Summit 2010: "One Web. Any Device."

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Google TV, News, Off-Topic

Yesterday, we spent the day at Adobe HQ for their Adobe for Android Summit. We heard from Anup Murarka of the Mobile and Devices team, Paul Betlem for Flash, Aaron Filner for AIR, and N.J. on Flash platform tools.

Anub started off with some numbers:

85 of Alexa Top 100 sites use Flash
70% of web games use Flash
70% of all video on the web is Flash
98% of internet connected PCs have Flash player worldwide
95% of internet connected PCs worldwide have installed Flash Player 10
90% of top 20 OEMs committed to delivering Flash

Thanks to its wide distribution and variety of usability - whether for an app, a game, a movie, or something else - Flash is just about everywhere.

Aug

id Software To Bring Rage FPS Game To Android?

Posted by Andrew Huff in Apps/Games, Games, News

Word has it that id Software is considering releasing their newest hit game, Rage, onto the Android platform. During QuakeCon 2010 live keynotes, id announced that they would be bringing Rage to the iPhone/iPad and that the Android platform was being considered.

Rage by id Software is the newest addition to their FPS line of games; it has become extremely popular and received three Game Critics awards this year at E3: Best Console Game, Best Action Game, and Special Commendation for Graphics. Currently only available for the PC, Xbox360 and the PS3, Rage was demonstrated during the live keynotes at QuakeCon 2010 running on an iPhone 4.

Aug

Google To Oracle: We'll Fight For Android

Posted by David Ruddock in News

Them’s Fightin’ Words

As you may have heard, Oracle (who now own Sun and the Java programming language) filed a patent infringement suit against Google related to the use of Java on the Android platform (particularly in the Dalvik VM, details on TechCrunch if you’re interested). Google has responded to Oracle’s suit, and they are ready to make a stand:

We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.

Aug

Android Focused Adobe Summit This Monday, August 16 - AndroidPolice Will Be There. Submit Your Questions And We'll Get Them Answered

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, News

We’re making the trek out to San Francisco to attend Adobe’s Android Summit on Monday, August 16, 2010. The schedule looks to be chock full of events with a total of 8 presentations on topics such as:

Adobe AIR for Android
Flash for Android
Gaming on Android
Google TV

They’ve also allotted nearly 3 hours of time for Q&A and discussion, so if you want your questions answered by Adobe folks directly in charge of driving the products, drop us a line and let us know what you want to hear about. Feel free to either post your question in the comments below or email me directly at aaron@androidpolice.com.