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May

Chrome Beta For Android Updated To v28: Translate Bar, Fullscreen On Tablets, Bandwidth Savings Graph, And More

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News, Tablets

Following the release of beta features to Chrome stable yesterday, the beta channel of Chrome for Android was promoted to version 28 today.

The update brings a number of desired additions and improvements, all of which I will break down for you below. Here's the relatively incomplete list the Chrome team posted on its blog:

The Chrome team is excited to announce the promotion of Chrome 28 to the Beta channel. Chrome for Android 28.0.1500.21 contains a number of new improvements including:

Google Translate: When you come across a page written in a language that isn't in the same language as your phone or tablet, look for the translation bar

Fullscreen on tablets: Simply scroll the page to dismiss the toolbar

Support for fullscreen API

New graph showing your estimated bandwidth savings when you use the experimental data compression feature

Mobile friendly error pages

Google Translate

Here's what Chrome's new mobile-friendly Translate bar looks like if you visit a site with a language different from your device's (for example, newsru.com):

I find built-in translation support to be one of Chrome's most useful features, so I applaud Google for finally bringing it to Android.

May

[I/O 2013] New Google Wallet Instant Buy API Should Make Emptying Your Bank Account Much Easier, More Efficient

Posted by Bertel King, Jr. in Applications, News

Google asserts that over 97% of mobile shoppers abandon their shopping carts because the process simply makes them jump through too many hoops. To free Android users from this heavy burden, Google has launched a new Google Wallet Instant Buy API that will allow mobile shoppers in Android apps to check out in as little as two clicks. No more poking out lengthy street address and re-looking up credit card information. If you're like me, and already spend too much money because of your phone, this is probably a double-edged sword. Just look at the reduced number of steps in the screenshots below and imagine your bank account slowly draining.

May

[I/O 2013] New APIs For Location, Single Sign-On, And Google Cloud Messaging

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Development, Google, News

Right off the bat here at Google I/O, the company is telling developers about some awesome new tools for apps. A new series of APIs will enable a variety of new services for both developers and end users. Here are some of the highlights.

Version 2 of the Location API, which includes:

Geofencing (assigning triggers to specific geographical locations) and up to 100 fences per app

a fused location provider, which should allow for active location gathering at just 1% battery drain per hour or increased accuracy
Activity recognition - API can recognize if users are walking, biking, driving, et cetera.

May

[I/O 2013] Google Officially Launches Play Games, Brings Achievements, Game Sync, Leaderboards And More

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Games, Google, News

Today, Google announced Google Play game services that brings a suite of new features that game developers can integrate into their titles. The biggest of them is cloud data sync. Game developers can sync their players' progress across devices and platforms. Yes, this feature works on Android and iOS. This is hot.

In addition to cloud data sync, the suite of services also brings achievements and leaderboards. Any game can now tap into a unified system for showing off your accomplishments. If you want a more personal grandstanding experience, Google also introduced both live and turn-based multiplayer features for game developers to utilize.

Apr

[For Developers] Samsung Bluetooth Low Energy SDK Opens To The Public

Posted by Cody Toombs in Development, News, Samsung

For quite some time, we've been hearing about the potential advantages of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) spec, and a seemingly endless list of gadgets that could benefit from it. Unfortunately, while many modern flagship devices are equipped with the necessary hardware, Google has allowed the Android OS to languish without official support for the standard. Most of the top OEMs have built their own proprietary versions for the energy efficient protocol, but until now, only Motorola has freely shared access to its API. However, that changes today: Samsung is taking its BLE SDK public.

Since building their own custom frameworks, both HTC and Samsung have required developers to submit applications for access to the SDKs.

Apr

Google No Longer Cares For WebKit Either, Apparently, Forking The Engine Into New Project Called 'Blink'

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Man, WebKit cannot catch a break today, can it? After Samsung announced that it would be teaming up with Mozilla to build their own mobile browser engine called Servo, Google says its planning to fork WebKit to create a new project called Blink. Unlike Servo, this one will still be based on WebKit, but this new fork actually seems to be aimed not at competing with whatever Samsung is putting out, but rather at gaining freedom from another browser: Safari.

You see, Chrome doesn't actually use the entirety of WebKit. It mainly uses what's called WebCore, which handles HTML and CSS rendering.

Mar

Video: Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan Gives Mouth-Watering Demo Of Google Glass At SXSW, Shows Off Controls, Apps, More

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Glass, Google, News, Videos

The hype surrounding the concept of Google's much-talked-about Project Glass may have hit its first peak during last year's Google I/O conference when stuntmen jumped out of a plane wearing the device, but the demonstration left many people wanting an explanation of what else Glass can do besides first-person photo/video recording.

Since then, we've seen a few admittedly awesome videos, including a DVF fashion show through glass, and more recently the brilliantly-executed "How It Feels" which went a bit further toward showing real-world use, but at SXSW today, attendees were given what might be the most informative (and exciting) demo we've seen yet.

Mar

Twitter Will Kill TweetDeck Android App (And Air App, And Facebook Integration) In May, Stops Caring If You Think They're Evil

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

It's a widely-known fact that Google's unofficial motto when it comes to potential monopolies, privacy violations, and other slightly gray areas of technological ethics is "don't be evil." Lately it seems like Twitter is taking the opposite approach. The latest victim of their incredibly frustrating corporate policy is TweetDeck, the once-loved power app for Twitter that was acquired by the service itself in 2011. In a rambling post on the official TweetDeck website, the developers mentioned that they are ending support for the Android version (as well as the iPhone and Adobe Air versions, and Facebook integration) in May.

The reason for TweetDeck's less-than-graceful exit from the mobile world is obvious: Twitter would rather you use their official app.

Feb

Falcon Pro Hits 100K User Token Limit - Another Twitter Client Bites The Dust

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

In case you hadn't heard, back in August of last year Twitter changed the rules for their API, limiting developers to 100,000 individual user tokens for outside apps (or 200% of then-totals, if the app already had more than 100,000 users). To say the change was controversial would be an understatement. Falcon Pro, a favorite among Android Twitter users, has hit the limit. New users cannot log into Twitter via Falcon Pro. That includes those who have already paid for the app and are reinstalling for a new device or ROM.

Falcon Pro was, and technically still is, one of the most popular paid Twitter clients on the platform.

Feb

OpenFeint Co-Founder's OpenKit Launches In Private Beta Today, Promises Ubiquitous Game Save And Backup Services

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, Games, News

If you've spent any time gaming on Android, you probably remember OpenFeint. Nearly every major game integrated it in some way, usually allowing players to log in with a single username, collect achievements, and post scores to a global leaderboard. It was handy for what it did, but if you didn't care about competing, it felt a lot like obnoxious spamware. Unsurprisingly, it closed down in December of last year. Today, however, it's being sort of reborn as OpenKit, a project headed by one of the co-founders of the original service. Only this time, the idea is much cooler.

For starters, OpenKit will provide one of the most desperately needed features in mobile gaming: cloud backup of game state and save data.