20
Mar
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NVIDIA's Tegra Team Shows Off Car Dashboards Of The Future, Running And Controlled By Android [Video]

Posted by in News, NVIDIA, Videos

Yesterday, Android Police was in San Jose checking out some nifty things at NVIDIA's 2013 GPU Technology Conference. At one of the events, the Tegra team showed off a few prototypes of automotive dashboards they're hoping to put into cars of the future.

The HMI (Human Machine Interaction) toolkit NVIDIA is developing, called UI Composer, is universal in the sense that it can run on top of Android, Linux, Windows RT, and probably other operating systems. User interfaces made using UI Composer can then be controlled remotely using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. A Google Nexus 7 running Android Jelly Bean is used in one of the examples - it's basically an Android controller talking to a system running Android.

23
May
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The Power Of Tasker - "Google Cal Widget & Auto Sat Nav" Is The Most Intricate And Amazing Tasker Script We've Seen So Far

Posted by in Applications, Development, News
Last Updated: May 25th, 2011

Some call Tasker the most versatile application ever created for Android, and I'm inclined to side with them. The app can automate hundreds of actions and bundle them together in powerful scripts that do exactly what you want them to do (see our Tasker review). Want to silence your phone at night and then restore the ringer to a predefined volume in the morning? No problem. How about popping up a menu of music apps when you plug in your headphones? You got it.

However, the Tasker "task" that brandall from xda created today takes the cake when it comes to complexity and functionality.

16
Mar
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[Review] AutomateIt Allows Your Phone To Take Care Of Itself

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If your Android device relies on your interaction with it in order to do things, you're seriously missing out. There are several options that allow you to cut the cord, so to speak. The popular options have long been Locale and Tasker but, as you can see from their market pages, you have to be fiscally dedicated to the tasks they perform. In addition to that, these applications (Tasker especially) can be somewhat (read extremely) intimidating in the level of control they give you and the sheer volume of options at your disposal. If you're looking for something a bit simpler but still really powerful as well as significantly more free, AutomateIt might be just the tool you need.

13
Jan
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Viper SmartStart Allows You To Remotely Start Your Car, Arm Your Home Alarm, With Your Android Device

Posted by in Applications, Apps/Games

I'm not really sure how we missed this app when it was released way back in July, because it's damn cool. A company called Directed Electronics produces an automotive remote start kit that's called Viper SmartStart, and the kicker: it's controlled via smartphones. The app was available on iOS and BlackBerry for some time before being released for Android in July, and it's some pretty neat kit - check out the video (sorry, it won't embed because it's unlisted).

You can start your car from your house, then when you get inside your (now warm) car, you can arm the alarm on your house.

07
Jan
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Mavizon's Mavia 3G-Enabled Gizmo Plugs Into Your Car, Acts As A LoJack, Texts Your Family, Diagnoses Your Check Engine Light [Video]

Posted by in News, Videos

Walking around CES Unveiled on the first day of CES 2011, I ran into a little company called Mavizon Tech, showcasing their product with a beautiful name Mavia. I you've never heard of Mavizon, don't feel bad - they don't have many consumer-facing products just yet, but it's all about to change when Mavia hits the market later this year.

What is Mavia? It's a little gizmo box that plugs into your car's diagnostics port and sits there, drawing the power from the aforementioned port. Inside the Mavia - a GPS module and a 3G radio that is able to broadcast a signal anywhere there is 3G reception (I forgot whether they use T-Mobile or AT&T, but it's one of those).

05
Jan
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CES 2011: Parrot Introduces An Android-Powered Asteroid Car Stereo [Video]

Posted by in Asteroid, News, Parrot

Last night at the CES Unveiled preview event, I got a chance to see a new product made by Parrot, called Asteroid.

Asteroid is a voice-activated, Android-powered car deck that replaces your existing single DIN car stereo. It has a small non-touch 3.2" color screen, runs on a specialized version of Android (the presenter didn't seem to know which Android version it was based on exactly), is capable of running custom Android apps (SDK for which is coming out later), and can accept a variety of inputs, such as your iPhone, iPod, USB storage, SD card (the left half detaches to reveal the SD slot), Bluetooth, 3.5mm jack, 3G and GPS dongles, and AM/FM/RDS.

09
Nov
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For Android Developers: Next Version Of Eclipse ADT To Include Auto Formatting Of XML

Posted by in Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News

I was browsing the Android commit tree, as I like to do at 3:20am sometimes, and I just saw a new commit by Tor Norbye with the following description that made my heart skip a beat: "Add autoformatting of XML." This little update may not mean much to the regular folks, but to Android developers, like myself, this has been a long requested feature.

About a year ago, I wrote this article: Auto Formatting Android XML Files With Eclipse, which described how easy it is to achieve uniform, formatted XML files in Eclipse while doing Android development. Since XML files comprise a very large portion of an average Android project (the whole app layout is XML based), keeping XML files tidy becomes a very important, but mundane task.

21
Oct
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Tip: Set Up Automatic Scheduled Nandroid Backups Using ROM Manager

Posted by in Applications, Development, Tips & Tutorials

This article is aimed at rooted Android users using ROM Manager - if you are one of them, you should definitely consider looking into it; otherwise move right along, as this info will not apply to you. To see what ROM Manager can do for you, check out our guides here:

When was the last time you did a Nandroid backup? Was it this week? This month? Three months ago?

27
Aug
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[App Of The Week + Giveaway] Tasker: Automate Your Android + 20 Free Tasker Licenses (£3.99 Each)

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Contests / Giveaways, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Have you ever wished your phone would just automatically silence itself while you're at work? Or maybe that it would immediately start Pandora when you plug in your headphones? Wish no longer: Tasker's got you covered.

This contest is now over. We have selected the winners - see if you are one of them towards the bottom of the page.

Tasker's goal is to automate (you guessed it) tasks on your Android device. This may sound a little trivial at first blush. But make no mistake, Tasker is anything but a trivial application. In fact, I can honestly say that Tasker is the single most feature-rich Android app I have ever used.