Google - 3/78 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

Google Is Throwing A City-Wide Ingress Event At I/O 2013, And Every Attendee Is Invited

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

If you're in the small portion of the Venn diagram where Google Ingress players and Google I/O attendees intersect, I'm about to make you very happy. It looks like the big G is paying quite a bit of attention to Niantic Labs' social geo-game, because every single registered attendee for Google I/O 2013 will be given an automatic invitation to Ingress, which is still in beta. Ingress will also be given at least some coverage in the initial I/O keynote on May 15th.

There are also going to be organized games on both Tuesday, May 14th and Wednesday the 15th in the Moscone Center, leading up to a "major Ingress-wide game event in San Francisco" on the 17th.

Apr

Full Google I/O 2013 Agenda Goes Live - 120+ Sessions And Labs, But Only A Single Keynote This Time Around

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Google, News

Google just updated the sold out I/O 2013 conference website with the full schedule developers have been dying to see for months, ever since the initial announcement back in February. During the three days in mid-May (May 15-17), the company's engineers will host over 120 talks on such topics as:

Android
Chrome & Apps
Google+
Google Cloud Platform
Maps
YouTube
Glass
Ads
Wallet
Knowledge & Structured Data
and other tech subjects

On day 3, developers will also be able to participate in Code Labs on the topics of Android, Google+, Chrome & Apps, Google Cloud Platform, and YouTube.

The full agenda of everything (not just code labs and tech talks) that's going to be happening is live as well.

Apr

[Editorial] Stop Making Crap Up And Then Whining About It

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Android OS, Editorials

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we? The year was 2012, the Galaxy S III and the HTC One X were still new, and some jerk on the internet suggested that maybe it's cool if people started appreciating their amazing phones instead of complaining about how their device wasn't revolutionary.

In the time since then, certain segments of the tech community have opted to go in the other direction. Rather than accept that smartphones are incredible and that the wow-factor comes from using them instead of hyped up tech events, some people believe that the next revolution is just right around the corner.

Apr

Google Shows Us 'The Basics' Of Using Glass In New Video

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

Google's official Glass YouTube channel released its first video today – a minute long introduction to Glass' most basic controls. The video is titled Glass How-to: Getting Started, which leads this writer to believe there may be more How-to's in the works.

Impressively well-produced and perfectly simple, the video discusses Glass' gestures – tapping, swiping forward, backward, and down, and gives a very digestible explanation of the device's time-based card interface. The video shows off a few possible Glass cards, but nothing we've not seen before – Google Now notifications for a flight and nearby places, a message, the clock home screen, and calendar items are all represented.

Apr

Google Is Working On And Testing Android 4.3 - It's Still Jelly Bean

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Exclusives, News

As everyone is trying to guess whether the next big Android update is going to be Key Lime Pie or not, and whether the release will be Android 5.X or 4.X, we have yet to hear anything concrete. After getting a tip from an eagle-eyed reader (thanks, deepayan!) and digging deeper, I can definitively tell you that Google is currently working on Android 4.3, and it is still Jelly Bean.

Specifically, the build I'm seeing floating around our server logs is Android 4.3 JWR23B, which indicates this is still Jelly Bean (the first letter of the build is always the same as the first letter of the Android version name).

Apr

Google Drops The Hammer, Bans Facebook (And All Others) From Performing Non-Play Store App Updates

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Shortly before the Facebook Home launch, some users noticed a new version of Facebook was available on their device, but it wasn't through the Play Store. Instead, the update came directly through the app, bypassing the Store altogether. Naturally, there was outrage, people were angry, felt violated, and whatnot. For Facebook, however, this was a way of getting a beta version of its app out to some users without having to give it to all users. It did a similar sort of update just last night, proving that this wasn't just a one-time thing.

Regardless of why Facebook has chosen to circumvent the Play Store for its own update mechanism, though, that didn't sit too well with Google.

Apr

ASUS Cube Hits Online Availability For $139.99

Posted by Liam Spradlin in ASUS, News, Qube

ASUS' Cube (formerly known as Qube), is now up for sale. Yes, the plucky Google TV-packing square we saw at CES this year can be yours for around $140, unless, that is, you were hoping to buy from Newegg.

According to ASUS, the Cube should be launching with three online retailers: Newegg, Amazon, and Adorama. Happily, Adorama is showing the device as in stock and ready to go. Amazon briefly showed a 2-4 week wait, but now indicates the Cube is in stock with a possible one to two day delay "to process." Newegg meanwhile says the device is launching on April 25th, but gladly offers customers a pre-order.

Apr

Google Supposedly Snaps Up Aggregator Wavii In $30 Million+ Acquisition

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Google, News, Rumors

Wavii, a service that promises to help you "keep up with everything you care about" has been snapped up by Google, according to Tech Crunch, for a sum totaling over $30 Million.

The deal, which signals an end to an apparent acquisition battle between Google and Apple, likely means that Wavii's language processing prowess will be integrated with Google services from the Knowledge Graph all the way down to (perhaps) Google Now. It also means that Wavii will not be joining forces with Apple's Siri.

For those unfamiliar with Wavii, the service is basically an aggregator of news it thinks is both interesting and relevant to you, the user.

Apr

Indigo Is A Voice Assistant That Knows How To Carry On A Conversation Like A Normal Person (Or Clever Bot)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Here at Android Police, we love Google Now (and all the associated voice actions), but the natural language could use a bit of sprucing up. If you'd like to try an alternative voice assistant, Indigo may grab your attention on this front. The pitch here is that the app remembers your conversations and can sync those inquiries across devices.

If you ask a question like, "Where can I find Indian food around here?" you'll get a list of results. Tap on the one you're most interested in. You can then follow that up with "How can I get there?" From the context of your last question, the app can understand that "there" is "the indian restaurant." It even works if you switch devices, provided they're both logged in to the same account.

Apr

Eric Schmidt: Google Glass Will Go On Sale In Approximately A Year, Your Responsibility To Not Be A Weirdo

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

While the Explorer Editions of Google Glass are making their way out to the lucky early adopters (with extra cash), the rest of the world is wondering when it can get its eyeballs on the product. According Eric Schmidt speaking to Radio 4, the answer is roughly a year from now.

He also believes that the technology behind Google Glass goes beyond just this one product:

"At the moment what you do is you wear it. There are tremendous numbers of applications that can be imagined - augmented reality - where you see what's going on in real-time and then we annotate that.