16
Nov
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Gameloft Delivers Movie Game "Immortals" Unto The Humans; The NES Would Be Proud

Posted by in Apps/Games, Games, News

Gameloft, the gaming studio behind such games as Modern Combat 2, N.O.V.A. 2 HD, and Asphalt HD, has recently released a new game for all you mythology and movie fans out there. If you're familiar with Gameloft's games, though, this may be a bit different from what you've grown accustomed to.

From the movie "Immortals", you play Theseus, a-hackin' and a-slashin' through all sorts of fun Greek and Roman mythology, including, but not limited to, minotaurs, titans, and generic disposable guys in strange armor holding swords. It's a side-scroller and, on top of what I assume is 100% historical accuracy, the graphics are reminiscent of games designed during that time period.

23
Oct
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Oracle And Google's Epic Battle Will Have To Wait - This Month's Trial Postponed Indefinitely

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News

It looks like there's finally been a new development in the Oracle vs. Google fight. For those who may be out of the loop, Oracle (who owns Sun and the Java programming language) have had patent infringement and copyright lawsuits boiling against Google for quite some time now. The patent claims are essentially related to Google's use of Java in the Android platform. Oracle claims that Android includes code which violates patents gained through the acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

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The billion-dollar trial was set to begin on October 31st, but District Court Judge William Alsup has decided to postpone the proceedings.

04
Apr
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Google Bids Almost $1 Billion On Patent Portfolio To Protect Android, Chrome

Posted by in Android OS, Development, Editorials, News

Well, not solely for Android and Chrome - but presumably those products are the headliners affected by this patent bid. Google is currently bidding on a collection of over 6,000 patents held by Nortel Networks, which is selling the portfolio as part of bankruptcy proceedings. Google tossed its name in the hat with an initial offering of $900,000,000 - not exactly chump change.

Many of the patents relate to wireless technology (such as LTE) and data networking, but undoubtedly Google found some of them to be in the particular interest of protecting Android and Chrome, as Google's General Counsel indicted on the company's blog.

25
Oct
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Google Gets Sued Over Android And Java Yet Again, This Time By Gemalto

Posted by in HTC, Motorola, News, Samsung

As if Oracle's, Microsoft's, and Apple's [1] [2] suits weren't giving Android enough headache, today, Gemalto, an Amsterdam-based digital security company, added some fuel to the flames by filing a patent infringement suit against Google and its partners HTC, Samsung, and Motorola. The suit claimed that Android and the Dalvik operating environment incorporated Gemalto's patented Java Card technology without the company's permission.

The Wall Street Journal explained in more detail:

According to the complaint on the website of the U.S. law firm hired by Gemalto, McKool Smith, the Java Card Technology enables Java applications and applications developed in other high level programming languages to run on resource-constrained devices such as smart cards and mobile phones.

08
Oct
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Android At War: Google Mounts A Defense Against Oracle, But Can They Win? An Analysis

Posted by in Editorials, News

As we previously reported, Oracle America has filed suit against Google for (primarily) patent infringement. If you're not familiar with the case, I'll quickly summarize.

Oracle claims Google is in violation of seven U.S. patents previously filed by Sun Microsystems as part of the Java platform. Oracle now owns Sun. The alleged infringer, more specifically, is Android. If you want a more detailed explanation, read the next paragraph. If not, look at the pretty picture and continue.

The patents generally relate to the Java virtual machine (JVM). Apps on your Android phone run through the Dalvik VM (DVM), a Google / Open Handset Alliance developed alternative to JVM that utilizes portions of an open source Java implementation known as Apache Harmony.

13
Aug
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Google To Oracle: We'll Fight For Android

Posted by 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.

04
Nov
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Auto Formatting Android XML Files With Eclipse

Posted by in Development, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: April 16th, 2010

This post and all its comments were migrated from Artem's personal blog beerpla.net when Android Police launched. If you would like to visit the original post there, please click here.

In this article I will describe the problem I've had with Eclipse's handling of XML file formatting as well as the best way to fix it.

I use Eclipse to do my Android development for a few reasons:

  • it's the only IDE fully supported by the Android dev team
  • it has a visual Layout/Resources builder that transforms XML files into corresponding visual representations
  • it's free and open source
  • I've been using Eclipse for many years and am very familiar with it

In order to use the visual features in Eclipse when developing for Android, you need to install the ADT plugin provided by Google

The Problem

However, one thing about Eclipse Android development has bothered me for a while - and that is XML formatting by the visual tools.

15
Oct
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Installing The Android Plugin For Eclipse

Posted by in Development, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: March 21st, 2010

This post and all its comments were migrated from Artem's personal blog beerpla.net when Android Police launched. If you would like to visit the original post there, please click here.

Today is my first day looking at Android development. My first encounter with the Android plugin for Eclipse has not been very smooth, to say the least. I am not sure if it's Android's or Eclipse's fault but I just wasted 2 hours on errors during the plugin installation and would like to pass on the time savings to you.

The plugin install page provides initial instructions and the location of the plugin to give Eclipse (https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/).

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