25
Jan
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WindowsAndroid Is A Working Effort To Run Android Natively Within Windows

Posted by in Android OS, News

I have no problem admitting that I see absolutely no practical use in running Android on a desktop PC. Still, I have to give credit where credit is due – WindowsAndroid is just downright neat. In a nutshell, it's a not-so-creatively-named project from a company called Socketeq that aims to run Android natively within Windows. That means without emulation.

So, how is this possible? With hard work, determination, and a small bit of fairy dust – that's how. Seriously, though, it runs Android as a native application within Windows by using the Windows kernel instead of Linux. It all sounds quite technical, so I'll spare you the hairy details.

07
Jan
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[CES 2013] LEGO Announces New Android-Compatible Mindstorms EV3 Kit For Programmable Robot-Building Nerdgasms

Posted by in News

There aren't many things in this world that can be as purely amazing as LEGO. The only people who aren't fans of the world's best creativity toy are people who (mistakenly!) think the company has sold out and encourages kids to follow pre-made instructions instead of building something new. To that I say: Mindstorms EV3. With Android compatibility out of the box. Your argument is invalid.

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The main part of the new kit, the Intelligent Brick (seen above as a glowing torso with a QR code on its chest) will have more processing power, more memory, and more on-brick programming capabilities.

13
Dec
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[Update: It's Live] Facebook's Big 2.0 Update Is Coming Today, Ditching The Slow HTML5 Rendering For Native Code

Posted by in Applications, News
Last Updated: December 29th, 2012

We've known it's coming for a while and, per today's announcement, it will finally be here soon: Facebook's revamp of its Android app that will bring a proper, native UI as opposed to the mostly HTML5-based web viewer that's been powering the application for so long. The result is photos, the news feed, and timelines will load at least twice as fast, according to the company.

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The company touts speed as the big improvement here, and it's sorely needed. For example, garbage collection was optimized to make photos load much quicker. In terms of new features, the company also built a new banner that will allow you to jump to new stories that have appeared in the feed while you're reading, no matter how far down the list you are.

24
Aug
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Facebook's Director Of Mobile Engineering Discusses Android And Answers Questions On Reddit

Posted by in Applications, News

Whenever you hear someone talking about Facebook's mobile app, the most common complaint is always how slow it is. Even your news feed can take what feels like an age to load, and that's before you've started navigating through your events and photos of friends.

The reason for this is that the Facebook app uses HTML5, so it doesn't perform as well as other apps which are written natively for a particular platform. HTML5 offers Facebook great flexibility, as the development team can alter and push new code at their will without being restricted by the app approval process of whatever platform they may develop for.

15
Oct
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Mozilla Set To Ditch XUL In Firefox For Android In Favor Of A Native UI, Better Performance

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, News
Last Updated: August 2nd, 2012

Jonathan Nightingale, Mozilla's director of Firefox Engineering, announced recently that Firefox's Android iteration will be moving away from XUL implementation in favor of a native Android UI. Nightingale, seeking to reassure users who may be wary of change, stated "Firefox on Android is a critical part of supporting the open web, and this decision puts us in a position to build the best Firefox possible."

For those not in the know, XUL stands for "XML User Interface Language," and is essentially a language that controls Firefox's front end architecture, creating various UI elements and instances. Mozilla's use of XUL in its Android version of Firefox is what leads to the relatively long startup times users have experienced until now.

04
Jul
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New In CyanogenMod 7: Support For Native Screenshots, Touch-To-Focus Camera, Droid Incredible 2

Posted by in Development, HTC, Incredible 2 (Vivow), News

The team behind the most popular custom Android ROM on the planet, CyanogenMod, is not planning to take a break even for the national holiday (happy Independence Day, everyone!), giving us a number of new reasons to praise their product over and over again.

Wondering what CyanogenMod already brings to the table? Check out 13 Ways CyanogenMod 7 Makes My Android Phone Feel Future-Proof [Deep Review].

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

11
May
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Android Finally Gains Native FLAC Support Starting With Version 3.1

Posted by in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

While it doesn't affect those of you who have no idea what FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is, today's Android 3.1 announcement (see the SDK release here) will make a lot of people who gave up MP3s for FLAC files happy. Forget happy - think ecstatic. Unlike MP3s, FLAC is a lossless codec, meaning it does not degrade in quality after compression, making it the perfect solution for audiophiles who really care about the quality of their sound.

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After staring at the issue (#1461) (and I'm sure working hard on implementing support for it) for over 2 years, the Android team finally added native FLAC decoding to Android starting with Android 3.1, the latest iteration of Honeycomb.

05
Oct
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Android Market Now Shows Application Prices In Your Native Currency

Posted by in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

Today, Google flipped the switch on paid app purchases in more countries, such as India, Sweden, and Denmark, just as promised, and with that came another subtle, yet important, change. Instead of showing prices in developers' native currencies, all application prices are now converted on the fly into your own currency.

Here's what the Market looks like for me in the US now - notice the tilde (~) symbol next to converted prices:

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Here is Sweden:

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And here's Denmark:

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Image credits: [1] [2]