08
Apr
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[Editorial] Virtualizing Android Is Kind Of A Big Deal For Everybody

Posted by in Development, Editorials
Last Updated: April 9th, 2013

A few days ago, I posted about a student project at a Russian University that aims to run two or more instances of Android at the same time on a single device. It's a technology called virtualization, and we already use it on web servers and developer machines everywhere.

At first glance, the idea sounds interesting, but seems to lack practical uses for the majority of people. Sure, some developers will save a few hours on testing, and industrious users might want to run the latest CyanogenMod nightly ROM alongside their daily driver, but this kind of stuff doesn't really appeal to your neighbors or parents.

02
Apr
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[Video] Watch A Galaxy S2 Run Two Instances Of Android At The Same Time With New Experimental Virtualization Tech

Posted by in Android OS, Development, News

Go ahead and file this one in the Super Cool Tech category. A Russian blog, Rozetked.ru, posted video of a Galaxy S2 running two copies of Android at the same time. The three-and-a-half minute video takes us through a demo switching between a pair of ROMs while playing music from both, proving that the hardware resources can be shared. After the audio segment, we are shown decently high frame rates on a 3D benchmarking app and Angry Birds. According to the team behind the project, running two concurrent instances of Android only takes about 10% off of battery life while the impact on system speed is negligible.

03
May
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RIM Demonstrates Android Apps Running On Blackberry Playbook

Posted by in Applications, News

This morning we told you about RIM's plan to bring Blackberry Enterprise Solution to Android and iOS, with a brief mention of Android apps running on the Playbook. No sooner than we posted the aforementioned article did we find out that RIM had demonstrated just that at Blackberry World Conference. Take a look at the video:

Each Android app will run in its own virtual machine, but will seamlessly integrate into the Blackberry ecosystem. The Playbook doesn't have access to the Android Market, either - all compatible Android Apps will be available through the Blackberry App World. This does mean a bit more headache for developers, though, as they will now have to submit their apps not only to Google for the Android Market, but also to RIM to be accepted into App World.

24
Mar
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It's Official: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Will (Sort Of) Support Android Apps

Posted by in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

Some combinations are as natural as peanut butter and jelly - Avatar & 3D, Apple & dictatorship, and Conan O'Brien & late-night comedy, to name a few. But are Android apps and the BlackBerry PlayBook also such a sweet match? If you ask RIM, the answer is a firm, definitive "yes."

The BlackBerry maker just confirmed the age-old rumors - it's announced that the upcoming QNX-based PlayBook tablet will support Android apps. There are, however, certain limitations - while the process doesn't sound overly complicated, developers of existing Android apps will need to put some work in to porting their software over, namely "repackaging, code signing, and submitting" it to the BlackBerry App World.

10
Feb
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RIM's Upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Rumored To Support Android Apps, Again

Posted by in Android OS, News

About 2 weeks ago, BGR broke the rumor of RIM's upcoming tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, possibly being capable of running Android apps sometime after launch, which the latest rumors put at the end of March/beginning of April with a price sticker of $499.99. The company was seriously looking into this possibility and was trying to decide whether using the Dalvik virtual machine (the same one Android uses to run its apps) was a viable way to move forward. BGR is usually very credible, so the rumor definitely had legs.

Today, 2 weeks later, Bloomberg revealed that their own sources - in fact, 3 of them - have confirmed that RIM is indeed moving in the direction BGR predicted.