Development - 32/86 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

iZac Becomes The First Android-Powered Bartender – Fun, Ingenious, And Open-Source

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, News, Off-Topic

You might remember this video, which cropped up earlier this month, showing off an Android-powered contraption that mixed drinks automatically. Well, it would appear that the device, lovingly named iZac, (after a barbot from the popular show Futurama) has made its official debut, mixing real cocktails for patrons at the Creative Sandbox in Sydney.

Right now, iZac can handle dispensing up to six liquids, and the Android interface includes an "I'm Feeling Lucky" option, which ostensibly creates a totally random concoction for those feeling bold.

While iZac already looks fantastic, it will be interesting to track its progress and future refinement, as the inventor, Nick Johnson notes several things that he'd improve in a second iteration.

Nov

This Tasty Cotton Candy Is A Dual-Core Android Powerhouse On A (USB) Stick

Posted by Charles Beel in Android OS, Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News

This diminutive little guy is more than meets the eye. It weighs 21 grams, which is the same as the bag of the Cotton Candy it is codenamed after. The unassuming USB stick is actually an Android 2.3 Gingerbread powered device that packs a wallop. Here are its specs:

Dual-core 1.2-GHz Samsung Exynos ARM CPU
802.11n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
HDMI-out
microSD card slot

The magic happens when you plug Cotton Candy into a Windows or OSX device. A secure window running a true Android 2.3 environment will open, which FXI Technologies refers to as "Any Screen Connected Computing":

New York, NY and Trondheim, Norway – November 17, 2011 - FXI Technologies, a hardware and software startup based in Trondheim Norway, demonstrated today the world’s first any screen, connected computing USB device. Codenamed “Cotton Candy”, this sweet little device serves as a technology bridge between any display, the Cloud, and any input peripheral.

Nov

Good News – The Android Market Can Now Be Installed On Amazon's Kindle Fire

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, Development, Kindle Fire, News

Since before the launch of Amazon's Kindle Fire, the Android community has been atwitter, planning to break through the shopping giant's custom Android variant to achieve a true Android experience. Coming one step closer to that, BriefMobile has provided detailed instructions on how to get the Android Market running on Amazon's affordable 7" slate.

Of course, the Kindle Fire is not compatible with all the apps in the Market, so you may notice a few missing. Hopefully developers will be adding support for the Fire in the future, but for now, there are still plenty of reasons you want the Market on Amazon's Android tablet.

Nov

Interactive MIUI Mario Lockscreen Can Unlock Your Phone (But Not World 9)

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Development, News

In what is undoubtedly one of the coolest mods I've seen in months, developer picard666 has released an interactive Mario lockscreen for MIUI. So awesome, in fact, that words can't properly describe it. Take a look at the "diagram":

The top cloud shows the current time, and the two clouds below show calls and messages (left and right, respectively). To unlock into calls or messages, you take control of Mario and have to make him hit the corresponding coin box - a coin pops out (optionally with the accompanying sound), then your phone launches the appropriate app. To unlock normally, just have him jump into the pipe to the right of the boxes.

Nov

Amazon Posts Kindle Fire's Open Source Code

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Amazon, Development, Kindle Fire, News

Unlike some vendors which shall remain unnamed (*cough*, HTC, *cough*), Amazon didn't make us wait for the mandatory open source bits of the Android Fire's kernel and released them over at their Source Code page the same day the tablets themselves started arriving in consumers' hands. The download, which comes as a compressed tar.gz, weighs in at a whopping 809MB.

The source code should allow for custom ROMs and tweaks to the OS, which we can hopefully expect soon, considering the Fire has already been rooted. There is still no word on whether its bootloader can be easily unlocked, however, so theoretically there could be a few potential bumps on the road to the first custom ROMs.

Nov

http://cdn.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/image_thumb69.png

How To: Root, Enable 3rd Party Apps, And Establish ADB Access On The Kindle Fire

Posted by Charles Beel in Amazon, Applications, Development, Gingerbread 2.3, Kindle Fire, News, Tablets

The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s content-subsidized tablet, has been arriving to the delight of people all across the U.S. The heavily-skinned Gingerbread Android device has left many questions in the minds of the Android and Gadget community. For instance, will we be able to install apps outside of the Amazon Appstore? How about using adb? And, of course, the most important question of all - can the Fire be rooted?

If you remember, Amazon said it wouldn't do anything special to prevent rooting or interfere with those who want to customize their devices in other ways (although the status of the bootloader is unknown at this time).

Nov

Awesome Mod: Slide 2 Wake Kernel Wakes/Locks Your GSM HTC Evo 3D By Swiping Across Capacitive Buttons – Support For More Devices In The Works

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Development, News

Developer bponury, the mind behind WifiKill and FaceNiff, has created something that looks pretty awesome, if you're the owner of a GSM-enabled HTC Evo 3D. That something is the Slide 2 Wake kernel, which allows you to wake and lock your device by sliding a finger across your Evo 3D's capacitive buttons. The kernel is still in its very early stages, but seems to perform quite well.

While the kernel is only running on one very specific device for now, there is hope for at least a port to the CDMA variant of the 3D, and perhaps other devices with capacitive buttons as well.

Nov

Developer Goodies: Eclipse ADT 16/Tools r16 Will Introduce Android Lint To Help You Automatically Catch Those Pesky Errors Early

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

To help Android developers automate some things and catch certain errors early on, the Android Tools team is pushing ahead with a new dev tool called Android Lint. Android Lint will be available in the next release of ADT (16) and Tools (r16).

If you're not familiar with the "lint" paradigm, a lint tool generally helps you validate your code using a certain set of rules in order to avoid common pitfalls. For example, PHP has PHPLint, JSON has jsonlint and so on.

As for Android Lint, its features at launch will include the following:

Missing translations (and unused translations)
Layout performance problems (all the issues the old layoutopt tool used to find, and more)
Unused resources
Inconsistent array sizes (when arrays are defined in multiple configurations)
Accessibility and internationalization problems (hardcoded strings, missing contentDescription, etc)
Icon problems (like missing densities, duplicate icons, wrong sizes, etc)
Usability problems (like not specifying an input type on a text field)
Manifest errors
and many more

You can find all the current checks Android Lint performs here.

Nov

CyanogenMod 9 - The Countdown To Ice Cream Sandwich Begins

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

In case you were wondering or had any doubt at all, the CyanogenMod 9 wheels are now in motion (as promised), and in a few months (likely weeks for nightlies) delicious ICS will drip onto 68+ supported Android devices, some completely forgotten by carriers and manufacturers. If you ask me, that's the best thing that could happen to them anyway - what do carriers know about keeping their devices up-to-date with Android, right?

There's only one thing we can do now: wait [anxiously]. And don't forget the first rule of CM - do not ask for ETAs.

Source: Twitter

Image credit: icecreamsandwichupdate

Nov

[Video] Paradroid Is A Self-Navigating, Skydiving Robot Controlled By An Onboard Android Handset

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, Videos

Adding to the list of awesome Android-related gadgetry, Tomer Weller and Yossi Sorin have created Paradroid, a self-navigating skydiving robot powered by an attached Android handset.

Beginning as a project for Google Developer's day ADK challenge, Paradroid is still a work in progress. That being said, it already seems to have some impressive capabilities, functioning from heights of over 1000ft., parachuting safely to the ground, and navigating to a predetermined location, all while sending back handy status reports.

While it's already a pretty amazing device, it will be interesting to see how the project progresses, and what applications will be found for the Paradroid, outside being a fun curiosity.