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Google I/O 2021 is officially next month — could the Pixel 5a and new Pixel Buds be in store?
The event was cancelled due to the pandemic last year
Google I/O is one of the high points of any Android fan's tech calendar. Last year the developer conference was scrubbed out of said schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with too little warning to even organize an online replacement. This year it still isn't safe enough for an in-person conference, but Google is prepared enough for a virtual event.
8BitDo's new Pro controller lets you remap its buttons from your phone
The Pro 2 also gets two rear buttons and easy profile switching, and it's still just 50 bucks
8BitDo has become, in a very low-key way, one of the best gaming accessory companies out there. Its last high-end controller design was praised for its ability to rebind controls on both the PC and Nintendo Switch. With the upgraded model, christened the 8BitDo Pro 2, you can now do that reprogramming without needing a full-sized computer. Like the excellent SN30 Pro+, the controller can be customized in terms of button layout and more esoteric options, like analog stick dead zones or trigger sensitivity. (It's great for Nintendo's weird A-on-the-right habit.) But the 8BitDo Pro 2 can be programmed via and Android (or iOS) app over Bluetooth, making it a lot easier to tweak your settings if you're playing on mobile or the Switch. Even better, the profiles for your button mapping aren't bound to the connection mode anymore: a button on the front switches between profiles on the fly, a la the Xbox Elite controllers.
Android Studio is Google's official development environment for creating Android applications. The past few updates have been relatively minor, mostly focusing on quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes, but Google has also been cooking up a larger upgrade. Android Studio 4.0 leaves beta today, and it's full of changes that should make creating apps a lot easier.
Stack Overflow is an immensely popular website for asking programming-related questions. If you're ever stuck on a coding problem, typing it into Google and clicking the first Stack Overflow result usually does the trick. Now it appears the last step might not be necessary for much longer, as Google is working to display answers directly in search results.
Google's in-development operating system, named 'Fuchsia,' first appeared over a year ago. It's quite different from Android and Chrome OS, as it runs on top of the real-time 'Zircon' kernel instead of Linux. According to recent code commits, Google is working on Fuchsia OS support for the Swift programming language.
Way back in February at the 2017 New York Toy Fair, Hasbro introduced a new product in its FurReal line of robotic pet toys. Unlike the others, the Proto Max is part of the Maker sub category, so named because it can be programmed to perform different actions. It's yet another example of a toy maker combining coding with playing in order to tap into the burgeoning STEM market. Why is this of any interest to us? Because the Android companion app has just launched, of course.
Have you been thinking about getting into Android development (or any development in general) lately? Don't know where to start? Well, Packt currently has its full catalog of eBooks and videos available for just $10 apiece - a great deal, considering the original prices of some of these books.
Yesterday Sony Global Education launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding project for its newest educational initiative. Meet KOOV a programming and robotics kit for children. Think Legos meets robots (which is already a thing) but with better software and simpler hardware. With these tools, your kids can pick up programming fundamentals at a much earlier age. Perhaps little Suzy might be the next Wozniak or Stallman. Probably with less facial hair, though.
If you've ever tried to search the meaning of specific operations and characters in programming languages, you know how frustrating it can be. You'll often have to append the name of the language to the search, or try surrounding it in quotes to only show exact matches.
In 1961 a musical called How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying made light of the growing corporate culture in America. Half a century later, those same corporations are seen by many as a necessary evil, a soulless machine that runs on the lives of its employees. It's appropriate, then, that Human Resource Machine is more or less the opposite of How To Succeed in Business: instead of starting in the mailroom and becoming the CEO in a fun-filled week of singing and dancing, you play a literal human machine whose behavior is programmed like a computer, and who spends decades in service to a company that has nothing but contempt for you.
For a lot of Android fans, intense interest in the platform can lead to more questions about the technical underpinnings. And when you're so attuned to Android and its ecosystem, you might even have some original ideas for apps that haven't been made—yet. With this one-day offer from Packt, you can get a free ebook to take you from zero to...well, not hero, but well on your way to making Android apps.The book is called Android Programming for Beginners and is by all accounts exactly what the title suggests. The paperback version over at Amazon goes for $50 and is quite well-reviewed.You will begin by learning some Java, which is the lingua franca of Android development, but the focus is learning by doing in Android-specific examples. Don't expect to be making bank off of an app right after you breeze through the book, but if you've been needing a resource or a motivation to get started, this might just be it.Follow the source link to claim the free copy. This deal ends at 7PM ET/4PM PT, so don't spend too much time deliberating over whether or not to pick up something that's free!
Writing great, high-quality software is hard work. No matter how well we know a platform or how long we spend on code, there are bound to be bugs. Memory leaks are among the most common problems, and they can be particularly disruptive on mobile devices. Square set out to make memory leaks easier to track down and fix with a new library called LeakCanary. It makes leak detection almost automatic and presents results in both logcat and an easy-to-read interface.
In the highly anticipated 5th season of Game of Thrones, Hodor will be noticeably absent. Now we know why. According to the appendices of George R.R. Martin's masterpiece, Hodor has been busy learning Android development.
Google is progressively rolling out the full array of releases for Android 5.1, and the SDK is now joining the ranks. If developers open up the SDK Manager today, they will find a brand new software development kit for API 22. The SDK package is there, along with the typical documentation, samples, source code, and an assortment of system images for each of the major hardware architectures. All is ready to start updating apps to take advantage of everything Android 5.1 has to offer.
I'm no Android developer, but I figure if I wanted to get started, I'd check out some videos and pick up a couple of books. That leads to the obvious question: where are these things? Packt, a publisher of both eBooks and good old-fashioned print ones, is currently offering its full catalog of development-oriented works for $5 each (in digital format only). It's also offering a few videos at the same price.
On Wednesday, Google teased developers and enthusiasts by officially announcing Lollipop, but chose to delay the release of anything substantial for another two days. Well, we've waited for the obligatory 48 hours, and the SDK is finally available, just in time for the weekend. (Yay?) Developers can finally abandon the interim SDK and move on to the real thing. There's no more pretending 'L' counts as an API Level, Android 5.0 is officially numbered 21.
Treehouse is another one of those online education platforms people can use to get some learning done without having to set foot inside of a classroom. This particular company focuses on providing people with the knowledge needed to design their own apps and websites. To aid in its goal to reach a tech-savvy crowd, it has released an Android app into the Play Store that provides access to much of its content.
Running, jumping, shooting—these are the sorts of things you'd expect in a mobile game. Coding? Eh, less so. That's what makes Hacked so interesting. This game, created by Joaquim Verges (Falcon Pro dev) and Fabien Devos, is built around a programming language (H) and a mobile friendly code editor (the Hackpad). You play the game by creating and running simple programs, so a little coding experience is needed to get the most out of it.
If you're a Norwegian Android developer, you might want to consider attending JavaZone, an independent Java programming and development conference being held in Oslo from September 9th through the 11th. If you're not, you can still enjoy this parody trailer for the event posted to the group's YouTube page. If you're at work or in public, heads up: the video below has some mild swearing.
Tynker made waves back in March when the developers released the teaching app on the iPad. It introduces children (or anyone, I suppose) to the basic principles of coding and programming. Tynker was available on the web before that, teaching extremely basic programming with a puzzle-style visual interface and pre-made tools. The Android app is only available on tablets, which makes sense given the format, and it costs $4.99 with no in-app purchases.