This semester 25 students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will gather in a classroom with one particular purpose: playing with cell phones.
The students are taking a class geared around Android -- the first fully open mobile operating system developed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG). The class will cover the ins and outs of the Android platform and build applications to run on the operating system.
The class, which at least 50 students tried to enroll in, is being offered to students in the computer science major at MIT and is designed to give them an early edge in what could soon become a dominant platform among cell phone operating systems. As smart phones and cell phones with Web functions have grown in popularity, there is growing interest among computer science pupils to learn how to create and launch applications and software for mobile operating systems, said Andrew Yu, mobile devices platform coordinator for MIT.
"It's definitely something that captures students' interest," he said. "Given the fact that they actually have the devices, they want to do something with it."
Source: Boston Business Journal
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Google And Dell Set To Reveal First Android Phone
According to reports, Google is currently working with Dell to
create the first Android mobile phone, bringing back the rumors that
the Gphone is on the way.
create the first Android mobile phone, bringing back the rumors that
the Gphone is on the way.
The expectation is that Dell and Google could reveal the world’s
first Android-powered mobile phone next month at the Mobile World
Congress.
The 3GSM telecoms conference is in Barcelona next month and could be the stage for a huge announcement.
Google and Dell are rumored to be working together and neither have denied that this is not reality.
It has been rumored that Google has been working on their own Gphone
for months now, but nothing was ever confirmed outside of the Android
OS.
[Via: dbtechno.com]
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Deadline extension for the Android developer challenge
Message from Quang Nguyen, Developer Advocate:
Source: Android Developers Blog
We'd like to let you know that we are extending the submission deadline for the first Android Developers Challenge to 14 April 2008. Based on the great feedback you've given us, we've made significant updates to the SDK that we'll be releasing in several weeks. In order to give you extra time to take advantage of these forthcoming UI and API enhancements, we've decided to extend the submission deadline. In addition, a fair number of developers have also asked for more time to build and polish their applications.
Of course, you can stay the course and submit your applications using any version of the SDK that you'd like. We're looking forward to seeing some great apps, especially after we've had a chance to incorporate some of your feedback into the Android platform.
Here is the updated time line:
April 14, 2008: Deadline to submit applications for judging
May 5, 2008: Announcement of the 50 first round winners, who will be eligible for the final round
June 30, 2008: Deadline for the 50 winners of the first round to submit for the final round
July 21, 2008: Announcement of the grand prize winner and runner-up
For additional details on the Android Developer Challenge, please visit the ADC page.
Good luck and good coding!
Source: Android Developers Blog
Dell to reveal Android-based handset next month?
Dell has long been rumored to be working on a handset, and the latest speculation is that Google will be part of those plans.
MarketingWeek reported Wednesday that the two companies are teaming up on a handset based on Google's Android mobile platform, and the official announcement will come at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The report cites "senior industry sources," but notes that Google insiders are denying any such announcement is imminent.
Dell isn't talking either. Company spokesman David Frink told CNET News.com that the Marketing Week report is "speculative" and that the company has "no comment at all."
While rumors about a possible Dell handheld have been swirling since the hiring of Ron Garriques from Motorola a year ago, Google's name hadn't yet been thrown into the mix. Dell and Google do have an established relationship through the Google Toolbar that's available on Dell PCs, notes industry analyst Roger Kay. "Google has already done the work on Android. A more formal partnership would certainly be easy enough to establish," he said. Considering that, Kay says he judges the likelihood of a coming Google/Dell announcement to be "fairly high."
Dell hasn't done anything in the red-hot handheld market since it killed its Axim line of PDAs last April, and its recent moves toward a flashy design of its PCs and putting its products in retail outlets show it wants to court consumers. A nicely designed handset with multimedia functionality would do more to achieve that goal and show what kind of technology the company has up its sleeve.
Source: NewsBlog
MarketingWeek reported Wednesday that the two companies are teaming up on a handset based on Google's Android mobile platform, and the official announcement will come at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The report cites "senior industry sources," but notes that Google insiders are denying any such announcement is imminent.
Dell isn't talking either. Company spokesman David Frink told CNET News.com that the Marketing Week report is "speculative" and that the company has "no comment at all."
While rumors about a possible Dell handheld have been swirling since the hiring of Ron Garriques from Motorola a year ago, Google's name hadn't yet been thrown into the mix. Dell and Google do have an established relationship through the Google Toolbar that's available on Dell PCs, notes industry analyst Roger Kay. "Google has already done the work on Android. A more formal partnership would certainly be easy enough to establish," he said. Considering that, Kay says he judges the likelihood of a coming Google/Dell announcement to be "fairly high."
Dell hasn't done anything in the red-hot handheld market since it killed its Axim line of PDAs last April, and its recent moves toward a flashy design of its PCs and putting its products in retail outlets show it wants to court consumers. A nicely designed handset with multimedia functionality would do more to achieve that goal and show what kind of technology the company has up its sleeve.
Source: NewsBlog
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Why Android will be the next big thing
Google created a lot of buzz about a month back over the introduction of its Android technology. Android will be the first open and free mobile platform for developing applications. Its going to be big...but why? Well, currently developers for mobile phones face a plethora of issues including:
* Applications for browsers on mobile phones are based on the Javascript based Ajax. This has many limitations for dynamic storage based applications as there is no way to store data on the mobile phone being dynamically updated.
* The browser based applications cannot access the different core functions of a mobile phone (e.g. the camera).
* No customization options for a mobile phone's GUI. Most people have to stick with the look which ships with the mobile phone's operating system. (Honestly a lot of the GUIs in modern phones look horrible and I have always wished to customize them)
* Applications designed for specific mobile phones won't work on low end phones because of different programming architectures as well as features.
* No operating system on mobile phones is open source and the programmers are limited to only what the operating system allows them to do and volunteers cannot modify it according to their needs.
Here is why Android will change all the above issues:
* Andriod is open source, anyone who wants to contribute to interface improvements or core changes can do so.
* Andriod is scalable, it will have its high end features reserved for higher priced mobile phones while lower end mobile phones can benefit from its basic features as well.
* Everything about it will be customizable so you won't be stuck with the GUI which shipped with the mobile phone for the rest of your damned life!
* Database support to dynamically store and retrieve data on a mobile phone.
* Dozens of hardware manufacturers will support Android. Thus HTC based mobile phones will be able to run the same applications as Samsung mobile phones which will all support Andriod in the future.
Andriod opens a whole new set of possibilities for the mobile market. I think Nokia did a major blunder by not supporting the Android platform. Sure, Apple's IPhone is a short term threat to Nokia...but it won't last forever, I think they should have thought harder over it. Android will one day be run on the majority of mobile phones all over the world developed by multiple mobile phone manufacturers. Today, Nokia is in the majority, but once the smaller companies unite and take down the bigger fish by using a unified platform, then Nokia won't have time to look back and correct its mistake. Android is the future ladies and gentlemen!
Source: SkullTrail
* Applications for browsers on mobile phones are based on the Javascript based Ajax. This has many limitations for dynamic storage based applications as there is no way to store data on the mobile phone being dynamically updated.
* The browser based applications cannot access the different core functions of a mobile phone (e.g. the camera).
* No customization options for a mobile phone's GUI. Most people have to stick with the look which ships with the mobile phone's operating system. (Honestly a lot of the GUIs in modern phones look horrible and I have always wished to customize them)
* Applications designed for specific mobile phones won't work on low end phones because of different programming architectures as well as features.
* No operating system on mobile phones is open source and the programmers are limited to only what the operating system allows them to do and volunteers cannot modify it according to their needs.
Here is why Android will change all the above issues:
* Andriod is open source, anyone who wants to contribute to interface improvements or core changes can do so.
* Andriod is scalable, it will have its high end features reserved for higher priced mobile phones while lower end mobile phones can benefit from its basic features as well.
* Everything about it will be customizable so you won't be stuck with the GUI which shipped with the mobile phone for the rest of your damned life!
* Database support to dynamically store and retrieve data on a mobile phone.
* Dozens of hardware manufacturers will support Android. Thus HTC based mobile phones will be able to run the same applications as Samsung mobile phones which will all support Andriod in the future.
Andriod opens a whole new set of possibilities for the mobile market. I think Nokia did a major blunder by not supporting the Android platform. Sure, Apple's IPhone is a short term threat to Nokia...but it won't last forever, I think they should have thought harder over it. Android will one day be run on the majority of mobile phones all over the world developed by multiple mobile phone manufacturers. Today, Nokia is in the majority, but once the smaller companies unite and take down the bigger fish by using a unified platform, then Nokia won't have time to look back and correct its mistake. Android is the future ladies and gentlemen!
Source: SkullTrail
Monday, January 28, 2008
Nokia agrees to buy Trolltech
Nokia has agreed to purchase Trolltech (creators of the QT cross platform GUI Toolkit that KDE is based on, as well as the Qtopia cell phone platform) for $150 million.
This is an interesting move as all the hub-bub surrounding Google’s announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and the new cell platform, Android, was surprisingly devoid of Nokia’s name anywhere on it (along with Apple, AT&T, Microsoft, Palm, RIM, Symbian, and Verizon).
It seems that Nokia has other plans for the cellular device market and those plans are firmly planted around their own proprietary platform based on Qtopia.
How will Nokia compete with the attractiveness of the unified Android platform to software developers? The idea being that an app written for a Motorola Android-based phone will also work just fine on a HTC Android-based phone and again on an LG Android-based phone. While a Qtopia app (a native platform) will only run on other Qtopia devices, which looks like Nokia will be the only major hardware player in? Of course you have Apple out in left field with their own sandbox that is doing quite well also.
I’ll be curious to see if Android takes off, if Nokia will either join the OHA or run the Android platform on top of Qtopia to offer compatability for some of the more popular apps out there? Either way, it doesn’t look like we’ll see Nokia joining the OHA anytime soon as they just spent $150 million to draw their own line in the cell-platform-market sand.
(BTW, Congratulations to Trolltech! That’s a lot of hard years of engineering paying off)
Source: BreakItDownBlog
This is an interesting move as all the hub-bub surrounding Google’s announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and the new cell platform, Android, was surprisingly devoid of Nokia’s name anywhere on it (along with Apple, AT&T, Microsoft, Palm, RIM, Symbian, and Verizon).
It seems that Nokia has other plans for the cellular device market and those plans are firmly planted around their own proprietary platform based on Qtopia.
How will Nokia compete with the attractiveness of the unified Android platform to software developers? The idea being that an app written for a Motorola Android-based phone will also work just fine on a HTC Android-based phone and again on an LG Android-based phone. While a Qtopia app (a native platform) will only run on other Qtopia devices, which looks like Nokia will be the only major hardware player in? Of course you have Apple out in left field with their own sandbox that is doing quite well also.
I’ll be curious to see if Android takes off, if Nokia will either join the OHA or run the Android platform on top of Qtopia to offer compatability for some of the more popular apps out there? Either way, it doesn’t look like we’ll see Nokia joining the OHA anytime soon as they just spent $150 million to draw their own line in the cell-platform-market sand.
(BTW, Congratulations to Trolltech! That’s a lot of hard years of engineering paying off)
Source: BreakItDownBlog
SkyFire Announces New Mobile Browser for Smartphones
Skyfire has announced a new web browser for smartphones that is
designed to make it faster and more user-friendly to browse the web on
a smartphone. Skyfire uses proprietary technology to deliver web
content to mobile phones quickly, while maintaining the site's desktop
look and feel.
Support for web technologies such as AJAX, Java, and Flash video
suggest that the Skyfire browser could open up a new level of mobile
web browsing for consumers. Skyfire claims it is the fastest loading
mobile browser on the market, and offers features such as the ability
to bookmark particular areas of a web page so they can be quickly
accessed again at a later time.
Skyfire is currently in private beta for Windows Mobile 6
Professional and Standard, with a Symbian-compatible version planned in
the next month. Users can sign up for the beta at www.skyfire.com.
Technorati Tags: skyfire, dotsis.com, mini opera, juegos para nokia 6131, cankarjev dom
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