Take a look at the second Android phone to step up to the retail arena. Kogan, an Australian handset maker, debuted its new Android phone, the Agora. It’ll be available in two lines, the Agora and the Agora Pro. Both include a 2.5inch tough-sensitive screen, BlueTooth, full QWERTY keyboard, and G3 capabilities. The upgraded model, the Agora Pro, however, gets kitted out with GPS, a 2.0 MP camera, and WiFi. Hmm…Does it remind you of another PDA device? The retail price of for Kogan’s Agora goes for AU $299 and $399 (US $189, $252 as of Dec. 5). Pre-ordered phones are set to ship Jan. 29th. [ Kogan ]
Look what those ingenius folks at Google headquarters have debuted for the holiday season. Especially helpful to those of us who hate having to shop for cards, present tags, and more, Google’s got you covered. Google’s holiday-themed Docs will make present decorating, mailing, and cardgiving a snap. Google Docs is also offering holiday-themed video card templates for you to issue a video greeting, saving you postage and time. Google Docs offers a great selection of holiday templates that include the holiday snowflake postcard, address labels, holiday gift tags, and video card templates. Interested? Sign in to Google Docs and click on the links posted above. [ Google Docs blog ]
Accessories Blowout! After Thanksgiving Cyber Sale on everything on our site!
Up to 35% off accessories for Apple iPhone, iPods, Blackberry, HTC Smartphones, T-Mobile G1, Nintendo Wii, plus many more! Check out a variety of items on sale like our Screen Protectors, Cases, Portable Batteries, Stereo Adapters and much more! Happy Holidays from JAVOedge!
November 28th, 2008 @ 01:02 PM &bull by Cindy • Filed under Android
Feeling sick? Want to fend off the flu and the common cold as much as possible?
Welcome to Google Flu Trends where folks can keep track of the rise-and-fall of the Flu season based on search requests for anything “flu” related on Google’s engine.
According to Google: ” We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems.”
Here’s a partial excerpt from Google.org’s blog:
“Last year, a small team of software engineers began to explore if we could go beyond simple trends and accurately model real-world phenomena using patterns in search queries. After meeting with the public health gurus on Google.org’s Predict and Prevent team, we decided to focus on outbreaks of infectious disease, which are responsible for millions of deaths around the world each year. You’ve probably heard of one such disease: influenza, commonly known as “the flu,” which is responsible for up to 500,000 deaths worldwide each year. If you or your kids have ever caught the flu, you know just how awful it can be.
Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness. Based on this discovery, we have launched Google Flu Trends, where you can find up-to-date influenza-related activity estimates for each of the 50 states in the U.S.”
Eliminate carrying or buying special made HTC 11 pin port equipped headphones for travel and convert it with this adapter to use standardized 3.5mm headphones!
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According to Mobile Crunch, the latest news from ATT is that they will be offering an official 3G tethering service for its customers: in other words, turn your iPhone legally into a portable 3G modem for your laptop. While converting your cellphone into modem isn’t new news, this is the first for ATT’s iPhone customers. Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch talked to AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega who noted it briefly. More details to come including pricing plans, etc [Mobile Crunch].
November 6th, 2008 @ 12:37 PM &bull by Cindy • Filed under Android
Gaming relief for new T-mobile G1 users and other Google Android phone users.
Electronics Arts is debuting titles for the Android platform which is based on a free, open software initiative by the Open Handset Alliance. First up: Tetris. EA expects Bejeweled, a puzzle-game, and Monopoly to follow in November [Mobiledia]. Previous mobile games debuted by EA projects for Blackberry devices and smartphones based off Microsoft’s Windows sofware. For the Apple iPhone, EA’s lineup has included Spore, Scrabble, and Soduku.
November 3rd, 2008 @ 01:23 PM &bull by Cindy • Filed under Android
HTC’s CFO reiterated that their Android phones—previously slated to be released Q4 of this year—will be released Q4 of this year. Android handsets are still planning to be shipped to “ODM clients” in the fourth quarter, meaning that you might not actually see them until late, late 2008 or early 2009. Why? Because those ODM clients, like T-Mobile or various other companies who are using HTC to design the base phone but customize it even more, need time to work their own add-ons in. So yes, on time might not mean on time for you to play with unless HTC releases an Android phone with the HTC branding, without going through secondary companies.
August 4th, 2008 @ 01:58 PM &bull by kevin • Filed under Android
Nokia (NYSE: NOK)-owned Symbian and Google (NSDQ: GOOG)-created Android are destined to be combined to provide a single open sourceoperating system for smartphones, an analyst firm said Thursday.The merger of the two operating systems will begin within three to six months, driven mostly by the fact that Nokia and Google are pursuing similar open source strategies with their respective technology, J. Gold Associates said in a research note.
Nokia and other users of Symbian, which has the largest share of smartphones in the market, do not want to compete in the OS market, the firm said. With Google, the search engine entered the OS market to push the industry toward openness and a level playing field in offering applications and services on the devices.
“We expect that within the next three-six months, Symbian and Android will combine to provide a single open source OS,” J. Gold said. “Many of the same sponsors are involved in both initiatives.”
Nokia recently acquired 100% ownership of Symbian and announced plans to turn it over to a new Symbian Foundation to create an open source OS, which would be offered to foundation members sometime in the first half of 2009.
In pursuing the same open source strategy, Google and supporters have formed the Open Handset Alliance for Android. Members include Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Japan-based DoCoMo, which are also participants in the Symbian Foundation.
J. Gold said both sides have good reasons for joining. Google’s investment in Android is “diluting the potential for it [Google] to build compelling cross-device applications where it can generate substantial revenues,” the firm said. Symbian, on the other hand, could cement its position with the open source community by not appearing as just a Nokia public relations stunt.
For the market as a whole, the consolidation would reduce the number of major platforms, making it easier for developers to write applications, which means more software would hit the market, J. Gold said. In addition, consolidation means lower support costs.
Finally, it may help discourage carriers from creating their own unique user experiences on specifically altered and customized devices “in order to maintain customer control, but which is also suppressing the growth of apps,” the firm said.
“A combination of the Android and Symbian efforts would be good for the industry, good for Google and good for Symbian,” J. Gold said. “It would also help spur a growth in the availability of applications and services. The downside is minimal. Everyone wins.”
July 24th, 2008 @ 02:14 PM &bull by kevin • Filed under Android
Google’s strict code of secrecy may work fine for protecting its internal operations. But the company isn’t ingratiating itself to software developers by keeping major updates to its Android mobile software platform locked away in a Mountain View dungeon. Now, even those developers once very committed to pushing Google’s technology forward are thinking about abandoning Android – the most closed open platform to not yet exist.
Over at Google’s official Android discussion group, independent coder Nicolas Gramlich recently posted an ad hoc online petition calling on Google to at least tell developers why they can’t get a new and improved SDK for the fledgling mobile platform. Google hasn’t publicly updated the Android software developer’s kit in more than five months.
“In order not to lose many highly encouraged developers, I think it’s time to release some news about the development process of the SDK. Maybe let us know why we have to live with these long cycles,” reads his open letter to Google’s Android overseers. “In my personal opinion it is not the right choice to keep developers in the dark. We, the developers, are the absolute base of success to the whole Android platform.”
Gramlich is the man behind AndDev.org, an online Android developer community that boasts 3,075 registered members. He began coding for the as-yet-unreleased platform in November, the very day Google first unveiled the SDK. And he sees himself as one of the platform’s “biggest fans.” But he fears that Google’s ongoing Android secrecy is alienating its biggest supporters.
“Developers are getting annoyed and some have moved and some are thinking of moving to another platform,” he tells The Reg. “I hope Google will think twice about how long it waits for the next public-release.”
Of course, there are other reasons to code for other platforms. Other platforms actually exist.
Google had promised a real live Android phone by the end of the year, and now, even that’s a stretch, with reported delays on the prowl. And, many developers argue, the company’s SDK silence has set the platform back even further.
“I lost patience long ago. will keep coding/waiting untill the end of july. then ill either switch to the iphone (if sells are good) or windows mobile,” reads a mostly intelligible post from one of the many developers voicing their support for the Gramlich petition. “i see absolutely no use in working with a barely finished SDK on an emulator without a piece of hardware in my hand. MOBILE phone development is no fun if you cant test it MOBILE.”
Google unleashed the last major update to the Android SDK on February 13. The last minor tweak arrived on March 3. And in the nine months since Android was first announced, the company hasn’t given developers even the slightest hint about when updates would arrive. “This is the biggest mistake that Google could have made: not to have small public-release-cycles,” Gramlich says.
He’s doubly ticked off because he knows that a new SDK exists. Google is sharing updates with certain VIP developers - the fifty finalists for the company’s Android Developer Challenge, a coding contest offering $10m in prize money. Finalist Zach Hobbs wouldn’t speak to us about the SDK because - like the other finalists - he signed a Google non-disclosure agreement before getting his hands on those updates.
Google has already annoyed countless developers by keeping the Android source code under wraps. Though the company calls Android an open platform, it won’t actually release the source code until the first Android phone arrives sometime in the unspecified future.
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