Showing posts with label android news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label android news. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Testing Honeycomb

Lately there had been news that there were only few (100 or else) native honeycomb apps and there were only 100k or less Motorola Xoom released so far. Thanks to Google for not playing nice to the devs (remember G1 dev phone? where is our dev tablet?)

I still love Android but this is madness, first Xoom is only released on few countries (US and Canada, and ?) the rest of the developers on the world are treated like they dont exist, this was okay with G1/Android 1.0 but i mean its Android 3.0 and there are tones of good developers outside these countries that is waiting to bring their app to tablet form.

Wait there's the emulator, the emulator is so slow (did adjust the memory, heapsize, launched at terminal) but its just not fun working on it.

So now i'll wait for a honeycomb tablet to release here in Hong Kong (probably ill get an asus eee transformer) before i continue with my android stuff. Probably ill just do some node.js or php zend stuff in the meanwhile.

To end this, the number of apps released for the honeycomb tablets vs the days honeycomb is released (in numbers) is just so bad. Google should call the devs to help them like they did with Android 1.0 then alienating them.

Android Tutorial Blog - Learn How to Write Basic Android Applications




A person who is truly looking for efficiently set up online android course that is held by valid tutors and directs you through virtually every topic hand in hand. Then I can help you out here by giving you the characteristics of one such blog, which I had seen, and which sustains you on discovering android applications.

Anyone can see numbers of tutorials has published training for Android programming. The biggest issue is which one is perfect is important. Furthermore , you will observe that there is nearly excessive and ever-increasing number of information resources offered to you online You might have seen some free tutorials some very expensive. You may even see the subjects or even the testimonials of the training institutions. All of these are essential and foremost steps taken before deciding which one is the best.

I would really like to give you some details of android tutorials whose motive is to support candidates with a step-by-step training. They give guidance on every topic and keep specific interaction with the candidates, they can ask any questions as the developer or instructor is conveniently available to them. They have vibrant and descriptive training techniques, that really help to develop the specified skills to create an android professional.

This institute has their blog in which they have given details and even codings on applications. I can help you out by giving some example on one of the applications with little codings.That is to create a image gallery. The project explains how to implement gallery for your application.

Basic description of algorithm in systematic form

1) Create a Project Gallery Example
2) Open and insert following in main.xml
3) Create, Open and insert following in your res/values/attrs.xml
4) Add some image in your drawable folder.
5) Run the application.

For further important information about this blog kindly visit Android tutorials.

Android could allow mobile ad or phising pop says researchers

Sean Shulte, SSL developer at Trustwave, and Nicholas Percoco, the senior vice president and head of SpiderLabs at Trustwave, revealed at DefCon what they said was a design flaw in Android.

(Credit: Seth Rosenblatt/CNET )

LAS VEGAS--Researchers have discovered what they say is a design flaw in Android that could be used by criminals to steal data via phishing or by advertisers to bring annoying pop-up ads to phones.

Developers can create apps that appear to be innocuous but which can display a fake bank app log-in page, for instance, when the user is using the legitimate bank app, Nicholas Percoco, senior vice president and head of SpiderLabs at Trustwave, said ahead of his presentation on the research at the DefCon hacker conference today.

Currently, apps that want to communicate with the user while a different app is being viewed just push an alert to the notification bar on the top of the screen. But there is an application programming interface in Android's Software Development Kit that can be used to push a particular app to the foreground, he said.

"Android allows you to override the standard for (hitting) the back buttons," said Sean Schulte, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) developer at Trustwave.

"Because of that, the app is able to steal the focus and you're not able to hit the back button to exit out," Percoco said, adding that they've named the issue the Focus Stealing Vulnerability.

The researchers have created a proof-of-concept tool that is a game but also triggers fake displays for Facebook, Amazon, Google Voice, and the Google e-mail client. The tool installs itself as part of a payload inside a legitimate app and registers as a service so it comes back up after the phone reboots, Percoco said.

In a demo showing a user opening up the app and seeing the log-in screen for Facebook, the only indication that something odd has happened is a screen blip so quick many users wouldn't notice. The fake screen completely replaces the legitimate one, so a user wouldn't be able to tell that anything is out of place.

With this design flaw, game or app developers can create targeted pop-up ads, Percoco said. The ads could be merely annoying, like most pop-ups are, but they could also be targeted to pop up an ad when a competitor's app is being used, he added.

"So the whole world of ads fighting with each other on the screen is possible now," said Percoco, who demonstrated an Android rootkit at DefCon last year.

The functionality would not raise any red flags in the permissions displayed when the user downloads the app because it is a legitimate function for apps to check the phone state in what is called the Activity Service, according to Schulte.

Percoco said the researchers spoke to someone at Google about their findings a few weeks ago and that the individual acknowledged that there was an issue and said the company was trying to figure out how to address it without breaking any functionality of legitimate apps that may be using it.

When contacted for comment, a Google representative said he would look into the matter.

Maaping the Android vs.ios civil war

More than 83 million users of Jumptap's mobile advertising platform have weighed in, and what appears to be a small civil war has broken out between users of smartphones running Google's Android operating system versus Apple's iOS.

According to the company, users in the South and Southwestern portions of the United States tend to "over-index" toward Android, meaning that the operating system is used and requested at a rate that's higher than the national average in a given area. Users in the Northeast and Midwest, in contrast, over-index toward iOS.

And for those curious about smartphone use in the two states that aren't attached to the 48 contiguous ones, Jumptap notes that Hawaii is an iOS-loving state and Alaska is a wash, as it over-indexes for both iOS and Android.

However, the United States isn't totally split into an Android-versus-iOS battleground. A few states—eight, in total—are putting up a fight for the Blackberry platform. Oregon, New York, and Maryland, to name a few states, all over-index for Research in Motion's primary mobile OS.

Jumptap's figures put Google's Android OS as the leading smartphone platform with 38 percent of the market to iOS and its 33 percent. Smartphones using RIM's Blackberry OS take up a distant third at 22 percent and, in total, all three platforms take up a total of 90 percent of the market – "making it increasingly difficult for competing platforms to gain traction," said Jumptap's report.

"The smartphone market remains a highly competitive and volatile one, where each percentage of market share is hard-earned," the report added.

Android might be winning the overall platform war, but it could be losing the hearts of advertisers looking to engage smartphone audiences. When compared to users of all other mobile operating systems, iOS users delivered a significantly higher percentage of advertising click-throughs. Android wasn't the worst platform, but its users reported click-throughs a bit lower than Jumptap's recorded average of 0.52 percent.

"The uniformity of the iPhone's browsing and app experiences generates higher advertising interaction. Updates of the Android and Blackberry OS platforms should strive for the same seamless experience," said Jumptap's report.

Tutorial to develop text to speech app on Android

This tutorial will show how to develop simple Text to speech application on
android(tested on htc droid incredible). It assumes that you have already
managed to develop hello world(or default project ) in Eclipse per http://android-java.blogspot.com/

  • Step 1 - Create default android project in Eclipse. Run it to make
sure it works.

  • Step 2- Replace below code in your main(activity class). You may need to change package and class name.(This code is tweak of sdk sample - ie its simplified )


package com.test;//change this
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import com.test.R; //change this
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.Random;
public class TestAct extends Activity implements TextToSpeech.OnInitListener {
private static final String TAG = "TextToSpeechDemo";
private TextToSpeech mTts;
private Button mAgainButton;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
// Initialize text-to-speech. This is an asynchronous operation.
// The OnInitListener (second argument) is called after initialization completes.
mTts = new TextToSpeech(this,
this //TextToSpeech.OnInitListener
);
mAgainButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.again_button);
mAgainButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
sayHello();
}
});
}
@Override
public void onDestroy() {
// Don't forget to shutdown!
if (mTts != null) {
mTts.stop();
mTts.shutdown();
}
super.onDestroy();
}
// Implements TextToSpeech.OnInitListener.
public void onInit(int status) {
// status can be either TextToSpeech.SUCCESS or TextToSpeech.ERROR.
if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS) {
int result = mTts.setLanguage(Locale.US);
if (result == TextToSpeech.LANG_MISSING_DATA ||
result == TextToSpeech.LANG_NOT_SUPPORTED) {
// Lanuage data is missing or the language is not supported.
Log.e(TAG, "Language is not available.");
} else {
// Check the documentation for other possible result codes.
// For example, the language may be available for the locale,
// but not for the specified country and variant.
// The TTS engine has been successfully initialized.
// Allow the user to press the button for the app to speak again.
mAgainButton.setEnabled(true);
// Greet the user.
sayHello();
}
} else {
// Initialization failed.
Log.e(TAG, "Could not initialize TextToSpeech.");
}
}
private static final Random RANDOM = new Random();
private static final String[] HELLOS = {
"Hello World",
"This is Text to speech demo by Zahid Shaikh"
};
int i =0;
private void sayHello() {
// Select a random hello.
int helloLength = HELLOS.length;
String hello = HELLOS[i];
i++;
if(i == helloLength) i =0;
mTts.speak(hello,
TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, // Drop allpending entries in the playback queue.
null);
}
}
  • Step 3 - Change res/main/layout.xml (or equivalent)
          
  • Step 4 - change res/values/string.xml
     hi world     test Again red  #FF00FF   
  • Run your code - and press on the again button!!!

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Google Android-based TV Software?

The Wall Street Journal writes:

Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter.

The technology – designed to open set-top boxes, TVs and other devices to more content from the Internet – is attracting interest from partners that include Sony Corp., Intel Corp. and Logitech International SA, which are expected to offer products that support the software, these people said. (..)

[Google] is currently planning on sharing some details about the technology with more than 3,000 developers expected to attend its Google I/O conference in San Francisco May 19 and 20.

Android Developers Lose Money Because Apps Can’t Be Bought In Most Countries, Pingdom Says

Pingdom writes:

Google is talking about fighting piracy, but perhaps the first thing they should focus on is actually making it possible for users to buy apps. All users. Sounds rather logical, doesn’t it? So what are we talking about? The problem lies with Android Market.

You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. For those of you who like stats, 13 in 46 works out to less than 30%. Contrast this with Apple’s App Store, which supports paid apps in 90 countries. This is a huge advantage iPhone developers currently have over Android developers.

Then again, from what I’ve heard in various iPhone-related discussions, selling your app in Apple’s store is also far, far from easy...

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