Android An Open Handset Alliance Project

Android

An Open Handset Alliance Project

 http://adf.ly/a1M9z

Android Features:

• Application Framework
•  Dalvik virtual machine
•  Integrated (webkit) browser
•  2D and 3D graphics APIs with HW 
• SQLite 
• Video and audio codecs 
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi 
• Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer

Android Architecture

Challenges

• CPU typically runs 500-600 Mhz 
• RAM available to an App may only be a few megabytes 
• Disk (flash) access is very slow 
• Lifecycle - apps must pause/quit often, and restore to give the illusion that 
• they are always running 
• UI design 
• typical screen may be HVGA (320x480) 
• may be in portrait or landscape 
• very high DPI, Display Pixel Per Inch, - small text may not be readable 
• touch resolution is very low (~25 pixel) 
• Network access may be slow and (very) intermittent

Opportunities

• More than 100s of millions of mobile phone users
• Very high growth
• “wild wild west" of application development
• think 1985 on the desktop (if you were born by then)
• no dominant 3rd party developers.... yet
• what will the killer app categories be?
• what  does  it  mean  to  have  any  app  +  the  internet  in  your 
• pocket?
• You can develop for it today!

 

Possibilities

Augmented Campus Reality

camera + maps + compass = heads 

up info

Games multi-player (Bluetooth, WiFi, cell) location-based (scavenger hunt) Custom overlays for maps Weather, Traffic, friends Web scraping news filters sport scores

Distributed computing?

10,000  phones  all  donating 

their idle time

tiny  terminal  (phone)  +  fast 

cpu/network (server).

Project Suggestions

1. Web Scrapers [movies, weather, sports, <topic> news]

• Find multiple web sources
• Scrape them for the relevant information
• Present in a custom UI on the phone

1. Asynchronous games [chess, poker, risk]
2. Develop an API for all games to communicate through
3. Establish connections by phone number
4. Send and receive game data
5. Ability to reopen connections 
6. Planner/To-do list with location data

• Decide route to next class, meeting, etc
• Find a order/route for non time-critical tasks
• Connect to campus directory to find teachers/classmates

Next Lesson :

Android Programming

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Deal With Camera in Android

Deal With Camera in Android

  Suppose you're implementing a new crowd-sourced weather conditions service that produces a global weather chart by joining together together pictures on the sky considered by devices running ones client iphone app. Integrating photos is a small a part of your request. You wish to take photographs with minimum fuss, certainly not reinvent the camera. Fortunately, most Android-powered devices curently have a minumum of one camera request installed. With this lesson, you learn how to make it have a picture for you personally.

Request Camera Permission

if an important function of your application is taking photos, then minimize its awareness on Search engines Play to be able to devices which may have a video camera. To advertise that the application is determined by having some sort of camera, put some sort of <uses-feature> tag in your manifest file: 

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Secrets Features of iTunes 10

 Secrets Features of iTunes 10

Over the course of 10 generations, Apple has turned the quaint music player software into a veritable media monolith -- complete with apps, video, books and even a virtual storefront where you can buy them all. But with each new version, subtle new features are often introduced and overlooked by the average user.

A click here, a pulldown menu there and you’re an expert in iTunes, right? Well, not quite -- Apple keeps so-called “experts” busy with each new version, tucking away functionality in virtually every nook and cranny of the media player. You may think you know them all until you have a look at our gallery below and find one or more that you can use to impress friends with your vast knowledge.

Without further ado, here’s a handful of secrets gleaned from iTunes 10, along with quick how-to tips to make them your own.

Follow this article’s author,  J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter

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