your unofficial guide to the google android
General
Box Droid Concept Prototype 001 Sketch
Mar 10th
Late 2006 I started designing the sprites for Blobbit Push
A Short Android SDK Follow-Up
Mar 9th
Something interesting has happened since I posted my thoughts on the Android SDK. Two interesting things, actually. Both were e-mails from people who work on the Android SDK, one from Google and another from Motorola.
Despite the fact that I was quite critical of several aspects of the Android SDK in that post, neither e-mail attempted to argue with me. Neither took an adversarial approach at all. Both basically thanked me for my opinion and asked me for more information so they could improve Android and address those things I criticized in my post.
It may seem like a small thing, but those two e-mails impressed the hell out of me. Regardless of language or preferred design patterns or any of the other million things that we developers love to argue about over a pint of beer, one of the true marks of a good developer is the ability to take criticism without getting defensive combined with a true desire to make your products the best they can be. Reaching out to somebody who has criticized a product you work on is not an easy thing to do.
So, I felt it was only fair to point this out here because I think it bodes really, really well for Android’s future. I think we’ll see great things out of Android as it matures. I don’t think those things will change my personal desire to work with Android as my primary platform, but that’s simply because I don’t like Java anywhere near as much as I like Objective-C, but I’m definitely not going to bet against Android doing well.
Droid brightness, Top Twitter app, Nexus One ROMs/hacks, Android killing its…
Mar 9th
should I get a Droid, Blackberry Storm 2, or a Blackberry Curve.?
Mar 9th
Question 1
should I get a Droid, Blackberry Storm 2, or a Blackberry Curve.?…
iCommando Android App Review
Mar 9th
Portable apps for iPhone, Android, Pre, n900 – Can Processing.js help?
Mar 9th
I don’t know. But if you want to find out, then I have something for you.
Visit this website from your desktop browser. You will see an IDE. Write some processing code to create a sketch and save it when you are done.
Visit the same website from your iPhone/Android/n900/Pre browser. You will get a simple viewer interface. Find your sketch under My Sketchbook and run it.
Processing is a well known language to create sketches, animations, games. It is a simplified dialect of java. The resulting sketches are in the form of bytecode and can be run on desktop or in java applets. In Summer of 2008, John Resig (jQuery fame) ported Processing to javascript. Processing.js uses the HTML5 canvas element to render the sketches.
The modern browsers that ship with today’s smart phones support HTML5 element. So it is very much plausible to get your Processing sketch/game working on all the modern smart phones without any knowledge of native app development for each platform. Processing.js has a potential to become an uber-portable library for mobile development.
That was the idea I started out with about a month ago. After several iterations, I ended up with a website that you see now. It is an IDE when opened from desktop browser. You can write Processing code, run it, save it, share it for others to see in the Gallery. There are also some samples you can find in Gallery right now. Try them out.
The same website acts as a viewer for your processing sketch when opened from a mobile phone. You can view the shared sketches from the Gallery or you can login and find your saved sketches in My Sketchbook.
One great advantage of Processing.js is, it can intermix javascript with Processing code. So in the samples you will find how javascript is used to automatically find
Motorola Droid Tablet Revealed Details Leak On Droid Tablet, Features HDMI out, 720p recording
Mar 9th
When an internal Motorola produc
t roadmap was leaked to outsiders some time ago, it showed the (now
popular) Motorola Droid as codenamed ‘Sholes’, and beyond that,
anย ambiguousย ‘Sholes Tablet’, which all assumed is a Droid tablet.
Now, details have leaked on the ‘Sholes Tablet’, and it will come fully
loaded with features.
A poster on a Taiwanese mobile phone discussion forum has linked
pictures and a hands-on review of the mysterious Sholes Tablet. The
poster is reporting that it won’t be a tablet in a tradition sense, but
instead, a thinner Droid with no physical keyboard, similar to the iPhone.
The Droid Tablet is set to come equipped with a HDMI port, which
according to the Tawianese message board, makes it the first smartphone
to be equipped with such a port. The 8-megapixel camera on board the
tablet will be able to record in 720p, explaining why you would want to
have a HDMI-out port in the first place. For camera nerds, the Droid
Tablet will feature a Xenon-powered flash.
The message board reports that the Droid Tablet will carry the same
Cortex A8 processor as the regular Droid, however, will have a hefty
clock speed of 800 MHz. The report claims that the Droid Tablet will
carry the same 3.7 touch screen as the current Droid, and will come a
bit smaller. The report also declares that the Tablet will come equipped
with Android 2.0 – which seems a bit premature at this point, even
if the Tablet is supposed to be released in Q1 2010.
If this device is real, and more than just some machine-translated
Tawian and some foggy pictures of HDMI ports, expect Motorola to release
more information at CES.
Amazing Star Wars Droid Control Ship Made with 30,000 LEGO Pieces
Mar 9th
Brick master Paul Yperman spent 2-years and used 30,000 LEGO pieces to build the amazing creation you see above. The inspiration for this masterpiece came when Paul “entered a book shop a few years ago only to find himself buying a Star Wars Cross Section book; he studied the book through and through and got stuck at the picture of a Star Wars Droid Control Ship.” Click here for first picture in gallery.[via Bitrebels - MOCPAGES]
