At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona–which I’m not attending this year–Adobe has announced that it’s planning to bring Stage Video, the FlashPlayer 10.2 feature that permits fast video playback that doesn’t kill the battery–to mobile devices. It’ll be available on Android and for RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet; the Android version will require Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which means it’ll work on tablets such as the Xoom but not on any currently-available Android smartphones.
Tag Archives | Google Android
Sonos for Android is on Its Way
Sonos, maker of those neat networked music players, offers a touchscreen remote control for its systems, letting owners choose local and Internet-based music and route it to one or more Sonos boxes in their home. But the most popular touchscreen remotes for Sonos aren’t Sonos touchscreen remotes–they’re iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads running the company’s iOS app.
Starting soon, owners of Android phones will be able to get on the fun. Sonos is readying the Sonos Controller for Android, a free app for Google’s operating system. A Sonos representative told me that it’s generally similar to the iPhone version, but with a few new twists: For instance, it’s designed to take better advantage of the larger screens on many Android handsets. And when you’re running it, the volume buttons on your phone will control the Sonos system, not the phone itself. (Apple doesn’t provide a way for developers to grab control of the volume buttons on iOS devices.)
Sonos says that it plans to release the Android app in late March.
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Nokia: Is MeeGo a No-Go?
According to Reuters, Nokia has scrapped its first smartphone based on MeeGo, the Linux-based operating system that was supposed to do what Nokia’s aging Symbian could not. The internal memo by new CEO Stephen Elop leaked at Engadget says that the company is announcing its new strategy on Friday; if MeeGo is in trouble, it’s hard to imagine that the plan doesn’t involve adopting Windows Phone 7 or Android, or maybe both…
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Smuggle Truck: Tasteless Satire on a Serious Issue
It seems every so often, some developer comes along with the need to produce a mobile app that makes you say, “Dear God, what is wrong with our society?” Enter Smuggle Truck, a proposed gaming app for the iOS and Android platforms which the goal is to smuggle as many illegal immigrants over the US-Mexico border as possible, without killing them.
The app pushes just about every possible stereotype possible: images of a rickety truck packed with people speeding across the desert countryside. Better watch out: drive too recklessly and people may be ejected from the truck bed –maybe even a newborn baby.
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Confirmed: AT&T, Motorola Have Ruined the Atrix 4G
When I heaped lavish praise on Motorola’s Atrix 4G smartphone during CES, those plaudits came with a caveat: For this wacky modular computing concept to work, AT&T needed reasonable pricing for the Atrix’s laptop dock and accompanying data plans.
Unfortunately, that won’t be the case. When Atrix 4G pre-orders begin on February 13, the phone itself will cost $200 like almost every other Android superphone on the market — no problems there.
But the laptop dock, which taps the phone’s processor to run a full version of the Firefox browser, will cost $500 on its own. You can get the phone and dock together for $500, but then you’ll have to include tethering (another $20 per month) in your contract. And even if you don’t take the bundle, the dock will still require tethering to access AT&T’s network.
The laptop dock consists only of a screen, keyboard, mouse and battery, and yet it costs the same on its own as an entire high-powered netbook, processor and all. That alone is a dealbreaker. But the real disappointment is AT&T’s attitude towards the very concept of docking. Even though the dock’s sole functionality is to browse the web — and not perform bandwidth-intensive desktop tasks like online gaming or peer-to-peer file sharing — AT&T still treats it like a full-blown laptop.
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Google Android 3.0 and Motorola Xoom: Hands-On, and Awesome
[Here’s another story from our friends at PCWorld.]
Yesterday I got my first hands-on time with the Motorla Xoom tablet, running Android 3.0. And the one-two punch proved a compelling experience. It’s a very different experience than what one gets on today’s Android 2.2 tablets (led by Samsung Galaxy Tab), or on Apple’s iPad.
When the Motorola Xoom was first introduced last month at the CES show in Las Vegas, we only got glimpses of what it could do. Emphasis on the word glimpses: The demos were videos, run by demonstrators who wouldn’t allow hands-on with the device. Today, however, was a completely different experience. After Google’s special event at its headquarters to formally introduce Android 3.0, nearly a dozen developers showed off their apps on the Motorola Xoom, and Google staffers showed off how Honeycomb functions, on the Xoom device.
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Google Spills the Details on Its Tablet OS, Android 3.0 Honeycomb
[This article is republished courtesy of our pals at PCWorld.]
The great tease is over: Today, here at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Google showed off Android 3.0, a tablet-friendly operating system also known as Honeycomb. The new tablet OS emphasizes a slick interface, beefed up graphics for games, and support for in-app purchases.
Along with the new operating system, Google also announced an Android Market Website that allows Android phone and tablet users to browse, purchase, and download apps directly to their devices — no wires or USB syncing to a PC needed. The Web-based Android Market is live now.
The live Android 3.0 demos were performed on the upcoming Motorola Xoom tablet. Google showed off other enhancements to the OS, such as a Contact Shortcuts feature that allows you to create quick links to contacts for video chatting or sending e-mail. Google also offered live demonstrations of its video chat feature, new camera interface, visually immersive games, and multitasking capabilities.
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Android 3.0 Honeycomb Live Blog This Morning
Quick reminder: I’ll be at the Googleplex this morning with live coverage of the Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” press event, which should provide the most extensive preview to date of Google’s first tablet-friendly operating system. Join me at Technlogizer.com/honeycomb, won’t you? The event starts at 10am PT.
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Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb Event Live Coverage
Next Wednesday, I’ll head to Google headquarters to cover the Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” event–which will put the spotlight on the first version of the company’s mobile operating system designed for tablets. Join me here for live coverage starting at 10am PT. And you can head there now to send yourself an e-mail reminder. See you then, I hope…
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Sony Hedges Bets with Playstation Suite
While the NGP game console hogged the spotlight at Sony’s press conference in Tokyo on Thursday, the company made another announcement that could prove just as significant.
I’m talking about Playstation Suite, a software framework that will let Android phones run Playstation games. Sony skimped on details, but said Playstation Suite will start with PSOne games when it launches for Android 2.3 phones later this year — that’s “phones” plural, not just the rumored Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, a.k.a. Playstation Phone.
For as long as I’ve been playing video games, no console maker has handed over its ecosystem to other devices in this way. Sony is essentially admitting that it can no longer ignore smartphones, and that selling video games is at least as important as controlling the hardware or the operating system. This is a huge concession.