Corner Geeks 32: The Intel Party and iBattz Experience

IntelParty

Intel Android Devices

  • 80+ Intel Android Devices
  • Intel XDK: Design, debug, build, and deploy HTML5 web and hybrid apps across multiple app stores, and form factor devices.
  • Free hoodie + Acer Iconia Tab 8
  • Android NDK: Toolset that allows you to implement parts of your app using native-code languages such as C and C++.

iBattz

BattStationOptimus07

Corner Geeks 31: The Post I/O Experience Part 5 – Android Wear

Android WearAndroid Wear

  • Android wear UI is not customizable
  • Pairs with Android phone via Bluetooth (requires Android 4.3+)
  • 1 day battery life
  • Notifications appear on watch
    • Swipe left to dismiss
    • Swipe right to take further action (e.g. open in phone)
    • Reply with voice (only for certain apps)
    • Requires 2 hands
  • Availability (in certain locations):
  • Samsung Gear live (vs the G Watch)
    • smaller screen (1.63″ Super AMOLED vs 1.65” IPS LCD)
    • higher resolution (320×320 vs 280×280)
    • smaller battery (300 mAh vs 400mAh)
    • extra Heart Rate Sensor (common sensors: Compass, Accelerometer, Gyroscope)
    • has a Bluetooth / Wi-Fi antenna
    • cheaper in US (US$199 vs US$229) (Australia: $1 more expensive, AUD$250 vs AUD$249)
  • LG G watch

Corner Geeks 30: The Post I/O Experience Part 4 – Chromecast, Chrome OS, Cardboard

Cardboard

Chromecast

Chrome OS

Cardboard

Corner Geeks 29: The Post I/O Experience Part 3 – Android L, Android TV, Google Fit, Android Auto

Android L Developer Preview

Android L

Android TV

  • Android TV Website
  • Google Content (movies & music) on the big screen using voice commands
  • Game focused: has hardware game controllers, similar to Ouya
  • Controlled using swipes with Android wear or voice commands on an regular Android device
  • Can cast screen/content from Android devices to Android TV using Google Cast
  • Play Store available to install apps

Google Fit

Android Auto

  • Android Auto Website
  • In-board car dashboard powered by your Android device
  • “Dumb” dashboard monitored, all powered by external Android device
  • Google’s response to Apple’s CarPlay

Corner Geeks 28: The Post I/O Experience Part 2 – Polymer

Polymer logo

Polymer

  • Polymer Project website
  • Polymer Elements
    • Polymer Core elements: a set of utility elements including general-purpose UI elements (such as icons, layout elements, and toolbars), as well as non-UI elements providing features like AJAX, signalling and storage.
      Docs | Demos
    • Paper Elements: Polymer’s paper elements collection implements material design for the web. They’re a set of highly visual, highly interactive elements that include things like controls, layouts, hero transitions, and scrolling effects.
      Docs | Demos
  • Polymer Designer: Designer is a drag and drop tool for prototyping apps using Polymer. Save your experiments as Github gists.

Corner Geeks 27: The Post I/O Experience Part 1 – Goodies, Android One and Material Design

Android One

Watch the Google I/O 2014 Keynote on YouTube

Goodie count

Android One

  • Reference hardware for OEMs
  • High quality affordable smartphones
  • Stock Android & Automatic Updates from Google
  • 4.5″ Android device, dual SIM, FM radio, micro SD card slot
  • Under US$100

Material Design

Material Design

Corner Geeks 26: The Pre I/O Experience

Google IO 2014

Links

Corner Geeks 20 – Google I/O 2012 – Part 3 – The non-Android Bits

Google I/O 2012 links: I/O websiteDay 1 videoDay 2 video

  • Day 1
    • Google+ Events
      • Party mode that shares all photos to the event page
      • Calendar integration: ensure to disable showing events that you have been invited to and not accepted to show in calendar
    • Google Glass Explorer Edition
      • US$1500. Sky diving, bike stunt, repelling approved
  • Day 2
    • Chrome for iOS
      • iPhone & iPad
      • With features like tab syncing, and password synchronization
    • Google Drive
      • Now available for iOS and Chrome OS
      • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on images – can search for text in photos
      • Intelligent image search (e.g. search for pyramid and it can retrieve photos with pyramids in it)
      • Built into ChromeOS
    • Google Docs Offline
      • save changes when offline and uploads when online
    • Google Compute Engine
      • Amazon EC2 competitor

Corner Geeks 19: Google I/O 2012 – Part 2 – Android 4.1 Jellyean

Google I/O 2012 links: I/O websiteDay 1 videoDay 2 video

Android 4.1 Jellybean

  • Overview of new features, API Notes & official changelog from Google
  • Project Butter
  • Notifications improvement
    • Actions straight from notifications. No need to open app
      • Call person from missed called
      • Email all attendees for meeting
      • +1 or share straight from the notifications
    • Different views: normal (text snippet), bigger view (with lots of text), picture view (with images)
  • Google Now
    • Siri / S-voice competitor
    • Based on knowledge graph to show results based on context
    • Card based interface with each card showing information
    • More than just text as text answers: photos as well. With Google search at the bottom
    • Natural sounding voice
    • Proactive digital assistant giving automatic reminders / information based on context. Example: reminds you that you should leave in 5 minutes in order to meet your appointment due to traffic on the highway. It has your scheduled information in the calendar, it knows the route and traffic you should take and calculates the time it would take to reach destination.
    •  Google now creepy knowing your behaviour but gives relevant results
  • Offline voice typing: core engine shrunk to work offline, but if there is an Internet connection it works better
  • Homescreen improvements: when placing new widget on a screen it will automatically reflow icons to fit it or shrink the widget in order to fit it on the screen
  • Predictive keyboard. New keyboard layouts and languages. User installable keymaps
  • Accessibility improvements – gesture mode with speech guidance. USB/Bluetooth Braille inputs
  • Camera tweaks. Swipe to review. Tap and share.
  • Android beam: initiate transfers via NFC and now allowing larger transfers via Bluetooth
  • WiFi network and WiFi direct service discovery: find services available via device son the network (e.g. printer) or via an app on another Android device (direct P2P without a need for a network)

Developer Related Features

  • Update over the air for Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom & Nexus S in mid July
  • SDK available today
  • App encryption: all paid apps encrypted with a device-specific key before they are delivered and stored on a device to prevent piracy
  • Smart / Delta updates
    • Automatically handled by the Play Store
    • Support for Android 2.3 Gingerbread & above
    • 1/3 the size of regular updates
  • Android Device Messaging C2DM now called Google cloud messaging
    • Multi-casting
    • Free. No quota limits
  • Android Platform Development Kit
    • For hardware manufacturers
    • Given new version 2-3 months before release (for better / faster updates)

Note: Image licensed via Google under CC-BY

Corner Geeks 18: Google I/O 2012 – Part 1 – Nexus Q & Nexus 7

Google I/O 2012 links: I/O websiteDay 1 video, Day 2 video

Nexus Q

  • The creation from Project Tungsten ‘home automation’ mentioned in Google  IO 2011
  • Streams music / video from Google Play
  • A social Jukebox – multiple users can control the playlist and add items from their Play content
  • Phone / tablet as a controller
  • NFC enabled: tap to download software, pair over Bluetooth
  • Allows streaming to different devices/rooms
  • 25W amp built-in
  • Optical in (S/PDIF), Banana jacks, ethernet, micro USB, micro HDMI
  • 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC
  • Dual Core CPU (same as Galaxy Nexus) 16GB, 1GB RAM
  • Made in USA
  • US$299
  • More at the Nexus Q site

Google Play

  • Largest eBook collection
  • Adding:
    • Movie purchasing (previously just rental)
    • TV shows (episodes & seasons)
    • Magazines (with possible 14 day trial)

Nexus 7

  • 7” (1280×800 screen), Quad core CPU, 12 core GPU
  • Android 4.1 Jellybean
  • Up to 9 hours video playback
  • 340 grams (same weight as Galaxy Tab 7.7)
  • Similar to original Galaxy Tab dimensions
  • MicroUSB for data and charging (no proprietary cables)
  • Front facing camera only
  • No 3G / microSD
  • Homescreen only portrait
  • US$199 (8GB) / US$249 (16GB)
  • Ships Mid July to US, Canada, UK, Australia
  • More at the Nexus 7 site