Space InvadAR : A reality game for Android
May 31, 2010 News
Have you ever tried an Augmented Reality(AR) application , they are cool, and the Space InvadAR game seems to sound quite familiar for some reason. This AR game by Zenitum is rather cool, and allows you to print out a large image of a planet (probably Earth) that will be used in the game. Launch the game, point the camera in the direction of the picture, and you’ll see the planet converted into 3D and little targets start to show up for your shooting pleasure. Considering that the game is a never ending one and you can’t possibly win, it actually feels like a proof of concept rather than an actual product. That being said, the game will apparently be put up for sale on the Android Market for $25, which is quite steep for a mobile game. Check out a video of this game in action after the jump.
We hope to see more and more Android application developers coming up with Augmented Reality games in future . Did you check out this game , was it fun ?
Tags: Android apps, android news
iPad or iPed : You Decide
May 31, 2010 Uncategorized
The iPad went live in the Japanese market yesterday , along with it the TV news have also covered another product , that’s the iPed . According to TV news the device is on sale in Shenzhen , China . This is the location of the world largest Foxconn plant where the Apple goodies are manufactured .
The box iPed comes into is just similar to iPod , but when you unbox it you see iPed logo on the home screen which takes you to the music player . Printing mistake – the manuals , which says Apad , ohhh that’s funny , I hope both the departments named the device according to their own desires .
The device feels heavier than the iPad , powered by Intel chip runs Android OS , almost same features like the iPad have been seen in the iPed or Apad or ChinesePad whatever you call it . The device is priced around $105 , ohhh cheaper than a dumb smartphone .
With so many Android devices coming in do you think it would be hard enough to keep up with the apps on the Android market for each device . So iPad application developers what do you have to say about this , how good is it for Android application developers to develop for these devices ?
HTC EVO : Rooted
May 31, 2010 News
Google had handed over an EVO 4G to everyone who attended the Google I/O 2010 , feels good to own a EVO 4G but a team of few hackers were not so happy until they managed to root the phone after 11 days . So finally the HTC EVO 4G has been rooted ,but details about how the root was achieved are yet not disclosed , out of the fear of last minute patch .
Tags: Android hacked, android news, HTC
Facebook’s Official Software Development kit for Android
May 31, 2010 News
Facebook is going to release its Official SDK for Android , this is really going to make integrating Facebook’s platform easier for Android application developers and this SDK is actually more advanced compared to iPhone SDK , the key feature is Facebook’s graph API , which was previously unveiled at f8 developer conference .
The SDK is also supposed to use OAuth 2.0 for authentication and ability to publish stories on Facebook using Feed forms. Steve Soneff said there had been ways to integrate Facebook into Android applications before now, but that these have really been hacked together from the iPhone SDK, and weren’t officially supported by Facebook.
Finally Android has Facebook’s official SDK , and need not feel inferior to iPhone who received the SDK over a year ago . Things are improving with respect to Android application development; let’s see how further this step takes Facebook on Android platform .
Tags: android news, development, SDK
AT&T nearly doubling termination fees
May 31, 2010 News
If you think you can grab an iPhone , terminate the contract and sell it to someone over eBay for few extra bucks , it’s not going to happen now , because AT&T is going to nearly double the termination fee on Smartphone’s , so it going to be a bad deal if you try to pluck your iPhone within the contract period .
Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T has plans to double the early termination fees for smart phones from $175 up to $325 ,oh that’ sad to hear but also the customers will see a significant fee drop by $10 in monthly connection charges .
Also the ETF for feature phones is going from $175 to $150 which is dropping $4 each month. All of the ETF changes are purportedly set to begin on June 1st.
Is AT&T trying to make its customers think twice before they buy a smartphone or is it that it’s just tying to test the patience of its unsatisfied customers .
Call failed a community of unhappy AT&T customers says
Tags: AT&T news, iphone news, prices
iPhone application developers get new tools from AppMakr
May 31, 2010 Mobile Development
IPhone application developers have a cool way to develop simple iPod, iPad and iPhone applications , AppMakr is a tool which helps companies and individuals to build native iPhone apps very easily and with minimum hassles . The service is entirely web-based and lets users see a preview of the app as a fully-compiled, native iPhone app before it’s built. The AppMakr has been downloaded a million times and has received a good number of updates with improvements.
The AppMakr service uses RSS feeds and searches to build a comprehensive feed of your website or “personal brand” that is updated automatically. Phone support is also available for $120 a hour. But I feel it’s really not essential with this easy process and the tools available for application development.
The process is very simple. Just enter your URL or search terms. The system will search for feeds and media and then place it into the browser. Logos can also be grabbed from your disk or a URL. The simulator demos your app as you build it.
AppMakr has been used as an iPhone application development tool to develop apps for Newsweek, National geographic, Harvard Business review, MacLife, US Congressional committees, Seth Godin and many others.
To create apps visit the AppMakr site and publish them. An Apple Developer Account is essential. The Free App creation offer is a limited time offer, so try it before the end date is announced. You can give it a try if you are interested in developing a basic iPhone application
Tags: iphone news, mobile developers
Check out Froyo browser specs and comparision chart
May 26, 2010 News
The Flash 10.1 beta is available for download on the Android market for free; you can download the file and install it on your Android device which weighs around 5 MB.
Now the question people may have why Flash when their iPhone’s or Windows Mo’s give the best browsing experience in the class?
Definitely iPhone does give the best browsing experience but with no flash support , which is neither expect in the iPhone 4G due to the Apple – Adobe war , similarly the windows mobile also lacks the same .
What’s Flash going to change?
Have you played an online game? Or watched a YouTube video’s in your browser over your computer , or seen Flash Ads on the websites ? Of course everyone has done it or at least heard about it .
Yes, now you can play games over the web browser, and those would be Flash games, now you could also watch YouTube video directly in the browser and it’s not only about games and flash videos but also about new capabilities flash can be used to embed in mobile browsing.
Google announced in their I/O conference that Froyo Android 2.2 has the fastest browser which also supports flash. Now the question again is, does Android really have the fastest browser. To check this we compared three phones – iPhone, Nexus One with Android 2.2 and HTC HD2 with Windows mobile 6.5 over the same Wi-Fi network and under same conditions of network strength and the same time.
| FEATURES | iPhone 3GS | Nexus One | HTC HD2 |
| Flash content | Does not support | Yes , complete flash support | No , but may come up in future |
| Speed (With Flash content on webpage )
YouTube , Pocketnow , endgadget |
Finished 1st in all , but loads no flash | Finished loading last , with all flash contents | Finished 2nd , with no flash content |
| Speed (without or very low Flash content) | Finished 3rd | Finished 1st | Finished 2nd |
| Flash video | Needs App support to run them | Can be viewed over the browser | Needs app support |
| Scrolling | Smooth scrolling | On pages with Flash content it slow and choppy | Smooth Scrolling |
| Online Games | No support | Yes , tested over websites like miniclip , support flash gaming | Not at the moment , but may be possible in future after some update . |
Playing games over the web is fantastic, flash games are fun, hope Steve hates them. Watching videos and other content over the browser directly is really very satisfying on Froyo . But there are few things you won’t like about this flash release , the flash content increases the page loading time , because it takes a lot of time to load flash content which comparatively larger in size . Also this Flash content Slows down scrolling, due to higher requirement of memory resources, and may also give you low memory notifications.
So the answer to our question – whether Froyo Android 2.2 has the fastest browser is Yes and also No .
Yup, when you are looking for looking for Flash content , the basic elements of page may load on time but it may take slightly longer to load Flash content and thus the page loading will be slower than any other browser .The problem here is Flash 10.1 is still beta and need some more touch up , it does its job but takes some time , oh that’s not a big deal , but along with it makes browsing elements like scrolling through the page, viewing content a bit choppy .
But if you are not looking for Flash content, of course Froyo has the fastest browser and we have seen it on Nexus one.
Android application development is definately going to do more in Flash , Flash may not reach iPhone users but it may show up what it can do for Android geeks , with lots of flash content coming over the web and nearly everywhere, this could be a good step to bring it to Froyo Android 2.2 , and as google has always emphasized on speed , it will be the fastest flash supported browser . Android application developers are always looking forward for such features to come up which can be embedded in their apps and create something innovative . Lets where does Flash stand after Flash 10.1 comes out of beta stage .
Tags: android news, android OS
Buy iPhone for $ 97 – 16GB 3GS
May 26, 2010 News
Yes its true, Wal-Mart has halved the price of 16GB iPhone 3GS to only $97. That’s really exciting and if you were about to grab an iPhone for yourself , there could be no better chance than stepping into a Wal-Mart and getting yourself a 16GB iPhone 3GS .
As we know the Apple worldwide developer conference 2010 is right around the corner , and keeping in mind that the company is most likely going to announce the successor to the iPhone 3GS — Wal-Mart is probably trying to get rid of this old inventory.
But it’s a fair deal if you were about to buy the same for double the discounted price , and the iPhone 4G’s price is yet not estimated but roughly would figure around $ 499 . Wal-Mart has started giving away the iPhone for the special price from today .
Tags: iphone, iphone news
Kuwait and Pakistan blocked Blackberry
May 26, 2010 News
The PTA, Pakistan Telecom authority has asked all telecom companies in Pakistan to halt the blackberry services. PTA says they have banned blackberry services just to make sure they block all the ways that lead to banned sites like face book , YouTube , Flickr and Twitter . This all happened when people from all parts of the Pakistan protested against ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’ page in Facebook. As per the issued rule, telecom companies can’t resume BlackBerry services until they get the further notice from PTA.
In Kuwait, the Ministry of Interior is planning to stop BlackBerry Messenger. The issue is that BBM cannot be controlled by the Ministry of Communications or security authorities and hence, users of BlackBerry sets were taking advantage to spread rumors and call for strikes.
Previously the Facebook and sites like flickr were already banned but PTA found out that there is a way to log into Facebook and YouTube from Blackberry devices, and PTA made sure that it blocked all the ways to access Facebook.
The Website was finally blocked on Lahore’s court’s order; ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’ page is the reason behind the Pakistan’s government decision to ban these sites. However, some experienced bloggers and blackberry application developers from Pakistan considered this ban on BlackBerry services as ‘unnecessary’. There are some sections of people in Pakistan who are not happy with ban on sites like YouTube and Twitter.
BlackBerry users will have their services blocked for some more time. The blocking period might last till the end of the month, or can go further down. Including BlackBerry services, Pakistan has blocked 800 different web pages and sites that contain blasphemous content.
Tags: blackberry, blackberry news
The White faced Gadget : Could it be the Next Gen iPhone
May 25, 2010 News
The leak started few months back after the news of iPhone fourth-gen was out ,
since then we saw so many Apple iphone’s but some turned to be a Chinese knockoff , later few more leaks came up on the web but all were fake .
Now the question is whether these pics are real or fake , because apple has been offering black and white options since iPhone 3G , though the face is black in both cases .
Along with these we also noticed few more color variants in iPhone but we doubt they are real . Even if they are real , wont they make you sick ?
Tags: iphone 4G, iphone news, rumors
