Daily Green Robot

Pre-SXSW goodness and the new Galaxy Note: Nice to know that the iPhone really isn’t the only game in town.

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:39:51 +0800

Pre-SXSW goodness and the new Galaxy Note: Nice to know that the iPhone really isn’t the only game in town.:

Hugh MacLeod is a writer, artist (mainly in cartoon form) and ‘media guy’ who has apparently been given a Galaxy Note to play with at SXSW this week - and he seems to like it!

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:03:59 +0800

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto:

For those who don’t know, Roboto is Android’s new system-wide default font, replacing the older Droid Sans. I really like the new font, but then most things look stunning on the Galaxy Nexus’ high-density screen, particularly if they’re designed for it.

To be honest, most of this analysis is beyond me, but it has a high-quality feel to it which makes it interesting to read…

New nooks!

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:53:07 +0800

New nooks!:

I’ve got an original 3G/wifi nook, and a nook Color - neither of which are easily available to me outside the US - and in principle I’m very happy with both. I don’t use the e-ink nook, partly because I can’t be bothered to carry a single-use device, but mainly because I read in the dark (in bed) more than I read outside (in sunlight), so one of e-ink’s main features isn’t much use to me. And I don’t use the nook Color so much since I got a Galaxy Tab 10.1.

That said, they’re both pretty decent devices, and I think B&N deserve a lot more credit than they’re getting for blazing the path down which the Kindle Fire is following them. We’ll see if they can keep up with Amazon when the two new tablets hit consumers!

The Galaxy SII has a very thin plastic back and a relatively...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:02:26 +0800

The Galaxy SII has a very thin plastic back and a relatively thin Gorilla Glass (chemically hardened glass) front. The iPhone 4S has a glass back, and a (apparently) chemically hardened glass front.

When you drop them both from waist and shoulder height, well… watch the video!

Rooting a very very large phone...

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:15:22 +0800

Rooting a very very large phone...:

Just a fun little vid of a guy showing off the enormous demo Nexus S in a store, which he’d rooted for all the world to use.

App Inventor for Android (no more)

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:02:21 +0800

App Inventor for Android (no more):

App Inventor was always a bit of a strange beast - one in a long long line of building-block development environments, but with the bonus features of being at least partly web-based, and having the resulting app actually run for real on your phone. It was never going to replace a full development system, and as far as I know it couldn’t generate apps which could be published in the market, but still, it was a interesting idea.

The interesting thing, of course, is that if it’s open sourced properly, it could well go on to bigger and better things. Or it could die in possibly-deserved obscurity….

The Android Story

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:09:48 +0800

The Android Story:

How did we get here? Well… it started in October 2003, and this infographic tells the story from there.

Logitech Revue - Google TV box for $99.99

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:20:42 +0800

Logitech Revue - Google TV box for $99.99:

Two closely-connected links today - both about Logitech’s Revue device. Google TV is Google’s Android-based set-top-box platform, which has so far been pretty much a flop, but which is available integrated into Sony and Samsung TVs, and as a standalone device from Logitech, the Revue. A few days ago, Logitech admitted that sales of the Revue had been dire, and slashed the list price from $300 (although it had been selling for not much over $200) to $99.99 - and at that price, it’s the top-selling device right now in Amazon’s TV listings, and has sold out at Best Buy.

One of the reasons why GTV has been a flop has been that it’s languished with an old, closed build of Android, while they’ve been promising an upgrade to Honeycomb, complete with Android Market support. Today, I suspect not entirely coincidentally, an installable beta build of Honeycomb for GTV has leaked out. It’s not obvious how much the leaked beta is a result of the sales boost or a cause but… I put my order in at Amazon a couple of hours ago!

Apple Suit Puts Samsung Tablet Sales in Australia on Hold

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:30:30 +0800

Apple Suit Puts Samsung Tablet Sales in Australia on Hold:

Apple just pipped Samsung to the lead in the global smartphone market in the last quarter, after Nokia’s spectacular implosion. The iPad is probably the best mass-market tablet on the market (although I couldn’t let myself be tied down in the way iOS does it), but the Galaxy S2 is the best phone in the world right now - and it shows that Apple are choosing to compete with litigation. You might almost wonder if Apple’s one-phone-per-year(ish) strategy is starting to show how limited it is, as their competitors simply innovate faster…

Google fears it may have inadvertently stolen future technology

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 00:22:59 +0800

Google fears it may have inadvertently stolen future technology

All About Android

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 11:22:00 +0800

All About Android:

A new Android podcast from Leo Laporte’s TWIT network. Frost show was okay, with some rough edges needing smoothing, and there’s still a little too much comparison with everything ‘i’ - but otherwise, a good start!

Android Debugging Tips

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:24:48 +0800

Android Debugging Tips:

Some people should not be allowed to… breathe?

Nook for Android

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:26:04 +0800

Nook for Android:

Barnes & Noble have been putting quite a lot of energy into their nook platform recently, setting off a minor price war a few weeks ago with their new wifi-only nook, and now releasing a nook app for Android phones. Unfortunately, it’s very big (17.7MB installed) and not all that good compared with the existing leading Android ebook apps, fbreader and Aldiko. Still, good to see support for the platform…

Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That?

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:27:53 +0800

Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That?:

Not really an Android article, for today, but still of interest. Newsweek trying to pull apart the myth of the millionaire iPhone app developer, talking to a few indies about how the app store is treating them. The story has an obvious message, and is slanted towards that message, but I don’t think the message is incorrect. There absolutely has been a race to the bottom on pricing - which has hit the Android market as well - and a huge flood of apps which threaten to overwhelm anything but the most popular apps. There’s a perception that if you’re in the top X% (where X is a very small number), you’ll shift a lot of apps, and if you can’t break that barrier you’ll never hit it big. There’s also an interesting side comment about big companies shipping apps for free, because they can absorb the development costs and make it up elsewhere, vs. indie devs trying to make a living (or at least a revenue stream) directly from their software. There are lessons here for Android…

Reality, improved

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:47:22 +0800

Reality, improved:

A month-old article from The Economist (whose audio edition works very well on Android, by the way) about the growth of augmented reality, and how in many ways it’s an unexpected fulfilment of the unfulfilled promise of 90s virtual reality. Lots of stuff about various different solutions competing in the market, but it’s notable that most of them are described as running on Android - although they do claim that augmented reality won’t take off until the newest iPhones are wide-spread. The interesting thing is that Android’s open nature has obviously made it the correct platform for innovative research and cutting-edge products - exactly as it should be!

Experience Google Mobile Service, Enjoy Android Market

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:10:54 +0800

Experience Google Mobile Service, Enjoy Android Market:

Sciphone are a relatively well-known Chinese maker of knock-off phones. I live in Hong Kong, and go over to Shenzhen around once a month for shopping, massage and food, and you see stacks of their phones, even in the tourist shops at the border, never mind in the actual phone malls. I’ve found myself walking away from a shop more than once, with the shopkeeper waving a fake iPhone - almost always made by Sciphone - at me and shouting lower and lower prices. If these guys are actually going into making real Android phones, I think it’s a good thing - they won’t take share from the mainstream phones, but they can be an important route to the mass market. I somehow doubt they will actually allow users to “Enjoy [the] Android Market” though, unless the Chinese phone hackers have knocked-off the Market client…

Oh, and I’ve got two trips to Shenzhen planned for October. I’ll report back as to what’s actually available on the street, complete with photos if I can, and possibly a review if I’m suckered into buying something.

AdBlock (alpha)

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:11:44 +0800

AdBlock (alpha):

Something slightly different today - this app was posted in the market earlier on, and I was tickled by the comment in the description: “Dear Google, please contact me before delete this app from market.”. The linked developer homepage is in fact just a large STOP sign with a bunch of German text in it, which is apparently a rant against Internet censorship. To be honest, I’m not sure why the developer assumes Google are going to delete the app, unless he’s released something similar before which was deleted? I already use a different ad-blocker anyway, which uses the age-old trick of hardcoding DNS values of 127.0.0.1 for well-known ad sources like DoubleClick.

LG Shows Off GW620 – Plenty of Pictures and Video to Go ‘Round

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:29:53 +0800

LG Shows Off GW620 – Plenty of Pictures and Video to Go ‘Round:

Pictures and information about the upcoming Android phone from Korea’s LG. It may not be the most exciting phone in the world, although there is a small but vocal minority which is all over any phone with a QWERTY (or AZERTY) keyboard - but it’s a good sign. Android got off to a slightly narrow start, with HTC taking the lion’s share of early handsets, but with LG, Huawai, Motorola and Samsung, as well as a number of smaller or knock-off manufacturers, showing off their Android devices, it looks like the multi-vendor strategy is actually demonstrably real.

HTC’s Hero May Be Your Scene

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 02:17:03 +0800

HTC’s Hero May Be Your Scene:

Walt Mossberg is one of the best-respected tech reviewers in the US, writing mainly for the Wall Street Journal, and generally considered one of Apple’s friends in the press. This is his review of the Sprint-model (CDMA) Hero, due to be released imminently. He’s pretty positive about it, with a few caveats, and considers it a worthy competitor in the smartphone market. In some ways, the content of this review isn’t so interesting in itself, but the who, how and where of its publication make it notable.

Dunkin' Isn't the Only One Delivering Donuts Tonight

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:44:45 +0800

Dunkin' Isn't the Only One Delivering Donuts Tonight:

Looks like Android 1.6 is actually rolling out to at least a few test phones tonight, very soon after being formally released by the AOSP. Of particular note is that the first updates are apparently going out to G1s, refuting the earlier reports that there would be trouble delivering post-cupcake updates to G1s due to the lack of available flash. My Magic is HTC-branded, so I’ll have to wait to see what’s going to happen regarding a donut update - it’s quite possible it’ll come with the rumoured ‘downport’ of the Sense UI from the Hero, a little later this year.