Google’s New Android Market Makes Life A Lot Sweeter For Developers

By: Syeed

Google announced that there are going to be some changes coming to the Android market soon. The new layout, features and other goodies are defiantly going to help users find apps and devs make more money off their work.

The good news for users is that the Android Market on phones and the web is getting a sexy new look that makes it easier for users to find apps. There making it so people will be able to search by developer, related apps, Trending Apps, Top Apps and Editors choice. There will be no more fugly 3 column layout, it’s being replaced by panels that make the Top apps and most popular downloads ‘pop’ a lot more than they used to. The whole thing just looks a whole lot nicer, and makes it much easier to find and get the apps you want.

For the developers out there, Google is adding some sweet new features that will allow you to block apps from particular devices. This is a good move by Google to help deal with the fragmentation issue on Android. Since developers can essentially make their apps ‘invisible’ to certain devices, we can expect that within the coming months less and less people will be getting frustrated by downloading apps that don’t seem to work or run right on their device (anyone try playing Angry Birds on a Samsung Transform?… I rest my case). Just a word to you developers out there, don’t be lazy please block your apps if they don’t run on certain devices and you know it, at least till you can fix ‘em. It helps the Android dev community as a whole. So that’s cool…but wait there’s more. Google is also allowing devs to upload bigger files and create drafts so they can check out how their app performs on different devices by just downloading from the market.

Google is hoping all these new thingamabobs they’re offering will help get developers noticed in the crowded and increasingly growing Android Market.

Here’s a video of the announcement (scroll to the 40:00 mark if you just want to see what the new Market’s going to look like):

Related Stuffs:

• Source: Information Week
• Article: Chrome Laptops Coming Next Month
• Article: Google Music Service Launches
• Article: Google Adds Tons Of New Movies To YouTube VOD

Chrome Laptops Coming Next Month

By: Kareem Ali

Google finally made it official, the much rumored Chrome powered netbooks from Acer and Samsung will be shipping next month. The CR-48 (pictured above) was Google’s sexy test bed for the platform and thankfully the Acer and Samsung tabs don’t differentiate much from it’s design.

First a bit on Chrome for the uninitiated. Chrome is Google’s answer to Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. According to Google those operating systems are pretty much just getting in the way of what people really use their computers for nowadays, the internet, and this is their way of fixing that.

At it’s heart Chrome is hardly more than a simple really really small Linux kernel that only serves to run basic bootstrap code and then start up the Chrome browser. What that means for those of you who don’t know squat about OS kernel's and whatnot is that it can boot in about 8 seconds, and have you on the web within 15 (accounting for login and all). That’s pretty damned fast if you ask me. I’ve argued before that the cloud can help Linux get into more peoples hands. The way I see it Google is pretty much dead on in assuming that most people boot their computers, start up their browsers and spend pretty much all their time on the web. You don’t need a gigantic OS chugging along in the background slowing you down. so why bother having it? I know there are still a lot of people (like me) who use their computers for more than just surfing the web and playing games, and we need a powerful OS to handle all the editing and gaming software. But the fact of the matter is most people are just using their computers (laptops especially) to get online and do their thing, y’know check Facebook, Spam Porn, whatever it is you do online. Those people would benefit greatly from having a huge chunk of their OS removed so they could surf around faster and not have to worry about maintaining an OS, which if you ask any tech, seems to be well beyond the capabilities of the average computer user for some reason.

Here are the specs for each Chrome book, then I’ll get into some of my beefs with Chrome:

Specifications

• 12.1" (1280x800) 300 nit Display
• 3.26 lbs / 1.48 kg
• 8.5 hours of continuous usage ¹
• Intel® Atom^TM Dual-Core Processor
• Built in dual-band Wi-Fi and World-mode 3G (optional)
• HD Webcam with noise cancelling microphone
• 2 USB 2.0 ports
• 4-in-1 memory card slot
• Mini-VGA port
• Fullsize Chrome keyboard
• Oversize fully-clickable trackpad

 

 

Specifications

• 11.6" HD Widescreen CineCrystal^TM LED-backlit LCD
• 2.95 lbs. | 1.34 kg.
• 6 hours of continuous usage ¹
• Intel® Atom^TM Dual-Core Processor
• Built in dual-band Wi-Fi and World-mode 3G (optional)
• HD Webcam with noise cancelling microphone
• High-Definition Audio Support
• 2 USB 2.0 ports
• 4-in-1 memory card slot
• HDMI port
• Full-size Chrome keyboard
• Oversize fully-clickable track pad

 

The stats are pretty similar, as you can see, the glaring differences seem to be the battery life and the HDMI out port. Now on to my gripe with Chrome.

The only thing that really bothers me is that Google expects people to store most of their data in their cloud. The option is there for flash memory, but as you can see neither device comes with a hard drive. That’s the problem with netbooks in general however, they seem to straddle this fence of not quite being a laptop, while at the same time not quite being a tablet. It’s kind of weird and off-putting to me personally.

The problem with storing all my data in a cloud rather than on a hard drive is that I simply don’t fully trust it. You can tell me it’s safe, reliable and secure, but they say that about every new car that comes out and yet look how many people die in car accidents. I don’t want my data to die, I want it triple backed up in different ways stored in different places. I like the way things are now where I can choose what I want backed up in the cloud and then go from there. There’s no question that cloud servers are going to play a vital role in the future of computing but I don’t think it’s smart for Google to be banking on people trusting it.

For the people that do adopt Chrome as their day to day OS and don’t want to go all crazy on the cloud storage, are going to have to deal with carrying around lots of different storage devices in an attempt to make up the common 250-320 GB hard drives that come in laptops today. That means more chances to lose data as you could misplace on of those pretty much anywhere.

That’s my biggest gripe with Chrome OS, if you only use your laptop for surfing the web, and are ok with spending that extra money for memory or don’t mind storing all your ish in the cloud, than June 15th will be a great day for you. Otherwise I don’t see Chrome doing anything more than I could do in Linux if I really wanted to (except maybe the over the air updates) so, you might as well buy an OS-Free laptop and get you a copy of Ubuntu, it boots fast, you can find a really small bare-bones version if you look for it and if your hell bent on the chrome browser than it’s only a couple command lines away.

So there you have it, I found a video of Google introducing the Chrome book check it out below.

Related Stuffs:

• Source: Forbes
• Article: What Does The Cloud Mean For Linux Users?
• Official: Google Chrome Web

Google Music Service Launches Despite Music Labels

By: Kareem@techsual.com

Google is saying that they will launch a new music service beta despite getting the go ahead from record label execs, music publishers or any licensing agreements.

Taking a cue from Amazon, Google is not waiting around for record label execs to figure out how  this thing called the internet works and are just going ahead and putting their cloud music service out in invite-only beta form starting this week. Amazon got some pretty harsh flak from the money-rubbers of the music industry when it released it’s service earlier this year, and there’s no reason to expect them to treat Google any different.

Record execs are pretty much guaranteeing that people who buy their music will have the worst experience possible when trying to stream their music to multiple places from one source. Although Google is offering storage for up to 20,000 songs for free, thanks to BS DMCA bureaucracy users will have to manually upload all their albums to Google's cloud servers before they will be available for streaming on any capable device with an internet connection.

Google hopes to get the go ahead from the publishers, labels and others who claim ownership of someone else’s art and work to be able to just scan a users music catalogue and make all the songs someone already has on say iTunes or Amazon instantly available via their service. Which would be a much better and easier experience for the end user.

I think that both Google and Amazon could make quite a decent mark in the music industry if they would invest a little money into supporting unsigned artists, the old saying ; ‘If you cant beat ‘em join' ‘em’ would seem to work here. If you cant beat the record companies, why not start your own small one or support other small ones and show people other artist, who actually give a shit about their fans, that they can give them the best experience possible when getting their music to them. If you do this with a few small artists and lead by example, who knows? Maybe bigger artists and labels will start to join in.

Related Stuffs:

• Article: Google Adds Tons Of New Movies To YouTube VOD
• Article: Google I/O Where To Watch Live

Google Adds Tons Of New Movies To YouTube VOD

Google announced that they will be adding tons of new movies from some pretty big studios to YouTube’s streaming movie service. Making them a bigger competitor in the on-demand streaming movie service scene.

According to Google they struck a deal with Sony, NBC Universal and Warner Brothers to add 3,000 new movies to YouTube’s on demand movie service.  The service will also allow users to stream the movies they rent to their Android devices.

The new service puts Google in direct competition with Apple, Hulu, Netflix and Amazon who all already have a pretty good amount of content, so it might be a little tough going for Google on this one. My guess is they might get quite a few of the people who already use YouTube but might not want to deal with a subscription service like Netflix or Amazon. The new ‘movies’ tab on the YouTube homepage is probably going to get some curious clicks from those people and they might just see something they like and try it out.

The movies cost a little under $4 to rent, you get 30 days to watch the movie and once you start it you have 24 hours to watch the whole thing (pretty familiar to anyone who has ever used VOD)

Related Stuffs:

YouTube Movie Page

Google I/O: Where To Watch Live

The fourth annual Google I/O is underway, there have already been some pretty interesting announcements I’ll be getting through throughout the day. I just wanted to give you a real quick rundown of a couple things coming up on the Techsual and a link so you can go watch I/O live online (a first for the conference).

Google announced a new version of Android, 3.1 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Honeycomb 3.1 is rolling out on the xoom today and has some pretty neat upgrades for developers. There's a new streaming music service which will allow users to store their music in the cloud and access it from any device. I will give you the details (there are many) on those later, but for now check the link below to go and watch Google I/O live.

Google I/O Live Stream