Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on May 14, 2008 by CyberNet.

Back in November when Google released their Android (open handset alliance project) Software Development kit, they announced a $10 million dollar contest at the same time. The whole idea behind the contest was to entice developers to develop applications for Android. It (the contest) was divided into two different challenges and the winners of the first challenge which included application submissions from January 2nd through March 3rd, have just been announced. In all, fifty developers each won $25,000 to help them build their app.

If you browse the list that Google posted, you’ll notice that there are only 46 names listed. At the bottom they explained that four of the winners decided they didn’t want the public to know quite yet what they were working on, so they opted to keep their work a secret for now. In all there were over 1700 submissions, so it must have been a lot of work for Google to narrow it down to just 50 winners.

While Google posted the list of winners, they didn’t provide any details about the applications. Android Phone Fan site Phandroid posted a list of the winners as well as details for some of them, if they were able to get them. Taking a look at the list, it looks like there are a few interesting applications in the works, although, I must say, some of them really don’t sound that intriguing. Additionally, looking through the list it didn’t look like there was much of a focus on gaming. Anyhow, here are a few that caught my attention:

• LifeAware– Mobile Tracking Service formed to help people be aware of where their friends and family are.
• Marvin – Marvin allows you to publish and browse geo-localized objects around you.
• TuneWiki – “Our goal is to have the lyrics always on, always available, always synchronized to music – on any device that can play music back and connect to the Internet.
• Writing Pad – ShapeWriter is an innovative, original, fun, and highly efficient method of entering text into touch screen mobile phones.
• AndroidScan – use your phone to scan a barcode, get pricing information from dozens of stores, product reviews and more

Come July, ten of the fifty winners will be awarded an additional $100,000 while another 10 will be awarded an additional $275,000 to further develop their applications.

Source: TechCrunch

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on January 19, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Apple Sends Press Invites to Upcoming Event
Many of the major press sources have come forward saying that late last night an invitation to Apple’s January 27th came strolling in, entitled “come see our latest creation.” Other rumors are that the event will cover the iPhone 4.0 software (not new hardware), the tablet, and iLife 2010. I’m pretty much at the point where I’m so sick of rumors that I can’t wait for January 27th to come and go.

Use Google Docs for File Storage
Google Docs is on the verge of becoming more than just a place to save and share documents. In the coming weeks you will have a feature enabled in your account so that you can actually upload files of any type to your account. You’ll have 1GB of free storage for non-document related files, but more storage will always be available at a rate of $0.25 per gigabyte. The per-file size limitation is 250MB, which I’d say is okay compared to some other services, but not overly impressive.

–News in Brief–

Which Third-Party Apps Should Be In Ubuntu
A survey by Canonical asks users what third-party apps they’d like to see be made available for the Ubuntu operating system.

Nexus One Price Slashed by $100, Early Adopters Refunded $100
Existing T-Mobile customers (that are eligible for an upgrade) can enjoy a $100 price reduction in the cost of the Nexus One.

Apple Finally Releases MobileMe Gallery App for iPhone?
Apple is slowly getting around to making their services more iPhone friendly, but how is it that they still don’t have an iPhone-optimized website?

Google Forcing HTTPS Traffic in Gmail by Default
Gmail users may start to notice that they are always redirected to an HTTPS version of the site when checking their email, but this setting can be disabled if you choose to forfeit the extra security.

Google Hacked; Rethinking Approach in China
An announcement by Google stated that hackers targeted and successfully retrieved small amounts of data from a handful of accounts. The attacks originated in China, and has got Google once again questioning whether they should be censoring their results there.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Windows Live Mail (Wave 4) to Have Awesome Gmail Support?
Is it possible that Windows Live Mail will actually cater to some of Gmail’s unique features like labels, archiving, and stars? Well, maybe. The editor-in-chief at Engadget posted on Twitter that he wanted a desktop app that worked well with all those Gmail-specific features, and Microsoft’s Vice President of Corporate Communications responded with a simple yet mysterious tweet saying “Windows Live Wave 4.”

ZScreen Quickly Uploads Images, Text, and Files
ZScreen used to be a screenshot-focused utility, and it still is but it’s also expanding its horizons. DownloadSquad noticed that newer versions let you upload text to services like PasteBin, files to Rapidshare, shorten URLs, and of course share images/screenshots. The only thing it lacks in my eyes is an awesome screenshot editor so that you could annotate/modify the image before you send it off to the cloud.

Making the Most of Your Netbook
For some people getting started with a netbook can almost be like switching from using a PC to a Mac. Often times trackpads are smaller, there’s no CD/DVD drive, and you have significantly less screen space to work with. Switching to such a small computer has a learning curve, and Lifehacker’s guide includes some good tips to help ease you in to the world of netbook computing.

–Tips in Brief–

Tab Utilities Extension Improves Firefox Tab Management
This extension will let you choose from an array of tab-related customizations in Firefox.

Sites to Check Where Your First/Last Name Comes From
Ever wonder where your name originated from, and what kind of transformations it’s gone through? These sites have the cure for your potent curiosity.

Automatically Mute Your PC When Turning it On
Auto Mute is a free utility that runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines giving you the chance to disable sounds when starting up your computer.

How to Tether Your Android Phone
This guide walks you through three different alternatives to unleashing the tethering capabilities of your Android-powered phone.

Updates to Amarok Media Player
A new version of the Amarok media player includes usability improvements and some “polish.”

Emesene: An MSN Messenger Replacement
You don’t hear a lot about this messenger app since it’s targeted towards MSN Messenger users only, but if you fall into that category the new version includes quite a few enhancements and updates that make it worth checking out.

–Downloads–

• Adobe Reader 9.3 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• CDBurnerXP 4.2.7.1849 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Firefox 3.6 ^RC2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 4.0.295.0 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Google SketchUp 7.1.6860 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Mozilla Lightning 1.0 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 ^RC2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• PeaZip 2.9.0 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Sandboxie 3.43.15 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• SeaMonkey 2.0.2 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Ubuntu 10.04 ^{Alpha 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.0.0 ^RC3 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Winamp 5.572 [Homepage] [Mirror]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

At AsiaD this week, Google’s Andy Rubin noted that there were at least six million Android tablets in use. That number included only those running Google services. One could question whether the briskly selling Nook Color — which is not open to Android apps at large — is relevant to that tally, at least from a developer perspective. It will certainly be the case, though, that the Kindle Fire — also expected to be a hot seller — will be an important addition to the number moving forward.

Still, Rubin conceded, it was a tally far behind that of the 30 million cumulative units of the iPad, which broke open the modern-day tablet category, extended its lead with the iPad 2, and will likely see another revision this coming spring. When Apple introduced its tablet device, it set a precedent for third-party developers by rewriting core applications to take advantage of the iPad’s larger display with “HD” versions. And while there are still far fewer native iPad apps than iPhone apps, Apple is far ahead in the race for native tablet software.

But not everyone wants to join that race.

Continue reading Switched On: Android’s tablet traversal

Switched On: Android’s tablet traversal originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

As expected Google released their Android Software Development Kit (SDK) today. It provides all of the tools needed to start creating applications that run on the next generation mobile operating system, and Google is getting their checkbooks out to help ensure that Android won’t be a flop…

–The $10 Million Contest–

Google has caught the attention of developers around the world by announcing a $10 million contest that will be awarded to some of the best Android applications. The money will be distributed equally between two Android Developer Challenges:

• Android Developer Challenge I: Submissions from January 2 through March 3, 2008
• Android Developer Challenge II: This part will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008

In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by March 3 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

–Android Screenshots–

These are screenshots of Android running on what looks to be a Blackberry-like device:

(Click to Enlarge)

–Touch Screen Android Screenshots–

Android includes an iPhone-style browser that is Webkit-based. It provides a browsing experience similar to what you would expect from a desktop computer. You can zoom in and out of the websites at your own leisure, and it even includes a website history browser that appears to be a sibling of the iTunes Cover Flow:

(Click to Enlarge)

–The Video–

Finally, here is the video that Google provided with live demonstrations of both the regular and touch screen uses of Android:

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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We got it straight from the horse’s mouth here at Samsung and Google’s Galaxy Nexus launch event that the future LTE edition of the Galaxy Nexus will indeed be thicker than the HSPA+ model showcased today (and above). How much thicker? “A little,” according to a company representative, but he wouldn’t go so far as to talk millimeters. When asked if the additional size was there to hold the LTE package or just a larger battery, he also failed to elaborate. We’d be shocked if the LTE variant doesn’t pack at least a bit more juice — we’ve covered the damage that LTE does to a battery in great detail here — but frankly, we’d rather have something a wee bit thicker than a phone that dies after four hours of use.

Samsung: the LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus will be ‘a little’ thicker originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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