Google announces Android L’s developer preview

Google has officially unveiled Android L’ on June 25th 2014 during the Google IO conference. The new OS features some of the biggest changes since Android launched in 2008, its available from June 26th as a developer preview. Some of the noted features are as follows:

Material design & UI Changes: Material Design renders as if it’s floating just over the home screen, complete with realistic shadow and depth based on the material properties of card stack. With Material Design, Google is introducing a careful dose of three-dimensionality into Android. Android L includes enhanced notifications. Users can now pull down their device’s Notifications Drawer from the lock screen and double tap a notification to automatically jump to a specific app. Google has also modified the recent apps section.

Android L-Developer Preview
Android L-Developer Preview

A New Runtime (ART: Android Runtime):  ART brings twice the performance over the current runtime, Dalvik. It has been available as a preview for KitKat, but is becoming the default runtime in the L release. It’s more memory efficient, more flexible, and faster.

App Indexing: App Indexing allows you to connect pages from your website with specific content within your smartphone app. This enables smartphone users who have your app installed to open it directly from relevant mobile search results on Google.

Performance Boost & Battery Life: Android L is expected to bring some serious battery improvements to your mobile devices via Google’s Project Volta. Project Volta is our effort to make the platform energy efficient and to give you more control over resource usage.  Google also promises that the OS’ new Android Extension Pack will bring PC-level graphics to mobile devices complete with tessellation, geometry shaders, computer shaders and ASTC texture compression.

Android Wear SDK: Android Wear extends the Android platform to a new generation of devices, with a user experience that’s designed specifically for wearables. Some of the expected features are Synced Notifications, Wearable Apps, Send Data and Voice Actions.

Android TV Preview SDK:  The smart TV interface follows the same design as other Google devices, and features apps such as Netflix, iHeartRadio and Eat24. There are also content recommendations. Core search is built directly into the interface, accessible by voice. Search seems to work quite well.

Google TV  Recommendations
Google TV Recommendations

Android Auto SDK: Google formally makes a jump into car technology with Android Auto, a version of the operating system for cars. The service will be fully voice-enabled. Google Maps is heavily integrated into the device. It also supports, messaging and playing music using voice command.

Android Auto
Android Auto

 

The factory images for the Android L’s release on the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 will be released tomorrow for developers to play with them. Over the air updates for end-users will arrive soon.

 

How To Install Android 4.0 (ICS) On Your Netbook

Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is the latest version of the Android platform for phones, tablets, and more. Android-x86 gives everyone a way to install Android on Intel netbooks. Well I will also explain how to enable dual boot with Ubuntu.

1. Head towards Androidx86 project page and download the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. You might find couple of version, select the best one which suit your netbook. Well I prefer ‘android-x86-4.0-RC1-eeepc.iso’. Click on the file to download the iso file

2. Make your Live USB Drive bookable using UNetbootin. Well you can use other boot loaders as well. I prefer UNetbootin, as it supports all platform. Select the .iso file and make the Usb Drive bootable

3. Now Insert the Usb Drive into your Netbook and start using Android 4.0. To get the feel of Android 4.o, you can try out the Live Android-x86. To install, follow the simple steps as prompted. Its recommended to create virtual SD Card.

However you wont be able to make your system dual bootable. Well, you can achieve it. Install Androidx86 to any of your logical drive.

1. Now boot into Ubuntu and open the Terminal and type ‘gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom’

2. Which will open a text window. At the bottom, add the following line.


menuentry "Android-x86"
{
   set root='(hd0,0)'
   linux /android-4.0-RC1/kernel quiet
   root=/dev/ram0
   androidboot.hardware=eeepc
   acpi_sleep=s3_bios,
   s3_mode SRC=/android-4.0-RC1 SDCARD=/data/sdcard.img
   initrd /android-4.0-RC1/initrd.img
}

Note: * If you didn’t create virtual sdcard, remove the “SDCARD=/data/sdcard.img” part from the 3rd line (make sure you don’t remove anything else!) * The above menu entry uses “eeepc” for androidboot.hardware, but you can replace it with your hardware, depending on the ISO you have downloaded.

3. Find which partion you installed Androidx86. use the following command to find the value ‘sudo fdisk -l’
so if you’ve installed Android x86 on let’s say “sda5”, you’d use “(hd0,5)”. Update the set root value.
4. Now make the file executable and update the GRUB

sudo chmod +x /etc/grub.d/40_custom
sudo update-grub

5. That’s it, there you go. Press shift key before the GRUB loads to select Androidx86
I’m sure its possible to make dual boot with Android and Windows. Do share with me, if you have the answer.

Special Thanks to makeuseof and webupd blogs

Google Launches Google Drive

Google Drive is a file storage and sync service, introduced to the public by Google, on April 24, 2012. Google Drive is an extension to Google Docs once activated and replaces the URL docs.google.com with drive.google.com. It gives a free storage of 5GB. One interesting feature of the service is smart tagging, which allows you to tag items stored on your drive. So if you’ve uploaded a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge to your drive, the next time you perform a search for the bridge, your photo will show up along with other results. It also uses image recognition. Its also possible to share the file. Check out the video for more information.

Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.0, will be reaching the hands of customers today

Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone with the latest Android 4.0  (Ice Cream Sandwich), will be reaching the hands of customers today. Samsung has marked the occasion with a video advertisement for the device. As per the review, Samsung Galaxy Nexus going to be the best Android device yet. It comes with pretty high configuration of  1.2 GHz dual-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM, a 4.65-inch super AMOLED display, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of shooting 1080p video as well as a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, above all its going to have Android 4.0 .

 

Gmail gets a new look

Gmail’s new design is official now. Google started rolling out the new changes to its user. Here is what Gmail offers now:

Streamlined conversations: Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.

Elastic density: We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.

New HD themes: Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We’ve updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.

Smarter navigation: The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view at all times. It’s also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the interface.

Better search: Click the dropdown in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you’re looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.

For more info. click here

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: Features

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, announced on October 19, 2011, brought Honeycomb features to smartphones and added new features including facial recognition unlock, network data usage monitoring and control, unified social networking contacts, photography enhancements, offline email searching, and information sharing using NFC. The company says 4.0 is a complete rethink of Android’s image and is part of a push to make the OS “Enchant me, Simplify My Life, and Make Me Awesome.”

1. Face Unlock: One of the outstanding features of Android is Face Unlock.As the name suggests, unlocks your handset based on facial recognition technology.

2. Android beam: Android is using NFC (near-field communication) so you can share apps, URLs, videos, and songs just by tapping Android phones together.

3. Advanced camera: It allows to conveniently filter, crop, reduce red-eye and many more image editing stuff. Improved auto-focus and integration with other apps.

4. Screen Capture: Its now easy to capture the screenshot of your android device. Just Hold down the power and volume buttons to snap a screenshot.

5. Redesigned UI: The new UI is much sleeker, makes the phone more visual and easier to use. The new system bar provides more control across the entire device and frequently used apps. Roboto typeface made it more attractive and professional.

6. Data Control: An inbuilt feature of Android is the new data control, which allows to manage, monitor, control the data usage. To make it more impressive, it comes with charts and diagrams.

7. Improved Text Input: The new one is faster and more accurate. It got a better dictionaries for correcting misspelled words, also shows wrong spelling with red underline. Copy paste became very simple and easy, as you can move around entire block of text.

8. People App: A new spin on the contact list. The phone’s owner has their own profile, and people’s contact details are sourced from Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Users can define favorite contacts, and individual people can be placed on the homescreen or in folders for quick access.

9. Favorites Tray: Users can stow their favorite apps, links, and folders into a new Favorites tray for quick and easy access.

10. Flexible Widgets: Ice Cream Sandwich’s stock widgets are re-sizable and more robust than previous versions. Also allow us to create folder and categories all apps, contacts etc…