Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

THIS! I WANT THIS! NO CONTRACTS! PAY-AS-YOU-GO! And... for once, finally, it would be something even my mother wants. He has never had (and never intends to ever have) a month-to-month billing or contract service for her cell phone. She wants to be able to go without paying for cell phone service whenever she feels she doesn't need one. I, personally, would just like the security of knowing that I'm budgeted.

THANK YOU GOOGLE for making life for us easier.. and easier.. and better, generally. And without that awful scummy, scarring feeling usually left by corporations like legacy telco's and Microsoft and so on.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

HAhahah! I consider myself a security paranoid person, myself, and even I felt the same way as you. Here's the comment I left on the YouTube comments:

OH MY GOD I feel STUPID just listening to these two ladies. Their arguments are incredibly daft! They're casting off a technology that is BETTER than holding a separate piece of plastic, and far more secure by its very nature. If you lose the physical phone, it does NOT necessarily mean that anybody has your contacts or information in general (hello--CLOUD service??), PLUS when was the last time you had a plastic charge card with GPS so that it can be located or the ability to remotely wipe?

On another note... (Fair warning, since it's Wall Street Journal, and they tend to be arseholes, I don't know how long this will remain up there for free, or if it's even reachable outside of the click-link from Google. But, if you check news.google.com for the headline, I'm sure you'll find it there too...)
Ballmer Decries Huge China Sales Hole

As I read the article, I found myself nearly choking on the implication that computers sold without Windows automatically means PIRACY! :P I'm sure there's a lot of that too.. but as I understand it, aren't there also a rampant amount of open-source OS's being used in China? For an article about how Microsoft is slipping a LOT in market share, there seems to be an AWFUL lot of mention of Google Android in there too.

Here's a relevant tidbit for the Nokia fanbois:

The executive later travelled to India, where on Thursday he said Microsoft is looking to work with Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia Corp. to develop "next-generation" mobile devices. India will be a priority market for the company, given that Nokia is a market leader in mobile handsets in the world's fastest-growing telecom market and the second-largest market after China, he said.

"Certainly our partnership with Nokia is an important step forward with us...but the key there is not only to innovate on software, which we will work together over time, but also work on next-generation hardware innovations with them," Mr. Ballmer said while addressing a conference in New Delhi.

heheh... hoo boy. Sooo... let's PUSH PUSH PUSH where Microsoft doesn't sell well and keeeeep sliding that market share down while we ignore the greater markets? By their own admissions about how sales of hardware without MS is outselling hardware in general, this seems like a mistake. In fact.. doesn't this seem like a mistake that Nokia made before? History repeating itself? Couldn't happen to a better company than Microsoft, though. Heh

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

App recommendation:

Extensive notes:
http://lifehacker.com/5805826/extens...pp-for-android
http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/as...droid-aotd.jpg

I haven't tried it, but it sounds wonderful!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Here's the hands on with the Xperia Play:
http://www.androidcentral.com/xperia...l-video-review
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsQhlESTZec

Great controls, SoC is less than impressive.

This could have been a great product.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Ubuntu? Android? How about Andbuntu..

Introducing the 11.04 release:
http://www.xda-developers.com/wp-con...u-1024x967.jpg
http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...a-for-android/

Still using VNC -- which is less than stellar -- but at least it works!

Oh, no go for Honeycomb... yet...

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

BAM! Yet another company I can add to my list of companies I would buy from, now!

HTC WILL NO LONGER BE LOCKING BOOTLOADERS

From the HTC Facebook page:

‎

"There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we've listened. Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience," Peter Chou, CEO of HTC

Once again, as I've said before, what a breath of fresh air after feeling so much resistance under Nokia. HTC isn't a WONTFIX company! THANK YOU! ...now, let's talk about drivers, shall we? :)

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Damn you! You had my hopes up that Ubuntu got a port of the Dalvik engine (like Maemo/MeeGo did). It would bring "Apps" to a big-boy operating system, big boy.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

It is only a matter of time before this happens, and like you, I'll be very glad when it does.

The question is: will I still be using linux on my main machine?

That aside, I'm glad that there is an effort to bridge these two OSs. Why not? They are both open source, right?

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Asus is looking to launch a different kind of dock. This has me all hot and bothered:

A phone/tablet dock!
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....s-05272011.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/26/a...et-at-computex

Oh my sweet stars! I'm excited that Asus is getting into the (presumably) android handset market, as they are the king of 'low end' devices which really are high-end devices at low end prices -- in hindsight, that rhyme was intentional.

On the other hand, a tablet dock is a very cool proposition. If the dock costs marginally more than the phone (eg $200), and it is as powerful as other tablets (I'm assuming T20), then this would provide the best of both worlds for less.

Lets hope that this speculation is true, and the specs are as charming as the Eee pad transformer.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

In the news yesterday morning, Paypal has taken the offensive at Google claiming that Google Wallet has implemented trade secrets illegally brought in by former Paypal execs.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....ues-google.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/27/p...e-payment-suit

This suit is so timely, that it must have been anticipated. Could it have been a trap?

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

A first look at Minecraft on the Xperia Play:
http://www.androidcentral.com/mojang...ft-xperia-play
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO-y5wzmK4E

Looks good! Just like the real thing!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Watch the Google Wallet event for yourselves:

http://androidandme.wpengine.netdna-...llet_Event.jpg
http://androidandme.com/2011/05/news...s-event-video/
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZAV6sIzzog

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

It seems that the mysterious Asus product is called the Padfone:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....dcomputex2.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/27/a...ocking-tablet/

I don't mind the name, but if name 'Eee' has set any precedent, I wouldn't count on the name taking away sales potential that much.

I rather like it! How wonderful would it be if there was a keyboard dock for this as well? Drool worthy!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

It seems as if Microsofts anti-free Android lawsuit campaign has forced HTC to concede $5 of every android handset sales to MS! :eek:

Here's a rant (I haven't read it yet):
http://androidandme.wpengine.netdna-...il_Ballmer.jpg
http://androidandme.com/2011/05/news...tc-sells-rant/

My first impression is that this is *low* for MS, and if they busy themselves with trying to bully the competition into giving them money rather than actually innovating, then I wish them a swift and direct path to the bottom.

Again, this is a viewpoint based on a position of ignorance, so even I take it with a cup-or-two of salt.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Sammy isn't giving up it's entry-level position. An upcoming phone has quite good specs:

http://images.androidcentral.com/sit...00-550x918.jpg
http://www.androidcentral.com/sprint...le-new-meaning

- 480x320 display
- 1GHz processor
- 3.2M rear camera
- Android 2.3.3

Not crazy, but certainly good if the price is right. Users will have an easy time choosing something like this over a feature phone if they are competing in the same market.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

OMG I loooove that picture. >=)

But this is nothing new for MS. They're just doing the same old "every PC sold MUST pay MS, because PC's sold without an OS are CLEARLY being used to pirate our OS" mentality. They're just extending it to the handset market by effectively saying that there's GOT to be something they're stealing. They won't say WHAT with specificity but they MUST be! I wish HTC didn't just roll over so easily. Maybe, should Google get involved?

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Haha, it's great, right? I thought it was hilarious, and strangely fitting with my perspective of his character. :D

I'm not sure what Google should do, but whatever they're doing, it's working. Android continues to rise, and the competitors are getting desperate to curb the rate of growth. MS suing Android partners, and Apple doing the same may have competitors worried, but even if you strategically plan for this, I'd take hundreds-of-millions in profit over tens-of-millions duking it out in a lawsuit... I know nothing of the legal process, so again, ignorance.

I heard that recently bought up a company with a bunch of patents, speculated to offensively protect themselves....

MS forcing the hand of HTC may in some small part alienate HTC as a partner. If MS was taking liberties to take money from my pocket, I would have a hard time trying to promote something that would help them... especially if it sucks...

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

That's what I considered, too. Once I read about their unlocking the bootloader, I was happy. But then I was reminded about this "patent" settlement with Microsoft--which I already new about, but forgot. Now, I have to mull whether or not to buy HTC again and I'm not sure I want to, again.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Tim Bray, in his increasingly simple blog, boldly states that tablets are meant to be held in portrait orientation:

Tall and Narrow
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/20.../Portrait-Mode

There's quite a lively debate on this.

What do you think is more natural? Portrait or landscape?

The reason I ask, is because I remember when Nokia was refusing portrait orientation on the N900. This annoyed a few folk at the time, but has important usability/design implications. Now, a tablet is larger than a phone, but it is interesting to consider.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

About as pointed a conversation, that, as web pages designed to be tall.. or wide. :P
How about you write your applications so that they can be oriented to ANY resolution/orientation?
...AND stop worrying about the "right" way to hold it. Hear that, Steve? There should be NO WRONG WAY TO HOLD IT.

Ahem. Sorry.. I think I began to divert into a different, but similar conversation, there. ;)

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Holy Hanna,

The Transformer has been overclocked to a stable 1.6GHz!
http://www.xda-developers.com/wp-con...6-640x1024.png
http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...me-to-1-6-ghz/

I wonder if you need oven mits to hold it? :D

The GPU speed seems not to have budged. I'd love to see the GeForce ULP overclocked...

I'd also love to see some performance comparisons between this an the first Intel Atom CPU!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

can somebody help me?i'm installing Nitdroid v12 and xterminal says I can't mount /home/and (can't find /home/and in /etc/fstab)

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

I believe there is a Nitdroid thread somewhere around here, which would have individuals that would be much better suited to helping you!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Seems to be more of a question between:
Scrolling vs Page-flipping

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

According to my foresight from a year ago, Tegra2 exceeds Intel Atom (base N450) and I think it would narrowly lose to a dualcore 1.7GHz Atom (N570) when the Nvidia T20 is in 1.0GHz.
I'll leave it up to you decided how it rockets when overclocked.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=68882&page=4

Now the question is: Can it play Crysis?

edit:

I just realized a few things. Nvidia has codenamed the Tegra-SoC's Wayne, Logan, Stark is inline with Batman, Wolverine and Iron Man ... but I never knew what Kal-El meant.

Well I realized Kal-El is Superman, so the name-game is quite funny. And "x100 performance increase" over the T20 SoC is mind-boggling @_@ What's next "Nvidia Vegetto"?

But then I saw Nvidia's own benchmark which put Kal-El only 10% faster (CoreMark= 11,400/10,100) than Intel T7200. Now I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but the Intel Core i7-2657M is very power effecient and manages to surpass the T7200 Core 2 Duo by a 45% (3D06= 2500/1700) performance increase.

So Intel is actually in the lead, over ARM, for powerful and efficient cores @_@

http://trend-web.blogspot.com/2011/0...by-nvidia.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-C...r.37073.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-C...r.49737.0.html

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

...And
Honeycomb 3.1 comes to the Eee Pad Transformer
http://hothardware.com/News/Android-...d-Transformer/t=1095269[/url]

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

But we can't say that concretely yet without many congruent tests across both platforms. Precision benchmarking is quite difficult as there are many . I remember Nvidia touting MIPs performance of their SoCs, which isn't terribly meaningful.


I think you're confusing efficiency with speed.

First off, the benchmark isn't the final gospel on performance, it just highlights performance under a few (if it's good) specific cases.

That aside: Considering that T30 will be pushing a power envelope of around 0.5W and the TDP of an i7 mobile is something like 17W (not sure on the average running consumption though -- this is only a peak), I think the "Power Efficiency" can be clearly argued in favour of the Tegra, even if it's slower -- in other words, the ratio of speed to consumption will be many times higher for the Tegra, which is common for ARM which has a (AFAIK) tidier instruction set and less legacy baggage than intel to support on a die; also ARM has optimized for power efficiency through the life of their designs.

No wonder we're hearing laptop manufacturers (eg. Apple) looking to ditch Intel for ARM, and major software manufacturers (eg. Microsoft) now that ARM's performance is matching Intel -- even on the low end.

By, the by, that T7200 C2D was pulling in 34W at peak. :eek: To claim that T30 bests it in the coremark (again this is just one measure of performance) is quite something as it's a mobile SoC that will sip just half-a-Watt.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

More light shed on the Paypal/Google lawsuit?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....1306542576.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/28/p...sappropriation

It seems that Paypal was in talks with Google for Android Market Payments. Google hired a former exec of Paypal Osama Bedier and a number of employees. Google/Paypal deal falls apart. Google debuts Google Wallet. Paypal sues Google for trade-secret infringement.

Without knowing the trade-secret (which we should never, being the public), it's hard to know if this is a valid claim. If Google did knowingly, or unknowingly used trade secrets I am of the opinion that they should be sued. It's a risk that comes with hiring a higher up in a competitive firm. This is assuming that trade-secret violation gives a company offensive rights. I know nothing of the law.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

using that video player for months and freakin' awesome! supports subtitles.....yeah!

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Hmmm.

id Tech is supposed to release the source code for the 3D engine "id Tech 4" this year around August/September. Now its based on C++ and OpenGL and has many complex features (MegaTexture).

This is basically what's needed to make your very own FPS/Third-Person-Shooter ... or simulator applications such as somethingTycoon, Engineering Project etc.

I believe this will innovate the gaming field late this year and early next year. Because talented developers/groups will bring Linux (Debian, Fedora, etc) one step closer to current-gen in graphics rendering, and I expect Maemo(this community), Android, WebOS, QNX (?) and possibly MeeGo to be involved aswell.

And you thought Infinity Blade looked good?

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

This is great news!

Id has a long history of releasing their source (eg. Kwaak), but this is pretty cool. Megatexturing is a neat way to infuse very high resolution resources in a scene, greatly adding the the 'feeling' of complexity. If you take a look at Rage, though, the models are relatively low poly.

I think Infinity Blade is attractive for different reasons. It has impressive amounts of geometry on-screen, as well as very well chosen shaders and superb artistic direction. As the Unreal Engine has been released for Android, I hope prolific teams like this can see the value in Android development. It's up to Google to make gaming more accessible, and more visible to increase sell through numbers.

But this is happening as Android growth explodes. It will be a win for OSS in general as Android is the unlikely vessel to bring all of this great content to other OSS projects.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

It seems that a company called Lodsys (a purported patent troll) is turning its sights on Android developers, and suing them for selling apps via the market:
http://androidandme.wpengine.netdna-...ll-patents.jpg
http://androidandme.com/2011/05/news...id-developers/

They are now targeting Android devs as well as Apple devs (AFAIK).

Patents? Huh.. Good god yall? What are they good for?

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Samsung is trying to counter apple, by asking the courts to force them to release the iPad 3, and iPhone 5 to them in an attempt to avoid future lawsuits:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....samap-timn.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/28/v...e-5-and-ipad-3

This all seems so childish...

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Anand has gotten an early update for Android 3.1 on his Asus Eee Pad Transformer:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/..._DSC3862sm.jpg
REVIEW: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4358/a...-transformer/3
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z46Bgq0cf7

The graphic drivers have been updated and show a huge leap in performance, though still quite a bit behind Apple's A5 in GPU metrics. The UI and general OS seem to be updated quite a bit to aid in responsiveness and stability and have some nice features to round out the experience.

Kudos to ASUS for rolling out such a RAPID update, and only moments behind the XOOM -- the official Google development tablet! :eek: This alone makes me think twice about choosing Sammy over Asus.

Bring on the Tegra 3 devices! I'm looking forward to NVidia's aggressiveness in this space, and if they can truly pull ahead of the competitor SoCs in the coming generation. Here's hoping that ASUS iterates its line quickly and includes the latest SoC.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Swiftkey, the much adored keyboard, has been given a version bump to Swiftkey X, promising much better predicitons:
http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content...2-SwiftKey.jpg
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/05/swiftkey-x/

I really like the keyboard style. It's refreshingly different, but still very clean.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

Greg Taveres who gave a talk about WebGL at Google IO 2011, has some pretty harsh words regarding Carmack's iOS Rage.

The Problem with RAGE
http://games.greggman.com/game/the-problem-with-rage/

The gist is that megatextures require TONS of storage making them less practical for anything but very short (or confined area) games.

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

That post seems to be over-exhagerrating a tiny bit. It's true that MegaTexture (or virtual texturing) consumes a large amount of space.

What game developers need to realize that in three dimensional games, there are various areas and environments and developers need to decide which tools to use where. The article forgets that MegaTexture-ing can be disabled in certain segments.

For instance, in a large open area, let's say a Football field, using one texturing engine and texturing everything directly at the camera (aka audience/player) you actually achieve the same effect as individual texturing for each object, but you actually cut the amount of processing needed in half, and also save some space/data on the disk (not needing to store algorithms for texturing all the objects infield).

Now for smaller confined spaces, you would expect less objects in field however there usually is an equal amount. Which means you are wasting processing and unnecessarily storing data (e wasting space on disk). We haven't even touched on tesellations (which seems to be the future, kind of like HTML5 vs Flash debate).

I think game developers such decide to use it when it is benefitial. I mean there is nothing worse than having a game that is familiar throughout the entire gameplay like for instance Assasin's Creed. But when you start mixing the type of environment (large, small, high, low etc) you give the experience of immersion. You should play MGS2 to understand what I mean (there are small rooms, and large seas, and tall ladder areas ... a perfect blend).

So I hope Quake4/Doom3 engine is released soon, then we can get new Linux-based that ports some of its features, mixes it up with the idTech3 engine to create something for creative enthusiasts.

Just think of an advanced version of XReal based on OpenGLES 2.0 !!!!!!!11eleven http://xreal.sourceforge.net/screens...t/shot0082.jpg

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

I just want to be able to play Portal on my Android. Is that so much to ask? :)

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

I am waiting for that and also for EVE: Online

Video from EVE Fanfest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNTUEUr3C1s

Re: The Epic Android Thread
 

AWESOME post! This is really exciting news, and will make one helluva mobile game! Great, great, stuff.

It's looking very good so far, even if it seems to be a glorified model viewer at current.