Googles interactive StarWars page

Visit google.com/starwars and choose your side.

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Record screen video of VirtualBox guest OS

Move your mouse over the video camera icon on the bottom-right of VirtualBox status bar, it will show the destination (on host os) of the recorded video.
- Right click on the video camera icon, select Video Capture to start recording.
- The icon will change to a rolling film.
- Right click on the rolling film icon, select Video Capture again to stop recording.

Alternatively, you can click View of VirtualBox top menu bar, and select Video Capture to start recording. Then click View and select Video Capture again to stop recording.

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Get HostName of WiFi hotspot clients and check if it is still connected

Previous posts show how to "Retrieve IP and MAC addresses from /proc/net/arp" and "Lookup manufacturer/vendor info from MAC address". This post show how to get the Host Name of the connected clients.

It can be noted that if we call getCanonicalHostName() or getHostName() methods of the InetAddressobjects, it will return  the IP address. If we call getLocalHost().getCanonicalHostName() or getLocalHost().getHostName() methods, it will return the host name, "localhost".

Also, if a devices disconnected, the file /proc/net/arp will not updated immediately. We can determine if it is still connected by calling inetAddress.isReachable(timeout). If false returned, means it is disconnected.

MainActivity.java

package com.blogspot.android_er.androidlistclient;

import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.ListView;
import android.widget.TextView;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

 Button btnRead;
 TextView textResult;

 ListView listViewNode;
 ArrayList<Node> listNote;
 ArrayAdapter<Node> adapter;

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
 btnRead = (Button)findViewById(R.id.readclient);
 textResult = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.result);

 listViewNode = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.nodelist);
 listNote = new ArrayList<>();
 ArrayAdapter<Node> adapter =
 new ArrayAdapter<Node>(
 MainActivity.this,
 android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,
 listNote);
 listViewNode.setAdapter(adapter);

 btnRead.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
 @Override
 public void onClick(View v) {
 new TaskReadAddresses(listNote, listViewNode).execute();
 }
 });
 }

 class Node {
 String ip;
 String mac;
 String CanonicalHostName;
 String HostName;
 String LocalHostCanonicalHostName;
 String LocalHostHostName;
 String remark;
 boolean isReachable;

 Node(String ip, String mac){
 this.ip = ip;
 this.mac = mac;
 queryHost();
 }

 @Override
 public String toString() {
 return "IP: " + ip + " " +
 "MAC: " + mac + " " +
 "CanonicalHostName: " + CanonicalHostName + " " +
 "HostName: " + HostName + " " +
 "getLocalHost().getCanonicalHostName(): " + LocalHostCanonicalHostName + " " +
 "getLocalHost().getHostName(): " + LocalHostHostName + " " +
 "isReachable: " + isReachable +
 " " + remark;
 }

 private void queryHost(){
 try {
 InetAddress inetAddress = InetAddress.getByName(ip);
 CanonicalHostName = inetAddress.getCanonicalHostName();
 HostName = inetAddress.getHostName();
 LocalHostCanonicalHostName = inetAddress.getLocalHost().getCanonicalHostName();
 LocalHostHostName = inetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostName();
 isReachable = inetAddress.isReachable(3000);

 } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 remark = e.getMessage();
 } catch (IOException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 remark = e.getMessage();
 }
 }
 }

 private class TaskReadAddresses extends AsyncTask<Void, Node, Void> {

 ArrayList<Node> array;
 ListView listView;

 TaskReadAddresses(ArrayList<Node> array, ListView v){
 listView = v;
 this.array = array;
 array.clear();
 textResult.setText("querying...");
 }

 @Override
 protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
 readAddresses();
 return null;
 }

 @Override
 protected void onPostExecute(Void aVoid) {
 textResult.setText("Done");
 }

 @Override
 protected void onProgressUpdate(Node... values) {
 listNote.add(values[0]);
 ((ArrayAdapter)(listView.getAdapter())).notifyDataSetChanged();
 }

 private void readAddresses() {
 BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

 try {
 bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("/proc/net/arp"));

 String line;
 while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
 String[] splitted = line.split(" +");
 if (splitted != null && splitted.length >= 4) {
 String ip = splitted[0];
 String mac = splitted[3];
 if (mac.matches("..:..:..:..:..:..")) {
 Node thisNode = new Node(ip, mac);
 publishProgress(thisNode);
 }
 }
 }

 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 } catch (IOException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 } finally{
 try {
 bufferedReader.close();
 } catch (IOException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 }
 }
 }
 }
}

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The Weather Channel brings real time weather updates to users with Google Maps APIs

Posted by Chris Huff, Vice President of Mobile Development, The Weather Channel

(Cross-posted on the Google Geo Developers Blog.)

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Chris Huff, Vice President of Mobile Development at The Weather Channel. Read how The Weather Channel uses Google Maps APIs to power their popular Android app. The Weather Channel is just one of many customers who shared their story as part of our cross-country road trip, Code the Road.

We know from experience that the combination of weather, mapping and community input can result in ideas that keep people safe and informed. Our Android app goes far beyond basic weather forecasting, which is why we chose Google Maps. We use Google Maps Android API, Google Maps JavaScript API and ImageOverlays to place geodata, such as weather alerts, hurricanes and storm tracks and weather tiles, such as radar maps and clouds, on top of Google Maps.

Radar maps are one of the app’s main features, and we work hard to get them right. We get radar imagery from multiple sources and produce raster images from them. Then we take hundreds of the images and animate them in a frame-based animation sequence. The Google Maps Android API gives us overlays to place the animation on top of maps, and also lets us add additional objects such as pins and polygons to visualize lightning strikes or a storm’s direction. You can see an example below.

The more local weather reporting is, the more accurate it is; a thunderstorm may skip one neighborhood but hit another. So to improve accuracy and to build a community around our app, we’ve worked to make it more social. People send us information about weather near them, and we use the Google Maps Android API to add a pin to the map for each user-created report. Anyone can tap a pin to see the detailed report. Here’s an example of social weather reporting.

With more than 68 million downloads, the app has been a tremendous success. We get 2 billion requests for radar maps every year. There’s an old saying that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. We beg to disagree. With the Google Maps APIs we’re giving people detailed, useful live information about the weather, and we believe that’s doing quite a bit.

As part of the Code the Road series we hosted the 24-hour hackathon event, “Storm the Road: Hack for Safety with The Weather Channel and Google Maps”, on June 23. The event gave developers an opportunity to come together to create a new app or feature for mobile or web that helps keep the public safe and informed.

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New Google Apps Activity API

Back in January, Google Drive launched an activity stream that shows you what actions have been taken on files and folders in your Drive. For example, if someone makes edits on a file you’ve shared with them, you’ll see a notification in your activity stream.

Today, we’re introducing the new Google Apps Activity API designed to give developers programmatic access to this activity stream. This standard Google API will allow apps and extensions to access the activity history for individual Drive files as well as descendents of a folder through a RESTful interface.

The Google Apps Activity API will allow developers to build new tools to help users keep better track of what’s happening to specific files and folders they care about. For example, you might use this new API to help teachers see which students in their class are editing a file or, come tax season, you might want to create a quick script to audit the sharing of items in your financial information folder.

Check out the documentation at https://developers.google.com/google-apps/activity/. We cant wait to see what you build!

Posted by Justin Hicks, Software Engineer, Technical Lead for Google Apps Activity API

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Racing Rivals 4 1 MOD APK Unlimited Boost Free Full Latest Version Data Files Download

Racing Rivals 4.1 MOD APK Unlimited Boost

What’s In The MOD: v 4.1.0
– TurboCharger Active During Race (Not for opponents)
– SuperCharger Active During Race (Not for opponents)
– Unlimited Boost
– Removed Ban
– Removed Cheat Detection
– Unlimited Videos for Rewards

Requires Android: 2.3 and Up

Version: 4.1.0

MODE: ONLINE

PLAY LINK: RACING RIVALS

DOWNLOAD LINKS

Click Here For Download Links

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Winners of the Ice Cream Sandwich VS iOS5 contest

Dear readers we are glad to announce the winners of our Ice Cream Sandwich VS iOS5 contest:

The winners of the first prize: Android a Complete Course:
Jim from http://sakiko.com/
and
Believer.

The winner of the second prize: Android a Quick Course:
Corneliu Dascalu

The winners of the third prize Android, an Enterprise Edition Vision:
Will.i.am

for the winners please contact me at m.s.ramzy@gmail.com to send you the copies of the books
thanks a lot for all the participants and good luck next time.

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Our commitment to protecting your Google Apps information

Posted by Marc Crandall, Head of Global Compliance, Google for Work

Editors note: Our guest blogger this week is Marc Crandall, Head of Global Compliance at Google for Work. A lawyer and long time Googler, Marc focuses on regulatory matters involving privacy and security.

We regularly hear from our customers that assessing data protection compliance in various countries around the world can be challenging. Protecting the privacy and security of our customers’ information is a top priority, and we take compliance very seriously. That’s why weve been working hard to make things a bit easier for you.

We recently launched a new legal and compliance section of the Google Admin console where Google Apps administrators can find pointers to useful information, such as security and privacy certifications, third-party audits and data center and subprocessor information. This will be helpful to everyone, from those who manage their own domain to legal, security and privacy compliance specialists.

Another important resource for Google Apps for Work customers is our data processing amendment, which we’ve offered to customers since 2012. Customers that use our products for Work and for Education are often subject to data protection and compliance regulations. To help address this, in addition to our commercial agreements, we offer a data processing amendment that describes Google’s specific data protection commitments for your Google Apps information.

If you operate in a regulated industry, having Google’s data protection obligations in writing helps demonstrate to regulators that we take significant and concrete steps to protect your information. For customers subject to laws implementing the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, our data processing amendment also contractually binds us to remain enrolled in the U.S Department of Commerce Safe Harbor Program. And we indicate that Google Apps customers may opt-in to model contract clauses with Google.

While the data processing amendment does not affect the functionality of Google Apps, we believe customers with regulatory compliance considerations will find the amendment useful. You can access the data processing amendment from within the Admin console.

Millions of organizations use Google for Work today — they come from all sectors and more than half of our customers operate outside of the United States. You rely on Google to provide strong data protection capabilities, in compliance to your specific needs. With these tools in place, we hope to make it easier for you and third parties to verify that. For more information, visit our Google for Work and Google for Education trust site.

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Get your Google Drive App listed on the Google Apps Marketplace

The Google Apps Marketplace brings together hundreds of third-party applications that integrate and enhance Google Drive, part of Google Apps for Work, our suite of collaboration and productivity tools for businesses. To improve discoverability and increase adoption, it’s important to make your Google Drive app integration available on the marketplace.

Today, we want to share with you four easy steps to get listed immediately and enable admins to install your application for all users in their domain. For more details, check out the Google Apps Marketplace documentation.

Step 1: Open your Drive project on Google Cloud console. Turn on “Google Apps Marketplace SDK” for your project.

Step 2: Click the gear icon to configure “Google Apps Marketplace SDK”. Refer to Google Apps Marketplace documentation for details. In the scopes section, be sure to request the same scopes as your Google Drive application, and check the “Enable Drive extension” checkbox.

Step 3: Go to the Chrome Web Store developer console and select your published Drive application.

Step 4: Update the following line in your Drive application’s Chrome Web Store manifest, upload and publish.

"container":"GOOGLE_DRIVE"
with
“container”: [”GOOGLE_DRIVE”, ”DOMAIN_INSTALLABLE”]

You’re done! You application is now available to all Google Apps for Work customers to install on a domain-wide basis through the Google Apps Marketplace. Refer to Publishing your app documentation for details. You can access Google Apps Marketplace inside Google Admin Console and verify your newly listed application.

Please subscribe to the Google Apps Marketplace G+ community for the latest updates.
Posted by Hiranmoy Saha, Software Engine, Google Apps Marketplace

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Tixsee builds a slam dunk ticket buying experience for the Dallas Mavericks using Google Maps APIs

Posted by Brett Dowling, founder and President of Tixsee

(Cross-posted on the Google Geo Developers Blog.)

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Brett Dowling, founder and President of Tixsee, an innovative Fan Experience Management Platform for the sports, entertainment and venue management industries. Read how Tixsee used Google Maps APIs to build a unique ticket-purchasing platform for the Dallas Mavericks.

When you go to a basketball game, you want to make sure you get great seats, secure an awesome view of the court and are able to find your way around the arena. That’s what we’re doing for fans of the Dallas Mavericks with our Tixsee platform, an immersive shopping experience that lets people see the view from their seats before purchasing.

From the Mavericks’ Web site, fans can take a tour of the arena, stroll the aisles to see the view of the court from any seat, then buy a ticket. They can also tour the Mavericks’ store and buy team gear. Visitors make their way around the arena using familiar Street View controls. We used the Google Maps Street View Service in the Google Maps JavaScript API to build this experience. We worked with Business Photos America, a Google Maps Business View Trusted Agency, to take more than 12,400 images of the arena. We used those images to create more than 1,000 high-definition panoramas that re-create the arena in 3D.

The Mavericks’ ticketing platform is much more than just the site’s interactive interface. Just as important is the content management system (CMS) that lets the team do things like create special offers to drum up excitement and increase ticket sales. We use the Google Maps Embed API to embed the Street View imagery inside the CMS. The backend users can then orient the panoramas and preview campaigns before deploying to the live project. For a social media campaign, they hid a photograph of an autographed team ball in the virtual arena, and the first person to find the ball online was able to keep it. Traffic to the site spiked.

We’ve got a lot more planned, especially for mobile, because we know people will be bringing their phones to the arena. We have plans to release apps for iOS and Android in the near future. We’ll be using the Google Maps Directions API so people can find their way to one of the eight parking lots near the arena, then navigate right to their seats. It’s all part of our ultimate goal: to build a platform for the Mavericks that intensifies the fan experience and reinforces the value of purchasing tickets to live events at the arena.

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How To Find a proper firmware variant for the HTC device

This guide is related to the previously published article - How To: Flash firmware package on the HTC device. The goal of this guide is to expose the problem of a matching firmware version for the particular HTC device. Please read it carefully and in case of any questions leave a proper comment in the comments section at the end of this article.

Every firmware.zip has 2 main attributes: modelid (MID) and cidnum (CID).

• MID contains a codename of your device. For example the "0P6B1000" is the international version of the HTC One M8, while the "0P6B13000" is the T-Mobile U.S. version of the HTC One M8.
• CID is the carrier software codename. For example the "HTC__J15" code represents the unbranded international version of the HTC One M8, while the "T-MOB010" code represents the T-Mobile U.S. software. Different CID numbers are usually used for mobile operators to include different regional settings, languages or to include some extra software (Wi-Fi Calling, Visual Voice Mail etc.).

Both MID and CID can be found in the android-info.txt inside each firmware.zip. This is how android-info.txt looks like (as an example I used firmware.zip from the international version of the HTC One M8):

Once you know the version of the firmware you have, you need to check if your device can be safely flashed with that particular firmware.zip. To check that:

1. Download this mini-sdk package and extract it to c:mini-sdk
2. Connect your device to the PC
3. Boot your device in fastboot mode (vol down + power ===> fastboot)
4. Open a command prompt on the PC (cmd.exe), type and confirm each command with ENTER:
5. cd /d c:mini-sdk
6. fastboot getvar all

This is an example output from the international version of the HTC One M8:

What you are looking for is the "modelid" and "cidnum".

• If your device is S-ON then both modelid and cidnum must match.
• If your device is S-OFF then modelid is critical to match, but cidnum can be changed either by changing CID of your device or by editing android-info.txt.
• Edited firmware.zip cant be flashed on the S-ON device.
• If your device is S-ON then you cant downgrade your current firmware version.

If both CID and MID numbers match you can safely flash the firmware.zip package - How To: Flash firmware package on the HTC device.

Do you have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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Stickman Impossible Run Hack free Download for Android iOs No Password No Survey

Stickman Impossible Run Hack for Android/iOs 

Today our site freemasterhack.blogspot.ro release Stickman Impossible Run hack Tool.We do hard work to make hack to one of the most popular game on Android&iOS.Our Hacks&Cheats and Applications are completly free from viruses.With our Hack you can add Unlimited Coins,Energy and more.Stickman Impossible Run  Hack Download Tool is avaliable for all Android & iOS devices.Dont wait and Download our Hack Tool and HAVE FUN!!

Run for your life in this fast paced action packed platform runner demanding your fastest reflexes and rewarding you with a lot of fun while mastering all platforms, stage for stage. Run in various different tracks, space wrap through unique stages and achieve a top ranking against all other players worldwide. Simple, addictive, a Djinnworks classic!


 Features:
– Various unique designed tracks
– New tracks every day
– Daily challenges
– Insane high speed tracks
– Compare against your friends and everyone worldwide
– Replay your runs and share them with your friends
– Various achievements to unlock
– No in-apps required, everything unlocked, everything playable
– Supports MOGA game controllers

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HTC One M8 2014 first custom recovery first custom ROM

Yesterday the new HTC One M8 was launched and today I would like to inform you that you can already root it and flash your favourite custom ROM on it! :)

Custom recovery for the HTC M8 - link

Android Revolution HD for the HTC M8 - link

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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More details about the HTC M8

In a few months well most likely see new high-end device from HTC. Some of the current rumours were true, but here comes much more details youve never heard before!

Device will be named HTC One+ (codename: HTC M8) and it wont have any capacitive buttons. No more "home" or "back" buttons we get used to with the HTC One (HTC M7). Camera is probably a 6MP or 8MP module, of course with the UltraPixel™ technology and probably the new HTC ImageChip™ 3. Current rumours about double lens (for low and high lighting) might be true as well. Battery capacity is much bigger now - 2900 mAh instead of 2300 mAh in the HTC One. With just a slightly bigger screen in the HTC One+ (5") versus HTC One (4,7") we can expect much better battery life.

Chipset (SoC) is very likely to be Snapdragon 805 (instead of 800). This is a very good news because Snapdragon 800 is already quite an "old" chipset. The only problem is the drivers development by Qualcomm. Lets hope that wont stop HTC from replacing S800 with the S805.

In contrast to the HTC One, the One+ will have removable micoSD card. The non-removable microSD card in the HTC One was a source of a lot of critics from Android fans. Hopefully the design of the HTC M8 wont suffer from that.

HTC One+ will be equipped with the newest HTC Sense™ 6.0 and Android KitKat.

So what do you think? Im already very excited and really cant wait for the HTC One successor. The HTC One won almost every award in the 2013 knocking out the competition. Lets hope the HTC One+ will repeat this great success!

To summarize:

1. Name: HTC One+ (HTC M8)
2. Screen: 5" FullHD 1080p covered by Gorilla Glass 3
3. Battery: 2900mAh
4. Camera: 6MP or 8MP with UltraPixel™ technology and double lens
5. SoC: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 805
6. RAM: 2GB LPDDR3
7. Buttons: no capacitive buttons
8. OS: Android KitKat with HTC Sense™ 6.0
9. SIM: micro-SIM
10. Front camera: 2.1MP
11. NFC: yes

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

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Reminder to migrate to updated Google Data APIs

Over the past few years, we’ve been updating our APIs with new versions across Drive and Calendar, as well as those used for managing Google Apps for Work domains. These new APIs offered developers several improvements over older versions of the API. With each of these introductions, we also announced the deprecation of a set of corresponding APIs.

The deprecation period for these APIs is coming to an end. As of April 20, 2015, we will discontinue these deprecated APIs. Calls to these APIs and any features in your application that depend on them will not work after April 20th.

Discontinued API	Replacement API
Documents List API	Drive API
Admin Audit	Admin SDK Reports API
Google Apps Profiles	Admin SDK Directory API
Provisioning	Admin SDK Directory API
Reporting	Admin SDK Reports API
Email Migration API v1	Email Migration API v2
Reporting Visualization	No replacement available

When updating, we also recommend that you use the opportunity to switch to OAuth2 for authorization. Older protocols, such as ClientLogin, AuthSub, and OpenID 2.0, have also been deprecated and are scheduled to shut down.

For help on migration, consult the documentation for the APIs or ask questions about the Drive API or Admin SDK on StackOverflow.

Posted by Steven Bazyl, Developer Advocate

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HTC Sense 7 0 G version explained

Together with the latest and greatest HTC One A9 we saw the HTC Sense 7.0 "G" edition user interface for the first time. What exactly is the "G" version and how it differs from the "regular" version?

Probably the "G" comes from a "Google", because HTC wanted it be as close to the stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow UX as possible, allowing for certain carrier requirements and feature necessities. So, for example, in the "G" edition we have the stock notification window and Quick Settings, while the full Settings menu is HTCs Sense version due to carrier customization requirements.

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC also worked to reduce or eliminate duplicative apps in every case possible. So, for example, the HTC Music player is gone in favour of Google Music. In a couple cases HTC needed to pre-load HTCs apps to support certain features, such as HTC Gallery to support RAW images, in addition to Google Photos. So whats gone for sure?

- HTC Backup

- HTC Music

- Print Studio

- One Gallery

- Peel Smart Remote

- Polaris Office

- Scribble

All the rest seems to be still there. And it doesnt look much different to the Sense 7.0 "regular" version because a lot of components (such as Calendar, Mail, Clock, Camera, Sense Home, Weather etc.) are accessible via Google Play store. Whats also different is the HTC default accent colours, the "G" edition is a bit less colourful.

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTCs  plan when M8 and M9 begin rolling out Android 6.0 Marshmallow is to maintain UX consistency with Sense 7.

The main screen looks exactly the same, as well as most parts of the UI (except the colours scheme).

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

HTC Sense 7.0 (left) vs HTC Sense 7.0 "G" (right)

Do you have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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Looking back at Marie Curie’s radical discovery How the Mother of Modern Physics might have used Google Apps

Posted by Erzsi Sousa, Product Marketing Manager

Editors note: We’re jumping into our Delorean to explore how some of our favorite historical figures might have worked with Google Apps. Today, in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we imagine how Marie Curie’s discovery of radioactivity, which won a Nobel Prize and revolutionized modern cancer treatment, might have played out in a Google Apps universe.

Consider what Marie Curie accomplished in the face of adversity and with few resources. Despite being refused a place at the French Academy of Sciences and almost denied her first Nobel Prize for being a woman, she continued her work undeterred, securing a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry and developing methods for treating cancer with radiation therapy. To celebrate her, we explore how she might have worked in a different time — by using some of the tools we use today.

The radioactivity in Curie’s lab was so strong that it harmed her health — archivists today still use protective gear to handle her papers. Instead of carrying these radioactive documents, Curie could have kept them in the cloud with Google Drive, allowing for easy access whenever and wherever she needed them, without risking her well-being. Drive’s organization features could also have helped her organize her files and notes in folders, easily distinguishable by color and category.

Her easy access to files would also be secure with Drive’s built-in security stack. And to prevent anyone from stealing her discoveries, Marie Curie could have conveniently protected all of her files using the Security Key for 2-step verification along with password protection. This would ensure that she was the only one who had complete access to all of her work (she may even have thrown on a screen protector to shield her work from spying eyes on the train). To share the right documents with only the right people, Marie could have used sharing controls to give different groups access to relevant research.

With the voice typing feature in Google Docs that supports 40 languages, she could have dictated her numerous notes in her native Polish without stopping her research. She could have then used Google Translate to convert her papers into other languages, so that the global science community could see what she was working on.

Curie could have used Gmail’s Priority Inbox to create labels and organize her messages related to research, teaching and fundraising. Each label filters emails into its own section in her inbox, making it easy to notice new emails when they arrive. She might have created a “Physicist Community” label for correspondences with Pierre and other influential scientists like Henri Becquerel and Albert Einstein. She might also have used a “Fundraising” label to organize messages from members of the press and government who funded her research, including U.S. presidents Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover.

Even Marie Curie could have been the victim of seemingly neverending reply-all email threads. With Gmail, she could have avoided these distractions by muting the message so responses are automatically archived. For example, Curie could have muted the message from her Sorbonne colleagues who abused “reply all” in RSVP emails or broke out into a physics debate, letting her focus on important emails only.

With Google Hangouts, Curie could have broadcast her physics classes to a global audience using Hangouts on Air. As the first woman professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, making her classes available online could have given more women access to lectures from a renowned physicist during a time when many universities wouldn’t admit female students. She might even have started her own grassroots movement, using live video chats to bring advanced science into the homes, coffee shops, underground classrooms, etc., of whoever chose to tune in.

Marie Curie accomplished award-winning work, even without access to the most advanced lab technology of the time. It’s humbling to consider that despite any limitations she encountered, Curie’s pioneering work in radioactivity remains so relevant today as we continue to make advances in not just physics and chemistry but also engineering, biology and medicine, including cancer research, on the basis of her discoveries.

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Ho Ho Ho! Googles Santa Tracker is now open source

Posted by Ankur Kotwal, Software Engineer

The holiday spirit is about giving and though we’re early into April, we’re still in that spirit. Today, we’re announcing that Googles Santa Tracker is now open source on GitHub at google/santa-tracker-web and google/santa-tracker-android. Now you can see how we’ve used many of our developer products to build a fun and engaging experience that runs across the web and Android.

Santa Tracker isn’t just about watching Santa’s progress as he delivers presents on December 24. Visitors can also have fun with the winter-inspired games and an interactive North Pole village while Santa prepares for his big journey throughout the holidays.

Below is a summary of what we’ve released as open source.

Android app

• The Santa Tracker Android app is a single APK, supporting all devices running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and up. The source code for the app can be found here.

• Santa’s village is a canvas-based graphical launcher for videos, games and the tracker. In order to span 10,000 pixels in width, the village uses the Android resource hierarchy in a unique way to scale graphics without needing assets for multiple density buckets, thereby reducing the APK size.
• Games on Santa Tracker Android are built using a combination of technologies such as JBox2D (gumball game), Android view hierarchy (memory match game) and OpenGL with a purpose-built rendering engine (jetpack game).
• To help with user engagement, the app uses the App Indexing API to enable autocomplete support for Santa Tracker games from Google Search. This is done using deep linking.

Android Wear

• The custom watch faces on Android Wear provide a personalized touch. Having Santa or one of his friendly elves tell the time brings a smile to all. Building custom watch faces is a lot of fun but providing a performant, battery friendly watch face requires certain considerations. The watch face source code can be found here.
• Santa Tracker uses notifications to let users know when Santa has started his journey. The notifications are further enhanced to provide a great experience on wearables using custom backgrounds and actions that deep link into the app.

On the web

• Santa Tracker on the web was built using Polymer, a powerful new library from the Chrome team based on Web Components. Santa Tracker’s use of Polymer demonstrates how easy it is to package code into reusable components. Every scene in Santas village (games, videos, and interactive pages) is a custom element, only loaded when needed, minimizing the startup cost of Santa Tracker.
• Santa Tracker’s interactive and fun experience is built using the Web Animations API, a standardized JavaScript API for unifying animated content - this is a huge leap up from using CSS animations. Web Animations can be written imperatively, are supported in all modern browsers via polyfills and Polymer uses them internally to create its amazing material design effects. Examples of these animations can be found using this GitHub search.

• Santa believes in mobile first; this years experience was built to be optimized for the mobile web, including a fully responsive design, touch gesture support using Polymer, and new features like meta-theme color and the application manifest for add to homescreen.
• To provide exceptional localization support, a new i18n-msg component was built, a first for Web Components. Modeled after the Chrome extension i18n system, it enables live page-refresh for development but has a build step for optimization.

Now that the source code is also available, developers can see many of the parts that come together to make Santa Tracker. We hope that developers are inspired to make their own magical experiences.

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Google launches the Chinese language Developer Channel on YouTube

Posted by Bill Luan, Greater China Regional Lead, Google Developer Relations

Today, the Google Developer Platform team is launching a Chinese language and captioned YouTube channel, aiming to make it easier for the developers in China to learn more about Google services and technologies around mobile, web and the cloud. The channel includes original content in Chinese (Mandarin speaking), and curates content from the English version of the Google Developers channel with Simplified Chinese captions.

A special thank you to the volunteers in Google Developers Group community in the city of Nanyang (Nanyang GDG) in China, for their effort and contribution in adding the Chinese language translations to the English language Google Developer Channel videos on YouTube. Over time, we will produce more Chinese language original content, as well as continue leveraging GDG volunteers in China to add more Chinese captioned English videos from Google Developer Channel, to serve the learning needs from developers.

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Debut your app during SxSW with Google Cloud Platform Build Off

Posted by Greg Wilson, Head of Developer Advocacy for Google Cloud Platform

Originally posted to the Google Cloud Platform blog

From popular mobile apps (Foursquare) to acclaimed indie films (The Grand Budapest Hotel), some of the world’s most creative ideas have debuted at the annual SxSW Festival in Austin, Texas. For over 25 years, SxSWs goal has been to bring together the most creative people and companies to meet and share ideas. We think one of those next great ideas could be yours, and we’d like to help it be a part of SxSW.

Do you have an idea for a new app that you think is SxSW worthy? Enter it in the Google Cloud Platform Build-Off. Winners will receive up to $5,000 in cash. First prize also includes $100,000 in Google Cloud Platform credit and 24/7 support, and select winners will have the chance to present their app to 200 tech enthusiasts during the Build-Off awards ceremony at SxSW.

Here’s how it works:

• Develop an app on Google Cloud Platform that pushes the boundary on what technology can do for music, film or gaming
• Enter on your own or form teams of up to 3 members
• Submit your application between 5 - 28 February 2015
• Apps will be evaluated based on their originality, effectiveness in addressing a need, use of Google tools, and technical merit

Visit the official Build-Off website to see the full list of rules and FAQs and follow us at #GCPBuildOff on G+ and Twitter for more updates. We cannot wait to see what innovation your creativity leads to next.

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Going Google just got easier

Posted by Rich Rao, Head of global sales, Google Apps for Work

Word processing and spreadsheet programs are the mainstay of office productivity software. Let’s face it: without a great way to write memos, crunch numbers and flesh out ideas, you can’t get any meaningful work done. For a long time, productivity software was a bit like a midsized sedan: sturdy, dependable, loaded with features and a little dull.

Nine years ago with Google Docs, we saw an opportunity to build something that would enable people to work together in new ways. Fast forward to today and Docs is a productivity powerhouse. Now’s a great time to give it a fresh look if you want to take advantage of its unmatched collaboration tools. We’ve made it easy by covering most of the features some claim to be missing and adding nifty new stuff like Voice Typing and Explore. All in all, we think youll find it’s the perfect tool for work.

In fact, were so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you dont, that were making it even easier to give it a try. If youre worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, well cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out. Well even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners.

Once your current EA is up, we offer a simple contract with no traps or gotchas. For a lot of businesses, it’s cheaper, too. Our estimates suggest that businesses with basic EAs and no dependencies can potentially unlock savings of up to 70% by switching to Google Apps for Work.

There’s a new way of working, and we think that once you see Docs and the rest of Google Apps for Work in action, you’ll never want to go back. We want to help you experience it now, even if you’re locked into an existing EA. If you’re in the US or Canada, click here now to learn more and see how Google can work for you. If you’re outside the US or Canada, stay tuned – we’re actively working to bring this offer to our global markets as well.

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