Jake Smith

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRXVyEoaeQw”]

Earlier today, Google released update 3.1.3 to the Android Market. The update is pretty minor, but does pack a couple of new features. First off, users can now use Google’s +1 button as a way of liking apps and games. More importantly, Google has introduced the ability to set a pin number for making purchases — like you’re used to doing when you awake your device.

Other minor updates include an updated Market icon, settings menu, and the size of the app is now in plain view (noted by Android Police). Check out another screenshot and how to get your hands on the update after the break. (via AndroidCentral)

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google’s Mark Striebeck noted on Google+ tonight that in Gmail you can now see the most recent Google+ post made by the sender. Hopefully, those are only public posts or posts meant to be shared with the recipiant or oh, boy another privacy stink coming.

Be on the lookout for this in your inbox.
Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmpmlOpvoC0″]

Qualcomm is reportedly behind the first known port of Android to the HP TouchPad. As seen in the video above, the user boots his TouchPad into Linux, which then boots into Android. While its booting, Qualcomm’s Quic logo appears. But the question to ask is how did this make it out of the Qualcomm offices and into the hands of a consumer?

It only makes sense for Qualcomm to be the first to jump on the port, seeing as they did design the processor in this device. The port seems relatively snappy — leaving me almost salivating..no wait. We’re not sure if Wi-Fi, the camera, audio, or multi-touch is working quite yet.

There is always the chance this could be fake, but it looks relatively real to us. At any rate, we can’t wait for the port to be released. Luckily, the developer community is already hard at work, thanks to a little incentive. (NotebookItalia via AndroidCentral)
Expand
Expanding
Close

Honeycomb ported to the Logitech Revue 

Google has announced the release of the Android SDK add-on for Google TV. This SDK will allow developers to begin to build/optimize their apps for larger displayes, and more importantly emulate Google TV to see how the apps look on the big screen. As seen above, Honeycomb has already been ported to the Logitech Revue — making us very excited.

Along with the SDK add-on, Google has released a few UI Guidelines. Google says some apps will work, while some might need tweaking:

Depending on the design and use case, an existing Android app may work well on Google TV as is, or it may require fixes. With the add-on you can test your apps to determine if they would be a good fit for TV and whether any tweaks are required.

There’s no word on when Honeycomb will hit Google TV, but this SDK release and the I/O promise of “late sumer” sure makes it sound like it will be soon. Google says the initial number of app available on Google TV will be small, but we’re certainly looking forward to it nonetheless.

Did you land your hands on the HP TouchPad this weekend, and not satisfied with WebOS? We understand the WebOS part of things, but the TouchPad could actually be considered a pretty nice piece of hardware..if it’s running the right stuff. While we mentioned an Android port was in the works this morning, the folks over at HacknMod are holding a little contest to see who can successfully do the port first. Total prize money tops $1500.

The basic Android port is going for $450, Wi-Fi is going for $350, both audio and camera are going up for $300, and lastly, MultiTouch is going for $100. Devs, that’s $1500!

If you think your dev skills are up to the challenge you can get started by posting your first bit of code into GitHub (full directions here). Note, all code developed for this project must be licensed under open-source. May the best coder win!
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google and ESPN have announced they are now offering sports scores, presented through microdata, straight into Google Search results. For now, Google and ESPN will only be offering Baseball, but more sports will be following very soon. A simple search of “Baseball Scores” returned the following results.

Besides making the obvious search, you can also search specifically for teams, players, and scores. The results include up-to-date game scores and statistics, and link off to content on ESPN.
Expand
Expanding
Close

We already showed you how to give Google’s new search UI a try, but yesterday The Next Web discovered that you can also give Google’s new sign-in page a try. The new sign-in page goes along with the rest of Google’s general new design we’ve been seeing spring up across products, ever since the launch of Google Plus. Enabling the new design is much easier than what we showed you yesterday. You could just go and click the option to preview the new sign-in page, but here’s the link to make things easy.

While there isn’t much of a change, we do like the new colors and general spacing.

Google has been on a role rolling out new designs across all of their products, including Google Search. Techno-Net (via Google Operating System) has discovered that with a small cookie change you can try the latest version of Search. The new version features a less uncluttered look, but we’ve read it isn’t as fast as the version you know and love. Head on past the break to see how it’s done.

Expand
Expanding
Close

YouTube’s Brian Glick gave Google+ a short feature update this evening. We’ve enjoyed watching YouTube video in Google+Hangouts ever since the product launched earlier this year, but today you can now start watching a YouTube video with just one click. After clicking the “Start a Google+ Hangout” when watching a video on YouTube, you’re brought into the Hangout you know and love, where you can invite your friends to take part. We’re looking forward to seeing how much traffic this drives to Google+. (via The Next Web)

If you’re in the market for a 46-inch or 55-inch Samsung 3D HDTV, this will for sure intrigue you. Samsung and Best Buy are running a promotional deal offering a free Galaxy Tab 10.1 with purchase of 3D HDTV. The 3D goddesses are priced at $1500 and $2000, respectively. The promotion starts this Sunday, running from August 21st to August 27th.

This is a sure way to get the Mom and Pops to start getting interested in Android tablets.. but first they’ll have to them to latch on to the 3D idea. (via TechCrunch)
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has already tried to ban the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in most of Europe (injunction lifted), but today they are going even farther with their legal proceedings, asking a Netherlands court to ban all Galaxy series devices. The ban includes the widely popular Galaxy S II, which has seen some success in Europe. On top of trying to ban sales, Apple is trying to push the thought of Samsung sending a letter to all of their partnered retailers within 14 days to end sales. Stated strongly:

“For the record we would like to mention the fact that by storing, offering and/or selling of the above mentioned Galaxy smartphones [and tablets], you commit infringement of the intellectual property rights of Apple Inc.,”

The trial will take place in The Hague, Netherlands September 15th, and the judge said  if he grants any injunctions, they would take effect no sooner than Oct. 13. (Webwereled via Computerworld)

Expand
Expanding
Close

Shoot, I’d take a 63% return on my investment, wouldn’t you? It seem’s like a lot to us, but a Motorola shareholder thinks Google underpaid in their acquisition of the company Monday. The shareholder believes Google solely paid for the patents, and not the rest of the mobile phone business. To back up the shareholder’s statement, analytical firm Frost & Sullivan came up with the same conclusion. (Phandroid via ZDNet)

Motorola has a portfolio of 24,500 patents and patent applications that instantly bolsters Google’s strength in the IP war. Looking at some recent patent auctions and using some simple math can show why these patents were indeed the target of Google’s acquisition.

Continue after the break..

Expand
Expanding
Close

Late this afternoon, Google announced a new blog called Magnifier. Magnifier’s purpose is to shed light on new songs, and well, to remind you to start using Google Music Beta again. The blog features free music and interviews from the artists that make it.

Each day there will be a “Song of the Day” available for free. Today’s featured artist is a personal favorite of mine, My Morning Jacket. Head on over and grab two free songs.

Using their Content ID feature, YouTube can match song covers to a publisher to enable them to make money from a video they didn’t publish. Today to help Content ID along, YouTube announced they landed agreements with National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency (HFA). Today’s agreement will give YouTube another 46,000 more songs to match ads to. YouTube currently also has agreements with many more publishers.

Going forward, the 46,000 music publishers already affiliated with HFA will be able to license the musical compositions they represent for use by the YouTube community. When these publishers allow YouTube to run ads alongside user generated videos that incorporate their compositions, the publishers, and the songwriters they represent, can make money.

Some users don’t agree with Google/YouTube’s decision to place ads on content that they made — such as a cover of a song. The user isn’t actually using the artist’s song, per-say, but using their own voice..and they don’t get to make a cent from it.
Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grr1arPxX0E”]

To go along with their new expanded sitelinks, Google is testing infinite scrolling in Google Search. This new feature will allow you to view all of your search results on one page, but you do have to click a “more results” button. Google has already announced this feature in Images, so there is a chance this could stick around in Search. Google told Search Engine Land, “Google is constantly experimenting with new features.” (Waebo via The Next Web)

Feeling adventurous? Soon, you will be able to float down the Amazon River — Google Earth Street View style. The Google Earth team is currently on the Amazon River taking images to stitch together in the 360 panoramic view that you know and love. Google has partnered with the Foundation for a Stable Amazon (FAS) to take these images of the river, as well as local communities and forests.

In this first phase of the project, the Google and FAS teams will visit and capture imagery from a 50km section of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus—the capital of the state of Amazonas—to the Terra Preta community. We’ll then process the imagery of the river and the communities as usual, stitching the still photos into 360-degree panoramics.

After the Earth team is done they will leave equipment for the FAS to continue to take more images. While you wait for the Amazon to become available, you can view Stonehenge and the Whistlers slopes. This is sure to be exciting for Amazon enthusiasts who can’t travel.

TechnoBuffalo has received exclusive photos of the Tips and Tricks manual that will be paired with the Droid Bionic when it lands in the coming weeks, and it shows us a few new things. The Bionic was rumored to have a 4.5-inch screen, but today’s report from TechnoBuffalo lists the device as having a 4.3-inch — only a subtle change..

Other things to note is that the Bionic will feature Atrix like connectivity, with the ability to be paired to a computer with an optional dock. This feature will give the Bionic features like wireless printing and a Firefox browser on the laptop. The device will also feature a bedside mode alarm clock feature and HDMI-out. The free Zumocast app will also stream media from your computer.

The manual also reveals the device will pack an 8-megapixel shooter with LED Flash and 1080p recording capabilities. To go with the great picture quality, the Bionic will feature three microphones around various parts of the device.

We’re hearing September 8th as the launch date, but in the mean time check out another photo after the break.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Today on their Search Blog, Google announced a new layout for sitelinks under Search results. The new update brings an expanded look for sitelinks — showing the title, URL, and a snippet of text from the site. Instead of eight sitelink results, a site can now have twelve.

Sitelinks will now be full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text—similar to regular results—making it even easier to find the section of the site you want. We’re also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.

Sitelinks will also be using a similar algorithm to regular search results, to provide a higher-quality list of links. The update will be rolling out to users over the next couple of days.

Firefox 6 was officially released on the desktop today, and along with it comes Firefox Mobile 6.0 for Android. The 6.0 browser offers a great alternative to Android’s stock browser and other browsers like Opera. Full release notes: (via Pocketnow)

1. Higher-quality image rendering and smoother zooming
2. First wave of optimizations for tablets and large-screen devices
3. Improved interaction with touch-optimized sites (e.g Google Maps, games)
4. Improved form helper
5. Visual refresh for phones running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
6. Continued performance and memory management enhancements

Download

WSJ is reporting that a German court is now partially lifting the injunction of the Galaxy Tab 1o.1 placed over most of the European content last week. Apple’s lawyers say the Tab matches too closely to the iPad.

Since it is in dispute whether a German court has authority to prevent a company based in South Korea from selling goods beyond Germany with a preliminary injunction, the court decided to lift the order for countries outside Germany for the time being, a spokesman for the regional court in Düsseldorf, Germany, said Tuesday.

Does the German court’s decision come after seeing yesterday’s misleading evidence provided by Apple?

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-VARh15ZJE&feature=player_embedded”]

LinkedIn has announced a new HTML 5 optimized page for mobile browsers and updated iPhone and Android apps with 2-10X speed increases.

The new app is now focused around four key areas: Updates, Inbox, You, and Groups & More.

The Inbox will allow you to view your messages and invitations in one centralized location. The You area presents your profile, connections, and to share updates. Lastly, LinkedIn is now introducing their most requested feature Groups, into the app.

Interestingly, LinkedIn also announced their mobile platform is growing 400 percent year-over-year. Check it out in your mobile browser, or hit the download links below:

Download iPhone – Download Android