Jordan Kahn

You might be familiar with Big Nerd Ranch from their iOS development programs detailed on 9to5Mac, but you might not know the guys and gals at the Nerd Ranch also run an Android Bootcamp. Well, your first introduction to the program could be this Thursday, December 15 when the instructors of the course will be holding an open Q&A with those interested in learning more about Android development.

To join the conversation, tune in on the Big Nerd Ranch Facebook wall or tweet questions with #BigDroidRanch. One participant will get a $750 credit to attend the Big Nerd Ranch in January when the next Android Bootcamp begins. You can start tweeting and posting your questions now and instructors will be live on Thursday at 3-5 p.m. ET to answer them. If you’re interested getting into Android development, swing by the their website to read more about the program.

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Last week startup Clever Sense launched their local recommendations app called Alfred on the Android Market. Previously only available as an iOS app, the service uses a proprietary engine to make recommendations for nightlife, food, and other local attractions without requiring the user to enter a search query. Today, Clever Sense has announced on their website that they have been acquired by Google and their team will be joining Google’s to further develop the recommendation tech built into Alfred.

As for what might possibly come of the acquisition in terms of Google services, Clever Sense CEO Babak Pahlavan makes a point of mentioning “Google helps local businesses connect with potential customers and its worldwide presence can bring the value of Clever Sense to a much larger audience.” Perhaps Google services like Offers and Places will benefit, but the company has yet to make an official statement.

Below are the important bits from Clever Sense’s statement:

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While there are a few repeats in today’s 10 cent app promotion, the page does list twelve apps opposed to the usual ten. If you’re unaware, we’re on day 8 of Google’s 10 day, 10 cent app promotion celebrating reaching 10 billion downloads in the Android Market. Check out all of today’s deals here, or grab direct links to each below.

Most of the other apps from Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are still on sale for 10 cents as well.

Where’s My Water

HD Widgets

FlightTrack

Read on…

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Google continued with their rollout of Google+ integration today by adding a new feature to their blogging platform Blogger that allows users to easily share a post when publishing. Now, when publishing a post, you will be prompted to share a snippet of the post with specified circles on Google+. They also mentioned that the ability to use your Google+ profile is now available to all Blogger users after initially only being available to Blogger in Draft users.

The new feature will only be available to users that have linked their Google+ profile to their Blogger account and you will also of course be able to disable it by navigating to Settings> Posts and Comments. If you’d prefer, you can also share posts to Google+ by clicking the “Share” link from within your post list.

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We’re on day 7 of Google’s 10 day, 10 cent app promotion in celebration of hitting 10 billion downloads in the Android Market. You can check out all of today’s apps here, or get the individual links below.

Doodle Jump

Flick Soccer

Roll in the Hole

Flight Control

Read on…

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Although Google’s own apps like the Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube all top the list, Nielsen’s latest report has Facebook as the most popular Android app among users 18 years and older in the US.

The study analyzed usage data over thirty days from consumers who voluntarily installed the firm’s proprietary monitoring software on their smartphones. The study found Facebook as the most popular app reaching approximately 80 percent of users in age groups 18-24 and 25-34. The app also reached more than three quarters of the 35-44 age group. This is of course not taking the Android Market into consideration, which is obviously the most used app hovering around 92% among all age groups…

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The web version of the Android Market has been given some nice updates recently that both allow developers and users to easier connect, and users to better search for more relevant app reviews. The first update, a new “Email Developer” link within the “Overview tab” is self explanatory and located right under the app’s description. The new review filters are a little more in-depth, but definitely make it much easier to get accurate, and most importantly, relevant reviews.

It often happens that user reviews in the Android Market aren’t relevant to you and your device. For example, perhaps you’d like to only see reviews from tablet users. You can now filter reviews by devices, allowing you to select “All” or select an individual device linked to your account. You can also filter by app version, either “All” or Latest”, as well as search by a specific star rating. For instance, you can search for only reviews from users with a Galaxy S II that gave the app a 4 star rating. It will certainly make it easier to find the most helpful entrys for popular apps that have hundreds of reviews.

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As you can see from the internal email sent to HP employees by CEO Meg Whitman below (via TechCrunch), webOS is officially alive and well and on its way to open source land. Last we heard HP was soon going to come to a solid decision on the fate of webOS and rumors started flying about  the company even being open to Android. However, today’s confirmation from Whitman most likely means the company hopes webOS will be picked up by vendors looking for an alternative to Google’s OS. There’s no mention of new hardware in the letter, but The Verge sat down with Whitman and board member Marc Andreessen who say there will indeed be new HP webOS tablets by 2013:

Will HP be creating any new webOS hardware?

The answer to that is yes but what I can’t tell you is whether that will be in 2012 or not. But we will use webOS in new hardware, but it’s just going to take us a little longer to reorganize the team in a quite different direction than we’ve been taking it in the past.

Are we talking printers? Or tablets and phones?

In the near term what I would imagine – and this could change, in full disclosure – is I would think tablets, I do not believe we will be in the smartphone business again.

Here’s Whitman’s full letter to HP Employees:

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Last week Google rolled out indoor maps for a number of airports and retailers in Version 6.0 of Google Maps on Android, and now they have just added 3D maps for a bunch more cities in the desktop version of the app. Adding to the 3D map experience already available in select cities throughout the US, Japan, and Europe, Google announced on their Lat Long Blog today that a few more notable cities have been added including Rome, Seville, and Las Vegas.

This brings up the total number of cities with 3D maps to 18 with Foster City, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Norfolk, Palo Alto, Portland, Redwood City, Riverside, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Sunnyvale in the US, and Rome, IT, Rotterdam, NL; Seville, ES; Stuttgart, DE, and Amsterdam, NL in Europe.

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Google is rolling out a nice new movie related feature to search on Android and iPhone. Now, when searching for “movies”, the first result will be a swipeable row of movie posters with descriptions, ratings, and the closest theatres and showtimes for the selected film. Tapping the title of any given movie will provide you with details on the cast and a full summary. Some movie posters will also have a play button letting you watch the film’s trailer, and selecting one of the showtimes will link you to where you can purchase tickets. This is obviously Google’s way of making it easier to find what’s playing at your local theatre when on the go.

You can also type “theaters” or the name of a specific movie theatre or movie for more refined results. Try it now by visiting Google.com on your iPhone or Android device.

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Not to be confused with the Mac OS application launcher utility of the same name, Alfred is a new local recommendations Android app from startup Clever Sense. Previously only available to iPhone users, the app was able to grab 20,000 users in two weeks during a trial run in July and has been praised for its personalized, context-aware suggestions generated by their proprietary “Serendipity Engine”. Not only is the app available in the Android Market right now, but it’s also been given a complete redesign and new features specific to Android users.

The goal of personal assistant apps of any kind is to learn what the user wants, and Alfred is no different. That’s why it starts with a quiz to better train the recommendation engine. Recommendations for restaurants, nightlife, and other local events are automatically aggregated based on your personal preferences, and maps with directions, ratings, and sharing features are built-in.

The company’s CEO, Babak Pahlavan, explained to Appolicious how the Serendipity Engine works:

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When Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Android-powered Nook Tablet, it was clear it would be a Kindle Fire competitor and not necessarily compete in the broader tablet market. Well we already learned earlier this month that Amazon is set to ship around four million units by the end of 2011, but despite that the Nook Tablet is also posting strong numbers with DigiTimes reporting the company has shipped a million units since launch.

Barnes & Noble should have so far taken delivery of one million units of Nook Tablet PCs from OEM production partners… The market had originally expected Barnes & Noble to pull in orders for 800,000 Nook Tablet PCs before year-end 2011, indicated the sources, adding that the increased orders from Barnes & Noble has strengthened Inventec’s position in the OEM tablet PC segment.

At the beginning of December, research firm IHS iSuppli expected Amazon to take estimated 13.8 perfect share of the global tablet market. At that time, the report had Barnes & Noble at 4.7 percent of the market in comparison to Amazon’s 13.8%. These numbers were of course before we learned the Kindle Fire’s initial shipment numbers today. DigiTimes contributes the increased shipments due to strong sales of the Kindle Fire during the Thanksgiving shopping holiday and in anticipation of the upcoming Christmas holidays. Barnes & Noble could potentially begin to close the gap depending on how it performs against the Kindle Fire in the coming weeks.

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Right after rumors of Apple’s next-gen iPad landing in February with a Retina display, a report from BGR claims Samsung might beat them to it with their own 11.6-inch tablet. A “trusted source” tells them the yet to be unveiled device will have a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and a 16:10 aspect ratio. It will also apparently run Ice Cream Sandwich and pack in a 2GHz dual-core Exynos 5250 processor. This tablet will more than likely be aimed at the same market as a next-gen iPad, much like Samsung’s current Galaxy Tab family competes with iPad 2. The report also notes the 11.6-inch device will be almost the same size as the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab thanks to a thinner bezel. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

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Google has been offering 10 cent apps all week in celebration of hitting the 10 billion downloads milestone on the Android Market (we’re on day three of the ten day promotion today). In a post on the Android Developers blog today, Google is outlining some of the highlights related to those 10 billion downloads in the graphic above (click for full infographic). Some things we learn– Photobucket Mobile was the 10 billionth app downloaded, South Korea wins for most downloads per capita (US is #4), and games have the most downloads by category at 25.6%.

Some other numbers– 12 billion miles traveled in Google Maps per year, 100 million words translated in Google Translate each week, and 20,000,000,000 keystrokes saved to SwiftKey X keyboard.  Check out the rest of the highlights in the full infographic below:

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Alongside the new web interface and iOS app for Twitter, the company has also just rolled outhttp://blog.twitter.com/2011/12/lets-fly.html a major refresh to their Android app. The new app is broken down into 4 sections– Home, Connect, Discover, and Me– aiming to make it easier to access all of the service’s features.

What we’re announcing today is just the beginning. We now have a framework in place that we will quickly build and iterate upon to help users connect with whatever is meaningful to them. Four new tabs bring you instantly closer to everything you care about. Visit fly.twitter.com to learn more about the changes…

The new UI is pretty straightforward. Home is your feed/timeline of tweets, Connect acts as a notification center for retweets, replies, followers, etc., Discover holds search and trending features, and the Me tab provides access to all your account info. There’s also another handy button in the upper right corner to compose a new tweet. Twitter posted the video below on a page detailing the service’s new UI redesign:

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Google has been making a point of steadily introducing new features into Google+, and Google+ features into the rest of their services. Today the social service is getting better integrated into Gmail with a bunch of new features that let you access and utilize your circles from within your inbox.

Firstly, the most recent post any given friend has shared with you will be displayed to the right of each of their emails. There is also an “Add to circles” button to add them if you haven’t already. Next up is filters for Google+ circles (image above), allowing you to filter your mails by all of your circles or a specific one. Circle names can also be attached in the subject line of emails, much the same as labels.

Another nice addition is automatic syncing of contact information. Now, in Gmail each entry for your contacts will be filled out automatically using info from the person’s Google profile. Changes in the future will of course stay in sync and the standalone version of Google Contacts gets the same treatment. Last but not least is the ability to automatically “Share” attachments to Google+ from directly in the email (image below). A new “Share” link will appear next to the “View” and “Download” links from before.

These new features will be rolling out to all users over the next couple days and were apparently the result of a discussion held with users on the Gmail Google+ page in July. More screenshots of the new features below:

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Today is day three of Google’s ten apps for ten cents promotion in celebration of hitting 10 billion downloads in the Android Market. Yesterday’s apps included Fruit Ninja, AirSync, Read it Later Pro, and more. The ten day special continues today with ten more apps all marked down to $0.10. Most of the ten apps being offered through the “10 Billion Promo” page on the Market typically range from 99 cents to a few dollars or more, and at ten cents, the majority of them are must have apps. Here’s what’s on offer today:

Tetris

Reckless Getaway

Talking Tom Cat 2 

Homerun Battle 3D

Read on…
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME59Lt1B2_Q]

We already know that President Barak Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron have made the iPad their tablet of choice, but according to the Vatican Information Service, Pope Benedict XVI is opting for an Android powered tablet instead.

In order to turn on the lights of the world’s largest Christmas tree in Gubbio, Italy, yesterday the Pope used a Sony Tablet S to remotely trigger the lights on the 750 meter-high tree from his apartment in the Vatican Apostolic Palace. However, it’s likely this was just the preference of the developers who built the app necessary for the task, as the Pope has been spotted using an iPad in the past. The video below shows Benedict XVI using an iPad to send out his first tweet:

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Google has just pushed out an update to their Google+ Android app, bringing it up to date with the iOS app that was recently updated with full resolution photo uploads, enhanced search features, and +1s for photos. On top of those features, the Android app also received +1s for comments, typing and online indicators for Messenger convos, video support for Instant Upload, and the ability to start conversations by typing a phone number.

Another new addition is the ability to open links to posts and profiles within the app and there is also the usual “stability improvements and bug fixes”. As always, you can grab it from the Market here. Google also updated the Google Goggles and Google Maps Android apps today.

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OnLive has just announced (via TechCrunch) new mobile apps capable of accessing their cloud game streaming service previously only available to PC, Mac, and OnLive console owners. Launching in the US and UK first, 25 console titles have been ported to the smaller screen with touchscreen controls, and almost all 200 of the service’s library of console quality titles will be playable via the $50 OnLive wireless controller.

The OnLive service allows streaming of console quality games like Assassins Creed, L.A. Noire, and other titles typically reserved for consoles like the PS3, directly from the company’s servers. The service has received mixed reviews, mostly due to inconsistencies in performance. The same appears to be true for the mobile version, with early hands on reviews highlighting the same performance issues common on PCs. These are “console-class” games, but not always a console quality experience. It’s playable, but really laggy.

The free app should be launching in the Android Market any second now, and will still of course require that you purchase or rent the games. Fortunately, any purchased or rented content is instantly playable through any compatible device. As for supported Android devices, below is the complete list courtesy of TechCrunch (who also says the Kindle Fire is supported):

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The Google Goggles Android app has received an update to version 1.7 today, bringing with it a number of performance enhancements and new features including “continuous mode, improved text recognition and contributed results”. You can grab the free updated app here now and check out a break down of the new features below.

The new Continuous Mode allows you to get results for what you’re looking at without having to take a picture. Google Goggles will scan the area automatically looking for books, artwork, or landmarks. Continuous mode searches won’t be stored in your Google Search history, but snapshot is still available. The app also received improved text recognition that will  scan text in, for example, a newspaper or magazine and return a link to an online version of the same article. The app will also now display user submitted results and provides a “Do you have a better suggestion?” option when searching.

Google also today updated the Google Maps Android app to version 6.0.1 with a “bug fixes for certain newer devices”.