British Broadcaster Sky News Has Its Android Apps Hacked - The Next Web

Bloomberg

British Broadcaster Sky News Has Its Android Apps Hacked The Next Web British broadcast company Sky News has had all of its Android apps hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. A look at the app's page in the Google Play store reveals that the description was changed to “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here”. The broadcaster ... Sky Apps Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army – BSkyB: 'Android Apps Were ... Sky Android apps hacked, replaced by Syrian Electronic Army

Misfit Wearables Drops Android Support For Its Shine Activity Tracker Ahead Of ... - TechCrunch

Droid Life

Misfit Wearables Drops Android Support For Its Shine Activity Tracker Ahead Of ... TechCrunch Heads up, Android fans. If you took the plunge and backed the rather sleek Shine wearable activity tracker from Misfit Wearables, you may want to get your money back. According to a recent update posted to the project's Indiegogo listing, the Founders ... Misfit Shine Activity Tracker From IndieGogo Drops Android Support After ...

Walmart starts selling Hisense Sero 7-inch Android tablets from $99 - ZDNet

AndroidPIT.com

Walmart starts selling Hisense Sero 7-inch Android tablets from $99 ZDNet You might see other 7-inch Android slates at drugstores and the like for similar prices or lower, but they aren't given the Walmart seal of approval through website banners like the one above from Walmart.com. The $99 Sero 7 isn't going to be confused ... Balling on a Budget? Try Hisense's New $99 and $149 Android tablets Hisense Bringing Low-Cost Android Tablets To Walmart Starting Today Walmart Launches Low-Cost Hisense Sero Android Jelly Bean Tablets

Apps of the Week: Wag.com, SphereShare.net, Blip Blup and more!

A couple tools, a game and a few odds and ends to keep you busy this weekend

We all love to discover new apps, but no matter how much the Play Store tries to highlight the quality ones, with hundreds of thousands to choose from it can be a daunting challenge. The best app recommendations we often get are from friends and family about an app "you just have to try". We try to help out with this app discovery problem every week by showing off one app from each of the Android Central writers -- the ones that we're using on a regular basis.

Hang around with us after the break on this Saturday afternoon and find a few new apps to install on your devices for the long weekend.

read more

In honor of memorial day, get FREE SHIPPING all weekend from ShopAndroid.com!

In honor of the Memorial Day Weekend, if you're in the United States you will receive FREE SHIPPING on your ShopAndroid.com order. This special offer is valid all weekend long until Monday night (midnight PT).

We have tons of cases, batteries, chargers, Bluetooth accessories and more for popular Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, so be sure to browse around and take advantage of the savings on shipping.

• Take me to ShopAndroid.com!

Google Play no longer able to pay Argentine Android devs

Google to stop accepting payments for Argentine developers from June 27, apps to be pulled from July 27.

Android developers based in Argentine have received notice from Google that it'll no longer be able to accept payments for them from June 27. A letter from Google to devs, obtained by South American phone site Celularis, indicates that the changes apply to both paid apps and in-app purchases. The Verge points out that the change is likely due to tough new restrictions on currency exchanges recently imposed by the Argentine government. But Celularis notes that despite the changes to Google Play, Google AdSense for mobile continues to operate in the country.

The letter from Google states that it'll stop accepting payments on behalf of Argentine developers from June 27. Paid apps and in-app items from these devs will be pulled a month later, starting July 27, following final payments on July 22. One solution for Argentina-based app developers is to move their account to another country where they're able to legally do business, an option Google itself suggests in its email to developers.

Google states that it hopes to restore payouts to developers based in Argentina in the future, but that "no specific plans are in place at the moment."

Source: Celularis; via: The Verge

Chicago Android Logo New

Since the change to GDG prefix on all groups I thought it wold eb nice if
we had a new GDG Chicago Android Logo.
Is there any guidelines I need to follow other than if using the GDGD logo
matertials keep in the same spirit of things?
Thanks

Re: How to calculate power consumption by each app in android ?

Hey hi,
I just saw your post regarding power tutor software and i also have the
same query. If you got the answer can you please explain me how it works
and all the algorithms it is using.
Regards

RE: Hey

take a look, see what you think [link]

Chicago centric android game that helps benefit Chicago charities

You all should check out GoGo Santa, a fun, Chicago-centric online game to
promote holiday giving to local non-profit arts education organizations.
In GoGo Santa, Santa travels through Chicago neighborhoods, dodging
obstacles and collecting coins. Users allocate points earned among five
non-profit arts education organizations, including Arts of Life, Girls

Geofencing

Does anyone know of any good tutorials for geofencing?

Transitioning to Google Wallet Merchant Center

Posted by Mark Thomas, Product Manager, Google Wallet

A key focus of Google Wallet is to simplify commerce for merchants and shoppers; for over a year now, consumers on Google Play have been using Wallet to make their purchases, to the benefit of the entire ecosystem. Helping merchants benefit from the growing consumer adoption of mobile commerce is where we believe we can make the most impact. And that’s why today we're focusing our efforts on the new Google Wallet Merchant Center and retiring Google Checkout over the next six months.

Most Google Play apps developers will seamlessly transition to the Wallet Merchant Center, which provides new reporting and analytics features and much more. A small number of Google Play developers, however, will see some changes:

• Developers using Google Checkout on their website to sell physical goods or services will no longer be able to use Checkout after November 20, 2013. We have provided some discounted migration options to help with this change. If you are a U.S. merchant selling physical goods and services who does have payment processing, you can apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy, which offers a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers.
• Developers who use the Google Checkout for the Notifications and/or Order Reports API(s) will need to migrate to replacement APIs, made available through Google Play, before November 20, 2013. Watch for announcements on the new APIs soon.

If you sell apps or in-app products in Google Play, you’ll soon have access to the new Wallet Merchant Center. Watch for an email notifying you that that it’s now available to you. We expect to transition all merchants to the Wallet Merchant Center over the next several weeks.

We invite you to join us for our live merchant webinar on May 23, 2013 at 10AM PDT to learn more and ask any outstanding questions. As always, feel free to contact us at any time during this transition. Finally, be sure to check out the exciting updates launched last week at Google I/O (including Instant Buy and Wallet Objects) and stay tuned for more great developer features coming soon!

New Ways to Optimize Your Business in Google Play

Posted by Ellie Powers, Google Play team

This week at I/O, we were excited to announce some updates to Google Play to help you optimize your business on Google Play: to help you take control of your app publishing, gain insight into your users, and expand your app’s success globally.

Play Store’s new view: apps designed for tablets

Many of you have invested in making great tablet experiences for your users, and we want to ensure that that work pays off and that users are able to discover great apps for their tablets. This week, the Google Play store began providing a view of our top charts highlighting apps which have been designed for tablets according to our tablet app quality checklist.

Be sure you don’t miss out! Check that your app’s optimization tips say that your app is designed for tablets, and upload tablet screenshots for 7” and 10” tablets.

Beta testing and staged rollouts

We have introduced support for beta testing and staged rollouts so that you can get feedback on your new app or app update early in its development and make sure your users are happy with the results. You can test two different versions on two different groups at the same time, such as testing a newer version with your employees first, and a more mature version with a group of external testers.

The beta testing is private on Google Play, and you can specify who gets these versions by adding Google Groups and Google+ Communities. Users give you feedback privately rather than through public reviews. When you’re satisfied that your new version is ready, you can now do a staged rollout to a percentage of your userbase. To give you more flexibility in light of beta testing and help get your whole team involved in the Developer Console, we will soon launch additional access controls.

Localization improvements

We’re collaborating with Google's internationalization team to make translating your app into new languages easier than ever. You can purchase professional translations of your apps from independent providers through the Google Play Developer Console. You can upload the strings you want translated, select the languages you want to translate into, and select your translation vendor based on time and price. If you’re interested in translating your apps with this feature, sign up to be a part of the preview in the Developer Console today on the APK page.

The new optimization tips for localization will help you identify new potential opportunities for global expansion based on popular languages for your app’s users and category. To fully localize your app into a language, you need to translate the strings in an APK, translate your Google Play store listing, and upload localized graphics. The optimization tips will also let you know if you’re missing any of these pieces.

New Analytics and monetization features

Getting better revenue and engagement data has been another key developer request, as developers told us that they check their revenue and stats constantly. New revenue charts in the Developer Console allow you to see your app’s daily revenue and summary figures, and you can filter the data by country. Coming soon, Google Play and Google Analytics are teaming up to bring you better insight into your users. Google Analytics will start showing Google Play views and installs for each campaign, while Google Play will show Google Analytics engagement metrics.

For those of you using in-app billing, we’ve heard your feedback and made some improvements to reduce your development time and costs. Your test accounts will now able to make in-app test purchases without those transactions actually being charged, but everything else works the same as it would for a real user.

In a few weeks, we will launch a new Order Status API, which allows you to verify the status of an in-app order from your servers. We will also be launching a tool for automating downloads of financial reports. Finally, the new Google Wallet Merchant Center is continuing to roll out with enhanced reporting, additional analytics and many other enhancements.

Google Play for Education coming soon

You'll soon be able to offer apps to schools through Google Play for Education, which launches later this year to K-12 schools in the United States. This online destination will allow schools to discover, purchase, and distribute apps to their students. Visit developer.android.com/edu to get started creating or optimizing your apps for schools today.

Social Gaming, Location, and More in Google Play Services

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Angana Ghosh, Francesco Nerieri, Francis Ma, and the Google Play services team

Some of the most exciting Android announcements at Google I/O this year are part of our latest Google Play services release, version 3.1.

The new version brings you Google Play games services, part of a new cloud-integrated platform for social gaming based on Google+ identity. Also included are location-based services that make it easier to build efficient location-aware apps. For apps using the popular Google Cloud Messaging platform, you can now take advantage of XMPP messaging and easier setup. Finally, Cross-Platform Single Sign On for Google+ Sign-In is now available to your apps.

You can get started using these APIs and services right away—Google Play services 3.1 is already rolling out to Android devices across the world, with support reaching all the way back to Froyo.

Google Play games services

Games are always popular with Android developers, and the announcement of Google Play game services raised the volume even more.

Google Play games services lets you make your games more social, with achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer, and they help you extend your user’s games across multiple devices by storing game saves and settings in the cloud.

Several great Android games are already using these new game services, including World of Goo, Super Stickman Golf 2, Beach Buggy Blitz, Kingdom Rush, Eternity Warriors 2, and Osmos.

You can take advantage of the new services right away using the games services SDK included in Google Play services. For all the details, check out the Google Play games services documentation.

Location APIs

If you build location-aware Android apps, you’ll want to check out the new location APIs. They make it easy to build accurate, fast, and efficient apps, with new contextual features.

The Fused Location Provider intelligently manages the underlying location technology and gives you the best location according to your needs. We’ve simplified the location APIs and completely rewritten our location algorithm to make location more accurate, flexible and use less battery.

Using the new geofencing API, your app can set up geographic boundaries around specific locations and then receive notifications when the user enters or leaves those areas.

With apps becoming increasingly contextual, understanding what the user is doing is critical to surfacing the right content. A new activity recognition API makes it easy to check the the user’s current activity — still, walking, cycling, and in-vehicle — with very efficient use of the battery. We use low-power sensors and machine-learning classifiers to recognize the activity, giving you both both high accuracy and low battery usage.

To learn more, head over to our training classes at Making Your App Location Aware or dive directly into the reference docs.

Google Cloud Messaging

We’ve added APIs to make it easier to set up GCM in your apps, and in the service itself we’ve added new messaging capabilities for your apps to use.

A new registration API lets your app register with the service using a single method call and begin receiving messages as soon as the call returns.

In the GCM service itself we’ve added support for messaging over XMPP with the new GCM Cloud Connection Server (CCS). Your servers now have a persistent connection over which to send large numbers of messages, very quickly, and with no overhead. New APIs in Google Play services let apps send messages back upstream to third-party servers using CCS, without needing to manage network connections. This helps keep battery and data usage to a minimum.

Also new in the GCM service is a User Notifications API. This new API lets you synchronize notifications across a user’s multiple devices — when the user dismisses a notification on one device, the notification disappears automatically from all the other devices. To get started with GCM, head over to the developer documentation.

Google+ Cross-Platform Single Sign On

Many people use apps on multiple devices throughout the day, switching between their laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. After signing-in to an app on one device, it’s natural that when they pick up a different device and use the same app, they would expect to be signed in there as well.

To help you provide this kind of seamless transition between platforms and stay connected with users across devices, we’re adding Cross-Platform Single Sign On to our Google+ Sign-In capabilities.

If your app is already using Google+ Sign-In, you’ve already got support for Cross-Platform Single Sign On. This feature will be enabled automatically over the coming days.

Cross-Platform Single Sign On gives you a great way to build longer-running, cross-platform user experiences, and it dovetails perfectly with the new Google Play games services for bridging game state across devices using the cloud.

To learn more about Google+ Sign-In, check out http://developers.google.com/+.

More About Google Play Services

Google Play Services is our platform for offering you better integration with Google products, and providing new capabilities to use within your apps. To learn more about Google Play services and the APIs available to you through it, visit the Google Services area of the Android Developers site.

Updating Android JellyBean 4.2

If you are a Mac user you might be frustrated that there is no ODIN3 (Window software).
Actually, it is very easy with adb tool that every Android developer uses.

I am starting with stock Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android 3.0.1 (from Google I/O).



STEP 1)

Get cyanogenmod for your SPECIFIC device, get most stable version there is:
Example for Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi only model
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/P4wifi_Info
I got cm-10.1-20130522-NIGHTLY-p4wifi.zip




STEP 2)

Get Google Apps for Android 4.2.2,
you can easily find by searching "gapps-jb-2013"
http://rapidshare.com/files/3580601868/gapps-jb-20130301-signed.zip



STEP )
Get ClockworkMod CWM recovery.img

http://www.clockworkmod.com/rommanager



STEP ) Inspect if there is no update in Kies (USB Debugging OFF), you can use them for file transfer, too



STEP ) Transfer there 2 ZIP files to /sdcard/  (USB Debugging ON)
uki:platform-tools uki$ adb push /Users/uki/Documents/Android/Google_apps/gapps-jb-20130301-signed.zip /sdcard/




STEP )
Turn OFF tablet by holding POWER button

STEP )
START device in fast boot mode:
- hold VOLUME-DOWN (closer to power button) and press POWER button until device boots,
- select Fastboot, NOT download by pressing volume-down, make selection by pressing VOLUME-UP

STEP )
See if you can see your device
STEP )
wipe data/factory reset

*** Yes...

STEP )
select advanced
select - wipe Dalvik cache

*** Yes
*** Go Back ***

STEP)
select install zip from sdcard
choose..   cm-10.1-2013......-p4wifi.zip from sdcard
*** Yes...


STEP )
install gapps-jb-2013.....zip from sdcard

STEP )
restart, press POWER button for 10 seconds
- unplug,

If it fails recover backup (should not happen)

STEP)
IMPORTANT!!! To enable "USB Debugging" and other {} Developer options:
Settings -> About tablet -> CLICK "Build number" line 6 times!!!!!!

I guess the last one is for the code gurus that spent 6 years in the high mountains writing this, one click per year. :)


STEP )
Update Android SKD Manager to versions 16 & 17

• set 'Auto-correction' to 'Off' 
• set 'Show correction options' to 'Always hide'.

Default Google Account

I have a couple of Google accounts:
- my name @google.com
- my company email which is also done via Google

To change DEFAULT google account I had to sign OUT from all and sign in FIRST with the one I want as default.

For some Google entities I had to do it in reverse as my new email did not work with them.

Animation of 3D mesh in Unity3D

1. importing the mesh with animation from Maja to Unity3D
2. setting the position of the mesh
3. testing the animation and adjusting 

Google Developers Group Chicago Android June 2013

When:
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (CDT)

Where:
1871
West Merchandise Mart Plaza
Chicago, IL 60654

Hosted By:
ChicagoAndroid.com

 

Chicago Android

mobile platform think-tank and development team organized by Uki D. Lucas

 

Group of entrepreneurs and developers specializing in creating Android (as well as tablet, iPhone, Blackberry) applications.

Register for this event now at:
http://chicagoandroid201306-rss.eventbrite.com

Event Details:

TBD

 

 

 LINKS:

• Google+ event link
• developers.google.com