Google Android - The Android Log
Android Developers Blog - Example Application, A stitch in Time
November 22nd, 2007 by Head RobotPosted by Dick Wall, Google Developer Programs, on the Android Developers Blog
Background: While developing my first useful (though small) application for Android, which was a port of an existing utility I use when podcasting, I needed a way of updating a clock displayed on the UI at regular intervals, but in a lightweight and CPU efficient way.
Problem: In the original application I used java.util.Timer to update the clock, but that class is not such a good choice on Android. Using a Timer introduces a new thread into the application for a relatively minor reason. Thinking in terms of mobile applications often means re-considering choices that you might make differently for a desktop application with relatively richer resources at its disposal. We would like to find a more efficient way of updating that clock.
The Application: The rest of the story of porting the application will be detailed in future blog entries, but if you are interested in the application in question and the construction of it, you can read about it in a not-so-recent Developer.com article about using Matisse (a GUI builder for Swing). The original application is a Java Swing and SE application. It is like a stopwatch with a lap timer that we use when recording podcasts; when you start the recording, you start the stopwatch. Then for every mistake that someone makes, you hit the flub button. At the end you can save out the bookmarked mistakes which can be loaded into the wonderful Audacity audio editor as a labels track. You can then see where all of the mistakes are in the recording and edit them out.
Learn how the application was built and grab the source code at, Android Developers Blog: A Stitch in Time
Technorati Tags: Android, Application, Google, SDK, example, source-code
The Google Set-Top Box (Think Android For TV)
November 21st, 2007 by Head Robot
Posted this morning on Tech Crunch:
Deep in the Googleplex there is an engineering team thinking about how to extend Google’s reach into your TV. Its work goes way beyond the Google TV ads currently being tested by EchoStar (and targeted with help from Nielsen). It even goes way beyond the development of a Google set-top box, which has been hinted at in the past. In fact, Google may very well want to do to the set-top box what it is trying to do to the mobile phone with its Android operating system—create an open-source hardware platform and attract developers to build applications on top of it. At least that is the unconfirmed rumor I’ve heard from two knowledgeable industry sources.
“That’s been a persistent rumor, yeah,” says Peter Barrett, chief technology officer for Microsoft TV (and the only source willing to be attributed by name). “You would have to ask them about whether they are doing anything like that and whether it is a good idea or not,” he adds. So I put the question to Vincent Dureau, the head of Google’s TV technology team and the former chief technology officer at OpenTV, who was hired by Google two years ago. “There are rumors about what Google does all the time,” he says. “We have been totally focused on advertising so far.” Google’s policy is not to comment on future products. But Dureau never denies the rumor outright. He couches his response with phrases like “so far” and “at this stage.” And, when pressed, he does allow that there is “a lot of potential” for turning the TV set-top box into a platform for applications, but insists, “I have no insights as to what form of applications will be deployed on those set-top boxes or not.” Perhaps. Or perhaps he just doesn’t have any insights he is willing to share with us. Fair enough.
Read the rest of the article, The Google Set-Top Box (Think Android For TV)
Technorati Tags: Google, Android, Television, Advertising, Android, TV, Set-Top