Tag: mobile apps

Articles

Facebook Adding QR Codes To Android App, Directing Scanners To Users’ Profiles? – AllFacebook

Facebook Adds QR Codes To Android App | 2D Code

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You are at the party or favourite bar and you have started to chat with someone very well. But you mention that you are on Facebook and they say that they are also on that same social network. You ask if it is OK to “friend them” on Facebook and they agree.

The next thing you do is ask for their name to search for them in your Facebook mobile app. This can be very difficult in a noisy environment or if they have a name that has a particular spelling or is one of many common names. Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick – you have found that person and are sending a “Friend Request”to them.

Now Facebook have improved on this for the latest version of their Android mobile client by using the QR code to simplify the profile-sharing process. Here, you bring up “Friends” in the drop-down menu. Then you tap “Find Friends” which shows the “People You May Know” list. Touch the “QR Code” button on the top right of your display to show a QR code that represents a link to your Profile.

If you are adding your companion to your Friends list, you then tap “Scan Code” and point your Android phone’s camera at the QR code that your companion is showing on their Android phone’s screen using this same client. This takes you to their Timeline which would have any “public” posts that are on it as well as the option to add them as a Friend.

I don’t see this as a controversial feature for Facebook because you have to be pulling up your Facebook Profile’s QR code in the presence of your companion who then has to use their device running the client app to scan that code – you are not intending to “friend them” behind their back.

This function could be taken further for businesses who have Facebook Pages or people who use Facebook Pages as a way to maintain a sanitised “public” profile. As well, if a person maintains a Page for their business or blog along with their personal Profile, the QR code could lead the user to a screen with an option to go to the Page which you then “like” to follow or the Profile with an option to “subscribe” (see only public Posts and Photos) or “add Friend” (be seen as a Facebook Friend with standard privileges).

Similarly, other social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn could implement this technology to allow people to attract followers or connections. NFC technology can also be exploited to achieve the same functionality as these QR codes for “there-and-then” access to contact profiles.

Article

A Wi-Fi Kettle That Messages Instead of Whistling When It Boils

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We are seeing more of the so-called “app-cessories” become available for most of the household appliances that are part of our lives. These have the household appliance and other devices gain Bluetooth to a mobile device or use the home network to link to the same mobile devices or regular computers and implement an app to add the extra functionality to these appliances. It will become the way where your iOS or Android device will become crowded out with the apps that are part of the “app-cessory” trend.

Now the electric kettle or jug has bitten this trend with a base that connects to the home network via Wi-Fi. Here, the “iKettle” electric jug works with a smartphone app that and your home network to add certain functions that drop in to your lifestyle.

For example, if you like to make that cup of tea late at night while you catch up on a favourite TV show lingering on that TiVo device or “prowl around” Facebook on that iPad on the kitchen island bench, you don’t have to worry about the loud whistle that it makes when the water’s boiled waking the rest of the household up. Instead, it effectively “pages you” through your mobile device.

Similarly, you could set it to start boiling at a known time so that the water’s ready so you can make that pot of plunger coffee when you have surfaced for the day. This is achieved using the same app exposing a timer function. This function also includes the ability to set up particular temperatures such as the 95 degrees Celsius ideal for making coffee and tea; or 55 degrees Celsius  setting for water you quickly boil up for washing dishes because the water heater packed it in.

A problem that I see with the “app-cessory” concept as it is that most manufacturers can create their own islands and not allow the devices to be exposed to control and monitoring applications and setups other than their own setup. This can avoid the idea of creating environments where a device can respond to another device in a manner to create the “lifestyle mood” or assist its users. For example, having a kettle like this could interlink with a screen to guide a person with dementia through the process of making a cup of tea or similarly, if you have your kettle full before you leave home, you could have it start boiling when you enter your alarm code to disarm your house alarm as you arrive.

At least there is the flourishing concept of making a smartphone work with appliances as a lifestyle device.

Article

Train Commuters Rejoice: YouTube Adding Offline Viewing to Apps – Streaming Media Magazine

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Most of us who want to use our smartphones or tablets to view video content “on the road” may be either using a low-allowance mobile data plan or travelling through areas where Internet access isn’t guaranteed. Examples of this may include underground (subway) trains, air travel or long-distance train travel. As well, you may be using a Wi-Fi-only device like low-tier tablets or MP3 players.

Google have revised the iOS and Android YouTube apps to allow you to download video content for later viewing. These apps will keep the content of 48 hours but it would come in handy when you are “loading up” with content at your home network or public-access Wi-Fi network before you set off.

I see this as being commensurate with Google’s new direction for YouTube where they want to use this service for hosting content that is beyond cat videos. The catch-up and on-demand TV services could follow this line so as to increase their utility to travellers who want to catch up with favourite TV serials.

Similarly, Google could release an official YouTube app with this function for the regular-computer platforms as well as other mobile platforms like Windows Phone 8 so as to court users who use Ultrabooks or Nokia Lumia phines for this purpose.

Most computer and video games are written in USA or Japan, mainly through larger studios like EA, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and others.

This is typically because of the common platforms such as the main console platforms where the barriers of entry to the platform are very significant. The regular-computer (PC / Mac) and mobile platforms aren’t as exacting as the main console platforms and are in a better position to nurture more games developers. This is although Microsoft was running the XNA game-development program for their XBox 360 console which opened up game development for this platform.

The regular-computer and mobile platforms are opening up the “indie” game-development community which is independent of the main US and Japanese studios. A key example of this is Rovio, a Dutch games studio who built up the successful “Angry Birds” game franchise for the mobile platforms.

Europe has had a chance at the development of computer games through the 1980s while computing platforms like the Commodore Amiga which had an open-access software development environment existed. Similarly, when the Philips CD-I format gained a bit of a foothold in the European market in the mid 1990s, a few European games studios developed games like Burn Cycle for that format. But these were systems that had some level of popularity primarily in Europe.

Typically most of these efforts see their results achieve some sort of “domestic” popularity where the game is popular in its home market. But Rovio, a Finnish independent games studio, had cut through this barrier by releasing the popular “Angry Birds” game franchise, initially to the iOS and Android mobile platforms. But this was so popular worldwide that they ported it out to other non-mobile platforms like the PlayStation Portable and the two main regular-computing platforms, Windows and MacOS X.

The Android-driven OUYA games console is in a position to allow the independent games studios to write for the large-screen console market because it has access to the Google Play app store and the Android knowhow. This could open up paths for games studios in the under-represented areas like Europe and Oceania to cut in to the gaming mainstream. Similarly, there were a few other games consoles such as the “Steam Box” being premiered at the Consumer Electronics Show early this year. These console platforms, along with the Android and iOS mobile platforms, could light up the independent gaming scene and encourage the development of games titles in these areas.

As well, governments and local industry associations could establish incubation programs for the computer and video games industry in these areas. This could come in the form of, per se, a culture ministry treating gaming / interactive-entertainment development in a similar manner to other arts and culture endowment programs. On the other hand, an entertainment-content district like India’s “Bollywood” extending their brand and concept to interactive entertainment like what has happened with Hollywood.

Once you have other countries and areas having interactive-entertainment studios and engaged in computer and video games, it can allow a lot more to occur. For example, games can be reflective of different cultures rather than a Hollywood-led “aggressive” culture. Similarly, a game that is set in the modern era like some adventure and strategy games can be set up to reflect a locale other than the suburbia of USA.

Lately, Apple pulled the pin from Google’s YouTube app by not including it with the iOS 6 distribution. As well, they worked on their own maps platform for this same distribution rather than continue to use Google’s mapping platform. In some cases, there have been functionality or security weaknesses in the Android or iOS operating platform which require Apple or Google to furnish a new “point-level” distribution of the operating system. This also applies if they want to roll up the operating platform to a new requirement.

These updates typically require the host device to be restarted as part of the update process. As well, the process of downloading the complete package to fix a problem could place the device at risk of being put out of action if the connection failed. In some cases, the mobile operating-platform vendor puts off rolling out a needed patch until they have to add extra key functionality that makes it worth the while to deliver a major update.

Compare this to how an app for these platforms is kept up to date. Once you download the app from your operating platform’s app store, it is always checked for the latest version updates. Once there is a new version of the app available, the software is placed on the “Updates” list so you can start a bulk update or, depending on the platform and app store, you could set up an automatic app update so that the software is updated in the background.

Personally, I would like to see baseline functions for mobile computing devices made available as separately-updatable apps. This practice, of what Google has done with keeping YouTube and Google Maps up to date on Android, allows the functions like music / media players, email / messaging apps and the like to be kept up to date in a similar manner to the app you download from the platform’s app store.

Here, the platform developer could keep a mapping program up to date and behaving properly or add functionality to and improve the quality of the music player without having to wait for the next operating-system update. The user then experiences the mapping program, music player up to date to new requirements and working properly by just simply calling in to the app store and checking the update panel.

For the developer, they can have teams working on maintaining these apps and rolling out the updates as they are signed off and ready while another team can hone the baseline operating system through its lifecycle. In some cases, it could allow the developer to do things like prepare peripheral-interface code for new peripheral-device types and have that delivered as needed to the devices.

In this case, if Apple used this practice for keeping their Maps function up to date, they can be sure that their fanbois can update the function without having to download a “point” version of iOS 6 to their devices. Similarly, Google could “fix up” Android function apps that are misbehaving frequently and allow their users to see a stable Android device.

Article

Follow the 2012 Olympic games on your iOS or Android phone | CNet

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London 2012 Official Results App

Whatever side of the world you are on, you will be wanting to keep tabs on the Olympic Games in London. For example, you may want to know whether your country is clawing the Gold medals or a favoured athlete is performing well in the sport you are watching. It can even extend to knowing when a new world record has been set or broken.

But the problem is that you may be watching it during that Olympics party that you are attending or hosting at home and everyone runs in to the living room for that key race where that record is being set or broken. Or you are watching an Olympics event in that crowded bar and you want to make sure you can get that drink without missing that record-breaker or gold-medal performance. A good thing to do is to equip your smartphone with an Olympics sports-scoreboard app. Like most apps of this kind, these are offered for free by a sports publisher or broadcaster or one of the official sponsors of the sport.

These apps will benefit people who are on the other side of the world where the activities occur overnight and they may not be able to follow them in real time. Here, the sports scoreboard apps can be useful for checking on the scores for the events that just occurred as part of starting your day’s activities so you can decide whether to watch the replays or not.

Your local official broadcaster, like the NBC in America, may run a scoreboard app for the major mobile platforms. There is also a good scoreboard that is offered by Samsung for both the iOS and Android platforms. This one offers the scoreboard for each of the fixtures as well as a medal tally and the ability to track an event or athlete. The limitation with this is that you cannot track a country team, whether for team-driven or individual-driven sports. ScoreMobile currently offers an “event alert” for medals and breaking news, but nothing more.

It is still worth considering these apps as part of “tooling up” your smartphone or tablet computer for the Olympics so you can have the best value out of these games when you use these devices.

I was talking with a friend about the status quo with in-vehicle navigation options and what can be done about it. He was remarking about the way the vehicle builders don’t provide a smooth path for improving these systems through the vehicle’s service life.

The current situation

Typically the feature is rolled out in to mid-range to high-end vehicles as a standard option or an add-on option depending on the vehicle’s trim level. Then, if the vehicle owner wants to keep the maps in the system up to date, they have to take the car to the vehicle dealership and have the data updated there, which knocks them back by a decent amount.

It can be a problem when, in some countries like Australia where the roads aren’t likely to be icy, the service life of a vehicle i.e. the number of years between the time the vehicle leaves the factory and the time it ends up on the scrapheap tends to be in the order of ten years or more. In this situation, there isn’t the guarantee that an OEM navigation platform could be supported by the manufacturers for that duration whether in the form of new software or map data. As well, technology marches on with many improvements in this space and users of these systems can feel as though they are effectively “stuck” with these systems in their current form.

Similarly, people who buy portable navigation devices aka “GPS units” or “sat-navs” have to purchase map updates from the device’s manufacturer at a princely sum. It doesn’t matter whether the update is to add extra coverage or functionality to the device or update the maps therein.

Toshiba AT1So 7″ Android tablet – an alternative to in-car or portable GPS units

The smartphone or tablet is making these devices less relevant due to the integration of a navigation solution which has constantly-updated maps that can be downloaded for free via the Internet. Drivers can then go to mobile-phone accessory stores and purchase aftermarket mounts that attach to the dashboard or windscreen (windshield) of the car no matter how old it is so they can easily and safely operate the smartphone or tablet from the driver’s seat.

What can vehicle builders do

If a vehicle builder wants to make these options relevant to the smartphone / tablet user, they could take one of a few paths.

One path that can be used as a cheaper option would be to use the MirrorLink system which allows the dashboard-based control surface to become a control terminal for the smartphone or tablet. This could use an Android or iOS app that works as a MirrorLink server for the handset or tablet.

Another, would be to provide a user-removable 7” Android tablet in a similar form to the previously-reviewed Toshiba AT1S0 tablet that installs in to a dashboard space and works as a car navigation system but updates itself from the home network or a 3G link. The tablet could also be a loading point for various “trip-computer”, advanced-navigation and infotainment apps like TuneIn Radio. This method also has the advantage of being sold as an option that dealers can supply to customers as a deal-maker when the vehicle is being sold.

The last option would be the integrated navigation option that has the ability to be updated via a home network or a 3G link. This setup could be monetised through the provision of advanced-navigation apps like branded “find-nearest” tools, tour guides or directories. As well, this can be used as an app platform in itself for developing software that appeals to all users or a subset thereof. Of course, the apps can be downloaded via the abovementioned home network or 3G link.

What can be done for aftermarket car infotainment

The aftermarket infotainment scene can use similar paths for improved smartphone / tablet relevance. This class has to appeal to vehicles built across a very long timeframe typically since the 1950s and, in the case of new vehicles that had integrated infotainment options, is catered for with conversion kits.

One path could be to supply 2-DIN “media” head units that work as MirrorLink terminals that work with MirrorLink mobile devices. This can be varied through the use of a 1-DIN unit with a retractable or satellite screen.

Another path would be a “media” head unit that has an app platform and the ability to update via a 3G or home-network connection. This could be furnished in the form of a 2-DIN unit or a 1-DIN unit with a retractable or satellite screen.

The last option would be a 1-DIN head unit that supports full integration with 5” smartphone or 7” tablet. The smartphone or tablet would be able to be installed in a dashboard or windscreen mount and link to the head unit via Bluetooth or USB, similar to the status quo for most smartphone / in-car infotainment setups. In this environment, both these devices can work together with navigation looked after by the smartphone or tablet and the head unit offering basic control options like volume control or content selection offered by knobs and buttons.

Conclusion

What needs to happen with OEM and aftermarket vehicle navigation and infotainment is that there has to be support for updating, upgrading and improvement. This could be facilitated through the use of open-frame platforms like Android or Windows RT; as well as constant update paths with access to complimentarily-available map data for Google and similar sources.

It also includes encompassing the vehicle in the home network when it is at home as well as linking it with affordable mobile-broadband services.