Archive for August, 2011

LG announces 3D game converter, beneficial for Android Game Developers

Aug 30, 2011 Android Development Resources

Instead of waiting till next week for the IFA 2011 held in Berlin next week, LG has given us a sneak peak at what to expect from them. They plan to demonstrate the world’s first OpenGL-based 2D to 3D game conversion engine available on a smartphone platform.

The conversion engine is developed in an effort to “widen consumer adoption of 3D devices as gaming platforms” and you can get a look at it in the LG Optimus 3D. The Android device would be released by October, 2011 and it would include the 3D Game Converter.

“Our Game Converter is a major breakthrough for this industry,” said Dr. Jong-Seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Mobile gaming is a huge trend on the cusp of massive growth and LG is determined to be the de facto leader in this space.”

According to LG, this is beneficial for both Android game developers and Android smartphone users.  Smaller game developers can offer 3D versions of their existing 2D games while users can play 2D games in 3D with no extra charge. Android users can switch back to the 2D version whenever they wish. All they need to do activate the 3D game converter installed in the device.

Source LG

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Get Answers on your Android Device with Ask.com’s Android Application

Aug 24, 2011 Android Development Resources

Ask.com has re-doubled its efforts on the Q&A platform and now after hitting more than a million downloads of the iPhone app Ask.com has released its Android app.

Ask.com for Android is available in the Android Market and Amazon AppStore for free. The app includes all features which were available in the iPhone app.

Features of Ask.com


• Get the top answers from the web Instantly
• Follow interesting people in the community
• Get alerts for questions as soon as your answer comes in
• Answers from real people
• Voice-to-Text

Along with these features, the Android Application has an added feature which is not available in the iPhone app. You can browse questions based on your interests. This allows you to filter Q&A based on your preference. Requires Android 2.2 or higher and is compatible with any Android phone

Feel the thrills and Chills with Zombie Juice: Android App Review

Aug 23, 2011 Android App Reviews

If you are looking for an exciting and fun-filled Android game, then look no further! Get your thrills and chills with BiFrost Studios newly developed Android Application – Zombie Juice. The Android game has got action packed gameplay that will certainly keep you entertained and thrilled. It’s colorful and has got some really interesting and varied Zombies avatars which makes it all the more exciting and different.

The game starts out with people boarding up their houses in the face of the Zompocalypse spreading through the city and surrounding suburbs! You need to stop the zombies from attacking your front yard by slicing through them. It’s made more interesting with the feature where you have to avoid slicing a “dog”. The more number of the zombies you slice in a row, the more points you get. As you progress in the game, you un-lock cool collection of weapons like kitchen knife, explosive, garden gnomes, lawn mower to name a few. There are two modes which you can choose from, survival and 90 secs play where you have to kill as many Zombies as possible in 90 seconds.  You can collect Medallions for prestigious zombie destruction.

Zombie Juice has been developed for easy gameplay and gets a definite Thumbs up. With its blend of varied zombies, household arsenal which you can unlock at different stages of the game and creative charm, Zombie Juice is quite addictive and a definite download.

This Android Application is available in the Android Market for $1.06

Screenshots:


App Name: Zombie Juice Rating:1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Category: Arcade & Action

Price: $1.06
Developer: Bifrost Studios

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Google TV add-on for Android SDK available for Android App Developers

Aug 23, 2011 Android App Development

At the Google I/O conference this May, Google announced that it would soon start to give Android support to the Google TV, which was good news for Android App Developers. Now we are a step closer to achieving this. Android developers can check out a preview released by Google of a Google TV plug-in for the Android SDK.

All Google TV Devices will be compatible with Android which creates new scope for Android App development. Android developers can develop applications for TV, optimize existing Android apps for TV and distribute them through the Android Market.
The new add-ons do not carry all features of Google TV.

Ambarish Kenghe, Product Manager for Google TV, said in a post “It enables developers to emulate Google TV and build apps using standard Android SDK tools. It also provides new APIs for TV interaction, such as TV channel line-up. Google TV emulation is currently supported on Linux with KVM only, and we are working on support for other operating systems. We’re very happy that through KVM we’ve been able to create a fast Android emulator for TV.”

Android Developers can run a test on their apps to determine if it is compatible with Google TV. Depending on its design and use case applications would be able to run on TV, else developers would have to tweak their apps for a good fit.

Developers can look forward to UI guidelines which would be soon published by Google to help with topics such as optimizing for D-pad navigation, presenting information for 10-foot viewing, designing apps that work well across devices, etc. It would also include information on how certain UI elements on Google TV differ from other Android devices.

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Nielson Report: Android users prefer Android Applications to Web

Aug 19, 2011 Android Development Resources

Nielson has released a report showing us how Android users spend their time with their Android devices.
The report, which uses data from thousands of smartphone owners, tells us that the average Android phone owner spends 56 minutes per day using either apps or the mobile Web, with two-thirds of that time spent in apps and the remainder on the Web.


The report also shows us that with more than 250,000 Android applications available, users spend majority of their time on the top 10 Android apps. Users spend approximately 60% of their time on the top 50 Android apps.

“With 250,000+ Android apps available at the time of this writing, that means the remaining 249,950+ apps have to compete for the remaining 39 percent of the pie,” stated Nielsen in its report.

Mozilla releases new version of Firefox for Android, new APIs for Android developers

Aug 18, 2011 News

Firefox has just rolled out its latest update to all desktop browsers. Android users can also download Firefox browsers as Mozilla has pushed the latest version to the Android Market.

The BETA version 6.0 has an awesome screen which makes browsing a lot easier. The new first-run experience gets you directly to the home page and briefly shows you browser features in the side panels. Firefox starts up faster and uses less memory.

Firefox has added some cool new features and add-ons. And some interesting new API’s for Android developers to try out.

Here are some “Under the Hood “features for Android developers:

  • The same browser engine as Firefox for desktop
  • Fast JavaScript engine, using Mozilla’s JägerMonkey just-in-time compiler
  • Leading web standards compatibility
  • Optimized for ARM processors
  • Location-Aware Browsing

Download your version of Firefox browser from the Android Market

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