Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Android Honeycomb
Google, in an interesting but not entirely unexpected twist, will not be open-sourcing Android 3.0 Honeycomb for the foreseeable future.

Historically, Android is usually open-sourced via the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) a few days or weeks after the code is finalized. While this departure from the norm won't affect OEMs like HTC and Motorola that have access to internal builds of Android, small-time developers will likely have to wait months before rolling their own distributions.

As to why Google is holding back Honeycomb, its reasons are actually rather rational. Honeycomb, while originally intended to run on all mobile form factors, is only ready for deployment on tablets. "To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."

In other words, Google wants to prevent OEMs and homebrew developers like Cyanogen from rolling their own smartphone versions of Honeycomb -- it doesn't want to see the same bitter-tasting tabletified bastardization that occurred with Android 2.1 and 2.2 last year.

Continue reading Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android

Google holds back on open-sourcing Honeycomb, heralds massive shift for Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/25/google-holds-back-on-open-sourcing-honeycomb-heralds-shift-android/

INFORMATICA AMERICA MOVIL ROCKWELL AUTOMATION YAHOO SKYWORKS SOLUTIONS ORACLE ADOBE SYSTEMS

Altaro Hyper-V Backup beta launched, only 250 places available

hyper-vbackupbeta
This one's for the sysadmins in the audience: Altaro, makers of our favorite "time machine for Windows" back solution, OopsBackup, have just announced a new product entering beta called Hyper-V Backup.

It's a backup solution for virtual machines running on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization solution. If that sentence just seemed like a bunch of buzzwords crammed together, Hyper-V backup is not for you. But, if you actually use Hyper-V and are hankering for a good backup solution, Altaro might be worth checking out.

The beta run is limited - Altaro are looking for just 250 testers. All participants will get a free license key to the final, production version. So if you're interested in helping test Hyper-V Backup, get yourself over to Altaro now and join the beta.

Altaro Hyper-V Backup beta launched, only 250 places available originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/02/altaro-hyper-v-backup-beta-launched-only-250-places-available/

TIBCO SOFTWARE PLANAR SYSTEMS SES BT GROUP MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR SONUS NETWORKS

Artist Brings Street View Bystanders Back Into the Real World [Street View]

Countless thousands have become the subject of candid photos thanks to Google's Street View campaign. After they're photographed, their faces are dutifully blurred, and they stand as digital statutes in cyberspace, but one artist likes bringing them back into the real world. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/EdkltJ49i5s/artist-brings-street-view-bystanders-back-into-the-real-world

MILLICOM INTL CELLULAR PEROT SYSTEMS WESTERN DIGITAL CHINA MOBILE POWERCHIP SEMICONDUCTOR MICROSOFT HON HAI PRECISION IND

The Canadian Government Accidentally Ran a Bunch of Ads on the Pirate Bay [Piracy]

The Pirate Bay tends to be a website that national governments aren't particularly fond of. That being the case, it'd be surprising if a national government ran ads on the site, advertising an Economic Action Plan, right? Canada did that, but not on purpose. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/eLjctEOWihE/the-canadian-government-accidentally-ran-a-bunch-of-ads-on-the-pirate-bay

HON HAI PRECISION IND INTEL QUANTA COMPUTER ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL SALESFORCE COM STANDARD MICROSYSTEMS DIRECTV GROUP

Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7

evoluce win&i windows 7 gesture control kinect
We've been looking at some pretty cool Kinect and Windows interactions for a while now, but we were hoping that the release of an official SDK would lead to even more coolness. Evoluce has stepped up, and is now offering Win&I -- a full-featured gesture control system for Windows 7.

The company claims that a range of up to four meters is supported, which should be perfect for just about any home theater setting. In the video embedded after the break, you can see an Evoluce demonstrator flip through a photo album, pan through a map, rearrange application windows, browse the Web, and control media playback. Two versions of Win&I are offered -- the home version goes for about 20 Euros, the business version for 40.

Anyone else having fun pretending his stance is a little "Iron Man"? We're tempted to put a repulsor on that hand.

Continue reading Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7

Evoluce Win&I brings Kinect gesture controls to Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/01/evoluce-winandi-controls-windows-7-with-a-kinect-sensor/

NOKIA DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES GOOGLE NOVELLUS SYSTEMS SYNNEX QIMONDA LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS

Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.2 gets smarter, faster

auslogics defrag
Auslogics Disk Defrag has been part of my system maintenance toolkit for quite some time. With the release of version 3.2, it's now even better at tidying up and optimizing your system's hard disk drives. In addition to a cleaner, easier-to-use interface, Disk Defrag 3.2 offers improved single file and folder defragging, better processing of multiple disks, a simplified scheduling screen, and more informative tool tips. Auslogics has also fine-tuned the program's defragmentation and file consolidation algorithms.

For laptop users, there's a new option to lock the program if your system is running on battery power -- so scheduled operations don't kick in and drain your power source at an inopportune moment. If you happen to have an SSD installed in your PC, you can head to the Disk Defrag options and exclude it from scanning (many think that defragmenting an SSD is a very bad idea).

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free download and works with most versions of Windows.

Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.2 gets smarter, faster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/auslogics-disk-defrag-3-2-gets-smarter-faster/

PEROT SYSTEMS WESTERN DIGITAL CHINA MOBILE POWERCHIP SEMICONDUCTOR MICROSOFT HON HAI PRECISION IND INTEL

Can Google Map a Path Back to iOS?

Google is reported to be working on a standalone map app for iOS, about three months after Apple replaced the original Google map app in iOS with its own product, for iOS 6. The news comes as Apple is plagued by almost daily reports of problems with its own mapping app. Whether Apple will approve a standalone Google Maps app for inclusion in its iTunes App Store remains to be seen. "They don't want to lose all the iOS users in terms of understanding what they're doing and how they're doing it," Maribel Lopez, principal analyst at Lopez Research, told MacNewsWorld.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/23e20414/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C762560Bhtml/story01.htm

INGRAM MICRO NOVELL INTERNATIONAL RECTIFIER MICROSOFT ECLIPSYS APPLE COMPUTER GRUPO IUSACELL

Razer Blade review (late 2012)

Second-generation Razer Blade review

Razer has made a habit of catching us off guard -- breaking the mold as an accessory manufacturer by building laptops, prototype game handhelds and controller-toting tablets. Their Blade laptop cut through our expectations as well, featuring a beautiful aluminum shell and one of the thinnest profiles of any gaming rig on the market. It had some serious flaws, though: it was underpowered, had minor build issues and simply fell short in the audio department. Its maker, apparently, wasn't deterred: mere months after the original Blade's own debut, Razer is now introducing a successor.

Most of the changes are internal: this model swaps out the original's Sandy Bridge CPU and last-generation NVIDIA graphics for a newly announced 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-3632QM processor and a Kepler-based GeForce GTX 660M GPU. It caught our interest -- Razer had previously insisted its first laptop wasn't built just for power, but for a premium experience. Now, the firm seems to be focusing on both (now that's a premium experience we can get behind). So, is this upgrade enough to make up for the OG version's shortcomings? Read on to find out.

Continue reading Razer Blade review (late 2012)

Filed under: ,

Razer Blade review (late 2012) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Sep 2012 03:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/2LrLxE70QVI/

FISERV DIGITAL CHINA HOLDINGS ARIAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT PRICELINECOM ASUSTEK COMPUTER CISCO SYSTEMS FINISAR