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.

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

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Open-mesh PC case keeps heat, dust bunnies at bay

open-mesh-pc-case-keeps-heat-dust-bunnies-at-bay

If you haven't done it in a while, opening your PC case can be like a slasher flick -- you know you'll see something disgusting, but you're never sure what. Taiwan's YoungYear Electronics claims to stop the horror with its Green Mesh case, which has neither fans to suck dust, nor filters, and keeps your components cool with a "chimney effect" instead. It's this same action that repels dust out the top, so that only one quarter the usual amount of filth is drawn in -- according to the company. The only downside is that with poor heat dissipation, the maximum power supply unit size is 300 watts -- which probably scratches it off the list for most modders or power-users. For the rest, if you don't mind your computer's innards blowing in the breeze, at least you'd have no nasty case-opening frights.

Open-mesh PC case keeps heat, dust bunnies at bay originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 19:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/OxcEsTCTEV4/

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Chainmail Building, Stained-Plexiglas Water Tower, and More [Most Beautiful Items Of The Week]

We've got a bunch of gorgeous things to show you this week. A two-legged desk, a giant staircase building, an island home, and so much more make up the most beautiful items of the week. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/OaQpQ__VtpY/chainmail-building-stained+plexiglas-water-tower-and-more

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Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features

opera 11.10 battery power
Just recently, the Opera 11.10 release candidate was made available for download. It brought a handful of important feature additions -- like HTML5 File API support and IMAP enhancements -- and loads of bugfixes. Nestled in amongst the other details in the Opera team's announcement is one more interesting tidbit: Opera 11.10 offers improved battery optimizations.

The timing here is certainly interesting, what with Microsoft's recent report on how much power the top five Web browsers consume. In its findings, Opera 11 was fairly low in the standings. While we've not seen any new benchmarks yet, we're curious to know whether the Opera 11.10 RC offers any significant gains.

If you're running Opera 11.10 on a laptop, let us know if you're seeing an improvement in your battery life while browsing!

Opera 11.10 includes improved power saving features originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/opera-11-10-includes-improved-power-saving-features/

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Bushnell HD Torch – Now Even Flashlights Have Gone HD

I love flashlights and sometimes spend hours looking at them on various retail web sites. But you have to admit, other than size, style and lumens, there really isn’t THAT much of a difference from one torch to another. That’s why I was really excited when I stumbled upon the Bushnell HD Torch during a surfing session. I’d [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/06/07/bushnell-hd-torch-now-even-flashlights-have-gone-hd/

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Fruit Flavored Envelopes Will Have You Abandoning Email For Handwritten Letters [Genius]

Sometimes innovation doesn't come in the form of faster clockspeeds or extra pixels crammed into a display. Sometimes it's as simple as creating a line of envelopes with a lickable adhesive flap that tastes like grapes, cherries, and strawberries. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/UL87WyJfRyQ/fruit-flavored-envelopes-will-have-you-abandoning-email-for-handwritten-letters

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Adobe Flash 11.3 checks in with security fixes, OS X silent updater and Firefox sandbox in tow

adobe-flash-11-3-security-fixes-os-x-firefox

While feverishly revamping Flash with the all-new Next version -- to keep HTML5 from killing it -- Adobe is still plugging the current incarnation with smaller updates. To that end, Flash 11.3 just popped out of beta, which sees the company add a few notable goodies for the beleaguered plugin. On top of filling seven critical security holes, Adobe added a background updating feature for Mac OS X and signed the code in preparation for compatibility with Mountain Lion. That way it'll align it with the upcoming Gatekeeper feature in the next OS X release, though you'll have to dial its max security down one notch to get it. Lastly, sandboxing -- already in Chrome -- has been tacked on to Firefox as well, slowing hackers by isolating the plugin from critical system processes. All that fresh duct tape and polyfill should keep Flash rattling along -- until Adobe can pull the gleaming Next platform out of the hangar. Meanwhile, click the source for the download links.

Adobe Flash 11.3 checks in with security fixes, OS X silent updater and Firefox sandbox in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jun 2012 18:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/WztmIb9xt1c/

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Pro tip: Avoid unsightly contextless crotch shots on the Google+ app with better descriptions

Google+ app

No, Google+ app. Not "this." Because "this," being a comic-drawn crotch shot, is not what I wanted folks to focus their attention on when I linked to Peter Ha's TechCrunch piece debunking the Bloomberg story that Microsoft had "shut out" HTC from manufacturing Windows 8 devices. My only comment -- "This."

(BTW, Bloomberg's is a fairly ridiculous story, led by the all-too-familiar "people with knowledge of the matter." If you didn't bite on it, kudos.)

But if you'd seen my post from the Google+ app, all you'd know is that apparently I like cartoon pr0n. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, I suppose.)

This all stems, of course, from Google's recent redesign of the Google+ app. And for the most part, it's a beautiful redesign. Images are large. Posts are easy to follow -- so long as you don't actually link to anything. It's something I noted at the outset but apparently forgot because I'm using G+ on the desktop side most of the time. It's also a step backward. The app used to have this problem, then it got fixed in April. Now? It's gone again, at least in the stream view. 

I've learned my lesson. This'll put an end to the one-liners. I'll use 20 words when only one is needed. Or Google could just add back a little beta of metadata.

Regardless, learn from my mistake. Only you can prevent inadvertent contextless Google+ crotch shots.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/-Nl2MiTHuNs/story01.htm

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Farragomate is a social fridge magnet game where you make up sentences

farragomate
You know those fridge magnet kits composed of a whole bunch of words? The ones you put all over your fridge door and then try to arrange into all sorts of juvenile and/or amusing sentences. Well, Farragomate is the social, webby version of that very same pastime.

You get to play with a bunch of random strangers in real-time, and make up sentences out of a pre-set collection of words, including some fairly naughty ones, and all players' nicknames. As you can imagine, some of the results are not child-friendly.

There are ten rounds to a game. Once a round is done, players get to vote for their favorite sentence from that round. You can't vote for your own creation, of course. There's in-game chat, too.

I think the vocabulary could be made a bit more eclectic, but even as it is, it's a nice way to spend a few minutes and meet random strangers on the Internet (always a thrilling experience).

Farragomate is a social fridge magnet game where you make up sentences originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/25/farragomate-is-a-social-game-where-you-make-up-sentences/

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DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android

dropspace
Dropbox offers a lovely client for Android, but it's lacking true "sync" functionality. You can merely browse your Dropbox, pull files into the device, and manually upload specific files.

DropSpace is a little Android app that makes Dropbox on Android work like Dropbox - that is, you get real folder synchronization in the background.

When you run the app you're prompted for your Dropbox credentials. After logging in to Dropbox, you get to select which device folders you'd like to sync to the cloud. It's a straightforward mapping process: You select a folder on the device, and then specify where in Dropbox it should go.

The interface is rather clunky, at least for now. The biggest annoyance is that you can't edit your "sync list": if you add a folder and then wish to remove it, you must delete the entire list of folders and start over.

In terms of functionality, it works quite well. I tested it with the camera folder, and it was nice to be able to take my photos using the lean default Camera app and have them sync up to the cloud instantly.

DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/dropspace-adds-real-dropbox-sync-to-android/

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