Tag Archives: GPS

Google Io Showcases Wearable Technologies

It seems that wearable technology is going to be the in thing in the next few years. During the 2012 Google I/O, a major theme that was being pushed would be technology that would be wearable by the consumers.

Instead of having to bring along a separate device in bags or pant pockets, it seems that Google (and other tech companies for that matter) would want users to actually wear them as part of their outfit. Perhaps the idea behind this is that it would make the device much more embedded into the lives of its users.

Historical Use:

Industry observers mentioned that the idea is not that far-fetched. In fact, the military would already have prototypes and actual products of utilizing wearable computers. Usually, these military themed devices are used either for their communications capabilities or their GPS functionalities. However, the trend is to slowly bring these military devices into use for regular consumers.

In fact, there are now more companies who have tried to integrate their devices into more wearable designs. For example, MIT researches have long been looking at how they can manufacture wearable computers. Another example would be on how Apples iPod Nano has now made a wristband like peripheral which you could use to wear the highly capable device as a wrist watch.

Googles take:

Not one to be left behind by technology, Google also has something up their sleeve. They have previously announced the Google Glass. Google glass is a wearable device that would provide its users with a video game like heads up display while they are doing their everyday tasks.

Some analysts believe that Googles involvement in wearable technology would help push forward the acceptance of wearable devices. As of now, the use and acceptance of it is usually limited to the aforementioned military uses as well as to some of the rich and tech savvy people.

Analysts are speculating that similar to what happened with Android and smartphones, a Google role in the push for wearable technologies would also help push the number of devices that would provide this kind of function to the consumers,

Of course, people should note that despite the Google glass being highlighted in this years Google I/O, the actual thing is still in development. Many experts believe that the soonest that it would become available for commercial release would still be in 2 or 3 more years.

Useful Tips To Improve Android Phone Battery Life

Millions of us spend a pretty sum to have a super performance phone with a bright large display, powerful processor, lot of RAM and so on. A cut-throat competition is going on among mobile phone manufactures to make the superphones of the future with wonderful features. Unfortunately, they have not been able to give us a phone with large display and, at the same time with good battery life. One of the major complaints among Android handset users is the poor battery life of their phone. The Samsung Galaxy S II is no exception to this, even though it has one of the best battery backups found in an Android phone. Our phone might have superb features to brag off, but we are forced not to utilize and explore them all in the true sense because of battery drainage problem. For example, Nokia phone user crave to have the live wallpaper feature on the device, and Android user are lucky enough to have this feature. But how many of us lat a live wallpaper running all day? The answer is: “Hardly, a few .” The same thing goes with other things, such as live syncing, running many apps in the background, playing games, and using push mail. It is the same situation as if you got a lot of delicious dishes before you, but you are banned to enjoy. Mobile phone manufactures should do something about it. Please, do not give us phones that are worth just keeping in our pockets and experiencing the pride of being a SUPERPHONE owner. Here is a bunch of tips and tweaks that would help you to improve the battery life your Android phone and make the most of what we have. Be Up-to-date: First of all, if you want to enjoy a good battery life, always make sure that your Android phone is on the latest version of firmware. Every manufacturer tries to inject some tweaks in their latest updates to improve the overall performance of their devices. Battery life improvements is also one of them. Go for a Good Custom Firmware: There are a number of custom firmwares available for almost all Android phones. Most of them come with better battery life as compared to the stock ROMs. Choose a good custom ROM for your phone and flash it. Freeze System Processes: Samsung pre-loads quite a lot of bloatware on the Galaxy S II. While some of them are handy, some of them always run in the background and drain your phone’s battery, for no specific reason. Freezing some of these system apps will not affect your phone’s stability in anyway, and will bring about a noticeable improvement in your phone’s battery life. Here is a spreadsheet, which lists all the process that can be safely frozen on the Galaxy S II. Keep in mind that you need to have root access to freeze system processes on your phone. Brand new LC.BTP03.003 Battery, a1185 battery, A32-F3 battery with 1 year warranty. Calibrate the Battery : If you continuously flash ROMs on your Android device, or have done a hard-reset, it is recommended that you calibrate your phone’s battery once. This will definitely help in improving your phone’s battery life, and will allow the phone to make full use of the battery’s capacity. Here are the required steps to calibrate your phone’s battery: Turn off your phone. Fully Charge. When getting 100 percent signal, unplug quickly. Pull off the battery and put it anywhere. Wait for 180 seconds exactly (be careful ) Meanwhile, take this opportunity to dust off the internal compartment. Put back the battery on the right side. Turn on the phone. I have noticed a pretty substainal jump in the battery life of my Galaxy S2, by using the tips I mentioned above. It can now easily last 16-20 hours on 3G, with around 2-3 hours of phone calls, 50-60 SMSes, lots of tweeting and around 2.5-3 hours of screen on time. Turn Off GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Background Apps Don’t expect your Android phone to last a day if you always keep the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS switched on. Always make sure that the unneeded radios of the phone like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS are switched off when not in use. This will help you conserve a lot of battery. Keep using the task manager or app killer features at regular intervals to ensure that any unnecessary app is not devouring your battery life. High quality Presario CQ62 Battery, N950C Battery with low price. Display Configuration: The huge shining display is a great feast to our eyes, but it is a great enemy of the phone’s battery. Go to phone’s settings and adjust the display brightness to 30 percent. Maximum brightness means the worst battery life. One more thing, please use a static wallpaper instead of live wallpapers. Use Battery Saving Apps: There are quite a few apps on the Android Market that claim to improve the battery life of your handset. While I have not personally tried all of them, I have used a few of them and they do work. Apps like Juice Defender and Green Power, Battery Saver Pro etc. automatically turn off your phone’s data when the screen is switched off and turn it back on when the screen is turned on. This definitely helps a LOT in increasing the battery life of your handset. In fact, the battery life of my handset improved by almost 40 percent after installing Juice Defender. Sadly, there are also downsides to these apps. Since data is turned off when the screen is switched off, apps that run in the background and require data access don’t work properly. Also, your email will be synced every 15 mins (by default). There is also a possibility that these apps might not work effectively on your phone. So if you are not seeing any noticeable gain in the battery life after installing these apps, it’s better to uninstall them. Deep Sleep Mode: Every phone in this world, irrespective of its OS, has a deep sleep mode. When the phone is idle/not in use, the processor and all other components will go into a deep sleep mode, where they sip as less power as possible, and yet prevent the phone from shutting down completely. In Android, it may be possible that an app running in the background is preventing your phone from entering the Deep sleep mode by causing a wake lock. If your phone is not going to Deep sleep mode, it will hardly last you a few hours, even when its not in use. Android users can use CPU Spy to check whether their phone is going into Deep sleep mode or not. They can use BetterBatteryStats to find out which app is causing a wakelock, and is thus preventing their phone from entering into Deep Sleep mode. After finding the rogue app, users are recommended to uninstall the app.

How to secure your Android phone

Although Android covers more than 75% of the smartphone market it doesn’t mean that it is the most secure operating system in the planet for mobile phones, In reality the fact that Android is the most scaleable operating system of smart phone devices makes it more vulnerable to security threats and malware.

While Android is a terrific operating system in many ways, it does pose some real risks for IT departments. Last week’s revelation that Google had to remove around 50 malware-infected applications from its Android Market and had activated an Android app kill switch highlighted the downside of the company’s “free love” approach to publishing applications where it will let anyone put their app on the market and will only take it down if alerted by a third-party user. The upside of this, of course, is that the market also offers a wide variety of quality security applications that can protect you from malicious apps.

Below are mentioned the best anti-malware and security apps on Android on the basis of ratings submitted by user’s online:

1)McAfee WaveSecure

McAfee’s WaveSecure app doesn’t have any of the virus scans or firewall protection that the company is famous for, but it does have some important features such as the ability to remotely lock your phone and to wipe key data from it, the ability to back up and restore wiped data after a device has been secured, and the ability to track and map your device using GPS.

2)Lookout Security & Antivirus

As one of the earliest entries into the Android security field Lookout has an impressive user base. There is a completely free version which offers antivirus and scheduled scanning. There is also a locate function for lost or stolen devices, the ability to activate an alarm, and the option to track your phone online via the Lookout website.

Another handy feature that Lookout provides is the ability to backup contacts online and restore them to your existing device or a new one.

3)GadgetTrak

This smart app offers several anti-theft features, like location detection, remote alarm activation and file protection. It has extensive versions for Android devices (as well as safety products for computers and cameras). New devices get an extra awesome feature – GadgetTrak snaps photos with your stolen mobile camera and collects evidence that can help you locate your phone and catch the unfortunate thief.

4)NQ Mobile Security

This app blocks viruses, malware, spyware and Trojans, and blocks access to phishing sites. Privacy protection monitors apps that access your private data without permission, and system optimization closes apps that run in the background without your knowledge. Traffic monitoring functionality ensures that you don’t go over your plan’s limits, and allows you to rank apps by data consumption. Contacts and messages can be backed up for free, and the app can also be used to locate a lost or stolen phone.The app also has the ability to lock and wipe a lost or stolen phone, and to activate an alarm

5)AVG Antivirus (Free)

Another big name in computer security, AVG Antivirus Free scans your apps, settings, media, and phone contents in search of suspicious files. Have a text message with a shady-looking link attached? Run the scanner to see if it’s a possible threat to your phone’s security. Features that the creators will add in the future include the ability to lock apps and back up data. As the utility stands now, if you seek only to keep your phone malware-free and you don’t really care for the extras, AVG Antivirus will fit your needs.

In this article I only choose apps of Android devices because Android’s maker follow open source rules which means anyone can view the source code of any app on android and can provide thier personnel updates for that app which no other mobile operating system company provides.

For updating Android mobile apps you will have to learn a little bit of Android App programming, but not to worry there are many online sites that can help you learn Android app development.The best part of learning online is that you can study from anywhere you are comfortable and you don’t have to travel other places for learning plus you can record the lectures and view them on your device for future revision or study.

One of the online site where you can learn Android App Development is WIZiQ.com. You can refer to the link:Learn Android Online

So after buying your phone install these apps as soon as possible

Gps Navigation Speed Traps Database Vs Radar Detector

Are you always receive speeding ticket? Tired of worried about speeding traps from time to time, because you do not know the location of Speed Traps, Red Light Cameras, Speed Cameras, DUI Checkpoints, school zones, dangerous intersections?
GPS navigation speed traps database software and Radar detector are the solution for above problem.Both are used to avoid speeding tickets, but the two techniques used are different. GPS navigation speed traps database software: First drivers & spotters report speed traps & photo enforcement locations on our website. Download over 200,000+ enforcement locations in minutes. Compatible with Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan. and Google Android SmartPhone. Receive audio & visual alerts every time you approach enforcement areas. You will see them before they see you. Compatible with Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and others.
Radar detector detect the signal from speed traps, and then warning the user.

comparison
GPS navigation speed traps database software/Radar detector
FeaturesSpeed Traps, Red Light Cameras, Speed Cameras, DUI Checkpoints, school zones, dangerous intersections/Speed Traps
Effectdepend on database/depend on device
Pricei99.99 for life time/i100 to i500
LegalYES/illegal in most of the state,city
Hoping this can help you in your buying decision.
And other states that prohibit the use of radar detectors are the following:

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Mew Mexico
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

What You Should Know About Hypernext Android Creator (hac)

Android is the buzz word in the Mobile sector with the share of 42% across various devices globally. With the growing usage of Android Smartphones new development tools are made available for users to create smart Android applications using Windows PC and Mac. There are various Android tools that can be used to develop amazing android applications. These customized tools make it easier for android mobile app development even without the knowledge of Java or the Android SDK and is called HyperNext Android Creator (HAC).

This tool is available in english format syntax which is made easier to read for beginners who are new to the development world. And provides a visual designer for laying out screens. It can run most of the programs within its graphical user interface and upload them onto an Android Emulator or Android device via wireless. In order to develop with HAC, Java JDK, Android SDK and Apple Quicktime must be installed. These are free to download and use. Applications that are developed on HAC gives support on different devices amazingly. HyperNext is major programming language and easy-to-use, learn and implement. It operates based on HyperCard that takes software as a heap of cards.

It is worth mentioning that the app developers always face challenges associated with Java standards since no set standard is used for developing them. For this issue, many tools have been developed which has help in Android conversion activities. The HyperNext interface has just one design window and simple toolbar and creates highly interactive apps. There are three modes: Design, Preview and Run. Controls such as buttons can be rapidly placed and their English-like scripts edited with its easy to use Script Editor.

Eclipse and Netbeans are east to use in HAC. It is a self contained software application basically designs flawless android applications with much ease. It shares many general features such as it can save, load, and create new projects. HAC has loaded it will display two main windows, the Design window and the Tool Bar which together allow cards to be created and controls placed upon them. A third global window called the Mode Switcher will also appear and shows three buttons that allow quick movement between the Design, Preview and Run modes. When switching from Design to Run mode the project is automatically saved and when switching back the saved project is reloaded.

Android emulators are virtual android devices check the applications developed in HAC. HyperNext is a programming language. Its out-of-the features are unique and easy to understand. They are as follows:

* English-like statements.
* Software generally has a card based organization.
* Variables are type-less and are all stored as strings(text).
* Variables are either Global or Local.
* Global procedures are declared in the MainCode section.
* Control handlers and their procedures are local and hence protected.
* Created with the Standard Edition of HelpNDoc:
* Easily create HTML Help documents
* Each control can have many local procedures.
* Specific commands for numeric and string processing.
* Variables can be single line, multi-line or array-like.
* Runtime error reporting can be dynamically switched on or off

The Android OS is especially designed to run on Mobile phones and to take care of the life-cycle of an app so that several apps could simultaneously co-exist in memory together, with only the front app being fully active. Furthermore the Android OS is supposed to be responsible for quitting apps when it feels they are no longer needed so the Android app guidelines. However many users want a Quit button and so HAC apps have one by default.

A HAC application runs in memory all the time and even if the user presses the Back Button or another app takes control, the HAC app will remain in the background and active, so it can play music, communicate with the web or number crunch etc. All HAC apps show an icon in the Status Bar so users know their HAC built app is still running.

Although background apps are not supposed to take resources it’s clear that they do and having several apps in the background can noticeably slow down the system response to such an extent that the user must restart their device. As many apps have no way to quit them “App Killer” programs have become some of the most popular downloads.

With HAC apps the background task is set to idle unless the code is actually doing something so a typical HAC app should have little resource overhead. If sent to the background it can easily be made foreground again by pressing and holding the Home button down, then choosing the HAC app icon.

HAC currently only works reliably with English keyboards as at this time the Android OS is still not fully compatible with other character sets. It supports GPS location functionality that can run in the background and continuously log readings. In the near future this will be enabled as it is especially useful on tablet devices that have much larger screen sizes than Smartphones.

HAC currently just supports the following 5 permissions but there are literally hundreds available within the Android OS.

1. Write External Storage: This is always enabled as application has to be installed to the SD card or external storage.
2. Internet: Used when app needs to access the internet such as when sending an email or requesting a web page.
3. Camera: Used when app needs to access the camera.
4. Location – Used to access the coarse location such as determining the cell on which device is connected.
5. Used to access GPS to return position coordinates etc.

HAC gives the exact blend of customized, highly interactive, user-friendly and efficient technologies integrated in Android app that is sure to deliver flexible, richer and greater operational control over the system. And needless to say, it does produce some of the most amazing applications that mobile users love to avail.