SQUARE PAYMENT review
Square Payment System is an electronic payment service. And also it is the name of the card reading device designed exclusively to attain this objective. It allows users to accept payment through their mobile phones. It is done either by swiping the card on the Square device or by entering the data or details manually on the mobile phone. Square Incorporated introduced this system of payment service at the beginning of this year, 2010. This application is available at present for mobile phones based on Android, iPod Touch, iPod and iPhone. Eventually, it will be available for Laptops as well. Twitter founded Square Inc. and the creator is Mr. Jack Dorsey.
This is how the Square Mobile Payment System works. This application comes with a magnetic strip reader that should be plugged into your mobile device’s 3.5 mm headset jack for reading credit cards. The Square application and this magnetic strip reader coupled together, we get to accept payment. No matter where you are, you get the payment, as long as the cell phone signals reach your location.
Initially some hitches were noticed by every one such as ‘credit processing and risk issues’, which was handled effectively and efficiently. To those applicants who ask they get card readers, on special delivery. You get a small dongle when you down load the free Square application. There is no set up fees, and the small percentage of 2.75 percent charged on your transactions or purchase price plus 15 percent surcharge to swipe a card. There is no a monthly fee or set up fee and there is no need for a contract.
If you are a regular customer, receiving payments through credit card, this is certainly a boon in disguise. Without much technicalities or official red tapes you will be able to manage to collect your credit card dollars easily, thanks to Square Payment System on your smart phone. Credit card processing infrastructure caused a lot of problems. Shipments of Square dongles were delayed considerably. There was a conspicuous hitch or technical obstacle between convenient credit card payments and secure credit card payments. The CEO Mr. Dorsey had to sort this out deliberately to make it risk and fraud free.
Twitter co-founder, CEO of Square Inc., Mr. Jack Dorsey has done an excellent job to make life easier for the large and small business establishments or individuals to make cash transactions without the hard currency in hand. No need to carry cash for such transactions any more. That is what you call secure paperless transactions. Security and privacy issues are another important matter to be considered. The credit card data disclosed by the magnetic stripe is not recorded on the iPhone anywhere in any way. The magnetic data is converted to audio and input through the headphone jack. And of course, the encrypted data gets transmitted to Square Inc., for processing. The one who purchases signs with his finger tips on his iPhone touch screen, and that confirms the transaction. If the purchaser provides an email address or mobile number for SMS, Square Inc., will send a link that can be used to view a receipt of the transaction on the website of Square Inc. It is much safer and better than a paper receipt, totally risk free.
The seller or the merchant, the beneficiary of the transaction, do not retain or note down the credit card data in any way during this process of the entire transaction or the Square enabled device. The dealer or the merchant do not get to see the email ID or mobile number of the purchaser, the one who pays with the credit card. The user of this facility can submit a photo to be added to their Square profile to ensure safety and security. This will prevent any identity theft or any such fraudulent inclination.
Most people pay fees to a credit card dealer in order to obtain and accept a credit card payment facility. The cash register has a constant companion, the ubiquitous swiper machine which costs a certain amount of money, to be paid by the seller, the dealer or merchant. It is considered as too much of a bother by many merchants. Better to ignore credit card payments just to avoid lot of formalities, that was their way of thinking. For such small business establishments and individuals this Square Payment System is of great support, as they do not have to subscribe to such an account.
Another advantage of such payments and receipts in such transactions is that you do not have to worry about the coins or soiled currencies or the hard cash. In case you misplace or lose your credit card, all you have to do is to pick up the phone and make a call to your bank. You do not lose money. Safety and security is there for you when you sign up with Square Payment System.
Signing up for this service means you accept the terms and conditions of Square Inc. Square grants you personal, limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non transferable license to electronically access and use the service solely to accept and receive payments.
Service is licensed and not sold. Square reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this agreement. You must register and create a member account to use this service. You may access this service through a mobile device using service provided by third party carriers. And they may charge you to access this service.
It is your sole responsibility to ensure that your account numbers, passwords, security questions and answers, login details or any other information used by you is kept safe and confidential. Upon the installation of the software which allows you to use the service, you will be prompted to establish your user profile.
Square Inc. has implemented commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use or alteration. The use of this service is at your own risk. Those who use the service from outside the United States do so at your own volition.
You may change your email address by signing into squareup.com and going to settings. Each signer of this agreement authorizes Square to obtain credit bureau reports on such person in connection with your request for a Square account. Your square account permits you to receive payments and you may access your account Square software and website. When a payment is made to your account Square will update your account activity on the website.
This is how the Square Mobile Payment System works. This application comes with a magnetic strip reader that should be plugged into your mobile device’s 3.5 mm headset jack for reading credit cards. The Square application and this magnetic strip reader coupled together, we get to accept payment. No matter where you are, you get the payment, as long as the cell phone signals reach your location.
Initially some hitches were noticed by every one such as ‘credit processing and risk issues’, which was handled effectively and efficiently. To those applicants who ask they get card readers, on special delivery. You get a small dongle when you down load the free Square application. There is no set up fees, and the small percentage of 2.75 percent charged on your transactions or purchase price plus 15 percent surcharge to swipe a card. There is no a monthly fee or set up fee and there is no need for a contract.
If you are a regular customer, receiving payments through credit card, this is certainly a boon in disguise. Without much technicalities or official red tapes you will be able to manage to collect your credit card dollars easily, thanks to Square Payment System on your smart phone. Credit card processing infrastructure caused a lot of problems. Shipments of Square dongles were delayed considerably. There was a conspicuous hitch or technical obstacle between convenient credit card payments and secure credit card payments. The CEO Mr. Dorsey had to sort this out deliberately to make it risk and fraud free.
Twitter co-founder, CEO of Square Inc., Mr. Jack Dorsey has done an excellent job to make life easier for the large and small business establishments or individuals to make cash transactions without the hard currency in hand. No need to carry cash for such transactions any more. That is what you call secure paperless transactions. Security and privacy issues are another important matter to be considered. The credit card data disclosed by the magnetic stripe is not recorded on the iPhone anywhere in any way. The magnetic data is converted to audio and input through the headphone jack. And of course, the encrypted data gets transmitted to Square Inc., for processing. The one who purchases signs with his finger tips on his iPhone touch screen, and that confirms the transaction. If the purchaser provides an email address or mobile number for SMS, Square Inc., will send a link that can be used to view a receipt of the transaction on the website of Square Inc. It is much safer and better than a paper receipt, totally risk free.
The seller or the merchant, the beneficiary of the transaction, do not retain or note down the credit card data in any way during this process of the entire transaction or the Square enabled device. The dealer or the merchant do not get to see the email ID or mobile number of the purchaser, the one who pays with the credit card. The user of this facility can submit a photo to be added to their Square profile to ensure safety and security. This will prevent any identity theft or any such fraudulent inclination.
Most people pay fees to a credit card dealer in order to obtain and accept a credit card payment facility. The cash register has a constant companion, the ubiquitous swiper machine which costs a certain amount of money, to be paid by the seller, the dealer or merchant. It is considered as too much of a bother by many merchants. Better to ignore credit card payments just to avoid lot of formalities, that was their way of thinking. For such small business establishments and individuals this Square Payment System is of great support, as they do not have to subscribe to such an account.
Another advantage of such payments and receipts in such transactions is that you do not have to worry about the coins or soiled currencies or the hard cash. In case you misplace or lose your credit card, all you have to do is to pick up the phone and make a call to your bank. You do not lose money. Safety and security is there for you when you sign up with Square Payment System.
Signing up for this service means you accept the terms and conditions of Square Inc. Square grants you personal, limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non transferable license to electronically access and use the service solely to accept and receive payments.
Service is licensed and not sold. Square reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this agreement. You must register and create a member account to use this service. You may access this service through a mobile device using service provided by third party carriers. And they may charge you to access this service.
It is your sole responsibility to ensure that your account numbers, passwords, security questions and answers, login details or any other information used by you is kept safe and confidential. Upon the installation of the software which allows you to use the service, you will be prompted to establish your user profile.
Square Inc. has implemented commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use or alteration. The use of this service is at your own risk. Those who use the service from outside the United States do so at your own volition.
You may change your email address by signing into squareup.com and going to settings. Each signer of this agreement authorizes Square to obtain credit bureau reports on such person in connection with your request for a Square account. Your square account permits you to receive payments and you may access your account Square software and website. When a payment is made to your account Square will update your account activity on the website.
BackCountry Navigator for Android Review
BackCountry Navigator is a great piece of navigation software for the outdoor adventure. You may use it in a variety of outdoor adventures, and with the popularity of smart phones in the last few years it available on most major platforms. This is a summary of what you can do with the product, and we have used it to find better runs in the Colorado mountains over Christmas Break. This was the first time using the software and the 3rd time at Keystone and Breckenridge, so we thought that we had the lay of the land all figured out, were we wrong. The powerful software is amazing, and the ability to use maps in offline mode is a must for the mountains or in the deep woods, where you data connection is nonexistent at best. There are topographical maps at 4 meters per pixel scale, which gives you a very good idea of where the best run will go and it may be different than what it looks like just by looking downhill from the top of the mountain. Our group had a great time exploring the new areas with the guidance of the waypoint software, even though we had to hike it once or twice, as you may know, the snowboard is not ideal for flat terrain, but was it worth it. We found a few runs that were untouched, and this is in the middle of the busiest season in the area.
BackCountry uses free topo and aerial maps for the United States, downloaded directly from Terraserver-USA, or from a few other sources, but I was familiar with Terraserver-USA from my mudding and rock crawling days. There is aerial photography in most areas at up to 1 meter pixel, which came in pretty handy when we needed to see if a particular run had trees and boulders on it, or if it was clean.
One of my favorite features was the ability to get the maps in any size or area we wanted them in, there was no prepackaged maps or anything of that sort. It made it very easy to make our maps just the right size and see what we needed without having to search for landmarks. Map data is public domain, so it's all free to use. It was also great having to bring the phone and that's it to get any navigation help we needed to. In the past, we had tried a handheld GPS , but it was hardly ideal for use in the mountains, and many times it would jump to the nearest road, we didn't want to spend the money on a dedicated hiking or camping GPS, and it seemed to want us to stay on the road, this software worked great on the other hand, and for the cost, you can't beat it.
Here are a few of the main things the software lets you do
Automatically loads multiple map scales, and displays them at a variety of zoom levels. You can freely pan and explore the area of your downloaded map.
There are also a number of ways you can add points of interest to your newly created map.
Define your own custom waypoints, limited only by the size of your storage card.
Import geocache waypoints from LOC files to see them on the map.
Import other GPX files for waypoints and tracks marked by other GPS users.
Armed with a feature filled map, navigate in the outdoors with the help of a GPS Receiver.
Use just about any GPS receiver that sends data in NMEA, most smart phones will have no issues doing this, it's all automated.
See your position on a moving map and navigate to waypoints of your choice with the compass control.
Mark your own trail using the track recording feature. Export your track and waypoints in GPX format to share with others, or to view in Google Earth or other desktop software.
Have fun trying the software, and get lost in the outdoors, BackCountry will get you in AND out!
BackCountry uses free topo and aerial maps for the United States, downloaded directly from Terraserver-USA, or from a few other sources, but I was familiar with Terraserver-USA from my mudding and rock crawling days. There is aerial photography in most areas at up to 1 meter pixel, which came in pretty handy when we needed to see if a particular run had trees and boulders on it, or if it was clean.
One of my favorite features was the ability to get the maps in any size or area we wanted them in, there was no prepackaged maps or anything of that sort. It made it very easy to make our maps just the right size and see what we needed without having to search for landmarks. Map data is public domain, so it's all free to use. It was also great having to bring the phone and that's it to get any navigation help we needed to. In the past, we had tried a handheld GPS , but it was hardly ideal for use in the mountains, and many times it would jump to the nearest road, we didn't want to spend the money on a dedicated hiking or camping GPS, and it seemed to want us to stay on the road, this software worked great on the other hand, and for the cost, you can't beat it.
Here are a few of the main things the software lets you do
Automatically loads multiple map scales, and displays them at a variety of zoom levels. You can freely pan and explore the area of your downloaded map.
There are also a number of ways you can add points of interest to your newly created map.
Define your own custom waypoints, limited only by the size of your storage card.
Import geocache waypoints from LOC files to see them on the map.
Import other GPX files for waypoints and tracks marked by other GPS users.
Armed with a feature filled map, navigate in the outdoors with the help of a GPS Receiver.
Use just about any GPS receiver that sends data in NMEA, most smart phones will have no issues doing this, it's all automated.
See your position on a moving map and navigate to waypoints of your choice with the compass control.
Mark your own trail using the track recording feature. Export your track and waypoints in GPX format to share with others, or to view in Google Earth or other desktop software.
Have fun trying the software, and get lost in the outdoors, BackCountry will get you in AND out!
ANDROID 2.3 and the possibilities of the future.
The benefits of the NFC, Near Field Communication, are going to enable Android smart phones to be very useful to customers. NFC when applied to Public Transportation Ticketing, allows a commuter to book or purchase tickets online. This feature enables the Android handset to function as an RFID enabled Train or Bus ticket.
With such knowledge of the mode of transport or the route the transit operator can send related information to that particular individual. No wonder why, during July, August and September of 2010 the market share exceeded 43%, quite impressive performance, indeed. If an Android smart phone user to scan an NFC RFID tag on a particular dress or jacket in a shopping mall can obtain more information on such as the price variation in that territory. Such customer interest and preferences by demographics, location and so on and correlate that information with sales data helps the manufacturers to improve their marketing strategies. NFC technology becomes more useful to Android.
According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Gingerbread 2.3 will support near field communications to read RFID tags as well as communicate with other phones, payment systems and other possible applications. This was at the Web 2.0 Summit on Nov 15. Here is a quote “will be in the new operating system, called Gingerbread, which will come out in the next few weeks… We don't make devices," Schimdt then pulled out an "unannounced device" (it was black, had rounded edges, and the screen wasn't all that big) that he says he carries around with him and said that Gingerbread will have this support baked in for device manufacturers to use. Schimdt said in Q&A afterwards regarding what NFC standard Android will use: "Our team is using the standard that the industry is using."
This is one of the most exciting developments in the mobile phone arena in a long time. Once this hists the streets, you may be able to leave you wallet and credit cards at home and use your phone to pay for everyday items. With all the security that is being pushed into the phones at this point, you may be safer doing it that way too.
Application programs are being developed for Android, by the tens of thousands of developers every day. Such ‘apps’, exceed 100,000 now. Google runs an online store: Android Market, for Android apps, though apps can be downloaded from other sites as well. Google released most of the Android codes under apache license, a free software and open source license.
Android 2.3, Gingerbread is rumored to have some of these declared features: support for Near Field Communication, NFC, which we think will be the biggest addition to the already impressive list of features.
As you may know, Apple has been pushing to get the iPhone with the same capabilities into the hands of consumers, and corner the market. I for one would like to see what these giants can come up with. This is especially good news for business owners, as it would be easier to accept payments and offer services away from a retail location to many more customers, making your service easy to pay for, or more accessible to more customers is great for business.
We have recently posted an article about SQUARE Payment Systems on our website, and we use it with our techs in the field. There is nothing simpler than whipping out you phone, and swiping the card, DONE. No need to buy an expensive machine, that looks like Fred Flinstone carved it out of a rock in his yard, or go through the hassle of trying to figure out which merchant house offers you the best rates. We think these 2 developments, going hand in hand are going to change the way we use our phones forever, and very soon.
With such knowledge of the mode of transport or the route the transit operator can send related information to that particular individual. No wonder why, during July, August and September of 2010 the market share exceeded 43%, quite impressive performance, indeed. If an Android smart phone user to scan an NFC RFID tag on a particular dress or jacket in a shopping mall can obtain more information on such as the price variation in that territory. Such customer interest and preferences by demographics, location and so on and correlate that information with sales data helps the manufacturers to improve their marketing strategies. NFC technology becomes more useful to Android.
According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Gingerbread 2.3 will support near field communications to read RFID tags as well as communicate with other phones, payment systems and other possible applications. This was at the Web 2.0 Summit on Nov 15. Here is a quote “will be in the new operating system, called Gingerbread, which will come out in the next few weeks… We don't make devices," Schimdt then pulled out an "unannounced device" (it was black, had rounded edges, and the screen wasn't all that big) that he says he carries around with him and said that Gingerbread will have this support baked in for device manufacturers to use. Schimdt said in Q&A afterwards regarding what NFC standard Android will use: "Our team is using the standard that the industry is using."
This is one of the most exciting developments in the mobile phone arena in a long time. Once this hists the streets, you may be able to leave you wallet and credit cards at home and use your phone to pay for everyday items. With all the security that is being pushed into the phones at this point, you may be safer doing it that way too.
Application programs are being developed for Android, by the tens of thousands of developers every day. Such ‘apps’, exceed 100,000 now. Google runs an online store: Android Market, for Android apps, though apps can be downloaded from other sites as well. Google released most of the Android codes under apache license, a free software and open source license.
Android 2.3, Gingerbread is rumored to have some of these declared features: support for Near Field Communication, NFC, which we think will be the biggest addition to the already impressive list of features.
As you may know, Apple has been pushing to get the iPhone with the same capabilities into the hands of consumers, and corner the market. I for one would like to see what these giants can come up with. This is especially good news for business owners, as it would be easier to accept payments and offer services away from a retail location to many more customers, making your service easy to pay for, or more accessible to more customers is great for business.
We have recently posted an article about SQUARE Payment Systems on our website, and we use it with our techs in the field. There is nothing simpler than whipping out you phone, and swiping the card, DONE. No need to buy an expensive machine, that looks like Fred Flinstone carved it out of a rock in his yard, or go through the hassle of trying to figure out which merchant house offers you the best rates. We think these 2 developments, going hand in hand are going to change the way we use our phones forever, and very soon.
Droid 2 | The Good, The Bad and the Ugly...
I recently got a Droid 2, and I absolutely love it after I had done a few mods out of the box.
As far as I can see, there are 3 things that EVERY Android user should do:
ROOT your phone
This one is a must if you want to be able to fully use your phone, and this point in the game, there is no risk if done correctly and you will get a devise that absolutely shines (this goes for any Android phone, not just the D2/DX) Click here for the tool, its called One Click Root.
This is a must if you need you battery to last.
Head over to the market and get yourself a good Overclocking utility like Unstable Apps Dx/D2 Overclocker or JRummys16 Droid x/2 Overclocker. now, here we can do one of 2 things, OVRECLOCK or UNDERVOLT. Personally, i like Unstable Apps version better, and it was very easy to make a decision on which of the 2 things to do. When you OVERCLOCK, the real noticeable boost in speed is how fast your battery drains, and how well you phone scores on a synthetic benchmark that does very little for how you use it every day. When you UNDERVOLT, you give your processor less voltage, which makes it ron cooler, and you get much better battery life. Myself personally, i can use my D2 for 36 hours straight, and i'm a heavy user too, that more than double of what i was getting with stock voltages, and the best part is, its still at 1GHz, so its as fast as it was the day you bought it. These benefits grow exponentially if you actually underclock the processor.
Get great battery life and LOVE your phone.
This tends to happen after you do the above steps. Its funny how easy it is to make a good phone into a great phone.
As far as I can see, there are 3 things that EVERY Android user should do:
ROOT your phone
This one is a must if you want to be able to fully use your phone, and this point in the game, there is no risk if done correctly and you will get a devise that absolutely shines (this goes for any Android phone, not just the D2/DX) Click here for the tool, its called One Click Root.
This is a must if you need you battery to last.
Head over to the market and get yourself a good Overclocking utility like Unstable Apps Dx/D2 Overclocker or JRummys16 Droid x/2 Overclocker. now, here we can do one of 2 things, OVRECLOCK or UNDERVOLT. Personally, i like Unstable Apps version better, and it was very easy to make a decision on which of the 2 things to do. When you OVERCLOCK, the real noticeable boost in speed is how fast your battery drains, and how well you phone scores on a synthetic benchmark that does very little for how you use it every day. When you UNDERVOLT, you give your processor less voltage, which makes it ron cooler, and you get much better battery life. Myself personally, i can use my D2 for 36 hours straight, and i'm a heavy user too, that more than double of what i was getting with stock voltages, and the best part is, its still at 1GHz, so its as fast as it was the day you bought it. These benefits grow exponentially if you actually underclock the processor.
Get great battery life and LOVE your phone.
This tends to happen after you do the above steps. Its funny how easy it is to make a good phone into a great phone.
Android 2.3 and the look at what it brings to the table
To fully understand what this new phenomenon is, we have to start at the beginning. Let’s have a look at the history behind Android 2.3. Android was initially developed by Android Inc., as a mobile operating system. It is based upon a modified version of Linux Kernel 2.6. Google purchased the firm in 2005. Several well known companies and Google joined their hands and formed a consortium and formed Open Handset Alliance. This ambitious project, OHA, developed and presented ANDROID to the global community. This consortium of 78 companies, software, hardware and telecom companies, created history. Android made a sensational impact world wide, its waves continued to make ripples.
The companies who collaborated to create Open Handset Alliance, are Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corporation, Google, HTC, Intel, LG, Marvell Technology Group, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel, T-mobile and so on. It was an ambitious project to develop open standards for mobile devices. When this newly formed Open Handset Alliance unveiled their very first product, Android, as a mobile device platform, the entire world took a long stride towards the most efficient mobile devices. The success was beyond every one’s expectations, and 14 more companies offered to join the OHA on 9 December, 2008, including Packet Video, ARM Holdings, Atheros Communications, Asustek Computer Inc., Garmin Ltd, Soft Bank, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba Corp, Vodafone Group Plc etc.
More research and development was undertaken by the authorized ADSP, Android Open Source Project. Android has been available for every one under a free software, open source license since 21 October, 2008. Notably update periods were short and brief. Android OS smart phones dominated the market of smart phones. During July, August and September of 2010 the market share exceeded 43%, quite impressive performance indeed. Application programs are being developed for Android, by thousands and thousands of developers every day. Such ‘apps’, application programs, exceed 100,000 now. Google runs an online store: Android Market, for Android apps, though apps can be downloaded from other sites as well. Google released most of the Android codes under apache license, a free software and open source license.
Notable Android features are many that included the recording and watching videos through camcorder mode, uploading videos to YouTube and pictures to Picasa directly from phone, new soft key board with text prediction, Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP support, ability to automatically connect to Bluetooth headset within a certain distance, animated screen transitions etc.
By 15 September, 2009 more features were added to the list; such as integrated camera, camcorder and gallery interface, updated voice search with faster response and deeper integration with native applications including the feature to dial contacts, updated technology support for CDMA EVDO, 802.1x, VPNs, and text to speech engine, support for WVGA screen resolution, Google free turn by turn navigation, an improved Android Market experience, updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts and the web from home screen, gesture frame work and Gesture-builder development tool etc. Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos to be deleted if necessary.
Again more improvements were introduced on 26 October, 2009 and they were optimized hardware speed, Microsoft Exchange support, improved Google Maps 3.1.2, new contact lists, revamped UI, new browser UI and HTMLS support, better contrast ratio for back ground, built in flash support for camera, digital zoom, support for more screen resolutions and sizes, better contrast ratio for backgrounds, motion event class enhanced to track multi touch events, improved virtual key board, Bluetooth 2.1, live wall papers, etc.
And once again new Android features were continued to be added, on 20 May, 2010, in the version 2.2 Froyo, frozen yoghurt. SDK was released and some of the changes are improved application launcher with short cuts to phone and browser applications, general Android OS [operating system] speed, memory and performance optimization, additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation, integration of chrome’s V8 java script engine into the browser application, USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, added an option to disable data access over mobile net work, updated market application with batch and automatic update features and so on.
Android supports connectivity technologies such as IDEN, CDMA, GSM/EDGE, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, WiMAX etc. And this Android features enable these forms of messaging such as SMS and MMS, and this include threaded text messaging. Android push messaging service incorporates Android cloud to Device Messaging framework [C2DM]. Web browser in this Android is based on the open source Web kit layout engine together with Chrome’s V8 Java script engine. And the web browser scores 93 out of 100 on the ACID3 test. Java Virtual Machine is not there in Android platform, though the applications are written in Java. Java byte code is not executed either. Java classes get recompiled into Dalvik executable. Android runs on Dalvik Virtual Machine. It is specially designed for Android, and it is optimized for battery powered mobile devices, though it has limited memory and CPU.
Android supports these media formats: audio, video and still media formats. They are H263, H264 [in 3GP or MP4 container], MPEG-4SP, AMR, AMR-WB [in 3GP container], AAC, HE-AAC [in MP-4 or 3GP container] MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.
Android has streaming media support as given here: RTP, RTSP streaming [3GPP PSS, ISMA], HTML progressive download [HTML5 <video> tag]. Adobe flash streaming [RTMP] is coordinated through Adobe Flash Player plugin. Apple HTTP live streaming is done in collaboration with third party media player. Adobe HTTP dynamic Streaming would be supported by an upgraded version of Flash plugin. Support of Microsoft Smooth Streaming would be through the long awaited port of silver light pulgin to Android.
There are plenty of extremely useful additional hardware supports. You will find it comfortable and very useful to manage your video cameras or still cameras, touch screens, accelerometers, GPS, magnetometers, gyroscopes, proximity and pressure sensors, accelerated 2D bit blits [with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion] accelerated 3D graphics, and thermometers. HTC Hero handsets have features like multi touch, and this sort of native support for multi touch is made available for Android. Android must have been very happy to support Bluetooth, A2DP and AVRCP, in version 1.5, sending files OPP, and accessing phone book [PBAP]. And these features were added in version 2.0 also. Voice dialing and sending contacts were added in Android version 2.2.
Handset layouts are remarkable. The platform can support larger library, such as VGA, 2D graphics, 3D graphics library based on Open GL 2.0 specifications and traditional smart phone layouts. A light weight relational database, SQlite, is used for data storage purposes.
Android Market has plenty of phone based applications in store for you to download and install to target hardware over the air without the use of your PC. Only free applications were available at the beginning. Since 19th February, 2009 ‘paid for applications’ were available in the United States, on the Android Market. This market on line has been expanding since then. As on 3rd August, 2010, it was reported that in excess of 100,000 Android applications have been down loaded, although there are other markets such as Getjar and GlideMe. Also, Android has the advantage of using the phone as a wireless or wired hotspot [All 2.2 Froyo phones unofficial on phones running more than 1.6 via applications in the Android Market, for instance PdaNet] . The tethering is supported by Android. The laptop 3G phone connection on Android phone software, is needed to be installed on both the phone and the laptop.
Google announced the introduction of the Android Market on 28 August, 2008 which was presented and opened to the public on 22 October, 2008. From 13th February, 2009 onwards paid applications were made available for United Kingdom and United States Developers. From 30th September, 2010 onwards the doors were opened for 29 more countries offering these applications against payment. Applications and games for Android powered devices were officially offered for download in Android Market location.
Google’s upcoming Operating System update ANDROID 2.3 Gingerbread seems to have caused a lot of excitement in the market. The leaked SONY Experia X12 Anzu seems to have been instrumental for such wide publicity.
Sony Ericsson Anzu is to be equipped with’ Android 2.3, if the leaked out specifications revealed correct information. Anzu is known as XPERIA X12, and this is equipped with 4.3 inch LCD display with 854 x 480 pixel resolution, an 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM 7230 processor, and of course, an added attraction of 12 mega pixel camera with 720p video capture and a HDMI out put to ensure your enjoyment on the big screen. We can sure look forward to an interesting Sony Ericsson Anzu in the near future, may be at the beginning of the new year, 2011, with more features.
The speculations are that the latest Xperia model will be equipped with Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread on board. But again some rumors say it will have Froyo (Android 2.2) packed in.
Nevertheless Xperia X12 looks impressive with its 4.3 inch LCD screen and an excellent finish that will not go unnoticed.
Android 2.3, Gingerbread will have some of these declared features: support for WebM video play back and also for Near Field Communication. There will be improved copy-paste functions and improved social networking features.
The companies who collaborated to create Open Handset Alliance, are Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corporation, Google, HTC, Intel, LG, Marvell Technology Group, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel, T-mobile and so on. It was an ambitious project to develop open standards for mobile devices. When this newly formed Open Handset Alliance unveiled their very first product, Android, as a mobile device platform, the entire world took a long stride towards the most efficient mobile devices. The success was beyond every one’s expectations, and 14 more companies offered to join the OHA on 9 December, 2008, including Packet Video, ARM Holdings, Atheros Communications, Asustek Computer Inc., Garmin Ltd, Soft Bank, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba Corp, Vodafone Group Plc etc.
More research and development was undertaken by the authorized ADSP, Android Open Source Project. Android has been available for every one under a free software, open source license since 21 October, 2008. Notably update periods were short and brief. Android OS smart phones dominated the market of smart phones. During July, August and September of 2010 the market share exceeded 43%, quite impressive performance indeed. Application programs are being developed for Android, by thousands and thousands of developers every day. Such ‘apps’, application programs, exceed 100,000 now. Google runs an online store: Android Market, for Android apps, though apps can be downloaded from other sites as well. Google released most of the Android codes under apache license, a free software and open source license.
Notable Android features are many that included the recording and watching videos through camcorder mode, uploading videos to YouTube and pictures to Picasa directly from phone, new soft key board with text prediction, Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP support, ability to automatically connect to Bluetooth headset within a certain distance, animated screen transitions etc.
By 15 September, 2009 more features were added to the list; such as integrated camera, camcorder and gallery interface, updated voice search with faster response and deeper integration with native applications including the feature to dial contacts, updated technology support for CDMA EVDO, 802.1x, VPNs, and text to speech engine, support for WVGA screen resolution, Google free turn by turn navigation, an improved Android Market experience, updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts and the web from home screen, gesture frame work and Gesture-builder development tool etc. Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos to be deleted if necessary.
Again more improvements were introduced on 26 October, 2009 and they were optimized hardware speed, Microsoft Exchange support, improved Google Maps 3.1.2, new contact lists, revamped UI, new browser UI and HTMLS support, better contrast ratio for back ground, built in flash support for camera, digital zoom, support for more screen resolutions and sizes, better contrast ratio for backgrounds, motion event class enhanced to track multi touch events, improved virtual key board, Bluetooth 2.1, live wall papers, etc.
And once again new Android features were continued to be added, on 20 May, 2010, in the version 2.2 Froyo, frozen yoghurt. SDK was released and some of the changes are improved application launcher with short cuts to phone and browser applications, general Android OS [operating system] speed, memory and performance optimization, additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation, integration of chrome’s V8 java script engine into the browser application, USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, added an option to disable data access over mobile net work, updated market application with batch and automatic update features and so on.
Android supports connectivity technologies such as IDEN, CDMA, GSM/EDGE, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, LTE, WiMAX etc. And this Android features enable these forms of messaging such as SMS and MMS, and this include threaded text messaging. Android push messaging service incorporates Android cloud to Device Messaging framework [C2DM]. Web browser in this Android is based on the open source Web kit layout engine together with Chrome’s V8 Java script engine. And the web browser scores 93 out of 100 on the ACID3 test. Java Virtual Machine is not there in Android platform, though the applications are written in Java. Java byte code is not executed either. Java classes get recompiled into Dalvik executable. Android runs on Dalvik Virtual Machine. It is specially designed for Android, and it is optimized for battery powered mobile devices, though it has limited memory and CPU.
Android supports these media formats: audio, video and still media formats. They are H263, H264 [in 3GP or MP4 container], MPEG-4SP, AMR, AMR-WB [in 3GP container], AAC, HE-AAC [in MP-4 or 3GP container] MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.
Android has streaming media support as given here: RTP, RTSP streaming [3GPP PSS, ISMA], HTML progressive download [HTML5 <video> tag]. Adobe flash streaming [RTMP] is coordinated through Adobe Flash Player plugin. Apple HTTP live streaming is done in collaboration with third party media player. Adobe HTTP dynamic Streaming would be supported by an upgraded version of Flash plugin. Support of Microsoft Smooth Streaming would be through the long awaited port of silver light pulgin to Android.
There are plenty of extremely useful additional hardware supports. You will find it comfortable and very useful to manage your video cameras or still cameras, touch screens, accelerometers, GPS, magnetometers, gyroscopes, proximity and pressure sensors, accelerated 2D bit blits [with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion] accelerated 3D graphics, and thermometers. HTC Hero handsets have features like multi touch, and this sort of native support for multi touch is made available for Android. Android must have been very happy to support Bluetooth, A2DP and AVRCP, in version 1.5, sending files OPP, and accessing phone book [PBAP]. And these features were added in version 2.0 also. Voice dialing and sending contacts were added in Android version 2.2.
Handset layouts are remarkable. The platform can support larger library, such as VGA, 2D graphics, 3D graphics library based on Open GL 2.0 specifications and traditional smart phone layouts. A light weight relational database, SQlite, is used for data storage purposes.
Android Market has plenty of phone based applications in store for you to download and install to target hardware over the air without the use of your PC. Only free applications were available at the beginning. Since 19th February, 2009 ‘paid for applications’ were available in the United States, on the Android Market. This market on line has been expanding since then. As on 3rd August, 2010, it was reported that in excess of 100,000 Android applications have been down loaded, although there are other markets such as Getjar and GlideMe. Also, Android has the advantage of using the phone as a wireless or wired hotspot [All 2.2 Froyo phones unofficial on phones running more than 1.6 via applications in the Android Market, for instance PdaNet] . The tethering is supported by Android. The laptop 3G phone connection on Android phone software, is needed to be installed on both the phone and the laptop.
Google announced the introduction of the Android Market on 28 August, 2008 which was presented and opened to the public on 22 October, 2008. From 13th February, 2009 onwards paid applications were made available for United Kingdom and United States Developers. From 30th September, 2010 onwards the doors were opened for 29 more countries offering these applications against payment. Applications and games for Android powered devices were officially offered for download in Android Market location.
Google’s upcoming Operating System update ANDROID 2.3 Gingerbread seems to have caused a lot of excitement in the market. The leaked SONY Experia X12 Anzu seems to have been instrumental for such wide publicity.
Sony Ericsson Anzu is to be equipped with’ Android 2.3, if the leaked out specifications revealed correct information. Anzu is known as XPERIA X12, and this is equipped with 4.3 inch LCD display with 854 x 480 pixel resolution, an 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM 7230 processor, and of course, an added attraction of 12 mega pixel camera with 720p video capture and a HDMI out put to ensure your enjoyment on the big screen. We can sure look forward to an interesting Sony Ericsson Anzu in the near future, may be at the beginning of the new year, 2011, with more features.
The speculations are that the latest Xperia model will be equipped with Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread on board. But again some rumors say it will have Froyo (Android 2.2) packed in.
Nevertheless Xperia X12 looks impressive with its 4.3 inch LCD screen and an excellent finish that will not go unnoticed.
Android 2.3, Gingerbread will have some of these declared features: support for WebM video play back and also for Near Field Communication. There will be improved copy-paste functions and improved social networking features.
T-Mobile G2 | Great phone, best Android yet
Recently launched T-mobile G2 has finally been released, but it escaped my grasp because I recently got into a D2 on Verizon. My father in law however was not bound by his contract. This is the review of his phone, but i got to play with it and set it up. I think its a fair comparison as I have had the Droid 2 for a few weeks now, so I am used to its interface and this gave me a fair overview of the differences.This is the successor to first ever Android phone the T-MobileG1. The sliding mechanism seems to be smooth and it features a big 3.7-inch Super LCD, which is a lot better than the normal LCD. I am a little worried as to the longevity of the opening mechanism though. It has a spacious QWERTY keyboard, which is definitely to not going to make one sluggish while typing a text message. The keyboard was easier to type on that the Droid 2 I have gotten used to, and I was actually faster on a new phone. More on its hardware shows it works perfect quite good with 800MHzSnapdragon processor and doesn’t slow down while multi-tasking, thanks to its 521MB of RAM. I was actually surprised to how little difference there was between my Overclocked Droid 2 (1.25GHz) and the 450MHz slower G2.For those who don’t know the T-Mobile G2 , it is powered by Android 2.2 (FroYo) operating system, and i think that may be the reason for it being as fast if not faster. Motorola loaded Blur on their Droid 2 and the G2 came with plain old unskinned/unbloated Froyo 2.2. Overall, I think both phones are great, but I did have some phone envy when I saw that box sitting on the table when we came into the room.
