Introducing Android 4.0

Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is the latest version of the Android platform for phones, tablets, and more. It builds on the things people love most about Android — easy multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing.

Simple, Beautiful, Useful

Refined, evolved UI

Focused on bringing the power of Android to the surface, Android 4.0 makes common actions more visible and lets you navigate with simple, intuitive gestures. Refined animations and feedback throughout the system make interactions engaging and interesting. An entirely new typeface optimized for high-resolution screens improves readability and brings a polished, modern feel to the user interface.

Virtual buttons in the System Bar let you navigate instantly to Back, Home, and Recent Apps. The System Bar and virtual buttons are present across all apps, but can be dimmed by applications for full-screen viewing. You can access each application’s contextual options in the Action Bar, displayed at the top (and sometimes also at the bottom) of the screen.

Multitasking is a key strength of Android and it’s made even easier and more visual on Android 4.0. The Recent Apps button lets you jump instantly from one task to another using the list in the System Bar. The list pops up to show thumbnail images of apps used recently — tapping a thumbnail switches to the app.

The Recent Apps list makes multitasking simple.

Jump to the camera or see notifications without unlocking.

For incoming calls, you can respond instantly by text.

Rich and interactive notifications let you keep in constant touch with incoming messages, play music tracks, see real-time updates from apps, and much more. On smaller-screen devices, notifications appear at the top of the screen, while on larger-screen devices they appear in the System Bar.

Home screen folders and favorites tray

New home screen folders offer a new way for you to group your apps and shortcuts logically, just by dragging one onto another. Also, in All Apps launcher, you can now simply drag an app to get information about it or immediately uninstall it, or disable a pre-installed app.

The All Apps launcher (left) and resizable widgets (right) give you apps and rich content from the home screen.

On smaller-screen devices, the home screen now includes a customizable favorites tray visible from all home screens. You can drag apps, shortcuts, folders, and other priority items in or out of the favorites tray for instant access from any home screen.

Resizable widgets

Home screens in Android 4.0 are designed to be content-rich and customizable. You can do much more than add shortcuts — you can embed live application content directly through interactive widgets. Widgets let you check email, flip through a calendar, play music, check social streams, and more — right from the home screen, without having to launch apps. Widgets are resizable, so you can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.

New lock screen actions

The lock screens now let you do more without unlocking. From the slide lock screen, you can jump directly to the camera for a picture or pull down the notifications window to check for messages. When listening to music, you can even manage music tracks and see album art.

Quick responses for incoming calls

When an incoming call arrives, you can now quickly respond by text message, without needing to pick up the call or unlock the device. On the incoming call screen, you simply slide a control to see a list of text responses and then tap to send and end the call. You can add your own responses and manage the list from the Settings app.

Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, and browser tabs

Android 4.0 makes managing notifications, recent apps, and browser tabs even easier. You can now dismiss individual notifications, apps from the Recent Apps list, and browser tabs with a simple swipe of a finger.

A spell-checker lets you find errors and fix them faster.

A powerful voice input engine lets you dictate continuously.

Improved text input and spell-checking

The soft keyboard in Android 4.0 makes text input even faster and more accurate. Error correction and word suggestion are improved through a new set of default dictionaries and more accurate heuristics for handling cases such as double-typed characters, skipped letters, and omitted spaces. Word suggestion is also improved and the suggestion strip is simplified to show only three words at a time.

To fix misspelled words more easily, Android 4.0 adds a spell-checker that locates and underlines errors and suggests replacement words. With one tap, you can choose from multiple spelling suggestions, delete a word, or add it to the dictionary. You can even tap to see replacement suggestions for words that are spelled correctly. For specialized features or additional languages, you can now download and install third-party dictionaries, spell-checkers, and other text services.

Powerful voice input engine

Android 4.0 introduces a powerful new voice input engine that offers a continuous "open microphone" experience and streaming voice recognition. The new voice input engine lets you dictate the text they want, for as long as they want, using the language they want. You can speak continously for a prolonged time, even pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences. As the voice input engine enters text, it underlines possible dictation errors in gray. After dictating, you can tap the underlined words to quickly replace them from a list of suggestions.

Data usage controls let you monitor total usage by network type and application and then set limits if needed.

Control over network data

Mobile devices can make extensive use of network data for streaming content, synchronizing data, downloading apps, and more. To meet the needs of you with tiered or metered data plans, Android 4.0 adds new controls for managing network data usage.

In the Settings app, colorful charts show the total data usage on each network type (mobile or Wi-Fi), as well as amount of data used by each running application. Based on your data plan, you can optionally set warning levels or hard limits on data usage or disable mobile data altogether. You can also manage the background data used by individual applications as needed.

Designed for accessibility

A variety of new features greatly enhance the accessibility of Android 4.0 for blind or visually impaired users. Most important is a new explore-by-touch mode that lets you navigate without having to see the screen. Touching the screen once triggers audible feedback that identifies the UI component below; a second touch in the same component activates it with a full touch event. The new mode is especially important to support users on new devices that use virtual buttons in the System Bar, rather than dedicated hardware buttons or trackballs. Also, standard apps are updated to offer an improved accessibility experience. The Browser supports a script-based screen reader for reading favorite web content and navigating sites. For improved readability, you can also increase the default font size used across the system.

The accessibility experience begins at first setup — a simple touch gesture during setup (clockwise square from upper left) activates all accessibility features and loads a setup tutorial. Once accessibility features are active, everything visible on the screen can be spoken aloud by the standard screen reader.

Contacts and profiles are integrated across apps and social networks, for a consistent, personal experience everywhere — from incoming calls to emails.

Communication and sharing

People and profiles

Throughout the system, your social groups, profiles, and contacts are linked together and integrated for easy accessibility. At the center is a new People app that offers richer profile information, including a large profile picture, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, events, and a new button for connecting on integrated social networks.

Your contact information is stored in a new "Me" profile, allowing easier sharing with apps and people. All of your integrated contacts are displayed in an easy to manage list, including controls over which contacts are shown from any integrated account or social network. Wherever you navigate across the system, tapping a profile photo displays Quick Contacts, with large profile pictures, shortcuts to phone numbers, text messaging, and more.

Unified calendar, visual voicemail

To help organize appointments and events, an updated Calendar app brings together personal, work, school, and social agendas. With user permission, other applications can contribute events to the calendar and manage reminders, for an integrated view across multiple calendar providers. The app is redesigned to let you manage events more easily. Calendars are color-coded and you can swipe left or right to change dates and pinch to zoom in or out agendas.

In the phone app, a new visual voicemail features integrates incoming messages, voice transcriptions, and audio files from one or more providers. Third-party applications can integrate with the Phone app to add your own voice messages, transcriptions, and more to the visual voicemail inbox.

Capture the picture you want, edit, and share instantly.

Rich and versatile camera capabilities

The Camera app includes many new features that let you capture special moments with great photos and videos. After capturing images, they can edit and share them easily with friends.

When taking pictures, continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, and decreased shot-to-shot speed help capture clear, precise images. Stabilized image zoom lets you compose photos and video in the way they want, including while video is recording. For new flexibility and convenience while shooting video, you can now take snapshots at full video resolution just by tapping the screen as video continues to record.

To make it easier to take great pictures of people, built-in face detection locates faces in the frame and automatically sets focus. For more control, you can tap to focus anywhere in the preview image.

For capturing larger scenes, the Camera introduces a single-motion panorama mode. In this mode, you start an exposure and then slowly turn the Camera to encompass as wide a perspective as needed. The Camera assembles the full range of continuous imagery into a single panoramic photo.

After taking a picture or video, you can quickly share it by email, text message, bluetooth, social networks, and more, just by tapping the thumbnail in the camera controls.

A Photo Gallery widget on the home screen.

Redesigned Gallery app with photo editor

The Gallery app now makes it easier to manage, show, and share photos and videos. For managing collections, a redesigned album layout shows many more albums and offers larger thumbnails. There are many ways to sort albums, including by time, location, people, and tags. To help pictures look their best, the Gallery now includes a powerful photo editor. You can crop and rotate pictures, set levels, remove red eyes, add effects, and much more. After retouching, you can select one or multiple pictures or videos to share instantly over email, text messaging, bluetooth, social networks, or other apps.

An improved Picture Gallery widget lets you look at pictures directly on the home screen. The widget can display pictures from a selected album, shuffle pictures from all albums, or show a single image. After adding the widget to the home screen, you can flick through the photo stacks to locate the image they want, then tap to load it in Gallery.

Live Effects let you change backgrounds and use Silly Faces during video.

Live Effects for transforming video

Live Effects is a collection of graphical transformations that add interest and fun to videos captured in the Camera app. For example, you can change the background behind them to any stock or custom image, for just the right setting when shooting video. Also available for video is Silly Faces, a set of morphing effects that use state-of-the-art face recognition and GPU filters to transform facial features. For example, you can use effects such as small eyes, big mouth, big nose, face squeeze, and more. Outside of the Camera app, Live Effects is available during video chat in the Google Talk app.

Snapping a screenshot.

Sharing with screenshots

You can now share what’s on your screens more easily by taking screenshots. Hardware buttons let them snap a screenshot and store it locally. Afterward, they can view, edit, and share the screen shot in Gallery or a similar app.

Cloud-connected experience

Android has always been cloud-connected, letting you browse the web and sync photos, apps, games, email, and contacts — wherever they are and across all of your devices. Android 4.0 adds new browsing and email capabilities to let you take even more with them and keep communication organized.

The Browser tabs menu (left) lets you quickly switch browser tabs. The options menu (right) gives you new ways to manage your browsing experience.

Benchmark comparisons of Android Browser.

Powerful web browsing

The Android Browser offers an experience that’s as rich and convenient as a desktop browser. It lets you instantly sync and manage Google Chrome bookmarks from all of your accounts, jump to your favorite content faster, and even save it for reading later in case there’s no network available.

To get the most out of web content, you can now request full desktop versions of web sites, rather than their mobile versions. You can set your preference for web sites separately for each browser tab. For longer content, you can save a copy for offline reading. To find and open saved pages, you can browse a visual list that’s included with browser bookmarks and history. For better readability and accessibility, you can increase the browser’s zoom levels and override the system default text sizes.

Across all types of content, the Android Browser offers dramatically improved page rendering performance through updated versions of the WebKit core and the V8 Crankshaft compilation engine for JavaScript. In benchmarks run on a Nexus S device, the Android 4.0 browser showed an improvement of nearly 220% over the Android 2.3 browser in the V8 Benchmark Suite and more than 35% in the SunSpider 9.1 JavaScript Benchmark. When run on a Galaxy Nexus device, the Android 4.0 browser showed improvement of nearly 550% in the V8 benchmark and nearly 70% in the SunSpider benchmark.

Improved email

In Android 4.0, email is easier to send, read, and manage. For composing email, improved auto-completion of recipients helps with finding and adding frequent contacts more quickly. For easier input of frequent text, you can now create quick responses and store them in the app, then enter them from a convenient menu when composing. When replying to a message, you can now toggle the message to Reply All and Forward without changing screens.

For easier browsing across accounts and labels, the app adds an integrated menu of accounts and recent labels. To help you locate and organize IMAP and Exchange email, the Email app now supports nested mail subfolders, each with synchronization rules. You can also search across folders on the server, for faster results.

For enterprises, the Email app supports EAS v14. It supports EAS certificate authentication, provides ABQ strings for device type and mode, and allows automatic sync to be disabled while roaming. Administrators can also limit attachment size or disable attachments.

For keeping track of incoming email more easily, a resizable Email widget lets you flick through recent email right from the home screen, then jump into the Email app to compose or reply.

Android Beam lets you share what they are using with a single tap.

Innovation

Android is continuously driving innovation forward, pushing the boundaries of communication and sharing with new capabilities and interactions.

Android Beam for NFC-based sharing

Android Beam is an innovative, convenient feature for sharing across two NFC-enabled devices, It lets people instantly exchange favorite apps, contacts, music, videos — almost anything. It’s incredibly simple and convenient to use — there’s no menu to open, application to launch, or pairing needed. Just touch one Android-powered phone to another, then tap to send.

For sharing apps, Android Beam pushes a link to the app’s details page in Android Market. On the other device, the Market app launches and loads the details page, for easy downloading of the app. Individual apps can build on Android Beam to add other types of interactions, such as passing game scores, initiating a multiplayer game or chat, and more.

Face recognition lets you unlock your phone with your face.

Face Unlock

Android 4.0 introduces a completely new approach to securing a device, making each person’s device even more personal — Face Unlock is a new screen-lock option that lets you unlock your device with your face. It takes advantage of the device front-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to register a face during setup and then to recognize it again when unlocking the device. Just hold your device in front of your face to unlock, or use a backup PIN or pattern.

Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth HDP

Support for Wi-Fi Direct lets you connect directly to nearby peer devices over Wi-Fi, for more reliable, higher-speed communication. No internet connection or tethering is needed. Through third-party apps, you can connect to compatible devices to take advantage of new features such as instant sharing of files, photos, or other media; streaming video or audio from another device; or connecting to compatible printers or other devices.

Android 4.0 also introduces built-in support for connecting to Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP) devices. With support from third-party apps, you can connect to wireless medical devices and sensors in hospitals, fitness centers, homes, and elsewhere.

Source: Android

For $199, it’s hard to find anything we didn’t like about the Amazon Kindle Fire. Msnbc.com’s Wilson Rothman explains how it works.

Source: MSNBC – By Wilson Rothman

This won’t be one of those long technical reviews. You’re reading this to make sure that the Amazon Kindle Fire you already know you want is up to snuff, and well, it is. I’ve had it since Thursday — reading, watching video, listening to music, checking email, even playing some games — and I can say it’s tight. Turn it on and you know what to do, like with an Apple product. So much like an Apple product that Apple should be scared.

It’s a 7-inch tablet, which means that it’s half as big as an iPad, and way closer in size to a paperback book. It could be a little easier to grip, but Amazon went minimalist here, rather than opting for some weird-looking ergonomics. Because of the size, reading is easier than on an iPad, though kids’ entertainment and other engrossing interactive content isn’t as fun. And because the Fire is widescreen, unlike the more 4×3 iPad, videos look almost as big as they do on Apple’s much larger device. As far as screen quality goes, it’s on par with the iPad. In other words, as an opening move, hardware-wise, Amazon’s getting it right.

If you buy the Fire from Amazon’s website, it comes with your login information already onboard, so you just confirm that you are you, and you’re off. The top of the home screen has labeled categories: Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps and Web. Any Kindle e-books you ever bought show up in the library archive, any music you bought or uploaded to Amazon’s Cloud Player shows up in music, and any video in your locker is there, too. There’s a gallery of apps that you may have purchased from Amazon’s app store (excuse me, "Appstore"). And by design, each page of stuff you own is just a click away from a store where you can get a ton more.

The Silk browser on the Kindle Fire is nearly as smooth as its namesake.

Amazon’s Appstore is a huge asset. Because it is tied to Amazon’s own purchasing system, it’s easier for you to buy apps from a trusted source. And because Amazon went with quality over quantity, it lacks the feel of Google’s Android Market, which can get so slimy that it could use a hosing down from time to time. Not every app you want is in the Amazon Appstore, but the company is already getting some of the best stuff out there — including apps from competitors like Netflix and Hulu — and developers who see the Kindle Fire will work just as hard to get their "A" material in front of Fire buyers.

The rest of the home screen is a combination of two well-known Apple design elements. Up top, there’s a "cover flow" of all recent items, be they book, app, movie or Web page. Underneath is an iBooks-like shelving system, where you can pin and rearrange your favorite media items. Rip-off or not, the interface works well enough. The Fire is certainly more fluid than the Kindle e-reader, which succeeds in spite of its user interface.

Amazon Prime lets you borrow a book a month at no extra cost, and some of the titles are bestsellers.

Speaking of fluid, the Fire’s Silk browser is nice and quick, and only gets faster as it wises up to your browsing patterns. If you always hit the msnbc.com home page then jump to Tech/Sci, it will start caching Tech/Sci in anticipation of your click. And though it tends to trigger the mobile versions of websites, it has few problems with the full versions, including embedded video and other features. I did encounter a broken page once, apparently caused by an ad loading funny, but troubles have been minor to date.

It’s easy to see that Amazon Prime will be a requirement for most Fire buyers, and not only because it’s the best way to get Julia Child’s original series "The French Chef" instantly on demand. Prime videos, movies and books could account for a huge chunk of your media diet, and represent the best value. It’s a shame Amazon doesn’t have a Spotify-like component for on-demand music, but I suspect that would eat too much into its MP3 sales.

The biggest downside to Prime video is that it’s like Netflix, and only works when you’re connected to the Internet. That means that, in an airplane or a car, you are likely in trouble. You can connect the Kindle Fire to your PC or Mac and easily copy over home videos and movies you rip from DVD (DVDs you own, hopefully). Still, the main way to take videos with you into a no-bandwidth zone is to rent or buy them, so you can download them to the Fire. Beware, because with a total of 8GB on board, you only have enough storage for 10 movies or 800 songs, but certainly not both. There’s no step-up model, like there is with the iPad, and there’s no SD card slot, like on the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet.

As you wander through the Kindle Fire interface, it’s not easy to get lost, partly because the categories are so cut-and-dry, and partly because you can nearly always see a home button to take you back when things get muddy. But I say "nearly" because in some apps, you have to click a few times to even see the home button. This inconsistency made me miss the physical home button found on the iPad and many Android devices. While we’re on the subject, I also missed volume up/down buttons, and wish that the on/off button wasn’t located on the bottom, where it’s so easily pressed on accident.

But these are design issues that don’t really interfere with the overall potency of the product, especially since much of the potency comes from that $199 price tag. What does matter is battery life. Amazon says it’s "up to 8 hours of continuous reading, or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off." That’s not as good as an iPad, which is rated for up to 10 hours of continuous use. I didn’t run it into the ground in one sitting, but I managed to go several days of regular use between charges. Again, an iPad can go longer — mine lasts nearly a week between charges. Still, the Fire’s battery life ought to be satisfactory for most people.

So while we’re on the subject of iPad, let’s have the talk. No, the Kindle Fire is not anywhere close to being the precision machine that the iPad 2 is. There are no cameras and no microphone. The Fire’s screen is half the size of the iPad’s, and the Fire’s battery life isn’t as good, yet the Fire is still a hair thicker. The Fire interface, while seductively simple, lacks the nuances — the futuristic animations and fades — that keep Apple on top.

But for Apple, this still spells trouble. The Kindle Fire can handle about 80 percent of what I want to do on an iPad, for 40 percent of the price. And much of what’s missing won’t be missing for long. Even if you can justify buying one iPad, you may look to the Fire as a second device in your high-tech home. And if you can’t justify an iPad this holiday season, you might consider Amazon’s alternative.

Later this week, we’ll be looking at the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, the closest thing to competition that the Kindle Fire will see in its class and price range. Though Barnes & Noble already has momentum from selling the Nook Color, it’s hard to see how the book retailer could outsell Amazon in this space, especially since Amazon is a digital media powerhouse, and these tablets are about more than reading. We keep an open mind, though, not least of all because the Nook specs are impressive. But for the moment, and perhaps for the time being, Kindle Fire is well worth its amazingly low price.

Source: MSNBC – By Wilson Rothman

Official: Adobe Flash for Motorola Xoom coming March 18

Source: Computerworld
By JR Raphael

Motorola promised, and it’s delivering: Adobe Flash will officially become available for the Motorola Xoom next Friday, March 18.

Xoom users are getting a software update over-the-air right now to prepare the device for the new Flash player. The update — numbered Android 3.0.1 — will roll out in waves, meaning it may take a few days to reach everyone.

The Flash software itself will show up in the Android Market next week, according to a blog posted by Adobe this morning. It’ll be considered a beta release for Honeycomb tablets like the Xoom.

Per Adobe:
We have been working very closely with Google to ensure tight integration between Flash Player 10.2 and new OS and browser capabilities in Android 3.0. The March 18th beta release of Flash Player 10.2 in conjunction with Google’s first system update to Android 3.0 (version 3.0.1) currently underway for the Motorola Xoom will deliver the first phase of our work together. This will be followed by subsequent updates, which will complete the optimizations and result in a production GA release of Flash Player 10.2 for Android 3.0.

Though it’ll also run on Android 2.2 and Android 2.3 phones, most of the new features of Adobe’s Flash Player 10.2 seem geared toward Honeycomb tablets. The software includes a special kind of rendering designed to provide smoother video playback on tablets; "deeper integration" with the Android 3.0+ browser, said to result in a faster and more desktop-like Flash browsing experience; better support for touchscreen keyboards; and a handful of other performance-based enhancements.

If you have a Xoom, the Motorola software update will show up automatically on your device sometime in the next few days; you’ll receive an on-screen notification letting you know when it’s ready to download and install. The Flash Player itself will likely have to be downloaded manually. All you’ll need to do is head into the Android Market on the 18th and find it there.
Adobe says its tablet-ready Flash Player will come preinstalled on future Android tablets.

Source: Computerworld

The following is the top ten most popular free Android real estate applications at the Android Market website. The descriptions are taken from the https://market.android.com, where you can check out the complete list with details.

#1 – Zillow Real Estate

Shop homes for sale, for rent, and more on Zillow’s database of all U.S. homes

Real Estate Data by Voice and at Your Fingertips!

Zillow Android App

As the leader in mobile real estate, Zillow provides real estate data and info for all U.S. homes on the free Zillow Android App. See Zestimate® home values, homes for sale, homes for rent, and more. Use Android’s voice search feature, plus built-in GPS technology, to search for homes as you talk, walk or drive through neighborhoods.

Read more…
#2 thru 10 Android Real Estate Apps

If you’re like me and find yourself on the go you need the WordPress app.  Access any of your WordPress.com blogs or your self-hosted WordPress blogs.  Save your post as a draft and edit it later or publish live.  Add tags and catagories.  The only downfall is you can’t add images.  Let’s hope that comes with future updates.

Find it in the Andriod Market under WordPress.

MCLEAN, Va., Feb 25, 2011 (PR Newswire Europe via COMTEX) — USA TODAY, the nation’s top-selling print newspaper, today announced the USA TODAY Android 3.0 App for Motorola Xoom is now available.

The App features the signature look and design that readers have come to trust from USA TODAY, providing them with eye catching photos and graphics while delivering the latest award-winning USA TODAY content in a convenient interactive package. The USA TODAY App has all the latest news, sports scores, weather, stock quotes and photos available.

USA Today Xoom App

“We’re excited to have the USA TODAY App launch along with the Motorola Xoom,” said Dave Hunke, president and publisher, USA TODAY. “Users will receive news as it breaks, 24 hours, 7 days a week, as well as photos, weather, stocks and sports scores. Powered by Android 3.0 Honeycomb, we’ve created a fast, friendly interface that users have come to expect from USA TODAY.”

USA TODAY is now available on major platforms and devices including iPhone, Android, iPad, Google TV, the Chrome Web Store and Windows-based slate PCs.

Android 3.1 will be released in mid-2011, with the aim of bringing Honeycomb to smartphones.
The codename Ice Cream for an upcoming version of Android has been known for months. It has also recently been suggested that the full codename is Ice Cream Sandwich. Let’s simply call it Android 3.1 though, as Google says "I" will bring Honeycomb to smartphones, and ultimately make the next 3.x version of Android tablet- as well as smartphone-friendly.

It’s been clear ever since Google’s Eric Schmidt first gave a sneak preview of Honeycomb that we’d one day see Honeycomb functionality on smartphones. PhoneScoop recently talked to Google’s Android Engineering Director Dave Burke about the upcoming "I" version of Android, and he basically confirms that "I", or Android 3.1 as we choose to call it, will make that happen.
Given the fact that Android 3.1 will run on both tablets and smartphones, the differences between tablets and smartphones running stock Android 3.1 will be few. According to Dave Burke, the Hologram visual style of Honeycomb will appear on both Android 3.1 tablets and smartphones. The same goes for the app switcher, but smartphones may for instance not get the status bar.

The Android 3.0 SDK Preview has already outlined how third-party developers should prepare for the road ahead (Google’s many Android apps are going through the same process as we speak), and it’s clear that Google has taken certain measures that leads us to believe Android 3.1 and beyond is the beginning of Round 2 – whether Apple and Microsoft are ready to fight or not.
Some will find that move appalling and evil, while others will describe it as the first true victory for openness. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Android 3.1 devices will perform during the 2011 holiday sales, and something tells us that the ability to play it cool will be a key for Google moving forward. Things are steadily moving in the right direction for Android, while NVIDIA is preparing some hefty chipsets for 2011 and beyond.

NVIDIA is currently planning to start production of the next generation of Tegra chips in August, currently codenamed Project Kal-El. The new quad-core processor with an integrated 12-core NVIDIA GPU will probably not be carved out of kryptonite, but promises a 5x performance increase as compared to the Tegra 2 chipset that is currently found in upcoming devices such as the Droid Bionic, XOOM and ATRIX 4G.

The Kal-El chip also supports display resolutions up to 2560 by 1600 pixels, meaning that Android tablets will soon match the rumored iPad 3 that is said to currently be in an early testing phase in Cupertino. Will the first QXGA tablet to hit stores be powered by Androidinstead of iOS? Only time will tell, but make no mistake about it, Google certainly intends to beat Apple in that race. It just remains to be seen who they’re working closely with to achieve it.

Content By infoSync

Check out video from the Android Event held today including information on the new Android Market website.

Google showcased on Wednesday the first version of its Android software designed to run on tablets with larger screens and greater computing horsepower, allowing for a sleeker and theoretically faster interface with built-in video conferencing.

Content by Jesse Potter of Android Central

As we reported a few weeks ago, today marks the day of Sprint’s Galaxy Tab launch.  It will cost you $399 on a two-year contract, and the data plans will run you $29.99 per month for 2GB of data, or $59.99 per month for 5GB of data and unlimited messaging.

During your next two trips around the sun, the 2GB data plan will cost you a little more than $700, and the 5GB/unlimited messaging plan will lighten your nest egg by $1,400 or so — and that’s before any additional taxes and surcharges.  Is it worth it?

Put on the nearest pair of elastic-banded pants, Android fans: A fresh round of Google-made dessert is on its way to the dinner table.

Android Gingerbread, the next major release of the Android operating system, is rumored to be days away from its public debut. According to tech blog Android Police, Google is on track to release Gingerbread’s software development kit before the end of the week.

Now, this is in no way official — the rumor is cited only to an unnamed source and has not been confirmed or even acknowledged by Google — but we have been hearing for some time that Gingerbread could launch within the fourth quarter of the year. Previous speculation has also pointed to mid-October as the time for some sort of Android-related upgrade announcement.

Whether or not this week turns out to be the one, we know that Gingerbread is in Google’s oven. And little by little, we’re learning more about what this next generation of Android software could include.

Here’s everything we’ve heard about Gingerbread so far.

(Still waiting for Froyo? Check out our Android 2.2 upgrade list for the latest on your phone’s status.)

Android Gingerbread may have a new look.

One of the most consistent rumors about Android Gingerbread is that the software will introduce a revamped graphical interface. Gingerbread is said to boast a streamlined, simplified UI with a feel similar to the Android 2.2 Gallery application. A report published by Android blog Phandroid on Monday says the system icons are "simpler and cleaner," with a more uniformed look; the notification bar is changed to a "warm, slate grey" color; and green highlights are featured more prominently throughout the entire OS.

Android Gingerbread may have updated Google apps.

We’ve already seen Google starting to separate apps from the Android operating system, releasing standalone versions of such programs as Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Search. Some have speculated that this trend will expand even more with Gingerbread, allowing Google to directly provide updates to core Android services without having to rely on carrier-connected rollouts. According to Phandroid, the goal is to get each individual app to feel like "an extension of the OS" rather than "a tacked-on accessory."

Android Gingerbread may have built-in video chat.

Numerous rumors have pointed to Gingerbread gaining its own native video chat utility. In an interview with PC Magazine, Android head honcho Andy Rubin mentioned the use of Google Talk for PC-based video chat and alluded to a possible mobile application. "It works on the desktop," he said. "Whether that can be repurposed and made appropriate for sipping bandwidth for mobile, it’s an exercise that’s underway."

Android Gingerbread may have native VoIP calling.

One particularly interesting bit of Gingerbread buzz says the software could include an updated Google Voice app with built-in SIP support. That’d mean you could potentially place and receive calls over Wi-Fi or 3G/4G using your Google Voice phone number.

Android Gingerbread may be more focused on gaming.

During his PC Mag interview, Google’s Andy Rubin talked about the need for an increased focus on gaming in Android’s next release. His words:

If we were to carefully look at what new features and functionalities in the platform that we would need to support all forms of gaming across the entire spectrum, I think that would probably be an interesting thing to pay attention to. I think that more blending of the Web and native is probably interesting.

(Related: Improve Android battery life: Here’s how)

Android Gingerbread will be faster.

It probably goes without saying, but Gingerbread will include boosts to system speed and performance. Rubin told PC Mag we could expect "general improvements to the platform" that’d make it "faster and more robust." He also specifically mentioned changes to the stock Android browser that’d provide "an updated user experience."

Android Gingerbread could have added social media features.

One last nugget of info from Rubin’s interview: When asked what kind of ideas were going into the next version of Android, Rubin said: "More forms of communication. I think social media is a form of communication."

Interpret as you will.

Android Gingerbread may have improved copy/paste.

According to discussion at Google’s Android issues forums, rewriting and improving Android’s system-wide copy and paste functionality was one of the goals for Gingerbread. We’ll soon see if it made the cut.

Google Music could arrive with Gingerbread.

We know Google is working on a cloud-based music service. Recent reports suggest the service, expected to be called Google Music, will launch in time for the upcoming holiday season. Given the timing, it could very well appear alongside or as part of Gingerbread.

In addition to introducing a native tool for buying music on Android, Google’s music service will allow you to stream songs directly from your PC to your Android phone.

Android Gingerbread may have a new YouTube experience.

The folks at Phandroid say Android’s YouTube app gets a makeover in Gingerbread, with a new look and added support for YouTube’s slimmed down "Leanback" mode.

Gingerbread could be Android 3.0. Or not. And could launch this year. Or next.

No one’s entirely sure what version number Gingerbread will end up possessing — at least, no one who’s willing to tell us right now. Some suspect Gingerbread will be Android 3.0, while others hypothesize that it could be Android 2.5 or even 2.3. As for the date of Gingerbread’s debut, guesses have ranged from quarter four of 2010 to quarter one of 2011.

Remember: Aside from the hints dropped by Google’s Andy Rubin, these details are all based on rumors, leaks, and anonymous sources. Some of them may prove to be true, while others may end up not panning out for one reason or another.

The one thing we can say for certain: Gingerbread is coming — and it promises to hold some sweet surprises.

Content by JR Raphael
Article copyright 2010 JR Raphael. All rights reserved.
JR Raphael writes about smartphones and other tasty technology. You can find him on Facebook, on Twitter, or at eSarcasm, his geek-humor getaway.