Google Launches Android 6.0 as Marshmallow

Google has formally introduced the official Android 6.0 SDK along with the final preview of Android M, now being presented as Marshmallow. In his remarks about the name of the latest release, Android product manager, Jamal Eason, explained that “whether you like them straight out of the bag, roasted to a golden brown exterior with a molten centre, or in fluff form, who doesn’t like marshmallows?”

Apart from its traditionally unique name, there are a ton of new and unique features in the new update that were promised in the launch of the M Developer Preview at Google I/O. The changes include, but are not limited to, updates to the Fingerprint API for better error reporting, fingerprint enrolment and greater reliability, along with an update to the permissions user interface. In addition to that, the latest version of android will also feature Doze, which is supposed to reduce background app activity when the device is inactive in order to provide a longer battery life, and a USB-C connector that aims to charge devices three to five times faster than current chargers.

Toshiba Steps in the Tablet Market with Thrive, Going On Sale in July

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Toshiba Corp is one of the very recent companies which have stepped their foot in the steeply growing tablet market, it will be making its debut with a 10-inch device called Thrive. It will be retailed at a price slightly less than the Apple Inc’s market leading iPad 2. This new tablet from Toshiba, Thrive, is scheduled to make its way in the market of the United States on the 10^th of July, 2011, as other companies like Research in Motion Ltd and Hewlett-Packard Co, still work on their debut products to make their way into the tablet market.

Thrive will only be powered with Wi-Fi connectivity and the basic model will be retailed at the price of $429. It is definitely aimed to be primarily housed at the consumers which are going to use it as a home computer, declared the GM of digital products at Toshiba America, Jeff Barney. This device will be running on the latest version of Google Inc.’s largely admired Android OS’s Honeycomb version. The device will begin its online pre-ordering from 13^th June, from almost all retailers including Best Buy Co Inc, Amazon.com Inc and others.

Toshiba is expecting that its tablet sales will explode worldwide and anticipates that it might have to ship even more than 50 million until the end of 2011 only. Chief rival of Toshiba’s Thrive tablet, Apple’s iPad sold almost 15 million devices in just the nine months after its release in 2010. Whereas iPad’s are even expected to further strengthen their dominance in the market in the next term. While in the smartphone market, the chief rival of Apple, Google Inc.’s Android platform is expected to strengthen its leading position. Android market is free to license and being used by innumerable tablets already.

Microsoft Is Apparently Making More Money Out Of HTC Android Phone Sales than Its Own Windows Phone

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There has been a very vivid and unbelievable revelation made by an analyst from Citi, Walter Pritchard, who shared very strange findings today declaring that Microsoft might be making even more money from Android system than it might make from its own Windows Phone.

It was stated in a post published on Friday, which identified that Microsoft gets an almost $5 for each sale made on every HTC phone running Android. The absurd settlement was made due to a case of patent agreement between HTC and Microsoft last year. To protect the Taiwanese company from a proposed patent infringement lawsuit, that could have been filed by Microsoft over the Android operating system. It will be even more beneficial for the C.E.O. of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, and his company if they are able to seek agreements with other Android phone makers, which it is in the midst of suing currently. Pritchard has predicted that these companies might even agree to a settlement from between $7.50 to $12.50 per device sold.

Another analyst, Horace Dediu, from Asymco, also stated in his report on Friday that “a rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft.” On the other hand, if we compare it to the sales of Microsoft’s own Windows Phone licenses, they are sold almost round about 2 million, hence “estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone,” says Dediu, “that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million.”

Making money from paid apps in Android Market a challenge for app developers

It has been revealed from the study conducted by app analytics firm, Distimo, that it is relatively more difficult for the app developers to earn money by developing their apps in Google Android Market rather than putting it in Apple App Store, using the one-off fee model. The finding of the study were revealed publically this week illustrating that, evaluating all the paid apps in the Google Android Market, almost 80% of them are only downloaded less than 100 times.

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Distimo also revealed that it’s “more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model.” The actual big sellers in the Android market are only two, whereas if we compare Apple paid apps downloaded, it accounts more than half a million. Moreover Apple App Store has almost six total big sellers of paid apps, only accounted for two month time period and within US alone.  Moreover, if we consider the stats, there are almost five paid games in the Android market which are downloaded more than 250,000 times. But if we consider the same for Apple App Store, again in two months time period only, there twice as many, i.e. ten, paid games which have been downloaded more than 250,000 times within U.S.

After Being Challenged By Apple, Lodsys Now Decides To Threaten the Android App Developers

Lodsys went after several iOS app developers last week, for supposedly utilizing their patented in-app payment technology without permission, and had to face threat from Apple Inc. Apple gave an official statement claiming that it has all the licensed rights for the technology it has extended to its developers.

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Hence, when Lodsys feared a legal confrontation with Apple Inc., it deviated from its goal and has now sinisterly lodged similar complaints against the Android app developers. A group of Mac users identified in a public forum thread that an Android developer has also mentioned that he was contacted by Lodsys over the same issue. A user with a screen name “Markusn82” wrote in the forum: “We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several weeks later we received a letter from Lodsys, claiming that we infringed on their patents.” The post further also makes an inquiry asking fellow Android app developers, if anyone has also received such notification or have fallen victim to this incident. Furthermore, the more important inquiry was made asking whether or not shall they expect Google to step in and do something to help its developers, like Apple had done.

Amazon Now Opens an Alternative ‘Mac App Store’ after ‘App Store for Android Devices’

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The court has yet to decide the on whether Amazon.com shall be allowed to sell Android apps and call the market, an “App Store,” when rather than waiting for the decision Amazon.com has extended its market. Amazon is the largest online retailer of U.S., and has now offered apps and software’s for Apple’s Mac operating system. This will directly put the Apple's own Mac App Store in competition with Amazon. This Mac app store was initially announced back in October at Amazon’s Back To Mac event and then released on 6^th January offering almost 1,000 apps, mostly games.

These apps and software’s offered for Mac OS are not exactly new, but the app store displays them in distinguished sorting without any fanfare, with a special section for game. However it is interesting that Amazon has not named this app store, an ‘app store,’ which is a phrase that Apple wants to trademark. Apple has previously sued Amazon, in March, asserting that the title ‘App Store’ for Android software is kept illegally to seek more developers. Whereas Amazon had a very consistent stance as it asserts that "app store" is a very generic term.

Amazon informed the media that "Mac download store features an install-less download process where the customer gets just the product without any unwanted extras, making for faster and easier purchases. Plus, downloads are conveniently backed up in your Games and Software Library where you can download an unlimited number of times for personal use." The most eye-catching Mac downloads in the store, offered in the beginning; include Office Mac for home and businesses, Aspyr's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Individual Software's Logo Designer, and H&R Block At Home Deluxe Federal and State eFile for 2010.

INQ Social Mobile Phone Maker Chooses Foursquare, Instead Of Facebook, To Power Location Services of Its New Model

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After having an astonishing success with "Facebook Phone," INQ Mobiles, the mobile maker most popular for its social tempt in manufacturing designs, has new ventures at its hand. It has collaborated previously with Facebook to launch its INQ Cloud Touch, an Android smartphone with immense Facebook integration. Just this Monday, INQ Mobile announced that its new venture will also involve Foursquare; it was declared that both companies will join forces with the same home screen experience which INQ mobile has kept in its Android devices lineup. This new Foursquare deal will allow the mobile have greater help in discovering and exploring nearby places via Foursquare than ever before.

This new deal will offer the same OS-level Foursquare integration, like it has done previously with Facebook integration in the INQ "Facebook Phone." It will provide the maximum deepest Foursquare integration giving the users instant access to share their location and recommend features. The official Foursquare blog explained that "Because it’s built directly into the Android system, you can check in and explore without even firing up the application." Whereas, the press release of INQ Mobile reveals that "Users will be able to swipe back and forth between Facebook and Foursquare home screens, depending on what they are doing, what they are looking for and who they want to connect with."

Apple fires back at Amazon in continuing 'App Store' name dispute

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Apple has taken official action against Amazon in court, as the company continues its struggle in defending its trademark of the title "App Store." Apple is looking for the court to avert Amazon from using the name "appstore" for its new Android application storefront. Apple filed a legal complaint in the federal Court of Oakland, Calif. Bloomberg reports that Apple has demanded from the court to immediately deny the claims of Amazon that the term "App Store" is generic. This is a trademark infringement suit against Amazon for its newly launched Appstore for Android. According to the writings in Apple’s complaint, it says "Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words 'app store' together denotes a store for apps." Further the statement implies that the term “App Store” is not used very frequently by businesses to refer to any download services, hence it asserts that the term "app store" is not generic.

Initially the lawsuit of Apple Inc. was filed in March, just a day before Amazon released its own Appstore. Amazon gave a legal response in April, keeping the stance that the term "app store" is too generic, so not only Android, but anyone should be able to use it. The very recent response of Apple is an effort to refute this claim of Amazon.

Industry Executives Say Google-Apple Rivals Still Have a Chance in the Smartphone Operating System Market

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Microsoft, along with other small-scale software vendors, still has plenty of chances to make their way into the rapidly-growing smartphone market. According to the result of a research conducted by Canalys, Google's Android platform is the leader of all mobile operating systems in the market, as Google and Apple both have a hold of more than half of the market. Despite being largely dominated by Google and Apple, the smaller companies have the support from many manufacturers, operators and consumers.

Talking about the both leaders of the market, Apple and Google, the co-founder of Index Ventures, Neil Rimer said that "Those are the two horses that are out in front today." He agreed that a considerable amount of Android phones and iPhones are being sold today and due to the well-developed applications available on both platforms, it is a very tough job for the competitors to make a mark in the market. "The barriers for others than Microsoft have increased," told Magnus Jern, C.E.O. of Golden Gekko, a mobile software house. He added that "A lot of people in Germany, Scandinavia see Apple and Android as the only platforms."

However, Jern and plenty other industry executives are of the same opinion that platforms like Windows Phone, webOS, bada and MeeGo; despite having fallen far behind in the race from Android and Apple, shall not be considered out of the game. They pointed out that almost all the owners of these smaller companies have a lot of investment to make.

Google Hotpot merges with Google Places

It was announced back in November, 2010, that Google Hotpot service was ambiguously suspended; it was either embedded in Google Places or still retained its title and could be considered a separate entity. It has now been revealed that Google’s Hotpot service will not only be extended to contain millions of users in 47 different languages but the 8^th April announcement stated that Hotpot will "gradually" become an integral part of its already widely used product, Google Places.

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Google Places was previously used to search, rate, and review only the local businesses while keeping an uncomplicated user interface. However, now with the integration of Google Hotpot, the users will also be able to do all those things with "restaurants". All the users will be able to rate and see the average ratings awarded from other users who have been to that restaurant.

Google updates the ‘News Near You’ Feature on the Mobile Version of Google News

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Travelers always on the move, either on a business purpose or otherwise, are being now being treated by the new update of Google. The mobile version of Google News site has just witnessed an update which now gives the users the local news, of wherever in this world they are, automatically by collecting their location data. The new feature was enrolled on Friday, allowing the easy functionality of a new section of news for users based on the view of news stories based on their current location, called “News Near Me.” It is accessible to both the users of iPhone and Android devices.

However, it shall not go unnoticed that this feature will once again allow the search engine giant to locate your device and in turn track your location all the time again. While you are visiting the news site, the user is prompted to approve the mobile browser to send their location data to Google servers. Once the feature is set up, it is very easy to use as the local headlines appear automatically in the section called "News Near Me." This section is generally placed in the bottom most position of the homepage though the users can easily adjust by changing the tab order in the personalization settings page to put the local headlines, national, world news in sequence with the “News Near Me.”

Google Previews Its New Automated Home Control System with Android@Home at the I/O Conference 2011

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Google made another huge announcement on its years’ I/O conference, introducing yet another new innovative idea of using technology, called Android@Home. It has been building a new more adaptable framework for Android OS, which will allow the programmers to use the new technology in order to communicate with other various electronic home devices which not necessarily run on Android, take light bulbs, thermostats, washing machines and more, for example. It declared Android@Home to be brand new phenomena which will make use of a completely open wireless protocol, letting the OS easily connect with basically any electricity powered device.

Google's engineering director, Joe Britt, was the one who presented the idea in front of the large audience and even larger online viewers of the conference. He used the everyday examples of the Android@Hone system to be working with an alarm clock app in your Android device, which can be connected with appliances like lights and speakers, and could be perhaps used to slowly raise the lights after the alarm has gone, or even raise the volume of a separate stereo device lying in the room. Moreover, Britt went on stating that if general users adapt the idea and Android@Home is successful, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine an Android device completely controlling an giant irrigation system wirelessly, he said the users can have their own ‘kind of a real-world FarmVille app.’

Zynga and Lady Gaga Give Birth to another Virtual Farm Called Gagaville, Where Players Can Unlock Her Albums’ New Songs

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Lady Gaga will now be making an abrupt stop on her glamorous world tour as the pop tour de world, iconic for her bold and blunt style and will once again be the star of this week, gathering her loyal fans towards a brand new initiative on FarmVille, called GagaVille. This new deal has recently been finalized with Zynga, one of the largest name in online gaming on social networks and otherwise, and the zenith of pop industry, Lady Gaga. It has been announced, so far, that Lady Gaga will be appearing in this new game in her own unique way; wearing a hamlet within the Zynga universe.

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The virtual world of GagaVille will be born worldwide on 17^th of May, which is eminent to give out its own kind of digital outlandish farm vibe with Gaga's trademark. This implies that this new game will include as out of the world stuff as "crystals, unicorns and sheep on motorcycles." The root of this new venture and partnership is actually based in a Facebook-based promotional tie-in for the singer’s upcoming and largely anticipated album, Born This Way.

Google Decides To Appeal in the Swiss Highest Court to Win the Street View Privacy Battle with the Authorities

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This Wednesday, Google has announced that it will now be taking a full-class action against the ruling which restricts the giant company of making completely sure that every person or car which is being pictured to build the Street View are absolutely unrecognizable in every regard. Google declared that it be now appeal in the highest court in Switzerland. Google was initially dragged into courts of Switzerland in November, 2009, as the official data protection watchdog of the government claimed that Google on several occasions has violated the general terms of privacy. The claim majorly alleged that this coverage of Switzerland streets being done by the company has broken privacy rules, as similar complaints were also addressed in many other countries within Europe too.

Amazon Cloud Player Silently Updated to Stream Music to the Web Interface of All Apple iOS Devices

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Amazon's first to make it to the market, Cloud Player music streaming service, which was released recently and only worked with Android devices, has just been updated mutely. Just this weekend a new upgrade was made without any formal announcement, and it automatically introduced the support for Apple's iOS devices. So now the users who have the Amazon Cloud Drive account, are freely able to also stream their music on any any iOS devices too, which include iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, etc.

It is noticeable that despite the support, there is no authorized announcement, or any other news, indicating towards an official App for the iOS for the Amazon's Cloud Player. The official app is only for Android smartphone, but still the support comes in a way, where users are able to their stored songs online from the web browser. The long trusted built-in embedded browser of Apple for all iOS devices, Safari, plays the songs easily; both leading technology blogs TechCrunch and Engadget have also claimed that it ‘works like a charm.’

Mobile advertisements rising in Asia

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The trend of more advertisers feeling comfortable to reach their audience through their mobile phones is growing steeply in the Asia-Pacific region. It has been growing on a way much steeper rate than the global rate, this speculation was announced by the international mobile ad network, InMobi, this Tuesday. It said that the advertisements on the smartphones has gone up to even above 17.6 billion "impressions" just one month of March this year, which is an increase of about 26% from previous four months statistics of the year, it mentioned in the report. Whereas, overall increase in the global market was only 21% for the same exact time period.

InMobi is actually a marketing firm which functions as a middleman for both the advertisers and smartphone users. It reported that the current advertising market is being dominated by the exceptional growth in the use of smartphones. InMobi actually takes up almost around 22% of the total smartphone ads of the region. Smartphone users are published very interactive advertisements during the time they use, the internet with their mobile internet browser or play games online, on most advanced smartphone devices to date.

South Korean Police Dep. Suddenly Searches the Offices of Google in Seoul Questioning Their Method of Data Collection

South Korean police launched another raid at the global internet gain company, Google on Tuesday. The local offices of the company were subjected to an investigation launched by the cyber crime wing of the police department; they were in search of any evidence in favor of the allegations regarding Google using its mobile phone advertising platform, ‘AdMob’ to secretly collect private data of its customers illegally.

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The police searched the office of Google located in Seoul, and confiscated several hard drives and along with other computer data, which it considered helpful in the investigation. According to the spokesperson of the crime unit in the police department, he informed AFP, that all the confiscated material is directly related to its questioned "AdMob" platform only, and no further damage was done during the raid.

Google Talk with Video Released For Android in the Next Update

It has been recently posted on the official Google Mobile blog, by the Mountain View Company that it is soon going to reveal its own video chat software for the Android phones, titled Google Talk with video. Even though three are already several third party apps for Android phones, like Fring and Tango, which allow users to have video chat, but it is the first time that Google’s own Google Talk has allowed Video Chat. This updated version of 

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Google Talk will be integrated in the upcoming Android OS update 2.3.4.

According to the update, Google Talk with video will be able to communicate best with the users who are either using the same Google Talk with Video on their Android, or Google Talk with Video enabled on their Gmail on computers. Andriod supported phones will be able to make the video calls easily via 3G, 4G or even better with Wi-Fi. This in comparison with Apple’s FaceTime is a very open service, as FaceTime on supports connection via Wi-Fi only.

Google Releases an Official Google Docs App Dedicatedly Developed For Android Devices

Google has finally released its dedication app for its own Android OS; it was announced by a blog post published on this Wednesday by the Mountain View Company. This official post describes that how can this new app of Google based on its own highly admired Android OS allows the user easily and quickly “filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app.”

This app works much like the mobile version of Google Docs, but having 

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an app definitely makes a major difference. It has its own distinguishable advantages, than to keep browsing from you internet browser; it is much better to scroll through menus rather than a page.

MIPS Announces To Port Google's Android 3.0 OS in Its Processors for Enhance Performance

According to the announcement of MIPS Technologies on Tuesday, it has 

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declared that it is porting Google's Android 3.0 OS, which is nicknamed Honeycomb, in order to work better with its microprocessors. The V.P. of MIPS, Art Swift, expected that this port could lead to do better and faster release of Honeycomb tablets which will be based on MIPS processors. Whereas, it was also the demand of customers to adopt the Honeycomb support, as this porting to the OS will significantly boost up the speed of tablet development.

Honeycomb is currently operating on MIPS processors internally too, but additional enhancement is definitely required, claimed Swift. He was not much sure or precise on whether how long exactly could this porting take to finish, however he did gave a rough estimation of around 60 to 90 days for finishing the porting with earlier versions of Android.