You first need to be logged in to a Google account on your smartphone. You could obviously access most Google services directly on the phone, but sometimes you may want more screen estate, especially if a computer is available. That’s not a issue if you are working on your own computer, but what if you are on a public terminal or a friend’s house? You probably do not want to enter your log in information on the computer as a number of things can happen.

This includes a keylogger running on the PC, someone looking over your shoulders while entering your sign in details, forgetting to log out after you finish your session or configuring the sign in information to be saved on the computer.

If you have your smartphone at hand, you can perform the following steps instead. Visit http://goto.google.com/login. All you should see is a QR code on the page.

Scan the code with the camera of your smartphone. You should see the following screen on your phone.

Tap on Start with Google Mail or Start with iGoogle to load those pages in the web browser you have just scanned the QR code in. You can alternatively stop here to end the process without logging in, no harm done then.

Google Mail or iGoogle will be opened with the connected account, and without you having to enter your account username or password into the web browser or on the computer.

It needs to be noted that you will access data from the same account that you are logged in on the smartphone. There is no option, other than signing in into another account on the phone, to access a different account on the PC.

It is also important to log out of the service on the computer after you have finished using it. If you do not, the next user may be able to access your data.

Google Sesame can be quite useful in situations where you want to log in to your Google account on a computer that is not your own. Instead of having to enter your user data, you can simply use your smartphone to log in.

What’s your take on Google Sesame? Let me know in the comments? (via Caschy)

Update: Seems as if Google has pulled the plug on the new feature again. When you now visit the site where the QR code was initially displayed, you get the following message:

Hi there – thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment.

While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms.

Stay tuned for something even better!

Dirk Balfanz, Google Security Team.

It is not clear why it has been removed by Google or whether it will be back at a later point in time.

If you are like me, you’d probably want to know if a program that can virtually access all data on the phone is running on it and with which server and companies it communicates.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder is a new program for Android mobile phones by Bitdefender that can be used to find out if the technology is running on a phone.

Android users need to download the application from Android Market where it is available for free. The app has been designed to detect Carrier IQ on Android phones. It cannot remove the technology nor detect or remove malicious software from the phone.

Android users can point their browsers to the Bitdefender carrier IQ Finder market place listing to install the program directly from there. It is necessary to be logged in a Google account to install the app.

The app will search for traces of Carrier IQ on the phone on start up.

A red screen after the scan indicates that Carrier IQ has been found running on the system, a green screen that the technology has not been found on the smartphone.

What can you do if Carrier IQ has been found on your phone? It may be virtually impossible to remove the technology completely from the phone. You could contact your carrier for additional information about the technology. (via)

I received the Samsung GT-S8500 when I renewed my contract with T-Mobile. That was about a year ago and I never bothered to connect the phone to the Internet or see if Samsung has released a newer firmware for the device.

That changed today when I decided to find out how to update the phone’s firmware. And since I’m probably not the only one who cannot figure it out in a matter of seconds, I have decided to write a tutorial on how its done.

You need the following equipment to check for and install updates: The Samsung Android phone, the USB cable to connect the phone to the computer, and the Samsung Kies software [here] which handles the updating and other things.

Install Samsung Kies first. This may take a while. The program installs mobile phone drivers and may restart your computer without warning. Next thing that you need to do is to close all open applications on your phone. This is done by holding down the center button on the phone’s front until a new screen pops up with an option to close all running applications.

Use the USB cable to connect your mobile device to the computer and select Samsung Kies as the USB connection method. Start the software, the mobile phone should be recognized immediately.

Samsung Kies will search for updates automatically if the computer it is running on is connected to the Internet.

I’d advise anyone to stop the process at that time to export the phone’s settings and data to the PC first. Firmware updates may alter or remove data on the phone and it is always a good idea to make sure you can restore your data if that is the case.

Click Import/Export in Kies, switch to Export and use the Export buttons to backup the phone’s data to your computer. You can backup contacts, photos, music, videos, schedule, or to-dos.

Go back to the basic information tab in the Samsung Kies software after you have backed up your phone’s data. Click on the Firmware Update button to start the upgrade.

An informational page is displayed next. Samsung offers tips on how to make sure that the firmware update will complete without errors. The company suggests to connect the phone to a power supply, to back up data before the process, to not use the phone during the upgrade and to not connect other devices to the computer in that time.

The process may take up to 30 minutes, but is usually faster. My phone’s firmware upgrade took about five minutes.

If everything went fine you will receive a success message in the end. The device needs to be restarted (happened automatically in my case). You should now check if the data that you have stored on your phone is still available. If it is not, use the import feature of the Samsung Kies software to upload the data again to your phone.

Have you ever updated your smartphone? If so, how would you describe the process?

BlueStacks offers a solution for Windows based computer systems. It was first only compatible with Windows 7, the latest version released a few days ago added support for XP and Vista as well.

When you install BlueStacks on your computer an icon is added to the upper right screen of the operating system. This icon acts as the central hub. Here you can start Android applications, open the help file or the BlueStacks website to load additional apps on the computer.

The free version ships with ten preinstalled apps. It offers room for additional apps (The (changing) start page states the free version is limited to 26 additional apps) that can be installed from a list of featured apps on the BlueStacks homepage or by installing a BlueStacks client on the Android mobile which can then be used to push Android apps directly to the Windows PC. These apps appear in the hub listing after a short period of time.

Available preinstalled are mostly game apps like Aporkalypse or Drag Racing. The featured apps section on the BlueStacks homepage, only accessible after connecting a Facebook account with the service, lists more games and some news related apps.

More interesting that the featured or preinstalled apps is the ability to push existing Android apps from your phone to your PC to access them on Windows. The developers say that not all apps may work at the current point in time.

Apps that work are launched in fullscreen. Take a look at the following videos to get a better expression.

The developers are continuing to work on the application. It will eventually reach beta and then final status. The plan of the company from what I can see is to keep offering the free version of the software with limited app storage space, and a professional version with unlimited space that is likely going to cost either a flat sum of money or a subscription fee.

Windows users can download the latest version of BlueStacks from the project website. Windows XP users should take a look at the prerequisite page before they install the software to make sure they have all the software installed on their system that is required to run BlueStacks.

Android users, have you tried the BlueStacks App Player yet? If so, what’s your opinion?

And now Google Music with its big announcement on November 16. Google Music gets rid of the beta status and remains a free service for all users (from the United States, and those who know how to use a proxy). Users can store up to 20,000 songs on Google servers.

The Google Music store offers a library of 13 million songs which can be purchased on the Android Market. Songs cost 99 cent and are provided in 320 Kbit quality. Users can download songs or stream them to other devices. Google Music users who make purchases can share their purchases on Google+. This allows others to listen to the song once on Google’s social networking platform.

Payments are currently limited to T-Mobile US customers which benefit from carrier billing support. This basically means that Google Music purchases will appear on the monthly cellphone bill which improves the buying experience significantly. T-Mobile customers will get exclusive contents for free until the end of the year as part of the promotion to establish the service in the United States.

Artists can create their own space on Google Music where they can sell their music directly. The initial fee to setup an artist page is $25 US Dollars. It is likely – but not confirmed – that artists will have to share their earnings with Google.

When you look at both Google Music and iTunes Match, you will notice that they are both US-only at this point in time. Google Music is even more limited as the store is currently only available to T-Mobile USA customers.

What’s your take on the recent development? If you are living in the US, will you be using one of the services?

A side effect of this is that most advertisements and other script driven objects and elements will be blocked as well by the extension.

NoScript offers more than just script blocking and whitelisting though. It comes with additional modules to enforce HTTPS usage, Cross-Site Scripting filters, Clickjacking protection and a firewall like component that the developer calls Application Boundaries Enforcer.

The developer of NoScript has been working for quite some time on a Firefox Mobile port of the extension. The recently released NoScript 3 Alpha 9 version is the first feature-complete version of the security add-on for Firefox Mobile on Android and Maemo devices.

NoScript Mobile in particular offers the following major security features that the desktop version of the add-on offers:

• A domain based content permission management for scripts
• Anti-XSS (cross-site scripting) filtering options
• Clickjacking protection called ClearClick
• The web application firewall App Boundaries Enforcer

NoScript Mobile furthermore introduces permission presets that can be configured after installation and later on in the extension’s options.

The developer has added four different permission presets to the add-on.

• Easy Blacklist – The user picks the sites where JavaScript and plugins are blocked on
• Click to Play – Plugins are automatically blocked until activated with a click by the user
• Classic Whitelist – The standard setting on NoScript for desktop Firefox versions. Blocks all scripts automatically and will only run whitelisted scripts.
• Fortress – Like the Classic Whitelist setting but all contents are blocked even on whitelist sites until clicked on.

Another interesting feature that will be implemented eventually is the ability to synchronize NoScript settings between desktop and mobile versions.

Users interested in running NoScript on mobile devices can download the latest version from the NoScript Anywhere project website.

The main function of the host is to act as a bus master which controls the data input and output channels and decide its use at varied times. The host also acts as the powered bus to provide power. In the computer world the laptop or the desktop acts as the host which performs as the bus master as well as providing power to the bus. While the other accessories such as the mouse, printer, webcam etc. act as the USB devices. Similarly in the smart phones the phone device acts as the host whereas its accessories act as the USB devices. But since very few Android powered devices support host mode to successfully connect the accessories as the USB devices, the Android developers turned the normal relationship on its head. Instead of using the phone or tablets as hosts, they act as USB Devices and the accessories acts as the USB Host. This means that the accessories act as the bus master and a powered bus.

The Open Accessory will consist of a USB host and a system to provide power to the Android Device such as a phone or tablet. Once the accessory is connected to the device the device will identify itself on the basis of its VID/PID (significant IDs which are unique to the Device model and manufacturer). Once the device is detected the accessory asks the device to switch to accessory mode by sending a series of control transactions to the device. While switching to accessory mode the device will reappear with the new VID/PID corresponding to the accessory mode. The above protocol will help the device to start in the accessory mode after the appropriate application is initiated. If the specific application is not found, the protocol will suggest a relevant URL for the application.

How to start Android device in accessory mode?

Step 1: Send a 51 control (“get protocol”) request to detect if the device supports Android Accessory Protocol. If the device supports the protocol, a non-zero number is returned. This number represents the version of the protocol. The following are the characteristics of the request control.

Step 2: After the appropriate protocol version is returned by the device, send a string information to the device, this information will select the appropriate application for the accessory attached, if the application is not found in the device it will suggest the user with a URL. The characteristics of this request are as follows:

The following string IDs are supported with maximum size of 256 bytes for each string.

Step 3: Once the application has been chosen, send the request to start device in accessory mode. This request is a control request on endpoint 0 having characteristics as follows:

After the final control request has been sent, the device will reappear in the accessory mode and the accessory will be able to identify the device and establish communication with the device. Thus the Android seems to have created a pathway for configuring the accessories with the devices.

So why do I have this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that whatever Microsoft deliver next year won’t be good enough?  Microsoft tout the features of Windows 7, its stability and reliability almost to excess.  Certainly it’s the most stable, reliable and dependable operating system the company has ever produced.

Windows 8, when it finally arrives, will no doubt be even more reliable, stable and dependable than even Windows 7 is capable of being.  Then there’s been all the tablet talk in the last year or so.  Google rushed a new version of its Android OS out of the door, Steve Ballmer has said that the next version of Windows will be tablet friendly and the world is looking forward to all that.

If we look at the, now mature, smartphone market though what do we see?  Probably the biggest and most popular smartphone OS out there at the moment, Google’s Android, is still based around a desktop with widgets on it.  Indeed its handsets still come with a cursor you can move around.  This is a good example I feel that no matter how good this particular smartphone OS might be, its still a step behind its users.

If you look back historically for instance to the days of MS DOS and Windows 1.  By the time Windows and Mac OS were first released, users had already been clamoring for a GUI OS with alternatives such as DesqView and GEM rising to fill the temporary gap.  With almost every OS the world has seen it’s been a step behind its users.

But surely this is the problem, as new technology comes along we find more and more innovative uses for it and so the technology keeps getting left behind.  Operating systems suffer from this problem even more.  Look at Windows.  The current version is leagues behind where its users want it to be.  Only now are Microsoft taking features such as tablet functionality and System on a Chip seriously.  All the companies responsible for hardware and operating systems are staying one step behind their users.  There’s one exception to this however and that’s Apple.

Apple are the only technology company that’s being proactive and trying to anticipate what its users will want to do in the coming years.  It’s this forward-thinking attitude that have put the company firmly in the lead, and that will keep it there until anybody else is brave enough to catch up.  Nintendo and Microsoft have both achieved this to a lesser degree in recent years with innovative new ways to interact with their games consoles.  These innovations aside though there’s very little that’s staying ahead of the users of modern technology.

So where does this leave any OS?  If you look at any of the desktop operating systems, OS X, GNU/Linux and Windows, they’re all currently playing catch up with their users.  Now smartphone and tablet operating systems are doing the same with Google and Microsoft rushing to finish products they should really have brought to market a couple of years ago.

That was the time when people wanted these features, right back at the beginning.  Unfortunately unless and until the big technology and software companies realise that the consumer is now ahead of them, no operating system will ever be good enough.

There can be no doubt that the smartphone market is still growing and has some space to grow into for the next few years.  There is also no doubt in this commentators’ mind that there’s more than enough space in the market for Android, Windows Phone and iOS with all parties concerned making healthy profits.  Frankly, variety like this should be encouraged.  Whenever I’ve gone to upgrade to a new handset I’ve always looked for something different both in the hardware and OS as a break from what I’ve been living with for the last two years, but now I can see those days coming to and end which is a shame.

As consumers we should continue to support all three of these mobile OSes (plus Blackberrys and even Symbian and WebOS if Nokia, Sony Ericsson and HP get their collective acts together).

For these reasons I frankly have little interest in what Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer or anybody else in the tech industry called Steve has to say about these figures.  It’s great that Android is flourishing in the same way that it’s great that both iOS and Windows Phone are selling really well too.

To me the smartphone market is a reminder of the home computer revolution of the early 1980′s when you could pop down to your local electronics store on a Saturday morning to be wowed by all the different types of operating system and the different ways of doing things, from the Vectrex console to the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and the wonderful little Oric 1 with its explode command.

Since the beginning of mass adoption of the PC all the innovation of the 80′s has been homogenised into a single, and rather dull, way of working.  Thus I urge all of you to continue to buy iPhones and Android handsets and to continue evangelising about them to your friends and on social networks and blogs for as long as you can.  For me, I’m getting a Windows Phone… ‘cos it’s best  :P

It’s exciting too, finally a smartphone OS for people who bemoan the lack of buttons on their handsets and a budgeting department that Ridley Scott would be jealous of.  Microsoft have $1 billion to throw at this product launch worldwide, and this is on top of whatever handset manufacturers and mobile operators will add to the mix.  You can be certain that you’ll be hearing a lot more about this mobile OS over the next few months.

Everything’s in place too, the new Windows Phone website has launched and the new version of the Zune software, which will be used to synchronise the devices with your PC has also been made available today.

What happens now will depend very much on the quality of the advertisements that Microsoft produce.  Apple received a pasting with their negative anti-Windows adverts around the time that Windows 7 launched.  People don’t like negative advertising, but equally they don’t respond to adverts that don’t speak to them.  With Windows Phone 7 Microsoft have to make certain that they do this.

If you’re as excited about this new smartphone OS as I am you’ll be getting on regardless, but if you’re an average phone user who hasn’t yet made the jump to a smartphone you’ll be harder to impress.  You might be pushed towards it as handsets with buttons become increasingly harder to buy, but if Microsoft get it right, this could tempt you to at least try a device in a store when you’ve not wanted to try the app-centric iOS or Android in the past.

Whatever happens it’s clear that both iOS and Android are here to stay.  They both have a large market share and they both have legions of fans.  I don’t believe that WP7 is tempting enough to lure anyone away.

Give it time though and if Microsoft have got the advertising right you’ll pass by a mobile phone shop in a couple of months and might wander in to try one.  If they get it wrong, good luck to them.

The move which is backed by €10M in funding, aims to create apps that would work on any device from Internet TVs to smartphones and tablets.

There are some big names behind the project too including Telecom Italia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the World Wide Web Consortium.  It is being led by the German Graunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems (Fokus).

The move would be very welcome with consumers and reminds this commentator of the introduction of the C programming language, which also came with claims at the time of unifying code across platforms.  It was relatively successful in this regard, but now companies such as Apple have moved to different language and instruction sets and are forcing developers to use specific development tools for their own platforms in the name of security and stability.

“The problem is the extreme platform fragmentation,” said project lead Stephan Steglich.  “We have a lot of different platforms that apps run on – the iPhone, Android, Symbian – and that’s only on the mobile side. If you extend that to include the automotive part and consumer electronic area you have more platforms,” Dr Steglich told BBC News.  

“Companies can afford to have an app on two or at most three platforms – they’re extremely costly to develop and ensure the user experience.  “That’s what we want to address – to provide a system that runs on all these platforms and domains, where the developer comes up with one application for one platform and lets you run it on all these devices – mobiles, automotive, gaming, and so on.”

There is really little reason why modern operating systems cannot allow programs written for different platforms, and using different tools and languages, to run effectively.  This is doubly relevant as we are now beginning to see examples of virtualization demos on smartphones and as the mainstream processors become fast, powerful and cheap enough to accommodate this.

The move aims to develop web apps that will work across these platforms.  ”The greatest common denominator among all these devices is the web browser – that’s the only thing people can use to accept the same content,” Dr Steglich explained.  This will enable cross-platform compatibility and slash development costs.  Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9 beta software is demonstrating how web apps can look and be treated by an operating system as though they’re installed on the computing device itself.

The move isn’t without its critics and many believe it won’t get off the ground, but it will be welcomed by consumers and app developers alike and, sometimes, that’s just enough to create a critical momentum.

Now, NeoWin is reporting that the new licensing scheme for Android apps has been cracked less than a month after coming on-line.

The “Licensing Service for Android Applications” was supposed to provide developers a “secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications.”  In theory, the new licensing system would verify against the Android Market licensing server, which would in turn verify the application against existing sales records. If no sales records were found, the application would show an error explaining that it was not properly licensed.

The man responsible for cracking the security has published a paper on his websitein which he details how to reprogram a Java app, which is the language most Android apps are written in, to change its status from unlicensed to licensed.

He says…

I am very much against piracy, and very much pro-Google. I have spent more time researching copy protection for my applications than development of the applications themselves.  Our findings show that most (any?) apps can be easily patched and stripped of licensing protection, making them an easy target for off-Market, pirated distribution. By corollary, this means that sites dedicated to pirating apps can continue to do so, using a few automated scripts mixed with some smarts.

He also provides a video demonstrating his findings.  Google have not yet commented on the crack.

F-Secure Anti-Theft For Mobile is a free security software for cell phones running Symbian OS, Windows Mobile or Android. It offers several options to take control of the situation.

The key features of Anti-Theft for Mobile are the ability to remotely lock the cell phone, locate it and to wipe its data in case it looks like the phone is lost forever.

anti theft for mobile

The software reacts on remote commands send via SMS to the phone. Here are the available commands and their action:

• Send #lock#YourCode to the stolen or lost phone. Will lock the phone, only option to unlock it is to enter the correct password.
• Send #locate#YourCode to the phone. Locates the phone and displays a link to Google Maps that can be used to find out where the phone is located.
• Send #wipe#YourCode to the phone to delete all confidential data on the phone.

F-Secure Anti-Theft For Mobile will immediately lock the phone if the SIM card is changed in the phone. The new cell phone number is automatically send to the owner of the phone.

Take a look at the following video that visualizes all the features.

F-Secure Anti-Theft For Mobile is available for free at the F-Secure website. A more advanced version is available for upgrade adding additional security features like a firewall or virus protection. (via Techmixer)

You have a laptop. You have your Android phone. If you have a data cable you might just be in luck. Now, understand some mobile providers do not allow this (without some trickery). But if your mobile provider does allow this (Mine, Sprint, does and my phone is an HTC Hero) the process is very simple and will allow you a broadband connection ANYWHERE you have a cell phone signal. Granted the speed might not be what you are accustomed to, but in a pinch it will work. In this tutorial you will see how simple it is to tether your Android phone to your Ubuntu laptop.

Installation

Ha! Got ya. There’s nothing to install. Ubuntu and Android come with everything you need to pull this off.

On the laptop

If your set up is like mine, you will have nothing to do on your laptop other than to boot up and log in. If you are already on a wireless network, and you want to test this, disable wireless networking by right-clicking the Networking Manager applet and uncheck Enable Wireless Networking. After you have done that, you are ready to work with your phone.

Phone configuration

Plug your phone into your laptop using the USB data cable. After you do this, follow these steps:

1. Drag down the notification bar.
2. Click on the USB Connected section.
3. Click Don’t Mount.
4. Click on Menu > Settings > Wireless controls
5. Make sure the Mobile Network Sharing checkbox is checked.

Figure 1

After a brief moment you should notice, on your desktop, the icon in the Network Manager applet will change to show your laptop connected via Auto usb0 (and will most likely list your phone name – see Figure 1). This is correct. You should now be connected to the internet via your tethered phone.

What about calls and charges?

Yes, you can make phone calls while you are tethered. In fact, your phone will act normally as well as charge while tethered to your laptop. Of course, depending upon your wireless provider (as well as your data plan) you could be charged for data sent using your phone. So you will want to make sure your plan provides for the amount of data you would send and receive by tethering your phone to your laptop.

Final thoughts

You could hijack a wireless signal when you are out of range of your own signal. Or you could find the nearest coffee shop. But when you are out the clutches of any known wireless signal, and you must get your network fix, tethering your Android phone is a simple solution.

In this piece I will do my best to try to predict what is in store for Linux and open source. Of course, as with any prediction, nothing is for sure; but hopefully these predictions will give you an idea where FOSS software is heading.

Linux takes over mobile market

This prediction is one of the more certain to come true. With more and more powerful phone arriving on the market with the Android operating system and the netbook hardware gaining more power and more Linux-based options (Moblin and Chrome OS for example), the mobile space seems ripe for a Linux takeover in 2010. Of course there have been many who would argue that netbook sales have declined, it has been predicted that netbook sales will top 50 million by 2012. But to this I would suggest that (although I am not a huge fan) cloud computing is going to even further enhance the Linux netbook sales. Because the Linux operating system was made to be networked, it is a perfect candidate to serve as the operating system the cloud will reach out to. And finally, although Windows 7 is proving itself to be an outstanding release, it is not the best fit for the netbook space. The modularity and flexibility of Linux, on the other hand, is perfectly matched for the smaller, portable form factor.

More consumer-level support

I started seeing this growing in 2009. A lot of big vendors are now seeing the viability of Linux and open source. From mobile phones, netbooks, laptops, and desktops – the makers of hardware are finally catching on. 2009 saw the rise of companies like System76 who sell Linux (and only Linux) machines. This trend will continue and catch on with bigger and bigger vendors to the point where we should start seeing Linux machines sold in big box stores near the end of  2010.

Firefox and Chrome become the dominant browsers

It’s already happening. Firefox has slowly become one of the most popular of all the browsers. And with good reason. But Chrome has proven to be a different beast all together. With no other browser able to match its speed, Chrome will make serious headway into the browser-space. And Chrome should also benefit when the Chrome OS starts shipping on netbooks! So, between these two browsers, the landscape will be completely changed and Internet Explorer will finally plummet from the top of the browser war. Once that happens, the battle between Firefox and Chrome will seriously heat up.

GPL and LGPL will do battle

It has already begin. When Miguel de Icaza stripped all GPL code from the Monodevelop tool, the FOSS community lashed out. He did this with good reason – so that third-party add ons could be introduced to the tool without having to GPL the code of the add ons. But to the open source community, it’s all or nothing. This is going to start an ugly battle that will most likely end with a new variation of the current GPL v2 (no one wants to deal with GPL v3). I predict more and more larger open source projects will be releasing under the LGPL, causing the GPL to be seriously rethought. The Richard Stallmans of the FOSS community will most likely be dealing with high blood pressure this year.

GNOME 3 will ruffle feathers

Remember when KDE 4 was released? The Linux community was dramatically split into those that hated the new version and those who loved the new version. GNOME 3 is going to have the same effect – but with a different conclusion. When GNOME 3 is finally released (even in beta), it will be far less buggy than was KDE 4′s initial release. GNOME 3 will be a bit of a paradigm shift for the Linux desktop, but that paradigm will at least work well. The GNOME developers have always had the big picture and the users in mind when developing (except for that Spatial behavior in Nautilus). So, although the radically different GNOME 3 (for information on GNOME 3 check out the 3.0 website.) looks like it could be one of the most exciting releases to come from the GNOME developers, the user community is in an uproar. This uproar is due, in part, to the KDE 4.0 fiasco. Fear not, GNOME users, the GNOME developers have learned from what transpired with KDE 4.0 and will not release a GNOME 3 that is less than functional.

Open source video drivers equal proprietary drivers

We already saw this happening with the release of Ubuntu 9.10 and Intel on board graphics chips. The open source drivers necessary for Intel graphics now match the proprietary solutions feature for feature. The Linux 2.6.33 kernel will greatly boost support for ATI and NVidia graphics chipsets. With the holy-trinity of graphics card support in place, Linux video issues will be a thing of the past. The next step? Unsupported wireless drivers.

Final thoughts

I have been saying (and hearing) this for a long, long time; but I do believe that 2010 will finally be the year Linux and open source receives the support and acceptance it deserves. Not all of my predictions will come true, but many of them will. Do you have a prediction for Linux and open source software? If so, share it with your fellow Ghacks readers.

Google Goggles is a new application for the Android operating system that allows the user to perform searches by submitting photos or images. That’s an interesting concept in a handful of situations. Say you are a tourist and want to know more about a building that you spotted. Maybe you even know the name of the building but not in your own language.

Other applications include identifying artwork, looking up items like books or wine and scanning contact information on business cards to find out more about the contact.

The second use after being able to identify items is the ability to perform a search without having to type the search phrase into the search engine. Instead of typing in the title of the book that you are interested in you simply take a picture and let Google Goggles do that for you.

Google has created a video that demonstrates Google Goggles:

Google Goggles is available for cell phones running Android 1.6+.

I do have an Android-based phone, but that wasn’t enough for me to know if this new OS is a viable alternative for the network laptop. In order to get a good enough experience, I thought I should get Android up and running in a VirtualBox virtual machine. I was surprised how easy this was. Equally I was surprised to see how well it ran. Although lacking a lot of functionality (and obviously still tightly knit into the fabric of the mobile phone technology, it was a quick and easy way to see how this operating system would function. So let’s get Android OS up and running in a virtual machine and take it for a spin.

Getting the ISO and putting it together

The first thing you have to do is download two pieces of the Android Live ISO image. Get the first part here and the second part here. Once you have these two pieces you need to splice them together. In the Linux operating system this is simple. Follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Change to the directory now holding the two pieces of the ISO image.
3. Issue the command: cat liveandroidv0.3.iso.001 liveandroidv0.3.iso.002 > liveandroid.iso

The command in step three will piece together the two ISO parts into one, complete ISO image that can be used with VirtualBox.

Create the Virtual Machine

I will assume you have read the VirtualBox articles here on Ghacks. You might want to go over my article “Installing Windows XP as a virtual machine on VirtualBox“. The steps for creating the Android virtual machine are similar to this with only these differences:

• You will select Linux/Other Linux as the OS type.
• When you first fire up the virtual machine you will use an Image file instead of a Host Drive. All you have to do is add the new liveandroid.iso image file in the wizard.

That’s it. When you select your image file your virtual machine will start up and, eventually, you will have a running instance of Android OS.

The Android desktop

Figure 1

As you can see, in Figure 1, the Android desktop is fairly similar to that of the mobile phone version. What you see is the Google search bar at the top, a few application icons on the bottom, and the sliding tray to the right.

If you click the left-pointing arrow on the sliding tray you will see what is currently included in this early release of the Android Desktop OS. Figure 2 shows this tray in the exposed position, revealing a number of clickable icons – all of which do function.

Figure 2

I have tried to install apps onto the Android Desktop OS, but to no avail. The web browser does work as does a few of the other applications. You should not be surprised to hear the phone-based apps will not work on the desktop. I am surprised these have been included in this release of the OS.

The browser works well enough to demonstrate what Ghacks looks like. Take a look at Figure 3 too see everyone’s favorite how-to site as rendered in the Android Desktop OS’s browser. Not too shabby.

Figure 3

Final thoughts

The Android Desktop OS is not nearly close enough for public consumption. But its alpha-stage of development doesn’t prevent curious geeks, nerds, and the like from wanting to know what it looks like. And from what I have seen, if Android continues with development, they could have something really special for the netbook landscape. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Today the winners of the second Android Developer Challenge have been announced. Three overall winners and three winners in distinct categories are listed on the official website of the challenge.

Among them the following interesting applications:

• Wave Secure: WaveSecure is a complete mobile security solution that protects your device, data and privacy. 1. Track your phone’s location and who is using it 2. Lock down your phone remotely, making it worthless to the thief 3. Backup all your data 4. Wipe out your data remotely 5. Restore your data May the phone be with you!
• Plink Art: Plink Art is an app for identifying, discovering and sharing art. Take a photo of a painting, and the Plink Art servers will try to identify it. You can also browse our database of artwork by keyword or timeline and share your discoveries with friends.
• Celeste: An educational augmented reality app that displays the Sun, Moon, planets and their paths through the sky onto your camera view. You can navigate through the sky selecting celestial bodies to display interesting information about our solar system. See the exact spot on your horizon where the sun will rise and set.
• Car Locator: Save your location whenever you park, and Car Locator will navigate you back to your car should you ever have trouble finding it. – Points in direction of your car using GPS and compass – Radar view, map view, and split view – Parking timer alarm GPS and compass must be enabled.
• mobilematics: Never need an expensive graphics calculator again! mobilematics can be used for simple calculations to degree-level material, as well as providing a revolutionary Teacher mode. +Calculator +Converter, including currencies +Teacher mode +Graphs +Calculus +Solves equations +Statistics +Save & restore work +Much more..
• Screebl: Screebl controls your phone’s power-saving features based on device orientation. No more annoying screen timeouts when reading a long email or showing your friend a picture from the gallery. Best of all, Screebl can actually EXTEND YOUR PHONE’S BATTERY LIFE! You’ll wonder how you ever got along without this simple app
• Thinking-Space: Mind Mapping for Android! Portable Mind Mapping has never been so convenient and fun! * Create eye-catching Mind Maps quickly and easily * Share mindmaps via Email or ‘Cloud’ functionality * Upload and download maps to your phone via the Thinking Space web portal * Compatible with popular desktop software * And more!
• BabelSnap!: BabelSnap uses your built-in camera to snap a picture, extracts the text from the photo, and can translate it into another language. BabelSnap is useful when facing language barriers while traveling. You can snap images of signs, menus, or other bits of text, and choose to translate them to nearly any language!

Most of the applications can already be downloaded from the Android Market place. Which is your favorite?

The main point about this Android phone seems to be the fact that it will cost $200 originally and not after subsidy. Now that’s one cheap phone. Do not expect too many bells and whistles from this one though.

Huawei has also confirmed that they will be launching this before the year ends, some time around mid-december. If that is true, then this is going to start showing up on its respective carrier very soon. Who that carrier is though, is unsure at this point.

The source, a Spanish site called MovilZona, says that there is a good chance that Teléfonica will pick this one up. They also mention that Movistar may also be a contender. These are of course the main carriers in Spain.

Spec-wise, this looks like a pretty standard phone. 3.2 megapixel camera, HSDPA and HSUPA, WiFi and a 1500mAh battery. Yes, it does sound nice on paper for that low a price. However, whether this phone will land in other countries as well, remains to be seen. If it does, it will be competing against similar models manufactured by HTC, who are probably Huawei’s greatest competitors at the moment. [read Google’s (surreal) translation]

According to a news article on ce.cn, local manufacturers in China have been stealthily getting ready to explode on to the Android market. And explode they are going to even if only by their sheer numbers.

Apparently, these companies have actually been hiring Android experts in order to make sure that they know what they are doing. These experts come from companies like Samsung in order to lend their in-depth knowhow to these small manufacturers.

R&D is apparently happening rapidly because the phones are expected to hit the markets some time in 2010. So you can expect a flood of Android phones in 2010 that range from boring to bizarre and beyond.

This is something I love about Chinese manufacturers. They hardly sell outside their premises and yet no technology is too big or too new for them. If it is technically possible, they will do not. So what if you don’t need 4 cameras on your mobile handset or slots for 4 SIM cards? It is technically possible and they are here to give you the best that modern technology has too offer. Besides, you will have to throw it away after a few months anyway.

Dell's Mini 3i

My question right now is this – with so many companies working on a platform that is essentially freely available to them, can we expect at least one decent phone that breaks the mould in some way and manages to run alongside the big players? [read]