Android

For all of you who’ve been asking (and patiently waiting) for a version of OneNote for your Android phones, we have great news: OneNote Mobile for Android is now available! Download it from the Android Market app store today! Mobile versions of OneNote are currently available on Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, and now Android. No matter which platform you prefer, OneNote Mobile lets you easily capture and access all of your notes and ideas on the go. ...

Google Chrome Wrote: In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. ...

SophosLabs: The United States, which currently forbids government workers or soldiers to use smartphones to send classified messages, is preparing a modified version of Google’s Android operating system that will meet its security certifications. According to CNN, the army has been testing touchscreen devices at U.S. bases for almost two years. Forty phones were sent to soldiers overseas last year, and another 50 phones and 75 tablets are scheduled to ship to soldiers in March. ...

BetaNews: Google thoroughly rocked the smartphone world on Monday morning by announcing it will be acquiring Android phone maker Motorola Mobility for approximately $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility has existed as a standalone entity for just 8 months, and has produced some of the most successful Android smartphones such as the first Droidwith Verizon Wireless. Most importantly, though, Motorola Mobility holds one of the most valuable wireless patent portfolios in the business, and this acquisition serves as a follow up to the Nortel Patent auction where Google placed bids, but lost out to a consortium of bidders that included Apple, EMC, Microsoft, Ericsson, Research in Motion, and Sony. ...

BetaNews.com: Android handsets infected with malware are getting a cleaning job from Google. On March 2nd, Google removed 21 apps from the Android Marketplace that contained malicious code (the number of infected apps is now 58). Now Google is “remotely removing the malicious applications from affected devices” and “pushing an Android Market security update to all affected devices that undoes the exploits to prevent the attacker(s) from accessing any more information from affected devices,” according to a blog post by Rich Cannings, Android security lead. ...

Mashable: Get ready, folks with no sense of direction; Google Maps 5.0 app for Android is looking to make your life a lot easier with 3D graphics, more accurate orientation and the ability to function offline. According to Gizmodo, the app — which was demoed at D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco — is much faster than the previous iteration and renders in real time. ...

Android activations have now surpassed 300,000 per day which equals the number of activations for Symbian worldwide, according to data provided by Google. It also indicates that the now near-continuous stream of new Android phones is having a positive effect on sales overall. Back in October, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company was activating about 200,000 phones per day. The new number also comes from Google’s engineering chief Andy Rubin, who tweeted it on Wednesday night. It is not out of the question to think that Android may become the top platform in the world early next year. ...

Google has finally announced its new phone ‘Nexus S’ manufactured by Samsung and is the first phone powered by the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS. Nexus S is a successor of Nexus One and looks an amazing Android phone with powerful hardware. Nexus S Official Specifications: Connectivity Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700 HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps) Wi-Fi 802.11 n/b/g Bluetooth 2.1+EDR Near Field Communication (NFC) Assisted GPS (A-GPS) microUSB 2.0 Display 4.0″ WVGA (480×800) Contour Display with curved glass screen Super AMOLED 235 ppi Capacitive touch sensor Anti-fingerprint display coating Size and weight 63mm x 123.9mm x 10.88mm 129g Hardware Haptic feedback vibration Three-axis gyroscope Accelerometer Digital compass Proximity sensor Light sensor Processor and memory 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor 16GB iNAND flash memory Cameras and multimedia Back-facing: 5 megapixels (2560×1920) 720 x 480 video resolution H.264, H.263 MPEG4 video recording Auto focus Flash Front-facing: VGA (640×480) 3.5mm, 4-conductor headset jack (stereo audio plus microphone) Earpiece and microphone Software noise-cancellation Battery Talk time up to 6.7 hours on 3G (14 hours on 2G) Standby time up to 17.8 days on 3G (29.7 days on 2G) 1500 mAH Lithum Ion Software Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) Android Market Calendar Gmail Google Earth Google Maps with Navigation Google Search Google Talk Google Voice Voice Actions YouTube Official Video – Introducing Nexus S ...

One of the greatest setbacks of the Android platform has been the absence of a killer media player, as its native media player is simply lacking. To date, DoubleTwist has been the best option, but Winamp for Android is a powerful new alternative. Before the turn of the century (a.k.a. the Wild West of file sharing), Winamp reigned supreme for MP3 playback on Windows. Now I haven’t used a Winamp product since I learned about foobar2000 back in 2002, but it’s often nice to see the resurgence of a familiar face in tech. ...

Native Google Docs support has finally arrived for Android and iOS (the mobile version of Google Docs has been available for over three years). Edits show up in near real-time (so they aren’t completely seamless) and Android even lets you insert text using voice recognition. The biggest improvement is the new layout, which makes mobile document editing much easier and allows for collaboration from other Docs users. Currently, Google Docs supports devices with Android 2.2 (codename Froyo) and up, as well as Apple devices with iOS version 3.0 or newer. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t specify if third-party browsers will work with the new Google Docs or whether it plans on adding new platforms such as Windows Phone and webOS. ...