When you visited Google today, we’re pretty sure you didn’t type 173.194.113.18 into your browser. This string of numbers separated by periods—an IP address—isn’t nearly as easy or memorable as typing google.com. Domain names ending in things like .COM, .NET and .EDU make browsing the web and telling people where to find you online easier. Since this month marks the 30-year anniversary of .COM and several other domain endings, we’re taking a minute to celebrate these often-overlooked suffixes that have changed the way we use the web.
Though they were introduced in 1985, domain names didn’t gain much awareness and use amongst the public until the World Wide Web became available to all during the ‘90s and it became clear they were an important part in unlocking its power. Using these online addresses, people began to spread messages, start businesses and access information that otherwise would have been nearly impossible to find. Popularity and demand for these names grew so much that people were soon willing to pay millions of dollars for the perfect one.
Today there are 270+ million registered domain names; in fact, about 17 million were added just last year. To create more naming options for people online, hundreds of new top-level domains are being added, and many, like .TODAY, .NINJA and .BIKE are already available. We wrote about this back in 2012, and since then we’ve launched three of our own: .HOW, .SOY and .???.
As .COM turns 30, we’re looking back on the history of domain endings and all they’ve made possible. Today there are more choices than ever before for people to find the perfect name for their businesses, projects and ideas on the web. If you’re interested in learning more about this history, or you’d like to register your own piece of the web, head over to Google Domains to claim your .DOMAINS from a .COM to a .GURU.
Here’s to .COM’s 30th, and all that’s yet to come in how we name destinations on the Internet.
Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Lead Product Manager, Chromebooks for Education
(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)
Many schools have told us that Chromebooks have helped them transform learning. Those in Texas and North Carolina have shared stories of students using Chromebooks to better connect with their teachers and peers and expand their learning opportunities (you’ll see more stories in the coming weeks from districts in New York, Florida and Michigan). But beyond opening new avenues for learning, Chromebooks are also helping schools save money, allowing them to meet tight budgets and provide computers to more students.
Plymouth-Canton Community Schools — one of the largest districts in Michigan — for example, told us that they’ve been able to save $200k in the 3rd grade alone, by purchasing Chromebooks over alternative devices. Theyve been able to leverage those savings to purchase charging carts, protective cases for the devices and additional power adaptors so that students can charge the Chromebooks at home and at school. The same has been true outside of the US. Earlier this year, Academies Enterprise Trust, a network of 76 schools across the United Kingdom, anticipated that they could save £7.7m in hardware and maintenance costs by using Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks.
To more fully understand the total cost of ownership and savings impact of Chromebooks, we commissioned IDC to conduct interviews with 10 schools using Chromebooks to support teaching and learning in 7 countries. The study comprised of 10 schools in 7 countries representing 294,620 students in all, across United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand. The interviews consisted of a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions designed to obtain information about the economics of deploying Chromebooks for these school systems as well as the impact of using Chromebooks on their students and faculty. Some of their key findings:
According to one school district in the study, Chromebook’s price point enabled the school system to reach a 1:1 user-device ratio, something it couldn’t have done before given the cost of their previous devices. They said, “We now have a 1:1 device solution with Chromebooks … Without Chromebooks, either we would have fewer devices or we would have had to spend four times as much to get to the same point.” For this district, being able to expand the number of students who have daily or consistent access to educational content on Chromebooks represents a substantial advantage and supports their core missions.
You can read the full whitepaper here, and calculate how much time and money Chromebooks can save for your school.
Posted by Devavrat Shah, Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Celect
(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Blog.)
Editors note: Today’s guest blog comes from Devavrat Shah, Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Celect, which helps retailers understand buying patterns and customer choices.
Retailers spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out what people will buy and when, online or offline. Many retailers see this as an art, but at Celect, we want to add science to this process. The answer lies in what we call the “Choice Engine,” which gathers data on what customers buy and don’t buy – instead of just simply finding out how they rate products they like. Think of the shopping process this way: If someone browses black shirts and red shirts online, but puts a blue shirt in the shopping cart, they’re giving you comparative information. Celect can take these choices and suggest which products a retailer should stock more or less of – as well as predict when price becomes a factor in a shopper’s purchase decision.
My cofounder Vivek Farias and I, both professors at MIT, decided to put our brains together and see if we could bring our technology to the commercial market. We knew our technology was great, so we bootstrapped a team together – two professors, two engineers, and one person on the ground doing business development. Our biggest challenge was scaling our technology even though we had an extremely small development team. We didn’t want to run a system when we didn’t yet have clients.
Fortunately for Celect, we met the criteria for Google Cloud Platform for Startups, giving us $100,000 in credit for Google Cloud Platform products and easy access to engineers and architects to help us make the most of our infrastructure. We quickly found out how good Google’s documentation is, which matters when you’re a startup that needs to move quickly. We get to tap into the expertise of people who’ve spent 10 years building cloud infrastructure, and they know it very well. The web user interface of Google Cloud Storage is very intuitive to navigate, and gives us an overall view of the system and the resources in use.
We run our workloads on Google Compute Engine, which operates easily with our commodity Linux machines – another way we save money as a startup. Google Cloud Platform also gives us peace of mind about security. Retailers trust us with highly proprietary information, and they’re very sensitive to data breaches. When they hear we rely on Google, retailers know we’re adhering to strong security standards.
Since we’re going after large retailers for our product, we need the scalability to store massive datasets. We can create new data stores in Google Cloud Platform so that every client’s data is siloed from the others. It’s the perfect on-demand infrastructure for a company like ours that needs to run lean for the first couple of years.
At this stage in our growth, we want to make very efficient use of every dollar we spend. The past year has been very successful for us, with some great retailer brands signed on and a threefold growth in employees. Google Cloud Platform will grow with us, while helping us develop our products better and faster.
- Posted by Devavrat Shah, Chief Scientist and Co-founder, Celect
Posted by Victoria Tuomisto, the Economist Intelligence Unit (Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)
Editors note: To understand the extent to which the skills taught in education systems around the world are changing, and whether they meet the needs of employers and society more widely, Google commissioned research from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The EIU surveyed senior business executives, teachers and students. The key findings of the survey and the main issues raised by educators and students were discussed by a diverse panel at the opening session of Education on Air, the free online conference from Google on May 8th. Read the full report here.
With rapidly evolving business needs, technological advances and new work structures, the skills that will be needed in the future are shifting. In response to these changes, policymakers, educators and experts around the world are rethinking their education systems.
During Education on Air a panel of education experts participated in a discussion aimed at understanding how to best adapt education systems to the skills needs of the future:
Ken Shelton, Educator, Trainer & Google Certified Teacher, USA
Jaime Casap, Global Education Evangelist, Google, USA
Jouni Kangasniemi, Special Adviser to the Ministry of Education & Culture, Finland
Nicole, a secondary student from Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, UK
Zoe Tabary, Editor, Economist Intelligence Unit, UK
The panel considered how to best help students learn and adopt the skills and attitudes that employers in the increasingly digital and networked economy require.
According to the EIUs research report, sponsored by Google for Education and presented by EIU editor Zoe Tabary during Education on Air, problem-solving, teamwork and communication are the most needed skills in the workplace. This video provides a short summary of the report from the Economist Intelligence Unit.
But it seems that education systems have not yet responded to this demand; only a third of executives say they’re satisfied with the level of attainment of young people entering the workplace. Even more striking is that 51% of executives say a skills gap is hampering their organisations performance. Students and educators paint a similar picture.
Panelists echoed the EIU research by suggesting that education systems often lack the capacity to teach a wider range of skills—namely problem-solving, digital literacy, leadership and creativity—that would complement more conventional skills, such as numeracy and literacy. Time constraints, lack of flexibility and a reluctance to innovate with the curriculum are a few of the causes mentioned. For Jouni Kangasniemi, senior advisor to Finlands Ministry of Education and Culture, the key question was how to really embed these skills throughout the curriculum rather than just add them to the mix of skills and subjects.
Progress is being made, however, and panelists shared examples of how the education system is adapting to changing demands. Examples from the Finnish education system, presented by Mr Kangasniemi, suggest that learning results in this area improve when teachers have a certain degree of freedom and trust to adjust the curriculum to the learning styles of the students. Teaching becomes more personalised and student-focused, and supports learning, with questions exchanged collaboratively between teachers and students rather than teachers simply presenting answers and facts.
Technology also has a central role in skills development. According to the EIU research, 85% of teachers report that IT advances are changing the way they teach—but only 23% of 18-25-year-olds think their education system is very effective at making full use of the technologies now available. With the pace of technological change accelerating, education systems should respond by offering training and platforms for teachers that effectively use technology and better equip students for both today’s and tomorrow’s workplace.
Jaime Casap, global education specialist at Google, stressed the need to focus on teaching mindsets, rather than skills. "Skills can become obsolete—there is a finite timeline when they can be used or applied," Casap argues, whereas an inquisitive approach that seeks to solve problems will always be necessary, no matter what issues humanity will need to grapple with in the future. The question is how we can build a culture and environment—and education models—that prepare students to meet any challenge as future digital leaders.
Read the full report: “The skills agenda: Preparing students for the future.”
Editors note: Today, we hear from Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO and author of “Change by Design.” As a leader of the global design and innovation firm, with clients like IKEA, Joie De Vivre Hotels and NBC’s Today Show, Tim focuses on finding pathways to creativity. Watch an extended interview with Tim from our interactive event #Atmosphere15 here.
I remember the first time I walked into a bookstore and noticed the books facing forward with handwritten reviews dangling underneath. It made deciding which book to buy much easier compared to scanning rows of book spines. That’s creativity to me: looking beyond what’s conventional and finding a different and better way. For me, life’s much more enjoyable and rewarding when I keep wondering how things could be different from the way they are now. Here are some ways that I keep my mind open to creative breakthroughs.
Challenge assumptions. Ask why things happen the way they do and why the world works the way it does. Unless we’re curious, it’s very hard to come up with new ideas.
Think of the creative process as starting with a question rather than an answer. Rather than the standard creative assertion, “I’ve got an idea,” the key is to start with a really interesting question. Go home, go back to the office and allow yourself to wonder. When you have interesting questions, you’ll get to interesting solutions.
Reframe problems by asking different questions. If the obvious question is “How do I solve this thing that’s bugging me?” reframe it to ask “Why do I do that thing at all?” or “Is there a better way to approach that thing in the first place?” The key is to ask the right questions with enough room to inspire new ideas. If you ask too narrow a question, you get an obvious answer.
For example, instead of asking “How do we make this chair more comfortable?” we can ask more broadly, “How do we sit in different ways in order to have a better conversation?” We might not even need the chair at all. The idea is to frame the question so that it gives you enough space to go to interesting places.
Show creative confidence. We all have a natural ability to spur creative ideas. The important next step is to find the courage to act on those ideas. People get hung up on the idea of failure, but failure is an essential mode for learning what works and what doesn’t.
Use a creative mindset, whatever your role. We live in a world where change is happening everywhere and nothing stays the same for long, so we need to bring creativity to everything we do. On a personal level, it’s rewarding to figure out how things could be different, and professionally, it keeps us competitive. It doesn’t matter what role you play in an organization — there’s always room for improvement in the way we do things.
Be observant. Most of us have powerful devices at our fingertips that allow us to easily and extensively observe the way people work and live. Take photos all the time, and share those pictures at work, because observing how people do things now is the start of figuring out how to do things differently.
To hear more from Tim, watch his full recorded session at our #Atmosphere event. And to see more about creating a culture of innovation, visit the Google Apps Insights page.
Runtime.availableProcessors()returns the number of processor cores available to the VM, at least 1. Traditionally this returned the number currently online, but many mobile devices are able to take unused cores offline to save power, so releases newer than Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) return the maximum number of cores that could be made available if there were no power or heat constraints.
In this episode of Coffee With a Googler, Laurence meets with Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan to talk about all things Ubiquitous Computing at Google. Learn about the platforms and services that help developers reach their users wherever it makes sense.
We discuss Brillo, which extends the Android Platform to Internet of Things embedded devices, as well as Weave, which is a services layer that helps all those devices work together seamlessly.
We also chat about beacons and how they can give context to the world around you, making the user experience simpler. Traditionally, users need to tell you about their location, and other types of context. But with beacons, the environment can speak to you. When it comes to developing for beacons, Timothy introduces us to Eddystone, a protocol specification for BlueTooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons, the Proximity Beacon API that allows developers to register a beacon and associate data with it, and the Nearby Messages API which helps your app sight and retrieve data about nearby beacons.
Timothy and his team have produced a new Udacity series on ubiquitous computing that you can access for free! Take the course to learn more about ubiquitous computing, the design paradigms involved, and the technical specifics for extending to Android Wear, Google Cast, Android TV, and Android Auto.
Also, dont forget to join us for a ubiquitous computing summit on November 9th & 10th in San Francisco. Sign up here and well keep you updated.
Yesterday I bought second tablet in my Android carrier - Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (N8000). Internet is full of different reviews about this device, so I wont be writing essay about it. What I want to do, is to write about 3 current high-end tablets you can find on the market and why non of them are worth to buy. This concerns: Galaxy Nexus 10, Galaxy Note 10.1 and Asus Transformer Infinity. I will mostly write short pros and cons of each.
Every of these three devices presents different approach of using a tablet:
Galaxy Nexus 10 ---> hand only
Galaxy Note 10.1 --> hand & active pen
Asus Transformer Infinity ---> hand & keyboard dock
Galaxy Nexus 10
The build quality of Nexus 10 is superb. Screen is actually the best on the market. Hardware (CPU, GPU) are top components as well. However, using N10 with only a hand makes this device nothing more then a overgrown phone. You can browse internet, zoom in or zoom out 100 times the same pictures, watch a movie (if you have some battery bank with you), chat with friends etc. You can do all these amazing things... Oh wait... no, you cant!There is no 3G connectivity. So if you are not close to some Wi-Fi hot-spot (you can make one yourself if you have enough mobile data-plan in your smartphone) you can only watch photos, read some e-book or listen to the music. Or you can browse the Internet on your tablet sitting home on the couch with your notebook next to you. I dont know whats so cool in browsing Internet on 10" screen, if you can do it on 15"4 screen as well, with full keyboard and mouse. Lets get back to that hot-spot. Why it sucks? Because now you need 2 battery banks. One for your tablet, and one for your mobile phone.
You might say there are many advanced active pens on the market you can buy and use with your Nexus 10. Sure, you can. Try to make a note having your hand lying on the screen. Its not possible to write anything (at least nothing readable) if there is no software protection against random hand touch (like Samsung has in Note 10.1). So forget about using pen with Nexus 10. Pure Android is not ready yet for active pens.
Pros:
Great screen (2560 x 1600)
Great hardware
Great design
Cons:
No 3G connectivity
Not ready for active pens, so using this device is limited just to entertainment.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Now... lets be honest. Im not disappointed with this device. But Im also not that excited as I was when I bought my first tablet - Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101. So whats wrong about it? Its Samsung design, so it feels plastic. And no matter how great and innovatory this plastic will be, it still feels like plastic. Other tablets are plastic too, but when you hold Samsung you feel like holding a cheap plastic. Sorry, its they way I feel. But what is worse, its creaking here and there. Samsung, please! For that price you give us cheap, noisy plastic? Im not saying its creaking a lot. But it shouldnt be creaking at all. Another things is the screen. 1280 x 800 is embarrassing resolution for 101 tablet. This should not happen. Screen quality is just bad. And there is no Gorilla Glass. By the way - S-Pen feels cheap too.
When it comes to connectivity, its one of not many tablets on the market with 3G connection. So if you have a SIM card with at least 2 GB mobile data plan, its a perfect solution to have your tablet connected all the time.
The best thing about this tablet is not S-Pen. Its Samsung software. And trust me - Im a HTC fan so its not easy for me to say that I like anything about Samsung software. But when it comes to using a pen, this is the only tablet on the market with such advanced software for handwriting. There is also great multitasking - you can have active applications on the desktop and work without closing each other. It would take too long to write about all amazing things you can find using this tablet together with S-Pen. If youre looking for a tablet that you can use not only for fun - Note 10.1 its the only right choice.
Pros:
Great active pen (S-Pen)
Amazing software for handwriting and great multitasking features
3G connectivity
Cons:
Plastic design
Low resolution (1280 x 800)
No Gorilla Glas protection
Cracking body
Asus Transformer Infinity
The last one from the TOP 3. Asus tablets are well known from their keyboard dock stations. What is so great about it? In my opinion - nothing. But lets start from the beginning. Screen in this model is somewhere in between Nexus 10 and Galaxy Note 10.1. It has 1920 x 1200 resolution. Not as good as Nexus 10, but decisively much better than Galaxy Note 10.1. It also has IPS+ panel instead of TFT (guess which one have TFT...?). Also there is 3G connectivity. Of course if you find TF700TG version. So far 3G variant seems to be a ghost version, almost like Nexus 10 in some countries. Build quality is very good, I like the design as well. Again, its between Nexus 10 and Samsung. Not that good as N10, but much better then Note 10.1.
When it comes to software I must say I pretty like it. GUI is not as expanded as HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz, but it gives you some more widgets and applications than pure Android (Galaxy Nexus 10).
Now the best part - keyboard. This is the approach I find the most ridiculous. And the useless touchpad is lovely too! Just one question - if you need to write fast on your portable device - why using limited Android with quasi-keyboard is better then using ultrabook with Windows (or Linux) Intel CPU, big SSD drive, HD graphic and 4 GB RAM? If you want to carry 101 tablet with external keyboard, you can get Asus or Samsung ultrabook for the same price. With much more features and power under the hood.
Of course you can buy an active pen. But like I mentioned before in Nexus 10 part, using an active pen without a special software is pointless. It just wont work as you could expect.
Pros:
Good screen (IPS+ 1920 x 1200)
Nice design
Good build quality
Cons:
Almost not possible to find model with 3G
Not ready for active pens, so using this device is limited just to entertainment (if you dont have keyboard dock)
If you actually have keyboard dock, think about functionality of such combo against e.g. HP Envy ultrabook.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is no perfect tablet on the market. At least not for me. Some of them are missing 3G, some of them are not yet ready for handwriting. And if there is a tablet with 3G and great handwriting software, it doesnt look as good as it could. Maybe its time for HTC to show some tablet? We havent seen from HTC anything new with 101 screen since a long time.
So what the best tablet should be and look like?
Galaxy Nexus 10 build quality and design
Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity (additionally variant with LTE instead of 3G)
Samsung handwriting software & S-Pen
IPS+ panel with 2560 x 1600 resolution, covered with Gorilla Glass
Top CPU, GPU and sufficient amount of RAM memory
MicoSD card slot
For such tablet I will pay every price.
At the end, here is some thought - do you think tablets have a chance to survive in a world where more and more ultrabooks and notebooks have touch screens or even rotating screens (like Dell XPS 12, Lenovo ThinkPad Twist) or dual-screen like Asus Taichi.
Do you have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!
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Posted by Jaime Casap, Chief Education Evangelist, Google
(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)
Editor’s Note: Today we hear from our Chief Education Evangelist, Jaime Casap, who spoke at First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2015 “Beating the Odds” Summit. The event welcomed more than 130 college-bound students from across the country and focused on sharing tools and strategies to help more students successfully transition to college and complete the next level of their education.
Last week I had the honor of sharing my story with over 130 college-bound students at First Lady Michelle Obama’s "Beating the Odds" Summit — part of her Reach Higher initiative. These students came from across the country and different backgrounds. They included urban, rural, foster, homeless, special needs and underrepresented youth, all of whom have overcome substantial barriers to make it to college.
In my daily job I get to work with a group of people focused on building technology and programs that can help support teachers, who help empower their students to be lifelong learners. I believe education has the power to rid poverty and change the destiny of a family in just one generation. Reach Higher has the same mission: to invest in our students and help them get the education they need to thrive.
This mission is also deeply personal for me. I was raised in Hell’s Kitchen, New York by a single mother who came to America from Argentina. On my first day of school, I didn’t speak English. I grew up fast and watched my elementary school friends turn into addicts and criminals. When I looked for a road out, I saw only dead ends, until I realized education was a road out. But it wasn’t easy: everything around me shrieked, “you won’t make it; you aren’t meant to succeed.”
I realize now that the negative voices are always there; you have to push them down. With the help of my teachers, I graduated from high school and committed to going to college. There were many times when I felt like I didn’t belong — at that time the college graduation rate for Latinos was around five percent — but I graduated with a double major, packed up my stuff and drove across the country to pursue a Master of Public Policy degree. The only way I did it was by convincing myself to prove the naysayers wrong.
Education didn’t just change my life, it changed my family, too. I now have three kids, and my eldest daughter graduated from college last month. I never had a conversation with her about college, she just assumed she was and should go to college. My 14-year-old wants to build a college curriculum for himself focused on game design. My kids don’t face the barriers I did; they see no obstacles in their way.
This is to say that I believe in what the First Lady is trying to accomplish with Reach Higher. Students must go beyond high school graduation — whether that’s a four-year college, community college or a technical/certification program. One reason this is essential is because today’s high-school-only graduates earn just 62 percent of what their college-graduate peers earn. We need to prepare all our students, especially our most vulnerable students, for their future and help them reach high.
Often we ask our students the wrong question: “What do you want to be when you grow up.” Instead, we should ask “What problem do you want to solve?” We should empower students to take ownership of their learning. As much as I want students to be college and career ready, I also want them to be curious lifelong learners ready to tackle the world’s problems.
For millions of students, “reaching higher” means beating the odds with a lot of hard work, a healthy disrespect for the impossible, and some luck. It means ignoring self-doubt and proving the haters wrong. It means being proud of the experiences that define you — they will be a competitive advantage some day. It means believing in education and believing in yourself, then sharing your story with the world.
Posted by Sebastien Marotte, VP, Google Apps for Work
Editors note: Today we share a few of the most enlightening insights from our study on the impact of collaboration and innovation on a company’s success. Read on for some highlights of what we learned from business leaders at companies of all sizes and industries, then check out the full report here.
As a culture, and in business, we’ve become increasingly conscious of the positive impact of collaboration, group interaction and free exchange of information. And with the word “social” tied to many of the ways we now spend our time — social media, social apps, social gaming, social software — we’re often reminded of the power of connecting and sharing.
The numbers reflect this trend. Over the last decade, Google search volume for the term “social collaboration” has grown globally by more than 300 percent, while interest for the term “social innovation” has jumped more than 200 percent. And the money trail is headed in the same direction: business leaders are directing focus and budget on tools and strategies that foster collaboration.
So how exactly does collaboration stack up against other business objectives in the eyes of today’s business leaders? We teamed up with Raconteur to find out. We surveyed senior staff and C-suite executives at 258 North American companies of all sizes and industries about a wide range of business concerns, from changes that impact profitability, to barriers and drivers of innovation, to the most formidable organizational threats they’re facing, to the tools they’re using to address their challenges. Here’s what those business leaders told us.
Collaboration is good business
Our research shows that the benefits of collaboration extend far beyond the success of any single project. An overwhelming 73% of business leaders said their organization would be more successful if employees could work in more flexible and collaborative ways. In fact, they tell us that “employees working together more collaboratively in person” is the number one factor impacting profitability.
Another eye-opening discovery was that collaboration and employee happiness go hand in hand: 88% of business leaders who believe their company fosters a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration also say employee morale and job satisfaction are high.
Business leaders also told us that the most serious people management-related threats to organizations are failure to attract enough talent (25%), inability to retain the best talent (18%), and concerns about a disengaged workforce (14%). While we haven’t proven a direct causation, it appears that a culture of collaboration could potentially help address these threats by creating a more desirable work environment.
Who can spark change?
While business leaders look to departments across the organization for innovation and collaboration, they consider IT the greatest changemaker. Twenty-six percent named IT the leading department for driving innovation, and 28% named IT the department that best collaborates with internal and external teams. So we weren’t surprised when leaders also told us that investing in technology, which IT manages, has the biggest impact on knowledge sharing and collaboration. We saw that companies of all sizes rely on IT and technology for the tools to share, innovate and transform.
Business teams with access to the right technologies and tools and the support of IT and leadership can work better together, with greater mobility. And this paves the way for a collaborative culture that may bring a host of benefits, including greater profitability, happier employees and more consistent innovation. We may continue to be surprised by what results when teams truly sync.
Those who are expecting a little bit more from their HTC devices are familiar with HTC online tool to unlock the bootloader - htcdev.com. Once generated and flashed token via fastboot gives you possibility to change some of the partitions on HTC device. It sounds great, but there are some serious disadvantages of it. Some people may say this will result in limited warranty, which it is not true, and I explained that issue here. So, what else to expect with unlocked bootloader?
First of all, not all the partitions will be unlocked. Forget about flashing hboot.img, rcdata.img or tp.img. Permission to fastboot flash will be denied. The only method to flash those images is to reboot device in RUU mode (fastboot oem rebootRUU) and flash originally signed firmware.zip (from OTA update) using fastboot flash zip firmware.zip command.
So what can be flashed in fastboot mode? Basically just 3 images - boot.img, recovery.img and system.img. Is it enough to flash custom ROM? Yes. With custom recovery you can flash zips or make nandroid backup. Is it enough to be happy? No. The problematic part is flashing boot.img in custom recovery. Its not possible on S-ON devices, unless your device is supported by 4EXT Recovery with SmartFlash feature. So the only method to have complete custom ROM working, is to flash ROM in recovery and then reboot the device, enter fastboot mode and flash boot.img using fastboot flash boot boot.img command.
The second problem of unlocked bootlader is even more serious, but so far it affects only 2 devices: HTC One X+ and HTC One. Those who used htcdev.com before probably noticed, that unlocking bootloader wipes user data, including content of virtual SD card (because virtual SD card = /data/media).
This is no surprise, because every user is warned about it and have a chance to step back. As long as all applications coming with stock ROM are stored on /system partition, there are no side effects. But for some very strange reason in HTC One X+ and HTC One, some of the stock applications like Flashlight, Calculator, Ringtone-trimmer, PDF Viewer, Teeter, Sound Recorder and more, are stored on /data partition instead. Result? After unlocking bootloader with official HTC tool you end up without having some of the basic HTC applications like Calculator or Flashlight, because /data partition (as mentioned above) has been wiped. System partition on HTC One is almost 2 GB big. Not enough to include few more .apk files?
What is more, missing stock applications on /data partition makes your device not capable to receive any OTA updates from HTC. Why? Because every OTA update checks MD5 checksum of every file that originally came with your device. So even if you didnt flash any custom ROM and your /system partition is unmodified, you wont be able to install OTA update.
This is an example of updater-script part from OTA:
Once assert will fail, OTA update will cancel the installation process. I think every user should be warned, that unlocking bootloader results in no longer OTA updates support.
To summarize:
Unlocked HTC devices via htcdev.com cant have boot.img flashed via custom recovery.
Unlocked HTC One X+ and HTC One via htcdev.com will loose some basic HTC applications like Flashlight or Calculator.
Unlocked HTC One X+ and HTC One via htcdev.com will loose possibility to receive OTA updates unless user will flash original RUU.exe, which are not officially available for customers.
Conclusion: Is it worth to buy HTC One? Yes! It is currently the best device on the market. If you are not planning to flash any custom ROM - dont unlock your bootloader. And if you want to flash custom ROM, it will probably contain missing applications anyway. This is far too great device and I believe HTCdev team will sort out above issues soon!
Got some questions or comments? Please feel free to leave them above! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!
This time, Tor and Chet are joined by... nobody. Instead, we just talk among ourselves about tools. From Android Studio to performance debugging tools to IDE shortcuts to memory analysis tools to Lint rules to animation debugging tools and back to Android Studio, we talk about lots of tools and then some.
Favorite quotes: "How do you learn IntelliJ power commands?" "You just have to read the source code."
"We have a Lint rule for that." (This should be Tors superhero catch phrase if its not already)
IDE shortcuts: Killing the joy of programming one keystroke at a time.
Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.
Relevant Links: (Not many links this time; the best way to learn about the various tools is to use them) Android Studio
Posted by LeVar Burton (Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)
Editors note: Through his work with Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton continues to inspire generations of students to love reading. Getting an early start on celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week, we asked LeVar about educators that inspired him. He shares some stories from his childhood in today’s guest post, and he’ll share more during his keynote, “The power of storytelling to inspire students,” during our Education on Air conference. Register today and tune in for LeVar’s talk on May 8th at 11:15am ET.
Teachers seem to run in my family. My elder sister, my son and two nieces are all educators, and my mother, Erma Gene Christian, was a high school English teacher before becoming my first teacher. I know firsthand how hard these unsung heroes work, and especially how important a teacher can be in a child’s life.
One of the most indelible memories from my childhood happened one day when I was learning to read. My favorite aunt Hope, my mother’s youngest sister, was visiting from Kansas City. We were sitting together in a chair in the living room and I was reading aloud while my mother listened from the kitchen where she was preparing a family meal. Things were going fine until I got stuck on a word. I stopped cold in the middle of a sentence. The word was one I thought I knew, but I didn’t yet have the inner confidence to know that I could read it. I will never forget the infinite patience that Aunt Hope displayed and the gentle nudges of support she gave me. “Go on,” she’d whisper, “You know this word. I know you can sound it out.”
I still remember the word —it was “pretty” — and when my aunt finally said the word to me it was a revelation. She gave me the confidence I needed to trust myself; to trust that I did know these words. I was a reader. This is what teachers do for their students every day.
It’s from my mother, Erma Gene, that I learned the allure of storytelling. Throughout my childhood, mom always had several books going simultaneously, switching from one to the other seamlessly, deriving pleasure from each turn of the page, no matter what the genre. I learned from my mom—and eventually from my own experiences reading, and from exposing children to the joy of books through Reading Rainbow—that storytelling is an elemental part of the human experience, regardless of whether the medium is a print book or a digital book. We know that kids are reading more than 200,000 books a week on the Reading Rainbow App. They are using their devices not just for games or movies, but to read.
Heres me with the first educator who inspired me, my mother.
Children are drawn to stories, and with good storytelling we can teach kids anything. I have seen the light go on in a child’s eyes when he or she falls in love with a story. I’ve seen that light get brighter when they realize that they can read the stories for themselves. This light is the beginning of a lifelong love of reading, and from there a lifelong love of learning. For me, literacy means freedom, and literacy begins with storytelling. You get a child’s attention when you give them a good story. If we fail to take advantage of this, we are letting the opportunity of a lifetime—of our lifetime and theirs—pass us by.
Hear more about the power of storytelling from LeVar Burton during his Education on Air keynote on May 8 at 11:15am ET or check out his Reading Rainbow website.
Posted by Amir Shevat, Google Developers Launchpad Program Manager
With new events, improved courses and an expanded mentorship network - Startup Launch is now Google Developers Launchpad. We’re changing our program name to emphasize how you can use our resources as a launch pad to scale and monetize your app business. Read on to learn about our upcoming events and how you can apply to participate.
Events: Launchpad Week goes global
Launchpad Week, Launchpad’s weeklong in-person bootcamp for early-stage apps, continues to expand, with new 2015 programs planned in Munich, Mexico City, Helsinki, Bogota, and Sydney, to name a few. We’ll also regularly host these events in Tel Aviv, London, Berlin, and Paris.
We kicked off Launchpad Week in Bengaluru, India and Bordeaux, France last month. 32 startups and 80 experts from these communities gathered at Idiom Design Center and Le Node for a week of product, UX, and technology sprints designed to help transform ideas into validated, scalable businesses.
Featured startups from Bengaluru included iReff, an app that helps pre-paid mobile users find the best recharge plan for their specific needs. In Bordeaux, Google Developer Expert David Gageot volunteered as a tech mentor, helping startups “ship early, ship often” through testing and continuous integration.
Events: Google Developers Summits
For later-stage startups, we’re providing some of the best tech experts to help optimize apps for Material Design, Android TV, and Google Cast at two-day Google Developer Summits. At an event in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, we had participants such as game developer Etermax, the team behind Trivia Crack. Similar events happened in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Bengaluru this month, and we’re looking forward to inviting more startups to this program in London, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, and New York in 2015.
Products: Your app, powered by Google
In 2014, we helped over 5,000 developers in 170 countries get their ideas off the ground by providing the infrastructure back-end that allows developers to build incredible products. For example, our program delivered software architecture reviews and Google Cloud Platform credits to help entrepreneurs in the program build businesses that scale with them. Check out how Fansino is using Google Cloud Platform to let artists interact with their fans.
We’ve also expanded our product offer for early-stage startups to include AdWords promotional offers for new accounts. Whatever your monetization plan, we’re making it easy to get started with tools like the new In-app Billing API and instruction from the AdMob team.
Courses: Upskilling you and your app
Starting this month, we’ll offer a virtual curriculum of how Google products can help your startup. We’re kicking things off with new Launchpad Online videos covering Google Analytics - are you observing how your users use your app? How do different promotional channels perform?
The series continues in April 2015 with AdMob products, and will expand with instruction in implementing material design and conducting user research later in the year.
If you can’t wait, we’ve also built courses together with Udacity to take your technical skills to the next level on topics, including Android, Java, Web Fundamentals, and UX.
Apply to get involved
Apply to Google Developers Launchpad program to take advantage of these offers - g.co/launchpad. Here’s to a great launch!
Posted by Cinthya Mohr, User Experience Lead, Google for Education
(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)
In a junior high class in Queens, New York, Ross Berman is teaching fractions. He wants to know whether his students are getting the key concept, so he posts a question in Google Classroom and instantly reviews their answers. It’s his favorite way to check for understanding before anyone has the chance to fall behind.
Across the country, in Bakersfield, California, Terri Parker Rodman is waiting at the dentist’s office. She wonders how her class is doing with their sub. With a few swipes on her phone, she finds out which students have finished their in-class assignment and sends a gentle reminder to those who haven’t.
Google Classroom launched last August, and now more than 10 million educators and students across the globe actively use it to teach and learn together, save time, and stay organized. We worked with teachers and students to create Classroom because they told us they needed a mission control – a central place for creating and tracking assignments, sharing ideas and resources, turning in completed work and exchanging feedback. Classroom is part of Google’s lineup of tools for education, which also includes the Google Apps for Education suite – now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators around the world – and Chromebooks, the best-selling device in U.S. K-12 schools.
Here are a few of the stories we’ve heard from teachers and students who are using Classroom.
Learning better together
We built Classroom to help educators spend less time on paperwork and administrative tasks. But it’s also proven to be highly effective at bringing students and teachers closer together. In London, fifth grader Kamal Nsudoh-Parish stays connected with his Spanish teacher while he does his homework. “If I don’t understand something, I can ask him and he’d be able to answer rather than having to wait until my next Spanish lesson,” Kamal says.
Terri, who teaches sixth grade at Old River Elementary School, also observes that Classroom can strengthen ties and improve communication. “When a student doesnt turn something in, I can see how close they are,” she says. “In the past, I couldnt tell why they didnt finish their work. I was grading them on bringing back a piece of paper instead of what their ability was.”
Resource room teacher Diane Basanese of Black River Middle School in Chester, New Jersey, says that Classroom lets her see her students’ minds at work. “I’m in the moment with them,” she explains. “We have dialogue, like, ‘Oh, are you saying I should use a transition?’ We’re talking to each other. It’s a better way.”
Removing the mundane
By helping them cut down on busywork, Classroom empowers teachers to do even more with every school day. “I no longer waste time figuring out paper jams at the school photocopier,” says Tom Mullaney, who teaches in Efland, North Carolina. “Absent students no longer email or ask, ‘What did we do yesterday?’ These time savers may not sound like much, but they free me to spend time on things that I consider transcendent in my teaching practice.”
In Mexico City, teachers at Tec de Monterrey high school and university switched to Classroom from an online learning management system that often added complexity to their workflow instead of simplifying it. Professor Vicente Cubells says he’s found the new question feature in Classroom particularly useful for short quizzes, because he can quickly assess learning and have an automatic record of their responses and grades. “The Classroom mobile apps have also become essential for our faculty and students, we use them to stay connected even when we’re not in front of a laptop,” Cubells said.
Giving teachers superpowers
Teachers are some of the most innovative thinkers in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’ve used Classroom in ways we never even imagined.
Elementary school teacher Christopher Conant of Boise, Idaho, says his students are usually eager to leave school behind during summer break. But after using Classroom last year, they wanted to keep their class open as a way to stay in touch. “Classroom is a tool that keeps kids connected and learning as a community, well beyond the school day, school year and school walls,” said Christopher, who continued to post videos and questions for his students all summer long.
These endless possibilities are the reason why Diane Basanese, a 30-year teaching veteran, says that Classroom is the tool she’s been looking for throughout her career. “It has made me hungrier,” she explains. “I look at how I can make every lesson a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark lesson.”
Growing our Classroom
Ever since we began working with teachers and students, its been rewarding and encouraging to hear their stories, collaborate to find answers to their problems, and watch those solutions come to life at schools and universities around the world. Lucky for us, we’re just getting started.
I have a old example of "Add and Remove view dynamically". Somebody ask how the Remove button keep track of the views. So I modify the example to explain in more details.
In this example, when user click on the Add button, it will create a child View, addView. The addView have a Button, buttonRemove. The buttonRemove have its own OnClickListener object. The OnClickListener object refer to the specified addView when it is created.
That means the OnClickListener object of the buttonRemove in the first child view("abc") not the same object in the second child view("abcdef"), not the same object in the third child view("abcdefghi")...All have its own individual OnClickListener object. And each OnClickListener object refer to a specified addView object. Such that it can keep track of the child Views, addView.
Trick your brain: black and white photo turns to colour! - Colour: The Spectrum of Science - BBC
Programme website: http://bbc.in/1Q7ik5S Look at the photo in the clip. From a picture that contains no colour our brains are able to construct a full colour image.
I tried to develop a example to experience it - Display image in opposite color to Trick your brain.
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Download the files (Android Studio Format) .