Android Training & Tutorials

The Android team just announced the launch of Android Training a collection of classes aimed at helping developers to build better Android applications. Each class explains the steps required to solve a problem, or implement a feature, with code snippets and sample code. They’ll add more materials over time, but right now developers can already learn (more) about the following topics: Designing for Multiple Screens Improving Layout Performance Managing Audio Playback Optimizing Battery Life Remembering Users Sharing Content Capturing Photos Maintaining Multiple APKs Developing for Enterprise Monetizing Your App Designing Effective Navigation There are currently 34 lessons on all those topics, and most include code samples such as the News Reader  (Designing for Multiple Screens). You can get started immediately by visiting Android Training page. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write […]

Qt Labs Releases Qt 4.8.0

Qt Labs has just announced the release of Qt 4.8.0 featuring Qt Platform Abstraction, threaded OpenGL support, multithreaded HTTP and optimized file system access. Here are some of the new key features  in Qt 4.8.0: Qt Platform Abstraction (QPA) QPA restructures the GUI stack to enable easier porting of Qt to different windowing systems and devices. Previously called Lighthouse. Threaded OpenGL supportEnables developers to render OpenGL from more than one thread concurrently. See Threaded OpenGL in 4.8 for more details. Multithreaded HTTP HTTP requests are now handled in a separate thread by default. This should make application guis smoother, as networking will no longer use the main event loop. Optimized file system access The file system stack received some heavy lifting under the hood. The result is better I/O performance, achieved by reducing the number of system calls performed for I/O and by better use of cached data, when available. […]

AnDevCon III: Android Developer Conference – 14-17 May 2012

The Android Developer Conference III will take place in San Francisco on 14-17 May 2012. This technical conference is exclusively reserved to Android developers and provides classes, workshops and keynotes related to Android development. There will also be an exhibition hall where Android apps and development tools will be showcased. The workshops and classes schedule does not appear to be available just yet for AnDevCon III, but the different sessions will be organized into five subject area: Developer Essentials: These technical classes and workshops are for all Android developers and cover all programming topics. Android Enterprise: These technical sessions cover topics specific to building and managing apps for employees, business customers and partners, such as back-end integration corporate data center communications, ERP or CRM systems. Android Business: These classes and workshops are for entrepreneurial developers who want to learn the most effective ways of distributing and selling Android apps, including […]

Qt Quick QML Digital Signage Demo Part 2

Following up on Qt Quick QML Digital Signage Demo Part 1, I’ve updated the digital signage demo to support the following: Play 5 videos in a loop Display 5 pictures in a loop where the picture is changed every 5 seconds Use a (twitter) RSS feed for the scrolling text I initially planned to use QML to list the media files, but it is apparently not possible without using C/C++ and I may do it later on. So instead, I hard-coded the video and picture playlists in the QML files with the ListModel element. Videos are located in the video directory and pictures in the pic folder. An index is needed to scroll thru the playlist, but QML does not support global variables, so I created a JavaScript file (globals.js) to store the video and picture index: // Global variables in JavaScript file var iVideoIndex = 0 var iPicIndex = […]

Design West Summit – 26-29 March 2012

UBM Design announced the schedule and pass pricing for Design West Summit (previously Embedded System Conference) which will now bring 7 summits in one location (San Jose McEnery Convention Center) on 26-29 March 2012: Embedded Systems Conference & Exhibition –  Conference Dates:  March 26 – 29, 2012.  Exhibition Dates:  March 27-29, 2012. (See Details below) Android Summit – March 28, 2012 –  Everything Android  from embedded design to Apps development. Android Certification Program Android Speed Training Android Fundamentals Course on the Expo Floor Android Conference Program Multicore DevCon– March 27 & 28, 2012 – Embedded multicore and multimedia. 7th annual Multicore Conference Courses Multicore Expo Floor Zone Multicore Fundementals Courses Keynote Addresses Industry Addresses Expo floor parties and giveaways BlackHat – March 29, 2012 – One-day conference focused on security in embedded systems. Security Fundementals Course Black Hat Summit Conference Courses Security focused presentations in the expo floor theater Keynotes […]

Qt Quick QML Digital Signage Demo Part 1

I’ve recently started to play around with Qt and since I’d like to do a digital signage player running on Raspberry Pi, I’ve decided to try to make a simple digital signage demo application to evaluate the development platform. In Part 1, my goal was to make a 3 zones layout with a video zone, a picture zone and a scrolling text zone. I would just play one hard-coded media in each zone and the video and scrolling text would have to continuously loop. I used Qt Creator to create  a “Pigital Signage” application (or should it be Πgital Signage ?). To create the 3 zones I used the Gridview Element with 3 rectangles: Video zone: 600×432 Picture zone: 200×432 Text zone: 800×48 Displaying the image is very easy with the Image Element:

The video playback was also supposed to be easy with the Video Element but it can […]

Mono for Android 4.0 (.NET Framework)

Xamarin has provided .NET support for Linux via the Mono project for a while. It has recently announced the availability of an Android 4.0 version of its Mono software in order to let .NET and C# developers use Microsoft Visual Studio to build Android applications. Mono for Android follows upon Xamarin’s MonoTouch framework for iOS (iPhone and iPad development)  and consists of a plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio, a core Mono runtime, a Software development and bindings for native Android APIs. Such software is designed to leverage existing .NET applications, libraries and tools for Android development. With Mono for Android, developers can also call upon their native skills in .NET and the C# programming language in developing Android apps. Xamarin says that Mono for Android 4.0 provides access to all the new features, native APIs and UI toolkits in Android 4.0. Mono for Android 4.0 brings those key improvements and […]

Nokia Developer Day 2: Qt QML Workshop – Chiang Mai

I’ve just attended Nokia Developer Day  on 6-7 December 2011 in Chiang Mai. I’ve already written a summary about the first day dealing with Series 40 Java and Web Apps Workshop. The second day was focused on Qt/QML (Qt Meta-Language) software development for Nokia’s Symbian phones. Nokia will phase out Symbian operating system in 2016, but they’ll still support it until that time. Nokia will also port  Qt to lower end phones (e.g. Series 40) on a new operating system based on Linux called Meltemi. Overall Business Direction & Strategy The first 45-minutes for was presentation given by Grant Aaron McBeath, Managing Director, Nokia Thailand and Emerging Asia, about Nokia business direction: focus on Windows Phone for smartphones, Java/Web Apps for feature phones and future disruption. He also showed the progress of Nokia Ovi Store with 10 million downloads a day and 177 publishers with more than 1 million downloads. […]

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