For the past week or so I have been running my SGS-T989 on the Ice Cream Sandwich rom called BlackEdition. This ROM takes the ICS hardware support from the Galaxy S II Skyrocket currently available on AT&T, and ports it back to our SGS II -T-Mobile. While it's very exciting to get access to ICS, the speed, the data monitor, and most of all, access to Chrome on my phone. There are still a few issues.

Media Scanner Issues

The media scanner in this kernel has some sort of major malfunction, as it will not stop scanning. What this means for me, is that the phone never goes into a proper sleep, and my battery just gets shredded to bits. As in, less than 6 hours from fully charged to dead. It also makes charging super-slow, so it's almost better to turn my phone off to charge.

Wifi Tether Issues

Initially when I went into the Android Settings to turn on the Wifi-Tether on which I have grown completiely reliant, the setting would not turn on. After experiementing and trying all of the different configuration options, I gave up. A few days later, I noticed that there was a configuration toggle in the top bar of the notification pull-down. I tried it out, and lo-and-behold, there was the Wifi-Tether that I had been hoping for so strongly. It now works great, although combined with the Media Scanner Issue, my battery can be shredded to bits in an hour or two.

ACore Issues

About once every 20 or so minutes of use, the android core process will stop, freezing my entire phone, and preventing any operation for about 8-9 seconds.  While not actually losing any work, or preventing me from being effective, it's very annoying.

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In the past month or so, three new ICS ROMs have become available for the Samsung Galaxy SII for T-Mobile.  These ROMS have their own issues and problems, and I don't feel like any of them are ready as daily drivers yet.  

None of the ROMs worked "out of the box" for me, and I had to do some digging to get them to work.  Each one entered an infinite boot loop that I had to pull the battery to get out of.  Remember, if you want to boot into recovery, ensure the SGS2 is powered off, then hold volume up, volume down, and power until the Samsung logo appears.  The solution for these boot loops was to do a more thorough wipe than the standard Factory Reset. There is a special tool called DARKSIDE.SUPER.WIPE that will fully erase your system, cache, and data partitions. Make sure you do a full Nandroid backup before doing this, as this will definitely erase parts of your OS.

Here are my notes on each rom.

 

[ROM] [cwm]-ICS-4.0.3-Self-Kang

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1566811

This ROM was the first ROM I tried. After getting it to boot successfully, I attempted to make a phone call and discovered that there were no APNs included with the ROM for T-Mobile. Not wanting to manually install APNs, this ROM was not for me.  I may come back to this one though, as it was the only pure Android ROM, without any TouchWiz, ruining the quality and asthetic of Ice Cream Sandwich.

Download

MD5 Checksum

7b2fe73e6ed1234a8c29d55934747f91

[ROM] Skyrocket ICS Port

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1570012

This was the second ROM I tried. This ROM had no APNs either unfortunately. This meant that for me it was unsuitable as a daily driver.

Download

 

[ROM][cwm]-BLACKEDITION FOR THE SGS2 3-29-2012-ICS

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1531189 

Finally a ROM with APNs, but overall I am definitely not a fan of TouchWiz, and the continuing issues with autorotation and a general lack of polish across all of these ROMs prevented me from adopting it as a daily driver.

Download

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HexSLayer recently launched a few new versions. In the Android Marketplace (Now known as Google Play), HexSLayer 1.0.19 was launched, and in the Amazon App Store, HexSLayer 1.0.20 was launched. These may be the last updates for a few weeks, as there has been a major update to the packing system I use, known has PyGame Subset for Andoir. Both of the published versions of HexSLayer use PyGame Subset for Android (PGSA) version 0.9.3. This has been a great framework for me, as I have been able to write applications and games in Python, and then launch them simultaneously on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

With the latest update of PGSA to version 0.9.4, there has been a change to how the system packages applications. Before, the system would copy over the raw Python source files (or .py files), but now the tool packages only the optimized and compiled versions of Python applications (the .pyo file). This means that if you come from an earlier version on Android and upgrade, you will end up having both versions on your device.

The problem with this upgrade path is that it leaves both versions of the files on your device, and the Python subsystem by default runs the old version of the application. That means that there is new code on your device, your phone will always run the old code.  This has been the core issue preventing me from releasing HexSLayer 1.1.x.

I wrote to the author of PyGame Subset for Android, and discovered that he had a fix prepared that will allow me to continue using the old packaging method, while waiting for my users to upgrade to a version compatible with the new method.

As soon as PGSA 0.9.5 is release, I should be able to repackage and release the next set of features and bugfixes for HexSLayer.

Thanks for playing!

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For many of us, retro-gaming holds a special place in our hearts. We grew up playing games on platforms like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, DOS, or even the N64. Emulating these platforms on desktop computers has been done for many years now, but with the rising place of smartphones and tablets as gaming devices, emulating on Android becomes quite important.  Here are the my top 5 retro gaming platforms and how to emulate them on Android.  Keep in mind that most of these have been removed from the Android marketplace, despite the fact that Emulators are fully legal. This means that you may need to enable non-market applications in Settings->Applications, and then checking the box "Unknown Sources".

Emulators are legal according to US law, but downloading game ROMs (the full game application and all graphics, music, etc) is of questionable legality, unless you own the hardware cartidge.  For this reason, I won't directly link to any ROMs, but searching for "cool roms" will probably get you what you need.

Emulating Super Nintendo on Android

Emulating Super Nintendo is probably one of the best experiences on Android. Download and install the emulator APK, and launch the application. It will bring you to a menu with several options. Clicking Load Game will launch a file browser where you can select the ROM you want to play.

This Emulator supports up to 10 saved states for each game.   Additionally, Snes9x EX supports a wide variety of controllers. In the default mode, the application will have an on-screen keyboard. For a much better experience, I recommend connecting a Wiimote to the phone. You can connect a Wiimote by opening the battery case on the Wiimote, and pressing "Connect", and then press "Scan for Wiimotes/iCP/JS1" on the phone. If you have bluetooth enabled, it should find the Wiimote, and allow you to game on your phone/tablet with the Wiimote.  You can even connect multiple remotes to your phone simultaneously for some sweet multiplayer gaming.

Get Snes9x EX

Emulating Nintendo on Android

Nesoid is quite a nice emulator, supporting quicksave, 9 save slots, and an on-screen controller. Additionally, nesoid supports netplay, fast-forward, cheats. It also allows the user to use the sensor for the left and right keys, or allows the user to map the trackball onto one of the standard controller functions.  The emulator uses Haptic (small vibrations) feedback to let the player know when they are hitting various keys. This is a very nice feature, as on-screen keyboards can tend to be a little difficult to use.

Get Nesoid

Emulating N64 on Android

The N64 is probably one of the most advanced console types that we are currently capable of emulating. To emulate more advanced consoles such as the PS2/XBox or even the latest generation of consoles, we will need devices with an order of magnitude more power, as emulation is an extremely overhead expensive process. This emulator supports saving to a quick slot accessible onscreen, as well as up to 9 additional save slots per game.  N64oid also supports using the motion sensors on the device as one of the inputs, but I didn't find this to be particularly useful for any games.

Get N64oid

Emulating Game Boy on Android

For the phone form factor, emulating a Game Boy probably is the most direct link between past and present.  Gameboys were ubiquitous for children born in the 80s. From Pokemon Red/Blue, to Tetris and beyond, the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Color ate millions of hours from children.  Recover some of that old-school gaming feeling while in the bathroom, driving around in a car, or on your couch at home by trying out GBCoid. Using this emulator in portrait mode is surprisingly pleasing, despite not using all of the screen real estate of a phone.  At least with many of the modern Android phones, the screen size and resolution is superior to the original devices.

Get GBCoid

Emulating DOS on Android

DOS Emulation is Not Good Enough for Normal Use Cases!

Despite not having standardized and dedicated hardware, DOS is probably one of the most prolific platforms for game development created. 20 years ago, DOS was the only option for game creation, and it held that status for several years.  Today, many games are still floating around with DOS versions.  DOSBox on Android is a little bit tougher to use than any of the standard emulators, due to the general difficulty of using DOSBox.  With a very powerful application, comes a very complex interface.

To load an old game like Pizza Tycoon, I had to:

1. Copy the game files to the SD Card
2. Launch the application
3. Enable the onscreen keyboard
4. Black Magic
5. Gaming

Get aDOSBox

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Android is a giant cluster of concepts, companies, and efforts. There are manufacturers, carriers, differing software versions, form factors, screen resolutions, roms, custom launchers, custom UIs, apps, and more. My intent is to walk you through some of these concepts, as they stand in March of 2012. This guide is intended for smartphone consumers, as developers and early adopters will likely already know all of these things.

Top Things You Should Know About Form Factors

1. Android Operates on devices of any size. From a smartphone with a 3 inch screen, to a tablet with a 10 or 13 inch screen.
2. Many applications are poorly optimized for tablets. The more popular the application, the more likely it will work great on whatever type of device you use.
3. There are devices such as the Galaxy Note that support both phone and tablet use cases.

Top Things You Should Know About Android Software Versions

1. Android 4.0.3 is the most recent version to be released and available on phones (about 2% of devices have this version).
2. We are expecting Google to announce Android 5.0, Codename Jelly Bean in June of 2012.
3. Android 4 or above is necessary to get access to the latest features, such as face unlock, or data usage monitoring.

Top Things You Should Know About Android Manufacturers

1. If you are looking to take control of your device, HTC makes the most unlockable devices.
2. Samsung currently makes the smallest, fastest devices, and is the largest manufacturer of Android devices.
3. Motorola's Mobility group was purchased by Google, so expect tight integration between Android and future Motorola devices.

Top Things You Should Know About Android Carriers

1. All US Carriers have Android devices, but each carrier has a different set of devices. Additionally, devices typically cannot be moved between carriers because of incompatible networks in the US.
2. Verizon has the fastest, but most expensive network.
3. Sprint has some of the most unique devices, including the 3D camera and display on the HTC Evo 3D.

Top Things You Should Know About ROMs

1. ROMs are great if you have technical ability, and want to modify or take control of your device. ROMs are community-built versions of Android that often combine proprietary and open source features.
2. CyanogenMod and AOKP are among the most popular ROMs for many devices, but each device will end up having tens of ROMs specific to that device.
3. The biggest problem for ROM developers trying to release working software for devices is the proprietary drivers needed to interact with hardware. This has worsened with Android 4.0, as many of the previously-software components such as camera, now have large demands upon the hardware.

Top Things You Should Know About Tethering

1. Both USB and Wifi tethering are built into the Android platform, but are often removed by Carriers.
2. You can install the ClockworkMod Tether application on your phone to add tethering back, if it was removed.
3. Tethering may be visible on Verizon or T-Mobile devices, but it may warn you that they want to charge you additional fees to use the feature.

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Despite having no official registration date or information, I'm still extremely excited to attend. Part of me wants to see the show in person, meet the other developers, talk to Googlers, and live among those attending one of the hottest spots of innovation and technology around. Another part of me wants to attend simply for the gifts. The final part of me, with the announcement that there will be a coding competition for Google IO 2012, wants to prove myself as an adept developer and contributor to the world software ecosystem.

I've got the dates booked on my calendar already, and I'm checking the news feeds daily regarding news, and even going so far as to reach out to Googler's on Google+, but I have heard nothing so far. I'm frightened that I will miss the event like I did last year. In 2012, I found out about the registration 67 minutes after it had started. Unfortunately for me, tickets sold out in just 52 minutes, meaning I was 15 minutes too late to get a ticket. I'm was determined last year to attend, but I'm redoubling my efforts this year to ensure I'm able.

Past Google IO Gifts

In the past, Google has created a trend of gift-giving some of the latest technology. Here's a list of the past years' gifts.

2008 - 0 Gifts Google IO started in 2008, giving attendees only words and presentations regarding technology.

2009 - 1 Gift Attendees received an HTC Magic smartphone.

2010 - 2 Gifts Attendees received a Nexus S before the show, and an HTC EVO 4G during the show.

2011 - 3 Gifts Attendees received a Chromebook, a Galaxy Tab 10.1, and a Verizon Hotspot.

2012 - ?4 Gifts? It is unlikely the trend will continue, but with the increase of focus on developer attendence rather than open enrollment, there is likely to be some type of technology-centric gifts.

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Today marks the launch of Google Chrome Beta for Android. This marks a reunion between Google's two main content delivery platforms, Google Chrome, and Android. Historically building and targeting one of these platforms nearly completely excluded the alternative platform. Today's release has not changed this yet, but this is a path along the way. To have a true reunion, Google Chrome for Android needs to support the Chrome Web Store and web apps. Doing so would allow companies and individuals to produce quality HTML5-driven applications, and connect them natively to mobile devices, in the same way they do with native applications published in the Android Marketplace.

This matches one step along a path described in My Prediction from January 2011, although my timing was off by more than a year. This also marks a key hallmark of modern technology, and an extension of the core idea of cloud computing. Whatever device, computer, screen, interface I start interacting with should automatically know who I am, what I have done and what I want. Being able to access your computer's tabs on your phone, in combination with tools like Chrome to Phone and NFC is going to make 2012 feel a lot more futuristic.

Download Chrome Beta for Android

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Although the T-Mobile Vibrant, a derivative of the popular Samsung Galaxy S, is an aging phone, it has recently received an important spark of life. Ever since the source code for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich dropped, the developers over at XDA have been working on getting a quality ROM containing Ice Cream Sandwich Working. I have been following the series of ROMs called Passion which were among the first to launch.

Passion recently launched Beta 12. Don't let the moniker "beta" fool you, this ROM is definitely good enough for a daily driver, and has been since at least version 6. All of the expected features work, internet, phone, sound, video, playback, camera, etc. It's much faster than the phone ever was with prior versions of Android, and looks great.

The only missing feature, which is due to a lack of hardware, is face unlock. It would be very nice to be able to see this feature live, but without a front-facing camera, this will never be available. Theoretically, they could make face unlock work with the rear camera, but I doubt they will spend the effort to do so.

Check out the install instructions here.

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Just like Google's popular Analytics program, it appears that the statistics for publishers in the Android Market are fuzzed as well. After about 8 hours of having my app in the marketplace, and having 5 independently confirmed users install and run the application, including myself, the statistics shown in the store are as follows:

It reports 3 total installs, and 4 net installs. This doesn't make any sense. These statistics mean that 3 people have ever installed my application, but 4 installs remain in production?

Looking depeer into the devices and versions of the users as reported by the control panel also shows some strange data. First of all, none of my devices shown up in the devices list. This is odd, because I was one of the first to download it. Second of all, despite having 4 equal chunks in the pie charts, the numeric breakdowns don't show 50% of my traffic.

These types of errors are common for Google, which processes trillions of petabytes per day. The only thing developers can do is hope that the data is correct and complete, with no additional information or assurances from Google. Google did a great job of Real Time search for Google Analytics. This offering provides up-to-the-second updates regarding visitors to the site. This leads me to trust their data. Google could do several things to improve the reliability of their data.

• Show real time data for statistics
• State assumptions, such as time updated
• State when you are excluding data, such as installs by the owner

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For the new year, I wanted to actually put one of the projects I have been working on out to the public. The game is called HexSLayer.

You should Download HexSLayer now!

History

I released a linux .deb on hexslayer.com about a year ago, but I haven't really tried promoting it or talking to anyone about it, due to the small market share of desktop linux. Hopefully now with this Android release, I'll actually get a few users, some feedback, and hopefully make a great game.

I built HexSLayer for Android by originally writing the game in Python using Pygame. About a month ago I noticed that they had released a tool called Pygame subset for Android that allows you to add a few minor calls in your game, and then you can package and deploy Android apps. There were a few headaches, such as an issue with the package that made me learn how to build android applications with Ant, but the game is playable on all of the devices I have tested it with.

Current Release

There are a few remaining issues, that seem to be limitations of using Pygame subset for Android. Among these are the inability to determine the screen size in-game. Additionally, it seems like the splash screen doesn't work on 100% of the devices I have tested it with. Overall, I'm not sure how happy I am cross-compiling from Python into Android using Pygame and the NDK, but it's pretty cool to be able to do almost no work and deploy on a great big new platform.

I didn't have to do much work to get it running, but I spent a lot of time focusing on usability on the new platform. I resized and moved everything on the screen so that it is relative to the screen size. I increased the size of the icons while you are dragging them, as a finger blocks the view of a small icon. The game works well on phones, but it works really great on tablets.

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With hundreds of millions of Google accounts in existence, and reliance upon Google accounts for your personal life, your business life, your cell phone, your calendar, your documents, etc, you should absolutely consider the security of your Google Account. The easiest way to do this is a strong password. Unfortunately, strong passwords can still be broken by dedicated or interested individuals or groups. One thing you can do to greatly increase the security of your Google account is to add Two-factor authentication. With 2-factor authentication, it is extremely difficult for anonymous remote entities to break into your account.

What is Two factor authentication?

Two Factor authentication is the security principle that in order to grant access, the system must validate something you know (like your password), and additionally, something you have. This prevents individuals or groups from accessing your content, even if they are able to brute force or somehow determine your password.

Historically, Two factor authentication relied on a small piece of hardware they would ship to you. This was great from a security perspective, but was not convenient and was not mobile. Google (as well as other such as Blizzard) have begun to allow 2 factor authentication using Smartphones. This enables you to combine something you know (your password), with something you almost always have with you (your smartphone) to achieve better account security.

Setting up Two Factor Authentication on your Google Account

There are about 8 easy steps you can follow to quickly get 2 Factor Authentication working with any smart phone.

1. Log into Gmail and Click on the drop down next to your email address in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click on "Account Settings".
3. Under the Security section, select "Using 2-step verification".
4. Click on "Start setup" from the right side of the screen.
5. Create a backup method by entering a phone number to text or call.
6. Click on "Turn on 2 Step Verification".
7. Decide what smartphone you wish to use to generate codes, and select it from the list at the top. Follow the instructions for your phone.
8. Create application-specific passwords for your mobile devices and special applications, like Google Music.

What to expect

Overall, you should have confidence in the security of your account, but at the same time you should expect the nuisance of needing to run an application on your phone every 30 days, and every time you want to access your account from a new computer. Additionally, some rare applications (such as Google Music for Linux), are not written well, and won't save passwords. This means that any time you want to run that application, you need to log in and generate a new Application-specific password for it.

Google will also create some backup codes for you, I have them stored securely on one of my servers that I can access via SSH. This is in case you lose your phone at any point, you don't lose complete access to your account.

Make sure you delete unused Application Specific passwords, and enjoy the additional peace of mind and security that 2 Factor Authentication provides!

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Last week I purchased a new Samsung Galaxy S II. After a week of usage of the stock ROM and root-less capabilities, I was finally ready to root my device. The process for the Galaxy S II is pretty straightforward still. Unfortunately this install requires a Windows machine. At the same time, it has been the most error-free install I've seen to date. The process involves flashing the new recovery using Odin, then using ClockworkMod to install SU.

Most of the instructions from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1311194 work great. All of the files that you will need are there. The only additional step that I had to take was after rebooting my phone with the USB cord plugged in, the Phone asked me if I was willing to install custom software. I had to press volume up to agree to install custom software. After that, Odin proceeded perfectly. I was then able to boot into ClockworkMod, take a Nandroid backup (After I installed an required SD card), and install the SU zip file.

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The primary audience for this article is those who already have a working Android development environment, and are looking to get the latest and greatest from Google running in the emulator. Unfortunately, for me, the default emulator settings that ship with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) do not enable me to actually run an emulated instance of the application.

Fix the Ice Cream Sandwich Settings

To make everything work, I updated eclipse to the latest AVD and SDK versions using both the Eclipse updater, and the new SDK manager. Then I downloaded API Version 14 of the SDK, platform, etc. I opened the new AVD manager and created a new AVD targeting ICS.

The default properties of Max VM application heap size of 24 and Device ram size of 512 resulted in build errors for me. I increased these properties and the machine booted like a charm (albeit extremely slowly).

I increased the Max VM application heap size to 64 and the Device ram size to 1500. You may be able to get away with less, I haven't tried it. Make sure you have plenty of unused RAM before you attempt to increase the RAM available to the AVD.

That was it for me to get it working. Have fun and build some great applications!

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Some of us live on the edge. We sacrifice stability to be on the bleeding edge of technology, experiencing new features immediately as they are added. Here are my top 5 pieces of software that are generally safe to update on a daily basis.

Chromium

Application	Frequency of Breaking	Difficulty of Downgrading	Notes
Chromium Browser	Once Per Quarter	Medium	Upgrading requires only a standard package update, ie sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. Downgrading involves searching the internet for an earlier version, or if you are lucky, finding a copy in your apt cache.
CyanogenMod 7.1	Weekly	High	It seems that nightlies for CyanogenMod don't undergo quality assurance, as occasionally very basic things like phone, internet, or battery usage will become completely broken.
Wine*	Never	High	Although not technically a nightly, the unstable releases of Wine are often worth a lack of stability for additional compatibility. Commonly each release of the Wine project seems to take 3 steps forward, and 1 step back, breaking some functionality with each release.
Ubuntu	Each Release	Extremely High	Ubuntu Unstable releases tend to be one of the best ways to preview and try out upcoming functionality. I recommend this only for the strong-willed, as attempting to run development versions of major revision changes has around a 30% chance of completely breaking your system, forcing a reinstall.
FFmpeg	Never	Medium	FFmpeg is relatively easy to compile and install once you have the source code checked out from their repository. This project is frequently updating with additional codecs as well as improvements to processing speed and compression quality. Downgrading requires checking out an earlier version from source and recompiling.

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For the past 60 days I have been experimenting with using a Galaxy Tab as my tablet computer. I bring it with me to work, I take it home with me at night. I carry it in a padfolio to meetings. This review is specific to the Galaxy Tab, but any Android tablet running Honeycomb should enable the same workflow and applications.

Galaxy Tab Applications

I have installed numerous applications in a continuing quest to find the best-of-breed applications that are fun, engaging, productive, etc. After two months, the following are the applications that I find myself using all of the time.

1. Thumbs - Thumbs is the best tablet keyboard I have found. It allows you to hold the device by the corners and use your thumbs to type. On phones I prefer Swiftkey, but for some reason the tablet-optimized version doesn't live up to the same level of accuracy.
2. Gmail - Most of the time I use the tablet, I am reading emails, labeling and archiving email, replying, and occasionally composing emails.
3. Calendar - The calendar app on the Galaxy Tab is quite good. It's easy to view multiple calendars, as well as to create calendar tasks.
4. Camera - It feels a little silly at first to take pictures with the device, but once you get past the stigma, it definitely meets the needs of a basic phone camera. At only 3MP on the rear camera, the picture quality isn't great.
5. Gallery - The real value of the device is in being able to review the photos you take, and the photos from your Google Photos album.
6. Google+ - Google Plus is not very well tablet optimized, but it grants access to the standard Google+ experience. More importantly, this application allows you to automatically synchronize your photos with your device.
7. Evernote - Evernote is a great application for syncing text, recording, and audio. It's tablet version is extremely well optimized. The presentation of the past notes is excellent, and all of the functionality of Evernote is exposed.
8. YouTube - The YouTube application on the tablet is arguably better than the web interface. The application uses RenderScript and a Carousel view to present video thumbnails. The YouTube application makes it easy to flip through videos, and watch or fullscreen videos.
9. Games - I won't list all of the games I have played, but several fun games work extremely well on the tablet.
   • Nano Panda
   • Plants vs. Zombies
   • Dungeon Defenders
   • Angry Birds
   • Tank Hero
   • Gun Bros
   • Blast Monkey

Galaxy Tab Workflow

There are several important places where the tablet has fully entered my workflow. When I attend a meeting, I launch Evernote, begin taking notes, and press the record button at the bottom. This allows me to have a full audio recording of meetings, in addition to my manually typed notes.

The second place that the tab makes a lot of sense if for photo sharing. I take a lot of photos that are automatically synced to the cloud via Google Photos (formally Picasa). Sharing these photos with friends is very natural via the gallery application compared to huddling around a desktop.

Often when I have spare time, or am away from my desk, I'm able to sit on the tablet and read and respond to emails. It feels very natural to do so in spare moments.

The Galaxy Tab works better than the three other tablets I have tried (Iconia, Xoom, and Transformer) because of its size, solid construction. Despite it's lack of dedicated HDMI port or dedicated charging port, it's a very good tablet. It hasn't found a permanent place in my life yet, and there is a lot of overlap with what I want to do with Laptops and Desktops. Despite this, I have definitely found use for it.

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Recently a preview release of Google TV for the Logitech Revue was released. This preview has some exciting components. This release is based on Android 3.1 and includes the Android Market. This preview leak isn't a hacked version, and doesn't require root or any customization to work. Simply download and unzip the package, place it on the root of a flash drive and restart the Google TV, it will automatically update your device.

Overall, the only improvement provided by the update is that it will allow you to preview the upcoming release. There are many downsides and I recommend you Don't download and install it as there is currently no stable release, and no way to downgrade your device.

You will be able to browse the internet, and see the new new settings. Beyond that, NOTHING works.

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In May at GoogleIO, Google announced that it would begin supporting multiple .APK files, and finally this feature has come to fruition. To get started using this new feature, visit the Android Developer Console and click on your application. At the top of the application information you will notice that the upload .apk feature is now gone. It has been moved to a new tab at the top of the window, "APK files".

Using the Multiple APK Tool

Each of the .apk files that you upload to the Android Developer Console are examined. The system looks at the MinSDK version and the Target SDK version. The new features allow publishers to maintain multiple .apk files that target different screen versions, different version numbers, and OpenGL support. This is simultaneously a boon, and a potential disaster. It should decrease the difficulty of maintaining code that targets and supports different feature sets, but at the same time it supports the further fragmentation and differentiation of different Android devices. In an ideal world, the platform would be standardized in such a way that multiple versions wouldn't be necessary. In the practical world, Google continues to update and improve the API and platform. They break backward compatibility, and come up with new and better ways of performing software development and achieve better user interactions. This means that multiple .apk files will end up supporting the practical fragmentation of the platform.

One of the best ways to leverage these new abilities will be to fork applications at major points in platform revisioning. For example, it will soon make sense to have 3 different APKs, depending on how much historic support is desired. The first group would be platform versions 1.5 - 2.1. The second group would be 2.2-3.2. The final group would be the new Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 platform version.

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With every Android Software Development Kit installation, there are several key steps. The following steps will describe my recommendations regarding installation of Android SDK under Linux, and they assume that you will be integrating Android into Eclipse. The last, and most unique step is to add the Android tools to your PATH. This will enable you to run adb and other android tools more easily from the command line. It also makes it easier to use those tools with privilege escalation, such as sudo.

Recommended Android SDK Steps

1. Download the SDK from developer.android.com. Unarchive the tar.gz into /opt/ as /opt/android-sdk/.
2. Install the Eclipse Tool (ADT) - Under Help in Eclipse, click on Install New Software. Add the following as a new site, and give it whatever name you wish: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/.
3. Configure Eclipse with SDK - Under Window->Preferences->Android, enter the SDK location, or /opt/android-sdk/ and hit OK.
4. Add Android Tools to your PATH - Under Ubuntu, one of the best ways to add something to your PATH is to edit your ~/.bash_profile file. The line in my profile looks as follows:

This file is applied any time a terminal is loaded. This will take the users existing PATH established by other system settings, and add the Android platform tools to it, and then export the variable to apply the change.

After the Android SDK is in your PATH

Because of the Linux permission system, adb often needs to be killed and restarted using root permissions so that your computer can access the USB device. I often pop open a terminal and kill and start the ADB service.

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There are many difficulties that come with attempting to root a phone. As time has progressed and the Android platform as a whole has matured, several new techniques have arisen that allow easier rooting of phones. Here are three of the great ways different phones can be rooted using some of the latest tools.

GingerBreak

GingerBreak found on XDA, is a very simple tool for gaining root access. It works very well with the Motorola Droid X2. GingerBreak is a single apk file that when downloaded and run, it uses an exploit present on many devices to remount the internal system memory, write root capabilities, and install a superuser apk file. This root attempt is extremely interesting because it requires no manual reboots, and works with a single apk file downloadable from the internet.

SuperOneClick

SuperOneClick is a Windows focused tool that roots most phone types. Simply put the Android device into debugging mode, connect the device via USB to the computer, and run SuperOneClick. The tool will automatically attempt to install and run the appropriate exploit, as well as install the needed root capabilities and packages.

I have successfully used SuperOneClick with the Galaxy S - Vibrant, as well as with the Galaxy Tab (7 inch version), and the Motorola Xoom tablet.

Cmenard's OverStock kernel

The OverStock kernel is a good tool that works for several phones, including the Galaxy S - Vibrant. This is actually the method recommended by the CyanogenMod team for the Vibrant. The kernel allows the user to continue using the existing ROM, but replaces the Kernel and system features with a version that includes root capabilities for the user. One of the benefits of this method, is that it does not seem to violate the Android security model, as it can only be used with the appropriate desktop software, and by starting the phone into download mode. The software is open source, and is maintained on Github, making the Heimdall project very centralized and well managed.

Summary and Concerns

Despite the ease of use of all of these solutions, the first two rely on security exploits in the Android operating system. This is a huge concern for me because although it makes rooting and flashing very easy, it violates the qualities that should be in place for good security. If GingerBreak works to root the device in the way we want it to, this means that any malicious app could use the same exploit to hurt the user's system. A malicious app could be uploaded to the market containing the same exploit, and install a monitoring system, or hurt the rest of the system. I have not yet been exposed to, or heard about any malicious uses of these exploits, but the fact that it's possible makes it very probable that it will happen in the future.

In the future, we need to find a way to root and flash more phones that doesn't violate the security model, but still allows the user to take full control of their Android phone, and their operating system.

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