Get your app featured on the first smartphone with Project Tango from Lenovo

Posted by Johnny Lee, Technical Project Lead, Project Tango

Today, at CES, Lenovo announced the development of the first consumer-ready smartphone with Project Tango. By adding a few extra sensors and some computer vision software, Project Tango transforms your smartphone into a magic lens that lets you place digital information on your physical world.

*Renderings only. Not the official Lenovo device.

To support the continued growth of the ecosystem, we’re also inviting developers from around the world to submit their ideas for gaming and utility apps created using Project Tango. We’ll pick the best ideas and provide funding and engineering support to help bring them to life, as part of the app incubator. Even better, the finished apps will be featured on Lenovo’s upcoming device. The submission period closes on February 15, 2016.

All you need to do is tell us about your idea and explain how Project Tango technologies will enable new experiences. Additionally, we’ll ask you to include the following materials:

• Project schedule including milestones for development –– we’ll reach out to the selected developers by March 15, 2016
• Visual mockups of your idea including concept art
• Smartphone app screenshots and videos, such as captured app footage
• Appropriate narrative including storyboards, etc.
• Breakdown of your team and its members
• One pager introducing your past app portfolio and your company profile

For some inspiration, Lowes Home Improvement teamed with developer Elementals Web to demonstrate a use case they are each working on for the launch. In the app, you can point your Project Tango-enabled smartphone at your kitchen to see where a new refrigerator or dishwasher might fit virtually.

Elsewhere, developer Schell Games let’s you play virtual Jenga on any surface with friends. But this time, there is no cleanup involved when the blocks topple over.

There are also some amazing featured apps for Project Tango on Google Play. You can pick up your own Project Tango Tablet Development Kit here to brainstorm new fun and immersive experiences that use the space around you. Apply now!

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Sun Surveyor brings augmented reality to photographers using Google Maps APIs

Posted by Adam Ratana, Developer of Sun Surveyor

(Cross-posted on the Geo Developers Blog.)

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Adam Ratana, developer of Sun Surveyor. Read how Sun Surveyor is using Google Maps APIs to help photographers capture the perfect photo.

I’m a photography enthusiast, and I’m always looking for ways to improve my work. That’s what led me to develop Sun Surveyor, an iOS and Android app that uses Google Maps APIs to visualize the location of the sun and the moon anywhere in the world. The app makes it easy to figure out when the natural lighting will be just right — and get the ideal shot.

Sun Surveyor uses augmented reality to overlay the paths of the sun and moon on a camera’s view, so you can see where in the sky they’ll be at a specific time and place. Photographers can use it to plan their shots ahead of time, and businesses can use it to gauge things like how best to align solar panels to make the most efficient use of the angle of the sun.

The app uses multiple Google Maps APIs, including the Elevation API, the Time Zone API, the Google Maps SDK for iOS and the Google Maps Android API. The Android API, which includes Street View, was particularly helpful. It allowed me to overlay the path of the sun and moon on any Street View location anywhere in the world. For programming details, see this blog post.

The following screen captures give you a sense of how the app works. They show overlays on top of the iconic Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. The first shows the paths of the sun (yellow line) and moon (blue line) over an aerial view of Yosemite Valley. The green line shows the distance between the photographer and the object to be photographed — in this case, Half Dome.

This next screen capture shows how the app looks when in Street View mode. Again, the yellow line shows the sun’s path, and the blue line shows the moon’s path. The green line represents the horizon. You can see how the app lets you plan the right time to get a shot of the sun behind Half Dome: in this particular instance, 8:06 am.

Nearly 500,000 people around the world have downloaded the free version of Sun Surveyor, and many have paid for the full edition. They’re taking remarkable photos as a result, and what started as a hobby for me has turned into a business — thanks to Google Maps APIs.

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The HTC M8 to be launched on 25 03 2014

It seems that we finally know the date – 25.03.2014 looks like the day when HTC will launch their new flagship device and the HTC One (M7) successor – HTC One M8 which is rumoured to be called "HTC One+" or "HTC One 2" or just " HTC One (M8)".

About the device itself we know pretty much already. Recently we wrote about the design (The HTC One 2014 (M8) design exposed) and weve seen some popular mock-ups made by hamdir in HTC One 2014 (M8) target renders, a visual compilation of all the leaks. I must say this all looks promising and we still hope to see HTC M8 equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 instead of an already one year old Snapdragon 800 SoC.

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!

For latest news / announcements follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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You’re invited to submit an app to the Google Fit Developer Challenge

With the recent launch of the Google Fit platform, we hope to spur innovation in the world of fitness apps and devices that encourage users to have a more active lifestyle. To expand the ecosystem and help users get a more comprehensive view of their fitness, we’re excited to announce the Google Fit Developer Challenge in partnership with adidas, Polar, and Withings.
We’re inviting you to create and showcase an app, or update an existing app, that integrates with Google Fit. The submission deadline is February 17, 2015. Our selected judges will choose up to six new apps and six existing apps for Fit, as the winners. The judges are looking for fitness apps that are innovative, fun to use, keep users coming back, offer users real benefit, and meet the Android design and quality guidelines.

Challenge winners will be featured on Google Play in front of Android users around the world. Runners-ups will also receive prizes, in the form of smart devices from Google, adidas, Polar, and Withings, so that they can continue to tinker and improve their fitness apps with the latest hardware.

Check out the challenge website to find out how to enter*. You will also find some helpful resources to find inspiration. We encourage you to join the Google Fit Developer Community on Google+ to discuss your ideas and the challenge.

* The challenge is open to registered Google Play developers in the US, UK, France, Germany, India, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan who are over the age of 18 (or the age of majority in their country). For the full terms and conditions, read the official rules.

Posted by Angana Ghosh, Product Manager, Google Fit

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Google to Unveil Service to Let Users Stream Their Music

Google will announce today on Google I/O 2011 its long anticipated Cloud-based music service.

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LIVE STREAM HTC One 2014 Launch Event London

Only few days left until the official HTC One 2014 launch event in London will begin! The entire Android world is waiting for that moment. Let us remind you that the HTC One is known to be the best smartphone of the 2013. It won in every category it possibly could and now we are only a few days away from its successor - the HTC One 2014, also known as the HTC M8.

As we already mentioned before, Android Revolution HD will be a part of the HTC M8 launch in London. Tom (Blog Editor), Kevin (Blog Contributor) and Daniel (HTC Elevate member) will be sitting in the front row. Using their cameras well be live-streaming the entire show. Sounds great, huh? Share the news with your friends using this link - HTC One 2014 Live and our special hashtag #ARHDLiveHTCOne.

Well be live on March 25th, 4:00 PM Central Europe Time (3:00 PM UK Time)

After the launch well be also streaming the first hands-on with the All New HTC One. Watch us to be the first to know everything about the HTC One 2014!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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Add Google to your iOS Apps with CocoaPods

Posted by Jonathan Beri, Product Manager

Today, we’re announcing that CocoaPods will be the primary channel to acquire Google SDKs for iOS. CocoaPods is a popular, free dependency manager for iOS that significantly simplifies the process of importing libraries and frameworks into Xcode. And it will help you manage your dependencies between our various libraries.

While there was a small but growing number of official Google Pods, as well as a few Pods written by other iOS developers, it was often difficult for developer to find the right SDK. With today’s announcement, some of our key libraries, like Google Cloud Messaging and the Google Maps SDK for iOS can now be found on the public CocoaPods service. Going forward, new iOS SDKs will be packaged and documented as Pods and published on cocoapods.org. You can find the full list of Google Pods and all supporting documentation at developer.google.com/ios/cocoapods.

If you havent used CocoaPods yet, now is a great time to give it a try. Add GoogleAnalytics to a Podfile to start counting new users. Or pod install your way to adding AdMob ads in your app. And check out pod try, a CocoaPods plugin that allows you to quickly launch our demo projects.

For more iOS developer protips and to learn more about Google’s iOS SDKs, please check out the Route 85 video series from Todd Kerpelman. We look forward to all the great Google-powered iOS apps you will create!

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HTC devices to receive Android 5 0 Lollipop update

Since quite a long time HTC is doing a great job in terms of having its high-end devices up to date with the latest Android OS version. And its not different this time! The newest Android 5.0 Lollipop will be soon available for a number of HTC devices, including:

To be honest I cant wait to see my HTC One M8 running Android five dot zero. Whats more - together with the new Android OS, HTC will most likely present refreshed version of the HTC Sense interface - HTC Sense 7.0. On the other hand, after latest Android 4.4.4 update (with HTC Sense 6.0) I ask myself - can this be even better?! Oh yes, Im sure HTC will give us something stunning again!

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!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

Source

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Mobile Doc Scanner MDScan Apk v3 1 1 Patched

Extremely useful mobile tool gives users the power to scan any type of document, transform it into PDF format and share it right from your device.
With MDScan users are free to scan any type of document, ranging from receipts to text pages and almost everything in between, on the go anywhere and anytime.
A perfect companion for busy users, MDScan allows anyone to transform everything from invoices to whiteboards and classes notes, magazine articles and more into a PDF format in order to easily export them, share and e-mail it to others, or for any other reason they can come up with. MDScan automatically detects borders, corrects distortion, and equalizes brightness to create clear, legible documents at a very high speed for your convenience.
Going above and beyond other mobile scanning solutions MDScan offers Batch shooting mode for a super fast scanning so users can easily scan within seconds multiple pages and save scanned files for batch processing later.
The app shines in terms of uploading as well as all document conversion is performed locally right on users device. This means that you can upload documents to cloud storage services, including Dropbox, Google Docs, or Box.net, email services, or Facebook and Twitter that is guaranteed to go off quickly, without a hitch, and without risk of any potentially sensitive information becoming compromised.
Simply put theres enough for you to worry about without having to go out of your way to scan and convert files into PDFs should the need arise, and now with MDScan its one worry you wont ever have again.
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Main advantages and benefits
========================
? Transform any image into PDF format.
? Automatic, high quality document edge detection and perspective correction.
? Manual free Advanced image processing to enhance poor quality images and documents.
? Quickly scan and manage multi-page documents on the go
? Scan, upload or send any document quickly, including receipts, news and magazine articles, invoices, coupons, posters and much more
? Cloud storage and social network integration for accessibility and sharing
Don’t hesitate to contact us at any time and send your suggestions or questions to our support email. We try to do our best to answer to your comments as soon as possible.
This software is registered by Russian Federal Institute Of Industrial Property # 2013619506

WHATS NEW
Improved Lolipop (new API) Camera
Share multiple PDFs
Share PDF from list of scans by long click
Export scan as separated JPEG files
Minor interface improvments
Minor bugs fixes

This app has no advertisements

Download APK:
click here
Additional Server:
click here
Google Play Store:
click here

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HTC decides to skip Android 4 4 4 update OTA based on 4 4 3 security fix coming soon

International version of the HTC One M8 is currently running Android 4.4.2 (1.54.401.10) but this will change very soon. According to the confirmed information, the new over-the-air (OTA) update with Android 4.4.3 will start rolling out late next week for the 0P6B10000 variant of the HTC One M8 with the following CID numbers: 

HTC__001, HTC__E11, HTC__102, HTC__203, HTC__405, HTC__Y13, HTC__304, HTC__A07, HTC__002, HTC__016, HTC__032, HTC__J15, HTC__M27, HTC__A48, HTC__K18.

What we know so far is that the update will be tagged as 2.2x.401.x and together with Android 4.4.3 it will bring slightly updated HTC Sense UI (HTC SDK API: 6.25) but the version of the launcher will remain 6.0, at least officially.

• ro.build.id=KTU84L
• ro.build.version.release=4.4.3
• ro.com.google.gmsversion=4.4_r4
• HTC SDK API: 6.25 (current latest M8 software is based on SDK 6.17) ---> this might indicate improved HTC Sense version
• kernel version is still 3.4.0

Apart from the OS itself, almost every part of the firmware will be updated too.

• Hboot: 3.18.0.0000
• Radio: 1.19.21331147A1.09G
• OpenDSP: 38.2.2-00542-M8974.0311

Why no Android 4.4.4 yet? Because HTC decided to include the security fixes known from Android 4.4.4 in their 4.4.3 release. For some reason this must be easier for the HTC if such path was chosen.

Also, whats worth to mention is that M8 owners who re-locked their previously unlocked devices using htcdev.com, after the Android 4.4.3 update might need to generate new unlock_code.bin token to unlock the device again. Apparently the identifier token wont be the same after the incoming OTA.

There are also some few more surprises coming from the HTC in the incoming update but we cant reveal it yet! :)

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!

For latest news follow Android Revolution HD on popular social platforms:

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Google Vault now covers Hangouts for work chat

Posted by Deborah Hsieh, Product Manager, Google for Work

As an IT admin you want your organization to be free to focus on getting stuff done. But part of your role is also to make sure you stay on top of legal compliance. Today we’re making it a little bit easier to do both with two new Hangouts features.

Over the next few days, we’ll roll out an admin option that lets you manage Hangouts chat history in your organization, so that you can make certain that it’s either on or off. People in your organization can have the freedom to chat with whomever they want — whether that person is part of your organization or not — and you can be sure that new employee conversations stay personal and private, because they’ll disappear shortly after taking place.

We’re also adding Google Apps Vault support for Hangouts chat. With Vault support for chat, organizations of all sizes can quickly find and preserve chat messages. This is a great way to safeguard business-critical information for continuity, compliance and regulatory purposes.

Find out how to tailor Hangouts to best suit your organizations compliance needs.

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HTC ROM Update Utility RUU variants explanation

Owners of HTC devices might be a little confused when it comes to understanding the current method of numbering used by HTC to mark their software updates. Here you can find a short explanation of this matter.

First of all, we all know that HTC sells their devices all over the world. Every carrier and region of the world has some more or less different "local settings". By "local settings" I mean things like: emergency call numbers, languages, time-zone settings, network settings, carriers branding, GPS settings and more. Because of that each software for even the same device must be different.

Secondly, even the same device might use different hardware related to the region of the world. For example, HTC One is available in at least 6 different hardware configurations. One of the main difference is modem version. GSM version of the HTC One uses MDM8215 chip and LTE variant has MDM9215. Verizon (US) is known to have MDM9615. So thats already 3 different versions of the same device.

Every HTC update has the following numbering structure:

a.bb.ccc.d

a - the first number of the software. Normally it doesnt increase very often, but when it does, it usually means newer Android version.

bb - this number is also a software number. Increasing bb number means some more or less major update based on the same Android version, but sometimes it might even bring newer version of the HTC Sense.

ccc (also cc or cccc) - this is the number of the region/carrier. It has nothing to do with the software itself being newer or older. More details below.

d (sometimes dd) - the third part of the software version (the fourth one in the RUU name). Usually indicates some minor update with some hot fixes.

Example: 3.20.401.3

So basically, when you are interested in the software version, you should look at a.bb.d (3.20.ccc.3) because ccc (401) means only the region/carrier variant of the software.

Here is the list I was able to gather of possible RUU variants:

a.bb.61.d - Orange UK (United Kingdom)

a.bb.65.d - Orange CH (Switzerland)

a.bb.69.d - Orange PL (Poland)

a.bb.73.d - Orange FR (France)

a.bb.75.d - Orange ES (Spain)

a.bb.110.d - T-Mobile UK (United Kingdom)

a.bb.111.d - T-Mobile DE (Germany)

a.bb.112.d - T-Mobile AT (Austria)

a.bb.113.d - T-Mobile CZ (Czech Republic)

a.bb.118.d - T-Mobile PL (Poland)

a.bb.161.d - Vodafone UK (United Kingdom)

a.bb.163.d - Vodafone FR (France)

a.bb.165.d - Vodafone IT (Italy)

a.bb.166.d - Vodafone CH-DE (Switzerland - Germany)

a.bb.168.d - Vodafone GR (Greece)

a.bb.169.d - Vodafone AT (Austria)

a.bb.206.d - O2 UK (United Kingdom)

a.bb.207.d - O2 DE (Germany)

a.bb.401.d - World Wide English (WWE)

a.bb.415.d - Arabic (UAE/Middle East)

a.bb.468.d - Turkey

a.bb.497.d - Morocco

a.bb.498.d - WWE Brightpoint US (United States)

a.bb.502.d - Cingular US (United States)

a.bb.531.d - T-Mobile US (United States)

a.bb.631.d - Rogers Canada (WWE)

a.bb.651.d - Sprint US (United States)

a.bb.661.d - Telus WWE (Canada)

a.bb.666.d - Bell Canada

a.bb.707.d - Asia (WWE)

a.bb.708.d - Asia HK (Hong Kong)

a.bb.709.d - Asia TW (Taiwan)

a.bb.720.d - Asia (India)

a.bb.728.d - Virgin AU (Australia)

a.bb.751.d - Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan)

a.bb.771.d - Hutchison 3G UK (United Kingdom)

a.bb.777.d - ?

a.bb.841.d - Telsra WWE (World Wide English)

a.bb.862.d - Voda-Hutch AU (Australia)

a.bb.901.d - TIM IT (Italy)

a.bb.911.d - SK Telecom (South Korea)

a.bb.980.d - Optus AU (Australia)

a.bb.999.d - HTC Test RUU

a.bb.1400.d - China

a.bb.1401.d - ?

a.bb.1403.d - HTC China CMCC (China Mobile Communications Corporation)

a.bb.1540.d - HTC One U.S. Developer Edition

a.bb.1600.d - ?

a.bb.1700.d - HTC One Google Edition

The list is quite long, and Im sure there are still some some missing. If you know more variants, please let me know in the comments section.

The 401 and the 707 devices are usually the first ones that HTC prepare updates for. Carrier branded software is usually months after the WWE updates.

Finally, keep in mind that each software version is connected with the CID (Carrier ID) and MID (Model ID) of your device. That means you cant use whichever version you want, unless you have S-OFF on your device. Each ROM Update Utility.exe package will check your device details (bootloader version, MID and CID) before starting the update process.

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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Obtain Google Maps API key

Step 1: Locate debug.keystore on your system. It is usually in the USER_HOMELocal SettingsApplication Data.androidfolder on windows.

Step 2: Use the keytool utility to generate certificate fingerprint (MD5). keytool utility that comes with the default JDK installation.

C:>keytool -list -alias androiddebugkey -keystore .androiddebug.keystore -storepass android -keypass android

It will getnerate a certificate fingerprint (MD5) in this format:

Certificate fingerprint (MD5): XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

Step 3: Go to the page for obtaining the Maps API Key. Put your Certificate fingerprint (MD5) And get your API key for android Google Map application. On this page, paste the certificate fingerprint in the appropriate form field, and click the “Generate API Key” button. This will return a Maps API key string. 

The key can be used in the Maps Application by pasting it in the MapView element in the XML layout file where appropriate.

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How to Fix a corrupted DATA partition on the HTC One

Since the HTC One was released, Ive had a few users asking me to help them fix their broken device. They couldnt boot their system or access anything on the DATA partition from inside custom recovery. Why this happens so often on the HTC One I have no idea...

Here is a short guide explaining how to fix this problem without sending the device for repair under warranty.

Short Explanation

This method can be used to fix any other partition too, just remember about changing the mount point number - from "mmcblk0p37" to the relevant one. For example, the SYSTEM on the HTC One is "mmcblk0p35". In some rare cases the mkfs.ext4 attributes (like dir_nlink or resize_inode) might change too! To get a list of all eMMC mount points on HTC devices use the command cat /proc/emmc. Never format RAW partitions! This method can be used only to format EXT4 partitions. Not following the guide properly might end in permanent damage to your device. I do not take any responsibility for that.

Some people might also find this helpful in case of need to remove the entire contents of the virtual SD-card. As long as the virtual SD-card is not a separate partition, (i.e. it is emulated space on the DATA partition [/data/media]) it cant be formatted - only wiped clean. I wrote an in-depth explanation of how the virtual SD-card works on Android here - Virtual SD card on Android.

How Do I Recognise The Problem?

When trying to mount the DATA partition from inside the custom recovery using the mount /data command you will most likely see this output: mount: mounting /dev/block/mmcblk0p37 on /data failed: Invalid argument

To be 100% sure you can check filesystem structure with the following command: /sbin/e2fsck -n -f /dev/block/mmcblk0p37

Repair Process

Note: the content of your DATA partition will be lost, including the contents of your virtual SD-card! I also assume you already have custom recovery flashed and you are a Windows user - LINUX people please amend as needed.

1. Download this mini-sdk package and extract it to c:mini-sdk
2. Download this mkfs.ext4 binary and put it into c:mini-sdk
3. Connect your device to the PC
4. Boot your device in recovery mode
5. Open a command prompt on the PC (cmd.exe), type and confirm each command with ENTER:
6. cd /d c:mini-sdk
7. adb push mkfs.ext4 /tmp
8. adb shell
9. chmod 777 /tmp/mkfs.ext4
10. /tmp/mkfs.ext4 -b 4096 -O ^huge_file,^dir_nlink,^ext_attr,^resize_inode,^extra_isize -m 0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p37

Image of the whole command in one line to avoid mistakes:

Now your DATA partition will be formatted. It is not the same as "wiping", which is only removing all or just some files from particular partition. Formatting means that the entire partition will be re-created with the above attributes. You should see the following output:

mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem label=  
OS type: Linux 
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
1703936 inodes, 6815744 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
208 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768,98304,163840,229376,294912,819200,884736,1605632,2654208,4096000
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 25 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. 
Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Your DATA partition is now completely empty, so we need to copy our particular ROM zip file there:

1. Copy ROM zip file to c:mini-sdk and rename it to "rom.zip"
2. In the same command prompt window type and confirm each command with ENTER:
3. mount /data
4. mkdir -p /data/media/0
5. exit
6. adb push rom.zip /data/media/0

Copying rom.zip to the device will take a few minutes. Wait until its done. The output should be: xxxx KB/s (xxxxxxxxxx bytes in xxx.xxxs). Now you can flash rom.zip from inside custom recovery. Done!

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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How To Fix Wi Fi connecting issues on the HTC One running Android 4 4 2

It turned out that HTC One users have lately some problems with connecting their devices to the Wi-Fi routers after the Android 4.4.2 update. Here we present the iconography solution of this problem.

1. Open Settings panel and click on the "Wi-Fi" tile
2. Tap on the "3 dots" menu in the upper right corner
3. From the list select "Wi-Fi Direct"
   
   
   
   
   
4. You will now see that your device is called "Android_ed2c". Tap on the "3 dots" menu in the upper right corner
5. From the list select "Rename device"
6. Replace the "Android_ed2c" with  the "HTC One" text and hit "OK" button
   
   
   
   
   
7. Done!

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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Introducing Google Actual Cloud Platform

Posted by Greg Demichillie, Director of Product Management

(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform Blog.)

At Google Cloud Platform, we strive to deliver innovative cloud computing technology to developers at low costs with massive scale. Currently, our cloud offerings are powered by best-in-class data centers, virtualization software and container-based applications, but as we consider the future of cloud computing, we realize there’s a major opportunity ahead that would allow us to deliver an unprecedented improvement in the power, efficiency and reliability of our infrastructure. We can elevate cloud computing like never before.

We’re answering the question that’s been in front of us the whole time: why isn’t cloud computing built in actual clouds? Well, as of today, it is. We’re excited to announce Google Actual Cloud Platform: all of our incredible services and products running in actual clouds in the troposphere.

Starting on April 1, Google Actual Cloud Platform brings with it a number of exciting new features:

• New compute zone: We’ve added a new compute zone, troposphere-1a, to make it easier than ever to provide your app with non-earth-bound availability. Now, you no longer have to make a choice between high availability and high altitude.

• New machine types: Alongside our current machine types, we’ve added a new category of “physical” devices: actual-cloud machine types. Choose from cumulus-16gb, cirrus-32gb and stratocumuliform-64g (created specifically for data intensive workloads).

• Stormboost: Drawing on charges from electrical fields during thunderstorms, we’re able to supercharge read/write performance on all persistent disks and offer 50% higher IOPS.

• CloudDrops: A new, game-changing content distribution system. CloudDrops can provide blazingly fast content delivery to all of your users using—you guessed it—rain drops.

• Weather Dashboards in the Developer’s Console: With new weather-dependent performance features, you need a way to monitor the atmospheric conditions of your servers. Now, you can monitor humidity/request, watch your app’s altitude and see a 7-day forecast right next to the rest of your stats.

• Bare-metal container support: Applications deployed on Actual Cloud Platform can run in containers too. The lightweight shared kernel model of containers makes them ideal for non-terrestrial deployments.

From all of us on the Google Cloud Platform team, here’s to clear skies ahead.

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Bring Android to work on your terms with Google Apps

Posted by Clayton Jones, Product Manager, Google for Work

With just the phone in your pocket, you can email your boss in Gmail and then ask your kids when they’ll be home using Hangouts. You can follow up with a new client in Salesforce and pull up your tax documents in Drive. Everything you do, whether its for work or your personal life can all be done from the device you always have by your side. That’s pretty powerful and can save a lot of time. But with great power comes great responsibility, and keeping that information secure requires some attention — whether it’s keeping your tax documents private to yourself or your email conversations secure within your company.

That’s why last week we made Android ready for work — making it easier for the more than one billion Android users out there to access the apps they need to be productive on their phones and tablets. Today we wanted to highlight the ways Google Apps Mobile Management let’s you take full advantage of Android for Work.

If you use Google Apps you already have a Mobile Management provider

Phones get lost. Tablets stolen. People leave the company. Things happen. We believe you should have the tools to keep your work data safe, and that this safety should just be built in to the applications you choose. That’s why mobile device management — across Android and iOS — is included with Google Apps and Google Drive for Work. Apps Mobile Management allows admins to see what devices are connected, require device passwords and remotely wipe data when necessary.

Security that’s easy to manage

As the domain administrator, with today’s launch, you can now choose the level of data separation that works for your organization. Whether it’s a personal device or a corp-issued one, with Android for Work, you can have all your employees create a Work Profile that isolates and protects work data from other activity on their phone. Or make it a choice, and let employees continue to switch accounts within Gmail and other Google mobile apps, while using the Work Profile for non-Google work related apps. Either way, all their work information is encrypted and can be remotely wiped.

The Work Profile keeps all work approved apps separate from the rest of the phone.

Easy to use

Google Play for Work makes it easy for employees to see what apps are approved by their company and install the apps they want onto their device. Once an admin enables Android for Work, anyone can choose to use the Work Profile, even if not required to. So their own information stays private while the company can enforce Mobile Management policies for work accounts if needed.

Install work apps from Google Play for Work and keep them on your homescreen.

With Google Apps Mobile Management, you can have choice and security at the same time. Your employees can choose the device they’re comfortable with that helps them get work done, and you have peace of mind that company information is secure. Android for Work and Apps Mobile Management is available for all Google Drive for Work and Google Apps for Work, Government and Education organizations. Learn more in the Admin Help Center.

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The healthcare industry is moving to Google Apps for Work

Posted by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security, Google Apps for Work

Companies of all sizes across a number of industries have come to realize that cloud computing is transforming the way they run their business and how people work together. This is especially true for the healthcare industry, where access to information quickly, accurately and securely is vitally important.

That’s why organizations covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) rely on Google’s robust infrastructure to store personal healthcare information. We provide the healthcare industry with the tools they need to help address HIPAA compliance and allow employees to have access to their information when they need it, where they need it. HIPAA compliance coverage for Google Apps for Work services includes Gmail, Calendar, Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms), Vault and Sites. New and existing Google Apps customers may obtain a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) from our Google Apps Help Center.

With millions of customers using Google Apps, HIPAA compliance is a critical feature for businesses and organizations that handle health care information, and an important consideration for hospitals, health organizations and governments. Joe Ganneman, CIO for Rockford Orthopedics, a leading bone and joint center in Illinois, believes that “from a HIPAA compliance standpoint, you are actually in a better shape by putting your data in a cloud infrastructure like Googles, than you are trying to store it locally.” And Flint Waters, CIO for the State of Wyoming, says that “using Google Apps made us confident we would meet strict HIPAA requirements and demonstrate to our citizens that their data was on one of the most secure architectures out there.”

HIPAA is just one of many regulations and standards Google supports, empowering our customers across different industries to benefit from the cloud. For organizations operating in highly regulated sectors, the use of Google’s services provides the tools and protections needed to meet compliance requirements.

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Google Calendar for iPhone more ways to stay on top of your schedule

Posted by Stella Schieffer, Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog.)

Since the new Google Calendar app arrived, youve given us lots of great feedback that has guided our updates. Starting today, youll see improvements to Google Calendar on iPhone that follow the recent improvements to the Android app.

To start, you can now see more events at a glance with 7-day week view and customize your calendar with week numbers on iPhone.

You can now also add Google Drive files, like Docs and Sheets or pictures and PDFs, directly to events on your iPhone and Google Calendar on the web, just like you can on Android. Drive will even check if everyone has access to the files and if not, ask you if youd like to share with them.

Sometimes, getting notified of an upcoming event isn’t enough—you might need to contact other attendees, or figure out the best way to get there. With interactive notifications on the iPhone, you can now email guests and view maps with one tap.

We have a lot more improvements based on your feedback, so stay tuned!

P.S. If youre a developer, you can now add Drive files, including Docs, Sheets and Slides, to Google Calendar events created through the Calendar API.

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How To Flash firmware package on the HTC device

Flashing so called "firmware" is as popular these days as flashing "custom ROM". For HTC old-boys its nothing complicated, but some fresh Android users might find it difficult to understand the differences between "firmware" and a "custom ROM". As a result they might be afraid to upgrade OS on their device or even accidentally hard/soft brick it. Before continuing please read this article: How To: Find the proper firmware variant on the HTC device.

First of all let’s make some definitions clear. Both "Firmware" and "ROM" has their own dictionary definitions, but in this guide we need to use the same context of these words as you can find on popular articles and forums.

Your device is equipped with eMMC memory (embedded MultiMediaCard) - a place where every kind of data is stored. This eMMC memory in Android OS is called mmcblk0. But for a various reasons this memory space has to be divided into several smaller parts (f.g. not every kind of data can be stored on the same type of a filesystem). As a result, the eMMC memory is separated into different partitions (RAW, EXT3, EXT4) - smaller or bigger. To indicate the correct partition, each of them has its own number - p1, p2, p3, p(...) etc. The whole partition name indicates also the eMMC number its located in - mmcblk0p1, mmcblk0p2, mmcblk0p3, mmcblk0p(...) etc.

To see a lit of all the partitions on your device just type cat /proc/emmc in the adb.exe command shell.

Doing that you can also see the original name of each partition. The list you can see above is what we call "firmware", and what "custom ROM" is made of is usually just "boot" and "system" partitions. In other words - custom ROM represents "system", "boot" (sometimes "userdata" too) and everything else you can see on the list is a "firmware".

Important: Every signed and official firmware.zip can be flashed on a particular device only. Information about the device and its variant can be found inside android-info.txt in the firmware.zip package.

Question: Where firmware comes from? There are 2 ways: official and non-official. Usually firmware package comes together with the OTA (.zip) update. Inside the OTA package you can find firmware.zip archive (always signed). The non-official way is based on decrypting and extracting content of the RUU (.exe)

Question: Is everything from the list above always included in the official firmware.zip? No. HTC updates only these components (partitions) where there were changes in the code, usually related to the Android OS update or security changes in the bootloader (hboot). That means firmware.zip might have "adsp", "boot", "radio" inside and weigh 10 MB or it might contain a lot more and weight even 50 MB.

Signed (official) firmware packages can be flashed on both S-ON and S-OFF device. Once modified (unsigned) firmware.zip cant be flashed on the S-ON device. If your device is S-ON then you have to re-lock the bootloader. As long as your device is S-ON you also cant downgrade the firmware version.

Important: Make sure you have a correct MID (Model ID) and CID (Carrier ID). To check that use fastboot getvar all command. Everything you do, including following this guide, you do at your own risk!

Flashing Process

1. Download this mini-sdk package and extract it to c:mini-sdk
2. Copy firmware (.zip) package to c:mini-sdk and rename it to "firmware.zip"
3. Connect your device to the PC
4. Boot your device in fastboot mode (vol down + power ===> fastboot)
5. Open a command prompt on the PC (cmd.exe), type and confirm each command with ENTER:
6. cd /d c:mini-sdk
7. fastboot getvar all (open android-info.txt inside firmware.zip and check if MID and CID matches)
8. <optionally> fastboot oem lock (if your device is not yet re-locked)
9. fastboot oem rebootRUU
10. fastboot flash zip firmware.zip and wait for the process to be completed. Sometimes flashing firmware once doesnt work, so flash firmware.zip again using the same command.
11. fastboot reboot

In case of further questions I prepared a little Q&A part:

• What is firmware.zip?

Firmware.zip is a part of Over The Air (OTA) update from the HTC. It contains important parts of the firmware like radio, bootloader, recovery, kernel etc.

• Why its important to flash firmware.zip and when should I flash it?

It is recommended to have the latest firmware on your device for the best modem performance and overall system stability. Sometimes its necessary to have the latest bootloader too, because otherwise your device might not work well with the new system update.

• Why its important to flash it before flashing custom ROM?

Because firmware.zip contains boot.img (ramdisk and kernel) that will replace custom boot.img from any custom ROM you already have. Thats why you have to flash firmware.zip first, because otherwise boot.img will be overwritten with the stock one. If you already flashed firmware.zip after flashing custom ROM, just flash this particular custom ROM again.

• Does firmware.zip contain recovery?

Yes, it does contain recovery image, thats why after flashing firmware.zip you will have to flash custom recovery again to be able to flash custom ROM afterwards.

• Can I flash any firmware.zip on my device?

Not if your device is S-ON. To be able to flash firmware.zip on the S-ON device, your MID number (example: PN0710000) and CID number (example: HTC__001) must match the firmware.zip version you are about to flash.

• If my MID or CID doesnt match, can I brick my device if I try to flash firmware.zip anyway?

As long as your device is S-ON flashing firmware.zip with non matching MID or CID will result in error and nothing will be flashed, so there is no risk of brick.

• Do I need to have locked, unlocked or relocked bootloader to be able to flash firmware.zip?

Your bootloader needs to be relocked.

• If I cant flash newest firmware.zip because of wrong modeid (MID) or cidnum (CID) does it mean I cant use custom ROM based on the latest HTC update?

In most cases you should be able to use any custom ROM as long as hboot update is not mandatory.

• What if there is no firmware.zip for my MID/CID?

Try to find latest OTA update for your original stock ROM and extract it. Firmware.zip should be inside.

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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