• Tips & Tricks: GoogleLookup in Google spreadsheets

  lundi 26 juillet 2010, par Google Docs

  Have you been frustrated trying to find the populations or capitals of a list of countries? Would you like to easily get a list of the birthdays of all of your favorite musicians and actors? The GoogleLookup function in Google spreadsheets does all of the work, and in a matter of seconds you have all of the information you want. Using the information collected from the Web using Google Search, the GoogleLookup function finds the values for straightforward facts about specific things.
  
  To use the GoogleLookup function, enter the following formula in the desired spreadsheet cell:
  

  • =GoogleLookup(“entity” ; “attribute”) where “entity” represents the name of the entity you want to access and “attribute” is the type of information that you want to retrieve.

  For example, I want to know the atomic number of gold. In this case, gold is the entity while atomic number is the attribute. In the desired cell, I enter =GoogleLookup(“Gold” , “Atomic Number”). Be sure to include quotation marks around both the entity and the attribute.
  
  The atomic number of gold, 79, then shows up in the cell in which the formula was entered.
  
  After experimenting with one GoogleLookup formula, I’d like to apply the formula to a larger list of elements, and also get information on the atomic weight. Instead of typing the formula out like before, I want to click the cell of the first entity in my list, in this case it’s gold. Next, I want to reference the cell in which I name the attribute I’m looking up, in this case, atomic number. Then I want to freeze the appropriate rows and columns with the “$” symbol.
  
  Freezing the appropriate row and column allows me to drag the formula across to the “Atomic Weight” column and down the other rows to apply the formula to all of the other entities. When I apply the formula to all of the other cells, the results will show.
  
  Keep in mind that while the GoogleLookup function knows quite a bit, it doesn't know everything. Although not all of the formulas you try will work, we encourage you to experiment. When GoogleLookup isn't sure if an answer isn't the best one for your entry, you'll see a dialog box with a handful of possible answers that you can choose from. Just select the cell and click More Options... to select a different value.
  
  Here are a few more examples of entities you can access using the GoogleLookup formula, and a few popular attributes:
  

  • Countries and Territories (like "Burkina Faso"): population, capital, largest city, gdp
  • U.S. States (like "Tennessee"): area, governor, nickname, flower
  • Rivers (like "Amazon River"): origin, length
  • Cities and Towns (like "Chicago"): state, mayor, elevation
  • Musicians (like "John Lennon"): date of birth, place of birth, nationality
  • Politicians (like "Anwar Al-Sadat"): date of birth, place of birth, nationality
  • Baseball Players (like "Wade Boggs"): games, at bats, earned run average, position
  • Chemical Compounds (like "Isopropyl Alcohol"): chemical formula, melting point, boiling point, density
  • Stars (like "Betelgeuse"): constellation, distance, mass, temperature
  • Planets (like "Saturn"): number of moons, length of day, distance from sun, atmosphere
  • Dinosaurs (like "Velociraptor"): height, weight, when it lived
  • Ships (like "USS Chesapeake"): length, displacement, complement, commissioned
  • Companies (like "Hewlett-Packard"): employees, ceo, ticker

  Checkout the video below to see the GoogleLookup function in action and don't forget to give it a try to see what kind of facts you can find.
  
  
  
  Posted by: Julia Harter, Consumer Operations Associate

  

  

  

• How to Test Drive Google Android on Your PC Without Buying a Phone

  mercredi 14 juillet 2010, par Matthew Guay

  Would you like to test drive the latest version of Google’s Android OS without buying a new mobile device?  Here’s how you can run Android on your PC for free with the Android SDK Emulator.

  Android is the latest mobile OS to take the world by storm, but everyone doesn’t have access to the latest mobile devices.  Thankfully, there’s an easy way to run Android on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.  Google provides an Android emulator with their SDK, which is designed to let developers test their apps on Android before running them on handsets.  We can use this to test drive Android on our computer, here’s how to do it.

  Getting Started

  The Android Emulator requires Java to run, so if you don’t already have Java installed on your computer, download it from the link below and install as normal.

  

  Note: When installing Java, make sure not to install any crapware it tries to sneak in like the worthless Yahoo toolbar.

  

  Then, download the Android SDK from Google (link below), and make sure to select the correct version for your computer.  Once it’s downloaded, unzip the files as normal.

  

  In Windows, run the SDK Setup.exe program to get started running Android on your PC.

  

  The SDK will check Google’s servers for available packages.

  

  If you see an SSL error message, click the Settings tab on the left in the SDK and AVD Manager window that opened in the background.  Here, uncheck the Force https box, click Ok, and then reopen the setup.

  

  Now, the Package Installer will open.  You can choose what you want to install, and then click Install to begin installing the Android emulator on your computer.

  

  By default, all of the SDK platforms, samples, and APIs will be selected for install.  This can take quite a while to download, as several versions of Android are currently available.  If you only want to play around with Android, choose the version you want.  You’ll want the SDK Platform Android your.version.  Then click the Reject bullet on all the other entries, and click Install.  We wanted to try out the latest Android 2.2 as well as the older 1.5, so we downloaded both of them.

  

  Once you’ve started installing, you’ll see a window showing the download and installation progress.  This may take a few minutes, depending on your Internet speed.

  

  You’ll have some little Androids in your taskbar, but unfortunately they don’t show the download progress.

  

  Setup an Android Emulator

  Once the download is completed, you can setup an emulator to test drive Android on your computer.  Select the Virtual Devices from the left menu, and then click the New button on the right.

  

  Enter a name for your virtualized Android, and select the version of Android you want to use from the drop-down menu.  This will only show the version you installed previously, so you may only see one version listed depending on your selection.

  

  Enter a size under the SD Card entry; this is a virtual SD card that’s actually an IMG file that Android will use to store your settings and files in.  Then, select a screen size from the skin options.  The default is a standard, Nexus One-type display, while the others are different sizes including even a BlackBerry-style device.

  

  Click Create AVD when you’re finished.

  

  The program may appear to freeze while it is creating the AVD, so just wait until you see the confirmation window.

  

  You’re now ready to run Android on your PC!  Select your new virtual Android, and click Start on the right.

  

  You can choose to scale the display if you’ve chosen a larger screen size than your monitor will fit, and then select Launch.

  

  Android will now begin to load in your emulator.  Several command prompt windows may open, and then you’ll see the emulator itself.  Notice that the default, large screen size will display a keypad and virtual buttons on the right side of the emulated device.

  

  Android may take several minutes to load, especially on your first run.  After a while, the boot screen will switch to an Android boot animation.

  

  Finally, you’ll be presented with your new Android home screen!  Use your mouse as you would normally, though remember that you don’t need to double-click to open apps.

  

  You can open pre-installed apps from the launcher menu, though unfortunately these emulator images do not include the Android Marketplace.

  

  View your favorite websites in the browser, and they will render just as they would on an Android device.  Note that you can enter text using the on screen keyboard in the emulator, or with your standard keyboard.  Since this is an emulator, you may notice some lag in entering text.

  

  You can also install Apps that are directly available online.

  

  Default apps such as Email work great, and you can even see most of the device settings in Android.

  

  Click and hold on the home screen to change the background or try out widgets.

  

  You’ll even see the nifty Android Lock screen if you leave your virtual machine alone for a few minutes.  Just click the arrow and drag it to the other side of the screen to unlock.

  

  You can always repeat the steps later to create a new Android virtual machine.  Here we’ve created an Android 1.5 virtual machine with the QVGA screen size.

  

  We did experience a few crashes in our tests, and the emulator felt somewhat sluggish, but in all, it’s fun to try  out a new mobile OS without spending money on a new phone.

  

  Launch Android Virtual Machines Later

  Anytime you want to launch your Android virtual machines in the emulator, just run the SDK Setup.exe as before, and select them from the Virtual Devices list.  Alternately, you can launch an emulator directly from the command line.  To do this, browse to your Android SDK folder and open the Tools folder.  Press the Shift key and right-click, and then select Open Command Window Here.

  

  Now enter the following in the Command Prompt, substituting the name of your Android virtual machine for your_device:

  emulator @your_device

  

  Create a Shortcut For Your Android

  Alternately, right-click on the Emulator.exe in the SDK Tools folder, and select Create Shortcut.

  

  This shortcut would actually only run the emulator in Command Prompt and not load an actual virtual device.  We’ll need to change the properties to do this, so right-click and select Properties.

  

  Select the Shortcut tab, and then scroll to the end of the Target box.  Enter the name of your virtual Android as before, as @your_Android after the emulator.exe, and then click Ok.

  

  Now you can launch your Android directly from your Desktop or Start menu.

  

  Conclusion

  Whether you’re a developer who wants to write the next greatest app for Android or are simply are curious about Android and would like to try it out without buying a new phone, the Android Emulator is a great way to get started for free.  It is also a great way to try out new versions of Android if you have an older device. We were disappointed that the Android Marketplace wasn’t included. but check back in the next couple days and we’ll show you how to run it in the emulator!

  Also, don’t forget; if you’re using an aging Windows Mobile phone, you might be able to turn it into an Android phone.  Check out our tutorial on how to Run Android on Your Windows Mobile Phone.

  Link

  Download the Android SDK

  Download Java for your computer

  
  
  

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• Run Android on Your Windows Mobile Phone

  jeudi 8 juillet 2010, par Justin Garrison

  Interested in Android but think you need to buy a new phone to try it out? Actually, your Windows Mobile phone may already have the capability of running Android. Today we show you how and the type of phone you’ll need.

  

  Installing Android

  To run Android you will need a microSD card that is not SDHC (typically a card less than 2GB) and a supported Windows Mobile phone (see below). You can check your microSD card compatibility by looking at the card to see if it shows the “HC” label.

  

  The microSD card will need to be formatted in FAT32. Plug the microSD card into the computer and right click on it and choose format.

  Note: Formatting a microSD drive will erase everything on that drive. Make sure you have any important files backed up before you format it.

  

  Now that the microSD card is formatted, the first step to installing Android is finding the right Android port for your phone (see below). You will need to find the port that works on your phone as well as the version of Android you want to run. Versions start at 1.0 but typically you will find ports for version 1.6 or 2.1.

  

  Once you have found the right port for your phone and Android version you want to use, extract the files to a folder using 7-zip.

  

  After the files have extracted there should be a folder called “andboot”. Go into the andboot folder and there will be another folder called “startup config” or “startup”. Open this folder and you will need to find the right startup.txt file for your phone. Inside each folder will be a single “startup.txt” file. Copy the file for your phone model to the root of the andboot folder. This file will tell Android what type of hardware you have, how big your screen is, how much RAM your phone has etc. so it is very important to choose the right file. If you are confused on what these phone names are please read below on finding your phone model.

  

  Once you have moved the correct startup.txt file to the andboot folder, copy the entire andboot folder to the root of your newly formatted microSD card.

  Plug the microSD card back in the phone and open the file browser on your phone and browse to the memory card. Make sure the phone is plugged into power before the next few steps because on some phones running on battery may cause the phone to hang.

  

  Open the andboot folder and run haret.exe. If the right startup.txt file is in the root of the andboot folder you should be able to click “Run” and you will get a quick loading screen while haret turns off Windows Mobile and starts up Android.

  

  You should get some scrolling text and probably a nice Android logo while the phone boots up the first time.

  Note: The first boot is going to take a considerably longer time than subsequent boots. and you may need to calibrate your screen during the boot process so make sure you keep an eye on it.

  

  Once the basic Linux settings are done your new “Android” phone will boot to a welcome screen so you can walk through the rest of the settings like setting up your email account.

  Tip: If you are running Android on a phone that does not have an active data plan but does have wifi, you can get around the startup screen by tapping on the welcome screen in this order: top left corner, top right corner, bottom right corner, bottom left corner then tap the Android logo. You can then enable wifi and join a network and set up your gmail account manually.

  

  It is usually recommended that you leave your phone alone while it syncs your information for at least 10 minutes. Once the initial syncing is done the phone should start running faster and you can play around with installing apps. If you don’t wait for the phone to fully sync you may have problems with apps crashing prematurely and a force close dialog popping up.

  

  Change any settings and install any apps you want, they will be saved to your memory card and ready on next boot. All phones that run Android from the microSD card will automatically boot Windows Mobile when the phone restarts. To run Android again, just open the file browser and run haret.exe again.

  

  Android Ports

  There are a few different Android ports for Windows Mobile devices and each one supports a different family of device; each family of device has a varying amount of hardware support. Most phones will support the touch screen, hardware buttons, cell phone radio, and data connection, but some ports may not support bluetooth, GPS, or power management. This is not a complete list of Android ports available, but it should cover the most popular Windows Mobile phones.

  

  Almost all Android development on Windows Mobile phones started with the development on theHTC Touch (also known as the HTC Vogue and the Verizon xv6900). The HTC Touch has 100% of the hardware features working and even some features that were not available in official Windows Mobile ROMs. One of the main differences between Android for the Touch and Android for every other phone is the Touch allows for Android to be flashed to the phone’s ROM (NAND memory). This was a big break through for Android development and has increased battery life and speed greatly. Running Android on the Touch can be done following the steps above but it is recommended to run Android by flashing the phones NAND memory. To learn how to do that, start at the Android Touch FAQ thread at XDA-Developers.

  Android ports for the HTC Touch can also be used on the following phones with varying success.

  • HTC Nike (Neon)
  • HTC Polaris (Touch Cruise)
  • HTC Kaiser (TyTN II)
  • HTC Titan (Mogul, xv6800)

  Note: HTC phones all have proper names that come from HTC and in many cases each carrier will give the phone its own branding and rename the phone to something else. For example, the HTC Titan was called the Mogul on Sprint and the xv6800 on Verizon. To find the Android port for your phone, start by finding the proper HTC name of your device. Start on HTC’s site to discover your device’s official name.

  XDAndroid supports the most popular touch screen HTC Windows Mobile phones and if you bought a touch screen HTC Windows Mobile phone within the past year, most likely this port will support your phone. XDAndroid runs directly from the phones microSD memory card on the following phones:

  • Touch Pro (Fuze, RAPH, RAPH800, RAPH500)
  • Touch Diamond (DIAMOND, DIAM500)
  • Touch HD (BLACKSTONE)
  • GSM Touch Pro2 (TILT2,RHODIUM, RHOD400, RHOD500)
  • GSM Touch Diamond2 (TOPAZ)

  Andromnia is an Android port for Samsung devices. Currently this port is in the pre-alpha stages and things like the headset speaker does not work. But if you want to test it out it supports the following phones:

  • Samsung i900 (GSM, supported worldwide)
  • Samsung i910 (CDMA, used by Verizon in the US)
  • Samsung i780 (Mirage)
  • Samsung i907 (AT&T Epix)

  Wing Linux isn’t as quickly developed as XDAndroid but should get the job done if your phone isn’t supported by any other port. Wing Linux supports the following phones to varying degrees:

  • HTC Artemis
  • HTC Elf, HTC Elfin
  • HTC Excalibur, T-Mobile Dash
  • HTC Gene, HTC P3400
  • HTC Herald, T-Mobile Wing
  • HTC Opal, HTC Touch Viva
  • HTC Pharos
  • HTC Prophet
  • HTC Startrek
  • HTC Wizard
  • Asus P320, Galaxi Mini

  You may also want to look at threads for the following phones to check the status of Android on these phones.

  Sony Xperia 1

  HTC Leo (HD2)

  Extra links

  If you still can’t find what you are looking for I recommend checking out these links for more information.

  XDA-Developers forum

  PPCGeeks forum

  Connect-UTB

  HTC Linux

  
  
  

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• Tout ce que vous devez savoir sur l’écosystème de développement des applications mobiles

  mardi 6 juillet 2010, par Roxanne Varza

  Article par Robin Wauters (adaptation par Clément Vouillon)

  Etant donnée la fragmentation que connait l’industrie des applications mobiles, il est bon de voir que certaines études viennent  nous aider à comprendre et donner sens à ce qui se passe dans ce secteur de l’économie numérique, secteur qui ne cesse de prendre de l’importance et ce sur l’ensemble du globe. Si vous vous intéressez au sujet, je vous invite à consulter cette étude très approfondie, réalisée par vision mobile (et sponsorisée par Telefonica Developer communities) qui nous plonge au cœur du domaine et constitue à ce jour un des rapports les plus complet paru.

  Intitulée Development Economic 2010, cette étude explore en profondeur tous les aspects du monde du développement mobile, avec la participation de plus de 400 développeurs du monde entier, segmentés sur les 8 plateformes principales : iOS (iPhone), Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Java ME, Windows phone, Flash Lite et web mobile (WAP/XHTML/CSS/Javascript).

  Ce rapport, qui se base sur une étude complète réalisée par une équipe de 3 chercheurs, 5 interviewers et 8 développeurs d’applications mobiles entre janvier et juin 2010, nous donne un excellent aperçu de toutes les étapes clefs du développement d’une application mobile : du choix de la plateforme à sa distribution et sa monétisation.

  Quelques éléments importants de cette étude :

  TAUX DE PÉNÉTRATION DU MARCHE ET PRÉFÉRENCE DES DÉVELOPPEURS

  -          Le taux de pénétration du marché est de loin le critère le plus important dans la sélection de la plateforme, raison citée par plus de 75% des développeurs sondés. Clairement les développeurs se soucient plus du marché adressable et du potentiel de monétisation plutôt que des considérations techniques liées à la plateforme.

  -          Basé sur son échantillon de 400 personnes, VisionMobile, a constaté que la plupart des développeurs travaillent sur plusieurs plateformes à la fois : 2.8 plateformes par dév en moyenne. Parmi les développeurs Android et iPhone, 20% proposent leur application sur les deux places de marché concurrentes en même temps.

  -          Sur ces deux dernières années un transfert de « mindshare » (de préférence des développeurs) s’effectue des plateformes traditionnelles (symbian, JAVA ME et Windows phone)  au profit de l’iOS, d’Android et de RIM. La « large minorité » (20-25%) des sondés développant sous Symbian et qui proposent leurs applications également sous iPhone, confirment ce changement qui s’opère au profit des nouveaux acteurs.

  -          Selon VisionMobile, la grande majorité des développeurs Java Me, ayant répondu, ont perdu  foi dans la vision «Ecris du code une fois, fais le tourner partout ». De plus les témoignages suggèrent que près de la moitié des développeurs « stars » Windows mobile  possèdent un iPhone et réfléchiraient à deux fois avant de réinvestir dans un terminal sous OS  Microsoft.

  -          Android se positionne comme la plateforme de développement la plus populaire. Les résultats de l’enquête révèlent que pratiquement 60% de l’ensemble développeurs mobiles ont récemment développé sous Android. Second en termes de préférence arrive l’iOS (iPhone), devançant ainsi devant Symbian et Java Me, encore en tête en 2008.

  -          Les chiffres révèlent un décalage entre les préférences des développeurs et le marché adressable. Par exemple l’OS Symbian est installé sur environ 390 millions de terminaux mobiles (2ème trimestre 2010) et revendique à peine 6000 applications alors que sur la même période l’iPhone d’Apple a 30 fois d’applications déployées sur 60 millions de terminaux.

  -          Bien entendu la plupart des développeurs ont une forte affinité avec les plateformes sur les lesquelles ils ont investi le plus de temps ; sur l’ensemble des 8 plateformes mobiles étudiées, les sondés pensent que le meilleur aspect de leur plateforme est le taux de pénétration, même si en réalité ce taux est relativement faible.

  

  

  MARKETING, DISTRIBUTION ET MONÉTISATION

  -          Les canaux de distribution principaux d’il y a quelques années sont maintenant minoritaires dans la stratégie « go to market » des applications mobiles. Les portails des opérateurs et les apps préinstallées sur les terminaux sont les canaux principaux de moins de 5% des développeurs sondés. Les résultats de l’étude font ressortir que les développeurs ont principalement recours aux stores (Appstore, l’Android store etc…) ou au téléchargement direct via leur site internet.

  -           Les app stores ont réduit la durée moyenne du « time-to-shelves » de deux tiers : de 68 jours sur les plateformes traditionnelles à 22 jours sur un app store et la durée de « time-to-payment » de moitié, passant de 82 jours à 36 jours. En moyenne il vous faudra attendre 55 jours pour être payé via le canal opérateur et un incroyable 128 jours  quand votre application est préinstallée par un constructeur.

  -          Il y a peu, voir quasi aucun usage des app stores en tant que canaux de distribution principaux en dehors d’Apple et d’Android. Seulement 5% et 10% des développeurs Java et iPhone ont déclaré utiliser les app stores dans ce cadre.

  -          Le problème le plus important pour les développeurs est le manque de canaux marketing efficaces pour augmenter la visibilité et la découverte de leurs applications par les utilisateurs. Plus de 50% d’entre eux seraient prêt à payer pour apparaître dans les classements ou la sélection d’applications.

  -          Le problème le plus important dans le processus de certification est son coût. plus de 30% des sondés citent cet obstacle comme le problème numéro un du processus. L’économie ne fonctionne pas pour les applications low costs mais seulement pour les mega-productions.

  -          La ruée vers l’or est un mythe : seulement 5% des sondés ont déclaré obtenir d’excellents revenus, au dessus de leurs attentes. Pratiquement 60% n’ont pas atteint les objectifs espérés.

  -          Le modèle de revenus par publicité est le second plus important derrière le modèle éprouvé du « paiement au téléchargement » (sur les app stores). Le modèle par abonnement, pour le moment, est plus important lorsque l’app est distribuée via les opérateurs (comparativement aux app stores).

  

  

  ASPECTS TECHNIQUES

  -          La courbe d’apprentissage varie de façon importante d’une plateforme à l’autre. En moyenne, il faut 15 mois pour maitriser Symbian contre moins de 6 mois pour Android. Un développeur Symbian doit ainsi écrire trois fois plus de code qu’un développeur Android et deux fois plus qu’un développeur iPhone.

  -          En termes de débogage, les tests montrent qu’Android a le processus de débogage le plus rapide comparé à l’iPhone, Symbian et Java Me.

  -          La capacité de construire des interfaces attractives est encore loin d’être accessible pour tous les développeurs. Environ 50% (sous Symbian, BlackBerry et Windows phone) se plaignent de la difficulté de créer de bonnes interfaces.

  -          Le rapport indique que 80% des développeurs se tournent vers la communauté et les forums non officiels pour du support technique. Les sites officiels ne sont utilisés que par 40% des sondés.

  -          La restriction des « unpublished » et « hidden » API des terminaux est voulue par les plateformes, néanmoins les développeurs seraient prêt à payer pour y accéder, il s’agit même de leur première demande concernant le support technique. Ainsi, les plateformes pourraient bénéficier de SDK tiers, accessibles sur la base d’abonnements.

  -          Les API (programmes) des opérateurs ont échoué à attirer les développeurs puisqu’à peine 5% d’entre eux pensent qu’il s’agit de leur rôle d’en proposer. Néanmoins 50% des développeurs seraient prêt à payer les opérateurs pour des API de facturation, suivi par le sms et la géolocalisation.

  

  

  CrunchBase Information

  VisionMobile

  Information provided by CrunchBase

  

  

• PAC-MAN rules!

  dimanche 23 mai 2010, par A Googler

  We've been overwhelmed — but not surprised :) — by the success of our 30th anniversary PAC-MAN doodle. Due to popular demand, we’re making the game permanently available at www.google.com/pacman.
  
  Thanks to NAMCO for helping to make this wonderful collaboration happen. Enjoy!
  
  Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

  

  

  

• Google APIs + HTML5 = A New Era of Mobile Apps

  lundi 3 mai 2010, par Mike Pegg

  This post from the Google Code Blog is part of the Who's @ Google I/O, a series of blog posts that give a closer look at developers who'll be speaking or demoing at Google I/O. This guest post is written by Adrian Graham, co-founder of nextstop.com who will give us a demo inside the Developer Sandbox.
  

  When building nextstop's HTML5 mobile app, we were able to leverage a powerful combination of HTML5 and Google API's to build a mobile web experience that we believe rivals what we could have built natively. For more on our mobile app, check out this post -- here we will just focus on the technologies that made this experience possible.
  
  Lately HTML5's video features have gotten a lot of attention, but it's three other HTML5 features that we've found most useful for mobile web development.

  1. Prefetching using LocalStorage: It's no secret that mobile data networks are slow but by putting a bit of thought into what users will tap on next, and prefetching that data in the background you can build a dramatically faster user experience. It's possible to do limited forms of prefetching using plain old JavaScript, but using the localStorage key/value storage built into HTML5, we're able to store much more data and therefore prefetch more aggressively.
  
  If you're using a recent version of Chrome or Safari or on an iPhone 3 or Android 2 phone and want a sense of what prefetching feels like, try clicking the left and right arrows here (you can ignore the warning you will see in Chrome and Safari).

  2. Geolocation: Using the geolocation features built into HTML5 (and available on iPhone 3 and Android 2), we're able to connect you with local information based on the GPS in your phone, so all you have to do is launch the app to see nearby recommendations. I wish it were a bit faster, but it sure beats entering an address or zip code -- and it's super easy to hook into as a developer.

  3. App Caching: The last HTML5 feature that we heavily rely on is the application cache. If a cache manifest file is specified, the browser won't re-download files unless the content of the manifest file has been updated. This may not sound like a big deal, but the latency of cellular networks can be long enough that requesting multiple files at startup can slow down your app by 10 or 20 seconds. Ideally, you'd put all your static JavaScript, CSS, and image files in the manifest file, so users never have to wait for them to be downloaded more than once.
  
  As excited as we are about HTML5, things get even more interesting when you combine these technologies with Google APIs.
  
  1. Google Maps API V3: Google Maps V3 has been rewritten from the ground up to better support modern mobile web browsers, and it shows. We were able to build a map interface into our mobile app that is nearly as full featured as our main site, including support for dynamic updates when the user pans and gestures like pinch to zoom on the iPhone. Coupled with the Geolocation support in HTML5, we can easily show users where they are in relation to the recommendations on the map. A year ago, this would have required writing a fair amount of native code. Today it can be done in the browser and works on both Android 2 and iPhone 3 devices.
  
  2. Google Analytics: Since we prefetch most of our content, we end up rendering mobile pages using JavaScript. This makes tracking things like page views a little more tricky than a typical website, since we're not requesting an HTML file for each page view (and the App Cache can further complicate matters). We planned on building a custom mobile analytics system, but we decided to try running Google Analytics in the mobile web browser instead. Using the _trackPageview method (with a URL corresponding to each mobile "page" generated by Javascript) has worked surprisingly well and has had minimal performance impact. Best of all, if you're already using Google Analytics on your main site, you see all your mobile analytics in the same place. This lets you do things like easily compare the time on site for a mobile visitor and a desktop visitor. (Here's one data point if you're wondering whether or not to build a mobile web version of your site: visitors spend over twice as long using our mobile HTML5 app as they do on our website.)
  
  3. Google Local Search API: Coupled with HTML5 geolocation, the Google Local Search API becomes even easier to use. For instance, the nextstop app lets users add places that they like to nextstop's database. In a desktop browser, we have no choice but to ask the user to type in some words and do a local search. However, on the phone, we can show users a list of nearby places by passing the local search api the user's current position. More often than not, no typing is required to locate the place you'd like to add.

  If you can't already tell, we're pretty excited about the future mobile apps running inside a browser. As mobile web browsers and web APIs continue to evolve, we expect more and more people to hop on the HTML5 bandwagon as a cross-platform way to build powerful mobile apps.
  
  We'll be at Google I/O in May and would love for you to stop by our demo station in the Developer Sandbox and share any questions, tips, or tricks you have related to HTML5 mobile development. And in the meantime, if you have a great idea for an HTML5 app based on nextstop's data, we encourage you to check out our API.

  Posted by Adrian Graham, co-founder of nextstop.com

  

• Google : glisser-déposer dans Gmail avec Chrome et Firefox 3.6

  vendredi 16 avril 2010, par david_l@pcinpact.com (David Legrand)

  Google vient d'annoncer, via son blog dédié à GMail, que le glissez-déposer de pièces jointes était désormais actif sous Chrome et Firefox 3.6.

• Google lance une grosse mise à jour de son service Documents

  mardi 13 avril 2010, par Vince@pcinpact.com (Vincent Hermann)

  Google se prépare activement à l'arrivée de Microsoft sur le créneau des outils bureautiques en ligne. En effet, l'éditeur de Redmond lancera avec Office 2010 une suite complète disponible dans un simple navigateur et gratuite, bien que nettement ...

• One button to merge all duplicate contacts

  mardi 15 décembre 2009, par The Gmail Team

  Posted by Dominik Marcinski, Software Engineer
  
  Managing a big address book can be a challenge, so it's no surprise that the top request for Google contacts is a fast, easy way to merge duplicate contacts. You've been able to merge contacts one-by-one for a while, but now we've added a single button that merges all your duplicate contacts at once. To clean up your contact list in one fell swoop, just click the "Find duplicates" button in the contact manager, review the merge suggestions (and uncheck any suggestions you don't want merged), and hit the "Merge" button.
  
  
  If you've been considering getting all your contacts into Gmail or syncing your Gmail contacts to your phone, now's the time to do it. As we've written about previously, you can sync your contacts to a wide variety of devices (including Android, iPhone, Blackberry, SyncML, etc). So if you were dreading spending hours getting your contacts in order, now you can do it with a couple clicks.
  
  

  

  

  

• Vie Privée : Google Dashboard : qu'est-ce que Google sait de vous ?

  vendredi 6 novembre 2009, par GCrao78

  Google sait beaucoup de choses sur vous... Et c'est de votre faute.
  
  Vous avez un compte Google et êtes inscrits à quelques-uns des services proposées par le moteur de recherches ? Le géant californien connait donc probablement votre nom, votre prénom, vos différentes adresses e-mails ainsi vos contacts Gmail, les fichiers que vous avez mis en ligne grâce à Google Docs, etc. Logique me direz-vous, Gmail ne serait pas aussi efficace s'il ne stockait pas vos e-mails, idem pour les autres services.
  
  Néanmoins, le nombre de services augmentant considérablement, malgré l'échange de données entre ceux-ci, il peut-être difficile de savoir si oui ou non vous avez partagé telle information avec Google. C'est l'objectif de Google Dashboard, qui sera lancé ce jeudi comme nous vous l'annoncions récemment sur Twitter.
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  Le tableau de bord, disponible en dix-sept langues dont le français, sera accessible depuis la page "Mon Compte" de Google (image 1, lien surligné en jaune). Sur cette page vous accèderez à la liste des services de Google auxquels vous avez souscrit et la liste des informations vous concernant -- ou tout au moins des liens vers les pages des services en question où sont détaillées ces informations. Par convention toutes les données sont considérées comme privées sauf celles qui sont marquées d'une icône particulière.
  
  À la question "à quoi cela sert-il ?" notre réponse serait "à pas grand chose". Mais Google y voit deux objectif : la transparence vis-à-vis de ces utilisateurs, et la firme veut donner à ces dernier le contrôle de leurs informations comme le soutient le front de libération des données.
  
  Le but principal, quoique non avoué explicitement, est de satisfaire les demandes pressantes des ayatollah de la protection de la vie privée. Et c'est peut-être l'effet inverse qui risque de se produire puisqu'ils pourraient éventuellement être surpris par toutes les données que Google possèdent sur eux.
  
  On notera toutefois un énorme inconvénient de Google Dashboard : il ne fournit pas de liste exhaustive des information qu'il détient vous concernant. Tout d'abord, il faut savoir que tous les services ne sont pas affichés. Ensuite, toutes les traces que vous laissez sur les serveurs de Google quand vous n'êtes pas connecté à votre compte Google ne sont pas listées. Ainsi, pas un mot sur votre adresse IP enregistrée lors des recherches effectuées sur le moteur de recherches, vos passages sur les nombreux sites marqués avec Google Analytics, les cookies des serveurs publicitaires AdSense et DoubleClick, sans oublier les utilisateurs de Google Apps dont les comptes sont différents des autres comptes Google.

  
  

  Écrit par TOMHTML à 01:29

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