Android 4.2.1 update rolling out to Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and 10

Google has started rolling out the Android 4.2.1 update to the new nexus devices. The update fixes the “December bug present in Android 4.2 People app” as well as some Bluetooth issues.

The update is around 1MB in size and is reaching the Nexus devices slowly. If you don’t get the update right-away, don’t worry, you will soon get it.

Lava XOLO A700 Dual SIM phone with 1GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.0 coming soon

Lava has started teasing their upcoming XOLO A700 on their Facebook page. Looks like the X series is for Intel phones and the A series is for Android phones that are powered by ARM processors.It has a 4.5inch (960 x 540 pixels) 16M color capacitive touch screen IPS display and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor. It runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). It has a 5MP auto focus camera with LED flash at the back and a VGA front-facing camera.

Lava XOLO A700 Specifications

• 4.5inch (960 x 540 pixels) 16M color capacitive touch screen IPS display with 245 ppi
• 1GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Dual SIM (3G + 2G)
• 5MP auto focus camera with LED flash, 720p video recording, HDR and a VGA front-facing camera
• 512MB RAM, 4GB of internal memory, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD
• 3G (HSPA 7.2Mbps) , WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v2.1, aGPS
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• 1700 mAh battery

No details about the launch date or pricing yet. Online retailer Infibeam has listed the phone as coming soon, but at the back of the phone it is mentioned as 8MP camera. The company is also planning to launch XOLO A800.

Here is how to install Android on your PC

Android is the world’s most prolific mobile operating system, and in a couple of years it might well become more popular than Windows with mobile devices ending up in almost every pocket. But what if you could install Android on not just your mobile device, but computer as well? Turns out, it is possible.

Having Android as your main computer operating system however is not guaranteed to work - driver support, and a ton of stuff may or may not be there, so it’d be best if you first try running Android via a USB drive to check compatibility.

Otherwise, all efforts to bring Android to PCs is courtesy of the Android-x86 project. Android is a Linux-based platform after all, so the core is there.

We have to stress that everything is still under development and not final, so this is more of an undertaking for tech enthusiasts rather than the average user. 

Hit the source link right below for the complete tutorial and a bunch of links to read more about the project.

source: XDA Developers via Android Authority

What’s new in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Google unveiled the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 last month with Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) that also rolled out to Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 as a new incremental update to the Android 4.1. We got the update both on our Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7 devices. Let’s see what new the Android 4.2 has to offer.

Lockscreen Widgets

The new Android 4.2 lets you add widgets to the lock screen. You can add a range of widgets including Gmail, Clock, Messaging, Sound Search and more. Even if your device is pass word protected, you can view the widgets, but can’t access them. You can now swipe to the right to launch the camera in your phone. You can also launch the Google Now from the lockscreen by swiping up.

Multi-user support (for Tablets)

In the tablets, you can enable multi-user support from the settings. This is much useful when multiple people are using the same tablet. It lets you log into your personal account and maintain your own settings right from the lock screen. It also saves all of your app data so that the other users don’t need to download all the apps again.

Notifications and Quick Settings

The Android 4.2 offers Quick Settings options that has shortcuts for Brightness, WiFi, Airplane mode and Bluetooth. In the phone there is a quick settings button on the drop-down notification bar, you can use one finger to swipe down for notifications, two fingers for quick settings. In the tablets you can pull down in the left for notifications and pull down at the top right for quick settings.

New Camera UI and Photo Filters

The new Android 4.2 camera doesn’t have any settings menu, you can either hold on the camera UI or touch the circle on the bottom to access the settings that lets you control white balance, change picture size and more.

The Photo Gallery has photo filters that lets you add a list of Instagram-like effects such as Vintage, Latte, Litho, X Process and more.

Photo Sphere

The new Photo Sphere feature in the lets you capture 360° panoramas. You can view the images in the gallery or share them on Google Maps, Earth and Google+. This feature is available on phones but it doesn’t work on Nexus 7 since it lack a rear camera.

New Keyboard with Gesture Typing

The new keyboard has gesture typing just like Swype. You can glide along the keyboard to input the words. You can disable Gesture typing from the settings. Some of the gesture typing features include, dynamic floating preview that lets you see suggested works while gesturing and floating gesture trail.

Pinch-to-zoom in Gmail

You can enable Auto-fit messages in Gmail for pinch-to-zoom feature in Gmail version 4.2. This fits the entire e-mail in a page so that you can zoom into the e-mail rather than panning across the e-mail in previous versions of the Gmail app.

Daydream

The new Daydream features is just a screensaver that you can enable to run when the phone or the table is charging when it is docked. You can set different day dream screensavers such as Clock, Colors, Google Currents, Photo Frame or Photo Table.

Google has also made some improvements to Google Now with new cards for tracking flights, hotel and restaurant reservations, movie and music recommendations. This version also has Miracast support for sharing the display wirelessly, Magnification gestures and Accessibility shortcut for blind users.

Android Basics

1) Android Basics

Introduction:

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. Google Inc. purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. Android's mobile operating system is based on the Linux kernel. Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance collaborated on Android's development and release. TheAndroid Open Source Project (AOSP) is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android. The Android operating system is currently the world's best-selling Smartphone platform.

Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently over 200,000 apps available for Android. Android Market is the online app store run by Google, though apps can also be downloaded from third-party sites. Developers write primarily in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 80 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.

The Android open-source software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java-based, object-oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system, including the Linux kernel, consists of roughly 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, 2.1 million lines of Java, and 1.75 million lines of C++.

Version history

2.1 Eclair

Changelog:

• Sync: Expanded Account sync. Multiple accounts can be added to a device for email and contact synchronization
• Email: Exchange support, Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page.
• Bluetooth: 2.1 support
• Contacts: Tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person.
• Messaging: Search all saved SMS and MMS messages. Auto delete oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.
• Camera: Flash support, Digital zoom, Scene mode, White balance, Color effect, Macro focus
• Virtual keyboard: Improved typing speed, smarter dictionary learns from word usage and includes contact names as suggestions.
• Browser: Refreshed UI, Bookmark thumbnails, Double-tap zoom, Support for HTML5
• Calendar: Agenda view enhanced, Attending status for each invitee, Invite new guests to events.
• System: Optimized hardware speed, Revamped UI
• Display: Support for more screen sizes and resolutions, Better contrast ratio
• Maps: Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
• MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events
• Live Wallpapers: Home screen background images can be animated to show movement

2.2 Froyo

Changelog:

• System: Speed, memory, and performance optimizations
• Additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation
• Integration of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine into the Browser application
• Improved Microsoft Exchange support (security policies, auto-discovery, GAL look-up, calendar synchronization, remote wipe)
• Improved application launcher with shortcuts to Phone and Browser applications
• USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality
• Added an option to disable data access over mobile network
• Updated Market application with batch and automatic update features
• Quick switching between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries
• Voice dialing and contact sharing over Bluetooth
• Support for numeric and alphanumeric passwords
• Support for file upload fields in the Browser application
• Support for installing applications to the expandable memory
• Adobe Flash support
• Support for extra high DPI screens (320 dpi), such as 4" 720p

2.3 Gingerbread

Changelog:

• System: Updated user interface design for simplicity and speed
• Display: Support for extra-large screen sizes and resolutions (WXGA and higher)
• Internet calling: Native support for SIP VoIP telephony
• Virtual Keyboard: Faster, more intuitive text input, improved accuracy, better suggested text. Voice input mode
• Copy/Paste: Enhanced. Select a word by press-hold, copy, and paste.
• Near Field Communication lets the user read an NFC tag embedded in a poster, sticker, or advertisement.
• New audio effects such as reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization, and bass boost
• System: Improved power management with a more active role in managing apps that are keeping the device awake for too long.
• Download Manager gives the user easy access to any file downloaded from the browser, email, or another application.
• Camera: Access multiple cameras on the device, including a front-facing camera, if available.
• Media: Support for WebM/VP8 video playback, and AAC audio encoding
• System: Enhanced support for native code development
• Audio, graphical, and input enhancements for game developers
• Concurrent garbage collection for increased performance
• Native support for more sensors (such as gyroscopes and barometers)
• Switched from YAFFS to ext4 on newer devices

Android Architecture

FEATURES OF ANDROID

• Handset layouts The platform is adaptable to larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 2.0 specifications, and traditional smartphone layouts.
  
• Storage SQLite, a lightweight relational database, is used for data storage purposes
  
• Connectivity Android supports connectivity technologies including GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA, EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (no connections through Proxy server and no Ad hoc wireless network), LTE, NFC and WiMAX.
  
• Messaging SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded text messaging and now Android Cloud To Device Messaging Framework(C2DM) is also a part of Android Push Messaging service.
  
• Multiple Language Support Multiple languages are available on Android. The number of languages more than doubled for the platform 2.3 Gingerbread. Android lacks font rendering of several languages even after official announcements[citation needed] of added support (e.g. Hindi).
  
• Web browser The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit layout engine, coupled with Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. The browser scores a 93/100 on the Acid3 Test.
  
• Java support While most Android applications are written in Java, there is no Java Virtual Machine in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes are compiled into Dalvik executables and run on the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik is a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU. J2ME support can be provided via third-party applications.
  
• Media support Android supports the following audio/video/still media formats: WebM, H.263, H.264 (in 3GP or MP4 container), MPEG-4 SP, AMR, AMR-WB (in 3GP container), AAC, HE-AAC (in MP4 or 3GP container), MP3, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, JPEG, PNG, GIF (though earlier versions do not support animated GIFs, BMP.
  
• Streaming media support RTP/RTSP streaming (3GPP PSS, ISMA), HTML progressive download (HTML5 <video> tag). Adobe Flash Streaming (RTMP) and HTTP Dynamic Streaming are supported by the Flash plugin. Apple HTTP Live Streaming is supported by RealPlayer for Mobile, and by the operating system in Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). Microsoft Smooth Streaming is planned to be supported through the awaited port of Silverlight plugin to Android.
  
• Additional hardware support Android can use video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, dedicated gaming controls, proximity and pressure sensors, thermometers, accelerated 2D bit blits (with hardware orientation, scaling, pixel format conversion) and accelerated 3D graphics.
  
• Multi-touch Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero. The feature was originally disabled at the kernel level (possibly to avoid infringing Apple's patents on touch-screen technology at the time). Google has since released an update for the Nexus One and the Motorola Droid which enables multi-touch natively.
  
• Bluetooth Supports A2DP, AVRCP, sending files (OPP), accessing the phone book (PBAP), voice dialing and sending contacts between phones. Keyboard, mouse and joystick (HID) support is available through manufacturer customizations and third-party applications. Full HID support is planned for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).
  
• Video calling Android does not provide native video calling support, but some handsets have a customized version of the operating system that support it, either via the UMTS network (like the Samsung Galaxy S) or over IP. Video calling through Google Talk is available in Android 2.3.4 and later.
  
• Multitasking Multitasking of applications is available.
  
• Voice based features Google search through voice has been available since initial release. Voice actions for calling, texting, navigation, etc. are supported on Android 2.2 onwards.
  
• Tethering Android supports tethering, which allows a phone to be used as a wireless/wired hotspot. Prior to Android 2.2 this was supported by third-party applications or manufacturer customizations.
  
• Screen Capture Android does not currently support screenshot capture. This is supported by manufacturer and third-party customizations.