Tag Archives: video

A New Look for Gmail

A video from Google’s YouTube channel ( update : the video is now private, but there’s a mirror here ) introduces a new Gmail interface. It’s based on the Preview theme that’s already available in Gmail, but there are many other changes: an action bar that uses icons instead of text labels, a completely new interface for conversations, profile pictures next to contacts, a flexible layout that adapts to any window size, display density options like in Google Docs, resizable chat/labels sections, new high-definition themes and an updated search box that includes advanced options. I don’t see the new interface yet, but it will probably be available soon. It’s interesting that there’s an arrow next to “Mail” and the links to Google Contacts and Google Tasks are missing. Maybe you’ll be able to use the arrow to switch to other Google services. { Thanks, Carlos . }

Android 4.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

Today we are announcing Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich — a new version of the platform that brings a refined, unified user experience for phones, tablets, and more. Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — efficient multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing. It includes many great features for users, including social and sharing integration, network data usage control, innovative connectivity and camera options, and an updated set of standard apps. For developers, Android 4.0 introduces many new capabilities and APIs. Here are some highlights: Unified UI toolkit: A single set of UI components, styles, and capabilities for phones, tablets, and other devices. Rich communication and sharing: New social and calendar APIs, Android Beam for NFC-based instant sharing, Wi-Fi Direct support, Bluetooth Health Device Profile support. Deep interactivity and customization: Improved notifications, lockscreen with camera and music controls, and improved app management in the launcher. New graphics, camera, and media capabilities: Image and video effects, precise camera metering and face detection, new media codecs and containers. Interface and input: Hardware-accelerated 2D drawing, new grid-based layout, improved soft keyboard, spell-checker API, stylus input support, and better mouse support. Improved accessibility: New accessibility APIs and text-to-speech APIs for writing new engines. Enhancements for enterprise: Keychain and VPN APIs for managing credentials and connections, a new administrator policy for disabling the camera. For a complete overview of what’s new for users and developers, please read the Android 4.0 Platform Highlights . Alongside the new Android platform, we are releasing new versions of the SDK Tools (r14) and ADT Plugin (14.0) for Eclipse. Among the highlights are: Improved build performance in Ant and Eclipse Improved layout and XML editors To get started developing on Android 4.0, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 4.0 platform , the SDK Tools , and the ADT Plugin . If you have already developed and published apps, we encourage you to download the Android 4.0 platform now, to begin testing your app before devices arrive in stores. Check out the video below for a closer look at Android 4.0 in action.

Android 4.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

Today we are announcing Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich — a new version of the platform that brings a refined, unified user experience for phones, tablets, and more. Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — efficient multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing. It includes many great features for users, including social and sharing integration, network data usage control, innovative connectivity and camera options, and an updated set of standard apps. For developers, Android 4.0 introduces many new capabilities and APIs. Here are some highlights: Unified UI toolkit: A single set of UI components, styles, and capabilities for phones, tablets, and other devices. Rich communication and sharing: New social and calendar APIs, Android Beam for NFC-based instant sharing, Wi-Fi Direct support, Bluetooth Health Device Profile support. Deep interactivity and customization: Improved notifications, lockscreen with camera and music controls, and improved app management in the launcher. New graphics, camera, and media capabilities: Image and video effects, precise camera metering and face detection, new media codecs and containers. Interface and input: Hardware-accelerated 2D drawing, new grid-based layout, improved soft keyboard, spell-checker API, stylus input support, and better mouse support. Improved accessibility: New accessibility APIs and text-to-speech APIs for writing new engines. Enhancements for enterprise: Keychain and VPN APIs for managing credentials and connections, a new administrator policy for disabling the camera. For a complete overview of what’s new for users and developers, please read the Android 4.0 Platform Highlights . Alongside the new Android platform, we are releasing new versions of the SDK Tools (r14) and ADT Plugin (14.0) for Eclipse. Among the highlights are: Improved build performance in Ant and Eclipse Improved layout and XML editors To get started developing on Android 4.0, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 4.0 platform , the SDK Tools , and the ADT Plugin . If you have already developed and published apps, we encourage you to download the Android 4.0 platform now, to begin testing your app before devices arrive in stores. Check out the video below for a closer look at Android 4.0 in action.

YouTube's New Video Editor

YouTube has a new online video editor that lets you trim the video, rotate it, remove shaky camera motions, adjust the contrast, saturation and color temperature, apply simple effects like “sepia”, “cartoon”, “thermal” and add a free audio soundtrack from YouTube’s library. While the editor is pretty basic, the main advantage is that you can replace the original video, but this only works if your video has less than 1,000 views and YouTube hasn’t received a copyright complaint from a third-party. There’s also a “save as” option that lets you save the edited version as a new video. How to find the new editor? Make sure you’re logged in, go to ” My videos & playlists ” and click “Edit video” next to the video you want to edit. You can also open a video you’ve uploaded and click “Edit video”. To make things more confusing, YouTube has another video editor that lets you mix your videos and Creative Commons videos from other YouTube users, add audio soundtracks from YouTube’s library and apply transitions.

Samsung Epic 4G Touch Hands-on and Quick First Impressions[Video]

Apologies in advance for horrible focusing on my camera’s part and a couple of shots where the entire phone wasn’t in view while looking at the software. Also, please allow an hour or two for full HD video to process. Our friends at Sprint dropped off a little gift for us to share with you guys. It’s the Samsung Epic 4G Touch, Sprint’s keyboard-less version of the original Epic 4G and their version of the Galaxy S II. Quick first impressions? Sure. This phone is amazingly fast. Samsung’s work on TouchWiz UI on top of Android 2.3.4 must have been long and hard because they’ve constructed arguably the smoothest and most user-friendly user interface on top of stock Android. I’m sure a lot of that is backed by Samsung’s extremely powerful (twice as powerful as competing chipsets, apparently) dual-core 1.2Ghz Exynos processor. In my 30 minutes of gleeful playtime I was unable to produce lag, stuttering or freezing in any application. I applied a live wallpaper to see if it would fall to its knees from me flipping back and forth with an animated background, but to no avail. Needless to say, this makes me smile. I wondered if that would be different if this had qHD resolution, but I’m not so sure that would make a huge difference. Yes, you read right -  the 4.5 inch display on this phone only has WVGA (800×480) resolution. The result of so few pixels being stuck into such a large screen is overall bigger text, icons and everything. It might be a desirable look for those who struggle to read small text without glasses, but it really disappoints me to think about how much nicer and spacier everything would look overall with qHD. Thankfully, the display is Super AMOLED Plus so a lot of would-be negative effects that would come about with this disproportionate combination of screen size and resolution aren’t present here. You’d have to be looking really hard to spot individual pixels, and if you’re like me and can barely see even with strong glasses, a microscope would have to do the trick. That’s backed by very deep contrasts and vibrant colors. As stretched out as everything looks, it all still looks very good. There are other small things about the phone that make the experience that much better, too, such as motion control. It’s more than a novelty – it’s actually useful. Pinch to zoom takes a backseat to moving the phone back and forth, and panning homescreens place a widget or icon is no longer the most painful experience ever. Pinch to zoom is still in, but I’m most certain you’ll enjoy this method a lot more. Other goodies inside the Epic 4G Touch are its 2MP front-facing camera, 8MP rear camera with LED flash and 1080p video recording, 16GB of internal storage, 1800mAh battery and the microUSB MHL port for HDMI-out. I had a chance to play with the camera for a quick minute. Still photos are beautiful, 1080p video is even better. The camera sensor inside picks up the color accurately and the software helps it achieve great white balance. Playback of 1080p videos were stutter-free and you could really see the high resolution sensor at work with how crisp and clear footage was. Samsung’s on the top end of the spectrum in the camera department, we’d say.The quick hands-on video is above, but stay tuned for continued coverage in the coming days and weeks, including benchmarks, the full review and more. A couple more things I forgot to mention in the video: Battery is definitely removable and there’s a microSD card slot beneath the battery door. There is an LED notification light, thankfully. Hard to see in images but it’s there. No keyboard as the name suggests.

Sony Walkman Z Gets Video Preview

We’ve finally got video of the Walkman Z that Sony announced earlier. We expected this thing to take cues from Sony Ericsson’s latest crop of Android phones but Sony has instead decided to go in a different direction and create the UI specifically for Walkman. After watching the video, we’re glad they did. From this first glance, media management and playback seems robust and flexible and the UI is smooth for the most part. We’re not sure if this device will give us the genuine Android experience (homescreens with widgets) but at least Android market will be in tow. Take a look above, courtesy of DigInfo.

CyanogenMod Team Brings Stock Android Experience To Sensation and Evo 3D

If you’ve been praying and wishing that someone, somewhere would magically transform your Sensified HTC Sensation or Evo 3D into some good ‘ol plain, stock vanilla Android, well — your time is coming. Mr. Kmobs informed everyone via Twitter today that the CyanogenMod Team has been making good progress on the CM7 ROM build for the Sensation and Evo 3D and may have an alpha release build as early as tomorrow. We’ve seen our share of teaser videos from the CM group for weeks now and it’s nice to know we wont have to wait much longer to see how (slightly modified) stock Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread runs on these 2 devices. Oh- and if you’re curious to see how 1080p video is coming along on the Sensation running CM7 check out the video below. [Via Twitter ]

Apple spoof ad details strategy for getting lost iPhone 5 back

As you might have heard, Apple lost an iPhone 5 prototype recently , and went on a search with the aid of San Francisco police to find it . How do Apple investigators feel about the whole thing? Well, probably not too happy, and they’re likely revolutionizing the art of pain to get it back. Or at least that’s what Conan’s mock-ad is suggesting. We’re expecting the next iPhone to launch soon , likely with a bigger screen , 8 megapixel camera , and with any luck will be available on Sprint with unlimited plans intact . The specifics are still unclear, but that isn’t stopping people from being blindly interested in it , and it seems like Apple will be well-prepared to feed the masses its latest creation . Anyway, here’s the video – it’s good for a quick laugh. This wouldn’t be the first time Conan’s poked fun at Apple products , and I hope it’s not the last. Apple spoof ad details strategy for getting lost iPhone 5 back originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-09-09T17:49:45Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Watch Windows 8 boot up super quickly

During next week’s Microsoft Build event, we’re expecting to see Windows 8 on tablets and this should be Microsoft’s best attempt to derail the momentum of the iPad. One of the best features of the iPad is its instant-on ability, so how will Windows 8 stack up? Well, according to the official video below, Windows 8 should boot up super quickly. The Microsoft employee holds the laptop’s battery outside of the device so I’m assuming this is a straight up boot up, not just a resuming. If Microsoft can pull this off, it will be quite a feat because I use a Windows 7 computer to work most days and I generally boot it up and walk away to make coffee before it’s ready. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, as Windows 7 is much quicker than previous versions but nearly any boot up time seems like a long time in the world of tablets, especially if you’re going against the iPad . I know the iPad isn’t really booting up each time you unlock it but to most people, it’s instant on and that’s an amazing thing. As I mentioned earlier, Windows 8 is going to be Microsoft’s solution to the tablet market, so things like a multitouch interface and robust app ecosystem are going to be vitally important. The little things like boot-up time and battery life are also going to be major factors in how well-received it is in the tablet world. Watch the video below and let us know what you think. Watch Windows 8 boot up super quickly originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-09-09T16:32:51Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j

Guy Turns His Love for Android Into a Tattoo [Video]

Think you love Android more than this guy? Guess again. In a video about brand loyalty, a narrator backdrops the scene of a Phandroid reader named Steve who loves Android so much that he’s willing to get it tattooed on his leg. It’s a real tattoo, too – no rub on here. Our mascot is highly detailed and looks to be cruising on a skateboard, something I’m sure many Cyanogen users have seen time and time again. I say kudos to Steve and the awesome tattooist who got Andy down perfectly. Check the video out above! [ The Brand Show , Thanks Steve! ]