mLearnCon News and Updates

Andy Rubin, Google's (GOOG) top mobile-phone executive, likes to talk about everything being "Android-ized." Android has become the top smartphone operating system in the United States, but Google's ambitions for it go well beyond tablet computers and smartphones, even beyond the mobile Web.

With its forthcoming Google Wallet payment service, an Android smartphone will become a credit card. Now Google says Android can also become the first mass-market bridge between the virtual world and the physical world, allowing smartphone apps to control light bulbs, home appliances, and even medical devices.

At its annual I/O developer conference last month, Google announced a program called Android@Home, a system that will allow Android phones and tablets to turn on household lights, activate speakers in a wireless stereo system, or analyze the calories burned on a gym exercise bike. The first Android@Home products are LED light bulbs embedded with technology that can be controlled by an Android device. Built by a Florida company called Lighting Science Group, they will go on sale by December.

But Android's executives say their ambition goes beyond turning a smartphone into a universal remote that could switch on the kitchen coffeemaker from your upstairs bedroom.

Read the full article here from MercuryNews.com

Apple seems to have a significant impact on the future of work without directly intending to. The iPhone has made steady inroads into the enterprise since its introduction, and the iPad is making big waves as well. These devices are especially useful for remote workers, for whom computing tech is the very lifeblood of their daily grind. Apple’s next-generation mobile operating system brings big improvements for consumers, but they’ll be no less beneficial to mobile workers.

Notifications

It’s hard to understand just how much better it is to be able to see your work-related emails lined up at a glance on your lock screen as they come in, without having to even unlock your device, until you’ve tried it for yourself. Plus, you can jump to any email in the list automatically with one swipe, instead of having to unlock, open the mail application, scroll and find the right email, then tap on the email. The new iOS notifications can also do the same thing for text messages, voicemail or even with alerts from third-party apps. This makes everything you do on your phone or iPad much, much easier; a boon for busy remote workers who are inundated daily with demands for their attention.

Read more here from GigaOm

That’s a Micro USB-to-USB female adapter, which is required if you want to utilize Honeycomb’s new USB hosting feature on the Xoom. It’s obscure enough that your local Best Buy probably won’t carry it, but I managed to swing one on Amazon for less than the cost of shipping.

I whole-heartily recommend Motorola Xoom owners pick one up, because USB hosting is one of the main features Honeycomb has over Apple and iOS. Honeycomb 3.1 users can now plug in and use external mice, trackballs, keyboards, and game controllers – really, any USB-powered peripheral. And it works really well.

As I mentioned in my ASUS Eee Pad Transformer review, I'm no fan of navigating Honeycomb via cursor, but the update does well enough to make it an intuitive experience (mouse clicks take the place of finger taps) that I can understand its appeal. Also, it will work very well when used with remotedesktop apps like LogMeIn Ignition. The same goes for keyboards. There is now no need to invest in a Bluetooth keyboard (which Honeycomb 3.1 also supports); any old USB keyboard will now work.

Gamepad support portends good things for Android as a gaming platform. We’ve said it time and again on TabletPCReview that great gaming requires buttons. I easily connected my XBOX 360 controller to the Xoom, and Google claims it will work with others, like PS3 controllers and generic PC gamepads.

This far into the release, most games I tested, including Gun Bros and Dungeon Defenders aren’t properly mapped to an external controller, but the one that was, Cordy, played like a new game. When I first reviewed the Xoom, I dismissed Cordy because the touch-based control scheme was far too clunk for the platform puzzler, but with the XBOX controller, I actually enjoyed the freebie app.

Read more from TabletPCReview.com here

More than 5,000 iOS developers are in San Francisco for Apple's big party at the Worldwide Developers Conference, but a new report says the hippest place to be is the Android Market. The study, from Bluevia and Vision Mobile, found that 67 percent of developers code for Android, while iOS trails at 59 percent.

The percentage of developers working in each platform increased this year - Android from 59 percent and iOS from 50 percent.

The two leading mobile OS giants continued to capture developers' attention, but a major surprise was the fastest growing platform -- mobile Web apps written in HTML or JavaScript. More than 55 percent of developers are working in the platform, up from 40 percent last year. The report attributes that growth to an influx of non-mobile developers.

Mobile Web developers kept Microsoft out of the top three, but that could soon change, according to a section of the report that looks at which platforms developers are planning to use. The "Developer Intentshare Index" says 35 percent of developers are looking toward Android and 32 percent are looking to add more Windows Phone work to their portfolio. ChromeOS, iOS and Meego round out the top five, in that order.

Read the full article here from PCWorld.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company's long-running dispute with Apple over its refusal allow Flash on iOS devices is behind them, and that the issue is of diminishing importance because of Android's rise anyway.

"What you saw with smartphones hitting an inflection point with Android, you'll see it again with tablets," he said in an interview at the AllThingsD conference with Walt Mossberg. "There will be another 20 tablets that will come by the end of the year that will push the industry in different directions."

Apple's decision to keep Flash off of iOS devices epitomizes the company's philosophy of control over its mobile platform. This approach has allowed the company to maintain a famously consistent and easy-to-use environment on its mobile devices, even as some users have fled that restrictiveness for the Wild West openness of Android.

Narayen said that Apple's real issue with Flash was not technical but business-related: he hypothesized that the software's ability to run Web apps in a browser undermines the centrality of Apple's App Store, taking control from Apple over the iOS experience.

Read the full article here from Mobiledia