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What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

developer.android.com

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Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#21

Post by ars »

moutarde wrote: post #13
DanBC wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a deal between Google and Nestle. This has caused some consternation because many people see Nestle as Evil. Nestle engage in really shady practices - pushing formula milk in developing nations, ignoring wide spread international laws and drives to encourage breast feeding. This isn't just "giving mother's freedom to chose", it's killing little babies.

They were not "killing babies" they were "monetizing the vast network of uniformed African's who were potential baby killers". If they were technically doing anything wrong then Google wouldn't have partnered with them, because as Eric Schmidt said: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Um, wasn't this like 3 or 4 decades ago? It might be time to move on.

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#22

Post by lnanek2 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #16
glhaynes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it was scheduled for inclusion previous to the M7's announcement 6 weeks ago.

Surely it was, but 'rumor' sites were writing about the dedicated movement processor in late August (at a minimum of 10 weeks ago) and I'm sure there are enough moles at either company so that Google / Apple know what their competitors will do several months in advance. * * * Late Edit * * * So I looked through the Google public Git repo, and it looks like the initial Step_Counter functions were added in Dec 2012.[1]…

I doubt Google has anything to do with the hardware for this. Qualcomm has been pushing movement tracking and user context recognition using sensors with their chips without using a lot of power at conferences for over a year now. This is probably just Google throwing in a cut down version of their Pivot functionality. It's basically a chipset feature, just like how the chipsets are who pushes the OpenGL ES drivers and demos each version.

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#23

Post by markdown »

mikeyouse wrote: post #16
glhaynes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely it was scheduled for inclusion previous to the M7's announcement 6 weeks ago.

Surely it was, but 'rumor' sites were writing about the dedicated movement processor in late August (at a minimum of 10 weeks ago) and I'm sure there are enough moles at either company so that Google / Apple know what their competitors will do several months in advance. * * * Late Edit * * * So I looked through the Google public Git repo, and it looks like the initial Step_Counter functions were added in Dec 2012.[1]…

> Surely it was, but 'rumor' sites were writing about the dedicated movement processor in late August

A corporation of Google's size doesn't need "rumour sites" to know what their competitors are doing.

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#24

Post by guelo »

scottmp10 wrote: post #7

Anyone know if NFC emulation will let me create an app to replace my Clipper card and work key fob? I would have guessed that NFC chips would have an embedded secret that you can't get directly.

The best you can do is read the info, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codebutler...

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#25

Post by vshastry »

ge0rg wrote: post #15
scottmp10 wrote: post #7

Anyone know if NFC emulation will let me create an app to replace my Clipper card and work key fob? I would have guessed that NFC chips would have an embedded secret that you can't get directly.

I would really like to know on which devices the host emulation API will be available at all.

Most Android devices with NFC will probably support the API assuming they are running or are upgraded to KitKat.

Edit: including link to source: http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html#44-h...

"Support for HCE is already widely available on most NFC controllers, which offer dynamic support for both HCE and SE transactions. Android 4.4 devices that support NFC will include Tap & Pay for easy payments using HCE."

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#26

Post by DanBC »

ars wrote: post #20
DanBC wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a deal between Google and Nestle. This has caused some consternation because many people see Nestle as Evil. Nestle engage in really shady practices - pushing formula milk in developing nations, ignoring wide spread international laws and drives to encourage breast feeding. This isn't just "giving mother's freedom to chose", it's killing little babies.

> Nestle engage in really shady practices - pushing formula Engage? It was 40 years ago (or 29). I think it's time to move on.

They still do it!

Here's one from 2011 http://www.irinnews.org/report/93040/www.unicef.org

(page contains image of breastfeeding woman possibly NSFW)

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#27

Post by [deleted] »

ars wrote: post #21
moutarde wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not "killing babies" they were "monetizing the vast network of uniformed African's who were potential baby killers". If they were technically doing anything wrong then Google wouldn't have partnered with them, because as Eric Schmidt said: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Um, wasn't this like 3 or 4 decades ago? It might be time to move on.

[deleted]

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#28

Post by josephhardin »

scottmp10 wrote: post #7

Anyone know if NFC emulation will let me create an app to replace my Clipper card and work key fob? I would have guessed that NFC chips would have an embedded secret that you can't get directly.

I doubt it. You'd have to know the update strategy, as well as the key. Theoretically it's impossible to get the secret out of the device(though in actuality, I doubt that is true).

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#29

Post by cromwellian »

mikeyouse wrote: post #11
suprgeek wrote: post #10

The Step Detector and Step Counter platform support is an especially interesting addition. Perhaps a nod to the wearables market, with the upcoming Google watch hooking into it for some Fitness tracking smarts?

Must be a response to Apple's inclusion of a dedicated movement-sensing M7 processor on the iPhone 5s. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519531/what-apples-m7-m...

Must be a response to MotoX's shipping a dedicated movement-sensing processor in their X8 platform before Apple.

Oh, did you not know that both Motorola's X8 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 were shipping low power contextual co-processors for this way before Apple's announcement?

Back when the A7 was announced, I predicted in my social stream that Apple fanboys would soon be saying Google copied the motion co-processor, even though the the MotoX, which had already been shipping, has two such M7-like processors, one for always-on low-power voice, and the other for always-on motion detection (it's how the MotoX camera-twist gesture works).

Apple reality distortion field at work again.

Re: What's new for developers in Android 4.4 KitKat

#30

Post by rockdoe »

Tarang wrote: post #2

Finally the webview uses Chromium instead of the native android browser. I've been waiting so long for this. I hope they find a way to roll it to more devices really quickly so more people use the latest version. I guess its a big problem but there's plenty of value to google in finding that solution.

Firefox for Android is finishing up a GeckoView that will essentially bring that capability to older devices, or WebAudio/WebGL for new ones.
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