Xperia Walkman works with ROCKI using Throw

Since we took receipt of ROCKI we have been playing around with what does and doesnt work. One bonus is that +Sony Xperia  Walkman app on Xperia phones also works well using "Throw" 

Open your Walkman app and select the throw icon in the top right and select your ROCKI, then have fun firing your music to your speakers. 

If you need the walkman app then you can find "versions" of the apk on various internet sources, so use those at your own risk, and of course the copyright / legal issues that follow. 

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Instantly zap links maps and phone numbers to your Android phone with Chrome to Phone!

(Cross-posted from the Google Chrome blog.)

Ever wanted a way to quickly and easily send links and other information from your desktop or laptop to your phone to view on the go? The new Chrome to Phone extension adds a button to your Google Chrome browser that instantly sends the current web page, map, YouTube video, or selected phone number or text to your Android device running Froyo (or Android 2.2).

Suppose youre reading an interesting article on your favorite news website and need to leave for an urgent appointment. Simply click the extension icon in your browser to send the link to your phone and the devices browser will automatically open the link, ready for you to view on the go. Chrome to Phone also works seamlessly with Google Maps. Say you’ve looked up an address or driving directions on your desktop. Clicking the extension icon in your browser will push the information to the Google Maps app on your phone. YouTube videos work the same way with the extension. You can also select a phone number on a web page and send it to the dialer on your phone. Selected text can also be automatically copied from your browser and sent to your Android clipboard for later viewing.



The Chrome to Phone extension is available in English for now, but we hope to expand to other languages soon. Check out the help center if you have further questions. To get Chrome to Phone, install the extension in your Google Chrome browser and the Android application on your phone from Android Market, and you’re ready to go.

Posted by Dave Burke, Engineering Manager

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Share and personalize your Google Goggles experience with Goggles 1 4

Since its launch, we have worked to make Google Goggles faster and more accurate when returning search results for a wide variety of images. Today, we are taking several steps to make Goggles a better and more personal experience. Goggles 1.4 for Android devices introduces an enhanced search history experience, the ability to suggest better results to Google if we are not able to accurately match your image, and improved business card recognition.

Enhanced search history
The new search history experience lets you search your Goggles results, make personal notes on specific results and share your results with friends. When you add a personal note to a Goggles result, the note will appear in your search history. I’m trying to learn more about wine, so when I taste something new, it’s easy for me to add a note to help me remember what I liked about the wine. Later, I can search my search history for words in my note to help me find that bottle that went so well with steak. Read more about how to enable search history for Goggles here.

To make a personal note, tap the pencil in the corner when viewing a search result.

Notes are intended to help you better organize your search history, so if you choose to share a result with a friend, your notes will not be shared. However, you can always add a personalized message to your friend when you share your results with them.

Share a result by sending a link to your friends.

Suggest a better result
We are constantly working to improve the accuracy of Goggles at recognizing certain categories of items, but visual recognition is still a complicated task. With Goggles 1.4, you are now able to suggest a better result when Goggles cannot find an image match, or the quality of the result is poor.

To send your suggestion to Google, tap “Can you suggest a better result?” on the results page. You can then select the relevant part of the image and submit a tag. Tags will be used to improve recognition in object categories where Goggles already provides some results, like artwork or wine bottles.

When suggesting a better result, you can crop the image and add a description.

Improved business card recognition
Business card recognition is one of the most popular uses of Google Goggles, so were rolling out some new updates to make the experience even quicker and easier. Additionally, instead of simply recognizing the content as text, Goggles now recognizes the information as a contact, making it easier to add to your phones contact list.

Call or add the person directly as a contact

Google Goggles is available for Android 1.6+ devices. Download it by visiting Android Market or by scanning the QR code below:

Posted by Jacob Smullyan, Software Engineer

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Greenify App now Works on Non Rooted Devices – Helps you Hibernate Apps with Ease

For Android power users, especially those who are not afraid to root their beloved devices, a world of root-only apps becomes instantly available. One app which is particularly famous among root-users is Greenify. The app provides users with the capability to hibernate apps running in the background, which helps to save precious processor resources as well as improving upon battery life. In combination with an Xposed module, Greenify can be used to hibernate system apps as well, without sacrificing push notification functionality. Click here for our guide on using Greenify.

For the general Android user, who does not want to root his device, Greenify in its previous avatar was useless. For the uninitiated, rooting is process wherein users of the Android ecosystem can gain privileged access or control of their devices. Rooting allows users read-write access to the system partition, which is useful when a user wants to make changes at the deepest level. Our guide on Android’s rooting terms will help you sort through the confusion.

The developers of Greenify have definitely given thought to this fact that most Android users were unable to use their app due to the root access requirement. The latest update to the app today does away with root access and now the app can be used on any Android device. Now you can finally stop Facebook from running in the background and draining your battery.

The only downside to the revocation of the root access requirement is that the apps are not automatically hibernated once you launch them. This is where you can use the Greenify widget which gets installed along with the app. Once you place the Greenify widget on your home screen, just tap it once in a while and it will hibernate all running apps and provide you with better battery life and overall better device responsiveness.

If the performance of your Android smartphone or tablet has started lagging since the time you bought it, and the RAM on your device is 1 GB or less; we would suggest that you give the Greenify app a go – especially since the basic functionality of Greenify is free. Do let us know in the comments below what you think of Greenify. Also for your convenience we have added the Play Store link to the app below.

The post Greenify App now Works on Non-Rooted Devices – Helps you Hibernate Apps with Ease appeared first on AndroidHeadlines.com |.

via AndroidHeadlines.com | http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/01/greenify-app-now-works-non-rooted-devices-helps-hibernate-apps-ease.html

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Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini with Android 4 2 now listed on company site

Micromax has finally introduced the Canvas Turbo Mini, which is now listed on the companys site, however, it has not yet disclosed pricing and availability details.

The Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini was also previously listed for Rs. 14,490 without availability at an e-commerce website, and the online retailer now notes a two-three business days delivery time. However, Micromax has yet officially announce the smartphone for the Indian market.

The Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini is the mini-variant of the companys first full-HD display smartphone, the Canvas Turbo, which was launched in October last year.

The Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini (A200) is a dual-SIM (GSM+GSM) device which runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box. The official listing of the smartphone notes that the device supports one regular SIM, and one micro-SIM.

It comes with a 4.7-inch (720x1280 pixels) HD IPS display. The Canvas Turbo Mini is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor with 1GB of RAM.

The Canvas Turbo Mini features 4GB of inbuilt storage, while is further expandable up to 32GB via microSD card. It sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, while there is a secondary 5-megapixel front-facing camera.

On the connectivity front, the Canvas Turbo Mini includes 3G, Wi-Fi, Micro-USB, and Bluetooth. The yet-to-be-announced Micromax Canvas Turbo Mini packs an 1800mAh battery, which according to the listing, delivers up to 6.5 hours of talktime and up to 180 hours of standby time on 2G network. The smartphone also comes with some preloaded apps such as Games (Bubble X Slice and Catch a Mouse), Kingsoft, Hike, Opera Mini and M! Live.

Mobiles launched in January 2014

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Gaming exoskeleton to pair with Oculus Rift headset at CES 2014

PrioVR, the full-body tracking suit, rebounds from its failed Kickstarter with a fully-functional prototype at CES 2014 that will pair with the Oculus Rift headset.

 

The PrioVR full-body tracking suit will be paired with the Oculus Rifts immersive headset at CES 2014 for an unprecedented virtual reality experience.

(Credit: Nick Statt/CNET) 

 

  LAS VEGAS -- The future of gaming, at least to those banking on the rise of virtual reality, lies not just with better graphics or voice control, but with sensor suits and headsets that bring our real-world movements to life onscreen. At CES 2014, the PrioVR full-body tracking suit is on display and the company behind it, YEI Technology, is partnering with VR headset maker Oculus Rift to showoff a fully immersive gaming experience later this week.

Sailing toward the far-off sci-fi future of those powered exoskeletons in "The Matrix" or the video game series Crysis, the PrioVR hardware is a string of strap-on sensors extensive enough to make anyone look like an actor in a motion capture studio. Its half-body system includes sensors for a users head, elbows, and wrists that can be expanded into a full-body suit that tracks ones shoulder, waist and leg movements.

"That allows you to drop on the ground, roll around, shoot under your leg, curl up into a fetal position," said Paul Yost, YEIs chief of R&D. "We have this collection of inertial sensors that combines with a software that ties all that together into this skeletal model. All that happens on the system itself, so theres no computational load on the PC other than the communication."

 

(Credit: Nick Statt/CNET) 

 

Combined with that software are API plug-ins, Yost pointed out, that are compatible with all major gaming engines, allowing developers to drop the suit support into into any application with relative ease. PCs are the starting point, but YEI hopes to expand to consoles as well.

As far as movement goes, players wield a nunchuk-like controller similar to that of the original Wii to navigate the game environment and utilize both hands and his or her upper body to make more nuanced movements. On the floor at CES, a user strapped into the half-body PrioVR prototype played a first-person shooter demo, shifting in his chair to peek out of corners and furiously angling a virtual weapon with his hands.

While this iteration of the PrioVR is new, YEIs attempts to jump into the VR market trace back to last fall. PrioVR originally launched on Kickstarter last September, where it racked up an impressive $111,000 but failed to meet its $225,000 goal.

Read the rest of this post --->

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