Along with all of this come the additional benefits of: pizza, beer, competitions (there were an insane amount of competitions last year), freebies, and more free beer!

For those of you unfamiliar with droidcon here is an excerpt from their website:

Droidcon London 2011 is Europe’s largest conference that exclusively covers Android development and applications. The conference will take place in London on 6th-7th October 2011.

Droidcon London 2011 has grown tremendously since last year, in line with the exponential interest in the Android platform. This year, upward of 600 Android enthusiasts will rub shoulders with the premier experts in the field to dig into every aspect of Android and its ever-growing ecosystem. High on the agenda this time around are Android for the Tablet, Android in the Enterprise, Android for Games, Android for business, Augmented Reality, multi-mobile and a whole lot more.

The first day will be community led with a full-day Barcamp and Democamp. The second day will be conference day, with presentations from some of the world’s foremost Android experts, including two Google Developer Advocates Richard Hyndman and Nick Butcher, Mark Murphy (CommonsWare), Al Sutton, and Kieran Gutteridge (I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting the other speakers yet). A full list of presenters is available here.

You can register via the Droidcon London 2011 site: (http://www.droidcon.co.uk)

Follow Droidcon London 2011 on Twitter: @DroidconUK tags: #droidconUK #droidcon

Follow Droidcon London 2011 on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/droidconuk/

I made a promo image for the wallpapers that should be visible on the market place any time now. I have limited art skills so this is the best I could come up with:

Nexus Revamped promo image

Jazz-hands (multi-touch)

I managed to fix a bug with multi-touch in my code, thanks to this question on stackoverflow. This now means that my wallpaper will work with up to 10 fingers or “jazz-hands”. This also fixes some of the crashes that were occurring on devices with 3.1 and up.

Save / load themes

I’ve also added the option for users to save their own themes so that if you have a few you like you don’t have to keep changing all the settings back and forth. This is also a step towards the next update I have planned whereby users can upload/download themes with a rating system and all the junk.

Save custom themes

Better tablet / honeycomb support
I’ve added several improvements for large screen devices / tablets, the whole wallpaper is scaled effectively so that it no longer is just a giant zoomed in version of the phone wallpaper, and multiple more graphical changes to improve usability.

Nexus Revamped on a xoom

Android Market Links
Either click the following android market links (in android phone) or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)

Free Version

The free version is the same as the pro version but with some of the fancier features are missing, and some non-intrusive adverts. Both versions are fully supported.

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

Full changelog (since last blog post at version 1.98.01)

1.98.14

• Bug Fix: Multi-touch force close bug fixed
• Improved: Due to above bug fix, multi-touch now supports more fingers. This is great for tablets with ‘jazz hands’ support (more than 5 fingers!)
• Added: Ability to save custom themes (Preset > User)
• Added: Red Grid theme
• Improved: Thumbnail images in preset menu scaled to screensize

1.98.12

• Added: New & exciting Color changer dialog!
• Added: Loads of new textures, try adding a background tint to make these more personal!
• Added: German translation (thanks Steven!)
• Added: Danish translation (thanks Johan!)
• Added: Russian translation (thanks Dmitry!)
• Added: Licence information
• Improved: Transparent theme consistent throughout all settings now
• Improved: Wallpaper changes scale based on screensize to better suit tablets etc.
• Improved: Honeycomb background was a bit shoddy, fixed!
• Improved: Icons/gfx more suitable for range of screensizes
• Improved: Background tints are applied once on bitmaps rather than every frame, saving cpu time
• Removed: Some unused functions and boring code
• Bug Fix: Appearance bug in changelog fixed (doh!)

1.98.10

• Added: Spanish translation (thanks Hector!)
• Added: Swedish translation (thanks Joar!)
• Added: Preset option for quick setting of common themes
• Help me: if you want to add translations please email me!
• Added: Added a cool carbon fibre background option!
• Added: Differentiation between market places
• Bug Fix: When configuring livewallpaper via launcher pro or similar some settings were not automatically updated
• Bug Fix: Email in the about section will actually fill in my email address, surprise nobody spotted this sooner! Also added some information into each email to help me with issues.

1.98.09

• Bug Fix: Minor bug in revert to default settings
• Bug Fix: Minor bug in open application from market or settings

1.98.08

• Added: Power saver in the reactions menu, can make the wallpaper static when battery reaches a certain percentage.
• Added: Norwegian translation added (thanks Dan!)
• Added: Obfuscation for improved efficiency and to help decrease piracy
• Bug Fix: Glow size was forgotten on screen power off

1.98.07

• Added: Particle scaling, like the Nexus S live wallpaper
• Improved: Got sexy transparent menus working again, enjoy!
• Improved: Dialogs look better on small screens and with different orientations; some screens are now scrollable in the next version this will be replaced with a better solution
• Moved: Disable analytics is now in advanced menu
• Bug Fix: Fixed a FC bug
• Bug Fix: Using a custom background then renaming the file will no longer cause a FC

1.98.05

• Added: Option to display FPS on screen (Advanced > FPS)
• Added: Rotation on battery level
• Bug fix: Memory leak from using custom backgrounds fixed (hopefully)
• Bug fix: When Multi-touch option was disabled normal touch would not function
• Improved: Code backend made more efficient by combining some classes
• Added: Cool new background called “The Grid”

Portal 2 Soundboard running on motorola xoom (honeycomb actionbar support)

And on pre-honeycomb devices:

Portal 2 Soundboard running on Nexus one

Download Links
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.stealthcopter.portal2

Portal 2 soundboard is now 42nd in free entertainment apps in the android market, woop!

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from random import shuffle,randint,choice
from copy import copy
alphabet=range(0,26)

def shift(l, n): # Method to rotate arrays/cogs
	return l[n:] + l[:n]

class cog: # Simple substitution cipher for each cog
	def create(self):
		self.transformation=copy(alphabet)
		shuffle(self.transformation)
		return
	def passthrough(self,i):
		return self.transformation[i]
	def passthroughrev(self,i):
		return self.transformation.index(i)
	def rotate(self):
		self.transformation=shift(self.transformation, 1)
	def setcog(self,a):
		self.transformation=a

class enigma: # Enigma class
	def __init__(self, nocogs,printspecialchars):
		self.printspecialchars=printspecialchars
		self.nocogs=nocogs
		self.cogs=[]
		self.oCogs=[] # Create backup of original cog positions for reset

		for i in range(0,self.nocogs): # Create cogs
			self.cogs.append(cog())
			self.cogs[i].create()
			self.oCogs.append(self.cogs[i].transformation)

		# Create reflector
		refabet=copy(alphabet)
		self.reflector=copy(alphabet)
		while len(refabet)>0:
			a=choice(refabet)
			refabet.remove(a)
			b=choice(refabet)
			refabet.remove(b)
			self.reflector[a]=b
			self.reflector[b]=a

	def print_setup(self): # To print the enigma setup for debugging/replication
		print "Enigma Setup:\nCogs: ",self.nocogs,"\nCog arrangement:"
		for i in range(0,self.nocogs):
			print self.cogs[i].transformation
		print "Reflector arrangement:\n",self.reflector,"\n"

	def reset(self):
		for i in range(0,self.nocogs):
			self.cogs[i].setcog(self.oCogs[i])

	def encode(self,text):
		ln=0
		ciphertext=""
		for l in text.lower():
			num=ord(l)%97
			if (num>25 or num<0):
				if (self.printspecialchars): # readability
					ciphertext+=l
				else:
					pass # security
			else:
				ln+=1
				for i in range(0,self.nocogs): # Move thru cogs forward...
					num=self.cogs[i].passthrough(num)

				num=self.reflector[num] # Pass thru reflector

				for i in range(0,self.nocogs): # Move back thru cogs...
					num=self.cogs[self.nocogs-i-1].passthroughrev(num)
				ciphertext+=""+chr(97+num) # add encrypted letter to ciphertext

				for i in range(0,self.nocogs): # Rotate cogs...
					if ( ln % ((i*6)+1) == 0 ): # in a ticker clock style
						self.cogs[i].rotate()
		return ciphertext

plaintext="""The most common arrangement used a ratchet and pawl mechanism.
Each rotor had a ratchet with 26 teeth and, every time a key was pressed, each
of the pawls corresponding to a particular rotor would move forward in unison,
trying to engage with a ratchet, thus stepping the attached rotor once. A thin
metal ring attached to each rotor upon which the pawl rode normally prevented
this. As this ring rotated with its rotor, a notch machined into it would
eventually align itself with the pawl, allowing it to drop into position, engage
with the ratchet, and advance the rotor. The first rotor, having no previous
rotor (and therefore no notched ring controlling a pawl), stepped with every
key press. The five basic rotors (I–V) had one notch each, while the additional
naval rotors VI, VII and VIII had two notches. The position of the notch on each
rotor was determined by the letter ring which could be adjusted in relation to
the core containing the interconnections. The points on the rings at which they
caused the next wheel to move were as follows"""

x=enigma(4,True)
#x.print_setup()

print "Plaintext:\n"+plaintext+"\n"
ciphertext=x.encode(plaintext)
print "Ciphertext:\n"+ciphertext+"\n"

# To proove that encoding and decoding are symmetrical
# we reset the enigma to starting conditions and enter
# the ciphertext, and get out the plaintext
x.reset()
plaintext=x.encode(ciphertext)
print "Plaintext:\n"+plaintext+"\n"

Feel free to tear it apart and show me how much better/easier it could have been!

Find it on the android market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.stealthcopter.liveview.plugins.alarmclock

Would love some feedback from anyone with a LiveView, there must be someone else out there who has one right?

Sony Ericsson LiveView Alarm Clock Plugin

There are two types of plugins.
1. Announce plug-in

Announce plug-ins can send announcements to the LiveView™ device. This is done in
the same way as the predefined announce features, like Facebook and Twitter.

Gmail Plugin Emails

The SDK Announce plugin (helloWorldPlugin) example is very simple and and mostly contains code scheduling a timer to send events to the phone along. This is a single class which is supported by a small number of helper classes and the plugin only contains a few things foreign to a typical android application:

Just extend the class provided by the SDK for plugins:

public class HelloWorldService extends AbstractPluginService {

Send updates to the phone using the following function:

mLiveViewAdapter.sendAnnounce(mPluginId, mMenuIcon, header, body, System.currentTimeMillis(), "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world_program");

Where:
mPluginId – identifies which app send the update
mMenuIcon – the icon the update will appear with
header – the title (IE: email subject)
body – the main text (IE: email text)
timestamp – timestamp of the announcement
link – action to perform when user clicks at end of message (event to occur on phone). This is interpreted by overriding the function below:

@Override
	protected void openInPhone(String openInPhoneAction) {
		Log.d(PluginConstants.LOG_TAG, "openInPhone: " + openInPhoneAction);

		// Open in browser.
		final Uri uri = Uri.parse(openInPhoneAction);
		final Intent browserIntent = new Intent();
		browserIntent.setData(uri);
		browserIntent.setClassName("com.android.browser", "com.android.browser.BrowserActivity");
		browserIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
		startActivity(browserIntent);
}

2. Sandbox

The sandbox plug-in can take complete control of the LiveView™ device by sending
images to it and control its ability to vibrate and display different colors on the LED. All
user activities are propagated to the plug-in, so that it can take appropriate actions.

Contact Call Plugin

We extend the same class however this time we say yes when we are asked if we are a sandbox plugin:

    @Override
	protected boolean isSandboxPlugin() {
        return true;
    }

So now rather than using sendAnnounce to send text to the liveview we directly send images. Below is a function used that draws some text to a bitmap and then sends it to be displayed.

    public static void sendTextBitmap(LiveViewAdapter liveView, int pluginId, String text, int bitmapSizeX, int fontSize) {
        // Empty bitmap and link the canvas to it
        Bitmap bitmap = null;
        try {
            bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(bitmapSizeX, fontSize, Bitmap.Config.RGB_565);
        }
        catch(IllegalArgumentException  e) {
            return;
        }

        Canvas canvas = new Canvas(bitmap);

        // Set the text properties in the canvas
        TextPaint textPaint = new TextPaint();
        textPaint.setTextSize(fontSize);
        textPaint.setColor(Color.WHITE);

        // Create the text layout and draw it to the canvas
        Layout textLayout = new StaticLayout(text, textPaint, bitmapSizeX, Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_CENTER, 1, 1, false);
        textLayout.draw(canvas);

        try
        {
            liveView.sendImageAsBitmap(pluginId, centerX(bitmap), centerY(bitmap), bitmap);
        } catch(Exception e) {
            Log.d(PluginConstants.LOG_TAG, "Failed to send bitmap", e);
        }
    }

So we can create a similar function drawing whatever we want to a bitmap and then passing it onto the screen.

Only one thing left (I think). Intercepting button presses:

@Override
	protected void button(String buttonType, boolean doublepress, boolean longpress) {
          ....
         }

Where the the following buttons are defined:

• PluginConstants.BUTTON_UP
• PluginConstants.BUTTON_DOWN
• PluginConstants.BUTTON_LEFT
• PluginConstants.BUTTON_RIGHT
• PluginConstants.BUTTON_SELECT

and we can see if the were tapped or held down with the boolean longpress. Note that we cannot detect longpresses of select as that will exit your plugin and the power button at all as that controls the screen.

My Attempt at a plugin: Alarm Clock
So I thought given that this thing is pretty much a watch, it would be useful to be able to set an alarm with it.

Plugin Icon

12hr clock (select sets alarm)

24hr clock

Unfortunately I don’t think it is possible to set the alarm programatically in android in versions prior to gingerbread (posted a stackoverflow question about it). So the user base is very limited, only users with gingerbread and higher with a LiveView will be able to use it so I don’t expect a massive response. Also I have no idea if this will work with non-stock alarm clock apps as I’m not aware of any manufacturers modification of gingerbread as of yet.

The LiveView application on the phone handles links to all the shared preferences for the plugins (they’re mandatory just for the enable/disable option) but an example is included in all the examples and it is very simple to just add more options to the preferences.xml and grab them in the code.

LiveView plugin settings

Alarm set via plugin

Conc
If you want more info please read the documentation linked at the start of this post. I will probably release the liveview alarm clock plugin onto the market soon, but I don’t expect the reception to be that good as it will only work on a few phones / tablets. Anyway I had fun programming for mine, enjoy!

Sony Ericsson LiveView Watch

Bluetooth connection
Well this is the major downfall of the device, it cannot hold a bluetooth connection very well with my phones (Nexus One and Desire HD) and constantly requires you to pull your phone out of your pocket to scan for bluetooth devices, pair with it, disconnect and reconnect in the LiveView program, restart your phone, or turn watch off and on in pairing mode.

LiveView lost connection

This problem was significantly worse before installing the firmware update onto the LiveView (something which I strongly suggest as now it is only half as buggy). However the firmware update for this LiveView will only work on a Windows machine boo!!!

I’ve checked around a few forums and found that the bluetooth connection issues seem to be phone specific with the sony ericsson phones performing much better.

Builtin apps

• Text messages – shows text messages you have received
• Find phone – plays a sound on phone so you can find it… would be useful if I didn’t have to find my phone first to accept the pairing request!
• RSS – not tested this, obvious what it does though
• Missed calls – shows any missed calls you’ve had
• Music control – volume control, next/prev, play/pause and sometimes displays current track name/artist

Plugins
There is a fairly complete list of plugins avaliable for liveview on the sony ericsson blog: blogs.sonyericsson.com. There aren’t too many apps available so it’s quite easy for devs to find something that hasn’t been done before with the liveview.

All the ones I’ve tried are quite good and function well but are perhaps not as ascetically pleasing as they could have been but I’m not going to complain about that.

Ones I’ve tried:

• Gmail – Alerts you to new gmails and lets you read a snippet
• Calendar plugin – Monthly view and agenda
• Contact call – Browse contacts and intiate a call, I managed to accidentally call someone using this leading to much hilarity…
• Binary clock – A binary clock, quite fun for geeks

Update issues
Most of the functions in the watch are for updates; tweets, text messages, emails etc… Unfortunatly many of these ‘plugins’ do not update properly, only showing updates that occurred whilst the watch was actively connected which means according to LiveView the last text I receive was 4 days ago… but I have had several since then… don’t think it would be very hard to fetch this information.

Lack of update for 4 days

Just as a watch
So I decided I’d give this device a chance of working solely as a watch for a day.

The battery life quite good, still shows a full battery icon after 9 hours, which isn’t that shocking as the screen is only turned on when you want to know the time and it seldom requires to use bluetooth. I do wonder if it actually keeps track of the time onboard or if it keeps syncing (I suspect it doesn’t sync due to battery life and troubles syncing when using functions).

Conclusion
I’ve really tried hard to like this device but it really isn’t making it easy for me. I would recommend it if:

• You’re a developer with a sony ericsson phone
• Or the fun of writing an app will overwhelm the annoyance of constantly repairing

I wouldn’t recommend it if:

• You’re an end user, looking for a cool watch
• You’re need to rely on your watch to function
• You want your watch to have all the standard functions
• You don’t like re-pairing bluetooth devices repeatedly

Next
In my next post I’ll talk about the LiveView SDK and creating a LiveView plugin.

Box of 16 dead zebra android collectibles

16 dead zebra android collectibles unboxed

The Cupcake one actually smells of cupcakes!!! amazing!

We actually ordered the last box (sorry!) of 16 from funkypeanut.co.uk for just over £100 including delivery, singles are still available though. There were actually some issues with paypal when checking out for this, but the admin of the store sent an email shortly afterwards to sort it out manually, great customer service!

Below shows the explanation in the market of why my live wallpaper requests full internet permission:

Internet permission explanation in android market for nexus revamped live wallpaper

And this image shows one user complaining about the permission in the reviews:

Complaining about permissions in review without reading description

This combined with the inability to respond to comments to explain how the commenter is an idiot (something the amazon app store allows) can severely hinder your applications downloads, as sales are strongly influenced to the ratings of the last three comments.

Solution

• Allow developers to add explanations to certain permissions so that users can understand why your app might (optionally) need access to your contacts, use the internet, or send an text message etc…
• Allow developers to specifiy which permissions are optional giving the user the ability to deny an applications access some permission. This could be handled automatically in android with a popup box saying an app is trying to use an optional permission would you like to allow etc… similar to how the super user stuff works in rooted phones, or the background data/gps etc…

Would love to hear other developer’s opinions or alternate ideas!

Anyway enough of the boring stuff, let’s see what’s new. Something I’m REALLY excited about (hence the caps) is multi-touch! It is so much fun just playing with a blank home screen creating particles! Unfortunatly this isn’t something which translates well into a screenshot, so you’ll just have to try it out for yourself.

Nexus Revamped 1.98.01 screenshot

New Particle Appearance Screen

I’d like to thank all of my beta testers for the very helpful feedback I have got over the past couple of weeks. There is much more to mention but I am now absolutely knackered. I’m sure I’ll follow this post up soon with some more interesting things. Enjoy!

Changelog

1.98.01

• Improved: Now using OpenGL to draw the live wallpaper, which should give approximately a 16x performance increase (awesome eh?)
• Added: MULTI-TOUCH!!! :O
• Improved: Lowered file size from over 1Mb to less than 300Kb
• Added: Option to not spawn particles when dragging / swiping across screens etc, set by default
• Added: Anayltics see which areas need improving
• Added: Sexy Particle appearance dialog to set saturation and tail length
• Removed: Tail length and particle saturation (see above)
• Added: Custom colors for battery level colored particles
• Added: Speed now allows you to set the minimum and maximum speed
• Removed: Removed speed deviation (see above)
• Improved: Scaling can go negative now (i.e. shrinking)
• Improved: Lots of default values changed to make prettier on first run
• Improved: Speed and Spawning decoupled from FPS settings, should be uniform now
• Improved: Max FPS setting now 80 (25 is recommended still)
• Improved: Max speed increased
• Improved: Max tail size increased
• Improved: Max particle number increased
• Improved: Added some nice icons in the about menu
• Bug Fix: Particle alignment works more consistently on different screen sizes and scales

Android Market Links
Either click the following android market links (in android phone) or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)

Free Version

The free version is the same as the pro version but with some of the fancier features are missing, and some non-intrusive adverts. Both versions are fully supported.

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

Download link

HTC Desire HD stand and battery charger

What’s that awesome live wallpaper? It’s the latest beta of nexus revamped! This dock has been really useful for development of this livewallpaper, so handy/convenient.

AND guess what else??? I’ve added multi-touch! Unfortunately as exciting as it is, it doesn’t translate well into a screenshot so you’ll just have to try the beta or wait for the release on the market.

How do I sign up for this awesome beta?
Just send me an email (beta at stealthcopter.com) or leave a comment below with a valid email (it wont be displayed on-site) and I’ll add you to my beta testers mailing list.



Android Market Links (FOR OLD VERSION, NOT FOR BETA)
If you don’t fancy the beta, but still want to install the livewallpaper you can install the old version and wait for the update (probably about 1 to 2 weeks away) either click the following android market links (in android phone), scan the QR codes or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)

Free Version

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

Hi-voltage – link

Hi-voltage dead zebra android figure

Can see the black behind the yellow outline and arms are coloured slightly differently.

Copperbot – link

Copperbot dead zebra android figure

Line along middle of head doesn’t line up but overall quite good quality

Reactor – link

Reactor dead zebra android figure

Overall quite good but again the arms don’t quite match, the glow in the dark is very cool though. Below shows photos of the reactor android figure under UV light and then it’s residual glow (apologies for my poor photography skills)

All together

Dead Zebra figures from dealextreme

Avaliable to buy at dealextreme. The last couple of photos have the android figure standing on some aerogel on my desk.

I love the Dead zebra android toys but I’ve found that they are impossible to get a hold of any. Thankfully dealextreme have them in stock each picture links to the dealextreme page for each android:

Most of the figures cost around $5 with some of them a little bit more $7.50 (suit, space invader, tribal). I’ll post an update with images when they arrive.

Q: How can the prisoners tell, with certainty, that all 26 of them have visited the central living room with the light bulb.

Riddle:
26 prisoners are in solitary cells, unable to see, speak or communicate in any way from those solitary cells with each other. There’s a central living room with one light bulb; the bulb is initially off. No prisoner can see the light bulb from his own cell. Everyday, the warden picks a prisoner at random, and that prisoner goes to the central living room. While there, the prisoner can toggle the bulb if he or she wishes. Also, the prisoner has the option of asserting the claim that all 26 prisoners have been to the living room. If this assertion is false (that is, some prisoners still haven’t been to the living room), all 26 prisoners will be shot for their stupidity. However, if it is indeed true, all prisoners are set free. Thus, the assertion should only be made if the prisoner is 100% certain of its validity.

Solution

I won’t explain the solution in words as that might ruin it if you were planning on figuring it out, instead I have posted some python code that calculates the probability of number of days it will take.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from random import randint

bin=[]
binstep=50

# Loop
for i in xrange(0,50000):

	nopris=26
	light=0
	count=0
	days=0

	# Create a set of prisoners with value 0 or 1
	# for having visited the room when light is off
	p=[]
	for i in range(0,nopris):
		p.append(0)

	# Until all prisoners have switched light on and have
	# been counted
	while count<nopris-1:
		x=randint(0,nopris-1)
		# First person to be picked is the counter
		if days==0:
			counter=x
			p[x]=1
		# Counter adds one if light is on and resets it
		elif x==counter and light==1:
			light=0
			count+=1
		# If light is off and prisoner hasn't turned light
		# on before he does so
		elif p[x]==0 and light==0:
			p[x]=1
			light=1
		else:
			pass
		days+=1

	# Expand our bin if it isn't big enough
	while days>len(bin)*binstep:
		bin.append(0)
	bin[days/binstep]+=1	

# Just chucking data into a histogram type layout
# to speed up processing afterwards (I'm crap at
# openoffice stuff)
for i in range(0,len(bin)):
	print i*binstep+binstep/2,",",bin[i]

For 50k iterations I got the following output:

$ python prisoners.py
25 , 0
75 , 0
125 , 0
175 , 0
225 , 0
275 , 0
325 , 2
375 , 31
425 , 162
475 , 636
525 , 1659
575 , 3492
625 , 5448
675 , 7134
725 , 7755
775 , 7103
825 , 5758
875 , 4341
925 , 2884
975 , 1701
1025 , 909
1075 , 511
1125 , 255
1175 , 124
1225 , 63
1275 , 25
1325 , 4
1375 , 2
1425 , 1

Which shown as a histogram looks like:

Histogram for the 26 prisoners problem (50k iterations)

Let me know how you’d improve this method or any other cool logic problems I can have a go at

How to get it for £87.10

• +£12 Go through a cashback website like quidco and click through to the orangeshop
• Once at the website goto orangeshop student select PAYG and enter your NUS code or just enter 000000000000000 they don’t verify it!!! for a 10% discount (this was a tip off from someone at droidcon, but I didn’t manage to catch name please let me know if it was you and you can have the credit)
• £99 + £10 Topup Select San Fransisco in Gray or San Fransisco in White
• -£9.90 Your 10% discount will now be applied ^_^ Choose which tariff you want, I chose dolphin as you get free internet and 300 texts when you topup £10
• Total £87.10, win!

It’s a good phone and it’s very easy to flash a custom rom onto if you don’t like the orange one. I got the rom and followed the guide at modaco.

Again as this is quite a long post here is a mini table of contents to speed it up:

• Excellence in the Android User Experience
• Android reuse models
• Make it fun
• Monetize your apps in emerging marketss
• Android behind the scenes
• Make it fun
• Android has a “dude” problem
• Other

Excellence in the Android User Experience

Romain Nurik talks about creating applications with great UX and great UI, this follows on from a similar presentation he has posted up on slideshare.

Roman Nurik making android pretty

Android reuse models

Mark Murphey discussed some of the ways in which we can reduce lots of android developers reinventing the wheel everytime we need something. There are a few methods that a developer can use for distributional:

• Souce Code
• As an Application
• As a jar
• Library
• Combine the two above methods, and distribute a jar in a library. As we don’t live in a perfect world source code cannot always be distributed (Remember to create a licence)

Libraries can be used to solve problems for people who want free and paid versions of the app, and don’t want to maintain two versions of the code. Google have shown a google example by creating the LVL code as a library for app developers to use.

Resource name collisions can still be a problem, but this can be solved by using a prefix that is unlikely to be used by the child application. Mark shows an example of this in his color mixer widget that uses “cwac_colormixer” as a prefix. You can find lots of mark’s cool projects on his github: githubcom/commonsguy

Mark went on to discuss that we need a place to collect code to reuse and mentioned building a community website for this purpose, also saying “I can’t write a website to save my soul, I ain’t doing it!”

During the talk/questions, a great open source view was mentioned Swipe view by @jasonfry which is like view flipper but the animations between the views are not static and more like the home screen.

Make it fun

This was basically a demo of using the Unity 3D framework for creating applications that can be run on iphone/ipad/android/wii/computer. Seemed to have some cool features but I will let them do their own sales talk.

Monetize your apps in emerging markets

This was an interesting talk by a guy from movend who discussed the concept of marketing your apps to emerging markets. For a lot of people in emerging markets the phone is the only access to the internet, social networking, and gaming/entertainment device.

He had some intersting statistics on mobile phone payments. Asia Pacific accounts for $62.8 million in mobile phone payments and the rest of the world only accounts for $45.8 million. The market for mobile app revenue is estimated at $135million for 2009 and at $4 billion for 2010.

Market is extremely fragmented, android market does not exist in certain countries/handsets. Try to get your application pre-loaded onto a phone and target what specific users like. Apparently the Chinese like to play mmorpg the most. Micro-transactions are a great was to add value to a free application.

Android has a “dude” problem

Lady geek and ladygeektv

This presentation started with a great slide:

Ladygeek android penis

Only 5% women want an android phone whereas 50% want an iphone. She goes on to discuss why we as developers should care. Apparently women buy more gadgets than men, and between the ages of 25-39 there are more female gamers than men!

She then used this awesome droid advert as a demonstration of how android is currently marketed which contains the awesome quote of “Race horse duct taped to a scud missile, fast”

Android behind the scenes

Sony Erricson sharing some behind the scenes information about how they work on android.

They were constantly trying to remind developers that they are very open and are contributing changes upstream to the android project. They are interested in decoupling applications from android so that signature apps are built on top rather than into android. I believe they said this was the case for their sexy timescape view:

Sony Ericsson Timescape

Sony Erricson want to be very in touch with devs and they don’t believe creating seperate communities will help anything and instead will provide support in current communities such as stackoverflow and google groups.

They briefly mentioned the Ericsson application awards 2011 which has a theme of “Connected things” and has 4 prizes of 15,000 each with phones awarded throughout different stages of the competition. They will also provide live beta testers to evaluate your application.

Other

We had a quick play on some of the cool new android tablets.

Android Tablet

There were some free android usb sticks, which someone said were from orange but there was no branding on or nearby them.

Android 2gb usb stick

As this is quite a long post here is a mini table of contents to speed it up:

• Git on android
• Swingme
• Google Bootcamp 1
• Alternative Markets
• Meta-Markets
• Google Bootcamp 2
• How I do it
• Apps for good
• App Circus
• Rest

Schedule

Barcamp schedule (sorry for crap pic)

Git on android

This was a really surprising talk, just by the name it’s a little confusing as to why this would be useful but it was a really good talk. A guy from who works at the guardian (need to find name) walked through all the problems he came across when trying to use git on android and how using open source goodness he could simplify a lot of trouble by simply extending pre-written code and even create work arounds for troublesome bugs.

It was a very interesting talk just to see how everything had fitted together and to see a demo of some sexy git-based syncing, including using some ssh agents securely.

Swing me

swingme
Draft still…too tired to write.
A single UI widget toolset that can easily be ported to other operating systems. Uses guestures pinch zoom all the things you would be used to. Non-android specific code and can specify protocols nicely to cooperate with different devices. Removes hassle on behalf of developer, debug using xml, then switch to binary mode for performance
.
Difference between keys on certain phones… assign buttons, like “back” as a button on phones with dedicated back buttons ie nokia soft key hidden and at bottom, android will hide it and use android hardware back button. IE. unhidden back button not hidden (good solving of problem)

Problems with accessing core bits of anroid but private/protected stuff. Radio easy but problem with tick box.
Missing clipboard (almost finished, work on android, symbian, desktop… lol @ apple)
Still use native android based stuff

Google Bootcamp 1

So there were four google guys present to answer the questions and complaints of the developers and one to pass the microphone around.

Google Barcamp 1

Someone asked when Gingerbread was going to be released and Reto Meier answered by not confirming anything regarding the release date, be it this year or next. He even went as far as to say that he couldn’t confirm gingerbread’s existence, despite the rather large statue outside building 44

Roman was asked a question about the Action bar and if it was going to become a standard widget in the android apk, he said that it wasn’t currently part of the widget set and couldn’t confirm when it would be added.

Reto mentioned about in app purchasing and said google was looking into other method to monetise can’t comment on specifics. However in app purchasing currently is against the google TOS, so you might want to be careful if your app has this and is distributed via the google market. Of course this is fine to do if released on to another app store such as and app, doubtful that orange and vodaphone app stores would be so generous.

Google tv was mentioned and how to write android on it. Currently only html 5 / web stuff but as it is based on android the plan is to be compatible. So we are waiting for compatability hopefully sometime next year. The google tv’s should receive market via OTA updates so there will probably be no need for OEM manufactures to get in the way. Media server such as a upnp server, status is currently unknown.

In app google analytics was mentioned and another barcamp talk was refered to which unfortunatly I missed, if anyone went to this and has written it up I am happy to add the link in here.

In app logic – services/content providers global = bad, shared prefs, instance state mainly for UI shiz. setters/getters saved pref/database on logic. check if its been set etc. roman/reto

Someone briefly asked about adverts without using the internet permission and instead using an addon/plugin which did access the internet. Currently it seems this is not possible at the moment but is something they may look into in the future.

Have I missed off any of the other topics discussed during this bootcamp, if so let me know!

Alternative Markets

Draft still…too tired to write.
Vodaphone – incentive – random draw to win a htc legend. 30 70 split
Orange – 30 70 again (yawn) want good apps, as many as possible pay via phone bill, no registeration, france/uk last year. need several countries/languages arabic/african etc.
Nokia – no alternative operators, content agregator, locilzation/adaptation/uploads etc… Sensing, in app billing

Individual / OS devs fetching market data/pulling to diff apps sotres as we dont have the time to move to diff places

App stores share with other stores, very nice
Orange apps tied to network you lose them if you move

Meta-Market Model

This talk tied in very nicely with problems regarding using alternative markets discussed in the previous talk. Mark Murphey (Commonsware) discussed an alternative to writing open letter to google (as was discussed via email) about the android market. He created a brain stroming session on the market problems and what can we can do as a community to help improve this for ourselves (devs) and for users.

Mark Murphey Meta Markets

Some of the good problems highlighted by people were:

• Comment spam, and no way to “Reacting to punters” or dealing with users who are “dissing” all apps
• Not enough screenshots / descriptions / add videos etc…
• Searching the market is terrible (My contribution)
• Analytics
• Email messages about cancelled users every time
• Refund policy too leaniant
• Option to explain the reason behind each permission as users don’t know what’s going on when you can’t fit an explanation in the description
• Better rating levels, UI/UX etc.
• Downloads don’t work

The market on android is improving at a “Glacial pace” and even though there was some sexy stuff demonstrated at Google IO 5 months ago we are still waiting to see the improvements, such as a web based market that can push applications to devices.

There was also a good discussion about the websites that scrape data from the android market (appbrain, cryket, androidzoom)which is kinda sketchy territory as it is probably against TOS of android, kinda counting as pirated data. There is even a google code project to fetch the data from the android market.

Data goes in data doesn’t come out
Pirated data not supported by data cant rape data from market.

So what makes this presentation more than just a compaint about the android market?
Market is a closed club, OEM’s who don’t agree to the rule book don’t have access. And simply creating a app store for each carrier/OEM etc. isn’t a viable solution which Mark summarised with a brilliant quote: “those who complain about fragmentation you ain’t seen nothing yet”.

So Mark has come up with an idea about having a single open feed of android applications that all the market applications can hook into. So this would work as some sort of extended atom/rss feed (just add namespace) with open access which could benefit from the standards introduced and the maturity of the software already written. This sounds like a great idea but will obviously need a large amount of momentum to succeed, Mark is obviously a major player in the android field and this proposal was backed up by the developer of AndAppStore.

Mark also mentioned that even market owners who were unwilling could be worked-around using a firefox plugin to remove most of the leg work. So this would mean that developers can have a single place where they have the app description, screen shots, all the minimums required for android market but more for those who support more.

To wrap up mark said that instead of us complaining at google to fix the market we should fix the market problems ourselves. At the end of the session Mark was collecting email addresses to create a mailing list with regards to the start of this process.

How I do it

Kevin McDonagh of Novoda gave some brilliant tips and tricks for writing android applications. I’ve written some of them up, but hopefully he will publish his whole list online (hint hint…)

@Override
public void onLowMemory(){
super.onLowMemory();
// Code to execute on low memory
// Free up unused drawables etc.
}

• Use weak references
• Avoid Generics, use primitives where possible
• Clean up drawables onPause()
• Use the heirachy viewer

Kevin also mentioned some stuff which I’m sure I should have come across before but for some reason I was still oblivious to.

Extending styles to avoid having to retype android:height=”wrap_content” etc. on every item.

There was some good discussion on the conventions for android:versionCode and android:versionName and someone mentioned very helpfully that versionName appears in the market description and is limited only to 255 chars, which means you can add additional versioning changes into this (shown below a screen shot of nexus revamped in the market with the versionName highlighted).

android:versionName displayed in android market

Apps for good
Apps for good is a charity that gets a group of people between the ages of 18 and 25 and gives them the resources and skills required to create an application that can benefit society. Once students have finished the course they often go on to mentor the next batch of students.

The apps they have already produced on this scheme are Stop and Search StudentVoice StudioPhly and they discussed a up and coming app they are working on currently so that the balance of an oyster card can be checked via a android device so that you are never caught out.

They are looking for help so if you are feeling charitable I am sure they would appreciate your input or if you know of anyone 18-25 who would like to go on the course, please inform them of the opportunity.

Google Barcamp 2

Ok, so this barcamp was delayed and I think alot of the better questions were already asked, that in combination with my laptop battery dying mean I have less notes and worse memory about this one.

Google Barcamp day 2

Bundling several apps into one installer apk, currently not possible. Could be achieved by having a program that sends intents to install other apps, or by having one large app with serveal launcher items in the app menu.

Tips from tech hub:

• Devs arn’t always design focussed, should assume users are complete idiots and don’t understand anything.
• Ported apps don’t act in an android style – back button doesn’t close etc, as devs don’t understand application lifecycle

App Circus
So app circus had a bit of a disappointing number of contestants, about 6 I think it was in total hopefully next time there will be more. The winners were

• 1st: Swiftkey
• 2nd: — Blind something? Sorry forgot the proper name
• 3rd: ProductPay

Rest

Coding in a hammock and drinking beer

I also met a lot of very interesting people and plan on meeting a whole load more tomorrow!

Subject: A Message from Android Market
From: Android Market Support
To: android .at. stealthcopter.com
Date: 25/09/10 00:03:32

Hello,

We’re writing to inform you about some changes to Android Market that require your attention.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be adding paid apps support for additional countries. If you have selected to publish your paid apps to all locations and intend to support all new locations as we expand the number of supported countries for paid apps, you don’t have to do anything. If you have selected to publish your paid apps to all locations but intend to only target the currently supported 14 countries, please update your location selections to target these specific countries.

Please look for follow-up emails when we introduce paid apps support for specific additional countries in the coming weeks. At that time, you’ll have the option to target these specific countries.

Thanks, and we look forward to continue working with you on Android
Market.

Sincerely,
The Android Market Team

Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Email preferences: You are receiving this email to notify you of important changes to your Android Market account.

Advantages

• Cost – Only ~£150
• 3G – Free browsing web over 3G (worldwide!)
• Wifi – For quicker browsing / downloading, works well no hitches.
• MP3 Player – With speakers or headphone socket
• Text to speech – So you don’t even have to read your ebooks any more, it even turns the page for you! The voice is quite good sounding only partially robotic; It manages pauses well with brackets, commas, etc. but sometimes doesn’t pause properly between paragraphs. Also some obscure words are mispronounced. I don’t know how good this would be for reading fiction as an audio book but this isn’t likely a feature I will be using much.
• Viewing angle – due to the technology of the screen (E ink), you can still see the screen irrespective of angle (unless view is physically obscured obviously…)
• – Screen is visible in direct sunlight unlike AMOLED phone screens
• Supported formats – Supports MOBI (kindle), PDF, EPUB
• Fits in my pocket – Just about fits in my pocket, with only a bit sticking out, this would obviously not be suited for long distance but as temporary holding place it is just fine.

Disadvantages

• White is grey – Okay so the background is not completely white, more greyish, but I don’t really care it is still very book-like.
• Scientific papers – Two column journal papers are a bit awkward to read or navigate using the current zoom settings

Neutral

• You could fit about 26,000 into a olymic sized swimming pool

Photos

Amazon kindle 3G reading a nice android pdf with images

Amazon kindle 3G (Experimental settings; Web browsing, mp3 player, and text to speech)

Newspapers
There is a choice of which country you’d like to view newspapers from and in the UK there is a choice of 5 (Telegraph, daily mail, independent, financial times, and London evening standard notably the Times is missing… what are they playing at?) all of which offer a 2 week free trial of the newspaper or the purchasing of single issues or a monthly subscription (prices vary).

Newspaper subscription on kindle (free 14 day trial on most subscriptions)

Daily Mail viewed on the kindle, no crossword or puzzle page though

Microscope images
And as usual when I buy something new and exciting I have to look at it under a microscope

Amazon Kindle 3G display (No mag)

Amazon Kindle 3G display under microscope (Low mag)

Amazon Kindle 3G display under microscope (High mag)

1.1.16 Changelog

Minor update to fix a few bugs and add a few more things I did have time to include in the previous update. Should also increase performance and reduce FC/OOMs

• Added: Particle glow saturation (Particle > Saturation) to control the saturation of the glow around the particles
• Added: Added a preview of how the particle will look in the saturation dialog
• Added: Some people prefered the old particle look so I have added two buttons on the saturation to reset these values to either original nexus like (original) or like my previous ones (revived)
• Moved: More apps and Feedback are now under the Developer option
• Improved: Parallax and scale are no longer marked as experimental
• Bug Fix: Particles sometimes not properly aligned to grid on preview
• Bug Fix: Improved bitmap loading performance loads this should also get rid of most the FC/OutOfMemory errors
• Bug fix: Battery effects only started working once a battery update was given, now they work instantly!
• Bug Fix: Particle glow circle was truncated, now fixed!
• Bug fix: Touch location when using scale is fixed (still need to fix rotation)

New Saturation Options

This is in addition to the other particle options (tail length and custom colors) you can now completely customise how the particles look with the new saturation settings. Some users disliked the change I made to more closely resemble the original design wallpaper by romainguy so I had added an option to choose between one like his particles (original) and like my previous particles (revived).

New saturation options in nexus revamped pro

Performance
I have improved the way in which bitmaps are used which should take up far less memory. This will likely prevent the OutOfMemory errors some people were getting and remove the change of a force close. I have tinkered with a few other things which should provide better performance.

Video
I have put off the video until this version was released so this should be along shortly (the first videovideo is very outdated now)

Android Market Links
Either click the following android market links (in android phone) or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)

Free Version

So the free version is a few versions behind the pro version and some of the fancier features are missing, I am constantly improving both so don’t worry if you don’t want to shell out £0.99 for an app.

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

Download link

Future
I have plans and ideas for the future of this application, please complete the poll below to indicate what you’d like to see in this app or leave feedback (comment) if you have any.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Many thanks to my house-mate for letting me play with liquid nitrogen and try this out.