Android Class at MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering a computer science class based on the Android platform this semester, as reported in the Boston Business Journal.

The class will be 25 students strong, covering the ins and outs of the Android platform, along with building applications on the platform. It is led by Professor Hal Abelson. It will also feature guest instructors Rich Miner of Google, Dave Mitchell and Eric Carlson from ConnectedBit, and Rajeev Surati and Andrew Yu of MIT.

Android is probably the tool / platform which made it fastest from the industry to the classroom. Heck, it has not even made it to the market yet! I am thinking the only other software tools that appeared in the the classroom even before hitting the market were the ones which were developed right there on campus.


[via Boston Business Journal]

Android Developer Challenge Deadline Extended

The deadline for the first round of the Android Developer Challenge has been extended upto 14th April 2008. Previously, March 3rd had been announced as a hard deadline. Here's the updated timeline as per the Android Developers Blog:

April 14, 2008: Deadline to submit applications for judging
May 5, 2008: Announcement of the 50 first round winners, who will be eligible for the final round
June 30, 2008: Deadline for the 50 winners of the first round to submit for the final round
July 21, 2008: Announcement of the grand prize winner and runner-up.

[via Android Developers Blog]

Adword Conversion Tracking Challenges on Mobile

Effectively advertising on mobile phones without alienating the user is a challenge that is far from being solved by anyone right now. I am quite surprised to learn that Google has a more basic challenge right now: it can't even track Adword conversions on mobile phones! In other words, when someone clicks on a Google ad on a mobile phone, Google might not always know about it and so may not get paid for it. This is a serious flaw indeed!

Accuracast talks about how a large number of Adword conversions on mobile devices can go undetected because many mobile browsers do not allow JavaScript or cookies, the basic essentials for Google to track ad clicks.

When Accuracast questioned Google, the response they got from a Google Adwords account manager not only confirms this, it even suggests that disabling images on a phone browser can prevent tracking Adword conversion:

A significant percentage of mobile browser and carrier combinations do not support cookies. Google adds cookies to a user’s mobile device when he or she clicks on an ad to track conversions. Therefore, if users are using mobile browsers or carriers that do not accept or support cookies, they will not be included in your conversion tracking statistics.

Additionally, cookies on mobile phones expire faster than the ones created for PCs. Therefore, a significant number of conversions for your site may go unrecorded after a certain period of time. When viewing conversions for a specified time period, note that conversions are assigned to the date on which the ad click occurs, not the date on which the conversion occurs. In addition, we will not be able to report conversions for users who disable cookies.

Conversion tracking is also not supported when users disable images on their mobile phones.

Although Google cannot record every conversion due to the reasons mentioned above, your conversion rate, cost-per-conversion, cost-per-transaction and value/click are adjusted to reflect only those sites from which we can track conversions.

I am also surprised that this is not bigger news.

[via Accuracast]

Issue Tracker for Android SDK

The Android Developers blog has announced the launch of an Issue Tracker for the Android SDK. Here's the link:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list

As reported previously on this blog, an Issue Tracker had been one of the top items on Android developers' wishlists.


[via Android Developers blog]

Magellan’s Maestro Elite 5340 - first GPS unit with Google Search

Thanks to lousy wireless data channels, GPS units have traditionally tried to cram local information into their own memory, instead of relying on expert data indexers like Google to serve the latest information. It has taken so long for someone to put Google search into a GPS unit. Well, better late than never. Magellan’s Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS becomes the first GPS unit to feature Google Local Search. Scheduled to ship in Spring of this year, this GPRS-only-no-Wi-Fi unit costs a whopping $1,299 plus a monthly fee for the GPRS connection! Compare that to the Dash Express, which costs $599 plus $10-$13 monthly, and has both GPRS and Wi-Fi connectivity. But then, the Dash features Yahoo! Local, which is not as good as Google Local.

GE Phones - first with Google button!

GE cordless phones (non-cellular) become the first phones to come with a dedicated Google button. The button is for Google's excellent free 411 service (1-800-GOOG-411). The phones will be available in April 2008.

This is no different from Google's earlier move to put short-cuts to its web-based mobile apps on the BlackBerry home screen. If an easy short-cut to a great service is available right in front of them, people will use it. This is a great move by Google to boost usage of its 411 service and to get more users to train its voice recognition algorithms.


[via Engadget.com]

gPhone Race Kicks Off - Wistron Starts Claims

Looks like the race to see who will bring the first godPhone to the market has kicked off... albeit without anyone demo'ing a handset actually running Android. It's all just a race of words right now.

PC Magazine reports on the Wistron GW4 handset unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today. Right now, the handset is running a version of MontaVista Linux 2.6. But Wistron claims that the "GW4 will be running Android by March, when Wistron will start selling it to more prominent firms for branding." However, I wouldn't hold my breath in March. It does not look like Wistron will actually sell a gPhone in March or April. The PC Magazine article concludes with the line:

The GW4 will come out during the second quarter of this year, Wistron execs said.

So, to summarize, the GW4 in its current version with MontaVista Linux, will only be available in the second quarter of this year, despite a working prototype being shown at CES 2008 right now. So, it is safe to assume a g(od)Phone avatar of the GW4 will be available even later. Never mind what enthusiastic PR people say about the GW4 running Android by March. They were probably only thinking of that happening in their labs.

[via PC Magazine]