OMG! I am pleased and proud to announce that we won Google’s Android Developers Challenge with our GoCart™ application. Of course, the credit really should go to Rylan Barnes, GoCart’s developer. Here is the release from Google and the post explaining the contest here. GoCart was built specifically for Google’s Android mobile phone platform. GoCart users can easily scan the barcode of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. Once scanned, GoCart will search the inventories of nearby, local stores using data from the phone’s built-in GPS. Soon we will port GoCart to the iPhone and enable mobile payments.
Over the past year the Big in Japan team has become more and more involved with mobile applications. Our initial focus was the iPhone (applications like iPhoneVote), but quickly we began working on Google’s Android mobile phone building a fun application called SocialTones. Recently we decided to reinvent Big in Japan to focus exclusively on the development of mobile applications. GoCart is our first serious mobile application with a real business model behind it.
Google has announced the missing piece of a healthy mobile application market – a store (called Android Market) where developers can offer their applications for free or for a fee. Not only that, Eric Chu explained that they, “intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.” Nice!
I am pleased and proud to announce that Big in Japan Inc. is one of 50 finalists Google’s Android Developers Challenge with it’s GoCart™ application. Of course, the credit really should go to Rylan Barnes, GoCart’s developer. GoCart was built specifically for Google’s Android mobile phone platform. GoCart users can easily scan the barcode of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. Once scanned, GoCart will search the inventories of nearby, local stores using data from the phone’s built-in GPS. Soon we will port GoCart to the iPhone and enable mobile payments.
Over the past year the Big in Japan team has become more and more involved with mobile applications. Our initial focus was the iPhone (applications like iPhoneVote), but quickly we began working on Google’s Android mobile phone building a fun application called SocialTones. Recently we decided to reinvent Big in Japan to focus exclusively on the development of mobile applications. GoCart is our first serious mobile application with a real business model behind it. The newly incorporated company has three co-founders (including me):
Rylan Barnes co-founded Big in Japan and is the developer of GoCart™, one of 50 winners of Google’s Android challenge. Rylan started his career at HP where his work on XML-based frameworks was widely acclaimed. Since then he has worked as a software developer for Vertical Alliance and Software Architects working with AJAX, C# and .NET.
Jason Hudgins co-founded Big in Japan and was on the team that developed Tunewiki, one of the 50 winners of Google’s Android Challenge. Jason has spent the last eight years developing software for companies including Idearc Media, DeviantART and Ariesnet.
Alexander Muse co-founded Big in Japan. Alexander is a serial entrepreneur with more than a decade of startup experience. He served as CEO of Architel, a provider of outsourced information technology services. Previously, he was founder and CEO of LayerOne, a ventured backed telecommunications infrastructure company he started in the late 1990’s.
Wired Magazine has a picture of the first Google Android phone on their website. Known as the HTC Dream the device has a Google tag line on it and will be released by T-Mobile.
Huliq News is reporting that the ‘HTC Dream, aka G1′ is going to be launched on October 13th and available on T-Mobiles network. According to the site you won’t be able to pre-order the ‘HTC Dream G1′ until October 17th (it confused me too). Huli explains that the phone is,
…a slider, which slides to the side to reveal its QWERTY. The keys on the QWERTY are neatly spaced, which lets your fingers easily type along. At the back of this phone, you can see the words “With Google”. Apparently, the handset is to make use of the big name of Google to get itself more popular.
T-mobile will offer this handset with pre-order price $199 after the instant rebate, and you’ll be bound with a 2-year contract. You’ll also need a GMail account to setup the HTC G1 handset. Since it runs on Android, do expect that it comes bundled with tons of Google services. What are known now are those common ones such as maps with Street View, You Tube, IM and text, Gmail.
Other goodies you can find on HTC Dream G1 handset are a 3 megapixel camera, video playback, music player, memory card slot and an application store. And it’s equipped with a huge touchscreen that is likely to rival the iPhone’s.
OMG! I am pleased and proud to announce that we won Google’s Android Developers Challenge with our GoCart™ application. Of course, the credit really should go to Rylan Barnes, GoCart’s developer. Here is the release from Google and the post explaining the contest here. GoCart was built specifically for Google’s Android mobile phone platform. GoCart users can easily scan the barcode of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. Once scanned, GoCart will search the inventories of nearby, local stores using data from the phone’s built-in GPS. Soon we will port GoCart to the iPhone and enable mobile payments.