The service is called Google Sync (beta-of course). Microsoft broke the news:
“Earlier today Google announced Google Sync, which is made possible by a patent license they obtained from Microsoft covering Google’s implementation of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol on Google servers.
Of note, Microsoft recently announced an expansion of its Exchange ActiveSync Licensing Program, and licensees currently include partners and competitors Apple, Nokia, Palm, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson, among others.
Horacio Gutierrez, Deputy General Counsel and VP, Intellectual Property & Licensing, Microsoft:
“Google’s licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgment of the innovation taking place at Microsoft. This agreement is also a great example of Microsoft’ s openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property. This open approach has been part of Microsoft’s IP licensing policy since 2003 and has resulted in over 500 licensing agreements of the last five years.”
Of course it isn’t available for Android, but you can bet it won’t be far off.
Download it here. Via the developers blog. Changes:
- Adds annotations for test systems, no actual (non-test) API changes.
- Adds a method to allow a process to easily determine its UID.
- Adds support for marquee in layouts.
- Adds new methods for determining padding in views. Useful if you are writing your own subclasses of View.
- Adds new permissions that allow an application to broadcast an SMS or WAP Push message.
- API cleanup: removes protected constructor from SDK-bound system images.
I had the honor of accepting the 2009 Netexplorateur Prize in Paris last week on behalf the Big in Japan team. Check it out:
Big in Japan, a Dallas-based idea factory for mobile applications, announced that its ShopSavvy personal shopping assistant has been named one of 10 global winners of the 2009 Netexplorateur of the Year award, honoring the year’s most promising digital innovations. The award is presented annually by the Forum Netexplorateur, organized by the French Senate.
Big in Japan co-founder Alexander Muse will accept the award at the French Senate in Paris on Thursday, February 5. ShopSavvy has also been nominated for the grand prize to be awarded at the event.
“This is an overwhelming honor for all of us at Big in Japan,” said Muse. “As one of only 10 companies worldwide – and only five in the United States – to receive the Netexplorateur of the Year award, we are certainly in impressive company. This is further confirmation that the future is what we make of it – both for ShopSavvy and for the other applications we have in development.”
Big in Japan was recently named a finalist and presenter at the MobileMonday Mobile Peer Awards, an international competition for mobile startups to take place in Barcelona, Spain, on February 16. Additionally, ShopSavvy was a finalist for a 2008 Crunchie Award.
ShopSavvy, one of the T-Mobile G1′s most downloaded applications, enables customers to comparison shop on the go, simply by scanning any product’s barcode using the T-Mobile G1′s built-in camera.
Using the barcode information, ShopSavvy searches the Web for the best prices on the product, displaying the lowest prices online as well as at nearby brick-and-mortar retailers. ShopSavvy looks up product reviews to further assist with purchase decisions.
Engadget has a photo of a new phone from Archos’ Android Phone/Tablet:
Don’t have $175 to buy the latest Google phone? According to Greg Kumparak from MobileCrunch, T-Mobile will finance it over four months with no interest, finance fees or startup fees! Woot! The G1 is perhaps most affordable smartphone.
Update: some of the information we obtained is flat out wrong. Check out the update here: http://www.biggu.com/2009/02/10/updated…
Lots of users/developers assume that if you enable the GPS you will drain your battery more quickly than if you don’t. While this may be true on the iPhone, on the G1 it is actually not true.
Your GPS is simply a radio receiver (k L band). On some devices the radio needs to be enabled to get a ‘fix’, but on the G1 the radio is ALWAYS on. The G1 uses the radio for several phone features instead of using another band. As a result regardless of whether or not you have your GPS on the radio that receives the sat signals is on – the battery life of your phone won’t be different. This is great news for developers.
There is an open source project that provides a service that location dependent applications can use to ‘pre-fetch’ location data so that it is ALWAYS available regardless of whether or not you can get an immediate GPS fix. It also fixes another problem – the time it takes the GPS to obtain a fix (30-60 seconds). Whenever you use ShopSavvy to scan an item we need to figure out where you are to give you a local price. Even if you can get a GPS fix when you scan a barcode, we might not be able to get the GPS coordinates before we provide the pricing results – as a result you won’t get local results. By prefetching your location regularly we can use the last known result which is likely very close to your current location.
Anyway, turn on the GPS!
