The Android Site

One of the selling point of the Nexus One and features of Android 2.1 is the voice recognition software. Nearly every text field will accept voice input, and fairly accurately, transcribe your voice as text.
But an interesting feature, is that curse words are purposely filtered out, and replaced with a string of #’s. While we believe it should at least be an option to turn this feature on or off, Google’s explanation makes sense from their standpoint:

“We filter potentially offensive or inappropriate results because we want to avoid situations whereby we might misrecognize a spoken query and return profanity when, in fact, the user said something completely innocent,”

“Ultimately our goal is to return results that show exactly what you said, and we’re constantly working to improve the technology to better fit our users’ needs.”

What do you guys think? Good move on Google’s part, or just a censoring feature? Afterall, you still can type whatever vulgar words you want.

Ben Marvin Google censoring, curse words, Google, News, Nexus One

While there’s already portions of the Android Donut code in various ROMs floating around, such as the Cyanogen Experimental ROM, it has yet to trickle down to carrier releases and general public consumption. But just to give you a *taste* of what’s right around the corner, a giant donut joins the Cupcake and the Android Robot outside the GooglePlex in California.

[via Phandroid]

Ben Marvin Google, News Android, donut, Google, Pictures

What started as an employee’s 20% project at Google is now a fantastic companion to using Google Maps to find places on your Android phone. From the Official Google Mobile Blog:

As the name implies, Places Directory allows you to browse nearby places in categories like Restaurants, Movie Theaters, Hotels and Banks. You’ll see distance and directions to the destination, and if you tap on the listing, we’ll show ratings and photos. You can also call the business or view its location on Google Maps.

Similar to the Where or Restaurant Guide applications, Places Directory is more of a category-based system than a regular search. By using your GPS to locate your position, you can view places around you easily and see how far they are, then one-touch call or view them on Google Maps. The photos and ratings are also a nice touch if you’re contemplating a restaurant you’ve never heard of, although less consesequential with places like banks or gas stations. You can also save places to Favorites or share a place via SMS or Gmail.

I, for one, am really happy to see such high-quality applications coming from the good people at Google. From Google Finance to Sky Map to this, and of course all the other Android optimized apps and mobile sites. Keep up the good work, Google.

The application is available in the Android Market now. Just search for “Places Directory.”

[via Google Mobile Blog]

Ben Marvin Google, Software Google, Google Maps, GPS, location-based services, Places Directory, Software

Fresh from a post over at xda-developers, someone got the link to the US version of Cupcake. Get it now, while it’s hot. You can download it here. No more waiting for the T-Mobile OTA update, this is the real thing.

As always, here’s how to apply the update:

1. Download the image.

2. Rename it to update.zip, and place it at the root (the very top directory) of your Micro SD card. (If you added the file to your microSD card by connecting the handset to your computer via USB [rather than using a dedicated microSD card reader], make sure to unmount it and disconnect the USB cable now.

3. Turn off your G1, then turn it back on by holding the Home+End keys until you see an icon popup after the T-Mobile G1 logo.

4. From the icon screen, open the keyboard and hit Alt+L. This allows you to see what’s going on during the update.

5. Press Alt+S to begin the update. Remember, the update needs to be in the root of the Micro SD card and needs to be named update.zip.

6. Once it finishes, follow the onscreen instructions and press Home+Back to finish.

7. The G1 will reboot a few times to flash different parts of the firmware.

And while you’re waiting for it to update, you can read through the official feature list.

Thanks to everyone that that sent this in.

Update: Those of you running rooted ROMs like JF1.5 check this link: http://code.google.com/p/android-roms/wiki/Unroot Thanks BenderUnit9000

Ben Marvin Google, News, Software, T-Mobile Android 1.5, Cupcake, Google, Tmobile USA, Update, Upgrade

Shortly after paid applications began rolling out in the Android Market, it was shown in great detail that “protected” applications aren’t very protected from copying and redistribution when installed on an Android Developer’s Phone. As the only sort of protection on the application is installing it in an otherwise inaccessible folder, this of course is not a problem on the Developer’s Phone.

It’s easy to postulate that Google responded to this by blocking access to “protected” applications from unlocked Developer’s Phones. It is not exactly clear if this is only on the ADP or any rooted G1. The average user does not have a $400 Developer’s Phone or a rooted G1, so it seems that Google thought this sort of protection was enough to keep most applications safe. But blocking popular applications from developers does not seem like a very good move, after all, they are the ones driving the Market and you can’t assume that everyone that purchased the Developer’s Phone is going to start pirating every paid app on the market. This is starting to upset some developers, one of which is trying to organize a backlash of pulling apps from the Market. And it even appears that Google employees are upset about this, as shown by this post in the Android Market discussion group.

What are your thoughts? Do you have a rooted G1 or a Developer’s Phone, and have you been affected?

Ben Marvin Google, Hardware, Rumors, Software Android Market, Developer's Phone, G1, Google, protected apps, Unlocked

VentureBeat is reporting that Apple asked Google not to include multi-touch on Android, and they agreed. An unnamed source only cited as a member of the Android development team is saying that Google complied with Apples request to not implement multi-touch. Apple holds many patents, including ones for multitouch interfaces and is currently looking to defend those patents from Palm over the Pre and its new multitouch Web OS. It makes sense that Google would get along with Apple given that Eric Schmidt sits on Apple’s board of directors. But when going head to head in the smartphone market, it almost seems like a conflict of interest.

While it’s been shown that the HTC G1 touchscreen supports multitouch inputs, other forthcoming Android hardware may not, so it may have seemed that important moving forward. But with the storm of Android devices on the way, will it be long before Google decides that innovative technologies such as multi-touch input are important for the future of Android? They may be waiting for the outcome of the Apple vs. Palm war first.

Ben Marvin Apple, Google, Rumors Apple, G1, Google, Multi-touch, Palm, Pre

“A couple months ago, Tasks launched in Gmail Labs. Tasks lets you easily create and manage to-do lists right in Gmail. Now, you can access and manage your task lists from your phone, too. Just go to gmail.com/tasks in your mobile browser and log in. If you have a Google Apps account, you can go to mail.google.com/tasks/a/your-domain, replacing your-domain with your actual domain name.”

The video shows an iPhone, but it looks pretty much the same on a G1. It works great, but I’d like to see  a dedicated application from Google for this. Every other smartphone and many dumbphones have Task applications, but Android is missing it. Of course, there are alternatives in the market, but none that would sync with your Gmail.

[via Google Mobile Blog]

Ben Marvin News Gmail Tasks, Google

One of three official Google applications available in the Android Market currently, Picasa Uploader is a very simple application. Its main (and only) function is to upload pictures from your G1 to your Picasa account. Seamless integration into the Camera and Pictures applications via the Share button. And the icon works as a bookmark to quickly launch your PicasaWeb page.

If Google is planning on developing this application further, I would like to see the app function as a viewer for Picasa Albums, similar to the YouTube application. And perhaps some simple editing features, akin to PicSay.

Ben Marvin Software Google, Picasa, Software