Recently the Internet has been buzzing on the news that Google is going to present the new programming language Dart in October. Google is developing Dart as an alternative to Javascript. In general, software developers agree that Javascript programming language has a number of ‘fundamental’ drawbacks which can’t be corrected by means of evolutionary development.

There are two solutions to the problem. The first one is to correct, if possible, the drawbacks of Javacript (Harmony project). The second variant is creating the new programming language Dart which will keep the dynamic nature of Javascript but will ensure better productivity and will be suitable for applying in big projects. At that, Google will provide the language openness and will contribute to its support by other browsers. Moreover, IT development companies will get a cross- compiler so as the Dart code can be transformed to Javascript for browsers which don’t support Dart natively.

Dart is developed with due account for three main goals: productivity, convenience, and code editors and additional tools support. Dart will also have to provide maximum security where this task isn’t in conflict with the three main goals.

The author of the new programming language is the famous programmer Lars Bak and his software development team. The additional sets of tools are being developed by Bruce Johnson’s team in Atlanta and the support of the Web Inspector level for Dart and Harmony is carried out by Pavel Feldman and his developers from the Google office in St. Petersburg.

Google has acquired a small company from Pittsburg, called PittPatt, which is developing the software for recognizing people’s faces. The PittPatt technologies are able not only to recognize faces in the frame but also define them in real time while taking photos or videos. According to software developers, their innovations will be used for the simplest tasks (image processing and sorting) as well as in the complicated applications on video-display processing. They will also be used in the cutting edge Android mobile applications.

It is expected that in the next Android version (Ice Cream Sandwich) the face recognition system will allow applications which use video recording to focus automatically on a person who is talking at the moment. These possibilities were supposed to be used for searching in Google Goggles but later this innovation was rejected due to some privacy problems aroused.

The PittPatt developments are most likely to be used in the new social network Google+, but in this case the user himself will be able to adjust and choose the privacy level– either automatically or only for the photos and videos added by the selected users.
Let’s wait and see what will happen after the implementation of this technology. Maybe it will lead to numerous lawsuits and claims? Or the range of software development services will be expanded on another service?

Engineers from SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford have embarked on rather an uncommon, thus even more compelling project – to launch a mobile device to the orbit. Modern mobile gadgets have become very powerful and multitasking devices, therefore, British scientists have set a goal to challenge the capabilities of smartphones and check the efficiency of their work and their performance in a hostile environment.
The mobile phone, which is supposed to set off for space trip, will be powered by Android OS and will be mounted on a satellite, which is 30 cm in length. The overall aim of STRaND-1 mobile space project is to find more economical and resource-efficient ways to control complex spacecrafts and satellites.
Android-powered mobile device will partially control the satellite as well as take photos of our planet. In order to protect the “mobile astronaut” from disruptive impact of the environment it will be embraced by the satellite case.
It is not the first similar venture, undertaken by Google. Before the company showcased the capabilities of Nexus S devices powered by Android OS, which were flying high on balloons.
Who knows… Maybe this bold space project will usher software development companies into the new era of professional mobile app development for space industry.

The online store of applications for Android – Android Market – has been updated. New ways of payment, new categories and some other features have appeared. Now if a user doesn’t like the application he can return it to the store only within 15 minutes, not within 24 hours as it was before.You can also find new sections – vidgets and ‘live wallpaper’ and in future the number of sections are likely to increase.

Moreover, all applications have been divided into several categories, such as ‘Video’, ‘Music’, ‘Business’, ‘Sport’ and some others, which, according to mobile application developers, will definitely simplify the search.

One of the interesting innovations is a possibility to pay using the operator’s account and not the credit card. However, this option is available only the AT&T subscribers. In future, as informed in Google, the same option will be negotiated with other operators.

The distribution of Android OS is going on with a frightening speed. Already at the beginning of August, according to the general director of Google Erick Schmidt, the number of daily activations in the world was about 20,000. Since that time, the popularity of Android among the users of mobile devices has increased by 50%. According to the recent data, published in Twitter by the vice-president of Google Andy Rubin, now in the world about 300,000 Android smartphones are activated. This tendency can also be followed in the Android market where mobile application developers place their apps and the number of them is really high.

In comparison with this, every day 157,000 iPhones find their owners. Apple reported that the October sales of the company’s gadgets including iPhone smartphones, iPads and iPod Touch were 230,000.

Thus, Google has overtaken Apple mobile devices all together.

If the Android based smartphones are sold with the same speed, in a month the sales will reach 9 mln smartphones. Annual sales will be equal to 108 mln gadgets.

By 2012 Google platform is likely to become the dominating platform in the world.

Nexus S operating on Android OS will soon appear on the smartphone market. These devices built by Google in cooperation with Samsung are predicted to compete for the market share with the latest version of iOS-powered devices – iPhone4. Moreover, Nexus S user experience is planning to be enhanced by an upcoming release of Android 2.3.
Nexus S devices support NFC, which enables users to perform basic money operations and with the help of chips embedded in various posters and ads extract information and upload it to Nexus S phones. Nexus S provides an opportunity to make SIP calling as Gingerbread OS comes bundled with VoIP features – the users will have a chance to make calls over the internet in the range of any wi-fi spot.
Moreover, Android 2.3. for Nexus S ensures improved GUI interface. It is aimed at harnessing touch screen features of the devices and enhances greatly user experience. Apart from this, Gingerbread allows managing the work of mobile apps. Hence, Nexus S users will leverage the device’s capabilities in full.
Google will undoubtedly rejoice not only mobile users but also software development companies. As with Android 2.3. the process of mobile app development for Nexus S smartphones will be streamlined and speeded up by the use of NDK and other features as garbage collection and new APIs.

According to the news from the YouNTC company, Google is planning to simplify the procedure of purchasing mobile applications for its users. First of all, it is going to change the order of purchasing full versions of applications.  At present mobile application developers work hard to produce more and more Android apps, the Android Market has a large amount of version of one and the same application and very often users have difficulties while searching and purchasing the desired full version.

Now it is announced that all the applications that are distributed on the commercial basis will have a special button ‘Buy Full Version’, which in its turn will exclude the necessity for the repeated searches in the Market Store and will save user’s time.

Google is planning to introduce this function in the nearest future and it is likely to appear simultaneously with Android 3.0.

According to some experts, Apple pays more attention to its financial ecosystem rather than Google. At the same time the analytics from Royal Pingdom say the whole concept of Android presupposes openness and wide availability mainly of free applications.

The number of mobile applications at the Android Market is more than 10 000 and mobile application developers are going are increasing this number practically every day. Only some part of these applications is paid.

Recently the Internet has become flooded with hacking systems for paid Android mobile applications. “That’s logical when people want something but can’t buy it, they simply steal it”, say in Pingdom.

Google seems to understand it also as a few weeks ago they announced the new security system of the Android Market which provides additional security methods for paid applications. On the other hand, for expanding the payment options of the Android Market Google has entered into the negotiations with the internet auction Ebay owning the payment system PayPal.

The European Commission joined the antimonopoly trial against Apple which the US Federal Trade Commission initiated at the beginning of July. It means that the verdict can be taken in 4-6 months, announced the New York Post.

It should be noted that officially FTC hasn’t announced about the trial. According to the American press, it concerns the rules of publishing applications in the App Store which Apple introduced in April. In particular, the vendor banned the usage of tools for application porting. It deprived mobile apps developers of the possibility of the official sales of Flash applications. The company Adobe which possesses this technology declared about its intention to struggle against this decision.

Moreover, in July Apple introduced the new rules of using the statistical information which is formed by applications on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. In particular, the new rules deprive the company AdMob of earning money on mobile advertising. In May Google announced about the close of the deal on acquiring this company at $750,000. Last month the executive director of AdMob said that the given ban hadn’t come into force. If the ban becomes effective, iphone apps developers will have problems with their applications.

Google has developed a new way of fighting against piracy in the mobile application market. Now Android apps developers will be able to suppress illegal copying of their products.

The developers who want to protect their software from illegal copying will be able to install a special module into their applications which will occasionally connect to Google servers for checking the license of each separate copy of the product (in accordance with the statistics of downloading at the Android Market store).

If the application was bought illegally, the Google module will perform the action preplanned by the authors, for example, the application can be moved to a trial mode, blocked or even deleted from the device.

The application with the built-in system of verification from Google can be installed only at official Google phones. Thus, those  who use Android modified versions won’t be able to try protected mobile applications in mobile application development.

.