IMPORTING DEVICES
I’ve often wondered if people who recommend importing devices which are only available in specific countries realise it’s a self-defeating practice. Companies monitor sales through channels, they don’t know where the end customers are. So if, for example, there’s a product only available in US, and you buy it from a US-based supplier, the company producing that product sees it as a US sale rather than one for the country you’re in.
GOOGLE PLAY EDITION DEVICES
So in the last couple of months Google have released the Google Play Edition HTC One, the PE Samsung S4, Nexus 7 (2013 edition), ChromeCast, and the MotoX all only in the US, adding to Google Glass’s continued US-only availability. If you go beyond hardware there’s things like Voice, All Access Music, and I’m sure a number of other products which, if you’re not in the US, you’re not likely to be able to use.
ANDROID MASTER KEY EXPLOIT
The details of what I believe to be Android bug 8219321 (master keys) are below. I’ve put this together from the Cyanogenmod bug report and patch, so if anyone has some better information I’d welcome it. When checking APK content signatures PackageParser calls its loadCertificates method, which in turn uses the getInputStream method of JarFile whose implementation is in ZipFile (the parent of JarFile) and looks up the relevant entry in a Map.
LEAVING OUYA
Nearly 8 months ago I met with a few software engineers working from some rented desks in San Francisco. They were the OUYA engineering team. We talked, they took me through their interview process. I also had a meeting with Julie Uhrman, after which I went from being a believer that it could happen to a believer that it would happen and there was a place on the team for me and I could help make it happen.
DROIDCON LONDON 2013
I got a call from Skills Matter asking me if I’d be interested in going to droidcon London 2013…. well, it’s already certain I’ll be there, and here’s why; There are going to be several tracks at #DroidconUK13 , and each track has a track-master, a person who has volunteered to co-ordinate the track, sort out who talks in which slots, and make sure their track is appealing to developers.
DEVELOPING FOR DIFFERENT PLATFORMS
So if I understand this TechCrunch article correctly; Overdose Caffeine stopped developing for the OUYA because they don’t want to implement a control system which works well with an OUYA controller (and the article reads very much like they may have received an incentive to highlight another product) To me this article highlights one part of the value of the OUYA store; It stops users getting apps from developers who don’t understand the UX needs of a console.
GOOGLE GLASS HARDWARE
Maybe I’ve been looking in all the wrong places, but it seems no-one has raised an issue with the current iteration of Project Glass hardware; The uncertainty over the future of its' CPU. All the reports I’ve seen say that the current hardware is running an OMAP 4430 and TI announced last year they were winding down their smartphone and tablet orientated OMAP chips, which is the segment where the 4430 lives (see http://goo.
FACEBOOK DEVELOPER RELATIONS
I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think Facebook have got their Developer Relations working pretty well. Rather than expect developers to pay to fly and stay near them, they’re setting up conferences around the world. That way you know you’re going to get locally relevant content and not pay a few thousand bucks to be told you can’t get access to some of the key technologies because you live in the wrong place.
I/O 13 OR DROIDCON
So it’s been confirmed; #io13 will be yet another free-for-all with the freebie grabbers :( This means I’m now definitely going to give it a skip it in favour of Droidcon Berlin and droidcon London later in the year. Whilst I’ve had some good conversations at #io events I’ve also had a number of ones which left me thinking “OK, this person isn’t really into coding and technology”, whereas at the Droidcons I’ve been to the only time I’ve thought that was talking to some of the people who have stands and are clearly identifiable as sales people (usually wearing a company T-shirt or something similar).
I/O FREEBIES
So now people are expecting a Chromebook Pixel and an X-Phone as giveaways at #io13 . If it’s open ticket sales again this year I can see the developer attendee count going down and the freebie hunter count going up. At #io12 I met a guy who guy who said he was getting two of everything because he bought a ticket for himself and one for his son. His son was at college studying English, had no interest in the freebies, but took up the offer of a free trip to San Francisco in return for turning up to pick-up the goodies at the times his Dad told him to.