Daily News Courier

Gundotra: ‘Committed to making Nexus phones insanely great cameras’

'Just you wait and see,' senior VP of engineering replies on Google+

Google's Senior VP of Engineering at Google, Vic Gundotra, took to Google+ this morning in a photography-themed post to reply to comments about the quality of Nexus phone cameras. The Nexus 4 is a pretty notable improvement in camera quality over what we saw on the Galaxy Nexus, but it's no secret that Nexus devices have lacked in the photography department. As you can see below, in response to a comment about just carrying a future Nexus device as his only camera Vic had this to say:

It's clear with Google's improvements to the stock Android camera UI since Ice Cream Sandwich — and the inclusion of Photo Sphere with Jelly Bean — that a lot of focus is being put on the camera of Nexus devices, but it takes more than just a good UI to take good pictures. It really takes the combination of a quality camera sensor and great image processing software on the back end to have the end result of great pictures. While many Android manufacturers will pay to license image processing software from camera companies — or in some cases borrow from the camera divisions of their own companies — Google has historically kept things open-source in the camera department, which conflicts with paying for closed-source camera software.

Now no one likes to just "wait and see," but it's our only option at this point. It's comments like this from high-ranking Googlers that make us hopeful for the future of Nexus camera capabilities though.

Source: Vic Gundotra (Google+); Thanks, Grant!

Utter! Voice Command Beta: control your phone by voice

The recent update to Google Now has just made one of the nicer Jelly Bean features — offline voice recognition — available for third party developers to use, and voice command app utter! is the first to take advantage of this feature. Utter! is positioning itself to help accomplish most anything that could normally be done by a default Google Voice Search and go beyond that to then let you control other device functions outside of the scope of Google's own offering.

Hang with us after the break to see what utter! brings to the table in its current beta state.

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Google Takeout now includes Blogger blogs and Google+ pages

Google Takeout — or Takeaway as it seems to be calling itself these days — is the data liberating service of your dreams. Allowing you to export your Google based content should you wish to leave forever, or just want to have a copy for yourselves, the service has been gradually expanding to cover more and more of Google's services in recent months. 

The latest content to come under the liberating front is from Blogger and Google+. Blogger blog posts can now be exported as an Atom Xml file, and Google+ pages can be downloaded as html files with a json file containing the circles for every Google+ page you own. Everything can be taken out, or just individual pages or blogs, it's entirely up to you. 

Source: Data Liberation Front

From the Android Forums: Importing contacts and Nexus updates

LolUmad asks in the Android Central Forums:

Hello.

I just sold my Nokia 920 and got a Nexus 4. I have two questions for the aware:

1. All of my contacts had to be imported in from my microsoft.live account. How do I add them all to my Google account (so that next time I get another android phone I can just have them imported in automatically)?

2. How do software updates work? Automatically or do I have to do something.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome aboard, and we're glad you asked! Your first question is a pretty common one, and luckily it's also a really easy one thanks to the settings built into Gmail. Since you're coming from a Windows Live account, you can have Google import your contacts automatically via the web. Open your Gmail account in a web browser on a computer, and look for the settings icon in the upper right. Open the settings, choose the "Accounts and Import" tab, and in the list choose "Import mail and contacts". This will copy everything over to your Gmail account, which syncs with any Android device you're signed in to. 

For anyone not using a web-based service like Windows Live, importing contacts is still pretty easy. Just export them from your mail client into a .csv file and you can import that file in your Google Contacts page. Either way sure beats typing them all by hand.

For your second question. the answer is both! Updates will come automatically from Google to your Nexus 4, and you'll know you have one because of the notification icon. Google rolls the updates out pretty slowly at first, and many times we don't like to wait. You can sideload an update pretty easily if you're the type who doesn't like waiting in line. It involves a little work at your computer's command line, but it's not really hard. You can find all the information you would every want to know about sideloading updates in the Nexus 4 forums.

Have a question you need answered? (Preferably about Android, but we're flexible.) Hit up our Contact Page to get in touch!

Why I decided to purchase the LG Nexus 4

The intent of the following article is help readers who may be on-the-fence about purchasing Google’s latest Nexus smartphone known as the Nexus 4.  In addition, it is also a post to organize my thoughts in a rational manner to discuss why I decided to take the $350 plunge and purchase the latest smartphone when my previous smartphone was still chugging along.

To preface, there is some important background information that should be disclosed before delving into the Nexus 4 purchase.  I originally owned an LG G2X on T-Mobile (which makes the Nexus 4 my third consecutive LG phone) through its Classic family plan.  As a result, I received a subsidized G2X for free (since I purchased it several months after its initial launch) on a Classic family plan.

T-Mobile has two main postpaid plans: Classic and Value.  The idea behind the Classic plan is you pay a higher fee per month over two years but receive subsidized equipment.  Under the Value plan, customers pay less per month, but forgo subsidized equipment.  In any case, my family plan is eligible to switch to a Value plan by the end of the month, which means our fee per month will decrease significantly. Since I made the decision to switch to a Value plan, I would not receive any future upgrades for another subsidized device, so it made sense to purchase the Nexus 4 from a contract/plan standpoint.

Now, the G2x was a solid smartphone when it was first announced since it was the world’s first dual-core smartphone.  However, after a year and a half of usage and a few custom ROMs later, it was obvious that processing power and battery life decreased significantly.  I am a firm believer in getting the full value of out a device before tossing it aside, but the temptation of the latest hardware coupled with a very cheap price point was too strong.  It also helped that I was able to lend my G2x to my brother who previously used a feature phone, but now had a decent smartphone running stable CM7.  This is the second point for buying the Nexus 4; I was able to give my G2x to my brother and I really desired something with style, prowess, and speed.

My only regret with purchasing the Nexus 4 has been not ordering it when it first became available.  I decided to wait until after the first wave of production before finalizing the contract situation, and consequentially, I had to wait until the end of January when it became available again.  Without going into a full review of the device, I am completely satisfied with my decision in buying the Nexus 4.  One underwhelming factor is its battery life, but it is still leaps and bounds what I was accustomed to with my G2x.  Another is the fact that onboard storage is fixed at 16GB, but that is something I will learn to manage.  However, I have been very impressed with its quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM, 4.7 inch HD display, and Jelly Bean.

The moral of the story here is T-Mobile’s Value plans are very attractive, especially on a family plan.  I personally do not have a problem with T-Mobile’s network service.  Granted, it is not as ubiquitous nor powerful as Verizon’s network, but it gets the job done in my opinion.  If you are considering purchasing the Nexus 4 on T-Mobile or AT&T, I would recommend taking a close look at your contract and making sure it makes sense from a financial standpoint.  Hopefully, I can muster two-three years of solid usage from my Nexus 4, something I couldn’t imagine doing with my previous smartphone.

As a bit of a teaser, I will have a review article covering two Diztronic cases for the Nexus 4 in the next several days.

Related Stories

• T-Mobile has the LG Nexus 4 for $50 on contract until Feb. 18
• T-Mobile expects to sell Nexus 4 once again online on Jan. 23
• Nexus 4 availability expands to European markets

Where to buy those awesome Android Central Lloyd cases?

Word's getting around about the Lloyd Flex Case. We've been occasionally teasing the TPU cases sporting everyone's favorite Android Central mascot on Google+ and Twitter, and the inevitable question is "Where can I get such a wonderful case?"

The answer, of course, is ShopAndroid.com. And more specifically, the Lloyd Gear section. Currently they've got cases in stock for the Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2 and the Nexus 4. They're each made from thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material, that sort of half-rubber/half-plastic that's become quite popular in cases. 

Here's where to buy the awesome Lloyd Flex Case:

• Lloyd Flex Case for Galaxy S3
• Lloyd Flex Case for Galaxy Note 2
• Lloyd Flex Case for Nexus 4

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Press update adds DashClock Widget support

Google Reader client Press has just added support for the popular new widget DashClock just a few days after its release.  DashClock Widget provides a platform to make "extensions" that plug into the widget from other apps to put pertinent notifications and information on your screen. Users on Android 4.2 with DashClock installed now have the ability to see their Press unread count and last sync time on the widget. This should play nicely with the recent update to Press that added background syncing support.

So far we've got Falcon Pro and Press that have updated to support the widget's extensions, along with the built-in items like weather and Gmail, and we're sure to see more as DashClock Widget becomes even more popular.

Oxford’s Self-Driving Car (on the Left Side of the Road)

Across the pond, Oxford swerves into Google’s self-driving lane.

Self-driving cars aren’t just the realm of corporate giants like Google. Academia plays a big role in this space too, as the BBC points out.  Oxford University’s department of engineering science is behind something called the Oxford RobotCar UK project.

Oxford’s Self-Driving Car (on the Left Side of the Road)

Across the pond, Oxford swerves into Google’s self-driving lane.

Self-driving cars aren’t just the realm of corporate giants like Google. Academia plays a big role in this space too, as the BBC points out.  Oxford University’s department of engineering science is behind something called the Oxford RobotCar UK project.

Tweet Lanes goes open-source, looking for a few good devs

It's been a few months since we got the bad news that active development was to cease on Twitter app Tweet Lanes, but developer Chris Lacy today did announce that the app still has a future. Lacy is open-sourcing the code not only for the Tweet Lanes client, but also its SocialNetLib library (which works with App.net as well), as well as his AppEngine of things.

"My sincerest hope is that by releasing this code, the community can give Tweet Lanes the time and attention that it deserves," Lacy wrote today on Google+.

While he won't be actively developing Tweet Lanes, he is committing to syncing with the master branch of the project and releasing signed versions of the app to Google Play "a few times a week," meaning you'd still be able to get updates in the usual manner.

Lacy's looking for some dev leads for the project as well as a community manager. Hit the links below if you can help out.

Source: +Chris Lacy; More: Tweet Lanes github