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Google's Smart spoon reduces hand tremors by 76 pc and will help people suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Google has introduced a "smart spoon" aimed to help people suffering from essential tremors and Parkinson's disease. The company states that the product can reduce shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76%.

Internet giant Google has started promoting its Liftware spoon, a high tech device that employs hundreds of algorithms to sense how a hand is shaking and makes instant adjustments to stay balanced. The spoons have been launched for $295.

Parkinson's disease affects more than 10 million people worldwide, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin's mother. According to reports Brin has also said he has a genetic mutation associated with higher rates of Parkinson's. He has donated more than $50m to research for a cure.

"We want to help people in their daily lives today and hopefully increase understanding of disease in the long run," Google spokesperson Katelin Jabbari said.

Earlier this year, Google had acquired Lift Lab, the spoon's maker. The company's founder, Anupam Pathak and his team now work for Google X's life sciences division.

Pathak states that they hope to add sensors to the spoons to help medical researchers and providers better understand, measure and alleviate tremors.

Apart from this the division has made major acquisitions in medical field. The division owns a stake in DNAnexus, a software company analyzing genome sequencing to better understand the genetic factors of heart disease and ageing. Google's X's life sciences division is also working on smart contact lens that would measure glucose levels in tears to help diabetics track their blood sugar levels and is researching on how nanoparticles in blood might help detect diseases. Read: Google partners with Novartis to produce 'smart' contact lenses

For first time buyers, Google has featured a special section that features every product at Rs. 299. Google is also conducting several contests before the annual shopping festival.

Google's annual online shopping festival, also known as Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF), is scheduled to be held between December 10-12. This year's GOSF features over 450 partners with brands ranging from Motorola Nexus 6, HP, Lenovo, Tata Housing, Karbonn, Van Heusen, Asian Paints

For first time buyers, Google has featured a special section that features every product at Rs. 299. The section has brands such as Uber, JBL, Benetton, Alia Bhatt collection, EverPure water purifier. Google is currently running several contests and games on the official websites to promote the festival. Customers stand a chance to win 14 minutes of free shopping hosted by leading brands.

Users will be able to participate in this contest across leading social media platforms from 25th November till 8th of December 2014. #WinGOSF2014. The contest is hosted by 14 brands like Asian Paints, Jet Airways, Kindle, Micromax, HP, Ask Me, CraftsVilla, Cox & Kings, Goibibo, Big Bazaar, KOOVs, Trendin, Lakme and Lenovo.

Google had launched the initiative in 2012. "... (GOSF) has seen tremendous response with most players seeing over 350 percent growth in daily sales. Last year, 2 million users visited gosf.in and over 16 million users visited across all partner sites including smaller players registering 2x growth on an average in their daily sales," says Google in a release.

Speaking about the momentum of online shopping in India, Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google India said, "Great Online shopping festival is India's version of cyber Monday and is an exciting platform to move the industry forward. The consumer confidence to shop online has grown considerably in the last 12 months, boosting the growth of both large multinational and homegrown companies. Our recent report projects that the Industry will continue to see robust growth in next few years making it a USD 15 billion industry by 2016."

Online shopping has tremendously grown in India. Over the last few months, brands have taken online-exclusive route to sell their products. Google's recent study on e-commerce in India reveals the online shopping market in the country will grow to $15 billion by 2016. Also read: 6 important takeaways from Google's study on e-commerce in India

Google's online shopping festival is said to be inspired by Cyber Monday. Of late, we've seen Indian e-commerce giants such as Flipkart and Snapdeal trying to mimic the model in India. Also read: The Monday mega online sale: 3 important takeaways

Are you excited about Google's great online shopping festival? What are your expectations?

Not too long ago, Google introduced Material Design, a brand new set of guidelines for designers and developers alike. Material Design introduces a fresh perspective on user interfaces, motion, and interaction states, and are a great foundation for you to build a product upon.

Introduction

In essence, you can summarize Google's Material Design by two components:

Material
Motion
Material
Material provides context in design, the surface and edge of a "material" provides us visual cues. Let's compare this to real life. We understand the dimensions of a room, because we see walls. At the same time, the interior provides us an understanding of the context of the room. Your kitchen looks very different than your bathroom for example.

The same is applied in Material Design. The combination of style and content provides context to the user in a digital space, much like physical walls and interiors. A user has a better understanding of the user interface, because the designed material provides context for the interface.

A card provides contextual design and is a commonly used element in Material Design. A card provides context in itself, as well as by having a relationship with other cards.
Motion
The concept of Motion in Material Design has a very similar story. Motion provides context in a design through the flow of an application, especially when it comes to the continuity of a product, a user has the feeling of being uninterrupted. There are no obstacles, such as inconsistency in design or a confusing navigation.

How exactly does motion work? Here's an example. There's a home feed that consists of a list of cards. When you tap a single card, the material of the card expands to become the full width and height of the screen instead of the dimensions of a single card.

Notice how this example applies both material and motion. A card is the material. When a user interacts with it, through motion it will expand to show more content. This provides continuity to the user as it shows how their input affects the user interface.

Material

Let's explore material a little bit more. In essence, material is the combination of your static design elements. Think of shapes, color, typography, and the variety of tools you use to create designs. All of this together forms a material.

Color
Color is a great matter for designers as well as users. It has a tremendous amount of influence on the look and feel of a design, as well as the psychological effects on a user. Color can make a design trustworthy, exciting, utilitarian, and much more. In Material Design, we have access to a large palette of colors, which we can use as the foundation for designing a product.

I highly recommend having the following reference of colors saved as a bookmark, it's a convenient reference to design a color palette for a user interface.

Typography
Roboto, the standard font for Android, has been polished to improve it for cross platform usage. For designers who aren't very familiar with typography, Material Design provides guidelines that handle the design of typography for you.

The easiest way for yourself to get started with this grid is to download the following sticker sheet. The guidelines will provide you with a structure for your typography when you start a new design.

Roboto font files
PSD source file
AI source file
Sketch source file
Layout
Designing a layout in Material Design uses some of the core principles of print design, which Google indicates as a source of inspiration for Material Design. There's a strong emphasis on building user interfaces that scale well between different types of devices. As you're aware, scalability has become crucial for designing products that are successful on multiple devices.

This illustration visualizes the concept of depth in user interfaces.
One of the core concepts is stacking. When you're designing a user interface with Material Design, you use drop shadows, contrast in color, and z-positioning to give the user a sense of depth in the user interface. Depth creates context for users. Floating elements on top of stacks, such as a button, emphasizes the call-to-action in a user interface.

Example of three layers of depth: a menu, the top navigation bar, and the content area.
For more advanced designers, the guidelines include baseline grids. The metrics and keylines page in the Material Design guidelines go in great detail and provide you with resources to experiment with.

If you'd rather work with a pre-made layout, you can download Google's white frames template.

Example of a designed layout.
Motion

Motion goes hand in hand with material as described earlier in the card example. Motion is what makes designed material come alive.

Easing
When you start learning the basics of motion design, one of the first principles you'll learn about is easing.

When you ease an animation, you attempt to make a motion more natural. Instead of animating the movement of an object at a consistent speed, you increase the speed in the very beginning of the animation and reduce the speed at the end of the animation.

Think of a moving car in traffic and how a car accelerates and brakes, it's a ve ry natural movement. Easing tries to replicate that so a user deems the movement of an object as natural.

The easiest way to get acquainted with easing is to see some design examples. The following resources are a great bookmark:

Animation Principles in UI Design: Understanding Easing (Medium, by Suresh Selvaraj). This is an excellent piece to learn the basics of easing.
Authentic Motion (Google). This is a more extensive reference and includes several examples.

This illustration showcases easing, as featured in "Animation Principles in UI Design: Understanding Easing".
Responsive Interaction
When a user interacts with a design element, in most cases the element should provide feedback. In Material Design, the goal is to delight the user with motion feedback as well as provide context for the material the user interacts with. The beauty of responsive motion is that you acknowledge the action of the user, which improves the usability of your product.

The most beautiful example I've seen is the touch ripple, a visual highlight when the user interacts with a particular element.

Another example is opening or expanding elements. When you tap a particular element to expand it, new material expands from the point the user touched. The growth of an element feels natural when it grows directly from the center of the user's touch. For more examples of responsive interaction, visit Google's Material Design website.

Last but not least, the transitions between interfaces is important for responsive interaction. It's the most crucial form of motion to design continuity for the user. For incoming and outgoing screens, the point of origin provides context. A user interface can dynamically grow and expand, which gives designers plenty of room to play with beautiful transitions. And best of all, they can make them meaningful.

Useful Resources

Material Design Reel (YouTube, by Google)
Default Design Themes: Light & Dark (.ai)
Iconography Reference Sheet (By Google)
Card Design Reference Sheet (By Google)
750 System Icons (.zip)

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Inspiration

Below are a few great examples of Material Design created by excellent designers.

Google - Material exploration by Aurélien Salomon

Alarm Material UI by Ehsan Rahimi

Aviasales L (Material Design) by Mark M
Conclusion

This is a brief introduction to Material Design. If any of the above sparked your interest, I highly recommend to read more in the official guidelines by Google.

Please approach Material Design with a creative mindset. A lot of what is presented is a reminder of what makes great design great. Simultaneously, they are only guidelines, which means that for the sake of growing as a designer you are more than welcome to give it your own twist.

I encourage all of you to create a design with these set of guidelines in mind. It might mean you're taking a different approach than usual, which is great to keep your skills at the edge and grow as a designer.

What do you think of Material Design? What have your experiences been so far? Please share it below in the comments, I'm very curious and I'm sure many others are as well.

Theme Frameworks can be extremely powerful. For non-technical WordPress users, they make it possible to create a unique site which looks like it's running a bespoke theme, and for WordPress developers they can help you apply the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle and give you the ability to build custom sites fast.

If you've been using a third party framework for a while and have become frustrated with the bloated code or lack of flexibility, or you just want to have complete control over your code, then building your own theme framework could be the best approach.

In this series, you'll learn how to create your own WordPress theme framework which you can use to build sites for yourself or your clients, or even release for other users. You'll work through the stages involved in creating the parent theme which forms the basis of your framework, adding extra functions, hooks and more. You'll also learn how to leverage these in your child themes and plugins and how to release your code to the public.

But before getting started, you need to know how theme frameworks operate and what makes them different form a standard parent theme.

I've spent time developing two theme frameworks for use on two categories of client site, developing and enhancing these over time, and I've also worked with some of the third party theme frameworks. In my experience a theme framework has a few main characteristics:

It consists of a parent theme designed to be used with child themes. In some cases the parent theme can also work as a stand-alone theme, but in others the parent theme only works in conjunction with child themes - the WordPress Codex defines these as 'Base/Starter Themes' and 'Code Libraries,' respectively.
It includes hooks and functions which can be leveraged by child themes and plugins. Your theme framework is the basis of an entire ecosystem you will be working with, and that includes the plugins that will hook into your framework.
If designed to be accessed by non-coding users, it will include theme options pages which enable users to customize the theme according to their needs. These can be extensive, incorporating design, layout, functions, content and more. In some cases, functionality may be provided via the Theme Customizer.
It may include multiple widget areas so that non-technical users can add content or code via widgets (including widgets added by plugins you write specifically for the framework).
It may also include script library functionality, such as a jQuery slider or lightbox. Depending on your needs and those of your users, you might incorporate these in the framework or provide plugins with the code which hook in to your framework.
It is extendable, with hooks allowing you to extend its functionality via child themes or plugins.
The first two of the points above are the most fundamental - without a parent theme, you don't have a theme framework. And a parent theme without those hooks and functions is just a basic parent theme, not really a framework.

So that's what theme frameworks are, but how do they work? Let's take a look at the elements of a theme framework:

The parent theme, and optional child themes
Action and filter hooks
Functions
Theme options
Widgets
Scripts
Extendability

The Parent and Child Themes

The main component of a theme framework is the parent theme. This may be designed in one of two ways:

As a starter theme, which can work on its own, maybe with customization via a theme options screen or the theme customizer. Examples of these include Atahualpa and Thematic. Both of these can be used as standalone themes without the use of child themes.
As a foundation to be added to by a child theme, without which the theme won't effectively power a site. Examples include Hybrid Core and Genesis. These will include the basic code you would normally find in a theme along with a range of hooks and functions which can be leveraged by child themes, and also by plugins. All this comprises an API for the framework.
As one of the key characteristics of theme frameworks is the DRY principle, your parent theme is likely to make use of template parts and include files wherever possible, meaning you can access the same code in multiple locations in your theme. This also makes it easier to override code in your child themes, as you simply create a replacement template part or include file.

I'm not going to explain the concept of parent and child themes here as that's covered in this tutorial on child themes. Many theme frameworks come with a range of child themes to support them, while with others you need to develop your own.

If you're developing your own, I would recommend creating at least one 'starter' child theme to avoid repeating the work involved in setting one up for each project: you may decide to create multiple child themes as the basis for different types of project, for example child themes for blogs and for non-blog sites.

Action and Filter Hooks

A theme framework will include a range of hooks for child themes and plugins to hook into when adding custom code or changing the way the theme behaves:

Action hooks will appear at multiple places in the code, enabling you to add code to your template files via functions coded in the framework which can be overridden by child themes, or via functions which you add to your child themes or plugins. My own theme framework makes extensive use of action hooks, providing them in all of the template files to let users drop in content such as widget areas, contact details, call to action buttons and site-specific code wherever it's needed.
Filter hooks can be used to change how a site using a child theme or a particular plugin behaves, for example customizing loops, amending static content and more. Any static text (or code called from outside your site) should be wrapped in a filter, so that it can be altered by child themes if necessary.
It's worth taking some time to consider what hooks you want to include at an early stage, so you know what content to include via a hook and what to code into your template files directly. You'll look at this in the next part of this series.

Functions

Your framework is also likely to include a range of functions. Some of these will hook into the action and filter hooks you've already defined while others will be functions such as template tags which child themes can make use of.

If you have any custom functions you use on a number of client sites, it's worth adding them to your framework. You don't have to activate all of your functions: you can activate a function from the parent theme using an add_action() function in your child site.

Theme Options

Theme options screens are a useful addition to any complex theme, but will be particularly useful for theme frameworks designed for non-technical users. The major theme frameworks all include multiple theme options screens in their own admin section, with options including switching features on and off, amending the layout, adding content and altering design elements such as colors, background images, fonts and header images.

You might choose to use the theme customizer for many of your options, which has the advantage of letting your users see their changes as they make them. I've taken this approach for the Edupress theme framework, which I developed for school websites with Mark Wilkinson.

Widget Areas

Whether you choose to add a range of widget areas will depend on the audience for your framework: if just you or a small team of developers will be working with the theme, you might not add any widget areas over and above the standard sidebar and footer areas.

But if your framework will be used by non-technical users, you can give them a lot more flexibility by registering multiple widget areas in various locations in your theme. As well as the normal sidebar and footer, you might also register widget areas in the header, before and/or after the content and below the footer.

The theme framework I use for my client sites includes four widget areas in the footer: the theme checks which of these are populated and adds CSS classes accordingly so that the populated widget areas will each take up the appropriate width of the page.

Your widget areas might be coded directly into your template files or you might decide (as I do) to add them via action hooks in the relevant places in your site. This means that they can be overridden in child themes, either by alternative widget areas or by custom code.

Scripts

If a given script is likely to be used by a number of sites built on your framework, or if your users will be non-technical and you want to provide extra options, you might decide to include certain scripts in your framework, such as a slider or lightbox script. This can save users having to install extra plugins, but has the disadvantage of code bloat if these scripts aren't needed.

Again this will depend on your audience and its anticipated needs: if it's just you working with the framework, I'd recommend developing (or identifying) plugins with these scripts and using those when you need to.

If you do include scripts it's worth including an activation and deactivation option on your theme options screen.

Extendability

If your framework is going to be useful for a range of sites now and in the future you want it to be extendable. The parent theme which forms the core of the framework is just the heart of an ecosystem which you and your theme's users will tap into to add extra options and power to their sites. This will include:

Child themes or starter themes - the list of these may well grow over time, especially if you're releasing your theme to the public
Plugins designed to work specifically with your framework, often activated via framework-specific hooks.
It may also include documentation for other developers wanting to work with your framework: most of the major theme frameworks come with extensive documentation which developers can use either to customize their sites built on the framework or to create child themes or plugins for other users of the framework to access.

Summary

Theme frameworks are a powerful tool in the WordPress developer's arsenal. As we've seen, they are vital for thousands of non-technical site owners who use them to create custom WordPress sites. But they're also a great tool for any developer who will be creating multiple sites, either for personal use or for clients.

Theme frameworks have a number of characteristics which give them that power: they are extendable and flexible, and make it easy for you or your users to create custom sites using child themes and accessing the functions and hooks provided by your framework.

Having looked at how theme frameworks operate, in the next part of this series you'll identify what your framework needs to do and who it needs to work for, which will help you decide on the most appropriate development approach.

By integrating your Android apps with the Google Play Services, you can access Google services, such as Maps, Drive, and Google+. Once you have your apps set up to use these services, accessing them is typically straightforward. The setup process does require a few steps, but you only need to carry them out once. In this tutorial we will go through the process of integrating Google Play Services with Android apps.

Introduction

Throughout the tutorial, we will outline what you need to do to integrate apps with Play Services in both Eclipse and Android Studio. You will need access to the Google Developer Console and to the Keytool utility.

Once you are set up with Play Services, the development process itself will be determined by what you want your apps to do. The the setup procedure, however, remains the same. By using the client library to access platform services, your apps will benefit from automatic updates through the Play Store.

1. Install Play Services in your IDE

Step 1
Open your IDE and start the Android SDK Manager. In Eclipse, choose Window > Android > SDK Manager. In Android Studio, click the SDK Manager toolbar button. Scroll through the list, expand the Extras folder and select Google Play Services.

Click to install the package and accept the license when you are prompted. If you are developing in Android Studio, you will also need to install the Google Repository.

Step 2
When you test apps in which you use the Google Play Services APIs, ideally, you should run them on physical devices. However, it is possible to test in the emulator. To do this, you will need to install the Google APIs Platform. You will find this inside the directory for any of the API levels 17 and up.

Find the platform in your SDK Manager, install it, and accept the license. When you create an AVD (Android Virtual Device) to test an app using Google Play Services, choose Google APIs as the target.

Step 3
If you are developing in Eclipse, you will also need to copy the Play Services library into your workspace. First, browse to it on your computer using a file explorer. You will find it in the folder you downloaded your Android SDK into, at /extras/google/google_play_services/libproject/google-play-services_lib/.

Copy it to a location on your computer that you use for Android development files. Once you have copied the library (you must copy it rather than using the version in the SDK directory), go back to Eclipse. Choose Import from the File menu. Expand the Android folder, select Existing Android Code Into Workspace, and click Next.

Click the Browse button and navigate to the location you copied the Play Services library into. Select the folder you copied and click Finish to import it. The package will appear in your Package Explorer.

2. Create an Android Project

Step 1
You can now start developing with the Play Services resources. Create a new Android project in your IDE. Once you have a project in your workspace, you need to reference the Play Services resources within it.

In Android Studio, you will need to add a build rule to the build.gradle file in the module for your application project. In the dependencies section, use the following syntax:

1
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:4.1.32'
Make sure you use the number for the most recent version of Play Services. You will need to update this as the library is updated. Save the file and click the Sync Project with Gradle Files button.

In Eclipse, select the project in your Package Explorer, right-click or select the Project menu, and choose Properties. Select the Android option on the left and click Add in the Library section.

Select the Google Play Services library from the pop-up window and click OK to add it. Click Apply and the OK.

Step 2
Whichever IDE you are using, you will need to add Play Services meta-data to your manifest file. Open the project's manifest file and add the meta-data element inside the application element:

<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.version"
    android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version" />
If you are using Proguard, you will need to create an exception. See the Developer Guide for more details. For an overview of the Google Play Services APIs, check out the Package Index.

3. Connecting with Play Services in your Apps

Step 1
The processing steps you need to take within your application code will depend on what functionality you want to implement with Play Services. The following sections outline some general considerations and steps.

Although updates are pushed through the Google Play Store, it is still advisable to check what version the user device has installed before you attempt to carry out any processing with Google Play Services.

See the Implementing GCM Client example code in the Developer Guide for an overview of how to implement these checks within an Activity class. The method call to look for is isGooglePlayServicesAvailable, which you can add to a helper method as in the following excerpt:

private boolean checkPlayServices() {
    int resultCode = GooglePlayServicesUtil.isGooglePlayServicesAvailable(this);
    //...
}
You could call the method in onCreate, before attempting to create the GoogleAPIClient instance through which you access the Play Services resources, and within onResume. If the user device does not have the required resources installed, they will be prompted to do so through the Google Play Store.

Step 2
After checking the level of support on the user device, you can create an instance of the GoogleAPIClient class to call on the Google Play resources. The following example code demonstrates this and could be included in onCreate:

GoogleApiClient myClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this)
    .addApi(Plus.API)
    .addScope(Plus.SCOPE_PLUS_PROFILE)
    .addConnectionCallbacks(this)
    .addOnConnectionFailedListener(this)
    .build();
This would prepare your application for accessing Google+ services, as you can see from the Plus.API excerpt. The addScope line will vary depending on what your app does. This code also sets up callbacks for the connection process. Your class can implement the following interfaces:

1
public class MainActivity extends Activity implements ConnectionCallbacks, OnConnectionFailedListener
The class can then implement the onConnected and onConnectionSuspended callbacks for handling changes in connection to Play Services.

To handle failures in connecting to Play Services, such as in cases where user sign-in is required, your class can also implement onConnectionFailed , for accessing various standard methods for resolving typical errors. Some of these methods will cause the onActivityResult method to execute when the user returns to the app, so you can reattempt to connect there.

In general, your Activity class should connect to Play Services in onStart and disconnect in onStop via the GoogleAPIClient class as in the following excerpt:

myClient.connect();
4. Using Play Services Resources

Step 1
For certain Play Services, including Google+, you need to register for access. To do so, log into the Google APIs Console, click Create Project, and enter a name. After creating the project, you should be redirected to the project in the console.

Select the APIs menu item, find Google+ API in the list, and click the button to enable it. The status should change to ON after accepting the license. Clicking the API listing will give you an overview of what you can do with it.

Step 2
Next, select Credentials and click Create New Client ID. Select the Installed application radio button, select Android as the type, and enter your app details. Now you need to use the Keytool resource to generate a SHA1 certificate.

During development, you can use the debug keystore, entering the following code in a terminal:

keytool -exportcert -alias androiddebugkey -keystore ~/.android/debug.keystore -list -v
You'll need to make sure this is the correct location for your debug keystore, alter the path if it isn't. When you execute this command, you'll be prompted for the password. Enter android for the debug keystore and the fingerprint should be output to the terminal.

Copy the SHA1 line and paste it into the Signing certificate fingerprint box in the APIs Console. Enable deep linking if necessary and then click the button to create the ID. A section will appear entitled Client ID for Android Application. You do not actually need to use the ID in your app code, but you may wish to keep a copy of it for your own records.

Step 3
Before you can call on the Play Services APIs in your application code, you will need to add the appropriate permissions to your project's manifest file. The following examples demonstrate a few typical use cases, but you will need to choose the appropriate permissions for your own project:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.USE_CREDENTIALS" />
Your project should now be configured to call the Play Services APIs that you need. You will need to structure your Activity classes differently depending on what your apps do. Take a look at the Developer Guide for more information about this.

Don't forget to check out the following guides to get started with some of the available Play Services:

Google+
Google Drive
Maps
Location
Games
Wallet
If the Google services you wish to access are not part of the Play Services library, you can access them using Google's REST API.

Conclusion

There are a lot of possibilities with Google Play Services in Android apps. From gaming to location and mapping services, your apps can take advantage of the existing platform features within the context of your own user interfaces and functionality.

The setup process may seem a little laborious, but once you're set up, you can focus on bringing these services to your users.

Google I/O is without a doubt one of the highlights of the year, for myself as well as many other developers. The event is always sure to inspire and surprise, and, on occasions, it provides a glimpse into the near future and the potential of that point in time. This year was big, possibly the biggest to date, and the volume of announcements was staggering.

Android L

Android is getting a major overhaul with its next version, which is currently being referred to as Android L. The new version will tout more than 5,000 new APIs, multiple new features, a new runtime engine, and a major user interface makeover.

Android L was very much a preview, like a lot of announcements during the keynote. The release date is unknown, but it will appear some time in the fall. The Android SDK has been released and, for the first time, you will be able to preview the new version on a Nexus 5 or 7 device.

Material Design
Android L will be sporting a brand, new user interface that Google refers to as Material Design. It's sleek, fresh, and it has a modern look to it. It's everything you'd expect from a user interface update. However, Material Design has lot more depth to it, which literally is one of the key concepts of Material design. You can specify a view's elevation, allowing you to raise user interface elements and cast dynamic shadows.

Material Design comes with a light and a dark theme. Developers can customize a theme and color changes can be made to areas like the status bar, the navigation bar, and various other user interface elements. Material Design gives more options for styling an application's user interface and showing brand identity.

Widgets
Android L also includes two new user interface widgets. RecyclerView is a more advanced and flexible version of the ListView class and is ideal for listing elements that change dynamically. The RecyclerView class provides a layout manager for item positioning and default animations.

The CardView class extends FrameLayout, which you may already be familiar with. CardView will let you place information inside cards that can be easily modified. The background color, corner radius, and elevation of a card can all be changed.

Animations
Animations are an important element of Material Design. The material theme includes default animations, which can be easily modified. A new set of APIs also let you create custom animations. The new animation APIs let you:

respond to touch events with touch feedback animations
hide and show views with reveal effect animations
switch between activities with custom activity transition animations
create more natural animations with curved motion
animate changes in one or more view properties with view state change animations
show animations in state list drawables between view state changes

Notifications
Notifications have been further improved and will now show up on the lock screen. In addition to this, there's a heads-up notification that can appear at the top of a full-screen application and is dismissible with a simple swipe.

Runtime
The Dalvik runtime will be replaced with ART, which has plenty of new features to justify a changing of the guard.

Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation
improved garbage collection (GC)
improved debugging support
You can find more information at the Android Developer website.

Project Volta
Project Volta is a part of Android L and is dedicated to improving battery performance. It is comprised of three parts:

Battery Historian is a new tool designed to measure battery discharge by visualizing an application's power consumption.
The goal of the Android Job Scheduler is to improve an application's power consumption. One of the tasks of the Android Job Scheduler API is scheduling maintenance tasks while the device charging.
Battery Saver mode can be used to clock down the CPU, decrease the screen's refresh, or turn off background data. Battery Saver mode can be triggered manually or set to start automatically when the battery reaches a certain level.
Recent Apps Screen
Android's Recent Apps interface was previously limited to a single instance of an app. In Android L, developers will be able to mark an activity within your app and have it treated as a new task by the Recent Apps screen.

Android L will include many of other improvements, including graphical improvements and updates to WebView. More information can be found at the Android Developer website.

Integration

The coming together of Android and Chrome has been talked about for some time. Google I/O showed off a number of ways in which this will start to happen.

Polymer
Polymer allows for web components to be built and placed in HTML. It takes an object approach to web development and allows for extremely complex and flexible objects to be easily imported to any web application. Objects can be placed at the DOM level with a simple element tag.

Polymer isn't new, it was featured during Google I/O 2013. However, the importance of Polymer in Google's long-term vision was shown during this year's event. To create a consistent user experience across native apps and the web a set of Material Design elements have been created for Polymer. New design guidelines for the web and native apps have been released to help developers to create a consistent experience. Both websites and mobile apps will be able to utilize the same animations, themes, and widgets. You can read more about this topic at the Google Design website.

Mobile Web Experience
Chrome has received improvements to further bridge the gap between native apps and the web. Search results in Google will also benefit form Material Design and Chrome tabs will show as individual activities in the Recent Apps screen. This will greatly improve multitasking and switching between mobile and web apps.

App indexing has been improved. Information from Google search results can now be opened by an appropriate app, given the right scenario. For example, a search for restaurants will return results in the browser, but you will also have the option to view the results in, for example, OpenTable for Android.

Chromebooks
Any remaining doubts or questions about Chromebooks have been put to rest during this year's Google I/O. It's clear Chromebooks are a hit, with the top ten rated laptops on Amazon all being Chromebooks.

Further improvements have been made to Chromebooks to integrate them more with Android. These include incoming calls and alerts from your phone appearing on your Chromebook and unlocking your Chromebook by having your phone in proximity.

The most significant announcement, however, is that Android apps will be able to run on Chromebooks. During the keynote, Evernote for Android was showcased running on a Chromebook. The popular Vine for Android application was able to use the Chromebook's camera to create a video. This is very exciting and looks promising for the future.

Android everywhere

Android is set to be coming to a screen near you, any screen.

Android Wear
Android Wear was officially released. Android Wear continues the Android experience onto your wrist and into a smaller form factor. It pairs with any smartphone running 4.3 or higher, and can receive and show notifications from your Android apps.

Applications can also show content on the Wear device. Google Now cards are a great example, showing you information as and when it becomes relevant.

Much like the Recent Apps screen on phones and tablets, content can be navigated by swiping up or down, and dismissed by swiping left or right. Android Wear also takes advantage of Google voice search and allows you to perform searches or issue commands.

Two devices went on pre-order after the event. The LG G Watch will ship on July 2 and will cost $229. The Samsung Gear Live will ship on July 7 and will cost $199.

Both devices have a similar form factor and comparable specifications. They run on a 1.2GHz CPU, have 4GB of storage, and sport 512MB of RAM.

Motorola will also be releasing a Wear device later in this year, the Moto 360, which will be the first smartwatch to feature a circular watch face.

Android Wear seems to be a solid platform, or an extension to Android, and will drastically reduce the number of times you need to take your phone out of your pocket.

Android Auto
Android Auto will bring some of Google's best features to your car. It strips down the Android experience and takes the most relevant aspects to driving, optimizing them for a dashboard user experience.

Google Voice Search is an important part of this experience. It can be initiated from the push of a button located near the steering wheel, allowing for commands to be issued hands-free. This should create a more familiar, intelligent, and safer drive.

The most significant announcement, however, is that Android apps will be able to run on Chromebooks. During the keynote, Evernote for Android was showcased running on a Chromebook. The popular Vine for Android application was able to use the Chromebook's camera to create a video. This is very exciting and looks promising for the future.

Android everywhere

Android is set to be coming to a screen near you, any screen.

Android Wear
Android Wear was officially released. Android Wear continues the Android experience onto your wrist and into a smaller form factor. It pairs with any smartphone running 4.3 or higher, and can receive and show notifications from your Android apps.

Applications can also show content on the Wear device. Google Now cards are a great example, showing you information as and when it becomes relevant.

Much like the Recent Apps screen on phones and tablets, content can be navigated by swiping up or down, and dismissed by swiping left or right. Android Wear also takes advantage of Google voice search and allows you to perform searches or issue commands.

Two devices went on pre-order after the event. The LG G Watch will ship on July 2 and will cost $229. The Samsung Gear Live will ship on July 7 and will cost $199.

Both devices have a similar form factor and comparable specifications. They run on a 1.2GHz CPU, have 4GB of storage, and sport 512MB of RAM.

Motorola will also be releasing a Wear device later in this year, the Moto 360, which will be the first smartwatch to feature a circular watch face.

Android Wear seems to be a solid platform, or an extension to Android, and will drastically reduce the number of times you need to take your phone out of your pocket.

Android Auto
Android Auto will bring some of Google's best features to your car. It strips down the Android experience and takes the most relevant aspects to driving, optimizing them for a dashboard user experience.

Google Voice Search is an important part of this experience. It can be initiated from the push of a button located near the steering wheel, allowing for commands to be issued hands-free. This should create a more familiar, intelligent, and safer drive.

The new Google Fit platform will allow developers to track fitness data, synchronize it across devices, and store it in a central location. A few major brands, such as Nike and Adidas, have already confirmed that they'll be using the service.

Conclusion

This year really left me with a lot to take in. The future of Android and Google looks bright and the rest of the year will be busy. I'm very excited about Polymer. The idea of easily having themes running through web sites and mobile apps is very appealing and reusable components are the icing on the cake.

With all that was announced, I did notice the omission of anything relating to a smart home and Google Glass. It is odd that Google made no mention of last year's biggest announcement.

Google Maps evolves to better compete with Yelp, TripAdvisor.
Google continues to evolve its Maps for mobile. It has gone well beyond the rudimentary local search and navigation product it once was and become an increasingly sophisticated local discovery tool with an array of content types and improved functionality.

Now Google has made Maps more “actionable” with OpenTable reservations and Uber pickup and price estimates built into the app. For the Uber functions to work users must have the Uber app pre-installed.

The entire Google Maps app (for both Android and iOS) has also been redesigned to be consistent with the new look of Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and Material Design. It’s a richer visual environment and provides more opportunities for engagement and content discovery.

On the one hand Google Maps competes with “local search” apps such as Yelp, Foursquare, YP and others but it’s also competing with TripAdvisor in travel, as well as myriad other vertical startups. One such restaurants category startup I discovered yesterday is Reserve.

Google Now and the entire Google-Android user experience are part of the holistic approach Google is taking to mobile, location and travel. Accordingly it has advantages over stand-alone products such a Foursquare or Yelp or Apple Maps. But it’s equally true that Google Maps hasn’t yet become a true replacement for apps such as Yelp or TripAdvisor.

I’m also waiting for Facebook to finally launch a stand-alone Places app that will give all of the above a run for their money.

Every time a new version of Android rolls around, there are undoubtedly plenty of applications that for some reason or another simply stop working. While some of these may be minor inconveniences to some, that isn’t always the case. If you’re a Type-A personality and you like micromanaging exactly when your mobile data is on and off, you most likely noticed that existing mobile data toggle widgets simply stopped working when Android 5.0 Lollipop came around. Luckily, there is now a suitable replacement that even packs a few extra tricks, thanks to Toggle Data 5.0.

Toggle Data 5.0 comes courtesy of XDA Senior Member cygery. This application is, for the most part, a simple home screen widget that does exactly as it says: It toggles your mobile data on Android Lollipop. In addition to the standard home screen mobile data widget functionality, Toggle Data 5.0 also offers Tasker / Locale integration, which allows you to use one of the aforementioned automation apps to toggle your mobile data with profiles.

If you’re an Android Lollipop user and you’ve been looking for a simple mobile data widget (or some Tasker / Locale integration), head over to the Toggle Data 5.0 application thread to get started.

Google search engine is best known for bringing up relevant web pages to the search terms you type in, due to its page rank algorithm.

However Google has built in some other lesser-known features. The Telegraph has scoured Google's search function for some of those elements.

Some of them are just quirky: try typing in "do a barrel roll" or "tilt" into the search bar for instance.

Others include useful functions such a translator function which enables you to type in a word in one language to find its equivalent in another.

There are also homages video games, such as from the 1980's brand Atari and the so-called 'zerg rush' feature in many titles.

Atari Breakout game on Google search

There are also useful functions such as a calculator and weather forecasts.

Google's calculator function is far more powerful than most people realise.

Watch the video to find out more about Google search's features.

You pick up your phone and say “OK Google”... and then what? Your phone is listening. The microphone icon is pulsing. What do you say to your phone? What can you say to it? Google Now’s voice function has become surprisingly robust over the years.

Here’s a list of just about everything you can say to Google Now. Try experimenting with different phrasing, you’ll be surprised how much it understands. The part of the phrase in [brackets] can be replaced with any similar term you choose.

If Google Now doesn’t get your spoken commands right, you can correct it by saying “No, I said...” and trying the phrase again.

General information

How old is [Neil deGrasse Tyson]?
Where was [Louis C.K.] born?
Define [colloquial] (Or “What does [colloquial] mean?”)
What time is it in [Tokyo]?
Search for [photography tips]
Show me pictures of [the Leaning Tower of Pisa]
Do I need an umbrella today? What’s the weather like? What’s the weather in [New Orleans] [this weekend]?
What the [Google] stock price? What is [Apple] trading at?
What’s [182 yards] in [miles]? What is [12 ounces] in [liters]?
What’s [135] divided by [7.5]? (A great many types of math equations will work.)

Device control

Open [greenbot.com]
Take a picture (“Take a photo” also works)
Record a video
Open [Spotify]

Productivity

What’s the tip for [123 dollars]?
Set an alarm for [6:30 am]
Set a timer for [20 minutes]
Create a calendar event: [Dinner with Glenda, Saturday at 9pm.]
Remind me to [buy coffee at 7am] (try locations! Remind me to [buy coffee filters at Walgreens])
What is my schedule for tomorrow? (also: What does my day look like [Friday]?)
Where’s my package? (tracking confirmation must be in Gmail)
Make a note: [update my router firmware] (also try “Note to self:” This works with multiple apps, and you can even email yourself!)
Find [Florence Ion’s] [phone number] (Works with all info in your contacts - addresses, birthdays, etc.)
Show me my bills. (or: My bills due this week.)

Communication

Call [Jon] (also works with relationships: Call [sister])
Text [Susie] [great job on that feature yesterday] (also works with relationships: Text [mom] [I’m not going to be able to pick you up from the airport, period, I’m a bad son, period])
Send email to [Robert Baratheon], subject, [hunting], message, [I don’t think you should drink so much when you go hunting, period]
Post to [Twitter]: [Oh my god the Red Wedding episode!]
Navigation and Travel

Where is the nearest [sushi restauraunt]?
Navigate to [Willis Tower, Chicago]
Directions to [Fisherman’s Wharf] by [bike] (also try “Directions home” or “How do I get home?”)
Where is [the Louvre]?
Show me the menu for [Green Chile Kitchen]
Call [Asian Art Museum]
Show me my flight info
Where’s my hotel?
What are some attractions around here?
How do you say [good night] in [Japanese]?
What is [50,000 yen] in [dollars]?
What’s the flight status of [United] flight [735]?
Show me restauraunts near my hotel -or- Give me directions back to my hotel (this works if your hotel confirmation was sent to your gmail account)
Entertainment

Play some music (opens “I’m feeling lucky” radio station in Google Play Music)
Next Song / Pause Song
Play [Happy] (songs must be in Google Play Music on your device)
Watch [The Lego Movie] (movies and TV must be in your Google Play account)
What’s this song?
Listen to TV
What songs does [Pharrell] sing?
Read [Hunger Games]
Did the [Giants] win today? What’s the score in the [Warriors] game?
What movies are playing [tonight]? Where is [Toy Story] playing?
Fun hidden stuff

Many of these deliver funny voice responses, but normal search results. Turn up your sound!

What is the loneliest number?
Do a barrel roll!
Askew / Tilt
Go go Gadget [Spotify]
When am I?
Make me a sandwich
Sudo make me a sandwich
Who’s on first?
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right
Tell me a joke
Who are you?
Beam me up, Scotty!
What is [Jennifer Lawrence’s] Bacon number?

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This is the New Calendar 5.0 for Android

The new Google Calendar 5.0 update is now available on Android for Lollipop users (everyone else over the coming weeks). This is the the best Google app redesign I have seen yet, and I’m not sure that it is even close (that includes the Gmail 5.0 update I just wrote about). And so you know, this is coming from someone who lives and breathes in a calendar all day, every day. I have tried all the good calendar apps, even settling on Sunrise for months. Sunrise is awesome. But it’s not as awesome as this new Google Calendar.

I have been playing with it for a few days now on the Nexus 6, trying to form some opinions on it as we led up to today’s launch. Here they are.

The old Google Calendar always felt a little forgotten and clunky. That is absolutely no longer the case with 5.0. You get a full Material Design makeover, that includes a re-designed slideout menu, action bar, and floating “new event” button. It’s also much more colorful (if you want it to be) and a hell of a lot more powerful.

The Calendar 5.0 app can pull in events from Gmail automatically now, so if you book a flight or hotel or make a dinner reservation, that info can show up on your calendar without any work. These automatic adds will even bring in things like flight numbers and check-in times.

The new Calendar also tries to save you a bunch of time by assisting you with contacts, titles of events, and places as you create new events, all of which will adapt to your preferences over time.

Outside of all that, my favorite new item might be the new Schedule view that is not only colorful, but brings in maps and pictures of places you are going or have been. These could be cityscapes or illustrations based on every day happenings (drinks, dinner, sports, etc.). The new Schedule view also includes colorful monthly art that brings your calendar to life a bit. Oh, and tablet mode – damn is it pretty.

Check out the images below for a quick tour, but then check out Google’s video promo below to take it all in.

Again, the new Calendar 5.0 is available to Lollipop users today (which means people who own a Nexus 9) and will arrive to Android 4.1+ users over the coming weeks.

Still waiting for an Inbox invite? If so, Google is hosting a special Inbox Invite Happy Hour, where anyone can email inbox@google.com between 3 and 4pm PT, then receive an invite by 5pm PT tonight.

Up until this, the only way to gain access to Inbox, Google’s new priority-based email service, was to either receive an invite from Google directly or from someone who already gained access.

While the rollout of invites has been smooth, it appears Google is just about ready to open the floodgates for all users.

Have you still been waiting for an invite?

Via: @InboxbyGmail