Android Developers Blog: Future of Java 8 Language Feature Support on Android

Android Developers Blog: Future of Java 8 Language Feature Support on Android

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Why Windows 8 is Microsoft’s most vital launch in years

Microsoft Windows was a fact of life for an entire generation raised on the PC. But we live in a different world now, and perhaps nothing underscores how much that world has changed more than the fact that the version of Windows that Microsoft is getting ready to launch this year is its most important product launch in decades.

It has been 17 years since the general public was genuinely excited by a new version of Windows: people actually lined up to buy Windows 95 like it was the iPhone or something. Years of meandering followed: Windows ME was a joke, Windows XP was an updated but essentially similar experience to Windows 95, Windows Vista was an attempt to correct XP’s security issues but turned into a joke of its own, and Windows 7 was what Vista should have been yet failed to inspire. In the meantime, Apple and Google captured the attention of software developers and the public with mobile computers built around iOS and Android.

But Windows 8 is going to be different. Tomorrow morning in Barcelona (at a telecom industry conference, of all things) Microsoft is going to unveil the Consumer Preview Edition of Windows 8, and if it arrives on schedule and without incident later this year, it could accelerate the world’s transition toward a mobile-first vision of general purpose computing.

Windows 8 is a huge development for Microsoft in several ways:

• The Windows user experience has been radically overhauled with the Metro user interface, which has been a critically acclaimed (if not revenue-generating) part of the Windows Phone design. Metro will be unfamiliar to the millions raised on the concept of the “Start” button (now the Windows logo button on Windows 7) in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, but it allows Microsoft to embrace a new era of computing that is more and more about the touch screen.
• Microsoft developed a version of Windows 8 for ARM processors, a chip brand unfamiliar to most average computer users but which is at the heart of nearly every single smartphone and tablet sold over the last several years. Even though Intel seems to have finally gotten its act together in the power-sensitive mobile space, ARM is an industry standard for mobile processing and will allow PC companies like HP to build power-efficient tablets in hopes of competing with the iPad.
• Microsoft has always had a big problem: introducing radical new changes in Windows breaks a lot of business applications that were built for previous versions, which has led the company to move slowly through transitional periods. Windows 8 represents one of the biggest leaps forward for mainstream Windows developers in what seems like forever, but Microsoft had no choice but to include a “Desktop” user interface version of Windows 8 that will run old applications. The transition between Metro and Desktop could be jarring, and conservative support for Metro may not expose as many Windows 8 users as possible to the best parts of Windows 8.
• Applications written for the Metro user interface will be sold through the Windows Store, as opposed to the more traditional shrink-wrapped or downloadable software sold for Windows. Sharing revenue with Microsoft will be a new experience for the Windows development community, although it’s established practice for iOS developers and Microsoft will actually take a smaller cut than Apple once an app’s revenue passes $25,000.

The traditional PC isn’t going anywhere just yet, but just ask HP and Dell: nor is it in good shape. Wednesday could be the first day when we realize whether or not Windows 8 can be a product that allows the traditional PC industry to refocus itself around both traditional PCs in lighter forms as well as iPad competitors.

The stakes for Microsoft are enormous. The company largely subsists on two cash cows: Windows and Office, and Windows sales are under pressure with the slow decline of the PC market.

But there’s also an existential crisis at hand for Microsoft. It defined personal computing in the years after Apple lost its way in the 1980s, and now that Apple is very much back in that role Microsoft desperately wants to remind the world that it is capable of setting a new bar for personal computing.

After getting a few glimpses of Windows 8, the tech industry started wondering if Microsoft has finally come up with something unique. Come Wednesday, when enthusiasts can begin to put the software through the paces, we’ll start to get a better idea of whether Microsoft is ready for a new era.

Adobe Brings Photoshop Touch to the iPad Adobe Brings Photoshop Touch to the iPad

BARCELONA: Adobe Photoshop Express is a great, free and highly usable iOS app for quickly fixing up your digital photos, but it pales in comparison to the desktop version of Photoshop. Last year Adobe introduced a solution: Photoshop Touch, but chose to bring it to the Android Tablet market first. Now, as promised, Adobe is finally bringing that powerful image editing capability to Apple‘s iPad 2. The company will announce the new app today in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress.

Editor’s note: This story was intended to be confidential until 9 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night, but 9 to 5 Mac broke that embargo, so that’s why we’re publishing this story early.

For $9.99, iPad 2 owners (sorry, there’s currently no iPad 1 support) get the ability to work in layers, use “sophisticated” selection tools and “scribble” over images to remove unwanted portions. Users will also be able to touch up photos, paint over them and create new layouts. The new app is part of Adobe’s upcoming suite of iPad “Touch” Apps. “Inspired by Adobe’s Creative Suite,” the apps include:

Adobe Collage; Adobe Debut presentation software; Adobe Ideas, which will be similar to the Illustrator vector-based desktop drawing software; Adobe Kuler color theme manager; and website- prototyping and wireframe tool Adobe Proto. Adobe said these remaining apps will launch for iOS later this year and will all work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud services.

Other features in Adobe Touch for iPad include the ability to share to Facebook directly from the app, search, using Google, from within the app, apply sophisticated image effects, and even use your tablet’s built-in camera to fill in portions of your image project.

“Photoshop Touch combines the magic of Photoshop and its core features with the convenience of a tablet, bringing image-editing power to the fingertips of millions of people,” said David Wadhwani, Adobe’s Digital Media Business Unit senior vice president and general manager.

Adobe’s Photoshop Touch requires iOS 5 and will be available in the App Store on Monday, February 27. Although9 to 5 Mac reported it was available now in New Zealand and Australia, the app has since been removed from the App Store, set to become available worldwide on Monday. The 9 to 5 Mac site also reported some of its readers saying the iPad 2 version “works better than the Android version.”

Will you pay nearly $10 for this tablet-based image editing app, or are instant effects-generators and editors like Instagram and Adobe Express sufficient for your image-editing needs? Let us know in the comments.

आता बीएसएनएलचे ३ टॅब्लेट्स!

- नेटिझन्ससाठी खूशखबर.. स्वस्त टॅब्लेट्सची स्पर्धा जोरात..

नवी दिल्ली। दि. २५ (वृत्तसंस्था)

जगातील सर्वांत स्वस्त टॅब्लेट असा मान मिळविणार्‍या ‘आकाश’ या भारतीय आयपॅडच्या स्पर्धेत आता बीएसएनएलने ३ टॅब्लेट्स आणली आहेत. त्यांची किंमत ३२५0 रुपयांपासून राहणार आहे. ही टॅब्लेट्स मार्केटमध्ये दाखल होताच, या क्षेत्रातील स्पर्धा अधिक तीव्र होणार आहे. 

‘टी पॅड आयएस ७0१ आर’, ‘टी पॅड डब्ल्यूएस ७0४ सी’ आणि ‘टी पॅड डब्ल्यूएस ८0२ सी’अशी भारत संचार निगम लिमिटेड (बीएसएनएल)च्या तीन टॅब्लेट्सची नावे आहेत. ती अँड्रिड्युड २.३ ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टीमवर चालणार आहेत. यातील पहिल्या दोन टॅब्लेट्सची स्क्रीन ७ इंच तर तिसर्‍याची स्क्रीन ८ इंच आहे. त्यांची क्षमता २ जीबी ते ३२ जीबीपर्यंत आहे तसेच त्यातील एक थेट टीव्हीलाही जोडता येणार आहे, अशी माहिती बीएसएनएलच्या सूत्रांनी दिली. नोएडास्थित पॅन्टेल या कंपनीमार्फत याची निर्मिती करण्यात येणार आहे. बीएसएनएलच्या डाटा प्लॅनसोबत ती स्वस्तात उपलब्ध होतील, असेही या सूत्रांनी सांगितले. 

असे आहेत टॅब्लेट्स..

- टी पॅड आयएस ७0१ आर : १ गेगा हर्ट्झ प्रोसेसर, २५६ एमबी रॅम, वायफाय, इनबिल्ट २ जीबी मेमरी, ३२ जीबीपर्यंत वाढविता येणार. किंमत ३,२५0 रुपये

- टी पॅड डब्ल्यूएस ७0४ सी : ५१२ एमबी डीडीआर ३ रॅम, टीव्हीला जोडण्याची सुविधा, किंमत १0.९९९ रुपये

- टी पॅड डब्ल्यूएस ८0२ सी : ५१२ एमबी डीडीआर ३ रॅम, १.२ जीएचझेड प्रोसेसर, ग्लोबल पोजिशन सिस्टीम. किंमत १३,५00.