Disney’s Playmation toys let kids feel like an Avenger

The rise of smartphones and tablets has forced entertainment firms, such as Disney, to design merchandise that can bring themed toys to life. That’s the case for Playmation, a platform of smart toys that combines Disney’s popular movie franchises with sensors and kids’ imagination. The first set, scheduled to launch in October, will be based on none other than Marvel’s Avengers, while Star Wars and Frozen are expected to arrive in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The Starter Pack we tried features an Iron Man glove, which lets young ones hear and feel what it’s like to have the superhero’s powers — like his signature repulsor blast. There are also two figures included (Captain America, Iron Skull), as well as a pair of base stations that communicate with Tony Stark’s wearable via IR, and can be used for interactive missions.

What’s great about the Iron Man glove is the haptic feedback it provides, allowing you to experience a vibration every time a move is pulled off or impact is received. It’s well-made too, so while it looks hefty on your arm, it doesn’t feel heavy at all. (Disney made this in collaboration with Hasbro and, naturally, says a lot of research went into it to make sure kids felt comfortable wearing it.) Out of the box, the Avengers Starter Pack comes with 25 missions — but since these are connected toys, after all, more could be added in the future through software updates. The companion iOS and Android app, meanwhile, will let kids view mission details and track battle stats, plus customize gear with abilities they’ve earned; the more they play, the more they earn.

The best part about Playmation, though, is that it is going to keep kids active, since it requires them to run around and have fun during their missions. And, in an age where children can be easily consumed by smartphone or tablet screens, this is a valuable thing to consider. Disney’s Avenger set is expected to hit shelves in October for $120, with each additional figure to be sold separately for $15.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Wearables

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Resident Advisor’s app leads you to the nearest rave

Electronic dance music is booming far, wide and loud at spectacular festivals. As per Ibiza’s International Music Summit report, the EDM industry in North America alone rakes in $1.6 billion from live events. It’s not just the monstrous Electric Daisy Carnival-style festivals that contribute to the popularity and the revenue, though. There’s a plethora of dance music talent gigging across smaller venues too. Resident Advisor’s (RA) been one of the more reliable curators of those gigs for the last 14 years. Whether you’re in need of some commercial beats at Pacha in New York or want a dose of an offbeat warehouse gig in Paris, RA’s been sorting through the clutter for you. Now the site’s extending its expertise with a mobile events guide that’s optimized for dance music.

The RA Guide app (available on iTunes today) taps into the parent site’s expansive collection of about one million artists and venue listings that span 120 countries. It picks up your location and personalizes the listing based on artists marked favorite on your app or iTunes library. “The ability to explore [that] intersection and find out what’s going on right where you are is incredibly powerful,” says Paul Clement, co-founder of Resident Advisor told Engadget. “This is not something that is easily handled via traditional website interfaces, and was the specific driver behind the app.”

RA isn’t the first dance music-dedicated site that’s launched an app to make partying easier. Beatport, a popular EDM market place, introduced a customized calendar option on its app earlier this year. But RA’s rolled out a native ticketing system so you can instantly buy access to an event, which gives this mobile guide an edge over similar apps.

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Why you should test your apps on a range of devices

Almost all app developers will testify to the importance and power of testing. While there are a range of development methodologies in use and a range of SDK options — from Google’s official Java based SDK to third party cross-platform SDKs — every app, regardless of how it is written, needs to be tested.

Testing is in itself a whole branch of software engineering. You can write whole books on testing, testing methodologies, and test automation, in fact lots of people have! Some app developers just pay lip service to testing. The app works OK in the emulator, and it works on their own phone, and that is it. But the problem is this, one sure way for an app fail in the Google Play Store is if it has compatibility issues.

Just go to the Play Store and start to read the feedback left on some apps. “I am using a Samsung XYZ and I get a blank screen at start-up,” or “Works on my Sony ABC, but crashes on my HTC QPR,” and so on. Just replace XYZ, ABC and QPR with the name of a popular model of handset from those manufacturers. That is a sure recipe for disaster.

Diversity

The great thing about the Android ecosystem is its diversity. Some people mistakenly call it fragmentation, but that is really not very accurate. If you look at the desktop PC and laptop market you can see diversity, lots of different sizes, different levels of performance, different GPU manufacturers, different CPU manufacturers, and so on. This is diversity not fragmentation. The same is true of the Android ecosystem, there are phones with 2K screen resolutions and others with 720p or less; there are quad-core phones, hexa-core phones, octa-core phones, etc.; some phones have 512MB of RAM, some 1GB or 2GB, others even more; some handsets supports OpenGL ES 2.0, while others support OpenGL ES 3.0; and so on.

Not testing your app on an ARM based smartphone is the equivalent to not testing it at all.

However, like the PC market, the common denominator is the OS, in this case Android. That doesn’t mean that Android ecosystem doesn’t have its problems. In the Windows ecosystem some PCs and laptops are running Windows 7, some are running Windows 8, and so on. For smartphones this means some are running Android 4.1, some 4.4, some 5.0, and so on.

Back in 2012 Google changed the terms and conditions of its SDK to ensure that Android didn’t fragment. The terms and conditions explicitly state that developers using the SDK  do “not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK.”

This means that the different derivations of Android, including Amazon’s Fire OS, Cyanogenmod, and MIUI are all still Android at their cores. Another commonality across most Android devices is that they use the same CPU architecture. While Android supports the Intel and MIPS CPU architectures, ARM based processors remain the most prevalent, by a long shot. Not testing your app on an ARM based smartphone is the equivalent to not testing it at all.

Low-end to High-end

One of the main reasons that the ARM architecture has been so successful on mobile is that the architecture is a good fit in all the key market segments. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S6 uses the ARM based Exynos 7420. It is a 64-bit processor with 8 CPU cores (4x ARM Cortex-A57 @ 2.1GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz cores using big.LITTLE), and an ARM Mali-T760 MP8 GPU which supports OpenGL ES 3.1. It is made using the current leading edge manufacturing technologies (14nm FinFET) and supports LPDDR4. In other words it is a beast of a processor.

More than half of all Android devices still only support OpenGL ES 2.0.

But at the other end of the scale the ARM architecture is equally well suited. The Android One program is a initiative by Google to enable people in less affluent countries to buy a smartphone. The CPU architecture of choice for the Android One program is ARM. The first generation Android One phones all shipped with a MediaTek MT6582 processor, which includes a quad-core 32-bit Cortex-A7 CPU, and a Mali-400 MP2 GPU which supports OpenGL ES 2.0. It is manufactured using an older chip process technology (28nm).

A Cortex-A7 core is about 3 times slower than a Cortex-A57 core, but it is much cheaper to make and so is great for a program like Android One. But don’t be fooled by the seeming low-end specs of these Android One phones, Google has already released Android 5.1.1 for these devices!

The Android One program highlights the importance of emerging markets. According to Gartner, worldwide smartphone shipments grew by 19 percent during the first quarter of 2015, and that growth was driven mainly by emerging markets. In this market local brands and Chinese vendors recorded an average growth of 73 percent in smartphone sales.

Unity

Unity, the popular 3D game engine, has some statistics about what type of devices are being used to play Unity based games. While Android One advocates quad-core processors, the data from Unity shows that dual-core smartphones are still very much in use with just under a third of all smartphones playing Unity based games sporting a dual-core processor. However, quad-core processors are the most popular and account for over half the smartphones in Unity’s dataset, while octa-core phones make up around 4 percent. The same data also shows that 40% of smartphones have less than 1GB of RAM!

Native code, 64-bits, and threading

The official development language of Android is Java, and while that works great for many types of applications, there are times when the need for greater performance means you have to start writing in C or C++. The Android Native Development Toolkit (NDK) is a toolset that allows developers to write large parts of their apps using native-code languages. Google suggest that the NDK is used if you are writing CPU-intensive applications such as game engines, signal processing, and physics simulation.

Since the NDK compiles the C/C++ to native binaries, the only effective way to test the code is on an actual device. For the ARM platform the NDK supports both 32-bit ARMv7 and 64-bit ARMv8.

The NDK also supports ARM’s Advanced SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) instructions called NEON. They are a set of scalar/vector instructions and registers similar to the MMX/SSE/3DNow! instructions found on x86 desktops. For the ARMv7 architecture NEON was an optional component that might not be included in any given processor. The NDK offers runtime detection to confirm the presence of NEON. As with other native code, the most effective way to test NEON code is on an actual device.

If you’ve written Native (NDK) code to optimize for low end devices or to save battery around hotspots in your code, make sure your compiler flags are compatible across a range of other devices.

If you are using the NDK then you should make sure that your code is 64-bit safe. An increasing number of smartphones are now shipping with 64-bit processors and this trend will continue. While Java apps don’t have to worry about 32-bit vs 64-bit, C and C++ programs do. There are lots of common ‘gotchas’ including magic numbers and the way bit-shifting operations work (especially in overflow situations). It is worth reading 20 issues of porting C++ code on the 64-bit platform to remind yourself of the potential dangers.

One thing is guaranteed, the scheduler will work differently in the emulator than on a real device.

While on the topic of performance, it is worth mentioning that one of the best ways to increase the performance of an app is to use multi-threading. Since almost all Android smartphones have at least a dual-core processor and over half have a quad-core processor, it is important to design your code to fully utilize those cores.

Creating multi-threaded apps isn’t hard with Android. Google has lots of information about multi-threading in the Processes and Threads section of the Android documentation. Google also provides several different multi-threaded examples.

However, complex multi-threading programs (those which use semaphores etc.) can behave slightly differently depending on the number of cores, and the way the scheduler is running the threads. One thing is guaranteed, the scheduler will work differently in the emulator than on a real device. The safest course of action is to thoroughly test your app on different devices.

Testing

In an ideal situation you should test you app on lots of different devices under lots of different conditions. But there is obviously a practical limit to the number of devices that can be used for testing, both in terms of costs and time. To help we have put together a guide: Ways to economically test your apps on a range of devices.

Once you have found the means to test your app on multiple devices, it is important to set some criteria for which devices to use. As well as the obvious things like the popularity of a device, the screen resolution, and the version of Android, there are others of the factors you should consider when picking which devices to use:

• GPU – Testing on OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0.
• CPU – To check that the performance is acceptable on both high-end and low-end handsets.
• ABI – If you’ve developed any native (C/C++/assembly) code, test it on both 32-bit ARMv7-A and 64-bit ARMv8-A devices.
• SIMD – If you’ve developed any Single Instruction Multiple Data ARM NEON code, test it on both 32-bit and 64-bit devices .

You will want to test your app on devices which only support OpenGL ES 2.0 as well as devices which support OpenGL ES 3.0 and 3.1. You might think that OpenGl ES 2.0 is no longer important, however at the time of writing Google’s Dashboards show that more than half of all Android devices still only support OpenGL ES 2.0. This again highlights the need to test lower-end devices using GPUs like the Mali-400MP and Mali-450MP.

Example data from Google’s Dashboards.

It is also important that you optimize your app for certain GPUs to ensure that you get the best performance (and battery life) from your app. A good starting place is to read our guide: Lighting, console level graphics & ARM – 5 things developers need to know.

In terms of CPU testing, the key is to make sure that your app delivers reasonable performance on low-end devices and isn’t limited to mid- or  high-end only handsets. This means at a minimal that you should test your app on a handset with a quad-core Cortex-A7 based processor, as well as testing it with the latest high-end Samsung or Qualcomm processor.

Wrap up

It is generally accepted that fixing bugs after a product release is more expensive than fixing bugs before release. The reason is that the cost of fixing the bug includes not only the engineering time required to fix the code, manage the change processes, and the build, test, and release of a new version. But it also includes the potential damage done to the app’s reputation including negative scoring and bad reviews on the Google Play Store.

When testing you need to consider which devices to use and rank them in order or priority. Although the Android emulator provides a good starting point to sanity check how an app is running, there is no substitution for running your app on real devices.

Here’s to the next billion: major trends shaping the smartphone industry

There has been much talk about shipping the next billion smartphones ever since the market surpassed the 1 billion smartphones milestone at some point last year. Google believed, rather incorrectly with hindsight, that its Android One program would help bring the next billion customers into the fold, while others are looking to local low cost manufacturers in Asia to meet consumer demand.

There are a lot of different regions, trends and regional trends that are going to affect how and when the market reaches the 2 billion mark. Here is my take on where the next billion smartphones may come from, and who is in the best position to bring these consumers into the fold.

The market continues to grow

While the estimation of exactly when the industry hits the 2 billion customer mark varies a bit from firm to firm, the consensus is that it will take much less time to reach the second billion than it did the first. Since passing the first billion smartphones, shipments have continued to grow at a steady rate, with little sign of a slowdown predicted until near the close of the decade. Below shows a couple of sample charts from BI Intelligence and eMarketer, which both predict that the 2 billion milestone is likely to be hit at some point within 2016.

Other research firms, such as IDC and ABI Research, suggest that this might take a little longer, perhaps in 2017 or 2018, but the point is that we’re already quite close.

According to the latest BI Intelligence report, 1.3 billion smartphones were shipped in 2014, a growth rate of 29 percent over 2013. Growth in 2013 was around 45 percent, so although the rate of growth may be slowing, the firm is still predicting strong increase in the number of shipments year after year. By 2020, BI Intelligence suggests that 3.4 billion smartphones would have shipped, led not by continued momentum in the Chinese market, but by a continued boom in India.

Emerging markets leading the charge

Leading the growth in smartphones is a surge in upgrades in developed markets and the accelerated shift from feature phones to smartphones. This can be observed in the booming Indian smartphone market, which has attracted a number of manufacturers looking to expand out from the equally competitive Chinese market.

Turning to eMarketer projections through to 2018, we can see the largest growth in the next few years is projected to come from the Chinese and Indian markets, while established regions will continue to grow at much slower rates. In fact, the data suggests that India is set to overtake the US market as early as 2016.

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Using this as a guide, from the next 1 billion smartphones, approximately 240 million will come from China, 170 million from India, and around 30 to 50 million each from a selection of growing economies, including Indonesia, Brazil and the Philippines. Even the US is expected to contribute around 70 million new units, but most other developed mobile regions are expected to contribute only around 10 million new units each.

It is perhaps not so surprising to have seen such large interest in the Indian market from both low cost Chinese manufacturers and more established smartphone bands. These Chinese market is not as skewed towards Apple and Samsung as many Western economies, and its latest list of top five manufacturers consist of Chinese manufacturers Huawei, Lenovo and the explosively popular Xiaomi. Furthermore, 41.7 percent of Q1 2015 shipments came from other companies, which is a much larger portion than in other countries.

While China’s growth in the past few years has been fueled in no small part by its home-grown talent, the situation is a little different in India. India also has its own local players already established in the market, but these are facing competition from a huge number of outside manufacturers, which are both experienced in emerging and high-end market conditions.

Xiaomi, OnePlus and Lenovo (Motorola) are just a few of the Chinese companies competing against Micromax, Lava, Karbonn and other Indian companies. Samsung and Micromax current hold the largest share in India at 48 percent combined, leaving the remaining 52 percent of this growing market up for grabs.

http://embed.chartblocks.com/1.0/?c=558ab58cc9a61d7c176a8907&t=d93e1f5dc5ac013

When it comes to the more established brands, such as those from Korea and Japan, these companies are looking to emerging markets to offset the predicted slow-down in their traditional regional strongholds. Of course, there remains a market for converting customers to higher-end models, as Apple and Samsung have managed to do in China. However, this itself is not the driving factor that is bringing new customers to smartphones.

For example, LG is reaping the rewards of focusing a strong line-up of mid-range products on the South American market and has just announced a $155 million investment in R&D in India, with the possibility of opening up production in the country if its market share reached 10 percent.

New business models to meet demand

With the move to new markets comes a new set of consumer expectations and purchasing habits. Features such as dual-SIM compatibility and value for money are a little different from what we’re used to seeing in Western markets.

Price has been a major point of contest in these growing markets, which has seen the increasing use of e-commerce to help manage stock levels and keep prices under control. In India, Chinese brands have been undercutting established brands and this has been chipping away at their market share.

Keeping track of stock has become a particularly important business aspect in these markets, as price competition is encouraging shorter model life cycles. Being caught out with too much stock of an obsolete product could put a company out of the race.

It is no coincidence that a reduction in hardware costs is encouraging higher sales volumes. The average smartphone selling price across most of the world is expected to continue to fall as we head towards 2 billion smartphones sold. That is with the exception of the North American market, but this is an older, more saturated market. IDC estimates that the average selling price will reach $265 in 2017, with the Asia Pacific region falling as low as $215.

Moving over to local manufacturing could be the next step in the price war, as setting up distribution networks for huge import numbers is very expensive and time consuming. Building products closer to their retail point could make companies more flexible both on price and on bringing products to market quickly. However, the drive for lower and lower prices will inevitably lead to some some casualties. The state of the Chinese and Indian markets is likely to look a little different in a few years, as competition squeezes out companies which are unable to continually lower their prices.

What is particularly interesting about the race to the next 1 billion smartphones is that two very different smartphone business models are now going head to head to carve themselves out a significant share of the fastest growing markets. The winner remains to be determined.

You’re going to need an invite to get Canonical’s Ubuntu-powered Meizu MX4

Canonical will be launching its third ever Ubuntu-powered smartphone in Europe tomorrow, which is based on Meizu’s popular MX4.

Consumers aren’t going to be able to easily get their hands on the Ubuntu smartphone, though. If you want the new device, you’re going to have to get an invite from Canonical to purchase one. It will cost €299 or $345 USD.

The Ubuntu powered Meizu MX4 features a 5.4-inch 1,920 x 1,152 display, a 2.2GHz octa-core MT6595 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 20.7-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and a massive 3,100mAh battery to power it all. It does have 16GB of internal storage, but there’s no option to add external storage.

To grab an invite, you’ll have to head over to Meizu’s English website and complete a puzzle to receive details and invite information for the smartphone.

We’re not sure how long Canonical plans on keeping the invite only business model going for this device. Of course, Cristian Parrino, Canonical’s VP of mobile, says that most people who sign-up should get an invite. But that makes it seem like this business model is merely red tape to get through to purchase the smartphone.

As far as availability goes, the Ubunutu-powered device is only available in Europe and China. We haven’t heard any details beyond those two markets. And we may not even hear anything else unless the device begins taking off.

source: Engadget

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