This week all eyes are on the Mobile World Congress 2008; probably that we will see very soon a Weekly Android Handsets on OHM. We’ll be back on this event with more details, but today we have another selection of Android applications including a tipper, a translator, in addition to OpenIntents - the open interfaces project for Android.

OpenIntents

OpenIntents defines and implements open interfaces for improved interoperability of Android applications. Another interesting Android project which aims to make your mobile experience unique on Android handsets. The project is very open; anyone can participate into OpenIntents with code or ideas. Many interesting experiments and applications are already available with OpenIntents; most notable the Sensor Similator, and the central shopping list.

Tipper

Tipper is the second cool utility from iambic, a handy “split tip” calculator for dining out. It saves time and effort by calculating the total and displaying the actual tip amount.

SeaThreePO Android Translator

Even if it’s a quick Synday project as David announced on his blog, SeaThreePO is a pretty useful Android translator. SeaThreePO is based on dims’ code and using simply Android XMPP and Google translation bots.

Popularity: 100%

This week we have selected two mapping applications : Android Location and Metosphere. Many developpers seems very interested into mapping applications integrated with social and GPS features. Choice of mapping applications is going to be great on Android. Netscramble is another game to have more fun on Android, a port of the KDE knetwalk game, then finally Googhelper a utility to help users serch the internet.

Android Location

Android Location is a social mapping application for Android, a revolutionary service that will change the way people use mobile phones to keep in touch with their friends. Android Location aims to facilitates real-world interaction between friends and puts an end to frustrating missed connections. There are already 9 developers member of the project, but notice that the application is beeing developed under J2ME to assure compatibility with other mobile platforms. Features include :

• Know where you are without having a GPS
• Connect with friends and get alerted where they are nearby
• Explore places and events recommended by friends
• Recommend new places
• Search for stuff to buy in nearby stores

Metosphere

Metosphere is a mapping application where users can explore virtual objects around physical location like messages, emergency alerts, news, events, reviews, games. The goal is to follow the Firefox/Eclipse model and provide the ability to create extensions and add-ons like a Geocaching Assistant, Location Messaging Client, Proximity-based RSS Reader, Flash Mob Communicator, Community/Campus Emergency Alert Notifier, or even a Meatspace MUD game. More objects are going to be supported in the future.

GoogHelper

GoogHelper is a snappy utility that helps you quickly launch various Internet searches using mobile friendly sites such as Google, Yahoo!Finance, Amazon, Wikipedia and many more. The application is provided by iambic, and according to a blog post there will be more applications for android coming in the next month. The company already provide a very large set of mobile applications for Palm, Smartphone, Symbian, PocketPC, Blackberry and more.

Netscramble

Netscramble is a port of the KDE game “knetwalk”. The player is given a network diagram with the parts of the network randomly rotated; he/she must rotate them to connect all the terminals to the server. You have to be an android to solve it!. Pretty fun game that you can enjoy from your keyboard or touchscreen.

Popularity: 38%

Almost one month before Android developer challenge and more applications popped out getting ready for the challenge. Highlighted this week are the framework and efforts to help making amazing Android applications : the case of AndroidSap and GridGain respectively for Android/SAP Netweaver integration and Grid computing on Android devices. More applications include Paparazzi, the first real-life multiplayer game and Molib which integrates maps to Velib service in Paris.

Paparazzi Game for Google Android

“Paparazzi” was designed to use the built-in phone camera in the first person real-life multiplayer game. This is a prototype of location based MMORPG which will combine all new Android features like gps/compass/camera. Just imagine that you will be able to see virtual objects via phone camera. An innovative virtual reality game for the Android developer contest. Paparazzi preview version is available for download.

AndroidSAP Connects Android to a SAP Backend

Ignacio Hernandez have created an interesting example application to connect Android to SAP NetWeaver. An intersting project to bring Android to enterprise ERP/CRM world. Code is free so you can use it in your own application. More information and download available from Ignacio blog.

GridGrain, Open Source Grid Computing for Android

Featured last Tuesday on BusinessWeek, GridGrain is an open source Grid Computing solution for Java available for Android platform. GridGrain is not an application but a technology that could be used to create innovative applications with shared computing between different Android devices. But the question is, can we really turn Android devices into supercomputers ? Sounds like science fiction.

Molib, Velib on Android

Velib is a new public bicycle rental program launched in Paris on July 15, 2007. The program include 750 hire points, and 10,000 bicycles. Similar programs are available in others cities such Brussels, Copenhagen, Munich … etc. Velib is very useful and with Molib it become much more better, especially if you don’t know the city. The idea is to avoid congestions and use a velib instead of your car or metro. Molib will be simply your guide in Paris to find Velib stations nearby in real time, and show your locations in the city.

Popularity: 48%

We are starting this week with a new selection of new Android applications. This week highlighted an RPN Calculator, Crossword game, Android VNC, City Audioguides, and a Social rating system for your contacts and locations.

Android RPN Calculator

Android RPN Calculator is an experimental application which aims to implement an RPN-based calculator. Read the definition of RPN before using the calculator if you don’t it, otherwise you might find it very confusing to use. Currently many buttons still not implemented but many already working. So you can get the apk and give it a try.

Website : http://code.google.com/p/android-rpn-calculator/

Android Crossword game

Arensus Crossword Player is the name of a new fun game which let you solve crosswords on Android. You can download crosswords from the internet using simply Android browser, then you use Crossword Player for the game itself. There are options to reveal a letter, word, or the entire crossword, and player can save Scale factor, Top/left position of view, Played time, Current crossword field, Current direction, All letters for each field, All checked status of each field, and All revealed status of each field. Arensus Crossword Player is one of the applications that are participating in the Android Challenge.

Website : http://oxonom.com/node/10

KudoStar, social rating system

KudoStar is a mobile social rating system that connects your contacts and favorite locations. People and places accumulate positive and negative Kudostars (KudoScore), with relevant sound, images, and video while keeping the user interface intuitive and simple to use. KudoStar then uses this information and ties it in with not only other Android phones but also your social networking sites. KudoStar will also utilize Facebook’s F8 and Google’s opensocial platforms to virally spread the collected data to a multitude of users. Tying Google Maps, and v:social’s media platforms KudoStar will allow a vast array of viewing options for the data that is collected.

Website : http://www.kudostar.com/

Android VNC

The aim of this project is to make testing of Android platform more easy on real handsets with full screen VNC client running. The current test framework is ideally suited for Windows Mobile based handsets running .NET VNC Viewer. So if you see somewhere a windows mobile phone using Android, you are probably seeing the VNC client running in fullscreen !

Website : http://code.google.com/p/android-vnc/

Android City Audioguides

City Audioguides is aiming to use android framework positioning and other technologies to improve your travelling experiences delivering audio content relative to your current physical location. Bringing museum-like audioguides to a larger scope. The application is built on top of the android-rss project and licenced under GNU General Public License v2.

Website : http://sourceforge.net/projects/pounamu/

Popularity: 51%

McObject announced today that Perst, its all-Java object-oriented, open source embedded database, has been verified as compatible with the Android mobile device platform backed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance.

McObject is offering the Android-ready Perst, as well as TestIndex, a demo application showing Perst and Android’s bundled SQLite database performing the same tasks side by side. Both are available as free downloads, with complete source code, from http://www.mcobject.com/android.

With Perst, users of Android-based phones will benefit from responsive, richly-featured embedded software made possible by a database system that delivers high performance and a small footprint, and by the efficiency that results from true Java developer-oriented features.

Perst stores data directly in Java objects. This eliminates the need for data-packing or unpacking code to map between the application’s data model and the database’s data model, as is required by relational and object-relational databases. The Perst API is flexible, easy-to-use and very fast compared to alternative commercial Java OODBMSs.

Perst is a very compact embedded database, with a core consisting of only five thousand lines of code. This small footprint imposes little demand on system resources. Moreover, Perst does not require administration. Perst supports transactions with the ACID (Atomic, Consistent, Isolated and Durable) properties, and expands developers’ coding efficiency by making Java objects as easy to use as possible.

For example, for access to objects, Perst implements specialized collection classes optimized for different data layouts and access patterns, including:

• Classic B-Tree implementation;
• R-tree indexes for spatially-oriented applications such as GIS and navigation;
• Main-memory database containers, based on T-Tree indexes, optimized for real-time memory-only access;
• Patricia Trie index, which speeds searches in networking and telephony applications;
• TimeSeries class to efficiently deal with small fixed-size objects;
• Specialized versions of collections for thick indices (indices with many duplicates), and bit indices (keys with a restricted number of possible values).

In addition to its core functionality, Perst provides optional features such as garbage collection, detection of hanging references, automatic schema evolution, XML import/export utilities, master-slave replication support (with the option to run read-only queries on slave nodes), an SQL subset to filter elements of any collection, and integration with the AspectJ and JAssist AOP tools.

To read McObject’s complete announcement of Perst and TestIndex for Android, see http://www.mcobject.com/pressroom.php?step=3&article=91.

Popularity: 45%