Google have just announced App Inventor, a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone – programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students – to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices.

App inventor will not only make Application development for Android easier, but it will even change the way people use their mobile phones. We have previously mentioned that Google Android is targeting developers, and today we are discovering that it’s trying to make application development easier even for non-programmers.

No other mobile platform will be able to compete with Google on this side. The only negative point for Android remain the differences/incompatibilities between versions, especially that we started already talking about Android 3 – Gingerbread.

From App inventor website :

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

An online development environment will definitely make a revolution for the Android platform, even if you will say that applications will be limited in features compared to advanced programming capabilities.

With App Inventor you can create location-aware applications, for example to help you remember where you parked your car, an app that shows the location of your friends or colleagues at a concert or conference, or your own custom tour app of your school, workplace, or a museum. Or simply apps that use the phone features of an Android phone such texting, camera, sensors, … etc. But if you are more familiar with webservices you will be able even to interact with your favorite websites such Amazon and Twitter… etc.

App Inventor  gallery already include apps such :

DROIDMuni : displays schedules for the San Francisco transit system. After the user selects from one of the transits lines and choosing a direction and particular stop, the application will display the lines next arrival times. Once the user has retrieved the desired arrival times, they are able to set up to four favorites which are saved and stored based on their unique e-mail address. Using the DroidMuni remind feature, the user can set a reminder to be notified when a bus is a specified number of minutes away.

ParkIt : allows users to locate their car on their Android phone. After clicking the “Park It” button, the app stores the users car’s location until the “Find It” Button is clicked. The “Find It” button displays the user’s current location, and the user’s car’s location using latitude and longitude. When the user clicks “Show On Map”, GoogleMaps is activated, and the route to the car is displayed.

Drum Kit : allows the user to hit seven different parts of a full, labeled drum kit and hear each drum’s respective sound. This app allows the user not only to learn more about the drums (i.e. the names and sounds of the drums), but also to have fun and create their own beat.

Super Hero Game : a fantastic Quiz game that tests the users true Super Hero Knowledge. Each screen shows a different character from a superhero world and asks a question pertaining to that picture. The user types in the answer and clicks submit. The program responds with a RIGHT or WRONG and the user is prompted to go on to the next question. The question will change as well as the picture. If the user wants to quit at any time they can GIVE UP and the program closes.

Where’s Speedo : allows a user and a users friends or family find each other. The app detects the user’s location and sends it to the users friends or family using the app. The app allows the user to view the location of another user on a map. It also allows the user to set how often the app sends his/her location.

I think we should expect more amazing apps from this magical inventor ! Behind the app inventor a research work conducted in MIT including the Open Blocks Java library used by the blocks editor, Open Blocks visual programming which is closely related to the Scratch programming language, and Kawa Language Framework and Kawa’s dialect of the Scheme programming language used to translates the visual blocks language for implementation on Android.

App inventor is still invitation only, and you can complete this form to get an invitation when available.

Wave is pleased to announce the launch of “MyLink” this December. MyLink will enable users of Google Android handsets to access their Lotus Notes or MS Outlook emails, contacts, notes and calendar directly from their devices. Available on Android Market by December this year, it will also be offered through different telecom operators reselling Google Android handsets as well as online at http://www.waveglobal.net. This essentially transforms the Android devices into smart business friendly phones, bringing Google that one step closer into the corporate space.

Sophie Navro, Marketing Manager at Wave commented “As businesses grow and as time becomes more of a privilege than a right, we wanted to devise an option for every user to have what they need at the touch of a button” “We were determined to cater for every need, whether you are an MD of a company or a girl about town, MyLink offers something for everyone”.

MyLink is the first comprehensive solution to synchronize your Google Android phone with your Lotus or Outlook email and has released four new products. MyLink Access, MyLink Essential, MyLink Advanced and MyLink Enterprise are available to purchase online from 1st December 2009. Each type is adapted to suit the needs of every kind of user, ranging from business to social. MyLink Access is free and prices range to a maximum of £4.99 per licence for consumers and available on application for any business.

About Wave

Wave is a Lotus, Microsoft and Google Android technologies specialist in moving from one mail system to another. As a migration specialist, Wave proudly provides high quality, cost effective products and solutions to large outsourcers, customers and small businesses around the world. Wave has offices in the UK, France, USA, Tunisia, Dubai and opening soon in Hong Kong.

Visit the website, http://www.waveglobal.net to find out more or contact Wave at: contact@waveglobal.net

Global Market Expansion and Customer Momentum Drive Investment Round for Android-based Open Mobile Source Provider

Beijing, China and Sunnyvale, Calif., July 10, 2009 – Borqs Inc., a leading open source mobile application software provider and integrator, today announced it has closed a US$17.4 million Series B round of venture financing. Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) led this round, which included participation from current investors, GSR Ventures – the Mayfield Fund China affiliate – as well as Keytone Ventures. As a part of the investment, Mohan Kumar of NVP will join Borqs’ board of directors.

Borqs develops mobile software products for wireless service providers. The company’s client-side software is based on Google’s Android mobile software. Borqs’ offerings give carriers the ability to create a consistent and branded user interface experience that can work across different types of smartphones. Borqs also provides carriers with the ability to create branded application store fronts that offer subscribers a wide range of mobile application choices by tapping into the Android Application Marketplace as well as existing Java-based mobile applications.

Borqs IP and software enable phone manufacturers or mobile operators to launch Android-based 3G phones or services in less than six months, reducing the cycle time savings by over a year when compared to the current process. And because Borqs is based on Android and an open source environment, smartphones can be produced at a lower price point to further increase consumer adoption and drive the overall smartphone market. The company currently works with leading mobile operators and tier-one device manufacturers worldwide.

“As the mobile sector continues to evolve and is now the number one source for information and entertainment, wireless carriers must provide their subscribers with the best choice in applications and handset offerings and to do so at a low cost point. By building on the foundation of Google’s Android platform, Borqs can deliver carriers with a solution that meets these needs while providing a unique and consistent brand experience for their subscribers,” said Mohan Kumar. “The experienced team at Borqs, combined with the company’s strong product offerings, proven track record, early customer wins and significant traction with the world’s largest carrier China Mobile and other operators, were key factors in our investment decision.”

“We are very pleased to have NVP lead this funding round for Borqs,” said Pat Chan, CEO and president of Borqs. “NVP brings to Borqs a compelling mix of deep industry knowledge in the mobile industry, relevant operational experience and a strong network of contacts that will help grow the company as we expand the Borqs footprint worldwide. We look forward to partnering with NVP to drive customer momentum, accelerate our growth and take the company to the next level.”

About Borqs

Established in 2007, Borqs International Holding Corp is a high-tech enterprise committed to providing end-to-end solutions to the whole value chain of mobile communications, including network operators and handset manufacturers. The core products of Borqs are mobile operating systems for smartphone platforms and mobile internet services platforms. Borqs is a commercialization partner of Android Open Handset Alliance.  For more information, visit www.borqs.com.

About Norwest Venture Partners

Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a global, multi-stage investment firm that manages more than $2.5 billion in capital out of its offices in Palo Alto, California, Mumbai and Bangalore, India and Herzelia, Israel.  NVP makes early to late stage venture and growth equity investments in U.S. and global companies across a wide range of sectors including: information technology, business services, financial services and consumer.  NVP has actively partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 48 years and has funded over 450 companies since inception.

Notable investments include Actel Corporation, Airespace (acquired by Cisco Systems), Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Corio (acquired by IBM), Cray Research, Documentum, Extreme Networks , Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), OnMobile (NSE: OnMobile), Open-Silicon (acquired by Unicorn Investment Bank), PeopleSoft, Qumranet (acquired by Red Hat), Rackspace (NYSE:RAX), Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), SideStep (acquired by Kayak), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance), Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM), Transaction Systems Architects (Nasdaq: ACIW), Verio (acquired by NTT), Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola) and Yipes (acquired by Reliance/Flag Telecom). For more information, please visit www.nvp.com.

All brands, names, or trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners

We had previously many talks about getting multitouch support for Android, and you probably remember Luke’s work to demonstrate capabilities of G1 to run multi-touch. Today we have a breaking news from France, a team from the ENAC interactive computing laboratory -- including Mohamed-Ikbel Boulabiar, Stephane Chatty and Sebastien Hamdani -- succeeded to bring native multitouch support to Linux.

The code released is a proof-of-concept of what could be done with linux kernel and need to be improved for production, but you can see already a demo in the video below of their actual work

To run the sample provide you will need Linux kernel 2.6.30; a computer with a Broadcom 5974, Stantum, NTrig or DiamondTouch surface (the HP TouchSmart tx2 has a Ntrig surface, but you need to get the appropriate firmware from the NTrig site); their NTrig, Stantum, or DiamondTouch driver, or the Broadcom 5974 driver from Henrik Rydberg; in addition to demo code.

More information could be found here

Award-Winning Recognition Technologies Enable Developers to Integrate Powerful OCR and BCR Functions into Broad Range of Mobile Platforms and Applications

Moscow, Russia – ABBYY, a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and linguistic software,  have just announced its Mobile OCR Engine 3.0 software development kit (SDK). ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine gives developers powerful tools for creating mobile or other compact applications enhanced with optical character recognition (OCR) and business card recognition (BCR) functions.

ABBYY’s small-footprint OCR technology automatically transforms images of text and documents captured with a digital camera into editable and searchable text, eliminating the need to input information manually. Using the innovative BCR functionality, developers can create mobile applications to transfer data from images of business cards directly to the phone address book. OCR and BCR capabilities can be embedded into any camera-based devices including mobile phones, communicators, PDAs, digital cameras and portable scanners.

In addition to the support for many popular mobile platforms such as Windows® Mobile, Symbian®, LINUX® and others, ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine 3.0 now enables developers to readily add OCR and BCR functions to Android-based applications.

“We have been observing an increasing interest in Android among device manufacturers, and we anticipate growing demand for sophisticated mobile OCR applications for this innovative platform,” said Katya Solntseva, director of mobile products department at ABBYY. “Our Mobile OCR Engine is a powerful development kit that allows developers to create a wide range of smart, easy-to-integrate mobile applications, from simple end user programs to complex business solutions.”

ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine enables developers to extend the capabilities of various mobile devices and applications in many ways. For example, using a camera phone with an OCR application, clippings from magazines, books, receipts, ads and other documents can be captured and automatically converted into text, which can then be edited, stored or sent via email or SMS. The captured and recognized text can be further used in other mobile and PC applications including notepads, calendars, libraries and so on. Developers can also easily leverage the BCR functions of the new SDK and expand them to a broader use. For instance, they can create solutions that not only capture and export business card information, but also synchronize the data with other contact information management applications on the PC or server.

Designed with the needs of mobile solution providers in mind, ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine 3.0 combines strong platform support with powerful technology innovations to optimize software performance and accuracy, and minimize the use of hardware resources. The SDK provides powerful recognition technology including a new Document Analysis algorithm to ensure more accurate and faster OCR processing, combined with enhanced capability to reproduce the structure of the original text such as columns and paragraphs. It also delivers improved image pre-processing capabilities including skew correction and image binarization, as well as the capability to detect noise on the original image.

To ensure extensive international reach of mobile OCR applications, the SDK recognizes 58 languages with Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters. In addition, it provides dictionaries created specifically for BCR in 16 languages including newly added Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish.

ABBYY Mobile OCR Engine (previously known as ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK) recently won the Silver Mobile Star Award from MobileVillage® for the Best Enterprise Software: Data Capture/Collection. To learn more about the product, please visit www.ABBYY.com/mobileOCR .

About ABBYY

ABBYY is a leading provider of document recognition, data capture and linguistic software. Its products include the ABBYY FineReader line of optical character recognition (OCR) applications, ABBYY FlexiCapture line of data capture solutions, ABBYY Lingvo dictionary software, and development tools. Paper-intensive organizations from all over the world use ABBYY software to automate time- and labor-consuming tasks and to streamline business processes. ABBYY products are used in large-scale government projects such as those of Australian Taxation Office, Lithuanian Tax Inspectorate, Ministry of Education of Russia, Ministry of Education of Ukraine, and Montgomery County Government of the USA. Companies that license ABBYY technologies include BancTec, Canon, EMC/Captiva, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, NewSoft, Notable Solutions, Samsung Electronics and more. ABBYY OCR applications are shipped with equipment from the world’s top manufacturers such as BenQ, Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, Microtek, Panasonic, Plustek, Toshiba, and Xerox. ABBYY is headquartered in Moscow, Russia, with offices in Germany, the United States, Ukraine, the UK, Taiwan and Japan. For more information, visit www.ABBYY.com.