Tag Archive | "challenge"

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Android Challenge not open for Italy, Quebec and other countries

Posted on 12 November 2007 by Hatem Ben Yacoub

Android Developers ChallengeWhile talking about Android challenge, unfortunately, it seems that it is not open for everyone. It’s very normal that some countries are not allowed due to US laws, the case of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Myanmar, but from the challenge FAQ you can read also resident of Italy and Quebec are not allowed to participate due to local restrictions. So if you are Italian and live for example in Swizerland you can participate in the challenge. I’m just wondering what kind of local restriction can limit someone from participating in an international challenge.

Otherwise what’s more interesting is that the Android Developer Challenge is open to individuals, teams of individuals, and business entities. You just have to be of legal age in your country of residence and not working with Google, members of the Open Handset Alliance, or affiliated companies. In total there is $10 millions to win during the whole year, so if you are eligible take your chance read the FAQs then get the SDK and start coding. This is not Google summer of code, but Google winter of code !!

Update : Fabrizio Giudici posted over his blog some clarifications on local restrictions in Italy :

  • prizes must be assigned in presence of a notary public and a representative from an acknowledged consumer association;
  • prizes that are not delivered (for any reason, including recipient not picking them) must be donated to some non-profit organizations, explicitly listed in the contest rules;
  • there are some papers to fill in and the contest must be registered to two different Ministries (you know, in Italy there are a lot of Ministries, sometimes it’s hard to understand who’s doing what) and to the State Monopoly Administration.

But above all:

  • the entity which is organizing the contest must guarantee in advance a security deposit covering the whole value of prizes.

Popularity: 17%

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Android SDK Launched for developers

Posted on 12 November 2007 by Hatem Ben Yacoub

Android SDK home pageFinally, Android SDK have just been released for developers via Google code. The SDK download is available for three platforms Windows (59MB), MacOS (55MB) and Linux (55MB), the version code for this release is M3-RC20a and there are already 16 known issues that you might encounter during Android SDK usage, and which should be fixed in future releases.

Lunar Lander sample android game

As we were expecting in the previous post, the development platform is around Eclipse. An eclipse plugin is available to help developing and debugging Android’s applications. Android documenation is very well done and include all the necessary from requirements, to getting started, developping applications, references informations, until sample code. In addition to the API demo showing the SDK capabilities, two demo applications are available with sources : Lunar Lander game and a simple notepad application.

Android Challenge: $10 million to give away

Android Developers Challenge

With the announcement of Android SDK, the alliance offered $10 million for developers in a challenge to finance developments and certainly encourage getting more amazing applications in a very short time. There will be in total 50 winners and getting each one from $25k, to $100k or $275k. This is not just for fun I’m sure, the challenge will be in two parts. In the first part, submissions will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008, and the second part will be after the first handsets built on the platform become available sometimes in the second half of 2008.

You can build any kind of applications from from Social networking, Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos, Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc., Gaming, News and information, Rethinking of traditional user interfaces, Use of mash-up functionality, Use of location-based services, Humanitarian benefits, Applications in service of global economic development, to Whatever you’re excited about!

This will certainly bring amazing applications to Android and slow down development for other platforms by loosing some open source mobile developers.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that Android succeeded its launch, the time to get more familiar with the SDK and the platform, you might check the new Android developers blog, and official dev group to ask questions and meet the Android team. Also the time to finish my download and get the SDK working on my laptop. Amazing but true, the open mobile platform is already here !

Popularity: 9%

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