Developer tools

Personal internet archiving service Evernote is taking a new approach to expanding its user base and bookmarking functionality with a tool for publishers and blog owners called Site Memory. In short, it lets users save Web content for reading later, while helping to promote some of the most heavily saved content with Evernote users at large.

Blogs that add the new Site Memory button to their posts (or any page for that matter) let users bookmark and save that content to their Evernote account. Akin to Web bookmarking services like Instapaper and Read it Later, this lets them absorb the … Read more

Computer games have played an important role in advancing the state of the art for computing, and now Mozilla hopes to draw upon gaming to advance browser application development.

The Firefox backer launched the new Mozilla Labs Gaming project Tuesday with the goal of encouraging programmers to use a host of new browser and Web technologies.

"Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geolocation, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web. With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform," said Pascal Finette, the Mozilla Labs "catalyst" whose job is to "make things happen."

As part of the effort, Mozilla also announced the Game_On 2010 browser-game contest that will start in September.

The work dovetails with a broad industry transition: Browsers are growing from a vessel for containing Web pages into a foundation for applications. Even Microsoft, for years a laggard in the browser realm and still a powerhouse with PC applications, has gotten Web app religion with its coming Internet Explorer 9, due to launch next week in beta form. … Read more

A licensing system meant to ensure Android applications were properly downloaded has been hacked, and Google is looking into the issue.

Google introduced a new licensing system for the Android Market in late July in response to concerns that it was too easy to obtain Android applications without paying for them or without proper authorization. However, that system itself can be bypassed relatively easily by someone with a little bit of coding knowledge, according to an investigation done by Android Police.

Tim Bray, Google's Android developer evangelist, defended the licensing server in a blog post Tuesday as he acknowledged … Read more

Your favorite font could soon be coming to the Web.

That's because of a new technology called Web Open Font Format, or WOFF, that has attracted support from all the right players: browser makers, standards groups, typography designers, and online services to ease licensing. The technology, just now ready enough to use, is making something of a debut this week at the TypeCon conference in Los Angeles.

WOFF grew out of cooperation among Erik van Blokland from type foundry LettError, Tal Leming from type foundry Type Supply, and Jonathan Kew of Mozilla. It's steadily accumulated allies, and some final pieces have now fallen into place:

• Browser support. Apple has added support in prototype builds of WebKit, the browser engine used by Safari. The four other major browsers already had signed up for WOFF.

• Adobe support. The design powerhouse said Monday it will offer several Adobe fonts for Web use through a font subscription service called TypeKit.

• Standardization. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first draft of WOFF on July 27, clearing the way for its use in browsers and elsewhere.

Individually, these moves would be minor. But together, they promise to help open the Web to typography, catching the new medium up with books, newspapers, magazines, TV, and the rest of the world where words can embody more than just raw textual information. … Read more

Google's Chrome Web Store could be ready to launch by October of this year, suggesting that Chrome OS devices are likely on a similar schedule.

Google appears to be getting ready to let Web application developers start playing around with its Chrome Web Store, if a recent presentation at the Game Developer Conference in Europe is any indication. 1UP.com has a report out with pictures and video of Google's Mark DeLoura and Michael Mahemoff explaining how developers will be able to submit apps to the store, which was announced in May at Google I/O.

Most of … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--If Adobe Systems had its druthers, Google Android would turn into the Microsoft Windows of the 21st century.

If there was any doubt that Adobe's mobile strategy is now tied to the long-term success of Android, it was removed by a day-long presentation by Adobe executives and managers about how Adobe is adapting its technologies to Android. Dubbed the "Android Summit," the series of presentations to the press emphasized how core Adobe technologies such as Flash and AIR are being optimized for Android on phones, tablets, and eventually televisions when Google TV is released.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, … Read more

Two Silicon Valley heavyweights are about to reenact the Java wars: this time, in a court room.

Oracle issued a press release late Thursday saying it has filed suit against Google for infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired along with Sun Microsystems earlier this year. The terse release claimed Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property."

A copy of the complaint (PDF), which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says that "Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices that operate Android infringe one or more claims of each of United States Patents Nos. 6,125,447; 6,192,476; 5,966,702; 7,426,720; RE38,104; 6,910,205; and 6,061,520."

A Google representative said the company had not yet been served with the lawsuit, and therefore couldn't comment until it had a chance to review it. An Oracle representative declined to comment beyond the complaint.

Back when Google first announced plans to develop Android in 2007, it immediately raised the blood pressure of Java developers at Sun. Google's Java implementation is different than the one advocated by a Java standards group, which worried those tech industry veterans who remember the problems that Microsoft caused for Java by following a similar path on Windows.

Of course, Java has been forked and fragmented many times over the years, destroying the "write once run anywhere" promise of the technology with different implementations on different computing platforms. Still, Oracle, on behalf of Sun, is arguing that Java is a mobile operating system competitor against Android, and that Google is using Java-derived technologies without a proper license.

Oracle also noted the interlocking history between Google and Java in its complaint, noting that "Google has been aware of Sun's patent portfolio, including the patents at issue, since the middle of this decade, when Google hired certain former Sun Java engineers." Google CEO Eric Schmidt led the team that developed Java at Sun prior to becoming CEO of Novell, and later Google in 2001. Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of operations and a Google Fellow, also played a significant role in Java's development in the 1990s, and apparently other Sun engineers have joined Google in the intervening years.… Read more

An updated version of Frash, an app that permits the otherwise banned Adobe Flash technology on Apple mobile devices, has been released. At the moment, however, it's only capable of handling relatively basic Flash animations (including, for example, the cult-classic Flash cartoon "Trogdor the Burninator"). The device in question must also first be "jailbroken," or hacked to remove protections and restrictions put in place by the hardware or software manufacturer.

Comex, the development firm that created Frash as well as the JailbreakMe tool, initially launched the app in a limited test that was first only … Read more

Android app developers looking for user interface inspiration now have something to help get the process going: a cold, sharp piece of laser cut metal that promises to speed up the design mock-up process.

Remember the super thin, laser-cut iPhone user interface design stencil kit from Seattle-based Design Commission? The group has just come out with a follow-up version for Android developers.

The new kit, which retails for $25 (plus $5 shipping), features 150 percent scale cut-outs of standard Google Android OS buttons and iconography, as well as a mechanical pencil and some stickers. Developers can use the stencil to … Read more