New Android API eliminates Bluetooth pairing using NFC

Google made its software development kit (SDK) available for version version 2.3.3 of the Android OS earlier this month, and Stanford Universitys MobiSocial News uncovered a nifty feature that hasnt gotten much coverage. The new SDK features an API for insecure Bluetooth socket connections on both the client and server sides. Coupled with Gingerbreads widely publicized NFC capabilities, this will allow developers to enable a tap-to-connect feature that lets NFC-equipped Android phones forgo the Bluetooth pairing process.Much like the functionality HP showed off with its TouchPad tablet and Pre 3 smartphone at the Think Beyond event last week, devices running Android 2.3.3 or later can be connected to each other with a simple tap that will automatically initiate data transfers.Apple is rumored to be cooking up a unique twist for the NFC functionality coming to its next-generation iPhone, so smart functionality beyond mobile payments such as tap-to-share will certainly help Androids case in the meantime.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

Read


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indian e-commerce website Flipkart adds prepaid Wallet feature

Image
Flipkart has added a prepaid Wallet feature to its e-commerce platform that allows shoppers to store money on the site and use it to purchase items, without having to reach for their credit card for each transaction, according to a MediaNama report . Flipkart, the first billion dollar Internet company from India, is by far the leading online store in the nation.Founded by former Amazon employees Sachin and Binny Bansal in 2007, it expects to increase its sales tenfold in the ongoing fiscal year to about $100 million by March 2012. It already offers shoppers the convenience of Cash on Delivery (CoD), using whichfor a small feethe shopper can choose to pay for purchases in cash when they have been delivered to their doorstep. This is in addition to the usual credit and debit card and net banking options that the service also offers to online shoppers. The newly launched Wallet aims to make online payments easier and more secure for customers by sparing them the hassle of fetching thei...
Keep reading

Samsung ordered to compensate Huawei $11.6 million for patent infringement

Image
China court orders Samsung units to pay $11.6 million to Huawei over patent case A Chinese court has ordered Samsung Electronics's ( 005930.KS ) mainland subsidiaries to pay 80 million yuan ($11.60 million) to Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] for patent infringement, the China firm's first victory against Samsung on its legal challenges over intellectual property. Three units of Samsung have been ordered by the Quanzhou Intermediary Court to pay the sum for infringing a patent held by Huawei Device Co Limited, the handset unit of Huawei, the Quanzhou Evening News, a government-run newspaper, said on its website on Thursday. The verdict is the first on several lawsuits of Huawei against the South Korean technology giant. Huawei filed lawsuits against Samsung in May in courts in China and the United States - the first by it against Samsung - claiming infringements of smartphone patents. Samsung subsequently countersued Huawei in China for IP infringement. A spokesman for...
Keep reading

Pour one out for the Tevatron particle accelerator, because it's shutting down today

Image
The eyes of the physics community are collectively fixed upon Illinois today, where, later this afternoon, researchers at Fermilab will shut down the Tevatron particle accelerator... for good. That's right -- the world's second-largest collider is being laid to rest, after a remarkable 25-year run that was recently halted due to budgetary constraints. Earlier this year, Fermilab's scientists and a group of prominent physicists pleaded with the government to keep the Tevatron running until 2014, but the Energy Department ultimately determined that the lab's $100 million price tag was too steep, effectively driving a nail through the accelerator's subterranean, four-mile-long coffin. First activated in 1985, the Tevatron scored a series of subatomic breakthroughs over the course of its lifespan, including, most notably, the discovery of the so-called top quark in 1995. Its groundbreaking technology, meanwhile, helped pave the way for CERN's Large Hadron Collider ...
Keep reading