Mobile Computing

The Kindle Fire is an enhanced version of Amazon’s original Kindle, which was released in 2007 and quickly became a popular bestseller worldwide. This Kindle Fire review will give you the run down on Amazon’s latest product aimed at the tablet reader market. Some of the new enhancements added to the Kindle Fire include a color touch screen, increased processor speed, and an improved web browsing capability.

Color Touchscreen

The Kindle Fire includes a 7″ color touch screen, which incorporates In-Plane Switching technology panel (IPS). This technology includes small crystals which lie parallel to the IPS panel. Hitachi originally developed IPS technology in 1996 in order to broaden viewing angles. This means you do not have to be directly in front of the screen in order to see what is on the screen. This can come in handy when simultaneously viewing movies with other people. IPS technology also dramatically increases color quality by delivering 16 million colors in high resolution. Amazon has seamlessly incorporated IPS technology into the Kindle Fire, which is a huge improvement from the original Kindle product’s ink display screen. Additionally, the multi-touch screens responds well.

Dual-Core Processor

Amazon has also added a dual-core processor to the Kindle Fire for faster response when surfing the web and viewing e-books, magazines, and movies. This is a significant improvement from Amazon’s original Kindle’s processing power. Users will definitely notice improved speed and efficiency when streaming online media, such as music and videos. This is perfect for those who like to watch videos on websites such as YouTube or listen to music on Pandora. For those who enjoy multitasking online, the dual-core processor will help those who like to stream music while reading books. Download speeds have also greatly increased.

Intuitive Interface

Users will appreciate Kindle Fire’s smart and easy-to-use interface design. You can easily browse through recently accessed reading material, movies, videos, and music directly from the home screen. You can easily access all types of media and content with a single touch. This can be quite useful for those who regularly perform Internet research.

Large Selection of Content from Amazon

One powerful advantage Amazon has over its competitors in the e-tablet market is the company’s massive selection of content. The gadget can easily access Amazon’s massive catalog of over 18 million titles of all types of electronic media with just a touch. This includes over 100,000 movies and television shows which users can stream, download, purchase or rent. Amazon Prime members may also stream over 10,000 select movies and television shows. This beats going to the movie theater or watching live television because Amazon has taken out all of the annoying movie previews and television commercials.

An Array of Games and Apps

No Kindle Fire review would be complete without mentioning the multitude of apps and games available. Amazon has tested thousands of the most popular apps and games to ensure proper compatibility. Fire users will also receive one paid app for free everyday. Most of the apps and games only cost between $0.99 to $1.49 on Amazon.

Business Challenge:

A Middle Eastern Government wanted to collect the census data of each family in the various regions of the country, but wanted this to be a paperless census. The entire census area was divided into 10 regional offices and 1 head office. These regional offices at an average deploy 40 PDA devices to collect the census information in their respective areas. All the collected information at all the regional centers is synchronized at fixed intervals with the central server.

This required the Conduit application to synchronize the PDA data with the regional office backend, Oracle 9i Server.

The ME Census application had to be localized application in Arabic following the Arabic Windows Code page CP-1256 standards. The application was also mandated to have the flexibility to be customized to any other locale by loading the appropriate resource strings at the Desktop side and which would be downloaded when the device is synchronized.

The application was also mandated to have the flexibility to be customized to any other locale by loading the appropriate resource strings at the Desktop side and which would be downloaded when the device is
synchronized.

The technologies used are
VB 6.0
Oracle 9i
Palm OS 3.x, 4.x
CodeWarrior

Software Solution:

1. Multi-lingual support (Arabic, English, Mirroring support), Unicode data storage.

2. Data compression provides the ability to store data for 1000 families on a 2MB memory device (Palm 105).

3. Incorporates all the census validation rules (about 350) specified by the Government on the PDA itself.

4. Fast, Simple and easy to use GUI and application flow so that very little skills are required to use the application. E.g. Option for popping up of the soft-keyboard for data entry if the user is not comfortable using the graffiti keystrokes.

5. Zero data loss during synchronization, ability to resume synchronization from last point in cases of problems during synchronization.

6. Unique ID creation and key-pooling ensures the universal uniqueness of the data entered on the PDA’s.

7. Maintains field-level tracking of incomplete records. The incomplete records are downloaded back to the PDA by the Conduit for data entry during the next synchronization.

8. COM-based conduit provides multiple user support.

9. Supports both monochrome and color devices.

Benefits:

1. Online collection of Census Data.
2. Multilingual.
3. Contains census validation rules.
4. Fast, simple and easy to use UI.
5. No loss of data.
6. Maintains field tracking of records.

Google’s Android has been one of the toughest competitors to Apple’s smartphone offering: iPhone. Android has gone through a variety of versions including Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb. With the best characteristics reserved for the last, Android has been successful in offering distinctive characteristics and features to each of the versions.

Android applications have been extremely successful in accommodating new changes to its features as new emerging technologies came to the fore. There are many offshore software developers and mobile software engineers who have created thousands of applications which are then uploaded on the Android market which resembles the Ovi Store and the App Store.

The Android OS has been subjected to strenuous work since many companies are creating applications on the platform. The OS supports various connectivity technologies and also provides multiple language support with various apps boasting of a lot of features which can appeal to various domains and industries. Additionally it is compatible to different hardware. Developers even have full access to its framework APIs and there are various inbuilt multitasking options available. Android application development is fast and swift since it has a software development kit which appeals to most of the developers.

There are many mobile development companies which offer Android Application development. One can get multiple options in terms of industry-specific apps with the help of the existing features of the Android OS. One can even hire a virtual worker or an Android coder who will work from offshore software development centers. One can even have developers to develop innovative and interesting Android games which are in vogue in the present market. There are companies who hire expert programmers and gaming developers who can deliver eye catchy graphics, stupendous sounds and much more in terms of look and feel along with overall concept.