Google Voice Search has just introduced localizations for Latin America, Indonesia and Malaysia, enabling native language search for hundreds of millions of users. Google's official blog post offers some interesting insights into the process of collecting and analyzing the speech data needed to expand support. Thousands of hours were spent gathering voice samples and choosing key regional accents to analyze, and International Program Manager Linne Ha is clearly very appreciative of the Google users who helped the company complete the expansion. Without an enthusiastic base of users to lend a hand, Google Voice Search's polyglot powers would have been nearly impossible to deliver.
Most laptops can barely handle a late-night YouTube session without reaching sperm-scorching temperatures. So if you dabble in over-clocking, you'll be frying eggs in no time. That is unless you've got Asetek's new liquid-cooling system for laptops. More »
It's telling, perhaps, when a VP for your company uses the word "finally" while discussing plans to release test models for your upcoming mobile operating system -- but it's certainly a pretty accurate sentiment when dealing BlackBerry 10. Talking up RIM's plans to release up to 2,000 prototypes running the OS at the BlackBerry Jam conference in May, executive Alec Saunders had this to say: "It's tangible evidence of the company making progress to finally shipping the device." Barring any further setbacks, the operating system formerly known as BBX is set to hit before year's end.[Thanks, Neil]
In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you're not even a cube -- just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That's important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place. The "baddies" are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. If that doesn't sound very emotionally deep, it's because it isn't. But it's fun! After you shoot a baddy, it splashes paint as it disappears. You need to skate across this blob of paint and "eat it up" to get points. This game is fast. It clocked in at around 60-70 FPS on my system, and was loads of fun to play. It does tend to insult you when you die, though, but don't be offended -- I don't think it's personal.
Ohhh baby, space is about to get real sexy tonight. Starting around 9pm EST (for North America) the Moon and Venus will be just three degrees apart in the western sky, with Jupiter joining only ten degrees below. You can even watch it on a webcam. Check out the celestial bodies on them! More »
I absolutely adore my Galaxy Nexus. It's fast, has a gorgeous screen, and perhaps most of all, has a notification LED that supports more than three colors. While that might sound a tad bit ridiculous, when I caught wind of the fact that I could potentially have a custom LED color for specific types of notifications, I clicked my heels with joy.
Enter Light Flow LED Control. If all you want to do is customize your LED colors, you'll get all that and more out of Light Flow.
Once you've opened up the app, you're presented with a pretty bland menu screen. You've got general settings, a list of additional apps Light Flow supports that you don't have installed, and even a tools menu, but notifications is where the magic really happens.
Hop into the notifications menu and you're greeted with a pre-populated list of notifications your phone can already handle and what color the LED will flash for them. Changing an LED color is as easy as pie. Select the notification you want to change and you'll move into a notification-specific menu.
Within this menu you can turn the notification on and off, designate what clears the notification, and most importantly, select your color. Light Flow boasts an impressive list of colors (18 plus the ability to have a custom color), so in the event you've got more than 18 notifications you want to customize, you're not out in the cold.
You can also set how quickly the LED will flash and how long it will last before automatically turning off, and if you're so inclined, enable sounds and vibration patterns. It's very cool for Light Flow to give you the option, but be aware: the sounds and notifications you set within Light Flow can conflict with the standard notifications, so you'll either have to turn one set off or deal with double of everything.
If you're curious what the various colors look like, Light Flow has an "all enabled LEDs test" within the tools menu. It's cool to look at, fun to show off with, and if you're just getting started, the fastest way to get an idea of what all the colors show up as on your phone, so you can get your notifications set the first time.
If you're as OCD as I am about controlling your phone (or just like the idea of having lots of cool, custom colored LEDs), then Light Flow LED Control is the app for you. It's got a simple, easy-to-use interface, supports more than 200 applications, and essentially works like a charm.
Light Flow LED Control is $1.99 in the Google Play Store. We've got download links after the break.
As we published our definitive review of the Sony Xperia S, many of the week's main stories focused on two highly-anticipated unreleased devices -- the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III.
Earlier reports of an April 5 launch for HTC's new One series were apparently confirmed by news of a launch party in Paris that evening. And we saw a couple more dubious images claiming to show Samsung's next big thing. And towards the end of the week, we got a first look at the Samsung GT-i9300, a buttonless mystery device running Ice Cream Sandwich and TouchWiz.
In software update news, the roll-out of Android 4.0 for the Samsung Galaxy S II continued, and news arrived of an upcoming "premium suite" for the international Galaxy Note, including new stylus apps, ICS and Angry Birds Space.
Check some highlights from past week's Android developments in Europe, Asia and beyond in the list below. And if you've got international news, be sure to tip us at the usual address.
During my time at TechCrunch I?ve seen thousands of startups and written about hundreds of them. I sure as hell don?t know all the secrets to building a successful company, but there are a few things I?ve seen that seem like surefire ways to ever-so-slightly grease the road to success. Here?s an easy one: make a video demo and prominently promote it somewhere where new visitors can find it. One that shows off the core function of your product without making people think they?re watching an ad or a pitch. And answer, as thoroughly as possible in 2-3 minutes, what it is that you?re bringing to the table.
Google Chrome already sports a number of security-minded features, from Incognito mode to a software sandbox which makes exploiting the browser a Herculean task. Now, Google has announced additional protection for Chromium and Chrome users. Built upon the Safe Browsing API, the new feature introduces protection against malicious downloads. If a download link appears in the Safe Browsing blacklist, Chrome and Chromium will warn users against downloading -- a save button is still presented, of course, in case you're convinced a file is perfectly safe to download. We'd like to see something a bit more eye-catching than the red warning icon -- like perhaps painting the entire bar red. Many of the people a feature like this aims to protect probably won't notice the icon or change in wording as they'll be focused on clicking the save button. Google is initially making download protection available to Chrome dev channel users, and you'll likely see it in Canary and Chromium snapshot builds as well. After thorough testing, beta and stable users will be next in line.
Hey, not everyone needs a bunch-of-core superphone tied down to a two-year contract, so it's always nice to have some solid prepaid options, right? If you shook your head yes to that, you'll be pleased to know that AT&T's just added the Android Gingerbread-loaded Huawei Fusion to its GoPhone lineup. The device features a 3.5-inch (320 x 480) display up front, while on back there's a 3.2-megapixel shooter. Other goodies include Bluetooth 2.1, FM radio functionality and support for up to 32GB of storage via MicroSD. If you're still nodding your noggin, the Fusion and its (essentially) utilitarian specs can be yours for the keeping, sans contractual commitment, for just $125. You'll find more info at the links below. Update: Well, our mistake folks. It turns out this phone has been available on AT&T for quite some time now. Thanks to everyone in the comments for pointing this out.