Nicola Celiento

Google Maps for Android ranks maps for some indoor shopping malls, airports and railway stations. Currently available only for the United States and Japan.

Until now, the indoors maps were domain of Micorosoft, on Bing Maps. As of today, Android users can also view the indoors maps for places like the San Francisco International Airport, IKEA shopping center in America and some railway stations in Japan.

To view Google Maps Indoor layer on Android just enlarge the building and internal maps will appear automatically. For buildings with multiple floors, users will also be able to change the floor.

After Street View, Maps Indoor is the second major challenge by Google. That is why Google is actively recruiting entrepreneurs who would like their maps in Google Maps Indoors.

It is unclear when Google expects to make this function available for other platforms and for a large number of buildings (for example in Italy), but surprisingly, has already been made available on Android.

Here’s the official Google Video

I admit I was waiting a long time, even with a hint of envy iPhone owners, the famous Instagram application on the Android platform.

It came, finally, the official confirmation from the CEO of Instagram (rif. Nexus-Lab), Kevin Systrom, who has announced that work began on the version of Instagram for Android.

The first release is scheduled for the coming months; they proceed, in fact, slowly, as well the development team is composed by only 6 people.

Although there are many alternatives on Android (vedi #instagram) believe that there are no comparisons with the Instagram’s features.

There is also a very useful and popular web application (Followgram) that allows you to create a vanity URLs, Facebook albums and much more based on Instagram shared photos.

We remain, therefore, waiting for a first release, hoping that they’ll release for Android the same features implemented on iOS platforms.

Due to the success it is having Instagram on iOS platform (currently not yet available for Android), many are moving for an hard competition to the most popular application for sharing photos with smartphones and tablet. So great is its success that many spin-offs are emerging that exploit the API Instagram, first of all Followgram that extends the basic functionality of Instagram to get a Vanity URL for a gallery of own photos and a follow button to embed in own site/blog.

The new application that promises to give hard time to Instagram is Pool Party, and was released by Slide, a company that is part of Google Inc.
Like all the news by Google, Pool Party is available from the App Store or the Android Market, but you can use it (signup) only by invitation.

We await the official release of Pool Party, since it is currently in beta, and we’ll see what’s new with will present for a market so full of users.

Here is a preview:

For a long time I was waiting for Instagram for Android and only a few weeks ago I discovered that it could be dispensed thanks to Picplz, which created a nice platform, all to envy. Even if the Instagram app for iPhone has many more features to transform the look and feel of the picture, Picplz moves forward by providing its own online repository of published photos, Flickr-style, as well as apps for the iPhone and Android.

As Instagram for iPhone, also Picplz give the possibility to apply filters to photos, to create own friends’ network, share photos on Facebook, Flickr, on the same Picplz social platform, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous and you can associate Foursquare venues for yours photo checkin, but mostly you will end your pictures everywhere via Dropbox.
I would say that, barring further changes can be applied to photos, Picplz has nothing to envy to Instagram.

Cercando in rete mi sono accorto che c’è un gran numero di persone che si lamenta perchè non sanno come impostare il proxy su connessioni wi-fi mediante smartphone Android.

Ho acquistato da poco il Google Nexus One, e mi lamento anche io di questa mancanza…

Senza cedere alle tentazioni mi sono armato di tanta pazienza per cercare di ovviare, almeno in parte, a questo problema e ho trovato in rete una notizia alquanto interessante.
C’è la possibilità di impostare il proxy almeno per il browser, per cui risulta possibile utilizzare la connessione perlomeno per la navigazione in Internet mediante browser, mentre tutte le altre apps continuano a non poter accedere alla Rete.

L’applicazione che consente di impostare il proxy per il browser è disponibile sul Market Android e si chiama AnyCut

Una volta scaricata l’app è sufficiente seguire questi passaggi:

1. Aprire Anycut
2. Selezionare “New ShortCut”
3. Selezionare “Activity”
4. Selezionare “Impostazioni Proxy”
5. Cliccare su Salva

Una volta salvato lo shortcut sarà disponibile sullla home di Android una nuova icona chiamata “Impostazioni Proxy” che consente di definire i settaggi per il proxy (vedi figura)

Attenzione: Come avrete notato le impostazioni non consentono la definizione di un proxcy dotato di autenticazione.

Speriamo che Google sia clemente e renda disponibile quanto prima una patch per ovviare a questo problema.