Hi guys,
we will have to buy a new phone for my visually impaired sister during next year (or maybe much earlier), because she is currently unable to use her simple Nokia (unable to read SMS messages on display etc.).
I tried to find any simple phone with voice output for her, but the only one possible candidate was Samsung Haven, which was only available for U.S. mobile networks and not for european GSM (and did not have Czech language support, but this was minor in this case).
She needs only a simple phone to perform standard voice calls and SMS messages. Current approach here is to use some smartphone – symbian with Mobilespeak or Android with Code Factory or some other a11y suite. OK, why not, but this aims to make a accessible smartphone, while many people need only accessible phone (which is not available).
So this také me to following idea:
if Android uses a modified linux kernel and GUI via Java virtual machine Dalvik, then it should be possible to use alternative simple menu with something like linux console voice output instead of the standard GUI and so make it much quicker.
This menu could be very easy – only to provide functions similar to „normal“ cellphones like the old good Nokia 3310 only with voice output. I know that it sounds very stupid to degrade a smartphone to a simple cellphone, but I do not know other way.
I think, that such trimmed off custom ROM with this sort of text menu and only basic functions (calls, SMS, phone book, calendar and clock with alarm) combined with a voice output could be able to run on cheap and relatively weak devices like Huawei Boulder for example so final solution could be comparable with normal cellphones. We need something with physical keyboard, so we could use HTC Cha Cha or if possible, the much cheaper Huawei which are both available from official distribution.
Are there any initiatives or attempts to create something similar?
Thanks much
PS: we are ready to sacrifice wireless internet and lack of Google services for better performance.
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
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Hey everyone, my name is Ian. I'm kind of new here, at least in a participatory role as wiki master of the Photon 4g's Sunfire dev team/collaboration. I have some talent in the world of web coding, but I'm useless at real programming.
I also have a rather nasty addiction to the world of flight simming, mostly as stand in for real flight time that I'm trying to orchestrate as I work towards a private pilot's license. Anyways, my program I use for flight simulation is X-plane and lacks in 3rd party applications that it can interface with, especially on the Android side. I would like to help to put together an Android app that can work with the sim and control basic functions. My current goal is to control radio systems and autopilot functions. To interface with the sim, I plan to use the Simulator Control System which is based on the CAN Aerospace protocol. This is cross sim application, so whatever works with X-plane will also work with Microsoft flight sim. I've been looking at the website, http://cross-simulator.com/, and I think that this seems like a fairly easy task. All the functions and commands are well documented and supported (there is even an example android code), I just don't know how to start. If anyone in this great community has some advice, I'd love to hear it because I really have no clue.
Thanks, and happy dev'ing
I would just download the example, import it in Eclipse and run it on the Android emulator (assuming you have downloaded and installed the Android SDK). Later, you can tweak the example code as you become more comfortable.
I did have a search on here, but didn't find anything particularly relevant so I'm hoping some people could help me out.
My situation is that I manage the deployment of Android Handsets and Tablets within my company. This process is fairly ad-hoc as in, I order a few handsets at a time, set them up with company software requirements + some desktop shortcuts, and ship them to the specific user.
My problem is that the quantity of devices I'm going to be deploying in the next 12 months will grow significantly, and this job is extremely boring, and costing me in time wasted on a repetitive task that could be much better spent on other things.
So I am looking for tools to help make this process more automated/quicker/simpler.
The crux of my requirements are:
a) install software packages (some from market, some not eg Lotus Notes Traveler)
b) Slight desktop customisations (add some app shortcuts, browser homepage etc) - realistically this is optional, but I thought I'd mention it.
Currently I take care of (a) with a homegrown python script which makes some adb calls.
(b) and (c) are entirely manual, and currently depend in part on the device going out - could be any of HTC Desire/Desire S/Sensation, Motorola Atrix/Defy+/Xoom or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
I also have to do this *after* having logged in, set up at least one google account + possibly a motoblur account, and enabled USB debugging - is it possible to get adb shell functionality without needing to get into the OS and enable USB Debugging?
Moving to higher level things, I'm open to the idea of paying for dedicated tools to manage this job - eg Google Apps Domain services, or some other Mobile Data Management service (eg silverback mdm).
However, what these tools are geared to is securing a fleet of devices, but don't seem to offer what I'm looking for, which I believe are pretty simple requirements. ie add some arbitrary apps, and make them accessible on the front screen of the device.
I can't imagine that I'm the first person to need to do this, so what are other people doing to ease the management burden?
I will be developing an app to utilize NFC tags for parts identification. More or less I will need to write stuff into NFC tags, read data from NFC tags, act upon that data - open a webpage, fetch something from external database etc. This will also be more of a proof of concept than a commercial app. I am not aiming for performance either.
The thing is - I am not a professional developer nor I am planning to become one. I am a mechanical engineer with some programming done in the past - I've programmed microcontrollers to work with MEMS sensors and made some basic Visual Basic apps.
What would be the best way forward? Should I just stick to developer.android.com and Eclipse, or there is some software or super-duper tutorials that can make my life easier?
Hi folks,
I have had this idea in my mind for a couple of years now and would like to get on with it and stop dreaming about it and just jump in and do it already!
My experience during the past 20 years has been working as a programmer on MSSQL and VB and VB.net with good working knowledge of C, HTML5, Javascript, VB, VC, Access, MSSQL, MySQL, PHP, CSS, some Java, etc...
I don't mind learning new skills and actually looking forward to getting started, but I need to know that I am not barking up the wrong tree.
I intend to make this an open source project and not as a commercial product.
My dream is to make my phone, my voice-driven computer. Where the phone might not have enough resources, I need to use my main computer as top tier and act as server.
I know ubuntu touch might be a contender but it lacks many drivers for GPS, Propriety drivers, etc...
Let me tell you about my idea first as a high level plan due to my ignorance of the details of this implementation.
I want to make my phone (Nexus 4) be able to listen to my commands via a Bluetooth headset (Through a speech recognition engine), and tell me in in natural speech, things that I need to know or care about. For example: "You have a new email from David. Do you want me to read it or display it?" Sort of like what is now a movie called "Her" without the science fiction and the lovey dovey story part .
I want to write an internet agent that would search the net (from a list of sites) for what I am interested (through an AI program like freehal.net), and keep them for display in the order of relevance when I query it.
I also need to take over the telephony hardware when needed. For example: A call comes in, I want to be able to look-up their number in my database of contacts, if an entry is found, to tell me "Sam is calling. Do you want to answer it?"
I also want to keep a black list table where I know they are trying to sell me something and answer the phone (without me pushing any buttons) and tell them that I am not interested in answering their calls and that they are on my black list. Then hangup. Without sending them to voice mail.
I tried asking the android community on Google 2 years ago to ask why the SDK doesn't provide telephony API front end to answer the call without user interaction, but got no replies.
I've installed ubuntu on my laptop to learn Linux and got it working properly after a couple of days and have downloaded and installed all the programs and sdks I think I'd need. There are a lot of interesting projects in AI and user agents going on and I like to participate in them once I am up to par with the linux environment.
Can anyone give me some guidance, pointers or what to look for. If there are any project in development that I could join, would be much appreciated.
I tried to explain my interest as best as I could. If you need more info, please let me know.
Thanks for all your help guys.
Hello.
I am here seeking for help and advice on how to approach the development of a security framework (via APP or via hacked Android ROM to be used by kids, that could be monitored by adults (parents or legal tutors).
The idea would be to develop a (white hat) hacked ROM, that would allow the kids to communicate with their friends, but also would allow their parents to supervise/monitor in real time what their children are doing, who are they communicating with and that way protect their children. The thing is not to spy on our kids, but to be able to check regularly if there is anything wrong going on with our kids (mobbing, insults or harassment). Kids aged (10-14) could be influenced by other kids, adults, or adults simulating being kids, and on some occasions they can be tricked to do things without their parents consent/knowledge that can lead to a tricky situation.
When I was a kid, we had the telephone (wired telephone, of course) on the middle of the hallway, so all our conversations were basically family-public. The truth is that there are not many secret things a 10yo kid could/should talk about, but nowadays, it could be a little bit worrying to lend a smartphone to a kid. I think it's just as letting a kid drive a car; he can do it right, or not be able to evaluate the whole consequences of driving a car.
Talking to other parents around me, they all found very interesting the idea of having a telephone that one could lend to their son, having the kid available all the time, and with the peace of mind that you could know what's going on. Of course the kid should be aware of this, and that the telephone comms are being supervised. I think it's no big deal. "Kid, it's very simple. The telephone is mine, and if you want to use it you have to use it under my terms".
Probably, all of us working for a company, have also our communications supervised, cannot make personal phonecalls with the company's telephones, probably cannot navigate to webs looking for personal content, and we asume those rules (because neither the company's phones nor the computers are ours but our company's). It's basically the same, switching the company-employee role to a father-son one.
So, let's get to the point (technically). I am a tech-geek, linux pro-user, have compiled a few ROMs just for personal use, but don't feel capable enough of starting a project of these magnitude alone. If there is anyone willing to help, opine, or whatever, will be very welcome.
First of all, APP or ROM? I basically think that the ROM is the way to go, but I'm asking just in case someone can convince me on the contrary. I will make a poll on this question.
APP An APP could be easily downloaded and installed but would require a rooted phone, and I don't see it clearly if an APP could resolve all the needed issues (access to communications for example) and could be fairly easily uninstalled too.
ROM On the other hand, a ROM would be trickier to uninstall (basically flashing another ROM) but wouldn't be as easy to install as an APP (though the installer model of cyanogenmod could be kind of a solution). There could be an universal (if possible) independent flashable module, over whatever android ROM, or an entire ROM solution.
Features that I want to develop in this ROM (by the way, I call it 'Vigilante ROM'):
Suitable for as many devices as possible
Web interface for parents available to see device-related information
Some hack-proof measures to avoid kids bypassing the ROM's security
Alerts triggered on some events (offensive words, whatever)
Position of the mobile -just in case-
Suitable for as many devices as possible
The first thing I though was what platform should be used for this ROM. To select Android over others (iOS, Blackberry, W7) was a no-brainer. Now, the question is should we use pure Android or make a CyanogenMod fork?
In my opinion, even though every phone maker has to supply their ROM sources publicly, they usually introduce so many modifications (HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwizz and so on) that it looks more difficult to develop a common security framework over each manufacturer's version of Android, rather than using a more standardized one like CyanogenMod.
CyanogenMod already works with a wide number of devices (and a wider one if you count the unofficial supported devices), I think CyanogenMod should be the base of this ROM. If all the 'things' needed could be flash on top of any Android device, would be even better, but technically I need help with this one.
I understand that basically there should be an internal proxy setup, so that all the communications go through this internal proxy, and based on the kind of communication, we could log whatever we need. For example:
Visited URLs
Whatsapp or other messaging apps should be decrypted
Incoming/Outgoing calls/SMS
Social network activity
I know the Whatsapp protocol because I'm familiar with a project called WhatAPI. The key point to be able to intercept whatsapp messaging is a key generated and exchanged during the app install (although there are ways to later ask the Whatsapp server to renegotiate this keyword) and that's used later to encrypt all the messages between the phone and the whatsapp server.
Web interface for parents available to see device-related information
Behind every kid with a smartphone there should be a responsible adult supervising the kid -even if it's remotely-. In my idea, logs of messaging activity, incoming/outgoing calls/SMS and even the position should be available to the supervisor through a web interface.
Some hack-proof measures to avoid kids bypassing the ROM's security
That's an easy one. CRC checks on some keyfiles would guarantee that the device is not being 'counter-hacked'. Some kids are also very techie, and we should make some defences against kids trying to hack (counter-hack?) the phone.
Alerts triggered on some events (offensive words, whatever)
It could be interesting if somehow the supervisor could receive a notification whenever the kid sends/receives and offensive word, or tries to enter some special tagged website.