Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Android on the Farm

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed an unusual drop in my posting frequency over the last few weeks. I can't divulge details, but my inactivity is a result of having been head-down finishing an exciting new Android project that I've been lucky enough to be involved in with the mobile engineering team here in London.

Between the developer lab world tour and finishing Professional Android 2, I haven't had the chance to focus solely on building an Android app for far too long. It's been great to work as part of the Google team to put together something which (I think) is pretty incredible.

We've spent the last couple of days doing final testing in the English countryside. With that now completed, and the launch imminent, I'm going to stay a few days longer and take a well earned break. All will soon be revealed, but while you wait for the app to be available in the Market I thought you might enjoy some video clips I took during the development and testing process.

(Feel free to guess what you think is going on, but please don't ask me to comment on or confirm speculation. Posting these clips is as far as I'm willing to go!)






30 comments:

  1. detects the animal face?

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  2. Anonymous12:36 pm BST

    Recording farmyard noises?
    Hmm....

    Identifying animals based on their noises?

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  3. Anonymous12:38 pm BST

    Animal voice search?

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  4. Is this perhaps going to be released on the Market tomorrow Reto? ;-)

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  5. Anonymous12:44 pm BST

    Conference calls for animals?

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  6. Reto is looking for new friends using its revolutionary application running on android.

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  7. Anonymous12:55 pm BST

    These video clips don't work in Google Chrome on my Mac (but do in Safari). You might want to ask a colleague to look into that ; )

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  8. There is the possibility it could be a Dr. Do Little translation tool for farm animal language. It will identify the animal before conducting phonetic stressings analysis to tell if the animal is scared / healthy and then judging on some environmental factors it will establish the context of the animal's situation so that it can use this info to create elements of a conversation such as an introductory 'hello!' from a cow or an excited "I love you!" from a chicken. That's a small possibility. Perhaps more likely it displays pictures of animals based on their noises? Good to see videos! :)

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  9. My money is on a Speech-To-Text input method for Animals. Firstly, the Google team has to define the language that animals actually speak with...

    ;)

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  10. Anonymous1:08 pm BST

    Vet apps : detecting animal health by using breath ;-)

    Animal recognition by the noise they do.

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  11. Anonymous1:36 pm BST

    It's an electrical brainwave scanner: you can determine different animals by their brain frequencies. Didn't realise the handsets had the right sensors though...

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  12. Anonymous1:49 pm BST

    5G in the countryside

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  13. Anonymous2:08 pm BST

    Perhaps an app to locate the beast of Exmoor? with an April 1st launch-date! hmmmm.

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  14. food tracking? from farm to supermarket for the consumer.

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  15. Anonymous3:38 pm BST

    Movie scenario management tool. You guys are preparing next Babe movie:
    Babe: Pig meets Android

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  16. Google nose? Like Goggles, but does search based on farmyard smells?

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  17. Anonymous9:09 pm BST

    recipes

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  18. Very good teaser, Reto!

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  19. http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

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  20. sawhappy1:19 pm BST

    You are setting up auditions with your face recognition app for a donkey on chicken porn movie!?

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  21. Anonymous2:12 pm BST

    Yep, another lame April fools joke... joy

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  22. Anonymous3:15 pm BST

    hahahaha! i was hoping to read some good april fools jokes today :)

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  23. Wow, that radioactive sign makes me think of Duke NUkem 3D

    Lou
    www.anonymous-surfing.us.tc

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  24. You guys are all nuts.

    This is obvious evidence that Google is, in fact, RUN BY BARNYARD ANIMALS! They're going to take over! Ever read Animal Farm?

    That's right. Mind = Blown.

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  25. Anonymous5:50 pm BST

    See http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

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  26. Out of curiosity, will there be any more Android Developer Lab World Tours? I missed the current round, having only recently started to program in Android. I'm interested in learning from the pros if I get the chance to.

    Good luck with your book ... it'll probably have to be updated next year as well, seeing how fast Android is advancing.

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