Building Android applications in C in Java

Making QR Code JIS X 0510 in Java Building Android applications in C

between platforms is a welcome feature. There are only a few comparable solutions in the marketplace for other mobile environments, and that s after years of market penetration by these other platforms. Android gets it right from the start. This chapter took a bit of a detour from the regular Android SDK programming environment. It s time to return to the SDK; in the next chapter you ll learn about Bluetooth and sensors.

n part 3, you learned about two extremes of the Android platform. 12 provided the full end-to-end SDK application experience, and chapter 13 went to the other extreme of exploring application techniques that might best fit a custom piece of hardware running the Android operating system. The objective of part 4 is to explore some of the features added to the Android platform that take it a step beyond the other platforms to provide a unique and memorable mobile experience. In chapter 14, we get close to the metal by interrogating onboard sensors and communicating over Bluetooth. The sensors act as inputs for a navigation system to control a LEGO Mindstorms robot. In chapter 15, we build a sophisticated integration between the Android contact database and business social networking sensation, LinkedIn. The application constructed in chapter 15 has become a popular download on the Android market. Read along and learn how to get up close and personal with your contacts. In chapter 16, the topic of Android web development is explored. Topics such as building websites for the WebKit-powered Android browser and custom JavaScript handlers are introduced. In addition, local SQL-based storage concepts are examined, enabling next-generation web applications directly on your mobile device. 17 presents a nontrivial example of the AppWidget, tying together other key concepts such as services, alarms, and BroadcastReceivers. There s something for everyone in chapter 17 as we construct a website monitoring tool

that provides near-real-time status information directly to the home page of your Android device. 18 circles back to the application constructed in chapter 12, but with a twist. The code in chapter 18 demonstrates the localization of an existing application as the field service application presented in chapter 12 is modified to support multiple languages. The application now supports English and Spanish, depending on the locale of the device. 19 wraps up the book with a look at the Native Development Kit (NDK). The NDK permits Android developers to incorporate C language source code into SDK applications. 19 demonstrates the NDK in the context of an imageprocessing application that allows the user to capture images with the built-in camera and then perform an edge detection algorithm against the image. It s loads of fun and you ll learn about the Java Native Interface as well as how to integrate the NDK build process directly into Eclipse.

Connecting to a Bluetooth peripheral Interacting with the SensorManager Building and running the SenseBot application

The majority of the material presented in this book is concerned with employing various capabilities of the Android SDK. At this point, however, you re going to see how to take advantage of an Android device s hardware. Specifically, we ll look at connecting an Android device to remote devices via a Bluetooth wireless connection, as well as reading and interpreting values from a hardware-based orientation sensor. This chapter combines these two hardware-related topics in a sample program that exercises control over a robot constructed from the popular LEGO Mindstorms NXT. The Mindstorms NXT robot supports a communications protocol known as Direct Commands, 1 allowing it to be controlled by a remote device. This is the one chapter of the book where you ll want to have access to a physical Android device with version 2 or later of the operating system the simulator alone isn t adequate for exercising the Bluetooth and sensor functionality.

To learn more about Direct Commands for the Lego Mindstorm, start here: http://mindstorms. lego.com/en-us/support/files/default.aspx.