Good news for smartwatches: apps can read and dismiss notifications in Android 4.3

8 months after its release in October 2012, Windows 8 has finally surpassed Windows Vista in usage. Microsoft’s latest desktop OS boasts 5.1% market share, whereas the WIndows Vista share has shrunk to 4.62%.

The data comes from research company and market tracker Net Applications. Their research shows that Windows 8 isn’t too far behind Mac OS X (all versions combined), either. At 6.63% combined, Apple’s OS is just at arms reach for the latest release of the Redmond company. Windows 8 marks a decent jump in usage over May, when it had 4.27% share.
At the top of the chart remain Windows 7 and Windows XP with 44.37% and 37.17%, respectively. This puts Microsoft as the undisputed champion in the desktop operating systems market in June with a 91.51% slice. Mac OS is distant second with 7.2% (including older versions, not just OS X) and Linux is third with 1.28%.
Source | Via

Good news for smartwatches: apps can read and dismiss notifications in Android 4.3

An Android 4.3 build for the Samsung Galaxy S4 leaked a few days ago and it was found to contain some hidden enhancements that point the way to some new features in the future. They have to do with notifications.

The first is a Notifications screen, which acts as history of all your recent notifications, even the ones you’ve dismissed (those are the grayed out ones, the others are notifications still visible in the notification area).
Android 4.3 will also allow apps to read what notifications are displayed through an additional permission. These apps will also be able to dismiss notifications and interact with them (e.g. hit the Reply or Delete buttons on an email notification).

<string name=”notification_listener_security_warning_summary”>%1$s will be able to read all notifications posted by the system or any installed app, which may include personal information such as contact names and the text of messages sent to you. It will also be able to dismiss these notifications or touch action buttons within them.</string>

That will be great for smartwatches and the likes, which display notifications from your phone (and are currently doing it through the unrelated Accessibility API). But this will also enable other applications, like sending notifications to your desktop. Apps like Tasker and others also need to read notifications to perform some action and currently do it with the Accessibility API, but they’ll be able to move to the new, more appropriate API.
Such apps are called Notification listeners and there’s a Notification access screen that shows you which apps have access to your notification (which could be a privacy concern, after all notifications often contain messages to you).
Another enticing possibility is replacement notification areas – currently you can change the launcher and the lockscreen, but not the notification. However, the needed permissions (to hide the stock notification area) have not been found (yet!).

Nokia Lumia 925 ad looks virtually identical to the Lumia 928 promo

Nokia put out a new ad for the Lumia 925 in the UK and it looks very, very similar to the Lumia 928 ad we saw some time ago. Seriously, it includes most of the same shots, even though the phones aren’t exactly identical.

Both phones boast great low-light photography thanks to their Optical Image Stabilization and optimized sensors. Still, the 928 has xenon flash, which the Lumia 925 does not.

Apple submits a trademark application for the “iWatch” name

A lot of rumors have been floating around the web regarding an Apple-designed smart watch running iOS, but we have seen little official evidence. Now, however, the company has filed an application to trademark the ‘iWatch’ moniker in Japan.

Image: iPortal
Noticed by Yahoo Japan, the trademark filing occurred on June 3, suggesting that the company is indeed working such an accessory. Nothing else has been known for sure about the Apple iWatch, only speculations from a previous patent application filed by the Cupertino company.
It describes a watch-like AMOLED device with a slap bracelet and kinetic energy charger. About 100 of Apple’s employees (designers, programmers and engineers) are said to have been working on the project. When exactly Apple is going to announce the iWatch is anyone’s guess.