One hundred thousand apps in Android Market

Yesterday it was announced in the twitter account of AndroidDev that Android Market had reached one hundred thousand apps.

The last 22 October, was the second birthday of the first Android terminal and few day later, Android Market reached this number. At the same time, Apple showed us the number of available apps in AppStore which is larger than Android Market, three hundred thousand in total. We can see that the difference is big yet. Anyway the quality of a store isn't measured by the number of apps but the quality of these.

Though the news is very important, we have to say there is a lot apps which are skin, themes and low quality apps. On the other hand we know the 60% of the apps in Android Market are free. Anyway, this number will have to grow so the more countries develop for Android the more Android will grow.

So this news isn't enough good because the problems, that this market have for users and developers, haven't dissapeared.

News translated: http://www.androidsis.com/superada-la-barrera-de-las-100-000-aplicaciones-en-el-android-market/

Control the pollution of your city with Air Visibility Monitoring

It's said that City of Mexico is one of the most polluted cities of the world, though it's true that it has a population of 9 million. Other cities where the air is dreadful are El Cairo, Pekin, Santigo, Los Angeles...In some of these cities, people wear masks to protect from pollution, but how can we control the pollution of our city???By reading the newspaper??

A Android application is going to help us with this problem, Air Visibility Monitoring. It works with the help of one photo. We make a photo of the sky (being careful with the trees, buildings, birds, planes, etc) and we send the photo to central servers that will analyze that photo with other data (GPS, clock, etc). In a moment, we will get the answer, moreover our data will be saved to use in the future to evaluate the environmental problems. So not only we are controling our city, but we are helping our planet.

News translated: http://www.androidsis.com/controla-la-contaminacion-de-tu-ciudad-con-air-visibility-monitoring/

Skype is available in Android

From now on we can download the Android version of Skype from Android Market, though, unfortunately it isn't compatible with some operating system version, only with 2.0 or higher.

It's known that we will be able to make a Voip call using WiFi and 3G, moreover we will be able to talk with our friends in a chat. We will also be able to synchronize our contacts using the Skype Desktop application. It's advised that we use the 3G with this application because it can cause problems if we use EDGE connection.

Android 2.1 is the lowest version to run Skype but it's also said that it is advisable to have a phone with a processor faster than 600Mhz (mostly so). If you have a limited data rate, you should be careful because 1 minute of call with Skype are about 1 Mb of data.

Unfortunately I neither have Android 2.1 nor have a data rate.

News translate: http://www.androidsis.com/skype-para-android-disponible-en-el-android-market/

A study shows that some Android applications send data without permission

A study made by engineers in Intel's labs, of the University of Penn State and the University of Duke, has shown that some Android applications get too many users data without permission.
They created a programm called TaintDroid to follow the volume of shared data in 30 of the most popular Google applications and available in Android Market. Despite that the application didn't ask the place where you were, two thirds of them shared the information on the location of the terminal. Others sent the id number or the phone number to their servers, even updated the location information each 30 seconds.
Half of these application were sending this information to advertising companies like AdMob. Many times, the users don't know his location is being sent without his permission.
A lot of mobile operating system control the access to the private information, but in the Android Market seem like these controls can be skipped easily.
A better review of the applications and some extra control would help much to the Android Market which ,if we compare it with other, is very poor, and which Google should pay more attention.
Despite this news, I don't change my HTC Tattoo.

News translated: http://www.androidsis.com/un-estudio-muestra-que-algunas-aplicaciones-de-android-envian-datos-sin-consentimiento/