Today, little tutorial to encode a video with a readable HTC Magic Android (GPhone or other) ... and great innovation, it will be a sreencast (admittedly dumb) just for you!

But first, a little reminder: most GPhone have a screen resolution of 320 × 480 or 480 vertical × 320 in landscape. It will be the resolution of the video we will create. Then it is necessary to recall that at present only the videos to 3GP or MP4 can be played by these smartphones. It will be the output format of our video.

For this you'll need two applications. On a PC to encode the video and on the phone (not required) to play the video.

For encoding on the PC, I suggest Mediacoder (Linux / Mac / Windows). Besides the fact that it is multi-platform, it provides a good quality conversion in few clicks!

As for playing on the phone, it can be done without installing additional application, however, for better ergonomics, I recommend Meridian Player Noble.

Now, enough of talk and move to the encoding of the video:

As you can see, the plugin also works with iPhone GPhone. You can adjust the size of the video to the screen size via "crop" and to add subtitles.

Finally, a good quality / size select the same parameters as in the video (H.264, 480 × 320, 25 or 23 fps (frames / s), video 768 Kbit / s, a 128 Kbit / s).

That is, it'll just put your video on your SD card and enjoy!

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Here's what you give your mouth water, if you are the happy owner of a GPhone: Google Maps Navigation.

This is no more, no less, to integrate a real GPS (and Street View) to Google Maps, already available on Android. The only limitation is that you embark only the map of the planned route. If you waive any and you're in an area not covered by 3G, then this application you will not be of any use.

All this is the program's highly anticipated Android Eclair (2.0).

It was expected that 1.6 update of Android ... well here it is in pictures (above)! ;-)

At the interface, nothing new, except perhaps for widgets, but I will later.

(For information, the widget used to display the time and date is not supplied with Donut. If you want to install it, search for "Retro Clock" in the market.)

I put here the link:

Otherwise, there is the appearance of a battery management evolved to visualize which application has consumed the most since the last battery recharge. This is a good idea. Especially since it is then possible to kill the application.

With regard to accessibility, this new version of Android offers a speech synthesis tool that can read all the text that appears on the screen of the phone.

In the ray-essential functionality-that-was missing, now the VPN is emerging! My initial tests proved inconclusive strong ... I will try next week the CISCO VPN.

I mentioned above ... and widgets Donut brings new features with a search widget for Google Desktop mode, which seeks not only on the net, but also your contacts in your history and favorites in your music, and even in your applications!

Add to this the emergence of a new widget to enable or disable the wireless connections (Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS), but the backlight and synchronization in the background, in order to save up the phone battery.

Finally, latest addition, Google offers us a completely re-established Market, with its most prominent applications pay following protests by many developers. However, it is still possible to view only free apps of any class as long as we stick to the key applications. For the latest, it will look for free in the middle of a fee.

But ultimately, this highlighting of paid applications is a blessing in disguise, since we will now qualify for some screenshots after the description of applications, allowing them a better idea.

Therefore, no radical changes in this new version, which focuses more on tweaking the existing system, correcting some shortcomings. So I noted a greater fluidity in the display of web pages and responsiveness of the keyboard. Finally, the system became slow with more than 50 applications, now turning 60 with a straight face!

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Today I start a small presentation of QR Codes, for the simple reason that I want to use for the presentation of some applications, particularly those for Android.

These codes are the successors of our old bar code, but in 2D! They can store 7,089 numeric characters, 4,296 alphanumeric characters or 2953 bytes ( Wikipedia ).

This code was born in Japan, where he knows a huge success thanks to the growth of mobile phones. Indeed, they are now all (or almost) with a camera that can read these codes, by installing a small application.

The QR codes thus allow coding of visual information. They contain URLs, text, phone numbers, ...

They are found everywhere, including in some magazines.

Unfortunately, in France, these codes are not the standard of telephone operators who preferred to create their own technology, flashcodes . As you are all French, so I prefer to use the standard most popular.

Now let's talk applications. If you are in France (or come see us), two possibilities. Either you are an application reading the QR codes flashcodes AND (rare) or you can install both applications. For others, only one application is necessary.

To do this, Google is your friend ... but I'm cool, I offer two Android:

1. ixmation Code Scanner (QR Code, Datamatrix, Barcode)
   
2. mobiletag (flashcode)
   

You will need to search the Android Market to install these two applications. Then you will not have to search for all applications that I will, since the associated QR code, a link leads you directly to the application in the maket.

Once ixmation Code Scanner will be installed, so the test on the header of this article ;-)

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* QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED but usable by all.

As you may have learned via Twitter, I recently invested in a Google Phone in Android , the operating system from Google. And I must say that I am fully satisfied!

So I bought a HTC Magic with version 1.5 of the OS. Design (too?) Sober can put off a little at first, but finally the general egonomie phone is good. The phone has a 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus, a GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth.

To return to the operating Systel, it operates in 100% online, which means to have a package with unlimited internet. The touch screen of the phone can navigate through menus, desktop switcher (3 available), type your messages, etc ... The operation is somewhat similar to an iPhone.

By default, the phone has several applications, including Gmail and Google Maps (Google account required to access these services). Of course, there is also an application for SMS / MMS, an address book, calendar (Google Calendar), a browser, email software, alarm clock ...

But where other phones are limited in terms of functionality, with Android and the Android Market (Apple Store-like), it is possible to add lots of applications and so many features on the phone!

I already installed a file manager, a QR code scanner and Flashcode, a PDF reader, an application indicating radar, an application for WhiteBoard, a Twitter client ( Twidroid ), an MSN client, an application to watch TV, ... and all for free.

Indeed, there is as a huge amount of free applications available and installable with one click. Android is a Linux system revisited, it enjoys the power of the open source community has already begun to bear many applications for the system. Although the Android Market has a little behind the Apple Store, its potential is ennorme.

In short, I give a 8.5 / 10 on the phone (design for improvement and heats a little 3G or GPS) and a 9 / 10 to Android (still needs some adjustment at the input), in other words a fatal combo!

Ps: the fact that exite an impressive amount of applications for Android, I'd be happy to share my discoveries with you through this blog. So I added a category in which Android I will post the articles.