MaemoMagazine.com

Google’s Android mobile phone operating system has a long — and mostly troubled — history on Maemo based devices. I remember the first attempt at getting Android working on the N800 and N810 was started by some industrious hackers at the forums of InternetTabletTalk.com. I tried to find that old thread, but it either has been lost to the elements of internet-time or my search skills are lacking.

Either way, I remember that the main attraction was just being able to boot into Android and have a working touchscreen. More of a proof-of-concept than anything else.

Then along came solca and his termed “NITdroid“. And with him came the hope of a fully-functioning and daily-usable version of Android for our old Internet Tablets. Over time solca and company got more and more things to work, like WiFi, application installation, battery monitoring and charging, and general stability. I remember enthusiastically installing the latest and greatest version of NITdroid whenever there was a new release, and helping out with debugging whenever I could.

Slowly, my own enthusiasm waned, and, apparently, so did everyone else’s. Though I wasn’t following the project when it got abandoned by solca, from what I hear there were some components he could never get working (sound, Bluetooth, etc) and at some point stopped trying.

After this, there was a long period of silence on the Android front. It never seemed that the hardware on the N810, and especially the N800, was good enough to run Android well. Additionally, newer versions of Android become more and more robust, leading to a need for newer hardware. This need was satisfied with the release of the N900, which lead to new-fangled interest in getting Android to run on a Maemo-based device.

In November of ’09, bri3d on talk.maemo.org got version 2.0 of Android (Eclair) working on the N900. His work was built on top of solca and company, but was very rough with most services unusable. Moreover, he didn’t have much time to spend on the project, so it quickly needed a new maintainer. The reins of NITdroid were then briefly taken by bdogg64 with him trying to work out issues with the kernel and display. Eventually he got the touchscreen, keyboard, and WiFi networking working. Things were moving in the right direction!

Soon after that dj_steve at talk.maemo.org starting working on the project. This is were things really started to get interesting. With the help of e-yes and Jay-C, dj_steve made many “breakthroughs”. Some of these include:

• Android 2.2 (Froyo) as base system
• Working bootmenu with dynamic kernel loading
• Touchscreen working and calibrated correctly
• Keyboard working and correctly mapped
• WiFi
• Bluetooth
• Charging and battery reporting (WIP)
• Accelerometer (WIP)
• Sound via speakers and headset
• Microphone

And development has been fast and steady, as this 277-page (and counting) and 2767-post (and counting) thread can attest to. In fact, this post and these numbers are probably already outdated.

Now, I will again take the plunge and try to install Android on my beloved Maemo-based device (last time the N800, this time the N900).

I will, however, be saving that for part 2 of this article since I haven’t yet received a MicroSD card I ordered the other day, and that is item 1 on the “list of things you need before installing Android on your N900″.

Stay tuned!

Android, Development, maemo.org

Software Spotlight is a series that will be debuting on MaemoMagazine.com that will take a detailed look at exceptional community and/or commercial software available for Maemo-based devices.

This week we will be taking a look at SPB Brain Evolution by SPB Software.

Brain Evolution bills itself as:

…an intellectual software game that helps to train the brain and improve memory, logic, arithmetic, and puzzle-solving skills. The application is a suit of 12 games, which have to be played in sequence: only good results in a game, unlock the next one.

Sounds more like a mental marathon than a game, but let’s see how it plays.

After launching the game you are presented with this menacing screen:

Clicking “Next” will ask for your game-name (this is what will appear in high-score lists and such). Continuing on, your current “Brain Status” will be determined by playing five simple games. It appears that doing this allows you to know where you are before doing any training. I was at the “Schoolboy” level.

Once you are finished with brain marking, you can go on to brain training. Brain training allows you to have some fun playing (and getting better at) the games themselves, which will unlock other games.

At first you are allowed to play four games: Arithmetic, Quadronica, Sudoku, and Memorics; while the other 8 are locked away, only to be rewarded after brain progress has been made! Starting off, brain training consists of playing two different games, but this number goes up as you unlock more. When brain training is complete, you are presented with an interesting fact, while the difficulty of an unlocked game or the unlocking of a new game may also happen (depending on how well you have done).

A Look at the Games Themselves:

The first game in the list is called “Arithmetic” and, as the name suggests, tests your ability to do simple computational mathematics.

The game itself is timed — the faster you are and fewer wrong answers entered, the higher the score achieved. Like all the games, Arithmetic has levels of difficulty. You start out at “easy” which tests only addition and subtraction, and can work your way up until multiplication and division are introduced.

The second game, titled Quadronica, is also very simple, but so far my favorite (however, I still haven’t unlocked them all yet). It is based on the simple principle of finding same-colored blocks which form a rectangle. The larger the area the rectangle forms, the more points awarded.

The amount of time given is limited, so it a race to find the most and largest quads formed. Advancing in difficulty adds more block colors.

The ultra-popular puzzle game, Sudoku, is third on the list, and as always, provides some entertaining gameplay. This version of Sudoku is fairly bare-bones, but fortunately does provide pencilmarks.

The score you receive is based on how fast you can finish. Advancing in difficulty reduces the amount of given numbers and makes the placements more difficult.

The fourth and final base-unlocked game is Memorics. This game will put your short-term memory to the test by having you remember a field, then asking you a feature of that field.

You only have a fixed amount of time to memorize the field, and higher scores are achieved with more accurate answers.  As it advances in difficulty, more shapes, colors, states and objects are added to the field. This is another extremely fun game that can provide quite a challenge to the player.

Games that are locked at first are: Pairs, Numbers, Balltracker, Guess Who, Minesweeper, Geometry, Encyclopedia, and Matches. I will leave it up to your hard work to find out about these games.

The game also features online high score lists that you can publish-to and read-from. I found myself repeatedly trying to outdo myself and others on the high score lists.

This really adds a fun factor to the game. Another cool feature that you may have noticed from the screenshots is that the game runs entirely in portrait mode.

Summary:

All-in-all, I really enjoyed Brain Evolution by SPB Software. It packs a whole ton of fun games into a small package, and that is very welcome for a platform that is starving for some quality gameplay.

Pricing and Availability:

SPB Brain Evolution is available from the OVI Store for Free, so there is nothing stopping you from giving this a go on your N900. And who knows, after playing, you might just get a little smarter as well — or at least use that as a great excuse.

Games, Reviews, Software, maemo.org