Category: GReader

When Amazon’s Appstore rolled out last week, we glossed over one detail that merely seemed neat. Today, we’re inclined to say that Test Drive may be the most significant part of Amazon’s announcement that day. Basically, Test Drive allows US customers to take apps for a spin at Amazon.com, with all the comfort that their tried-and-true desktop web browser brings — but rather than sit you down with a Flash-based mockup of the app, Amazon is giving you a taste of bona fide cloud computing with an Android virtual machine.

In other words, what you’re looking at in the screenshot above isn’t just a single program, but an entire virtual Android smartphone with working mouse controls, where you can not only try out Paper Toss, but also delete it, browse through the device’s photo gallery, listen to a few tunes, or even surf the web from the working Android browser — as difficult as that may be without keyboard input. Amazon explains:

Clicking the “Test drive now” button launches a copy of this app on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers. When you click on the simulated phone using your mouse, we send those inputs over the Internet to the app running on Amazon EC2 – just like your mobile device would send a finger tap to the app. Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to your computer. All this happens in real time, allowing you to explore the features of the app as if it were running on your mobile device.

Today, Amazon’s Test Drive is basically just Gaikai for mobile phones — its purpose is simply to sell apps, nothing more. But imagine this for a sec: what if you could access your own smartphone data, instead of the mostly blank slate that Amazon provides here?

[Thanks, Ryan]

Amazon.com lets you play with an Android virtual machine, try apps before you buy them originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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…but it's actually very safe! And yes, NASA has a railroad. It's been around since 1963, actually—so apologies to space nuts who've known about it for a while—but only recently has the agency uploaded an expose to YouTube. More »

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world…

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Looking for a little bit of Tron with your motorcycle racing? A group of French design students, in what is sure to go down as the coolest final project in history, has put together a concept bike that has clearly been stolen from the future via time-traveling DeLorean.  The Saline Bird concept bike has a carbon-fiber frame and uses a compressed-air engine to hit speed-record level quickness. As part of the bike’s sleek, smooth style, the body work is just a leather slip fitted over the internal parts. Switching it out just means taking one bit of leather off and putting another on.

The bike is made for the group Les Triplettes de Bonneville, who already hold four world speed records. Judging by their website, the team hits these mind-bending speeds on the Bonneville salt flats, regularly attending the SpeedWeek competitions. So, if you want to catch a glimpse of the closest thing to a light-bike, Nevada is a lot easier to get to than The Grid.

[via DesignBuzz]

Philiana Ng
After Fox greenlights a fourth season earlier this week, ratings for the sci-fi drama go up.

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Just doing my bit to spread awareness for this common, but little understood condition. Thousands around the world are affected by chronic bitchface, with sufferers having to endure being told to “SMILE” and “cheer up” by well meaning, but irritating strangers. There is no known cure.

As a reminder, these are the three countries who don’t use the incredibly sensible metric system: Liberia, Myanmar and of course, the United States of America. U-S-A! U-S-A! Hell, we should all form some sort of alliance! Non US-people, feel free to tell us why we’re dumb for not using the metric system. [Wikimedia via ZME Science] More »

Now that Fringe is miraculously renewed for a fourth phenomenal season, the show is back to blowing our minds. I counted four clever misdirections in last night’s episode. More »

The Motorola XOOM W-Fi tablet was announced earlier this week. It’ll be available via TELUS, Best Buy and Future Shop. The no-contract price point is $599.99 and no official release date was announced but the pre-order page for both Future Shop and Best Buy showed “Estimated release date: 04/08/2011″. Well, if you’re holding out for […]

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Watch Your Thoughts…They Become Words!
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Stephen Harper on Saturday will ask that an election be called, after opposition MPs voted together to defeat the Conservative government.

Philiana Ng
Fresh off the fourth season pickup from Fox, showrunners Jeff Pinkner (right) and J.H. Wyman talk to THR about what it means, the show’s mediocre ratings and question whether Nielsen boxes actually exist.

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There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.

      —  Denis Waitley

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Android: We’re pretty big fans of mobile IM client Imo.im, but Android users should definitely check out their most recent beta, in which they've completely revamped their interface into something much easier to use—without sacrificing any features. More »