Google yesterday held an event where they demonstrated the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb for the first time. A video of the entire event is now available on YouTube.The Android team announced some exciting new features for Android 3.0 "Honeycomb." The new mobile OS but only for Tablets will be the next major milestone for Android, with a ton of new and improved features, including widgets, hardware acceleration and more.
In the video, you will see Google s Hugo Barra demonstrate Honeycomb on a Motorola XOOM tablet. He touches upon various aspects of the new OS, including the brand new home screen, which includes a new widget and notification system as well as a new multitasking menu.
Android 3.0 will also come with a new notification system, with toast popups in the lower right-hand corner. The notifications can now contain images of friends when they send you a message. The notification system will even allow for apps, like a media player, to appear on screen, for quick access.
We can also see that Honeycomb uses hardware acceleration for rendering the 3D as well as 2D graphics on the screen, which makes them a lot smoother. He also demoed Fruit Ninja on the tablet, which is the same version that we can download today on Android smartphones. This means that Honeycomb can run current Android applications natively, although Google is encouraging developers to come up with tablet optimized applications.
Honeycomb will come with a new engine for powering 3D graphics on your devices. Lastly, Android 3.0 ‘Honeycomb’ will allow support video chat, with a supported handset or tablet with a front-facing camera, using Google Talk.
Honeycomb also uses a new graphics engine called Render Script, which enabled high performance 3D graphics in applications. This can be seen in applications such as YouTube or the Books app, which use a 3D carousal for the items. There is also a new Google Body application, which is like Google Earth for the human body.
Watch On YouTube:
