Samsung Bada and BlackBerry 6 platforms now supported by the Maps API v3

From the day the Maps API v3 was first announced we placed a special focus on it’s suitability for use on mobile browsers. Being able to develop a single maps application that works across all major desktop browsers and also on mobile devices is a key benefit of the Maps API. We are keen to make Maps API applications as accessible as possible, which is why we’re always excited to test new devices to determine if they meet our requirements for support.

Today we are therefore happy to welcome Samsung Bada and BlackBerry 6 touchscreen devices such as the Samsung Wave family and BlackBerry Torch 9800 to the fold. The full feature set of Maps API v3 is now available to users of these devices. We hope that as mobile browsers continue to improve across platforms we can continue to add new devices to our list of those we support.

Highlights from Google Developer Day 2010

With our 3 Google Developer Days in Munich, Moscow and Prague last month, we wrapped up “GDD season” this year. It was great to meet many of you in person, and we’re happy to see all of the positive responses via your tweets and blog posts. Participating in the events was a great way to update you on where we are in our product development as well as to hear your feedback.

Here is a 3-minute highlights video and a short summary of each of our Google Developer Day events. For all photos and videos, see here.

Sep 28, Tokyo: Japan is the 2nd largest country for Android app uploads and App Engine usage, so we were happy to meet and thank the strong developer communities there. We hosted our largest Developer Day in Tokyo, with 1,500 developers in Tokyo and 200 developers at a satellite venue in Kyoto. Our developer sandbox had over 30 booths with 90 developers, from the Android-based Android robot to the Android Developers’ Club, which presented more than 100 Android applications by its members. See youtube.com/GoogleDevelopersJa for videos of all sessions.

Oct 29, Sao Paulo: Mario Queiroz, VP Product Management, opened the day for Brazil’s 4th Google Developer Day with the announcement that Jambool will now provide payments support for Orkut, and we announced that Brazil is our second largest country in number of Chrome users. As Voice Search and Navigation for Android launched just the day before, we demoed live during the keynote, including a daring and successful voice search query, “number of people who attended the Bon Jovi concert”. We hosted 1300 developers throughout the day to packed sessions. See keynote video, photos and presentation slides (linked from each session page).

Nov 9, Munich: For the first time, we organized Google Developer Day in partnership with the Technical University of Munich, who co-hosted their own sessions and ran an Innovation Sandbox throughout the day. 1200 developers were in attendance, and we met with one of our most active GTUG communities, with 11 locations in Germany and 21 events in the last six months. We treated ourselves to beer & pretzels and watched the Blinkendroid team put together 72 Android devices, the highest number yet. See our highlights video and photos.

Nov 12, Moscow: This year we reduced the number of simultaneous tracks from 6 to 4 to help developers choose between sessions. After a great keynote, 1300+ developers from over 85 cities attended 24 different sessions, 2 project showcase sessions, and participated in countless discussions, including one with a Duma member and Skolkovo advisor. The local GTUG also hosted two hackathons – one focused on Android & Chrome/HTML5, and one focused on Google Maps. Here are the highlights video, photos and PDFs (linked from each session page).

Nov 16, Prague: Bringing almost 1000 Czech & Slovak developers together, the third GDD in Prague was the biggest yet. We loved how much local stuff was happening there! The local Google User Group hosted a mini-barcamp onsite and launched an internet TV station (gug.tv) during the event, developers competed in a QR hunting game, and much more. Almost every link regarding the event (including the YouTube playlist) was compiled by the community into this freely editable Google Doc.

While we have great fun at these events, and love interacting with local developers, we’re usually only in town once or twice a year. However, there are vibrant developer communities all over the globe that meet regularly to discuss and hack on all the technologies showcased at Developer Day. To get involved, find a local group near you, or start up your own!

Finally, based on the interest we saw from previous developer events, we created some digital “souvenirs” for you in the form of PC & Mac wallpapers and an Android live wallpaper.

Enjoy!

Bernhardt on Emptying the Tank

“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself
that one becomes rich.”

–Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923)

French actress and writer

Sales thought…

There’s nothing more powerful to the salesday than enthusiasm. It excites everyone to positive action…

  • you
  • your team
  • your prospect
  • the new customer you just brought on board
  • the internal department responsible for the delivery of what you just sold
  • the receptionist who talks with your prospects and customers first

As you work with your people today (and tomorrow) your level of enthusiasm will impact all of them (one way or the other). What do you want your impact to be?

(If you’ve not seen it, here are a couple of enthusiastic minutes (video) of my boys getting lost in their work.)

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The ‘empty the tank’ reference in the subject line of this email comes from an inspiring quote from Jon Stewart talking about Bruce Springsteen (that’s a mouthful). That and Stewart’s complete introduction are here.