Samsung has announced the winners to the mobile application boot camp took place last year, more than 120 high school students vied to develop the next big thing in mobile applications and compete for the $20,000 Grand Prize scholarship.

 

The first winner to walk away with a $20,000 scholarship is Joseph Romano, a tenth grader with his app called Better4All. Next to win the $10,000 scholarship is Sophia Li, an eleventh grader for her SoundUP app and finally the $5,000 winner is Ofri Harlev for his app Karma Trader.

Congratulations to all the winners.

 

Press Release:

-Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), the No. 1 mobile phone provider in the United States and the No. 1 smartphone provider worldwide1, recognized the top five students and their mobile application concepts developed during the 2012 Mobile Application Boot Camps.

 

Grand prize winner Joseph Romano, a tenth grader at Arlington High School in Arlington, MA, received a $20,000 scholarship for his Better4All volunteer application. Romano's Better4All mobile application is a crowd-sourced service which allows users within a specific region to report and respond to volunteer opportunities within three main categories: road hazards, off-road issues and volunteer positions. This call-to-action application encourages users to identify areas in their community that need emergency and philanthropic assistance.

 

"The goal for the Samsung Mobile Application Boot Camps is to inspire a new generation of engineers," said Dale Sohn, President of Samsung Telecommunications America. "The students that participated are learning a timely and relevant skill that has an opportunity to influence not only their lives, but the lives of others as well. It is encouraging to see the creativity these students have and the desire to empower change through technology."

 

Sophia Li, an eleventh grader at Lowell High School in San Francisco, received second place and a $10,000 scholarship for her SoundUP app. By allowing users to "piggyback" on multiple phone speakers, SoundUP delivers a synchronized, extended speaker system. SoundUP not only brings people together through the power of music, but also delivers on convenience, personalization and versatility.

 

The third place prize of a $5,000 scholarship was awarded to Ofri Harlev, an eleventh grader at Lowell High School in San Francisco. Harlev created the Karma Trader application to bring communities together by identifying and promoting citizens' unique skill sets, such as carpentry or health care.

 

Fourth & Fifth place winners, David Park, from Duluth, GA, and James Fong, from Alameda, CA, in addition to all winners, will receive Samsung Galaxy S® III smartphones. For more information or to view winner concept submissions, please visit www.scholastic.com/samsungbootcamp.

 

In July and August of 2012, Samsung Mobile collaborated with highly recognized engineering universities - University of California, Berkeley, University of Texas at Dallas, Georgia Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to host four two-day mobile application boot camps for top performing high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

 

Samsung worked with Scholastic - the global children's publishing, education and media company - to develop the activities for the boot camps, as well as teacher resources that are available online for teachers interested in teaching mobile application development during the school year.

 

For more information about the program, please visit

www.scholastic.com/samsungbootcamp or contact samsungcampinfo@scholastic.com.

 

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With the Beta release of Chrome for Android rolling out today, it's now easier to create shortcuts on your homescreen to do exactly that. When visiting a website you'd like to save, simply select "Add to homescreen" in the toolbar menu.

Anytime you'd like to open the saved website, you can just tap its icon in your homescreen. For some websites, the shortcut will open inside a full-screen experience and appear as a separate app in the app switcher.

Also new is the "new tab page" the mimics the design found on desktops. Search is now present right in the middle of the tab (redundant since you could also search from the URL/search bar/Omnibox), and your most frequently visited sites appear along the bottom for quick access. The update is said to go live at some point today, and if you haven't yet, you can live on the bleeding edge and download Chrome Beta for Android via link below.

Google Play Store Link

 

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Google Wallet has been updated today with a few new features including enhancements for the overall user interface. As for the UI, the app's navigation top safe now along the top of the app, while navigation has been moved around slightly with loaded cards stored in the "My Wallet" tab aside from your default card.

Google also noted "improvements for the user interface, application stability, and battery life" within the update's release notes and highlighted support for many cards from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover.

Head to the Play Store and check out the latest update if you have a compatible device.

What's in this version:

 

• Wallet, meet cloud.
• The new Google Wallet app supports any credit or debit card - Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover. These cards are available for in-store purchases using a phone with the Google Wallet app, or for online purchases at participating merchants.
• If you lose your phone, you can disable your mobile wallet from the ‘Devices' section of wallet.google.com/manage
• This latest update includes improvements to the user interface, application stability, and battery life.

 

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