Free Range Games and Kamcord Discuss building your community with video sharing. We will demo Free Range Games’ YouTube API integration in APO Snow

Check out Google’s documentation for more on the YouTube API.

At its Mobile Developer Conference in New York City, Facebook announced that Open Graph is coming to mobile in a big way. The first step is making sure everybody can integrate Open Graph into their mobile apps without having to deal with the complexity of the Graph API. The answer is the Object API – tools that let developers “directly create Open Graph objects” while no longer needing “to host webpages with Open Graph tags.” The new API is available to both mobile and Web apps so that nobody is left out.

To make things even easier, Facebook is also introducing the Object Browser. It’s a “simple visual interface that helps you easily interact with the object data you publish.” For more on the Object API and the Object Browser, check out Facebook’s documentation.

One of the core tenets of Facebook is sharing, and the social network is making it even easier on mobile with the Native Share Dialog. This particular tool allows people to share in-app actions without having to open or log into the Facebook app. It’s also incredibly easy to implement as it only requires a single line of code. The Native Share Dialog is available starting today in a limited beta on iOS with Android support coming soon. Check out Facebook’s documentation for more info.

Users can look forward to an even friendlier Facebook mobile login experience as well as the social network is rolling out a number of enhancements to make things faster and more secure. The first is that Facebook has rebuilt its Login Dialog on mobile and Web to make it 20 percent faster. All Login Dialogs on mobile and non-game Web apps will be automatically upgraded to the new dialog today, but mobile apps can get even faster dialogs in the latest iOS and Android SDKs. If you want more info on Login Dialogs, check out Facebook’s documentation.

As for security, Facebook has split Facebook permissions in mobile apps into two separate dialogs. The first is a mandatory dialog that asks users to share their Facebook data with the app. The second asks users if the app can post content to their Facebook wall on their behalf. In the second dialog, users can either agree, skip the step or customize which people the app can share stories with.

On a final note, Facebook also released the latest version of its SDK for iOS. Version 3.5 of the iOS SDK includes support for all the above enhancements. The latest SDK only supports iOS 5 and above. You can download it here.

Writing your own file picker with the Drive API is easy, right? Not so fast! Watch to find out about the hidden complexity that can turn an otherwise easy task into a pain for users. We’ll show you ways to do it right when you have no choice as well as some alternative approaches that are quick and easy to implement.

Check out more Google Drive news and tutorials here.

Google Developers was updated today with the Google Mirror API page. The page contains all the information you need to start building apps for Google Glass. The page also includes a number of videos to walk you through specific actions of the API:

Timeline Cards

Menu Items

Subscriptions

Contacts

If you need help getting started on Glass development, Google has released two starter projects in Java and Python that can be loaded into App Engine. From there, developers can use the starter project as a foundation for their own projects. If you need the API in other libraries, you can grab it in Java, Python, Go, PHP, .NET, Ruby and Dart from here.

Once developers have the tools they need, they will also need to follow the rules. In the Terms of Service, Google says quite plainly that Glass developers can not serve ads in their Glass apps, nor can they charge for them. Google also says that all Glass apps must be hosted on Google’s own distribution channel “unless otherwise approved in writing by Google.”

It seems that Google isn’t quite ready to monetize Glass, but it will probably allow developers to start selling apps later this year once the device goes into mass production. It would make little sense for the company not to. Either way, we’ve reached out to Google for comment and clarification and will update if we hear back.

EDIT: A Google spokesperson gave us the following comment:

“Developers are crucial to the future of Glass. The focus during the Explorer Program is on innovation and experimentation, but it’s too early to speculate how this will evolve.”

[h/t: Engadget]

Facebook announced today that the REST API no longer available for new apps. Going forward, all new apps on Facebook must use the Graph API. Apps created after April 10 will receive an error code 3 upon trying to call the REST endpoints.

So what does this mean for all the currently existing apps using the REST API? Facebook says those apps won’t be affected, and can continue to use the API. Of course, Facebook would really like it if developers made the jump to the Graph API. If enough developers make the jump, Facebook may even be able to fully retire the REST API so that all apps are on the same page.

If you have yet to make the switch to the Graph API, you might want to check out the stellar improvements and features Facebook has been introducing to it lately. In fact, Facebook just launched a few more Open Graph tools to help make users’ timelines more interesting.

As per tradition, Facebook also released its latest bug report. Since last week, 70 bugs were fixed, and 72 were accepted for further review. You can check out the full bug fix list at the blog post.

“For the National Day of Civic Hacking, participants will focus on producing full, production ready apps and visualization tools that will be featured on the We the People website and made available under an open source license.”

The first hack day took place in February, and out of it came various uses of the We The People API including “Where the People,” a visualization of zip codes where petitions are being signed, weighted for signatures by percentage of population, and “Widget the People,” which gives petition creators an embeddable gauge of how many signatures the petition needs before it reaches the response threshold.

“This API is part of an effort, not only to broaden the conversation taking place via We the People, but to make the medium of that conversation as flexible, open, and transparent as possible. By building and releasing applications that leverage the API, and by making it possible for other platforms to connect with We the People, you’ll be making it easier for others to take part in that conversation,” says Peter Welsch on the White House blog.

The White House launched the We The People online petition site back in 2011. Since then, the site has seen nearly 10 million signatures on close to 150,000 thousand individual petitions. It hasn’t been without its criticisms, and its share of ridiculous petitions – but recently, since upping the signature threshold, the White House has responded on a couple of important tech issues like CISPA and cellphone unlocking.

If you’re interested, you can apply here. The deadline for applications is 5:00 pm on Friday, April 19th.

So, what’s wrong with our current Web payment services? Sure, services like PayPal can sometimes be a pain, but it’s not like the entire system needs to be uprooted, right? Mozilla objects to that line of thinking and offers three reasons why the current Web payment system is broken:

To help solve these problems, Mozilla has introduced navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS. Mozilla says the JavaScript API was inspired by Google’s Wallet API, but contains a few modifications that support multiple payment providers and carrier billing.

Here’s how navigator.mozPay() works in its current incarnation on Firefox OS:

When a web app invokes navigator.mozPay() in Firefox OS, the device shows a secure window with a concise UI. After authenticating, the user can easily charge the payment to her mobile carrier bill or credit card. When completed, the app delivers the product. Repeat purchases are quick and easy.

If that sounds interesting to you, you can start testing it out right now on test builds of Firefox OS. The API can’t accept payments just yet, but Mozilla encourages developers to start working on implementing the API into their Firefox OS apps now.

Interested developers can check out the Web payment API documentation here. If you want the code libraries, Mozilla currently has them available in Node.JS and Python. Other libraries for more languages are on the way.

Facebook announced that its comments API now supports “different “views” of the comments on posts through our updated comments API and FQL comment table.”

The first view organizes what Facebook calls “top level comments,” or comments that are not replies. These comments can be ranked based “on the post and the number of top level comments on the post so far.”

The second view is simply called “replies.” Facebook says developers can access replies by “querying for the comments on a comment id.”

The third, and final view, is the comment “stream.” This is what you’re most likely going to see the most of as it combines top level comments and replies into a single stream of data. The “stream” is also organized in chronological order so the newest comments are shown first.

If you’ve already been using the comments API, Facebook says that you should keep the following changes in mind:

If you need more information, check out the comments API documentation. If you want to start using the new API, you can opt in through the July 2013 Breaking Changes under the Advanced Tab of the app dashboard. On July 10, the new comments API will go into effect for everyone. Might as well get used to it now while it’s still voluntary.

At GDC 2013, YouTube announced its intentions to change all that with a new API that allows game developers to integrate YouTube live streaming into their games. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 proved the API’s popularity last year when the game allowed players to live-stream matches without the use of any third-party program.

YouTube isn’t reserving live-streaming capabilities just for the hardcore crowd eiher. The API will be available to iOS and Android developers soon so mobile gamers can start sharing their screen with the world in real time.

An interesting aspect of the new API is that YouTube may be helping content creators monetize their streams. There are tools in the API that would allow live-streamers to drop ads in the middle of their stream. It’s unknown if the live streamer would actually be able to make money off of their content though. Some publishers have rules in regards to monetization of in-game video so those rules may be left up to them.

These APIs come at a time when YouTube faces stiff competition from other established, and more gamer centric, live streaming services like Twitch.tv. Twitch still requires extra software or hardware to stream, however, so YouTube’s APIs may just help bring more streamers and viewers to its side.

[h/t: The Verge]

If that sounds exciting to you, you’ll definitely want to check out Google’s latest Realtime API tutorial:

During this session we’ll show how to build a complete JavaScript application that uses the Google Drive Realtime API to sync changes in a text document between two HTML elements.