GPII-1021: "Fireball branch" which synchronizes with new core architecture

This branch should work within the latest changes on universal done under the scope of GPII-434.
Also, it should include some of the pull requests we already have against gpii/android

* GPII-900: https://github.com/GPII/android/pull/23
* GPII-679: https://github.com/GPII/android/pull/22
* GPII-671: https://github.com/GPII/android/pull/17

Also, it should include the changes required to fix the build problem reported in both https://github.com/GPII/android/pull/19 and https://github.com/GPII/android/pull/21